Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel...I've petitioned James Cameron for rights, he just doesn't want to hand them over... :)

The Identity of a Soldier

Chapter Two: Breathing Easy

Alec stood and took her hand, amazed at how accepting she was of his situation. He didn't know why he trusted this person called Max, but he did. He trusted her completely, believed everything she said. He could even tell when it was truth or sarcasm.

She led him outside the barn and to the edge of the trees. She let go of Alec's hand only to reach down and remove the foliage from around her baby. The black ninja stood before them, gleaming in the light of moon. She mounted the bike and started the gentle engine purring. Max waited expectantly.

Alec stood there taking in the image of Max on her bike. What a sight. Purring with life, the bike sat there with Max astride, waiting for him to get on. "Well?" asked the female feline transgenic.

"Right," Alec said as he too straddled the machine and the two raced for Seattle.

Max pulled her bike to a stop outside Fogle Towers, but before she could get off her bike she needed to get Alec off. The problem was, Alec sat quietly snoring behind her, slumped against her shoulder. If she hadn't been so worried about him, she probably would have just pushed him off, landing him on his backside. Her no-sympathy nature would have demanded it, just because of his prior actions in her cell. Instead, taking pity his new found memory loss, she settled for poking him in the shoulder.

"Hey, Alec. Wake up."

Groggily, Alec leaned away from the warmth of her shoulder. "Why? I was having a nice dream." Then he murmured, "A good change."

"Sorry, but there's something I gotta do." Max protectively placed a hand over her jacket pocket, sheltering the antigen within. She had gone through a lot this past year, and then some yo-yo at Manticore decided it would be great fun to infect a perfectly healthy female transgenic with a retrovirus specifically targeting her cyber-hacking sort-of-boyfriend. Yeah. Strange little life, no kidding.

Alec frowned sleepily at her.

"That means you have to move," Max said slowly. She nearly laughed as he blinked in protest, dropping his jaw. "I'm not saying you can't come with me, you just can't hold me hostage to my bike. This thing I gotta do, it's pretty life-and-death, you get my gist?"

"Sure." Alec got off the bike rather awkwardly. Wanting more than anything else in the world to lean on Max's shoulder and go to sleep again, breathing in a more comforting smell than stiff wool, concrete and steel. Instead he followed her up the steps to the lobby of the building, taking a private elevator to the lower-level penthouse. Weird kind of place for a life-and-death.

Arriving at Logan's apartment, Max hastily whispered to the tall transgenic beside her, "Stay in the shadows and don't make a sound." She looked pleadingly into his hazel eyes.

Alec was confused at her rushed request, but nodded his obedience, and deftly moved to a shadowed portion of the hall where only Max could perceive his presence.

Max was only slightly surprised to see a girl in Logan's apartment draping cold cloths to his forehead and making sure that he was comfortably lying on the couch wrapped in a blanket. "Hey, did Logan tell you what happened?"

"Yeah, I'm Asha by the way." The blonde pulled back her hood and stared straight-faced at the other woman.

"Max," she introduced herself with an equally stoic expression. She pulled the vile of antigen from her pocket, the yellow liquid swirling within. "This is the stuff. It had better work, too, 'cause the chick who gave it to me already died. So, no revenge if it doesn't cure him." But her sarcasm fell flat.

"Right." Asha looked at the girl before her, evaluating her. She finally gave in, Logan trusted her after all, so she must be alright. "Let's do this thing," she said reaching beside her to take a syringe off the coffee table where she sat across from Logan.

Shot after shot of antigen, hour after hour of waiting and pacing, signs of improvement finally started to show. When Logan finally sat up to be examined by the watchful Asha, Max at last breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn't going to die.

"He's going to be all right." Asha stood beside the transgenic, trying to reassure her that her … boyfriend … was going to live. "Welcome back."

"Thanks." Max didn't know what else to say. She wanted to stay with Logan, but didn't want to risk him getting infected again. She wanted to take Alec back to her apartment so they could finally get some rest. She wanted to make sure that everything in her crazy little life would be okay, crazier but okay.

"You don't have to stand all the way over there. You can come closer, you know." While Max thought, Asha had left the room. Logan was now addressing her, putting his glasses back on and leaning back on the couch.

"Better not risk it." Max watched him nervously from her place by the window. "We don't know how easy it is for me to re-infect you, and…that was the last of the antigen."

"We're gonna find a way to beat this." Logan gazed longingly at her, face firm with determination.

"Yeah," yet Max had a niggling doubt in her mind that she wanted to. "But you should concentrate on getting better." Everything had changed. The relationship with Logan was…different. It felt very one-sided, with Logan being the only side. "I gotta go."

"You know things are different now," Logan said in attempt to stop her. He didn't want to let her out of his sight yet. After nearly a year of being so far apart, even occasionally succumbing to the belief that she had died, he didn't want to see her leave him again. He did the only thing he knew to keep her with him, talk about her family. "Back when you first got out, it was just the twelve of you. Now there's a lot more."

"If they're smart, they'll lay low." Max edged slowly toward the doorway, but Logan wouldn't let her get away just yet.

"You don't want it getting around that you and yours are out in the world. People tend to get scared of things that are different." He glanced knowingly at her. "Keep your head down."

"Always do." With that Max got out, Logan watching her sadly from behind. On her way to the door she motioned silently for the very confused transgenic to follow her. Alec wanted desperately to ask her what was going on, but felt the need to keep his mouth shut so that Max could figure it out first. She looked rather confused herself.

Once they had gotten back to Max's motorcycle, she wordlessly straddled the machine and turned on the engine. Alec respected her silence, and followed suit, not even asking where they were going next. He simply let her work things through in her mind. Maybe she would tell him, maybe she wouldn't… It was her life after all. He was only in the dark about his own life, one more couldn't hurt. He was just glad he wasn't alone.

Max got little joy out of the ride home than she usually did. Her mind and soul were too overworked to get any pleasure out of running the streets with real power beneath her. Despite how uncomfortable it had been to be in the room with Logan, he did give her something to think about: What about the others? Would they know what to do? More than half of them had never even seen beyond the perimeter fence at Manitcore, what would they do now that they were well outside their field of training? Max didn't have any answers, which only added to her frustration over the situation. I did this. She couldn't help but blame herself. In her intent to take out Manticore, she didn't even consider the consequences the others would have to face once they got on the outside. She had unwittingly loosed an army of the genetically enhanced and altered on a world that most of them knew nothing about. She only hoped that they were smart enough to cope, until she thought of something.

Pulling up to a building that looked as if it was under construction, Max turned off the ignition. She glanced back to find Alec had once again fallen asleep on her shoulder, despite the shortness of their trip across town. He must have been exhausted. That and the gash on the back of his head still needs a few hours of genetically enhanced healing before it was all good. Reluctantly this time, Max touched his shoulder. Alec didn't wake at first, he only gripped his arms around her waist tighter, as if to stave off some horror.

"Alec." Max put a hand on top of his where they overlapped on her midriff, attempting to pries him from her. He protested by gripping still tighter. Leaving nothing for it, Max yelled, "ALEC, GET OFF OF ME!"

The male transgenic opened his eyes in a flash and relinquished his hold. "Sorry," he said meekly, still leaning on her shoulder. He was just so tired. "I was kind of out of it." He looked up at the building. "Uh, where are we?"

"We're at my place." Max patted his cheek kindly. "I wanted you to be awake when you met OC. It probably wouldn't go over well if I brought an unconscious male into our apartment."

"What are you saying? This boyfriend of yours, OC did you call him? Is he gonna get mad if you show up with some strange guy?"

"No," Max stifled a laugh. "OC is not a man. OC…Original Cindy…is a girl. She's my room-mate."

"A girl, hey?" He wiggled his eyebrows.

"Don't get any ideas, Alec." She knew he was joking, but played along anyway. "OC doesn't swing that way."

"I wasn't, just registering the new fact," he nearly slurred with a new wave of exhaustion.

"Suuure you were." Max didn't know Alec very well, but she knew him well enough. Despite his lapse in memory, Alec maintained his crack-shot, smart alecking ways.

Max pushed Alec back a little further, as he had started to wrap himself around her again. He had the definite look of a child clinging to his beloved teddy bear. "Look, man. I know you're tired. If you just get off me, get off my bike, and go with me upstairs you can crash on my couch if you want. Seeing as how you don't have a place and all, and I will not let you sleep on the street, especially in this city. Transgenic or no, I don't trust your life to you just now, or anyone else for that matter." She wouldn't tell him that she considered it her responsibility to keep him safe until he got his memory back. Not only did he have no memory of his street knowledge, she wasn't sure that he could remember his military training, and she just wouldn't take the chance.

"Well, thanks, Mom." Alec sardonically retorted as he got off the Ninja.

Max wheeled the bike inside the building and onto the lift. She didn't trust Alec's life to the night of post-pulse inner-city Seattle, neither did she trust her baby to be on the street where anyone looking for a quick buck would steal and hock it if given the chance. Once on her floor, Max finally really breathed. She was home at last.

Watching her, Alec couldn't get over how alive she looked. In this place, she was comfortable. At peace. He noticed while riding "her baby" with her that she had a unique kind of freedom. But, before they got on the bike, she was slightly on edge, almost as if she expected someone to drag her into an abyss so black that it burned her eyes, so constricting that she couldn't breath, so restrictive that she couldn't stand, so eternal that it stole her very life…

"Alec?" Max brought him from his darkening thoughts. "Are you ok?" She had seen that look in his eyes, knew what it meant. But she didn't know if he knew what it meant.

"Psy-Ops." His voice quavered ever so slightly. He definitely knew what it meant. That word brought fear into his heart like no other ever had.

"You remember it?"

"I wish I didn't." He seemed to recede inside himself. "That place…It nearly killed me. I can't even remember what they did to me or why. I just know I felt like I'd been broken apart and would never be made whole again. Or happy. Not ever."

"I know. I'm not sure if they ever told you, but when Manticore" Alec immediately tensed "recaptured me, they sent me to Psy-Ops."

Alec instinctively reached out and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, drawing her to him. "I'm sorry that you had to go through that." This was another side of Alec that Max wasn't used to, a sympathetic side. Max was so used to dealing with things on her own. It never occurred to her to share things like this, then again there had never really been anyone who would understand where she was coming from. Max tentatively reached her arms around him, returning his hug. Even without his memory, Alec seemed to understand what this could have done to her. No one, not even Logan, connected to her like this.

"It's really no biggie. I mean, it's in the past." She tried to lean away from him, but he held on.

"But it is part of who you are. It's a part of your past. Just as it is part of mine, albeit I don't remember much of my past, but it did influence me." His eyes grew sad.

Max finally really hugged him back, sensing his vulnerability. She clung to him, giving and receiving both support and comfort. "I'm sorry, too. Alec, I don't know why they sent you to Psy-Ops, but I know it can't have been a justifiable reason. Not ethically. I was sent there the last time simply because I wanted to maintain my individuality."

The door to Max's apartment opened and a short black woman leaned her head out saying, "Who in they right mind would be awake talkin' at this time. What you crack-fools think this is--?" She stopped abruptly when she saw her shark-blooded roommate hugging an unknown male. "Girl, please don't tell me you in heat. Or did you just pick up a stray?"

Max rolled her eyes. "Naw, girl. This here is a fellow freak, I just broke him out of the military science lab," Max sassed. "Alec." Max made a gesture of introduction. OC nodded, acknowledging him. "He's gonna bunk down here with us tonight, since he's got no place to stay. That a'ight with you?"

"Sure, girl. Hey, if I gotta have another cat in the house might as well be a fine looking specimen, jus' too bad it's male." OC grinned at her friend and winked.

"You can't go ragging on me. Can I help it if I have cat in my cocktail? I didn't cook up my DNA, some scientist looking for a score did that." Max let go of Alec and pulled him inside with her, following her friend. "And don't say a word about Alec staying here to Logan, if he happens to drop by. I think he would go fairly ballistic knowing that the man who tried to attack him ended up staying at my place. You know what I mean?"

At her words, Alec frowned slightly. What was Max talking about? Who was this Logan, and what does she mean 'tried to attack him.'

"Say no more, baby girl. It's between us three. Now if you two don't mind, I'm gonna get me some sleep." She hugged her friend and waved a goodnight to the new man in Max's life.

"A'ight. Night OC." With that she turned to Alec, expecting him to say something about sleep as well.

"I got a question for you, though." Alec had to know what he had done, so that he could face whatever consequences ensued.

"Shoot." Max looked concernedly at the other transgenic.

"Who's Logan? And why would I, did I, try to attack him?" Alec looked completely dumbfounded at the idea of doing such a thing.

"I really don't like not giving you answers, but I think we should wait until morning for explanations." Max looked worriedly at him, hoping that would be good enough for now. "We should probably hit it too. I don't know about you, Mr. I-slept-most-of-the-way-back, but shark DNA or no, this girl does need a few hours of shut-eye."

He nodded in response, eyes drooping slightly. "Yeah, you're probably right." With that he slumped on the couch and commenced to snoring.

"Faker." A faint smile spread on Alec's lips as she said the word. Max grinned too. He really looked comfortable here. It was definitely better getting to know him this way, rather than being at his throat for reasons that she just didn't really want to remember, reasons that didn't even matter anymore. She thought for a moment then went to the far end of the couch, where Alec had draped his long legs over the arm. Max reached out and untied his boots then, giving a mighty tug, had them both off and sitting on the floor. She grabbed the blanket off the back of the couch and laid it on top of his slowly breathing form. I guess he really is asleep now. "Good-night, Alec," she whispered as she too headed to bed.


A/N: Here it is, chapter two. I hope you enjoyed it...please R&R, remember no update unless there are at least three reviews... :)

Review Responses:

lakergirl08: Thanks! I'm glad you liked the start. I'll update as often as I can write it, but know that I am working on another story at the same time and will be heading back to college soon, so IOS might be updated in more long-term segments (maybe even months between updates, though hopefully not so long). Bear with me, and I'll get it out as fast as I can.

J.D5: No...Thank YOU! I appreciate that you like the way it's going...and I intend to have Max behave more...self-controlled...than she was in season 2...she did seem to be rather sporadic and mood-swingy then, didn't she? More is definitely on it's way.

Alana84: Thanks! I really like this one too. And I just couldn't keep it in anymore, had to share it. I have a pretty good plan for how I want it to go, it's just writing it out that takes time...fear not...more will come!

electricgurl: Thanks, and it will come...