DISCLAIMER: Dark Angel and the characters in this story are not mine. No copyright infringement was intended, and no profits are being made for this.
A/N: Here's the actual missing scene. Please read and review!
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They got to his apartment in complete silence. Max didn't know why she trailed after him. She should have just left as soon as he hopped off her bike. But she felt compelled to be with him. Just in case he needed her.
She hovered at the doorway, not sure whether she needed his invitation to go inside or not. Normally, she would have just barged in. But somehow, tonight felt different. He was different.
All throughout the drive, Max had tried to sort things out in her head. She had pieced together parts of the puzzle of tonight's episode, but there were still plenty of unanswered questions. But most of all, she wanted to make sure that he was going to be all right.
Alec stalked over towards his kitchen, heading straight for his Scotch. He knew that Max was still standing at his door. He pulled out one glass, and after a second's hesitation, he pulled out another one. It could be a mistake asking her to stay, but he couldn't make her leave just yet, either.
"I hope Scotch is fine with you," he said quietly. That was all the invitation he was willing to extend to her. He wasn't about to ask her to stay with him. He wasn't even really sure that he wanted her to.
He heard her sigh with relief as she stepped into his apartment, and he almost smiled at that. Sometimes, Max was the hardest person in the world to understand. At other times, she was as easy to read as an open book with size 20 font and one syllable words.
He handed her a glass, before finishing his own drink with one gulp. He felt the liquor burn a path inside of him, warming the coldness that guilt and regret had brought on. Transgenics didn't get drunk, but they could enjoy the burn of the drink and pretend.
"I'm sorry," Max whispered, "I didn't know."
Max watched as Alec splayed both his hands flat against his kitchen counter and leaned heavily forward. His head hung low for a second, just looking at the amber liquid of his drink. Max almost thought that he was going to ignore her all night, but then he shrugged. "Believe it or not, Max, I don't expect you to know much about me. So, don't be sorry."
Max flinched. His words hurt. In her heart, she knew that what he said was true. She had never given him the time of day, and if she did, well, it was only to belittle him and smack him around. But still…why did she now want to know him better? Why did she now want to prove him wrong? She blinked away those probing questions. "Well, then, I'm sorry I was such a bitch about your mood. I mean, it's not like you don't have the right to be all Heathcliff-like."
He pursed his lips and shrugged again. "Let it go, Max. I didn't ask for your help."
"You should have," she pointed out. "I was there for you."
But he only glared at her and downed two more glasses of Scotch in quick succession. She wished him luck in his attempt to drink himself into a stupor. It wasn't likely to happen, but he was welcome to try. He had just said goodbye to the girl that he loved. Max was willing to make huge allowances for that. She wondered briefly what kind of girl Rachel Berrisford was to drive Alec towards semi-madness.
"What was she like?" she blurted out, before she could stop herself.
He swung his gaze towards her. "Why do you care?"
She shrugged expansively. "I dunno, I just do. Don't question it." She retorted.
He cocked his head to the side as if in contemplation, then he shrugged and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. "She smiled and laughed a lot. She was happy. When she was around, it was like everything was so much brighter. I don't know…It's hard to explain."
Max couldn't help but briefly compare herself to Rachel Berrisford—and found herself lacking. She was everything that Max wasn't. Somehow, on the heels of that realization, a dull ache started to throb in her heart. She didn't understand—nor did she particularly want to understand—why she felt that way. "She sounds like a nice kid."
Alec raised a brow in acknowledgement. "Yeah,"
She approached him and placed her untouched drink on the counter. She laid a hand on his upper arm. "Look, Alec, if you want to talk…"
"I don't." he cut her off curtly, his face suddenly a cold mask.
Max narrowed her eyes, clamping down on her temper, wanting to smack him really hard and tell him to listen to her. Sometimes, she reacted just the wrong way to Alec, and now certainly wasn't the time to indulge those impulses. "Look, talking about it might help," she insisted. "It puts things into perspective."
He chuckled derisively at that. "Oh, really?" he mocked. "Say, after all the bitching you do about you, Logan and the virus, are things in perspective yet? Have you figured out how wrong you actually are for each other?" he spat. He knew it was a low blow, but she was pushing all the wrong buttons. It was like teasing a caged tiger—it's gonna lash out at you sooner or later.
She pressed her lips together firmly. "This isn't about me and Logan," she said through clenched teeth. "I'm just trying to help you." She thought it was particularly admirable of her not to jump down his throat and rip him to shreds after what he had just said. He was intentionally baiting her, and she would just make things worse by rising to the occasion.
"I don't need your help, Max," he said dismissively. "Besides, you'd never understand."
She placed her hands on her hips and frowned at him. "What do you mean I wouldn't understand? Manticore's messed with my life more times than I can count, too! I do understand."
He snorted inelegantly and stalked over to stand by his window. "No, you don't, Max," he said as he propped his shoulder against the wall. He twisted his lips contemptuously at her. "You'll never even come close."
"Give it a try, I'll understand."
"You can never say that to me and not be lying to my face, Max," he muttered.
Max reared back a little with his words. "What do you mean?" she demanded. She wasn't usually this nice to anyone, yet he was throwing it right back at her face. "I'm actually trying to be your friend, Alec. Why can't you just accept that? What's the problem?"
"Your friendship is not welcome is what it is. I didn't ask for your friendship. And you and your 'I-understand-what-Manticore-was-all-about' little routine are my problem, Max," he bit out. "You ran away remember? You have no idea what Manticore was really all about. You don't get to say that you understand!"
"Then, tell me what it was all about!"
He narrowed his eyes briefly as memories came to the forefront of his mind. He shook his head bitterly. "No."
"Alec,"
He raised his forefinger at her. "No, Max." he said tiredly. Then he thumbed the front door. "I think it's best that you just leave now. Just…leave me alone."
Max blinked away the hurt that his words brought. She had no right to be hurt. He was right, they weren't even really friends. Then why did it hurt so much to be shut out? She swallowed past the lump of undefined emotion. "Fine."
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Max drove around aimlessly for hours. It was a waste of gas, a precious commodity, but it was the best way for her to work through her emotions. She was on the corner of Waverly and 7th Avenue when a thought occurred to her. She slammed on the brakes so hard, she almost flew across the handle bars.
She cared about Alec.
She really cared about him as something more than just a chatty co-worker and constant pain in her ass. She cared more about him than she would just a fellow Manticore alumnus. She cared about him almost like…family. Like she would never be quite the same if she lost him.
No way! I can't believe this, she thought in a daze. When the hell did he become important to me?
Whatever the answer was, it was still a fact that he was an important part of her life now. And no matter how much he pushed her away, she would still care. She shook her head at what she was about to do, silently berating herself. But she turned her bike around and started back for his apartment.
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She crept up the door to his apartment and listened intently, her ear almost touching his door. It was quiet. She wondered for a second whether he had gone off somewhere. That made her frown thinking about all the kinds of trouble he could get himself into with his current state of mind. She bit her lip, and decided against knocking.
She picked the lock instead, and slipped in quietly. Her pupils dilated fully to see in the darkness, her ears perked as she tried to ascertain if anyone was home. She heard some rustling of sheets in his bedroom and cautiously approached the door.
She was about to turn the knob, when she realized that he might not be alone. That thought made her frown in disgust. She really didn't need to see that, and it was entirely possible that Alec had chosen to drown his sorrows that way.
"NOO! Rachel!"
The anguished shout almost made Max jump out of her skin. She pushed the door open quickly to find Alec struggling with his sheets. She tried to wake him but he only succeeded in accidentally punching her with his flailing arms. She fell back, a hand on her throbbing cheek. "Damn it," she muttered, before getting up and attempting to reach him again.
This time, she grabbed both his wrists and straddled his legs in one smooth motion. "Alec, wake up!" she yelled. She wasn't happy about this position, practically lying on top of him. It wasn't even funny, just uncomfortable, as he was still trying to fight her off. "Alec!"
Immediately, his eyes flew open. There was a moment of confusion, but like a good transgenic, that passed quickly and he was immediately alert. His pupils dilated as he took in the situation. "Max? What the hell are you doing here?"
She released him slowly and rolled off of him. "You were having a nightmare," she explained.
"And you just happened to be in the neighborhood?" he drawled as he sat up.
Her lips twitched into a smile. "Yeah, something like that," she replied. She noticed that his dark blond hair was matted to his forehead with sweat and that there were streaks down his cheeks from tears.
Alec frowned briefly, realizing that Max was staring at his sorry state. "Didn't I ask you to leave before?" he asked curtly, swinging his legs onto the floor, effectively turning his back to her. He really didn't need her to see him like this. He didn't want her pity—and he knew that Max had a warped sense of friendship. Everything that was somehow handicapped or broken were suddenly Max's "friends". They were like strays. He would be damned if he became one of them.
"I did leave," she pointed out stubbornly. Why couldn't he just let her help him and leave it at that? Why did he have to be so proud and arrogant? Everyone had moments of weaknesses. How could she make him understand that she didn't see him as anything less than she did before?
That in fact, she saw him as a better man for it?
"But I couldn't stay away." She admitted. If both of them had too much pride, then one of them had to let go of it first. "Let me be here with you, Alec."
"I'm not one of your pitiful little strays, Max." he pointed out, still not budging. He realized that she was being uncharacteristically honest and open. But he still refused to accept her pity. He was broken-hearted and drowning in his guilt. As far as he was concerned, those were personal problems. It had nothing to do with Max or her help.
He stood up and turned to look at her. She was standing on the other side of his bed, her expression gentle but guarded. "You can't just come in and try to fix me." he sighed. "It's my problem, and I'll deal with it my way, okay?"
"I just wanted to see if you were all right."
"And make sure I don't do anything stupid, right?" he asked bitterly.
"I didn't say that." She countered.
"But you thought it."
She shrugged, not denying it. "You don't have the best track record for doing the right thing."
But as soon as those words came out of her mouth, she realized that they were the absolute worst thing to say at the moment. His jaw clenched, his shoulders tensed, and his face became forbidding. "No, I guess not." He said hollowly. "Is there anything else you needed to remind me of?"
Max was mentally kicking and throwing herself against the wall. She shook her head at him. "Alec, I didn't mean the way it sounded."
"No, I'm sure you didn't." he drawled sarcastically. "But wait a minute, I'm Alec. I screw things up, right? It's what I do best. I mean, I could have decided to do the right thing and escaped from Manticore a long time ago, right? I could have said 'no' to all the damned missions I went into. I could have stopped myself from falling in love with Rachel. I could have saved her when I had the chance. Isn't that right, Max?"
"Stop it, Alec." she said sharply, alarmed at the direction he was going. Alec didn't need her feeling sorry for him or coddling him. He was already feeling sorry for himself. He was already drowning himself in his own guilt.
He snorted. "How many times do I have to ask you to leave before I have to throw you out myself?" he asked acidly.
Max shook her head and walked towards his bedroom door. "I'm leaving." She said. "But I didn't come here to tell you that I felt sorry for you. I didn't come here to say 'I-told-you-so', and I didn't come here to rub it in your face. I came because I care, and as hard for me to say this, I thought I was your friend."
"I don't need you," he whispered weakly to her back.
"Yeah, I know." She looked at him over her shoulder, her eyes soft. "But you've got me, anyway. Good night, Alec."
The door was almost shut all the way when she heard his aching whisper. "I can't sleep,"
Against her better judgment, Max turned around and pushed the door open. "Nightmares?"
He nodded wearily. "I see her face every time I close my eyes." He admitted. He ran a hand over his face tiredly. "I keep thinking about how I could have done it right. How I could have saved her."
Max didn't say anything. Telling him he had done his best would be cold comfort because Rachel was still in a coma. Telling him that there was nothing he could have done would be a lie because he had come so close to really doing something about saving her. So she just nodded and cocked her head to the side, listening.
"I didn't know that I loved her," he sighed. "I thought that I could shut down and become a soldier again. I thought that I was strong enough. I thought that I could have it both ways."
Max smiled slightly in empathy. "No one could have predicted what was going to happen, Alec." she whispered. "Brain told me that the battle processors predicted that you'd finish the Berrisford Agenda with flying colors."
He cocked a brow at that. "Really? Obviously they didn't know what the hell they were talking about," he said sarcastically.
She walked over to him and tentatively took his hand and squeezed it. "Nah, just goes to show that feelings, emotions, and all this love stuff really can't be predicted or decided on. It just happens."
He stared down at her, his green eyes seeming to glow in the darkness. "Yeah, it just happens." He returned the gentle pressure on her hand and held on.
Max was suddenly all too aware that he was standing semi-naked in front of her, wearing only a pair of dark blue boxers. She looked at their intertwined hands and felt heat rush through her. She resisted the urge to jerk her hand away. Instead, she released her hold gently, and he let go as well. "I guess I better go now, huh? Before you make good on the whole throwing me out part."
"Actually," He hesitated for a second, "stay."