"Sure," she said monotonously.
He sighed. "You want to give Normal a call and tell him you'll be back to work soon?" he tested her.
"Sure," she again replied.
It'll probably be slow, he thought, repeating Dr. Shankar's words to himself. I've already waited forever for her, so I guess waiting a little longer isn't that big of a deal. Except it was. He longed to tell her how he felt, all his fears and dreams and demons that had been with him these few months. But he wanted her to be able to tell him the same.
They slowly pulled into Mount Vernon, and he was pleased to see there wasn't a "citizen's patrol" on guard like there had been at Cape Haven, the last time he and Max went on "vacation." As he drove onto a major thoroughfare, he said, mostly to himself, "One of these days, we have to go somewhere for real." He first made a quick stop at a convenience store for gas and to pick up some food. They then continued down the road until Logan spotted a motel that seemed a little more run down than others, hoping that it would be cheaper as well. He registered under an assumed name with a young, friendly man at the front desk, and paid enough cash for a few weeks' stay.
He went back to the Aztek, where Max was patiently waiting for him. Or at least, he imagined she would be patiently waiting. She was really staring vacantly at the lights of the motel. He opened her door, and carefully unbuckled her seatbelt, trying to be mindful of her injuries. He sighed. "It'd be nice if you could walk," he said. "If anybody sees me carrying you everywhere, they could get suspicious."
He eyed her, and remembered Dr. Shankar's mention of her suggestibility. He leaned close to her face and said loudly, "Get out of the car and walk."
Max didn't say anything, nor was there any trace of anything in her eyes that would suggest she even heard him, yet she turned and slid out of the seat. Her knees buckled as her feet hit the ground, and Logan quickly caught her as she nearly collapsed. He slid an arm around her shoulders and took as much of her slight weight on him as he could and guided her towards their room while she began to take slow, halting steps. Although he answered one question for himself, he felt like another was now burning in its place.
After getting Max settled in the room, and hoping she would stay put, he went back out to the Aztek for his spare wheelchair. As much as he hated admitting it to himself, he was looking forward to getting back in it. His upper back was beginning to knot up with the stresses of the day, and was sure that the exo, moving muscles that weren't used to moving, was all a part of the problem. When he got back to the room, he was relieved that Max had fallen asleep on one of the double beds in the room. That stare was extremely unnerving. He sat on the bed to get out of the exo, and as soon as he had removed it, realized exactly how exhausted he was, and was asleep as soon as his head hit his pillow.
~~~~~~~
A bum wandering down by the old docks couldn't believe his luck when he found a sedan with keys and without any apparent owner. Well, without any living owner at least. He looked at the mangled mess of the trunk lock, and shook his head. "I wonder what was in there that made someone forget about the trunk release? Well, whatever…" He decided that the least he could do in appreciation for his new fortune was to take the body to the morgue. At about midnight, he drove around the morgue, but didn't see a door for drop-offs. So he just pulled up to what looked like the main door, opened the passenger side, and pulled his "passenger" onto the pavement, cheerfully waving to the man and calling, "Thanks again, buddy!" as he left to find a chop shop.
~~~~~~~
"Who am I?"
The words shot through the darkness of sleep and Logan pulled himself awake sharply. Even in the shadows of the room, he could see Max standing over him. He pulled himself up to his elbows. "Max?"
"Who am I?" she asked again, a little more urgently. "Tell me! Tell me who I am!" she demanded.
He sat up all the way, pulling his legs over the side of the bed. He took her by the shoulders and said, "Sit next to me."
As she slowly sat next to him, her chin began to tremble. "Tell me," she whispered.
Logan took her hand, and looked into her eyes, searching for some spark to speak to. "Max. Your name is Max."
She asked him again. "Who am I?"
Logan thought a moment, and then the words from his dream came to him. He squeezed her hand. "You're mine."
Max smiled, and the relieved look on her face was apparent. She squeezed his hand. "You're mine."
They stayed like that until dawn.
~~~~~~~
The place was strange – not her barracks. It was full of strange sounds and lights. It frightened her to not know where she was or why she was there…or even who she was. But whenever she was scared, a voice came to her and reassured her. Even when she wasn't sure who she was, he always knew.
Soon, the fog began to lift…
~~~~~~~
Logan resisted the urge to rub his tired eyes as he waited for the salesperson to hand over his change. He wasn't able to get much sleep at night because Max kept waking him up, begging him to tell her who she was. Her name never seemed to be the right answer. But as long as he repeated the words from his…their…dream, she settled down, although, she usually wouldn't go back to sleep until sometime during the day. Only then could he catch a nap, and wait for the next time.
"$5.42 is your change," the clerk said as she handed over his change and pushed his bags closer to him. "I hope your fiancée likes her new clothes. Wish my husband would go shopping for me."
Logan forced a smile on his face and nodded, quickly scooping up his bags and walking out of the little clothing shop. He wasn't too happy to be away from Max for so long, but they had both been in their same clothes for three days now, and he, at least, was happy for a change.
Three days. So much had changed in three days. Logan considered that change as he drove back to the motel. Max had gone from nearly catatonic to partially responsive. She was even responding intelligently to some of his words, even if some of her responses were still somewhat…juvenile. And at least she had stopped…staring. Logan shuddered as he got out of the Aztek and walked inside the motel. That look had really begun to make him nervous. Her strength was returning, too, and although her steps were now sturdy, she was still very thin and frail. Not what he was used to seeing for Max.
Inside the motel, he nearly walked past his room because the numbers had been removed from the door. He frowned, slowly slid the key in the slot, and walked inside.
Max was standing by the window, peering out from a small gap in the curtains. She slowly turned as Logan came in, and took a slow deep breath. Sigh of relief, Logan interpreted, having gotten used to some of her new "expressions" over the past few days. "Hey, Max," he greeted cheerfully, even if he really felt too tired to actually be cheerful. "It's good to see you up." As he stepped further into the room, the phone caught his attention. All of the numbers had been pulled off the buttons. He sighed, now knowing who had removed the numbers from the door. "Max, why did you take the numbers off the door and the phone?"
She blinked a few times, a shrug for her, and turned back to the window. "I don't need numbers anymore."
Logan found it hard to argue with that logic. He set the bags on the bed. "I brought you some clothes," he told her. "Figured you might want to change out of those fatigues."
She slowly looked down at her clothes, and then back at him. "I can have civilian clothes now?"
He nodded. "Would you like that?"
She considered that for a long time. "Yes," she finally stated. When he picked up one of the bags and brought it over to her, she frowned. "You're out of uniform," she accused him.
Logan blinked, surprised at the charge. He looked down at his clothes and then back at her. "Max, I never was in uniform. I'm a civilian, so I wear civilian clothes," he carefully said, not quite sure what prompted this. "Like you."
She huffed a breath, slowly walked to him, and pointed to his legs. "You're out of uniform," she repeated.
It finally dawned on him. The exoskeleton. She probably didn't quite have the words yet to say what it was. Logan's heart lifted a bit at the fact that she was recognizing that something was there that, for most of their time together before she was in Manticore, hadn't been there. "Well, I'll bargain with you. You go into the bathroom and change, and I'll get back into my civvies. What do ya say?"
"I say yes." Max scooped up her clothes and made her way to the bathroom.
While she was in there, Logan sat on his bed to strip his pants off and remove the exoskeleton. He changed his own clothes, and then transferred to the wheelchair. Max came out within a few minutes, dressed in the sweats that he had picked up. He smiled. "I'm glad they fit, although, they are a little loose. You could stand to gain a little weight."
Max looked down at herself and frowned, not quite understanding what he was talking about.
Logan sighed. "Never mind. I'll order us some pizza, and we'll play some chess or watch a movie or something." He wheeled over to the small desk in the room and looked for the phone book. Not finding it, he turned to look at Max. "Max, why did you hide the phone book?"
She sat on her bed and glared at him. Really. "I don't need numbers anymore," she gruffly reminded him.
Logan didn't even comment as he moved over to the telephone. "Right. Well, I guess I'll just call information." He stared at the numberless pad for just a moment before dialing information.
~~~~~~~
Original Cindy slowly peddled her bicycle towards Fogle Towers for the first time since Bling had called to tell her that Logan was missing. Although she was concerned he had just up and left without telling anybody, it wasn't all too surprising. She'd just figured he'd either gotten some word on Manticore or Max and went to chase after it.
She finally arrived at the apartment building and rolled her bicycle inside, waving at the cute young woman who manned the reception desk in the main hall as she headed to the elevators. She swiped her pass and pressed the button for the penthouse. As she unlocked Logan's door, she called, "Yo, Bling! What's the good word?"
Bling called back, "In the computer room, Cin."
Original Cindy leaned her bicycle against the wall, and made her way through the apartment. She found Bling sitting at Logan's desk, staring at the computer screen. "S'up?"
Bling turned to look at her, and then turned back to the computer. "I haven't been in here for a week. Figured if the man saw me messing with his toys, he'd get all Jackie Chan on my hide."
She smiled. "Chair or no chair, right?"
"Yup."
She walked closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "So whad'ya call me here for?" Bling held up a piece of paper. She slowly took it and looked at it. "Hour SW of Se." Her eyes widened as comprehension hit. "Manticore? This is Manticore?"
Bling shrugged. "That's what I'm thinking. I'm also thinking…"
"He went chasin' after Max," she finished for him. "I'd been thinkin' that's the only thing that would make him get ghost like he did. Now we've got us some proof."
He paused for a moment. "Do you think she's alive?"
Original Cindy nodded. "He seemed to think so. That's good enough for me."
Bling grinned. "Me, too, really."
She waited, and then frowned. "So you just call Original Cindy to get her opinion on all this, or you got somethin' more important to make Original Cindy miss the start of Xena?"
"You wanna finish this?"
She blinked. "Take Manticore down, you mean?"
Bling nodded.
Original Cindy grinned. "Sounds good and fun to me. Think Logan will be mad we threw the party without him?"
"No, I don't." Bling didn't tell her that either Logan had found Max and they were hiding out from her captors, or he was…well…
Original Cindy nodded. "So, what do we need to make one of these hacks of his without him?"
Bling's head whipped around to look at her in shock. "How…?"
"Come on. You know the man. You don't hafta hang around him very long to know that he's got mad computer skills. And all of those hacks about Manticore suddenly appearing as of late and then stopping a week ago? I'm sorry, but nobody don't take on those guys as a favor."
He nodded. "Well, then, what do you know about computers?"
"Not much," she admitted. "You?"
"Only a little bit."
Original Cindy leaned over and peered at the computer screen. "Should be enough between us to get this thing up and groovin'. Where do we start?"
~~~~~~~
He was back in that place. It hadn't really changed – still grey, dingy, and hopeless like the first time he had been there. He moved another piece on his chessboard and looked at his opponent. "Knight to g5. Why am I here?"
The creature danced around on the head of the pin it was standing on and replied, "Bishop to c8. How should I know? You're the one who came here."
Logan regarded the grinning man's face and the happily wagging spiked tail before looking back at the board and moving the chess piece to the coordinates the creature had called out. "Rook a to f1. I think I should be somewhere else right now."
"Pawn to h6. Where?"
Logan frowned, considering his next move. "I'm not sure. Bishop to g6. At least I know who I am."
"Well, you've got that going for you at least. King to g6."
"But if I don't know where I am, how will I be able to get where I'm going?" He moved a piece. "Queen to d3. Check."
The creature settled down on its haunches and looked at Logan, exasperated. "Maybe you should figure out where you're going first. Could help. King to g7."
Logan shrugged, not really faulting the logic of the other. "Knight to e5. Maybe I should find Max first."
"Leave her alone. Pawn to e5. She's busy." It raised a paw and scratched its nose.
"Queen to h7. Check. Doing what?"
"Besides finding herself? She's got a big project. King to f8."
There was something that bothered him about that statement, but Logan decided to leave it alone and get back to the game. "So what do I do now? Rook to f6. Check."
"You could stop playing games. Knight to f6." It grinned. "Especially with mythological creatures."
Logan moved one last piece. "Queen to h8. Checkmate. I'm done." He stood and walked away from the table.
The creature watched the man go. "No, you're not. But you'll figure that out. Return to your mate."
~~~~~~~
A clink dragged Logan out of the dream, but it wasn't quite enough to totally wake him up. As he lay there, he began pondering the meaning of the dream. Playing chess with a manticore. Well, he'd played enough chess with Max over the past few days. She could still kick his ass at it, even in her present state of mind. Another clink broke him out of his thoughts, and he opened his eyes, automatically fumbling for his glasses and then sliding them on. After he adjusted to the darkness, he noticed that Max wasn't in her bed. She hadn't woken him up yet that night, either. He quickly leaned over to the nightstand to turn the light on. He covered his eyes briefly as the brightness seared his vision. When he had uncovered them, he wished he had never woken up.
Max was sitting in the middle of the floor, with of all things, a fork in her hand, tinkering with the waist unit of the exoskeleton. The remaining pieces of the exo lay scattered around the room. Bits of wires, tiny pieces of circuitry, slim support rods…everywhere.
Logan blinked a few times, hoping that he was still dreaming. But as the scene remained the same, and Max popped another chip out of the waist unit, he threw the blankets off and wrestled his wheelchair closer to the bed. "Max!" he snapped.
Max continued on with her work, either ignoring or not recognizing the furious tone of voice. "What?" she calmly replied.
He struggled into the wheelchair as he stammered, "You…you…"
She put down the fork and started pulling out a wire.
"Max! Stop! What the hell are you doing?!" he finally managed to get out.
She picked up the fork again as she said, "I'm doing inventory, and trying to extract the usable equipment."
A red haze burned through Logan as Max calmly went back to disassembling. He was absolutely enraged at her lack of emotion and understanding of the situation that he really didn't trust anything he would say…or could say. He snapped up the brakes, and gritted his teeth as he began to push by her, cringing as he heard something crunch beneath his wheels. When he realized she was neatly positioned so that he couldn't get around her, he barked, "Move!"
She look up at him, surprised, and scrambled to her feet, quickly coming to attention and backing out of the way.
He angrily wheeled to the door, yanking it open, and slamming it shut behind him. He ignored the young man sleeping at the front desk as he went outside, taking a deep breath of the warm night air. He desperately tried to calm down and stop the blood from boiling in his veins.
It wasn't her fault. Not really. But damn if he didn't want to kill her right about now. And it wasn't all about the exoskeleton, either.
He had tried to be supportive, understanding, caring, gentle. He had been thrilled when Max's initial condition seemed to improve, but now it seemed that her improvement was stalled. It was frustrating. She was stuck somewhere between life and limbo, and he didn't know that she was ever going to get out of that place. All the time that he had been praying, dreaming, that he would get his Max back, he never imagined that he would get a shell of the woman he loved, someone he didn't even know.
He put his head in his hands as he took a few more deep breaths. That was the kicker, wasn't it? His legs, his ability to walk, had been some symbol of manhood to him this past year. When he had gotten the exoskeleton, he had become a man again…in his own eyes. With the exoskeleton now in pieces, he had lost that once more. During this whole mess, he had been questioning himself and his feelings. Before, he hadn't been entirely sure he was man enough to love the stranger in the hotel room like he had loved Max. And now, he wasn't sure he could be anything for her.
Logan ran his fingers through his hair, the thought flitting through his brain that he should get a haircut soon. A haircut, he snorted. At least I have hair to cut. He could feel the emotions building and churning again, and pushed them down, focusing on the sunrise, trying to calm himself down enough to go back inside. It probably would have been easier with a few drinks. Logan sat and watched the sky until well after the sun had broken the horizon when he finally felt in control enough to return to the room.
Inside, the first thing that he noticed was that all of the parts of the exoskeleton which were originally scattered haphazardly across the floor were now neatly paired and piled according to size and color. The second thing that he noticed was that Max had apparently finished her work, and was now back to looking out of the window. She must have heard him coming into the door, because, without turning, she softly said, "You left me."
Logan sighed, thinking calming thoughts. "I'm so—" he began, cutting himself off. The words from his recent dream came to him. You could stop playing games. He eyed her and told her truthfully. "I was upset. I needed to leave for a while, clear my head."
She cocked her head and now looked at him. "Is it clear now?"
He was surprised by her question, but answered her. "It's a little better. I'm still mad that you took apart the exoskeleton."
Max frowned. "I was—"
He held up a hand to stop her. "I know what you thought you were doing. I guess you couldn't help it. But I can still be mad about it."
Some small part of her must have comprehended something in what he had said, because she nodded. "Okay."
He smiled. "Tell you what. I'll warn you before I leave again, even if I'm upset, okay?"
Max took a slow, deep breath, and smiled a little. "Okay," she said again, sounding more certain about it this time.
"Why don't you sit down on the bed and watch a little television?" He pointed to the bed, and then looked forlornly at the TV, wondering why she couldn't have disassembled that instead of the exoskeleton. He grabbed the remote off of the nightstand, barely acknowledging that it didn't have any numbers left on the keypad, and flicked it on. A morning news program was showing. "I'm going to use the bathroom for a minute, and when I get back, we'll see if there are any good movies on this early."
He was only in the bathroom for a few seconds when he heard a noise from the other room. He paused, wondering if it was the television, when he heard it again, softly at first.
"Logan."
He blinked, realizing it was Max. But Max had never used his name in the entire time since he had found her. Before he could think about that any further, she called again, louder. "Logan!" As he reached over to turn off the water, the call became a scream.
"Logan! Logan! Logan!"
He quickly went back into the main room, and saw Max sitting on his bed, clutching the remote control to herself. Her face was extraordinarily pale as her wide eyes were riveted to the television. He looked at the screen, and he too paled as he saw the image of flames shooting from a massive complex.
Max was still screaming his name as he moved to her side. "Max, what's wrong?" he asked her.
She turned to look at him, and he finally saw the recognition that he had been longing for, mixed with a deep pain. "Logan! Oh, God, Logan!"
He quickly transferred from the chair to the bed and took her face in his hands. "Max. Tell me what's wrong!"
She pointed a trembling hand to the television screen. "Logan, it's…it's…Manticore. It's Manticore, Logan. It's…oh, God, it is, isn't it?"
He looked again at the screen and listened as the reporter stated that authorities were saying that a gas main explosion had killed all of the occupants of this VA hospital late the previous night. She also stated that this rather suspicious explosion occurred only hours after a cable hack by the infamous crusader Eyes Only, saying that this place was the location of a complex called Manticore, which was supposedly involved in genetic manipulation of humans.
"You were here."
Max's voice broke through to him, and he turned to look at her. Her breathing was shallow as she told him, "You…Eyes Only…you were here last night. And I was never there. They were taking me there, but I never made it. You were here with me and…oh, God. Logan!"
As her voice rose to a fever pitch, he grasped her shoulders and pulled her to his chest, holding her tightly to him like the lifeline she was. "Max…Max…" he couldn't say anything else. Not yet. He gently rocked her as her breathing kept catching in her chest – sobs that couldn't break free.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the piles of parts from the exoskeleton. She tried to push away from Logan. "Oh, God, what have I done? Oh, God…"
He grabbed her shoulders, preventing her escape. Either she still wasn't strong enough to break away, or she simply wouldn't, but she was letting him hold her still. "Max. Look at me." He waited until she looked at him, the panic in her eyes searing his heart. "Max, you weren't well. Don't you remember?"
A shudder ran through her slim frame as she shook her head. "No…" she admitted. She turned to look at the television, and the flames leapt into her eyes. "No."
Logan sighed. "Max, what's the last thing you remember?"
She seemed to settle as she tried to focus her thoughts. "Manticore…I remember…a box."
"A box?"
"They put me in a box…and then…I was in a truck. There was red and…" Her brow furrowed and she looked at Logan, confused, the panic beginning to rise again. "Logan? Logan, what…?"
He shook his head, bringing her close to him again. "It doesn't matter. Not anymore. Max, look. Manticore has fallen. It's nothing but scrap and ash now. Nobody can hurt you. You're safe now."
"But, Logan…what have I done?"
He gently rocked her and kissed the top of her head, the soft bristles of her hair tickling his lips. "It's okay. Manticore is gone, and they can't hurt you anymore. You're here now, and you're safe. Don't look back on what you might or might not have done. There's time to remember later. Right now…you're here. And you're safe."
She held on to him desperately, listening to the beat of his heart, and trying to believe his words.
~~~~~~~
Dr. Shankar had a body that she wasn't quite sure what she was supposed to do with. She had recognized Donald Lydecker immediately when she discovered him on the "front porch" of the morgue, and had quickly run back into the morgue to wake Gib so he could help her drag the body inside. Now, a week and a half later, she still wasn't entirely sure what to do. Procedure said that she should have informed the police and perhaps the federal government immediately after making the identification, but she also remembered that Logan had said that the man Max had been with was dead. She had a sneaking suspicion that this was the man.
A knock on her office door startled her out of her thoughts. Gib peered in the room and held out a folder. "Shanks, I've got some results for you."
She waved him over to the desk and indicated that he shut the door. He passed over the folder, and Dr. Shankar took a quick peek at the contents. "The bullets in the body matched the ones in the gun," she murmured.
Gib nodded. "Yup. That they did. Beautifully. I usually don't get specimens that good. Usually half of the impressions have been tampered with to prevent a solid ID. Prints on the gun matched, too."
Beverly looked up at him over the folder. "Prints?"
"I say again, prints. One set to our Johnnie Doe, who's now been in storage so long he's getting freezer burn, one set to your friend, who popped for a minor 'rousing the rabble' charge from way, way back, and one to our pretty little patient from a week and a half ago. There was also an unknown. Didn't hit anything."
"Four sets." Beverly leaned back in her chair and tapped the folder on her knee. "I wouldn't call it suicide, but it really could have been any of the other three."
"She had gunpowder on her hands," Gib reminded her softly.
"Yes, she did, but it was in small amounts." She looked at his face. "I know. Still enough. But other prints are other leads." She sighed. "This doesn't help much, Gib."
"Yeah, figured that. What do you want to do now?"
Dr. Shankar thought a moment, and remembered the man and woman who had been in the morgue, and had left alive, together. "Sign him out as a suicide, no ID. Cremate the body. I'll handle the remains…and the records." Logan can decide what to do when he gets back to Seattle.
~~~~~~~
"Do we have to go back?" she asked him.
Logan turned from where he was trying to gather some of their belongings and looked at Max. Her eyes were haunted, had a new depth of darkness and age that hadn't been there months ago. "What do you mean?"
She sighed. "We're already on the lam. Can't we just keep running? Find some corner of the country to hide in?"
He smiled at her, and wheeled over to where she was sitting on the bed, clutching her knees. He put a hand to her face. "We've been hiding. Now it's time to rejoin the world."
She pulled her head away from his hand, not looking him directly in the eyes. "I guess."
Logan studied her. The last few days had been incredibly hard. All of the living nightmares that Max had held locked away in her mind for the past couple of weeks now boiled and bubbled close to the surface. She would tell Logan what she went through, what she could remember, and Logan in turn would tell her of his experiences while she was presumed dead. They found a lot in common. All of the pain and loneliness they felt, they found reflected in each other. It was the same with their hopes and dreams, which came up in their conversations with much less frequency. They both spoke of wanting to survive, hoping that someone would remember them, and be waiting when they returned.
There were also demons that they didn't share.
He had found her in the bathroom, staring at the mirror, running her hands over and around her head. "My hair…" she whispered in a shaky voice. "They took my hair…"
He took one of her hands and kissed it softly. "That's all they took, Max. Nothing more. It will grow back, and then they won't even have that." He still wasn't sure if she believed him.
She had found him in the main room, slowly picking up the piles of chips and cables and other bits, looking at them longingly before gently setting them in a large box. "This mess…" he muttered under his breath, not realizing that she had heard him.
She tentatively put a hand on his shoulder, not yet certain enough of him, or herself, to know that he wouldn't reject her. "I'm sorry, Logan. There's gotta be plans somewhere. I can put it back together. Or maybe there are more out there somewhere." She still wasn't sure if he believed her.
She picked up the large box of exoskeleton pieces, and Logan set their bags of clothes in his lap before they left the motel room. They briefly stopped at the main desk to drop off the room key. When they walked out to the parking lot, Logan was cheered to see Max's face break out in a grin. Her smiles were few and far between. "I've missed this ugly car," she joked.
Logan thought he would float out of the wheelchair, he was so happy. "Hey, be nice to Bessie. She's had it rough," he ribbed in return.
The trip back to Seattle was oddly light, especially considering the heavy mood of the morning. As they reached the sector checkpoints, Max turned to look at Logan. "Logan, we're going to be okay, aren't we?"
He smiled and took her hand. "We're going to be just fine."
They pulled up to the gate, and Logan handed their sector passes over to the soldier at the gate. He took a perfunctory glance in the Aztek before handing the passes back to Logan. The soldier nodded to them as the gate was raised. "Welcome back to Seattle."
~~~~~~~
Once upon a time there was a man and a woman. And they lived happily ever after.
Does there even need to be more to the story?
The man and woman did their best to resume their lives, in spite of all that had happened. They didn't really pick up from where they had left off, before their lives had changed, but instead chose a new direction to go.
Max never did quite totally recover her memory, and Logan never pushed, deciding that the demons she lived with every day were enough. He still had suspicions that she had killed Lydecker that day. She was mobile, had the gun with her, had traces of gunpowder on her hands. But there was also other evidence that made him doubt his own theories. She was so weak, Lydecker would have easily been able to overpower her. There was an unknown set of fingerprints on the gun. And there was Max's own deep resistance against guns. Logan had to believe that was one thing that stayed with her, even when she couldn't remember her own name. She was alive, and that was enough for him.
They never married, which never ceased to surprise all of their friends. Max wasn't really one for the "institution" of marriage, and Logan had been through it once already. Some days they were merely friends, others they were also lovers. But they always knew they belonged to each other. They had declared that oath in a place of hopes and wishes.
There were days that either the man or the woman would sink towards the darkness, the nightmares living brightly in their minds. It was on those days that they would reach for each other, and decide to run away. Where it was just the two of them and the rest of the world could be forgotten. Somewhere.
Anywhere.
~~~~~~~
The End