DISCLAIMER: All DARK ANGEL characters belong to James Cameron and Charles Eglee (Cameron Eglee Productions) and DARK ANGEL itself belongs to FOX.

ARCHIVE: No

Artwork courtesy of Valjean & JRAUnlimited.com

He wasn't in the Art Mall office, or in the control center, or at Crash. If he was in that slut's bed, she definitely wasn't going to find him, so the only place she could reasonably now look was--

"I thought you might be up here," Max said, treading lightly across the metal skin of the Space Needle's roof even though she knew he'd already heard her. She lowered herself beside him, sitting Indian style the same way he was, with his long legs crossed and hands resting easily on his knees. "You really all right?"

"Now you ask?" Alec said, turning to her with a twinkle in his eye and a typical smirk on his lips. "You've been so mad at me the past couple of days for almost dyin' I wasn't sure when you'd get back to just your usual 'blame Alec' mode."

"I'm not blaming you for getting shot," Max said defensively. "It's just ... I was worried."

"About me?"

"About what would happen to all the stuff you have going in Terminal City if you weren't around to handle it."

"Meaning I'm necessary?"

"Marginally so, but yes," Max conceded with a little smile, their verbal sparring refreshing as well as comforting. It meant everything really was all right with Alec. She looked out over the twinkling lights of nighttime Seattle. "You come up here to get away from all the crap?" she asked.

"Is there any other reason?" he said, leaning back on his elbows, stretching those long legs out, and craning his neck to look up at the cold starry sky. "I don't think I've ever thanked you for introducing me to this perch of yours, Max. It makes a nice getaway."

"Sam Carr says you've got a mild case of pneumonia," she said, changing the subject. "Although, I can barely see that scratch on your forehead now. Guess the concussion wasn't so bad."

Alec looked at her slyly. "Maybe I had pneumonia this morning when he took those X-rays at his clinic, but I feel fine tonight. Those good transgenic genes of mine I suppose."

"Still," she said. "Take it easy for a couple of days. Don't ... exert yourself too much."

Alec cocked an eyebrow at that.

"Get your mind out of the gutter," she chided him.

"Takes one to know one," Alec tossed off. Then, "Why'd you come up here, Max? You weren't really lookin' for me, were you?"

"Maybe I just wanted to see if you were all right," she said. And all of a sudden Max realized she'd had this conversation with Alec before, only at the time the roles were reversed. Way back then -- at Brain's apartment before he'd made it his own -- Alec really had been worried about her, and she'd blown him off, just like she routinely had been doing ever since.

Alec didn't seem to recognize the irony of the conversation. "Yeah, right," he drawled. "The day you worry about me is the day Hell freezes over."

Max swallowed hard, and knew she had to leave -- now. She wasn't sure why, but her heart was pounding and her hands were starting to shake. What Logan had said about her really wanting Alec all along, and the way she'd felt when she saw him alive and well that morning even though she'd covered her emotions with fake anger ... being alone with him up here now was--

Dangerous.

"It's getting really cold," Max said through chattering teeth, hugging herself as she got to her feet. "I'll see you tomorrow. Don't be late for the morning meeting."