Disclaimer: Don't own them – do you think that the stuff that has gone on this season would be happening if I did?
A/N: It's been a while and frankly my muse has been refusing to come out of hiding. She is really furious about the total nonsense that is Dark Angel Season 2 and has been threatening to go on permament hiatus from the show. I've been doing some S1 music videos and I think seeing what was so magical about S1 convinced her to come out for a bit. This is the result. Not a very happy one but it's something. I may be able to convince her to give me a Max POV as well. One other thing I've been doing is sending postcards and emails to Fox to let them know what idiots they are being. If anyone wants to do the same and doesn't know where to send them or what to send just check out the NBML site – links to it have been posted on DATV, the Official Board and various other sites on the web. If you can't find one email me and I'll give you one. Hope you enjoy this – I think it's too sad personally but ….
Logan
God she looked so young and alone and helpless lying there on that beat up old couch. I never wanted to do anything so much in my life as to stay with her and hold her and take care of her. But I can't. Can't touch her because of the fucking virus Manticore put into her. Can't stay with her because she won't ask and I can't take any more of the pain. The pain of being with her and knowing she isn't mine, may never be mine. But I'm hers, body and soul and heart. I tried to tell her that morning in that old junker of a car. She just looked at me with those fathomless brown eyes and didn't say anything as I laid bare my soul. I wasn't going to say the words, not without something from her first, but as I started to turn to walk away something stopped me and I heard myself saying hoarsely "I love you Max." But still all she did was look at me. That's when I knew I had to stop the madness before it killed me. I'm only human and there's only so much I can take. I was at my limit.
Does she understand? Can she understand? I know she has a heart and a soul locked up inside of her. I've seen it in her eyes. But will she ever be able to break down those walls and unlock the locks that Manticore built around her human side? I thought so at one time but since she's come back I just don't know anymore.
I never hurt so much in my life as I did when I thought she was dead. When she came back to me I never felt such joy. That lasted all of about 2 minutes and then the virus from hell struck. Once we figured out what was going on I still managed to keep my optimism and hope – after all she was alive. There had to be a way somehow, somewhere, to cure the virus. But over the last few months as one dead end lead to yet another I've felt it waning. And Max, Max never seemed to have much hope to start with. I think that hurt more than anything. The fact that she seemed to be giving up so easily. I've started to think that maybe I didn't mean to her what she did to me. Understandable. She's the genetically engineered piece of perfection and I'm the crippled normal human.
When she showed up at my door last week and then dropped her bomb on me about the 11 hour reprieve I think I was in shock. A part of me was saying "Hold on Cale, slow down, be cautious." but all she had to do was look at me and I was lost. Completely and utterly, as I have been since I caught her robbing my apartment. So I threw caution to the winds and went for it. And screwed it up again. The only thing I wanted to do right then and there was hold her in my arms and finally say the words to her. The words I kicked myself for witholding for so many months because I was afraid to say them to her. I wanted to hold her and tell her and then show her what she meant to me. I wanted to worship her with my words and with my body. To make her truly mine. But I was a fool once again.
All she had to do was look at me and tell me she wanted to take it slow, make it perfect and I backed off. Backed off when I should have pushed forward. I knew what Manticore was, knew about lost opportunities. I knew better than to waste the little time we had but I did it anyway. I made her a perfect dinner, with the perfect wine and we had a perfect conversation about nothing. Then we began to dance to a perfect song. After wasting a year dancing around each other we wasted two more hours of precious unrecoverable time. And of course in the end Manticore, this time in the form of Joshua, intervened once again to make a mockery of our perfect night together. Instead of spending the precious gift of time we had been given sharing our love we spent it wrapped up in goo in an old wreck in a junkyard.
And that night ended with me sitting in that other old car next to her, feeling the same pain I felt when I thought she was dead. Who knows if there is such a thing as a cure for the hell virus. Renfro told her there wasn't. The thing seems invincible and invulnerable. I thought her being dead was the worst thing imaginable but I was wrong. Her being alive and in front of me and yet even further away than ever is worse. I knew when her beeper went off if I touched her it could be deadly but at that moment I didn't care. I almost hoped it would be. As I kissed her I remember thinking that maybe the kiss would kill me and end the pain. But it didn't. And then I heard myself telling her I loved her. If she had only responded to me, let me know that she felt the same maybe things would be different. I waited a second hoping for some words from her but got nothing. So that's when I knew what I had to do.
I still love her and I will always love her. I can't not love her, she is part of my very being. But I have to protect myself from her at the same time. I'll never let anything happen to her if it is within my power. That's why when the hospital called yesterday I went into full panic mode. That's why I took the chance that gloves and fabric would prevent the virus from infecting me as I pulled her into the chopper.
But that's all I can do now. I can't open myself up to that awful soul destroying pain again. I can't sit there with her and watch her and love her not knowing if she can love me back. No, that's wrong I know she loves me but I don't know if she will ever be able to say it, to make herself that vulnerable. And until she can (if she ever can) I can't take any more. I can't be around. I still have Eyes Only but I have neglected it shamefully for the last few months. I need to get back to it. The world is still broken and people are still in need and danger. I need to get back to doing what I can to help. Eyes Only kept me going when I thought she was dead, it will keep me going now when she might as well be.
Maybe someday I'll open my door and Max will be standing there. She'll come in and she'll finally be able to say those three precious words to me. The virus may or may not be cured – I won't care. What will matter is her opening herself up to me the way I've opened myself to her. I learned the hard way while she was "dead" that you need to say the words when you can. I'm praying that Max will learn that as well before it's too late for us. Time is precious and fleeting, who knows how much time either one of us has left. I don't know what tomorrow will bring and right now I can't afford to care. All I can do is get through today, one minute at a time. And every night I say a prayer that somewhere, somehow it will all come right and that in the end love will indeed have its way.