Ross You're What?!

Panic

Max Pov

"Jesus fuck" Hope gasped wiping her forehead "I hate the mental center, it all the way over there and you guys are here. And I fucking hate gym" she continued holding onto the door frame tightly hunched over coughing.

"Is Matthews okays?" Barney asked looking at the sleeping Ross on my shoulder, "I means is shes stables enough to comes home?" he added on holding Red's hand tightly, I know they want kids but they can't exactly pull a Ross on us. Hope held out a hand stilling gasping for air fanning her face with her clipboard.

"Sorry guys" she said taking a deep breath before standing up "We can't let her go, we had to do blood work on the poor child, not to mention the stitches on her own bite mark. She had elevated levels of adrenaline and cortisol, now normally this wouldn't be weird except the body hasn't stopped producing them." He said flipping up a paper on the clipboard looking at whatever chart was there. "Its like she's in a constant state of panic, but, once again her heart rate is completely steady and normal. That's what concerns me the most." She said looking at us.

"Why is that worrying? That's a good thing right?" Red asked looking up desperately clinging to the silver lining of the situation "That means it's not that bad, just some over reacting hormones, right?" he asked looking at Hope with the tiniest bit of fear.

"I'm sorry but no, that could mean a lot of things. But I have a bit of a disturbing theory that might be right" Hope said sadly "Remember how Mattie had a miniature panic attack when Ross had Zach? When she heard that her little brother was dead? Well I think she might always be on the verge of, or even always on a panic attack. She just saw how it affected the people around her and learned how to hide it, or even worse because of the constant panic attack theory her heart adjusted to the extreme levels of adrenaline and cortisol, the fear hormones, and she just stopped felling fear" she said rubbing her face tiredly.

"Are you saying that Matt is always on a panic attack, but because this has been happening for a long time. She literally can't feel normal human fears, and it has to be extreme for her heart to even notice the adrenaline and crap?" I asked watching Hope nod sadly "Holy shit, my child is the next James Bond." I mumbled watching as Hope tried to not laugh out loud in the moment, "But why do you think she's always on a panic attack?"

"Well while schizophrenia is usually found in older people, we don't ever really find a case like Matthew for her at birth diagnostic. A theory is because of her early unorganized mind she let her fears and such develop with the images she couldn't get rid of, after seeing all her fears for so long she might have lost the ability to be scared. Or at least learn to hide it, but one of the nurses found her speaking clear coherent English with the wall. She thinks she's talking to someone, sometimes she'll finch backwards like someone flicked her, and that caused fear, fear creates cortisol, and cortisol is infamous for creating hallucinations" She said pulling up a chair to sit in front of us.

"It's viscous never ending cycle" Red whispered "How long would voices have to talk to her? For her to learn English fluently, for her to attempt to carve out her chest?" he choked burying his head into the crook of Barney's neck, Barney patted Red's back softly.

"Hey Max" Hope said softly patting my knee "Can I talk to you in the hallway for a second?" she asked I gently picked up Ross' head and placed in in Barney's lap, got up and followed Hope to the hallway "Okay who did Ross murder?" she asked crossing her arms and looking at me like an accusing mother.

"What?" I asked confused at the sudden change in tone and conversation topic, Hope looked at me like I was stupid.

"Ross' hair is too perfect, and he's asleep. Those things only happen together if he killed multiple people, I know because I asked him what his shampoo was and he said the tears of his enemies. And his breathing is hitched like someone kicked him in the ribs to escape" she added on as an afterthought, I rubbed my face.