Sofia rose up her hand to press the magic button to call the nurse.

"What're you doing?" Max inquired from the sofa.

Sofia was irritated beyond measure. She contained the groan that tried to crawl out of her throat.

Couldn't he just take the hint that she was trying to avoid him!

"Sofia?" The guy was a stubborn freak.

"Calling the nurse," she kept the bitter edge out of her tone.

No need to poke the monster and see if it is awake.

"Why?"

"To help me to the bathroom."

"I can do that," he announced. Coming to his feet he reached her bed in a couple long strides. He even went about to slip a hand down her shoulder to help her up.

"No, you can't," Sofia snapped.

But Max seemed way too determined in helping her, to prove how he definitely could. For her injuries she couldn't even kick him in the shin when he carried her to the bathroom.

He left after putting her down in front of the toilet bowl.

Grumbling to herself she did her business, pressed the flush button and unlocked the door. Max entered on cue and was silently about to carry her back to the bed. But Sofia refused to keep getting carried by him anymore. In her mind, it scarily seemed to be turning into a routine since the day they got married. Besides, the warmth radiating from his body every time he carried her was beginning to make her feel weird. Her mind was giving her all types of signals saying—this is no good; this only means trouble.

She protested by wiggling away from his hold. It hurt to do those little movements but she found she was slowly getting used to the pain.

"But how will you walk?" He frowned, looking down at her strapped ankle, lifted a bit from the floor. She was not supposed to put pressure on it.

"I have one good foot," she announced defensively, and then holding the door frame, limped a step forward in proof. Once again it hurt a little but she did it anyway.

Her pride was in the line, no matter how battered and bruised it was by now.

Max gasped and narrowed his eyes when she swayed slightly on that one good foot.

Instantly and before disaster could strike, his hand slipped around her shoulders. "Then let me help while you limp."

She hardly had any chance to protest.

The warmth was still there radiating from him as he held her up straight, and she had thought it would be better than being carried in his arms. Her lips pressed into a thin line. Bloody hell, now hanging from his arms seemed no good as well!

And so they went, huffing and puffing, limping and cursing towards the bed.

Right when Sofia thought that Max couldn't surprise her more than he already had since her fainting spell, she found herself yet again thrown off the cliff. It was one thing having the man despising the mere shadow of her giving her pills, helping her drink water or carrying her to the bathroom, but it was completely a new level of weird when that very man after putting pillows beneath her bloody rotten foot and snugly beside her battered midriff, carefully tucked the sheet underneath her chin, brushing her bird nest hair with gentle fingers away from her shoulders.

Sofia's breath hitched when he came too close and she feared he would drop a kiss on her forehead just to prove how much of a loony he had truly come to be. She dared not look up at him when the scary warmth of his body once again soaked inside her skin.

Thankfully though, he moved back, she could hear him gulp.

Enough is enough! She thought.

This trap he was laying, she was sure, headed straight to her damnation.

He settled back down on his guard chair, looking all comfortable at her bedside, as if it was his rightful position.

Sofia was hell tired from her return trip from the bathroom, otherwise she would have sprung up from her current lying position just to get the advantage of a few inches over Max's sitting form. The conversation on the tip of her tongue required just that, for she knew it might poke awake the nasty Max she was all too familiar with. And the nasty Max she would welcome, the war of dignity she had inwardly declared required that greatly.

"Why are you doing this?" Sofia asked finally. Gathering herself she looked at Max, only to find he was already looking at her. His eyes lacked the irritation and hatred she was so used to witness all the time. The change was scary.

"What?"

"This." She waved a hand between them. Getting silence in reply she sighed and motioned towards the bathroom and herself. "Why are you suddenly so nice to me? What is the plan?"

"There is no plan," his voice was diligent.

With an intake of breath Sofia threw up her hands lightly on the air, her eyes went back to him from the ceiling. "You are basically carrying around the person you hate and trying to nurse them back to life. How can there not be a plan? Or is it because—" she halted abruptly as something suddenly clicked in her mind. She bit her tongue for not figuring it out already.

"Oh," she exhaled a long breath. "Of course. I should have figured it out already. You're doing all this so that people don't call you a woman beater; so that you don't get marked as an abusive husband. Am I right? You've a respectable reputation to uphold, you've said so yourself that night. How could I forget!"

"You're getting it all—" Max's urgent words were cut in sharply by Sofia's amused chuckle.

To her own ears, the sound of that laughter sounded hollow, and by the expression Max had on his face, he seemed quite taken aback, in loss of words for once.

"There's no need to keep up the facade all the time, Max," she said slowly. "Especially not when we're alone. I mean I understand why you would behave so nice and husbandly before the nurses, doctors and others, but please, no one can see when you're alone with me. In fact, you don't even need to be alone here with me. I guess by now everyone has got the fact how proper of a husband you are." Sofia drew in a slow breath and shifted her body a little so that she could turn away from Max. Her sore back needed some relief and it was hellish that she couldn't properly turn on her side, not yet. "So, I say, go home or back to work. No need to waste time here."

"Sofia—" Good thing was that right when he began to speak and probably to scream her ears off for her long lecture, the nurse that she was beginning to like very much for her perfect interruptions entered the room.

A flustered Max scrambled out of the room pretty fast after that, when the nurse asked if he wanted to help giving his wife a sponge bath and then perhaps give a hand changing the said wife's clothes.

Sofia stifled a laugh seeing the nurse giving Max's fast retreating back a strange look.

The bath proved to be quite relaxing, Sofia agreed with the nurse. She was already yawning when the nurse left with a smile and another appeared immediately. She gave Sofia a few injections describing what will do what—none of it Sofia listened attentively by the way.

Soon afterwards she found herself swiftly drifting off to slumber. It was the kind of slumber that made one's limbs ache with comforting numbness.

It was truly a comforting sleep. And somehow, she was subconsciously aware of for how long she was sleeping, maybe to catch up with all the missing sleep from the last many nights.

However, during some time in her sleep, she thought she heard many voices near her. Voices of Max, Neil, Robert, even Skyler as well. But, was her cousin crying? She even heard Max saying something to someone, but his words meant no sense in her semi-awake mind, though the tone of his voice sounded like he was in agony. Now why would Max sound like that? She found herself sliding off to an unknown territory while trying to figure this mystery out.

--

It was hard to tell when her comfortable sleep and light, cozy, incoherent dreams slowly got invaded by the very familiar nightmares.

Mevil was just a shadowy figure since a while now in her nightmares. Or was it a distorted version of her father? Intending to strike. He stood in one of the dark corners as she waited paralyzed for the inevitable to happen. Unlike other nightmares though, nothing happened in this one, she could just see the shadow of his male form sway a little but so abnormally. Turned out, it was enough to shatter her insides with numbing terror. It was worse, for she did not know who it actually was.

"Sofia... shhh."

Sofia heard Max's voice next to her ear. It was not lacking the soothing emotion that she very much needed to yank herself out of this world of fear.

"It's just a dream. Shhh... It's alright, nothing will happen to you. Please stop crying."

Fluttering her eyes open Sofia found that she was truly crying, and the way her cheeks and ears felt wet she was probably crying a river. It took her a moment to blink the blur of tears off her sight. She swiped her shaky hands across her face and hair.

Max was sitting next to her on the bed, she realized. He was leaning in over her, staring down at her with concern.

Sofia noticed his hands were lightly gripping her shoulders, most likely to shake her awake. She hated to admit it, but it was true that his touch and the way he was leaning over her in a protective manner made her feel safe. It made her feel saved.

"What time it is?" she asked, clearing her clogged up throat, thinking that he would back away from her now that words were pillaged into this unanticipated trance of sanctuary.

"Two in the morning."

Sofia yawned, seeing that as predicted Max moved his hands off her shoulders.

"Why are you still here?" she asked, closing her eyes as medicated drowsiness from the earlier injections hit her again.

"Why shouldn't I still be here?" was his murmured reply. Bad thing, her mind was way too fuzzy at the moment to ponder upon his words and intentions.

She heard him sigh slowly and was vaguely aware of a familiar warmth covering the right side of her body. She would have given it a thought and inquired a little about what it was, but then sleep overtook again. This time, thankfully, a dreamless one. However, heated breeze kept caressing one particular side of her face and a hard yet comforting pillow, or whatever it was, filled her with the kind of sanctuary that she wiggled closer into as the night passed by.