AN: Heeeey! Yes, I'm still alive. See, check my pulse. Sooo sorry I haven't updated in (gulp) almost a month. Classes this quarter are kind of tough, so I've had to cut back on my updating frequency. If you're one of my regular readers (thanks peeps!), you know that I used to update about once a week or week and a half, but now I'm going to have to go with a longer interval, like maybe two or a lot more like I've been doing recently. Real life sucks. ;P

And thank you ever so much for reading my story and reviewing—Wow, 35 reviews for 4 chapters! I feel good. Thanks everybody!

Right, about this chapter…kind of a filler, to tell you guys what's going on with Alec and Max before I go on to Sam and Dean. Doesn't really go anywhere. It just is.

Chapter 5

Alec tossed the paper he'd just finished writing on onto the colossal stack of "Finished" papers to his right and grabbed a "Useless but Need to Read and Fill Out" sheet from the slowly dwindling pile on his left. He glanced at his watch. Half-an-hour more and he'd go check on Max.

Max wasn't really the cuddling type when she was hurt—at least not with him. With Joshua maybe, but other Transgenics held the belief that their CO was the sort who wanted to be left to lick her wounds alone. Alec was kind of getting the vibe that she wasn't really, that maybe she just pushed people away when she in fact wanted them close.

And so that was why he was planning on dropping by Max's place again to see if her shakes had set in yet. If they were, he'd stay, no matter how much she yelled at him and threatened to kick his butt. Any comfort during those nasty genetic defect-caused seizures was welcome, right? At least that's how it was for him.

At that, he thought of how Dean had kept watch over him that night back in March when he'd had his own case of the shakes. And he hadn't made a whole big deal out of it after, much to Alec's relief. He was awesome.

Alec smiled. He'd enjoy meeting his biological family again, especially Dean, even if under these really weird circumstances—seriously, why couldn't those full-body tattoos have been in English? Minoan just looked…creepy. He pulled up his sleeve to examine the strange markings on his forearm again.

He suppressed a shudder and glanced at the papers near his left hand. Yes! Only two pages left. He put the whole of his genetically enhanced concentration on the task and quickly completed the forms. Then he stood up to lock up the office for the day.

There were still people milling about carrying on with their own work as Alec hurried through the city. Climbing the stairs to Max's place, he hoped that headache she'd had earlier was better. It had looked painful. Seeing his friend so vulnerable behind her tough chick act made him uneasy. He hated seeing her like that.

He'd walked into her office to tell her the new shipment of canned goods had come in when she'd suddenly grabbed her head in obvious pain. He'd rushed to her assistance but she was oblivious to his calls. Her eyes had glazed over and she had remained like that for what seemed like forever; in reality, it was probably something like half-a-minute, but it freaked him out. He'd shaken her and all but shouted her name in her face, even called her 452 to get her to react, but nothing worked.

Then all of a sudden, she'd woken up and snapped at him. She'd tried to shrug it off, but he could tell something was off about her. Especially when she'd agreed to go home for the day. But it wasn't just pain in her expression the minute she'd woken up from her trance-like state. It was fear. Max reeked of it, like a scared animal.

Still, true to form, she wouldn't tell him what was really wrong. Looks like Alec isn't the only one who doesn't know how to ask for help, or take it graciously when it is offered. Max is a big girl (figuratively speaking of course, looks-wise—damn, those curves), but she can't take care of herself.

He'd just have to force his help on her. Alec wrinkled his nose. It's a tough job, but someone's gotta do it; someone who's not scared shitless by Maxie's sharp bark and equally shark-toothed bite. He hadn't asked Joshua to look in on her because he was sure Max wouldn't want him to tell anyone about her being "weak." Something about betraying her trust, yadda-yadda.

When he cautiously entered the darkened apartment, his senses were put on edge by the stillness in the atmosphere. "Max?" He whispered and headed towards the tiny bedroom after a quick look around. "You in?"

He noiselessly pushed the door open to find Max's petite form curled up under the covers. She was asleep.

But not for long. Dark eyelashes fluttered open and muscles tensed, sensing anther presence in the room.

"It's me. Sorry I woke you up," Alec said in as low a voice as he could manage. Loud noises were a bitch when you had a headache. "You okay?"

Max sat up. "Yeah." She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and ran a hand through her tousled locks. "What are you doing here?"

Alec shrugged. "Just checkin' in on you. Seizures?"

Max eyed him warily. He came to check on her? Why would he do that? She shook her head. "No, no seizures, and the headache's all gone."

Alec looked unconvinced. "Sure you're ok? Take your pills?" He crossed his arms at his chest and stared her down with a keen look, as if looking for cracks in her mask. His hazel gaze pierced through the darkness of her bedroom and pinned her where she sat.

She felt her walls go up. "Yes." And she was. She was perfectly fine. Her bottom lip stuck out unconsciously as she glared back up at him in defiance.

"Uh-huh." Alec sighed, shook his head, and all of a sudden, deflated. His shoulders slumped down. He ran a hand over his face and Max was struck by how tired the male X5 appeared. He looked at her with a serious expression. "You don't look okay. Something's bothering you, and that headache-zone-out you had today in the office wasn't normal. What's going on with you? Do you need to go down to see the medic?"

"No!" she spat out. "Nothing's going on and I don't need any help. I'm. Fine."

Alec huffed and sat down on the edge of her bed. "Come on, Maxie," he cajoled in an unexpectedly gentle voice. "Work with me here. I'm worried about you, okay? Talk to me."

Wait a minute. Max blinked. "You were worried about me? That's why you came?"

Alec raised an eyebrow incredulously. "Uh seriously, Max? Of course I'm worried about you. You're my friend. Friend, Max. Remember? Jeesh. You're the one who's the friggin' Yoda on the topic." He rolled his eyes in false exasperation. "Care about friends, friends do," he squeaked in an intentionally bad imitation of the furry green puppet.

A small smile rose unbidden to her mouth at that. "Idiot."

He smirked. "At your service, ma'am," he saluted. He got a smack on the leg for that. "So you gonna tell me what's up with you?"

Max looked at Alec. Her friend. He was right. Friends care. Okay. She nodded, her smile from earlier replaced by a grim line. "That headache earlier? I…I saw something."

Perfectly sculpted eyebrows (she bet he plucked them—or maybe not, knowing Manticore) flew up. "Saw something? Saw what? From what I recall, you were staring straight at me but not seeing me during the whole...fit thing." Scared the shit out of him too.

"Eyes. I saw eyes." She glanced at him to gauge his reaction.

Alec chewed on that for a short while. "Eyes. Okay. Um, what kind of eyes? Like, were they creepy stalker eyes, puppy-dog eyes, anime eyes, The Eye (man, that chick was hot—kinda looked like you, too)—" She hit him again. "Ow! I'm trying to help, woman! Stop with the manhandling!"

Max glared at him. "Not helping." She sighed and went on. "They were yellow. Like maybe some kind of animal, I dunno, a snake's eyes maybe? A reptile—something coldblooded, anyway. They were just plain evil. And seeing them made me feel…" She stopped and shuddered. She didn't want to go on.

"Feel what?" Alec prompted her. He already had an idea of how it made her feel, but it would help her to say it.

Max took a deep breath and locked gazes with him. "It scared me."

Alec blinked. Huh, that was easy to get out of her; not quite what he was expecting, which was more along the lines of 'Never mind. Why am I talking to you, dumbass?' "Why?" he inquired, curious as to what eyes had to do with her fear. "Did whatever they belonged to say something to scare you?"

Max shook her head, brown locks flying every which way. "No, they just scared me. Like I felt…cold, and…"

Alec saw the fear in her eyes, the vulnerability, and scooted closer to her on the bed. "It's okay, Maxie." He tried to think of something to make her relax. She was curled up as tight as she could get with her arms around her knees. "It's just stress. You were seeing things. Working too hard will do that to ya. I'm no Freud but it was probably snake eyes because you're always thinking about the Familiars, and you know them and how they are with their snake-fetish. Or maybe it means you need to get a little snakin' in the—"

Max whacked him again. He put on his saddest mock hurt face in his arsenal. Oh, the things he endures for his county. City. Whatever…Friends. "Ew!" she all but shouted. "No! No. It was like a vision. Or…or a premonition."

"Premonition." Alec frowned. Max had never told him (or anyone else for that matter) about the one she'd had at Jam Pony or any of the ones after. "You mean you think it's related to your writing and mine and all that apocalyptic end-of-the-world stuff?"

Max sniffed and shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe."

"Oh." He thought for a moment. "Well, I guess we can tell Sam and Dean when they call with the translations, right?" They'd know what to do. With all this weird-ass psychic stuff starting, maybe it was time to call in the experts on stuff like that. Because this new revelation had seriously startled him and Max's fear was sort of rubbing off on him too.

"No," Max said quickly. "What if…what if they see me as something to—" She bit her lip and flicked her eyes to Alec.

"Hunt?" he prompted, raising his eyebrows. "They'd never hunt you, Max. They're Sam and Dean. Come on." He paused to purse his lips. "Besides, even if they did, I wouldn't let them kill you. They'd have to get past me first." He smirked.

Max stood up. For some reason, that made her mad. "I don't need you protectingme. I can take care of myself." She glared down at Alec. "And what's with the blind faith you have in the Winchesters, huh? You've only known them what? A couple months, and you're ready to trust them just like that? You don't really know them. They kill things that aren't human. Last I checked, we're not completely human."

Alec got on his feet, too, and glowered back at her. "Seriously, Max? You're not bringing back the whole 'human/not human' argument, are you?" He broke eye contact and huffed out an exasperated sigh. "And what do you mean, 'blind faith'? Sure, I've known them only that long, but jeesh, Max. I know them better than you do. I know who I can trust," he said, his voice cold.

Max flinched at the hard tone. She didn't mean to hurt his feelings by saying that about Sam and Dean. But she wasn't about to back down. "Fine," she said with false bravado, "Just don't come running to me if they turn out differently than you hoped."

Ouch. Shit, Alec hadn't meant to make Max mad. Oh, who was he kidding, he was pro at "maddening" Max. If it was an Olympic event (he'd heard about those pre-Pulse athletic competition-game things), he'd have a gold medal for it.

But come on. Dean and Sam didn't deserve to have that said about them. It's not like they were out hunting Transhumans for sport. "Fine. I won't," he said. He'd like to win a fight for once, without it getting physical. "What is your problem, Max?"

Alec watched the 'What's my problem? What's your damn problem?' look pass across her face and before she could draw a breath to actually voice it, he sighed. You know what? He changed his mind; he hated fighting. "You want me to go now?" he mumbled and dropped his gaze. Teasing was different, but fighting sucked. Twenty years of forced combat kind of left a bad taste for it in his mouth. Suddenly, he was sick of fighting.

What the—? Max blinked again in surprise at the abrupt change in Alec. She'd been getting prepared for a verbal sparring, but this, this was weird, like he just wanted out all of a sudden. "Yeah," she eyed him warily. "I gotta go get some work done." Which was true. She'd had a whole stack of stuff left to look at and fill out before she'd come home early.

Alec turned away and walked towards the door. "No, stay here and rest up." He shrugged. "I did it already." His back was to her, so she couldn't see his face, but his voice was carefully schooled to seem as if he was "normal." Normal Alec.

But she could tell something was off about him. Was he mad? Did she hurt him that bad with her words? So she said the only thing she could think of to say: "You did." What? Even a genius had her off days, especially after a weird vision accompanied by a cranium-splitting headache.

Alec drew a deep breath and stopped. "Yes. I did." He turned, but his features were hidden, as he was silhouetted against the lighter room beyond the bedroom doorway. "Why, does that surprise you? I thought you were having your seizures so I did the paperwork for you." His voice was weary.

"Oh." Max pursed her lips and contemplated the inflection of his voice. Weary? Weary of what? "Thanks."

Alec turned and walked away from her again. He clapped his hands together in a smooth movement, the impact making a popping sound in the otherwise quiet apartment. "No problem."

Max followed him out into her living room. "You leaving?" She didn't want him to leave like that. She needed to know what was up before she could let him leave.

"Yeah." It sounded like more than that. It sounded like, 'No shit, Max, I'm leaving. See me walking towards the door? That's called leaving.' It sounded like that, but Normal Alec would actually say it with a cocky smirk. This Alec said the one word in a tight, impatient voice. Like he just wanted to get away from her already.

Shit, was he that mad at her? For saying that stuff about his family? Hell, she'd pretty much bitten his head off when he'd said some not-that-great stuff about her family (and had been right, not that she'd ever tell him). So why wouldn't he get miffed that she'd insulted his DNA pool?

She really didn't want him walking out that door angry. He was too good a friend to get into a serious fight with. "Wait, want something to drink before you go?" Max-speak for 'I'm sorry.'

His hand paused on the cold door-handle. Max wanted him to stay? She'd sounded like she wanted him out of her sight five seconds before. And now she was asking him if he wanted a drink? Must be that time of the month. Do Transgenics even PMS? But he was wandering from the main point. "You want me to stay?" Just to clarify.

Max shrugged uneasily and crossed her arms. "If you want to."

Alec moved back into the middle of the room, closer to Max. "Okay…" Equally uncertain. "So whatcha got?"

Max relaxed at Alec's wide—albeit slightly forced—smile. Phew, close call. "Milk."

"You're offering your much-suffering guest milk?" Alec exploded. "Maaax," he whined. Maybe he was pushing his luck, but—

"Well, you are part cat." Max threw over her shoulder on the way to her tiny kitchen. "Anyway, it's all I have."

Alec settled himself comfortably down on her worn-out hole-y couch. "Remind me to snag you some coffee next supply run."

So, back to normal, after a weird-ass "fight." He shook his head. Was it even a fight? Or a misunderstanding? Huh, maybe he should take her up on her offer to talk. They needed to get some things straight. But first things first.

"Hey Max?"

"Yeah?"

"You'd tell me if you ever have a vision of the winning lottery numbers, right?"

"Alec!"

AN: I know, not my best, but I wanted to do something with Alec and Max with her telling him about her vision, and this is what I got. It's longer than usual for a "filler" chap, huh? Ick. Next chapter will be better.