A/N: Finally! This chapter took me forever to write- not because I was having a lot of trouble writing it, but as usual, because the real world is interrupting my hobby! Damnit! Every time I get back into the fanfic mood, something comes along to mess it up. I really hope it's not going to continue like this after I leave uni. I don't want to go out into the real world! Sad, I know.
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Chapter 5: I Had To
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Normal: Well, well, well… so far, your moron colleagues have come up with the following excuses for why you're strolling in here at the crack of noon- you had a dental emergency, your aunt died… again, and my personal favourite from this idiot- you were detained by the sector police for practicing witchcraft. Now, would you care to further insult my intelligence?
Max: I overslept.
-Max and Normal (Flushed)
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'And there's a pain in my stomach
From another sleepless binge
And I struggle to get myself up again
I want to hang onto something
That won't break away or fall apart
Like the pieces of my heart
-Something Corporate (Globes And Maps)
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When Erin woke up, she wasn't warm like she usually was. There were no arms around her and no steady heartbeat beneath her ear.
Her first thought was, What the hell hit me! A bus! Pain screamed from every limb, from most of her muscles, and most definitely from her head. It felt like it was ready to explode or fall off. The second thing Erin thought was, Oh shit! as memories assaulted her and she remembered the day before, (Was it day? How long had she been out?) She was a killer. She had some kind of monster inside of her, everyone knew she'd been lying about her origins and the fact that she could speak. She'd hurt Alec. She'd left TC intent on ending it all, an attempt that had failed- something she didn't yet know how to feel about. What's worse, she'd cried on Zack's shoulder. She hadn't cried in years! YEARS! What the hell was happening to her? She'd even allowed him to bring her back, she had faced most of Terminal City and she had asked them to kill her. Crap was a very poorly suited word for her feelings right then, but it was the best she could do before she had fully woken up.
Slowly, she sat up, biting back a groan as her whole body made it's feelings known about moving. She felt like she hadn't slept for a week.
It was the total dullness of senses that struck her most about her condition, right after the amount of pain she was in of course. The fact was, the loss of increased smells and hearing felt beyond strange. In one way, it felt like she'd had something turned off, like her body knew that she should be hearing and smelling more than this. On the other hand, it felt good to Erin, it felt normal. Her body wasn't taking in so much information at once.
Leaning back against a column that Alec had positioned his mattress in front of, Erin quickly gave herself a systems check. Besides feeling like every limb was made of lead, and that proper movement would be a very painful prospect, everything seemed in working order. It was then that she opened eyes that seemed intent on remaining sealed shut. There was a very good reason for that, it turned out.
Light that felt like piercing knives hit her eyeballs, forcing a choked groan of pain from Erin's throat, and making her eyes to snap shut against the offending light. Reaching out, her hands frantically searched for something until they gripped a familiar object in relief.
The dark mirrored sunglasses were slid on and eyes were once again, cautiously opened. She sighed in relief.
The pain was still there, though the glasses muted the lights effect somewhat, reducing the pain to headache proportions instead of a migraine. Much better. Erin could function with this.
Slowly, she swung her legs around, bare feet touched cold concrete and it was then that she realized she'd been changed into the t-shirt that she'd taken to sleep in- it was the same t-shirt Alec had given her so long ago and she'd slept in it ever since. She sighed and closed her eyes briefly, this would be as close to Alec as she'd get from now on. It seemed that if she were to stay, she'd be back on the battered couch again. God, she'd fucked up!
Gritting her teeth and attempting to force all thoughts from her head, she went about looking for her clothes. Her old bag was at the end of the mattress and she quickly went through it, pulling out a pair of jeans and a white tank top. It was then that Dalton and Sketchy walked in.
Erin froze, looking up at their closed off faces for a moment before swallowing and looking down at the clothes her hands still gripped. She was about to drop them and start signing to Dalton when she remembered she didn't have to and she swore internally. "Who got me changed?" Her voice came out rough and she winced.
"Alec," Dalton's reply seemed loaded with emotion simply because his voice held a lack of it.
Erin felt her eyes begin to burn as she nodded, then clutched her head as she remembered what a bad idea it was to move at all. Alec. God, what had she done?
She felt her face close off as a voice in her head simply said 'survive.'
Shuffling, she moved to the edge of the mattress and attempted to stand up, only to stagger and nearly fall if it weren't for Sketchy's grip on her arm. Opening her mouth to thank him, she looked up to see his face. Though he could hide his emotions too, he couldn't do it nearly as well as everyone else in TC and it was because of this that Erin saw the hurt.
She sighed and looked down again. "Give me a minute to get changed- then we'll need to talk."
Nodding once, the two guys left the cubicle to give her some privacy.
About 10 pain-filled minutes later, Erin emerged from the cubicle fully dressed in her jeans, white tank top and trainers, her hair had been brushed back into a small ponytail and her face scrubbed clean with the bowl of clean water that had been left beside the bed.
Her steps were measured and careful as she walked slowly towards the ever present battered couch that the guys were sitting on, silently watching her approach.
"Okay," she moved to drop down on the free end of the couch, only to have Sketchy and Dalton get to their feet and move away. A flash of hurt made Erin want to crawl into a corner and cry but she kept her feelings hidden, "Start yelling."
"We're not going to yell at you," Dalton told her emotionlessly, his eyes blank as he met her gaze.
Erin collapsed backwards, feeling so alone. But then, she was nearly always alone. Alone in this world of transgenics and breeding cults. Alone at home when she was in a crowded room full of people she knew. Alone in every way that mattered, even when she was with friends.
"So this is how it's going to be, huh?" Erin looked between the two guys, "We gonna sit like this and be all awkward?"
She got no response other than both of them turning their eyes away from her.
"Well fuck that!" Her rough voice had them staring at her in surprise. She'd leant forward, her anger evident as she looked between them, elbows resting on her knees.
"You guys hate me. I understand why, but you have to understand that I didn't want to hurt anybody. I wanted to tell you guys SO much, but how can you tell someone that you're from a different world?" She raised both eyebrows questioningly. "I was hoping to some how find a way to break it to you guys soon. You know, in a way that wouldn't have you locking me up in a cell with Logan. The no talking thing I explained earlier- it was for my protection. As for the… as for the killer in me," her voice cut off and it was Erin's turn to look away. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, determined to get things right between them. "As for this thing in me, well, I never knew it was there."
She looked up when both Dalton and Sketchy sat back down, a show of trust. They sat in silence for a moment.
"Promise you'll trust us next time?" Dalton looked confused for a moment, "I'm still new at this friendship stuff but I think trust needs to be shared."
Erin blinked.
Sketchy was nodding "Got that right! We may not be girls who have all that girly- type bond you women seem to have, but we're here. And we're your friends."
A slow smile spread itself across Erin's face, "You are?"
"We are," agreed Dalton, "but no more hiding. Deal?"
Both he and Sketchy held out their fists.
"Deal," Erin bumped her fists with them, feeling as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, if only a small one.
Her smile faded as she looked between them as they looked at her, "What?"
"It's so weird to hear you talk," Dalton shrugged, "You don't sound like I'd thought you'd sound." Sketchy was nodding in agreement.
"And how did you think I'd sound? Posh?" Erin felt a smirk creeping across her face as she leant back again slowly, her muscles loosening up only a fraction.
"I don't know," Dalton shrugged, "I guess."
"Can you imagine me with a posh accent calling everyone dude all the time?" she snorted in reply, "I think not. And contrary to a lot of peoples opinions, British people do swear, do use the word dude and have lots of different accents. Mine's kinda weird as I was from the South but moved further up North later so I kinda have a bit of both in me."
"Huh," was the only reply she got from Sketchy as Dalton listened to her with a look of interest in his face.
"Moving on," Erin looked around her, seeing if she could see anyone else on the upper level, "What happened after I passed out? Where is everyone?"
"Logan's been locked up in one of the freezers. They're now being officially used as cells." Dalton grinned.
"Why? What did the Ferret do now?" Erin frowned slightly, wondering what trouble he'd been causing the transgenics. Hoping it wasn't anything serious.
"When you started to change back he took off your shades to see your eyes. He thinks you're going to kill us all in our beds," Sketchy's smile disappeared as Erin became even paler.
She swallowed, "Is that what everyone thinks? That I'm going to kill you all?"
"No, at least, no one you know," Just then, Sketchy realized just how fragile Erin was at that moment. She'd jumped off the Needle when she'd felt betrayed by everyone. She'd told Max to give the order to shoot her. The typical confident girl he'd become close friends with was nowhere to be seen and in her place was someone very afraid of what everyone thought about her, afraid of her own self. "Krit, Zane and Mole stood up for you- both Krit and Zane got physical about it and Mole had Logan locked up while he was unconscious." He watched the colour return to her face slightly as he mentioned the transgenics names.
"Really?" Erin sat back again, "How'd Max take that?"
"Don't know if she's been told yet, she was unconscious too." Immediately, Sketchy winced as he realized what effect his words would have. And he wasn't wrong.
Erin stood up abruptly, her eyes widening, her mouth opening and closing a few times before she managed to get the words out. "I hurt Max?"
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When Max woke up, she was warm and in no mood to move. Hazily, she wondered why she was asleep. She only needed a couple of hours a night and, unlike her feline relatives, she didn't enjoy staying in bed all day- unless she was in heat of course. Wrinkling her nose, she pushed back the fog in her brain, her enhanced senses forcing the cotton wool like feeling away, taking in her current condition much slower than usual. She was in a bed, a very nice warm bed. Her body. She frowned and shifted slightly. Her body hurt. Though right at that moment, she couldn't remember why.
At that moment, she just couldn't seem to care, too tired to think too much, she snuggled into her nice smelling warm pillow. The pillow shifted. Pillows did not move. Come to think of it, it had been rising up and down steadily since she'd woken up, which was… weird. And the smell…it smelt familiar- like… like safety and… and home. Leather and big cat, gun oil and male. Max forced her eyes to open. She blinked a couple of times. In front of her was an arm. It was a very nice arm actually- muscled and tanned the way she liked them. Max shifted slightly, unable to stop herself from snuggling further into the warm chest beneath her ear. She blinked again. She was laying on top of someone. She was laying on top of someone MALE. An arm on her other side moved and wrapped itself around her waist, a large hand spread out across her stomach. Her bare stomach.
Her heart beating rapidly in her chest, Max slowly shifted her head and looked up into the sleeping face of her human pillow. Zack.
"Shit!" Max sat bolt upright and promptly fell off the side of the bed in a tangled heap of blankets.
Swearing loudly and trying to untangle herself from the blankets, Max froze when she heard a soft chuckling above her.
"Graceful Maxie, real graceful." Zack peered over the edge of the bed with a huge grin on his face as he took in her state. Was she actually blushing? His grin grew even more.
"Shut the hell up!" Ah, his Maxie was always the eloquent one.
They were in one of the smaller rooms off the main corridor that led to the infirmary and Jondy had had a lot of work done to the place. It was one of the things that had first been done when Max and Alec had taken over TC, and Jondy had improved on it. There were several of these rooms, including a much larger room that acted as a ward, an office for Jondy, an office for her SIC, an operating theatre (they had yet to equip it with anything other than the basics), and what everyone had dubbed as 'The Baby Room' where several pregnant females had already given birth successfully, thanks to Jondy's help.
"Now is that the way to treat someone who had to carry you all the way here from the bar?"
"The bar is what? 4, 5 blocks away? So sorry, did it damage you in any way? I know how fragile you must be feeling in your old age," Max growled as she managed to get untangled from the sheets and stand up.
"Yeah, well, you aren't as light as you look," Zack shot back as he reclined on the bed with his arms folded behind his head.
Max simply growled under her breath as she took in her appearance. She wasn't naked. Good. Very good. She was wearing a white strappy tank top that had obviously ridden up to show her stomach at one point, and a pair of blue boxer shorts.
"How long have I been out?" She looked up to see Zack watching her with a small smile on his face. She cursed the stupid jittery feeling in her stomach and turned away, looking her self over for any injuries. Despite the ones she was still recovering from thanks to White, there was nothing new- not even a headache. Though, as she thought back to what happened, she'd most definitely rather have a headache than those images and feelings that she still felt as her enhanced memory helpfully replayed them again.
"Seven hours," Zack continued to watch her.
Max's head shot up as her eyes widened, "Shit!"
Zack sat up abruptly as she began to move around, grabbing her clothes from a chair.
"What? What's the panic?" he frowned as she slipped on a black t-shirt over the tank top before grabbing her jeans.
"Do you have any idea how much work I'll have after seven hours? How much will have piled up? I was behind as it was! And then there's Erin!" Max stopped abruptly and spun to face him. "What about Erin? How is she? Is she okay? Is she hurt? Where is she?"
"Calm down," Zack gently took hold of her arm and guided her down onto the bed again while he sat up more, swinging his feet to the floor. "Erin stopped shaking as soon as we got you two pried apart. Alec took her back to their room and has had someone watching over her ever since. I'm sure if anything had changed, we'd know about it." Zack stared into her worried eyes and smiled gently, brushing a piece of her hair behind her ear, "And as for your work- I'm sure if Alec hasn't dealt with it then it'll be fine there until you get better."
He held up a hand when Max opened her mouth, "And you're NOT doing any work until I decide you are, understood?" He put on the CO face that Max had been used to back when they were kids. It meant that no matter what, she wouldn't get her own way, even if it meant tying her down to the bed.
Max flushed at the thought of the blonde transgenic doing such a thing and her thoughts rapidly went downhill from there. "I, uh," she cleared her throat as her voice decided to betray her, "I was wondering…" Max's brain kicked in again and her attitude returned, "What the hell are you doing in my bed? And how the hell did I end up on top of you?"
Zack smirked as he looked into her eyes and Max realized how close they were sitting. His thigh rested against hers, his arm and shoulder brushing hers. Max felt her brain become fuzzy again as she stared into his eyes. Crap! She looked away and ended up noticing her jeans still in her hands. She stood up and went about sliding them slowly on, gritting her teeth when her injuries reminded her of their presence.
"Do you need any help?" Was Zack's voice deeper than usual?
The pain helped Max to concentrate, "Don't avoid the question."
"Well," Zack drew out the word as he stretched, "I was tired. Jondy wanted me to go get some sleep but there was no way in hell I was leaving you so I simply decided that I might as well share the bed."
Max blinked, "Uhuh. And how did I end up on top of you?"
"Ah, now that's your fault," Zack grinned triumphantly at her, "You obviously liked sleeping with me 'cos the next thing I know, you're curled up on my chest. Not that I'm complaining" He smirked as Max felt her face begin to turn red from embarrassment.
"It was obviously some part of my feline DNA," Max continued to feel her face burn deep red, "or maybe it's some kind of pack instinct- ya know, when we're injured."
Zack just continued to look at her and Max found herself becoming more and more flustered. "Stop looking at me like that!"
Zack ignored her, watching as she began to fidget under his stare.
"Stop it!" Zack simply smiled as the leader of Terminal City watched him like she was cornered.
"Hey," Alec stood in the doorway, looking like he'd rather be elsewhere than interrupting what could only be described as obvious flirting.
"What's wrong?" Max on the other hand was entirely grateful, moving quickly over to the doorway. A strange contrast to when they first knew each other, though it may be, but Max had softened up a lot in favour of the other transgenic.
"I need to talk to you," Alec looked over her shoulder to look at Zack, "Alone."
Understanding what it was about, Zack stood up and left, heading out into the corridor and moving around the corner. He wouldn't eavesdrop on their conversation. He knew that some things between Max and Alec would always remain simply between them. They were friends and friends tended to discuss things that others had no part of. Especially if they were going to discuss one of their respective others.
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Alec stepped into the room and closed the door softly behind him, not meeting Max's eyes as he walked straight over to the window opposite the door.
"Alec?" Max asked quietly, not sure how to approach him as he stared mutely out at the window at the barely occupied street outside.
Alec simply nodded in response, folding his arms across his chest and leaning against the wall as he continued to look out the window.
"Are you alright?" Max continued to keep her voice level and calm. There was something dangerous about Alec right then, something that just screamed to her that he was more than ready to lash out. Slowly, Max sank back down on the bed, holding her ribs as they protested painfully.
"You know me, Maxie, I'm always alright." The resentment in Alec's voice was loud and clear as he pushed away from the wall and started to pace at the end of her bed, looking at the floor.
"That's bull and you know it," Max bit out now, the pain and tiredness not wanting her to be calm at that moment. Her knowledge of her friend allowed her leeway. He wouldn't hurt her, yell at her maybe, but never physically hurt her. She could be just as dangerous as him if she wanted to. "Stop pacing you're making me dizzy," Max ordered, knowing that her voluntarily revealing anything wrong with her would make him pause. She didn't like telling people about her injuries whenever they occurred and he knew it.
With a sound that sounded suspiciously like a growl, Alec threw himself into the chair beside her bed, "I think I'm following in brother Ben's footsteps." Even his voice was harsh with anger, "I'm going insane."
Max settled back into her pillows and hid a smile as Alec was suddenly there adjusting them for her to get her comfortable. "No, you're not."
"Prove it," Alec ordered after he'd threw himself back into the chair.
Max held up her hand and began to count off her fingers, "You're not performing amateur dental surgery. You're not hunting and killing people. You're not spray painting 'mission', 'duty' and 'discipline' on the walls and you're not obsessing over the Blue Lady."
Alec quirked an eyebrow at her, "I still feel like I should kill someone."
"I'm guessing you're angry at yourself more than Erin," Max forced herself to say the girl's name despite knowing it would hurt him.
Alec flinched and ground out, "I feel betrayed." Neither he nor Max, nor anyone in Terminal City really liked to discuss their feelings and this was a new thing for them.
"We all do," Max shrugged and hissed in pain at the movement. "I'm sure she does too." Alec frowned but she continued, "She held things back because she felt she had to. And we, well, the others all treated her like the enemy after she fought for us."
"And then she…" Alec swallowed and suddenly the anger left him and his shoulders slumped. His head bowed and Max wondered if he was holding back tears.
"I know," Max replied softly, "I sent Mole and Zack to stop her- I saw it in a dream. I guess I was too late." Not it was Max's time to swallow as she looked down at her hands.
"You couldn't help that," a large tanned hand took hold of one of hers and gripped it tightly, "I don't think any of us could help that."
Max looked up into his steady eyes and knew her own were filled with tears. "We all knew there was something different about her. I guess now we know what it is."
Alec chuckled dryly and let go of her hand, "I get the feeling there's more to come."
"Oh, I know there is." Max swallowed again and blinked back her tears, "When I touched her that last time…"
Alec stood up again to look out the window once more, his shoulders once again tense. "What did you see?"
"It was…confusing," Max forced her eyes to remain on him as she remembered, "There was blood." Her voice cracked, "So much blood. And pain, God, the pain was like what they put us through. Legs breaking, screaming. And some," Max shook her head, trying to get rid of the sounds and images replaying, "some horrible laughter. Children's voices. Darkness. Broken fingers and ribs." Max began to shake as she remembered perfectly. "So young," she whispered, "So young… there was talking, they were taunting her and beating her, kicking her, cutting into her and they wouldn't stop." In his reflection in the window, Alec's face had melted into his soldier's mask but she could tell he was angry. So angry. But she continued, "She was protecting someone, I'm sure of that, a, a boy I think. And there were gunshots."
Max stopped and realized that she was silently crying, "It was real, wasn't it?"
Alec didn't answer, just turned to face her slowly, carefully, "What you saw, you can't repeat to anyone."
Max was confused, "But-" She didn't get to finish.
"Don't tell the others about what you saw, Max," Alec waited for her to nod, "Erin wouldn't appreciate them knowing what she went through."
"Alec, why am I seeing these things?" She wiped the tears from her cheeks and sniffed.
"I don't know," he sighed and made his way to the door, "I don't know." And then he was gone.
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Max was going to be okay. That was good. Zack leant back against the wall near the exit to the infirmary. Her ribs were already mending. The black eye was almost gone. An Ordinary would probably be in a really bad condition with what she'd gone through. If there was one thing that Zack had ever been grateful for, it was enhanced healing. The only decent thing that Manticore had done right. His Maxie was going to be okay. He allowed himself a relieved smile. The fire was still there going strong in her eyes. They hadn't broken her. No one could ever break her. She was the strongest of them all. He knew that, and he loved her for it.
He'd make his move soon, when she was 100 again. He had to make her his before another thing happened. He had to know she was his and no one else's. Yes, he'd make his move soon, when the moment was right.
The smile slid from his face. But there was something else he had to do first. He had to make things right with Erin. Max wouldn't stop until everything was alright with her, and neither would he.
Zack knew that Erin was in a bad place right now. Every transgenic ever created had been to that bad place several times before. Not knowing whether they were good or evil. Not knowing if what they had done was right. But they had had Manticore to tell them it was right. They had had brainwashing to tell them it was right. In a way they'd been lucky- Manticore could and had made them no longer care. They had orders to complete and so long as they carried them out, they were doing what they were made to do. They were doing what their commanding officers were wanting them to do. That was all there was to it. That was all their lives were about- following orders. But Erin…
Erin was human- had always been human. She had family and friends and she'd lived on the outside her whole life. She wasn't created to follow orders. She was born normal, or at least that's what most believed. Only now… now, Erin wasn't human- or didn't appear to be. She had abilities that they'd never seen. She'd killed, she'd hunted. She'd faced people she'd thought of as friends and had them turn their backs on her. She'd tried to end her life. Zack closed his eyes at that. He'd seen a lot of things in his life. He'd seen death, he'd seen anger, betrayal, love, despair. But the look on Ewok's face… She'd already tried to end her life before they'd even got there. Zack felt his stomach drop as he thought about what he'd seen, what he'd witnessed back at the space needle would haunt him as much as any Manticore inflicted nightmare. Erin had simply given up. He'd been too late and if it weren't for the very changes that they'd turned their backs on her, well, she'd be dead. She'd be so very dead. Zack gritted his teeth and opened his eyes, hearing Alec leave Max's room, he straightened and wiped his face of any emotion. If it hit him this bad, he could barely imagine what Alec was going through.
Alec walked passed him, nodding his head once before pushing open the door and leaving Zack alone in the corridor with his thoughts. Erin wouldn't be alone. She'd saved them all. She may have gone about everything in the wrong way but she'd still protected them, fought for them, killed for them. She was one of them as far as he was concerned. And no matter what, so long as he was around, Erin wouldn't be alone like that ever again.
Moving down the corridor to Max's room, Zack knew that Max had been right about Erin. His Maxie had made the right decision by bringing her back and trusting her. He just knew that Erin wouldn't turn on them. Now, all he had to do was convince the others of her innocence.
He heard the door open behind him and he turned to see his family enter, all wearing smiles and happy faces. Their sister was awake and okay. Now, all he had to do was make sure his other one was fine too. Zack smiled a distracted smile at them in greeting as he continued on his way to Max's room.
And as Zack sat there beside Max's bed surrounded by his family with their feelings of relief, comfort, happiness and love, he wondered how Erin was and if she were surrounded by some of her other friends.
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Up on the roof of the garage, Erin looked up at the space needle as she sat on the wall… alone.
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He was in the apartment that Erin had a habit of visiting. He was torturing himself by being here but he couldn't help himself. When he wasn't thinking about TC, she was all he could think about- like an addiction. Yet this addiction was killing him inside. She no longer made him feel good- only angry, frustrated, confused and desperate.
She had lied to him, lied to all of them. All this time, when they were sleeping together, talking to each other, she was lying to him. She could talk. That was one of the things that hurt the most. How he'd longed to hear her voice- fantasized what it would sound like calling his name in the dark. He'd yearned to hear her laugh loud and clear to match her sweet smile. And she'd kept it from him. He'd unconsciously given her more of himself than he'd given anyone and she'd kept such a large part of herself hidden from him. She'd betrayed him. Alec paced the room like a caged animal. Someone had taken the time to clear the rubble and mess away so he forced himself to hold his fists at his sides instead of lashing out at the walls and creating more mess.
Oh, he knew that she didn't know about her changes, didn't know that she'd turn into a killing machine- because that was exactly what she was- a killer, or a vessel for one. He understood that. Hell, he understood her reasoning for not telling them she could speak. But it still hurt. It still felt like she'd cut into him with a knife and he hated it.
And the fact that she was from a different world? Well, he couldn't allow himself to think on that right now. He definitely understood why she didn't tell them about that. Hell, even now he was finding it difficult to even consider it the truth so he pushed that to the side. But the big thing- the thing that hurt and filled him with such anger the most was the way she was when she came back. Her words, her actions, the way she looked had seared itself into his brain.
"Max, will you listen to yourself? We're surrounded by over 100 transgenics who are just itching to shoot me, and you're asking me not to kill myself. C'mon, give them the order- it'll save us all some time."
Her voice when she had said that had caused a shiver to run down his spine. She had given up. Erin never gave up. But there she was, dripping water from her clothes, hair and fingertips, looking small yet oh so dangerous. Oh so unpredictable. She was a predator in a woman's skin, there was no mistaking that now. In this state to call her a girl would be stupid. It was obvious the way that her clothes clung to her body, drawing attention to the curves she tended to keep hidden. The curves that Alec knew like the back of his hand. Even then, seeing her like that had made the animal part of his stir. He knew that many of the other males there at that moment probably felt the same thing. That same dangerous attraction to the gorgeous predator in their midst. Erin was no longer hiding behind the mask of youth that she'd crafted for herself. She was no longer being the innocent Ordinary dragged into their world. But as quickly as he'd registered the stir of arousal, he'd focused on what she was saying, on what Zack and Mole had said. She'd tried to kill herself by jumping off of the space needle. He remembered the flash of movement he'd seen before when he was standing on the roof in the rain. His stomach clenched so tight he felt sick. He'd witnessed Erin jump without even realising it. She'd tried to KILL herself she was that far gone. She wanted to die. God, she wanted to die. At that moment in time, he'd had to fight everything inside of himself from growling and lashing out. He'd had to fight with his own instincts- one was telling him to go hunt down White in his cell and beat him until he begged for mercy. Another part of him wanted to yell at Erin "How dare you try to leave this world! How dare you try to leave me!" While the other part of him wanted to grab her and hold her tight, never letting her go, never letting her be alone again.
Instead, he'd remained silent, all of his training as a soldier needed to keep his face blank and his grip from breaking the bottle in his grasp. He didn't think anyone noticed when Josh had reached across and gently prised his grasp away from the cracking glass in his other hand.
Alec paused in his pacing, realizing that he'd put his fist through the wall. Damnit! This was what she did to him! She made him lose over 20 years of self control without even being in the room! Alec looked down at his hand and slowly removed it from the hole he'd created. There were other holes in the thin walls of this room. Some obviously made by kicking, some by fists. Erin had made them, he knew it was her. Her scent was still so strong here. He understood. This was her safe haven from everyone, from everything. This place was where she'd let her feelings out on the only object she could- the walls. Alec looked down at his bleeding knuckles, not really feeling the pain. How she made him feel! How she made him bleed! And God save him, he didn't want it to stop! And she wanted to leave. She wanted to die.
That very thought caused him to lash out again, his instincts reacting before his brain caught up and he was once again staring at his fist buried in the wall.
He began to pace again, faster this time, as his blood dripped from his knuckles, creating dark spots on the floor. He didn't notice. Didn't care. His mate, he knew that was what she was, he admitted that his more animalistic nature would consider her nothing else- his mate wanted to die. To die would be to leave him alone in this world again. To die would mean to revert back to what he was, to once more become nothing but the soldier he'd tried so hard to repress. For her to die would be for him to die too and he didn't want to admit that. He didn't want to admit how much she really meant to him. He couldn't handle that. He couldn't handle her leaving him right now, even if at the same time, he couldn't allow himself to be with her.
When he'd taken her back to their room and stripped her down to her underwear he had sat and stared at her solidly for several minutes, not allowing himself to touch her like he wanted to. Not allowing himself to pick her up and hold her to him. Not allowing himself to kiss her lips just to make sure that she was real, that she still drew breath. That she was alive and that she hadn't died out there in the rain. Instead, he'd dragged in a ragged breath and forced his hands to work efficiently, impersonally as he pulled the t-shirt he'd given her over her head before giving her one last look and leaving her for Sketchy and Dalton to watch over.
No, she had to stay. She had to live. She'd become such a part of his life in only a few months that he didn't want to think about what life would be like without her. He suddenly felt cold as he tried to imagine her gone. The image of her broken body beneath the space needle made his breathe whoosh out like he'd been hit in the stomach and a loud howl echoed around the room. It was only when he paused did he realise that that sound had come from him.
Why did she have to do this! Alec found himself with his back against the wall, his legs giving way as he slid down. Why did she have to get beneath his skin! Why did he have to let her!
As he knelt there, amongst the rubble and the blood his fists had wrought, his head back against the wall, he allowed himself to seethe. And to cry.
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A/N: Aww, poor Alec still not wanting to admit how much he cares about her. Men! Things are going to start focusing on outside TC soon and the Breeding Cult are going to come back into play. Sooo, tension all around then. Fun. Heh.
angelofdarkness78: Yep, Rugrats and Simpsons. I have REALLY weird dreams and they never make any sense whatsoever. Anyway, he's a little bit of M/Z for ya, and things are gonna start to speed up with them a bit more now.
ACharmedJedi: Soooo, you liked it then? Hehe. Logan's character bugs me- even when I'm writing him. I keep trying to think of serious things to include him in but he always ends up getting yelled at. I mean, in the series, he was all smart and serious. I can't write that no matter how much I try. I just can't. I'm even having problems just including him in the fic at all. Stupid ferret. Tension with Erin and Alec is going to continue for a while and even though she's made up with some people and everyone knows her reasoning for things, there's still going to be tension.