Dark Angel: A Pound of Flesh (5/5)

[brihana25]

All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: A Pound of Flesh



Chapter Nine

Max had barely made it out the door before she heard a voice calling out her name, pulling her up short and cutting off her escape.

"Max!"

Original Cindy was crossing the parking lot in front of her, heading right for her. She wanted to keep walking, wanted to get as far away from the clinic as she could. She needed to go somewhere she could deal with everything going on in her head by herself - she wanted to get to the Space Needle, where she knew the height and silence would help clear her thoughts - but there was no way she could run away from Cindy. She'd tried that before, and it had never turned out well.

So she stopped where she was and waited for O.C. to reach her side.

"What's wrong, Boo?" Cindy asked. "Is it Alec? Is he...?"

Max shook her head. "He's awake. He's..."

"Oh, thank God!" Cindy said. "Girl, made me think something bad happened, the look on your face. He's awake, though? So he's gonna be okay?"

Max shrugged and looked at the ground, unable to make herself look her friend in the face. "I don't know. I... I left. Before the doctor got there."

"Why'd ya do that?"

Cindy was confused, and Max didn't blame her. She'd been calling her every few hours, keeping her updated on Alec's condition, so Cindy knew that Max had been sitting in his room all night. It didn't make any sense that she'd leave before hearing what Sam Carr had to say about Alec's chances for recovery now that he was awake.

But she'd stayed long enough to hear what Alec had to say about things, and that was more than enough.

"He didn't..." She was having a hard time putting it into words, just exactly how the things Alec had said were affecting her. "He doesn't think I'm real," she finally forced out. "Alec doesn't. He thinks... God, Cindy, he thinks I left him there. He thought I wouldn't come for him."

Cindy tilted her head a bit, and Max knew she was considering how to react to that. She wondered if Cindy was asking herself the same questions Max was - what had she done, how badly had she treated him, that he really expected her to just leave him where he was and forget about him? Did he really think she hated him that much?

Cindy's final reaction was a shrug and a huff. "So what?"

Max finally lifted her head and looked at Cindy's face. That wasn't even close to what she'd been expecting her to say.

"What?"

"Why does it matter what he thought when he woke up? Boy's head was messed up, you said. Drugs and fevers and torture make people say things that don't make much sense, right?"

"Yeah, but Cin..."

"Besides, this ain't about you." Cindy's words stung, but that was one of the things Max loved about her the most. She didn't hold back on telling anyone what she thought, especially not the people she really cared about. "You got a place to be, Max, and it ain't out here in the parking lot hiding because Alec, half-dead and out of his head, said something that hurt your feelings."

Max nodded her head wordlessly.

"Okay, this is ridiculous. I come to see Alec, and I ain't spending all my time standing around outside with you. Now, where do I need to go?"

Max sighed deeply. "Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Follow me."

Max turned and headed back into the clinic, with Cindy right behind her.

"'S gonna be okay, Boo. We just got bigger things to worry about right now. Let's get him fixed up, and then we can worry about the little stuff, 'k?"

"Yeah," Max answered. "Yeah, okay."

Sam Carr was standing in the hallway with Logan when Max and Cindy walked up. Logan looked at them and smiled, nodded his head at Cindy in greeting, then returned all of his attention to what the doctor was saying. Max and Cindy joined them silently.

"The fever's not down far enough yet," Sam was saying. "But it's starting to drop. His heart rate and blood pressure are still too low, but they look like they're on the way up."

"So he's okay, then?" Cindy asked. "He's gonna be good?"

"I can't answer that yet," Sam said. "I need to see what his blood is doing, if the stem cells really have replicated enough to start fighting this. And I really need to get that incision checked and rebandaged. There's enough blood on it now that I'm worried he managed to hurt himself when he was thrashing around in there."

"So do it," Max said, confused. "You don't need our permission to do that."

"No, but I do need his," Sam said. "Or rather, I need his cooperation, and he's not giving that at all right now. He won't let me touch him, and every time I try, he starts fighting again. I'd sedate him, but until I can get a look at his bloodwork and see what drugs he's still got in his system..."

"So you need him to lay still," Cindy said. "Need somebody to talk him into behaving himself?"

"Yes," Sam said. "I'm really glad you came back, Max, because I was thinking you..."

Max was already shaking her head, trying to figure out how she could explain to Sam that Alec wouldn't let her touch him either, since he thought she was an hallucination. Cindy saved her the trouble.

"I got that," she said. "Let O.C. work her magic. I'll have him eatin' outta the palm of my beautiful hand."

Cindy smiled quickly at all three of them before walking into Alec's room. Sam followed her to the door to watch her through the window, and Max and Logan walked behind them slowly.

"What happened, Max?" Logan asked quietly. "Why'd you run out? What did he say?"

Max took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "He doesn't think I'm real," she answered. "Because he doesn't think I looked for him."

Logan tipped his chin in confusion. "So, he didn't expect you to find him? Why did that...?"

"No," she interrupted. "It's not that he didn't expect me to find him. It's that he expected me not to. He thought I wouldn't even try."

"Oh." Logan's voice was full of understanding. "Give him time, Max," he said. "Let him get his head back on straight. We have no idea what they said to him while they were torturing him, but with all those drugs and how much pain..." He stopped long enough to clear his throat. "The point is, it wouldn't have been hard for them to convince him of anything. If they told him that you weren't coming, to keep him feeling isolated, it might take a while to overcome that."

Max nodded again. "I know that. It's just hard, ya know? Knowing that he thought it. Wondering if he still thinks it. Hearing him say it."

"We just have to give him the time and space he needs to get better. Completely better, not just physically. He's bruised and broken in places we can't see. And for now, we start with the most immediate concern, and we concentrate on the physical. Because without that, none of the rest matters."

Max glanced through the window and saw Cindy standing at Alec's side, holding his hand and running her fingers through his hair.

"It still feels wrong," she muttered. "That should be me in there."

"Cindy's good at this," Logan said. "If anyone can get him calmed down enough to..."

Whatever Logan had been about to say was forgotten when Alec started screaming again.

When Cindy walked through the door, she thought that what Alec needed most was normality. He needed people to treat him the way they always had. He needed to feel like nothing had changed. He needed to not be coddled or babied. The last thing he needed was people acting like he was broken or that he needed someone to fix him.

She managed to hold onto those thoughts until she saw his face for the first time. After that, all she really wanted to do was wrap him up in her arms and hold him until it all went away.

"Alec?" she said quietly.

He didn't answer her, didn't turn toward her or acknowledge her presence at all. He didn't even move. He just stared straight ahead, with his head turned slightly on the pillow, like he was looking out the window. But the glazed, faraway look in his eyes made her think he wasn't seeing much of anything.

"Alec, baby?"

That got a reaction, though not the one she'd been hoping for. He turned his head slowly and blinked a few times when he saw her standing there. Then his eyes narrowed in what she thought looked like suspicion.

"Cindy?"

She could barely hear his voice, and if he hadn't been right in front of her, she wouldn't have recognized it as his. It was small, hesitant, uncertain and weak, and none of those were words that she would have ever associated with Alec.

"Yeah," she said, forcing a smile as she crossed the room to his side slowly. "Yeah, Original Cindy's here. Hear you been givin' your doc a hard time."

Alec shook his head slowly, but didn't speak again. He was still looking at her, though, watching her warily as she approached his bed.

"No? 'S not what he says." If Alec wasn't going to talk, then she'd just fill the silence in the room by herself. She was good at that. "Says you won't let him get a good look at ya."

She was close enough now to see the blood-soaked bandage that had the doctor so worried, and she had to agree that it looked bad.

"You're bleedin', honey," she said, pointing at his side without touching it. "Ya gotta let him fix that."

He didn't take his eyes away from her face when he shook his head again, and the expression he wore was starting to bother her. She couldn't figure out which one of them had more doubt about what he was really seeing.

"Hurt you pretty bad, didn't they?" she asked before she could stop herself. She saw him flinch and mentally kicked herself for her tactlessness. "I'm sorry."

Everything she'd thought about not treating him any differently than she ever had was completely forgotten. She couldn't stop herself from reaching down to take his hand in hers, and even when she felt him tense up, she couldn't make herself let go.

"It's okay, Boo," she whispered to him. "You know Original Cindy ain't gonna hurt you."

His breathing was speeding up, and his body was still tense, and she knew that he needed to calm down. She ran her free hand through his hair gently.

"I got you, baby," she said. "Ain't gonna let nobody hurt you. Not while O.C.'s around."

Alec closed his eyes as he nodded his head, and she could feel him starting to relax. When he leaned his head into her hand, and whispered, "Cindy," she couldn't help but smile down at him.

"That's it," she said. "Gonna be okay now." She knew she could claim it as a victory, but it was one she'd give anything to not have needed to win. And her job wasn't finished yet. "Can I get the doc? You won't fight him this time?"

Alec nodded slowly. "You stay."

"Won't go nowhere," she answered. "Be right here the whole time. Doc'll get that hole in your side fixed right up, and you can stop worryin' your pretty little head about it."

She felt the change immediately. His body went stiff again, he pulled away from her hand, and he stared up at her.

"Wha... what?"

Cindy looked down at him in confusion.

"No," he gasped. "Get off."

"Alec," she said as she tightened her grip on his hand and pressed the palm of her hand against his face. "Calm down, baby. Cindy's..."

"Don't!" It would have been a shout if he'd had the strength for it, and she knew that. As it was, it sounded more like he was begging. He was fighting her, pushing himself as far into the bed as he could go and trying to pull his arm free. "Get away from... don't touch me!"

She didn't know what to do, didn't know what had happened, didn't know what she'd done wrong... but it was becoming clear pretty quickly that she'd managed to send him somewhere in his mind, somewhere he didn't want to be, somewhere that wasn't where he actually was, but he couldn't tell the difference. She'd managed to trigger something, somehow, and she knew for a fact that he wasn't seeing her anymore.

When Alec closed his eyes again, threw his head back and screamed, Cindy's heart slammed into her throat. And suddenly, Max didn't seem quite so selfish for having run away from him.

Max caught Cindy by the arms when she tried to leave the room.

"He needs us," she said urgently, reminding Cindy of her own words in the parking lot. "We can't keep running. None of us."

"Max, this is... how do you..."

Max took a deep, shaking breath. "It's not really him, remember? He's too sick, doesn't know what he's saying. He doesn't understand what's going on."

"He's so scared," Cindy whispered. She glanced back at him across her shoulder. "The poor baby."

"He's not a baby," Max said. She was watching past Cindy's shoulder, too, watching Logan and Sam trying to bring Alec back from the edge one more time. "He's hurt and he's sick, but that's it. And he's gonna be fine."

Logan was standing at Alec's left side again, the same place he'd been earlier, and he was doing the same things Max had seen him do then - holding Alec's hand in one of his own and rubbing his other hand up and down Alec's arm. Max envied Logan the ability to get that close even as she wondered when he'd gotten it.

Since when did Alec accept comfort and support from anyone? And when exactly had he started accepting it from Logan?

Logan was talking to him, his voice calm and gentle, soothing and reassuring. "It's okay, Alec. You're safe here. You know that. Calm down and breathe. It's all okay."

Max and Cindy stood against the wall, near the door, watching in awe as Logan succeeded at the one thing that neither of them had been able to do - bringing Alec back out of the nightmare he kept getting trapped in.

Alec grabbed at Logan frantically with his right hand, and Logan responded by letting go his hold on Alec's hand and wrapping his fingers around the fist that was suddenly tangled in his shirt.

"Calm down, Alec," he said.

"She's here," Max heard Alec gasp out.

"No," Logan said with a shake of his head. "No, Alec, she's not. That was Cindy. You're at Sam Carr's clinic, remember? There's no one here who doesn't belong. You're safe."

Logan glanced across at Max just long enough for her to see the understanding in his eyes. Both she and Logan knew exactly who Alec thought Cindy was, but neither one of them was going to tell her that.

"No, it... she... she said... called me..."

"Alec, look at me," Logan answered. But Alec didn't look at him, didn't stop talking to himself, so Logan put his right hand on the side of his face and made him. "Look at me. You're sick. You're hurt. I know you're confused and you're scared, but no one here is going to hurt you." Max saw him searching Alec's eyes for recognition, and she could tell that he wasn't happy with what he saw.

"Alec!"

Alec stopped mumbling and focused all of his attention on the man who'd called his name, and Max saw his entire face change. There was no more fear, or anger, or confusion. In Alec's eyes, looking up at Logan, there was nothing but trust.

"Logan," he said.

"Yeah." Logan smiled down at him. "You back with me?"

Alec nodded his head quickly, but didn't let go the hold he had on Logan's shirt.

"Dr. Carr's going to take a look at you now, and you're going to let him. All right?" Alec nodded again, but he looked doubtful. "He just wants to make sure you're getting better. That's all. So he's going to take a little blood and change that bandage on your side."

It only took a couple of minutes for Sam to do what he needed to do, and through it all, Alec kept his eyes on Logan's face and his hand wrapped tightly in Logan's shirt. And Logan was talking to him, his voice steady, explaining everything Sam was doing. Sam looked up and nodded, indicating that he was done.

"Okay, Alec. All done," Logan said. He gently pulled Alec's hand away from his shirt and placed it across his chest. "That's it. That wasn't so bad, now was it?"

Alec shook his head.

"You can go back to sleep now, all right? I have a feeling that you're going to feel a lot better the next time you wake up."

"Logan..."

"We'll talk later, Alec. Right now, you need to sleep, and I need to go with Dr. Carr..."

"No!"

"Shhh," Logan soothed. "I'll be right outside, watching through the window, and I'll be back in no time. Me and Max and Cindy, we're not going anywhere."

"Max..." Alec's voice was weakening as his eyes slid closed. "Need Max..."

Max's heart pounded in her chest and she swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. She felt Cindy's hand on her arm and took a deep breath.

"She's here," Logan said. "And she'll still be here when you wake up."

"Came... for me..."

"Yes, she did. We did."

"Real?"

"We're real, Alec," Logan said. "This is real."

Alec's whole body relaxed, and he stopped fighting the exhaustion that was pulling him under. In only seconds, he'd fallen into a deep, and Max hoped nightmareless, sleep.

Logan straightened up and followed Sam to the door, then held it open and motioned for Cindy and Max to walk out ahead of him. Max saw him take one last look at Alec before he moved out into the hallway.

"I'll go check this," Sam said, holding up the vial of blood he'd finally managed to draw. "I was right about that incision, too. He did rip it open a little, but it's starting to heal on its own. Right now, I think we're all going to be happy with what these results show."

"Thanks, Sam," Logan said.

"No, Logan, thank you. If you hadn't... I don't know how you did it, but I couldn't have done it without you."

Neither Max nor Cindy spoke until after Sam had left.

"How'd you do that?" Cindy finally asked.

Logan shrugged. "I don't know. He did it the first time, too, after you left, Max." He looked over at her, and she smiled at him shyly. "He just listens to me, and acts like he wants me there. I don't know why."

Max nodded her head in sudden understanding. "He thinks he's hallucinating me, and he thinks Cindy is someone else," she said. "You're the only one he trusts right now."

Logan looked through the window and back into the room, watching Alec sleep, looking out for him like he'd said he would. "I know that," he said. "What I don't understand is why it's me he's latched on to."

"Because you're the only one he knows is real," Max answered.

Logan turned toward her, surprised.

"You couldn't be nobody else," Cindy added. "There's only one Logan Cale."

Chapter Ten

It was amazing to Max how much of a difference twenty-four hours could make.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, a welcome change from the grey and rainy mornings that were so common in Seattle in early autumn. She and Logan had started taking turns sitting with Alec the day before, and he'd even recovered enough to realize that O.C. was just Cindy and not anyone that he needed to be afraid of. The different shifts gave them all a chance to go home for a while, shower and eat. And because Logan had offered to take the night watch, just in case Alec got confused again, Max had even been able to sleep in her own bed.

Well, she would have slept in her own bed, if she'd actually stayed home.

But she'd had a job to do that night, and she couldn't help but smile as she remembered it. Oh, she'd gone above and beyond on this particular job, and she knew that. The shame was that no one else would ever know she'd done it. It had been part justice, part duty, part protectiveness... but mostly it was just revenge. And she'd gotten it. She wondered if she'd ever feel guilty about it, but she really doubted it. She'd owed that Steelhead bitch, and even though she knew they'd never be even, it had made her feel better.

The fact that Lux, whose name Max now knew, felt a whole lot worse made Max feel a whole lot better than it should have.

The best part of the past twenty-four hours was how much Alec had changed.

His fever was almost completely gone. It was still hovering around one-oh-three - not enough to make him seriously ill but enough to keep him from forgetting that he had one - and Sam said it would probably stay there for a few more days. The antibiotics had been holding the infection at bay until his stem cells could start kicking in, which they'd done just as soon as there was enough of them to make a difference. His remaining kidney was starting to recover, as the stress being put on it by everything else that was wrong started to fade. His blood was replacing itself almost as quickly as it was designed to, so both his blood volume and his blood pressure were back up.

He'd be weak and shaky for a few days, which was a long recovery time for a Transgenic, but Max was grateful for it all the same. If he'd been anyone but a Transgenic, she'd have been getting dressed for his funeral instead of thinking about his recovery time.

But the absolute best part was that his body wasn't the only part of him that was returning to normal. The delusions, hallucinations and confusion that the high fever had brought on were already gone. And though he was still a bit uncertain and jumpy at times, he wasn't afraid of them anymore.

He was turning back into the Alec she knew, right in front of her eyes.

When she walked into his room, he was leaning against the raised top of his bed talking to Logan. He looked up at her and smiled.

"Maxie!" he said. His voice was still weaker and shakier than she wanted it to be, but like everything else, she knew that in time it would be back to normal. "Please tell me you brought me a burger. I'm starving."

Max couldn't help the laugh. She'd spent so much of the past two days worrying that Alec wouldn't survive to annoy the hell out of her, and she was going to enjoy it.

At least for a while.

"Nope," she said. She crossed the room and sat down on the edge of his bed, opposite where Logan sat in a chair on the other side. "You're NPO until further notice."

"Oh, come on!" he whined. Max saw from the corner of her eye that Logan was grinning, too. "Starving, Max. Why can't I eat?"

"Because you can't eat before surgery," she said good-naturedly.

She'd learned to spot the cues, to head off what they'd started referring to as his "episodes" before they really got going, and she saw it immediately. His whole body went stiff, his eyes widened, and his breathing sped up.

"What surgery?" he asked.

"Kidney surgery," Max said, then shook her head. Blunt and tactless, as ever. And it sent Alec even closer to the edge. He turned toward Logan the way he'd done so many times in the past twenty-four hours.

"It's okay," Logan reassured him. "It's a real surgeon, a friend of Sam's."

"But why do I... I've only got one left!"

He didn't know, and Max could have smacked herself for that, because he really should have known. Someone should have told him long before then.

"They're not taking the other one out," Logan said. "They're putting yours back in."

"They have it?" Logan nodded. "How'd they get it? Eddy..." Alec paused, and both Max and Logan knew not to interrupt him.

There were some things that Max thought shouldn't bother Alec as much as they did, and saying Eddy's name was one of those things. She'd mentioned it to Logan, and he'd told her that Alec needed to deal with things in his own way, and that telling him he shouldn't be bothered by Eddy's name would only make things worse. So she hadn't said anything to Alec, but she had started paying more attention to the things that bothered him the most, so she could avoid pressuring him about them.

That's how she knew that he hadn't mentioned Lux at all since he'd mistaken Cindy for her.

"He told me they sold it."

"They did," Max said.

Alec's eyebrows shot up.

"They just didn't know who they sold it to," she continued with a nod in Logan's direction.

Alec blinked in confusion and turned back to Logan again, but he didn't look as scared as he had a few seconds before. He was already starting to settle back against his pillows again.

"So," she said, "you've got surgery in a couple hours. So you can't eat."

Alec nodded slowly, then looked down and started playing at the edge of his blanket.

"Hey, Alec," Logan said. "Will you be all right for a few minutes? I need Max's help with something."

Another nod.

"I'll be right back."

Logan motioned for Max to follow him outside, so she stood up. "Back in a few," she said to Alec as she turned and walked into the hallway.

Logan spun around toward her the second the door closed behind them.

"He didn't know?" Logan was obviously as upset about that fact as she was, because his voice had a hard edge to it.

"Yeah, I know," she said. "I can't believe no one told him that his kidney was..."

"No, not that," Logan interrupted. "No one talked to him about the surgery? At all?"

Max pulled back slightly. "I just did."

"Yes, but did you ask him?"

Max was really confused about where the conversation was going. "Ask him what? He needs his kidney back, so he's going to..."

"No!" Max took an involuntary step back, and Logan took a deep breath. "Four days ago, someone tied him to a table and cut out a major organ with no real sedatives or pain management, most definitely without his consent, and while he was awake. And no one thought that maybe, just maybe, he might have a little problem with surgery?"

She hadn't thought of it like that.

"Is he going to die without that kidney?" he asked. "Or get sicker? Does he absolutely need it to live?"

She shook her head slowly.

"Then it's his choice."

"But he won't be..."

"No, he won't be perfect," Logan said. "He might not function at one hundred percent efficiency. But he can live without it. People all over the world do it every day."

"It's not about him just being alive, Logan. It's about him being who he is. And who he is will change if he's not whole."

"It's a kidney, Max, not his soul. Not his personality. It's not him. And you can't order him to do this. It has got to be his decision. The last thing he needs right now is anyone, no matter how well-intentioned they might be, forcing him to do anything he doesn't want to do."

Sometimes, Max really hated it when Logan was right.

Alec hadn't moved since they'd been gone - he was still sitting up on his bed, pulling at the strings along the edge of his blanket.

Logan and Max crossed the room again, but this time it was Logan who settled himself on the edge of the bed, and Max sat in the chair. He didn't look up at them.

"Alec."

He looked up at Logan slowly, and Max was surprised by how bloodshot his eyes were. They hadn't been like that a few minutes before, had they?

"We're gonna try this again."

"Try what?" Alec asked.

"Eddy did sell your kidney after he removed it, but he sold it locally and to one of my contacts. So I had it, and I gave it to Sam. He's got a surgeon friend that is willing to come over later this morning and put it back in."

Alec's eyes lowered again.

"If you want him to."

His head shot back up. "What?"

"I said he'll put it back in if you want him to," Logan repeated.

"If I..." His voice trailed off, but not soon enough for Max to miss the confusion and uncertainty in it. When he turned to look at her, she read the same in his expression.

"I'm not gonna lie, Alec," she said. "I want you to do it. I think you'll feel better if ya do. But it's nothing you can't live without, so..." She took a deep breath. "It's up to you."

"Really?" he asked.

"Really," she said.

"It's your choice," Logan put in. "What you say goes."

Max could see in Alec's eyes that this was something he hadn't been expecting, and in his shoes, she doubted she'd have felt any differently. The life of a Transgenic wasn't exactly an exercise in free will, after all. Making choices and decisions for himself was something that Alec was still getting used to, and this was no small decision. This wasn't about where to live or what to eat - this was him deciding on something that would affect him, and only him, for the rest of his life.

"If you say yes, he'll be here in a little over an hour," Max said. "And if you say no, he won't be here at all."

Alec looked up at them both through his eyelashes and smiled.

Alec was in surgery before noon.

Logan wondered if Sam's surgeon friend had ever performed a kidney transplant where the recipient was also the donor, but he dismissed the thought rather quickly as being pointless. He was almost positive that even asking would have been ridiculous.

Max was several feet away from the waiting area chairs that Logan was sitting in, at the end of the hallway, stalking back and forth in front of the closed doors that led to the emergency operating room Sam had set up. And she'd been doing nothing else for over an hour.

Logan turned his head back down the hallway just in time to see Matt Sung walking toward him.

"Matt." Logan jumped to his feet and walked forward to meet his friend and shake his hand. "Did you get that...?"

"All taken care of," Matt said. "You weren't kidding about there being a lot of blood and tissue evidence there. Our forensic guys have only started processing and they've already identified at least six different people."

"What about...?"

"Maybe there should have been seven," Matt said with a shrug. "I don't suppose it really matters, does it?"

"Thank you, Matt," Logan said, and he meant it sincerely.

"You're welcome."

"What about arrests?"

"Three," Matt answered.

"Wait, there were four of them," Logan said. "British Eddy..."

"We got him, and a couple of idiots called Bird and Tuck."

"And the girl?"

Matt shook his head. "She wasn't there when we arrested them. But the strangest thing, she walked into the station about two this morning and turned herself in. She hasn't been arrested yet, though, because she had to be taken for treatment of some fairly recent injuries. Someone really pounded on her."

Logan looked back over his shoulder at Max. He wondered if she'd had anything to do with that, and briefly considered asking her, but it really didn't matter. Max always seemed to have better luck with finding the "bad guys" than the police did, and she'd always had a knack for persuading people to do what she wanted them to do. And, Logan supposed, all things considered... maybe that was for the best.

"Between what we found in that funeral home and the file you sent over, we've got more than enough not only to hold them, but to convict them. They're done, Logan. For good."

Logan turned back around and smiled.

"That's all I needed to hear."

"How's your boy doing?" Matt asked.

Logan sighed. "Better. A lot better. He's in surgery right now, but once that's done, they expect him to make a full recovery. He'll be fine."

"That's good to hear," Matt said. "I don't know for sure, don't know if we'll ever know for sure, but I'd say judging by the amount of decomp we found in that basement... odds are he's one of the few who's survived. If not the only one."

Logan nodded. He'd thought of that, too. Of course, when he thought it, it was always followed by the knowledge of just how close they'd come to losing Alec, too.

"He's lucky," Matt said.

"No," Logan argued. "We are. If we hadn't found him when we did, if we'd lost him..."

The sound of the doors to the operating room opening interrupted him, and he spun around. Sam was standing there, a wide smile on his face.

"He's just finishing closing the incision," Sam announced. "He's amazed at how quickly Alec heals, though. I guess he's never had an incision start closing itself before he could get the sutures in before."

Logan almost laughed.

"Everything went perfectly," Sam continued. "The anesthesia worked like a dream. He's going to be just fine, and at this rate, I'll be sending him home with you before nightfall."

Logan felt the smile spread across his face and turned to look at Max, expecting to see one on her face, too. He didn't expect her to press her back against the wall, slide down it until she was sitting on the floor, and start shaking.

"Matt," he said without turning around. "I've got to..."

"Yeah, me too." Matt was already walking back down the hallway to leave. "I'll let you know if anything changes."

Logan walked over to where Max sat on the floor next to the doors, and crouched down in front of her.

"Max?"

She looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. "He made it," she whispered.

"Yes," Logan said with a nod of his head. "He did."

Max sighed as she looked at the doors. "What do we do now?"

Logan smiled and wished again that he could just reach out and touch her, because they both needed the contact. "We help him get through the rest of it," he finally said. "Because I don't think it's over yet."

"How do we do that?"

"Follow his lead," he answered. "It's not going to happen overnight, but he's already getting better. I didn't really expect him to consent to the surgery."

"Whatever else Manticore did to us," Max said, "they made sure that we knew how to deal with with things like this."

"How?"

"Repression, disassociation, compartmentalization... we all know how to do it."

Logan shook his head and frowned. "That doesn't sound very healthy."

"Nothing healthy about it," Max agreed. "But it works. And when you're just trying to find a way to survive? That's all that really matters."

He recognized the grogginess that meant he was waking up from a drug-induced nap, and for a moment, he panicked.

"It's okay, Alec. The surgery went well, and you're just fine."

The sound of Logan's voice put him at ease immediately and he opened his eyes. Logan wasn't the only one in the room with him - Max and Cindy were both standing beside his bed, too. And so was Joshua.

"Joshua... how...?"

He started to push himself up in the bed, but Logan and Max stopped him easily.

"It's okay," Max said. "Nobody's here but us and Dr. Carr."

"Wanted to see annoying little brother," Joshua said.

Alec lowered his eyebrows and blinked in confusion. He had the feeling there was something he was missing, but he couldn't even start to figure it out.

"Alec better?" Joshua asked uncertainly. "Gonna be all good?"

Alec thought about that for a second before he answered. His side was sore, but the piercing, stabbing pain that he'd been feeling since Saturday was gone. It was just a dull throbbing ache now, just another healing wound well on its way to becoming just another forgotten memory. Everything else, from bruises to puncture wounds, was already healed, and the only drugs in his system were the ones he'd been given before surgery. He still felt groggy and light-headed, but Dr. Carr had told him that he'd feel that way for a few more days. Most of the infection was gone from his blood, but not all of it. Once it went away, and took the damned annoying fever with it, he'd feel fine.

"How ya feelin', baby?" Cindy asked.

He smiled up at her, and then at Joshua.

"I'm good, " he said. And he meant it.

"That's good," Max said. "Because you ever scare me like that again, I'll kick your ass."

He started to chuckle, but it turned into a moan rather quickly. "Oh, don't make me laugh," he said. "Hurts."

"You can take it easy for a bit longer," Logan said. "They're kicking you out in a couple of hours, and then you'll be at my place for a few more days. But there's no reason why you can't sleep for a bit longer."

Alec nodded and closed his eyes. "Do I get some pants before I leave?"

He heard all four of them laughing. "I'll see if I can't find you some," Logan said.

He was drifting out, but he blinked his eyes open again. There was something that he needed to say to them, something that he'd been wanting to say for a while.

"Thank you."

His eyes stayed open just long enough for him to see their smiles, and then he was asleep again.

Epilogue