Unexpected

Part 1: When the Call Ends

"It's not just about today. It's about everyday, Helen. Everyday, since the day we met, I don't know, something just always felt...right,about being near you, working with you- confiding in you. You make me feel safe and at home." His smile is small on his face, his body trembling slightly from being so vulnerable with her. "Alice is very nice and she will be a good friend...but I told her that's all it could be between her and I."

"Max, I...I don't know what to say." She says quietly and he lets his hand drop of her thigh. He doesn't know what she should say either- what he wants her to say. A part of him wants to know if she feels the same magnetic pull or if she really only sees him as a friend. Being Max and not wanting to ruin a good thing, he smiles and waves it off.

"It's all silly anyway. Forget it." She wants to press further, but knows Max wants the conversation to be buried. After Georgia's death, he became slightly more closed off to the world, let alone her. She knows he blames her for leaving him for three months to go fundraising around the States. When she came back, he treated her like a ghost- avoiding her at all costs because he was angry and grieving. If she wouldn't have left, would he have let her in? Would he have allowed her to help him with Luna? Help him organize his life after losing the love of his? She doesn't know. She won't ever know. She has Max back, but he still isn't the same. He's quieter, more calm, and always moving in drastic patterns, leaping from one bad decision to the next. The only solid thing about Max ghat has never changed, is the way he talks to Helen. Telling her and others what he thinks of her, telling her he favors her over everyone else, and the slight intimate ways he hints that he cares for her more than just friends. That has always been Max, since the first day she met him. "Something's been bothering you lately. What is it?"

He pulls her from her mind and she looks up at him, half saddened and half relieved he asked. It's been wearing on her all day- let alone months.

"I'm scared about where my department is going." She says blankly. Max cocks his head to the side and figured it had to do with work.

"Burden me." He says and she sighs, sitting to face him completely, sitting on her legs with her hands on her thighs.

"I'm worried about all of Valentina's patients. I know it's not my place any more to step in, but when I see her patient barely able to walk down the hall and barely stand- I have major concerns. Castro is more concerned with her research and getting results than taking care of the patient and making the comfortable and curing their cancer. The patient told me that Castro said she is close to finishing her research and that she's been a good case study. That her cancer is almost gone so she needs to tough out the pain and side effects a bit longer so she can complete it. She isn't taking care of the patients, she just using them as guinea pigs. I can't stand by and watch any more Max. She's going to end up killing them." She's so upset right now and Max feels anger and frustration coursing through him now. He heard the rumors that Castro was this way, but never wanted to believe they were true.

"I will get to the bottom of this and make things right. Okay? I won't let her slide for this one." He has her hands in his and they meet eyes momentarily, before glancing away, both blushing like mad at the tingle in their hands. He lets go and clears his throat. "Can I ask you a question? If you don't believe in Castro's work or ethics- why give her half your department?"

Helen looks at him. She knew this day would come. The day she has to reveal why she does what she does and why she signed everything over to the devil.

"Because of you." She says and he looks at her, not understanding her words. "She threatened to stop treating you, unless I gave her half my department. So I did."

"But you lost everything you worked hard for. Your title's, your chair. Why would you do that for me?"

"It's the same reason I stayed at the Dam, only to be mocked and ridiculed by Castro and other high ups." He's not following. So she spells it out for him, putting her hands on his shoulders and looking deep into his eyes. "Because I care deeply for you Max and I don't want to live a life where you're not in it. I love going to work, knowing that somewhere in that huge hospital, you are there making jokes, saving people, and always waiting for me. You make me feel like I matter and that I can do great things."