12: HOME

When Alec arrived back at the warehouse, Max was standing alone outside the gate. She climbed into the car without a word and Alec didn't ask her what happened with Martina. It must have been an X5 thing. They hated to be reminded of their failures. Max wasn't sure what she hated more in that moment, the fact that he didn't ask because he had been right about Martina not wanting her or that he knew Max well enough not to say anything. Sometimes she hated that she didn't always have to tell Alec anything, he just got her in a way that Logan didn't because he was like her.

As they drove back to the hotel, Max became keenly aware that Alec's presence had come to feel like home to her. She had felt empty at Martina's rejection as she had stood alone waiting for Alec to return and put an end to this terrible day. Alec wasn't supposed to mean anything after everything he had put her through. But damn him, he had found a way. His arrival had brought her back to reality and reminded her that her life was already full of people willing to stick their necks out for her. She could go back to Seattle and pretend like the past few days hadn't happened, and no one but Alec and Logan would be the wiser.

Max felt like such a fool coming out to San Francisco, expecting some kind of fairy tale reunion with her long-lost mother. Instead, she became keenly aware that she was an X5 at every turn. X5s didn't have parents, they had each other. Even Martina knew that. It was Max and Alec's Manticore training that had saved the day, not their normal personas. While Max knew Martina had been impressed by her, it was not a maternal sort of appreciation. Max was a child of Manticore, and there was no pretending she was somehow different anymore.

"We're here," Alec said as he turned off the car engine and looked at Max in the passenger seat.

"Huh?" asked Max, who had been lost in her feelings of abandonment and disappointment.

Alec blinked. "The hotel?"

Max looked out the window at her surroundings. "Right."

"Listen, why don't you get some rest and we'll regroup in the morning?" said Alec.

Max nodded. "Sounds good." She opened the car door and walked out before he could say anything more. She didn't want him to be there for her. He wasn't supposed to care about her than Martina.

She spent the night alone in her room, not even answering the door when Alec brought takeout Chinese food for her. Every hour, she relived a different trauma of her life that had led her to this point. Jack's seizures. Eva being shot. The escape. Logan being shot. Tinga's death. Zack giving her his heart. Maybe Martina was better off without her, because everyone in Max's life seemed to suffer some type of horrible misfortune after meeting her. Martina was still suffering without Max's interference, and she had her own demons to put to bed. There was no place for Max in Martina's life.

Watching Martina walk out the door of the warehouse, Max had not felt so isolated and inhuman since the escape. She had known Martina's rejection was possible, but she had tried to make things work regardless. She had done everything Martina asked, only to be rewarded with a brief hug and nothing more. Maybe there was something to be said for leaving well enough alone.

Max just wanted to get out of San Francisco. She wanted to forget that she'd wasted her time, she wanted to forget Logan paying Alec to watch over her, and most of all she wanted to forget what Martina said about the way Alec looked at her. Once she made up her mind, she packed so she could get out of the city before she changed her mind…

Jonas was less than surprised to see her checking out alone at 7 o'clock in the morning. He seemed be in a pleasant mood to see her leave. It probably had something to do with the empty Chinese food containers under his desk, but Max didn't dwell on it. Her goal was to put as much distance between herself and the city as possible.

At first, Max thought of using the car to get back to Seattle, but Alec had apparently moved it some time during the night. Of course, he knew all too well that she was a runner and wasn't foolish enough to leave the car in a place where she could find it. She walked to the bus terminal, because she knew it wouldn't be long before Alec realized that she had ditched him.

When Max was within a block of the station, she saw a crowd of people standing in the street leading to it. No vehicles could move, and the natives appeared to be getting restless. She pushed through the hoard of luggage and grumbling people to see a sign on the door that the bus terminal that read 'Out of Business'. Of course, that was just Max's luck.

The riot police had started to arrive, with bullhorns and flashing lights telling everyone to disperse. From what Max gathered from the frustrated crowd, there was only one bus company. I owner had shut down his business quickly when one of the drivers leaked that they were smuggling drugs in and out of the city without give the cops their cut. Max needed a Plan B and fast.

"Need a lift?" came Alec's voice from behind her.

Max closed her eyes and cringed. There were two options – she could ignore him and find her own way home, or she could take him up on the offer. There was no pragmatic reason to turn down the offer, but she knew that if she was stuck in the car with him, they would end up talking. Talking to Alec should not have been as easy as it was, more than with Logan or Original Cindy or Joshua. She couldn't put up walls with him the same way she could with the others…

Alec had known Max would try to leave without him when she refused to have dinner. X5s had notorious appetites, and her refusing a free meal could only mean that she was going to ice him out and make a run for it. Sometimes Alec wondered if Max forgot that they were the same. Maybe being out in the world so long caused her to forget what it was like to be with other X series. They would see each other again in Seattle, either at Jam Pony or at Crash or whenever Logan needed a little extra man power on his crusade to save the world. What did she think she was running from?

As Max stood there trying to decide, Martina's parting words suddenly came back to her. "Don't take the people in your life for granted."

What was she doing? Alec was her best route home. She was just throwing some kind of childish tantrum because he turned out to be more reliable than Martina. And she didn't want to talk to him about it.

Finally, Max let out a sigh and turned around to see him sitting in the car, leaning out of the driver's side window looking less than amused.

"Let's go. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to," Max told him as she walked up to the car.

"Well, there's something we can both agree on," said Alec as she got into the car. He turned on the radio to an alternative/indie rock station. Just because he wasn't willing to leave her behind didn't mean that he had to listen to her the entire drive back.

They were in Oregon when Alec couldn't take the ice treatment anymore. He once asked what Max saw in Logan, but after being stuck in a car with her for over six hours, the real question was what Logan saw in Max besides her being hot and almost half his age. If Alec didn't know better, he would have sworn that Max was the one who grew up at Manticore, not him.

"Okay, is this really how it's going to be the entire ride back? You're not even going to tell me how it went with Martina?" Alec said.

"Did Logan offer extra for recon?" Max snapped back.

"I would have charged extra if I knew what I was getting myself into," replied Alec.

Max sighed. "Clearly, it didn't go well. What's it to you?"

Alec shook his head. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry it didn't turn out the way you hoped. Maybe if you had told me what you were up to back in Seattle, I would've told you not to come out here chasing ghosts."

"Shut up," Max said, shifting in the passenger seat.

"What's your problem? Your little reunion didn't have singing birds and talking rabbits, so now you're in a mood?"

"You're unbelievable. No one asked you to come on this trip, you just hustled Logan."

"Max, why do you keep doing this to yourself? We are never going to be like them."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Max said.

"The real reason you came here is because you thought finding your surrogate would make you like everyone else. You know we were cooked up by a bunch of nerds in white coats, not a drunk one-night stand," Alec told her. "And you knew that I'd remind you of that, so you didn't tell me what you were up to…"

Max didn't reply that time. She knew that was why she hadn't told him. He would have set her straight and she wouldn't have gone to San Francisco. She was lucky to have met Martina, but if she was honest with herself, if she read between the lines, this entire trip had been about her trying to become another normal girl. Normal girls had mothers, mothers who watched over them and took care of them. Normal girls didn't have genetically targeted retroviruses that kept them from people that they loved.

"For the record, Logan didn't really pay me much to come along, it was just to cover travel expenses and the purchase of one firearm if necessary," Alec went on. "So, don't give him too much of a hard time on it."

"Then why'd you come?" asked Max.

Alec sighed. "Because unfortunately for you, you're stuck with me. We have to watch out for our own, remember?"

"Right," Max replied half-heartedly.

Alec's face quickly fell when he saw the check engine light began blinking in red. Then he saw the smoke coming from the engine and pulled over to the side of the road. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Of course, the universe is always right on schedule to kick me when I'm down," Max said.

"Well, it's having a two for one special," Alec told her as he got out of the car. "Let's get this checked out before we lose the sunlight."

Max followed his lead and got out of the car. He popped open the hood of the vehicle.

"Go rev the engine so I can see what's going on," Alec told her.

"No pretty please?" Max said as she walked around to the driver's side.

"You're pretty and do whatever you please, so I figured it was unnecessary," Alec told her.

Max rolled her eyes and turned on the ignition. It sputtered on.

"Just needs some more anti-freeze," said Alec. "Hopefully there's some in the trunk."

Max pulled the truck release lever as Alec walked around to the back of the car. "You didn't check the supplies in the car?"

"I'm so sorry, I usually try to get a full inspection before I jack a vehicle," Alec replied as he opened the trunk. "Jackpot."

Max turned off the car again and they went to work to drain the radiator and refill the anti-freeze. The sun was about to set when Alec was back in the driver seat. He turned on the ignition and they were ready to get back on the road.

"Maybe we make a half decent team after all," said Max as she sat down in the passenger seat, cracking the first smile Alec had seen since the trip began. She was smiling at him no less.

Alec wasn't sure what came over him in that moment, but he just leaned over and kissed her. He was going to pull away when he realized that she was kissing him back. It was another minute before Max's brain snapped back to reality and she shoved him away from her.

"What was that?" Max demanded. "Where do you get off acting like I'm one of those silly girls back in Seattle tripping over themselves for your attention? I really hate you some days."

"That was a test of a little theory I've had all trip," Alec said. "You think the only reason you and Logan are apart is because of the virus? That's just today's excuse. The truth is Logan is that normal little life that you've fantasized about since you escaped in 2009. Since the virus took him out of the picture, you needed something else to hang your hat on to keep the fantasy going. That's the real reason you came out here to find Martina."

Max scowled. "What? I bruised your ego and now you're accusing me of pretending to be normal?"

Alec leaned closer, his expression equally as hard. "Actually, I got exactly what I was expecting. You're the one with the bruised ego that I don't buy into your little fantasy of being ordinary."

Max almost thought he would hit her back but instead he changed directions and got out of the car. Then he got his bag from the backseat and began walking.

"I'll find my own way back to Seattle," he told her.

"Fine!" Max yelled at him, shifting into the driver's seat as he walked away.

She wanted to pretend this entire trip never happened. Martina was a bust. Logan had gone behind her back. Alec had kissed her. And in the end, she was alone once more.

Alec had given her a choice though… Damn it, leave it to Alec to make an already complicated situation more complicated. What on earth made him kiss her? Better yet, why had she kissed him back? Max wanted to chalk it up to sexual frustration brought on by the year of abstinence thanks to the virus. She was sure that was it, and not Alec's hare-brained supposition that she was trying pretend that she was normal. He was just in a huff because she was immune to his charm.

That didn't explain why Alec kissed her in the first place though. Suddenly, Martina's comment about the way Alec looked at her came back to Max. At first, she thought that Martina was trying to read too much between the lines. Alec was only there because he was the reason Logan couldn't be. Max always suspected Alec had returned to her life due his guilt about losing the cure, but she had never bothered to ask him why. It was the only explanation that made sense. Alec never struck Max as the sentimental sort…

Or maybe that was how Max wanted to see it. Zack was the sentimental sort, even though he tried to deny it. He had sacrificed himself for her and the others countless times. Alec had too, if Max was willing to admit it. He didn't have to come back to Seattle after she got the bomb out of his head, but he had. He could have just left and never looked back, but he didn't. Instead, he came back to help her and Logan. Alec became Joshua's friend, and he'd even gone out of his way to help that mermaid girl… It just took him a little longer to get with the program, but he'd definitely changed since Max first met him.

Alec had spent his entire life at Manticore, so of course they would have crushed any sort of sentimentality out of him… Manticore. There it was again, that carnival of horrors that would never fade from her memory. Or his…

You can't understand; you weren't there. You ran. You and your little rugrat brothers and sisters. You think life was rough when we were ten? A little schooling, a little brainwashing, some maneuvers outside? You think that was tough? Take it from me. Later on, it got a whole lot worse. But you did what you had to do. Then you tried to forget. And when you couldn't forget, they had ways of making you not care.

Max shut her eyes as she remembered the walls she put up as he told her that. For a long time, Manticore was her dark secret place that she hid from the world. With Alec, she wasn't allowed to forget it. She wasn't allowed to forget Ben, and how his insanity inflicted suffering on so many people, including Alec. Maybe that was why she found it so difficult to see the good in Alec, because he was more like her than anyone else she knew. Logan would never understand that side of her, as much as he tried to be supportive.

Logan had supported Max looking for her mother because he once had one, as normal people did. If she had told Alec, he would have swiftly reminded her that they didn't have mothers and she was going on a wild goose chase. They weren't normal people. Somewhere along the line, Alec's opinion had gained weight with her. He had started to mean something to her…

Max wasn't sure exactly what that something was, but it was enough to get her to realize that Alec wasn't going to leave her alone unless she pushed him away. She turned on the engine and started driving towards Seattle again. Alec couldn't have gotten too far down the road on foot. It wasn't long before she spotted him. She slowed down so that she was matching his pace. He continued to ignore her presence as he walked down the highway, so she rolled down the window.

"Get in," Max commanded.

Alec stopped walking and the car halted beside him. "Really? I take orders from you now?"

"Stop being overdramatic, you're not going to walk all the way back home," Max said.

His trademark smirk lit up his face when he turned around to face her. "I wasn't planning to, except you're the first car that offered. What's the catch? You finally decided how to kill me?"

"I've always known how I would kill you, and this is definitely not how it will go down," Max told him.

Alec sighed and opened the car door. "I'm going to believe you… this time."

"This doesn't mean I'm not still mad at you for that little stunt you pulled," Max said.

"I wouldn't expect any less," Alec said as he tossed his bag into the backseat. "So where do we go from here?"

Max leaned over and pressed her lips against his. The kiss caught Alec by surprise, but before he could respond, she pulled away from him. "I'm not sure. But it will be anything but ordinary."

As they drove off into the sunset, Max thought about what she had been looking to find in San Francisco with Martina. She wanted someone that could be there for her, not just a friend but something more. Alec had been what she had been looking for the entire time. She hadn't imagined that it would be the boy who she named.

A/N: I can't believe it's finished. It only took nine years…? This story was originally meant to explain why Alec was missing from Harbor Lights, with him and Max sharing a kiss and both not taking the situation well. As the story progressed, it shifted from an ending that tied into the Season 2 events to a more open ending.

Thanks to everyone for reading. Another shout out to the ladies at Raising Hellions, you have been awesome and supportive of not just me but the Dark Angel fandom for so long.