Disclaimer: No infringement intended. Not affiliated in any way with anyone. Nothing to sue here people, move along. I don't own anything here. I am not making any money on this.
Big THANK YOU to Maria for checking this.
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Enter Jondy, part 5
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"It's a tracking device," supplied Jondy from behind them. "You're slipping Max."
Max immediately positioned herself between Logan and the unidentified voice. Jondy smiled, turned and showed Max her bar code.
"Jondy!" Max cried and ran to embrace her sister. Logan quietly put the chocolate mousse torte into the fridge to set.
"I thought you had drowned. That I had let you down." Jondy said softly as she held her sister.
"How did you find me?" Max asked in amazement.
"I heard rumors of a Manticore prototype in Seattle. I didn't really think that you would still be here, but I had nothing better to do. Did Zack ever find you?"
"Kind of," Max replied.
"I am going to rack the son of a bitch the next time I see him!" Jondy mumbled furiously.
"It was only a couple months ago."
"Oh," Jondy glanced at Logan. "Let me guess, by the time he showed up to order you to leave Seattle, you'd already become … attached?"
"Kind of," Max replied softly.
"Kind of?" asked Jondy.
"Yeah," Max nodded.
"You going to elaborate?"
"It's kind of a long story."
Jondy shrugged, "As I said I've got nothing better to do."
"How did you know that Logan knew me?" Max asked. Logan cringed.
Jondy smiled, "Well, this guy that was about to shoot him said 'I'm just going to kill you before this 'Max' can show up to save you.' So I shot him first."
Max turned on Logan, "Guy that was about to shoot you?"
"Um … well … uh …. Yeah," Logan eventually confessed.
"What did I tell you about going to meetings without me?" Max practically screamed at him.
"This wasn't a .." Logan pauses to glance at Jondy. "He was just an old friend from school."
"With friends like that …" Jondy quipped.
"That is IT! You are on KP for a month!" Max yelled.
"And that is different how exactly?" Logan retorted.
Jondy stifled a guffaw and slunk off to the kitchen. Max glanced at her beloved sister in frustration but waited until she was out of the room so that she and Logan can have their spat in the semblance of privacy. Max knew that there was not anywhere in the apartment that Jondy could go and still not hear every word, if she wanted to.
"You scrub toilets?" Max retorted.
"I can't exactly get down on my hands and knees and do that, now can I?" Logan replied dryly.
"Why not? You never let your injury stop you from doing anything else!" Max flung back.
That stopped Logan cold. Max can't really believe that, could she? "Yes, it does," Logan replied quietly.
Max could tell by the instant change in Logan's demeanor that she has hit a nerve. Yet another misstep in the veritable mine-field of human interactions. Her anger dissipated as fast as it appeared. "What?" she asked, all too aware that she has somehow hurt Logan , again, but not understanding how.
Logan looked up at Max, pained. She really doesn't know. "Long story. Why don't you go catch up with Jondy. We can talk later."
Max knelt down at Logan's feet. She took his hands in hers and looked up at him. "I don't want to lose you Logan. I don't mind dropping anything to go with you, if it is important. I … you scared me, Logan."
"I know. I am sorry." Logan has just placed his hand on Max's face, drawing her up to him for a kiss, when his 'special' cell phone line rings. He sighed, "Go visit with Jondy."
Max nodded, kissed him quickly on the cheek, and dashed off to the kitchen.
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When Max entered the kitchen Jondy had her head in the fridge. "You know I was going to ask you if you were sure he is worth all this trouble, but it looks like he's got some good stuff in here."
"Oh, you haven't tasted anything yet!" Max grabbed two forks from the drawer and joined her sister.
Jondy happily accepted the fork and they proceeded to clean out Logan's fridge, one container at a time. "So, I take it he is the reason you are still in Seattle?"
"Kind of," hedged Max.
"Again with the 'kind of's. Max, it's me. Either you are in love with him or you need to get out of Seattle. Believe me, I understand."
"You were in love?" Max asked.
"Oh, yeah."
"Where is he?"
"Dead. He died defending me … us," Jondy placed her hand on her abdomen as a tear ran down her face. After a moment she took a deep breath and shook it off. "I was shot anyway. When I woke up, I wasn't pregnant anymore and he was dead. I'd defied Zack by staying with him in the first place, so I had no way of getting in contact with anyone. In the end it was for nothing, and I spent a long time wondering if I did the right thing. Eventually I decided that, since I couldn't change the past regardless, I'd go with the 'it was better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.'".
"I'm sorry," Max said.
"It's OK. It was years ago. And I'm not alone anymore. I won't let you down again."
"You never let me down in the first place."
"I left you."
"You had to. I knew what you would do, exactly as we were trained. You drew them away from me. It's all good." Max smiled at her sister.
Jondy finally smiled. "So why are you still in Seattle?"
Max sighed. "Logan."
"You love him?" Jondy asked far too quietly for anyone but Max to hear.
Max nodded.
"It's all good. Maybe with two of us defending him at least one of us can get a 'happily ever after', eh? Although, he does seem kind of high maintenance."
"He can be," Max conceded, "but wait until you taste this delicious chocolate thingy." Max triumphantly removed the chocolate mousse torte from the fridge. Jondy, my sister, here, accepting and willing to help and chocolate; Life is good.
An hour later.
"Okay, thanks. I really appreciate this." Logan finally finished with his phone calls, e-mails and various miscellaneous mischief.
"Hey Logan!" Max called out as she and Jondy entered Logan's computer room.
Logan quickly tabbed away from any incriminating screens and turned to face Max and Jondy.
"Logan, any chance you could scrounge up some ID for Jondy?" Max asked.
Logan paused and looked between Max and Jondy for a moment. Jondy misunderstood his hesitation. "I don't care if you are doing illegal things. Heck, me breathing is probably illegal. Max vouched for you, that's good enough for me."
"Well, yeah, I can. It'll take a day or two. How do you spell Jondy?" Logan asked, more than happy to let Jondy jump to the wrong conclusion about what he was up to.
"I better not use Jondy on anything official. Jane, Joy, June, Mary, whatever." Jondy turns to Max, "You have Max on an official document?"
"Maxine used to be common name," she replied.
In other words, yes. "We definitely better not have a Max and a Jondy together. I'm pretty used to aliases. Whatever you can get is fine."
"No problem, I can have it by tomorrow morning. Now, the torte should be finished."
"Oh, yeah, it's finished." Max replied with a grin.
"You two ate the whole thing?" he asked with a touch of disbelief but far more amusement. In truth he was very happy that Max would have someone like her, and for more than just back up.
"Rescues build up an appetite!" Jondy replied, as if he should have known better.
Logan had to laugh. Jondy had to admit she could see what Max saw in him, even though she knew there was quite a bit to this Logan Cale that she didn't know about, yet. Still, he was Max's, and she would not encroach for all the world. "So I presume you're not hungry any more." Logan said.
"Nope, I'll see you the morning. You can let me know what my name is then."
"You got a place to stay?" Max asked.
"Yeah, I rented one of the rooms over Kung-Pow, the martial arts studio in Chinatown, on seventh. As long as you speak like a native they accept you, and don't ask questions. Private people, I always liked that. Probably doesn't hurt that it's not easy to pin down our ethnicity."
"It's probably the feline that throws them," Max grinned.
"China town is a great place to hide; Military convoys stick out like a sore thumb and generate quite a stir before they ever get close. The Chinese food place down the street is just a bonus."
"You speak Chinese?" Logan asked, intrigued. The language barrier was his biggest obstacle in getting information from China Town.
"A couple dialects."
Logan's phone rings again. Max sighs. Jondy stifles a giggle.
"I'm going to see Jondy's place. I'll be back later." Max grabbed her coat and showed Jondy how to re-enable the security system as they left.
Logan smiled. This was going to work out better than he could have hoped for. Max and Jondy would have each other for back up and company, since neither slept much. Unbidden an old saying about never getting just one kitten sprang to his mind.
Of course, a month from now he would not be able to imagine how he could have thought that two X5's would get into less trouble than one.
To be continued…