A/N- This is another one of those "lost" fics. I was actually going to consign it to the recycle bin; it doesn't sound like Alec and, to be honest, it's a tad more pretentious than I like. But I figured I might as well dump it out there.
Excuse the punctuation as it was an early work.
Song is by Matchbox Twenty but I'm not classifying it as a song-fic, it's just based on it..
Bent and Broken
I had convinced myself that I felt nothing for her.
She was a bitch.
Okay, not all the time but most of it and especially towards me and, yeah, okay, so I did try to get on her nerves so that I could see that telltale spark in her normally lifeless eyes but it wasn't like I asked to be her punching bag.
But, I guess, lately I had tried extra hard to make her mad at me. She just seems so…lost since we began to live in TC.
Since she broke up, for real this time, with Logan.
Since she assumed command of transgenic central and became the saviour of mankind.
Her smile, which was rarely ever aimed at me anyway, became an even rarer sight; only ever tugged out of her by Joshua or Original Cindy and then only under protest. She eyes started to show less and less of her sparkling personality and became more tense and empty.
It scared me.
Max lifeless was something that I had never expected to see. The visions I had of the girl were always of her eyes lit with flames as she kicked me across the room or punched me or was issuing commands with all the panache of one born to command; which she was.
The Max who looked blankly at everyone wasn't someone I knew, or wanted to know.
So I did all I could to try to push her, push her into life. And if that meant that I would annoy her so much that she hated me then so be it, at least she would have emotion. Emotion was good and it wasn't like I cared, right?
But mostly now she just looked at me, when I made one of my comments designed to drive her crazy, like she couldn't quite see me and turned away without a word.
And that hurt.
More than her words or punches have ever done.
It was like she was closing herself off from the world, trying to shut out all emotions so that she didn't feel the bad ones and I knew all about that. That's all I did when Rachel died and I just went through the motions. It wasn't until one very special lady kicked me across the room and smiled at me that I started to wake up. She showed me a new life and a new way to be and I owe her.
That's all it is really.
Duty.
Honour.
Repayment.
Really.
Yeah, I don't believe me either. But I'm scared for her which is why I'm following her tonight.
Tonight is the one year anniversary of us breaking out of Manticore and we're all having a big old Freedom party- Joshua's idea.
Everyone has been in the best of spirits and hugging each other like Manticore never showed us how and Max has put on a big smile all day for everyone. Joshua is so happy to see "Little fella" smiling and happy again that he hugs her without abandon and doesn't really look at her.
But I saw her.
She had smiled at him and turned away to do something and the smile had slipped from both her mouth and her eyes, like it was just a mask.
In that split second that she though no one was watching, I could see her soul and it made me want to cry. I don't even know why, I've never been one for sentimentality, Manticore drilled that out of us along with weakness and softness but in that moment I had it in droves , all towards our fearless leader.
The mask was up again in the next second, so quickly I thought I had imagined it but I knew I hadn't.
I waited outside her room tonight wondering whether to go in and confront her but, before I could make my choice, it opened and she slunk out like the cat burglar she is.
I followed her out into the recesses of Terminal City and through the sewer system. She never even heard me; not that I expected her to. She may have excelled in escape and evade but I was top of my class at pursue and procure.
Not that it would have mattered if I had lost her; I knew where she was going: to the Space Needle.
When we reached the top, she stopped and looked out over the edge, down at all the people and for a second I was truly scared that she would jump.
She moved backwards and I was able to breathe again. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small radio and switched it on.
She usually liked silence when she came here; said it made her feel normal but I guess recently her life was anything but normal.
She planted it at her feet and I could hear the strains of a guitar riff start to swell over the metal topped structure and the stillness of the air up here was disturbed by the mellow tones crooning from the antiquated machine.
As the song began to play I recognised it as one of the obscure pre-pulse garage bands that she liked so much with weird names like Nickelback or Incubus or Matchbox Twenty.
She started to sway with the music and I watched as she wrapped her arms around herself and rocked in the moonlight like a modern day Ophelia.
If I fall along the way
Pick me up and dust me off
If I get too tired to make it
Be my breath so I can walk
If I need some of your love again
Give me more than I can stand
When my smile gets old and faded
Wait around I'll smile again
Shouldn't be so complicated
Just hold me and then
Just hold me again
I could see her sway more and more and her head moved to the beat. The softly, so very softly she started to sing.
Can you help me I'm bent
I'm so scared that I'll never
Get put back together
Keep breaking me in
And this is how we will end
With you and me bent
If I couldn't sleep could you sleep
Could you paint me better off
Could you sympathize with my needs
I know you think I need a lot
I suddenly realised that those words meant something to her and I listened to the lyrics even closer, wondering what she was identifying with here.
Her hips were moving now, her whole body undulating in the silent air, her arms still wrapped around her small body, staring out at the city.
Can you help me I'm bent
I'm so scared that I'll never
Get put back together
Keep breaking me in
And this is how we will end
With you and me bent
Start bending me
It's never enough
'Til I feel all your pieces
Start bending me
Keep bending me until I'm completely broken in
And there it was; the message was staring me in the face. Max was starting to break. I had watched her as she gone from hale and healthy to somewhat brittle and fragile. She had wasted away before my eyes and all I had done was watch. She had been afraid that she was broken to pieces without any hope of reassembly. I had said once that she was a broken toy and I never realised how close I was to the truth.
Shouldn't be so complicated
Just touch me and then
Just touch me again
Suddenly it struck me that her shoulders weren't just rocking, they were shaking. She was crying. Her whole body wracked with sobs that I hadn't heard over the music. She suddenly fell to her knees, doubled over; sobbing harshly and I thought my heart would break listening to her.
Despite what she would say to me for seeing her in this state I had to go to her.
I couldn't let her do this alone.
I couldn't let her feel like this anymore. Someone had to pick up the pieces.
Can you help me I'm bent
I'm so scared that I'll never
Get put back together
Keep breaking me in
And this is how we will end
With you and me bent
I walked over and sunk to my knees, wrapping my arms around her and rocking her even as the cold concrete grated my knees. She stiffened as soon as she felt me touch her and tried to pull away, but Manticore had given me strength and I held on. She stopped fighting after a second and softened into my embrace, letting hot tears scold my chest as they drenched my shirt.
I didn't care.
I just held her all night in a way that I had always wanted to. Well, almost the way I wanted to. In my dreams she had never been crying. I had never felt this helpless rage as I knew that there was nothing I could do other than hold on as she bent and broke in my arms.
Around the crack of dawn, when the light was creeping over the metal roof, showing off the graffiti to its best advantage and illuminating the illiterate, she pulled away from me and swiped her face with the back of hand, smearing grime over one cheek—something that I found inexplicably adorable.
"Sorry."
It was almost enough to start me off. Why was she apologising to me? She hadn't done anything wrong, except move away and made me feel the cold.
Max had fit against me perfectly, her head just under my chin and her heartbeat resounding with mine in perfect rhythm, she'd slotted in my arms like a piece that was missing and when she moved I felt like something had been torn away.
"Nothing to be sorry for," I said.
But she didn't look me in the face and stared out into the city again.
"I'm supposed to be the strong one," she said and sighed heavily before turning cool eyes back to me. "It won't happen again."
"Max?" I bit my lip, not sure if I should just come out and say it or whether she would attack me for it. "Max, it's all right to bend sometimes; even break. You don't have to always be the strong one."
"Yes I do."
"Why?"
She was silent so long that I wasn't sure she would answer.
"Because when I'm not, people die."
Suddenly things made more sense. Three weeks ago she had sent a platoon out to search for more food. Only three had come back. But that wasn't her fault, wasn't anyone fault but bad timing and even worse luck that one of White's patrols had been out at the same time.
I go to tell her that but she forestalls me knowing, somehow, what I was thinking.
"I should have sent back-up and not been so arrogant, believing that we could do it because we are better. I've learned." She straightened her shoulders and pushed me back like nothing had happened, "I'm all right."
I shuddered at the cold way that she repressed her feelings. "No, you're not."
Her cool eyes turned to me. "I have to be."
We made headway, not much but it was there and I was damned if I'd let her retreat back into that icy little world that she inhabits all of the time.
"Talk to me?" I plead. "Max, you may not like me much, but I'm better than keeping it all inside."
She was silent for so long I thought she was ignoring me as we listened to the faint sounds coming from miles below.
"You're wrong," she all but whispered and my heart sank.
"Ok, so maybe I'm not better than no one, but you should talk to someone."
Max shook her head and, to my surprise, a ghost of a smile echoed around her lips. "I meant, you were wrong about me not liking you. I do."
"You do?" My heart had stilled in my chest. She likes me? My brain took that simple statement and ran with it; she liked me, she could love me one day, she could want to be with me as much as I wanted to be with her and one day she would say those two words in front of…
I shook myself. "Talk to me, Max."
She sniffled and moved away. "I sound pathetic. Wah, wah Max is all alone."
"Alone?" My voice came out more shocked than I intended and she glared at me.
"I walked through Terminal City, Alec, and I felt like that ordinary origins guy, what was his name? From the Bible?"
"No clue." And I had no idea what she was talking about.
Max frowned. "I read the Bible once, for Ben. In the beginning of the ordinaries line there was this guy and he was created, kinda like us, and he walked over the earth naming the animals and stuff. And I remember his watching them and he felt kinda bummed cause there were two lions, male and female, and two zebras and two… of everything; except him."
I nodded, trying to keep up but I had a sinking feeling I knew where this was going.
"I always felt for the guy because, when I was growing up, there were no other transgenics males around. I settled for ordinaries but we never seemed to fit."
I swallowed the growing lump. "Logan?"
Max shrugged. "He was…convenient. He knew what I was and he didn't mind. I don't think I ever loved him. He was more a safety blanket I guess." She stared off into space and sighed. "Then I decided to drop him…" she trailed off.
"And?"
"But I never realised what position I was in."
"What's that?" I prompted, wanting to know what she talking about.
"I'm not one of you, but I'm not one of them either." It was almost as if she was talking to herself. "Most transgenics hate me because I was one of the '09ers and we blew up the DNA lab thus making them lose their home. If they don't hate me then they certainly don't trust me, especially not enough to have any kind of relationship with. Then there are those who don't mind—the anomalies and basement people and even some transgenics but they have this weird case of hero worship, especially the kids and none of them would ever think of asking me out. I'm too close to humans for transgenics and I'm too transgenic for humans." She looked up at me, her eyes swimming with tears. I don't—I don't have any friends, really, other than O.C. and Joshua, and I'm thinking that I lost any chance of a happy ever after when I kicked Logan out."
"But you didn't love him," I managed to say. "How could you be happy when you didn't love the guy, Max?"
"At least I would have had someone who cares about me," she cried. "Everyone has someone to upload on and someone to hold them when they break and stand against them when they bend and I don't. Even if I didn't feel the same way about Logan as he did about me, at least I wouldn't have been alone— and—and I can't take it anymore. I need and it's a weakness to need. Lydecker 101," she laughed bitterly. "I should have known by ten years on the outside that life rarely doesn't suck."
With that she buried her hands in her hair and leaned her forehead on her knees.
I watched her as she assumed that position as if she was trying to curl in on herself. I, too, had noticed the latest trend for transgenics to pair off and just assumed that Max wasn't bothered about it, even if she noticed it. I guess I was one of those who accepted Max but never thought that she might need companionship too. She always seemed too self-possessed for that.
It was disconcerting to know that she was only too human too and that sometimes she needed to go to pieces with the knowledge that there was someone there to pick up those pieces and put them back together.
I reached out and touched the back of her head, threading my fingers through her silky hair.
It suddenly hit me that I could do this forever; look at Max, listen to Max, talk to Max and share her cares and worries, shielding her from the worse affects of being leader. I could, if she'd let me.
As I thought about that, it occurred to me that this was Max. Max had just unloaded herself on me.
I had come up here thinking that she might jump; and she had.
She had leaped figuratively over the edge by telling me what was bugging her. I knew her well enough to know that if she didn't trust someone then no power on earth would have been enough to make her do that. The fact that she had shared this with me made me realise that maybe there was hope after all.
She had taken that step.
As I stared at that bowed head I decide to follow her example and take a step towards the edge.
Metaphorically, of course; I wasn't suicidal.
"I think I remember that story, Max. The guy who named the animals; didn't God make him a lady friend?"
Max sniffed and looked at me from beneath the curtain of her hair. "So you think I should go back to Lydecker and make an order for my perfect mate?"
I took a deep breath. "Maybe they already made you one."
"And he's fly fishing in Alaska?" she mocked. "On a mission in Mexico? Tobogganing in Tulsa?"
"Sitting in Seattle," I replied carefully, "on the Space Needle, with a girl he likes."
Max just stared at me. "What?"
I jumped off the edge and prayed I'd land somewhere soft. "I like you, Max. I never even thought that you could tolerate me so I didn't say anything. But I have tried to get your attention."
"You always bug me."
"Well, I'm too old to pull your hair," I tease, thanking the heavens that she hasn't pushed me over the side yet. I reach over and touch the strands again, she really has great hair. "I know that this may be something of a surprise, but I like you a lot and just want you to know that you're not alone. I'm here."
"You feel sorry for me?"
I could hear the distaste in that and shook my head vehemently. "Max, no one would ever feel sorry for you, least of all me. I think you're a nut job and you drive me crazy and you are the person most likely to beat the crap outta me when I screw up, which I will."
"So why would you want to be with me?" she said with a frown but a smile twinkling around her eyes.
"Cuz, crazy as it is," and it was, "I need that. I need you and I kinda like it. Needing is not a weakness; we need to breathe; we need to eat. I need you. What do you say? Wanna give it a shot?"
Her answer was simply to smile and shuffle over until she was sitting next to me, touching my side.
"So any words of wisdom to pass down?" I tried for levity and she nodded.
"Yeah, l--ife is strange."
My heart turned over, wondering what she had been going to say, but I let it go, knowing that we wouldn't go there just yet.
"You?" she asked hurriedly and I smiled.
"If this guy was given the task of naming all the animals; why do you think he called it an aardvark?"
We had all the time in the world, she wasn't broken, just a little bent.