Painful Confession.

Logan sat in his wheelchair, stonily listening to the X5 talk. It felt like he had just shut down when he heard that Max used the money to save Alec from a mess of his own making. He wanted to hate the X5, he wanted to throw him out the window—perhaps it was a good thing that he wasn’t wearing the exoskeleton. It saved him from a fight.

The story Alec gave, that the lab tech was skipping town that night anyway, sounded like just the sort of cop-out Logan would expect from the cocky X5. He had such an irreverent devil-may-care attitude that got on his nerves. But the flat way that Alec spoke told Logan that he was telling the truth; and that he was genuinely regretful about the way things went down. And as much as he and Max wanted the cure Logan knew that Max would never sacrifice the life of a fellow transgenic, even one as irritating as Alec. Not for her own gain; and Logan wouldn’t have it any other way.

Alec sat there, unloading his soul onto an unresponsive Logan. The older man listened, knowing that the X5 needed to get things off his chest but wishing that he had chosen to confess to someone else. It was very late when Alec finally left, realising that Logan was past responding.

It wasn’t until very late the following night that Logan heard from Max. He was again in his wheelchair, staring out the window when he heard his front door open; and therefore wasn’t surprised when he heard her voice behind him.

“I’m sorry.”

He turned his head, not enough to actually look at her, but enough to show that he wasn’t ignoring her. He did not speak, not trusting his voice, knowing what she was going to say. He wished he could make it easier on her.

“I…I should have come last night. I had the money you gave me, for the cure… but Alec had this thing in his neck…and…”

“Max,” he cut her off; he couldn’t stand hearing the pain in her voice. “I know.”

“You… know?” Max was stunned. Here she was, about to make the hardest confession of her life since she told him about her heat cycles, and he already knew? “How?”

“Alec was here last night.”

She snorted. “Yeah, I can imagine what he said.”

Logan wheeled his chair around to face her, but made no effort to close the difference between them. “Actually he pretty much told me everything. He felt the need to unburden his soul.” He smiled slightly as she snorted again. “Seriously, Alec told me how he was caught by your newest bad guy; how he tried to make a deal he was gonna weasel out of, but White had a way of making sure he cooperated… the microexplosive. He told me how he tried to get away with just cutting the barcodes out without killing them, but was called on that little plan. How he tried to…” his voice broke.

“How he tried to kill me?” Max’s voice was bitter.

“But he couldn’t do it,” he added. “He also told me how he felt when he realised you were giving up a cure to save his sorry ass.”

“You believed him?”

“Yes, actually. He wasn’t his usual smart ass self.” Logan slowly wheeled over to her. “Alec told me that the lab tech was planning on skipping town last night anyway, without finding the cure.”

Max looked down. “I couldn’t believe it. I was almost tempted to say ‘To hell with Alec’ and make him finish our job. Almost.”

“But you didn’t. And if he was determined to get to get out of town right there and then, it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

His gentle tone was her undoing. Max broke down, heaving sobs racking her small frame. “I’m sorry, Logan. I would have given anything…”

“Shh, I know.” Hearing her sobs just about killed Logan. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms and comfort her, but he couldn’t. He never realised how hard it was to watch the woman he loved cry her heart out and know he could do nothing about it.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a while, wiping her eyes. “It’s just that this creep was our last hope…”

“Don’t say that. We’ll find someone else, and we’ll beat this.” He reached out, as if to take her hand, but thought better of it. “We’ve gotta keep our hopes up.”

She smiled wanly. “That’s what Joshua says. Gotta ‘have hopes up’. He thinks that ‘Father’ could help us.”