Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“GET THAT GUN AWAY FROM ME, PSYCHO!”

Shit. Is this really it? Am I going to die in this dirty ass bathroom by this spoiled rich kid’s gun? My instincts are shouting run the fuck away, the door just inches behind me but Nathan corners me. I can feel Nathan’s body and the hilt of the gun pressed against my stomach gluing me to the wall.

“DON’T EVER TELL ME WHAT TO DO!” Rage comes pouring out of him, not unlike the rage I’ve kept company since my life has been dipped in shit but none of that anger is in me right now. Fear kicked it right out. “I’M SO SICK OF PEOPLE TRYING TO CONTROL ME!” I briefly wonder why nobody’s heard him screaming in here yet. I’m desperate for anyone to walk through that door. Anyone at all. Even my step-douche would do.

“NOBODY WOULD EVER EVEN MISS YOUR PUNK ASS, WOULD THEY?!”

Maybe I shouldn’t believe words coming from the person holding me at gunpoint but he’s right. Everyone who ever mattered to me is either gone, missing, or hiding. Why didn’t I see this coming? All I ever do is walk into trouble. How could I even think this asshole, who’s capable of drugging and kidnapping me, would ever think twice of killing me?I close my eyes for a second, the sting of close tears threatening to fall but I don’t let them. I am not going to cry in front of this mother fucker. I remember why I did this. I’d risk my life to get out of this hellhole. Leave this fucking place and everyone in it, just like what she did. Rachel should really be the one I picture in my mind but another face keeps showing up. Nathan presses the gun closer and somehow a flash of a dark-haired girl and her freckled face is haunting me instead.

She’s always been a chickenshit. Always afraid of doing the wrong things and yet, she didn’t even think that leaving her best friend alone at the time of grieving, without so much as a word from her for five years, is the most fucked up shit she could’ve done. The girl I loved so much, the only person I needed with me when death took my dad away. Now death is knocking again, for me this time, but she still isn’t here.

The familiar sight of anger comes back to my field of view and I gather all the strength I have to push this fucker away from me but just when I’m about to, a flash of brown hair and a voice calling out my name makes my hands freeze in place.

“Chloe.”

The time it takes for me to realize who that face and voice belongs to is exactly the time Nathan needed to turn around and pull the trigger. I hear the gun shot. Her eyes, as blue as I remember them, widen as they stare at me. She looks down at my shirt and her lips curl up as she looks back up, joy and relief glowing through her eyes.

“Max!” My hand flies forward and my knees buckle under me right at the same time hers did. The pain in my chest is so unbearable, I can’t even breathe. The door hits my side hard as it opened but I barely feel it. David comes in and immediately tackles Nathan to the ground right next to the growing pool of blood on the floor. Nathan doesn’t even fight back. “I-I swear didn’t mean to. She…” He whispers, voice breaking at the end. David ties his arms behind his back and calls for reinforcements. He catches me moving, his face sad and broken as he stares. “I’m sorry. They used me. I didn’t want to hurt anyone.” I ignore him and start crawling across the dirty tiles. “M-Max.” I choke out, bile quickly rising in my throat. I desperately want to touch her, to make sure I’m not just imagining her being here but wishing I am at the same time. Her voice calling out my name is on repeat in my head. My voice calling out her name is on repeat on my mouth. Max. She’s not the thirteen year old nerd I used to play pirate with anymore. She’s not even the girl who left me for Seattle. She’s my Max. My only Max Caulfield.

Her blue eyes are still looking at me. I get closer but they don’t blink. I touch her face, tracing her freckles with my thumb. She’s real. This is all real. I reach for her hands, squeezing them as hard as I can. Still warm. Her hands are still warm.

But her eyes are still open and she doesn’t squeeze back.

I know the life is gone from her even before I look down and see the hole in her chest. Right at the same hole she left in mine.

“Max! No! Please god no!” The horrible sound of me sobbing echo through the bathroom. How could this happen? I just got her back! She just came back! “Please! I love you, Max! I love you so much. Please don’t—” I stop to breathe through the pain punching me in the gut. Drops of tears fall on Max’s face. I almost expect her to flinch just like an unexpected fall of a raindrop would’ve done. But she doesn’t. My shaky hands wipe the tears away from her face even though they came from my eyes. I move my fingers over to her open eyes and it takes everything in me to close her eyelids. She saw everything through those eyes, little things people miss that make her face light up like the flash of a camera. She’s not supposed to be lying on this bathroom floor with those dead eyes, staring at nothing. Slowly bending my head down, I kiss her. Her soft lips are starting to feel cold but I warm them up again with my own. I kiss her, tasting her sweet mouth and my salty tears. I bury my face in her neck, inhaling her scent like it’s the only thing I can breathe with.

“Don’t leave me again, Max.” I beg her over and over again even if she’s already gone.

Chapter Text

A big hand falls on my shoulder but the contact barely registered. It starts to shake me out of it but this only made me hold onto the brunette in my arms tighter, my body draped over her like a protective shield.

“Chloe.” David finally says. He exhales a long sigh and he sounds so tired. I don’t get that. Why is he tired? Of all people, I should be the one who sounds tired.

I should be the one dead.

“No, Chloe. Don’t say that.” His voice has never sounded this soft before as if he’s afraid one wrong word could break me. Too late. “I’m sorry. You need to let go of her. The paramedics are on their way.” I turn my head to look at him and show him just how much I’m willing to let go of Max at the moment. He kneels down next to me, sadness written on his face. “She’s gone, Chloe. Believe me, I know how you feel. I’m so sorry but there’s nothing we can do now.” I wanted to fucking punch his teeth in. How could he possibly know how I feel? My best friend who was gone from my life for years suddenly shows up to take a fucking bullet for me! She saved my life and I was cursing her name just a few moments before. And now… and now she’s dead.

“I need more time with her.” I sound so small, so exhausted that I can’t even let anger speak for me. “Please,” I beg. “Just a little more time.” I hate sounding like this, like I’m back to being that little girl crying over her dead dad, giving up from all the shit life decided to throw at her. I don’t care if I’ll look insane to those fucking paramedics when they walk in here. A blood-soaked, blue-haired punk holding tight to something that’s not here anymore. I don’t give a fuck. They’ll have to get Max from my cold dead hands.

“Chloe.”

An ugly sob broke out of me again. Why did she have to step in on me and Nathan? She could’ve just stayed hidden. My eyes look over at the small space she was hiding in before Nathan pulled out that fucking gun. She should’ve stayed there, she should’ve just stayed in Seattle. She should’ve just stayed away from this hell, my hell. She should’ve just let me die.

David finally gets a clue and heads for the door. If I’d known coming back to this shitty school and this shitty bathroom would end up like this, if I didn’t need the money bad that I’d even try to bargain with that fucking Prescott, if I could just rewind every shitty decision I’ve made right after she left me, I could’ve saved her.
Another hand touches my back. I think it’s David and I get ready to snap at him again but I look up and it’s a woman, one of the paramedics filing in. They’re not here to save anyone.

She holds out a hand to me, a concerned look on her face. “Hey, you’re alright, sweetie. We need to get you outside,” she says like I’m a little girl lost in a shopping mall. I blink at her once or twice, no words forming in my mouth. “She’s in shock,” she says to one of the other paramedics. They end up forcing me to stand and let go of Max’s hand. I whimper when they finally managed to.

***

“She doesn’t want to talk to me.” Hushed voices are arguing outside my door. I don’t pay too much attention to it while I’m busy inhaling up the second joint of the morning. I’m lying on my back on my old, squeaky mattress, one arm folded under my head. I medicate to get high and forget but I also just like looking at the smoke floating above me. Gives me something to watch. It’s been two days since—since it happened. Nathan’s behind bars, being investigated. I hope his sorry ass gets locked up forever even if that doesn’t cover an inch of all the shit he’s done. I hate him. I hate him so much, it’s taking everything in me not to murder him in his barred up cell.
I take another long hit to forget the night I started hating him. I’m used to getting high, falling asleep and waking up feeling weird and shit but waking up in that fucked up room was hella (there it is) different. My body felt heavy, my eyes burning in pain along with my brain that couldn’t come up with any memory of what happened before. Goosebumps run along my arm as I remember how cold it was in there. The type of cold that comes from the atmosphere of the room itself. But I’m not in that room anymore. I stretch my feet right to where the sunrays hit the end of my bed. My room looks messier than it usually does, if that’s even possible. I had to scavenge around for childhood pictures I’ve hidden, specifically the ones where Max is in.

The missing posters I printed of Rachel are still sitting on my desk, just another bitter reminder of everything wrong in my reality. I have no idea why I’m still here, when everyone just keeps leaving me. No fuck no. I am not going to think about this right now. Almost inhaling the whole joint, I get up and put on some music. My ears ring at the loud screams and guitar riffs of some metal song I’m supposed to stereotypically enjoy blaring through my speakers at highest volume. I don’t like metal but it’s loud enough to drown out my thoughts. Almost immediately a knock sounds from my door.

“Chloe, can I talk to you?” David tries to shout through the loud music. So they’re still there huh. Usually my stepshit would just barge in without care and I have to use the ‘I’m changing’ card to stall him but I haven’t stepped out of my room since it happened and no one has bothered me in here except mom. “Will you please just turn off that god awful music first!?” Ah, there we go. Right in character.

“Chloe Price, this is important. We need to talk to you right now.” Mom’s voice cut through the door. I can tell when she sounds annoyed, it’s usually the only voice she uses with me but she sounds more intense than irritated. Mom’s been quiet around me since she found out what happened to Max and I know I give her shit about everything but she genuinely looked as heartbroken as she could when she knew. Rachel wasn’t exactly a role model best friend but mom cares for her like she cares for me, same goes with Max. I wasn’t the only who missed Max through those five years, she was basically another daughter for her. Of course that hurt couldn’t compare to when mom and I lost dad, but she had stepdouche and I had no one—until Rachel. And now I’m right back to where I started.

I turn off the music and get rid of the evidence of me smoking before I walk over to the door and open it, revealing mom and David’s worried faces. I know they could smell the marijuana in the air but they choose to ignore the elephant in the room and quickly step inside. I wordlessly sit on the edge of my bed, waiting for one of them to say something. David goes first, “We got news about Rachel.” That snaps me into attention. My heart pumps out a few hopeful beats until I see his reaction. David looks like what he did when I was in the bathroom holding Max: sad and defeated. Time stops. My whole body runs cold as he goes on, “Chloe, she’s—she’s dead.”

Dead. I’ve been hearing that word a lot lately.

There’s a few seconds of sinking in before I finally break down completely. “How? W-who? I don’t…” Words are caught up in my mouth. I look at both of them and I only see pity and somehow it only makes me angrier. I’ve tried so hard to be tougher than I am my whole life and this week has only proven how much of a weak fuck I really am to everyone.

“Nathan—”

I scream as soon I hear his name. Fuck I knew it. I knew there had to be something more Nathan can do to make me despise him. I want to hit something. I want to hurt him, make him physically feel the hurt he made me feel. “Leave! Now!” I shout at both of them. I can’t handle any of this.
“Chloe, we didn’t come here to tell you bad news and then leave you here crying. We’re here for you. You can’t face this alone.” David sits down next to me, a hand rubbing along my back showing comfort. I can tell he isn’t used to this compassionate shit but suddenly human contact made the pain hurt a little less. So I let him stay and I let my mom lock me in a death grip hug.

“I’m so glad you’re still here, Chloe. We still have you.” My mom murmurs on the top of my head as I cry on her shoulder. I realize two families just lost their daughters, daughters I love with my whole existence, but my mom still has hers. I let that thought sink in my head as I hold onto my mom tight, having the longest hug I haven’t gotten since I was a little girl.

And I know everything is not okay but I hope someday it will be.

Chapter Text

I’m outside the Prescott dormitories and all I can do is hesitate. The last time I’ve been here was when I looked for clues about Rachel’s disappearance before her parents took away everything in her dorm room. Of course I didn’t find anything. She spent more time hanging out and sleeping over at our house than staying in here. Rachel’s parents never contacted me about her after her disappearance, they still lived in the fantasy of her running away until the truth came out. I was in denial of both possible realities: her leaving without me and her being kidnapped and killed. How the hell could I have thought the first one would hurt as bad as the other one? In a way, I thought they were all selfish for leaving me but that would be unfair to Max if I really started believing that.

Max’s parents called my mom and asked for me. I thought that was it, they’re going to damn me in hell even if I’ve never heard them believe in religion. I hated them for five years because they took Max away. They could be thinking the same about me and I won’t even blame them.

I’ll be glad if they actually start doing that. I mean, they’re going to clean up their only daughter’s dorm room with the help of the person who watched her die without doing anything. Are they even thinking properly anymore? They should hate me right? They should. But apparently, Max got her selflessness from somewhere and that somewhere were her parents.

Right there at the end of the hall, that’s her room. I don’t even have to look at the map on the wall. The picture of her face surrounded with candles and flowers says enough. I feel like I’m walking in a hallway of nightmares with slates of written half-assed ‘we’ll miss yous’ and ‘we’ll remember yous’ on them, as if they actually knew who she really was with the single month she’s been here.

You’re not my only friend, Chloe. Not everyone here hates my guts.

Great, she’s inside my head now. She’s literally taking the place of my conscience and sounds like she’s enjoying it way too much. What a time to become crazy, Chloe. But my conscience is right, Max couldn’t only be my own hero.

Someone walks out from one of the dorm rooms on the left side of the hall near Max’s room. She’s wearing pyjamas, clutching something in her hand. I know her, she’s Kate Marsh. Her blonde hair is in a big bun and her eyes are as red as her nose as she moves farther down the hall right in front of the room I’m supposed to go in. I hear her sniffling but she doesn’t say anything as she kneels down and puts something besides Max’s picture. My boots scuttle forward to look at it and her head snaps up, not unlike a frightened bunny. Her eyes widen, probably recognizing me. Anyone who ever reads the Arcadia Bay paper or watched the local news could tell who I was at a glance because of all the pictures they exploited of me being dragged behind a dead girl.

“I-I’m sorry. Did you want to be alone?” she apologizes like she’s the one who ruined a private moment.

“It’s fine.”

“You’re Chloe Price.” The silence stretches out for a moment. Kate Marsh was Max’s friend; that makes perfect sense. She was one of Nathan and that psycho pedo teacher’s victims just like Rachel and that thought alone makes me feel like I should protect her from everything that’s wrong in the world.

Sweet Kate Marsh.

I was always the first one to blame someone if they took a friend away from me but here I am now, facing someone I took a friend from. I could feel her grief, so close to mine. She comes closer, just a little thing but her strength is undeniable. Maybe she’ll use that strength to punch me in the face which is less than I deserve from her.

But she’s smiling as she pulls me into a hug, sobs breaking out of her tiny frame. I’m too stunned to do anything but stand there but her voice snaps me out of it, “She saved you.” She whimpers into my shoulder. Hearing her say that with so much happiness, far from the sound of accusation every time those words comes to my mind.

Max saved you but why? She had so much more reasons to live for than you. Why would she save you?

Kate doesn’t hear what’s going in my head but her voice is a little louder, as if she wants to drown those thoughts out. “She saved me too. She saved both of us, Chloe.” My shaking hands curl up into fists. Max saved this girl. I don’t know how but she did. I can hear the voice of someone losing her only hope and this girl mirrors the loss I’ve constantly felt. Unclenching my fists, I wrap Kate closer. “Shhh, hey, it’s okay. She did. She saved us and she probably wouldn’t like it if we cried like little pussies in front of her door. I still have a reputation to fill, you know.” I feel her back vibrate as she chuckles on my shoulder. She pulls back her eyes all red but there’s laughter in them. “I want to be friends with you, I-If that’s okay.”

“That would be hella great. I think we kind of already are, Kate, since being a shoulder to cry on is already a part of the job description. You’re actually cool and… and Max would like us being friends.”

“Thank you.” She closes her eyes in relief, as if she was actually afraid that I’d say no to her. “Actually, there’s something else I need to tell you about Max.” Her voice is different now, full with intent. My back crawls and my breath hitches. “What is it, Kate?”

She shakes her head. “Not right now. I’ll tell you the next time we meet.” She goes back to where she came, waving a small goodbye as she closes her door.

I’m left here, stunned. That was...strange. What could she want to tell me? It makes sense she’d known the recent Max a lot longer than I had, if a few seconds could even count, but she didn’t sound like she was planning to just talk about the good times she had with Max over a cup of tea.

A moment of standing in the middle of an empty hallway later, I shake the thoughts away and finally decide to knock on room 219 although my heart is currently beating in my throat.

The knob turns and it feels like a slow motion picture as I watch the door open. Mrs Caulfield stands in front of me. For a second, the involuntary hate comes back but disappears just as quickly as I see how much this has broken her. She looks like the living dead with sunken eyes and a sad, vacant stare but she tries to smile as we look at each other. “It’s nice to see you again, Chloe. You don’t know how much we’ve missed you and how much Max missed you.”

Her words hurt just as much as it would if she just started screaming at my face and hated me for killing the person that meant the whole world to her. I should say something, shouldn’t I? But what can I tell them? That I missed her too? Oh, believe me, I fucking do but that would be easier to say if I wasn’t the reason she’s being missed right now.
They’re supposed to hurt me. They’re supposed to hate the fact that I’m here instead of Max, not be glad that I was the one saved from death. They’re her parents, damn it! Why don’t they see how much the god damn universe took away from us when they took away Max?

My feet stays in place even as Mrs Caulfield steps aside to let me walk in.

Remember who you are, Chloe Price. You’re not someone who’s afraid of entering doorways.

Right now, remembering who I am proves to be harder than stopping the urge to medicate but, once again, conscience Max is right, I have to stop being afraid.

Chapter Text

“What do you truly want to do when you grow up?”

“Max, I’m already grown up. What about you?”

“Travel. That would be awesome! Explore the world. Go far from here.”

“Far from me? Thanks a lot, dude.”

“Dude, you would totally come with me! I need a bodyguard for our adventures.”

“I would be Lara Croft, except real! That would be majorly cool!”

“Totally! We’d have cars and boats and planes and have instant escapes and no adults could tell us what to do!”

“Count me in! What would you do while I was bodyguarding you?”

“Maybe take pictures of our adventures. I would love to be a photographer… as if I ever could be.”

“What are you talking about? Max, you are a photographer. Your pictures could be in a museum! Someday they will. I believe in you.”

Pictures. She was going to become a photographer. We were going to travel the world together and I was supposed to be her Lara Croft. Fucking bodyguard I came to be. I believed in her so much. She kept doubting how great she was and I kept telling her how much greater she can be if she just stopped being afraid. She was always afraid, I always wasn’t. Who knew I was going to be the one to fuck it all for her?

There are Polaroid pictures taped all over a whole wall, none of me and some of her but they’re mostly of places of things everyone gets to see every day but not through her eyes. Through her eyes it turns beautiful, timeless. She used to borrow dad’s instant camera as much as she could. I told her polaroids don’t last as long as digitals but she didn’t care, said there’s something rewarding about treasuring something that won’t last forever.

It takes a moment for me to notice that Max’s parents aren’t the only ones inside the room. Two people I’ve never seen before stands over at the other end of the room, quietly observing me.

“Chloe, this is Kristen and Fernando, Max’s friends from Seattle.” I scan the pictures again. They’re in some of them. Of course she had friends back in Seattle that should’ve been obvious, Chloe but I didn’t expect to meet them in here, in Max’s room where it showed just how much I didn’t belong here.

We work in silence as we boxed up most of Max’s stuff and I try not to choke over her keeping Captain, the one-eyed teddy bear, but I do spend an unusual amount of time holding it in my arms before I finally put it inside one of the boxes. I haven’t said a single word to anyone since I got here, which could be a record in itself, but I can tell I’m the one causing the awkwardness in the air.

Somehow, like a silent agreement, we saved the pictures for last. We spend a moment just looking at them, like people looking at portraits in an art gallery. I remember what she looked like right after she took a picture when we were kids and all I can think about is the last thing she saw before she died. Me. She saw me and her eyes lit up the same way for the last time.

“W-what,” I clear my throat. “What are you going to do with her pictures?” The first thing I say to Max’s parents after five years. I don’t notice that they’re already looking at me before I even said anything.

“Depends on what you’re going to do with them, Chloe.”

My eyes go wide. Wait, they’re not seriously giving me these. I don’t deserve anything from them and I don’t deserve to get anything more from Max. I already took so much from her. “You can’t.” I tell them because kindness is the last thing I expected from the people who lost her. Reacting to danger is like breathing for me but kindness is something I can’t handle. Kindness is a different kind of threat.

Mrs Caulfield walks over to me and touches my shoulder like she’s been wanting to do it since I walked in. Her eyes are red, she’s about to cry and I can’t say I don’t look the same. “You need to stop thinking all of this is your fault. Max loved you like a sister, she chose to save you and we will never blame you or her for that.”

My mouth moves open but no words come out. Mrs Caulfield moves away and looks at her husband. “We have something else to give you. We feel like it’s something Max would’ve wanted you to have. Max made us sign a petition not to read it no matter what but I think you can be the exception.”

“Sounds like her.” They both smile a little bigger now.

“I think it’s back in the car. We’ll just go get it while you guys can start taking down the pictures.”

They step out of the room, leaving me with Kristen and Fernando. Fernando immediately goes over to remove the pictures while Kristen stands back, staring over it again. The atmosphere is tense again now that Max’s parent left us here alone. I can already tell they don’t like me at all.

“You know what she called this?” Kristen motions to the pictures. Fernando looks over his shoulder. He looks kind of sad and scared now while her eyes just showed hate. They were pointed at me. “She called it the Max Caulfield Photo Memorial Wall.” Her words are like a slap in the face.

“Kristen, don’t.” Fernando warns her but he already knows he isn’t going to be listened to.

Kristen is crying now, looking over at Fernando as she yells, “I just can’t believe she’s dead! She’s fucking gone and we’re packing up her stuff with her!” Her pointed finger feels like an accusation.

“She came back for this bitch and look at her! She’s too sad for herself to care what everyone else who really meant something to Max are going through. We’re Max’s real friends, not her!” My nails dig into my palms. Every word hits me harder than the last but I can’t help knowing that I’ve been asking for this since I lost her. “You know what that shooter said? If it wasn’t that obvious when he pulled that gun on you, he was supposed to shoot you, not our Max.”

The instinct to protect myself kicks in. “Fuck you! I didn’t fucking tell Nathan to bring that gun! I-I didn’t know she was in there… I didn’t know.” What the fuck am I even saying? My heart is beating fast and my hands are shaking in fear. Fear as real as when I felt that gun against me. And when fear starts to take me, I push it out. I can feel my body wanting to lash out at something, at them.

Remember who you are, Chloe Price.

“She fucking died because of you and don’t you ever forget that. Just because everyone seems to be so sorry for you, doesn’t change the fact that you let her die.” Any other time, I’d be kicking this girl’s ass and be all up in her face, telling her what else she should shove in there other than my foot. But now I know all too well why she wanted to hurt me. Pain is written so clearly on both of their faces and this is exactly how I would’ve reacted, just to let that pain out.

I look straight at each of them. “I’m sorry.” I feel a hot line of tear run down my cheek.

She stops in her tracks, obviously not expecting the apology. She expected a fight, a protest but I couldn’t give her that. I picked up my beanie, the one I placed on Max’s bare bed a little while ago and head back to the door. They don’t stop me.

Outside of her door, I look back at the little shrine and search out the thing Kate left beside Max’s picture. It was a golden cross necklace and I don’t know why it’s the last straw to get me fully crying again. I finger my own necklace for a moment before I pull it off my neck.