Rating: G
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective owners...and a big apology out to Patrick O'Hearn concerning the title which I "borrowed" from him.
A/N: This is the fruit of one night's labor - and a childish attempt to ignore the massive amount of Physics homework I have. I had no idea where I was going with it through about half of the writing process. Meaningless? Perhaps...
So Flows the Current
Logan looked down at his watch - half past eight. The sun was setting in the west, dark skies rising in the east. The deep, inky black swept across the city like a rich, velvet veil. The night was tender, warm; and he welcomed it like he had accepted none in two long years. In the dark it had been easy for him to pretend that everything was the way it should have been. It was easier for him to feel Max's presence, to imagine she was still alive. His runaway imagination was both a blessing and curse. He'd only wake in the morning to find her gone, forever.
Forever was such a strange thing - never again, beyond all of time, the frightening depths of oblivion itself.
Presently, his heart was at ease. Death had swept her away only for time to bring her back again. Whether or not he could touch her was completely beyond the point, she was vibrant and alive. It was everything that he had wished for, even dared to pray for in the years she had been gone. There were times when he'd thought he couldn't live without her, indeed times when he'd fully considered joining her in the blood soaked grass outside Manticore.
Manticore, another monster that had haunted his dreams - a monster which Max had finally vanquished. Somehow, Logan had mixed feelings about the whole ordeal. Manticore, for lack of a better word, was immortal. It lived on in Max, in all the children she'd let out into a decidedly hostile world.
But, he didn't want to think about what tomorrow would hold. He didn't want to consider anything else but the most immediate good news.
Smiling lightly to himself, he tilted his head back to drink in the damp evening air. There was a freshness to it that hadn't been there before. Everything had changed, even the grass seemed a slightly more brilliant shade of green. The dog that always chased after him at the park, yapping in a glass shattering key, was demure and even cute with his white ears slightly perked. For a moment Logan even considered giving the little fellow - whom he'd once bestowed the nickname of Satan - an affectionate pat on the head.
Indeed, everything had changed.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he listened to the whisper of the freshly clipped grass under his feet. For so long he'd been focused away from where he was. He'd looked to Wyoming, watched the skyline for retribution. His blood had been quickened with the mad desire to add some form of relevance to Max's death. All of it had seemed so senseless, devoid of all meaning. He wouldn't have her die for nothing.
As soon as his reasons to look elsewhere were wiped away, he could turn inward. He was surprised to find the lurking wounds that had been festering within him. They were healing, slowly...they needed the kind of time and peace that he knew he couldn't give them.
"Little late to be out for a stroll, don't you think?"
Her voice wrapped around him, flowed over him with the current of a river. She stepped out of the growing shadows, the fire tinged light from the setting sun licking over her skin and tangling in her hair. She looked more beautiful than he ever remembered her, ever imagined her. There was a little less innocence in her now, the childish curls that he'd pictured her with so many times replaced by sheer, ebony tresses.
He shrugged, but didn't respond to her query.
She was like a phantom - ghost or angel, he had his pick. Though the wind and light could grace her skin, he knew that he couldn't touch her. There had been that one moment when he'd eagerly kissed her, but it wouldn't be repeated within the foreseeable future. That didn't bother him as much as it should have. He supposed that with time the frustrations of distance would degrade the euphoria of discovering breath in her lungs. Life was enough of a gift for the moment.
She crossed her arms over her chest and rocked back on her heels.
Different suddenly seemed like an inadequate word. There was a chasm between them, even though they were only separated by feet. Her long hair, churned by a gentle breeze, brushed against her elbows. He could only guess at what had happened to her back at Manticore. So many times she'd professed death as being preferable to a return. Zack had been tortured, he knew that much, but Max's anguish had been aimed toward her psyche.
He looked away from her, toward a glistening little pond that was filled with ducks. They floated lazily on top of the water, a few diving under with only their tails and kicking legs protruding from the shimmering surface.
"I didn't think I'd see you again," he finally announced, biting his tongue as he did so. Still looking at the ducks, he heard her release a long breath.
"Logan..." she started.
"I know," he interrupted, cutting her off with the sharpened edge of his gaze. The pain of loosing her had hardened him, cut surprising new facets of his persona.
She looked down at the ground and set her teeth firmly into her bottom lip - lips he'd dreamt of for so many nights. It was one thing to let her go when he'd been torn away from her dead body. It was a whole different thing to let her go when he could smell her shampoo and feel the heat of her skin.
The last of the sunlight tangled in her hair, refusing to be extinguished so quickly. Slowly, they turned to gray and left only the minuscule glow of a dying ember.
It's enough that she's here, he reminded himself.
Lies tasted bitter in his mouth, and he felt a sharp pain deep in his heart. She was back, but she wasn't really. He felt like the butt of some cruel joke, and for a few terrifying moments he thought it would tear him apart.
The endless waves of time carried her to his doorstep, then pulled her away again. He didn't want to let her go, didn't know for sure that he could. Life without Max was an unthinkable prospect, but the possibility existed that destiny wouldn't see fit to carry them back to one another. He and Max might forever be stuck in alternate tides, pulled apart at the seams.
She offered him a half smile and turned away, leaving darkness in her wake and Logan alone to face it.
He blinked slowly and looked down at his watch - quarter 'till nine.
The current flowed, pulling her away and helplessly he embraced the intoxication of the night. He could pretend she was still next to him, pretend nothing had changed. At night, everything was the way it ought to be.
Forever - never - further away...