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Chapter Text

It’s dusk, the moon is crawling out of its warren, and Max is cradling her phone in an empty bath. Hiding from her problems, from the thoughts that always seem to emerge at these late hours. She looks at the email again. 

Chère Maxine Caulfield,

Félicitations ! Le Centre Pompidou is    delighted to extend to you an invitation to the ‘Dernière Chance Expo’. We are eager to have your outstanding portfolio on display alongside a curated selection of the world’s most inspiring and innovative artists. 

Our team will contact you shortly with more details and to discuss payment. Transport to the event will be covered, however, accommodation cannot be provided. 

We hope to see you in Paris later this year ! 

Bien Cordialement,

XXXXXXX

It’s happening. It’s really happening.

And it’s all tomorrow. 

She stares at the words for so long that they’re still there when she closes them. 

Pompidou. Where has she heard that name before? She massages her head. The migraines have been getting worse recently. It’s only been a decade since she left Arcadia Bay (again), and yet sometimes it feels as if entire lifetimes have passed unannounced. 

Her phone buzzes.

“Yo! Maxie-Max where are u?”

Shit. She’d forgotten about their plans for tonight. She still has to do some final prep for the exhibition. Not to mention she’s currently in her PJs. 

“Hurry uppppp!!! You may be big shit now but we didn’t come all the way to Paris just to get stood up by you”

Oh well. She wasn’t really looking forward to tonight anyways. More dreading it than anything else. 

“I’m so sorry Pix ;-; gonna be a little late”, she types.

“Yuh! I figured! that’s why we’re on our way to pick you up” 

“What?! No no no dw, I’ll meet you guys there” 

“TOO LATE we’re on our way bitch. oh hey is Sophie there btw? just wondering…”  

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

Standing before the mirror, it’s difficult for her to truly believe the person in the reflection is Max Caulfield. The same Max Caulfied as a month ago. The same as a year ago. The same as a decade ago. 

Pretty much the only thing that hasn’t changed is her vanilla fashion taste. Even her bob cut is gone. It’s grown longer and messier with each passing year. 

“Don’t mean to rush you Max, but we’re kinda rearing to go out here.” 

Is that Pixie or Dana? She can’t tell. It’s been so long since she’s heard any of their voices. She’s still reeling from the shock of them actually being here. When she happened to mention the exhibition, she never could’ve expected them to have asked if they could come too. 

“One moment, just finishing up.” 

“You and your precious moments!”, shouts what is unmistakably Warren. 

Thrifted shirt with a horned alligator on, crocheted cardigan, denim jeans, butterfly belt, doe necklace, and a carabiner. Pretty much perfect, if you asked her.

Still, there are times she wishes she cared a little more. In the reflection she sees rows of makeup systematically organised on the shelves. She doesn’t recognise a single product, but she’s certain Sophie would know exactly what to give her. Maybe that’s what she’s missing. Or at least part of it. She sighs in relief when the door knocking starts again. Saved from the perils of personal beauty. Another night, maybe. 

The moment she leaves the bathroom, Pixie and Dana pounce on her and smother her under a joint hug. 

“Kate says she can’t make it. She’s here with her mum and sister, so they’re doing a bunch of touristy shit tonight”, Pixie tells the group. 

“You should invite some of your new French friends, Max”, Dana suggests. 

“What makes you think I’ve made any?”, Max laughs. “Pretty much the only person I know here is Sophie, and she doesn’t count because I’ve known her since my first exhibition.” 

“Sophie?!”, exclaims Pixie. “Is she coming too?” 

“No, she’s doing overtime. Some of the photos for the next edition got corrupted, so she’ll probably be there all night.” 

“Are you sure she’s not just ignoring me?”, Pixie laments, dramatically falling to the floor as if she’s the lead in a high school production of a Shakespeare play. “I haven’t seen her in person in like a week.” 

“Haha, who would ever want to ignore you Pix?”, Max replies. “She’s just a workaholic. If you want to go out with her so badly, ask her.” 

Before Pixie can protest, a stressed out Warren chimes in, “Can we save the Pixie-picking for at the bar? We’re already an hour late and the others are going to drink it dry at this rate.” 

“Others?”, Max asks. Hints of worry shadow her face. She doesn’t want to be around too many people, even if they are her friends, and even if tomorrow she’ll be surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands, of total strangers at the exhibition instead. She should be taking solace in the fact that so many familiar faces have flown out to be with her. At least, that’s what she tells herself. 

“Alyssa, Dex, and hunky hunky Hughie”, answers Dana.

“Can you stop calling my boyfriend hunky?”, Warren says, whilst the rest of the room struggles to hold in their laughter. 

Before they leave, Max asks if they can take a quick photo on the balcony. The backdrop is the same picturesque view of the Eiffel Tower and the surrounding cityscape that has been captured enough times to fill out all the art galleries in the world a hundred times over. The sun has completely vanished, but the city still glows under the blemishes of the moon and pervasive light pollution. There’s a mist hovering above the horizon, as if a giant is holding it in place long enough to give Max a clear shot. 

She takes a few pictures of all of them with her tripod and digital camera. Then, she pulls out her Polaroid. The same Polaroid that has been sewn to her hip long enough to be counted as another limb entirely. 

“There’s our retro queen”, Dana hollers, with the others joining in. 

“You had us scared for a second”, adds Warren. “I thought the real you had been replaced by CyberLife or something.” 

“Wow, even your references have gotten an upgrade”, Max teases Warren. 

After taking one of the others, they insist that they take one of just her. Reluctantly, Max tries to pose before the camera, but eventually reverts to the same position she’s comfortable with. Hands held in front of her as if she’s about to bow, and a gentle smile on her face. 

“Say, ‘I’m not going to let being in an internationally renowned exhibition go to my head and feed my obviously already massive ego!’ ”, Warren says. 

As the camera clackers, a monarch butterfly lands on Max’s shoulder. She turns to look at it, staring it in the eyes while the others crowd around Warren to look at the photo. She can’t believe it. She knows it’s impossible, but she swears it’s the same one from the toilets at Blackwell’s. It’s silly, but there’s something about it. The ethereal way it sits there, staring right back at her, boring into her soul.

“Max! Did you see the butterfly?”, Warren asks, waving the photo in the air. 

The butterfly chooses that moment to fly away, disappearing into the night as effortlessly as it appeared. Like a song caught in the breeze. Max peers over the balcony, looking for any sign of where it might’ve gone. She leaves the apartment with the others feeling a lingering sense of loss, of guilt - of what could’ve been. 

Chapter Text

“You coming Max?”

She’s only a step away from the curve, staring at the doors as if they’re a riddle to be solved. The bar’s name is written out in elegant, glowing letters above heavy and ornamented doors. The longer she stares, the more the letters lose all their meaning, shedding it like dead skin. Useless, transient, but once pertaining value. For a second, she considers running. Not to any place in particular. Just start and never stop.

“Woahhh!!”, she cries, as Dana firmly grabs her wrist and drags her inside. As they whip through the doors, any thought of escape evaporates behind its dramatic closure.

The wave of noise disorientates her, nearly knocking her over the moment the doors seal off the comparatively quieter Parisian boulevard outside. She tries to take in her surroundings - bodies swaying all together, a ceiling painted in swirling colours, a cacophony of conversations that even diluted she would struggle to understand - but it’s too much. All she can focus on is Dana’s hand, guiding her, shepherd to sheep.

Dana practically throws her into the booth, gracefully sliding in next to her. Pixie and Warren are there, heartily sipping at drinks that they somehow managed to get before Dana and Max caught up. Had she really been waiting outside for that long? Squashed up next to them are Dex, Hughie, and Dwight, in that exact order, with Hughie clearly desperate to move next to Warren instead.

“Aye,” Pixie shouts, “The main exhibition is finally here! Let me go get you and Dana some drinks.”

“Anything but shots”, Max shouts over the noise.

“Shots it is!” She sticks out her tongue and adds, “As the French say, ‘soo la voo’!”

The others immediately bombard her with a flurry of greetings and questions. Dex and Dwight stand up to come and give Max a hug, giving Hughie the opportunity to slide in next to Warren.

“It’s been nearly five years Max”, Dwight says as they sit down. “I get that you’ve been busy, but it’s like you vanished - just poof, and you were gone.”

Five years. She knows how five years has affected her own appearance, but looking at Dwight makes that time more tangible.

His face is strong and angular, with a glacial harshness. It doesn’t hide his softer nature though. There’s a comforting glow peeking from beneath his cheeks and forehead, like the fractals of frosty blue light trapped beneath an icy exterior.

“Listen… Dwight… I’m just not great at staying in touch with people. It’s never not been a problem for me and, well, these past few years have been really, really exhausting.”

“Still, the only receipts I had that you were still out there were a couple random story responses and now this out-of-the-blue letter inviting me to Paris!”

“I’m not trying to make excuses”, Max sighs. “I’m just glad you decided to come. From now on, no more vanishing - I swear.”

“Oh yeah?” Dwight chuckles and takes a swig of his beer. “I’m gonna keep you to that Caulfield.”

The empty drinks pile up on their table, building a mini cityscape of variously sized glasses. The bar is so packed that there’s no hope of a cleanup.

Their conversations drift from one topic to the next, with enough catchup to draft a novel. When she isn’t talking, Max finds herself glancing between each of her friend’s faces, trying to map out and understand how their topography has shifted.

She’s drifting away, the fourth shandy numbing her awareness, when she hears a single word.

Butterfly.

“You should see the picture!”, Pixie says, shaking Dwight’s shoulders enthusiastically.

“Warren managed to do some double exposure or something, it’s super weird!”

“What do you mean?”, Max asks. “Warren doesn’t know how to do that. And anyways, didn’t the camera only shoot once?”

“Wow, offensive much”, Warren retorts. “But, not wrong. To be honest, I’m confused as to how I did it too.”

“Show me”, she says, a little too seriously.

The picture looks normal enough at first glance. In fact, Max is kind of shocked that Warren was able to take a photo like it. The lighting is subtle but striking, the contrasting is strong for a relative beginner - and he even managed to line her up so that just enough of the landscape is visible without it becoming the central focus.

Then there’s the butterfly.

But more importantly, there’s what’s next to the butterfly.

It’s her. Another Max. Hovering behind her shoulders, hardly more visible than a wisp of smoke.

It’s not double exposure, but what is it? She runs through all the answers she can think of: the film leaking, a problem with the lens - who knows? Maybe Warren shook the camera a little too carelessly and this was the result.

But none of the answers sit right with her. There’s something about the Max in the photo. Only her face is visible, and judging off that, she looks different in an implacable way. Younger yet older too.

Her friends seem less fazed. They pass around the photo, offering restrained to borderline excessive praise to Warren.

“Are you okay Max?, Warren asks. “Is it the photo? We can get rid of it, or redo it, if you’d like.”

“No, it’s not that.” She picks up her messenger bag and stands up. “I just- I need a moment.”

“It’s probably the shots she explicitly asked you not to get”, Dwight jokes, nudging Pixie’s shoulder.

She’s nearly out of earshot when Dana says it. Says what they’ve all been thinking.

“Give her a break: it’s the anniversary soon, after all.”

She wishes she hadn’t heard it, tries desperately to keep walking as if she hadn’t. As if Dana is wrong. As if that isn’t what she’s always thinking about, manoeuvring around, compromising with.

She strides as confidently as she can to the toilets and locks herself in the first cubicle she can find. There’s a certain guilty familiarity to this that she’ll never lose - hiding in toilets, that is.

The restroom door opens again not long after. She hears the clatter of heels and is absolutely certain that it’s Dana - come to drag her back out again.

Instead, the stall next to her opens and shudders shut. For some reason she finds herself holding her breath, counting the passing seconds in her head. Is it out of shame or fear? Either way, it’s ludicrous.

“T’as une clope ?”

The voice is crisp and fair, the transactionary tone of their question sounding laughably out of place in the glitzy toilets of a gay bar.

Max finds herself clenching her jaw shut, wishing the stranger away. What is wrong with me?, she thinks. This isn’t who I am. This is not what I promised I would be.

They follow it up with an, “English?”, after she fails to respond.

She coughs. The violent static in her head settles.

“Yeah”, she says. “English.”

“Cigarettes - you have one?”

She makes the effort to loudly finger through her pockets, despite knowing she’s never carried cigarettes on her. Why would she?

“No, sorry- I mean, désolé.”

“Bah, t’es certain ?”

Max mistakes her tone as offence at first, but is more confused when she realises it’s shock.

“Are. You. Sure.”, they repeat, clearly thinking that Max’s answer is a simple translation mishap.

“Yes!”, she shouts. “I’m sure. Look, my jeans are empty - I’ve never smoked, and I’m not planning on starting.”

She feels around in her pockets again, just to prove the point, when her left hand catches something.

As she slides the box out of her pocket, her hands shake and rattle the contents inside.

“Mais, dis donc, pourquoi tu mentes là ? C’est pas vrai, ces Américains - je jure.”

Max knows this brand of cigarettes. A dim flame in the distant recesses of her memories reignites. It burns stoically in the darkness, relieved to have finally grabbed her attention.

The dam of suppressed pain it tears open inundates her instantaneously, crushing her under a wave of raw, treacherous emotions. When she stumbles out of the stall, she’s lucid enough to wonder where the annoyed smoker went, before she hurtles back to the toilet and vomits.

That’s how they find her: Dana holding back her hair, Pixie stroking her back. They lock arms and walk back to their booth, but by now the night is decidedly over.

Warren awkwardly offers her a hug and promises to get rid of the photo. He's bewildered when Max asks him to give it to her instead, but he complies nonetheless. The others disperse one after the other, fading into the night as easily as they had from her life five years ago. Longer still for some of them.

Pixie is the only one left. She can’t stop apologising for the extra drinks, as if knowing Max’s alcohol tolerance is supposed to be her one and only job in life. Her guilt is probably made worse by the fact she hasn’t drunk anything herself.

They end up getting a ride home together, with Pixie adamantly refusing to leave her side. When they walk in, the lights are off and the curtains drawn.

“No sign of Sophie then”, Pixie sighs.

“Yeah, she’ll probably be back in a few hours at this rate. I hope she gets enough sleep for the exhibition.”

The place is painfully empty without Sophie. Max hadn’t realised how habituated she’d gotten to her perfume trailing her, the random moments where she’d start signing, or the knowledge that no matter how late she stayed up, Sophie would be somewhere in the house draped in blankets and pouring her soul into her drawing tablet.

“You should stay.”

The words come out before Max can understand why.

“This flat is stupidly big - if it’s only me, I’ll probably go crazy. Even if it is just for one night.”

“You’re offering me a free night inside an apartment so insanely deluxe that some French aristocrat undoubtedly lost their head over it?”

“Yes.”

Pixie drops her bag and charges at the nearest divan, launching herself spread-eagle into its silken embrace.

With her head still muffled by a mouthful of pillow, she asks, “Does that answer your question?”