Show: Dark Angel
Rating:
Status: WIP
Genre: Drama/Romance
Pairing: M/A
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from anything, nor anything else
Summary: Even supersoldiers have limits. Max unknowingly pushes Alec to breaking point. The newly appointed leader of the Freaks finds he has some unexpected emotional issues to deal with. A story that came to me whilst listening to 'Passive' by A Perfect Circle. Please let me know what you think.
A/N: Sorry for the delayed update. I know, I hate it when I get into a story and then the author decides to become incommunicado. But I just got a swish new job so my writing has been put on the back burner a bit but hopefully that can all change now. So here it is…
Chapter 7: Insurgents
Max's hunch had been confirmed when Dix identified a number of unmarked cars all on course to Terminal City. A fact that quickly quelled moles interjections. They now had the element of surprise and the added advantage of being on home terrain.
As Alec walked up East Street, sliding a clip into his glock, he glanced around to make sure everyone was in place. His eyes flickered between roof tops checking for Cali's sniper unit. Then in the alleys, the doors ways and the windows his picked out signs of his frontline troops readying themselves for whatever might come through that far wall. With a breeding cult you never really knew. Alec smirked at the thought of Familiars being freakier than a band of escaped science experiments.
He looked at the only car parked on the street and adjusted its wing mirror before joining a small unit of close range fighters he had hand selected. Biggs tossed him a second handgun as he joined them round the side of a boarded up toyshop. Alec purposely chose transgenics whose strengths he knew intimately. Like the aptly named Speed a member of his original unit at Manticore, who was now crouched down strapping a gun to his leg. Others like Delta he got to know during away missions. Delta winked at him as she tied up her lusciously long red hair.
"We're all set." she said.
"Good work. And now we wait." Alec leaned up against the wall and tried to listen out for anything out of the ordinary. Anything out of the ordinary beyond the eerie silence that now hung over their Freak nation. Alec longed for the usual day-to-day bustle that the city seemed to be gaining as its residents became more comfortable with their adopted home. This dirty, broken place had infinitely more value than was evident in its crumbling exterior.
Alec looked round at the faces of his friends. They weren't just numbers anymore, they were his friends. As he studied their faces he saw the cool collected concentration he had always seen there before a mission but now there was something else, something more. There was a determination, a preparation of mind that you only get when you really believe in what you are doing; protecting their home, defending their identity, fighting for their future and their family.
Alec realised that it was that that made them strong; it was that which made them formidable. They had something to live for, not just something to do until they died.
His eyes narrowed as his sensitive hearing picked put the sound of footsteps and scuffling beyond the perimeter wall. His own determination grew and darkened his sharp green eyes.
They had arrived.
A moment later an explosion ripped a whole in the far wall the size of a pickup truck. From across the street Alec watched the dust clear through the reflection in the cars wing mirror. The first contingent of heavily armed infantry made their way into the street. Alec bided his time and waited for their curiosity to drive them further into the centre of the street. All the time they were scouring the area looking for what they probably still imagined would be unsuspecting if not unprepared transgenics to pick off. They still thought they had the advantage here.
Alec conveyed his orders through a quick succession of hand gestures before he walked calmly out into the street picking off three Familiars with three clean, precise shots. He was safely behind the old parked car before a single returning shot had been fired.
Soon the air was alive with the sounds and smells of battle...
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Max paced.
It had taken all her will power, and to be honest most of Joshua's, to keep her promise to Alec. Her blood boiled at every gunshot, her mind recalled with images of death and destruction at every explosion, and at each passing second the adrenaline coursing through her veins seemed to treble.
The tension lingered long after the last shot rang out.
It was against everything she had been taught in Manticore. It was against her instincts not to go into battle with her friend. Her ability to construe her actions as a defiance of Manticore helped her stay away, but it didn't help her stay calm.
It had been silent for a while. Was it over? Her eyes kept flicking over to the door. She knew Alec wanted her to stay away until someone came for her. But how could she. If they had lost surely she shouldn't wait for them to be discovered, and if they had won then she was safe and she could be of some help.
"Little fella stay here." Joshua said guessing her intensions.
"What if it's over Joshua?"
"Max." He said impeaching her.
"What if they need our help? ...I know Alec said to stay with you, so let's go together." Joshua didn't need much persuading now that everything had quietened down. He was just as anxious as she was but his loyalty to Alec had held him firm up until this point now he really just wanted to help. So with a small grunt they headed out towards the frontline using all the stealth their enhanced genetics would allow them. They had to be wary in case there were still Familiars within Terminal City's walls.
Eventually they started to come across wounded coming away from the battlefield being helped along by the unharmed. Max took comfort in the number of able bodies she saw and the air of relief they carried with them told her the day was theirs.
Her own briefly felt relief was broken as they broke though a half collapsed building into what had been the battle field. Max was saddened by how well she bore the scene before her. Only in having seen such things over and over in the past could anyone be so calm.
Just then a not entirely unharmed Speed moved into sight beside them carrying an unconscious and bloody Cece in his arms. It was hard to tell where she had been wounded as her blood seemed to mix with his.
"Max! Josh!" he called to them, "It's good to see you."
"Are you okay? Can we help?" She asked but Joshua had already moved in to take Cece from him. Speed immediately doubled over to catch his breath.
"Thanks." he wheezed.
"Are you hurt?" Max asked. Speed just shook his head though she knew he probably was. "Well get over to the infirmary and make sure Cece's alright."
Speed nodded and began to follow Joshua off down the street.
"Little fella find Alec." Joshua called after them. As if she needed an excuse.
She cleared the rest of the rubble and had a good look around. The walls up and down East Street were littered with bullet holes, some were crumbling and a couple had come down completely.
There were bodies in the street. A neat line was beginning to form to one side and there were a contingent of transgenics dealing with the bodies of the Familiars that were left behind. Max tried hard not to count them but her enhanced brain capacity had already made the calculations for her.
At the top end of the street she could see the whole in the perimeter fence already being patched up and she could just about see the police authorities on the other side, no doubt sent by Clemente to smooth things over.
That's where she expected to see Alec but he wasn't there. She checked the faces around her and though she saw a lot of people she was glad to see one was still obviously missing. She was now just as afraid of not seeing him as she had been of seeing him earlier that day.
Looking through a crowd she though she saw him crouched by someone. She moved quickly around them to get a better look almost stumbling over a medic in the process. When she got closer though she only found Dalton sat on the floor picking glass shards out of his leg as if they were olives off a pizza and not in fact embedded in his flesh.
He smiled as he saw her approaching and with a knowing smirk, a smirk he could only have gotten from one person, he indicated to the left with a nod of his head.
She looked up and sure enough there he was standing tall talking to two X6 girls his right hand resting over his left shoulder. His presence seemed to exude power and control only it seemed more forced than it had done earlier that day.
A smile bright and wide split her face as she made for him. She watched him carefully as she approached careful not to lose sight of him again. He waved the girls off and then headed down an alley away from the streets.
Max frowned and skipped quickly to be able to catch sight of him again. She peered round the corner and found not far inside leaning heavily against the wall. As she watched she realised that he wasn't rest his hand he was pressing against his left shoulder. He was breathing heavily. She watched him slight slowly to the floor trying to work through quite a lot of pain.
"Alec." She said revealing herself to him. She stayed where she was a moment fully expecting him to rip into her again. But as he glanced up at her he surprised her by smirking lightly.
"Hey," Encouraged and now quite over taken with concern for him, not that she showed it, she moved to his side.
"You alright?" She tried to peal his fingers away from his wound to assess it better.
"It's nothing." Max raised an eyebrow at him and continued to pry his hand away. As she did blood hot and sticky poured out darkening his shirt. Alec grit his teeth together.
"Oh yeah, you're just peachy." Max moved to his side to help him up. "Come on let's go get you patched up so that you can go back to pretending you're invincible." Both of them had fully expected him to produce some come back of some kind witty if not otherwise but he was preoccupied with other things.
Alec was silent as they walked back along East Street stopping every now and then to check on passers by. Max kept her eye on him the whole way to the infirmary, she knew him well enough to know when he was a lot worse than he let on.
The infirmary was full and resources were stretched so Max took him to her office where she had a kit put aside for emergencies.
"Sit." she commanded pulling chair into the middle of the room. Alec complied. He was quite and staring off distractedly. Max kept glancing at him as she prepared her implements.
"Take your shirt off." She commanded pulling a table into place next to him. He moved mechanically and made no response even when she straddled him to get better access to his wound. His mind wasn't in that room it was elsewhere judging by his dark unfocused eyes.
As she worked quickly and quietly neither saying a word. Thinking all the time about this rift that had grown up between them. Thinking whether he had really changed that much or that he'd always had this serious, thinking, commanding side to him. It scared her to think that he may well be all the things she had once told him he could never be.
Finishing up she let herself take him in fully, making no move to get off his lap. She followed the lines of stress on his face yet lifted by a shining determination and strength that she only wished she could match.
Without thought she brought her hand up to cup his cheek and leaned in to kiss him. Pulling away his eyes had refocused on her and it seemed like the first time he'd really looked at her in weeks.
"Huh," She said as if coming to an unexpected conclusion, "I think I like you like this all gawping and dumbfounded." she even dared a smile.
"Sorry to interrupt," Came a cough at the door as Cali came into view, "but we need one of you."
Max looked away as she got up. "You okay to finish?" Alec just nodded removing the hand which she hadn't noticed had moved around her waist.
Max and Cali left him to dress his now clean wound and walked out of the building before either of them spoke.
"So how long have you wanted to do that?" Cali asked when they were out of earshot.
"Do what?"
"Kiss Alec." Cali said smiling.
"I don't know what you're talking about." Max replied coolly.
"Yeah right."
A/N: Hmmm, I'm undecided. So this is where you come in. You like it? You hate it? Let me know. xxx