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It seemed as though it rained non stop in Seattle sometimes. Still it had suited Logan's mood tonight. He couldn't believe that Valerie had played him again. Like Max, Logan had wanted someone that he felt a connection with. He too, had been left disillioned by his choice of person to connect with. He and Max had decided to go for a spin in the rain and here they stood, or in his case sat in the rain. When Logan looked up at Max, he couldn't help but gasp at her beauty. She had her head slung back with her face upturned welcoming the rain to pour down on her. Her wet hair clung to her elegant neck, yet he had never seen her look more beautiful. "I thought that cats didn't like the rain." Max smiled down at Logan. "Back at Manticore, Jondy and I were convinced we must have some shark DNA in us cause we don't need a lot of sleep. Could be that's why I like the water." The joy fell from her face when she remembered the Manticore sibling that she had been the closest to. "Zack knows where the others are. He won't tell me their positions because he thinks I'll put them at risk." "That's gotta be tough on you." Logan knew how badly Max wanted to find her siblings. Max shrugged her shoulders trying to pretend that she didn't care. The truth was that it had cut her to the core that Zack believed she would compromise the others. "Maybe Zack will learn to leave Manticore in the past where it belongs. Until he does that, there's no chance of him living anything close to a real life." "There's hope for him yet." Logan just wanted that stunning smile back lighting up Max's beautiful face. "Until then, we'll just have to keep looking for your brothers and sisters ourselves." She knew Logan was just trying to make Max feel better. "I thought we were going for a spin. Do you want to use your car incase your chair becomes a lightening conductor?" She grinned at Logan's hair which had changed from it's usual spikes to flat due to the rain. "Or is that how you style your hair?" She joked. "Very funny." Logan relaxed once Max was smiling again. "I've never had complaints about my hair style before." "Who's complaining?" Max tried to look serious and failed miserably. "I was just looking for styling tips." "Yeah right." Logan started to roll his chair down the street knowing Max would follow him. "I think you should stick with the curls." He noticed her hair had gone quite straight from the weight of the rain in it. "Although this straight look you've got going on at the moment works too." "Thanks. I'll take your opinions on hair fashion into consideration when I'm getting ready for work tomorrow." Max teased. She had missed Logan this week. All of his attention had been on his ex-wife and Max hadn't realized how much that would bother her until it had happened. "You're welcome." Logan felt as though he had neglected Max this past week. He had even felt guilty when Max had run into he and Valerie outside Fogle Towers, although he wasn't sure why. It wasn't as though he and Max had that sort of relationship. The most they did was a bit of harmless flirting. It didn't mean anything. It couldn't mean anything. "Hey. Are you still in there?" Max waved her hand in front of Logan's face. He seemed a million miles away. "What were you just thinking about?" "Nothing important." He hadn't realized he was so transparent. "So did you get your bike back?" He knew her bike had been put into the impound lot by the Sector Police and since he hadn't lent her the money, he wondered where she might have obtained the cash. Max nodded. "I broke into the impound lot and took it back. You know they're lucky my baby wasn't hurt or I would seriously be kicking some ass right now." "God, I thought guys were fanatical about their cars." Logan chuckled. "Weren't you going to upgrade your bike anyway? I seem to remember you saying something about that." "I didn't think you were listening, as you were unconscious at the time." Max wondered what else that she had said that night, he had heard. "That explains why the memory's so hazy." Logan stopped long enough to wipe the rain off of his glasses. "So does that mean you're sticking with the same bike." "Yeah. That bike is like an extension of my soul." Max shook her head when she remembered finding Kendra's laundry hanging all over her precious motorcycle a while back. "I couldn't believe that I found Kendra drying her laundry on it one time." Logan pretended to be shocked. "How could she? Surely she knows how you feel about your bike." "I know. I couldn't believe it either." Max realized that Logan was teasing her. "Hey how would you feel if someone messed up your kitchen?" She had come to see that Logan was quite a perfectionist in the kitchen. Everything had it's own place and he could get quite touchy if something wasn't put back in the right place. "Fair enough." Logan could see Max's point. "So despite the fact that Zack was still in Manticore CO form, was he what you expected him to grow up to be? Maybe just a little bit?" Max stopped walking to think about Logan's question. "I'm still not really sure what I expected. I guess I thought that he would try and leave Manticore behind like I did. I never thought for a moment that if he knew where the others were, that he would still keep us separated." "I'm sure he's just trying to keep you all safe." Logan wasn't sure why he was defending someone he had never met. "He just doesn't know any other way to do that." Max looked so lost and alone at that moment, that all Logan wanted to do was pull her into his arms and hold her. "I know." Max saw understanding in Logan's blue eyes and knew that although Logan wasn't genetically engineered he was a lot like her in some ways. They hadn't known each other long, but there were times when he knew her better than she knew herself. "What about you? What did you expect when Valerie suddenly turned up?" "I didn't expect her to be sober." Logan admitted. "Maybe I wanted to grab hold of a part of my life before I got shot that was staring me in the face. It's great that Valerie's sober, I just wish she had made the effort while we were married." Valerie had actually made him feel good about himself, like the wheelchair didn't matter. But it had all been an act to get her hands on more of his money. She had made him feel like nothing more than a wallet. That hurt him more than anything. Max watched the torment cross Logan's face. "Better that you learnt now. Though part of you knew she was playing you, didn't you." "Yeah." Logan turned his chair around so that they could head back. "But the other part of me wanted to believe that I was more than a human equivalent to an ATM machine." He had never been more conscious of his wheelchair than he was now. Valerie had found his greatest weakness and played on it. Max leaned forward trapping Logan's hands on the wheels of his chair and looked him straight in the eye. "I don't see the chair and I don't see your wallet." For some reason, a reason Max herself wasn't sure of, she needed Logan to see himself through her eyes. "I see a man who ignores his wealth in favor of helping others, myself included." "Thank you." Logan knew that he should say more, but he couldn't find the words. He was looking into the face of an angel and she was telling him that his disability and financial situation meant nothing to her. Yet the only two words he could find to express himself were Thank You. It didn't seem enough. Max let go of Logan's hands. "You're welcome." She walked beside Logan's chair as they headed back towards Fogle Towers. Max felt as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Logan could be so easy to talk to. The fact that he had felt secure enough to talk to her about Valerie touched her. "I can't believe how far we've walked." Logan chuckled. "My arms will probably be killing me in the morning, but this was kind of fun." He had been surprised at how easy it had been talking to Max. Max agreed. "It's not every night you get to go out in the rain." She joked, knowing full well that it rained frequently in Seattle. Logan laughed. "Look at it this way, there's no danger of sunburn. There's a possibility we might drown though." "No chance." Max turned so that she was facing Logan and walking backwards. "I have been trained to hold my breath under water for long periods of time. So since you're with me, that means you're perfectly safe." She spun around so that she was walking forward again. "Well, I guess the only thing I have to worry about is being hit by lightening." Logan felt so carefree. "I offered to go in your car." Max reminded him. This was the first time she had seen Logan let go of all his problems and just enjoy himself since he had been shot. "Where's your sense of adventure." Logan actually allowed himself to dream a little. With Max by his side, he let himself believe he had a non-work related future with the dark haired angel that walked beside him. Logan's dreams managed to close out the dreary reality all the way back to his apartment where they dried off and settled down to a meal together. It wasn't until the next morning when Logan fell over backwards in his chair that reality came crashing back in on him. As Logan frantically up righted his chair and pulled himself back into it, he mentally berated himself for his dreams as Max searched the apartment calling for him. What would a woman as perfect as Max want with a cripple like him. Self pity and loathing was back with a vengeance and they would always be lurking in the back of his mind.
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