Chapter Seventeen

Expectations

Jam Pony

The mistletoe Sketchy and Normal were fighting about brought her back to yesterday.

Kissing Logan.

She pushed that to the side. No sense in dwelling, her mind wandered back to her apartment last night. Pacing around her apartment that is trying to figure out why finding out all of those things about Logan had her so…unnerved?

Dozens of ex-girlfriends, friends, sports, family vacations, inside jokes, the same ones that had been going on for decades, childhood bed, the memory of an evil, sadistic Siamese that had belonged to his aunt, the hierarchy of picking on each other, then she realized what the problem was. It wasn't that she didn't really know him, which she thought was the problem at first, she did…

She knew what kind of mood he had to be in to listen to her music for more than ten minutes; she knew all of his favorite foods, his favorite composers, his favorite authors. She knew the fact that once he actually picked up a book, it was near impossible to drag him away from it, which explained why he didn't read as often as she would have imagined because he hated having to stop, which made sense knowing how he was with Eyes Only.

No not knowing him wasn't the problem. It was that he'd been normal.

The one thing she'd never equated with him.

He could still go back to it, he could walk away. Work nine to five, The first thing that had bonded them…The fact that they weren't normal, they weren't average, they weren't two regular people…But he was the only one of them who lived that way by choice, he could still walk away.

Funny suddenly all of the jokes/endearments about never being a regular anything, the way his lips would tease upwards as his eyes would twinkle calling her abnormal. It had started out as something she'd said, calling herself abnormal, he'd gone to defend her against herself, when he'd paused…

"Actually abnormal is a pretty good description for you," he finally nodded.

"Oh," she just looked at him, "like you're one to talk."

He chuckled at that and fully agreed with her, "Why do you think we're friends Max?"

The memory didn't amuse her like always, didn't bring a smile to her face.

"Hey Max," Sketchy's voice called her out of her melancholy daze. "Tell Normal it's offensive to take down the mistletoe before Little Christmas," he said pulling Max into his final attempt at keeping up the mistletoe.

"Huh?" she asked with a tilted head.

"Thank you Max," Normal said with a shake of his head as he moved up the ladder.

Damn, definitely the wrong answer, she pouted to herself, Oh well 'tis the season of giving, even to Normal

"Yea thanks a lot Max," Sketch said giving up on his fight and walking towards her.

"Sorry"

"Come on Max, the three kings," he said waiting for some type of awareness to dawn in her eyes, honestly Guevara…He should have asked Luis, why hadn't he just asked Luis.

"Oh right, when is that?"

He shook his head in disappointment.

Oh well made one of the ever annoying presences in my life happier today, can't be expected to bring joy to two. "Hey Sketch, what's a mangina?" she asked a few moments later, she was pretty sure she'd figured it out last night, but she didn't want to wait until OC came home to find out for sure and she sure as hell wasn't asking Logan.

He laughed, " Logan trying to get a little kinky in the bedroom, I'm amazed he didn't just show you." He continued on ignoring her look of distain at being linked to Logan when it was repeatedly mentioned she was not, "It's when a guy," he went to fake grab himself, "tucks-"

"Hey hey, I don't think so. This is still a workplace," Normal screeched from behind them.

Sketchy's hand fell away.

Okay so it was what I thought it was, which leads me to wonder, why exactly a guy would wanna fake having that certain part of female anatomy. " Logan's cousin was talking about Cancun last night," she explained before it spread all across the place that's what she and Logan did in their spare time.

"Oh Cancun," Sketchy made a face of total bliss.

"You went?"

"Nah…Oh man but my brother's pictures made me a man, pulse couldn't just wait a few more years…" he shook his head.

She laughed, "It sounded like fun."

"Shit I can just imagine being someone like Logan down there, my brother wasn't bad, but damn Logan must've…" his voice trailed off as he realized who he was talking to, "Uhh."

"Yea," she nodded, ignoring the discomfort she got when thinking of Logan with the two young girls she'd seen pictures of, the southern blonde and the more urban brunette, whom Max realized had been at Jonas' funeral the previous year, "Logan's cousin kept asking where all the good pictures were hidden."

"Damn," Sketch said obviously still distracted, "man to be Logan…"

"Okay second time you said that," she pointed out with a sharp nod, what the exactly did he mean?

"Oh come on tall/broad, blonde hair, blue eyes…Not to mention rich." How many girls had he listened to drool over guys like Logan

"His eyes are green," she corrected.

"Really?" Sketch asked with a tilt of his head, "I always thought they were blue." He shook his head, "Whatever, guys like Logan…They're set from day one."

Max made a face and shake of her head; Sketch was starting to lose it.

"Why'd you bother coming in today?" Normal asked walking up behind them.

Sketch was about to open his mouth and remind their boss of the fact he'd sworn on ten dead presidents and a few living about what he'd do to them if they didn't come in.

"Oh and congratulations Max, out of all of these losers, never thought you would be the one to make it out," he nodded and turned to walk back to his booth.

"Huh?" She asked walking after him and hated herself for doing so, definitely giving him too much power.

"Cale Industries?" He answered raising up the paper.

"Huh?" She repeated seeing just part of the headline as it was hidden and snatched the paper from him.

She was barely listening to him, something about boyfriend, marrying rich, perseverance and a call out to everyone that they should take a lesson from her. She was too busy reading though, control of Cale Industries was being returned to the board with government supervision, funds unfrozen, the committee had cleared all but the head guys and a few of the engineers of wrongdoing.

"Left my iron on," she said turning with Normal's newspaper in her hand and ignored all of Normal's calls after her. She was distracted; she was too busy of thinking of nine million ways to kill Logan.

ooOoo

...

Logan's Bedroom

Normally catching Logan in such an obvious state of undress, with his hair still slightly darkened from his shower and product free, his upper back completely exposed and displaying a tan she was never all to sure how he managed to retain all these months, the comforter pulled up loosely around him, not at all clutched to him as hers would be. Well normally she would pause for a moment and take the chance to just check him out, check him out without worrying about not being noticeable about it and catch him in a totally unguarded moment. Today though after her plaguing thoughts that had lasted hours, thoughts of his ability to return to being normal, she was completely focused on one, the fact that he lied and two, he was in bed at it was almost ten.

" Logan," she abruptly said his name instead of waiting for him to wake up from her presence.

His eyes quickly opened, but then relaxed as he realized she was what had woken him up. They were already fluttering back down as he said her name, "Max." He wondered how the hours had passed so quickly it couldn't be lunch yet, lunch being when she'd normally stop by his house during the day. "What time is it?" he asked with eyes completely closed and his face closer to being completely buried in his pillow.

"Almost ten," she answered.

He groaned, he had needed to talk to her, about a job tonight, but he'd put it off so he could sleep first, it had been just past nine when he'd finally fell into his bed after his shower. Oh crap, he thought as he remembered he'd actually fallen straight into bed after his shower, not stopping to dress at all. He ignored that after all he was covered. Oh well since she was here…"There are some files on my desk. Furrow, 8:20 there's supposed to be a shipment…" His voice tapered off as he realized through sleep bleary half closed eyes she was glaring at him.

Furrow? Furrow? Of all of the words to come out of his mouth Furrow? Logan's ultimate taking advantage and for granted of her…Back to Eyes Only, forgetting the fact that they were friends…Or hell maybe they weren't friends maybe that would explain-

"Max?" He questioned rather hesitantly.

She raised up the paper.

He looked at it puzzlingly.

"Cale Industries? Ring a bell?"

"Oh"

"Oh? That's all you're going to say?"

"What's there to say Max? It's not like it affects you." That was true, the most it had affected her was a poorer bottle of wine with dinner, which she never really seemed to pay much attention to. He'd spent thousands of dollars this summer trying to track down the leads he'd gotten from Lydecker on Max's mother since they at least had her birth date to work from now ignoring what it did to his home furnishings.

His reply was colder than she was used to, colder than what she had become used to, it reminded her of the early days. "You said it was impossible, there was no way the committee…" Her voice trailed off remembering all the details from the early newspaper articles, Logan explaining them further, there was no way C.I. could have gotten out of this…Legally that is. She suddenly remembered walking ahead of Logan and Jon last night as Brittany was pulling her along to see her grandma's rock. She remembered hearing Jon whisper a thank you, Logan had made no verbal reply and they'd moved along to the topic of Jon getting two new sisters, which Jon had elaborated on, pointing out he had two hot new stepsisters, completely ignoring the fact that they were returning to his wife.

"You did this," she said with a firm shake of her head.

He looked guilty for briefest of seconds…telling Bennett who to bribe when he'd spent so much of his life fighting against things like that…It hadn't been his cousins' fault, then again if he believed that then he had to concede it hadn't been his fault, but he'd never been a big fan of ignorance is innocence.

Memories of that little checked box next to business on his Yale application. Classes and studies he hadn't put the effort into to prove his unworthiness in that major until finally he was allowed to drop it and move into more of the research and development field of Cale Industries which he'd too dropped the moment his father wasn't around to look down poorly at him.

He had been willing to let it go. Let go of the money and the power that came with it. If he hadn't been he would have never done that report. He hadn't allowed himself to think of his family though, the marital and personal issues that ensued. Repeatedly listening to Bennett's vain attempts at trying to save the company, actually pleading for help…

Cales did not beg.

They did a lot of things, but begging wasn't one of them. Yet his cousin had to him.

It was well known Logan knew people; he knew how the city worked after investigating its corruption for so long. So one day he finally told Bennett exactly what he needed to do, who he needed to see, after his cousin had said the name of a man Logan was sure could and would help his cousin at the present time, but would destroy their family and probably half of Seattle in the future.

Those with money and power decided how the city would be run, they would affect the lives of its citizens and Logan had to believe his family could less damage and possibly even some good this time around.

"I told Bennett who to talk to," he replied simply.

She was shocked by his confession, she'd told him when it first went down she wouldn't think less of him if he ignored it, hell his whole family had been brought down by two power and money hungry men. She was amazed by the shame she saw in his eyes, like he actually thought she believed he'd done it for himself.

"There are safeguards up now Max, government supervision for three years, hell no one in my family's actually going to be making money for years."

She weakened as he defended the actions he didn't really seem to believe. Damn, in moments like this she wished she didn't know him so well, that this was a year ago and he was just an ass and nothing more. That he wasn't asking her to be okay with it so he could be. That he was successful in hiding his emotions like he had once been, that his eyes weren't wavering, he'd once been able to easily look at her and lie about his feelings and everything else, but now his eyes wavered just the slightest bit.

The problem was now, what to say to Logan when he was so obviously weak, dammit if she wasn't used to him always taking on the 'I'm fine' role no matter what. "Probably better that it's not in the government's hands or whoever they'd sell it off to. Course resorting back to stealing to support Eyes Only would have entertained me a lot more, I could have been all Robin Hoody," she shrugged.

He smiled at that, wondering exactly who he was in that story.

"Why the hell are you still in bed?" She smiled and teased, "Think just because you're rich-"

He laughed, "Furrow? 8:20?" he repeated the words he'd said to her earlier.

"Up all night?" she asked

He nodded and reburied his head in the pillow.

"You are such a weakling," she pointed out, pulling an all-nighter, come on…

"No shark sorry, I need sleep." He smiled into the pillow, back to groggy despite his little boost only minutes earlier.

Her mouth opened in shock as his eyes shut, he was really going back to sleep on her…

The phone rang and she smirked as he gave a whining groan, why was the world out to get him so early? His hand reached up and over to grab the phone from his nightstand. "Hello?" he asked and his eyes shut once more as Bitsy's voice was on the other end. He wasn't catching all the words, just Bennett, Marianne and baby. "Boy or girl?" he knew enough to ask.

"Marianne had the baby?" Max asked

He avoided groaning as Bitsy started to harp on the fact that Max was at his apartment, then again there was probably nothing he could do to disillusion his cousin from the fantasy she had, so he did the most logical thing. "I'm going back to bed," he said over the phone to his cousin, "talk to Max."

Max pouted in confusion as she took the phone from Logan's outstretched hand and watched him turn his head away from her and shut his eyes again.

He barely heard the words being said to the side of him, just a series of noises that were preventing him from actually falling back asleep. "Yea no noon sounds great," Logan opened his eyes to those words coming from Max, "yea no have her drop Brittany off here." He groaned and was sure she was smiling behind him, he reached out and pulled a pillow from the opposite side of the bed and put it over his head.

A few minutes later he felt Max's form drop down onto his bed and raise up his pillow and he was greeted with a very self-satisfied smile, "It's a boy, Nicholas Jason Cale, 9lbs 4oz. Bitsy's at work so Brittany's nanny is gonna drop her off her at noon, so you can take her to go see the baby, oh and I said you'd give her lunch."

"What did I ever do to you?"

"Made me look like a retard to Normal, made me worry every time you bought a bottle of wine and worry you were going to go broke by the time you hit thirty five." She was about to go on, about his lying or withholding information when she realized when she'd joined him on the bed he'd suddenly started holding onto the down comforter, she caught site of the chair she'd shifted towards the end of his bed when she'd come into the room and the white towel casually dropped on it. "You're naked," she said putting the pieces together.

There was a slight chuckle muffled by the pillow, his closed eyes crinkled at the corners as he pointed out the obvious, "It's my bed Max."

His eyes opened slightly and looked up at hers, they were still bleary with sleep and laughter and she was truly confronted with the fact that she was in bed with a naked Logan. For a moment she almost thought that he was going to push up on his arms and pull her into him, she didn't know why exactly, she just did, he didn't though. So instead, with her suddenly very limited vocabulary she found herself saying, "Should probably go, doesn't take this long to turn off my iron."

He just looked puzzled at that, but didn't push.

"64…" her voice tapered off; somehow she doubted he was going to remember any of the information. "I'll leave it on your desk, one o'clock though, don't be late, if I have to make small talk with Margo I'm gonna tell Bitsy you wanna baby sit for the rest of Brit's break."

Another groan from him, but it settled into a smile as he heard her leave the room.

ooOoo

...

The Hospital

"Hey," Max said softly walking into the hospital room where Bennett was standing by the window separated by Marianne's bed and the plastic basinet containing the newest edition to Logan's family. Which was good since they were going to be needing a replacement since it was 1:10 and Logan wasn't here yet.

They both turned and smiled, inviting Max further into the room. She slowly made her way in, not really sure what exactly she was supposed to be saying since this was her first hospital visit for a newborn. She probably should have made more of an effort to find a gift in the 3 hours that had passed since she knew she was coming here, the last gift she'd gotten for a baby was a bottle of baby shampoo, which had taken her days to find and she doubted they needed something like that and flowers were pretty hard to find in December. Next thing she knew she was standing over the basinet with Bennett by her side as Marianne looked on expectantly.

That old adage of all babies being cute? Yea turns out it was a lie, definitely kinda deformed looking, definitely kinda red and blotchy. That happened she knew it happened, the effects of delivery and change in environments, still you never expect it, "Aww he's perfect," she lied with a tender smile and really hoped he was going to stop looking like Jonas soon.

"Do you want to hold him?" Bennett asked.

"No," she waved a hand, "I've been riding around all day, I'm dirty."

Bennett's eyes rolled over her, she was no dirtier than anyone who stepped foot in the city, "Max, he's all wrapped up, he'll be fine, why don't you go sit down, I'll bring him over."

That's how Logan found them as he walked in holding Brittany's hand, a teddy bear in each of their other hands. Max was seated in one of the hospital's uncomfortable wood and salmon upholstered chairs, holding Nicholas, wondering exactly how long she was going to be holding Nicholas. He smiled as he said his congratulations and told Marianne how great she was looking and let go of Brittany's hand, she turned back a few steps into walking towards Max and raised up her own tan teddy with a pink ribbon in exchange for the corresponding blue one Logan held in his hand.

"This is for Nicholas," she said walking over to Max, completely ignoring her aunt and uncle, wanting to see Max and the baby more.

"Uh…" Max looked between the stuffed animal, the little girl and the baby before turning to Logan for what exactly she was supposed to do.

"Brit why don't you give that to Uncle Ben, remember Nicholas isn't big enough to play with his yet." Logan explained as he had done so in the gift shop.

Max smirked at the word 'his' and that Brittany had managed to get another toy out of him.

Brittany handed over the toy and went back to Max who tilted the baby so Brittany could see her new cousin and wondered why the hell someone from the family wasn't taking over this job, like Logan. "He doesn't look like the baby's do on tv," she pointed out the obvious and Max and Logan, who had just walked over couldn't figure out to laugh or feel horrible.

"Give him a few weeks Brit," Logan said, "you looked like that too."

She made a face, which turned to a look of dislike towards her uncle, then snatched her bear out of his hands.

Max bent down her head hiding a chuckle.

"You know you were once that small," Marianne said as Brittany made her way towards the top of the bed seeking refuge.

Eyes looked up disbelieving.

"And you peed on Uncle Logan," Bennett said trying to give the little girl some peace.

Horror and dismay sprayed across the young girl's face.

"Thanks Bennett almost forgot about that," Logan said dryly.

"Aww Brit I don't know if you or Valerie enjoyed torturing Logan more," Bennett chuckled and then realized, he just mentioned his cousin's never spoken about ex wife, he was rewarded for his statement with an icy glare from his cousin.

"The lady with the red hair?" She turned to ask Logan, about her baby pictures.

"Yes Brittany," he nodded leaning up against the vacant first bed.

"You were married to her," she repeated the knowledge she had been told.

"I was," he nodded.

"So is she my aunt?" she asked.

"Not anymore"

"So if Uncle Bennett and Aunt-"

Bennett froze momentarily in horror at what he'd just created. "Uh Brit don't you wanna hold Nicky?" He blurted out and then kicked himself a second later. Oh crap this is why Bitsy said to watch what you say in front of Brittany, at least Logan's getting a good laugh out of it, he thought as he saw his cousin's evil grin.

Can I stop trying to explain what a mangina is now? :-D Thanks for reading guys!

X-318- My replies broken down into topics :-D

Baby: Okay Max hasn't even gotten tongue in this story and you're expecting me to knock her up? That just makes no sense and normally Max and Logan are all happily married and settled when she gets pregnant. Cale in Moving On was a means to keep them together because I had them separating until Max bonded with Cale and she was then unable to avoid Logan. And Outside of the Box was just me trying to create a more logical end to Max's time in Manticore. All the childhood talk was just me introducing Max to a more well-rounded Logan (hey I warned I had no idea where this story was going, that's what just kinda got pulled out).

Logan's past: He's not a playboy in this (they again we could be using different definitions for that term). He's very charming as it is, very attractive and well off…Things (women) are easier for him. I actually gave him a pretty laid back spring break, especially for a male American jock. I wanted to just show more of a full scope of his past because it's never all good or bad (and we were really only shown the unpleasant in the show) and you bond with your family and they're still your family even if you don't like them very much. Oh and the age gap was more of a joke because he tried to defend his actions by saying he was 16 and she's like and that means what exactly? I was 16, four years ago I wasn't a retard.

Bambi: Hunting references in the last chapter and at the end of this chapter. So that was Brit wanting to show Max the deer heads down in her uncle's den…since they were dead deer Jon says shouldn't that be Bambi's mom, since she was off-ed by the hunter.

Prison dude: I think it was Break that's what the transcript said(and normally people correct me when I'm wrong)…I love that guy too and he was useful since he owned the vintage shop and I'm sure he gets all kinds of stuff in. Hmm I think I may actually shove him into the next chapter now that you mentioned him.

The bed: Yea I was going to have Max there and have Jon interrupt a moment between them, but then I couldn't remember how exactly I wanted that to happen, then I just got lazy and moved past.