It had been four years, to the day.
Four years, since Max had doomed their hometown, for one girl.
Max was in class, doing her photog thing at U of Wash.
After the storm, they had drove to Seattle, to Max's parents. Vanessa stood in shock for a second, then wrapped Max in a hug. “Oh god, Maxine! You’re alive!”
Ryan stepped out a second later, joining in the hug.
Chloe looked away. She went back to the truck, partly to get their stuff, partly to give the Caulfields some privacy. They had managed to grab some clothes out of the wreckage of Blackwell, and Chloe’s house.
When she returned, things seemed a little calmer. They stepped through the front door. With what she hoped was a good facsimile of a smile, she greeted Ryan and Vanessa “Hey, how’ve you been?”
“Chloe Price, is that you? With blue hair?”, Vanessa said.
“Yup.”, with that same, brittle, smile.
The memory faded, as Chloe took another sip of her beer. Some random shit was playing on Netflix, and Spotify was on her phone. She wasn’t paying attention to either, they were just background noise.
Max still had her powers. But, without the butterfly photo, things were set in stone. Max couldn’t rewind that far.
That old voice, the depression, came around more and more frequently. ‘she killed an entire town, for your pathetic ass. and it’s done. No takie-backsies”, the voice sneered.
I’ve been reading books of old
The legends and the myths
Achilles and his gold
Hercules and his myths
What the shit? Max must have put this on her list. It sure wasn't the rock that Chloe liked.
Spider Man’s control
And Batman with his fists
And clearly I don’t see myself up on that list
Chloe sighed. She sure as fuck wasn’t a hero. Just Robin to Batmax. No, not even that. Even less than a sidekick. She was just the chauffeur, as she had told Max those years ago. Just a hanger on, as Max saved the day. She was nothing, so that meant that Arcadia Bay had died for nothing.
She slightly stumbled to their bedroom. It had taken a year of living with Max’s parents, even with help from them, to get a cheap cracker box of an apartment.
She pulled away the loose floorboards she had discovered one day, when Max was at class. She pulled out the .45 she had salvaged from David’s ruined gun case. It had been hella hard to hide it from Max, but, she had.
As she sat, staring into space, she absently stroked the gun. ‘It’s just correcting a mistake’, she thought.
A door slammed, and Max called, “Chlobear, where are you?” In a quieter tone, “she should be done with her shift at the tattoo parlor by now.”
She stepped into the bedroom, and turned white as a sheet of paper. “Chloe, NO!”
Startled, she dropped the gun. “Why not, Max?”, she said, fire burning in her words, and in her eyes. “Why do I deserve to live ,when they all died?”
Max ran to Chloe, almost crushing her in a hug. “By being you, Chloe. By being the most wonderful, beautiful person in this entire damn Universe!”, Max said, choking back a sob.
“Why? I’m nothing fucking special!”
Max heard the song in the living room playing, and she sang along. Her eyes locked onto Chloe, as if she was the only thing that existed.
I’m not looking for somebody
With some superhuman gifts
Some superhero
Some fairytale bliss
I just want something I can turn to
Somebody I can kiss
She suited action to words. She poured all of her love, her admiration, her soul, into the kiss.
As they broke apart, Max said “You don’t have to be a goddamn superhero, Price. You keep me going, when life is shit. You are MY hero.”
“It’s hard to remember that, with my damn brain trying to kill me.”
“I know, babe. But, I’ll always be here. ALWAYS. Maybe you should think about getting therapy?”
“I’m not sure what the hell good that’ll do, but, I’ll do it. I will do anything for you, First Mate.”
‘And I for you, my beautiful pirate Captain.”