A/N: Major spoilers for Episode 2. Deals with all the same sorts of serious things that episode does in some graphic detail, might want to pass if you're sensitive on the topic. Assumes the bad end re: Kate.
Slings
It's thundering out, rain thick as mud and it's fitting, Max is thinking. She's not totally sure if that's Chloe's window glinting in the dark, exactly, but she's pretty sure. And pretty sure is good, right? If she pulls out her phone the water would probably drown it, so she kneels and fumbles around in the grass for stones. Casting about herself like—Kate had said, framed by the light from the window, she had quoted a line about David and his harp and his sling and whispered I want to be like that, brave like him and oh, oh God—Max's fingers slip on a pebble. She stands, rock heavy as a heart in her hand and throws it, brave and scared and strong. It cracks against the glass.
She hears the window open, groaning over the rain, and for a minute Max freaks, oh shit, it's her parents, but then Chloe asks, "Max?"
Max nods, but Chloe probably can't see that in the deep dark of the rain, so she calls out. "Yeah, it's me." Her voice is steadier than it should be, steadier than she feels. Max clutches her arms across her chest.
"Fuck, okay. Come around to the sliding door, I'll sneak you in."
Chloe slides open the door and the first thing out of her lips is, "God, Max, you look wrecked. Come here." Chloe pulls her into a hug. Max breathes in the crook of her neck, sharp, cinnamon. She digs her fingernails into Chloe's shoulderblades, feels Chloe jerk back in shock, maybe pain.
Chloe pushes some distance between them and leans down so that she's eye-level with Max. The lenses in her eyes are shifting, dialating. What's the viewport in her head bringing into focus? What bits of Max can she see? The tween girl with a box of polaroids under her bed? Some superwoman, some caped crusader with the power to bend time itself?
For a minute Chloe's forehead knots up. It looks like she's going to drop some serious knowledge bombs, some hard truths, but instead she just says: "You've got to walk quietly. Step Douche will totally freak on us if we wake him up."
Max nods. Creeps up the stairs. Huddled close enough to Chloe to make out her bra strap through her t-shirt. They sidle into her room, no incident, and Chloe latches the door, click. Chloe takes her hand and leads her to the bed, and Max's body goes into full on fight-or-flight, wardrums beating in her inner ears.
"Uh," Max says, and hesitates at the edge. Always so eloquent. Great.
"Suit yourself, Nerd." Chloe drops her hand and crawls under the covers. "But you know this bed is comfy as fuck, so you're the real loser here. I can talk shit out at 3 A.M. I can talk shit out sober at 3 A.M. But I cannot talk shit out sober at 3 A.M. while standing upright, so."
Max pulls off her hoodie, but she's soaked through to the skin, cotton PJ pants clinging and dripping on the floor.
Chloe says, on cue, "I've got some spare pajamas in the bottom of the closet, change first. I don't want you soaking the covers. With rainwater, anyway."
Max finds them after some more kneeling on the ground and groping in the dark with her hands. They're rumpled in the corner and they reek. Gross. But they're dry, and she pulls them on. Drawstring pants first, t-shirt next. Her bra is drenched and itching, so she swallows and shimmies out of that, too, one guilty glance at the bed but if Chloe's looking she can't see it, and into the shirt. She feels for the edge of the bed and crawls in.
Chloe's right, it's soft as sin and Max groans a little in spite of herself. She starts to drift, mind blisfully empty, but Chloe shatters the silence.
"Not your fault, you know."
And, L-O-fucking-L, Max can feel herself start to cry, tears hot in the corners of her eyes.
"I should've saved her."
"Dude. You've got those crazy rewind powers, how could you not have done it already if it were possible? You probably replayed that shit, like, 100 times. Cutscene, Max. Game Over."
"I couldn't use them."
"What?"
"I got that that nosebleed again and I couldn't go back. I only had it the one time and I said the wrong thing. Chloe, I said the wrong thing and she jumped—" Max's voice gets away from her, helium-high, she has to stop and catch her breath. Kate had burst against the pavement like a watermelon, she had splattered red all over the concrete, red white and blue-staining-purple sweater—
Silence, for a few seconds, and then, "Damn." Chloe reaches out, Max hears the rustle of the covers. Chloe almost brushes back Max's hair, hesitates so close Max can practically feel the heat of her fingertips searing her temples, and then goes for it, gently pushing back a stray wisp behind her ears, her bangs out of her eyes. "Still, not your fault. She was fucked up and she made her own decision, you know?"
Max spends a few heartbeats focusing on breathing quietly, steadily. "I told her the wrong thing. If I had been better, she'd still be alive right now. Some superhero."
"What, you think you could've said the magic words and made her all better?"
"I could have at least got her off of the ledge—"
"For how long? Do you think her life was going to get better after that video hit the web and she ended up commited to some mental hospital?"
"It's got to be better than being dead! We could've—"
"No, fuck that. People die," Chloe says. "It doesn't—it doesn't matter how much you care, or what you do, they die, and you can't beat yourself up over that. You can't just go, 'oh what if I had said something different,' or 'what if I had hung up one more poster and somebody saw,' or 'what if I hadn't asked Dad to come home early from work that day,' you know, hypothetically, people die. Whatever."
"Chloe, what happened to your dad had nothing to do with you—"
"That's what Rachel always used to say." Chloe shoves herself out of the bed, sniffles, swears. "Fuck, I need some alcohol, STAT. How do you feel about whiskey? Got some Jameson inside these old encyclopedias from when we were kids. You remember how we used to try and memorize them? A is for Africa and all that shit." She bangs her hip on her desk in the dark, swears again, roots around in a pile and crawls back, something sloshing quietly in her hands. She uncorks it, pop, and Max hears her swallow in the dark.
Chloe nudges her shoulder with the hard edge of the bottle. "Yo, free whiskey on your six."
Max drags the back of her hand across her face. It comes away wet. "I've got enough problems without adding alcoholism to the mix, thanks."
"It's called self-medicating, and it's good for you. Neutralizes all the pesky feelings."
"Hard pass."
"Suit yourself," Chloe takes another swig and then stashes the bottle back wherever it came from. The bed sinks under her weight. "You want to know a secret?"
"Okay."
Chloe grips Max's hand and drags it along her inner thigh. "What the fuck, Chloe?" Max jerks her hand away, or tries to, but Chloe's got an iron-grip, a don't-you-fucking-not-call-me-for-five-years-and-then-waltz-out-again grip. Max feels them under her palm. Bumps, almost buttons, bits of raised scar tissue scattered like tiny warts all over Chloe's soft skin.
"Rachel saved me and I'm still a fucking wreck," Chloe says, and drops Max's hand.
Max tries to choke it out but it's too late, she's breaking, shuddering against the sheets.
"Shit." Chloe reaches out and drags Max against her. Max doesn't quite fit, her jaw cutting hard into the other woman's collarbone. "It's okay, it was a long time ago, and, shit. That wasn't supposed to make you cry." She drags her hand through Max's hair. "There, there."
"What was it—supposed—to make me do?"
"Point is, everyone's got problems, okay. And Kate did what she did because she wanted to do it, and like, I don't know. You've got to respect that. And if—it's okay, it's okay—if you can't respect it, then get pissed, because she fucking left when you loved her to pieces. Get mad. She walked straight out of Life, okay? Not just yours, Life. She's so far gone you'd have to be fucking Orpheus to get her back." Chloe's breathing hitches, and her fingers freeze, tangled up in Max's hair. "Fuck her for abandoning you when you let her in, right?"
"And now we're both crying."
"Yaaaay," Chloe says, and laughs. Laugh-sobs. Either way. "Holy shit."
"I'm going to rewind–"
"No, no. Keep it this way. I like it better. More honest, you know?"
Max reaches up and cradles Chloe's cheek—wet—in her hand, brushes the rivelet away with her thumb. Chloe goes wide-eyed, for a second, and then smirks like a challenge, like, do you worst, kid. Max shakes her head. "Sorry."
She turns it all back as far as she can, reels from the effort, the sudden absence in the bed and her hands. She hears Chloe slide the lock shut and pause by the door. "Max? Where'd you go?"
"I'm in bed."
"Uh, when did you get super speed?"
"Not that. It... wasn't going so well, so."
"Oh." Chloe crawls into the covers next to her, bed sinking under her weight. "Sorry for whatever shit I said. I totally suck at this comforting thing." Breathes in. "But it's not your fault, you know."
Max reaches out and presses her palm over Chloe's face. Chloe gurgles out a muffled protest, something between a curse, a snort, and a yelp.
Max giggles, despite it all. "Shh. Don't speak."
"I am trying to impart words of wisdom here and you just—"
Max slides her palm down Chloe's face, slowly. "Shhh."
Chloe slams into Max with a pillow, bullet-speed. "Fucking A, Max!"
Max grabs the other pillow and gives as good as she gets, Chloe yells a battle cry, and a door slams downstairs and a man screams "What the fuck is going on up there? Chloe if you have a boy over, I swear to God—"
"Back back back!" Chloe hisses. Max obliges, and the room spins.
Chloe swings a pillow and misses Max by a foot. "Fucking A, Max! No fair, you're using your mad time moving powers!"
"You cheated first. Sucker punched me."
"All's fair in love and war, right?"
"Oh my God, Chloe."
Chloe's teeth glint in the moonlight from the window.
"Chloe?" Max's voice quavers, quiet.
Chloe drops the pillow and the smile. "Yeah?"
"Thanks. I missed you."
Chloe's expression hardens a little, and Max knows what she's thinking, Then why didn't you call me, once? but she doesn't say it. "No sweat. Friends forever, right?"
"Hell yeah."