A/N This is a depressing piece in my opinion but you know me. Logan just gets inside my head and demands I write these introspections. Takes place after Max leaves in Hello/Goodbye. I have a love/hate affair going with that episode right now. Love because there was some real character development going on. Hate because I can't stand to see Logan hurting so much. But anyway here it is for what it's worth. Consider yourself warned it you hate it.
BTW be sure to stop in to Dark Angel Reflections and say hi and check on the NBML status there.
http://dafans.proboards9.com/ And keep those postcards and letters and emails going to Fox.
"Real men don't let women grab them by the balls and yank them around." A piece of advice from my Uncle Jonas. "Women are good for one thing, junior. As long as you remember that you'll do fine." Another one. I sit in my dark apartment staring into my glass of scotch and Jonas' words come flooding back into my brain. I spend my adult life disavowing everything Jonas tried to teach me and trying my damnedest to be the complete opposite of what he was and where do I end up? Sitting here alone dumped flat on my ass by the woman I love, trying to drink myself into a stupor so I won't feel the pain.
I've had enough pain. because of her. This time I'm not going to sit around and stare out of windows. I raise my glass in a toast to my dead uncle. Maybe he had it right all along. He married my aunt for her money and social connections and proceeded to spend their marriage in a series of affairs with hot young things. Not that Margo ever cared; she had her own amusements. My own parents, what I remember of them, weren't much better. At least my dad wasn't. He was a "manly man" and my mom toed the line and kept to her place.
I didn't want what they had; what I grew up watching. Somewhere inside I always dreamed of finding that one special women. The one who would see me for what I was. Not the rich, good-looking meal ticket most of the debs I grew up with were looking for. I thought Max was that woman. She wasn't raised to care about money and social position. She had no time for those luxuries. At the same time she wasn't raised with any kind of love either. I didn't think that mattered. To me she seemed to be so young and vulnerable and crying out for love. She didn't know what she was looking for but I recognized it in her because it was the same thing I was hurting for and crying out for inside. Someone to love and to love in return.
At least that's what I thought before today. But I guess I was wrong. She called me her meal ticket before she was recaptured by Manticore. I always took it as a joke, thought I saw more than that in her beautiful eyes when she looked at me. Her creator, Lydecker knew. He called it when we were waiting for that ill-fated raid on Manticore to begin.
"You're in love with her son," he told me. "It's okay, I understand." He sounded almost pitying when he said that but I put it down to his general patronizing attitude towards me. But he knew; after all he created her and raised her and her siblings. He made sure to wipe out the capacity to love and accept love in that process. At the time I didn't want to believe that he had succeeded but now I guess I have to.
"How can you do this to me, Max?" the words feel like they are torn out of my throat as I suddenly feel a blaze of anger and taking my glass hurl it against the wall with all my strength. It shatters and I watch as scotch drips down the paneling and glass fragments fly everywhere. Then, anger exhausted, the pain sets in. The pain I have been drinking to avoid. The pain of my heart being ripped out of my chest and stomped on by Max.
Tears are running down my face as I sit here in the darkness. I've never cried in my life as I have since I met Max. The night I lost her to Manticore I cried. And I cried inside for months afterwards. Then she came back and I thought nothing could ever be so awful as to make me cry again. I was wrong. This is worse. At least then I could blame Manticore. Now who do I blame? Myself for being such a fool as to believe in her? Max for not being able to give me something she was never created to be capable of?
Logan Cale, black sheep of the Cale family, failed revolutionary, cripple, chump, a fool for a pretty face. It isn't like Max is the first. Just the one who managed to find her way into my heart and then tear it to pieces, something the others never really managed to do.
My emotions veer wildly. I feel another burst of rage and if Max were here right now I know I would be throwing angry and bitter words at her. Words designed to hurt her the way she has hurt me. Words like "Whore and thief and gold digger." I reach over for another glass and pour myself more scotch as the anger ebbs and pain floods back in.
"I love you, Max. How could you? I would have waited forever for you. It wasn't about the physical, it never was with us. Why did you have to give up on us so easily? How long has it been? Was the incident yesterday just the convenient excuse you've been looking for to dump me so you could be with him?" The words pour out in a torrent echoing around the empty apartment. There's no one here to answer and never will be. I'm crying again and even the scotch can't dull the pain, the throbbing ache where my heart should be. Even in my drunken state I realize that and I set down the glass I just poured. I could spend the rest of my life drunk and it wouldn't help.
Suddenly I feel a clarity in my thoughts. I see my Uncle Jonas standing in front of me glass in hand smiling and beckoning to me to join him. It would be easy. Give up Eyes Only, rejoin the Cale family and find myself a rich heiress. Even with my diminished net worth it wouldn't be hard. I still have the name and looks and reputation. Marry said heiress and turn into Jonas. No more pain.
Even as I think about it I know I will never do that. I see my mother, who always had such faith in me and who raised me to be the best I could be. I see Nathan Herrero, my mentor and more of a father to me than my own ever was. They are looking at me sadly but steadily, challenging me to rise above this and get past it. For this one brief moment I know that I will. I may never love again, in fact I am determined I never will. But I can carry on with what I started. Eyes Only. There are still innumerable people out there who need my help. Maybe I can only help one or two or a dozen of them but that's got to be worth something.
Love was never meant to be for me. I guess I've always known that deep inside. Love is an illusion, a snare and it's time to put it away for once and all. I still hurt but at least I know this will pass in time. I look at the time and realize I'm exhausted. Sleep is what is needed now and tomorrow…I'll deal with things tomorrow. It's as my mother always said, "The universe is right on schedule." Tomorrow I'll figure out where I fit into that schedule and get on with it. Do that long enough and the pain will be gone. Yep that's it. That's the plan.