Soul One
by intodust
Disclaimer: Dark Angel belongs to 20th Century Fox and Cameron/Eglee Productions. The quotation in the summary comes from Robert Pirsig and is both longer and more valuable in its entirety.
She watches as his chest erupts like flame, needles of blood arching outwards, and she can't move. She knows it's a dream, but that doesn't make a difference as she stands before him and watches him die, watches as dark shapes materialize from the shadows and drag her away, camouflage-clad demons with M16s instead of pitchforks. His eyes are the last thing she sees, all the shades of winter and spring, and she feels them watching her for the rest of her life. She drowns in an expanding ocean of that color, hits the bottom and realizes that she's miles away from the bay.
Max wakes to snow in Seattle. She disentangles herself from unnecessarily heavy blankets, peels sweat-damp sheets from her skin and dresses quickly. She stands at the window, wraps her hands around a mug of bad coffee. She stole the mug from him, though he says he gave it to her, and she had to scrape the bottom of the tin to get enough grounds. She watches the flurries come down, drifting soft and white against a gray sky, and she's late for work for the second time this week.
She arrives at his apartment sometime later, after hours of packages and unseasonably cold weather. She breaks in - though it's not really breaking in if he's expecting her - picks the lock, anyway, and shakes water from her hair. The snow's melting, not meant to last, and the streets are already covered in water and slush. She crosses her arms, feels beads of what's technically liquid ice sliding past her collar, down the back of her shirt, and hears him push away from the computer. "It's me," she says when he's close enough to see that for himself. She turns around, leans against the thick windowframe and her jacket presses water against the fabric of her shirt.
"It's you," Logan agrees. He frowns at her. "You're dripping."
"Melting," she corrects.
"You want a towel?" She's not sure if he's more concerned about the condition of the floorboards or the fact that she looks more like a drowned cat than one of Jam Pony's finest. Considering that both she and the floorboards will survive, she thinks, it's probably fifty/fifty.
"I'll live." She waits for him to tell her why he called, what he needs. Not that she minds coming over, taking a break, but his message was shaded with that particular shade of urgency, the one she associates with save-the-world missions and scraping blackened sauce from pans after a broken date. She wonders if it's an experience he's had; she, at least, gives him advance notice.
He hums in agreement or deference, looks past her to the window. "It snowed," he says, sounding surprised.
"I noticed that," she says, one corner of her mouth twitching upwards. He shrugs, turns away. She listens to the hush-whisper of rubber across the floor and follows him into his office. The frosted panes of the walls are the color of melting snow, the slush on the streets. She doesn't mention this as she leans against the silver edge closest to her. He returns to his desk, shuffles some papers. She wonders if he's looking for anything in particular or if he's putting on a show. She watches with amusement, either way, and then she remembers that she's on a schedule. "You called," she reminds him.
"Yeah, I did," he says. He meets her eyes and she realizes with a jolt that they're the exact shade she saw in her dream. Somehow she'd thought she'd gotten that wrong. "You believe in ghosts?"
"Isn't it a little late for Halloween?" she asks. He tilts his head to the side, as much agreement as she's going to get. She hasn't answered his question, and she won't. "Why?"
"Because," he says, and he turns his back to her as he speaks. She wonders if she would have trouble hearing him if she didn't have superpowers. She wonders if he would turn his back to her if she didn't. "One of my informants thinks he's seen one."
She raises her eyebrows and wonders if he's asking her to go ghost-hunting with him. She can think of worse ways to spend an evening. "Eyes Only does ghostbusting now?"
"Only when said ghost is supposed to be Darryl Halovich." He doesn't, of course, tell her who Darryl Halovich is, but she's used to it. It's a game; she lets him win and then she kicks his ass at chess. Quid pro quo.
She plays along this time, too, adds this to the mental ledger that is What They Owe Each Other. At the moment, it's more like What He Owes Her and she's looking forward to collecting on the debts. "Darryl Halovich?"
"He ran for mayor in what was arguably the last free election," he says. He presses a button on the keyboard and brings up a full-screen photo. He was okay-looking, she decides, for a politician. "Disappeared before the actual election took place."
"So, what, you think he's returned from the dead for vengeance?"
"No, I think he didn't die," he says. "And I wanna know what happened."
"Thirst for knowledge's a good thing," she says. "Good for you, according to Normal."
He looks at her with exasperation. She decides it's better than downright annoyance, and besides, he'd get bored if everything went his way all the time. "You doing anything tonight?"
At least he's asking before he rearranges her schedule. She shrugs. "Not every day a girl gets the chance to find a ghost."
"That a no?" he asks.
She nods once, a slow movement of muscle beneath skin. "I'll swing by once it gets dark," she says. "No fun in hunting ghosts in broad daylight."
He rolls his eyes, does his best to look stern. It would work better if he weren't fighting a grin. "Right," he says. "No fun."
She pushes away from the wall, rolls her shoulders. Her jacket's mostly dry and her hair swings in her face as she turns to leave, a wave of black. She shakes it out of the way, calls over her shoulder. "See ya."
"Later," he returns. He's typing, a clatter of depression and release, by the time she reaches the couch and she's at the door by the time he adds (and he's not shouting, which means he knows she's still inside, which means he's paying attention), "Stay dry . . ." Which is the daily-life equivalent of "be careful," and her smile doesn't fade until she reaches Jam Pony and Normal tells her that due to the extreme and unexpected meteorological conditions, she's working an extra hour.
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To be continued, in theory.