His Fight -- Chapter 9

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.).

I walked through Terminal City on my way back to my apartment from the gym. Ever since my big epiphany last night my head has been spinning like crazy. Man, if I work out to clear my head then I must be in the best shape of my life right now. I don’t think that I’ve put in this many hours in the gym since before Manticore burnt down. I stretched my arms. My head is still a mess. I mean, what am I going to—

“Hey, Alec.”

Well, what do you know? “Hey, Max,” I said. “Where are you off to?”

“The usual,” Max said. “I’m going to go over the latest figures that Dix has got and then I’m going over to Joshua’s old place to spend some time with Logan before Krit and Syl get back here and then we’ve got that meeting.”

“Max, I love you,” I blurted out. Way to go, idiot. Just drop it on her out of the blue.

Max looked amused and…just a tiny bit hopeful? Either that or I’m hallucinating. “Excuse me?”

“I love you,” I repeated. What was the point in dropping it when the ice has already been broken? “I’m in love with you. That’s why I’ve been acting like such a dick about Logan recently.”

“Very funny, Alec,” she said. “Points for trying to take my mind off of how hectic this day is going to be fore me, though.”

“Max, I’m being serious for once,” I said. “I really am in love with you.” I tried to reach for her hand, but she yanked it away.

“Shut up,” she said. “You’re going beyond amusing and into getting your ass kicked territory. Knock it off.”

“Max, I’m sorry,” I said. “I just thought that I should tell you how I f—“

“Just shut up,” Max snapped. “I’ll see you around.” She stormed off.

I let my breath out and hung my head. It felt like I had taken a few rounds in the chest from an M-16. Nice going, you fucking moron. You just blurt it out completely out of nowhere and she gets pissed off and blows you off. I guess I really know where she stands, don’t I? I wiped tears from my face. Great, now I’m crying like a little girl. Just what I really need right now. Then again, can you really blame me for that?

“I’m sorry.”

I jumped and turned around to see Brenda standing behind me. “Thanks for the heart attack, Bren.”

“Anytime,” Brenda said, but her expression was clearly sympathetic. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I was on my way back from the nursery from dropping Pete off there because I have a million things that I wanted to get done, but it looks like you’re going to need my attention first. Come on.” She led me in the direction of the apartment building that both of us lived in and eventually into her apartment. She gestured to the couch. “Have a seat. You look like you could use something to drink.”

“Thanks,” I said gratefully. I waited while Brenda went into the kitchen and came out a few moments later with a glass with a clear liquid in it. I started to drink it and nearly choked on it in surprise. “This is water.”

“Duh,” Brenda said. “I said that you looked like you could use a drink, I didn’t say it was alcoholic.”

“Your sense of humor sucks,” I told her.

“Thank you, so does yours,” Brenda said. She sat down next to me. “Tell me the entire story here, Alec.”

“Last night I finally figured out that I’m madly in love with Max,” I said. “Which is at least part of the reason that I hate Logan so much. Though lets face it, the odds are pretty good that I would have hated the jerk anyway.”

Brenda nodded. “He definitely isn’t at the top of my list of my favorite people in the world.”

“I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do about how to go about telling Max how I felt about her,” I said. “Then, as you just heard, all I ended up doing was opening my big mouth and now she hates me except this time it hurts so much worse.” I sighed. Damn, I was really starting to feel depressed.

“Let’s take this one thing at a time,” Brenda said. “I’ll help you figure things out.” She smiled. “Good thing that one of my specialties is strategy, huh?”

“An intellectual who likes to blow shit up,” I said. “You’re so rare. Unfortunately, I prefer the type of woman who likes to beat the daylights out of me.”

“Then let’s put our heads together and figure out how to get her for you,” Brenda said. “How did Max sound to you when she told you to shut up? Did she seriously sound pissed or did she sound pissed but not quite completely angry and nothing else?”

I thought about it. “You know, she did sound kind of skittish. She only gets skittish like that when she’s nervous beyond comprehension, lying about something massive, or both at the same time.” I felt myself grinning. “She doesn’t hate me. Hell, I think there’s a damn good chance that she might even feel the same way about me that I do about her!”

“Then we’ve got a place to start from,” Brenda said. She smiled back at me. “This is Max, so you’re still going to need to tread carefully. Now that she knows where you stand, I think that you should not quite back off so much as be a lot more subtle about winning Max over or at least getting her to realize how she really feels about you. Personally, based on what I’ve observed of Max’s behavior and all, I’d have to agree that she’s really in love with you and doesn’t know it yet.”

“Yeah, she still thinks that Logan is her Mr. Right,” I said. I groaned. “She said that she was going to go over to roller boy’s place after she goes over something with Dix. She’s going to tell Logie all about what happened and he’s going to fill her head with so much B.S. about how big of a loser I am.”

“Unfortunately, the odds are that you’re right,” Brenda agreed.

I shrugged. “You know what? There are few things that I enjoy more than proving Logan wrong about something. He wants to try to convince Max that I’m a stupid jerk who’s good for absolutely nothing? Then I’ll just have to be the best friend that I can be to her. Dropping subtle reminders to her about how I feel, of course.” I took another sip of my water before I put the glass down on Brenda’s coffee table and leaned back. “Yep, I’ve got to show Logan what it is to be a real man.”

“I’ve always felt that all’s fair in love and war,” Brenda said. “God only knows that you know a lot about the latter.”

“And just about as much about love,” I said. I raised my glass in a mock toast. “Here’s to Max and here’s to love. May Logan lose this battle.” Logie my boy, you’re going to go down.