A/N: Welcome! This is the 100 days of caulscott drabble challenge. Hopefully you'll enjoy reading the next 100 one-shots, if you're looking for a quickie.
Chapters are usually not connected. Requests are open. Have fun!
au; Chloe and Warren break into the Dark Room to save Max. Nathan shoots Jefferson. Warren is knocked out. Everyone's kind of screwed.
"Nathan." She's holding out her hands, limbs taught and frozen in place. "Nathan, please put down the gun." Max's voice only shakes slightly, to her great surprise, considering that there's a pistol being pointed at her by a very, very frightened boy who may or may not have just shot Max's old photography teacher to death.
Behind Nathan, Warren's lying on the floor in the corner, unconscious from a former blow to the head. Chloe's still hunched over Jefferson's lifeless body, motionless and halfway through ransacking his pockets. She's skewing her head back and forth, slowly, looking from Nathan to Max. And back again.
Max has no idea what the fuck she's doing. It's near impossible to keep an eye on Chloe in her peripheral, so she zeroes on Nathan by closing her eyes and opening her mouth to speak.
"Stop moving!" he bellows. The gun trembles along with his hand.
"I'm not," Max says. Her voice is quiet, hands still in the air. Her arms are quickly starting to get sore.
"Nathan," she says again. "Please put the gun down."
"What, so you can take it away from me? So you can fuck me over and throw me away once you're done with me? And pull the same shit as him?" Nathan throws a cursory nod at Jefferson's limp form before his voice cracks.
"No, I won't." Max's voice is pleading. "I wouldn't, I—"
"You were with her," Nathan says now, and he's desperate. There's that jolt in his wrist again. Max is familiar with it; she'd spend many hours in the night just lying down next to him, tracing circles over the back of his hands and legs, locked in occasional periods of muscle spasms. Feeling the occasional jerk of his limbs, holding him in her arms.
"You were working with her. You lied to me, everything was a lie. And now—now you're going to lock me up and it'll be the same. You'll throw me away, just like my fucking dad did—and him, and—and—"
"Nathan!" Max's eyes fly open and she loses her grip for a split second, shocked. "How could you say that?"
"You lied to me, Max," Nathan chokes. "You lied to me. You said you—"
"I do! I do, and I have. For all this time. Always."
Nathan holds his grip. His eyes are red. Wet.
After this, Max will rewind far, far back, as far as she can. Until she can leave the dark room, before she's even entered. She'll rewind and trace all of Jefferson's steps until she can find a way to stop this. She'll rewind, without hurting Nathan.
"Do you honestly think I would leave you?" Her eyes blur with tears, so she can't quite tell if Nathan's hold on his pistol is slackening or not. She may just be imagining it. "Nathan, I love you."
"Don't give me that fucking bullshit," Nathan growls, but his grip really does work loose, and he's unsure. Unsteady.
"Please, please trust me. Please. We came here to rescue you, not to do that. Not to…not to lock you up."
There's something that shifts in Nathan's expression. His form. His eyes don't loosen, but narrow, straining beyond doubt. But it's in sadness, and grief. And it's there. It's in pain and confusion and loss and he's just broken. That's all there is to it.
Max hears something. It's a little bit like a gunshot, and a little bit like a scream, shrill and shattering. It's a little bit like the sound of Nathan's voice, and it's distorted and piercing. But he's never screamed like that, not ever. That can't be him.
In her stupor, she sees Warren, standing behind Chloe. His eyes are wide and alert, trained past the gun in his hands and on the bullet lodged into Max's stomach.
"Max!" Chloe shrieks.
"I—" Max begins, and Nathan rushes forward just in time to catch her as she falls.
Nathan whips around and looks at Warren. His eyes are blazing. Both of their guns clatter to the floor at the same time, and suddenly everyone's rushing to Max, who's gasping and lying on the floor with warm, sticky blood on her shirt.
"What the fuck did you do?" Chloe bellows. She's taking off her jacket and folding it up, pressing the fabric against the wound.
"I was—I was trying to aim for him! I didn't—I don't—" Warren falls back onto the floor, staring at Max's twitching form in horror. "I'm so sorr—"
"Max!" Nathan screams. "Max, Max, Max, Max, stay with me, stay with me, Max, stay with me please oh please don't die please don't die please." He cradles her face in his hands. Her breath is labored.
Chloe juts out two fingers to press against Max's neck, testing her pulse. Her face drains of color. "Max," Chloe says. "Rewind, now!"
Nathan has no idea what that means. Maybe the panic has made Chloe delirious and finally shoved her out of all mental precincts, screeching incoherent delusions that don't even make sense.
Strangely, Nathan suddenly thinks that, if not for all the blood and her eyes, wide and fluttering, Max would look quite asleep. With her hand resting against the blood-soaked cloth and her form stretched out level against the floor, she looks almost as she does in slumber.
He's babbling now. "No, no, no, no, no. Stay with me, stay with me, please—"
She reaches out, and Nathan seizes her bloodied hand. "Please, Max," he sobs, and he rests his head against Max's hand, squeezing his eyes shut. "Please. Please. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
"Max!" Chloe howls. Cries. "Fucking rewind, what the fuck are you doing? Rewind, rewind!"
Max is panting. Her eyes struggle to focus, and in one moment, she sees Nathan.
"I," she breathes. She shudders, teeth chattering, and her hand falls slack.