Children of the Universe

Author's Note: I'll admit that I was only half interested in The Following until Max showed up this season. Anyway, the title comes from the Molly Smitten-Downes song, which, somehow, kind of always reminds me of Max and Mike – but that probably just has a lot to do with the line "Standing beside you, I've the feeling that I'll never walk alone." :) Also, I haven't gotten to watch the latest episode yet, so if this presents a continuity issue, I apologize in advance.

Max thought that she had made herself clear enough, but Mike brushing past her was evidence to the contrary. Sighing, she promptly turned on her heel. "Just tell me what he's up to," Mike demanded exasperatedly, his eyes scanning the apartment in case Ryan and his niece were trying to shut him out again. Glancing around the corner, his eyes fell on the open kitchen. On the counter, he spotted an array of papers strewn about, mingling with assorted food wrappers. Several empty bottles of soda were lined against the edge of the counter, and he spotted a new one sitting next to Max's phone. The clutter was completely indicative of Max, and inwardly Mike knew that her uncle hadn't been at the apartment for quite some time.

He briskly turned to face her, and though she still wore a pained look, Mike could tell that Max's expression had softened. "You should be home," she insisted. "Your family needs you." There had been extra emphasis on this last part, and it did not go undetected by Mike. He recalled his last conversation with the woman, and no part of him doubted that Max spoke the truth. He knew that she was far more experienced with familial loss than he, but he merely shrugged.

"Well, I'm here," pointed out Mike. With as much authority as he could muster in his damaged state, he sternly inquired, "So where's Ryan? And please, don't lie to me."

Max instantly dropped her gaze and exhaled sharply. As she turned and walked toward the door, Mike vaguely wondered if she were about to order him to leave like she had the first time he'd visited her office, but the demand never came. Rather, the brunette shut the door to her uncle's apartment before gesturing to the couch.

As Mike took a seat, he couldn't help but notice Max checking a phone she produced from her pocket. It was one of the burners he had seen her and Ryan with before, he realized, and he knew that he had stumbled right into the middle of one of their vigilante missions. As seemingly innocently as he could, he asked, "Are you expecting a call?"

The brunette stuffed the phone back into her pocket without even an attempt to hide her annoyance. As she sat down on the other end of the couch, she replied, "I don't even know what to expect." Her tone was certainly not welcoming, but Mike noted that it was not exactly frosty either, so he stared at her expectantly. Max redirected her gaze to her feet. "Look, Ryan didn't want to involve you," she admitted. "I have to say I agree considering the circumstances, but…I can't say that I'm not worried."

Mike knew what it was like working with Ryan. Hardy could hardly be considered a team player. He didn't like partners, and he excelled at leaving them in the dark. Weston had spent the previous year in exactly Max's place, so her predicament didn't surprise him in the least. "What'd Ryan do, go off the grid?" he queried gingerly. "Or did the FBI take him in again? Franklin's been pretty annoyed by—"

Max's chuckle was unexpected and stopped Mike in his tracks. Realizing what she'd done, the woman bit her lower lip, hoping he hadn't noticed. She ventured a look at him and instantly knew that he'd caught on. Max's shoulders slumped and she leaned against the back of the couch; at this point, she had completely resigned herself to telling Weston the truth. "Ryan's going to kill me for telling you," she confessed. "You remember when he and Director Franklin were talking at the—" Mike nodded briskly. "Right. Well, Franklin has tasked Ryan with hunting down Joe Carroll. It's an off-the-books type of thing, and Ryan's acting as if he's his own bloody task force. He made it pretty clear that if he knew how to use a computer, I wouldn't be here myself."

Again, Weston knew the feeling. Ryan Hardy thought he was invincible. No, perhaps that wasn't right, he decided. Ryan Hardy thought that he was the only one who could catch Carroll. He had no delusions of being invincible; he merely didn't care if he got killed in the process, so long as he achieved the desired end result. "Okay," Mike began, "if that's the case, then where is Ryan now?"

"That's where it gets tricky," Max divulged. "Evidently the CIA was digging through the Carroll case and reached out to British intelligence. Franklin got a hold of this drive with some pictures. There was a meeting between some now-dead Carrollers and one of Joe's professors. A guy by the name of Dr. Strauss, who conveniently lives an hour from the Havenport lighthouse," she explained.

Weston shook his head angrily. All the pieces were beginning to fall into place for him. For the first time in a long time, the developments in the Carroll case were starting to make sense. "There's nobody better than a doctor to patch you up when you're nearly dead," he mused. Max only nodded solemnly. "And I suppose Ryan went to pay Strauss a visit," he ventured. A confirmatory nod from the woman was his reply. "Without you."

"Without me," she declared. "Obviously."

Mike stood up and began pacing the length of the room. "And what exactly was the plan this time? Or did Ryan even bother with one?" he asked with a bitter laugh.

"He was supposed to show up at the house, pretend to want an interview, plant a bug inside, and get out," admitted Max, watching as Weston relentlessly walked past her.

He smiled and presumed, "And I bet he hasn't gotten out."

"No," Max stated, "he planted the listening device and called me back, but now I've got nothing. The listening device isn't transmitting, his tracker's off, and I can't get him to answer his phone. I don't know if he changed the plan, or—"

Abruptly, Mike cut her off. "We have to go there," he insisted.

"He said to stay—"

"Max, maybe you aren't understanding." Before she could say anything else, Weston continued earnestly, "We have to go see what he's doing. If Ryan had changed his plan, he would have told you. I know that he doesn't always keep his partner in the loop, but he wouldn't keep you in the dark about this. Trust me."

Max bit her lip again. She had learned that she could place her trust in Mike. She did trust him, she had even grown to appreciate his concern for Ryan, but she also knew that he had clouded judgment. Ryan had specifically told her to remain at his apartment. Weston gave her another expectant look, and he could see the struggle she was having. He sighed. "Max, remember when you got on that train after Giselle because you knew that if you didn't, you'd lose her and your only lead to finding…Lily?" He said the name with clear disdain, and Max could feel his pain. "This is just like that, Max. It is."

The woman stood and nodded reluctantly. "You're right," she agreed. "I mean, what's the worst that can happen if we go? Let me just find my keys…" She walked past him to the kitchen and glanced over the papers on the counter. "They're here…somewhere," she muttered, swiping pages to the floor in her search.

Mike shook his head sadly and produced his own keys from his pocket. "Come on, Max; I'll drive."

Weston stole a glance at the woman in his passenger seat as she dialed her uncle's number for the sixth time during their car ride. He could feel her heart fall as each ring went unanswered, and he felt the urge to tell her to stop trying, but he knew the request would be for naught. She no longer bothered leaving the man voicemails and merely tossed the phone back onto her lap angrily, running a hand through her tangled hair. Mike smiled, and Max rose an eyebrow at him quizzically. He just shrugged and quickly directed his eyes back on the road.

From the corner of his eye, Weston saw her reach for the phone again and put his hand on hers in midair. Blushing, he briskly pulled it away and said sheepishly, "I don't think that's going to do us any good." Max's hand fell back to her side limply and she stared out the window. Though crestfallen himself, Mike tried to reassure her with, "We're nearly there anyway. I'd say we're about ten minutes out."

"Hm," she replied, still looking at the passing landscape. She would never admit it to him, but she was relieved that Mike had shown up. She doubted that she would have had the nerve to make this decision herself, and, even if she had, she couldn't imagine going on this journey alone. These past couple of days had changed her, and she wasn't sure that she'd ever get the old Max Hardy back, nor was she sure that she wanted to.

She glanced at her phone once more and tried to crush the worry steadily building in the pit of her stomach. In their rush out the door, she had forgotten to grab her real phone. Ryan couldn't keep up with the changing numbers of their burners, and she feared that if he lost his, he would try to call her old number and find no answer. She had, however, remembered to grab Dr. Strauss's address, and Mike had assured her that they would arrive at the house long before Ryan tried to call her. To be honest, though, Max wasn't sure if that calmed her nerves or made them worse. She knew that Ryan could be in any sort of trouble with the way he charged into things without thinking.

Her breathing must have become too deep, because she could feel Weston's gaze on her back again. Slowly, she turned away from the window and met his gaze. He gave her a reassuring smile that she returned half-heartedly. Yes, she decided; regardless of how she and Mike had started out, now she was glad that she could count on him.

There was nothing but trees and fallen leaves to greet the pair as they drove onto Strauss's property. Mike had expertly avoided the house's driveway so they would remain undetected, and as he steered through the woods, a peculiar sight met their eyes. He slowed as he approached a blue SUV and looked over at Max. "That's not Ryan's—?" The brunette detective shook her head. "Then who—?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," she confessed. "It looks empty…should we have a look, or?"

Weston put the car in park and reached for the gun strapped to his side. He noticed that Max did not react in kind and frowned. She picked up on this and pulled her gun from her holster, flashing him a nervous smile. Mike wasn't sure what to make of this but decided to save the interrogation for later. He nodded at her, and they both emerged from the car, weapons drawn.

Mike approached the SUV, knowing that Max was covering him. Had he been watching her, perhaps he would have picked up on the reluctance in her movements. Weston reached for the passenger door's handle, and Max felt as if her ears would burst from the thumping of her own heart. Door thrown wide, Mike pointed his gun around the inside of the SUV, but nothing seemed amiss. He hastily opened the glove box and leafed through the papers. Frowning, he asked Max, "Why does the name Carrie Cooke sound so familiar?"

Max dropped her gun to her side and sighed. "Of course she's here messing things up," she growled. Weston gave her a questioning look and she explained, "She's the yellow journalist who wrote The Havenport Tragedy."

"She knows Ryan, right?" Mike questioned, arranging the contents of the car just as he'd found them.

Max scoffed, "If that's what you want to call it." Her companion gave her a questioning glance, but she had no desire to explain the complex character that was Carrie Cooke. Rather, Max stomped back to Mike's car and looked around her. "Ryan said he was hiding in the woods, but that doesn't really give us much to go on," she mused aloud.

Mike again appeared at her side, and the pair surveyed the landscape around them. All around, they could see only trees filling out for miles along either side of the dusty path. After awhile, Weston spoke. "You could wait here, and I could go ahead to see—" Max's glare stopped him mid-sentence, and Mike knew that he had zero chance of getting her to stay put. "Okay, we'll both go," he amended.

Weston used his foot to slowly push the door to the house open, noting that the lock had previously been shot out, presumably by Ryan. Beyond that, Mike didn't quite know what to expect. He and Max had found Ryan's car fifteen minutes ago, and it was an unsettling sight. As expected, Hardy was nowhere to be found, but the disturbing part was that his vehicle appeared to have been ransacked. Max had gone over the contents, only to discover that the receiver of the listening device was also missing, and their suspicions that something had gone wrong were confirmed.

As Mike began creeping through the doctor's house, Max followed behind, her heart rate reaching an all-time high. If anything, she was relieved to find that her hands no longer trembled as she held her gun at the ready, but that was only a small comfort to her now. Abruptly, Mike halted at the end of a hallway, and Max barely stopped herself from running right into him. "Stairs," the man whispered before turning left. Max took a deep breath and began her descent, one hand finding the wall to use as a guide. "Last one," Weston indicated, stepping into a dimly-lit corridor. As Max's eyes attempted to adjust to the lighting, Mike held a finger to his lips and pointed to the other end of the corridor.

The pair stalked toward the sound of voices, pausing outside a closed door. As they listened, they picked up on two male voices, one of which was Ryan's. Max gave a start at the next words. "I'd like to start with the hands," said a third voice, and she and Weston exchanged glances, realizing that the doctor was not working alone. Max was only left to wonder how Carrie Cooke fit into this mess.

"How about feet instead? You'll need to get the sledgehammer," instructed the other voice. Max cringed, filled once again with the panic she had felt when Kurt had asked about her tattoos. She knew precisely the terror that a predator could inspire in his victims, the pain that he could inflict. She shuddered at the thought.

Being so lost in her thoughts, Max did not detect the approaching footsteps until Mike shoved her into an open door to their left. Max shook her head to clear it of its previous thoughts; she could not allow herself to drift away again, she knew. "Stay back, okay?" Mike suggested. "I'll draw him out."

Max nodded and pressed her back against the wall closest to the door, watching as Mike did the same at the opposite end of the tiny room. Though the darkness did its best to conceal their forms, the woman's heart continued its incessant thumping as a meager figure appeared in the doorway. The doctor's assistant paused briefly, and Max was certain that he had detected her, but he soon walked confidently toward Mike. Although she could not see him, she knew that Weston was ready, eager even, to apprehend the approaching man.

The assistant paused next to the window, and Weston chose that as his opportunity to strike. She heard him before she saw him. "Don't move," Mike snarled, reemerging from the shadows, gun drawn. It was at that moment that Max realized she had lowered her own weapon, and she unenthusiastically raised it toward the man as he began raising his hands. She had thought it to be a sign of submission, so it took her a minute to process what was happening in the next instant. She wasn't aware of how it had happened, but her heart plummeted down into her stomach as she watched the scene before her. The boy had attacked him, and Weston was struggling; that, she knew. What came next was what surprised her.

Pulling the trigger had been more of an instinct – an impulsive, yet natural, reaction. She watched as the boy plummeted toward the ground, and Max felt as if everything was in slow motion – as if time itself had stopped. An intense pounding assaulted her ears, and the woman wasn't sure if this was due to her head or heart. Weston grabbed her attention with his look filled with mixed gratitude and worry, and Max slowly began to lower her gun. She looked down at the body with horror and realized for the first time that she had actually killed the doctor's assistant. Her mind raced. Her whole body tensed, and a blackness fell over her. Max stumbled backward. She wasn't used to this feeling. She worked in the Intel division; she didn't do this.

Mike watched Max's reaction with a mixture of concern and curiosity. Her face was etched with terror, and finally Weston understood why she had hesitated to pull her gun in the car. Somehow, he had forgotten just how recently Max had become a cop; how she worked with papers more than weapons, computers more than people. How she had probably never fired her weapon on duty, let alone killed someone.

Their thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash, and both partners sprung into action, their memories of the current mission refreshed. Max was out the door first, but Weston overtook her in the corridor, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder before she fell into position behind him.

Ryan Hardy had some nerve telling him that he didn't want his help, Mike declared to himself angrily as he stomped down the steps leading from Strauss's residence. He kicked up dirt as he made his way to the woods where he had left the car. Ryan was a fool, a reckless fool, he kept telling himself over and over. He didn't realize that he had already endangered Mike – that Mike had already lost too much to walk away from this case. He couldn't recognize that the target on Mike's back wouldn't simply go away if he left the case. All Ryan knew was his own desire for revenge; he couldn't comprehend that that same desire welled up in Mike, threatening to rip apart his heart at every turn.

The agent reached his car, thankful to see that Carrie Cooke had already departed. He wouldn't have been surprised if the reporter had stalked him out in the woods for a comment. Weston thought reporters were shady, and he had believed Ryan to be of the same mind, but The Havenport Tragedy told him otherwise. He didn't know how Carrie had gotten an interview with Ryan, but Mike decided that, perhaps, Ryan and Carrie were one and the same. They were both looking out for their own interests, oblivious to the destruction they were leaving in their paths.

Weston slid into his seat and slammed the car door. He had to calm down, he thought to himself. He was behaving like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum. He was on the edge again, and he couldn't afford to make another mistake when his last had cost him so much. Mike shook that thought out of his head and pulled his jacket off, but when he went to throw it onto the passenger seat, he froze. He frowned, remembering the woman who had sat next to him on the trip there. No doubt, she had decided to ride back with her uncle, but Weston couldn't shake the thought that he needed to check on her after what he had seen in that basement. He hadn't told Ryan that Max had shot Cole, and he doubted that she would have either.

Sighing, he stepped out of his own car in search of Ryan's. It had grown increasingly dark since their arrival, but Mike remembered the trek well enough. As he pushed past a fallen branch, he heard footsteps running in his direction. He stopped in his tracks, waiting for their owner to reach him and was surprised when Ryan fell into his view. "Mike!" the other man called when he saw Weston's silhouette. "Where's Max?"

"Max? I thought—" Mike broke off, realization hitting him. "She's fine, Ryan." When Hardy gave him a skeptical look in reply, Weston lied, "She said she forgot her phone inside. I'll go get her and drop her off at your apartment, okay?"

Mike turned and started walking away before Ryan could question him, hoping that the other man would choose not to follow. He heard no approaching footsteps, but after a couple of feet, Hardy called, "Mike!" Weston turned with a deliberate reluctance, and the other man continued, "When you bring Max back, why don't you— I mean, do you want – You can stay at my apartment, too." Weston gave a smile of thanks and a nod before turning around, knowing that that was as much of an apology as he could expect from Ryan Hardy.

She didn't even flinch when he walked into the room and leaned against the wall next to her. Max stared at the blood pooling around Cole's body, her expression blank. Mike gingerly placed one hand on her shoulder and she turned slowly toward him, her eyes devoid of emotion. "Franklin is sending a team to collect Strauss," he reminded her. "We need to go." Max said nothing in return, and Weston sighed. "You did what you had to, Max," he implored. "You saved my life. You saved all of our lives. No one is going to know what you did, not even Ryan, okay? As far as he knows, I killed him. Franklin won't have it investigated; he—"

"Mike," she said breathlessly, "I didn't…I didn't even hesitate."

Weston frowned, unsure what he was supposed to make of that. "Max, if you had hesitated…you're not supposed to hesitate."

She jerked away from his hand and moved closer to the body. "I don't think you get it, Mike," she muttered, her knees falling just outside the lake of blood. "I didn't even think about killing someone. What does that say about me? How does that make me better than Giselle, or Joe, or…" she trailed off, not angry enough to bring Lily into the conversation.

Mike sighed and moved to kneel next to her. He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. He saw the tears she was fighting back and remembered just how much she had gone through in these past few days. He had been so engulfed in his own grief that he had forgotten that she, too, was hurt. He had been damaged, and Ryan had been broken coming into this case. Max hadn't been personally involved last year; she hadn't been thrown into Carroll's warped ways of life. Yet, just days ago she had been kidnapped and tortured, and now she was facing her first kill. In those blue eyes of hers, he could see that Max was slowly spiraling after him, after Ryan, and Mike was determined to do anything to stop her destruction, even if he could do nothing to stop his own.

He dropped her head and she quickly averted her gaze again. "How did you feel when you saw Cole die?" Weston queried. "Cheerful? Pleased? Delighted? Empowered? Invigorated?"

Her head snapped back around, her eyes full of fury. "What? No," she spat. The fire dropped out of her eyes to be replaced by desolation once again. "I felt…horrible. And confused."

Weston stood and her gaze followed him. "That," he said adamantly, "is what makes you different from Joe Carroll, from murders and sociopaths. You care." He offered her his hand, which she took, a new light shining in her eyes. Mike wavered before giving her a quick hug, adding, "And believe me, we all go through this." Max gave him a weak smile and began walking toward the door, not daring to glance back. Though she didn't say it, there was one other emotion she had felt after she had shot Cole. Relief.

Max hadn't said a word on the way back to New York, but she had managed to calm herself enough to put on a brave face for Ryan. She knew that Weston would keep his promise not to tell her uncle what had happened, but she hadn't yet decided if that was what she wanted. As Ryan handed her the bedding for the couch, she was worried that he would detect that something was off, but he merely left, throwing a formal, "Let me know if you need anything," over his shoulder as he walked out.

She tossed the pillow onto the couch and began making it into a bed. She heard Mike sink into the chair in the corner, and when she turned, his head was bowed. "You okay?" she asked.

He looked up, tears already welling up in his eyes, and Max wondered if this is what she had looked like in Strauss's basement. "Yeah," he tried to assure her, but she knew the lie. It was one that she had told so many times after her own father had died. Mike shook his head, not even believing it to be true himself. "Not really."

"Wanna talk?" she tried.

Weston shook his head again. "Not r-really," he uttered for the second time, his eyes falling back to the floor.

Max had known his answer even before she had asked the question, and she was prepared for the response. "Okay," she agreed. "We'll just sit here."

Mike's gaze met hers again, and she could see his surprise at her reply. She had been there once. She knew the feeling of wanting to be alone while at the same time fearing it. She had once thought that she needed to push people away, to grieve on her own, and she had suffered because of it. She was determined not to let Mike do the same. She gave him a half-hearted smile, and the one he returned was even feebler, but at least it was something.

Weston leaned back in the chair, and he couldn't quite explain it, but he felt as if whatever had been sitting atop his chest these past few days had been lifted. No, perhaps it hadn't been lifted, he decided. The monster was certainly still there, lying in wait, craving the day it could take another stab at his heart, but the feeling was definitely lessened, restrained. His eyes fell downward for a second, testing the woman, but when he glanced back up, Max's gaze hadn't faltered. She raised one side of her mouth in a smile, and Mike felt the monster retreat a little more. It was going to take time for him – for both of them – to close their wounds, but perhaps they weren't lost causes. Not yet.

Somewhere in the distance, a phone was ringing, but neither Mike nor Max paid it any attention. Vaguely, it registered to them that there was a sound indicating a voicemail, but neither of them dared break eye contact. The same happened when the phone began ringing yet again, and it took Ryan to bring them back into reality. "Max," he called from the other room, "isn't that your phone?"

Weston gestured toward the kitchen, and Max sighed. "I'm getting it," she called back, rising slowly from her spot on the couch. Mike watched as she walked into the other room, shuffling through the papers she had earlier left strewn about. As he observed her, it was evident that the woman was barely staying awake.

Finally, Max discovered her phone and looked at the display. She frowned at Chris's name and sent the call to voicemail once again. When they had ended their relationship, Max had been more than willing to remain friends, but this past week had changed everything. Since her kidnapping, she had begun distancing herself from the pastry chef, finally realizing that even friendships could be targets when facing a cult. She shut her phone off in case he tried calling again and looked back through to her uncle's living room. Weston had kicked his shoes off and finished making his bed. He smiled at her as he settled into the couch. "Night, Max," he said, stifling a yawn.

She tried to hide her disappointment as she replied, "Goodnight, Mike."

Weston didn't even try to fall asleep. In truth, as soon as he heard Max close the door to her uncle's guest room, he threw the covers to one side of the couch. Fumbling around in the dark, he found the remote to the tv and flipped through the channels, the volume turned off. He had tried the news and found that there wasn't a chance that he could handle something so real, something so close. After awhile, he settled on cartoons to take his mind off of what had happened.

He was still wide awake at four in the morning when he heard a sound in the hallway. He had just decided not to investigate when a stricken Max appeared before him. The light illuminated her, and Mike could see the horrified look on her face. "Nightmare?" he asked casually. She nodded and he patted the spot next to him on the couch. She sat down, pulling her legs tight against her chest. Mike took one look at her and knew that she hadn't gotten much sleep. He started to reach for the remote to turn his cartoons off, but she shook her head. She fixed her troubled gaze on the tv, and he let his hand fall on her knee instead.

He could have told her that it would get better. That she wouldn't see Cole's face in her mind every night when she closed her eyes. That once she watched murderers kill innocent people so many times, she wouldn't be troubled by the thought of those she killed first. But he remained silent, letting his presence and some minimally-drawn animations comfort her instead. After all, this was merely a variant of what she had done for him. It was now his time to return the favor.