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.
"i'm not here, this isn't happening" from radiohead's 'how to completely disappear and never be found'.
this gets a little trippy in places. be warned.

PART 2

There is nothing solid left of her body, no rigid bone, no tense muscle, just liquid, liquid, beautiful liquid, everything swimming and sliding into each other, into one river and stream of consciousness.

Max knows this needle in her arm, knows the slow like honey, strong like music serum that spills forth from its head.

This is the time when time stands still, when yesterday, today and every possible tomorrow runs on forever and ever inside the universe inside her head.

This is the place where they have all the time in the world and she isn't the one that kills him.

He comes to her sometimes. He without a face, without a name, at least, not within her memory. He caresses and comforts her with invisible hands and invisible heart, and she doesn't feel so bad until she remembers how she betrayed him.

She remembers feelings, not faces, sense-memory more than actual fact. She remembers feeling safe around this man. Loved. There is warmth whenever he slips over her consciousness. He's everywhere and nowhere all at once because she knows this man, knows everything about him, really, but for the life of her, she can't remember... she can't remember...

His name. Yes. Eyes Only. Dr Renfro always says his name with a hiss, running the words together until he is one, near palpable being, near palpable threat. She hisses his name and then threads the needle into Max's arm, whispering that if Max is a good little soldier, she'll just lie back and let Them take care of her. Nobody loves her now, Dr Renfro always says. There's nobody left to save her. Not now after Max had given Them everything they needed. Not now that he was dead by one of her siblings' hands.

"We have all the time in the world," the memory taunts her, washing over her, drowning her.

Not now she'd told Them everything about him. Not now when she couldn't remember anything about him.

* * * * *

The explosion rocks him to his soul and Logan watches, with detached interest, the scurry of motion it sets off.

"We're in," Asha tells him excitedy, living for this, bloodthirst-fire-in-her-eyes-crazy for this, and somehow, Logan doesn't feel a thing.

Feeling himself shift as the swell of motion of his unit carries him forward, he notices how much smaller he is than the explosion that just physically decimated Manticore's electronic nerve center, how lesser he is than the fifty-eight man crew he has managed to recruit, now surging forward on Manticore base-camp, old enemies eager to restir bad blood.

The perimeter breach is deceptively easy, not telling of months of breaking into Manticore's proverbial back door, infecting Manticore's human backbone with revolutionary thoughts of humanitarian form, such that now within Manticore's walls, he has a network of key personnel aiding him, breaking down central command, infiltrating kids through and out of the system, bringing this place to the ground.

Passing room after room of empty bunks, of empty cells and desks, Logan witnesses first-hand the freedom that he has granted, the victory that he has made, but he's not here. This isn't happening.

This is the victory that he has made, but he can't feel a damn thing. Not when he's about to find out, for certain, that she's not here.

The makeshift army under his command sweeps the place, making sure every soul, every half-assed science experiment gone wrong is liberated from its prison walls. Travelling through blue, shadowy corridors, they all shiver as a deep cold seeps through thick clothing, labs, barracks and isolation chambers all spilling forth Manticore's secrets as they uncovered each room.

There isn't a door that hasn't been thrown open, a corridor that hasn't been hit. Within the space of a few hours, they'd covered every square inch of Manticore's base and there wasn't anywhere else for the crew left to go but home.

Home. Logan almost laughs as the army packs up to leave. The job is done, the revolution is over and home is the empty place that his heart no longer lives in.

She wasn't fucking here. This wasn't goddamn happening. They'd exposed every deep and dark corner, every shadow of Manticore's grounds and if she wasn't here then she was...

Dead.

Dead.

Dead.

The word pounded over and over in Logan's head, made his heart thud thick with unshed tears. From the second she'd been stolen from his arms, Logan had made finding her his mission, his reason for existence and now, now that he knew for sure that she was gone, what else was there...

"Wait!" he heard a voice call from one of the trailing units, and the shrill scrape of metal on metal snaked through the air.

Treading back, deeper into the heart of the base, heavy boots clunking on hard floor, Logan couldn't breathe, couldn't think, just followed the sounds of commotion until he found the last men out, pulling on a hidden door, pulling on a body through and out of it.

"We heard the beeping of her heart monitor," they explained to him as he neared, but Logan didn't hear a word of it. He couldn't tear his eyes away from the girl's face as they finally pulled her free from her confines, body limp and boneless as it sagged in one of his crew's arms.

"Max," he breathed, smoothing a hand over her cheek as she lay dead to the world but for the shallow breath tickling his palm, "Max, it's really you."

END PT 2/?

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