She felt a hand on her shoulder but didn't turn. She couldn't tear her eyes from the building. She wasn't sure if she was hoping to see them all parading out of there, perfectly fine and yelling, "Ha ha, Max! We got you!" or if she was just hoping something would happen.
"Clemente is out there." Logan told her softly. "He wants to talk to you."
"I don't know if I feel like talking." She said and placed her hand on top of his. When she had finally got the cure, she had been expecting much more joyous touches. She shook her head and turned away from the building, burying her head in Logan's chest. She felt his hand on her back and felt that she might like to stay that way forever.
She sighed and pulled slightly away from him. She looked up into his eyes and said softly, "Wait here for me, will you?"
He managed a gentle smile and lightly kissed her forehead, then let her go. She gave him one last look before leaving the room. Mole and Aaron decided to stay behind, but Joshua and Alec got up and followed her out.
She marched up to the fence, her soldier face plastered on, Joshua and Alec flanking her. She looked at Clemente and gave a small nod. "Haven't seen you around here in a while."
"It's just been recently that the government's stepped out of the situation." He told her. "Things are back under my control."
"Glad to have you back."
"So, I hear you wanted to talk to the guy in charge a few days ago."
"Yeah, and he got shot down by his own people apparently." Max told him. "Just warms your heart, doesn't it?"
"What did you want to talk to him about?"
"We want a place to bury our dead." Max told him. "There were some murders inside recently and we want a place for them."
"Murders?"
"None of my people did it." Max assured him. "I got a guy working on it, and I can assure you that you won't have to worry about it. So, do we get our space?"
"I'll see what I can do." Clemente told her and pulled out his phone.
* * *
Hunt watched as the rest of the men slept and shook his head. He could never sleep before a kill, it was in his blood to be that way. His father and grandfather, he remembered, would always be wired up before they went out on a mission. He had always wanted it. Even when he was little he knew he wanted to have the same look on his face that his father had when he returned home after a success.
He sighed and looked out the window, wondering if anybody would mind if he went out and killed one in advance. He knew they probably would, but he couldn't shake the urge. It didn't help when a young blonde breezed by, her barcode fully exposed. He sneered and shook his head, but managed to keep himself under control. He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and pulled out the last one. He let it hang limply from his mouth and he tossed the pack to the floor as he searched for the lighter.
After he took a drag of his cigarette he was much more calm. He moved away from the window, for the moment forgetting the blonde and her barcode, and focusing on the picture of 452 that was tacked to the wall. It had many little holes in it, obviously it had use as a bulls-eye on a dart board, but one was still able to make out her face. Under that picture, in a chart form, were the pictures of her transgenic and pro-transgenic pals. They were arranged in the order of who she would most likely be more devastated to find lifeless in the streets of Terminal City.
He blew a ring of smoke on the picture the man Logan Cale and grinned. As soon as he had the chance, he was going to kill him, then he planned to kill 452 after she had just watched her lover boy bite it. It was his fantasy to destroy them all, and to him it was a great one, one that he was constantly imagining.
* * *
Clemente took his phone from his ear and looked at Max. "I got a guy who's gung-ho pro-transgenic and he's willing to give you an acre or two, depending on what you need. You gotta have your own transport though."
"We'll take that."
He brought the phone back up to his ear. "Yeah, they'll take it... I think they want to get in immediately... Yeah, yeah okay... All right. Bye."
"I take it that was good news."
Clemente nodded and put his phone away. "You can go up as soon as you want."
He scribbled some directions down on a piece of paper that had seen better days and handed it to Max. "You're all set."
"Thanks." She said, then she and the others walked back to the building. Alec went to collect everyone and she and Joshua stayed outside the building.
"I can't go." Joshua said finally. "I can't. All - All I can think about is Annie."
"I understand." Max said quietly.
He nodded sadly and walked away. It didn't take long for all the transgenics who would be coming to pile out and stand in front of the building with Max, and it didn't take Mole long to pull the food delivery truck around. Some of the transgenics looked squeamish, and Max wasn't sure if it was because they were about to share a closed space with a dead body or that their next food shipment would be where some dead bodies had been. For a moment she considered telling them that the food was in crates and wouldn't actually be touching where the bodies had been, but decided against it. She knew they'd get over it, that's how they were made.
She watched as everyone piled into the truck, and was just about to get on herself, but she stopped. Visions of Eva, Jack, Ben, and Tinga filled her mind. She went through the moments just before their deaths, to their deaths, and to the moments after. She found herself unable to climb the rest of the way into the truck.
She turned to Alec and told him, "Make sure it's nice." Then closed the back of the truck and yelled for Mole to go on. She watched them drive off, then felt Joshua behind her.
"Too hard." He said sadly.
"Yeah." She answered in an equally sad voice.
* * * *
Logan handed Max a cup of tea then craned his neck to look up at the moon. They sat like that for a while, both of them just sipping their tea and staring at the moon, and both were content to keep it that way, but if it changed so be it.
"I've never had a problem with it before." She spoke finally. "With death. I dealt with enough of it, hell - I died. But something this time is different."
"This is the first time you haven't put on a soldier mask." Logan said. "For the first time you're really dealing with it as yourself."
She thought this over and realized he was right. When it had been Jack, she had been curious, but she had also been at Manticore and didn't know what to think. When it had been Eva, it was time to escape and evade and be a brave little soldier about it and get out of there. When it was Ben, she had convinced herself that he was a nomlie and she was a soldier again, putting on a brave front and being strong; and she didn't want to tell herself that she had killed him. When it had been Tinga, she for the first time took off the mask and grieved - just a little. The mask was quickly thrown on when she went after Deck.
She shook her head, trying to push away the memories. She realized that she had never had time to grieve for any of them. She had to move to the next moment and get on with it, but this time... this time she had more than enough time to really and truly grieve without the mask. It was clear to her now why she pushed the grieving process away those times before: it sucked.
She took another sip of tea and turned to Logan. "Does it always feel this bad?"
"Pretty much." He told her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "But it gets better eventually."
"Promise?"
"I promise."