Ch 7- Max

After arriving at Bruce's Max collapsed. Bruce carried her to the couch as Terry walked in. Terry sat next to Max. Bruce went into the kitchen and got a needle. He went back to the living room and took a sample of Max's blood. "What are you doing?" Terry asked " I'm going to the cave to run some tests. See if I can find out if she was given any drugs. You can take her to one of the guests' bedrooms upstairs." Terry picked up an unconscious Max and took her upstairs. As he placed her on the bed, she woke up. " Hi " she said " Hey. You had me worried. How'd you get here?" " I walked." " From where?" " I don't remember." Max let out a long yawn. " I'm gonna let you get some sleep ok." " Ok." As Terry left the bedroom he looked back at Max and saw that she was already asleep. He went down to the cave and stood next to Bruce who was sitting at the computer. " Find anything?" " She's got large amounts of diluted chloroform in her system." " Is that bad?" " Chloroform comes in two types diluted and solid. Sometimes doctors prescribe chloroform in pills to help people sleep. Diluted chloroform has been evolved to the point that too much of it can kill a person. Max has more than enough of this in her system to kill her." " Shouldn't she be dead by now? How was she able to make it from wherever she was to here?" " Adrenaline rush. When you're determined to do something blood rushes through your body faster then the poison." " And now that she's here? " " Her system should be returning to normal and the chloroform would be able to catch up with her blood." " It's not a good thing that she's asleep is it?" Bruce turned and looked at Terry. " The last thing you want her to do is sleep." Terry ran upstairs and got Max out of bed. He threw one of her arms around her neck and put his arm around her waist. Max let out a low moan. " I wanna go to sleep." " You can't. You might not wake up." " Where are you taking me? " " To the basement. You're always saying that you wanna see the bat cave right?" " Yes." Terry took Max to the cave and took his place next to Bruce while he continued to hold up Max. " How long will it take for the chloroform to take effect?" Bruce took a long look at Max and into her eyes " It's already taken effect. That's why she's so tired." Terry let out a slight laugh as he looked at Max. " Will it were off.?" he asked with concern in his voice. " In about six it should have run its course through her body. By then she'll be wide awake." " See you in six hours." Terry took Max for a walk around town for what felt like forever. They walked through the park, went passed the apartment Terry used to share with his father before he was killed, they even walked through the halls of Hill High. Hamilton Hill had a wrestling match at the school tonight so most of the doors were unlocked. They sat on the floor in front of their lockers. " I know you're probably tired. I am and I figure it wont hurt to take a five minute break." " I don't mind." For the first time in three hours Max spoke. Her voice was raspy and weak but it was good to hear her say something besides how tired she was. " Besides I kind of like listening to you talk." " How you feel?" he asked with a slight smile on his face. " A hell of a lot better then I did a while ago. I'm still a little tired but its nothing I can't survive." Somewhere deep down Terry knew that Max was going to pull through. For as long as he'd known her she was never one to give up without a fight. Even then she was still a fighter. " So now that I've told you every personal aspect of my life possible why don't you tell me something." " Well. My father left me, my sister and my mother when I was younger. I think was about Matt's age." " Do you ever see him?" " Not really. You're lucky. You and your dad were close. I hardly ever speak to mine." At that moment a group of Hill high students came down the hall singing and bumping into lockers. " We must be winning." Terry said. Max noticed that one of the lockers at the end of the hall was slightly open. She got up and walked toward the locker with Terry close behind her " What's the matter?" he asked " Nothing. Our cheerful classmates must have knocked open this locker." Terry recognized the number on the locker. " This is Nelson's locker." Max opened the locker completely. They were both kind of surprised at how junky Nelson's locker was. " I've always pictured him as kind of a neat freak." Terry said making Max laugh " He'll always be a pig to me." She picked up Nelson's vid screen. You think we'll find anything on this." She asked " If we're lucky." They went into one of the empty classrooms. Terry watched Max as she went through deleted files and scanned through old e- mails. " Find anything? " He asked with a hint of excitement in his voice. " Nothing yet but don't worry if there's something here I'll find it. Tell me some more about your personal life." He laughed to himself. " You know everything." " There's gotta be something I don't know. How's your sex life?" Terry was surprised by the boldness of Max's question but he was never one to shy away from sharing the details of his private life especially when he was sharing them with his best friend. He leaned back in his seat running his fingers his fingers through his hair and folding his arms. Watching him do this reminded Max of the reason she was harboring a secret love for him. " That part of my life is nonexistent. Me and Dana tried a couple of times but it seemed like her father knew when to come home. We couldn't go to the apartment because my mom and brother were always there. Seems like it wasn't meant to be." " Maybe it wasn't." She glanced up from the computer and saw Terry looking at her " What about you. How's your sex life?" " Same as yours. I just haven't found the right person. The few guys I dated wanted to but I didn't like them well enough to do so let alone give them a second or third dates." Max smiled as she looked at Terry and back at the computer. " I found something!" Terry moved next to Max " What is it?" " Nelson got a ton of e-mails from someone named Starfish." " Can you read them?" She looked at Terry smiling " Of course." With a few key strokes Max had every e-mail and instant message ever exchanged between Nelson and Starfish. " Can you send all of these to my computer?" Max closed the top on the computer. " Already done" Terry took the computer back to Nelson's locker before the wrestling match ended. He took Max to her apartment to get some clean clothes and back to Wayne's. " Ok Bruce said you could stay for a few days if that's ok with you." She nodded her head a few times. "When you feel better Bruce wants you to come to the cave so he can run some tests on you." I don't know how to get down there." " Open the grandfather clock, move the pendulum to the left and the back of the clock open." " Ok." " Alright." " I'll see you In the morning." " See you later." She watched Terry disappear into the clock. She let out a long sigh as she put her hands on the back of her neck. " Goodnight Terry McGinnis."