Disclaimer: Nope still not mine.
A/N: The cat comes out of the bag in this chapter. If you hate the idea I suggest you jump ship round about line 14. It only gets worse.
I am not too utd (up to date - bad sign when you can't read your own acronyms like me just now) as to which transgenic is which, so Dex is also medic to an extent, which is either from another story, I'm thinking 'Hot Sweat Heat' (my favourite story ever) or from the series.
Serpent in Eden
Nausea hit him so hard and fast, Alec sank to the floor gagging helplessly. The only reason why his breakfast didn't make a return appearance was because he hadn't had any. Dex was not so lucky, retching miserably into the waste paper basket by his table. Only Logan seemed unaffected, babbling away at Max. who was still staring at the hand on her arm as if she had no frame of reference for it even being there.
With rising concern, Alec blurred to Max's side. 'She's going into shock - her pupils have dilated so much I can't even see her iris.'
"Logan, get away from her." Just then Max jerked as if she had been stabbed and screamed, such despairing screams they tore into Alec's heart. It sounded as if something was ripping her apart from the inside.
Grabbing Logan by the shoulders, Alec dragged him away from her, propelling him right into Mole's waiting arms.
Moving carefully, Alec picked Max up and settled into the chair she had occupied alone moments before, arranging her tenderly in his lap. She immediately turned her face into his shoulder, muffling her continuous screams. Now, however he could make out words. "Zach! No, don't hurt him. Leave him alone, Logan. Zach!" Abruptly she went limp in his arms. A quick glance at Logan showed he had gone pale with guilt at the mention of Zach.
"What did you do to Zach, Logan?"
"I don't know what you are talking about. I have not seen Zack since they invaded Manticore. Now please unhand me and I will go." Up until that moment Alec had not truly realised what a pompous ass Logan really was.
"You're not going anywhere. Mole take care of it." Alec was half expecting the man to balk his order and was pleasantly surprised when the lizard man instead said: "Say no more. It is my pleasure. Never liked him anyway." With that, Mole spun the unresisting Logan around and delivered a picture-prefect upper cut to the man's jaw, sending him to the floor like a stone. "I've been wanting to do that for a long time, insufferable ordinary." For good measure Dex kicked the fallen man in the ribs on his way over to check on Max. After a sharp look at the syringe lying abandoned on the floor and It took him only moments to reach a verdict.
"She's gone into shock and fainted from the stress of whatever this prick did to her. Take her somewhere quiet, Alec. Best thing would be your digs here. She needs constant surveillance. Should wake up in an hour or so, when her system has managed to work through the problem. But until then she needs somebody to be there for her to make sure she doesn't go into convulsions and hurts herself. I'll come by asap to give her a Tryptophan injection just in case."
"No problem. Thanks Dex. One thing though. Organise a team of x-5s and tell Biggs and Cece to take them to Logan's apartment. I want them to take that place apart and not come back until they find some kind of information about what he did to Max, Zack and anything else they might find. When they're done, they strip the place of anything we might need - then torch it." Alec's eyes were hard as granite as he rattled off the instructions. "Nobody does this to one of ours and gets away with it. When Biggs is done, he comes back and reports to me."
Dix sketched a quick salute. "Consider it done, sir." He did an about-face and marched out the door, leaving behind a slightly confused Alec. "What was that about?" Mole looked at him as if he had grown an extra head or lost it. "Alec. You're the highest ranking officer in this entire shebang. Most followed Max in the beginning because you did. It's reassuring to see you take control. Especially with what this moron did to her. She'll be in no shape to help in any way for a long while. So get on with it. Be the man you were in Manticore and the man you've become since then. Playtime is over." With that Mole grabbed Logan by a foot and dragged him out the door. Alec was left behind, gob smacked at the lizard's unexpected eloquence. 'So they want me to take over. Fine. Max will probably have something to say about that when she wakes up again though, but nothing I can't take.' Worriedly he glanced down at the precious burden in his arms, sighed and rearranging her slightly to make her more comfortable, left Central to head over to his apartment. It would turn into a true running of the gauntlet. Every single transgenic they met on the way, paused them to ask what he felt were unnecessary questions. Eventually he ordered two of them to clear the way for him.
The short distance took half an hour to get across and he was beyond relieved when he finally had her tucked up in his bed, making her as comfortable as possible. News must have gotten round, because the number of females coming to his door with offers of help, food and blankets had been astonishing.
'Max would be pleased. I don't think she knows how much these people have come to rely on her. Don't know why those males had to come by. Useless bunch of louts.'
A whimper from the bed had him flying to her side. "Max, you're waking up." Sadly this was a misconception. Alec stared down at the still sleeping Max. She had evidently come out of her faint, but still had not found her way back to consciousness.
"Ben, I can't carry you."
'What was that?' Carefully Alec sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Ben. I can't. … Lydecker's coming."
"Max. It's okay. There's nobody here but me." Tenderly Alec brushed away the strand of hair sticking to her forehead. Alec kept on talking: "It's safe. Lydecker is not here. I'll take care of you. Nobody is going to get you. I wont let them." All the while he continued to stroke her hair, hoping the contact would soothe her.
"Ben. I can't carry you. They're coming. Ben! You have to help me. Ben, please." For a brief moment, Alec thought she would wake. She was thrashing around, her hands patting the air in front of her body as if holding something.
'She thinks she's holding Ben.' Alec ruthlessly suppressed a flash of something. He bent closer as she started muttering again.
"Ben, he wont get you. I promise. Ben, tell me about the good place." The pain in her voice was driving Alec to tears and he almost missed the odd movement she made in thin air, before collapsing back into her prior comatose state.
'Fuck. That looked like she broke his neck.' Getting into a more comfortable position, Alec began to put the clues together. 'So Max and Ben, had to be a transgenic or Lydecker wouldn't have been after them, were running. Something happens and Ben can't go on. Max can't help, either he's too heavy or she's hurt too. Lydecker comes closer, Max distracts Ben and snaps his neck.' His face fell as the implications struck.
"Oh, Maxie. I'm so sorry. I wish I'd been there. I could have helped." Helplessly he stared down at her. "I wish you would wake up."
Dex came out of Alec's bedroom, exhausted and so far beyond worried he felt they would have to try and find a new name for it.
"So, what's the verdict?" Alec asked, pouncing on him the moment Dex set foot beyond the threshold.
"I don't know. There is nothing physically wrong with her."
"What?" Alec's voice rang with frustration?
"It's true. I have run every test know to man and a few I came up with myself. Her vital signs are okay, though not as good as I would like, motor responses are fine. There is no reason for her to be unconscious for this long, especially considering her genetic makeup. And yet there she is, fast asleep, almost coma-like."
Alec sighed. "Please give me something, anything."
"You're not going to like it." He decided to graciously ignore Alec's raised eyebrows, knowing that when it came to Max there was nothing Alec wouldn't't do, but this, what he was going to advise next, might be too much for even him to stomach. "My official verdict is that there is nothing medically wrong with her; the problem probably lies in her psyche. Something is keeping her from waking up, she is keeping herself from waking up, willing herself away. And I have no idea what it is. If I did I might be able to work around it."
Alec frowned. "So you're saying Max has some feelings or thoughts that are stopping her from waking up. And you don't know so can't do anything. What are you saying? Let's go and have a look inside Max's head?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying."
It only took Alec a moment to figure out what Dex was referring to.
"NO! No way. You are not saying what I think you're saying. You don't know what it was like." Alec ran his hands through his hair in frustration, goose bumps playing along his arms as he thought back to the secret terror of Manticore. "They messed with your mind. Went in and shuffled everything about, seeing what your innermost thoughts were and playing with it, like they were God or something. Till you didn't know if what you were feeling were things you felt or things they had left there for you to find." He started pacing, emotions getting the better of him. "Those people were the nightmare the guards threatened us with. Ordinaries have things that go bump in the night. Well, we met our monsters, inside our heads and that is a hell of a lot worse than having them under your bed." Taking a deep breath, Alec managed to school is face into a neutral, implacable expression. "I am not handing Max over to psy-ops and that's final."