Part 9
June 4, 28, July 8 2001.
Note: Sorry for the long delay and the shortness of his chapter--I've been suffering writer's block.
Note 2: Does anyone have a suggestion for a new title for this story? L'HB never really did make much sense, and it really won't work if I ever do write Zack's version of these events.
She hated snow. Her boots hadn't been made for winter-wear, much less trips through snow coated woods. Her heel caught, ice and snow and tree conspiring to unbalance her. Max's foot flew outwards and she landed on her rear, inelegant. She grunted with the impact, snow crumbling beneath her as she moved to rise. She was sliding downwards, a bumpy ride several feet down. She toppled, her attempt to leap to her feet made a joke. Her body impacted anew with the ground, right cheek pressed into the snow.
Her eyes were wide open, staring. She could see a boot imprint just beyond her face. More beyond that. Max pressed herself to her knees, trailing the footprints with her eyes. She found her feet, rushed forward once more. He couldn't not have heard her less than stealthy landing, no use attempting to come upon him unheard now. Flung her hand outwards, dragging across thick bark as she slid around the tree before her.
Cool air made her breath visible, rapid bursts of air taking shape against her chapped lips. "Winter!" she cried out, useless emotion because the woods had been no kinder to him than he had said they would be to her. Another name came fast and hard on the lingering sound of the first. "Ben!" She had found the teeth, neatly folded in a man's white handkerchief, offered up to a fragment of their past. Max imagined that she could hear the forcibly removed teeth colliding in the pocket into which she had stored them, shamed by their presence in a place meant to celebrate peace and forgiveness.
Ben smiled, a flash of white teeth, both greeting and threat. They had never shown their teeth in Manticore, kept them shielded behind their lips unless they meant to express a threat. "Maxie," Ben said, his voice deeper than the image she held of the boy he had been allowed for. She wanted to believe that she heard regret, anguished confusion in his voice. He was calm, a thread of delight running through his tone. Ben had always liked snow, Max remembered, and he was moving at her--
The memories had been looping through her mind on constant replay for days. Her confrontation with Zack had not served to banish her fears. The evident distaste with which he had met her actions had shocked Max back into some semblance of rationality. At Manticore, they had been taught not to dwell on past defeats--they were to learn from what they had experienced and move on. As much as Max despised relying on any of the emotional patterns their teachers had attempted to instill in them, she recognized that she had to take a step back from her experiences with Ben before she drove herself into a state worse than that which she was currently suffering.
Max twisted at the taps, cutting off the spray of hot water under which she had been standing. She stepped out from the tub, reaching for the folded towels on the back of the toilet. Zack had brought them in while she showered, leaving quickly. Max wound the smaller of the two towels around her hair. She rubbed at her body with the second towel, gentling her vigorous rubbing when she came to places that were still tender. Ben hadn't been pulling his punches. Even with her enhanced healing abilities, faint bruises still lingered.
Max's face tightened at the thought that Ben, too, must still be wearing his bruises. She had been no more gentle with him than he had been with her. It had taken her longer to cast aside restraint, but by the end, she had been facing him with unrestrained fury. Fighting Ben as she had had felt natural. He was part of her family, one of the few people who she felt free to love, and she had still felt satisfaction in injuring him. That wasn't something Max had ever wished to know about her family or herself, and she hated that Zack's absence had forced her to deal with it.
With a sigh, Max tossed her towels into the laundry basket tucked between the tub and toilet. She wrinkled her nose slightly as she stepped back into her clothes--she hadn't thought to bring fresh ones with her, and in her current mood, she had no wish to dash naked past Zack in search of clothing. Her hair was still damp despite Max having attacked it with her towel. Water was leaving splotches against the back of her t-shirt. Max no longer carried her own scent. The shampoo had been cucumber scented, something Max had never bothered to try.
Zack was waiting for her in the living-room. He was leaning against the wall next to the window, arms crossed over his chest, his eyes fixed on the street below them. His face was carefully devoid of expression when he turned to look at Max. "Are you ready to listen yet?" he asked, his voice flat.
Max nearly snapped at him--what right did he have to be angry at _her_? She bit her lip and sucked in a deep breath. "Talk," she said.
Zack turned so that he faced Max full on. "Brin was captured," he said.
"Brin," Max breathed.
Zack ignored Max's reaction. "Shortly after we split up, I received a call from Brin requesting my help. She sounded frantic--terrified. She was sick. Her seizures had become so bad that nothing helped. Her reflexes were becoming dull. Brin was getting slower, weaker. Within the span of a few weeks, she was an old woman," Zack said with difficulty. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. "Manticore caught up to us while I was trying to find someone who could treat Brin."
Max dropped onto the couch. Her hands were shaking against her knees. "I would have helped."
"Brin didn't want anyone to know. You remember how proud she is. She couldn't stand the thought of anyone knowing that she was loosing control of her own body."
"You could have at least called me, let me know that you were okay."
Zack's lips thinned, and Max knew that he was about to say something he knew wouldn't please her. "I wasn't thinking about you, Max," he admitted. "The Brin situation was tense and hectic and I thought that you could take care of yourself."
"You didn't think about me?" Max repeated stiffly.
"You've done the same thing to me plenty of times before, Max," Zack said. "Brin needed all my attention, I wasn't about to let my relationship with you distract me." He spoke over Max's angry reply. "You didn't say anything about needing help. The first I heard of any trouble was when Ben called, going on about you, the Blue Lady and prophets."
Max sucked in a sharp breath. She fought to calm herself before replying. "Don't think that I'm still not angry--there was any number of ways that you could have let me know how things stood," Max said, as steadily as she could manage. "But right now, that's not important. What are we going to do about Brin? We can't leave her with Manticore--I won't."
"We won't," Zack answered firmly. "I'm not going to fail again." He was moving, all fluid grace and restrained violence. His expression was nearly terrifying when he stopped before Max. "I'm going in after her, Max. By now, they're sure to have taken care of whatever defect was affecting her. They'll start the reindoctrination process soon. Brin's tough, but she can't stand out against Manticore indefinitely. I'll have to move quickly if I'm to have any chance of getting her back."
Zack had lowered himself before Max. He peered up at her face. "Can you handle this, Max?" There was no censure in his voice. The question demanded a serious answer from her. "You're good, Max, but you've been through a lot recently. Rescuing Brin is going to call for actions that you may not be comfortable with. If you can't deal with what an assault on Manticore will require, I need to know."
"You'd never have asked me that before," Max said quietly. She couldn't understand, despite everything, he was still both more and less than she could comprehend. He had admitted that their relationship had impacted upon how he dealt with certain issues, and yet he had left her to fend for herself while she had most needed him. She didn't know whether he was trying to protect her now, or whether he truly thought her incapable of dealing with things. Neither option appealed to her.
"No," Zack agreed. "But in all our time together, you've been insisting that you're not what I am--that you aren't a soldier, that you aren't a killer. You disobey me, you fight me, Max, and I'm not sure whether you have the kind of hardness getting Brin back will take. I care for you, Max, more than I should--and you've suffered for that. I've let you get away with things that none of the others would."
Max snorted. "Christ, Zack, you are so full of yourself."
He shrugged, she wasn't the first person to tell him that.
"I can handle myself just fine, you condescending ass."
Zack grabbed Max's chin, holding her still. His eyes searched hers. "People will die, Max. I'm not going to let you head into Manticore unarmed. I can't trust you with this operation if you can't pull the trigger if that is what's necessary." She knew he caught her flinch.
"Murder has never come to me as easily as it has to you," Max snapped, shaking off his hand.
"This isn't murder, Max." His hand found its way back to her face, his thumb arching across Max's lip. 'You're right, you know. You should have been normal." Zack stood.
"But I'm not, and you're not leaving me behind, Zack."
He nodded once, sharply. "I'll contact the others."