March 17, 2001

Saturday was not a day for goofing off for Buffy like it was for other people, but at least it afforded her a day to sleep in. It was already almost noon, but she wasn't the least bit concerned. "Hey, Mom!" she greeted as she entered the kitchen.

Joyce turned away from the open back door with a smile on her face. "Good morning, sweetie. You're up early."

Buffy shrugged as she walked to the cabinets for a bowl. "Not too much going on last night."

"How's the new monster?"

"Very, very quiet. Whatever this thing is, it only seems to hunt for about two hours out of every fifty. I swear, if everything I was looking for did that…well, I'd have an actual life for a change."

Joyce laughed. "No worries. I'm sure you'll be up to your ears in hordes of hobgoblins in no time at all." She turned back to look out the door.

"Gee, thanks, Mom. Always knew ya loved me." Buffy set the bowl down on the counter and wandered over to stand next to her mother. "What are you looking at?"

"The girls were getting on my nerves. I swear, if Giles doesn't let Max back in the Magic Box soon, I'm going to move out. Dawn is bad enough on her own on weekends. But with an already stir-crazy Max in the mix, I swear. The two of them started the morning off tag-team. I finally shoved them out into the backyard to get rid of the weeds."

Buffy peered out the door and listened to the friendly chatter through the screen. "Doesn't look much like weeding the lawn to me."

Joyce smiled. "I know. Listen."

They had indeed made a good attempt to weed the lawn…for about four minutes. After that point, Dawn decided that their time would be better spent making dandelion chains. Max just shrugged and gave in, mostly feeling like being anywhere but the Magic Box was a waste of her time. But there was only so much she could do on a computer, especially when she had no clue what she was looking for. Google didn't exactly search well on "mysterious disappearing spells."

So, instead, she was brutally sucking at splitting dandelion stems.

Dawn just giggled at her and gently took the dandelion from her. As she was working some teenage-girl mojo on the poor mutilated weed, she grew silent. Finally she took a deep breath and asked, "Max, you said…you said a while ago that I could ask you any questions I wanted. Did you really mean that?"

Max looked up at the girl, surprised. "Of course. I don't say things I don't mean."

"I thought that. I mean…"

"Dawn," Max interrupted. "What do you want to ask?"

Dawn twirled a dandelion in her fingers. "Buffy has told you about me, hasn't she?" It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yes, some. Do you care?"

"I guess not. I feel like I know you, that you're…like me, sorta. Sometimes. But, I was wondering…" She took another deep breath, to steady herself. "When you were sick, with your seizures. When you looked at me, that one time…what did you see?"

Max looked up from the weed she was shredding. "I saw you," she said.

The statement warmed Dawn more than she expected. But even then, she couldn't accept the simplicity of the response. "Max."

Max sighed, dropping the dandelion. She wasn't sure how she could convey the answer the girl required. "Dawn, when I'm sick like that, I see things…differently. I don't always get the images my brain shoots at me. I can tell you this: when I saw…you…I felt safe. And that's not something that happens very often. Whatever those monks made you doesn't matter. What matters is what you are, and that's something only you can make."

"Really? How do you know?"

"I see that every time I look in a mirror."

Dawn smiled, feeling like she had been given a special gift. She reached over and placed a wreath of dandelions on Max's head.

Max could only roll her eyes as the young girl giggled.

Inside the house, two women held each other as they saw peace descend on Dawn for the first time in a long time. "If we had said that, it would have fallen on deaf ears," Joyce said.

Buffy smiled. "We have said that. Well, not those words, but we've told her. Haven't we?"

Joyce shrugged. "It's probably just easier for her to hear from someone who is…like her. They are close in age after all. Metaphysically, at least. Dawn hasn't been in human form a year yet, and Max must have been born within the last few years."

Another person had also found a new peace. Logan had been fighting all day with his decision. Every time he thought he was sure, something inside him rebelled. He had to leave. There were people who depended on him in 2020 Seattle. Lives were at stake. He couldn't, in good conscience, choose one woman over the world. Max would understand. Eventually, she would.

He was sure of his decision.

But as he was coming back to the Summers' house after a few hours of hiding out, he heard voices in the backyard. He wheeled up to the back gate and stopped. He didn't hear a word from there. He was just focused on her.

Her hair was shining like fire from the sun hitting it, and she wore a crown of flowers. Her smile was crisp and clear. Feelings that he had been pushing back and hiding for so long, especially recently, flooded through him like a tidal wave.

Logan couldn't leave her. He'd tried, and failed, before. He didn't know why he would be able to now. He never could leave her.

Seattle would still be waiting for him in 2020. He turned, and began to plan for a new life. He picked up the cordless phone, and quickly called Giles from the living room. "Giles. Hey. Listen, I've thought about that whole thing you were telling me about. I think I'm gonna pass. Yeah. No, I'm going to wait a little longer for that. I know, Giles. I know. But trust me, what's a few more days going to hurt? Thanks. Appreciate all your help." After he hung up, he smiled. It wasn't as though anybody was listening, but it never hurt to be guarded.

He had already left again by the time Max had entered the house. As she headed upstairs for a shower, Buffy caught her by the arm. "Did you mean what you told her? Can you just say it'll be okay and let it all go, what's happened to you, just like that?"

Max casually turned and shrugged off the hand. "Didn't your momma teach you it's rude to listen to other people's conversations?"

"Oh, come off it. It's not like anything has ever gotten by you since the moment you dropped into our lives. Answer my question."

"Give me the English translation, first."

Buffy rolled her eyes. "What Manticore did to you, can you just ignore it, and let it go?"

"I'm going to need to be a lot less sober before I answer." Max turned, and was once again stopped by Buffy's grip. She raised an eyebrow. "You looking to lose a hand today?"

"Got time for a drink tonight?"

"Don't you need to save the world or something from undead evil vampire demon things?"

Buffy waved that away. "Vampires are demons so that's rather redundant. They…never mind. The world will be fine tonight. Whatever this new thing we have around here is, it seems to be keeping the rest of the undead evil at bay. Tonight?"

"Fine. You bring the booze."

"Fine."

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"Spill it."

"Spill what?"

"Less of your scotch, for one. I don't think my carpet appreciates it much." Buffy sighed. "You'd think someone like you could hold your liquor better… literally."

Max looked up from her place on the floor. It had taken a bottle and a half, but a nice slow burn had taken up residence in her gut. "You don't think alcohol affects my balance much?"

Buffy rolled over on the bed until her head hung over the edge. She had drunk only about a quarter of a glass, just enough to be "sociable." She really wanted to be sober for this conversation, and if she had to get Max completely toasted to get her to talk, so be it. Even if it took five more bottles. "I don't think much affects your balance, even 80 proof. So why don't you talk now while you're still sober?"

"I'm not sober."

"Sure you are. You're just pretending not to be. That way, if necessary, you can tell me to put anything you say to the drunken ramblings of a madwoman. I promise if you start now, when you're done, I'll help you drink to forget." The blonde woman took a small sip and waited patiently.

Max stood slowly and looked at Buffy. "Problem is I don't forget much. I was designed not to. Designed." Max got up and began to wander around the room, looking at everything and nothing. She examined the pattern on the wallpaper, smudges on the window.

Buffy watched patiently as Max finally walked over to her desk and picked up a picture of Dawn and Buffy as young children, holding hands and laughing at the beautiful day. "That was the summer Dawn decided 'Ring-Around-the-Rosie' was the greatest game ever invented in the history of mankind. She was three at the time, and every time I played it with her, she would get this giddy smile." Buffy frowned as a thought occurred to her. "It's been a long time since I've seen that smile."

Max turned. There was a vacant look in her eyes, one that Buffy noticed appeared when she was thinking of the past. "Soon after we escaped, I ended up at a park. I saw so many children there. I thought that maybe it was some sort of training field for Outside children. Somewhere I could belong. But then I heard that poem…"

"What poem?" Buffy asked.

"Ring-Around-the-Rosie. It terrified me so much that I ran. I didn't go back to a park for years after." She began to set the picture back on the desk, then changed her mind and held on to it.

Buffy's jaw was slack with disbelief. A self-proclaimed trained killing machine frightened by words. "What's so scary about that?"

Max slowly walked over to the window, staring off into the night. "'Ring around the rosie. A pocket full of posies.'" Max looked back over her shoulder towards the bed where Buffy was now sitting rigidly, completely attentive to what would come. As if she knew… "Krit had a pocket full of posies, or whatever. Some flower from the forest we trained in. They were this bright… violet… vivid color. We knew what purple was, of course, but it was something that didn't exist in our world. All we had were muted colors – grays, olive greens, browns, and dull whites. Nothing to give us a sense of, well, anything. So Krit had picked as many as he could and stuffed his pockets with them." She paused, and waited, looking expectant.

A few long seconds passed before Buffy realized that Max wouldn't continue unless she asked. "So… what happened?"

"One of the guards at the barracks saw them. Of course." Max smiled a little. "Krit was always the worst at hiding anything." The smile fell away. "The guards tried to take them. The posies."

"Why?" Buffy wondered.

"Contraband. Non military or supportive materials," was the succinct answer.

"Oh."

Max shrugged. "Krit wouldn't let go. The guard smashed his face with the butt of a rifle. He still wouldn't drop the damn things! They were his. He had found them! No matter what, the guards couldn't open his grip."

"Must have been somewhat like yours," Buffy said softly.

Max was lost in the memories now, staring at something that couldn't be seen. "Petals were falling. The leaves were shredded. And he still wouldn't let go. They finally had to beat him unconscious to open his hand. He spent a week in solitary. By the time he got out, all the flowers were gone. And the few times we saw purple after that, Krit would…well, let's just say he didn't handle it."

She shook off the memory. "What do you do when you face fear every day of your life? We couldn't be afraid of drills, trainings, beatings. So we became afraid of colors, things. Transference. Jondy was afraid of slamming doors instead of munitions drills. Fish frightened Syl. We all had our unusual fears. The psychologists didn't really care. As long as we could handle bullets and land mines, nothing else mattered." Max slowly sat on the edge of the bed next to Buffy.

"What are your fears?"

Max smiled. The question had been inevitable. "You know. Guns. School."

Buffy almost grinned at the swift evasion. "I meant then. You said you all have your fears."

"Ravens," came the soft reply. Then a shrug. "That answer your question? The first one?"

It was Buffy's turn to frown. "Actually, I feel that you've walked completely around it and didn't answer a thing. You told Dawn that it could be simple to move beyond 'being made.' But that was your life. Have you really moved beyond it all? From what I know of you, you haven't," she felt compelled to point out.

"That's not the point."

"It isn't?"

"Not at all." Max looked at Buffy for a long minute before telling her. "Before we escaped, Jack and Eva and others died before they could have a chance to be free, or while taking that chance. Out of the original 48, only twelve made it out. A quarter of the only family I'd ever known. Of those twelve, I've only ever seen four, and those all in the past year. Brin, who was recaptured and reprogrammed, now Manticore loyal. Tinga was recaptured right before I came here. Probably like Brin now. Zack was recaptured, and tortured before he escaped again. And Ben…" Max trailed off as tears threatened to form. She swallowed, blinked them back quickly, and continued. "Ben's dead. And I'm here."

Buffy could feel the pain radiating off the younger woman. "I'm sor…"

"Don't." Max snapped out, resuming her place on the floor. "I don't need your pity. What I'm trying to tell you is that above anything else that has happened or will happen, you have to hold onto the things that can never be taken away from you. Beyond any of it, you are family. You made that as much as whoever made her did. Maybe even more so."

Buffy was silent for a long time as she pondered that. "I guess I've always known that, as much as I wig about the whole situation. I just worry that one day I'll wake up, and the whole mess of our lives that we've pieced together with spit and hope has shattered. That's something that really could happen if god-bitch Glory ever starts doing some more Dawn-hunting again. I'm not sure what I would do if that ever happens. I think…" She stopped as she realized that she wasn't getting a response. She leaned over the side of the bed.

Max was sound asleep on the floor.

Buffy sighed. "She sleeps." She stood up unsteadily and pulled an extra blanket down from the bed to cover Max. "One more person in this screwed up town taken care of. When all is said and done, who takes care of the Slayer?" She turned out the light, teetered back to her bed, and quickly fell asleep.

Max opened her eyes, smiled slightly, and pulled the blanket closer.

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Paradise Lost: Chapter 8 - March 18, 2001 coming April 16