A/ N: This is the final chapter of their storyline. I had so much fun crafting their common past. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did.
Xxxxx
Max didn't come back. He couldn't possibly come back to Phoenix after he nearly killed her. The whole moment was nauseating. He tried to convince her to leave his side and not participate in his vendetta and she ended up saying things that made him angry. The assassin hurt him with her dismissal of his personal tragedy and he couldn't contain himself anymore. He wanted to silence her, make her pay for insulting him and killing her came to mind. She looked at him, ready to die by his hand but the defiance in her eyes snapped him back to reality. Max couldn't do it, he refused to kill her so he left the motel room.
Phoenix chose to stay in that room and used her goggles to spy on the compound that was a couple miles away. Max and she decided that the best moment to attack Cesare and his men was the night, so she spent the day eating burgers and thinking of last night event and what it truly meant to her. She went too far, she was aware of that. Nobody in their right minds would accept the verbal abuse she forced on Max last night. She could have driven the point differential and was now wishing she had done that instead of trying to dismiss the man's pain. He lost his family and his pain was still very real, very palatable and she stomped on their memories without any regards to them or how it would make him feel. Then, he did try to kill her and she welcomed it without a fight.
Her neck recovered from his strangling. She still had the marks of his fingers on her skin but she didn't mind much. Those would heal but the damage she inflicted on Max would not wear off. As she was laying on the bed, waiting for the moment to move, Phoenix leaned her head against the headset of the bed, clenching her fingers at the thought of her behavior. Yes, she acted that way because she felt insulted that he tried to save her. Phoenix felt she was beyond redemption and always told him so. She had blood on her hands and while she didn't regret taking the lives of the crooked and criminals, she did have some serious regret about taking the lives of innocent victims. All the people she had killed regardless of their age and gender.. all those people who shouldn't have been dead were dead by her fault, their blood was on her hands, so dying in itself wasn't such a bad idea. She tried to take her life so many times since she wiped out the organization that turned her into this monster to being with. She tried, so what was one more try?
Her eyes closed as she leaned her head a little harder against the headset. Max was special. He was opening up to her just like she was to him. He went past her defenses and got close to her in ways many people couldn't. She let her fingers run over her plump lips, remembering the taste of his when he kissed her. Her eyes opened and she realized that her heart was aching at the thought as well. Phoenix felt her heartbeats get faster at the thought that maybe, just maybe she actually cared about Max more than she wanted to admit. Her eyes started to look from left to right and she cursed under her breath. «Shit! Shit! It's not true! » It wasn't ! she wasn't attached to Max! It couldn't be! She put her feet on the floor and pushed herself at the edge of the bed, her eyes were still wide open at the realization that actually yes, she did care about Max a lot more than she pretended to. Him leaving, not sending a text or giving her a call was more stressful than tonight's mission. Him leaving felt like a loss, it felt like losing Phaser the first time around and she hated that feeling.
She kept cursing under her breath and felt tears fill her eyes. Why was she like this? Why did she have to push him away after all that happened between the two of them? Did that mean she was beyond repair? Did that mean she was unable to actually build a life for herself? A life she could be satisfied with? What did Max have to do with her ability to find happiness? She couldn't breathe.. she started to take deep breaths and looked left and right, unfocused, unable to stop. Her heart started to beat faster and she ended up screaming. She held fists of honey hair in both hands and started to cry. It was indeed a loss, Max left to never return because she pushed him way too much, way too hard. How could she do something like that to him? Her tears kept rolling on her cheeks, warm, bitter like her heart at the thought that maybe, just maybe, she did actively sabotage herself.
Deep down, she knew that sticking by Max was her way to tell him that she cared for him and wanted to give him the support she thought he needed. Neither of them was good with emotional support, neither of them could give the other what they truly needed. Max needed to snap out of his vendetta before it killed him for good. He needed to give himself a fresh start and mourn for his family's loss. He should have but he couldn't. He allowed anger and despair to take over him, hence why he decided to avenge his family but with his body that dropped on his wake, he sunk further into his pit of darkness with no possibility to get better He was destroying himself but there still was a sliver of hope and he found it in Phoenix. She understood him, she was as broken as he was and yet, she was still trying to do the right thing. He felt guilty, for a brief moment, when he asked her to come with him when she wanted to stay in Boston. She had started to turn on a new leaf, saving lives rather than taking them and he took her with him in his spiral of darkness. He had her kill people again and pushed her in this path. He did that.
But she made him smile again. She made him laugh again. She made life better for him and it scared Max. It scared him because when he looked into Phoenix eyes, he saw a potential future. He saw himself outgrow his vendetta and actually invest in the future, believes in the future and that couldn't happen. It felt like betraying his family and himself. So he had to distance himself from her, push her away so she would return to a better life and to having a shot at redeeming herself by doing good.It didn't work, obviously but it wasn't just because of the way he said it, or the moment he chose to say it. It also didn't work because of her dire need to die and pay for her crimes. Part of him believed that she did it on purpose, rile him up so he could kill her. Better die by the hand of the one you love than one you hate, right? Right? Wait...Did he just assume she loved him? Or did he know already? Max couldn't say. He felt it, the connection between the two of them and the ways she looked at him, talked to him, touched him. He could tell she was attached by the way she kissed him, the way she said his name... They never had sex, they never went as far as a couple of kisses because she still had issues with being touched but they didn't need that to establish how attached they were to one another. They were. He was and coming to realize that he nearly killed her horrified Max. It made him think, it made him leave.
Standing in a room filled with broken pieces of furniture and in tears, Phoenix looked at the compound where Cesare had been hiding and glanced at her watch. It soon was the time she and Max chose to start their assault on Cesare. She cleaned her face with the back of her hand, vowing to herself that she would still carry Max' mission and eventually would meet him there. He wanted answers Cesare had so it made sense he would still go there and kill the man himself after he took the information he needed. She wore her white spandex suit she was infamous for, started to gear up and when she was ready, she looked through the goggles one last time and noticed suspicious movements towards the compound. Intrigued, she left the motel room and went on the rooftop where she would have a better view of what was happening and would have an easier access to the compound without being seen. She heard gunshots on her way to the rooftop and started to run to get there faster. What sounded like an actual raid gone wild. Once on the rooftop, she used her goggles to have a better view of what was happening and noticed FBI vans. She blinked and knelt on the floor as she realized that the feds were called in. Max called them, otherwise, they wouldn't be attacking at the same time the two of them agreed on.
Why did he do that? She sat on the floor, coming to the realization that her journey was abruptly stopped there. She couldn't go further with Max, he wouldn't be back. She couldn't help herself but sob, hard. Her tears kept rolling down her eyes as she realized that this was it. It was over. All she could do now was to move forward and think for herself once again. She would have to come back to the life she left in Boston, helping people again now that her appetite for Death and Destruction was sated for the moment.
«Damnit! Damnit, Max! What did you fucking do? »
She kept repeating, running her hand through her hair. What did he do? Did he actually save her life? Max liked to think he did. It became obvious that the only thing he could do to prevent Phoenix from wasting her life would be to tip the feds on Cesare's whereabouts. They would come and stop Phoenix from actually dying. He wouldn't need to physically be there when that would happen, although he actually did. Because he wanted to make sure she would not be stubborn and actively get herself killed. He hid well, on the rooftop of the building next to the compound and watched a distraught Phoenix, cry out of anger and confusion. He didn't expect her to nor did he enjoy it, but at least she was alive and she didn't try to stop Cesare by herself. At least she was alive and she would return to her old life. He watched as she kept cursing him and cry ugly and watched as she calmed down and just sat there in silence. Allowing Cesare to actually escape from him -he got arrested which at least gave Max a possibility to visit him later on and question him- and be handed out to a system he didn't believe in, was Max' way to actually move forward, try and not let the abyss suck him in. It was a tiny step forward but at this point in his life, he would have taken anything.
« We'll meet again Phoenix. » -He whispered to himself, turning on his heels and leaving the rooftop as he was now certain she survived the night. -
It was the end of their adventure together and both knew that despite taking different paths and being deprived of one another, they both gained something. He did, he found Hope again. He saw a glimpse of what his life could be, once he got his revenge and Max knew he would hold onto that thought. He would hold onto the idea of finding Phoenix again and building something with her. Someday...Maybe. She gained something too. She found parts of herself, of the woman she truly was. With Max she wasn't a fake identity, she wasn't pretending. She was herself, her true self and he unknowingly helped her accept that part of her life, at least, helped her begin to. With Max, she started to have Hope, yes, Hope for a better life. Hope for redemption. She considered a life by his side, something new and sweet with someone who understood and didn't judge her. It felt like a dream but she intended to go back to Boston and work hard to make sure it became true.
But was it an end?
-THE END-
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