The Waking Hours
Author: Restive Nature
Disclaimer: All characters within this fiction are the property of Cameron/ Eglee. I just like to play with them.
Rating: PG-15
Pairing: M/A
Summary: Dreams don’t often come true for Manticore-bred soldiers. So when the chance comes along for Alec, he’s not quite sure how to take it.
Spoilers/ Time line: Sequel to Dream Within.
Feedback: Always welcome!
Distribution: Ask first, please.
Chapter Twelve
Brain Storm
"All right then," Alec grunted, pushing the baby dress that seemed to be taking up the predominant amount of the table out of the way. It also unearthed the notepad that Max had claimed she needed and as soon as she saw it, she snatched it up. "Ready to do this?" he asked with mild amusement. He was amazed that he was seeing so many facets of her tonight. She'd been playful, unintentionally (or not, he still wasn't sure what to make of some moments) sexy, upset, honest, secretive and now, if her chewing on her lower lip was any indication, nervous.
Max held the notepad before her, the plain cardboard backing facing Alec for the moment while she regarded him. The hesitation was clearly marked in her eyes. And as usual, Alec felt himself responding to it. So he forced himself to wait for her to broach the topic that she had barely alluded to aside from asking for his help. The silence stretched out for only a few minutes while Alec allowed Max to collect herself, to see that he wasn't going to be doing any of the asinine things or quips he had ready to hand, or mouth, depending on the occasion. At least not yet he wouldn't.
"Okay," Max finally sighed and let the notepad drop a few inches, though Alec still didn't know what was written on it. He hadn't even bothered to glance at it earlier, in favor of the other puzzle presented to him. "This is... something that I've been thinking a lot about lately. And I know for some of us, it might be kind of out there, you know?"
Alec didn't, since she hadn't told him yet. But he nodded along anyway. It was obvious now that she was talking in a more general populace sort of sense and it made sense to him, since Terminal City and it's latest denizens where what Max seemed to be all about lately. Either in singular or plural form. "Go ahead," he encouraged softly.
"Okay," Max repeated and let the pad of paper drop once more to the table. Alec's eyes followed it, but couldn't discern much of the handwriting upside down and backward, since she seemed to have been rushing when she wrote it, making her handwriting sloppy. "Remember when we talked about Rory?"
"About him cutting my hair?" Alec frowned as he easily recalled the conversation. What else had they discussed that would require this magnitude of meeting? But Max was smiling and nodding. Okay, so this centered on Rory then? He wasn't surprised when a small surge of jealousy for the other transgenic reared it's head. Alec was able to quickly tamp it down, ordering himself to listen to what Max was going to say instead of jumping to conclusions. He'd already had enough of that from just minutes ago. Thinking that Max was pregnant, by another man of course, was painful enough. And then thinking she had lost that imagined baby... Alec so didn't need to go there.
"Well, the thing is, there should be more of us,"
"More what?" Alec shook his head, unable at this point to continue following along. "What? Getting our hair cut?" Thankfully that only got a small smirk settling about her lips instead of a comment about his mental ineptitude.
"No," Max protested with a small shrug of one shoulder. "I meant more people, well, working on other things."
"What other things?" Alec chuckled. "Are we keeping you from some heretofore unknown weekly nail appointment?"
“No Alec,” she sighed, folding her arms across her stomach and crossing them. “More of us doing things that aren't directly related to security, or protection, or maintenance. Or well, I mean some of the could if they really wanted to.”
“So,” Alec frowned as he tried to follow her line of thought. “You want to reduce the number of people working on these things? And have them doing what instead?” Was she coming up with another big plan, like she seemed to be producing in a number to rival the ever present raindrops over the city of Seattle.
“No, not exactly,” Max shook her head. “I know, that stuff is too important to abandon. At this point.”
“This point?” Alec repeated, feeling a little bit better about thinking that this was something for down the line. He knew that Max had had the basic training that they had all received, but the lessons that Manticore had imparted had grown in scope and responsibility and truthfully there were better transgenics suited to running a small city, such as TC was evolving into.
“Yeah,” Max confirmed. “See, the thing is Alec, what are we going to do after this siege is over?”
That startled him for a moment. He knew that long term planning wasn't exactly his forte, but when he thought about it, he'd pretty much seen himself going back to life as it had been before. Hanging with friends, making enough money to survive, maybe a little more and basically doing what the rest of the countries population was doing. Survive the world.
But he knew too, the reality of the situation. They were in a siege. The majority of the known world was against them. They had a highly trained militaristic slash metaphysically based group of super humans gunning for them, amongst the police, military and rabble of the ordinaries to contend with. Once he had put his hand in the air, to support Max's dream of staying put, digging in and fighting back, rather than running and hiding again, he had known that life would never be the same as he had known it to be after he had escaped Manticore. But Max had been right about that. He had known it from the moment he had seen the building that he had called home, burning bright in the night, that he was not meant to be contained the rest of his life by those walls. And he knew that hiding then or now just was not the answer. The truth always seemed to have a will of coming out in some manner and when it came down to is, Alec would rather be in control, than at it's mercy.
“I don't know about you,” he sighed, leaning one cheek on his fist, while his elbow rested on the table, “but I was planning on getting plastered, if possible and after that, who the hell knows?” His earlier thought was jumping up and biting hard in the ass now. If they survived. If they made it that long. If Max's scheming and planning and work paid off in the long run.
“Exactly,” Max nodded, as if Alec had just imparted some huge wisdom. He quirked an eyebrow at her, silently asking for an explanation and true to form, she did not disappoint. “You have no clue what you would be interested in doing. In the long run, I mean. Do you?”
“Well, as much as Normal loves me,” he chuckled, “I didn't really see myself going back to slinging packages. Did you?” He knew that she had loved, not so much the job, but the friends that she had, the freedom that the sector pass had given her and just generally being able to dictate her own life. He had that in common with her.
“Not really, no,” Max grinned. “But the thing is, whenever I thought about what it is I would do in my life, it either boiled down to what Manticore taught me to do, like all the heists and jobs to make some flash cash, or performing minimum wage, if I was lucky, crappy little jobs, because there was nothing else I knew.”
“Yeah,” Alec agreed. “I know what my specialty was, but um,” he hesitated to ask, since they seemed to have finally arrived at a truce that he was hesitant to disrupt, but the curiosity was eating at him.
“Telecommunications,” Max answered promptly, and then her eyes grew distant. “At least I think that's what they had in mind for me.” She sighed and then chuckled ruefully. “Kind of hard to say since we were so young. But that was where I excelled.”
Alec nodded, more to fill the quiet space than because he was agreeing. “So,” he finally asked as his fingers drew patterns over the rough surface of the kitchen table, “how does this all tie together?”
“Well, when I asked what are we going to do,” Max explained, her face lighting up happily again, “I meant more as a community, than just us two specifically.”
“Well I don't know,” Alec smirked back, glad that the awkward moment was once more behind them, “but I'm pretty sure that there wouldn't be a lot of naysayers for some good old fashioned fun.”
“Did you just use naysayers?” Max giggled and rolled her eyes.
“Hey, I have a big vocabulary,” Alec pouted at her, though he was anything but whiny about her good mood. As confusing as it was to deal with, maybe it was better in the long run for them, this huge personality transplant that Max had gone through. “So,” he sighed, pursing his lips as he mused his way through the idea that Max was planting in his head. Suddenly a few things clicked and he snapped his fingers before pointing at her. “You called Gem!”
“When?” Max's eyebrows drew together and Alec savored just a moment of finally being one step ahead of her again.
“The other day, when you woke up and asked her if the donuts were ready,” he reminded her gleefully. Max rolled her eyes, avoiding his look and he could see that she was fighting a blush.
“I had just woken up,” she protested. “I was a little... confused.”
“And that dream you had,” he continued to press, sure that he was on the right track now. “That's where all this is coming from, isn't it? The world according to Max.”
“No, it's not,” Max denied immediately, still slightly flushed, but then she grimaced, marring the sweet look, at least in Alec's eyes. “Or maybe it is. Not according to me, but well, that's why I wanted to do this.”
“And what precisely is this?” Alec demanded. At that point, Max started playing with her notepad again.
“Well, we talked about how Rory was cutting people's hair,” Max reiterated and Alec was the one rolling his eyes now. They were back on that topic. “And Joshua picked up those paints and shows a real knack for it. Dix is excellent with our computers and well, there are some people around here that have naturally gravitated to the things that they're good at.”
“Simple nature,” Alec agreed with a one shouldered shrug. “Why is that a problem?”
“It's not a problem per se,” Max hesitated. “It's just that for everyone else, it's like we're filling in the blanks, because somebody has to do it.”
“Way of the world Max,” Alec bit out. What the hell else was she going to change on them now.
“Right,” Max sighed, seeming frustrated and while Alec might feel a little bad at that, he was also petty enough to be glad that he wasn't the only one. “But what happens when we don't need that anymore. When we don't need a full compliment of soldiers patrolling the streets. Or three or four teams of maintenance repair crews. Or when we don't need groups of transgenics ready to go at a moments' notice for a heist.”
“You're kidding yourself if you think those things are ever going to go away,” Alec warned softly, not wanting to bring her back down to earth so harshly, but it was the truth and that always seemed the best way to go these days with her.
“Not go away completely, but not necessary in the amounts that we have them now,” Max argued. “Or did you think that we should live like this for the rest of our lives? Eking out a little bit of electricity here and there, catching most of our potable water from the rain storms. Using cast offs and second hand crap to shore up our lives. Yes, we can do that when it's needed, but we shouldn't plan for it to be like that and nothing else.”
“So you want to move beyond living in another military controlled city and actually what, make something of ourselves?” Alec scoffed and then groaned when Max's face lit up.
“That's it exactly,” she nodded happily. “I'm not worried about what people want to do with themselves, just as long as they realize that they can do something more with themselves.”
“I'm pretty sure that everyone knows that Max,” Alec protested with a long suffering sigh.
“I don't know that they do,” Max argued back, though her tone was far from accusatory. She seemed almost amused. “Not on the scale that I'm thinking here. Or maybe that they just haven't applied it to themselves yet. I mean, there were times in my life that I had an idle thought that some career had interest, or potential, or I...”
“You what?” Alec asked, leaning forward, slightly intrigued and was not too surprised when Max ducked her head.
“When I was a teenager, I used to pull a bunch of art heists for a gang, down in LA,” she explained, just the merest hint of blush creeping into her cheeks. “I got to the point, where I could tell forgeries from the real deal in just minutes, sometimes at a glance.”
“And that means what?” Alec prompted when she fell silent. It wasn't so unusual, for transgenics at least. “Aside from being quick on the job?” he teased, trying to encourage her to share. This was something he didn't mind, actually found extremely interesting and not in a way that made him feel off kilter. It was normal and natural to learn little tidbits about other people and their lives. It was just better that she was telling him, because it helped him to understand her mindset that had gone into creating the person she was today.
Max shrugged helplessly and then chuckled, a low embarrassed sound. “Fine, so I thought, every once in a while, that maybe it was something I could go legit on.”
Alec pursed his lips as he mused on that for just a moment. “And how would that have been a problem?”
“The problem,” Max drawled, when it was apparent that he wasn't going to tease about it, “was that I quickly realized that I wasn't fascinated by the art. Just the goodies that fencing it brought. The protection being Moody's personal art thief brought.”
“The protection?” Alec asked quickly. He'd admittedly, never given too deep of thought to what Max's life had been post Manticore, pre, well, him, aside from what he had seen of her life in Seattle. And he had known that she hadn't arrived in town until she was a lot older. But he had seen enough on his own of what a kid, even a genetically enhanced one had to deal with, especially when they were on their own. Max apparently realized as well that Alec's mind was wandering from whatever direction she wanted it going in and waved her hand dismissively of it.
“The thing is Alec,” she smiled, genuinely this time, “is that we never know what we could like or what we could be capable of, in a broader scope, if we don't get a chance to explore it. What examples did you guys have in Manticore? Scientists and soldiers?” She answered before he could.
“There was also the mission prep,” he offered, awkwardly, flashes of just those moments in Manticore rearing their ugly head. He certainly didn't want to think on it too awful hard and was surprised when, after a quick squeeze of his hand from Max, across the table, she waited respectfully for him to move on at his own pace.
“But that was forced on everyone, wasn't it?” she asked gently. “I mean, not forced forced, but required, to do the job you were sent to do. It didn't matter to them if you were naturally inclined and were interested. Those things were just a means to an end for them.”
“They were,” he had to agree. Manticore had certainly not come to his cell and asked if he'd like to learn how to play the piano, or learn to repair telephones or any of the languages he'd needed to seam blendlessly into a foreign land. Although they were handy skills to have, Alec just couldn't see himself making a career he would enjoy out of them. And it was then that it hit, that he was totally entertaining a seed of a notion that she'd been trying to plant for the past quarter hour. He grinned up at her and was happy to see relief dawn in her eyes.
“So?” she asked softly, before her teeth started to worry at her lower lip.
“So basically, you want everyone to start thinking about what they might like to actually do with their lives, aside from the necessary jobs around our fair city, in hopes that they might actually have a chance to explore it if we live through this mess we've created?” he offered and the fidget stopped as she flashed another smile at him.
“Pretty much,” she nodded. Alec grimaced as several thoughts occurred to him.
“Okay,” he spoke slowly. “So what if no one ends up being interested in city maintenance, or security?” he pointed out. And rather than looking defeated, she seemed eager, leaning forward in her seat.
“Like you said, those are necessary things and we all realize that,” she offered. “And while picking out fakes from the real deal might interest me, it's just a hobby. Everybody has them, you know. And not all of them translate into a career in a lot of cases. I mean, Joshua could. He certainly did. But like Rory?”
That guy again. A smart ass quip rose to his lips immediately, but he tamped it back down, because the last thing he wanted right now was to get into a snark fest with her, or worse, have her call him on his jealousy and have to make up a bunch of flimsy excuses that he was pretty sure this much more canny Max would see right through.
“Cutting hair might just be a hobby to him to pass the time,” she pointed out. “Or maybe he would like it enough to make it his career. We'd probably have to ask him. I mean, Logan and I used to play chess occasionally.”
Alec grit his teeth as one guy went down just to have another thrown up in his face. And this one, he couldn't walk away from as easily. “And was that amid all the wine and pasta dinners?” he strove for a lightly teasing tone and was relieved when Max rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, we tried that twice,” she scoffed. “Man couldn't handle me kicking his ass every single game, so he quit inviting me to play after a while.”
Alec fought his grin, but couldn't help it. “Yeah, most guys don't like it when someone continually shows them up at something they consider themselves an expert at.”
“Logan was no expert,” Max snorted daintily. “His opening gambits were strong, but his ploys were sloppy and he had no staying power to see it through to the end.”
Alec bit his tongue, hard, the urge to point out how that seemed to translate to real life, nearly clawing at his brain. But the urge passed as Max went on, thankfully.
“And chess wasn't his only hobby,” Max shrugged. “He collected art, though he had to sell it later to afford things. He had Eyes Only, of course, which was more a mission than a hobby.” There was no argument from Alec there. “And it's not like we were so different,” she suddenly chuckled. Alec appreciated how into this topic she was getting even though thoughts of another man or men, as it were, interfered, at least she was laughing, rather than crying over them.
“What do you mean?” he wondered.
“I know you played Sketch a lot,” she pointed out. “With the pool and all, but I know for a fact that not every single game you played was for scamming cash outta some unlucky.”
Alec shrugged at that. “So? It was relaxing.”
“Exactly,” Max crowed triumphantly, stabbing her finger in the air in his direction. “That's a hobby. That you could make money from it was a bonus.”
“All right,” he chuckled as well. “I'll give you that. But I'm confused now. Are you trying to find everyone careers or hobbies?”
“Uh maybe both,” Max shrugged, though her eyes were sparkling a little at that idea. And after a moment, she seemed to come out of a paralyzed shock as she realized something, grabbed up her pen, turned to a new page on the sheet of her scratch pad and started scribbling.
“Oh lord, what now?” Alec asked teasingly. She held up her left hand as her head remained bowed over the paper and when she was done, the pen returned to the table, Alec arched an inquiring eyebrow at her.
“Topic for another discussion,” she warned him easily and he rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I think you get where I am with this stuff, right?”
“I get it,” Alec agreed. “I'm just not sure where you want to go with it.”
“That's just it,” she sighed. “I know what I want to do, I'm just not sure how to go about accomplishing it. I mean, it's not like I can go out and start surveying each and every one of us to start figuring out what jobs or hobbies they want to look into.” Her shoulders slumped slightly. “And even if we got that far, it's not like we could send a ton of people to school to learn this stuff. I mean, not everything is something you could just pick up and do, right?”
“Well no,” Alec agreed, leaning forward a little as well. She looked so disappointed that he couldn't help but try and make it a little better for her. “But as for the survey, don't the ordinaries have those aptitude test things that they gave to their kids. In school, I mean?” He was surprised when her head snapped up.
“Of course,” she exclaimed and Alec was absurdly pleased that he'd managed to bring the sparkle back. “That's genius,” and then she was laughing. Alec waited, but she didn't share, finally just calming herself and waving off his unspoken question. “Old joke,” she smiled and Alec was surprised to see that it was so broad that he could almost see a hint of dimpling in her cheeks. “But I think you've got a good idea. It's something that we can work with. But how would we get people to do it? We can't just tell everyone we want them to sit down and pick a career. I mean, no offense, but your... attitude is the prevalent one around here.”
“You mean thinking that all this might boil down to nothing when one of the many factions moves in and we're outnumbered, gun downed or forcibly removed back to the cages you freed us from?” Alec asked perkily, trying to offset the severity of the words. It didn't work as well as he had hoped as her shoulders slumped again.
“Yeah, that one.”
“I don't know Max,” he offered softly. “I don't know if you've noticed,” he told her carefully, a small smile playing at his lips, “but everyone's really following your lead. Maybe they're letting you carry their hopes and dreams because then if it doesn't happen, then they don't have to deal with the disappointment.”
Max's eyes moistened noticeably and Alec reached across the table, nudging her hand, seeking to give her some relief, some support and she allowed it, letting him squeeze her fingers for a moment. “Maybe,” she agreed. Alec waited patiently for her to work through that, his mind racing to bolster her spirits again.
“You know,” he mused, scooting his chair a little closer to the table, so his arm wasn't having to cross that large a span. Just in case she needed some more hand holding, support only of course. “I had a mission at a college once. Checking out a doctor teaching there that Manticore suspected was one of their defectors under an alias.”
“Uh huh?” Max murmured and Alec could see that she was interested, not reacting derisively to the notion.
“Well,” he swallowed, remembering how that mission had played out, “they used to hand out those surveys in some of the classes. Everybody was used to them. And it wasn't just those career ones, but they had some that were tailored specifically for different classes. And some of those kids actually had fun filling them out and getting the results. And the chicks? Man, they always had these magazines.”
“Of course,” Max parroted her earlier remark. “We could do it all in fun!” She shook her head a little. “I'm surprised I didn't think of that. My old roommate Kendra used to fill those out with me. I didn't even think of those things.”
“Oh, like what kind of surveys?” Alec was intrigued, remembering some of the questionnaires he'd overheard some younger girls giggling over. Something about the type of lover you were. And judging from Max's sudden blush, maybe that wasn't too far from the mark. He grinned at her and instead of blushing further or snarking at him, she just leered right back.
“Wouldn't you like to know?” she teased and then laughed. “Okay, well that gives us an idea there. But what about actually getting it done?” She paused for a moment. “Books.”
“Are great for reading?” Alec prompted. Max nodded.
“School,” she supplied and Alec frowned. Leaps of logic and then he got it.
“So we might not have instructors, but we can get our hands on books, instructions,” he nodded. “That's not so bad.”
Finally feeling that the conversation was moving in the right direction, they got busy, writing down some ideas about what they could do. And after half an hour, they leaned back in their chairs, feeling at least a little accomplished. And Alec had to admit, he might take one of these aptitude things himself. It would be interesting to see...
“So Max,” he began and waited until she looked up at him. “This dream of yours? What was I?”
“Uh... you were you,” she answered, looking a little puzzled.
“No, no, no,” he protested, waving his hand at that. “I mean, what was I doing?”
“Mmm, this and that,” she hedged and Alec groaned. She had to give him something here. Unless, he just didn't... figure in her dream.
“Oh come on,” he groaned, dropping his head into his hands. “Don't tell me I was some washed up cage fighter, hanging down at the local bar boring everyone around me with tall tales about my glory days?” As expected she started laughing.
“Oh no,” she giggled. “Yes, glory days, but no, you weren't some washed up bar fly.”
“Oh thank you,” he sighed out, exaggeratedly. “So come on? Spill!”
“Nuh uh!” she protested. “Seriously Alec, I'm not gonna tell you.”
“What?” he whined, he knew he was whining, but it was worth it when she scrunched her face up adorably like that. “Please? Why not?”
“Because what if I told you you were a slick, smooth talking politician who only had time for us when the campaign trail swung by every six months?” she demanded and Alec's eyes went wide.
“I was running for president?” he exclaimed. “Seriously?”
“No!” she laughed again, throwing her head back and Alec laughed as well.
“Okay, Senator,” he continued to tease. “I can live with that.”
“You weren't a...” and then she stopped, fuming for just a second, and then leaned forward, gesturing him in. Alec, intrigued, leaned forward as well. “Alec, if it had no bearing on anything, I'd tell you. But this is your life, and I really believe that you need to figure out what it is you want to do. I don't want to tell you what my mind came up with and have it be something that you end up not wanting to live with. I have faith in you Alec, that you'll find something you love doing and be great at it.”
The sincerity that rang through her voice, the seriousness of the moment clogged up his throat, forcing him to breathe heavily through his nose. He had to swallow several times and then nodded. He glanced down at the table, taking a moment, but he realized that he needed something. And now, when she was being as honest as she could with him, he needed just a little...
“Max?” he asked softly and she waited, looking slightly apprehensive. “I promise, I won't push about that. But... if I asked something else, would you be honest with me?”
'If I can,” she hedged softly and then waited. Alec took another deep breath, as unobtrusively as he could, steeling himself.
“In your dream,” he began and he could see her instantly tense up, but he couldn't stop himself. “Were we... still friends?” He watched as her face softened, looking... sad.
“No Alec, we weren't friends,” she spoke so softly, breaking a little something in him. It wasn't until she spoke again, stronger, that he realized that it was her power to fix him as well. “We were best friends.”
The way she said it, the way it sounded to him and he hoped to hell that he wasn't imagining it, that she liked it. Best friends. Wanted that from him. In the future, they had gone from whatever it was they were, to best friends. To a closeness Alec could only dream of. But maybe, while her dream had ended, didn't mean that was the end of the life she was trying to achieve. And if she was looking for that dream, then maybe Alec could hope that there was room in that dream for him. Her best friend. Question was, could he live with that? And figuring that if Max wanted more from him, then maybe it would one day be okay to want more from her too. And Alec felt a grin growing again as her hand came to rest comfortingly on his.
“Cool,” he decided.
Chapter Thirteen
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