A/N: I know it's been a LONG time since I've updated this, so I hope everyone hasn't lost interest in it! Please review and let me know what you think of it! I'm only planning on writing one, MAYBE two more chapters, and I will try to get those up quicker this time.

Thanks to nextbestthing for beta-ing for me!

Chapter 8

It was early evening when Fang walked into the hospital room. No one else was there and all the lights were off except for a small lamp on the bedside table. Max was asleep in the sterile hospital bed, lying on her back with one hand flung across her body and the other resting on the sheet by her side. She was all wrapped up in gauze, bruised and burned from head-to-toe. She looked so tiny there, so fragile. So weak. Fang hated seeing her like this. He wanted the old Max back: the strong, capable, independent Max.

He pulled the generic, gray leather recliner closer to her hospital bed and sat down, folding his elbows and resting them on the edge. He'd done this every night that Max had been in this awful place. He liked to just sit there and watch her sleep. It was his way of apologizing to her, of making up for leaving. Because if he hadn't have left, she wouldn't be in this hell-hole right now. This was all his fault, and Fang felt terrible. Worse than he'd ever felt in his whole life. The pain he felt now, gazing at Max's broken body, was worse than the pain he felt when Ari had shredded his side. Worse than when he'd left Max the first time.

Fang took her hand where it lay on the bed beside her and absentmindedly stroked her skin. He was perfectly content to sit there like that for hours on end.

Suddenly Max's hand twitched under his. Fang froze. Her eyelids fluttered open.

Crap.

Her eyes looked around the room, and then her gaze shifted to him. Her eyes widened.

"What are you doing?" she asked weakly. She was always tired lately. The drugs wore her out.

"Sitting with you," Fang answered.

"Alone? Are you feeling okay?" she asked sarcastically. Now that was more like her old self.

"Ha, ha, Max." She smiled at him, sitting up in bed.

"How long have I been in here?" she asked.

"Four days."

She looked stricken.

"Four days? Oh my God!" She pulled the covers down and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "I have to leave!"

"No, you don't," Fang said, placing a hand on her shoulder and pushing her back down. "You need to rest."

"The hell I do! Don't mess with me now, Fang, I'm warning you. I have a world to save." She tried pushing him away, but at the moment Fang was much stronger than her.

"The world can wait. You need to heal. Look at yourself, Max."

She sighed and stopped struggling. "Fine. But I am not gonna stay here much longer. The moment they take all these freaking bandages off, I'm out of here."

Fang smiled. "It's a deal."

They sat in silence for a few minutes, neither one able to think of anything to say.

Then Max cleared her throat. "So…"

Fang looked at her. She met his gaze, looking him right in the eye.

"You came back." That was all she said.

Fang nodded slowly after a minute. "Yes."

"Why?"

Fang thought for a minute. How to explain?

"I don't know," he finally said. "I guess I just can't stay away from you." He grinned. Max laughed, then started coughing a little bit. All the smoke had really taken it's toll on her lungs.

"I'm glad you came back," she said, looking down at his hand covering hers on the sheets, not meeting his eye.

"Me too," Fang whispered. That uncharacteristic emotion was back in his voice.

"Max…" he said again after a while. "I'm so sorry." She turned her head and looked at him, surprise in her eyes. Fang knew why. It wasn't like him to apologize.

"I never should have left. It's my fault you're here. If I'd known you were going to end up like this…if I'd known you were going to come this close to dying…"

"Stop it. Just stop it, Fang."

He looked up at her, surprised by the sudden force in her tone.

"It's not your fault," she said. "You can't take all the blame for this. I was stupid and careless. I shouldn't have gone back in the house. It had nothing to do with you—"

"But it did, Max. Do you really think you would have gone back into that fire if I had been there with you?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but wisely decided against it and closed it again. She couldn't argue with that one. She knew he was right. "But I'm fine now, Fang," she said eventually. "Everything's fine. I'm alive, we're all alive—"

"That's not the point!" he said, his voice rising. "Do you even realize how close I came to losing you?"

She just gazed at him, waiting for him to continue. The emotion Fang saw in her features was so deep, so un-Max like, that it just fueled him on more.

"When I was holding you on the ground, and you were barely breathing, I thought you were dead—the only thought running through my mind was 'Max is dead, Max is gone, and it's all because of me'. That moment, when I knew for sure that you were gone…that I was never going to see you again…Max, that was the worst moment of my entire life."

As Fang spoke, he saw one tiny tear escape and roll down Max's cheek. He reached over and wiped it away gently. But he kept his hand there, resting it on her cheek. She brought her hand up to cover his as her eyes filled with tears yet again.

"You have no idea how relieved I was…the joy I felt when you squeezed my hand. I don't know what I'd do without you, Max. I need you. More than I need anything. I realize that now."

Tears were now rolling down her face relentlessly. She held his hand tightly.

"Oh, Fang," she whispered, shaking her head. "You're crazy."

"It's true."

"I know," she said, laughing through her tears. "That's what's crazy."

Fang laughed too. He was just relieved that she wasn't screaming and running away. With his newfound confidence, he leaned towards Max, still holding her face in his hand. Amazingly, she leaned her head forward at the same time, and their lips met. Her hands wrapped around his neck, pulling him closer, kissing him deeper.

Fang wondered vaguely if this was what heaven was like.