Week of the Cat: Thursday, Part Two

[seamagik]

Alec had offered to man the fort so that Max could traipse off in the middle of the day and find out why Jeri was about to bust a coronary. And by man the fort, she meant he would prop his old, gross boots on her desk, like he always did, and try to take a cat nap (boy seriously loved his sleep). And there he would probably stay, hardly moving, until Max came back… Unless of course Dix or someone picked up a call on the police scanner about a trannie in trouble or Carter radioed in to tell ‘em that the Familiars were probing their defenses again. Or that he needed a snack. It had been a relatively quiet week, though, so Alec probably didn’t have to worry about playing crack mission commando. The snack call would probably be the greatest of his concerns while she was gone. Max would have slightly more on her plate, judging by Jeri’s quick, trotting pace, and frowning, troubled face.

Max was no idiot; she already had a pretty good idea what this was about. And she was proven all too correct when they reached their destination, T.C. Central’s med station, went down a long hallway, past the examination rooms, past the rooms with empty gurneys, empty beds (Max loved slow weeks), and finally down to Jeri’s messy office. The short-haired brunette loved an orderly examination room, but for some reason the most alpha of all the medics was unable to find a thing in her own office unless it was underneath three other things.

At the moment, there was only one small clear space upon the messy metal desk, and smack dab in the center of it, sat a microscope. Max sighed as Jeri swung a chair around for her.

“What am I looking for?” Max asked grudgingly, taking the seat that the shorter woman had pulled up for her.

“You’ll see,” Jeri replied cryptically. Max eyed the medic for a long moment before sighing and turning to the microscope, putting her eye up to the lens. In the right kind of dye, Max’s Anti-Logan virus appeared as a kind of purple monstrosity, almost three times the size of a red blood cell. And Jeri was right. She did see, almost immediately, what had given the medic cause to hunt her down.

“It’s smaller,” Max glanced up, frowning. Almost half its original size, in fact. She looked again.

“It’s mutated,” Jeri agreed. Then leaned in, over Max's shoulder. “I think. Not all of ‘em, though. Enough that within a few weeks, I'd stake money on all of the viruses within your blood bein' in that new, sleeker form.” What was it, a car? Max made a face, and pulled her face away from the microscope so she could glare at Jericho.

“Why didn’t you tell me yesterday?” She demanded.

Jeri looked away. Well… to be completely honest, she hadn’t actually put Max’s blood on a mount and stuck it under a microscope until this morning. She’d been so sure that the virus would be the same as it had always been that she had let other things, like putting a band-aid on a wailing mother’s relatively calm infant or getting coffee from Command and catching up on the latest gossip, get in the way.

“I was… busy?” She finally managed.

Max sighed, leaning back into the chair. Fair enough, even if it was kind of a lie. “So what does it mean?”

“I dunno.” Jeri shrugged.

“Jeri!”

“Well, I don’t!” The tawny brunette defended. “But such a radical change in its physical characteristics means that something profound happened on the nuclear level. Something really changed in its DNA.” Jeri paused for a long moment. “Either that or something about your cells, the cells that the virus needs to hijack in order to keep replicating, is seriously stunting the virus’s growth.”

Which could possibly mean that finally, after a year and a half, Max’s body was learning to fight back.

Either that or, again, the virus had seriously mutated.

Jeri had been bouncing back and forth between the two theories all morning. It was partly why she was feeling so serious for a change. She hadn’t had a good brain challenge in ages. If it hadn't been so troublesome, it would have been a little exciting.

“If it mutated,” Max was staring off into space, “is there a chance that-“

Yeah, Jeri knew where Lord Vader was goin’. Blah, blah, blah, if it mutated, was there a chance that it was less of a threat to the Evil Emperor. “That it won’t be a danger to Logan anymore? Not likely. Viruses usually mutate to become more effective, Max, not less. More effective at replicating, anyway. This is Manticore’s baby, though, so who knows. For all I know the mutation could make breathing the same air as Logan hazardous to his health. Or, it could have become contagious… You could pass anti-Logan germs to anyone you come into contact with.”

Max’s eyes reached epic proportions. “What?”

Jeri shrugged. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re just saying?” Max sat upright in her chair. “Jeri, this is kind of a big deal! I need to know for sure.”

Jeri was still all seriousness. “I’m aware, Max. Which is one of the reasons I pulled you out here. So you could take a look at it without Alec leaning over your shoulder distracting you from how big this could really be.” Like, super dead Logan, big.

Max frowned guiltily and looked away. She wouldn’t let this… thing… with Alec distract her from something as huge as her potential lethality to another human being. The fact that Logan was also technically her boyfriend was merely a side note to that. And by technically, she meant Logan was totally her boyfriend… Sort of.

“So, what, I take it you’re going to need to run some tests to be sure?”

Jeri nodded, leaning against her desk and folding her arms across her chest. “You’re gonna have to get Logan in here. I need a sample, or five, of his blood to work with. He got enough trannie juice left in him to be hangin’ out here, what with all the toxins n’ all?”

“He’s still walking.” Max shrugged, though Jeri should have already known that. Or maybe it was just that Max was the only one that really noticed the sound that Logan's exo-skeleton made. Max didn't dwell on the implications.

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.” Jeri jiggled her foot impatiently for half a moment before she couldn’t contain it. “You want to borrow my cell phone to call him?”

“What, now?”

Jeri hated a mystery. She wanted answers, “Yes, now.”

Max sighed, part of her wanting to keep the mystery a mystery. Like she really wanted to start her day finding out she was even deadlier than normal. Still… “Fine,” She said grudgingly, holding out her hand. Jeri immediately turned towards her desk, moved a stack of paper, repositioned a file, shoved aside some ace bandages, and grabbed for her cell phone.

“Your powers of organization astound me.” Max said dryly.

“Yeah, yeah.” Jeri held out the phone in one hand. “Get dialin’.”

Junior councilmen Jimmy Chang paused in his office doorway, still dialing his cell phone, and glanced up at his secretary. “Did you cancel my dinner with the Mayor, like I asked?”

She turned from the computer screen and smiled brightly in response. “Of course, sir.”

Chang nodded and moved back into his office, oblivious to the way that his secretary scowled at him as soon as his back was turned. Like she would forget to do the one thing that he’d actually trusted her with. The young councilman was positively anal about taking all of his calls personally, which left her with very little to do except push paperwork around her desk and play solitaire.

The call connected just as the door slammed shut behind him, interrupting the secretary’s self-righteous scowl.

“Y’ello?”

“Frank?”

Chang heard something crash on the other side of the phone, like Frank had just abruptly pulled his feet off a desk and taken a lamp with them, or something. One dark eye twitched in barely contained annoyance.

“Sir?”

“I suppose I don’t have to ask if you’re still out at the mansion.”

There was a long pause, as Frank tried to determine what sort of answer would get him in the least amount of trouble. “Well…”

“As long as everything is in place by this evening it hardly matters to me where you are,” Chang interrupted. He picked up a photo frame from his immaculate desk, his mouth quirking at the image of his son, caught in a one-fisted yawn. He put the photo back down and his voice hardened. “Everything will be in place by this evening, won’t it, Frank?”

“Ahhh, of course, sir-“

On his side of the line, Frank vaguely wondered if driving up to Seattle, getting all the thugs into position, and waiting until nightfall could count as ‘overtime.’ He scratched the top of his head nervously; he wasn’t stupid enough to actually ask, especially when his employer had already started talking.

“I’ll be out at the docks by nine tonight. Try not to let those brainless guerillas you hired do anything stupid until I get there.”

“Of course, sir-“

But Jimmy Chang had already hung up the phone.

Frank scowled at the phone still in his hand. “That I hired?” He sighed, snapping the cell phone shut and tossing it on the desk. He turned back to the computer monitor, ignoring the lamp, still on the floor. The almost middle-aged man stared hard at the monitor's glowing face for a long moment, reached out, and started moving the mouse absentmindedly. He sighed. “I really, really need a new job.” It was practically becoming his mantra.

“Stop breathing in my ear, you’re bothering me.” Jeri turned to frown at Max. “If you’re so wound up, why don’t you go meditate or something. Say a mantra. Anything; I don’t care, just let me finish. I’m almost done.”

Max scowled and pulled away. Logan was still shoving down the sleeve of his shirt, covering the prick in the crook of his elbow. He'd shoved it back up, again, to frown at the bruising there. Sometimes he got the feeling that Jeri had it in for him; especially the way she'd so gleefully shoved the needle into his skin. As soon as his sleeve was down, brushing his wrist once more, he turned to smile calmingly at Max, who had begun to pace in the small examination room. The small digital clock next to Jeri told him that it was just now turning 10:30. He’d been here for almost an hour; it hadn’t taken him much more than half an hour to get here, and even less than that for Jeri to collect the five vials of blood she’d wanted. Really, she’d almost pounced on him as soon as he’d walked through the door. The women had practically had the needle in hand. Maybe she just really wanted to know what was going on... maybe that's why she'd been so... enthusiastic.

“If nothing else,” Logan said wryly, having had the situation angrily explained to him by Max while Jeri had been siphoning off his blood, “at least we know that breathing the same air as you won’t kill me.”

“Great,” Max snarled, “But for all we know, I could be passing this stupid virus to every person I meet.”

“We don’t know anything yet, Max.” Logan replied reassuringly.

Is it bad, that as sad as it was, as detrimental as it had been to their physical relationship, the existence of the virus was one of the few things that really connected him to her? He felt more in control of the situation when they had the common bond of the virus to worry about. He kind of liked being able to reassure her that, one day, they would get through this, that they had something to look forward to. Not to say that the virus wasn’t horrible and he hated it, because he did, with every fiber of his being, but at the same time it had also become one of the things that bound them together.

“Good news,” Jeri pushed away from the microscope, having finished combining some of Max’s blood with her first sample from Logan. “The virus is still chugging away at 100% efficiency." She smiled, almost delighted. "It’s slowly and merrily ripping all of Logan’s blood cells to shreds; it’s actually kind of fascinating to watch-“

Jericho trailed off, realizing that Logan and Max were looking at her a little strangely.

“How is that good news?” Max demanded, having stopped mid-pace to stare in amazement at the medic.

The brunette blinked. And then, “Oh, sorry! I figured you’d take it as good news that it wasn’t, like, twice as effective or something.” Twice as effective? Dead was still dead, in Max’s book, until she realized that twice as effective meant that if she accidentally touched Logan, he could have been dead in fifteen minutes or less, instead of thirty, which seriously cut down on the amount of time she could pump him full of another transgenic’s life-saving blood. Max sighed, remembering the good ole' days when she'd had hours before she had to worry about Logan succumbing to the virus; seemed like every time they touched, that window to save him through a blood transfusion got smaller. Not that even that would be effective forever, if what Jeri thought was true. Still-

“So what does it mean?” Her arms folded under her breasts, her face twisted in unhappiness. Logan offered her a comforting smile, but she ignored it.

“Well, I need to run some more tests; splice some virus DNA, see if it’s the same length as before, make sure that the virus reacts the same way with all of Logan’s blood samples…” Jeri shrugged. “But to be honest, I’d say that it’s probably unlikely that it was a mutation after all.”

Logan and Max shared a glance. Did that mean…

Jeri nodded, answering their unspoken question. “I think your body really did find a way to stunt the growth of the virus.”

Max’s eyes widened, just as Logan was demanding out loud, “Does that mean-“

“Yes, Logan,” Jeri turned to the older man, but kept her voice very neutral, as if to impart that it wasn’t as awesome a gain as he was probably thinking. “That means that in another two years, there’s a very, very small chance that Max’s body will have rendered the virus ineffective.”

Logan turned to look at Max, his face widening into a smile-

But Jeri was continuing, insistently. “But, seriously. Really small. Not for certain. And months from now. Not tomorrow. Months. Maybe even years.”

Max was still frozen. Years? Years?! Logan sighed, oblivious to Max’s stricken face as he turned back to Jericho. “Still,” Logan frowned. “I suppose it’s better than what we could have found out, right Max?” Logan turned back to Max, but she had already pushed out of the spotless exam room. “Max?”

“Max!” She heard the door open behind her, but she kept walking down the long, white-washed and brightly lit corridor. Logan’s voice from behind became annoyed. “Max, will you wait a second.”

She stopped abruptly, turning to face him as he caught up with her. “What?”

He frowned pensively, staring at her through his thin-rimmed glasses. “This isn’t as bad as you think.”

“Were you not listening back there?” Max demanded, gesturing back down the hallway. “Years, Logan. She said years.”

“Yeah,” Logan replied, still slightly annoyed. “And what’s a few more months, maybe years, when we’ve already been waiting a year and a half?”

“What’s a few more years?” She bit back in amazement. What's a few more years?! She couldn’t last two more years!

... God, she didn’t even know if she could last two more days.

Logan sighed, part of him kind of wishing he could reach out and grab her shoulders, force her to stare deeply into his eyes and feel the force of his conviction. “Max, you know I’ll wait for you.”

It wasn’t him waiting for her that she was concerned about. Her eyes searched his, just for a moment. The words gathered force in her throat. “Logan, I…” She tried to hold them back, but the words tumbled out, rushed out, in a pained whisper before she could suppress them. “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

Logan started, surprised. And then purposefully misunderstood. “You don’t want to fight about this anymore?”

Max sighed. “Logan-“

Logan didn’t back down. He never did. Sometimes she thought her relationship with Alec was cyclic… well, that was nothing when compared to her relationship with Logan. “I don’t want to argue about this again, Max.”

Well, didn’t she get a say, too? Why did he get to decide? She opened her mouth, tried again. “Logan…”

“Remember what I said yesterday?” Logan searched her eyes and softened his voice. “Sometimes we just need to work a little bit harder… right?” When she didn’t immediately respond, merely looked away in guilt, he added, “That’s why we’re having dinner tomorrow night, remember? It’ll give us a chance to reconnect, remind us of what’s important." She still wouldn't say anything, so he prompted again, "Right?”

Max looked off to the side for a long moment, her mouth set in a moue of unhappiness. “…Right,” She finally managed, in a soft voice. Oddly enough, for one long moment, she missed Alec.

“Good,” Logan smiled warmly in response. Then continued, in a sure voice, trying to lighten the atmosphere, “Are you hungry? I figured while I’m here, and it’s so close to lunchtime…”

But Max didn't feel like it, and it showed in every unhappy line of her hunched shoulders and browbeaten body.

“I gotta get back to work,” Max muttered, still unable to look at her boyfriend.

So he’d won, but the victory still felt a bit empty, the way she was leaving. “I’ll see you tonight then? 8 o’clock?”

“Of course,” Max nodded, turned, and started her walk out of the Med Group. Once the single, heavy door closed behind her, and her foot hit cement… well, she just had to get away from here… Now. She started off at jog, heading back towards Command, and by the time she was at the end of the street, she was practically at a full-out run.

Logan stood here in the hallway for a few moments, staring at the door she’d left through. Jeri, who’d been coming out of the examination room to hunt down some snacks and had caught the tail-end of the conversation, turned around and headed back into the room. She suddenly felt the need to watch more of Logan’s blood cells be brutally destroyed. Snacks could wait.

A few blocks away, snacks were of vital importance.

“Hey, you… kid.”

The X-6 stopped in the hallway, turning to stare at Alec with a wide-eyed 'who, me?' expression.

Alec had his arms folded across his chest, his eyes trying to impart the seriousness of the mission. “Go to mess, grab a couple of waters and a few ho-ho’s and run them out to Carter, will you? He’s in the Eastern Sector, near the back-up entrance.”

The X-6 took off immediately, probably glad of something to do. Alec shook his head and turned back to Luke. “Anything else?”

“No, that was about it.”

Alec sighed in annoyance. “How many times I got to tell you, Luke? When Carter calls in to request a snack run, tell him to buzz off. That frequency is for emergencies only.”

“He said it was an emergency!” Luke defended. Alec rolled his eyes, because Luke was just too nice of a guy.

“An emergency request for ho-ho’s? That hardly qualifies as-“ Alec’s eyes focused past Luke’s head. And widened.

“Hey,” Marcy said softly. Luke started and turned to gaze at the short red-headed woman that had snuck up behind him. Well, not so much ‘snuck’ up, as ‘walked quietly up while both men had been distracted.’

So sneaky.

Luke frowned and opened his mouth, but he felt a sudden rush of air behind his back. He turned to find that Alec was moving rapidly back towards Max’s office, regardless of the fact that he was being kind of rude.

“Alec!” Marcy huffed.

Luke turned wide eyes back to Marcy once more as Alec froze in his steps. Maybe this would be a good time to just, you know… Luke booked it out of there before he could get caught in the cross-fire.

“We really need to talk,” Marcy finished, when Alec winced and turned to look at her. He shifted and adjusted his collar, almost in discomfort.

“Marcy…” Alec laughed uncomfortably. “Heh… Wheeen’d you get here?”

“About an hour ago.” She said flatly. “I heard you were here, but the office door was locked.”

He knew, because he’d locked it, and when she’d tried to turn the handle, he’d sat very, very still, and hadn’t made a sound. “Really? Weird, must be broken.”

Marcy sighed in annoyance, and repeated in that little girl's voice, “Alec, I’m serious, we need to talk.”

Alec finally gave up, and then he too sighed. “Marcy, there’s really nothin’ to say-“

“I get it, you know?” Marcy interrupted, her emerald green eyes sliding up to meet his.

Alec’s mouth snapped shut. He glared at her in confusion; was this some kind of trick? “Get… what?” He asked grudgingly, his interest piqued.

“I’m not stupid. I know the way I acted when I was fighting with Janna… Well… I know.” She looked away from him, full lips pursing together in embarassment.

Alec was still watching her in suspicion. “Is this your way of apologizing?” He hoped she wasn’t, he didn’t have it in him to be mean to her to begin with, but this could make everything that much more diffic-

“Yes,” She looked at him once more, and nodded, her curly red hair swaying around her full, sad face. “I’m sorry about how I acted.”

Ah, crap.

“Well… thanks.” Alec tried to turn on his heel, tried to get the hell out of there, before he could remember that she was one of the nicest people he knew, and there was something wrong with him because he had strictly been interested in her for her cutesy physical appearance. He didn’t want to be reminded that everyone was always saying that Marcy was the type of girl you should settle down with. He didn’t want to restart the guilt and reconsider dating her for no other reason than the fact that it was the thing that he should do.

“Wait!”

Please just let me go back to the office, he begged her mentally, before steeling himself and facing her fully once more. “Yeah?” He asked, sounding way more nonchalant that he really was.

“This thing with you and Max…”

Oh come on, not even she could be so nice as to say something like ‘hope it works out’ or something similarly sappy-

But Marcy surprised him when her eyes narrowed, her tone strengthened, and she continued. “The thing is, I thought Max was dating Logan.”

That was unexpected. “Uhhhh-“

“And I know that you two are friends, but I had no idea that there was even a hint of anything like that between the two of you.”

Alec shifted from one foot to the other. “Well, I wouldn’t say there was nothing-“

“In fact,” Marcy continued, tapping her lips in thought. “I’ve kind of been wondering if this whole thing-“

Alec cut her off gently before she could finish the thought, and he answered her with as much honesty as he could. “Regardless of what you think, Max did claim me. And anything you could say right now, it’s just opening yourself up for trouble.”

Marcy’s head cocked to the side. “It’s pretty unstable?” Huh. If the claim was really unstable, that must mean Alec was almost equal to Max. Which meant that he was actually more alpha than either she or Janna were. Which meant he could have told either of them no at any point, and they would have had no choice but to accept it…

So, what, was he just a big coward then?

Well, actually, come to think of, if it’d just been Alec that had said no, there was no way Janna would have shoved off. Alpha females were a little strong-blooded like that. And so long as Janna had her clutches on him, Marcy wouldn’t have given up, either. Maybe the only way Alec had been able to shake Janna was by throwing a more dominant female in the mix. But now that Janna was out of the picture… “Alec-“ Marcy started to say, but frowned when she realized that it had come out in stereo sound… She’d said it the exact same time as Peta, on the opposite end of the hallway.

Alec turned to the night model near the training entrance. “I need to talk to you,” Peta said blandly, her eyes offering him a healthy dose of ‘this is me, saving your butt.’

“Right, well…” He glanced at Marcy. And for the second time that day, though the smile was more strained, he heard himself say, “Good talk.” He ambled off, maybe moving a little too quickly to really call it an amble, down the hallway towards Peta, who was busy tapping her foot in impatience. Marcy watched for only a moment before turning and walking away, the gears in her head spinning at lightning speed.

As soon as Alec got close enough, Peta snagged him by the ear and pulled him into the training room. “Ow!” Alec ripped away. “What the hell!”

“What, are you crazy?” Peta demanded. “Do you not remember that you just had one of your best friends bite you for the sole purpose of getting that girl’s talons out of you?”

“She was apologizing,” Alec defended, rubbing his ear in annoyance.

“For what? Spending copious amounts of time in bed with you?”

“For how crazy everything got,” Alec frowned in response, his hand dropping back to his side.

Peta just shook her head, the hair in her high ponytail swishing back and forth. “The girl has an agenda.”

“Who, Marcy?” Alec laughed. Yeah right. “Marcy is probably the nicest person I know.”

Peta eyed him for a long moment before responding gently. “That doesn’t mean you have to like her, Alec.”

Alec ignored her, turning to look at the transgenics, mostly X-5’s, a few X-4’s, and even a few transhumans, warming up on the mats. Changing the subject usually worked pretty well for him, so he didn’t think this time would be any exception. “Everyone here, then?”

Peta turned, her gaze becoming sharp and critical, not that she had completely given up on this subject with Alec; she would just have to revisit it later. “Almost everybody. Still waiting on a few stragglers.”

Alec frowned, his eyes sweeping across the room. “So which one is he?”

Peta pretended obliviousness, her keen eyes still scanning the various forms and stretches as the transgenics warmed up. “Which one is who?”

“Don’t think you can try and play all insightful with me and then turn around and pretend ignorance about your own life,” Alec warned. “We both know who I’m talking about.”

Peta scowled, glancing at her friend out of the corner of her eye. She said, extremely grudgingly, “He’s the one in the back corner, stretching his calf against the wall.” Alec followed her gaze to the man leaning near some crates, his foot held against the wall as he leaned in and stretched the muscles on the back of his leg. Alec frowned.

This, then, was the infamous Jay.

“Huh.”

“Huh? Huh, what?” Peta turned to frown at him in suspicion.

“The way you described him I expected him to be more… I dunno… more Neanderthal lookin’.”

Neanderthal was generally Peta’s favorite term when used to describe Jay.

Even though Jay was an average-sized X-5, 5’11 or so, with a thin, athletic build and a fairly attractive face.

“The guy looks more like a soccer player than a Neanderthal,” Alec pointed out.

“Right,” Peta scowled. “Just like Logan is more of an intelligent human being than he is a ‘stupid Ordinary.’”

Ah crap, even she had heard about that?

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Alec frowned.

“You figure it out.” Peta sniffed, flouncing off.

Alec stared after her for a moment before shrugging. Eh. Women. He had accepted long ago that he might like them, and he might get a few insights here and there (certainly more than his friend Sketchy would ever get), but he would probably never really understand them. And that was only solidified when he headed back to Max’s office, only to find that she had slipped in while he’d been in the training room, and she was sitting at her desk, head buried in her hands.

He had a feeling that this was definitely one of the times that Max would prefer to be left alone. So naturally he shut the door gently behind him. She looked up, her eyes rimmed with red and trouble. She opened her mouth-

“Yeah, yeah, you’d rather be alone,” Alec frowned, his arms folding across his chest. “Well maybe I’d rather be with you.” Her mouth snapped shut and she stared at him for a long moment before finally looking away, slouching back into her chair, eyes closing in weariness.

Alec crossed the distance, came around the desk and perched on its corner, near her. He had a feeling he knew what this was about. “So, what’s up with the virus?”

“You gonna congratulate me?” She asked bitterly. Alec’s head cocked in question, not that she could see it. Well, she could, because her eyes popped open, she sat back up, and said, almost angrily. “I’m cured.”

Two words, and the whole world stopped. For a long moment, everything in Alec’s head went silent, and the most horrific, unnameable feeling coiled through his stomach; almost like dread, but not quite, a thousand times worse. Wonder what that’s about. Alec licked suddenly dry lips, gathered strength, and forced the world to restart. It skipped and stuttered, but finally he heard the beat of his own heart once more. “Well… congratulations.” He said weakly. And then, with more surety, even if his voice was a little hard, his eyes a little dark, “When did that happen?”

“Two years from now.” Max muttered darkly.

Uhhhhh. What? Alec blinked in confusion. “…Come again?”

Max sighed and leaned over the desk once more, burying her face back into her hands. Her voice was muffled. “Jeri thinks my body is slowly suppressing the virus. And seeing as how it took about a year and half to get this far, it’ll probably take that much longer ‘til the virus might not work anymore.”

“Might? You mean, it’s not even a definite?”

Max glanced up in surprise at his relieved tone. He scrubbed the expression from his face and affected a look of neutral concern. And then he remembered he was her friend and he wanted her to be happy. He sighed, slouching, as the concern became real and his voice became gentle. “Hey, relax, Max. For all you know, there’s a Manticore scientist out there just waiting for the opportunity to work on a cure for you. There’s no definite that says you’ll be virus-ridden for another two years.”

She looked back down, through her hands, towards the desk, her eyes squeezed shut, and her muffled voice was pained. She must not have heard him, or maybe she didn't believe him, because- “I can’t do this another two years, Alec.” She glanced up at him through unhappy eyes. “I’m tired.”

Alec froze, torn, as the world slowed once more...

He didn’t particularly like when Max gazed at him like the weight of the world was crushing her soul; kind of made him feel like he needed to do something, anything... But… As her friend, he naturally wanted to make her feel better. As someone who’d loved and lost- hadn’t it only been two days ago, maybe more, the days were all bleeding together, that he’d reminded her that she was a danger to Logan? Alec stood from the desk and came down to a crouch, swiveling her chair to face him. He thought for a long moment, trying to come up with the least hypocritical and most comforting statement he could while she looked at him with expectant eyes; like somehow, he could help fix this. Finally, he just settled for the most generic honesty he could think of, his hands coming to rest on her knees.

“Max, Logan will always love you.” Max’s face started to fall, but Alec continued. “And I will always be your friend. So whatever it is that you decide…” He trailed off, unsure of how to continue. Whatever she decided, what? They’d both understand? Not likely. If Max’s future didn’t come with a spot on a pedestal for Logan, the older man was sure to throw a fit. If Max did continue with Logan, well… Alec would always be halfway convinced that she’d made the wrong decision… So what could he settle on? She’d never be alone? Because she’d always have him? He didn’t know if he wanted to put himself that far out there.

Max watched him struggle for words for a long moment, and finally her hand came up, glanced across his forehead, brushing stray hair away. Alec glanced up at her, solemn. “You cleaned off the mark.” She said softly, offering him a way out.

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Yeah, well, got tired of everyone bringing it up.”

They stared at each other for a long moment… and then finally Max cleared her throat, pulling her hand away and looking away as well. “Don’t know why I’m freaking out anyway,” Max started, and Alec took that as his cue to remove his hands from her knees. “I’m sure after tomorrow everything will be fine.”

Alec smiled in question, one eyebrow arching as his head cocked to the side. “Tomorrow? What happens tomorrow?”

Honesty is the best policy, right? Then why did Max want to lie, lie, lie? She admitted, grudgingly, “Logan and I are going to have a date night. Maybe it’ll fix all this-“ She trailed off, because Alec had sprung back to his feet, and was moving away from her, agitated. “Alec?”

“It’s nothing.” It never was nothing. He shoved a hand roughly through his hair, resisted the urge to pace the length of the room. His voice couldn’t be controlled though, and it was almost scathing. “I’m sure spaghetti with Logan will be magical. I’m sure it’ll fix all your problems.” He made for the door-

“Alec, don’t be like this-“

He glanced at her blankly over one shoulder. He could have thrown out a ‘be like what’ be even he recognized there was no hiding how spun he was. Well, if all else fails, blame the claim. “I just… With everything that’s goin’ on, I just can’t deal with this right now, Max." He looked away from her, stared hard at the doorknob his hand was resting on. "I’ll see you tonight.”

“Fine,” She replied, surprising him. A part of him had expected her to blow up in anger; in reality, she still sounded a little lost. “8 o’clock?”

“Like it ever changes,” Alec rolled his eyes before yanking open the door. It fell shut behind him, hitting the frame hard enough that it disguised the sound of Max’s head, hitting her desktop.

When was this going to get easy?

Jump to Part Three