Author's Note: Hello! Any Max & Gabrielle fans reading fan fiction? I found this story I had written many years ago (but never posted) and thought I would post it here. I've been seeing some things online lately (Instagram and YouTube) regarding Max, Gabrielle and Luna, and I saw where Susan Batten made an appearance on GH recently, and then I found this story in my files and decided to post. I may leave it as a one shot, or I might try to continue it. Not sure if I will add to it, but I thought it might be fun to post. :-)
YOU NEEDED ME
Part 1
Al Buchanan (Holden) lay in a hospital bed in a coma, the result of a fall from the horse his father, Max Holden, had warned him not to ride. Asa Buchanan, Al's father by legal adoption, had scoffed at Max's concern. Al was tough, Asa argued. He could handle the wild animal. As Gabrielle Buchanan sat at her son's bedside, she had to acknowledge that, for once, Max had been right. Al never should have been on that horse.
Gabrielle heard the door creak open but didn't bother to turn around to see who had come in. She knew if medical personnel had entered, they would make their presence known. If it was anyone else, she didn't care. Asa couldn't offer her comfort, and she wasn't sure Max would want to.
"You need to take a break. Let's get some fresh air."
She heard her husband's deep voice and felt his strong hands massaging her tense shoulders, but still, she didn't turn around. She continued to press Al's hand against her cheek, wet with the aftermath of her sorrowful, regretful tears. This was not why she had returned to Llanview and had agreed to marry Asa. Max was supposed to suffer-not her precious son!
"I can't leave my son. I won't!"
"Darlin', you know if I could change this..."
"But you can't, Asa, so don't even talk about it! All the money and power you have can't buy my son his life! I want you to leave. I don't need you. I need to be alone with Al."
Asa, affected more than Gabrielle realized by the hurtful words she had hurled while keeping her back to him, released his hands from her soft flesh.
"I'll be outside if you need me."
She gave a curt nod. She turned her head and glanced briefly at his retreating back. She knew he felt guilty for what had happened, but she couldn't focus on him. She needed all her strength and courage for her son. But even as she smoothed his brow with the warm palm of her hand, she couldn't help but wish that Max were in the room with her and their only son. Although hesitant to leave Al's side for even a moment, Gabrielle had a sudden need to find Max.
"I'll be back soon, my darling," she said.
She placed a gentle kiss on her son's bruised cheek and then walked briskly down the corridor, not stopping when Asa called her name, as if she knew exactly where to find her ex-husband.
Max sat in a place he hadn't visited in a very long time. He found himself begging silently, with a God he had barely acknowledged throughout his life, to spare his son.
"I know I don't deserve Your mercy," he spoke aloud in the hospital chapel, "but Al is a good young man. He has his whole life ahead of him. He can be and do so many things. Don't take him yet. Please don't take him! I know this can't be how his life ends!"
Max rose from the pew and began to plea bargain with God. He rattled off any number of things he would do if only God would let his son live.
"I'll change everything about me," he offered. "I'll do whatever you want me to. Just please don't take my son away from me!"
"We seem to have switched roles."
Max turned at the sound of Gabrielle's voice, with its lovely British accent, and stared at the woman who had changed so much over the past ten years. Gone was the long hair he had, at one time, received so much pleasure from running his fingers through. In its place was a much lighter shade of very short hair. She seemed more confident, more sure of what she wanted. She was also more beautiful and that was something Max was having a hard time resisting. As much as he had goaded her that she still wanted him, if he was honest with himself, he would have admitted that he was the one who still wanted her. Looking at her now, distraught but not defeated, he saw the fire and the passion in her eyes. Her eyes were one thing that had not changed. They could show love just as easily as they could show hurt and anger. He would know. He had experienced all of it.
"What are you talking about?" he finally asked.
He needed to break the tension between them.
"You don't remember, Max?" she asked, taking a step further inside the chapel. "You don't remember how many times I knelt in church, praying for you, praying for me, begging God for what *I* wanted?"
Eyes darting every which way, Max, his hands in his pants pockets, shifted uncomfortably as Gabrielle moved closer.
"Let me give you a piece of advice," she said, now standing mere inches from him but needing to look up to see his face, his eyes, the grim set of his jaw. "You can't bargain with God, Max. It doesn't work."
"I wasn't doing that!" he defended. "I was praying for our son!"
"You weren't praying for him," Gabrielle accused. "You were trying to make a deal, Max! You thought you could con God the way you've conned everyone else in your miserable life. Well, no more than Asa, with his money, can save our son, you can't do it either with your bravado and your offers! God couldn't care less about what *you* have to offer Him! None of it matters to Him, Max! Don't you see that?! If He wants our son, He's going to take him!"
Gabrielle's voice broke. Tears threatened her eyes. She vowed she was not going to cry in front of Max. She would not show her need to him. She would not, could not, let herself lean on him, not even for one moment! But when Max held out his arms, it took every ounce of her weakening strength not to let him hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right.
The chapel became suddenly still as Gabrielle's and Max's eyes met and held.
"I'm asking you," Max said, his arms still extended in a gesture of comfort, "what can we do to save our son?"
Part 2
Something snapped inside Gabrielle at Max's question.
"This is sooo like you, Max Holden! Did you ever stop to think that if you had given more time to your son when he wanted to be in your life, this wouldn't have happened?!"
Dropping his arms to his sides, Max released a ragged breath.
"You want to blame me for this?! I told you Al shouldn't ride that horse but, no, Asa's opinion is the one you and *my* son had to listen to! Al felt he had to impress the old man. Why? Why, Gabrielle?! Why Asa? Why is Al calling him 'Dad'?!"
"Well, he could *never* call you that, now, could he?! If you had given him the love and the attention he wanted so desperately from you, Max, he would have never felt the need to impress Asa by riding that stupid horse! This is your fault! And if my son should die, I hope you spend the rest of your rotten life filled with regret. Regret for the shameful way you neglected your son! He deserves so much better than *you* for his father!"
Max gave her a wary look as his eyes narrowed.
"I could say the same about you."
"Maybe before," she admitted, wiping at her eyes, "but not now. You don't know what Al and I have been through. There's a bond between us that will never be broken."
"And Asa just adds to that?! C'mon, Gabrielle, what do you take me for? You're still playing your manipulative little games. I would give anything if Al weren't the one lying in that bed, but you know, deep down, someone was bound to get hurt in all of this."
"Yes," Gabrielle acknowledged, turning to take her leave. "And I wish it had been you!"
Max grabbed Gabrielle's arm before she could escape the chapel. She knew she had said too much. She also knew she couldn't be in her ex-husband's presence for very much longer without her resolve weakening.
"What does that mean?!" Max demanded.
Steeling herself to face him, she turned and met his gaze.
"Exactly what I said. If someone had to be hurt, I would rather it have been you."
"Has that been your plan?!" he questioned. "Is that why you're back, married to Asa? To exact some kind of revenge on me for what you perceive I've done to you?!"
"Perceive?"
Gabrielle gave a humorless laugh.
"It's the truth, Max, and you know it. You could have done something for me, for our son's sake, if nothing else. But you never cared about me or our son! You were too busy with get-rich schemes, conning people, and bedding Blair and Skye to give one moment's thought to Al and me. However do you live with yourself? Do the twins you had with Luna even *know* they have a father?"
Max released Gabrielle's arm and told her to go.
"Too close for comfort, Max?" she asked with a smirk. "I'll gladly leave you to your own misery. I have to get back to my son. You can do whatever you please. I don't really care!"
Max stared at Gabrielle's retreating slender form until she disappeared from his view. As he looked around the chapel, with its white carnations and candles burning near the altar, he realized his ex-wife had been right about two things: he had spent too much of his time focusing on the wrong things, and he had been a lousy father to all of his children.
Despite the anger he invoked in her, Gabrielle felt a keen sense of disappointment when Max failed to make an appearance in Al's room.
"That's all right."
She finished her thought aloud.
"I will always be here for you, son," she said, leaning in close to Al's still body.
Max allowed Asa's presence in the corridor to deter him from entering Al's room. He knew Gabrielle was with him. He would wait until he could be alone with his son, without interference.
He found the entrance to the hospital terrace and slumped down on one of the concrete slabs. Looking at the skyline, he could see the sun beginning to set.
"How I wish I could be watching the sunset from any place but here," he whispered.
"Max?"
He felt Luna's presence at the same time he heard his name being spoken in the air.
"How can you, in your goodness, come to me? Don't you know all of the rotten things I've done?"
"Yes, honey, I do know. Why do you think I've avoided you for this long?"
"So, why now, Luna? I haven't changed!"
"You sure haven't, sugar, but your circumstances have. Look around you, Max. Who is comforting you? Who is telling you Al will be okay?"
Max's shoulders sagged.
"No one."
"That's right. That's what you've done to yourself. You've alienated everyone. We used to have friends, Max. Good friends. People who would be there for us. But we were there for them, too. They've all gone away. You've chased them away. You have a chance with Gabrielle. This accident with Al should be bringing you closer not driving you further apart."
"I'm not exactly wanted in that family, Luna."
"But you are Al's father, just like you're Frank and Leslie's father. Why are you denying yourself your children? It's not healthy. Gabrielle wants you with her. Al would want it, too, Max. Don't you think he would love to hear his father's voice as he tries to come out of his coma?"
Max looked up at the sky, now growing dark. He was never quite sure where Luna was, but she always seemed to be with him when he needed her the most.
"I don't think you're right about Gabrielle, but you probably are right about Al."
"Max, darlin', get rid of your pride and your stubbornness. Go be with Gabrielle and Al. They need you. When Al is better, and you have reestablished some kind of a relationship with him, then go to North Carolina and bring back our children. They need you, too."
"You said 'when Al is better'! Does that mean he's not going to die?!"
"There's something bigger at work here, Max, but it's up to you to accept it to make it happen."
"Wait, Luna, don't go! I need you."
Max no longer felt her presence and knew she had drifted from him once again. But she left him with the one thing she knew he needed the most: hope.
TBC?
