Chapter three: Reunited

National Guard HQ, 4pm

"Sir! We've found one." A soldier reported over the radio.

"A transgenic? Is it alive?" Nickolson, the CO, replied

"Just about, sir. Do you want it kept that way for interrogation?"

"Affirmative. Get the medics working on it right away. Is it X-series?"

"Yes, sir. Caucasian male, mid twenties to mid thirties, well built, from what I can tell. He's half buried under the rubble."

"Well dig him out. We need that transgenic to tell us where the rest are. If he dies, so do you."

"Yes, sir." Nickolson shut off the radio and picked up his cell phone.

"Fenas'stol. It's Nickolson. We've captured one alive. No, not 452, an unidentified male X-series. He's badly wounded, we'll need to airlift him to Highview for serious treatment before we can start with any interrogation. Can you send us a chopper ASAP? Good. Thanks, Thula. Fenas'stol."

The next time Alec came around, he was on a table in Logan's entrance building. Several transgenics he recognised as field medics surrounded him, and he felt strangely detached, so he assumed he was full of painkillers.

"Max… he managed to say. Where's Max?"

"I'm right here, Alec." She came into his field of vision, looking rather blurry to his eyes.

"Logan wanted me to carry messages…"

"It's ok. We can do this later, when you're feeling better."

"No. Now. I won't have the strength to tell you if I'm sober."

"All right. Give us a minute, guys?" The medics left. First, Alec explained about how he had been trapped in the tunnel when it collapsed, and then he stopped when he reached the part where he had found Logan.

"It's ok. Go on. I won't kick your ass, I promise."

"He was trapped under a girder. Even if he wasn't hurt, he couldn't have escaped. He said he'd been trying to pull the Sedro Island trick, to give us more time to escape."

"The Sedro Island trick?" Max smiled in spite of herself. "He hacked into their comms and pretended to be their CO, telling them to call off the attack. The last time he did that was when I was looking for Hannah on Sedro Island, not long after we met. Damn, he pissed Lydecker off that day…"

"He gave me something for you, something he wanted you to have…" Alec pulled the box from his pocket and gave it to Max. She opened it, and gasped.

"What is it?" He asked. In reply, Max withdrew a beautiful gold locket on a chain.

"It belonged to his mother… it meant a lot to him." She slipped the chain over her head. Somehow it felt right to her to wear it.

"He asked me to tell you that he loved you, and he didn't blame you. That he didn't want you to grieve too long. I told him you lied about us being together, and he said he understood. And then he asked me to do the hardest thing I can imagine." Alec took a deep breath. "He asked me to kill him, like Ben did to you."

"He asked you to…"

"Yes. But I'm not as brave as you, Max. I couldn't do it. His last request, after he saved us all, and I couldn't kill my brother. I knocked him cold, like a coward, and left him there to die alone and in pain. I'm sorry, Max, I'm so sorry…" Alec's tears overcame him. Max hugged him carefully, tears of her own for her dead love streaming down her face.

"I know what you had to do now, Max. I know how hard it was, how you felt so guilty for even thinking you could hurt him. Logan was becoming my brother, and then today he saved us all… I told him he'd always be a brother to transgenics, I understand how you feel about Ben. I just… I'm weak. I left him to die alone and now I feel so guilty… I'm so sorry, Max, sorry…"

The two X5's just embraced a while longer, their tears mingling as they embraced. Brother and sister, reunited in their shared pain.

Max left Alec when he lost consciousness again. She gazed emotionless at her brother, still totally numb from the pain of losing Logan. Without conscious thought, she found herself on the roof of the building. Jondy was waiting there for her.

"Hey, Max, the blonde X5 said, uncertainly.

"Go away, Jondy. I can't be pleased to see you, not today, said Max, flatly.

"I don't expect you to be. I heard about what happened."

"You don't understand. You can't." Max's voice became angry. "Renfro had it right all along. I do kill everyone I love. Ben, Tinga, Zack… and now Logan. Stay away, before I get you killed too."

"No. My sister needs me, like she did last time I saw her, the night of the escape. I abandoned you then, Maxie, I won't make that mistake again."

"You did the right thing that night, Jondy. I wish I had drowned in that lake now, then I would never have met him, never have hurt him… any of them."

"Don't you dare talk like that, or sister or not I will kick your ass off this roof right now!" Max sat on the edge, hugging her knees, before she replied.

"Go ahead. I have nothing left to live for anyway. It was all for him. All of this, escaping Manticore again, burning it to the ground, fighting the familiars, trying to get transgenics accepted, all for Logan. All in the hope that someday we could be together, like we were meant to be. Looks like I had it right before I met him. Hope is for losers, a con job people use to avoid the cold hard truth…" her voice broke. Jondy sat down beside her sister and put her arm around her.

"Tell me about him."

"What's the point. You'll never meet him."

"Because you're right, I don't understand, and I need to, to help you get through this bitch."

"If you insist. What do you want to know?"

"Let's start with the basics. What did he look like?" For the first time in almost twelve years, Jondy saw her favourite sister smile.

"He was… beautiful. Six- two, worked out every day, great body. Kind of dark blondish spiky hair, always looked like he'd just got out of bed. The most amazing eyes I ever saw, bright blue, with I don't know, this kind of fire in them. Like he could burn you with a glance. He wore glasses, small wire rimmed ones, but they just made him look sexier than ever. He had the whole 'I don't care how I look' thing going on, usually forgot to shave, so he had a scruffy beard most days."

"Damn, girl! I'm starting to wish I'd seen him first. How did you meet?"

"Well, I was kinda short on cash one day…"

Jondy listened to the story of Max and Logan from the day they met to the present. It took more than three hours in the telling, and Max's voice was hoarse by the end. Jondy was stunned by the connection between them. She had never experienced a relationship that lasted longer than a heat episode, but her sister had found a man who could accept her and understand her, and now she had lost him. When the story was over, Jondy looked at Max.

"You are so lucky," she said, wonder and awe in her voice.

"Lucky?"

"You found love, with a man who you trusted with your life. I wish I had experienced that."

"I lost my love, Jondy. I killed my love. I never even told him I loved him. I put him in danger from the second we met."

"And so did he, remember? Being Eyes Only isn't exactly a safe profession."

"It was my fault he wound up in the chair. He hated that thing so much. He spent three months thinking I was dead, and then there was the virus. He still never gave up on us."

"And he never will. And wherever he is right now, he's looking down on you, keeping you safe. Logan's not gone, Max, not while you still love him."

"I know this sounds crazy, but… I can't believe he's dead. I don't believe it. I feel him, like he's looking over my shoulder."

"Maybe he is." The sisters smiled at each other, and as the sun rose, hope was born.

Sorry, this one's a bit short, and very sappy. Do you like the S1 references?

The sibling thing with Alec and Max is going to stay that way, any Max/Alec shippers should stop reading now and go delete all their blasphemous fanfic.