Chapter Three: The Rest of the Story…
Logan stood for long moments just looking at where Max had been standing only a moment before. He was unsure what exactly he should do… he felt responsible for her reaction and wanted to console her and apologize for overwhelming her. Logan was sure she was not going to be receptive to apology right now though, she might just feel that he was trying to placate her or pity her. She had always been loath to that sort of treatment and would probably react badly to it. So there he stood, torn between going after her and giving her some space to work through what was troubling her.
Logan took a deep breath and steeled his courage, realizing that he had to at least console her, he could not avoid her and then he followed her path to the interior of their home. Cautiously he moved through the place searching his distraught wife out. He stopped short as he came to the living room, finding her there, and the sight of her sent a shiver through him. It was a combination of déjà vu and foreboding. She was perched, perfectly balanced on the balls of her feet on the back of the couch staring out the window at the dark night. It was the same spot she had always sat when she was troubled, for as long as they had known each other. The perching tendency came from her turmoil and anxiety, this was bad, very bad, he knew and his thought was only to turn around and leave it for the moment. But his stubbornness moved his feet for him when his conscious mind wanted to "escape and evade" the situation before him.
Logan stopped just shy of Max's unmoving form looking down at her white knuckled hands. He just stared at her, breathing fast for long moments unwilling to draw attention to himself. Finally he made himself move, raising his arm to rest on her shoulder, she went stiff under his touch, but Logan made himself speak, "I'm sorry Max, I didn't mean to dump all this on you at once."
Max reached up and brushed away his hand like she was flicking lint off her clothes. She said nothing to him as she crossed her arms self protectively over her chest and her head sank onto them. She blinked slowly he could see in her reflection but seemed fixed on some unknown point in the night sky. They were glassy and unfocused, her thoughts turned inward, and Logan looked at the carpet licking his lips nervously and running a hand through his unruly hair.
He didn't see Max blink again, and refocus on his face via the ghostly reflection in the window. Her brows furrowed at the distraught look on his face. He honestly thought he had caused this emotional lapse in her. "How sweet," she thought sardonically. Slowly she unfolded herself pivoting on one foot and stepping off the couch in front of him. She then plopped down on it looking up at him, he was staring now, the apology all but spilling from his lips again at the thought of causing her mental pain. She forced herself to smile at him, even if she still wanted to run and hide away and keep her awful secret to herself, if for nothing else to keep from hurting him.
"It's not you, Logan," she finally croaked, looking away. She felt rather than saw Logan sit next to her, his fingers suddenly stroking her hair lightly. Now how did she start without driving him away? She stood abruptly suddenly uncomfortable with his tenderness, knowing she was about to break his heart. Max moved across from him, forcing herself to sit again, not to run like she had been about to do.
Not sure how to start she blurted, "I remember being semi conscious on my trip to Manticore seeing Lydecker's face hovering above me through nearly blackened vision. I tried to move tried to lash out at him, but my body had shut down, I couldn't even blink to wet my drying eyes. I knew I was dying, and wondered why he hadn't finished me off. They were doing some kind of preliminary sampling on the trip, probably to see what kind of tissue they could recover from me once they got me back.
"I remember hearing one of the technicians saying that they had picked up a fetal heartbeat," She looked up as Logan's face pinched.
"You don't have to tell me this now," Logan said in a ragged voice, looking at once interested and horrified to hear what she was saying, "It's too soon…"
Max shook her head, "No… I have to get this out, Logan, I need to know I didn't do wrong. I need the assurance that no matter what, that you still love me."
"That's never in question, you know that," Logan assured her, reaching across the gap between them for her hand.
"Let me finish before you answer," Max admonished him, shying back from his proffered hand. Logan sat back raising an eyebrow at the tone of her voice. Taking a deep shaky breath she continued, "Only when they had said that did the IV's and the paddles come out to try and save me, only because of the baby. They were trying to save the incubator to another possible miracle child… Damn them."
Max continued talking as her thoughts slipped back to that horrific time in her life, unable to stop her words even if she wanted as she saw it all again….
FLASHBACK:
Max woke slowly, sluggishly, looking with blurry vision at the strange surroundings, ones that were also frighteningly familiar. Her body stiffened, sending a shock of pain through her whole body, and she closed her eyes and grit her teeth until the rippling pain in her back subsided.
Slowly she became conscious of the restraints on her wrists, her ankles and one securely strapped to her waist, restricting her movement to her head only. She was also aware of the cold kiss of air across her back with the exception of three spots that were covered, the tape holding the gauze down itching fiercely as they kept air from the skin. She remembered vividly the pain that tore through her chest into her insides as she hung three stories above the ground, in a desperate attempt to escape capture. She had already been torn about leaving Logan behind. And she paid for her reluctance to leave him with three bits of hot lead that resided in her chest. She knew that she had come close to death that night just as she knew that they had only kept her alive because of the baby.
Somewhere in the background she heard two monitors beeping tracking two different heartbeats, one… steady and strong, hers she knew. The other weak, thready, and irregular and she knew it to be from her progeny and it sounded as if it was fading fast. She knew that, though she did not want to admit it even to herself, for she remembered the vivacious heartbeat of the baby from just before her and Logan's night out. It had been the reason for their celebration, though now she wished they had just celebrated at home. If they had she might not be here in Manticore, and about to lose a baby that she had never seen, never really asked for, but was more attached to than anyone except Logan.
"Logan…" she thought morosely closing her eyes against impending tears. Had he survived? She hoped he had, but knew that he had probably been killed to "tie up loose ends". But what if they knew? What if Logan had been what they were after? Not her… but him? If they knew, he might be in this place too. A subject of an experiment to try and discern why Manticore blood could turn an ordinary human into a Manticore like humanoid.
She tried to lift her head to get a better look at her surroundings only to have the tearing pain come back and her head fell back to the same place staring at the left hand wall, sucking in a pained breath waiting for the burning sensation to subside.
"You really shouldn't do that," A familiar voice said behind her, "You'll tear the stitches."
She saw him then, swimming into her wavering vision, she felt her own face harden at the sight of him, "You bastard," she whispered in a slurred voice her cheek pressed uncomfortably on the vinyl headrest. She then realized the source of her weakness was not the wounds in her back it was the sedative that had been administered her to keep her from breaking her bonds. Her anger turned white hot then realizing that it was endangering the baby's health that much more.
"Welcome home Max," Lydecker said as he seated himself just a foot away from her face.
"Bite me," She whispered, hoping it had come out more forceful than it sounded in her ears. She blinked slowly refocusing on the man's swimming face.
"You have been a real thorn in my side, Max, but I see that my persistence has paid off. And you even have given me a present in addition to your return," He smiled almost paternally, "If we can keep you both alive that is," He added and she knew that he understood about the baby's condition.
She frowned, "I don't even matter to you right now," Max said softly, "Don't think you can delude me into thinking otherwise. I'm only here because you want the baby. I know what you did to the others… I know what your standing orders are," She finished in a hiss.
His lips pursed as they always did when he was uncomfortable, "I did what I had to… they gave me no other choice," He looked back into Max's face as if that would make it all right, that it would make her understand his logic. They way he had worded it made her wonder if he was talking about her fellow X-5's or the people who directed his project. She thought it might have been a little of both.
She scowled at him, "Like a good little soldier? I don't buy that."
Lydecker stood suddenly motioning to someone Max couldn't see, "We'll talk again later," He said simply, avoidance, she saw from the look on his face. He didn't like what he had been made to do to the other four. It was a pain as deep as if he had lost his flesh and blood children and not the surrogate ones he had created at Manticore. Max felt a pang of pity for him, then squashed it telling herself he was not worth the emotion.
He stepped away as Max felt the small prick in her arm and slowly lost consciousness again.
When Max next awoke she was in a regular hospital bed slightly inclined. She was still shackled and there was still an IV in her arm and a monitor strapped across her abdomen. She listened intently straining to hear her baby's heartbeat. It was there but it was very faint, too faint. A pang of anxiety and helplessness hit her. She was losing it, she had been injured too badly, lost too much blood to support the growing child inside her. She closed her eyes, her jaw working as the reality of it hit her, "I'm so sorry," she whispered to the empty room wanting to raise a hand and rest where the baby was fighting for it's survival, unable to even do that much to comfort it… to comfort herself. Max looked up at the ceiling, "I'm sorry Logan, I should have listened," she said, the tears welling over as she second guessed every move she had made that night, tried to think of what she could have done differently result in a different outcome.
It was not long after that the monitor stopped registering the baby, but Max couldn't hear it through her own sobs of grief. She didn't realize it until hours later, until the first of the contractions started. Sharp omnipresent pains that shot nova's through her brain and caused her to break out in a sweat, biting her own lip until it bled with the intensity. She cried out several times as the pain cut her like a knife, telling her that her body was rejecting the now dead fetus. She cried harder as the bloodstain grew on her bed, overwhelmed with the realization that she had lost the baby, the separation from the man in her life and the return to the one place she always loathed returning too.
A harder part of her soul cried out in triumph, knowing that she had foiled Lydecker's plans for her and for her baby. That animalistic part of her was happy that she would be unable to provide the man with another subject of experimentation. As the doctors rushed in to attend her in her miscarriage they found her laughing hysterically through her tears of anguish. When they tried to attend her she lunged at them snapping animalistically with her teeth fighting hard against the restraints. The pain of the contractions no longer affected her, she was shelled within herself, and like an animal in a corner she was trying to defend herself in her grief. They were forced to sedate her to work on her at all.