Ok, this is the last of the updates I have ready. AFter this, theres half a chapter and nothing else, and I'll probably end up rewriting that... ^^; So yeah...dont exect too many updates in the near future, probably weekedn or friday at the earliest .-. sorry about that dudes, just the way the cookie crumbles...

Karecitay: Well. I do now, as you know x3 and thanks for the compliments on the chapter =3

Lilyflower: Yes, Damien might get beaten up by a girl -w- all is good wit the world again.

OMRD: Essays sap your soul! =O

Part 11: Patched Up

It was stupid they wouldn't let her behind the nurse's station when the phone chord was so short, so Max was at an odd angle as she lent across the counter, listening to the dial tone as she tapped her slender fingers against the table top. Five rings…six…had they gotten home ok? She turned as much as the phone would allow from the prying eyes of the nurses, finally remembering to breathe as her call was answered.

"Max?"

A pang of guilt hit her stomach as she heard Gasman's slightly scared and confused voice. She'd basically babbled that Nick might be hurt and she had to go back for him as she'd dragged Iggy to the younger kids' school, telling him to pick them up and take them home. He'd wanted to come with her, but she was gone before he could even get a word in edgewise.

Guess the general lack of information would be worse than being in the know.

"Hey Gaz. Can you put Igs on a sec?" She swallowed all the shitty feelings she was torturing herself with to keep her voice level, smiling gently into the receiver as Gasman whispered an 'ok' and scuffling signaled the phone was being handed over.

"How bad?" Iggy's more mature voice was hard and focused. She imagined his eyebrows were creased as he held the phone tightly, like he did when he was worried. She'd always wondered if he realised he was doing all of those things, considering he couldn't see himself do them, even in a mirror.

"He's being fixed up," she replied, balancing the receiver between her shoulder and ear as she hoisted herself up onto the nurse's station. Taking the receiver back in her hand she took a quick look round, the nurses there looking at her, angry creases on their faces as her behind scuffed their papers up.

"Sorry," she mouthed as she covered the receiver, shifting to move off of the papers before looking away again, removing her hand from the phone as Iggy finally spoke again.

"That doesn't tell me how bad."

"I'll bring you and the kids round to see him tomorrow, you can ask him then, ok?" She pressed the phone between her shoulder and ear again to rummage in her jeans pocket, pulling out a folded slip of paper with a number scrawled on it. "I'm phoning to let you all know he and I are alive, and I'll be home about an hour after they kick me out."

"When will that be?" She was suddenly very glad she hadn't given Iggy the gory details, since she seemed to be on speaker phone. That meant both the little kids would have been able to hear all the sickening things about blood spewing down his leg. Her dad was the one who asked the question, his voice laced with worry.

"Probably about nine. You still there Gaz?"

"Uh huh." Yup, stomach turning details could wait.

"Help Iggy find a few cans of spam or something ok? He can cook it if you help him open the tins." She unfolded the paper before taking a hold of the receiver again, briefly scanning over the number Fang had scrawled for her. "I gotta go. Need to phone Nick's parents before the nurses get peeved im using their phone to death."

She heard shuffling and presumed it was people leaving the room. The kids were capable of helping Iggy and her dad run the house without her, that she was now assured of. Thing was, she still wasn't comfortable leaving the house in the hands of two youngsters and two lenient, mischievous blind people. Somehow, it just felt like asking for an accident.

"He's not going to die is he, Max?" Angel's soft voice was so quiet, Max almost didn't hear it. She flattened the piece of paper with her free hand as her face softened. Poor kids weren't used to this kind of drama outside of Gasman getting sick.

"No, he'll be fine Ange. Don't you worry, ok?" She hoped it sounded as reassuring as she needed it to be, but wasn't entirely sure if the shake in her voice was all in her imagination or not. He was going to be ok. The one people she wouldn't lie to was her family. She was just kind of shaken up from the whole thing.

"Ok." Again almost so quiet it was like it had never been said, but Max heard it and smiled very slightly. Her little girl was so brave when the shit hit the fan.

"Now you go help Iggy and Gasman find some dinner ok?" She heard Angel mumble something before she heard the padding of bare feet on carpet. That was all of the kids out of the room, thankfully. Least she knew they'd be getting fed tonight, and she could just go home and flop into bed when the time came around.

"Want any of us up there with you, Poppet?"

"I'm alright Dad. I better get a hold of his folks though." She straightened up again, her free hand now flat on the piece of paper that had tried to flutter to the floor seconds before. "They're probably wondering why he hasn't dropped his stuff off to go to the park with his friends yet."

"Alright. See you in the morning. Don't worry if you get home late, Iggy and I can handle things here."

"Thanks Dad." She smiled slightly as she whispered into the phone, playing with the piece of paper absently. She always felt kind of cruel, making out her father was the one keeping her indoors all the time. He was a way cool Dad.

"Miss?" Max blinked up at the nurse just as the phone line went dead, taking a few seconds to look at the woman before spinning round to replace the phone on its holder. When she turned back, the nurse was holding a handful of slightly mismatched objects out to her.

A couple of pieces of folded paper, a set of keys and a granola bar.

Max furrowed her brow slightly as she took the items from the nurse, trying to connect the dots as she stared at them. It was a few seconds before it really clicked in her head where they were from. The granola bar gave it away.

"Thought they'd be safe with you, as you came in with him. You do know him personally, right?" She looked up at the nurse and nodded once in confirmation before looking down again, playing with the pieces of paper before stacking them on top of the granola bar. She'd give it back to him in a few days, or he'd probably try and eat it on his dodgy stomach.

"Yes." She finally replied as she looked back up at the nurse, holding the items tightly in her hand. "Friend from school."

"He gets into a lot of fights doesn't he?" Max creased her eyebrows again as the woman smiled half heartedly. "I was reading his history. He was in her not too long ago for being beaten up on the street. Maybe the same people?"

Not likely, he hadn't started school. "Maybe. I don't think anyone's really sure."

"Well, maybe you could give him reason to say out of trouble, if you catch my drift." The nurse winked at her before grabbing a chart off the nurses station, slipping a pen into her pocket. "He's been asking if you've finished your calls yet almost virtually since you left. Missing you already." She smiled widely before tottering off down a corridor, leaving Max with her mouth slightly open, blinking confusedly.

He didn't act like he liked her that much, especially not like that. Yeah, they hung out as friends after school, helped each other with homework as friends did, but he'd never tried to make a pass at her. Barely even touched her, and that was to comfort her when she was crying.

Did he like her more than a friend?

The papers in her hand almost fell from her grasp, pulling her out of her mind and back into the real world as she scrambled to catch them. The one that almost made it she caught with two fingers, the little piece of paper half unfolding in the process. Max pulled it back onto her lap and picked up the phone again, ready to dial the number Fang had written down for her.

As the phone rang, Max played with the half folded paper curiously, taking a few seconds to debate an idea. Moments later the receiver was jammed between her shoulder and ear as she unfolded the paper properly, scanning her eyes over the contents.

Having sat next to him in virtually every class all week, it was easy to recognise Fang's scratchy penmanship. Three numbers were written on the lines of the notepaper, followed by a few words Max scanned over, her eyebrows creased together.

Free daily care for the blind…benefit cocktail check list…carer's benefits?

She refolded the first piece of paper and opened the second, waiting for someone to answer the phone. This one was similar. Websites for legislation, a number to ring to get certified as a young carer, what needs to be done to check that she was able to look after her family.

As she read over it all again and again, something in her head slotted into place. She'd have noticed if he'd been writing these down in computer studies, and even then they hadn't had that lesson today. She'd only told him about everything this morning. Her stomach did another nosedive as her brain finally registered what she was concluding.

He'd looked them up before she'd told him.

"Hello?" Max almost fell off the nurses' station when a female voice finally sounded down the phone. She'd forgotten she had the receiver pressed to her ear. Letting her pulse rate drop again, Max ignored the paper that flitted to the floor, deciding to pick it up when this call was over.

"Uh, Mrs. Arnold?" There was a short pause.

"That was my name before I remarried, yes. Can I help..?" Least he'd given her the right number. Though to be fair she'd pestered it out of him while he was high on painkillers. Probably wasn't thinking straight.

"This is Nick's friend Max, from school."

"I'm sorry, Nick hasn't come home yet. Would you like me to rela-"

"No, I'm calling about Nick, Ma'am." Max interrupted her, certain if she let her get to the end of that sentence she'd chicken out, leave a false message and hang up the phone. There was another short silence before Max took a deep breath.

"We're at the hospital. Nick's been injured…"

*~*~*~*

Fang laid with his eyes closed, slightly propped up against the back of his hospital bed with a good few pillows supporting his head. Not that he was leaning on the back, more like the side, where there wasn't a stitched up gash trying to bleed on everything. The nurse had gone to get more bandage, as she'd used virtually all of it fixing up his thigh.

For the first time in a couple of hours, he was alone. He decided in that small space of time that he didn't want to be alone, it was too damn quiet. He could feel his heart beating in his ears, but there was nothing to distract him from it.

He swallowed a groan as he shifted his leg on the bed, not turning his head as he did so. He had to lay on his back because of his leg, yet needed to keep his head at an angle because of the gash there as well. Needless to say it wasn't the most comfortable of positions.

And his painkillers were wearing off.

The second they'd gotten through the hospital doors, Fang was plopped into a wheelchair and was pushed through the many weaving corridors of the hospital he wished he'd never have to visit again, or at least not twice within the same month. Not that he remembered the route to his room either. His eyes had been tightly shut against all the random pains in his body.

When transferred to a bed, the nurses and a doctor started examining the damage. Max was standing in the room and telling them what she'd found that hurt on the way here, asking him if there was any detail she'd missed.

Problem was Fang wasn't paying attention. In amongst the pain and the blood, all his hazy brain really focused on outside of the painful stuff was the doctor as he clapped his hands and called for someone to lift Fang's behind off the bed, so they could get his trousers off and assess the nasty wound before he bled too much.

Before he could even utter an opinion his jeans were gone, leaving him in a black shirt and his boxers in front of about five stranger and the girl he was A) falling for and b) had barely known for a week

Fang had never been so embarrassed in all his life. And this was as far from how his testosterone driven teenage mind would have pictured Max seeing him in his boxers for the first time.

Max had pulled a chair up against his bed and held his bruised hand very gently, unable to hold the other once since an IV was being put in it, to replace the glucose and everything else he'd lost when his blood had been spewing out all over the poor taxi driver's car.

His leg had jerked and the silent façade dropped when antiseptic was pressed to his leg.

"Shit!" Max lightly stroked the back of his hand as he squeezed his eyes tight, setting his jaw. Max's hand then migrated to gently stroking his face, wiping away a few strands of hair that fell in front of his eyes. "That fucking canes!"

A few seconds after the initial pain a needle was pressed into his leg, the cool liquid slowly numbing the whole of his thigh as the nurse continued to clean the wound. It was all plain sailing from there as he was cleaned up and stitched up, Max leaving him with the nurse just as she started wrapping bandage around a dressing she was holding over the new stitches.

He flexed the fingers of his bruised hand as he tried to get comfortable in his pillow, the throbbing in his head slowly getting more and more prominent as he tried to relax. His leg was a dull ache by now, but the anaesthesia had yet to completely wear off.

Not only that, but his head was working overtime. Max had conned his home number out of him while he was in a painkiller induced delirium , that meant it was very likely his mother was going to turn up crying her eyes out before the evening was over. Something his throbbing head could do without.

The nurse returned a few minutes later with a new set of bandages and spme padding for the wound, pulling him up carefully into a more upright position before wheeling a tray over from the far side of the corner. He glanced down at hit before she tiled his head gently to the side, dabbing a damp cloth against the stitches in the back of his head.

Antispetic again. He bit his lip and squeezed his eyes shut, letting the nurse get on with it until she pressed the padding to the stitches and started wrapping the bandage around it, holding the padding in place. A few moments later his head was back on the pillow, more painkillers were dissolving in his stomach and Fang was subjected to silence once more.

He creased his brow as a wave of nausea hit him, wishing his stomach would settle after being kicked in. Nurse had told him he wasn't to eat until tomorrow lunchtime at the earliest, and that he was going to be in here for at least three days. He'd have to miss school tomorrow.

He was going stir crazy already. He could feel a hand on his head.

He opened his eyes to see Max back in the chair beside his bed, lightly stroking her fingers down his cheek over and over. Ok, not totally crazy, but he was probably bordering on it as he attempted a smile that most likely looked like he was constipated.

"Hey." He wanted to cringe at his own voice. It sounded weak and tired, hoarse as his throat scratched slightly. He wanted the floor to swallow him up, so Max wouldn't see him looking so damn frail.

"Hey," She whispered it as a very small, reassuring smile touched her lips. He could help but smile back, more genuine this time, before closing his eyes again, adjusting his head on the pillow as her fingers softly swept down his chin and neck. "I called your Mum…"

"Guessed you would…"

"She said Mike forgot his key and she needs to be home for when he gets home, and that she'd come over tomorrow." Fang really wasn't that surprised. He didn't like his wife having a life outside of him, probably in case she realised he was treating her like shit. He'd probably 'forgotten' his key on purpose so she had to stay home. It wasn't the first time he'd done it, since they'd been right by the door a few times and he'd just left them on the table.

He'd spouted lies about her old friends, brainwashed her into thinking they wouldn't want any contact with her now she's moved away, as well as being kept indoors almost all the time, so making new friends was difficult.

She wasn't even allowed a job, not that it was necessary on his salary.

"K…" Max continued to trace her fingers over his cheek and jaw, watching his expressions closely. Occasionally his face would screw up, or his jaw tighten. Presumably from pain he was refusing to voice, or something of that nature. Over the next half an hour, his face was slowly relaxing, his flinches lasting shorter amounts of time.

He was falling asleep.

She didn't blame him. He must be exhausted, not to mention oxygen deprived from the blood his body needed to replace. She lightly traced the scar under his eye as he repositioned his head in his pillow, his bruised hand flexing absently. He looked delicate, fragile, not something Max expected from him.

Five minutes later, he was out like a light. Max took her hand from his face and folded it into her lap, watching him breathe steadily. His face was relaxed and calm, not showing any emotion but at the same time not trying to hide anything. She couldn't help but smile. He looked so peaceful, like the kids when she put them to bed.

He fidgeted slightly and licked his lips, still fast asleep as a small sigh escaped his mouth before they pressed back together again. The position he had to lay in couldn't be comfortable. He was probably going to sprain his neck if he kept laying like that. Max tentatively leant forwards and touched the back of his head, pressing softly where the wound had been sewn up. No reaction. She pressed a little harder, the kind of pressing she assumed would come from resting your head against something, and still got no response.

Carefully, she manoeuvred his head so he was laying on the back, looking up at the ceiling. She took her hands away and watched him sleep for God knows how long, slipping her hand into her pocket to clutch the numbers he'd written down for her as she watched him furrow then relax his eyebrows, his hand flexing randomly as he dreamt.

He knew the truth about her before she'd admitted it. He'd gone to the trouble of finding out this information for her, trying to help make her life easier. He may not have been one to voice it in words, but she knew he cared much more than he was actively letting on. In that respect, they shared something. They shared the desire to help one another, something Fang had already acted upon. Something Max was incredibly willing to do as well.

And she'd start with Damien.