The night Timothy had died hadn't been good for Maddie, but it had been worse for Simon. She hadn't seen it, she'd been too busy spending the night sobbing into her brother's arms, but Simon's night had started going downhill before his brother had overdosed.

In the moment it happened, he was convinced Maddie not loving him back would be the worst thing that ever happened to him. That moment, filled with enough emotion to last a lifetime, would go down in history as the worst moment in Simon Kalivoda's life. He'd thought that he would relive that moment forever, the terrified look on her face as tears slipped out of bloodstained eyes, the way his heart dropped into his stomach, the way the curtains rustled in front of him, the open window making it hard to see, but that didn't matter because he knew what every single inch of her looked like with his eyes shut.

And then time unfroze, and the walls that Simon felt were closing in came crashing down. He thought that feeling, of being suffocated by the walls until he died, he thought that would be worse than anything else he could ever feel. But when his entire world collapsed, leaving him burried under the rubble with no one willing or able to save him, he knew that would be his lowest point.

It had been a blur that night, the ambulance sirens, Kate at his side as the police questioned him, the victim's brother, gripping his hand as if he would float away if she let go. Maybe he would have. Maybe he would have floated high above the ground, destined never to return. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. The phone call to his mom was one that he would never forget. Sherrif Goode had made it, but Simon had been there, within earshot, the muffled cries of his only parent ringing through his ears as she shattered.

But, two minutes later, and that noise was replaced by the rush of blood as he wrapped his arms around his brother, closing his eyes against the feeling of Timothy's arm tensing around Simon's shoulders, and the way his scattered breaths ghosted over SImon's shoulder, the only indication that he was alive.

Drugs had almost killed his brother, but now, drugs would be his saving grace. Not just his, but Kate's, the girl who'd kept him together when the sheer outside force was threatening to pull him apart, and Maddie's, the girl who would do anything for those she loved, which Simon was ecstatic to learn included him. 

"Let's Timothy this bitch!"

Since that night, Maddie had thought a lot about dying. Well, more than usual, considering she did live in "Killer Capital U.S.A," and something that had invaded her mind for a while was the question of where. Where would she die?

Needless to say, after much consideration, she'd decided that the Grab N Bag, the grocery store Simon had worked at for the last three years, would be a pretty shitty place to die. Yet, it's exactly where she was.

"A few months ago, my brother Timothy had an unfortunate experience in which he injested too much of a certain substance," Simon dumped an armful of pills onto the counter they were all gathered around. "He was dead for two minutes. But," he did a little drumroll on the counter. "We got him back!"

"Kate," Deena said, the other girl turning to her with wide eyes. "It's time for your close-up,"

It was a group effort, with Simon giving Sam very specific instructions, while Maddie helped Kate distribute. She didn't know as much about the drugs as Kate did, so she left that up to her, simply helping her when she needed it. 

"You need to take these in order," Simon explained firmly, gesturing to the little piles the two girls were making. "Pile one takes the edge off, you're gonna feel like you're being fucked by a unicorn," Sam frowned, giving Deena a look at his choice of words, but he'd captured her attention again after a second, continuing on. "Pile two is gonna bring your core temp way down. You may feel slightly sick,"

"You will feel slightly sick," Maddie corrected, not looking up from where she was counting out a number of red and white pills to go into the third pile.

"Yes, that," Simon pointed at her and nodded. "Now, you need to take a five-minute interval between pile two and pile three. That's really important, okay? Pile three brings you down and out, so you gotta take that "take five" or it's all gonna go to shit!"

Sam flinched at his tone, but Simon didn't have time to reassure her before Maddie was speaking up. "How many epi-pens have we got?"

"Tons, like a thousand," he said. 

"What are those for?" Deena asked.

"Epinephrine, also known as adrenaline," Simon said as Maddie and Kate gathered as many as they could. "This is what brings her back. This is Jesus!"

"As long as we have these, you're gonna be okay, Sam," Maddie said, Sam let out a shaky breath, but tried to muster up enough of a smile to get Maddie to look away from her.

Once they'd finished with the drugs, it was time to move on to, arguably, the more disgusting step. They took some of Sam's blood, just a few drops in a bucket of water, but enough to attract the killers, and each one of them (other than Deena and Sam) had an X painted on their chests.

Kate looked up from where Maddie was painting on her. "We're going to be okay," she said, somewhat uncertain.

Maddie nodded. "Yeah, we'll be fine,"

"Mads?" Simon spoke up softly, Kate pushing her towards the boy, and he pulled her behind an aisle of shelves. She put her arms around him and leant into him immediately. He pressed his forehead to hers and for a second all she could hear was Simon trying to steady his breathing. "Are you okay?"

She whispered back to him. "I'm with you. That's the best I can do for now," 

He kissed her, and she let herself be enveloped by him in the middle of the grocery store, neither of them wanting to say what they both knew. The likelihood of survival now that they were painted with Sam's blood was growing increasingly slim.

The two of them savoured eachother's presence for as long as they could, before they knew they had to return to the rest of the group. "Remember half an hour ago, when you wanted to murder me?" Sam chuckled lightly, but none of them cracked a smile. "You don't have to do this. You can leave."

"Remember when you decided to sacrifice yourself for us?" Kate replied. "We're ending this together,"

"You're not doing this alone," Maddie confirmed.

"Die well, my friend," Simon put a hand on her arm.

There was so much left unsaid between the four of them, but standing there, in the shitty lighting of the Grab N Bag, covered in Sam's blood, they came to an agreement. Whatever happened, no matter what had been said or who had left, they would be okay.

Unless they were murdered, but they'd burn that bridge when they got to it.

────────── ⋆˚✿˖° author's note
im literally so dramatic whenever i finish a fic i swear i act like my real life children are going off to college or something. but not even like a good college, it's definitely the vibe of like "no stay with me, i'll take better care of you than they will!!" like. i'm out here acting like maddie is going to the university of florida or something.

one more chapter of act 1 so if ur reading this all in one go maybe grab a snack, go to bed if it's after 11pm, take a breath. as you may have heard, i wrote this nearly 2 years ago and i truly enjoyed it so much so i really hope you enjoyed reading this!! now, this is just the end of act 1 (which does unfortunately mean the end of maddie's story as we move onto the next movie), but each act has it's own complete story arc so it sort of feels like the book is over even though i know it's not </3