Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel. Still. Am just going to have to continue writing here.

A/N: Well, here we go, another chapter. This is actually turning out to be fun. Don't get me wrong, I love writing, couldn't stop if I tried. Just sometimes it doesn't feel like mine. I am writing it and go back to proofread and it's like reading somebody else's work. Weird, huh?

Frayed Threads

The day had finally come. In preparation for Sally's visit, Dex had come over and pulled all the needles. After attaching the EEG, he began to chart Max's brainwaves and vital signs. Helpless, Alec could only sit and watch, agonizing if he had made the right choice or if this would all end in tears, Max gone forever from his life.

The wait was grating on his nerves, and Max's apparent pallor only served to make him more nervous. Her skin was almost translucent, bones shimmering beneath the surface. Looking at her lying there in his bed, Alec thought that he finally understood what Thalia meant by partnership. His life, his very existence was tied so intricately to hers that loosing her would uproot the entire structure he'd built his life around. He was not sure if even his duty to his fellow transgenic would be enough to hold him.

Dex's voice roused him from his morbid thoughts.

"They're here."

Alec nodded and tiredly pushed himself up from the chair, fighting off a wave of dizziness that threatened to pull him under. In his living room stood Thalia and three other transgenic. She smiled at him, but his attention was on the woman to her right.

Even after all the time that had passed, Alec would have recognised Sally anywhere. She had grown some, but was still cute as a button. The innocent wonder had dimmed from her eyes a little, as it only does when confronted with too many negative things. What really riveted his attention was the man standing behind her. One hand rested on Sally's shoulder, the other hung limply by his side. The man's face was tilted to the side, milky-white eyes focussed into the distance.

Before Alec could ask the question on the tip of his tongue, Sally answered: "This is my partner Macad. Manticore blinded him when I refused to brainwash the president's son." Her hand came up and covered Macad's.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Alec managed.

Thalia smiled once more and took over. "Well, that leaves only my man. Alec meet Dirk." The two men exchanged nods. "We've come up with a plan. Dirk and Macad are going to do their best to shield the flat. I'll be Sally's backup."

Alec only nodded, keenly aware that this was far beyond anything he could do. He could only mutely follow Sally and Thalia to the bedroom that had been the centre of his existence for the last four days.

Reluctantly he watched Sally approach the bed, morbidly pleased when she flinched at first sight, realising how far Max had sunk. Despite Thalia's reassurances he was not completely comfortable with psy-ops getting their hands on Max, no matter how good they acted. 'she cold be making me trust her and I would never know the difference.' Giving up long-standing beliefs was a lot hard than he'd thought; his instincts not responding too well the logic.

While he was still tormenting himself inside regarding the wisdom of his actions, Sally sat down on the bed next to Max and laid her hand on her patient's forehead.

With a strangled cry, she pulled back as if burnt, tears springing to her eyes.

"What? What's happened?" Alec was frantic with worry.

"Sally? Sweetie? What's the matter?" Thalia's soothing voice managed to calm Sally. The girl looked up. "She's in so much pain, Thalia." Again, the tears threatened to fall, but were held back by an iron will and years of Manticore conditioning. "It's all swirling and muddy and there's so much pain."

"Right, so she needs pain meds." Alec jumped at the only thing he had understood. Pain he got; it happened to you, you took the meds and it went away. Didn't need psy-ops to figure that one out.

"Alec!" Thalia stopped him. "It's not that kind of pain." Her eyes shone with sympathy. "Here sit down." She pushed the unresisting man onto a corner of the bed.

Sally shook herself out of her daze and took over. "She's afraid and tearing herself up about something. I didn't quite catch what at first glance." She turned to Thalia. "I need you to anchor me."

"Of course no need to ask." Thalia moved to stand behind her friend and rested her hands on her shoulders.

The empath visibly steeled herself, laid a hand on Max's heart and the other on her head and launched herself in.

Slowly time passed, the sun moving across the sky to it's zenith, hovering there and then sliding down towards evening. At one point Alec dozed off, several days of intermittent sleep catching him unawares, only to start awake guiltily and find no change whatsoever.

Outside the world carried on regardless. Vaguely he could hear people moving around, bursts of conversation., people coming and going, no doubt asking about Max. Dex had told him that the news of Max's treatment had spread like wildfire. It figured that other people would be almost as worried as he was, but inside the cocoon he had spun around himself and her it was hard to comprehend.

Alec was fidgeting restless, when a movement caught his attention. With eagle eyes he watched Sally sag a bit, one hand rubbing her eyes, the other dropping to her lap. Max took a deep breath, all lines of tension gone from her face, sighed and breathing out went deathly still.

'She's dead. God. Max is dead.' It ran like a mantra through Alec's mind, over and over until he was so frozen he didn't know what to do or think.

"She's not dead, Alec." Thalia rubbed her neck with shaking hands as she spoke. "Look!"

Dreading what he would see, Alec moved closer and stared down at Max. "She's sleeping?" he offered tentatively. When Sally and Thalia nodded, Alec sank in on himself, hands shaking slightly as he stroked a finger over Max's hand.

Thalia explained. "We call it an emphatic shock. I've told you that we could intermittently feel Max for the last couple of months now; well that just means that her shields - that which blocks emotions from others and stops her from projecting her own - were erratic at best. Think of it as a radio and you have no control over the volume, it just rises and falls, sometimes mute and sometimes turned up to ten. Dex told us that the main ingredient in Logan's cure was a synthetic form of adrenaline, used as a carrier. Given to a transgenic it sends the stress levels through the roof. Max never stood a chance, her shields just disintegrated. She was unable to block out anything. It all just swamped her."

"That's why she started screaming." Alec muttered to himself.

"Yes. It had to come out one way another or another. She's definitely an empath; she feels what others feel and with physical contact can see images and to a certain extent depending on the emotional surge- hear thoughts."

Alec's thoughts were going a mile a minute, relieved that at least one mystery had been solved for him. He now knew how Max had known about Zach.

"The emotions coming from outside her and her own got all mixed and jumbled. She locked herself in a self-induced trance in an attempt to get control of herself, but that had the opposite effect. Think of it as a moebius strip of experiences she was unable to break out from on her own. Sally helped her with that, then I showed her how to shield herself and put an artificial one in that will hold until she is conscious. It will stop her from being swamped by all the emotions swirling around in this place. She was getting lost there for a while."

Guiltily, Alec stared up at her. "Did I…"

"Oh no." Sally was quick to reassure him. "Don't even think that for a second.! You've got remarkably good shields. The only thing she picked up from you was worry and a desire to keep her safe. And that's good. It kept her going."

Alec sighed with relief and dragged a hand through his tousled hair. "So why doesn't she wake up?"

Sally gave him a weary smile and said: "Max wasn't asleep the last few days, although it looked like it. Trance has all the hallmarks of REM sleep, but it isn't restful. Her mind was wide awake, fighting her internal demons. Now her body is claiming the rest it desperately needs. Given her shark DNA she should wake up sometime tomorrow."

Alec nodded, his mind too tired to comprehend anything beside the fact that Max was okay and would wake up soon. A shrewd glance at his face preceded Sally's next words. "You should get some rest, too." Gently, as if dealing with a child, her and Thalia coaxed, cajoled and prodded him to remove his shoes and lay down next to Max.

In a move as graceful as it was touching the half-asleep Alec turned onto his side facing Max and enfolded one of her hands in his. His deep sigh of relief was echoed by Max, as she, instinctively moved to face him, until they lay curved together, heads on the same pillow, breaths mingling.

Thalia only paused long enough to draw the comforter over them both and then followed Sally out the room to face, no doubt, an increasingly worried crowd of friends and family.

Oblivious, Max and Alec slept on, content in each other's company.

Max felt as if she had slept for days, groggy and disoriented, sleep fogging her mind and slowing her thoughts. 'I haven't felt this relaxed in so long. So warm and so soft.'

In the half state between waking and sleeping, Max tried to take stock. Slowly, ever so slowly the memories trickled back towards consciousness.

'Logan was at the meeting. God! Logan! I can't believe he did that to me. And Zach! He sold out Zach!"

Unsuccessfully she tried to stifle the sob rising in her throat. The sound woke Alec. Never in his wildest dreams had he ever thought he would wake with Max cuddled in his arms. At some point in the night he had rolled on his back, taking Max with him. Now she lay, tucked against his side, head resting on his shoulder, one hand interlaced with his lying on his chest, his free arm wrapped around her waist.

As Alec marvelled at how right she felt lying there with him, Max was still trying to come to terms with Logan's betrayal. A rather undignified squeak escaped her when she felt strong arms tighten convulsively around her. Her senses identified them as Alec's even as she was hauled further up his chest, his head buried in the crook of her neck. She vaguely heard him mumbling.

"Max. You're awake. You're finally awake. I was so worried. Don't ever scare me like that again or I swear I'll…" The rest was unintelligible.

Slightly bemused, Max stroked his shoulder. "It's okay. Alec, I'm awake. Really." All of a sudden Max felt herself dropped to the sheets, as Alec back-pedalled away from her. "God, I'm sorry, Max. I didn't mean to be all over you like that. I'll just, umm, go and get Thalia." Max cut off his babbling. "Alec! It's okay. Please stay. Thank you for there for me and keeping me safe."

The look of shocked embarrassment on Alec's face made Max cringe inside. 'Damn. I've been such a bitch. I rant at him and yell and he takes it. He's been watching my back for months and never once have I thanked him.'

"Come, sit down. We have to talk." She patted the comforter next to her.

As soon as Alec was back in touching distance, Max took his hand in hers, absently stroking her thumb over his knuckles. Soothed by the uncharacteristic gesture, Alec relaxed next to Max on the bed.

Despite her intentions, neither of them felt compelled to break the silence between them. Alec was unbearably relieved to have her back, Max - for the first time safe in her mind for a long time - trying to collect her thoughts.

Silence grew, comfortable between the not-quite-friends-anymore transgenic until they drifted back into slumber, curling into each other once again, not even to wake when Thalia and Dirk peeked in on them.

Dirk smiled: "Would you look at that. Two big pussycats sleeping in the sun."

Thalia sent him a playful glare. "Oh, hush. They need the rest." She bit her lip thoughtfully. "You know their shields are probably down. I could just slip in and give them the tiniest nudge. They are so tangled and they would never know I was there."

Dirk pulled her out of the room, blue eyes flashing. "You will do nothing of the sort. They'll sort themselves out. Given time. Which they now have thanks to you and Sally. Leave it at that. Others need your help more."

Thalia sighed. "Logically I know that. But I can't help but wish this was all going much faster. We have such a long road in front of us and we need them desperately. Need them whole. More depends on them than we ever thought."

"It will all be fine. I know it. Nothing will stop those two from finding the truth. But for now we can rest. The calm before the storm."

A/N2: Okay. I thought this would be a good place to stop. It's not complete, never fear but we will pause here on our way up the mountain, while I gather my thoughts and lay out the next part of our journey. Have a few ideas. Max has to be trained, then there is the whole telling her she is not really the leader thing (may be easy, may be not) and of course Sally still has to give Alec back his missing memory that she has guarded for so long, which will open another can of worms entirely. Also I want to streamline this a bit, because I am still not convinced by the prologue.

Minor point regarding Hope: Yeah, the girl and man thing felt odd when I wrote it, but woman and man sounded off too and girl and boy just rang wrong. May rewrite the thing entirely and a bit longer when I get back to it, which will not be for a while. I have a Buffy thing on hold, a Firefly fic I'm working on and a couple of unfinished things I really have to get down to. So lean back and enjoy the break, or join me in the other 'verses my fantasy kidnaps me to.