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He comes back after 607 days. He’s skinny and tired but Furiosa couldn’t be happier; she’d thought he was dead. She had understood why he’d had to go, but they had gone for so long without a single whisper of his existence reaching their ears, that she’d begun to think the worst. When he arrives, everyone acts as though it was planned, as if they had known he was coming. She thinks he appreciates it; he doesn’t seem like the kind of man who wants a fuss.
She constantly has to remind herself that she’d only known him for three days. Sometimes she feels like she’s known him her entire life.
They work in perfect unison together, whether it is on the road for a patrol or fixing up a car in the workshop.
Sometimes she catches herself staring at him. The way the corners of his lips quirk upwards just slightly when he’s happy, or the way he runs his hand over his head when he’s frustrated. She thinks maybe she’d like to kiss those lips and hold that hand.
She tries to stop herself when she thinks like this; he probably doesn’t feel the same, and they’re far too busy running the Citadel with the Wives to even consider anything like that.
But then there are the days where nothing much happens, and her imagination runs wild.
She is surprised when he doesn’t seem to want to leave. He does leave, sometimes, but mostly he seems to like staying.
But just because he isn’t leaving, doesn’t mean he’s necessarily comfortable. They’d given him a room next to hers, and almost every night for the past 70 days, she is woken by the sound of his muffled screams, or the thump, that she can only assume is him falling out of bed. She’s thankful at these times that they are the only ones who sleep in this section.
She thinks she could help. She wants to help. She wants to sit with him and smooth her hand over his head until he calms and the nightmares dissipate. But she doesn’t think that he wants that. He’s never shown any indication that he does. Well, not one that she has noticed anyway. Instead she lies there in her own bed each night, trying hard not to imagine him lying there next to her.
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Max couldn’t have stayed away any longer. He’d been ignoring the want in his head for hundreds of days. But he hadn’t slept a wink in days and he was close by the Citadel and he just needed to know. He’d heard people discussing the new Citadel leadership, of course, but that wasn’t the same as going there himself and seeing it with his own eyes…seeing her with his own eyes. The only reason he knew she was alive was because of the talk in trading towns.
He had needed to restrain himself far too many times after hearing what people had said about Furiosa. People who said that a woman wasn’t fit to lead a place like that.
He goes back to the Citadel and it isn’t as bad as he’d thought. He finds that here his ghosts are quieter, stay further away. Whenever he works on a car with Furiosa they are silent.
His favourite thing about the Citadel, however, is definitely Furiosa. Something about her presence is reassuring for him. Sometimes he feels so awed by her strength that he feels like a fool, gazing at her. He hopes she doesn’t notice. He has a hunch she doesn’t feel the same way.
He still can’t sleep at night but he is starting to think he never will again, regardless of where he is.
He is starting to feel fatigue truly catch up to him when it happens.
He and Furiosa are sitting watch together one afternoon, in an easy and comfortable silence; they never have too much use for words, and they seem to communicate on some completely different level.
The sun is warm on his body, and sitting side by side with Furiosa, he feels relaxed for the first time in a long time.
Before he knows it he’s dreaming. It started out fine. They always do. But then everything shatters, usually from something he has done.
Today in his dream he is at the Citadel doing watch, and he fails to see and incoming car, and the next thing he sees is Furiosa’s dead body, decaying in front of his eyes. Even as he holds her and does everything he can think of to help she starts to turn to dust and crumble into nothing. He’s screaming at her to come back, he can’t stop the sobs that are wrenched from his chest.
He wakes, suddenly, and finds his wet and raw face is smushed into someone’s soft stomach, a hand over his head. He freezes for a second, before he registers that it is Furiosa. He goes boneless against her, feeling relieved that his nightmare is not reality. He pulls his face away and looks up at her. She looks down at him, slowly and gently wipes away his tears and says ‘its okay, sleep, get some rest, I can do the watch,’ and he is stunned by the trust he has in this woman, because he doesn’t stop himself when his eyelids droop closed.
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She hadn’t even stopped him when he started nodding off. She’d heard him every single night for the past week, most nights more than once. She’d seen the bags under his eyes grow more and more pronounced.
She watches as he starts to twitch, starts to whimper. Not for the first time she wonders what his nightmares are about.
She doesn’t touch him because she knows from the rig that he’s likely to come up swinging. But when he starts to gasp and sob she can’t stop herself from pulling him into her lap. She’s surprised when he doesn’t wake up, but she guesses he’s too deep in the dream to notice.
She feels almost proud that when she runs her human hand over his head the gasps seem to stop slightly. She is still making soothing noises and pushing her hand through his hair when he wakes. She feels him freeze underneath her but she doesn’t stop. She wants him to know that this is something he can do, if he needs, if he wants.
He looks up at her, his face wet and red and haunted and she can’t stop herself from wiping away the tears, wanting to wipe away the traumas that caused this.
“Its okay, sleep, get some rest, I can do the watch.” He looks into her face for a moment longer before his eyes slowly droop shut.
He sleeps soundly until its time for dinner.
That night when they go to bed Max darts her a quick look that she almost misses before going into his own room.
For once she finds she doesn’t understand his attempt at communication. She tries not to think about it as she readies herself for bed because if she is being honest with herself she had hoped he would want to come to her room. She had hoped that maybe he would want to find comfort with her. She knew she wanted to find comfort with him.
She tries to shake these thoughts away, because most likely they’ll come to nothing.
Many hours later and she is still awake. It’s going to be one of those nights. Where no matter how you lie you will never be comfortable. She is rolling over onto her back when she hears the now familiar muffled scream. She desperately wants to get up out of her uncomfortable bed and go to his room and lie down next to him and comfort him and stay with him until he feels better and-
There’s a knock at the door. She’s up in an instant, wrenching the door open and Max is standing there looking haggard and tired and he doesn’t even have to ask and she’s is moving out of the doorway and shutting the door behind him. She turns around and he is just standing there staring at her, huddled in on himself. She feels like if she doesn’t help him now she will never be able to and before she knows what she’s doing her arms are wrapped around him hugging him close to her chest, his head dipping down to fit in the space next to her neck. Like this she can feel him trembling, tiny tremors that run through his entire body.
She doesn’t know how long they stand like this, but her legs start to get tired. She nudges him over to her bed and they lie down together, she’s on her left side so that her hand is free, and he is facing towards her, their foreheads nearly touching. Feeling brave in the darkness she presses a quick kiss to his lips. He kisses back and she feels like every ounce of tension has left her body. She takes his hand in hers and that’s how they fall asleep.
Two weeks later and Max’s room is long forgotten.