Never Believed in Fate

Set after Hello Goodbye, Logan ponders what he should have known from that start. Logan POV.

Edited 26/11/05

I never believed in fate, inevitability. We make our own fate that's what I believed. It was the code I lived by my whole life. We have the ability to change things, to make them better if we try, we're not just pawns in some greater game.

It's what caused me to break away from my family. Caused me to be labelled the 'black sheep', because I always believed that we had a choice, a decision to make. We aren't pulled helplessly along by the tides of life, our decisions define who we are, not our blood, not our genes. But I wonder, does that apply to genetically engineered super soldiers?

Time was I would have said 'no'; they have a choice, the same as the rest of us. But that was just when I knew Max. She was alone, cut off from her kind, and she made that choice, so me and her had a chance, right?

Now I wonder if that was ever true, or if the whole time she was just subconsciously waiting for him to turn up, the 'smart' Alec, the thorn in her side from day one. I should have known something was up when all she could talk about was him, even if it was just to complain about his womanising ways. But now I wonder, did it bother her that he was with others; was I just a shoulder to cry on?

Was I just blind to something I didn't want to see? Or did I recognise it from the start? Kindred spirits, soul mates, two individuals damaged by life, and clinging to each other for comfort. I know what they'd say if they could hear me now, they'd laugh. Manticore soldiers don't believe in 'phoney sentimentality', and I'm not fool enough to believe that they are any different, but its there. I know it, maybe I've always known, maybe that's why I pushed him away even as I subconsciously pushed them together.

If I ever had any doubts on the subject, seeing them together this morning wiped them out. They fit together perfectly, and she smiled, the first time I have really seen her smile in months, and it was directed towards him. She never smiled at me like that, truly happy, truly open, just being, no armour, no pretences just truth. A look like that at another man can cut out your heart, I never knew that anything could hurt that much, but she's happy, and that's good right? I wish I could be happy for her.

Fate, maybe it was always going to happen, she was always going to end up with him, and I never stood a chance. Just the stand in for the lead player, the warm up act for the show. Does that make it easier or harder, knowing that I never had a chance with a woman I loved more than life?

I'm not her kind, I never will be, I know that. I thought I could accept that back when it was just her and me, but then things had to get screwed up. Her siblings came back, and they pulled her out of my world for a while, she always came back, but always more distant than she had been before. I knew then that I could never understand, not really, I could try, but in the end the shadow of Manticore always loomed.

I will never understand what she is. It never mattered to me before, but it does now, because he gets it, and not just the Manticore stuff. He gets it, the whole package, Jam Pony, Crash, all the places I never really fit in he has been accepted without question, her other half, her right hand. Whether she realised it or not, always there, always watching her back in a way I never could. Two of a kind, slinking in the shadows doing jobs for 'Eyes Only', so finely attuned to each other's movements that they instinctively knew when the other needed back up. That should have been my tip off right there. Who the hell is that in tune with a partner in crime if there is nothing there? I used to think that we could have that kind of relationship, but I was wrong. I'm not like her, I never will be, I'm only human, and he… isn't.

Inevitability. I should have seen that from the start, slouching towards inevitability. Fate, all the signs were there, her perfect match, and it wasn't me. Even Manticore recognised it, made them breeding partners. I wonder, did it start then, this downward spiral which can lead to only one conclusion? Destiny, was it there all along?

Just this weird drabble about Logan realising Max and Alec are meant to be, as he really should have done, my muse seized me and I couldn't resist, so this is what you get, wrote it in less than an hour so it's probably crap, but I figured I might as well post, to see if I can get some feed back, so you know the drill, review, tell me what you think, has my mind taken a detour to the looney bin or did this actually make a twisted kind of sense. Your opinion really would help! Thanks!
XXX