Fiction NFA01- You Lied!

Title: Never Fade Away

Chapter Title: You Lied!

Author: Restive Nature

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

Rating: PG-13 for language

Genre: Crossover

Type: General

Pairing: Max/ Alec

Summary: In his mind at least, her memory would never fade.

Spoilers/ Time line: Post Series for both shows.

Feedback: Always welcome!

Distribution: Ask first please.

A/N: This is based off of Illynne's challenge from Nuns With Pens. But I couldn't resist turning it into a crossover. Hopefully it will be enjoyed.

Never Fade Away

Chapter One

“You lied!”

Max's head came up as the angry snarl of words hit her like a freight train. That she didn't immediately recognize the voice caught her by surprise. She glanced around and then over her shoulder to see Alec's angry visage looming down on her. “Alec?” she was confused, until she realized then, that he must have found out about her little white lie to Logan. That was the only thing that could have caused this amount of upset in the other transgenic. She sighed tiredly, ready to explain and defend herself. “Look, I-!”

“No!” Alec's voice cut in harshly as he took another step towards her and Max, tried to control the sudden trembling that his mien was evoking in her. “You've had your chance. You've had plenty of chances, but no more Max. It's my turn to talk. You lied to Logan about us being together. And I know exactly why you did it.”

“Well if you know-!” Max began to interrupt, about to point out, reasonably in her mind, that it was a very forgivable thing. How many times had his little white lies, or worse, bigger lies and scams led them into trouble that she had had to rescue him from? But Alec's face darkened and her mouth snapped shut as his fist flew, resounding with a crash into the locker behind her in the headquarters of Jam Pony, the bike messenger service they both worked at.

“I said it's my turn,” he hissed lowly. He pulled his fist back, apparently not noticing where the skin over his knuckles had split slightly and were beading with a few drops of blood. “I had thought, Max,” he sneered her name, “that we had been through enough together that we could be honest with each other. After all, wasn't that what that night was about?”

Max winced as she recalled the night he was referring to. The night she had rescued him from jail and had then shared the truth of Ben's demise. The real truth, not the assumed one in which Manticore had caught up with him and had put Ben down, not wanting a psychotic serial killer on the loose. That Manticore would be more concerned with minimizing exposure than saving innocent lives went without saying.

“And correct me if I'm wrong,” Alec went on, towering over her and Max fought not to try and duck away from him. Always stand tall, she thought, even when she was in the wrong. Which she wasn't... exactly. “But didn't we agree to be honest with each other from now on? I believe your exact words were 'with everything going down, we can't afford to leave anyone out in the cold'?”

“I know I said-!” Max tried again, meaning that she hadn't intended to lie to him, more like just not tell him everything, because really, Logan thinking that they were dating was not that huge a deal in the larger transgenic and transhuman safety issues.

“And then not even six hours later, you're lying again?” Alec thundered. Max licked at her suddenly dry lips, realizing with a quick, avoiding glance, that they were drawing a crowd. She inhaled quickly, trying to get the sentence out before he went on.

“We're drawing too much attention,” she hissed and Alec's face took on an amused look. But it was not one that Max liked. No, this was... twisted.

“Well heaven forbid the great Maxie Guevara get any more attention that she doesn't want,” Alec whispered sibilantly. He stepped back from her and tilted his head a little to the side. “Well, I'm not sorry to say this,” he announced loudly, playing, Max recognized, to the crowd that was staring unabashedly at them. “But it's over Max. Guess you're too much of a bitch for even me to handle.”

Max gaped at him and there were some snickers in the group. “Alec? I- you...?”

“I, you, what?” Alec demanded. He paused but there were no words forthcoming from her. “Face it Max, you keep pulling the bullshit you do and people are gonna get tired of it. I'm just glad I found that out before you sucked me in even further. So this is it. We're done.”

“Done?” she asked faintly, wondering exactly how done he meant.

“That's right Maxie,” he smiled, but it was one that did not reach his eyes. Max had never seen him look so cold. “I'm breaking up with you.” Her eyes widened, not because of the words that he had chosen. There was nothing there, because he was, underneath it all, a Manticore bred soldier. He could keep up pretense with the best of them. It was the emotion underlying the words that stabbed deep. “New quid pro quo. Don't ever call me again and I sure as fuck won't call you.”

With those parting words, he spun around on his heel and took off, away from her at a steady trot. Max stared after him as the crowd parted to allow him through. He snagged a package from Normal, who had just been coming out from behind the desk to see what all the brouhaha was about. But seeing that it had ended of it's own accord, he simply glanced after his favorite worker and then snatched up his clipboard and marked something off before returning to his desk. But his snippy words, reached Max anyway.

“'Bout time someone put Missy Miss in her place,” Normal snarked under his breath.

“A'ight, this ain't no show,” Original Cindy's strident voice, loud and authoritative broke through the slight haze that Max found herself in. “Back to work people!”

She felt her friend's hand on her arm and quickly shook it off, ducking her head as she suddenly realized that she wasn't seeing Cindy because there were tears in the way. She blinked rapidly for a few seconds until the moisture passed away, luckily not down her cheeks as she feared they would. She turned back to her locker and went back to what she'd been doing just a few minutes previous.

“You a'ight Boo?” Cindy asked gently from beside her.

“I'm fine OC,” Max rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Just typical of that creep to make a scene like that. Doesn't ever listen to anybody, does he? Thinks he knows everything and when he finds out that he doesn't, it's all me, me, me! He's just an attention whore, ya know?”

“Uh huh,” the black woman shook her head, but it didn't even sound convincing to Max's ears. Nevertheless, as she always seemed to when something had attacked her, she turned right around and attacked back. The next half hour, found Max and Cindy on runs together with Max complaining about Alec's supposed shortcomings. Until at last even Cindy seemed to have had enough of it and had waited until Normal had thrown another package Max's way and Cindy had claimed that she needed to eat before she keeled over from low blood sugar. Not seeing it for the escape tactic that it was, Max had herded her to the employee lounge, claiming she'd see her friend in a bit.

*****

“So you an' Max were datin'?” Sketch asked, pulling up next to Alec as their returns to Jam Pony coincided, though it was obvious to Alec that the lanky man was looking for something more. “Niiiice,” he drew the word out and Alec threw him a glare.

“Not so much,” he disagreed. “In case it slipped your notice, that chick is venomous.” A poor joke really, given the givens, but Sketch was simply not aware of the truth and as much as Alec would love to clue someone in, he cared too much about his skin and those of his co-escapees to give up the goods now.

“So seriously though,” Sketch continued, apparently oblivious to the warning signs that Alec was sure were glaring like neon from him. “Now that she's all free and clear...?”

“Seriously,” Alec repeated Sketch's words and clapped his hand on the stoner's shoulder until he gave in and looked Alec in the eye. “The bitch is so damaging that I wouldn't even wish her on my worst enemy. Don't go there Sketch.”

“Okay,” Sketch breathed out, after studying the intensity burning in Alec's eyes for a long moment. He shook his friend's hand off and then frowned. “So after that little snafu, how you gonna handle havin' to work with her?”

“Who says I'm going to work with her?” Alec grinned slyly. Sketch's eyes widened and then followed Alec's gaze over to Normal. And ready to put plan into action, he strolled over to the desk where the boss man was bipping out orders and with a suave charm envied by many, had his routes cleared to the point where he and Max would only be in each others vicinities by happenstance.

*****

Two weeks had gone by and at first, Max had relished in the relative peace. Sure, she got nasty looks from all the girls at work, but since she'd never really been their friend to start with, it mattered little to her. And since none of them knew Logan, there were no worries there with letting that little secret slip to the hacker and having him try to re-establish their impossible relationship.

But then, she'd find herself turning to tell Alec something, whether important about plans for Terminal City or just something funny about her day, but he wasn't there, close to hand or hovering over her shoulder as he often had been. At first, she told herself that she was relieved that she wasn't having to bail his ass out of trouble, or that she didn't have to listen to him whining, or regaling Normal or Sketchy with obviously self-inflated stories of his awesomeness. In fact, she had noticed real quick that she rarely ever saw him anymore. He wasn't showing up at Crash for his nightly pool game and Scotch with Sketchy. Which had depressed her blond friend. And neither did she see any of the other transgenics that Alec had snuck in under Normal's radar hanging around.

Finally, after about three days, in which her temper had cooled and she erroneously assumed that his had as well, she went over to his apartment to make overtures. Something that she rarely did, even when she was blatantly in the wrong. She was more likely to rationalize behavior, rather than straight up admit the wrongness. And it was fair, she reminded herself. Life was not black and white. There were too many shades of gray in between.

But Alec had not been home that evening. So she had trailed over to Crash, thinking he might be there, but again no joy. So she had headed over to TC, thinking perhaps he was visiting his buddies down on Oak street. But none there had seen him. One of the transhumans, Luke did give her a heads up about some trouble down on the waterfront that they'd been tracking, but so far there was nothing of note to worry about. So Max had put that in the back of her mind for the time being.

That night had ended up a bust. So she swallowed her dislike of public scenes and arrived at Jam Pony early the next morning. She was there as he wheeled his bike in. He saw her, she knew that he did, but he just ignored her as he dropped of his bike and headed to his locker. Figuring that there'd be a slighter modicum of privacy than the main room had, she followed after him. But he'd completely frozen her out. And did so every single time she tried to talk. It was like she didn't even exist anymore. It hurt and pissed her off, but she finally decided that if he wanted to be childish about it, that was fine. She was the bigger person after all, so she decided to let him have his little snit fit.

Until the day came that she couldn't ignore his ignoring her any longer.

“Go for Max,” she answered her cell phone that she blatantly ignored that Alec had scored for her after that night in her apartment.

“Max, it's Luke,” the transhuman announced. She waited. “We got a line on what's up with those waterfront buildings.”

“What's the what?” she demanded as she cased her surroundings with a practiced eye. She had just been about to head down to Crash on her baby, play a little foosball with her roommate and forget about the evils of men for a while.

“We had contact with a group, mixed, coming in from the cold,” Luke informed her. “We directed them through perimeter sector police. They were in the city proper when we lost contact. That was six hours ago.”

“Why didn't you call me then?” she demanded harshly, even though she knew that was not protocol.

“Because no news is good news?” the transhuman answered and Max wasn't sure if he was being facetious or not. “Anyway, Dix picked up a private surveillance feed and got the line. They were abducted out of an alley. Looks like those goons you warned us about.”

“Familiars,” she huffed out and swore silently. Just typical that White and his merry band of morons would ruin her night. “You know where they're at?”

“They were held down in those waterfront warehouses you were worried about,” Luke informed her. “We managed to get an operative close enough to put a tracker on one of the vans goin' in.”

“And?” she prompted.

“It just came on line,” he offered and Max smiled grimly.

*****

Alec was just lacing up his second boot when the pounding on his door started. He checked himself from answering immediately. Before, he'd have had no compunction about answering, but ever since he'd started ignoring her, she had swung by a few times and tried to walk in as she used to. So now he waited. The peephole in the door was a bonus. But this night was different.

There was no pretense at knocking. The banging was immediate and instantly followed by her voice raised to be heard through the door. “Alec? Open up! We got a situation.” He sighed and frowned, realizing that one of the transhuman yahoos down in Terminal City must have called her as well.

With a swift decision making process, he decided that her help was better than doing this on his own. And so, he finished with his boot, yanked on his jacket, made sure he had the keys for his lime green Bandit and the transponder that he'd already picked up and made his way to the door. He yanked it open in mid-pound and jerked back from being knuckled in the face.

“Oh Alec,” Max looked startled that he actually answered. “Did you hear me?”

“The whole friggin' building heard you,” he snarled as he intimidated her back out of his space so that he could pull his apartment door shut. “How the hell you evaded the man for as long as you did, given that your stealth is for shit, I'll never know,” he more muttered than said.

“What was that?” Max demanded as she scurried to follow after him. But still tired of her attitude and her spurious logic and just the simple fact that he was obviously nothing more than a tool to her, kept him quiet. He just hoped that she would get the hint sooner rather than later. “Look Alec, Luke called. Some friends are,” her voice dropped and he wanted to roll his eyes, “in trouble. We need to-!”

“Yeah, I got it,” he snapped as he hit the stairwell. “Let's go.”

That shut her up easily enough. Her Ninja was parked next to his recently purchased Bandit and he had a momentary misgiving that he'd chosen such a flashy color. But then, he hadn't imagined that he'd be doing more than a little joyriding on it, not rescuing more freaks like him. Switching on the transponder receiver that was linked to the tracking bug, he mounted his bike and nestled it as best he could, strapping it down to the fuel tank with a small bungee cord. Wouldn't do to have to stop every few miles to check the route. From what he could tell, they weren't out of the city yet.

He thought he heard Max start to ask another question, but the roar of his bike forestalled anything she might say. He pulled away and could see in his side mirror that she was right behind him, looking as usual, righteously infuriated. He wondered if someone had given her some sort of ice maiden gene that froze her face like that. He allowed himself a small grin for a moment and then focused on the business on hand.

They were only stopped by sector cops twice. Both times, Alec used his loose shirt top and jacket to cover the transponder and none of the cops noticed anything. Luckily for Max's admittedly fine ass, he happened to have two travel passes with him and the simple tale of, running up the coast to see his cousin who just had a baby, was easily accepted. Max wisely held her tongue the first time, the second, took only half a second before gushing on about how cute the baby was sure to be and she couldn't wait to hold the little bundle. The guy had smiled indulgently and waved them on.

“Nice story,” Max had grunted as they'd moved on. Alec rolled his eyes. The woman was oblivious to everything, wasn't she? Had she even noticed the guard station was littered with pictures of the guard with his family, the newest crop of pictures that hadn't curled at the edging, was him holding a baby at the hospital. One of the lessons he learned well was how to ingratiate himself with strangers, give them some common ground and tug on the heartstrings.

They ended up driving about sixteen miles up the road before Alec noted that the transponder image had changed direction. He easily hooked up his wireless headset and called in to base to get some idea of what they were heading into, while he was sure he heard Max loudly grumbling about him having to call his nightly hook-up and let the girl know he'd be late. If he showed up at all. By that point, he was ready to leave her ass in the dust and let her figure things out on her own.

“They've turned east,” Dix confirmed. “Not a lot out there immediately. But about ten miles in, you'll hit a town. Fairly small population. They're two and six, make that eight miles ahead of you. If it stops in another four, we'll have the location, but I'll plan out further.”

“Thanks man,” Alec replied to the quickly given Intel and hung up the phone. He checked his phone to make sure that it was currently set to auto answer. Max pulled up closer and yelled over the wind.

“How much further?” she demanded, it sounding like a whisper. Alec simply raised two fingers and then gestured to the east. He felt more than heard or saw her disgruntled grumble as she fell back slightly.

Alec saw the turn and while barely slowing, leaned into it. It took him onto a dirt road and he smiled, knowing that his Bandit was made for this kind of ride. But apparently, Max had already thought of this possibility or knew this area enough that she had slowed considerably. Alec glanced at the transponder again, noting that it had slowed as well, but was still moving in an easterly direction. He heard then the distinctive tone of his phone and the click as it picked up.

“Yo, what's up,” he greeted, unsure as to whether it was Dix, Luke or someone else entirely.

“You want to tell me what's going on, moron?” Max's voice rang clear in his ear. Pursing his lips and removing one hand from his handlebars, he pressed the end call button. After just a second, it started ringing again.

“What?”

“Don't you freakin' hang up on me Alec!” Max yelled in his ear and Alec's hands tightened convulsively.

“Shut up Max!” he resounded fiercely. “For two fuckin' seconds in your life shut up! I need to keep this line clear for Dix, so that we know what the hell we're rolling into. So get the hell of my line or go the hell home!” And then with a satisfied smirk at her affronted gasp, hung up on her a second time.

The phone rang immediately again and Alec rolled his eyes, considering stopping for all of the two minutes it would take to yank her off her bike, hog tie her and leave her on the side of the road. With the Bandit, because admittedly that little Ninja was doin' just fine, it was a better color for concealment and it would so piss her off mightily.

“I swear to God Max-!” he began as soon as the call picked up, but an amused chuckle broke through.

“Is she on your ass again?” came the familiar tones of one of his former unit mates, 964, now known as Bruno. The man was quite familiar with the problems with Max, as Alec had used him as a rant board a few times.

“In more ways than one man,” Alec sighed. “What'd you need?”

“All right, walked in to HQ and they roped me into your little project,” Bruno replied, suddenly all business. “Anyway, about three miles beyond that town you're headed to?”

“Yeah, what'd you find?”

“There's an old abandoned bed and breakfast just off the main road,” Bruno informed him. “It's been empty for years, but about six months ago, it powered up,” Bruno went on. “Gas, electric, water, all on line. And there's plenty of outbuildings, not sure of their condition. Barn for animal, quonset for vehicles. I'd search those first. It'll be a mile north at the turn off. Watch for that.”

“All right, gotcha man,” Ale returned and scanned the upcoming road signs. “Hey, you know the name of the B&B?”

“Uh, looks like the Flowering Springs B&B,” Bruno supplied. “Why? You want me to make you a reservation?” he teased.

“Oh maybe a massage would be good after all the ass kickin' I intend on deliverin',” Alec smiled. Max had certainly put him in a foul enough mood tonight. The grin stayed on his face as he was able to make out the information, faded as it was, on one of the road signs that Bruno had just given him. “Got it man. We'll pull over here. Hide the bikes. Radio silence from here on out.”

“Gotcha man,” Bruno replied easily. “Good luck. I think you're gonna need it.”

The line disconnected before Alec could reply. Pulling the ear piece from his head, he stuffed it back into his coat pocket. A simple depression of a button on his cell, holding it and he could faintly hear the chimes, shutting his cell off. Knowing the Familiars slightly and their abilities, he didn't even want to take the chance that they'd hear the buzz if someone called him while the phone was on silent.

Seeing an excellent spot to cover their vehicles, Alec slowed and pulled closer to the ditch. He knew that there was no way that he'd be losing Max at this point of the venture, so he had decided that he'd be professional. As long as she was. And he was pleasantly surprised when Max followed after him, picking up on the fact that they were hiding the bikes and there was probably a damn good reason for it. She took care of hers efficiently and then helped him finish his, needing more cover to hide the lime green tank.

“So what do we got?” she asked, her voice low and hesitant, as if she were unsure that he would answer. Alec was glad and honestly, a little triumphant at holding all the cards this go around.

“Tracked the van to this bed and breakfast,” Alec began quietly as they crossed the road, looking ahead for the quickest, quietest, easiest way to traverse the fields. There wasn't much cover, some random seeming trees here and there. Luckily they were both dressed for this. But then again, with her penchant for black, Max was always dressed for this. “Place is go for occupation,” he reported, his words rapped off in a staccato beat, resolved to treat her as just another soldier while on this mission. Hopefully she'd get the idea and back the hell off when it was done. Not that he held out much hope for that. “Our people are most likely gonna be in one of the out buildings.”

“Do we have any Intel on the amenities the B and B was providing?” Max asked from beside him and he chanced a glance at her, the sporadic cloud coverage giving him enough light to see her shadowy form. She was looking straight ahead, but he could hear the tremor in her voice. Something was bothering her, but it was none of his concern, because he wasn't hers. He pushed the thought away.

“Speculation on that,” he replied, checking the transponder once more. It was still stationary. “964 thinks there'll be some quonsets, maybe barns.”

“They'll probably hold them in the barns,” Max mused quietly. Alec had been thinking the same thing. “Stalls for animals can be quickly and easily reinforced and they'd probably want to separate our people from one another.”

“Agreed,” Alec nodded once. “But, just because that's what we'd do...”

“We'll have to check both,” Max agreed. Her strides were lengthening and Alec was glad. For so long, he'd always checked himself to match her shorter stride and had unconsciously been doing so again. They picked up the pace.

“You take the quonset and I'll take the barn,” Alec decided. He felt Max gear up immediately into one of her ranting protests and threw up a hand to cut her off. “No arguments or I'll leave your ass in the dust.”

“No,” Max protested stubbornly. “I was just gonna ask why you're taking the barn if we both figure that's where they are at?” she retorted and Alec shook his head in resignation.

“One,” he held up a finger as they moved through a small copse of trees, “since they'll most likely be there, it's better someone our people don't despise out of principle approaches them. Two, we need to get this done as swiftly as possible, so splitting up makes sense. And three, we need the Intel if any of the familiars are spread out, waiting for us. Okay? Does that pass muster for you?”

“That's fine,” Max's clipped tone betrayed her ire and Alec fought his smirk.

“All right,” Alec nodded. “Quiet now.” He chanced another glance and as the cloud passed by the light of the moon, he could see the thinness of her lips as they pressed together angrily.

The miles in were covered quickly, and they found no sign of Familiars patrolling the area. It worried Alec slightly, because this was starting to feel like the earmarks of one of their enemies typical traps. The truck, once stopped had never moved. It was making him rethink that their people were being held in a barn, because most animal shelters were not large enough to drive a vehicle into, unless of course it was a small utility vehicle. But they couldn't discount the possibility that their people had been removed from the vehicle and moved to their holding cells.

They came up on the bed and breakfast and paused, both of them falling naturally into their training. Alec could only hope that Max wouldn't take it into her head to go off on one of her tangent plans and fuck things up for them. If she did, he was about tempted to let her stew in her own damn juices. But he knew that he wasn't that vindictive.

Max was hunkered down, by a fallen tree. She held up her hand and Alec, from his position twelve feet away, turned his head warily to watch her. Like an obedient, well trained soldier, she started informing him of the Intel she was gathering from her position. She marked the number of buildings and he found that she had caught sight of one that he hadn't made. Her vantage point was fine and he nodded when she paused. She marked the three out buildings that she would need to search and the order in which she would move on them, starting at the closest and working her way to the furthest. Alec agreed with that and when she stopped, she dipped her chin once to him.

He returned the favor swiftly, picking out the barn closest to them, then the second barn, then what she had claimed to be a chicken coop. The coop was closer to them, distance wise, but they both knew that Alec would have to cross open ground to get to it, if he went after the barn. It was better to circle around the perimeter than to risk being seen. That decided, Alec made a call signal and Max waited.

'Whippoorwill if you find them, dove if there's distress,' he instructed and rolled his eyes at her annoyed look.

'Birds don't call at night,' she complained. 'Shouting would be a good indication, don't you think?' Even with their sign language she was being a smart assed bitch. And here Alec was just trying to help her. Well screw that! Ignoring her once more, Alec assessed the area and then moved off to his first objective. He heard her indrawn breath, like she was going to protest, but then thought better of it.

As far as he was concerned, he was pretty much on his own. And that, he told himself resolutely, was the way he liked it.