A/N: Again its been a very very long time since this story was updated. And again, I'm sorry for that. Turns out its a lot harder to write fanfiction and work my way through university than I thought. Anyway I started this chapter earlier this week and finished it about 15 minutes ago. The next (and final) chapter should be out just after new years. Merry Christmas everyone, and thanks for reading :)

"Max can you move? I can't see the TV." Chloe was leaning to one side of the living room couch, straining to see the television from behind Max who had trouble sitting due to the tight bandages wrapped around her midriff.

"Oh sorry. Is this better?" Max moved aside.

"Better." Chloe's absent-minded voice trailed off as the evening news began. Both girls watched as the anchor-woman read the day's bulletin.

"A gas station clerk was held up at gunpoint in lower Seattle yesterday afternoon."

"Chloe…" Max started "I think this is the gas station we were at."

"It can't be" Chloe said incredulously.

"Two young girls from Arcadia Bay were present at the time of the robbery, and security footage shows that a nineteen year-old girl was killed during the incident."

"Chloe…" A photograph of a cheery young girl with cropped blue hair appeared on the television screen "What the fuck? They're saying that you died!" Max turned to face the older girl, but Chloe was no longer sitting on the couch. Instead, a rotting skeleton stared lifelessly at the TV from the living room sofa. With bones blackened and burned, the decayed figure turned to face Max. Electric-blue hair began to fall out of its crumbling skull. Max opened her mouth in a pained, horrified expression but no scream would come out. She could only look down to see that her bandages were soaked in blood, dripping all over the pale carpet. Faintly, she could hear the sound of a gun firing. Again.

Again.

Again…

The rushing sound in her ears told Max that it was time to wake up. She opened her eyes to find that she was lying in a hospital bed. Pale white walls surrounded her and Chloe sat on a small chair to Max's right, her hands restless with worry.

Max barely had time to call her friend's name before Chloe had practically screamed "MAX!" and jumped up to wrap her arms around her body. It was at this point that Max became aware of a blinding pain that originated in her back but seemed to radiate throughout her entire body.

"Jesus, Max! Don't try and sit up." Max felt Chloe's hand ease her head down against the cheap, thin pillow.

"Where are we?" Max winced as she tried to talk and breathe normally.

"Providence Centralia."

"The hospital? Why are we at the hospital?"

"Well I was hoping you could answer that one for me, Max the human shield." Chloe's tone was light, but her furrowed brow and fidgeting fingers revealed her deep concern. "What the hell happened back there? You know, at the gas station?"

Max stared blankly at the undecorated wall trying to remember. As the events came flooding back, her eyes widened and then she grimaced again. After a few more seconds, she turned to Chloe with a look of intense guilt and fear. "Chloe..." she said "I'm so, so sorry."

"What?" Chloe leaned in. "What happened, Max?"

"I couldn't help it, I had to."

"Max…"

"You caught his attention. Said my name or something." Max's voice was shaking, she was speaking in fragments. "You got shot! Right in front of me! I had to go back… I couldn't have you die on me again. Not after…"

"Wait." Chloe interjected "So you used your powers? Max, you said it was too risky!"

"I did it to save you!" Max winced at the effort that it took to shout.

"But it didn't change anything! You still drew his attention to us! It wasn't worth it."

"You didn't get shot. I think that makes it worth it." Max looked hurt by what her friend had said.

"Max." Chloe wrapped the younger girl's hands in her own. "Just like you didn't want me to get shot, I don't want you to get hurt either." She raised Max's hand upward and lightly kissed it with her lips. "I'm glad you're alive. But I wish you hadn't had to use your powers, it's too risky. The last time you did that, the only way to cancel out its chain of events was to have one of us die."

Max suddenly had that same mixture of guilt and worry on her face. "There's something else."

"What?" Said Chloe, measured but slightly accusatory. Like a mother scolding a disobedient child.

"The other day. When we were at your old house." Chloe seemed pained at the way Max had said old house. "I had another vision."

"What!" Chloe's eyes widened in terror. "Like the ones before?"

"Yeah." Max said. "Well, no. This one was different."

"What did you see?"

"Red." Max gazed out the window. "I was… submerged in water. Red water."

"Was that it? Did you hear anything?"

"Just this rushing. In my ears. Like a train."

Chloe opened her mouth to speak but just at that moment, her phone chimed loudly. "That's your folks. I should tell them you've woken up. They've already been here, you know."

"Oh god." Max sunk down into her bed.

"What?"

"It's just so embarrassing."

"Oh, Max." Chloe cocked a small smile. "They're your parents. They'll just be happy to see you alive."

Happy was one word for it. Max's mom practically soaked the bed sheets with her tears and nearly tore the bullet-wound wide open with all her hugging. Her dad was a blubbering mess as well. He kept forgetting that he was holding important hospital documents and would scrunch them up in his hands and use them to dab his eyes like tissues.

This would become a regular occurrence for Max. Her parents lived less than an hour away from the hospital, so every day they would come to visit. Each time, tears would start flowing from her mother's face as soon as the door opened.

Despite the constant advice from Max's nurse Jess, Chloe never went home. She lived and slept in the small chair beside Max's bed and rarely got up from it. Occasionally she would leave to go for a walk around the hospital grounds to get some fresh air, but she would always come back with wet sleeves and bloodshot eyes. After having nothing to do for nearly a week, Chloe asked Jess for some paper and a set of pencils. After that, Chloe would spend an hour or two per day drawing pictures of the areas around the hospital building. Max wasn't physically able to leave the sterile white hospital bedroom, so she found the drawings to be a beautiful splash of colour to her day. But mostly she just liked that they were made by Chloe.

"Wow, where's this one?" Max pointed to a particular image.

"That's at the college." Chloe had just come back from a particularly long trip.

"Is it nearby?"

"Maybe a couple of miles?"

"That's so far!"

"No its not!" Chloe laughed.

"Yeah!" said Max indignantly. "That's like an hour's walking. Maybe more!"

"It might take that long in your physical state, Professor X!"

"Hey! It's not like I'm paralysed" Max laughed and punched Chloe in the shoulder. "Did you do this one today as well?" She pointed to another drawing on Chloe's lap.

"Yeah, that's the clock tower at the college. I thought it was way too elaborate, but the straight lines looked cool."

"I love it." Said Max. "This one's beautiful."

"They're all beautiful." Said a deep voice from the entrance. Both girls turned to see who it was.

"David!" Chloe rushed to the door and threw her arms around her step-father. "You got my text"

"I did, sweetie." He looked over to the bed. "Oh Max. I'd ask you how you are, but…"

"Yeah, no need." Max chuckled.

"Listen Chloe, I'll get right down to it." He turned to Chloe, putting his hands on her shoulders. "The tornado finished off the entire town. Including our house."

"I know." Said Chloe, tears welling in her eyes. "We've seen it."

"Then you'll know we can't move back there." David choked on his words a little as well. "Right now I'm staying in a motel outside of Portland. But I'm gonna move into a place that's right in the middle of town. Chloe I want you to move in there with me. I don't know if I could stand living in an empty house so soon after losing Joyce."

Chloe was taken aback, "You want me to live with you in Portland?"

"It's a small apartment near the river." David tried to reassure her. "I'll take the smaller bedroom so you can have the master room. And it allows pets! You'll love it!" Max could see in David's eyes that he truly thought this would be good for Chloe.

"David, I…" Chloe glanced back at max. "Max is really sick, I… I don't know if I can just leave her right now. Maybe not even after she goes home."

David let out a small sigh as he looked down at his feet. "Okay." He took his hands off Chloe's shoulders. "I should give you some time to think about it." He glanced up toward Chloe and Max. "I'm headed down to the cafeteria, I'll get you guys something to eat, okay?" Chloe stared blankly at the wall as he left the room.

"You should do it." Max said abruptly.

"What?" Chloe said vaguely, like she'd come out of a trance.

"You should go with David. He needs you, and to be honest I think you kinda need him."

"I don't!" said Chloe, her voice cracking a little. "Besides I can't leave you. Not like this." She gestured toward Max's hospital bed and machines.

Max started to say something, but she was interrupted by a sudden feeling of intense heaviness. Her vision started to blur and all at once, she was falling. Falling backwards into an infinite, suffocating blackness.