Summary: While every TV station is covering the siege at Terminal City, everyone in America is watching - including a man who says he used to date a transgenic. For some reason, no one quite believes Eric. One-Shot fun.

Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel. Are you shocked?

A/N: I was working on Trails of Unease and watching Heat and this wouldn't leave me alone 'til I wrote it. To be honest, it gave me this new plot bunny to take care of.

McAllister's was the best bar in Portland - at least that's what the rusty sign out front said anyway. Inside it seemed to be a different story. The tiny bar was dim inside, lit only by one light dangling from the ceiling and the flickering from the various neon beer advertisements. The never-ending cloud of smoke didn't help the interior much either, but the small crowd that frequented the place never complained. As long as the beer was cold and the pool table was operational, everything was copasetic. The bartenders didn't mind either as long as they got to go home without any injuries.

The bartender on that night, Lauren, was dealing with the usual crowd when the door opened and a new set of people poured in, already drunk and singing idiotic songs.

"Calm down, boys," she shouted over them.

"Channel seven! Channel seven!" the crowd began chanting.

Lauren rolled her eyes. There was a soccer game on channel seven - she knew because it was all her boyfriend would talk about before she had left for work. She shook her head and switched the television on.

Instead of soccer, channel seven was running a special report.

"Leslie Turner here, on location in Seattle," the perfectly coifed reporter on the television said. "I'm here covering the latest developments in the transgenic story. The situation reached its boiling point when police followed a van of transgenic into the toxic area of the city known as Terminal City. After chasing police out of the area, a group of transgenics retreated to the rooftops, where we can see their leader, known only to the media as 452."

The camera panned away from the reporter and zoomed in to a rooftop in the distance. The camera scanned the transgenics then came to rest on a dark-haired woman clad in leather.

Lauren heard the sound of someone spitting out their beer then felt something on her hand. She looked down in disgust and wiped the sprayed liquid on her apron.

"What's your problem?" she asked the man sitting in front of her.

Beer was dribbling down his chin and he looked to be in utter shock.

"I - I -"

"Spit it out!" the man next to him cried and slapped a hand on his back.

"I used to date that girl!" he exclaimed and pointed to the screen.

The man next to him laughed. "Yeah, sure ya did Eric."

"No, no, I did!" Eric insisted. "When I lived in Seattle. We met in a bar and she took me home and… I slept with one of those transgenics!"

The man next to him laughed again and sipped on a beer. "Yeah, you went home with the hottest mutant freak on the planet and kicked it. Just like your uncle's got the in with the Sector Police, right, Eric? Or how your grandma was in the CIA?"

"This time I swear I'm not lying," Eric said, still transfixed by the images on the television. "I bought her motor oil."

"Motor oil? Like you could afford motor oil," his friend said, shaking his head.

"I did," Eric said and nodded his head fiercely. "I even saved her life! I stole a speedboat and drove it out to an island and I picked her up. I saved her from those government guys! They were following her, man. There were 'copters and everything! It was the most exciting two days of my whole life."

His friend shook his head a final time, then slipped off his barstool and walked over to the pool table.

Eric turned his head to briefly look at the people around the pool table then turned back to the television.

"Max," he said quietly to himself then smiled widely.

He watched as the camera panned back to the reporter.

He took a sip of his beer and thought, I did it with a transgenic. And I was the man!

End.