Fiction DW- Chapter Fourteen

Title: Dream Within

Author: Restive Nature (aka Bavite)

Rated: NC-17

Disclaimer: All characters within this fiction are the property of Cameron/ Eglee. I just like to play with them.

Timeline: Six weeks after FN.

Pairing M/A

Summary: An unexpected accident causes Max to think about the future in a new way.

Chapter Fourteen

Laying It All Out

Max sat in the doorway of her home, her head buried in her knees, arms wrapped around her legs, sobbing, for what seemed hours. Time had little meaning now that Alec had left. He’d walked out on her, unable to live with her lies. Unintentionally, she’d hurt him badly. But softly, footsteps reached her ears. Her breath caught in her chest as she lifted her face. But it wasn’t Alec. She hiccuped slightly as tender arms reached out for her.

"Joshua!" she cried as she threw herself into his embrace. "He left!"

"I know," Joshua sighed as he stroked his friend’s back. "Joshua saw him downstairs. Alec told Joshua what happened."

"He didn’t hear me," she whimpered. "I tried to tell him. But he didn’t hear me."

"Alec heard," Joshua shook his head. Max inhaled sharply and pulled back. "Alec heard, but didn’t understand." His face dropped a little. "Alec thought Max making more excuses." Her face crumpled at that revelation and she began to cry again. "It’ll be okay l’il fella. Try again. Tell Alec everything. Make him listen."

"But if he just thinks I’m making excuses," Max began, "then he won’t-!"

"No! Max make Alec listen!" Joshua insisted. "Now!" Max’s eyes widened. It had been a while for her since her friend has used that tone with her. It was always reserved for moments when the laid-back transhuman felt that a point needed to be driven home. Max swallowed heavily. "Does Max want to be alone forever?" he asked more gently. She shook her head. Joshua smiled and nudged her shoulder. "Then go bring Alec home." She nodded and he helped her stand up. He quickly wiped the last few tears from her cheek and let her hug him. She pulled the apartment door shut and hurried down the hall. She paused at the corner and turned back.

"Um, Joshua? Where is he?"

"My place."

"Okay, thanks!" And she scampered off again.

*****

Her mind was racing as she climbed the stairs to Joshua’s place. Would Alec listen this time? Would he understand why she hadn’t told him? Looking back over the choices she’d made, she could follow the clear path of all the times she’d ignored the opportunity of telling him. But in her defense, she’d had quite a number of shocks to deal with right from the beginning. Alec and their marriage being top of the list. At last she reached Joshua’s door. In a fit of sudden shyness, she hesitatingly knocked at the door. She waited only a moment before it was answered. Her husband’s pale face stared at her passively, as if knowing she’d come running after him and was resigned to the next go around in their little drama.

"Joshua sent you," it was not a question, but a statement of fact. But she nodded anyway.

"C-can I come in?" she asked meekly. Alec stared at her a second longer, then shrugged and stepped back. She moved forward on unsteady legs but was glad when the door clicked shut behind her. She turned to see him leaning tiredly against the wall, watching her. She licked her lips, more nervous now than she had been simply contemplating telling him the truth. "Alec, I’m sorry."

"I’m sure you are," he replied, his face never wavering. But the words were without rancor. She ducked her head, knowing that those words alone would never be enough. She bit her lower lip and forced herself to look up.

"What I said before is true," she whispered. "I don’t remember."

"Damn it Max!" he finally exploded, throwing his hand up to stop her. "We don’t need to go through this again."

"No Alec," she sighed, taking hold of his hand in her own. "Please? Can you just listen?" She waited until he nodded his assent, pleased that his hand tightened on hers instead of pulling away. "Can we sit down?" Again he nodded and she led him over to the couch. His hand was still in hers, but he was very careful to keep a small distance between them. She glanced about the room, recognizing the irony of telling her story all over again in the same place that she’d admitted it in the first place.

"We’re sitting," Alec reminded her gently, bringing her attention back to him. She watched him a moment, but he simply watched her in return. She glanced away, noting that at some point, Joshua had covered the easel where their painting resided. She was glad for that, feeling that Alec should have at least one pleasant surprise in store for him. She didn’t let herself dwell on the fact that it might be an unwelcome reminder of the mess their life had quickly become at some point down the road.

"Damn, this is hard," she whispered finally. "I don’t really know where to start."

"Try the beginning," he offered dryly. She took a deep breath, steeling herself against the absurdity of it all.

"I didn’t realize it right away," she began slowly, "but the last clear memory I have, is leaving TC, in the middle of a rainstorm, going over to Logan’s. Apparently, I was hit by a car." Alec’s eyes were going suitably wide as each word she spoke sank in. His fingers tightened again.

"Jesus Maxie!" he swore softly as he realized what she was referring to. "That was almost a year and a half ago." She nodded. His nostrils flared slightly as he sucked in huge gulps of air.

"The next thing I remember," she continued, her voice soft and steady, "was waking up into what I thought was a dream. One minute, I was riding my bike, the next, I was having sex with someone I thought was just my friend."

"Son of a bitch," he murmured half-heartedly, breaking eye contact with her. His glance strayed to their hands. He gently extracted his fingers from hers and rubbed his fingertips against the seam of his pants nervously. "No wonder you were so damn jumpy." He looked quickly to her, then back down at the floor. "It was the morning we went to pick up Joshua, wasn’t it?" She waited until he glanced up again and nodded, even though neither really needed to confirm the exact moment. Max knew enough of him by now; even going on prior experience that he noticed little things, nuances and such. But she’d been throwing off major vibes since she’d woken up that morning. "So what then?"

"Well," she sighed and rearranged herself slightly on the couch to better face him, pulling her legs up and leaning against the back of the couch. "After I ducked into the bathroom, I noticed that a lot more was different."

"Like what?" he asked gently, seeming to rearrange things as he knew them. Going over what had changed, even though they’d been so gradual to him that would seem instant to her.

"I noticed my rings, right away," she smiled at him, amused at the wild ranting that had spiraled through her mind in those first instances of clarity. "So I knew that I was married. And that I was definitely sharing the apartment, with all the other stuff in the bathroom."

"That you were married?" he repeated slowly. She cocked her head to the side, wondering what warning bells she seemed to have set off. "Not that we were married?" Suddenly, she was catapulted back to before the siege. The hurt on his face, the disbelief when she’d finally clued him in to the fact that he was the unwitting co-conspirator in her latest plot to push Logan away. That whole ploy, that they’d played out had been blown away with a few choice comments and some gloved handholding. At least Alec hadn’t complained much when Max had done another one eighty and turned back to her former would-be lover. But Max remembered how difficult a time he’d had with people believing that he was so low that he’d steal another man’s girl and she didn’t want him for one second to think that she believed it still. Even though, admittedly, she had wondered. But as usual, all her thoughts had been centered on her own self. Had she been cheating? Never imagining the implications that it might have on the one she’d been supposedly cheating with.

"I figured out pretty quickly whom I was married to," she told him.

"How?"

She grinned devilishly as she leaned in close to inhale his scent. "There’s no one else I know who goes to all the trouble and expense to lay in a supply of Irish Spring," she commented, surprised a little by the faint flush that tinged his cheeks. He smiled shakily and ducked his head.

"But why didn’t you say anything then?" he demanded suddenly.

"Well, it was a pretty big shock," she sighed. "And then you mentioned Joshua. I thought at first that he was… that he was dead." His eyes widened as she shuddered just at the thought and his arm came up instinctively, but he lowered it just as quickly.

"I’m sorry," he said simply. She nodded.

"So there was another shock," she shrugged. "And then I saw him and he knew right away something was wrong. And everyone was making such a big deal out of me being sick, and I… I just…"

"You didn’t want pity, or us freaking out," he finished for her. She nodded once. "We went back to his place and I ended up telling him. He didn’t understand at first. And then Gem and Angie came by. I think that was actually a really bad one."

"What do you mean?" trying to figure how seeing Gem and Angie would upset her. He remembered Gem describing Max’s panic, but neither at the time could attribute it to anything specific.

"Alec, I thought I’d lost a few months, maybe six at the most," she admitted. "Joshua was filling me in, but seeing Angie. She was so big. It just hit me all at once how much of a time gap it really was."

"Okay," he murmured. Max realized he’d accepted it rather easily and wondered what experience he might have that he could approximate along with it. A brief flash of an extended stay in psy-ops popped into her head and she shuddered again. "But you still didn’t say anything."

"Joshua told me why you seemed so worried about me," she continued. "About White and me being sick. And not knowing why I couldn’t remember, I think I just wanted to figure it out myself. So that no one else would have to worry over me." His raised eyebrow told her how absurd he considered that notion. She could see it now, but at the time, she’d had very little to go on.

"I was worried anyway," he whispered huskily, slightly chastising. Max glanced away, biting her lip. "Did you ever consider telling me?"

"I thought about it," she admitted. "But then, that night, well, I had proof in my hands that we’d developed, well, a history. I thought I’d made my choice and what else was there but to accept it."

"The wedding album?"

"Yeah. But later, you were…" she faltered, but she didn’t need to go on. The moment was emblazoned in his mind as well.

"I scared you, didn’t I?" he demanded, his voice hard. It startled her a little, until she realized that his anger was directed more at himself than anything. She edged closer, unconsciously demanding his attention; gratified that his tension seemed to lessen the closer she got to him. She reached one hand up to cup his cheek and pull his face towards her.

"You startled me," she stressed. "I was mad at myself. I was kind of remembering things. And one of those things was that you don’t like being tickled there. Though I have no idea why. But I just felt so stupid for remembering that, but doing it anyway." Alec leaned into her hand, softly caressing his cheek as she tried to explain herself.

"White," he whispered, his eyes hardening. "Bastard did some damage and that hip has been sensitive ever since." But the hardness was gone the moment he saw the unshed tears in her eyes, crying over a memory she didn’t have. "Max," he groaned softly, gathering her closer, until she was nearly in his lap. He pressed a kiss to the corner of one eye, carefully stroking her back, trying as he always did to calm her. She blinked several times but was unable to hold them back, finally letting loose the secrets she’d held back. The relief nearly overwhelming her that he wasn’t reacting as badly as she had imagined he would.

Alec followed the course of her tears down her cheek, kissing away the salty moisture. The heat of his lips on her skin overtook any moment of confession she might wish to have. Her lips parted as his neared hers and she turned into his kiss. She curled into him, grateful for his unyielding strength. But just as she began to arch into him, she found herself lifted away and set back on the couch. She opened her eyes to see her husband standing several feet away, running a hand through his hair as he steadied himself.

"I’m sorry," he apologized swiftly. "I shouldn’t have done that," he offered, not quite looking at her.

"Why not?" she demanded, confused.

"You don’t remember us," he reminded her in a not so gentle tone. "I have to remember that. I, God, I shouldn’t be taking advantage of you like that."

Max slowly stood and moved to stand before him. She didn’t make a move to get too close, seeing that he’d bolt on her. "It’s okay Alec," she smiled up at him. "I may not remember all the big things. But I understand that you do. And that it’s natural for you to react this way. Believe me, if I didn’t like it at least a little, I could certainly find ways to tell you so." Alec stared at her for a moment before he chuckled.

"Yeah I guess that’s true," he laughingly agreed. But still, he moved away from her, pacing around the living room. Max watched him, seeing the caginess, the feeling that he, now along with her was trapped in this weird static of neither here nor there and until they got it all out in the open, they couldn’t move forward, as they were meant to. "So you remembered some stuff?" he prompted. She took a seat and continued.

"Yeah, it was mostly little stuff. Like how the kids got into a cake fight at the wedding. Some names, brief flashes of stuff." He nodded, still pacing.

"And those nights that you were at HQ?" he brushed past the memories, wanting to know it all, but never giving her the chance to admit her biggest discovery of all. She mentally sighed and decided that once it was all there, then she could go about telling him that she loved him. That she didn’t need the past to know that.

"I was trying to research," she informed him. "Trying to put all the pieces together. Put names and faces together. I mean, Joshua could only tell me so much. And people were expecting me to be in headquarters, at least some of the time. So I couldn’t constantly be at Joshua’s pumping him for information."

"But you weren’t doing that work," he smirked briefly, stopping in his confined roaming. She rolled her eyes.

"Sorry," she responded dryly. "I went from being leader of Terminal City to being the public liaison. I think I was stuck in the mental mindset that you never let them know when you’re weak. I figured I was strong enough to take care of this myself."

He actually laughed. "I thought you’d gotten over that." But then seemed to remember the independence she’d always prized. "I guess not."

"Nuh uh," she shrugged. There was no point denying it. Her husband knew her very well, better than she knew herself at this point.

"Okay," Alec continued constructing events, as he knew them. "So then you overheard me and Josh talking and you went to Doc?"

"Yeah," she picked up the thread. "I thought that I could put your mind at ease."

"It probably would have worked too, for a while," he admitted with a deprecating grin. "Gee, if only I hadn’t caught on."

"Yep, you screwed me then," she giggled. Alec waggled his eyebrows at her. But the merriment was lost as they both considered just what had brought them here to this moment.

"So what now?" he asked through a lump in his throat.

"Now we go home, where we belong," Max decided. "And together we figure out how to jog my memory."

"I don’t know Max," he hedged. "Would you be comfortable having me around constantly? I mean, there’ll probably be times I mess up and forget that you don’t remember and I just-!" She jumped up and silenced him with an abrupt kiss. He stared down at her, slightly shocked.

"Yes Alec," she murmured. "I want you home with me. I’ll never remember what it’s supposed to be like, if it’s not like it’s supposed to be."

"Okay," he drawled, smiling at her circular logic. Sliding his hand down her arm and lightly grasping her hand, he pulled her to the door, stopping momentarily to grab his duffel bag from where he’d dropped it. "Maybe tomorrow we can sit down with Doc and figure out how or why this happened." He noticed her tense up immediately. "Max?" She bit her lip and his eyes narrowed. "Max, you told Doc about the memory loss, right?"

"Well, not exactly…"

Chapter Fifteen