She doesn't remember how she ended up in the hospital. She knows Lucas was with her the whole time, and she distantly remembers hearing the voices of the others – Mike, Dustin, Will – at some point, but she doesn't know how she got there or how much time has passed. She is sitting on a bed while a woman with curly brown hair is bandaging her ankle ("it's just a light sprain, dear, you'll be okay in no time") when her mother rushes into the room and sweeps her up in a hug.

Max thinks she stopped crying at the house, but in her mother's arms she can't hold it back and she breaks down in tears again. Time passes. Her mother doesn't let her go.

Maybe she sleeps.

Now it's later, and Max is sitting in a chair in Billy's room in the hospital. Lucas is not with her anymore, and her mother is talking to some doctors. She is alone with Billy.

Billy looks like hell. One eye is completely swollen shut, his lower lip is swollen and almost blue, and there are bruises on his face. She can't see his chest or his back or the rest of him, but she imagines that it can't be good. His right hand is bandaged, because he has two broken fingers – that was the only thing she managed to hear the doctor say when she went out into the corridor, before her mom saw her in the doorway and gently pushed her inside again and shut the door. As if she didn't want Max to hear. As if Max didn't hear it all happening in the first place.

She remembers the sounds of fists and feet meeting flesh, the dull impact sounds of an electrical cord that meets a human body, and the little sounds Billy had made when he lay on the floor outside her bedroom door, and she doesn't want to look at him.

She has seen him beaten up before, of course. Bruised, bleeding, bandaged, banged up. After all, her brother is a violent and aggressive kind of person, and is always getting into fights. For as long as she has known him – or as long as she's had to live in the same house as him, because it's becoming clear that she doesn't know him – he has been coming home all beat up, with bruised knuckles and a smirk on his face like he's proud.

Only, now when she thinks back, maybe his knuckles weren't always bruised. Maybe it was just his face.

She glances over to him where he's lying in the hospital bed; still and silent, with his eyes closed. She has rarely seen him this still. He's usually jittery, full of anger and itching for an outlet. And she's learned to stay away from him, afraid that he'll take it out on her somehow.

She remembers Billy's voice, pleading with words she's never heard him utter before: "Sorry" and "please". And thinking back on it, it feels like a dream, because Billy has never apologized for anything, has never begged –

Only, it had sounded like a mantra. Like something he'd said a thousand times; like something that spills automatically from a person's lips when fear makes a person's brain shut down. And if that's true, that means –

This is not the first time Neil has done this to Billy. Far from it.

Everything slots into place, and she feels like crying again. But she is hollowed-out, empty, and she has no more tears to spare.

She reaches for his hand, instead. The one with no broken fingers.

And this, of course, is when he wakes up.

He flinches at her touch, then flinches at the pain that caused, and then he sees her. His eyes (or the one he can see out of, at least) dart around the room, and when he sees that they're alone, he relaxes slightly and lets out a groan.

Max let go of his hand as if burned, and doesn't know what to do.

"Fuck."

She doesn't think he meant for her to hear it.

"Billy?" she asks, voice almost a whisper.

"Fuck off", he replies, but it's without heat.

She doesn't say anything, and he's not meeting her eyes for a long time, but eventually he turns to look at her again.

"Neil?"

Max shrugs. She's not sure on the details, but:

"The police came. They took him."

Billy makes a face like he's in pain, and Max stands up, ready to … she doesn't know what, exactly, but whatever it is she wants to be ready for it.

"Should I … get someone? A doctor, or …?"

"No."

Billy doesn't say anything else, and eventually Max sits down on the chair again. She is full to the brim with questions she wants to ask, things she wants to shout and scream at him, but one look at him tells her that he probably feels the same way, so she bites her tongue. Neither of them speak for a long time, until Max bites the bullet.

"I'm okay. Lucas is, too."

She doesn't know if that's the right thing to say, and Billy doesn't react to it other than to flick his eyes over her for a second. She continues:

"I don't know what time it is. Mom's here. She's talking to the doctors right now. And you're really messed up."

At this, Billy gives a hoarse laugh that sounds anything but cheerful.

"Believe me, I know."

Something in his voice and the way he tilts his head away makes Max frown, and repeat:

"You are really messed up. As in, he really messed you up. Neil, I mean."

You didn't mess up, she doesn't say, because they don't have that kind of relationship. But maybe Billy hears it anyway, because he glances over at her and frowns.

"Why are you even here?" His voice is hard when he continues: "Don't you have anything better to do, like sneaking off with your little boyfriend?"

Her first reaction is annoyance, but then she remembers the way that his voice had sounded like anger back at the house, but also like fear, and the frustration slips away.

"I'm sorry", she says instead, voice small.

He didn't expect that, she knows by looking at him. He takes a breath to say something, and she barrels on before she loses the nerve:

"This was my fault. I'm sorry."

He looks like he wants to agree, and she fully expects him to shout at her that yes, it was her fault for not doing what he told her to, and for bringing Lucas home and that she's a stupid bitch …

… but then he deflates and raises his hand (his left), to drag it down his face. He winces, and swears.

"Fuck."

Then he takes a deep breath, and mutters:

"I can't deal with this."

Again, Max is unsure if that was for meant for her, but he turns to her again and it looks like it pains him when he starts talking:

"Listen, you little shit, because I'm only gonna say this once."

She prepares herself for his ire, and is shocked to the core when he says:

"This was not your fault."

Her face must show her surprise, because he snorts – and then winces, because that obviously hurt – and continues:

"Neil is a fucking asshole. Always was. That's on him, not you."

And there's something raw in the room with them, as if the air itself is raw with the things that are unsaid, and Max knew she shouldn't take advantage of it; knows that whatever it is is vulnerable and frail and that she might shatter it if she speaks, but she wants to know:

"Why did you get between us and Neil?"

And as soon as she speaks the words she wishes she could take them back – because what, does she think that Billy actually cares about her? That's insane – and she holds her breath and hopes against hope that Billy maybe didn't hear her, but Billy sighs again and tries to shrug as he says, simply:

"Because I can take it."

Because you shouldn't have to take it, he doesn't say, because they don't have that kind of relationship. But Max hears it anyway, and that raw energy in the air in the room? That suddenly feels too much like feelings, and Max and Billy are nothing alike but they both suck at the mushy crap so Max says, without thinking:

"Clearly."

She raises an eyebrow and motions at him, beaten to a pulp and currently lying in a hospital bed, as to indicate that yeah, clearly he's adept at taking a beating, no consequences here, oh no. The tension in the room disappears when he rasps out a laugh:

"Shut up, kid."

She gives him a small smile, because the world has changed and this is a new reality she has to get used to, and what is a smile in the grand scheme of things, really?

He exhales through his nose and it almost sound as if he's amused, and then he says:

"You should go home."

She thinks of home; of the house to where she took Lucas and her room where she hid under her bed and the hallway where there is probably no longer a table with a lamp, and she feels sick. Feels her face do something, hears her voice go hard.

"No."

That's all she says, but that word holds a thousand meanings; no, that place is no longer home; no, she doesn't want to go back; no, she's not leaving him. She doesn't know what he hears, but he sighs again and closes his eyes. Eye, whatever.

"This doesn't change anything", he says, and it's quiet, as if he's not talking to her.

And it's her turn to snort now, because he's tired and in pain and probably doped up on painkillers, but does he really think that this doesn't change anything? That the world will look the same when he wakes up next time?

"God, you're stupid", she says.

Because this changes everything.

"You're still a little shit", he murmurs, and it's not a minute later that he's asleep.

She waits for a couple of minutes more, just to be sure, before she carefully reaches out and takes his hand in hers. And she doesn't let go for a long time.