DISCLAIMER: All DARK ANGEL characters belong to James Cameron and Charles Eglee (Cameron Eglee Productions) and DARK ANGEL itself belongs to FOX.
ARCHIVE: No
The following short story is based on characters
created for the television series DARK ANGEL,
and is set in the time frame following the Max Allan Collins novel AFTER THE DARK. -- author's note
"We are, Alec. We're still friends. We're fine. Just ... "
"Just what? Forget about it? Pretend it never happened?"
"Yeah. That pretty much works for me. And you said it would work for you too, remember?"
Alec took a deep ragged breath and looked out over the main compound of Terminal City. Unable to help himself, his eyes went to Logan Cale who was seated in front of the computer systems on the upper level, paying one of his rare in-person visits to TC to give Dix and Luke a hand with the hard drives.
"So, you're never gonna tell him?" he said, still staring at Max's beloved.
"No. Why should I?"
"If I was a man in love with a woman, and that woman had slept with another man behind my back, I'd wanna know."
"Would you? Would you really, Alec?"
"It's called trust, Max. People in love don't keep secrets from one another."
"And if your girl told you she'd just had a fling with one of your best friends what would you do then? Tell me the truth, Alec? What would you do?"
Alec clenched his jaw, still looking at Logan. Finally, hazel-green eyes narrowed slightly. "I'd kill him," he said softly. "Friend or not, I'd kill the bastard."
Max was looking at him intently, knowingly. "Exactly," she whispered.
Alec rounded on her then, his fists clenched tightly. "But Logan's not me," he said, his voice growing hard. "Logan knows about your heat cycles. He knows what you are, that you can't help yourself, and that he can't ... give you what you need. You've slept with other guys before. We could explain to him how--"
"How what?" Max asked, dark eyebrows arching. "How you lost control too? How our feline DNA makes it nearly impossible for X5s to resist one another when the female comes in heat? I know you were out of your head the other night, too, Alec. I was there, remember, and we've both got the scars to prove it. But I refuse to have Logan think I'm no better than an animal, that I couldn't help having sex with you. So just ... shut up about it."
"In other words," he said cynically, "it never happened."
Max threw up her hands in exasperation. "If this was about anything else, Alec, you'd have no trouble lying through your teeth. Why the hell can't you just chalk this one up to a great one night stand and move on? The last thing we need to do right now is hurt Logan. He already thinks there's something going on between us anyway--"
Alec's sharp laugh interrupted her words. "No thanks to your little lie about us bein' together, even if you did come clean with him on that point. Of course the guy's suspicious. And now he's got reason to be. I told you I don't wanna be the bad guy in this, Max. I like Logan. I respect the man -- and there are damn few people in the world I can say that about. I'm sorry enough already for my part in messin' up his life, even if the virus thing has been fixed."
"So, you think telling Logan you and I had sex together three nights ago is going to somehow clear the air?" Max scoffed. "Make everything all hunky dory between the two of you so you can go off, have a beer, and be best buds? Alec, if I tell Logan what happened, he's never going to trust either of us again."
"And he shouldn't," Alec said quietly. "Trust us that is. We betrayed him, Max. And that's one thing I don't do ... betray my friends."
"So what?" she said. "You want to tell him and let him punish us?"
The X5 looked at her -- hard. "It would be a start. Yeah. At least then there wouldn't be a lie."
"No," she agreed. "Just a lot of pain, and the end of our friendships. Is it worth that to you, Alec? Does this new found integrity of yours come at that high a price? It will destroy all of us you know. Logan will never look at me the same way again. He'll hate you. And as for you and me ..." She let the words trail off.
"What about you and me, Max?"
"We'd mess up what we have, whatever the hell that is," she said. "And, the truth is, I'd hate losing that almost as much as I'd hate losing Logan."
If you weren't in love with Logan, I'd ask you to be my girl. But Alec didn't say those words out loud, because she was in love with Logan, which made everything else a moot point.
"Fine," he said, looking once again at Logan and envying him his oblivian. "You win. I won't say anything."
"Thanks," Max said, her eyes raking him one last time, cutting his heart to shreds before walking away.
