Disclaimer: Dark Angel and its characters obviously do not belong to me. I am writing this purely for non-profit entertainment. No infringement intended, so don't sue me!

A/N: I know, I know…most of you hated the last chapter. Sighs But I did say that things are going to get really bad before it gets any better! Ah well…I hope you're still reading this. And thank you to those who had reviewed the last chapter!

Retrieved - Chapter 36 - Recovery

(by elle6778)

Max sat in the darkness of her cell, her mind full of the event which had occurred earlier that night. She still could not believe Alec had done what he did, even after she had asked him to stop.

A small voice inside her nagged at her. Did you really want him to stop?

Max frowned. Of course she had wanted him to stop. She had gone to see him to call it quits between them, not to do that.

Yeah, Max, lie to yourself. You're an X5. You could easily throw him off if you're that reluctant, the voice taunted.

Max sighed in resignation. She had to admit that she had made no move to stop everything that had happened until right up to the last minute. If she was honest with herself, she had been too enraptured in what he was doing to pay much attention to where it had been leading to. But still, she had expected him to stop when she asked him to. It had come as a shock when he just ignored her.

But at least now she knew why he had been behaving so strangely towards her.

A small smile lifted her lips. She had a twin; Sam. Who would have guessed that? And not knowing about Sam, it was no wonder Alec had thought that Mick had been sleeping with Max. Alec had always been possessive of her, so she guessed that he had just lost it.

Max tried to put herself in Alec's shoes. She supposed that she would be pretty pissed off if she had thought that she had seen him lying naked entangled with another girl. Heck, she would be furious. She would gladly kick his ass to the next planet.

She knew that Alec must be really feeling bad now. The dismay on his face when he had realised out what he did when they had been talking to Biggs told her that much. A part of her wanted to go to him, to reassure him that she understood his actions. However, another part of her wanted him to suffer the way she had done for the last two days.

Lowering her back to the bed, Max groaned as she stared up at the ceiling. The last thing she needed now was to get all confused about Alec, considering their mission tomorrow. At least they were not in the same team, she thought with relief. The mission would be tough enough without them being distracted by each other.

Closing her eyes, she willed herself to sleep. If nothing else, at least she would be physically rested enough for the mission tomorrow.

Max was about to drift off when the sound of tapping on her door caught her attention. The sound was tentative, but persistent.

Grumbling under her breath, she snapped out, "Yeah?"

The door creaked open, and to her surprise, admitting Alec to her cell. He looked terrible, she noticed. Still undecided whether to rant at Alec or to comfort him, she settled for a neutral ground. "What do you want?" she asked levelly.

His eyes searching hers, he said cautiously, "I think we need to talk."

"Okay, shoot."

A slight pause hung in the air before Alec said quietly, "I'm sorry for what happened. It's just that…" he sighed, running his hand through his hair uncomfortably before continuing, "…I thought it was you with Mick, and I was so mad I just snapped," his voice trailed off, his expression uncharacteristically subdued.

His openness surprised her, rendering her wordless. In the past, whenever they had disagreed, Alec would just wait until things cooled down a little before turning up with his smarmy comments.

After a moments silence, she said softly, "Don't you trust me, Alec? Do you think I could do something like that to you?"

"I trust you. And that's why it came as such a shock. I thought you did it to get back at me," Alec explained.

Max frowned. What was he talking about, she wondered. "What? To get back at you?"

"Yeah, I've been a bit off with you ever since Sandeman and Kelpy got caught, so I thought…I don't know. That you wanted to pay me back, I guess."

"How could you even think that? Yeah, I was pissed off, but I don't do that sort of shit. But I was hurt that you brushed me off, Alec. When I went into your cell earlier, I was going to call it off."

Alec froze in shock. He knew he had heard her correctly but it was hard to swallow. "Call it off?" he repeated numbly.

"I kind of figured that there was not much point in us being together when we can't even talk things out or share our problems," she explained, not meeting his eyes.

"But we talk…" he protested.

"Alec, yes, we talk and we bicker. Only when it involves the fun bit of our lives. But when something painful comes up, you push me away. You want to deal with it all by yourself, and all I want to do is to help," she pointed out.

"We're talking now."

Max snorted. "Yeah, look what it took for us to start talking like this. Normally, you'd have just come out with some smart-ass remarks. This must be the first time we're doing it like this," she said wryly.

Alec exhaled loudly, rubbing the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable. "What can I say, Max? I messed up. You didn't deserve what happened. I behaved like an absolute ass. I know you're really pissed off at me, but I don't know what I could do to fix this mess. Tell me what you want me to do and I'll do it."

"I don't know, Alec…" she said slowly, looking down at her hands.

Alec swallowed hard. He wondered if she was thinking what he thought she was thinking. Forcing himself to form the words, he said, "Do you want me to go?"

Max's heart dipped at the tortured tone of his voice and her eyes snapped up to his. She searched his face, noting the strained look around his eyes and his tense posture. Why was she hesitating? She had been at the brink of telling him that she wanted to call it quits with him earlier, so why was she hesitating now?

She wondered if she could forgive him for what he did. But was it fair for her to put the blame entirely on him? Things had been bad for him the last week, she knew. And in addition to that, seeing what he had thought was Mick and her having sex did not help matters.

Max knew that the question boiled down to whether or not she wanted to be without him. Her mind travelled back to the last few years. Alec had been an insufferable jackass when they had first met. For the first few years they had known each other, he had been nothing but a pain in her ass, taunting her whenever he had the chance. But he had always been around wherever she turned, even if it had been just to irritate her. And then things had slowly developed into something more, until last year when they had finally admitted their feelings for each other.

They had been inseparable since then. Max had never thought that she could be so happy in Manticore. Until a week ago.

Was she willing to throw away all they had just on one mistake?

The moment of silence dragged on.

Wordlessly, Alec turned and walked slowly to the door. He supposed he should have expected it. What he had done was low, unforgivable. It was just that he had hoped that Max would give him another chance.

His hand was at the door when he heard her call out. He paused, his heart pounding so hard he could hardly breathe.

"No, don't go," she said to his back.

Swivelling around, he faced her with a hopeful look.

Holding a hand out to him, she admitted softly, "I don't think I'm ready to let this go."

Alec exhaled and closed the gap between them. He did not know how she felt about his touch now. He thought sadly, how did everything go so wrong so fast? A lump formed in Alec's throat as he took her hand hesitantly; glad when she did not flinch away. "I'm really sorry for what happened, Max."

Smiling a little, she said, "It's done already. There's nothing much we can do about it now. We've just got to move on past it."

Pulling her close to him, he wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug, burying his face in her neck. His heart warmed when she returned his hug just as fiercely.

"I missed you," he whispered against her neck.

"Me too."

It was only 0600 hours in the morning, but the hangar in Manticore was buzzing with activity. Two jets-planes were lined up, one after another in the large cavernous space.

Lydecker stood to one side, observing as Unit 4 and Unit 6, led by Matt and Alec respectively began to load the planes. Max was busy briefing the X3s and X6s on the mission, and allocating 'buddies' for the X6s. They would travel by air and then dropped near the site, where they would be issued ground vehicles. The Canadian unit, which would be providing air back-up, was already at the rooftop, waiting to board their choppers.

Unit 4 would be covering Salt Lake City and Unit 6 would be covering Denver. The Canadian unit would be split into two choppers, each hovering nearby the sites.

At precisely 0630 hours, the hangar was emptied. Lydecker stood in the grounds, squinting in the dim light at the diminishing form of the jet-planes and choppers.

Knowing that there was nothing he could do now except wait, Lydecker turned around and headed for the main facility to join the rest of the transgenics in the control room.

At 0800 hours, his cellphone rang.

Picking it up, he barked into the phone, "Yes?"

Frowning when the sound of static on the line obscured what the called had just said, Lydecker asked impatiently,"Who's there?"

The static continued to come and go in bursts, interspersed with a male voice. "Sir…s Kelpy here… followed Sandeman and hid…familiars don't know I'm here..."

Lydecker felt his heart race. Holding up his hand, he gestured for the transgenics around him to keep quiet. The transgenics paused in their tasks and looked at him in surprise.

"Kelpy, what's your location?" he asked urgently, and immediately heard sharp intakes of breath around him. He flicked a glance at Brain, who had stepped up next to him to plug a cable into his cellphone. Lydecker guessed that Brain was trying to trace the call.

"… just managed…out today…not sure where I am… sign says Wend…"

"Kelpy, can you repeat that?" Lydecker said, his hand clenching the phone tight, praying that the line held at least until Brain complete the trace.

"…Wendover…"

Lydecker drew in a sharp breath. Still holding the phone to his ear, he told the transgenics around him. "Sandeman's held in Wendover."

"Salt Lake City," Brain said immediately.

Going back to his cellphone, Lydecker said, "Kelpy, stay low. We're on our way there. Are you injured?"

"…not hurt…but Sandeman…interrogation."

"Damn!" Lydecker exclaimed. "Stay where you are, Kelpy."

"Yes, sir."

Snapping his cellphone shut, Lydecker turned to face the transgenics, noting the myriad of expressions on their faces. Turning to Pops who had been monitoring the radar, he asked, "Where are Unit 4 and Unit 6 now?"

Looking up from his screen, Pops replied, "They've landed. The planes are on their way back. Looks like both units are in their SUVs now."

"Get the plane back to Unit 6 and redeploy them to Wendover now," Lydecker ordered rapidly. "Divert the Canadian teams to Salt Lake City."

Turning to Brain, he asked, "Did you get a fix on Kelpy?"

Brain nodded as he pointed to the screen. "I've got his location. He called from a phonebox in Wendover."

"Good work," Lydecker said as he watched the rest of the transgenics moving about to carry out his orders.

"We're going to take those familiars down," he said in a ruthless tone.

A small smile graced his lips when Matt registered what Lydecker was telling him over the secure phone.

At the end of the call, Matt stuffed the phone back into his pocket and turned back to his strike team in the SUV, which consisted of Val, Sandy, Speed,Hulk and two X6s. The transgenics were looking at him expectantly, wondering what was the order which had just come from central command.

"I've just been told that our target area is Wendover in Salt Lake City. And guess who dropped the information?" he said with excitement in his eyes.

"Who?" Val asked, curious.

"Kelpy."

It took them only a second to process the implication of Matt's word, and then they all burst out in cheers. Grinning widely, Sandy gave Matt a high-five.

"Kelpy's okay!" Max's loud exclamation came through their earpieces, making them flinch.

Rubbing his ears gingerly, Matt grumbled, "Max, do you really need to shout so loud?" He looked out of the window at her.

"Sorry," Max's said without remorse as she pulled her bike closer to Matt's side of the SUV.

"So Kelpy wasn't captured?" Zip's excited voice came through the comms.

Matt shook his head, forgetting that Zip could not see him. Then realising what he had just done, he said, "Apparently not. He managed to get a call out to Lydecker."

"That's great. Now at least we won't have to search all over Salt Lake City for the target point," Gin, one of the X6s said happily.

"How close are we?" Sandy asked, turning to look out of the window of the SUV they were in.

"Another twenty minutes or so, depending on how fast Speed can get this piece of junk to work," Matt said with a wink to Val.

Tossing an offended look over his shoulders at Matt, Speed retorted, "I'm not called Speed for no reason, you twerp!"

"Hey, is that any way to talk to your CO?" Matt asked, his eyes twinkling.

Speed just snorted.

Shaking his head at Speed, Matt glanced out of the window to the other SUV, which was transporting Cass, three X6s and two X3s. The rest of his unit, namely Max, Treve, Zackand Blade, were on bikes.

Sighing, he turned back to the rest of the transgenics in his SUV and said, "I hope Sandeman's alright."

Biggs was about to head out to get some food when the door suddenly slammed open. He instinctively jumped back into a fight stance before he processed the identity of the intruders. Then he relaxed.

"Guys, what's the big rush?" he asked, confused at the flustered look both Gab and Jondy sported.

"We're in trouble," Jondy said breathlessly.

"Hey, hey… Calm down," Biggs said, glancing questioningly at Gab, hoping that the other transgenic shed some light into the situation. His relationship with Gab had been shaky ever since the incident with Jondy, but Biggs trusted Gab to act professionally when necessary.

Gab did not disappoint. His brow was furrowed in worry, but he managed to say calmly, "Logan is getting closer to locating our base in Manticore. We've been trying to get hold of Manticore but the lines were all jammed up."

Biggs paled visibly. The last time this had happened, they had to be moved from Wyoming to Seattle. That time, Manticore had been prepared. This time, Biggs were not too sure that Manticore had expected to be exposed so soon.

Standing up, Biggs walked rapidly to his room, saying over his shoulders, "Keep on trying on the phone. I'll try to link in to the system from here."

Rushing back to the door, Jondy said, "I'll do the phone."

When Biggs came back with his laptop in his hands, he found Gab standing by the window, staring out with a frown on his face. Understanding Gab's fears about the safety of his home, Biggs just kept quiet and started setting up the laptop on the coffee-table in front of the couch.

A few minutes later, while the laptop attempted to connect back to Manticore, Biggs looked up to find Gab still frozen in the same position. Deciding that he should do something, Biggs said in what he hoped was a reassuring tone, "Hey, it's going to be okay."

Gab flicked a quick glance at Biggs before turning to look back outside. "You know as well as I do that this time it's not the same. There's no way Manticore could have foreseen this. What really scares me is that there're only three of us here and we're not with our own units."

Biggs fell silent for a moment, thinking about what Gab had just said. When they had started this mission almost a year ago, he had been much closer to Gab compared to now. Irregardless of the non-stop bickering between Gab and Jondy before the two of them had hooked up, the three of them had actually got on very well together. And Biggs missed that. Things had been strained between him and Gab ever since Jondy's heat a few months ago.

Knowing it was time they cleared things up between them, Biggs said quietly, "As far as I'm concerned, for the last one year, you and Jondy are my unit."

Gab stiffened slightly, and then turned to face Biggs. "Yeah, I suppose," he said, rather uncomfortably.

Exhaling loudly, Biggs plodded on, "I'm not really into this sort of stuff, but I think we've got something to sort out. About Jondy."

Gab just stared at him wordlessly.

"Come on, man. Say something," Biggs snapped, exasperated at Gab's non-reaction.

His lips tightening, Gab bit out tersely. "Jondy's not your concern."

Biggs rolled his eyes, wondering how he could get through to Gab without causing the stubborn transgenic grievous bodily harm. "Look, I know that Jondy and you are an item, even back when you refused to admit it. Anyone's got to be blind not to see it. But I can't help what happened during her heat. So just for the record, I'm not trying to steal her from you, so can you drop the hostility?"

Gab's eyes flashed for a moment, and then he sighed. "I've been a pain about it, haven't I?" he said reluctantly.

The corner of his lips lifting, Biggs nodded. "You have no idea."

"It's hard for me, that time when I saw you two…"

Biggs interrupted him. "Gab, would you quit obsessing about it? Jondy loves you, not me. Makes me feel a bit jealous actually."

"Hey!" Gab warned, glaring at the other transgenic.

Biggs held his hands up. "Just kidding," he said with a grin.

Turning back to his laptop, he said, "Alright, now that that's sorted out, let's try to get hold of Lydecker."

Nodding in agreement, Gab went to sit beside Biggs on the sofa for the first time in months.

"I can't believe we just had such a sappy conversation,"Gab mumbled, sounding disgusted.

Biggs just grinned.

t.b.c.

A/N: Depending on how long it grows after I add in bits and pieced, there should be one or two more chapters to go till the end of this story, you'll be glad to hear. Reviews are appreciated as always!