elijah pope had never really planned on having children. in fact, the idea was so far from his mind that when his new wife announced that they would be expecting a bouncing baby, he actually took her back to the hospital to have her tested a second time just to be absolutely positive that she wasn't just delirious. once the second (and the third) pregnancy test came back positive, however, the young, prodigal software mogul was beginning to cope with the idea of fatherhood and everything the future held on the horizon for his family. what he never planned on, however, was having to do it all on his own.

in the beginning, everything was good, everything was great. smart, caring and well enough off that the family had the whole the world at their disposal, maxine eloise was born with the proverbial silver spoon sticking out of her mouth; she went to all the best schools, knew all the right people, she was invited to all the best parties, had the newest gadgets and toys before anyone else and never, ever wanted for anything. more than anything, though, even as a child, max was bright and clever and her parents saw to it that, despite the fact that she could have these things, that she knew that they came only with hard work, courage and determination. she had the stars in her eyes and the sky was the limit for her. or at least, that was what it may have seemed like to the outside observer and for a while, it was just that. the popes were the stereotypical, all american family... who just happened to be ridiculously rich.

that's the thing, though, about the ridiculously rich: they find themselves in the spotlight more often than they might like and sometimes, they wind up on the losing side of things. that was exactly how the dream life the popes were living came crashing down at their feet. and while she may not like talking about it, about the night her life started to come undone max still remembers it like it was yesterday. she can remember her mother's screams, the way that katherine had thrown herself in front of her daughter, sacrificing herself to try and save her little girl. she can still remember the voices of the men and the way that their hands had felt and the smell of their breath and the way their screams had pierced the night as she, only thirteen years old, angry and sad and scared, had struggled out of their grasp and done all she could to protect herself and get away. and she can still remember waking up the next morning, cold and dirty and covered in blood in the arms of a police officer.

nothing was ever the same after that night. elijah, distraught over the loss of his wife and worried for his daughter's safety, found max the best therapist that money could buy and enrolled her in, what she's next to positive, was every self defense class and camp that he could possibly find and she spent her days behind the ivy covered walls of choate rosemary hall, studying everything from the classics to ancient greek and comparative religion and competing on the school's renowned junior olympic archery team. it may have seemed like she had it all together, like she was making the most out of the questionably shitty situation. but the truth was that she could hear the whispers of the other children, the stories about her mother's death and her father all but abandoning his daughter. but no one knew the truth, no one knew the real story but her and her therapist and her guilt weighed heavy on her every day. all she could do was throw herself into her studies, into the rigorous training regimen that had become her therapy and promise herself that she would never ever be put in that position ever again.

graduating top of your class from what was inarguably the most prestigious boarding school in america meant being accepted to all the best colleges. the students were expected to go on and do great things with their lives and while max was no exception from this expectation and had been accepted to cambridge and yale and five of the seven sisters, she had absolutely no intention of following her classmates into the wild unknown. instead, she spent almost a year wandering the world, aimless and without purpose, looking only for clarity and self reflection. she backpacked through europe, shopped the markets in morroco, and prayed in the temples of sri lanka, she trained with some of the best masters in the world and then spent nearly a month sunbathing all but naked on a beach off the isle of crete in greece.

it was in the fall of 2008 that she finally found herself back stateside and ready to get on with her life. she reconnected with her father, enrolled in school at amherst college, resumed her training and put her nose back to the metaphorical grind. max, never one to do things half-way, majored in physics and minored in astronomy, competed with the school's archery club as well as team usa as an olympic hopeful and somehow managed to balance a training schedule as well as a social life on top of all of it.

after graduating with her bachelor's degree, max had every intention of the london olympics in 2012 and grad school, but life had other plans. after a minor meltdown during opening ceremonies of the 2012 olympics, max opted to bow out. it was this experience that was the main catalyst in her retiring from competitive shooting. it wasn't a decision she took lightly and served as a major disappointment to fans and herself. she went back to boston filled with more shame than she admits and turned to teaching.