TTWTB Part 24 by Rhasa

Summary: A multiple part story that explores the developing relationship between Max and Alec.

Disclaimer in Part 1

Max felt like total shit.

No. That was putting it mildly.

If there was something worse than feeling like total shit, then that's what Max felt.

One of the first things she noticed as the world came back to her was the continuous pounding in her head and the sick sensation swimming in her stomach. First, she recognized a familiar smell; then indistinct sounds and eventually muted voices. It seemed that she had played this scene out once before. Once too many for her liking. When her eyes finally focused after attempting to flutter open for a few good minutes, she knew immediately that she was back in Terminal City's infirmary. That knowledge made her feel both relived and afraid at the same time.

The last thing she remembered was driving with Logan, Jed crying and crossing the border, after that, nothing. Jed. She remembered just how worried she had been about Jed. Something was wrong with him. He was sick. He had been crying forever. She was sick too. But somehow, she hadn't been worried about that. All that mattered was getting Jed back home. Back to Terminal City. Back to Alec…..

"Hey," came a soft voice. "Glad you've decided to join us."

Max opened her eyes against her better judgment. "Kyra?"

Terminal City's one and only doctor smiled softly. "The one and only. You gave us quite a scare there."

"Seems like I'm making a habit of that," Max said.

Kyra nodded in agreement. "Yes, seems like. How are you feeling?"

Max grimaced. "You really don't want to know."

Kyra began to busy herself by taking Max's blood pressure, moving quickly, with purpose. "As the next best thing to your doctor, I'm afraid I'm going to have to insist you tell me."

Max raised a hand to the side of her skull. "My brain is trying to escape from my skull," Max complained.

A concerned look washed over the doctor's face. "Bad headache?"

Max nodded in silence.

"Probably an after effect from your last seizure."

The word 'last' was not lost on Max. "How many have I had?"

Kyra thought for a second. "Since you came in? About twenty or so. I've almost stopped counting."

"Was it the tryptophan? Did we get a bad batch?"

"No. It wasn't a bad batch. We dosed you up when you first came in then ran a test on the meds Logan bought with you. They were legit."

Max was confused. "Then why would I be seizing?"

Kyra eyed her patient wearily. "You really don't know?"

"No."

"Max, you're pregnant."

Pregnant? Max almost choked on the word. "What? No. I can't be."

"You are."

Max shook her head in disbelief. "No. I'm sick. We're sick. Jed and I. We're both sick. That's why we came back," she explained, before another thought hit her. "Where is Jed?" For the first time since waking Max noticed there was no crying. That was a good thing right?

Without blinking, Kyra told her, "Max, I'm really sorry. Jed didn't make it. He died about an hour ago."

"What?"

She was dreaming. That had to be it. Jed dead? No. No way. This couldn't be happening. He was sick, she knew that, but the last she remembered he had been crying heartily; maybe he had been a little pale, but those cries of his…. At the time, it seemed as if those cries could go on forever. There was no fever, no rash. How could Jed have died? And how could she be pregnant? If that were true, she would have known. No, it was all some bad dream.

"I'm sorry," Kyra repeated.

Max was momentarily dumbstruck. She didn't believe it. This wasn't happening. How is it possible that Jed was dead? Something wasn't quite right. Perhaps…. perhaps she had been captured by…. White…. Or Manticore? Maybe this was psy-ops making her worst fears come true. They had the technology. They could make her think her dreams were real. Hadn't Alec told her all about that, about the different ways they could torture a person?

Max struggled to sit up. She knew she had to get off this bed. She needed Alec. She needed to find out if this was real…

Kyra's small hands pushed at her former leader's chest. "Max, you need to lie still, until your blood pressure has completely stabilized."

"No," Max shook her head. "I need to find out what's going on. I don't believe Jed's dead. I don't believe what you're saying. I can't be pregnant. I need to see Alec." Despite Kyra's best efforts, Max swung her legs to the floor.

Kyra's hand on her arm stilled her. "Alec's not here Max."

Max peered around the large room and then looked straight at Kyra. "And neither is Logan. And he would be. Logan would be here when I woke up. He's always near me, whether I want him to be or not. If all this were real, Logan would be here."

"All this is real, Max. I know it's a shock but Logan has been here, every moment since he brought you in. A short while ago I sent him to get some coffee. I wanted to have some time to talk privately with you."

But Max was still uncertain. "What about Alec? Where's Alec? I need to see him."

"Alec is with …. Alec is with Jed. "

"I need to see him, Kyra," as she pushed past the doctor.

Max hesitated in the empty corridor, trying to think where Alec would be. She could see flurries of dust swirling in the early morning rays of sunlight that streamed through the high window at the end. There were a number of rooms she could try, some more private than others. These she would search first. She took a step to her right when a wave of dizziness overcame her. Kyra was at her side in an instant.

"Max you have to lay down."

Max grimaced as she clutched the wall waiting for a few moments for her symptoms to pass. "I can do this the hard way, Kyra, but if you just took me to him then it would be so much easier."

She could tell by the slump in Kyra's shoulders and the look in her eyes, that the doctor had resigned herself to the fact that Max was one stubborn patient that was not about to pay attention to her orders.

"They're down here," she told her.

Kyra lead Max a few doors down to what Max knew was once a storage room. From memory it was small and windowless and had served as an emergency backup operating theatre during the raids and attacks on Terminal City when the hospital had been overflowing with the severely injured.

You couldn't see straight in to the main part of the room straight away. The door opened to a little hall that had been formed by a series of high shelves that held most of TCs medical supplies.

Taking a few steps in, Max suddenly became very unsettled at the thought that she didn't know what to expect. She turned to Kyra. "How did he die?"

Kyra sighed. "We did everything we could. But Max, it was progeria."

"Progeria?"

"Yes."

"Then he was sick."

"Yes. He was very sick."

"Logan thought Jed was teething."

Kyra shook her head. "Logan couldn't have known."

"No. But I knew. I knew there was something seriously wrong with him. That's why we came back. Why I made Logan bring us back…"

Placing a comforting hand on Max's shoulder, Kyra tried to reassure her. "There's nothing anyone could have done, Max. Believe me. We tried everything. We tried transfusing Jed with Alec's blood, but…'

Max nodded. She could tell from the tone in Kyra's voice just how Jed's death had affected the young doctor. She had wondered in the past whether Kyra had more strength than all the rest of them put together. How she did her job day after day, without becoming bitter, disillusioned and a complete mental case, when losing people became normal, Max could never quite understand. Maybe Kyra could do her job because she was a soldier. A soldier at war. And in war there were always casualties. But when it came to having children die …. Well that was something different all together.

Max swallowed hard against a painful lump that had made it's way into her throat. Was she ready for this? Was she ready to see Jed? Was she ready to see Alec? For a brief moment, she doubted her strength, but that moment passed quickly and she pressed on, knowing that even if she didn't want to see them, she needed to see them…. She needed to know.

Her heart clenched when she saw the back of Alec sitting next to a high hard medical gurney in the center of the room. The dim light overhead made it necessary for her to adjust to semi night vision. She couldn't see his face but she could hear a small sniff, and immediately she choked up. She blinked away tears that had suddenly formed in her eyes as her attention was drawn to the still figure in front of Alec.

At first, Jed looked as if he could have been asleep. His small body seemed so still and relaxed. A sheet covered him up to his chest. His arms were over the sheet. It was a sleep of peace and innocence. Max wondered how many times she had watched him sleep just like this in his crib up in Canada. But as she looked closer, there were other telltale signs that made his death and his suffering painfully obvious. He had lost his golden hair, his facial features looked distorted from wrinkles, and age spots and other marks now blemished his once beautiful smooth perfect skin. He had aged. On closer inspection, he looked a hundred years old. The small hand that Alec held in between his own looked deformed and arthritic, but that didn't seem to matter to Alec. He continued to rub a thumb gently back and forth across his dead son's knuckles and fingers, intermittently bringing his lips down to kiss the top of his head.

Max looked away. Her chest hurt. Her eyes were burning. She was choking and drowning at the same time. She needed air but somehow her body wasn't responding to her pleas to take a breath. It was too much. No. Not Jed. Please god, no. How could this have happened? She knew all too well the effects of the disease. She couldn't get the picture of her progeria afflicted clone back at Manticore out of her head. She knew just how painful a rapid death from progeria could be. It had only been a couple of days. Jed would have had to gone through a complete transformation in just a couple of days. And why? If only they had gotten him back to Terminal City a bit earlier. They may not have been able to save Jed, but surely, they would have been able to make him a little more comfortable.

She knew she was close to losing it. The sobs she had tampered down were threatening to break to the surface. And for some unknown reason she thought she couldn't let them. She bit her lip hard and tried to take in a deep breath. But it was no use, her breath hitched, the sound causing Alec to turn around.

When their gazes locked, for an instant, Max recognized a brief flash of relief in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced with a look of sheer agony. Completely overcome with grief, his face looked just as distorted as his son's. Max tracked the tears that were freely flowing down his face. Never before had she seen him in so much pain. Not with Rachel or Joshua. Her own sobs broke free and seemed to echo around the room. In an instant, she was in his arms, their bodies crashing together with tremendous force. Max's heart broke a little more when he desperately clutched her to him. She knew he was holding on for dear life. Her arms ached, as she in return held onto him so tight. The warmth their frantic embrace created was little comfort against the cold and pain they both felt. It was in that instant that Max knew it was all for real.

"I'm sorry, Alec," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry… so sorry."

At her words a new wave of sobs wrack Alec's frame, unsettling them on their feet.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she whispered repeatedly, knowing that she could never apologise enough. After all he had entrusted her with his son and now his son was dead. Despite what anyone said, she was partially responsible for that.

It was hard to know just how long they stayed that way. Not that Max cared. As far as she was concerned, she could hold Alec for the rest of her life if it meant that they could shut out the pain of losing Jed. Alec bowed his head against her chest. She brought her face up and softly kissed the top of his head as a new wave of sobs overtook him. She kissed his forehead, then his cheeks, and used a thumb to wipe away his tears, all the while murmuring, 'It'll be okay.' She knew her words were a lie, but she said them anyway. For it was not okay. It would never be okay. He had lost his son. His world had changed forever. But he didn't call her on them, and for that she was thankful.

Logan found them not long after. The feeling of sheer relief at seeing Max awake and on her feet was quickly replaced, however, with something else. Logan felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. And it wasn't from seeing Jed for the first time since Kyra had whisked him away soon after they had arrived back in Terminal City. No. Logan's attention wasn't drawn to the small still boy lying before him. It was drawn to the arm that Alec had around Max's waist as she stood over the child, crying and stroking his face.

Perhaps it was time to pay his respects. Walking forward, Logan came up next to Alec and put a consoling hand on Alec's shoulder.

Alec flinched at the gesture, sniffed loudly, let go of Max and shrugged the unwelcomed hand off. He gave the older man a piercing look, then cleared his throat and said, "I've got a funeral to arrange," before kissing his son and leaving the room.

"Max I-" Logan began.

But Max didn't stay to hear the rest of what Logan had to stay.

Logan sighed. Maybe coming back to TC was a mistake.

TBC

Author's note:

Sorry guys if this scene doesn't make sense. I don't really want to go back and spend time fixing it up. It was so hard to write. I lost a close family member 3 months ago. He was very young and I was with him when he died. And the grief is still … raw. While his amazing life is to be celebrated, his death… the act of dying itself is something I will never forget. I was sitting in that hospital room for hours literally waiting for his last breath. It was so hard for him at the end. His body was suffering but I doubt that his mind was there. He just became a machine. It was extremely hard for him to breathe at the end. I remember sitting praying for him to go, for each breath to be his last, so he could be at peace. And yet when the time finally came, it was just as I described above. I couldn't breathe. I was drowning and choking. It looked like he was sleeping. I can't believe that he is gone…

For those of you that didn't want Jed to die, well I hope you read on because why I killed him off will become apparent in the next chapter.

Oh and I'd really like to know what you think so please review.

Til next time

Sarah