Disclaimer: Dark Angel isn't mine

Disclaimer: Dark Angel isn't mine. This is not for profit. Yadayadayada.

A/N: Sorry for the extreme delay…but this is all I got out of me in the hiatus. This might be it for a long time again, because school is starting up again. Enjoy the chapter! Thanks to everyone who has supported me and this story all this time.

CHAPTER 7:

This was War

Alec glanced over towards Max surreptitiously. She was pacing back and forth, one hand on her hip, the other holding an oversized cellphone close to her ear. Her face was twisted into a frustrated frown, her full lips turned downward, and that little line between her brows kept growing deeper and more pronounced.

"No, Logan, we have everything under control over here," she grumbled into the phone, her voice just slightly tinged with exasperation.

Alec almost laughed out loud at the blatant lie. Under control? Sure, if control meant chaos, confusion, and the general feeling of constantly slipping and falling.

In the last six hours since The Love Boat had docked onshore, they had scouted the tourist village for a place that would allow them access to a computer. In the end, they had rented a small office in a tiny beach resort for the day. It had taken a considerable amount of

Alec's charm, and even more of the cash they had pick-pocketed from the tourists to get the small office. But it was worth it, giving them access everything they needed to view the surveillance videos Max had nixed from the ship.

"Logan…please…don't ask." Max's voice was a small plea, quavering with vulnerability. Alec sighed heavily. He wondered if Max had ever heard herself speak with Logan. It was as if Logan just sapped all the fire out of her like a retardant.

Alec had never been one to really hate anyone—he was more or less the type to not care—but Logan was really closing in on that emotion. Especially when it comes to the way he keeps treating Max, he thought grimly. He smirked to himself. He had every right to feel the way he felt; Max was his wife, after all. He rolled his eyes at his thoughts and swiveled in his leather chair. He leaned back until it was reclined down to a very relaxing angle, then he hooked his legs on the desk and stared out of the large sliding glass doors.

They had a fantastic view of the beach. The place had barely been touched by the Pulse, and was just beautiful. The sand on the beach was fine white powder, glistening in the brilliant sun like sugary crystals. The water that crashed on the shore was so blindingly blue, Alec had to blink several times to adjust his vision every time his gaze wandered towards it. If he looked over towards the horizon, it was almost impossible to tell where the water ended and the sky began.

It was like the world was mocking him with its perfection because he was feeling completely, totally off his hinges. Nuts. Crazy. Unstable. Irrational. Like he could just wrap his hands around Logan's neck and wring it for sending him and Max on this stupid mission.

But Logan wasn't really the reason why he was so upset. On any given day, an EO mission would've been a breeze. A distraction from the sheer monotony of his life as a Transgenic bike messenger of unfulfilled potential. No…the problem was that the mission had clearly crossed unseen boundaries and was now his life. It was enough to drive a sane Transgenic over the cuckoo's nest.

But Max, of course, didn't know that. As far as she seemed to be concerned, they were only on a Mission for the great Eyes Only. She had a one-track mind, and was hell-bent on accomplishing this mission. Too bad it also meant ripping his heart right out of his chest cavity because she put their mission over their marriage.

Granted, it wasn't a real marriage.

But…it was easy for him to forget that part. Unfortunately, with every second married to Max, it was becoming clearer and clearer that she wanted nothing to do with him. And he was tired of having his pride stomped on every step of the way.

Last night, he had been so mad at her for slapping him that he had wanted to torture her about their "wedding night". Except that he hadn't expected her to be walking around half-naked already.

He almost groaned out loud at the image of Max in her dark, lacy underwear. Instead, he had to force his thoughts towards less pleasurable ones. Like the way Max had kept completely silent about what her plan was for "ruining" their marriage.

Shouldn't be hard, he thought with a grimace.

"Okay, let's get started," announced Max, walking over towards him, flipping the phone shut.

He looked at her over his shoulder. "Start with what, exactly?"

Max grabbed her large canvas bag and took out the discs she had stolen last night. She casually dropped them onto the desk. "You can look over those tapes and find anything that might be outta whack about the cruise."

Alec wrinkled his nose, as he carefully sorted through the tapes. "And what are you gonna do?"

Max shrugged easily and threw her long hair over her shoulder. "I'm gonna go and pick out my next husband."

"WHAT!!" Alec almost fell backwards in his chair. Only is feline reflexes saved him from an embarrassing spill. He pushed himself forward and both his feet landed on the wooden floors with a thud. He looked at Max incredulously, feeling like the chair and the rest of the world had really fallen from under him.

She gave him a withering stare, her lips curled up in disdain. "We are trying to find a way to break up our marriage, aren't we?"

He rolled his eyes at her. "Noooo…you are trying to find a way out of this marriage. I'm fine just the way I am," he huffed.

She stared incredulously at him. "You really like screwing with me, don't you?"

"If by screwing you mean—"

"Shuttup!" she yelled quickly, raising a hand in front of her, a look of disgust on her face. "If you could you just be serious for one second, we might actually get something done. The sooner we get Logan what he needs, the sooner we can go back to being…"

"To being what, exactly, Max?" he asked pointedly. "What we were before? Do I go back to being your punching bag on a bike? Your friendly neighborhood partner-in-crime? What exactly have I been to you in all the time we've known each other?" His heart was pounding heavily, half-afraid and half-eager to hear what she would say.

She swallowed heavily and frowned. But she stayed silent and refused to answer his question. Instead she tossed him a surveillance disc and he caught it easily in the air. "Let's just do this, okay?" she said in a subdued voice.

"I still don't get why you have to have all the fun," he griped only half-jokingly in an effort to switch the subject.

She threw her hands up in the air with an irritated growl. "Know what? Fine! You pick one, too!"

He stared incredulously at her. "Pick one?"

"Yeah. Look over the tapes and pick a girl. Boink her, marry her, have ten fat babies with her, whatever!" She slammed the disc she was holding onto the desk, then gripped the edges until her knuckles were white. She was gritting her teeth and refused to look at him.

Alec was so taken aback that he actually felt like he'd been hit by a linebacker. He leaned towards her, peering into her down-turned face and past the curtain of dark hair. "You mean…you don't mind if I…?"

Max turned to look at him, her face pale but blank. Her eyes were dark and angry, but her tone was even and calm. "Put it this way, I'm doing you a favor." She turned to face him fully, hands on her hips. She added a sassy tilt to her head and smirked. "You're never gonna get to tap this honey, so…go ahead."

Alec licked his lips which had suddenly gone dry. He couldn't believe that Max had just voluntarily pushed him towards another woman. But of course she would. Nonetheless, he felt hollow inside: if she touched him, he would crumble into nothingness.

He licked his lips again, regaining his composure, steeling himself. He looked at her, head tilted haughtily and lips twisted in a smirk. "You know…you're right. I think it's about time I had some fun on this vacation."

Her eyes turned stone cold. "It's not a vacation."

He knew his smile was just as cold. "It is now."

Alec didn't know why, but Max's expressionless face flickered a bit, and he could have sworn he saw a look of hurt pass over her face. But then she spun around quickly, pulled up a chair, and sat down on it with little grace.

Alec stared at her stiff back. He wanted to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder and ask her not to keep her back to him. At the same time, he didn't exactly want to see the look of disgust on her face anymore. He slowly released a pent-up breath he didn't even know he had been holding. He didn't know what he was supposed to do next. For the mission's sake, he knew he should be looking through those discs and picking his target.

But he just couldn't make himself do it. The idea actually left a bitter taste in his mouth. And the idea that Max would be off doing her own undercover scheme…it hurt. A lot.

He sat like a statue, his shoulders taut, his stomach twisted in knots, his throat tight. He felt a small knot of pain under his shoulder blades from staying so still and tense. What if…she actually liked the guy that she picked? What if she actually enjoyed it? What if she forgot to pretend? What if…she fell in love? What if he lost her? He was so lost in his own thoughts, drowning in his self-inflicted agony, that when she spun around suddenly, all his senses were startled to alertness.

Reflexively, he reared away from her sudden movement, and his chair crashed noisily to the ground.

"Alec!" Max yelped in surprise. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and searching. Her brown gaze moved around the room, as if to assess whether there was trouble. Finding none, she fixed her eyes back onto him with a small frown. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." He mumbled, turned around to grab the chair off the floor. If he didn't know better, he would have thought Max sounded a little concerned. He righted the fallen chair and slowly turned to face her.

"Have you been doing nothing the whole time?" she demanded, the edge returning into her voice.

He didn't answer, but instead shrugged and dropped his frame back down onto his chair. He slid low into his seat, so that he was draped laconically on it.

Max looked heavenward and sighed. "Can't you just…I dunno…be useful?"

He gave her a stony glare. "What? And miss out on the fun of pissing you off?"

They glared at each other, brown eyes locked coldly with hazel ones. Alec arrogantly cocked an eyebrow at her in question. "Well? What about you? You were the one who was so excited to throw me over for some other dickhead." He couldn't help but be a little bitter about the issue, his lips curling distastefully.

Max's beautiful face was completely expressionless. "I'm just doing what needs to be done. Why can't you?"

"Oh yeah," he drawled sarcastically. "So we can go back to normal, whatever that means."

He saw Max fight her temper, saw the way her lips tightened, her jaw clenched, and there was a small, almost invisible twitch in the corner of her right eye. It was amazing how much he knew about Max, how every little thing about her mattered to him.

As if with supreme effort, she took a deep breath and looked passively at him. "Can we just…forget about it?"

Alec knew she was right. They had a job to do, and if they bickered all day, they would lose this opportunity to go over the evidence. He took a deep breath, feeling resigned. Broken heart or not, above all else, he was a soldier—and he was on a mission. "Fine," he replied curtly. He grabbed a series of discs and turned to face his monitor doing his best to ignore Max.

In a moment, he heard her turn her back to him again, facing her own monitor.

A while later he leaned back with a weary sigh. "How about her?" he pointed towards the screen at a lovely young blonde with considerable assets. She was talking and laughing flirtatiously with her "late" husband. A glance at the date stamp on the video showed that this surveillance wasn't even a year old yet.

Max glanced cursorily over towards his monitor and frowned. "She looks cross-eyed."

"Really?" He leaned forward to zoom in on the video. "Huh." So her eyes were a little close together, but it was barely noticeable, only if he really looked. He pursed his lips thoughtfully and figured that there would be other girls. He ejected the CD and slipped another one in. A video of the next featured woman flickered to life on his monitor. She was a redhead this time. "Her."

Max frowned and made a small pfft noise.

"What's that pfft for?"

"She's too skinny."

Alec rolled his eyes. He'd probably already seen eighteen videos, which meant eighteen different girls. Thanks to his superb memory, he could vouch with a hundred percent certainty that he'd at least seen twelve of the same girls on the ship they were on now.

But according to Max, each one had either been "too tall," or "had big teeth," or "too short," or "laughed like a hyena," or so on and so forth. And yeah, some of what Max said were true, but no one was really perfect. After all, none of them was a genetically-engineered bad-ass with long dark hair and an attitude.

He looked over his shoulder towards Max and sighed under his breath. To be honest, he didn't really care which one he picked. The one he really wanted was looking at her own set of videos and picking another man over him.

His eyes slid over the particular man she was looking at, some slick looking young guy with dark hair and light-colored eyes. He also had a long-ish face. "He looks like a horse," he snorted.

"He does not!" she cried out indignantly, but her eyes glanced sideways to study the young man again. A moment later, she wordlessly replaced the disc with another one. The next video loaded onto the screen. He pursed his lips in annoyance, because the guy that appeared on-screen smiled and had goddamned dimples. For the love of all that was manly, the guy had dimples. On both cheeks.

And Max was smiling at the dimples. "He's kinda cute," she commented, half-under her breath.

Sure. Cute. Like a harmless, little puppy, he thought with disdain. But then the screen panned out, and revealed a very not-cute physique. Suddenly cute was now competition.

"Mmmm…" Max all but moaned. Alec's mouth dropped into a small, disbelieving 'O'. "He's bowlegged!" he blurted out.

Max turned to look at him, an eyebrow cocked. "So are you."

"Am not!"

The eyebrow rose a bit higher.

He frowned. "Okay, okay…maybe I am mildly bowlegged," he started. She gave him an incredulous look. He raised both hands up in mock surrender. "It was all those drills during my developmental stage, I swear. Too much impact on my young bones! Caused a hell of a lot of growth-plate fractures, too. But you know, it was Manticore, they believed that whatever didn't kill us only made us stronger…they made us…" he trailed off and cleared his throat which suddenly felt tight and dry.

He couldn't keep the bitterness from replacing the comic indignation in his voice the moment he mentioned Manticore. Thinking about the place just brought too much resentment bubbling to the surface. At best, he was usually able to focus on the many trivial issues throughout the day, leaving him with little time to sit and brood. He shouldn't have mentioned Manticore. Nothing could kill a conversation better between Transgenincs like bringing up Manticore memories.

He ducked his head slightly and licked his lips. He cleared his throat again before casually throwing a glance over at Max to see whether she noticed his slip-up.

She was looking at him with soft eyes. His heart skipped a beat at the almost tender and caring look in those dark eyes. Her small, white teeth peeked out as she bit her lower lip, and he couldn't help but lick his own lips in response. "Look, I'm sorry about bringing it up," he said hastily.

Her lips quirked into a small smile. "It's okay. It's not like I don't understand where you're coming from. Besides, bowlegs aren't so bad." Her smile turned playful, and she threw an appreciative glance at him. Her eyes traveled over his face, pausing at his lips, then down his jaw, his chest—he wondered whether she could see how painfully fast his heart was beating against his chest cavity—and moved even lower. Her eyes settled briefly at a very sensitive area and he almost groaned out loud. Then she smiled as she looked down at his legs.

He knew that if she kept on looking like that—no matter how teasingly—he was bound to do something rash and stupid. Like grabbing her from her chair and hauling her over towards him…and then kissing both of them into a mindless puddle of jelly.

He cleared his throat audibly. "Well, then, if you don't mind, then go ahead, pick Dimply-Dude," he said quickly, gesturing towards the man on her screen.

Max's head swung up and their eyes met. She had an inscrutable expression on her face. She blinked a couple of times, before finally looking back at her screen. Her lips tightened momentarily, before she smiled brightly. "You're right. I will."

Alec couldn't decide whether to be relieved or frustrated. Had he really just pushed Max towards another man? Geez, he was an idiot. With a grimace, he turned to face his own screen and stared at the redhead laughing in the video. "So, when do we start?" he said through gritted teeth.

"Tonight."

This was going to kill him.

Alec had to shove his free hand deep into his tuxedo pockets because it had clenched into such a tight fist he was surprised his knuckles hadn't popped out through skin yet. He focused on keeping his other hand from snapping the thin stem of the champagne glass he held in his other hand.

They only stood a few feet away from each other, at the edge of the ballroom's dance floor. He counted sildently in his head as he watched as Max threw back her head to laugh. Her long dark hair swung around, caressing the bare back revealed by another seductive dress.

Her gown was red. She stood out like a flame amidst the other women wearing black and ivory. Heads turned everywhere she walked.

Everywhere they walked.

Alec had to admit that Max and her "chosen one" were a striking pair. Both dark-haired, sun-kissed skin, and glowing dark eyes. Max was beautiful and he had dimples. Seriously, how was a guy to compete with that?

Alec gritted his teeth as Max laid a hand on David's chest. Her wedding band glittered underneath the ship's ballroom lights, but they both managed to ignore it, as they smiled into each other's eyes.

Bile rose up his chest and he felt a burning sensation somewhere within the vicinity of his heart. He didn't realize he was clutching his chest until a slender hand covered his. "Alec?"

He quickly averted his eyes away from Max and down towards brilliant blue ones of his escort. "Are you feeling all right?" Miranda asked quietly. She had a low voice, sultry and built for seduction. Even when she was asking after his health, there was a tone that implied she would not mind taking him to bed.

Alec released his grip over his chest and smoothed out his dinner jacket. "I must have swallowed my champagne a little too fast," he smiled urbanely at her.

She quirked thin, but perfect, lips in a smile that said she didn't quite believe him but would leave the matter to rest. Alec appreciated her discretion. In her line of work, he was sure she had overlooked a lot in her many partners. Her eyes slid slowly over towards Max, then returned back up to his face.

"Why are you doing this?"

Alec's face went blank into a polite mask of inquiry. "What do you mean?" he asked innocently, picking her hand and slowly rubbing lazy circles over her knuckles with his thumb.

"I mean her." She replied, nodding towards Max, who was only a few feet away from them, trailing her fingers down her escort's jacket sleeve.

Alec gritted his teeth. He had to be careful. This girl was a master at the game of deception. He was being too transparent. His feelings for Max were already jeopardizing his cover. He smiled tightly at her. "Oh. Well, you know how it is," he drawled. "Daddy's money can make you do anything—including marrying a woman you couldn't possibly love." He said that last line just a little bit louder than necessary.

He saw Max throw a fleeting, indecipherable look his way. Their eyes met for a second, but that was all it took to make him feel like the biggest jerk in the world. Her eyes had widened slightly and her full lips formed a small 'o.' It was almost like he had hurt her.

Alec pressed his lips together tightly, fighting away the stab of guilt in his heart. He couldn't possibly hurt her. Max didn't care one way or another. Or did she? He couldn't hurt her unless she cared. His heart skipped a beat at the sheer possibility of it.

He looked towards her again.

And almost forgot how to breathe.

There she was, a flame in her red dress, locked in the arms of another man, kissing him in the middle of the ship's grand ballroom for all the world to see.

Jealousy and rage almost blinded his vision, almost made him give in to his animal nature, almost made him come between the kissing couple and rip them apart like two rag dolls. Almost…but not quite.

Because it hurt. It hurt to move. It hurt to make a sound. It hurt too goddamned much to do anything about it. The pain grounded him. The pain turned his face into a stony mask. The pain gripped his heart in ice, choking everything inside of him.

He felt a hand snake up his chest, and his hazel-green eyes locked with Miranda's cool blue ones. "Well, it looks like she couldn't possibly love you either."

His mouth tasted like ash, his heart felt like ice, and his voice burned with chilling flatness. "You're right. She couldn't possibly." With that, he bent his head and took Miranda's lips with his own in a searing, punishing kiss.

This wasn't just a mission anymore. This was war.

TBC...

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