Disclaimer: Dark Angel is not mine it belongs to Cameron/Eglee Productions, Fox, etc. I make no money from the writing of this.
The End of a Long Day
Max pulled up in front of Joshua's and got off her bike. She was stiff all over from another close call.
She didn't want to spend the rest of her life running, but it seemed that no matter what she did things never got better. The world would never accept people like her.
She felt bad for Joshua, at least she could go out, Joshua would have to spend the rest of his life hiding from the world.
Well he wasn't missing much she reflected.
Walking hurt, sitting down hurt.
She curled up in Joshua's big chair and folded her knees up into the seat, she was small enough to fit in it comfortably. Cindy wouldn't worry too much that she didn't come home tonight; Max often didn't make it home.
She loved Cindy like a sister, but sometimes she needed to be around others like herself, and she felt safe with Joshua. She had no idea where he was right now, probably wandering the neighbourhood. It was only safe for him to go out in these small hours of the morning.
Even with him gone she was safe here. Of course this wasn't where she really wanted to be. She wanted to be with Logan, but that was too dangerous for him, she had to stay away. It was easier for her if she didn't see him, not that not seeing him was easy because it wasn't.
She missed him. She missed him so much she wanted to cry but she couldn't, if she cried the bastards that did this gained an advantage, they got to her and that was unacceptable.
Manticore, or what was left of Manticore couldn't be allowed to win.
Ames White and his breeding cult couldn't be allowed to win. She wasn't sure exactly what them winning would mean but she knew it was bad. She remembered White's son Ray telling her and Logan that it was going to be bad if you weren't one of them.
He had thought Logan and Max were part of the breeding cult obviously.
Max remembered the sadness and resolve in eyes as she and Logan had explained that his father wanted him to go away somewhere safe now that he had past the test.
A lie of course, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him the truth. He was a child, an innocent.
She had never been a child or an innocent, Manticore had robbed her of that right. White and his buddies would rob Ray of that right as well if they had their way.
Ray was safe now with his aunt. Max would never reveal their hiding place, Ray would get the chance that she never had. The chance to be normal, like everyone else. He would be loved. Max was sure that Ray had been loved at home, she had seen his home, she remembered her surprise at how normal it had been. The nice lawn and pictures on the wall.
She remembered that image being shattered as White walked in. She remembered the flowers he had been holding. That didn't fit with what she knew of him, he was a cold blooded killer. Not the loving husband and father that the pictures on the walls had suggested, and yet he had been able to fool his wife. Max had thought that the woman must be blind.
Maybe it was Max who was blind, there was a side to this world she knew very little about, even the bad guys had soft spots. With White it was his kid, with Lydecker it had been 'his kids' as he called them, and his late wife. Max remembered the pain in his voice when he had told her about her.
Even the bad guys had someone to hold, someone to care about them.
She had no one. She had Logan but there could never be anything to that, not anymore, Manticore had seen to that when they engineered a virus to kill him, using her to deliver it.
They could never be close in the way she wanted them to be.
Logan would never give up hope of finding a cure, and she had believed that she never would either, but was she just kidding herself? Wishful thinking wasn't her forte, she was a realist. She saw the cold hard truth of life that other people missed. Even Alec lived in a dream world at times.
Alec was a mystery to her in some ways. He wanted people to think he didn't care about anyone or anything but himself.
She smiled to herself, she was pretty sure Logan had thought that way of her at first. She was raised to be a hard-ass. That didn't mean she couldn't change. Her friends had changed her, Cindy, Sketchy, Logan, Joshua, even Normal on some level, he annoyed her but she would protect him if she had to. He wasn't a bad guy, he was just set in his ways.
In the short time she'd known Alec she had seen the beginnings of change in him, of course she would never tell him that.
Alec was like her, the old her, though a lot more annoying.
She wrapped her hands round her knees and snuggled deeper into the chair. She was drowsy, the fight had taken a lot out of her, mentally as well as physically.
She wished Joshua was here right now, she wanted someone nearby, she was tired of being alone. She had friends, but she still felt alone sometimes. The times she felt loneliest were sitting up on the needle, but she still went there. She didn't know why but she needed to go there. It was her place, the loneliest place in Seattle, probably all America but it was hers.
She was glad she was here instead of there. She wanted to feel safe and warm, and Joshua made her feel both. He had an innocence she marvelled at, she hoped he would never lose it but she was a realist after all. Joshua's innocence may have survived Manticore, but it couldn't survive in this world for long.
She dreaded the day that would come when Joshua realised for the first time, when he really understood the pain in the world. He knew about it but it was abstract to him right now. Max would do whatever it took for him to hold onto that innocence for as long as was possible.
Max would go to work tomorrow and the world she knew. She lived in fear that the world she knew would be gone some day.
She was afraid of the future, she didn't know what it would bring or if there would be a place in it for people like her and Joshua.
Max thought of Logan again. He was her rock in this world, he helped her find her place.
She drifted off to sleep thinking of him. Memories of their time together pre-virus, when they had touched and never even imagined that the day would come when that touch would be more lethal to him than any poison.
Max was so exhausted that she didn't notice Joshua come in and cover her with a blanket.
She didn't feel him pat her gently on the head.
She didn't hear her him say 'goodnight little fella,' and she didn't see him drag his sleeping bag over and curl up on the floor next to her.
The End
29 June 2002