Disclaimer: Don't own them. I wish I did 'cause then there would be no stupid virus keeping them apart.
A/N: I hate the virus. I don't want to write about the virus but it isn't going away yet. I am going to write some more AU fics that don't include the virus, I promise. But in the meantime this fic has been bugging me. Max's behavior towards Logan has been bugging me. This is my attempt to try to make some sense of it all. The song is "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell.
"Don't it always seem to go …that you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone?"
I heard that somewhere. Some old pre-Pulse song I think. It's certainly true of my life right now. My strange little life that has grown even stranger lately. All I ever wanted was to be a "normal" girl. No big deal. Logan once said I could never be just an ordinary girl but I didn't see why. If Manticore were off my tail I would have been happy to just live an ordinary life. These days I almost look back with nostalgia on Manticore. Escape and evade. That was something I was always good at. Now it's a new game and I don't know the rules.
"Be careful what you wish for – you might get it" That's another one of those old sayings I heard somewhere. Gotta give props to whoever came up with that one. I got what I wished for – no more Manticore, no more Lydecker chasing me. Only problem it got replaced by something worse. At least I understood Deck and Manticore. I knew how they thought and could anticipate what they might do next. That started to change with Renfro but I still kind of understood her. This new guy, White, strikes me as a loose cannon. No telling what he's going to come up with next. The problem is you can't analyze your enemy if you don't know his ultimate objective. I'm not sure yet what this guys' objective is.
Add to that the other complications in my life. Joshua is a sweetie but he has no idea of what he's up against out there. People are scared of him on sight. He wants to find this mysterious "father" guy, Sandeman. Joshua thinks he will make everything all right again. For me too. I'm not so sure of that. I mean if this guy was so all powerful how did he ever let things get out of his control in the first place? Probably just another wack scientist who fooled around with things he didn't really understand and then got himself killed when he got in the way of the wrong people. Oh well, I have nothing better to do so I figure I'll try to help Joshua. Besides if I don't he'll just get himself in more trouble.
Then there's Alec. Alec who thinks his looks and charm will get him out of any jam he gets himself into. C'mon, he knew White was out looking to capture and kill transgenics. So what does he do? Stay out of sight? No. He becomes a wrestler and names himself Monty Cora. Jeez. How lame can you get? The guy had to have had undercover ops classes. Obviously he forgot everything they taught him about keeping a low profile and blending in. Then, when he gets himself caught by White, he thinks he can pull one over on him. All he succeeded in doing was almost getting himself killed and in the process screwing up things even further for Logan and me.
Logan. The biggest complication in my life right now. The one I've been avoiding because I am at such a total loss over what to do. The one person I want to be with the most. The one person I can't be with. I am poison to him. Literally. I touch him, I kill him. We spent an entire year dancing around each other refusing to admit what was between us. We finally did on the eve of all hell breaking loose. and what did we get – a couple of kisses and an unfinished conversation.
That would have been okay. Hell, it was damn good. The thought of Logan was what kept me sane during those months at Manticore. He was my anchor point, my hold on reality and normalcy. So it should have all ended up all good, all the time, as Herbal would say. Max gets out, comes home to Logan and her friends and everyone lives happily ever after. Right.
Wrong. Madame Bitch infects me with this Frankenstein virus thing. It was supposed to kill Logan but at least that part didn't work. So now my life is a living hell. Every time I see Logan I just want to go to him and hold him. I want to continue what we started. I want to see where it might go. But I can't. I touch him, I kill him. I almost killed him the other night. If he hadn't noticed the spoon in the sauce I could have.
Doesn't help that he looks so damn gorgeous. I don't know what happened to him while I was gone but he's changed. He's so much more confident. The night I came back to him I don't know what I expected him to do. It wasn't what he did. It took the guy a year to kiss me the first time and then I'm gone, dead as far as he knows, for 3 months. I expected some shock on his part, some time for explanations, and then a gradual move back to where we left off. That's what he would have done before. But no, he just looked at me for a minute, almost like he expected me to come back, and then before I could tell him anything he was kissing me. Wow. Some kind of kiss too. Made me forget for a minute about the urgency of the situation.
Unfortunately that may be the last kiss I ever get from him. If we can't figure out a way to get rid of this virus it will be. Logan says we'll beat it. I wish I could believe that. Maybe I'm just too tired. My focus the entire time I was at Manticore was on getting out of there intact, I never planned for anything more. I used up all my reserves. My whole life has been one of running and fighting. I'm weary. I just want to sit back and recharge. I don't want to play escape and evade anymore. I want to be a normal girl.
Maybe Logan and I aren't meant to be. Maybe he was just Fate's cruel joke on me. The one person who probably understands and accepts me better than anyone else. Better than I understand and accept myself. The one person I can't have. I touch him, I kill him. Maybe I should just accept the fact that I can never have what everyone else has. Give up on relationships. I was doing okay before I met Logan. Female fogbank, Darren called me. Maybe that's all I was ever meant to be. I'm not really human anyway. Maybe I should just not worry about it. Hang with my boos and when my feline DNA kicks in pick up some stud to satisfy my needs. Maybe that's all I can ever hope for.
Maybe I was just fooling myself about Logan. Maybe it wouldn't have worked with him either. How long could he have been happy with a genetically engineered killing machine in his bed? How long before he started thinking about the less pleasant aspects of what I am and what I've done? What about the first time I went into heat with him? He said it was okay but he doesn't really know what I'm like when the heat takes over. He's probably better off without me. He's got the exoskeleton now; he's not confined only to the chair. He can have his pick of women I'm sure.
He's probably gonna hate me anyway when I tell him what happened to the money he gave me for the virus cure. His grandmother's painting went to get that money and I used it on yet another of my siblings from Manticore. One who almost killed me at that. Logan has been incredibly patient about my family but even he has to draw the line somewhere. I don't want him to hate me. I don't want to see the look in those beautiful blue eyes of his turn into disgust. I don't want him to turn away from me like he did after that whole episode with Ben. I want him to forgive me and reassure me that it will be okay. That we will find a way. I want to feel his hand in mine again, feel his arms around me, his lips on mine. But I can't. I touch him, I kill him. I go to bed with those words ringing in my ears and I wake up to them every morning.
Every day I vow to stay away from him and every day he calls and I end up over there.
Every day I look at him, so close and yet so far.
Some day I'm afraid I'm going to slip up. Someday I'm going to touch him and then he's going to die. When that happens I might as well die too. Genetically engineered killing machine. He never guessed when he said those words to me how true they were. He never guessed that I might become his own personal instrument of death.
My pager's going off. I know without looking that it's him. I can't put it off anymore. I have to tell him about the money and about the vanished Tec. I can do this. I can be strong. If he hates me it will make it easier. I won't have to go see him anymore. I can try to forget about what might have been. Yeah, that's probably for the best. That way he can go on and live his life and me, I'll just keep on going. I'll live my strange little life as best I can.
I remembered some more words from that old song. In a strange way they fit my life right now.
"Late last nightI heard the screen door slam
And a big yellow taxi
Took away my old man
Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got
Till it's gone ?
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot"