Title: Breaking (2)
Summary: Zack's deteriorating. Max isn't ready to let him go.
Rating: PG13.
Disclaimer: Cameron and Eglee.
Date: March 20 2001.
Zack used to be good at control. He had seethed with rage and hatred against Lydecker, against Manticore, against the death that chipped away at his family child by child. He had been able to keep his emotions in check. Del had panicked, foot chained to the bottom of the pool, his mouth opening wide in an airless gasp. Zack had held himself still, emotions sparking white hot within him but had kept his expression neutral, his body dedicated to the task Lydecker had set before them. Trish had hurried across the beams set high towards the ceiling. Her arms had windmilled, left foot swinging out above empty air, trying to find its way back to safety. She had screamed all the way to the ground. They had filed past her body, never breaking from their stride as they stepped into the range of wide opened eyes.
This world gave no boundaries to his emotions. In Manticore, survival had dictated that he be in control every moment. Things had been simple in Manticore. He had known who he was and where he stood. He was a soldier. He would act or he would die. He was a leader, and the lives of the others rested upon his abilities. The outside world was messy with boundaries too loose to contain him, rules that he couldn't quite grasp. He was a soldier, but he couldn't be solely that. He had to make money, interact with civilians, pull normalcy around him like an ill-fitted cloak. He was a leader to men and women who struggled against his orders.
The world he lived in had forced him to confront the fact that despite his genetically enhanced body, he was still painfully human. Max had made that humanity real, something he could not avoid and could not deny. He didn't feel like a soldier around her, or a fugitive -- he felt like a man, as confused and vulnerable as any he had ever known.
He had left Max to tear apart her apartment in anger, choking on an upsurge of bitterness as he retreated from her. Zack had headed away on foot, needing to burn away his emotions on sustained physical activity. He ran through the darkened streets with an easy, animal grace. He had listened to the sound of his boots pounding rhythmically on the litter-scattered pavement and the slightly accelerated beat of his heart. Zack had still been able to think, to feel, and he had speed up, moving with such speed that his feet barely touched the ground. He wanted to move upwards, seat himself somewhere high above the world where he could feel crisp air against his face, see the city spilled out beneath his sharp eyes.
His body rebelled in a sudden, ferocious attack. Tremors claimed his body, made his flying form turn clumsy. Zack tumbled forward as the force of the shudders made him lose his stride. He caught himself before he fell, pride keeping him upright. He had thought Brin thoughtless, careless in her actions. Zack began to understand what must have made her break from procedure. Brin had sought his aid, safety and salvation through him. And as the first tremors had crept across his body, he had sought out Max in turn, searching for salvation in her. He hadn't been able to save Brin. And Max... Max would never be able to provide him with what he required.
Zack cursed himself as a fool.
...~*~...
She was a fool, Max thought with disgust. Max picked her way across the broken glass littering the floor (and there went a nice chunk of her salary on new glasses) and flopped down into the couch she had first confronted Zack on. She flung her bare arm over her eyes, one fisted hand resting against her clenched jaw. Zack had warned her not to push. She should have known better than to do so. It wasn't even as if she hadn't known precisely what would finally be drawn out into the open. Sometimes, Max hated Logan for having told her that Zack felt more than a brotherly affection towards her.
That knowledge had rooted its way deep into Max's mind, resistant to her most strenuous efforts to remove it. She picked at the idea of Zack's love, fascinated and horrified at once. And though Max wondered as to the why and how of Zack's affection, she had until that point avoided directly calling him on his feelings. In her own thoughts, she could transform his feelings back into what she had always thought they should be. She could hide them from herself when they became too much to think about. They were an abstraction in her mind, theoretical, a possibility belonging to a not quite real Zack.
When she wasn't refiguring them or hiding from them, Max had decided that if Zack really did love her it obviously had to be physically based. She knew that she was a beautiful woman, and Zack hadn't grown into adulthood with her, hadn't had time to become accustomed to the changes within her. He told her that she was his humanity, his doorway into a freedom of heart and spirit as well as body. Max hadn't been prepared for that. Lust she could have dealt with. Bring attraction into the open, gently turn him down and work themselves back into a relationship she was comfortable with.
And he'd had to go and be meaningful.
"Well, damn," Max muttered. With sudden ferocity, she lunged back up, flinging herself off the couch. She had forced this into the open, and it was far too late to pretend this hadn't happened or that she hadn't understood what Zack was saying. They had to clear things up _now_ before thoughts and feelings had time to rot in silence. Max needed Zack. He needed her. He had come to her with his deteriorating body, his new emotions and concerns. She couldn't let him slip away from her in anger and hurt.
The sky was lightening by the time Max found Zack. He had climbed to the roof of an elementary school several miles away from Max's apartment. The two of them had always climbed when they thought. Space and air and the rest of the world fallen far and small behind them, beyond the easy reach of normal humans. A shock of memory welled up within Max. She remembered watching the ground, blurring and jumping beyond her watering eyes. Zack at her back and she had looked at him, defiant, daring him to speak out against her display. He had touched her cheek, amazed at her emotion.
Max sat beside Zack, arms drawn tight around her knees, hugging them to her chest. Zack's hands were twitching against his legs. Max could see scrapes against his hands. She concentrated on breathing, on watching the rise and fall of Zack's chest, the slight movements of his shoulders. "It's okay, Zack," Max murmured.
"I'd stop if I could," he told her.
What could she say to that? She had wanted him to stop, to play big brother and not the would-be suitor. Max didn't know what she felt anymore. Everything had been clear once, but all of this had changed her in some way, the extents of those changes unclear even to Max herself. She couldn't love Zack. There was Logan. There was the fact that Zack pissed her off to no end most of the time. Max's hand crept outwards to grip Zack's. Her fingers wound with his. He was warm and solid against her, an intense familiarity born out of something not entirely human.
Zack was still so powerfully rooted in Manticore. Max had spent ten years of her life trying to forget that hell. She would not open herself to Zack, would not let his intensity, his Manticore-forged reality take away the normalcy she had created.
Zack squeezed Max's hand briefly before letting go.
"Come back with me?" Max offered, watching Zack's back as he rose.
He shook his head, not looking at her. "I don't think that's a good idea."
"Where will you go?" Max asked. She rose, arms wrapped around her waist, shoulders hunched forward slightly.
Zack had put himself away bit by bit, locked the man back inside the soldier. He was keeping her safe from him, or the other way around, or both -- Max wasn't sure how it worked anymore. That was for the best, wasn't it? No messy, disruptive emotions between them. She missed the glimpse of the man. It hurt to realize that she knew the child Zack had been and the soldier he tried to remain, but she knew so little of his life and thoughts. As much as Zack the soldier could irritate her, she had kept him inside that form, not looking for hints as to how he had been changed in the years since she had seen him.
"I should see the others, tell them what's going on. I'll stay in touch with Logan."
Not her. "Oh." Max touched Zack's shoulder tentatively. He turned to face her. "We'll get you through this, Zack."
His hand rose, brushed against her cheek. "Yeah. You take care of yourself, Max."
...~*~...
Zack had first seen Max when she was fifteen years old. She had been so very lovely in the squalor around them. She had been standing with a bag slung over her shoulder, one hip jutting out as she rested her weight on one foot. Max had curled a long lock of dark hair around her finger before tucking the strand behind her ear. She had nibbled at her bottom lip, casting an impatient glance at the watch at her wrist. Zack had stood frozen for a moment, watching her. The line Max was standing in began to move and Zack broke forward. A bus. She was leaving. He had been stopped by a cop, more bored than suspicious. Zack had known that he needed to reach Max. He pulled out of the older man's grip, moved forward, pushing through the crowds. He hadn't caught Max. For his effort, he had ended up in a holding cell, a picture of his barcode filed away in the station.
His memory had been made perfect. Max was bright and sharp in his mind.
There was a dream in which he found Max again. She saw him and felt that same surge of _rightness_ that he had in that momentary glimpse of her. He imagined the brush of soft flesh beneath his hands. The delighted curve of lips. He hadn't seen Max smile in Manticore. He hungered for the sight of such an expression on the solemn face of the girl he had known. He had imagined holding her body tight and fierce against his own, Max's arms wrapping strong and welcoming around him.
They had gone back to Max's apartment long enough for him to get his motorcycle. He had wanted to kiss her. She wouldn't have welcomed that, had made that perfectly clear time and time again. And his wants were immaterial. He was a soldier. He had duty and strategy and Manticore burning in his soul. Of what use were dreams and love and touch to one such as him. Zack had settled onto his motorcycle, nodded at Max in place of a kiss before pulling his helmet onto his head.
Maybe she had watched him drive away, eyes latched onto him until even her eyes lost him to the distance. She probably hadn't. He didn't look back to see.
~end~