Authors notes: It took a massive amount of willpower not to call this chapter "AfterMax" just for the silly pun... Also, surprise! Guess this one shot isn't such a one shot after all. Several people asked in comments and PMs what would happen with the other characters if this scenario played out, and I said "hey, that's a great question, let's write that" and then this crap fell out of my brain instead.
So there'll be at least one more chapter - my brain just apparently decided it had to deal with Chloe not knowing what's happening thing before we check in on the other residents of Arcadia Bay. Nothing too angsty coming up, I promise.
Oh, and I promise I will not call the next chapter after this "Causefield and Effects" just to continue the silly pun run. Or maybe I will because you're not the boss of me.
I sleep a lot, the first few days "back". Between the painkillers and the whole recovering from being shot thing, it's hard to stay awake for long periods of time, so I find myself drifting off, sometimes in the middle of conversations. The nightmares keep waking me up eventually, though... Mom and Dad are there to hug me the first few times I wake up, which is nice, but they're not who I've been looking for first when I open my eyes...
This time when I wake up, though, I finally see that familiar bright blue hair when my eyes are able to focus.
Chloe... she's back!
She's lounging on one of the chairs at the back of the hospital room, reading something on her phone, and while she doesn't look exactly happy, she's not scowling or angry - resigned, maybe.
Mom notices my look, and all of a sudden there's a weird expression on her face. When Chloe feels my eyes on her, and lifts her head and smiles back at me, Mom notices that too, and after a moment she nudges Dad with her elbow, whispers in his ear, and turns back to me.
"We're a bit hungry, so we're going to grab a snack, honey." She smiles at me, and glances back at Chloe. "We'll trust Chloe to take care of you while we're gone, okay?"
Then she actually winks at me, and I feel my face blush instantly.
Oh god. Has she guessed something?
The moment they're gone, Chloe pulls herself out of the chair she was in and slides into the one beside my bed that mom just vacated. Her hand seeks mine and grabs at it, then she looks down at it like she's surprised, like it happened without her thinking about it. I squeeze it gently before she can pull back, and she looks up and smiles at me again.
"How you doing, Super Max?" She's not prepared for the way that nickname causes my breath to catch, but she sees the panic when my eyes widen, and she gently shakes my shoulder. "Hey, hey, you okay?"
I nod jerkily, shivering slightly. "It's just.. it's complicated."
"You said it was a long story, earlier, before your parents came back," she said, avoiding mentioning how she'd been sort of squeezed out by Mom and Dad reuniting with awake me. I don't think she's holding it against me, but then again, this is Chloe we're talking about.
"You have no idea," I tell her.
She doesn't respond for a long time, and I get that sinking feeling like everything is about to fall apart again.
"Does it have anything to do with what you overheard in the bathroom before... before..." she says eventually.
Fucking hell, I don't know how to do this.
"Max?"
"No... well... sort of. It's..."
I can tell she's getting frustrated with me. "Max, what the hell is going on?"
"Chloe, please, don't freak. I promise, there's an explanation but.. but I'm terrified that you'll think I'm crazy, that you'll run away and leave me alone."
"What? Max, no! God no! You took a bullet for me! I'd never... I swear to you I'd never leave you."
"Even if... even if what I did might make you so angry that you hate me?"
"How could anything you say be worse than what Nathan nearly did to me? I'm not just talking about the bathroom.. before that, he drugged me and was trying to pose me for weird photos."
This time, I can't help the horrified shiver of panic. In an instant, I'm back in the Dark Room again, and Jefferson... he's drugging me... he's moving me, posing me... and always, always taking those damn photos. I can hear the camera clicking, clicking, clicking, and I'm helpless and...
"Max... Max, come back to me. Please come back." A hand is gently stroking my fist, the sheet of the hospital bed clenched so tight my knuckles are white.
"C-Chloe?"
I'm still in the hospital... and Chloe's here with me, safe with me.
"Max, where did you go?" Chloe asks. "You froze up, like you were blank.. I was about to call for a nurse."
"Flashback," I say.
"Oh, to.. Nathan?"
I shake my head. "Worse."
"Worse? Than being shot?"
I can tell it doesn't compute. I have to tell her the truth. She deserves to know.
"Chloe... do you believe in destiny?"
"I... well, kinda. I mean, it's kinda destiny that you happened to be in that bathroom, right then, to save my life, right?"
"Maybe... maybe not."
She narrows her eyes. "What do you mean?"
"What if I told you that it wasn't the first time that you and me and Nathan had been in that bathroom and someone had been shot?"
She leans back, still holding my hand, pondering that question. "Uhhh, you mean like you dreamed it happening? Or like, had a psychic vision?"
"No, not exactly. More like... more like I saw it happen and stopped it the first time..."
"What? How?"
"I time traveled."
There's a pause, and I can see the gears working in her head.
"Holy shit," she breathes eventually. "Holy shit, Max."
It all starts coming out in a rush. "And after I saved you the first time, and convinced you that I could do it, it was like we'd never been apart, we were friends again. You told me... you told me about Rachel, and we started looking for her... and... and..."
"Everything went to shit." The certainty in her voice is absolute.
The tears start falling from my eyes, I can't help it. I keep seeing that momentary look of surprise in her eyes right before Mr Jefferson put a bullet between them, and the memory replays itself over and over again. Then her hand is stroking mine slowly again, and she's whispering at me.
"It's okay Max, I'm here. I'm right here. I'm still right here."
I take a few deep breaths, and shiver. Gotta do this. Gotta tell her everything.
"How... how bad did it get?" she asks.
"Bad. You... you died, again. Mr Jefferson... he shot you. He drugged me... and he took me to the bunker he built under the Prescott barn, and he was taking photos of me... but he didn't know what I could do... I had a photo that I could use to go back and warn someone about him and I did and it seemed like everything was perfect, and I won the Everyday Heroes contest and I was in San Francisco with Principal Wells but... I forgot about the storm."
Chloe gives me a confused look. "What storm?"
"Right before I saw you get shot the first time I had a vision, an actual vision, of a storm, a massive tornado that wiped out Arcadia Bay, and I was watching it from the lighthouse."
"And when it hit you were in San Francisco? Safe?"
"Yeah, but I couldn't... I couldn't let that happen, so I came back again and I tried to get you to stay with me, to stay safe, but the storm happened anyway. We were on the cliff, watching it, and we thought it was because I saved you the first time. You told me to... to..."
".. to go back, and undo it all," Chloe finishes for me.
I nod weakly.
"To save everyone else... I told you to sacrifice me..."
"Yeah. You said...you've been selfish a lot, but for once it was time to accept your fate."
The silence that followed that revelation was deafening.
"That must have... I mean... I can't even... I don't know if.." Chloe starts a half dozen sentences, but none of them finish. Her hand grasps mine tightly, and I squeeze it back.
"Holy shit Max, I'm so sorry I laid that on you," she says eventually.
"It's what we thought we had to do," I tell her.
"What... what made you change your mind?"
"When I was there, in that bathroom again, waiting for Nathan to shoot you... I realized that I couldn't let my best friend die in that shitty bathroom alone and afraid, not knowing that there were people out there who cared for her, who would never abandon her, who would give up everything for her... who... who loved her just as much as she loved them."
I somehow manage to keep my eyes on her as I finished.
"... Max... I..." She swallows heavily. "I don't know what to say... you saved me... if what you're saying is true you saved me so many times and I... I wish I remembered, because that Chloe that you knew... she sounds like the luckiest girl on the planet."
I pull her close, and she lays her head on my shoulder.
"She still is," I whisper, and I feel the small smile on her lips.
"You really are a superhero, Max," she says a few minutes later. "You really did save everybody. Thank you for saving me too."
From the corner of my eye, I see a head appear in the window in the door, then disappear again. Mom, probably. I'm glad she's leaving us alone right now.
I need this to be just us.
Just me and Chloe.
"Hey Chloe?"
"Yeah, Max?"
"You told me to never forget you," I said softly. "I promise not to, as long as you promise to never leave me."
"Max Caulfield, you have yourself a deal."
Quick A/N: Surprise update! Snuck some time in to fix this. No more impossible Photos, just Chloe being Chloe and Max worrying that she's going to push Chloe away if she admits she did something kinda selfish and invalidated the sacrifice Chloe asked her to make up on the cliff. I think it works - lemme know what you guys think. More to come! Now off to pre PAX Aus drinks!.