Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to DA
A/N: This little series, all the stories having basically the same theme but from a different perspective, is a little repetitive, isn't it? I don't know how many characters I'm going to do. I originally had plans to do almost all the characters but...we'll see how I feel about it I guess.
A/N #2: Writing these to get over my writer's block worked, and you'll all be happy to know that my new upcoming fic is back on track.
Restless
Part 3: Max
I don't sleep...well, sometimes I rest a bit, but I never sleep. I guess that's why I'm always doing this...riding around the streets of Seattle on my baby.
Max wasn't paying attention to where she was going as she turned down any street that struck her fancy. Her mind was elsewhere, coasting on its own ride through the mists of her carefully hidden heart. Rarely did she allow herself to explore the strange organ's depths, but on a humid Seattle night with a salty wind blowing through her hair, she let herself fall headlong into a dangerous thoughtfulness.
I can't believe he thinks I'm a liability...that Lydecker's going to get me and I'll just haul off and tell him where everyone is -- which I don't even know in the first place.
Zack -- he was on her mind and in her heart more often than not. She'd never even dreamt that he would hide things from her. The action clearly defined where his priorities were, and she certainly wasn't near the top. Everyone else got the number, could reach him at anytime, except her. She had to sit around, hoping for him to appear out of the shadows.
Max was weary of watching shadows. They hid so much that she had to be aware of. Most people could walk by a darkened corner without even thinking twice. Max walked by a darkened corner and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end. There was always the fear that someone was there just waiting to pounce.
Of course, she'd been trained to assume that at any given moment someone would attack her. Most of the time, if she wasn't paying attention, someone did. If the doctors and soldiers knew her seizures were bad she would become their newest lab rat. She still vividly remembered seeing one of her siblings on the cold, hard autopsy table as the doctors poked and prodded. Lydecker had watched over the whole proceedings, sipping his coffee as if he was considering 13-down in the morning cross-word rather than a human life.
Well...somewhat human anyway.
So, Max didn't sleep much. Unconsciousness was a perilous state. When she was asleep, all the things that she tried so hard during the day to hide and suppress were let loose: Lydecker, Zack....Logan.
Logan -- he caused as many problems as Lydecker and Zack put together with his childish grin and naive dreams. She got the feeling that sometimes he really did believe that he could save the world. Maybe sometimes she thought he could too...the man was persuasive with all his big, well crafted sentences and his shining eyes.
She didn't want to care about Logan, indeed was surprised to find that she did. Guys had been like disposable cameras to her -- she used them until they ran-out, then deposited them for a new one. Or, at least, no relationship she'd been in had seemed to last very long, whether or not it was her or him who did the dumping made no difference.
Darren had called her a female fog bank, said that a man never knew where he was with her. Perhaps that was true, Max liked to keep inside of her shell.
Logan though, he was different. He hadn't tried to get her to come out of the shell; he'd climbed right inside. She wasn't sure which approach made her more uncomfortable, but Logan's certainly made her feel more vulnerable. With him so close to everything that she tried so hard to keep hidden from everyone, including herself, he was drudging up thing she didn't want to face. Max didn't want to care, wanted to be able to just shrug her shoulders and walk away. She wanted to hang out at Crash without having Logan tingle at the back of her mind.
The guy's like a three year old...always tugging on my sleeve.
Her Ninja roared as she sped up, relishing the feeling of the night air rushing against her face and through her hair. There was nothing quite like riding a motorcycle. On her Ninja nothing could touch her, all her worries tumbled off behind her onto the black pavement. It was the one time she didn't feel restrained; a time when she could close her eyes and pretend she was flying.
It was a strange thing, the very human dream of being able to fly. Her lusting after that very skill made her feel more connected sometimes -- more human. Max was no angel, but darting down the dark streets on her black Ninja no one could have told her so.
She got the feeling that sometimes Logan saw her as an avenging angel, come down to Earth to provide a source of retribution for all the wrongs done to him and to help him acquire his dream. When he looked at her, he didn't see a struggling young girl, but a means to an end -- a tool. He was apt at using her efficiently. Every once in a while, Max would sit back and pretend that he invited her over and cooked her dinner because he had genuine feelings for her. She didn't doubt that he felt something for her, but there was an element to his emotion that was fabricated.
He protected her, held her close because he saw his dream held within her. Max wished she could see what he did; wished she could find such hope in another person. In a way, she supposed she saw some of what she wanted out of life in Logan. He had the resources to reconnect her with her family and the ability to protect her from Lydecker. During the day, the flaws didn't show, but at night Max could clearly see the odd look in Logan's crystalline blue eyes.
Not me...would he even like what he saw if he saw the real me?
She doubted that he would. Max frequently avoided delving deep into herself because she was afraid of what she would find. All the training and hardening she'd gone through at Manticore had done irreversible damage to her, even if she tried her best to look past it. The psychological effects were like a scar that she hid under a mask of outer strength and solidity.
Even in solitude, Max didn't let her walls down.
In fact, the only time her walls crumbled was when she slept.
I don't sleep.
As she approached her building, Max slowed down. Original Cindy was out on a date, hoping for the action she never seemed to get. Strange that Cindy would search for it only to never find it and Max would run from the idea. Zack, she was confident, felt more than brotherly toward her. She wasn't at all positive how she felt about his feelings for her. She considered him her brother, and it never ceased to shock her when he would say something that sounded suspiciously like a pick-up line.
Then there was Logan...the tension between them was strong enough that even she couldn't ignore it. Logan couldn't possibly have been oblivious to it. Things between them were starting to get weird. She turned down leaving with Zack and finding more of her siblings for him. Not even just for him, but for her home. When Seattle had become the indisputable center of her universe, she wasn't sure.
Tense, she climbed off the Ninja and started toward home, hoping to fit in an hour or two of sleep before work.