"Inbetween Heat and Flushed"
by Kirsten Tapp

Disclaimer:

Dark Angel doesn't belong to the author, but to James Cameron, etc. No copyright infringement intended.

Summary:

What happens in between Episodes 2 and 3 of Season one.

Spoilers:

Heat and Flushed

Rating:

PG

Category:

Drama


Logan stared out of his penthouse apartment window at the space needle. Mentally scolding himself for the relief he had felt when Max had told him that Eric wasn't her boyfriend, he was also relieved that Max was back where she was reasonably safe.

He rarely told people that he was afraid of heights, not because he wanted to appear heroic, but because he didn't want to risk the wrong people finding a weakness to use against him. It was bad enough that he was stuck in a wheelchair, yet that hadn't stopped Max asking him if he had ever been up on the space needle and wanting to change the fact that he hadn't. Logan didn't know if he would ever get used to people looking at him with pity clouding their faces.

What appealed to Logan the most about Max, was that she never seemed to see the wheelchair. When she looked at Logan it seemed as though she saw straight into his soul, the wheelchair was irrelevant. Despite denying he was jealous, Logan knew he had probably turned emerald green with jealousy when Eric had announced himself on the phone as Max's boyfriend. It had made him more conscious of the fact that he couldn't run to the rescue if Max needed him, even if Max didn't see it that way.

Wheeling himself back to his computer, Logan went back to work on finding Max's family. Unfortunately, his concentration wasn't at it's best. He could still feel the warmth of Max's body when she had hugged him for finding some information on Hannah. It had surprised him how Max hadn't hesitated a second before putting her arms around him. She had actually lowered the defensive walls that she kept built up around her, for a minute or so. It was quite a change from the strange behavior she was exhibiting from the previous night. "Must have been a female or feline thing." He muttered trying to get his concentration focused.

The phone ringing ruined any plans to focus on the task at hand. Snatching up the phone, he continued tapping away at his keyboard. "Yeah."

"Hey. It's me." Max's voice purred along the phone line.

"Hey yourself." Logan immediately stopped working on his computer. He couldn't help the grin that spread across his face. "Everything alright? Did Hannah get away ok?"

"Yeah." Max sounded almost hopeful on the other end of the phone. "She remembered my mother. She tried to escape from Manticore just before I was born. Hannah didn't know her name but she was about my age when I was born. After I was born Hannah says that my mother was moved to a psychiatric facility somewhere."

"That gives me more to work with." Logan loved listening to Max's voice. She could have phoned to tell him the end of the world was coming and he couldn't have cared less at that moment. "How are you dealing with this new information?"

"I don't know." Max admitted. "I mean I had convinced myself that it didn't matter that I had no idea who my parents were, or at least I thought I had. Let's face it, I'm just a science experiment cooked up in a test tube somewhere. If I started to think about having a mother, it meant I was more like a normal girl and we both know that's not true." She couldn't believe that she was telling Logan all of this.

"I think you're more like a normal girl than you realize." Logan had a feeling it had taken a lot for Max to admit all of this to him. "Your mother sounds like a fighter. You're obviously a lot like her."

"I guess." Max felt a twinge of belonging when Logan told her that she was like her mother. She remembered how unwanted she had felt when as a child, she had heard someone on the street commenting to a friend how her child looked so much like her father. She had wondered at the time who she looked like. Not knowing who her parents were, she had just felt like a freak made up of bits and pieces. "Anyway, I thought you might want to use the information that Hannah gave me."

"It certainly gives me somewhere to start looking." Logan knew their conversation was coming to an end. "I'll get started on it right away."

"Don't you sleep either?" Max teased.

"Not a lot." Logan hated to sleep. He was constantly haunted by nightmares of the shooting that left him in the wheelchair. "Besides, it's not as though I have to get up early in the morning to go to work. It doesn't matter if I sleep in."

"Oh the joys of being rich." Max joked. "I've gotta go. I don't want to wake my room mate up. Try and get some sleep anyway. Bye."

"Bye." Logan put the phone down and glanced at the clock on his computer. It was getting late and Bling would be there early to put him through his workout. Maybe he should try and get some sleep. Scribbling down some notes on a pad, he shut down his computer and headed for bed.

Strangely enough, Logan's dreams that night were far less disturbing. Not content with taking over his thoughts during the day, Max started to take over his dreams at night. Dreams where Logan could walk along the beach beside Max holding her hand. Dreams where he could dance with her, holding her close and Max let him, instead of keeping him at a distance.

Max lay on her bed staring at the dirty ceiling. She still couldn't believe that she, a genetically engineered killing machine, had a mother out there somewhere who loved her. She hadn't realized until she had found out that key piece of information just how much she had wanted that.

Knowing that Logan needed her, if only for leg work made her feel a little more wanted and a little less inhuman. She hadn't been surprised when she had walked in on Bling putting Logan through his workout, just how hard Logan was pushing himself. What had surprised her, was despite being in heat, how she had been anxious to put some distance between Logan and herself before she did something stupid and jumped him.

In the past when she had gone into heat, she hadn't thought about the consequences until after the deed was done. Then all she felt was cheap and dirty. She didn't want to feel that with Logan and that was what shocked her: the fact that she cared. Plus there was the chance that considering his condition, if she had ravaged him she could have made his injury worse.

"God, when did everything get so complicated?" She pulled her pillow over her head. The answer was there taunting her. The night when she had broken into Logan's apartment to rob him, that was when it had become complicated. She had also got the answers to some of the questions that had been swimming around her head since she and the others had escaped from Manticore.

Glancing at the clock by her bed after she had tossed her pillow down to the foot of her bed, she saw that it was time to get ready for work. Another day, another dollar. Working for Normal wasn't so bad, once you started ignoring him, which she had done five minutes after starting work at Jam Pony.

It was as she was pulling a comb through her damp curls that she seizures started. Max grabbed the bottle of Tryptophan and shoved a couple of tablets in her mouth before sliding to the floor to ride the seizures out until they subsided.

Standing on shaky legs, Max splashed some cold water on her face. When she picked up the Tryptophan bottle to put it away in the medicine cabinet, she noticed it was empty. "Damn." She would need some extra cash to get some more Tryptophan and fast. These seizures were worse than normal. In fact she was still shaking from them. Thankfully she wasn't shaking enough for anyone who didn't know that she got them to notice.

Trying to think of somewhere to get the money from wasn't easy, considering her head had started to pound. It was like someone was pounding on her brain with a jack hammer. Walter wasn't due to pick up the money that he was extorting from the squatters in the building for a few days. It would be enough money for her pills and it wouldn't take her long to find a way to pay the money back once her head stopped throbbing and her body stopped shaking.

Taking the money from Kendra's usual hiding place, Max quickly dressed and left for work. After making a quick stop at the vendor she used to get the Tryptophan for her, she rode to work safe in the knowledge that the vendor would have the tablets for her by the time she finished work.

The trick on getting through her day at work was first of all completely blocking the annoyance that was Normal out. If that man Bip, Bipped at her more than once she would end up doing something that would give away what she really was. Her shaking had calmed down enough to pass as a slight shudder. It still made riding a bike difficult.

Only eight hours to go until she got her medicine. Typical. She would have to have a full shift on the one day she could have done with spending the day in bed sleeping. Snatching a parcel out of Normal's hand before he could start his usual stream of insults, Max rode out into the cluttered streets. "Focus on the task at hand. That's what I've gotta do to get through the next few hours." She ignored the strange looks she was getting because she was talking to herself. "Of course a glass of milk wouldn't hurt."

The only time Max lost her focus on what she was aiming for, was when she passed Fogle Towers. She couldn't explain the need to go and visit Logan for no reason. Glancing at her watch she scolded herself. "Come on Max. Keep your eye on the prize. Only three hours to go."

Just as well, she only had three more hours of work as the seizures had started to get strong again. She would be lucky if she didn't shake herself off of her bike and get run over. She just hoped she had enough time to get the pills.

The End