Fiction Anything To Zipper- Xerox

Title: Xerox

Author: Restive Nature

Disclaimer: I do not own Dark Angel. This show belongs to Fox and Cameron/ Elgee. No infringement is intended and this fiction is for reading pleasure only.

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Dark Angel

Type: humor, romance

Pairing: Max/ Alec

Summary: Headlines can be misleading.

Spoilers/ Time line: Late season 2.

Feedback: Always welcome.

Distribution: Ask first, please.

A/N: Not entirely thrilled about this one, but it serves its purpose. Not very probable and it ends abruptly. I think I like it that way though.

Xerox

When he called Sketch and asked if Sketch wanted to meet him for lunch, he was turned down instantly. That was pretty unusual, because Alec McDowell had been smart enough to offer to treat this time, right from the get go. When Alec asked what Sketch was up to, Sketchy had only replied that he had a side job that needed taking care of and that he'd catch up with Alec later that night.

When he'd called Cindy next, he'd gotten the same brush off, except her excuse was that she was eating with Max. That was fine by Alec, though he wasn't exactly wanting to be in that girl's vicinity any time soon.

The past few weeks, she, Max had been glaring at him, more often than usual. She'd been just about everywhere that he had been and it had started to unnerve him a little bit. At work, it was a bit of a given. But when she'd shown up at Crash and two other bars that he'd frequented, he'd been weirded out. He hit up a strip club the next time and to his relief, she wasn't infiltrating the bar like she had that time they'd had to rescue Ariel, or whatever the hell that mer-girl had decided to call herself.

But then he'd finally had enough of the vacuous dancers, earlier than usual because his mind and surprisingly, his body, couldn't focus on what was right in front of him because it was too attuned to thinking of the girl that was driving him crazy. He'd exited the street and could have sworn that he saw her, on her motorcycle, just down the street, in between two cars. He'd blinked, shook his head slightly and when he looked again, there was no one there.

He had even tried Joshua's. The big guy had been happy to see Alec and at first, it had been great since Max hadn't been there. But she'd shown up within half an hour of his arrival, with food.

If it hadn't been for the fact that there was just barely enough food for the three of them to go around, he would have wondered, but she had seemed startled to see him there. But then just shrugged her shoulders and went to greet Josh.

So now, he was a little leery of going back to the for sure place that he knew she would be that day. But knowing that Normal would throw a gargantuan hissy fit, he finally gave in, wondering if he'd have to hide out in the john just to eat a peaceful meal.

When he arrived at Jam Pony, he saw Sketch straddling his bike, just outside the entryway. He was stuffing a ream of papers into his messenger bag and then began peddling away from the building.

“Hey man, you finish early?” Alec called happily. Even if Max was there, Sketch could act as a buffer. But the lanky biker didn't even slow down.

“Nah, just got the assignment,” he called as he pedaled away. “Catch ya later!”

With a sigh, Alec continued on into the building. He scanned the place hastily, catching Normal's eye and was waved over. Resigned, he moved to the desk and rummaged through his bag to find his clipboard with all his deliveries listed. He handed it off to Normal, who gave it a once over, then glanced up at the clock.

“You're on lunch Golden Boy,” he informed Alec, then, with pen still in hand, jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “If you can stand the racket Missy Miss is making.”

Alec's left eyebrow quirked up. Racket? He wasn't hearing much, other than a motorized whine coming from one of the back rooms. “Max is back there?” he asked hesitantly, wanting certain clarification, because he had on occasion, heard Normal assign that name to girls other than Max that were taking a high and mighty tone with the boss. Normal nodded absentmindedly.

“Paid to use the copier on her break,” he muttered. “Not that I care about her boyfriend. But whatever floats her boat, right?”

Alec refrained from making “the face” when Logan Cale was brought up. The one that reached between grimacing at the thought of him and snickering with laughter at the absurdity of the man.

With a resigned sigh, Alec headed over to his locker to retrieve the lunch that he had reluctantly packed that morning, before the great idea of taking Sketch out to lunch had occurred to him. He glanced in the bag, noting that it would be about the same thing, since lunch consisted of take away leftovers from his favorite little Mexican stand. Knowing that it would taste better cold, he didn't bother to head over to the employee lounge. That would afford Max a clear view of him if and when she ever exited the copy room. And why hadn't he known that there was a copy room back there? He had figured it for Normal's personal sanctuary. If he'd known... He fought down the grin that leering thoughts provided.

Of course, his traitorous little brain reminded him that there was a sexy, red hot female back there right now. But she was the type of female that would break him in two and stuff him into the copier, rather than consent to have a little good old fashioned fun with the machine.

His introspection into the mechanics of how exactly she could go about accomplishing that were enough to make him lose the fantasy. It would have been a cold day in hell before the other happened. Wasn't that how the saying went? But just as he glanced up from setting his meal out on the bench before him, he noted that the other feminine bane to his existence, Original Cindy and her unspoken promises of homo erotic fantasy fulfillment were something he couldn't fight on the best of days, had arrived. He smirked as she wheeled her bike down the ramp, calling out to friends and co-workers. Luckily she seemed fairly content to ignore the back room where her best friend was hiding out. After parking her bike against one of the building columns, she made her way back to the bank of lockers.

“What chu doin' hidin' all the way back here?” she asked with amusement as Alec debated the wisdom in quickly repacking everything and finding a safe tree out in the middle of nowhere to lunch under. It might seem extreme, but she had been everywhere!

“Sketch was busy,” he finally shrugged. “So I'm eatin'. Why? Is there a problem with that?” He was wary of getting too deep into it with Cindy. Any suspicions the girl might have or complaints and since Cindy had already proclaimed that she was eating her lunch with her room mate, she'd take them straight to Max for sure. He wondered idly again why it was that when one female was pissy with one male, their entire gender had to suffer for it. He had started to wonder if Cindy's attitude on males was one of the reasons why Max was the way she was. It was a theory.

“Nah,” Cindy smiled as she worked the combination of her lock, deftly spinning the tumbler despite her ridiculously long nails. Another of the feminine mysteries. “Jus' wonderin' why you be sittin' there by yo' lonesome. Or maybe you just ain't seen the headlines today?”

“The headlines?” he repeated, his mind instantly flying to the problem that was looming largest on the minds of the transgenics. And that was anonymity. Had one of their kind been found out, revealed? But then, Alec knew for one hundred percent sure, that Max would have fournd and cornered him and demanded help rescuing whatever poor trannie in a tree it turned out to be. Or Logan would have been blowing up his cell phone looking for someone to back Max up because she, typically would have raced off into danger by herself. And Cindy certainly wouldn't be so sanguine about the deal. So he forced himself to calm.

“Mm hmm,” Cindy murmured. She glanced down at her bag and carefully reached into one of the pockets of her messenger bag. She extracted a bright purple sheet and unfolded it. “Got one right here. O' course it don't come out an say, exactly, but those who know can read between the lines.” She held the sheet out to him, but Alec didn't take it. He could see the bold, black letters in block print easily enough.

Modern Woman Takes Romance by the Reins. Breakdowns over break ups a thing of the past!

“Oh my god,” he groaned. “Again?” he asked in disbelief. Cindy was quite right. It was easy enough to connect the dots, especially knowing mpw that Max was in the back room printing these off. But what the hell was she thinking of? “How many times this month does that make?”

“Apparently just once,” Cindy chuckled as she took the sheet and simply threw it in her now opened locker. “For real suga. I think this is it.”

“Now look,” Alec sighed as she removed two brown paper bags and then softly shut the metal door with a dull clang. “We all know how this merry go round goes. And why the hell does she feel the need to go advertise it? That's...” He wasn't sure what he could say to that. Yes, he had always told Max that as transgenics, they didn't belong with ordinaries. Not only could ordinaries not understand certain basic needs that the highly trained, skilled hybrids had, they couldn't fulfill them. And in the current climate they were living in, being with an ordinary was a sure way to get said ordinary into the line of fire.

And there was more to it. Even disregarding how he felt about Logan personally, he was pretty sure that this was a crap way to go on about it all. Sure, Logan hadn't exactly treated Maxie with the best of intentions or regard, often treating her like a caged tiger on a leash. Or a superheroed flunky to his overinflated sidekicks ego. Putting her in danger with his stupid little missions that he thought changed the world, but in reality did jack other than providing some other big baddie room to move in, expand his territory.

“Someone really needs to talk to her about this,” Alec groaned and Cindy, having straddled the bench, similarly to how he had, just regarded him with a cool eyebrow raise.

“I talked to my Boo 'til I was blue in de face,” Cindy shrugged her shoulders, looking not all that bent out of shape about it. “All she said was she was dealing wi' de most dense male eva step foot on de planet. So this girl backed off.” She chuckled then and pointed one carefully decorated digit at him. “Maybe you'd have betta luck.”

Alec grimaced, a groan working its way up his throat. That would be just friggin' typical. Here he'd been busting his ass to avoid her and now, thanks to her melodramatic tendencies, heretofore thought by him to be reserved for dramas outside of work, he was being pressed into the mission of once again trying to talk sense into the girl. But then the absent thought of maybe being locked in a small room once more with her, the opportunities that might afford. Maybe he could make it worth his while...

A little kiss snuck in, or a slipped digit... Of course there'd be hell to pay. He started to wonder just how big that copy room was. With a heaving sigh, knowing that perhaps it would be better to just get their run in of the day over and done with, so it wasn't hanging over his head, he rose from his seat with a murmured admonition to watch his lunch for him to Cindy. The girl chuckled and nodded, before starting to unpack her own bag of goodies.

No one stopped him as he made his way to the back room where the noises that he'd detected before, had ceased. With a sigh and a quick thumbs up from Normal, he rapped sharply at the door and then slipped inside before she could deny him entry.

“Yeah?” Max asked from where she stood, at the back of the surprisingly roomy square dimensions that Alec hadn't bothered to calculate of dead space in the building. She was shuffling more of those purple flyer's into order and the copy machine was only letting off a whir of its motor slowing down. She turned her head when he didn't answer immediately and there was a smirk in pace. “Alec. I was wondering when I'd see you.”

“You were huh?” Alec retorted immediately. “Counting the minutes until I come and try and kick some sense into you again? Max, are you seriously...?” And then he trailed off as he realized exactly what it was that she had had Sketchy doing. She had paid the lanky messenger to post these all over town. He had known it before, but seeing the easy going happiness in her face just sort of brought it home. He regarded her carefully. She certainly looked much better this time around than all the previous times that she had cut ties with the cyber hacker.

“Seriously what?” she asked, a teasing smirk on her face as she turned around to lean against the machine, purple ream of papers in hand still.

He sighed and inhaled deeply, steeling himself for the confrontation. He gestured to the papers in her hand. “Look,” he offered in a cajoling tone, “I get that you really do understand the situation. But have you really thought about how this is going to affect him?”

“Logan?” she asked carefully, her face a mask of confusion and then she smiled sadly. “He kinda already knows,” she shrugged. “I mean, I told him first, of course. That was only fair.”

“He knows?” Alec repeated incredulously. And then shook his head. “No, no way! And he went along with it? He has no problems? None whatsoever with you plastering these all over the city? A public break-up like this?”

“What...?” Max began, but then her face cleared. “Alec, did you even bother to look past the headline?” she chuckled. Alec shook his head, slightly dumbfounded. She sighed, but it didn't sound all that disappointed. “Drastic measures,” she muttered. She pulled one of the sheets free and on her way by him, out the door, she handed it to him. “Talk to me again after you read that.”

And then she was gone.

With a roll of his eyes, Alec skimmed through the dark lettered words and did a double take. He quickly moved back to the top and read through what he was afraid was a story almost too damn good to be true. It was a funny story she had written, though she had well disguised all the pertinent details, so as not to oust them in the public eye, but like Cindy had said... anyone who could read between the lines. And as he read, her behavior suddenly became clear. Logan wasn't the dense male that needed the friggin' wake up call.

He wheeled suddenly, making a beeline dash for the door. “Max!” he called and skidded to a halt as he caught sight of her, leaning desultorily against the column where he had parked his bike. She had her arms crossed, a beaming smile playing over her beautiful face. With still a slight squeeze of fear around his poor battered heart, he slowed and approached her. He couldn't help responding to her beatific smile and as he moved towards her, he held up the Xerox she had given him. “So?” he grunted, “need any help distributing these?”

“Well I don't know,” she hedged. “Sorta used up all my money payin' Normal and Sketch. Cindy now, did it just to see me happy.”

“Well now,” Alec smirked as he moved in those last few inches into her space, so close that he could breathe in her breath. “I can think of a very satisfactory form of payment other than cold hard cash. And I'm sure that we could find a mutually satisfying amount for a job well done.”

“Well, maybe I was a little hasty in paying them before the job was complete,” Max retorted instantly. “Why should you get the same treatment?”

“Well, I am Normal's Golden Boy. Best messenger in the building, according to him,” Alec prompted. “Remember,” he urged, before she could make a quip, “quality over quantity.”

“Well if that's the way you want to play it,” Max murmured, “then you better put your money where your mouth is. Pony up messenger boy.”

And with that challenge hanging between them, Alec scooped Max into his waiting arms, his lips descending on hers as she met him eagerly and the swirling heady feeling he'd experienced ever since he read that Max had broken up with Logan, for real and for sure, because she'd fallen in love with him, him, intensified.

Their first kiss was eventually interrupted by cheers and catcalls intruding upon their own little bubble. Alec glanced down into Max's eyes, relieved beyond measure to find a liquid happiness glowing within them. Both of her arms were encircling his neck, while he'd held her close, hands curving around her hips. But then he realized that there was a distinct lack of irritant at his back and when he looked, saw the papers that she had so painstakingly created were now scattered on the floor.

“Uh Max,” he began, shifting slightly. “Your copies...?”

“Don't need 'em anymore,” Max murmured, her lips skimming against his jaw and Alec swallowed convulsively. “This Lois Lane just got her Superman. No more need to advertise.”

“You got that right,” Alec agreed vehemently and both were chuckling as their lips met once more.

“You're going to pick those up Missy Miss! No littering in the building. And what have I told you about PDA's with... oh dear lord!”


AtZ- Yawn