The Story of Max Cale
by Pari106
[Disclaimer in chapter one.]
Chapter Twenty….
Syl didn't push him away when Logan kissed her. She couldn't rightly say *why*…
Except maybe it was shock (?) that made her go still when she felt Logan's lips on her
own. The shock of being kissed at that particular moment, particularly because she was
being kissed by him, of all people. And being kissed so well.
Or maybe Syl didn't push Logan away for the simple reason that she couldn't.
Sure…logically, she knew that she *could*. But she certainly didn't feel like it, with
Logan's strong hands framing each side of her face; with her back suddenly pressed
against the wall of the bar behind them. With Logan suddenly pressed against her.
Maybe that's why she kissed him back.
Either way, it wasn't long before sanity returned. To Logan. Though it would have been
very unwise to remind Syl of such.
So Logan pulled back, blinking, as he realized what he'd just done. And acting as though
it hadn't happened because he hadn't yet realized why he'd done it.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he repeated from before.
Logan tried to express a little of the anger he'd felt earlier, though most of it had abated
the moment his lips had met Syl's. And he told himself that the disorientation he felt
instead came from the quick rush of adrenaline that had run through his system during his
and Syl's confrontation with those men. Not from what had to have been the most
exciting kiss of his life.
Syl hadn't quite caught on to all of this. She heard Logan speak and thought, 'What?'
"What?" she asked aloud, eyes half-lidded.
"Fighting six guys," Logan reminded her, eyebrows raised, as if she were insane for
having forgotten. "You could have gotten hurt."
Syl laughed. She realized later she probably shouldn't have, but she did.
"This is serious," Logan said, frowning.
"Well, excuse me," Syl replied, raising *her* eyebrows in a mimicry of Logan. "But I'm
not the one who'll spend the next week getting *real* intimate with an icepack, if you
know what I mean." Syl smiled. "They will."
Logan was not amused.
"Stop being so melodramatic," Syl said finally, starting to frown herself.
Her words were so reminiscent of the ones Max had spoken, before that time she'd gotten
herself shot, that it gave Logan the chills.
"Figures you'd say that," he mumbled to himself. Wondering why suddenly he *was*
just the slightest bit amused.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Syl demanded, putting her hands on her hips. And she
glared, voice rising. She suddenly remembered exactly where they were…and exactly
who she was talking to. "And why are we having this conversation? Do you even care
what happens to me?"
'Why the hell am I getting the 3rd degree for a little bar fight? Why the hell did you help
me get out of it? Why did you kiss me?'
"Of course I do," Logan replied instantly.
"Oh, really, why?" Syl challenged.
She saw Logan's face go blank and changed her mind. "On second thought, don't tell me
why." For all she knew, he was planning to sell her to ol' Lydecker and his cronies.
'No use turning in damaged goods, right?' she thought snidely.
She had no idea that Logan's face had gone blank at her question because he'd just been
asking himself the same thing.
"The point is," Syl continued, going back to their "conversation", "It's not like I started
it. I could have done without that little display of chauvinistic stupidity we just
witnessed, tonight of all nights."
"Well, you were the one who drove us here," Logan reminded her, again in that oh-so-
reasonable tone that made Syl grit her teeth. "You couldn't have chosen some place a
little more…clean to stop for a drink?"
Syl could have hit him.
"I'm sorry, some of us can't afford to sip our high-priced martinis in posh cabarets."
Logan crossed his arms.
"Besides," Syl went on, "I wasn't going for a drink." 'Why am I telling him this?' "I
had to make a phone call."
"A phone call?" Logan's voice rose in pitch. "And that couldn't have waited till the next
town?"
"No!"
"A phone call to who?"
This time it was Syl who crossed her arms.
"I'm not exactly obligated to tell you that, now am I?" Finally tired of this argument, she
pulled out her piece. 'It's been fun and all, but…' "I'm the one with the gun,
remember?" Funny how she'd forgotten that herself, faced with a small crowd of
potential threat. Yet with Logan she suddenly felt inclined to bring out the artillery.
"I'm the one in charge," Syl said confidently. Until Logan casually, almost off-handedly,
pushed the gun – and the out-stretched arm to which it was attached – to the side. Syl's
jaw dropped for the second time that night. But Logan didn't even notice as he spoke.
"I'm the one who just saved your ass…*remember*?"
Syl's eyes narrowed. "Oh, please! I could have handled that!"
"Yeah, by beating people up!"
"So?"
"So," Logan told her slowly, "that doesn't help anything." He enunciated each word as
though speaking to a child.
It was so frustrating to Syl she nearly pouted. "Funny…" she began. And Logan got the
privilege of seeing how pretty Syl can be in a pout…before she punched him. "Works
for me," she finished.
Logan, from his new vantage point on the ground, rubbing his jaw, looked up as Syl
stepped over him, hiding her gun once more as she crouched low to say: "Get back to the
car." She nudged him in the hip with the toe of her boot.
'That's gratitude for you,' Logan thought, remaining silent as he followed a very angry
Syl back to his SUV.
'And why do I get the feeling my night isn't about to get any better?'
**** ****
Standing in the middle of a kitchen that hadn't seen a mop probably since the day she'd
been born, with the nauseating smell of clam chowder and the drone of a dozen
bystanders surrounding everything, Max couldn't imagine a situation that could be much
worse.
Until a worse scenario presented itself…and Zack showed up.
Max heard him before she saw him. Running through the diner's front door and leaping
over the front counter, as onlookers gasped. Max, like a deer caught in the headlights,
froze as Zack stopped, just inside the kitchen.
And then she panicked. And as one often does, in a panic, she used the only weapon at
her disposal.
A clam chowder soaked sweater.
She threw it straight at Zack's head. And Zack, being unused to attacks made by
women's garments soaked in soup, ducked, eyes wide, as the sweater flew over him.
"What the hell?" he asked.
Little white droplets landed on his shoulders and in his hair.
But there was little time to worry about that as Max dashed out a back door. And the
chase was on.
Unfortunately, weak from her seizure and having been cramped in an air duct for nearly
half an hour, Max wasn't quite sure "dash" was the correct word for what she was doing.
But she did her best, which, weak or cramped or not, was considerable for a "human".
By the time Max heard Zack's boots hit the pavement she was already across the parking
lot. She headed in the direction opposite the motel and Zack's van, which led across a
highway and to a little gas station beyond. Max kept her eyes on it. Watching the traffic
around her only peripherally as she ran. She could feel her temples beginning to pound
anew and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was growing; one suspiciously similar to
the start of another seizure.
Certainly she couldn't be having one again; so soon. But, then, that's what she'd thought
before.
Fear made Max run even faster…and Zack, as well. Not just in order to catch her, but to
keep her from getting herself killed sprinting across the four-laned highway. Horns
honked, and Zack cringed as the girl in front of him weaved through cars like she thought
she was invincible. Or like she wasn't thinking at all. 'Blue Lady…'
"Look out!" he yelled once, as Max came almost too close to a truck that swerved, barely
avoiding her. It seemed like forever before she reached the other side of the road.
And Zack, behind her, didn't realize that it was a seizure that caused her to crumple when
she did. A van passed between them, and a car just slightly behind it, and Zack couldn't
see whether or not she'd been hit. He only saw Max hit her knees, in the dirt at the side
of the pavement, then roll down the slope at that side, to the parking lot of the gas station
below. His genetically engineered heart leapt in his chest.
"Fuck…"
He didn't even look at the next vehicle that passed, right in front of him; just leapt over it
on his way. The passengers inside, and the driver, nearly crashed, craning their necks to
see what the hell had just flown over them.
Max was lying, crumpled on her side, when Zack reached her.
"What the fuck were you thinking!" he demanded, as he dropped to his knees, rolling
Max over. His voice was less threatening and more threatened than he would have liked,
and adrenaline was pulsing through him at the thought that he'd caused the woman with
him to get herself killed.
But then Zack saw that Max's eyes were open, and noticed the lack of blood in her
general vicinity.
He looked at her in surprise. 'What the hell?'
That's when the shaking started, so strong Max nearly came off the ground when it first
hit her.
"Whoa!"
Zack grabbed her, holding her down, and not really knowing what else he was supposed
to do.
"What's wrong?" he asked Max quickly. Max, staring up at him, didn't seem able to tell
him right away. But she tried to force words past her chattering teeth. Then…
"Hey! Stop that!"
Zack went tense when he heard the voice behind him. An elderly couple was walking
towards him from their car, parked a short distance away.
"What are you doing there?" the man called again, looking from Max to Zack and back.
'Great,' Zack thought. He tried to plaster on his best 'good 'ol boy' smile and turned to
the couple as they neared.
"Hello, sir. Ma'am," he said. "Everything's okay. My wife's just a little ill, that's all."
The couple stopped about a foot away; suspicion on the man's face, the woman cowering
behind him.
"Mark, let's just leave them alone," Zack heard the woman whisper to her husband.
All the same, "Mark" asked: "What's wrong?"
Good intentioned though he might be, Zack felt irritation at the stranger's intrusiveness,
and was about to answer his question, when Max answered it for him.
"Seizures," she managed weakly; shakily.
Zack looked at her sharply.
"Seizure?" the man asked. And his wife seemed to relax, just a little, as pity replaced
distrust as she looked at Max.
"Does she need to get to a hospital?" she asked. Zack would have smiled. These were
probably two of the last good Samaritans left in the Post-Pulse world…and he just had to
run into them when the last thing he needed was a couple of good Samaritans.
Again Zack began to speak. He'd originally planned to take Max home and decide how
much damage control was necessary. As much as he wasn't looking forward to what that
might very well entail. But now he wondered if he should rather turn her over to this
couple and go on ahead. To arrange a little "talk" with her boyfriend and find out how
much he knew. She'd certainly be safer with her own kind, not to mention with a doctor,
in her condition. Whatever that was. Seizures… Not only had he kidnapped a rich
man's girlfriend in Syl's place… He'd kidnapped a rich man's *epileptic* girlfriend.
At least Zack assumed she was epileptic. Though something about all of this started that
itching at the back of his brain all over again. The seizure…the milk… But that was
impossible. Wasn't it?
"I…"
Zack was just about to say yes when Max surprised him by answering yet again.
"No!" she cried out emphatically, suddenly grabbing his arm. "No hospitals," she
managed to say.
She was scared. Really scared. No less scared of Zack than she had been, of course. But
every fear her parents had ever implanted in her mind about strange doctors and revealing
her condition came flooding Max's mind as her seizure continued and panic set in. She
was suddenly desperate to avoid visiting a strange doctor, and so instinctively – somehow
– turned to Zack. Why, she didn't know. But she wasn't in the state of mind conducive
to considering the matter.
Mark and his wife looked concerned, but Zack, who'd been watching Max intently, had
suddenly made a decision.
"I think she'll be okay," he said, looking up. "Has these things all the time. She just
needs to take her pills and get a little rest," Zack continued, falling back into the role he'd
adopted before.
He didn't really know what was going on. But he knew desperation when he saw it, and
there it was – in Max's eyes.
And she'd turned to him. Him. She'd been running from Zack, yet now she was looking
to him as if for protection. From this nice old couple? She looked at them like they were
the e…
The enemy.
"Are you sure…"
"Please," Max whispered, so low only Zack could hear. Her grip on his arm tightened
and was considerable, he noted. 'I just want to go home,' Max thought. 'Take me
home.'
"We'll be fine," Zack said, hoping he sounded friendly and reassuring.
"What were you doing, running across the highway like that, anyhow?" Mark asked Max.
"Panicked," she claimed weakly. Her shakes seemed to be subsiding, just slightly, but
she was exhausted and barely keeping her eyes open.
"We could use a ride back to our van, though.. If you don't mind," Zack told the couple,
hoping that if he let them do *something* they would be satisfied and leave them be.
"Of course," the woman replied, both for herself and her husband, giving the man a
meaningful look. One that said not to ask more questions that didn't want to be
answered.
"Over this way," Mark said finally. Not quite looking pleased with the situation, but
complying anyhow. He motioned to his and his wife's vehicle and Zack scooped Max up
in his arms. Max's arms went around his neck and Zack looked down at her flushed face,
feeling something unfamiliar when he saw the look in her large, brown eyes.
Something like tenderness.
"No…doctors…" she repeated.
"No doctors," Zack agreed, not loud enough for the others to hear, as he and Max joined
them. "I'll take care of you," he promised. He meant it. And his arms tightened around
Max as the car started and began to move.
by Pari106
[Disclaimer in chapter one.]
Chapter Twenty….
Syl didn't push him away when Logan kissed her. She couldn't rightly say *why*…
Except maybe it was shock (?) that made her go still when she felt Logan's lips on her
own. The shock of being kissed at that particular moment, particularly because she was
being kissed by him, of all people. And being kissed so well.
Or maybe Syl didn't push Logan away for the simple reason that she couldn't.
Sure…logically, she knew that she *could*. But she certainly didn't feel like it, with
Logan's strong hands framing each side of her face; with her back suddenly pressed
against the wall of the bar behind them. With Logan suddenly pressed against her.
Maybe that's why she kissed him back.
Either way, it wasn't long before sanity returned. To Logan. Though it would have been
very unwise to remind Syl of such.
So Logan pulled back, blinking, as he realized what he'd just done. And acting as though
it hadn't happened because he hadn't yet realized why he'd done it.
"What the hell were you thinking?" he repeated from before.
Logan tried to express a little of the anger he'd felt earlier, though most of it had abated
the moment his lips had met Syl's. And he told himself that the disorientation he felt
instead came from the quick rush of adrenaline that had run through his system during his
and Syl's confrontation with those men. Not from what had to have been the most
exciting kiss of his life.
Syl hadn't quite caught on to all of this. She heard Logan speak and thought, 'What?'
"What?" she asked aloud, eyes half-lidded.
"Fighting six guys," Logan reminded her, eyebrows raised, as if she were insane for
having forgotten. "You could have gotten hurt."
Syl laughed. She realized later she probably shouldn't have, but she did.
"This is serious," Logan said, frowning.
"Well, excuse me," Syl replied, raising *her* eyebrows in a mimicry of Logan. "But I'm
not the one who'll spend the next week getting *real* intimate with an icepack, if you
know what I mean." Syl smiled. "They will."
Logan was not amused.
"Stop being so melodramatic," Syl said finally, starting to frown herself.
Her words were so reminiscent of the ones Max had spoken, before that time she'd gotten
herself shot, that it gave Logan the chills.
"Figures you'd say that," he mumbled to himself. Wondering why suddenly he *was*
just the slightest bit amused.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Syl demanded, putting her hands on her hips. And she
glared, voice rising. She suddenly remembered exactly where they were…and exactly
who she was talking to. "And why are we having this conversation? Do you even care
what happens to me?"
'Why the hell am I getting the 3rd degree for a little bar fight? Why the hell did you help
me get out of it? Why did you kiss me?'
"Of course I do," Logan replied instantly.
"Oh, really, why?" Syl challenged.
She saw Logan's face go blank and changed her mind. "On second thought, don't tell me
why." For all she knew, he was planning to sell her to ol' Lydecker and his cronies.
'No use turning in damaged goods, right?' she thought snidely.
She had no idea that Logan's face had gone blank at her question because he'd just been
asking himself the same thing.
"The point is," Syl continued, going back to their "conversation", "It's not like I started
it. I could have done without that little display of chauvinistic stupidity we just
witnessed, tonight of all nights."
"Well, you were the one who drove us here," Logan reminded her, again in that oh-so-
reasonable tone that made Syl grit her teeth. "You couldn't have chosen some place a
little more…clean to stop for a drink?"
Syl could have hit him.
"I'm sorry, some of us can't afford to sip our high-priced martinis in posh cabarets."
Logan crossed his arms.
"Besides," Syl went on, "I wasn't going for a drink." 'Why am I telling him this?' "I
had to make a phone call."
"A phone call?" Logan's voice rose in pitch. "And that couldn't have waited till the next
town?"
"No!"
"A phone call to who?"
This time it was Syl who crossed her arms.
"I'm not exactly obligated to tell you that, now am I?" Finally tired of this argument, she
pulled out her piece. 'It's been fun and all, but…' "I'm the one with the gun,
remember?" Funny how she'd forgotten that herself, faced with a small crowd of
potential threat. Yet with Logan she suddenly felt inclined to bring out the artillery.
"I'm the one in charge," Syl said confidently. Until Logan casually, almost off-handedly,
pushed the gun – and the out-stretched arm to which it was attached – to the side. Syl's
jaw dropped for the second time that night. But Logan didn't even notice as he spoke.
"I'm the one who just saved your ass…*remember*?"
Syl's eyes narrowed. "Oh, please! I could have handled that!"
"Yeah, by beating people up!"
"So?"
"So," Logan told her slowly, "that doesn't help anything." He enunciated each word as
though speaking to a child.
It was so frustrating to Syl she nearly pouted. "Funny…" she began. And Logan got the
privilege of seeing how pretty Syl can be in a pout…before she punched him. "Works
for me," she finished.
Logan, from his new vantage point on the ground, rubbing his jaw, looked up as Syl
stepped over him, hiding her gun once more as she crouched low to say: "Get back to the
car." She nudged him in the hip with the toe of her boot.
'That's gratitude for you,' Logan thought, remaining silent as he followed a very angry
Syl back to his SUV.
'And why do I get the feeling my night isn't about to get any better?'
**** ****
Standing in the middle of a kitchen that hadn't seen a mop probably since the day she'd
been born, with the nauseating smell of clam chowder and the drone of a dozen
bystanders surrounding everything, Max couldn't imagine a situation that could be much
worse.
Until a worse scenario presented itself…and Zack showed up.
Max heard him before she saw him. Running through the diner's front door and leaping
over the front counter, as onlookers gasped. Max, like a deer caught in the headlights,
froze as Zack stopped, just inside the kitchen.
And then she panicked. And as one often does, in a panic, she used the only weapon at
her disposal.
A clam chowder soaked sweater.
She threw it straight at Zack's head. And Zack, being unused to attacks made by
women's garments soaked in soup, ducked, eyes wide, as the sweater flew over him.
"What the hell?" he asked.
Little white droplets landed on his shoulders and in his hair.
But there was little time to worry about that as Max dashed out a back door. And the
chase was on.
Unfortunately, weak from her seizure and having been cramped in an air duct for nearly
half an hour, Max wasn't quite sure "dash" was the correct word for what she was doing.
But she did her best, which, weak or cramped or not, was considerable for a "human".
By the time Max heard Zack's boots hit the pavement she was already across the parking
lot. She headed in the direction opposite the motel and Zack's van, which led across a
highway and to a little gas station beyond. Max kept her eyes on it. Watching the traffic
around her only peripherally as she ran. She could feel her temples beginning to pound
anew and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach was growing; one suspiciously similar to
the start of another seizure.
Certainly she couldn't be having one again; so soon. But, then, that's what she'd thought
before.
Fear made Max run even faster…and Zack, as well. Not just in order to catch her, but to
keep her from getting herself killed sprinting across the four-laned highway. Horns
honked, and Zack cringed as the girl in front of him weaved through cars like she thought
she was invincible. Or like she wasn't thinking at all. 'Blue Lady…'
"Look out!" he yelled once, as Max came almost too close to a truck that swerved, barely
avoiding her. It seemed like forever before she reached the other side of the road.
And Zack, behind her, didn't realize that it was a seizure that caused her to crumple when
she did. A van passed between them, and a car just slightly behind it, and Zack couldn't
see whether or not she'd been hit. He only saw Max hit her knees, in the dirt at the side
of the pavement, then roll down the slope at that side, to the parking lot of the gas station
below. His genetically engineered heart leapt in his chest.
"Fuck…"
He didn't even look at the next vehicle that passed, right in front of him; just leapt over it
on his way. The passengers inside, and the driver, nearly crashed, craning their necks to
see what the hell had just flown over them.
Max was lying, crumpled on her side, when Zack reached her.
"What the fuck were you thinking!" he demanded, as he dropped to his knees, rolling
Max over. His voice was less threatening and more threatened than he would have liked,
and adrenaline was pulsing through him at the thought that he'd caused the woman with
him to get herself killed.
But then Zack saw that Max's eyes were open, and noticed the lack of blood in her
general vicinity.
He looked at her in surprise. 'What the hell?'
That's when the shaking started, so strong Max nearly came off the ground when it first
hit her.
"Whoa!"
Zack grabbed her, holding her down, and not really knowing what else he was supposed
to do.
"What's wrong?" he asked Max quickly. Max, staring up at him, didn't seem able to tell
him right away. But she tried to force words past her chattering teeth. Then…
"Hey! Stop that!"
Zack went tense when he heard the voice behind him. An elderly couple was walking
towards him from their car, parked a short distance away.
"What are you doing there?" the man called again, looking from Max to Zack and back.
'Great,' Zack thought. He tried to plaster on his best 'good 'ol boy' smile and turned to
the couple as they neared.
"Hello, sir. Ma'am," he said. "Everything's okay. My wife's just a little ill, that's all."
The couple stopped about a foot away; suspicion on the man's face, the woman cowering
behind him.
"Mark, let's just leave them alone," Zack heard the woman whisper to her husband.
All the same, "Mark" asked: "What's wrong?"
Good intentioned though he might be, Zack felt irritation at the stranger's intrusiveness,
and was about to answer his question, when Max answered it for him.
"Seizures," she managed weakly; shakily.
Zack looked at her sharply.
"Seizure?" the man asked. And his wife seemed to relax, just a little, as pity replaced
distrust as she looked at Max.
"Does she need to get to a hospital?" she asked. Zack would have smiled. These were
probably two of the last good Samaritans left in the Post-Pulse world…and he just had to
run into them when the last thing he needed was a couple of good Samaritans.
Again Zack began to speak. He'd originally planned to take Max home and decide how
much damage control was necessary. As much as he wasn't looking forward to what that
might very well entail. But now he wondered if he should rather turn her over to this
couple and go on ahead. To arrange a little "talk" with her boyfriend and find out how
much he knew. She'd certainly be safer with her own kind, not to mention with a doctor,
in her condition. Whatever that was. Seizures… Not only had he kidnapped a rich
man's girlfriend in Syl's place… He'd kidnapped a rich man's *epileptic* girlfriend.
At least Zack assumed she was epileptic. Though something about all of this started that
itching at the back of his brain all over again. The seizure…the milk… But that was
impossible. Wasn't it?
"I…"
Zack was just about to say yes when Max surprised him by answering yet again.
"No!" she cried out emphatically, suddenly grabbing his arm. "No hospitals," she
managed to say.
She was scared. Really scared. No less scared of Zack than she had been, of course. But
every fear her parents had ever implanted in her mind about strange doctors and revealing
her condition came flooding Max's mind as her seizure continued and panic set in. She
was suddenly desperate to avoid visiting a strange doctor, and so instinctively – somehow
– turned to Zack. Why, she didn't know. But she wasn't in the state of mind conducive
to considering the matter.
Mark and his wife looked concerned, but Zack, who'd been watching Max intently, had
suddenly made a decision.
"I think she'll be okay," he said, looking up. "Has these things all the time. She just
needs to take her pills and get a little rest," Zack continued, falling back into the role he'd
adopted before.
He didn't really know what was going on. But he knew desperation when he saw it, and
there it was – in Max's eyes.
And she'd turned to him. Him. She'd been running from Zack, yet now she was looking
to him as if for protection. From this nice old couple? She looked at them like they were
the e…
The enemy.
"Are you sure…"
"Please," Max whispered, so low only Zack could hear. Her grip on his arm tightened
and was considerable, he noted. 'I just want to go home,' Max thought. 'Take me
home.'
"We'll be fine," Zack said, hoping he sounded friendly and reassuring.
"What were you doing, running across the highway like that, anyhow?" Mark asked Max.
"Panicked," she claimed weakly. Her shakes seemed to be subsiding, just slightly, but
she was exhausted and barely keeping her eyes open.
"We could use a ride back to our van, though.. If you don't mind," Zack told the couple,
hoping that if he let them do *something* they would be satisfied and leave them be.
"Of course," the woman replied, both for herself and her husband, giving the man a
meaningful look. One that said not to ask more questions that didn't want to be
answered.
"Over this way," Mark said finally. Not quite looking pleased with the situation, but
complying anyhow. He motioned to his and his wife's vehicle and Zack scooped Max up
in his arms. Max's arms went around his neck and Zack looked down at her flushed face,
feeling something unfamiliar when he saw the look in her large, brown eyes.
Something like tenderness.
"No…doctors…" she repeated.
"No doctors," Zack agreed, not loud enough for the others to hear, as he and Max joined
them. "I'll take care of you," he promised. He meant it. And his arms tightened around
Max as the car started and began to move.