Author's Notes: Yay! The writer's block has lifted, THANK GOD! Thanks to the fabulous LadyCallie for coming through as a wonderful beta, even when she's sick. *HUGS* boo.
Disclaimer: All the "Dark Angel" stuff belongs to Mr. Titanic and Co. The inspiration for this fic comes for the song "I'd Give It All for You" from Jason Robert Brown's "Song's for a New World." I don't own any of it, just borrowing it cuz I like the material.
Summary/Spoilers: I guess you could call this my version of "Designate This" It's post AJBAC Season 2, and I've included some of the introduced lore and characters, but think of it as DT done my way. M/L Angst, Drama, Romance. Enjoy!
Rating: R for language
Logan Cale sighed forlornly. It had been nearly four months since Max had died in his arms in the forests outside Manticore. He found it hard to believe she had been gone four months. He could still smell her, a scent of cherry lip-gloss, sweat, motor oil, and whatever she could find to wash her hair with in this Depression-like society. She had a scent that was all her own. Max. Warm behind a cold wall. Inviting beneath a rough exterior. Sexy. Gentle. Loving. Fiercely loyal. Badass. His Angel. She was all those things. Sometimes he thought he heard her breaking in to the penthouse, but when he got to the main door, he always discovered it cat-burglar free. Several times he thought he heard her stealthy footsteps on the roof, just waiting to break in through his skylight. And yet every single time, she never came crashing back in to his life.
His penthouse held so many beautiful and yet painful memories. Memories of his time with Max. Their first dinner together. The first time she had a seizure in front of him. The second time she transfused him. The day after Bennett's wedding when she returned to him his mother's locket, looking like a goddess in the pilfered dress he had later bought for her. The night when she totally let her guard down, came to him, confessed her deepest and most painful secret about her tricked up DNA-the night he had walked before her with the help of the exo, the night they had kissed and he had told her they had all the time in the world.
He laughed bitterly. " All the time in the world " They barely had a heartbeat. Their time together had been all too fleeting, gone in the blink of an eye. Every day Logan regretted the year they had spent dancing around each other. He had been too caught up in his own ego and unnecessary fear. How many times he had missed an opportunity to kiss her, hold her, be close to her and feel her in his arms.
He could still feel the weight of her dead body in his arms. She was still warm the last time he had seen her. Her beautiful face was barely marred save for the trickle of blood that streamed from her nose.
A large part of what Logan Cale had become after his initial paralysis-from the Robin Hood Rich Playboy to the Penniless Underground Freedom Fighter who was a better person for being loved by Max-died the night Max did. After her death, he was but a shell.
Max's friends mourned her death, but Logan could not. He could still feel her presence. A part of him felt, no, knew, she was alive, somewhere, somehow. And yet, for of Max's continued presence he felt, he was too empty to even search for her. Initially, after he had gotten over the shock, he had enlisted an old Eyes Only contact named Asha and her group of militants the S1W but neither Eyes Only nor the S1W could turn up anything on where Manticore might have hidden themselves away. They had covered their tracks annoyingly well. It hadn't helped that Asha had made it painfully obvious she was attracted to Logan, and Logan didn't have the heart or the patience to let her down gently. Instead, he had disappeared.
Well, not so much disappeared as gone on sabbatical. He hadn't told anyone, save Bling, where he was going. He had merely covered the apartment in drop cloth, packed his bags, and left. He had driven for hours and hours, to clear his head. He drove all the way to the Canadian border before turning around and driving back to his uncle's cabin, where he had been living in self-imposed exile ever since.
Out in the wilderness, surrounded by acres of emptiness, Logan felt more peaceful. Mostly because there were less reminders of Max. She had only been here once, with Zack, and Logan had been too busy trying not to die from a migrating bullet fragment to worry about it. Initially after arriving at the cabin, Logan had been reminded about their fateful trip to Cape Haven and how he had promised Max a trip to Jonas' cabin instead. Somehow Logan had successfully pushed the regret of that particular failure to hold a promise out of his head enough to have been holed up at the cabin for nearly a month.
At night Logan would sit out on the porch of the cabin and stare into the darkness. Some nights he would imagine Max running from the trees and straight in to his arms. Other nights he would remember the camp fires he used to build with his father in happier times. Eventually, Logan trained himself not to remember the good things, or the bad things, because both were too painful. He was numb. A walking shell. His mind was as void as his heart. He lived as a recluse, if you could call it living. He found it easier shutting away his memory and his heart and convincing himself he was better off. It hurt less that way.
Logan had been orphaned and left to be raised by his obnoxiously rich and morally devoid aunt and uncle. He had been a playboy who married a drunken gold-digger. His hypocritical quest to save the world had gotten him shot. His own ego had kept him from being with the woman he loved until it was too late.
Living alone in the woods, Logan had almost convinced himself he was safer, better off, alone.
But in his dreams, in his sleep, Logan could not hide from the truth. He was living a lie. He knew he would give up his perfectly crafted, emotionally devoid, pain free existence to have Max back in his life. He knew he'd give everything up for her. In his dreams, he held her, and it eased the aching in his arms, and in his soul, the ache he could hide from the conscious world. In the world of the sub and unconscious, however, the truth was revealed. Logan Cale was half a man-not because he was paralyzed from the waist down, but because he was without Max. His Max. Max who made him complete. In his dreams, Logan knew that for all his posturing, Max had clamed his fears, soothed his soul, and made him a better person, merely with her presence. Denying her memory was a travesty to everything they had ever been to each other-co-workers, friends, would be lovers, family-but the truth was too painful to live with.
In the waking world, Logan needed Max, but hid his need with bitter numbness. But in dreaming, Logan knew Max was all he would ever need. And in his dreams, Logan held on to that last shred of hope that he would see his beloved again.
~*~
Max Guevara sighed forlornly. It had been exactly five months since she had died in Logan's arms in the woods outside Manticore. She found it hard to believe it had been five months. She could still smell him, a scent of musk, sweat, his laundry detergent, and whatever overly expensive shampoo he managed to procure in their New Depression Era society. He had a scent that was all his own. Logan. Warm behind a stone wall created by ego and necessity. Inviting beneath an exterior of self defense and invention. Sexy. Gentle. Loving. Passionate. Altruistic to a fault. Her Savior. He was all those things. Sometimes, as Max lay awake on her cot in her cell, she thought she heard his voice echoing down the halls of Manticore. Initially, after her heart transplant, she had hallucinated that he had found her, had come to break her out. She wondered if Renfro hadn't slipped something into her drug cocktail to make her confess who Eyes Only was. That was why, whenever Max saw him, she would keep Logan's name quiet. She had had enough of her faculties to remember that much. She would never betray him.
After the transplant, after they had tried torturing information out of her, when they had put her back into the trenches and resumed the training regime she had abandoned so long ago, she always pictured Logan before her. On the treadmill, she was running to him. In the trenches, as she crawled on her belly, rifle in her arms, she would imagine herself crawling to him, just over the next ridge, just behind the next shrub or tree. And yet, every single time she came to the next shrub or tree, and topped the next ridge, he was never there. Every time she got off the treadmill, he was never waiting for her.
Yet still her memories kept her alive, kept her remembering who she was. She was more than X5-452. She was Max. Jampony worker. Friend to Original Cindy. Sister to Zack, Zane, Jondy, Jack, Ben, Eva, Tinga, Syl, Krit, Brin, even though some were dead, others in hiding, others back in Manticore, although Max had not seen Brin since the night they had blown up the lab. But most of all, Max was Logan's beloved. She knew she was. She had seen it in his eyes the night the kissed in his penthouse, the night she took him up to the Space Needle. Before she had gone into the compound, when he'd placed a hand on her neck and told her to come back. When he'd held her in his arms and lied to her, to convince them both that she would be alright.
She had known he loved her long before those nights, those last few nights they had spent together. She had known it the first time he made her dinner for no reason. The first time she had a seizure in his presence and he swore to her he wouldn't leave her. When he had broken her out of prison just before Lydecker caught up with her. When he nearly sacrificed his own life to free her and a bunch of hostages. And numerous other instances. With every little glance she had been more and more sure each day that he loved her.
And more and more sure that she loved him. And scared as hell because of it. As a result of her fear, they had wasted precious time, dancing around each other for a year. Their time together had been all too fleeting, gone in the blink of an eye. At night she would listen to her brother's heart beat within her chest and she would ruefully think how the time she and Logan had had together was as brief as a single of those heartbeats.
Until Max met Logan, she had been a cynical soldier on the run trying to keep her head down and her ass above water. Logan changed her entire life. He taught her that caring for other people and helping other people at risk to yourself wasn't as bad as Manticore had taught them it was. The world wasn't poisoned, diseased, or out to get them. Emotions weren't bad. It was possible for people other than your squadron to love you. After all, Logan had fallen in love with her, hadn't he?
Max wondered if her friends had mourned her. She was sure they had. Part of her felt bad and hoped they hadn't made too big a fuss. But mostly she wondered how Logan had handled it. She wondered if he'd cried-she thought he'd been crying when he found her after she got shot-wondered if he'd grieved, how he grieved. Had he foolishly thrown himself and Eyes Only into finding her? If he had, she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd either been unsuccessful or nearly gotten himself killed. She hoped he was still alive. That hope gave her something to look forward to as she had worked on her escape. She'd been chipping away at the cinderblocks under her cot for some time, and one night she had broken into the basement, finding, Joshua, one of many nomalies Manticore kept in the basement. However, these nomalies weren't the nomalies of her childhood-the mostly human worst of the genetic screw ups-but rather genetic creations with more animal than human in their cocktails. What Joshua had showed Max both horrified and saddened her.
To distract herself from the monsters in the basement, Max had enlisted Joshua and Alec, her brother Ben's twin who had been assigned to be her breeding partner, to help her escape. She didn't wonder if Alec wasn't playing both sides, so tried to be as brief with him as possible. For his credit though, he lied to Renfro every morning at the dawn briefing, declaring their copulations a success. This made Max work even harder to escape. If she didn't get pregnant soon Renfro was going to get suspicious.
One afternoon, the trio was successful. Alec and Joshua distracted the contingent of X7s while Max jumped the fence and made a mad dash for Seattle. To her dismay, however, she hadn't found Logan, but rather, an empty penthouse with drop cloth-covered furniture and a few months worth of dust. From the thickness of the stuff, Max figured Logan had been gone about two months, give or take. She *hoped* he had traveled somewhere, and had not been killed. She found his computer equipment dormant, unused for God knows how long. To her surprise, she also found Alec waiting for her. He *had* been playing both sides, just as she had suspected. It turned out his assignment had been to track Max and kill Eyes Only. Upon not finding him there, Alec proceeded to train the gun on Max, figuring he might as well kill someone. Not wanting to get shot in the heart again, and in a fury, Max had swiftly kicked his ass and hauled it to the nearest police station, saying she had found the mysterious teeth-pulling tattoo branding killer from six months ago.
Initially after that, after reuniting with Original Cindy, discovering Logan had split town without a trace, as had Bling not long after, and flashing Normal to get her job back, Max had been determined to find Logan and reunite with him. But he had covered his tracks fairly well. Part of her was tempted to search the cabin, but she remembered him saying something about it being seized after Cale Industries went under. As time went on, however, Max grew more and more disenchanted with the world she had returned to. Her job at Jampony was as miserable as ever, and Cindy had found herself a somewhat permanent lickety-chick it seemed. On the days when she wasn't thinking about Logan, Max found herself thinking about Joshua. Had she abandoned him? Doomed him?
It got to be too much. The guilt. The memories. The longing. One day Max simply did not go to work. Rather, she gassed up her bike, packed a few saddle bags, and hit the road. She sold what she could not pack, which wasn't much to begin with, even though Cindy had kept most of her things, and just drove. She drove to the Canadian border, and then headed east, straddling the US-Canadian border until she hit Montreal. She never stayed in one place very long, as force of habit, partially. And partially because she was being driven by an overwhelming sense of longing, a searching desire, although she could not appropriately identify what she was looking for. Long ago she had stopped suspecting it was Logan that she was searching for. He had left while she was dead. They were through. That she hadn't been able to find him initially only proved that.
Many nights on her road trip, as she was traveling in the summer months, Max had laid on her back somewhere in the woods or along the side of the road away from the sights of cars or highway patrolmen. She didn't require much sleep, so it wasn't worth wasting her money on motel rooms. Any rest she needed she could get in some grass or on a bed of leaves. If the nights were clear, Max would stare at the night sky, trying to count the stars until she lost track and eventually dozed off.
Max didn't stay long in Montreal before heading back west. She tried heading farther south to see some new things, but something kept ultimately bringing her back north. All the while, Max tried to convince herself she was better off without Logan, without anyone. She was a genetically revved up super girl with her brother's heart inside her chest and a government agency forever on her tail. Wherever Logan was Max was sure he was ultimately better.
Three months after she had left Seattle, as the fall began to turn to winter, Max found herself heading back that way. She had seen most of the northern part of North America, and while the mountains and stuff had been beautiful, she still found herself lacking, wanting. She almost felt as thought she had been running from time and her past in a futile attempt at having a normal life. And yet here she was, heading back to her past, back to the place she had called "home" for so long. And yet she knew something would be missing.
Logan. Always Logan.
As she neared Seattle, it began to down pour, much to Max's chagrin, and she was forced to seek refuge rather than ditch her bike in an accident. She steered off the main road on to a smaller, secondary road. In the dark and torrential rain, Max found that even her enhanced night vision was rendered almost useless. She drove slowly, cautiously, until she made out a structure in the distance.
"Holy Shit," she muttered as she got closer. It was Logan's cabin. Or, more correctly, dead Jonas' cabin. The lights were off, but it most definitely looked recently lived in. Max wondered who had bought it from the bank. She shivered in the rain and cold and hoped whoever lived there wasn't there now. She needed to get inside. *Fast*
Her head was beginning to spin and Max wondered about the last time she'd eaten. She couldn't remember. With considerable effort, Max hid her bike in some bushed and began walking towards the front steps. She remembered ascending these steps so long ago, after kissing Logan for what she thought would be the last time, as she and Zack prepared to leave for Canada. A knife wrenched through her heart. Her brother Zack, dead. Logan, missing. And now here she was, at Logan's family cabin, nearing a full blown seizure. As she reached the door, Max found herself beginning to shake violently.
"Damn," she cursed, her speech slurred. She couldn't remember if she had any pills on her. Her fingers fumbled, one hand on the door knob, the other searching her jacket pockets. Her head pounded and her vision began to swim before her. She felt as though she was on fire as the quakes increased. With her last ounce strength, Max opened the front door, stepped inside, pivoted, and fell to the floor, hard, as the heavy wooden door came back and whacked her hard in the forehead over her right eye. But Max was too overcome with pain from the seizures to notice.
Through her blurred and blackening vision, Max thought she saw a wheelchair just behind the door, near the couch. "Logan," she whispered, before losing consciousness entirely.
~*~
Logan Cale swore against the pelting rain that was making it increasingly more difficult to drive. He was driving back from the small town near the cabin he had secured as an Eyes Only safe house using some diverted funds he had siphoned from Pierpont Lempkin after Cale Industries had gone belly up. Sebastian had contacted Logan, having found him after tracking the off-shore account Logan had set up for Eyes Only business years ago. Sebastian had said he was sending an informant, a colleague, with Manticore news he thought Logan would be interested in. Logan had begun growing antsy in his self-imposed seclusion and Seb's offer of knowledge was enough to pique Logan's interest. He had driven to a small café in town to meet Seb's contact, who turned out to be Asha, of all people. She had turned to Sebastian for S1W help after Logan and Eyes Only had disappeared. Sebastian had discovered a VA hospital twenty-five miles south of Seattle that looked to have a little too much funding and personnel going in to be just a VA hospital.
"Do you think you're going to find her in there?" Asha asked somewhat bitterly.
Logan ignored her, "I don't know." He was answering truthfully. Did he really want to get caught up in all that again? Maybe get himself killed? What if Max truly was dead? "Thank Seb for me," Logan had said as he got up to leave.
Now, as he neared the cabin, Logan was no closer to answering his own questions. He was, however, thankful to be home, and even more thankful that he had opted for the exo this night. Getting from the car to the cabin via wheelchair in the inclement weather would have been interesting to say the least and Logan really wasn't in the mood. He parked his car as close to the house as possible. Taking a deep breath he opened the car door and ran as fast as the exo would carry him towards the house and up the stairs.
Once he hit the porch, however, Logan stopped dead in his tracks. His front door was open. A woman lay unconscious on the threshold.
And not just any woman.
Max.
Max.
"Jesus!" Logan exclaimed, dropping to her side, thinking he was dreaming, or hallucinating. But he wasn't. It was truly Max. She was ghostly pale and soaking wet, with a bruise over her eye and slight cut that had already clotted, both, Logan assumed, a result of the door hitting her after she fell. But where did she come from? How did she get here? How long had she been laying there unconscious and in the rain?
Logan scooped her up in his arms, trying not to think of how reminiscent this was of that horrible night eight months ago. At least this time his legs were working with the exo and he could carry her to safety. He couldn't believe she was here, alive for all intents and purposes, and in his arms. Her hair was longer and she was incredibly thin, all her curves melted way to toned and hardened muscle.
"Okay Cale," he thought to himself. "Stop checking her out and help her." He laid her down on his bed, smoothing her hair away from her face after gently placing her against the pillows. Her bruise was getting worse, but the cut wasn't deep. However, she was still very unconscious and in wet clothes.
"Max," he whispered fiercely. "Max, baby, can you hear me? Max!" He shook her slightly, touched her face, hoping to rouse her. Nothing. He sighed. First order of business would be to get her out of the wet clothes. He darted to his drawers and pulled out an old college sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring-she was even tinier than before. He sat next to her on the bed and gently began to undress her. He peeled off her soaking jacket and dropped it in a heap on the floor. Next came her water-logged boots and socks.
Logan took a deep breath. Max was lying unconscious on his bed, wearing a soaking wet shirt and pants that need to come off. "Don't be a cad, Cale. She's unconscious for fuck sakes. God knows what she's been through these last months." He took another deep breath and began to work her waterlogged pants off her small frame. Being as gentle as possible, it took him a few minutes, but he eventually succeeded in his task. One down, one to go. Supporting her as he had when taking off the jacket, Logan began to remove Max's shirt. Luckily, it was button down, which made removal easier. He laid her back against the pillows and gasped.
"Jesus!"
Visible beneath Max's bra was a thick and jagged, although considerably healed scar that ran the length of her sternum. They had cracked her chest. To say the least. "Well," he murmured to her. "At least I know how you're alive." Gently, he swathed her in his clothes and tucked her beneath the blanket. He dabbed a hot washcloth against her forehead, hoping she'd awaken.
"What happened to you Max?" he whispered to her after curling up on the bed beside her and taking her in his arms, holding her so that her head was against his chest. "Where did you come from? Why did you come back? How did you find me?" He kissed the top of her head and found himself weeping. He drew a jagged breath and snuggled them both deeper into the covers. Still weeping, Logan closed his eyes, know that when sleep came and he dreamt of holding Max in his arms, he would not awaken in sadness, for once not finding his arms empty.
~*~
Sometime before the early light of dawn, Max woke, her head foggy, her body heavy and tired. It took her a minute to adjust to her surroundings. She stiffened suddenly. She was wearing not the clothes she had been wearing before. These clothes were warm and fleecy and too large and they smelled like...Logan!?!
Max sat up with a bolt. "Jesus!" she exclaimed, looking down to discover the warm human pillow she had just left was actually Logan. At the sound of her voice, Logan's eyes flew open.
"Max?" he asked blearily, trying to rid sleep from his eyes and brain. He sat up in bed beside her. "Are you alright?"
Max blinked rapidly. "How did I get here?" she asked. "Where did you come from? How long have I been out? Why hell did you leave Seattle?"
Logan sighed, "I dunno you tell me. My car. At least six hours. Because I was hiding from everything I felt and didn't want to feel." He smiled ruefully, sadly. "In that order."
Max's eyes darted away from his face; his eyes were too intense. And as beautiful as she remembered. She knew she could drown in them forever and he would always come through to rescue her. Like he had tonight.
"I-I," she stammered, unsure how to begin. She looked at him expectantly, unsure how to proceed.
Logan rested his head against the head board. "You've been through a lot tonight. Why don't you go freshen up in the bathroom, and I'll change and make us some warm milk and we can talk about....everything, ok?"
Max felt herself nodding, her head feeling like rubber. She felt Logan slide off the bed and head towards his closet. She too slid off the bed, standing unsteadily on her feet, hanging on to a wall for support.
Logan turned around, sweatpants and black T-shirt in hand. "Are you alight?" The concern in his voice was palpable.
She nodded and began making her way towards the bathroom. "I'm just a little shaky," she said. "My tricked out DNA decided to spazz on me tonight, hence me lying in your doorway."
A seizure, Logan thought, his fears concerned. He watched her shuffle off to the bathroom and shut the door behind her before he himself went to the living room and retrieved his wheelchair. He had had a long day and he found himself welcoming the loss of sensation. He switched off the exo and felt his lower half go dead. After slipping into more comfortable clothes, Logan wheeled himself into the kitchen and heated up the milk. He made sure to give Max a super sized coffee mug.
"Hey Max," he called, finding it weird to have her name roll across his lips once again.
"Yeah?" she replied.
"I think there's still a bottle of tryptophan under the sink if you need it," he answered, settling the mugs in a tray on his lap and wheeling into the living room.
"Thanks," she replied. A minute later, she emerged and joined him on the couch. He indicated to her the mug and she smiled gratefully, having just dry-swallowed a handful of pills. She let the warm liquid slide down her throat and soothe her. She looked at Logan over the brim of her mug and found him staring at her.
"What?" she asked, somewhat reproachfully. They had been apart too long. It was impossible to just fall back into their old routine.
Logan did not answer her.
"What?" she asked again, setting down her mug.
Suddenly, Logan leaned across the expanse between them and kissed her, hard and full on the lips. He was tender at first, gentle against her unsuspecting mouth. He took that she didn't pull away as permission to continue and he forged onward, gently prying her lips apart and exploring the recesses of her mouth. She tasted sweet, like the milk she had just consumed, hot and wild as well. Before long, she had straddled him on the couch, their upper bodies pressed together. She remained perched on her knees, knowing somewhere deep down that she needed to keep this at a certain point...for now. His hands stroked up and down her back underneath the fabric of his sweatshirt while she tangled her hands in his wildly grown out mane. She made a mental note to get him to a barber ASAP. She missed the spikes.
Finally, they both broke contact, as Logan was sure to soon be suffering from severe oxygen deprivation. "Sorry," she murmured sheepishly as he leaned his head against the back of the couch. She rested her head against his shoulder and sighed into it, letting him wrap his arms around her. "I missed you so much," she whispered into his chest, trying to fight back the torrents that threatened.
Logan tightened his embrace and felt as she repositioned herself so that instead of straddling him she was seated diagonally across his lap. She rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes tight. "It's ok Max," he whispered. "What ever happened, whatever you've been through, it's ok. You're back now. We found each other again."
Max sat up and looked into his eyes, her own eyes fierce and wild. "And a hell of a time finding you I had too!" she exclaimed. "Why did you disappear Logan?" she asked, her voice weak as a kitten.
He sighed, debating within himself whether or not to be completely truthful with her. He had always protected her from the completely honest truth, partially for the sake of his own ego. But something had changed. All that time apart had made him realize that keeping things from her only served to further their separation. He made a promise to himself that if they made it through the night that he'd work damn hard at never hiding from her again.
"Because," he began, looking into her big dark eyes. "Because I couldn't stay in Seattle. There were too many memories. I saw you everywhere. I thought I'd lost you. I came home and sat on my sofa and I didn't get up again for days. The sun came up...the sun went down...I just sat there. It was like I couldn't move." He sighed, trying to fight against the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. "And when I finally could move, nothing was the same. The world was empty. Gray. It hurt just to think about you. So I came here." He gestured around. "And shut out the world. And you. I tried to pretend you didn't exist. I shut down and shut everything that mattered away just so I could get through the day."
"And they say I have denial problems," Max muttered.
Logan smiled briefly, "It was a stupid idea. Trying to shut away all my feelings just made me numb. I may as well have been dead." He saw her flinch at the word "dead." "Max, I was alive, but not living." He rested his forehead against hers. "Nothing in my world mattered if you weren't in it."
Max kissed his chin and nipped at his neck affectionately. She had to admit, she was shocked by his confession. She had always known him to be secretive, keeping things from her. But now, things had changed. He had jumped. He knew it was the only way now for them to go forward. There was no going back. Only forward. Only to the future.
"Thank you," she said kindly, hoping to convey the sincerity she felt. Then she sighed, "So I guess it's my turn?"
"Max," Logan said gently. "This isn't a score card. You don't have to tell me anything until you're ready too."
Max shook her head, "No more running Logan. I've done that too much-taken the easy way out, running away from the people that I..." She gulped and continued. "That I love. I'm supposed to be so strong and ready made for fighting. It's about time I started fighting for the things," she stopped and looked at him. "And the people I believe in."
"Max," Logan said again, astonished by her passion and determination, but worried that recounting the last several months would be too traumatic for her.
"I died," she said quickly, not willing to allow him to talk her out of it. She had to tell him before she changed her mind. "You already knew that part. They brought me back inside, but I was too far gone. They had Zack on another table. He'd been shot too, but not as bad. When he heard I was dead, he flipped out. Broke free of his restraints, killed the guard, and tried to make them transplant Renfro's heart into me. But..." Until Now Max's voice had been calm and steady, but recounting her brother's sacrifice was painful. "But I needed an X5 heart," she continued as tears filled her eyes. "So he shot himself in the head. When I woke up, Renfro was in my room. She told me what had happened. She told me he was a martyr and that he loved me." By now, Max was weeping, but she wouldn't let Logan hold her-not until she finished this part of her story. "She said it was good to have us both home. After I recovered she showed me what had become of him. They turned him into a living donor."
Max was fighting hard to keep from choking up. She had kept this inside for so long. It was way past time she got it off her chest. "She told me I was poison. That I destroyed everyone I loved. Zack, Ben, Tinga..." With each of her sibling's names, Max came closer and closer to losing control completely.
"You," she finished, looking up at Logan with tear-filled eyes, her face stained, her eyes puffy. He gently wiped the tears from her face with his thumbs, thinking of how she had never looked more beautiful. All he wanted was to take her in his arms, to hold her and make all her pain go away. That was all her had ever wanted.
After a few moments, Max regained enough composure to finish speaking, "They let me escape. They knew I'd go straight to you. They sent Alec-Ben's twin-to track me and kill you. I guess they figured using me as bait would be punishment enough. But you weren't at the penthouse so all Alec got was an ass-kicking and a nice long stay in jail."
"What did you do?" Logan asked curiously.
"I beat him senseless and took him downtown, saying I had found the killer who was taking teeth last year," Max said, her voice betraying neither remorse nor hatred, merely an infirmity of memory brought on my time and troubles. Max buried her head against Logan's chest and let him hold her, let him see her cry. All through the night they talked. She told him about Joshua and the nomalies, about her search for him after returning to Seattle. About how she flashed Normal to get her job back and about the day she just took off. She recounted anecdotes of her road trip that made him laugh and kept them both up until dawn's light began to peek over the horizon.
Logan looked out the window. "It's late," he said, yawning.
Max shook her head, "Nah. It's early."
"Whatever," he chuckled, transferring her off his lap and transferring himself into the chair. Once he was settled he said grandly, "The lady's chariot awaits to bring her to her chamber."
Max grinned as she took his hand and sat gracefully in his lap, "Well, with such a sexy chariot driver, how's a lady to refuse?" She paused, "But isn't it your chamber?"
"It's ours," he whispered. "Everything I have is yours. We've spent too much time apart. I'm half tempted to tie you to that bed and never let you go."
"Kinky," she yawned, resting her head on his shoulder, one slender arm draped across his back. She felt his upper body vibrate with laughter.
When they reached the bedroom, Max crawled off Logan's lap, took off the sweatpants as he removed his own T-shirt, and crawled in to bed. She left him room to transfer from the chair to the bed, and once he was in it, she wrapped herself around him, needing his warmth, the feel of his skin, the rhythm of his breathing. She needed it all. She knew then, in that moment as they lay in bed between the land of slumber and the land of wakefulness, that she had been lying to herself. Logan was exactly what she needed.
"I love you too," he whispered sleepily.
"I know," she replied happily, murmuring against his chest. "But I can't imagine why..."
"Don't start," he warned, mustering his last bit of conscious energy. "Cuz I could pull the same routine." He felt Max huff, her breath sending gooseflesh across his chest. "Max," he said, some of his words muffled by her mane of hair. "When people look at us, all they may see is a young goddess who they think is only after my money and a crippled playboy who's only with you because we're exchanging money for sex. And if that's all they want to see, then I can't stop them. But you and I know better." He put one hand over her left breast, over her heart, and put one of her hands over his. "Because we know what's here. We know what'd between us even though no one else has to."
"When did you get to be so smart?" she asked, tracing abstract patterns.
"The moment I realized how precious every second of every minute is," he replied, letting sleep overtake him. "Goodnight, Angel."
"Good morning, Logan," she replied mischievously, as dawns rays of light settled across the bedroom, resting her head on his chest and letting his heartbeat lull her to sleep.
And for the first time in a long time, both Max and Logan felt peace.
*Oh, I gave it all for you
I gave it all for you by my side once more
Oh, I gave it all for you
I gave it 'cause it's harder to touch
The things that are dearer
I love you too much
To trust something clearer
I know I fell too far
But here you are*
Disclaimer: All the "Dark Angel" stuff belongs to Mr. Titanic and Co. The inspiration for this fic comes for the song "I'd Give It All for You" from Jason Robert Brown's "Song's for a New World." I don't own any of it, just borrowing it cuz I like the material.
Summary/Spoilers: I guess you could call this my version of "Designate This" It's post AJBAC Season 2, and I've included some of the introduced lore and characters, but think of it as DT done my way. M/L Angst, Drama, Romance. Enjoy!
Rating: R for language
Logan Cale sighed forlornly. It had been nearly four months since Max had died in his arms in the forests outside Manticore. He found it hard to believe she had been gone four months. He could still smell her, a scent of cherry lip-gloss, sweat, motor oil, and whatever she could find to wash her hair with in this Depression-like society. She had a scent that was all her own. Max. Warm behind a cold wall. Inviting beneath a rough exterior. Sexy. Gentle. Loving. Fiercely loyal. Badass. His Angel. She was all those things. Sometimes he thought he heard her breaking in to the penthouse, but when he got to the main door, he always discovered it cat-burglar free. Several times he thought he heard her stealthy footsteps on the roof, just waiting to break in through his skylight. And yet every single time, she never came crashing back in to his life.
His penthouse held so many beautiful and yet painful memories. Memories of his time with Max. Their first dinner together. The first time she had a seizure in front of him. The second time she transfused him. The day after Bennett's wedding when she returned to him his mother's locket, looking like a goddess in the pilfered dress he had later bought for her. The night when she totally let her guard down, came to him, confessed her deepest and most painful secret about her tricked up DNA-the night he had walked before her with the help of the exo, the night they had kissed and he had told her they had all the time in the world.
He laughed bitterly. " All the time in the world " They barely had a heartbeat. Their time together had been all too fleeting, gone in the blink of an eye. Every day Logan regretted the year they had spent dancing around each other. He had been too caught up in his own ego and unnecessary fear. How many times he had missed an opportunity to kiss her, hold her, be close to her and feel her in his arms.
He could still feel the weight of her dead body in his arms. She was still warm the last time he had seen her. Her beautiful face was barely marred save for the trickle of blood that streamed from her nose.
A large part of what Logan Cale had become after his initial paralysis-from the Robin Hood Rich Playboy to the Penniless Underground Freedom Fighter who was a better person for being loved by Max-died the night Max did. After her death, he was but a shell.
Max's friends mourned her death, but Logan could not. He could still feel her presence. A part of him felt, no, knew, she was alive, somewhere, somehow. And yet, for of Max's continued presence he felt, he was too empty to even search for her. Initially, after he had gotten over the shock, he had enlisted an old Eyes Only contact named Asha and her group of militants the S1W but neither Eyes Only nor the S1W could turn up anything on where Manticore might have hidden themselves away. They had covered their tracks annoyingly well. It hadn't helped that Asha had made it painfully obvious she was attracted to Logan, and Logan didn't have the heart or the patience to let her down gently. Instead, he had disappeared.
Well, not so much disappeared as gone on sabbatical. He hadn't told anyone, save Bling, where he was going. He had merely covered the apartment in drop cloth, packed his bags, and left. He had driven for hours and hours, to clear his head. He drove all the way to the Canadian border before turning around and driving back to his uncle's cabin, where he had been living in self-imposed exile ever since.
Out in the wilderness, surrounded by acres of emptiness, Logan felt more peaceful. Mostly because there were less reminders of Max. She had only been here once, with Zack, and Logan had been too busy trying not to die from a migrating bullet fragment to worry about it. Initially after arriving at the cabin, Logan had been reminded about their fateful trip to Cape Haven and how he had promised Max a trip to Jonas' cabin instead. Somehow Logan had successfully pushed the regret of that particular failure to hold a promise out of his head enough to have been holed up at the cabin for nearly a month.
At night Logan would sit out on the porch of the cabin and stare into the darkness. Some nights he would imagine Max running from the trees and straight in to his arms. Other nights he would remember the camp fires he used to build with his father in happier times. Eventually, Logan trained himself not to remember the good things, or the bad things, because both were too painful. He was numb. A walking shell. His mind was as void as his heart. He lived as a recluse, if you could call it living. He found it easier shutting away his memory and his heart and convincing himself he was better off. It hurt less that way.
Logan had been orphaned and left to be raised by his obnoxiously rich and morally devoid aunt and uncle. He had been a playboy who married a drunken gold-digger. His hypocritical quest to save the world had gotten him shot. His own ego had kept him from being with the woman he loved until it was too late.
Living alone in the woods, Logan had almost convinced himself he was safer, better off, alone.
But in his dreams, in his sleep, Logan could not hide from the truth. He was living a lie. He knew he would give up his perfectly crafted, emotionally devoid, pain free existence to have Max back in his life. He knew he'd give everything up for her. In his dreams, he held her, and it eased the aching in his arms, and in his soul, the ache he could hide from the conscious world. In the world of the sub and unconscious, however, the truth was revealed. Logan Cale was half a man-not because he was paralyzed from the waist down, but because he was without Max. His Max. Max who made him complete. In his dreams, Logan knew that for all his posturing, Max had clamed his fears, soothed his soul, and made him a better person, merely with her presence. Denying her memory was a travesty to everything they had ever been to each other-co-workers, friends, would be lovers, family-but the truth was too painful to live with.
In the waking world, Logan needed Max, but hid his need with bitter numbness. But in dreaming, Logan knew Max was all he would ever need. And in his dreams, Logan held on to that last shred of hope that he would see his beloved again.
~*~
Max Guevara sighed forlornly. It had been exactly five months since she had died in Logan's arms in the woods outside Manticore. She found it hard to believe it had been five months. She could still smell him, a scent of musk, sweat, his laundry detergent, and whatever overly expensive shampoo he managed to procure in their New Depression Era society. He had a scent that was all his own. Logan. Warm behind a stone wall created by ego and necessity. Inviting beneath an exterior of self defense and invention. Sexy. Gentle. Loving. Passionate. Altruistic to a fault. Her Savior. He was all those things. Sometimes, as Max lay awake on her cot in her cell, she thought she heard his voice echoing down the halls of Manticore. Initially, after her heart transplant, she had hallucinated that he had found her, had come to break her out. She wondered if Renfro hadn't slipped something into her drug cocktail to make her confess who Eyes Only was. That was why, whenever Max saw him, she would keep Logan's name quiet. She had had enough of her faculties to remember that much. She would never betray him.
After the transplant, after they had tried torturing information out of her, when they had put her back into the trenches and resumed the training regime she had abandoned so long ago, she always pictured Logan before her. On the treadmill, she was running to him. In the trenches, as she crawled on her belly, rifle in her arms, she would imagine herself crawling to him, just over the next ridge, just behind the next shrub or tree. And yet, every single time she came to the next shrub or tree, and topped the next ridge, he was never there. Every time she got off the treadmill, he was never waiting for her.
Yet still her memories kept her alive, kept her remembering who she was. She was more than X5-452. She was Max. Jampony worker. Friend to Original Cindy. Sister to Zack, Zane, Jondy, Jack, Ben, Eva, Tinga, Syl, Krit, Brin, even though some were dead, others in hiding, others back in Manticore, although Max had not seen Brin since the night they had blown up the lab. But most of all, Max was Logan's beloved. She knew she was. She had seen it in his eyes the night the kissed in his penthouse, the night she took him up to the Space Needle. Before she had gone into the compound, when he'd placed a hand on her neck and told her to come back. When he'd held her in his arms and lied to her, to convince them both that she would be alright.
She had known he loved her long before those nights, those last few nights they had spent together. She had known it the first time he made her dinner for no reason. The first time she had a seizure in his presence and he swore to her he wouldn't leave her. When he had broken her out of prison just before Lydecker caught up with her. When he nearly sacrificed his own life to free her and a bunch of hostages. And numerous other instances. With every little glance she had been more and more sure each day that he loved her.
And more and more sure that she loved him. And scared as hell because of it. As a result of her fear, they had wasted precious time, dancing around each other for a year. Their time together had been all too fleeting, gone in the blink of an eye. At night she would listen to her brother's heart beat within her chest and she would ruefully think how the time she and Logan had had together was as brief as a single of those heartbeats.
Until Max met Logan, she had been a cynical soldier on the run trying to keep her head down and her ass above water. Logan changed her entire life. He taught her that caring for other people and helping other people at risk to yourself wasn't as bad as Manticore had taught them it was. The world wasn't poisoned, diseased, or out to get them. Emotions weren't bad. It was possible for people other than your squadron to love you. After all, Logan had fallen in love with her, hadn't he?
Max wondered if her friends had mourned her. She was sure they had. Part of her felt bad and hoped they hadn't made too big a fuss. But mostly she wondered how Logan had handled it. She wondered if he'd cried-she thought he'd been crying when he found her after she got shot-wondered if he'd grieved, how he grieved. Had he foolishly thrown himself and Eyes Only into finding her? If he had, she wouldn't have been surprised if he'd either been unsuccessful or nearly gotten himself killed. She hoped he was still alive. That hope gave her something to look forward to as she had worked on her escape. She'd been chipping away at the cinderblocks under her cot for some time, and one night she had broken into the basement, finding, Joshua, one of many nomalies Manticore kept in the basement. However, these nomalies weren't the nomalies of her childhood-the mostly human worst of the genetic screw ups-but rather genetic creations with more animal than human in their cocktails. What Joshua had showed Max both horrified and saddened her.
To distract herself from the monsters in the basement, Max had enlisted Joshua and Alec, her brother Ben's twin who had been assigned to be her breeding partner, to help her escape. She didn't wonder if Alec wasn't playing both sides, so tried to be as brief with him as possible. For his credit though, he lied to Renfro every morning at the dawn briefing, declaring their copulations a success. This made Max work even harder to escape. If she didn't get pregnant soon Renfro was going to get suspicious.
One afternoon, the trio was successful. Alec and Joshua distracted the contingent of X7s while Max jumped the fence and made a mad dash for Seattle. To her dismay, however, she hadn't found Logan, but rather, an empty penthouse with drop cloth-covered furniture and a few months worth of dust. From the thickness of the stuff, Max figured Logan had been gone about two months, give or take. She *hoped* he had traveled somewhere, and had not been killed. She found his computer equipment dormant, unused for God knows how long. To her surprise, she also found Alec waiting for her. He *had* been playing both sides, just as she had suspected. It turned out his assignment had been to track Max and kill Eyes Only. Upon not finding him there, Alec proceeded to train the gun on Max, figuring he might as well kill someone. Not wanting to get shot in the heart again, and in a fury, Max had swiftly kicked his ass and hauled it to the nearest police station, saying she had found the mysterious teeth-pulling tattoo branding killer from six months ago.
Initially after that, after reuniting with Original Cindy, discovering Logan had split town without a trace, as had Bling not long after, and flashing Normal to get her job back, Max had been determined to find Logan and reunite with him. But he had covered his tracks fairly well. Part of her was tempted to search the cabin, but she remembered him saying something about it being seized after Cale Industries went under. As time went on, however, Max grew more and more disenchanted with the world she had returned to. Her job at Jampony was as miserable as ever, and Cindy had found herself a somewhat permanent lickety-chick it seemed. On the days when she wasn't thinking about Logan, Max found herself thinking about Joshua. Had she abandoned him? Doomed him?
It got to be too much. The guilt. The memories. The longing. One day Max simply did not go to work. Rather, she gassed up her bike, packed a few saddle bags, and hit the road. She sold what she could not pack, which wasn't much to begin with, even though Cindy had kept most of her things, and just drove. She drove to the Canadian border, and then headed east, straddling the US-Canadian border until she hit Montreal. She never stayed in one place very long, as force of habit, partially. And partially because she was being driven by an overwhelming sense of longing, a searching desire, although she could not appropriately identify what she was looking for. Long ago she had stopped suspecting it was Logan that she was searching for. He had left while she was dead. They were through. That she hadn't been able to find him initially only proved that.
Many nights on her road trip, as she was traveling in the summer months, Max had laid on her back somewhere in the woods or along the side of the road away from the sights of cars or highway patrolmen. She didn't require much sleep, so it wasn't worth wasting her money on motel rooms. Any rest she needed she could get in some grass or on a bed of leaves. If the nights were clear, Max would stare at the night sky, trying to count the stars until she lost track and eventually dozed off.
Max didn't stay long in Montreal before heading back west. She tried heading farther south to see some new things, but something kept ultimately bringing her back north. All the while, Max tried to convince herself she was better off without Logan, without anyone. She was a genetically revved up super girl with her brother's heart inside her chest and a government agency forever on her tail. Wherever Logan was Max was sure he was ultimately better.
Three months after she had left Seattle, as the fall began to turn to winter, Max found herself heading back that way. She had seen most of the northern part of North America, and while the mountains and stuff had been beautiful, she still found herself lacking, wanting. She almost felt as thought she had been running from time and her past in a futile attempt at having a normal life. And yet here she was, heading back to her past, back to the place she had called "home" for so long. And yet she knew something would be missing.
Logan. Always Logan.
As she neared Seattle, it began to down pour, much to Max's chagrin, and she was forced to seek refuge rather than ditch her bike in an accident. She steered off the main road on to a smaller, secondary road. In the dark and torrential rain, Max found that even her enhanced night vision was rendered almost useless. She drove slowly, cautiously, until she made out a structure in the distance.
"Holy Shit," she muttered as she got closer. It was Logan's cabin. Or, more correctly, dead Jonas' cabin. The lights were off, but it most definitely looked recently lived in. Max wondered who had bought it from the bank. She shivered in the rain and cold and hoped whoever lived there wasn't there now. She needed to get inside. *Fast*
Her head was beginning to spin and Max wondered about the last time she'd eaten. She couldn't remember. With considerable effort, Max hid her bike in some bushed and began walking towards the front steps. She remembered ascending these steps so long ago, after kissing Logan for what she thought would be the last time, as she and Zack prepared to leave for Canada. A knife wrenched through her heart. Her brother Zack, dead. Logan, missing. And now here she was, at Logan's family cabin, nearing a full blown seizure. As she reached the door, Max found herself beginning to shake violently.
"Damn," she cursed, her speech slurred. She couldn't remember if she had any pills on her. Her fingers fumbled, one hand on the door knob, the other searching her jacket pockets. Her head pounded and her vision began to swim before her. She felt as though she was on fire as the quakes increased. With her last ounce strength, Max opened the front door, stepped inside, pivoted, and fell to the floor, hard, as the heavy wooden door came back and whacked her hard in the forehead over her right eye. But Max was too overcome with pain from the seizures to notice.
Through her blurred and blackening vision, Max thought she saw a wheelchair just behind the door, near the couch. "Logan," she whispered, before losing consciousness entirely.
~*~
Logan Cale swore against the pelting rain that was making it increasingly more difficult to drive. He was driving back from the small town near the cabin he had secured as an Eyes Only safe house using some diverted funds he had siphoned from Pierpont Lempkin after Cale Industries had gone belly up. Sebastian had contacted Logan, having found him after tracking the off-shore account Logan had set up for Eyes Only business years ago. Sebastian had said he was sending an informant, a colleague, with Manticore news he thought Logan would be interested in. Logan had begun growing antsy in his self-imposed seclusion and Seb's offer of knowledge was enough to pique Logan's interest. He had driven to a small café in town to meet Seb's contact, who turned out to be Asha, of all people. She had turned to Sebastian for S1W help after Logan and Eyes Only had disappeared. Sebastian had discovered a VA hospital twenty-five miles south of Seattle that looked to have a little too much funding and personnel going in to be just a VA hospital.
"Do you think you're going to find her in there?" Asha asked somewhat bitterly.
Logan ignored her, "I don't know." He was answering truthfully. Did he really want to get caught up in all that again? Maybe get himself killed? What if Max truly was dead? "Thank Seb for me," Logan had said as he got up to leave.
Now, as he neared the cabin, Logan was no closer to answering his own questions. He was, however, thankful to be home, and even more thankful that he had opted for the exo this night. Getting from the car to the cabin via wheelchair in the inclement weather would have been interesting to say the least and Logan really wasn't in the mood. He parked his car as close to the house as possible. Taking a deep breath he opened the car door and ran as fast as the exo would carry him towards the house and up the stairs.
Once he hit the porch, however, Logan stopped dead in his tracks. His front door was open. A woman lay unconscious on the threshold.
And not just any woman.
Max.
Max.
"Jesus!" Logan exclaimed, dropping to her side, thinking he was dreaming, or hallucinating. But he wasn't. It was truly Max. She was ghostly pale and soaking wet, with a bruise over her eye and slight cut that had already clotted, both, Logan assumed, a result of the door hitting her after she fell. But where did she come from? How did she get here? How long had she been laying there unconscious and in the rain?
Logan scooped her up in his arms, trying not to think of how reminiscent this was of that horrible night eight months ago. At least this time his legs were working with the exo and he could carry her to safety. He couldn't believe she was here, alive for all intents and purposes, and in his arms. Her hair was longer and she was incredibly thin, all her curves melted way to toned and hardened muscle.
"Okay Cale," he thought to himself. "Stop checking her out and help her." He laid her down on his bed, smoothing her hair away from her face after gently placing her against the pillows. Her bruise was getting worse, but the cut wasn't deep. However, she was still very unconscious and in wet clothes.
"Max," he whispered fiercely. "Max, baby, can you hear me? Max!" He shook her slightly, touched her face, hoping to rouse her. Nothing. He sighed. First order of business would be to get her out of the wet clothes. He darted to his drawers and pulled out an old college sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants with a drawstring-she was even tinier than before. He sat next to her on the bed and gently began to undress her. He peeled off her soaking jacket and dropped it in a heap on the floor. Next came her water-logged boots and socks.
Logan took a deep breath. Max was lying unconscious on his bed, wearing a soaking wet shirt and pants that need to come off. "Don't be a cad, Cale. She's unconscious for fuck sakes. God knows what she's been through these last months." He took another deep breath and began to work her waterlogged pants off her small frame. Being as gentle as possible, it took him a few minutes, but he eventually succeeded in his task. One down, one to go. Supporting her as he had when taking off the jacket, Logan began to remove Max's shirt. Luckily, it was button down, which made removal easier. He laid her back against the pillows and gasped.
"Jesus!"
Visible beneath Max's bra was a thick and jagged, although considerably healed scar that ran the length of her sternum. They had cracked her chest. To say the least. "Well," he murmured to her. "At least I know how you're alive." Gently, he swathed her in his clothes and tucked her beneath the blanket. He dabbed a hot washcloth against her forehead, hoping she'd awaken.
"What happened to you Max?" he whispered to her after curling up on the bed beside her and taking her in his arms, holding her so that her head was against his chest. "Where did you come from? Why did you come back? How did you find me?" He kissed the top of her head and found himself weeping. He drew a jagged breath and snuggled them both deeper into the covers. Still weeping, Logan closed his eyes, know that when sleep came and he dreamt of holding Max in his arms, he would not awaken in sadness, for once not finding his arms empty.
~*~
Sometime before the early light of dawn, Max woke, her head foggy, her body heavy and tired. It took her a minute to adjust to her surroundings. She stiffened suddenly. She was wearing not the clothes she had been wearing before. These clothes were warm and fleecy and too large and they smelled like...Logan!?!
Max sat up with a bolt. "Jesus!" she exclaimed, looking down to discover the warm human pillow she had just left was actually Logan. At the sound of her voice, Logan's eyes flew open.
"Max?" he asked blearily, trying to rid sleep from his eyes and brain. He sat up in bed beside her. "Are you alright?"
Max blinked rapidly. "How did I get here?" she asked. "Where did you come from? How long have I been out? Why hell did you leave Seattle?"
Logan sighed, "I dunno you tell me. My car. At least six hours. Because I was hiding from everything I felt and didn't want to feel." He smiled ruefully, sadly. "In that order."
Max's eyes darted away from his face; his eyes were too intense. And as beautiful as she remembered. She knew she could drown in them forever and he would always come through to rescue her. Like he had tonight.
"I-I," she stammered, unsure how to begin. She looked at him expectantly, unsure how to proceed.
Logan rested his head against the head board. "You've been through a lot tonight. Why don't you go freshen up in the bathroom, and I'll change and make us some warm milk and we can talk about....everything, ok?"
Max felt herself nodding, her head feeling like rubber. She felt Logan slide off the bed and head towards his closet. She too slid off the bed, standing unsteadily on her feet, hanging on to a wall for support.
Logan turned around, sweatpants and black T-shirt in hand. "Are you alight?" The concern in his voice was palpable.
She nodded and began making her way towards the bathroom. "I'm just a little shaky," she said. "My tricked out DNA decided to spazz on me tonight, hence me lying in your doorway."
A seizure, Logan thought, his fears concerned. He watched her shuffle off to the bathroom and shut the door behind her before he himself went to the living room and retrieved his wheelchair. He had had a long day and he found himself welcoming the loss of sensation. He switched off the exo and felt his lower half go dead. After slipping into more comfortable clothes, Logan wheeled himself into the kitchen and heated up the milk. He made sure to give Max a super sized coffee mug.
"Hey Max," he called, finding it weird to have her name roll across his lips once again.
"Yeah?" she replied.
"I think there's still a bottle of tryptophan under the sink if you need it," he answered, settling the mugs in a tray on his lap and wheeling into the living room.
"Thanks," she replied. A minute later, she emerged and joined him on the couch. He indicated to her the mug and she smiled gratefully, having just dry-swallowed a handful of pills. She let the warm liquid slide down her throat and soothe her. She looked at Logan over the brim of her mug and found him staring at her.
"What?" she asked, somewhat reproachfully. They had been apart too long. It was impossible to just fall back into their old routine.
Logan did not answer her.
"What?" she asked again, setting down her mug.
Suddenly, Logan leaned across the expanse between them and kissed her, hard and full on the lips. He was tender at first, gentle against her unsuspecting mouth. He took that she didn't pull away as permission to continue and he forged onward, gently prying her lips apart and exploring the recesses of her mouth. She tasted sweet, like the milk she had just consumed, hot and wild as well. Before long, she had straddled him on the couch, their upper bodies pressed together. She remained perched on her knees, knowing somewhere deep down that she needed to keep this at a certain point...for now. His hands stroked up and down her back underneath the fabric of his sweatshirt while she tangled her hands in his wildly grown out mane. She made a mental note to get him to a barber ASAP. She missed the spikes.
Finally, they both broke contact, as Logan was sure to soon be suffering from severe oxygen deprivation. "Sorry," she murmured sheepishly as he leaned his head against the back of the couch. She rested her head against his shoulder and sighed into it, letting him wrap his arms around her. "I missed you so much," she whispered into his chest, trying to fight back the torrents that threatened.
Logan tightened his embrace and felt as she repositioned herself so that instead of straddling him she was seated diagonally across his lap. She rested her head against his chest and closed her eyes tight. "It's ok Max," he whispered. "What ever happened, whatever you've been through, it's ok. You're back now. We found each other again."
Max sat up and looked into his eyes, her own eyes fierce and wild. "And a hell of a time finding you I had too!" she exclaimed. "Why did you disappear Logan?" she asked, her voice weak as a kitten.
He sighed, debating within himself whether or not to be completely truthful with her. He had always protected her from the completely honest truth, partially for the sake of his own ego. But something had changed. All that time apart had made him realize that keeping things from her only served to further their separation. He made a promise to himself that if they made it through the night that he'd work damn hard at never hiding from her again.
"Because," he began, looking into her big dark eyes. "Because I couldn't stay in Seattle. There were too many memories. I saw you everywhere. I thought I'd lost you. I came home and sat on my sofa and I didn't get up again for days. The sun came up...the sun went down...I just sat there. It was like I couldn't move." He sighed, trying to fight against the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. "And when I finally could move, nothing was the same. The world was empty. Gray. It hurt just to think about you. So I came here." He gestured around. "And shut out the world. And you. I tried to pretend you didn't exist. I shut down and shut everything that mattered away just so I could get through the day."
"And they say I have denial problems," Max muttered.
Logan smiled briefly, "It was a stupid idea. Trying to shut away all my feelings just made me numb. I may as well have been dead." He saw her flinch at the word "dead." "Max, I was alive, but not living." He rested his forehead against hers. "Nothing in my world mattered if you weren't in it."
Max kissed his chin and nipped at his neck affectionately. She had to admit, she was shocked by his confession. She had always known him to be secretive, keeping things from her. But now, things had changed. He had jumped. He knew it was the only way now for them to go forward. There was no going back. Only forward. Only to the future.
"Thank you," she said kindly, hoping to convey the sincerity she felt. Then she sighed, "So I guess it's my turn?"
"Max," Logan said gently. "This isn't a score card. You don't have to tell me anything until you're ready too."
Max shook her head, "No more running Logan. I've done that too much-taken the easy way out, running away from the people that I..." She gulped and continued. "That I love. I'm supposed to be so strong and ready made for fighting. It's about time I started fighting for the things," she stopped and looked at him. "And the people I believe in."
"Max," Logan said again, astonished by her passion and determination, but worried that recounting the last several months would be too traumatic for her.
"I died," she said quickly, not willing to allow him to talk her out of it. She had to tell him before she changed her mind. "You already knew that part. They brought me back inside, but I was too far gone. They had Zack on another table. He'd been shot too, but not as bad. When he heard I was dead, he flipped out. Broke free of his restraints, killed the guard, and tried to make them transplant Renfro's heart into me. But..." Until Now Max's voice had been calm and steady, but recounting her brother's sacrifice was painful. "But I needed an X5 heart," she continued as tears filled her eyes. "So he shot himself in the head. When I woke up, Renfro was in my room. She told me what had happened. She told me he was a martyr and that he loved me." By now, Max was weeping, but she wouldn't let Logan hold her-not until she finished this part of her story. "She said it was good to have us both home. After I recovered she showed me what had become of him. They turned him into a living donor."
Max was fighting hard to keep from choking up. She had kept this inside for so long. It was way past time she got it off her chest. "She told me I was poison. That I destroyed everyone I loved. Zack, Ben, Tinga..." With each of her sibling's names, Max came closer and closer to losing control completely.
"You," she finished, looking up at Logan with tear-filled eyes, her face stained, her eyes puffy. He gently wiped the tears from her face with his thumbs, thinking of how she had never looked more beautiful. All he wanted was to take her in his arms, to hold her and make all her pain go away. That was all her had ever wanted.
After a few moments, Max regained enough composure to finish speaking, "They let me escape. They knew I'd go straight to you. They sent Alec-Ben's twin-to track me and kill you. I guess they figured using me as bait would be punishment enough. But you weren't at the penthouse so all Alec got was an ass-kicking and a nice long stay in jail."
"What did you do?" Logan asked curiously.
"I beat him senseless and took him downtown, saying I had found the killer who was taking teeth last year," Max said, her voice betraying neither remorse nor hatred, merely an infirmity of memory brought on my time and troubles. Max buried her head against Logan's chest and let him hold her, let him see her cry. All through the night they talked. She told him about Joshua and the nomalies, about her search for him after returning to Seattle. About how she flashed Normal to get her job back and about the day she just took off. She recounted anecdotes of her road trip that made him laugh and kept them both up until dawn's light began to peek over the horizon.
Logan looked out the window. "It's late," he said, yawning.
Max shook her head, "Nah. It's early."
"Whatever," he chuckled, transferring her off his lap and transferring himself into the chair. Once he was settled he said grandly, "The lady's chariot awaits to bring her to her chamber."
Max grinned as she took his hand and sat gracefully in his lap, "Well, with such a sexy chariot driver, how's a lady to refuse?" She paused, "But isn't it your chamber?"
"It's ours," he whispered. "Everything I have is yours. We've spent too much time apart. I'm half tempted to tie you to that bed and never let you go."
"Kinky," she yawned, resting her head on his shoulder, one slender arm draped across his back. She felt his upper body vibrate with laughter.
When they reached the bedroom, Max crawled off Logan's lap, took off the sweatpants as he removed his own T-shirt, and crawled in to bed. She left him room to transfer from the chair to the bed, and once he was in it, she wrapped herself around him, needing his warmth, the feel of his skin, the rhythm of his breathing. She needed it all. She knew then, in that moment as they lay in bed between the land of slumber and the land of wakefulness, that she had been lying to herself. Logan was exactly what she needed.
"I love you too," he whispered sleepily.
"I know," she replied happily, murmuring against his chest. "But I can't imagine why..."
"Don't start," he warned, mustering his last bit of conscious energy. "Cuz I could pull the same routine." He felt Max huff, her breath sending gooseflesh across his chest. "Max," he said, some of his words muffled by her mane of hair. "When people look at us, all they may see is a young goddess who they think is only after my money and a crippled playboy who's only with you because we're exchanging money for sex. And if that's all they want to see, then I can't stop them. But you and I know better." He put one hand over her left breast, over her heart, and put one of her hands over his. "Because we know what's here. We know what'd between us even though no one else has to."
"When did you get to be so smart?" she asked, tracing abstract patterns.
"The moment I realized how precious every second of every minute is," he replied, letting sleep overtake him. "Goodnight, Angel."
"Good morning, Logan," she replied mischievously, as dawns rays of light settled across the bedroom, resting her head on his chest and letting his heartbeat lull her to sleep.
And for the first time in a long time, both Max and Logan felt peace.
*Oh, I gave it all for you
I gave it all for you by my side once more
Oh, I gave it all for you
I gave it 'cause it's harder to touch
The things that are dearer
I love you too much
To trust something clearer
I know I fell too far
But here you are*