leave2

You people are doing wonders for my ego! Although, whoever a reader' is, step away from the computer and sign up for some anger-management classes!
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Max road far, away from pain, away from Logan.... No. NO! her heart screamed. Logan is not pain, Logan is peace, Logan is love, Manticore is pain, Manticore is isolation, Logan IS-N' T. She raced at a breakneck speed, blindly heading east.

Around dawn the next morning, she noticed the frostbite beginning to form on her toes from the wind and ice. Max reluctantly signed into a hotel. She didn't want to stop running.
When the going gets tough, the tough crumble like clay and run for the border, an evil little voice in her said as she stuck her feet in the lukewarm water of the bathroom. Max hung her head, replaying everything. You knew it would happen, it always happens. Even if they don't know, they sense something's wrong with you, Maxie, and they don't like it. Damn rationalization impulse. When she could feel her feet again, Max crawled under the blankets and cried.

In Seattle

Zack was worried. After the fiasco with Tinga, he had stepped up the pace on his sibling survelliance. He had seen Max drive off into the night, but he was sure she would be back, and he would have to look away from disgust (definetly not because he felt pain) when she and him made up. He had to admit he'd never seen her happier than with Logan. But look where it got Tinga. Her son, motherless, her husband, broken. Zack silently mourned his lapse in control (not the loss of a sister) when he hadn't killed Charlie before he asked to marry him. Not Max. But she'd been gone ten hours. The last time he had been here to see them fight was when Max was mad at Logan for not even mentioning some family thing he had been invited to.
Are you embarrassed to be seen with me? she had yelled. Logan's face had turned stormy and he walked all the way down to the market. Zack had followed him to- he wasn't sure why. Logan had come across someone selling sterling roses, smiled, bought one and gone home. Zack had been back a week later after checking up on Syl in L.A., to see Logan and Max watching some ancient movie called The Producers and laughing their asses off in each others arms. He hadn't been back for awhile. Because it took so long to get to Philadelphia to check up on Jondy. Of course. But now he was worried. Zack couldn't take the chance of planting a wire, not with Logan's equipment around to pick it up, so he didn't know what the fight was about. Logan crying had really scared him. Logan had made Max leave, but he wasn't mad at her... Zack peered thorugh his heat-sensing goggles (supervision was useless against tinted windows). Logan was asleep with his head on his desk. Zack glanced at his watch. Almost dawn. Thank God Max never checked for tracers on her Ninja. He had been about to intervine anyway, Max, his baby... baby sister, was not going to die in testing like Tinga. Time to find little sister.

Zack followed the signal to Windsett, Montana. The tracker he had actually copied off a pet project of Logan's, it bounced an electronic signal off an old satellite that was rarely used. It could track Max's motorcycle within 600 miles. Not bad for bootleg transmissions. It was parked in the garage of an old inn that was still operational. Zack didn't bother asking the doorman, he could hear the faint sound of sobbing through a crack in a window. Just up the rain gutter and edging the window open. He slipped inside and gazed down at the small, fragile-looking figure on the bed. Max's hair was tangled, her body was twisted in a position to crack a normal woman's spine. She was sleeping, crying in her sleep. Zack frowned. They were not designed to sleep this much, if Logan had hurt her phsyically, he'd kill him. Zack put a hand on her shoulder. Max, wake up. It's me. She stirred, whimpering Then she sat up, recognizing him.

She sounded dissapointed. Max pulled the blanket and sheet up to cover herself (she was wearing panties and a t-shirt, and huddled back. Zack kept his face carefully blank, not showing his dissapointment. When he'd first revealed himself to her, she would have been estatic to have him find her and be there for her. He would have hugged her, and soon they would have run off together... but that didn't happen. She went back for Logan. He hadn't known the first time, and was so relived to find out they weren't married. Then, when she beat him to go back, he had known. Zack should've killed him then and there, gone back and pulled the plug, but he'd had to run. As much as he loved Max, there were eleven others to watch for.
I'm not going to run with you.
Leave it to Max to get straight to the point.
I was coming to see you- no way she believed him, but said nothing and I saw you ride off at eleven at night. Did he - Zack's eyes narrowed hurt you?
Max rubbed her red eyes.
Not physically. He never would.
Zack shifted on the edge of the bed.
But he said... Zack, he said he didn't want me because I was a killer. From Manticore.
Now at this point, he should have said It's all for the best, no one but someone who was there could have understood it anyway. So he did, and Max smiled gratefully. But the smile faltered, and she began to cry. Zack held out his arms to her, and this time she didn't move back.

Max cleaned herself up while Zack got some food. They ate in silence.
Finally, Zack asked.
Max. If Logan isn't... anymore, why don't you leave?
Max had been expecting this, but she was still surprised.
I have a job and friends, Zack.
He frowned.
I can't leave without saying goodbye.
He smiled.
To Logan, too.
Frown.
I love him. With him... it never mattered. Anything. It didn't seem to... and I thought... he was my family.
We're family, Max. Me and you.
Max smiled wistfully.
Yeah, us and the rest of the genejack-and-jill screwups.
From Zack's perspective, the message just wasn't getting through.
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Still a TBC. I think most of you will like the eventual ending, or pelt me with rotten e-vegetables for my poor charater manipulation.