Chapter Twenty-Three: Homecoming

Torri stood at attention trying to ignore the swelling she could actually see in her cheeks and eyebrows, and the steady throbbing ache on her forehead as she faced her boss. Bryn was pacing angrily before her, livid at the recent turn of events.

"The salvage crew reported that the second Humvee was missing and only three bodies were burned in the fire. Where are the others?" She growled.

Torri feigned a look of shock, "I do not have that information Ma'am. I was unconscious for all of the events following the first explosion. I recovered after the crew had arrived from the Wyoming branch and by then the flames had engulfed the plane. I had thought that they were trapped in the fire and burned. If they escaped I had no knowledge of it."

"X-10-786 reported being assaulted by one of your unit after the crash of the airplane. He said that they were trying to escape."

"Ma'am as I said I was unconscious and by his own accounts he was only conscious for a short period, in the aircraft. That they escaped is now evident to me, but I had no knowledge of it."

Bryn sputtered, "Now we have seven test subjects with advanced military training and a vehicle full of weapons somewhere in the Northwestern United States. How could you let that happen?"

She looked at Bryn like she was stupid,. "How do you think it happened?" She growled startled by her own sarcasm.

"How dare you!" Bryn hissed.

"How dare I? With all due respect Ma'am, it was an accident, one that they used to great advantage, to be sure. They took the whole of the team with them. There was nothing I could have done to change the outcome of this. If you had wanted to prevent this you should not have sent them out."

"They were supposed to die in that crash!" Bryn blurted, immediately looking as if she regretted revealing that to Torri.

Torri's eyes widened in shock and anger with the things that it implied, "You set up the explosion?"

The older Transgenic said nothing for long moments her eyes darting as if she was trying to think of a way out of this, "Is that what you intended for the rest of that crew as well? Is that what you intended for me?" Torri said raggedly.

"I'm sending you back to Washington, 222," Bryn said quickly, "You are not the sort I need out here."

"Thank God," Torri muttered.

"What was that?"

"I said 'Thank God'. You and everyone here who works for you is crazy!" Torri said angrily, "This is the most ass backward base I have ever heard mention of!" She shook her head, "Why would you waste time and money training your testers to be soldiers only to try and eliminate them? What the hell kind of sense does that make? And you wanted me here to punish me, I know that for a fact now, you put me in charge of them and then you send me off to be killed with them because of some vague threat I seem to pose to you." Torri licked her lips, "Lydecker should never have reindoctrinated you, you know that? Being around that loon Renfro, the past however many years since, has made done nothing but make your mind mush! You've turned into a basket case, worse a basket case in a position of power! I'll gladly leave this base. Transfer me now."

Bryn's eyes narrowed thinking that she had found a lever to hurt Torri yet again, "No I think I will keep you here for a while longer. I'm sure that there is a job that you can do."

"You try to keep me here any longer and I will tell the committee what you just revealed to me. I don't think that they will take to kindly to the actions you've taken with their raw material."

"I am the committee!" she shouted rising from her seat closing the gap between them.

Torri stood her ground shaking her head, her eyes flint, "Funny, I don't believe you. I think that you made that up to get away with what you've done here, to get a hold of Cale and hurt X-5-452." Torri said in a low and menacing voice, "And I don't think they'll take kindly to you making decisions in their name."

"222 that is insubordination!"

"Yes, Ma'am, it is," Torri said snapping stiffly to attention and walking out without being dismissed.

Torri watched intently as the helicopter approached the tree-enshrouded Manticore Base that served the Washington State area. She felt herself come alive for the first time in nearly a year. Her time under Bryn's command still seemed like some sort of twisted nightmare that her mind was actively trying to deny the reality of. But it was over now…she was coming home.

She looked out the window again soothing her eyes on the tall pines that surrounded the base that she had grown up in, as her thoughts slipped back to her last unpleasant days in the desiccated hills in California.

Torri smiled again, she had never felt so good in her life as she had at that moment. She had been bottling up everything that she saw wrong with that base for so long that it had just exploded out of her at that moment.

She had sent Shawnee to the Wyoming Base under strict secrecy, knowing Bryn would have shot her outright as soon as she had been offloaded from the plane. They were willing to comply with her request, especially when she mentioned Lydecker by name. He was still held in high regard by the small contingent still at the base there and promised to make Shawnee very comfortable in her new home. Torri tried not to see that as compassion, it was strategically smart of her, after all Shawnee was the most valuable experiment in the Manticore arsenal, a pure strain of the DNA that they based all of their soldiers on. Wyoming was glad to have her.

Torri refocused on her former and current commander as he finished reviewing her service record. Lydecker slowly looked through the last several pages of Bryn's report of Torri's performance, the scowl easy to read on his face. She stood at stiff attention more afraid of what he might be thinking of her than she ever was of Bryn's tirades.

When he was finished he closed the folder and leaned back drawing in and letting out a deep breath before he spoke, "Seems that you're time in California was an utter disaster."

"Yes sir," She answered simply.

"You were responsible for allowing the escape of seven personnel, assigned to the base for experimentation into the genetic anomalies of each subject?"

"Yes sir," she said succinctly. She was not going to argue semantics with him, she had been made the scapegoat to the committee for the loss of possible genetic contributors and she understood that. Bryn had sent her back here with a recommendation for a bust and seemed to think that this assignment was punishment for her, let her think it.

Bryn had come out of the whole ordeal clean, as Torri had expected, though she thought she could still bring the whole thing down around that infernal woman's ears. But she would wait, that trump card was still hers to play.

"Well, what am I supposed to do with you?" Lydecker said with a sigh.

"That is not for me to speculate, sir."

Lydecker nodded running a finger over his lips in thought. Slowly he stood grabbing the folder by one end, "This is not how I expect the soldiers under my command to act, Torri." He added wagging the folder up and down in front of her face.

"Yes sir," She answered.

He stepped around the desk and Torri watched in shock as the file slipped from his fingers and fell with a dull metallic thud into the wastebasket, "So, let's just say the last nine months never happened shall we?"

She stood a moment her mouth agape then looked into his eyes seeing the mirth there. She snapped to attention again saying smartly, "Yes sir!"

"I never did like that bitch anyway," She heard him mutter, then louder he said, "Welcome home soldier."

Max paced ceaselessly as the small bundle in her arms cried and squirmed. Even when she took a break from the pacing she would catch herself rocking from one foot to another in her effort to stop the angry keening.

Max found that there were tears in her eyes, she felt helpless in the face of her colicky child. She had done everything she could think of for the baby, she had just been fed, her diaper recently changed. Max had tried toys, reading to her, rocking her, but it availed her nothing. Even a revved up girl like herself had her limits.

Briana had been born just three days ago, a week earlier than she was supposed to have arrived. She had been demanding even prior to her birth, waking Max in the middle of he night with sharp kicks in sensitive places normally waking her out of a sound sleep, add to that the contractions three nights in a row prior to her birth. It had scared her, it was the same sort of pain she had associated with a miscarriage, and she had consulted Sam after the second day of it. He had assured her that she was fine and to come in when they had become three to five minutes apart for an hour.

Her water had broke just after she had gotten the news of the near rescue of her husband and in a panic she had called Bling. By the time he had arrived her contractions were sharp and almost nonstop. It was a trip that seemed to take forever and she had been convinced that she was going to have her baby in the back of the Aztec. By the time that she had arrived she was fully dilated and Sam had wasted no time getting her to the delivery room. In all labor only took three hours, though it had seemed much longer than that. It had been, thankfully, uneventful. She had been relieved and surprised, with all the stress she had undergone with Logan's disappearance and less than successful search she had been sure that there would be complications upon delivery.

The baby had weighed in at eight pound five ounces and nearly twenty-one inches long, her head circumference had been 21 centimeters around. She had found since that Briana's appetite was about equivalent to that of a horse, already she was up to consuming a five ounce bottle, and she had gained a pound and half since birth.

Max resumed her pacing blinking in an attempt to maintain control over her raging emotions. It was the postpartum depression she knew, but it did nothing to stop her crying. Slowly the tide ebbed and Max settled a little bit, still sniffing and wiping her nose. In between she continued to pat Briana's back in an effort to comfort the angry child. She had completed about three full lengths of the hall she felt rather than heard the expulsion of trapped air from her small body. Immediately Briana's squirming slowed. Carefully Max moved Briana from her shoulder to cradle her in her own arms, looking down into that small face as the upset expression eased from it. She smiled as Briana yawned grandly, found her own thumb and proceeded to suckle it as she looked into her mother's face with those dark brooding blue eyes, Logan's eyes. Her other hand moved to an ear absently gripping and releasing it as she slowly drifted into a peaceful sleep.

Max watched it all transfixed, totally forgetting how upset she had been with Briana only moments ago. It happened every time she looked into that small round face, peaceful in sleep. She ran a hand lightly over the downy wisps of black hair on Briana's head as she wondered how she could be so much in love with someone so new to her life. Her love for Logan was…and always would be strong, but this kind of love was instinctive, soul deep, and binding, something entirely different. As far as she was concerned the mood swings and the Postpartum was worth the rewards she received in the presence of this lovely little person in her arms.

Slowly Max moved toward the bedroom converted for the moment into a temporary nursery. Max wanted Briana in the same room with her for now, until Briana showed signs of sleeping longer. She had started on an actual separate room for Briana, with Bling's help, but it was not yet ready and Max was not yet ready to have her apart. That had provided Max with it's own set of problems, having Briana in the same room meant that Max would wake seemingly every twenty minutes to ensure that Briana was still alive, or to feed her when she started to fuss even a little bit. Already she was drained from that topsy-turvy schedule and decided that she was going to have to consciously sit on herself to stop the practice. Two hours sleep was just not cutting it, especially when even that was broken. While that would have been an oddity even a year ago, she found she missed not having six to eight hours a night anymore.

Max was intent not to wake the now sleeping bundle in her arms and stepped into the darkened room gently setting her charge into the waiting bassinet. Briana didn't even stir as Max covered her with a light blanket and straightened. She smiled again as she looked down into Briana's peaceful face and reached into the bassinet stroking her downy hair one more time before duty picked at her and she made herself turn and leave.

She was going to have to take advantage of the time Briana's nap gave her to get some of the severely neglected housework done. Max stepped out and quietly closed the door behind her. She strode past the hallway gathering up some of the piles of clothes that had accumulated in the weeks just prior to Briana's birth when she had felt like doing absolutely nothing. She was so intent on her work that when she stepped out of the kitchen and moved down the hall toward the living room she did not notice the presence in her house. As she started back the direction she had come she finally noticed him standing just inside the door of the apartment. She stopped abruptly, her mouth agape and the basket fell out of her hands to thud dully on the hardwood floor.

If she had not known him for so long she would have thought that he was an intruder, a stranger for he looked so different from when she had last seen him. He looked so much older and not all of it was his appearance either. He did nothing but stare, silent and still as a stone, and for long moments neither of them moved.

He was thin almost gaunt to her eyes, his shortly cut hair heavily grayed. He was clean-shaven with only a half days hint of stubble on his chin and his blue eyes were intent and a little icy, as if he had just survived an ordeal.

He was wearing a set of black fatigues that were travel worn his combat boots were scuffed heavily and were no longer black. One sleeve was ripped slightly and Max could see the dirty bandage that peeked out from what she thought might have been a bullet hole, starkly white against the black of his uniform. The sleeve was stained around that tear and she was sure that it had been blood. On one breast pocket was a bright red patch with a Manticore symbol that read "Cadre Rojas" along the border. Sitting on the floor next to his feet was a small black bag.

"Logan?" Max finally whispered breaking the silence. She squinted unable to believe that he was here now after being absent for so long, trying to see through what her mind was trying to tell her was a hormone induced illusion.

It was obvious he had been standing there for some time watching her movements through the house, staring incredulously at her as if he was unsure that this was reality himself. He was unbelieving of his own eyes that he was here in this moment. Slowly he stepped forward, approaching her warily, still staring at her in that odd way. Max was unable to move, either to go to him or to retreat and before long he was just a half a pace away from her staring down into her almond eyes with his suddenly emotional blue ones.

He searched her face restlessly as one of his hands raised to touch her face, she noticed he was shaking, and she found that she was as well. He exhaled sharply in relief smiling at her as his fingers made contact with her cheek, "Max…" He exhaled softly, his voice raw with emotion. Abruptly he wrapped her in an embrace his whole body trembling. Slowly Max wrapped her own arms around him, closing her eyes and ignoring the tears that were streaming freely down her cheeks.

Slowly his shaking disappeared and he relinquished his embrace leaning back to look at her again. His brows furrowed as he took notice of the still fading scar on her brow and cheek, running his thumb lightly over the smooth line there. His hands ran down her face and neck to rest on her shoulders. He stared into her eyes with an intense expression that was a mixture or relief, anxiety, and pain.

"I thought…" He swallowed, "I never knew…I thought," And his brow furrowed again as he looked down frowning, "I thought you might have been killed." He looked back at her again emotion playing over his face again, "Last I remembered was you and Bryn…"

"I'm fine," Max said slowly interrupting his halting explanation, and locking his eyes.

"But you didn't leave."

"How could I?" Max said hearing her own emotions bleeding into her voice, "You had to come home eventually."

"It was a near thing," he said his voice hollow suddenly his eyes haunted. He chewed his lip as he looked at her then nodded raising his eyebrows, "You haven't changed, not a bit." There was an unasked question in his tone, a sad tone that told her he was disappointed. Her brows furrowed in concern wondering what he might be thinking.

She was about to ask what was troubling him, when Briana interrupted their reunion, her cries clearly heard through the door. Logan jumped at the sound his eyes quickly on the closed door. He looked back at her with a furrowed brow and then his face brightened in surprise. His hands dropped slowly from their contact with her skin his attention now wholly on the angry squalling coming from behind the door. Hesitantly stepped away from her taking several calculated steps toward the door, he looked back at her again, a crooked smile breaking over his features. She followed in his shadow as he quickened his pace striding with ground covering steps that quickly brought him to the door.

He halted there for long moments just staring at the doorknob listening to the sound issuing from the other side. Max was hardly breathing, excited, and wanting to answer the question on his face, but allowing him to actually see what they had wrought together. He reached for the door slowly, and Max wanted to rush past him and fling the door open to reveal what was behind the door. Slowly Logan turned the knob and opened the door and stepped into the dark cautiously moving closer to the bassinet. He simply stared at the baby for long moment's one hand covering his mouth. The baby had kicked off her light covering and was flailing helplessly with all four limbs. Logan reached into the basket gently lifting the crying child into his arms.

Much to Max's surprise, Briana ceased crying as soon as Logan had settled her into the crook of one arm. She was looking Logan straight in the eyes unnervingly like she knew this man holding her, like she had orchestrated her wailing to draw his attention and greet him herself. Absently Logan carried his daughter to a nearby chair and sat down, totally oblivious to anything but Briana's gaze. Briana had mesmerized him just as she had done to Max so many times.

Logan ran a hand slowly over Briana's head his smile broadening. Finally he looked up at Max again, "What…What's her name?"

"Briana," Max whispered.

"She's beautiful," Logan said just as softly. Max would have sworn that she saw Briana smile at his comment. Logan stood, "You are too of course," He said longingly as if he did not want her to feel left out. He leaned over Briana in his arms kissing Max lovingly, wrapping his arm around her. He opened his eyes as he broke off the kiss one hand entwined in hers.

"I was beginning to think that I would never get to see this," Logan said in a broken voice, and Max saw the tears of relief and joy in Logan's eyes.

"But you're home now," Max said smiling at him.

He looked down a moment at his daughter and then back at Max, "I couldn't have asked for a better homecoming."

THE END!

(finally, eh?)

All together now AWWWWW! Jasmine, are you happy now? Just the happy ending you wanted! I promise to leave them alone for a while and let them enjoy each other!

Hope you liked my…well project…as one of my fans put it, my Novel. I never really intended it to get this long, and I hope I didn't lose anyone in the process of development.

As far as future projects, WHEW! At the moment I am tapped out…Let me work over my Predator story some to satisfy that section of my fan club and give me a little time to enjoy my family now that I am home from that slow boat ride around the ocean…(YEAH!). I will get back to you, though I promise! Looking at a Zach/Tima story maybe, some SML? It's a thought. Other than that, can't think…

Gotta bounce for now, thanks to all my fans for all the support you have given me on this story, even through the rough parts, you guys are the best! No, really, you are!

Darwin