Maxine Lynn Delaney was the first and only daughter of Benjamin Delaney and his wife, Stacy. Max's father was a police officer for the Boston Police Department, while her mother worked as a social worker. They weren't extremely well-off, but they lived comfortably and Max could honestly say that she really didn't lack anything while she was growing up; well, except maybe privacy. She was the oldest of four, with three rowdy younger brothers, who definitely tried her patience on the best of days. Max was often left in charge of them when her parents both had to work, and she learned from a young age how to demand people's attention in a way that would give her the best results.

Max was the quintessential "beauty queen" growing up. She was popular and well-liked, usually surrounded by people who wanted her attention. Those who weren't immediately charmed by her personality often thought that she came off as a bit vain and stuck-up. Though she did have somewhat high standards for the people who she choose to hang out with, Max never considered herself to be a snob of any sort (even if she tended to give off that vibe). Her father was constantly reminding her that, yes, even though she was beautiful, her looks weren't going to get her anywhere great in life. Benjamin did his best to get his children to focus on the important things: health, family, and education.

The Delaney's were very close and any time that both of Max's parents were both free from work, the family found themselves doing some sort of activity or outing together. And even when they were stuck at home, Max's parents did their best to encourage "togetherness" between them all, even if it was just doing their homework together at the dining room table. As Max grew older, she did become a bit more independent. She was never short on friends, so there was always some sort of party or hang out going on, so she found herself splitting her time between her friends and her family. Max was nothing, if not the best at multitasking, so she managed to do it quite successfully, even if her father was constantly complaining about of time she spent talking to people on the phone.

At the age of fifteen, Max's family suffered from a great loss when her father was killed in the line of duty. It was during a routine traffic stop that Benjamin was struck and killed by a drunk driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel. Despite being rushed to the hospital, he was pronounced dead shortly after being admitted. The entire Delaney family took his death extremely hard, including Max, who was very close to her father. She withdrew from everyone, throwing herself into her school work in order to focus on something that was not the absence of her father's presence. Her GPA was nearly perfect, while her social life took quite the hit. She was no longer the bubbly, friendly girl that everyone had come to know, and many of her friends had no idea how to handle the sudden personality change.

It wasn't until her senior year that Max started to come out of her shell once again. After countless counseling sessions, she began to realize that the only real way to move on from her father's death was to continue living her life like he would have wanted her to. She began hanging out with her old friends more, began to joke around, and most importantly, started smiling again. It was almost as if the past year and a half had never happened and the sad, quite Max was merely a figment of everyone's imagination. Of course, she still took her school work quite seriously, since she knew that her father had valued an education more than anything in the world. She managed to graduate as valedictorian of her high school class, a feat that Max was immensely proud of.

Going to college was something that had always been in Max's life-after-high-school plans. She was accepted to Boston University, where she decided to major in health science. She had always had a passion for science and knew that she wanted to do something with her life that would help people, save people. College was an entirely new experience for Max, because she was suddenly a little fish in a pretty big pond. She didn't let that deter her though, and did her best to balance and active social life with her classes. It was a little difficult at times and there were moments when she just wanted to hide in her room and never speak to anyone again, but she hardly let anyone see that part of her. Max put her best face forward and did what she had to do to graduate suma cum laude from the university with her bachelor's degree. From there, it was straight to nursing school.

It was at this time that Max began growing close to Jesse Fitz, whom she began talking to after her good friend, Riley Swanson, left Boston to go to New York City. It started as merely a friendship to help each otehr deal with the absence of Riley in their lives, but it wasn't long before Max started to develop feelings for him. They began dating, and their relationship was great. they had many things in common, including various interests and hobbies, and Max was taken by Jesse's clumsy charm. She fell hard for him, but after a few months of being together, she began to realize that she was competing with someone who wasn't even there anymore. She was never going to have one hundred percent of Jesse's heart, so when the job offer for a position at a hospital in San Francisco came, Max jumped at accepting it. She broke the news to Jesse a few weeks before she was set to move and as much as it hurt her to do, Max ended the relationship between the two of them. She was determined to leave and never look back.

Of course, nothing is ever really that easy and it wasn't long before she started to feel homesick. Max had never really been away from her family before, especially since they were all so close, and merely speaking to her mother over Skype just wasn't the same. She missed them, she missed Boston, she missed everything. Only after five months of being in San Francisco, Max began looking for jobs in the Boston area and applied for any that she thought might be a good fit for her. She didn't want to go back to Boston and not have anything to look forward to or a steady paycheck, but luck was on her side when she managed to get a phone interview with Boston Medical for a position in their pediatrics department. She was surprised when they offered her the job, and soon Max found herself packing up the place she never really saw as home and moving back to Boston after only being gone for seven months.