Loyalties:
I don't own "Life is Strange" or its characters, all trademarks and characters are the properties of their legal owners. The tribute "Beyond the Storm" is the fruit of my imagination. For any total or partial use, please ask permission.
Author's Note - The reason for this short story is that I could not stand the unfair way as Life is Strange went to an end. So I needed to find my better point of view beyond the storm. I do not know if the story will go on. Of course it might, but I think not in the forthcoming. Much depends on what stays with me after playing Before the Storm :))
Given that, I think love is love, and it does not matter what side of the moon it is from. Within the framework of the story, only the power of love would be able to lead Max through the right direction, crossing time and space, to allow her of rewriting it so as to save, with one shot, both Chloe, her friends and the good side of Arcadia Bay.
That is why Max and Chloe cannot be BFF anymore...
English is not my first language. Sorry for mistakes, and many thanks for reading. Enjoy! :D
BEYOND THE STORM
… Time is like a moving river that flows down to the sea slowly. It has steep shores, and gentle coves, where you can stop and rest once in a while. Sometimes, new directions slip away, made of bold waters, unable of surrendering to the flow. You can follow the river, and it will always lead you to the sea. Or, you can go back, and taming the current! ...
… Hello diary. You know, I missed the hell out of you! Some people say that, time is "circular," or at least that it is "non-directional," in the sense that it does not always go forward in the same direction, but it repeats itself. Or, it revolves around, like the old Pompidou, when he tries to catch his own tail! Well, you should ask Warren, because I never understood a single word he said! To be honest, I'm starting to feel like it was the very reason why my "power" has chosen me!
Well, if you really want to call it "power" because... usually, to have a power makes a difference, and you can help people. Yes, I saved Chloe's life, this is true, but I also messed with the timelines, the parallel or the alternative ones, and... divergent, secant, tangents, or whatever the hell they are called! If it really is true that, the storm out there is the product of all my back and forth, then forgive me for asking, but... what kind of power is it, if cannot be used in the spirit of good?!
However, Chloe thinks of me like a superhero! Whoa, I changed from zero to hero within a day! For a loser like me is such a high feeling that, it cuts all words out of me! Moreover, being Chloe's hero is so cool! Sometimes, when she looks at me with those full of veneration eyes, I need to struggle hard not to burst into tears between her arms. Poor me! Loser and mushy... no doubt, Victoria would be... psyched!
Anyway, today is a special day, because I've come to a very important decision. One of those decisions that cannot be buried in a diary. So much "hardcore" that, my future depends on it, and maybe also the fate of many people around me! So, I need a run of good fucking luck!
When I moved to Seattle five years ago, I was terrified at the thought of trading my little corner of paradise in Oregon, with a wild metropolis and dangerous. I have been just a naive little girl who did not realize that Seattle in comparison looks like a senior centre! Since I came back to Arcadia Bay, I feel like I am just walking in the ass crack of hell!
I bet you are wondering what decision I am speaking about. Before I tell you, I have to share something with you. Or... maybe, I should come clean with myself for... something! What I feel for Chloe... well, I am not sure I know what kind of sentiment it is! I just feel weird... far more than strange, I would say!
At first, I thought the excitement of having found my BFF back, to save her life, made my heart beat so hard. Then, I told myself, the wave of crazy shit that I was through in those last days, this bizarre power of mine, likely had completely upset my stomach. However, every time Chloe gets closer, when she touches my hand, if only she looks me in the eye, when she smiles... I fear I may swoon! I can't stop thinking about her. Lately, I also started to want to kiss her, to hold her in my arms, and... well, you get it!
OK, I have a massive crush on my BFF! That makes me really euphoric, and at the same time is getting cold feet on me whenever I wonder what the reaction of Chloe will be! I have never felt like this before, and I would with all my heart that it never ends! I feel so freaked out! Jesus! All that I know is I would die before losing her again!
Here is the reason for my decision. OK, I am the kind of loser, who should not even think like that, I know! I also know that it will become more difficult. Every time, more and more painful. But, I do not care. I decided that, I will never surrender... NEVER! I will continue to go upstream, to look for new ways, to take new directions. I will do anything to save Chloe, and... to stop the fucking storm! With regard to how... well, she would say - "Chillax, bro! I'm still working on!" So... chillax! We will deal with it later. Actually, I have to go. My "partner in crime" is waiting for me, and she usually gets pretty jumpy when she has to wait...
… Butterfly wings flapping in the wind, once again... heedless about all hearts the storm is taking away. Something springs to Max mind. A phrase she has read, who knows when, who knows where, "Being with you, and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time." Maybe, Love guards the secret of time, and this is the time she will find it out. Whatever it is, she needs to keep hoping this is the special path of her to get Chloe back.
"Oh Warren, my friend, you have no idea how grateful I am that you took this picture!"
The noise of the wind screams its rabid blackmail. Broken objects puked down from the sky are scraping against the wounded limbs of the Diner, like a sort of evil clanging. The crashing sound of junk against its own battered walls mourns for a while, before flying away.
Distant cries bounce in the head, like balls against a window, getting all thoughts shattered. The dismay floats all around, like a painful death note, it rages on the poor survivors.
The storm is actually coming, like in the doomsday! The pressing rage heralds the imminent end of all things! Pain is piercing Max's heart from within, fear tries to make it burst. She's so scared and tired, but she has to keep fighting. She cannot give up right now... she would not!
"No, oh no! I can't be too late, must not be! It makes no sense!"
The last ray of hope is desperately hammering into Max's brain. Like a gruff assistant, it takes care of her. The power of love protects her, holds her own hand, and urges her to resist, to go on. She forces herself to reason.
"Think, Max! ... Think!"
Warren's black and blue gaze sparkles with sweetness in the Max's eyes. He feels disturbed by his own feelings, but they are shouting louder than anything else on Earth. A few words whispered to his heart are enough to make him react.
"Warren, whatever happens, don't leave Joyce alone! I know how mad I'm sounding, sometimes, but... I think I have a plan! I... trust me, okay?"
"I always do!"
Time is dancing in Max's hands, once again. Timelines are mixed between her fingers. They tangle, overlap, gets cracks open, and then, they close them. Reality gets confused. Timelines write, cancel, and rewrite the same story dozens of times. Joys and pains suddenly fall in the middle of Max's heart, like heavy rain which invades it with emotions. Another picture comes to life, new destinies have a birth, get transformed. No matter where the journey has begun. The lighthouse is where it always goes to an end. Every time in front of the same damned storm, which roars, closer and closer!
Chloe feels like her heart is about to break out. Hands of hers hold tight Max's motionless body. Her own voice is screaming louder than the wind.
"Max?! ... Max, can you hear me?"
Tears of despair wash away the rain from Chloe's face. Every cell in Chloe's body seems to go mad. Silence, loneliness, fear, is so familiar shit to her. Yet, she has never felt more useless, hurt, terrified, and... abandoned to herself before. Chloe's hypnotized eyes are probing Max's face that seems lifeless. She holds Max on her lap, gently stroking her face, so sweetly way as she never thought she can do. Chloe feels her own heart painfully digging a gap toward the breastbone. While the stomach climbs stubbornly up her throat. She bends down to lay her lips on Max's forehead. She kisses it in silence, as the eyes of hers flood with tears, and she feels like she never loved someone so much!
"Max, please, say something!"
Max's fingers barely move in Chloe's worried hand. The first thing she hears is a disturbing tinge of dread, which makes Chloe's voice quivering. The second thing is the icy wind, which is embroidering chills on her own skin. Then, she feels hurtful jolts in the hair, and over the soaked clothes of hers. The nausea is gone up her stomach forceful, incited by the deep sense of disgust. Max's thoughts limp in her head, still confused in the darkness. Like in a rubber room, they roll wearily, before facing the harsh reality, giving back to the girl the bitter awareness of herself, of the horrible nightmare from which she cannot wake up. Suddenly, Max's eyes widen on the storm, which is howling and swelling over the waves of the sea, once again.
"Chloe!"
Relief blows out like a blessing through Chloe's veins. It takes the place of adrenaline, and for a moment, is able to soothe all her own anxiety. She's so happy to hear Max's voice that the hurricane even seems so less scary.
"Oh, thank God! Don't you ever do that again, okay?"
This is not the first time that Max falls unconscious. However, when she wakes up, everything seems more and more extreme, more dangerous. Chloe also feels so powerless, at the mercy of the vortex looming over Arcadia Bay, over their lives. The storm is floating suspended in the sky, for what seems like eternity. It looms over, like a devil came out of hell. It feeds on hate, badness, and becomes more voracious. At every moment bigger, more and more threatening. The guilt is raging in the Max's soul, gets dragged into Chloe's.
"This is my storm! I caused this... I caused all of this! ... All I really created was just death and destruction!"
Chloe would just like to hug Max, take care of her, erase all the pain with a kiss. From the day Max came back into her life, she has begun to feel the blood pulsing through her veins. Max is able to get her heart beating beyond her wildest dreams. Chloe cannot even believe it happened herself, but for the first time in a long while, she feels like she has a purpose, a beautiful reason to live... or to die.
"You're Maxine Caulfield and you're amazing!"
Chloe is clinging to the blue wings of the butterfly with a shaky hand. Max took that photo in the Blackwall bathroom, the day when it all began. Emotion shivers her voice, as Chloe hands it to Max, bravery heart. There is a river of love in Chloe's gaze, which gets Max overwhelmed. Their fate tied into the irresistible force of that river, now and forever. The intensity how they feel about each other is far to be friendship, by now. Max is wondering if that is the very meaning of her own power. Perhaps, Love can rule the time and space, but above all it is able to rewrite her own destiny, the Chloe's one. This must be the reason that all roads lead Max here... in front of the same storm! Chloe's voice broken by emotion is really scaring Max, now.
"Max, this is the only way!"
The unnameable proposal comes down with a thud into Max's heart, so cruel than unexpected. A hurricane of pain shakes her own bones from within, it tears her soul into a million pieces, and knocks her down, out of breath. Max cannot even imagine watching Chloe die again, knowing that, it would be... forever! However, the storm swoops on the town free to unleash its own murderous rage. What Max is helplessly watching is too high a price to pay! She thinks it is so unfair to be called to sacrifice the love of her life forever, not to feel like the "butcher" of Arcadia Bay, for the rest of her life! What the poor Max has done to deserve all of this? Well, no nothing! No wonder this choice cannot be a choice, and not even a punishment. This irrepressible hope got pushed Max to find out other solutions! However, Chloe's voice, shaken with tears, brings Max back to reality, breaking her heart. That's enough! Max does not want to listen, anymore!
"All that would take is for me to... to..."
Max rejects the mere thought away, with a grimace of terror. She has been an enforced spectator of Chloe's death too many times. Each time, her own feelings have grown. The loss has become incurable agony. Day by day, friendship turned into something bigger, deeper, as a natural evolution. Max knows there is no consolation, she learned that the hard way. Memories are still so vivid in her heart, and painful. No one could fill the void left by Chloe inside of her, and it would be a lot of pain for her broken heart to bear.
She is not prepared to live with this, she will never be! She is so hell-bent on not forsaking the love of her life! Not without fighting, not before trying with all her strength, again and again. Tears are hiding in the rain, but the wind cannot carry away the emotion that makes Max's voice trembling.
"Fuck that! No... no way! You are my number one priority, now! You are all that matters to me!"
Max's words run through Chloe's senses, gently caressing her soul, getting it inebriate. Their emotions are mixed together, and confused in the painful awareness of having to respond to their own fate. The stabbing pain is so intense that Chloe thinks, she is about to pass out. She looks at Max straight in the eye, as Max's strength flows in Chloe's belief. The nerve of Chloe grows up, thanks to love that Max has shown her so many times, with every gesture, in every word. Chloe Price is such a badass. She got much more stones than any pirate who inspired her childhood dreams.
"I know I've been selfish, but for once, I think I should accept my fate... our fate!"
Max does not want to listen anymore. Every word is like a knife, which rages in her soul, and makes it bleed.
"Chloe, I can't make this choice!"
Chloe's words lash Max's face, like ice bullets swirled by the wind. A whole host of emotions suddenly take off to overwhelm Max senses and Chloe's.
"No, Max... you're the only one who can!"
The cruel reality falls between them. It comes down, with the strength of a hammer, and crushes their young hearts of disenchantment. They would like to wake up from the nightmare, to be happy, to be together. Max is unable to move any of her limbs. She wants to cry, and laugh, and shout loud. All she feels is mixed in a hurricane of emotions, which is sparkling in the wet eyes of Chloe. Max realizes, now more than ever, she cannot do it. She cannot let her go! She gently takes Chloe's hands, and feels how much she is shaking.
She would like to explain how overwhelming her emotion is when Chloe touches her hands. What it means to look in Chloe's eyes, and lose her mind. Losing control over her heart at every Chloe's smile. How much is deep the immense thing she feels for her, and pure. But, Max is not capable of it, not with words. Time is running away, as fast as the glow of thunder. The hurricane will not stop. Max and Chloe remain motionless. A sweet shimmer, and entranced, gets them merged into the same look. They belong to the same unpredictable fate, like two drops of rain dragged by the wind. Everything they experience has only one name, one destination. Love. Max's hands gently touch Chloe's face, they attract it closer, in sweet trepidation. Their lips meet wonder emotions. They belong to each other in the rapture of a long, sweet kiss. So deeply, to enclose them both, for a moment, within the same soul.
They are motionless, in a tiny corner of peace. Their bodies bravely stand out against the storm, for an infinitely short moment. Yet, like interwoven in the infinite itself!
"I love you so badly, Chloe!"
"I'll always love you, Max!"
Max has always known what to do! She made her decision long ago. There is a new awareness, which lights a little ray of hope even in the soul made of streamers of Chloe, which protrude in the wind.
"Chloe, when Nathan was threatening you with a gun, and you thought you'd die... do you remember the last thing that crossed your mind, before you heard the alarm?"
Chloe certainly does not struggle to answer. The memory has been scrupulously carved into her mind, not yet buried, never gotten over. At the time, she thought she went freaked out for fear. She did not see any sense over such a strange thought. She was just pleasantly upset about it. Maybe now, something was beginning to make sense.
"I remember every single word perfectly... I thought... oh, shit, how I wish Max were here!"
Max's smile widens boldly against the storm. It warms up in the beam of light, which illuminates the gaze of Chloe once again.
"Score! Maybe there is a way, Chloe! If I'm right, Rachel will get her own revenge, and what is good in Arcadia Bay won't be wiped out forever! But, I need you to trust me, especially when it looks like I am totally high, or absolutely freaked out!"
Chloe's daring voice is almost able to wipe out the storm. At least, the inside one, which is roaring in Max's heart.
"Hey, SuperMax! I hella trust you, Baby... you're my hero... you'll always be!"
The two girls hug each other, wrapped in a tender flame of love. Max's fingers gently linger on blue of Chloe's hair. Their eyes are whispering words of love. They kiss again, one last time, as their bodies are vibrating of passion.
"I love you Chloe! I'll always be with you! I will cross time and space, I'm gonna write it for us! So, don't panic, pirate of my heart... wherever you are, I'll find you, and I'll take care of you... ALWAYS!"
Chloe's eyes are full of rain, but a ray of sunshine is caressing her smile. She feels like she has finally found her way home. Love is beating inside her. It makes her tremble with joy and wonder. She can swear she is happy. She had forgotten how beautiful it is, and she wants to have a future, now. She trusts Max, and when they are together, there is no storm she is scared of.
"I love the hell out of you, Max! Now, go save the world, but make it quick... you know I hate waiting!"
Max's fingers affectionately greet Chloe's face, a hint of sweet irony in the tone of her voice.
"Yo, Baby. Are you saying how much you'll miss me?"
Chloe's love affectionately greets Max on her lips, a hint of sweet stirring in the tone of her voice.
"Hella!"
There is not much time left. The hurricane is about to swallow the beach. In a few minutes, the day of judgment will rain down on Arcadia Bay. Max focuses on the photo. Butterfly wing is blurring, seems to move, take flight. Then, it stops again, perfectly clear between Max fingers. The gaze of hers flows through the picture, crosses it. Her body is floating like the water slammed on the rocks. Night becomes day, the storm became a sunny day. The butterfly flaps its soft wings over the bucket, once again. Then, it lands on the edge, with a callousness graceful.
Max pulls out her Polaroid camera in a heartbeat. She quickly gets the same angle, and takes the same picture. The sound of the photo paper that comes out is followed by the one produced by the mechanical gesture of her hand, as she dries the photo in the air. The bathroom is still deserted. Max breathes a sigh of relief.
"It's hella cool!"
Immediately after, the door is wide open. Nathan Prescott takes the girls' bathroom, as Max heartbeat rolls away. The Chloe's voice fills up the space, as Max heart goes out of her. A wave of love hits her senses, like a bolt of lightning. She has to stay focused, waiting for the very moment.
"You don't know who the fuck I am..."
Right now! The loud cry of the fire alarm furiously echoes against the walls. Chloe is such a badass, a damn tough cookie. A split second is all it takes Chloe to kick that asshole in the nuts, and run away like hell.
The bathroom is empty once again. Nobody noticed Max. No one saw the torn picture on the floor. Max picks it up, carefully puts it between the pages of her own diary, before hiding it quickly in the bag. Then, she looks in the mirror, and breathes another sigh of relief. A sparkle of audacity governs her gaze. No one would dream of calling her a loser now.
"C'mon Max, don't fuck around! You've only a week to complete your B plan! So, first of all, I've to put my diary in the bloody safe. Number two... I really need my family album!"
"Love is space and time made sensitive to the heart."
[Marcel Proust]
*** N.B. *** The sentence "being with you or not being with you is the only way I have to measure time" is a quote by Jorge Luis Borges.