TITLE: Let's Pretend 10/10
RATING: PG-16 (I make my own ratings)
PAIRING: Max/Alec
SUMMARY: Max uses Alec to make Logan jealous but is it just pretend?
DISCLAIMER: Not mine..... the writing would be a hell of a lot better if I was affiliated with Dark Angel and crew. Why? Because I would be getting paid. I think that's reason enough don't you?

DEDICATION: In Loving Memory of Tiger… the best cat anyone could ever have.

AUTHORS NOTE: Sorry bout the lack of updates!!!! But hey this is the last part so I hope it was worth the wait lol.

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So love me, so I can be myself again

Now hate me, so things seem normal in my head

I'm trying, to break away this ball and chain

Now hate me, so things seem normal in my head

Things seem normal in my head

I spent days and nights in my bedroom

Trying to write the perfect song to sing to you

Write a song a day but she won't like it anyway

Back to the drawing board

With the words you've heard a million times before

~Drawing Board~ Mest~

~~~

Max pushed through the doors of the building and out into the heavy night air. The moon and stars were shrouded by a layer of dark clouds promising one hell of a thunderstorm when they burst.

"Alec!" she shouted, momentarily forgetting her inadequate footwear as she started after him. The heel of a shoe got caught in a crack in the pavement and sent her sprawling.

"Shit," she muttered examining her ruined shoe as rain droplets began to fall with a steady regularity. Blood trickled from her scraped knees and mixed with the rainwater forming pink puddles at her feet. Her ankle was at a rather unnatural angle and a dull ache was shooting up her leg.

"Shit," she said again, wiping her soaking hair away from her face as she assessed the damage. She tugged off the other shoe and tossed it, along with it's ruined counterpart, into the gutter. She stood, testing her weight on her injured ankle and found it painful but fully functional. She turned to continue her journey down the sidewalk but collided with another wet traveler.

His bow tie hung around his neck, untied, and his white dress shirt was plastered to a finely muscled torso.

"I thought cats hated the water," he said softly, a gentle hand grasping her chin and tilting her head upwards.

"Don't you dare run away again!" she shouted, her fingers clasping his arms so tightly her knuckles turned white and her nails cut bloody scratches in her palms. "If you even think about bolting I will shove my shoe so far up your ass it will pierce your goddamn brain!"

"After you retrieve it from the gutter of course," he reminded her, a smile dancing briefly across his face.

"What the hell are we doing Alec?" Max asked, ignoring his weak attempt at humor, "Both of us are past this, we can't go on pretending that nothing's changed when we both know damn well that everything has."

"Straight to the point huh?" Alec said with an uneasy laugh. This was a confrontation he had been trying desperately to avoid and now that it was inevitable he found himself totally unprepared.

"I thought I could do this," he finally sighed, "This city, as dirty and cold as it is, is my home now. I didn't want to let one girl chase me out of it. Especially not the girl who chased me out of one already. I thought I could come back here and pretend nothing had happened, that I could slide back into the role of smartass partner and part-time friend… but I can't," he finished, regarding Max sadly. "I can't. Seeing you tonight and being with you makes me realize how misguided this return was."

"So you run away?" Max asked with more than a degree of disbelief, "You're a genetically engineered solider Alec, you're too tough to run away when things get tough. That's my job." Max shot the blonde a shaky smile, rasing her hand to his cheek to brush away the rain that was dripping down his face. "I don't want to chase you away from everything Alec I'm sure-"

"I love you." The admission seemed offhand, almost cavalier in attitude when in reality it had taken months of agonizing preparation, weeks of wording and rewording the confession and then putting off it's delivery until this point. It wasn't the long-winded speech he had prepared; it wasn't even the moment he had planned for. It was seeing her concern for him, it was that he was disillusioned enough to think that a mutual feeling was what made her keep chasing him, that finally wrenched the words from their uneasy resting place in him.

"When?" Max asked, her voice deceptively unaffected but her eyes reflected the inner battle that was raging.

"When I realized that the best lap dance I ever had was you running your hands through my hair," he replied with a soft laugh as he reflected back on the fateful event. "Look I don't expect you to answer I don't even expect you to understand," he continued, fear and a new emotion that Max couldn't quite identify, shining in his eyes, "In fact to be perfectly honest I'm having a hard time understanding this myself. You are a controlling, vindictive, bitch who has made my life a living hell since I met her. You are the epitome of everything I hate and abhor yet you managed to-,"

"Alec," Max shouted repaying the favor of interruption, "For once in your pathetic excuse of a life could you shut the hell up?!" Alec's mouth snapped shut and he focused his attention solely on her for the first time that night. He had laid his heart on the line and was expecting a letdown… it looked like he wasn't going to be disappointed.

"You are a egotistical sociopath who prefers casual sex to meaningful relationships," she began, her tone rising to indicate the beginning of a rant. "Your morals and values are so disgustingly perverted even I struggle to understand them. You would probably break my heart over and over and cause more pain than you're worth. You're a narcissistic jackass who should be locked up to keep you from inflicting further damage on society.  You're cocky and hotheaded and you have a horrible singing voice," she snapped, "Of course I fell head over heels." Her somewhat unconventional declaration of love finished, Max took the opportunity to gage Alec's reaction. She watched a barrage of emotions flit across his handsome face in quick succession, sadness gave way to confusion which was shoved aside by surprise which was finally edged out by an expression of joy that stretched his mouth into a giddily toothy smile and lit up his eyes with that playful amusement that she had come to love.

The pair had kissed before of course, there had been the near kiss following the puppet fiasco, a brushing of lips when she was sick, and then that heated kiss in the kitchen that served as a catalyst for the subsequent heartbreak. This kiss was different. This kiss was tentative, testing the waters and finding them perfect. This was marking a beginning of something that both of them deserved so much, a touching of souls. Alec was the first to pull away, his smile less goofy and more satisfied. Max gave a small cry of disappointment at the well-timed termination of the kiss.

"When?" Alec asked, his sexily amused voice held a teasing lilt. He brushed his lips lightly against hers, tugging lightly on her bottom lip with his teeth but pulled away before she could deepen the kiss.

"You haven't answered my question yet," he reminded her, his eyes twinkling gleefully at his newfound source of power. Max scowled playfully, her lip jutting out in a convincing pout.

"I think," she began pausing to lay a gentle kiss on his cheek, "it was when you brought out that hand puppet. I finally got to see through that smart-ass tough-guy façade and I loved what I saw." This time the kiss landed on his lips and Alec made no motion to pull away. The scene was movie-like in quality, the rain pounding down with torrential force around a couple who appeared completely unaware to the world around them giving the whole experience a quality that was more than a little surreal. The kind of moment when time slows and the heroes finally get that happily ever after they've been fighting for through the course of the movie. The ending they deserved.

~~~

Epilogue: 3 Months Later

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"Here comes the bride, all dressed in white"

Max tapped the bouquet of flowers on her knee as she sweated through the most annoying part of a wedding. The waiting. O.C. sat across the room, tugging at the sleeve of what was probably the ugliest bridesmaid's dress to come into existence.

A sickening shade of Pepto-Bismol pink it was slightly reminiscent to the dress worn by the good witch in the Wizard of Oz. Layers of lace dotted by sporadic pink bows with a matching corsage that was most defiantly the most horrific piece of frou-frou Max had ever laid eyes on. And it itched, she added mentally, scratching at the neckline of the dress. Of course Sketchy had loved them.

Max had been too caught up in her own romantic struggles to notice that one of her best friends had turned into a lovesick puppy. A puppy who coughed up the money for a ring and proposed two months ago. She had checked up on the girl and found her acceptable. Sure she wasn't good enough for her friend but no one ever would be. As annoying as Sketchy was he was a loyal friend and she had become rather attached to him.

The bride-to-be was chatting excitedly with the maid of honor, her only addition to the bridal party, when the wedding march was heard. There was a flurry of excitement and the group started their trek down the aisle. Max glanced around the surprisingly crowded church before she locked eyes with the most gorgeous man in the building. As the groom's best friend he was the best man, standing just to the right of a frazzled Sketchy. His blue eyes lit up when he saw her and flashed a smile in her direction, winking reassuringly. Max felt her insides turn to mush and had to suppress the urge to run up to him and prove to the entire company that that gorgeous man was all hers.

The ceremony passed, uneventfully and even Max felt tears threatening when the new couple shared a kiss. The church began to empty, the guests filing out and entering their respective cars to head to the reception. Max felt a pair of strong arms circle her waist and she leaned back into the embrace.

"Lets split," Alec suggested, "What do you say."

They had long ago sorted out all his worries about her residual feelings towards Logan and Alec proved to be the most loving person she had ever met. Devoted while not reaching that spookily obsessive phase that Logan had always resided in.

"And miss the party?" Max asked, turning to face him without breaking the embrace, her face contorted with mock horror.

"Well you know if we go to the party the best man is required to dance with the maid of honor," he reminded her, with devilish glee. "And if I'm not mistaken the maid of honor was quite the attractive blonde."

Max regarded him skeptically before running a newly manicured finger down his chest, "What' do you say we skip the reception."

"But they'll be expecting us to go," Alec said stringing her along a little longer.

"We had car troubles," Max said, her fingers reaching up to loosen the constricting bow tie.

"But we didn't," Alec taunted, placing a soft kiss on her lips, as she dragged him to the car.

"Well," Max said with a smile, "let's pretend."

~~~

THE END (finally)

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