Chapter Five: Trial and Error

Logan sat on a chair on his balcony leaned back with his feet on the rail as he watched the sun setting beyond the Seattle Skyline. It was a beautiful sight, the overshadowed building in the foreground contrasting sharply with the brightly colored sky. The colors were spectacular ranging from a deep burnt orange to gold to red and finally fading into a light purple as the stars began to intrude on the daytime. Wispy clouds moved languidly across the expanse of sky over the towering buildings catching and reflecting the splendor of the sunset, turning their faces pink with brilliant gold highlights, almost as if the angels were peering over their edges and looking down on him.

He blinked as he stared blankly at them, "Looking down and laughing," Logan thought angrily.

He couldn't appreciate it, he hardly saw it, as his thoughts went round and round in his head about the most recent events in his tumultuous love life. Logan again wiped a stray tear from his cheek as the pain hit him full force yet again. His eyes were red and slightly swollen, and the depression he had thought he had overcome since Max had returned was weighing him down again. His arms were crossed self protectively across his chest, as much to comfort him as to keep him warm. He vaguely felt himself shiver again as an icy wind cut through his clothes.

He looked up at the sky again blinking back another round of tears as he again recalled the events that had unfolded after their argument.

Four days prior:

Logan walked toward the bedroom several hours after their most recent fight. His newly developed abilities and Max's reaction to them had definitely doused a bit of the flame that had been rekindled after her return to his life. He remembered walking out avoiding his own angry feelings and giving Max what time she needed to think and work out her own anger about what had been said in the heat of the moment. She had retired to the bedroom sometime after he had walked out and he had not seen anything of her in nearly two hours. He had gravitated to the training room intent on working off some of his pent up frustration, working the aggression out as he did. When he had finished he found that he could think rationally again. That only served to bring on a bout of guilt for the words that he had lashed Max with. He grimaced inwardly looking toward the door leading out to the hallway. Max was not one to forgive easily and he was sure that was the leading factor in the fact that he had not seen her emerge yet.

When he had finished and found that she still had not emerged, he had decided to press the issue. Slowly he moved toward the back of the apartment his gut twisted with anxiety, there was going to be no easy apology.

A thought occurred to him then falsely buoying his attitude with hope. There were times when she and he would get into a fight, and being a person not prone to apology Max tended to "surprise" him. Those surprises usually consisted of Logan walking into a room to find Max nearly or completely naked. As her way of apologizing she would make passionate love to him wherever they happened to be at the time. He had always liked those kinds of surprises.

He smiled at the prospect of it, almost eager to see what she had actually been doing so long in the bedroom. Logan stopped short as he opened the bedroom door and stepped in, his expectant grin slid off his face at the sight that greeted his eyes. And while he was surprised it was not pleasantly so.

Arranged along the bed were several suitcases most of which were haphazardly stuffed with Max's clothes. He found Max angrily rooting through drawers putting her garments aside and throwing his clothes on the floor.

"Max?" He questioned dumfounded by her actions. He didn't think that the rift between them had grown that wide. She whirled to face him her expression dark and angry still. She looked just slightly guilty about being caught in the act of trying to escape, "What are… what are you doing?"

"I… I have to get out of here," She stammered, "I can't take this anymore."

"But," Logan closed the short space between them, running shaking hands up her arms to her shoulders trying to get her to look into his eyes. She avoided that contact with his startling vivid and expressive eyes, "Why?" he asked softly.

Her eyes were suddenly on him, stabbing through him as she accused "You would rather have died?" she voiced still snagged on his bitter accounting of what he felt his life had been worth. "I risked my life and my freedom to come and save you that day. I ended up in a jail cell with thirty versions of me standing around…" She frowned, her gaze became unfocused, "That was the creepiest thing," Her eyes were suddenly on him again, "Now you're telling me you would rather have died than become what you are? Do you have any idea how selfish that is? Do you realize how meaningless that makes my effort?"

Logan threw back his head a bit blowing through his nose, and rolled his eyes then he looked back down at her again, his remorse for his words plain to read on his face. He knew that nothing he could say now would be right, and at the time he had thought he had meant it. Logan knew hurtful things said were hard to take back, "I… it was wrong. I was angry, Max, because… because I am already uncomfortable with these… abilities. To see you look at me, like… like you don't know me, like you are afraid of what I have become… It hurts. I overreacted… I'm sorry," Logan said finally locking her eyes. "Please… don't go."

"I can't stay," Max repeated, "This hurts too much."

"We've had these hiccups before," Logan insisted, "We both knew that it wasn't going to be the easiest thing after four years, just to pick up where we left off. We can work this out I know we can." Logan finished earnestly.

She was shaking her head even before he finished, her unfocused gaze still faced away from him, "I'm not so sure anymore," She whispered. She looked for a moment like she was about to relent, about to give in and apologize. Logan saw that look glaze over as her defenses came up again spurning her to keep herself from getting hurt, to keep her from being vulnerable. She shook her head as if to clear it of a fog, backed a step away from him, and turned around slamming the last of the suitcases closed before turning back to him one hand still on the handle, "I think it would be best if I took a breather."

Logan closed his eyes against the pain as she stepped around him headed for the bedroom door, "Where will you be staying?" Logan said giving up on the notion that he could convince her to stay.

He heard rather than saw her pause in the doorway to the bedroom, "I don't know," she said very quietly then turned away. Logan didn't turn to watch her go, he didn't want to… didn't need to. He could see her aura behind his eyes, the brilliant glow moving further away from him. He tried to make himself move to go after her to stop her departure by whatever means necessary, only he couldn't, he was frozen in place, knowing that trying to stop her would only make it worse for both of them. Something deep inside of him squeezed tighter as he realized that he was losing her, and not by force, not by some outside power… he had driven her away with his own selfishness and stubbornness. His head drooped to rest on his chest as he heard the door to their apartment shut quietly.

Present:

It had been four days now, and Max had not so much as called to let him know that she was doing all right.

"You're a damn fool," Logan thought bitterly, chastising himself for ever having let that thought issue from his mouth. His discomfort with these abilities… That was his own shortcoming and the idea that he would have been better off dead should have stayed safely locked up between his ears. And now there was no way to take the words back, and no way to convince her that he meant other than what he said. She was gone, perhaps for good and this time it was squarely his own fault.

Logan pulled his heel back from where it was propped on the railing letting it fall with a thud onto the deck, propelling his body forward as the chair resumed it normal upright position. Logan put his hands on either arm of the chair and slowly pushed himself to his feet. Even as he did he realized, yet again, that even that taken for granted event was a miracle, by all rights he should still be in that damned wheelchair. He should be rolling through life with a shattered spine and shredded nerves.

Max… He drew a deep breath and sighed yet again. She had, by her very selfless act… risking incarceration and return to Manticore, had given him a second chance, to walk again, to live as a whole person. He should have been kissing the ground that she walked on, but instead of showing her gratitude, he had spit on her heroic effort, stabbing her through the heart with his self pity about the current state of his own messed up body. How could she have known the possible repercussions of her act to save his life? He certainly had entertained no notions of extrasensory powers or greater than human strength.

Logan had been happy at the time, ecstatic even, when the first inkling of sensation had come back into his legs, he had felt proud and whole when he was able to stand on his own in front of Max that day. He suffered through a heavy depression when the new cells had started to fail, unwilling to go back to being in the chair full time after such a taste of what he had lost. He had nearly ended it all then.

He was glad, more than glad that he had been convinced of the short sightedness of that thought. Shortly thereafter, the treatments he had received from the good doctor, before her untimely death finally began to take effect. The recovery was swift after that, and it took permanently.

Logan found himself standing in front of the sculpture that dominated his office, unsure how exactly he had arrived here. He slowly focused on the wheel chair tilted up onto one large wheel, lengths of ivy draped on it to create a look of disuse. The effect had been completed recently. The device transformed from the electric blue that it had been to a look of rust and disuse by a carefully rendered paint scheme. That had been the final step of its creation signifying Max's return to the house and to commemorate what he had thought to be the end of his healing process. It was still a reminder though, both of what he had been through and the cruel twists of fate that life tended to deal mere mortals. Shakily he reached out a hand to touch its cold surface, "How cruel you are to me today," he thought bitterly as his fingers curled around the frame of the device.

He sniffed at the irony of it, realizing his whole purpose in getting back on his feet had not been for himself… it never had been, it had all been for Max. She had become something more than a partner in his mind early on, and every stride he had made toward recovery was because he had fallen in love with her.

Logan's fingers laid lightly against his own thigh as he stood there, and he found that he was suddenly conscious of every twitch, every contraction of muscle in that leg. He was unnervingly aware of the fact that circumstances should have been very different.

Logan reached out with his other hand touching the chair with it as well. A feeling like shock hit him as the memories surfaced again of the period in his life that was ruled by these wheels. A time that was ruled by depression, the feelings of helplessness that he had always felt when Max went out to do the dangerous works that he had asked of her, unable to accomplish them on his own. He remembered all of the triumph and sorrows that were carved sharply into his memory from that time. A time when he was actually forced to grow up and face the realities of the world around him. He was no longer the guardian angel separated by money from those he deemed worthy of his help. He found that he had been so pompous in his dealings, even when he had viewed them as good works. Max had been right all along that he had been the spoiled rich kid she had dubbed him on their first meeting. But as always the universe had ways of leveling the playing field.

Slowly Logan released his hold of the sculpture sitting across from it and regarding it as some nemesis that he had to figure out a way to beat. Hit thoughts turned inward again wondering what in the world he was going to do now.

He jumped nearly out of his skin when a hand lay lightly onto his shoulder. His radar had not warned him that anyone had been in the apartment much less the room and that was scary in and of itself. In four years no one had been able to get close to him without him knowing about it. Startled he looked up finding Max standing arms length away from him. Logan swallowed hard as he stared up at her unable to believe what he was seeing, frozen in place and daring not to move lest her presence prove to be nothing but his own imagination playing tricks on him. Her eyes were watery and her face sad as she looked down on him.

"I thought I might find you in here," She stated in a cracking voice. She looked away a moment then back at him, "I… couldn't do it," she admitted, "I couldn't stay away."

Slowly Logan stood before her his face clouded with sorrow and pain and relief. He reached out with one hand lightly touching her face as if to prove the reality of her presence to himself. He ran in gently up her cheek and into her dark wavy hair. Without a word he leaned down kissing her, letting the kiss say the words that no voice could manage. Slowly her arms wrapped around him, giving him the answer to his unspoken but heartfelt apology, as she responded by kissing him back with fierce passion.

After long moments Logan moved away, still stroking her face and looking deeply into her dark almond eyes, "Forgive me," He whispered.

She swallowed licking her lips. Unable to speak she only nodded and leaned in to kiss him yet again more deeply and more passionately than the last.