#borntobedown

With Chloe now awake, focusing on school became a little easier for Max.

She wasn’t quite so stupid as to believe that she was completely out of the woods, of course. And the truckload of trauma she couldn’t talk about didn’t magically go away... but at least Max knew she was going to get to talk to Chloe again.

Well, most of the time, anyway. 

Nights were still difficult, of course. There were still too many nightmares (that barely improved with the knowledge that Chloe was awake) and too few hours of actually good rest... but she was getting somewhere. 

What sucked was the lack of contact with her. With her phone busted, Max’s only time to talk to Chloe was at night, after all her school duties -- when she would religiously get on her laptop and message her, asking about her day.

During one of these conversations, they set up their next meeting: the next Saturday evening. Max would do her homework, get some tutoring from Warren, take a shower and be off to the hospital, where she’d spend the night. Chloe tried to argue that last point, but she was utterly unsuccessful. “We can share the bed again” won the argument.

So, Saturday evening, Max rode the bus to the hospital -- though not without stopping first at a convenience store, where she stocked up on all the snacks she knew to be Chloe’s favorites. Sweet, savory, the whole course -- Max ended up spending a little bit more than what she intended to, but Chloe deserved it, after a week of nothing but horrible, bland hospital food. 

She entered the hospital room with something like a Santa sack of junk food in tow. It was definitely more than they could eat in one night, but that was the point. Her idea was to leave Chloe with some snacks, to make the rest of her hospital stay hopefully a little less miserable.

“Hey, there.” Max’s face lit up with a smile as her eyes landed on the girl on the bed, looking decidedly healthier than when she’d left her a week ago. Closing the door behind her, she made her way over to the vacant chair by Chloe’s bed, plopping the plastic bags containing her spoils from the convenience store trip on the table beside it. 

“Thought your mom would be here,” she absent-mindedly commented, pushing the table (and, consequently, the loot within the plastic bags) towards her friend. “I come bearing gifts. Take a peek, if you dare.”

Max woke up in a sweat, in a pool of moonlight. Her heart was racing and it took everything in her to hold down her urge to scream Chloe’s name.

It’s just a dream. A dream. Don’t wake up Chloe again Max… She looked at Chloe, who was lying facing her, her hand in hers. It was warm. Hot. She watched Chloe’s face, watched her chest, saw it rising and falling, heard her soft breathing.

Chloe’s alive. It’s okay Max. It’s okay. Don’t try and wake her up, you can see it, she’s alive.

Chloe deserved a full night’s sleep, not being woken up by her freaking out and calling her name and shaking her. It had been happening a lot. 

Max loved Chloe more than she loved anyone in the world. She had chose Chloe over… everyone. She would do it again. She couldn’t lose Chloe. Never. Ever. Again.

She knew, knew that Chloe was safe now or well… as safe as any regular person could be. But Max could not forget how hard the universe had tried to take Chloe from her, how the universe had killed Chloe over and over and made her watch.

If she lost Chloe again… if her powers stopped working... if she lost Chloe forever...

Max let go of Chloe’s hand, even though all she wanted to do was keep holding it and never let go. But she was scared she might fall back asleep and wake Chloe up this time. She needed some air. And Chloe should get a peaceful night’s sleep for once.

She went out onto the balcony, feeling the cool night air on her skin. They were staying at a hotel for the night. Max glanced at Chloe’s cigarette pack and lighter on the little table and for the first time felt a strong urge to grab one and light it. Wasn’t smoking supposed to help relax you or whatever? Would it help ease her I might lose Chloe forever fears? Would it help her stop reliving all the deaths of Chloe she had seen? She had no idea, but it always seemed to help Chloe...

Instead she picked up her camera and took a shot of the distant city. Sometimes it felt crazy there were billions of people on the planet when she felt like only she and Chloe existed in this world. They still needed to talk about it, Max thought - about how they loved each other as more than just friends. Maybe she hadn’t said it because she knew they both knew after her choice. But she wanted to say it. She wanted to make it real with words too.

I don’t think I could live anymore if I lost her. I think I’d know how Kate felt… I think I would try and do what she did only no one would be able to stop me. I think that’s what would have happened if I let her die… Did that make Max a bad person, for being able to survive what happened to Arcadia but knowing she couldn’t survive losing Chloe?

Max tried to shake the thoughts away. Chloe was alive and safe. She shouldn’t be even thinking shit like this. But suddenly images were flashing in her mind… Chloe dead in the bathroom from a bullet to the chest, Chloe no longer breathing in that bed, Chloe dead with a bullet in her head… she had lived those realities, she had seen Chloe dead… had been all alone... Max was shaking now at the memories of it and the fear and despair and she found herself reaching out for the cigarette pack without even thinking…

To be honest, she was initially headed to the Dragon because she needed another pack of gummies. (Throngs of roaming, road-tripping college students at the Lantern; yeah. It's been a long few weeks of endless mango margaritas and vodka sodas...)

But then she saw the dog. Grey and enormous, happily galloping down the sidewalk after his presumed owner. ("A dog I must pet, clearly. Today just got serious.") -- Was her first thought.

("Wait, are they going in-- Oh, man.") Was her immediate next thought upon seeing the relatively giant dog being let into the relatively tiny Dispensary.

"Hi there. Just so you know, the owner is on lunch but I know she's not big on pets in the store.... wait." Her head tilts slightly as she scans the dog owner's face. It's a face she thinks she recognizes, from dog-eared yearbooks and photos in the nooks of her girlfriend's radio booth.

THERE’S  EVEN  THE  SLIGHTEST  HOP  when  max  pulls  away  from  chloe,  reaching  around  the  taller  woman  to  push  the  door  shut.   it  half  clicks  shut,  softly  but  not  really  &  she  POUTS  MOMENTARILY,  walking  around  to  fully  close  the  door.    lock  it,  too.    she’s  really  getting  into  that  habit.     the  mess  nathan  left  hasn’t  even  been  CLEANED  UP,  just  pictures  rearranged  to  cover  it.      although,  when  max  turns,  guitar  still  in  her  hand,  the  happy  hop  turns  into  max  nervously  rocking  on  her  heels.    LISTEN  FOR  A  BIT?

she’s  never  really  played  in  front  of  anyone  that  wasn’t  the  instructor  or  her  parents.   she’s  just  INCREDIBLY  USED  to  her  parents.    they’re  just  this  neat  little  extension  of  max.    you  know,  sometimes  she  even  forgets  to  call  or  text  them,  too.    she’s  so,  so  HORRIBLE  at  keeping  in  contact.  

‘  i  was  just  messing  around,  anyway.    nothing  special.  ’

Quieting Max’s fear that whatever was happening between her and Chloe was fleeting and meaningless to the other girl, every day just seemed to get better. 

Granted, not much time had passed -- only a few days --, but it wasn’t about the amount of time they spent together, but the way they spent their time together.

Comfortable silence. Kisses that ranged anywhere from hot and heavy to the sweetest thing imaginable. Movies they never watched in full. Late-night Skype calls when Max was done with studying for the day, because now, she had another person besides her parents to make proud. 

But even still, a heavy weight remained on Max’s shoulders.

All the knowledge she held... all the things she had experienced and Chloe hadn’t. Things she could try to explain (although it wouldn’t be the same as if she’d lived through it with her), and things she could not. Things she didn’t know whether Chloe should ever know about -- if they would do more harm than good, even though Max wanted to be nothing but open with Chloe.

After thinking about it so much her head hurt over multiple days, Max made a decision: there was no need to upset Chloe with things that, ultimately, made no (good) difference if she didn’t know them.

Max took out her diary from its place in her bag and set it down on her desk, but not to write on it like she had so many times before.

No, instead, she read it.

She went through every page, no matter how much it hurt to relive some of the memories she had committed to paper. 

She felt that surprise as she read about her first brush with her power, then the shiver in her spine as she now knew who the girl in the bathroom was. She felt disgust at how she sang praises at Jefferson. She shook her head as she read about how her problems, at one point, had been as simple as dealing with a bully. She felt the butterflies as she read, in her own words, her account of her reunion with Chloe. You were so falling for her already, she thought to herself.

But then, as things did in the reality she came from, the tone of her diary started to change. Now, there were guns and suspicions against Frank that would eventually break Chloe’s heart. And that was the first page she carefully ripped out.

It wasn’t a perfect descent, though: her adventures with Chloe, the description of their first kiss -- those were memories she wanted to keep. Not that she thought she could ever forget them, but it was nice to have that first-hand account from right after it happened. Max could read, in-between the lines, how she'd been slowly falling deeper and deeper for Chloe and that took some weight off of what she had sat down to do.

The recount of their break-in to Frank’s RV and the findings therein, though, were among Max’s principal targets. She ripped those pages off quickly, barely reading the words they contained. That picture of Rachel, half-naked and dancing on top of Frank’s bed... that would break Chloe’s heart if she ever saw it. Like it did, in the other reality.

She ripped the pages that talked about her biggest time-trip yet, too: the one that sent her back to the day William died. That was something else she never wanted Chloe to know about... how she saved his life, ruined Chloe’s, and then let William die again. She wouldn’t understand (which was understandable), and Max would be too nervous and emotional to explain. Just the memory of Chloe in her hospital-bedroom hybrid, looking weak and small, begging for Max to end her life made her eyes fill with tears. 

Max, herself, didn’t much care for keeping those memories, either.

Max didn’t think she’d ever had so much to look forward to in her life. Between being close to graduating high school, moving in with Chloe (even if it was only a part-time sort of arrangement -- she’d still probably be spending most of her nights at Blackwell since that was both more practical and easier than having to break the news to her parents) and her very first Valentine’s Day with a girlfriend, her already overthinking-prone mind could hardly catch a break.

One of the things she heavily fixated on was whether or not she should get Chloe a gift, and what kind of gift it should be. She subtly questioned Chloe every now and again to try and figure out what her opinion was on Valentine’s Day in general and gift-giving on that day, as well as racked her brain for what would be something that she’d like. 

Eventually, she landed on something that would be a pretty hard miss -- she went out and got a potted plant that they could put in their new apartment (she did her research first, though -- Max knew Chloe wasn’t great at taking care of living things, as evidenced by the way that she lived her life most of the time). She scooped that up in her arms as she headed out the door to go meet Chloe in the parking lot at Blackwell, making sure to take a good look at both herself and the plant in the mirror. 

The plant looked great -- she’d even tied a little yellow bow around the blue pot --, but she looked... well, maybe (probably) she was overthinking it, but she worried that she was overdressed for what perhaps Chloe had intended to just be a regular Friday night like any other. She had a dress and tights on, and had borrowed some makeup from Dana. Her face felt... so unlike herself -- pretty, maybe, but too pretty. Max wore some makeup on the daily, just a little something on her eyes and maybe some concealer if she had a particularly dark bags under her eyes or a bad pimple, but blusher was completely new to her, and lipstick felt incredibly uncomfortable.

Max huffed out a sigh and put the plant down. She walked over to her closet and got some makeup wipes, which she then used to do away with the blusher and lipstick. That felt a lot better. Maybe she was still a little overdressed, but whatever. She had pretty concrete proof that Chloe liked it when she wore dresses, so it’d be a win regardless.

Feeling better, she grabbed the plant again, slung her bag over her shoulder, and headed out to meet her girlfriend.

The buzz of a (nearly) perfect Valentine’s Day lasted for days -- it was like the honeymoon phase, intensified. Chloe had to work a lot and Max had school, but even all the time spent apart was shortened by the sheer amount of texts and phone calls and video chats. Max found time to help out a little with the apartment renovations, packing up her laptop and cameras for studying and spending a couple of nights with Chloe now that they had a place to sleep that had proven itself to be adequate. 

In less than two weeks, the two girls agreed that the apartment was about as done as it could be, considering their current budget (or, more accurately, the lack thereof). Max tried to convince Chloe to actually talk to Joyce before making the move, but the older girl had remained vehemently opposed to the idea, and so they waited until the weekend when they knew both she and David were going to be at work. Chloe gathered up boxes from god knows where, loaded them up into her truck and picked up her girlfriend, who had a single box with some of her own things, mostly clothes that she didn’t need for her day-to-day at school.

Their coordinated efforts to keep both Joyce and David away from the house had worked out, they found, as they stepped into a perfectly empty house. Chloe immediately started up the stairs, but Max lingered on the ground floor for a little while, contemplating how she was going to be seeing a lot less of a house she had practically grown up in from now on. The wine stain on the carpet, the dilapidated swing in the backyard... those were little pieces of her and Chloe’s story together, and she wished she could take them along to the apartment they were going to (more or less) share, just like they had always planned to as kids.

A quiet little moment passed by before Max shook the strange feeling of nostalgia off. She started up the steps after her girlfriend, for the first time taking her time to analyze every knot in the wood of the beams by the stairs.