A/N - hopefully this clears up confusion in the first chapter (entirely intentional in case anyone wondered). Thanks for reviews guys.

Chapter 2

Alec looked up from his conversation with Mole when he heard a sharp gasp from what was unofficially Max's office. Being her, she had typically refused to take any space for herself when it was already much needed in this building. But nobody ventured in without knocking or invitation. Nobody except Alec.

"Max?" he said carefully, frowning slightly as she stared at the wall with a frighteningly blank expression. He quickly regretted saying anything as she turned that expression on him. While he would never admit it, he was more than a little creeped out at the way she seemed to be seeing through him rather than looking at him.

"Max," Alec said altogether more firmly.

Max blinked, getting to her feet. Her hair was slightly messy and there was a fading red mark on the side of her forehead. This alone was strange. Max didn't sleep. It was her thing, something to do with shark DNA. Alec cocked his head warily as Max approached him, as if seeing him for the first time and curious.

"Woah, easy," he remarked, throwing up his hands in surrender and taking an instinctive step back when she raised a hand. He was all too familiar with Max and her fists, some he undeniably earned all by himself.

But Max didn't falter as she reached out a slender hand to his face. Alec eyed it, then her as if she were crazy but didn't move when her fingers grazed his cheek.

"You alright Max?" Alec questioned, unable to help the slight teasing tone of his voice.

Her eyes softened and took on some semblance of the liveliness usually found there. It was just a nightmare. It wasn't real. But it could be. If she didn't get her ass in gear and figure out what the damned symbols which continued to appear then fade on her body meant. She was the key. She had known that, for some time. But how that was supposed to help her she didn't know. Because she still hadn't figured out exactly what she was meant to do, what she was meant to save all these millions of people from, except something biblically bad, as Logan had so helpfully told her a few weeks ago.

All the dream had told her was that White and his Familiars didn't want her dead. It wasn't desire fuelling their hunt for her. It was necessity. They needed her out of the way. But as far as she could tell, that could simply be a reflection of her own wishful thinking. Something to give her hope. That this wasn't a completely pointless fight.

"Promise me," Max said to him quietly. He frowned, at the strange request but more so at her odd behaviour. The Max he knew was rarely, if ever, this vulnerable seeming.

"Promise you what?"

"Promise me you'll die before you get caught," she finished simply.

Alec gave her a sideways look. But instead of a quip, remarked, "I won't get caught."

"Promise me."

And there was something in her eyes that took a hold of him. As if willing him to understand. But understand what, he didn't know.

"I promise."

Then, as if it had never happened, Max snapped back into her usualcommanding self.

"We've got work to do," going to the desk and holding up several folders.

He watched her momentarily. Then shrugged.

"What's that?" Alec asked, taking a hold of a file and flicking through it.

"A few leads Logan pulled up on Sandeman's possible whereabouts."

"Speaking of which, any new body art I should know about?"

Max rolled her eyes at him in response.

"As a second-in-command concerned for the welfare of his fearless leader it's only right I ask," Alec defended, his voice ever playful but his expression rather serious.

"Of course," she replied sarcastically, looking through a file.

"Look on the bright side, you get inked without the pain and removal without the scars. There's no down side."

Max threw him an exasperated look, before also throwing down the file.

"I'm just tired of waiting for news on what these damn things mean. I'm Manticore. I don't wait. I do."

"Manticore? The last time I remember you admitting to the fact was, oh, never," Alec commented, leaning against the desk in expectation.

"As much as I hate the place, I can't deny it made me who I am. Just because I don't love it doesn't mean I pretend it's not true."

"How Aristotle of you."

Max rolled her eyes, shaking her head as she grabbed her jacket and headed out for the door.

"Was it something I said?" Alec asked in apparent bafflement as he followed behind her with the trademark grin that only very rarely left his handsome face.

"Speak of the devil," Mole said, smoke following the words out of his mouth as he puffed on the Cuban cigar.

Max raised her eyebrows in question. She would never know it but it was a quirk of the X5s that they would ask a great many questions with their eyes before finding their voice. It was a subconscious acknowledgement of their superiority over others, being as genetically predisposed as they were. Of course, to ever suggest it in Max's presence would take a fool or a very brave man, neither of which Alec was, contrary to popular belief in either.

"Was just tellin' these kids," he answered, nodding towards the six transgenics behind him, by appearances varying in age between nine and eighteen.

They looked familiar. Max frowned, searching her memory for where she would know them from. The realisation dawned as a grin crossed her face.

"Bullet?" she asked in confirmation, looking at the second oldest.

The sandy haired boy grinned back.

"Reporting for duty ma'am."

Max rolled her eyes at that.

"What did I say?"

"To call you Max…ma'am."

He couldn't help it. He had still spent the better part of his formative years within the structure of Manticore and had not spent long enough on the outside to completely forget its ways. But Alec saw it simply as cheek, as well he would, having made it his post-Manticore mission to be a pain in the ass, especially Max's. He liked the kid more already.

"Canada no good for you guys?" she wondered, giving them all the once over, making sure there was no dramatic weight loss and the like in the time she had sent them over the border.

The girl Max had christened Fixit for her expertise in diagnostics and repair shrugged.

"This is home," she replied as if it were that simple. Alec cocked an eyebrow at that. He wouldn't ever have called TC home but now that he thought about it, he couldn't deny the familiar comfort of being with others like him, be it because their genetics were equally as superior or that he needn't worry they would mishandle a firearm.

"Well, it's good to see you all in one piece," Max remarked, ruffling Bugler's hair. He grinned but his expression dropped slightly.

"Hey, what's wrong?"

"He lost his trumpet," the girl named after a boy, Ralph, replied.

Max frowned.

"Well that doesn't work for me. I'm sure we can sort something out," she assured him, earning herself another grin.

"Gem," Max called out to the auburn haired girl who herself had arrived only a few weeks ago, and whose daughter had arrived in more spectacular style.

"How's it goin'," the X5 drawled, coming over to the group.

"These kids just arrived. We got some room in building four don't we? Could you settle 'em please?"

"Sure. Let's go guys," she said to the new arrivals, leading the way.

"For a second there I thought you were gonna play happy family reunion all day," Alec commented, pulling out his keys as he got to his Suzuki.

"Jealous no one was glad to see you too?" Max tossed back lightly, revving the engine to her Ninja. The rumble drew a satisfied smile from her. Honestly, she wasn't a material girl but mess with her bike and anyone would be cat food in a second as far as she was concerned.

Alec looked at her like she'd grown a second head.

"Do you even notice the way women look at me?" like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Not unless you're suggesting I look at women, period," Max replied. Her eyes twinkled, simultaneously challenging him to take the bait and give her another excuse to hit him, and teasing all the same. Guys like Alec missed a breath at the very thought of two women in the same room let alone giving each other the eye.

Alec opened his mouth to reply but his survival instincts told him this was a lose lose situation so he wisely closed it and shrugged instead, putting the ball back in her court. Max shook her head with a roll of her eyes, taking the back route out of Terminal City.