Chapter 2: Shipbuilding

November 9, 2019

This particular church did not have an organ, but it did have a sound system, which was presided over by the DJ they'd be using at the reception. The DJ (whose name was Kyle) had never worked a wedding of two women before, so he opted to play the Bridal March on loop, much to the irritation of all in attendance.

Ryan Caulfield, true to his word, walked Chloe down the aisle. They both stood on either side of Trevor Cade, with Chloe closest to the podium, with the elderly and wizened minister behind it. Warren Graham stood alongside bridesmaids Juliet Watson and Dana Ward, who wore dark green dresses. Dana had her infant son Brandon up to her chest, as both she and husband Trevor were in the retinues of the two brides. Attempts to get little Brandon into a tiny tux that matched all the men in attendance were nixed almost instantly when the boy launched an impressive stream of white vomit on the floor of the store renting said tuxedoes. So when little Brandon Cade grew up to learn that he had been present at the wedding of the famed photographer Max Caulfield, it would also be known that he did so in a set of Batman footie pajamas.

Chloe looked out into the half-filled church to see who wound up making it.

Joyce was there, of course, in the front row and beaming like a madwoman. She'd been pulling her hair out in the days leading up to the wedding, not due to the wedding itself, but because of the Two Whales. This past August, The Two Whales Diner (which Joyce now owned, after it was left to her in the will of original owner Bud Putnam) had been burned down by a homicidal teenage girl who had been hell-bent on killing Max. Joyce's insurance covered arson, but the guy in charge of checking out the foundation was being a real dick.

Sitting next to her was Kate Bradford (formerly Kate Marsh), children's author, classmate of Max's at Blackwell, and someone whose personal monetary worth exceeded the Gross Domestic Products of most South American countries. She wanted to be one of Max's bridesmaids, but decided against it as at the moment, she was four months pregnant, and had some measure of personal insecurity about standing in front of a crowd in such a state. This was fine with everyone. Sitting next to her was her husband Josh, who, from Chloe's point of view, looked like he'd been taken from a cornfield after Kate drove past in her limo, found the burliest and studliest dude there, and said "Yup. That one."

A remarkably slimmed down and surprisingly ungothed Alyssa Anderson was also in attendance. Hayden Jones, the laughing stock of Arcadia Bay who saw the Sasquatch (though the joke was on the town, as there actually was a Sasquatch in Arcadia Bay, a fact to which Victoria Chase could attest) was in the middle of the middle row on the left side. Evan Harris, who hadn't aged a day since his stint at Blackwell, was there with his boyfriend, whose name Chloe did not know.

Zach Riggins was there with his wife, making the same eyes at Juliet up at the front as Brooke Scott, who was also there, was making at Warren. Chloe went through her mental rolodex of her and Max's old friends form the Bay. Stella Hill, who Max had been eager to see, was absent, as was Daniel DaCosta. Chloe considered the latter's absence wholly in the realm of the explicable, however, as flights from Argentina must have been expensive.

One particular article of curiosity was the presence of Victoria Chase's former Blackwell drones, Courtney Wagner and Taylor Christensen. Courtney seemed to have found the weight that Alyssa had lost, though from a distance, she seemed a fair bit happier and more eager to smile than she had been in high school. But if one had to had out a medal for the most unique transformation over the years, then that one would have to go to Taylor. She was, as Victoria no doubt would have called her, "Runway Fabulous," with her blonde hair in a bob and her black and white ensemble so crisp and expensive looking that Chloe wouldn't have been surprised if it had its own groupies.

Her choice of companion was also notable. Taylor was in the presence of a black woman about her age… or so Chloe thought. She had an ageless, ethereal quality about her. Her hair was short and natural, and her clothes were every last bit the caliber of Taylor's. And if Chloe had to guess, this mystery woman had to be at least six-one.

And being as they were sitting in the front row, eyeing the proceedings as though they were by the runway at the Zac Posen show at Fashion Week, Chloe could see their matching rings.

Chloe put her hand up to her mouth and quietly said "Ohhhhh shiiiiiiiit…."

This got a side-eye from Trevor. "What is it?"

"Taylor's into chiiiiiicks…"

Trevor looked at Taylor, then back to Chloe. "You sure?"

"Yeah, dude, they're wearing matching rings."

Trevor propped up at this. "Oh… Well… Uh… Good for them?"

"Look at them," Chloe said. "Great for them."

The Bridal March stopped for a few seconds. There seemed to be some kind of shuffling near the back of the church, before it started up again.

And in she walked.

Accompanied by her mother Vanessa, Max Caulfield slowly glided down the aisle. She had foregone a veil. The white shirt of her dress was white and loose, coming down to her ankles, and the dress had no straps. Her hair was the stylish version of the pixie cut she'd been rocking since February. She was in makeup, plum lipstick accenting her thin lips. This was the second time Chloe had seen her in makeup, and she wondered if Dana had helped her this time, too.

And as Max took her place across from her, Chloe was torn, to her very core, between the idle pleasure of getting lost in her wife's blue eyes, and the juvenile and altogether inappropriate urge to yell "FUCKIN' JACKPOT!" aloud to a church full of family and friends.

The Bridal March stopped, everyone in the crowd unclenched, and the minister began.

It should be noted that the minister was a tiny man, and very old. He looked, to Chloe, like a sun-bleached prune that could marry people. Indeed, he was so adorably old and pale that she was waiting—just waiting—for one word to come falling out of his mouth:

"Mawwidge!"

So intent was Chloe's lookout for this word that she did not hear a single thing that came out of his mouth, until:

"The happy couple have decided to write their own vows," the minister said. "Miss Caulfield, would you like to go first?"

Max swallowed, turned slightly, and looked Chloe in the eye.

"I need to look you in the eye when I say this," Max said, "because public speaking is the scariest thing I can think of."

The crowd laughed at this, but Chloe wondered how in the blue hell talking in front of a crowd beat time travel powers, angry gangsters, torrents of red rain, and massive storms on the scary list. She also wondered how she managed being a photography teacher. That was public speaking.

"I need to look you in the eye," Max said, "when I tell you you're my hero. I know I'm supposed to tell you that I'll love you, honor you, and cherish you, but I've been doing that for years. It's the easiest thing in the world to me. But the thing I can tell you, the thing I can promise you, is that I will leave the light on for you when the world goes dark. I will hold your hand when everything and everyone else burns to the touch. I will never cause you pain, if I can help it. I will laugh with you. I will cry with you. Loneliness is the only sure thing in life, and Chloe, I've known you for so long that I'm not entirely sure about taxes, and I'm even less sure about death."

The crowd laughed at this, but Chloe knew it to be true. Chloe herself had died seven times across three separate timelines knowing Max, and Max herself had died once.

"But I also know," Max said, "that loneliness is temporary, but only if you're lucky. And right now, I'm wearing a wedding dress in front of the most beautiful girl I've ever seen. If that isn't lucky, I don't know what is. Chloe Price, I give you my love, my patience, and my faith."

And Max gave a little nod to say she was done. This minister turned to Chloe. "And now you, Miss Price?"

Chloe had been moved by her wife's vows. She had been a woman whose dark period stretched throughout most of her life, and even now, to this day, declarations of even affection, let alone love, threw her off.

So much so that Chloe Elizabeth Price had completely forgotten the vows she had written.

And they were good ones, too.

Goddammit, Max…

Chloe scratched the back of her head, and the sense of unease must have been radiating from her body, because she could see Max beginning to break into her "Oh, no" face. The one that accompanied Chloe's attempts at improvisation.

"Um…" Chloe said. "It occurs to me, that, uh… I may not entirely suck as a human being."

Polite chuckles from the crowd.

"Which isn't to say I'm perfect. I'll never cop to that, but uh… Knowing me hasn't been easy. Knowing me has been a lot like pulling teeth. And, uh… It's just… It's just the person coming to my mind right now is a girl we both know… named Rose."

Chloe could see Max's expression darken. The Rose in question was a girl named Rose Fichtner, who, in a misplaced haze of vengeance, had tried to kill both Max and Chloe the previous August in ways most violent. After Max and Chloe had taken turns permanently disfiguring her, Rose Fichtner had vanished from their lives without a trace.

"Rose lost her father at an early age, same as I did," Chloe said. "She was in a dark place. And in that darkness, she was surrounded by people who fed it, and turned her into a monster. And the only thing that stopped me from turning out the same way… is being around people who cared about me. Like mom… and Rachel… and you."

Chloe took a deep breath. "Against common sense, good judgment, the universe's will, you saw something in me worth saving. You, uh… You saw more in me than my low point, and you kept at it for so long, for so… so many years of screw-ups and let-downs that I actually… started believing it. More than that, I started seeing it as the truth. So… So I know these vows are supposed to be, like, a grand declaration of your plans on how to treat your wife during the rest of your life, and I think… I think the best things I could do is try to be more like you. That's the best wife I can be. Trying to be more like Max Caulfield. And given the hole I started out in, being a third as good as you is a life's work. But, um… It's the kind of life's work that I want to do. That I need to do, so… That's my vow."

At this, the minister nodded, and said "The rings, please?"

As Jared made his way up to the altar with the rings, Chloe leaned into Max, and asked "Was that okay?"

Max could only smile.

They put the rings on each others' fingers.

"Chloe Elizabeth Price, do you take Max to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"

Technically, death hadn't stopped them yet, so she said "I do" all the same.

"Maxine Caulfield, do you take Chloe to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?"

"I do."

"Then I now pronounce you joined in matrimony. You may each kiss the bride."

So they did, much to the delight of those assembled.

The worst kiss that Max and Chloe had ever shared had been on October 7, 2013, though an October 7, 2013 that only the two of them had shared. It was a kiss at the end of the world, right before Max leapt through a photograph of a butterfly to send Chloe to her doom to save Arcadia Bay, though Max opted at the last minute to sacrifice herself, and save both Chloe and the town. It was a kiss so larded with doom and portent that it was less sweet, and more necessary.

But the best kiss? That was a kiss that had happened exactly one year and one day before this wedding in this church. November 8, 2018, after a three year break-up, after all the timelines converged in Chloe's brain, she had gone to Max's hotel room and almost threw herself at her feet. The kiss they shared was like water in the desert, like air on the moon.

This kiss… was somewhere in the middle. And if you had to ask Chloe, she would say that that was the beauty of it.

In front of their friends and family, in a house of a God that at least Kate Bradford believed in, Chloe Price and Max Caulfield did the most natural thing in the world…