~ The right thing ~
The painkillers Logan had taken that morning had long since worn off, and his back and his head were bouncing waves of throbbing pain back and forth to each other. He was glad for the music that filled the silence in the car and gave him an excuse not to speak as he drove Max and Zack to his uncle's cabin.
When they reached their destination, he cut the engine and the music died away, replaced by a deafening silence. Zack wasted no time in alighting from the vehicle. Coming around to the driver's side window, he took the keys Logan handed to him. He looked from Logan to Max and back again, his mouth half opening as if he were about to spout another sarcastic witticism, then seemed to think better of it. Pursing his lips, he turned and started up the porch steps.
Zack pretended to have no EQ at all, Logan reflected as he watched him go, but he obviously knew well enough to keep his mouth shut during the drive here, and to leave him and Max alone to say their goodbyes. He realized then that the young man's ever-present cynicism was just a front to protect himself from being hurt.
Now, where had he seen that before?
He knew that Zack would look out for Max, that she'd be safe with him. A great deal safer than she'd ever be with himself, he thought, although he did his best to protect her in any way he could.
Logan remembered asking Zack right out once, knowing he was being annoying, but needing to make sure. "You'll look out for her, right?"
"It's not something anyone has to ask me to do," the young man had confirmed, somewhat irritated with him for stating the obvious.
He was a scared kid, just like the rest of them; a kid who'd been forced to grow up too soon in a hostile world. He'd taken on the additional burden of looking out for all his siblings, and seemed to think that the weight of the world rested on his shoulders, and that everything that went wrong was somehow his fault.
Logan figured he'd seen that somewhere before, too.
As Zack disappeared into the cabin, he turned his thoughts back to the woman sitting next to him. This was the moment he had been dreading ever since he'd seen the 'Wanted' poster that morning.
He knew that he had to let her go, and that knowledge tore at his heart. She would be safe once she was out of Seattle, which was what Zack had been saying all the while, what he and Max had both known and refused to acknowledge until now.
He had the bittersweet comfort, at least, of knowing that he was entrusting her to someone who loved her almost as much as he did.
His train of thought almost derailed at that point as he questioned the validity of that last one. Yes, he decided. Zack loved her. Any blind fool could see it. Logan remembered him trying to stop Max from going after Brin when their Manticore sibling had been captured, and contrasted it with the young man's reaction to Max's danger that morning. It obviously hadn't been so easy for him to write her off as just another casualty of war.
She would be safe with him, and she knew it as well as Logan did.
"You going to be okay?" he asked her anyway.
"Oh yeah, I'll be better than okay. It's the way I'm made," she replied. "It's you I'm worried about."
A new wave of pain shot up his back and knifed into his head. He prayed it didn't show in his face as he finally brought his eyes up to meet her gaze.
A part of him knew that this surgery wasn't going to be a run of the mill affair. Logan had an unsettling premonition that his life was nearing a close, and no matter how hard he tried to brush it off, he couldn't shake the feeling that Bruno's bullet may have killed him after all.
It was too late for him to tell her about it now. If he did she'd very likely ditch the whole escape attempt and insist on coming back to Seattle with him. And for what? To stay with him for a few hours, and then get taken to that Nazi death camp in Wyoming.
He looked down again, unable to look her in the eye as he whispered, "I'll miss you."
God only knew what strange delusion seized Max at that moment, because she suddenly suggested that he go with her. Logan almost laughed at the idea.
It was a ridiculous proposal, yet every nerve and cell and synapse in him screamed yes! Forget the surgery, forget the wheelchair, forget Eyes Only, and just follow your heart.
The biggest threat to her safety is you. The words that Zack had said to him weeks before suddenly reared up out of his memory and assaulted him anew.
So he gave the only logical answer to her invitation, pointing out that he would only slow her down. All the while a small voice in his head kept asking if he would have taken her up on her offer if his disability hadn't stood in the way.
He had to be honest with himself. The fact that he couldn't walk wasn't the only reason he couldn't go with her, nor even the most important one. There were even more compelling reasons for him to stay in the city. The Eyes Only network that he had spent years building up was based in Seattle, and he couldn't leave that behind. Not even for her.
He tried to infuse some lightness into the situation by echoing her words from the night before, to sound like he was making a joke. But when he told her that he had to go back because someone had to "watch out for the downtrodden," it was closer to the truth than he wanted to admit.
He looked up at her again, drinking in this last, precious sight of her. Memorizing her features, he silently said goodbye to each one. He bid farewell to her lips, her hair, her eyes. Especially her eyes. He gazed into them for an endless moment, then tore himself away. The expression in those eyes would haunt him.
It was Max who interrupted the moment. Getting out of the car, she took a few unwilling steps toward the cabin. But suddenly she stopped and turned around. Logan had one brief second to wonder what she was doing before she strode back, took his face in her hands, and kissed him.
It was goodbye, he told himself as he brought his hands up into her hair and allowed himself to forget that it was the last time this would ever happen. It was goodbye, and a million other things neither of them could say. He could hardly read the emotions that were wedged into that moment. It was their first kiss, and it would be their last. It was every kiss they might ever have shared, compressed into one. Those few seconds contained a lifetime's worth of what-ifs and could-have-beens. She gave him her soul and she took his in return.
And then she was gone.
He leaned back in his seat and watched her walk away, feeling the throbbing in his back start again. Letting her go was the right thing to do, he reasoned. He told himself a thousand different reasons why.
His hands felt as numb and heavy as his legs as he raised them to the controls of the car. Starting the engine, he began the long and lonely drive back to the city.
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