Waking up in a whole new dream {Malia}

Max was so not in the mood for this shit.

On the one hand, he was now sporting a shiny new set of Captain's bars on his collar, a higher salary and the weight to throw around that such a promotion came with (many of the Peacekeepers involved in the escaped convict case had been promoted to keep their silence); on the other, sitting on top of his desk this morning had been an official notice that a certain family member of his had been hospitalized and was asking for his presence. On top of that, Olivia Revenue had failed to show up yesterday; Max had rolled his eyes, begrudgingly giving her the benefit of the doubt. She was still in school, it was possible she'd been held after class for whatever reason.

But two days in a row?

I don't fucking think so.

He hadn't bothered greeting or saluting back any of the enlisted quickly getting out of his way as he headed out the front door of the precinct towards the Revenue household, thoroughly annoyed to have his time wasted like this when he could be doing anything more productive than holding his recruit accountable for playing hooky with her recruit duties. Just because she wasn't a Peacekeeper yet (and she never would be, if this was going to be a trend) didn't mean punctuality didn't apply to her.

Kaiser was trotting beside him, not a care in the world and just happy to be outside going for a walk; civilians he passed on the street were equally quick to move out of their way, many of them looking apprehensively at the huge, unleashed police dog at his side. If anyone thought Kaiser was just going to fly off the handle and attack someone out of the blue, they were dumber than some of the mutts Max worked with. (Which, considering some newbie halfwit had thought it was a good idea to reuse the same set of parent mutts over and over again and had inbred a batch of them to the point of near-retardation, was a much greater insult than some people might realize... Opting not to go into what a moron said newbie was to start with, but he digressed.)

The Revenue household was suspiciously silent, and was about to be very abruptly shaken to its foundation by a little Peacekeeper wrath. Max pounded his fist on the front door, folding his arms impatiently waiting for it to open.

"Get the door, Georgia." A man's voice bellowed, audibly slurred even through the door.

A woman opened it, putting on a flimsy smile that did nothing to disguise the dark lines under her bloodshot eyes.

"Hello? May I help you sir?" Her voice was meek and barely a whisper.

Max looked at her with scrutinizing eyes; he was no detective, but he was more than willing to guess this little mouse of a woman served as the doormat to the annoying, boisterous man's voice from elsewhere in the house.

"Who is it, Georgia?" The man bellowed again, and it was apparent to Max that in spite of the early hour of the afternoon, he was completely wasted.

"Captain Stahl," Max answered loudly for her, looking pointedly around the door frame so his voice carried down the hallway, "Where is Olivia Revenue."

His words formed a question, but his tone indicated that the information he wanted wasn't a request.

The owner of the slurred voice comes stumbling down the hall at the intrusion, apparently forgetting that a rank preceding a name generally meant Peacekeeper and that no further introduction was needed.

Max hadn't handled anything on the escaped convict case any further than organizing the search party for Cadet Pryce and taking statements, but it wasn't so soon that it wasn't starting to occur to him the... resemblance between the mugshot on the Wanted dossier, and the mug of the man coming towards him with purpose. He pauses, looking Max up and down, almost as if he was sizing him up for a fight.

As if Mr. Revenue could take him, sober or not.

"She's sleeping. You'll have to come back later." He shot back, and Max was completely unconvinced.

"Wake her up then. She knows she's supposed to be at the precinct." Max growled back.

"She's sick." Mr. Revenue continued, convincing Max less and less as he continued to open his mouth (why was he still talking), "Unless you want to get sick, you'd turn around and walk your happy ass back to where you came from, sir. She don't need no Peacekeeper nursemaid."

He was about ready to put on his command voice and tear Mr. Revenue a new one --nobody spoke to him that way, especially not some swaggering drunkard that thought himself a big man-- until Kaiser, ears perked all the way forward and his tail tellingly still, whimpered in his throat and darted past the Revenues down the hall.

Max moved to follow the dog, only to have Mr. Revenue attempt to close the door in his face.

"Don't you come in ... I said GET OUT! You are not welcomed in this house. You have no jurisdiction to com--

At that, Max reared back, smashing his foot into the door as if he were breaching it, throwing Mr. Revenue down satisfyingly hard onto his ass on the ground. Mrs. Revenue didn't look quite so compelled to put up a resistance as Max strode past her, eyes blazing under the visor of his helmet and following the sound of Kaiser's yipping.

The entire country is my jurisdiction.

He found him at the bottom of the stairs leading to the cellar, scratching at the door and whining; the pounding on the other side, and the shouting now audible from this distance, told him plenty.

"MAX! MAX!"

Olivia's voice was muffled, but there was no mistaking that it was her; Max tried the door, finding it locked. He wasn't nearly patient enough to go searching for a key, or roughing the parents up for them to hand it over. He slapped the door to silence Olivia's shouting long enough to speak.

"Get away from the door, I'm coming in."

The hallway was too narrow for a proper breach kick, but it was enough for him to brace himself against the opposite wall and smash his foot into the door, throwing it open with enough force to slam into the wall behind it.

Max was far past the point of listening to Mr. Revenue when he breached the door, nearly taking it off its hinges with the force. Kaiser darted into the room, immediately finding Olivia curled up against the wall and snuffling her face with a concerned-sounding whine.

"Max..."

Truth be told, Max didn't consider himself to be terribly close to Olivia, or even on the greatest of terms; she was a smartass, and infuriatingly informal often 'forgetting' not to call her recruiter by his first name. But he could give credit where credit was due; she wasn't a sniveling, apologizing little coward like some of the recruits at the depot were, she could take as much banter as she gave. Not half bad with a bo staff either, considering her age and the fact that her main opponent had a headstart of nearly a decade of training ahead of her.

"How dare you break in my house and tear the doors down. I HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO REPORT YOU..."

It didn't stop his blood from boiling seeing the bruises on her face, or his vision from going red as Mr. Revenue tried once more to get in his way.

"She's being punished. You get out, NOW! I'm her father. I'll treat her anyway I need to for the crimes she does."

He could only barely make out the squeak of Olivia's voice, saying his name pleadingly and meaning so much more than her words meant.

Get me out of here.

Normally, Max didn't really stomach the idea of taking down or arresting a parent in front of their child; though he wasn't a fan of people, children by and large were innocent, and didn't deserve the fates their parents brought upon them. Just as he would never do anything to harm an animal, so too did he try not to do anything to a child they didn't deserve.

Right now, though, Max had neither the wherewithal or the composure to drag Mr. Revenue someplace where they could more privately 'have words'; he'd crossed the floor to the older man in just a few strides, sweeping his legs out from under him and aiding his fall to the ground with a hand fisted in his shirt. The old man hit the ground hard, the fight knocked temporarily out of him with his breath.

"You think you're the big dog around here?" He snarled, not loosening his grip on Revenue's shirt and green eyes ablaze with fury, "Think that because we're in your castle, you're still the king? I am the law, if I want you thrown into the Detention Center to never see the light of day again for laying a hand on me or your daughter, I can make it so and no one will ask questions. So how brave are you really feeling?"

Such was the unpredictable behavior of drunks, that their moods were equally hard to expect. Revenue's eyes searched his face under the amber visor of his helmet for a moment, finding no quarter in his features and slowly, the anger drained away until tears fell from the corners of his eyes.

"You killed him... you killed him..." He slurred between sobs and hiccups. "Get out of my house, you bastards killed my son...

Max released his grip on the man, the fight leaving him at the sight of a grown man weeping like a child on the floor. He hadn't forgotten for a moment, though, that in the grief he'd apparently been drowning in alcohol, he'd taken it out on the child he still had.

"You're pathetic."

He stepped over Revenue, crossing the room to Olivia and not waiting around for a greeting or a smart remark; her face was bruised purple and red, and the only thing stopping him from going back to give her father a well-deserved beatdown was the sway in her posture as she stood.

Max scooped her up in his arms, stepping over Revenue once again and making his way resolutely up the stairs towards the front door.

Max's pace didn't slow as he left the cellar, carrying Olivia up the stairs and towards the front door; Mrs. Revenue just stood in the hall, looking between him and her husband laying on the floor blubbering about his son.

He didn't dare look back; if he did, he was going to go back into that cellar and give a blubbering Mr. Revenue some ugly bruises to match the ones that he'd obviously put on his daughter, and a metaphorical boot up the ass as to what kind of man his son really was.

Now really wasn't the time for that.

Olivia's arms curled around his neck and thank god she didn't get all creepy and snuggly like that Peyton girl who apparently had a thing for sweaty older guys, as if afraid of being dropped; as if he could, she was so much smaller than Max was (he almost wondered if she was smaller than Kaiser) it wasn't much of a strain to pick her up. The dog in question trotted dutifully next to him, looking up every other second at Olivia is if the split second he looked away she might be better.

"Ow."

She winced at laying her head on his chest, fighting to stay upright in his hold and flinching at the bright sunlight. The visor of Max's helmet transitioned from the amber used in the low light of the house to the dark tint that obscured his face as the sun hit it; the badge on his chest gleamed as brightly as the new silver bars on his collar.

"I swear, I didn't do anything, Max. And I didn't want to miss our sparring lessons. I didn't have any choice."

Why she felt the need to justify her absence in the face of such obvious evidence, Max didn't know (nor did he know why she still called him by his first name, but by this point he already had about a thousand insulting nicknames for her in turn).

"I know." Max replied simply, mind already racing as to what he was going to do next.

Obviously she couldn't stay here; Max would have to return with backup so Olivia could collect her things, while he would probably have to run the administrative gauntlet to set her up with a foster family. The community home would be out of the question; it wouldn't break her in half like some kids, Olivia was made of a sterner stuff, but it would probably ruin her if it was anything like the one in District 8.

"First things first, someone has to look at that." He said, referring to the bruises on her face, "We'll be back another time... with reinforcements."

Max's mind was going a million miles a minute, and the majority of the thoughts racing through his head involved the various beatdowns he could give Mr. Revenue for apparently taking the loss of his son out on his daughter.

Unfortunately, he was no stranger to being stabbed in the back by someone who was supposed to care about you; Max wasn't about to start drawing parallels, or he very well would put Olivia down and turn back to give her father a piece of his mind (and a lot of his fists).

He wasn't sure how long Olivia had been down in the cellar for, but the fact that she seemed to be trying so very hard to keep from laying her head on his chest could only mean the damage on her face was worse than it appeared, or she had been down there for a while. Either way, he was seriously weighing his hatred of red tape against the potential satisfaction of ramming his boot up someone's ass; Mrs. Revenue seemed more or less helpless, with her husband as the instigator.

So far as he knew, for now.

"You're quiet, Chief. What's wrong?"

Dumbest rhetorical question ever.

At some point, Olivia had taken to referring to him as 'Chief' (rather than 'sir', like she was supposed to address an officer), but Max had long since passed the point of caring. He, in turn, had about a thousand insulting nicknames for her when she got too informal (like when she called him by first name); most often he called her Runt, for the sole reason that it pissed her off as much as it angered him to be called Max.

The precinct was mercifully sparsely populated, with only a handful of staff milling around; it was a slow day, though it was about to pick up.

"Hey. Look what the captain dragged in."

Max rolled his eyes just before the visor went amber again and revealed his features; Staff Sergeant Caius was a decent enough guy and good at his job from years of practice, but he wasn't nearly as funny as he thought he was.

"Isn't that your new little recruit? What happened to her? Need to take her to medical?" The 2nd Lieutenant chimed in, walking towards him with concern on her features.

By comparison, 2nd Lt. Devereaux was fresh out of her training command, and though she had rank over Caius was utterly lacking the saltiness that had earned him respect. The only indication this kitten of a woman was even a Peacekeeper was the truly terrifying about-face her personality pulled when she put on her 'command voice'.

"Old Man Revenue had her locked in the cellar," Max growled, not slowing his face as he moved down the hall towards medical, "Once one of the medics has patched her up, I want 2 Peacekeepers ready to go to retrieve her belongings; Caius, I need you to find somewhere for her to stay, other than the community home."

He didn't wait around for the 'yessir' that indicated his orders were going to be executed; Caius and Devereaux were both competent and knew of Max's reputation for having zero tolerance for ineptitude. The only thing that would stop them from delivering the results he wanted was hell and high water.

Max didn't usually deal much in medical beyond mandatory annual check-ups; the place reeked of antiseptic (and disallowed Kaiser from following him), and the staff was usually a stark contrast to the veterinary staff he was used to being around. Some of them genuinely cared for their jobs; outside the Peacekeeper Corps, most people's only shot at medicine was to become a healer or apothecary. Others, however, were shoved into the profession simply because that's what the papers showed they had aptitude, but not necessarily passion for.

Most of them, regardless of bedside manner (or lack thereof) were junior enlisted that fancied themselves full-fledged nurses or doctors, with no more authority than to prescribe generic painkillers and icepacks.

Bedside manner, if it existed at all, tended to be a little... weird.

"Sir. What's going on here?"

This one, at least, seemed to be one of those metaphorical diamonds in the rough, sounding immediately concerned as he came up to Olivia and touched her arm, frowning seeing the bruises on her face. Max's (human) first aid training was incredibly rusty, and for all he knew Mr. Revenue may have broken bones in Olivia's face; he could only guess at the pain she had to endure hiding in his shirt from Devereaux and Caius.

"Miss? I'm Private First Class Mullo. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"

The PFC ushered them into one of the patient rooms, where Max put Olivia down on the padded table and watched as Mullo fluttered around the room rattling medical implements around in the drawers before pulling out a clipboard with some papers on it and a pen light.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

Olivia looked at Max, as if expecting him to know the answer and speak on her behalf, before looking away again.

"I'd rather not."

Mullo looked at Max, a little confused to have a patient that wasn't going to be forthcoming about the injuries on her face. Max sighed, trying not to be annoyed by his recruit-to-be's sudden and rather uncharacteristic shyness.

"Now isn't the time to be clamming up," He said finally, his tone even but indicating that he wasn't about to take 'no' for an answer, "I'll leave, or fetch a female medic if you don't want to talk about it in front of me, but we're not leaving until the doctor on duty has given you the all-clear."

It was more than just a statement; to Mullo, it was an order not to allow the patient to leave without a written clean bill of health (or, more likely, a report of injuries that Max could use to bring the hammer of the law down on Revenue).

In any case, since Olivia obviously wasn't safe at home, Max was going to have his work cut out for him finding someplace else for her to live. The community home was out of the question; even with Max as Olivia's sponsor, his rank probably would afford her protection so much as draw the ire of the other kids. Foster homes were notoriously hit-and-miss; he and Caius would be digging for a bit to find one suitable.

Which, of course, also begged the question where she'd stay in the meantime. Devereaux might be an option, or one of the handful of female officers he knew worked around his office. Max had no roommate to speak of in his barracks, but he liked his space and privacy... And he sincerely doubted a female recruit-to-be shacking up with her male recruiter (regardless of their age difference or said recruiter's infamously misanthropic disposition) would be well looked-upon.

The reaction to Max's offer to leave was almost instantaneous, and a little startling considering how quiet and lethargic Oliva had been up to this point, begging him not to go.

His hands came up defensively.

"Fine, I'll stay," He replied, "But only as long as you cooperate with the doctors."

Max knew full well how stubborn his recruit could be, and for the moment he was in no kind of a mood to be wasting time bantering when he could be preparing an arrest warrant for Mr. Revenue.

Olivia went quiet, laying down on the table and curling up with her head pillowed on her arm very much like a kid, and for a moment Max felt his pulse quicken fearing the damage was greater than the bruises on her face indicated.

"He hit me with my own staff... several times. Didn't hurt that much, though. I'm pretty sturdy. Got shoved into a wall... my left shoulder feels like it's busted or something. I'm not sure. I just remember not being able to feel it for about an hour, just a lot of numbness."

So he hadn't touched her; Max breathed an internal sigh of relief, though his anger didn't dissipate in the least knowing a grown man had beaten his tiny teenage daughter with a wooden staff (the one Max had given her, no less). Mullo looked appropriately dismayed at the description of Olivia's ordeal, though it was apparent that he had no idea who this 'he' was.

"She might need to stay here overnight if she has no where else to go, Sir. Just so we can keep an eye on her. Make sure that she starts to heal, unless she has a safe place to stay and with someone that can watch over her?"

"I'm still working on that." Max replied with a roll of his eyes, reminded that he hadn't even begun on the project of finding Olivia a new home.

"Quit talking as if I'm not in the room."

At least her attitude hadn't completely faltered; maybe the damage wasn't as bad as they thought.

"... Can I have some water... please? I'm so thirsty."

Max didn't speak, watching quietly as the medic fetched his recruit some water and fussed over her, turning the bedside manner up to 11. No wonder she was so unresponsive then; apparently, Mr. Revenue had planned on starving or dehydrating her until... Max didn't know what, but he had no desire to think about it.

"Sir, might I have a word with you outside, please?"

Commanding Kaiser to stay in the room with Olivia, Max stepped outside; patient confidentially trumped rank, but sheseemed incredibly anxious at the prospect of being left alone. He didn't have time to ask what Mullo's assessment was before the medic was launching into a laundry list of things to do.

"She's been abused, right? The girl is seriously dehydrated or on the verge of it already. Her skin is cool to the touch. Palpitations. The bruises on her body seem worse than she's letting on, but we're going to take xrays and I'll have a female medic check her over as well. Make sure we're not missing anything. She needs IV fluids as soon as possible before she gets any worse. Normally, the human body can go two to four days without water, but the conditions have to be taken into effect. Someone as small as her... I'm surprised she's doing this well. Do you consent for the IV fluids?"

"Just do whatever you have to do." He growled, mentally cataloguing the damage to write into a report when he returned to ram his boot up Revenue's ass.

"Yessir."

Mullo turned to go find a female medic, leaving Max to keep an eye on Olivia. Kaiser's ears perked up as his master re-entered her room, having stationed himself in front of her sickbed. It wasn't until now that his hands were free and his mind wasn't running a thousand miles a minute that he could take off his helmet, smoothing his hair back into place with a sigh.

What a mess this whole situation was. It was taking a herculean amount of effort not to pepper Olivia with questions about what had happened in the two days she'd spent basically as a prisoner.

The female medic was bustling through the door before he had a chance to say anything, Mullo in tow. She was probably in her early thirties, salt-and-pepper hair pulled nearly back into a bun and wearing First Sergeant insignia on the sleeves of her scrubs.

"Males, out." Her voice pleasant, but her tone indicating she wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.

Max stood with a sigh, leaving Kaiser at his post.

"I'll be outside. The dog stays if she wants him."