"Human", by Daughter

Max whimpered at the gunshot, her body shook, and she felt the air vibrate. Not even knowing she had done it, Max had rewound for the fifth time, again altering Chloe's fate. No matter how hard Max tried, no matter how many times she recalled the townspeople's pleas and Chloe's self-sacrificial words, she couldn't bring herself to do it. Every gunshot was a precursor to the next, Max swearing up and down that she would not rewind only to do so instinctively.

How can this all have been for nothing? The week we shared… The love we found… And now I have to let her go, let her… let her die…?

Max sniffled and held herself even more tightly against the wall as time reset to Nathan entering the girls' restroom. Hearing him walk up and down the narrow corridor, always coming up short to finding her, Max braced herself for Chloe to come in and had to hold a hand over her mouth when the voice she'd found she loved came through with a bitterness that seemed out of place after five days.

"…Let's talk bidness…"

Chloe, Chloe please don't…

"…I can see the headlines now…"

Chloe, don't push him! He… He has a gun, for Chrissake!

"…Get that gun away-"

"NO!"

Max didn't remember getting to her feet, didn't remember coming around the corner and screaming at Nathan Prescott as he came seconds away from shooting and killing Max Caulfield's childhood best friend and the girl she'd come to love. What Max remembered was the look of realization on Chloe's face, mouthing Max?! at her as the sound of a gun going off. Max remembered thinking the worst, watching Chloe die again, and then feeling a sharp pain in her side. Placing her hand on the source of her anguish, Max pulled it back and found her fingers soaked in blood. He shot me… He shot me, not Chloe…

Good. No more death for Chloe, no more fear and crying at watching her die. This… This is better, she deserves to live. All I've done… Death and destruction in my wake…

"Chloe…?" Max mumbled as she fell to her knees, slumping against a wall as Chloe punched Nathan Prescott and slammed his head into a mirror, the gun clattering under a bathroom stall, "C-Chloe, you're alive…"

Max saw Chloe look over her shoulder, watched David Madsen come running in. She heard Chloe scream "He shot my best friend! Get help, please! PLEASE!" and turn to look back at her.

"Max… Oh fuck, Max. You… You saved me!" Chloe's eyes dripped tears onto Max's face, Max responding with a choked breath and strained grin.

"I'll always have your back, Chloe. Always."

"Dude, I… I wanted to see you, now that you're back in-"

"I suck, Chloe. I should have kept in touch, should have gone looking for you the second I g-got b-back," Max's head felt foggy as she waited for time to push her into her present day, "Chloe… Chloe, I love you. Don't forget that. Ever."

Sitting up, wincing with tears streaming down her face from the pain, Max brought her lips to Chloe's and held them there for as long as she could. Pulling back after what felt like a lifetime, Max let Chloe ease her back against the wall and hold her. Leaning her head against Chloe's chest as the sound of EMTs come rushing into the main hallway, Max watched the butterfly. The blue morpho had returned, perched back on the bucket that was now tipped over. Are you… Are you watching me? Max thought, and she could have sworn that the wings seemed to actually glow. Feeling faint, Max figured it was her mind playing tricks because just before everything faded in a golden hue the butterfly seemed to fade away until it disappeared entirely…

…Chloe Price lying on the floor, Nathan Prescott hovering over her in a nervous mess turns into a shot of Chloe sitting in the back of the ambulance with Max unconscious on a stretcher…

…Max sitting alone in her room, looking at old pictures of her and Chloe, becomes a picture of Chloe sitting at her bedside, Max in a coma with her parents, Joyce, and David standing on the opposite bedside…

…Kate Marsh standing on the rooftop by herself turns into a framed shot of Nathan Prescott pointing out Mark Jefferson to the police in the hallway, Jefferson trying to run only to be chased down by David Madsen himself…

…Max sitting at the Prices' dinner table with Joyce and David, looking at Chloe's things together, becomes a shot of a newspaper article about a brave girl saving her friend from becoming the second victim in a string of macabre crimes tied to the Prescott family and once-acclaimed photographer Mark Jefferson…

…Max walking up to the lighthouse, dressed for Chloe's funeral shimmers and vibrates before turning into embers entirely…

Max felt a dull throb somewhere in her body. Her mind sluggish at first, it took her a moment to realize her eyes were closed and that she wasn't dead. The last thing I… I kissed Chloe, told her I loved her… What's going on? Max couldn't feel anything aside from the throbbing sensation, couldn't detect her body or move anything. Is… Is this it? Did I break time so much that I'm trapped somewhere in-between?

"Chloe said you were kind-of a nervous wreck at times. Guess that proves it," an unfamiliar voice said in the darkness and Max suddenly found she was dressed in the clothe she'd worn on the 7th of October once more, "Relax, Max. You're… You're elsewhere right now."

There wasn't any floor to speak of, only a blackness, but Max found solid footing under her and turned to face the one girl she'd been in search of ever since reuniting with her best friend.

"Rachel…," Max said, her voice barely a whisper, "Oh… Oh, Rachel…"

Rachel Amber ran the distance between them and held Max in a firm hug, crying on Max's shoulder. Suddenly feeling very awkward, Max hugged the girl back and patted her back to try and soothe her. Hearing Rachel snicker, Max scowled and stopped the patting.

"Don't be mad," Rachel said, pulling back to kiss Max on the forehead, "It's just that I'm not used to such cutesy attentiveness. It's hella weird, but nice. I can see now why Chloe missed you so damn much."

"Rachel, we tried so hard to find you. I'm… I'm sorry we were too late," Max pleaded, taking the other girl's hands, "I am so, so sorry."

"Max, you have nothing to be sorry about. Hell, you searched for me when you didn't even know more than my name. You didn't do it for me, though, did you?"

Max held her arm with her hand and averted her eyes under Rachel's smiling gaze.

"Yeah, you did it for Chloe. That's okay, though, because I knew how she felt about you long before you did. Max, that girl is in love with you but is too butthurt to hella admit it," Rachel said with a snort as she crossed her arms. "And you love her too, don't you…?"

"…I… Yeah, I think I do," Max looked up at Rachel before swinging her arms out to gesture at their lack of surroundings, "But it doesn't matter because it is too late. Wherever this is, It's my karma. I don't get to be with her, I get it. Some cosmic fuckery won't let me be with my best friend because destiny is fucking strange."

"I told you, Max, you're not dead. This isn't some kind of oblivion or whatever," Rachel took a seat on what looked like Principal Wells' office chair and offered an exact copy of it to Max, "Think of this as a… Well, it's complicated."

"Try to explain it to me in a way that will make sense. Science nerd, I am not," Max said as she took a seat.

"It's, well, you've become separated from time itself. Your subconscious, in return, is connecting you forcibly by bringing all the realities you've entered together into one fucked-up space. This is that space," Rachel motioned with her hand and the blackness became the junkyard hangout, "As you exist out of time, part of you is immortal. There will always be a part of you here. That's why we can talk, why you can talk to me when I'm already dead."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Rachel said, smiling despite the sad tone in her voice, "I was a dumbass, tried to get out of that damn town too hard. I should've just stuck with Chloe, we were so good together…"

"So," Max said, a pain blooming in her chest, "You were together-"

"No!" Rachel raised her hands out toward Max, "No, not like that. I think she might've been into me like that, but I don't mess. I also don't play second fiddle. That girl, ugh, she talked about you so much that sometimes I couldn't be around her. Which brings us to now, because this moment is coming to a close."

"What moment?"

"You have a choice, Max Caulfield," Rachel said, standing up as the space around them shifted to the lighthouse cliff on Monday before the snowfall, "You have to choose a reality. Going back to when Chloe got shot and doing what you did? Whatever higher power might be watching over you, God or Goddess, you're done time-tripping. You have to pick one reality and stick with it."

"But…," Max said, brows knitting together, "How do I choose? The storm-"

"The storm only exists in some of the realities, and in those only will it remain. In some, the storm never comes to be, and in one none of the freaky weather ever happened," Rachel said, sticking out her tongue to catch a snowflake, "Mmm."

"Then I choose that one, so long as I get to be with Chloe!" Max leapt up from the bench and found they were now in Jefferson's class, the other students frozen in time. Seeing Jefferson made both girls shiver and Max instinctively punched him in the face to Rachel's giggle of amusement.

"Asshole," Rachel muttered.

"Motherfucker," Max hissed, hitting a frozen Mark Jefferson again, blood spouting from his nose as it broke, "I hope you burn in every Hell of every reality."

The girls stood there in silence for a moment before Max looked at Rachel.

"I choose the one with no storm, no freak weather or dying animals. I… I want to be just an 18 year old again," Max said, her hope diminishing a little at the somber look on Rachel's face.

"…What you've seen and done, Max, you'll carry with you," Rachel said, her tone saddening like it was breaking her heart to tell Max these things, "Like I said, a part of you will live forever. That part will keep all your memories of the past week in your head."

Max seemed to weigh this information in her head. Biting her lip, Max let out a deep breath through her nose and nodded.

"Okay."

"You sure?" Rachel asked, smiling a bit when Max bravely nodded, "Close your eyes."

Max closed her eyes and when she opened them again they were far heavier, as though she had been asleep for a very long time. The light was harsh and made her squint, her body slow to react as the world focused around her. As her vision cleared, she realized she was in a hospital room, lying in a hospital bed. The fluorescent lights burned her eyes and she brought a hand slowly to her face to shield herself from how bright they were. The dull throb returned, Max looked down and realized that she was in a hospital gown, the quilt from Chloe's room draped over her. How…? When…? Having no recollection, Max looked up at the TV that was running and saw that it was the 11th of October. Turning her gaze toward the window, Max saw the sunny sky and nearly cried from the relief she felt. I took a bullet and saved Chloe. Reaching out with her hand, Max felt nothing. No rewind power, no time-freezing ability, nothing; Max had never felt more relieved than in that moment…

…Until she heard a can drop to the floor and looked over at the door to her room.

Chloe Price stood in the open doorway, a spilled can of soda next to her booted feet, and stared at Max. Max stared back, a puzzled look on her face, and smiled when she realized this was the Chloe she'd gotten shot for. This is it, Max thought, her smile widening as Chloe cautiously walked over to her bedside, This is my final destination. No more time travel. Just now…and you, Chloe. Always you.

"Hey," Chloe said, her voice shaky but relieved, "Glad to see you're finally awake. Surprised no one fucking told me, though. I'm here every day, so you'd think-"

"I… I just woke up, Chloe," Max said, wincing a little as she laughed, "You get first dibs."

"Hella yes!" Chloe cried out, looking over her shoulder to see a nurse gawking at them, "Uh, surprise? She's awake?"

Seeing the nurse run off, Max knew they had little time before whoever else was visiting her came to the hospital room. Taking Chloe's hand, newfound strength from her desire waking her sluggish body, Max looked into Chloe's cerulean eyes with an intensity that made the punk blush. Now or never, Caulfield.

"Go on a date with me," Max said, no hint of a question in her voice.

"W-What?"

"I better not have to dare you, Price. When I'm out of this place, I want to go out on a date with you," Max said more earnestly, squeezing Chloe's hand, "I know what I said in the restroom, and I meant it. So, will you go out with me?"

"Uhhhh," Chloe scratched at her azure hair, "Max, a lot of shit has gone down recently and I'm not sure that-"

"We can take…," Max snickered, "We can take our time, Chloe. I know what's been going on with you-"

"How-?"

"-and I am willing to wait for you, but I also want you in my life. Indefinitely. When all is said and done, when time no longer hurts but heals, will you go out with me?"

"…Can we be best buds again in the meantime…?" Chloe asked, her expression hopeful.

"Chloe, I never forgot you, and I'll always choose you," Max said, leaning in slowly to kiss Chloe on the forehead, "Always."

Author's Note –

I remember when someone leaked the code after Chrysalis came out and there was an ending in Polarized marked "Hospital". Judging from the chatter online, one can assume that this was another choice we might have been given if there wasn't whatever was going on with DONTNOD during the finale's production.

This story is basically how I imagine it would go, mainly because I refuse to accept Max going through everything she did to keep Chloe alive and with her only to sit in the bathroom and wait for the girl she'd come to love die.

Read, please PLEASE review, and I'll see you all later!

Stay Hella, Cinnamon Rolls!