Love at Last Sight
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel; if I did I would have given fellow fans more.
A/N: I wasn't actually sure if I wanted to continue this, then I just got an idea. Now I am working with it. Thanks for the support guys!
Uncomforting Circumstances
Max toyed with the remote, having found nothing good on TV. She could hear Logan at the computer typing away, which came as no surprise. Despite the fact that TC was gone and the majority had been evoked and killed, he insisted on doing some good. She hated it. When he worked, so did she. It was a mutual consent that she didn't remember ever so stupidlysigning on to.
She stared at the clock, seconds ticking away. She wished that someone would grab a club and knock her out for the next day and a half, that way she could get it over with.
Aggravated by her train of thought she began tapping her foot on the coffee table. She hadn't really realized what she was doing until Logan came from around the corner and scowled at her, clearly bothered. The frown was similar to one he would've given his niece. "Max I'm trying to do some work here" he sniped. She had a deep unceremonious desire to jump up and tell him to go to hell, or to get over it, or something. Instead she obediently nodded and turned back to stare blankly at the TV. It took every ounce of control.
Original Cindy had told her to 'chill baby boo, it's just your pre-weddin' nerves, and it'll all be good after da big show.' It had just made her feel even jitterier. She had heard all sorts of awful stories about marriage; she had even first handedly witnessed a foster mother stuck with a stickler. That woman, well let's just say she was not a happy camper and their marriage, awful. They fought, she cried, he hit, he abused, she let him… since then she'd never felt comfortable with marriage notations.
To make matters any worse, it just didn't feel right. Nerves smerves, Max had nerves of steel. Marriage should have been a breeze, if only she loved him. It was starting to feel like she was stuck in one of those pre-pulse gut-wrenching soap operas. It was ridiculous. Pretty soon someone was bound to die, if her soap life kept its pace.
Somberly she jumped to her feet and headed to the kitchen, not like she had anything much better to do. It wasn't long before her head popped in the refrigerator and she began poking around at the many pans of pasta. Logan's way of making her happy.
"Max?" Logan called as she finished up with the leftover chicken she had found and reheated in the microwave. "Max? I need you to come here, we got something!" he called eagerly. She rolled her eyes 'we got something?' more like I got something. I got something to do, people to beat, Lucky me. Yet somehow anything is sounding better than lounging around here
Half stoked she made her way to the ever so popular computer space filling the dead space at the end of a hall.
"What's up?" she grinned falsely.
"I found something, something on Josh" Max's eyes lit up in delight, an emotion she seldom experienced in the past year. Josh was long lost in one of the many bombings; still she could not forsake him as dead.
"Are you sure?" she paused trying not to get her hopes up. It wouldn't be the first time they'd been misled. There were many rescues and many disappointing dead-ends with no Josh. She had gone to many of these buildings they were practically all the same. Testing, prodding, why they didn't find the scientist that had mixed them up in the first place, well that was beyond her. All the studying was just a waste of time and government funding, more funding. What morons.
That was when it started, with Alec. He was just there, much unlike Logan had been. Logan was too busy with the S1W stuff and tracking down the 'freaks'. He'd send Alec and her on missions, and before she knew it they were friends. Then friends became more, and they would sneak to see each other nearly every night. Max shook the dreadful guilt at the sound of Logan's voice.
"Positive. There is an empty warehouse building downtown, main an-nd sixth. It is a government funded another one of those testing centers; there was a paper trail up to wazoo. I've got the blueprints here, it is pretty high tech" he paused and glanced up at her nervously "I know that you and Alec…"
"Hold up, you didn't call him, did you?" Max bit in with a vexed edge, hand on hip jutted out in disdain.
"Well…" he began to explain.
"Logan, you'd better call him back and tell him I don't need any help" she demanded with a tone of demureness. She just hated when he made the shots without her, weren't couples supposed to discuss things?
"Max it's too la…" he started once again to be cut off by her frantic voice.
"No Logan I mean it! You know our track history, you know he's just gonna get in the way..." She insisted in hopes that it would change his mind.
"But last time you…"
"Save it, when he gets here you can just tell him I don't need his annoying ass." Max spun around and to her disbelief found those cold hazel eyes watching her with a hint of amusement, and if she didn't know any better she would say resentment, pain. She let her eyes graze over his long lean body as he stood propped up against the door frame; he seemed to be doing the same with his uncanny leering gaze. She had to admit stubble, it did give him a ruggedly sexy kinda look.
Stubbornly she folded her arms across her chest and looked away, when she looked back she only found the cocky veneer he often used as a mask. He did it whenever he wasn't in the sharing mood, it hurt knowing that they weren't that close anymore. It hurt to have to see him at all. After months of avoidance, the inevitable finally had occurred.
"Now Maxie, that wasn't very nice" he slyly grinned. His voice making her flood with past tenderness of heartbreak, that feeling she tried to push away. It was all rushing back.
She decided to ignore the comment and make up for loss time "Good, you heard me. Now I don't have to repeat it." She watched him feeling slightly ashamed. At his look of determination she glowered, he wasn't going to make this easy as she had hoped. "Now go home Alec" she hissed with resolve staining her voice.
"No can do Maxie, if there's any chance of finding Josh, I'm helping. Sides' I'm already here, all ready to go" he goaded knowing fully well that she would take him on.
She never could give up a fight.
"Well… just… fine." Max glared at him and huffed pushing past him, and out the front door with a loud Slam, somehow managing to jab an elbow in his stomach along the way.
But then again, she never ceases to surprise a guy.
"Anything else I can do for you Logan?" Alec raised a brow in hilarity of the not so very amusing situation. Logan gave a slight smirk and shook his head at the frolics. Thinking it was nothing more than the customary Max-hate-Alec relationship, he turned back to the screen and got back to work.
Max stormed down the cobble stone pathway whipping her leather jacket on. Alec moseyed behind hands in his pockets. She kept her pace until she neared his newest ride, a black Camaro, white stripes down the middle, chrome in all the right places, recently repainted.
He got into some car deals a while back. She was more than positive the ride wasn't his, well not legally anyways. But that didn't mean she wouldn't have an incensed urge to get behind the wheel and test her out. Since she lost her baby, well let's just say Betsy just wasn't the same.
She stopped short of the passenger door, eliciting a surprised "Shit" as the man nearly toppled over her smaller frame. Max glared and shoved him into the side of the car.
"What the hell are you doing here Alec?" her fist clenched his black t-shirt shoving with each accentuation of the words. He grimly removed her fingers from his shirt and pushed them back to her. Fussily patting his shirt back the way it had been.
"First of all, I just had this painted" he pointed to the car in aggravation. "Second… You know Max I didn't think you would need to ask…"
"Well I am, so spill" She hostilely glared and crossed her arms over her chest, subconsciously attempting to maintain her poise.
He shook his head, wondering when things became so icy between them again. It was more a rhetorical musing than anything, he already knew. It was about the time that he left her, and hooked up with Jessie. The time he concluded that he didn't like being her bitch. The time he decided their relationship was just making things worse, for everyone.
"Max, I came to help you get Josh, I already told you." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. " Logan said that you needed a hand, that the last time you took down one of these government... whatevers, you barely made it outta there. I just came to help Max. Why do you have to make such a big fuss every time someone tries to help? Huh?" his voice softened at the remainder of his spiel.
"I don't" she frowned "I just don't want your help" Max scowled unable to look in his eyes, knowing fully well what she would see. The single expression made Alec cringe he hadn't meant to hurt her. Not ever. Everything he did was supposed to make things better for her, not this.
"Well you got me anyways, so suck it up" he growled, more from the hurt of her aversion for him than anything else.
"Whatever" she shook her head in disappointment. "You know, I ask one thing from you. One thing Alec! To leave me the hell alone, to stay out of my life once and for all! So what do you do?" she huffed and stormed past him to the passenger door. She opened it and plunked in leaving Alec to heave a sigh calming his nerves before following to the driver side. The two of them realizing that this day was going to be excruciatingly long.
Silently Max stared out the window, noting the gratifying rumble of the engine as Alec turned the key in the ignition. She refused to turn to face him, partially because of the self-reproach that began to suffocate her, mostly for the betrayal she still felt from him.
Alec took one peek out of the corner of his eye to see that she was facing the other direction, aside from that he kept his eyes glued to the road. He was angry by her; that she would be so callous despite his helping her, but mostly that she wouldn't even look him in the eye. She was pissed.
"Turn right here" Max mutely whispered.
"I thought it was on sixth and main."
"It is, turn right" she edged. Hesitantly he obliged. "Stop here" she ordered silently.
"Max, wait we're nowhere near main yet" his words were cut off by the sound of the door slamming in his face.
Frenzied he jumped out and followed her brisk pace. "Max, what are you doing?" she ignored him and kept walking. "Max" he grabbed her shoulders and stopped her, she let him.
"Max? Where are you going?" she averted her eyes from his, finding her boots much more interesting.
"Alec, I can't do this…" she softly muttered off.
"What? What is it that you can't do?" he asked. When she kept looking away, he tenderly raised her chin to face him.
Her big brown eyes sadly gazed up at him, they were beckoning to him, and what he saw he hadn't expected. Adoration, shame and pain…it took a lot to make Max show these things. Her arms hung limp to the side, her eyes glazed over with a sheen of unshed tears, her bottom lip trembled.
He hesitantly took her in his arms. At first her whole body tensed but soon her body melded to his.
They fit perfectly he'd nearly forgotten what it felt to have her in his arms.
He breathed in her heady scent, satisfied that she still used the same citrus shampoo.
Her hands lay on his chest and her cheek against his heart.
She pushed away brashly.
"No, you can't do that" she hissed, a single tear making his heart wrench.
He had begun to ask what she was talking about when she cut in. "You can't just trudge back in my life, and think that it's all okay. Cuz it's not, we're not Alec. I'm…" she swallowed, hard. "I'm getting married" she said so softly that he had barely caught it.
He paused and watched her really unsure of what to say. "You're right Max… I'm sorry."
"No" she laughed tremulously "you're not" she growled angrily heading back to the car. He followed unsure about what had just happened. She was clearly upset, he couldn't understand why. She was an engaged woman, wasn't she supposed to be happy? She was with the man of her dreams, nothing holding them back, right?
The moment he sat in the seat beside her she said in her steadiest voice "After we take this place down I want you to go away. I will find someone else to help me if I need it." His breath caught in his throat at the even dry tone of her voice. He found himself wishing that things would uncomplicated themselves. That he hadn't screwed things up so badly, that she hadn't given herself away. That they could still be whatever they had been before.
After he started the car up again the space again drown with taut silence.
Max mutely scolded herself for breaking down, she hadn't meant to. Everything was just too much. Having him sitting right next to her, but not be able to touch him. Having him right there, but so far away. It made her heart ache with a heavy dip. Sorta like when you drive over a hump in the road and your stomach leaves you.
This was not a good start to a very long day.
A/N: Thanks for my reviewers, you convinced me to keep going.
