Disclaimer: Grace is my character, but as for the rest, I don't own them. I just have fun with them.

A/N: The early chapters of this story refer back to parts of John Doe and especially chapters 3 and 4 of The Night Visitor.

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A Thursday night in January 2021 ...

The hospital cafeteria was deserted at 10 PM, except for one or two unseen dishwashers banging around in the depths of the kitchen and a lone cleaning woman wiping tables. Grace sat down with a cup of tea, wrapping her cold hands nervously around the paper cup. Any minute now "Blowhard Bill" Norris, the hospital administrator, would show up and then it would be time for the news conference. Though all she had to do was stand there looking serious and concerned, she had stage fright. Her face itched from the makeup they'd insisted she wear. She just wanted to get it over with.

Someone had left a newspaper face down on the seat of a nearby chair and to distract herself she picked it up. Flipping it over, she saw it was a tabloid. The cover featured a large photograph of an adorable toddler wearing only a cloth diaper. A huge pair of white feathered wings appeared to sprout from the baby's shoulders, and the banner headline asked, DO ANGELS WALK AMONG US? Grace smiled, wondering how the photographer had wrangled the kid into just the right position, like a little cherub about to take flight. It really was a very cute baby.

The cleaning woman, who had been making her way across the room, looked over Grace's shoulder and snorted. "You know, they've got one of those things upstairs," she told Grace, swiping at the table.

"What, a flying baby?" Grace asked, moving out of her way.

"A flying something," said the woman. She looked around the room, then bent closer to Grace and confided, "I haven't seen it myself, but John in Housekeeping told me. Went up there to the private suites to clean up some mess or other and saw it with his own eyes."

"Saw what?"

The woman lowered her voice a little more. "You know that young girl they've got up there? Well, her first night here, she was hanging around John, pestering him like crazy, asking a million questions about the elevators and the locks and all that. He kind of got suspicious, you know? Sounded like she was gonna steal something. So when he finished he made her go back into her room and stood there watching to be sure she went in -- that's the only reason he was watching, you understand, just to be sure --"

"Of course," Grace assured her. "And?"

"Well." The woman looked around again. "She hung around by the door for a while but when she saw John wasn't going anywhere, she finally gave up. And then, " the woman paused dramatically, "and then -- she was wearing a hospital gown, you know --"

"Uh huh."

"Well. When she turned away the back of it fell open a bit, and John swears he saw wings."

Grace almost started laughing, but the woman was sincere and she didn't want to be rude. "Like -- these?" she asked, holding out the tabloid.

The woman studied the picture critically. "No, he said they were folded up under the gown, and they looked smooth. Not like angel wings at all," she added seriously.

"Did he see, um, anything else?"

"Nope. It was real quick, just looking through that little window in the door, you know. She turned the light out and he left. Didn't want anybody to think he was trying to peep or something."

"Of course not," said Grace with a straight face.

"Uh-oh, look who's coming." The woman nodded across the room. Blowhard Bill was striding directly towards them. Grace's heart sank. "Better get my underpaid ass back to work," the woman muttered, picking up her wet rag once again and turning away.

Grace tried to fold the tabloid shut but she wasn't quick enough. Norris saw it in her hand and frowned. "All set, Grace? Good. That's just the kind of trash we're going out there to fight," he continued, looking at the tabloid. "Ridiculous rumors. People will believe anything, won't they?"

They went to the news conference.

Nobody looked up as Kara Bennett made her way across the dark, crowded room to a booth near the back, and nobody even glanced her way when she leaned down to kiss the woman who sat there. Kara, a reporter and sometime newscaster for Channel 3 (nights and weekends when the regular anchors wanted a day off) might be a local minor celebrity, but in this place she was just another dyke looking for a quiet place to have a beer with her girlfriend. Even in full makeup and suit jacket, the way she was now, she attracted practically no attention. Which was just the way she liked it, unless of course she was on the air.

"Hey babe." Kara slid into the booth, looking at her watch. "Bad news. I can't stay long. Last-minute assignment to a press conference tonight. Metro Medical." Expecting disappointment or at least exasperation, she was surprised when Julie laughed.

"Not as bad as my news." She pushed her half-empty mug towards Kara. "Looks like we're not going away this weekend. "

Kara paused, the mug halfway to her mouth. "What? Why not?"

Julie leaned forward, eyes shining. She was a small, plain woman who wore faded jeans and nondescript sweatshirts most of the time, but when she looked like this Kara couldn't resist her. "That vampire guy I've been trying to find? He called me this morning. He's willing to meet with me if I can make it tomorrow. That's tomorrow after sundown, of course. So ... " Julie shrugged. "I can't pass this up."

"So come right back Saturday morning. We'll leave as soon as you get home. I'll pack everything. And I'll drive. You can sleep."

"Awww, thanks, babe, but here's the complication. To make it out there tomorrow night I had to reschedule another appointment for Saturday."

"Steelhead or Grunge Boy?" Julie was a writer who specialized in -- to put it plainly -- freaks. The weirder the better. Aside from these kooks who had convinced themselves they were vampires, she was also hanging around with Steelheads crusading against employment discrimination against Steelheads, and with a teenage boy singlehandedly trying to revive the grunge era by chaining himself to a tree outside the house where Kurt Cobain had taken his own life.

"Nope. Another reporter, actually. Guy named Logan Cale, wants to talk to me about Steelheads. If it works out we can trade tips, maybe help each other out. This could be a big lead for me. Prove that these guys aren't as innocent as they make themselves out to be when they're crying to the EEOC."

"Logan Cale, huh?" Kara made a face.

"You know him?"

"Yeah."

"Why don't you like him? What am I getting into? Is he a jerk or something?"

"No." Kara played with the drops of condensation on the side of the beer mug. "He's okay. I just can't stand the way everyone else acts around him."

"What do you mean?"

"Well .. the guy's in a wheelchair. Not that he takes advantage of whatever his condition is, but geez, you should have seen the women falling all over him. Like it was the most romantic thing ever. Ugh." Kara shuddered. "Don't tell anyone I said that, okay? He's a decent journalist and I guess a lot of girls think he's cute, but he just bored me to tears."

Julie laughed. "I'd be a lot more offended if he interested you. Your secret's safe with me."

Kara sighed. She wanted to go away for the weekend very badly, especially because she was pretty sure she had a line on an anchor slot the following weekend, so rescheduling wouldn't do ... and then she had an idea. "Could I meet him for you?" she asked suddenly.

"Thought you couldn't stand to be around him. Besides, what do you know about Steelheads?"

"It'll work." Kara leaned forward. "Give me something for him -- notes, contact list, anything you want -- and I'll get whatever you need from him. Then you guys can meet next week. Please?" she added, seeing Julie waver. "Pleeeeease?" She took Julie's hand and put on her most pleading expression.

Julie smiled. "Promise me you'll play nice with him and maybe we'll have a deal."

"Anything you want, sugar, anything you want. Gotta run now." Kara kissed her again and hurried happily out of the bar.

Crash was packed and there was so much noise Logan couldn't hear anything Max was saying. He didn't care. There was always his place if they needed quiet. It was enough to sit there and watch her. Her moods had been unpredictable since her return, but tonight she seemed happier than she had for a long time and best of all was seeing her smile. There hadn't been enough of Max's smiles in his life lately and though he hated Crash he was prepared to sit there all night to get as many of them as she would give.

An outraged roar from the vicinity of the bar distracted him for a moment. Whatever they'd been watching on TV had suddenly been interrupted by a Channel 3 news flash. Out of professional habit Logan watched for a couple of seconds. He was about to look away when to his surprise he saw a familiar face.

"Hey!" Max's voice cut through the din. "What are you staring at?" She twisted in her seat to check out the TV and he saw her frown. "Hey, isn't that --"

Logan kept his eyes on the screen. "Yeah. It's Grace. That's weird."

"Why?"

"I never knew handling hospital publicity was part of her job. And, I wonder why they're having a press conference." He tried to hear but it was hopeless. He turned his attention back to Max, but now she was the one focusing elsewhere. From the concentration on her face he realized she had tuned her hearing in to the distant television and was listening to the news conference.

Logan sighed. Damn. If this took the joy out of Max's evening he would personally go up to the bar and rip the set from the wall. Then he realized that a look of alarm was spreading over her face.

"What is it?"

Max gestured at the television. "Those reporters are saying that Metro Medical has some kind of freak in a private suite! You don't think --"

"That they might have a transgenic in there? I don't know, Max."

Max frowned for a moment, then made up her mind. "Got her number? She must have some idea of what's going on."

"Not on me. It's probably at home. We can go look if you want. But," he added gently, "you're really the one --"

"Yeah." Sure enough, Max was looking grim again. "Well, might as well get it over with. She has an office in the hospital?"

"Ground floor, north side."

"I think I'm feeling the need for a little spiritual guidance before bedtime," Max said, standing up. Zipping her jacket, she glanced down at him for a moment. "Sorry to bail on you like this," she said softly. Their eyes met. Logan looked at her steadily, warmly. He didn't want to fight with her tonight about her family.

"Call me later?" he said, and was rewarded with one more smile.

"Sure," she said, and vanished into the crowd.

The north corridor was deserted when Max arrived but one office door was open, spilling light into the dark hallway. Max walked towards it quickly but uncertainly, as if she were a visitor lost in an unfamiliar building. She didn't want to get caught sneaking around like an intruder and she didn't want to get Grace in any trouble. In fact, Max didn't want to involve Grace at all but right now she didn't see any way around it. She hoped she could find out what she wanted to know and leave ... but nothing in her life was ever that easy any more.

The light was indeed coming from Grace's office. She sat at her desk, still dressed in the clothes she had been wearing on television, searching through piles of paper. Max watched her for a moment and then said, "You're working late tonight."

Grace didn't look up. The voice was familiar and most of her attention was focused on her search. Frustrated, she began, "I'm looking everywhere for a old friend's phone number, and ..."

Then she glanced up and saw Max. She caught her breath. Though she had thought about the events of the summer many times, after a while Max and Logan had begun to seem unreal to her, like characters in a story. To see Max standing there, considerably cleaner and even more beautiful than at their last meeting, was like seeing a dream come to life. Especially because at that exact moment she had been trying to figure out how to find Max. She took a deep breath and said, "You must have read my mind. I was just looking for Logan's phone number. I think maybe --"

"Something's going on here," Max finished for her. "Can I come in?"

Max asking permission? That was new. "Sure," she said, watching as Max looked up and down the corridor, then stepped in and pulled the door closed.

Max didn't waste any time. "So what have they got up there? We've hit all the major species so far. Can't wait to see what's next."

Grace didn't quite get what she was talking about. "What I saw was just an obnoxious but beautiful thirteen-year-old girl --"

"Well, that's a relief," Max interrupted. "At least it's not another freak of the week." She frowned, then said to herself, "Thirteen -- probably X-6 -- they're normal -- so what could they have noticed --"

It wasn't clear whether Max wanted an answer, but Grace gave one anyway. "Well, the parents -"

"Parents?" Max exclaimed. "Isn't she one of the ones who escaped?"

Now Grace was thoroughly lost. "Escaped from where, when?"

Max said impatiently, "A few months ago -- back in the fall -- Manticore was torched? The inmates fled the asylum? You know, 'Monsters walk among us,' that crap?" She stopped. "Don't tell me you thought it was really a VA hospital."

"Oh. That." Like everyone else Grace had heard the rumors. "That was the official story here. They called a staff meeting and everything."

Max was incredulous. "You didn't believe Eyes Only? You of all people?"

Well, that was the thing. She hadn't heard Eyes Only. For a while Grace had avoided his broadcasts, though after the staff meeting there had been plenty of whispering about how it hadn't really been a terrorist organization and how Eyes Only was telling the straight story. She just hadn't paid attention, or surely she would have noticed the word Manticore. Unlike everyone else, Grace did know what that meant. "So he really did expose them," she heard herself saying aloud.

She expected scorn, but to her surprise Max was quiet. After a moment she said, "Whatever. We can get back to that later. Right now tell me about these parents."

"Sure. Dad is the owner of the Catwalk Modeling Agency -- you know, the one with all the male underwear models -- and Mom -- well, that's how I got dragged into this. She believes the human race was seeded here by an advanced culture from another planet."

"Wack job," Max said dismissively. Grace couldn't help it. She laughed.

"What?" Max demanded.

"I don't know. Guess I thought you of all people would be a little more tolerant of diversity."

"I'm not about aliens," Max said. "That's a line I don't cross. So she thinks there's some interplanetary babysitter out there watching over us?"

"Which is now waiting for us to clone ourselves and achieve immortality. She's telling anyone who will listen that the daughter is a clone. The hospital administration doesn't want that getting out, so they're spreading the word that the mom is 'deeply religious.' I think it's supposed to explain why she's weird. And I'm lending the veneer of credibility that makes the whole thing fly."

"You met the girl?"

"Yes."

"Barcode?"

"Long blonde hair. I have no idea."

"So the mother's going around telling everyone the kid is a clone. No wonder the press is jumping all over this. So that's all it is? Famous dad, crazy mom, press hot on some juicy gossip?" Max was beginning to relax.

"That's the thing, Max. It's not just the press." Quickly Grace repeated what the cleaning lady had told her in the cafeteria before the conference.

When she finished Max said, "How credible is this maintenance guy? He's not a drunk or a pervert or anything, is he?"

"Who knows. I was told that the girl was here for treatment of scoliosis, which explains why her back looked strange, and that she's in seclusion because her father's famous, which explains the private suite."

"Is the kid adopted or something?"

Grace shook her head. "If she is, it was a long time ago. Mom talks a lot about when she was a baby. You know, I almost let this go. It's just that hearing the same rumor from two different places --" Grace trailed off. "You tell me."

Max sat silent for a few moments. Then she shrugged. "Who knows, maybe flying saucers really did leave her here. Whatever. Doesn't sound like she's one of mine."

"One of mine?" What did that mean? But Max was still talking. "Got a pen? Here's my pager number. Hit me if you need me."

"Sure." Suddenly things felt awkward. Max stood, zipped her jacket, and nodded abruptly to Grace.

"Good night," Grace said. She couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Night," Max answered simply, and left. Grace watched her go with that same strange mixture of relief and disappointment she remembered so well from all the other times she'd watched one of them walk -- or run -- away from her.

As they made their separate ways home, both Grace and Max were thinking that they had made a big deal about nothing. They were wrong. The next day all hell broke loose.

That afternoon Grace went upstairs to pay her daily visit to the family, but she never made it into the suite. Stepping off the elevator she could already hear the shouting. "I knew you didn't love me. You never loved me!" That was the girl, Isabelle. Her high voice carried very clearly into the corridor. The father's deeper voice shouted back, indistinct but definitely angry, and woven through was the sound of the mother's crying, rising and falling between the two voices. Grace stopped. She leaned back against the corridor wall to wait for quiet, but the next words she heard shocked and chilled her.

"That's why you're dragging me in here for surgery I don't want! I like the way I am. Why can't you just leave me alone?" The father said something and then Isabelle screamed, "So what if I came with a tattoo? Does that scare you? Maybe my real mother was some kind of street scum. Afraid you'll be embarrassed one of these days when somebody finds out you've got a freak daughter who's nothing but trash --" This was followed by the resounding metallic crash of a food tray hitting the wall.

Grace didn't need to hear any more. She went directly to her office, locked the door, and dialed Max's pager. Max called back from a pay phone near what sounded like a very backed-up sector checkpoint. Grace couldn't hear much over the blaring horns, except that Max asked to meet her at a corner near the hospital. Grace threw on her coat and hurried outside.

Max was there first, and she wasn't alone. There was another messenger with her, a very, very good-looking young guy whose eyes widened in surprise when he saw Grace approaching. Grace distinctly heard him say, "Her?" to Max, and saw Max elbow him sharply in the side. He rolled his eyes but obediently remained silent as Grace walked up to them.

"Hey," Max said. She nodded sideways at her companion, though she didn't look at him. "Grace, this is Alec. We work together."

"Max taught me everything I know about delivering packages," Alec said to Grace with a smirk. This time, Max shoved him.

"Shut up," she said, and then to Grace, in an exasperated tone, "Believe it or not, he's also from Manticore, so go ahead. What happened?"

Quickly Grace explained what she had overheard outside the private suite.

"Can you get me in there to see her?" Max asked immediately. "Say I'm a doctor or something?"

"Me too?" said Alec. "I'd love to play doctor." Max ignored him.

Grace frowned. "No offense, Max, but you're, ah, too young to pass for a doctor." She thought for a moment, then said, "Housekeeping might work, though. If you came in with the night shift nobody would notice."

"When? Where?"

"Ten o'clock, my office," Grace said.

"Ten o'clock!" Alec scoffed. "Why don't you just call White and invite him over, Max, we need to go in there right now --"

"Who?" Grace asked, confused. Nobody answered her.

"If White's watching this place, you and me walking in there in broad daylight would be the stupidest possible choice we could make. We wait till tonight," Max decided.

"Wait a minute. Says who?"

"I say," Max told him.

"Oh yeah? Who died and left you boss?"

Max was instantly in Alec's face. "You don't ever want to say that to me again," she said with such evident anger that Alec held his hands up in surrender.

"Okay, okay, it's just an expression --"

Max released the front of his jacket and stepped back. "Give us a minute here."

"Sure, take your time," Alec answered crossly, rearranging his turtleneck.

"I mean get lost," Max growled, pointing at his bike.

"Fine," Alec replied, and with exaggerated patience walked his bike several feet away, where he stood in front of a plate-glass store window checking out his hair.

Max rolled her eyes. "I never should have let him in on this," she sighed. "Look, before tonight, I want you to do something."

"What?"

Max looked at her with a strange expression, as if she knew something Grace didn't and wasn't quite sure how Grace would react if she did know. "I think you need to give Logan a call. There's some stuff he should, ah, fill you in on."

That wasn't what Grace had expected to hear, and it also wasn't something she felt like doing. "Why?" she said immediately.

"What, is everyone going to argue with me today? I mean it. I really think you should do this. Here's the number." Max tore a corner off a package receipt and quickly scrawled a number. After a moment Grace accepted it.

"Call," Max said emphatically, and then, "See you at ten." She walked her bike over to where Alec stood. It looked like they were arguing again. They fought like brother and sister, Grace thought, then looked down at the scrap of paper in her hand. Back to where it all started, she thought with a little laugh, recalling the long-gone summer morning when she had held another scrap of paper in her hand. What was this all about? Torn between curiosity and annoyance, she went back to the hospital.

Grace was too busy for the next few hours to call Logan, which was fine with her. What a weird thing for Max to ask me to do, she kept thinking. She didn't want to talk to Logan, and she couldn't imagine why Max would want her to either. It wasn't until she was stuck in long, boring staff meeting, half-asleep in the back of a hot, crowded room, that she finally decided to go ahead and call him, simply because Max wanted her to.

Grace had thought many times, more than she wanted to admit, about that last talk she'd had with Bling, and his idea that somehow she was meant to know Max and Logan. As she had said that day, she wasn't big on the whole destiny-and-fate idea, and at first it annoyed her. But Bling had showed her something about herself she probably wouldn't have realized on her own, which was that she had enjoyed her summer adventures. And now she had to face it honestly: she wanted some more. If calling Logan was the condition Max put on her participation, then how bad could it be?

As soon as the meeting ended she went back to her office and did what she had to do.

Logan asked to meet her at a diner near the hospital, an old run-down dump with lousy food and worse coffee. Not Logan's style, unless this was some kind of undercover situation he didn't want happening in his usual surroundings. Grace liked that little touch of mystery.

Logan was already there when she arrived, drinking coffee and reading some papers. She saw him before he saw her. In some ways, he was just as she remembered him, the plain sweater, the baggy pants and thick shoes he always wore with the exoskeleton. But seeing him felt just like seeing Max. Like Max, he looked different. He looked wonderful, and for a moment she completely forgot why she was there. Then she took a breath and set the feeling aside. Before she had time to change her mind, she walked up to the table and said, "Hello."

He looked up then and smiled. "Hello," he returned, pushing the papers aside while Grace sat down. There was a couple of seconds of silence, another awkward smile, and then both of them said,

"You look well."

Grace was surprised. Did she really? Of course both Max and Logan had a very good reason to look happy, but was she really that glad to see them and did it show that much? Feeling a little more relaxed, she began, "Well ... congratulations."

"For ..."

"She's back. You found her," Grace said.

"Actually, she found me," Logan answered. He took a sip of his coffee, concentrating on the cup, then put it down and looked straight at Grace. Later she thought to herself that after the other times he'd given her that look, the times he was about to tell her something she didn't want to hear, that she would have seen it coming. But she was too excited. She didn't get it. "How much did Max tell you, anyway?" he began.

"Not much. Including what I'm doing here right now."

"Grace, over the summer you weren't aware of everything that was happening." There was just a tiny twinkle in his eye as he added, "And apparently I wasn't either."

"Oh." Grace felt her face turning red. "She, uh, told you we met before?"

"Yes. Which is why she wants us to talk."

"Okay." Ugh, this was a moment she had hoped would never happen. Was it going to be some kind of lecture about how dishonest she had been? She squirmed a little.

Logan looked her straight in the eye. "Max wants you to know, and I do too, that when you met her, the night you helped her and her sister -- I already knew she was alive and had escaped from Manticore. In fact, we had just seen each other that afternoon."

"What?"

"I knew she was alive. I knew she had escaped. You just didn't know."

Of all the outrageous, improbable possibilities, this one had never, ever crossed her mind. All she could think of to say was, "How long? Was she around when we --"

"No," Logan assured her quickly. "She was still imprisoned, then. We were right, though, that Manticore people were watching me. And you. Not because Max had escaped, but because they were planning to let her escape."

"Oh," Grace said faintly.

"Which they did, and she came back to Seattle about a week before you met her. Do you remember hearing about a fire at a VA hospital?"

Grace nodded. Just last night, as a matter of fact, she thought.

"That was Manticore. Their plans for Max didn't quite work out the way they were supposed to, and the place burned to the ground the night Max broke out. Freeing quite a few soldiers and other Manticore personnel. And that's when it got complicated." He stopped, giving her a "Are you following all this?" look.

"Why?" Grace asked. One word at a time seemed to be all she could manage.

"Someone -- we don't know who -- very much does not want any Manticore personnel out there. They've sent a man named White to hunt down and execute anyone who escaped that night."

White. That was the guy Alec had mentioned, wasn't it?

Logan went on, "After Max had been out only a few days, we discovered that he was luring fugitives out of hiding with a satellite signal. Max and Alec took out the transmitter and scared the guy off for a while. Then I helped her get some Manticore kids over the border into Canada. And that's where you came in."

This time Grace couldn't even respond. She just sat there, staring, thinking, This ought to be good.

"We were out in the woods, about an hour north of the city. We saw the kids off, and then Max said she wanted to ride her bike back, clear her head. I drove back alone. And then I didn't hear from her. For a couple of days.

"So I called her place, and her roommate said she hadn't been back. She assumed Max was still with me, and I assumed Max was back at home with her. What neither of us realized was that she was with her sister, Jace. And you."

Now Grace was speechless.

"Apparently not long before the fire, Jace's hiding place was discovered. She left Mexico right away and headed north. When she saw the satellite signal she knew soemthing was up, and called her contact number. Max answered the call. She never went back home, just met Jace. Max hid her for a couple of days, and then found you.

"By the time I even realized Max was gone, you were back in Seattle and they were across the border. Grace, you have to understand, I had no idea where she really was. I called Lydecker and we were sure that White had her. So we came up with a plan to find her, and that's when I called you." He stopped again.

"You let me think you believed she was still dead," Grace said finally. Incredulously.

Logan met her eyes steadily. "And you let me think she was vanished without a trace."

"I thought I was protecting her!"

"I know," Logan said gently. "You did what you thought was right, Grace. I understand that. Anyway. We thought it was a matter of life and death that we find her, and you helped us do that. Lydecker tracked her down, and I went after her. Of course it turned out to be a false alarm, but I didn't know that then."

"She said she was never coming back," Grace said without thinking, and then regretted it immediately. Her face burned even redder. Maybe that was a secret Max had meant to keep. But Logan didn't look disturbed.

"She considered that," he said. "Changed her mind."

"Why?"

"You really should ask her that."

Grace shrugged. What difference did it make? She would never see any of them again after Max left tonight. There was room in her mind for only one thought anyway, and now she said it. "You lied to me."

"Technically, no, I didn't. Lydecker lied to you, and I played along. It's the same difference, though, and I'm sorry. I very nearly backed out of it that night in the car, after the warehouse, but you insisted everything was okay, and I thought Max's life was in danger."

"You used me. He used me, " Grace said.

"Yes. We weren't sure whether either of us was on White's radar, but you were the perfect cover."

"You could have told me."

"Lydecker argued against that, for a number of reasons. First, if you were caught, it would be better for you not to know anything. Second, we wanted to be sure you were under observation at all times."

"So I couldn't sneak off again?"

"So you could be safe, Grace. These people are not playing around, and although you've been both generous and brave, there were limits to the risks I would let you take." He smiled faintly. "I will tell you that Lydecker was a bit more cynical. He was sure you were hiding something -- which you were -- and he wanted to know where you were all the time. Especially after you told him you'd never been ordained."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"He thought it was possible -- remotely, but possible -- that you were working for our enemies -- Manticore, White. What more perfect cover could there be than the kind, sympathetic chaplain befriending a grieving man?"

Grace shook her head. Good Lord, she thought, now she really had heard everything. "And?" she asked.

"That's about it, except for Max's side of the story. But I won't speak for her." He folded his arms. "Now you know, in case --"

"In case what? In case I decide to say 'screw you' to the whole lot of you?"

Logan seemed surprised, for the first time almost uncertain. Of course, he'd never heard her speak that way, ever, and considering that she'd done anything and everything to help them, she guessed he hadn't been expecting it even this time. She found herself pushing her chair back, standing, grabbing her coat all at once.

Logan said, "I know you're angry --"

"Angry?" That was exactly how she sounded, angry. "It's not that. But, unlike you people, I have a job and I can't keep sneaking off in the middle of the afternoon to set up break-ins and hear confessions. I have to go." She pulled on her gloves. "Thanks for the coffee," she said shortly, and walked out of the diner.

There were two messsages on Logan's cell phone when he left the diner. The first was from Max and was one word long: "Hey." That made him laugh. Hard to tell whether she had a bunch of White's people on her tail or just wanted him to pick something up at the market on the way home. He called back right away but she didn't answer the page. Typical. Which was why he had a brand-new cell phone sitting next to him on the front seat of the car. She'd never accept it as a gift, but he had a plan for getting around that.

The second call was from Julie Cheng, the writer he was supposed to meet later tonight. "There's a slight change in the arrangements," her soft voice informed him. "Call me back, please." Damn. This meeting was very important. She'd better not be canceling out. He returned the call immediately but got her voicemail. Well, he'd try her again from home.

He started the car and pulled out into traffic. Mission accomplished. For himself, he was relieved. He hadn't known how it would feel to see Grace again. The summer and everything about it felt distant and unreal to him these days, like a photograph that had faded after too long in bright sunlight. That was what shock did to you, washed out the past. And nothing in his life had ever shocked him more deeply than the night of Max's return, the unbelievable joy of feeling her in his arms again, followed by the hours at death's door and the days of recovery from the virus. After all that, the summer had seemed like part of another lifetime. Still, he respected Grace and appreciated what she had done for him -- for them. Though today hadn't exactly expressed that, he thought wryly.

Last night Max had told him she couldn't accept any more help from Grace unless Grace knew the truth. He loved that about Max, her sense of honor, the way she wanted to be fair, even when life hadn't been fair to her.

But there was a darker side to Max's request, which only confirmed what been in his heart for a while now. She had asked him not to tell Grace about the virus. She'd tried to be casual about it, and he had hidden his concern as best he could, simply telling her he wouldn't bring it up unless it was absolutely necessary. But it was clear to him that Max felt vulnerable, that she didn't want Grace to know that anything stood between them.

Which meant that she didn't really believe, not yet, in his love for her.

He was exasperated with himself for not seeing it sooner. You had a pretty romantic picture of yourself built up there, buddy, he told himself, the suffering hero, intimately acquainted with despair and darkness. You thought you knew everything there was to know about self-loathing -- until it happened to the woman you love, and then you didn't have a clue.

How many times over the summer had he told himself that if he had just one more chance, he would put doubt and fear behind him forever and just love her, no matter what? And then he got his second chance. He still woke up every day with amazement and gratitude in his heart. What difference did it make if they couldn't touch right now? he told himself. It was truly enough to be in the same room together.

But had he really thought it would be that easy, that like magic all their problems would be solved when he opened his heart? At first he had, but the wake-up calls had come pretty quickly, though he had tried hard to ignore them for a while.

When she disappeared with her sister, he'd told himself that it was just typical Max, too conscientious, probably because the baby was involved. He knew how much it had hurt her when she couldn't keep her promise to Case Smith. He didn't drag her back from Canada; he did what he could to help and then left, leaving her to return when she felt sure Jace and the baby were safe.

He'd thought the worst was over, but it was still on its way.

Because after that was the night she'd come to the apartment, late, near tears, to tell him she had given their cure money to save Alec's life. That had hurt. He sat by the window for a long time, long after she had left, until the eastern sky lightened and the stars went out. That sunrise had marked the moment when he began to understand what had happened to Max, that despite all her spirit and her love and her courage, somehow she had crossed that line into believing what Renfro told her about herself, that she was poison. And she was doing everything she could to prove to him -- and to herself -- that it was true.'

Now he understood the sauce night. He had tried to make light of it, show her he wasn't afraid, but she had walked out the door anyway, saying the words out loud: "I can't do this, it's too hard."

It kept happening. Rafer. He knew she had encouraged him briefly, knew she had been thinking it would be easier. And of course the whole business with Asha hadn't helped one bit either.

He'd spent another long night awake then, thinking. For the first time he understood that reassurance and hopeful words were going to be useless. It was just like all those times he'd tried to tell Max how much he hated his life in the wheelchair, how much he hated himself in the wheelchair. And because the wheelchair hadn't mattered for one second to her, she simply hadn't been able to hear him. That's what he had been doing to her. Because the virus couldn't even cast a shadow on his love for her, he had been blind to how deeply it had damaged her love for herself. A wave of compassion swept over him then. He would do anything to spare Max that pain, knowing all too well himself what that pain was like.

The first step, of course, was to do whatever it took to find the cure. He began to search for a doctor, a scientist, anyone who might be able to help. But he also knew from bitter experience that sometimes there were no cures, not permanent ones anyway. He wanted her face to light up again when he came into a room, knowing beyond all question that not even the virus could make him hate or fear her. She needed to believe in his love.

Of course, it went without saying that the standard flowers-and-chocolates stuff was wasted on Max. So he decided to speak instead to that skeptical soldier in her. If he could win that stubborn heart over, the rest would be easy.

He was going to confront her with proof. A ton of it.

He stopped arguing about her family. He started going with her to Crash, a place he passionately hated. If he absolutely needed to work with Asha, he did it discreetly. He kept his distance physically, too, not because he was afraid but because now he realized how much it frightened Max when he came too close. And he had begun, very gently, to challenge her sometimes. Like the at the hospital the night of the chicken pox incident, when she refused to ride home with him. Not that he had convinced her to get in the car, but at least he had made it clear that their little scare hadn't scared him at all. Just like all those times she had adamantly refused to see him as a cripple -- even when he was begging for it -- he refused to see her as poison.

Right back at her.

And lately -- well, he thought maybe he was seeing small signs, here and there, signs of hope. A few more smiles. Some laughter. A place to start.

Still, it was a hard thing to handle alone. He wished there was help, but he knew better than to think that Max would ever accept it. Too bad it was completely inappropriate and out of the question for Grace to befriend Max. He did remember very clearly how good Grace was at accepting people as they were, at not fearing their pain and grief. If only he could find a way to bring some more of that into Max's life.

I know who you are. He had said those words to Max, but she wasn't that person any more, at least not right now. I know who you have been, and who you will be again someday, he told her silently as he pulled into the parking garage. Hang in there and we'll find a way, I promise you.

------------------------------

Grace walked back to the hospital so fast she was practically running. She knew she was pushing rudely past anyone who got in her way, but she was so upset, so angry, that she just didn't care. It wasn't until she crossed an avenue against the light and was very nearly hit by an oncoming garbage truck that she made a conscious effort to slow down, though not before snapping nastily at the driver, who kept yelling at her, "What's the matter with you? You couldn't see this coming?" and pounding the side of the truck for emphasis.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking," she shouted back, thinking, Yeah, that's right, I didn't see it coming. None of it.

After that she jammed her hands in her pockets and breathed deeply, trying to calm herself, but scenes kept flashing through her mind, each one making her angrier than the last. Grace and Max, standing in the cold darkness outside a cave in the woods, Grace saying "Why haven't you asked how he is?" and Max answering, "I know how he is." Logan in the car, saying "I'm having second thoughts." Lydecker watching her, late at night, in the shadows of the warehouse, saying "He's not for you. He's in love with her. Always has been."

How could she have been so naive, so stupid? How could she have been silly enough to think she had some special part to play in the whole Manticore drama? She wasn't angry at Logan so much as she was angry at herself. She'd left herself wide open for humiliation, getting all these romantic ideas. She had nobody to blame but herself.

Well, tonight it ended. She would go back to the hospital, call Max, and make it clear that she was now on her own. Tonight's little adventure was canceled. Then Grace could do what she should have done long ago, which was forget all of them and get on with her life. She pushed open the heavy glass hospital doors a lot harder than she needed to. It felt good.

She was so deep into her own thoughts that she nearly shrieked when someone grabbed her arm. Security? Why on earth were they after her?

"Hey," the guard was saying. "Hey, didn't you hear me? Can I see some ID, please?"

ID? They never asked for ID. Did she look that crazy? Right now she wouldn't doubt it.

"Just a minute," she apologized, digging in her pockets. The guard watched her sternly. Finally Grace produced her ID card, which he examined at length before returning it to her and nodding once. "Sorry," he said curtly. "Be sure you have that with you at all times tonight. We're on alert."

"Why?"

"Missing patient."

"Oh. Who is it? One of the drunks again?"

"No ma'am," said the guard stiffly. "Young girl missing from a private suite upstairs. Half the cops in the city are up there now trying to figure out what happened."

Oh no. Grace went cold. He had to be talking about Isabelle, it couldn't be anyone else. She ran to her office, closed the door, smacked her fist down on the desk. Damn! she thought, running her hands over her hot face. Of course the right thing to do was call Max. They all seemed to be afraid of this guy White, and with the press spreading plenty of rumor and speculation about the girl at Metro Medical, he could so easily have put two and two together. Wasn't that what Alec had warned Max about?

Damn! Grace thought again. Because tonight -- well, tonight, the right thing was the last thing Grace felt like doing.

Max got home from work late that night. Cindy had already come and gone, leaving Max a note to join them at Crash. She wasn't in the mood. She'd had to take the very last, one-minute-before-closing run because freaking Alec had disappeared, probably off somewhere with Sketchy doing something unspeakable, and she'd had the bad luck to be passing by Normal at the exact moment that last package came in. Now all she wanted was a hot bath and a call from Logan. He'd hit her beeper while she was heading home from the delivery, way the hell across town. She intended to stay put until the beeper buzzed again.

Which it did, right then. Max grinned. For once she was going to have both the pleasure of speaking to Logan and the luxury of an uninterrupted hot bath. Then she glanced at the display. Whose number was that? Frowning, she called.

"Hello?" The voice on the other end was female. What was up with that? Max never got calls from females. Asha, maybe? She hadn't paid attention the night she'd called Asha for help, the night they'd rushed Logan to the hospital. All she could remember was "speed dial 6."

"Asha?" she said.

"Who?"

Now Max was getting impatient. "Look, who is this? Have you got the wrong number or what?"

"Is this Max?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Max, this is Grace." Oh, for crying out loud, Max thought, now what. She looked longingly at the bathroom door.

"I'm at the hospital. Don't ask me why I'm doing this, but I think you should know that our friend upstairs has disappeared. This place is full of cops trying to figure out what happened."

"Don't move. I'll be right there." Max hung up and grabbed her jacket and the keys to her bike, thinking rapidly. She supposed that the girl's disappearance could be the work of some sicko or freak at the hospital, but with all the attention the press was giving the story, she feared the worst: White. Those rent-a-cops who worked in hospital security couldn't catch their own asses if they weren't attached to their backsides. White could have slipped in and out with the girl easily. As soon as she got there she'd give Logan a call and get him hacked into the police database and alerting the informant net. And dammit, where was Alec? He could at least make himself useful at a time like this.

Grace had the presence of mind to be waiting at the hospital door to escort her past security. Max approved. Grace was no dummy. Max wasn't exactly interested in making friends with her, but dealing with her could be a lot worse, she thought, cutting to the chase as they hurried down the hall to Grace's office. "Anyone see anything weird? Soldiers? Maybe a clean-cut white guy around thirty or so, in a real bad mood?"

At that Grace raised her eyebrows. "Could you be a little more specific? That describes half the administration of the hospital."

"White. Did --"

"Yeah, Logan explained. This year's bad guy. Not as far as I know." They had reached Grace's office; Max shut the door and picked up the phone, quickly dialing Logan's number.

Logan answered immediately. At the welcome sound of his voice, she began, "Good. I need you --"

"Max," he interrupted. "I've got company."

Oh no. She felt a moment of panic. It was always in the back of her mind, the worry that one day they would track him down and ... then what he was saying got through to her. "Alec is here. And he's got someone with him. I think you know who she is -- long blond hair, bar code --"

Standing right next to Max, Grace saw her eyes widen and heard her breathe in sharply. "What the hell is she doing with Alec?" Max shouted right next to her ear, and Grace jumped back. "Don't move, we'll be right there," Max said into the phone, slamming it down. "Alec has the girl at Logan's apartment," she announced, outraged.

"What?" Grace wasn't sure she'd heard correctly. "Why --"

"Good question. He's got some major explaining to do. Let's go." Max began to open the office door.

"Go where?'

"Logan's," Max said impatiently. "Hurry up."

"No thanks," Grace refused. "I'll wait right here for you. As long as it takes," she added when she saw Max starting to look annoyed.

"You have to come with me. She knows you. Come on," Max added, trying to be persuasive, "you can bring her back and be a hero --"

Of course Max didn't have any idea how angry that made her right now, especially thinking about going to Logan's, which was just about the last place on earth she wanted to be right now. She laughed. "Oh, is this like the last time I was a hero? When I thought I was protecting you and I wasn't? When I thought I was helping Logan and I wasn't? Oh yeah -- and when I thought you were dead but you weren't?"

"This is different." Max waved a hand at the office. "This is your world."

"So bring her back and I'll take it from there."

Max looked at her more closely, folded her arms. She does that just like Logan, Grace thought. "Okay, so you're mad at us," Max said. "But you wanna play with the big girls and boys, you can't cry when you fall down and scrape your knees. Now, what's it gonna be?"

"Listen, Max," Grace began, intending to refuse one more time, but just then the door pushed open. Blowhard Norris strode into the office, or at least as much of a stride as he could manage in the tiny space with Grace and Max standing so close to the door. He nodded once to Grace, looking suspiciously at Max.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Max, did you say?"

Grace felt Max stepping on her toes in warning. She dared not look, but she was sure Max didn't want anyone to know her name. Quickly she put on her game face, smiling at Norris and looking as professional as she could manage. "Not Max, Mac," she corrected. "Dr. Norris, this is Mac, that's, ah, short for Immaculata. Sister Immaculata. Mac, this is Dr. Norris, the hospital administrator." This was bad. No way Max would be able to sneak around incognito now. She was far too beautiful to be forgettable.

"Nice to meet you," Max said sweetly, offering her hand.

Norris took it, still suspicious. "You don't look much like a nun," he said bluntly, looking at Max's jeans and leather jacket.

"Sister Mac has a special calling. She, ah, has an inner-city youth ministry," Grace invented. Actually, it probably wasn't that far from the truth.

"I dress like this, they trust me, you know?" Max added.

"Ah." Norris said. "Are you here to help us locate our missing young patient, then?"

There was a moment of silence. Max and Norris both looked at Grace, waiting. From your mouth to God's ear, Grace thought in exasperation. "Yes, that is what we were thinking," she answered. "Mac can take me places the police don't know about. It's worth a shot, right?"

"Good thinking," Norris replied heartily. "Check in with me every few hours and give me a progress update, please. We've got to get that girl back in here as quickly as possible. And don't speak to the press, whatever you do."

"Of course," Grace said.

"Well, nice to meet you, Sister. Call me," he instructed Grace as he strode back down the hallway. Max gestured at the door.

"Ever ride on a motorcycle before?"

"No," Grace answered, heart sinking. Norris. Logan's apartment. Max's motorcyle. Could she get in any deeper?

--------------------------

Logan was waiting at the door. Max swept in, demanding, "What the hell is he doing here with her?" and the two of them went down the hall together, leaving Grace to follow in their wake. Not that she minded. She was happy to stay as far in the background as she could get.

And then an interesting thing happened. She had never seen Max and Logan together before, and now what struck her was the unspoken bond between them. It was something you could almost reach out and touch. It was in the way Logan, usually so secretive, looked at Max with his whole soul in his face, even though his attention was completely focused on her rapid-fire questions. And it was in the way Max, who not two minutes ago had been speeding recklessly on her bike through the wet streets, now matched her step to Logan's slower, slightly hesitant walk. She doesn't even know she's doing it, Grace thought, all she knows is that she's beside him.

She was so caught up in the sight that she didn't immediately notice the couple on the couch, and then when she did a few more seconds passed before she realized they weren't a couple. Or shouldn't have been. It was Isabelle and Alec, and to Grace's horror Isabelle was smiling up at Alec flirtatiously. Alec was keeping his distance, but he wasn't exactly discouraging Isabelle either.

When Max marched up to the couch he looked up cheerfully. "Oh, hi there, Maxie. This is Isabelle. Isabelle, this is --"

Isabelle had turned away from Alec at the sound of Max's voice, and now she spotted Grace standing behind Max. Her smile vanished. "What are YOU doing here?" she demanded suspiciously. "Did my parents send you?"

"No--" Grace began, and at the same time Max was hissing at Alec, "You wanna explain to me --"

Alec leaned back and crossed his legs, the picture of calm and self-assurance. "Now just take it easy, Max," he began, glancing meaningfully at Isabelle, who was busy glaring at Grace.

"My parents must have sent you," Isabelle insisted. Grace saw Max take a deep breath and paste a smile on her face. Look, it's Sister Mac, Grace thought, amused, as Max tried to reassure the girl.

"Hi Isabelle. Nobody's here from your parents. Grace and I are here to help you, okay? Now could you sit here with Grace for a couple of minutes while just have a word with Alec in the kitchen?"

Isabelle looked at Alec, Alec nodded, and Isabelle said reluctantly, "Yeah, sure." She sank back on the couch with a sullen expression, staring at her nicely manicured fingernails. Alec, Max, and Logan left the room. Grace wandered to the window, suddenly acutely uncomfortable again. Hostile teenagers always caught her off-balance, and once Max and Logan left the room, the memories came rushing back. For just a moment she wanted to cry. Then she heard Max and Alec.

"How did she get out of the hospital?" Max was asking, through clenched teeth from the sounds of it.

"While you and your spiritual advisor out there were figuring out how to play dress-up, I had a few minutes left over at the end of a run. So I stopped by to check it out. You ought to be thanking me, Maxie, she was about to make a break for it on her own." Grace heard the sound of keys jingling. "Lifted these from the janitor this morning when she threw her breakfast against the wall. At least she's where we can keep an eye on her."

"Are you out of your mind?" Max cried. "Do you know how old she is?"

Grace could almost hear Alec shrugging. "Sixteen, eighteen. Who cares?"

"She's thirteen, you idiot!"

"So?"

"Didn't they teach you anything at Manticore? She's underage, Alec. That means we could be charged with kidnapping. And if you keep flirting with her --" Max's voice was rising.

Logan said quietly, "Max, calm down --"

It was too late. The next thing Grace knew Isabelle was rushing into the kitchen angrily. "Leave him alone! He helped me!" she yelled at Max.

"Hey, it's okay," Alec soothed Isabelle, putting himself in between Max and Isabelle. Isabelle stopped, but didn't back off.

"Max," Alec said, "listen to me. She's one of us."

"No kidding --" Max began. Alec interrupted.

"Show her," he encouraged Isabelle. Isabelle frowned.

"No," she refused.

That shut everyone up.

After that everything happened so quickly Grace didn't have time to think.

"It's cool," Alec said to Isabelle. "They're really okay, I promise." He looked over at Max. "Show her," he said, gesturing to the back of his neck.

Max opened her mouth to object, shut it again, and reluctantly swept her hair aside to reveal her barcode for a moment. Then she turned back to Isabelle. "See?"

Isabelle glared a moment longer, then after an encouraging nod from Alec, lifted her own hair. There it was, plain as Max's. The barcode. Grace saw Max and Logan exchange glances. Max said gently,

"Is that what your parents want to do? Scrape off that tattoo?"

"That's part of it," Isabelle answered in a low voice.

"What's the rest?"

Isabelle looked in appeal at the four adults. Alec shrugged slightly at Max. Whatever "the rest" was, he didn't seem to know either.

With a loud sigh Isabelle turned her back on them. At first Grace thought she meant to walk out of the room, but instead the girl unbuttoned her shirt, slid it off her shoulders, and dropped it to the ground. Logan raised his eyebrows at Alec. Alec shrugged again, innocent.

There was no bra strap across Isabelle's back and a moment later Grace saw why: a hump of skin extended from between her shoulder blades nearly to her waist. Then, without warning, there was a whooshing noise and Grace saw moving bright color. Isabelle stood before them with a small but perfect pair of butterfly wings, brilliant blue and green, fluttering gently from her back.

"Jesus!" said Alec admiringly.

Max smacked his arm. "Where'd you learn to talk like that?" she hissed, with a nod in Grace's direction. Alec rolled his eyes.

"I told you, Common Verbal Usage. Sorry," he said to Grace, insincerely. Isabelle gave another loud sigh.

"Am I through now?" she demanded. Logan pointed silently. Isabelle happened to be standing in a direct line to the windows -- in other words, in full view of half of Sector Nine. Max said hurriedly,

"Thanks, Isabelle. Uh, why don't you put your shirt back on and go on in the other room, watch TV or something for a few minutes?" Grace quickly stepped forward and picked up Isabelle's shirt, handing it to her. Logan was looking anywhere but at Isabelle. Alec was leaning jauntily against the counter, grinning. As Isabelle left the room Max shot him a look of disgust.

"I can't believe you," she began.

"Aw, come on, Maxie, you gotta admit it's kind of hot," he said.

"Ever come across this term in Common Verbal Usage -- 'statutory rape'? Stay away from her!"

Logan interposed, "Does either of you two have any idea what she might have been designed for? What military purpose that might serve?"

"I never saw anything like that," Max said.

Alec shrugged. "Rumor had it they tried to put together an airborne division. Never got off the ground, though." He grinned at his own joke, pleased. No one else smiled.

Logan nodded. "It certainly doesn't look very practical. And the question still remains, how did she get from there to here?"

Max looked thoughtfully at Grace. "You told me there's a doctor at Metro Medical who's been arranging adoptions for years."

"Conections to Manticore, maybe? A pipeline for failed experiments, or maybe just anyone who was willing to smuggle out some DNA for a nice profit?" Logan speculated before Grace could answer.

"Whatever," Max said. "We have to get her back right away."

"Ah, hold on there, Max. No we don't," said Alec. "Her parents are forcing her to have those things surgically removed, and she doesn't want it."

"She's a minor," Logan said. "It's their call."

Alec rolled his eyes and turned to Max. "Come on, Max. She's one of us. Are we going to let a couple of ordinary people force her to become, you know, ordinary? That's not what Isabelle wants."

"Oh, please --"

"Look, every transgenic in the Metro area's been through here at one point or another." He nodded at Logan. "Let him do his paper-shuffling thing, we'll head her up to Canada, she'll be free. What's the harm in that?"

"What part of 'she's underage' don't you understand?" Max snapped.

"What's your problem with that? It didn't stop you from sending that gang of kids over the border a few months ago."

"That was different," Max said. "They were trained soldiers. They knew who they were. This kid doesn't have a clue how to take care of herself out there."

"You seem to like all this maternal stuff. So mother her."

"I'm not a babysitter -- " Max began, when a loud beeping rang through the apartment. "What's that?" she said.

"Got something in the oven again?" Alec asked Logan with a smirk.

"That's not the oven ... " Logan didn't bother finishing his sentence. A second later Max said, "Oh, shit!" and hurried down the hall right behind Logan.

"Come on," said Alec to Grace in a resigned, bored tone. Then Grace heard Logan practically shouting, "What did you do?" That got Alec's attention. He left the kitchen, looking very interested, and by default Grace trailed him. Following the action from room to room seemed to be about all she could do tonight.

In the office, Logan was frantically working his computer keyboard. Warning screens flashed on the monitors, the beeping continued unabated, and Max was asking Isabelle urgently, "Can you tell us what happened?"

Isabelle backed away from the desk. "I was just trying to get online and say hi to my friends! My parents won't let me talk to them and it's so boring here --"

"What exactly did you do?" Logan snapped over his shoulder.

"Just clicked that button there ... " Isabelle sniffled once and then began to cry in earnest. Grace could see Max stifling the impulse to grab the girl by the shoulders and shake an explanation out of her; Logan's panic was clearly panicking Max. Grace had never seen Max so close to losing her cool.

And then all the beeping and flashing stopped. Logan relaxed visibly, and so did Max.

"You just about brought down an entire network of computers. Please don't touch anything else, all right?" Logan said to Isabelle in a voice that managed to be very patient and very threatening at the same time. That only made Isabelle cry harder; Alec took her by the arm and escorted her back to the living room, murmuring sympathetically.

Not knowing what else to do, and hating the idea of staying in the office with Max and Logan, Grace found a box of tissues, which she carried wordlessly to Alec. There was much crying and nose-blowing until Max appeared. She sat down next to Isabelle, clearly making an effort to be reassuring. "It's okay now," she said comfortingly.

"Is he always that uptight?" Isabelle sniffled, giving her nose a last swipe.

"No," objected Max, clearly insulted.

"Oh yeah, 'fraid so," Alec said knowingly. Isabelle giggled. Max rolled her eyes.

"Isabelle, you know you have to go back to your parents," she began. Instantly the smile vanished.

"No," she said emphatically.

"I don't want to have to make you go," said Max, trying to be reasonable. Isabelle's eyes narrowed.

"Try and make me," she announced. "I'll scream for a cop and make sure everybody in this sector hears that he took me out of the hospital and you've been talking about statutory rape and --"

Now for the first time Alec began to look alarmed. "Now just relax there a second," he said to Isabelle, nodding Max out of the room. Grace moved away, pretending to look at the bookshelf. Let Alec work this one out.

"Sorry about all this," she heard Max apologizing to Logan in the office. She tried to move out of earshot but Alec waved her off fiercely. Reluctantly Grace stopped. She was trapped, and worse, she could still hear Max and Logan.

"I have an appointment in twenty minutes," Logan was saying. He didn't sound happy at all. "I could cancel it and stay here to make sure I still have an informant net at the end of the day --"

"I'm sorry," Max said again, miserably.

" -- and then trade a few insults with brother Alec in there while I make Isabelle cry some more --"

There was a short silence. Grace stole a look into the office, fearing the worst, and saw that Max was actually smiling. "And get my whole family pissed at you? No thanks," she was saying. Logan grinned back at her mischievously.

"Seriously, I'll stay if you need me," he offered.

"Seriously, don't worry about it, " Max returned. "I haven't even figured out what to do next. You go." She began to pace, quickly lost in thought.

"Hey."

Max stopped. "What?"

"I don't want to say too much, but ... if tonight works out, it could lead to some good things. For both of us."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Good. 'Cause I have a feeling I'm gonna need some good news by the time tonight's over."

"Speaking of tonight --" Grace saw Logan reach into a drawer and pull out a cell phone. He tossed it to Max, who caught it neatly. "That's strictly a loaner, so take good care of it. But with both of us out and about, staying in touch on coms doesn't quite work any more, does it?"

Their eyes met for a long moment. "No," said Max softly. She held the phone up for a moment, clasping it as if it were someone's hand. Again, Grace felt something almost tangible pass between them. Then Max put the phone gently into her jacket and turned away.

"Good luck," Logan called after her as he picked up his own jacket and keys.

"Later," Max called over her shoulder.

No kiss goodbye? I guess not, with all the company they've got tonight, Grace thought, turning away quickly as Logan left the apartment.

-----------------------------------

Back in the car again, Logan realized that there was a message on his cell phone. He hadn't turned it off but the call must have come in during all the commotion over the computers. Sure enough, it was Julie again, and "Returning your call" was all it said. He tried right away to call back but there was no answer. He didn't bother leaving a message. He was already halfway to the bar where they had agreed to meet. If she there, fine; if not, he would track her down tomorrow.

He sighed. It wasn't like him to be so sloppy. That's what you get when you're only half in the game, he told himself. When you want to believe you've got your mind on business but your heart is so full of Max that your heart is really all you're thinking about. He was glad he had made her laugh before they went their separate ways. Some days, nothing got through to her. Not even being able to get her to crack a smile -- he hated that.

But back to business. At a light, he glanced at the passenger seat to be sure he had brought the envelope he had agreed to give Julie. Most of it was standard stuff, notes he'd taken and tips from informants about the organ-smuggling ring. There was only one really valuable bit in the whole envelope as far as he was concerned -- the address where Max and Alec had found Zack during his brief stay with the Steelheads. So far, Julie had only been able to meet them when they chose to contact her. Now she would know how to find them. Logan knew she wouldn't tip off the cops; it would ruin her book if they were all hauled off to prison. Julie needed them right there in their own little world, undisturbed.

And in exchange for this address Julie was going to give him something equally valuable: the names of those contacts, and phone numbers. For the first time since Eyes Only had begun to investigate the Steelheads, he would have direct access.

Except that somewhere in the last month or two, the investigation had stopped being about Eyes Only and started being about himself. And Max. About them.

That was when it had started, after that day in Sam Carr's office. When Sam had admired the Manticore technology that kept Zack alive and restored his damaged brain and body. When Zack kept talking about "the machine" that had cleaned his blood. Suddenly, the possibilities overwhelmed Logan, and his hopes rose wildly. If he could only get his hands on something, anything. A lead back to the Manticore techs who must have sold them Zack on the black market. Any of their other contacts. Maybe, just maybe, even "the machine" itself.

If it could filter nanocytes from Zack's blood, what else could it filter? Retroviruses, maybe?

It was a long shot, for sure, and he didn't have a clear plan, not yet. Somewhere in the back of his mind an idea lurked, inspired by his trip to the VA office that day with Asha. If he could use the wheelchair to fake being a vet, what could he use the exo for? Who could he pretend to be? A wealthy man searching for parts or better technology? A Steelhead wannabe, maybe? He didn't know. First he needed to get his hands on these names, and then he'd figure the rest out.

When he walked into the bar and didn't see Julie anywhere, he nearly walked out. Damn. Then he noticed a woman waving at him from a corner booth. Kara Bennett, the Channel 3 reporter. What was she doing here? Cautiously he approached the table. The last thing he needed right now was a reporter poking into his business, but it would be even worse to ignore a colleague. That would really make her curious.

As he approached the table he saw that she looked surprised. But it wasn't until she said, "Hi, Logan, you're looking, ah, well," that he realized she had last seen him in the wheelchair. That annoyed him. He didn't want to get caught up in a lot of explanations.

"Oh. Thanks. My health is improving." That was right, keep it short and simple. "Well, nice to see you. I was going to meet someone here but --"

"I know," Kara said. "Julie Cheng. She tried to contact you a couple of times. She was called out of town and asked me to meet you here." She held up a manila envelope.

"Ah. I didn't realize you two knew each other." Logan sat down. Something about this bothered him, but he wasn't quite sure what.

"Oh, we're old friends," Kara said lightly. "This is for you," she added, passing the envelope across the table, "and you have something for me?"

"Right here." Logan handed over his own envelope, a bit reluctantly. "Listen, do you know when Julie will be back in town? Not that I'm not glad to get this, but I was hoping to speak to her too."

"She'll be back Monday. Give her a call." Kara slid the envelope in her bag and stood. "Well, it was nice to see you again. Thanks a lot. I've got to get back to the station now," she said, in a tone that suggested she was relieved to end the conversation.

"You're welcome," he said, and with a quick nod she left the bar.

He started to open his envelope, and then, realizing that the uneasy feeling was stronger than ever, impulsively stuffed it in his jacket and left the bar. A car, with Kara Bennett at the wheel, was heading for the parking lot exit. As he walked back to his own car, he saw her stop, then make a right turn into traffic.

But the Channel 3 building was in the opposite direction. She should have turned left.

As quickly as he could, he started the car, tossing the unopened envelope on the seat beside him. A quick right out of the parking lot and running a yellow light (well, red, really, but no cops were around) brought him one car behind Kara's. He settled back then, eyes on her license plate.

He didn't know what she was up to, but he planned to find out.