Chapter Text
Anything could have happened to her; his knife piercing her side may have only temporarily healed her…she could have developed an infection, there had been no way or no time to disinfect it.
The War Boys and War Pups back at the citadel could have rebelled against her… the rest of the War Party could have reached the Citadel and taken it back.
Hell, she even could have fallen off one of the rickety bridges that connected the towers. Could have, could have, could have…
Every time Max thinks about the could haves panic grips his chest and doesn’t let go until he has turned his car back towards the place he had just left. In the 256 days since he left the Citadel, Max had turned his car around and around too many times to count.
There was the wild, feral part of him that couldn’t face the thought of returning into a place with so many people, a place where he had been stripped of all that was his.
There was the unsure part of him that didn’t want to allow the idea of people counting on him to even come back in the first place.
But then there was the large part of Max that couldn’t imagine not going back at all…never knowing for sure what happened after his departure. Not knowing what happened to her.
As he sits in the drivers seat of the car he’d stolen, staring out into the Wastes, Max, for the first time, truly considers what it would be like if he did return. Would the Citadel be like a new Green Place? Would she be the new leader? What has become of the Wives? Too many questions.
But no. He couldn’t. He shakes his head, an attempt to get rid of both the ghosts that haunt him and these thoughts of hope. He turns his car away, and keeps on driving, he can almost imagine her eyes staring into the back of his skull, glaring at him. No. He can’t go back…
30 days later and again Max finds himself driving towards the Citadel. The ghosts are too loud. Screaming nonstop in his brain.
MAX!
Where are you?
Come back!
Turn around!
Help us! Help me!
Why didn’t you stay?
How dare you Max! How dare you abandon us!
MAX!!!!
He rubs the palms of his hands against his ears, but it does nothing to quiet them. He feels he has no alternative. At this moment his existence has boiled down to the never ending screaming and his attempts to stop it. Nothing is working. He has to at least try, and see if even getting closer to the Citadel will help.
He sees it rise up on the horizon, unmistakeable in shape.
He drives as close as he dares, but still, it does not end.
Huffing impatiently, he makes a decision. He is finally going back to the Citadel.
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She isn’t told. Not a single person mentions it to her, and she is pissed. She hears it accidentally whilst lying under a car in the garage, fixing it up. A War Boy scout discussing it with Toast and Capable.
After all her efforts, after everything she’s given them, no one bothers to tell her that he came back…and that they turned him away.
All she wants to know is why. She had so many things to say to him, and she has been deprived of her chance.
She returns to her quarters to ponder in silence, to think about what she would do when she saw him…what she would say.
She’s angry. She’s upset. She doesn’t know how she feels anymore, her emotions a fuse that could light at any moment. Since returning to the Citadel, Furiosa has had to keep herself contained, she has had to ensure that she stayed calm and reliable. She has not yet been allowed to feel, to express. When the Wives, (Sisters now), turned to her for guidance, she obliged; she hadn’t wanted to be a leader but they’re pleading faces were too difficult to deny.
But now, all this time later, she is still obliging, and its slowly tearing her to pieces. She had hoped that by now she could take a step back and do what she did best, fixing things and making things and doing things. Sure when she held council meetings with the representatives from Gastown and the Bullet Farm she was doing something but it wasn’t what she wanted. It was a different kind of doing. Furiosa needed to be moving, making, fixing, anything but sitting and talking. But for the sake of the Sisters, she had persevered.
But now, right now, the fact that they hadn’t told her that he’d been here, and been turned away, was eating her up from the insides. She decides to try and find Toast or Capable and confront them. She can’t think of a better option. Not when she’s so angry.
She finds them in the new council room, storms straight up to them and yells.
“How dare you try and hide this from me! Do you not understand? I have things I need to say to the fool!”
Clearly, by the startled looks on their faces, they didn’t know that she knew.
Capable recovers first, trying to placate her, ‘Furiosa we’re so sorry but we thought it would be for the best! Please just calm down!’
Toast takes a different strategy and yells back, “The idiot left us! Straight up left! Of course we’re going to turn him away, he has no place here anymore, he gave that up when he turned away and stole one of our cars!”
Furiosa is too angry to even respond. She turns away, makes her way to the top of the central tower and breathes heavy through her nose, feeling each breath with the still present ache in her side, like a reminder.
After she calms, slightly, she makes her way to the garage.
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He is dumbstruck. Never had he contemplated that they would say no. Maybe he was being selfish, but the thought had honestly never crossed his mind.
Now he truly has no purpose. At least before there was always a hint of an idea, that he could return when he needed, when he wanted. As he drives away, he wonders if Furiosa knows (he’s still desperately clinging to the hope that she is alive). He only saw Toast, and she was definitely angry, and she didn’t tell him anything he wanted to know. But he had hoped that Furiosa would be different. That she’d understand why he couldn’t stay. He doesn’t know what to do, so he does what he knows. He drives. He drives fast.
One second he’s speeding away, the screaming filling his ears again, and the next everyone he’s ever failed is standing in front of him, in his direct path. He swerves, apparently too violently, and flips his car. He drags himself out of the car and collapses into the sand. The last thing he remembers before he blacks out is Glory sitting near his head, just watching. The screams are silent now.
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She was gone within the hour. She knows she should have told someone, but she’s pretty sure they’ll be able to guess where she’s gone.
She comes across a crash not too far out of the Citadel’s boundaries. She’s wary of Buzzards, but is pretty confident that they wouldn’t attack so close.
When she sees the car, upside down, something flutters in her chest. She pulls up close and investigates.
She almost thinks it isn’t him at first. His hair and beard are longer. But once she looks into his face its immediate. She does a quick check for any bad injuries and decides he’s just passed out, nothing too major. By the looks of his skinny frame and tired face, she guesses he probably passed out from shock, exhaustion, dehydration and hunger, and not from some life-threatening wound.
She pulls him out of the wreckage, making a mental note to send someone to salvage it, and drags him to her car, thinking about what she will say when he wakes up.