Fiction DW- Chapter Nineteen

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 Nineteen
Memory In Blue

Max rolled over to her side, coming awake with the rapid blinking of her eyes, trying to ascertain what had awoken her. She stared around the bedroom, her mind still slightly foggy with sleep. Until a long lean arm passed over her to land on the alarm clock. She watched as Alec deftly slid the little switch off and turned her head to see that he was still reclining on his side. She hid a smile at his innocent expression, even as she knew he was fully awake. She had probably slapped at the "sleep" button, like she had many times before in her life. Alec’s hand came away from the alarm clock to rest on the curve of her hip.



Max grinned and wriggled around until she was facing Alec, his hand sliding over her stomach, to curl around her waist comfortably. She leaned in, her nose almost touching his. "Good morning," she whispered. His lips twitched into a smile as he tilted his chin upwards, searching for her lips. Max let her eyes drift shut again as she welcomed the soft caress of his skin on hers.



"Mmm," he rumbled deep in his chest. "Good morning." Alec pulled her in closer and nipped at her ear. "You weren’t supposed to wake up you know."



"Really?" Max smiled at the playful tone of his voice. "Why is that?"



"Cause in a few minutes I was gonna get up and make you breakfast in bed," he explained with a small yawn. Max flopped her head down and imitated a small snore. Alec chuckled, his fingers tightening on her ribcage before walking up her side. Max squirmed and tried to roll away from him but Alec held tight, his fingers lightly roaming her skin.



"Oh, cut it out," she gasped, trying not to giggle at the sensation.



Alec lifted his head to see the wide smile on her face. "No no," he grunted, "it’s too late. You ruined my plan. Now you have to pay."



"Ah," Max snorted inelegantly, trying to push his hands away. "I wasn’t hungry anyway," she mumbled. That was enough to make him stop tickling her. He propped himself up on his side and winked down at her.



"Oh come on," he laughed his voice still light. "After a night like last night, you’re always hungry." Max’s eyes widened, hit again with another little tidbit about her life that she’d never realized before.



"Really?" she muttered conspiratorially. Alec frowned and then seemed to remember all at once the strange predicament they’d become embroiled in. But he didn’t seem as perturbed by it as he had been before. Now, he simply nodded and took on a slightly more serious mien.

"Yep," he enunciated slowly. He shrugged one shoulder. "Makes sense though. We burn off a lot of energy through the night. Got to make it up somehow."



"That’s true," she conceded.



"Thought you would have remembered that," Alec teased again. Max rolled her eyes and pouted up at him.



"Yeah, well, how long ago was it that I wasn’t having regular sex? Or even semi-regular sex? Or God, even any kind of sex at all?" she blustered, waving one hand in the air for emphasis.



"Well, I always had this theory about you and Original Cindy…"



"Alec!" Max couldn’t help the small, instinctive smack to his arm. It was just a tiny one, because as much as she disliked hitting him now, she still couldn’t let him get away with little digs like that. Perhaps sometime soon, she’d think up a better reprimand, but for now, a small knock on the arm and an apologetic kiss would suffice. Just as long as he didn’t make too many of these remarks. Max stared at the limb she’d just attacked and leaned forward to press a small kiss on the barely irritated skin. Alec smiled down at her action, which gave her brain a little jolt. Had she done something like that before? She knew better than to wrack her brain for the answer. She chewed her lip contemplatively. Aside from her pride, was there any reason not to broach this with her husband? It took her a moment, thrusting away the blush that rose up her cheeks as she debated and finally decided that asking was better than giving her a headache. And being embarrassed over it anyway. "Hmm, serious question," she threw out, warning him about the change in topic direction.



"Serious answer," Alec quipped with a saucy grin.



"Alec," she protested again, fighting back a grin of her own. She watched him try to school his features into a repentant pose, but it wasn’t working. "Okay," she sighed, her finger rubbing over the area she’d just marked. "Does that, or did that ever bother you?" He looked at her blankly. "Me hitting you," she clarified softly, unable to meet his eyes. She heard him sigh, the moment of lighthearted happiness quickly disappearing. She felt his fingers slide under her chin and she chanced a look up. But he didn’t appear to be upset, just slightly thoughtful.



"Honestly?" he asked. Max inhaled deeply. Was there any other choice? She nodded. He cocked his head to the side, glancing up at the ceiling. "Depended on the situation I guess."



"How do you mean?"



"Well, a little smack like that, after a smart ass remark from me," he shrugged, "not a big deal. Being punched didn’t really like. Beating on me, not a picnic. But I survived." Max sighed heavily and bit her lip. But as she opened her mouth to reply to that, Alec placed a finger across her lips. "Max, don’t worry about it. We dealt with this a long time ago."



"We did?" she questioned with not a little amount of relief. He nodded. "But of course I don’t remember that," she mused, "so I still feel crappy about it."



"Don’t," Alec urged. "We set down some ground rules." He grinned as he quickly recounted them for her. "No hitting below the belt." She grinned as well at that. "No random punching, either one of us. And no flicking each others ears."



Max squinted up at him. "Where the hell did that one come from?" she chuckled. It seemed quite out of the blue to her. Alec laughed too, rubbing his ear as he recalled the incident.



"Ah, well, we kind of pissed Original Cindy off with all our bickering," he muttered, blushing slightly.



"And?" Max couldn’t wait to hear now.



"And she grabbed us each by an ear and made us apologize to each other," Alec blurted out. Max arched an eyebrow at him and then dissolved into laughter.



"Yeah that sounds like OC" she mumbled.



"Hey! It hurt," Alec protested loudly, rubbing at his ear again. "Although she did promise to make it up to me later."



"Oh really? How?" Max’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. Alec winked lazily at her.



"She promised me she’d lay the smack down on our fine transgenic asses if we kept it up," he shrugged.



"And how is that good?" Max scoffed, rolling her eyes.



"Hmm, you, me, Cindy, asses?" he smirked. "How could it not be good?" Max gaped at him for a moment before giggling again.



"You are such a man," she snorted through her laughter. Alec preened before her.



"And what a man, huh?" he teased, flexing his arm. Max gave him a little push, knocking him off balance.



"Go make breakfast," she ordered gently. "I need to call Cindy." Alec nodded and leaned forward to give her a peck on the cheek. But even as she accepted the small gesture of normality between them, Max’s mind was whirling with the implication of what she’d just said. She needed to call Cindy. Something that she had been doing ever since she had "woken up". But today was going to be a different matter. She’d promised to make arrangements to meet her friend and go shopping. That meant talking for a lot longer period of time. And Max was sure that there were bound to be things that came up to which she held no knowledge of. Like who Cindy was dating now. The events of the recent birthday party they’d had. Even if Cindy was still working at Jam Pony. Max’s face fell. Just as before in her life, she’d been sharing her burden with her best female friend and former roommate. Except this time Cindy wasn’t exactly aware of it.



"Max," Alec’s voice brought her out of her musings. She glanced up at him, surprised to see a half smile on his face. He shrugged as her brows drew together, puzzled. "Tell her," he prompted, reading her as clearly as a book. "She’ll understand." Max gave a light snort. "What?" Alec smiled. "You know she will."



"It’s not that," Max grumbled as she rose from the bed and slipped her robe on. "I just feel like I should, I don’t know, hand out business cards or something, explaining my dysfunctional brain or whatever." Alec laughed at that, but the grumpy expression on her face must have warned him that she was serious.



"I don’t know that you need to go that far," he smirked. "But look at it this way Max, you weren’t able to hide it from me or Joshua. And because Cindy’s as close, if not closer in some ways to you, you won’t be able to hide it from her."



"That’s true," she conceded.



"So you may as well tell her at least," he offered. "It would really hurt her if you didn’t and she figured it out some other way. I agree that you don’t need to tell anyone else. It’s not like it’s a matter of our national security. So if you want this to remain private, then it will. Cindy knows how to keep a secret, right?" She nodded. Yes, her friend definitely knew how to keep things to herself. She’d proved that many times over. And not only that, she guarded those secrets and the people involved more viciously than a bulldog. Somehow, it was if a little weight was lifted from her shoulder. Maybe having people in the know was better than keeping it all to herself. After all, a burden shared was a burden lessened.



"I’ll tell her," she affirmed, giving her husband a sunny smile.



*****



He was right. Of course he was right. Max had known it all along herself. But fears, doubts and insecurities could play havoc with a person. Which in this case should have been absurd. Cindy understood. Well, not understood in the sense of having known all along. But she asked gentle questions, like how did it happen? and do you know what caused it?. And then had offered her unwavering support in whatever capacity Max needed. Max had replied that all she needed at that moment was a little girl time. So they had decided to use their respective lunch hours to get together. Max turned away from the phone she was staring at to see Alec waiting for her to tell him her plans. She moved into the kitchen, accepting a plate of food from him as she did just that.



*****



At precisely noon, Alec knocked on the frame of her opened door. Max and Jiminy, who had been discussing the upcoming benefit, both glanced up. "Hey Alec," Jiminy greeted easily. He started sweeping up the paperwork they’d laid out before them and turned back to Max. "I’ll finish this up and have it ready for you to look over when you get back from lunch, okay?"



"Sounds good," Max nodded. Alec stepped back to let Jiminy out the door and then leaned against the door.



"You ready?" he asked.



"I don’t know why I wouldn’t be," Max quipped. "All I need is my appetite and me."



"Yeah, well the restaurant might not have the same point of view on that," Alec grinned at her grimace. "Money Max."



"Oh yeah," she gulped. "Um…" Alec was already reaching for his wallet.



"Don’t take this the wrong way," he chuckled as he withdrew a large wad of cash and held it out to her, "but I got you covered."



"Why would I take it the wrong way?" Max shrugged. "I mean, we are married after all. What’s yours is mine and all that crap."



"Eh, not really," Alec shrugged as she took the money from him. She glanced up sharply at him. Alec stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, lowering his voice. "You were more of the opinion that what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours." He caught her still puzzled mien. "We have separate bank accounts," he clarified. "And seeing how you probably don’t remember your password, I went ahead and took some out of mine for you to use until you remember."



Max felt herself soften a little at the thoughtfulness in his simple gesture. Of his thinking of these things for her. Because in all honesty, this was one of those issues that hadn’t even occurred to her yet. In the past, whenever she’d gotten paid, she’d always gotten it in cash. And then she’d just carried the amount with her, or stashed it at home, paying for things as she went, or not, depending on the circumstances. It never occurred to her that she and Alec were so… normal as to have a bank account. She folded the money over and stuffed it into her pants pocket and approached him. Max stood on her tiptoes to reach her arms around his neck.



"Thank you," she whispered in his ear before pressing a kiss to his lips. Alec pulled away, a glint in his eyes. He rifled through his jacket pocket a moment and pulled from it a cell phone.



"I also got you this," he muttered, pressing it into her hand. "Just in case you need to get in touch with me." He grimaced, obviously expecting her to be angry about his presumptiveness. But she wasn’t, at all.



"Thanks again," she chuckled. "Do I have your number?" She glanced over the phone.



"Ah, speed dial one," he announced with a slightly cocky tone. She rolled her eyes in an of course kind of way. "So," he continued, still holding her close, "have fun, don’t spend too much, and say hi to Cindy for me."



"Will do," Max nodded once decisively, then moved out of his embrace. She headed out of headquarters, a kind of nervous excitement rolling in her stomach. Sure, she and Alec had left TC the evening before. But then, she’d had the comfort of her husband beside her. Right now, even though she knew she could take care of herself, it felt as if she were embarking on a grand adventure. She was leaving TC for the first time, by herself, with no knowledge of how much the outside world had changed in regard to her and her own. It was going to be interesting to find out.



*****



Sitting at a kiosk in Seattle’s own version of Chinatown, where she had arranged to meet Cindy, Max mused on how little things seemed to have changed for the world at large. People were still people and seemed to have recovered from the devastating blow of mutants on the loose. Some people had even recognized her from her time of infamy after the Jam Pony hostage incidence. So yeah, there was a measure of avoidance, but for the most part, ignorance. To the majority of the working class of Seattle, she was just another person trying to get by in a broken world.



"Hey boo!" a familiar voice greeted her. "What’s got ya lookin’ so spun?"



Max felt the grin erupt on her face. Whether she knew it or not, she had been missing this. "Hey OC!" She jumped up from the stool she’d been perched on and held out her arms to hug her friend, which was returned as enthusiastically as it was given.



"So we eatin’ and then shoppin’?" Cindy nodded to the Asian woman ready to take their order. "Cause Normal was generous with the time today on account of Original helpin’ ya out with the dress buyin’."



Well, that answered one question. "Sounds good to me," she nodded and turned to contemplate the menu.



They spent the remainder of the time in Chinatown discussing what had went down, both personally and semi-professionally since Max’s memory loss. And Max was relieved to find that she could just as easily slip into the flow of conversation with her friend. Cindy was gracious enough to explain things as she went, having had enough time that morning to recount things to accommodate her friend. So when they headed off to one of the nicer dress shops, it felt as if nothing had separated them.



"Ooh, look at this one sugah!" Cindy’s voice caught her attention and Max glanced over to see her friend holding up a stunning, deep red cocktail dress.



"Try it on," she encouraged. Cindy nodded and turned to the dressing rooms. Max glanced back down at the two dresses she’d been contemplating. The first was an ankle length, cream colored gown with spaghetti straps lined with rhinestones. The other, a Prussian blue, shimmered under the lights of the store. Max was a little dubious about it, but knew that dark colors like this worked well with her complexion. She noticed the salesgirl trying to hover unobtrusively in the background and with a smile, gestured to the dresses before her. "I think I better try them both on."



"Of course ma’am," the young woman smiled widely and led Max to an empty booth. She unlocked the door and stepped back to let Max enter. Max locked the door behind her, hearing the woman’s footsteps leading away from the area again, but not too far of course. She doffed her clothes quickly and carefully removed the dress from the hanger.



"Any luck boo?" Cindy called out. Max unzipped the back of the blue dress and slid it over her head.



"Yeah, just a sec," she called back. She twisted around, zipping it up and then smoothing the material. It swirled around her ankles a moment before settling in. Max took in her appearance, pleased to see that she had been right about the dark color complimenting her features. And as a bonus, she didn’t have to resort to red or black to do it. She pulled open the door to her little cubicle, setting the wedge so that it wouldn’t lock on her and then turned to see her friend preening before the full-length mirror. She whistled under her breath as Cindy turned impish eyes towards her. "Lookin’ good, you foxy mama you," she teased.



"Right back at ya sugah," OC pursed her lips. Max lifted one shoulder gracefully and turned so that her friend could take in the backless feature of the gown. "So, you gonna get it?"



"Don’t know," Max answered honestly. "There was one other dress I was lookin’ at. Kind of reminds me of my wedding… dress," her voice grew fainter as she realized exactly why she had chosen the other dress. And she heard Cindy’s voice reply she really did, but the thoughts, the memories that assaulted her mind just then were too much.



Straightening Alec’s tie just as the ceremony was about to start.



Glancing up shyly as she repeated her vows.



Alec’s lips descending on hers as the Justice of the Peace pronounced them husband and wife.



The hugs and congratulations from their friends, from their family.



Logan’s sad eyes as he watched from the back of the room.



Dancing in Alec’s arms.



Mole blowing cigar smoke in her face as she handed him a slice of cake.



X8’s running after one another while the adults laughed at their antics.



Posing for pictures for Sketchy, whispering her love in Alec’s ear.



Dashing from the building in a hail of cheers, only to stop short.



Someone standing in their way.



Their eyes angry.



Accusing.



Hurt.



Max gasped; air rushing into her lungs as the world around her began to spin. She knew those eyes. Had seen them often enough in dreams, but now in her waking moments too. "Oh God," she whispered. "Tinga."




Chapter Twenty