Title: Underestimated
Author: MissAnnThropic
Spoilers: Freak Nation
LiveJournal: miss_annthropic(dot)livejournal(dot)com
Summary: Because she made the speeches and all the bad guys knew her by name, Max always imagined herself the leader of Terminal City. It took her weeks to figure out she was not.
Disclaimer: None of it's mine. I'm just a sad little fangirl that spends her days writing fanfic and watching DVDs of her favorite shows :(
Author's Note: Yep, yet another angle to writing Alec! Sooner or later I'll run out of them, I'm sure. Probably. Maybe. :)
Because she made the speeches and all the bad guys knew her by name, Max always imagined herself the leader of Terminal City. It took her weeks to figure out she was not.
At first, she was overcome with the burden of all these people she felt she had to protect. She gave orders and barked directions, and she didn't wait for those under her to question or object. There wasn't time. She had a job to do. And the tasks got done, so obviously her command was real. That was how Max saw it.
Then Terminal City developed a routine, a rhythm, and Max found time to breathe. People knew what needed to be done and did it. Patterns and duties were established and assigned. In all honesty, it became something of a ramshackle mock-up of Manticore, just without the cells or drill sergeants. A democratic military compound.
In the beginning, Max hated that when she saw it happening. She tried to fight it, to force Manticore out of Terminal City, but that was a battle she lost by increments. Mostly because she was one of the very few who hated the encroachment of military-mindedness.
The reason she eventually gave in was Alec.
The once-carefree sociopath was transformed after becoming a part of Terminal City, and Max was not the only one to take note of the change. Logan more than once had commented on Alec's 'steel', a term he never used to describe the transgenic before. But it was apt. Now, Max was hard-pressed to find the screw-off she knew so well at Jam Pony. Alec was a take-charge and respected personality among the transgenic population of Terminal City.
When Max was railing against the echoes of Manticore turning up in every facet of Terminal City, still fighting it with all her might, Alec finally pulled her aside and told her bluntly that she best back off on her crusade to purge Manticore from the transgenics. When she tried to protest, he cut her off and left no room for her to argue. "You may have spent the last half of your life in the ordinary world, but we haven't, Max. Most of us have only been out of Manticore a year. It's our identity. So what if we adopt some of the things Manticore did? It's how we were born and raised. It's our culture, and you have no right to take it from us."
Max had been flabbergasted, both by Alec's statements and the way he'd spoken. He had made a distinction between everyone at Terminal City and her. Them and her. It made Max's stomach roll at the sense of separation. She had always felt she was one of them. Alec told her flat-out she was the outsider.
But the truth was that Alec was right.
That was when Max started to watch more of what went on at Terminal City. Max was always a doer. Observation wasn't one of her stronger attributes. But after what Alec said, she started watching.
The other transgenics fell into military patterns and procedures naturally, without thought, and they were most comfortable when they were in that frame of mind. Max didn't like it, but she kept her mouth shut. When the residents of Terminal City didn't feel like cornered animals, when they felt like soldiers, the City was safer for everyone.
Alec had been right.
What Max began to notice after that was Alec. She had become skilled at looking at him without actually seeing him. On the outside, she made ignoring him almost an art form. He was a sarcastic jerk and she made herself a blind spot to anything he might be beyond what she defined him as.
In the ordinary world, that had worked.
In Terminal City, that snarky asshole Alec was simply not to be found. He moved among the troops, lending a hand in just about anything and everything, and being competent enough to be a help and not a hindrance wherever he ended up. Max had never suspected Alec was so versatile.
Wherever he went, Alec was accepted. That bothered Max, because there were many in Terminal City that didn't like her. She never knew all the reasons, but she never got the warm welcome from the others that Alec did. In the ordinary world, she had been the one with friends. In Terminal City, Alec was the popular one and Max felt like the grudgingly tolerated annoyance.
The moment that really knocked the wind out of her, however, was the day when she was giving orders to several transgenics about a power generator in need of repair. She was assigning people to different tasks, all full of her own leadership and power, while Alec stood leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. When Max was finished and told the grunts to get to it, she noticed (for the first time) each and every one of them, for only a second, look toward Alec. She saw Alec silently nod. Then and only then did the transgenics move to obey Max.
Max stared at Alec, dumbfounded. She knew she only noticed it that time because she had taken to studying Alec more keenly. She had never noticed that happen before, those under her command deferring to Alec, and she didn't know how to react. Alec gave her a trademark smile as if nothing was amiss and wandered off to see where he could be of help.
But Max was rooted in her spot, overwhelmed by the implications of what she had just witnessed.
So from then on, she started watching for it.
The first thing she realized was that Alec was always in the general vicinity when she was issuing orders to a group. He never made a big deal about it, but he was always close. Every time, before a single one of the transgenics she was addressing made a move to do as Max said, they looked to Alec first. It was only with his nod of agreement that they did what they were told.
They weren't taking orders from Max; they were taking orders from Alec.
Max started lurking. What she did probably almost constituted as stalking Alec, but she didn't care. She had to know the scope of what she was dealing with.
In her period of observation, Max realized that Alec was the one the other transgenics turned to. They went to him for orders, opinions, advice, even support… no one ever sought out Max for those things. They felt comfortable approaching Alec, and Alec never turned one away. Even when he was banged up and moody after a supply run gone awry, he would spare a moment of his time to untangle a Terminal City mess dumped in his lap. He always had friends near him when he was in a sociable mood. When he wanted to be alone, the others kept a respectful distance. When Alec entered a room, the occupants paused for a moment to see if he was going to give them an order.
Max felt like an idiot for not realizing it weeks ago. She was the poster child for Terminal City to the outside world because of all the ordinaries that had singled her out, but within Terminal City the real leader was Alec.
The transgenics humored her 'Max the Fearless Leader' act because Alec did.
Max understood that her command was only as real as Alec's willingness to play along.
That truth sat bitter in her stomach for days, and she was particularly nasty to Alec because of it. That made her realize just how frail her position among the transgenics was. When Alec got fed up with her mood and blew her off, the rest of Terminal City followed his lead. Just about the only one who didn't give her the cold shoulder was Joshua.
Like so many curve balls in her life, Max took some time adjusting to the idea, and then she dealt with it. Fighting with Alec here had consequences. In the ordinary world, she'd abused Alec and taken advantage of his friendship and it had not made a dent in her life. In Terminal City, the fastest way to a really bad day was to piss off Alec. The entire City took it personally.
So Max learned to accept that Alec was their unelected and unofficial commanding officer. It would be a cold day in hell before she saluted to him, but Alec didn't seem to expect that of her, and Max took that as the small victory it was. She stopped seeing him as an adversary so much as an ally. Most of the time, he backed her decisions, and with his support Terminal City was on board.
She didn't love the idea of depending on Alec's command to get things done, but it worked and she was only doing what she thought best for Terminal City and her fellow transgenics. She had to remind herself that it didn't matter how those goals were reached, as long as they were.
Of course, she didn't breathe a word of any of these revelations to Alec. He went about his daily life heedless of Max's newfound understanding of her place in the transgenic chain of command. She did, however, make it a point to take Alec seriously.
To Be Continued…