This is a story about how things between Alek/Chloe play out after the finale. Contains some spoilers. Basically if it's on the interwebs, you might find it referenced here so proceed with caution.

No copyright infringement intended. I own nothing. I promise to return the characters in (more or less) the same condition I found them.

REDEMPTION - 1

This was ridiculous.

Two weeks was long enough. They needed to talk about things. Chloe resolutely opened her window and agilely climbed out onto her roof. She didn't see the shadowy figure that she was looking for anywhere in sight but her "cat sense" told her that someone was watching her. He did have the ability to stay out of sight when he wanted to and in the last two weeks, he had clearly wanted to as she had only caught flashes of him here and there at school. In the last week, however, she hadn't seen him at all.

She sighed and called out into the night, just loud enough for a Mai super-ear to pick up,

"Alek." No response came so she continued to talk to the night air, knowing he could hear. "This is silly. We can't ignore each other forever. Can't we at least talk about this?" She looked around, using her keen night vision to detect some movement but there was nothing. "Alek. . .please."

Just then, a soft rustling caused her to jerk to her right and she breathed a sigh of relief as a figure came toward her.

"Alek.. . ." she began then stopped abruptly when the figure turned not into the tousled, brown-haired boy who had a special talent for being able to be equal parts charming and aggravating, but into one of Valentina's Mai guards. She had seen him around before, but had never learned his name.

Of all the nights that she had decided to go up to her roof and start talking to the air like a fool, she had picked the night that Alek was off "Uniter duty." Smart move, she chided herself. "Um. . .is Alek taking the night off?" She cringed. Obvious and very stupid question. Tonight was clearly not her night for making smart moves.

The guard shook his head, a sympathetic smile on his face. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you but you sounded like you really wanted to talk to Alek."

She chuckled sheepishly. "Um. . .yeah. . .is he taking the night off?" The look on the guard's face shifted almost imperceptibly but because of her heightened senses, she caught it. He had gone from sympathy to borderline pity which caused her stomach to churn with nervous tension. "What? What's going on?"

The guard hesitated before he said gently,

"Alek's not going to be on guard duty with you anymore. He's gone."

#

Gone.

One word. So many questions. An endless sleepless night.

Chloe was up and out of bed, dressed and ready to go before her alarm even beeped. Now that she had a car, it was much easier for her to go somewhere if she needed to and she really, really needed to right now. She drove carefully and patiently to the tall apartment building that was almost her second home and then contained her pent-up energy for the elevator ride up to the 18th floor.

Knocking on the door with the large number "1803" she tried to settle herself. After a few minutes, a sleepy looking Jasmine opened the door and looked at her with a measure of surprise and anger. "Chloe? It's not even 7 am."

"I'm sorry, but this is important."

Jasmine looked at her for a beat before stepping aside to let her into the darkened apartment. The sun was just beginning to rise and with the apartment's panoramic view of the San Francisco skyline, it made for a spectacular vista. On any other day, Chloe would have been enthralled by it, but not today.

"Where's Alek?"

Jasmine's eyes widened at her question before a guarded look settled over her features. "Why do you care?" The hostility was evident in her voice and Chloe tried not to react to it. Jasmine's anger was understandable. Alek was like her brother, having been adopted by Jasmine's mom Valentina, head of the San Francisco Mai pride, when he had transformed and had to leave his adopted parents and home in London. He had told her a little about that and from what she had gathered, that had been a rough period for him. While Alek and Jasmine liked to tease each other, the love and affection between them was always evident.

"Jasmine, I. ."

"You're a liar," said Jasmine, cutting her off.

"What?"

"Remember that day in your store, when I told you Alek deserved someone who wanted him for who he was?" Chloe nodded. "You told me you would never do anything to hurt him." Jasmine's penetrating brown eyes, so similar to her mother's, bore into Chloe. "You lied."

Chloe winced. "I didn't. . ."

"Just go be with your human," Jasmine said dismissively. "Now that we know you're exempt from the curse because you're the almighty Uniter, there's nothing stopping you from being with him." Jasmine shook her head. "Why are you even here? Why do you even care where Alek is?"

"Brian and I aren't. . ." Chloe sighed. That was another too-complicated to explain quickly situation. When Brian had kissed her, and then hadn't died, she had been stunned but relieved because she had been sure that in that moment of weakness, she had killed yet another innocent person. But then she had realized that she hadn't, that the curse somehow didn't apply to her. Valentina, the expert on all things Mai for her, hadn't been able to explain it, but had guessed that a lot of things were different for Chloe because she was the Uniter.

Or as Chloe liked to sometimes think of it, she came with an extra scoop (or two) of freak.

But kissing Brian had also produced another feeling, one that she hadn't expected at all but which had given her great clarity, albeit much too late. Brian had been that thing she couldn't touch, couldn't have, and Chloe knew that she had a stubborn streak inside of her about two miles wide and when told that she couldn't or can't, she would want to all the more. Brian was also a nice, cute, older guy. And normal, relentlessly normal, which given the last several months of her life, held tremendous appeal for her. So the idea of being with him, of course she couldn't let go of it easily. Of course she had stubbornly held on to it.

But then they had kissed and the kiss, while nice, lacked. Lacked the sweetness and simmering desire of her kisses with Alek. Lacked the passion that she had thought it would hold. Lacked the ability to cause the butterflies in her stomach to flutter, to rouse that dueling feeling within her. Every time she had kissed Alek she had felt like there was an inner battle going on. She both wanted to keep kissing him, and more, but she also felt this fear, almost panic, that made her pull away much sooner than she wanted. She had thought it was because she was in love with Brian and her conscience was making her feel guilty but now she knew it was something else.

Her kiss with Brian was a nice kiss, and that was all. No passion, no elation, no nervousness. Just nice, like he was. And she knew that if she were truly in love with Brian, there would have been more. Should have been more.

Of course, there was also the fact that she had also discovered that his father was involved in the mysterious organization known as "The Order" whose mission, its sole mission it appeared, was to kill her. . .over and over until she had expended every single one of the lives she had left. It was all very Romeo-and-Juliet-esque but Chloe had always viewed that story as a tragedy and the ending, in a word, sucked. She had no desire to die again, much less for Brian, so she had finally and truly severed all ties to him. She had finally realized that things weren't going to work out between them, for many reasons, and his father trying to kill her didn't even rank as the top one.

"I haven't talked to Brian in almost two weeks."

Jasmine looked surprised by this but the angry, guarded expression didn't shift. "Aren't you in love with him?"

She sighed. "Alek told you."

"Of course he did."

"Jasmine, it's not like that." She expelled a loud breath in frustration. Why was all this so hard? How did it get so messed up? "I'm. . .I'm sorry okay? I never meant to hurt Alek and in my defense, he was Mai eavesdropping and I didn't say I was in love with Brian. I said I thought I was."

"And now you're not?" Jasmine said incredulously. "Do you think people are here just for your amusement? That you can play with their feelings while you figure out what the hell you're doing?"

"I'm sixteen," Chloe cried. "And only found out a few months ago that I'm not human anymore and supposedly the savior of some sacred, ancient race. And that I have superpowers like Spiderman only with cat abilities instead of spider ones." She held up her hands. "You know for most people, that's enough to get them a long stay in a padded cell so could you maybe, possibly, give me a little break here? I know I screwed things up okay? I know I hurt him and I'm sorry. I really am."

Jasmine stared at her for long moments before her expression finally softened, but only slightly. "You should have been honest with Alek."

"I have been," she insisted. "I've been more honest with Alek than anyone I know. I tell him things that no one else knows, including Amy and Paul and my own mother. He knew I was still trying to sort things out between me and Brian and that I cared about him. I never lied to him about that."

"But you told him it was over between you and Brian."

"I wanted it to be," she said. "I knew it should be. Brian and I could never be together."

"Now you can," Jasmine pointed out. "Nothing's stopping you."

"Except his father trying to end my life? Repeatedly?"

"Brian doesn't seem like his father." At Chloe's questioning look, Jasmine smiled. "You didn't think we'd investigate immediately upon discovering that little connection?"

"Does Alek know about all of that?" Jasmine nodded. "He doesn't. . ." Chloe sighed. "He doesn't think I'm not with Brian only because of that does he?"

"Aren't you?"

"No." Chloe shook her head. "No. When I kissed Brian. . .I just, I realized that I didn't really love him. That he's not who I want to be with, and that was before I found out about his father, which, admittedly did seal the deal but that coffin was already shut tight. His father was just the last nail."

"Why don't you want to be with Brian?"

"Because I want to be with Alek."

Jasmine looked at her doubtfully. "You can't keep bouncing between these two guys."

"I'm not," Chloe insisted.

"You're telling me if Brian were to come sweeping in here right this moment and assuming I don't rip his face off, you wouldn't want to be with him?" Chloe opened her mouth to answer but Jasmine pressed on. "Or someone else. Now that you know you're not lethal to humans, your choices have just increased. What if another boy came along?" Jasmine shook her head. "You only think you want to be with Alek 'cause you're between options right now."

Wow, that's harsh, thought Chloe. "You don't understand."

"No, you don't," Jasmine bit out as her eyes glinted dangerously. Because jasmine was calmer and less impulsive, it was easy to forget that she was just as, if not more, dangerous than Alek when he lost his temper. "What you did. . ." Jasmine shot her a contemptuous look. "If you were anyone else, I would have. . ." Jasmine sighed. "Can you go now please?"

"Jasmine," Chloe beseeched. "I know I hurt him and I'm sorry. You don't know how sorry I am and I can keep telling you that but I would really rather say it to the person I hurt."

"The best thing you can do for him now is to leave him alone."

"I just want to know where he is. Is he coming back?"

"You should have asked those questions before," Jasmine pointed out.

"I've tried," she said. "But he's been so angry and he has a real knack for being elusive when he wants to be. I was hoping that with some time and once cooler heads prevailed, he and I could really talk but now he's gone and. . ." Chloe felt that know forming in her stomach again as she considered the possibility of never seeing Alek again. "Jasmine, where is he?"

Jasmine's expression was conflicted before she sighed and answered,

"Los Angeles."

#

Nearly two weeks passed before Chloe made a decision. Or rather, she was pushed into that decision by how much she missed Alek. She hated to admit it but she had always taken his presence in her life for granted. She knew he was always watching her in some way, and when he wasn't on guard duty, he was there to talk to her or banter with her or annoy her or make her laugh.

That old saying was so very true – you never know what you had until it's gone.

A dull ache had settled deep inside of her and with each passing day, it had grown. Each day that she had passed Alek's locker, never to see him, she felt it throbbing. Each day that she had dutifully gone over to Valentina's for training and instead of Alek's smirk, she was greeted with the business-like demeanor of one of the Mai guards or on occasion, Jasmine's icy cool expression which had started to thaw in the last week, no doubt because she could see how utterly miserable Chloe was. Chloe felt the ache grow and grow. Each day that she caught sight of not Alek but some nameless Mai guard watching her from a rooftop, the ache reminded her of their chats on her rooftop, sadistically taunted her about her blindness to her true feelings.

After a while, the ache became too much to bear. Amy and Paul had tried to cheer her up, provided distractions but the melancholy always returned, along with the ache. Even her mom noticed it but Chloe couldn't explain things, not really, not without having to go into the whole Mai thing so she had simply told her mom that she and Alek had broken up. Her mom had been confused, rightly so, since the last time they had really talked about her love life, she was talking about her supposed love for Brian. She hadn't wanted to recount the whole sordid affair so she had told her Mom she didn't want to talk about it. Her Mom had been her usual understanding self, but that hadn't really helped Chloe deal with the ever-persistent ache inside of her.

Jasmine had caved one day and had given her Alek's e-mail address and after numerous drafts and countless hours of agonizing, she had sent him an e-mail explaining things but hadn't heard back. If she was lucky, it had ended up in his spam folder. If she wasn't, he had read it and no longer cared.

After two weeks, she knew that she had to at least go see him. That whatever happened, she had to at least do that or she would spend the rest of her life wondering and since she still had eight lives, that was a hell of a long time.

Getting the location hadn't been all that hard. Turns out, Alek had gone to a training school in the Los Angeles area which was super secret but used by the Mai in the United States to train new members. Valentina made frequent trips there to apprise the head of the situation with Chloe and the Order and Chloe had overheard one of her guards talking about how the training program had been intensified for what the Mai leadership deemed as "the coming war."

The real problem was figuring out how to get her Mom to let her go to Los Angeles. Alone. She couldn't exactly take her Mom with her to the super secret training center for the Mai, now could she? After days of trying to figure out the problem with Amy and Paul, a solution manifested itself in the form of summer program at her school. Learning that she could earn credit for working at an approved community service organization for a month during her summer vacation, Chloe had used her "I'm the Uniter" card with Valentina and had asked her to help Chloe get into that program as a front for allowing Chloe to go to the Los Angeles training center. She had told Valentina that if a war was going to be started over her, she should at least be in the same training program as all the other Mai about to risk their lives for her.

It was a compelling argument and Valentina had no counterargument. Besides, there was no safer place for the Uniter to be than in a Mai compound, surrounded by well-trained Mai, and full of weapons that they were well-trained with at their disposal. Talk about home field advantage. So after Valentina had worked her magic, Chloe had worked hers on her Mom who was more than a little reluctant to let "her little girl" go away to a big city all alone for a month.

In the end, after a lot of tears and promise to call and Skype every day, Chloe was on an airplane for the short ride to Los Angeles. Once at LAX, she had been greeted with two burly men, dressed in black from head to combat-boot encased toes, who had referred to her as "Miss." They had ushered her into a town car with dark tinted windows and had driven her out into the desert surrounding Los Angeles.

There, a sprawling stone and concrete compound, surrounded by an electrified fence topped with vicious looking barbed wire, greeted her. After getting through the guard post, which Chloe noted was manned by two heavily armed men dressed very similar to the men who had picked her up at the airport.

The compound itself was like a labyrinth. If she hadn't been accompanied by the two men, she would have been lost in about 30 seconds admist all the hallways and rooms that seemed to all look the same. It was like a huge dorm, with a lot of gyms and open spaces in between from what she had been able to see.

What have I gotten myself into, she thought? She didn't mind the training so much anymore, not like she had at first but this place was hardcore. And she wasn't sure she was really a hardcore training kind of girl.

After a lof of turns and passing lots of doors that all looked the same, the men ushered her into a room with a bed, desk, dresser, chair and closet. A small window overlooked what looked like an Olympic track field was on the wall opposite the door. A small bathroom was just off the left of the door of the room.

"This will be your room, Miss," one of the guards said. "Angelo will be by to greet you shortly." The two men gave her brief smiles before they exited.

Chloe was just starting to unpack when her super hearing picked up a voice with a very distinct British accent. A voice she had missed more than anything these past weeks. She concentrated, just as Alek had taught her until she managed to isolate his voice amid the other noises in the compound. Then as she focused on his voice, she pinpointed where he was. Before thinking about what she would say, she took off down one of the hallways, keeping her ears tuned into his voice as her guide.

He was in what looked like a common room, which had large windows around it, like many of the rooms in the compound. Many of the larger rooms and gyms, Chloe had noted, were glass-walled. There were several round tables, surrounded by chairs, scattered about as well as a sofa along the far wall. A large, flat screen television set was mounted to the wall adjacent to the sofa and was playing some kind of sports game. Alek lounged on the sofa, watching the game and talking to a boy who seemed about their age. The boy had pulled one of the chairs away from the table and was sitting near Alek's head, his attention also on the game.

Chloe froze in her steps, drinking in the sight of Alek. He was in what seemed to the standard issue uniform here, black pants and black T-shirt. Alek had always been in good shape but the weeks in the training center had made a noticeable change in his physique. His muscles were bigger, more defined. His body super toned, sporting more muscle mass. He looked primed and ready for whatever battle awaited. His hair was still adorably tousled as ever, so at least one thing was still the same.

She forced herself to keep moving forward, to walk into the room, despite the fact that her heart was now beating about a hundred miles an hour. She could feel it hammering in her ears and her palms had grown sweaty. Her mind was a complete blank all of a sudden, not knowing what to say to him at all, even though she had come up with hundreds of scenarios for their reunion in the weeks she had yearned for him.

Just as she reached the door, a pretty girl, dressed in the standard black, came up and smiled at her briefly before she walked into the room. The girl had beautiful, curly black hair that she had tied back into a ponytail and probably as an attempt to make the black, military-esque uniform a little more feminine, had tied a red ribbon around her ponytail.

Chloe watched as Alek gave the girl a broad, flirty smile, the kind he had directed Chloe's way so often, before he got up and kissed the girl on the lips briefly before wrapping her up in his arms.

Chloe gasped, as an intense wave of pain overtook her. She quickly sucked in some air, feeling like she had just been punched, and hard, right in her solar plexus. She wanted to look away but felt her eyes riveted to the horrific scene playing out in front of her. As if her senses wanted to torture her, her ears zoomed in on Alek's voice.

"Hey, I've been waiting for you. How was weapons training?"

"Hard," the girl said, pulling back from his embrace slightly. "Also a little painful." She lifted her arm and Chloe saw the purple-ish bruise on it.

"Ouch," Alex said with a smile, placing a kiss on the bruise. "I'll see if I can make that all better tonight. But for now, I'm starved, let's-"

"Alek?"

Too late Chloe realized that Alek had caught sight of her. She shouldn't have been too surprised. Even without his Mai super senses, she was a little hard to miss. She had, after all, been standing outside in the hallway, staring into the room that had glass walls.

In a heartbeat, Alek was in front of her, standing too close as he usually did when talking to her, and hissed,

"What the hell are you doing here?"