Chapter I: The Prodigal Daughter Returns

AN: Hey fan-fic-folks. So, there's no Blackwell Job this week, I'm in a bit of a writer's block with that story, so instead I'm doing the Amazon effect and releasing a whole bunch of 'Pilots' for my other stories. This one is called The Island.

It's based a little on the TV version of Green Arrow, mainly the TV series. For those of you who don't know, in the series, the Green Arrow was an ex-playboy who was marooned on an Island after his dad's yacht sank and got taught how to fight using a Bow and Arrow. When he was rescued, he came back home and started fighting crime as the 'Green Arrow'. It's not half bad. I figured I could use it as an alternate thing for why Max was gone for 5 years and then this happened.

Anyways. The plan for these is I'm gonna give 'em a week or two to sit around so I can see which ones, if any, you like. I'll probably end up continuing most of them, but if any stand out I'll prioritise those the most. If it turns out I've written utter unprocessed bovine waste, I'll probably just stick to the Blackwell Job and rework a couple of these to retry later. If not, I'll pick a few and stick them in the schedule on my profile. I know that's not really how its done, but I need structure or I will procrastinate till I die. So yeah, here's the first chapter of The Island

Thanks, Fan-fic-folks and as always, please review.

"Gah!" I flailed wildly and nearly fell off the bed when someone shook me awake. Fuck, I hate being woken up.

Mom was yelling in my ear, the bitch. Why did she have to wake me up so damn early? "Wake up, Chloe! We've got to get to the hospital!"

I woke up pretty quickly then. After what happened the last time she yelled at me about a hospital, no way I could doze through that. "The hospital? What the fuck happened?"

That was when I saw her face. I'd never seen her smile that wide. Well, not since Dad died, anyway. Why the hell was she happy we were going to a hospital?

"It's Max, Chloe. They found her."

Holy. Shit.

I spent the entire car journey jittering about hella nervously. The Caulfields had won some luxury cruise from Ryan's boss 5 years ago. When we heard their ship sank, I thought I'd never see my first mate again.

Now they'd found her, I had no fucking clue what to expect. She'd been marooned for five fucking years on some chinese island. I mean, what can you say to someone who's been through shit like that?

All I knew was that I was gonna hug the shit outta her when I saw her.

The minute Joyce parked, I basically dragged her out of the car, through the hospital door and up to the reception desk. No way in hell I was gonna be in here any longer than I had to. I'd been in the hospital for like, 2 minutes and I was already starting to feel stuff.

I'd not been back since Dad, so I was hella nervous. There's all those memories in here. I was trying not to think about it. Fuck, I hate hospitals…

Joyce pulled away from me and walked up to the receptionist, introducing herself and asking for Max. I hung back. I was really fucking antsy from being here and we learnt last time that yelling at Hospital People always makes shit worse.

Who says I never learn?

"Hi, we're here to see Maxine Caulfield?"

Mom pulls out a bunch of papers she'd grabbed before we left. "I'm Joyce Price. I'm Max's Godmother. Her folks wanted someone close to look after her in case anythin'..." Mom sagged.

Shit.

She pulled herself back up and slid the papers over to the receptionist. "Here's all the paperwork. Can we see her soon?"

"I don't know, Mrs Price. Depends on the Doctor's opinion."

She types some shit in her computer.

Then some more.

Then some more.

And more.

I growled. Bitch was not making this whole waiting thing easy, was she? I was concentrating really, really hard on not letting all the little thoughts whispering about in my head get to me and she's typing?

Just when I was about to like, rip her head off or something, she nodded. "This all checks out. She's in room 303. Doctor Baltar's office is just across from the elevator. Talk to him when you're up there."

"Alright, thanks, now come on! Let's go, Mom!"

Joyce just rolled her eyes and followed as I rushed off to the elevators.

The doctor flicked off the X-Ray light thingy and turned to look at us.

"I have to warn you, the Max you knew may not be the Max they found surviving on that island. Twenty per-cent of her body is covered in scar tissue. Second degree burns on her back and arms. X-rays show she has at least twelve fractures that never properly healed."

Shit… I looked through the glass at Max. She was just staring out the window. What the fuck happened to you out there, first mate?

Joyce put her hand on my shoulder and nodded. "When can we go in?"

The Doc seemed nervous. "For the moment, we think it better only one of you goes in. We want to reduce her stress for now."

I shrugged Mom's hand off and stepped towards the door, completely ignoring everyone else. I had to fucking see her. Ask what the fuck happened. Ask why she never came back.

I pushed open the door.

"Max…?"

She turns to look at me. She looks… tired.

"Chloe…?"

I grin and sweep her up in a hug. Max doesn't react for a sec, but then smiles and hugs me back. I wasn't crying, honest. I'm too badass for that shit.

"I know, right? So much for Maxine Caulfield, Mighty PirateTM"

I choked back a sob. "Mighty PirateTM...? Goddamnit Max."

She tightened the hug.

After a HELLA lot more paperwork, we managed to get Max busted and back to the Price-Pad. Now her folks were… gone, she could move in with us!

We didn't have like, a spare room or anything, so Mom wanted to stick her on a camping bed in Step-Douche's garage.

I was half gonna go with it, just so he couldn't use the room anymore, but no fucking way I'd do that to Max. She was gonna room with me. Readjust to society and all that shit, right?

Max barely said a word the whole car journey back, just nodded and 'mmhmm'-ing whenever Joyce or I asked her something directly. It was weird. She was quiet before, but never this fucking quiet.

That, and all those scars…? Something definitely happened out there. Something bad.

When we got back, Mom took Max's stuff straight upstairs. It was weird, Max was the only girl who could be marooned on a fucking island for 5 years and come back with luggage.

As she walked through the door, I chipped in. "So, the place hasn't changed much since you were here. All that home improvement shit Dad had planned never fucking happened."

She nodded, then wandered over to the picture board in the hall. I smiled. "Those were the good old days, huh? Life… isn't so good anymore. Better now you're back though, right?"

Max smiled absently and moved into the kitchen, tapping at a photo on the fridge of Mom in front of the diner. I grinned. "Yeah, Mom's still at the Two Whales making the best burgers in Arcadia. We'll have to go soon. If my math is right, it's been about 1800 days since you had one of Mom's burgers, so the first round is on me!"

I thought back to my pockets. 86 cents… Probably not enough to get a fucking cocktail stick, never mind a burger. Eh. I'll work it out.

She turned to look at the travel jar. Mom and David wanted to go on some honeymoon trip to Paris, but there's no way a security guard and a waitress could afford that. They'd been saving up, but fuck, they'd be lucky to get to Portland with what they had, never mind fucking Paris.

She walked past it and out into the main room. I watched her walk, frowning a bit. She walked differently. Like a cat stalking its dinner. It was half epic, half scary to watch. Just made me wonder what the hell happened even more.

She ran her hand along the back of the couch. I decided to give the 'reaching out' thing another go. Why not, right?

"Remember when we used to pretend this thing was a pirate ship? Hella fun times."

She smiled, hella absently again. It was like she was on autopilot or something. Just sitting there in her head a thousand miles away from me. I fucking hated it.

I looked down to the little black patch sticking out from under the sofa.

"We never did clean that stain up, did we? I still can't fucking believe you spilled like, half the damn bottle."

I smirked. "Mom was hella pissed."

As Max wandered off to look at something else, Mom came downstairs and into the kitchen, calling out to us. "Hey girls, I'm just about to start cooking lunch. You sticking around?"

I looked over to Max. She was still staring at a picture on the wall of Step-douche standing on some deer he hunted. Asshole. "Sure, Mom. Like we'd ever refuse free noms."

She laughed. "Well, Max's things are all set up in your room. Go get her settled in."

I nodded. "Sure. Come on, Max."

We didn't really do much. I just kinda sat around on my bed and chattered while she put her shit away in the drawers I'd cleared out for her. She was still hella quiet.

Even when I made a hella good joke about wanting a "My friend was a castaway and all I got was this crappy shirt" shirt.

Yeesh. Talk about a hella hard room, right?

After about half an hour of just quietly sitting around, Joyce calls from downstairs. "Hey girls! Come and get it!"

I turned and grinned at Max, hopping up off the bed. "Come on, Maxie. Let's eat!"

Max rolled her eyes and followed me as I clomped downstairs in my huge-ass boots. Sure, today was a good day, but it's always better when I can annoy step-douche. He hated my boots.

Speaking of Step-Douche, he was already sat at the table when me and Max got downstairs. We took our seats and I started chattering. What? I was hella nervous. My best friend just came back from the dead, I mean, that's not exactly something that happens every-fucking-day, is it?

"So..." I started. "What did you miss…? Uh…"

I clicked my fingers.

"Well, we got a Black President, that's new. He's hella awesome. Dances on TV and everything. You'd probably like him. Um, what else..?"

Mom came over with the food, dropping a plate full of noms in front of each of us. "Dig in, everybody. There's more if you want it."

I immediately launched into eating. We went straight to the hospital after Mom woke me up, so I hadn't actually eaten anything and I was hella hungry.

Max just watched me with a little smile. It was way more here than all the others. Hella awesomesauce. I grinned at her. "Betcha missed this, Max. No kitchen on the Island, huh?"

Max smiled and nodded. "No friends, either."

I kinda didn't wanna ask, but at the same time I kinda did. The kinda-want camp won out. "So… What was it like there?"

Mom and the Douche's conversation just stopped as we all looked at Max. She looked thoughtfully for a second, before focusing on me. "Cold."

There was a sort of awkward beat for a second where everyone kinda thanked fuck she didn't flip out or anything before I decided to fill the quiet. I hate quiet.

"Oh!" I mumbled with a mouth full of food. "Turns out everyone on Lost was dead… Or something. It was hella weird."

Max smiled. It was all absent again. I tried not to be pissed, really I did. But I couldn't help feel a bit ticked off that my best friend just got back and would barely talk to me. I sighed and started gnawing on my steak.

I could hear Step-Prick growl. "Chloe. Have some fucking manners."

I rolled my eyes. "Free country, dude. Lay off."

Then Mom jumped on the bandwagon, on his fucking side, as usual. "Chloe! Be polite to your step-father."

I slammed down my cutlery. "Jeez, I can't do anything right around here without everyone getting up in my shit, can I?"

We all launched into another all-out fucking argument, all of us just yelling at each other. This shit was why I didn't eat with them very often. I thought they'd keep it down if Max was here, but apparently not...

As I heard my door upstairs bang shut, I realised Max had left quietly. We all shut up and just stared at her empty chair. "Well, shit."

I took a deep breath and knocked on her door. Well, my door. Whatever. "Max? You ok?"

…

Nothing. I pushed the door open. "Hey, Max, I'm sorry about Step-Douche. He was way outta fucking line, he just…"

I stopped.

The room was empty. What the hell?

I looked over to the window. My desk was totally cleared and the window was wide open.

Shit.