"Why did I...?" Alex frowned. "He thought you were terrorists. Claimed you've been getting close to me for the last ten years because you somehow knew that keeping the big alien secret is somehow a family legacy. He didn't say how you could have known when I didn't. He was running surveillance on you and Max and Liz. I ran him out of town because he's a fucking bigot and you can be pretty sure that the opinions he has of people are wrong. And when they're about you, they're dead wrong."

Alex felt a sudden stab of hurt.

"In a contest between you and my father, how could you ever think that he would win? I know that you and I don't always see eye to eye." Which was a bit of an understatement. They ran hot and cold. No, that wasn't quite right. They ran hot and hotter. Sometimes they couldn't get enough of each other and sometimes they stopped just short of fists flying. "But I would never choose him or anything he stood for."

And he would always choose Michael, but with the pain still in his chest, he couldn't say that.