Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel or any characters featured in either of the seasons.

With Ben In Between

Alec didn't drive to Max and Cindy's apartment. Instead he went to the hotel he was staying at, "why are we here?" Max asked seeing where he was going.

"I'm staying here while I'm in Seattle, it's closer," he answered slightly distracted. When they were in his room, "I'll get you a towel, here," he handed her a plush blue towel. Taking the towel tentatively she nodded her thanks and walked past him further into the room. Grabbing a towel for himself he followed her. Why did things have to be this way for them? Why couldn't everything be like it was when they were together. "Because she was dating you for your brother," he told himself. "I heard what you said in Crash. Is it true?"

"Is what true?"

"Who's the father?" He needed to know, he needed to know that Max hadn't moved on immediately after him and got pregnant.

"Someone that I care about very much."

"Is it Cale?"

"No, but he'd like to. He wants to adopt the baby after the birth."

"Is he?"

"No, he's not the father." She repeated.

"Am I?" He barely whispered with his heart pounding in his chest. For several frozen moments Max stared at Alec who waited with his heart pounding in ears. Max thought about what to say, should she say yes or release him from the burden of her? Closing her eyes and swallowing a lump in her through she continued to stare into the depths of green she had fallen in love with all over again.

"No," she whispered simply as she saw Alec's eyes shatter in betrayal. He wasn't the father, someone else was. She had moved on and on again. At that thought anger laced through him, wiring him.

"Wow I never thought you were slut," the words left his mouth before they reached his mind. When her eyes widened in shock and hurt, Alec immediately regretted the words. Max lowered her gaze to her protruding stomach and bit her lips to stop a sob from emitting. Biting hard on her lip she tried to regain control over her emotions.

"If you chased me down in the rain and brought me to your hotel room to call me slut, you've succeeded. Now do something else you've succeeded at before, leave." With each word, her voice became stronger and louder. Where she found the strength to do it, Max didn't know. Hormones maybe?

"No I chased you down thinking I still had a chance at making everything wrong right! But once again you've proven to me that isn't possible!" His blood was boiling and skin was burning, all the emotions he had suppressed over the last months were coming to a head.

"Just say what you really are wanting to say Alec! Please I'd love to just hear it all out now! Come on lay it on me! Tell me you hate me, you want me dead, hell call me a slut again!" Max yelled clenching her fists tightly.

"Why did you date me?" That wasn't what Max was expecting him to ask, ask in a voice of a defeated person.

"What?" She asked obviously caught off guard.

"Why did you date me and let me fall in love with you? Just tell me and I'll leave you and Cale alone, I won't bother you anymore." Alec pleaded her.

"I--I was angry," Max felt her self shaking from the events just happening and remembering the past events.

"At what? Me?"

"Yes," she whispered.

"Why?"

"Because Ben told me about you, your parents, Manticore, everything. I felt angry for him. I…"

"What?"

"He told me about when he left Manticore, how everyone was against him," this made that boiling feeling come back at these words. Max had punished him for something he hadn't done! Setting his jaw and letting his eyes grow cold, Max saw this and stopped.

"Punished him? Punished him! My parents and I supported him!" Max took a cautious step back at the rage that filled his words, "obviously my dear brother didn't tell you anything about his time at Manticore. 5 years ago Benny boy was to take the entrance exams to become an official solider of Manticore. Part of that exam is a physical and psychological evaluation. Ben didn't pass, he suffered from depression, always had but never was officially diagnosed."

Walking slowly towards Max with an air around him that screamed rage, Max took another step back. "You see to be a field officer he can't have any setbacks that might be a danger to Manticore or the mission. Suffering from depression makes you dependent on drugs; drugs that might not be available to you at some point. So when he found this out he went into a sudden rage and hate campaign against Manticore. But wanna know what the final tick was? My dad pulled some strings within the network and got him a job at Manticore, mission control and plan. Instead of taking the job with a grateful smile, he stormed out of our family home and lives." By now Alec was standing in front of her, or more like towering over her. "Guess Benny wasn't really as innocent as you thought huh," he sneered. Max didn't say anything just stared at him with a blank expression.

"After he left I let him cool down for a few days and then tried to talk to him, to sum up what he said he said fuck off and that he wanted nothing to do with me or our parents. That was last I talked to him because after that he would ignore my calls and messages, even left the state and moved clear cross country."

"Gee can't imagine how that felt. Getting your phone calls and messages ignored while the person you're trying to talk to moves, clear across country or ocean," Max bit back acidly. Now it was Alec's turn to be caught off guard, "poor Alec, saved his brother and got burned by him too. And then ironically he does exactly what he accuses his brother doing to the woman he claims to love."

"I didn't know that you were formally my brother's fuck buddy."

"Sure you did, what about those pictures you found? Let me guess I'm wearing a blonde curly wig with little white undies? Yep those would be the only pictures Ben had of me. Tell me Alec, why didn't you ever tell me you knew about Ben and I. I mean come on you had to think there was something there." Max was now walking towards him while he took steps back, this person in front of him was no longer a meek pregnant woman with skeletons in her closet. No, she was now a very pissed off pregnant woman who he made the mistake of cornering. She looked like a cornered and very pissed off cat, pregnant cat. It was not a good combination at all.

"Truthfully, at first I thought that but then when there was no sign of you ever existing in his stuff except for those pictures. So I figured you must've been some girl he met and got to let him take photos of you. But instead when I was ready to ask you to marry me you tell me that instead you weren't that, you were everything more to him." Alec bit back. Max laughed a sarcastic laugh at this, it infuriated him to no end when she did this. It was mockingly.

"Well now you know, everything. You knew someone completely different than I did, and yes we use to fuck all the damn time. But you know what, one thing Ben has over you, he never called me a fucking slut, ever." With that Max walked passed him and left the room and hotel all together. That had not been what he wanted to happen when he had brought her to room to talk. Sinking to the bed he leaned his elbows on his knees and covered his face in frustration. Letting out a long sigh he ran his fingers through his tousled hair and clenched it into his fists. Frustration was just the tip of what he was feeling.

Knock, knock, knock