Chapter Two: After the Fire…
Logan looked back down at his hands as he continued telling her about the events that happened in her absence, "I spent the better part of three weeks in a small backwater Oregon Town trying to recover from the gangrene that had set in on my leg. I was very lucky in the fact that I they did not have to amputate the damn thing. The doctor had to cut out a lot of the tissue in order to save it at all. I never recovered full use of it, I still limp and it still aches from time to time," he smiled ruefully this time, "Like now… I think I overdid it when we came after you. It's not like it's every day that I storm a Manticore installation, turned out to be more exercise than this aging body can handle."
Logan refocused on telling his story, "After I returned from Oregon, I vowed never to use my talent for fighting again, I knew the cost had been too high already for me. Added to the fact that I am not what I would consider super-soldier material. Despite what I was able to do to rescue you I still am not comfortable with it."
He looked down again his face pinching a bit, "Tinga came to visit many times after that, mostly to see how I was doing… guess she felt like a kindred spirit after losing her husband and son like she did." Logan looked up at Max, adding, "I found out later that they never made it to the rendezvous point after leaving Yreka, neither did the other two X-5's. She still doesn't know what happened to them… You wouldn't have heard anything about them?"
Max looked down, her own pain crossing her face, "No," she said almost inaudibly, "They kept me pretty well isolated from everyone and everything."
Logan stopped realizing that he was inadvertently pushing her, "Damn it, Logan, let her be about it," he thought to himself angrily. He said instead, "Everything settled down after that, I went back to work finally straightening my head out about everything, forcing myself in some cases to continue living. Soon things returned to relative normal, there was still a hole there without you but I made myself press on. In a way the experience in Yreka strengthened my character.
"Eventually Tinga moved on getting a lead that she thought might pan out about her family. She remained in touch but I hadn't seen her for a year before she came to help us."
He resumed his track as he said, "And all was calm until about three months ago," Max's eyes raised above her brows and Logan continued, "That was when I ran into Tima, or rather she ran into me. It seems she was set up on me, as a mark… she had been living her life alone, since she was abandoned by Manticore at five years old. She fell into pretty much the same line of business as you to stay alive and I was supposed to be her next victim. She made her move while sharing the elevator on the way up here, and I surprised her when I showed I wasn't such an easy mark after all. You'd have been proud of me, I pinned her in like ten seconds. But she got away from me, my inexperience ended up aiding her to escape.
"I had thought that she was another Manticore agent sent after me, that they had figured out just who and what I was. It had been a fear of mine since California, because I was sure that eventually Lydecker would realize just who I had been. And realizing it he would come to the conclusion that you somehow had affected me. I mean after the alley, and after spending who knows how much time secured to that pole in his tent, as much as I despise him I realize that he is not a stupid man.
"When Tima came back a second time I had convinced myself that it was true. I was shocked when she told me that she had not come after me on assignment from Manticore, she was just trying to support herself.
"She, as it turned out was obsessed with going back, feeling that Manticore was where she had belonged. I tried to convince her otherwise, but despite my explanations and warnings she was convinced that it was best if she were to go back. Despite my reservations I helped her by rooting out the nearest installation and driving her out there. She wanted me to escort her in, but I didn't want to ruin her chance to get reintroduced to the program by exacting vengeance the moment Lydecker showed, so I watched from the fence as she was surrounded by troops.
"True to his form he tried to kill her stating that she was too tainted by the outside world to be of any use to him, no matter her willingness to return. I had to save her, using the abilities that I had forsaken to get her out of harms way," He shrugged, "Her and I became friends after that, though it took her a long time to stop blaming me for taking her out of there. I think that she began to see me as a father figure after a while," He laughed, "Now I really feel old."
"I learned something else on that little excursion, I learned that I liked what I was able to do, and I found myself willing to improve that woefully undeveloped skill. So with Tima's help I began to practice what you had given me," He sighed looking down, "I figured that it was the best way to keep your memory alive.
"One day out of the blue, Tima came to me with a story about a fellow X-10 who had found her place. He claimed that he had been forced to escape the installation after finding an older Manticore locked away in a supposed abandoned building on base. Lydecker had discovered him there and ordered him captured. It was exactly four years to the day after your disappearance, and I refused to believe her. The coincidence was too great, it smelled and sounded to me like a trap. Something Lydecker would easily think up to get me into a cage. Tima insisted I talk to this Kito myself and make a more educated decision.
"So I went to talk to the young man. And he somehow convinced me, that he had seen you and that he had been on the run for real. And you pretty much know the rest, we came for you."
He went silent for long moments as if he was spent from his telling of the past. He finally slowly picked up his sandwich and began eating watching her with small unobtrusive glances. She picked up her own sandwich and took another bite, suddenly finding that she was not hungry, chewing mechanically as a thought rose up insider her. It chilled her to the marrow.
"In all that time…You never… saw anyone else?" Max interrupted his eating reluctantly, she wasn't sure she wanted the answer. If he had, as much as it would hurt, she told herself that she could not blame him. He had thought she was dead. As he said four years is a long time, and if he knew what had happened at Manticore, would he still want her?
A pain crossed over his face, and he shook his head in the negative. "How could I?" He reached over and gently stroked her face with the back of his hand, "You were the best thing to ever happen to me Max, and I couldn't bear the thought of sullying your memory with another. Even if all the evidence I had pointed to the conclusion that you had been killed."
Max chewed her lip and smiled thinly, as the thought dissipated. She took another bite and neither of them said anything for a long time. It was dark now the lights of the city just now blinking on to provide for the normal folks to see by. The balcony remained dark and Max looked over seeing Logan clearly through the green tinge of her night vision. He looked up at her his own eyes widely dilated to allow the maximum amount of light in. A gift she had given him, and she knew that he was seeing her as clearly as she was seeing him.
They continued to eat in silence, both lost in their own thought, each mulling over what had been said. Logan wondered silently if he should have hit her with so much so soon after her release. He didn't want to drive her away but he did want to make her understand what he had been going through since she had disappeared. He wanted to relay to her just how happy he was to have her back in his life, and just what she meant to him. It had been something that he had not had the chance to do the night he lost her and he wanted to make up for it now.
Max stared out at the night a moment absorbing everything Logan had said. He had had a hard time of it obviously, and she could understand exactly where he was coming from on the subject considering her own treatment the past four years.
She wondered silently when would be the right time to broach the subject of her own four years of their separation, "Never would be good," she thought grimly. He was such an understanding man… more so than any she had ever met. He had taken all her quirks with good nature and patience, even when she had broke down in heat to "bang the gong" with someone else when all she had ever wanted was Logan. It was his whole "The Universe is right on track…" Philosophy.
"Mine is not to ask why bad things happen, its just a matter of dealing with the consequences," She remembered him saying just three months after they had first met, just after he had lost the use of his legs. He was never really that "wrapped around it" as he always claimed, but he somehow managed to stay on an even keel about it all. Sometimes she wished she were as understanding of the world in which she lived. She shook her head minutely, that was all so long ago… that was before… Before… Tears began to well up in her eyes as the images came back to her, pain, humiliation, anger… they began to bubble through the carefully constructed façade that she had erected for her love.
Max stood abruptly as her emotion overwhelmed her, her half eaten sandwich hitting the plate on one edge sending it flipping off the table to hit the balcony floor and shattering. Logan looked up at her in surprise backing away from his place and starting to ask if she was OK. She wheeled away from him striding quickly into the interior of the apartment covering her tear-streaked eyes.
Logan stood alone on the balcony staring after Max, wondering if he had caused her breakdown. He kicked himself silently, realizing that it had been too much too fast. She wasn't ready for it.