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Flower petals tickle her nose in the grassy meadow they lie in on their lonesome, and Max sneezes into her elbow with a grimace. Chloe still smiles at her as if she holds the sun, in her thick coat to beat the Appalachian autumn cold.
“Ah, allergies…” She mumbles with a watery laugh, masking the tears at the corners of her eyes by rubbing them. Chloe doesn’t need to know she almost started crying because of her smile again.
“Benadryl’s in the car, you don’t need to be super in every way to still be Super Max to me.”
It’s a lame joke. Max still laughs anyways.
She tucks her head into Chloe’s shoulder and hears the crunch of half-dead leaves underneath her ear and the idle purring of their cat on Chloe’s stomach because they’re okay enough to have a cat now and suddenly she feels very overwhelmed by sheer wonderment of how one woman could bring her endless happiness by existing day in and out.
Arcadia Bay haunts her, but she still has her partner in time. It gets easier to accept her own conscience when she wakes up to that smile every day.
She sniffles, pulls her head away from the safety of Chloe’s neck and looks into the eyes that haven’t changed a day in eleven years. Her blonde roots are growing out now, and her blue hair is reduced to seafoam green ends. The subtle nuances in her face, the soft laugh lines and the single dimple that frames her left cheek and old scars from poorly mended piercings that she hadn’t been there to heal.
She is still the most beautiful woman on Earth, to Max, and she thinks she could fall in love with Chloe Price all over again, every day.
“Marry me.” Max blurts out, entirely unceremonious and in a rush of breath she doesn’t have.
‘Marry me, marry me, marry me. Please marry me and say you’ll be mine for forever.’
She doesn’t have a plan. She doesn’t have a speech. She doesn’t even have a ring.
It doesn’t stop her from pleading with bright blue eyes like she needs this more than the air she hasn’t breathed in over a minute.
“I—“ Her lungs beg for relief and so she complies, sucking in a shaky breath, “I love you so much, Chloe. You’re my person and I can’t ever replace what we have and I know marriage is stupid and dumb and we don’t need a sheet of paper to prove to anyone what we have but I want it so bad with you and I need to remember it’s all real and I didn’t lose you in that stupid school bathroom and—“
She’s a word salad. Her anxieties mount high and heavy in her chest, crushing her diaphragm like the time she tried trumpet in middle school and felt like dying from trying to play a note.
Chloe holds her cheek, Savy perks up in protest at being gently bumped, and Max can breathe again. She can see again. She can see the eyes she fell in love with eleven, sixteen, an infinite amount years ago because she thinks she’s loved Chloe in every timeline since before the universe itself existed.
“Maxine.”
“Max, never Maxine…” She replies reflexively, dumbly.
Warm lips are on hers, and it tastes like the minty chapstick Chloe started using when Max had insisted mint chocolate chip was the best ice cream flavor, like honey from the tea she drank in the car in a busted thermos that she knew Chloe wouldn’t throw away until the end of the world, like home even though she knows they can never go back to the Bay.
Chloe pulls away and Max feels awestruck at the adoration in her gaze, rimmed with tears that she’s sure taste like salt but to her they’re sweet love, “I’d marry you in every timeline, Max.”
Max sobs, and falls into Chloe’s embrace all over again. Savy gives a miffed sound of protest, but simply pads down to sit in the grass and clean her paws. This is her person, her family. Tattoo ridden arms feel like safety to her, the smell of upscale cologne filling her nose because it was one of the few things Chloe indulged in and dimly like motor oil and God did she ever love it.
She kisses her again, because she can, because she’s her fiancée now.
“So…thoughts on Max Price?” Chloe offers with that side smile that’s nearly a smirk but with none of the snark.
Max laughs, lighter than air and so bountifully in love.
“You tell me, Chloe Caulfield.”
She shakes her head, joining in the laughter, “It makes me sound like I’m a kids book protagonist! The ones where your names have to have alliteration.”
They keep laughing, and Savy joins in with her own chitters and chirps as if she understands them. Max lays her head on Chloe’s chest, the two bullets glinting in the sunset as she watches it rise and fall. She wears the third around her own neck, and twirls it absently.
“I’ll get you the most beautiful ring I can find and do this all over again with less anxiety,” She promises, snuggling into her fiancée contentedly.
“You’re Max Caulfield, you never do anything without anxiety.”
Max has to laugh, because Chloe knows her too well and she’s so right.
She wants Chloe to know her like that for forever.