Jace

{29}

"Jacelyn get back in the car.." I drove slowly along side her as she clomped down the sidewalk.

"I really just don't want to breath the same air as you right now."

I panted heavily in her direction. She glared and kept walking.

"Jace I'm sorry!" She wouldn't listen. It was like I was talking to a brick wall. I put her car in park and ran out to catch up with her. "Will you please just stop and listen to me!"

She stopped, but didn't turn around. "I- Liam I got so upset because I lo-"

My phone rang and she shut her lips tight instantly. I stared to see if she was going to continue, but she wasn't so I just answered the call.

"What," I said a little to gruffly when I saw it was just Niall calling.

"Ok Mr. grumpy pants well when your mood improves I'll tell you the news." I could hear his light chuckle and I shook my head.

"I'm sorry. What's going on?"

"Wellll," he inhaled through his teeth. "We stopped for some pre-flight lunch and Madison tripped when a fan tried to hold her back for a picture. Long story short we're at the hospital and you might wanna come too."

"Uh um ok," I was startled. She gets hurt right before the show tonight? Smack dab in the middle of the tour? "Be there soon."

"Look Jace I would love to play cat and mouse with you right now but I really need you to get in the car."

"Excuse me?" Ok so 'cat and mouse' wasn't the best way to phrase it.

"Madison's in the hospital we've gotta go."

*

"Maddi?!" Jace ran into the room we had been directed towards.

"I'm ok I'm ok." She sighed when she witnessed us dash into the room already over crowded with the rest of the boys and security. "It's just a concussion I'm fine."

"It is certainly not just a concussion." A seemingly young doctor strode into the room in his navy blue scrubs. He wasn't much older than Louis. "Sorry to burst your bubble....but it's not." He started to go through the file he had in his hands. His expression changed. "Defiantly not just a concussion."

"Jace will you wait in the hallway with Katherine?" She looked uneasily at me, but nodded eventually and left the room.

The doctor stared with disbelief at the results he flipped through in his hands. "The disks in your back have completely collapsed to the point where it's just vertebra rubbing on vertebra when ever you move, there's no cartilage left in your knees, you have a pinched nerve in your foot from a broken bone that wasn't set, your ribs are bruised, your brain is dangerously close to swelling from your concussion, and you've been dancing on a hairline fracture in your ankle!"

Madison slunk down in the hospital gown she was in with each ailment he rambled off.

"This all must be extremely painful," he continued. "I'm not sure how you're even walking, must less dancing."

"When you really love something you push through the pain," she mumbled, fiddling with her hands on the cold table she sat on.

"Well I'm sorry," the doctor ran a hand down his tired face and look with sympathetic eyes. "But you're done pushing through. Your body can't take it anymore."

Her face flared with anger. "Yes it can! It's worked this far it can go a little longer-"

"Maddi no!" Zayn shouted. "You're going to dance yourself to death! You take a break and maybe we'll see you next year."

"W-wha.. Are you serious?"

"We'll pay for your medical bills but..we can't just watch you dance to death. You need to go home and rest." He tried to say it in the nicest way possible but I could tell it pained him to let her go. Despite her anger issues, violent tendencies, and everything else, she was still a sweet girl who was the best person to be around at some times and Zayn had grown fond of her.

"Fuck you!" she shouted, hopping down from the table with a slight wince at the impact. "I'm not leaving! I'm finishing this tour and then I'm going to keep dancing!" Madison stormed out of the room with a tiny limp. I had to admit, she covered her pain very well.

"Her anger issues come from all the pain she's in so constantly," the doctor explained. "Dancer's are my hardest patients. They don't want to listen until they can't take it anymore and are unable to move or sustain a career ending injury."

Niall's eyes darted back and forth. "Maybe we should get the other two checked out while we're here."

I leaned my head out into the hallway. "Hey Jace?"

"Yeah?" she said, bouncing over so that she was just visible through the doorframe.

"Let's get you checked out by the doctor while we're here."

"Oh..." she inhaled through her teeth and cringed. "No. No that's not going to happen." Without even letting us beg or plead, she quickly walked off.

"Katherine?" Harry called to the giant reading a magazine in a chair. "Checkup?"

Her face turned to disgust and she slammed down the magazine, soon disappearing as well.

"Huh." Louis shrugged. "Looks like you're right."

"They see doctors as the bad guys because all we do is tell them to stop dancing."

"Let's go." Madison came into the room in her original sweats and tee shirt. She buzzed around the room and snatched up her purse.

"You're staying here Maddi-"

"I have a fucking contract! I dance ere for one full year and then I can do whatever the hell I want. So lets go."

There was nothing to argue with. She was right. It was her life, her contract, and her body.

The show that night went reasonably well despite the fact that Maddi was still made at us for suggesting she take a break. She didn't amble around and talk after it was over like she normally did, she just went into her bus and slammed the door.