Oh my god THAT’s why she’s willing to sacrifice her crew, because she’s tried any variation of telling them, of asking their help, and there’s always somehow a weak link, they’re not good at secrets, at acting. They don’t even come away from the Citadel, or her crew is suddenly replaced by Joe, or she’s taken off the War Rig, or– In desperation she tries not telling them one time, and it’s gut-wrenching, but then she gets much further, and now she has to get them killed over and over again, punch Ace off of her running board like he’s one of the Wretched over and over again–
She only ever reaches the other Vuvalini once, on their final run, which is why it was so crushing when she found out that there were only a few left, and that her home was gone. The run through we saw was the furthest she ever got, after hundreds of times watching her crew and the sisters die in different ways. Maybe she even killed Max many times before, or left him to die in the desert.
What. Make him stay?? That would probably make him run faster, especially given the ‘I just known you for three days’ thing and ‘who is this wierdo’ and ‘wtf is there about me to like, they’re clearly looking for something’ and ‘what the hell kind of person even says those things’, and y’know, instant escalation of doubt and distrust.
But what if more things happened in one of those runs than just what we saw. Is what I’m getting at.
But wait…what if the new loop doesn’t restart with him offering her his hand on the Plains of Silence? What if it starts with “can I talk to you?”
That means she’s had endless versions of this conversation. That little half-smile she has on her face when he says “I’ll make my own way” is because she already knows he’s going to say that. Because he says that every time.
Maybe she learns that if she’s too honest about wanting him to stay, it scares him off and he doesn’t come back the next morning. In some of those versions, they ride across the salt until they run out of food and water. In others, someone figures out they have to go back–maybe Furiosa figures it out herself, or Val suggests it, or Toast does, or Nux and Capable have been talking on the back of their bike and come up with the idea. But it never works without him there.
Then, one time, almost by chance, she says the right thing and he catches up to them the next morning, and they get much further, and she realizes, oh. She can never make him stay, but if she’s cautious and lucky, he’ll figure it out himself and come back to her. It’s still a hard day, a really hard day, and she does it hundreds of times over, and she always dies, but slowly she learns all the other pieces that have to fall in place.
She doesn’t realize until the last time through that the reason he needs to be there is not as an extra fighter, although that helps, but so he can give her his blood and keep her alive to reach the Citadel. Because the part at the Citadel never works without her.
And she still can’t make him stay.
….I hate all of you.
And every so often, she says/doesn’t say just the right thing under the blazing stars in the safe shadow of the war rig. And he does come with them, even though he knows it’s probably fatal; he’s given up hoping for any other outcome than death, and he’s okay with that - in the company of these people he’s okay with letting go of hope.
So gradually - as they ride for days across the glaring salt, spend nights cold under the thousands of cold stars - his guard comes down. And gradually - in quiet minimal conversations over water-breaks in the desert, watching meteors leaning back on the sand - she gets to know him. She gets the opportunity to value him for himself, not just for his abilities or his strength or his damage. And day by day she gets to see him heal, just a little, in the quiet companionship of everyone around him.
And then they run out of water.
And she’s standing behind him, as he tucks away his map, in the sheltering dark of the war rig, carefully crafting the words she’ll say this time. This is the moment, this is the fulcrum, this must be where she can change the outcome to life rather than drying to husks in the desert sun…but words that make him stay end in that outcome, words that make him come with them end in that outcome; and she doesn’t know, she can’t imagine what this fulcrum moment hold within it that will bend their destinies to some future without endless circling back through death to past-life to death again.
And this time, in her despair, she doesn’t bother bargaining with him or needling him or soothing him or gentling him or any other other strategies she has tried over the cycles. And when he chases them down over the hot salt…he has a plan.
And this is utterly new.
god damn you
There’s one version–
There’s one loop. A loop where he leaves with them across the salt.
They keep to their course, and they get to know each other, and they
save their water and their fuel and they balance it, speed before they
run out of water and steady before they run out of fuel. They gentle to
each other, and he speaks more and she touches more and Valkyrie holds
them together when she can’t, and they manage it. They reach a new green
place.
The cliffs are high, and they have to keep going around, until they
find a place where they can go up onto the green. There is a weathered
sign saying ‘Tapotupotu camping place’
There’s sweet water and green and they cry like they didn’t know
their bodies still could. They have made it. They set up camp on the
bank of the stream and can’t comprehend their fortune. It takes a long
time to fall asleep that night, she, Max and Valkyrie curled around each
other.
When the loop resets and it’s dark and desert and Furiosa feels
herself form the words ‘Can I talk to you?’ she holds them back. Walks
into the desert instead and screams at the sky for the next three loops.
*flings self on the sand*
*screams*
why? whyyyyyyy did it reset? were they all bitten by vipers or something? was there a flash-flood? whyyyyyy?
this fucking fic man…
[I’m sticking this here, cause it originated in my tags but could be the set-up for that AO3 entry someone (cough I’m lookin’ at you primarybufferpanel & bonehandledknife :D) could will compile:
I’m really loving all the different options for where/for whom the cycles happen. I like to imagine they ALL happen - maybe sequentially, maybe simultaneously - they ALL happen and repeat and repeat….until they converge on the life outcome, and all the cycles cease.
This whole fic contains within it no contradictions in that case - it ALL HAPPENS.]
It reset because what breaks the loop isn’t them all surviving; it’s overthrowing Joe’s reign.
Which means the convergence of all the cycles that finally breaks the loop is not the same combination as “everyone lives.” Maybe it’s impossible to have both.
Oh THAT - now that is PERFECT.
Max says it himself: if you can’t fix what’s broken, you’ll go insane (..with having to relive things over and over..)
