Chapter 3

Title: Design

Author: aegean

E-mail: aegean11@hotmail.com

Genre: Story Angst, Romance, Action-- Max/Logan shippery

Rating: R

Summary: This chapter takes place sometime after Female Trouble and Cape Haven. Max is at the top of the Space Needle thinking about the events of the last few days.

Disclaimer: Dark Angel is a Fox /Cameron/Eglee vehicle. I get no money. I do it for fun/practice Please don't sue me.

Notes: This is my first chaptered fanfic. I have planned for 5 chapters—hopefully something like one a week but who knows. Chapter 3 hopefully is up to par with my previous chapters. I hope you guys like it. Please R&R. Good/Bad whatever. Advice. Anything works for me.

Chapter 3

Watercolors and Peach Roses

Three Months Later

/Nothing's gonna happen now. I'm outta here…no I can't, Logan's info was strong. OK, one more hour that's it./ Max had been crouching behind a construction crane on the roof of a building near the outskirts of sector five. She had a direct line of sight to the street below. According to Logan's intel, there was supposed to be a meeting between the two concerned parties who wanted ownership of the phone system. She frequently wondered why they always had to meet in the middle of the night in the bad parts of town. Just once she wanted them to meet in a nice hotel, or at a spa, or in the country, but she quickly gave up on that idea. For months, she had been skulking around at night trying to catch these guys. They rarely showed and if they did, nothing that Eyes Only could use was discussed. For all her troubles, she had been chased and shot at by sector police on occasion and had been in several fights with the rougher elements in the neighborhood, still never returning with usable information. Logan felt bad because he couldn't put his finger on what was going on. So, there Max crouched for seven hours, waiting to help Eyes Only.

Her self-imposed limit of one hour ended at four in the morning. She began to move not thinking that her muscles would make her unsteady after seven hours in one position. So intent on getting out of there she didn't realize that some guys had gathered on the other street corner below her exit point. She stood up and jumped off the edge of the roof onto the ground below straight into the men. At first they were surprised at her appearance, but they far outnumbered her so they began to harass her.

"I don't know how you just did that little girl…but mmmm, at least we know you're limber," one of them said as they approached her. Her upper thighs were still cramped as she got into her fighting stance. He saw her prepare to defend herself and began to laugh. "Look at her, took a self defense class and thinks she can take us on." He attempted to grab her arm and she threw a round house, which was supposed to make contact with his ribs, but fell short because her muscle spasmed and only reached his hip. Because of the awkwardness of her kick, she lost her balance and fell back. /Dammit Max you're slipping./ She felt someone coming up behind her and shot him a back kick to his pelvis with enough force to knock him back several feet. She spun around and jumped up just in time to plant a left hook into the face of another attacker. Stunned by the blow, he charged her again, but received a knee in the chest for his efforts. She pushed him down and looked up just in time to see the Mack 10 that was pointed at her face. She ducked and moved to dodge the bullets. It was still pretty dark, so the gunman missed because he couldn't see her well. He had fired the full clip into her last known position, and didn't notice the figure coming at him from the side. She barreled into him with such speed he went flying into a brick wall with enough force to shatter his shoulder. The gun dropped to the ground. /Crude but effective./ By this time the last man standing, armed with a switchblade was already standing behind her. Sensing his approach, she quickly shifted to the side and he missed with his first lunge. She turned around and grabbed the hand holding the knife. He tried to land a punch but she grabbed his other wrist in a temporary stalemate. She threw a head butt and as he stumbled backward she released a wrist giving her enough space between them to land two kicks to his ribs. He buckled over and she threw one more kick to his face to knock him out. The first attacker had regained consciousness by this time and fired three rounds at Max. The first two bullets grazed her waist, but by the time the third was fired, she had moved out of the way. He looked to see where she had gone but only saw her foot fly into his face. When she was finished, she surveyed the damage to her waist and to the men on the ground and then decided she'd better take off in the event sector police decided to show up.

"Honey I'm home," she said flatly as she walked in at a quarter to five in the morning. She walked down the hall toward the light of Logan's bedroom door. She was casually holding her side trying to stop the tiny amounts of blood that had formed from falling on his hardwood floors.

"By the tone of your voice, I'd say it was another uneventful stakeout" he said when he saw her shadow cut through the light outside his door. He knew the tone all to well. It had a defeatist quality to it.

"No," she said shaking her head as though she were pondering her response, "more like…"

"Another fight," Logan finished as she came into the room. He quietly got out of bed and went to the bathroom as though seeing her shot up was a normal event. He had been undergoing a new treatment for a few months and now had limited abilities with his legs. He moved very slowly, however, he didn't need the chair as much and he was making steady progress. He went into the bathroom to get cotton and peroxide while she stripped off her cat-suit. She sat on the bed in her underwear waiting for him to return. The wound really didn't need treatment, perhaps only a stitch or two, but they had come to an understanding over the past several months. She would let him treat her wounds without complaining and he promised not to worry too much when she got injured. He came out and dealt with the situation. "So what happened," he asked.

"Run of the mill thugs, you know that part of town. Guys think they're bad asses until the girl steps in and shows them otherwise. Ouch that stings!"

"Sorry," he said paying more attention to how he cleaned her cuts. "So how'd you get hurt?"

"One of them shot at me when he regained consciousness."

"How many were there?"

"Five," she answered flatly.

"Heavily armed," he said as though he were stating a fact he already knew.

"No. Two guns and a switchblade."

"That's it?" The words contained both a mixture of surprise and disbelief. /What am I talking about. I couldn't take on five guys. Stop questioning her./

"What's that supposed to mean? That's enough for most people. It would be enough for you." /Don't start a fight with him. This is your fault not his./

"Yes, but I'm not you and you're not most people."

"Oh, let me get this straight, so…because I'm a genetically engineered killing machine I can't have an off night?"

"You've had a couple of off nights lately." /Fuck! That did it. Why couldn't you just shut up Logan!/ The moment he said it he wanted to immediately take it back. He said it out of worry and not as a critique, but he knew it was too late. He just hoped he could do damage control.

"Really…well I'm sorry the all mighty Eyes Only is no longer pleased with the work of his personal vigilante." Logan knew things were bad when she called him by his alter-ego. "Maybe if your intel wasn't such crap, I wouldn't get distracted by the mind numbing boredom."

"Whoa. This is not about me. I'm just concerned about all the accidents lately."

"What Logan…you want me to say that I was careless. Well I wasn't. Sometimes I just get hurt. But let me tell you, it gets a little tiring going out there night after night for nothing. I mean what the hell is happening? And this is about you. It's your crusade. Are you sure Eyes Only just isn't trying to see a problem where there isn't one because things have been slow? No wrongs to right lately?" He last remark had been intentionally angry and snide, but she couldn't help but lose her temper. She needed the fight. She wasn't really mad at Logan, she was mad at her own carelessness, and wanted to just shut down. While it was true that she had become more open about her feelings during the time she had spent with Logan, sometimes he would try to hard to get her to talk when she was upset, and she knew the only way out of it was through a fight. Months of being with Logan just couldn't change certain traits. When she felt backed into a corner, she still needed to put her walls up. And, at that moment she was feeling pretty low. She couldn't help but think that she was designed to be the best so every time she got hurt, it hit her on an emotional level. She was sure that if she had still been at Manticore she would have been terminated by now for her poor performance. "You know what, I really don't want to get into this right now."

"All right. We'll talk about it in the morning. Lets just go to bed." He knew she was just trying to start a fight. She often did this when she was angry with herself. His approach used to be to have it out with her and she always ended up walking out. One night he was too tired to argue and by the next morning she had calmed down. He soon realized that she always calmed down; it just took her time. She got up grabbed one of his shirts and started to walk to the guestroom. "Max?!"

"Logan, I'm too annoyed I'll be restless," she said as she left the room. It had been weeks since she had slept in the guestroom. At first when she would spend the night she would automatically go to the spare room. However, in the weeks that passed, she had started to spend later nights in his room before returning to the guestroom. One night, she just decided to stay in his room. The night proved to be an exercise in control for both Max and Logan. It was the first night they took their relationship one step closer to complete intimacy. They wanted to have full consummation, but couldn't because of the recent changes with his legs.

His recovery began with slight feeling similar in nature to the kind he had experienced when he received Max's blood. Shortly after, he was able to stand and walk. He looked at it as a second attempt at what Max had started. He just hoped it would be a more permanent fix. Being able to walk short distances allowed him and Max to go for regular walks in the park, each time increasing the distance. A few weeks after he began to walk, they wanted to start sleeping together, but the doctors and Bling advised them that any unnecessary rigorous movement could traumatize the new tissue. Max and Logan hardly considered the movement they had planned unnecessary, but decided to wait until he had recovered fully. They felt that they could keep themselves busy with other activities in the interim.

It wasn't the first time they were denied intimacy. Before Logan began treatment, they had discussed their mutual issues regarding his situation and decided they were ready for each other. Logan went to his physician that afternoon for a standard check-up and it was at that appointment he learned of a procedure that could help him regain the use of his legs. When he returned to Max, he told her that he wanted to wait until after the results of the new treatment. She reluctantly agreed, reminding him that she didn't care about his condition, but clearly he wanted everything to be as perfect as possible, and that included the use of his legs. They had been under the impression that it wouldn't take long. However, the treatment made Logan susceptible to scar tissue damage. Again they had to wait.

--

The next morning Max got out of her bed and climbed into Logan's. She wasn't angry anymore and wanted to be held. He felt her climb in and lifted his arm so that she could bury her head in his chest. "I'm sorry," he said meekly as he kissed her head.

"Me too," she replied. They touched each other gently, both conscious of the other's weak points. Logan being particularly careful with her wound, forgetting that it was probably already healed. Two hours later, they lay in bed holding each other and he asked her if she wanted to talk about the previous night. She declined not feeling ready to verbalize her feelings. Instead she told him she was hungry. He laughed, put on boxers and a t-shirt and wheeled himself into the kitchen. He had difficulty standing first thing in the morning, always needing a light workout to get his muscles ready for a day of walking. She followed behind him a few minutes later. He had already begun to whip up a quick breakfast making enough for three because he knew Bling would be over in a shortly.

"Hey Logan, hey Max," Bling said as he walked into the apartment.

"Hey Bling," they replied in unison.

"I've got fruit and pancakes and a favor to ask."

"O…K," Bling said slowly as he sat down at the table.

"Nothing bad. Its just that Max has been working so hard lately and I promised that we'd go to the cabin as soon as it warmed up. I think we should go next weekend so can you keep an eye on things here?"

"You don't even have to ask. Not a problem," Bling replied. He was glad that they were getting away. Max was looking a little worse for wear and Logan had been getting edgy. He kept telling them that they couldn't save the world 24-7.

Max got up to go take a shower. She knew that the boys needed to do some therapy and Logan didn't always like her around for that. Some days it was harder for him than others and she learned that if she left voluntarily to do something else, he didn't feel guilty about wanting to get rid of her. When Logan heard the shower start to run, he turned to talk to Bling.

"I need to know how my progress is going. I feel stronger and I'm only using the chair to make certain I don't overdo anything." Logan paused for a moment. "So I need to know if I'm still in danger of tissue damage if I engage in…" Logan began to blush and Bling caught onto his train of thought.

"…if you engage in rigorous activity," Bling said with a grin on his face. He was glad to hear that the weekend away was going to have a romantic element. They really needed it.

"Yeah. I feel like a fool not being able to talk about this."

"Don't worry about it. I'm your friend and your PT. It's a perfectly normal conversation to be having with either." Logan seemed to relax at this statement. "In my professional opinion, as long as Max… takes it easy, I say have fun."

"Yeah, Max take it easy…right. Do you know what it was like last month when she was in heat?"

"Not really. Don't really want the details either." He left the room and returned with some towels for the workout. "So does she know this is what you've got planned?"

"No, I don't know if anything will happen either. I just want to make certain that I can."

"Well, you can and you have my permission."

"Thanks," Logan replied sarcastically.

"For what," Max said as she came out of Logan's room. They looked at her with guilty faces. "What're you two plotting," she said in response to their look.

"Nothing," they replied in unison. She shrugged and turned back into the room. They knew she was letting them off the hook and they were relieved that she had been so kind because they found it difficult to lie to her when she was standing in front of them.

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"So," Max said to Cindy, "I'm a little nervous about going away with Logan. I mean I want to, but I'm still concerned about hurting his progress." Cindy hadn't seen Max since in over a week. It wasn't entirely Max's fault, Cindy had been out with Lana every time Max finally came home. Even at work, their schedules seemed off. So for the first time in ten days, they were sitting together in front of the lockers at Jam Pony getting ready for their morning runs and discussing life.

"Girl, you worry too much. Lets put it this way…if you two don't get this out of your system soon, you will end up hurting him when you finally do lose control. Does he know it's what you want out of the weekend?"

"Haven't actually said anything yet, but I think I've given good signals. I've got something planned for the cabin though."

"Talk," Cindy said.

"Bip,Bip,Bip, ladies," Normal yelled from his control station. "You do work here don't you? Get these to 121 East Liberty." He handed several bundles to Max and Cindy. "Come on people let's move."

"Guess we'll talk later, gotta go pay the bills." Max grabbed the packages from Normal and waved bye to Cindy." She hadn't really wanted to discuss her plan so she was happy for the interruption of work.

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"Adequate. Her performance has been adequate. I was told that she was one of the best and she barely beat our men in the streets last week…and they were untrained thugs" said the first man.

"Perhaps she's been away from training for too long. However, her speed and strength are still within their appropriate ranges. I believe we can harness these skills," said the second man.

"Do you wish for further tests sir," a subordinate asked.

"Yes," a third man replied to the subordinate. "Her endurance, speed, and strength have been tested," he said addressing the other two men at the table. "We need to test her intelligence, her ability to problem solve. We need a bigger challenge."

"She has failed to make the connection between us and Seattle's recent…complications. Isn't that enough of a test of her problem solving capabilities," retorted the first man.

"One could argue that we've been remiss in our little fact finding mission by failing to give her a compelling reason to seek us out. However, I believe I have a suitable test," said the third figure.

"Fine, you have one week. We must see what she is truly made of," said the first man. He turned to the subordinate. "Set everything to his specifications. You are excused."

"Yes sir…sir…sir," the subordinate said addressing each man individually.

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"So Logan, why doesn't Eyes Only send me on any Valentine Operations," Max said as she touched his upper thigh. They were on their way to his uncles cabin and she was feeling particularly flirtatious.

"He does. You climb into bed with him every night." She laughed. She had her window rolled down and she was on her way to spend a weekend at the cabin. She was actually feeling giddy. She didn't really know what to expect, and she didn't care.

They arrived at their destination late Saturday morning. Logan stopped the car and Max jumped out. She ran to the trunk to unload its contents. She wanted to start relaxing as soon as possible. There was a box of food, a case of champagne, and another mysterious box that Logan had brought. She had been dying to see its contents from the moment she saw him put it in the car. She ran up the stairs leaving Logan at the car. He was bringing up the rear with the box he had forbidden her to look in. It had taken all her self-control to do as he asked. When she got to the top of the stairs, she burst through the front door and was immediately taken aback by what she saw.

Everything was the same way she and Zack had left it--except for the flowers. There were at least a dozen different bouquets of flowers in the main room. There were white roses on the table by the front door, followed by the yellow roses on the coffee table. There were red roses on the windowsill. And finally, there was a bouquet of pink roses on the table by the bedroom door. She remembered exactly what each color meant as she walked through the room brushing her hand over each bouquet. She didn't really know what to think and couldn't speak because she had been rendered speechless. "I had the caretaker fix things up this morning," Logan said as he came in the front door. She turned when she heard his voice and just sat on the couch. "Sorry if it's too much."

"It's not that. I…you ..you always surprise me." Logan just smiled bashfully.

"Lets go for a walk before it gets dark." Since regaining his legs, Logan never passed up the opportunity to walk in new places. She agreed and they went out the back door and into the woods. They walked for a while before they found a clearing to stop in. He found some soft grass and they sat down. She rested her head on his lap and he played with her hair. He looked into her dark brown eyes and she into his baby blues. They both sighed a lot though conflicted between deciding whether to speak or whether to embrace the comfortable silence. They remained there until dusk, leaving only when a chill settled in the air.

When they returned, Logan kissed her forehead at the door and went into the kitchen. He notified her he was going to make her a special treat before he cooked dinner and she wasn't allowed to see it so she told him she was going to take a bath. He roguishly said she could either do that or see what was in the mystery box. Her curiosity beat out the bath. She walked over and opened the box while Logan was in the kitchen. Inside she found crayons and coloring books and watercolors, and at first she was confused, but she quickly understood. Logan had put some of the most basic elements of a childhood into a box and gave them to her. She examined each item with great curiosity. Of course she felt a little strange becoming enamored with children's playthings, but it was strangely liberating.

She set everything on the coffee table and sat down in front of it. She stared and waited not knowing where to begin or if she should begin. /I can't play. I don't know how to play. Maybe that's the point. You just have to throw yourself into it. How funny, I'm actually afraid of playing wrong./ She didn't really have the opportunity to think about it long because she began to smell such a wonderful aroma fill the cabin-- chocolate chip cookies. Logan had baked cookies. She smiled and laughed at how much trouble he had gone through to make the vacation so special.

"OK," he said as he came out of the kitchen carrying a bowl, "you've gotta try this. Why aren't you doing anything?"

"What do I do," she asked looking between the table and Logan. "Let me rephrase that. I know what to do, but where should I start."

"Start by tasting this for me," he said as he handed her a spoon. She didn't really think anything of it because she had often tasted his creations while he was working on them.

"Mmmm, this is sweet. I like it. What is it," she said with a childlike smile.

"Cookie dough. You've just taken your first step toward childhood, the rest should be easy." He handed her the spoon and the bowl and sat down beside her. He picked up some pencils and started to draw. She watched him intently as he drew and ate cookie dough. After five minutes she saw that he was drawing what looked like a pair of eyes. She picked up a crayon and tried to copy him. "Max, you can't draw what I draw, that's not the point… I once drew a portrait of my mother for her birthday when I was younger. She said she loved it, but the whole thing was a disaster. Everything was off except for the eyes. For some reason they were perfect. That probably why the one feature of my mother that never fades is her eyes. I guess what I'm, trying to say is the whole point is to draw what you like." She tried and whimsically took some colored pencils and began to draw a house in great detail. Logan was moved by the unguarded nature of the picture.

"What?" she asked when she caught him staring.

"Nothing. I just liked your picture," Logan replied. Max turned to look down at her work and a somber expression crossed her face. Logan knew she was slipping away from the carefree nature of the moment, so he tried to bring her back. "You know, I get the whole picture…the house, the yard, the garage. But what I don't get are the two tiny elephants in the front." Max looked down at her work and then turned to Logan.

"Those are dogs, thank you." He looked at her skeptically and to retaliate, Max hit him with a sofa pillow. They both began to laugh

After about an hour of coloring and laughing they decided that they should return to adulthood and break open the champagne. After dinner they sat around drinking champagne. They were quickly getting visibly anxious over where the next few minutes would lead.

They found out soon enough when Logan leaned over and began to kiss her. She in response wrapped her arms around his neck and fell back into the couch. They remained in that position for a few minutes until Max had to re-adjust her body to accommodate the added weight of his. While in the embrace, she brought her legs in toward her chest and used her feet to slide his pants down. It was the most efficient multi-tasking Logan had ever been a party to. A few moments later, she felt the absence of his chest upon hers as he lifted away to give himself enough room to remove her shorts. He ran both of his hands down her stomach and to the buttons of her jean shorts.

Logan, equally as adept at removing clothing, undid the first button and pulled, forcing the rest to immediately give way. He bent down and kissed the soft flesh below her belly button before removing her shorts. She raised her hips just enough to make the process a little easier. Logan had told her the first night they had removed each others clothes that there were few things sexier than when a woman lifted her waist to aid in disrobing, effectively giving permission to continue.

Max was enjoying the slow nature of the situation, but her desire was building, so she pulled his body back over hers and kissed him intensely for a few minutes before getting him out of the rest of his clothes. She had him sit up so that she could straddle his legs. She would've just flipped him, but she knew she still had to take it easy. Once on top, she leaned forward and kissed his lips moving toward his ear. She loved the way his permanent stubble tickled her cheeks. It electrified her body when she was this close to him. Leaning back a little to get better access to his shirt, she unbuttoned each button so slowly it nearly ended him. She would undo a button then kiss his chest adding slight licks and bites as she worked her way down. When his shirt was undone she slowly ran her fingertips over his shoulders and slipped it off. She planted one kiss on his collarbone and murmured "Logan I have something for you. Wait here." She jumped off his lap and went to her bag. He was confused, but remained on the couch. She returned quickly with something behind her back and climbed into his lap. "Here," she said as she pulled a peach colored rose from behind her back. "I had to make a delivery to a florist shop and few weeks ago and saw these. I asked what they meant and the owner told me that peach stood for desire and excitement. You never told me about peach roses." Logan took the flower out of her hand and without a sound, pulled her into a loving kiss. "Lets move this into the bedroom shall we," she said after breaking the embrace. He nodded and they retired to the bedroom.

She was walking ahead of him, but turned to face him when they reached the bed. She intertwined her hands in his and pulled him down onto the bed. She wanted him on top. It would restrain her more 'rigorous' impulses. She used her legs to drag them higher onto the bed. In moments their bodies were bare and it was just skin upon skin. Noting his increased level of excitement, Logan reached under one of the pillows and returned with a few little square packages. Logan was readying himself to open it when Max grabbed it from his hand. She held it above her head seductively and toyed with him.

"You can get it away from me…all you need to do is reach for it." A grin crossed his face as he shook his head at her. Max too was overcome by the moment and pulled the package to her mouth tearing it open before Logan got a hold of it. Just as she did that, she heard the front door fly open.

"Logan!…Max!"

"Bling!" they both yelled.

"We've gotta go back to Seattle now!" he yelled. His voice was uneven in that way that made it seem as though he ran all the way to the cabin. They had no idea what was going on, but if Bling had interrupted their vacation, it had to have been life or death. Logan grabbed the sheet wrapped it around his body and ran out into the living room. Max followed with the spread around her body. When Bling saw the two of them, he couldn't determine at what point he had walked in and felt terrible, but he knew he needed to get to them whatever the cost. "We have to go back now. Seattle is in complete lockdown…they're shooting people who try to leave. I barely got out. All phone lines are down and the power is out. Arsonists have set fires and people are dying in the streets because no one can call for help. They locked everyone into their sectors without any medical or fire support. It's a war zone right now." They both stared at him in utter confusion. They knew their weekend was over and this only confirmed that they would never truly be able to leave their alter-egos for long. Seattle couldn't survive without them.

During the car ride back, Max noticed that Bling hadn't looked directly at her since he arrived. At first she thought it was out of respect for her modesty, after all it was an embarrassing situation to interrupt. But on the car ride back, she realized there was something else wrong. Logan was too busy with his laptop to realize that Bling was acting unusually despite the extreme nature of the situation. She decided to find out what was up. "Bling you haven't looked at me all night. I'm getting the feeling that there's something more about this situation that I am not going to like." She could see him trying to formulate a response, so she waited.

"You're right. There is something else." At this admission Logan looked up at Bling and both he and Max waited for the last of the bad news. "I was monitoring the video feed from the police drones in the different sectors. There was a man standing in each zone holding a sign with a series of numbers…your numbers Max…it was your barcode. They were calling you out." When Bling finished a deafening silence filled the car that lasted halfway back to Seattle.

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