A/N: Thank you to everyone who reviewed, Aurora: I think you're right about White, but I kind of did that on purpose, leave me your email address next time and I'll tell you about it. Acb: Thanks again, I already mentioned I'm using one of your suggestions to write this chapter, and it's beginning to look like I'll be crediting you for the next one, too. SorrowReminisce and DaxisSteele: I'll talk to you guys on The Conclave or The Broken World. Thanks for all your help. Mahida: How did you know I read Laurell K Hamilton? Are you psychic or something? All reviews and emails are always welcome.
For the last three and a half minutes Max has been sitting on a bucket full of rusted out nuts and bolts listening to Ames White breathe. There's enough light filtering through the cracks around the door that she can see him, or could, if she was looking at him. Which she is making a profound effort not to.
"Question, 452," White says from the opposite corner. "What the hell are we doing in this closet, remind me?"
Max glares at him. "We're hiding from the fifty or so armed religious fanatics out there who want to kill us both. If you meant, 'Why are we in this closet together?' I don't know. Temporary insanity on my part."
Glaring at him, unfortunately, involves looking at him, and now that she's not running for her life Max can see that his left shoulder hangs at a very odd angle.
"You all right?" She asks, already screaming obscenities at herself inside. "Shoulder looks a little weird."
White raises an eyebrow at her. She's always wanted to be able to do that. "Just a little banged up," he says, "you?"
"Didn't know you cared." Max tries to pretend that her kick-ass attitude has come back to her. Tries to pretend she's annoyed that he asked.
White sighs, tiredly. "Do I have to explain the whole 'enemy of my enemy' thing to you, again?"
Max is pissed at herself: she was trained better than this. She sighs, and gets up off her perch.
"I know I'm gonna regret this," she says, walking over to White, "but let me look at your shoulder. You're the one with the gun; I'd hate to have you incapacitated."
She stops in front of him, just out of arm's reach. White tilts his head and studies her. "You could take the gun," he says.
Max shakes her head. "Got a thing about guns. Plus, I haven't fired one since I was nine, probably not much good any more."
White is still looking at her like he's never seen her before. "Tell me why you don't like guns."
"Take your jacket off," Max counters.
After a little tense eye-contact, White puts his gun on a nearby shelf and stands to slip out of his suit jacket. Standing this close, Max has to look up at him. He's not very tall, but he's about four inches taller than she is; enough to make a difference. He lets the jacket fall to the ground; underneath he's wearing a dark, button down shirt, and a shoulder holster, no tie.
Max studies him for a moment; without the jacket she can tell that the shoulder is badly dislocated. "Need to lose the holster," she says, softly.
White nods, and glances down, working at his belt: the holster is impossible to slip off his shoulders, he has to take it off completely. The problem with that is that he can't get his belt unfastened one handed, and he can't bring his other arm around that far. Max swallows hard, and closes her eyes, saying a brief prayer.
"Let me get it." Her voice is soft, hesitant.
White looks up at her from his belt, surprised. He opens his mouth to say something, and then closes it again, without saying anything. He drops his hand, and stands still.
Very carefully not looking at him, Max reaches out slowly. Her hands are shaking as she tentatively slides the tail end of his belt out of the loops and works the clasp. Being this close to him brings back the half-crazed obsession of the last week. Max swallows again and forces her hands to stop shaking. She's undressed men before, why is this so…so…so not going there. Max takes a slow, deep breath.
Bad idea.
She can smell him now; a combination of sweat and clean skin and the plain soap he uses in the shower. Whatever aftershave he uses, it's nice. Max takes another slow breath, sliding his belt out of his belt loops and the loops holding the holster in place, trying to get the image of White, covered in soap, out of her mind.
She can feel him watching her, and when she gets his belt off and glances up at him he's studying her, a little confusedly. He doesn't say anything, and Max tries not to think about that, about why he isn't insulting her.
She sets his belt on the shelf, next to his gun, and turns back to him. They look at each other; a thousand unsaid things pass in that look, most of them confused. Max turns to his shoulder. It's ugly. Putting it back into place isn't going to be easy: Max's last field med class was fourteen years ago.
"This is gonna be painful," she warns him, casting a quick glance at his face.
White raises his eyebrows, a mocking comment obviously in mind, but still doesn't say anything.
"Oh." Max looks away. "Right. Never mind then."
She reaches out, and puts a hand lightly on the dislocated shoulder. She's never touched him when they weren't fighting, this is something entirely different. She feels her hands start to shake again, and she hopes White hasn't noticed. Her other hand slides up his arm to rest on his bicep, and he flexes slightly under her touch. Max fights the urge to smile; sometimes a male is a male is a male, no matter what his genes.
Her hands tighten a little in preparation, this won't be perfect, since she can't get her hand all the way around his bicep, but it should work. She glances quickly at him again. He gives her a look that quite clearly says, 'Get on with it.'
Max takes a slight breath, and twists his shoulder and arm simultaneously, shoving his arm back into place. It's not a smooth procedure, and Max gives a slight, internal wince. That had to hurt. She looks up at White again. His expression hasn't changed.
Familiars. How weird are they?
White looks away from his disturbingly intense study of her face to his shoulder. Max steps back away from him as he swings his arm, experimentally. He shrugs a couple of times, and then looks back at her, hesitating.
"Thank you," he says, quietly. He slips back into his holster and begins re-threading his belt through the loops.
Max forces herself to nod casually. "No problem."
But when she turns her back on him and walks over to her former seat, her hands are shaking so badly she's afraid to touch anything, and she's pretty sure she's sweating like crazy. Why White affects her like this she just doesn't understand.
They've been in the closet for just under four hours, according to White's watch, when Max hears the Meekers come back towards the hall the closet door opens into. White, apparently, hears them too because he looks at her and goes absolutely still. Several Meekers appear to have stopped just outside the closet to argue, one of them wants to go home, the others, unfortunately, want to keep searching. They want to eradicate the gene junk sleepers trying to gyp them out of heaven.
'Religion,' Max thinks, 'that is some pretty weird shit.'
A moment later, she realizes that they're going to search the closet. Her eyes widen in panic and she looks frantically at White. He looks from the door to her, and then motions her over to him. Together, they crouch in the darkened corner. They're right next to the wall, about three feet from the door, partially hidden by the shelving. With any luck, the Meekers will open the door, shine the light in, look straight ahead, see nothing, and leave.
Thanks to a very weird miracle, that's exactly what happens. As the door opens, Max and White forget who they're with and draw closer together, pressing back against the wall, trying to get as far behind the shelving as they can. Apparently it works, because the Meekers don't shoot them.
Fortunately, they close the door behind them.
Unfortunately, they don't leave; they go back to searching the building.
When they've gone far enough away that it's safe to talk again, White says, "I'll make you a deal, 452."
Max, who has moved back into her own corner, looks at him, skeptically. "Whatever this deal is, my end of it involves you calling me Max."
A muscle tightens in White's jaw; it does very intriguing things to his face, and Max gives herself a swift, mental kick to get her brain back into gear.
"Fine," White says, after a moment of pained, internal struggle, "Max."
She raises her eyebrows at him, mocking. "I'm listening."
"A deal," White repeats, mostly to himself Max thinks. He looks straight at her.
"I translate the runes," he pauses, hesitating, and then says, after swallowing hard, "and you tell me if my son is still alive."
And Max can only stare at him, shocked.
A/N: Keep the reviews coming; they're what motivate me to stay up all night writing this inane crap. SorrowReminisce: Thanks for your help with the runes; I'll try opening a thread, that's a good idea. Everyone else: I need people's opinions, or knowledge, on what the runes on Max's body say. I haven't seen all of second season and I really need to know before I can write the next chapter. Okay, slight blackmail there. You can probably figure out where I'm going with this by now, but stick with me, I'll try to get a little more original.