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.
thankyou thankyou thankyou for all your kind reviews for a fic i wasn't entirely sure about. sorry for this part's delay and brevity. asha's really hard to write given i haven't seen S2 and logan didn't really wanna share his pain.

PART 3

Asha isn't sure how long she's been standing in Logan's living room. Maybe days, maybe years, but all she knows is that she's been waiting for this man for too long and maybe it was about time she stopped kidding herself.

She peeks into the bedroom and catches herself forgetting to breathe when Logan's strong, elegant fingers trail a tickle-touch along Max's face, heart forgetting to beat as he whispers softly, desperately into breaths of her hair.

It wasn't so long ago that Asha didn't need a man to survive. Didn't need to be hungry for him and hurting for him to want to get up in the morning. She used to be all about the fight, all about that look of absolute fear in some low-down and dirty man's eyes and the dim recognition that shone there when he knew it was over. And yeah, there was always the end result, the happy townsfolk, damsels less distressed cos justice had been done and the day had been saved and yada yada yada... but God help her if she didn't live for the fight, if she wasn't all bullet-shells and broken bones and that drive in her blood that told her to keep on breaking.

Asha didn't need a man. She had the S1W, Jesus, she was the S1W, the living and breathing embodiment of the cause, was guns and toughness and none of the femininity that makes her weak to the knees whenever Logan remembers she's in the room.

Now she can't seem to remember a time when everything wasn't about him. When she didn't wake up crying his name.

Asha's always been Logan's second-best girl, with Valerie, with Max. There's always been a reason that's kept them apart, a reason that Asha isn't allowed to love him and at the same time, there's always been some god-forsaken cause that keeps them together.

Sometimes she wonders if that's why she's still in this gig with the S1W. That if it weren't for Logan Cale, for the off-chance that he'd come crawling to them for help, maybe Asha wouldn't be this hard, this practiced, this eager for the fight.

Sometimes she wonders if she's fighting for him.

And then other times, she knows that he'll never fight for her as hard as she is for him, as he is for Max.

Max. Funny that the girl that brought them together is the one thing that stands between them.

Asha remembers that first moment when they pulled Max out, how Logan's face lit up like a little boy's on Christmas Day, how it broke her in two. She remembers how it almost killed him to carry Max into the house, across the threshold, straight through the bedroom door, and how defensive he got when anyone offered to help, when anyone got anywhere near her. Asha remembers a thousand other looks and touches he's bestowed on Max, a thousand other breaths and sighs and she god damn knows that none of them will ever be for her.

But Asha is a master at telling herself what she needs to get through the day, to want to wake up in the morning, and she'll be damned if she ever gives up on him.

* * * * *

Logan has all but forgotten the woman waiting for him in his living room. Has all but forgotten everything but this face under his fingers, this breath that cools his palm as it rushes out of Max's mouth, this dream that's lying deathly still in his bed.

He touches her constantly to reassure himself he isn't dreaming, to make sure that yes, this is real, yes, she will be here in the morning, and that he won't wake up shouting her name in the middle of the night to an empty room.

"Max," he whispers, breathing in the scent of her, tracing careful, hesitant fingertips along the outline of a fading bruise still staining her right cheek, the swelling around the inside of her left arm, the cut that won't scar on her forehead.

He wonders how she got each of them, what hell she's been through, and comforts himself, time and time again, with the fact that Manticore was now burned to the ground by his hand.

It's almost surreal, this, having her in his room, in his bed, that he used to cry into the pillow that her head now rests on. It's strange, now, that he can feel her pulse keeping time with his watch, when three months ago, she was dead.

There isn't one part of him that doesn't remember that night in the woods. That night when she'd died in his arms with three little words hanging on the edge of her next breath, that never came. There isn't one part of him that isn't physically repulsed by the freshness of the memory. God, he can still feel the thickness of her blood sliding over his fingers, can taste the bitter salt of the desperate tears in his mouth.

Christ's sake, the woman was supposed to be dead to him, and yet, here she was, lying in between his sheets.

And now Logan isn't sure what to feel. When they'd attacked Manticore, he'd been incredibly numb, when he thought she wasn't there, his whole world had been bottomed out and had left him with a vacuum of loneliness and now? Now that she was here, in his arms, less than a breath away, Logan was more confused than ever. God, even the empty desperation of mixed fear and hope between the time he'd lost and found her again had been easier. Then, at least, he'd had motion, things to do, something to work towards and if he kept doing them, maybe he'd start believing that he was getting somewhere.

Now, it seemed, there was a whole world of possibility, there was the place they'd left off, all the things that he'd longed to say to her, they had a future now...

If only she'd wake up.

END PT 3/?

do the feedback : bulletproof_android@yahoo.com | see the sites : paranoiapoliticiandiva.cjb.net