Chapter Twenty-Eight

Life Outside The Box


In the Van:

"Here you go Maxie" Alec said extending a set of rolled up blueprints for her to study.

Max turned from the passenger seat to the back were Alec was, she shook her head, "Oh no, I'm not going in…This idiotic idea is all your thing."

"So why the hell are you here?" He looked offended, hell he was offended, she had no idea how much work he and Logan had put into these plans, this wasn't one of her run of the mill Eyes Only missions of the years past.

"I'm here in case this really is the stupid idea I think it is and I need to save the day."

"Gee thanks for your vote of confidence Maxie" he said moving to rejoin the others in the back of the van.

-

She'd gone with him to talk, well to keep him safe and to talk. If she could put Logan inside of a bubble she would, the thought of anything happening to him sent her into a panic she couldn't begin to describe, but was pretty used to feeling after two years. The others were outside waiting for the guards change and unless something arose she and Logan would have almost an hour alone in the van.

"So if all of this works…What then?"

He looked up from the computer screen, "Hmm?"

"What then…what happens if the talks work, if this works?"

"You get your freedom back….You all do."

"White's gonna be back…if not him then someone else."

He nodded, "One enemy at a time Max."

"Lydecker's dead." She turned and focused her attention to the battered Ford emblem on the car in front of them.

Her statement out of the blue only slightly surprised him, he sighed, "I know." They both knew that their months of wishing for him to turn up again were for nothing. If he had been out there he would have come after Jam Pony. This was his great army, he would have come to lead it, nothing could have stopped him. He didn't though.

"All those years thinking he was the great enemy."

"Don't canonize him now Max, he would have thrown you back into Manticore in a second."

"I know, it's just….I don't know…"

"How about what he believed in is something you could understand…You know minus the whole torturing children thing" he smiled as he tacked on the end.

She smiled

"He believed in this country, saving lives…." Those he had been tracking had been his kids and not just animals; he'd seen them as better than anyone else even if he hadn't treated them that way.

She laughed, "Yea, he was just a little misguided."

"It's a shame, all of his connections…"

She nodded, he didn't mean just for Terminal City, although he could have made this whole thing a lot smoother, of course he could have also sold them out just as easily…Logan was talking about Engel, the doc that did this to them. "Definitely the better enemy to have."

"Yea" he said looking back down at the screen and then back over at her, "How do you feel about your barcode?"

She frowned at his out there question and thought about it for a moment….For years she'd hated that thing, but after her speech… "I don't know…why?"

"I found this geneticist, who says he should be able to remove it. I'm not saying you should hide who you are, but you had wanted it gone once." He didn't share why he'd found the geneticist, didn't tell her that the virus wasn't as perfectly matched to his DNA as they had thought, the changes that would be needed to alter his own enough weren't possible.

She raised a hand up to her neck, lightly touching the makeup covered skin, if someone had asked her that question a year ago she would have been thrilled, this past year though it seemed to define her. She knew what Logan meant, she knew he wasn't asking her to deny everything he'd always wanted her to accept. "I still hate it." she looked at him saying it, "But…"

"It's who you are?" he replied for her, he'd watched her grow in the past year because everything she'd been created to be even though she fought it at every step.

She nodded, "It's not who Cale is though. He shouldn't be branded by Manticore for the rest of his life."

He smiled and slightly puzzled he asked, "You want Cale to lie about who he is?"

She thought about it for a moment, "It's not who I was born, it's not who I was for nineteen years, it's who I became. Seeing Case and Ronnie and all the babies, it's not who they're going to be."

"I'll set it up."

"Hey Logan" the earpiece crackled with Alec's voice.

-

"You never answered my question." she said sometime later.

"I'm sorry?" he once more looked up from the computer not following their conversation.

She knew whatever he was engrossed in wasn't that important, Logan always made when it was very clear, "What now? Should I be getting my groveling skills ready?"

He raised his eyebrows looking at her, "You want to go back to Normal?"

"He's really not as bad as I make him seem. Not saying I miss that grating voice of his, but…" she smiled and shrugged her shoulders.

He laughed, "I wouldn't suggest going back there just yet…Remember White?"

"Oh that's right, so no apartment for you?"

He shrugged his shoulders, "I rented it out, I have until November to decide what I want to do with it. Somehow I can't imagine my neighbors wanting me back."

Max laughed, but then paused looking at him. They'd just been dancing around the subject, what about them? "We had some good times at that place."

"We'll have good times at other places. The good times aren't ending."

"Just back to the real world."

His mouth slightly opened, but it couldn't find any words so he nodded.

She looked away, worried that tears would start to form. She looked down as his hand grasped hers, she turned back to face him.

"It's not the world we left almost four months ago. We won't ever let it be that world again."

"Promise"

"We're not going anywhere Max" he made his words clear and eerily similar to all the times he'd stayed with her when she was sick.

"Hey guys miss us?" the van door swung open and there was Alec flanked by the other X-5's.

-

Max Voiceover on the roof as the sun rises-

You know you think about a lot when you're trapped in a box with little more room than needed to wiggle your pinky. Not that I hadn't thought a lot in the months leading up to that. Thinking had been all I had been able to do lying in bed recovering, well thinking and trying not to think as they made their best attempts at brainwashing. That little box though, no food or water, no outside stimulation…Yea I did a lot of thinking in that box…Well thinking or hallucinating whatever you wanna label it.

In the bed it had been all the ways I had screwed up, all the times I should have ran when I stayed…I couldn't really feel guilty about those though, I wasn't angry with myself because those extra months with Logan…Yea those were worth a lot more than a life on the run. I thought about how close we'd come so many times. I thought about what it would be like when I saw him again, I thought about that a lot.

That box though…In that box I did see him….I don't know how far in I was, but I saw him. I came home to him.

He's the only way I survived that without going mad. I forgot everything else, I forgot hunger and thirst. I was with him.

I came home to him. We made love in his bed. I told him how I loved him. I wasn't hungry because he was there cooking for me. For at least 3 days I was with him. With him as if Manticore didn't exist.

I almost asked to be put back in as they came to take me out. Just leave me here to die, at least I'll be with him.

Then I remembered he was still out there. Still out in the world. So I allowed them to carry me off, back to that tiny cell. I know this is different than that, this has been real and not just a hallucination my mind needed to survive. Principle's kinda the same though and no matter how good it feels to be 'playin house' as my girl called it, there's a real life out there we gotta get back to.

(She smiles)

I had one other thought as I collapsed into my bed afterwards and it was 'Damn Lydecker would be proud.' First I made it through the brainwashing and then a week with no food or water, trapped in a tiny little box? That's pretty freakin unbelievable. Sure, he wouldn't have been proud of my methods…No focusing on Logan was definitely not what he would have ordered, but he would have been proud of the results.

(She smiles once more looking out onto the city)

Yea I think that sick bastard would have been proud.


Author's Notes

Lydecker: Okay I pulled him in because I wanted to make it clear that he wasn't coming back to save the day. Then the whole Max thing (words that appear on the screen really aren't my fault, fingers move words appear, my mind isn't really in use) I think it's just a she wishes he was still around because he could have saved the day, he could have given her back Logan. Max still hates him and it's not that she forgives him, but she knows that as bastards go he's pretty low down on the list. He also had real change towards the end, which they both acknowledge.

Max Voiceover: Okay so out of the blue while I was thinking about another dream for Max's future, I started thinking about the box…So it was either I shove this little part in here or I was going to be forced to write a short story involving all of S2 being a hallucination caused by the box and that would lead to the same place as "Duck" did.

The Reviews: Oh my god, actually long detailed reviews…My god I almost died of shock (once more babyangel, I've been spoiled by yours (I do not take them for granted though)). Others reviewed though, long reviews…Amazing. Thank you. (Please note all other readers any size review makes me happy, long ones cause shock which must be mentioned since I normally have to pull teeth, they also inspire me to finish a chapter I was putting off until tomorrow (actually short reviews do that too)).