This story starts just after the Pulse. Before Max and Logan have met. It jumps around, back and forth between times, events and episodes. Logan is paralized in the beginning, then it skips a beat. Self-explainatory. It started as a Logan/Max story, somewhere did a lil flip-flop, and one of the background characters decided she wanted to live. If you hate the story, shoot my muse. Email is very welcome, I may not post the rest of the story if no one takes an interest.

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Chapter Four

Jumping on Spooky had irritated him. He swung, spun and finally dropped backwards onto the floor of the roof. She’d hung on. He squirmed. She gritted her teeth as her ribs grinded.
He stood, and she gained a few precious seconds, enough to get to her feet, as he stood staring at her.
Guess you’ve never seen a tiger-striped, green-eyed broad wearing torn clothes and a shredded leather jacket. She thought, then ran for the door leading to the stairs of the building.
The lock snapped with her second pull, and she jumped in.
It took him less than a minute to come in, predictably swinging the door wide. She jumped over him, flipped and rolled out. He reached, and she slammed door back.
His arm was in the door from the elbow down.
That must’ve really pissed him off, whether he felt any pain or not.
She couldn’t hold the door it flew open, she went flying, managing to keep hold of the syringe.
As he got close she replayed the camcorder scene in her head, the guy the Red had picked up.
Broken like a twig.
Well, his bones were normal. His jaw was normal, the skull was normal, mostly.
She picked her target.
Her colors changed. Red hair, pale skin from the tiger-like stripes. The change distracted him. She lept, hitting his nose with everything she had. She felt the bone go inwards, upwards. The snap audible. He fell like a redwood, his head bouncing.
The light in his eyes was fading, but not fast enough. He picked her up and threw her, like a rag doll. She felt the door hit her in the back, the pain was bad but she fought the darkness with it.
Get up, get up. He’s dying, his blood is dying...damnit get UP... gotta fix Max, gotta MOVE!
A few long moments later, she sat up shakily, panting.
Logan’s voice, close.
I must have hit my head harder than my ass.
She got up, figured out where she was.
It was like someone had removed the oxygen from her lungs suddenly, and she collapsed, twitching. In a few moments the twitching turned into a full fledged seizure.
Well, I guess I did work up a resistance to the drug, duh. She thought, teeth clenched.
Logan swam into view.
"Take the syringe, fill it with my blood, inject into the Red." She said. At least she tried to say, but the seizure wouldn’t let go. The words came out a moan, a hoarse growl as she thrashed helplessly, her jaw was clenched too tight for speech.
Moments passed. She fought her body, lifted the syringe.
"I’ll get it." Logan said, taking the syringe, turning to go.
Her claws tangled in his jacket.
Read my eyes, damnit.
Logan paused. "I don’t understand." He pulled out his cellphone. "Sebastian, Lexa is having a seizure, she can’t talk, it’s bad. She seems to be trying to tell me something... what do I do?"
Her muscles tightened, spasmed, relaxed.
The moments seemed like months as she fought for breath on an internal level.
Breathing returned finally, just when she thought it was never going to.
With the first sweet breath of air she whispered: "Inject the Red with my blood. No time."
Everything faded to black, and she hoped she’d spoken the words out loud.

Lexa woke, a pinprick of pain somewhere near her thigh.
There was pain everywhere, it hurt to breath, it even hurt to think.
Her eyes focused to see that she was in Sebastian’s lab, and Bling had just injected her with something.
"What?" She attempted, then realized she just didn’t care.
Nausea gripped her, battling with exhaustion.
Sebastian’s voice-synth answered. "That was an injection of your special recipe. How do you feel?"
"Max?" She whispered. "Is... Max?"
"You were right. The nanobots destroyed the invasion of the squid." Sebastian told her. "Scans are showing the wires are being absorbed into her system."
Lexa didn’t bother replying. She dug her claws into the side of the cot, turned over (a giant pair of pliers twisted in her gut),and managed to pull herself (I’m not gonna pass out, I’m okay... yeah), up. The room spun, and she only managed to stay up and not throw up because she hadn’t eaten for awhile. She was leaning slightly a position that didn’t make her vision blur with pain.
"Feeling light-headed?" Bling asked.
She nodded, teeth clenched.
"We took more of your blood than we wanted to." Sebastian intoned. "If you feel up to it, Bling will take you home."
"Sounds good." She agreed.
"I’ll go open the car door, and warm it up." Bling told her.
As soon as he went through the door, Sebastian said: "That last shot was double your usual dosage."
"Yeah, I’ve developed a resistance to it." She agreed.
"What are you going to do?" He asked.
"Find something else, hopefully less toxic." She said, wincing when she noticed how torn up she really was. Her bare flesh has skidded across the roof more than once.
Bling was back, and she regarded him silently. Her left eye was swelling shut.
"Put your arms around my neck." Bling told her, wrapping the blanket around her. "I’ll carry you, just to the car."
She nodded, doing as told, just this once wouldn’t hurt.
As he lifted her, she felt consciousness leaving again, but not before she heard Sebastian’s last sentence.
"Keep her warm, and have Logan call me."

Lexa opened her eyes.
Through the window, sunlight spilled onto the blanket she was under.
She could feel bandages, some sort of rib brace.
She attempted a yawn, stopping when it split her lip open again.
She looked around, not her place.
Logan’s guestroom apparently.
Next to the bed, Logan was sitting, slightly leaning to one side. He was softly snoring. There was an open laptop on the table next to him.
"Logan?" She said quietly.
He woke, adjusting his crooked glasses. "Hmmph?"
"What happened?"
"You were right, your nanobots killed the Red’s nanobots. He never went cyborg, Sebastian watched him until the autopsy. We injected Max after explaining the situation, and showing her the photos, the squid, and the body.
Sebastian arranged for several catscans, which showed the start of a ‘squid’ in Max’s head. We transfused her using your blood-Sebastian thought it would be too risky to just connect you too, so we had to draw enough of your blood to transfuse her, alot more than we wanted to. She had three more catscans, which show the squid has pulled out. Most of what was left of it was reabsorbed into Max’s body, and Max is fine."
"Wanna play truth or dare?" She asked, with a weak grin. "Truth is, I feel like shit."
"I guess that means you get to dare me to do something." He said, joking.
"I think I’ll transfer my dare to Max and let her think of something appropriate."
He looked worried, a little. "That’s a scary thought."
She managed to turn a little more, it didn’t hurt as much. She dug her claws into the bed, careful not to shred the bedding and pulled herself up, as soon as Logan figured out what she was doing, he helped by fluffing the pillows behind her.
"Where is Max?" She asked.
"Max is... working, I think. She’ll most likely drop by after her shift, or at the crack of dawn." He said, smiling slightly. "Unlike you, she never sleeps. Why is that?"
She wanting to stretch, but knew it would hurt too much to be worth it. "I’m a genetic disaster, from the stand point of being a soldier. Max’s generation was a step up... most of them sleep-I’m sure Max does after awhile, but they need less than I do, Max doesn’t have to sleep. Thy can also fight until they drop, and they don’t have to worry about whether or not they’d get their fix." Suddenly dizzy, she leaned back against the pillows.
Logan looked at her for a moment. "No, Max doesn’t have to sleep-but that’s one reason why her body doesn’t produce seritonin, and why she needs tryptophan. If she doesn’t get tryptophan several times a day she has seizures, but maybe not as bad as the ones you were having..." He seemed to realize he was lecturing again, and smiled. "As for being a soldier, Max barely dented those ‘Reds’, before she used the implant. You managed to kill two that went cyborg, you fried the one one on the fire escape so badly that his body was mostly tar... and you killed one of the Reds unarmed. I wouldn’t call that a failure, but I’d like to know how you did it."
"It’s just a matter of raging out... and getting lucky." She said, rubbing her eyes. "I told you I’d be fine. There was no need to watch me sleep."
"’Raging out?’" He questioned.
"When Manticore... bought me, they found that my training had been intellectual, more in stealth than in force. It was intended that I blend in, retrieve info and-"
"Spy." Logan supplied.
"Exactly. I had only the barest training on tactics and weapons. Manticore found that my training went too deep... so they created another personality." She tapped her head. "A killer. They tinkered more with my genomes. I’m the opposite of Max, in so many ways." She smiled vaguely. "Max is human with animal genomes, my generation is more animal than human."
"You don’t look-" He began, then stopped. "What do you mean exactly?"
She idly tapped her claws on the bed. "It’s a constant battle during a fight, to rein in my animal alter-ego. I have times when I have to eat..." She looked away.
"And Manticore arranged to bring that part out in full force when it suited their purposes?" He asked. "Tell me what ‘raging’ is."
"It’s deep inside me." She said distantly, staring at the bedspread. "Fury, the urge to rend, tear, smell blood... when I let the rage come, I just go somewhere else... and the killer comes out. Sometimes it’s so intense I black out and can’t remember what... happened."
"It sounds like a split personality, artificially created." He said, nodding.
"Something like that. It’s precisely why Manticore will never take me alive." She met his eyes, speaking matter of factly. "They only left the human side of me in control and intact because they couldn’t control my other half, yet."
"Can you?" He asked seriously.
"Most of the time, yes. But I’m careful how often I set it free."
Her eyes were sad. She reached up, and carefully removed the lenses from her eyes, then looked at Logan.
He didn’t quite gasp, and he remembered to close his mouth.
She smiled. Twenty points to you, Logan.
Her eyes were even greener, the lenses had darkened them a little. Her pupils were slit, the bright sun didn’t help.
"That’s why you wear glasses?" He said quietly.
She nodded. "Do you have a tissue or something I can put these on?" She said, nodding at the lenses she still held.
He pulled a box of tissues from the bedside table, passing her two, and she budled her lenses in the doubled tissue. She had to clean them before wearing them again.
"So..." She said, smiling at him, "The bad news is, I have an alter-ego that belongs in a zoo... but the good news is, I won’t need a litterbox."
Logan smirked, closed the laptop.
She watched him thoughtfully. "Is Max... okay?"
He glanced back at the closed laptop. "Yeah. I don’t suppose I can convince you to sleep a little longer?"
"Actually, it might be better if I went home, I do have a home you know. I can walk there from here, even.." She looked at what she was wearing, and had to smile, teddybear pajamas. "Even in your pajamas. What? No bunnies? Or are you more of a superman undies kinda guy?"
"They aren’t actually, mine... another houseguest left them behind." He explained. "I don’t wear pajamas." He informed her, vaguely wondering why he had informed her.
The phone rang.
"Look, just... stay put, okay?" He told her, and went to grab the phone.
She used the time to scan the room, and recognized it as the guest room she’d almost spent the night in the first time she’d gotten her clock cleaned. The window was small, and there wasn’t much of a view unless you admired the blank wall of the opposite building.
She should be making scans of the squid that was hanging out in her deep freeze, getting copies of Max’s blood work and catscans, and-
Logan walked in carrying a mug, which she accepted gingerly as he passed it to her, and she wrinkled her nose.
"It’s tea." He told her.
"It’s chamomile, which makes me tired." She looked at him suspiciously.
"Sleep is a good thing. Drink up." He said with a disarming smile.
She thought it over, as he stood watching her, arms crossed over his chest.
"Only if you promise to wake me when Max shows up." She compromised.
"I doubt I’ll have to, she’s anxious to talk to you." He told her, watching her sip the tea. "I think Zack was feeding her alot of nonsense. He doesn’t like you very much." He smiled faintly. "He isn’t very fond of me, either."
The tea was strong, but tasted faintly of licorice under the chamomile. She sipped, enjoying the warmth of the mug on her fingers, watching him open the laptop, and sit down at the small table he’d set up.
"You don’t have to stand guard, I’ll stay for a little while yet." She told him. "Sebastian told you about the tea, didn’t he?"
Logan nodded. "It was his opinion, that you would wake up and try to go jogging or something."
She smirked. "He’s more of a mother hen than you are." She noticed the mug was empty, and turned slightly to put the mug onto the bedside table.
Her depth perception seemed to be off, and only Logan’s quick reflexes saved the mug from hitting the floor. He put it on the table, studying her.
"You okay?" He asked.
She nodded, eyes heavy, and scooted down in the bed to lay flat.
She was barely aware that Logan had removed the pillow that had propped her up, and she sunk into deep, dreamless sleep.

Logan called Sebastian, his excuse was to give Sebastian an ‘update’ on Lexa, but he also wanted more information on Lexa.
"What’s your take on the scars on her back?" Logan asked.
"I would say that her training included alot of pain management, in addition to the harvesting of organs and tissue." Sebastian said. "I would advise not mentioning the subject. She does not like to talk about it."
Logan nodded, glancing into the guest room as he paced. "She should be in a hospital."
"At least genetically she’s related to Max, what did you expect? If you try to enforce that ‘lay there and get better’ attitude she is more likely to leave. I would feel better knowing where she is, especially until I discover a replacement for her meds. Did the tea work?"
Logan nodded, smiling. "Yeah, but I thought catnip didn’t work on people?"
"It doesn’t. It works on her because she is unique. The chamomile masks the scent, but the catnip does the job." Sebastian told him.
"What, exactly is the stuff that she’s hooked on?" Logan asked.
"It is a painkiller basically, with additives. On the street, it is called ‘flash’"
Logan’s eyes widened. "She’s addicted to ‘flash’?" He whispered fiercely. "Do you know what that... it’s stronger than morphine!"
"Logan, ‘flash’ is not as strong as the designer drug that Manticore addicted her to. She was in the process of finding something that would work, but would not burn her out, when I met her. This drug is the third one she has switched to after building up a tolerance."
Logan sat down heavily at the dining room table. "Sebastian, one of the ingredients in ‘flash’ is found in drain cleaner. It’s a death sentence. The stuff is so addictive and damaging that it destroys the mind after awhile. Eyes Only has been working to get it off the streets."
"She will need three injections a day." Sebastian intoned.
Logan shook his head. "There has to be-"
"Without the injections she will go into withdrawal. Her seizures will get progressively worse until the seizures shut down her breathing and then she will die." Sebastian intoned. "She has tried to break her addiction, Logan. Don’t make it harder on her."
"Yeah. I gotta go. I’ll call you if anything changes." Logan hung up, let out his breath in a long sigh, and hung up the phone when he realized he was gripping it so hard the plastic was protesting.

Lexa woke to the sound of a keys clicking on a keyboard.
She opened her eyes to see it was Logan, of course. Perched before the small table, tapping the laptop’s keyboard, completely absorbed in the screen display.
"What are you were working on?" She asked.
Logan jumped slightly as her voice broke the silence. "The usual. There’s a group of loansharks killing people... I’ve been making it more difficult for them to get business."
"Through Eyes Only?" She asked.
"Yeah. Max has already told me I spend far too much time saving the world." He said dryly, as though he expected the same opinion from her.
"If Max is having such a problem with it... why does she seem to help so often? I thought you two were partners?"
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. "I guess it could look like that. Max helps because we made a bargain. Do you know how I met Max?"
"No. I was hoping the subject would come up though." She said with a grin.
"Max broke in one night while I was composing an Eyes Only broadcast. I guess she needed cash pretty bad back then... anyway she found a statue of Bast-" He broke off, noting her expression. "You know who Bast is?"
"Yeah. Egyptian Goddess, part female, part feline." She had to grin, at the combination, wondering if her creators had been a fan of Bast. "She’s the maiden aspect of the Egyptian triple Goddess that also includes Isis and Sehkmet, who has the head of a lion... uhm, but do continue I’m sure you know all that."
Logan hesitated. "Well, uhm, anyway... she decided to steal the statue. She heard me talking, recording the broadcast. She decided to eavesdrop on it, and I caught her. She got away by jumping out of one of the living room windows."
Lexa blinked. "I never could understand the delight she takes in diving from high places."
Logan smiled. "A genetically-revved up female that doesn’t like heights? You are full of surprises."
She shrugged. "There weren’t alot of high buildings where I was... made. I guess I never developed a taste for it. I can deal with it, but I don’t go out of my way to hang from fifty story buildings, at least not for recreation."
"What do you like to do, for recreation?"
"I... listen to music, surf the Web. I read alot. I must admit that stealing once had a rush I enjoyed."
"Really? What did you steal?"
She thought it over for a moment, grinned. "Whatever I had to."
Bling appeared. "Well, well. I guess you survived our crash-course in first aid. I’ve brought your next injection."
The phone rang.
"I’ll get it." Logan announced, and left the room quickly.
Bling pulled the chair up closer to the bed. "Arm or?"
She exposed her upper arm, "I can do it..."
He popped the cap off the needle, squirted into the air. "No that’s okay. Sebastian was pretty adamant about you getting this three times a day. Mind if I ask what’s in it?" He said, injected the contents into her arm. "Ordinarily, I’d look for track marks, but... I’m not sure the little critters in your blood stream would allow track marks."
He sat back down, recapped the syringe and put it on the table, then met her eyes soberly when she stayed silent. "I saw the seizure on the roof, it was bad. Just how addicted to this stuff are you, and what is it?"
She shrugged. "I’m a fast healer. I would like my clothes, I should get outta here and back home, I have alot to do..."
Bling leaned closer. "Relax. We both know you aren’t healed that much." He said quietly. "Do you really want Logan to see you fall on your face? He’d be consumed with guilt-you think he’s a mother hen now, just give him more of a reason..."
Max chose that moment to come around the corner and enter the bedroom.
"Hey, cousin!" She said, smiling. "Bout time you woke up."
"Max!" Lexa said with a smile. "How are you feeling?"
"Better now that that creepy thing is outta my head. Thanks for that." Max looked at Bling pointedly.
"Uh, well I’ll go see what Logan’s planning for dinner." Bling said, getting up and waving Max to the chair he’d just vacated. "I’m sure you two have alot to catch up on."
"Thanks, Bling." Lexa told him.
He nodded, exited the room.
The silence hung there for awhile, like a heavy drape.
Max swung the chair around, straddled it, sat. "I’m not gonna fight with you." Max began, her face serious. "Whatever went down between you and Zack is none of my business, and I should’t have listened to any of it. I want to apologize for not liking you before I met you."
Lexa nodded. "I’d like to apologize for swooping in on Logan."
Max laughed. "I don’t have a leash on him."
Lexa shrugged. "I don’t know what the deal is between you-don’t bother with the ‘friend’ speech he’s already done the do, but someday someone else might just beat you to the-"
Max shrugged. "We’ve been kicking it around for weeks. It just kinda lays there. We can finish each other’s sentences, talk about problems, play chess for hours or just hang. When we start trying to go there everything gets tense and uncomfortable. Just ain’t to be."
"What about Zack?" Lexa asked. It wasn’t a request for info really, she’d just wanted to see what reaction would happen when she asked. Lexa watched the expressions on Max’s face go from surprise to something like guilt before she shut it down. "Zack is my family."
"I know my arrival, and my existance raises more questions than it answers, and you have no reason to trust me or even believe anything I say... but I’d like the chance to be your friend." Lexa said slowly.
"Did you know my mother?" Max asked.
Lexa shook her head sadly. "Sorry Max, I didn’t have that kind of freedom. When I was bought, Manticore took what they wanted..." She stared at a point on the wall as she spoke, it was easier. "after which I was put in a tiny cell, in chains, away from my ‘brothers’. I had no contact until drills or training exercises. We were allowed to watch you..." She smiled, looking at Max. "On the monitors, eventually. I’d like to think we were used to make you, the better breed."
Max rested her chin on her arms, on the back of the chair. "Then the women who carried me may not have been my real mother?" She asked softly.
Lexa shook her head. "Not necessarily Max. You aren’t a clone, your genes partially at least, must have come from her."
"Where are your parents?" Max asked.
Lexa smiled hesitantly. "I’m not like you, Max. I was created by different methods, different techniques, it was before the pulse, before Manticore began."
"You aren’t that old." Max said, in a tone that suggested she was being played.
Lexa shrugged. "Looks aren’t everything."
Max nodded at the bedside table where Bling had put the spent hypodermic. "That’s not tryptophan is it?"
"No. They decided on a different ball and chain with me. It’s designer dope."
"Your a junkie?" Max asked, eyes wide. "You should be able to kick it."
"Yeah. I should." Lexa said, and left the unspoken hanging in the air.

END.
Keep an eye out for my next story, I’ll try to keep it short-er.