Reaching for the Moon by ThePekingNoodle

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Chapter Forty:  Shake, Shake, Shake

The scales finally fall from our heroes eyes…

Logan never did remember exactly how he managed to get Max home that night.  The truck driver couldn't go through the sector checkpoints with his slightly illegal load. So Logan had him help move Max's bike out of the truck, and set it next to where he sat on the ground with Max in his lap. Then the truck pulled away, leaving the two of them alone in the dark and dank weed filled lot.

He didn't know how long she continued to shake but finally her tremors seemed to ease. He simply sat there stroking her hair gently. After a bit she opened her eyes.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm good." Max tried valiantly to sit up but she fell back into his arms.

"Take it easy. What happened back there?"

"Nothing. I'll be fine in a few minutes," she insisted stubbornly.

"Max, you just had a grand mal seizure. That isn't fine in my book." Logan looked at her closely. "We still need to figure out how to get you home."

Before he could stop her, Max stood up on shaky legs. "See I told you, I'm fine." She started toward her bike, but she stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn't come to his feet and caught her.

"You are not driving that in this condition."

"So you drive it then."

Logan looked at her. Him drive a motorcycle? Max stared back. He sighed. "Fine. But we figure out a way to tie you onto me. I'm not having you fall off halfway home because you have another nothing happen to you."

Max argued but in the end she agreed to let him lash his belt around both of their waists in a makeshift seatbelt of sorts.  Then she settled behind him, and they began the trip back to Fogle Towers.  Logan supposed he had blocked most of the trip out of his mind on purpose. It was a nightmare of him worrying about her falling off, her snapping at him about abusing her baby with his driving, and the omni-present Seattle rain starting in on them halfway there.

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Logan didn't give Max a choice when they parked the bike. He unbuckled his belt and then climbed off the bike and scooped her into his arms. When they got inside the penthouse he paused for only a second before he carried her into his bedroom.

"Hey, you took a wrong turn back there. My room is that way." Max protested weakly.

"I took the turn I wanted to." Logan deposited her gently onto his bed.  "Don't move.  I'll be right back." He started to go to her room to get her some nightclothes.

Max had started to shake again. "Logan, I need my pills. They're in my purse."

Logan headed to her room. He dug through her drawers and pulled out an oversize T-shirt that he supposed she used for sleeping, and then he grabbed the purse that was sitting on top of her dresser.  Equipped he strode back to his room.  When he got there, Max was once again shaking violently.

Logan dumped the contents of the purse onto her bed and pawed through the tangle of  female clutter. He found a large bottle of pills and opened it up. Max grabbed it from him and poured out a handful of pills. She started to bring them to her mouth but Logan stopped her hand halfway there. "Whoa. Don't you want to take the right dosage? You don't need to die of an overdose from these."

"Logan, this is the right dosage." With a burst of strength Max wrenched her wrist free of his hand and swallowed the pills before he could stop her.

"Max." There was panic in his eyes.

"Logan, its okay. It's tryptophan that's all."

"Trytophan?"

Max sighed. "You know they made me. Well they didn't quite have all the instructions. So I guess they made some of it up as they went along. My brain doesn't produce enough serotonin and that causes seizures when the levels get too low. Tryptophan is a homeopathic medicine that supplements the serotonin my body can't produce. Milk and turkey help as well."

Her shaking had eased but now she looked drawn and tired. Logan found himself sitting next to her gently stroking her hair once more.

"That feels nice." She sighed closing her eyes. Tremors still racked her body intermittently.

"How long will these last?"

"Off and on for the rest of the night probably." Max closed her eyes.

Logan started to get up and her eyes snapped open. "I'll be right back," he assured her, and she let them fall closed again.

He went over to his dresser and pulled out a T-shirt and boxers. Max was lying there with her eyes closed, so he quickly slipped out of his clothes and into them. When he returned to the bed, he slid down the zipper of her vest and eased her out of it. Then he unzipped the catsuit. Max was half asleep and didn't protest as he expertly stripped her out of her clothes and slid the T-shirt he had found in her drawer over her head.

He slid the blankets out from under her and rolled her onto the fresh clean white sheets.Then he slid in next to her and pulled the blankets back up over the two of them. He gathered her into his arms and she sighed and cuddled up to him without opening her eyes.  He could still feel the slight tremors that were rocking her body.  He didn't know exactly when he fell asleep, but he knew it wasn't until she had finally stopped shaking completely.

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Logan woke up before Max the next morning, and looked down at the young beauty who was still asleep in his arms. He realized that this was the first time in his life that he had spent the night with a woman without any sexual intimacy taking place.  He didn't know how he felt about that.  It was strange but nice. Her hair was spread over his chest and he gently reached up and stroked the silky strands. 

Max stirred.  Her eyes opened and she looked up at Logan.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" he asked her.

"Like I got run over by a truck," she joked. "You need to hire better drivers."

"You scared me last night."

"It was no big deal. Long as I have my meds I'm fine." Max tried to brush it off. 

"Should you see a doctor?"

There was panic in her eyes. "Sure and we might as well put up a neon sign while we're at it. Manticore here's one of your escaped super soldiers. Serotonin deficiency is probably something that would set off a million different alarms."

Logan was silent, realizing the truth in her words. He reached over and picked up her bottle of pills which was almost empty. "At least let me get you some more of these. You look like you're pretty low. I can do it without leaving any tracks." He hastened to assure her.

Max sighed in relief. "Thanks, Logan." She smiled up at him shyly. "Thanks for being my friend."

In that moment when their eyes met, Logan felt like he had just been punched in the gut. He knew then and there that there was no way he was letting Max out of his life. He also knew he had been acting like a damned idiot around her, being the playa, playa.

"Logan, are you okay?" It was Max's turn to ask.

"I'm fine." He managed to get out even as he was wondering how in hell he was going to get out of the corner he had painted himself into with his recent behavior.

End of Chapter Forty…TBC…