Very short chapter here, I was intending on going into more detail and adding a couple scenes but LIFE bruh. Also, I had promised my readers i would update tonight and anything extra and there would have been no updates tonight. So I will try to get moving on chapter 9 ASAP.

Anyways, tonight is post night so my next post will be a Big Time Rush one-shot that I have been begged to do in forever. It's the beginning of a series (hopeful) and is a Katie/James fic (dont worry, even though Katie is a little older, nothing is going to happen until i get that girl at 18 or older. Until then, its just a crush fic lol)

The Ditch

Chapter Eight

Splinted pt. II

She couldn't feel anything anymore. Somehow she was in and out of consciousness, in and out of this very world. The drugs had finally kicked in, and Max Gibson found herself drifting into a place of in between reality and sleep; though this plane was less terrifying than the void that had entrapped her in death. It was as if she knew that she was asleep, but wasn't exactly awake either. Her mind battled with comfort and peace, and fear and uneasiness of the past horror she'd faced, and whatever the girl would have to face in the future as a result of that horror. Still. Everything about her had completely come to an absolute stand still as an unwavering heaviness kept the teen consumed into the bright darkness that periodically shifted from reality and dreams she couldn't grasp. It was as if Max was trapped in a dream where she couldn't remember anything that took place. Yin and Yang, lies and truth – a jumble of fog.

"No!" Max stirred at the hostile voice somewhere nearby.

"Keep your voice down," replied a deeper, more familiar one. It sounded aged…influential…irritated in the darkest of ways.

"Pardon me, Mr. Wayne but I will not!" replied the voice incredulously that Max recognized to be feminine as she stirred out of the medical induced haze closer into reality. "What you're suggesting-."

"-is what's best for her," growled out a younger, masculine voice that made her heart falter. "As it is now, Max needs to remain calm. She doesn't need any more unnecessary stress."

"And you're saying I can't assure that?!"

"Are you kidding?" scoffed a second female voice with enough sass that as Max came to the verge of waking she immediately recognized to be Chelsea…a pissed Chelsea. "You're part of the reason why she's fucked up in the first place! I can see why they don't want to leave her with you."

The older woman's voice crooned out in a manner with so much potential threat Max knew it could only belong to her mother, "Little girl-."

Bruce interrupted the brewing dispute with a tap of his cane on the hospital floor, demanding attention from the bickerers. "Enough. Mrs. Gibson, I understand your concern but think of Max for a moment. Getting her back to your apartment will be a task within itself. And with you and your eldest daughter being so busy, how will you be able to watch after her? Max needs around the clock care."

Sasha snapped back disrespectfully, "Oh, and you can? You can hardly take care of yourself, old man." The sister ignored a rebuking hiss from her mother, Loretta.

Bruce Wayne smiled. "Yes, but the difference between me and you, young lady, is: I can afford to hire a staff at any given time that I want, to do whatever I want. You can barely get a three and a half star hotel when you work. I'm positive Max is in far better capable hands…"

Loretta extends a hand to hold back her fuming daughter as the older woman scowls. "She's my daughter…"

"Yeah," grumbles Chelsea with folded arms. "What a fine job you've been doing…" Sasha swings her hand for the blonde who ducks and counters with a throw of a fist of her own; it connects hard with the eldest Gibson daughter's jaw, causing the young woman to stumble back against the wall.

When Max's eyes slowly pull open, she catches glimpses of hazy blurs pushing back and forth in confusion. But finally after a couple blinks, her vision clears – and Max wakes to find her best friend hooked around Terry's torso and Nelson clinging to Sasha for dear life; both girls trying to lunge at one another. The drowsiness of the drugs burn away as rage starts to simmer within Max's chest. She was laid up crippled, and they were fighting over her like brats at the reading of a will? No. Oh hell no. Her body tensed as she struggled to get a grip of the bed's railing to pull herself up. "STOP!"

All eyes turn for the now awake victim, watching the obviously exhausted young woman give them a glare of deadly disappointment. Loretta pushes through the others and arrives to Max's side, grabbing her hand. "Baby, you're awake."

Max's brows furrowed. "Hell could stir with all the noise in here!" the teen growled.

Terry makes his way around to his best friend's other side, touching the side of her face gently despite her mother's look of flashing disapproval. "You should rest, Max."

"I don't see HOW," retorted the girl sarcastically; but she did relax into the pillows a bit before asking, "Anything from the surgeon?"

Terry shakes his head, noting her discomfort at that information. "They're bringing your discharge papers and a wheelchair."

Max was silent for a moment as she felt the weight of sleep threaten to overwhelm her again now that she was still. "I'm going home?" she asked.

Loretta grinned in dark triumphant, giving McGinnis a look. "Yes, baby. We're going to have you back at the apartment in no time."

Maxine Gibson frowned as if the entire world was suddenly on the verge of collapsing. Somehow the idea of going back with her family was less enthusiastic or comforting than she'd envisioned…especially after all of this. Max knew that what happened to her was her own fault: she should have done the right thing and taken the proper road instead of trying to shortcut it; she should have took Terry up on his offer to pick her up; she should've never let herself get so upset by Loretta's words that she ran off in the first place. Max put herself down in that ditch; but still the young woman didn't want to be placed in the stressful situation that her mother and sister always seemed to press down on the girl. Max had died once – she didn't have a second death wish. "I don't want to go home," she whispered, making the room freeze over.

"What do you mean?" slowly pried Loretta Gibson, her voice starting to give way with anger. "You have to leave the hospital, Max. They can't keep you."

Max bit her lip. "I want to go with Mr. Wayne…" Loretta said nothing else; her standing upright so fast that the chair flipped over and crashed into the base of the monitors behind the bed was expression enough. She and Sasha, obviously insulted, walked towards the door, telling Max to call if she needed anything before turning into the hall – they left an annoyed chill behind with them. Max reached out a hand and grabbed Terry's wrist as the vigilante smiled and shushed her as they waited for the nurses to come.

"You'll be taken care of, Max," assured Bruce as Max's eyelids grew heavy and she eventually drifted once more into the astral plane of reality and dreams; this time with far more peace than she'd originally went into with.

Terry caressed Gibson's head, running his fingers through her pink locks as his blue eyes focused on her resting expression. Yes, she would be taken care of…and he'd make sure she'd never have to go through that hell ever again.

To be continued…