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 & JensenAckles.org

"Nice seeing you again," Alec called out with a little wave as Asha swept out the door without saying a word to anyone. "Let's do it again sometime!" he added to her vanishing back.

He turned to Max who'd just come out of the kitchen. "What the hell's her problem?"

Logan, too, was staring at Max.

"Cramps," Max said. "She was getting cramps and needed to go home.

Alec didn't believe Max for a second, figuring maybe there'd been a cat fight in the kitchen while he and Logan had been confabbing over that damned map -- but he let it drop as he reached for his own jacket on the rack by the door. "Well," he said. "I don't have cramps, but I think I'll call it a night too. Thanks for dinner, Logan, and the Scotch, and the interrogation."

"Wait up!" Max called out. "You goin' back to TC?"

"Yeah," Alec said, his eyebrows rising with suspicion. "Thought I'd check in with the guys." He wondered what Max wanted with him.

"I'll go with you."

"Max?" Logan said.

"I'll be back a little later," she said weakly, chasing after Alec out the door and pulling it closed behind herself. She caught up with him at the end of the hallway.

"I'm leavin' by the front this time, Max," the X5 said tiredly. "You don't have to provide an escort."

"Asha's in love with you," Max said.

Alec whirled around, stopping just short of the flight of steps leading down to the street. In fact, if it hadn't been for his natural sense of balance, he might have fallen down them. "What?" he said, dismay evident on his handsome face. "You're kidding!"

"If you want a chance with a really nice girl, this is it," Max pushed ahead. "Ask her out on a date, Alec. The transgenics are out in the public now ... accepted ... the Breeding Cult's neutralized ... there's apparently no world plague happening, and Manticore's gone for good unless Lydecker manages to resurrect it like he's trying. There's nothing stopping you from having a life now, Alec. No reason you shouldn't be happy with someone like--"

She stopped.

"Like you are with Logan?" Alec supplied for her. He took a huge breath and blew the air out slowly, looking up at the cracked ceiling of the old building. Then he lowered his eyes and pinned her down -- gloves off, no holds barred. "Max, why the hell are you so concerned all of a sudden about my love life, or lack thereof?"

"Because maybe I care about you," Max said. "Like a brother," she quickly tacked on.

"No," Alec said softly, looking deeply into her eyes now ... searching. "That's not it, and we both know it."

"Then what is it?" Max challenged. "You think I'm fixin' you up with Asha just so your sex life will improve?"

"I think you're tryin' to fix me up with Asha to get me out of the way of you and Logan," Alec said cuttingly. "I think when you thought I was dead you realized something about me, Max. You realized that you don't hate me at all. In fact, you like me ... maybe too much. You've got feelings for me that you don't want to admit -- feelings that are interferin' with your white-picket-fence-life with Logan."

He expected her to look flabbergasted at his words, or perhaps even hit him. It had been a stab in the dark he'd taken just then -- putting into words the feeling that had been gnawing in his gut the past few days -- that somehow he was getting between Max and Logan in spite of himself. Now, time to see if it was true or not.

"Say something," the X5 said a moment later when Max was still just staring up at him, her brown eyes wide and starting to fill with tears. "Or hit me maybe? Tell me I'm wrong, Max. Please ... tell me I'm wrong."

He wanted to be wrong ... or did he? Because if he was right, then that meant his life had just gotten a whole helluva lot more complicated, not to mention painful.

"Alec," Max said quietly. She glanced back over her shoulder, up the hallway to where Logan was waiting behind the door of the apartment they shared. "Do you love me?"

And there it was -- the elephant in the room ... the one thing both of them had been avoiding for years ... the thing he hadn't even known for certain himself. Until now ...

"Yes," he said simply.