DISCLAIMER: Same as all earlier chapters.
A/N: To all of you who made it all the way through this saga, thank you. If you have offered reviews, or input and comments, my special appreciation. Let's not let Max & Logan fade away – maybe its new airing on the SciFi channel will bring us some new blood?
Stay strong in the struggle, peeps.
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 14, 2020; 2:24 p.m.
SECTOR 9; Fogle Towers. Garage
"Cindy..." Max's reaction to her friend's appearance in the garage was an animated mixture of embarrassment and frustration. "You were going to wait..." Max's taut whisper reminded her, pointlessly now.
"Boo, trust me, you want to be around to watch the boy open this." Framed in the open window of Logan's car, at his side, Original Cindy ignored Max's discomfort to smile toward the recipient of her current delivery. "Hey, Logan."
"Hey, Cindy." Logan's lingering surprise slid into a grin of amusement as he began to understand what was going on, and that Max had sent her co-worker with something for him as well. Something for Valentine's Day, he considered. His delight at the idea of Max thinking up something for him for Valentine's Day warmed him more than his soup had...
"You wanna sign for this, Boo?" Original Cindy was handing her clipboard through the car window to Logan, who took it, signed his name, pulled a few bills out of the dashboard tray, and clipped them down with the form before trading the clipboard for the package Cindy handed him back through the window. Watching helplessly, Max just sat by, uncertain of what to do next. This wasn't the greatest present before, she stewed. Now with everything he's just done for me, this whole 'everything I have is yours' thing, how can I show him...
"Thanks." Logan beamed to the messenger.
"Thank you," Original Cindy smiled, the generous tip she immediately pocketed not really surprising, but certainly appreciated. "And thank you for using Jam Pony," she smirked, looking over at her roommate. "Max, I got you covered at least til 3:00, so you got a few more to spend here..." She turned to go.
"No, wait..." Max blurted to OC's retreating form. "Don't go yet..."
Cindy stopped, turning back to glance at Logan only briefly before looking to Max. "Uh, Max ... three's a crowd." At that, however, she rolled her eyes back to Logan, drawling "...and if it's not, it should be..."
Max barely registered Logan's chuckle. "But you helped on this. Everyone did..." She finally turned to Logan. "Look – it's not really fair to say this is from me. I barely mentioned this and everyone else jumped on board to help get it done. But I've never had to try and figure out what to get for the guy who has everything before..."
Logan saw that Max seemed honestly concerned about what she had for him, and, touched, tried to win back her contentment, rubbing her shoulder with the hand that still curled around her. "Max, whatever it is..." He glanced back toward Cindy, including her as well, "just watching all this Jam Pony teamwork is present enough." He smiled back to Max, genuinely happy that she had taken some time to find a gift for him, no matter what she might have ended up choosing. Max, actually worried about what she could find for Valentine's Day? For me? I gotta be drugged, he indulged himself in his private amusement. What kind of anesthetic is Sam using now? Whatever it is, this has been one nice hallucination. I'm really gonna hate waking up from this one...
"Well, then, come on, Original Cindy don't usually have to wait for her customers to open their presents and make goo-goo eyes at the woman givin' the givin'..." Try as she might, Cindy was just too pleased for the slow-to-woo couple to make her complaint sound too credible. And knowing what was inside the package, she really did want to hang around, curious herself – she wanted a front row seat for Logan's reaction to Max's gift...
At her prodding, Logan grinned widely. Bringing his arm from around Max to hold the package in both hands, and shaking the ten by fourteen, boxy shape gently, as if listening, he glanced up first to Cindy as she spoke, then over to Max. Seeing her continuing discomfort, Logan said warmly, "C'mon, Max – honestly, just the fact that you would have anything for me..."
"Come on, you two! It's Valentine's day! And while you two playin' all 'aw shucks' on this, Original Cindy is missing out on her tips."
With another chortled glance toward Cindy, Logan shrugged toward Max as if it were out of his hands, and opened the brown shipping package he held, drawing out a plain red box that had a form taped across the length and width of its lid. Pivoting the box to read the form, his expression shifted from his grin to one of growing amazement as the fact of Max's gift began to dawn on him...
"Max..." he barely blinked up at her before looking back at the form. "How did you...?" He stared at the paper. "This is incredible..."
Northwest Regional Wheelchair Basketball Tournament, he read. Official Entry Form.
He'd seen this before, when Corey had first gotten it and discussed it with the team. But there was a line, empty since it arrived and now finally filled, one the team had discussed at length.
Official sponsor: Jam Pony Messenger Service
Logan looked up at her again, his eyes widening in his disbelief as he managed, "You got Normal to sponsor us?" For several weeks now, the players had held on to the hope that they'd find a team sponsor. Discouraged so far, they'd refused to surrender and just let Logan, as a team member, be its sponsor as well and donate the several hundred dollars it would take for the entry fee and related expenses. They were a real team, and it had meant everything to them to find a 'real,' business sponsor, as generous as Logan's offer might have seemed to them... "Max," he blinked. "How...?"
She shrugged awkwardly and minimized, "Not really me... more like I got Normal & Corey together. Corey did all the major convincing..."
Unnoticed by the two now, Cindy smiled softly, took a couple steps backward, and, smiling happily, turned with her bike to walk away...
"... He managed to bring Normal three new accounts," Max was explaining, words tumbling in her lingering insecurity. "His business, and Denny's – he's a graphic artist – and Corey's wife's law firm. And it wasn't just my idea; when I knew you were looking for a sponsor I told Cindy about it, and just wondered out loud what it would take to get Normal to sponsor the team. Cindy said it would be all about what's in it for him, and ... that... just started me thinking. I said something to Corey's wife at the last game, and she told Corey, and Corey called me to help get it set up. He did the hard work, arranging the accounts and convincing Normal. And Cindy and the rest of them helped – they all tagged Normal, saying the advertising would do the place good, that we see posters all over for other businesses and it was time our name got out, too." She drew a breath, watching his face carefully, trying to read his thoughts from his stunned expression. He could still be so prickly, sometimes, about the chair, about his dependence on it and all the changes his injury brought, maybe this was overstepping her bounds with him, butting into something still too sensitive for her to invade. Still unsure, she shrugged again, her voice not as casual as she'd hoped. "So Jam Pony has some new regular customers, and the team does some advertising. Quid pro quo."
It was as if the uncertainty in her voice finally shook him from his daze. He looked up into her eyes, suddenly, and she saw an awed appreciation swimming there. Shaking his head slowly, his eyes dropped back to the form in his lap as he said softly, "You did this."
She sighed, wishing it had been her doing, a sad little smile on her lips. "I barely mentioned it before everyone was all up in the game, helping work the plan on Normal ... so, no... It's not really from me, at all."
Logan's amazement began to give way to a deeply touched, emotional reaction for the woman at his side. "Max..." he crooned, "c'mere..." Pulling her close, his arm circling her again warmly, he urged, "you went to Corey, right?
"Right..." She sounded skeptical.
"And told him you might get Normal to sponsor the team..." His other arm went around her and he faced her as squarely as the car seats allowed, hoping for her understanding.
"Yeah," she admitted grudgingly.
"...and said if some new accounts could be raised, it would help seal the deal?" When her eyes raised back to his, acquiescing, Logan shrugged, a soft laugh of affection pulled from him. "That was all you, Max..."
"...but I just hooked them up," she balked. She seemed genuinely surprised that it counted.
"And that kind of hooking up makes the world go 'round. At least the business world," he smiled, his fingertips tracing her cheek. "You got them together, two businessmen who had no reason to come in contact otherwise. You engineered Jam Pony's becoming the sponsor of a wheelchair basketball team – the last connection anyone would make, and one that makes perfect sense, what with all the wheels." She's really not afraid of the chair, he marveled at the sudden revelation that finally, at long last, was truly sinking in, or all it entails ... not of me, or how things are now. How many times has she said it; how many times did Bling say it was true ... how many times did Tony say it? "Max..." He paused, words inadequate to truly encompass all it meant. "This is ... incredible. What you did ... and what it means, to have you understand how important..." he trailed, the emotions rising in him beyond his grasp for the moment. He blinked... he swallowed; he shook his head. "It's everything. It's perfect..."
Max felt her pulse quicken at the response she saw in his extraordinary green eyes, as she started to believe that her gift had been received even more gratefully than she'd have imagined, by the man who had come to mean more to her than anyone in her life ever had. But the newness of her own emotions made wearing her heart on her sleeve still a daunting prospect. Still not ready to let in too much hope, she tried another defense. "Even for Valentine's Day?" she asked, "because all those things I've been out delivering, they were teddy bears and candy and flowers. Not sponsorships..."
"Especially for Valentine's Day," Logan's voice was back, cradling and assuring her, wondering if he could help her see just how important this had been, "because you found me something special that I couldn't get for myself. None of us had managed it. And, because it's the right time of year," he nudged her, his eyes sparkling warmly with the delight he'd found in her gift. "The tournament's only about ten days away." He quieted a little to add, "and you did it all because you knew what it would mean, to the team, to the other guys ... to me..." He leaned in for a quiet, gentle kiss, then pulled away to murmur, "I can't begin to imagine a better present than that, Max."
She finally smiled in concession, pleased that it meant so much to him, pleased that she could touch him so deeply. Emotions pressing, and more than she thought she could handle for the moment there in the small confines of the Aztek, she looked down and, feeling her cheeks warming alarmingly, jostled the box in his lap. "You haven't even opened the box yet."
With a loving, tender smile he kissed the curls under his cheek. "There's more?" he teased. At her muffled snort, he chortled. "Should I open it now, too?"
"If you want me to watch while you do." Her effort to affect her usual, street-wise distance only raised a smile on Logan's face, who didn't believe it for a moment. "Normal's gonna toss me for sure." She tipped her chin back up with her words and dared a glance up to the waiting eyes, her own expression giving away another wave of uncertainty. She was nervous again, he could see...
"Then let's do it," Logan grinned. Popping the small pieces of tape securing the box, he lifted the lid off and once again, her gift left him at a loss for words...
In the box was a sleeveless tee shirt, its orange-to-yellow color sweep surprisingly similar to the color on the Jam Pony sign at the business and on the identification badge Max wore. But it was the black design, across the front, that caught Logan's immediate attention: it was the Jam Pony logo, morphed and moved as he himself might have played with an image on his computer. The rider was the same, hunched forward in speed, but the bicycle's rear wheel had been tucked in closer as the rider moved down, now sitting atop the wheel as it surged forward. Even more, the front wheel had shrunk: instead of a bicycle wheel, with the messenger's arm and handlebars seeming to merge into it, the wheel had become a basketball, that the player palmed as he flew down court...
"Max..." Logan looked up to her waiting face, taken with the image. "It's the Jam Pony logo ... but..."
"...this was just a test shirt, to see how it looked. You probably could do it better," she apologized, discomfort rekindled, barely comfortable with her gift before, and now suddenly overwhelmed with a need that her intentions –and emotions – be understood. So much he'd given her, so much he'd done ... and yet here was one tiny thing she could offer... "or Denny – he's the professional. But the original logo and this one are still saved in your computer; I sneaked on to work on it after you fell asleep, and hid it with a password that might have fooled you even for another day or so. So if..."
But his stunned look was again shifting in surprise, as he looked back once more to the shirt he held, then up to her. "Max... you did this?"
She looked in his eyes and, after a moment's hesitation, hoping that under his renewed surprise he'd be pleased, quoted something he'd said to her, once. "Depends..." Max watched the handsome face carefully as he lifted the shirt, eyes taking it all in. "Do you hate it?"
"You're kidding, right?" He looked back to the shirt in his hands. "This design is perfect; it's so close to the original, but still, it's a ball player... " He shook his head again, taken with everything that had happened that day. "The logo, the sponsorship, everything..." he trailed, gazing at her, happily. "Max ... it's phenomenal ... thank you."
"...but ... for Valentine's...?" Her voice was small, hushed.
It was the sound of her uncertainty that did it; he realized that this was all new to her, this kind of emotional intimacy, and he promised himself he'd never forget what that would mean to them both, for Max to trust him enough to let him in like this. For her to care so much that she was still uncertain such a wonderful gift could be right ... that pleasing him meant something to her, that she felt the need to make him happy ... it was what gave him the confidence and the strength to breathe out the words that he'd felt in his heart for oh so many months now... "Max..." He leaned close to take another kiss, to seal his fate. "I love you..."
... and at that moment, the world opened up for Max in a rush of awareness that she would always remember and find endearing and amusing: in his dirty, beat up car, the wealthy Logan Cale pledged his love amid the faint smells and sounds of a garage, gasoline and rubber and oil subtly mixing with his heady scents of sandalwood and wine... this would be their moonlit night, their starry sky and their waves on the beach ... because this was where the man she loved found the words and the confidence to say it for the both of them...
And finally relaxing into a sudden, growing, dazzling beam, Max glowed with the beauty of her love for him. "Made you say it first," she teased...
He looked long into her eyes, his own, hopeful now, and raised a hand to hold her cheek softly in his palm. As she leaned into his hand, in her eyes he saw his own longing and love and need mirrored there, for him, and his confidence grew. "... because I do, you know..." he murmured. "I love you, Max."
She smiled warmly, her dark eyes sparkling at his words. "I think I'm starting to believe that you do." She leaned in to kiss him sweetly, then pulled back to trace his lips with her fingers. "Which is good... because, Logan Cale... I love you, too."
The sudden shine in his eyes was magnified by the moisture which appeared at her words. The words ... the first time she'd actually said them, and in response to his first direct pronouncement to her. And she said them bravely, with fearless certainty. All he could think to say was, in a hopeless murmur, "what a pair."
With pride in her eyes, and an impish grin splitting her features, Max tipped her chin up a little, almost as a challenge. "That's exactly what I was thinking..."
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON: February 14, 2020; 8:34 p.m.
SECTOR 9; Fogle Towers. Penthouse.
"Mmm ... my favorite cologne in the world – dinner."
Her words preceded Max, along with the sounds of the front door as she closed it, the mail dropped on the hallway table, and her footsteps as she walked back to the kitchen. Logan was already grinning, decked out for her with his brand new team uniform shirt under his warm-up jacket, as he looked up to see her appear in the doorway. "Nothing like an appreciative audience," he offered, with that smile. That dazzling one...
She hadn't planned it; she'd even wondered if such things would be expected of her now ... would Logan expect her to greet him with a kiss, a touch, like lovers did in the movies? What if it's just not in me, all that? she'd worried, even that afternoon. But the long hours of anticipation for getting done with work and coming over to see him again, coupled with just one glance at the impossibly tousled hair, the green eyes glittering with pleasure at her appearance, and Max found herself heading straight for his waiting lips, kissing him warmly before she could form another thought. "No, make that second favorite," she murmured, her lips still gently against his, eyes still closed. "Favorite has to be Logan-scent..."
Delighted and even a little embarrassed that he was so pleased by her words, he laughed, "Ugh, no ..." He looked at the stunning face as she pulled back, grinning at his response, smiling for him. For him, he marveled yet again... "What 'scent' is that?"
And her grin quirked up in fun. "Cooking-dinner-scent?" she tried, devilishly. At his soft, grunted laugh, she brushed his lips again with hers to murmur, "nice tee shirt."
He beamed. "I like it," he nodded, his eyes following her as she straightened, letting him get back to his preparations.
Glancing over to the stove, she sniffed the air once more and asked, "Is that marinara?" At his nod, she smiled, and chuckled, "Italian again. Tony would be impressed." Rewarded with another smile, she continued, "and it's appropriate, seeing as how there was something from him in the mail, just now..."
"Really?" Logan looked up to the medium-sized, tan envelope she waggled in her hand, just now catching his conscious attention, then eagerly grabbed a towel to clean off his hands to take the proffered envelope, clearly pleased. "Thanks, Max..." Pulling open the sealed flap, Logan drew out two items, one a creamy, formal envelope, and another a folded, plain piece of cardboard. Laying the cardboard aside for the moment, Logan turned the envelope over and saw, in a flowing, graceful handwritten script, two names, one atop of the other: "Logan Cale" ... and "Max Guevara." Knowing what he'd find inside, he beamed and pulled open yet another, inner envelope...
"Will you look at this..." He murmured, as he looked over the formal wedding announcement. "Tony's getting married again, Max..." His grin twisted up at the corner in amusement. "The end of an era..."
Max peered over Logan's shoulder, seeing that a hand-written note had been scribbled along the margin. "He wrote on it? Even I know you don't do that..." Max nudged him, reading the pencilled-in words before Logan had...
Cuz... I'm not going through with this unless you're here to be my best man. You did it for Bennett, and he's not even your favorite cousin. So you owe me now. If you can't make it this date, we'll move it to when you can come.
I'm serious here.
Logan sat back with a soft snort, his eyes unfocused as he considered the idea, clearly moved – and, Max saw, clearly thinking about taking Tony up on his demand. Good, she smiled, Tony might just be the one to get through his stubborn head... Unnoticed by Logan, so wrapped up in his thoughts of the wedding, Max glanced back at the cardboard rectangle, still lying untouched on the counter. Typically curious, she lifted it to slide out the other item from his cousin. After a moment of appreciative appraisal, the sight raising a soft smile on her features, Max turned back to consider Tony's "lil cuz."
"Tony was right..." Max's words, spoken softly, interrupted his thoughts, and Logan looked up to see her holding something, a five by seven or so piece of stiff paper, that she tipped toward him. Once she had his attention, she smiled tenderly. "You two did meet before the lake..." And, watching him closely now, Max handed the evidence to him...
And the only sound in response was the soft intake of Logan's breath – an involuntary, emotional sound...
The photo he held was a good many years old, and revealed a teenaged boy who, given the wide, brilliant smile and the shining, expressive eyes, could be no one other than a young Anthony DiNozzo. He stood straight and beaming, feet apart and grinning for the camera, in a room Max had recognized as Jonas' and Margo's home, familiar to her from Bennett's wedding. But with Tony in the photograph, cradled safely in his arms, was a tiny, sleepy baby who had grown into the man Max loved more than anyone she'd ever known...
"Look at the back," she whispered. And he flipped it over to read in Tony's scrawling, penciled script, "Cuzzes meet for the first time."
Logan blinked rapidly, the photo touching him deeply. He looked back to the picture of Tony, young and happy and already proud of his infant cousin ... and after a long moment of taking in the image, he looked back to the invitation, and the typically Tony note scrawled in pencil across the formal engraving. Blinking again to clear his vision, he looked again at the words, grinned a little, then looked up at the woman waiting there patiently, seeing the effect she'd expected the photo would have on him. "Max..." he began. "Weren't you just saying that you've always wanted to fly?"
The end...
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
...at least for now: A sequel has been in outline form for some time, but it's gotten so quiet in DA land, it's hard to tell if there's an audience for more. Should the cousins just be retired, with this?
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO
A/N, August 18, 2007: Concurrent Jurisdiction was finished in July, 2006, and in the past year has continued to get some hits and reviews-- I 'm delighted to know that "the cousins" were liked by so many other people! I have a huge soft spot in my heart for both sidekicks and special cousins, so thank you all for reading and letting me know you liked them, too.
The "threatened" sequel, Minimum Contacts, has been underway here on FFN since October, 2006, story ID #3198040. It picks up not long Concurrent Jurisdiction's last chapter. It's still a WIP, but it will be done. Thanks to everyone asking about the sequel, and those yelling at me to update faster... ; The cousins will be around for a while yet...