We've been on the road for three days now. The routine is the same. We get up, we drive, we arrive somewhere. We stay for the night. All I know about our destination is that it's definitely not Seattle.
Max doesn't want any reminders of who she was, what she did, before this insane week.
I know the feeling.
I know without doubt that I would follow Max to the ends of the earth. I've followed her through probably dozens of timelines, through futures and pasts and possibilities I will never understand or know. Max and Chloe, partners in crime... and time. I haven't stopped to think about it, I've been too busy jumping headfirst into distractions, anything to take my mind off Arcadia Bay, off Rachel, off every fucked up thing that I haven't had a chance to contemplate what this means.
She wakes up again tonight holding back trembling sobs with tears glistening in her eyes, and in a moment I'm no longer half asleep and holding her. She feels so small and fragile like she'll break if I don't hold her together. That scares me.
"I killed them, I killed them all." She whispers, and something in my heart twists.
"Max. It's going to be okay." She looks up, tear tracks gleaming in the moonlight. "It's going to be okay, it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay. Say it with me."
"... It's going to be okay." She murmurs hesitantly. I smile tentatively.
"Good. None of it was your fault, okay? Just take my hand and we'll get through this."
"Okay." She whispers.
"You're safe here." I whisper back, pulling her a little closer in the darkness. She sighs, and I feel the dampness of her cheeks through my shirt.
"Safe..." She says it wistfully. Like it's an unfamiliar concept.
Maybe it's my turn to lead her out of the dark.
October ends, trailing behind it snow and lingering nightmares.
Max doesn't say anything when Halloween passes, not even when I declare that it's officially Christmas season and tug a red and green beanie over her head. She blinks up at me owlishly, the tip of her nose red from cold.
"Can we leave October behind and focus on November?" I ask. "Please?"
She nods.
The money that we got from the handicapped fund is slowly running out. We've been spending it on cheap motels, trying to cut expenses, but inevitably, our escape ends.
Seattle is cold as fuck. She seems more in her element here, surrounded by coffee and hipsters. Vanessa and Ryan welcome us with open arms, but their smiles are dulled. They can sense it. Max has changed. I can see it in her haunted eyes, I can see it in her forced smile, I can see her pain no matter how hard she tries to hide it. I've never been the most eloquent, so all I can safely say is that it breaks my heart.
That's all I know for sure, anyways. There's that fluttery thing my heart does on the good days, the days where I get to see a rare Caulfield smile, radiant and heartfelt.
I follow her to the beach, reaching out to grab Max before she trips into the tide, complaining about how Seattle beaches are too damp, dousing her with a bucket of salt water, challenging her to duel with bits of driftwood.
"Y'know, if there's no one else here, does that mean we can stake claims to this beach?" I say, treading water even though we're near enough to the shore so that I could stand up comfortably.
She laughs, a real, genuine laugh, and tries to dunk me under, except she's not strong enough to unbalance me and too short to press me down properly and we are oh so, so close-
I kiss her, gently, slowly, tenderly, and it feels like we stand there for an eternity, fingers entangled in each other's hair, swaying, lost in the feeling of soft lips and reluctantly breaking apart to breathe.
She looks up at me, an expression of wonder glimmering in those blue, blue, eyes, and kisses me again eagerly, like she's waited a lifetime to do so.
"I could do this forever." She sighs. I smile.
"Agreed, but maybe we should continue our forever somewhere without so much," I gesture around us, "cold as fuck water."
"Mmhmm." A brief kiss, then another on the corner of my mouth, on my jaw, the underside of my jaw, my neck, lower, "I think I like cold as fuck water, though."
We slowly make our way back to the shore, fingers intertwined, hands swaying between us, sneaking glances at each other like we can't quite believe this terribly wonderful new reality.
"I love you." I say simply, shyly.
"I love you too." She says, simply, happily.
I follow her to the Art Institute of Seattle, relieved that she's picking up her camera again, relieved that she's pursuing her dreams, wondering if there are any part time jobs that wouldn't mind a blue haired and tattooed employee.
I manage not to fail my classes.
It's not the Two Whales, and I don't get to smell breakfast foods and greasy burgers, but working at a used bookshop isn't half bad. Max visits me a lot at my job during weekends, when she doesn't have class, and she fits right in among the dusty old books and the quiet muted people.
The wonderful new reality grants me the privilege to kiss her whenever I want, and I make it a habit to do so whenever I can, trailing gentle kisses along her shoulder in the mornings, stealing kisses as she glares at her apparently disappointing portfolio, pressing my lips to her knuckles, and she kisses me good morning, she kisses me good luck on the test, she kisses me good day, she kisses me and I kiss her and we finally, finally, have the time to feel normal, young and naive and facing the world with each other at our side.
She never kisses me goodbye, for some reason. Instinctively, I don't question it.
I follow her into our first apartment together, grinning as her eyes light up at all the prospects for future renovation.
"Already planning out hipster decorations?" I say jokingly, "We can put our Save the Whales campaign poster in that corner, and we can start the photo wall there-" I point to the blank wall dividing the kitchen from the living room, but I stop when she doesn't say anything.
"Ours." She says simply. I grin at her.
"Ours."
Another thing that we end up sharing: a car.
The ratty old pick up truck completely gives out one day, and she splurges as much as our budget will allow for a used Toyota as a birthday gift. (We don't waste anytime christening the backseat.)
She proposes one day, the second I kick open the door, cursing myself for always sticking the wrong key in, drop my backpack on the floor and flop onto the couch, screwing my eyes shut and muttering something about my new promotion as bookshop manager being exhausting.
When I open my eyes, I see her, down on one knee, holding out a ring.
"I woke up today and I decided that I wanted to marry you." She says nervously. "Is this too soon?" I stand up so fast I trip over my backpack and I mouth the word 'yes' but my knees are weak and trembling and I don't have the actual strength to utter anything other than a strangled squeak.
She graciously accepts a passionate kiss instead of an actual verbal confirmation, but I whisper my confirmation into her ear later that night anyways. Her breath hitches at the feeling of my breath on her ear and I smirk.
I follow her to the altar, unused to the suit that hangs a tad too wide off my shoulders.
It was old, out of fashion, but Dad had worn it at his wedding.
Ryan is openly crying, tears trickling into his beard as he walks with Max, and David nods at me somewhat proudly as we begin walking side by side. Vanessa and Joyce are seated together, quietly looking at us with something I can't place.
It looks like love.
We're now both in front of the altar, Ryan and David returning to their seats.
I have to resist the urge to run my hand through my hair, cropped into an undercut and returned to it's original blonde for the occasion.
We stand there, sneaking shy glances at each other like we can't believe our luck. Kate is saying something about souls and commitment and how she was honoured to be our minister, but I focus more on Max than Kate's speech.
"Second doubts?" She whispers, teasing. Her hair's grown out long enough so she can pull it back in a loose bun, tendrils of hair curling loose around her ears, the thin white veil is draped just so over it, Joyce had insisted-
She looks radiant.
"Never." I breathe.
"Just take my hand." She murmurs, and I smile, thinking of cheap motel beds and moonlight shining through the gap in the flimsy curtains. Kate turns towards us. My hand finds hers and she squeezes it briefly.
"Maxine Caulfield and Chloe Elizabeth Price, do you both swear to each other a promise of love, of family, of loyalty, to take each other as lawfully wedded wives, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"
"I do." The words sound strange coming from my lips, like I was saying em underwater or from a long distance away. Max smiles at me. Kate gestures for Max to follow.
"I do."
I'm still not exactly eloquent, but at least now I have Max quoting obscure poetry and saying hipster things and being Max, and that's all I really need for the rest of my life.
A/N: Wow, I haven't posted on ffn for a while. Feels strange posting this. My ffn isn't as caught up as my Archive account is, so if you feel like looking at more of my stuff, I'm still violetnovice on ao3. I'm considering writing more one shots set in this universe, does anyone have any prompts?