A rewrite of Jodie being spiked in which Max is a lot more caring.
"You have got to be kidding me" Max sighed, pulling open the curtain to the cubicle. "When are you going to learn?" He pulled the curtain closed again behind him, making sure the rest of the department didn't see the state of his daughter.
Jodie froze, staring at him in horror. Why had she agreed to let Rida leave her on her own while she went to find someone. "I-" she mumbled, looking down at the blanket she was twisting between her fingers as her eyes filled with tears.
"Jodie." Max sighed wearily, coming to stand beside the bed. "Is this not getting a bit out of hand?" His earlier anger that she'd gone out and got herself in such a state she was taking up a bed has faded quite rapidly when he saw her face. He was all for going out and having a good time, she'd had it tough with everything that had happened with her Mum, but this was a step too far.
"I haven't been drinking, not really." She choked out, still refusing to meet his eye.
It was at that point he noticed the bruises around her wrists, the dried blood in her scalp and the smudged makeup. "Do you want to tell me what happened?" he asked gently, he reached for her hand but stopped himself, unsure if it was crossing a line. This was unchartered territory for them both.
The curtain was pulled back and Rida froze, looking uncertain. "Sorry babe, everyone is really busy out there…. but maybe I don't need Faith after all?"
"It's okay, I've got this." Max smiled. "Could you give us a minute?"
Rida looked at Jodie, waiting for permission to leave. "I'll be just outside, okay?" She said, and Jodie nodded in agreement.
Jodie looked back down at her hands as Rida left the two of them alone again. Max waited a second to see if Jodie was going to say anything else but she didn't.
"Why don't I get you hooked up and take some obs and then you can tell me what happened?" He suggested.
"I didn't even know you knew how to do that." Jodie joked weakly as he put the blood pressure cuff around her arm.
"It's been a while." He agreed, waiting as the machine did its thing. The rhythmic beep of the machine filled the silence as it measured her heart rate, he frowned looking at the screen. "Anything else hurt apart from your head?"
"I um…" she reached her hand to touch the dried blood on her scalp, wincing. "I don't know."
"Okay." He nodded. "Well your blood pressure and your heart rate are quite low. Are you going to tell me what happened? I can go and get someone else if you'd rather not tell me." He turned to walk away, expecting her to say she wanted someone else.
"Stay, please." She grabbed his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. Her eyes filled with tears again as she thought about what might have happened if Rida hadn't shown up when she did.
"It's okay." His voice was soothing as he perched on the edge of the bed, his hand covering hers as she kept her firm grip on his wrist. "Take your time." He'd already come to his own conclusion about what might have happened from the state of her. The bruises around her wrists were becoming more clearly hand print shaped by the minute and it made his stomach churn a little.
"I was waiting for Rida." She told him quietly, unable to meet his eye. "I don't know if he put something in my drink but I was right there with him at the bar and I didn't leave it, I'm not that stupid I promise. I only had the one drink and I just couldn't… I got away from him and hid in the toilet for a bit but Rida wasn't answering and I didn't know who to call and then he followed me in there and…." The rest of her story was lost to a strangled sob.
"It's okay." He pulled her into a hug without even thinking about it and she didn't pull away. "It's going to be okay." He wasn't sure how long they sat there like that, with her clinging on to him like a life raft, but eventually the sobs died down and he sat up and looked at her. "I'm going to go get some supplies, but I'll be right back, okay? We'll get you on some fluids and I'll run some bloods to see if we can find out what it was. Then I'll have a look at your head."
She nodded, and he squeezed her hand before standing up. "Max." She whispered, her voice hoarse. "Thank you."
He flashed her a small smile before ducking out of the cubicle. True to her word, Rida was waiting just outside. "Thank you, Rida. You're a good friend."
Rida stifled yawn. "I told her she should give you a chance."
"She told you?" He was surprised. Rida nodded, yawning again. "Look, she's going to be here a little while. Why don't you go home and get some rest?" Max suggested.
"We came in together this morning. I'll have to wait and take her home."
Max shook his head. "You look tired. My shift finished a while ago, I'll stay with her and then I can drive her home afterwards."
Rida hesitated for a moment, she was dead on her feet and wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl into bed, but given her friends complicated relationship with her Dad she didn't want to abandon her with him either. "I'll just check with Jodie."
Max nodded. "I'm going to go get her some fluids."
Rida was gone when he returned to Jodie's cubicle, which he took as a sign that she'd agreed to go home and get some rest. "Okay, here we go." He set down the supplies he'd gathered on the bed and turned to put some gloves on.
"I'm surprised you even know where to find half of that stuff." Jodie mumbled, squeezing her eyes shut. Her head was absolutely banging and the lights all seemed far too bright.
"It was a bit of a scavenger hunt." He confessed. "How are you feeling?"
"Horrible." She admitted. "My head really hurts."
"Okay, let's get this set up and take the bloods and I'll have a look at your head. Can you remember what you did to it?" He reached out and out the tourniquet on her arm, already looking for a vein.
"I'm not sure. I think I might've hit it when he tried to put me in his car." She mumbled.
Max flinched at the new information, not realising quite what a lucky escape she'd had. He made a mental note to thank Rida again. "Okay, sharp scratch." He quietly hooked the fluids up and drew the bloods, keeping an eye on the monitors as he did so. "Right, can I have a look at this head?" He asked.
She nodded. "I'm really sorry." Her eyes filled with tears again.
"You don't need to say sorry, you should be able to go out for a drink without having to worry about some creep trying to…" he stopped short. He didn't want to think about what might've happened. "This doesn't look too bad, we can clean it up a bit and it'll probably close okay with some steri strips. Does anything else hurt?"
She shook her head.
"Okay, I'm going to go run the bloods and I'll get you some painkillers for your head. Are you happy to talk to the police?" He asked. "I can call them?"
She nodded. "Thanks." She settled back against the pillow and closed her yes as he left to go and run the bloods.
She was fast asleep when he returned, he smiled, gently brushing the hair off her face. "Jodie." He gave her a small nudge and she blinked at him sleepily. "How are you doing?"
"Feels like the worst hangover of my life." She groaned.
"Well, the bloods all look okay." He reassured her. "I'll put another bag of fluids up while I sort your head out. The police should be here soon as well." He walked around the bed and busied himself setting up the next bag of fluids, hitting the button on the machine to recheck her blood pressure at the same time. "That looks better." He said, nodding in approval at the numbers on the screen. "Let's have a look at this head then." He pulled on his gloves and set to work.
"You're good at this, you know." She mumbled, as he set to work cleaning the dried blood off her forehead.
He laughed quietly. "I'd like to think that after all these years of practice setting up some fluids and a small head wound would be within my capabilities."
"That's not what I meant. I already knew you were a good doctor."
"Then what did you mean?" He asked, securing the first steri strip over the wound.
She was quiet for a moment, looking down at her hands again. "The whole caring Dad thing." She said quietly, feeling her cheeks flush as she said it, wondering if she might've crossed a line.
Max sighed, choosing to focus on what he was doing for a moment while he gathered his thoughts. Jodie winced as he prodded the edge of the wound again. "Sorry…" he took a breath. "The problem was never that I didn't care, Jodie. I've always cared about you, and your mum."
A tear rolled down her cheek and she cursed herself for being so emotional. Could she blame it on the night she'd had? "That's how it felt, growing up." She admitted.
"That was never my intention, and if I could take it back I would." He paused for a second to unwrap the dressing and carefully stick it over the wound. "My life was complicated, Jodie. It still is. I didn't want you getting hurt."
"I'm an adult now. Surely that's my decision to make?"
Max sighed, pulling off his gloves and tossing them into the bin. "I think maybe we should talk about this another time, don't you? You've had quite the night already."
She nodded uncertainly, trying to work out if this other time was ever going to happen or if he was just fobbing her off like he'd done so many times in the past. Her eyes filled with tears again at the thought.
"Jodie." Max put his arm around her again. "We will talk okay, I promise, you deserve some answers and I know that, just not tonight. I'm going to see if the police are here yet and then once we're done I'll drive you home."
"Can you stay, while I talk to them?" Jodie asked hesitantly, afraid of the rejection that was bound to come from him any minute now.
"Of course." He reassured. "Let me go see if they're here, then we can get you home."