Chapter 18: Crisis on Infinite Chloes
October 10, 2013
Her morning headache was coming on.
Chloe fell asleep before Max did. They watched Blade Runner the night before, and Chloe kept stealing glances at her when she wasn't looking, inwardly rejoicing at the sight of her friend from days past, back again, bathed in blue movie light.
But Chloe had awoken before Max, and she watched her sleep with her head on her arm at the side of her bed. Chloe looked outside her window to the mural the two of them had made when they were kids a gulf of a lifetime ago before using the full range of her body's ability to move to look once again at the girl sleeping on her bed. Only the occasional bird and the machines keeping her alive broke the silence.
Was it possible to see infinity in another human being?
Chloe looked at Max and saw possibility, as joyous as it was endless. She saw a heartbreaking innocence on the face of her friend, naïve to just how much of the world she owned. The sun would always shine on her. Her face would never lack a smile. She would never shiver from the cold. She would never know despair.
How privileged Chloe felt, to feebly scrape against this infinity in her own twilight. To marvel at a bright future through eyes in a body that was withering and failing beneath her. To witness the beginning of a glory that would outlive her. To know this wonder at a world that stopped and reflected as often as it stole and plundered.
Chloe longed for a place for them. Where advancing time and decaying mortal forms held no meaning. Where nothing had meaning, save for the space between them. They would speak of everything and nothing. They would laugh in the light and shield each other from darkness that was only temporary.
She could see that place now, beyond the water, beyond the mundane and invisible bonds that tethered them to this earth. That fumbled their speech. That slowed their steps. That made them so, so human…
Chloe wished to go there first.
And she would go there on her own two feet.
Max coughed and arose from her slumber. She rubbed her eyes and looked at Chloe.
"I cannot believe you fell asleep so fast," Max said. "How dare you."
November 7, 2018
Chloe jerked awake, and her first instinct was to clench her fists and wiggle her toes on the living room floor, escaping from the paralysis of that memory while still keeping the reverie, the calm certainty of it.
She turned her head and saw the clock on the microwave in the kitchen.
11:59 PM.
She reached for the end of the couch to help her to her feet. The memories were streaming in slowly, but picking up pace. Her fears that she'd be rendered a babbling wreck by this intrusion were unfounded, because it wasn't an intrusion.
It was a completion.
The various alternate selves that sluiced into her brain were not warring with each other for dominance, but rather absorbing into her. It was, as an old song Chloe remembered saying, "where time and life shook hands and said goodbye."
She wasn't becoming the unstable Franken-Chloe that she had dreaded. She was just…
She was Chloe, whose spark of recognition at the mousy brunette she had almost run over in the Blackwell parking lot was so strong that, for a moment, she had forgotten to be pissed off at the world.
She was Chloe, quaking with rage and pain inside a crummy RV, her stomach churning at pictures of the woman she loved in the arms of a man she hated.
She was Chloe, hearing the tornado bearing down and calling San Francisco to hear the one voice that could soothe her before she was inhaled into oblivion.
She was just… Chloe.
But what was bizarre even in this strange situation was that she was remembering everything. Not just the one linear existence facilitated by the rewinds of Max Caulfield, but all the stunted offshoots. She remembered the moments of indecision and grand fuck-ups that needed rewinding in the first place. She remembered, paradoxically, getting hit by a train, and Max rescuing her from those same tracks.
The recollections kept seeping into her brain. She remembered…
She remembered snow falling on an eighty degree day.
She remembered lying in bed, her entirety aching at the sight of Max in Rachel's clothes. An angel wearing another angel's wings.
She remembered a kiss at the end of the world, a tornado beneath them and a lighthouse above and hoping, hoping, hoping her plan worked.
…the taste of bacon, the rich stank of pot in her bedroom, the faintly bleachy smell of The Dark Room. Were Chloe in a joking mood, she'd compare these incoming memories to Twinkies, as they'd stayed remarkably fresh over five years.
It was slowing down. They were springing up at a slower pace, like the last kernels in a microwavable bag of popcorn.
Snippets of…
"Did you take this photo, you brat?"
"Don't look so sad. I'm never leaving you."
"Bitch lied to my face!"
"Obviously I'm not counting on you. That's why I have a gun. And I might even save you someday."
"Now go… Before I freak."
…speech warming her throat as though she had only just spoken them aloud. And as a counterpoint to the suddenness with which the memories started, their trickle into her consciousness slowed to a final stop.
Completion.
But with it came disorientation, as though her mind were a full belly. And like a full belly, she knew this would pass.
But there was one thought that cut through the lethargy. That shone through the haze. It was so clear that Chloe didn't realize she had said it out loud.
"Oh Goddammit Max, what have you done?"
Security had been beefed up at the Embassy Suites. Chloe had to talk to a cop, two separate security guards, and the lady behind the reception desk before the call was made to Max's room.
Max stepped off the elevator and into the lobby. Her hair was out of her ponytail, and her brown tresses came to just above her collarbone. She was wearing light blue pajama bottoms and a gray t-shirt. She hadn't bothered to put shoes on.
She looked just like she did in high school, and emotion stopped her heart as sure as any bullet would have. The look of overriding concern on Max's face as she stormed over to her didn't help matters any.
"Oh my God, Chloe!" Max said, reaching for the cut under Chloe's eye, but being careful not to touch it. "What happened?"
Chloe didn't even entertain the notion of sugarcoating things.
"A couple of guys beat the shit out of me and I jumped off a cliff," Chloe said. "We need to talk."
As soon as they got through the door of the hotel room, Chloe rounded on Max, only to walk into a hug. Max buried her head in the shoulder of the black jacket Chloe wore in high school.
"Max," Chloe said. "You…"
"You're jumping off of cliffs."
"I know. I…"
"Why are you jumping off of cliffs?"
"It was either that, or deal with The Bull."
Max pulled her face away from Chloe's shoulder. "So he's after you for real, now?"
"Yeah," Chloe said. "And he's after you, too. Max, promise me that you won't leave this hotel room unless it's with me, or you're going to the airport to go back to Seattle."
Chloe could see that Max was about to argue with her.
"Max, promise me! The Bull is no joke!"
Max nodded. "I promise. I don't remember you jumping off of any cliffs to get away from Nathan Prescott, so I guess that makes The Bull scary."
"Yeah," Chloe said. "Nathan isn't all that threatening once you realize Warren Graham can beat the shit out of him."
Max nodded again before her eyes went wide. "You remember?"
"I remember everything," Chloe said. "Even all the rewinds."
"Even the… What does that mean?"
"It took you nine tries for us to get the client list from Frank without me shooting him."
"Wowzer," Max said. "Yeah… that part was a bitch."
Chloe couldn't laugh at that. She turned around and took a few steps into the room.
"So…" Max said. "Are you happy about this? Angry? Chloe, give me a clue, here."
Chloe turned around and looked at Max. "Why did you do it?"
"I don't understand," Max said. "Do what?"
Chloe looked down at her boots. She closed her eyes and counseled herself to have patience. The conversation to come would be a trying one, and the next thing out of her mouth would sound melodramatic if she didn't keep her voice low enough.
Chloe looked Max in the eye.
"Why didn't you let me die?"
Max could only blink at that. Chloe honestly didn't know what her response would be.
"I… Jesus, Chloe. I loved you. I wasn't going to let you die on that bathroom floor. I only went in the first place because you convinced me to. You went on about saving Arcadia Bay…"
So much for Chloe's patience.
"I didn't tell you to go to save Arcadia Bay, Max, I did it to save you!"
Chloe's efforts not to sound melodramatic resulted in her doing exactly that. She ran her fingers through her hair.
"I know you, alright? Those five days changed you. I knew that if there was any way you could have saved me and the town, you'd have taken it, even if that meant stepping in front of Nathan's bullet. And… and yeah, I knew how the timeline thing worked. That if either of us died here, we'd still be there on that cliff together. But even then, Max… even then I couldn't stand the thought of any place in any universe where Max Caulfield died. I couldn't…"
Chloe trailed off and looked at her boots again. She didn't want to look at Max's face. She hadn't gone on a massive emotional tangent like this since she had come back to Arcadia Bay, save for the memory of finding Rachel. It felt weird not being dead on the inside anymore.
"Chloe," Max said. "I… I really don't know what to say about this. It just… How am I supposed to apologize for saving your life?"
"Max, you… you really don't get it, okay? I'm not trying to…"
Chloe couldn't finish that sentence. Max took a step toward her and Chloe almost instinctively stepped back.
"It's alright," Max said, worry-face firmly in place. "Say what you want to say. I'm not going to hate you, or judge you. And I'm not leaving."
Chloe's eyes burned. She looked at Max and said the first thing her brain told her.
"I would have been lost without you."
Tears began their quiet trek down Chloe's face. Their salt burned the cut below her eye, but she didn't dare wipe them away.
"I…" Chloe looked away. "I am lost without you."
Chloe's lips quivered. She put her hands in her jacket pockets. She knew that what she was going to say next would consign her to a hell of her own making, but in the face of this wall of affection from Max, she didn't have the right to keep it to herself anymore.
"Do you know why I left you?" Chloe asked. "Why I walked out?"
Max didn't say anything, but Chloe took the tears welling in Max's eyes as a yes.
Chloe shrugged her shoulders.
"There wasn't a reason. You didn't do anything."
Max kept her silence. Chloe leaned on the hotel room's flimsy wooden table for support.
"My best friend came back into my life after five years," Chloe said, "and saved my life. There was someone out there who gave enough of a shit about me to do that. I found out what happened to Rachel… My family came together around me… I fell in love with you… But I didn't feel that way. I couldn't just let go of all the shit that had happened to me, the things I'd lost. I couldn't just magically stop feeling abandoned, as much as I tried to. I left you to prove something to myself. That if I walked out on you, then it could happen to anyone, to someone as wonderful as you, and not… not just people as horrible as me."
Chloe looked at Max, saw the tears streaming down her face, and looked away again.
"Did you regret it?" Max asked, her voice thick.
"Yeah," Chloe said. "On the plane out of Seattle."
"Then why didn't you come back to me?"
"Because I didn't deserve you, Max!" Chloe wiped her nose with the sleeve of her jacket. "I still don't. You've seen me. You've seen how I live. I live in shit. I don't…"
Chloe didn't know how to finish that sentence. She sat down cross-legged on the carpet and wiped her right eye with her palm.
"I didn't fight hard enough," Chloe said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "You… You did so much. You broke the world for me… Of all the Chloes, you almost died for the worst one... I'm sorry."
Chloe stared at her lap. After a moment, she could see Max coming toward her. She sat down cross-legged herself, across from Chloe.
"Look at me."
"I…"
"Chloe Price," Max said, trying to sound like a disapproving teacher through the crying jag. "You will look me in the eye when I tell you how wonderful you are."
Teary blue eyes met teary blue eyes.
"This isn't a one way street," Max said. "It never has been. I look at you… and I see someone who busts their ass for every opportunity to smile. Because as abandoned as you've felt, you never gave up. And every time you see a wrong done in front of you, you don't rest until it's put right."
"You're not talking to the Chloe you knew back then."
"No," Max said. "I'm talking to you. I know you as well as you know me. Not everyone would wake up tomorrow to try to find the person who killed their friend, or find a missing girl a day after jumping off of a cliff. But I know you will. Because Chloe Price is a good woman, no matter how many times she tries to tell herself otherwise."
Chloe's face crumbled. She sniffled. "I'm not good enough for you," Chloe said. "After what I did, after leaving you alone, I just can't be."
"And yet we're here," Max said. "All the same. Time and tide literally couldn't keep us apart. I'm not going to tell you you're perfect. I'm not gonna tell you I'm not either. But has it ever occurred to you that maybe I love you because you're a pain in the ass, and not in spite of it?"
Chloe's gaze was uncomprehending.
"Yeah," Max said. "I said it. I mean it. And I always will. I broke the world for you. I'll break it again, if I can."
A moment of silence stretched for way too long before Max and Chloe kissed. Neither of them would have been able to say who leaned in first. Their foreheads leaned on each other.
"You found me," Max said through her tears. "What took you so long?"
Their lips couldn't keep off of each other. Their hands were unable to stop exploring. Their legs were powerless to keep from wrapping around one another in the hotel linens.
When they weren't breathing in each others' ears or gasping for breath, they laughed as though they were kids again. They laughed as both of them were hoping they would as old ladies, too.
Chloe rested her head on Max's stomach and looked at her sweat dappled face. She looked into the dreamy and half-closed blue eyes of the woman she loved…
…and finally, at long last, found home.
"Was there anyone else?" Max asked. "I mean, three years is a long time."
Chloe looked over at Max. They both had the hotel sheets up to their armpits like women did in PG-13 movies, and neither of them could really say why.
"I'm being an adult," Max said. "No judgment here. Just curiosity."
"A few," Chloe said. "One night stands. Nothing serious. How about you?"
Max looked at Chloe with a smile and a gleam in her eye. "Tons."
Chloe laughed.
"For the past three years, it's just been a never-ending parade of titties and dicks going into and coming out of my apartment."
Chloe laughed harder.
"Seriously, though," Max said after the laughing stopped. "There hasn't been anyone."
"In three years?" Chloe asked.
"Nope."
"Did you ask me that question just to lord over me how chaste you were being?"
"No," Max said. "It's just… I knew this day would come."
"How?" Chloe asked.
Max brought the sheet down to both of their thighs. She put Chloe's right arm over her own shoulder and rested her head on Chloe's chest. She gently moved a finger up and down the non-bruised section of Chloe's stomach.
"Because we're doomed," Max said.
"Doomed?"
"Well… That might be too strong a word for it. More like fated."
"Fated to what?"
Max's finger stopped moving.
"We are fated to keep meeting each other for the first time."
Chloe thought about that for a second.
"We separate, we change, we reunite. First there was Kid Chloe," Max said, "then there was Punk Chloe, then there was…"
"Wheelchair Chloe?"
"I didn't want to say it like that, but yeah. Then Detective Chloe."
"I'm not a detective."
"Yes, you are," Max said. "And now…"
"Now I'm just Chloe."
"Any Chloe is fucking amazing," Max said.
Chloe looked at Max, rolled in on her, and started her three kiss ritual: The first one on Max's lips, the second one on Max's neck (because she was ticklish there, and hearing Max giggle made Chloe smile), and the third on the entry wound of the bullet that tried to claim her. The price Max paid for Chloe's life.
Chloe sat up and moved to the edge of the bed, putting both feet on the floor. She looked at the window blinds of the hotel bedroom.
"What are you thinking about?" Max asked.
"Us."
Max moved as well, bringing both her legs around Chloe's thighs, pressing her chest against Chloe's back, wrapping her arms around Chloe's stomach. Chloe closed her eyes and tried to vanish into Max's bare warmth.
"What about us?" Max asked, resting her chin on Chloe's shoulder.
"I don't want what we had," Chloe said. She could feel Max's breath catch after she'd said it.
"I love you," Chloe said. "But you're right. We get together every few years and remember what we had, what we… lost. We reminisce. We regret. I don't want to do that anymore. I'm through with the past. And… I think the past is finally through with me."
Chloe looked at Max. "I don't know what the future holds. I don't know how good or how bad it'll be… But I want it more than anything."
"If we live through this," Max said. "I think we'll be okay."
Chloe kissed Max on the forehead and stood up. She got her sweatpants off of the floor.
"Where are you going?" Max asked.
"Wal-Mart."
"At this hour?" Max asked. "It can't wait till morning?"
"I don't think it can," Chloe said. "But trust me. Get some sleep."
"Okay," Max said. "The room key is in my purse."
"Thanks, sweetie," Chloe said. She went to the other side of the bed to pick up her tank-top, only to feel Max's foot nudge her in the butt. She turned around and looked at Max.
"Kiss," Max said.
Chloe leaned over the bed and kissed Max. It was…nice.
"You can do better than that," Max said.
Chloe could.
Chloe did.
Max was asleep by the time she got back. She was sleeping on her stomach, and Chloe quietly kissed the starfish-shaped exit wound on Max's back. Max stirred, but didn't awaken. Chloe stole into the hotel room proper to assess her haul.
She had stopped by her apartment, carefully looking around corners for The Bull or his henchmen. When she saw none, she filled a paper grocery bag with clothes from a chest in her closet. She hadn't worn them in years, and she hoped they still fit.
In the bottom of this bag, though, she had stowed David's gun.
Her quarry from her late night excursion to Wal-Mart, however, consisted solely of two items.
Thirty-eight caliber bullets for David's gun…
…and a bottle of blue hair dye.
