Disclaimer: See chapter one.

A/N: Thanks for the reviews for the last chapter, and also a huge thanks to Shywr1ter for betaing and suggestions:-)

The chapters of this story aren't going to be connected by a successive plotline – after all we all know what happened in S1;-) – but will just show some events from Bling's perspective.

In this chapter it is the moment in 'Prodigy' when he spots Logan on the roof of the 'Steinlitz' together with Darius's men.

(Also, in case anybody cares, I really do intend to update my other stories, most of them have at least half-written new chapters)

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Street in front of the Steinlitz hotel, 8:30 PM

Logan. The guy up there on the ledge of the hotel roof, whose armpits were gripped forcefully by two of the terrorists, was Logan. Forcefully digging his short-cut fingernails into his palm, Bling stared up at the small, grey figure, squinting in his effort to make out any details against the dark sky. He didn't want to believe what he saw, wanted to be wrong – but there was no doubt. It was Logan. There was the black jacket which he had carelessly put on only a few hours before, impatient to get to the hotel, the blond, spiky hair, the way he suddenly came into sight as if lifted up from a seated position… it all confirmed with unmistakable, sickening clarity that the man who was going to die in mere seconds indeed was his friend. The terrorists were making good on their threat to kill another hostage, lashing out at the one person who'd promised to get their message out.

It wasn't fair.

Bling wanted to run, to sprint up the many stairs to Logan… but he couldn't. He was paralyzed by the thought that that he would never reach him in time, petrified by the knowledge that he could do nothing but watch how Logan was balanced up there, so close to falling to his death.

Like all the others who had crowded in front of the Steinlitz, Bling's gaze was fixed on the scene playing out over his head, the safe, unshakable ground under his feet triggering a nauseating guilt that soon spiked up to a sharp self-recrimination. All he could do was to hope that the men would reconsider, that something would happen, that Logan could talk them out of this…

But this was no fairytale. There would be no miracle for Logan, no life-saving superhero coming to the rescue of the guy who had saved so many lives himself.

It was his fault, his failure that Logan had gone in there alone, without backup.

He had tried in vain to make Logan see that trading himself in was close to suicide… and all along had known that for him there were worse things than to die as a hero saving a dozen lives. After months of observation, Bling had been well aware that it was pointless to argue when it came to his friend's convictions, even more so if Max was involved… but he'd tried anyway. How could he have not?

But of course Logan, with his dammed mix of reason and dedication, had just dismissed his worries and offer to accompany him with grateful stubborness, correctly pointing out that he alone had the questionable trust of Darius, and that taking anybody else along would only endanger the hostages. The soldier in Bling couldn't help but admire Logan's braveness, his ability to negotiate with Darius… his instincts as a bodyguard, his affection and loyalty as a friend however had made him want to scream at Logan not to be a fool.

In the end Logan had gone in alone, with bold, confident strokes wheeling himself into the arms of those to whom a human life was worth nothing at all. He left Bling – the bodyguard, the soldier, the one who should be at the front – behind, going crazy with waiting and imagining all the things that could happen to an untrained civilian in a wheelchair when bullets started to fly.

Bling's more sensible side knew that, short of physical violence, he couldn't have stopped Logan…. yet right now, as he stared up at the roof, the aching stiffness in his neck a fitting punishment for not protecting his friend properly, all his rational knowledge wasn't able to make him feel any better. He had failed, and there was nothing he could do now to make up for his mistake.

It was too late.

He could do nothing but observe how the men released their hold on Logan's arms with a sudden, careless movement as if he was a worthless piece of garbage, something that been used up and was now discarded.

Logan didn't cry out, didn't do anything, he just glided through the air as if this was only a bad dream, as if he would wake up in a moment to emerge from his bedroom, as cranky and obsessed as ever. He fell and fell, with every second coming closer to the ground, his body looking strong and healthy and nothing like the sickeningly crushed form of Dr. Tanaka they both had seen on the pavement only a few hours before.

Bling wanted nothing so much than to look away, not to see Logan die. It had been bad enough to see Peter die on the screen… but at least it hadn't happened directly in front of his eyes, leaving him unable to help, unable to do anything at all but to be one of the cruelly sensation-hungry crowd.

He didn't want to watch – but how could he look away when the man there falling to his death wasn't merely some stranger but Logan, his boss, his friend, the person he had vowed to protect? What kind of a friend would he be if he wasn't strong enough to stand this sight when maybe in this moment Logan's dying eyes searched for him in the mass of gaping people, hoping to see a familiar face in the last seconds of his life?

Bling's eyes were so fixed on Logan that he missed the slim figure throwing itself of the roof at first, gliding through the air with the easy grace of a practiced diver.

Max.

For a terrifying split-second Bling thought that she had gone crazy, was sacrificing herself for the man who no doubt meant so much more to her than she would ever admit. Then, with a weakening jolt of relief, he registered the rope around her waist, securing her in her drop toward the bone-crushing pavement.

For the first time in the seconds, minutes or whatever time he had been standing here with the thought of having to bury another friend, Bling allowed himself to relax a bit. If there was anybody who could pull off such a neck-breaking operation it was Max. With a reawakened, growing hope, he took in how Max flew through the cold Seattle night as if this was only a simple, harmless exercise, nothing to worry about at all. Finally her hand connected with Logan's to draw him close into the safety of her embrace, eliciting a shared groan of relief from the watching crowd. A second later they crashed through the hotel's window front, escaping from their view to leave a mass of stunned people that staring at the empty sky long after the spectacle was over.

Finally averting his eyes from the sky, Bling allowed himself a short moment of letting his mind catch up with the alleviating, happy feeling flooding through him. It was an emotion that soon was disturbed by a whole series of what-if-scenarios: Logan being hurt by his forceful crash through the window, the glass severing a major blood vessel, injured by the impact on whatever was on the inside…

Shaking off his morbid fears, Bling turned around to scan the stunned faces around him for that of the commander of the hostage rescue team. He wasn't willing to wait until the military found the time to get Logan out of the hotel, not while the building was swarming with Darius's men eager to finish their job on their escaped victim. As he spotted him in a heated discussion with Matt Sung, Bling felt his mind slip into soldier-mode, replacing his worries with a tactical analysis of how to convince the commander to let him enter the hotel on his own. Finally there was something he could do.