Title: A Gentleman's Lament
Author: Shay (jracklesfan77, untold_story LJ)
Genre: Humor
Fandom: Dark Angel
Rating: G
Characters: Logan
Type: Ficlet, Standalone, Complete
Word Count: 522
A/N: Written for the November Scene prompt on Raising Hell: Start with an argument in a parking lot.
Additional note: This is NOT a character bashing story and is in no way meant to ridicule the main character. It was a humorous plot bunny that came to me recently and required a good-hearted man to fill the role! Enjoy :D

Summary: If he'd known it would have ended this way, he never would have suggested it in the first place.

A Gentleman's Lament

"That's not what I meant!"

"Liar!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Oh, you'll be sorry, alright!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

How on earth had it come to this?

Logan liked to think that he was a nice guy. His father may not have been the most personable man, but his mother had been a sweetheart and she had raised him to be a gentleman.

So when he had noticed the little old lady lugging a large bag of groceries through the lot while leaning heavily on a cane, he had quickly approached and offered his services.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but if you'd like, I can hold your groceries while you unlock the car."

Shrewd and wizened grey eyes bore into cornflower blue. The old woman's lips thinned in suspicion.

"Think you're going to get one up on the old granny, eh? You picked the wrong lady to mess with, mister!"

Before Logan could protest his innocence and appease the irate old lady, something thwacked him in the head and set the little birds flying around his noggin.

"Hold on a minute! All I wanted to do was help-"

"Help? Help what? Steal an old woman's pension? Walk away with my food? I'll give you help!"

Another apple soared through the air and made contact with his ribs.

Ow.

"Take that! And that!" she continued to shout, throwing her fruit at the poor man whose only crime had been to offer a kindness.

"I don't want your food, ma'am. I have my own, see?" Logan tried to divert the hag's attention - and tone down her anger - but somehow that plan backfired, too.

"So you're not only a liar and a thief, but a glutton? Why do you need my food when you have your own? Or were you going to kidnap me? I've heard about nasty men like you, kidnapping defenseless old ladies like me."

Defenseless? Ha! Not.

For each step that the mildly hunchbacked woman took forward, waving her cane in the air, Logan took one step back, trying to put some distance between the deranged crone and his bruised self. He needn't have worried, however, as the woman's focus was on his car and not his person.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Repeatedly raising and lowering her cane onto the car's hood, the little old lady savagely dented the old jalopy. Logan watched in horror as Bessie bent and groaned under the cruel and unwarranted punishment being meted out upon her.

"That'll make you think before you try something like this again," the woman stated firmly, jabbing her cane in Logan's general direction and nodding curtly at him before stomping away to her own car, groceries (minus a few apples and pears) firmly in her grasp.

Logan looked at his battered car, down to his sore chest and back up to the diminutive form slipping into a rust-colored VW Beetle a few feet to his left.

If he'd known it would have ended this way, he never would have suggested it in the first place.

At least no one he knew had seen him being beaten by a paranoid old hag.

"Hey, Logan!"

Or not.