Faith Through Midnight
Created December 19, 2005

for a nwp challenge

She'd found him on the needle.

"Now why, oh why did I think to look here?" Her voice drifted clearly through the still air and one half of Terminal City's current administration glanced over his shoulder, a half smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

"Sit down," he invited, patting the seat next to him. She dropped down, folding her long legs and leaning on his shoulder.

"So," she said. "I guess we've done it."

They watched their city spread out below them.

"A bit of a hollow victory," he said softly. She turned her head to look at him, coolly surveying the tense line of his jaw. "I don't think they'll ever accept us."

"Alec," she said as gently as possible, "sometimes you have to be satisfied with what you get. It never measures up to what you want."

He finally focused on her, eyebrows raised. "You sound like the voice of experience, Max."

She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, looking out over Seattle again. "Alec, this is the happiest I've ever been," she said softly, struggling to explain. "All my life I've had to run and hide, and even my friends couldn't truly understand. My life isn't perfect, but it's the best I've ever had."

"And the Familiars?" he asked, lifting a hand to run it through her hair.

Shivering faintly, Max pushed her face up under his chin. "I'll kill them all if I have to."

She'd surprised a laugh out of him. "Good to know."

Max drew back a little and trailed fingers over his cheekbone like a blind woman, letting her breath out slowly. He was looking at her with that bladed, mocking smile that had so unnerved her for so long. "TC is safe now," she whispered. "We made a huge step."

"I know." His eyes were glittering. "We'll win eventually," he proclaimed with that perfect arrogance that still irritated her sometimes and she cupped his face in her hands and drew it down to kiss him on his sharp, sharp smile.

It was late afternoon by the time they reached the rendezvous.

"Why are scientists always late?" Max slid her sunglasses off and nudged the kickstand down, glancing at Alec on his bike.

He half smiled, amusement sparking in his eyes. "Well, considering all the genes we're amped up with, there's got to be a scientist in there somewhere..."

"Which explains you?" she finished, an answering wicked smile flashing over her face. "So if-"

Pure instinct and transgenic intuition flung her at him and took them both off their bikes as shots rang out. Rolling to her knees Max flung a glance over her shoulder and skinned her lips back off her teeth, muttering a curse. "Why are scientists always untrustworthy rats?"

"Something that fortunately wasn't carried on by genetics," Alec remarked dryly as they both dove for cover. Max's face twisted with pain as she glanced at the Ninja - it was the material possession that had been with her the longest; he suspected it symbolized her freedom in her mind, and grimaced. Pinned down as they were they wouldn't be moving far from it, but knowing Ames White he might shoot their bikes for spite.

To distract her he jibed, "You're worrying me here, Max. Is this silence a subtle dig on my character?"

Her dark eyes flashed to him and humor quirked her full mouth. "I don't bother with subtle, Alec. I hit hard -" Her smile was positively sinful "-and low. Haven't you noticed?"

He winced exaggeratedly. "Oh, yeah. Now that you mention it..."

With a snort of laughter, Max peered around the edge of the metal container crate they'd taken cover behind and winced as new bullet pockmarks appeared. "Damn."

"He never gives up," Alec noted, mock-jostling her for space. She acquiesced gracefully, squirming to put her back against the metal as he pulled out a gun from the small of his back.

He didn't say this was a situation when two guns might have come in handy - he didn't have to. Alec was a little too sensitive for that and the touch of a gun still left her with a stone-cold, bone-deep revulsion and she didn't think anything was going to change that.

"Alec," Max said and earned a laser-sharp glance from his eyes. "Be careful."

He grinned at her, vividly reckless, and moved to duck out from behind the crate.

The ground moved, a subtle tremor that speared alarm through her bones, reaching out, her fingers grazing the back of his leather jacket, his name on her tongue -

The explosion flung them both helter-skelter through the air and pain flared sharply in the back of her head and dropped her into blackness.

"452."

Ames White's voice was her wakeup call, and it was an unpleasant one.

"Here you are, 452, walking into my hands...again." He leaned forward, hands braced on the railing as she struggled towards consciousness.A cage. At least it isn't hanging in the air. "I must say I appreciate you being so obliging."

Slime, she thought dimly, panic already beginning to swim up from the back of her mind. Alec. Where's Alec?

The pure fear condensing around that thought shook her into clarity - she opened her eyes and focused on White. "Still with the ego bigger than your…brain," she finished flippantly, raising her eyebrows to hide growing anxiety. Alec was nowhere in sight.

White straightened and smiled down at her. It was an ugly, frightening sight. "Looking for someone, 452?" He asked. "Don't worry, you'll be with him soon."

Her heart stuttered in her chest, and then he raised one hand.

They electrocuted her.

It didn't hurt in the first instant or the second, as lightning shot through her body, muscles spasming in a violent, galvanizing convulsion that slammed her head against one of the bars and only sent more white heat arcing through her bones. It was only afterwards, when the electricity left, that her nerve endings came to life with a vengeance.

When she went limp, she thought she could dimly smell her own flesh burning.

Ames White crouched, smiling in a rictus of unholy pleasure. "Feeling good about yourself, 452?"

"Fuck you," she rasped, and tasted blood.

"No, 452." He straightened, smiling coldly. "I'm afraid I wouldn't soil myself."

It took them fourteen hours to make her scream.

They managed.

When Logan finally called back, Original Cindy, who had been huddled against Joshua on the concrete steps with a hundred transgenic eyes fixed on them and the screen above them, leapt up and punched the button to receive the call so hard she almost broke a nail.

"I think I found them," he reported grimly, taking off his glasses to rub at his eyes.

"Where?" Joshua demanded in an ominous rumble, rising to his considerable height. Cindy took a step back, clearing the way as he leapt to the platform and bent over the screen.

Logan relayed a series of fast-paced instructions and around the room transgenics roused in an efficient flurry of motion.

"I realize that this isn't my decision." Logan spoke to be heard, pitching his voice above the general noise and most of the inhabitants half turned to give him a measure of their concentration.

"I think calling in the human military would not be amiss." He waited until the first furious refusal died down and started talking rapidly. "Don't you understand? He works within the government but he's not allowed to do what he's doing anymore. If we can expose him, he'll have enemies on two fronts."

Original Cindy, now holding Gem's daughter, looked up at Joshua. Somewhere in the frantic flurry of reorganization he'd become unofficial leader and his expression was grim. There was a long moment of silence where everyone stared at him, waiting.

"Call," he rumbled. "Careful."

Logan let out a long breath and nodded, looking immensely relieved. "I'll pick what I say."

"Let's go!" Gem called, and swung the gun she held over her shoulder in one professional movement.

Max roused to the dim sounds of war.

Ames White was a dim shape crouched beside her, but making up for everything was a slack hand over hers. Alec, bloodied and beaten, but still breathing with his eyes half open.

She breathed his name involuntarily and though Alec didn't react, Ames White's eyes gleamed with animal pleasure.

"He'll be dead soon enough," he assured her, voice silky with malice as he stood… holding a gun. So fucking careless of her not to notice already. Bad tactics, she thought dizzily. Was this why they hammered in the use of sacrifice twice as hard as teamwork?

Lydecker would have been disappointed.

The ground rocked beneath them, dust sifting down from the ceiling. She flinched away from it, turning her head, and White scowled, looking more bothered than truly angry.

"Looks like our appointment will have to be delayed," he said and left the room. That left the gunmen in the four corners of the catwalk, impossibly high up.

Right now Max couldn't care less.

She rolled painfully over to cup his face in her hands, blinking away tears. She could taste blood - during the convulsions, she'd probably bitten something. "Alec?" she whispered, and stroked his cheek with her fingertips, frightened beyond belief. "Alec-"

His eyes slowly slid half-open. "Max," he rasped, voice faint.

She pressed a kiss to his forehead, then his mouth, breath rushing out shakily. "God, Alec, you scared me-"

A smile touched his lips. "Nice wake-up call, all things considered."

Max leaned her forehead on his and almost cried from relief. "Help is on the way. Just-just stay alive, okay?"

"No problem." He was rousing, though; muscles gathering, eyes opening all the way. They'd learned to ignore their body's pain if they couldn't do anything about it.

She put a hand on his chest. "Snipers in every corner," she said softly. "No need to be too active until it's going to do us some good." From a logical standpoint it made perfect sense; on the personal side, every little indication of pain he gave shoved her further towards violence. She'd rip White's head off if she had the chance.

His eyes flicked to hers and his mouth tipped up at the corners. The smile marred swelling bruises but was still a relief to see. "So we sit tight and wait?"

"And wait to get saved, yeah." Max adjusted her body to further shield his, holding herself off of his bruised ribs with her elbows. "Just be patient."

"My middle name," he murmured and she had to admit he was certainly better at it than she was. She was the one rigid with tension, itching to move. He was relaxed - okay, collapsed on the ground - and his voice and heartbeat were perfectly steady.

And just when she was thinking they might actually be able to do that, cat-keen hearing picked up the crackle of a walkie-talkie above them, and then the rustle and click of someone raising a gun and preparing to fire. Times four.

Max gave up on subtlety or planning and shoved her weight entirely on top of Alec - not quite long enough to cover him entirely, bending her head over his as the first bullet hit her in the side, nearly knocking her off of him. Alec cursed viciously and his hands were suddenly slipping under her jacket, probing delicately - a moment after the actual impact hot liquid pain flared under her skin and she cried out at the touch and only then thought to wonder why the others hadn't shot.

"Max!" Joshua shouted.

"Joshua!" Alec rolled her onto her back, rising above her. "You aren't losing too much blood." He tore strips of his shirt off, wincing with the motion, and began binding the wound with jerky movements.

"I can still...run." She pushed herself up on her elbows and gasped at the lance of pain. She'd manage.

"I'd like to argue," Alec said through his teeth as Joshua grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and heaved him onto his feet. "I really would but-"

"Hurry." Gem grabbed Max's arm and she gathered her legs under her and pushed to her feet. It hurt, but it wasn't nearly debilitating enough to endanger her as badly as a stomach wound.

The weakness trembling through her muscles was.

"Time to go," Joshua growled and they went.

Max had been unconscious on the way in and the way out wasn't all that much clearer. She followed Joshua and Gem covered Alec's back; they moved fast and she concentrated on breathing and moving.

"How are you holding up?" Gem asked softly from behind them. Alec grunted and Max spared the time to spit out, "Fine."

Joshua kicked open a door and said roughly, "Not far." And Max almost thought they were going to make it for a dizzying second of relief.

"There!" Ames White shouted as they emerged into another concrete hall - the door had been at the end of a T-intersection and he was right there, pointing a gun at them, backed up by, God, fifteen military men with more rushing down the hall.

Alec blurred past her and ripped the gun away, smashing the butt into the Familiar's face. "Move!" he shouted at Joshua and when Max started to move to help him the dog man grabbed her bodily and hauled her after him down the hall.

Bones broke audibly as the wall cut off the sight of him and Max screamed his name, furious and fighting Joshua. Gem raised the gun and shot someone and then spun and aimed and shot again, seconds before a man coming from the opposite hall hit her. She was forced back into the hall after Max and Joshua, firing with surgical precision and picking off one, two, five…

He kicked open the door to the outside and Max cried out as they hit the ground and rolled, Joshua coming to his feet and scanning the rooftops while she struggled upright. 'Nomlie or no, he knew how to handle a gun.

A black van screamed to a halt in front of them and just as she thought dizzily, damn, the door rolled open and an X6 Max recognized leaned forward and gestured sharply with a gun. "Hurry up!"

Joshua hauled her to her feet, and a fresh gush of heat down her side told her she'd started bleeding again - and more seriously than they'd anticipated. Still, bleeding or no there was no way in hell she was leaving him there. Max yanked at the arm Joshua held. "No-"

He picked her up again and threw her into the vehicle and she lost consciousness for several hot split seconds. When she opened her eyes again there seemed to be an awful lot of people leaning on her side and it hurt like a bitch.

"Go back and get him," she rasped it like a command and from the front Mole snarled, "No can do."

She was shivering despite the searing pain, her teeth chattering. "Shock," she heard Gem say, her voice anguished. "From blood loss."

And then she slipped away.

"I have to go back and get him."

She paced across Logan's office, counting the steps with her teeth clenched. She'd been saying it for the past half hour.

"White was gone by the time the military arrived," Logan said very gently. His face was rough with stubble, eyes tired and squinting. "There isn't anything -"

Max whirled on him with her teeth bared. "Don't you dare tell me there isn't anything I can do."

He rubbed a hand over his forehead, leaning back in the chair. "Okay, there isn't anything you can do there. It was swept, Max. I promise you."

She put a hand to her mouth and closed her eyes, breath trembling. The vulnerable gesture shocked him - she was tense and wired, walking stiffly. It had been forty eight hours already. She'd lost quite a bit of blood and Shankar had kept her in bed.

The lady doctor had not been happy with some military lawyer coming to interrogate her patient and she had made damn sure everyone important knew it. Logan had been vividly grateful for it and he'd stayed with Original Cindy by Max's side through the entire ordeal, gripping her tense hand and watching fear fill her face with every passing moment.

The lawyer had been courteous and clipped and Logan was grateful for that as well. If he'd been anything else, one of the five - Cindy, Logan, Shankar, or Joshua and Gem - stationed at the doors would have hit him.

Normal had shown up once and muttered something vague but non-accusing and left a daisy in a vase 'in memory'. Original Cindy had brought armfuls of flowers and wordless comfort but Max couldn't accept any of it. She wore a glassy shield around her - bright, threatening, and liable to shatter at the slightest tap.

He was almost grateful when a call popped up on his screen.

Dix's face filled the screen, tense and fearful. "A…package…arrived from White," he stammered out and Max went as rigid as though she'd stuck her finger in a live wire. "Should we-?"

"I'll be down in ten minutes." she snapped out and spun on her heel.

"Ditto," Logan said, and hit the END button, rising to hurry after her.

It wasn't a package. It was a casket.

Plain blond wood, planks hammered together into the unmistakable shape. Cords had been slit from around the sides and it had been placed on a table but no one had opened it yet. Max stood over it, staring down, in the middle of the control room. Original Cindy was standing beside her and Logan stood frozen in the doorway.

"Boo," Original Cindy said softly. "Don't-"

Max reached out and knocked the lid off in one violent movement. Except for the bruise she recognized on his mouth, from the chin up Alec was peaceful and unmarred.

The rest of him was an entirely different story.

Original Cindy took a jerky step back and averted her eyes, staring instead at Max. In the corner of the room, someone was sick.

Max made an indescribably raw sound that Logan never wanted to hear from any living being again and dropped to her knees. Cindy dropped down beside her and wrapped her arms around her, hugging her fiercely, but her face was blank with horror.

Gem unwound the blanket from her two year old daughter and, stepping forward, laid it over Alec. She stepped around the table and crouched beside her, resting her head on Max's shoulder.

Joshua tipped his head back and howled.

After she saw him, Max went away for a while. She curled in her room, drew the curtains and remembered him. Everywhere he'd never be again, everything he'd never say again...

She drowned in the silence. Later Joshua tried to talk to her - she hit him and he went away and she was sorry for it in a numb and distant way.

Losing Tinga hadn't hurt like this. Losing Zack hadn't split her open and splintered her apart in this way. She was broken, every facet of her flawed heart bared and tossed aside.

In the end it was Logan who still knew her well enough to ferret out the correct words. He came inside her room and stayed by the door for a long silent moment until she lifted her head to look at him.

"Max," he said quietly. "You can't stop White like this."

He was still too human to say kill, too devoted to his stubborn ideals, but she met his eyes and knew he understood.

"The funeral is...well, waiting for you." Logan slid down the wall to sit. "There are news vultures camped at every door. 'First official transgenic funeral'." Logan wasn't about to mention some of the other headlines. He didn't walk further into the darkened room and she slowly uncurled on the bed, moving like a weary old woman.

Her hair curled around her face and she looked thinner, pared down to a lean hungry ghost. In the dim light her skin seemed ghastly pale and she swung her legs over the side of her bed and bent her head, bracing both hands against the bed.

"I'm up," she said, and her voice was weary.

Joshua slid halfway through the door and growled softly, inquiringly. Max's head jerked up and she looked at him blankly for a second before comprehension flooded her eyes and she flinched. "Joshua, oh God, I'm sorry -"

Perking up, the dog man met her halfway across the room as she moved towards him, fingers grazing his cheekbone. He whined in the back of his throat as she stood on tiptoe. "Okay, little fella."

She closed her eyes and sighed - a long, guilty exhale. Joshua wrapped arms around her in a bear hug and she melted into him, shivering miserably.

Logan rose and hesitated, looking at the silky fall of her hair visible in the circle of Joshua's arms. She was shaking and her next breath drew in with a sob.

He quietly backed out of the room.

"We'll bury him," she confirmed later in the day in the middle of HQ, her chin lifting. Her eyes were dark and empty and she had all the regal composure of a queen. "We have just as much of a right to a funeral as anyone else, no matter what anyone says." Clearly by now she'd gotten an earful of the bad press as well as the good or simply curious. "We aren't hiding any more."

Max stared out over them, her eyes iron hard and unrelenting. "We will never be ashamed of what we are. And I-" Her voice dropped, and her eyes glowed with sincerity. "- won't stop until every one of our dead is avenged."

It was a vow from a soldier's heart; from a predator's heart. Every transgenic in the room rested their eyes and their trust on her. And believed.

"Amen," Logan said softly.

Max closed her eyes. "Tonight," she said. "We'll bury him tonight."

The radio crackled, splitting the reverent silence like an axe. "Max?" Dalton's voice came through, wavering and scared. "Max, get down here. Now."

Max's head jerked around and she jumped off the concrete platform and ran towards the door, Joshua on her heels. She blew past Logan fast enough to leave him staggering as he moved to follow.

Down the halls and around corners, not danger, not now - she smacked the door open, knocking it away with her shoulders and skidding into the crisp air, Dalton and the other sentry turning to look at her with huge, spooked eyes.

She staggered to a stop, her heart stopping in her chest, her breath freezing and crystallizing, blinded by pure shock.

Someone caught her shoulder but she couldn't discern who. Couldn't pull her eyes away.

Not Alec. Not Alec. Rougher around the edges, with a callous hardness in his eyes that Alec had lacked. Alec had been sleek, drowning-deeply in dark or light and whimsical as the flip sides of a coin.

And the strangers were distinctly, undeniably human.

But God.

"Alec?" someone breathed sharply behind her. "Jesus Christ-"

The familiar man flicked a glance toward his companion and the taller man took a cautious step forward. "I'm Sam Winchester, and this is my brother Dean. We didn't mean to disturb you..."

Max sucked in a breath and closed her eyes for a brief second, rebuilding her shattered control. Then she opened them and offered a hand. A smile was a little too hard but he accepted the shake; firm, warm. "My name is Max. Can I ask what your purpose is in Terminal City?"

"We, um..." Sam seemed at a loss for words at the reception but his brother filled in.

"Came to check out the funeral."

"'Check out'?" she echoed. Alec had never looked her with that that cold, indifferent suspicion either and though there was a flicker of hotter appreciation as he took her in, that was new too. Born and raised in Manticore, Alec had been largely inured to beauty, though not unappreciative.

"Little fella?"

Sam jerked back as Joshua emerged from the hallway, his eyes widening sharply. "Jesus!"

Dean tensed and his hand vanished under his jacket.

A carbon copy of her dead lover left her floundering; a potential threat to one of her best friends did not. Max jerked a hand and the enclosure was suddenly bristling with guns. "Put your hands where I can see them," she snapped.

He met her eyes and slowly slid his hand out, empty. She held her breath and watched them as they raised their arms away from their bodies in that universal gesture of surrender.

"Now," she continued, softer. "This is Joshua. Josh, say hi?"

Joshua walked forward, ducking his head briefly before peering out at them. "Hi, medium fellas." His voice was a low, friendly rumble, and his body language was similarly unassuming.

Sam hesitated, eyeing the hand Joshua extended, and then smiled -cautiously but it looked genuine. Surprisingly so. "Hi, Josh. I'm Sam."

Joshua gave a growling laugh. "I heard."

Dean Winchester lifted his eyebrows in an expression that was so Alec it jolted down Max's spine like an electric charge. "Right. Hey."

"Little fella said hello," Joshua said and smiled a canine smile. "Come on in."

Sam hesitated, glanced at his brother, and then shrugged. "Why not?" As he fell in with Joshua, his brother trailing him, he asked, "Little fella?"

"That's me," Max said, voice clipped. Joshua reached out and tapped her forehead and she tried to force her shoulders to relax. "Come inside."

Anya, a petite X6 who was beside Max - she must have been the one who braced her - smiled a little at Dean, clearly trying to ease the tension. It was subdued by grief, but real. "Nice car."

His eyebrows rose in a different way and Max turned her head away. God, but she didn't know if she could handle it if Alec's twin was hitting on someone else at his funeral.

She laughed under her breath and the sound spiked with hysteria.

Joshua's head swung around. "Little fella needs sleep," he said sharply. Sam turned to look at her as well and by the furrow in his brow, whatever he was thinking wasn't good.

As they entered the hallway Logan arrived, panting. He looked at Sam and his eyebrows rose. "Guests?" he began, and then saw Dean and recoiled a step. "Good God."

"I'm getting the feeling you people know my face." Dean's voice was sarcastic and she thought she felt his eyes burning holes in the back of her head.

"Mm, yes." Logan pushed his glass up his nose, eyebrows still raised to approximately his hairline. "You could say that."

"Logan," Max said politely, "this is Dean and Sam Winchester. They came to check out the funeral."

Logan's eyebrows pulled together and his eyes narrowed. "Did they?" He and Alec had had what was best called a fractious relationship to the very end, but in the end they'd found a truce and some measure of respect. He clearly disliked the implications in that statement.

His instant antagonism almost made Max want to smile. Sam scowled at his brother. "We didn't quite mean it that way -"

"We...pursue the strange," Dean interrupted, and she risked a glance to find that he was staring at Logan, eyes hard. "And this-"

"We didn't call it Freak Nation to be discreet," Max interrupted. "It's all right."

Logan gave her a look, but shut up.

And she didn't even bother to try lying to herself - any other stranger showing up now with that purpose would have been gone in an instant.

But she was selfishly, desperately grateful for another look at his living face.

When they entered the main room, Dean saw the casket and jolted to a halt, unsettled for the first time.

Sam had a different reaction.

He kept walking, slowly, and then halted at the edge of the box. Since they were going to bury him in only a few hours, they'd brought him up from the chilly subterranean concrete room they'd kept the box in, and it lay beside the painstakingly crafted coffin Joshua had painted in preparation for the switch.

Sam's face was absolutely rigid, shoulders so tense it looked painful, but he clearly couldn't tear his eyes away.

Max had met him maybe ten minutes ago, but she wanted that look off his face. It was a look she'd seen Alec wear; it was a look she'd worn, and Zack had worn. It was the face of someone looking at the corpse of someone they loved.

"Sam," she said, pitching her voice to carry, and his head jerked up.

She came to the other side of the coffin and fought to keep her eyes on his face. Don't look down. Don't. "This is Alec. Tonight we bury him."

"A soldier's grave," Mole snarled behind her and the sight of him tore Sam's attention entirely away. "Mud and blood and memory."

"Poetic," Max said and swallowed down a hard knot of tears. Was that what they had for him?

Some tiny voice inside her was screaming, again and again. I DON'T WANT TO PUT HIM IN THE EARTH.

Sam was looking at her nowa and the sympathy on his face was unmistakable. She clenched her jaw, lifted her chin and stared back, narrow-eyed, daring him to comment.

Just then a small child darted forward and put something down, then retreated. Surprised, Max looked down.

The horror show of his body had been wrapped in TC's first flag - she recognized the bullet holes, the scratches and rain faded smears. There were tiny flowers and makeshift toys and mementos carefully laid around the casket.

She wasn't sure if it hurt more or less but it changed something. She could breathe suddenly and she sucked in air, bit her lip, and stepped back.

"I'll get you something to drink," Max said nonsensically and raised her eyes. Sam nodded, and she led the way out of the room.

They went into their makeshift common room instead, hung with Joshua's paintings and lit low and warm with rugs piling the floors and makeshift couches, one relatively intact armchair and piled of cushions providing places to sit.

Gem separated from the crowd, cradling Luce in her arms, and perched in the one armchair. Her face expressionless, she wrapped her arms around the nervous child and watched as Max crossed to the counter and then stopped, drumming her fingers nervously.

"Beer?" she asked without looking at them.

"Coffee?" Sam asked noncommittally and she nodded, started the old machine and finally turned around to look at him.

Behind her, those transgenics that had stayed with them - about a dozen - were filtering in warily, making themselves comfortable. A couple went and got water bottles or a beer from the mini-fridge.

"You pursue the strange," Logan said flatly. "Can I ask what exactly that means?"

"We hunt the bogeyman," Dean said, his tone mocking again. He looked, if anything, more tightlipped and shut down than ever.

Max leaned back against the counter. She thought about Mia, and the black marks that painted themselves on her body, and Ames White and the snake's blood raising patterns of scar tissue on her skin. She thought about a human walking around wearing Alec's face. "I can buy that," she said aloud and watched Dean cock his head to the side, surprised.

"I'm sorry for your grief," Sam said quietly and she met his eyes in a flash of fury that faded just as quickly.

He meant it. He meant it because he saw his brother's face there but he meant it.

Max looked away from it. "You… hunt things."

It wasn't the most graceful change of topic that had ever been tried but Sam accepted it. "Yeah."

"How?" Gem asked and Max gave her a grateful glance.

"We, uh, look through newspapers. Check the internet." He shrugged, bending to brace his elbows on his knees. "Instinct, some. And we have help."

Max almost pursued the subject but saw Dean's face and recognized the closed-off look; though it more resembled something she'd see in the mirror than an expression Alec would have worn.

"Who was he?"

She jerked involuntarily as she turned to remove a cup from the coffee maker.

"Alec?" Gem asked quietly, and presumably he made some sign of agreement because she went on, her voice soft. "He was one of our leaders." Almost defiantly, she added "He was a hero."

"I don't doubt it," Sam replied and however ignorant he might be on the subject, he sounded sincere.

Max braced her hands on the counter and put her head down, breathing deeply. This wasn't real. This wasn't them sitting there discussing her best friend - her lover - already dead and in memory -

"Hey." A touch on her arm and she whipped around too fast, staring at him with huge eyes. Even the pitch of the voice was different-but the face was the same, oh God.

"Max?" Mole's voice was unreadable, rough, but she felt the support. He didn't use her name much, she thought. She must look like shit. "Steady."

She drew in another deep breath and pushed the cup into Dean's hands. "Here," Max clipped out and turned to begin the second cup. As it began dripping, she turned and crossed to the mini fridge, bleeding off nervous energy. She opened it, couldn't fathom drinking anything, and started to close it again.

"Grab me some water?" Gem asked quietly and she obeyed without a word, tossing the bottle to her. The redhead smiled faintly in return, her expression shrouded.

Max backed away and returned to the coffeepot, drumming her fingers restlessly on the counter. The silence wasn't exactly thick but it wasn't precisely comfortable either.

"So you're Max Guevara?" Dean asked, breaking the silence as he returned to his seat.

"Yeah." The cup was full enough now; Max flipped off the machine and crossed the room again to deliver it to Sam, then seated herself on the cushions.

"You...run this place," Sam filled in. He looked genuinely curious and he was clearly looking for a relatively safe topic with a stranger.

"Transgenics aren't sheep," she said coolly. "I don't 'run' Terminal City."

The silence stretched.

"Max," Mole said gruffly from the door, cutting it off. "How soon are we going to do this?"

She looked up at him, body going rigid. "Why?" It came out sharper than she'd intended, torn out in a cry of protest. She didn't want to bury him at all and knew it.

He met her eyes silently, his own narrowed, and in him the unexpected sympathy was a comfort. Max drew in a shuddering breath and thought of the mob outside, of the pain inside.

It had been a delay, the brothers. One more excuse to put off burying the remnants of something beautiful in her life.

She had learned a long time ago that you couldn't just push away the reality that hurt. You couldn't pretend something wasn't happening or hadn't already happened.

"Now," Max said softly. "We'll do it now. Call everyone."

She was the one who lifted his body from the crude casket into the proper coffin, despite the fact that nearly everyone tried to stop her. Her mouth trembled as she lifted the mangled form in her arms, but she didn't hesitate and she didn't waver.

She stayed leaning over the coffin even as the others drew back, her fingers grazing his cheek. In the cold he hadn't begun to discernibly rot yet but she bent to kiss his mouth, a soft and delicate touch.

Then she drew away and the lid fell shut.

Joshua stepped up beside her and took her hand and she drew in a deep breath as they lowered the coffin. "Not mud or blood," she declared loudly, meeting Mole's eyes across the grave. "We bury him in love."

The transhuman didn't say anything, but slowly raised his rifle. Gem, eyes bright with tears, mirrored the motion. Terminal City rose for her once more in wordless salute.

And they buried him.

Logan left Terminal City, and her, to its inhabitants. Both of them knew it wasn't really a time for humans, not now.

Contrary to the thought, however, Dean and Sam stayed.

"You could bunk here if you like," she'd said suddenly as they stood by the car. The stars were out and figures moved in every shadow, the night lit by firelight only. Somewhere a girl was singing what sounded like an Irish lament.

Sam glanced at the gates and the silent, sullen groups of men still posted outside of there. "That...might be good."

Max shrugged. "It's no problem," she said briskly. "We can put you up."

The brothers had exchanged a glance and then Dean slammed the door shut. "Why the hell not? I assume nobody's going to steal the car."

Max barely smiled. "They'd answer to me if they did. Don't worry."

"Do you have a place to get drinks?" he asked her. She met his eyes and hesitated.

God, that face...

"Yes," she said softly. "We do. Follow me."

They passed her people on the way - a cat girl with silky whiskers and a bowie knife stuck through her belt, an X7 clinging to an X5 male and crying softly, transgenics everywhere mourning in their own way. The night felt surreal.

The loss felt raw and bloody, like a missing limb. No Alec walking beside her in the warm silent dark with the promise of the night in his fingers on hers. No laughter.

Childish, like a comic book or a Hollywood movie, she'd never imagined Alec dying. Had found it indecipherable.

They'd converted one of the science labs into a bar - in the mishmash of glasses for use were beakers and jars. But alcohol was the same everywhere.

Tonight, the electric lights were off. Candles flickered everywhere around the room and the soft hum of conversations went on.

They were soldiers, and soldiers were trained to accept the death of comrades in action. But this was Alec, who had worked alongside Max, alongside all of them, half of Terminal City's heart, some symbol of freedom. Losing him felt like the beginning of defeat.

Freak Nation was mourning its loss.

She tapped the bar, got the attention of the X5 on bartending duty, and jerked her head towards Dean.

Dean ran a professional eye over the mismatched collection of unlabeled bottles and said, "Something hard."

The bartender, a lean kid named AJ, nodded and turned away, fetching a green plastic kid's cup and sloshing amber liquid into it. Sam gave a soft snort of laughter as Dean picked up the cup, but it was big and nearly full and apparently that was enough for his brother.

He took a deep drink and leaned onto his elbows. Max watched the way the candlelight cast shadows from his hair, falling into damp spikes, and then glanced at AJ. The boy looked back and then nodded and turned for another glass.

"We didn't mean to intrude," Sam told her quietly, rubbing his knuckles along the slab of wood they'd erected for the bar.

Max got an actual glass; she put it down, picked it up and rubbed at the ring left behind. "Yeah, you did. But it's all right." She knocked back the liquid, coughed at the burn, and gestured for another. AJ wordlessly obeyed but the arch of his winged black eyebrows was skeptical.

Max lifted one hand to sweep long dark hair back over one shoulder and finally looked up at them again, her mouth a tight line. "Still, you'd better go tomorrow. I don't think..." A beat of silence. "I don't think this is the best time to be making friends."

"Warning delivered." Dean took a last drink from his cup and then slid it across the counter to AJ. "I guess I'm done here."

"Then I'll take you to your rooms." Max knocked back her second glass in a long drink and dropped it, going for the door almost faster than she'd intended.

"We could probably share one," Sam said, nearly knocking the stool over to follow as she moved quickly away.

Max glanced over her shoulder, eyebrows rising. "When I said rooms? I meant closets. Your rooms are gonna be small. A lot of the transgenics who left Seattle came back for the funeral, so we're short on space."

"I wouldn't mind a little extra room." Dean shrugged his jacket higher around his ears. "Lead on."

She found the building she wanted and slipped inside, winding through dark hallways and passing small nooks where transgenics curled together for the simple comfort of touch.

She checked several doors and then wordlessly opened two. There was a room between them and the brothers exchanged another one of those speaking looks. Dean shrugged and Sam picked the door on the left, closing it behind him after a murmured thanks.

Max closed her eyes for a brief, exhausted moment.

"You look tired," Dean said, standing with one hand on the doorknob, watching her.

She stared back and her lips parted on an exhale. "Shark DNA," was what came out. "I don't need to sleep."

He raised his eyebrows again - that slow, sardonic expression that was familiar and yet not as much as it had first seemed.

"Goodbye, Dean," she said quietly, then turned and walked away.

Max went to Alec's grave.

It had started raining on the way; a soft drizzle that plastered her damp hair to her face and shoulders and left her black leather jacket gleaming with water.

She stood there and didn't know what had brought her here, didn't understand what she was doing, why she was still trying. Everything was falling apart under her fingertips, every dream she'd cherished. He'd had them there with her and Max fell to her knees in the mud and wished she could slide into the grave beside him.

They'd become people, fought and won their way to a life they could value. It felt like a empty victory now; fools gold, tin painted glittering or eggshells painted bright colors, and she wished, savagely and suddenly that she'd never burnt down Manticore, that she'd never met Eyes Only. That she'd never killed Alec, again and again in a shadowy forest, crucified him on the price of her life in a barren warehouse.

She was cold to the bone and fighting it - there had to be something worth it here, in this place and this life, to find. It couldn't all be the loss and the death.

But it sure as hell felt like it, and she needed it to stop with the intensity of a child waking from a nightmare.

He opened the door on her second knock and she kissed him, pushed him inside with her fingers curling into his skin. He was warm and tousled - the narrow bed mussed, the sheets tossed back. But surely not asleep and she deepened the kiss, breath catching in her throat as he slid an open palm to the back of her head, hot and slick and familiar, the pulse quickening in her throat as his other hand pressed there, almost a threat.

She kicked the door shut behind her, moving into him, and he slammed her against the wall, pressed her there and then, bracing his hands on the wall on either side of her head, he pulled back.

He was looking at her with eyes narrowed to black but he seemed almost hesitant - gentler than she'd half expected. "I'm not him."

A sob of laughter caught in her throat. "I know." Haven't I spent enough of my life discerning between different men with this face?

"You're drunk -"

"I can't get drunk," she said softly. Slid her hands up over his wrists. "I'm not made for it."

He hesitated, her fingers curling around the weight of bone and muscle and warm, warm skin.

"Please," Max whispered, "please," and he kissed her again.

Hard and scorching sweet, almost vicious as his body pinned her there, heated from toe to breast, the weight of him against her as he cupped her ribcage in his palms, thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts. She was lost in the warmth of him, arching against his chest.

He made a sound low in his throat and pulled back, one hand sliding to brace across her back just above her hips, pulling her with him to the bed.

She fell on the mattress with a thump, her hands released and pulling at his shirt, stripping away the fabric, wrapping her hands around the smooth muscle of his shoulders and pulling him down onto her, pressing her lips to the dip of his collarbone, knees parted and hips rising to the weight of his. Warm, warm, god. She and Alec hadn't gotten this far, had still been tiptoeing around each other just a little, cautious, lost chances again. I guess I learn from my mistakes.

Thin pants at his hips that she shoved at and he shuddered and hissed as she scraped his skin with her teeth, cried out high and breathless as he yanked away, fingers flicking the button of her jeans, yanking at the zipper.

Max kicked her legs to help him get them off, his hands sliding silky open-palmed up her thighs, slipping deftly between them and her body arched, shoving her wrist into her mouth so she wouldn't scream out loud. He pulled it away, pinned both her arms into her pillow and she looked into his eyes, gasping for air as he moved -

Suddenly oh god, heat and slick pleasure and she found heaven at the tip of her fingers as they flexed and he thrust until their hips nearly met. She wound her legs around his waist, clinging, and wouldn't let him move away. Forced her eyes to open and tightened all over. His eyes and she gasped a cry, not a name or a word just a thin helpless moan.

He kissed her almost savagely, pressing her into the pillow, into the mattress, and started to move again. When she loosened her legs, pushing up helplessly, moving and writhing and restlessly begging under him, he buried his face in the side of her neck and she gasped, spine curling off the blankets, pressing into the sweet touch of his skin.

"Thank you," Max whispered against his ear. "Thank you." Then she tightened all over, shuddered, came in a sweet cascade of light, cried out against his skin, and somewhere in it she felt him go rigid against her.

He released her wrists and slid his hands down her sides, to her hips, her legs that wouldn't unlock from his waist. Max lowered her arms and wrapped them around his shoulders, holding him close as their breathing evened out.

He held her and she almost slept, in the warm enfolding dark.

She still left before he woke up.

But the next morning, she went to wait at the car, leaned one hip on the hood and watched them approach. Dean checked himself - barely, but perceptibly - at the sight of her.

Sam offered her a smile as they approached and she smiled back, something she couldn't have managed the day before.

Maybe she was on the way to healing.

"You're leaving now?" Max asked and met Dean's eyes over his shoulder. He half-smiled, unreadable and serious, and pushed past Sam to unlock the car.

"Uh, yeah," Sam replied, his brows arching as he took in his brother's behavior. "Like you suggested. Gem scored us some gas."

"Good luck, then." She locked her fingers together, made her smile a polite dismissal. "Goodbye."

He gave her an odd look but went around the car.

Max stepped to Dean's side of the car as he shut the door and bent to look into his face through the window as it slid down. He looked back - so similar, the same bones, the same color of eyes, but so different.

"Thank you, Dean," she breathed and then she pulled back and straightened up, turning away.

Max walked away with her back straight and her head held high and she passed out of sight before she heard the car start.

(A/N) It's possible this is too adult for ffnet. Someone tell me. Opinions? Thoughts?