Story : Ever watchful

Author: Synthera

Chapter 1

Seemingly always in the background, he watched.

He watched as she pined, grieved, cried and screamed. He took the blows she rained upon him when she reached the brink. He stepped forward almost eagerly, wanting even the slightest touch. He didn't flinch as he did his duty as her punching bag. It had been six months since Logan had died. It was rather ironic that the great Eyes Only was felled not by the virus targeted to his DNA, nor by an everyday car accident but by someone he had been close to. Max continuously shouldered the blame for what had happened, even though they had both been there.

Asha had fooled them all. She had drunk, fought and celebrated beside them for nearly two years and not one day did she blow her cover. Not one tiny slip up. The soldier in Alec had to admire her ability, her conviction. She had loved the man from afar for so long yet she did not blink when she shot him between the eyes that had brought so much justice, on the command of Ames White. She didn't hesitate or question, she simply complied like the good soldier Alec and Max were not.

Alec was relieved. For weeks she had sat still, staring out the window in her apartment at TC. Listless and unseeing, Max hadn't eaten unless Alec pleaded with her, and even then gave in only when he threatened to give her an injection. Her already slight frame melted to a ghastly skeletal appearance. The first time Original Cindy had seen Max after the funeral she had cried to see her boo such a wreck. After three weeks Alec had conspired with Alana, the medic and started injecting her with a protein and vitamin supplement while she slept, which disturbingly was more than eight hours a day.

Only recently, had Max started talking again. Alec was hopeful as each day more of the real Max shone through. He couldn't get her to talk about what had happened but Joshua said they had once so Alec was bidding his time until she broached the subject with him. Max's rages scared the others; Sketchy stood a more than polite distance from her at all times and Original Cindy was tense and convinced that they were unhealthy.

Alec was glad she was interacting with people again, even if she avoided him like the plague. When she was awake she couldn't seem to stay in the same room as him for more that ten minutes and the morning meetings were useless unless Alec took over the reins.

So he watched and he waited.

He waited until the day she realized that those hours she slept were fitful unless he was in the room with her for a reason. Lately he had taken to sitting on the fire escape on the building across from hers to wait until she had fallen asleep and crawled through her window. She pretended she didn't notice him and he pretended that she didn't leave the window open for him. This last week he had actually got up the courage to lay with her. At first it had been on the opposite side of the bed. By the second night she would curl herself around him until he carefully extracted himself in the morning before she woke. Sometimes she would clutch the pillow he had recently vacated.

Alec waited patiently for a sign that she would someday be able to face him while conscious. Waited for her to ask him to stay..

Then Alec's patience ran out, he decided to stop waiting and take matters into his own hands…