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Chloe has been prepared, from that very moment at the lighthouse onwards, to have her memories and very existence ripped away and thrown into the abyss for good. She continues to be cautious even as they drive into the highways that are too far from Arcadia Bay for Max to change her mind, and doesn’t stop even as time ticks by with the interviews, suffocating affection, nor when it all slowly fades into the back of her mind.
Had it been an entirely different circumstance, Chloe and Max would have drifted apart from each-other, slowly and agonizingly before their interactions would be shortened to cordial greetings and limited contact out of courtesy. In a way, that is exactly what starts happening the moment that they tick off the options from the official grieving list and force themselves into the flow of time, tucking their feelings into the depths of their pockets.
But they know better.
Chloe has sworn on the torn polaroid photograph, dancing in the wild wind, that she would not abandon her best friend. In a way, Max owns her, a part of her spirit that she has clung to for false promises of a better future for someone who has dried up her reservoir of concern and love all for herself. In a way, Chloe resents her for that. In a way, she resents herself. They’re bound by handcrafted memories and a chain of emotional responsibility that Chloe brought and Max reinforced.
She attempts dating. It has lost its natural ease from pre-Max and pre-Time Bullshit eras, but she doesn’t want to restrict herself to eternal grieving and getting caught up in useless whirlwind romances is the best way for her to mellow down, now that she has no reliable source of drugs to make her forget. She gets into the bed of two strangers and the heart of another, but even her longest relationship feels foreign, like an amnesiac in attempts to sort inexistent feelings towards existent bonds.
Predictably, her amnesiac streak vanishes in the presence of Max. Whatever happens – whether Chloe conducts a harsh break up or drifts away from a friend of only a week, they hide under the covers, bodies pressed together, and watch a stupid, badly-rated movie that Max insists on introducing or a boring novella that Chloe only watches to laugh at, and spend the rest of their time recovering from forced socialization. Arcadia Bay aside, they’re whole again. She’s whole again.
Max starts smiling and laughing more in her absence, and Chloe finds out that Kate has survived the storm. Chloe knows this girl only secondhandedly, but it’s a much-needed lift to her spirit to know that nature has had some mercy. Then she’s briefly angry again that it hasn’t done more, and then back to being in-between. Arcadia Bay continues to be the pinnacle of tragedy, but Chloe keeps her face stuck on the screen anyway, reading on the progress and looking at pictures of rebuilt homes, roads, and lives. It can’t stay a tragedy forever.
When Max finally tells her herself, bouncing with newfound energy, they kiss in the comfort of their home. Max’s lips taste faintly sweet – not something romantic like the passionate cherry, or gentle strawberry, but she has eaten on her own time rather than neglecting small pleasures like desserts and it makes Chloe happy all the same to know so. They bask in the afterglow of bliss for an unspecified amount of time, and then it’s back to the same old routine of very subtle grieving and frequent tugs at the chain that binds them together.
Chloe absorbs herself into the Internet, and with several increasingly confusing key words, manages to locate several articles on co-dependency. They’re relationship-focused, on datemates that only fulfil each-other for the time they’re together, but are otherwise husks, unable to push themselves forward. She scans the words helplessly, trying to find a solution, but she knows that she and Max dating would not change a single fact. Max owns her. Chloe lets her. It’s that simple.
It’s what prompts Chloe to leave.
Not forever, of course. She packs up enough provisions for a week’s nights out and leaves in the middle of the night, following a map to nowhere. Maybe civilization isn’t her best deal for the time being, and she wants to battle her thoughts without having an influence close-by.
As soon as she’s into the edge of the forest, she switches off her phone, afraid of having to face the barrage of calls (that may or may not come through, with such a shitty reception) and sets up camp. It’s technically not a legal camping ground, but nobody has taken this road for years. She doubts it would be a problem. It would be perfect if she had a blunt, but she’s had a few years to get used to its absence. She settles most of her body into her tent, her head peeking out, and observes the eventual shift of the sky from orange to a dark blue.
Seattle is too urban for her liking. Arcadia Bay was shit, sure, with its residents overcompensating for the immense lack of opportunity, but she’s at least always had her junkyard. With Rachel by her side, she has built a safe haven for whenever she has felt overwhelmed by the bore of the city and the disappointment of her parents. Rachel was nice. She’s more residue memory than anything by now, but by Gods is she trying her best to wedge her way into Chloe’s brain at any point.
At least Rachel would have been easy to let go. No time-shifting powers, no deaths except her own, and had Jeffershit been apprehended before any harm to her, they would have drifted. She has been major support, a solid rock under Chloe’s foot, but every support system is essentially tossed away on the road to recovery, and they would have parted amicably. Max, however, will never go away. Not when death does them apart, nor when arguments do the job, nor when her very presence leaves her feeling too broken to acknowledge what she has.
It’s cold, but some cold is nothing in comparison to suffocative warmth. Chloe finally changes positions and zips up the tent, and it’s definitely a little claustrophobic. She appreciates that it’s nothing like Arcadia Bay – the latter city has at least had its own system of love for every inch of the place. Even the junkyard, by Chloe, Rachel, Max, and other misfits looking to flip the bird at the world. This is a long-lost place of dead dreams, dear to nobody. She can’t find any way to love it.
She doesn’t learn to love it on the second day, as mindless explorations leave her legs begging for rest every five minutes or so. She returns to the base camp much earlier than planned and eats beans out of a can. They taste awful, but Chloe likes the thrill of survival resources.
She gets used to the layout on the third day. She’s brought one of Max’s trashy romance novels for company, and it’s a delight. One problem arises towards the end, and it’s that Chloe keeps re-reading the final kiss scene that solidifies the love of the painfully heterosexual couple, trying to find some emotion in there for herself as a keepsake. It doesn’t work.
Her sleep is interrupted on the fourth day by footsteps that crunch old leaves.
Chloe holds her breath at the very sight of her visitor.
Max looks tired. Genuinely exhausted. She wobbles a little on one leg and glares daggers at Chloe, holding up eye contact that lasts longer than Chloe remembers it. She looks very unnatural amidst natural surroundings, like she’s far more suited to civilization than Chloe will ever be.
“You asshole.”
“How did you find me?!”
“You think I’m stupid, Chlo?” She throws her hands up in the air, and Chloe finds more venom in her voice than at any point, with anybody, anywhere. Her tone of speech has always been gentle. “I know that when you’re gone, you tend to pull shit like this. I had to beg my parents not to report you missing because I know you’re fucking fine, and here you are. Here you are.”
“I needed a break.” Chloe doesn’t mean to be malicious, but anger boils in her stomach like an overdue unattended stew. “You’re not the only one suffering, you know that, right? Sometimes I just can’t fucking stand being around you. It makes me sick, sometimes, to think I’m forced to live out a life that shouldn’t exist and you keep reminding me, okay? I wanted to get away from this shit and it seemed like a good place to stop.”
“You didn’t even leave a note.”
“Oh, yes, of course, great point, Maxie! Why didn’t I just straight up invite you to the fucking outing? Do you understand how unhealthy this is? I can’t depend on you forever to not feel like shit, and even when I depend on you not to feel like shit, I still feel like shit, and I—“ She pauses, stifling a sob. “We need to stop this. I need to go.”
Silence. The crisp morning wind is the only source of noise to cover it up, and it sounds more annoying than calming. Chloe notices a second too late that her face is damp. “I miss my city.” And she knows that Max knows exactly what she means.
It doesn’t take long for her to feel bad.
Max doesn’t deserve this. There’s no amount of blame in the world that should belong to her for letting the inevitable go. They can’t have known for sure that going back to the dreaded day in the bathroom would have prevented the storm. It could have been worse, for all she knows. And Chloe’s burdens are not hers to haul.
Her companion doesn’t say anything. She sits down amidst the leaves and lifts her head up towards the sky. Chloe stays standing for a moment more, then joins her on the other side, drawing her knees to her chest. She doesn’t wail, but there’s snot and tears preventing her from letting the silence be. The weather is no summer material, but it feels balanced out for once during Chloe’s impromptu stay.
“I’m sorry, Chloe.”
Chloe sniffs and clears her throat. “Don’t apologize.”
“I hurt you.”
“I promised that I’d carry that burden.”
“You didn’t ask for it.”
“Neither did you.”
Max finally looks down, back at eye level, and she’s crying, too. Chloe wipes off her face with a sleeve, and considers dabbing at her friend’s own face. The thought doesn’t last long. “Max Caulfield, I promised you I would be there. That if you wanted to choose me over everybody else, it would be as right of a choice as any other. I still don’t think I’m worth the price, but I swear to God I’ll make myself worth it. I won’t do this again. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Max reaches out, squeezing both of Chloe’s hands, who looks up, repressing an urge to jerk back out of shock. “You’re worth more than a city to me. You’re the world, Chloe.”
That doesn’t make her feel any better, but she knows she means it. “I think we both need therapy.”
Her friend is the one to jerk back, looking genuinely surprised. She bursts in laughter through her tears, a bittersweet sound but welcome all the same, infectious enough to tug the corners of Chloe’s mouth into a smile, and then in a laughing fit of her own. Max leans into Chloe, who pulls her into an embrace, and it feels like they’re truly, genuinely in sync for the first time. “I don’t think therapy would comprehend my superior time powers.”
“They won’t understand your powers, but they’ll understand Max. I’m sure they’ll understand me too. But…” Chloe frowns, running her fingers through Max’s hair. There’s a moment that she thinks that she might fall asleep on her, after all. “I need a change.”
“I know. Me too.”
“Sometimes I wish I wasn’t worth the world to you.”
A pause. “Me too.”
They don’t leave immediately. Chloe has packed up extensively and Max agrees to squeeze herself into the other space in the tent for another couple of days. They’re friends, after all, and want to at least play the part. Chloe has long lost her desire to camp, even though it had once been an anticipated outing – barbeque, sightseeing, play-pretending and trying not to think about how it’s going to be over soon.
It doesn’t have any of this, but it’s better than nothing. Canned beans and strong attempts not to reminisce mark two more days off the break. Chloe doesn’t even want to think about her job. It was a shitty part-time gig, but still something to keep her occupied all the same, and she’s either going to have to beg to get it back or let go of it indefinitely. Chloe doesn’t beg or grovel for anything unimportant.
Max seems pensive. She hasn’t been very chatty throughout the trip, but she always says more. Chloe scoots up next to her and jabs her arm with an elbow, but receives no direct reaction. “Penny for your thoughts, stranger?” She’s in no mood to act cheery, but after the reunion fiasco, it’s more than necessary.
She doesn’t look at Chloe. “I’m glad you’re here.”
No response. They’re entirely silent as they load the provisions back into the truck, and even more so when Chloe navigates back into civilization. She badly wants to be able to return the sentiment, but it’s been an emotionally draining week and by the time she thinks about bringing it back up, it’s too late. Max says nothing about it.
They do keep their promise and make a step towards the mental health services. It helps Chloe, for a little while. Max, not so much. They give all that they can afford to give and are spun a tale that’s grains of truth in oceans of speculation. Chloe doesn’t get her job back, but Max’s parents pull strings for something else. They’ve always been far too nice and understanding.
Chloe puts down a payment for an apartment at one of the city’s edges. She washes off the blue on her head and leaves the old strawberry blonde locks to frame her face. Instead of the spitting image of rebellion, she notices she’s once again just the spitting image of her father. It’s boring and normal and unfamiliar, and Chloe fights her emotions over it until they’re too dull to threaten her with depression and a relapse in grieving for something that should be too old for her to think of.
Max leaves for a college outside of town and makes an honest effort to keep in touch. They mutually discard the idea of video chat and instead resort to snail mail. Max’s letters are always long – messy but readable, and incredibly descriptive. Chloe’s letters are short and sincere and in attempted and frankly ugly cursive. Max changes her major two times throughout their exchange. Chloe changes her job once.
Chloe forgets what Max’s voice sounds like. In hindsight, maybe that could have been a good thing. She pushes back resurfacing memories and tells them to fuck off. Their letters become less and less frequent, though they still come, even though Chloe puts a temporary stop to her own replies. At one point, she tosses an envelope into the trash and prays she won’t want to dig it back out of there out of her own guilt. She doesn’t.
They pile up until Chloe replies with an excuse, still having not read any of them.
She comes back first thing, years later, and they don’t recognize each-other first, each staring at the other through each side of the door step. Max has grown tall, her mousy brown, boyish cut now long enough to cascade past her shoulders, and there’s a tinge of red on her lips. Her baby face, now with a splash of appropriate make-up, has grown mature. Chloe doesn’t recognize her at first – Max has always been distinctly feminine, but now she appears to have the glow of an adult who should have had many, many suitors and their trail of broken hearts after her.
The first thing she asks, reluctantly, is whether she got the wrong apartment, and Chloe swoops her into her arms immediately, laughing and teasing and dragging her right in. Her weight causes them both to collapse on the floor in fits of breathless laughter and playfighting.
“You couldn’t think of visiting me once, you bitch?”
Her tone is joking, but Max stops laughing.
“I thought you wouldn’t want me to.”
“Bullshit! I thought we’ve been over this, you pest, you could’ve barged in angry as a bull, destroyed all my property and I would’ve been the happiest woman alive.”
Her mind drifts off to the pile of untouched letters, and she shuts up. Max plants a kiss on her cheek and stands up, but Chloe remains in a lying position, arms stretched across the floor. “I know, I’m sorry. My first thought was that you couldn’t possibly be my Chloe – I mean, look at you. But on the contrary, you haven’t changed at all.”
“Gee, thanks, Mad Max.” She bounces up and grabs onto Max’s shoulders, squeezing lightly. Max watches her passively, head tilted to the side. “Welcome home. I missed you.”
Max laughs in her face. “And I thought you were going to confess or do something equally dramatic.”
“I mean it! I know I might have made it sound like I don’t want you around, but shit, Max, there’s nobody I’d rather have more than your stupid face.”
She gasps in mock-offense. “Your face is stupid! No, look, I—I know, okay? I was just a little scared, is all. It’s been weird. With you and I, I mean. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Chloe smiles gently, “but you know what? Your timing is perfect. I have the entire weekend off and I’m not letting you go. A few dates here and there are long overdue and I’m not taking no as an answer.”
“Is that your way of asking me out?”
“That’s my way of saying I love you, Max, let’s start over. It’s not that deep.”
“You’re making it pretty deep.”
“Shut up, no I’m not.”
It’s not only the hairstyle that Max has changed. She’s still sheepish and quiet, but much more outspoken and blunt in the presence of people. They refuse to speak about Arcadia Bay, though Max gets in touch with Kate again and Chloe is finally able to meet her properly. Max comments that she no longer looks like she has permanent circles under her eyes. Not that Chloe would’ve known, but she’s glad to hear so.
Max has made friends. Chloe has so far kept up acquaintances without ruining them. There’s obviously a difference between being able to approach relationships at one’s own pace and being pushed right into socialization. Chloe finds out that she has reconnected with Victoria – not that Chloe ever liked that girl much, what with all the tales Max had offered about her – and that they have some semblance of a friendship now. Chloe wants to not be resentful about how there aren’t any people she has held dear amongst the survivors.
It’s not long before Max moves in, takes up more than half of Chloe’s space and continues from right where she left off: being a constant presence that Chloe finds herself wishing for after years of separation.
Arcadia Bay or not, she loves this girl too damn much to let her go.
Max initiates the dates. They’re what they are – not outings with a long-lost friend or hanging out per usual, they’re romantic and comfortable, and sweet, and as mushy as one expects dates to be. This isn’t Maxine Faye Caulfield, bearer or storms, time-traveller, this is a dear friend with a cute-ass face and a kind nature. It isn’t Chloe Elizabeth Price, karma Houdini, fighting against the universe, it’s just a grown woman who has been through many phases of life and has mellowed down rather than seek impossible adventure.
They go back to the apartment, after that. Tear clothes off like they’ve been waiting for a long time – which wouldn’t be a lie – and Chloe explores and caresses every part of her body that she can reach without disrupting the flow. It’s sweet, and gentle, and by all means inexperienced, reluctant in some ways, like how Max turns her head away when they’re close to kissing and how Chloe just outright stops at times, like she’s frozen without the traits of shock. Max starts to mimic her, perhaps unconsciously, perhaps out of her own will, becoming more and more unresponsive until they just give up and lie down next to each-other, reluctant to let their skins touch.
Chloe looks at her. She’s still grown, still ethereal, but her face crunches up in a way that Chloe has only seen when they were young 18-year old brats in search for meaning after the sight of the storm tearing their town apart. At that moment, Chloe glimpses her best friend in her younger years, small and vulnerable, and recoils, moving her head away to look at the ceiling instead. Chloe has changed in appearance, of course. Her hair continues to be long and blonde, but she continues to be a broad-shouldered girl with a taste in clothing suitable for rebellious kids that are years under her age, just upgraded to something more work-suitable.
She had been happy in the last few days. At least she thinks so. It’s so nice to welcome a dear, most loved friend in, disregarding everything else but what they are and what they will be. But to disregard all the heartache and everything that Max has been, done, looked like, wanted to do and never did, can only last for so long until it collapses right on the head.
The worst part is that Chloe can’t bring herself not to love it, even when it’s becoming increasingly hard for her to combine and live with both parts. Max is a mess, no matter how much she pretends not to be, and Chloe is damned if she doesn’t acknowledge and love the hell out of said mess. She wonders whether Max thinks the same of her and her damn inability to let go of things.
“Chloe.”
Normally, Chloe would have sprung up to her comfort immediately. Normally? Who the hell says that? She would’ve been at least a little hesitant even RARELY. Still, now she’s not so sure she wants to listen. She’s not entirely sure she wants to fall into rabbit’s hole and into the stupid incident all over again like it’s those five years ago. Damn it, damn it, damn it, not again, not again, not again, not again—
Silence. Whatever Max had wanted to say doesn’t come out. Or perhaps Chloe had missed a beat while cussing and trying to fill her head up with thoughts until it stops hurting. She doubts it. It’s easy to tell when Max is waiting for a response. If she had, she’s not waiting for one now. Chloe forces herself to look. It’s a difficult moment in which Max shifts through two people at once. Whatever she is, she’s bare, brown hair keeping her more warmth than Chloe is offering, eyes fixed firmly upwards like Chloe had earlier.
“Max.”
She seems startled when Chloe addresses her.
“Y-yes? Did I say something? I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”
“No. You didn’t say anything.”
Another moment of hesitant silence, and Max tentatively reaches out for Chloe’s hand. The latter wastes no time in snatching it and giving it a gentle squeeze. For a while, Max seems whole again, the amalgam of one broken person and another completely repaired. She’s an old doll with sealed cracks and all the dust that one could imagine.
Chloe’s voice cracks a little when she speaks again. “Tell me about college.”
Max’s eyes blink in confusion. “Did you not read my letters?”
Not all of them. Chloe isn’t about to tell her that. She should’ve been reading them religiously. “No, I mean—what kind of person did college make you?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
Chloe shoots her a look that conveys a ‘yes, you do’, and her friend sighs, pulling Chloe’s hand close to her chest. “I’d like to think it made me a better person.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And I learned how to speak in public without feeling like I’m going to piss my pants. And, um—how to make friends, and— how not to miss you.”
She sounds uncertain as she finishes that sentence. Like it’s supposed to be true, like she’s believed it to be true for years to come, only to crumble down on her the moment they closed down the distance. “And—no, I didn’t change. I haven’t changed. I haven’t, Chloe. I’ve spent every single waking moment thinking about you. And Arcadia Bay. Well, not so much for Arcadia Bay. But you, you, you when you sent me letters, you when you didn’t, you in my classes and you out of them—“
“You said you didn’t miss me.”
“I don’t know, Chloe.”
Chloe breathes in, her eyes averted. “Is it such a bad thing? I mean—of course I missed you, too, but—“
“You said you needed a change.” Her voice is sharp, now. “So did I. It didn’t do much, did it? I just went running back to you because I can’t stand a life without you, which is exactly what I did back in Arcadia Bay. It’s a bad thing because I’ll never have someone more important than you and I forced myself into it and I probably forced you into that as well.” It’s a flurry of words that clash into each-other and still remain coherent. She pauses to take a breath. “I thought that I could give you an easy way out if I left, but that’s not the case, is it? I just came back. You said you wanted me back. So I came back running. And now I’m here with you and look—look at what we’re trying to do. It’s actually pathetic.”
Chloe becomes momentarily self-conscious of her bare skin and tugs at the blanket. Max looks like she could be holding back tears, but has run dry of them. “Max, listen—“
“No.”
“I said listen.”
Silence, once again.
“You didn’t force me into loving you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” She’s picking her words very carefully – not as much for Max’s sake, but for her own. “I’ve felt the same way. I know I have. I know it’s—it’s just a human’s instinct to drift away from relationships and not keep up with them and I know it’s just—not going to happen with us.”
Aside from Max literally bending time and space just to keep her alive, there has always been more. She should’ve known that, of course. Had it been anybody else shifting fate itself, it might have not been that warm of a reception for them. Rachel, maybe? She had loved Rachel, at some point, but she wasn’t the same warm and gentle glow that Max wielded throughout their friendship. She was an entirely different enigma on her own.
“Do you remember that one time you promised me we would go travelling together? You to take your pictures, me to be your bodyguard, anywhere as long as it’s us two?”
A pause. Max nods mutely.
“Maybe it’s destiny. We went travelling together. You took pictures, and I… well, I kept you safe, didn’t I? You weren’t in any danger, but I would’ve kicked every ass in sight for you. I’m alive. Sure, Arcadia is dead, but…” Just the mention brings a pang in her chest. The painful kind. She presses on, still, “Maybe that’s just how destiny was supposed to be. Maybe you were meant to use those powers to save me. It’s been a few years, and… time hasn’t fucked me over yet. I think it’s over for me. I think I would have loved you just the same if we were two survivors standing and you hadn’t had powers to save me with.”
For a moment, Max looks like she might be considering it. Chloe disregards her own trembling. “If I was meant to die in that bathroom, you wouldn’t have been able to prevent it. I loved you when we were 10. I loved you when I was 13. I guess I loved you when you left. I loved you when you came back. It’s always been a different kind of love, but it was there. Letting—“ She gulps, “Letting the others die was just a part of it. I think I was meant to experience that week with you, shooting bottles, kissing you on a dare, breaking in Blackhell— and that’s not forced. That’s not forced. It’s not. It has never been.”
Another pause, and a tender smile. Chloe’s anxious heart slows down a little bit, washed away with relief. Max smiling is a genuinely beautiful sight, and she realizes she doesn’t regret anything she has said in the past few minutes. She’s whole. They’re whole. Perhaps with sealed cracks and scars, but they’re bound and they’re whole and that’s okay. It should be okay.
Max doesn’t say anything more, and Chloe shuts up. They allow themselves to scoot closer to each-other, and it’s warm again. Not quite as warm as they would be if they had clothes on, but they have the comforts of the blanket and each-other, and it finally feels right. A gentle shade of blue meets another in a locked gaze.
“Hey, Max?”
“Mm?”
It's taken a small chunk of Chloe's life to finally return the sentiment. “I’m glad you’re here.”