The characters used belong to who ever owns Dark Angel. No copyright infringement is intended. I have written this for enjoyment, not for profit.
Rating: PG
Timeframe: the day after And Jesus Brought.........
AND THE RAVEN STAYED THE NIGHT
By
Phyllis Christie
The rain was coming down in sheets, turning Seattle wet and gray. Logan Cale sat in his wheelchair and watched the patterns the water was leaving on his window. He would follow a tear shaped drop as it rolled along until it met with another and then another. Sliding along much as his life had before last night. Before it all ended, before Max died.
'There' he thought, 'I almost said the words out loud.' Something in him wouldn't let him say it, because once he did, it would be true. He believed in the truth. He was a man who had made it his life's work to broadcast the truth. Surely he could be forgiven, if he let this one little lie live in his brain a bit longer?
"Cale?" The rough voice of Donald Lydecker surprised him. "You need to eat something."
"I'm not hungry." Logan had forgotten that the man who had been an enemy of Max's for a long time was hiding out in his guest room.
"You still need to eat. This isn't over yet, and I for one want to come out of it alive." The blond man set a try with sandwiches and hot coffee on the end table next to Logan.
"Leave me alone, Lydecker!" Logan rolled over to the liquor cabinet and pulled out a bottle.
"Oh, no you don't!" The older man took the bottle away from the younger one. "Do you want to end up like me?"
"Like you? Never!" The contempt in Logan's voice made Don Lydecker wince, and there wasn't much that could do that.
"Don't do this to yourself. Don't do this to Max. She would hate it if she knew...."
"How the hell would you know anything about her?" Anger was breaking through the pain that had overwhelmed Logan since he found Max crumpled in the snow the day before. The pain had numbed him on the trip back from Manticore. It had kept him from thinking how much he had found, only to lose it a few days later. The pain had been his companion as he sat in Max's favorite place and watched the city from high on the Space Needle. He had kept it close to keep from thinking too much. Now that was all being changed, by this man who he wanted to hate.
"I know that if she was half the woman she appeared to be, she'd kick your sorry ass for sitting there filled with self-pity." Lydecker's voice was husky as he remembered back almost 25 years; to the night he had found his wife, Anna, lying on their bedroom floor, with a bullet hole in her chest.
"I think I loved her, Lydecker." Logan whispered as he reached for a cup of coffee.
"I know, son." He watched Logan as he began to eat. "I think she loved you, too. One thing I could never figure out was why she stayed in Seattle. It went against all her training." The old soldier picked up a mug and sipped the hot black liquid. "After seeing you together, I knew why she stayed."
"Zack said that I'd get her killed one of these days. I guess, he was right." The pain was returning and Logan fought it. If he let it consume him, he wouldn't be any good in the days to come. Manticore still had a center of power and it needed to be taken out. Better the anger than the pain, at least for now.
"You didn't get her killed." Lydecker reassured the younger man. "She could have been living anywhere and she would have come back to help with this thing. It's something I didn't expect. I don't understand it? I taught her better than that...but it's Max, isn't it?"
"Yes," Logan smiled as he thought of all the things that made her the person she was. "She had a tough exterior, but on the inside she was kind and caring. She hated it when that part of her showed," he smiled when he thought of the last year.
"Logan, tell me about her?" Lydecker's voice was rough with pain.
"Give me one good reason why I should?" Logan looked over with anger at the strange man who was Donald Lydecker.
"She..a..reminds me of someone I once knew." He remembered back to a time when his life had been different. To a time when he felt what Logan was feeling now. He knew what it was like to have a bullet rip out your heart and never touch your flesh. It had been that way for him when Anna was killed. The two women where so similar: same coloring; same build; and the same eyes. Max had Anna's eyes. For once Donald Lydecker had done his job too well.
The stricken look on the older man's face made the decision easy for Logan. And he needed badly to talk about Max, maybe here was a man who would understand? Bling would only feel sorry for him. He couldn't take that. And he wasn't strong enough to face Original Cindy, yet. Though he knew he would have to tell her what happened soon.
"I'll make you a deal, Lydecker," Logan cradled the mug of hot coffee in his hands and watched the older man over the top of the cup. "I'll tell you about Max and you tell me about the woman."
"Cale, she wasn't just any woman, she was my wife, Anna." He spat the words out like bullets, but they didn't protect him from what he was feeling. "Max told you what I said?"
"Yeah," Logan shook his head. "She once called you her own personal Anti-Christ. In the last few days, she was afraid you had lied to her and were her father. It was a confusing time for her."
"I'm not. Not anymore, than I am to any of the other X-5's. I was telling the truth. I'd never pollute the gene pool." Lydecker smiled at the stubbornness of the woman he had helped to create. "But I cared about them. I nurtured them. I wanted them to reach their full potential. Since meeting them again, I realize I didn't have a clue to what their potential was."
"You never answered my question," Cale pushed. "If you want to hear about Max, you've got to tell me about Anna."
"Anna and I dated all through high school. After our first date, I sat up all night thinking I had just screwed up my life royally. I had had it all planned out. Finish high school. Join the army. Have them put me through college and become a career officer. I was going to marry some woman who could help advance my career. There I was, 16. I'd met the woman I knew I would love for the rest of my life." Lydecker shook his head at his young self. "I fought the idea for a while, but I was screwed. Once I met Anna, there was nothing else I could do. We were married a month after we graduated."
"The night I met Max, she came to rob the place," Logan laughed. "You would have been proud of her. She took out a 6'4" 250 pound body guard without even breaking her stride........I knew she was important to me. To me as a man..." He stopped himself up short. Lydecker didn't know he was Eyes Only, and the reported planned to keep it that way.
Lydecker made numerous pots of coffee as Logan talked. He told stories of Max as a soldier, but more often of Max as a woman. It didn't take the younger man long to realize that was what the older one wanted to hear. And as he talked Logan discovered that it felt good to speak of the unexpected moments, the tender moments, the ones that made her his Max and no one else's.
The older man kept his end of the bargain and talked about the woman who had been the blue print for Max. "I knew Max was never Anna and never could be. I wanted to create someone who would look enough like her to have been the child she never had time to have. But, it was imperative that this woman be able to fight back. I failed. Now they're both dead. I'm sorry."
As the sun rose and began to break through the clouds of the storm from the day before, the men drank one last cup of coffee. Life had to go on, no matter how much they wanted to deny it. Today was a new day. They shook off the last of the depression and took a collective deep breath. A silent deal had been struck between these two men. They would fight together to bring down what was left of Manticore. Unbeknownst to either man, the large black bird that had been watching them from the corner, took wing and flew away.