Sixty: Rejection

* N.B. – The introduction to this is Four: Dark.

((Max & Mel))

Time passed. They barely said a word to each other. Max had been up and walking around trying to search for a way out. But in the dark, everything was much more difficult to see. He didn’t stray too far from their “prison” before returning back to where he started. Exasperated, he plopped back down at his original spot against the wall shaking his head. Carmella only watched as Max did what he did, and her thoughts drifted back half a year ago to one certain day, at a very precise time.


He took her out again, this time, at a local diner. As friends. Both Max and Carmella had been enjoying their time off from work and getting to know each other. Their relationship so far had been that of mortal enemies who were forced to ally with each other in order to overtake people trying to kill them both. After that, both their firms found out that the man and the woman could work well together. Angelus and Doyle had purposefully selected jobs that required two hands to work out. In short, they became a team without even knowing it.

And the dynamic changed, slowly easing to some sort of camaraderie. In battle, they knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, performing the next hit, and the one after that, counterbalancing whatever work the other did to benefit the both of them.

What had grown from hatred, to tolerance, to friendship, led Max to believe that there was something more between them that had to be dealt with. He realized that he was in love with Carmella. She wasn’t exactly his best friend, but he couldn’t really see himself in the future with anyone else that matched him but her. She was his equal in every way, and what he lacked, she made up for. It worked vice-versa as well.

So when it came time for him to pick her up, he thought he’d do so in style. Well, not too stylish, after all, this was supposed to be a very casual diner. He could dress in jeans and a t-shirt if he wanted, but it didn’t feel right for tonight. It wasn’t as if he was proposing to her, but he wanted to make her permanent in his life.

“Carmella,” he started.

“Max,” she said. They’d spoken at the same time. Carmella shook her head. “You go first. It was your decision to bring me out here,” she insisted.

He’d never really called her anything but “Mel” most of the time. This was a fact she noticed. She leaned forward, her elbows on the table. As long as this diner was casual, there was no reason for her to put on an act of good breeding at this point. So she gave Max her full attention. There was no benefit to her listening in on the general conversation around her. After all, she didn’t know anyone, and here she didn’t have to worry about privacy. Everyone else around them was loud.

Max wanted to laugh. “Shit. How do I say this?” He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. Carmella only blinked. “What is it?” she asked.

“Well, we’ve been together for a long time. So far, so good,” he murmured, staring at the ceiling thoughtfully.

“Yes,” Carmella nodded slightly. “We’ve been partners, and we work well together. Our strong dynamic has been proven through each job we finish. It’s been very beneficial.” Her response was curt, level-headed, but without emotion or feeling. It disappointed Max, but it just meant he had to push further with what he was trying to say.

“Marry me,” he blurted out abruptly, then immediately covered his mouth with a fist.

“Excuse me?” was the response he received from the woman he loved.

“I—I didn’t mean it like that. Uh, I want you to be my girlfriend? Clearly we haven’t been to that stage in which…you know…getting married…” he trailed off.

“What’s with this all of a sudden?” Carmella was blushing, and broke off eye contact with him. “I’m sorry, but I’m with Thomas, for who knows how much longer. Dating is fun, but after Danny, I don’t think I want to go through with that again.” It was a pathetic excuse, but she was scared as hell. Scared to lose herself, any aspect of her independence. Thomas let her be who she would. Business and pleasure didn’t intermix in her world. But at the same time, Max also let her be her own person. Still, he was part of her ‘work’ category, and she didn’t want to ruin their friendship.

“Danny? Who’s saying anything about Danny? He’s gone, Mel. And Thomas – does he actually care about you? Mel, we’ve been through this before.” Max tried to reach across the table to her hands which were now folded on the table. Before he had a chance to grasp them, she pulled her hands away and under the table. He grimaced. Carmella had a sorrowful look on her face. “You and me, we’ve been working together for years. We’re perfectly compatible in every way. I don’t want to have it any other way. I can’t see myself without you!” He was laying his cards out on the table, his very soul.

Carmella shook her head. “I can’t. If we were…dating…which we aren’t, we’d lose focus on the task at hand. Then we’d be risking our lives and—“ Before she could finish, Max cut her off. “Risking our lives any more so than we already do?”

“No, but,” She was looking for any excuse rather than to just admit that she didn’t want to lose him as a friend. “I’m already taken!”

“But you don’t love him?” They were exchanging words at a faster pace, and Carmella could no longer catch herself. Max had her cornered.

“Yes. No. I mean…you know what I mean. He lets me be my own person—“

“As do I.”

“But I see you every day when we work together. Isn’t that enough?” she asked, shaking her head.

Max had a serious look on his face. “No. Mel…Carmella…I need you. I love you. But if you can’t realize that, then I might just damn well move on and we’ll go back to ‘bitch, bastard’ and our other terms of endearments. It’ll be just as if we went back to the start.” He rose from his seat to move away from the table. Carmella remained seated, but she protested, wanting to reach out to him but didn’t. “Max, wait!”

She had hurt him. He walked away. And he was gone.


“Hey,” she heard, as her body was being shook awake. It was one of the tactics Carmella had used on Max when she tried to wake him up every so often. “Mel, wake up. I need to know if you’re okay.” She stirred, dark eyes fluttering open, only to reveal darkness and the familiar shape that was Maxwell Kane kneeling above her.

“Is it daylight yet?” she asked him. Max shook his head. “No. But you were out for a while there. I was just making sure you weren’t about to die on me here.” She thought she could see him smile, but maybe it was just her imagination. “Sit up. Here, let me help you.” A hand was under her back, trying to raise her up, and eventually she was sitting properly. “Does anything hurt?” Max began poking and prodding at vital areas of her body that were susceptible to breaking, most notably her legs.

“Everything hurts,” she laughed. “No. I think I just hit my head.” At saying that, she raised a hand to her head. “Did you find a way out yet?” Again, Max shook his head as a negative. “But I think I’m getting close. Can you walk? I don’t wanna leave you in here for more time than I have to.” Carmella nodded. “Yeah. I need to walk off my sleep. How the hell did we get down here anyway?” Max wouldn’t voice his answer to that. He knew it was her boyfriend’s doing. Mel was just too blind to see his dark side. It was a shame. He respected her better than that. He knew Mel better than Thomas, and this guy was blatantly hurting her.

Carmella knew it too. They walked, side by side, with Max leading the way, not quite knowing where he was leading her. It became apparent that they were really in the underground. The sewers, to be exact. It reeked of excrement and other vile things.

“Hey…about that night. You said you wanted to start dating.” An interesting segue indeed. This wasn’t going to turn out well. She didn’t mention the fact that Max had specifically stated that he loved her.

“Forget it,” Max replied. “It was a mistake.”

Carmella stopped in her tracks and held the elbow of his arm. “No wait.” She shifted the weight on her feet as she tried to prepare herself as to what she wanted to say. Reluctantly, Max stopped and turned towards her, hands in his pockets, inhaling, then exhaling, waiting to hear what she had to say. “All right. Why are you bringing this up now?” He took his hands out of his pockets and folded his arms.

And here she was. Vulnerable and weak, willing to bare everything to him. She was fidgeting with her gloves, a sure sign of nervousness. “I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days, actually, and I think…no…I know that it would be very conducive for the both of us to…have an official relationship together. So, I accept your proposal of us officially being a couple.”

“You’re saying this now?” This wasn’t his Mel. She would never admit a mistake. She was too prideful. But Max looked around, anywhere but making eye contact with her. In the dark, he couldn’t see her anyway. “Yes. I am,” she replied in a very serious tone. Her hands were back to her own sides, afraid to touch him anymore.

“You know what? No. After six months, and a few days of thinking, you decide on a whim that you want to be in a relationship with me? It doesn’t work that way, Mel. No.” Inwardly, his heart skipped a beat. But she allowed him to move on with his life, and that’s what he was going to give her the impression of. “Look, I’ll get us out of here, get you back home to your brothers, but I’ve got someone else waiting up for me at home.” A lie, it was just his sister.

Carmella was surprised. “Since when did you get a girlfriend? When did you have time to date?”

Max was very stern. “I had time when you couldn’t.”

They continued walking in silence.


((We'll leave this at a cliffie.))