Z is for Zoo, 3C

[seamagik]

Was supposed to be part of 3B, but dang LJ thinks it's too long.



He was tempted to get in his car and drive non-stop back to Wyoming. He was tempted to march back into his small, utilitarian room and pack his few remaining possessions and heaven help them if anyone asked him if something was the matter.

Heaven help her if Casey saw him before he could get out.

He didn't go back to Wyoming. He drove to the Space Needle and stepped out into frigid night air, staring upwards at its imposing structure. He didn't have the strength to climb its many steps, didn't have the strength to face all the memories, so he sat on the hood of his dark car and stared up at it instead. He sat there for what felt like hours, ignoring everything, strangely still, his thoughts strangely silent. He barely noticed the cold. He hardly noticed the lights of the approaching car and the person that stepped from it.

"I thought I'd find you here."

He grunted, barely acknowledging Logan's presence.

"Dix told me he saw you in Command."

No wonder Dix hadn't called Mole in the last three months. Apparently he'd flipped sides. Couldn't blame him. This whole misunderstanding, this whole mess, it did sort of make Alec look like the world's number one jerk. He made another noise in the back of his throat.

"What are you doing here, Alec?"

Alec's head swung slowly. He took in Logan's face. It was hard, his blue eyes as icy as the night air. The man looked exactly the same. He hadn't changed a bit. Why did Alec feel so much older? He looked at the Space Needle once more. "Max is pregnant."

Logan's voice was dry in response. "Having actually been here the last three months, I'm well aware of that."

Annoyance flared and Alec slid off the hood of his car, turned to face the other man. "Well bully for you. Maybe if Max had actually told me, I would have been here too."

Logan's eyes narrowed in suspicion. His hands dug deeply into the warmth of his jacket. "What do you mean she didn't-"

“She didn’t tell me! Okay? I don't know what Max has been splashing around T.C., but I'm not the one she told. She told someone else and assumed it would get back to me..." He paused before finishing bitterly. "Which it didn't.” The anger flared again. Casey's calm, lying eyes flashed in his mind's eye. His fist tightened.

Logan’s eyes were still narrowed in suspicion, and he was watching Alec in wariness.

Exasperation made him roll his eyes. “God, Logan, I swear she didn’t say a word-“

“It doesn’t matter,” Logan interrupted. Alec fell back a bit, confused, but before he could open his mouth, Logan continued. "It doesn't matter, because they're not yours." When Alec still looked confused, Logan clarified. "The twins? They're not yours, they're hers."

Where had he heard that before? From her lips. She couldn't really believe that crap could she? Alec drew away, realization blooming.

His voice was stiff. "Is that what you told her? Is that how you convinced her to marry you?"

Logan leaned in, his blue eyes sharp behind his thin glasses. “I’m the one that’s been here for Max these past months. Not you. And I’m the one that’s going to be here for her kids…. Not you. Me.”

"You?" Alec scoffed. He'd been Max's second in T.C. for a full year. He'd left T.C. for a different kind of stand almost two years ago. He wasn't the same youth that had let them heap all their shit on him right after Manticore. He was, however, the same man, that could see through all the bullshit, just like he'd been able to back then. And Logan was a fool for not realizing that. "You? Logan, you're territorial and possessive on a good day. What makes you think you could ever love any children of mine?"

"Because they're not yours." Logan repeated, his head cocking to the side, able to present a condescending air without changing his expression. Alec was struck by the urge to punch Logan in his smug, high-class mouth.

"Bullshit," Alec spat. "Maybe you spoon-fed that crap to Max, and maybe you even tried to believe it yourself, but we both know it doesn't work that way. What happens when she has the kids, Logan? What happens when you see some of me in them? Maybe you'll try, but you'll never really be over it. You'll always hate them a little bit, and part of you will despise her a little too. And it goes without saying that you'll always hate me. That'll make it a little difficult for you when I keep popping up to see the kids that you keep trying to tell yourself aren't mine." He shrugged, glanced away, couldn't help the little bit of snarkiness that felt like a comfortable old pair of shoes he was stepping back into. "Just think of how awkward Thanksgiving will be."

When had he stopped caring what Logan thought of him? Probably when he'd started caring what Max thought. Maybe when he'd left T.C. and grown up. Come to think of it, maybe he'd never cared, and had only ever tried for Max's benefit.

Logan watched him, still stiff. He relaxed a little bit, softened, and shrugged, like he accepted the smallest bit of truth within Alec's statement. But he backed it up with facts of his own. "I'm not the complete villain you're making me out to be, Alec. I do love Max. I've been here for her and I will take care of her."

And he meant it, Alec could see that plainly enough.

Maybe that was true. But it didn't change anything. Alec wasn't going to slink off into the darkness just because Logan cared for Max. He sighed, brought a hand up to his head, rubbed tired eyes. "Max doesn't love you, Logan."

"But she doesn't love you, either." Logan responded in a hard voice. "Sometimes I don't think-" He trailed off. Alec could see the statement roiling in the other man's mind. Sometimes, Logan knew, just as surely that Alec knew, that Max wasn't entirely sure what love was. But Logan would never admit something like that out loud, especially to him.

They stood in silence for a few long moments. He didn't know what made him reveal it to Logan. The man should be his rival, but- "I think I should move back."

Logan glanced up, his eyes sharpened. "Don't."

So, maybe that wasn't a revelation he should have made. Really, what had he been expecting? Logan was still human. As good and as upright as he may try to be, Logan still wanted Max for himself. Was still a strange, noble, do-goody, selfish, jealous little bastard. Alec smirked and shook his head, turning away.  But Logan grabbed his at jacket, stopping him.

Alec glanced down at the hand gripping tightly at his arm. He glanced at Logan over one shoulder, his face so dark and so completely blank, it was like looking at somebody else. He looked nothing like the man Logan had known that first year after Manticore burned.

His voice was very carefully controlled, and the emptiness and the sudden rage was almost chilling. "Take your hand off of me."

He did, but Logan didn't give up. His eyes took in the slight bruising on Alec's jawline. "I take it you've gone to see Max?"

Alec thought of her familiar face, the fire burning in her eyes, the weariness and the want as he'd leaned in. Her whispered plea. He hadn't been able to decipher it. Had she wanted him to lean the rest of the way in, or had she wanted him to leave? He thought he'd known then, but after hours of sitting in quiet, now he wasn't so sure... He did know, however, that whatever it was that was between them, it wasn't completely healthy, actually wasn't even remotely healthy, and he needed to sort through his confusion.  Try to figure out what the hell had happened with Casey. But Logan was still waiting, and Alec turned to face him once more. "Yeah, I went to see her."

Logan misinterpreted Alec's long pause, thought that Alec had seen what he saw. "That's not Max, Alec. That empty, tired person that wears Max's face? That's what you and your twisted relationship has made of her. She's broken, and if you come back, I don't think I'll ever be able to fix her."

She had seemed strange. Empty. At first. But then, like it always did, the fire filled her and she bled electricity into the air. He ignored that 'fixing her' shit, because he wasn't sure how to respond to it. Instead, he snorted, "Empty? Max? She's the same pig-headed, stubborn bitch she was when she came to visit me three months ago." He felt bitter just for a second as he muttered to himself. "Doesn't matter, my ass. Who does she think she's kidding?"

"What?"

Alec ignored Logan. The more he thought about it, the more he had to stand here and listen to Logan's bullshit, the less sure he was that Max's please had been a request for him to leave. The more he could see through her attempts to hold on to her apathy, the rage flaring through it all every single time. The more he realized that fighting with her was better than losing her completely. His lips pursed, his eyes narrowed. Suddenly, leaving her in the apartment seemed like it had been a bad idea. Like maybe staying and pissing her off some more would have been better for them both.

Maybe that was just wishful thinking, but Alec held on to it anyway. Maybe he was tired of being a wounded, angry, 'gloomy mother fucker' all the time. Maybe he'd just use any excuse to try and hold on to her.

There was something wicked gleaming in Alec's eyes, but something knowing, something hopeful, as well. Something that reminded Logan of the Alec that had once lived in Seattle. Maybe what Josh had told Dix was wrong. Maybe Alec hadn't really changed all that much after all.

But Alec's voice was sudden in the silence and it put Logan off guard. "I gotta go."

"I'm serious, Alec!" Logan warned him as he pushed his way past to the driver's side door of his car. "She's breaking."

Alec pulled open the door. And shook his head. "Max was broken long before she met me. Or even you for that matter." He paused before stepping into the car, though. "For the record... I really want to punch you in the face one day."

Logan just stared back. "Believe me, the feeling is mutual."

Alec just rolled his eyes, slipping into the car, starting the engine. Logan could have followed him to Max's apartment. He could have stood between them and tried to make Max see reason. He didn't, and Alec felt a small flare of appreciation when he saw Logan's car turn in a different direction then his own, heading away from Max's apartment rather then following Alec to it. Logan wasn't totally bad. Misguided, maybe, but at his core, he was still a good guy. Maybe he thought that Max and Alec should sort out whatever it was that they'd latched on to. Knowing Logan, he probably thought that the only way Max would be happy with him was if she got some closure with Alec. Fat chance. There'd never really be closure for them, especially now.

Now he just needed to convince her of that.

It was still night when she woke; the moon was shining through a window, and its familiar glow was more comforting than glaring morning sunshine had ever been. She was staring at the ceiling, but she was disoriented: the bed was dipping towards the right, towards a weight that should not be there. She turned and blinked her eyes in confusion at the familiar sight of Alec’s hunched, jacketed back, sitting on her bedside, facing away from her. She forgot where she was; she almost thought he was reaching for his shoes, she almost asked him to stay. He glanced at her over his shoulder, instinctively knowing she'd woken up, and she caught sight of the ring in his hand, the ring she had numbly scooped from the ground and gingerly placed upon her bedside table after he'd left. Reality came crashing back.

How long had he been sitting there?

Why did he seem so calm?

And through it all; he hadn't left? Why was he still here?

Alec watched the questions flow across her face before snorting, and wiggling the diamond ring between his fingers. “Logan just can’t let it go, huh?”

“He loves me,” She snapped, defensive, her voice still slightly groggy. She cleared her throat and pretended she couldn't hear all of their silent recriminations bouncing through the dark room. Why didn't it just sound like a ‘he loves me?’ Why did her quick glance away from him seem to add, 'something you never did.' Why did the familiar pursing of his lips and his hard eyes over his shoulder shout back at her, 'maybe I would have, it you would have let me.'

And then between them both, a slight air of anger and bitter regret, and what-if’s, just for a moment. She ignored those unspoken ghosts of emotion, and she ran thin fingers through ratty hair, wishing for a comb, wishing that she hadn't fallen asleep in her clothes, rumpling them, prayed that the slight amount of mascara she had applied this morning hadn't smeared around her eyes, wishing that she didn’t wish for those things, that she hated him enough to not care.

Her voice, when it came again, while not gentle, was at least softer. "I thought you'd gone back to Wyoming."

"No. Had to think." He glanced at the ring once more. Put it back on the bedside table with a sigh. "So I went to the Space Needle and ran into Logan instead."

Max was afraid to ask what they'd talked about. So she didn't.

Alec shrugged. "Needless to say I didn't get any thinking done. Not with Logan yapping in my ear." Alec glanced at her over his shoulder. His gaze was teasing, and she could tell he was trying to get a reaction from her, hoping that he wouldn't. She wondered how a man who was so different could be exactly the same. She sat up slowly, drew her knees as close to her body as her stomach would allow her.

Maybe she should still be mad at him, but instead she asked, "Why'd you come back?"

Because maybe he was selfish, and maybe he was sick, but what he'd thought at the Space Needle had been correct: fighting with Max was better than losing her entirely. He scratched uncomfortably at the visible lines of his barcode below his short hair. It was a nervous gesture, and one that Max recognized. There was something burning in him, something he didn't want to let out.

Her voice was clipped and annoyed. "Just spit it out, Alec."

He stood and walked away from her. He turned on her when he reached the window, the soft glow of the moon and the weak light of the streetlamp flickering around him. She shouldn't be able to his features in the darkness, especially with his back towards the light, but clear night vision was one of the better perks of being part cat, and she watched the annoyance move across his face.

He watched her studying him for a moment, before asking, "Why do you always have to be such a bitch?"

"Why do you always have to be such a pain in the ass?" She threw back.

He shrugged and silence stretched once more.

She wished she could be as angry as she'd been last week, when she'd thought he'd known and hadn't cared. Somehow, knowing that Casey had-

"I want to come back to Seattle."

Her head snapped upwards, connecting with his. "You can't." He couldn't. It would ruin everything. She was marrying Logan. She was trying to get her life back. She was trying to hate him.

He leaned back into the window, stubborn. She swung her legs off the side of the bed and crossed her arms across her breasts, just as stubborn. She glanced away, and shrugged, and tried not to be bitter. She failed miserably. "Besides, what would your girlfriend say?"

"My girlfriend?" He blinked.

"You know." She replied, her voice laced with sarcasm and all but sprung from the bed, pacing away from him. "The one that called me a whore right before telling me that you chose her over me. The one that forgot to mention to you that I was pregnant."

Suddenly, the strange conversation he'd had with Max in the underground hallway three months ago was taking on whole new meanings. Jesus. The more he talked to Max, the more he was the one that looked like a jack ass. His lips moved automatically before his brain did. "Casey, my girlfriend? That's gross, Max."

Max blinked, and in her confusion forgot to sound spiteful. Gross? That was a... strange way to put it. She turned back towards him. "Well, if she's not your girlfriend-"

Alec's hazel eyes refocused and connected with hers, but he still seemed slightly guarded about the subject. "She's not my girlfriend. She's my friend," Those green-gold eyes gazed down a perfectly straight nose at her. "One I've been taking care of since we were kids."

And it hit her like a ton of bricks. Christ. How had she never noticed before? Was it because she'd only talked to Casey that one time, and afterwards, she'd been so angry at Alec, she could barely see straight? It was plain now, though. Casey's familiar golden eyes had stared disdainfully at her over the length of her perfect, straight nose. The one that Max had wanted to punch until it was completely flat. The platinum hair had distracted her, had masked the similarities, but god, replaying the very satisfying slap Max had laid on the woman, the stupid cow even had Alec's high cheekbones.

"She's your sister." It was almost accusing, and the relief that it brought was almost overwhelming. She tried to tell herself that that didn't change anything but who the hell was she kidding? "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

He rolled his eyes, his arms dropped back to his sides. "We were cooked up in a petri dish, Max. I don't think the term 'sister' is very aptly applied in this case." He looked away, his eyes darkening. Especially considering the rather vital bit of information Casey had kept from him.

"Besides," he tried to cover it. "Think about it, if I'd tried to tell you I had a sister, how would you have reacted back then? You probably would have tried to tell me I didn't even understand the concept of a family."

Unfair, but maybe it was true.

Still... the encounter Max had had with the woman was taking on a whole new tint. The woman had been defensive, and as angry as she'd been in that small room three months ago, Max had still recognized that Casey had been grasping, trying to hold onto Alec. She'd thought, at the time, it was because Casey was the neglected girlfriend that saw Max as a threat for Alec's heart. But that wasn't it. Max was a threat because Casey was just another broken toy that didn't want to lose the only family she had, the brother that had always taken care of her.

But that didn't change the fact that she was a self-righteous bitch that needed to be taken down a few pegs. A lot of pegs. Maybe kicked down the pegs, and a flight of stairs as well.

Alec pulled out of his own darkness to watch the outraged, angry emotions play across Max's face. His voice was gentle. "What did she say to you, Max?"

Anger surged and Max stood, moving away from him, straightening her hair as best she could, twisting it over her shoulder. "It doesn't matter."

"It does matter." He followed her, calm but insistent. "Especially if it wasn't true."

"But it was true," She whirled on him. "She was right. You left, Alec. There's not a statement on earth that isn't as true as that was."

What could he say to that? It was true, wasn't it?

“You betrayed me.” She continued flatly, her arms hanging, almost forlorn, by her sides. “You were my friend and-“

“Are you still going on about that?” His face twisted and he closed the distance between them. "Jesus, Max, that was two years ago! When are you going to get it?"

She advanced on him as well, because this was something more important than Casey. This was something she'd been waiting for for a long, long time. “Maybe when you finally have the decency to explain it to me!" It'd been eating her for two years, and the sickness couldn't be denied any more. "I think I deserve an answer, Alec, after all this time. Why did you do it? I trusted you.”

He frowned down at her in the soft darkness. What was there to say? That was so long ago... and he'd always told himself that she could never understand, but with her standing before, demanding an answer, so obviously betrayed... She deserved an answer, she always had, and he'd always been too much of a coward to give it to her. He sighed, thrust a hand through short hair that didn't even remotely hinder his fingers. “With or without me, change was coming, Max. And if I hadn’t been the one to lead it, transgenics would probably still be based out of Terminal City, and that day would have been very, very different.”

Her face descended into shocked disbelief and rage. “It would have been different if you hadn’t chased Levi down! If you’d come to me first and let me know what was going on before breaking his neck!“

He broke in, his voice rising in anger. “Levi and his cronies wanted you dead! Maybe I took care of it the only way I knew how.”

Her small hand connected with his larger shoulder and he took a steadying step back. “What, by killing him? By leading a massive fucking revolt against me?!”

He was silent, frowning, history obviously eating him behind his dark eyes.

"Well?!" She demanded. She shoved at him again, and his patience frayed.

Before she could shove him again, push him off the deep end, he snapped. "Fine. You want the truth, Max?"

"It'd be nice for a change." She huffed.

His angry voice snapped through the room, was almost like a slap to the face.

"The truth is, I didn't kill Levi."

Max backed down, deflated, and couldn't feel anything other than confused. "Wai- What?"

He scowled. "You know how I knew Levi was coming after you? Because he came for me first." Alec shook his head, his eyes still blazing. "C'mon, Max. He knew if I was alive there wasn't a chance in hell that he'd be able to get close enough to you to hurt you... Only Casey snapped his neck before he could pull the trigger that was aimed between my eyes."

She fell abruptly still. What do you even say to something like that? Max sure as hell didn't know.

Alec shrugged. "There was a body. There was a city on the brink of revolution, and I had two options. Hand Casey, my half-sister, and a woman that had just killed a man for me, over to a fucking mob and try to grab you and run, pretty unlikely considering how damn stubborn you are and the fact that you were waiting with baited breath for Logan to propose to you... or take credit for ending a fucker that deserved it, spout some anti-Max, anti-Ordinary, 'the revolution isn't coming soon enough' bull-shit, and slowly redirect them, get them away from you, back to a life that they all claimed they wanted."

All of that, and through her shock, the only thing Max could think to ask was, "Does Mole know?"

"Are you fucking kidding me? That scaly bastard helped me toss the body in front of all of Levi's dumb fucking 'generals.' He practically sold the entire story to them."

She shook her head. Her lips were dry. She forced words to form. It was like... like finding out Santa Claus didn't exist; like she'd believed a lie for two years. “That... just... That couldn't have been your only choice."

"That was it, Max." He seemed solid and immovable, like a statue, like a stone monolith that wouldn't bend to her soft denial. He didn't want to admit it, but it was almost like he couldn't help himself. "Casey got it wrong when she thought I chose her by leaving. That's not who I chose." His eyes flashed for a moment, seemed soulful just for a second, and then went back to their typical hardness.

"Don't put this on me." She whispered. "You never had to leave."

"Well, what was I supposed to do, Max?" His exasperation frayed her patience. What the hell could he have done? The answer seemed obvious to her.

"You could have stayed with me!” She retaliated. “You could have fought by my side.”

“Against hundreds?” He laughed in disbelief. He had to pace away from her, come back in annoyance. “Jesus, Max, do you not understand how bad it really was?! It was like the fucking French Revolution all over again! The masses wanted blood; they were caught in up in Levi’s fucking propaganda frenzy, they thought the only way to get rid of you was to put your head on a goddamn spike. If you hadn’t been so busy chasing your fucking cure, maybe you would have noticed!”

It was true, wasn't it? In and out of town, dividing her attention between the cure and the caged populous, she'd never even noticed the ones prowling back and forth behind the fence, burning with hatred and the desire to be free. All this time, and she'd thought they'd been Alec's tigers... They hadn't been his at all. But... it was all so overwhelming, she didn't know how to react. So she reacted the only way she knew how. “Don't blame this on me!" Her hand caught his shoulder again.

He caught her wrist and pulled her closer, scowling in annoyance. “Stop fucking pushing me, already."

"I would if you weren't such an idiot!" Two years. Two fucking years. The loss, the thoughts, the questions... Her other hand came up, pushed his other side.

He caught that hand too. "Quit it!"

Both her hands were caught, her rage was wild, based on years of loss, and she didn't know how to act. "God, I hate you!”

"Well, believe you me, sometimes the feeling is mutual!”

She could feel the skin of her wrists bruising under the force of his hard fingertips. Her voice broke a little bit as she gazed up at him. “How could you leave me?”

His voice was still angry, frustrated. “I don’t know.” And he pulled her the rest of the way in to him, and just held her tightly, refusing to let go. Not that she fought him. She just kind of stayed there for a moment, almost limp, almost like the broken toy he knew she was. That was before her spine firmed like steel, she wrenched her wrists from him, and before he could shoot something at her, something caged and defensive, her hands gripped his jacket and she tugged his mouth down to hers. Her hands tightened in his collar as she arched against him, as his hands came to her waist, gripped tightly, almost desperately, and held her as surely, as closely to him as he could get her.

It was going all too fast. Her fingers were pushing off his heavy leather jacket. Sure hands were pulling her shirt from her body, sliding over the smooth skin of her back. Amber sparks were exploding behind her eyes every time he drew a ragged breath against her lips, every time her tongue slid against his. Time was skipping in strange ways, weaving around them, only available in warm flashes of connection; his hands on her waist, her fingers sliding under his shirt, pulling the offending garment up and away from his body, his mouth moving over her neck and her gasps into his ear.  Time resumed though, uncertainty flicked through her eyes as she sat on the bed before him, gazing up at him.

"I'm not really sure where to go from here," He laughed softly, glancing down at her stomach. She didn't either, so she just leaned forward, let her eyes fall shut as her forehead connected with his abdomen, her eyes shutting. He sighed, his hands slid through her hair, glanced across a barcode. She'd lit the fire, and now she struggled to contain it, trying to calm her breathing.

Her voice was muffled. "We'll never work out."

"I know."  He lifted her face to meet his. His lips twisted a bit as he caught her gaze. "But somehow I think that joint custody between your zoo and mine... Somehow I think that'll work even less."  He thought of his kids, growing up in new Manticore, growing up behind T.C.'s barrier. The thought of either option turned his stomach, and hers as well, if that expression was any indication.

He stepped away from her, grabbed for his jacket and his shirt. She just accepted it with a kind of weary resignation. He paused in the doorway, glancing back at her. "For what it's worth, these last three months..." He trailed off, hesitant.

She buried her face in her hands, like she couldn't be seen to admit it. Her voice was harsh. "I know. I missed you too."

He smiled a bit before he turned back into a soldier. He almost didn't want to say it... but how could he not. "Max, you know what we've been doing."

Hunting down the Familiars. Her face darkened as she glanced up. Yes, she knew.

His voice was solemn in the darkness. "They're coming for you, Max. I don't know why now. Maybe they're tired of waiting on the government to finish the job. Maybe they never expected that the politicians in D.C. would be content to just leave you in a cage and forget about you. I don't know. All I know is that they're getting closer every day."

She knew what he was saying. He wanted her out of Seattle. He wanted her to come with him. She didn't say anything back. There was nothing to say. They both knew she wasn't going anywhere. He almost started to leave, but-

"Alec..."

He paused once more. But she couldn't say it, couldn't ask it. His eyes flicked towards the nightstand, towards the ring waiting, and he answered her unspoken question. "Don't do anything stupid before I get back."

God, he was such an asshole.

They both knew he hadn't really needed to answer her unspoken question, are you coming back, anyway. It was dual-sided. Maybe Alec always left. But, on the other hand of it, he always came back as well.
And if nothing else, Max had finally gotten her explanation.

But what the hell was she supposed to do with it?

And where the hell could he possibly be going? She thought of the shock on his face when she'd let it slip that it was Casey that she'd told. The betrayal. She figured she probably knew where he was going, and it was just as well, because she didn't know that she could face Logan in the morning if Alec was still sleeping in her bed. Christ, she was betraying him again.

Her head sunk into her hands and stayed there well after Alec's car hit Seattle's city limits. Well after the pre-dawn started to tint the air, and Alec glanced in his rearview mirror to stare hard at himself and question, for the first time, his inability to hit a woman that hadn't hit him first.