Kissing In the Dark

Part 1

When Maxie looked out the window all she saw was snow. Falling down in huge flakes, one after the other. She smiled slightly as she remembered being in the vault, she knew it wasn't something she should smile about when she thought about it, she should be too traumatized to even want to think about it but, she wasn't. She glanced over towards her bed and looked at Three when she knew he wasn't paying attention. After they had been stuck in the vault they had for a while they had developed some trust in each other, enough for him not to hurt her. Maxie sighed and focused her attention back on the snowy scene outside her window.

Three watched Maxie as she focused her attention on the snow outside. He sighed as he remembered being stuck in the vault with her. He had expected to be in and out of the Metro Court in five minutes he hadn't expected it to turn into a hostage situation and he definitely hadn't expected to be stuck in the vault with Maxie. When they had first gotten stuck in the vault he had all intentions of using her as a shield he resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he remembered the conversation they had about him using her as a shield…

"Ok. Nice. It's nice to meet you. My name is Maxie Jones. My dad's a government agent, not that you need to worry. He hasn't been seen in this town for years -- my mother, either, as a matter of fact. She's been in Texas taking care of my very tenacious great-grandmother. So that leaves me, my little sister, Georgie and my stepfather, Mac, who happens to be police commissioner if that carries any weight with you."

"Nice try, but save your breath. TV hostage tricks won't work."

"I -- I don't know what you're talking about."

"Trying to tell me about your family and your life, trying to get me to see you as a real person? I'm not interested."

"Ok. Ok. Well, you have to be interested in getting out of here. I mean, you broke into this hotel to get that briefcase. You must know how to defuse it."

"Not without the code."

"Wait -- so what's your plan? You want to sit here and passively just wait for that thing to self-destruct and kill you?"

"Actually, I'm going to make sure that you're between me and the blast."

When the explosion happened he had done the exact opposite of what he said he was going to do, he didn't use Maxie as a shield he tried his best to shield her from the blast. Sometime during the sixteen hours they were locked in the vault he had began to care what happened to her. His thoughts were interrupted when Maxie sat down next to him. After a few minutes of silence Three spoke up.

"Okay, I haven't known you that long but from what I do know you're never this quiet,"

Maxie smiled.

"I do have the ability to be quiet you know even though I don't use that ability very often,"

Three smiled but quickly turned serious.

"About your step dad Mac, how do we plan on keeping him from catching us?"

"Don't worry about it, Mac won't be home for awhile," Maxie said confidently.

"Won't he be coming back here to check on you at some point?" Three asked.

"At some point yeah but he has to deal with everything down at the Metro Court and he'll probably go to General Hospital to check on Robin,"

"You make it sound like he's not going to bother checking on you," Three observed seeing Maxie's confidence dissipate.

"I know he will after he checks on Robin and I understand he has to check on her first, I actually want to stall him checking on me because he has a tendency to hover,"

"I'm assuming you don't necessarily like that,"

Maxie shook her head.

"No, Mac's done it since I was really little I didn't really like it when I was really little but I dealt with it and when I got older I started wanting to do my own thing most of the time and we would get into arguments because I would want to do something and he'd say no and I would get mad at him, you get the picture,"

Three nodded.

"He just did that because he cares about you,"

Maxie offered a small smile.

"I know that now it's just when I was in junior high and high school I didn't see it that way, I always saw it as him holding me back from growing up so I didn't always listen because I was so stubborn,"

"So you got grounded a lot huh?"

Maxie laughed.

"Oh yeah and I hated it but I usually deserved it,"

Three looked at Maxie for a second.

"You don't give yourself enough credit Maxie,"

"You don't have to do that you know," Maxie said as she briefly thought about when they discussed what her dream job would be.

"Do what? Try to make you see that even if you've messed up that doesn't make you a horrible person,"

Maxie offered a small smile and started to speak but before she could say anything the lights flickered and the room went black.