Anywhere

By: Denise N. Rodier

A/N: Time to give credit where credit is rightfully due. Thanks to Alaidh for the awesome beta, as always. Additional thanks to Kyre and Kasman for taking a peek at some of the "early" bits of this.

Although this is not a song-fic, this story is inspired by the song "Anywhere" by Evanescence. This is a post-AJBAC story that takes a turn, but I guess all post-AJBAC stories do. M/L, as always.

~~~~~~~

He never could quite figure out how he had gotten back to his apartment. But in the end, to him, it didn't really matter. He didn't want to be there. He didn't want to be anywhere…without her. All he wanted was to be back in that one moment, where she was looking at him, taking a last breath. Where she was still alive. Every day, he watched the sun come up, and the sun go down, and replayed that single moment over and over in his mind. And lived there with her.

~~~~~~~

The pain in her chest was horrific. She could hardly breathe through it. Renfro had taken away her pain medication – punishment for biting one of the med techs assigned to her. She was healing relatively fast, but it was still a heart transplant. Not quite the same thing as a paper cut. To take her mind off the pain, she focused on her last moment with him. That one moment where he was holding her, and there was nothing else in the world but him and her. And she replayed that single moment over and over in her mind. And lived there with him.

~~~~~~~

Enough time went by that he finally stood up and left the couch. Actually, Bling found him, and made him stand, telling him sitting in one place for so long wasn't good for his circulation. Exoskeleton or not, his spinal cord was still severed, as Bling reminded him quite often in a variety of phrases, and he needed to take care of himself.

Logan knew that more was severed than just his spinal cord.

He felt disconnected from the world…from his entire life, actually. Ever since Max was…taken from him, he had felt suspended in time. He couldn't go back, and was never able to move forward. Not that he really wanted to, though. He wouldn't call himself content to be in the dark fog that he was in, but he wasn't entirely unhappy to be miserable either. As long as he could keep denying to himself that she was…gone, he could keep living. If he ever let her go…he would be gone, too.

~~~~~~~

Enough time went by that her bonds were finally released and she was allowed to get up from her bed. Okay, she was allowed to be escorted by seven armed guards to a new brick cell with a 24-hour watch to continue recuperating. Being back at Manticore made Max feel suspended in time. The creepy place kept her locked in her past, not allowing her to move forward to the future, or back to how things had been. And she so desperately wanted to. But as long as she could keep denying that she was, in fact, where she was, she could keep living. If she ever let Logan go, if she ever admitted she was Manticore's…she would be dead.

~~~~~~~

He had discovered his purpose, the reason he was still alive. Max was his purpose. All he could think these days was of her fear of Manticore, and knew that even if she was…gone…right now, that was one thing he could finish for her.

He could destroy Manticore.

He channeled all of his fear, his hate, his grief into taking down that which had haunted her to her end. And besides, he knew that it would be a wonderful gift for when she returned. She would return. Even though she had…she was still alive. Because his heart was still beating, he knew she was alive.

~~~~~~~

Her heart was still beating, but she wasn't sure if she was alive. Not anymore. If you are fighting just to survive, how could you have any time left to be alive?

Max was so tempted to give in to Renfro, to use that designation from her old life, if only to get out of that damned box. She tried to channel all of her hate, her fear, her pain into just getting through the next minute…and the next…and the next.

Except she was hungry, and weak, and tired. She soon forgot to count the minutes.

She soon forgot what her purpose even was.

~~~~~~~

Bling and Original Cindy took turns coming by to drag him out of his apartment. The first day, they did it together, and Logan stood blinking in the sunlight, unsure of the last time he had stood outside. It felt so strange, so foreign, that it took him a few seconds to adjust to the fact that the world was still there. They came back, together for a while, and then they began coming separately. One day he finally told Original Cindy what he was planning.

She grew silent for a long moment before saying, "You think she's still alive?"

Logan glanced at the crowds bustling around them. He never could figure out where the people of Seattle were going; there was no place else to go. He turned his attention away from them, and to the woman sitting next to him. The fact that she asked a question finally registered with his brain, and he pondered it for a long minute. "Yes," he said simply.

Original Cindy was, in turn, silent before asking, "Why?"

Light eyes met dark as he replied, "Because I still am."

~~~~~~~

She was weak when they pulled her out of the box, but she was alive…barely. Her legs were too rubbery and cramped to support even her slight weight as the guards dragged her towards the infirmary. She tried to blink away the light the med tech shone in her eyes, but he roughly kept her eyelids open while he did his examination. "State your designation," he commanded her.

Her brain felt foggy as she struggled to hold onto consciousness. She wasn't entirely certain what he was asking her…or what the answer was, either.

He heaved the sigh of the long-suffering. "Look, whether you like it or not, you're here. And they'll kill you." He poked at one of the ribs that were now sticking out sharply against her skin. "They're pretty close now." He leaned close to her ear and whispered to her. "It doesn't hurt to play along. Regroup and redeploy, eh?"

A door opened and Renfro swiftly walked in. She glanced at the med tech and asked, "Status?"

He looked down at his patient and shrugged. "I've only begun an initial examination, but I can tell you for sure she's malnourished and dehydrated. This has possibly also slowed her healing process…"

Renfro raised a hand to stop his report. She moved until her eyes were directly in the X5's field of vision. "State your designation," she whispered coldly.

Her dry lips cracked as she automatically responded in a weak breath, "4…" She took a shaky breath and tried again, "4…"

Renfro stood and looked at the tech. "Give her some water and call the guards. Have them take her back to her cell." Renfro began to walk out of the room, and then, almost as an afterthought, called over her shoulder, "I don't think that hair is regulation. Shave it."

As the guards dragged her away, her borrowed heart felt heavy, as though she had betrayed someone. She tried to remember who…

~~~~~~~

Logan was getting worried. Every day that passed, he felt like she was slipping away from him. He worked harder, longer, faster, but seemed to be making no more progress than he had on the first day he had decided to take down Manticore. His informants seemed to be shying away from him; the usual steady stream of phone calls from contacts seemed to be gradually trickling down to non-existence. Not that he really cared. He was a man on a mission.

But even he was beginning to wonder if he was just tilting at windmills. It was so strange. He knew Manticore existed, had proof of it at one time even, but now it seemed as though it had almost up and disappeared. Like it had…moved.

He spun his wheels quickly as he raced back to his computer. A few quick keystrokes and searches told him what he had already known. Quite a few military convoys had left Wyoming in the past week or so. There was no indication where they had gone. He began the painstaking process of trying to trace their path.

~~~~~~~

She was in one of the last few convoys out of Wyoming, and they kept her sedated for the duration of the trip. Not that she really could have done much more than move anyway, but they felt they needed to take precautions. She was manhandled roughly into the small transport truck, alone, since they didn't trust her to be around anyone, yet.

She vaguely wondered what she had done to make them so mad at her, but her drugged brain had difficulty holding onto more than the most basic thoughts.

I shouldn't be here. I should be somewhere else. Where should I be?

She tried to shake the fog away from her brain, but only succeeded in moving her chin about two millimeters, enough to attract unneeded attention from one of the guards.

Her brain barely processed the fact that he kicked her sharply in the ribs and told her to be still. She didn't really even feel the second kick he gave her, both for good measure and out of his own frustration with his life.

She let the fog envelop her.

~~~~~~~

Original Cindy brought some coffee and a sandwich with her on one of the days she came by to check on him. As much as she wanted Logan to find Max, she was beginning to wonder if he wasn't obsessing over a dream. Chasing after something…someone…he could never have.

But even if he was obsessing…someone had to make sure he ate, since he surely wasn't.

She opened the front door to his apartment with the key he had given her one day…

What's this?

What's it look like? It's a key.

I got that. What's it for?

If you insist on coming by to bother me, at least you won't have to knock.

The knocking bothering you?

Exactly.

…and walked inside, shaking her head at the memory of that exchange. She still wasn't sure that he made sense with all of the sense he was trying to make. She set the coffee and sandwich on one of the kitchen counters, and then began to walk through the apartment. "Logan?" she called, not really expecting an answer. She wasn't disappointed. But what she didn't hear were the little sounds that always seemed to be present in his apartment: the clack of the keyboard keys, the whir of the exoskeleton, or the gentle sound of his wheels on the wood floor as he swiveled in frustration – Logan's equivalent of pacing. She quietly walked into his "office" area, and stopped, smiling.

He was half-sprawled across his keyboard, fast asleep. She saw a few notes jotted on the screen, followed by a long string of random characters, probably "typed" there by either his chin or nose as he had laid his head down. Original Cindy sighed and gently tugged the keyboard out from under his face. Logan didn't even notice. "You'll never forgive yourself if you lose all your hard work to drool, boo. Better to just let the sandman keep doin' his work for now. You can get back to yours later."

She saved his file, just in case, since she knew just enough about computers to know they liked to eat things when nobody was watching, and shut down the system. She gently ran her fingers through his hair, and sighed. "This is not the do for you, boo. Max would have a fit if she saw you like this."

As she turned out the lights, and quietly opened the door to leave, her breath caught in her chest as she realized that she needed to begin to leave the dream, too.

~~~~~~~

He looked around him, as he entered this new place. He had never seen it before, and hoped to never see it again. The dingy color alone of the place – everything seemed to be overcast with grey – made him want to turn and try to leave. But he was looking for something…someone.

"Where are you?" he asked to the room, even though he wasn't entirely sure who he was looking for.

"I'm right here. Please. Why aren't you looking?"

He turned, hearing her voice. "I am looking. Where are you?"

"I'm right here," she repeated. "Don't you know me?"

He stilled, listening to the hollow air of the place moving around him in gusts that sounded almost like low moans. He closed his eyes briefly, and then opened them, letting his vision clear.

She was almost at his feet, holding her knees as she huddled in a small ball, trying to make herself invisible. Pain radiated from her in waves, so much so that he almost wanted to move on and pretend that he didn't even know her. But something about her wouldn't let him…even though he still wasn't sure who she was. She looked up at him with dark eyes. "Help me," she pleaded.

His brow furrowed. "How?"

"Why won't you help me?" she asked, pain and fear clogging her voice. She looked out of the corner of her eye, and he followed her gaze. There was a creature standing less than a foot away from them. It had the head of a man, the body of a lion, and a spiked tail. It didn't seem to be doing anything other than watching them, waiting for his move.

He turned back to her. "How do I help you?" he asked.

"Who am I?"

He blinked. "What?"

"Who am I?" she asked again, beginning to cry. "Who am I? Tell me! Tell me who I am!" she begged.

"I know who you are," was all he could say.

"Tell me! Tell me!" she wailed, over and over. She began to sob and clutched her thin legs closer to her chest.

Casting a cautious eye to the creature, which was now grinning at this woman's tears, he walked over and knelt in front of her. He held out a hand to her. "Take my hand."

She drew in a shaky breath and looked up at him with a tear-stained face. "You know who I am?"

"You're mine," he answered.

She put her fingers into his own. "You're mine," she echoed.

Three loud bangs sounded throughout the place.

~~~~~~~

Logan jerked awake. He had dreamed of Max many times before, every night, actually, but this was new. This Max seemed…unknown. Too thin, too pale, too weak, too…something. He didn't know what. But something had changed.

~~~~~~~

The dream was strange. A man…a creature…a voice…the drugs maybe? She wasn't entirely sure why she knew she was drugged. She felt so weak…

A voice. There was a new voice there, right now. She felt herself being lifted.

"On your feet, soldier!"

She tried to comply, was able to focus enough to lift a knee, but not enough to help her feet find the floor.

An exasperated sigh reached her ears, and she opened her eyes. In the dark haze of the light, she saw that the soldiers in the truck with her had smeared red on their foreheads. She vaguely wondered why they did that. The red was not part of what they usually wore. They would be reprimanded for being out of uniform. Suddenly, blue moved into her field of vision. The eyes that the blue belonged to narrowed as a voice from far away said, "This is Colonel Lydecker giving you an order, soldier. Are you going to disobey?"

~~~~~~~~

End of Part 1

Part 2 - Coming Friday December 12