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It’s Max’s relief she thinks, that someone knows about her powers, that Chloe believes her, that does her in.
She’d felt Chloe’s hesitation up at the lighthouse, could tell Chloe had wanted to believe her, had certainly come to believe that Max believed but, well.
Max couldn’t really blame her, it was a big ask. Seeing that Chloe was considering her words, wasn’t immediately googling mental health wards had been enough to hang onto up there, so far above the town.
She’d distractedly imagined ways of showing Chloe her power in the least alarming way possible but quickly realised she’d have to wait until the weakness clinging to her after her vision had faded. (She still felt stupid using that word but she hadn’t come up with a better way of describing it. Blackout dreams of future disasters were visions.)
In any case, things hadn’t worked out that way. After the business with the train, there really hadn’t been any denying the truth of Max’s abilities.
And it was her relief at Chloe’s gratitude, at Chloe’s acceptance, that Max is convinced got her in trouble.
Chloe is still shaking when they enter her empty house again and Max can feel her own limbs trembling as they climb the stairs. When they reach Chloe’s room, she’s only just closed the door (remembering David’s booming voice) when Chloe turns to her and breaks the taut, in-shock hush they’d made their way back in.
“You saved me.”
Chloe is staring at her and Max doesn’t want her heart to thud at the near reverence in her voice but it does anyway.
“Again,” Chloe says blinking, “you saved me again.”
Max hears herself mumble a useless don’t mention it, but Chloe gives no sign of having registered it; sinking down on her bed and breathing out, “I was so fucking scared.”
“I’m sorry, I would have gone back to try and stop it from happening at all, but I still haven’t really figured out the limits on how far back I can go, and once I’d saved you I—I didn’t want to risk it.”
Max isn’t sure exactly what she didn’t want to risk; she could have gone back again if her efforts to spare Chloe the terror of having been stuck at all had failed. But as she goes to sit on the bed, all she can remember is how frantic Chloe’s breathing had been against her as she’d held her in the dirt beside the train tracks. How tightly she’d clung to Max.
“Are you kidding? Don’t be sorry Max, thank you.”
Max feels the heat rising in her cheeks, even as she knows how stupidly out of place it is. Chloe really had just nearly died.
“Seriously, I’d be dead without you,” Chloe continues.
This time Max manages to work out a slightly surer, “You’re welcome.”
Chloe lets out a long breath and leans back with her arms behind her, turning to face Max more fully.
“Your powers are fucking insane, Max. I mean shit, you can actually reverse time,” she says, sounding dumbfounded but certain.
Max turns towards her lack of disbelief, watching her blue hair glow with the afternoon light from the window as she goes on.
“God, think of all the things you could do! Besides saving my ass, I mean.” Max’s mouth twitches up in response to the grin that breaks across Chloe’s face as she speaks and she lets herself just watch her, imagining all of the harebrained and probably ethically sketchy schemes the girl is no doubt already coming up with.
Chloe pauses, her energy stilling at Max’s silence. Max expects her to say something teasing, or even concerned, but instead Chloe just waits. In the short time they’ve been reunited it had quickly become obvious that this Chloe—the new Chloe—was not a girl who was fond of the quiet. It’s this; that Chloe allows the silence anyway, that she simply stares back into Max’s eyes as the moment stretches, that reassures Max that despite what Chloe’s just been through, it is decidedly not sketchy to lean forward and press her lips to hers.
Chloe doesn’t move.
Max tries to suppress a spike of panic—she was sure she’d seen something in Chloe’s eyes—and forces herself to stay still for a moment. Chloe hasn’t moved to kiss her but she doesn’t seem tense beneath Max’s lips either; Max feels Chloe’s eyes close, feels her breathe out through her nose against her upper lip, feels the soft brush of eyelashes against her cheek, almost imperceptible, and thinks maybe—
There’s a hand at her shoulder gently but unmistakably guiding her back and Max immediately pulls away. Her heart kicks up another, seemingly impossible notch. She twists to the side, muscles tensing to get up but she manages to stop herself from actually physically bolting out the door. There’s no need to make things worse than they are, she thinks with sinking, crushing realisation and then, almost involuntarily, I don’t have to move to leave.
She sinks back into sitting beside Chloe. Doesn’t look at her. Feels Chloe looking at her.
There’s a long silence.
“I guess you’re going to rewind, huh?” Chloe’s voice is thin and the pseudo-casualness isn’t even remotely convincing. Max appreciates it anyway, even as her stomach turns violently. She wonders why she hasn’t gone back already.
“Not much point in staying, I know how you feel now,” Max says, limbs still buzzing. Chloe’s eyes dip down and away from her.
“There’s no need for me to make you uncomfortable.”
Chloe responds immediately, “I’m not uncomfortable.” The lightness is dropped from her voice altogether now, instead sounding almost desperate.
The awkwardness is still thick in the air but she knows that isn’t what Chloe means. It’s not what she had meant either. Max thinks of what Nathan tried to do to Chloe and shies a little further away on the bed.
“I just… please don’t rewind.” Max watches Chloe’s fingers curl into the fabric of the bedspread and sees her turn away. She swallows.
“I don’t want to forget.” Her voice sounds weak now.
Chloe shakes her head suddenly, eyes clenching shut, “Or, or to have it, erased, like it never happened—for me anyway.” She struggles to correct herself, to wrap her mind around the unfathomable truth of their situation, of Max’s power.
Max feels the doubt bloom in her chest. The only thing that had kept her from completely, well, freaking out, was the knowledge that what she had done wasn’t binding. That nothing she did was anymore.
She feels her body curl in on itself.
But Chloe seems to center herself then, straightening. “You’re not making me uncomfortable Max. I mean it.” And her voice sounds so earnest; her eyes are so uncharacteristically gentle when Max brings herself to steal a glance, that she knows she’s going to stay even before Chloe says, “You don’t have to leave.”
Max lets the silence drag for too long before:
“Okay. Okay, I won’t.”
Max stands, slowly, and moves to lean against Chloe’s desk, careful not to disturb the mess. She crosses her arms and looks at her feet. Forces herself to say, “I’m sorry.”
She only half hears Chloe’s continued reassurances, this whole situation feeling too overwhelming, too fraught for her to handle; her throat tightening dangerously as she tries not to think of the world, so close to this one, where Chloe doesn’t know this about her. But she stays.
Because Chloe asked her to, she stays.