Chapter Five: …Only Ashes Remain.
Max looked up again when she finished telling her story. She found that she was shaking uncontrollably with the anxious adrenaline rush. She felt slightly better for having gotten that out in the open, but she was anxious to see what Logan's reaction to the news was going to be. She tried not to fidget as she waited for some kind of response.
Max's eyes searched over Logan's form, and from what she saw she knew that he was not taking it well. Logan was no longer looking at her, he had leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees. His hands were clasped together tightly, so tight that his knuckles had turned white and the muscles in his arms stood out like cords with his tension. His head hung down, and his gaze was cast to one side, the tight set to his jaw was still there, and the muscles worked back and forth. He did not move even when she had finished speaking and she barely caught a glimpse of his eyes darting back and forth taking in the minute details of the rug even as his mind processed what he had been told.
At first Max said nothing, waiting for him to look at her, to even just sigh or take a deep breath, anything. But he just sat looking at the floor looking as if he was going to snap at any moment. The silence dragged out longer, nothing spoken and nothing to be heard except the thrumming of her own heart.
"Say something," Max prompted in a cracked whisper. Still she was afraid of his reaction, afraid of being excommunicated from the man she loved with all her heart and soul.
Slowly he looked up at her, his normally brilliant blue eyes faded to a stormy gray. They were red and glossy with tears, but they met her eyes solidly, he did not look away as she had expected him to do, as if sickened by the sight of her. The tension in his face tied her insides up in knots. He slowly sat up, "I'm sorry, Max, I… I didn't know…" He said in a pained voice, shaking his head side to side, "I didn't know…" he repeated, "I wish I had… I'd have come for you sooner."
She let out her breath in a burst of air, certainly surprised at his response. She found that she was mad at his calm reply when she was expecting him to be angry, to be outraged by what they had done to her. She expected, and she found she wanted a confrontation about this to absolve herself of the guilt she was feeling, something to make her feel normal. Him coming across so understanding only made her feel worse about the situation and about herself. It stabbed her making her feel like it didn't really matter to him. She felt hot tears running down her cheeks again at the thought of it.
A concerned look crossed over Logan's face and he stood and re-seated himself beside her laying an arm gently across her shoulders, "It's not your fault, Max, none of it was," Misconstruing the reason for her tears.
Max stood abruptly starting away from him and then wheeling around to face him again, "Why do you have to be so damned understanding all the time!" She shouted hoarsely through her tears.
Logan's shocked expression quickly faded into anger and he rose more slowly to face her, "What do you want me to say, Max?" He said in an amazingly even voice, "That I'm hurt? That I'm angry, feel guilty that you were stuck there for four years when I could have gotten you out of there, humiliated for what you went through?" He sighed angrily his mouth a thin line, "All of the above! Damn Max, of course I feel about this, but what good is it going to do to take it out on you? You were a victim of an egregious set of acts, but that does not make it your fault.
"I'm mad as hell," He growled, finally showing some spark of indignation and her heart lightened a little, "Yes, but not at you… angry at myself maybe, for giving up on you so soon. Mostly I'm mad at Lydecker… The man has a way of tearing lives apart with some twisted sense that what he does is just… a sense that his purpose is pure. That bastard has done more to ruin my life in the past ten years than anybody I know, even Uncle Jonus couldn't top him for the loathing I feel toward him." He paused as his face pinched, "One of these days Lydecker's going to have Hell to pay for what he has done to you, me, the X-5's, and every person he has ever corrupted with his touch."
"I should have been able to do something," Max argued, intentionally ignoring Logan's speech, "I should have listened to you, left sooner, not given them the time to get at me. I should have tried harder to escape Manticore once I was there. There should have been something I could have done different!" Max wailed angrily.
"And I should have never taken you back home through the alley that night. I should have had the premonition that you were still alive, I should have known to investigate further into it to be sure that you had in fact been killed. Even when all my senses had told me you were dead in my arms. Even when I awoke alone in the alley to find your blood on my hands, knowing what Manticore did to recycle their dead," Logan blasted her back. He shook his head quieting again, "Max, we could play twenty-twenty hindsight all day long, it will not change our parting and it will not change what has happened to each of us since."
Max turned away again crossing her arms over her chest, he was right of course, but she was unable to let go of the notion that something else could have… should have been done in those four years. She moved back over to the couch and stared out at the night sky again, closing herself off from Logan. She needed some time to think about things.
She wondered if he was really truly OK with her story that he really laid no blame on her for what had happened. Or was it as it was when he was trying to deal with his disability, that he was putting on the brave front. Telling her that he had wrapped his head around it to keep them from one of their infamous blustery fights. She frowned to herself, not liking not knowing what exactly his motivation was.
There was something about him now, he had changed in the past four years, she found that she wasn't sure that she really knew him anymore. She wanted to attribute it to their long separation, to her own discomfort with what had happened. But there was something else something that she couldn't quite put a finger on.
Logan stared after Max as she walked away from him, feeling her close in on herself again. He sighed heavily thinking, "Just like the old days," somehow it was comforting to know that they were never going to agree on all things, "At least our marriage will never be a dull one."
He looked away blinking slowly. Butterflies rose in his stomach, and he wondered if Max had believed him, that he was really OK with what had happened. He was being honest with her and with himself. None of it had been her fault, there was not a thing about it she could have controlled.
So why was he angry?
Because, it did hurt that Lydecker had abused her, just as Kito had suggested. He found that he was angry with himself for not overriding Zach's decision to let the man go. He had been spent by the ordeal, glad to have just gotten Max out, he had been in no state of mind for an informed decision on the matter. Now Logan would have to live with the fact that the man who had overseen the project, the man who had allowed for her attempted reprogramming, her multiple forced impregnation's was still walking around loose in the world. It was the same kind of frustration as if she had been raped and the perpetrator was still walking the streets. He felt angry and helpless about it. But he was determined to leave Max out of the blame circle.
He had told himself that he had let go of his want for revenge, now it came back strong, backing up into his throat with an acid taste, and he swallowed hard trying to beat it down. Logan forced himself to leave the room and he found himself moving back toward the same corner of the balcony that he had been at earlier in the evening.
Logan closed his eyes, took a deep breath and slowly let it out. He had come to realize recently that since his DNA had been rewritten, along with the extraordinary abilities it had given him, he found himself prone to more aggressive behavior than he had ever been in his life. Tonight it was fueled by Max's story and he was overrun with adrenaline, "And no place to apply it," He thought sarcastically. It was something of a discipline to keep those dark tendencies under control. Another set of hurdles for him overcome. Overcoming obstacles was something that he was getting good at and he was not going to let this one stump him when nothing else had.
His thoughts darkened again as a portion of Max's story surfaced in his head. Manticore had made multiple attempts to get Max pregnant… and she had lost every one, was there something wrong with her that she was unable to conceive and carry a child to term? That begged the question did she lose the first due to the loss of blood and fluids or was it already in her DNA to abort any attempt? His heart skipped a beat at the thought, if the latter were true that would leave little hope of a child in their future.
While he would always be happy just to have Max in his life, he wanted kids, and he knew Max did as well. Ever since she had seen Tinga and her son she had been subtly driving toward that goal. It would tear her apart if she found that she was unable to realize that goal.
And what about him? He was forty-two, even if Max was to get pregnant now, he would be forty three when it was born and by the time the child went to high school, he would be near retirement age. He still wanted a child of his own, but was concerned about not being there when his child would need him, in this world that could be a serious detriment.
If she did get pregnant, and she was to carry it to term, what about Max's statement about her ability to pass on her Manticore traits to the child? A pang hit him, they were both endowed with Manticore abilities now, an almost guarantee of an exceptionally talented child. Two thoughts concerning that floated through his mind, one, how would they handle that kind of child growing up? The other was, he knew somehow Manticore would find out about it and then there would be no stopping them in their quest to get the child from them. Both thoughts scared Logan, and he began to seriously consider trying to talk Max out of her quest to have children. He snorted quietly, that would never happen, she was bull headed when it came to what she wanted, just as much as he was.
Logan took a deep breath looking up and out over the city again, "Best to let the future become the present and take it as it comes," he admonished himself silently. Logan straightened then looking down at his watch. An eyebrow raised it was already one thirty in the morning, "No wonder I'm so tired," he thought. He turned back toward his apartment, deciding it was time to get things settled with Max, so they could both go to bed.