Chapter Text
David Madsen was being interviewed by two college students about his unconventional lifestyle, but the interview was interrupted by a routine check up call from his previously-estranged-step-daughter-turned-truly-deeply-cared-for-step-daughter. Not realising that he was still hooked up to the microphone, he decided that it was the right time to tell Max and Chloe that the brother’s he helped cross to Mexico back in 2017…actually have a superpower. They don’t believe him and instead tell him that Max has a power too. He also doesn’t believe them.
The girls made it a point to travel from their home in California over to David’s home at Away to explain the situation face to face. One thing leads to another and now Max and Chloe are just a couple miles away from the Diaz repair shop, sitting next to two nameless and faceless college students who won’t let anything stop them from recording the shot.
Chloe hits a rock really goddamn hard and uh-oh, looks like the truck is broken, but that's not a problem because conveniently the man they were there to see was a mechanic- WHAT LUCK!
All things considered, Sean and Daniel have been doing alright since fleeing to Mexico six years ago. The shop is doing good, Daniel had a friend but…he moved away, Sean has a very minor drinking problem- but given his situation, who wouldn’t?! He has also been struggling tremendously to date in his area. But the shop is doing just fine! And in this world: capitalism.
Sean and Daniel welcome Max and Chloe into their home (reluctantly) while Sean works tire…lessly to fix Chloe’s truck. An unexpected (but also kind of expected because he did technically by law need to come back and pay for the service) visitor drops by to speak with Sean, who is now faced with the absolute horror of someone wanting to go out on a second date with him. Damián. A real good man. He likes the arts, he likes the beaches, he loves his family even if things aren’t always the best, he provides for himself, he’s got it all and he is put together. Daniel hates him and Sean has the self worth of a can of beans. Max and Chloe, veterans in dating out of their league, know exactly how to help him with that.
Long story short, the bar Sean and Damián are at blows up. You know why. Max needs to go back in time a little bit. Yada yada yada. Damián is now in it for the long haul because he’s not just Damián from the bar, he is Damián the one-night-stand-turned-witness-protection-program-partner and Daniel IS NOT HAVING IT. He doesn’t want another possibly rude and conniving stranger living in his house, not after last time. Sean's other ex stole from them and called him weird.
Things get tricky again when Sean’s shop is in the middle of a robbery. Max must use her power again, unfortunately, in order to save Sean and Damián from getting shot for a second time. Never being in a situation quite like this before, it took Max too many tries to get it right and save the two of them. But she managed. That girl MANAGED. The bodies were abandoned in the desert. They probably were still alive.
I wrote in too many awful musical numbers in this story. For all you know- they never happened. There will be no song or dance in this coming story.
Finally, after days of pondering the truck and narrowly avoiding death, Sean has figured out how to fix the truck. He needs a very specific part…a part that can only be bid on at his arch nemesis’ illegal car parts auction. Also, after the previous night…Damián has decided to pack his bags and leave, and he is taking his dog Toro with him.
Depression. They go to the auction; Sean dies for real this time because Max’s power conveniently stops working. Daniel is destroyed by this and the only thing Max can do to help him is to use a photo of herself at the age of thirteen and find a way to keep Sean and Daniel’s parents from divorcing. Pretty hefty task for a socially awkward thirteen year old.
But that girl MANAGED. Now time has sped forward, back to the current day in 2023, the only problem is…Max finds herself lying in a bed next to Rachel Amber in the flesh. For years Max and Chloe had daydreamed about what it would be like if Rachel were still alive, and actually, according to this timeline, it would have been pretty bad- for Sean at least. The roles had reversed: Sean went missing, Daniel dyed his hair blue, and his old best friend Noah was on a mission with him to track down Sean. The universe always needs to balance itself out.
Max does everything she can to get back to the regular timeline, and when she does get back, there is only one thing she can do now to save Sean. Go back in time using a polaroid photo that had been eaten by Damián’s dog Toro. However, using a photo of that quality, lands Max in a new kind of reality…a wibble-wobble reality where everything but Spanish is unintelligible.
But, say it with me, that girl MANAGES, and she informs everyone that the auction is not somewhere they should be and she and Daniel hatch a plan to sneak into the back of the auction guy’s garage at a later time. (Ignore the fact that they had to do Minecraft role-play to make that plan.)
Needless to say, making plans by imagining them happening in Minecraft is the dumbest thing you can do. The gang is captured. Max has just woken up from being knocked out, Chloe is missing her boot, Sean’s only working eye is suffering a major blow and will soon puff up to the point of blindness, and Daniel is drenched in gasoline.
The auction garage is set on fire and Daniel is a ticking time bomb given the whole gasoline shower ordeal, but the team escape the burning garage with the help of Damián, who did in fact come back to help because he is a good man. A good man with good intentions and Daniel finally understands that.
They steal the part to fix Chloe’s truck. There is literally a tsunami tornado steadily making its way down the shore (time travel powers, what are you gonna do about them?). The owner of the auction, Sean’s arch nemesis, just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and stops breathing due to unforeseen circumstances that I will not be explaining.
The group hides in the Puerto Lobos lighthouse while they wait out the storm since Max and Chloe knew it was a tried and true survival method, but when Daniel realises that his home and all the childhood pictures of their dad they have in that home are at risk of being lost and destroyed, he goes absolutely berserk and single handedly suffocates the tsunami-tornado by raising all the sand from the ocean.
The world became sand. Everything was just sand. But everything was still standing...everything was sanding. Sean and Damián make it official, Chloe proposes to Max, Jerry from the convenience store across the street comes walking over, demanding that Sean fixes his car again despite saying he would never do business with the Diaz repair shop for as long as they don’t hire his nephew. Sean hires his nephew (reluctantly) and everything ends happily ever after.
Until now.