A/N: Thank you to anyone who has read and reviewed the previous prompts! Let me preface this one by saying that I've never read the post-series books. I just know a little bit about what took place in them and this is my version of the fallout of one of those events.

F is for Forget

"You don't just forget to tell someone something like that, Logan!" her voice was cold and distant. She couldn't even look at him.

Logan looked up at her sadly, his eyes apologetic and guilt ridden. "I'm sorry Max. I...I just didn't know how to tell you. I couldn't at first, I needed your help. And then...well I got to know you and I didn't-"

Max cut him off. "Didn't what? Wanna ruin your chances of getting me in bed?" she scoffed, fury wound it's way up through her body, it's burning tendrils encasing her. She didn't ever remember being so angry.

"No! Of course not!" Logan denied vehemently. "I didn't want to ruin our friendship," he clarified.

"So you lied to me," she seethed.

"No!" he protested again, "I just-"

"Neglected to tell me the truth," she stated baldly. "Our entire relationship," she said the word like it disgusted her. "was founded on me helping you do your righteous work and you helping me find my siblings. And the whole time we've known each other, the whole time Logan! You knew what happened to one of them!" she was beyond pissed. There wasn't a word in the English language for what she was. "Not only did you know what happened to him but you were the reason he died!" she yelled out, arms swinging dangerously close to him which caused him to stumble back into her desk to avoid her touch.

"Max—"

"Seth died because you put him at risk. You put him on Manticore's radar and it got him killed," she choked out as everything suddenly caught up to her.

"He helped me because he wanted to, Max. Please you have to understand that he knew the risks and he thought they were worth the work we were doing," Logan pleaded for her to understand.

"You mean like I did, Logan?" she asked bitterly, voice no longer raised but her calmness made Logan wish it was. "When you held what I was over my head? An escaped government toy to do your bidding or else risk you turning it in?"

"I would never do that, Max" he whispered, appalled.

"Maybe not now. But back then, Logan? Can you honestly say the thought never crossed your mind?"

"Yes," he said firmly but he could tell she didn't believe him.

"Get out," She told him coldly. "I don't want to see you again."

"Max...You don't mean that!" he exclaimed, panicked, but she had already turned her back on him. In his desperation he wasn't thinking as he reached towards her and the only thing that stopped him from grabbing her bare arm was Alec's sudden arrival, pulling him back and bodily removing him from the office.

"You need to go now," the X5 male said calmly, his face was a blank mask but one look around the command headquarters told Logan that everyone had heard him and Max. He faltered as he listlessly pulled his arm out of Alec's grasp, stumbled as he turned on his heel to walk out. He tried, and failed, to hold his head up high as he walked past the angry murmurs that they weren't actually trying to keep quiet.

Right before he left the building he shot one last look to Max's office and the tears behind his eyes burned hotter as he watched Alec enter the room and close the door behind him.

~DA~

Max was numb. She was betrayed and dirty. Played for a fool. When Alec's arms folded around her, bringing her back against his firm, warm chest her knees gave out as her wrath gave way to sorrow and tears burst free from her eyes like water from a dam. Alec sank down to the ground with her, whispering nonsense that neither of them would remember after she was calmed.

Three years. Three years. She'd known Logan, helped Logan, liked Logan. Loved Logan. For three years. He'd lied to her, betrayed her for every single minute of every single day that she'd known him. She thought back to the beginning. Back to him guilting her into helping him. How dare he guilt her into helping him when he'd gotten her brother killed. The anger was rising again. An emotional fucking pendulum swinging dismally from righteous fury to hopeless melancholy.

She felt herself sink further back into Alec's embrace and realized that he was rocking her gently back and forth. She didn't know how long they stayed there like that, didn't know how long they neglected their duties as the leaders of this doomed little city or how long she'd taken advantage of Alec's unwavering support. Nobody knocked on her door though so clearly they were figuring things out for themselves for once.

Finally, an eternity later, she moved forward and Alec easily broke his hold on her, rocking back onto his heels and watching her carefully. She stood up and reached out a hand to haul him up with her, he accepted immediately. "Has Priya finished the armory inventory yet?" she asked, her cracked voice loud in the silent office. She winced at the sound of it.

Alec nodded. "Dropped it off in my office a while ago," he confirmed.

"Good. You should get to the training room. The X6's aren't gonna wait forever," she commanded.

She met his eyes as he silently searched them. She didn't know if he found what he was looking for or not but he eventually nodded and swept out of the office. For once in her life she was thankful that Manticore had made them all so emotionally fucked up that they just naturally knew when to leave well enough alone. She was thankful for Alec too but she didn't know how to tell him that. Part of being emotionally fucked up she guessed.

She took a deep shuddering breath as she walked around her desk and sat down in the less than comfortable chair. Her head fell into her hands, papers scattering slightly in the breeze her sudden movement created. Where was she even supposed to go from here?

~DA~

Alec could kill Logan. Not just in the 'I'm very, very capable of killing a person' kind of way or even in the 'he's been on my shit list from practically day one' kind of way. No. Alec could kill Logan in the 'you just destroyed my best friend' kind of way. It was kind of novel, actually. Alec had a best friend. And it was Max. How the hell had that happened?

When Dix had searched Logan's hard drive for intel on what the man had been working on before his capture so that they could find him the last thing any of them had expected to find was a file dedicated to Max's brother Seth. The X5 that Logan had 'befriended' and worked with before Max. Dix immediately got Alec's attention but before Alec could even begin to decide what to do with the information Max had been there, eager to hear any progress on the rescue Logan front, and saw the file.

The hover drone footage had been hard to watch, even for Alec who had never met the guy. The last mission Seth had run for Logan put him on Lydecker's radar and, shot and wounded, Seth had tried to escape them. Unfortunately Manticore had followed him all the way up to the top of the Space Needle where Seth chose to step off the ledge rather than let himself be captured.

So not only was her entire history with the man she thought was the love of her life completely shot to hell but so was the one place in the entire city that she'd claimed as her 'safe spot'. Alec wished that he knew what he could do to help her but instead he found himself, once again, cursing Manticore for stunting his emotional abilities.

Shortly after finding the info on Seth Dix located what they needed to find Logan. Alec and Max had mounted the rescue and when they'd gotten back HQ even Logan's ordinary senses were able to pick up on the icy tension as he followed Max curiously into her office. The yelling started not too long after that.

"Jinx! You're dropping your shoulder," he barked out to one of the X6 kids sparring on the mat as he shook himself back to the present.

~DA~

Logan didn't mean to withhold the information about Seth. Well, at first he did. Later though...he really had planned to tell her. It's just that he fell for her. She was so much more than just a lab experiment. She was witty and charming, bluntly honest and loyal to fault. She was beautiful. Suddenly, as time went on, Logan found himself wondering why he should have to tell her. It would just devastate her and she'd already had so much tragedy in her young life.

So, you see, he hadn't just fooled her. He had fooled himself because in the end he'd managed to convince himself that he wasn't hiding it from her to protect him but to protect her. Sandeman's house was dark, lighting didn't match his mood so he didn't bother to turn any on. He sat lifelessly in his chair with a glass of whiskey hanging limply from his fingertips.

He'd heard her angry before. At him, mostly at Alec, but at him too. He had never heard her sound like she had today though. She'd sounded...done. Wash her hands of him done. And he couldn't even really argue because he always knew that if his past with Seth ever came out- especially if it didn't come from him- that it might spell the end for them.

He chuckled mirthlessly when he realized that he should just be happy that she still saved his sorry ass in light of that discovery. She was Max though, so of course she had. He took another deep drink from the glass.

~DA~

She'd put up a pretty good front the last few days, she thought. So maybe she was a little bitchier than usual, a little quicker to snap. No one really seemed to hold it against her. She knew their patience would thin eventually but she was grateful for it while it lasted.

Logan tried to call constantly. He paged, she ignored it. He called on the vid-link, Dix ignored it. He called Alec, he didn't ignore it. She walked by his office one day as the phone was cut off mid-ring. "Fuck off, Cale," was all he said followed by the clack of the phone being flipped shut. Her lips twitched in what almost could have been a smile.

At night, when there was almost no one left in command and she couldn't sleep (which, let's face it, was almost always) she pored over Seth's file. There were audio files in there from when he and Logan had been on comms during a mission. Her eyes would close as she listened to his voice crack over the line, so grown up from when she'd last heard him.

When she was feeling particularly masochistic she watched the video. In a way his last moments paralleled Ben's. Well...not really. But his thinking did. Death before capture. Hell, even him ending up on the Space Needle reminded her of Ben. The one thing they all had in common, their love of high places. Must be the cat in them.

~DA~

She probably didn't think anyone would miss her. It was the middle of the night after all. He'd been watching her closely the last couple weeks though. He wasn't surprised to find her here.

"Dangerous to be out here alone," he said quietly, announcing his presence as he stepped out onto the roof. He noticed a single rose placed on the ledge and he smiled a bit sadly.

"Not alone, am I," she bit back but it was lacking heat.

Alec smirked as he stopped next to her. She was looking down over the edge and he almost wished he didn't know what she was thinking. "It's a long way down," she murmured. He hummed in agreement as he too looked down.

"Do you think you would have made that same choice?" she asked him suddenly.

"Death before capture?" he asked needlessly.

"Yeah," she confirmed absently.

Alec shrugged. "Hard to say. I'm kinda hardwired to survive," he said honestly.

"Yeah," she agreed. "Me too."

He moved an arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side. She sagged against him and he turned his head slightly to press a kiss to the top of her head. They'd been in a similar position before only that time she was mourning a different brother. It struck him, not for the first time, how unfair their lives really were.

"I don't know if I like it here anymore," she murmured into his chest.

"We don't have to come back for awhile," he assured her quietly, squeezing her to him a little tighter.

"Okay," she agreed, pulling away and turning around. Alec stared out into the Seattle night for just a moment longer before turning on his heel and following her back down to the ground.

~DA~

Despite her words he'd really never believed that he'd never see her again. It had been a month though since the day she and Alec had rescued him and he'd found out that she'd found out the truth. He hadn't heard from her once. All his pages and calls went ignored. Well- by her anyway. Alec sometimes answered with one of his usual sarcastic one-liners followed by a dial tone. Dix, Luke or Mole would answer the vid-link calls sometimes now. They refused to talk to him unless it had to do with Terminal City affairs.

He'd been drinking more heavily than he ever had before and it had finally gotten to the point that he'd chased even Asha away. He had just about abandoned all hope when he walked into the house one day, back from the liquor store, and there she was.

"Max," he breathed out, thanking every deity ever worshiped for her presence.

Her expression was bland, eyes distant and he knew that he had a long way to go before he ended up back in her good graces. "I'm so glad you're here," he said, his voice gaining volume.

"I'm not here to reconcile," she said immediately. "I do not forgive you and there is no going back to how we used to be. I just want to be up front about that," she said unemotionally.

Logan faltered slightly. "O-okay," he acknowledged.

"However, we have agreed that keeping you as a resource is in our best interest. So, if you are willing to continue working with us then we would be...happy to have your help," she sounded every bit the diplomatic leader and nothing like his Max.

"Of course I'll keep helping you. This is my cause now too, Max," he said earnestly.

"Glad to hear that," she replied briskly. "Dix will be your main point of contact. If you can't reach him then you can call Alec. I'd appreciate it if you stopped paging me though."

His heart broke just a little bit more. "So that's it?" he asked, voice cracking.

Max looked at him then, really looked at him. "There's nothing left," she finally said.

She was gone a moment later and he threw the bottle of liquor he still held in his hand away from him angrily, it smashed into the wall and dripped down to the floor. He took deep breaths to force himself to calm down. Of course she was still angry, it had only been a month. She would get past it eventually and they would reclaim a new normal. He just had to keep his focus and play it her way for now.

The more helpful he was, the more likely she'd realize that she needed him. She'd remember how good they were together. It would just take time.

~DA~

Time doesn't really heal all wounds. It just lessens the sting and allows you to move forward. You still bear the scars but they no longer actively bleed. Max knew this better than most. She had a lot of scars, after all.

It had been months since she learned of Logan's betrayal. Months since she'd last had personal contact with him. It was for the best. Not only was she in no hurry to see him but the wedge he'd driven between them kept him alive. It was freeing to live her life without the constant worry that one touch from her could kill him. He wasn't around to touch.

Time marched on, she slowly stopped bleeding and, without Logan's overbearing presence hovering over her constantly, she started to see things more clearly. See people more clearly. See herself more clearly.

She couldn't say that she wished she'd never met Logan. Not really. Not when he really was a valuable resource for them to tap. Not when knowing him, loving him, had forced her to grow up. She needed to be who he made her become in order to handle the pressures of running Terminal City. To lead headstrong transgenics. To choose the right way to handle things.

That's not to say that she doesn't realize, now that she's had some distance from it, how much she changed for him. How much harder it is for her to laugh now, to have fun. Sure, the stresses of their current situation doesn't help that but it doesn't stop the rest of them from being able to find joy despite their circumstances. It certainly doesn't stop Alec and he has just as much responsibility as she does.

She complained to him about it one day. "You aren't incapable, Maxie," he'd told her. "You just forgot how." like that's so much better. Only it probably is because, with him, she remembers.

She'll never forget the day that, instead of hitting him or glaring at him or spinning on her heel and stomping away from him and whatever stupid little quip he'd made, instead she'd laughed. Full out, belly laughed. Everyone was suddenly silent, just her laughter ringing out through command.

Nervous (amazed) laughter started to join hers and Alec just watched her with a bemused grin and a soft glint in his eyes. "What?" she'd asked. "That was actually funny." And thus the healing process began.

"Don't forget to set the alarm," Max said tiredly as she crawled into bed. Not that she'd really need it but on the nights she actually slept they made sure to set it.

"Already done, Maxie," Alec replied as he crawled in beside her, scooping her up so that her back rested against his chest. It was her favorite way to sleep, she loved how safe he made her feel as he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her lips before settling back into the mattress and drifting immediately off to sleep.

With him beside her sleep always claimed her soon after.