Back in the compound Eden got down from Ty's arms, walked over to a mirror and studied her face, tracing the edges the bruises with her finger.
"So now that Kat is probably dead, will you be working with me on Project Nemesis?"
"No, you have been handling him well enough on your own. Just make sure you keep it that way. He is lethal, even to us."
*****
They were forced to make a quick pit stop for some gas two hours from their destination. Raven took the moment to go to the bathroom and pull out the small messaging device. When she opened it the message Ty had left for her came to life again.
Even hours after first reading the message, the words did not fail to sting her heart at how coldly Ty spoke of the prisoners like were rats in a laboratory. Raven swallowed at her own comparison. They were rats in a laboratory.
Ty. Good to hear from you. I miss you all. This operation has been more taxing then any other. I knew Eden had it in her. And I'm sure you will break the woman soon. We are currently on the move north. Destination unknown. Raven.
She stared at the words her hands had just typed. It would be the first time she had lied to any of her siblings, but she felt like she lied to them all. She loved all her siblings with all her heart. Nothing could change that. With a heavy heart torn between two worlds, she pushed the button and sent the message.
*****
Max raced through the familiar streets of Seattle heading straight for Logan's penthouse. Raven had informed her that she could smell Zack and something was very wrong. They had to get to him now.
He had a good 2 hours on them, and Max feared for the worst. If Zack was aging as quickly as she calculate he would be close to death soon. Before dawn would break the horizon, he would be dead. Even with all the advanced technologies Manticore commanded, they did not find a fountain of youth.
But she also feared what Zack would do if he found Logan. Would he still be in that desperate state of mind he was when he had held a gun to her? If he had to aim that gun again would he pull the trigger? Questions raced through her mind. She had to get to Logan now. Zack, please, she pleaded to the city around her with all her soul Don't do anything. Wait for me.
*****
"What shall we eat to celebrate your success?" Logan inquired, drawing a blush from Alyssa. But she had nowhere to hide in the small elevator that was carrying them to Logan's apartment.
"Stop talking so optimistically or the fates will find a way to prove you wrong." She jokingly elbowed him in the side.
"Definitely deserving of some pasta in a light cream sauce…"
"You're really spoiling me with this food. What am I gonna do when I am forced to leave to administer treatments to new patients?"
"Who's the optimist now?"
Finally they reached the penthouse level and the elevator dinged politely signaling their arrival. When the doors opened an old man stood, gray hairs and wrinkles betraying his age, his back bent, his breathing wheezy. The old man's blue eyes widened in surprise as though their presence in the elevator caught him off guard. But the way his eyes lay upon them seemed to convey that he was waiting for them and not the elevator. There was something cold and threatening in this old man's gaze and Logan pulled Alyssa behind him, leaving only her eyes to peer over his shoulder.
"Where is it?" the old man asked, his speech sounding no louder than each of his labored breathes. His eyes flicked back and forth between Logan and Alyssa.
"Are you new to the building sir?" Logan stepped forward concerned for the senior.
"Where is it?" he asked again, his voice sounding more dire.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. What are you looking for?"
"Your spine," the man paused to breathe as though such a small sentence had winded him. "Injections. Where are they?"
Logan narrowed his eyes, trying to remember if he knew this man. Not many knew of the experimental treatments he was taking. "How do you…"
With a shaky, hand, withered and wrinkled the man lifted a Colt M1911A, until it rested even with Logan's chest. Logan could see the man wanted to rise the gun to a more lethal aim, but his old muscles were weak and he had to settle with the heart. "You're already cured," another pause for breath, "I need it now."
Only in such an aggressive position did Logan recognize the face. He had not been able to see it before, because he had not expected to come across that face ever again. But as the man stood before him, holding a gun to his heart, Logan could see quite clearly. Beneath the graying hair there still lay remnants of dirty blond. But the eyes, blue sapphires ablaze with ice, whose intense gaze could carve stone…
"Zack." Logan said aloud, not as a question, but a declaration. So this must be the aging syndrome that Max had told him about. It was strange to see Zack in such a decrepit state.
Logan could feel Dr. Marion step out from behind him, and the movement drew Zack's attentions. His eyes again flicked back and forth, watching both their faces, but each time his eyes lingered longer on the doctor's features.
Squinting, he scrutinized her face, and, as if from shock, his eyes widened. "Dr. Munrow?"
Alyssa whispered with an infinite sorrow that echoed of a buried and shameful past, "X-5z."
*****
His own mind pulled him into a flashback at the image of the doctor.
--flashback--
They were alone in the room, the other doctors who had severed his spine at his neck had left to convene about their next course of action.
"I'm sorry Zack." she whimpered as she held him in a tight embrace. But he only felt her warmth on his face. His body was limp, none of his extremities would obey his command. It was a scary feeling being trapped in one's own body and it was the only time at Manticore he let a tear escape his eye.
The doctor wiped it away with the cuff of her sleeve. "I'll heal you Zack. I didn't know they would do this to you. If I did, I wouldn't have let them touch you. I'll heal you."
--end flashback---
And she did. A treatment she had been developing was administered to him, and within the week he was as good as new. From then on Zack held her in the highest respect, confident in knowing that no matter what the others did to any of the X-5 Dr. Munrow would heal them.
She was the closest thing to a mother that Zack had ever known. The others never felt the same way he did, hating all the doctors one and the same. But Zack knew Alyssa was a guardian angel in that hell. She protested against the deaths of his siblings, and only agreed to participate in the autopsies of the bodies to ensure no others would die.
If anyone could help him free himself of this frail body, it was her.
*****
They meant to lay him down on the bed, but Zack's weak legs barely carried him into the penthouse. The couch held his mass well enough. Logan sat on the coffee table across him studying his wrinkled features. Dr. Munrow? He vaguely remembered the name from the same list of transferred doctors he had found Hannah. Alyssa was from Manticore. It all made sense. Of course Manticore would gather geniuses into its ranks. Alyssa had told him that she worked for the government. Her experiments fully funded.
An endless supply of test subjects.
The thought made his stomach queasy. When she had first told him of her job with the government he envisioned rats and primates, not humans. And especially not Zack…or Max.
And now it was this Manticore technology that gave him his legs back. He looked down on them in disgust. The only reason he could walk was because of countless inhumane things done to the Max and the others.
In front of him, Zack wheezed in pain. He was aging before Logan's eyes and unless Manticore knew how to circumvent death by old age, he wouldn't last very long.
Minutes after she had left, Alyssa returned from her sister's apartment, supplies in tow. Logan tried to bring himself to look at her but found himself avoiding her eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked simply, still concentrating on Zack's face. It was the first words spoken between them since Zack had recognized her.
"You don't want to know," she said softly, shaking her head as she kneeled beside Zack, filling a needle with some fluid she had pulled out of her bag.
"I know about Zack and I know about Manticore."
Her back straightened at his words, but she did not speak.
"Tell me who you are."
She ignored his words and spoke instead to Zack, as she injected the fluid into Zack's arm. Her voice was soft and motherly, "This shot, should slow down the aging. Okay Zack? If I can get into the lab, I know how to make you normal again."
Logan caught the unwavering trust in Zack's eyes.
Alyssa packed her things away leaving only a needle and vial on the side table, for easy access. "I," she hesitated, "I was taken to Manticore a wide eyed and ambitious student. Alyssa Munrow. I didn't think they would make me do such atrocities, but there was no turning back. The only way I could try to save those kids was to stay with them." After she spoke she stayed by Zack's side, sitting on the edge of the couch, running tender hands through the graying-blonde hair.
"Then why did you leave?"
"I didn't want to," she finally turned to face Logan, hurt by his accusation, "I had finished all the research they needed of me and they felt I was becoming too attached to the X-6 subjects. They thought that I would try to interfere with what they were going to try next."
"And what is that?"
"I don't know, they never told me. They let me go and monitored my research. They said if I ever revealed Manticore or tried to contact any of the rogues they would kill me. Being part of the government, they said I could easily be erased from existence." Logan heard the slight quiver in her voice.
"So you're risking her life by being here now. You should go."
"Logan, I've run long enough. They need me now, and I owe them so much."
Zack moved beneath Alyssa's touch, his eyes opened slightly, "Mother?" He reached up to touch her face. Alyssa lay the back of her hand on Zack's forehead.
"He's burning up. We need to get some wet towels."
*****
Thirty minutes later Max parked her ninja in the alley beside Logan's building. Raven helped her gather some debris to cover the bike. They wasted no more time, when they entered the building and headed for the stairwell. Satisfied no one was present they both leapt from floor to floor taking the flights of stairs two at a time. Within moments they were at the penthouse level.
Standing before Logan's door Max looked to Raven who pointed to her nose and then signaled that Zack was inside. Both stepped closer to the door, focusing their hearing beyond the mahogany to search the inside. There was no noise loud enough to make it to her ears except for a slight wheezing. Max's breath caught in her throat. They were too late. Max kicked at the door, and it gave way under the force of her strike.
Expecting to see a horrible sight and preparing herself to battle her brother once more if necessary, she froze when she saw instead, Logan sitting in the living room. From where she stood she did not see Zack on the couch nor did she realize Logan wasn't sitting in his wheelchair.
Startled by the loud noise, Logan jumped to his feet and turned to the door.
"Logan!? You're legs!" shock nailed Max's feet to the floor.
Raven wasn't so affected and ran to Zack's side.
Neither of the denied lovers moved. Max was too shocked to stir, too stunned to even look at Zack's aged body, and Logan did not know what to do or say. He had hidden his new found legs from her because he thought it would be best. They weren't supposed to return to Seattle, she didn't have to ever know what he had kept from her.
Logan stepped around the couch toward her. "Max I…" he hesitated, what was he supposed to say? The simple use of his legs seemed to scare her. No, he could see in her eyes that she felt betrayed. There was an awkwardness between them that burned Logan's heart.
"What the hell is … It was you. You must be Max!" Alyssa came back into the room holding armfuls of drenched towels. She continued to move toward Zack but she stopped short, almost dropping her load, when her sight fell on the black hair and icy eyes of the preteen girl now kneeling beside him. "Raven?" There was a dread in her voice.
Raven was first to acknowledge her presence, "Dr. Munrow, what are you doing here?"
Max ripped her eyes away from Logan to see the doctor. That name was so familiar. When the doctor was in full view Max was once again pulled into a haunting flashback.
Soon, she found herself wandering a dark hallway. A door was ajar at the far end of the hall, a sliver of light spilling through. Curiosity took over and she stealthily made her way to the source of the light. Peeking through the crack she saw Randy's naked body laid out on a sterile metallic examination table. His chest was wrenched open with clamps, nurses and doctors surrounding his body, an old man requesting a scalpel had one hand deep into the open cavity.
Above Randy's head, watching the whole operation, stood Dr. Munrow.
"Stay away from him!" Max said, briskly walking past Logan, careful not to touch him.
"Max, calm down. She could be the only one who can save Zack." Raven tried to be the voice of reason. In any normal circumstance it would have been absurd for a thirteen year old to be the one to calm the room down. But there was nothing normal about this. Having Raven defend her caught Dr. Munrow off guard. Seeing Raven she felt her death upon her so quickly. But maybe she had judged wrong. Since the girl had come in with Max, maybe she was no threat. The Doctor kept a wary eye on her regardless.
"Murderer. I saw you operate on my dead brother, Randy. Do you remember Randy?"
"I only did it to find a cure so that no more would suffer the same fate. You have to believe me." Alyssa held her hands up in a show of submission.
"Believe her," Zack coughed. He wanted to say more, to explain why she should be trusted, but his hacking fit would not permit it.
Finally Max turned to Zack and took in the sight fully for the first time. Her mind did not want to believe anything that had occurred tonight. It was too much.
Max escaped into the kitchen, trying to collect herself and be strong.
*****
Logan watched as Max turned to leave the room. He could not stand to see her walk away from him again. As quietly as a human could he followed her. She leaned against the counter, her body mimicking how tired her mind must be. He wanted to hold her and comfort her, feel her body against his once again. But Logan hesitated, his actions helped to put her in this state; would she let him comfort her?
Finally, knowing he stood behind her, she broke the silence. "How are you walking?"
Logan found it uncomfortable talking to her back, but answered her question nonetheless. "Alyssa. Dr. Marion," he stopped and corrected himself, "Dr. Munrow had the cure. Dr. Carr told me about an experimental treatment. I decided to do it, and well, it worked."
All she did was nod, and for a few agonizing heartbeats the awkward silence returned. "Why didn't you tell me?" In her voice Logan could hear the hurt he had seen earlier in her eyes.
"Because I couldn't hold you back Max. You weren't safe here, and you had enough on your mind. You didn't need to know." Despite his earlier hesitation he could not help himself and stepped closer to her.
Her hair still hid her face from his view. "So you didn't tell me to save me? Don't you think I can make my own decisions?"
"I know you can, but…"
Max cut him off, and turned her head to face him. "I would've stayed with you."
Again he found himself grasping for words.
"If you had told me anything I would have stayed. Logan, I needed you."
He did not have to hear anymore. Logan took those last two steps that separated them and encircled his arms around her, pulling her into his warm embrace. Max pressed her cheek into his chest and pressed her body against his. The soothing sound of his beating heart comforting her just as it did those many nights ago. "We're here now," He whispered to the top of her head, "and that will never change."
Her muscles relaxed beneath his hands, and she pulled back slightly. A solitary tear made a trail down her beautiful face.
"You can't promise me that." Her words were soft and yet so cold he could almost feel her build a wall between them. Using her arms she pushed against his chest with just enough force to break free from his hold.
She left him in the kitchen to return to Zack's side. This time he did not follow.
"So now that Kat is probably dead, will you be working with me on Project Nemesis?"
"No, you have been handling him well enough on your own. Just make sure you keep it that way. He is lethal, even to us."
*****
They were forced to make a quick pit stop for some gas two hours from their destination. Raven took the moment to go to the bathroom and pull out the small messaging device. When she opened it the message Ty had left for her came to life again.
Even hours after first reading the message, the words did not fail to sting her heart at how coldly Ty spoke of the prisoners like were rats in a laboratory. Raven swallowed at her own comparison. They were rats in a laboratory.
Ty. Good to hear from you. I miss you all. This operation has been more taxing then any other. I knew Eden had it in her. And I'm sure you will break the woman soon. We are currently on the move north. Destination unknown. Raven.
She stared at the words her hands had just typed. It would be the first time she had lied to any of her siblings, but she felt like she lied to them all. She loved all her siblings with all her heart. Nothing could change that. With a heavy heart torn between two worlds, she pushed the button and sent the message.
*****
Max raced through the familiar streets of Seattle heading straight for Logan's penthouse. Raven had informed her that she could smell Zack and something was very wrong. They had to get to him now.
He had a good 2 hours on them, and Max feared for the worst. If Zack was aging as quickly as she calculate he would be close to death soon. Before dawn would break the horizon, he would be dead. Even with all the advanced technologies Manticore commanded, they did not find a fountain of youth.
But she also feared what Zack would do if he found Logan. Would he still be in that desperate state of mind he was when he had held a gun to her? If he had to aim that gun again would he pull the trigger? Questions raced through her mind. She had to get to Logan now. Zack, please, she pleaded to the city around her with all her soul Don't do anything. Wait for me.
*****
"What shall we eat to celebrate your success?" Logan inquired, drawing a blush from Alyssa. But she had nowhere to hide in the small elevator that was carrying them to Logan's apartment.
"Stop talking so optimistically or the fates will find a way to prove you wrong." She jokingly elbowed him in the side.
"Definitely deserving of some pasta in a light cream sauce…"
"You're really spoiling me with this food. What am I gonna do when I am forced to leave to administer treatments to new patients?"
"Who's the optimist now?"
Finally they reached the penthouse level and the elevator dinged politely signaling their arrival. When the doors opened an old man stood, gray hairs and wrinkles betraying his age, his back bent, his breathing wheezy. The old man's blue eyes widened in surprise as though their presence in the elevator caught him off guard. But the way his eyes lay upon them seemed to convey that he was waiting for them and not the elevator. There was something cold and threatening in this old man's gaze and Logan pulled Alyssa behind him, leaving only her eyes to peer over his shoulder.
"Where is it?" the old man asked, his speech sounding no louder than each of his labored breathes. His eyes flicked back and forth between Logan and Alyssa.
"Are you new to the building sir?" Logan stepped forward concerned for the senior.
"Where is it?" he asked again, his voice sounding more dire.
"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. What are you looking for?"
"Your spine," the man paused to breathe as though such a small sentence had winded him. "Injections. Where are they?"
Logan narrowed his eyes, trying to remember if he knew this man. Not many knew of the experimental treatments he was taking. "How do you…"
With a shaky, hand, withered and wrinkled the man lifted a Colt M1911A, until it rested even with Logan's chest. Logan could see the man wanted to rise the gun to a more lethal aim, but his old muscles were weak and he had to settle with the heart. "You're already cured," another pause for breath, "I need it now."
Only in such an aggressive position did Logan recognize the face. He had not been able to see it before, because he had not expected to come across that face ever again. But as the man stood before him, holding a gun to his heart, Logan could see quite clearly. Beneath the graying hair there still lay remnants of dirty blond. But the eyes, blue sapphires ablaze with ice, whose intense gaze could carve stone…
"Zack." Logan said aloud, not as a question, but a declaration. So this must be the aging syndrome that Max had told him about. It was strange to see Zack in such a decrepit state.
Logan could feel Dr. Marion step out from behind him, and the movement drew Zack's attentions. His eyes again flicked back and forth, watching both their faces, but each time his eyes lingered longer on the doctor's features.
Squinting, he scrutinized her face, and, as if from shock, his eyes widened. "Dr. Munrow?"
Alyssa whispered with an infinite sorrow that echoed of a buried and shameful past, "X-5z."
*****
His own mind pulled him into a flashback at the image of the doctor.
--flashback--
They were alone in the room, the other doctors who had severed his spine at his neck had left to convene about their next course of action.
"I'm sorry Zack." she whimpered as she held him in a tight embrace. But he only felt her warmth on his face. His body was limp, none of his extremities would obey his command. It was a scary feeling being trapped in one's own body and it was the only time at Manticore he let a tear escape his eye.
The doctor wiped it away with the cuff of her sleeve. "I'll heal you Zack. I didn't know they would do this to you. If I did, I wouldn't have let them touch you. I'll heal you."
--end flashback---
And she did. A treatment she had been developing was administered to him, and within the week he was as good as new. From then on Zack held her in the highest respect, confident in knowing that no matter what the others did to any of the X-5 Dr. Munrow would heal them.
She was the closest thing to a mother that Zack had ever known. The others never felt the same way he did, hating all the doctors one and the same. But Zack knew Alyssa was a guardian angel in that hell. She protested against the deaths of his siblings, and only agreed to participate in the autopsies of the bodies to ensure no others would die.
If anyone could help him free himself of this frail body, it was her.
*****
They meant to lay him down on the bed, but Zack's weak legs barely carried him into the penthouse. The couch held his mass well enough. Logan sat on the coffee table across him studying his wrinkled features. Dr. Munrow? He vaguely remembered the name from the same list of transferred doctors he had found Hannah. Alyssa was from Manticore. It all made sense. Of course Manticore would gather geniuses into its ranks. Alyssa had told him that she worked for the government. Her experiments fully funded.
An endless supply of test subjects.
The thought made his stomach queasy. When she had first told him of her job with the government he envisioned rats and primates, not humans. And especially not Zack…or Max.
And now it was this Manticore technology that gave him his legs back. He looked down on them in disgust. The only reason he could walk was because of countless inhumane things done to the Max and the others.
In front of him, Zack wheezed in pain. He was aging before Logan's eyes and unless Manticore knew how to circumvent death by old age, he wouldn't last very long.
Minutes after she had left, Alyssa returned from her sister's apartment, supplies in tow. Logan tried to bring himself to look at her but found himself avoiding her eyes.
"Who are you?" he asked simply, still concentrating on Zack's face. It was the first words spoken between them since Zack had recognized her.
"You don't want to know," she said softly, shaking her head as she kneeled beside Zack, filling a needle with some fluid she had pulled out of her bag.
"I know about Zack and I know about Manticore."
Her back straightened at his words, but she did not speak.
"Tell me who you are."
She ignored his words and spoke instead to Zack, as she injected the fluid into Zack's arm. Her voice was soft and motherly, "This shot, should slow down the aging. Okay Zack? If I can get into the lab, I know how to make you normal again."
Logan caught the unwavering trust in Zack's eyes.
Alyssa packed her things away leaving only a needle and vial on the side table, for easy access. "I," she hesitated, "I was taken to Manticore a wide eyed and ambitious student. Alyssa Munrow. I didn't think they would make me do such atrocities, but there was no turning back. The only way I could try to save those kids was to stay with them." After she spoke she stayed by Zack's side, sitting on the edge of the couch, running tender hands through the graying-blonde hair.
"Then why did you leave?"
"I didn't want to," she finally turned to face Logan, hurt by his accusation, "I had finished all the research they needed of me and they felt I was becoming too attached to the X-6 subjects. They thought that I would try to interfere with what they were going to try next."
"And what is that?"
"I don't know, they never told me. They let me go and monitored my research. They said if I ever revealed Manticore or tried to contact any of the rogues they would kill me. Being part of the government, they said I could easily be erased from existence." Logan heard the slight quiver in her voice.
"So you're risking her life by being here now. You should go."
"Logan, I've run long enough. They need me now, and I owe them so much."
Zack moved beneath Alyssa's touch, his eyes opened slightly, "Mother?" He reached up to touch her face. Alyssa lay the back of her hand on Zack's forehead.
"He's burning up. We need to get some wet towels."
*****
Thirty minutes later Max parked her ninja in the alley beside Logan's building. Raven helped her gather some debris to cover the bike. They wasted no more time, when they entered the building and headed for the stairwell. Satisfied no one was present they both leapt from floor to floor taking the flights of stairs two at a time. Within moments they were at the penthouse level.
Standing before Logan's door Max looked to Raven who pointed to her nose and then signaled that Zack was inside. Both stepped closer to the door, focusing their hearing beyond the mahogany to search the inside. There was no noise loud enough to make it to her ears except for a slight wheezing. Max's breath caught in her throat. They were too late. Max kicked at the door, and it gave way under the force of her strike.
Expecting to see a horrible sight and preparing herself to battle her brother once more if necessary, she froze when she saw instead, Logan sitting in the living room. From where she stood she did not see Zack on the couch nor did she realize Logan wasn't sitting in his wheelchair.
Startled by the loud noise, Logan jumped to his feet and turned to the door.
"Logan!? You're legs!" shock nailed Max's feet to the floor.
Raven wasn't so affected and ran to Zack's side.
Neither of the denied lovers moved. Max was too shocked to stir, too stunned to even look at Zack's aged body, and Logan did not know what to do or say. He had hidden his new found legs from her because he thought it would be best. They weren't supposed to return to Seattle, she didn't have to ever know what he had kept from her.
Logan stepped around the couch toward her. "Max I…" he hesitated, what was he supposed to say? The simple use of his legs seemed to scare her. No, he could see in her eyes that she felt betrayed. There was an awkwardness between them that burned Logan's heart.
"What the hell is … It was you. You must be Max!" Alyssa came back into the room holding armfuls of drenched towels. She continued to move toward Zack but she stopped short, almost dropping her load, when her sight fell on the black hair and icy eyes of the preteen girl now kneeling beside him. "Raven?" There was a dread in her voice.
Raven was first to acknowledge her presence, "Dr. Munrow, what are you doing here?"
Max ripped her eyes away from Logan to see the doctor. That name was so familiar. When the doctor was in full view Max was once again pulled into a haunting flashback.
Soon, she found herself wandering a dark hallway. A door was ajar at the far end of the hall, a sliver of light spilling through. Curiosity took over and she stealthily made her way to the source of the light. Peeking through the crack she saw Randy's naked body laid out on a sterile metallic examination table. His chest was wrenched open with clamps, nurses and doctors surrounding his body, an old man requesting a scalpel had one hand deep into the open cavity.
Above Randy's head, watching the whole operation, stood Dr. Munrow.
"Stay away from him!" Max said, briskly walking past Logan, careful not to touch him.
"Max, calm down. She could be the only one who can save Zack." Raven tried to be the voice of reason. In any normal circumstance it would have been absurd for a thirteen year old to be the one to calm the room down. But there was nothing normal about this. Having Raven defend her caught Dr. Munrow off guard. Seeing Raven she felt her death upon her so quickly. But maybe she had judged wrong. Since the girl had come in with Max, maybe she was no threat. The Doctor kept a wary eye on her regardless.
"Murderer. I saw you operate on my dead brother, Randy. Do you remember Randy?"
"I only did it to find a cure so that no more would suffer the same fate. You have to believe me." Alyssa held her hands up in a show of submission.
"Believe her," Zack coughed. He wanted to say more, to explain why she should be trusted, but his hacking fit would not permit it.
Finally Max turned to Zack and took in the sight fully for the first time. Her mind did not want to believe anything that had occurred tonight. It was too much.
Max escaped into the kitchen, trying to collect herself and be strong.
*****
Logan watched as Max turned to leave the room. He could not stand to see her walk away from him again. As quietly as a human could he followed her. She leaned against the counter, her body mimicking how tired her mind must be. He wanted to hold her and comfort her, feel her body against his once again. But Logan hesitated, his actions helped to put her in this state; would she let him comfort her?
Finally, knowing he stood behind her, she broke the silence. "How are you walking?"
Logan found it uncomfortable talking to her back, but answered her question nonetheless. "Alyssa. Dr. Marion," he stopped and corrected himself, "Dr. Munrow had the cure. Dr. Carr told me about an experimental treatment. I decided to do it, and well, it worked."
All she did was nod, and for a few agonizing heartbeats the awkward silence returned. "Why didn't you tell me?" In her voice Logan could hear the hurt he had seen earlier in her eyes.
"Because I couldn't hold you back Max. You weren't safe here, and you had enough on your mind. You didn't need to know." Despite his earlier hesitation he could not help himself and stepped closer to her.
Her hair still hid her face from his view. "So you didn't tell me to save me? Don't you think I can make my own decisions?"
"I know you can, but…"
Max cut him off, and turned her head to face him. "I would've stayed with you."
Again he found himself grasping for words.
"If you had told me anything I would have stayed. Logan, I needed you."
He did not have to hear anymore. Logan took those last two steps that separated them and encircled his arms around her, pulling her into his warm embrace. Max pressed her cheek into his chest and pressed her body against his. The soothing sound of his beating heart comforting her just as it did those many nights ago. "We're here now," He whispered to the top of her head, "and that will never change."
Her muscles relaxed beneath his hands, and she pulled back slightly. A solitary tear made a trail down her beautiful face.
"You can't promise me that." Her words were soft and yet so cold he could almost feel her build a wall between them. Using her arms she pushed against his chest with just enough force to break free from his hold.
She left him in the kitchen to return to Zack's side. This time he did not follow.