A/N: I do not own Maximum Ride, very sad about that.
His arm slips around her and instantly there is a collective intake of relief. Now that he is here she can take her eyes off of Evie, if only for a moment she can take her eyes off of her little girl whose own body is betraying her as she stands. Her little girl is wasting away in front of her and there's nothing for her to do about it; nobody's ass can be kicked hard enough to make up for this… she is helpless. For the first time in who knows when, she is completely, and utterly helpless. All she has done for the past hour, a whole hour, is look into that God-awful room and watch her baby sleep even as her body gets paler and her skin more waxy… her bones frailer. Her child is beginning to resemble a doll, no more, no less, and even at her best it is a doll that anyone else would regard as sickly… her beautiful little girl sickly? The words don't even belong in the same sentence… but yet she has been here before. She has stood in this exact-same spot in this exact-same hospital more times than she can count, but still tonight seems different. Tonight is different. The pain had struck too suddenly; she had been fine, at least she hadn't let on anything to contradict that; she had been fine one moment and the next lying on the floor clutching at her stomach while tears rolled down her cheeks.
"How is she?" His lips brush her forehead and she sighs. Tears are pricking at the corners of her eyes and she blinks them back, but it is a futile gesture; they are coming, whether she likes it or not they are coming. She lets them flow. His arms wrap around her and she allows herself to be pulled into him, allows her face to bury itself in his wiry shoulder. "That bad, huh?"
He sighs and she laughs; it is a hysterical sound that by no means could be thought of as joyful. She is hardly aware that she is nodding until he pulls her away and shoots her that look. Not that you're-crazy-how-can-you-be-laugh look, but a more subtle I-wish-that-I-had-it-in-me-to-laugh look. She forces herself to stop nodding and to look him in the eyes, to tell him the edited version of what the doctors had told her.
"Fang, it's spread." She can hardly hear the words herself but she knows that he can. She knows he can by the way he leans in farther, by the way his eyes flicker from her face to the window into their daughter's room. She's seen that look before; he's trying to focus his attention. He wants to know what she has to say but at the same time he couldn't care less. Right now his daughter is in the room directly across from them, and from their perch here he must be able to see her clearly. Must be able to see her deteriorating form clearly; of course, he's seen if before, but everything looks different in the light of the hospital. Nothing looks the same once you walk through those double doors; once you sign away your daughter's to a person that you more than likely have never before met. Finally his eyes flicker back to hers and she is able to see all the pain and concern in them… enough to fill oceans.
"I don't… you know I don't understand all their talk… I don't… I don't understand it at all." She breathes, or rather, tries to breathe; it won't quite work, the air won't quite come out right. She stifles it back and resolves to breathe through her nose for the time-being, "They just… they said that...Fang," She doesn't want to do this… she doesn't want to deliver to him this death sentence, but at the same time she's the only one who can. "Fang, they said she's… she's… she's not… she's not going to make it. It's… it's serious this time… she's… she's not strong enough."
Her shoulders are shaking so hard, like tiny volcanoes are erupting just below the surface of her pronounced blades… they are shaking so hard it is painful and she doesn't know quite what to make of it. Her sobs are silent, her tears gushing but no noise accompanying them… she has only ever cried like this once and that was when they found out about Evie's cancer three years ago. It had scared her then just as much as it scares her now, probably more so. Right now it doesn't bother her. Right now all that bothers her is the shell lying in the room across from her. Surely that can't be her daughter? Surely that can't be the same daughter as what her memories show her? It just can't be… the two don't match up.
Her Evie, the Evie of her memories was so vibrant… so full of life. Stay in bed all day? Take a sick day? Not even an option in her Evie's mind… even when she was little and her body had ached and pained and tears had ran a river down her cheeks she had still begged to be let out of the prison-cell that was her room. She had begged and pleaded till finally they had had no choice but to let her outside, to let her expand her wings and fly, even if only for a few minutes.
Her Evie would not have been able to lie in that hospital bed for this full hour and just sleep. Her Evie would have gotten out the bed, expanded her wings, and demanded access to the yard. She would have been flying before therapy was even fully over; at least in her mind she would have been… her baby would not have been, even in the least, content to lay there and sleep, not when she could be flying. Her Evie would always be able to fly, no matter what; she would be able to fly.
The estranged sob escapes and he wraps his arms around her; there is no warmth in them. The gesture is just that, a gesture, there is nothing in it… he can't put any more in it because his eyes aren't flickering anymore, the black and gold orbs are now focused solely on the door to their daughter's room. In a matter of minutes he will leave her. In a matter of minutes she will be alone again.
He doesn't leave her, though, he stays there, his arms wrapped grimly around her and his voice tense as he mutters, "How did this happen?"
"I don't know." She chokes on her own words but swallows it back, "I don't know… one minute she was fine, sitting in the corner playing with her dolls, and the next she's over on the floor crying and holding onto her stomach. She never said anything to me about it hurting… she just… she just sat there and kept playing…"
"Looks like she's starting to come out of it… see her eyes are blinking a little… I'm going to go on in there." His words are barely a whisper against her ear, his kiss a feather on her forehead, he wastes no time in advancing for the door and with a sigh she follows him. She doesn't want to go in there but what else can she do?
His daughter's eyes are open when he walks into the room but they are by no means alert or alive. Not the kind of alive you want to see when you visit your daughter in the cancer ward; not the kind of alive you want to see ever. He takes her hand but other than a little blink of her eyes she shows no signs of having recognized him… a string of curses run through his head but he won't dare utter them in front of her. For her he will paste on a smile that feels forced even to him, he will paste it on and it will be a good smile… it will be reassuring… for both of them.
She looks too pale, her eyes are too dark in contrast to her skin and it is almost startling. He's seen her like this before… he's seen her like this off and on for four years… that doesn't make it any easier. Nothing makes it any easier.
Max is behind him and he feels her put a hand on his shoulder before taking the girl's other hand; the gesture makes it too real. The gesture makes it much too real because he knows what he's looking at now… he's not looking at a get-well-soon scene, he's looking at a we'll-miss-you-so-much-goodbye scene. It scares him; his hands are trembling and it scares him.
"Daddy…" The voice is so weak, like if Evie had been flying and her words had carried back to him by the wind… but she hasn't been flying, she's been lying here in this bed dying. His little girl has been lying here waiting to die and he couldn't even make it here up until an hour ago? Something like bile rises in his throat but he swallows it down, forces himself to maintain that somewhat trembling smile.
"I'm here, Sweetie… Mommy's here too." He doesn't recognize his voice, his too, like Evie's, has been taken away by the wind; Max doesn't look happy. She doesn't look like she wants to be here and her eyes are shifting uncomfortably around the room. For a moment he feels a flash of irritation at her… this is her daughter and her daughter is obviously scared, the best she can do is look around the room?
"Yup, I'm here, too, Eves." Max smiles but the tears pooling down her face are landing on the crisp-starch of the bed sheet, her voice too has been carried away. He wants to reach over and comfort her but he doesn't dare let go of his daughter… if he does she might slip away… if he does she will slip away.
"Daddy… Mommy…" The little girl croaks trying to make her words unclog from her throat; he feels tears track his own cheeks at that, and he tries futilely to blink them back. They come anyway. "I love you…"
"We love you, too, Evie… we love you, too, so much." He can't even feel the shaking of his shoulder blades, can't even feel the tears running their course down his cheeks; he presses his lips to his daughter's forehead and sits back down to watch as the light leaves her eyes… as those magnificent orbs darken and darken until finally they are no longer orbs at all… a sob breaks from within him.
Ten minutes later his daughter is gone.
A/N: I don't know how I feel about this and if you don't like it then I don't blame you because I'm not even sure if I like it. I've got another story kind of similar to it, but I wanted to mess with the ages and other stuff a bit and see what I got so I just wrote this. So, yeah, really not sure about this so if you do want to see it continued drop a review because I'll need some prodding.