A/N: I'm back! Finally broke free of some writers block and managed to get this first one-shot written as part of my 2nd round of Alphabet Prompts, these ones are using the prompts given by Seamagik.

A is for Alpha

Sometimes in his everyday life he felt as though he were drowning and all he wished was for a moment to just breathe. What was usually just a metaphorical feeling was, of course, different this time around because he actually was drowning. Goddamn a breath of fresh air would be so welcome right about now. His lungs tightened and burned as they seized up, the seconds of oxygen deprivation ticking by into minutes, longer and longer. He closed his eyes and settled himself for a moment as he let a few air bubbles out, relishing in the tiniest bit of relief that his lungs felt at the slight movement he'd allowed them.

It was dark, the moonlight just barely casting a glow far above his head. If it wasn't for his genetically enhanced vision he wouldn't be able to see anything around him as his body swayed gently to and fro in the icy ocean water. His ankles were bound in chains that were, naturally, attached to an anchor a few feet below him. He was unconscious when he was tossed overboard, he supposed he had Manticore to thank for his body refusing to try and take oxygen in while he was still out. Them and their water tank torture drills.

Alec bent himself forward in half and forced his numb hands to grab ahold of the chains. Once he had as tight a grasp as he was going to get he pulled himself down as close as he could get to the anchor, his lungs were screaming in burning anger as they longed to work again and he tried his best to ignore them as he looked at his bondage problem. His chains were hooked through the anchor ring and padlocked in place. The only challenge the scenario really presented was his ability to find something to pick it with. He reluctantly released the chain and let his body drift back up as he patted himself down in search of a tool to work with.

Luckily for him his captors had been more interested in his death than in robbing him so he found his small, easily concealed switchblade still in his pocket. His eyes drifted shut as the lack of oxygen made both his body and mind sluggish. Forcing them back open and steeling himself he maneuvered his way back down the chain and slipped the blade of the knife into the keyhole of the lock, twisting it around as smoothly as he could with his barely functioning hand. He felt nothing but relief as his sensitive ears picked up the soft snick of the tumblers accepting his blade as its key and the lock popped open. He threaded the lock through the chain links and quickly pulled the chain through the anchor ring before using it as a launchpad to catapult himself to the ocean surface as quickly as he could.

His head broke free but he was barely able to gasp in his first breath of air- in what he figured was at least twelve minutes- before a wave broke over his head, the force of it pushing him back down a few feet. He forced his body towards the surface once more and breathed long and deep, allowing the oxygen to rush back into his system.

Once the burning in his lungs settled a bit and his limbs were numb only from the freezing temperature of the water and no longer from oxygen deprivation he allowed himself to assess his surroundings. The ship he'd been thrown from earlier was long gone and as far as he could see was just black. Black sky. Black sea. Fuck.

~DA~

"What do you mean you don't know where he is?" Max asked incredulously. "Why was he even there?"

Logan flinched at the severe expression on her face. "I needed info for my Eye's Only broadcast and you and I are...taking space. So I asked Alec to get it for me," he explained, his eyes practically begging her to understand.

Max grit her teeth and forced a calming breath before speaking again. "Okay. How did you lose him?"

Logan shook his head with a frown as he turned back to the computer monitors, his fingers frantically flying over the keys as he brought up the specs and intel of the mission he'd sent her partner on. "I recorded his last check-in," he told her distractedly as he clicked on an audio file.

"Hey Wheels, I got eyes on your bad guy, he's boarding a ship," Alec's voice cackled across the line. "Suitcase in hand."

"Great," Logan muttered. "Anyway you can sneak on board and grab it?" he asked.

The other line was silent for a long moment before a distant clang was heard followed by soft footsteps. "Copy that," Alec finally replied, his voice hushed. "Call ya back when I'm back on dry land," he said flippantly before the click signaling the end of the call sounded.

"That was at 10 p.m. last night. I haven't heard from him since," Logan informed her.

"And you're just now telling me about it?" Max exclaimed in frustration. She tamped down the panic she felt rising to the surface and focused on her ex. "It's been nearly twelve hours Logan! They could be anywhere!" Logan's mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before Max's harsh sigh filled the air between them. "Tell me you at least know the name of the ship they were on," she demanded.

His head shook slowly and he flinched back dramatically as she crowded closer to him to see the monitors. "Show me everything you have on the job," she commanded.

~DA~

10:03 P.M. The Night Before

Alec hung up with Logan and stealthily made his way across the ship, keeping low and to the shadows. As he approached the wheelhouse he peeked through the windows and saw his target talking with who Alec assumed to be the ship's captain. The target, who's name he couldn't be bothered to remember- it was Dick something or other- hadn't let go of the suitcase Logan needed since Alec had laid eyes on him two hours earlier. Something churned in his gut as he heard an out of place sound from down below in the cargo hold and he had a feeling that he was going to regret letting Cale guilt trip him into this.

He peeled himself from the side of the wheelhouse and quickly navigated himself below decks. He dodged a few of Dick's guards as he made his way towards the suspicious sound his sensitive ears kept picking up. Outside of the doors to the hold he pulled out his gun for the first time that night and slowly opened the door. His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness and his eyebrows raised in surprise.

~DA~

Alec was floating on his back, staring up at the slowly lightening sky as he desperately tried to keep his mind working despite the hypothermia that he knew was beginning to set in. He knew that he could withstand extremely cold temperatures for hours longer than an ordinary but even a transgenic has his limits. He had been trying to keep time and given the impending autumn dawn and the fact that it was about 10:40 p.m. when he was tossed overboard he figured it had been about nine or ten hours. He was fairly lucky that it had been a fairly mild fall so far so the water wasn't quite as frigid as it could be. Even still, his limits were just about reached.

"27 bottles of beer on the wall, 27 bottles of beer. Take one down, pass it around. 26 bottles of beer on the wall," he sang to himself, spluttering slightly when the water peaked around him and splashed into his mouth. If he ever got out of this he was sure he'd be more fish than cat. He suddenly found himself missing the mer-couple he and Max had helped out some time ago.

"26 bottles of beer on the wall, 26 bottles of beer…"

~DA~

"Replay that," Max ordered. Logan diligently did as asked and played the soundbite back for the fourth time. "There. What is that?" she asked herself again and again as her ears picked up the clanging sound that played over the stretch of silence recorded over the phone call. "A Buoy, maybe?" she muttered.

"Sounds like it could be Pier 62 or 63? It's abandoned and dilapidated now but it used to be the gem of Seattle's waterfront before the pulse. They'd house summer concerts there until the structures got too old to hold the weight. I remember watching movies there and hearing the buoy bells sounding off in the distance," Logan reminisced. "It's in a bad way these days but a lot of the corrupt use the area to dock for a small fee paid to the sector police."

Max frowned. "There are buoys everywhere in the ocean Logan. Can you get satellite imaging up of the area from last night?"

Logan nodded and worked on hacking into the satellite feeds. Less than five minutes later he was in and pulling up photos. "Well there was a ship docked in the area last night," he told her as he worked to zoom in on the name of it. "It's called Alpha," he mumbled to himself as he switched to another monitor to crosscheck the ship Alpha against Richard Multone.

Max snorted. "Of course it is."

Logan let out a satisfied breath of air as he got his proof. "It's owned by one of his legit companies. And according to the ship log it went out to sea for about eighty minutes before returning due to a leak in the hull. Satellite photos show it back at the pier right now. This is it, Max."

"It better be," she grit out. "Give me your keys."

"My keys?" he asked dumbly.

"If he's hurt then he might not be able to ride my bike. Car would be easier," she explained roughly.

"Right," he muttered as he reached out and tossed them to her. She turned on her heel and raced out of the penthouse before he could utter another word.

~DA~

10:27 P.M. The night before

"You just had to go investigate, didn't you Alec?" he berated himself as he paced back and forth in front of the large object that was chained to the wall. It moved back and forth with the rocking of the ship, rattling the chains and thumping against the wall of the hold. "Couldn't just grab the suitcase and leave well enough alone, could you?"

The Dick dude that Logan had him tailing was a big time arms dealer and Alec was just so typically lucky enough to find himself standing in front of a nuke large enough to wipe out the west coast. In his bones he knew that there was nothing that could convince him that leaving it and pretending that he'd never stumbled across it would be the right choice. He hadn't been trained that way. "Fuck," he muttered for the hundredth time in the last two minutes before he flipped open the control panel and, with nearly twenty years of arms experience, cast an expert eye on the wiring.

A while later he had just finished disarming the nuke when he heard footsteps outside the hold. He didn't have enough time to put everything back together before finding a spot to hide so he prepared himself for the inevitable fight he'd have on his hands when the guards entered the area.

"What the hell?" guard one exclaimed as he caught sight of the exposed wires and the hole where the core should have been. He brought his radio up to his mouth. "We got an intruder. The package has been dismantled."

A chain that he hadn't seen caught on Alec's cargo pants and the resounding clink had his eyes falling closed in exasperation. Immediately the guards turned towards him, guns at the ready. Alec realized he had left his on the ground near the nuke while he was working on it. Guess he was gonna have to do things the Max way. As the guards neared him he slipped out of his hiding spot with a smirk stretched across his lips and a mischievous glint in his eyes. "Catch!" he yelled out as he tossed the nuclear core towards them with the tongs he had commandeered to remove it without touching it. He threw himself behind the shelving as the core broke through one of the hold's windows before exploding.

The core, hitting the water as it exploded, rocked the ship but kept it from causing much more damage than blasting a hole in the hull of the ship. The guards were dead on impact, Alec's little shelter and strong constitution had saved his life but knocked him out and that was how he was found seconds later as more guards burst through the charred door.

And then he woke up chained to an anchor on the ocean floor.

~DA~

Max arrived at the docks a little before noon. It had been nearly fourteen hours since Alec's last check in and her stomach sank as her recon laid out a chilling story.

"How the hell did he know what we were shipping out?" Richard Multone demanded angrily.

"Not sure, boss," one of his henchman replied with a slight shrug.

"Maybe we should have asked him before he tied him to the anchor," another one muttered too softly for his boss to hear but it rang out loud and clear in Max's ears.

"That reactor was our launchpad into the big league. I want this fixed. Now," Multone said in a low growl.

Max had heard enough and slunk out. Alec had been thrown overboard. Tied to an anchor. Now if he was alive when that happened then there was a chance he could have gotten out of it but even if he had that was fourteen hours ago and he was lost somewhere out at sea in, if he was lucky, sixty degree ocean water. She skulked around the ship and watched as some of Multone's crew were hard at work repairing a large hole in the hull. They couldn't have been too far out if they had managed to make it back to land with it damaged so badly.

Putting on her best ditzy smile she waltzed up to who she assumed to be the lead contractor who was standing by himself near some jet skis that they had offloaded from the ship and gasped. "Wow! That's a huge hole! Did you guys run into like a shark or something out there?" she asked him with large, fascinated eyes.

The man looked her up and down as he adopted a smarmy smirk and nodded. "Somethin' like that sweetheart," he agreed.

"How scary!" she exclaimed.

"The sea is a dangerous mistress. Not everyone survives her," he confided as he ducked his head down closer to her conspiratorially.

Max suppressed a shudder and widened her eyes as though she were scared just at the thought. "How close were you to sinking?"

"Oh, real close darlin'. Lucky for us we were only about 20 nautical miles out when the hull was punctured," he purred as pointed towards the east and played up his near death experience.

Max smiled and tilted her head. "Thanks," she replied before cocking her fist back and knocking him out. She dragged him behind the jet skis before tearing out the spark plugs from all but one of them. She heard shouting behind her as she started it up but she was already blazing away. She swerved left and right to avoid the gunfire, sighing in relief when she was out of their range.

Twenty minutes later found Max slowing her speed a bit as she came across debris drifting along the current. Unless there had been another boat bombing out there last night she felt sure she was on the right track. She could move a lot faster on the jet ski than the Alpha would have been able to last night. The question was...how far had Alec drifted in the last fourteen hours. And would she be able to spot him?

~DA~

Alec had never been so cold in all his miserable existence, he was sure of it. He was treading water again, as he had been doing off an on all night...and morning. The problem with being lost at sea was that everything looked the same. He had no height to help him pick out landmarks of any sort. He didn't know if he was swimming closer to shore or further out to sea and the cloudy skies made it impossible for him to gain his bearings.

His ears suddenly perked up and he sluggishly worked to figure out what they were hearing. It sounded like...a motor.

"Hey!" he...croaked out. His throat was raw from the saltwater he'd been forced to inhale during his choppier moments at sea. His lips were cracked and bleeding. Fourteen hours stranded at sea felt more like Fourteen months. He swallowed and cleared his throat and tried again. "Hey," but it was barely more than a whisper.

~DA~

"Come on Alec, where are you?" Max muttered to herself as she weaved her way through the debris that had spilled out of the ships cargo hold. If Alec had floated along with the wreckage then he should be somewhere in the area. If he had tried swimming though…

"Alec!" she yelled out. Her voice was lost to the sea though and she had serious doubts that he would have heard her. It didn't stop her though.

~DA~

"Alec!" the faint call whispered through his ears and his eyes fluttered closed in relief. Max.

"Max," he croaked out, he knew there was no way in hell that she'd ever hear him. He had to find another way to gain her attention. The sun wasn't bright enough for him to try and reflect light off of anything. Not that he had anything anyway, he had lost his knife along with the chains that he'd been able to gracelessly rid himself of. He clearly didn't have any flares on him and, unless she was in sight of him, splashing would take up too much energy and could cause him to drown quicker.

He closed his eyes and tried to pinpoint the direction the motor was coming from. It sounded a like maybe from behind him and to the left. So he had been swimming the opposite direction of the shore. Probably. He twisted his body towards where he thought the noise was coming from and started swimming.

~DA~

Max was sure it was the ocean winds that were causing her eyes to sting with unshed tears as her heart started to sink with the realization that she might be too late. That he may have never surfaced in the first place or that he was too far from the wreckage to find. The ocean was vast and trying to find one man in it was like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles.

Her eyes closed for a second as a shuddered breath left her lips. "ALEC!" she called out as loud as she could.

And then she heard it. It wasn't his voice but it wasn't the constant sound of the churning water either. She whipped her head around and her eyes zoomed in on a sight that made her heart stutter. Splashing water. She quickly turned the jet ski around and jetted off to the right.

She killed the throttle when, a few minutes later, she came close enough that the waves coming off the boat would threaten to push him under and she slowly, anxiously maneuvered over to him. Her first glimpse of him had her eyes filling up again. He was almost blue, his lips were cracked and bleeding, but his eyes- his eyes were filled with so much relief that it nearly broke her heart. She watched as his lips moved but no sound came out. He held out a hand in a "stop" motion and she did as asked as he slowly swam up to her.

She reached down and grabbed his hand, gasping at how ice cold they were, and clumsily they were able to get him on the jet ski. A shiver wracked his entire six foot frame as he leaned against her, trying desperately to soak up her body heat. "Hold on Alec," she whispered. He wrapped his arms around her thin waist and she used one hand to hold them to her as she tore back towards the shore as quickly as she could.

~DA~

Original Cindy cursed as a sudden loud noise had her jumping and ruining her careful manicure. She looked at the red line of polish going up her finger in dismay before setting the bottle down and stomping over to the front door ready to rain fire down on the fool who was stomping around. She whipped the door open and was shocked at the sight of a wet Max holding up a barely conscious, soaked, Alec. She immediately went to the boy's other side and helped her boo bring him in.

"Jesus boo, he's freezing," she gasped.

"Hypothermia. My bedroom," Max directed. They slowly, gently got him into Max's room and sat him on a chair she had by the bed. Max looked up at Original Cindy. "Can you find hot water bottles or dry compresses, anything that we can heat up?"

Cindy barely gave her a nod before she was running out of the room. She managed to wrangle up an empty bottle to fill with warm water when she realized that one of their neighbors worked at the hospital, maybe they'd have something for her. She was out the door with only a brief shout to her girl.

After Cindy left, Max ran into the bathroom and pulled out some towels before returning to Alec's listless side and slowly removing his waterlogged clothes. His jeans took some finagling since they were plastered to him but she eventually managed and then gently dried him off, careful to not rub him too vigorously. When he was dry enough to not soak the bedding she moved him over and got him beneath her sheets and comforter before going into Cindy's room and grabbing her blankets as well.

"Too bad you're not awake for this pretty boy," she muttered as she started stripping off her own wet clothing before sliding into bed with him and pressing her warm skin against his frigid body.

That was how OC found them a few minutes later when she returned with the hot bottles wrapped in towels. Max looked up at her. "I stole your comforter," she said numbly and Cindy could see the weight of whatever had happened today settling heavily in her boo's eyes.

"I think our boy needs it more," she replied as she handed Max the bottles. She placed on on his chest beneath the blankets, one to his neck and the last near his groin before settling in and curling back around him. Cindy watched in a frozen moment before she made a decision and got into the bed on Alec's other side and cuddled up next to him.

Max looked at her best friend in gratitude before she filled her in on the events that lead to that moment.

Hours later, long after Cindy had drifted to sleep Max laid there lost in thought, her ear on Alec's chest as she listened to his steady heartbeat. She nearly lost him today. In the months since they'd gained their freedom, in the years since they were first forced into Terminal City, Max had nearly lost Alec a handful of times. In the beginning she hadn't thought it would affect her much and yet she could never just stand by and leave him on his own. She had the bomb removed from his head for that very reason. As the years dragged on and she got to see more of the man behind the soldier she'd come to realize that losing him would be worse than losing anything else. Sometimes she thought that he knew that. She never said it though, so in reality it would probably come as a shock to him to find out how much she cared.

She nearly lost him today and he would have died without knowing how she felt. He would have died and she would have never known for sure how he felt. She turned her head and pressed a light kiss against his chest as her eyes fell closed with both mental and physical exhaustion.

~DA~

Logan's pages went unanswered all day and night and he felt a stab of fear at the possibility that Alec hadn't made it. Max would never forgive him. The burning guilt he felt at the momentary feeling of relief he'd had earlier at the thought of the younger man's demise made him sick and he decided in that moment that he'd rather lose Max to the transgenic than have her hate him for causing his death.

~DA~

The first thing he was aware of was the warmth that was slowly chasing out the ice that remained in his bloodstream. The next thing was that there were warm bodies on either side of him. The third thing was that he was naked. What the hell did I do last night? He wondered silently as he forced his stinging eyes open.

Glancing to his left he saw Max and his eyebrows lifted in bewilderment. That was nothing compared to his shock when he looked to his right and saw Original Cindy curled up against his other side. He opened his mouth and licked his parched lips. "So there is a heaven," he mused, wincing at the grating sound of his voice.

Max woke up the moment she heard his breathing change and waited with bated breath as she waited to see if he was still...him. Her mouth turned up in a relieved smile against his chest as she heard his Alec-ism.

"Don't get used to this hot boy," Original Cindy muttered as she stretched out alongside him. She glanced at the clock and realized they'd slept all afternoon and well into the night.

Max sat up, holding a sheet up to her chest as she rose and looked Alec over. He watched her concern eyes take in their fill of him as the events of the past day came flooding back to him. "Remind me to never do a mission for Logan ever again," he muttered, wincing as burning coughs wracked his chest and tore up his already abused throat. Cindy patted his back as Max used the momentary distraction to throw on some sweats and disappear into the kitchen.

She came back a couple minutes later with some hot tea. "Here, drink this," she requested quietly as his coughing fit died down. Cindy shared a look with her girl before nodding and climbing out of bed. "I'll check in later, boo," she told Max before giving Alec's hand one last squeeze and leaving the room, shutting the door behind her.

"You should have called me, Alec," Max reprimanded.

Alec raised a brow and frowned at her. "I think my phone is somewhere in the bottom of the Pacific, Max," he replied sardonically as he sipped at his tea.

"As backup," she said, irritation inflecting her tone. "When Logan called you, you should have called me."

"Was supposed to be a simple retrieval. I couldn't have known about the nuclear bomb they had on board," he replied with a small shrug before filling her in on all that he remembered about the mission. "I've done a few other missions for him recently too. Intel on all of those checked out."

Max's frown deepened. "How many other missions?" she questioned.

"Does it matter, Max? He's giving you the space you requested and he's using me to get what he needs for Eye's Only in revenge for 'stealing his girl'," he muttered with air quotes.

"That's why you're doing it? Because he's guilted you into it?" she asked incredulously.

Alec looked up at her with serious eyes and a matter-of-fact expression. "You made me the villain of the story, Max. And I get it, I don't agree with it, but I get it. Even though he knows now that you and me weren't ever a thing…well, he's not wrong to be angry with me for going along with it," he sighed.

Max was silent for a long moment. "I'm sorry I ever brought you into my mess," she said in that soft way of hers that was rarely ever reserved for Alec. She looked him straight in the eyes. "No more Eye's Only missions," she told him firmly. "For either of us."

Alec looked at her in shock. "What?"

"He has the S1W to help him now, he isn't calling me anymore and I'm not going to let him manipulate you into doing his bidding because you feel guilty for something that I asked you to do," she told him sternly, nodding her head as though she were agreeing with herself. "You almost died today, Alec. You could have drowned, I may not have ever found you. You were lost at sea. I could have lost you."

He didn't think she could shock him anymore until she returned to her side of the bed and settled in alongside him again. "You're still cold," she murmured.

Alec caught her eyes as he finished his cup of tea. "Max…" he trailed off, unsure of what exactly he wanted to say. He felt as though they'd been sitting on the edge of a precipice for years, unsure of whether to stay on solid ground or jump in and see where it took them. Apparently Max had finally made a decision though, he realized, as she pulled him back down beside her after he set his cup down, kissing alongside his jawline until she ended up at his lips. She hovered over him for a moment, warm brown eyes locked with shocked green.

"I could warm you up," she offered breathlessly. She watched as his eyes darkened, his pupils blown wide and they darted down to her lips before meeting her gaze once again. He surged up and captured her lips with his drawing a moan from them both as they tasted each other for the very first time.

Minutes, maybe hours, later they broke apart, breathing raggedly. "I'm still pretty cold," he whispered mischievously, his eyes lighting up as she laughed and reclaimed his lips.

~DA~

Original Cindy hovered outside her boo's door for a moment before she smiled at the soft laughter coming from inside the room followed by a set of moans. "Well it's about damn time," she muttered to herself as she went back to her room and pulled a spare blanket out from beneath her bed before collapsing into it.