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last01standingTitle: Take Two
Author: Insane Troll Logic
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don’t look a thing like James Cameron
Summary: Haven’t we been here before?
Author’s note: Witten for Lilmouse for the Christmas in July challenge which believe it or not was up in one of the DA forums on ff.net. Lilmouse asked for humor, romance and food and she got this. Now, by my standards, it’s got all three but I’ve been told my humor is bent, my romance is not explicit enough and let’s face it, the plot is not in the norm for DA fics.
But I at least had a blast with this.
Take Two
He asks her out to dinner and she says no. She’s tired and cranky and her hands have been shaking all day and she can’t stomach the thought of sitting though an evening with him without jumping his bones so she refuses in favor of a night at Crash with Kendra and Cindy asking why she’s out at Crash and not jumping Logan’s bones.
Sooner or later “We’re not like that,” just won’t cut it anymore and Max won’t know what to do when it gets there.
She’s got issues, he’s got issues…
“Now be a good girl and tell Original Cindy why you moping around Crash and not taking in dinner and an after party with your hot boy.”
Well, let’s see boy went and got shot, girl’s not quite human. Boy has a hero complex, girl’s kind of jaded. The only reason boy will ever ask girl out on a date is if he needs her for one of his Eyes Only save the world missions and every once in a while, girl needs to tell him to shove it and get a life….
“It’s complicated,” says Max.
Understatement of the freaking century.
“I don’t see how,” Kendra comments as she returns to a table, pitcher of beer in tow. “Boy likes girl, girl likes boy… boy climbs on top of girl. Both…”
“Original Cindy accepts that you’re both heterosexuals but would not like to revisit her food
tonight.”
Max laughs. “We’re not like that.”
She should have just gone with Logan. No, wait, better yet, she should have never told OC and Kendra that Logan had asked her out. That way, she could just sit here, enjoy her beer, laugh at Sketchy and not have to worry about Logan Cale stuck at a boring society dinner with at least three of the people Eyes Only would love to get dirt on.
Christ, what was she thinking? Forget the romancing, Logan needed back-up.
“Where’s your head tonight?” Original Cindy asks.
“Where’s your head this week?” Kendra asks. “The Max I know wouldn’t turn down free food even if the guy was hideous and let’s face it; your Mr. Cale is rather easy on the eyes.”
“What did Original Cindy just say about digging on the male gender?”
Max’s hands are shaking. She tries to cover it. She’s been having these problems all day. She’d even spend the night at Logan’s because last time she got the shakes around Kendra; she wound up breaking into a hospital.
So not going that route again.
“What’s a matter, sugar?”
“Got the shakes,” Max mumbles. “On and off all day. Think I’m going to head home, try to sleep.”
“Yeah, Max,” Kendra says, “we’ll catch up later, OK?”
This time they understand. Not everything, but enough for now.
_________________________________________________________________________
By the time she stumbles into her bathroom, it’s not just the shakes anymore. It’s huge racking tremors that make her entire world shake. She’s glad she isn’t with Logan. He’s the only one she’ll allow to see her in this state, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to make a habit.
One of them has to be the strong one. Sometimes, she thinks that’s their problem. They both need to break every once in a while, just so they can keep going. She’s not going to be the one who cracks first.
She’s not sure how long it takes for the tryptophan to take effect, just that she wakes up on the cold concrete of her bathroom, jarred back from Lydecker and the barracks of Manticore to a television blaring a few rooms away. She pulls herself to her feet, head throbbing.
Who the hell managed to get a television in here?
She creeps out into the hallway, around the corner. The news is on. Half the building is crowded in one of the cramped rooms, watching. They get like this every once in a while, when someone gets a hot water or a working microwave or a TV, they all share.
“Breaking news, we have reports of a murder at the house of prominent businessman, Harold Kingsley...”
Something curls up in the pit of Max’s stomach and dies because Logan was there. Logan was there. The thought gets stuck in her head and echoes there, over and over again.
“Though the identities of the victim has yet to be released, we are being informed that the victim is male and in his thirties. Unconfirmed reports say that he was in a wheelchair…”
She’s shaking again, a violent tremor in her hands. She hears someone call her name. “Max!”
It sounds like Logan.
“Max!”
_________________________________________________________________________
“Max!”
She sits up, jerks awake. She doesn’t remember falling asleep. Logan is sitting next to her. “What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
“You’re dead,” Max breathes.
He’s dead and Max is crazy. Or maybe, he’s a zombie and Max is crazy or…
Logan drums his fingers on the rim of his wheel chair. “You’re not making a whole lot of sense.”
Maybe Logan’s not dead and she’s just crazy. Yeah, she likes that option way better than the alternatives; Logan, smiling and alive. She feels a grin stretch across her face. “Doesn’t make much of a difference.”
“So, now you’re smiling,” Logan jokes. “Where’s the hurricane Max who rolled in this afternoon, complaining about her boss?”
She gained a little perceptive that’s what happened. Logan died, she went crazy and got some perceptive, really, not so unbelievable when you break it into pieces like that. For all she knows, this is a completely normal day. She’s at the Penthouse (shouldn’t she still be in her apartments?). Exactly when and how she got there is negligible as long as Logan isn’t dead.
“You know what?” Logan stammers, handing her a mug of, she takes a sniff, hot chocolate. “I think we could both use a chance to wind down. Tell you what; Bennett’s invited me to this dinner thing. I wasn’t going to go but…”
Holy shit, she thinks, it’s still yesterday.
The mug of hot chocolate in her hand crashes to the floor. Their gazes swivel down to the floor simultaneously. “Oh God, Logan. I’m sorry. I didn’t—I mean I can clean that up. I didn’t mean to break your mug.”
She pushes herself from the couch, but he catches her wrist. “I don’t care about the mug. Max,” There’s a rare intensity in Logan’s eyes. “are you alright? If it’s the seizures again, tell me. I can get some tryptophan…”
“I’m fine, Logan,” Max says, taking her arm back. “I’m just going to clean up this mess. Can’t have you puncturing a wheel on me.”
Something like hurt flashes behind his glass. Too soon, Max thinks, mentally berating herself for the joke. It’s always going to be too soon.
“Come to dinner with me,” Logan says to her retreating back.
Max turns around slowly. “Is this an Eyes Only mission or a date?”
The look in his eyes is priceless. He opens his mouth, closes it, furrows his brow. Finally, he says, “I’m not going to lie, there are a few prominent businessmen in attendance that Eyes Only would love to gets some dirt on…”
And this is the point yesterday where Max had clammed up, bit out something about being busy and stalked out of the penthouse. “Thought you said Bennett invited you?” Max challenges.
“He did,” Logan says. “This is strictly a Logan Cale social event. If something happens to be said though, Eyes Only won’t complain. What d’ya say, Max?”
Max shrugs, trying desperately to keep her face blank. “Sure. Who am I to turn down free food?”
Logan offers to buy her a dress, but she turns him down straight out. The last thing she needs is OC calling him a sugar daddy for the next few months, but at the same time, she doesn’t want a repeat of yesterday (and oddly enough, that’s exactly what she seems to get).
_________________________________________________________________________
She borrows a skirt and a blouse off of Kendra and asks OC to do her hair. Original Cindy raises an eyebrow at the request. “Thought you two weren’t like that.”
“We aren’t,” Max replies, wincing as Original Cindy tugs at her hair. “We do dinner all the time. It’s a thing with friends.”
“Friends with benefits,” Kendra says. “The two of you banging the gong all night long.”
“Since when is dinner a metaphor for sex?” Max asks.
“It’s not,” Kendra whispers breathily. “Banging the gong is a metaphor for sex. Dinner is a metaphor for foreplay.”
Sometimes Max has no idea why she’s friends with these people. Seriously, she’s not even that horny when she’s in heat. Why the hell has her roommate made it her personal mission to get her laid?
“The chair could make things interesting,” Kendra says. “You’ll have to take it slow. Let him set the pace.”
“Original Cindy accepts that you’re both heterosexuals but would not like to revisit her food tonight.”
Her face goes pale. Déjà vu. Her hands start shaking. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she’s stumbled into the same conversation and she doesn’t like that. Not one bit because today is supposed to be different.
“There,” Original Cindy says and as Max steps up, Kendra whistles. “Damn girl, you fine. Shame to waste that kind of body on a man.”
Original Cindy laughs. Kendra laughs. Max tries to share in the mirth, but the laughter catches in her throat and sticks there.
_________________________________________________________________________
She meets Logan outside his Penthouse at seven-fifty-two. He drives. They pull up outside Harold Kingsley’s gigantic mansion at eight-twelve: fashionable late. Max had seen the newscast just after midnight. Which means sometime in the next four hours, things are going to go very, very wrong.
In the entrance hall alone, Max counts five paintings she could probably fence for more than a grand. Logan tenses visibly at the sight. She’ll be coming back here, no doubt. Liberating a few American classics for the good of the cause.
They’re greeted by a butler and that in itself is enough to make Max raise an eyebrow. There’s no way Logan comes to places like this willingly.
The two of them are, of course, mistaken for a couple. Max waits for Logan to deny it, but he doesn’t. Probably smart, she rationalizes. Good cover.
Yeah, cover. She wonders what OC and Kendra would stay to that. It’s probably some sort of euphemism for sex. Damn it there’s that word again. Sex with Logan. That’s the last thing needs right now. He’s a zombie, Max reminds herself, a very, very good looking, alive zombie.
Oh, this so wasn’t going to work. She doesn’t want to be there. She doesn’t want to make this complicated. Then again, she doesn’t want him to die either.
Ten minutes later, she’s not quite sure of that anymore. She hates these sorts of people. Their esteemed host, Mr. Harold Kingsley is as far as Max can tell a pompous arrogant dick. She whispers her observation to Logan who has to swallow his laugher before he can even put on a parody of a stern face and say, “Max, be nice.”
She has to literally bite her tongue to keep from telling that someone in this party was going to kill him before midnight and she’ll be bitchy to all of them just out of spite.
Because that would have gone over so very well. Logan would have thought she’d lost it. Which would have evened things out a bit because she still thought he was dead.
They’re left more or less to their own devices. Logan seems just as uncomfortable as she is. He takes up the time by babbling about the other guests. A bunch of businessmen. Tycoons with their monopolies, lording it over the little people. He goes through their bios one by one as Max hangs onto his every word hoping to reduce the suspect list.
As far as she can tell, the majority of the people in the room probably wanted to kill Eyes Only. As a matter of fact, Max only knew of one person who wouldn’t love to see Eyes Only dead.
Which means Logan Cale is in big, big trouble.
Has someone found out? she wonders, Did Logan slip up and reveal Eyes Only to one of these pig-headed bozos?
“Jesus, Logan,” Max says, “Why the hell are we here?”
“Bennett asked if I’d go for him,” Logan says by way of explanation. “The guy’s family.”
“What the hell is your family doing with people like that? You couldn’t have just told him to shove it?”
“Why would I tell him to shove it? He’s the only family I’ve got that’ll still speak with me. Most of them look down on my type of work.”
“What,” Max asked, “the whole vigilante thing? You do know it’s illegal in this country.”
Logan laughs. “Lucky they’re not that involved. Uncle Jonas keeps asking me when I’m going to drop the reporter thing and,” His voice adopted a rather uptight accent. “get a real job.”
“He should look on the bright side; his nephew could work for Jam Pony.”
“Hey,” Logan teases, “I’ll have you know some fine upstanding youth work at that bike messenger place. Sketchy is truly a credit to humanity.”
They both dissolve into laughter. Max sneaks a look at his face. His blue eyes sparkle from behind his glasses, he’d shaved a few hours before and he looks younger than usual, so different from the grungy recluse who’d haunted his penthouse since the shooting. That Logan looked far more like a zombie than this one does.
Dinner is served at precisely nine fifteen around a polished wood table that Max had to admire. If she could carry that thing out of the room (easier said than done, it was bigger than both of the doors), she could get quite a pretty penny off of it.
She’s thankfully seated next to Logan. They’re about eight chairs from the end of the table where Harold Kingsley’s sat regally staring at his guests. They are almost completely surrounded by possible Logan killers. It is only a fantastic stroke of luck that seats skinny bespectacled Cole Gordevinski, the only person who Max can’t pin with a motive across from them.
Dinner is to put it plainly, divine. There are steaks, beautiful fillets cooked just about to perfection. Max has never tasted a cut like this before. It has just the right amount of seasoning and practically melts in her mouth.
Logan regards the plate suspiciously. “How did you manage to get this? I haven’t heard anything about an excess of beef in the market.”
Kingsley smiles from the head of the table. “I have my sources.”
Logan scowls at his plate. Max tries to restrain from strangling him herself. Of all the pea brained, idiotic, suicidal things to say… She wants to enjoy this steak without someone pulling a gun on her. She deserves that much at least.
She makes it through dinner, well more than makes it through. Dinner is divine. She might almost consider sparing the Logan killer if they had something to do with this fillet. She glances to her side and when he smiles at her she reconsiders.
No, she would get the recipe first and maybe their source of the meat and then she would make them suffer.
It will be fun. She’ll get a not-a-zombie Logan as well as really good steak. Really, a win-win situation. Now all she needs to do is find the guy gunning for Logan or, since they were all probably gunning for his alter ego, the guy gunning for Logan tonight.
Gordevinski has been talking to Logan all night. Inane bits of conversation about journalism and old stories. Logan isn’t really listening. He has that glazed look on his face he wears whenever he’s off mentally multitasking. Max suspects he’s eavesdropping for possible Eyes Only tips. He’ll have to sit on them for a while of course. Anything he picks up at this table will point to him if Eyes Only reports it to the world.
She’ll have to stop him from getting himself killed after they make it through tonight. This is turning into a full time job.
On the opposite side of the table, Kingsley ushers his wife from the room and then stands up himself. One of the larger men she’d previously IDed as a potential Logan killer trails him out. Max places a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Logan, sweetie, I’m going to hit the ladies room. Need to freshen up.”
Logan’s eyes flicker to her hand on his shoulder and then he smiles playfully. “You look fantastic.”
Leave it to Logan to get into his role as people in the other room are probably plotting to kill him. Why can’t he do it later when she can actually enjoy it? She’d like just a taste of what it is like to be like that before they go back to your standard business arrangements.
Stupid zombie.
She nods to Gordevinski and slips out of the room, off to listen in on the plot to murder Logan. Seriously, how did he deal without a suped up transgenic bodyguard? It was a miracle he hadn’t been shot years before now.
Kingsley’s friend is name Edwards and he runs some company that Kingsley is laundering his money through. Because mobsters are just what Max needs right now on top of everything else. She decides to bash them both with a vase or something and then grab Logan and get the hell out. They’d never pin it on her after all; she’s a girl and Logan’s in a wheelchair. Someone else will get blamed and as long as it isn’t skinny little Gordevinski, she’s pretty sure they deserve it.
Only before she can implement that plan, four shots ring out and from the dining hall, people are screaming. Kingsley’s face is twisted in shock. Ice drops in the pit of Max’s stomach.
She starts running towards the commotion and it’s only the tremors racking her body that stop her from blurring into super speed. In the dining room, she can’t see anything except blood on the walls and the spinning wheels of Logan’s overturned chair and who has the gun? Who has the gun?
“Logan!” she screams.
Who has the gun?
She thinks she hears someone calling her name. Max, Max…
_________________________________________________________________________
“Max!”
She sits bolt upright, breathing hard. Logan, sitting next to her offers a small smile. “What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
Max throws her arms around his neck and buries her head in his shoulder. “I’m so glad to see you.”
Max is probably still crazy, but the only thing that matters right now is Logan. Logan alive and breathing and definitely not a zombie because it’s still yesterday and Max is getting another chance.
Logan’s breath is heavy in her hair. “Max, I can’t breathe,” he chokes.
She lets go, but stays close. She wants to be able to touch him, to make sure he’s still there, make sure he’s not a ghost. “Sorry,” she mutters. “Sometimes I forget I’m a suped-up super freak.”
“You’re not a freak,” Logan says gently.
He’s still close to her and all of a sudden, Max’s fight or flight instincts surge into high gear. He’s too close. She’s got miles of issues she’s got to get through before you even broach the intimacy ones. She pulls back, pulls back physically, pulls back mentally. “You’re not exactly the best judge, Mister Save-the-World-by-Tuesday.”
“Tell you what,” he says casually. “Let’s do something normal. My cousin Bennett asked me to go to this dinner party for him. Come with me.”
She hadn’t noticed it before, hadn’t seen the utter vulnerability on his face. It took a lot for him to ask. For him to put aside his own issues and open himself up for rejection. She realizes with a start that this must be the first time he’s ever asked anyone since the shooting. And he’s asked her. Even though he’s walking to his doom, she can’t say no.
_________________________________________________________________________
She borrows a dress off of Kendra, taking care to bypass the skirt and blouse from yesterday that had really just been today part two. Original Cindy offers to do her hair. Max pulls her own hair back in a decidedly different fashion and asks if OC can do her nails instead.
“Nail polish?” Kendra asks skeptically. “Since when do you do nail polish?”
Original Cindy rolls her eyes and goes back to dabbing red over Max’s nails. “Girl wants to look fine for her man.”
“It’s not like that,” Max says. “We’re just friends.”
“Friends with benefits,” Kendra says. “The two of you banging the gong all night long.”
“Since when is dinner a metaphor for sex?” Max asks. She’s too distracted to think up a new response. Logan’s dead in a couple hours if she doesn’t think up a way to get him out of this.
“It’s not,” Kendra whispers breathily. “Banging the gong is a metaphor for sex. Dinner is a metaphor for foreplay.”
“I’m just there to make sure the man doesn’t find another bullet.” Max reaches to adjust her dress, but a nail polish welding Original Cindy pulls her hand back down. “Guy’s a little accident prone.”
“Ah,” Kendra says philosophically. “The chair could make things interesting—”
Original Cindy puts up an irritated hand. “Original Cindy accepts that you’re both heterosexuals but would not like to revisit her food tonight.”
Max herself fights the urge to revisit her food. No matter what she does, this night already has that air of inevitability about it. Logan will ask her to dinner, OC and Kendra will try to get her laid, Logan will be killed.
“There,” Original Cindy says, putting on the final coat of nail polish. Max stands up and gives her ensemble a spin. “Damn girl, you fine. Shame to waste that kind of body on a man.”
Original Cindy laughs. Kendra laughs.
Max can’t do this again, can’t live this again. Something’s got to change.
_________________________________________________________________________
The Kingsley place. Small talk. Nothing changes. Well, no that’s not right, bits and pieces change, different words in different orders, but the gist is all the same, Logan gives her the 411 on all the small town business creeps. Ninety percent of them are still very much possible Logan killers. Eyes Only has a beef with every single one. Whether it is shady dealings, cutting out the middleman or hell, killing the middleman everyone has a motive. Damn near the entire Seattle business scene has motives to kill Eyes Only.
Which means someone in this party knows Eyes Only and Logan Cale are one in the same.
Which is bad.
She detaches herself from Logan, moving through the room, through to crowd eavesdropping, desperately looking form anything suspicious. Eyes Only is a popular conversation topic amongst the paranoid but she hears nothing overtly suspicious, nothing indicating a possible murder plot.
She glances to Logan only to find him deeply immersed in conversation with the scrawny little Cole Gordevinski. She wonders vaguely what his story is, what he can possibly have in common with these people.
“Dinner,” a voice calls.
Max moves inside, greeted by the lovely smell of warm fillets. Behind her trail Seattle’s business elite and then, to her utter shock and horror, two sharp cracks of gun echo from the room next door. Her heart catches in her through because it can’t be, it absolutely can’t be. She has until after dinner at least.
Her blood roars in her ears. Her hands are shaking. She’s pushing her way past frantic businessmen, nearly toppling a servant carrying a bottle of fine wine because Logan’s in the next room and this can’t be happening again because she doesn’t think she can make it without hearing his voice…
_________________________________________________________________________
“Max!”
Her eyes shoot open. Logan’s still here, perched on the edge of his wheelchair and smiling, smiling, smiling. “What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
“You can’t go to dinner tonight,” she says.
Logan’s face clouds. “How do you even know about that? I was just going to ask if you wanted to come.”
“I can’t go to dinner that night,” Max stammers. “And you can’t either.”
She’s got a hold of Logan’s shoulders and nothing for the life of her can make her let go. She needs him to be there, needs him to be real and alive and breathing and not a zombie. She just… she needs him. She needs him more than she’d like to admit.
He looks vaguely amused by her ominous warnings. “Why shouldn’t I go?”
“Because you’re going to die if you go.”
“That’s dire,” Logan says lightly. He keeps a straight face for about ten more seconds before he busts out laughing.
“I’m serious!” Max pleads, “Logan, don’t you understand, we’ve already done this. We’ve been here before. Same time same place. It just keeps happening again and again and the end is the same.”
He keeps laughing.
_________________________________________________________________________
He goes without her. Max sneaks over to the party herself and she gets careless. She trips an alarm and she’s so sloppy she can’t take down the team of ten security guards. By the time they pin her, she’s shaking, tremors racking her leather suited body.
“Kinda hot for a robber,” one of the guards says.
“Kinda horny for a cop,” she shoots back.
She’s waiting for the shots, but when they finally come, they still make her jump.
_________________________________________________________________________
“Max!” It’s yesterday. Still yesterday. And she wakes up next to Logan, still alive.
“What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
It’s funny, she thinks, reliving the worst night of her life over and over. She’s surprised to find that she’s grateful, that she wants it more than anything, that she can’t bear the thought of waking up to anything Logan’s voice.
She doesn’t even here most of the conversation, just stares at him, watching the curve of his smile and the light in his eyes. He’s getting better. Four months since the shooting and the shadows are starting to fall away when he smiles.
He licks his lips before he asks her to dinner and of course, she says yes.
_________________________________________________________________________
Max sticks to Logan’s side, playing the part of the clingy girlfriend with such skill Logan starts shooting her strange looks at each show of possessiveness.
Max has her claws out. Not literally of course, she doesn’t have that much cat DNA, but she’s ready to put up a fight if it means Logan will be here tomorrow (in a tomorrow that is actually tomorrow and not just another today.)
“We’re not like that,” Max had told OC and Kendra. “We’re just friends.”
And they aren’t like that. At least not yet. And if Max is ever going to find out what that yet can bring, she needs to beat this bitch. After all dinner is a metaphor for foreplay and there’s been more than enough of this dinner. Seriously, it’s almost enough to turn her off steak for good.
Cole Gordevinski and Logan are talking about the slip ups in law enforcement after the Pulse. Gordevinski had spent nine years in jail for a sentence that was only supposed to last a month. Records got wiped, shit hit the fan and everybody got more then they bargained for. Woe is you, Max thought caustically, Quit crying already. I spent nine years in Manticore.
She turns her focus elsewhere. Two of the oil goons are discussing how much they’d like to kill Eyes Only. It’s a rather graphic conversation. It even has entrails. They’re her current top suspects.
She’s only dimly aware of Logan relaying one of his old stories from back before the Pulse, before Eyes Only, when he was just a fresh-faced kid out of Yale new on the journalism scene. It’s not terribly interesting, a capture of a low level officer manager taking bribes.
The Pulse had hit just a few days later and Gordevinski’s eye is twitching as the story comes to a close, his hand is in his pocket and then his hand is out of his pocket and clasping a gun.
Well, she definitely should have seen that one coming.
The shots ring out, one, two, three.
She’s too slow.
And then it’s yesterday.
Again.
_________________________________________________________________________
She’s stuck. It’s a loop, a vicious circle and she can’t get out. She tries everything. She tells him, yes I’ll go to dinner with you, no I won’t and it doesn’t make a difference.
Sometimes she kills Gordevinski, cracks his neck before he can crack a shot. Sometimes she’s too slow. Sometimes she’s not. She dies more than once. Logan dies more than her. It’s like those old video games, stuck on the same level and no matter what she does, someone dies and she’s back to start to try again.
Original Cindy’s comments are no longer original.
Kendra’s sextastic remarks are no longer just uncalled by also increasingly maddening.
She’s actually gotten sick of steak.
And so it goes, day after never changing day.
_________________________________________________________________________
“Look,” she says, grabbing Gordevinski’s arm on day-whatever-the-hell-she’s-on-now (she stopped counting after a dozen). “I’d really love to just kill you and move one, but it’s recently come to my attention that this doesn’t actually help much at all. Not that you know what I’m talking about, but this grudge you’ve got against Logan it’s going anywhere. We’re stuck and it’s your fault so I’m going to give it to you straight: it’s now worth it. He wrote a story that landed you in jail, the Pulse hits and you stay there for a couple extra years. Killing him is not going to change a thing. Your past will still suck, you’re still going to be miserable and I’m still going to be stuck. So walk out of this room now because I really don’t want to have to kill you again.”
Gordevinski looks at her like she’s crazy, (she feels pretty crazy) but he does something he hasn’t done before: he leaves.
And Max returns: finishes her steak, eats some pudding for the first time since day nine, slips her fingers around Logan’s own and just once, everyone lives.
_________________________________________________________________________
“Max!” Logan says and his voice blurs as her eyes open and the scene changes again.
“What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
She does everything right and the same thing still happens.
The next six days, things are back to going wrong in all the same ways and she’s pretty sure she’s losing her marbles one by one.
_________________________________________________________________________
On day what-ever-the-hell-we’re-on-now, she waits until Logan asks her to dinner and then she tells him she’d rather stay in tonight. Oh, she’s tried this before, more than once. She’s told him the truth, told him some lies, and on one memorable occasion, tied him to his bed and stole away his chair.
But she hasn’t tried this before, not once. There were always too many issues, too much denial but Max is so sick of watching him die that she’s about ready to admit that maybe they can be like that.
“Why would we stay in when they’re free food?” Logan jokes, still trying to coax her onto a date (and it is a date, she realized this by day twenty. Logan keeps asking her out on dates.) “Seriously, what do you rank above free cuisine?”
“This,” Max says. Then she leans across the couch and kisses him.
She watches Logan’s eyes widen in surprise but after that shock passes; his lips part at it’s perfect. It’s more right than anything’s ever been in her life.
She can get used to this. She can live this day again and again and if it were like this, she thinks she can manage.
_________________________________________________________________________
“Max!” Logan says and she opens her eyes and for the first time in ages, she’s surrounded by soft bed sheets and not the couch’s cushion.
“Logan,” she murmurs sleepily.
“I was thinking pancakes,” he says, fidgeting a little. She realizes that pancakes are an apology, that pancakes are his offer to forget last night ever happened, to erase it all and go back to the status quo.
It wasn’t a mistake.
She crosses the room, plants a kiss on his lips and says, “Pancakes would be great.”
She’s made it to tomorrow after all.
And today things are perfect.
(end)
_________________________________________________________________________
All right, show of hands, who’s read Help! I’m Trapped in the First Day of School? Oh yeah, that's totally where the inspiration was...
Author: Insane Troll Logic
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don’t look a thing like James Cameron
Summary: Haven’t we been here before?
Author’s note: Witten for Lilmouse for the Christmas in July challenge which believe it or not was up in one of the DA forums on ff.net. Lilmouse asked for humor, romance and food and she got this. Now, by my standards, it’s got all three but I’ve been told my humor is bent, my romance is not explicit enough and let’s face it, the plot is not in the norm for DA fics.
But I at least had a blast with this.
Take Two
He asks her out to dinner and she says no. She’s tired and cranky and her hands have been shaking all day and she can’t stomach the thought of sitting though an evening with him without jumping his bones so she refuses in favor of a night at Crash with Kendra and Cindy asking why she’s out at Crash and not jumping Logan’s bones.
Sooner or later “We’re not like that,” just won’t cut it anymore and Max won’t know what to do when it gets there.
She’s got issues, he’s got issues…
“Now be a good girl and tell Original Cindy why you moping around Crash and not taking in dinner and an after party with your hot boy.”
Well, let’s see boy went and got shot, girl’s not quite human. Boy has a hero complex, girl’s kind of jaded. The only reason boy will ever ask girl out on a date is if he needs her for one of his Eyes Only save the world missions and every once in a while, girl needs to tell him to shove it and get a life….
“It’s complicated,” says Max.
Understatement of the freaking century.
“I don’t see how,” Kendra comments as she returns to a table, pitcher of beer in tow. “Boy likes girl, girl likes boy… boy climbs on top of girl. Both…”
“Original Cindy accepts that you’re both heterosexuals but would not like to revisit her food
tonight.”
Max laughs. “We’re not like that.”
She should have just gone with Logan. No, wait, better yet, she should have never told OC and Kendra that Logan had asked her out. That way, she could just sit here, enjoy her beer, laugh at Sketchy and not have to worry about Logan Cale stuck at a boring society dinner with at least three of the people Eyes Only would love to get dirt on.
Christ, what was she thinking? Forget the romancing, Logan needed back-up.
“Where’s your head tonight?” Original Cindy asks.
“Where’s your head this week?” Kendra asks. “The Max I know wouldn’t turn down free food even if the guy was hideous and let’s face it; your Mr. Cale is rather easy on the eyes.”
“What did Original Cindy just say about digging on the male gender?”
Max’s hands are shaking. She tries to cover it. She’s been having these problems all day. She’d even spend the night at Logan’s because last time she got the shakes around Kendra; she wound up breaking into a hospital.
So not going that route again.
“What’s a matter, sugar?”
“Got the shakes,” Max mumbles. “On and off all day. Think I’m going to head home, try to sleep.”
“Yeah, Max,” Kendra says, “we’ll catch up later, OK?”
This time they understand. Not everything, but enough for now.
By the time she stumbles into her bathroom, it’s not just the shakes anymore. It’s huge racking tremors that make her entire world shake. She’s glad she isn’t with Logan. He’s the only one she’ll allow to see her in this state, but that doesn’t mean she’s going to make a habit.
One of them has to be the strong one. Sometimes, she thinks that’s their problem. They both need to break every once in a while, just so they can keep going. She’s not going to be the one who cracks first.
She’s not sure how long it takes for the tryptophan to take effect, just that she wakes up on the cold concrete of her bathroom, jarred back from Lydecker and the barracks of Manticore to a television blaring a few rooms away. She pulls herself to her feet, head throbbing.
Who the hell managed to get a television in here?
She creeps out into the hallway, around the corner. The news is on. Half the building is crowded in one of the cramped rooms, watching. They get like this every once in a while, when someone gets a hot water or a working microwave or a TV, they all share.
“Breaking news, we have reports of a murder at the house of prominent businessman, Harold Kingsley...”
Something curls up in the pit of Max’s stomach and dies because Logan was there. Logan was there. The thought gets stuck in her head and echoes there, over and over again.
“Though the identities of the victim has yet to be released, we are being informed that the victim is male and in his thirties. Unconfirmed reports say that he was in a wheelchair…”
She’s shaking again, a violent tremor in her hands. She hears someone call her name. “Max!”
It sounds like Logan.
“Max!”
“Max!”
She sits up, jerks awake. She doesn’t remember falling asleep. Logan is sitting next to her. “What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
“You’re dead,” Max breathes.
He’s dead and Max is crazy. Or maybe, he’s a zombie and Max is crazy or…
Logan drums his fingers on the rim of his wheel chair. “You’re not making a whole lot of sense.”
Maybe Logan’s not dead and she’s just crazy. Yeah, she likes that option way better than the alternatives; Logan, smiling and alive. She feels a grin stretch across her face. “Doesn’t make much of a difference.”
“So, now you’re smiling,” Logan jokes. “Where’s the hurricane Max who rolled in this afternoon, complaining about her boss?”
She gained a little perceptive that’s what happened. Logan died, she went crazy and got some perceptive, really, not so unbelievable when you break it into pieces like that. For all she knows, this is a completely normal day. She’s at the Penthouse (shouldn’t she still be in her apartments?). Exactly when and how she got there is negligible as long as Logan isn’t dead.
“You know what?” Logan stammers, handing her a mug of, she takes a sniff, hot chocolate. “I think we could both use a chance to wind down. Tell you what; Bennett’s invited me to this dinner thing. I wasn’t going to go but…”
Holy shit, she thinks, it’s still yesterday.
The mug of hot chocolate in her hand crashes to the floor. Their gazes swivel down to the floor simultaneously. “Oh God, Logan. I’m sorry. I didn’t—I mean I can clean that up. I didn’t mean to break your mug.”
She pushes herself from the couch, but he catches her wrist. “I don’t care about the mug. Max,” There’s a rare intensity in Logan’s eyes. “are you alright? If it’s the seizures again, tell me. I can get some tryptophan…”
“I’m fine, Logan,” Max says, taking her arm back. “I’m just going to clean up this mess. Can’t have you puncturing a wheel on me.”
Something like hurt flashes behind his glass. Too soon, Max thinks, mentally berating herself for the joke. It’s always going to be too soon.
“Come to dinner with me,” Logan says to her retreating back.
Max turns around slowly. “Is this an Eyes Only mission or a date?”
The look in his eyes is priceless. He opens his mouth, closes it, furrows his brow. Finally, he says, “I’m not going to lie, there are a few prominent businessmen in attendance that Eyes Only would love to gets some dirt on…”
And this is the point yesterday where Max had clammed up, bit out something about being busy and stalked out of the penthouse. “Thought you said Bennett invited you?” Max challenges.
“He did,” Logan says. “This is strictly a Logan Cale social event. If something happens to be said though, Eyes Only won’t complain. What d’ya say, Max?”
Max shrugs, trying desperately to keep her face blank. “Sure. Who am I to turn down free food?”
Logan offers to buy her a dress, but she turns him down straight out. The last thing she needs is OC calling him a sugar daddy for the next few months, but at the same time, she doesn’t want a repeat of yesterday (and oddly enough, that’s exactly what she seems to get).
She borrows a skirt and a blouse off of Kendra and asks OC to do her hair. Original Cindy raises an eyebrow at the request. “Thought you two weren’t like that.”
“We aren’t,” Max replies, wincing as Original Cindy tugs at her hair. “We do dinner all the time. It’s a thing with friends.”
“Friends with benefits,” Kendra says. “The two of you banging the gong all night long.”
“Since when is dinner a metaphor for sex?” Max asks.
“It’s not,” Kendra whispers breathily. “Banging the gong is a metaphor for sex. Dinner is a metaphor for foreplay.”
Sometimes Max has no idea why she’s friends with these people. Seriously, she’s not even that horny when she’s in heat. Why the hell has her roommate made it her personal mission to get her laid?
“The chair could make things interesting,” Kendra says. “You’ll have to take it slow. Let him set the pace.”
“Original Cindy accepts that you’re both heterosexuals but would not like to revisit her food tonight.”
Her face goes pale. Déjà vu. Her hands start shaking. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she’s stumbled into the same conversation and she doesn’t like that. Not one bit because today is supposed to be different.
“There,” Original Cindy says and as Max steps up, Kendra whistles. “Damn girl, you fine. Shame to waste that kind of body on a man.”
Original Cindy laughs. Kendra laughs. Max tries to share in the mirth, but the laughter catches in her throat and sticks there.
She meets Logan outside his Penthouse at seven-fifty-two. He drives. They pull up outside Harold Kingsley’s gigantic mansion at eight-twelve: fashionable late. Max had seen the newscast just after midnight. Which means sometime in the next four hours, things are going to go very, very wrong.
In the entrance hall alone, Max counts five paintings she could probably fence for more than a grand. Logan tenses visibly at the sight. She’ll be coming back here, no doubt. Liberating a few American classics for the good of the cause.
They’re greeted by a butler and that in itself is enough to make Max raise an eyebrow. There’s no way Logan comes to places like this willingly.
The two of them are, of course, mistaken for a couple. Max waits for Logan to deny it, but he doesn’t. Probably smart, she rationalizes. Good cover.
Yeah, cover. She wonders what OC and Kendra would stay to that. It’s probably some sort of euphemism for sex. Damn it there’s that word again. Sex with Logan. That’s the last thing needs right now. He’s a zombie, Max reminds herself, a very, very good looking, alive zombie.
Oh, this so wasn’t going to work. She doesn’t want to be there. She doesn’t want to make this complicated. Then again, she doesn’t want him to die either.
Ten minutes later, she’s not quite sure of that anymore. She hates these sorts of people. Their esteemed host, Mr. Harold Kingsley is as far as Max can tell a pompous arrogant dick. She whispers her observation to Logan who has to swallow his laugher before he can even put on a parody of a stern face and say, “Max, be nice.”
She has to literally bite her tongue to keep from telling that someone in this party was going to kill him before midnight and she’ll be bitchy to all of them just out of spite.
Because that would have gone over so very well. Logan would have thought she’d lost it. Which would have evened things out a bit because she still thought he was dead.
They’re left more or less to their own devices. Logan seems just as uncomfortable as she is. He takes up the time by babbling about the other guests. A bunch of businessmen. Tycoons with their monopolies, lording it over the little people. He goes through their bios one by one as Max hangs onto his every word hoping to reduce the suspect list.
As far as she can tell, the majority of the people in the room probably wanted to kill Eyes Only. As a matter of fact, Max only knew of one person who wouldn’t love to see Eyes Only dead.
Which means Logan Cale is in big, big trouble.
Has someone found out? she wonders, Did Logan slip up and reveal Eyes Only to one of these pig-headed bozos?
“Jesus, Logan,” Max says, “Why the hell are we here?”
“Bennett asked if I’d go for him,” Logan says by way of explanation. “The guy’s family.”
“What the hell is your family doing with people like that? You couldn’t have just told him to shove it?”
“Why would I tell him to shove it? He’s the only family I’ve got that’ll still speak with me. Most of them look down on my type of work.”
“What,” Max asked, “the whole vigilante thing? You do know it’s illegal in this country.”
Logan laughs. “Lucky they’re not that involved. Uncle Jonas keeps asking me when I’m going to drop the reporter thing and,” His voice adopted a rather uptight accent. “get a real job.”
“He should look on the bright side; his nephew could work for Jam Pony.”
“Hey,” Logan teases, “I’ll have you know some fine upstanding youth work at that bike messenger place. Sketchy is truly a credit to humanity.”
They both dissolve into laughter. Max sneaks a look at his face. His blue eyes sparkle from behind his glasses, he’d shaved a few hours before and he looks younger than usual, so different from the grungy recluse who’d haunted his penthouse since the shooting. That Logan looked far more like a zombie than this one does.
Dinner is served at precisely nine fifteen around a polished wood table that Max had to admire. If she could carry that thing out of the room (easier said than done, it was bigger than both of the doors), she could get quite a pretty penny off of it.
She’s thankfully seated next to Logan. They’re about eight chairs from the end of the table where Harold Kingsley’s sat regally staring at his guests. They are almost completely surrounded by possible Logan killers. It is only a fantastic stroke of luck that seats skinny bespectacled Cole Gordevinski, the only person who Max can’t pin with a motive across from them.
Dinner is to put it plainly, divine. There are steaks, beautiful fillets cooked just about to perfection. Max has never tasted a cut like this before. It has just the right amount of seasoning and practically melts in her mouth.
Logan regards the plate suspiciously. “How did you manage to get this? I haven’t heard anything about an excess of beef in the market.”
Kingsley smiles from the head of the table. “I have my sources.”
Logan scowls at his plate. Max tries to restrain from strangling him herself. Of all the pea brained, idiotic, suicidal things to say… She wants to enjoy this steak without someone pulling a gun on her. She deserves that much at least.
She makes it through dinner, well more than makes it through. Dinner is divine. She might almost consider sparing the Logan killer if they had something to do with this fillet. She glances to her side and when he smiles at her she reconsiders.
No, she would get the recipe first and maybe their source of the meat and then she would make them suffer.
It will be fun. She’ll get a not-a-zombie Logan as well as really good steak. Really, a win-win situation. Now all she needs to do is find the guy gunning for Logan or, since they were all probably gunning for his alter ego, the guy gunning for Logan tonight.
Gordevinski has been talking to Logan all night. Inane bits of conversation about journalism and old stories. Logan isn’t really listening. He has that glazed look on his face he wears whenever he’s off mentally multitasking. Max suspects he’s eavesdropping for possible Eyes Only tips. He’ll have to sit on them for a while of course. Anything he picks up at this table will point to him if Eyes Only reports it to the world.
She’ll have to stop him from getting himself killed after they make it through tonight. This is turning into a full time job.
On the opposite side of the table, Kingsley ushers his wife from the room and then stands up himself. One of the larger men she’d previously IDed as a potential Logan killer trails him out. Max places a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Logan, sweetie, I’m going to hit the ladies room. Need to freshen up.”
Logan’s eyes flicker to her hand on his shoulder and then he smiles playfully. “You look fantastic.”
Leave it to Logan to get into his role as people in the other room are probably plotting to kill him. Why can’t he do it later when she can actually enjoy it? She’d like just a taste of what it is like to be like that before they go back to your standard business arrangements.
Stupid zombie.
She nods to Gordevinski and slips out of the room, off to listen in on the plot to murder Logan. Seriously, how did he deal without a suped up transgenic bodyguard? It was a miracle he hadn’t been shot years before now.
Kingsley’s friend is name Edwards and he runs some company that Kingsley is laundering his money through. Because mobsters are just what Max needs right now on top of everything else. She decides to bash them both with a vase or something and then grab Logan and get the hell out. They’d never pin it on her after all; she’s a girl and Logan’s in a wheelchair. Someone else will get blamed and as long as it isn’t skinny little Gordevinski, she’s pretty sure they deserve it.
Only before she can implement that plan, four shots ring out and from the dining hall, people are screaming. Kingsley’s face is twisted in shock. Ice drops in the pit of Max’s stomach.
She starts running towards the commotion and it’s only the tremors racking her body that stop her from blurring into super speed. In the dining room, she can’t see anything except blood on the walls and the spinning wheels of Logan’s overturned chair and who has the gun? Who has the gun?
“Logan!” she screams.
Who has the gun?
She thinks she hears someone calling her name. Max, Max…
“Max!”
She sits bolt upright, breathing hard. Logan, sitting next to her offers a small smile. “What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
Max throws her arms around his neck and buries her head in his shoulder. “I’m so glad to see you.”
Max is probably still crazy, but the only thing that matters right now is Logan. Logan alive and breathing and definitely not a zombie because it’s still yesterday and Max is getting another chance.
Logan’s breath is heavy in her hair. “Max, I can’t breathe,” he chokes.
She lets go, but stays close. She wants to be able to touch him, to make sure he’s still there, make sure he’s not a ghost. “Sorry,” she mutters. “Sometimes I forget I’m a suped-up super freak.”
“You’re not a freak,” Logan says gently.
He’s still close to her and all of a sudden, Max’s fight or flight instincts surge into high gear. He’s too close. She’s got miles of issues she’s got to get through before you even broach the intimacy ones. She pulls back, pulls back physically, pulls back mentally. “You’re not exactly the best judge, Mister Save-the-World-by-Tuesday.”
“Tell you what,” he says casually. “Let’s do something normal. My cousin Bennett asked me to go to this dinner party for him. Come with me.”
She hadn’t noticed it before, hadn’t seen the utter vulnerability on his face. It took a lot for him to ask. For him to put aside his own issues and open himself up for rejection. She realizes with a start that this must be the first time he’s ever asked anyone since the shooting. And he’s asked her. Even though he’s walking to his doom, she can’t say no.
She borrows a dress off of Kendra, taking care to bypass the skirt and blouse from yesterday that had really just been today part two. Original Cindy offers to do her hair. Max pulls her own hair back in a decidedly different fashion and asks if OC can do her nails instead.
“Nail polish?” Kendra asks skeptically. “Since when do you do nail polish?”
Original Cindy rolls her eyes and goes back to dabbing red over Max’s nails. “Girl wants to look fine for her man.”
“It’s not like that,” Max says. “We’re just friends.”
“Friends with benefits,” Kendra says. “The two of you banging the gong all night long.”
“Since when is dinner a metaphor for sex?” Max asks. She’s too distracted to think up a new response. Logan’s dead in a couple hours if she doesn’t think up a way to get him out of this.
“It’s not,” Kendra whispers breathily. “Banging the gong is a metaphor for sex. Dinner is a metaphor for foreplay.”
“I’m just there to make sure the man doesn’t find another bullet.” Max reaches to adjust her dress, but a nail polish welding Original Cindy pulls her hand back down. “Guy’s a little accident prone.”
“Ah,” Kendra says philosophically. “The chair could make things interesting—”
Original Cindy puts up an irritated hand. “Original Cindy accepts that you’re both heterosexuals but would not like to revisit her food tonight.”
Max herself fights the urge to revisit her food. No matter what she does, this night already has that air of inevitability about it. Logan will ask her to dinner, OC and Kendra will try to get her laid, Logan will be killed.
“There,” Original Cindy says, putting on the final coat of nail polish. Max stands up and gives her ensemble a spin. “Damn girl, you fine. Shame to waste that kind of body on a man.”
Original Cindy laughs. Kendra laughs.
Max can’t do this again, can’t live this again. Something’s got to change.
The Kingsley place. Small talk. Nothing changes. Well, no that’s not right, bits and pieces change, different words in different orders, but the gist is all the same, Logan gives her the 411 on all the small town business creeps. Ninety percent of them are still very much possible Logan killers. Eyes Only has a beef with every single one. Whether it is shady dealings, cutting out the middleman or hell, killing the middleman everyone has a motive. Damn near the entire Seattle business scene has motives to kill Eyes Only.
Which means someone in this party knows Eyes Only and Logan Cale are one in the same.
Which is bad.
She detaches herself from Logan, moving through the room, through to crowd eavesdropping, desperately looking form anything suspicious. Eyes Only is a popular conversation topic amongst the paranoid but she hears nothing overtly suspicious, nothing indicating a possible murder plot.
She glances to Logan only to find him deeply immersed in conversation with the scrawny little Cole Gordevinski. She wonders vaguely what his story is, what he can possibly have in common with these people.
“Dinner,” a voice calls.
Max moves inside, greeted by the lovely smell of warm fillets. Behind her trail Seattle’s business elite and then, to her utter shock and horror, two sharp cracks of gun echo from the room next door. Her heart catches in her through because it can’t be, it absolutely can’t be. She has until after dinner at least.
Her blood roars in her ears. Her hands are shaking. She’s pushing her way past frantic businessmen, nearly toppling a servant carrying a bottle of fine wine because Logan’s in the next room and this can’t be happening again because she doesn’t think she can make it without hearing his voice…
“Max!”
Her eyes shoot open. Logan’s still here, perched on the edge of his wheelchair and smiling, smiling, smiling. “What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
“You can’t go to dinner tonight,” she says.
Logan’s face clouds. “How do you even know about that? I was just going to ask if you wanted to come.”
“I can’t go to dinner that night,” Max stammers. “And you can’t either.”
She’s got a hold of Logan’s shoulders and nothing for the life of her can make her let go. She needs him to be there, needs him to be real and alive and breathing and not a zombie. She just… she needs him. She needs him more than she’d like to admit.
He looks vaguely amused by her ominous warnings. “Why shouldn’t I go?”
“Because you’re going to die if you go.”
“That’s dire,” Logan says lightly. He keeps a straight face for about ten more seconds before he busts out laughing.
“I’m serious!” Max pleads, “Logan, don’t you understand, we’ve already done this. We’ve been here before. Same time same place. It just keeps happening again and again and the end is the same.”
He keeps laughing.
He goes without her. Max sneaks over to the party herself and she gets careless. She trips an alarm and she’s so sloppy she can’t take down the team of ten security guards. By the time they pin her, she’s shaking, tremors racking her leather suited body.
“Kinda hot for a robber,” one of the guards says.
“Kinda horny for a cop,” she shoots back.
She’s waiting for the shots, but when they finally come, they still make her jump.
“Max!” It’s yesterday. Still yesterday. And she wakes up next to Logan, still alive.
“What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
It’s funny, she thinks, reliving the worst night of her life over and over. She’s surprised to find that she’s grateful, that she wants it more than anything, that she can’t bear the thought of waking up to anything Logan’s voice.
She doesn’t even here most of the conversation, just stares at him, watching the curve of his smile and the light in his eyes. He’s getting better. Four months since the shooting and the shadows are starting to fall away when he smiles.
He licks his lips before he asks her to dinner and of course, she says yes.
Max sticks to Logan’s side, playing the part of the clingy girlfriend with such skill Logan starts shooting her strange looks at each show of possessiveness.
Max has her claws out. Not literally of course, she doesn’t have that much cat DNA, but she’s ready to put up a fight if it means Logan will be here tomorrow (in a tomorrow that is actually tomorrow and not just another today.)
“We’re not like that,” Max had told OC and Kendra. “We’re just friends.”
And they aren’t like that. At least not yet. And if Max is ever going to find out what that yet can bring, she needs to beat this bitch. After all dinner is a metaphor for foreplay and there’s been more than enough of this dinner. Seriously, it’s almost enough to turn her off steak for good.
Cole Gordevinski and Logan are talking about the slip ups in law enforcement after the Pulse. Gordevinski had spent nine years in jail for a sentence that was only supposed to last a month. Records got wiped, shit hit the fan and everybody got more then they bargained for. Woe is you, Max thought caustically, Quit crying already. I spent nine years in Manticore.
She turns her focus elsewhere. Two of the oil goons are discussing how much they’d like to kill Eyes Only. It’s a rather graphic conversation. It even has entrails. They’re her current top suspects.
She’s only dimly aware of Logan relaying one of his old stories from back before the Pulse, before Eyes Only, when he was just a fresh-faced kid out of Yale new on the journalism scene. It’s not terribly interesting, a capture of a low level officer manager taking bribes.
The Pulse had hit just a few days later and Gordevinski’s eye is twitching as the story comes to a close, his hand is in his pocket and then his hand is out of his pocket and clasping a gun.
Well, she definitely should have seen that one coming.
The shots ring out, one, two, three.
She’s too slow.
And then it’s yesterday.
Again.
She’s stuck. It’s a loop, a vicious circle and she can’t get out. She tries everything. She tells him, yes I’ll go to dinner with you, no I won’t and it doesn’t make a difference.
Sometimes she kills Gordevinski, cracks his neck before he can crack a shot. Sometimes she’s too slow. Sometimes she’s not. She dies more than once. Logan dies more than her. It’s like those old video games, stuck on the same level and no matter what she does, someone dies and she’s back to start to try again.
Original Cindy’s comments are no longer original.
Kendra’s sextastic remarks are no longer just uncalled by also increasingly maddening.
She’s actually gotten sick of steak.
And so it goes, day after never changing day.
“Look,” she says, grabbing Gordevinski’s arm on day-whatever-the-hell-she’s-on-now (she stopped counting after a dozen). “I’d really love to just kill you and move one, but it’s recently come to my attention that this doesn’t actually help much at all. Not that you know what I’m talking about, but this grudge you’ve got against Logan it’s going anywhere. We’re stuck and it’s your fault so I’m going to give it to you straight: it’s now worth it. He wrote a story that landed you in jail, the Pulse hits and you stay there for a couple extra years. Killing him is not going to change a thing. Your past will still suck, you’re still going to be miserable and I’m still going to be stuck. So walk out of this room now because I really don’t want to have to kill you again.”
Gordevinski looks at her like she’s crazy, (she feels pretty crazy) but he does something he hasn’t done before: he leaves.
And Max returns: finishes her steak, eats some pudding for the first time since day nine, slips her fingers around Logan’s own and just once, everyone lives.
“Max!” Logan says and his voice blurs as her eyes open and the scene changes again.
“What happened to that shark DNA? You fell asleep on me.”
She does everything right and the same thing still happens.
The next six days, things are back to going wrong in all the same ways and she’s pretty sure she’s losing her marbles one by one.
On day what-ever-the-hell-we’re-on-now, she waits until Logan asks her to dinner and then she tells him she’d rather stay in tonight. Oh, she’s tried this before, more than once. She’s told him the truth, told him some lies, and on one memorable occasion, tied him to his bed and stole away his chair.
But she hasn’t tried this before, not once. There were always too many issues, too much denial but Max is so sick of watching him die that she’s about ready to admit that maybe they can be like that.
“Why would we stay in when they’re free food?” Logan jokes, still trying to coax her onto a date (and it is a date, she realized this by day twenty. Logan keeps asking her out on dates.) “Seriously, what do you rank above free cuisine?”
“This,” Max says. Then she leans across the couch and kisses him.
She watches Logan’s eyes widen in surprise but after that shock passes; his lips part at it’s perfect. It’s more right than anything’s ever been in her life.
She can get used to this. She can live this day again and again and if it were like this, she thinks she can manage.
“Max!” Logan says and she opens her eyes and for the first time in ages, she’s surrounded by soft bed sheets and not the couch’s cushion.
“Logan,” she murmurs sleepily.
“I was thinking pancakes,” he says, fidgeting a little. She realizes that pancakes are an apology, that pancakes are his offer to forget last night ever happened, to erase it all and go back to the status quo.
It wasn’t a mistake.
She crosses the room, plants a kiss on his lips and says, “Pancakes would be great.”
She’s made it to tomorrow after all.
And today things are perfect.
(end)
All right, show of hands, who’s read Help! I’m Trapped in the First Day of School? Oh yeah, that's totally where the inspiration was...
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18/7/07 22:02 (UTC)Who knew that Groundhog Day could be cured with a good shag? ;)
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22/7/07 02:58 (UTC)You know I honestly wasn't thinking about Groundhog Day writing this? I don't think I've ever seen that movie the whole way through...
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22/7/07 03:06 (UTC)(no subject)
29/8/08 11:00 (UTC)(no subject)
29/8/08 21:54 (UTC)