Disclaimer: Don't own them, don't profit from them, just like to play with them.
A/N: Logan's POV after the events of AJBAC. Based on his final words on the Space Needle, his feeling that she is still out there.
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I can't believe she's really gone. I keep expecting to turn around and see her standing there, that teasing smile on her face as she leans against the table in my computer room.I keep starting to page her to ask her to come over for some dinner or some chess or just to be with her. Pictures of her go through my head constantly, every place I go reminds me of her.
The desk in my office where she leaned and told me about Cindy and Diamond's kiss while she flaunted her newly manicured nails in my face. I couldn't concentrate on what I was trying to tell her, all I could think of was how much I wanted to kiss her at that moment.
The couch in my living room where she sat the night she brought back Zack. Her looking out the window and worrying about how to warn her brothers and sisters that Manticore had their location. I remember the look she gave me when I came up with the way to warn them using Eyes Only. I felt like a hero that night.
The oven where we stood together and looked at my culinary disaster, the uncooked chicken, on the night I think of as our fist attempted date. That night was a disaster from the time she walked in the door to the time Zack called and she left.
The dining room table where we sat in candlelight as the healing blood flowed from her veins into mine. I remember her dropping into sleep and my thinking that I never felt so close to someone else, so much a part of them as I did that night.
My weight room where she hopped up to lean against me back to back and where I told her she meant "way more" to me than just a cat burglar. She smiled and told me she could live on that for a few days. I started to believe she might really care about me that day.
My bathroom and her stalking out of it wrapped only in a towel, mad as hell at me and giving me an earful for blowing off her dinner for my Eyes Only mission. I never told her but all I really thought about right then and there was how incredibly hot she looked wrapped in that tiny little towel with her hair dripping wet.
The hallway where she threw herself at me and flung her arms around me the day I almost blew my head off. She made me realize how incredibly selfish I was being and she gave me reason to keep on living for her, if not for myself.
The skylight, her point of entry that first night when she came to steal a statue and instead stole my heart. And, her port of entry the night after our "anniversary" when she came and gave me her heart.
So it goes. Every room, every square foot, every square inch of this place holds a memory of Max. There, that spot on the floor, is where we sat after the exoskeleton failed; where I first kissed her and where she kissed me back.
I can't do this! I miss her too much. We had so little time. We wasted too much time on our fears. Why didn't I tell her sooner how I felt. I left it too late and now I can't. I never said the words. Me the man of letters, the journalist; I never told the woman I loved that I loved her.
Would it have changed anything? Probably not. She still would have gone to save her sister, still would have gone to destroy Manticore. She didn't think we could have a life while Manticore was there, a threat always looming over us. She told me as much on the Needle that last night. But at least we might have had some time together. At least she could have known that I loved her, that I will always love her.
If I could do one thing differently that's what I would do. I would give her the words. I would tell her that I love her, that she is my life. That everything I do from now on will be for her. I will keep on living, keep on with Eyes Only, keep on fighting what's left of Manticore, for her. Lydecker said it wasn't my fight but he was wrong. It is my fight and I am determined to win it. I will not rest until I know that every remnant of Manticore is in ashes. Max may be gone but she has changed me, made me a better man. She was the love of my life and I will never forget her. But there is one strange thing…
At night when I sleep I dream of her. The dreams are not what you would expect. They're not dreams of her, of us, together and happy. They're dreams of her lying in a hospital bed in some grim facility, like a prison or a…military base. There's a blonde woman who taunts her and there are guards. She's weak and hurting and in pain. I hear her calling out to me. "Logan...Logan I need you. Logan help me. I don't know how long I can hang on." I'm not sure what to think. I held her in my arms as she died. I saw the wound. No one not even an X5 could survive that. Still, in some part of me there is a tiny spark of hope. Maybe somehow, someway she was saved. Maybe Manticore had more medical miracles up their sleeve than even Lydecker knew about.
Tomorrow I think I'll start doing some looking around. I'm going to try to hack back into the Manticore surveillance system. I probably won't find anything but I have to try. I have to know for sure. I can live with Max dead but I can't live with thinking that she might still be alive, in the hands of those monsters calling for me to save her.
I'm no Zack, no man of action, no white knight on a thundering charger but if Max is alive somehow I will get her back if I die trying.
