Disclaimer: not mine. not at all. nope. sad, huh?

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Max's eyes fluttered open. At the same time, the first hot wave of pain radiated thru her, so she kept still. Every fiber in her body felt heavy, aching and exhausted, like she had been sleeping 12 hours straight after running a marathon carrying bricks. Did she usually run marathons carrying bricks? Strange... pushing her body to the limits didn't seem an alien feeling to her... but the sleeping part was downright unsettling.

In a blink of an eye, she realized a few things. She didn't know where she was, why she was there and, most important, why she didn't remember anything. Not.a.Damn.Clue.

But that wasn't entirely true, was it? She knew she was Max. Well... she didn't have the slightest idea on who Max was, but still. She was Max. Max. And she was sure it mattered, somehow, to be Max. She said it once, twice, inside her head. She liked how it sounded... A damn fine name, not too girlish (cuz she did know she was a girl), and that suited her. It belonged to her.

Max. A good point to start with. What more?

If her conscious mind was lost, a primal, almost instinctual but definitely trained part of her clicked in. She felt her body relax, gauging her physical conditions was her first priority.

No broken bones. Check.

No bleeding wounds. Check.

No missing fingers. Check.

Huge bump in the head. Check.

Splitting, throbbing headache. Double check.

That bossy side of her took completely charge, and didn't let her panic in spite of the situation. Instead, she carefully took in the unfamiliar surroundings (anonymous, cheap motel room. Check), but still she didn't move, didn't stir. Deep inside, she remembered the need to feel safe, to gain the upper hand to face... what? The enemy? Well, that could be the case.

Because she wasn't alone.

Max had sensed his presence from the start, before opening her eyes. His smell lingered on the pillow, and the bed still held his warmth. And why on earth did that seem a good thing, girl? God, get a grip on yourself, soldier!

Soldier? ... enemy?? What the hell?

She had examined her bodily functions and had performed a brief, visual "reconnaissance". Now she just needed to assess and inventory all her clues (ahemm... again, where did that come from? and why did it sounded so appalling anyway?).

Regaining consciousness in a strange room, without remembering a thing, probably due to the concussion obviously caused by someone knocking you on the head... someone who could have easily dragged your out cold body God knows where... And said stranger clearly invading your personal space...

That was bad, real bad. Realization hit her, and all her senses screamed in alarm.

Okay, better rephrase that: all her senses should have been screaming in alarm.

She was Max. Good.

She despised military jargon. Uhmm... helpful?

Someone had knocked her unconscious. Scary.

Her head was going to explode (or implode, whatever). Blinding painful and kinda gross.

Said someone had kidnapped her and (supposedly) locked her in a room at the Norman Bates Motel... Creepy.

And she wasn't terrified at all? Well, that was plain weird.

The hypothetical kidnapper was sitting on the bed, on her bed, barefoot, with his left jeans clad leg tucked under himself, absent-mindedly looking outsight the window. One hand was tapping on the pane, the other resting lightly on her knee, in a comforting sort of way. Reassuring her of his presence? Soothing his restlessness? She didn't know. Maybe both, she guessed. The sun was setting somewhere, and the light was too dim, but oddly she could make out every feature of his face. Dirty blond hair, sparkling hazel eyes, and soft, luscious, kissable lips...

His demeanor seemed relaxed, but she wasn't fooled for a second. It wasn't the tapping to give him away, and she couldn't exactly say how, but she knew he was scanning the area, checking every potential threat, keeping her safe. Suddenly, an image popped in her mind: a big, sleek jungle cat, muscles edgy and tense, ready to jump.

Her eyes roamed on the pretty boy (pretty?), and she was glad for his pretended quietness... she savoured the moment, like she knew it was a rare occurrence.

The second she focused on the barcode on his neck though, her mind begun reeling. A barcode? On his neck? And why on earth she could read it?

In an instant, she jerked into a sitting position, a blinding need to touch it, to acknowledge it. Max gently grazed the barcode with the tips of her digits. Yeah, she could decode it, making out the numbers from the black short lines. Still, it spelled Alec.

Alec.

She smiled.

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Alec was lost in thoughts, while he distractedly watched thru the window the ordinaries leading their ordinary lives. Contrary to the popular belief, he could do two things at once, and while he was trying to sort out all the frantic events happened in the last couple of days, he was effectively dismissing all that normalcy to detect any more "familiar" menace. Actually, not screwing up was his third goal.

He was pretty sure he had no blame if everything had turned out so badly. None. No sir. Logan had discovered another not so secret hang out of that creepy breeding cult. Max and Mole had planned a mission to gather more information about them. Logan and Mole had insisted he should be Max's back up.

So... if it was painful evident (now) that the haunt wasn't a hot spot, but... a storage? a reptile house? or whatever, for the loonies' pet snakes, if the mission had gone kaboom, if he miserably sucked as a back up, whose fault it was?

Honestly, Alec knew better.

Well... he could agree getting bitten by one of those aforementioned snakes wasn't his smartest move. Of course, it was an unavoidable consequence that Max had to carry him to keep the spreading of the venom to the minimum... and she couldn't have been gentler if she was carry fucking bricks, for God's sake. Again, not his fault if while running thru the woods she lost her balance and cushioned his fall with her body, ending headfirst against a big, solid, granite rock.

He had carried her afterwards (a lot more gentlemanly, to tell the truth), soon discovering that the venom didn't affect him as well. Now they were hiding in a shabby motel... Max still passed out, and Alec pouting.

So what? if he felt like pouting a little now, he could bloody well do it. Of course, it was an entirely unsettled issue if he was pouting because it was his fault Max was still unconscious, so little and fragile, instead of yelling at him and kicking his ass for screwing up, again, like she should... or only just because as said girl was still knocked out, pouting was still an option. No way he would do that otherwise...

Her touch startled him out of his reverie. So much for comatose... couldn't that girl sleep at least after losing a match with a five tons rock? But really, it was the unexpected tenderness that froze him on the spot...

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Under her touch, he briefly tensed, and then relaxed. She was tracing his barcode, as committing it to her memory. The gentle exploring became a caress, and he closed his eyes. Without a conscious thought, Alec inclined his head backwards, so that her fingers entangled in his hair till he actually purred. But it didn't last long.

The muffled voice of the reason inside his mind finally reached him, and he realized that something was off. His eyes snapped open, and almost unwillingly Alec slowly turned to face her.

Suddenly Max was lost in a hazel sea of concern. She tried hard not to drown, and to concentrate on reading his expression. Well, that was quite an easy task, even if Max didn't exactly remember that the look of apprehension usually would have been kept hidden under his anything-goes façade. It was plain obvious now that he was worried sick. About her.

Okay, time for another scenario.

Rewind. Add new clues.

She was Max. Good.

He was Alec. Very good.

She had hit (hard) her head somewhere. Plain foolish.

Said head was still going to explode/implode. Still painful and still gross.

And her (undeniably) hot, supposedly let's say... boyfriend? was taking care of her. Bonus. Big, very big bonus.

She liked it better this way.

She smiled again.

TBC

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A/N: about that immunity thing... i'm not sure they all were. And, this being the case, if they knew it. It's not like i care, anyway... lol.