DISCLAIMER: Dark Angel borrowed, no profits realized. Dialogue from "411 on the DL" and "Blah Blah Woof Woof" property of the show's owners and writers, with thanks to DarkAngelFan (dot)com for its online transcripts.
A/N: Thanks to those who read; your reviews are appreciated.
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Someone to Watch Over Me
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An hour before:
High above Seattle, Max sat on the Space Needle, knees drawn to her chest as she hugged them tightly, shivering. It wasn't the cold; probably it was the remnants of the seizure that threatened to come, the one she'd largely held at bay with a handful of tryptophan tabs and a small carton of milk she'd managed.
The seizures ... and memories...
Eleven years ago this very night ... eleven years ago, the look on Eva's face as she was gunned down ... the look on Zack's from that time forward, until he made them scatter after he'd gotten them out of there ... eleven years ago and still no proper grieving for a lost sister, a murder victim remembered faithfully every year but in private, no one to share her grief ...
Memories ... After a decade of hiding, of wondering and laying low and searching as she could, life had picked up for her and started crashing over her in waves, leaving memories of the last months which overshadowed all the years leading up to this one. A moment of Zack appearing back in her life, to be snatched away so fast she could barely trust her memory of his features afterward, to be followed by another few moments as he surfaced again, with her sister, as she then lost both him and Brin...
She swore she could feel her heart breaking each time ... but this new grief, these recent months, were shared by someone who knew all her secrets, knew who and what she was... and was steadfast in the strength he offered her...
She'd admitted to him the pain of anticlimax: "After all these years of waiting and wondering, I guess I expected-- I don't know ... That finding Zack would change everything. My life would finally make sense. Pretty stupid of me, huh?" She tried to acknowledge her weakness, her succumbing to emotion, to let him know she recognized its folly: " I just wanted somebody that was like me. Someone I can connect with."
But even in his own pain he'd responded with absolution and confirmation: "Basic human impulse-- not wanting to be alone."
Human. Logan had called her human... he knew all there was to know about her, and yet, attributed to her the most primal human need of all...
Memories and nightmares and exhaustion filled her recent months: Lydecker on her tail, closing in on her, so close that she'd nearly listened to Zack, nearly left Logan...
...nearly lost him...
He'd held her, his arms supporting her in her dreams as gently and powerfully as his words and actions did in her reality. "Do you want to stop?"
"No. Don't let go." Don't let go ... never go ...
"I won't."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
"Logan... don't leave me..."
...and now there were automatons out there, huge and unstoppable and on a first name basis with Manticore. The word was out, and even someone as slow-witted as Bruno managed to fool her into performing for them. She'd walked into their trap and, for the first time outside of Manticore, had come face to face with some beings who could neutralize her without too much struggle...
She dropped her head, feeling another tiny shiver ripple through her. It was too much, it was so big ... Logan had been worried enough for her before they spoke but after she admitted to him that she was afraid, too, he'd been driven to find them, to find who they were and who was after her, if it was only Manticore or if others now joined the hunt for her, too...
Logan fought 'til he dropped, for her; fought and went back to fight again, waging his war with research and information and technology, with informants and rumor. She thought she'd had a strong CO in Zack; knew she had... But in Logan, she'd found greater hero than Zack, given his mortality and all he did to overcome it ... and even more: in Logan, she'd found herself. Logan let her rest, when she needed it; he stood guard over her secrets and her weaknesses, and never saw her as less for them. Logan never let her believe she was anything but human ...
For so long she'd been the tough guy, the "human fog bank," on her own and making it alright. For so long it was easy to face her problems, deal, and move on. What had happened?
...easy answer, Max, she leaned her cheek on her knee as she pulled her shins tighter. Logan Cale happened... He knew her history as well as she did; maybe better – but he never saw her as anything but human. He'd seen her hated seizures – the first person she'd ever allowed to see what they did to her – and rather than be repulsed, he stroked her brow and sat up the night with her... She took from him shamelessly and he always gave more, never keeping an account or intimating in the slightest how skewed their quid pro quo truly was...
He was her confessor, her cavalry, her better self. He was passionate and emotional and in turn, allowed her to have emotions, to feel. Allowed her to understand that a decade of running and hiding is exhausting for anyone, and that everyone needed a safe haven, now and then, a place – no, an arm, a shoulder – to lean on, in peace and trust and quiet, to rest... and, when needed... to mourn...
...and tonight–eleven years to the night that she'd seen Eva gunned down in cold blood just for not being perfect, eleven years to the night that Zack decided that they'd never survive unless they escaped the only home they'd ever known, their prison... there was no one she wanted to be with more at the moment than Logan Cale...
...to be continued...