A/N: I don't own DA or its characters. This was written a few months ago, but I forgot to post here.
The baby's name was Maui, and that was the first and the second-to-last thing that Max asked about him when she swept back into Seattle and tried to take him out of Cindy's arms. There wasn't much to answer. He was small, probably less than two was Max's very uneducated guess, with curly hair and big eyes, like babies have, skin three shades lighter than Cindy's, and she seemed to have gotten used to him in the interim. That was the important thing. He sat on her hip like he was a part of her, which was a sight Max never thought she'd see, grabbing at her shirts, big-eyed and silent. Like anyone's baby.
"You got a new boo?" Max said, her finger in his mouth.
"Blow me, bitch," said Cindy, and that answered that, just like Max suspected, even though it wasn't what she meant by the question.
They were still living in the same apartment -- Cindy and Maui and that was it. No one else bothered them. It took a lot of personality to keep the old household size down to two in a city like the one theirs had become. Most of the Jam Pony colleagues, during Max's tenure, were sleeping in hallways or bathtubs or living rooms, six at a time. Max had always flattered herself that it was her own imposing presence that kept their place private, first for her and Kendra, and then for Cindy, but Cindy, apparently had the knack too. More than enough space for her and the kid. Cindy wasn't even using Max's bedroom.
Some of her clothes were there, still there, could you believe it, five years after she had left for TC and then Canada, five years in an economy where you left your bike alone for five minutes and came back to find yourself out two wheels, a seat and a goddamn basket.
"I keep it as a guest room," said Cindy, smiling her old smile. "Case you ever came back."
It was a joke, or Max hoped it was. Cindy had never waited a day in her life for anything.
The rain made that sound it had always made on the long-abandoned scaffolding outside, booming against the rotting wood. In the warm kitchen, Cindy scrubbed the dinner dishes in a plastic bucket while Max held Maui in her arms, as sleepy and heavy as the future. "They have public transportation in Toronto," she said. "A working subway -- a couple of lines, anyway, five days a week."
Cindy paused for a second. She was thinner, Max thought, and her hair looked like she got it straightened and then let it grow out halfway. It looked bad. "A subway," Cindy said. "For real?"
"Where we live, we're right above it. It was probably a shitty neighborhood before the Pulse, but let me tell you, now it's main street. Boardwalk and Park Place. All the shops and the stands, you know, people out all night, talking, doing business. When it gets real quiet toward morning is when you can hear the trains. They always remind me of the sound of rain here."
"Elevator in this building don't work no more," Cindy said. "Every year it's worse."
She worked in an office, she told Max, in sector twelve. Not hawking dismemberment insurance, but not much better -- data entry and accounting for a company that made plastic tubing to sell to hospitals or something. Every day, she dragged the stroller down the six flights of stairs behind her and wheeled Maui to childcare, came back for him after dark, in the wintertime, dragged him back up. Sometimes, she came to see him during her lunch break, too, but not every day. Some days, she just didn't want to take the extra forty minutes there and back from the office, the extra checkpoint each way. "Next year, homeboy there'll be old enough to ask me when I don't show," Cindy said, shrugging. "I'll have to rethink my system."
Max wondered why she was telling her this. "Does he cry, when you don't come?"
"How would I know?" Cindy said. "I doubt it. He knows that Leah girl better than me, thinks all them other rug-rats are his brothers and sisters or some shit."
"I bet he cries," Max said.
Logan was not with her, which was just as well. He had work to do in Toronto. He would have come, if Max asked him to, and he would have cradled this baby, one hand cupping the back of Maui's nappy head, the small body cradled in the crook of Logan's arm, just right, he would have found a ground floor squat to keep his cripple ass while his batteries were charging -- which they needed more and more time to do, everything wearing down the way it was these days -- or more likely, he would have organized some sweet crash with someone or other who owed him a favor. Everyone in Seattle owed him a favor, and everyone in Canada would too. It was just a matter of time. Max believed in Logan's goodness, always had, but she was glad he wasn't here. This was the all-girl team -- all-girl and Maui.
He smelled like milk and dryer lint. She buried her nose in his hair and closed her eyes. "How's Terminal City."
"Don't you ask me that," said Cindy. "I am not no news anchor. I am somebody you used to know that you run into on the street, made you do a double-take, remember?"
"You think I would come here and not seek you out?" Max said fiercely.
Did she think Max wouldn't have come here two years ago, if she had sent word -- or three? Sam Carr would have known someone. They could have figured it out, if that was what Cindy wanted.
Max held little Maui closer to her chest. There was new graffiti everywhere in Seattle, tags that she didn't recognize, and she and Logan would never, never have children.
"They're fucked," Cindy said. "Most of them are dead. Someone took down the fence and spent some tall paper to raze the buildings. Pretty damn ironic." She looked straight at Max, jaw set, one hip cocked. Max always loved the way Cindy looked at her, no discipline, but a commander to the core nonetheless. A woman who knew herself.
To anyone else who stared her down that way, Max might try excuses. It wasn't her fault. She never asked to be mayor and mother to the transgenic menace.
She didn't need to say it to Cindy.
"How much does it cost?"
"What?" Max asked.
"The subway. Underneath your building. I mean, is it subsidized for poor people to ride to work or does it pay its own way? Is it a showpiece for investors? What's the point?"
"You know, I'm not sure," said Max. "I have a bike there."
"Good for you," said Cindy, like Max was crazy, and Max thought that she would probably cry if Cindy's nails weren't still painted so nice.
FIN.