Chapter Text
MAX
Sunday, October 6th
The rest of the day is mundane.
For Max, Nothing and everything happens at once.
She lost her naivety.
Lost her Warren...About to lose Nathan.
And, Chloe. God, knowing Rachel is dead...
Despite wanting to reach out to Chloe now, she leaves that for tomorrow.
Instead, she goes back to the campus and crushes into Victoria like last week. To her no shock, Victoria raises hell and Taylor laughs alongside her.
Max almost mourns her budding friendship with Victoria but she knows the rules now.
She has to keep things as it was.
Has to ask Kate how she is and offer her a tea date knowing Kate is not going to come anyway.
Has to avoid talking to Justin and Trevor.
Or Dana and Juliet.
The only thing that surprises her is Nathan talking to Warren under the tree near the dorm. It almost makes her stop breathing, a memory too close to it flashing by until it's gone and Nathan is slouching away from Warren.
When asked, Warren says Nathan dared him to clean his room which sounds like Nathan being his usual assholish self but still something feels different. Maybe it still happened in the previous loop and she never noticed. Or maybe something changed.
But she doesn't bother for an answer, unlike every time.
At night, She sees Nathan coming out of Vic's room but instead of shutting the door on her face, she lingers on the bluest eyes she's ever seen.
He lingers too, pausing with a frown like he wants to say something until he is back to himself, leaving her sight with anger on his face.
And when she closes her eyes that night, that's all she dreams of.
Monday, October 7th
When morning comes, Max hides in the bathroom earlier than she originally did. This will be torture for her, she knows this but she can't help but want to make sure everything goes as it did before.
By the time Nathan and Warren come inside the bathroom, her body is shaking with sobs. She clumps a hand over her mouth to stop the noises from getting out.
The argument.
The rising voices.
Everything feels like it's from underwater until she hears the bang.
Her mind spins through it all.
Watching herself crying with Warren and colliding with Chloe. Her face is frozen in grief as she tells everyone about Rachel, Nathan, and Jefferson. Surprisingly Victoria wants to spend time with her but Nathan is all she blabbers about, Max feels her own guilt mirrored in her. She's barely holding herself up as she wins the Everyday Heroes Award. The lights are bright, but she feels nothing. The applause is a hollow echo in the back of her mind. San Francisco is another reminder of what Jefferson did or was about to do. The days blur together, the week slipping through her fingers before she even notices it’s gone.
Even today the rain falls in a quiet, steady rhythm, almost as if the sky itself was mourning. Max stays under a black umbrella, her fingers gripping the handle as she watches the small crowd gather around Nathan’s grave. It isn’t a grand funeral-just a few people, scattered and distant, no one really knowing what to say or how to feel.
Victoria and Hayden are there unsurprisingly, standing a little too close to the grave as if trying to hold onto something they couldn’t name. Victoria's eyes are red-rimmed, and she hasn’t said much since they arrived. Max can see the way Victoria’s shoulders shake every so often, her hands stuffed into the pockets of her coat, clenched so tightly Max wondered if she was drawing blood from her palms.
Chloe stands next to Max, unusually silent. She hadn’t wanted to come at first. “Why the hell would I go to his funeral?” She had said, her voice sharp, full of the anger that still simmered just beneath the surface. But in the end, she has shown up, and now she holds Max, her face unreadable.
Warren stands a few feet away, his head bowed as the rain soaks through his coat. He has no umbrella, just his hands stuffed into his pockets. Max hasn’t even noticed him at first, so quiet and still, blending into the gray landscape of the cemetery. But now, seeing him there, standing in the rain, something about it makes her chest tighten.
As the priest’s voice trails off, Warren finally looks up, his eyes meeting Max’s for a brief moment. There is an apology there, a shared understanding. He has come to pay his respects, though she knows he probably doesn’t even know why.
“This is so fucked.” Chloe shifts beside her, her jaw tight, the anger in her posture evident. She hasn’t forgiven Nathan for what he did...maybe she never would. But standing here, at his funeral, even she seems to recognize the tragedy of it all.
Max swallows, her throat tight, the grief pressing down on her chest. She wants to say something, anything, but the words wouldn’t come.
Finally, Chloe breaks the quiet silence. “You think he’s at peace now?”
"I hope so."
Max keeps her gaze low, the casket covered in flowers. Nathan’s parents are absent. Unsurprisingly. There were whispers that his mother had sent money to cover the expenses after Sean Prescott's arrest, but nothing more. They haven’t even shown up to bury their own son.
But a blonde girl is standing close to the casket.
Max scratches her brain to remember who she is when a name comes to her mind, Kristine Prescott.
So at least one person didn't completely abandon him.
Max almost wishes she didn't come or act like she belonged when Warren walks over to her and Chloe.
“You came.” Max says softly, though it isn’t really a question.
Warren nods, blinking away the raindrops clinging to his eyelashes. “Yeah. I figured... I don’t know. It felt like I should.”
Max glances over at Chloe, whose jaw is clenched tight. She still hadn’t said much, and Max knows it is taking everything in her not to lash out. But instead, Chloe just nods, her voice low and rough. “It is a tragedy. Doesn’t make what he did okay, but... yeah.”
Warren shifts, looking down at his shoes. The mud is caked around his ankles. “I guess we’ll never know what he could’ve been if things had been different.”
Wasn't this the question of the year?
As the rain begins to lighten, people start to drift away from Nathan’s grave. Warren hangs back, lingering as others leave. Max notices him glancing at her, his brow furrowed, something unspoken hanging between them.
When the last of the mourners disappears down the gravel path, Warren shifts his weight and steps closer. “Max, can we talk? Away from... here.”
Max blinks, surprised by the serious tone in his voice but nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
He leads her a few paces away from the grave, to a spot near a cluster of trees where the rain didn’t seem to reach as heavily. Chloe stays back, watching them from a distance though she keeps her gaze fixed on them, ever the protective Chloe.
Warren turns to Max, his face tight with concern. “I didn’t want to bring this up here, at the funeral, but... I found something. In Nathan’s stuff.”
Max’s heart skips a beat. “What do you mean? What did you find?”
Warren takes a deep breath, his hand fidgeting with the wet fabric of his sleeve. “I wasn’t trying to pry, but... I don’t know, something didn’t feel right. So, after everything went down with Nathan, I-well, I went to his dorm. To his room. I guess I wanted to see if there was anything, I don’t know, that could explain... all of this. And he did tell me to clean his room so I just thought...ugh, this is a mess.”
Max feels a cold chill run through her, a familiar sense of dread creeping in. “What did you find?”
“It’s better if I show you.” He pulls something from his suit pocket, a small, folded-up piece of paper, the edges frayed from handling. He hesitates for a moment before handing it to her. “I found this in one of his drawers. Hidden under some photos with red arrows. It's like he wanted someone to find it.”
Max unfolds the paper with trembling fingers. The ink is smudged in places as if it had been handled roughly or written in a hurry.
Max, if you're reading this...
I don’t know where I’ll be, but I’m guessing it’s not a good place. Maybe I'm already gone. I’m sorry for everything. For what I did, for what I couldn’t stop. But it's not over. There are still some things you don't know. So if you still want me...come and get me.
“I thought Jefferson was the end of it." She murmures, her voice barely audible. “I thought... when he was arrested...”
Come and get me.
Come and...
Max looks behind the paper to see it's a picture of Nathan, well before this week.
Her breath hitches as she grips the photo tighter. She has promised herself—never again—that the damage had been done, that Arcadia Bay has already paid the price for her meddling. But can she really walk away now, knowing that there was more? Knowing that Nathan had tried to give her the truth in his own broken way?
But she has no power now.
Or was it a lie she told herself so she would not try to go back again?
Max closes her eyes, the cemetery fading into nothing. She feels the familiar pull, the strange, hum vibrating in the back of her skull as she focuses on the photo. She can see the moment in her mind, the sharp angles of Nathan’s face, the way his eyes always seemed so haunted, even when he tried to hide it. The world around her begins to warp, her pulse quickening as time starts to bend.
The photo seems to blur in her hands, colors bleeding together...
"Max..."
Nathan...