Max met back up with Cooper and saw the concerned look on his face mixed with worry.
"I'm completely on your side, Cooper." Max assured. "I know how to lie to Maddie."
"I'm going to believe you, considering I have no other option." Cooper said slowly and they both made their way back to his office.
"I swear on my life I'm not going to contact your family to attack you." Max said as he settled in for bed that night. Cooper only shook his hood and smiled.
"What you performed back there was exactly what I would expect an agent to be able to do. You did a great job." A small bit of worry still hung on him, however. He backed out of the room but stopped and came back in part way.
"If you have another bad dream, please, come and get me. Do not stay up all night."
"Okay, I will." Max gave a small smile.
"Goodnight, Max."
Max let out a small sigh as Cooper left the doorway. He knew he was going to have another nightmare. He had one every single night, and only was able to force himself to sleep afterwords half of the time. He closed his eyes and tried his routine again. He tried to think of happy things before falling asleep.
Again, right on time, Max jolted awake with a small yell of terror. The same dream occurred. Max felt tears run down his side as he carefully found his way through the dark towards Cooper's room. Max took a breath as he entered and could hear the Cadillac snoring softly.
"Cooper.." He choked out in a whisper and gently poked him with a wing. Cooper stirred and opened his eyes slightly. Seeing it was Max, his eyes widened and turned on his fog lights to light up the room a little.
"Are you alright?" Cooper asked, concerned.
"I-I had another bad dream.." Max whispered. He found himself shaking a little as the memory of the dream flooded back as he spoke about it.
"Come here, Max. It's okay." Cooper motioned for him to come closer and Max wasted no time in doing the best he could to cuddle against Cooper's side.
Max sniffed and felt himself relax once he touched Cooper. Knowing Cooper was there made him feel safer in a way.
"Did you want to talk about it at all?" Cooper asked gently.
"I don't know.." Max muttered. "It was the same dream as last night, but this time you were in it."
"I was in it? What was I doing?"
"You were, fighting these cars. You told me to hide and I did, but then they killed you." Max had spoken so fast he barely comprehended his last few words until he had already spoken them. More tears threatened.
"I'm right here, Max. I am not going anywhere." Cooper soothed. "It was just a dream. It wasn't real."
"It seemed so real. I could feel the sadness." Max decided that trying to hold back the tears wasn't going to help and gave a small sob.
"Do you think a night light may help a little?" Cooper suggested. "Or something to sleep with? I can get anything you need."
"I don't know what would help.." Max sniffed. "Anything I tried in the past never worked. Maddie never let me sleep with her."
Cooper felt almost a tad bit of anger rise up in him. A so called parent wouldn't reassure their child from a bad dream? How sickening.
"I guess I could try a night light though.." he said softly. "But I don't want to go back to being alone."
"You can sleep with me for the rest of the night tonight, okay? I'll get you a night light tomorrow."
Max said not a word and snuggled in with him. It didn't take long for the two to fall asleep again.
Cooper's alarm went off in the morning and the two of them stirred awake. Cooper had to help Max wake up from the long night of emotion he had.
"Time to get up." Cooper said gently. "Like yesterday, If you need to nap in my office, you are welcome to."
Max yawned and slowly followed Cooper out of the room to prepare for the day. He was amazed Cooper was able to function properly considering he was woken up late that night because of his bad dream. Max could hardly think.
"We really need to do something about your sleep schedule." Cooper spoke absentmindedly as they were back in his office, Max taking up the familiar corner again.
"Why's that?" Max yawned.
"That reason alone." He looked at him. "You should be getting more rest than this. Sleep is very important, especially at your age."
"I'm fine." Max let out another soft yawn as he closed his eyes once again to take another nap. Cooper watched him for a moment with concern before turning back to his laptop. He searched Connor's name once more. Yes, Cooper had read it right. Connor had his last name. Cooper braced himself as he pulled up the information on him. Yep, he was his brother. The pearl white CTS4's image shown with all and every piece of detail Cooper would ever need. Why hadn't he thought about looking up Connor before?
Cooper read that he was 20 years old when he was killed. He was sent on a recon mission and wasn't able to gather enough information before he was caught.
He had died on a mission. The records showed it was a very horrific death of being burned alive. Trapped and engine set ablaze. He had failed the mission. The mission was still labeled incomplete. Cooper gave a sigh. Why hadn't his parents ever mentioned Connor? Why did the Head before him keep Connor a secret? Why was Connor's death the start of hate towards the agency? Not minding the death part, it didn't happen often, but this job was dangerous, and his parents had to have known that. What was so significant about his death? There was no information on what the mission was about or who was behind the death. All Cooper could do was stare at his long lost brother he never had.