January 9, 2015
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance - UW Medical Center
Seattle, Washington

Our New Year's Eve passes quietly and, for the most part, unacknowledged. We don't bother with champagne or party hats or cheering at midnight. Neither of us are interested in celebrating the start of a year Chloe won't even live to see a third of. The first day of the winter semester also comes and goes as well, and while Chloe does encourage me to attend my classes, it's a token effort, at best.

For the most part, our days are spent sitting in Chloe's room, trying to figure out how to say all the things we want to say in the little time that remains. It's on a day like that, during a lull in the conversation, that Chloe puts to words something that had been on her mind for some time.

"So, I've decided something," she says, her voice is somehow determined and hesitant at the same time. "I don't think you're going to like it, but I want you to promise to hear me out before you get upset."

"Why would I get upset?"

"Promise me, Max."

A request like that is always a little suspicious, but I still nod. "Okay. I promise."

"Alright. So, I..." She hesitates. "I was talking to Doctor Morris and there's...uh...there's this thing in Washington State called the Death with Dignity Act..."

I recoil from the bed, jumping to my feet so fast that the chair tips over behind me. "N-no! You can't do that!"

"Max, you promised," she reminds me.

"But..."

"Please."

Not trusting myself to speak, I silently put my chair back on its feet and sit down.

"Max..." she pauses, considering her words carefully. "Everything hurts. Eating hurts and moving hurts and even breathing hurts. I...I can't even go to the bathroom without crying, it's so painful. I hurt all the time."

"But you've got your..." I gesture to the auto-medication device next to the bed. The machine feeds Chloe a steady, regulated stream of morphine as part of her pain-management regimen. There was even a self-medicate button that allowed her to give herself a little extra every once in a while.

"It barely takes the edge off, anymore," she sighs. "My body is tearing itself apart. And it's only going to get worse."

I don't know what to say to that. What can I say to that?

"It's a pretty simple process," Chloe explains. "I just have to check off a few boxes that Doc Morris is willing to help me with, then make an official verbal request in front of two doctors, which is gonna be weird as fuck all by itself." Chloe chuckles, despite herself. "Hey doc, would you mind killing me, please?"

"That's not funny."

"It's a little funny," Chloe counters gently. "After that I gotta wait two weeks before I put in a written request, then another two days before...well...y'know." She looks away. "If Doc Morris starts the ball rolling tomorrow, it'd probably be done by the first week of February."

The statement rips a sob from my throat. The thought of Chloe dying, no matter the circumstances, cuts me to the core. I can't even stand the idea. But try as I might, I can't think of a single point to rebuke Chloe's request that doesn't sound purely selfish. "No. No, that's too soon."

"I know it's hard to hear, baby, but this is what I want."

"I can't do that again, Chloe." I feel a little disconnected, and for a moment the woman in front of me is replaced with someone else altogether. Someone with long blonde hair and a breathing tube and a body that lays too heavy on the bed. What I did for her had been an act of mercy, but it had still wounded me in a way that had never fully healed. "Please don't make me."

Chloe only looks confused for a second. "Oh. Right. Bizarro me."

"She...I..."

"I remember, Max. And I remember calling her a selfish asshole," Chloe snorts. "Talk about fucking irony."

"I killed her." I whisper the words, like saying them too loudly will earn me some extra punishment. "I killed you. Please, please don't make me..."

"Look at me, Max," Chloe's voice is firm, and I reluctantly lift my gaze to meet hers. "It wasn't fair for her to put that on you, but this is different. The only thing I'm asking you for is to be here with me. I'll go it alone if I have to, but I really don't want to."

"But why do you want to..." Leave me, I almost say, because it's hard not to feel like I'm being abandoned. I know that isn't what Chloe is doing, or even something that would have crossed her mind, but I can't help that a selfish little part of me feels betrayed.

For her part, Chloe actually considers the question. "There was a dude here in the ward named Tony. You ever meet him?"

I'm thrown for a second. "I don't think so?"

"You'd probably remember if you had. He used to do stand-up before pancreatic cancer landed him here." She smiles, shaking her head. "Man, he was a funny guy. He could have everyone in stitches, even when he couldn't even sit up on his own."

"He got diagnosed as terminal, and all he wanted was to go out with some dignity. Started the whole process, but then his wife went to a lawyer and they blocked his request. Some bible-thumper bullshit." Chloe winces and presses the self-medicate switch in her hand. A sharp tone from the regulator beside the bed tells us that she's reached the end of her daily morphine allocation. "Fucking fuck."

"Do you want me to go ask about that?" Standing, I glance toward the door, trying to guess how long it would take to make it to the nurse's station and back. "Maybe someone can reset it or something."

Chloe shakes her head sadly. "Don't bother. They'll just say no."

"Oh." I sit back down on the edge of the bed.

"Yeah." She sighs, absentmindedly rearranging her blankets. "Tony was begging to die at the end, Max. Begging. We could all hear him, even after the nurses closed the door. And there was his bitch of a wife, sitting there praying like it actually meant a fucking thing. She forced Tony to suffer for no good reason at all." She reaches out, weakly taking my hand. "I won't go out like that. If I'm going to die, I want to do it on my own terms. I want to be at peace."

Against my will, I start shaking her head. "You're not thinking clearly."

"You know I am, babe."

"I could...could do something." I sound desperate and I know it, but only because I feel desperate. "I could go back and..."

"Stop it, Max." Chloe's gaze turns serious. "If you love me, you won't ever do that."

"But it was supposed to be...we were supposed to..." I can't bring myself to say it. After all the times I've saved Chloe's life, I still can't accept the idea of outliving her. We were supposed to have years and years together. I was never supposed to watch the love of my life wither away. "I just...I thought we'd have more time."

A thin sheen of tears covers Chloe's eyes, but not quite enough to fall. "Me too."

"I'm not ready to say goodbye."

Reaching out, she gathers me into her arms and holds me as tightly as she can still manage.

"Me either."

January 10, 2014
Seattle Cancer Care Alliance - UW Medical Center
Seattle, Washington

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" I stare up into expressionless eyes, and they gaze right back down at me. I don't get a response, but it's not as though I expected to. "I saved her. Someone or something gave me the power to save her. But now you're taking her away anyway. Even worse, you took away her hope. You made her want to die."

I tighten my grip on the bench in front of me, listening to the wood creak softly. "You probably thought it was so funny, watching us rebuild our lives just so you could pull the rug out from under us. And for what, huh? Is this supposed to teach me some kind of lesson? Are you trying to prove some kind of point?"

I probably ought to be keeping my voice down, but I can't quite manage to care. "I thought you were supposed to watch out for people. That you're supposed have our backs. All I see is an insecure little punk who can't stand to be proven wrong. A vindictive prick who just has to have the last word."

"Max?" I turn to see Dad looking at me from the door. "Were you talking to someone?"

"No."

"Oh. Well, Chloe was wondering where you were."

"I'll be right there."

He glances to the front of the hospital's small chapel. "Should I tell her you need some time?"

"No. I think I'm done here."

He nods slowly. "Alright. No rush."

After he leaves, I sit quietly for a while before continuing. "After the storm, I decided to give you a second chance. I wanted to see if you could live up to the hype, but you're just abandoning her anyway. Just like you abandoned Arcadia Bay. Just like you abandoned Kate."

Standing up, I take one last moment to glare hatefully at the carved figure hanging silently on the cross, indulging the righteous anger roaring inside me, filling the space left behind by my own lost hope. I want to be given some justification for it all, just so I can reject it out of spite. I want to be offered some kind of comfort, so I can throw it back in that stupid, impassive face.

"So, y'know what? Fuck you. Fuck your storms, and your consequences, and you fucked alternate lives where you cripple the woman I love."

Walking backward toward the exit, I raise my right hand and casually take back the last twenty minutes. The rewind is smooth and easy. No distorted sounds and barely any blur. It's not even a challenge to stop exactly one second from the time I first came in. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself. The culmination of months spent practicing in secret and my eventual choice to simply no longer give a shit.

Turning away from those damned eyes, I shove the door open and flip the bird over my shoulder on my way out. Maybe it's the wrong thing to do. I mean, I'm sure Kate would've been disappointed with me, even after everything that's happened.

It's even possible that I just told the actual source of my powers to fuck right off, but what difference would that make anyway? Whether it was this particular higher power or a different one altogether, whoever or whatever is was sure didn't seem to care how I felt the last time they decided to screw around with my life.

And if, by some chance, they do have a problem with my attitude? Well, they're more than welcome to come and tell me.

They know where I'll be.