Awake: A Sequel to Can't Wait

Summary:
What really happened at the end of CW? Is everyone safely dead?
Rating:
PG
SPOILERS:
None, really. It just starts up in the middle of no where. It is definetly BEFORE S1s ending. This is the second to a first one, though, so I suggest you read that.
AN:
Okay, fine, you've got it. The Sequel to "Can't Wait." Happy? It'll be short, hopefully. It will have LOTS of flashbacks. I just got hurt to the bone by Cat's gymnastic analogy! I read that and I was like "I HAVE to fix it!"
Disclaimer: I don't own Dark Angel. I have about ninety dollars to my name which my gradnparents have convinced me to help pay for a Christmas present for my brother for. So I have nothing. I think I own a share in the Xbox, but nobody will remember.

Part .00 The Discovery

Its just simply amazing what Manticore technology will do to you. I mean, even if you're shot in the head, it keeps you alive; the supergenes must be the culprit. Of course, it does help if the bullet just grazes the side of your head.

It only knocked me out for a while. I'm not sure long, my internal clock had been disabled during that time. I just know that when I woke up, I was on the floor, very close to the wall. My head hurts like hell. I reach up and I touch my head, I'm afraid that there's gonna be a hole there. There isn't. Thank God. I realize that it must have just skinned me must have been the shock that knocked me out. I don't know what it is. I sit up, slumping against the wall.

I'm sitting here, covering in blood. I know it can't all be my own blood, there's just too much of it. Then, I remember that heads bleed a lot. Being a Manticore has it's ups and downs; sometimes you're stupid, sometimes you're smart.

At this moment, I feel woozy and I just want to throw up. The moment passes, but I still feel groggy. I can't see anything real well, which is a bad thing. I think there is some blood in my eyes, but I just feel way too tired to actually move my hands up to my eyes and actually wipe the blood away.

I want to close my eyes again and fall asleep. I don't think this is a good idea, something in me tells me that if I do fall asleep I wont ever be awake again. I am scared, right now. Real scared. Its something in me that I can't remember. Maybe the reason I got shot. Why did I get shot?

Zack. Zack had shot me. I remember. I remember now. Where was Zack? He was probably worried because I didn't wake up. Maybe he's gone to go get something for my head. It does feel a little odd right now, kind of spinning and such. I think I'll wipe my eyes.

I raise my hand slowly. Its hard to move. I think I got something hit with the bullet, I'm not sure. I clear the blood out of my eyes and the fuzzy vision I had becomes sharper, clearer. More colors are coming into my eye and I get a sudden blinding urge to close my eyes again. There's too much light. What had I been complaining to Zack, just yesterday? Too much artificial lighting. Way to much. I needed windows, I had told him. I needed fresh air.

Where was Zack? He ought to be back with some ice by now. I'll just turn myself to the door. Slowly, because my head hurts. It really throbs.

Oh God, did I do that? I don't want to be awake.

Part .01 Flirting Images

Slowly, ever so slowly, Max stood up. "Zack?" she whispered, sending jarring pain through her head. "No," she cried, walking slowly toward him. Dropping to her knees, she reached over him. Max slowly turned his head. There was a large wound in the middle of his head. Plenty of blood. The sight tore at her heart. hehe. AJBAC!

Visions, flying one right after the other, flashed through her head. Of the struggle, the shot that rang out which missed Zack, then . . . of getting hit and the terrifying blackness. She hadn't killed Zack, which would mean . . . he killed himself.

Max had to get out of there. She needed a place to ran and scream and cry; first, she needed to get out of this personal hell that had plagued her life.

gray thoughts

"Zack," she begs. She has dark circles under her eyes, which are filled with worry. Her eyes are filled with worry and pain. Exactly what Zack had been trying to protect them from. "Please, let me go."

He looks at her coldly, trying to make her understand. "No."

She fists pound into the bed as his voice echos in her head. No. No. No.

/gray thoughts

Where was the door? She needed a door. Max needed to get out of here, where that body stared up at her with a horrible reminder that the soul was taken from it. That horrible reminder. Why had he done it? Why hadn't he at least taken a glance down at her figure. Why hadn't he realized that she was alive?

Where to search? Where to search? Anything against the wall, anything. The television so carefully censored by Zack would have to be moved. She moved it, with grim determination, moved it easily, and found nothing. Next, she began attacking the bookshelves.

Twenty minutes and five bookshelves later, she was looking at a small door. Glancing back toward the room where Zack's body lay, she shudders.

gray thoughts

"Where? Where, Zack? I need out? I need sunshine . . ." Max's voice is desperate. She arches her back and waves her hands over head. "I feel as a madwoman, Zack! I will be if I stay her much longer!"

Slowly, Zack shakes his head in the negative.

Max reaches out to striek him, but Zack easily grabs her thin wrists.

"You are my brother, don't you love me?" she asks him, fallen and alone in her hurt.

"I do this because my love for you is strong," he tells her gently.

/gray thoughts

Max opened the door and saw row upon row of shelf upon shelf. Inwardly, she groaned. How like Zack to present a challenge for her. Walking, she started searching for a way out. She walked the entire area of the room. There was no door. It took her an hour, but finally, she found a maverick in the wall of shelves.

Opening it, she found another such room as she had found before. Once again, she walked the entirety of the area. This time, however, she found a large door when she was almost finished. Joyously, she opened it.

The bright outside light glared down upon her face. Shielding her eyes, she looked out on the street. It looked empty. Laughing biterly, she touched the cut on her forehead, regretting that she hadn't cleaned it. It had seemed so important to get away from the body.

gray thoughts

"Am I to live the remainder of my days here?" Max asks Zack angrily. He says nothing, so she continues. "Do you want me to die here, is that it? I cannot die here, Zack! I will not die here!"

He says nothing.

/gray thoughts

She was free; free from captivity. She was awake after being asleep for so long. It felt so wonderful to be away from the basic box shape. Fall walls and a ceiling. She did not want ever to be held captive in a room again. She would never be able to stand the confidements of a room again.

It felt so good to be awake.

Part .02 The Missing Piece

Max walked around and around, several times over, to calm her nerves. There was Zack, dead, in a wharehouse in what appeared to be the middle of nowhere. There was herself, alive, lost and in the same state.

Max noticed that she was beginning to recieve a lot of odd stares from the people in the town she was wandering in. Deciding that she had better get going before they started random attacks on the new person, she walked as far as she could toward the west.

It was early morning, that much she could tell by the sun's position in the sky. She traveled west for two reasons; she knew that she would come to either a pay phone or a checkpoint and she knew that if she reached the ocean, she would be able to get her bearings. She would be able to get to Seattle if she could only find the name of the place she was in.

A sector check was up in front of her. Max walked slowly toward it, suddenly weary. There was a sole man there, working the checkpoint with a methodical turn of his head from one side to the other. He wore a bright orange suit and at his side there was a nightstick. No gun, as Max noted wryly, so he wasn't a cop.

Smiling a bit at the hat the man was wearing it said DISNEYLAND on it in large letters Max looked up at him. "Hi," she said, "Can you tell me where I am?"

" 'Cuse me?" the man asked in a strangly high pitched voice. He had a sort of lisp to it, also. "What d'you mean? You at a check point. See?" the man pointed to the small building to his right. "That's the building. M'name's Gordon."

Max was strongly reminded of Phil.

"Hello, Gordon," Max said brightly. Her head ached and she touched it breifly, thinking almost sardonically of Zack and his head. "My name's Max. I got lost last night and now I don't know where I am."

"We-e-e-l-l-l-l," Gordon said slowly, drawing out his words with a thick accent, "Yer'n Can'da." Max lifted her eyebrows. Zack had only brought her to Canada; but what part of Canada. She could have figured out that she was either in Canada or the United States by Gordon's speach.

"What part, Gordon?" Max asked gently, but sternly.

"Surrey, Max," Gordon replied, grinning.

Surrey, British Columbia, Canada. Surrey? That was ridiculous; it was much closer to Seattle than she would have thought. Max had the impression that she had been in the car a long time.

Where did she get that feeling from? She couldn't remember coming to . . . to Surrey. Zack could have flown her here, couldn't he have?

Feeling oddly suffocated, Max bid Gordon good-bye and walked through the checkpoint. He waved her off cheerily and with a nice grin. Almost running in her haste to get to a phone, Max saw the small town through the corner of her eyes.

Oh, thank God, there was a phone right in front of her. Pounding on it, she got some change to shower down into the little slot. She scooped the change into her hand and then placed it into the slot. Dialing, she prayed for the line not to be busy.

It was picked up. Immediately, relief filled her.

"Oh, Logan, it's Max," she said in a rush, "Zack is dead, Logan, he held me hostage, Logan, and then I was trying to get out, I swear, and I got a gun from his stash, I don't even know where and I tried and he shot me, but it missed, Logan, and Logan, he shot himself. Logan. Zack is dead. I'm lost, Logan, I'm in Canada, in Surrey, Logan, and I'm so scared. Are you there?"

There was silence at the end of the line, then, a woman's voice said, "Logan? I think its for you."

Part .03 Completion

Who the hell was she? Who the hell was she? WHO THE HELL WAS SHE? Max nearly dropped the phone that she was cradling to her ear. Her breath coming out in short gasps, she began to lose control.

"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, Zack," she said over and over again, crying and slurring the words. "Goddamnit, Zack, I hate you."

"Who is this? This is Logan Cale . . . who is this?" Logan's voice came over the phone.

"Logan," Max gasped, "help me."

"Who is this? Max, is that you?" Logan asked. Suddenly, Max felt like screaming. It was her, it was her, it was Max, and she was free, but she wasn't and she would never be free again.

"He took me, Logan," she whispered. "I'm in Canada, Logan."

"Max, are you okay?" Logan asked. Yes, she was okay, but she wasn't herself totally.

In the background, she heard a woman's voice saying over and over again, "She said that someone called Zack is dead."

Yes, Zack was dead. Hadn't she told him that. Oh, no, that was the lady. She must calm down, she must calm down. Max took several deep breaths.

"Yes," no, she wasn't. "I mean, no. Oh, God, Logan, Zack's dead."

"Max, calm down, calm down, while I trace this call," Logan told her. Wait, he didn't need to do that, she was in Surrey . . . where in Surrey . . .

"Logan, I'm in British Columbia . . . I know . . . I'm in Surrey, Logan . . ." Max couldn't stop talking, couldn't stop wanting to scream.

"Max, where exactly are you?" Logan's voice was intense, so intense that it frightened her.

"Surrey, British Columbia, Canada," Max said meekly.

"Okay, Max, I want you to do me a favor. Can you go to the police station? Oh God, let me see," Logan seemed frantic. "Max, I'm going to arrange for a plane trip out of there . . . I'm forwarding some tickets over to the Trinity . . ."

Two hours later, Max was at the Trinity airport, clutching in her hand a ticket to Seattle, dialing Logan's number nervously.

He answered on the first ring. "Max?"

"Logan, I got the ticket and the money and my plane leaves in twenty minutes and I feel as if I'm in a strange haze," Max said. She felt oddly detached from everything, as if it were happening to some strange girl who she was watching from a cloud top or sky's end.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Logan asked her. Logan, she wanted to cry, who is the woman who keeps on talking to you, the woman who keeps asking who I am? Why does she have the right to call you Loggy . . . who in their right mind would call him Loggy.

Jesus Christ, she had a headache.

"Yes, Logan, I'm fine," Max said as the woman on the other end pressured Logan into a piece of toast. Max was certain she had heard the voice before; where in the world has she heard it? It bothered her, the voice did, and she wasn't at all certain that the owner of the voice was much liked by her. "Look, I have to go."

Sitting back, she watched the people passing her by, each worried in their own thoughts and worlds. It seemed amazing how easily they passed her by, their eyes sliding from her to the door near where she was perched as if she didn't exist. It comforted her. Idly, Max heard her flight being called. Getting up from the bench where she had taken refuge in the shadows, she walked toward the gate.

The trip to Seattle was boringly easy and all to soon over. Almost hesitantly, she stepped off of the airplane, suddenly aware that she hadn't any passes to get by the sector police. Well, it would be no biggie; she's flash something at the sector man and would get through with a snap of her fingers.

There was Logan . . . and Bling . . . and Cindy . . . and Max suddenly felt like crying out, over and over and over again, Zack is dead! He is dead and in a warehouse somewhere in Surrey! She refrained and walked toward them nonchalantly.

Logan held up a pocketbook, supposedly with her sector passes in it. With a nod from Max, Logan tossed it to her. She caught it easily, then walked to the sector checkpoint. Max was through in less than two minutes.

With a sudden quickening of her chest, Max saw several people standing behind Logan, Bling, and Original Cindy . . . Mary Anne and her husband, Sketchy, Herbal, and . . . Daphne?

Max immediately recognized Daphne as the owner of the voice that she had heard on the phone. What was Daphne doing at Logan's apartment. Wait . . . was Original Cindy's arm drooped around Daphne's waist? That would explain a lot.

Breaking into a huge grin, Max suddenly felt a million times better than she had felt in the three months that she had been, in all respects, Zack's prisoner. As Logan's arms enveloped her in an embrace and she felt her lips kissing his, she realized that maybe everything wasn't going to fall on top of her.

THE END