Consequences, Choices, and Confessions
by pari106
Disclaimer and rating in chapter 1.
Chapter 3
Two months ago…
When Zack got to Seattle, he didn't even bother looking Max up at her place – she was most probably at
Logan's. This thought hurt him, but he realized that it was true. So that's where Zack headed – to Logan's,
his palms sweating on the trip over.
What was he doing?
He knew there was something going on between Max and Logan. Why did he even bother going over
there, to the guy's own house, trying to take his girl.
Then Zack's jaw clenched, and his resolve was bolstered.
Screw that. Max was *his* girl. She always would be, whether she knew it or not. She would always
have his love, whether she wanted it or not. He couldn't just let Logan settle into her life without even
asking her to give them a chance.
Tinga's words just kept ringing in his ears. "Think about what you left behind…"
Max, he had felt her name on his lips as his sister had said that.
He had decided to consider what Tinga had told him in Quebec. He'd decided to try something different
with the X5s; with himself. He'd decided to try to make a life for himself. If he could. He had no idea
where to start. But he knew that he couldn't see a life that didn't have Max in it. He had to know if that
were possible before he could decide upon anything else.
So Zack headed up to Foggle Towers. But he didn't find Max the way he'd expected.
**** ****
"I…I can't believe this…" Max stood there, shaking her head. The anger in her tone was supposed to
cover up the pain and betrayal she felt tearing at her. But it wasn't doing a very good job.
Logan sat, frozen where he was, unable to move. Unable to look away from Max's heartbroken expression.
Unable to keep his voice from cracking.
"Max…"
But Max wasn't listening. She turned to him, holding up the file she'd found. The pain inside of her had
grown so consuming that her senses felt dulled and numb from trying to contain it.
"I can't believe this…" she simply repeated, her eyes turning cold and hard.
Logan didn't say anything at first. What could he say? It had finally dawned on him what a huge,
incredible mistake he had made. What a horrible thing he had done.
He didn't say anything at first, but Max obviously expected something.
"I wanted to help you…" he began, weakly. Then stopped as she saw the rage building in Max's
expression. For the first time since he'd met her, he was actually afraid because of her. Not of her. He'd
dealt with the fear inspired by those pictures Lydecker had sent him when his uncle had died. He didn't
know why he hadn't shred them. But he hadn't. And now that mistake might cost him Max. And he was
afraid of that.
"You wanted to help me?" Max demanded, coldly. "By contacting my enemy?" Her voice rose at this.
Then she threw the file at him. Logan didn't even flinch to try and avoid it. He deserved it, he knew. He'd
only been trying to do what he had to do to stop Ben. To find out what was going on with Max so he could
keep her safe. But he hadn't trusted her. He'd lied to her and had gone behind her back to contact the man
who had stolen her childhood. He'd doubted her. And he knew he deserved a tirade for what he had done,
at least.
The file hit Logan's chest, the pictures within spilling out across the floor. Max quickly looked away from
them, her face crumpling at the sight of herself, at nine years old, covered in blood.
"You thought those would help me?"
"Max…"
"What? Do you get off thinking of me as some mindless killing machine, just like Lydecker says I am? Or
is that how you've always thought of me?"
Logan's jaw clenched. "You know that's not true."
"Do I?" Max asked. The anger was starting to wane again. The pain beneath threatening to rise up once
more, and Max couldn't let that happen here in front of him. In front of the man she'd thought was her
friend. The man she'd thought would understand her. Would trust her and believe in her. The way she
trusted him; the way she believed in him. "I don't know anything anymore," she said truthfully. She felt
like the world had been pulled out from under her. She had to get out of there.
She ran for the door before Logan could stop her, eyes filling with tears now that he finally couldn't see
her.
"Max? Max!" he called after her. "Max, wait!"
The desperation in his voice made Max stop, for just a second.
"Max, I made a mistake," he told her, a tear of his own slipping down his cheek. But Max hadn't been
looking so she didn't see. It wouldn't have stopped her if she had. She knew all about mistakes. She'd
made plenty. But she'd never made a bigger mistake than the one she'd made thinking Logan could ever
truly accept her. Completely accept her. Without question. He would always question – it was in his
nature. And her very nature as an X5 made her something questionable.
She couldn't deal with that. She'd spent her whole childhood defending her humanity from the people
back at Manticore. She couldn't spend the rest of her life defending herself to Logan, as well. She couldn't
handle having to prove herself to him every time he saw something, or she did something, that he didn't
like. She'd stayed with him all this time, had risked herself for him. Wasn't that proof enough?
"I know," she said simply.
Then she flew out of the penthouse before she could burst into tears.
**** ****
Zack decided to be nice, considering the delicate nature of his plans tonight, and to enter Logan's place the
proper way – through the door. So he came up through the elevator. He'd just stepped onto Logan's floor,
when someone or something came rushing past him.
"Hey!"
He grabbed the person by the arm, making them slow down enough to figure out what the hell was going
on.
His eyes widened and his hand dropped to his side as he realized it was Max.
"Maxie?"
And she was crying. No, she wasn't just crying – she was sobbing. Her whole body was shaking.
"Zack…" he could barely hear her. Then she just shook her head. She couldn't talk right now. She just
couldn't. She ran away again, leaving Zack standing there in the hallway, wondering.
Then his body tensed. His face hardened, and his eyes narrowed. And he approached Logan's door
slowly.
For the sake of the other man's life, he'd better pray that Zack cooled off by the time he got in the
penthouse. Because if Zack hadn't, and if Logan had hurt Max…Zack would not be held responsible for
the bloodshed that would follow.
**** ****
After he left Logan's, Zack raced down the stair well, three at a time, not wanting to wait for an elevator.
He jumped on his bike. He didn't know for sure where Max had gone, but he had a good idea.
It hadn't taken much for Zack to figure out what had happened. He'd walked into the penthouse to see
Logan sitting in the computer room, his head in his hands. Pictures of Max as a child lay scattered at his
feet. Pictures of her covered in blood, participating in a "training exercise".
Zack hadn't been surprised. Hadn't he told Max, time and time again, that this guy wouldn't understand
who and what they were? What they'd been? No matter how much he might want to understand.
What surprised Zack was his own reaction to the pictures. They didn't bother him, really. He'd come to
terms with that part of his past. Thinking of how they must have hurt Max… now that bothered him. But
he hadn't confronted Logan. He hadn't lashed out. He hadn't even made a sound. He'd just taken in the
scene, then he'd turned and walked away.
There was no use in berating Logan, he'd realized. Logan seemed to be doing a pretty good job of that
himself.
So Zack had left, and had headed for the most likely place to find Max when she was upset: the Space
Needle.
**** ****
Zack wasn't particularly comfortable with handling emotional situations. Nor was he particularly
comfortable with emotions in general. He'd had so little experience with the softer human emotions, after
all.
But loving Max had given him a different perspective on emotion than he'd had before they hooked back
up. Max was very emotional. So Zack realized he would have to learn to deal with emotions on a daily
basis – something with which he was unfamiliar. The learning would serve him two purposes. For one,
he'd be able to deal with Max herself much easier. And second, he'd be able to deal with his own
emotions, which he hadn't even acknowledged until he fell in love with Max.
Granted, he hadn't put this perspective into practice, as of yet. But there was no time like the present.
Zack approached Max were she sat on the edge of the Needle's roof, rubbing sweaty palms against the
thighs of his jeans. For crying out loud, he was nervous. He was never nervous.
What he'd give for a war right now.
**** ****
Max sat, staring down at the Seattle nightlife, not really seeing it. She hadn't really seen anything on her
way over. All that kept flashing before her eyes were those horrible pictures. That one little ghost that had
come back from her past to haunt her.
Her ears filled with the words Ben had spoken the last time she'd seen him…
"…you were what you were meant to be…a killer…a predator…"
And her eyes filled with tears.
But mostly her heart just filled with pain. Max was young, but suddenly she felt so old; so tired. So much
had happened in the last months: Ben's death, Zack's capture and escape, the surprising and confusing
emotions that seeing him again had caused. And all this time all that had been constant for Max was
Logan. All that she'd had to comfort her and keep her sane was Logan's friendship. He'd helped her try
and put Ben behind her. He'd been there for her when Zack and Tinga had left Seattle, and she couldn't
follow. He'd had his own issues to deal with at the time, but he'd been there.
He'd helped Max convince herself that maybe the disturbing emotions she'd felt when she'd gone to help
Zack out of Manticore had been imagined.
Zack was her brother. She'd been worried about him; she cared for him. That anger she'd felt when she'd
seen what Manticore had done to him, that overwhelming craving for vengeance…surely that was just a
symptom of sisterly love. The ache she'd felt in her heart when he'd cried, the emptiness she'd felt when
he'd left, the spark she'd felt when they'd touched…
Better not to think about that. Either way, whatever she'd felt, Zack was no longer around here. But,
regardless, Logan had helped Max through it.
Now the person who'd helped her, was the one who'd hurt her. Now she needed someone to be there, to
understand. To comfort her and help her think. And it couldn't be Logan, because he was the one it hurt to
think about. Now she had no one. No one she would burden with this.
But suddenly she did.
"Maxie?" A familiar voice spoke softly from behind her. Zack's voice.
Max froze, then turned.
"Zack…"
She was breathless. She didn't really believe he was there. She vaguely remembered passing him outside
of Logan's penthouse, but she'd been too upset at the time to register his presence. It registered now.
He was standing partially in the darkness, just behind her – tall and straight, like always. Zack didn't know
how to slouch. The moonlight barely glanced off his dark leather jacket and off of the gold of his hair.
"Zack."
Max tried to force neutrality into her voice, and tried to wipe away her tears without making a production
out of the gesture. Without letting Zack see how upset she'd been. How upset she was. She knew how
Zack felt about human emotion, weakness.
But Zack surprised her by quickly stepping out of the shadows. He knelt beside her, his expression
concerned and his voice firm.
"Don't," he told her.
"What?"
"Don't hide from me," Zack said.
With tenderness Max hadn't seen since that night at Logan's cabin, seemingly so long ago, Zack reached
out and touched her. He wiped another tear away from her eye.
That night at the cabin had been the start of the odd feelings Max had developed for her brother. That
night, as they'd talked about the escape, and had drank wine by firelight, Zack had reached out to her. And
she'd felt the effect of his touch all the way through her. That had been the night she'd first begun to
consider that perhaps she and Logan had been heading in the wrong direction. That perhaps they really
weren't "like that". And that had been the night when Max had realized, much to her surprise and terror,
that perhaps she and Zack were.
And now all those feelings from that night came back to Max. All the time she'd spent since then,
particularly since the last time he'd been in Seattle, trying to convince herself that she'd been crazy,
disappeared. All the time she'd spent secretly longing for Zack to return, picturing his face, remembering
his smile, his touch…all of that time came back to her. As did all of the emotions she felt for her one-time
brother.
Max had always known she loved Zack on some level. She'd always known that he was important to her.
It simply hadn't occurred to her that he could be important to her as someone she'd fallen in love with.
And she hadn't acknowledged this until she'd lost him, again, after he'd escaped Manticore and she'd
helped him and Tinga get to Canada. After that, Max had done everything she could to deny that
acknowledgment. To forget about it. But she just couldn't.
Now, looking at Zack, sitting so near to him, after having needed so badly to have him near, Max forgot
why she'd tried to forget.
'Don't hide from me, Maxie," he repeated. "I understand."
Max swallowed, even as she felt new tears form.
Yes, he did understand, didn't he? He'd always understood, unlike anyone else. She hadn't gotten that at
first. She had thought that since he disagreed with the way she lived, that he didn't understand why she
lived that way. Now she realized that wasn't true. She looked into his eyes now, and she saw
understanding there – real understanding. Not like what she'd seen in his eyes that time she'd had the
chance to leave Seattle, but hadn't. Not like what she'd seen in Logan's eyes tonight, even as he tried to
defend what he'd done when he'd contacted Lydecker.
Zack understood; he always had. He'd always been there when he could; when she'd let him. He'd always
loved her. Max had come to realize this.
Max met Zack's blue eyes with her brown ones. She'd always loved his eyes. Even back at Manticore,
she'd thought they were beautiful. She hadn't known the word 'beautiful' back then. Beauty was
inconsequential. She never would have voiced it even if she had, for fear of punishment. But now she
knew she'd thought they were beautiful. They reminded her of a lake she'd glimpsed, once during a
training exercise out in the woods behind the compound. It was calm, clear. But she hadn't been able to
see past its surface because of the cold, gray world reflected across it.
She wanted to simply drown in those eyes now. To forget the turmoil with Logan, and the turmoil that had
followed them their entire lives. To forget these last, difficult months of knowing, deep down, that she
loved Zack, but being unable to admit it to herself because she thought that he was lost to her. She wanted
to forget the nightmares in their past, and the obstacles that lay ahead in their futures. She just wanted to
drown in Zack's eyes and lose herself in a love she'd denied for too long.
"Max?"
It wasn't till Zack spoke her name again that Max realized she'd just been sitting there, staring. He was
frowning now, worried.
"Maxie, are you okay?"
Maybe he should have killed Cale, after all. He hadn't realized Max was this upset.
"Are you alright?"
**** ****
Present Time…
"Hey, buddy, are you alright?"
With a jolt, Zack snapped out of his reverie. He turned, the memories clearing from his eyes, leaving the
concerned visage of a fellow motorist, leaning out the window of his pickup truck.
Zack frowned.
He'd been sitting at this same stoplight for ten minutes now, watching it change. He'd been so caught up in
his thoughts of Tinga, learning about Ben's death, deciding to go back to Max…finding her in Seattle, and
helping her through the rough couple of days after her blowout with Logan. Making love to her one night,
only forty-eight hours later, while they were both too caught up in emotion and each other to think any
better. Waking up the morning after to realize that she had left him.
Zack had been sitting at this same stoplight for ten minutes now, watching it change, and it hadn't even
occurred to him that he ought to move.
"Fine," Zack growled now, replying at last. He was angry at himself for the uncharacteristic lapse in
attention.
"You know how to get to the nearest truck stop?"
A half-hour later, Zack had reached his destination. A few moments after that, Max had collapsed into his
arms.
Zack carried her back into the room, nudging the door closed behind them with his foot. He was always
one to remain calm in the most unnerving situation, but now he felt his heartbeat accelerate. He gently laid
Max down on the room's only bed, and realized that he was sweating.
"Max? Maxie?"
He knelt at her side, studying her drawn features. She looked as pale as a ghost, and there were dark circles
under her eyes.
Zack feared that he'd been right. Something was definitely wrong with Max.
by pari106
Disclaimer and rating in chapter 1.
Chapter 3
Two months ago…
When Zack got to Seattle, he didn't even bother looking Max up at her place – she was most probably at
Logan's. This thought hurt him, but he realized that it was true. So that's where Zack headed – to Logan's,
his palms sweating on the trip over.
What was he doing?
He knew there was something going on between Max and Logan. Why did he even bother going over
there, to the guy's own house, trying to take his girl.
Then Zack's jaw clenched, and his resolve was bolstered.
Screw that. Max was *his* girl. She always would be, whether she knew it or not. She would always
have his love, whether she wanted it or not. He couldn't just let Logan settle into her life without even
asking her to give them a chance.
Tinga's words just kept ringing in his ears. "Think about what you left behind…"
Max, he had felt her name on his lips as his sister had said that.
He had decided to consider what Tinga had told him in Quebec. He'd decided to try something different
with the X5s; with himself. He'd decided to try to make a life for himself. If he could. He had no idea
where to start. But he knew that he couldn't see a life that didn't have Max in it. He had to know if that
were possible before he could decide upon anything else.
So Zack headed up to Foggle Towers. But he didn't find Max the way he'd expected.
**** ****
"I…I can't believe this…" Max stood there, shaking her head. The anger in her tone was supposed to
cover up the pain and betrayal she felt tearing at her. But it wasn't doing a very good job.
Logan sat, frozen where he was, unable to move. Unable to look away from Max's heartbroken expression.
Unable to keep his voice from cracking.
"Max…"
But Max wasn't listening. She turned to him, holding up the file she'd found. The pain inside of her had
grown so consuming that her senses felt dulled and numb from trying to contain it.
"I can't believe this…" she simply repeated, her eyes turning cold and hard.
Logan didn't say anything at first. What could he say? It had finally dawned on him what a huge,
incredible mistake he had made. What a horrible thing he had done.
He didn't say anything at first, but Max obviously expected something.
"I wanted to help you…" he began, weakly. Then stopped as she saw the rage building in Max's
expression. For the first time since he'd met her, he was actually afraid because of her. Not of her. He'd
dealt with the fear inspired by those pictures Lydecker had sent him when his uncle had died. He didn't
know why he hadn't shred them. But he hadn't. And now that mistake might cost him Max. And he was
afraid of that.
"You wanted to help me?" Max demanded, coldly. "By contacting my enemy?" Her voice rose at this.
Then she threw the file at him. Logan didn't even flinch to try and avoid it. He deserved it, he knew. He'd
only been trying to do what he had to do to stop Ben. To find out what was going on with Max so he could
keep her safe. But he hadn't trusted her. He'd lied to her and had gone behind her back to contact the man
who had stolen her childhood. He'd doubted her. And he knew he deserved a tirade for what he had done,
at least.
The file hit Logan's chest, the pictures within spilling out across the floor. Max quickly looked away from
them, her face crumpling at the sight of herself, at nine years old, covered in blood.
"You thought those would help me?"
"Max…"
"What? Do you get off thinking of me as some mindless killing machine, just like Lydecker says I am? Or
is that how you've always thought of me?"
Logan's jaw clenched. "You know that's not true."
"Do I?" Max asked. The anger was starting to wane again. The pain beneath threatening to rise up once
more, and Max couldn't let that happen here in front of him. In front of the man she'd thought was her
friend. The man she'd thought would understand her. Would trust her and believe in her. The way she
trusted him; the way she believed in him. "I don't know anything anymore," she said truthfully. She felt
like the world had been pulled out from under her. She had to get out of there.
She ran for the door before Logan could stop her, eyes filling with tears now that he finally couldn't see
her.
"Max? Max!" he called after her. "Max, wait!"
The desperation in his voice made Max stop, for just a second.
"Max, I made a mistake," he told her, a tear of his own slipping down his cheek. But Max hadn't been
looking so she didn't see. It wouldn't have stopped her if she had. She knew all about mistakes. She'd
made plenty. But she'd never made a bigger mistake than the one she'd made thinking Logan could ever
truly accept her. Completely accept her. Without question. He would always question – it was in his
nature. And her very nature as an X5 made her something questionable.
She couldn't deal with that. She'd spent her whole childhood defending her humanity from the people
back at Manticore. She couldn't spend the rest of her life defending herself to Logan, as well. She couldn't
handle having to prove herself to him every time he saw something, or she did something, that he didn't
like. She'd stayed with him all this time, had risked herself for him. Wasn't that proof enough?
"I know," she said simply.
Then she flew out of the penthouse before she could burst into tears.
**** ****
Zack decided to be nice, considering the delicate nature of his plans tonight, and to enter Logan's place the
proper way – through the door. So he came up through the elevator. He'd just stepped onto Logan's floor,
when someone or something came rushing past him.
"Hey!"
He grabbed the person by the arm, making them slow down enough to figure out what the hell was going
on.
His eyes widened and his hand dropped to his side as he realized it was Max.
"Maxie?"
And she was crying. No, she wasn't just crying – she was sobbing. Her whole body was shaking.
"Zack…" he could barely hear her. Then she just shook her head. She couldn't talk right now. She just
couldn't. She ran away again, leaving Zack standing there in the hallway, wondering.
Then his body tensed. His face hardened, and his eyes narrowed. And he approached Logan's door
slowly.
For the sake of the other man's life, he'd better pray that Zack cooled off by the time he got in the
penthouse. Because if Zack hadn't, and if Logan had hurt Max…Zack would not be held responsible for
the bloodshed that would follow.
**** ****
After he left Logan's, Zack raced down the stair well, three at a time, not wanting to wait for an elevator.
He jumped on his bike. He didn't know for sure where Max had gone, but he had a good idea.
It hadn't taken much for Zack to figure out what had happened. He'd walked into the penthouse to see
Logan sitting in the computer room, his head in his hands. Pictures of Max as a child lay scattered at his
feet. Pictures of her covered in blood, participating in a "training exercise".
Zack hadn't been surprised. Hadn't he told Max, time and time again, that this guy wouldn't understand
who and what they were? What they'd been? No matter how much he might want to understand.
What surprised Zack was his own reaction to the pictures. They didn't bother him, really. He'd come to
terms with that part of his past. Thinking of how they must have hurt Max… now that bothered him. But
he hadn't confronted Logan. He hadn't lashed out. He hadn't even made a sound. He'd just taken in the
scene, then he'd turned and walked away.
There was no use in berating Logan, he'd realized. Logan seemed to be doing a pretty good job of that
himself.
So Zack had left, and had headed for the most likely place to find Max when she was upset: the Space
Needle.
**** ****
Zack wasn't particularly comfortable with handling emotional situations. Nor was he particularly
comfortable with emotions in general. He'd had so little experience with the softer human emotions, after
all.
But loving Max had given him a different perspective on emotion than he'd had before they hooked back
up. Max was very emotional. So Zack realized he would have to learn to deal with emotions on a daily
basis – something with which he was unfamiliar. The learning would serve him two purposes. For one,
he'd be able to deal with Max herself much easier. And second, he'd be able to deal with his own
emotions, which he hadn't even acknowledged until he fell in love with Max.
Granted, he hadn't put this perspective into practice, as of yet. But there was no time like the present.
Zack approached Max were she sat on the edge of the Needle's roof, rubbing sweaty palms against the
thighs of his jeans. For crying out loud, he was nervous. He was never nervous.
What he'd give for a war right now.
**** ****
Max sat, staring down at the Seattle nightlife, not really seeing it. She hadn't really seen anything on her
way over. All that kept flashing before her eyes were those horrible pictures. That one little ghost that had
come back from her past to haunt her.
Her ears filled with the words Ben had spoken the last time she'd seen him…
"…you were what you were meant to be…a killer…a predator…"
And her eyes filled with tears.
But mostly her heart just filled with pain. Max was young, but suddenly she felt so old; so tired. So much
had happened in the last months: Ben's death, Zack's capture and escape, the surprising and confusing
emotions that seeing him again had caused. And all this time all that had been constant for Max was
Logan. All that she'd had to comfort her and keep her sane was Logan's friendship. He'd helped her try
and put Ben behind her. He'd been there for her when Zack and Tinga had left Seattle, and she couldn't
follow. He'd had his own issues to deal with at the time, but he'd been there.
He'd helped Max convince herself that maybe the disturbing emotions she'd felt when she'd gone to help
Zack out of Manticore had been imagined.
Zack was her brother. She'd been worried about him; she cared for him. That anger she'd felt when she'd
seen what Manticore had done to him, that overwhelming craving for vengeance…surely that was just a
symptom of sisterly love. The ache she'd felt in her heart when he'd cried, the emptiness she'd felt when
he'd left, the spark she'd felt when they'd touched…
Better not to think about that. Either way, whatever she'd felt, Zack was no longer around here. But,
regardless, Logan had helped Max through it.
Now the person who'd helped her, was the one who'd hurt her. Now she needed someone to be there, to
understand. To comfort her and help her think. And it couldn't be Logan, because he was the one it hurt to
think about. Now she had no one. No one she would burden with this.
But suddenly she did.
"Maxie?" A familiar voice spoke softly from behind her. Zack's voice.
Max froze, then turned.
"Zack…"
She was breathless. She didn't really believe he was there. She vaguely remembered passing him outside
of Logan's penthouse, but she'd been too upset at the time to register his presence. It registered now.
He was standing partially in the darkness, just behind her – tall and straight, like always. Zack didn't know
how to slouch. The moonlight barely glanced off his dark leather jacket and off of the gold of his hair.
"Zack."
Max tried to force neutrality into her voice, and tried to wipe away her tears without making a production
out of the gesture. Without letting Zack see how upset she'd been. How upset she was. She knew how
Zack felt about human emotion, weakness.
But Zack surprised her by quickly stepping out of the shadows. He knelt beside her, his expression
concerned and his voice firm.
"Don't," he told her.
"What?"
"Don't hide from me," Zack said.
With tenderness Max hadn't seen since that night at Logan's cabin, seemingly so long ago, Zack reached
out and touched her. He wiped another tear away from her eye.
That night at the cabin had been the start of the odd feelings Max had developed for her brother. That
night, as they'd talked about the escape, and had drank wine by firelight, Zack had reached out to her. And
she'd felt the effect of his touch all the way through her. That had been the night she'd first begun to
consider that perhaps she and Logan had been heading in the wrong direction. That perhaps they really
weren't "like that". And that had been the night when Max had realized, much to her surprise and terror,
that perhaps she and Zack were.
And now all those feelings from that night came back to Max. All the time she'd spent since then,
particularly since the last time he'd been in Seattle, trying to convince herself that she'd been crazy,
disappeared. All the time she'd spent secretly longing for Zack to return, picturing his face, remembering
his smile, his touch…all of that time came back to her. As did all of the emotions she felt for her one-time
brother.
Max had always known she loved Zack on some level. She'd always known that he was important to her.
It simply hadn't occurred to her that he could be important to her as someone she'd fallen in love with.
And she hadn't acknowledged this until she'd lost him, again, after he'd escaped Manticore and she'd
helped him and Tinga get to Canada. After that, Max had done everything she could to deny that
acknowledgment. To forget about it. But she just couldn't.
Now, looking at Zack, sitting so near to him, after having needed so badly to have him near, Max forgot
why she'd tried to forget.
'Don't hide from me, Maxie," he repeated. "I understand."
Max swallowed, even as she felt new tears form.
Yes, he did understand, didn't he? He'd always understood, unlike anyone else. She hadn't gotten that at
first. She had thought that since he disagreed with the way she lived, that he didn't understand why she
lived that way. Now she realized that wasn't true. She looked into his eyes now, and she saw
understanding there – real understanding. Not like what she'd seen in his eyes that time she'd had the
chance to leave Seattle, but hadn't. Not like what she'd seen in Logan's eyes tonight, even as he tried to
defend what he'd done when he'd contacted Lydecker.
Zack understood; he always had. He'd always been there when he could; when she'd let him. He'd always
loved her. Max had come to realize this.
Max met Zack's blue eyes with her brown ones. She'd always loved his eyes. Even back at Manticore,
she'd thought they were beautiful. She hadn't known the word 'beautiful' back then. Beauty was
inconsequential. She never would have voiced it even if she had, for fear of punishment. But now she
knew she'd thought they were beautiful. They reminded her of a lake she'd glimpsed, once during a
training exercise out in the woods behind the compound. It was calm, clear. But she hadn't been able to
see past its surface because of the cold, gray world reflected across it.
She wanted to simply drown in those eyes now. To forget the turmoil with Logan, and the turmoil that had
followed them their entire lives. To forget these last, difficult months of knowing, deep down, that she
loved Zack, but being unable to admit it to herself because she thought that he was lost to her. She wanted
to forget the nightmares in their past, and the obstacles that lay ahead in their futures. She just wanted to
drown in Zack's eyes and lose herself in a love she'd denied for too long.
"Max?"
It wasn't till Zack spoke her name again that Max realized she'd just been sitting there, staring. He was
frowning now, worried.
"Maxie, are you okay?"
Maybe he should have killed Cale, after all. He hadn't realized Max was this upset.
"Are you alright?"
**** ****
Present Time…
"Hey, buddy, are you alright?"
With a jolt, Zack snapped out of his reverie. He turned, the memories clearing from his eyes, leaving the
concerned visage of a fellow motorist, leaning out the window of his pickup truck.
Zack frowned.
He'd been sitting at this same stoplight for ten minutes now, watching it change. He'd been so caught up in
his thoughts of Tinga, learning about Ben's death, deciding to go back to Max…finding her in Seattle, and
helping her through the rough couple of days after her blowout with Logan. Making love to her one night,
only forty-eight hours later, while they were both too caught up in emotion and each other to think any
better. Waking up the morning after to realize that she had left him.
Zack had been sitting at this same stoplight for ten minutes now, watching it change, and it hadn't even
occurred to him that he ought to move.
"Fine," Zack growled now, replying at last. He was angry at himself for the uncharacteristic lapse in
attention.
"You know how to get to the nearest truck stop?"
A half-hour later, Zack had reached his destination. A few moments after that, Max had collapsed into his
arms.
Zack carried her back into the room, nudging the door closed behind them with his foot. He was always
one to remain calm in the most unnerving situation, but now he felt his heartbeat accelerate. He gently laid
Max down on the room's only bed, and realized that he was sweating.
"Max? Maxie?"
He knelt at her side, studying her drawn features. She looked as pale as a ghost, and there were dark circles
under her eyes.
Zack feared that he'd been right. Something was definitely wrong with Max.
