Author's Note: Urgh. I can sympathise with the script writers for Lost. Except I don't have anyone telling me to drag this out. Unfortunately I'm doing that of my own accord. One of my cats has been helping me with this, by sitting on my knee and splaying her paws out across the keyboard at every opportunity. Thanks Karma. Your breath stinks like 'Ocean Fish Platter'. Anyway, I have to post this chapter NOW before I attempt to 'proof read' again and spend another few months chopping and changing things. Being my own beta-reader really sucks!
Ten points to anyone who can spot my rip-off off a scene from a current TV series, and a further ten points to the one who can point out the Alec alter-ego name and fan fic author I borrowed it from.
E M P T Y . W O R L D
B y . S o r r o w . R e m i n i s c e
. x . x . x . x .
13 June, 2002
8.38am
Max gazed down at Logan as he slept fitfully, and stopped herself from reaching out to brush away the strands of hair that clung to his clammy forehead. Instead she watched as Alec did the job for her, and forced a sad smile of thanks. A few hours earlier, he had begun to run a slight temperature. Nothing too serious, no cause for concern. Until he slumped forward in his seat over lunch and passed out in his ration of rice.
"Are you sure you never touched him? Brush his hand over dinner maybe?"
Wincing slightly, Max raised her eyes to meet Dix's, and gave a small nod. "I'm sure. Besides, the symptoms are different."
"Well, I better get this sample off to the CDC, they're still our only chance right now. But my optimistic longshot is; maybe he's just been working too hard." The nomolie capped Logan's blood sample and turned towards the door. "Dude's been running late nights. Never seems to get any sleep."
"Yeah, sure. Maybe he just needs a rest." Max whispered the words absently, feeling Alec's eyes bore into her as he stood in the doorway. She knew he was thinking of the argument they'd had the night before, and how she had stopped him from hitting a pharmaceutical lab.
"He needs to go to the hospital Alec, but the hospital isn't safe either." Max whispered the words as she sank down into a chair and rested her head in her hands.
Alec walked around the bed and lifted her chin with a gentle fingertip, "It's gonna be okay. Like Dix said, Logan's been running long hours trying to hack info from the CDC, maybe he's just run himself into the ground and needs a rest or something."
But 'something' was the ominous word that continued to hang in the air.
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11.08am
"Okay, fine. I'll agree to your plan, but there's a condition."
Alec, intent on pushing pins into a map, froze in mid-action as Max's words washed over him. The hand continued to hover over Nevada as he waited for her to reach his side.
"Well, don't you wanna know what it is?"
Placing the drawing pin on the table, Alec slowly turned to face Max. "Uhhh huh… sure." More enthusiastically this time, and with a forced grin to boot. "Go for it."
Max hesitated for only a moment before ploughing on. "Choose two of our best. Not including yourself. I doubt they'll have to worry about the thermal scanners, we're the least of Seattle's worry right now. Just make sure they get in and get - what? What is it?"
Finally picking up that Alec's hesitance to meet her eyes was not due to bashfulness, Max stopped laying down her guidelines and sensed there was something already going on beneath her nose. "Spit it out Alec!"
"Well ya see Max, it's like this…" With one hand propping him against the table top and the other scrubbing across the back of his neck, Alec radiated bravery as he cleared his throat and delivered the news. "Team's already been sent out. Bout an hour ago."
"Under whose authority?" Max drew herself taller and folded her hands across her chest.
"Mine."
"Yours?"
"Yeah Max. Mine. See, I knew you'd come around after admitting to yourself Logan's not really just a little run down right now, so anticipating your change of priorities, I sent out a couple of Manticore's finest to bring back everything Rose needs to make a decent shot at curing this bitch. More of a risk in daylight, but we figured there's no time to lose." Alec took pause of breath to study Max's body language. A shift in weight told a lot about whether or not she was gonna lunge.
"Oh." Max seemed to wear dismay and relief in the same expression. "Okay then."
"Okay? That's all ya have for me? No stomping of feet? No gnashing of teeth?" Raising an eyebrow in disbelief, Alec took a step towards Max and held a hand to her forehead. "You alright in there?"
Max turned her head away and batted aside his hand. "What else do you want? A medal, or a chest to pin it on? "
Alec blinked. "A medal would be nice."
Casting her eyes across Alec's map, Max winced and looked away. "You're right Alec. I admit Logan's really damn sick right now, and I admit that may be the motivating force needed for me to risk a few of us making this run. And maybe part of me's glad you took the initiative. That way if something goes wrong out there, I can say it's not entirely my fault. I can say there's one aspect of this whole damn mess that wasn't caused by me."
"Is that what you think Max? That this is all your fault?" Alec held his hands out in bewilderment and dropped them again. This wasn't the reaction he had expected. "I'm no Uncle Monty but I can see this sense of guilt you're harbouring is a little outta proportion. I don't know how many times it has to be said, but you're not to blame here. And seeing you skulk around like a leper isn't doing anyone any favours."
Max offered a weak smile. "Think I should shape up or ship out?"
"Now you're thinkin' like a soldier." Alec grinned and punched her playfully on the arm. "Stick with me long enough and I'll impart my wit and cunning."
"Hey!" Max shoved him back. "You're lucky I'm not harbouring a grudge about you going behind my back - again."
"Which reminds me… What was the condition?"
"Huh?"
"You said you'd agree to the mission - but with a condition."
Max faltered. Diffident. "Nothing much. Just comes back to what I said last night. I didn't want you to be on the team."
Alec cocked his head to one side and smirked. "Care about me that much eh?"
"In your dreams." Her mood lightened by the banter, Max turned her back on Alec and crossed to the door. "Just didn't wanna lose my punching bag."
"Punching bag!" Alec's shout bounced off the closing door and he shook his head and chuckled at an empty room. "She cares."
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6.15pm
A dreary 1pm meeting with Mole regarding the ever-present dilemma of dwindling food supplies was for Max, almost a welcome respite from thoughts of slow death and mass extinction.
After checking on Logan and finding no change to his condition, she recalled Alec's comparison of her to a skulking leper and decided to do the rounds on the rest of Terminal City's inhabitants. Everyone worked off a roster with salvage, clean up and sentry duties being swapped like trading cards. Thus occupied, many transgenics were relatively unconcerned by the plague that ravaged the world beyond TC's perimeter fence. The news of the X6's demise had been kept low key enough for many to still believe themselves immune. Max decided not to dispel their beliefs.
Sketchy was eventually located in The Immigrant; Terminal City's only functioning bar which an eager group of transgenics (led by Alec) had restored to it's former glory.
"Heya Max!"
Her former Jam Pony co-worker flashed a grin as he turned from the bar with a jug of beer in hand, and inclined his head towards a table.
"Hey Sketch." Max slipped onto a stool and waited as he returned to the bar for an extra handle. "Drinkin' alone tonight? Where's OC?"
"Just missed her by about five minutes, dude." He slopped beer over the rim of the glass as his attention was momentarily caught by a passing X5 blonde, and beamed foolishly as she smiled back, before realising she was laughing at his spillage.
"I haven't seen my girl all day! She okay?"
Sketchy shrugged. "She was feelin' a bit off-colour, figured she'd call it an early night."
"What do you mean? What are her symptoms?" Max's pushed the beer away and made to stand. "No, don't bother telling me, I'll go check on her myself."
"No worries dude, she just said she felt tired. A bit worn out by all the chillin in front of a telly that doesn't go. Kinda takes a lot out of a person, ya know." Sketchy pushed the beer back towards his friend. "Come on man, have a drink with me. Don't make me sit here and drink alone. Again."
Smiling as her friend made sad puppy eyes, Max picked up her drink and knocked it against Sketchy's own. "Bottoms up, but just this one and then I'll check on OC."
True to her word, Max was just making to leave fifteen minutes later when Alec entered and caught her by the arm, his voice low and urgent as he murmured, "better get back to the infirmary. Logan's awake."
"Awake? That should be a good thing - so why aren't you smiling Alec?" Despite his poker face, Max could read sympathy in her friend's eyes, and that was enough to cause panic to churn her stomach. "What aren't you telling me?"
Ignoring her questions, he nodded briefly in greeting to Sketch before ushering Max out of the bar. "Just go - hurry, while he's still… awake."
Her eyes searching Alec's for a moment longer, Max turned on her heel and ran.
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6.38pm
"Do.. do you remember that time we danced Max? All those lights..."
Perched on the edge of a chair beside Logan's bed, Max felt tears threaten to overwhelm her. She gulped them down, refusing to show Logan her fears. Taking a deep breath to steady her voice, she blurted, "that was a dream Logan."
He turned his head to her and smiled weakly through cracked lips. "I know. But it was such a lovely dream. I just wish we could share it again."
"So do I." Max's voice crumbled and her sight blurred as tears burnt at her eyelids.
Logan winced in pain. The fever and exhaustion threatened to overcome him, but Logan clung tight to consciousness, not wanting to waste another moment of precious time, when so much time had been lost already. "Max, please, take my hand?"
With her fingers tightly clasped together in her lap, Max looked to Logan in horror at the suggestion. "Logan, I can't! You could survive this! But if I touch you, we both know what will happen..."
"You and I both know I won't survive this. So what difference does it make now? I just want to hold you one more time. Please Max?"
Studying her own hands even more intensely than before, unwilling to meet Logan's eyes, Max near shook with the need to scream at the unfairness of it all. She wanted so much to reach out to him. For so long, to touch Logan would be to pass a death sentence upon him. It was a horror she had lived with every day for the past several months. She could watch him die now and never again touch his living skin, all the while convincing herself there was hope; that he'd be able to fight the illness. But if she were to touch him, it would make his death a sure certainty. How could she be his executioner?
But Logan was right. What difference did her touch make now? Except perhaps, to offer long overdue and much awaited comfort.
Coming to a decision, Max slowly reached forward and took one of Logan's hands in her own. Skin met skin for the first in such a long time, they'd almost forgotten what contact felt like. As their fingers entwined, Max hesitantly raised her eyes to meet Logan's. It wasn't pain she saw in his expression as she had feared, but rather relief.
"I…" So much time wasted, and still she couldn't say the words he wanted most to hear. They stopped half way up her throat as even now, she held a part of herself back. "I'm so sorry Logan."
Logan brushed his fingertips over her own before raising her hand to his. "Don't be." His voice was soft and held no condemnation. Of course he wouldn't blame her. She had always been the one to pull away. And now that it was too late for either of them, she was finally reaching out. But still, they hung on for dear life.
It didn't matter what she said now. Instead she climbed onto the bed and nestled beside him. Each one holding on to the other with the desperation of knowing it would be for the last time. Words were meaningless when the simple touch of skin said it all.
And they continued to hold each other, undisturbed through the night, until Logan slipped away, his fingers slackening as they slid from her grasp in the finality of death. An expression of peace upon his face.
TBC...
End Note: If anyone is still reading this, I'd love to hear feedback from you! Please don't be afraid to tell me my grammar is terrible, the characterisation is implausable and the plotline dragging into nowhere - if anything I will appreciate being kept on my toes!
One useless bit of trivia: The Immigrant bar mentioned in this chapter was named after a fantastic Irish pub of my punk rock youth.