Disclaimer: I am not making any profit out of this and am using it purely for amusement. The scenes are taken completely out of an episode of Dark Angel (which belongs to Fox, Cameron and Eglee), and most of the dialogue as well.

A/N: The parts that are mine are the "thoughts" behind the scenes and some additional dialogue. This is my version of Hello, Goodbye—one of my favorite DA episodes. It's a step into AU, but that's really what fanfics are, aren't they?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

CHAPTER 16

Max had been waiting outside Logan's penthouse for hours now. Her neck ached from craning her head to look up to the very top of Fogle Towers. Her enhanced vision told her that there had been no movement in the apartments for the last four hours. No lights were on, either. Not even the ever-present blue-white glow of the computer screen lit the place.

She sighed. She wished there was someone else she trusted enough to go to with the new information she had. But the sad truth was, she didn't know anyone else who cared enough and had the resources to look into the matter. At this point, maybe Logan didn't even care anymore. She had broken up with him over the phone recently. She no longer had any right to expect anything from him.

She glanced at her pager and saw that it was already well-past midnight. He obviously wasn't home. It was time to go up there and do her sneak and creep routine.

Picking the lock, she let herself into his penthouse. She took a deep breath, inhaling the familiar scent of the room. She crept noiselessly towards the little nook in his apartment that served as Eyes Only headquarters. She found the whiteboard that he had told her about yesterday, when he'd tried so hard to detract her from breaking things off with him.

He was right, it was just like the widescreen version of his cocktail napkin from Crash, complete with the two parallel columns that represented Manticore and the Breeding Cult. She took Joshua's necklace out of her pocket and carefully hung the pendant over the board. Picking up a marker, she drew a circle around the pendant, making sure Logan wouldn't miss it. Then she drew connecting arrows between the words 'Manticore' and the 'Breeding Cult'.

The message was unmistakable. There was a connection and Joshua's pendant was somehow the key.

Just as she dropped the marker back into the tray, all the lights and computer equipment flickered to life. Max spun around quickly, here eyes wide, like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Hi, there!" called Logan with false joviality. He had been sitting in the dark all along, his hand still on the remote control that had switched everything on all at once.

Max stared warily at him. He was obviously drunk, a bottle of whiskey stood almost empty on the table next to his chair. There was a glazed, slightly crazed look in his eyes, too.

"The lights were out." She explained. "I didn't know you were home."

Logan chuckled humorlessly. "'Cause if you did, you wouldn't have come, huh?"

Max frowned at his slurred words, at the self-deprecating smile on his face, at the accusation in his voice. She closed her eyes briefly, as if the action could block away the pain that was emanating from him and seeping into her. "I found this around Joshua's neck. He said Father gave it to him. It's the same symbol the breeding cult uses." She said slowly, carefully avoiding his question and changing the subject onto neutral ground.

"So Sandeman is one of White's cult loonies, huh?" Logan smirked, an ugly baring of his teeth. "Woo-hoo!" he cried, his tone pitched crazily in mock celebration. He took the bottle of whiskey and clumsily poured himself another drink. He knew exactly what she was doing. Avoiding the subject. Running away from having to deal with the repercussions of her actions. So typically Max. Except that, he never thought she'd do that to him.

Max couldn't watch Logan do this to himself. She had never seen him like this before. Self-destructive and unmotivated. "Logan, there's a connection between the breeding cult and Manticore."

Logan stood up and walked towards Max, his exoskeleton whirring loudly in the tense silence of the room. "Maybe I oughta do an Eyes Only hack, huh?" he asked, knowing that it was the only reason Max was here in his penthouse right now. Because he was Eyes Only. Not because he was Logan Cale, the man deeply in love with her. But because he was Eyes Only, and she needed to use him for that.

She didn't need him for anything else any more.

He smiled angrily at her. Just like she didn't need him earlier today, when Manticore had been exposed to the world on the news. "I mean, this is a big news day. In case you hadn't noticed, I tried paging you. Wanted to talk to you, but, uh...guess you were busy."

Max didn't want to see anymore, or listen to his stabbing, accusatory words anymore. He was being deliberately nasty. "I'm going. I just thought you wanted to know."

She turned around to leave, but in a few long strides, Logan cut her off, standing directly in her path. Max had no choice but to stop abruptly, afraid that she might touch him accidentally. She glared at him, baffled at his anger. She tried to get past him, but he just stood in front of her again.

"Cut it out." She whispered a little desperately.

"I could keep you here all night." He said, his tone darkly amused, as if the thought just occurred to him—as if they were playing some sort of fun game.

"Come on, Logan." She pleaded for him to drop the subject, to stop acting so...crazy.

"At least 'til I drop dead." He continued in that deceptively conversational tone, as if he didn't even hear her. He wanted answers, and he was going to get them tonight.

Max just shook her head, not understanding the severity of his reaction. He'd never been this…manic…about any of the other times they'd broken up. He knew that this was for the best! She had nothing else to say to him. She steeled herself against feeling anything for him. Against falling back into that slump that was their on-again, off-again relationship.

"I've said everything I needed to say." She whispered softly, her tone ringing with finality.

Logan shook his head. "I don't think so. I think there's something else."

Max didn't know what the hell he was getting at. What else was there? "Logan..." she started.

But he cut her off, his voice angry, cold, accusing, and cruel. "Or is it someone else?"

Max's eyes flew up to meet his blue ones directly. "What?"

Logan almost lost his nerve. There really was a look of such confusion and utter disbelief on her face. Maybe, he was wrong. Maybe…but, what he had seen yesterday morning was damning enough evidence. Maybe she was pretending…she had, after all, been bred to be a pathological liar, right? "I needed to talk to you, so I came by your apartment...and I saw him leaving." He explained, a bitter edge creeping into his voice at the thought of Alec and Max together.

He waited for Max to say something…anything, but she just stood there her face a mask of confusion. The silence between them stretched, her expression remained the same. Logan began to have doubts about his own accusations. He peered into her clouded dark brown eyes, hoping to see the truth in them. "I--I mean, if I've got it wrong, just say so." Please say so, Max. Please let it be wrong. Let me be wrong about all of this…

Max was reeling from the implications of what Logan was saying. He was acting this way because he thought she and Alec had spent the night. He thought that they were together behind his back. Why would he possibly think that I would… she broke her train of thought as she gazed thoughtfully into his anguished eyes.

"Tell me it's not true." He all but begged her.

And Max knew that this was how it had to end. "I can't," she whispered, her voice ringing with the truth. She really couldn't. It was the only way she could effectively destroy that need and that love he had for her. She knew that she couldn't give him any more reasons to hope. Alec had been right all along. She and Logan didn't belong together. "It's over. We're done. Get used to it."

She looked at him through a mask of coldness, even when heartbreak and pain threatened to break through the walls of her heart. Turning away, she walked around him, and out the door.

It's over. We're done. Get used to it. Her words hung in the air long after she had gone. Logan just stood there paralyzed by a series of emotions that warred for domination inside of him. The pain, anger, disbelief, pain, pain, pain…She was gone. They were over before they had even had the chance to begin.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Max sat atop the Space Needle, letting the cold wind blow onto her face and numb her pain. There was something irrevocably final about how things ended between her and Logan. It was the finality of destruction. That's what it was.

The trust, friendship and respect that had always marked their relationship were effectively in ruins around her feet. There was no going back from that. There was no hope in all that destruction.

It was over. They were done. She had to get used to it.

She heard his steps up the stairs first. The footsteps were too light and swift to be Logan. She felt his presence next, but didn't turn around.

"Hey, Max. Thought I'd find you here." Greeted Alec, sauntering down towards the edge of the Space Needle where she sat hugging her knees to her chest.

"I come here to be alone." She whispered into the night air, but her voice lacked the usual rancor. Alec had known where she was. Alec had always known her, for some reason. Yet, he had never imposed himself on her. It was strange how he had just allowed himself to be in the periphery of her life, but had somehow still been integral in it.

Alec gauged Max's mood tonight. Melancholy. Sad. Broken. Scared. "Yeah, I know, but considering everything that went down today, I figured we could both use a friend right now." He sighed lightly, hoping she would let him get closer to her tonight. Sometimes, the periphery was all well and good when things were easy and you could just skate through life without worries.

But sometimes, people, even transgenics, needed someone to hold on to when skating through life on a bumpy road.

Max turned her head and looked up at him briefly, his hands in his pocket, his shoulders hunched in that way that told her he was unsure of something. Unsure of her. "Sit down." she said, more of an order than an invitation.

Alec sat down, and bent his legs in front of him, putting his hands together to warm them. He was relieved that she had let him be here for her. Two nights in a row. He glanced over at Max and felt the weight of her thoughts.

"So, you got any deep thoughts you want to share? Any, uh, profound realizations about life?" he asked, instinctively filling the need to lighten the mood, to ease the darkness.

Max pursed her lips but refused to be lightened. Joshua had been right. "Yeah. Love sucks."

Alec's lips quirked at the blunt statement. But it was true. He had learned it the hard way. Joshua was suffering now. And apparently, so was Max. He sighed deeply and stared out into the city lights. Yeah…love sucks…especially when he had no one to love.

They both sat there through the night, together, but alone in their own thoughts.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A/N2: It's a short chapter, but those were the last two scenes of the episode. I was going to add in a missing scene, but in the end, I decided to stick to canon. I'll do a missing scene, but make it a part of the Missing Scene series that I'm working on, instead. I hope you've all enjoyed this little look into the characters' heads.

6