Ah, it's not Christmas 'til Alec's been (mostly) mortally wounded. Mwahahahaha…

Anyway! On we go!

Chapter Five

Alec began to fall, pushed back by the bullet's impact, but Hunter grabbed his arm. Using Alec's own momentum, Hunter swung Alec around and grabbed him, using him as a human shield. The nutjob must've known there were other transgenics in the surrounding buildings, just waiting to pick him off. He seemed to know everything else.

Two team members came running from the nearest building, weapons already aimed, headed straight for them, but Max only had eyes for Alec. He was conscious, but just barely, and she didn't know for how long.

Hunter began backing up, dragging Alec along with him. "Come with me, Max. I've got a safe place. The company sent a team, but they won't find you there."

"Let him go," Max ordered. "Do it now." She didn't know anything about a company or team after her, and at the moment she didn't care. All she could see was the blood on Alec's chest. His head was down, and he was struggling to breathe.

"He doesn't matter," Hunter said coldly. "Please, Max. I'm trying to save you. We need to get out of here."

"You're right about that, at least," she answered, just as coldly. "Only I'm leaving with Alec. He needs help, and he'll get it, even if I have to go through you to make it happen."

"You don't understand," Hunter tried again, pleading. "Please. I'm just trying to protect you!"

"You call this helping?" She was so angry she could barely see straight. "You shot my second in command! He's one of the people keeping my safe!"

Hunter was starting to look both angry and frantic at the same time. More Transgenics were exiting the surrounding buildings. The team members were converging on them, with the noted exception of a pair of snipers that Max knew wouldn't leave their positions. They were simply waiting for the right opportunity to take the shot.

Finally, Alec's legs gave out. He slumped forward, and Hunter decided that was his chance. He shoved Alec toward her and ran. One of the snipers fired, but Hunter was too fast, once again faster than any of them she'd ever seen. It would be impressive really, if she didn't want to catch him and strangle him herself.

Max staggered as she caught Alec, more out of surprise and awkwardness than the actual effort of taking on the weight of over 6 feet of transgenic muscle. "Follow him!" she ordered, and several team members tore after Hunter.

"I need a vehicle. Now!" Alec's head was slumped against her shoulder and she was holding him up with her arms around his torso. "And call Dr. Shankar. We need to pick her up and get her to TC."

"On it!" one of the team said and darted away. They'd come on bikes, and he'd have to steal a car. She didn't care at this point. She'd worry about getting it back to the owner later.

"Alec?" She rubbed one of her hands against his back. She wanted to see if he would respond, and it would tell her if the bullet had gone through if there was blood on his back as well. "Alec can you hear me?"

He tried to take some of his own weight. "M… Ma…"

She could feel his breath against her neck, warm and reassuring that he was still breathing, and yet she could feel it stuttering as he struggled.

"Just stay with me, Alec. We're getting help."

"Ca… can't… trust… him."

"He shot you, idiot. Of course I don't trust him."

"Danger… ous."

"I get it," she said desperately. "Just… stay alive. You can tell me all about him later, ok?"

Since Alec never could do what she said, he abruptly lost consciousness and became a dead weight in her arms. She could feel his chest rising and falling where they were pressed together, so he was breathing at least. Barely.

"Where's the car?" she shouted at no one in particular. She could feel Alec's blood soaking into her shirt, and feel her own panic rising.

"Jag's got one. He's on his way back."

"Which way?" she demanded. "We'll meet him."

"South."

Max muscled Alec into a fireman carry. The dock workers had heard the shots and the braver ones were starting to wander their way. Someone had probably called the sector police too. They needed to leave.

Max hurried, despite the awkwardness of carrying a guy who was bigger than she was. Her only concern was getting Alec to TC and to Dr. Shankar.

She couldn't lose him. She couldn't.

Did she want to delve into that? Nope. Did she think she ought to? Maybe. At the moment, her feelings didn't matter one little bit.

A block past the warehouses feeding into the docks, Max rounded the corner in the direction of Terminal City and skidded to a halt just as Jag locked up the brakes on an SUV when he saw her.

Max wrenched open the back door and dumped Alec in. His feet were dangling out, so she ran around to the other side to pull him farther in. Over six feet of guy just didn't quite fit on a bench seat. She got in and leaned across to close the door at his feet.

"Go!" she ordered.

Max awkwardly perched at Alec's side, bracing against the car's movement. She pressed a hand over the chest wound, and held it there. Hunter had meant to shoot him straight through the heart. Alec had to have realized it in time, and he'd turned just enough to save himself. He was a mess, but she could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingers. It was too fast, especially for one of them, but it was there, and that was all that mattered.

Max looked up at Alec's face. He was too pale, and she hated seeing his expression so vacant. He was supposed to be smirking, or laughing, or bragging about… anything. Now his face was blank, a few spatters of blood drying on his skin.

She had the urge to brush his bangs back from his face, to press a hand to his cheek. Where had that come from? Probably the same place that had let her stay put when Alec had put his arm around her the night before. She'd felt guilty about dumping Logan, and then she'd felt guilty again for relaxing into Alec's side, for enjoying being close to him. Max was a lot of things, but touchy-feely wasn't one of them. Alec was the exception now, apparently.

"Almost there!" Jag called from the front. "I called for them to open the gate. How is he?"

"Not good. Someone find Shankar?"

"It was her day off. They're bringing her in from home." He glanced back at her worriedly in the rearview mirror. "Shouldn't be too long."

Max just nodded, and looked back down at Alec. "Hold on," she ordered tersely, hoping he would actually do what she said for once. "Just hold on."

Alec's apartment was an old business executive's office. The building had been owned by some marketing firm, and the top floor had been the head honchos' offices. Each one had its own bathroom, and there was a communal lounge with a kitchenette. It was pretty nice compared to what some of the rest of them had found to live in. Max and Joshua were sharing the bigger office next door, but Alec's was smaller and only big enough to be a studio type apartment.

Max paced back and forth, glancing nervously at Alec, while Dr. Shankar worked. He was lying on his side on the bed, hooked up to a makeshift IV, covered in sweat and groaning as Dr. Shankar tried to remove the bullet. He wasn't moving, and it was taking all of his concentration to bear with her ministrations. Max knew, because of the way they were made, that they were more sensitive, and that meant pain as well. Alec was keeping still through sheer force of will while the doctor dug around inside him.

"I've got it," Dr. Shankar said. "Just another few seconds," she promised.

"Sure," Alec bit out. "I'll just," he groaned again, "hang out… here."

"Good thing you all heal so quickly," the doctor said. "This probably would have been fatal for anyone else." Alec had been leaning forward when he was shot. The bullet had entered at a downward angle, and cut through his chest. She'd started with a small incision, but she'd had to make a decent sized one in his side when she realized the bullet was resting awkwardly just inside a kidney. She'd been forced to cut across the bullet wound from a few days before. X marks the spot, Max guessed.

Dr. Shankar pulled her glove-covered fingers from the wound and tossed the bullet into a bucket beside her where she'd been discarding all of her used instruments and cloths. "Now," she said, letting out a tired huff, "give me a few minutes to close everything up. You managed to clip half your organs and I need to make sure you haven't sprung a leak in the meantime. Just don't move, okay?"

"Wouldn't… dream of… it," he answered through gritted teeth. "Manticore… frowned on… leaks. Get you… killed."

Max couldn't take it anymore. She hurried to Alec's side where he was facing away from Dr. Shankar. "Shut up, and let the doctor work." She softened the words though by taking his hand, the one not currently clamped onto the blanket covering the bed.

Alec clenched his mouth shut, but she didn't think he was obeying orders. He was trying not to scream. Shankar was digging in the wound again before she began sewing him up. His hand tightened on hers painfully. Max dropped to her knees beside the bed so she was face to face with him.

"Almost there," she said. He nodded, unable to manage anything else, then suddenly he went completely limp. Max looked up at the doctor in alarm.

"Finally," Dr. Shankar said. "I've been waiting on him to pass out, but your friend is too stubborn."

Max sighed and gave in to the temptation to brush the hair back from Alec's brow. "Can't," she said. "We're designed to stay vigilant. They actually worked on our hormones and whatnot to make sure we stay sharp no matter what."

"That's… interesting."

"I think you mean awful," Max replied dryly.

"That, too." The doctor pulled open a pre-threaded suture kit. It said something that she'd been home and still been prepared. She'd started keeping a fully stocked kit just to come help them.

Max continued to run her fingers through Alec's hair while Dr. Shankar began to sew the wounds closed. She had to sew the sub-dermal layers as well as the surface and it took so long, Alec was beginning to stir again by the time she was covering the wound in bandages.

"Roll him," Shankar ordered. "I need to sew his chest before he wakes up."

Max did as she was asked. The jostling woke Alec, who stared up at them blearily, his eyes half-lidded. "Feel like I've missed something," he slurred. "You ladies having your way with me?"

Shankar ignored him, and began stitching the wound on his chest. Max took his hand again. "Yeah," she said. "You totally missed it. Best night of your life."

Alec blinked, and then his smirk reappeared, marred only by a wince as Shankar's needle took a deeper bite. "Best night of my life, huh? That include a badger gnawing on my side?"

"Nah. Doctor Shankar's all human, and she saved your life."

Alec blinked several more times, trying to focus. "Sorry for calling you a badger, doc."

Dr. Shankar laughed, still focusing on her stitches. "Have to admit that's a first. I'll take it though. I've been called a lot worse."

"I really, really wish I would pass out again," Alec whispered. He closed his eyes, but Max could see his abdominal muscles tensing as the doctor continued to sew. Not that she should be noticing his muscles. At. All.

"You want to tell me about this Hunter guy?" she asked, to distract both him and her.

"Experimental model. Battle processor," he answered. "Like Brain. But with X-series reflexes, better actually because he can think so fast."

"He was definitely fast," Max offered.

Dr. Shankar finished her suturing. It wasn't the prettiest stitching Max had ever seen, but with the way they healed, it didn't really make much difference. Scarring wasn't an issue and Shankar was going for speed over anything else. She threw the remains of her suture kit in the waiting bucket, and began bandaging the chest wound. "How are you doing?" she asked.

"Could use a vacation, if I'm honest," Alec answered.

Shankar took off her gloves and gown and threw them in the bucket, along with the medical draping she'd used to keep the worst of the mess off the bed as best as possible. She grasped his wrist, and they remained silent for a moment while she counted. "Still a bit fast, but it's better." She pointed to the IV running saline into him. "When that runs out, put on a second bag. He's lost too much blood and he needs the fluids."

"Got it," Max replied. "I can handle that."

"Good." Dr. Shankar began gathering her remaining supplies and her jacket. "Call me if anything changes. Normally, I'd stay, but…" She sighed and looked at her watch. They all knew the toxins in TC were still dangerous to her, despite the clean-up efforts, and she needed to be gone sooner rather than later.

"We get it. Really. Thanks for coming."

Dr. Shankar nodded. "Seriously. Call me."

"Jag will take you home," Max said. "He's downstairs." He was going to return the stolen car, too. They had enough problems without adding that to them.

Dr. Shankar nodded to them both. "Take good care of him," she said. "And, Alec, you try to stay out of trouble."

"I will," Max said at the same time Alec said, "Always."

The doctor rolled her eyes, and headed out, closing the door to the apartment behind her. Max sighed and turned back to Alec. He'd rolled onto his side again, trying to take the pressure off the wound.

"Not right," he muttered. "I came in with one hole, and she made more."

"Pardon the doctor for trying to save your kidney."

He closed his eyes and groaned. "She was digging around so long, I think she was looking for buried treasure."

Max sat down on the edge of the twin bed, careful not to jostle him. She didn't let go of his hand. She couldn't. Alec glanced at their joined fingers, a question in his eyes, but he didn't say anything. "Look on the bright side. She verified you have a heart, and some of us have been wondering about that."

Alec looked up at her, only moving his eyes, which told her just how much pain he was in. He was almost panting his breathing was so shallow. "You think my heart is buried treasure, huh?"

Max's own heart skipped a beat. Her eyes met his, and she didn't know what to say. She… hadn't meant…

"Calm down, Max. It wasn't a marriage proposal," he whispered. "Just a joke."

"Hilarious," she said past a suddenly dry throat. She told herself to focus. "Now tell me about Hunter before you pass out again."

Alec dragged his teeth over his lower lip, and Max blinked at the sight, fascinated… or at least interested. She was not supposed to be noticing things like that. Not about Alec.

Was she in heat? Was that what was going on? She didn't feel like it. She wasn't acting like it, either. Not really. If she'd been in heat, she'd have ignored that he was hurting, flung him on the bed and straddled him.

Focus, she ordered herself. Again.

"Hunter was smart and freakishly fast, even for one of us."

Max shook her head. "Yeah, but… That day when I saved him in the courtyard. Those other X-series were beating the crap out of him."

"Fast, but not really a fighter. Like I said, he was a battle processor like Brain, but also… not."

Max frowned. "What does that even mean?"

"He was supposed to be a…" He huffed in frustration, exhaustion and pain clearly pulling at him. "They wanted an officer, I think. One of us they could put in the field, but who wasn't just a mindless grunt."

She sniffed in derision. "I'm not a mindless grunt. Speak for yourself."

"And look what happened? You ran off and took your whole squad with you. They beat it out of the rest of us. Or bred it out. We followed orders and that was that."

She frowned. He had a point. "But they were going to put him down?"

"Scheduled for right before you took out Manticore." He was starting to slur a bit and she felt bad that she was making him go on. She needed the info though. This guy was dangerous and it couldn't wait.

"Scheduled?" Max didn't think they scheduled that kind of thing. She figured they decided it needed to happen and they put them down.

"He'd come back from a mission a few days before. Word had it, he killed his whole team. He decided they were traitors and took them out, every last one."

"How did you know about it?"

Alec paused. He looked at her and she could tell he was forcing himself to hold her gaze. He looked almost… afraid. "Because I was assigned to handle it."

Max's brain froze for a second, then began to race. "Handle it?"

He sighed, then pulled his arms tight to his chest as his wounds protested, which also pulled his hand from her grip. "Do you really need me to spell it out? It's just going to piss you off. And I'm tired."

"Nope. Spill it." She had a sinking feeling she knew already.

Alec pursed his lips, and finally looked away. "It was part of my on-going reindoctrination plan. I was a twin and we were always under special scrutiny. After Ra-" He cut off the name. He still couldn't talk about Rachel, and Max understood. She couldn't talk about Ben. Except she had… with Alec. "After I screwed up, they wanted to make sure I knew the consequences of failing them again."

"So they ordered you to put this guy down?" she asked.

"I had to put a lot of people down, Max. Anyone they wanted decommissioned."

Max just watched him. He looked exhausted, as mentally exhausted as physically.

You think you had it bad when we were kids? Later on, it got a whole lot worse.

"I was their hatchet man, one of them anyway. Hunter was just the last in line." Alec cleared his throat, working to keep his expression blank. "They would give me the order and a gun, and… you get the idea. I was very sure of the price of failure to comply."

Max couldn't imagine. People he worked with every day, trained with, went on missions… And one day he had to look them in the face and put them down. Max knew she couldn't have done it. She would have fought them, found a way out… or something. But Alec… He'd spent a lot longer at Manticore, faced a lot more, been forced into a lot more than she could imagine.

"That's why Hunter hates you so much?"

He shook his head. "No. I… I don't know if he knew about that part of my duties. Manticore kept it quiet, mostly just to control me. If word got around, they knew one of the others might take me out."

"Reindoctrination with a side of blackmail. Sounds like Manticore." She wished she could burn the place down again. Alec was one of the most confident guys she knew. Or at least he seemed that way. Right now, he looked… tired. Broken. Ashamed.

"So why does he hate you?"

Alec blew out a slow breath. "Biggs was supposed to be on the mission that went bad. Hunter would have taken him out when he killed the team, but instead he took out another buddy of ours. We'd worked together since we were kids and he put him down. Biggs and I paid him a visit. We had… words."

"Words?"

"Maybe fists, too. Probably why you had to rescue him that day. I wasn't the only one pissed at him. A lot of us had friends on that team he killed." He pursed his lips. "But really, he hated me already. I was Ben's twin, not to mention my screw up with Berrisford. I think he'd heard about the deals that I made with the guards, too, and thought I should be put down, but he didn't have any proof."

"So why hadn't Manticore already ended him if he was such a problem?"

"They were trying to fix him." He shot her a quick glance. "I mean they kept trying to reindoctrinate you, and that had about as much chance of success as opening a bikini store in the Arctic." He shook his head. "When he took out a valuable team, I was given the kill order. I didn't get it done right away because I was already busy chasing another problem child and her cyber-terrorist boyfriend when the order came down. Didn't get the chance before Manticore went up in flames."

Alec closed his eyes, and she wondered if he'd passed out again. He cracked one eye open, though. "Can I go to sleep now, or do you need more proof I'm a screw up?"

Max opened her mouth and then closed it again in shock. She hadn't been thinking that at all. She wasn't sure when she'd quit thinking of him as a screw-up, and started thinking of him as a partner, one she could trust. He was someone just as broken as she was, just with different kinds of horrifically caused damage.

Alec had closed his eyes again, closed himself off when she hesitated. Max knew she had to fix it. She was terrible at this sort of thing, always had been. She reached toward him, paused, steeling herself, then finally rested her hand against his arm. He startled as if he'd been expecting a blow.

"Not your fault," she said with certainty. "Manticore. This is all on them. You were just trying to survive." She cleared her throat. He hadn't opened his eyes, but he was listening. She could tell that much at least. "Am I happy they used you to take some of us out? No. But…" She knew those people were dying one way or another, whether Alec handled the deed or one of the guards. She remembered the feel of Ben in her arms, remembered the sound and feel of his neck as she broke it. "We all did what we had to do, things we can't change no matter how much we wish we could."

Alec shuddered, just a tiny flutter of the muscles beneath her fingers. "When they put that bomb in my head, and I almost killed Josh…" His voice was rough. He squeezed his eyes closed, refusing to look at her. "It was like Manticore all over again. Asking me to take us out. I… I tried. I just… I didn't want to be that guy anymore. I'm tired of being that guy, Max."

Max nodded. She knew all about bad decisions, and no options. It was how she'd spent most of her life. She tried to do the right thing. She fought. A lot of times, she'd failed miserably. She may have gotten out when she was a kid, and had a better shot than the rest of Manticore's creations, but still… She understood.

Max rose and walked around the bed. "Can you roll over some?" she asked apologetically. Dr. Shankar had cleaned him up a bit, but she wanted to get the blood-spattered blanket out from under him. Alec groaned, but did as she asked. She changed out the IV bag, gathered up the blanket and the bucket of bloodied medical detritus and took them to the kitchen, throwing it all in a garbage bag. She added Alec's bloodied clothes and her ruined shirt as well, then tied off the bag to cut down on the smell.

Max eyed Alec, but his eyes were still closed. She passed him and grabbed one of his shirts, folded neatly in a pile on the floor, since they didn't have much furniture. She pulled the shirt on quickly, still expecting a smart remark from Alec, but he didn't budge. Maybe he was already asleep.

Max grabbed the extra blanket she'd brought from her apartment in case they needed it. She flapped it a bit to open it, and that was enough to get his attention. Alec once again cracked one eye open to watch her. She stretched out beside him on the bed, and pulled the blanket over them both.

"Max?"

"Shut up. I'm trying to comfort you."

Alec snorted, but fell silent when she turned on her side and settled in closer to him. It was a twin bed after all, and they were about to get very cozy. She once again put her hand on his arm, then changed her mind and slid her hand underneath it so that she was resting comfortably. It forced him to put his arm around her and she snuggled closer, chest to chest, avoiding his bandages. She'd been terrified he was going to die, and maybe she needed the comfort as much as he did. She liked being close to him. And wasn't that just the weirdest, possibly most alarming thought she'd had all day.

"This ok?" she asked, suddenly self-conscious. She hadn't been this close to a man in… well… too long. His bare skin was warm beneath her fingers, and she could feel his chest rising and falling where they were pressed together. She let her hand lie flat again his back and felt the muscles shift as he settled his arm around her and pulled her a little closer.

"You don't want to do this," Alec whispered. "You don't want me."

"You don't get to tell me what I want."

"I know, Maxie. I just…"

"Get some sleep," she said. "We've got a creep to catch tomorrow and I need you better."

Alec sighed, relaxing into her. "Thanks for this." It was slurred, already half-asleep.

Max just curled around him more tightly, mindful of his injuries. Hunter wasn't going to get another chance to take him from her.

More tomorrow…