The wet asphalt glowed a dark gold under the street lamps of Seattle's night. The headlight from Max's roaring Ninja pushed through the rain-filled air like a battering ram. Her knuckles were white under her riding gloves from the choking grip she had on the handlebars. Her hair was soaked and clung to the back of her black leather jacket in long dark waves. The buildings were a blur as she sped past, but her eyes caught every movement and every minute detail down each side street and dark alley.
The first stop on her search had been Alec's apartment. He wasn't there, and there wasn't any sign that he'd been there at all since that morning. The fact that none of Alec's belongings were missing had given Max some hope that he hadn't gone far. That is, until she realized that a crying child probably wouldn't have the presence of mind to go home and pack a bag before running away. The thought had sent her blurring back to her motorcycle. The cool armor of control that she had managed to reestablish just a short time ago at Logan's was cracking under the growing weight of her worry.
Her next stop was Crash, their favorite hang out. Max practically tore the front door off its hinges in her haste to enter. She pushed through the throng of bodies that normally inhabited the popular bar on a Friday night, her eyes scanning the crowd more quickly than she could move through it. The pounding beat of the music matched her frantic pulse. The roiling cacophony of voices mirrored her own chaotic emotions. Max didn't really expect to find child-like Alec drowning his sorrows in a glass of Scotch, but she was desperate.
She spotted Sketchy leaning over the pool table and made a beeline in that direction. He was just about to take what was sure to be a misguided shot when she reached out and snatched the cue from his hands.
"Whoa Max!"
"Shut up, Sketch. Have you seen Alec?"
"No dude, he hasn't been here." The lanky slacker let loose with a low whistle as a particularly leggy blonde strutted by. His horny gaze followed her past. "Too bad too. The honeys are out in full force and I need a wingman." Max shoved the stick at him with a disgusted sigh.
Original Cindy walked up carrying a pitcher of beer. "Yo girl. Glad you showed." She set the full pitcher down on a side table and looked around. "Where's the Baby Boo?"
"I don't know!" The wail escaped Max before she could stop it. She bit her lip and clenched her fists in an attempt get control over her emotions.
Cindy's eyes widened at her roommate's outburst. "You lost him?"
Max shook her head frantically. "He ran, OC. He ran and its my fault. I have to find him." Without another word, she turned and headed for the exit, leaving a speechless OC and a dumbfounded Sketchy staring. People were just faceless obstacles to be moved as Max pushed her way back out. She burst through the door and into the rainy night. She jumped on her baby and revved the engine.
The black Ninja peeled into traffic at maximum velocity under her. Squealing tires, blaring horns, and cursing drivers faded to the background as she sped down the street. Max was oblivious to it all. Her mind was assaulted with worst case scenarios. Alec wandering in the dark, scared and alone. Alec being chased through the streets by faceless men. Alec wounded and cornered at gunpoint by White's agents. Alec lying still in a pool of the reddest blood, dead beneath White's smiling hatred. These visions cycled over and over in her head, echoed by the thunderous skies above.
Max screeched to a halt in front of Joshua's house. She ran into the house and was just about to call Alec's name when the sound of snoring stopped her. Joshua was sleeping on the large armchair in his living room. An opened book lay forgotten in his lap. Max stepped into the room, her shoulders slumping. The big guy would have been awake and comforting Alec if the X5 had been there. An easel stood in front of the arm chair holding Alec's painting. She stared at the colors interlocking Alec's name with her own and Joshua's, and her throat tightened.
An especially loud snore brought her attention back to Joshua. Max started to reach out to him, but hesitated, shaking her head. She couldn't wake him up and add his helpless worry to her own. There just wasn't anything that the big guy could do that she wasn't already doing. He couldn't even use his acute sense of smell to track Alec because the rain would have washed away any trace of the transgenic's passing by now. Max looked at him and thought, Why should we all be miserable? She turned away and left him to his peaceful dreams.
Outside the run-down old house, Max sat on her bike and let the chill autumn storm pour down on her. She felt utterly lost and absolutely alone. She hadn't felt this alone since that first night so many years ago that she spent without her brothers and sisters. The fear that gripped her now was similar in its intensity to what she'd felt that night. Sometime in the last few months Alec had carved himself a permanent niche in her inner circle, in her life. Somehow he'd wedged himself into her heart and she hadn't even noticed. She doubted he even knew that he had. She simply couldn't imagine her days without his constant chatter, without their endless bickering, without knowing that he had her back no matter how bad things got. What if Alec had really run away, left the city, left her completely? How was it that that thought scared her more than the thought of Alec in White's clutches? The answer was simple. She could fight White; she could rescue Alec. She couldn't fight being alone; she couldn't rescue herself.
Before she allowed herself to come to grips with that train of thought, a bolt of lightening streaked across the night sky, illuminating the Space Needle where it stood reaching for the thunderous heavens. In an instant, her key was in the ignition and the Ninja roared to life. She turned her baby and sped toward her last hope.
Max arrived at the Space Needle in record time and sprinted up the stairs, taking two and three steps at a time. She kept her mind blank as she ran, concentrating on moving up and up. She couldn't afford to break down. Her sanity was holding on by the thinnest of threads. If she stopped to think about the possibility that Alec might not be at the top, that thread would snap.
She cleared the final flight of stairs and entered the long-abandoned restaurant at the top of the Needle. Her mind flashed to the last time she'd run into this place searching for another transgenic. Without her meaning to, Max's eyes strayed to the steel beam where she'd handcuffed Ben. She imagined she could see him sitting there. She could even hear his voice.
{"What's the matter, Maxie? You afraid to remember?"}
Max closed her eyes and shook her head, trying to push the memory back and keep the ghosts at bay. When she opened her eyes again, the room was empty and silent once more. Turning her back resolutely, she strode toward the edge of the room. When she reached the shattered windows that led to the outside roof, she stood on the threshold and peered into the darkness. Her legs buckled and she would have collapsed in relief if she hadn't been gripping the window frame. There against one curving wall, under the weeping sky, sat Alec hugging his knees tightly to his chest, head bowed, face hidden.
It took her a moment to get her legs to work before she could step out onto the roof and walk over to him. She was smiling. Her joy at finally finding him colored her voice with warmth when she called out to him.
"Hey Alec, thought I'd find you here."
"Go away." He spoke into his knees and the words came muffled.
Max knelt beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Alec –"
His head snapped up. "Leave me alone!" Beneath the light of the full moon, Max could see that the skin around his eyes was red and swollen, his long lashes clumped together with his tears.
She pulled her hand back. The little lost boy before her reminded her of another lost soul she'd once known. One with imploring hazel eyes, a sweet smile, and a broken heart searching for peace.
{"We never should've left. Everything made sense there."}
The memories held her speechless – voiceless – for a few beats. She cleared her throat, but her words were still quiet when they came. "I can't leave you alone out here."
"Why not? You don't really want me around anyway. Even when I'm good. Even when I try." Alec angrily scrubbed at his weeping eyes with the back of his hand.
{"I'm a good soldier."}
He sniffled loudly. "I try so hard not to be what you think…"
{"I try so hard."}
"Not to be Manticore. But it doesn't matter. You always blame me. For everything. Things that aren't even my fault." His eyes dropped to the ground and his voice lowered to a whisper. "And you love everybody but me. Why, Maxie?"
{"Why? What did we do wrong?"}
He raised his eyes to hers again. Max could only shake her head. She tried to find the right words, the phrase that might somehow soothe his broken innocence. Searched for something that might pull back the curtain of time, back to the beginning so that she could make it all better. But, she had no answer for him. She had no answer for either of them.
"Why do you hate me?" Absolute stillness followed Alec's question. The thunder quieted and the skies themselves seemed to await the answer.
Max took a shaky breath and reach out to him again. "Ben, I don't –"
"I'm not Ben!!" The force of Alec's anguished cry threw Max back. The raw pain and accusation in his eyes made her heart stop and brought her firmly to the present. He continued on in barely a whisper, "You named me Alec. Remember?"
"I remember, Alec --" her voice broke. She licked her lips. The raindrops at the corners of her mouth tasted of salt. Funny. It had stopped raining. She tried again, "He…Ben…is dead. But you – you're more alive than anyone else I've ever known. I don't hate you." Alec looked away. "Really, I don't. Alec, I want you around." She swallowed. "I need you around."
"Then why? Why do you say those things to me then, if you don't hate me." Alec cocked his head to the side, his lip trembling as he tried to understand her. Max dropped her head, staring at her empty hands resting in her lap. When she spoke her words were so quiet only another transgenic could have heard them.
"Because sometimes we say or do hurtful things to the ones we care about, the ones we know won't leave us. We know it's wrong, but we do it anyway." She shrugged. "I guess it's a human thing."
Alec sniffed and glanced at his knees. "Human's suck." The simple conviction of his statement shocked a surprised laugh from Max. Startled, Alec lifted his head, sure that she was laughing at him. Max reached out a hand and gently cupped his cheek, wiping away his tears with a brush of her thumb.
"But it's okay, Alec. It's okay to feel."
New tears replaced the ones she'd just wiped away, and with a wordless cry Alec threw himself into her arms. Max held his shaking body just as tightly, brushing his bangs back. She turned her head slightly and murmured into his damp hair, "I can't lose you too, Alec. I won't." Max sat there, her shirt soaked through with rain and Alec's tears, his chest draped over her lap, her arms wrapped around him, and tried to rock their loneliness away. "I promise I won't lose you."
Consciousness slowly flooded Alec's senses and spilled into the haze of his dreams. The distant call of sea gulls came to his ears. Sunlight beat down across his cheek signaling a new day. Never one to be easily pulled from the sleep he coveted, Alec buried his face in the softness beneath his head. Slender yet strong arms enveloped him. A few fingers of one delicate hand lay gently across the barcode at the base of his neck. Those fingers were so soft, so soothing. For the first time in his life, Alec felt safe and protected. He sighed deeply and the smell of Max's warm body covered him.
That woke him up. He sat bolt upright, blinking rapidly as the sun pierced his eyes painfully. He suddenly realized that there was a jackhammer going off inside his head. He raised his hands to his temples and closed his eyes with a groan.
He felt Max move beside him and every muscle in his body tensed. He just knew that Max wouldn't be happy waking up next to him. Hell, who wouldn't have been cranky after sleeping propped up against a cold metal wall for however long they'd been out there? Alec took a deep breath and braced himself for her fury.
But instead of the angry outburst he was expecting, Max's voice was soft when she asked, "How are you feeling?"
Her gentle question and the genuine concern in her voice left him bewildered. Then he remembered that saying about a gift horse's mouth and shrugged, giving her a small smile. "Okay," he said, "considering my head's pounding like you drove your Ninja over it a few hundred times."
She reached up and brushed his bangs away from his forehead. Alec stilled beneath the oddly familiar gesture. Max let her hand fall before speaking again. "Dr. Shankar said that might be a side effect of the drug, along with mild memory loss. Both should be temporary."
Alec grunted. "Well, that would explain why I have no idea about any drug…or how I got here." He opened his eyes as if to look around, but immediately winced and snapped them shut again. "Did she mention anything about my eyes burning like they'd been branded?"
Max reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. She placed them gently on his face before speaking.
"No." Her hands dropped away from his strong features as she continued, "I think that's just what happens when you cry yourself to sleep." Alec opened his eyes and stared at her from behind the dark lenses. Everything seemed to stop. Even with her hyper-sensitive hearing, Max couldn't tell whether he was breathing. But she might have sworn that she heard what he was thinking.
What the hell? Is she joking? Well, my eyes do feel a kinda swollen. But, I haven't cried since…What the fuck did that drug do to me?
The two transgenics faced each other, a strained silence stretching out between them. Alec's mouth gaped and shut a few times, but no cock-sure statement found its way out. He looked like a suddenly landed trout. A suddenly landed trout that had pink cheeks and whose hair was sticking up in endearing tuffs all over his head.
Max managed to keep her laughter to herself, but it spilled into her chocolate eyes, making them shine. Alec squinted at her in suspicion. The corners of her lips quirked up slightly. "You hungry?"
"Starved," he answered without hesitation. He made himself ignore the awkward moment that had just passed. He was good at forgetting the things that were less than comfortable. He'd had a lot of practice.
The woman sitting across from him tilted her head to the side and arched an eyebrow. "You think your head can handle a ride on the back of my baby?"
"For food? Are you kidding?" Alec jumped to his feet as though the headache he'd been complaining about was miraculously cured. He held out a hand to Max. She took his offered help to her feet. It surprised them both. Together, they climbed through the window and headed for the stairs.
Halfway there, Alec turned to her with a smile. "Hey, can I drive?"
She looked at him like he'd lost his marbles. Again. "Uh, no."
"Come on, Max! Lemme drive. I won't hurt your baby."
"Whatever, Alec." She waved her hand in the air, dismissing his ridiculous request.
"Maa-aax. Come on Maxie, please." She kept walking past him, ignoring his pleas. "Max, are you even listening to me? Maa-xie?" Alec reached out a hand and tugged on a lock of her long brown hair. He'd been thinking about doing just that for most of the time they'd been chatting on the roof. Her hair had dried in a mass of waves and lush curls that Alec had never seen before. He couldn't resist.
She stopped mid-stride and turned to look at him. She slapped his hand away and was rewarded with Alec's usual cocky smile. Max scowled at him and muttered, "Maybe that damn drug hasn't worn off after all." Leaning in closer, she took hold of his shades and lifted. The moment Max met his mischievous hazel gaze, she could see the impish little boy she'd come to know so well giggling behind Alec's sparkling eyes.
Maybe he's been there all this time and I just never noticed, she thought to herself. I wonder if Alec even knows about him?
Max dropped the sunglasses back down as Alec continued to grin at her. She rolled her eyes and flipped her hair. "I could still drive the Ninja over your head a few times, you know."
Alec laughed as she walked away. "You are such a bitch."
She smiled at him over her shoulder. "And don't you forget it."
A/N: Thus ends Metamorphosis Part I. Thanks for sticking with it! I hope you enjoyed the read. This ends the cute, fluffy, cuddly part of our tour. Next will be fangs, angst, and blood. Okay, maybe not fangs…but definitely angst and blood. :) (Not sure if that warrants a smilie…) As always, a multitude of smoochies go out to those who have reviewed and those that will review in the future. Y'all rock my britches.
On a side note, someone pointed out the smear of Max's blood on Logan's chair in Chapter 7 and wondered whether I'd be using that to kill off the old geezer. But, alas, I didn't even realize the repercussions of putting that line in there…I'd like to pretend that I'm the omniscient author, but it's just not true. I feel that I can get away with the oversight since in all those Season Two episodes Max touched many things in Logan's house that he then touched and she must have shed at least one strand of that limp – uh, I mean, long hair that ended up on his clothes, and yet he never dropped dead. If Cameron & crew can do it, damn it so can I! Besides – unfortunately – I need Bogie Logie to play a crucial role in Part II. I'm sorry! (More sorry that you could possibly imagine…)
~Fli