The Silence of Wind and Sand
(1)
Author's Notes appear at the end.
She unstraps her prosthetic.
She falls to the sand.
She screams her grief.
Max flinches at Furiosa's scream and later wonders why.
On his back, under the rig with a wrench in his hand and sweat dripping into his eyes, the memory of her grief eats at him. He turns the sound of her pain over and around in his mind. Prods it like a sore tooth and pointedly ignores the taunting laugh of the girl who's not there. [Glory, he remembers. Her name is Glory. Her voice becomes a low buzz in his ears when he's with Furiosa and the Wives, but the panic clutches at him if he examines that too closely. She stays at the corner of his eyes, waiting. He doesn't know for what.]
Max is familiar with grief, intimate with pain. He knows their heft and their hue and rides through the world mostly ignoring the broken things he sees in others. He, after all, is the most broken of them all.
What is it to him if the Green place is a land of marsh and waste? He had stayed with the Wives out of his own need, not sympathy. He needed the rig and the rig goes nowhere without Furiosa. Furiosa goes nowhere without the Wives.
So, Max goes where Furiosa and the Wives go. Simple. [The sum of his parts, in the end, only add up to the drive to survive.]
A vicious voice in his mind points out that she's the fool for believing there could be a place in this world that was unbroken. With all her strength, she should have known better. With that, for a second, his mind is silent.
.
.
.
And yet.
Unbidden, the images flash through his mind again.
Something in his stomach clenches at the vulnerability in her. He's afraid to see her without walls; feels like he's spying on something precious. He knows, with clinical detachment, that Furiosa is strong. She fought him to a stalemate with one missing arm. He doesn't doubt that if she had her metal hand, he would have died in the desert in that moment-his blood soaking the sand next to the wheels of the war rig, brain splattering its underside. He respects her all the more for that. [No one respects strength like those without it. No one admires the unbroken as the broken do.]
The Wives, he acknowledges, are strong in their own way. Yet they look to Furiosa to lead them through this journey. Furiosa… Furiosa looks to herself. To survive in this waste, to be tempered rather than shattered is something he's seen in only a few. [And never in himself.]
It's not right that she should fall. It's not right that he watch it happen.
The Vuvalini's curiosity feels like ants on his skin and he gives them wide berth. They welcome Furiosa like the lost daughter she is, they fold the Wives into their circle like they were always meant to be there. They even carve a little space for Nux and the War Boy willingly follows Capable into it. Max is all jagged edges and points, too sharp to fit with them. Not now, maybe not ever.
Night falls and he watches the horizon alone. Furiosa moves to stand next to him and he can taste the edge of her grief on his tongue, hear its echoes in his ears. [Irrationally, he wants to fix it. Glory's eyes burn a hole in his back. The buzzing in his ears grows louder as she laughs at him.]
Furiosa asks him (without asking) to come with them. He answers (without meeting her eyes) that he'll make his own way. She breathes out long and deep and he can feel her acceptance. Somehow that burns more than her anger would have.
That night he dreams about her falling, except this time it's his fault. He breaks the Green place. He breaks her and puts a bullet in her forehead. He startles awake with self-hate and spends the time until dawn making sure the bikes are in working order. Valkyrie sees him at it and says nothing, eyes old and knowing.
He stays quiet as the women and Nux pack their last things and get onto the bikes. Furiosa swings her leg over in a smooth movement and nods to him once, a flash of gratitude in her eyes. [And something else. Sorrow? Regret? Couldn't be. Not for him.] She pulls her goggles down and the moment passes.
The roar of the bikes and the acrid smell of guzzoline fills the air. Furiosa takes the lead and no one objects. Where he would have fallen back or raced too far ahead for any to follow, she steps to the front and waits for the others like it's as easy as breathing. For her, it probably is. [He tucks that idea away in his mind to pick apart later.]
He watches them go in silence.
As he mounts his own bike, the buzzing builds in his ears to an unbearable ring. It's not a betrayal, he tells himself. It's not. They might [will] die in the salt, but there's nothing he can do. He can't fix the Green place, can't fix her. [The idea that he can is laughable. He knows that because Glory laughs at him for it.]
.
.
.
And yet.
He sees her unstrap her prosthetic.
He sees her fall to the sand.
He sees her scream her grief.
Max flinches at Furiosa's scream. This time he knows why.
It's not right that she should fall. It's not right that he watch it happen.
And he won't. He refuses.
[Glory flickers at the edge of his eyes, smiles at him. He can't tell whether it's with rage or pleasure. Maybe it's both.]
The map, inked in his blood, is tucked in his jacket against his heart. It seems to burn as he roars across the salt. He moves at breakneck speed and catches the group quickly.
Furiosa pulls up short, takes off her goggles. There are questions in the lines of her mouth.
The Green place is behind you, he tells her.
[The Green place, he understands now, is her. It cuts him to watch her fall because the moment she stops believing in the Green place is the moment it dies. He keeps this insight to himself. Glory sighs and quiets. He can feel her exasperation in the silence.]
You have to fix what's broken, he says, or you'll go crazy.
[There is an equal measure of knowing and pain in his eyes and part of Furiosa quails in front of the hurt she finds there.] Still though, she is skeptical, unconvinced. The Citadel, after all, is what stole her from the Green place. Immortan Joe may be weakened, but he is not weak. She knows that better than anyone.
.
.
.
And yet.
Furiosa watches Max and hears all of the things he doesn't say. Sometimes, the only way forward is back, is what he doesn't say. You are not broken, because there is something unbreakable in you, is what he doesn't say. Maybe you can show me another way, is what he doesn't say.
[Maybe there is something left in me that is also unbroken. Maybe you can help me find it, he doesn't say, even to himself. She hears it anyway.]
These unspoken words catch on her heart. In the silence of the wind and sand, all of the things he doesn't say feel like hope.
They go back.
Author's Notes: Thanks for reading! There will be other chapters (not sure how many yet) that will also explore different moments during the events of Fury Road (and possibly what comes afterwards). Some will be free form like this one, others will be more traditional narrative. I'd like to cover the other characters too, but we'll see what inspiration strikes. ;)