Summary: It's Mother's Day and Max just wants to be left alone. The world has other plans for her, however, and it takes a man that understands to cheer her up. S1.
Disclaimer: I don't own it. So sue me. But not really please. :)
A/N: Even though I had a very enjoyable Mother's Day (my mother loved her gift), I figured that a certain character in a certain futuristic world wouldn't be having one. Ha. I sound insane like I think the characters are real. Cool.
Max was in the middle of toweling off her hair when the phone rang. She straightened and wrapped the towel around her head while looking at the phone quizzically. Who would be calling? Original Cindy was with her mother. Kendra was with her entire family. Herbal and "his woman" had gone to Portland to visit his mother. Hell, even Sketchy had gone to visit his mother. And it certainly wasn't Normal because he knew very well that Max wouldn't do overtime. Then again, it might offer a distraction from the lonely day...
She picked up the phone, ready to end the mini-mystery of who had bothered to call. "Yeah?"
"Hey."
Of course. The only other person in her world that wouldn't be celebrating the joys of their mother's uterus. She smiled into the receiver. "Hey yourself."
"I thought you might like to come over for something to eat."
Max thought on that. Spending the rest of the day with Logan and his food wouldn't have been the worst thing for her to do... but then, she wasn't really in the mood to pretend to be okay. She knew he would understand, or at the very best try to pretend to understand so she would feel all right, but she didn't want to put extra pressure on him to do the same. It was hard enough, wasn't it?
"I'd love to, but Normal's got me on overtime today. I would but I need the cash." She lied. She told herself that it was the right thing and that it would be easier for everyone involved if they just wallowed separately.
"Oh. All right." She could hear the disappointment in his voice and hated herself for putting it there. "Well, I guess I'll see you later then."
"Count on it." She murmured. She heard him mutter a good-bye then the dial tone filled her ear. Sighing, she put the phone down and walked back into the bathroom.
She grabbed the horrible mixture of baking soda and peppermint oil that Kendra had taught her to concoct and dipped the bristles of her toothbrush into it. She watched herself in the mirror as she brushed.
Circular motions... She thought idly. Circular motions... kind of like my life, one big circular motion of crap. It always comes back. Mother's Day. What a wonderful day. She's out there somewhere, some place... hopefully, anyway. Circular motions... it's all crap.
She finished brushing her teeth and moved into the bedroom. Still deep in Mother's Day loathing, she reached into her closet and grabbed whatever first met her hands: a navy sweater and a pair of well-worn jeans. She threw the towel off her head and reached for the brush. Satisfied after just a few runs of the brush through her hair, she tossed it back to where it lay before and quickly changed into the clothes she had grabbed for herself.
It hadn't taken her long to decide that she needed to be out of the apartment and maybe take a walk to clear her head. Things were too confusing, plus she couldn't take the picture of Original Cindy and her mother that was hanging on the fridge, their smiling faces mocking her. She had a better chance of forgetting wandering the streets. She walked past people who were obviously worse off than she was and she couldn't help but wonder if they had mothers somewhere that cared about them, hoped they came back to the cardboard box safe and sound that night.
She took a detour through the park that she and Logan visited together when they felt the urge to just get out. There weren't many people around and she liked that, but she didn't like that she probably knew where the rest were. They were probably at home or out, but they were with family. With mothers. Things she didn't have that she pretended didn't bother her but secretly it did. It bothered her a lot. She took care to ignore the young mother and her two perfect little girls that were approaching her.
She watched the little girl look up to her mother with such love in her eyes that it made her psychically ill. And when the mother looked back at the child, smiling, her eyes said plainly, "I'd die for you, little one, but I'd rather read you a bedtime story." Max wanted to run off the path and wretch into the bushes until she was empty of everything. Maybe Manticore had a bright idea with the "no emotions" way of life. She didn't remember being miserable in such a way when all she had to worry about was live ordinance drills.
But then she never had been anything in Manticore, except scared. She decided that Manticore was definitely all wrong and never had any bright ideas. After all, it was because of Manticore that she didn't have a mother, wasn't it? If her mother hadn't been involved with the project and was blissfully unaware of it, then the point when she realized that she did want Max, she did want to love her... she could have. She could have and it killed Max a little. She could have had what those smiling little girls had. She was jealous.
She stopped and turned around to take a last look at the happy mother and her happy children. They were quickly becoming nothing more than unrecognizable blurs in the horizon, but that didn't stop her. She watched them walk happily off together and it hurt. She sighed and began cutting through the middle of the park, now intent on a familiar destination. She passed some more people, but ignored them as best she could. If she just imagined them as she saw herself it didn't bother her so much. She had to resist breaking out into a run when she heard a little boy scream gleefully for his mother to join him on the swings.
She reached Fogle Towers in record time. She breezed by the doorman without a word. She knew what he was thinking. She knew what all the people at work in the building were thinking. "My break can't come soon enough. I still have to call my mother."
It didn't take her long at all to reach Logan's door. She paused before it, unsure of what to tell him. Normal let her off early? Normal called her and told her to forget coming in? Normal called and said that he was too busy having a mother to bother unlocking Jam Pony so she could work? She had killed Normal? The excuses swirled in her brain as she lifted her hand and knocked. When he didn't answer, her heart fell. Maybe he had gone out to forget his Mother's Days woes with someone who wasn't her. That was another thing that killed her.
She wasn't sure how long she was standing in front of the door, but she knew it had been a very long time. She shook her head, reminding herself that it wasn't a good thing to go into a trance in front of Logan's front door. He had to get in after all, didn't he?
"Max?"
She turned at the sound of her name and found Logan wheeling himself toward her. She tried to smile at him but couldn't even manage it. She couldn't even manage a simple hello. She just moved aside so Logan could unlock the door then followed him inside.
"I thought you had work." He said and went to the living room. She followed.
"I lied." She told him blandly. She shrugged off her coat and slumped onto the couch. "I lied because I'm a bad person."
He watched her bury her face in her hands and didn't know what to say. He took off his jacket and swallowed the lump in his throat, then wheeled over next to her. He reached out and pushed a few tangles of hair away from her face. His voice was low and quiet as he told her, "You're not a bad person."
Max raised her head shakily and looked into Logan's eyes. She was on the verge of tears and normally would want to hide that fact from him, but at the moment she just didn't care. Her voice was small. "Then why didn't she want me?"
"Who?"
"My mother." She answered and buried her face in her hands again. Her words became muffled. "She didn't want me, not really."
Logan gently pulled her hands away from her face and put his index finger under her chin, then lifted it so she would have to look at him. His face was serious for a moment, then he gave a small smile. "She did want you. You told me that Hannah told you that she did want you. Max, who could not want you?"
She sat for a moment and just stared at Logan. Finally, she said, "You're sweet, but a liar."
"Max," He kept his face even. "Your mother didn't realize what she was doing when she first got into it, but then she realized what she was giving up. She couldn't do anything after the fact, they made sure of that. Believe me, just because someone leaves doesn't mean they don't want or love you. It was just out of their hands."
She realized that Logan was not just talking about her mother. It was almost as if he was trying to reassure himself that he couldn't help what happened to his mother and neither could she. It was out of everyone's hands. Max gave a smile and placed her hand over Logan's.
It's out of everyone's hands.
"You know what?" She asked.
"What?"
She managed a full fledged grin. "Mother's Day sucks."
The End.