Disclaimer: All rights to Max Payne and Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne, all respective parties, and virtually anything I write about remotely related to said topics are copyright of Rockstar and Remedy. : (

A Late Goodbye

Love kills. Everybody who's dead tells you the exact same story—I know I do.

Heroes and villains, masters and slaves, the elevated and the fallen. Their gravestones' echoes a dull and cacophonous roar, their fizzling droplets of blood a whispering madness, their memories an aching pain that bound the world together and held it on the end of sanity.

After all the times I'd gone to her spent of every red cent, Lady Luck had finally chosen now to get back on speaking terms with me. I mean, I suppose I can see it. Even prostitutes can get jealous when their old clients find a new potential for relief despite the futility of the prospect. When Lady Luck had been a hooker and charging me every last thing I ever had or wanted, she had left a blood trail that would have made the Ripper blush.

But now I had a new affair—and my fling known as Love killed like no other. Love killed everything it touched, and with vengeance on its side, not even Lady Luck's own best clients were immune to the touch of death. Luck had been deluded—she was only the patsy of Love, and a foolish one at that.

And sometimes, if Luck ever gets around to realizing that and her pride ever shrinks down enough for her to stomach it, even a Lover can get lucky at the right times.

"God! I turned out to be such a damsel in distress."

And although you know you wouldn't deserve it in a million years, even you're not stupid enough to pass it up.

Then you remember exactly why you're at this point, and realize the futility of the entire situation. An army slaughtered at your feet and a killer in your arms, all covered in blood as the kiss between you both threatens to obliterate you both. A complete logical paradox in which both lovers have given up and yet manage to wrench each other from the fires of their own making.

Then you come to understand once more how much of a liar Logic really is.

Mona had everything under control all along. Her working for Woden should have given it away right off the bat, even if I was blinded by every other curve she had thrown my way.

We had both risen again from our charred history together, refusing to allow the bullets in our brains to stop coursing through our skulls and blazing our neurons into fusion. Our synapses had at last intertwined, and we had both been reborn, able to become together what we never had been apart.

Or so we thought.

Woden's documents that Mona had placed her far above any suspicion. According to them, the deceased senator had assigned a special task force to uncover the machinations of a group that had been rumored to secretly control a massive number of covert and illegal activities in the New York underground. And the head of that task force was Mona Sax—according to Woden's files, an undercover agent rather than a hired killer. With a few careful omissions and removals of Woden's involvement and the strewn corpses that proved the one guilty party behind it all, Mona had been made a hero, the greatest undercover cop in New York history.

And me? I suppose I should be grateful Mona was able to fit me into that bogged down report of hers—but from the parts that I actually had to read, I gathered that I was supposed to be the inside guy hired as her sidekick. Naturally, Bravura wouldn't let me live that down, much less keeping it from him.

And what came about after all of that? Like a moth to the flame, I returned to the force. Mona was 'reinstated' as well, replacing the late Detective Winterson's place as top detective on the force. She had originally planned to bail on the job after the heat died down, but thought differently of it after our time together.

We had woken up from the American Dream at last. No poster child for the nuclear family anymore, it was simply me, Mona, and our new adopted son—Michael Winterson, Detective Winterson's child. It was Mona's idea to pull the strings for his custody after hearing about how he had been orphaned and left to grow up alone. I had warned against it, this insane act of love that would inevitably end in tragedy. But I didn't take my own advice, I found myself loving the kid who was so blind to the corruption of the world in nearly every way, fighting for his innocence just as I was fighting for Mona's redemption.

If you were to look back on this, what would you see? If the answer is anything but anguish and sorrow, then it's a safe bet to say that you don't know Payne.

You can keep your poker face on, and you can enjoy a good run every now and then, but the house always wins. In life you can never quit while you're ahead or cut your losses. There are no happy endings.

"Oh, Max…"

Because of her, I had finally solved my case at last. But I had yet to delve into the answers that now lay there, pent up in the back of my brain, drowning out where the bullet wouldn't go.

"Max, please…"

Her breath was hot upon my cheek, fighting to bring me across, to have us cross that line together. Only I couldn't move, couldn't reach out for what I longed for as the truth crushed me beneath its weight, suffocating me. At least I could breathe in a hole, but emerging from it I had been buried under a mountain.

"Mona." The name came out dry and empty, as if it only served to waft through the house into the sensitive ears of our blind child.

"What is it, Max?" She lay on the bed awaiting me, holding me in her arms. I could almost see the rubies glistening on her chest and her lips slowly become devoid of breath, immortalizing her in death—mine, forever.

"I…I can't, Mona."

Love hurts.

"God fuck it, Max." She shoved me off of her in frustration as the beads of sweat formed on her palpitating skin, seeping into the blood that was still there.

"You know, I really think I've waited up long enough for you, Max."

She was right. Not like ever being that mattered in life.

"It's been months since the manor. It's been years since Valkyr. Don't you think that it's time to start trying to enjoy life at all?"

She hesitated, the bullet in her brain snagging on a single, critical neurosis. "Don't you think that it's time that I deserve a little happiness?"

I tried to respond, but all that came up were the same tired metaphors. The strange unyielding parody of Dick Justice and Address Unknown had become my own reality after all this time of weathering. Through away the fleeting passion and emotion, and all you're left with is the cliché.

And there's nothing more original than that. "Mona…please."

"Why can't you stand to be with me?"

There was no answer to that question.

"What are you so afraid of, Max?!?"

The corner of my mind twitched involuntarily, forcing open the recesses of what had never been ventured through.

No! Max! I didn't mean to! I'm sorry!

I headed for the door in a daze, the painkillers long gone and the dreams already taking hold before their time.

"Fine! You can fucking stay out forever, for as long as I care. Serves you right, you miserable piece of shit!"

I might have heard her crying as I stumbled out. We might have woken our child.

I kept walking, got into the car, drove as fast as I could away from everything that I had embraced once more, trying to stop the voices cramming themselves inside my head.

No! MAX!

I don't know how long I drove in that same direction. The lonely street signs and power lines danced by in slow motion, a relaxed tour not unlike my harrowing train ride of years past. All still flashing by.

And I kept driving into the night.

That is, until one of the screams of the stop signs died out.

The unexpected and curt silence of a voice in pain was the first cue to trouble. Looking around, I realized where I had unconsciously dragged myself—back to the monster's grave, the lair of Valkyr.

The V-junkies had just blasted their way through one of their friends, another frustrated murder caused by the absence of the Armageddon. I pulled over to the side of the road, edging out of the car and towards my trunk deliberately. Removing a pair of 9 millimeter Berettas, I stalked towards the rampaging punks, who were now assaulting the apartment door of one of the frightened residents.

I cleared my throat. "NYPD! Freeze!"

It was amazing how little that line worked when it came to my area of business. I barely had enough time to react as one of the punks raised his sawed-off shotgun to bear and fired. I dove out of the way back behind my own vehicle, letting the bullets whiz over my head and into the grasp of Lady Luck.

This was really one of the worst neighborhoods. This was an actual V-gang, of which there were scarce few in the city. While I had the advantage of not being on any particular drug on my side, they had at least twenty-five people pitted against me, some of whom had not even taken a drug that night.

I poked up and rattled off a few shots, each of them piercing the group of flesh that I fired into. The junkies' moans split the sky as two of them crumpled, while the rest of them slowly became aware of what was happening. I took advantage of the brief lapse to fire even more rounds, sending two other junkies to the floor. It began to become second nature all over again—the pain manifesting itself, the world itself beginning to slow down.

I purposely allowed the next stumbling junkie to make a pitiful attempt at flanking me. As he edged his way around my car, I took my pistol with as much force as I could and slammed it against his head.

Then I picked up his Desert Eagle .50, and went to work.

I wish I could say it was all a blur from there. It would have been so much easier to forget the looks on their faces if it were. And I wish I could explain the beautiful secret behind the surmounting of the odds that were before me. But again, it was nothing more than chaos and luck—and tonight both were on my side.

A dive from behind the car, swiftly downing three enemies in a single fluid motion. Killing two more from my prone position, then rolling behind a simple barrel to reload. The Desert Eagle now earned its keep, taking down each and every foe with a single shot from the chambers, each one punctuated by an unearthly scream that resembled nothing more than a post-termed baby bursting from its womb in death throes. I picked up a Pump-Action Shotgun, only one expended bullet from the, and began to assault the remaining V-cowards. As the rest fled, I cornered in on a final one and procuring a Sawed-Off Shotgun, blasted at his knees as he brought his Uzis to bear.

His scream was ghastly—the meat at his ankles seemed to simply evaporate, leaving only a ragged mess of chipped bone stringing the two together. I only walked over and dropped the shotgun rather than use the final bullet, and picked up the guys two Ingrams in return.

That's when I heard the fumbling of a trigger behind me. He was…

…still alive!

I spun around instantaneously and immediately emptied both of the Uzi's clips into the punk's body, watching as the finger wrapped around my gun that I just deposited released itself. Being spared by fate only to die in an ironic split second later was another cliché that I wasn't quite ready to stomach.

Bravura would be pissed—again. I hardly did things by the book, but I was supposed to be off duty here. Now I had just stacked up my body count once more for the all-time records of York: New, Noir, or otherwise.

Well, I was supposed to be off-duty, so I guessed it couldn't hurt. I got out my favorite bottle of whiskey, popped the top, and waited for the Inquisition to arrive.

About 100 or so citations, give or take how much I gave a damn about, and one phone call to pick up my car, and I was off into the night like the inebriated person I always knew that I was.

I strode through the V-tags on speed force, trying to blot out the Vladimir that they all inevitably spelled out at the end. The staring wild eyes kept swirling, but I kept my eyes and my feet going. It was unfamiliar, yet distinctive.

I now had the fear. The fear that gives men wings.

It was the last straw to complete terror and fleeing was completely within my grasp. But there was the whim of the worlds that kept me from flying away, as I approached—unbelievably—an edifice of dilapidation.

It was a small, cozy house on the Jersey side. The grave of my American Dream.

At first I couldn't believe it was really it. Then it seemed so obvious—after all, the seeds of Valkyr had sprouted out of this horrific homestead…a testament to the deception of all things lovely in life.

I couldn't help it. I was drawn to it like a moth from a flame, the broken remains of the structure not dissuading me in the slightest. Now not even I could stop myself...the fear was fading as gradually as it had come.

My bullets carved holes through the first ever victim of Valkyr, tearing through his flesh like liquid, his body crumpling to the floor like a fallen demon. My dual pistols next cut through the face of the second junkie until he was unrecognizable, the horror of the death like a drug to my heightened senses. And at last, my personal shotgun ripping the final junkie apart, making sure that dental records were all but the only choice in identifying the freak.

Oh, and then there was Michelle. Her body lay still and motionless on the bed, her beauty so untarnished by the insanity about her. She existed in stark contrast to the angel from the fallen cradle. Because she was…

No!

What are so you afraid of, Max?!?

…still alive…

"Max?"

Michelle's voice was so soothing, so comforting. I felt her dimming eyes upon me, felt her strong pulse, her vibrant arms that stood so woozy.

She had lived. Where my baby girl had died, my wife had survived in consolation. And all through this misery, I could feel my spirit regaining itself, reasserting itself…

It was going to be all right…

"My God. No! Max…please…what happened…"

I had to be strong for her, tell her exactly what happened....

We'd find a way through, we had to…

"Oh, no! The baby! No!"

Suddenly I realized that her arms didn't seem so slender and straight anymore. I could see the trembling, the fear, the puncturing wounds that indicated a forced injection.

I would later learn that the junkies had pumped her full of a double dosage of V, although there was no 'standard' dosage at that time.

Michelle's hands shook even more as she tried to rise, only succeeding in toppling a lamp from its perch and sending it crashing to the floor. I looked on in horror at my wife…she couldn't have…

"Please, Max...I...I…"

I already knew. The scream and accusation rose up out of my body like an unearthly explosion, embodying more pain than anybody could ever hope to understand in a lifetime.

YOU KILLED HER!!!

My wife, in a stupor of paranoid Valkyr delusions, had killed our daughter. The ice blood in the other floor spilling out of an even cooler tiny corpse and a toppled cradle—it was all her doing…

Irony is dead.

"No! Max! I didn't mean to! I'm sorry!"

As surely as the bullet spurt from the junkie's gun that I now held, my anger erupted with a fuller force than any before. One bullet, and then another, and then another, until I had atoned for her—until the rubies had emblazoned upon her body and she was made like her own daughter.

Mine, forever.

"NO!!!!!!"

Another gunshot now ended this long standoff, this terrible denial into my own sadistic pride. Max Payne reborn, Max Payne remade. It made no difference. I was guilty of my own vigilante vengeance, not understanding why until it was too late.

I'd attempted to play it off, write off the dreams that expressed them as parts of my own fractured sanity. But no, I was only truly sane in those dreams. The man in waking life was nothing more than a cold-blooded murderer.

But I could still atone.

Shakily I took the gun into my own mouth, cocking it as quickly as any offensive use I'd ever utilized.

"That won't help a thing."

For a second, I could have sworn it was the dream coaxing myself back into life, which was only a wasted effort. But then I heard it again.

"Least of all free you from the pain."

Mona…

"Max."

She was here, she had been expecting me! How? I'd only found the place by chance…how could she…

"Where's Michael?"

"What do you care?" The words stung with the force of rubber bullets, growing more and more painful until she edged up to point-blank range. She whispered to me.

"I knew." The gravity from the wells of her voice was untouchable, and let me know without any mistake at all that she knew—that I had killed my own wife in revenge for her own murdering.

"How?" I choked out the words, scarcely believing them myself.

"You don't spend as much time as I have working for Aesir and Horne without getting the skinny on all the details…whether they like it or not."

I could see her hesitate for a moment. "But I knew from the moment I heard your story, from the moment that I meant you. Horne's files were nothing but a confirmation."

I tried to speak, but no words would come out. For once, Mona smiled at me as I let the tears run down my face, freed from their endless prison that was my psyche.

"Max…I've done a lot of horrible things in my life, and more than once I've let my passion get the best of me. But what has kept me going right now, more than anything else, is your forgiveness and faith in me. And right now, I'm not going to give up on you."

"I killed her…"

"You thought she killed your baby in a fit of bloodlust. Anybody else would have…"

"Nobody else would have done what I have done."

"Right. You have atoned for her, Max Payne. There was no vengeance, no hatred, no malice in your retribution. Only the desire to make up for your mistake.

"The thing is, you've already began to drive off into the night. But you have to go of her. It's a very late goodbye as it is now."

I had only come to grips with the death of my wife, and now she already wanted me to let her go? But even as I thought those words, I realized how untrue that they were. The only thing I could do without stepping back was let her go.

On the asphalt underneath our crushed plans and my lies our love still lived on. But I was with Mona as well, saying my late goodbyes to my wife and daughter, for the last time.

Such a late goodbye.

"I'm sorry."

Mona kissed me. I kissed back.

And we went home.

Together at last.

I had a dream of my wife. She was dead, but it was alright.