Work Text:
For pretty fucking obvious reasons, Chloe doesn’t relish looking back on her teen years. Between Max going poof and her dad getting smeared across the asphalt on Highway 101, a storm had ripped through her life long before the space-time continuum tore Arcadia Bay a new asshole.
But more and more lately, a memory has been resurfacing from the waning carefree days of her childhood, back when home was William and Joyce, nary a hidden security camera in sight.
One night over dinner—summer, Chloe thinks it was, when a soft heat haze hung over a coastal town not yet annihilated, when the backdoor at the Price house was pulled back to let in the chirping of crickets—her parents did the goddamn sappiest thing she’d ever seen anyone do.
Max was sleeping over that night (but when wasn’t she, back then?), they were digging into the fried chicken Joyce had made, and Chloe’s parents had polished off a bottle of wine—not enough to completely lay them flat, but enough to make them sway toward each other, William’s fingers in his wife’s hair, Joyce’s hand squeezing her husband’s arm. And Max and Chloe, oblivious as only sixth graders can be, were shooting the shit about Tyler Strahovski and Mindy Blonsky, who had been caught macking it behind the cafeteria dumpster.
“I mean, have you seen Tyler? He has, like, seven thousand zits,” Chloe said.
“For cereal. His face is basically an oil spill.” Max stuck out her tongue for emphasis.
“Dude, gross.”
“Boys are gross!” Max shot back.
“Oh, honey,” Joyce cut in, “You’re not always gonna think that.” (Which, in retrospect, lol.)
“Mom. You have not seen Tyler Strahovski. He is so gross,” Chloe deadpanned.
“One day, you kids are both gonna meet someone you really care about,” William says. “Hell, it might even be Tyler Strahovski.”
“Screw boys. I’ve already got Max!” Chloe threw her arm around her friend for emphasis. (Which, again, fucking hahaha.)
Her dad smiled indulgently. “Not a friend. I mean someone you want to spend the rest of your life with.” He looked at Joyce then, and Chloe swore she could see little cartoon hearts floating in the air between them.
“When I met your dad, Chloe, and we went on our first date,” Joyce said, “It felt like there was this hole in the middle of my heart I didn’t even know was there that just got filled right up.”
William cupped his wife’s cheek. “Yup, that’s pretty much exactly how it was.”
Chloe snickered and muttered, “Holes,” as her parents sucked each other’s faces, right there at the dinner table.
She turned to Max, expecting a similar reaction, but her friend was grinning at them. “Awww. That’s so romantic,” she said.
“Ew, Max, gross!” Chloe shoved her in the scrawny little shoulder.
“What? It’s cute!”
“Dude, that’s my parents!”
“You’ll understand when you’re older, kiddo,” William said, not taking his eyes from Joyce’s.
At the time, it had all seemed so monumentally lame. But later, when Chloe’s life became nothing but holes, she looked back on that night and realized, in the years that followed, she’d experienced the opposite: She didn’t realize how full her heart had been until it was empty, until the places where Max and William and Rachel had been were wide and windless as the overfished bay.
And how much more could she lose and gain and lose again? She’d gotten Max back, but lost her mother—not to mention her entire fucking town. But she had Max, for keeps this time, and that was enough. It was more than enough, even if it didn’t always feel that way. That year in Seattle, they were both wading through their trauma and skirting their real feelings, but fuckin’ A, they were legit building a life together.
And then as soon as they were finally starting to figure that shit out, Max left. Again. And not just 300 miles up the coast, but to a whole entire other universe. Chloe wasn’t even sure how she was still standing anymore, how her heart was still pumping blood to her useless brain, how her legs were still carrying her to work every day, when after everything they’d lost, everything they’d done to be together, Max was irrevocably and fully gone.
Chloe had been full of holes for years now, but Max’s disappearance had left an impact crater in her chest ten miles wide. And “filling holes” wasn’t a dirty joke anymore. It was simply an impossibility.
…….................
But now here she is, standing on a beach in fucking Florida, of all places, watching Max, her Max, ghostly before her, shuddering in and out of existence with Tristan at her feet, so close yet so fucking far away. And Pixie, wonderful, infuriating Pixie, is holding her back and telling her to wait. To hope. And after the life she’s lived, Chloe has no idea how to explain to her that hope is a pretty goddamn big ask.
If this doesn’t work, well. Chloe doesn’t know what. She just doesn’t. She knows it’s not like it used to be; it’s been three years, she’s built a whole life for herself back in the Bay, and people are counting on her. But if this crazy-ass last-ditch effort to get Max back doesn’t work, if it’s really the end, that might just blow a hole clean through her, bigger than her whole stupid body.
The shittiest thing is, in a sick way (and not the good kind of sick), nihilistic despair has become Chloe’s baseline, her safe place. Max is home, and if she doesn’t have that, the safest place to land is the proverbial American Rust that stretches out in every direction inside her. Not a soft place to land—not by a long shot—but a familiar one. After all, it’s where she’s buried everything she ever loved.
“Chloe!”
She’d almost forgotten Pixie was there, while she was standing on the precipice of that inner cliff, gazing at the terrible, yawning nothing below.
“Chloe, look.”
And Chloe does. Fucking hell, does she ever. And before she knows it, her legs are carrying her across the beach toward a bright window opening in the void of sky, and Max motherfucking Caulfield is leaping into her arms, and she weighs basically nothing, and she is everything.
For a long time they just kneel there in the sand, falling into each other, soaking each other’s shirts with tears and snot and all sorts of other goopy shit. Max smells like a lightning storm but she also smells like Max, and she’s using that same fruity-ass shampoo that made their bathroom in Seattle stink like a Bath & Body Works circa 2004.
Chloe’s about to say something to that effect, but stops herself, because bitching about shampoo is the most absolutely insane way to greet your long-lost best friend/partner in time/one true love, even by Chloe Price standards.
After a miniature eternity, Max—Max who is here, with her, right friggin’ now —grabs Chloe’s wrist and holds their watches up beside each other, which, crazily enough, are perfectly synced.
“This is real, right?” Max asks, and goddammit, Chloe missed hearing her voice.
“I fucking hope so,” she croaks, and then they’re leaning toward each other, and they’re kissing, they’re kissing for only the third time ever, but this time it isn’t a stupid dare, and it isn’t goodbye; it’s hello.
Max’s lips are soft against her own, but they’re both smiling so hard that it isn’t so much a kiss as them mashing their idiot grins against each other. But whatever. They’ve got a lifetime of making out—and absolutely everything else—ahead of them.
“Chloe,” Max murmurs when they break apart, though they don’t go far, clinging like the other might fade away if they don’t hold on for dear life.
“Hi.” Chloe’s voice is thin and shaky, and a lot more high-pitched than usual. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a timeline like this?”
Max’s laughter mingles with her breathless sobs. “You are so corny. ”
“Having second thoughts?”
Max presses her forehead to Chloe’s. “Never. Never, ” she whispers.
Chloe threads her fingers through Max’s hair. “Well good, ’cause you’re stuck with me, Caulfield.”
…….................
The ride back to the motel is a blur of street lamps and warm night wind and Max glued to her side, and she’s glad Pixie is giving them a lift, because Chloe’s pretty sure she’s not equipped to operate heavy machinery right now. She’s been high plenty of times, on everything from weed to shrooms to whip-its, but no drug can come close to matching the full-body euphoria of reuniting with your dimension-displaced soulmate after three years apart.
They lose their balance on the way into the room, because Chloe has Max pressed against the door while she’s sliding in the keycard blind, and Max falls backwards into the room when it opens, Chloe landing hard on top of her.
“Ow,” Max groans.
“Oh, shit! Are you okay?” Chloe asks, lifting her weight off of the smaller woman as fast as she can.
To her enormous relief, she laughs. “I’m fine.”
“Are you sure? ’Cause your little bones are made of, like, twigs and silly string.” It’s true. Max is so tiny. Chloe almost forgot how tiny.
This time, Max fully snorts. “You are so ridiculous,” she says fondly.
“Ridiculous like a fox.” Chloe’s covering, of course, because what she really wants to say is Max, you are so fragile and infinitely precious to me, and all I want is to bury you inside my chest and keep you safe forever. Which would be, y’know. Ridiculous.
They manage to make it off the floor only to land on the bed a few feet away, Chloe kicking the door shut before they collapse into a heap of tangled limbs. Chloe crawls on top of Max, and she opens her mouth against Chloe’s, and oh, right. This is what kissing’s supposed to be like.
Eventually, Chloe takes a beat to come up for air, rolling off of Max, dizzy with joy. (And, god, when has that ever been true in her whole miserable life?) She turns her head to the side to find Max already looking at her, drinking her in. She grabs Chloe’s hand in hers and squeezes.
And Chloe? Well, she turns into a busted jukebox. “Max. Mad Max. Maximilian. Maxine Waters. Maximum overdrive. Circus maximus. Uncle Max from The Sound of Music, ” she babbles.
“Oh my dog, Chloe,” Max says, covering her face with both hands.
“You love it,” Chloe says against the shell of her ear.
“I love you,” her friend (girlfriend? It feels like too small a word for what they are to each other) amends, angling her body toward Chloe’s.
And Chloe thinks, Motherfucker, have I even said it yet? It’s been so long (like, literally a decade), and she’s yearned so much, that she can’t remember. But just in case: “I love you too, Max. So fucking much.”
And they both take a long beat to soak that in, just gazing all moony at each other like two cheeseballs. Then Max murmurs, “I can’t believe you’re really here.”
“Believe it, babe. …Babe? Does that sound weird?”
“I mean, it beats ‘Uncle Max.’”
“Touché, Caulfield.” Chloe squeezes Max’s boob affectionately, which like, what the hell. She can do that now.
Max’s face goes red. “Did you just…um…”
“Too much?”
“No. Just...new.”
“New is good?”
“New is good,” Max confirms. So Chloe keeps her hand right where it is.
The girl beneath her reaches up to touch her face. “Makes me feel like you’re not gonna…you know…disappear into atoms or something.”
“Fully solid, USDA Grade-A Chloe Price,” she says, then realizes something. “But hang on—haven’t you seen other me, like, every day for the past three years?” Chloe doesn’t know why she says it aloud. Maybe because this whole situation is so impossibly bizarre.
Max’s face turns grave. “She wasn’t you.”
And shit, Chloe is frantic to get that smile back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay.”
She meets the other woman’s gaze, those keen photographer’s eyes she hasn’t seen for so, so long. She thinks back to when she was trying to explain away Max’s absence to Ryan and Vanessa Caulfield, to all their friends in Seattle, to the survivors in Arcadia Bay. Months and months where there was no Max in this timeline—where she was just gone, and for more than two years, Chloe didn’t have a soul she could tell the truth to.
Chloe sighs. “It’s just… It’s stupid, but… You had a me, but I didn’t have a you, y’know? No one understood. Not till Tristan showed up.”
Max presses a kiss to the back of her hand. “It’s not stupid at all. I’m so sorry, Chloe. I never wanted to leave you alone.”
“Dude. You’ve got nothing to apologize for. Literally cosmic forces were pulling us apart. Which, like. You’d think the cosmos would have something better to do than keep fucking with us.”
“For real.” Max sits up, looking down at Chloe and carding her fingers through her hair. “I feel so lucky I had a Chloe, Chloe. …Shit, that sounds so weird.”
“I think we blew past weird around the time you saved me from dying about 30 times.”
“38,” Max corrects, and it makes Chloe’s heart seize up that she pulled out that number so fast. She carries it so well most of the time that it’s hard to remember how much shit Max has seen. “But it wasn’t… It was really hard, watching you, that you in that other timeline, be in love with someone else.”
Rachel. Max had known Rachel, for almost as long as Chloe had known her, which was maybe the most surreal thing about this whole surreal situation. Part of her desperately wants to know what that other her is like—what does a Chloe Price look like who’s had her life and heart shattered at least two times less? But that’s a conversation for another day.
“Well then other Chloe is a fucking idiot, obviously.”
“You don’t have to say that,” Max assures her. “I know you…both yous…loved Rachel, and I’m really glad I got the chance to meet her, too.”
Chloe smiles wistfully. “Yeah, Rachel was…amazing. And complicated. She saved my life before you did, even.”
Something plays across Max’s face that Chloe is pretty sure is that old guilt about the five years they were estranged, before all this supernatural shit, so Chloe cuts her off at the pass with a hand over her mouth. “Don’t fucking apologize again, okay?”
“Okay.” Max’s voice comes out muffled through Chloe’s palm. “I’m glad other me is happy. And…not alone.” And that she still has a mother, she doesn’t say. Today isn’t about grief, for once. “But this Chloe is all about you. You’re a hot piece, Caulfield.”
Max’s face goes all crimson again, and Chloe resolves to tell her how bangin’ she is every day until she gets it.
“We talked about it, me and other Chloe. She was still my best friend, y’know? And she still loved me, just…not in the way I loved…her? You?” She shakes her head with a small smile. “I feel like we need a whole new vocabulary for interdimensional travel.”
“I’ll get right on it,” Chloe says.
Max rolls on top of her, every inch of her pressed against every inch of Chloe. “Not necessary. Because I’m staying right here. No more universe-hopping for this gal.” And just when Chloe’s on the verge of tears again, Max pokes her hard on the tip of the nose and grins.
“Excuse you. Did you just boop my nose?”
“Yup. You are forever chained to an inveterate nose-booper.”
“How terrible for me.” And Chloe thinks for the millionth time how lucky she is to have fallen in love with her best friend, who knows her inside and out, and who knows exactly how to razz her. Just hella fucking lucky in general, honestly.
She cranes her neck up to catch Max’s lips, and they make out again for awhile like the teenagers they aren’t anymore. And just as Chloe’s thinking it might be time to turn up the heat, Max beats her to it, pressing her down into the mattress, hands roving over Chloe’s torso. And their embrace turns into something hungry, grasping.
She reaches for the hem of Chloe’s T-shirt, then hesitates. “Can I?” she asks, her voice small.
Chloe puts on her best punk femme fatal drawl, cocks one eyebrow, and says, “You can do whatever the fuck you want with me, Caulfield.”
“Oh…uh… Yeah?” Max says, in the world’s feeblest attempt at bravado. This girl.
So Chloe does her the favor of dropping the swagger and takes Max’s face between her hands. “Hey. It’s just me. We don’t have to rush into anything. Whatever you want, I’m here.”
Max looks sheepish for a moment, then something seems to resolve itself inside her. She presses a thumb to Chloe’s lower lip, tugging on it. “What if I want to rush into something?” she murmurs.
Chloe laughs and her heart flutters, suddenly nervous herself. Real smooth, Price. “Well, I’m absolutely here for that, too. Obviously.”
The woman above her smiles, genuine this time. “Though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run,” she says.
“Hold up. Did you just quote fucking poetry at me, you absolute utter irredeemable nerd?”
Max grins, a little wicked. It’s a good look on her. “Did it work?”
Chloe takes a moment to consider. “Well…yeah.”
Then the girl above her leans in again, and there isn’t much recitation of anything for the rest of the night. Because they’ve got time, normal-ass time to just be together. Max has their whole rest of their lives to be a dork, and Chloe has their whole rest of their lives to give her shit for it. Which is absolutely sick as hell.
My powers might not last, Chloe, she remembers Max saying on a railroad track where Chloe died and then un-died a million years ago. That’s okay. We will, forever. And for once, she thinks, raising her arms so Max can divest her of her High Seas T-shirt, it’s a promise they can both keep.
…….................
There’s a hole inside of Chloe, and it’s filling up by the second. And she swears, that’s not even a sex joke. Because, hell, she guesses sappiness must run in the family.