She should have known when Max rushed to the restroom fifteen times in the diner on Monday, barely even making it the last time before customers started to leave.
"There's nothing wrong with the food just the waitress!" She heard Han call after them as she hurried behind her best friend.
She found Max kneeling over the toilet in the first stall and she looked absolutely miserable.
"I think I'm dying," she'd groaned. "This is death. I don't have a Will but burry me with my laptop. There are some horrifying things on there I'd be a bitch to subject you to."
Caroline chuckled as she pulled Max's curly hair into a low ponytail and held it out of her face as she hurled again.
Tuesday went the same way. And they just assumed it was a bug that hadn't reached the diner yet.
"I shouldn't have smoked the blunt with my dealer's sister." Max said.
On Wednesday she could barely get out of bed.
Which is why now, on Thursday, Caroline is currently sitting on the floor on the other side of the locked bathroom door biting all of her nails off.
"How are you doing in there?" she asks for what's probably the seventh time in the last two minutes. In her defense, her best friend hasn't even said a word or made a sound. There hasn't been a gasp or a loud breath of relief.
Absolutely nothing but silence for two excruciatingly long minutes.
Then suddenly there was movement behind the door and considering it was midnight and Caroline had been covering both of their shifts all day, she doesn't have the energy to get up.
Max opens the door and there's not a lot of readable emotion on her face. She just looks down at her best friend with red-rimmed eyes and the blonde is unable to figure out if the hastily wiped away tears are from relief or if a huge bombshell has been dropped on them.
"What does it say?" Caroline asks in a quiet voice because she's afraid if she speaks any louder the reality of their situation will finally hit her. She got the test only half-jokingly. There weren't any guys in Max's life that she knew of. Or at least she thought so.
When Max steps over her then slumps down the wall next to her the answer is clear. Her head falls on Caroline's shoulder.
"I'm pregnant." It doesn't even sound like Max. Her best friend is usually so confident. Always so sarcastic. But this is the first time in the three years they've been friends that she has ever heard her friend sound so…broken.
Caroline feels her best friend's light shaking against her. She does the only thing she can think of. She laces her fingers with Max's and pulls them into her lap. "We'll figure something out. I promise."
xxx
The free clinic is full of sick people, varying different ages, so immediately both women feel out of place when they enter the small waiting room.
Caroline checks them in and Max hides her face like someone she knows could recognize her behind her large sunglasses – despite it being the middle of November – and under black hoodie where her hair is tucked neatly to her nearly indistinguishable.
Even the blonde doesn't look her best today, with a pair of Max's navy blue sweatpants and her coat. Somehow, the Waitress decides, her best friend pulls off the ragged look.
"They'll call us." Caroline informs as she sits down. Instantly their hands find each other. The blonde shakes her leg nervously.
"That's making me sick." Max gags warningly.
Promptly the former billionaire's leg stops. "Sorry."
The silence between them is painful. The noise of the dozens of kids and coughing patients should drown out their thoughts.
Caroline wants to ask.
Max looks embarrassed.
They're both tired.
"How?" the word slips out of her mouth in a sigh and she hears the judgment as soon as the word rings in her ears. But there's no other way she knows how to say it. There's no other way she can form it without sounding like she's disappointed. "How did this happen, Max?"
Her friend cracks a small smile. "Don't tell me I have to explain how babies are made to you, Caroline." But she takes her hand away and scrubs her face tiredly with it. "I got tired of being alone." Is her only explanation.
But you're not alone, Caroline wants to say. I'm here. She knows she can't be there for Max in the intimate way her best friend craves but she can be there for her in other ways.
Caroline doesn't respond. Instead she sits and waits with her friend. Her only friend, really.
An hour passes before they both hear, "Max Black?"
"That's me." The brunette stands.
"Do you want me to…?" Caroline asks, still sitting.
Max looks at her thoughtfully for a moment but eventually shakes her head. "I can do this." She says, mostly to convince herself. She pulls her coat tighter around her body as if the hide the nonexistent bump of her belly.
"I'll see you in a bit." Caroline promises as her friend leaves her sitting there alone.
Max glances over her shoulder and nods then disappears behind a blue door.
xxx
For an hour, Caroline does nothing but bites her thumb nail and pace the length of the waiting room nervously. She gets to pulling on her blonde hair when a nurse calls her name.
"Miss Caroline?" she calls from the same blue door that took Max from her.
"Yes?" she answers immediately.
"Max would like to see you."
Through the tall rectangular window of the wooden door, Caroline sees immediately that her friend is no longer on the operating bed. The nurse unlocks the door for her and she thanks her quietly before closing it behind herself and locking it again.
"Max?" she calls out.
There's a noise, like a sob, from behind another door. Caroline knocks on it softly.
"Max are you in there?" the door pushes open a bit from the pressure of her knuckles. "Max?" Caroline asks, peeking around it.
The waitress is has her knees to her chest on the bathroom floor and she looks up at her best friend with red eyes. "I thought I could do it," she says before another sob escapes her. "But all I could think of was all the times my mom wished she'd aborted me."
"What if I'm just like her? What if I make my baby hates themself and me?"
When Max jokes about how horrible her mom was, it's easier for Caroline to imagine her childhood. She never thought any of the things her mom said and did got to her. Mainly because it was easier to pretend Max was strong enough to handle it.
Decisions like these, they're not easy. Caroline is pro-choice but even she knows that it's difficult for some people to kill a harmless lump inside of them when it could be something that brings them a great amount of joy.
"You're not your mom, Max." Caroline says, getting down on the floor next to her best friend. "I've never met her and maybe you share some qualities with her but you are not her. She's just the woman that gave birth to you. You raised yourself and you did a pretty good job. Most people walked right past me when they saw me stumbling in the subway but you stopped and helped me."
Max looks at her.
"You're not going to be a terrible mother." She tucks a rebellious lock of the curly hair she finds herself irrationally envious of behind her best friend's left ear. "Your mom didn't have something you have."
The brunette swallows weakly. "And what's that?"
"Me."
A/N: I do plan for this to be a multi-chapter fic. Hopefully it'll go on long with the right motivation and encouragement. Also if anyone knows of any other long Maxoline fics, I'd love some recommendations in my tumblr ask or PM them to me. There's not a lot on here.