Prologue

Logan punched Max's pager number into the buttons on his telephone, followed by his own number, and hung up the receiver. He hadn't paged her in three days, and she hadn't come to see him. They were testing each other, and he was giving in.

It had been weeks since Max had attempted to flee to Canada to escape Lydecker and the police, only to have her plans postponed indefinitely due to a complication in Logan's injury. It had also been weeks since their first  and last  kiss. According to Bling, Logan had been, as of late, in the best shape he'd been in since the accident  probably, Logan thought, due to the enhanced, high-quality Manticore blood he had pumping through his veins, thanks to Max. But what he was really concerned about was her actual opinion on what had happened in the car that day, as opposed to the fabrication she'd presented in her own defense.

After spending some time reflecting on the matter, Logan was satisfied with a conclusive theory regarding Max's point of view. Before they had actually kissed, he hadn't had and idea of what was going through her mind. He'd known how he'd felt  he was pretty sure that even she had known that, at least on some level. And at times, he had felt pretty sure that she felt something for him, too. He was aware of how he looked at her  when the rest of the world disappeared and it was only her, standing in front of him with that I'm-gorgeous-but-I-don't-know-it attitude governing her stance, trying to convince him and anyone else who cared to look that she was strong and independent, and didn't need any man to protect her  all of which made her even more desirable. And, on occasion, it would seem like she was looking back at him the same way. But then she would contradict any indication of hope he might have cultivated during their last encounter by admitting that her only reason for coming around was to ask for favors, and it would occur to him that any chemistry he felt between them was completely unreciprocated. At times like these he would tend to be somewhat short with Max, purely out of frustration. Of course, who knew how she interpreted it? The thing that killed him more than anything was not knowing how she felt. He could handle the verdict, if he only knew what it was.

Now he did. She definitely cared for him  he was certain of it now. But he'd had some time to think while he was in the hospital. Max had been through a lot in her life, first at Manticore, then growing up right after the Pulse, taking care of herself  she'd learned to be self-sufficient, and she probably wouldn't want it any other way. That was how the people at Manticore had wanted it, of course. He could almost visualize it from Max's anecdotes  Lydecker and his followers, training their genetically engineered killing machines to disregard feeling and emotion, to be self-reliant, to keep any inner sentiments from getting through; that emotion was weakness, and that they must always, above all, be strong and in control; attempting to rape them of their humanity, and teach their living, breathing machine guns to be completely numb to pain, pleasure, fear, desire, and passion as if they didn't possess beating hearts. And now that Lydecker was after her, she knew she was in more danger than ever before, especially now that the enemy had seen her face. She had to live every day knowing that she must be able to leave the city  the country, even  at a moment's notice. She had probably figured that caring about too many people would just make things messy. After all, she wouldn't be able to make a clean break if she had people to worry about  people she would have to leave behind. It would be hard enough for her to leave her friends, her job, and the only home she'd ever known. And she was probably beginning to realize how close she was playing it for the first time. Last time she'd tried to leave, she'd invited Logan to come along with her. Ridiculous, he thought. As if he was in any condition to go out on the lamb and travel the world with two genetically enhanced soldiers nagging him to pick up the pace, all the time with government agents in hot pursuit. He would have been a threat to all of them, and she knew this  yet she had asked him to come. She would have risked her own safety to be with him  and she'd probably become aware that that wasn't something she could afford to do. The bottom line was that she was scared  scared of getting too close  to anybody. He didn't blame her, either. She needed time  that was fine with him. He could wait. That was why he'd let her off the hook back when he was in the hospital. It didn't matter  he knew the truth. And until she was ready, he could enjoy her company knowing that she thought of him as more than just a lead on her family and a food ticket. With this thought in mind, he couldn't help smiling as she had left the room that morning.

Their next few meetings had been somewhat awkward, and the sexual tension in the room had been so thick you could cut it with a knife. But despite the short-lived discomfort, they continued to carry out their routine of dining together most evenings, and Max occasionally spending the night (in the guest room or on the couch, of course; however, she was always gone by morning). They began a game of cat-and-mouse; at first, Logan would page her daily, and Max would come running, not being surprised  or disappointed  when she arrived to discover that Logan had neither a job nor a lead for her but only wanted a companion for dinner or a partner for chess. After several days, Logan would begin to wonder if Max would come uninvited. So he would go a day without paging her, hoping that she would visit on her own, and she would. For the next few days she would continue to do so without prompt, until she, too, would stop initiating contact, forcing him to begin paging her again. They had been volleying the position of power back and forth between them for a few weeks now. Most recently, Max had been visiting him without encouragement, and now it was his turn to invite her over. For two days he had been holding out, hoping to regain some sort of authority by forcing her to come to him when it was his turn to call. But, what with this being Max and all, she had called his bluff, and he had finally given in. Wielding power over Max, he'd decided, just wasn't worth not seeing her for days. Besides, it was Christmas Eve, and all his thoughts were on her.

Within ten minutes, Max was strolling through the door with a look of triumph on her face. "You paged?" she said pleasantly.

"Haven't seen you in a couple days," Logan replied offhandedly, and somewhat irritably.

"Haven't paged me in a couple days," she reminded him coolly, trying to make it perfectly clear that if he didn't invite her, she didn't come.

Fair enough, Logan nodded. "Got plans for tonight?"

Max started at him blankly. "Tonight?"

"Christmas Eve?" he reminded her. "Or don't you celebrate holidays involving joy, family, and holiday spirit?"

"None of which I have, so I guess we both know the answer to that question."

Logan immediately felt guilty for mentioning the family part. Stupid, he thought.

"Hey, don't beat yourself up. I'm fine."

"I wasn't"

"So, why'd ya ask? Gonna invite me to Christmas Eve dinner or something?" she gestured towards the normally bare table, now elegantly set for two and decorated with several platters and covered casserole dishes, wine, a tablecloth, and two candles in the center to complete the perfect picture.

Logan sighed. "Well I was, but now I guess now I'm going to have to invite you to an spontaneous, ordinary, non-holiday-oriented dinner instead. What do you say?"

She smiled. "Well where else am I gonna get a home-cooked meal?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"So what is this called again?" Max asked as she indulged in shoveling another forkful of the delectable entree into her mouth.

"Eggplant parmesan,"1 Logan answered. "You like?"

"Yeah," she replied. "But I thought people usually had turkey or something for Christmas?"

"Yeah, well, my mom could never quite conquer cooking turkey. So we experimented for a few years andwell, if you'd tasted her Eggplant Parmesan you'd understand."

Max nodded in comprehension and piled another helping onto her plate.

"So are you planning on spending the night? You wouldn't leave a lonely guy like me to spend Christmas all by myself, would you?"
 
Max smiled despite herself. Poor Logan. He tried so hard. He probably thought she was over so often because she felt sorry for him. Oh, well, as long as he feels like he owes me something "What, on that hard couch all night?" she teased.

"You could always take the guest room," he urged.

"Because I haven't been sleeping enough lately," was Max's reply, dripping with sarcasm. She normally never slept, but for the past few weeks it had been up to 5 hours a night, two or three nights a week, thanks to Logan's chronic invites.

Instead of rebutting with another sardonic remark, Logan showed genuine interest in the topic. "Now that I think of it, didn't you tell me once that you don't sleep?"

Max attempted to answer with her mouth full, found it too difficult, and held up her index finger in a "wait" signal until she finished swallowing. "Usually I don't," she finally managed to answer.

Logan had barely touched his food, his attention focused on the enchanting woman across the table. "And yet"

"Well it's not that I can't sleep," Max explained. "It's just that I don't need to. And, if I don't need to, what's the point, right?"

Logan, as usual, found these technical aspects of the conversation fascinating. "How did the people at Manticore manage to make you resistant to exhaustion?"

Max was reluctant to tear herself away from the culinary miracle in front of her, but she grudgingly put her fork down. "Well, here's the deal," she started. "Back in the twentieth century, the did a lot of research on sleep, but most of the results were inconclusive as to the cause of it. In the end, the only side-effects of sleep deprivation that they witnessed were things along the lines of fatigue, breakdown of the immune system, inability to operate motor skills, lack of concentration, a general bad mood"

"Oh, is that all?" Logan said sarcastically. "Cause it's not like our immune system or motor skills are important."

"All things which could be corrected or compensated for through Manticore technology, was what I was about to say before I was so rudely interrupted," she said with a smirk. "At Manticore they didn't want us to waste time sleeping. I'm not sure exactly how they did it, but I think there's this tiny part of the brain that tells your body when you're exhausted, and your body makes you go to sleep. Your eyelids get heavy, you lost muscle control  you know the drill better than I do. So I think they found some way to disable it, you know? Make it so that it would never send the signal to make the body tired. So while I can physically sleep at any time, I never really feel the need to."

"But if they hadn't figured out the reason for sleep, how could they guarantee it would be healthy to deprive you of it?"

She shrugged "There were over fifty other prototypes outside of X5. I don't know how many groups they did it to. In any case, we were expendable. Just experiments. They didn't care if the side-effects were hazardous to our health." With that she took one last bite and carried her now cleared plate and silverware into the kitchen.

Logan hated Lydecker and his entire staff and personnel of Manticore  if possible, almost as much as Max did. It made his blood boil just to think about them and the kind of vile, cold-blooded atrocities they performed on Max when she was a childof course, he felt sorry for all the other children too. But the thought of any harm coming to Max made him crazy. The intrigued smile he'd had on his face while she was explaining the process of artificially induced sleep-deprivation had melted away when she got to the part about being expendable and an experiment.

Max dumped her dishes in the sink and returned for more  she'd decided that since Logan always did the cooking (and provided the expensive apartment and eating facilities), she should start pulling her weight a bit and at least help out with cleaning up afterwards. When she got to Logan's plate, she saw that he hadn't taken two bites in the past half hour.

"Logan, you've barely touched your dinner," she scolded, then added in a teasing voice, "Now I'm going to have to wait to run the dishwasher." Logan didn't answer; his mind was somewhere else. Max noticed him looking off into the distance with a distressed statement on his face. "Logan, I'm here. Where are you?"

Her voice snapped him back into reality. "Hm? Sorry."

"You okay?" she asked with concern.

"Yeah. Just thinking."

"I noticed. Pretty intense thoughts?"

Logan sighed deeply. "You could say that."

"Well next time you leave this plane of existence, bring me along," she said with a smile.

"Will do," he smiled back.

"I'm wrapping this up for later," she said, taking his dinner plate off the table.

"Oh, you don't have to"

"Hey, don't worry about it. You did the cooking, I'll do the cleaning."

In the end, Logan insisted on helping Max clean up, and she eventually gave in. Ten minutes later they were sitting on the couch chatting again. Or, rather, Max was on the couch, making herself quite at home, as she usually did no matter where she was, and Logan was sitting across from her.

"So then, did you ever sleep at Manticore?" he asked, resuming their last topic of
conversation.

"About one night a month,"2 Max replied.

"That's it?" Logan did his best to repress the minor shock.

"For 10 hours or so. Enough to make up for a month of lost sleep. Or so they said. But hey, look at me, I'm like the energizer bunny  most of the time, anyway  and I don't even have dark circles under my eyes."

"Well, yeah, but"

"Hey, it's rebound effect. If you can manage to stay awake for days, you can make up for all the sleep you lost in one night." She waited for the argument she knew was coming, as to why it was unhealthy to go without sleep, even if she wasn't tired, and the advice to start getting sufficient rest every night. But none came. Logan just listened to her supportively. After a few moments, and what with all the memories being revisited, a floodgate was opened and Max began to reminisce

The dank room was dim and unlit, except for the hint of artificial light that filtered through the thick barred windows from the watch lights outside. A 7-year-old Max lay on top of the grimy blankets of one of the twelve cots lined up against the sheetrock wall, arms folded behind her head, which was shaved in a custom military fashion, staring at the rotting ceiling and listening to the sound of doctors and scientists discussing theories and upcoming research outside the door.

"Sometimes I didn't even sleep during those nights we were supposed to," she remembered. "I'd just lie there, awake, listening to the sounds outside and watching everyone else sleeping in their beds."

Max concentrated on the wall in front of her; paint peeled off in thick flakes, revealing a shade of gray under the off-white décor. Her concentration was broken by a crash outside the steel door that imprisoned them. Probably a tray of test tubes and pill bottles that somebody dropped. One man cursed under his breath, and another scolded the offender for being so clumsy.

"You know, those were the only ten hours we had to ourselves every month. I never understood why anyone would want to spend them unconscious," she continued. "It'd be like wasting them."

Young Max remained unmoving, despite the distraction. Her gaze remained fixed on the ceiling, until her highly developed superior senses perceived some out-of-the-ordinary stimulus. In one smooth movement, she put her hands at her sides and sat up, then scanned the room, dilating her pupils so that she could see to her maximum ability in the dark.

"When you sleep, time just disappears and you don't even remember what you did with it."

Logan's captivated eyes were still fixed on her, absorbing everything she said.

Max's eyes found another young X5, about her height, slightly chubby, with blond hair. He was standing on a chair in front of the window, tinkering with the lock He turned toward Max when he noticed her. Her eyes entreated him, no, not now. It wasn't time. It wasn't worth it. He responded with a cold glare of his resolute, unwavering eyes that said, "We will not deviate from the mission plan," and turned back to the window.

"If you stayed awakeyou'd get to remember those 10 hoursbesides, if you've never been tired before, how can you know how to fall asleep?

Max tugged at the boy's sleeve and shook her head violently, but the boy wrenched himself free and gestured with his head towards her empty bed before returning his focus to the lock on the bars.

"Crazy stuff happens at night. Even there it did. You had to learn to keep your eyes peeled at all times"

A lock clicked, and the rusted bars over the window that separated them from freedom swung open with a raspy screech. A second later the entrance to the sleeping chamber was unbolted from the outside, and the door was heaved open wide enough to see the silhouette of an enormous, intimidating male character standing in the threshold, outlined by the blinding light from the corridor behind it. The boy stood frozen, paralyzed with fear, like a deer caught in headlights.

"'Else you're toast."

That was exactly how Max looked, thought Logan, like a deer caught in the headlights, her eyes wide and staring straight ahead, not taking in anything.

"Max" Logan rested his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. "Are you alright?"

A few seconds passed before Max blinked and regained focus. "Sorry," she choked out.

"Don't apologize," Logan insisted. He was used to dealing with this sort of occurrence by now. During their many long evening talks, Max would occasionally make an attempt to muse over some dirt about her childhood, which, more often than not, sent her into a sort of semi-hypnotic state due to the intensity of the recollection. He knew that remembering things from back then was hard for her. She'd seen her siblings shot and killed, things young children shouldn't have the misfortune to even hear about. If they hadn't been made so strong, most of the children would certainly have ended up with serious psychological conditions when they grew up. For all he knew, many of them had.

Max rolled her eyes and chuckled. "I always do this" she stood up from the couch. "I'm sorry."

"Do what?" Logan asked, being sure to maintain his seriousness.

"I talk and talk and go on and on and unload all my problems onto you," she said with a lighthearted self-mocking. "If I were you, I'd be seriously sick of me."

"I'd never get sick of you," Logan assured her with one of his endearing smiles.

She tried not to smile and nervously smoothed her hair. "Yeah, wellyou haven't known me all that long," she said, turning away so he wouldn't see her blush.

"I know you well enough. I know that probably creeps you out, having someone know you too well. I know how much you value your privacy."

"You gotta, these days."

"But you have to trust someone, right?"

"I do," she replied, and turned back to Logan. "I trust me."

"How's this for creepy; so do I."

Max sat back down. "You shouldn't. I'll probably just abuse it."

Logan moved close to her, so that they were eye to eye.

"I'll take my chances," he confessed, then he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers, and gently stroked her cheek with his right hand. As she put her arms around his neck, he began to entwine his fingers in her hair, holding his left hand firmly around her waist. Max could no longer hear the voices that told her to keep her distance  the only thing she heard was the beating of her own heart in rhythmic motion with his; they shared the same blood, so their hearts beat together even in the physical world.

"Logan" she began.

Riiiiiing!

The phone rang, and Max plummeted back to Earth, sitting in front of Logan  not kissing, not touching  just sitting and staring at each other. She had no idea how long they had been sitting there, not speaking. Had he known that she was thinking about him? Fantasizing about him? Had he been watching her undoubtedly dramatic and changing facial statements for the past who-knew-how-long, and wondering why she didn't acknowledge his presence?

Riiiiiing!

Why had he been watching at her? Why was he still watching her? Did he know that she was consciously staring right back at him? Was he even looking at her, or just staring into space? And why wasn't he picking up the phone?!

Riiiiiing!

"Logan, your phone," she alerted him, partially to see if he was alert, partially because she knew the unattended to ringing would have eventually driven her crazy.

"It's not important," he said, his gaze not faltering.

"It might be."

Riiiiiing!

Logan sighed as he wheeled himself towards the telephone. "Hello? Hey Matt, what's up?"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Thanks a lot," Logan said before hanging up. He turned to Max to tell her the good news he'd just received, only to find her curled up on the couch; arms wrapped around one of the pillows, her face buried in her sleeve. Her body was probably getting used to sleeping at night, he rationalized. Or maybe she was just more exhausted than she pretended to be.

After covering her with the blanket hanging over the back of the sofa, he watched her unmoving for a minute. Max always looked different when she was asleep. During the day, all she ever let anyone see was the hardened shell that Manticore and the Pulse and the effects of her unique body's many idiosyncrasies had built around her piece by piece to shield her from the hardships and traumas her life had bestowed upon her. When she slept, the armor plating fell away to reveal the innocent, sensitive young girl she always managed to suppress. They were nights like this when Logan realized just how fragile Max really was, and it was tricky trying to figure out when you hit a nerve, because she would never let you know she was hurting. But gazing at her curled up in the fetal position, arms clinging to the pillow as if it were a life vest to keep her from downing in her own emotions, which ran rampant in her head with no consciousness to harness them, he could see the beating heart he always knew existed in there somewhere. Maybe that was part of the reason that she claimed to hate sleeping so much; she suspected it exposed her vulnerability.

Gently, he smoothed a lock of hair away from her face and tucked it behind her ear, then tenderly caressed her face, tracing the outline of her cheekbone, lips, and eyebrows with his fingers, and stroking her hair. Max responded with a deep sigh and a hint of a smile formed on her lips.

He could have watched her sleep forever, but his better judgment advised him otherwise. On the nights when Max stayed over, she was always gone the next morning, which meant she woke up early. How early, he didn't know, but he didn't anticipate having to explain why she had woken up to find him watching her sleep. He leaned in and planted a delicate kiss on her soft forehead before turning off the lights and retiring to his room.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Max jolted awake, and, before she could remember where she was, heard a door close. She dilated her pupils, taking full advantage of her feline night vision. She could make out the outline of a person, but just as she was realizing that it was Bling, he turned the lights on, forcing her to squint and cover her eyes with her arm.

"Oh, sorry," Bling replied when he turned and saw her, and dimmed the lights to make her more comfortable. He wasn't surprised to see that Max was spending the night; Logan invited her to crash there often. But she wasn't usually on the sofa.

"Let me guess," Max said, "Christmas party, ran late?"

"Well it is Christmas Eve," he looked at his watch. "Or morning."

"What time is it?" Max asked, running her fingers through her tangled bed-hair.

"A little after three," he answered. Then, eyeing her curiously, added, "You know you can always feel free to take the guest room."

Max looked around, realizing that she wasn't where she usually woke up. "YeahI must have dozed off." She tried not to make a big deal over the surprise this brought about in her; genetically enhanced Manticore kids, who could go weeks without a wink of sleep, didn't tend to "doze off" very often. "I should be going anyway." She stood up and began to fold the blanket that had been resting on top of her.

"Now?" Bling questioned, referring to the fact that it was too late at night  or too early in the morning  for even a genetically revved-up female, to consider wandering around the streets of post-apocalyptic Seattle.

"I've got a date with the top of the Space Needle," she smiled. "Seattle always looks prettier during the wee hours of the night." She smoothed her hair again before approaching the door.

"Hey," Bling called after her. When she turned, he added, "If you did decide to stay till morning, I think it'd really make his day." He paused just long enough for this to sink in, then made his way to his bedroom.

Max watched him go, then continued to move toward the door. But as her hand wrapped around the doorknob, she got a heavy feeling in her chest as her heart tried to anchor her to the floor of the apartment. She shook her head, determined to leave, but the more the door opened in front of her, the more she wanted to delay her departure. For a few seconds she wrestled with her thoughts, finally giving in to her inclination to stay. She closed the door and walked in the direction of the guest room, cursing herself all the way for her damn phony sentimentality.
 
 

1 I know most people eat turkey on Christmas, but I'm a vegetarian, and I just couldn't bring myself to write about people eating meat. (no offense to meat-eaters!)
 
 

2 I found out later, from Project Manticore on the main site, that she did indeed sleep, on average, 3 hours a night. However, I had already written this part of the story, and I didn't feel like going back and changing it.