Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or the premise of Dark Angel, James Cameron/20th Century Fox does. Although after tonight's episode (Furgetaboudit), I wish I did because that fight scene is the coolest! Please don't sue me. I'll return them, no money do I make. I'll even make you cookies as a show of my appreciation.

Love's Betrayal

Chapter Three

Author's Note: Alright now that is back up...I have an update, for all you wonderful kind people who read this story. This chapter is dedicated to Michelle Drake, a very talented writer, and great sounding borad. This chapter would still be dormant on my hard drive if not for her intrest.

She woke as the room began to grow lighter due to the sunlight that filtered through the fog. The events of last night slowly came back to her as she pondered why she felt like she'd just gone ten rounds with one of the X-5's back at Manticore. Once all of her recollections clicked into place she felt a sense of dread sneaking up from her toes and twisting itself through her until it squeezed on her heart painfully. What do we do now? Well first off I guess I need to see if there's a we here to deal with this, or if he left last night while I slept.

She opened her eyes, slowly allowing them to adjust to the light. She looked around the room and spotted him sitting in a chair, absolutely as far away from her as he could be and still be in the room. Sad blue eyes met hers, and she was struck by the pain and grief in his gaze. He smiled at her sadly, and then stood. "I'll go now…I just wanted to stay until you were woke up, to make sure you were all right. I'll go, unless you need anything?" She shook her head wordlessly and he turned and walked away, leaving her speechless. He paused before walking out the door and turned back to her. "I know that it doesn't change anything, and I know that it doesn't make what I did any less horrible, but for what it's worth. I'm sorry, I never meant for this to happen."

He turned away from her again and she realized that if she didn't stop him she would probably never see him again. "Who the hell said you could leave?" He paused at her words, and she continued knowing that he was one step away from walking out of her life forever. And despite what had happened, she wasn't sure if she wanted that or not. "We're not done with this Logan, now get your ass back in here cause I don't feel like chasing you today."

"Max what is there left to say?" There was a broken, hopeless tone in his voice that unnerved her. I've never heard him sound that defeated, that lost. This is gonna be ugly, but I've got to tell him. If I don't…there's no chance for things to get better. And even if I don't want to be with him, I don't want him to hate me, or keep hurting both of us because of a lie.

"Oh there's lots left to say Logan. Let's see, first off Alec and I were never together. That sound like a good place to start to you?"

"What?" He turned to her then, and both hope and horror were present in his gaze.

"I lied. Alec and I were never together, he was crashing with me because the police came after him thinking he was Ben and I busted him out. He hugged me the next morning, and that's what you saw."

Logan was silent as the shock registered, and even as he started to speak it became apparent that his brain hadn't quite finished processing what she'd said as he stammered. "But…I asked…You said…"

"I said that I couldn't tell you that it wasn't true. And I couldn't, not if I wanted to keep you safe." Try as she might she couldn't keep the fear and pain she'd felt when faced with that choice back. She couldn't hide her emotions from him, not this close to him, and not when they were still so very painful. "I could stand the thought of you hating me, or the thought of you moving on and loving someone else better than I could the thought of you dying and it being my fault."

"Oh my God." She was just trying to protect me, and I…What have I done. "Oh Max…" He decided to chance it and moved to pull her into a hug. She didn't resist, but she remained wary and tense. The last things he'd ever wanted when she was in his embrace. He held her gently for a few moments, but kept the embrace loose enough that if she wanted to end it all she had to do was step back. "Max there will never be anyone else in my life. How could there be? After you? It'd be impossible. And I could never hate you…no matter what I'll always love you."

"You gave a damn good impression of hating me last night." She closed her eyes and leaned into him, hoping and praying that the cruel stranger from the previous night wouldn't make a reappearance. Part of her cursed herself for bringing it up, wanting nothing more that to ignore that it had ever happened. But the louder part of her wanted, no needed reassurance from him that he forgave her, and that there would be no repeats of the incident.

"Max…if I didn't still love you it wouldn't have hurt so damn much to think of you with him. If I could have made myself hate you, I would have been able to let it go, to forget about you. Wish you and Alec a miserable life together. But I couldn't do it." He brushed her cheek with his thumb very gently, almost reverently. It was as if he didn't trust himself to touch her, and truth be told he probably didn't at the moment. "I'm so sorry that I hurt you angel, and I apologize for my actions, but I won't deny the reasons behind them."

A steadying hand came to the small of her back and rubbed comforting circles there to reassure her that he meant her no harm. "You let me think that you'd cheated on me with another man Max. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him touching you, holding you, making love to you. All the things that I wanted to do with you so very badly. And if you were with him, then you had lied to me to be with him, and that just made it worse."

Logan sighed and pulled back from her slightly so he could look into her beautiful eyes once more. "What I did last night is inexcusable. I took what is supposed to be an expression of love between two people, the greatest sacrament between man and woman and I profaned it by bringing my anger and jealousy into it. I am so sorry. I don't expect you to forgive me, and I don't deserve your forgiveness. Maybe one day if I'm really lucky you'll give me a chance to make it up to you, but I don't expect you to forgive me."

"You know… I'm not blameless here either Logan. Last night part of me was telling me that I deserved for you to hurt me. I lied to you, and I pushed you away. But in the end, I never meant to hurt you. I didn't want to but it seemed like I kept doing it anyway. There are so many things I've done that you could have pointed out just now, and if you want to compare bad deeds I'll bury you a hundred times over, that I can promise you. With all that I've done, I don't deserve you either. But sometimes loving someone isn't about giving them what they deserve. It's knowing that they've done wrong, and forgiving them anyway."

She reached down and took his hand in hers. "I want to forgive you Logan, I want to so badly that it hurts." She saw a hopeful gleam growing in eyes, but before he could become too excited she continued. "I want to forgive you, Logan. But before I do I need to ask you something, and I want an honest, soul searched down to the core true answer." He nodded and she continued. "Before I can forgive you I need to know if you can honestly say that what happened last night will never happen again. Under any circumstances. Because I think I can forgive you this once, but I don't think I could survive this again."

He fought the urge to answer her immediately, and searched within himself to find the answer they both needed so badly. He remembered the frightened look on her tearstained face as he'd emerged from the fog from his drunken rage the night before. Remembering that moment gave him his answer. He would sooner die than ever see that look grace her features again. He took her hand in his gently brushing the back of it with his thumb. The bruises on her wrists were quickly fading, but still served as pale but poignant reminders of the horrible thing he'd almost done. They also strengthened his resolve that he would never hurt her again. Never, not even if the hounds of hell were on his heals demanding it of him.

He stepped back from her, and dropped to his knees before her. As he knelt he took both of her hands in his and placed soft kisses on the bruises. "I promise you, Max. I promise. Never, never again. I'll die before I hurt you again."

"There's one more thing I need to know." She tugged at his hands, his kneeling before her was beginning to unsettle her. She looked up at him, and asked the question that weighed so heavily on her mind. "Can you forgive me for lying to you?"

"Yes, Max I can. I can't very well be angry with you, when I committed the same sin. We both did things to damage our trust in each other." He brushed her hair back from her face and cupped her cheek gently. "I want to forgive you Max, and I want you to forgive me. But I need you to promise me something."

"What?"

"That you'll never lie to me like that again, even if you think it would be for my own good. You're free to leave me, but just don't deceive me."

"Alright…I promise that if I have to leave you, I'll at least be honest about the reasons why."

"That's all I ask." He leaned in closer to her moving slowly towards kiss her, but stopped as he saw her jump at the proposed intimacy.

"Logan, I want to trust you I really do. I want to forgive and forget, and have things go back to the way they were. But I can't. Not like that, not right now. It's too soon." She looked at him with pleading eyes, wanting him to understand. Needing him to know that she wanted him, loved him. But she couldn't help the feelings tumbling around inside of her at the moment.

"I understand…I have to regain your trust before I can be with you intimately." He took her hand in his gently, and stroked the back of it with his thumb. "Right now, I'm ecstatic that I can hold your hand again. I can wait forever for you, as long as I know you love me." The tender moment was interrupted by a loud god awful screeching sound. Logan brought his hands up to his ears, and Max winced immediately due to her sensitive hearing and quickly reached to turn the offending object off. A few seconds after silence ensued Logan asked: "What was that?"

"That was my last chance to be anywhere close to on time for work alarm. I'm normally up, but when I'm not…well it takes something pretty loud to wake me."

"You have to work today?"

She nodded, grimacing a little in distaste. "Yeah, you know what they say. No rest for the wicked."

"Are you sure that's a good idea…those were some really bad tremors last night." Not to mention what I put you through afterwards. He hated to remember how pale and weak she'd looked when he'd found her. He hated remembering how hungrily she'd responded to his voice, his touch then. How explicitly she'd trusted him and turned to him for comfort. Hated even more remembering how he'd fucked things up. And how she'd flinched at his touch earlier that morning, it just made the rift he'd created all the more apparent, and deep in his soul he grieved over the trust that he'd shattered. "Are you sure you'll be alright Max? I can call Bling or Sam and get you a note? Or I can call and talk to Normal…"

His words trailed off as she shook her head. "I'll be fine Logan. They were bad , but I'll be alright. I shouldn't be suprised though, crying always does make them worse." Crying…she was crying over me. She was hurting and crying when I came in here yesterday, but did I even notice. No of course not…I'm an unredeemable bastard. Instead of noticing what was wrong I just made it worse. "I promise you Max…I'll never give you a reason to cry again."

"Where do we go from here?"

"Dinner tonight? My place? I bet that old chess set is still sitting around somewhere just waiting for you to wipe the floor with me."

"That sounds nice…I'll swing by after I go to Crash with Cindy? She's been all worried…"

"Will Alec be there?" There was a slight growl present in his voice and it unnerved her.

"Logan…" She began only to trail off as he raised his hands in surrender.

"I'm sorry, that was out of line and I shouldn't have asked. It's just going to take awhile for me to think of you and Alec in the same room without having a flash of jealousy. But I promise that I won't let it get out of hand, and I'll work on it ok?"

"Ok…" She paused for a second shaking her head as if to clear an unpleasant thought from it. "Logan…I know that it'll be a long time before you can see me somewhere with Alec, and not have a moment of doubt. I understand that, but I need you to swear to me that you're not going to let that jealous take control of you. Because that's what happened last night, and you scared the hell out of me."

He nodded sadly, and crossed his heart. "I swear to you Max. I'll keep it under control. The last thing on earth I ever wanted to do was hurt you."

"I know Logan…" The alarm beeped again, and Max quickly shut it off. "I'd better get ready. Normal's been a bitch lately."

"Alright…" He said rather reluctantly, loathe to leave her as then he would have to face the memories of his actions and their consequences. God a drink sounds good right now. Logan shook his head. Oh no Logan, you don't get to drown your sorrows in liquor this time. And you don't get to take the cowards way out with that gun either. You've hurt Max enough and you damn well will not do it again. That means that you are gonna get up off your ass after she goes to work, and your going to spend the rest of your life if need be making things right with her. Because you my man fucked up royally.

End Note: For all of you who think that Logan's getting off too easily...just wait for it. Comments and reviews are greatly appreciated, as are efforts to keep DA alive.

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