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For a long time, they don't speak.
At first they sit facing the ocean, safe up high on the hill, watching the world fall apart before their eyes. The wind bites at their skin and the rain burns, burns, burns. And far away the city disappears within the storm.
Eventually, Max can no longer bear to watch, her mind simply repeating the same three words again and again: I did this. I did this. I did this. It's far too late now to go back and try again; the shredded bits of butterfly long gone upon the wind. But that is an even worse proposition than sitting there watching her home disintigrate. For every time she's gone back, she's only screwed it up again, and still the storm came. And if she'd gone back and sacrificed Chloe, only to find herself once again on a hill watching a cyclone, this time without her best friend by her side, the sacrifice for nothing?
No. Max couldn't bear that. The possibility was too frightening for her to even have considered the option.
And so eventually they turn away, huddled up against the ruins of the lighthouse, Max with her head leaning heavy on Chloe's shoulder, the exhaustion of the past week finally catching up to overwhelm her. In the midst of the storm, in the warmth of Chloe's embrace, Max falls asleep.
**
"Max."
Chloe's voice floats into a dream, stirring Max slowly back into awakening. She blinks, lifts her head and rubs her eyes, stares up into the bright blue sky. The sun is back.
All of their muscles are aching, and they again lapse into silence, the both of them still stunned and shaken by the night's events. They can barely stand to look, gazes slipping away from the sea. They walk together down the mountain holding hands.
Chloe's truck is still there at the edge of the forest, looking miraculously untouched. Her keys jangle loudly in the morning silence. "Guess we should check things out," she says. There is an attempt at the old Chloe humor, the old Chloe carelessness. It's forced.
Max slides into the passenger seat and wraps her arms around herself, shivering. Her clothing is still damp. The storm really happened. She stares blankly out the window as Chloe drives, as she slowly maneuvers her truck through the wreckage.
And there is nothing to say. Everything is in ruins, everything flattened and torn and broken. A deadly haze lies over the town; all the air has been sucked away. Everywhere is silent. Max wipes invisible tears from her eyes, her vision blurry and itching. They see no survivors.
Chloe stops the truck and turns to look at Max. "Hey," she says quietly. She nudges Max's shoulder. "Max." Max looks at her, feeling slow and heavy. "I know this is a fucking stupid thing to say considering the circumstances, but...thank you." Chloe's smile is gentle and kind, a smile of the sort Max hasn't seen on her in years.
"Chloe," Max says, choking on the syllables. "I...I couldn't...."
"I know," Chloe says, and reaches over, taking Max's hand in hers. Max feels a sudden rush of warmth, a sudden surge of something like relief. Chloe is alive and they're together. She smiles.
Chloe doesn't ask if they should stay or go; she doesn't have to. Max has made her choice, made it long before she fell asleep in Chloe's arms by the lighthouse. There is nothing left for them in Arcadia Bay; they will leave it behind, leave the horror here to lie in the dust, rusting away into nothing.
They drive away.
**
Max dreams about them. She sees Kate and Victoria, Dana and Juliet, Joyce and William and David and Warren, all of them suffering and dying in the winds, in the fires, in the agony of the storm. Max dreams of time going backwards, blood in her eyes and lead in her bones, lost in the whirling cyclone with no power to stop it, no will to save them. All she does is fail, all she does is wander and everyone is lost.
She dreams of Mr. Jefferson, coming towards her with a syringe, and she wakes up gasping, not knowing where she is or what is happening. She can't remember which parts of her life are real and which are dream fragments, which are snippets from time later erased. She grasps at the bedsheets until her fingers find the flesh of Chloe's arm beside her, and suddenly Max can breathe again.
They are in a small motel in the middle of nowhere, having turned off the highway once neither of them could stay awake any longer. Chloe still has some of the money they took from Blackwell, which they use to secure a room for the night.
Chloe shifts and she is whispering, "hey, hey, it's all right," and Max finds herself curling up in her best friend's arms, thinking suddenly of all the opportunities she's missed, all the dumb shit she's done and let happen to herself and to Chloe. She thinks about her diary, lost somewhere in the ruins, and the pages filled with hope and dreams and wishes, wishes she could never have spoken aloud before finding herself in a dark room full of the memories of nightmares.
"Chloe," Max says, in desperation, and then they're kissing, gasping into each other's mouths, hands gripping arms and shoulders and waists. The shadows flicker in the motel room and the moon shines pale white light through the slats in the blinds, and they find solace in one another, finally.
**
Max calls her parents to let them know that she's all right, that she's with Chloe. The destruction of Arcadia Bay is all over the news and people have been frantically searching for their families and loved ones. Max and Chloe watch on a tiny black-and-white televsion with their fingers intertwined, squeezing tightly every time another survivor surfaces.
They don't yet know if the town will ever be rebuilt, if the time and money are worth the effort. Some people think it's better off wiped off the map forever, the scourge of the Prescotts. If Max didn't feel so responsible she would agree.
"Fuck it," Chloe says, pulling Max in to place a sloppy kiss upon her cheek. "You don't know that you did anything, Max. This could have been fated to happen all along. It could have been anything. You didn't do anything wrong."
Max smiles at Chloe and slips her arm around her waist. "I know," she says. "Because you're here."
"Don't get sappy on me, Caulfield," Chloe replies, but she's grinning.
"Will you come home to Seattle?" Max's mother asks, her voice thin and misty over the phone lines.
Max considers. "I don't think I will just yet," she says finally. "I think Chloe and I still have some things to work out. But we're okay, mom. I love you."
They sail off down the highway together, hair blowing in the wind and hearts pounding in their chests. Dreams will replace nightmares sooner than they can imagine. Life goes on without Arcadia Bay.
Max buys a new camera and keeps it close. She'll want to record what happens next – not to travel backward in it, but forward, with Chloe, living together.