After Life -- Chapter 8: Heavily Broken

[parallax23]

Chapter 8:  Heavily Broken

Logan just lay on his couch.  He remembered when he thought she was dead.  Lost to him forever.  She was probably having sex with Alec then too.

If Alec couldn’t so easily kill him, Logan would probably have gone over to Terminal City and beat the crap out of him.  No, that was just the rage talking. 

His one shot at absolute happiness had just been snatched from him.

This was exactly how the night Max came back from Manticore had played out.  He had Max back and everything seemed perfect, then Alec stormed through the door and he collapsed from the virus. 

Some days, Logan wondered if Alec, not the virus, had been engineered to destroy him.  So far Alec had done more damage, taken his reason for living but not his life, which was worse he couldn’t tell.

The last two years played out in front of him.  He had imagined finding Alec was a stroke of luck, considering his experience with Zack.  Alec was there to cover Max, and he seemed to follow her around enough instead of barking orders.  Plus there was always some new amusing anecdote about him every week about his latest female conquest or screw-up or Normal’s advances on the boy.  Best of all, Max couldn’t stand him.  Or so it started.

Logan could have sworn they were dancing around each other after Alec saved her from their first encounter with White, then she saved his life by giving up the cure so his head wouldn’t explode.  Suddenly, they were tangled up in favors and being each other’s back up.  Wasn’t that how she and Logan fell for each other?  Saving each other?

That was how Logan fell for that ploy about them dating.  Was it even a ploy?  They had obviously been having sex.  But sex wasn’t love.  Maybe it was just sex to them.  God, he still didn’t know what had happened.  How much of it had been truth, how much had been lie?  He was just more confused than ever.  Damn it, Max had run him into twenty different circles about the last year.  He cared about her so much and she didn’t think twice about putting him through the wringer.  He had done everything for her, only to have her choose someone else.

Maybe Zack hating him wasn’t so incomprehensible.  He was starting to see why Zack couldn’t stand him back then.  Too bad someone didn’t tell them that she wouldn’t end up with either of them and that they were fighting for nothing.

Did she even love any of them – Zack, Alec, Logan?  And if so, how much?  He would have to ask her the next time he saw her.

There was that thought again, back to haunt him.  Next time he saw her.  It was an elusive, non-existent point on the continuum.  When would be the next time he saw her?

The day at the doctor’s office was the last time he had seen her.  He had wanted her out of his life as soon as possible.  He never imagined wishing that she had just stayed at Manticore, so he could remember her without the burn of betrayal.  She had probably gone running straight back to Alec.  Of course she had.  Maybe it was where she belonged after all, with her own kind.  Logan had imagined that it never mattered, but it had.  Now she was gone for good, into the land of Oz.

A reel of scenarios rolled through his imagination.

Maybe he could have just accepted Max’s baby as his own.  Anything like her was incredible, and he had no doubts her baby would be too.  They would live together like everything was normal and he could pretend that Alec didn’t exist.  They could have gone on to have their own children and no one would have to know.  But they would know – he would know.  And he would have to look at that child every day, knowing the truth.  For someone who spent his life defending the truth, that wouldn’t work.

He couldn’t ask Max to get rid of it and start over.  He would feel as dirty as the criminals he exposed if he did that.  Who was he to decide something like that?

No, it looked like the current situation was the best option at the moment.  He needed to be as far away from her as possible to clear his head.

Then he thought about his job as Eyes Only.  It was the reason Manticore wanted to kill the rest of him.  If he had just been quiet about the place, there wouldn’t have been any virus targeted at his DNA.  He would have been the one fighting beside her, not Alec.  In fact, Alec would have been long gone or dead.  Logan didn’t like finding comfort in that thought, but considering the circumstances, the moral higher ground here would even test a saint.

It was easy to hate Alec.  Sociopath.  Egomaniac.  Hustler.  Hedonist.  Murderer.  How did he end up as one of the patron saints of Terminal City?  Hating Alec meant he didn’t have to hate Max, the person who really perpetrated the crime.  Alec and Logan weren’t really friends, nor was Alec involved with someone else at the time.  She had willingly gone with him.  She chose to sleep with him rather than refrain, deny herself.

Logan had spent his life fighting the good fight.  He was not into stealing from the bad guys, just about making them pay.  He did what he could to make the world a better place. 

A lot of good it did him between a scheming ex-wife and a cheating girlfriend.  Herrero came to mind.  Logan recalled his mentor, who died at the hands of his own daughter.

Maybe being a martyr wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.  Of course, one can’t be a martyr without misery.

Misery.  Was that what this was?  It felt like an eternity that he just lay there, waiting to wake up.

Then he heard the door open.  Immediately, he sat up hoping it was Max and that this had all been some terrible nightmare.

“Hello?” called a feminine voice.

He rushed to the door.  Maybe it was Max.  Maybe she had come home to fix things.  But there was also the strong feeling that he couldn’t bear to look at her either and wishing that she had just stayed away before she could do anymore damage.

Instead, it was Asha.  She looked frightened of the state that she found him in.  He hadn’t shaved or showered in two weeks.  Hell, he was even still wearing the same clothes that he’d worn the day his world fell apart.

“Logan?  What happened?  Where’s Max?”  Asha’s voice was full of concern.  This was completely out of character for him.

A drunken laugh erupted from him.  “Gone.”

“Gone?  Gone where?  Why?” asked Asha.  “Is everything all right?”

“To Terminal City.  Where she belongs,” his eyes began to well up with tears.  “We’re done.  After everything, we’re done.”

“Logan, just tell me what happened.”  She was tempted to grab him by the shoulders and shake the answer out of him, but his disheveled state made her afraid too.  She didn’t recognize him, didn’t know what he could do.

“I’m an idealistic idiot, that’s what!  I… I don’t even know where to begin,” he said.  “She’s gone for good.”

She helped him to sit back down.  Looking around, she realized that he had been like this for quite some time.  It was painful to know that he didn’t even think to call her for help.  It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen this coming.  Max and Logan could never stay happy for long.  Max couldn’t go long without doing something to rip him apart or put his life in peril.

What could have possibly gone wrong with them this time?

Maybe he was being overdramatic about some fight they had.  But for Max to be gone, it had to have been a big one nonetheless.

“I’m sure that all couples hit a rough patch.  Then they make back up,” Asha pointed out.  Even if she didn’t really believe it, she wanted to make him feel better.

“You don’t get it!  She’s having his baby!  It’s not mine!” Logan snapped.  “How could she do this to me?”

“Whoa.  Wait, Max is pregnant?  And you’re not the father?  You two have been inseparable for the last few months.  Then who is?”

“Max decided to have some fun without me before the cure.  In celebration of the transgenics getting rights, she took it as the right to sleep with Mr. Genetically Empowered.”

Asha didn’t have a long list of suspects.  “Alec.”

“Bingo!  Someone get the lady a prize,” he retorted.

“But I thought that was just pretending to keep you safe,” Asha questioned him.

“Apparently the word safe didn’t apply to sex they were having to keep me from keeling over and dying from the virus.  You know, I’m not surprised about Alec.  He’d sleep with anyone.  But her?  She said she loved me.  If you love someone, how do you sleep with someone else?”

Asha didn’t know how to answer that.  It was one of those questions that didn’t get answers, it was just there. 

Hadn’t she almost hooked up with Alec several times in spite of the burning devotion to Logan she felt in her heart?

Sometimes love wasn’t strong enough to support the human weakness, instinct, call it what you will, for creature comfort.  A year spent under lockdown could do a serious number on a person’s view of right and wrong.  A year spent not knowing if you’d be wiped off the face of the planet, you would try to spend every moment enjoying of what was most likely a tortured, lonely and short existence.

Plus, it wasn’t like Max and Logan were still together at the time.  Not that they were really ever together, which made the whole situation more convoluted.  It didn’t help much that Alec probably got some of his DNA from James Dean.  Asha had even wanted to give into him when they lived on the outside. 

If he and Max wanted to fool around, what reason didn’t they have?

Asha didn’t point that out though.  She just put her hand on Logan’s.

“I’m sorry,” Asha told him genuinely.  “Maybe this is the way things are supposed to be…”

“How can you say that?  When the virus thing first happened, everyone was like ‘You guys’ll make it.’  Ha,” Logan began to laugh bitterly.  “We gave up the cure to save Alec.  You’ve got to love the irony.”

“So what are you going to do now?  Lay here on the couch?  Forever?” asked Asha.  “That’s not going to bring her back.”

“Right, so I’m supposed to continue fighting the good fight?  No one has ever fought for me.  She ran back to him the moment she could.  She didn’t even wait for me to come home and try to work things out.  I haven’t spoken to or seen her since that day.  She just took her stuff when I wasn’t here and left.  How could she possibly love me if that’s what she did?” Logan said, half talking to her and half to himself.  He bit back the sob he felt building in his throat.  “She didn’t even leave a note.”

“Logan, you need to sober up and get out of here.  It’s not going to make you feel any better.  I’ll help you clear your head,” Asha promised.