Don’t Speak

Logan Cale was groggy when he awoke in the hospital. The last thing he remembered was being at Crash trying to stop Max from doing her usual personal ‘escape and evade’ thing with him again. He had reached out and grabbed her arm to stop her, momentarily forgetting about the retrovirus keyed to his DNA. Max hadn’t forgotten; she snatched her arm out of his grasp straight away.

“Max,” his voice was raspy, his throat dry, but he really needed to talk to Max.

“Easy, Logan,” a gentle voice spoke, and he recognised it after a moment—Dr Beverly Shankar.

“Hey Doc,” he tried to smile. “I got hit with the virus again, didn’t I? I feel like I’ve been hit by a ten ton truck.”

“You’re gonna be fine, Logan,” Beverly replied as she took his blood pressure. “We had to transfuse you with blood from another transgenic to neutralise the virus, but it worked.”

“Whose blood did I get? Alec’s?”

“Uh, no…” the doctor faltered a little. “I think Max said his name was Joshua.”

“Oh, Joshua.” Logan could only imagine what Beverly thought when she first saw him. “Speaking of Max, where is she?”

“Waiting outside. Would you like me to send her in?”

“Please,” Logan knew Max well enough to know that she would be blaming herself for what happened. He needed to reassure her, to let her know that it would be all right.

But as the minutes passed he began to feel that something was wrong. His heart sank when it was Original Cindy who came into his room and not Max.

“Hey boo,” Original Cindy spoke hesitantly.

“Where’s Max?” Logan got straight to the point. His fears were realised when he saw her hesitate. Max was gone, and her best friend didn’t know what to say.

“She… she just needed some time,” Cindy finally replied.

That answer was not good enough. “Cindy, where is she?”

“Logan…”

“Where is she, Cindy?” Tired of the game, Logan decided to look for her himself, and started to push back the covers accordingly.

That got Original Cindy’s attention. “Where do you think you’re goin’?”

“To look for Max.”

“Max is fine, and the last thing she’d want is you makin’ yourself worse worryin’ about her. So you just concentrate on getting’ yourself better or Original Cindy’s gonna put the smackdown on your ass.”

Not being in any condition to argue with Max’s forceful friend, Logan complied—until Cindy had to go home and get some sleep before reporting in to Jam Pony in the morning. As soon as he was alone, Logan got up and put the exoskeleton on, without putting his jocks on first. Not the most comfortable thing, but it wasn’t as if he could really feel it and he really needed to look for Max.

So he traipsed up and down the hospital looking for her, even though he knew deep down that she wasn’t there; that she was long gone. He did this not realising the spectacle he made of himself wearing a hospital gown over his exoskeleton. A hospital gown that was, moreover, open at the back. Ironic, really, it was a sight Max would have appreciated, but she was not there to see it.

Logan’s recovery was so rapid that Beverly Shankar felt he was safe to be released early in the morning. He debated whether or not to go to Max’s apartment, but decided against it. There was no guarantee that she would be there, knowing her penchant for not sleeping, and he didn’t want to disturb Original Cindy.

This left him at loose ends, for though he’d been instructed to rest, he felt no need or desire to. Trying to think of something to do to get his mind off Max (as if that were possible) he absentmindedly pulled from his pocket the napkin he’d been doodling on the night before. Looking at it gave him an idea. It was not much use leaving the doodlings as they were; a napkin could be too easily discarded or lost, besides which there was no room left on the napkin should he need to add to it. What he needed to do was make a more permanent copy.

He tried copying the doodlings onto a sheet of printer paper, but found that it too was really too small for what he wanted. He needed something bigger, like a chalk board… or a white board.

After transferring the flowcharts to the white board he dug out, Logan surveyed his handiwork, and realised that he hadn’t actively thought about Max in a while. This realisation brought thoughts about her to the fore. Checking his watch, he saw that it was late enough that she would have turned up at Jam Pony if she was going to at all. He figured it was late enough to page her; and did so, waiting with bated breath for her call.

He was afraid he wouldn’t call, but when the phone rang he knew he had to answer as if he hadn’t been waiting with bated breath. “Hi stranger.”

He could hear her hesitate over the phone. “Hi.”

“You missed it,” Logan went on quickly. “I wandered all over the hospital looking for you with the back of my gown open.”

He thought that would elicit a small laugh out of her. He was mistaken. “Yeah… uh… sorry about that. Listen…”

“I’m feeling pretty good, actually. Must be all that transgenic blood.” He did not want to give her a word in edgewise, instinctively knowing what she was going to say.

“We need to talk,” Max went on as if Logan had not spoken.

He didn’t want to hear it. “And you know, I pulled out an old board I had lying around, and put up all the doodlings I made at the bar the other night. It’s kind of my… uh… wide-screen version, you know?”

“Logan…”

“Don’t, Max.”

He was silently begging her to stop, but Max was relentless. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Look, I’m fine,” Logan tried to reassure her. “Everything turned out okay.”

“We got lucky, again. I mean, how many miracles do you think we’re going to get?”

“Do I get a vote? It is my life on the line.” He had to make her realise that he was okay with everything. That he was okay with that risk. All he wanted was to be with her, even if they could not touch.

“So what, you end up dead and I get to spend the rest of my life knowing it was my fault?” Max’s voice dropped until he could barely hear her. “I pass.”

Shit, never thought about that angle. “I’ve been where you are, remember? Thinking it was all too hard. But I realised being away from you was worse.” Logan wanted… needed.... to get her to realise that she didn’t have to do this. That it would be harder for her to do this.

But Max was not listening. “I have to hang up now.”

“Max…” But all he could hear was the tone of the call connection terminating.

Max had broken up with him. Logan sat for a long time, staring at the phone, trying to get his head around that fact. Sure, they may not have been technically together as such, but they hadn’t seen other people, not for a long time. It had taken them such a long time to get it together; but when they did, one thing or another kept them apart. First Zack and the mission to save Tinga; then the mission to take down Manticore, which left Max dead and him grieving, regretting all the missed opportunities.

It seemed such an incredible opportunity for them to get things back on track when Max turned up alive after three months. For one split second he believed they could finally get it together… then the virus reared its ugly head. Looking back, that was the beginning of the end. Between close calls and hope for a cure falling through he and Max never did get it together, instead falling back into the old pattern of dancing around each other, only for a different reason.

How was he supposed to make it without her? For three long months he had to live with the painful memory of Max dying in his arms. When she turned up alive, Logan promised himself never again. But that was an empty promise.

Maybe it was foolish to hold onto the hope that they could beat the virus, that one day they would be together. Maybe Max was right to end things this way. She had a point about having to live with herself if she accidentally caused his death. But the mere thought of never seeing her again filled Logan with cold dread. Sure, a relationship where you could not kiss, could not even touch the one you loved hardly seemed a relationship at all, but it was better than the alternative… a Max-less existence.

It was a moot point now; Max had made that decision alone, regardless of how he felt. And he was left alone, feeling like he did when she died in his arms, like he was dying inside.

It had been a long night for Logan. He had been on the verge of paging Max several times, but held back. He wasn’t sure why, but something compelled him not to contact her, which left him feeling rather antsy. Memories of her filled his thoughts: their last night together before she took down Manticore; the borrowed night they had with the temporary cure (before Joshua came in with the ‘plan’ to hunt Gossamer); their first kiss, back when she was wanted for murder and Zack was going to take her to Canada. The good, the bittersweet, the painful, all left him with one feeling… that he and Max could get through anything.

With that in mind, Logan picked up the phone to page Max again, needing to talk to her, to make her see that they were stronger together than apart. Then he stopped keying in the numbers, unconsciously pacing back and forth. It was one thing to page Max, but it was another thing entirely for her to answer. She was the one who made the decision to end things; and if Logan had learned one thing about Max in the close on two years he had known her, it was how stubborn she could be. She would ignore his pages if she set her mind to it.

She may be able to ignore his pages, but it was a different thing entirely to ignore someone who had turned up on your doorstep. He would have a better chance of talking to Max if he dropped in on her before she left for Jam Pony. Decision made, Logan put the phone back on its charger, grabbed his car keys, and headed for the condemned apartment building Max called home.

His resolve did not falter on the drive over, nor as he got out of the car and walked around it. He only stopped when he saw Max, for she was not alone. Alec was with her, and as Logan watched, the X5 put his arm around Max in a manner that seemed very familiar. If that wasn’t bad enough, what hurt was that Max allowed it; Max, who would never stand for any unwanted attention. All Logan could do was stand there and watch.

After a moment, Max playfully pushed Alec away, and as the young man left, Logan was faced with the uncomfortable truth that Alec had spent the night with Max. That much seemed obvious—why else would Max be seeing him off so early in the morning? What really cut though was that Max had only ‘broken up’ with him the day before. Max never seemed the type to go through men that quickly… or had this been going on for longer? Just what had he interrupted at Crash the other night?

Logan was in a daze as he went back up to the penthouse, unable to comprehend what he had seen. Max had never given any indication that she thought of Alec as anything but a major annoyance; attraction was nowhere on the agenda. In fact, Max wasn’t even likely to admit that he was attractive. Which did not explain why Alec had spent the night with Max. Everything Logan came up with led to that one nagging point.

Distracted, the first thing Logan did when he got home was grab a glass and a bottle of single malt whiskey that his uncle Jonas gave him long ago. He did not usually touch the stuff, preferring wine to the heavy drinks and having seen what it did to his ex-wife; but he felt the need for a stiff drink now. Grimacing at the taste, he sat down in his study and turned his computers on, but not really paying attention to anything. He was too preoccupied.

After a while, as the drink had a chance to work, Logan began to think things through, really think. He realised that there just may have been an innocent explanation for Alec spending the night at Max’s place. He may have just crashed there for the night, he may have just needed a place to hide, he may have just turned up really early in the morning to bug Max. But none of these points explained the hug—Alec may have done that to annoy Max, but she wouldn’t have accepted it.

Logan was drawn out of his musings by a break in the TV programming. He only had the TV on as background noise (not being in the mood for music) but the newsbreak changed all that. “… A hoverdrone recorded this shocking footage. Authorities are refusing to comment on the nature of the assailant, but as you can see for yourself, the attacker has what can only be described as superhuman strength…”

Logan’s ears perked up at that, knowing that such a newscast could mean exposure for Max. Grimly he turned the volume up; his fears confirmed when the reporter mentioned Manticore. “Max…”

He grabbed his cell phone and punched in the familiar numbers. Max may have been the one who ended the personal relationship between them (such as it was), but she should realise that Eyes Only would do anything to protect her and the other Manticore refugees. Surely she would answer his pages.

But the afternoon passed with no word from Max after his (repeated) pages, and Logan was forced to concede that she really was determined to stay away from him. That she didn’t need his help—he already knew this, but it would have been nice if she thought to ring him, even to just tell him to butt out. The lack of contact led him to acknowledge the probability that Alec spent the night with Max because she wanted him to. Logan didn’t know what hurt more: the ease with which Max had seemingly replaced him; or the fact that she hadn’t thought to say anything to him.

Unable to concentrate, Logan switched off his computers and the lights in the penthouse, grabbed the glass and bottle of whiskey, and sat at the kitchen table. He knew he was giving into self pity, something that hadn’t happened in a while, but at that point he didn’t have the energy to care. There didn’t seem to be any point to anything at the moment; not without Max. It hardly seemed real, that he was losing her now, after they had weathered so much.

He was not sure how long he had been sitting there. Darkness had fallen, and he could definitely feel the effects of the alcohol despite the fact he had only drunk half the bottle. But he still heard it, the faint clicks and other sounds Max made when she broke into his apartment. He did not have the night vision she had, but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, and he could vaguely see her as she made her way to the white board. She hung something on the board (a necklace?), then wrote something. Unable to stand the suspense, he turned the lights (and the computers) on. Startled, she spun around to face him.

“Hi there!” the almost cheerful note to Logan’s voice belied his inner turmoil.

Max looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “The lights were out. I didn’t know you were home.”

“ ‘Cos if you did, you wouldn’t have come, huh?” he correctly guessed, draining his glass

“I found this around Joshua’s neck,” she didn’t indicate what ‘this’ was, but he assumed it was whatever she hung on the board. “He said Father gave it to him. It’s the same symbol the breeding cult uses.”

She never changes, Logan thought as he poured another drink. “So Sandeman is one of White’s cult loonies huh? Who hoo!” he punctuated his sarcastic little cheer with a drink. He had craved Max’s presence all day, been worried about her since he saw the news, and she wanted to talk about Sandeman?

As if to prove his point, Max continued on her previous vein. “Logan, there’s a connection between the breeding cult and Manticore.”

Irritated beyond belief, Logan stood and made his way towards her. It was as if she didn’t realise what she put him through that day, and he was determined to call her up on it. “Maybe I oughtta do an Eyes Only hack huh?” he asked, sarcasm dripping. “I mean, this is a big news day. In case you hadn’t noticed, I tried paging you. Wanted to talk to you, but uh… guess you were busy.”

If Logan was looking to get a rise out of her, he was sadly mistaken. “I’m going. I just thought you wanted to know.”

She turned to go, but Logan decided he wasn’t through with her yet. Throwing caution to the wind, he blocked her path, banking on her fear of infecting him stopping her from pushing past. He was right, she tried to move round, but stopped when he got too close.

“Cut it out,” she finally said.

He faked a move to touch her, to watch her back off. “I could keep you here all night,” he pointed out mildly.

“Come on, Logan…”

“At least ‘til I drop dead,” he added, still mildly, taking another drink.

Max’s patience had clearly run out. “I’ve said everything I needed to say.”

“I don’t think so,” Logan almost sing-songed, taking another sip. “I think there’s something else.”

“Logan…”

He moved in for the kill. “Or is it someone else?” He took yet another drink while he waited for her reaction to his bombshell.

“What?”

Was that confusion in her eyes? “I needed to talk to you, so I came by your apartment,” he gave a little chuckle, “and I saw him leaving.” Max had nothing to say, but he could read in her eyes that she knew what he was talking about. Her hesitation was enough to think (hope) that he had gotten it wrong, so he gave her a chance to deny it. “I…I mean, if I’ve got it wrong, just say so.” He wasn’t so drunk that he could not see that possibility, he just thought that it was slim.

“Tell me it’s not true,” Logan begged, in intentions, if not in words.

It seemed like forever before the response that broke his heart came. “I can’t. It’s over. We’re done. Get used to it.”

Hurt seeping into his alcohol deadened senses, Logan just stood there, letting her leave. There it was, out in the open, his worst fears realised. She was gone; she belonged to someone else now; if Max Guevera could ever actually belong to somebody. He drained his glass, willing the pain to fade, but knowing that no amount of whiskey could deaden what he was currently feeling.

Abandoning his drink, Logan stood by the window, staring out at the Space Needle in the distance. He was just torturing himself, he knew; but it was a favourite thinking spot of Max’s, and sometimes he would imagine he could see her up there, watching over Seattle. He thought he could see her there now, just a little blot against the skyline. Wishful thinking. As he watched, he imagined he could see another join her. Alec. He shook his head. I’m seeing things.

Over the next week, Logan kept hoping that Max would call him, and tell him that it was a mistake. She never did. He periodically paged her, but to no avail. In the meantime he threw himself into his Eyes Only work, getting Asha to do the legwork, and making pro-transgenic cable hacks; all the while keeping the tiny flame of hope alive that Max would call.

When he found out that White was there when the transgenic attacked (or was attacked by) the sector cops Logan naturally paged Max. And naturally she didn’t reply. On a whim he decided to ring Alec, figuring that the other X5 would at least know where Max was. He hit the jackpot; Max was with Alec, and according to the transgenic, they were talking about him.

The conversation was short; Max said she would look into the situation… and told him to stop calling her. That was when Logan realised that it was indeed over between them, at least on that level. Max was indeed with Alec. Perhaps it was better for her this way, she didn’t have to worry about killing Alec with a virus.