Disclaimer: This is tiresome, everybody already knows that I don't own DA or its characters.
Summary: After the events in "Hello/Goodbye", Max's wish is granted and she gets to taste life without Logan.
Rating: PG-13
A/N: I'm posting this chapter right away cause I kind of got a good amount of reviews, but they're dropping drastically from chapter to chapter I don't even have 30 reviews in 3 chapters. I'll try to keep posting every day so you guys don't have to wait to much but if I don't get a good number of reviews I will take longer to post 'em, I won't stop the fic never but it will take longer. Anyway, I think everybody must be wanting to choke me to death about now, but hold your energy, there's still much more to come and you guys will want to kill me even more painfuly.
Chapter 4: Cold World
*****
Max comes strolling through to door to her apartment, where Cindy is sitting nervously on the couch, cup of coffe in hand and foot tapping impatiently in the floor, as soon as she came through the door Original Cindy jumped to her feet and starts yelling questions and concerns at her, waving her arms in the air while she frenetically babbles all her worries, Max just pass through her and gets on her room slamming the door behind her, leaving a dumbfolded Cindy with arms hanging in the air. Max drops on her bed without stopping, her head buried on the pillow she starts to wonder why the world suddenly seens such a cold and unpleasant place, her will to live extinguished like a flame, she is leading a heartless and cold life. On the way back to the apartment, after spending the night up at the Space Needle, a guy almost ran over Max in her bike, she got out only because of her instincts, and she didn't even stop to see the guy, normally she would swear and curse him thousands of names, but not today, not now, she just walked away without a glance. Her surroundings are null and uninteresting, it's like she is surrounded in a bubble of darkness, trapped on her own cell, secluded from the rest of the world, suddenly she realizes someone has been knocking on the door. After the tenth knock Cindy decides to go in, she sees Max collapsed on the bed and says in her regular tone but kind of angry,
"Yo boo what the hell is happening, I was knocking on the door for ages, after you just strolled straight through me while I was dying of worry. Where were you this night? What the hell happened to you, you look like shit.",
Max turned around on the bed, now lying on her back and staring at the ceiling and repplied in a far away voice.
"I am sorry Cindy I wasn't listening.",
Cindy raises a skeptical eyebrow at her but shrugs it off and leaves saying,
"Aiight boo, I will leave ya to it."
Cindy returns to the living room and plop down on the couch flipping the TV on, wondering what bug bitted her roommate, her thoughts are disturbed when a special report interrupts the show airing, the paled face of a blond report appears on the screen,
This morning the journalist Logan Cale Junior, son of Logan Cale, heir of the Cale corporation was found dead in his penthouse apartment on Fogle Towers, a building on Sector 9. Investigations lead to the conclusion that it was a suicide, but no letter or message was found on the scene.
The reporter keeps going talking about technical stuff and details about the episode while Cindy is wide eyed with her mouth hanging, she closes and opens it before finally a yell comes out – "OH MY GOD!!!MAAAAXXXX!!!!!!" – her urgent tone makes Max come running from her bed room, Cindy only weakly points to the tv set, where Max focus her attention, she sees a shot of Logan's building full of ambulances and news vans parked, Logan's apartment totally messed and then of a body covered in a white sheet being loaded in the back of an ambulance. Cindy turns to her friend to look at her face and she still has the same gloom and lost face, with a barely audible whisper Max says,
"Yeah...I already know.",
with that she turns around and heads back to her room, but not before Cindy catches the glimpse of a lonely tear travelling down Max's eyes.
*****
[The next day]
Max gets inside Jam Pony in her bike more than one hour late, she comes to a stop in front of Normal's desk, who apparently is very pissed off,
"Oh, you finally decided to join us huh missy missy?!",
Normal said to her, his usual anal voice dripping with sarcasm,
"Don't bust my chops Normal, gimme some damn packages and get off my back so I can get the hell outta here!",
Max repplied with a raised voice but not really angry, actually with no emotion at all, empty and voided. Normal just groaned something and dumped a dozen packages on her waiting arms, Max stuffs them on her backpack and head to her locker. While Max is rummaging through her locker Alec approuches her and hesitantly says,
"Eh...hum, Max, I heard about....what happened, so, hum, I am...eh...sorry you know.",
Max slowly turns her head to make eye contact with Alec, her eyes squeezed in a deadly look, the face Alec is making would even be funny with the circunstances were different, Max gets closer to him and says in a deadly low voice,
"Listen closely Alec. I just lost the person that knew me better, the most important thing on my strange little life, my best friend, and I'm killing myself with guilt and remorse, but you know what, it's not only my fault it's yours too, you are the one that got on our path, you are the one that screwed over our best shot at a cure, you are the one that always got on our way so...get lost will ya!",
that said Max slams her locker strongly and goes away on her bike.
*****
Max gets inside Joshua's house after a long day of work, she made dozens of deliveries without stopping, she went to Jam Pony only twice the whole day and avoided every one, during the entire day she made the deliveries on auto-pilot, her mind was absence. Inside she finds Joshua busy painting on the corner, she goes to the big chair and plop down without a word, with the noisy Joshua turns around quickly and looks around, when he finally spots Max sitting on the chair a big smile opens on his lips,
"Hey there little fella.",
without even moving, still staring out the window Max repplies,
"Hey.",
Joshua shrugs and get back to his painting, after a long moment of silence he finally breaks it with his goofy and loud voice,
"So, virus bitch goin' down? Max and Logan gettin' busy, that's the plan!",
Max closes her eyes and take a deep breath, in a sad almost like whisper voice she repplies,
"There's no reason to beat the virus anymore Joshua, there won't be any getting busy...not ever.",
Joshua turns around and gets closer to Max, with a innocent voice he asks,
"Why? Logan and little fella give up?",
her jaw tight and her eyes closed max answers,
"No, because Logan is....dead.",
Joshua's happy face turns to a sad gloomy one, he approuches and sits next to Max on the floor, his head down. After a while Joshua raises his head and stares at Max, he kneels and envolves her in his big arms,
"That's okay little fella, let it all out, I'm here..."
Max is got by surprise with his actions, her first thoughts are to get away, to run from the house, to hide from the world, hide her weakness, her sadness, but then she remembers this is Joshua here, she feels safe and free here, it actually feels okay to let go now. The barrier is open, Max starts talking about everything, crying and sobbing all together.
A lot of time later, Max is perched on the roof of Joshua's house, //Letting it go with Joshua made me some good, but I was silly, I thought crying would wash all my guilt, that this feeling of coldness and emptiness would flow away with the tears, but it won't, it never will...\\
TBC...
*****
OBS: // \\ means Max's thoughts.
OBS2: There it's, chapter 4, not much happened but I think it was a very good and needed guilt trip for Max, as I said on the first chapter she needed a reality check for the things she did on S2.