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Little something from DA Reflections board.
"So, what's for dinner?" Max asked, trying to get her mind off his body.

"Beef," Logan replied, the answer inadequate because his mind really isn't on dinner. He was remembering the feel of Max's hands on his body. He had assumed that she was just trying to locate him, but now he wasn't so sure. Did she really want to be touching him? What would that mean? Logan shook his head to try and clear those thoughts out of it. She couldn't want him, right? "London Broil, new potatoes, and …I picked up some cheese."

"Cool," Max replied, wondering what was wrong with Logan. He had served Brie or Brousault or Havarti or Camembert, but never just 'cheese.'

"The brown out has me a little behind schedule. Want to set the table?"

"Sure." Logan watched as she strolled into the kitchen and, with absolutely no light source that he could see, unerringly gathered plates, silverware and glasses.

Dinner passed quietly. Both Max and Logan were fairly involved in their own thoughts. Max complemented the mystery cheese three times; neither quite registering the repetition. After dinner Logan sent Max to retrieve the apple crisp from the oven where it was staying warm.

Eventually Logan decided, humiliation or not, he had to know. He called to Max in the kitchen. "Max, there is a bottle of 2004 Shea Wine Cellars Homer Pinot Noir on the wine rack, could you grab it?"

"Sure," Max replied without thinking. Well, without thinking of anything except Logan's body, she walked to the wine rack and after checking several bottles found the vintage Logan had requested. "Pre-Pulse, nice." She was smiling as she returned, expecting Logan to be pleased, and slightly puzzled when he obviously was not.

"Max, exactly how good is your night vision?"

Max paused. She knew what he really wanted to know, and the best way to avoid giving him the answer he wanted (or more likely didn't want) was to give him exactly the answer he asked for. "0.0000345 Lux," Max replied then set the wine on the table and walked into the kitchen to retrieve the corkscrew.

"What?"

"0.0000345 Lux," Max repeated, confident that she could outlast him on this. After all he was going to need to sleep. She shook her head to get the Logan/bed association out of it. Damn, she shouldn't be in heat for another month!

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"That is the minimum level of light that I need to function. Lux is the metric unit of measure for luminosity. I think it's about 0.0929 footcandles. At least last time Manticore measured. It was a while ago." Max frowns and looks down at her shoes.

Logan feels guilty about making Max relive unpleasant memories. He doesn't even want to know how Manticore would test something like that. He had an awful feeling it did not involve taking the children's word for what they saw. He was right. Still, once committed to a course of action, Logan Cale saw it through, nothing would distract him. He was going to have to ask her directly, embarrassment be damned. "Max, could you see me in the bathroom?"

Max sighed, and took her best shot at avoiding the question. "If you're asking if I could tell you had fallen flat on your …well, flat. Yeah, I could see that much. I wasn't going to mention it. I know how you hate to ever need anyone, which is weird considering how much, how many people need you. I know it's like you're …embarrassed by the fact you need the chair at all, and you can't do the things you used to. Which I never really got either …"

"Max," Logan attempted to interrupt.

Max didn't want to let him get a word in edgewise until she had led the subject far, far away, so she pressed on regardless. "It's not your fault you were shot. You were trying to do what you felt, what you knew was the right thing. In a way, it's way more my fault than yours. You asked me to help, but I was too afraid of being caught. I was too selfish. I …I didn't care about anyone but myself back then. Back at Manticore, they drilled in pretty hard that you cared about your unit. Those outside the unit, and outside the mission, didn't matter. They were expendable. I didn't have a mission, other than not getting caught. I haven't seen my unit in a decade. A decade, all alone, not caring about anyone else. Kind of got to be a habit, y'know?"

"Max," Logan attempted to interrupt again.

"Here are all these people, ordinary humans, and they just take for granted that everyone around them is human too. And I'm not. Almost, but …I'm not. I would wish that I was, but what good would that do. I'm not. I didn't really start to relate to them, like I was a person too, until …well, until you. You're the first person that knew what I was, and treated me like a person anyway. Not like a lab rat or a weapon, like a person. I know I never explained this but I think that you treating me like a person has helped me see myself as a person. Maybe not exactly an ordinary person, but a person."

"Max!" Logan attempted to interrupt again.

"I never told you, but I am sorry that I didn't agree to help you. As far as my training was concerned, it was, tactically, exactly the right decision. But, it was wrong. I'm sorry. I want you to know that if I could change one decision I made, I would have been there by your side that day. I never thought of you as anything but a great man Logan." Max looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

"Could you see me naked?" Logan asked staring directly into her eyes.

Max couldn't read his expression, but cursed the infamous male one-track mind several creative ways and then tried a different tactic. After all, she was good at tactics. "Kind of, yeah, so?" she asked nonchalantly.

"What do you mean 'kind of'?" Logan was clearly unhappy.

Max offered him the best out she could think of. "I can't see colors at all when it's that dark. As dark as it was, I can make out general outlines and shapes and kind of this odd heat signature like thing." If that didn't distract him, nothing would.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think you would want to know," she quickly threw in.

"For that matter why didn't you give me a towel, or look away?"

"Why?" OK, so maybe nothing would distract him. That didn't mean Max was going to stop trying.

That threw him. "What do you mean why?"

"OK. I guess I can ask you without raising any suspicion. You already know that I was basically born into the military. I figured out, really quickly, that there is a nudity taboo, but why?"

Logan just stared at her.

"But, apparently it's kind of OK for women to see women but not men to see women. I mean, what is up with that?" Max ruthlessly suppressed the smile on her face at successfully distracting the unremitting Logan Cale and stared at him innocently.

Logan Cale, man of letters, sat there, stunned completely speechless.

To be continued….