Disclaimer: I don't own the characters and if there was money in this for me, I wouldn't be going to work in the morning.

A/N: Follows on from Freak Nation. The title is the title of a Bob Dylan song.

I don't dislike Logan, I just felt like he and Max were over by the end of season two, and I am an Alec fan, so this story is one for the M/A readers. Logan is featured and he's still a good guy, but those of you who still love him might find my version a bit whiny for your taste. I warn you now.

This is my first multi-chapter fic, so I'm hoping it's coherent and will have some kind of narrative flow. It hasn't been beta read, so any mistakes are mine. I thought, if I don't post something I'll just tinker until I die of old age.

It's also my first Dark Angel fic. Still watching the DVDs after all these years.

Reviews are like cheesecake. Can't get enough.

Chapter One

Everyone was busy. There was so much to do to make TC liveable if they were going to be stuck there for the foreseeable future. Max was conflicted. Her speech to the troops yesterday had been about freedom, about taking their futures in their own hands and having choices, but here they were trying to follow her lead, and they were troops. Still. They weren't acting free, they had organised themselves, seemingly by some organic, almost telepathic agreement, into units with leaders, a chain of command. She wasn't just a bossy know it all now, she was a Commanding Officer.

The structure seemed to give them comfort, and it sure seemed to be getting things done, but it made her feel constricted inside to watch them all replicate their military roles here on the outside.

She guessed she'd have to go with it for now, but she could make little changes, make things more fluid, more egalitarian as they went along. She hoped that those who had really embraced freedom this past year would be able to help her free the others in mind, if not in body while they were still trapped in this prison camp.

Alec could help her with that. Who liked freedom more than Alec? Where was he anyway? She looked around the hustle and bustle and couldn't spot him. Joshua rushed past, arm full of snaking cables and computer hardware, and she snagged his free hand.

"Hey Big Fella. You seen Alec?"

"Alec resting. Remember, hurt arm?"

Huh, Alec had been shot during the siege at Jam Pony, and admittedly had taken a beating, but it really wasn't that bad. He was malingering already? She was annoyed now. He liked freedom alright. He liked letting everyone else do the work while he just did whatever he wanted.

"Where is he Josh?" She tried to keep her voice light, didn't want Joshua to get all protective of Alec. She liked her smack-downs to carry the element of surprise.

Joshua nodded upwards, towards the catwalk that ran the edge of the room about 15 feet up. She could see him through the mesh of the steel that formed the walkway, sitting there as though without a care in the world. She scowled and made her way towards the stairs.

He was sitting on the floor, elbows resting on his raised knees. His head rested back against the wall and his eyes were closed. He looked so relaxed he might have dropped off. She squashed instantly the thought that always popped into her head when she saw him, especially when she saw him and he didn't see her: my god he's beautiful. That kind of thinking wasn't helpful. She focused on the matter at hand.

"Hey, dumbass! Everyone's working you know." She didn't like to stand on ceremony, and there were times she kind of liked being a leader. She didn't admit it to anyone else, but she especially enjoyed ordering Alec around.

"Hey Maxie, I'm working." He sounded friendly, didn't react to her tone at all. Didn't even open his eyes. And didn't that just get her back right up?

"Yeah? Working on being lazy. Josh said you're resting, because you're hurt, poor baby." She laid the sarcasm on thick with a trowel.

"What? No, shoulder's fine now. I'm thinking."

She snorted, "Thinking?"

"Yes, Max, I think sometimes."

"Fine, you think sometimes. Let's just go with that for now. How is you sitting here thinking helping the rest of us who are actually working?"

Alec sighed, long-suffering, and opened one eye to peer at her. "If you must know, I'm meditating. On glaciers."

He didn't like to admit it, but he enjoyed being ordered around by Max, and she was so cute when she was annoyed with him. He especially liked when he could lead her by the nose to lose it with him and then stop her short by making it known that he was actually doing something to help. He loved it when she did that confused, annoyed face, like she knew she was in the wrong but her pride wouldn't let her back down. That cracked him up. And made him feel a little gooey inside. He squashed that part of the thought right down. It couldn't lead anywhere good.

"Glaciers?" Ok, she was kind of intrigued now. She worked on keeping the scowl in place. Wouldn't do to let him think she was softening.

"Like you said, everyone's busy, Max, but there's only so much we can do to make this place inhabitable. We need supplies. We're going to need to get food in here. We need toilet paper – actually that might be more important than food. There aren't enough beds. We've got hundreds of transgenics in cramped conditions, and no drills to keep them busy. In about 12 weeks we're going to need ultrasound machines for all the pre-natal checkups. Either that, or we need a truck load of condoms in here, stat. We need to be able to get out of here and bring stuff in until we can actually live in the world again."

She couldn't disagree, and she couldn't help the slightly pained look at his mention of all those young, pretty, virile people having nothing to do but get busy with each other. She hadn't thought about that, but he sure had a point. Still, didn't explain what he was doing.

"Again, I ask, glaciers?"

"We are masters of control, Max, we can work through pain, control breathing and heart rate even under torture. We can hold our breath underwater for I don't know how many times as long as an ordinary. There's almost nothing we can't get these bodies to do if we concentrate.

"They're tracking us by body heat. I'm thinking about cold things to get my temperature down so I can move around outside without being tagged. Get us some necessaries in here."

And there was the face. God he loved that face. The screwed up eyes, frowny forehead and pouty lips. He couldn't wait to hear the verbal gymnastics it would take to get her from pissed off to agreeing with him without making it seem like she'd backed down.

Max was torn. Damn, that was a good idea, but how could she back down while still saving face? She was sure he did this on purpose. And she fell for it every time.

She heard a whistle downstairs and turned slightly to see what was happening. From up here, she could see everyone was working, but from this perspective, she could also see that Alec was right. Some of them were off scouting out and assigning quarters, mustering weapons, but the rest... It was just busy work. They were tidying up, squaring away.

The majority of them were low ranking, they weren't strategic thinkers; they just assumed those higher up the command chain were working on stuff like where their next meal was going to come from. And where they'd get toilet paper. Yeah, she sure didn't want to run out of that.

Ok, this was too important to worry about saving face.

"Is it working?"

Alec's mouth dropped open. She was agreeing? Without a fight? He was floored. Couldn't decide whether to be smug that she was acknowledging he'd done something good, or disappointed that he wasn't getting his pay off.

"Yeah, I think so, but I don't have a thermometer. That's another thing we could do with, by the way. Feel my forehead, compare it with yours."

She put one hand on his forehead and one on her own. Damn, he was colder than her. She smiled, "I think so! Hang, on, I'll get Cindy. We'll compare with her." She stood, looking for her friend and spotted her over in the far corner, hanging out with Gem and the baby.

"Hey, OC, over here, girl!"

As Original Cindy made her way over, Alec closed his eyes again breathing slowly, thinking cold thoughts. Wasn't easy with the memory of Max's hand on his forehead. Ok, stop that! He admonished himself. Icebergs, blizzards, that time he'd had to hide underwater in the Baltic Sea in January for over an hour with no wetsuit and only a snorkel while waiting for the watch to lose interest and go away so he could come up a for real breath and swim for the extraction boat. He shivered even at the memory.

He felt the air shift as Max crouched down by him again, tried not to react to her hand back on his forehead.

Then Original Cindy was there too, "He OK?"

"Cindy get down here, let me feel your forehead."

"Sure, Boo. What's goin' on?"

"He's trying to lower his temperature, so he can sneak outside."

"It working?"

"Need to use you as a thermometer to check."

Cindy sat next to Max and they formed a triangle, each feeling the other two's foreheads. Max spoke first, "Ok, you're definitely colder than me, but can you get it a little lower?"

Alec grunted and tried not to think about the two smokin' hot women touching his forehead and each other. Cold things. Ice cream, beer from the fridge. Endurance training when he was a kid at Manticore: hours in a meat locker.

Max sucked in a breath that sounded like a shudder, "Ok, that's a little too low. Just come up a little."

He shut off the meat locker memory. Hadn't really wanted to go there anyway. Stuck with snow on branches and frost crunching underfoot.

"That's it I think. Hold it there. Can you maintain it? Can you keep it up when you're moving around and not concentrating on it?"

"Gimme a sec to memorise it." He kept his eyes closed, stayed relaxed, concentrated. Focused on the exact sensations he was experiencing in contact with normal transgenic temperature and the target normal human temperature. "Ok, I got it. Let me see if I can keep it going."

They all dropped their hands and rose to their feet. Alec still had his back to the wall. It felt weird, kind of horrible actually. He hated being too cold. He'd hated that endurance training as a kid, and the cold was even worse than the hot. Still, if it got the job done. He liked eating more than he disliked the cold.

He took the lead back down the stairs and looked around for something to be busy with. Mole had a couple of X6s with him carrying boxes, so he fell in with them, figuring physical work would be a good test.

Max and Cindy approached him half an hour later and he handed his box to Dalton so they could make their little triangle again. He tried not to let himself get warm at the smiles he was getting from both women.

"Damn, you did it Alec!" He was kind of touched by the look on Max's face: pleased, impressed, relieved. Wouldn't do to get sappy though.

"You don't have to sound so surprised Max!" He feigned hurt.

"I didn't mean..." Max's heart sank. She wasn't trying to be a bitch. Seemed like it just came out sometimes. Alec could be a real jerk, and he deserved it those times, but she wanted to be fair to him. This was something that could really make a difference to all of them. He deserved credit for it.

"I'm kidding Max." He grinned that shit-eating grin at her, and she growled in frustration.

"Asshole!" She punched him in the arm. That always made her feel better. Still, in recognition of his success, she did at least make sure to hit the arm without the healing bullet wound. It was all the consideration he deserved though.

They tried a couple of other tests, and found he was able to maintain the lower temperature while concentrating on writing some code for the security system upgrade, and even while sparring with Max.

Max was getting excited; he'd kept it up for several hours. This was starting to smell like freedom of a sort.

"We'll get everyone trying it. We'll be able to run some away missions, get the food in; the toilet paper, like you said." She announced over a dinner of canned potatoes. She was surprised that Alec was actually the one pulling her back, reining in her expectations.

He shook his head, "Simmer down, Max. We need a field test first. We need to know if I can actually do it outside before we get everyone's hopes up.

"If I go out, get us some thermometers, it'll kill two birds with one stone, I'll come back and we can practice with the others, make sure we know who can do it and who can't."

She nodded. She couldn't let herself get carried away. Doing it under test conditions was one thing, but maintaining it in the field, under pressure of working a mission, that could be much harder. Some of the younger ones might find it too difficult.

Alec raised another concern she hadn't considered, "Need to be careful too. Morale with the transhumans – this isn't going to be nearly as helpful to them as to us, and we can't have it be another thing creating distance. Can't let them think we're just going to ditch them."

Alec maintained the human temperature well into the evening, but he had to confess to Max that it really took it out of him. He was uncomfortable all the time, and by the time he allowed his body to warm back to normal, he was exhausted. Still they were encouraged; they had something tangible they'd achieved, something that really could make the difference to all of them.

They agreed that Alec would go out tomorrow.

Max was antsy all night, couldn't sleep, which wasn't unusual, but she couldn't stop thinking about Alec, which was unusual. Well, more unusual.

She couldn't deny there had been times when he'd kept her up nights before, although they were usually times when she'd got herself so riled up at him, that she wanted to get out of bed, storm over to his apartment and yell at him, until he admitted he was a selfish, careless, impossible jerk.

Then there were the other times. The times when it all got too tough with Logan and she thought about how it would be easier if she gave up and tried to be with someone different.

On those nights, somehow it was Alec who crept into her thoughts. He was a selfish, careless, impossible jerk, but he could also be funny, exciting and surprisingly thoughtful. And damn, he was fine looking.

This time he'd really surprised her. He'd raised his hand when she'd asked them all who was with her, but she didn't really think anything of it. She thought he'd hang with her, probably help out as he had done the past year, under apparent sufferance and with a detached amusement. And he'd do it for as long as it amused him, then one day he'd decide TC was a crap-hole and he'd be better off looking out for number one on the open road. Thinking on it though, that was unfair. He had changed over the months she'd known him. He'd helped her in ways that were above and beyond what she'd expect from the guy she'd first met.

What he'd done today though, that gave her a glimpse of Alec that she hadn't really seen before. While they were all working on the immediate, because the future seemed too huge to get to grips with, he'd figured the immediate could look after itself for a little bit while he thought about what would happen if they were stuck there for more than a week or two, which she had to confess was likely.

So not only had he taken the time to think through what they really needed, but he'd come up with a totally inspired idea on how they could get it. Then he'd figured out the practicalities of using it, and had foreseen the drawbacks so they could decide how to mitigate them.

She was great at kicking ass and thinking on the fly, and had surprised herself at how good she'd been at bringing them all together with her speech, but she knew she wouldn't have come up with that idea in a million years.

She was starting to think Alec wasn't just an annoying pain in her ass that she had to keep rescuing from his own stupidity and recklessness. Maybe there was someone there that she could rely on. That she needed.

He was stupid and reckless and she couldn't rely on him at all. She was seething that he'd pulled the wool over her eyes, again. He'd used her and Cindy to help him master his escape plan, and then that's exactly what he'd done: escaped.

They'd agreed that he would go out, get a bunch of thermometers and be back. They weren't necessarily an easy to come by item, so there may be some larceny involved. Still, should be pretty simple. Two hours, tops, they'd agreed.

Four hours later and he wasn't back. After two and a half, she'd been uneasy. After three she'd been worried. Now it occurred to her that she'd been played. His barcode was freshly lasered and invisible and he could maintain a normal human body temperature for in excess of ten hours. He hadn't been caught. He hadn't got in trouble. He'd skedaddled and she couldn't believe she'd been so stupid.

She'd actually thought they could be a good team, work together for the good of the group. She'd lain in bed last night thinking Alec would make a great Deputy for her, that they'd cover each other's weaknesses, back each other up. She'd get him to knuckle down and be responsible and he'd get her to lighten up, make her laugh. She'd had it all planned out. God, she was so stupid.

Just as she'd written him off completely he'd shown up and she was so relieved she kind of didn't want to look too hard at why. Yes, she was glad to know her trust hadn't been betrayed. She did want to believe in him, but that wasn't all of it. In that second when she'd seen his face she'd felt overwhelming relief, and then her heart nearly stopped when she saw the blood coating his hand.

Was that what she'd feel for just a friend? Of course. Squash that thought, now.

She walked right up to him and shoved him in the chest, hard, and yelled at him. "Where the HELL have you been?"

"Gee Maxie, lovely to see you too!"

"Two hours, Alec; that was the deal!"

He was a little pale, and the bloody hand was pressed to his side, but somehow she couldn't get herself to give him a break. If she did, she'd have to focus on his injury, and that would be bad. There was something deep down inside that was feeling all worried and protective. That was really bad.

"Max, missions can be a little fluid, you know that. Things happen and you have to improvise. Relax already, would you? I'm here, the stuff's here. What's your problem?"

She bit her lip. She needed to calm down. She did sound a little bit overwrought, and the others were starting to look at her sideways.

"How did you get hurt?"

"Hey, what can I say? I may not be just a pretty face, but I am a pretty face... People remember me. I'm hard to miss." He winced as Mole roughly pulled his hand aside and slapped a piece of gauze over the bloody tear in his side. It stung and then some.

He'd got cocky, he knew that. He'd been wearing the hood and the shades, but he'd been looking out for White and the Sector Cops and focusing on keeping his body temp under control. He hadn't seen the girl until it was too late. He felt kind of betrayed. Yes, it had been a one night stand, but that was all she'd wanted too at the time, it wasn't like she had a reason to be sore with him. They'd spent one glorious night together a few months back, but seeing him on the news at the Jam Pony siege she'd believed the propaganda and figured him for just another animal. If he'd known she was wanted by the police and he'd spotted her, he'd have offered her a place to hole up, not turned her in. Guess she was just like all those other ordinaries. A sheep.

Now Max was giving him a hard time too. Perfect day. And he'd thought it all was going so well. He'd had a genuine brainwave, a way to prove his worth to Max and for once she'd looked at him like he was worth bothering with. He'd got carried away. And now he was bleeding and Max was mad at him. She wasn't going to trust him again after this. His bravado slipped a little and he sank into a chair, suddenly exhausted.

She softened. He looked wiped. She knew staying frosty had tired him out on the test run yesterday, but keeping it up under fire had to have been double-tough. "What happened?"

"Got recognised. Cops were called. Guns were fired, there was running and shouting, and here I am. Don't worry, I lost them before I came through the tunnel."

She took a deep breath. Maybe if she just looked at the injury and stopped looking at his face, that would help. Break him into parts, easier to deal with than the whole Alec. She knelt down at his side and gently moved her hand over the blood soaked gauze. "Show me," she said softly.

The wound wasn't life threatening. The bullet had gouged a long furrow low on his ribs on the left. Could have been a lot worse, nothing was broken. It was a nasty, deep gash though, and she took him back to his place to get it cleaned up. She put in some stitches and covered it with fresh gauze.

She put the kettle on for coffee and stared out of the window until it boiled. She brought the cups over to the couch where he was sitting. She sat facing him on the coffee table. In spite of not having any painkillers to give him when she put the stitches in, he looked a little better for just being able to sit and relax. His colour was back, and he accepted the coffee gratefully.

"You OK?" she asked. He just nodded. He leaned over to drag his back pack towards him, but she stopped him with a hand to his forearm, pulling the bag to him and letting him unzip it.

He gestured and she looked inside. It was full to bursting, and she pulled out a paper bag from the top, unfolding it and checking inside. There were about fifty strip thermometers, plenty for them to work on mastering the skill in groups, and easy for them to carry around outside so they could keep a check on themselves on missions. She put the bag beside her on the table and stuck her hand back in the backpack. There was a larger plastic bag next. She pulled it out and opened it, and couldn't help the snort of laughter. The bag was full to the brim with hundreds of condoms. He caught her eye and they smiled at each other. It was oddly tender and did something to her heart that she wasn't quite prepared for.

He put his arm in the bag next and pulled out a smaller bag. He opened it and pulled out a few items that had her blushing with pleasure. He'd been to her place. He'd broken in and got her girly stuff for her: her razor, her tweezers, her nail file, her shampoo, her favourite nightshirt, her cosy slippers. Tears formed in her eyes. She couldn't believe he'd been so thoughtful. It wasn't much to show for a life, but she was so grateful to have those few familiar objects.

He was surprised and more touched than he'd expected when she leaned forwards and put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek. Her "Thank you" was quiet and utterly heartfelt and filled him with warmth.

She stayed for a while, and they talked about what the priorities for the next few days should be, made some plans for supply runs they'd take if the temperature control exercise worked as well as they hoped for the others. After an hour or so, Alec's eyes started to drift closed and she pulled him up and sent him off to bed while she tidied up the first aid kit and rinsed the coffee cups.

She checked in on him before she left. He was lying on his side, sleeping peacefully. She tried not to think about the soppy feeling she got from pulling his blanket a little higher and tucking it under his chin.

Continues soon.

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