An Emergency Change of Command, 13
by pari106

pari106@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/pari106/damain.html

Disclaimer: See part 1; Code: M/Z, Logan/Syl; Zane, Krit, All; Rating: PG-13

A/N: Okay, this one might get a little sappy. Okay, a lot sappy. Sorry!

A/A/N: Alright, I lied. I'm not sorry! ? Max and Zack never get to be sappy, so there!
A little sap can be a good thing. Just let me know if I overdid it.

An Emergency Change of Command, 13
by pari106



Neither Zack nor Max knew how long they sat there in that swing, merged. But after
some time, they did need to come up for air. And as they did, Zack took Max's head in
his hands, resting their foreheads together.

"I can't believe this is happening," they both muttered, then laughed.

Then Max pulled back.

"When you left Seattle, I thought…" suddenly her words trailed off, and the hesitation
was so unlike Max.

"You thought what?" Zack asked.

Max waited a moment, then met his eyes.

"I thought maybe you hated me."

Zack's fingers lightly caressed Max's cheeks before he let his hands fall away.

"I could never hate you, Maxie," he told her. "Why would you think that?"

Max shook her head, frowning. She turned her eyes out into the night. She'd been on
such an emotional roller-coaster ride lately. When Zack put his arms around her again,
Max leaned back against him, and finally she spoke.

"You've done so much for me," she said. She felt that damn peculiar sting at the back of
her eyes again, but she looked up at him anyhow. "For all of us," she added.

Zack shifted uncomfortably in his seat. And Max couldn't miss how awkward his shrug
was as he responded to her offhanded praise. He wasn't very good with compliments or
gratitude, Max realized. Which wasn't very surprising, she supposed, considering the
fact that it was the X5s whom were most grateful to him. Genetically engineered soldiers
weren't very good in the emotional expression department, Max knew. But it was a little
sad, she thought. Because there was no one who deserved a little gratitude more than
Zack. There was no one who had the sort of loyalty that Zack had from his brothers and
sisters. They knew what he did for them, and they would gladly give their lives in
gratitude, even if they never said so.

Max knew it. Maybe, on some level, Zack knew it. But he wasn't comfortable
acknowledging it.

"That's my choice," he simply said.

"Is it?" Max asked, surprising him just a little. "You didn't ask to be born into this
bitch."

Zack shifted again.

"None of us did," he told her.

Max shook her head. Her voice took on an impassioned tone as guilt rose to the surface
of her emotions. "But I didn't make things any easier, did I? Always questioning orders.
You warned me to leave Seattle. I didn't and you turned yourself over to Lydecker
because of me."

Zack grabbed Max's chin and turned her face so she was looking at him again. He heard
the anguish in her voice and it touched him at the same time that it frightened him. He
was as unused to accepting…whatever it was that was lying beneath Max's words as he
was at accepting praise. He was unused to any of the softer emotions that humans felt.
He'd had little experience with them.

"I turned myself in for a crime I committed, Max," he reminded her. And she surprised
him again with the sudden anger that replaced the guilt in her tone as she responded.

"Bullshit," she said. "You didn't do anything. You've never done anything you didn't
have to do."

"Max…"

"You didn't. You know it. The only reason you ended up back at Manticore was to keep
me from ending up back there myself."

Zack didn't know what to say to that. It was true.

Max shook her head.

"If it wasn't for me, none of that would have happened," she said.

"I've done nothing but cause you trouble," she said next.

This time Zack shook his head.

"That's not true."

"Yes it is! Zack…you got shot because of me," she said quietly, her eyes shining.

Zack sighed.

"Maxie…my choice, remember?" he asked, softly.

"Yes, but…"

"Wouldn't you have done the same thing?"

Max's answer was immediate and sincere. Matter of fact. "You know I would."

Zack just looked at her a moment, then he reached up and touched her hair again. How
spectacular to be able to do that so easily now – just to reach out and touch her.

Then he made a decision.

"Yeah, I do," he said quietly. And the way he said it made Max wonder what he meant.
She looked at him curiously.

And then he told her, and she knew.

"I heard you," he said.

Max blinked.

"What?"

"That night after the raid. I heard you, Max."

Max stilled, surprised.

"Wha…what?" That's all she could say. He'd heard her. When she'd told him that she
loved him he'd heard her. But how…why…. Wait a moment. If he'd heard her, why
didn't he tell her afterwards?

Zack watched all these thoughts and emotions play out across Max's face, but he rose a
finger to her lips before she could speak, hurrying to explain himself before she could get
the wrong idea.

"Just listen, okay?" he asked. "I know you thought I didn't hear you. I didn't mean to
deceive you or anything, I just…"

Zack captured her gaze with his.

"At first, I wasn't sure I heard you right. Then, when I realized that I hadn't been
hallucinating…I needed time to think. About a lot of things."

Zack stood, walking over to the porch's railing and staring out at the night sky. Then he
turned, leaning back against the rails. Max just watched him, waiting, heart beating,
hoping and fearing.

"You talk like you've made all these mistakes, Max," he finally said. "But what about
my mistakes? Yeah, staying in Seattle might not have made things easier on me, but
when did I ever try to make things easier on you or the others?"

Max frowned. "I don't un…"

Zack walked back to the swing.

"Did I make things any easier on you?" he continued. "Acting like nothing else meant
half as damned much to me as my goddamned mission to protect the X5s?"

Max swallowed. Saying as much would be a direct statement of how she really felt about
him. But hadn't she already made that statement by kissing him? Not once, but twice?
Still, Max didn't answer, she just stared into Zack's eyes. She could tell he'd been
thinking about this for some time. But what exactly was it that he was thinking? Max
didn't understand.

Zack continued.

"I've dedicated so much of my life to keeping all of you out of Manticore, that I lost sight
of why we left in the first place," he told her.

"There's nothing wrong with your being dedicated, Zack," Max said in response.

"There is if that's all I am," Zack said. "if that's all I do; all I ever think about." Zack
shook his head, the dream of earlier that day, and all its underlying guilt, coming back to
him. "I could have been there for Tinga, Max," he said, voicing his regrets for the first
time since that night in the woods with Zane. "And for Charlie and Case. But I wasn't.
That's what I'm talking about. I was so goddamned dedicated to my mission as CO, I
never let anything else interfere. Not even my fucking family, and my family *is* my
mission. I never even stopped to consider that maybe caring about someone, being there
for someone isn't just "interference". So what if Tinga had a husband and son? So what
if it was dangerous? Hell, life is dangerous. What's done is done. How did being a total
asshole to my sister help that situation?"

Max could finally see where Zack was going with this, and she didn't like it.

"Zack…"

"I never stopped to think if I was carrying out my "mission" the way I should," Zack
continued. "I never even considered doing things differently." And something in his
voice made Max's protests die on her lips. Was he saying…

"I was narrow-minded, Max," Zack said. "Maybe you never listened, but neither did I."
He pulled her into an embrace once again. "I've made mistakes, too, Maxie. We've all
made mistakes."

Max couldn't resist his hug, or the hope that had begun to dawn when Zack began to
speak about "doing things differently". But she couldn't let him get away with
diminishing her sins that easily.

"But my mistakes could have gotten you killed," she insisted.

Zack rested his chin on the top of her head, then rubbed his cheek against her soft hair.
He was letting himself relax here with Max like he never had before. And the novelty of
the experience was making him a lot more talkative than he'd ever been.

"But they didn't," he said next. "I'm okay, Max. In fact, I'm better than okay. Because
of you."

Max looked up at him.

"I never considered doing things differently. Living differently. Living, Max. Really
living, not just running all the time. I never considered doing things any
differently…until that night. Until you told me you loved me."

Max's pulse sped even more, as déjà vu set in. Same look in Zack's eyes, same embrace
slowly pulling her in, same soft touch against her cheek as Zack pulled her even closer.
Their faces were drawing near, once again. Zack was going to kiss her again, she
realized. Max didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It just seemed too good to be true:
the words he was saying, the look he was giving her, the kisses they were sharing…

"Zack…" she breathed his name.

Zack paused, that last inch before their lips touched again.

"How could I hate you, Maxie?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper, going back to the
comment she'd made earlier. And the look in his eyes told Max that that comment had
stung him somehow. As if it hurt him that Max would consider him capable of feeling
that way about her. "How could I not love you, Max?" he asked her next.

And Max's parted lids suddenly rose, as she became wide-eyed.

'How could I not…'

Had he really said that? Did he mean…

"Zack…"

And then he kissed her. It was another long, deep kiss that Max put all of her heart into.
She felt like everything around her, within her, was suddenly amplified. The sounds
around them sounded louder, the feel of the breeze floating by them felt cooler, the feel
of Zack's body against hers felt warmer. She shivered everywhere they touched, and
there were tears forming in the corner of her eyes.

Then Zack drew back.

Max wondered, at first, why. She could go on kissing him like that, holding him, for the
rest of the night.

But then she heard what he heard. A vehicle close by.

"What…"

Max became alert at the sound, but a look at Zack made her relax. He didn't look
worried. In fact, he smiled.

"Looks like Zane's little surprise just showed up," he said, and Max frowned, not
knowing what he was referring to. But then she looked where he was looking, and her
eyes adjusted to the distance and the darkness between her and the vehicle. She looked at
the driver…

"Jondy!"