DISCLAIMER: Please see all earlier chapters.

THANK YOU FOR STAYING with the story, and my appreciation to those who have commented along the way. Reviews really do have an effect; this very chapter has gone in a bit of an unanticipated direction due to ideas planted by a couple faithful readers and sounding boards. (Thanks, Coach...) Their input – and yours in reviews – is incredibly helpful.

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SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 11, 2020; 12:04 p.m.
SECTOR 9; Fogle Towers. Inside.

"Don't..." Logan pulled his hand back from hers as if burned; he wouldn't look at her and, if anything, withdrew even further into himself, his breathing ragged.

This wasn't him, Max stewed. Sure, he'd been stubborn, secretive, cranky, even withdrawn at various times since she'd known him. And she knew that the topic raised – and Bling's brash decision to force the issue between them – would rattle his over-acute self-consciousness to the core. But he'd never just shut down before her like this. Not knowing whether to be insulted or frightened or even angry, but knowing she hurt for whatever hell he was putting himself through, Max balanced in place, still kneeling before him, hand hovering in the air, afraid to touch him – afraid not to. "Logan..." she implored, "talk to me..." On unfamiliar ground, she felt the frustration of being totally out of her element and at a loss to know how to find him again. "Logan..." she urged in a whisper, "it's me..."

And that's supposed to mean what? she asked herself as she said it. He'd pulled back as if she were a stranger; as if... She shook it off. She would not succumb to the old fears that he could be repulsed by who she was and how she'd been made; if she'd learned and trusted nothing else about this man, she knew he believed she was just as human as any other human being, no matter her beginnings. She willed herself to remember the cabin, and how he looked at her, just before Bennett spoiled the mood; she urged herself to remember the gentle tenderness and desire she saw in his eyes as he'd kissed her palm...

"It's me..." she repeated, feeling a welling of moisture in her eyes as, unexpectedly, she realized that she was the "me" she was now because of who he was, and who he urged her to be... "and you promised we'd talk..."

He flinched, just barely, at her words...

Her breath caught slightly to see it; she saw nothing more but didn't need to: no matter his walls and defenses ... he was still listening...

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 11, 2020; 12:08 p.m.
SECTOR 9; Fogle Towers. Outside.

Bling sat in the car, eyes riveted on the small, battered bicycle still in the lobby, still watched by the doorman who had a soft spot for Max. As long as the bike didn't move, as long as she stayed upstairs, with Logan, it was a good sign, he told himself stubbornly...

Unusual for him, these second and third thoughts about what he'd just done, wondering if this time he'd gone way too far and damaged a man's fragile healing, even threatened a couple's newly evolving relationship. Was it even worse now, so soon on the heels of the unforgivable, when he'd left Logan out of reach of his chair, so soon on the heels of Logan and his cousin rescuing him and bringing down a pair of killers after him?

He sighed, shifting uncomfortably, almost feeling that he deserved the pain rippling through his shoulder. Playing cupid? Or playing God, he wondered. Either way, playing with people's lives...

As long as Max is there with him, he'll be okay, Bling reasoned ... but Max was a part of this, and as likely to be hurt by the fallout as Logan, if this all went wrong. She loves him, she cares and was concerned at what she saw just now ... but she hadn't exactly been trained by Manticore to be a super revved up social worker, had she? It occurred to Bling how much hope he pinned on her willingness – and ability – to pull Logan through this. Fourth thoughts arose now, as Bling's brow drew down in serious worry that just maybe, this time, he really had pushed things far too far...

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 11, 2020; 12:08 p.m.
SECTOR 9; Fogle Towers. Inside.

Logan could hear the hurt in Max's voice, but stubbornly told himself it might be more hurt for herself than for him, once again refusing to trust that she was reaching out to him with anything more than pity or concern for a friend – or a meal ticket. And even if she really had felt anything up til now, he told himself, cynically – how likely was it to survive the truth of his broken body?

He had hoped she'd just go, even begged her to go, in his thoughts ... but she stayed, and despite his refusal to look at her and his demand that she not touch him, Max permeated his other senses: the scents of her moist skin and the fresh brush of outdoors in her hair; her soft breathing and her voice, urging his attention ... and feeling her so very close, knowing she could be inaccessible with just a few, heartless facts of his life now, was just more than he thought he could take. "I'm sorry," he managed. "I shouldn't have told you that..."

"Why?" she blurted. Max was unsettled at how powerless she was in this: he was the man of words, she was made for action... and yet with Logan encasing himself in his chair, drawing into himself and refusing to talk to her, no amount of training or strength or speed could breach the icy, shatterproof wall he'd built between them. She looked helplessly at the man before her, as he sat in his silence, giving no indication that he would offer anything more. Logan Cale, the great Eyes Only, always knew exactly what to say and when to say it; it broke her heart and frustrated her no end that she couldn't do the same for him. If only she could use words with the power and skill he could ... if only she had the words to get through his thick skull and thicker defenses...

And suddenly it struck her. Maybe she didn't have them. But he did...

"Logan ... you wrote something, once..." she drew a breath, remembering the moment, remembering the nascent hope she'd felt, even then ... remembering how many times since that night she'd replayed his words back through her thoughts, even daring once or twice to imagine he had written them with her ... with him... in mind... "It wasn't about us, but ... I wondered if it could be, some day." She watched him carefully, hoping to see a reaction ... hoping that he would understand...

The hurt in her voice wasn't for herself, Logan knew, no denial possible now ... the hurt mingled with a concern and caring that nearly destroyed his stony facade as he heard Max turn back to the familiar words...

"'They crossed paths by fate…" she quoted, her voice quavering a little as she tried the words aloud for the first time, "'but became partners by choice.'" Her throat constricted suddenly, and she couldn't continue...

"Max..." he breathed, turning away as if he could deflect the words. As she watched him resist her, Max felt another moment of doubt, a moment telling her he didn't feel the same way about her as she'd hoped ... but then his expression told the story; he was fighting his own demons, losing to his conviction that he was now incomplete...

"Was I wrong?" Max dared, still crouched before him, fighting the urge to pull him into her arms, as she had once before, at the thought of how close she'd come to losing him. At his silence, she pressed, "Was I wrong to imagine you ever thought of us when you wrote that?"

His defeat came when he turned back to the dark brown eyes, seeing in surprise that the world had stopped for Max as she waited for his answer. How could this have happened, he marveled, that she could be seeking his affirmation, and that she had any question at all about how completely she consumed him? With a shaky sigh, gaze dropped down into his lap, he admitted in the softest whisper, "it was written for them ... but not about them..." He wavered a moment, but he owed her his honesty, he owed her the truth ... he owed her his life. He owed her everything... "It would never have been written if ... if our paths hadn't crossed... "

"By fate..." Max swallowed the lump in her throat, nodded encouragement to the battered man. " So, then ... partners by choice, too?" she whispered. The room was deadly silent...

"How much choice did I give you?" Logan breathed, suddenly berating himself. "I dangled Zack and the others as bait..."

"Just to start, maybe. But from the start, you've worked overtime to find me everything you could, and you always let me know what you found, unrelated to what I might have been able to do for you."

"...and you always did what I asked and more, no complaints..." he allowed. He still could not raise his eyes to look at her, feeling shame for so many reasons ...

"Not always..." came the soft words of regret. "Never as freely as you did."

At the sound of her regret, Logan finally looked up to her in spite of himself, believing with everything in him that it wasn't right that she apologize to him for anything ... and as he once again saw the care and compassion and... love... there in her eyes, for him, he realized he never wanted anything as much as he wanted her understanding, her arms around him, her voice telling him everything would be alright ... with a sigh, he dropped his eyes from hers again as he conceded the truth. "Partners by choice..."

And at his words, Max again gently slid her fingers under his as they rested on his thigh, curling them around his, hoping that the connection would help open more doors and ease the way for him.

But instead of comforting him, her touch seemed to make him flinch as if in some pain; he didn't pull away again, but he spoke, shame in his voice. "If you knew all of it, you couldn't want this... You'd feel different about ... about what it meant ..." He managed a breath, and finally, raised his face to hers with a look of such despair and hopelessness, Max would have given anything for the courage just to wrap him in her arms again, to trust it wouldn't make things worse for him. "I can't do this, Max," he finally spoke about the unspeakable. "I can't think about what it will do to our relationship, my sitting you down and giving you a biology lesson detailing the many and varied functions my body no longer can perform."

At least he was talking ... and with newfound hope, Max urged, "What it might do, Logan, is get it all out in the open between us. Once it's said ... and once we can be free to talk about any other clinical or awkward stuff ... we can worry about how we feel about things – just like any other partners ought to do."

"Max, if you..." His words were interrupted suddenly by the sound of his timer, demanding his attention in the kitchen. At her small blink of surprise for the timer popping off in the middle of the day, with nothing seemingly in progress, Logan reddened a little. "Dinner." He explained, "an Italian dish, for Tony; I was marinating some beef and..."

She nodded, the culinary details losing her but the bit of real life somehow grounding her, reminding her who they were... and all they'd been though. With a soft smile, she remembered, "tonight's the last night you know he'll be here for dinner, for sure..."

Logan nodded. "He may have to go earlier than he thought tomorrow; he wasn't going to know until later ..."

"Then c'mon ... let's do what you need to do, for dinner." She stood, lifting his hand with hers as she did, not yet letting him go. "I'll watch – or help, if you let me – and we can talk at the same time." Max felt as if she was on more solid ground now, trying to poke a bit with affectionate encouragement, hoping to ease the difficult way ahead. "Maybe it would be easier talking about things over a miracle-in-progress, anyway. Give you something to do with your hands," she shrugged, a teasing note seeking his humor.

He wavered, looking at her closely now, seeking any sign of insincerity or of misunderstanding of what lay ahead... and saw none. He sighed, still sounding more defeated than she hoped. "Max..." he allowed, still fighting the obvious. "Are you sure you want to do this?"

She sobered, and looked him straight in the eye, still not letting go of his hand, still tracing gentle circles around his knuckles with her thumb. "Do this – talk biology? Or do this ... this 'you and me,' and where we are?"

The green eyes flickered, his emotions torn toward hope, yet too stubborn to trust that his heart's desire might actually be coming true. "Both..." he said first, awkwardly ...then ... more honestly, said, "'do this...' with me. With the 'me' who will be in this chair for as long as you know me..."

"With the 'you' I've known all along?" she tried. "Yeah, I do." She looked at him steadily, and at that, her eyes softened, and her mouth actually tipped up at the corner in a tiny, teasing smirk. "I want to do this with the whole bunch of 'you.'"

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 11, 2020; 12:26 p.m.
SECTOR 9; Fogle Towers. Inside.

She'd followed him to the kitchen and watched as he pulled out a dish containing a roast steeping in dark red wine; stood by as he worked on it for a bit, then gave her vegetables to wash. As he puttered with garlic, slicing cloves and burying slivers in the small cuts he made in the meat, still saying nothing, Max volunteered, "Would it be easier if I knew a lot of it already?" Max tried. "Maybe easier if I told you what I've read ... and if I ask a couple questions so I can put what I've learned with what's going on with you?"

His movements slowed only slightly, realizing she wasn't going to let the conversation die where it had been left ... but after a moment he drew a breath to murmur, "You read up on it," he remembered. Once again, Bling was right. The man must be psychic...

"Well, yeah. It's what you would do," she offered, her voice and smile hopeful.

"I'm not sure I like how it feels to be on the receiving end," he finally allowed a small but rueful grin toward the roast as he turned it back in the marinade.

"I'll teach you the lab-rat's secret handshake..." she smirked, and at his sudden look of guilt as he raised his eyes to her, drawing a breath to apologize, she shook it off, "it's a joke, Logan, no big dealio..." She mentally kicked herself for doing anything to get in the way of their communication...

"Max..." He insisted, stopping his work. "I should have thought, before I spoke. I'm sorry."

His sincere, apologetic look nearly pushed her off-course, but she managed to remember what she had been ready to start, and knew it was too important to be waylaid. "I bet you got your way, all the time, as a kid ... or as a teenager..."

The non sequitur threw him, and a bit self-conscious at her words, Logan actually blushed a little, even in his uncertainty. "What?" he tried.

"You could get anything you wanted with those eyes, do you know that?" Even though she was glad to tease a bit to lighten what would be coming next, she was absolutely, dead honest about her words – his eyes could work magic on anyone, she was sure ... And as he colored a bit more with her admiration, she murmured, "no wonder you decided on "Eyes Only" and not ears... or feet... or..."

"Max," he interrupted when he saw her eyebrows raise in a comic leer. "Are you trying to make this as painful as possible?"

"No," she grinned at first, but the grin softened slowly to a look of care and concern and, more than anything, a yearning desire for the man before her. "Actually," her voice dropped to almost a whisper, "just the opposite..."

"I know," he allowed a small smile. His hypnotic eyes held hers, and what Logan saw reflected back worked to let him to feel a glimmer of trust through his disbelief. "I wish you knew how much I appreciate it..."

She felt herself succumbing, wanting to fall headlong into his eyes, his arms ... and felt her own blush as she caught herself at it. Straightening a bit, she said, "we'd better get on with this before you do your voodoo on me, too." She took a breath, and offered, "so I ask, and you correct. Or clarify. As a start?"

He drew a deep breath, picked up the pepper he'd been seeding, and nodded, steeling himself, not looking at her. "As a start..." he agreed.

"Alright." She paused, thinking, then, making up her mind, dove in. "So ... when you were shot ... your spinal cord was severed? No connections left?"

A pause, a nod. "...right." He managed. She wasn't afraid of the facts, at least...

"A 'complete' injury, then..." She said, matter-of-fact in this. "And that means that, below your injury, no sensation, and no voluntary movement?" He paused again, hesitated, but then nodded, silently, and she went on. "And your injury was at what level?"

She was asking the right questions for information, with the right terminology. What else should he have expected from Max? Drawing a breath, he found his voice. "T-8," he answered in the appropriate jargon ... and waited to see if she understood...

"Oh." She looked a little surprised. "Oh, so your injury level is about..." She looked down her own, flat torso and raised a hand to draw an imaginary line. "About here?"

Textbook. What else? "Yes, but ... on me ... sensation ... and movement and all has ended up being a bit more like..." he traced his own line along the median between sensation and none, nearly an inch and a half below her estimate.

"Oh," she blinked, considering, even looking a bit impressed. "That's good ... and with all the work you've done, you've done a lot to get your abs back even more than expected, given where you must have started..."

He looked up with her words; too moved to look right at her, but up, at the cupboard, weighing... listening... "Yeah," he admitted, feeling an odd bit of relief ... even pride ... that she understood...

She understood...

He then dropped his eyes back to his work, not willing to count on anything yet, but a tiny, pleased flicker of a smile at her words crossing his features...

Maybe she did understand...

"So... are you ready for the hard part?" When he lifted his eyes to her this time, in question, she explained, "I can tell you what all that means for you, at least as far as I understand it..."

He looked up to see her gazing at him steadily, unwavering, not the least sign of awkwardness or discomfort anywhere in her. He was starting to suspect that, if he thought he'd felt love for her before, he had no idea how powerfully Max could move him, given a chance. "You've done pretty well so far," he managed a smile, felled with his appreciation of how she was handling all this. "I think I can take it if you can."

And with his acquiescence, Max set it out for him as well as any doctor or therapist could have, starting with the lack of movement and sensation below his injury, given the injury was complete. She acknowledged that there were aspects of his life now that needed daily, faithful attention, such as range of motion exercises and why they were needed, skin and injury checks and the reasons for them, even a discrete mention that she knew his 'post-digestion' organs were affected and that she could recount the procedures, reasons, and options, if he wanted...

He opted, with a flush of his cheeks up into his ears, just to trust her word that she knew...

"So you know that I know the rest, too, don't you?" Max asked, gently, leaning against the counter perpendicular to his work table, as always admiring the grace in his movements as he worked, still there even through the awkward conversation he was facing. "I know what it was that Bling wanted to tell you, back at the hospital, and what he thought we needed to discuss now..."

Logan licked his lips before speaking, the discussion indeed difficult, but given all that Max had said and done that afternoon, no longer impossible. "I imagine you do, since you've gotten the rest letter perfect." He sighed his surrender. She had truly borne it all graciously, and had made it so much easier than it might have been...

She nodded, then came to sit near to him, looking to him, seeking eye contact. " Then tell me, Logan..." she urged softly, knowing this was as necessary as the rest. "You tell me what I should know, for you – not some clinical model I can read and generalize about, but what you want me to know, for you. Do you know yet... what to expect, for yourself?"

He looked up to her warm, accepting eyes waiting for his response; he wavered in a new surge of self-consciousness at her request, but finally shook his head. "No. No idea. There's been no indication that ... anything will happen, but... there've been no attempts to see if any of it will work, either."

"Good." She lifted an eyebrow – was it a dare?

It was too awkward for Logan to trust much of anything yet – but he did trust enough to ask. "Good?"

"Yeah," she teased, trying a wry smile. "I didn't want to have to imagine some informant or operative offering any opportunities for you to experiment..."

He colored. "Uh, no, Max." At her little dig of jealousy, he actually smiled a bit shyly, then added, "Eyes Only is nothing if not chaste and pure." He even managed a smile amid his blush with his jest.

"We'll see how long that lasts..." she murmured. "And actually, I was kind of hoping to meet Eyes Plus in all this..."

Logan saw that behind the suggestive banter, she really was trying for his comfort, for a connection so that they could discuss openly what still came so painfully to him. For someone untrained in such emotional connections, she had been incredibly insightful and caring in this...

...and for all that ... he owed her his best – and most honest – efforts... he drew a deep breath, looked into her bottomless brown eyes, and spoke as directly as he could manage. "Max... I've heard that men with injuries like mine can have a variety of responses, physically, everything from almost as good as the original, to nothing at all. The odds are far, far greater that there would be no response, and the odds aren't even all that great that a limited response happens without some chemical assistance. But they also say that it's the brain that does most of the work in sexual pleasure ... there's a lot to be enjoyed even with an injury like this, once you put your mind to it. And you know as well as I do that for you, there are other things that can be tried, even if ..." he'd made it this far and couldn't stop now... "even if nothing works for me at all, things that..." you and I, he was afraid to say, suddenly... "that a couple can try, together. You'd have to decide if it was enough, and there may be no way to know without trying, but..." He wavered, confidence suddenly depleted, and he looked down at his hands, awkward again at the silence.

Max watched the bowed head, sensing that he'd managed all he could at the moment, and tenderly reached over to take his hand, the grasp returned this time, almost as if he was grabbing a lifeline. Chewing her lip, she paused a moment, but then dared to ask, "Logan ... back in the days of yachts and the 'club' and Logan Cale, Yale man..." Her words caught his attention; he had no idea where she was headed... so listened closely... "you didn't warm up a girl by talking about chemical enhancements and biological function and sensory response ... did you?"

He snorted softly as he shook his head, defeated, heartsick. He'd failed...

"So maybe now we pretend it's back in the days of yachts and the club ... we don't have to let the Informant Net know that Eyes Only is reliving the hedonistic Pre-Pulse days ... and one of these days we ... make dinner ... and ... put on some music ... and you can show me what hot boy Logan Cale did to warm up a girl..."

Her words had started percolating through his brief despondency as he heard what she was saying... and as her words lingered in the air, he realized he was staring at her, his eyelashes damp...

"The hard part's all done, Logan... " she whispered, smiling for him. "You told me what you needed me to know... and I didn't run away. Now we can forget about it, and just be who we are... you're the sexiest, brightest, bravest man I've ever met... and if you'd call me over for dinner sometime ... I'd say yes..."

Logan swallowed hard... and took the greatest leap of faith he ever remembered taking, in resuming the quote, "'And together ... they are embarking on the greatest adventure two people can share...'"

This time it was Max's eyes that glimmered with tears, as she asked, suddenly unsure. "But that part... was for their marriage... wasn't it?"

Logan slowly shook his head. "Not exactly," he said softly, shifting Max's hand in his. "it's for when the universe smiles... and the stars finally align to bring soul mates back together... "

...TBC...