It was quiet in the balcony except for the random hissing sound of wind and some unknown night birds in the distance.

Sofia rubbed her arms gazing up at the sky.

Right after the party ended, she had changed out of her dress and got into the pants and comfortable t-shirt she had on before the party. Only her favorite earrings still adorned her ears, she was reluctant to remove them yet.

There were so many stars tonight, she noticed, they lit the entire sky as if there was a festival going on up there. Such a marvelous sight it was.

They were still at the mansion.

It was quite late when all the guests finally left. Both the Haydens and Wilders thought that it would be hazardous driving down the highway back into the city at such an ungodly hour of night. And so, all of them decided to stay for the night here. There were, after all, more than a dozen of rooms in the mansion.

Feeling warmth surrounding her, Sofia looked down to see a shawl was being wrapped around her upper body by a pair of hands.

"Better now?" Max asked, adjusting the shawl around her shoulders.

"Ah... yeah." Sofia involuntarily shivered when the back of his hand grazed beneath her chin.

"Thanks," she mumbled softly, and Max came up to stand beside her with a smile as a reply.

His elbows rested on the cold steel railing, and he, too, stared above at the stars.

Sofia's attention, however, was diverted from the stars now and towards this handsome man who wordlessly stood by her side. She watched him from the corner of her eyes and wondered how her nerd, her favorite geek, her wilderness, and the best friend in her teen days had changed so much. This new Max that had returned to her was kind and unforgiving; protective and vengeful; charming and cunning—all in one and then so much more. There were too many shades, and Sofia had tired herself counting.

"Max—"

Shadows of night hid his face as he turned to look at her.

"What now?" Sofia voiced the monumental question that had been lurking around them in silence the entire evening.

Now that all the recent misunderstandings were cleared and out in the open, what they were to do with their marriage?

She saw his shoulders turning stiff as if he had held his breath for a few moments. It was clear that he was struggling to come up with something.

"We won't be able to apply for a divorce in the next six months," It sounded as though he was saying something heavy. And heavy it actually was.

A pang of sadness hit her heart.

Did she want to hear something else?

But it was logical now that they took a divorce and went their separate ways.

So, why did it not feel right?

Max looked away up at the stars again.

Under the shawl, Sofia clutched both her hands together and moved her eyes up towards the sky as well.

"I'm sorry," Max mumbled. "For humiliating you at the party, for hurting you whenever I saw fit, for playing with your life like I did, for ruining all your dreams of a wedding. Sof..."

Sofia didn't look back at him again this time and she didn't need to, to feel the genuineness, the guilt and the pain in his voice. For some reason, she didn't want to moreover witness those emotions in his eyes at the moment.

"I reaped what I sow," she said calmly, not staying blind for a change. For every fire he had set, the sparks she had herself provided. "I'm the one who've started it all. It was me abandoning you in the school, hurting you not caring about your feelings for once. We were friends and I ruined that. If it were not you then Karma would have found someone else to pay me back."

"You apologized!"

She did, didn't she—when he came over to Mary's that night.

"Clearly it was not enough," Sofia shook her head sadly. "It could not change the past. It could not change the fact that everything changed between us because of me."

In a matter of a second she was whirled around, Max gripped her arms gently yet firmly at the same time.

"Stop it." His face craned down, so close to hers that it was physically impossible for her to glance elsewhere. "Are you telling me that apologies are useless? Are you insinuating that just like I didn't accept yours you will do the same now? That... it is just going to be this way forever?" he indulged desperately.

Sofia's heart went out to him and the obvious torture of guilt he was going through. She, out of all people, knew guilt very well. And repentance. She had been acquainted with them for ten long years in his absence, after all.

His fingers trailed up to trace her cheek and she fluttered her eyes closed. "Can't we just forgive each other, forget it all and make a fresh start?" he induced.

She opened her eyes which were teary now and croaked, "I don't know how to. It's difficult when what I see is this immense and never ending darkness in the future only. I'm tired of fighting anymore to replace it with light."

Max had never looked more broken than this.

"I know my Sof," he whispered. "She has never backed out from a fight, not even when she is tired and falling."

A tear rolled down from her eye, she chuckled sadly. "That's because she had her Max always picking her up."

"You still have me," he choked. "You'll always have me."

But this always was for how long actually? The next six months? It was an unofficial countdown.

Dread settled in her stomach when she should have been feeling happy at the thought of getting her old life, her freedom back again.

A baffling urgency to touch him came upon her. And so, she lifted a hand to softly run across his scruffy jaw, she rested her hand there and felt him sigh. His eyes drooped until he closed them.

There was a change in the air, she had felt it before, when though she could not remember.

It was almost as if she was losing herself, but with the knowledge that she just might find herself in this way at last.

When he opened his eyes again, he was staring above her head and following his gaze she turned slightly and looked up. A decent sized shooting star was searing its way across the sky, illuminating its path brilliantly in the process.

And then she felt his breath caress her ear. "There's light, only if you believe in it. Let yourself, Sof. I promise you'll be surprised."

Despite how he was as complicated with words as his Rubik cube which she had seen in his hand so many times in the past, Sofia felt like following his suggestion—or manipulation, or whatever it was. But only if she could know how.

They stood there at the balcony in silence for a few minutes more, before Sofia sneezed.

Max chuckled, and wordlessly they both headed back inside the room.

She felt a little unwilling to depart from the balcony though. Having him by her side, a sky-full of stars above them and her heart filling with this newfound hope—a beginning, Sofia knew she was ending a moment by stepping in the warmth of the room.

Then, for ten minutes they stood before the king size bed and argued over who should sleep on it and who on the sofa.

After her moving out of the master bedroom and to her room back home, because of his being caught in the middle of holding her at night and his many lies to cover it for many nights before then, it had become as if an unspoken pact between them that they wouldn't share a bed together.

Max looked insulted when Sofia offered that she would sleep on the sofa seeing how it was apt for her height and not his.

"I'm supposed to be the gentleman here, Sof, don't deprive me of it or else I will just have to throw that damn sofa out the balcony," Max threatened.

At first, Sofia laughed but then she realized it was not a joke. Max was serious about throwing the sofa out. Now it would surely be funny sight but she didn't want to see it. "This is gender discrimination, Max. And I won't allow it to happen."

None of them wavered on their decisions.

Therefore, they had only one option left. And, of course, Max offered the idea.

Sharing the bed.

And they were back to square one.

Sofia looked incredulous at first but then came to the conclusion that there was no other way that could bring peace. "You'll not hold me and will stay at your side of the bed," her voice was firm but her face flushed revealing her inward state.

His mouth twitched and he looked like he was about to smirk, but he didn't, which was a good decision on his part. "Of course, I'll and I'll not."

She scowled and he corrected, "I mean—I'll not and I'll."

"Still, there will be a pillow between," she said. "Just in case."

Yes, a pillow was a brilliant idea—the great, soft border between two souls.

"As you wish," Max said, sighing.

Both of them were so exhausted after the eventful day and then the party, that it didn't take that great many moments for them to begin succumbing into the world of sleep.

Five minutes later...

"Enough is enough!"

Sofia sprung up on her elbows, eyes wide open. She saw Max's situation was similar as well. Both of their eyes scanned the room to zero in on a figure coming out of the closet angrily.

Neil!

What was he doing in the closet?

"How can you just... sleep?!" Neil stood next to the bed, put his hands on hips and glared at Sofia and Max as they stared back at him in shock.

"You could have at least kissed after that lovey-dovey scene in the balcony, though I could not hear a thing from here," Neil accused. "One would think that after that song scene and that hell of a possessive speech at the party when Sofia here was getting completely smitten, you guys would come up to your room and will be all over each other. I was positive that it's finally going to be your wedding night, where I would be jumping out of the closet and say boo and embarrass you two, and then I'll tease you two for the rest of your lives, but damn it—" Neil shook his head in disappointment. "You guys are too slow! Shame on you." Without wasting another moment, Neil then stormed towards the door while screaming, "Let's go, Skyler. These two have no romantic bone in their bodies. Hopeless!"

Skyler too!

Sofia's mouth fell open further in shock. Max muttered something from the side.

With a red face and awkward smile, Skyler jogged out of the closet and followed Neil out the door.

Sofia's head snapped to look at Max in astonishment. He plopped down on the bed exhaling a long breath. Then making Sofia gasp he jumped out of the bed, reached the door in two loud and long strides and came back after locking it violently.

However, the show wasn't over yet.

Right when Max was going to sit down at the edge of the bed, making him stand straight again, Lolo crawled out from behind the sofa and sprinted towards the locked door.

Lolo as well! Was aunt Katherine aware?

"Oh my God! Neil!" The scared looking woman began banging the locked door. "How can you do this to me? I fell asleep and you guys just up and abandoned me here! Open the door! Neil, Skyler—come back..."

Sofia was so shocked that she could not even bring herself to speak and Max seemed too frustrated to do so. He was probably thinking about the possibility of more people hiding in this room.

Finally, Lolo discovered the lock somehow in between banging, and was out and off like a bat out of hell.

Sofia turned to look at Max. It took them a second to process it all before they burst out in laughter.

"Let's just—go back to sleep," Max suggested settling back in the bed as the howling of their laughter died down.

"Yeah," Sofia yawned. "Good idea."

How could people get that desperate just to embarrass a newly married couple? And knowing how it was between Max and her, how could they even think that they would—

Sofia bit her lip.

Involuntarily, she began thinking about something happening between Max and her, something that involved a lot of kissing, caressing, touching and with both of them bare and panting for breaths, and pleasure and fireworks—

No hell!

Squeezing her eyes closed tightly Sofia covered her head with the comforter, as if she was hiding from those sinful mental images. This was the exhaustion thinking, not her, she decided with desperation.

Max's breaths were becoming slow and rhythmic, and she too leisurely followed him into the world of dreams hoping that this savage exhaustion would never return again. It brought side effects worse than those pain meds.

A warm and safe cocoon stealthily collected her at some point, she was half aware but too far gone in sleep to awaken or remember it. And, nightmare-less next many hours of rare sleep was what she obtained as consequence.

After so long.

Undoubtedly, it seemed to be a better cure than Dr. Bethany's all ideas combined. And she'd been missing it for so damn long.

~

A/N: 

Hey everyone! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.

What are your thoughts about Max's promise of the light? Of course, I used that dialogue of his on the cover of this chapter. Oh, did you like the cover? :)

And from now on, with Max's promise of light to Sof things are going to intensify between them. But that doesn't mean in any way that all issues are over. In fact, all of those issues between them and surrounding them are going to intensify too. Let's wait and see how they fight them all and if they stay intact till the end. 

Now... here's a gif for Neil...

I like this Neil guy and bloody hell like writing about him. haa haa... Three cheers to him and his closet team!

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