Disclaimer: As everyone knows by now, no rights, ownership or other interest here in Dark Angel or its characters; no profits made from this fic. I would if I could, people!

A/N: This is written in response to a challenge posted on the Dark Angel Reflections board by Reilynn, as follows: "Create an episode, season one style, that writes in a small part for August Weatherly, Michael Weatherly's son (born 10/01/1996). Remember, he is going to look like Logan."

This offering takes place in my S1-style AU, a good handful of weeks after the "Meow" kiss, but without Zack arriving to screw things up, let alone the rest of the resulting mess. In my AU, after the kiss comes... M/L!

Noon

Jealousy was still a new emotion for Max, and she found she really didn't like anything about it. At all.

She'd managed to avoid it all these years, never having found anyone who'd gotten past scratching an itch for her when she was in Heat; never having had a relationship with any guy about whom she cared enough to notice if there were other women in his life; never having had reason to be jealous of anyone in any other kind of relationship, because friends were friends whether they had ten other friends or one hundred...

But then she met Logan Cale, and yet again everything was different, where he was concerned...

She'd felt her first flicker of it when she learned he had an ex-wife, and felt it move her to ask Bling about her and to offer snide comments to Logan about Valerie, upon seeing the beautiful redhead with the killer legs ... she felt it all over again seeing him all sparkly and animated for Daphne, when he spent the evening in laughing conversation with the willowy blonde...

But this was different...

And whack. This wasn't like her... but she'd stewed and stared and asked Original Cindy what she thought...

It was all so innocent: Original Cindy and Max each had a run to Sector 2 before lunch. It was a mild day of summer sun and they wanted to enjoy it, so agreed to finish their deliveries and meet at the park by the old, downtown library for their brown-bag sandwiches and some girl talk. Max had gotten there first and, as she waited for Cindy, walked along the park's worn path toward the play area, watching others out in the sunshine. An elderly couple was there ... a man walking a large dog ... a mother and child...

Max neared the play area, looking back to see the boy and his mother again. Something in the child caught her eye ... there was something in his stance, in the way he was built and the way he moved ... something almost familiar in the way he popped up suddenly from the crouch where he'd been working in the sand ... He ran over to his mother and spoke to her in excitement, pulling her near to his project. As he turned back toward his goal, his face lifted enough that Max could see...

It couldn't be. The child was a dead ringer for Logan...

She could see it, even in the childish face... even more, it was as if the photos she'd seen of Logan as a small boy had come to life. The long legs and already artistic hands gave him away, even now, not only in the way he looked but in the way he used his fingers at play, his stance and how his muscles and limbs interacted to respond, just so...

"...Max" She turned quickly to see Cindy close by, calling her again. "What's wrong, Boo? You look like you've seen a ghost..."

She wavered a moment, to nod toward the child across the grass from them. "Look at him," he urged her friend. "Who does he look like?" she demanded. Maybe if Cindy didn't see it, it would all just have been her imagination...

"Damn..." Cindy breathed. "He looks like a little Logan."

Max's heart sank, as they'd both seen it... "Gotta be a coincidence..." she tried, half- heartedly. They both stood by as the boy ran over to the monkey bars and, with a fierce whoop, jumped up to play, fighting off imaginary foes and clamoring to the top...

Cindy glanced over to Max, seeing the brown eyes taking it all in, finding it hard to believe there wasn't a connection. "You did say he was married before..." she tried, slowly.

"But they didn't have kids...at least, I think they didn't. And anyway, the woman with him isn't Valerie..."

"Yeah, Boo ... but even Hot Boy is a dog of the three-legged variety, and young ones don't necessarily wait til the ink's dry on the license, you know what I'm sayin'? Or maybe mom's not mom, but a friend or babysitter..." Cindy shrugged, knowing it wasn't what Max wanted to hear, but feeling protective for her friend, who certainly would have a right to know if Logan had sown his seed so recently. "All I know is, you put spikey hair on that little boy and you got miniature Logan Cale, for sure."

"There's got to be some other explanation," Max frowned, running the numbers. "What are the odds, stumbling on him like this? Or maybe, he's a relative's kid – there are a fair number of Cales around this city, remember." She snorted, humorlessly, at the thought, muttering "Talk about your three-legged types..."

Original Cindy narrowed her eyes at Max, who was clearly unsettled. "So–" she challenged. "You gonna ask him?'

Max's thoughts were turning, vainly ... and the child hopped off the monkey bars and bent down to study something in the grass, looking for all the world like Logan when he stared at data he was trying to unravel... " I don't know," she ached.

Cindy looked at her for all of about ten seconds, then said, "Well, I do. And within the hour, if I know my boo."

"It's not like that..." Max brows knit...

"At least you're not still saying you're not like that," Original Cindy's grin quirked. "Would it bother you, to know Logan's a papa?"

"No. I don't know. I..." she admitted, "I gotta go."

"See?" Cindy grinned, more to herself than to Max, who was already pushing the pedals back down the alley toward Sector 9 and an answer she wasn't sure she wanted to hear. "Good luck, Boo..." she murmured after the disappearing figure...

Thirteen minutes later.

"Max, hi." Head raising at the sound of her steps coming into his hallway, Logan's clear green eyes looked up innocently to the face he loved as it appeared in his doorway, clearly pleased at the unexpected visit. "Did you get a free lunch hour?"

"No, not really, I just..." She was more rattled than she wanted to be, and he was seeing through her. At the shift in his expression from pleasure to concerned curiosity, she decided not to even try a feint, but to go right to the heart of things...

"Logan, would you tell me if you had kids?"

He reacted to the abrupt question just as abruptly, eyebrows high in surprise. "Yeah – I guess." He leaned back in his chair, not sure what to make of the question. "Why?"

"So – that means you don't..."

"What? Have kids? No..." He laughed, softly, assuring her. "Why?" He repeated, his look more curious now. "Who said I did?"

"No one; I just..." Suddenly she felt foolish, this newly- found jealousy thing still turning her inside out. She dropped her eyes and shrugged, temporizing, "I was just thinking, ya know? And... when I was..." Her eyes lifted back to his, and she confessed, 'there was this little boy – maybe five or six – he was in the park at the library and he just looked, I don't know, he was the spitting image of those pictures you have, of when you were little..."

"The poor kid," Logan teased, eyes twinkling with the thought that such a discovery had Max unhinged – just for him. Max feeling in any way possessive about him was something he'd never let himself believe possible, for many long months...

She colored, and shrugged again. "Kinda silly, I guess..."

"Not really. Actually, it's nice to have you worried about it..." he dared to admit, offering his hand to her, palm up.

Her smile in return grew slowly, widened in affection, and she stretched her fingers across his, slipping her hand in his and relaxing out of her earlier reaction. "Of course, if it turns out there's any truth to this scenario..." she drawled.

"You'll kick my ass?" He nodded, dutifully, in mock gravity.

"That will only be the start..." she laughed. "For the secret, and the fibbing, and for being a dog..."

"When was I a dog?" he asked, all innocent surprise.

"If you ask Original Cindy, from conception..." She beamed, and leaned over to plant a kiss on his spiky hair. "Gotta blaze or Normal will make my life more hell than usual. See you tonight?"

"Dinner at seven?"

"I thought you'd never ask." She bounced out of the penthouse, her world restored. A coincidence, after all...

Two days later.

"I saw that boy again today, Logan, out playing in the park over by the library. Maybe they've just moved into the area..."

"Mmmm." Logan noted. There were four of them in Logan's kitchen: Bennett and Marianne had finally come over for a long-promised dinner, and as Max handed plates and silverware to Marianne at her offer to help, Logan added the final touches to the salad he'd prepared.

"Or maybe he's there more often, now that school's out." Max mused. Logan tried to be subtle but managed a glance. Max had mentioned this child a couple times since she'd first seen him, but seemed to believe him in his denial that there was any connection ... so what was her interest? Was it the resemblance, or just the thought of his having a child? Maybe she was thinking of children of her own, someday...

"What boy?" Marianne asked.

"Oh, there's a boy, about five years old, I saw on a run the other day. He looks so much like Logan I just stood and watched him, for a while. And a couple times, the way he moved, his attitude, even... a child of Logan's couldn't look more like him..."

Logan took it all with a soft smile, not looking up – but Bennett's eyes darted up to his cousin's quickly, open wide. Suddenly aware of his reaction he glanced to the women, who didn't seem to notice his gape. Looking back to Logan, he saw that his cousin apparently had completely forgotten it all – hard to believe, considering Logan's crackerjack memory for just about everything else – but no one, not even Logan Cale, was that good an actor. Was it possible he just didn't remember? Did he just believe the boy couldn't be his son? Certainly the whole thing had been more memorable for the younger cousin. But he would have thought it was a memorable enough experience for anyone to recall. It certainly had been, for him ... he'd even had his own misgivings about precisely this scenario. How could Logan have not?

It took all his patience to wait them out, to wait until the women both happened to leave the kitchen at the same time, and he spun on his cousin as he interrupted Logan's words...

"Logan, the boy! He could be your son!"

The look Logan gave him cleared up any remaining question – Logan clearly had no idea what Bennett was talking about. He looked completely baffled at first – but then, his expression shifted into a more knowing, reassuring look. "Nah, always had protection – you of all people know how much of a hassle it can be to be a Cale; I didn't want any child to have to face that and be a surprise, as well." Case closed, he thought. "Just a coincidence, Bennett."

Bennett shook his head in frustration; Logan still didn't get it. "But a child of donor sperm wouldn't be a surprise to his parents, would he?" he whispered, hurriedly. "At least not his legal parents. His biological father, on the other hand – especially if he forgot about the whole thing – might have quite a jolt."

The puzzled look in Logan's eyes finally shifted to understanding – and dread – and his eyes and mouth slowly opened in parallel surprise. "The sperm bank?' At Bennett's slow, silent nod, Logan sputtered, "No way. They would have lost everything in the Pulse, with power outage; they couldn't have kept..."

"Then you explain why there's a kid out there who Max says looks just like you!"

"Coincidence; it's impossible that..." Logan cut off with guilty immediacy when he saw Max walk in. Meeting her eyes only briefly before he had to break their gaze, he went back to fussing with the vegetables and sauce he was finishing, nearly scorching them with the news – and Max looked at him, closely. From her expression, Logan knew she'd guessed something was up...

"What coincidence?" She asked Logan sweetly, as Marianne came back in the kitchen behind her. Max's head was tipped in question and her hip cocked to the side, eyes steady and looking into his –all belying the honey sound of her voice. Logan squirmed. Max got her confirmation...

But waited... and raised her eyebrows, asking...

"Oh, ah..." Logan stammered, unlike him. This new closeness and trust with Max made it remarkably difficult to spin stories to throw her off, he was learning...

"The fact that the boy looks like him," Bennett piped up, boldly, to Logan's surprise. "You know, Logan was mighty popular with the ladies, and I admit, I asked him about it. But he said he was always careful about that, so no unhappy surprises." Bennett saw that Max was still listening, and realized that he might be getting away with this. "Let's face it, Max–you know what my father would have done, if Logan ever fathered a child 'unofficially' –make life hell for Logan, and pay off the mother to relocate, sign an agreement to never establish paternity, and generally do all the oafish things that people with money do when their boys get out of line. Logan's too much of a gentleman to let all that happen, to anyone." Bennett met Max's eyes with the full, confident bearing of one who had made a completely truthful statement, and she relented a little, looking back to Logan as he stared up at his cousin in some remaining amazement. Shy Bennett, leaping in to save the day?

It appeared to have worked, the admission that they'd discussed something as potentially embarrassing as Logan's randier past: Max finally shrugged, threw Logan a mildly accusative look for his unspecified past, and went back to get the remaining plates to take out to the dining room. Logan looked back to the vegetables as Marianne teased Bennett confidently about Jonas having to do something along those lines for him; clearly she was certain about the unlikelihood of Bennett causing such a problem – and Logan was as certain at the moment that Marianne didn't know any more about their little adventure than Max did.

He felt like they'd just lied to Max, and despite the number of times he'd done so for whatever reason, he didn't like it – especially not these days, as they tentatively moved from "we're not like that" through "we're something–just don't know what" to "you're the part of my soul that's been missing all these years." He'd tell her, and maybe she'd understand ... but she was so rattled when she'd first seen the boy and was convinced there was a connection...how would she take it if she knew it were possible?

...and it was possible, wasn't it?

No matter the child's age or the dates or the odds, he knew with a sinking feeling it was. With further discussion with Bennett and a bit of research, he might be able to determine just how possible it was. And no matter the odds ... his gut told him it just might be that he had a son out there, somewhere not far across town...

...and that ass-kicking Max had promised might be far less funny than it had been a couple days ago...

...to be continued...