Fiction From AtZR2- Date

Title: From A To Z Round 2

Chapter Title: Date

Author: Restive Nature

Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to Dark Angel. They belong to Cameron/ Eglee. No infringement is intended and this fiction is for private enjoyment only.

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Dark Angel

Type: friendship

Pairing: Max/ Alec

Summary: The truth about that horrible day comes out.

Spoilers/ Time line: Post series, about mid February following the start of the siege.

Feedback: Always welcome!

Distribution: Ask first please.

A/N: This is my interpretations of the second round of A to Z fictions, using the prompts that Seamagik has come up with. Thanks for the inspiration, as well as Nickeldime17 for getting this all started.

D is for Date

He'd been looking all over for her. Max, instead of haunting her usuals, had disappeared completely. And while Alec was pretty sure that she wouldn't have taken off from TC itself, not after the disastrous events the last time she had; to have an evening, reconnecting with Cale, Alec did wonder. The pair of them seemed to disregard everything in light of being together. Well, excepting the virus that Max still carried in her system.

What had him wondering, was that the last person to have seen her, was one that had given her a bottle of post Pulse champagne that they'd scavenged, in return for some pretty hefty payment. So Max was loose in Terminal City somewhere with some non-vintage hooch and needing someone to share it with. Unless she planned on drinking the bubbly alone, which was just a total waste. And kind of pathetic in his mind.

Finally, he was directed to another building, and knowing that it was still abandoned, since they hadn't enough material to spare for the work needed to be done before it could be inhabited, Alec grew even more puzzled. He wondered if he were going to be intruding on some sort of special “meeting”, and then decided that he didn't care.

Over the months since the siege started, he and Max had developed even more of an understanding and considered each other family now. Not quite the same as how she saw her original unit, but maybe like those black sheep's that could be tolerated simply because they were blood, but only in short doses.

When he finally came upon her, of course on the tallest portion of the highest building in TC, sitting at the corner of the complex, legs dangling over the side, Alec didn't bother to hide his amused snort. She glanced over her shoulder at him, and grinned.

“Hey,” she greeted, not seeming at all perturbed that he was there and Alec took that as a good sign. “What are you doin' up here?” The question was just a curiosity, not an accusation or fueled by suspicions at his motives.

“Lookin' for you, obviously,” he answered as he pulled up beside her and saw that her hands were busy uncorking the champagne that she'd gotten.

“Well, you found me,” she shrugged and turned her attention back to the crinkly foil paper wrapped around the bottle neck. “What'd you need?”

Alec took a seat next to her before answering. “Got an idea for a heist. Was wondering if you might want in?” The derisive look she threw him was so familiar, that he translated in his mind instantly. Are you crazy? Do you even have to ask? Of course I want in, you idiot. “All right, all right,” he chuckled, holding his hands up. “I'll figure it out and we can sit and argue over it later,” he teased, since that was their usual MO. Max nodded and carefully unwrapped the foil in one full piece. Instead of crumpling it up, she stuffed it in her jean pocket and then chuckled.

“Joshua asked me to save bit and pieces for his art projects with the kids,” she explained. Alec nodded, as Josh had asked the same of him and everyone else around.

“So what are we drinking too?” he asked as he got himself comfortable next to her, swinging his legs over the side and allowing his heels to drum slightly against the brick shale covering that was already crumbling off and had been for years.

“We?” Max threw him another look.

“Well yeah,” he protested mildly. “Nothing more pathetic than drinking alone, right?”

“Oh, I can think of a few things,” Max chuckled. She started to ease the plastic plug that had replaced cork, from the bottle neck, pointing it away from them. “But no, It's just an anniversary of sorts.”

“Oh,” Alec drawled, trying to figure that out, since yeah, February, but Valentine's day had come and gone with little fuss. And there was nothing of note that he could think of from the past few years, at least that he was aware of. “Ah Maxie, is it your birthday?” he teased, hoping to get some idea, though he knew from before that the day she'd actually chosen was several weeks previous. January first to be precise, which he figured must be an easy day to add a year to her age, since Manticore hadn't been big on sharing details like that. But perhaps Cale had discovered that for her.

“Huh?” she grunted. “Nope.” She paused in her ministrations for a moment and peered at him curiously before her face cleared and made way for some surprise. “Do you seriously-?” she began but then stopped herself. “Oh, you probably don't want to remember,” she murmured, glancing down at her hands, full of the green tinted bottle.

“Don't want to remember what?” Alec prompted, trying to think of why this exact date would be important to him too, since that was obviously what she worried over.

“It's the anniversary of he day we busted out,” she offered quietly. “The first time, I mean,” she spoke a little louder and then peered at him.

“Okay,” he hedged, wondering why she looked so concerned all of a sudden and it was starting to unnerve him that he wasn't connecting the dots, like she seemed to want him to. “What?”

“Sorry,” she grimaced and turned her face away. “I know you probably don't want to talk about it.”

“Talk about what?” Alec was a little lost and he didn't like that.

“That day,” she said quietly. She chewed at her lip for a moment and then shuddered slightly. “I can only imagine...”

“Imagine what?” Alec demanded, just a little irritable and then it dawned on him, why she was a little jumpy. “Oh jeez Max,” he chuckled, waving one hand dismissively. “It's nothing.”

“Nothing?” she questioned a little harshly. “Alec, you don't need to be nice. I know what all the twins were subjected to when we ran. Believe me, all of them that I've met, you aside, were very eager to share the hatred.”

Alec shook his head and ran one hand through his hair. “Yeah, but not that day,” he explained quickly. “That was just another normal day.”

“But-!” she began and Alec laughed, though he knew there was a little darkness in there.

“Yeah, it happened,” he told her. “Just not immediately. It took time to filter to the other bases about Lydecker's failure.” He grinned as her eyes widened slightly. “And a little more time after that for the bigwigs to wonder if there might be a genetic link. They didn't automatically assume that all us twins were gonna run because our counterparts did. They checked whatever they could to prove or disprove that. It wasn't fun, but we survived, obviously.”

“So you had no clue, that day?” she asked softly and Alec shrugged.

“Nope,” he smacked his lips. “There were rumblings going on, of course. Nothing we'd be told about, but we were all aware that things were... tense... with the upper management. Took about a week for the decision to be handed down and all of us hauled into psy-ops. Things kinda went to hell then.”

Max winced again and then sighed. “I am sorry about that Alec. We had no clue. I mean, we didn't know about you guys.”

“I know,” Alec waved her apology away. They'd already been over this, the first time another of the twins, Max's in the form of X5-453 had shown up. “It's over and honestly, I'm over it. I mean, after all Max, how could you be recaptured if you hadn't escaped in the first place? And when you were, well, ultimately we're all free now 'cause of what you guys did.”

“But-!” she began to protest, but Alec quickly clamped a hand over her mouth, ignoring her glare.

“It might be a crappy existence at the moment, but we're free from Manticore and that's what counts,” he told her, finding a modicum of conviction to help his case. “We'll figure out freedom from the rest as we go. We're good at that, right?” He could feel her grin under his hand and pulled away, relieved that she hadn't slicked him up with saliva like she'd done one time that he'd dared that. Of course, he'd used her hair as a towel, so that might have kept her from it this time.

“All right,” Max grinned. “So, tonight, we'll celebrate my freedom. Next week we'll celebrate yours,” she decided as the plastic cork finally burst free under her ministrations.

“Sounds good,” Alec agreed with a tiny smile, “but I don't think the bubbly will last that long.”

“Well then it's a good thing I also got a bottle of twelve year old Scotch then, huh?” she chuckled as she held the overflowing bottle away from herself. Once the stream had slowed, she took a swig and then handed the bottle to him. He took the sticky surfaced glass and eyed it disconsolately.

“You've got Scotch, yet we're drinking this swill?” he grunted.

“My night, my drink,” Max chuckled. “'Sides, I was savin' the Scotch for your birthday gift. But this'll work too, right?”

“Ah Maxie,” Alec sighed, pleased that she had thought of him in so familiar a manner. Really pleased. It was a good warm feeling. Probably would get better after he had some of that Scotch in his system, but he could wait. It would be worth it. “I'm touched.” He eyed the bottle again and then shrugged. “All right, it's a date.” He nodded and she returned the gesture and then he raised the bottle. “Here's to you Maxie girl. Your health and all that happy crap.”

“To freedom,” she grinned as he upended the bottle and took a healthy dose.

It wasn't all that bad, even though the bubbles tickled, just like he remembered. They passed the bottle back and forth, trading stories and quips and sallies as they passed the night away. Sometimes it got a little maudlin, especially when Max drained the last of the droplets away and wouldn't let Alec just drop the bottle to the ground below them. But every time it threatened to get to be too much of a tear jerking moment, one or the other would remind each of their date next week and then talk moved on.

Finally the wind was getting to be too much and the discussion moved indoors, slowly, ambling along, chatting and laughing like the friends that they barely admitted that they had become. When they reached her apartment complex

Alec leaned against her door jamb. They eyed one another for a few minutes and then, with nothing else needed, Max threw him a smile that said so much more than she could ever express with words and then slipped inside.

Alec watched until her feet disappeared out of his view and then pushed away for the walk to his own apartment. He looked over Terminal City as he walked, in the dark, not as a resident, but as someone else might see it. But in the end, all the broken down crumbling buildings and trash blowing around, it didn't matter. They had moments like these and dates like next week to look forward too.

It wasn't bad, this strange little life that they had made for themselves.

From AtZ R2- Entrance