A/N: This chapter kicked my ass to hell and back. Up until now, the words have essentially vomited themselves from my brain onto the page, being as the story was boring a hole through my head. This one I had to fight for every word, then discard and rewrite a bunch of my hard-fought work. I hope it does the rest of the story justice.

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A quick look at the new additions to the fleet, and Fury is exhausted. They make their way back up to the vault in silence, both staggered by their earlier conversation. He hangs back as they reach the entrance to her room.

Until she reaches down, picks up the green duffle, and carries it in with her. He follows, watching as she sets it in its old place by the door.

She kicks her boots off, sitting on the edge of the bed, and he discards his jacket, laying it over his bag. In her weariness she fumbles with the buckles down her stomach. He kneels before her, gently pushing her hands aside and unlatching the three belts. Easing the prosthetic off her, he hangs it in its place.

Toeing his boots off, he leaves them on the floor next to hers.

She lays down, easing backwards on the bed, and it is his turn to sleep with his back to the door. Resting his head on his bicep, he stretches out next to her and watches as her eyes drift closed. His follow soon after.

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When Tessa passes, hours later, she immediately notices the empty bedroll, the absence of the green bag. She wonders if he's moved on already. A quick glance down the hall to Furiosa's room and she smiles, humming softly to herself as she tends the plants under the dome.

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Her shoulder aches, but it is a pain she is growing used to, and it is less every day. What she is not accustomed to is waking to a feather of warm breath across her cheek.

She smiles as she flashes back to the day before. He is staying.

The 'he' in question is apparently awake, because his hand starts to play over her half-arm. It is an odd sensation. Most would go for her still-intact hand, but she is lying on it. Max seems to take no issue with handling a point of obvious trauma with gentleness.

He is good at that.

She remembers hitting him in the face with it, and her smile broadens.

"Good thoughts?" he asks, and his voice is gravelly.

"Depends on who you're asking. I seem to recall punching you in the head with the appendage you are currently toying with."

"And this is funny because…?"

Her eyes open, and his are so blue it steals her breath. "When you were trying to steal my rig, and we were rolling around in the dirt trying to kill each other, would you ever think we'd end up like this?"

"I wasn't really thinking straight at the time," he mumbles, and his eyes dart away.

She leans forward to press her lips to his forehead. "I know. You'd had a rough go of it that day."

That's putting it mildly, he thinks irritably, and a line appears between his eyebrows.

His forehead tingles where she'd kissed him, and her face is inches from his. His annoyance evaporates, unable to stand up next to her tenderness.

She raises up on her elbow, smiling faintly as she watches him fight off the shroud of memory, and repeats the gesture.

This time to his lips.

He freezes as the unexpected contact short-circuits his brain.

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In the wasteland, sex is an expression of power or control.

Even when it's not, when it's about two bodies coming together for comfort or release, it is a risk.

At any time you could come under attack. The last thing you need in that situation is to be naked.

Or the person attacking you could be the one you got naked for.

In this world, sex can get you killed.

And Max is all about survival.

He has never, not once, considered kissing Fury.

He stopped wanting things for himself a long, long time ago. She is not something he has ever allowed himself to want.

Hope is a mistake.

It is enough for him to help those he crosses paths with. It is enough to know that someone out there has hope, and he has helped them to keep it. For a time.

It was enough. Before her.

He tilts his head and leans in, pressing his lips into hers.

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Furiosa is alone.

In her room.

In a crowd.

Surrounded by the Sisters.

She is always alone.

Separate.

Distant.

Apart.

Alone.

Until a madman barges into her life and steals her truck.

She tried to shoot him in the head twice in those first frantic moments. When he'd gotten the drop on her, he could have easily just killed her and left. She'd given him every reason to.

Instead, he'd left them behind and taken what he needed to live.

It would have been as good as killing her if not for the deadman sequence.

And then he'd let them on board, and later fixed the dragging pod himself. When he and Angharad had been hunkered down in the hole, she was sure he was going to touch the woman. What man could resist such temptation up close? Experience had told her no such man existed.

Furiosa would have stopped the rig to kill him if he had, and doomed them all in the process. But he hadn't. He kept his hands to himself and he'd started driving when she'd told him to.

Then he'd handed her a gun when she climbed back in the cab. The very same man who'd had his own gun trained on her just minutes earlier.

Somewhere between that and Angharad's death, they became a team.

Sometime in those few minutes, she stopped being alone.

The only time she ever feels not alone is when he is with her. A handful of days for an entire lifetime, ever since she was torn from the Green Place.

In Furiosa's experience, sex is a weapon. Something to be inflicted on the unwilling.

She has never considered kissing anyone. Ever.

His full lips draw hers like a magnet in this moment, and she finds her lips pressed to his before she can think.

She had no time to consider what it might mean.

Or how it would feel.

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She'd had no idea it could feel like this.

It is only lips. Slightly parted. Breath mingling.

But it coils something in her abdomen and before she knew she wanted anything at all, she wants more.

He moans deep in the back of his throat, and she feels it resonate to the core of her being.

And then they are pulling back, almost as one, blinking at each other in a haze of mutual confusion.

There is a tension between them that has never existed before.

She lowers her gaze, feeling suddenly vulnerable.

With a knuckle under her chin, he tilts her head gently back to meet his eyes. He leans forward, brushing his lips against hers once more, softly.

This kiss is over almost before it begins, but it is gesture of affection, and understanding, and reciprocation. He smiles and nods as she searches his face. "When your shoulder is better," he promises, "I'll do a more thorough job of it." His eyes turn dark, and she knows he has every intention of kissing her senseless (again) after he's had time to process this.

She lets him pull her head to his chest and they lay there with their arms around each other, offering comfort for the intimacy they just shared but weren't prepared for.

It takes minutes for them to relax again. A second's un-thought-out act has shifted the foundation beneath them and they are left reeling.

The slowing beat of Max's heart calms her. He is still Max. He is still here. He is staying.

It is her smell that quietens him. Oil and metal and sweat, with just the hint of green and growing things. He buries his nose in her hair and drags it into his lungs. Something has changed between them, but will be alright because he is home.

She is his home.

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The Dag finds them like that, curled and clinging when she and one of the War Pups bring breakfast.

Furiosa and Max must have heard them coming because the squalling of the baby is echoing off the walls, but they make no effort to separate as they hear the two approach.

Max gently detaches himself as they stand in the door, and helps Furiosa to sit up. Dag looks back and forth between the two, seeing that something has changed. She wonders what exactly, and when.

In any case, Max seems to have moved back into Furiosa's room.

Maybe she won't have to be alone anymore.

A long time coming, Dag thinks. Too long.

"Here," Dag says to Max, foisting her screaming child off on him. "Take her for a walk so I can change Furiosa's bandage."

He nods, taking Verdant and cradling her to his shoulder as though handling a screaming baby is an everyday occurrence.

Fury stares after him in astonishment as he walks down the hall. Dag glances over her shoulder after him and flashes her friend a knowing look. "You missed that when you were out. The first night, I left him with the both of you so I could tend the wounded. Came back to check on her and he was sitting next to you with her sleeping on his bare chest. Well worth the view, by the way," she adds, waggling her eyebrows.

Furiosa blinks, trying to process the mental image she's been given, and shakes her head as though trying to dislodge it. "I don't believe you," she says, and she doesn't. She can't even begin to reconcile the Max she knows with snuggling an infant.

"Believe it. The man is gorgeous."

The dark-haired woman rolls her eyes at her friend's deliberate misinterpretation of her words.

And yet he took Verdant just now, holding her in strong hands. He carried her like it was second nature.

Perhaps a squalling child was simply preferable to thinking about the nudity involved in changing her bandage.

She thinks that now he may be quite a bit more uncomfortable at the thought of her nakedness than he would have been yesterday.

Her face heats at the thought of being naked with him.

Dag gives her another knowing look. "Took you long enough," she says simply as she helps the short-haired woman out of her shirt.

"I… what?"

"Don't make me spell it out for you. You and him… it's about time. How does the shoulder feel?" she says, changing the subject to one she knows Furiosa will find more comfortable.

Verdant's echoing cries are fading, replaced by murmuring, incoherent words spoken in low, soothing tones that tumble down the hall from the vault.

"Still hurts, and there's some stiffness in my shoulder. It's healing though."

"Good," replies Dag, probing carefully around the wound in the front where Addams had to cut to get the bullet out. "Try to take it easy as much as you can. Normally your arm would be in a sling for a wound like this…"

She doesn't have to finish the statement. As good as Furiosa is with her mechanical arm, it would be nearly impossible to function without the other one. It isn't in a sling for that reason. So she has to be very careful not to jar it.

"I'm going to rebandage it just for some extra padding and protection for the wound. It hasn't bled in days." Dag proceeds to do as she's said, and has Furiosa wrapped up and back in her shirt in just a couple of minutes.

"Verdant's quiet," says Furiosa as she belts on her prosthetic.

The Dag smiles. "Let's go find them."

He's walking between the rows of plants, swaying gently and rhythmically patting the sleeping baby's back. Verdant's head rests in the crook of his shoulder and she is sucking on her fist.

He looks… peaceful. Calm. Whatever haunted him at the child's birth holds no sway here. Furiosa hangs back, not wanting to intrude on this rare moment for him.

Dag strides up to them and pauses just out of his space, then leans in to kiss her daughter's hair. "Thanks, Max," she whispers, and gently takes her back.

He lets his charge go back to her mother, though his hands are reluctant to let go of this tangible evidence of the hope Furiosa creates in her wake. He meets her eyes across the room and it's as though he stands on the brink of something. A yawning chasm has opened before his feet.

The slightest push will send him over the edge.

But to what?

Behind her bright green eyes is serenity, and patience. Instead of giving him that push, she will wait for him to take the step.

"I'm gonna go feed this before it starts up again," Dag says, taking her daughter past the foliage to the bank of windows, sitting down out of sight to feed her.

Max moves to stand by Fury, next to her work table.

"I have to get to work," she says, sensing that he needs some time alone to process the last day. "One of the milk mothers has been causing drama in my absence."

His head rears back and his expression is half-confused, half-disgusted.

Fury sighs. "It's a valuable resource. Joe's death hasn't changed that. The difference now is that the ones who do it now, do it by choice, and their babies aren't taken from them."

His expression relaxes, though he still looks just a tad repulsed.

Don't judge me. You washed your face with that stuff.

His gaze has wandered so he misses her silent reproach.

"I'll… ah…" Do anything but join you for that.

"See you back here, later," she interrupts, saving both him from finding an excuse, and herself from how flimsy it will inevitably be.

"Yeah."

Dag finds him tinkering at Furiosa's bench a few minutes later.

She meets his eyes, cocking her head. "You're staying," she says. It is not a question.

His head bobs assent.

"Good," she replies, followed immediately by, "Follow me. If you're staying up here, you're going to need to know where to find us."

She leads him down the tunnels to where she and the other three Sisters have made their home. It is a good-sized room with real mattresses on the floor, and a few dressers against one wall. Clothes and other personal effects are scattered throughout, and there is a crib in the back corner.

"So, like I said. If you need to find one of us, this is where we sleep. We don't get much of a chance to do that, so…" she trails off. "Still…"

He ends up trailing after her for the rest of the day, appearing uninjured at the infirmary for the very first time, among other things. He doesn't speak much, just acts as a scruffy shadow and occasional baby holder. He watches, and learns more about the day-to-day running of the Citadel in a single day than he has over the last almost-year.

He returns to Fury's room long before she does. After cleaning up in the washroom, he drags the green duffle bag over to the bed and riffles around in it. Pulling out a belt and holster, he wraps the belt around the wrought iron headboard, securing the holster there. He goes through the selection of guns he's collected, deciding that maybe he should turn a few in to the armory. Finding a pistol with a full clip, he slides it into its new home.

A knife in its sheath is slid onto the belt, secure and within reach while he sleeps.

He zips the bag and stuffs it under the bed before picking up his jacket and draping it over the back of the chair.

Only then does he kick off his boots and settle onto the bed. Years of little or no sleep have taken their toll and exhaustion sucks him down quickly in this place that very nearly feels safe.

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Milk mothers. War boys. Addams. Even the Vuvalini have given her grief today. Just over a week she's been out, and the place is still standing, but it is not running as smoothly as she'd like. It will take days for everything to get back to normal, and they now have the extra concern of the group willing to mount a full-on assault on the Citadel. She sighs as she rides the cage up, a solitary figure in the darkness.

The hallways are fitted with lights, though only the barest minimum to make it possible to navigate. After nearly ten months, she could find her way in the pitch dark anyway.

She trails her fingers along the edges of the leaves in the long hanging troughs as she passes. Once upon a time she'd fled this place to find the paradise where she was born, only to find it destroyed. Just like everything else in this miserable world. Just like her mother, and her childhood.

Torn from her in one cruel blow. In both instances.

She had led the Wives to the wasteland to die, chasing a mirage. In that moment, she had lost hope.

Found it again, or something like it, in the plans she and the Vuvalini made that night, to flee across the salt.

But it hadn't really been hope. It had been something to do. Something to focus on rather than despair.

Better than nothing, in any case.

And then his plan. Even crazier than hers to smuggle the Wives out of the Citadel and make a break for it. Run a single truck and a few motorcycles back through three war parties, trap the pursuers in the canyon, and take over the Citadel.

Nux had said it felt like hope. More like suicide to her, but a chance to take that bastard out with her, and maybe with a supreme turn of luck, enough might survive and succeed.

She stops to look around now, turning slowly. The troughs hang overtop each other, just like they did when he was in charge.

But that is one of the few things that remains. Her Green Place was destroyed alongside the rest of the world, but she has built a new one here.

In the wake of the destruction of her hope, came hope for so many more than the handful she had rescued.

This isn't what she'd dreamed of, but in many ways, it is better.

She passes through the entryway into the vault, and it is silent inside. The bedroll that occupied the space to the right of her bedroom doorway is gone. She lingers in the bathroom after washing, some part of her apprehensive at returning to her room.

Which is ridiculous. She straightens up and strides down the hall, no longer allowing herself to procrastinate.

He has made himself at home, she notes as she spies the gun and knife added to the bed, and the jacket over the chair. It suddenly feels like their room, and she knows he has done these things very deliberately. Essentially, he has told her he's moved in.

He is lying on his side next to the wall, arm thrown over his head and facing her. She hangs her arm up and slides in next to him, allowing her back to press into his front. His arm comes down and wraps around her waist, pulling her closer, and his lips press to the back of her neck. He mumbles her name, sluggish and sleepy.

She rests her arm over his, and joins him in slumber.

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She wakes up in the same position, but with one marked difference: there is evidence pressed against her that her new roommate is most assuredly a man.

This particular… complication… is unprecedented in their relationship to date. She has no idea how to deal with it.

Every once in a while, Max know exactly how to handle a situation.

This is one of those times.

"Fury?" he asks.

"Mmm?" she replies. Tension radiates off her body, and she can't seem to form proper words.

"Need to use the bathroom," he replies, pushing himself up and half-rolling, half-climbing over her to get off the bed. The tension leeches out of her by degrees as his socked feet make their retreat.

The air flows from her lungs in a relieved whoosh and she sits up, scrubbing her hand over her hair.

That is how he finds her, sitting on the bed with her head in her hand. He sits next to her. "Fury," he says quietly.

She takes a deep breath and doesn't reply. His hand moves to rest on her knee, slowly and carefully, as though he is afraid she will flee.

She is not afraid of him. Not physically anyway. It is the way she feels that scares her.

"I… she finally replies. "I don't know how to do…" she waves her hand back and forth between them, "This. Us. You know…" She grits her teeth with a frustrated sigh.

He tilts her chin towards him, and his lips hover a breath from hers. "Do you trust me?" he asks.

She nods, swallowing.

"Then why don't we figure it out together," he offers, closing the distance between their mouths ever-so-slowly, until they are touching, half-parted.

Her hesitation evaporates as she angles her head, opening her mouth. Her hand comes up to anchor at his jaw, pulling him closer.

He obliges, tilting his own head and leaning in.

She is insistent, nipping and devouring him, as though she is simply eager to get this done and over with.

He slows, tasting her deliberately, savouring the moment. His hand reaches up to hers, stroking his thumb gently across her palm and down her wrist in a feather-light caress.

She takes the cue, relaxing into him and slowing down to enjoy this, just this.

His unhurried hands tell her that no matter what happens next, this, right now, is important. Worth enjoying.

Slowly, while their mouths explore each other, so do their hands. He lays back on the bed and she follows him down, her chest pressed to his. Their hearts beat frantically against one another as their bodies begin to remember a dance as old as time. They teach each other the steps as they go.

Fury doesn't remember climbing on top of him, but she finds herself there. His hands knead the flesh beneath her ass, and a pressure builds where their lower bodies are pressed together. He touches the hem of her shirt, meeting her eyes with a question.

She nods, reaching her hand down to help pull it off herself. He does it slowly, caressing his hands over her ribcage as the garment slides up. He watches, eyes dark as she reveals herself to him.

She is utterly beautiful.

The white bandage is stark and foreign on her skin, and he takes the time to press his lips over the fabric there, honoring her pain.

After tossing her shirt on the floor, his hands return to rest on her ribs, just beneath her breasts. They are high and small, and one is partially obscured by the bandage. His thumbs slide across her nipples, the faintest brush of touch, and she arches into it, moaning.

He kisses her harder, asking for more, and she obliges. Her hand strays to his waist, sliding beneath his shirt to caress over his hard abdominal muscles, and he sucks in a breath, making an animal sound in the back of his throat.

The rest of their clothes go quickly, tossed in a jumbled heap on the floor, and she is naked above him. He steadies and guides her with his hands on her hips, but lets her set the pace.

She angles down over him, panting and glowing in a sheen of sweat, and lowers onto him slowly, wanting more but needing and taking the time for her body to adjust.

Finally their bodies are as close as two may be. As one, they move, and it is slow exploration and wonder.

She had no idea it could be like this. She has no way of knowing that this is how it is supposed to be.

Their moans echo off the walls and as they crest together their hands gently hold the other's face while their mouths tell each other what their voices cannot. Not yet.

For now, this is enough.

It is more than enough.

It is everything.

When they coil around each other in the aftermath, there is wetness on both of their faces. Neither acknowledges this.