Five Years On
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Episode 1
Act 1
Teaser (Scene 1: Max and Original Cindy's Apartment)
Max looked at her reflection in the mirror. The five years that had passed since raising the flag over Terminal City barely showed in the room behind her: a few more pieces of furniture, perhaps, a different colour of watered down paint on the walls. Her face showed the same sort of telltale signs: a few more lines starting to show, a shade more maturity covering her features. The first year she'd spent based in TC, keeping a eye on the goings on, sharing her new quarters with Alec. Eventually, the near constant bickering had spilled over to the command centre and ended in an explosive fight that had made her turn tail and return to her old room in Original Cindy's apartment, leaving Mole, Joshua and Logan to keep things ticking over and try to build bridges between the two. It had taken a while, but they had eventually started being civil to one another again.
Logan.
There was a blast from the past.
Max took a deep breath and bit her lip. Thinking about Logan today would just be too painful. She brushed her cold, damp hair out of her eyes and turned away from the mirror. She made her way out of the bathroom and curled up in an armchair that sat near the open window, hugging her knees to her body. The bathroom door closed as Cindy made use of the unused hot water. The room was freezing, as had been the shower Max had just taken but, so far, Cindy hadn't complained. She knew exactly why her girl was going to so much trouble to keep her cool.
By the time Cindy emerged from the shower, the day was starting to warm up, the air flowing through the open window was no longer as cold as Max would have liked and Max herself was rocking herself back and forth on the armchair.
"Boo, you have got to get a hold on this thing!" Cindy sighed, towelling her hair furiously.
"I know, I know," groaned Max. "Just a few more days and it'll be over."
"That ain't what I'm talking about and you know it," scolded Cindy, waggling a finger in Max's direction. "You ain't never gonna fix that just by waiting!"
"One day I will."
Original Cindy threw the towel over her shoulder and made her way over to the armchair, plopping down on the wide arm of the chair and wrapping a fluffy, bath robe clad arm around Max's moving shoulders. Max stopped rocking and let Cindy pull her into a gentle hug.
"No, boo, you won't," Cindy said softly, but firmly. "And one day, you might not have time to. You gotta get with the program and get with the guy."
"No!" Max pulled away from her friend abruptly, getting to her feet and stalking round the room. When she turned back to OC, her eyes were defiant. "That is just not gonna happen!"
"Listen up, boo," Cindy's voice became harder as she too got to her feet. "I know you're still beating yourself up about Logan. It's been over a year now and you're still grieving. But you can't keep blaming yourself for what happened!"
"Can't I?" Max shot back.
"No, you can't," replied Cindy harshly. "It's time you moved on."
"But why him?" Max waved a hand at an empty area of space in the general direction of nothing in particular. "He hasn't moved on."
"Maybe he has and you just haven't noticed," Cindy's voice grew softer for a moment. It broke her heart that she could see the cause of so much pain in her friend's life and yet do nothing to fix it. Max had super-enhanced speed, strength, intelligence and whatever else, but in some areas she could be just as blind and stubborn as all the rest of humanity, whether the genetically modified version or not!
"He hasn't," Max shook her head and slumped back against a nearby wall. "We don't even get on any more."
Original Cindy threw up her hands and laughed a short, frustrated laugh.
"You're trippin', boo!" Cindy chortled. "You guys never got on! Not in the way you and Logan did, anyway. But you're closer to each other than anyone I know," Cindy crossed the distance between them and took both Max's hands in her own, her tone moving from amused to pleading. "Sure, you fight: hell, everyone fights at some point, but you two are champions! But that don't mean you hate each other! Seems to me it's quite the opposite. From where I'm standing, anyhow."
Max sighed and looked up at her friend, the only person she trusted herself to be around at this time of the year. OC's eyes were watching her closely, the hope and worry in them tinged with just a hint of pity. Max sighed again and pulled away, walking over to the open window. She stood with both hands on the sill, letting the slightly warm breeze wash over her, bringing in sounds and scents from the city below. Silence filled the room, letting the street noises flood in and fill the empty space like blood filling the semi-vacuum of a syringe.
"So," said Max slowly, aware of Cindy's pitiful eyes boring into the back of her head. "How come he disappeared for months after Logan died and has barely spoken to me since he got back?"
"How 'bout because he blames himself for what happened as much as you do," offered Cindy gently. "You weren't fully in control of your actions. He was."
The silence returned to the room. Max took a deep breath and stared at the window sill.
"And anyway, Cindy continued, sounding decidedly more desperate now. "It seems to me this "not talkin' to each other" is a two way thing. You blanked him at Crash just last week!"
"He started it!" Max shot back, ignoring the childishness of the statement in her mental hunt for justification.
"Now you know that ain't true, boo," Cindy's voice had gone hard again. Max listened to her friend's footsteps, tracing them across the room behind her towards the telephone. The receiver clicked as Cindy picked it up. "Let me give your boy a call. This might just be the thing that gets you two talking again."
"Yeah, 'cause we all know how well that turned out last time!" Max spat, turning to glare at Original Cindy, waving the phone hopefully. "And he's not my boy!"
Cindy dropped the phone back in it's holder as Max stormed past her and disappeared into her room.
"Fine," she muttered. Well if her girl didn't want her company, there wasn't much point in her staying. Besides, she was pretty sure she could name one or two of the drinkers propping up the bar at Crash, even this early in the day, and if her girl wasn't going to listen to reason, maybe she could attack the problem from the other end. "Well," she called through, trying to make her voice sound as casual as possible. "I'm going to get dressed and head out in search of beer if you insist on stayin' in here and shuttin' yourself away like this."
"Fine!" Max's voice sounded sullenly from the room beyond.
"Fine," OC grinned, sidling off to her own room to find some clothes.
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