After Life -- Chapter 6: Secret

[parallax23]

Chapter 6:  Secret

Three months later, Max defeated the attempts of the breeding cult.  Her “special powers” were activated when the Comet came which were visions and telekinesis, along with the antibodies to the virus.  The fact that the cult had given her the snake blood was how she had developed immunity to it.  Had they not exposed her to it, she never would have been able to stop them since her body had not been forced to create the antibodies and recognize the signals of things to come.  So the breeding cult had fulfilled its own failure. 

When she recovered from the battle, it was discovered that her body dispelled the retrovirus along with the plague White and his merry band of maniacs were waiting for. 

She and Alec avoided the topic of that evening they spent together, pretending that it never happened because they preferred to keep things less confusing between them.  Plus there wasn’t much time with the Familiars plotting.

With the virus out of the way, Max told Logan that she had not really been seeing Alec the entire time as she wanted him to believe.  At first Logan was upset, but he was also eager to move on after having lost so much time with her.  They immediately moved into an apartment together not too far from Logan’s old building, though Max still spent much of her time working on the transgenic cause.

Max and Logan went together to Washington, D.C. to speak on behalf of the transhumans and to give financial aid to Terminal City residents, who were not having an easy time finding jobs with small children to support.  She hadn’t been feeling too well during the trip and assumed it was food poisoning.  But when the symptoms didn’t fade, they decided to visit Dr. Shankar as soon as they returned home.

“Max, you’re pregnant,” Dr. Shankar informed her with a smile when the blood tests had come back.

“What?” Max choked out.  Of all the things she thought it could’ve been, this wasn’t one of them.  She had imagined that there was another glitch in her Manticore programming that had finally decided to manifest itself.  A side effect of having the power Sandeman gave her.  Heck, maybe she’d finally caught some new superbug that evolved in TC.  But not this.

This was all too sudden.  Hadn’t they just gotten back together?  She loved him, but she was hoping to have some time to relax now that the storm had blown over.  She wasn’t ready for this.  They had been careful for the most part.  How could this have happened?

She looked at Logan who was equally shocked.  When he saw the trepidation in her eyes, he simply smiled and squeezed her hand reassuringly.  This wasn’t a bad thing.  For once, it was good news.  Their lives were coming together.

“We can do another test to figure out how far along you are,” the doctor went on.

Max nodded with a nervous grin.  Another person was going to commandeer her life from now on.  She was allowed to freak a little. 

Logan wasn’t sure what to say.  He was so happy in spite of the unexpectedness of the news.  Words didn’t seem to express all the things he was feeling right in this instant.  He couldn’t stop smiling either.  His life was absolutely perfect.  He had everything he had ever wanted and then some. 

“Things are finally looking up,” Logan whispered in Max’s ear as Dr. Shankar drew another blood sample.  He kissed the top her head.

Max caught the infectious smile he sported.  She hadn’t let go of his hand the entire time.

The idea of having a child had never seemed real to her before.  The last time the issue had come up was back at Manticore when Alec had been sent to her cell.  Even then she wasn’t considering that she could really someday be someone’s mother.  She had made sure the notion stayed somewhere remote by kicking him into the door.

The memory of Alec grabbing her by the hands and shoving her into the apartment flashed through her mind.  A flood of limbs and groans and gasps filled that night.  She let go of Logan’s hand when Dr. Shankar came back.  It was an easy excuse not having to look into his eyes knowing what she had done. 

It didn’t count.  They weren’t together at the time.  Not for a long time.  She had told Logan that she and Alec weren’t really together and they weren’t, barring that one night.  And Logan had let her get away with heat induced stupidity in the past, when they were on the verge of being together.  Then why did she still feel guilty?

She and Alec had conveniently pretended it didn’t happen.  They were good at pretending that things were all right, even when they weren’t.  Everyone in Terminal City knew or at least suspected though.  They also knew better than to go fishing for emotional baggage, including Zack.  If Max and Alec didn’t want to talk about it, then it was no one’s business.  Plenty of them used each other for sex on occasion.  Plenty of them had used Alec for sex, and most of them didn’t even go into heat in the first place.  Only Max, Syl and Jondy still had that problem.  But Syl had Krit.  And Jondy had a don’t ask, don’t tell policy.

Logan had never asked. 

It was two hours before Dr. Shankar had the second set of results.

“Well, everything looks good,” she said as she looked between the charts and the expectant parents.  “You’re four months along, so I’d say that you’ll deliver around the first week of January around the second or third.”

“Four months?” Logan swallowed.  He did the math over and over in his head.  He and Max had only been together for two months and a week.

“Yes.  But I’m guessing that because of Max’s irregular cycle that’s probably why you didn’t pick up on it sooner,” the doctor said.  Then she saw Max’s ashen face and that Logan moved away from her.  “Is there something wrong?”

“We’ve only been together for two months,” Logan explained, his face was a stone wall.

Dr. Shankar’s jaw almost hit the floor, but she remembered her position.  “Maybe I should leave the room.”

“If you want,” Max replied.

She walked out and shut the door behind her.

“Is there something you’d like to tell me?” Logan demanded.

Max shook her head as if she hadn’t heard him.  “No.  No it can’t be.  She has to be wrong.”

“So what?  X5s have a shorter gestation than the average human being?  Wait, that wouldn’t explain why Gem had Eve nine months after you toasted Manticore…” he tried to rationalize out loud.  But every theory pointed back to one glaring option that he didn’t want to think about.  “Were you with someone else?”

She ignored him and kept shaking her head.  Then she began crying.  But he grabbed her by both shoulders.  “You were locked up in Terminal City the whole time. Let me guess.  Four letters?  Starts with A?  Because he can’t fake being someone without screwing them if I remember correctly.”

“Logan, I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean for it to happen.  Neither of us did,” Max cried.

“Then how exactly did it happen?  Because you told me nothing happened!”

“I went back into heat while I was there.  Too much cat in my cocktail, remember?  Too much in his too.  We couldn’t help ourselves…  It was just that one time!  It was one stupid night!”

Logan had turned his back to her.  His gaze fell on a tray of medical utensils on the table next to her.  He shoved it hard onto the floor, its contents clanging against the linoleum floor.  If only she had said any other X5’s name, it wouldn’t have stung so much.  If she had said it was Zack, the words wouldn’t have cut as much.  She told him nothing happened with Alec.  Alec was just an excuse to keep him safe.  How could he have believed that?  How could believe her now when she said it had only been one night?

It didn’t matter if it was just one night or every night since Manticore had instituted its twisted little breeding program.  She was having Alec’s kid, not his and there was nothing that really mattered more than that.

“I don’t care why!” snapped Logan angrily.  “You—you told me you weren’t with him.  You lied to me!  The only reason you’re telling me now is because you got caught.  So what was he?  Some fill in to take out your sexual frustration on while I was pining away for you like an idiot?  You decided to play musical bedmates like the rest of your pals in Terminal City?  You think I didn’t know what they were up to?”

Max got annoyed at him.  He wasn’t listening.  And who was he to judge what other people did during the siege?  None of them knew if they would see the sun the next day.  No one on the outside wanted them for anything except experimentation and slaughter.  What did he know about that?  But that wasn’t the issue.  “It was a mistake.  It was one time.  I swear.  I didn’t sleep with anyone else.”

“For your baby’s sake I hope that’s true, because having one of those cheerful X5s for a father isn’t bad enough without knowing which one it is,” Logan said.  “I’m an idiot.  I should’ve seen this coming a mile away.  But I’m sure Renfro is smiling from her grave at her great matchmaking skills.”

She slapped him across the face to make him stop.  His face turned from hers.

That last sentence was just cruel.  So that was how he really felt about her family?  They were all hedonistic sociopaths?  Well, difficult situations always brought out people’s true colors.   

“Don’t forget to call Alec with the good news.  I’m out of here,” said Logan when he recovered and looked dead in her eyes.  “Best of luck.  You’ll need it.”

He walked out of the examination room.  All Max could do was watch.  This was the last straw.

Any hope of them being together was gone. 

Only half an hour before their lives had been perfect.  Ten minutes ago they had been thinking about being forever bonded by another person.  Countdown to when it all fell apart.

Now everything was screwed up, forever this time.

Where did things go from here?  Did she pack up and move out of Logan’s place?  Move back to Terminal City?  To Alec?  What was she going to do about Alec anyway?  She couldn’t raise the kid alone. 

There were just too many things to think about.

Comments

After Life-chapter 6

[(Anonymous)]

Whoa Logan! I love you didn't go the understanding Logan route and had him act more colorful and probably way more realistic a man in that situation would react. Great chapter!

Re: After Life-chapter 6

[parallax23.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I haven't looked at this story in a while, but I had a lot of fun writing the chapter. Logan was human, not a monster and not a saint. Just human.