His Fight -- Chapter 11

Disclaimer:  The TV show Dark Angel, all of the characters that appeared on it (Max, Alec, Logan, etc.), and everything else that has to do with the show belong to their respective owners, not to me.  No money is being made off of this fic.  I only own the original characters (Brenda/X5-008, etc.).

“Glad that you could join me, man,” I said to Krit the next day when he entered my tiny ass office in the main building in Terminal City. “Park yourself on that chair.”

“Will do,” Krit said. “What’s up, Alec?”

“I need your help,” I said. “I’m guessing that you heard by now what I said to Max, right?”

“Yeah, that you’re in love with her,” Krit said. “You need my help getting my sister to come around about how she feels about you? No problem. I’m there.”

That was easy. “Thanks. You just saved myself some breath,” I remarked.

Krit laughed. “No problem. I never liked that guy.” He frowned. “When we were planning the DNA lab job, he was…I won’t get into it, but let’s just say that he hasn’t changed at all since when I first met him so I’m sure that you have a pretty good idea of the specifics of my personal opinion of Logan Cale.”

“So, what do we do?” I asked. “You know Max even better than I do. I want to be subtle because I know that if I go for the bold approach she’ll hand me my head on a silver platter. What I’m still not sure about is just how subtle I’ll need to be. I probably really know her enough by now to know how I need to go about this, but it’s a different story when you’re on this end. You know what I mean?”

“Oh yeah,” Krit said. “I can tell you for sure that cornering her where there’s nobody around in shouting distance is a bad thing for both of you. I mean, it’ll be bad for her because she’ll feel trapped before you can get any words out of your mouth and it’ll be bad for you if she gets pissed, though I’m sure she won’t be if you don’t make your move too soon, and decides to beat the living crap out of you. If and when you do make your move again, make sure that you have privacy but keep within shouting distance of somebody like myself, Syl, Jondy, Zane, Brenda, Nick, or even Mole. Think of it as a safety blanket or backup for the two of you.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” I said. I should have asked for Krit’s advice sooner. “I should give it some more time before I give it another go, probably at least two or so weeks. That should be enough time for Max to calm down and loosen up, right? Not to mention that it’ll lull Logie into a false sense of security when he doesn’t see me making any obvious kinds of moves on Max.” I couldn’t help grinning at that thought. Tricking Logan like that would be a lot of fun. Krit also grinned. It’s nice to have friends that think along the same lines as you do.

“Not a bad idea at all,” he said.

“We are on a roll,” I agreed. I cracked my knuckles. “I think we should bring some people into our plans. I know for sure that Brenda would be willing to go along with us and Nick would almost certainly join in as well. What about the other present members of your gang? What do you think about them?”

“They’ll be ready, willing, and able,” Krit assured me. “Syl, Jondy, Zane, and Brin will all be wanting to help as soon as I say the word.” His smile became slightly sad. “I think this might be good for Brin in a way, you know? Participating in a group activity with her sibs. She’s still a little bit shaken and not all the way back to normal from the mind job that Manticore did to her from when she’d been taken back after she’d gotten sick.”

“Those kinds of deals can last awhile,” I said. How many of those did they try to do on me? It wasn’t fun any time that it happened. I tried to shake myself out of it. “Anyway, how about—“ I heard voices coming from the control room and Krit and I got up, left my office, and headed in the direction that we’d heard the noises from. When we got to the control room, we saw Max and Logan standing near one of the other entrances talking. Well, Logan was trying to talk to Max and Max’s patience was about to be thrown out the window. Krit and I stood in the back of the room and tried not to be too obvious.

“Max, are you sure that you don’t want to just go outside for awhile?” Logan asked. “You can borrow a helmet or a hat or something to keep your face hidden. I know this great little place that’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere that has the best Italian food that you will ever have in your lifetime and—“

“Logan, no,” Max said, cutting Miracle Boy off cold. “I already told you that I’ve got a lot of business to take care of here tonight. It’s a damn good thing that I don’t sleep because I’m going to need those hours to get all of those things done and before you say anything, yes, they do have to get done tonight. We’ll do something tomorrow night or the night after. I promise.”

“Max, it can’t be that much work,” Logan said. “Besides, don’t you have people here to help you? Just give it to Alec and let him do everything and just take a night off to enjoy yourself.” You are so lucky that Krit’s here to stop me from going up to you and giving you the mother of all ass kickings.

“I do have people to help me run this city and they’re already loaded with work to do,” Max said. “Especially Alec since he’s my right hand man around here. It wouldn’t be fair of me to just dump all of the stuff that I’m supposed to do on top of his work load and expect it all to be done by the morning when it’s supposed to be completed. And did I mention the fact that Alec needs to get about three or four hours of sleep every night? He doesn’t have any shark DNA in him.”

“If you just don’t want to spend the night with me, why don’t you just say so?” Logan snapped.

“I do want to go have dinner with you,” Max said angrily. “Were you listening to a single word that I was saying? I want to have dinner with you tonight but I can’t because I have work to do. Did you understand me this time or do I have to repeat myself again?”

“Max, listen to me,” Logan said. What are you going to lecture her on now, Daddy? “You are working yourself much too hard. You need to take a rest and get away from people like Alec. He’s all over you like some sick puppy dog. The man just says he loves you and won’t leave you alone. Let’s go, Max. I’m going to take you to dinner.”

“Excuse me? Where do you get off telling me what to do?” Max yelled. “Alec’s timing might suck, you were right about that, but at least he’s a man and knows when to back off.” Max, you just made my day! “You just will not give up even when you know that you aren’t winning or won’t win a point. And besides, may I remind you that we’re in a very public place and you’re treating me like a little girl? Back off right now, Logan.”

“I am not treating you like a little girl,” Logan began. Um, yes you are. “But you are sure acting like one. Calm down right now and let’s go get some food.”

Explosion in 5…4…3…2…1… “You are not my father!” Max snapped. “You might be older than me by a good eleven years, but that does not mean that you have any right to treat me like I’m a baby.” She glared at him and even I had to wince. “You have no idea how happy I am that the virus is gone and that I don’t have to worry about you keeling over at the slightest touch. Now since that bitch is out of the way, I can take my time kicking your ass and enjoy every minute of it.”

“What do you mean, Max?”

“I mean, get out of Terminal City right now,” Max said. “We’re done. You shouldn’t even be here in the first place because of the toxins, remember?”

“We’re done? What do you mean, we’re done?” Logan demanded.

“I mean that we’re finished,” Max said. “There’s no such thing as ‘us’ from this point on. If you want to get your head out of your ass and still be friends, then I have no problem with that. I would like that. But as of right now, we’re not ‘like that.’” She pointed to the door that they had entered the control room from. “Go, Logan.” She watched him leave and stood there for several moments after he was long gone before she turned around and walked right by Krit and me and left the control room herself. My jaw was on the floor. As much as I didn’t like Logan, I didn’t expect this to happen or at least not the way that it did. I felt torn. I knew that I should follow her, it killed me to see her this upset, but I didn’t know how she would react to seeing me considering what had gone down over the last few days. I made eye contact with Jondy and Brenda, who had been in the room as well, and they nodded in understanding and went after Max. Krit and I gave each other a look and we retreated back to my office.

“I don’t believe it,” Krit said. “Poor Maxie.”

“Yeah,” I said. “After knowing the guy for all this time and going through what they had, for it to end like this…damn.” I sighed. “I wanted them to break up, but I never wanted it to hurt Max, much less the way that it did. You saw the look on her face after Logan left. I feel horrible.”

“You and me both,” Krit said.

“Yep,” I said. Not much else I could say. Poor Max.