b a c k . t o . y o u
by bulletproof (bulletproof_android@yahoo.com)
characters owned by cameron/eglee productions. song by something for kate.
"slow like honey, strong like music" from fiona apple's 'slow like honey'.
us aussies have yet to see any of S2 so please excuse any inaccuracies.

PART 1

Logan Cale doesn't mourn like other people.

Does not cry, does not mope, does not make a sound, cos damnit, between the cable hacks, recruiting and encrypted research, there just isn't fucking time.

"Asha," his normal brusque tone cutting through air, cutting through heart, "did you pick up the shipment I sent for?"

She sighs, breaking out of her daze, the usual daydream that flits across her mind whenever she's near him, whenever he isn't barking at her, "Yeah."

The heavy box is dumped at his feet and she steps back, his eyes darting over the hard, well-travelled cover.

"Great," he says, smile not reaching his eyes, not reaching his lips. Logan Cale doesn't smile anymore.

She glances at the pits under his eyes, his sallow, sunken cheeks, and wonders when had been the last moment he'd taken a second to breathe.

"Logan, why are you doing this?"

Actually, she knows why he's doing this, has heard about the girl he'd left dead and cold in thick Wyoming forest, but still, she wants him to say it.

He studies her accusingly, "Thought that was pretty obvious, Asha. Manticore's corrupt. Manticore's producing genetically engineered assassins to work the whims and wills of a yet more corrupt government. I have a problem with that."

"Didn't seem to have a problem with them before," she spits out, and she hasn't meant for it to come out bitter, really, she hasn't, "you were fraternising with one of them."

He turns, shoulders protectively set against her, voice ice-cold and it scars her deeper than any form of physical violence could.

"You will not talk of her that way again," and it isn't a request, really, but an order, just like every other exchange that has occured between them.

"You're doing this for her, aren't you?" she wants to hear him say it, she needs to hear him say it, cos Asha is not the kind of girl to be lead around on a wild goose chase, nosireebob.

But he can't say it, can't look her in the eye, just keeps fingering some damn locket that she knows he keeps in his pocket, always.

"She's dead, Logan." Asha spells out, almost glib in the finality of the words, and she feels each one land like a blow.

Well, someone had to say it.

Logan cocks his head but doesn't turn to look at her. It's as if he's asked himself the question before a thousand times, "You wanna know why I'm doing this?"

He barks a laugh as if to an empty room and Asha feels like a waste of space, but she's asked him a question, damnit.

"Yeah, I do."

His voice is soft and harsh and she's barely sure she hears him at all, but she knows the words in her heart, almost before he's said them. "Because it's easier than crying, easier than moping, easier than making a sound. I don't have the time to think, don't have time to breathe, don't have time to load my point-two calibre gun in the first drawer of my desk and... This is all I am, Asha. Manticore, they... they stole a piece of me when they took her away... and I can't let go of that."

Asha's brows furrow at his phrasing, "You don't think she's still..."

The word hangs unspoken in the air between them and Logan laughs because he remembers a time when he used to be so.

"We'll see."

* * * * *

Max lies there like a dead thing. Like rot and ground and earth and watches as non-thoughts go through her head.

She wonders why They would want to bring her back. This hollow girl. This dead thing. They broadcast inspirational, institutionalised messages to her, hourly, daily, but nothing impresses on this inanimate body, this shallow grave of bones and blood and deteriorating muscle.

Heartbeat perpetually blasting through a set of stereo surround-sound speakers, Max is constantly reminded of the promise she has failed. A promise she made when she was unconscious, to some one-time brother, some-time more than familial bond boy who had clutched onto her like a lifeline and then given her a heartbeat. And then another promise to someone that still calls to her in her sleep, still shines like a beacon home in her soul, still gives her a purpose, a subconscious reason to breathe on.

"We have all the time in the world," he'd said.

Hope is for losers, but some part of her believed him then, that time maybe months, maybe years ago when she had made a run for the perimeter fence but her sister slave had caught her by a fist to the face and sent her sprawling back to her cell.

And there she lay from then on. Not living, not moving, not making a fucking sound. Her heart beats, her lungs breathe, but she feels nothing of it.

Shortly after her attempted escape, They told her he was dead. Her would-be lover. They said They'd penetrated her psyche and emptied her out like a vessel, his name, his face, his god-fucking-damn address, until she had nothing left to give, and then left her that way, hollow of memory, hollow of friends and lifelines and everything else outside of what They gave her.

She has a new name now. 452. Short, sharp, succinct. She is a number, not a name, not a face, not a someone who could make it out there in the real world. They want to strip her bare and leave her with nothing but the need for the fight pulsing through her genetically-engineered veins, the lust for the kill pumping in her heart.

But 452 has a spirit and 452 has a heart, her brother's heart unrelenting in the body They gave her among other things that pulse and live and sing in her unrestrainable soul.

And so things started to come back to her. Like her name //it's not short for anything//. Like her baby //black like my mood//. Like her promise //fight them, Maxie. Promise me you'll fight them//. Little things, but enough to keep her going, to keep breathing to find out what other tiny pieces she could find of herself in her broken down, broken into mind.

So she kept on fighting Them, in her own little way. She was a dead-weight to Them, a drain on resources, but nothing more. She couldn't try anything, wasn't ready, not when she couldn't remember his name.

"Eyes Only," They'd told her, but that was all. Not his face, not his name, not how blue/black/brown his eyes were. That part of her seemed so closely guarded, even she couldn't root it out. Either that or she truly had forgotten him but for his voice, slow like honey, strong like music and a slap-in-the-face betrayal.

"We have all the time in the world," he'd said, and she'd believed him.

END PT 1/?

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