:)
We love you guys. Promise. This hurts us more than it hurts you.
On a more serious note, on the last chapter we got a review that joked that the reviewer would kill themselves if we stopped writing. While we appreciate that you enjoyed our story, suicide is something that both I and Sid have struggled with, and it made us feel a little uncomfortable. Suicide is a serious issue, especially considering the heavy subject matter in both Life Is Strange and Life Goes On. We aren't mad, but stay aware of the implications and how your words can affect the real people writing behind the screen.
-Ben
The first thing Max noticed was how cold she was. The second, that it was dark. Her eyes fluttered open, and she found herself on her back, staring up the trunk of an enormous old tree, its height disappearing into fog. The ground beneath her was rough and uneven, and something that felt suspiciously like a rock dug into the small of her back. The scent of earthy decay met her nose.
She pushed herself up to a sitting position, looking around. She was in... a forest? Maybe the forest near the lighthouse, but visibility was too low to tell. Tendrils of mist snaked around the edges of her vision almost like a living thing and set to dancing and swirling by the quiet pulse of her breath. It was an eerie effect, as though the world wasn't quite real here.
How had she gotten here? The last thing she remembered was... what was the last thing she remembered? Waking up, she supposed. Christmas morning.
A bird screeched somewhere in the distance, the sound echoing emptily through the trees. Max jumped, startled, and pushed herself to her feet, leaves and other forest debris clinging to her clothes. The fog was so thick. She couldn't see more than a dozen yards in any direction, and there weren't any landmarks to help orient herself. She couldn't even tell from which way the sun lit the area; it all seemed covered in the same hollow white light.
Thinking was hard; like trying to run through knee deep molasses. Possible, but difficult and sticky. Unpleasant. There was something wrong about this place. Where am I?
"Hello?" she screamed into the air. The fog seemed to swallow her voice before it even had the chance to echo. "Is anyone there?" It sounded muffled, even to her.
She shouted again and again, but no one came. Nothing answered. Even the strange bird was silent. Everything was silent.
She took a deep breath, steadying herself, trying not to panic.
A voice broke the silence, a quiet man's voice. "They used me."
Max's heart leapt into her throat and she spun, but still, she was alone.
"They all used me." Again the voice came from behind her, and she spun again. Nothing but the trunk of a dead tree inches from her face.
"You used me too, Max." The voice was sad, with a hint of accusation.
Max stood as still as she could this time, her hands balled into fists to keep herself from shaking. The voice was so familiar, but...
"Do you know what it's like, Max?" The voice was wistful. "Do you know what it's like to die?"
Max was silent. It couldn't be. Nathan was-
"Dead? I know. Dying..." The sound of a quiet inhalation. "You can't possibly imagine. The pain. The fear. The desperation."
Max turned slowly, forcing herself to look one more time.
It was Nathan Prescott, and it wasn't. Maybe it had been once. His face was gaunt and withered, his skin pale slipping from his bones. One eye was filmed over with white; the other burned cold in its socket. A small, bloody hole marred his forehead - dark, dried flakes spattering around it. A bullet hole. He spread its hands wide, palms out. His previous jacket was dirty and torn, and seemed a size or two too big for him.
An invisible hand closed over Max's throat, and she choked. She wanted to vomit, and she wanted to run, and she wanted to deny what she was looking at. But she couldn't.
"To look down the barrel of a gun," he said, his voice exactly as it was in life. "and to know there's nothing you can do to save yourself." He laughed bitterly. "As if saving myself was ever an option. You always had options, didn't you, Max?"
Max shook her head. "I don't-"
"Don't lie to me!" he suddenly roared, fists clenched, taking a step toward her. A bitter smile curled his dead lips. "When you're gone, you get perspective."
"You didn't have options because you were a monster, Nathan!" Max blurted.
"I was a monster?" The thing that had been Nathan shook its head. "Jefferson was the monster. My father was the monster." He looked down to the ground, hiding his eyes. "I was sick. They hurt me. And because of you I never had a chance to be saved."
Max gritted her teeth, but a pang hit her gut. "Tell that to Kate, Nathan. Tell that to Chloe. Tell that to Rachel."
Nathan's shoulders shook with silent laughter. "Jefferson, Jefferson, and Jefferson. I never had a choice, Max. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I never wanted anyone to die. But-"
"But they did die!" Max cried. "They were hurt! You don't get to erase that just because you feel bad about it! That doesn't bring Rachel back!"
Nathan looked up just enough to see her, his cold eyes burning with hate. "I never. Had. A. Choice." His voice was low and dangerous. "I was just as much a victim as they were. Do you think it started with Jefferson? My father wanted me to take his place, and that meant being able to hurt people. It meant taking a kid who was too young to know better and molding him! I fought him every step of the goddamn way, but no one is that strong, Max! No one." He bared his teeth. "You wouldn't be any better than I am if you had been raised the way I had. You'd have killed. You'd have..." He gave a hollow laugh.
Max shook her head. "No. You're a monster. You and Jefferson-" She couldn't make the words come out. God... Was she wrong? Had she been wrong this whole time? They'd always considered Nathan to be an irredeemable monster who hurt people of his own accord, but... could he have been saved? That question haunted her sometimes in the night.
Kate was a victim. Rachel was a victim. Chloe was a victim. Max herself was a victim. But Nathan? He was the only gray area. Max gritted her teeth. "No. I don't care how they treated you. You hurt so many people, Nathan. You deserved what happened. It was justice." Then why do I keep thinking about it?
"I never got justice! You could have given me that!" Nathan's voice cracked as he looked up at her. "No one knows how much they hurt me. No one knows how much I suffered. How long I fought!" He stepped forward, balling his hands again. "You could have told them! You could have saved me, like you saved them! Jail, medication, I don't care! I was so tired, Max!" He was right in her face, and she could smell him. Rot. Decomposition. Despair. "I would have let them take me if they could just fix me!"
Max opened her mouth to retort, her skin crawling, but she never had a chance. Nathan screamed, and Max discovered that as emaciated as he looked, death hadn't diminished his strength. His fist connected with her cheek, and pain shot through her as she found herself spinning through the air. She hit the tree trunk, hard, and fell to the cold earth with a cry.
She lay there, dazed. Something deep in her gut told her she deserved this. She tried to move but couldn't by far. The sky seemed to thin, and the wisps of fog seemed to be tinted red with pain. She grunted, shifted... and Nathan's boot took her in the stomach. She doubled over in agony, too breathless to scream, and clawed at the ground.
"I should have shot you when I had the chance, you heartless fucking bitch!" He kicked her again, and again abject pain filled her world. "Maybe then I'd still be alive!" He kicked her again. "What did you accomplish?"
She coughed, sending pain shooting through her gut, and feebly curled into a ball, hands over her head. "Nathan... please..." Was that blood or spit running down her chin?
"Nothing! How many people died because of you, Max?" He was shouting now, and he punctuated every few words with another blow. "You killed Arcadia Bay!"
Max squeezed her eyes shut tight, and even through the pain she could feel the tears on her face, mingling with the blood and the dirt. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..." Her voice was so small. But it was all she had.
"How many people died in the storm you caused, Max? How many had to die so you could fuck your punk bitch girlfriend? Was it worth it? Was she worth it?" As Nathan kept screaming, his voice began to change. At first, it was a subtle undertone, like someone whispering along with his words. But then one voice became two, and two became four, and by the time he finished, a hundred angry, accusatory voices thundered in her ears. "YOU KILLED US ALL."
"No!" Max screamed into the uncaring fog until her voice cracked and gave out... and suddenly, there was nothing but silence. Not a sound or a breath of wind stirred the air. For a few long minutes, she couldn't do a thing. All she could do was lie on the ground and cry and hurt. But finally, when she found the strength to crack one eyelid and look up at where her tormentor had stood... No one was there.
Max's sobs broke into hysterical laughter. She laughed until she was out of breath, the sound echoing eerily through the trees surrounding her and becoming an unearthly taunt. Once that petered off into nothing, she was alone.
Surrounded by nothing but her own oppressive silence and guilt.
The pain had settled deep into her, her whole body burning with it. The physical wasn't the worst of it. The worst of it was the doubt.
The trees around her began to fuzz out of focus, blurring into little more than oppressive streaks of grey and brown. She blinked, squinting into the distance, her heart pounding. "What's going-"
"-on...?" She mumbled, quiet enough that she could hardly hear it herself. A steady, rhythmic beeping rang in her ears, and the muffled chatter of voices danced around the edges of her consciousness.
Max's eyes fluttered open, and immediately she wished they hadn't.
Bright, blinding light shone down from above, a half dozen suns burning down from the heavens, searing her eyes. Everything around her, what she could see, was white. This was no better than the forest.
She groaned, shifting, squeezing her eyes shut tight to hide from the light. Relentless pain thudded in her brain to the time of her heart, and even through her eyelids it was too bright. "The Bright Room..." She muttered, her words slurred and quiet. "Out of the Dark Room and into the Bright Room..." She chuckled softly, but her laughter quickly turned into a hacking cough that sent bolts of agony jarring through her skull. The coughs gave way to quiet sobs, and the muffled voices grew louder, but no more distinct.
She raised an arm feebly, cracking her eyes again, but there was something hard in her hand preventing her from moving. Great greenish blurs loomed over her like great angels, judging her for what she'd done. Even that obscured image wavered through the tears in her eyes.
She had to get out of here. She had to-
Her whole body jerked painfully, and she cried out. The beeping grew faster and faster, and the incomprehensible voices took on a frantic edge. She had to move. Escape.
Everything went black, and for a few blessed moments, nothing hurt.
Max smelled smoke.
She sat bolt upright with a gasp, hands and feet scrabbling at hard asphalt. It was overcast; dark storm clouds overhead, a heavy wind blowing down the street on which she found herself. Thick smoke filled the air, and it was all Max could do to keep herself from choking.
Bones littered the street. They were old and cracked and bleached, and nearly all of them were recognizably human. Skulls. Ribs. Hands. You killed us, the wind whispered in her ear. Rubble was everywhere. Smashed cars, broken glass, furrows in the street. The ghosts of the living walked the sidewalk, faded and translucent cars passed the road.
Max felt herself go white, felt the bile rise in her chest. It wasn't hard to tell where she was. She was standing outside the old, wrecked Two Whales Diner, the way it had been after the storm. A quiet moan came from inside. The voice was familiar. Joyce...? Fire licked the Windows from inside, and the smoke pouring from the roof nearly obscured the boat that had been thrown through the building.
The cracked, shattered door opened, and a girl walked out as if there was nothing wrong. A girl Max had never met, but a girl who had been a huge part of her life nonetheless.
Rachel Amber.
She wore the same red-plaid overshirt and jeans that Max had borrowed from Chloe all those months ago, and her blonde hair was straight and long, her makeup immaculate. She radiated beauty and serenity, but from what Max had heard, that could change on a dime.
Rachel didn't seem to see her at first as she walked out into the street, the ghostly images of cars passing immaterially through the rubble. She stopped a few feet to Max's side, staring wistfully out into the distance. Smoke swirled around her without seeming to touch her.
She broke the silence, and her voice was quiet and melodic. "You wanted to be a savior." It wasn't a question.
It took a moment for Max to find her voice, but her thoughts still felt so slow. "Rachel...?"
Rachel smiled sadly. "We all want to be the heroine of our own story, Max. Chloe always thought I needed rescuing. It's why I never told her about Frank." She sounded nostalgic. "She would have wanted to try to save me. She would have thought that I was being manipulated, or..."
Max stared up at her.
"It doesn't matter. The past is the past, and it's hard to care about life when you're dead." Rachel shrugged, glancing over at Max for the first time. "I'm here to talk about you."
"Me?" Max pushed herself slowly to her feet, brushing the dirt off her knees as she did.
"Chloe wanted to save me, but all she did was push me away. Do you understand?"
Max shook her head. "I don't understand anything that's happened today."
"You will." Rachel looked out at the bay. "Look around, Max. You wanted to save Arcadia Bay. What happened?"
Max's mouth went dry, and she couldn't speak.
"Death. Destruction. A storm the scale of which Oregon has never seen. All because you thought we needed saving."
Max shook her head desperately. "No, I... I never wanted to hurt anybody! I couldn't have known!"
Rachel tilted her head without turning. "And what was it you told Nathan? They did die? You don't get to erase that just because you feel bad?"
That hurt more than any of Nathan's physical blows ever could have. Max all but staggered back, her hands moving to cover her suddenly queasy stomach. "It's not the same. Nathan hurt people personally. He went out and drugged and hurt and killed with his own hands. The storm was just... just an accident, Rachel. I swear to you it was an accident."
"Was it?" Rachel idly pushed a strand of hair from her face, an unconscious gesture she must have done a thousand times before. "Or did part of you know that what you were doing was unnatural? That nothing good could come of meddling with something as fundamental as time itself? You had that dream, after all. Part of you must have felt it."
Max shivered. Had she? No. She hadn't. But... "You're wrong, Rachel. I never knew. I couldn't have known."
"Warren figured it out pretty quick when you told him," Rachel said. She tilted her head back to look at Max and smiled. "Relax. I'm not here to judge. Death isn't so bad, once you get used to it. Those hundreds of people are better off now."
"Then..." Max swallowed. "Then what are you here for?"
Rachel turned to fully face her. Her face and her tone were friendly. "To give you a warning." Her hand shot out and gripped Max's shoulder like iron, and without even a grunt of effort spun her around to face the Two Whales again.
Except... it wasn't the Two Whales she was looking at. She was staring up at the Price household, weathered and broken by the storm. The windows had all shattered inward, and a tree lay slanted upon the roof. "Wh-... What?"
Rachel's hand was like a vice on Max's shoulder, and it hurt. "You. Can't. Save. Her."
Max shook her head and tried to pull away. "No! You're wrong! She needs me!"
Rachel's grip only tightened. "You tried to play the savior, Max." Her voice was cold as ice. "You tried to play the savior and you became death. Everything you have touched turns to ash in your grasp."
This time Max tried to turn, and was met with about the same amount of success. "I saved Kate!" One of the only unambiguous good things she had done.
"Did you? Or did you just delay the inevitable?" Rachel was whispering in her ear now. "Do you think pulling her off the roof cured her depression? Do you think she's happy because of you? One kind gesture doesn't erase the desire to die so easily. When will you wake up one day to find out that your rescue was only temporary?" Rachel sighed, and she raised her voice again. "Kate isn't the issue. The issue is Chloe Price."
"No!" Max jerked forward again, but this time she managed to break free. She whirled to face Rachel, who only looked vaguely apologetic. "I love her! I love her, and I can take care of her, and I can save her!"
"Like you saved Arcadia Bay? You've seen what happens to the things you try to save. You're destroying her."
This time it was Max's turn to take a swing, but her fist passed cleanly through the air where Rachel had stood a moment before. Without seeming to have crossed the intervening space at all, Rachel stood a few feet to Max's left, looking entirely unruffled. "Do you know how little she sleeps? How often she cries when you're unconscious? How weak and pitiful and helpless you make her feel?"
Max spun to face Rachel again, and again took a swing. Again, Rachel seemed to dodge without moving. "That isn't true!"
"Ask her. At least, you could if you two talked anymore. Now, she probably doesn't trust you enough to let you in that deep." Rachel casually stuck her hands into her pockets. "Do you know when the last time her urges were as strong as they are now? It's been months since she's touched the razor. Every day, it gets a little harder for her. Because of you."
Max swung again and again, but each time her fist met only empty air. She couldn't argue because Rachel was right. God help her, she was right. Chloe was falling apart, and their fight this morning only proved that.
"I never met you, Max. I don't know you. I don't care about you. I care about her. And all I can see is you digging a deeper and deeper hole for her. And she loves you, so she smiles and hands you the shovel. The best thing you can do for her is stop."
"No..." Max hunched slightly, panting with the effort. "No. I sacrificed so much for her-"
"And what about what she sacrificed for you? She didn't know she'd be stuck being your caretaker. She wanted a friend and a partner, not a burden. You're tearing her apart."
Max drew her arms in closer, her breath ragged. "No..." Her voice was so small. "We love each other. We take care of each other."
Rachel stepped closer. "Then why is she so miserable?"
The question was a slap to the face. Max sank down to her knees, and again she could feel the tears fill her eyes. Chloe... She had hurt Chloe so badly, and she had been too selfish to see it. Some girlfriend she was.
Some friend.
Rachel gently touched her back, and in a whisper that sounded as loud as a thunderclap, in a hundred voices, said "YOU CAN'T SAVE HER."
Max screamed until everything went white.
Again, bright light filled her vision. Her face was wet. Where was she? Had she been crying? No, that felt like blood on her lips. Her head hurt so badly.
The towering shapes around her were frantic. They spoke in thundering voices, and she could only catch a few words here and there.
"...aking up..."
"...her IV..."
"...bleeding again... ipe... face-"
Something cold and wet rubbed at her face, and she stirred, squeezing her eyes shut tight and whimpering quietly.
For a moment, she feared that the shapes would cover her nose and her mouth, smothering her. It would fit right in with the harrowing experiences she'd just had. She tried to snatch away, but again she simply lacked the energy to escape.
One of the figures leaned in close, speaking in soft tones. "...axine?" Max's eyes struggled open again, and this time she could see a blurred, featureless face looming over her. Her vision fuzzed and wavered, and the voice seemed to come in and out like a radio with bad reception. "Maxine, do... hear me?" The voice was soothing, but it quickly turned and barked something at the others.
Max whimpered again, trying desperately to force her eyes to focus, to think, to remember. She'd been with...
The voice was speaking to her again. Max blinked up at the face. It looked so... unnatural. The voice was calm, but that face... What kind of being didn't have a nose or a mouth?
She opened her mouth to try to speak, slurred the word, "Rachel..." and stopped as her eyes rolled back into her head.
The voice grew frantic as everything faded to black.
The storm had begun.
Max stood, as she had so many times before, beside the lighthouse. Rain poured down in sheets, the clouds roiling overhead. The wind whipped, the tornado raged in the bay...
And all Max felt was tired.
She was so tired.
She remembered everything, but most of all, she remembered the fight. She'd tried to save Arcadia Bay, and all she had to show for it were nightmares and funerals. And for what? If Chloe wasn't gone, she would be soon. Everything she'd been through, everything she'd done... it had all been for her.
"Or was it for yourself?" Another familiar voice from beside her. Max didn't have to look to know that it was herself.
Max was silent for a long few moments, simply staring out over the water. Somewhere behind her, a tree cracked and shattered, peppering her with chips of wood. She didn't move. "It was always for Chloe." Even her voice was exhausted.
The dream Max was quiet. "Your subconscious is smart. You should listen to her."
"My subconscious is a bitch." Max sighed tiredly. "Just fuck off and let me rest."
"No rest for the wicked, Maxine." Her double's voice was quietly sympathetic. "We don't get to rest after what we've done. We don't deserve it."
"It wasn't-"
"It was our fault, and you know it. You tried so hard to change fate, and for what? A girlfriend who resents you? Panic attacks?" The other Max lifted a hand and gestured at the storm. "A lifetime of watching them die, over and over again?"
Max shook her head. "I made my choices. I have to live with the consequences."
"Can you?"
The rain plastered their hair to their heads. Lightning streaked overhead, illuminating them for a brief moment, then burying them in the deep crack of thunder.
"I have to. I don't have any other options." Max was too tired even to cry.
"You're still trying to save everyone. That's a choice."
"What are you saying?"
The other Max finally turned her head to look at her for the first time. "We're suffering because we're trying. We do have a choice. We do have a way out. Let it all go, Max. Chloe, Blackwell, the bay... Let them go. You can't save them, Max. You can't save anyone. We can't save anyone."
Max was silent again. "I can't give up. I've been through too much. I love them too much."
"How long will they still love us? How much longer will Chloe put up with us? You saw the way she exploded. And now you've gone and rewound yourself into a coma. How will she take that?"
Max's eyes widened. "That's not-"
"Maybe you don't remember passing out with blood pouring from your nose, but I do. I remember the hospital. That's where we are now."
"I only wanted to help-"
The other Max rolled her eyes and mimicked her. "I only wanted to help. I think we've more than established that what you meant to do doesn't matter. You gave in. You hurt yourself. And that hurt everyone around you. Do you see how your actions have consequences? You can't rewind this away."
Down in Arcadia Bay, a building exploded. Flames erupted from the roof and every window, and nearly as quickly were extinguished by the heavy wind and rain. Debris was sucked up into the storm, more deadly ammunition for the tornado. A moment later, the roar reached them. Max raised a hand in front of her face, but her double was absolutely unruffled.
Max shook her head. "I can't think like that. I can't focus on the past. All I can do is live the best I can."
"But you do live in the past. You can't escape it." The other Max gestured again, and for the briefest of moments Max thought she could see Chloe's face in the boiling clouds, her face twisted into fear and pain. "All of this is because you can't. Let. Go. Stop trying. The best thing you can do for her is leave. The scales are balanced. The storm saw to that. She isn't in any danger, Max. Except from you."
"I'm not leaving her." Max stared out at the whirling storm, her eyes hard. She could barely feel the rain beating down against her. All she felt was cold and tired.
"Then you'll kill her," Max's double said simply.
Max blinked, and the two of them stood back in the alternate timeline, where a broken Chloe lay on her bed, tears in her eyes, begging for an end to the suffering. The breathing apparatus hissed quietly. Outside, rain poured down, debris flying past. The storm hadn't stopped.
The other Max sat by the bed, holding Chloe's hand, her face compassionate. The scene hit Max like a punch to the gut, and she nearly doubled over. "No. This was a mistake. This was-"
"Another instance of you hurting her, Max." The double said gently. "This isn't abuse. This is far beyond that. You break her and you put her back together and you break her again. How many more times? How many until you learn? Does she have to die? Permanently?"
On the bed, Chloe took a shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes shut tight. A rivulet of tears glimmered on one of her cheeks. Slowly, fumblingly, her hands searched out and found the other Max's, and she clung tight. "Max..." Her voice was barely a whisper, and it wasn't hard to tell how much of an effort it was to speak. "I don't... don't have long... Weeks. Maybe days..." She opened her eyes, but instead of looking at the double, her eyes bored into Max's. "It hurts so badly, and the pain... it's only going to get worse." She shuddered. "So much worse..."
Max couldn't speak. Her mouth was dry as a bone. She shivered, that familiar pain lodged in her stomach. This wasn't what had happened. But it was close enough.
"I'm selfish. I know. But Max... I want it to end. So badly. You've done... so much for me..." Chloe's voice shook. "But you can't stop this. I want out. I want out before it gets to where I can't breathe for the screaming... You understand that, Max? Don't you?" She exhaled slowly, tilting her head to stare up at the ceiling. "Sometimes, giving up is the right thing to do. I fought so hard for every breath, Max, but I can't do it anymore. I have to let it go." Her voice cracked, and she had to stop for a moment to recompose herself.
"Chloe, you can't die." Max knew this wasn't real, that she wasn't really watching Chloe beg for death... but it was so hard to not play along with the hideous vision. "I love you. I love you. Things will be alright-"
"Things will never be alright, Max." Her voice was calm, but tears ran freely down her face. "That's what... what you never could understand. Even when we were kids. Sometimes things just... need to end. You tried. We tried. But it doesn't matter. You need to let me go."
Max shook her head fiercely, and she stepped forward to put her hands on the end of Chloe's bed. "No! I'm never letting go, Chloe. Don't say that. We'll figure something out, we'll-"
Chloe broke into a coughing fit, each spasm obviously causing her great pain. When she recovered, her face was pale. "You did everything you could," she said gently. "It just wasn't meant to be."
"I..." Max couldn't find the words. Her throat was tight. She could feel sweat glisten on the back of her neck. Her face was pale, her eyes were filled with tears... She couldn't stop herself from shaking.
"She's telling you the truth," Max's double said quietly. "This is what you need to learn. This is what I'm trying to tell you. You need to let her go." She looked down at Chloe, and reached out with one hand to caress her cheek. Chloe's eyes closed, almost contentedly. "Stop trying to save her. Stop trying to be the hero. Let her rest."
Max trembled. She had to- If she could just- If only- There was no way around it. Nothing she could see. The future stretched out before her, gray and grim. Decades of nothing but misery, of hurting Chloe over and over, of pain that she caused, of her desperate efforts to make Chloe happy, but only breaking her further. Was this what she was? Was this her story? The girl who tried too hard, and in the end, broke everything?
Chloe. She couldn't feel her emotions because of Max. She had to hide them. Because Max was oh so fragile, because Max needed to be taken care of, because Chloe felt responsible. That was her fault.
There was no escaping her sins. No escaping the damage she'd caused, the hurt she'd done to her friends. She was more of a monster than Nathan ever was, worse even than Jefferson. They had hurt people. Hurt them badly. But what they had done paled in comparison with the deaths of hundreds, with Joyce's legs and Warren's arm and the razing of an entire town.
How must it feel to know that the person you loved had done so much evil in your name? How must that wear on Chloe? The fear that any day, something would happen that would require Max to go back to using her power for her sake? How unworthy and guilty must she feel every single day because of the choices Max had made?
What was the point, if all she did was ruin? Why should she keep trying? Maybe... Maybe the best thing to do for Chloe really would be to let her go. Maybe...
Maybe. That was what this was all about, wasn't it? Max's whole life the past few months had been playing the odds, time after time. Most times she'd lost. But she hadn't chosen to receive her powers. There had to be a reason. Maybe the storm itself was as destined as Chloe's death was. There was no way to know, was there? She'd done everything she could, and not once had she consciously chosen to hurt someone else.
Actions and consequences. When you make the choice to pull a trigger, the consequences are obvious. A bullet is fired, perhaps into another person. You are responsible for what happens.
But she'd been given a power she didn't understand. It didn't come with any divine message or instruction manual. Nothing could have possibly led her to extrapolate that the consequences of using her power would be to cause a rift in time itself. Could she blame herself for that?
Yes, she could. She could hold herself to that standard. That would likely always haunt her. Her choices had led to so much death. But did it make her a monster? That was what she had to ask herself.
Set that aside. Chloe. Chloe had been hurt, but the alternative was death. Wasn't this better than leaving her to die? That was the action with consequences she could see. It had been an utterly selfless act.
Lightning flashed, blinding light illuminating the room and the three of them. Thunder crashed outside, shaking the walls of the house. Chloe whimpered quietly.
What is a relationship? A series of actions and consequences. Questions and answers. Living selflessly for another person. Had she done that? No. She'd hardly spared a thought as to how Chloe had been dealing with Max's mental illness. It was time to change that.
Time. This was all about time. Did she have time to make up for what she had done? Did she have time to repair what she'd broken? Was this the end of her life? Would her legacy be nothing but suffering? Or could she build something greater? She could help people. Starting with Chloe, she could help people. She just had to take that first step.
Max stood straight, her fists clenched at her sides, her jaw set. "I'm not giving up. I'm not giving up on you, and I'm not giving up on myself. I love Chloe. She is the light of my life and my best friend and my strongest ally." She turned to her double and jabbed a finger at her. "You may be my subconscious, but all you are is a voice in my head. A selfish one. The pet that can only think about myself. Well I'm more than that. I'm more than fight or flight. I'm Max Caulfield, and you can't stop me from being with the person I love!
Sure, it's not always happy. We fight. We argue. We get sad. But who doesn't? This world isn't about making yourself happy every moment of your life. It's about everything. Taking the good with the bad. Doing the best we can. We're still learning to love each other, but that's okay." She might never love herself again. Forgiveness for her sins was out of the question. But Chloe loved her. That, she had never doubted. And if Chloe loved her, could she truly be as monstrous as she felt?
Max's double narrowed her eyes, and the room grew darker. Thunder rumbled again.
"Chloe deserves to be happy. I'm not perfect. I never will be. But I can be good for her. I can be better." Max let her hand fall to her side, and she looked down at the ground. "I can be better than you."
The whole room seemed to shake for a moment, and Max was nearly thrown from her feet. Something outside the room crashed, and everything rattled painfully loudly.
Max looked up to find her double standing before her, fists clenched, shaking with rage.
Max met her own gaze and stood tall. "I'm not giving up."
Silence stretched out. Neither of them moved. Neither of them spoke.
Then Max blinked, and when her eyes opened again, the other Max was simply gone.
"Don't say we didn't warn you," a voice whispered into her ear. "Nothing has changed what you are."
Max didn't flinch, even as light filled the room and buoyed her back to consciousness.
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