Part Two: Confusion
(A missing scene from The Berrisford Agenda, taking place soon after the scene where Max observes Alec crying at Rachel's beside.)

Max hovers uncertainly in the doorway, eyes fixed on the figure huddled tightly into itself in the bed across the room.

His steady breathing tells her he's finally asleep, exhaustion from the events and emotions of the previous few days overcoming even his enhanced transgenic body.

Max feels a little like the floor beneath her feet has been ripped away, leaving her unsettled and confused.

In a bleak and uncertain world, there are some givens that help ground her life. Her love and respect for Logan. Her solid friendship with OC. And the fact that Alec is an uncaring, arrogant and self-centered rogue.

That final fact has just suffered a major setback.

Max barely recognized the smug, cocksure X5 in the broken man sobbing at the dark-haired girl's bedside just a few hours earlier. She hasn't yet pieced together the whole story, and Alec has volunteered nothing, but she guesses the girl, Rachel, is Robert Berrisford's daughter. Max is sure now that she and Logan were wrong to assume that Alec had gone to the mansion to kill Berrisford and save his own skin.

He went there to find Rachel.

It doesn't take much imagination to work out that she was a casualty of Alec's original Manticore directive to take out Berrisford two years before. Or that Alec clearly feels responsible for putting her in that hospital bed. Max keeps replaying his words as his captor worked up the guts to fire. "What are you waiting for? I deserve it. Kill me." Then his anguished cry, "Do it!" She believes he truly wanted Berrisford to pull the trigger, to deliver the ultimate punishment he thinks he deserves.

Alec is in love with Rachel, there is no doubt of that. Max remembers standing in the doorway of her room watching in shock as he knelt at her bedside, pouring out his grief and pain. He'd thought he was alone, and Max retreated hurriedly, knowing that he wouldn't want her there and feeling uncomfortable witnessing his vulnerability.

The idea that Alec, of all people, was capable of such depths of emotion was unsettling. She thought she had him pegged. Taking him at face value, accepting him as cocky and self-serving and nothing more, was as easy as breathing.

Now, she has no choice but to accept that part of his persona is nothing more than a mask to hide the confusion and pain inside.

Joshua knows this already. She remembers their talk over Joshua's painting of Alec and her surprise at the way Joshua described him. "Outside, lots of pretty colors. Tricks and treats. Inside, darkness. Confusion."

She never saw that before, not until today, and Alec's words at Crash make terrible sense now. "You did what you had to do. Then you tried to forget. And when you couldn't forget, they had ways of making you not care." Manticore sent him on a mission to kill Robert Berrisford, but during the course of it, he fell in love with his target's daughter and failed his assignment. This wasn't the act of a good, obedient soldier. It would have resulted in punishment; torture possibly, re-indoctrination definitely. She realizes that she really has no idea what Alec's life was like at Manticore during the time she's been outside. She's never cared enough to ask.

She leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, and decides that she should just leave. It isn't as if he wants her here or asked her to stay. Then she notices his breathing change, and he begins to toss and turn. She frowns, wondering if she should wake him but reluctant to because she has no idea how to deal with a distressed Alec.

Max had returned to Rachel's room to find him still in the same position, on his knees beside the bed, head bowed, one of her hands clutched tightly in his. She didn't want to disturb him, but she knew they had to make their escape before Berrisford or one of his men came to and sounded the alarm. Grasping his arm, she said his name, and after a moment he looked up at her with confused, tear-reddened eyes. She calmly and quietly explained that they had to leave. He stared at her blankly, and she wondered if she was going to have to knock him out and carry him, but then he nodded. Turning back to Rachel, he leaned over and kissed her softly on the cheek, and then allowed Max to lead him away.

He didn't speak during the time it took for them to jog back to her bike and ride back to his apartment. And he didn't protest when she followed him in and firmly guided him to the bedroom. It was almost like he was unaware of her presence. Probably in some kind of shock. After making him lay down on the bed, she eased his boots off and pulled the blankets up around him. He turned on his side, curling up in an almost fetal position, and she left the room, wanting to give him some space.

She made herself a cup of coffee and sat for a while on the sofa, thinking over the events of the past few days, trying to make sense of it all. Her acute hearing picked up sounds from the bedroom, and the change in his breathing told her the moment he finally fell asleep.

Now, his restless movements increase, and he mutters, "Rachel … I didn't know." Then he cries out, "No! Please … Rachel!"

A moment later, he sits bolt upright. He's shaking a little and breathing heavily, and she almost recoils from the raw emotion in those hazel-green eyes. She takes a few tentative steps towards him.

"Alec? You okay? You were having a nightmare."

He looks at her silently for a moment as his breathing slows and the immediacy of the nightmare fades. She watches as he pulls himself together and slips the mask back into place.

"I'm fine," he says finally. "Why are you still here?"

She shrugs. "Just checking you're all right before I take off."

"I told you, I'm fine. You can go."

She hesitates. "Alec… I…"

"Just go, Max. I told you before. I don't need your sympathy."

His voice is cold but she can see the emotion still raging in his eyes. She wonders if she should stay and try to get him to talk about what happened. Bitter experience has taught her it doesn't help to cut yourself off and hide behind a mask because you think that's the only way to keep it together.

But when he turns onto his side away from her, it's a clear signal that her absence is required, just like the last time she offered her help. She feels a mixture of relief and regret and wonders where the regret comes from.

Without another word she slips out and closes the door quietly behind her.