Through the Eyes of a Servant Chapter 14, a maximum ride fanfic

Through the Eyes of a Servant | Chapter 14 | by: Rachel / Chapter posted September 4th, 2010.

AU | Max/Fang | PG / 3,944words

When Max accepts a job as a maid in Fang's household, will it be love at first sight? Or will anything and everything come between them?

The idea for this story is my own, and no one else's. Everything else belongs to Jame's Patterson -although I will be next in line for the throne when he retires xD-. I made no money for writing this story, I simply write for reviews.

"Max, open this door!" Jeb pounded on her bedroom door noisily, aggravated. "Come on, Max, wake up! We have some errands to run!"

With a snort, the girl on the other side woke up to the rattling of Jeb trying the doorknob again, knowing full well that it was locked. She groaned, and looked over to the clock on her bedside table. Nine o'clock on a Saturday? Is he high? This is my sleep-in day. "What do you want, old man?" she shouted tiredly.

He rolled his eyes and beat his fists against the doorway once again. "I just told you. You need to get through the shower in the next half hour. We need to go into town to run some errands," he yelled through the wood. "Now open this door!"

"I was sleeping!" she yelled back. "And I'll have you know that it's my only day off, and I plan on enjoying it by sleeping until tomorrow! So check back then!" And with that, she thrust her head back into the pillow and made an attempt to block out the noise with her comforter.

"Max, you're being unreasonable," he said sternly, wondering briefly if a sledgehammer would work for something like this. No, no, I probably shouldn't try that again, he thought wearily.

"Get Iggy to go shopping with you!" she replied through the pillow. "He needs to get off his lazy ass after all that Ella-Nudge-Ella-Nudge bull crap!"

Jeb rolled his eyes. "He's at work."

"…Oh." There was a pause. "Well then, get Gazzy to do it!"

"We're shopping for his birthday present," Jeb argued. "Come on, Max. It isn't hardly fair that he has to do his own birthday shopping." Silence on the other side of the door. "I'm serious, Max. I know you're tired, but it's only once a year. Now open this door!"

"It isn't supposed to open. Hence the lock," she said irritably. Just because things had been okay with Jeb recently didn't mean she resented him any less. And he wasn't helping his case any by getting her up almost-early-ish on a Saturday morning.

"Max," his voice was warning. To be honest, he was hurt. He'd tried to stay out of Max's way while at the same time trying to be the father that she needed, despite her protests. And it clearly hadn't done one bit of good. She still hated him.

"Fine," she muttered. "Just like Burger King – have it your way," she snarled, and threw the covers off. There was a trick to maneuvering around her room. She had one desk, one small dresser, and a queen-sized bed in a shoebox of a room. So, naturally, there was a bit of a problem.

Jeb heard a series of crashing, banging, clanging and clamoring as Max tripped over the desk chair, got tangled up in the desk lamp, crawled to the door and felt her way up to the doorknob, yanking the desk lamp off the table and dragging the alarm clock with it, which promptly went off, emitting a loud beeping noise.

The door swung open slowly to reveal Max crouched on the ground, locked in an intense battle with the desk lamp's wire. "Nothing good comes from doing what you ask," Max muttered, unwrapping the lamp from around her leg and chucking it across the room.

Jeb rolled his eyes. "Look, Max, I admit, we're not exactly the best of pals, but-"

"The best of pals?" Max glared at him from her spot on the floor. "Jeb, believe me, we're not even close to the best of pals. And I'll go, but it's because of Gazzy. But if you think you can pull this off again, busting my ass to go shopping when I'm the one making the money for those sorts of things, you can stick that idea where the sun doesn't shine."

Instead of glaring furiously like she wanted him to, he just shook his head. "Max, I know it's hard for you. And I know you're doing an incredible thing for us. I'm very proud of you." She looked away. "But we can't keep fighting like this. It's unhealthy. I need you on my side."

"Go to Nationwide," she said bluntly, and walked from the room, grabbing a towel from the cabinet behind him. "I'm going to take a shower now. I'll be out in fifteen minutes." She stopped in the doorway and looked back at him.

"Once I'm eighteen, I'm done with this. I don't know where I'll go, but it'll be anywhere but here." She looked down. "It's not because I hate you. I want to forgive you, even though I know it's not your fault. But I just can't." And she turned around.

She heard his footsteps fade away, and she knew she had hurt him. But she couldn't bring herself to care.

It's because you can't forgive yourself.

What was that voice? It sounded as if it had been spoken aloud. She spun around, but she came face to face with the wall. Jeb was gone. He was already upstairs.

Well, that was odd.

She shrugged and walked into the bathroom. It was probably nothing.

"Ah," she sighed contentedly, walking out of the bathroom and running a dry washcloth through her hair to dry it a bit more. She walked down the narrow hallway to her room, and flopped down on the bed. Groaning, she sank into the comforter. Need…sleep…

No! She frowned and picked herself up. Jeb would kill her if he found her asleep again. She walked over to the closet, rummaging through her clothes for something to wear. Oh, what the hell. She wasn't seeing anyone today. She grabbed a pair of faded jeans and an old T-shirt, throwing on the clothes lazily.

Just jeans and a T-shirt? You might meet someone special today. First impressions and all that…

She jumped, falling back onto the bed and rolling over onto the floor, hitting her head on the dresser in the process. She bit back a groan, her eyelashes fluttering rapidly. Where had that voice come from? It sounded strangely like a parent.

"Okay, okay," she said, sounding worried. Was she going crazy, or was she just paranoid? The voice that usually told her what outfits to wear was her own, or Nudge's, not a crazy psycho monotonous voice from nowhere.

Quickly, she shrugged off the shirt and jeans, and replaced it with some skinny jeans and one of her tank tops. Are you happy? She asked the imaginary voice-thing. If it was even there. Come on, Max. You're acting stupid, she told herself.

Stupidity is in the eye of the beholder. Once again, the voice came out of nowhere, and she jumped back, straight into the wall, hitting her head and crashing to the floor awkwardly. Now she was really starting to get freaked out. "Who's th-there?" she asked nervously. "Come out and show yourself!"

There's really nothing to show, Maximum, the monotonous voice replied, sounding somewhat amused, or at least, what she thought was amused for a voice that showed no amusement. She clutched her hair and looked in the mirror, her eyes wide. "What's happening to me? Am I crazy?"

The first sign of going insane is talking to yourself, the voice said snidely. She took a deep breath. Someone had to be playing some kind of a trick on her. But she looked around her. There was no one else in the small room.

"What are you?" she whimpered, huddling into the small corner. It didn't answer. She sighed. It figured. Right when she needed it, it didn't speak. "Answer me," she ordered, feeling silly. Maybe this is what lack of sleep did to a person.

You could say I'm a voice, it finally answered, and she jumped. Make that your voice. She sat still, confused. What did it mean, a voice? She was hearing voices in her head? Was she going schitzo? She just didn't know. "Alright, so I have a voice in my head," she whispered, trying to stay calm. After all, this wasn't the first weird thing to ever happen to her. "No biggie."

"How long have you been living in my brain?" she asked in a small voice. She couldn't believe that she was holding a conversation with this…this…this thing. This little figment of her psychotic imagination. As usual, there wasn't an answer. Instead, it replied back with a completely different statement. It would probably be better to hide this from Jeb at the moment. Sooner or later, you'll understand, Maximum.

"How do you know my real name?" she asked, but she was rewarded with silence. The voice was gone. Make that her Voice. Apparently it had fallen asleep, or just taken a break from her brain. And if she was stuck inside her own brain, she'd want to escape, too.

She shook her head and walked into the bathroom. As she ran a brush through her hair, she realized that it was real. It wasn't just a dream, or a prank. It was a real life problem. The only thing she could do was hope and pray that it went along with the wings, or she really was a schizophrenic. They had pills for that kind of thing.

She had a feeling that no amount of overdosing would fix this Voice.

When she walked out of the bathroom a few minutes later, the first thing that came to her mind was that unless the Voice was going to make any special appearances –it hadn't shown itself in seventeen years, for heaven's sake, it could and would most certainly wait-, she'd be stuck on a shopping trip, for hours, with her father.

Just what was she planning to do for those hours? She didn't like talking to Jeb. These days, they didn't see eye-to-eye on anything, always fighting, and he knew she resented him. It wasn't as if she'd tried to hide it. Help me, please, she prayed to the Voice. Don't leave me alone with him.

She was almost convinced that she had heard chuckling somewhere behind her. Oh, you are EVIL, she glared. I know you're in there somewhere. And when you come out, you are going to be punished. I'll be taking you to a psychiatrist, mister.

And she got an idea. An evil, terrible, wonderful idea. Why ignore one, when you could ignore both? She grabbed the old iPod off the table and shoved the earphones in, turning the volume up until it almost hurt. She could drown out the voice, and Jeb.

She walked up the stairs nonchalantly, walked to the refrigerator and grabbed one of the leftover cheeseburgers from the fourth. As she waited for the microwave to go off, she sat at the kitchen table. It's because you can't forgive yourself.

That had been the Voice that said that. And even though it had only just made itself known today, it already knew her better than she knew herself. She wanted to believe that it wasn't true. She wanted to believe that it wasn't her fault. But it was. It was all of her fault.

Her fault that her mother died, her fault that Jeb had been so heartbroken that he'd lost his job. Her fault that they were poor, that their family was falling apart at the seams. She complained and complained about it, looking for someone to blame, but never admitting that it was her fault.

It wasn't Jeb's fault. He fell apart because she took his wife away from him. And she hadn't meant to. But she hadn't even had to pay the price for her mistake. And she knew it.

For the first time since that day, she relived the death of her mother, her best friend, her favorite person in the world, maker of the best damn chocolate chip cookies you ever had. The iPod slipped to the floor as she clutched her face in her hands, tears slipping out of the cracks in her fingers.

It was her fault. That was all there was too it.

As Jeb walked around the corner, he saw Max's old blue iPod crash to the floor as she covered her eyes. At first, he was alarmed. Was something wrong with Max? And then he saw her shoulders shaking. He heard the sniffling. And all he did was stand in the doorway as his daughter cried, finally realizing what she'd done.

He left quietly. No one had ever seen Max in a time of weakness. Or at least, not a serious one. She'd tried so hard to make people believe she was almost indestructible. And he wouldn't tear down her wall now.

When he walked back into the kitchen, she was gone, but there was a note on the table. Gone to buy Gazzy's present. You don't have to come, I'll get some extra groceries, too. I'll be back in an hour or so. –Max

He rolled his eyes and threw the note down. She didn't have to do everything all alone. Sometimes it was alright to have a little help, even if it was from him. He grabbed his wallet off the counter before opening the front door and running after her.

Iggy flipped a page of his magazine, sitting by the cash register and looking bored as ever. Maintaining the illusion of being able to see was one thing, but he had no idea what kind of a magazine he was reading. Please be something manly like a sports magazine, instead of a teen chick one with 'Bieber Fever' printed on the front, he prayed.

Gazzy was back in the supply room, hunting through boxes of candy and wondering if he would get away with stealing some things. Considering that Iggy was blind, probably. But if they counted the merchandise, he was in trouble. He'd already had three Snickers bars.

The gas station had been quiet that day, with hardly anyone in and out. One woman had stopped in to buy a few cans of cat food like she always did, and a few teenage boys who had gone through puberty a little early had tricked Iggy out of some cigarettes –much to his dismay after finding out from Gazzy-, but that was about it.

Gazzy sighed and walked out of the back room, and sat at the small booth towards the back of the room, putting his feet up and pulling his hood over his head. His eyes closed slowly. He wasn't really tied, but there wasn't anything better to do around here than sleep.

"Why are you even here?" Iggy spoke up, breaking the silence. Gazzy looked up, confused. "I mean, shouldn't you be with Angel, like you are every day?" Gazzy reddened, and he was glad that Iggy couldn't see it.

"I'm not with her every day," Gazzy snapped. "I have better things to do than go to her mansion and have her boss me around."

"Whoa, Nelly," Iggy rolled his eyes. "Isn't this your friend you're talking about? You're always over there, and I know you two get along as well as Max does with Fang. So what's different about today? Did she finally get sick of you?"

"She didn't get sick of me," Gazzy mumbled and looked down.

"Do you like her?" Iggy asked quietly. Before Gazzy could answer, he spoke again. "What I mean is, do you like her, like her? I met her at the 4th of July party, Gaz. You're not going to get any criticism from me if you say yes. God knows I can't talk."

"So what if I did?" Gazzy asked, shrugging. "It doesn't matter anyway. I was going with Max for a while, but I can't keep it up. Her mom's a control freak, and it won't go anywhere even if I did like her. Plus," he looked down, "I'm a poor guy. We're trailer trash, and she's a princess. And it never works out that way."

"It could," Iggy said quietly, and Gazzy looked up at him. "Don't just give up because you don't think you're good enough. If you find someone who you think is right for you, no matter how young you are, don't you think you should try?"

"I wouldn't know what to say to her," Gazzy looked embarrassed. "I've never said anything like that to a girl. I don't know how to do it – you know, say that I like her."

"I can't tell you how," Iggy shrugged. "You have to do it yourself. But…don't just try to be cool. Girls hate that. If they've never been told that a guy likes them before…it's not very exciting if you just tell her that you 'like' her."

"I'm not sure I want to do this," Gazzy sighed.

"You can do it," Iggy grinned. "I know you can."

Gazzy groaned. What had he gotten himself into?

"Dylan, I need a double-chocolatey-chip frappuccino in two seconds!" someone shouted from behind the counter, and he looked up from where he'd been pouring chocolate chunks into the machine. "Got it!" he shouted, and grabbed one of the cups. Today, it was terribly crowded in the small Starbucks. It was a Saturday, after all.

Across the room, Max sat in silence, sipping her latte hesitantly. "You didn't have to follow me here," she said, not bothering to look at her father. Gazzy's present was in a bag at her side. She looked out at the other stores of the mall, other people hurrying by. And she wondered why her life couldn't be like that.

He was silent, and so was she. There was nothing to say. He looked out the window, trying not to make eye contact. What were they now? Friends? Enemies? He could never be sure if his daughter actually loved him or not. It's not because I hate you. I want to forgive you, even though I know it's not your fault. But I just can't.

What did that mean?

"Alright," he said suddenly, glaring at her from across the table. "Max, let's just end this. I know that you hate me, and that you can't forgive me. I don't expect you to. But I…I can't change it!" His face was pained. "I know that it's my fault that she died. I know that. But I," his voice cracked, "I can't go back."

Max's heart thudded dully in her chest. "Y-Y-Your fault?" she stuttered, not believing it. All this time, she had blamed him, when it was his fault. He knew it wasn't. She was the one that had been careless and gotten her own mother killed. So why was it his fault all of a sudden?

"W-what are you talking about?" she stammered. "This whole thing is all of my fault!" she exploded. "Don't you get it? It's my fault that mom died! I was the one that caused it, and I just picked you to blame because you quit your job and we became poor! But this whole thing started with you!"

"Max, it wasn't your fault," he said softly, but she shook it off. It sounded like he was just trying to comfort her.

"It is my fault!" she almost screamed at him, but the place was far too crowded for anyone to hear her. "It's my fault." She lowered her voice. "We were on one of the most crowded streets in California. It was my birthday, so we were going to L.A. for a shopping trip."

She bit her lip to keep from crying, but her voice broke. "I shouldn't have been fighting with Gazzy. It was stupid. I was teasing him, and calling him a piggy because he had two cheeseburgers at McDonalds and I had one. Iggy was with Ella back at home. Y-You were asleep. Mom was driving."

A tear slipped from her eye. "Then it started to get personal. I told him that he'd never have a girlfriend, and started teasing him because he'd never kissed a girl, even though he was only 13. I could tell that I was upsetting him, and Mom told me to knock it off about five times. I ignored her, because it was my birthday, so I could do what I wanted."

She sniffled and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Then he made some crack about how Sam was probably cheating on me. And I thought we'd end up getting married. I was hurt, so I pushed him against the wall, he started cussing, and he pushed me, too. Before we knew it, we were in an all-out war, when I kicked the back of Mom's chair accidentally."

She bit her lip. "Mom snapped, like she always used to when the fighting got too far, she whirled around and looked at me, and told me that I was older, and that it was my seventeenth birthday, and that I should be more mature than Gazzy. The better person. She wasn't looking at the road."

He saw it in his mind, jolting awake and having no idea what was happening, as his wife died right there before him, and with his two children in the backseat looking worse than he'd ever seen them as they held each other and screamed.

"She slammed into the car in front of her," Max shuddered, remembering it, reliving it. "Gazzy and I hit the seats in front of us and held each other. You were thrown against the dashboard. I remember that your face was purple for a long time after that," she said softly.

"But Mom got it the worst. I fell forward, and my hand swung out, grabbing whatever it could. It ended up pressing down on the button to Mom's seat belt, so she wasn't protected when she fell forward." She was crying now. "A-and she rolled f-forward because without her seatbelt…well…" she trailed off.

She was surprised to look up and find him crying, too. "Did you ever stop to think that I blamed myself, too? If I hadn't been too tired to drive, I would have been in the driver's seat, and I would have gone through that window. And maybe things would have turned out differently."

She dropped the latte, and it crashed to the floor, but she couldn't bring herself to care. "Dad," she rubbed her eyes with her hand, "It's not perfect…but if I could go back and do it over, I wouldn't change a thing."

"Look, it may not be any of my business," a voice below her feet said, and she looked down to see a boy with dirty-blonde hair and deep eyes. "But I think that you both need to forgive yourselves. I know it's not easy. But I also know that your mom wouldn't have wanted you to beat yourself up over an accident," he smiled up at her, taking a washrag and cleaning up her spilled latte.

She should have been furious. She should have wanted to jump down his throat and scream at him. After all, what did he know about her family, and her mom? But what he said made sense. She smiled a watery smile at him, and he offered her his hand. She shook it.

"Max, I'm so sorry," Jeb said, and turned away. But before he could fully turn around, she threw her arms around him, and hugged him like she hadn't in months. And even though he was surprised, he hugged her back, his only daughter. Dylan smiled from his spot on the ground.

"I missed you so much, Dad," she whispered into his shoulder.

"I missed you too, Max."

I'm finally back! I know it's been a while. I'm sorry if you're also reading my other stories, they're going to be on hiatus, at least for a month or so. But good news - updates for this story will likely be every weekend from now on. High school is actually surprisingly easy -except for p.e. ohmigod ohmigod hit by the football-.

I'd also like to point out that the SLIGHT SLIGHT Gazzy/Angel I'm working on is ONLY because they are not relateed in this story. In any other situation, I would NEVER approve of Gazzy and Angel being romantically involved with each other. It isn't meant to creep you all out. ^^;; It's going to be kind of a 'cutie' relationship, anyway.

Thanks for so many reviews! I can't believe that by the time I write the next chapter, I'll have over two hundred! ^^ You guys are the best!

~Rachel