A/N: Finally I have this up, and it's about Ben too!!! YAY for me!!!
Anyway, I used some of the story line from Proof Purchase, but if I have
some wrong it was purposeful because I didn't want it to be the exact same
as the episode. That and my usual source for the scripts is down. hehe.
Also sorry about this one taking so long, I haven't had a lot of time to
write, what with the Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers coming out and all,
I'm very proud to say that it has been out for 2 weeks today and I have
already seen it 4 times! Back you my fic; I'm sorry about the conversation
between Max and Ben on the space needle, it might be somewhat confusing to
read, it was somewhat confusing to write aswell, but I had to get my point
across, or rather the episodes point. But anyway if it doesn't seem really
in Ben's character I apologize, I haven't seen that ep in ages.
Max walked through the doors of her and Logan's apartment after work and went to find him. Immediately going to the computer room which is where Logan would typically be.
"Honey I'm home"
She startled him from where he was hunched over the computer screen looking intently on some information in an e-mail.
"Whatcha doin'?"
"I just got an e-mail from Beverly Shankar at the city Morgue, she says that today they brought in a deceased person who had a barcode on the back of their necks. She sent me a picture of the neck."
He brought up a picture on the screen of a man's neck with a barcode on the back; Max looked at the picture, reading the barcode. Then she turned to Logan.
"Its Ben" A tear ran down her cheek "Can I see him?"
"Sure baby, come here" Logan pulled her hand and brought her down the sit in his lap, then he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"No, that's ok I think I want to see him alone, if that's alright with you?"
"Of course it is Max, he's your brother." He smiled at her "I'll set it up right now"
"Thanks Logan" she said standing up.
"No problem"
Max smiled.
Logan grabbed the phone off his desk and dialed a number. After and few minutes of talking to the person on the other end he hung up the phone and turned to Max.
"It's all set up, you can go see him now"
"Thanks." she stared off into space as another tear made its way slowly down her cheek. "A soldier dies, you pay your respects."
She walked out of the apartment and made her way down to her ninja in the parking lot.
She arrived at the Morgue only a couple minutes later, arriving at the front desk she asked the receptionist. "I'm here to see Dr. Shankar, my name is Max Guevara"
"Sure, go on in." the receptionist with the nametag: Debbie waved Max through the big double doors that split off the Morgue with the waiting room area.
"Thanks"
Max walked through the doors, finding it easy to locate Dr. Shankar, her being the only person in the entire room.
"Are you Doctor Shankar?"
"Yes, I am, and you must be Max, its very nice to meet you" the doctor held out her hand.
"Same to you, Doctor." She shook her hand.
"Please call me Beverly"
"Beverly"
"Thank you, well lets cut to the chase, I'll take you to see our John Doe"
She guided Max over to one of the bodies, stopping infront of a young Asian man. Max was shocked to see the person.
"This seems to be a murder as far as I can see, his teeth were surgically pulled out of his mouth, he seems to have had a necklace that was pulled off. His tattoo is still healing so I would say it was done just a couple hours before he was killed. Most of his bones are broken and they found his body, 'displayed' on a rock"
"Displayed?"
"Yes, it was spread out across the rock. As if the murderer was proud"
Suddenly the doors to the room burst open, Max immediately found some place to hide as the Doctor went to speak to the people who had so rudely broken in. Max peeked around the corner of her hiding spot and noticed that it was Lydecker and couple of his men who had come to take control over the man with the barcode. Luckily they didn't discover Max and before the Doctor could come back, Max she was gone.
She arrived back at her apartment only minutes later after racing down the streets on her ninja trying to get as far away from Lydecker as humanly possible.
For one of the first times, Logan actually heard her enter their place and went to greet her.
"How did it go?"
"Well for one it wasn't him."
"What do you mean it wasn't him, it was his barcode!"
"I know it was his barcode Logan, but the last time I checked Ben wasn't a young Asian man!"
"Alright, Alright sorry. Why are you so upset if it wasn't him?"
"Because all I know is that it definitely had something to do with him because Lydecker took control of the body, just took it right out of there. Saying it was government business"
"Well that cant be good"
"Hell no, now he's in Seattle and I really don't like being near him."
"I hate having you near him, but are you okay?"
"Yeah I'm fine, I'm just a little bit worked up is all"
"Ok, well how about I whip us up some dinner."
"Sounds good to me"
"Great."
That night when they were both in bed, Max lay awake starring at the ceiling. She finally got up and got dressed.
She went to the scene where the man with the barcode was found; there she found a medallion of the Virgin Mary. She immediately knew it was Ben and whispered to herself.
"The Blue Lady"
She woke up the next day to find herself tightly wrapped in Logan's arms and she smiled, snuggling more into his embrace.
Later in the morning Logan called Max into his office where he was looking yet again at something on his computer intently.
"I think you might want to hear about this"
"What is it?"
"Theres been another Murder just like the last one, same M.O. Barcode tattooed on the back of his neck. I also looked up the M.O. and I found that there have been many across the country, all the same and every time Lydecker has swooped in and taken it over."
He pulled up another picture to the screen to show Max.
"Yup, that's Ben's barcode again, he killed them Logan. My brother is a cold-blooded murderer just like Manticore wanted him to be. How could he do this?" tears began to run down her face as she stood looking at the picture.
Logan stood up and enveloped her in a big hug.
"Max, how do you know its him. Maybe it's just a coincedence."
"No it's not, last night I couldn't sleep so I went to where the first man was killed. I found this, also, remember those files we found on him, they said he murdered people, they were true!" she pulled out the necklace she had found by the rock "it's the blue lady, when we were little, we used to bring our teeth that we lost to her, so she would become stronger and fight off the nomalies, that's what Ben is doing, that's why all of his victims have no teeth. He doing it for her!"
They stayed embraced for a little while until Max pulled away and asked Logan "What's the closest church to where the victims were found?"
Logan looked it up then answered "the Lady of Sacred Heart, only a few miles away from the site"
Max leaned down and gave Logan a quick kiss "thanks" then she walked towards the door.
"Wait" he called back "Where are you going"
"To find out why Ben's doing this"
"Fine, but be careful"
"Of course" Max called from down the hallway.
At the church Max found a statue of the Virgin Mary, at the foot of the statue she found an offering of teeth wrapped in a handkerchief. She shuddered as she saw it, but then sensed someone behind her. She slowly turned around only to be met with the sad eyes of Ben (Jensen with a sad- puppy face, is that heaven or what!).
"Ben, why are you doing this?"
"We should never have left Maxie, back there everything made sense."
"But we didn't have freedom, Ben, we were prisoners there! Do you want to go back to Manticore, if you did, you'd be put down with them. With the Nomalies."
"No Max! I'm doing this to help her."
"No Ben, you are a nomalie!"
"NO!" Ben yelled then ran out of the church.
Max chased after him for quite some time but eventually she lost him.
She got back on her bike and made her way down to the Space Needle.
She made her way up the higher decks, when she got to the old restaurant she found Ben, looking out over the city. Watching the rain come down.
"Ben, you need to stop killing people, that's not what she wants."
"Yes is it Max, don't you get it. That's what we were made to do. Do you remember, when we were kids, back at Manticore, do you remember the man. With that heart shaped tattoo, and the knife through it. Do you remember that, do you remember what we did to him? That's what we were made to do. It's our destiny, nothing will change that."
"Yes Ben, we can change that, we can prove Lydecker wrong, we can be normal human beings!"
"No Max, we can never be normal, no matter how hard we try. We will always be Lydecker's kids. Always."
"How could you do this? How could you kill yourself over and over again?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't you get it Ben, you're just killing yourself by doing this, killing yourself over and over again, that's why you put your barcode on the victims, your killing yourself!"
"No Max, I'm helping her!" With that he left the building before Max could say another word.
"Damn" she said to herself as she was leaving the Space Needle.
It was dark when she arrived back home, she walked in to find Logan in the kitchen preparing dinner.
"Hey" he greeted her "did you find Ben?"
"Yeah, he's not the same, theres something wrong with him. he's different."
"he would have to be, to be killing like this. Are you ok?"
"yeah I'll be fine, my brother is a serial killer but I'll be fine" she smiled, although unreassuringly "S'all good"
"Right" Logan answered not wanting to push it anymore. "have you spoken to Brin about it?"
"Nah, I don't want to bring her into this, I can handle it myself."
"Ok, well dinner is almost ready, what do you think? Chicken Pot Pie sound good to you?"
Max hugged him "Sounds great"
After dinner Max and Logan were sitting in the living room snuggled up on the couch watching a pre-pulse television show.
(This :: is gonna show what the people on the show are saying, the show is Gilmore Girls, and I watched this one the other day and this line is just so funny I had to share, of course when I saw the Ep I was extremely hyper so you might not think it's that funny)
::Emily: Whats wrong with the Avacado?:: ::Lorelai: I don't like Avacado:: ::Emily: Since when do you not like Avacado?:: ::Lorelai: Since I tasted it and said "Eww, what the hell is this" and you said "Avacado"::
Max and Logan laughed lightly at the people on the show.
"Don't you just wish life could be that easy?"
"Yeah but remember, this was made before the pulse, life was a lot easier."
::Emily: Now whats wrong with the Tomato?:: ::Lorelai: It was fraternizing with the enemy!::
Max and Logan laughed again.
"Even though their lives seem easy, they also seem a little warped, I'm kind of glad I don't live that"
Logan chuckled at Max.
Max walked into Jam Pony the next morning, and had absolutely no time to prepare herself for Normal's complaining.
"Where the Firetruck have you been Missy?"
Max turned to look him in the face "I just found out that my brother has gone crazy and started brutally killing people, had to take a day off to try and stop him."
Normal rolled his eyes "You and your excuses, here take this" he handed her a package.
Max walked down to her locker where Original Cindy and Brin were sitting and talking.
"Max! there you are, where have you been gurl? We've been worried."
"just had to do some stuff, that's all, no big dealio"
"Sure" Cindy looked at her funny.
"It's true"
"Oh, I'm sure it is"
"Ahh! Whatever!" Max wheeled her bike out of the door and took off down the street to the address written on her package.
Back inside Cindy and Brin were talking.
"What do you think she really went to do?"
"For once, I have no idea what's goin on in Sistah gurls head."
"Yeah, well we'll just have to figure it out huh?"
"Guess so"
Logan was sitting at his computer checking his e-mail when a particularly weird one caught his eye. It had a blank senders address and blank subject. He carefully scanned it with a virus check then opened it when he was sure it was clean.
It was from Lydecker.
The e-mail read.
Eyes Only, I know you're involved with one of my kids, Max I think it is. I need to speak to you about her, it's important, can we set up a meet? -Donald Michael Lydecker
Logan was very suspicious as to what Lydecker would want to talk to him about, especially about Max, and how he even figured out that he had contact with Max, let alone got Eyes Only's e-mail.
He answered.
Lydecker, I don't know how you found out about this, and I think I might have to check my tracks better next time. If you must speak to me you can go to the abandoned warehouse on Euclid. Go there tomorrow at 2:47pm. -EO
he sent the message then sat back in his chair and signed.
When Original Cindy and Brin had a lunch break they went down to Fogle Towers, they figured to find out what Max has been up to they would go to the source. Or at least the person who knows all about Max.
Cindy knocked on the door and waited for Logan to answer, when he didn't answer she yelled in. "Logan I know you're in there, you never go out, you better open this door right now" Brin giggled at Cindy's insistence.
After a couple of seconds the door opened and Logan stood there.
"A little attitudy are we?"
"yes we are" Cindy walked in "We need to talk about Max"
"What is it is something wrong?"
"No Logan don't worry, we just want to know where she was yesterday."
"Yeah boo, she usually tells me everything and now, I ask her and I get nothing, whats going on?"
"I really think that she needs to tell you, it is her problem"
"so there is a problem?"
"yeah but its hers to tell, not mine"
"Yeah yeah whatever, you boyscout."
Logan laughed. Then Max burst through the doors.
"HONEY! I'm home!"
she walked into the room where they were all standing "What are you guys doing here?"
Well guys, hope that was long enough for ya, I have partially gotten my muse back so another chapter should becoming, I hope you enjoy, and I will post another chapter if I get enough reviews, but I need to know that people are actually reading this. So please, if you are reading this then REVIEW IT! Thanks all.
-Lexa somebodys_angel594@hotmail.com
Max walked through the doors of her and Logan's apartment after work and went to find him. Immediately going to the computer room which is where Logan would typically be.
"Honey I'm home"
She startled him from where he was hunched over the computer screen looking intently on some information in an e-mail.
"Whatcha doin'?"
"I just got an e-mail from Beverly Shankar at the city Morgue, she says that today they brought in a deceased person who had a barcode on the back of their necks. She sent me a picture of the neck."
He brought up a picture on the screen of a man's neck with a barcode on the back; Max looked at the picture, reading the barcode. Then she turned to Logan.
"Its Ben" A tear ran down her cheek "Can I see him?"
"Sure baby, come here" Logan pulled her hand and brought her down the sit in his lap, then he wrapped his arms around her and rested his chin on her shoulder. "Do you want me to come with you?"
"No, that's ok I think I want to see him alone, if that's alright with you?"
"Of course it is Max, he's your brother." He smiled at her "I'll set it up right now"
"Thanks Logan" she said standing up.
"No problem"
Max smiled.
Logan grabbed the phone off his desk and dialed a number. After and few minutes of talking to the person on the other end he hung up the phone and turned to Max.
"It's all set up, you can go see him now"
"Thanks." she stared off into space as another tear made its way slowly down her cheek. "A soldier dies, you pay your respects."
She walked out of the apartment and made her way down to her ninja in the parking lot.
She arrived at the Morgue only a couple minutes later, arriving at the front desk she asked the receptionist. "I'm here to see Dr. Shankar, my name is Max Guevara"
"Sure, go on in." the receptionist with the nametag: Debbie waved Max through the big double doors that split off the Morgue with the waiting room area.
"Thanks"
Max walked through the doors, finding it easy to locate Dr. Shankar, her being the only person in the entire room.
"Are you Doctor Shankar?"
"Yes, I am, and you must be Max, its very nice to meet you" the doctor held out her hand.
"Same to you, Doctor." She shook her hand.
"Please call me Beverly"
"Beverly"
"Thank you, well lets cut to the chase, I'll take you to see our John Doe"
She guided Max over to one of the bodies, stopping infront of a young Asian man. Max was shocked to see the person.
"This seems to be a murder as far as I can see, his teeth were surgically pulled out of his mouth, he seems to have had a necklace that was pulled off. His tattoo is still healing so I would say it was done just a couple hours before he was killed. Most of his bones are broken and they found his body, 'displayed' on a rock"
"Displayed?"
"Yes, it was spread out across the rock. As if the murderer was proud"
Suddenly the doors to the room burst open, Max immediately found some place to hide as the Doctor went to speak to the people who had so rudely broken in. Max peeked around the corner of her hiding spot and noticed that it was Lydecker and couple of his men who had come to take control over the man with the barcode. Luckily they didn't discover Max and before the Doctor could come back, Max she was gone.
She arrived back at her apartment only minutes later after racing down the streets on her ninja trying to get as far away from Lydecker as humanly possible.
For one of the first times, Logan actually heard her enter their place and went to greet her.
"How did it go?"
"Well for one it wasn't him."
"What do you mean it wasn't him, it was his barcode!"
"I know it was his barcode Logan, but the last time I checked Ben wasn't a young Asian man!"
"Alright, Alright sorry. Why are you so upset if it wasn't him?"
"Because all I know is that it definitely had something to do with him because Lydecker took control of the body, just took it right out of there. Saying it was government business"
"Well that cant be good"
"Hell no, now he's in Seattle and I really don't like being near him."
"I hate having you near him, but are you okay?"
"Yeah I'm fine, I'm just a little bit worked up is all"
"Ok, well how about I whip us up some dinner."
"Sounds good to me"
"Great."
That night when they were both in bed, Max lay awake starring at the ceiling. She finally got up and got dressed.
She went to the scene where the man with the barcode was found; there she found a medallion of the Virgin Mary. She immediately knew it was Ben and whispered to herself.
"The Blue Lady"
She woke up the next day to find herself tightly wrapped in Logan's arms and she smiled, snuggling more into his embrace.
Later in the morning Logan called Max into his office where he was looking yet again at something on his computer intently.
"I think you might want to hear about this"
"What is it?"
"Theres been another Murder just like the last one, same M.O. Barcode tattooed on the back of his neck. I also looked up the M.O. and I found that there have been many across the country, all the same and every time Lydecker has swooped in and taken it over."
He pulled up another picture to the screen to show Max.
"Yup, that's Ben's barcode again, he killed them Logan. My brother is a cold-blooded murderer just like Manticore wanted him to be. How could he do this?" tears began to run down her face as she stood looking at the picture.
Logan stood up and enveloped her in a big hug.
"Max, how do you know its him. Maybe it's just a coincedence."
"No it's not, last night I couldn't sleep so I went to where the first man was killed. I found this, also, remember those files we found on him, they said he murdered people, they were true!" she pulled out the necklace she had found by the rock "it's the blue lady, when we were little, we used to bring our teeth that we lost to her, so she would become stronger and fight off the nomalies, that's what Ben is doing, that's why all of his victims have no teeth. He doing it for her!"
They stayed embraced for a little while until Max pulled away and asked Logan "What's the closest church to where the victims were found?"
Logan looked it up then answered "the Lady of Sacred Heart, only a few miles away from the site"
Max leaned down and gave Logan a quick kiss "thanks" then she walked towards the door.
"Wait" he called back "Where are you going"
"To find out why Ben's doing this"
"Fine, but be careful"
"Of course" Max called from down the hallway.
At the church Max found a statue of the Virgin Mary, at the foot of the statue she found an offering of teeth wrapped in a handkerchief. She shuddered as she saw it, but then sensed someone behind her. She slowly turned around only to be met with the sad eyes of Ben (Jensen with a sad- puppy face, is that heaven or what!).
"Ben, why are you doing this?"
"We should never have left Maxie, back there everything made sense."
"But we didn't have freedom, Ben, we were prisoners there! Do you want to go back to Manticore, if you did, you'd be put down with them. With the Nomalies."
"No Max! I'm doing this to help her."
"No Ben, you are a nomalie!"
"NO!" Ben yelled then ran out of the church.
Max chased after him for quite some time but eventually she lost him.
She got back on her bike and made her way down to the Space Needle.
She made her way up the higher decks, when she got to the old restaurant she found Ben, looking out over the city. Watching the rain come down.
"Ben, you need to stop killing people, that's not what she wants."
"Yes is it Max, don't you get it. That's what we were made to do. Do you remember, when we were kids, back at Manticore, do you remember the man. With that heart shaped tattoo, and the knife through it. Do you remember that, do you remember what we did to him? That's what we were made to do. It's our destiny, nothing will change that."
"Yes Ben, we can change that, we can prove Lydecker wrong, we can be normal human beings!"
"No Max, we can never be normal, no matter how hard we try. We will always be Lydecker's kids. Always."
"How could you do this? How could you kill yourself over and over again?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't you get it Ben, you're just killing yourself by doing this, killing yourself over and over again, that's why you put your barcode on the victims, your killing yourself!"
"No Max, I'm helping her!" With that he left the building before Max could say another word.
"Damn" she said to herself as she was leaving the Space Needle.
It was dark when she arrived back home, she walked in to find Logan in the kitchen preparing dinner.
"Hey" he greeted her "did you find Ben?"
"Yeah, he's not the same, theres something wrong with him. he's different."
"he would have to be, to be killing like this. Are you ok?"
"yeah I'll be fine, my brother is a serial killer but I'll be fine" she smiled, although unreassuringly "S'all good"
"Right" Logan answered not wanting to push it anymore. "have you spoken to Brin about it?"
"Nah, I don't want to bring her into this, I can handle it myself."
"Ok, well dinner is almost ready, what do you think? Chicken Pot Pie sound good to you?"
Max hugged him "Sounds great"
After dinner Max and Logan were sitting in the living room snuggled up on the couch watching a pre-pulse television show.
(This :: is gonna show what the people on the show are saying, the show is Gilmore Girls, and I watched this one the other day and this line is just so funny I had to share, of course when I saw the Ep I was extremely hyper so you might not think it's that funny)
::Emily: Whats wrong with the Avacado?:: ::Lorelai: I don't like Avacado:: ::Emily: Since when do you not like Avacado?:: ::Lorelai: Since I tasted it and said "Eww, what the hell is this" and you said "Avacado"::
Max and Logan laughed lightly at the people on the show.
"Don't you just wish life could be that easy?"
"Yeah but remember, this was made before the pulse, life was a lot easier."
::Emily: Now whats wrong with the Tomato?:: ::Lorelai: It was fraternizing with the enemy!::
Max and Logan laughed again.
"Even though their lives seem easy, they also seem a little warped, I'm kind of glad I don't live that"
Logan chuckled at Max.
Max walked into Jam Pony the next morning, and had absolutely no time to prepare herself for Normal's complaining.
"Where the Firetruck have you been Missy?"
Max turned to look him in the face "I just found out that my brother has gone crazy and started brutally killing people, had to take a day off to try and stop him."
Normal rolled his eyes "You and your excuses, here take this" he handed her a package.
Max walked down to her locker where Original Cindy and Brin were sitting and talking.
"Max! there you are, where have you been gurl? We've been worried."
"just had to do some stuff, that's all, no big dealio"
"Sure" Cindy looked at her funny.
"It's true"
"Oh, I'm sure it is"
"Ahh! Whatever!" Max wheeled her bike out of the door and took off down the street to the address written on her package.
Back inside Cindy and Brin were talking.
"What do you think she really went to do?"
"For once, I have no idea what's goin on in Sistah gurls head."
"Yeah, well we'll just have to figure it out huh?"
"Guess so"
Logan was sitting at his computer checking his e-mail when a particularly weird one caught his eye. It had a blank senders address and blank subject. He carefully scanned it with a virus check then opened it when he was sure it was clean.
It was from Lydecker.
The e-mail read.
Eyes Only, I know you're involved with one of my kids, Max I think it is. I need to speak to you about her, it's important, can we set up a meet? -Donald Michael Lydecker
Logan was very suspicious as to what Lydecker would want to talk to him about, especially about Max, and how he even figured out that he had contact with Max, let alone got Eyes Only's e-mail.
He answered.
Lydecker, I don't know how you found out about this, and I think I might have to check my tracks better next time. If you must speak to me you can go to the abandoned warehouse on Euclid. Go there tomorrow at 2:47pm. -EO
he sent the message then sat back in his chair and signed.
When Original Cindy and Brin had a lunch break they went down to Fogle Towers, they figured to find out what Max has been up to they would go to the source. Or at least the person who knows all about Max.
Cindy knocked on the door and waited for Logan to answer, when he didn't answer she yelled in. "Logan I know you're in there, you never go out, you better open this door right now" Brin giggled at Cindy's insistence.
After a couple of seconds the door opened and Logan stood there.
"A little attitudy are we?"
"yes we are" Cindy walked in "We need to talk about Max"
"What is it is something wrong?"
"No Logan don't worry, we just want to know where she was yesterday."
"Yeah boo, she usually tells me everything and now, I ask her and I get nothing, whats going on?"
"I really think that she needs to tell you, it is her problem"
"so there is a problem?"
"yeah but its hers to tell, not mine"
"Yeah yeah whatever, you boyscout."
Logan laughed. Then Max burst through the doors.
"HONEY! I'm home!"
she walked into the room where they were all standing "What are you guys doing here?"
Well guys, hope that was long enough for ya, I have partially gotten my muse back so another chapter should becoming, I hope you enjoy, and I will post another chapter if I get enough reviews, but I need to know that people are actually reading this. So please, if you are reading this then REVIEW IT! Thanks all.
-Lexa somebodys_angel594@hotmail.com