The Price That Pays

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Dark Angel; I just like to borrow its characters for playtime. If you don't recognize a character's name, they are most likely my own creation. Such as Dodge, Peace, Sonic, Krieg, Gekk and Liam.

Warnings: blood, language, angst, sexual situations/thoughts, eventual Max/Alec

Notes: This is not a sequel to either of my other Dark Angel fics. I wanted to try out a different pace and plot.

Chapter 1: Shutting Down

To say Logan was furious was an understatement. Logan was livid with rage. Livid with rage... Hm... Max pondered over that phrase for a second while she stared out the dark window in her office, watching the rain splatter against it and dribble down, causing watery streaks.

Logan knew her and Alec's relationship was fake. All he needed to do was sober up and get his head straight and it was obvious. But the words had already been thrown and the lies spun. Max and Alec were always at each other's throats and harassing each other. They could barely work in the same room much less spend time outside the Command Center of Terminal City together willingly or lovingly.

But in his distress when he had seen Alec outside of Max's apartment that night, he'd assumed the only thing he could think of at the moment as he drank himself into a stupor. That Max would never leave him unless she'd been stolen from him by a superior specimen. He'd always seen Alec as a threat, especially after his ordeal with Zach that proved transgenics were far better than any ordinary human could ever be. He was always worried Max would realize this for herself and go off with one of her own kind. So when he saw them smiling together, seeming so carefree, and he was oblivious to what tragic pasts had been revealed behind those closed doors, he'd jumped to the conclusion he'd been dreading ever since Alec first waltzed into their lives.

After months of quietly waiting for Max to admit the hoax to him he'd apparently had enough waiting and confronted her himself, ignoring Alec's deer-in-headlights look in his emerald eyes as he excused himself from the room and left Logan and Max alone to debate their broken love life.

When he told her the gig was up he'd expected her to smile. To admit that she knew he was too smart to have thought they were serious and fall back into his waiting arms. Except not literally because that would kill him. He'd been expecting her to tell him she'd secretly been searching for the cure all this time and missed him and loved him.

He had not been expecting her to admit that while she wasn't really with Alec, she still didn't want to be with him.

Max let her forehead fall against the cool glass. She should probably get a broom and sweep up the mess that Logan had made when he'd punched the shaky bookcase out of anger and caused one of the shelves to collapse. Unfortunately it was the shelf with the snow globe of the Space Needle and the small glass ball had shattered sending stale water and small flecks of fake snow all over the worn carpet in her office.

It was a shame. Not about Logan. About that snow globe. She had liked it. It reminded her of a better time when she was still free to visit her special high place whenever she needed to think and be alone. Now, although Terminal City was free of the oppressing guards, commands, and inhumane rules that Manticore had, it had still turned into a prison. If she or any other transgenic or transhuman stepped outside the safety of the wired fence, they'd most likely be lynched like poor Biggs had.

That's why Dix and Fixit worked so hard to keep the security cameras running at all angles to make sure there weren't any breaks in the perimeter that would risk the safety of the citizens inside. She and Alec were currently working with Mole and a few outside sources in trying to legally obtain food and medical equipment while several other transgenics and transhumans were trying to map out ways to illegally get what they needed if their leaders failed.

She sighed. Alec should have been back by now. He was probably taking advantage of her and Logan's official break-up to take a break of his own from work.

"Stupid lazy slacker" She muttered to the empty room and the dark city outside.

She could have lied to Logan and told him he was wrong, that her and Alec were seriously together wither he believed it or not but she just had too much on her plate to keep up the charade. Besides that fact, that it wasn't fair to keep stringing Alec along like this. He had been a good friend and went along with the act thus far, but she knew it was only a matter of time until he wanted some real action and spilled the beans himself so he could go frolic off with some other transgenic female. She'd seen him looking at Dodge, an X6 female that had an odd habit of wearing wigs so that her hair was different every day. She probably appealed to him because of that fact that she never looked like the same girl so she'd be able to keep him entertained for longer.

She didn't know why, but the idea of Alec with other girls bothered her for some reason. She'd never had a problem with it before; it was probably just from the mindset of having to pretend they were dating. Back before they started this act, it bothered her a little, but mostly because it was getting him into trouble. Trouble that she'd have to get him out of.

Even though they'd been pretend-dating for several months now, they'd never once kissed. When Logan would come around Max would shoot Alec glares or elbow him in the ribs until he put his arm around her shoulders, or sometimes press his lips against the crook of her neck and shoulder, but that was about as far as they ever went.

One time he had fallen asleep next to her at his desk and she had found herself running her fingers over his hand. But she convinced herself that it was only because she was forgetting what the feel of skin on skin felt like.

But now he was free to be with whomever he wanted to be with. And she was free...to be alone. She tried to think optimistic, that she could be with anyone she wanted to be with also. But she couldn't think of anyone she wanted to even hold hands with much less kiss. Except for Alec. But that was only because they'd already held hands once. Right? Right.

Besides, she was the Commanding Officer of Terminal City. She couldn't let things like petty relationship drama interfere with her work keeping her citizens safe, fed, housed, and clothed. It was a large responsibility that didn't leave room for anything- or anyone- else.

She heard the hinges on the door creak open and a low whistle.

"What happened to the bookcase Maxie?"

"Broke." Max replied in a clipped voice without looking at him. "Careful. There's glass."

"So I see..." There was a sound of glass being swept aside and a few thuds of books hitting the ground as Alec lifted the broken shelf and examined it, crouching on the floor.

Max finally turned to face him. "Logan knows."

"Knows? Like knows knows? About the truth between you and me?"

She nodded and crossed the room to help him pick up a few books.

"I don't think he'll be coming back."

Alec snorted. "Logan? Mr. Knight-in-blindingly-shining-armor? The most stubborn sonovabitch on Earth? He'll be back. Just give him time."

Max didn't know if his words were meant to be comforting or a threat. She wasn't sure if she wanted Logan to come back. What had once been mistaken for love for the ordinary had turned out to be only fleeting passion that passed over the year that they couldn't touch each other. She'd moved on and she couldn't go back to the way things were even if they found the cure. She just wished Logan would do the same and make this easier for the both of them.

She didn't quite understand why he was being so persistent anyways. They really hadn't ever 'been like that'. They didn't have anything for him to really be fighting for so she didn't understand why he was fighting so hard. She was just so tired of all the unnecessary fighting. Every day. Physical fights. Emotional battles. She was just so tired of it all.

Her hand slipped by a shard of glass and she was momentarily stunned at the blossoming red liquid on her finger. Huh. She was bleeding. Weren't cuts supposed to hurt? Was she to the point where her mind was so exhausted it wasn't even registering the injury or was her transgenic body becoming more and more immune to pain as the days passed by?

"Need me to get you a towel or something?"

She looked up startled, before remembering Alec was in the room. His green eyes held questions and concerns and one eyebrow was lifted as he stared at her hand dripping blood onto the carpet.

"It's not that bad." She muttered as she stood up and crossed back over to her desk. "I need to finish these papers. You can go home if you want." She knew Alec hadn't slept in the past two days and wasn't oblivious to the mass amounts of coffee he had been digesting to keep himself up and running.

Manticore had experimented around with different animal DNA in each of their soldiers to see what worked best on the battlefield. Max had been designed with cat and shark DNA that allowed her to go days without sleep. She knew for a fact that Alec however, had wolf and hawk. Neither of those animals could go days without sleep and she knew the constant trying to keep up with her was wearing him down. She was concerned about his health, but only because she couldn't run Terminal City by herself. Right? Right.

Alec finished stacking the books against the wall and returned to his own side of the room. "Nah, I think I'll keep you company till I finish my own work." He tossed her a grin that didn't seem to meet the usual standards of his trademark 'don't-give-a-shit' smirk. His lips twisted up in the position but his eyes seemed duller than usual.

"No. Seriously. You look like shit. Go to sleep." Max snapped.

Alec mock stumbled and put a hand to his heart. "Max, that hurt. I'm wounded."

"Not yet you aren't." Max narrowed her brown eyes at him and saw his eyes light up at the challenge. Go figure only Alec could be happy when someone was pissed at him. And provoke the Maxie seemed to be his all-time-favorite game.

"You wouldn't hurt me Maxie. You care about me too much." He sat down in his chair and leaned backwards, stretching his arms above his head and Max snorted.

"Oh really? Because I seem to remember kicking your ass back in that cage fight." She lifted an eyebrow at Alec's glare. Normal may have not remembered that night thanks to Mia, but Alec certainly did. And you know what they say, bruise a man's private junk and it bruises his ego for life.

"Max! Alec!" They heard the voice shouting for them down the hall and were up from behind their desks before Fixit even burst through the door, her ginger hair sticking out everywhere as usual and a look of panic on her freckled face.

"Fixit? What's going on?" A million and two things ran through Max's head of what could have possibly gone wrong now.

"Zero, Sonic and Peace were trying to fix the piping in one of the main buildings to get the water running again and it broke! Sonic got out but...Zero and Peace are still trapped inside and it's flooding and damaged the walls...Mole's yelling and going on about it's going to collapse and -"

Max cut her off with a wave of her hand and rushed out the door, Alec close behind her. This was one of the problems she'd been worried about from the start. The buildings were old and damaged; almost uninhabitable which was why she kept trying to keep everyone out of the bigger buildings. She was convinced it was safer to keep everyone spread out in the smaller houses and safer apartments but others seemed to think that they needed to bunch all the citizens close together. And she knew that if she didn't get construction under way or the water situation fixed soon it was only a matter of time before someone toke it into their own hands. And she'd been right. The buildings were dangerous and someone had taken action themselves. All in one night. Tonight of all nights. Perfect. Just perfect.

Alec slid down the railings to the basement level ahead of Max and tried kicking the door in. Against the water pressure inside it or for some other unknown reason, it didn't budge and he jumped back, scanning for a new way in. Max ran back up the stairs and outside, scanning the ground for any basement windows and was rewarded with a gap just big enough for her lithe female body to squeeze through. Alec would be too big to fit with his height and muscles and have to stay behind for this one. She found that she was momentarily relived that he wouldn't be literally diving into danger and shook the thought from her head as she landed in the basement, splashing and letting the water come up over her ankles.

She didn't understand why Alec was always on her mind today. Now that their relationship gig was up she shouldn't be thinking about him at all anymore...

The water was rising slowly and it would be hours, perhaps half a day, before they were at risk of drowning. Even longer considering the fact that they'd be able to stay afloat while the water toke days to fill all the way up to the top.

The only danger they were in was that Mole was right. The wooden support beams groaned against the water rising up their bases and dust scattered from the ceiling as the plaster cracked as the beams shifted. The basement level was in serious danger of collapsing in on them. Wither that meant a few rotted planks of wood falling, or the entire brick foundation crashing down on them, she had no idea and just had to hope that neither happened.

Splashing grew closer as she spotted Zero, one of the escaped X6 transgenics that she and Alec had helped escape to Canada after Manticore blew up. His unit had returned once they heard about Terminal City and the waging war and they had wanted to help in the fight of their kind's freedom but right now she wished he had stayed put.

"Zero!" She snapped. "You remember why I named you Zero?"

"Because you have zero tolerance for me ma'am." He repeated her own words from long ago back to her and lowered his eyes, unable to look at her.

Behind him she spotted Peace, another X6 that Joshua had helped find salvation in the city. She was shorter than the usual transgenic and had reminded Max of Original Cindy in appearance although her wild, curly black hair was tamed back into a small ball of a ponytail.

Max couldn't find herself able to yell at Peace and wondered how exactly the gentle soldier had gotten roped into this mess with these boys.

"Come on, let's find a way out." She pushed her way past Zero, ignoring him and trudged to where the door was with Alec on the other side. "Alec! Can you hear me?"

She heard his muffled reply through the door and although she couldn't hear what he replied with she at least knew he was there as another loud thud and crack emitted from the door as he kicked at it again trying to break it down.

She scanned the room that was only dimly lit with overhead hanging lamps for another exit.

"Did either of you find another possible way out?"

"No Ma'am." Peace responded.

"We would have told you if we had." Was Zero's response and even though he kept a straight soldier mask in place when he said it Max felt a twinge of irritation at his tone. Zero tolerance was right. Some things never change.

"Well how did Sonic get out?" Was her next question as she heard a louder crack from the door behind them.

"He managed to slip out the door before it got stuck." Peace said while she nodded to the persistent door Alec was currently attacking. There was an even louder crack followed directly by another that gave Max the impression that someone else had arrived and was out there helping.

Good. Especially since it looked like breaking down that door was their only way out. The small window she had climbed in through was too high to climb up to. They'd have to wait for the water to rise and then swim up to it. Even then she wasn't sure if Zero would be able to fit and she wasn't willing risking him drowning even if he was a giant pain in her ass.

The door finally cracked, splintering inwards before someone rammed it again, causing it to cave in completely. Through the opening that water rushed out into stood Alec with Mole, Sonic and Liam. Mole held a giant hammer that would have made the Norse God Thor proud in one hand and motioned to them with the other as dust rained down from the ceiling and pieces of plaster fell, splashing heavily into the shallow water.

A giant groan of rotting wood came from the left as she shouted to Peace and Zero to run, to get out of there as quick as they could. At least she felt her mouth moving to form the orders, she couldn't hear herself over the cracking of the plaster overhead and the splashes it made around her as it fell and the cracking, splintering sound that drowned out all other noise as one of the massive support beams gave way, breaking several smaller beams from above and bringing them crashing down as well. She dodged backwards to avoid the giant beam and slipped in the giant puddle that the floor had become. She let out a yelp as she felt a smaller beam smash into her shoulder and dislocate the arm, spending her sprawling in the water.

She looked up in time to see parts of the ceiling falling and a large jagged piece of wood fall from above her. She could see the light from the open door on the other side of the fallen main beam and the last thing she saw was the silhouette of a figure jumping over the wood before something heavy slammed into her and sent her world spiraling into darkness.

00001110101010 DARK ANGEL 001011100101

Max awoke with a gasp, and then coughed, choking on the air. Her hearing was muffled as if she was underwater and she realized as she felt her hair floating around her face that she was. At least partially anyways. Something soft rested under her neck, keeping her nose and mouth above the low water level and she could feel something heavy on her chest, threatening to crush her.

The support beams had been falling; of course, she must be trapped under one of the beams. Wasn't that just perfect. She blinked her chocolate eyes open to see the ceiling mostly in tact although there was a large gaping hole that showed the level above them clearly.

Her senses slowly started returning to her, quicker than a normal human would have after such a hectic event. Her shoulder throbbed in pain as she tried to push herself up onto her elbows but realized she couldn't move under whatever was pinning her. She groaned and went to shove the offending piece of wood off, only to have her hand meet with wet fabric and soft skin underneath.

She jerked up, despite her injury painfully screaming in protest. She couldn't raise more than her shoulders, but she could clearly see why now. Alec lay on top of her. One of his arms had been cradling her neck to keep her head above water and the other was now floating slightly spread out to his side in the shallow water. She didn't understand why he was so heavy though. Either he'd put on more weight with that junk food he ate or she was getting weak. She'd given Brain a piggyback ride up stairs for crying out loud, and now she couldn't lift one guy off of her?

"Don't move! Stop moving!" Now that her ears weren't under water she could recognize Liam's voice, and splashing as he grew closer.

She instantly stopped moving as Liam and Krieg, the albino medic with pointed ears, appeared over her.

Krieg knelt down and put a hand over her forehead. "How're you feeling?"

She blinked. "Shoulder hurts. But fine." Her chocolate eyes darted back to Alec's prone form on top of her that still hadn't moved. It was starting to un-nerve her how still he was. Alec was so lively he never stopped moving. To see him completely motionless was making her heart hammer faster and constrict in her chest.

"Good. We just need you to stay still until Mole and Gekk get back. They're going to get you guys out, ok?" Krieg's red eyes bore into her own willing her to understand and she nodded although she still wasn't sure what was going on. Didn't they already find a way out? Someone just needed to lift Alec off of her and they'd be fine.

Krieg stood back up and she could see in the dim lights that his white lab coat had turned a pinkish color at the bottom. Catching a whiff of the metallic smell, she felt a sinking feeling in her gut as she realized what it was.

Blood.

She looked around and noticed for the first time the reddish tint that swirled around in the water she was laying in. She felt her pulse start to race as she struggled to sit up further to see where the blood was coming from despite Liam and Krieg grabbing her shoulders and trying to force her back down.

She caught sight of why Alec was so heavy and still and realized like- quite literally- a bucket of cold water being dumped on her that it wasn't her Liam and Krieg were worried about. They weren't worried about her moving and aggravating any wounds because they knew she didn't have any. At least not any as serious as Alecs.

Alec was laying on top of her, his head on her chest and if the situation hadn't been so serious she would have smacked him for having his face in her cleavage. He was directly on top of her, being pinned down by a smaller beam that must have fallen from above and then splintered, breaking in half and she could see a dark stain on the back of Alec's tan shirt where one half of the wood disappeared into his back. She arched her back slightly and could feel the sharp tip that came out the other side of his body poke her stomach and had to choke back bile. She couldn't allow herself to vomit right now and add to the messy water she was already laying in.

She allowed Liam and Krieg to lower her back to the ground before she put any more strain on Alec's battered body against the jagged piece of wood impaling him and rested her head in the crook of Liam's arm to keep her head out of the water. She momentarily reflected that mere minutes earlier it had been Alec's arm. Even unconscious he had been keeping her safe. She blinked back tears and vaguely wondered why they were there.

She'd cried over Ben. And she'd cried over Tinga. But they'd been her family. She'd never once cried over a fallen comrade. She was a battle-worn super soldier after all. And Ben and Tinga had both been dead. She could feel Alec's heart beating against her chest reassuring her that however lethal the current situation looked, he was still hanging on strong.

Alec was a fighter. He wasn't going to let go. There was no reason why she should feel the tears sliding down her cheeks. He was going to be fine. He wasn't going to leave her. He couldn't leave. She needed him. Need him to help run Terminal City of course. She didn't know what she'd do without him by her side. Because his heightened military training was an advantage of course.

Her heart argued but her brain wouldn't allow it to be put into coherent thoughts as she raised a shaky hand to rest on his damp dirty blonde hair.

She heard loud crashes and splashes as Mole and his fellow lizard trans-human companion Gekk returned with what looked like a chainsaw and Krieg crouched down.

"We're going to need your help getting this off Max. Get a good grip on Alec and don't let go. Don't worry about the blood, we'll staunch it. Just keep a hold of him. Got it?"

Max nodded, slightly irritated that she was the one being given orders but when it came to situations like this medics out-ranked everyone and were given full command to get their jobs done. Krieg was one of the best medics she'd ever seen so she quietly let him order her even though she wanted to snap at him that she didn't need to be told twice to not let go of Alec.

With a resounding crunch she felt Liam on the other side of her pop her shoulder back into place. She let out a scream of surprise before gritting her teeth together and flexing her shoulder to get it moving again.

Mole started up what was indeed a chainsaw, and Max supposed one thing they could thank was that it was just wood going through Alec's body and not something that would be harder to remove like metal.

She wrapped her arms tightly around Alec, one clutching his shoulder blades, and the other at the base of his neck to keep him still and close to him, afraid that the jostling the vibrations of the chainsaw would hurt him farther.

Something about the action felt so right, having Alec in her arms and his warm breath against her. If only the whole ordeal they were going through wasn't so wrong. His neck against her hand felt cold and clammy. She hoped it was only from the water. She could still feel his pulse beating and the small rhythm beneath her fingers kept her mind focused on clinging onto him to keep him still, to keep him as safe as she could and protect him like he'd protected her.

They were doing their best to hold the plank still as Mole cut it down to a size they could manage to pull out of the impaled transgenic and Max was latched onto him so tightly she could feel her muscles straining but she could still feel him involuntarily shaking slightly from the chainsaw's vibrations. She squeezed her eyes shut against the saw dust that was flying through the air and mingling with Alec's blood in the water.

Joshua caught the plank as it fell in half so it wouldn't land on them again and cause any further damage and Max vaguely wondered when Joshua had gotten there. He had most likely come in with Mole and Gekk and she had just been too pre-occupied to notice. And he had probably been too focused on getting Alec to safety to have time to stop and ask stupid questions like if she was ok. The canine trans-human may have trouble stringing sentences together but he really wasn't as dumb as most people liked to believe because of his speech impairment.

Of course she wasn't ok. She was as far from ok as she could possibly get today. She officially broken up with Logan and he hadn't taken it well at all. Several of her citizens had carelessly tried to fix up an old decrypt building by themselves and almost got killed in the process. And now Alec was laying on her on a flooded basement floor with a giant piece of wood through his stomach and she was literally laying in a puddle of his blood. It was so hard to believe that all of this had happened not only in one night but in a few hours. Things had gone wrong for her before, but never this badly all in a row. Unbelievable. First person that actually had the nerve to stupidly ask if she was ok was going to get punched right in the jaw.

She felt hands on her arms and snapped out of her train of thought to look up and see Joshua kneeling over her and Alec.

"Little fella let go now, Joshua has Alec."

She looked back and forth between Joshua and Alec, her chocolate eyes wide.

"But the beam is still in him. You have to-"

Liam cut her off this time. "We can't do it here after all. We have to get him back to the medical bay so we can get the bleeding under control and have blood transfusions ready for when we remove it. We don't know if it punctured anything."

Max moved her hand from Alec's neck to his hair and mingling in the dark blonde strands while she hesitantly let her other arm drop from around his shoulders.

Joshua made a whining noise in the back of his throat and made to slowly pull Alec away from her. For a second even though she understood what was going on, panic seized her and she tightened her hand around his arm. She knew Joshua needed to take him but some unreasonable part of her mind was terrified that if he toke Alec away from her she'd never see him again. That her arms were literally holding him here with her and keeping him alive and if she let go, he just might let go of his life.

Liam knelt down next to her with a syringe in one hand and she eyed it carefully, knowing what he was intending to do as the transhuman sighed.

"This is just to put you to sleep for a bit and relieve the pain, alright? You'll wake back up once we have you back in the medical bay and stabilized." The transhuman gently soothed the stray strands of her hair that stuck to her face away as he pressed the needle into her arm.

She wanted to argue that she wanted to stay awake; to be sure that Alec would be ok. She wanted to be there when he woke up. She wanted to know that he was going to wake up. But instead she let her self drift off under the influence of the drugs, her fingers gripping tightly in Alec's hair and refusing to let go.