Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Book One:

Bay Over Bae

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October 11th, 2013 - Current Timeline

Max’s right arm lay draped across Chloe’s shoulders, yet, slung lifelessly in position, it offered little in way of support. Chloe bore the bulk of Max’s weight through pure will and determination alone at this point. She hoisted the smaller girl up with her left arm wrapped around Max’s back and holding tight to keep her friend from falling, but her muscles were straining, little strength remaining this far into their climb towards safety. With her right hand, Chloe clasped Max’s listless hand that dangled from that lifeless arm over Chloe’s shoulder. The grip didn’t offer much in additional support, but the feel of Max’s skin against her own, of Max’s fingers within her fingers, granted Chloe some measure of solace against the fear pulsing through her. Yet that hand was so cold, and no matter how tight Chloe held on, she felt no grip in return from Max, no sign of strength from this girl who had given so much of herself over the past week just to keep Chloe’s own burnt-out ass alive.

Don’t think about that. Just hold on, and keep going.

Chloe knew if she relaxed either grip, the one around Max’s back or the one holding to her hand,  Max would have collapsed onto the trail; she was sure of it. Yet Chloe’s arms hurt so much and her shoulders ached from Max’s weight and the struggle of the hike. It should have been a fifteen-minute climb at most, but Chloe was fairly certain it had taken her nearly forty minutes to get this far up the trail. Her awkward posture wasn’t doing Chloe’s back any favors either. A great tension throbbed and spread down from her shoulders as Chloe kept herself hunched low to support her shorter friend. 

Only a little bit further, she thought, yet the whole body strain of her task screamed at her, crying for her attention, and her lungs burned, unaccustomed to the long hike up the hill from the beach, weakened from years of smoking, and, moreover, just plain exhausted from the burden of bearing Max’s weight for the entirety of the ascent. Max’s legs moved without intention, as if echoing Chloe’s climb up the trail, yet there was no spark within her. Max trudged along, a shadow of her former self, a husk that merely mimicked life, going through the motions, but with no strength of her own. Her eyes gave way no hint of recognition or consciousness, half-lidded, barely open, and without betraying any sign of awareness for the onslaught of the storm that raged around them. 

The storm. That fucking monster. That Butterfly Effect wannabe, inexplicable, cock-sucking, mind-boggling, asshole of a Big Bad. That goddamn, no holds barred, piece of shit, capper to the motherfucker of all weeks. Goddamnit!

It’s like the world had it out for her. No, she thought. Arcadia Bay has it out for me.

And of course it did. Didn’t this shit-pit always have it out for her? Her best friend comes back into her life after five fucking years, sticks with her no matter how often Chloe goes and shoves her whole damned foot in her mouth spouting off at Max and taking her anger out on her at all the wrong damn times, and still that same friend even saves her damn life as if Chloe was actually worth the effort (and not once mind you, but a baffling number of times; which seems odd to Chloe since she’d managed to stay alive for the previous 19 years without so much effort), and yet when Chloe finally has a chance at something good, she has a chance to get justice for Rachel ( fuck that, I want revenge ), has a chance to be a part of something again, can even see that distant light of possible happiness in her future, what does Arcadia Bay go and do?  It throws a mother-fucking tornado right in her path, a kaiju-sized monstrosity set to fuck up her world.

Of course, that behemoth would also destroy Arcadia Bay, which is what she had wanted right; to drop a bomb on this town and turn it into glass?

Yeah… fuck this town.

Even in her head it seemed more like bluster than honest enthusiasm. She hated Arcadia Bay, but what about Joyce? What about Justin? Sure, the town was a shitstain, but she used to have friends here, a life here… Max. 

Oh shit. Can Max live with herself without Arcadia Bay? What about her friend, Kate? Is she safe in the hospital? Hell, Max even cares about the assholes like Victoria. If this motherfucker wipes out the Bay, no matter how much it might deserve it, what does that mean for Max?

The rain slashed into Chloe, stabbing down at her, whipped into a frenzy by the harsh winds. Thunder peeled from a not-so-distant flash of lightning splitting the storm-filled sky, and Chloe jolted from her thoughts. None of that mattered right now. Not the Bay, not Victoria or Kate, or even Justin or Joyce; not even Max after the storm. Right now only one thing mattered: Chloe had to get Max to safety.

Chloe could just discern the dirt path before her, but barely, as the torrential rain blurred her vision, pounding into her and dripping from her blue locks and down over her eyes creating a watery veil that drowned out the world. She fought the urge to let go of Max’s hand, to wipe the beading water from her eyes, but she knew that if she did, Max would collapse. They were almost to the lighthouse.

“We’ll be safe at the lighthouse.” 

Those were Max’s words, the Other Max’s, the one that had replaced her Max after the Vortex party; after Max told her about jumping through her photo. 

And how does that even work? Chloe thought. What fucking bizarro world are you in, Price?

But that didn’t matter either. Max Caulfield, hipster waif extraordinaire, could rewind time. She could travel through goddamn photos. Hell, she could even stop time, right? That’s what she’d said about Kate and the roof. She’d fucking stopped time. She’d seen alternate realities. She was a mother-fucking Time Warrior. 

So if Max Caulfield says we’ll be safe at the lighthouse, I get Max-fucking-Caulfield to the motherfucking lighthouse.

A few more steps. She was almost there. But what then? She needed Max. 

“Come on, Max,” Chloe yelled against the chaos of the storm. “We’re almost there. Please wake up!”

So close. The trail began to level off. Chloe could see the bench up ahead, and the lighthouse looming over it – the shell of the lighthouse. Where the hell had the top of the lighthouse gone? Hmm… Didn’t matter. Mystery for another time. She could see the bench below it, oddly still intact, but the storm had done a number on the lookout itself. Between downed trees, collapsed cliffsides, and – fuck – was that a boat?  

Yeah, no bench for Chloe and Max. We’re not reaching that.

“Max, come on now!”

Chloe bested the trail, topping the hill and reaching the flat ground of the lookout point – the flat debris-cluttered ground.

Okay, so no bench, no lighthouse, but we’re here. We made it. Take that, Hill. Try to wind and best me, will you.

Chloe caught her breath, then scanned her surroundings, looking for the safest place to take cover. On her right loomed the broken lighthouse, the collapsed cliffside, the shattered remains for the storage shed at the foot of the lighthouse, downed trees, oh, and that boat. Yeah, not going that way.

On her left, more woods.

Straight ahead of her, lay the open clearing, replete with scattered limbs, random concrete blocks, stray scraps of rebar, and all sorts of wonderful potential projectiles. Nothing like a debris field for taking shelter from a storm, eh?

Of course, there didn’t appear to be any better options either, and if Max Caulfield said they’d be safe at the lighthouse, well, Chloe figured she might as well take the word of the time traveler. What other choice did she have, really?

“Don’t worry, we’ll be okay,” she said, not sure if she was trying to assure Max or herself, although with Max lost in what Chloe could only guess was one long-ass vision, it seemed more likely that assurance had been for her own benefit. Whatever. Chloe supposed it didn’t matter either way. She collapsed to the ground in a heap, taking Max with her. She didn’t have the strength to carry her any further – not that there was any place to go from here.

Rocking back from her hands and propping an elbow against her raised knee, Chloe looked over to her friend. Surprisingly, Max was supporting herself, crouched on all fours, propped on her hands and knees. That was a good thing, right? That meant Max was coming around?

“Max?” Chloe asked. “Max, can you hear me? Please say something.”

Max rolled back onto her haunches and spoke for the first time since Chloe had hauled her ass off the beach. Max was coming around again. Thank whatever kaiju, Lovecraftian elder god was behind this mindfuck of a week. 

“Chloe,” Max asked, more than said, as if seeking assurance that she was still there. “I… I must have passed out,” she continued in a stammer. “Sorry.”

Why the fuck is she apologizing, again? Damnit, Max. No time for that now. Max was awake and that was all that mattered.

“Oh, thank god,” Chloe said. “Don’t you ever do that again, okay?” Her friend was back. Max was back. She wasn’t alone anymore and Max was okay. Next up, a giant tornado monster. No biggie.

“I swear…” Max started, rolling forward towards her. Chloe met her halfway, grabbing her arm and helping her to her feet as Max continued on. “... but that nightmare was so real… was so horrible.”

Where had she been? What had Max seen now? When the fuck would this nightmare week just leave them the hell alone?

As Chloe tried to wrap her mind around the possibilities, her friend wobbled forward on shaky legs towards the cliff’s edge. Damn it, Max. Regain your sea legs first!

Chloe knew that she should say something; that she should stop her friend, grab her before she wandered too close to the edge, but she also saw exactly the monstrosity at which Max was looking; the view that awaited beyond the steep fall of the cliff and the battered remains of the wooden guardrails.

The storm.

It dominated the view, a seething, angry vortex the likes of which the world had never seen. Was there even a classification for a tornado this size? Debris cycled around it, orbiting it in gradual decay, cycling ever closer drawn in by the fierce gravity of this looming horror, this abomination of the laws of physics. Where it met the bay, the sea surged up into the vortex, adding the enmity of its waves to the violence of the cyclone; and just beyond lay the town itself, waiting as the winds and waters and debris, the death and destruction, crept ever, inexorably forward. There was no riding out this storm. It would consume Arcadia Bay whole.

“This is my storm,” Max said, gesturing towards the encroaching calamity, her voice cracking under the enormity of what she was seeing… and feeling. Max, don’t you dare feel guilty for this.

“I caused this,” her friend continued. “I caused all of this.”

Fuck. There it is; that Caulfield guilt.

“I changed fate and destiny so much that… I actually did alter the course of everything.” Max turned to Chloe then, as Chloe still fought to find anything she could say to help Max, to stop this self-blame spiral. 

I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned the butterfly effect. That Wally fucker either. Neither of us needed to put that sort of causality in Max’s self-hating head. Damnit, Chloe. Think before you speak. Or just speak. Say something. Your friend is spiraling. Anything. Just words, Chloe. Use words.

Max stumbled back towards the cliff as if she couldn’t let herself rest by Chloe; she couldn’t grant herself the relief of a friend's comfort. No, she had to keep facing that damned tornado, keep blaming herself for that storm, and no one was better at blaming themself than Max Caulfield. “And all I really created was just death and destruction!” 

Yep, no one better than Max. And why those words? Death and Destruction. Hadn’t Chloe just been thinking that same damn thing?

Well, fuck that! Doesn’t matter. No more sitting on the sidelines, Chloe. You stop this shit, now.

Chloe stepped up to Max, grabbing her arm, offering what little comfort she could and turning Max towards her until she was looking straight down into those guilt-ridden, beautiful blue eyes.

“Fuck all of that, okay,” Chloe said. “You were given a power. You didn’t ask for it… and you saved me.”

And she had. She had saved Chloe in so many ways. She hadn’t just saved her miserable life, not just, not just in the literal sense. She had saved her. Max had given her hope again and Chloe Price would be damned if she was going to let Max be crushed under the consequences of that action.

“Which had to happen,” Chloe continued – only to stop mid sentence.

Max wasn’t facing her anymore. Chloe could no longer see down into those blue eyes. No, Max clutched at her head and fell to her knees back to the drenched earth, sinking into the damp mud-streaked clearing of the lookout point. 

“Fuck, Max! What now?”

Chloe fell to her knees beside her friend, placing her hands to Max’s cheeks and tilting Max’s face towards hers. Blood streamed from Max’s nose, fresh rivulets cascading over her lips, thinned by the rain soaking and bathing them both.

“Another rewind? A vision?”

Max couldn’t respond. Her eyes glazed over and she screamed, biting down into her lower lip and falling over out of Chloe’s grasp, rolling into a fetal position in the mud. Chloe’s heart raced and her entire body tensed as she watched her friend spasm in pain, unable to do anything to ease her suffering.

“Shit, Max! Speak to me!”

Max clenched and unclenched, as she remained curled still into her fetal ball, seemingly struggling against rapid waves of pain rolling through her entire system. Her eyes winced shut and she bit harder down on her lip and Chloe could see that lower lip starting to split. She clutched Max’s jaw, attempting to pry it open before she bit down too deep, and sweet hell, how was Max this strong? Chloe pulled harder, fighting against Max’s straining body, until at last her friend began to ease up, and the rigid violence that had seized over her gradually lessened and faded away. 

Chloe removed her grip from Max’s chin, as Max’s eyes opened, and looked up at her, glassy and afraid.

“Chloe…” she asked, her voice feeble and soft. Before she could continue, Max jerked abruptly to the side, her hands once more to her head. 

“Max, damnit! Stay with me!”

Chloe hugged herself over the smaller girl, shielding her from the torrential rain, wiping her own hands across Max’s brow as she tried to get a good look at her. She could see tears mixing with the rain streaks running down Max’s cheeks. Blood still gushed from her nose, more than Chloe had ever seen from Max’s previous episodes. Then, another lightning flash, another clap of thunder, and Max doubled over yet even deeper and now the blood wasn’t only trickling from Max’s nose, but from her eyes as well.

“What’s happening?” Chloe asked. This was new; this was different; and this was altogether terrifying. How much more could Max take?

Max blinked the tears and blood and rain from her eyes, running her palm down her face to clear her vision and leaving watery red smears in the wake of her hand. Her jaw unclenched, and she took in a stuttering breath, then met Chloe’s gaze.

“We don’t know. Not exactly." Max relaxed momentarily into her arms, and a feeling of relief flooded over Chloe. Perhaps the worst of it was over. But what was it?

"Okay... try the non-exact version."

"One you called it a hard return. Another called it a save point.”

“A save point?”

“Doesn’t matter, Chlo.” 

“Wait,” Chloe jumped in, seizing on what Max had just said. “One me?”

“A future Chloe. Another Chloe. No matter. That version of you is gone. Reset.”

“Reset?”

Come on, Chloe. Stop just repeating what she's saying. Yet, try as she might, Chloe was baffled and couldn't find any other words. This wasn't a rewind. This wasn't a photo jump. What had Max done? Was this even still her Max?

“I’m stuck, Chloe. No matter what I choose, we always end up back here.”

Max took another dab at her eyes, blood pooling against her lower eyelids, and thin trails leaking from her tear ducts. Flinging the blood from her hands, Max paused watching it splatter against the mud and the surrounding puddles.

Chloe snapped her fingers. “Back to me, mate. Back to your Captain.” Her heart eased a little as the smaller girl refocused her attention back to her. “We’ll get through this.” It didn't matter if it was her Max, did it? They were all her Max, and she'd be damned if she was going to sit here and let any Max suffer.

Max’s lips parted to speak, then paused. She averted her gaze, swallowing back whatever words she had intended to say.

“What is it?”

“I don’t think we will. I don’t think I can get through this. I’m sorry. I know I’m supposed to have the answers; that I’m supposed to be… to be Super-Max, but… I… I don’t feel super.”

“You don’t have to be. You’re Max Caulfield. You are the strongest person I know, rewind or no rewind. And you’re not alone, Max. I’m right here.”

“They’re getting harder, Chloe. More painful.” Max gestured to her blood-streaked face. She hesitated biting back her next words, but Chloe knew if you gave Max silence, if you waited her out, she’d inevitably crack. Another moment, another flash of lightning, Max jumping at the light and thunder, and finally she continued.

“If the timeline resets again… if I come back here again… I’m… I’m not sure I can survive.”

Chapter Text

October 31st, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

Max jolted up in bed, her sheets drenched and tangled around her legs. The bray of the distant thunder faded away, but Max found little comfort, neither in its distance nor in its vanishing. Another flash would be along soon enough, another peel through the night —

— the light through the window was dim, but the outside was not dark either; not nighttime. At least what little she could see of the outside world through the blackout curtains that concealed most of the windows wasn’t dark; not nighttime dark. Those curtains had been an early purchase upon resetting the timeline. Max’s sleep was troubled at best now, so she made up for it by sleeping any chance that she could manage. Blocking out the sunlight had been an immediate priority. 

She tried not to think about how the darkness of the room echoed the serial killer vibes of Prescott’s dorm in that other life; nor its shades of Kate’s in the week that no longer was. Max’s room was a mess, she couldn’t deny that, but her mirror still remained uncovered, and she could see stretches of floor still unconcealed by the sporadic piles of laundry. Hers definitely wasn’t the messiest dorm room in the Prescott Dormitories; however, it might have been the darkest.

The dark.

The light.

Something was on your mind.

Chloe.

No, that wasn’t it.

A flash stole in from the gaps between the blackout curtains and the windows, followed swiftly by another peel of thunder. Max immediately curled into herself, hugging her knees tightly to her chest.

That’s right. The storm. The light. What time is it? When is it?

She chewed at her lower lip. Her heart raced now, its pace quickening with a rapid intensity that made Max panic; a panic that itself quickened that same rapid racing of her heart even further in an endless self-feeding loop. Her head began to pound as her heartbeat ran out of control; not a time travel headache either, but something deep and equally frightening. At least Max was pretty certain that it wasn’t a time travel headache. She didn’t do something in her sleep did she? Could she?  

Another flash. Another peel of thunder rolling over Arcadia Bay and the Prescott Dormitories. The light and thunder rippled through Max’s room, shattering both the silence and the darkness; but only for a moment. A new darkness slipped into the void left by the vacuum of their departure.

Max’s chest hurt and her breath came shallow now. She needed to breathe.

How do you breathe? I think I forgot how to breathe.

She knew it was a panic attack. This wasn’t her first incident since returning from making that decision under the lighthouse; since deciding to undo that week and let Chloe die in order to prevent the storm. Hell, the lightning and thunder weren’t even her only triggers. She didn’t even have one source of panic. Life had been simpler just a month ago, before that lost week. Now, so many things could set Max off: the crack of thunder, the flash of lighting. Hell, even just the right flicker of a light bulb, or a sudden loud noise could do it. Sometimes it was the Dark Room that she found stealing in and crushing her. Sometimes it was the gunshot from the bathroom. Tonight it was the storm; The Storm. 

This wasn’t that storm though. No. 

When are you? That’s right, she needed to ground herself in the when. This wasn’t that week, anymore. This was Halloween, and today’s storm, today’s storm was just another storm like any other; not the storm. It had been on the forecast all week. Nothing to worry about.

Another bray of thunder shattered the silence, and Max couldn’t help herself; she screamed.

Shit. No way Victoria and Kate didn’t hear that, she thought, then remembered she still didn’t know what time it was. She should check her phone.

Slowly, Max peeled her eyes open. She hadn’t even realized that they were closed; but she could feel the pressure now as she eased them open; she must have winced them shut as she screamed. She still hugged her knees, and her head and chest still burned from the pounding, crushing pain. Her breath still came in ragged shallow gasps, as well. She needed to get that under control. 

First things, first.

She released one hand from around her knees, and slipped it toward the nightstand, fumbling for her phone. Her hand shook as she reached out; her whole arm shook.

No worries. It will pass. Time. What time is it, Max?

At last her fingers closed around her phone. She brought it to her face, reopening her eyes. 

When did I close them, again?

The phone screen flashed the time: 10:32 am. She was supposed to be in AP English now. Class was back in session, Ms. Hoida finally returning from her leave and ready to resume her teaching duties, but Max wouldn’t be in attendance. Not today. At least not this morning.

Max focused on her breathing, trying to give it some semblance of order; trying to break through the panic.

Another crack pierced the briefly renewed silence, and Max let out another scream, her phone slipping from her hand and hurtling into the wall beside her bed. With a thunk, it fell down the crack between her mattress and her wall, crashing to the floor in the mystery land under her bed. 

It’s gone now.

So be it. She didn’t have time for that anyway. She chuckled at that. 

I don’t have time. That’s funny.

And it was, wasn’t it?

Dog, why’s it so dark? Oh. My eyes are closed again, aren’t they?

Max peeked one eye open. As she did, she heard a door opening down the hall. Damn. She’d been hoping everyone else was in class. Guess I’m not so lucky.

A quiet set of footsteps sounded outside her door, then paused, followed by a soft knock. Max knew that knock. Why wasn’t Kate in class?

“Max,” came the quiet voice on the other side of the door.

Max isn’t here, Max thought. Just Other Max, slayer of best friends. Murderer.

She returned to her ball on the bed, tightening her grip around her knees, and closing her eyes once more. At least this time, she closed them on purpose.

“Max,” Kate said again. “I know you’re in there.”

Max didn’t answer, and Kate let the silence stretch out for a moment. Kate deserved better than this Max. Max knew that. Moreover, she just couldn’t deal with that look of pity right now. 

Suddenly another flash lit the room, followed by even more thunder. Max screamed again, because of course she did. Yeah, there went her silent treatment. Hopefully, Kate had already given up.

“I just want to help.”

Damn. Kate didn’t give up.

“I know something about… about being in a dark place. I… I know you scream when it storms.”

Great. Glad that’s not a secret. Max the spaz – afraid of a little thunder.

“I have some tea if you’d like. Chamomile.”

La, la, la. I’m not listening.

“It helps me, when… when things are bad.”

Is that what things are? Bad? Oh Dog, I thought it was something serious. Bad I can handle.

Max paused, her bitter thoughts screeching to a halt. She was being mean. Yeah, she wasn’t telling Kate these things, but Kate was an angel, as much an angel for Max as perhaps Rachel had been for Chloe— if a different sort of angel. Kate didn’t deserve this type of treatment even if only in Max’s thoughts. 

Of course, I’m Other Max, aren’t I? The murderer. The one who killed her best friend. Twice… Three times if you include the bumper ricochet in the junkyard. Let’s just ignore all the other times when I ‘merely’ failed to save her, rather than literally causing her death.

“I understand if you… if you need to be alone,” Kate continued. “I’ll just leave a cup by your door, if you want it. I know… I know panic attacks can be hard. I’m here… if you need me.”

Panic attacks? Yeah, maybe. Panic attacks. PTSD. Time Shenanigans. Something-like that.

Shenanigans? Did I really just think that? What am I, eighty? Chloe so would have busted my chops over that one.

At the mere thought of Chloe, her eyes teared up, and Max could feel the full-on crying session incoming. She didn’t want Kate to hear that. It was bad enough that Kate knew she was having a panic attack, or whatever was happening. She couldn’t take much more pity right now, even if Kate really did only want to help. 

Luckily, she heard Kate’s footsteps retreating, followed by the sound of Kate’s door opening and closing behind her. Max was alone again.

Slowly, Max crawled from her bed. She didn’t have the energy to stand up, but maybe Kate had a point. She needed to try something. Max inched her way to the door, still on her hands and knees, slid it open just a crack, and dragged the small cup of tea inside. The cup of Chamomile secured in her sanctuary, Max slammed the door shut once more.

Alone. Safe.

More thunder rolled over Blackwell and Max’s vision blurred.

Sort of safe.

With a trembling hand, she raised the cup and took a sip. She spilled more than she drank, but the tea tasted good: sweet, with a light floral flavor. The warmth of it eased down her throat, burning away the cold that had snuck in during the storm.

Max focused on her breathing, slowing it down, then took another sip. Her hand shook a little less this time, and her tea remained mostly in its cup.

Little by little, Maxitaxi. Little by little.

She smiled as that Chloe-ism snuck into her thoughts, and at last she let the tears fall. Max missed her. She missed her so much.

A knock sounded once more at Max’s door. This knock was louder than Kate’s – almost chipper – and equally familiar. Max knew exactly who was on the other side of that door and suspected that she had ulterior motives beyond checking in on Max’s mental state. Max also knew that this girl would be far more difficult to avoid than Kate Marsh.

“Max? Max, are you in there?” 

Max really wished that Dana would go away, but she knew better than to believe that was going to happen. She’d have to placate her some at least.

“No,” Max said. “No one’s here but Lisa and the Captain.” 

Max hugged her one-eyed teddy bear close as she responded. She felt better than she had when Kate swung by that morning, but she hadn’t been able to get out of bed yet. The storm had passed an hour or more ago, and her nerves had settled shortly thereafter. Media lab had concluded about thirty minutes after that, but Max had been a no show to that class as well. They hadn’t found a replacement for Jefferson ( Jeffer-shit ) yet - not since Nathan ratted him out and both psychopaths had been arrested - so Max didn’t feel compelled to even attempt her final class of the day: Language of Photography. Sure, Blackwell had likely brought in a substitute, so technically she was still missing class, but Blackwell never seemed to land anyone with any real knowledge of photography to fill in, and Max couldn’t motivate herself to sit through one more boring recitation from the temporary textbook Principal Wells had insisted that the subs follow. They couldn't even land a long-term sub. What was the point of attending photography class when the teacher changed almost weekly and was learning the material right along with the students?

So much for that photography scholarship going to good use.

Max might have been more bitter if she felt confident that she could even take photos anymore, but so far, she hadn’t snapped a single Polaroid since… well, since coming to this timeline. 

“Maaaaxxx?” Dana practically sang her name from the other side of the door. “I’m coming in Max.”

“What Max? This is Lisa.” Max sat up on her bed casting off her cocoon of blankets and pulling her legs underneath her as she leaned against her photo wall. See, I’m sitting up. That’s some semblance of life, right? She hugged the Captain closer, taking comfort in her beloved bear. I probably look so childish hugging my precious Captain. Pretty sure he’s the only thing keeping me upright though. Max scooted back, pressing more tightly against the photo wall. Okay, so it’s the Captain and this wall for support. That’s the most I can manage. It will have to do.

Dana cracked the door open, peering into the darkened room. Noticing the gloomy atmosphere, Dana muttered to herself. “No, no, this won’t do.”

Well, damn.

Dana flipped  on the light and stepped inside. Max squinted shielding her eyes as the room lit up for probably the first time in at least a week. 

“Sadist,” Max said, with a tiny smirk. Chloe would have wanted her to at least try to be happy. Plus, no way Dana would leave her alone if Max let her see how she was really feeling.

Dana glared at her as she gathered up the tea cup sitting by the doorway, while simultaneously toeing a wadded up pile of dirty clothes over into the corner. “Max, you’re getting out of this room,” she said, swinging a shopping bag in her free hand. Max suspected there was something for her in that bag, but if Dana was the courier, Max feared what lay within.

“Kate sent you, didn’t she?”

“We’re worried about you.”

“All good, see.” Max smiled or at least managed some facsimile of a smile. She felt fairly confident the abomination on her face at least conveyed a fraction of the joy that she was trying to pretend that she felt.

“You’re coming to the Halloween party tonight.”

“Is that a question?”

“No.”

“Can it be?”

“No. You’re coming.”

“Meh. That seems unlikely.”

“Max.” Dana cast Max her best mother hen death glare.

“Fine.”

“See, was that so hard?”

“Yessss?” Max shrugged. She knew Dana was only watching out for her; she had been doing a lot of that since Max returned to that bathroom; since she entered this timeline. All in all, despite Dana being one of the popular kids, a cheerleader, and a leader in the Vortex club, Max really did like her. She cared, and she didn’t put up some bitchy facade like some pixie-cut posers across the hall. No, she was bubbly and cheerful and genuine, and if you were nice to Dana she was nice to you. 

And if you’re grumpy and a recluse and you ignore her texts and her numerous efforts to drag you out of your funk, she’s still nice to you. Obviously something must be wrong with her.

“Okay,” Dana said. “But you’re still coming. You’ve got two hours to get ready. Three and a half if you’re aiming for fashionably late.”

“Four and a half?”

“No.”

“Four?”

“Still no.”

“I don’t have a costume.”

“Which is why I brought this.” Dana dropped the bag that she had carried in with her at Max’s feet. “Get showered and get dressed.”

Max looked in the bag. Was that a pair of cat ears? And paws? And did that bag say sexy cat costume?  No, no, no. This isn’t happening.

“No, no, no,” Max said. “This isn’t happening.”

“Yes, yes it is. Get dressed and then find your bitch, Warren, and meet me at the gym.”

“So not my bit — my… look, I’m really not into Warren.”

 “Uh-huh. Find Graham and meet up with Trevor and I. We’re going to dance it up at BlackHell-O-ween!”

“Um… has anyone ever told you that you’re scary gung-ho about this whole Halloween thing?”

“All the time, Max.” Dana flashed Max a genuine smile. “See you by no later than 6:30. Tonight, BlackHell-O-ween. Next week, we drag your ass to a rave.”

“Um… can I just settle for the Halloween thing?”

“Up for debate.” Dana gestured to the bag with a flourish. “Now get ready, get dressed, and see you soon.” And with that, she glided from the room, shouting down the hall as she left. “Hey Taylor! You’re going to be there right?”

Great. Go peer pressure someone else, Dana.

Her room once more her own, Max slipped from the bed and flipped off the light, switching it out for the dim glow of her lanterns. There, that’s better. 

She glanced again at the generic sexy cat costume that Dana had left on her bed. Yeah, she thought. That’s so not happening.

But maybe there was something she could throw together — something not Max-like for the occasion. With a mix of nerves and melancholy, Max glanced towards a pair of cardboard boxes resting just below her futon. The words ‘Picture Box’ were scrawled in Sharpie across one, ‘For Max’ across the other. Apparently Joyce had given the picture box to the her from this timeline sometime during that lost week. According to Max’s diary, she had spent a lot of time with Joyce and Mr. Madsen after the incident… after she killed Chloe (though that’s not how this timeline’s Max had put it). Joyce had brought the picture box to Max on that missing Thursday at the diner. The previous Max had left a tear-stained diary entry about how much it had meant to her. Piled right into the top of the box, Max had found William’s old camera. It seemed to become hers in every timeline; like destiny or some such nonsense. 

Max and destiny weren’t really on the best of terms anymore; not when it insisted that her best friend had to die alone in a bathroom thinking that she was unloved, just some punk ass that no one would miss. No, destiny could bite Max, because frankly, she was done with destiny.

Max ignored the first box, opting instead for the one with ‘For Max’ scrawled across it.

She’d gathered this one herself. At first, when she had returned to this Arcadia Bay without Chloe, she had attempted to maintain the connection with Joyce that her previous self had forged. She had been there for her at the funeral ( still not thinking about that… not going to do it. La, la, la… can’t make me think about it) , and then afterwards she had gone to the diner a couple of times. Max had been so broken up each and every time that she saw Joyce at the Two Whales that Joyce had invited her home to comfort her. Of course, that did wonders for Max’s guilt complex, having to be comforted over the death of a friend she hadn’t seen in over five years (as far as everyone in this timeline was concerned), by that very same friend’s grieving mother. When she had showed up at Chloe’s… Joyce’s house, Joyce had that second cardboard box waiting for her. It had been empty then. She had insisted that Max fill it up and ushered her straight up to Chloe’s room.

Three hours and half a dozen mental breakdowns later and Max had left the Price-Madsen household with her own hand-picked selection of mementos. A snow globe and a few sketches from their childhood were there; obvious picks. She’d also gathered up a couple of blue beanies, and two white tank tops that were much too big for her — one with a black & white misfit skull, and one with a deer skull wearing feather earrings. Below those, she had placed a graphic tee of Hawt Dog Man. She never saw Chloe in that one, but it was cute, and it smelled of her, and would probably fit better than Chloe’s tank tops. She thought about taking a pair of Chloe’s shredded jeans and hanging suspenders, but she knew she’d never fit those. She had grabbed a pair anyway. Chloe’s rock chick t-shirt from their sleep-over had also been a must. Chloe had been wearing that shirt when they had kissed. Yeah, it had just been a dare, and Chloe had just been teasing her, Max knew that, but even the memory of that kiss sent a flutter through Max’s system. That flirtation might have been nothing more than classic Chloe, but that was the moment that Max began to suspect how she really felt about her best friend. The little downy chick on the shirt was pretty cute, too. Yeah, that shirt had been a must keep. She’d even snuck in Rachel’s outfit that she had worn at Chloe’s insistence. Chloe had really seemed to like that outfit. Finally, nestled between all the clothes, she placed Chloe’s spiked bracelet. Well almost finally.

As she had been prepping to leave Chloe’s room, she had noticed Chloe’s necklace hanging by the door. Max ran her fingers over the smooth metal of the three bullets, recalling how much that necklace had meant to Chloe. Had she seen Chloe even once that week without that necklace? She let her fingers linger for a moment, then withdrew them, listening as the necklace fell back, the bullets jangling like miniature wind chimes. Max jumped, startled as the noise broke her reverie. She stared at those bullets for another three minutes, wrestling whether this was too important of a memento to claim, or whether Chloe would have wanted her to have it. She never reached a conclusion, but in the end she had snatched the necklace anyway, stuffing it deep under the layer of clothes that she had boxed away, just in case Joyce might brook any argument as to Max’s claim on it.

Heading downstairs, she’d thanked Joyce for letting her fill the box with memories. Joyce had seemed somewhat confused peering in the open container as Max made to leave. Max knew that none of the visible keepsakes represented her and Chloe’s childhood together, all items from a Chloe that Max never knew in this timeline, but Joyce didn’t push the matter and Max didn’t offer an explanation. She’d merely hugged Joyce, that woman that had always been a second mother to her, then walked out of the Price-Madsen household for the last time; at least so far. 

She hadn’t been able to face Joyce again since that day. The memories hurt too much. She hadn’t even been back to the Two Whales, although Kate occasionally brought her some Belgian waffles from the diner as a pick-me-up. Kate was too kind to her. What would she think of Max if she knew how Max had condemned Chloe to die? Would her God have forgiveness for her? Would Kate? Max felt pretty sure that she deserved forgiveness from neither.

Let it go, Max. Tonight you’re going to be happy. You’re going to dance and you’re going to be a teenager again, and you’re going to go to that stupid bash at the gym and you’re going to support your friend.

It really would mean the world to Dana. Max’s heart wasn’t in it though. She liked to think that she was making herself go to make Dana happy, or even just to escape Dana’s constant mother hen peer pressure. In the end, though, Max knew she was only going because Chloe would have wanted her to get out and enjoy her life. 

Chloe had wanted to save everybody and for some reason that had included Max. Didn’t she know that sacrificing herself also meant sacrificing Max? Still, she couldn’t accept having let Chloe die for nothing. If Chloe wanted her saved, Max had to make at least some effort at living again.

She turned her eyes back to the boxes under her futon. Yeah, she could definitely put something not-Max-like together from that second box.

After she stopped crying. In an hour or so. Maybe two. 

Her decision made, Max slumped to the floor, her mind now firmly locked on her best friend; on her best friend that she had murdered. Yeah, Nathan had pulled the trigger, but Max might as well have given him the gun. She’s the one that returned to that bathroom. She’s the one that had erased her interference, erased the fire alarm. Fuck giving him the gun. She might as well have pulled the trigger herself.

With that final thought echoing in her head, Max collapsed, sinking as deep into the floor as she could, and bawled until she had no tears left. Then she bawled some more.

Chapter Text

October 31st, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

Dana Ward:  In the gym. By the punch.

10/31/13 - 6:25 pm

 

Dana Ward:  with your bitch.

10/31/13 - 6:25 pm

 (O_o) :Max

10/31/13 - 6:28 pm

 

??? :Max

10/31/13 - 6:28 pm

 

Dana Ward: Warren. I’m with Warren

10/31/13 - 6:29 pm

 

Dana Ward: Where r u?

10/31/13 - 6:35 pm

 

Dana Ward: Max?

10/31/13 - 6:39 pm

 

Dana Ward: Don’t make me come get u

10/31/13 - 6:45 pm

 

Dana Ward: outside your door

10/31/13 - 6:57 pm

 

Dana Ward: answer me

10/31/13 - 6:57pm

 

Dana Ward: okay, you’re not here. Do u ever lock your door?

10/31/13 - 6:59 pm

 

Maybe :Max

10/31/13 - 7:04 pm

 

Dana Ward: I will find you

10/31/13 - 7:04 pm

 

Dana Ward: MAX?

10/31/13 - 7:12 pm

 

Who’s Max? No Max here :Max

10/31/13 - 7:16 pm

 

Dana Ward: MAX!  (⋋⋌)

10/31/13 - 7:17 pm

 

Eep.  Be there in 10? :Max

10/31/13 -7:19 pm

 

Dana Ward: 5

10/31/13 - 7:19 pm

 

Max leaned back against the brick wall in the alley between the gymnasium and the main building, relishing in the quiet and relative seclusion that the nook provided. She closed her messages, trying to suppress the looming social anxiety that threatened to overwhelm her. Dana meant well, but Max wasn’t ready for a party. As she swiped her messages closed, a glance at her phone told her that it was 7:20. Dana had expected her by 6:30 at the latest, but Max hadn’t been able to work up the strength to join the rest of the student body inside. She couldn’t go in and dance. She couldn’t even seem to muster the strength to fake a smile. How could she be expected to pretend as if her life hadn’t ended nearly three weeks earlier in that bathroom? She just couldn’t.

No shaka brah for you.

She hadn’t gone full sexy cat either. Dana may have insisted, but Max could only give in so much. She’d dressed instead in a mish-mash of clothes from Rachel’s wardrobe and Chloe’s. She wore Rachel’s distressed jeans with Chloe’s rock chick sleep shirt under Rachel’s red flannel. Her shoes were Max’s own, and she wore her own bracelets, too, but she’d added Chloe’s spiked bracelet as well, the sharp studs and the black leather clashing with the bright pastels of her own. Odd as a pairing as they made, Max liked the effect. It was a little bit Chloe, a little bit of the innocent Max that she wished that she still knew how to be.

She topped the outfit off with the bullet necklace, although she had tucked the bullets under her shirt. That memento was less costume and more personal; something between her and Chloe alone; something not meant for the world at large. Max had briefly considered wearing Chloe’s beanie as well, but she was already at risk of being called out for wearing a Chloe costume, and though the few adornments from her own wardrobe and Rachel’s lessened the overall effect, she didn’t want to risk pushing it too far. Dressing as the girl killed on campus only three weeks prior would probably be considered in poor taste. Of course, wearing the clothes of the girl whose body Arcadia Bay PD  had dug up from the junkyard not a few days later, probably wasn’t the wisest decision either. Max reminded herself that she had her own shoes on and her own bracelets ( plus one ), at least. That had to count for something.

Yeah, probably not, she thought. Oh well . Too late to change now.

Although… 

Max seized momentarily on a different tactic. She could just go back up to her room and skip the party altogether. Max really liked that idea; but she knew it wouldn’t work and she let the brewing plan drift away as swiftly as it had begun to coalesce. She didn’t think Dana would let her get away with hiding out in the dormitories, not as insistent as her texts had been. She wouldn’t even be surprised if Dana had already sent another search and rescue team to drag her from the dorms. Her room wouldn’t be a safe haven until after the party had ended; and probably not even then if Max never bothered to show. 

She wasn’t sure why Dana put so much effort in. They hadn’t ever really bonded. After the shooting, Dana had been there for her along with Kate, at least according to the previous  Max’s diary (I really need to come up with a consistent name for that other Max…), but she hadn’t noticed the pregnancy test that week, and she hadn’t had the energy to bring it up with Dana since returning herself. In that other time, that observation, that one-on-one had been the moment that the two really began to spark the beginning of a possible friendship. What spark did they share now? 

And Dog, she had to be frustrating anyone that even tried to help her. Apparently she’d only taken two days off from classes after the shooting, then resumed life as normal other than taking off for Chloe’s funeral. Then, once she actually came back, once this Max returned to the time stream (?) — right before the funeral (no, no… not going there. Nopity, nope. La, la, la) — well, she shattered all over again. Dana and Kate had thought it was due to the stress of the funeral, but when she hadn’t returned to classes at all the next week, the severity of her reaction had to have been puzzling. Who completely shuts down over the loss of a friend they haven’t seen in five years?

She’d tried to return to school her second week back (last week). She’d broken down the moment she stepped foot into the Language of Photography classroom. Even without Jeffer-shit present she hadn’t had the wherewithal to face that room and all the memories that it dredged up. By the 23rd, Principal Wells had pulled her into his office, worried that she was falling too far behind, having now accumulated nearly two weeks of absences. Since then, Max had managed to go to classes about every other day, two days in a row if she was feeling particularly strong. 

Yet throughout all of this struggle, she had spent nearly zero time outside of her dorm room or in visitation with Joyce. Kate managed to ease her way in every few days, and Dana almost never took no for an answer, but Max didn’t understand how they put up with her at all. She couldn’t have been good company, and outside of Kate, she hadn’t really made much effort with anyone else in this timeline. The only way she’d originally managed to befriend almost anyone outside of Kate and Warren had been through the use of her rewind, and to do that now would be an affront to Chloe’s… Chloe’s sacrifice.

Still, for some reason, Dana wasn’t giving up. Kate nor Warren either. She didn’t deserve any of them, and they definitely deserved better than her broken self. Kate had such conviction and compassion; Warren was a science prodigy and (chalking up some borderline stalker-ish behavior to his complete obliviousness) actually kind of sweet; and Dana, well, she was a spark of vibrant energy, all cheer and positivity, an absolute beauty inside and out. Max didn’t have anything to bring to the table. Without Chloe she was just a socially awkward loser hiding behind a lens, and now she didn’t even have the advantage of that latter oddity, not since the trauma still lingering from Jefferson and his Dark Room had stolen away the purity of photography from her. Every time she thought of capturing those beautiful moments in time, she couldn’t help but to hear his words:

“I’m obsessed with the idea of capturing that moment, that shift, from black, to white, to grey, and beyond.”

Max shook her head lightly, attempting to clear Mr. Jefferson’s mad ravings from her mind; to cast off his insane, psychopathic drivel before she became consumed in those memories.

She knew going to the party would be too much for her, especially with her mind already becoming mired in such dark thoughts, yet she needed to be better for Dana and for Kate. For Chloe. No, she wouldn’t be able to just hide out in the dorms. She had to try.

Not seeing much other choice but to resign herself to the Halloween bash, Max hunched over and reached into her messenger bag (and hey that’s not Chloe’s nor Rachel’s either!) and pulled out that  stupid pair of cat ears and the fingerless cat paw gloves. Slipping them on, she decided she’d done her due diligence and gone as full sexy cat costume as she was willing to go. 

C+ for effort. 

Max settled back against the brick wall once more. Dana was clearly disappointed waiting for Max somewhere in the chaos of the gym, and Max knew that she should go find her, but Dana would have to wait a little bit longer. Max needed to collect herself before going inside.

She pulled out a cigarette from a pack in her bag. It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted something that would make her forget. These had the opposite effect, so thick with the scent of Chloe. It had taken her a couple of tries before she had found the right brand, but she had it now and every time she lit one, she could smell Chloe there with her.  

Not the best strategy for forgetting, doofus.  

She supposed not, but it was what it was.

She had seen Frank at the funeral. She wasn’t ready to think about that right now (la, la, la… still not going there); that day was still too raw. Yet, after the service, she could remember hearing Pompidou off across the cemetery some one hundred yards or so from the funeral itself, and Max had seen Frank there watching from behind a tree, trying to be so discreet. 

A Blackwell ninja he was not.

She could have asked him to get her something harder; something real; something that would actually make her forget; definitely something more than a pack of cigarettes. The thought had crossed her mind more than once, but Frank was dangerous. She hadn’t bonded with him any more than she had with Dana (much less actually); there had been no clandestine Max and Chloe investigation into Rachel, not in this timeline. No, she had erased that bond the moment she went back and let Chloe…

No. Dog, no. We aren’t thinking about that either. La, la, la, la, la, la.

Anyway, Frank didn’t know her now, and he’d just lost both Rachel and Chloe. No telling what mindset he was in. With Jefferson and Prescott arrested, he likely had connected the dots already; knew his role in his great loves’ death. Yeah, that mindset of his was likely far from healthy at the moment. Considering her previous encounters with a slightly less traumatized Frank Bowers had often ended with Chloe dead, or him dead, or even his dog shot ( poor Pompidou ), there was no telling what would happen now. Hell, Max still couldn’t believe she’d even pulled the trigger on him in the junkyard. Yes, the gun had been out of bullets, but she hadn’t known that. She really was a murderer at heart, wasn’t she?

No, going to Frank for… for party favors… that was not a wise idea. She’d be as likely to get shot or stabbed as she would be to get high. Of course, then she’d be dead. The thought had crossed her mind. The past nearly three weeks had been too painful already. Max wasn’t sure how much longer she could continue on like this; but then again, Chloe wouldn’t want her dead. She had wanted to save Arcadia Bay — sacrificed herself to do so; she had probably envisioned Max as part of the Arcadia Bay that she had been saving when she offered to die in that bathroom.

Stupid, selfish Chloe, wanting everyone to be happy and alive. 

Of course, I’m not happy. Am I even alive?

Max took a light drag off the cigarette, and immediately fell into a coughing fit. Not as bad as the first few times she had tried, but she hadn’t gotten the hang of smoking yet. Still, wearing the clothes she had pulled from Chloe’s closet, all thick with the scent of her, and enhanced by the dense, woody smell of the cigarette smoke upon which Max was choking, Max could pretend that Chloe was there with her. As she closed her eyes, she could almost feel her there beside her.

Her right arm tingled, as if sensing Chloe’s warmth, and Max could feel her skin prickle that way it does when you're in the presence of someone you love, when you can feel them watching you and the air is laced with the anticipation of first contact. 

Love? First contact? Where’s your mind tonight, Max? You only had her back in your life for five days.

Five horrible, wonderful, confusing days.

She kept her eyes closed trying to ward off thoughts of what might have been, and breathed in once more off of her cigarette, Chloe’s warmth sliding ever closer, and the goose pimples of anticipation increasing. As she exhaled, this time keeping her coughing to a minimum, she felt her cigarette pulled from between her fingers, and Max shot her eyes open in surprise.

“What the –”

“Who’re you supposed to be? Kari Amber?”

Beside her, Victoria Chase lifted the cigarette to her own lips glaring over at Max and then rolling her eyes. She wore a light, silky, cerulean dress embroidered with gold patterning. The sleeveless dress clasped together at the shoulders by golden rings, and had a plunging neckline that formed a sharp V ending just below Victoria’s chest as it tapered into a lightly V-shaped, six-inch, corset-like waist band. The whole dress had an airy, almost hippie-like feel, yet also had an opulence and elegance that shouted wealth. A plastic dragon rested perched on Victoria’s shoulder, partially hidden beneath the long platinum blonde wig that concealed her usual pixie-cut.

“What?”

“Nothing. Dumb thing to say, anyway.” Victoria took a deep drag then exhaled slowly and smoothly without a single cough. Max reached over for the cigarette, but Victoria had a good three inches on Max, and that was before taking into account her heels. She held the cigarette above her head and just out of Max’s reach.

“Give that back, Khaleesi.”

“No.” Victoria lowered it and took another drag, then raised it back up over her head, continuing the game of keep away. She did, however, seem somewhat pleased that Max had recognized her costume, her lips betraying the slightest hint of a begrudging smile. “These things’ll kill you, you know.”

“Good.”

At that, Victoria at least had the decency to cock a questioning eyebrow at Max, who apparently had given up on retrieving her cigarette and begun rummaging through her messenger bag. Whatever Victoria was thinking, she didn’t let it stop her from being her usual terrible self. 

“Halloween selfie time?”

Max ignored her, seizing on the pack stuffed next to her camera, and slipping out a fresh cigarette. She raised it to her lips and cupped her hand, preparing to light it, when she felt a sharp pain in her finger and dropped the cancer stick.

“Ow. You flicked me!”

“No, I didn’t,” Victoria said, her index finger and thumb still tensed together as if ready to do it again.

Max shook her head, and grabbed another cigarette.

“Ow.” She dropped yet another one. “You did it, again?”

“I think I made myself clear.”

“What the hell do you care if I smoke? It’s not like we’re friends.” Max immediately regretted her words. That might have been a bit harsh.

“I don’t and we aren’t.”

Okay, nevermind. Not harsh enough.

Max reached once more for her pack, but this time Victoria didn’t even wait for Max to get a cigarette out. She snatched the whole pack away, squeezed and crushed it as best as she could, and then threw  the crumpled container of bent and broken cigarettes off into the bushes.

“What the hell! Those cost me nine dollars.”

“Boohoo.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Max slouching into a pout, while Victoria ignored her. She couldn’t figure the girl out. Victoria was a bit — a terrible person. She was the bully of Blackwell, and though Max knew a better person hid in there somewhere, she didn’t get the chance to bring her out in this timeline, so why in the world was Victoria trying to stop her from smoking? She even admitted that she didn’t care if Max smoked (not buying that one) and that they weren’t friends (okay that one seems more believable), so why was she sitting there smoking Max’s cigarette and playing keepaway with her freakishly long arms? Like Chloe’s freakishly long — nope, nope, nope. Total nope.

As Max tried to clear her head of that unwanted comparison, Victoria averted her eyes and spoke.

“You don’t smoke.”

And before this week, Victoria would have been right. But now… Whatever. What was the point of this anyway? Apparently Victoria had decided to be Max’s evil fairy godmother, and Max didn’t seem to get a say in it one way or the other. But why?

As if in answer, Victoria took another drag, then turned back to Max, her eyes cold and determined; a ‘we’re about to have a serious conversation’ face if Max had ever seen one.

“I don’t like what you’re doing to Kate.”

Um… okay. That was unexpected. But what the hell was Victoria talking about? Max had lost her best friend. She needed space. She wasn’t doing anything to Kate.

“I don’t like your face.” So there, Victoria.

Victoria’s eyes widened, then she shook her head, and… dammit! Was Victoria Chase laughing at her?

“Seriously?  You’re no good at being a bitch, Caulfield.”

Max smiled for the first time in days. Was Victoria actually trying to be nice to her – you know, in her own weird evil, eldritch horror way? Max figured she might as well play along and see where this went. She didn’t have anything better to do, did she? It’s not like she really wanted to head inside to that dance.

“There’s room for improvement,” she said.

“A metric shit ton of room.”

“I like to see… to see the good in people.”

“Now you sound like Kate.”

“Is that a bad thing?”

A flash of anger stole over Victoria’s eyes at that. “No, no, that’s not a bad thing.” It looked as if she had something more to say, something fierce, but whatever it was, Victoria showed an uncharacteristic amount of restraint and kept it to herself. Taking another drag from Max’s cigarette (and Max was very cognizant that it was her cigarette that Victoria was smoking), Victoria collected herself before continuing. “It’s not a bad thing, but for someone that says she wants to see the good, you’re treating Kate like crap.” She placed an added focus on the words ‘see the good’ that seemed to imply that Max was doing anything but good.

“I’m not treating her like anything. I’ve… I’ve got…”

What do I have , Max thought, then seized on the first thing that came to mind.

“I have my own problems right now.”

Why was she even telling Victoria any of this? Couldn’t the queen beatch just leave her alone already?

“Exactly,” Victoria said. “You’ve got your own problems. You’re probably her best friend here, and you spend most of your time ignoring her. You saw someone shot –”

“— NO, no! Not someone! Chloe! Chloe Price!”

Victoria raised her hands defensively. “Whoa there, Ripley!”

Did she just make an Aliens reference? Alien? Oh please say it wasn’t Alien: Resurrection.

“Don’t you dare trivialize her!”

“Don’t rip my head off. Not what I’m doing here.”

“Okay,” Max started. “So, what are you doing?”

Victoria didn’t answer her right away; didn’t even look at her. The two girls both stood there, leaning against the sidewall of the gymnasium, one smoking the other’s cigarette, each seemingly ignoring the other, as the silence between them widened, only broken by the rhythmic thrum and bass of the music pouring from the gym. Finally, Max pulled at the strap of her messenger bag, making sure it was steady on her shoulder and prepared to leave, unable to take the silence any longer. Let Victoria keep her secrets.

“Just hear me out,” Victoria interjected.

Max paused and waited, agitated when rather than continuing Victoria remained silent. With one more drag from her cigarette (still mine!), Victoria ended her silence.

“Your… friend was shot in front of you. Kate, Kate was… she was drugged and tormented and… and…” She paused, the words caught in her throat. Max could tell Victoria was struggling with something, but she’d had her limit of Victoria already; she wouldn’t be throwing out any life preservers.  

“She was drugged and tormented and… and bullied. I don’t know if you know it, but I went to see her after Nathan… after he was arrested. I had to… look, I apologized okay. Don’t give me that look.”

I wasn’t giving her a look. Sensitive much? Rather than voice her thoughts, Max simply returned the same defensive raised hands gesture that Victoria had flashed towards her moments earlier. Seemingly satisfied, Victoria continued.

“I went and I apologized. You know what she did? Kate fucking forgave me. Fuck! Who does that?”

“Kate.”

“Yeah, Kate Saint-of-Blackwell Beverly Mother-Teresa-Doesn’t-Have-Anything-On-Me Marsh.”

“I think she just goes by Kate.”

At first, Victoria just remained there, leaning against the wall, her face cold and unreadable; then a quiver twitched at her lip, which, surprisingly, was followed by an irrepressible burst of laughter; and Max was laughing, too. If one didn’t know better, and stumbled across the two girls in that moment, they would have easily mistaken them for old friends out taking a breather from the dance. 

Slowly, the laughter began to subside, and Victoria cocked a wary glance back at Max.

“Don’t try to make me like you.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Good.”

Gradually, the awkward silence returned between the two, slowly displacing the fading laughter. Max knew she should say something, but Victoria was the one that started the two of them down this path. It was her show now. 

“As I was saying,” Victoria resumed. “I apologized. She forgave me. Big whoop, right? No. I saw her room. Her blinds were drawn shut, her place was a mess; hell even her mirror was covered. She couldn’t even look at herself. I’ve seen that shit before. Doesn’t matter where.”

It sure as shit does , Max thought. She knew what it meant because she had seen the signs during that lost week, and she had witnessed firsthand where it led; but how did Victoria know?

“It does matter,” Max said. 

“Not right now it doesn’t. Point is, I know where things were heading for her, and I drove her there. I did that.”

Oh Dog. Is Victoria looking to cry on my shoulder? I’m so not ready for this.

“I’m glad you apologized, that you care,” Max interrupted. She knew she should try to comfort Victoria, but she didn’t have the emotional stamina right then to be anyone’s rock, so she took a different approach. “I’m really glad that you care. Honest. I just don’t see what this has to do with crushing my cigarettes and putting me out nine dollars.”

“Fuck!” 

Instantly, Victoria pulled a wad of cash out of her wallet (where the hell did she hide a wallet in that dress) and slapped a twenty in Max’s hand.

“Shut up about the money already. I’m saying you and her, you both went through some traumatic shit, okay. And me, I’m a piece of work. I’m not who Kate needs. You on the other hand, you’re supposed to be her best friend. You’re the only one who probably has the slightest clue what she’s going through, because… you know…”

I know what? She didn’t bother prompting Victoria. She’d get there on her own.

“You know… you’re going through some dark shit, too, okay?”

“...okay…” Max stared at the twenty in her hands. She wasn’t looking for charity, but Victoria did put her out a pack of cigarettes. She pocketed the bill, wondering how late the convenience store down by the Two Whales stayed open, then realized that Victoria was staring at her. Max hadn’t heard a word Victoria had been saying for the past thirty seconds or so. Just nod along and agree, Max. Maybe she won’t notice.

“Yes?” Max nodded.

“Hell, Caulfield, get your head out of your waif hipster ass.”

Okay… I think she noticed. Max paused for a moment, then attempted to deflate the situation. 

“What does that even mean? I have a thin ass? My ass defies the cultural mainstream?”

She was going for a Chloe deflection, but she was pretty sure she failed miserably. You aren’t funny Max. You’re just pathetic.

“It means it isn’t all about you, Max. Your friend needs you and you’re shutting her out, you oblivious selfie whore.”

Yeah, pretty sure I missed the mark on that deflection.

Silence crept back in and Max wondered if anyone had ever actually died from awkwardness before. She also felt pretty confident that she shouldn’t let that selfie whore comment go unanswered, though really she didn’t have much energy to put up a fight. 

“I thought we were trying to play nice.”

“No one changes over night. And I stand by my words.”

Yeah. Max guessed she couldn’t really expect Victoria to back down. That would be too much of a miracle and her life hadn’t been handing too many of those out lately. She also knew that Victoria had a point about Kate, much as Max hated to admit it. Max hadn’t been a good friend since she returned. She’d barely left her room, patting herself on the back the few times that she had attended classes, which was about a third of the time at best; and when she wasn’t in class, she was hiding in her dorm ignoring everyone. Still, she didn’t need to admit that to Victoria. That was like baring your neck to a wild animal.

“Okay. Can I have my cigarette back now?”

Victoria jammed the heel of her palm into her eye. “Did you listen to a word I just said?!”

“Yes. You think my ass is waifish and a hipster.”

At that, Victoria cut her eyes at Max, and Max took a step back. She’d faced off against frightening and seemingly insurmountable dangers in that week that was lost. She’d faced down the local dealer, a manic, psychotic Prescott, an abusive step-douche, a bonafide serial killer/kidnapper/photographer, and an otherworldly tornado hellbent on wiping Arcadia Bay off the map. Max had learned a thing or two about facing her fears; but when Victoria glared at her, she still managed to shrink into herself, leaving all the confidence that she had gained behind and succumbing to the shy, anxious, and scared little girl that had first enrolled at Blackwell.

Max decided to cut her losses and acquiesce. 

“You also think I’ve been ignoring Kate and need to do better.”

Victoria nods, seemingly approving of Max’s shift in demeanor. “Better.”

Max hated caving to Victoria like that though. Not after everything that she had been through. So, she just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. 

“Now I can have my cigarette?”

Victoria snapped instantly.

“Okay, cut the shit. What’s with this… getup,” Victoria waved, gesturing at all of Max. “And this,” she continued, now signaling at the cigarette in her hands, “… this punk ass wannabe bullshit? I mean, you’re free to self implode all you want, I couldn’t care less, but seriously?”

“I like the smell,” Max said. “It reminds me… of someone.”

Max was tired of justifying herself, but she really wanted this whole conversation over. She wanted to smoke her cigarette, and wallow.

Victoria stopped mid drag, her eyes locking on Max at her admission. A flicker of something danced in her eyes; sympathy perhaps? Max couldn’t be certain; it vanished in an instant.

Victoria pulled the stub her cigarette away and exhaled a steady stream of smoke into Max’s face.

“There. Smell away.”

“You’re not Chloe,” Max blurted, though she wasn’t sure why she said it. It was just that Victoria was so close, and smoking Chloe’s cigarettes, and the smell of Chloe was all over Max, rolling over her, embedded in every seam and stitch of the clothes that she wore. Max bit her lower lip and stumbled back. She didn’t want to think about Chloe; she couldn't think about Chloe. She was practically dressed as Chloe. Fuck, she was a total contradiction right now. She could feel the tears building as she looked back up to Victoria.

There was a look of concern on Victoria's face, but as Max’s eyes met hers, that look vanished, replaced with her usual steely exterior. She flicked what was left of Max’s cigarette back at her.

“Get your shit together, Caulfield.”

With that Victoria turned from Max and stormed off around the corner.

Max slid down the wall, snatching the cigarette from the sidewalk where it had landed and taking a deep drag. She coughed, hunched over her knees, and let the tears come.

Chapter Text

October 31st, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

Dana Ward:   It’s been 5.

10/31/13 - 7:25 pm

Dana Ward:   10.

10/31/13 - 7:30 pm

Dana Ward: MAX! MAX! MAX! SNAP! SNAP! SNAP!

You can do this.  PAH-TY!!!!!

10/31/13 - 7:35 pm

Warren Graham: Yo, Maximus!  Dana says you’re coming. I’m on the dance floor. 

10/31/13 - 7:26 pm

Warren Graham: Sort of. Beside it. Toeing the waters. 

10/31/13 - 7:28 pm

Warren Graham: Ready to nerd up this party with you. Meet me by the diving board?

10/31/13 - 7:31 pm

Warren Graham: Don’t leave your geek bro hanging. 

10/31/13 - 7:38 pm

Warren Graham: <drwho_warren_smith.jpg> 

10/31/13 - 7:39 pm

An image popped up: Warren dressed in a tweed blazer pouting out a puffy lower lip, his scruffy hair hidden beneath a red fez, while his free hand tugs at a bow tie.

Kate Marsh:   I’m really worried. You’ve been so down, Max. Now, Dana tells me you said you were going to meet her almost an hour ago. Are you okay?

10/31/13 - 7:28 pm

Kate Marsh:   You don’t have to come, tonight. I know Dana can be

Dana can come on strong. Real strong. But its just because she cares. I don’t think she would mind if you miss tonight. Not really. 

10/31/13 - 7:32 pm

Kate Marsh:   How about we just hang out in my room? We can have tea and you can have some bunny cuddles. Alice misses you.

10/31/13 - 7:34 pm

Kate Marsh:   I miss you.

10/31/13 - 7:35 pm

Dana Ward: Just spoke to Trevor. Coming to u.

10/31/13 - 7:38 pm

Dana Ward: Where u at?

10/31/13 - 7:41 pm

Dana Ward: U were smoking with Victoria? VICTORIA!

10/31/13 - 7:46 pm

Dana Ward: Wait!  SMOKING!!1!

10/31/13 - 7:47 pm

Dana Ward: Dorm room incoming!

10/31/13 - 7:49 pm

Kate Marsh:   Please answer me.

10/31/13 - 7:52 pm

Kate Marsh:   I’ll be in my room if you need me. 

10/31/13 - 8:03 pm

Dana Ward: Now u figure out how to lock your door?

NOW!

10/31/13 - 7:56 pm

Dana Ward: Kate and I are worried.

10/31/13 - 8:00 pm

Dana Ward: We know you’re in there.

10/31/13 - 8:04 pm

Warren Graham: Yo, Maximus!  Dr. Graham, again. 

Justin says you bailed.

10/31/13 - 8:02 pm

Warren Graham: Sounded bad. Need some cheer?

10/31/13 - 8:03 pm

Warren Graham: Got my flash drive. White Knight to the rescue with a movie marathon?

10/31/13 - 8:12 pm

Warren Graham: Could totally laugh it up to some Cannibal Holocaust?

10/31/13 - 8:14 pm

Warren Graham: Too much?  What about some Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! ?

10/31/13 - 8:17 pm

Victoria Chase: THX FOR LISTENING STILL NOT FRIENDS

10/31/13 - 8:13 pm

Victoria Chase: CAN HEAR YOU CRYING. COMING OVER.

10/31/13 - 8:18 pm

Victoria Chase: WHATEVER. WALLOW THEN.

10/31/13 - 8:20 pm

Victoria Chase: WHY IS KATE CRYING!?

10/31/13 - 8:31 pm

Victoria Chase: HEAD OUT OF YUOR ASS, CAULFIELD!

10/31/13 - 8:32 pm

Victoria Chase: LET HER IN OR I END U

10/31/13 - 8:43 pm

Max never made it inside the gym. She had remained outside finishing the stub of a cigarette that Victoria had left behind, then just stayed there rocking on her haunches for another ten minutes or so, as her phone blew up with unanswered text messages. She rocked and she cried and she even managed to pull a mostly intact cigarette from the bushes, still trying to get her Chloe fix; and she smoked and cried some more until she realized that the skater boys at the far side of the alley had taken notice of her. Justin and Trevor and their posse were nice enough, so she knew that she didn’t have to worry about bullying, but she didn’t want their pity either. 

Plus, Trevor was dating Dana. If he’d recognized her, Dana would be descending on her any minute. And sure enough, when Max had cast a second glance over at the skaters, she’d noticed Trevor was no longer there. Sure, it could have been a coincidence, but Max doubted it. She’d promptly made her exit.

She hadn’t been locked away in her dorm room ten minutes before Dana had been knocking at her door. It wasn’t the same chipper knock that she’d used that afternoon either, but softer this time. How did someone imbue a knock with concern? However it was done, Dana knew how to do it.

She’d pleaded for Max to open the door, but Max had stayed silent. She’d promised not to make Max go to the dance, and still Max had remained silent. Finally she’d tried to force her way in, only to find that for once Max had actually remembered to lock the door. From there she began with the knocking and the pleading all over again. Throughout it all, Max held her own, refusing to answer. 

Her eyes were red and puffy from crying and even if she could keep it together, she knew that she wouldn’t have been able to hide that she’d broken down earlier ( at least three times today, so far ); and yes, she knew that Dana already probably knew, that surely Trevor had noticed and told her, but that didn’t matter. Max had no intention of facing anyone else today. She had already dealt with Dana Ward and Victoria Chase once each, and felt like she’d run two social marathons too many. 

Over the next hour, after Dana gave up, a steady stream of new knocks and new voices graced her door. Warren came, stammering and stuttering about bringing her some movies; but she was pretty sure he was also trying to invite himself in with her, having somehow still not understood that she was in no way interested in him. Juliet came by next, although Max wasn’t sure if she wanted to help or just to poke at Max the witness, probably one of the biggest Blackwell stories in history. Hard pass. Dana made attempt number two after that, followed by an oddly semi-apologetic Victoria. Still Max said nothing. Alyssa even came by, but the social butterfly that she wasn’t, she uttered Max’s name a couple of times, then, with nothing else to say, gave up and wandered off, probably to read a book in one of the lounges. Max had actually been the most surprised at Alyssa’s visit, and though Max had refused to answer her, it had touched her that Alyssa had cared enough to try despite her own social anxieties.

Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since that last aborted attempt to cajole Max from her room when a very familiar, very soft knock stirred Max back to the present and away from thoughts of Chloe. Max knew she had to let her go, had to stop thinking about her all the time, but Max’s wardrobe choice for the evening had done Max no favors and now, no matter what she did, she just couldn’t focus; she always found herself pulled back to that week and to that final decision. Had there been another way? A way to stop the storm and save Chloe? Had she sacrificed her for nothing?

Stop sanitizing it, Max! Did you murder her for nothing?

She couldn’t be sure. Everything had happened so fast and as far as she and Chloe had been able to deduce, those had been their only choices: save the Bay or save Chloe, but not both. Yet that decision had been made with a freak storm bearing down on the town and with no time to spare — no time to think through all the possibilities. Now she had plenty of time, and she knew she should be thinking through other options (she could always go back, right?), but all that she could think about was how she had let Chloe die alone on that filthy floor. 

That soft knock sounded again, stirring Max once more from her thoughts. This time, an equally soft voice followed.

“Max. It’s me. Kate.”

Max hadn’t needed Kate to speak to know that it was her. She’d recognized the timidness of her knock, that almost apologetic hesitation with each tap upon the door. She also knew that she should let her in. As much as Max was loath to admit it, Victoria had been right earlier. Max was not the only one hurting right now; Kate needed her friend as well.

Another buzz from her phone (now on silent) alerted her that the text barrage had not ended. 

Victoria. Whatever. 

Max ignored her, and hesitated a moment more, Kate shuffling her feet in the hallway. Max knew if she just stayed quiet for one more knock or two, Kate would leave, and she could return to the quiet dark of her room.

“One moment.” It came out no more than a whisper, raspy and muffled. Max’s throat ached from a day spent shedding too many tears and she wasn’t even sure that Kate had heard her, but no matter. She rose on wobbly feet and staggered to the door. It was time to put on her big girl pants.

The bright fluorescents of the hall piercing the gloom of her hideaway, Max found herself shielding her eyes as she cracked her door open. 

“Hi, Kate.” The words came still at a whisper, yet the rasp of her voice had diminished slightly as she attempted to fill her words with more life.

“Hi, Max.” Kate smiled at her. Max had expected to see Kate waiting there with another cup of tea – her usual peace offering. Instead, one hand cradled Alice, her bunny, to her side, while her other hand scritched the bunny’s head between her floppy ears. 

Noticing Max eyeing her bunny, Kate’s smile brightened. “I thought some Alice cuddles might do you good.”

For perhaps the first time that day, Max let a genuine smile pierce through her melancholic exterior. “That sounds… nice. Thanks, Kate.”

She pulled her door open wide and gestured for Kate to come in. If she was going to survive, she had to start living. She had to let someone in; that someone might as well be Kate.

As she sat on her bed, taking Alice from Kate’s outstretched hands, Max thought that she might be able to try after all. She just needed to start small and Alice cuddles seemed as good a place to start as any.  Pressing her cheek up to Alice’s cute bunny face, before lowering her back down to her lap and scritching her head, much as Kate had been doing a moment earlier, Max felt, even if just briefly, a sliver of peace crack through her grief. She couldn’t help but to think that it would have made Chloe happy.

For the first time in three weeks, Max thought that she might be able to make it without her best friend at her side. She didn’t know if that made her sad, or guilty, or angry; but it did make her feel, feel something other than the emptiness in which she had been stuck. She smiled at Kate, she pet Alice, and she settled back against her futon to enjoy a quiet evening with a friend.

Chapter Text

October 11th, 2013 - Current Timeline

If the timeline resets again… if I come back here again… I’m… I’m not sure I can survive. 

The words kept playing through Chloe’s head as if on loop. Max trembled in her arms, the rain soaking deep into the two of them, both shivering as the storm continued its inexorable march towards Arcadia Bay. Chloe could see the fear and pain in Max’s eyes, fear and pain, and just a glimmer of hope still trying to fight out against the growing despair.

“That’s bullshit,” Chloe said. No way was she letting Max lose hope. “You’ve got this. I know it’s hard, fuck, more than hard, it's astronomically insane, but you’re going to make it, and then this whole week, it’ll be behind you, because you, you’re going to make time your bitch. You hear me?”

Max shuddered, eyes focused elsewhere, somewhere above and behind Chloe, and for a moment Chloe felt certain that someone was standing over her shoulder. She whipped around, still holding to Max, and searched,  but the perimeter was clear: no one on the lookout save for her and Max. As Chloe turned back, Max, still staring off behind her, spoke. 

“You think I’m amazing?” she asked.

Where the hell did that come from? No matter. Just help her.

“Yeah, Max. Of course I do. You’re Maxine Caulfield, Time Master. You’re hella amazeballs.”

Max laughed, a small hiccup of a laugh, then sniffled, wiping at the mass of blood washing over her lips and chin. Then she looked up, staring once more vacantly into the space above them.

“No, Chloe,” she said. “I don’t want that. Not again.”

“What are you talking about, Max? Back to me.” A finger to Max’s chin, Chloe tilted her friend’s face  back down until they were once more locking eyes. “Focus here, Maximus. On me. On now. What’s happening? Where — when were you? Fucking confusing time travel.”

“It’s getting hard to keep track. To know when, which when.”

“Explain it to me.”

“No time.” Max laughed as if that was the funniest thing she had ever said, then just as abruptly cut the laugh off. “I can’t keep changing it, Chloe,” Max said, her eyes still locked with Chloe’s own eyes, yet, her gaze still vacant and glazed.

“Okay, Max. No changing it, whatever it is.” Chloe’s hand paused over her back pocket, over the photo within it. “The butterfly photo, Max? Is that it?”

“There is no right choice,” Max mumbled. “You’re all that matters, Chloe. My number one priority.”

“No, no,” Chloe started. “No, fuck that, Max. You matter. Joyce matters. Kate matters. Hell, forgive me, but Arcadia Bay matters!”

“You always make that call, don’t you?”

“Not once, Max. Not once in my pissy life, but… but there’s so many people in Arcadia Bay who should live…” Chloe could barely get the words out, but she knew she had to do it. They could change this; they could make it right. “Way more than me…” she continued, pausing for a moment, for once, to think through her words first. Ah, there they are. 

“I know,” she started again, “I’ve been selfish, but for once, I think I should accept my fate… our —”

“— No!” Max interrupts with a startling level of vehemence, as if Chloe’s words had somehow offended her. “Fuck that, Chloe.” She winced. Was her head pounding again? “We can’t keep having this conversation. We can’t… can’t keep making this same choice. I… I can’t make this choice.”

“You’re the only one —”

Chloe didn’t finish. Max wouldn’t let her.“Don’t you dare say it. Not one more time, Chloe.”

Chloe jammed the heel of her palm to the ridge of her nose. One more time what? God, time travel was a headache. What the hell was Max on about now?  

“Is this another rewind?”

Max rolled away from Chloe’s arms and onto her back in the mud. She stared up into the rain, as if gazing up into the constellations hiding beyond the concealment of the storm-riddled sky. “A return.” She unfolded further, stretching out against the rain-soaked ground, as if easing out of the pain that had consumed her moments earlier. “A hard return.” 

“Chloe…” she continued, trailing off, something else obviously on her mind, though what that could be, Chloe had no clue. Max had seen too much, and now it was as if the peril of the storm was only one tiny facet of her musings and not even the most important of them. What had Max seen and why was she in no hurry when so much was at stake was completely beyond Chloe; though Chloe hoped that her friend would come around soon, before there was no choice left to be made.

“Just tell me, Max. But make it quick.” Chloe cut her eyes to the storm rolling ever closer to the Bay.

“How am I even here?”

“Beats the shit out of me. My punk ass is the side-kick, not the sage mentor.” 

Chloe stared down at Max, laying in the mud, water washing over her as the rain continued to pound down on the two of them, her shirt soaked through and clinging to her tiny, gorgeous body, and suddenly all that Chloe could picture was Max floating beside her in Blackwell’s pool. 

If you can’t beat them, join them, or some such shit.

Chloe laid down beside her, stretching out her arm and taking Max’s hand in hers.

“Okay, Maxi-pad, what now?”

“You stop calling me that.”

“Never.”

“Damn it, Chlo.”

“Sorry, you’re stuck with it.”

Max paused for a moment, then started up again. “It doesn’t matter what I choose. It doesn’t stick.” For some reason, Chloe felt pretty sure that Max was no longer talking about her least favorite nickname, but Chloe could’t keep fighting her either. The gravity of the situation was too much, the ever present drama too heavy for her, and Chloe just had to Chloe.

“No, Maxi-pad, I’m pretty sure it sticks. This name’s going nowhere.”

“Fuck you, Chlo.” Max punched her in the arm.

“Ow. Since when are you violent?”

Max’s voice caught on that phrase — then suddenly she began sobbing, like full on bawling, someone not only kicked her puppy, but they ran over it, too; and Chloe knew it was something that she said. 

Damnit, Chloe. What were we just saying about thinking before you speak?

“I’m sorry, Max. I didn’t mean it.” She wasn’t sure what she didn’t mean, but she knew she had triggered this, somehow. “Come on, Maxaroni. Come back to me. We got this. Remember. Time’s your bitch.”

And god it better be, because the storm had just made landfall. Chloe could see the town literally ripping apart in the distance. It was mesmerizing and it was awful, and yet, compared to Max weeping and bleeding and crying in a ball beside her, it was only the second most awful thing that she had ever seen. Maybe tied with… No. Don’t think about that. No, don’t think about her. 

And now her own tears started. She needed to be stronger than this. She needed to pull it together.

Oh shit, she needed to look away. If she kept staring, Max was going to look, too, and that would only break her more. With great difficulty, Chloe pulled her gaze back down to her weeping friend and away from the storm.

“It doesn’t have to be your choice, Max. I can choose. It can be on me this time.”

Max unclenched again, her sobs softening. 

“That’s right, Max. Come back to me. I can choose.”

Max lifted her hand, palming Chloe’s cheeks until once more blue eyes stared into blue eyes. 

“No, Chloe. I told you. I don’t know how many more times I can do this.”

“How many —”

Max interrupted. 

“This time, Chloe, this time we have to choose together. It’s the only thing we haven’t tried.”

“Max? I don’t understand.”

But Max didn’t answer her. She pulled herself to her knees and reached into her messenger bag. She rifled through it, discarding her journal, her camera, Polaroid photo after Polaroid photo, paying no attention to the rain seeping into and ruining the scattered contents. At last, she paused, pulling out a very familiar poster, one of thousands of such posters scattered across Arcadia Bay. Clipped to it was a very familiar picture. 

“You won’t have long, Chloe. Not if this works.”

“Max, I still don’t understand. You’ve got to explain it to me.”

With her nearest hand, Max took hold of Chloe’s own hand. With her other, she pulled the folded photo of Rachel and Chloe from beneath the paperclip. 

“Grab the photo.”

Chloe didn’t question her. With her free hand, she grabbed onto the photo, Max still holding to it with her other hand as well.

“You won’t have long, Chloe. Write yourself a note. Tape it. Tell Rachel. Something. But both of you have to stay away from Prescott… and Jefferson. Don’t let her go near Jefferson.” 

“What do you mean I won’t have long?”

“I’m not sure this will work. Maybe it won’t. Everything is so broken now. Time… I think time is broken. I’m not sure if that will make it easier or more difficult.”

“Max?”

“Stare into the photo, okay? Focus on it.”

Chloe did as she was asked for once in her life, but it didn’t make sense. Max was the Time Warrior, not Chloe. Why should she stare at a photo of herself and Rachel. That photo. Hadn’t this been in the box under her bed? When did Max pilfer this? Stupid nosey best friend. Max never could help but to snoop.

Beside her, just in her periphery vision, Chloe could see Max focusing on the photo as well. She could feel her hand in her own, wet and cold, but reassuring in the tingle of skin against skin. Focus, Chloe. She turned her attention away from the thrill that shot through her at Max’s touch, and could see Max’s other hand holding steady to the photo that they both held. There was a determination burning in Max’s eyes, and in the ferocity of her grip. Chloe could feel those frail fingers tightening on her own as the girl beside her continued to focus.

“I know I’m gorgeous, but eyes on the photo, Chloe.”

Wait? Was Max just flirting with me?

“Chloe.” Max’s tone brooked no argument. Okay, putting a pin in that and coming back to it later. Definitely coming back to that.  

Chloe returned her focus to the photo once more. It blurred in and out as the rain splashed down onto the celluloid, but Chloe kept looking; kept waiting for something to happen. A few seconds went by, then ten, then fifteen… Her impatience built to a crescendo, but just as she was about to turn back to Max, the edges of her vision began to blur, the world around her, the slashing rain and raging storm, all muting and blurring, until a bright light took over and everything faded from focus.

Chapter Text

Nov 26, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

As the clock at the front of the room gradually ticked down the minutes towards the final bell, Max began tidying up her desk, closing her notebook and slipping her pens and pencils into their carrying case. William’s camera was already tucked securely in her messenger bag; she still almost never took it out. On her right she saw Kate listening attentively to Principal Wells who stood at the front of the class droning on as he read from the assigned text. Unable to find a substitute for the last day before Thanksgiving break, the principal had resigned himself to heading the class personally, but unable to lecture off the book due to his absolute ignorance on photography he merely read their assigned reading out loud, occasionally pausing to question the class and ensure that they were paying attention. Max was pretty certain, however, that Principal Wells didn’t really know if the responses he received were right or wrong. Apparently Language of Photography was all participation this semester. Despite the principal’s monotonous recitation of the text, Kate remained the ever conscientious student, only turning briefly from Principal Wells and his reading to flash a smile at Max.

Max smiled and waved back as she tucked her notebook and her pencil case away. To her left, Victoria sat tapping and swiping on her tablet. Unlike Kate, Victoria had resigned herself to the reality that she would be learning very little in Language of Photography until a real teacher was brought in. Max wondered momentarily what occupied Victoria’s attention on her device. Was she browsing more insanely expensive cameras? Perhaps picking out new resins for that 3D printer she’d purchased for her dorm room? 

Yeah, that’s called jealousy, Max.

And of course it was. Max had no real interest in 3D printing, and she didn’t feel the need to convert to a modern digital SLR, but she couldn’t deny that there was some advantage to having the best equipment. She’d kill for a good lighting rig, a vintage Polaroid Land Model, or even simply for an old Minolta analog SLR. It lacked the fun of instant photography, but there was still something deeply pleasurable in the tactile process of developing your own film; of going to the dark room to…

Max’s thoughts trailed off. 

… the dark room…

The Dark Room.

Blinding light all around. So much light that Max couldn’t see. She was lost in waves of overexposure, hidden not in the darkness and the shadow, but in the glare of the giant LEDs and the flash of the speed lights. 

“I choose you… your portrait.” That voice, his voice, whispered in her ear — not the even sociopathic monotone that she remembered — but an almost breathless whisper of anticipation. 

FLASH.

“Oh, that’s great… Oh Max.”

FLASH

“Oh, those eyes…”

FLASH

“Max…”

She shook her head, that tiny shake to try to rid herself of those haunting voices.

“Max…” the voice continued. Only there was something off about it; no longer a whisper it reverberated, almost but not quite a shout. And the tone was deeper, not Mr. Jefferson’s faux pensive lilt. 

“Maxine,” Principal Wells said, stretching out her full name for emphasis, and this time, the glare of the lights faded and Max returned to the reality of the classroom.

“Yes?” Max asked.

Before Principal Wells could answer, the bell sounded and seats scraped back from the desks in a hurry as the excitement of the now commenced Thanksgiving break overrode the need to wait for a formal dismissal. Principal Wells stepped back towards the door, leaving Max with a pointed stare and a disappointed shake of his head, before addressing the class and blocking their exit.

“Now, now,” he started. “I know that you are all in a hurry to start your break, but do remember that you are representatives of Blackwell Academy. Just because school is closed for the remainder of the week does not mean that you no longer hold the honor and responsibility imbued upon you as students of this prestigious institution. Upon your return, you will submit your photography assignment. I would like to see two submissions from each of you that play with the elements of photography in unique ways — specifically, they should engage negative and positive space through manipulation of shape, line (implied, physical, or psychological), or form be it organic or inorganic. Your use of each of these elements should vary from photograph to …”

Max tuned Wells out. She knew that the chance of her turning in this assignment stood at near zero. In order to complete it, she’d have to be able to snap a picture. She could barely even think about photography without finding herself drawn back to that awful place, just like she had been mere moments earlier. She had to wonder what that meant for her future at Blackwell. She could try to deny the gravity of her situation as much as she wanted, but her photography scholarship remained reliant on two primary factors: her grades and her craft. Her grades were already slipping, and there was no craft in photography when the photographer couldn’t even take a single photo. Yes, her future prospects were abysmal at best.

Nearly a month had passed since the night of the Halloween party. Max had never made it further than the gym exterior, but that night she had learned that there were those at Blackwell that really did care for her. Dana had done her best to bring her out that night, but since then, she had also learned to give Max the space that she needed. Warren remained oblivious, but he had (for the most part) stopped trying to invite Max to the drive-in or ask her out on a date without actually asking her out. Now he mainly swung by to geek out and watch classic sci-fi movies. Victoria remained the Queen Beeotch, and while she did occasionally corner Max for more evil fairy godmother advice sessions, her main interest seemed to be in protecting Kate. 

Speaking of which, Kate had been Max’s most reliable shoulder on which to lean. They were both hurting and both needed one another. Kate had no memory of what had happened to her in the Dark Room ( and thank Dog for that ), but she had seen the evidence binder with her name on it. While the victims of Jefferson had not been made public, outside of Rachel Amber, his crimes had made the headlines and made Arcadia Bay infamous. Kate may have been spared the memory of her victimization, but she understood it; she knew what had happened and she knew what was behind the looks of her fellow students, the prying gazes, the not-so-subtlety averted eyes, the whispers behind her back. Before Jefferson she had been the Christian girl that ran the abstinence campaign; she had been bullied and ridiculed, but she had held her head up high. After Nathan drugged her, she had become the viral slut and she had been abandoned by those that should have been there for her; she had learned who would stand by her side and who was nothing more than a fair weather friend. Yet after Jefferson’s actions became public knowledge, her image had shifted once more. Now she was the victim. She was a different sort of social pariah, one treated like glass; fragile and to be handled with care. When her peers looked at her, they no longer saw the innocent church girl, but rather damaged goods; they pitied her even as they objectified her in all new ways.

Over the past month, Max had spent just as many nights comforting Kate over her shattered trust and damaged faith as Kate had calming Max’s nightmares. Though, where Max understood the trauma at the foundation of Kate’s suffering, where Max had knowledge of how Kate had been victimized and of the deep violations that plagued her, Kate could only comfort Max in ignorance. To everyone at Blackwell, Max was simply the girl who saw Chloe Price killed by Nathan Prescott. She was a witness to a crime and she had lost a childhood friend, but she was not considered a victim; not really. 

While Max was thankful for this, thankful to not have to bear the constant pitying and the mantle of victimization, thankful to avoid that scarlet letter, she also found herself battling demons that she could not explain. Her panic attacks, her anxiety, her frequent absences were seen as excess. When a thunderstorm sent her into hysterics, there was no understanding. When Mr. Madsen grabbed her by the wrist as she was caught hurrying through the halls and she screamed bloody murder, no one understood about the tape that had bound her in the Dark Room. When the whistle of a train caused her to freeze up, no one could know how many times she had heard Chloe’s screams cut abruptly short as she had been too slow to save her on the tracks. When the flash of a camera hurled her into darkness, lost within a hallucinatory prison, no one knew that she was the only one of Jefferson’s victims that remembered what had been done to her.

Kate could comfort Max at a surface level, but she could never reach the root of Max’s trauma, not without Max revealing her secret. And Dog, she wanted to. Max wanted to show Kate, to bend time and space, and once more have the support of a friend who understood with a completeness that through which Max was suffering. She wanted to rewind time and explain to Kate all that had been lost. Yet, Chloe had… ( don’t think about it, don’t think about it, don’t thinkaboutit,dontthinkaboutit… crap I’m thinking about it )… Chloe had sacrificed herself to prevent the storm. Max had let her best friend die to grant her that final request (the second time you directly murdered her), and she couldn’t risk using her powers now and letting that sacrifice have been for nothing. So, Max continued to struggle, while she could only be comforted with weak condolences that, oblivious to the actual root cause of her trauma, could only heal so much.

In short, Max was not doing well. Her grades had plummeted, her photography output was nil, and her friendships were on the rocks, limited to Warren’s schoolboy crush, Dana’s mothering, and Kate’s well-intentioned, but ultimately impeded, consoling visits. Few other students gave Max the time of day anymore, outside of Alyssa; and Max’s interaction with Alyssa could best be described as parallel play: reading books together or watching TV in silence, no more than half a dozen words shared between them.

So it was that afternoon as Max left Blackwell following the final bell before break, Kate holding her hand, and Alyssa walking beside her, the trio leaving photography and heading towards the Prescott dormitories. Max already felt the increasing isolation of the campus. Sure, there was a buzzing about the quad, a frenzy as students filed out of the main building, but the crowd was already smaller than it should have been, much of the student body having left already. 

As they entered the breezeway between the main building and the dorms, Max caught sight of Dana, a large pink suitcase rolling behind her. Dana smiled her exuberant smile and waved her spirited wave, then ran up to Max and Kate and Alyssa, giving them all deep, individual hugs. Then, just as suddenly as she had accosted them, Dana flew down the walk and away from campus towards a waiting car pulled to the side of the road. 

“See you next week, girls!” 

They lost sight of her as she threw her bag in the trunk and the three of them turned the corner passing by Principal Well’s residence. Ahead of them, the dorm’s lawn buzzed with departing students. Alyssa nodded her farewell and sat herself down under a tree to read, as Kate and Max continued inside. 

The two parted at last in front of Kate’s room with deep hugs and a promise to text over break. Kate wanted to hear all about Seattle and wished Max a safe trip home. Max promised to text but failed to correct Kate. She had no intention of leaving Arcadia Bay over Thanksgiving. She wasn’t ready to leave it behind. It held too many precious memories for her, and she feared that if she returned to Seattle, she wouldn’t come back; she was not ready for that. She also knew better than to tell any of her friends. They worried too much about her as it was. None of them would have been okay with her staying alone on campus. 

All of this Max kept to herself hugging Kate goodbye, then heading off to her own dorm room to ‘finish packing.’ Once inside, she plopped down on her bed, rolling her bedspread over her and cocooning herself within it. She thought about taking a nap, losing herself to the comfort of sleep, but she feared that it would hold little comfort for her this afternoon, thoughts of the Dark Room too close at hand. So instead, she wrapped herself up like a burrito and gazed over her Memorial Wall. So many familiar faces now looked back at her from those Polaroids: innocent Maxes from Seattle and  naive Maxes from her first month at Blackwell, along with smiling portraitures of Dana and Kate, of Warren and Justin, and candid, and often displeased or at best disinterested, portraits of Victoria and Brooke. There were also shots of Samuel and of Mrs. Grant; of Principal Wells and Ms. Hoida; even shots of Mr. Keaton and Mr. Cole. 

There had been shots of Mr. Jefferson, but Max had been quick to remove them. Now only empty squares of wall remained to signify their absence, unable to be filled due to Max’s inability to take any new photographs. Those blank patches, those squares of negative space, shouted at Max, yelling at her, screaming their significance even as she tried to rid herself of the reminders that had once hung there. Even in his absence, Mr. Jefferson’s presence was unavoidable. 

Max screamed into her pillow, muffling her frustration, then curled into herself and waited for the dorm to empty. She listened to the sounds of her retreating classmates, to the honks of horns from parents’ cars outside, and the shouted goodbyes of departing students, and she drowned herself in the banality of the everyday to keep her mind afloat against the pull of her nightmares. 

An hour passed, then another, and then, the unthinkable happened. Buried in her anxieties and wrapped in her loneliness, Max drifted off to sleep.

Once more, Max stood on the wooded trail that led to the lighthouse. All around her were signs of destruction. The path was overgrown and numerous trees lay collapsed over the trail in various states of rot. The woods surrounding her were thinner than Max remembered, and throughout the underbrush she could see signs of more toppled trees and fallen limbs.

At the same time, the  peaceful quiet of nature blanketed the scene. The low murmur of forest animals, of life, permeated the woods. Birds circled overhead, and crickets could be heard singing in the night. To her right, a twig snapped and she could hear the rustle of leaves. She turned to find a mother deer and two fawns. They froze as they locked eyes with Max, and without thinking, she reached for her messenger bag, as if to grab her camera. It surprised her, and as realization hit her, Max felt the shock of her actions radiate throughout her entire being. For the briefest of moments, she felt as if she could actually take a picture again. 

Whether she would have been able to follow through on that inclination or not she would never find out. As her hands paused on the flap of her bag, the deer bound away deeper into the woods. Max let the bag’s flap fall back into place and turned her attention once more to the trail. A large tree blocked her path, but somehow she knew that she had to keep going. She crept forward, guided by the bright light of the moon, and pulled herself over the fallen debris. Her messenger bag caught on a branch, but Max freed herself with ease, and continued on. 

Just ahead, the logs that had once been piled near the head of the trail lay scattered, blocking the entire path. Scrambling over them would have proven dangerous, but it didn't matter. The woods had been thinned, and Max stepped off the trail clambering over rocks and other debris until she had rounded the fallen logs and made it to the other side. A short climb later and the lookout point and its iconic lighthouse stood before her.

The latter pulled her attention. The top of the lighthouse had been ripped clean off, and scattered rubble lay at its base, along with more fallen trees, and a boat lodged over top of the nearby shed. It was the same scene that Max had witnessed in her visions during that lost week, only now the storm had passed. She cast her eyes over the water to find clear skies and calm seas; she could not, however, turn her attention to the bay. She did not want to see what she feared she would find. 

She saved Arcadia Bay, yet this scene before her, this was not that time; this was not that choice. This was another possibility, a choice that she did not make. In that truth lay a mixture of both fear and hope: fear for the thousands of lives potentially destroyed, and hope for the one that might have been saved.

As if fate had decided to mock her, her gaze landed upon a blue-haired figure standing at the cliff’s edge, just beyond that sole bench of the lookout. The woman was tall and thin, and she wore a leather jacket, ripped jeans, and boots. Max couldn’t see her face, but she didn’t have to see it; she could never forget it, and that face came to her mind’s eye with crystal clarity — every soft feature, the mischievous quirk of her lips, the gleam in her blue eyes. Max focused back on the reality before her, watching as the figure worried the dark blue beanie in her hands and continued to stare out over the bay.

“Chloe…” Max whispered, stepping closer. She had almost reached the chasm between her and the bench, the ravine dredged out by the falling lamp of the lighthouse, where the cliffside had given away.  If she was careful, she could toe around its edge and reach the bench and, more importantly, the figure beyond..

Before she could, however, the figure on the cliff turned around locking eyes with Max. Chloe smiled at her, but the smile was a lie. Max could tell. The light of it never reached Chloe’s eyes; instead those eyes were filled with a deep melancholy, and Max felt the overwhelming urge to reach out and pull Chloe close, to hug her tight and to tell her how much she was loved.

She didn’t get the chance.

One moment Chloe was smiling that sad smile, and the next she stepped into the nothingness beyond the cliff’s edge, silently vanishing over the side. Max screamed, rushing over the broken, fallen earth, and scrambling beyond the bench until she had reached the cliffside where Chloe had been mere moments earlier. 

Looking over the edge she could not see her blue-haired angel, only rocks and the calm waters below. Beyond, however, beyond those waters, rose the remnants of Arcadia Bay; a broken, rotted skeleton; the carcass of the town she destroyed and the lives that she had ruined. Chloe had dreamed of dropping a bomb on the city and burning it to glass; the scene laid out before Max was that and so much more. No one could have survived. Not even the shells of buildings remained. All had been razed to the ground. Even the trees were felled, only resuming their upward dance with the sun on the overlooks, the rising cliffsides that framed the bay. Everything between those two outcrops was leveled.

Burn it down and salt the earth.

No life could ever return here. But that wasn’t right. This wasn’t her choice. Max didn’t choose Chloe, much as it hurt her. Max chose Arcadia Bay.

“Be strong.” The words came on the wind, a soft male voice, that she could almost place, but try as she might she just couldn't quite name. Max glanced about the lookout. Not a single soul but her stood beneath the lighthouse nor at the cliff’s edge.

“I don’t understand,” Max said. She didn’t expect a reply, nor did she receive one.

Chapter Text

Nov 27, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

When she woke, the sun had long since set, and a deep quiet had settled over the dormitory. Max couldn’t make out much, the blackout curtains doing their job and preventing any of the moonlight from penetrating into her room. She squinted and shuffled over her covers towards the switch for her lanterns, then shielding her eyes, she flipped the switch and a soft, warm light parted the darkness that had stolen in during her nap.

As her eyes adjusted, she thought back to the dream from which she had stirred. She still couldn’t place the voice that had been carried to her on the wind, but whoever had spoken those words, they stuck with Max as she slowly returned to the waking world. 

“Be strong.”

Great advice , she thought. Thank you freaky dream fairy.

She wanted to shake it off like she always did unwanted thoughts, and yet the dream held an eerie quality, a surreal similarity to the visions that had plagued her in the week leading up to the storm. 

It had been a dream, right?  

She couldn’t be sure. Perhaps she had a vision before falling asleep, or perhaps in her sleep. She doubted she would be able to tell the difference between a dream vision and a simple dream. But if it was a vision, why now? She had already made her choice, and it had been to save the Bay, but in that dream, Arcadia Bay had been destroyed and Chloe, Chloe was still alive… at first. 

Nope. Nope, nope. Don’t like that. Going to block that part out.

Yet, try as she might, she couldn’t shake that image of Chloe, her mischievous grin pulling at her lips, right before she backed off the cliff and fell to the rocks and sea below. 

Dog, couldn’t she ever just have one good sleep? One sleep where she wasn’t plagued by nightmares of that week? Hell, now she had to have dreams of things that hadn’t even happened, of choices that she didn’t make. Seriously, if that’s what fate had in store for her, Max felt fairly certain she’d never get a good night’s sleep again.

Speaking of which, that nap had woken her right up. Max shook her arms out, trying to rid herself of excess energy, but no, it was too late. She was wide awake. Realizing that laying back down now would be an exercise in futility, Max rose from her bed, and left her room in search of distraction.

A thick silence awaited Max in that hallway, the dorms muted in the absence of so many students. It figured that she had been surrounded by her peers every day since she returned to this timeline, having to work to shut them out and find the solitude that she craved, but now, now that most of her classmates had returned home for the long weekend, now, she had a vision; now she needed someone to distract her from the chaos of her mind; and now, there was no one to be found.

Max flipped open her phone to check the time: Twelve past midnight. She must have been asleep for at least five hours, which was an hour or so better than most nights, anymore. Yep, I’m not going back to sleep now. Her display showed numerous text alerts as well, but given the hour, Max assumed those could wait. With the dorms emptying out for Thanksgiving, there were bound to be a few goodbye messages.

Worse than the long night ahead of her, was the complete lack of company. Photography class had stirred images of the Dark Room that morning, and Max could still hear that whispered voice in her ear. As she’d push it down, attempting to force out those unwanted memories, her dream would surface: Arcadia Bay destroyed; Chloe stepping out into the open air and vanishing into the waters below. Nope, nope, nope. 

The channel changed and there Max was all in black, the afternoon sun beating down on her and the other mourners gathered in the Arcadia Bay Cemetery. She had tried so hard and for so long to keep this memory at bay, but now, struggling against her dream, alone with no sounds to distract her, and no friends to comfort her, Max felt that memory steel in and grip into her. There was no escaping it this time. 

She stumbled past Brooke’s room and leaned against the window at the end of the hall staring out over the breezeway and towards the main building of the school; into that quad where Chloe had once leapt out with a loud ‘Boo-yah!’ much to Max’s consternation, and, secretly, her delight. She tried to focus on that memory, on the two of them breaking into Blackwell ( If I have a key, how can it be breaking? They can’t charge us just for entering! ), on Chloe trying to convince her they should take the principal’s chair ( No, you’re not taking the cozy chair ), on their evening trespass at the pool ( Splish splash! … There’s an otter in my water ), on all the thrills of that evening. It was no use. Just as soon as one memory would steal in, there came the funeral again to drown it out.

To her left Mr. Madsen supported Joyce as her grief overwhelmed her and she cried into his arms. To her right, Warren stood head solemnly bowed, and on the other side of Joyce and Mr. Madsen, Kate dabbed at her cheeks as her tears flowed. Max, however, couldn’t cry. She had still been in shock. For her, she had been there with Chloe on the cliff, barely an hour earlier, watching the storm roll in. Now, rather then, she stood watching helplessly as the small gathering listened to some old Father eulogize Chloe in a display of formality that her friend would have despised. 

Beyond Warren, Kate, herself, and Joyce and David, about a half dozen other mourners stood in attendance, faces somber and hands clasped before them in respect: all from Blackwell. Trevor and Justin hadn’t been unexpected, having been friends with Rachel Amber and Chloe before Rachel disappeared. Dana was there with Trevor, and, Max suspected, to support her as well; likely the same reason that Warren and Kate were in attendance, as they had neither seen Chloe since before her junior year expulsion. Still, the last two attendees made no sense to Max. Victoria stood off on her own, just as solemn and reflective as all the attendees; Victoria whose best friend had killed Chloe; Victoria who had openly despised her in life; Victoria who had no right to be there. 

Then, there stood Principal Wells, the man whom had expelled Chloe over two years prior - the second time he had expelled her. That last time stuck. Max could remember the anger roiling within her that this man, this drunken hypocrite, would show his face at Chloe’s funeral.

Yet all of that, her anger at Wells, her confusion over Victoria, her grief that so many of the mourners were there to support her rather than Chloe, Max  kept it all inside. That afternoon was about her best friend, not her. So, she stood silently as the Father wrapped up his eulogy and she watched in muffled shock, worrying her hands, as a blue butterfly flitted through the air just over the Madsens and down in a graceful arc until it came to rest upon the head of Chloe’s coffin. Her tears flowed then, at last, but as Max focused on that butterfly, its blue wings flapping as it took a brief respite there with Chloe, the faintest hint of a smile had crept in. To an outside observer, it might have seemed that Max had found some peace with Chloe’s death, that the butterfly had perhaps symbolized for her a beauty and rest for her friend in the afterlife, a peace found in death that she never found in life. For others perhaps that smile merely signified Max’s delight reliving a long forgotten memory of her childhood friend. 

Max knew the truth, however; that butterfly had started everything. It had been there the moment that Chloe had died, originally died. It had been there when her powers triggered; and its presence then, at Chloe’s funeral, at her latest dance with death, well, for Max that symbolized hope. Maybe time was not done yet with Chloe Price and Max Caulfield; maybe somewhere in the future past, Max and Chloe would yet be reunited.

So she had smiled, and she had let that hope settle in, and then she had buried it and she had grieved. Chloe had begged her to go back and save Arcadia Bay, to save her mother and even her step-douche, and Max, in taking that photo of this same blue butterfly from her friend’s shaking hand, had made a promise to Chloe. She had promised to set things right and to undue all her meddling with time, correcting its course and ridding the world of that ungodly storm; and to keep that promise, she couldn’t have hope – not of a world with Chloe Price alive and well.

Until that moment in the hall, Max had been able to keep that hope buried, avoiding all thoughts of that day, and of those somber proceedings. Now, all that grief and that hope came flooding back and Max couldn’t handle it. She ran, not realizing at first where she was headed; not until she found herself leaning over the sink in the showers, splashing water on her face. She had to get it together. It was only day one of Thanksgiving break, and already she was a mess. 

Max splashed another dash of water over her cheeks and eyes, running her wet hands down her face and staring at her zombie-like complexion in the mirror. There. That was better. She breathed out, thoughts of the funeral already floating away, carried off into the nether like a dream upon waking. 

She stretched, cracking her knuckles, and pushed back from the sink. She could do this; she could pull it together. She just had to focus one day, one hour at a time. Turning off the water, she shifted away, ready to head back out into the hall. If she were lucky, maybe she wasn’t the only one that had stayed behind. Maybe she’d hear some music or TV coming from one of the other girls’ rooms and find some solace knowing that she was not alone. So, she stepped away from the sink and – came to an immediate halt.

Sink after sink and mirror after mirror lined the wall, way more than the three sinks that should have been there; and the orangish brown and white tint of the girls’ shower room had been replaced with an all too familiar blue and white checkering. And, crap, those weren’t shower stalls to her right. No, in an instant she had been transported back to a different memory, that memory in that bathroom.

Max squeezed her eyes shut, and for a moment the hallucination faded and she stood once more in the showers; then came that manic voice.

“It’s cool Nathan… Don’t stress… You’re okay, bro. Just count to three.”

That voice had been so panicked, but also laced with so much anger and privilege. It had dripped with toxicity, and Max, she couldn’t hear it again, she couldn't relive this.

“Don’t be scared… You own this school… If I wanted I could blow it up… You’re the boss…”

No, Max wasn’t about to do this again. She jammed her hands against her ears and slid down along the wall to the floor, between two sinks, muttering under her breath, like a child trying to drown out a friend’s taunts.

“I’m not listening. I’m not listening. I’m not listening.”

Still the voices came.

A door creaked open. “So what do you want?”

Nope. Nope, nope. Max knew what was coming. She couldn’t hear that voice. She couldn’t let this memory play out. 

“I hope you checked the perimeter,” that new voice began; her voice; Chloe’s voice.

Max pushed harder on her ears and lunged to her feet, rushing for the door.

“... as my step-ass would say,” the Chloe-voice continued. “Now, let’s talk bidness –” 

Max burst from the showers, rushing out in a desperate bid to leave that memory behind; she hauled the door open and plowed out into the hall with a frenzied burst of energy — slamming right into Taylor Christensen and knocking her back against the stray desk by the window. 

“God, Max! Watch where you’re going!”

Max’s daze lifted, as if yanked away by an unseen hand, and suddenly she was very, very much in the present; a present where she had just slammed Taylor, goon number one of Team Victoria, into a desk.

“I’m… I’m so sorry,” she said, genuinely apologizing. She didn’t get along with Taylor, but she didn’t have it out for her either.

“I’m so sorry,” Taylor parroted, adding a nasally mocking tone to her voice. “Don’t be sorry,” she continued, dropping the mock accent. “Just watch where you’re going, selfie girl.”

Ugh. Taylor and all of Team Victoria were the worst. Why of all the girls in the dorm did it have to be Taylor that stayed behind with Max over the break? 

“I… I will,” Max stammered “I really am… sorry.”

Taylor rolled her eyes as she pushed past Max into the showers, mumbling something that sounded suspiciously like “weirdo freak” under her breath.

Mortified, and still wide awake, Max headed towards the stairwell and the upstairs TV lounge. She needed a distraction and she doubted a one-on-one girl’s night with Taylor was in the cards.

An hour later, Max lay sprawled in the girls’ TV lounge, a can of soda and some Lays chips open on the table by her feet, while streaming an episode of Pushing Daisies ; which with its themes of death, resurrection, and lost, unattainable loves, was probably not her wisest choice. But so be it, Max wasn’t about best choices tonight. She needed television romance, junk food, and a good blanket. Luckily she’d swung by her room and grabbed an extra blanket from her closet for curling under in the lounge. 

Thus settled, she scarfed down some vending machine Oreos and flipped open her phone.

1:25 am . 

Damn. It had been nearly an hour and a half, and she was still wide awake. Her phone already open, and with nothing better to do, Max decided that she might as well check her missed text messages.

Dana Ward: Just saw the news. You ok?

11/26/13 -6:08 pm

Dana Ward: Call if u need anything. Thinking of u. <3

11/26/13 -6:34 pm

Dana Ward: And if Juliet tries to bother you, let me know. I told her you and Kate were off-limits.

11/26/13 -6:36 pm

Kate Marsh:   Just spoke to Dana. I can’t right now. How is this okay? It’s like I’m in a nightmare and I can’t wake up…

11/26/13 -6:12 pm

Max paused on the first message from Kate. She’d heard those words before; she’d heard them on a rooftop in the pouring rain. What were they doing here? Why was Kate’s mind traveling those paths now? Something had happened while she was asleep, but Max didn’t have a single clue what it might be. Her breathing hitching as her anxiety began to swell, Max returned to her messages.

Kate Marsh:   I wish I could go back in time and erase everything…but I can’t, and now what do we do?

11/26/13 -6:16 pm

Kate Marsh:   I’m glad you’re with your family. They seem nice. Seems like they’d help in times like these. 

11/26/13 -6:19 pm

Kate Marsh:   Mom’s just as bad as ever, and tonight, well this just opens up old wounds, we’ve avoided talking about. 

11/26/13 -6:24 pm

Kate Marsh:   I wish I could hide away somewhere.  

11/26/13 -6:25 pm

Kate Marsh:   Sorry for blowing up your phone.  

11/26/13 -6:38 pm

Kate Marsh:   Could you call? I could really do to hear your voice, right now.

11/26/13 -7:05 pm

Kate Marsh:   Sorry to bother you. Obviously you’re busy. Probably out with family. You’ve heard right? You have to have. I wouldn’t bother with me right now, either. You’ve got your own problems without me dragging you down.

11/26/13 -7:46 pm

Kate Marsh:   I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry, Max. Please call.

11/26/13 -8:18 pm

Dana Ward:   Kate’s spiraling. Could you give her a call?

11/26/13 -7:09 pm

Dana Ward:   I think she really needs to hear from you. XOXO Thinking of you both.

11/26/13 -7:12 pm

The deeper Max waded through the string of texts, the more her anxiety ratcheted up, the TV existing now as nothing more than a dull background drone. All that mattered was the phone in Max’s hand, and the mounting tension with every new text that she read.

Warren Graham:   Max. I’m worried. I can’t believe this. It is so insane.

11/26/13 -7:16 pm

Warren Graham:   Call your boy Friday here if you need to talk

11/26/13 -7:17 pm

Alyssa Anderson:   You okay?

11/26/13 -7:19 pm

Alyssa? Alyssa texted? Max tried to swallow, but found that her mouth was too dry and a dull ache had formed in her throat. Her hands were shaking now, but she only had a few messages left; and all from Victoria.

Victoria Chase:   CALL KATE

11/26/13 -7:24 pm

Victoria Chase:   You better be dead or in the hospital. Those are the only excuses I’m going to accept.

11/26/13 -9:05 pm

Victoria Chase:   WTF! Taylor saw yuo in the dorms. U CALL KATE NOW. 

11/27/13-12:27 am

Victoria Chase: Taylor, says you’re not in your room. Where r u? 

11/27/13-12:51 am

Victoria Chase: I’ve got all night, Max.

11/27/13-1:09 am

With a trembling hand, Max set down her phone. She should call Kate, but she still had no idea why everyone was in a panic, and why they all seemed so concerned about the two of them. Kate hadn’t tried to kill herself in this reality, but with her video out there, even if nothing was officially released, it was public knowledge that she had been drugged by Nathan and had been one of Jefferson’s victims; but Max, no one knew about her time in the Dark Room. No one knew that she was a victim.

“The slightly unconscious model is often the most open and honest.” His voice broke through Max’s panic and brought with it a whole new flood of anxiety. Much as with her attack that afternoon in Language of Photography, his voice whispered in her ear, softer than he had spoken in that reality, but with just as much malevolence. 

“No,” Max muttered. “Shut up.”

She knew it was useless. He was only in her head; a memory or a fabrication at most. You can’t argue with a memory. Yet, still she tried.

“I promise…” that voice continued.  

“Shut Up, I said.”

“People will care when you die tonight, Max. I wasn’t lying when I said you had a gift.”

She covered her ears and screamed. She screamed loud and long, drawing it out as if the very force and duration of her scream could will away that man’s memory. When at last she stopped, her throat raw and hoarse, she noticed the silence. That voice had stopped, no longer whispering in her ear, but what’s more, all sounds had stopped: even the television. She sat now in a cone of silence.

Confused, Max opened her eyes.

“Better?” Taylor asked. She stood there in her silk pajamas, her soft blond hair unkempt, as if woken fresh from sleep. Max hadn’t been screaming that long though, had she? Could Taylor have woken to her scream and made it here that quickly?

“Victoria’s looking for you.”

Oh, yeah, that makes more sense.

“She woke you to find me?”

“Yeah. Stop ignoring your phone.” Taylor gestured to the phone in Max’s hand. “You might want to call Kate or Victoria, if you don’t want her to blow up your messages all weekend.”

Max glanced back to her phone screen, the contacts button calling to her from the bottom corner. She should call; but she still didn’t know what had happened, and that bubble of fear had not diminished with the quieting of Jefferson’s voice. 

“Um… Taylor?” Max’s words came out little more than a croak, a soft, raspy plea.

Taylor either didn’t pick up Max’s distress, or she just didn’t care. “Yes?” she asked, not even attempting to hide the agitation in her voice. 

At that moment, Max longed for Dana’s cheerful banter or for Kate’s soft voice, always so full of concern and compassion. As much as she had lied to herself over the past month and a half, convincing herself that she needed neither, she could see now how much she had been relying on the two of them to hold herself together. Now, alone with Taylor and her clear animosity, Max grew concerned that she no longer had the strength to stand on her own. Still, she needed answers, and there was no one here to help her; no one save for Taylor.

“Taylor,” Max started again. A lump formed in her throat, and Max had to swallow it back before she could continue speaking, an awkward pause stretching between the two girls, until at last Max found her voice again. “Why does Victoria want me to talk to Kate?”

Max had rarely seen so blatantly clear a transformation of emotions. The wide-eyed agitation knitted in Taylor’s brows softened to a narrowed, cock-eyed confusion, followed swiftly by a further softening to a delicate look of concern.

“Wait… didn’t you hear?” That puzzled look stole over Taylor’s face again, and suddenly Max really wanted her to just pick one emotion and stick with it.

“No. Hear what? I crashed right after class.”

“Shit.” Taylor wasn’t talking to Max, more mumbling to herself, her eyes shifting towards the TV lounge entryway. Clearly she wanted an exit, any way out of this conversation, and for a moment, Taylor’s fingers began to twitch, pulling at the hem of her nightshirt. Max remembered then, a different Taylor; a Taylor from that lost week, prepping for bed at the sinks. What was it she had said after Max had comforted her, the two bonding over guilt for Kate’s suicide attempt and relief for its failure?

“Now I have to be alone for my nightly anxiety attack.”

“Are you okay?” Max asked. 

Taylor eyed her suspiciously, obviously unaccustomed to Max’s concern. Whatever she may have suspected, she pushed that aside however.

“I… I shouldn’t be the one to tell you,” she started. 

“Please.”

Taylor took one last look at the exit, then relaxed down onto the couch beside Max. “Okay…” she breathed in deep, then slowly exhaled and collected herself together. “Let’s do this.”

Max waited as Taylor gave herself a mental prep talk, then finally started in. “Okay. You remember after… well, after the shooting…”

Damn. She was really going to walk on eggshells here, wasn’t she?

“Yeah…”

“Okay. And you remember when they took Nathan in, when he was arraigned, you remember the news then, that week? How the court had sided with the defense and agreed to a temporary commitment and evaluation at Aspen Slopes in Portland?”

Uh, no, Taylor, I was in another timeline that week, and the Max you knew who heard all of that apparently blocked it out and didn’t note it in her diary and is no longer here, replaced by her doppelgänger from an alternate reality. And that doppelgänger has been so caught up on Chloe’s death she didn’t even think about the possibility that Nathan might be anywhere other than prison.

“Um… yeah,” Max said, figuring that was likely the safer course of action. “What are you saying?”

“Well, um…” Taylor hemmed and hawed, obviously wishing anyone other than her was here to relay whatever news she was holding in. “Well…” she continued. “The court reconvened today, just before close. According to V, based on the recommendations of the doctors in Aspen Slopes… well, they’re saying that based on his mental state, and, with treatment, a decreased likelihood of, I think she said, recidivism, that —”

“Just cut to it.” Max snapped. Taylor meant well, but dancing around the topic did Max no good. “Please,” she added, trying to dull the cut of her words.

“The court agreed to a half million dollars in bail. He was released under house arrest.”

“He was…was…” Max stuttered.

“Released,” Taylor finished. 

Yeah, that’s what she thought she had heard. Chloe was dead, and the man that killed her wasn’t even in jail. He wasn’t even in an institution. He was at home living it up at Chez Prescott. Of course, bail still meant… 

“When’s the trial?” she asked, grasping for any straw she could.

“They don’t know. It could be as soon as May, it could still be a year out.”

A year; a whole year. For the next year, Nathan would be free, awaiting trial, and Chloe, she’d still be in the ground. The force of that struck Max, the injustice of it, and she could barely breathe. 

He was free. He was free. 

That psychotic, privileged ass was free.

Chapter Text

Nov 27, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

Max couldn’t shake that thought, the sickening realization that Nathan Prescott was free. Sure, he would still have to face trial, but that seemed a joke. Half a million dollars and a month and a half in a psych ward had bought Chloe’s murderer his freedom. 

It had been about five minutes since Taylor told Max about Nathan; about his stay at Alpen Slopes in Portland ( which let’s face it, sounds more like a luxury resort than it does a mental institution ), about his bail hearing and subsequent release, about his house arrest until the trial; it had been five minutes since Max’s world, a world to which she had barely been hanging on to begin with, had been turned completely upside down. 

At the realization that Nathan wouldn’t even be brought to trial for possibly up to a year, Max had stood and wandered to the far corner window across from the storage closet. She leaned against the sill and stared out into the night, across the quad until her eyes rested on the Tobanga, standing proudly and mysteriously upon the hill overlooking the dorms. She stood there, lost in thought, mesmerized by the mystery of that artifact, and just as much perplexed by the reality with which she had just been presented.

As the silence stretched between them, Taylor smoothed out her nightgown and glanced nervously about the room, her discomfort plain to see. Let her be uncomfortable , Max thought. She should be uncomfortable. We should all be uncomfortable. And that was the truth, wasn’t it? Nathan had ranted in that bathroom that he could blow up the school if he had wanted to, and at the time that she first heard it, and the second time and the third time that she heard it, Max had believed those words to be mad ravings — just psychotic drivel Nathan spouted to work up his courage. Now she knew better. He could. He could actually blow up the school and Max was no longer certain that he would actually face any real consequences for doing so.

“Um, Max?” Taylor shot Max a questioning look, then shifted her eyes back to her hands in her lap. She had been fidgeting nervously from her place on the couch the entire time that Max had been at the window, and it was driving Max insane. It had been Max’s best friend that bastard had shot, yet Taylor was the one sitting on the couch with that hurt puppy face. Intuitively, Max understood it. The whole situation was awkward. Neither of them were really friends — were closer to enemies than friends if she was honest about the situation — so having to have that conversation, well, of course things were going to get weird. Max going quiet for five minutes straight probably wasn’t helping the situation either. Okay, Max thought. Maybe I can cut her a little slack.

“Sorry. It’s just… it’s a lot to take in.”

“Yeah.” Taylor nodded and when Max didn’t say anything more, she kept going. “I bet.” 

Max suspected that Taylor couldn’t deal with the silence. In all honesty, Max couldn’t blame her. Just a few minutes before Taylor’s arrival and that same silence had been driving Max up the wall; now something else was sitting in the driver’s seat — something cold and raw and sharp.

She knew she should say something; that she should make a greater effort to ease the tension, but Max’s head kept spinning. The mystery of the Tobanga, Nathan free, Chloe dead, the injustice of it, Jefferson in the Dark Room, herself letting Chloe die ( murderer ), Kate on that roof, the train barreling down the tracks, gunshots and a switchblade, a storm spiraling towards Arcadia Bay, the mystery of the Tobanga, Nathan free, the injustice of it. Round and round we go.

At last Max pushed back from the window, shattering the loop. “Okay,” she said. “I’m okay.”

“Really,” Taylor asked.

“No.”

Taylor nodded. 

“But I will be.” That wasn’t true either, but Taylor didn’t need to know that. Max plowed forward before Taylor could question her further. “I’ll text Victoria.”

“Good.”

Oh, aren’t we the talkative bunch tonight?

Max pulled out her phone and tapped onto the message chain with Victoria, typing out her message quick and to the point.

Slept through news. Checking in with Kate :Max

11/27/13-1:41 am

She heard the immediate ping of a response. What was it now, nearly two am? Max ignored the incoming message. She’d done her due diligence. Anything else that Victoria wanted to say could wait until morning. 

Quickly she tapped over to Dana’s contact, and typed an equally quick if slightly less succinct follow up.

So sorry. Just heard. :Max  

Can’t really wrap my head around it yet, but I will reach out to Kate.

11/27/13-1:43 am

Thank you for caring. :Max  

xomaxo

11/27/13-1:44 am

She didn't have the mental energy to respond to everyone then and there, but she knew that there was one more text that she had to send: one more that could not wait until morning.  Her finger hesitated over her message logs. She couldn’t bring herself to tap into that chat. 

Seizing on a distraction, she pivoted on her heel and marched over to the couch hauling up her messenger bag and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. 

“Smoke,” she asked. 

Max couldn’t say if Taylor had agreed to come because she actually wanted a smoke, because she felt obligated to be there for Max as the one that broke the news, or because she just couldn’t find any way to back out of it. Whatever her reasons, Taylor leaned on the railing of the stairs, cigarette to her lips, as Max exhaled across from her. 

A cold silence spread between them, deep as the chill in the night air. Neither seemed ready to break it, so both smoked quietly, no words shared until Taylor tapped out the last bit of ash from her cigarette, and stamped out the butt under her heel.

“Bum another,” she asked.

“Sure.” Max nodded as she flipped open her pack and held it out towards Taylor. 

Taylor slid out a fresh cigarette, cupping her hand to shield it from the wind as she lit it up and inhaled. Easing it from her lips, she let out a slow exhale, Max marveling at the thin, wispy tendrils of smoke rising into the night. Taylor turned to her then, an unspoken question hanging on her partially parted lips.

Max thought it best to wait her out and to let Taylor ask at her own pace. So, she took out her phone and tapped out a message to Kate. That’s what she was avoiding anyway, right? Of course, she needed to call Kate, but it was late, and if she sent a text, well, she could congratulate herself on a  job well done and hope for the best; hope that Kate was asleep and that this was a conversation for the morning, or tomorrow, or maybe even next week. Here’s hoping. Now take the plunge, Max.

Hi, Kate. Sorry. I missed the news. :Max

11/27/13-1:57 am

And your texts. :Max

11/27/13-1:58 am

I crashed after classes. Just seeing them now. :Max

Call if you’re up. I won’t be sleeping anytime soon.

11/27/13-2:00am

That done, Max closed her phone and slid it back into her pocket, switching it out for her pack of cigarettes. Taylor still hadn’t asked her question, but it hung there in that pregnant pause, and Max decided that this time, maybe she would just do her a favor and coax it out of her.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Max tapped out another cigarette for herself and leaned back against the far rail of the stairs as she cast her questioning gaze upon Taylor. As she threw the question across that gulf of space, she was acutely aware of the distance between the two of them; physical yes (the length of the stairs), but also social and psychological. Taylor stood at the pinnacle of a social hierarchy on which Max was the bottom rung. At the same time, Max had seen more trauma in a week than most people saw in a lifetime. Max came from a place of struggle, fighting to work her way into Blackwell Academy. Taylor came from privilege, her place in Blackwell almost assured by right of birth. Yet, tonight, sharing cigarettes in the cool fall air, none of that mattered.

“Are you scared,” Taylor asked. Max wasn’t sure what she expected fromTaylor, but that question had not been it. She paused, taking in a long drag from her cigarette, then exhaled marveling in the taste of the smoke and the warmth cascading through her. She could feel her tension easing, and there wasn’t even a hint of a cough. She’d come a long way since Halloween. 

Great. Pat yourself on the back, Max. You can give yourself lung cancer with the best of them.

Meh, came her inner reply. She knew it was a terrible idea, but every cigarette reminded her of Chloe. The scent on her clothes that Max had salvaged from the Price-Madsen household was already fading, but in each cigarette the taste and smell of Chloe was fresh and new, as present as it had ever been. She watched the smoke trails catch on the breeze, then turned her attention back to Taylor.

“I don’t think I’d actually stopped to consider that.”

Taylor looked puzzled. “You have to consider if you’re scared?”

“Well,” Max started. “It’s not so much like I have to ask myself, but you know, it's just.. it's infuriating. It hurts, and I’m mad. I’m angry and I’m disgusted, and that feeling, that indignation, I guess, it's just so strong that it hadn’t even occurred to me that yeah, under all of that, I think I am scared, too. I mean, he shot and killed my best friend.”

Oh Dog. Did you just admit that out loud? 

“Your best friend?”

Yep. Sounds like you did. Save this one, Max.

Kate and Dana knew about Max and Chloe, about how they had been so close in childhood. Warren, too. But she hadn’t told anyone that Chloe was her best friend. They hadn’t seen each other in five years. Hadn’t texted in over three. Calling her her best friend, well it seemed a stretch; but it was also true, sad as that might be.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“I didn’t realize you two were so close. I’m sorry.”

“No one did, I guess. I mean we were best friends before I moved. I was, I don’t know, hoping now that I was back, maybe we would be again. She had a way about her, this whirlwind of energy that just swept you along in its wake, you know?”

“Hmm. Yeah, I can relate, I suppose.”

“Victoria?”

Taylor smiled, but gave no answer. She simply resumed smoking her cigarette in silence for a moment, then pivoted. “Sorry, Max. I don’t know that I’m really up for twenty questions.”

You started it, Max thought. Once again, she kept the thought to herself.

“Sorry,” Max said.

“‘It’s okay.” Taylor tapped out her cigarette, and stamped it out in an ashtray hidden around the bend of the side of the stairs. One look at her and Max knew she was about to make an exit. Normally that would have been cause for celebration, but tonight, Max needed her; so she did something that she never did — she took a risk and tried to connect.

“Is your mom, okay?”

“My mom?”

“I heard she was in the hospital?”

Taylor’s brow furrowed. She looked upset, which puzzled Max. This wasn’t how she’d responded last time she asked; not in that lost week.

“When did you hear,” Taylor asked.

“Huh?”

“When did you hear that my mom was in the hospital?”

Oh crap. Max blanked.

“Um… I don’t know… about…”

“A month or two ago?”

Max lowered her head, gazing down at her feet.

“I take that as a yes.” Taylor tapped her foot. Max wasn’t sure if that was an ‘I’m waiting for an answer’ tap, or just one more of Taylor’s nervous habits that she had never picked up on before, but either way she figured it wasn’t a good sign.

“Yeah,” Max responded, her voice soft and barely above a whisper.

Taylor shook her head. “Unbelievable.”

Taylor pulled the door open, paused, then let it shut again, turning back to Max. 

“You know, weird as tonight was, weird and dramatic… for a second there, I thought… I don’t know… maybe V was wrong about you. You know?”

Max bit at her lip. She knew where this was going; she didn’t even need to have lived it before to know. Clearly she’d messed up, and there would be no rewinding this time; not without breaking her unspoken promise to Chloe.

“But what… you heard my  mom was in the hospital over a month ago. Never thought to ask about her until now… Until what… you’re hurting and have no one else to talk to. Well, you know what, Max… Fuck you. I’m not some consolation prize; I’m my own damn person. If you cared, you would have asked when I needed to hear it. You would have asked when she was in surgery, or the weeks before when all we could do was hope she made it until the surgery at all. Or even the week after as we waited for the test results and for any clue on her recovery. Anytime before now… but not just when it suited you.”

“Taylor…” Max started, but she didn’t know what else to say. I’m sorry. I was grieving and it slipped my mind? I’m sorry, you and I hated each other and so I never thought to ask? I’m sorry, I asked you in an alternate timeline and after I reset that timeline I forgot that you and I never had that conversation in this reality. Or better yet, I’m sorry, but I’m too afraid to even try to connect with anyone when I can’t rewind and correct my mistakes. 

Max realized that she was just standing there, mouth agape, words unspoken, and finally she clamped her mouth shut. There was nothing that she could say to make this better. 

“Yeah,” Taylor nodded. “That’s what I thought. Good night, Max.” The door slammed shut behind Taylor, leaving Max alone on the steps, her cigarette a long stem of ash. 

Max dropped the butt and stamped it out on the stairs, then sat down and slid her head into her hands. That could have gone so much better , she thought. She should go after her. She should try to actually apologize. She did care, didn’t she? She didn’t just use everyone around her, right?

“FUCK!” Max screamed into her hands. Maybe she was an awful person, after all. Maybe Victoria was right about her. Damn it , she thought, realizing that she did need to go after Taylor. She had to apologize. She had to.

Hands to her knees, she pushed herself up, ready to follow after the girl into the dorms. As she stood, however, her phone buzzed in her pocket. Slipping it out, she saw the caller ID: Kate. Much as she needed to go after Taylor, Kate needed her even more.

“Hello,” Max said, a hint of uncertainty in her voice. She feared screwing up this conversation as well.

“Hi, Max.” Kate’s voice came through soft and shaken. Max could tell that Kate had been crying.

“I’m sorry,” Max said; and she was. She was sorry for missing Kate’s texts when she had needed her. She was sorry that Nathan had been released. She was sorry that she let Chloe die. And she was sorry that she had screwed things up with Taylor. She was sorry about everything.

“It’s okay. You were asleep.”

“I’m up, now.”

“Uh huh. Me, too. Apparently.” There wasn’t an ounce of grogginess in Kate’s voice. Max wondered if that alertness was from shock alone, or if Kate had been splurging on caffeine to keep herself up and away from the nightmares that sleep might entail.

“Can’t sleep,” she asked.

“Are you going to be able to?” 

Kate had a point. After learning about Nathan, Max felt confident she wouldn’t be sleeping anymore tonight. “Probably not,” she said.

“Yeah. Me neither.”

“How are you…” Max trailed off. She would only have one chance at this conversation. It surprised her how much anxiety that simple truth brought with it. She discovered her ability to rewind time  at the start of that one week, and had only used that ability for that one week alone, and yet, she had become so reliant on it. Whole friendships had been forged through her ability to snoop without anyone knowing; to fumble a conversation and redo it; to act without fear of consequence. Now every conversation, or at least every conversation that mattered, was a minefield. “How are you… holding up?” she finished.

“Better than when I heard,” Kate replied. “Worse than before. I don’t really know. I mean, I don’t remember it, what they… you know…” Kate paused and Max knew that she was searching for the right words, a phrase that was perhaps both sanitized enough for polite company and explicit enough that it would encompass the horror of what had happened. “I don’t remember… what they did…what happened to… me. But I do remember snippets.”

Oh Dog. What does she remember? Please, nothing new.

“Not there, you know, in that place, but before and after,” Kate continued. “I remember the party, almost like stills, snapshots of it… of Nathan helping me to the door. He seemed so nice; not his usual self. And I bought it, Max. I did. I thought that, hey, maybe I’d misread him. He said he’d take me to the hospital and I was so thankful. I just went right along with him. How could I do that? How could I be so… so stupid?”

“Kate. No.” Max knew self-loathing and self-doubt. They were her constant companions; but Kate, Kate was a saint, and Max couldn’t let her friend go down that route.

“No?” Kate’s voice angled up into a question.

“No,” Max answered. “No, this isn’t on you. You’re a good person. You see people the way that they should be; the way that they could be. And that’s… it’s beautiful, Kate. Okay? Don’t let them change that.”

“But I —”

“But you, nothing. Everything that happened, that’s on them. Not you. Do you understand me?”

“Yeah.” Kate’s voice sounded barely above a whisper, weak and full of doubt. This wouldn’t do.

“So tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me that you understand it wasn’t your fault.” And Max knew it wasn’t. It wasn’t Kate’s fault. Was it her own fault? Max could rewind time, but had she ever considered preventing Kate from being abducted? Did the fact that she could technically prevent it mean that Max in her own way bore culpability? Those were questions that Max was not ready to face; they mixed with her own sense of guilt, her own self-blame for what had happened to her in the Dark Room; for falling for Jefferson’s trap in the junkyard and letting him murder Chloe ( don’t worry, you erased that. That way you could murder her all by yourself ) and take her. On some level, Max knew she was asking Kate not only to accept that she wasn’t responsible, but also to say for it herself, for Max; to admit that those bastards, that Nathan and Jefferson alone, were responsible for what had happened, and not either of them. 

“Tell me, Kate,” she continued. “Please.”

“It’s not my fault.”

“No, it’s not,” Max said. “Thank you. You need to know that.”

“I do,” she said. “You know it’s not, as well… right?”

“It’s not what?” Please don’t go there, please don’t go there, pleasedon’t gothere, pleasedontgotherepleasedont—

“Chloe,” Kate said. “You know that what happened to her, that what… what Nathan did to her… that wasn’t your fault either, Max. I know we don’t talk about it… we avoid it… but… but you need to hear it… you need to hear it just as much as I did.  It’s not your fault, either.”

Damn it. She went there. Max didn’t believe her. The second she heard those words from Kate, she knew it. She knew that she blamed herself. She knew that Kate was wrong. Max wasn’t Kate. Max wasn’t a saint; and Chloe’s death, that was on her. Still, the words were nice. Hearing them, hearing someone try to tell her that she wasn’t to blame, it felt comforting, even if a comfort to which she had no right.

“Thank you,” she muttered, her voice spent, struggling to choke back a surge of emotion. 

“You’re welcome, Max.”

Quiet stole over the line as each contemplated what had been said, and also everything that hadn’t been said. Max tried numerous times to start up the conversation again, to will herself to speak, but she still felt too raw, and that underlying worry persisted, the worry that she would say the wrong thing and ruin this, the deepest, closest friendship she had remaining. At last, Kate broke the silence.

“I’m glad you’re home, Max. You always speak so well of your family; I’m glad that you’re there with them now, with people who understand.”

Damn. Why did she have to go there? Max could lie to her and assure her that her family was helping and that she wasn’t worried about Nathan because she was there with them, but she knew when Kate found out — and she would — that the lie could threaten this friendship just as much as her bumbling awkwardness ruined everything else. She could tell her the truth, instead, but would that be just as bad, since she’d already let Kate believe the lie before she had left? Would a lie by omission be fine? Perhaps a deflection?

“Is your mom…” Max started to ask, but hesitated uncertain how to kindly end that question.

“She’s being her usual self. She means well, but she’s… she’s preaching the Lord’s forgiveness, as if I should, I don’t know, accept the court’s judgment. That the court says that Nathan was not of a sound mind, or however they put it, and that he deserves our understanding. But… when that video… when I went viral… well, you remember what she was like.”

“Yeah. Your dad?”

“He’s better. I just don’t understand it. I’m her daughter and when it's me… and forgive me… I know I shouldn’t talk ill of my mother… but… when it was me, she didn’t have any understanding… any forgiveness. Now, that it’s him… Him… I just…”

“I just can’t believe they released him,” Max said. She could tell talking about her mom hurt Kate, so she tried to change the subject; to bring the conversation to the inevitable conclusion to which this conversation had always been headed.

“It’s… it just doesn’t feel real, Max. After everything they found in that bunker, everything that the news reported on him and Jefferson… after he did that to me, to Rachel Amber… after he…”

“… after he shot Chloe,” Max finished.

“Yeah,” Kate said. “After all of that, and he’s out. Confined, maybe, sure, but not in jail.”

“I know.” Max’s voice cracked, and suddenly she became very aware of the chill biting into her; of the shadows snaking across the dormitory lawn, and of just how open and exposed she truly was out here… alone. She stood, and opened the door, rushing down the entry hall and angling back to the stairs, pushing immediately through the steel stairwell door. As she climbed the stairs the door clicked shut with that distinct metallic echo that reverberates through stairwells in campuses everywhere.

“Max,” Kate said, the question evident in her tone. “Where are you?”

Crap.  That sense of panic had risen so quickly, Max hadn’t bothered to think. She’d just bolted straight in, rushing as quickly as she could towards her room. She slowed her pace now, overly cognizant of the sound of each footfall against the concrete stairs with their metal tread. 

“Just going to my room,” Max offered. Technically it was true. She just wasn’t specifying which room — hers in Seattle or hers in Blackwell.

As she eased through the door between the stairwell and the girl’s dorm, she noticed Taylor’s door on the right, still propped open, the light from her room angling out into the hall. Max would need to try to talk to her in the morning, if she was still there. Now, however, now she had to focus on Kate. She rushed past Taylor’s room, tuning out the blare of the upbeat poppy anthem drifting into the hallway, as a female voice sang out:

“I guess that I forgot I had a choice, 

I let you push me past the breaking point…”

Max pushed on, leaving Taylor behind, but too late.

“Is that Katy Perry,” Kate asked.

“Um… maybe...” Max honestly wasn’t sure. 

“Max.” Kate’s voice was stern, laced in a seriousness and severity that rarely penetrated her more typically mild mannerisms. 

“Would you believe that I’m trying to broaden my musical horizons?”

“No,” Kate said, the harshness of her voice softening with the faintest hint of laughter — but only barely “Where are you? Seriously.”

“The dorms,” Max said. It was better that she just admit it than Kate find out from someone else.

“You said you were going home to Seattle.”

“Technically, I said I was going to my room to pack.”

“Max.” Damn. Kate had already mastered her scary, stern mother voice. Max wondered if she had perfected it from years of practice with her sisters. There would probably be better times to ponder that, however. Now Kate was waiting for an answer.

“I’m sorry. I just… I wasn’t ready to… I needed to stay in Arcadia Bay.” And she did need to. If she went back, if she went to Seattle, she didn’t know if she would have the strength to return. Arcadia Bay, this was where Chloe was, where Chloe would always be. She didn’t want to leave her. Not again.

“Okay,” Kate said, her disciplinarian voice gone, replaced now with concern and compassion. “You’re coming here,” she finished.

Oh, no. That’s not happening.

“Kate, if I have to hear your mom talk forgiveness for Nathan Prescott, I won’t be able to hold my tongue. I’m pretty sure I’ll ruin your Thanksgiving break.”

“Fine.” Kate paused thinking over her next words carefully. “Okay, Max. But I’m coming back early. As soon as I can.”

Max didn’t want Kate to ruin her holiday on her account, but she could also tell that Kate would brook no argument. Hell, she was already glad Kate didn’t seem more mad at her for lying earlier; perhaps it was best she let her have this one.

“Okay. Thanks, Kate.”

“Of course. I’ll see you, Friday. Saturday at the latest.”

“Good. I look forward to it.” Much as it surprised her, Max really did look forward to it. Six weeks ago she never really thought she would look forward to anything again, but the thought of seeing Kate, the thought of her joining her over the break and keeping her company, it felt right; it felt comfortable. 

“And Max?”

“Yeah?”

“You know Dana is going to murder you, right?”

“That seems harsh.”

“Do you think she would have let you stay alone in the dorms over break?”

“Point taken. Is it too much to hope you won’t tell her?”

“Has anyone seen you on campus, yet?”

“Taylor?” Max posed the name more as a question than a statement, as if to ask if that would be a problem.

“Sorry, Max. You’re already doomed.”

Chapter Text

Nov 27-29, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

Max didn’t sleep at all that night, nor any the next day. She didn’t leave her room, and she didn’t eat. She simply hid away. Her and Kate texted some, but otherwise, she kept to herself, fidgeting on her guitar and listening to a mix of Syd Matters and Sparklehorse. She contemplated going down the hall and finally apologizing to Taylor, but around noon, while idly tapping through the news on her laptop, she noticed Taylor rolling her suitcase through the quad and off towards the parking lot, and realized that apology would have to wait.

From there, Max whiled away the remaining hours of the day, watching what movies she could with her limited collection (wishing she still had Warren’s flash drive), and doing everything in her power not to think about Nathan free in his family’s likely palatial estate. She knew, deep down, that Nathan had been driven to his actions; that he was apologetic for them and regretted them even, at least once. Yet that Nathan was gone, and that Nathan hadn’t killed Chloe. More, that Nathan knew he was about to die, which seemed like a cheat. It was easy to have regrets when you knew karma was on its way for you.  

Failing at keeping her mind off Nathan, Max’s evening slipped into bitter memories and mild anxiety attacks, which themselves slipped into major panic, until finally sometime after two in the morning, having been awake for nearly twenty-six hours, Max drifted into a weary, restless sleep.

Thanksgiving day passed much the same. Max woke, stomach growling, but without the energy to hunt down food. She considered wandering to the vending machines, but even that had seemed too taxing, so instead, she had stayed in bed wrapped in a comfortable cocoon, ignoring the world. Eventually, she roused herself long enough to talk with her mom and dad on the phone, where they each recited what they were thankful for before eating their Thanksgiving meal. She didn’t tell them that she wasn’t eating; that she in fact had not been invited to a friends’ for Thanksgiving. She couldn’t even quite remember if she had told them whether she would be at Kate’s or Dana’s, so she just avoided the topic as best as she could.

When asked what she was thankful for, she mumbled something about having the opportunity to study her passion at Blackwell. She needed her parents to believe that her staying there was in her best interest, what with her witnessing Chloe’s murder and her own photography teacher being arrested for kidnapping, photographing, and tormenting female students. She was lucky that her parents hadn’t immediately hauled her back off to Seattle, but thankfully that other her, that previous her, had been of sound mind enough that her parents had given her a chance to stay. Had they seen her after she had returned to this timeline, after she had replaced the other Max, they would have seen right through her; seen the broken, damaged Max that had replaced their naive daughter, and she never would have been allowed to remain in Arcadia Bay.

Luckily, her parents accepted her thanks, each of them speaking to their appreciation for their daughter being healthy and happy, or, in her father’s case, for the amazing 2013 season performance of the Seattle Seahawks. They didn’t discuss Nathan Prescott and his recent bail hearing; that was avoided, because that’s what you did with difficult conversations and unpleasant news. You ignored it and you repressed it and you tried to pretend that it didn’t exist, and if you couldn’t do that, you ran away from it. You moved away to Seattle and you stopped texting and calling and cut yourself off… and Max’s thoughts had completely derailed. 

The point was, the conversation with her parents went smoothly, because that’s the conversation they wanted. They all wanted each other to be happy, so it was safer to pretend that they each were; that everyone was okay with life and the hands they had been dealt, and that they were happy and coping, and just don’t look under the bed, don’t open that trunk; don’t look underneath the hood and see what is really happening, because then that picture perfect family might not be so perfect. No. Just smile and nod.

So, Max did. She smiled and laughed and did her best to sell the lie with her parents. Had it been her friends, had it been Dana or Kate, maybe even Warren (though the obliviousness was strong with that one), they would have seen right through her lies. Her parents, however, they didn’t want to see through them, and that was for the best, because it worked to Max’s advantage.

After their call had ended, Max resumed her day of wallowing and idle distraction. For a time she considered her photography assignment, attempting to think through shots. She knew she wouldn’t be able to take them, but the planning of it, that gave her something to occupy her mind besides thinking of Nathan playing video games or smoking up or throwing a welcome home party with the swim team, or whatever it was rich, white boys did when they got bailed out from the psych ward. The distraction wasn’t going so well, but at least she tried.

Max focused back in on the photographs that she needed to somehow take. She considered how she might play off the strong linearity of Blackwell’s architecture contrasted with the silhouette of the evergreens or the curvature of the surrounding hills. Or perhaps she could catch a decent shot at American Rust, the harsh angles of the discarded scraps shifting and falling away as the destruction of rust and corrosion blended the man-made with the organic, the natural surroundings and flora mingling amongst the carcasses of discarded technology. She didn’t know why she bothered though. Her ideas were all stupid, and it's not like Principal Wells knew what he was looking at or talking about anyway, so even if she did manage to somehow take a shot, would he even be able to see what she had been hoping to accomplish? Of course, that could also work to her advantage. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to tell how crap her photos really were. 

Lost in this train of thought, she almost didn’t hear her phone buzz. It stirred her from her reverie, a distant beacon barely recognized. Then, a second buzz came through, the phone vibrating in her pocket, and Max slipped out her phone to check. She didn’t want to deal with people today, but after missing the panicked texts from everyone on Tuesday night, she felt compelled to at least make sure everything was okay before ignoring anyone.

Kate Marsh:  Go to the front door.  

11/28/13-4:41 pm

 What did you do?. :Max 

11/28/13 - 4:42 pm

Kate Marsh: Just go out front. =)

11/28/13 -4:42 pm

You better not have ducked out of Thanksgiving on my account. :Max 

11/28/13 - 4:44 pm

Kate Marsh: Are you out front yet?

11/28/13 -4:45 pm

Fine, fine. I’m coming. =P :Max 

11/28/13 - 4:45 pm

Wait. Seriously? :Max 

11/28/13 - 4:49 pm

Kate Marsh: Happy Thanksgiving, Max!

11/28/13 -4:50 pm

Max stood just outside the Prescott dormitories staring at Kate’s surprise on the stairs. Two insulated fabric bags rested at the top of the stairs. An envelope lay sealed on top, ‘To Max’ written across it in Kate’s delicate script. On the side of the envelope Kate had drawn two cartoon girls digging into a turkey dinner, illustrated in her usual cheerfully cute style.

A smile breaking through her previously melancholic malaise, Max gently opened the envelope pulling out the handwritten note from within.

H appy Thanksgiving Max,

Thinking about you, today. I told my dad how you couldn’t come out for Thanksgiving and how you were all alone at Blackwell, so we cooked up this special delivery just for you. This way, you can have all the warmth and joy of a Marsh family thanksgiving without having to deal with my mother and my aunt. I made dad promise to drop it off for you at the dorms, while he was driving Auntie Marsh home. 

XOXO

Kate

P.S. - I’ll try to make it back tomorrow, but my mom’s throwing a fit not sure we’ll be able to get out that way until Saturday. I’ll see you soon!

Carefully slipping the note back into the envelope, Max peered inside the insulated bags, and sure enough there was a complete thanksgiving dinner divided between the two, still heated with steam rising from the turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. And was that green bean casserole? And fresh rolls? And pumpkin pie. Dog. She was going to owe Kate big time.

The remainder of Max’s Thanksgiving passed peacefully with little of note. She devoured multiple helpings from the Marsh family feast left outside the dorms, smoothing over much of the dull ache of hunger that had stolen over her during the past few days of self-imposed isolation. She also noted, as she ate her Thanksgiving meal, that now she truly did have something to be thankful for; she was thankful for the surprise meal, for Kate’s kindness, and for the realization that even despite all her awkwardness and her damage, despite how much she had hidden away in her dorm and cut herself off from the world, she did still have one true friend in Kate. Why the girl bothered with her, Max did not know, but she was glad that Kate had not given up on her, and she knew that she would have to try harder to be there for her as well.

Beyond the meal, she busied herself with further thoughts on her photography assignment (though finding no way to actually act on any of her plans), watched the few movies in her collection that she hadn’t already watched over the break, and fidgeted a bit more with her guitar. A few holiday texts came in over the course of the day, including greetings from Dana, Warren, and Alyssa. She wasn’t sure when or how she and Alyssa had connected, considering how little the two spoke to each other, but it was clear that she had made an impression at some point.

She also heard from Kristen, which was a pleasant, though perplexing, surprise as they had barely spoken since Max relocated to Arcadia Bay. Correction: they hadn’t spoken at all, but Kristen had texted once or twice after Chloe… the other Max had answered those texts. It had been radio silence ever since. Looking at the text (which simply read ‘Happy Thanksgiving’), Max had felt that ever-present surge of social anxiety bubbling to the surface, her nerves tying themselves in knots as she typed in reply after reply, only to, in the end, delete each one and settle for a simple ‘You too’ as a response. That settled, she’d set her phone aside and tried to push away thoughts of how similar she was treating her San Francisco friends to how she had regrettably treated Chloe for all those years. 

Yet, it always happened with Max, didn’t it? When she was present, when she was with her friends, their confidence, their energy assured her that they actually wanted to be a part of her life. As soon as any physical distance entered the equation, however, those voices in her head, those whispers of self-loathing and doubt, crept back in and convinced her that those same friends didn’t need her; that they didn’t want her, but were only putting up with her, and that in the end, they only humored her out of pity. Then she let the anxiety take hold and she resisted texting, avoiding the confirmation that their lack of responses would provide, until in the end too much time had passed and she became even more certain that even if they had been her friends they wouldn’t want to hear from her anymore.

Her mind wandered back and forth down those paths for the remainder of the day, wondering how she could have convinced herself for so long that Chloe wouldn’t want to hear from her, while simultaneously wondering why Kristen was humoring her now, to how Kate could possibly want her in her life, and back again to Chloe, until at last she drifted into another fitful night’s sleep sometime in the early am hours.

The next day began with a text from Dana. Max had managed to avoid the news for most of Thanksgiving day, but Dana apparently had done no such thing. Max swatted away her phone alarm, only to see the text alert. Still wary of avoiding her incoming messages, much as she was inclined to do so, Max flipped open her phone to see what Dana wanted. It was only 8:30 in the morning. 

Why am I friends with a morning person , she wondered. Dana’s propensity to rise dancing and full of energy completely baffled her. Who texted before nine in the morning on a holiday, anyway?

Dana Ward:  Spoke to Juliet last night.

11/29/13 -8:05 am

Dana Ward:  Been wondering why there’s been almost no news coverage on Nathan’s bail posting. 

That and the whole decision to give him bail in the first place.

11/29/13-8:07 am

Dana Ward:  Says it was suspiciously timed. Her words not mine.

11/29/13-8:07 am

Dana Ward:  Holding the hearing right before the close of the courts for a holiday and all.

11/29/13-8:08 am

Dana Ward:  Likely timed to minimize coverage. 

11/29/13-8:09 am

Dana Ward:  Fucking Prescotts.

11/29/13-8:10 am

Dana Ward:  Also, timing so that Blackwell is out on holiday also seemed on point. 

11/29/13-8:11 am

Dana Ward:  Give the student body time to cool down before back in session. 

11/29/13-8:13 am

Dana Ward:  I hate the politics of it all.

11/29/13-8:13 am

Dana Ward:  She hasn’t reached out to you, has she?

11/29/13-8:21 am

Dana Ward:  Juliet? 

11/29/13-8:23 am

Dana Ward:  I love the girl, but she has blinders on when she locks onto a story. I’m pretty sure she’s not going to let this go.

11/29/13-8:24 am

Dana Ward: Don’t let her pressure you into a  quote. She’s under strict ‘leave Max alone’ orders. =)

11/29/13-8:26 am

Tired. Sleep want. (-_-) zzz :Max

11/29/13 - 8:32 am

Dana Ward: lol 

c u Sunday!

11/29/13-8:32 am

Max set down her phone, hopeful that she might be able to get back to sleep, but the sounds of laughter outside drew her attention, and, against her better judgment, she forced herself out of bed. Pulling back her blackout curtains, she noticed that the lawn was empty, and guessed whoever it was, they must be in the breezeway.

Stretching herself awake, Max straightened out her sleep shirt, and made for the hallway to check the window looking out towards the main campus. After having spent all of Wednesday and Thursday alone, she longed for the sight of someone else, anyone else. She didn’t necessarily want their company, but knowing Nathan was out there in Arcadia Bay, she hadn’t felt this unsafe since that long gone week. Knowing that she wasn’t alone, it might help.

As she stepped into the hallway, her phone in hand, it occurred to her that she had not heard back from Kristen since she texted her back. Yes, she’d hadn’t given Kristen much to work with, but it did hurt some nonetheless. Of course, it was probably for the best. It had been so long since they spoke, what would Max even say to her? Sorry, I’ve been too traumatized to reach out ever since my former best friend was shot and killed in front of me. How are you?

That probably wasn’t the best lead in, though if she dropped the passive aggressive how are you at the end, it was fairly accurate. Max was pretty sure there was a saying or two about honesty and friendship, and if the truth hurt, well, sometimes that’s life. Of course, that’s not how the Caulfields operated was it? Put on that happy face and pretend it is all okay, right? That’s what her parents and her had been doing ever since the shooting. Hell, they’d been doing just that for a lot longer than the past couple of months. Hadn’t Max been presenting a smiling facade ever since they moved her to Seattle?

Even her friendship with Kristen and Fernando had been forced. Sure, they were both nice enough, and Kristen had good taste in music, but neither of them had forced her out into the world the way that Chloe had. They didn’t understand her anxiety and how to calm her when it took hold. They didn’t stand up for her against the high school bullies, the way Chloe had fended off the Victorias of the world when they were children. That last criticism wasn’t fair, though; Kristen and Fernando were just as much outsiders as Max; just as likely to be bullied as she was. It wasn’t their fault they couldn’t fill the role of protector that Chloe always had. 

Max rubbed at her eyes, forcing away her negative thoughts and snapping herself back to reality. The dormitory hallway stood empty, but the sound of laughter was definitely louder here, and accompanied by the sound of grinding and a clatter from outside. Glancing down into the breezeway, Max could make out Justin and Trevor and a few other kids whose names she hadn’t bothered learning yet. Trevor was riding a rail down the stairs from the quad to the breezeway, while Justin sat on the concrete wall and the other kids practiced flipping their boards, kicking down on the tail ends and attempting to catch the front. 

Max had always liked skater boys. She remembered in Seattle, on those occasions that she went out with Kristen and Fernando, they’d occasionally swing by the skatepark after grabbing some coffee and geeking out at Golden Age Collectibles. This was always at Max’s behest. After a little cajoling, if she was lucky her friends would cave, and all three of them would head up Pine Street to Capitol skatepark, avoiding the heavy crowds of the skatepark by the Space Needle. Max had always been too shy to actually go into the park proper, but she’d often find a place to sit or lean off Nagle Place and watch through the chain link as the skater boys performed various tricks on the ramps and rails. She was never good with the terminology, but she thought the skaters were cute and despite Kristen and Fernando’s protests, she always felt drawn to them and the park.

Lately though, Max had wondered whether it had been the skater boys to which she was attracted or if it had been the memory of Chloe. Before she moved, Chloe had always been so proud of her skateboard. She had tried numerous times to get Max to take up skateboarding as well, but Max had never given in. The thought of trying to balance herself on a board scared her; she was clumsy enough with solid ground beneath her feet. Thinking back on it though with over five years of space for reflection, Max wished she had taken Chloe up on her offer.

Maybe, she thought, I should try my luck with Justin and his posse.  

Max laughed. Chloe would have got a kick out of that, wouldn’t she? Her learning to skate after all these years. Yeah, Max bet Chloe would have loved that. 

The inkling of an idea taking hold, Max got herself ready, showering and slipping into her usual jeans and generic t-shirt, before stopping herself. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it right. She grabbed Chloe’s deer skull tank top, and her Hawt Dog Man t-shirt, slipping on the tee first so as not to be too revealing in the tank top that she slipped on over it. Over the past five weeks, the smell of Chloe had largely faded from the clothes, but the faintest hint of her scent remained. Max thought about grabbing her spiked bracelet, but she knew Justin hated posers, and she didn’t feel it would be the right impression to give. She did grab Chloe’s beanie, however, to keep her hair tucked away and out of her face.

Next she grabbed a turkey leg from the leftovers she’d crammed into the mini-fridge in the TV lounge, reminding herself as she headed out munching on the makeshift breakfast to thank Kate when she saw her. Hopefully she’d be back soon, though based on her note with the meal delivery, Max doubted that she’d see her before Saturday. Despite Kate’s efforts at scrawling out her original message, it was clear that Mrs. Marsh was not ready to let her daughter return to Blackwell, despite Kate’s wishes.

Repositioning the messenger bag on her shoulder, Max headed out onto the lawn in front of the dorms. A light breeze played with the strands of her hair peeking out from under Chloe’s beanie, and the day had yet to warm up. Max hugged herself tight against the cold and made her way around Principal Well’s residence and out to the breezeway.

Trevor skidded to a stop as Max turned the corner. 

“Hey, Maxi-Max!”

“Hey, Trevor.” Max flashed a sincere smile his way.

“You cool,” he asked, hesitating a little on the word cool.

“All good,” she nodded. “Dana?” She figured that Dana must have been talking to Trevor about the news lately. Why else would he be worried about her?

“Yeah.” 

A thought occurred to her then. She had been so distracted watching the skaters — and thinking about Chloe and, let’s face it, how maybe she could reconnect with Justin like she had briefly that week and maybe even get a skating lesson, and hell, let’s be honest, connect with Chloe however little she could now that she was gone — she’d been so distracted by all of it, that she’d not even stopped to consider that Trevor was dating Dana.

“Um…” Max started, scratching at the back of her neck, and wondering at the familiar yet foreign gesture if perhaps she had become a little too close with Warren at some point over the past few weeks. “Any chance of you, uh, not telling Dana that I’m here.”

Trevor glanced down at his board, avoiding Max’s eyes. “I mean, if it comes up…”

“I know. Bit much to ask.”

“I mean, I won’t tell her. She told me you were in Seattle, but… uh, if she mentions it, you know, I don’t think I could like, lie to her about it or stuff.”

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it, Trevor. You’re a good boyfriend.”

Trevor blushed, cocking an odd look at Max.

“I just mean, I get it. You can’t lie to Dana. And you shouldn’t. That’s why you’re so good for her.”

“Cool, cool.” Trevor looked over his shoulder to the other skaters, clearly uncomfortable with the mushy turn it the conversation. “I should probably, like, be getting back and all.”

“Of course.”

“You sure you’re good?”

“Yeah,” Max nodded again; and in that moment she felt a sense of surprise bubble up within her. She really was good. She felt at peace. It didn’t last, of course. Max Caulfield couldn’t miss out on the possibility of a good guilt trip, and although it had been over six weeks since Chloe had died, she didn’t feel right feeling okay about anything, let alone good. 

Still, as she constantly reminded herself, she was supposed to be living, truly living. That’s what Chloe wanted, and she wasn’t going to fail her. She’d come outside for a reason, and she was going to follow through for once.

Trevor had already skated off towards the two unknown skaters further down the breezeway by the time Max stirred from her thoughts. Max figured she should probably introduce herself at some point, but that also felt far too anxiety-inducing for her today. WithTrevor and Justin, even if they barely knew her, she was familiar with them already, at least reducing some of her natural social anxiety. Determined to make those introductions another day, Max made her way over to Justin. Her heart jumped a little as she caught wind of a familiar scent that brought with it fond memories of Chloe in the morning. 

“Wake and bake?” Max asked. 

Justin coughed, expelling a puff of smoke in surprise. 

“Uh…”

Max chided herself. This Justin wasn’t comfortable with her. She hadn’t made any effort to get to know him, and she just called him out for smoking pot on school grounds. Idiot.

“Sorry. Mind if I try again? Yo, Justin.”

“Oh.” Justin fidgeted with the bill of his hat, still somewhat uncomfortable but seemingly willing to play along. “Well, check out the Max. Come to thrash?”

Max knew she had to be careful. Justin loved his skateboarding about as much as he hated posers. At the same time, over the past few weeks she’d become increasingly aware of just how fake her connections from that lost week actually were. She’d rewound through her mistakes; she’d played with time to learn just what to say to connect. All those friendships, they had been founded on manipulation. And why? Because the real Max wasn’t worth knowing. 

Much as she wanted to get to know Justin and Trevor and try her hand (feet?) at skateboarding, she had to do it the right way. She wanted to prove to herself that she didn’t need her rewind powers in order to form new friendships; and unfortunately that meant that she couldn’t use what she had learned during that week. She couldn’t just bust out a reference to a noseslide or a tre flip. It felt disingenuous; and it would just further prove to her that the real her, she wasn’t worth the time of day.

“Well…” Max started, eyeing his skateboard.

“Whoa, really? It’s nice to have the females on board, too.” Justin immediately picked up on her interest.

Max tried to think back to her childhood with Chloe, to remember any of the tricks she had been trying to learn back then; but Max hadn’t paid much attention to the terminology. She’d spent most of the time watching Chloe and the way she lit up on the board: her smile, and her hair flowing behind her, and how beautiful — oh crap. She’d been into Chloe even before she moved hadn’t she? Before she’d even realized that she liked women that way. Well, way to come late to the game, Max.

“Um…” Max had been standing awkwardly for far too long, lost as usual in thought; and suddenly she had nothing to say.

“So are you a skater or not?”

“Kind of… I mean…”

“Don’t tell me you’re a poser.” 

Crap, she thought. This is going poorly.

“Well, I don’t really know how to skate, but…”

“Breaking my heart, Max. Can you even name a single move?

She so wanted to bust out with a tre flip or a noseslide, but she knew that would be cheating. She had to try to do this on her own. She continued to rack her brain searching for even one memory where she actually picked up on the tricks Chloe had been learning.

“Um… an owlie?”

“You mean an ollie? Man, you are a poser. Maybe you should walk on.”

Max hung her head. He was right. She was a poser, and she didn’t belong there. It had been a stupid idea to begin with. 

“Yeah,” she muttered under her breath, and pushed on past Justin and up the stairs to the main campus. 

A moment later she found herself alone at the fountain, chiding herself for thinking she knew how to connect with anyone on her own. As kids, Chloe had always done the talking. In Seattle, well, Kristen and Fernando practically adopted her; she’d had very little active say in that. Then in Blackwell, Kate was just so kind to everyone, and Dana was the hall’s mother hen; you couldn’t avoid her. She’d tried to connect with Taylor Tuesday night, and she’d completely botched that. Warren, well, he had his own motivations; she was probably just leading him on. If she were just more direct with him, he’d be gone, too. 

The only one that she couldn't figure out was Alyssa, but with Alyssa she hadn’t even tried. She just blinked and one day Alyssa was there following her around and sitting nearby, always quiet but present. Max wondered how she had ever been so stupid to think that she’d actually started to form real friendships.

She missed Chloe. 

Without her rewind, Max was just the retro selfie girl; a freakish oddity at best, a loser at worst, and nothing more.

She’d been sitting on the fountain’s edge for nearly thirty minutes, the morning sun glaring off of the statue of Blackwell’s founder and namesake, Jeremiah Blackwell. In a previous life, Max would have marveled at the play of light and would have hurried to pull her Polaroid camera from her messenger bag and capture the moment… (I’m obsessed with the idea of capturing that moment, that shift from black, to white, to gray and beyond – nope, nope, nope. Not now!) …take the shot… (Always take the shot. My number one rule of photography – get out of my head, already!)  … snap a picture. She would have photographed the interplay of light and shadow, capturing the gleam of the sun against the silhouette of the statue, played out against the soft sky, and she would have lost herself in the art of it and the beauty of it. She missed that Max, a Max that hadn’t been burdened with so much trauma and loss. Her life had been far from perfect, but she had still known how to enjoy the little things in life.

Although she noted the beauty of the scene now, it was more in a passing, a fleeting thought, there one moment, then gone, whisked away, an unwelcome guest rushed out the door. No, instead of enjoying the morning, Max had spent the time in solitude, while the skater boys performed tricks off by the breezeway, and she cried missing Chloe and wondering how she had just that morning thought that she could keep going without her; that she could maybe even make some new friends – not to replace Chloe, but perhaps to help fill the vast void that her death had left in her life, and, more, to help honor Chloe’s choice ( murder ). She had sat there and she had cried, not a loud bawling, sobbing sort of cry, but a muffled whimpering, hiding her tears as best as she could. You weren’t to make a scene; never make a scene. That’s not the Caulfield way.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, and hoping that they weren’t too puffy, Max collected herself scanning to see if the coast was clear before returning to her dorm. She had actually forgotten her hoodie and the morning chill had dug in deep, Max shivering as she hugged herself. When she had left the dorms, she hadn’t thought much about bundling up as she had been hoping to actually spark up that rapport with Justin again and get a lesson or two in skateboarding. Layers had seemed potentially problematic, although she had meant to at least grab her hoodie, and a jacket for that matter. Oh well. Best laid plans and all that…

Unfortunately the breezeway was definitely not clear. She could still hear Justin and Trevor’s friends skating, and perhaps if they had all been on their boards, then maybe she could have snuck past them and back to the Prescott dormitories, but Justin was still sitting on the concrete wall smoking while Trevor leaned against the rail beside him. The two appeared to be in a heated discussion.

Max tried to observe them without being obvious, watching them out of her periphery as best as she could. She didn’t want them seeing her cry, which, likely they already had. Great. One more thing to live down, Max.  

From the looks of things, she was right, too; and Trevor looked pissed. He kept motioning in her direction while talking down to Justin. She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could get the gist of it. Trevor had seen her crying, and he’d figured out that Justin had called her a poser and sent her on her way. She didn’t want to cause a rift between them; they were such good friends. They deserved better than her messing that up.

Justin threw his hands in the air, and stepped away from Trevor kicking up his board as he did. Trevor just shook his head, and then climbed up the stairs, heading towards Max. Dog damn it. That’s the last thing Max wanted. 

Then, inexplicably, Trevor stopped, slid his hand through his hair and pivoted on his heel, heading back down the stairs. All of the other skaters seemed to be gathering up and leaving as well. What the hell?

“Max?”

Oh man, that’s a voice she hadn’t heard in a while; but it did explain the sudden departure of the half-stoned skaters.

Max dabbed at her eyes again as discreetly as she could, hoping he wouldn’t notice that she’d been crying. She definitely didn’t want him of all people to notice. Shifting back to face the man behind her, she plastered on as happy a look as she could.

“Mr. Madsen.”

From the concern in his eyes, Max was pretty certain that she had failed at any sort of subterfuge. Beneath that concern she also noticed the deep bags that had taken residence under his own eyes over the past month, coupled with deep creases and age lines just above those bags. He looked both tired and terribly aged. He and Joyce must have been taking Chloe’s death hard. Of course they were. 

“Max,” he said, his voice choked and stumbling over her name.

Shit. Suddenly, Max was very aware that she was wearing Chloe’s clothes. She ripped the beanie from her head, pulling it to her lap and worrying it with her hands. “Sorry,” she said, not sure why she was apologizing, but definitely feeling that she owed him an apology nonetheless.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Joyce told me she gave you some of her things.”

“Yeah.” Great job, Max. You’re such the conversationalist.

“Are you… are you doing okay?” He paused. “I know. You and I, we don’t really know each other that well, but Joyce, she speaks very highly of you.”

“How is she?”

David shrugged. “She’s… she’s trying. She’s a strong woman, Joyce, but Chloe and her, things weren’t like when you were kids. There was a lot between them. Anyway, you don’t need to hear this.”

“It’s okay. I was thinking about her, too, you know. Chloe. I hadn’t spoken with her in so long. She didn’t know… didn’t know how much she still meant to me.”

“She does now.”

“You think so?”

“I do.”

Max glanced around at the empty lawn and breezeway, the skaters having made an expeditious retreat. She realized that school wasn’t in session and that maybe it wasn’t okay to be loitering.

“I’m sorry. Should I go? I stayed behind over break, but are the grounds…”

“No, don’t worry about it. As long as you aren’t drinking, smoking pot or something along those lines —” His expression had shifted revealing the paranoid David that she remembered. 

“No, nothing like that. Just thinking through a photography assignment,” she lied. “I thought the morning air would do me good.”

“It’s a bit chilly.” He nodded to her bare arms, and she shivered as he called attention to the chill in the air.

“Yeah,” I was about to head in.

“Good. I’d hate for you to catch cold.”

“You would?”

“I’m not a monster, Max.” He smiled attempting to lighten his words, but the lack of mirth in his eyes and his step-douche mustache didn’t help him achieve the desired effect.

“Of course not.” Max really didn’t feel like engaging in this conversation. She knew he had saved her once ( doesn’t exist anymore ), and she knew that he really did care about Chloe, but she had also seen him hit her. If he’d done that once, in any timeline, there was no telling how many other times he had done the same. Debating how much of a monster he really was, she didn’t have the wherewithal to go down that path right now.

“Plus, Joyce wouldn’t want that either.” Ah there it was. He doesn’t want to upset Joyce. That’s why he’s worried about you.

“You can tell her I’m okay.”

“Good. Yeah, I’ll do that.” He looked at her, a deep long look that made Max distinctly uncomfortable, then continued. “You could too, you know.”

Great. She really needed another guilt trip right now.

“I know,” she said. “I will.” And dog, why did she say that? She hadn’t meant to promise that, and now it was out there.

At that, for the briefest moment, David cracked a real smile. “Thank you,” he said. “She’ll like that.”

“Yeah. Ok.” Max shuddered inside at her mastery of awkward conversation, then rose. She couldn’t do this anymore. “I’ll… I’ll try to swing by soon.”

“Max.” David reached out a hand to stop her. His fingers brushed on her wrist and she noticeably winced, pulling back her hand. David raised his palms in a gesture of apology.

“Sorry,” he said. “Just… I’m here Max. And… you should know…” He stared off, scanning the grounds (checking the perimeter?).

“Should know…” Max prompted.

“You’re safe here. With Prescott. I know the principal has a hard-on for his father. I’m not blind. I know you kids, you know it, too. But Nathan, he won’t get within five feet of this campus.”

“He’s on house arrest,” Max said, as if the idea of him coming to campus were too far-fetched to even consider.

“I know. But I know this town and the Prescotts. You grew up here. You probably do, too. Laws don’t seem to mean as much to that family.”

Max shivered at that thought, but tried to pass it off as just another chill from the cold. She didn’t think that David was buying her performance.

“I don’t mean to scare you.”

Yep, definitely not buying it.

“Just the opposite actually. I’ve been meaning to come by ever since I heard the news.”

“You have? I’ve been here all week.” Her words came out sharp and hostile, but she didn’t care. She’d had enough of this conversation.

“Yeah, well, I make it a policy to not go in the girls' dorms unless I’m asked for. You deserve that respect. First time I’ve seen you on the grounds since the news broke.”

“You were watching for me?”

“Watching might be a bit strong, but I noticed you, yes. Thought I should check in.”

“Ok.”

“Look, Max, what I’m trying to say is, the Prescotts, they seem to have some sort of Kevlar in this town. Nothing hits. Nothing sticks. And I know, I know that this administration, it bends over backwards for that family. I just need you to know that I don’t. I don’t care what that means for my place here, but if I see a Prescott, any Prescott, even approach these grounds, you have my word, the full force of Blackwell security will make sure they don’t set one foot on this property.”

“Thank you?” Max didn’t know how to take this admission. She knew that David was trying to comfort her, and she knew that he meant it, but she could also picture that other David shooting Jefferson in the head, a defenseless, bound Jefferson. He had shot him for killing Chloe. In this timeline, Jefferson never got the chance; Nathan Prescott took that honor. If the Prescott’s came to Blackwell, she had no doubt that he would keep them away; what she wasn’t sure about was just how far he would go to make sure they stayed away. 

“You’re welcome, Max. You’re safe here.”

Yeah, she thought. Maybe. Yet David’s hand at his hip worried her, resting on his nightstick, but with the unmistakable impression of reaching for a gun.

Chapter Text

Nov 30, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

No matter David’s intention in confronting Max, the entire encounter had left her more scared than ever. Initially the news had been disconcerting, and more, plain infuriating. Max had felt some fear with Nathan freed, but she hadn’t felt that she was in any actual danger. Now, that had changed. She spent the remainder of that Friday in her room, completely forgetting about the Thanksgiving leftovers in the TV lounge. Even if she had remembered, she doubted she would have gone to get them. After that conversation she had kept her door locked, only leaving to go to the restroom, and she tried to keep that to a minimum. She hadn’t fallen asleep until nearly six in the morning clutching to the Captain and practically shaking from nerves. 

The next day didn’t start much better. It was Saturday and she knew that Kate was due back and that she should get ready. She didn’t want her friend (yes, Kate really was her friend, right?) to see her so upset; but she also didn’t want to risk stepping out of the safety of her room. Stirring around eight and struggling from lack of sleep, Max turned on some music (whatever was on shuffle) and lay in bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling wishing that she wasn’t so scared and so weak. She’d been strong once… that week. She’d done so much, but it had ruined her and ever since then, Max felt as if she had retreated and left that strength behind. Now she was just broken, and she’d find glimmers of hope, but they were quickly squashed. She needed people like Kate around in order to ignite that spark again; with them gone it was quelled too easily.

What little hope to which she had still clung when the break had started, well Taylor had taken a bite out of it, then Justin had thrown the remainder of it on the ground, and David, well he had just stamped that beat-up shred of hope right out, grinding it beneath his boots. Max had been stupid to stay behind at Blackwell. She wasn’t ready to be on her own; she also wasn’t ready to let anyone in. She needed to make up her damn mind.

Max screamed into her pillow, then threw it across the room. It smacked into Lisa, tipping the plant onto its side and sending dry leaves scattering as soil spilled out from that hand-painted blue and white pot. Shit. I killed Lisa.

She couldn’t remember the last time that she had watered the plant, and now, well from the browning and wilting on the leaves, and the fact that it was tipped over onto her waste-bin beneath the window, half of its potting soil on the floor, she was pretty sure that Lisa was past saving. That shouldn’t make her so sad, but it did. She was a terrible plant mom. She screamed again, this time into her bedding, then rolled herself into a cocoon against the wall, and tried to go back to sleep. As she sat there, however, she kept picturing Nathan outside her door, just waiting. 

She could hear him psyching himself up.

“It’s cool, Nathan… Don’t stress… You’re okay, bro. Just count to three…”

Counting to three right outside your door, gun in his waistband.

Max squeezed the image from her head. She was safe. He wasn’t outside and her door was locked. Everything would be okay. She needed to get up. She needed to get ready before Kate came back. The last thing that she wanted to do was worry Kate; Kate who must be so stressed herself with Nathan’s release. He’d actually assaulted her. What had he done to Max?

Kill your best friend. Attack you in the parking lot. Wave a gun at you in the dorms.

Yeah, but those last two hadn’t been this Nathan. Did it count if it happened in a different reality, a different timeline? Did it matter if it did or didn’t? Max still felt afraid — terrified.

“Dog,” she started, then pivoted! “God! I can’t!” She screamed, again, this time without muffling herself. She was all alone, anyway. What did it matter?

A moment later a knock sounded on her door.

Because of course it would. 

The knock sounded soft, Kate’s usual timid approach, and yet it still sounded off somehow. Which makes sense. You were just screaming like a lunatic. I’d be wary knocking on your door, too.

And that had to be it. Max tried to call out, to greet Kate, but she couldn't force herself to speak. Nathan was free. Nathan was in Arcadia Bay. Nathan could be on the other side of that door.

“Don’t be scared… You own this school… If I wanted, I could —”

“Shut up!” Max yelled at the stupid aural hallucination as her panic escalated; and it worked. Hallucinatory Nathan vanished, his voice replaced by a different voice: a kinder, less manic voice, but one tinged with worry.

“Max?”

Max blinked, confused. That wasn’t Kate.

“Dana,” she said, but it came out barely a whisper, so soft that Max only just heard herself say the girl’s name.

“Max,” Dana asked again, louder this time.

Try as she might, Max could not find her voice. Instead, she slipped from the bed and stumbled towards the door. Whether from exhaustion or panic, she wasn’t sure, but her knees buckled and she fell to the floor with a loud crash.

“MAX,” Dana yelled, knocking on the door while simultaneously jiggling the handle as if she could bust through the lock and force it open.

Max steadied herself with one hand to her bed, and pulled herself up and to the door. Her legs were still shaking. Her arms were shaking. Her everything was shaking and her breaths were coming too fast. She knew it wasn’t Nathan outside that door, logically she knew it, and she had shouted his voice down, but it still felt as if he were there, just on the edge of hearing; as if he were just down the hall — just out of earshot.

Reaching the handle, she fidgeted, fumbling in her attempts to unlock it. Her head hurt; she could feel it pounding in rhythm to the rapid beat of her heart. When had this all escalated so fast? She had been doing so much better before this week alone — before you stupidly thought you could get by on your own . Even then, yesterday she had been happy, even if only for a moment — before you proved how worthless you are; before David reminded you how vulnerable you are here; before, before, before…

Dana’s knocking sounded again, harder and louder this time, and as she spoke, that tinge of worry from earlier surged, overriding all other emotions. 

“Max, let me in.”

Still unsteady on her feet, Max let herself sink to the floor next to her green shelves, just under her mirror. With one last feeble attempt, she managed to flip the lock, then let her arms fall to her side as she pulled her knees up to her chest, taking comfort as she curled into herself.

She heard a soft click as the handle turned and Dana let herself in; and immediately stopped at the sight of the room. Max could see her taking in the scene. It wasn’t that bad, was it? As Max looked with fresh, if still panicked, eyes, she realized that maybe it was.

Of course, Lisa leaned against her waste-bin, dead with soil leaking out onto the floor, her pillow caught between the plant and the wall, but Max had just done that. Her bed was unkempt, her covers knotted up and pushed to one side, but it was only eight in the morning, so that seemed fair. A few stacks of dirty laundry lay about, but what dorm room didn’t have laundry piles? 

Yet, Max slowly took in the rest of the room. Two-day old food rested on her desk from an abandoned plate of Thanksgiving seconds. Her floor lamp lay on its side, its bulb busted. Max could vaguely recall swatting the lamp over the night before, as she panicked and had been trying to hurriedly shut off the light. And there was no light in the room either, was there? The windows were still blocked by the black out curtains, and her paper lanterns lay shredded on top of her ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ carpet, shredded and crushed by discarded storage cubes that had been randomly tossed from her IKEA-like shelving unit near the window — which itself had been turned on its side. Her room looked eerily the same as it had when Nathan had ransacked it.

Shifting her gaze towards her photo wall, Max half expected to see ‘Nobody messes with me bitch’ scrawled in red paint over the photos. Instead she saw large swaths of blank wall as half of the photos had been ripped away, shredded and discarded on her bed. An abrupt memory flashed before her, as Max recalled yanking photo after photo down in the dark, scattering them and ripping them to pieces, shouting and crying, and wishing that she had never been granted this stupid power — as if destroying the photos would rid her of this curse and somehow undue all her meddling, her meddling that had left Chloe dead and Nathan free, and Kate drugged, and on and on and on. Yes, Chloe would have always been dead if she hadn’t gained that power, but at that moment, all the rage burning inside of Max, that detail had seemed so trivial in comparison to her culpability in resetting the timeline through that damn butterfly photo. Had she shredded that? 

Her panic surged to new heights and Max gasped as her chest spasmed and her breath caught. She hadn’t shredded that photo had she? The only photo that mattered? The one that could set this right if ever that need arose (if ever she broke her promise to Chloe)?

Max lurched forward on her hands and knees and tried to crawl towards the scattered remains of her Polaroids searching for that lifeline. She only managed, however, to collapse in a tangle in front of her door as her hurried breaths increased in pace once more.

Instantly, Dana was at her side, kneeling and hugging to Max.

“Calm down. I’m here.” She rubbed Max’s back, and lowered her voice into a soothing tone. “I’m here, Max. Just breathe, okay. Slowly. Can you do that?”

Max nodded. That’s what she was supposed to do, right? Dana wanted to help her, so she’d agree with her and she’d do what she said, but Max didn’t know how to slow her breathing, and where was that photo? 

“Butterfly,” she asked, as Dana looked into her frightened, hectic eyes with a look of pity and concern and her own hint of fear.

“What Max?”

“Butterfly,” she said again, but through her hitched breaths and the tears that now fell unimpeded, Max doubted Dana had been able to understand her.

“Sure,” Dana nodded, pulling a blanket from the bed and covering Max there on the floor, while still rubbing at her back with her other hand. “There. Is that better,” Dana asked.

That’s not what I wanted, Max thought, but she didn’t have the energy to speak up. She cried, and she hiccuped, and she tried to breathe, while Dana did her best to console her and whispered to her that she was okay, and asked her to breathe with her, letting out her own slow deep breaths, and Max tried to match that breathing. She did; she tried so hard, but where was that butterfly? She needed her butterfly photo. She needed her lifeline to Chloe. She needed…

…sleep. How long had she been asleep? It was bright out — Max could see red through her eyelids, that easy, warm red of the sun against closed eyes — so it couldn’t have been that long. She should get up. She knew that she should; Kate was due back, today, and she wanted to look presentable. She didn’t want Kate to know how much of a mess she was, but —

— Max heard voices in her room. One came from nearby, just by her feet. The other seemed to be a little ways off, maybe from over by her futon. Why was someone in her room?

As she tried to puzzle out what was happening, Max suddenly remembered Dana finding her in a panic on her floor; she remembered the destruction of her room; and she remembered returning from seeing David and ripping her room apart, tearing it down just as Nathan had and just as he would again as soon as he found her. She remembered it all, and Max held still. She didn’t want her friends to see her like this. She didn’t want them to know how truly broken she was. Sure, it had been obvious when she returned after that week, but ever since Halloween she had done so much better at hiding it; at working through it with Kate, even if she could never let Kate know the true extent of her loss, of her pain, of what she had endured, but now, now they would know, wouldn’t they? How could she look any of them in the face again?

She couldn’t.

So, Max kept quiet and still and she listened.

“… say a thing?” Dana asked. Max missed the first part of that question. Dana’s voice came from across the room. She must be the one on the futon, but Max didn’t dare open her eyes to confirm her suspicions.

“No,” Kate said. “I mean, like I said, we talked that night, but she didn’t seem this bad. She couldn’t sleep, but neither could I, and really we all knew she took her friend’s death hard, so I wasn’t surprised. I should have known better, though.”

“No, Kate. She’s been so much better. You couldn’t know. But she didn’t say anything that would make you… sorry. That’s not fair. I mean, she didn’t say anything unusual?”

“No. Not really. She was so sweet, Dana. She was really concerned about me more than anything. She wanted me to know that it… that what they did… did to me… that it wasn’t my fault. She really… she made sure that I knew it was on them and not me. Yeah, I realized she was here, but after my dad dropped off that Thanksgiving meal, she seemed so happy when we texted.”

The two were silent for a moment, then Kate spoke again.

“I should have made my mom bring me Friday, like I wanted. I didn’t want her to be alone, but you know how my mom is. I just…”

“Kate, if Max needed help, she needed to ask. It doesn’t sound like you could have known.”

“But…” Kate started, then drifted off, her voice shifting into a low sob. 

Max heard movement from across the room, followed by footsteps, then she felt pressure as someone sat down on the mattress beside Kate. Dana had come over to hold her, and Max felt so guilty. How could she do this to them? How could she hurt her friends like this? She wanted to make it all better… she wanted to be there for them, but she couldn’t open her eyes. She couldn’t look at them… and she was so, so….

…tired? 

She wasn’t tired at all, and the light in the room had diminished. Either her blackout curtains had been closed again or the sun had set. Somehow, Max doubted her friends had closed the curtains, since they had already obviously opened them earlier that morning. Oh wait… her friends… Where were they, she wondered; but she quickly realized the answer.

Max could feel a soft pressure around her waist and a warmth against her back. Someone was wrapped around her, and Max could hear the soft sounds of their breath and could feel that same breath against the top of her head. She was afraid to move, worried she’d wake the girl behind her, so Max lay there simply listening to the sound of her friend breathing softly in her sleep and relaxed into her. She was too wired now for sleep, having apparently slept the day away, but at the same time not rested at all, anxious, and fairly certain that her sleep had still been plagued by nightmares of Nathan and fears of the pain that she had caused. Yet the feel of being held close was so comforting that Max had no desire to move. It reminded her of sleepovers with Chloe, but different. 

With Chloe, at least that last week, there had always been that flutter, that burgeoning hint of something more. If Max was honest with herself, that awakening had started before she had even left for Seattle. She hadn’t understood it then, but it had confused her; and it was part of the reason that she had found it so difficult to keep in touch with Chloe. She hadn’t understood her feelings then, but she had understood enough to know that she didn’t need to burden Chloe with them, not while she had been dealing with the death of her father. The more time that had passed, however, the more uncertain Max had been about those feelings and if they had ever been there at all, and it had been harder and harder to reach out to her former friend; and then life became complicated, as of course it did – but she didn’t need to think about that.

Tonight, there would be none of that, only comfort and a sense of safety that Max so desperately needed. Easing into that feeling, Max rested there in the arms of Dana(?) or Kate(?), too afraid to move and figure out exactly who was there beside her lest she wake them and lose that sense of security that they provided. Another thirty minutes or so passed (Max had no way of knowing just how much time for certain) when at last she decided that she had to extricate herself from her mystery friend’s arms. Sleep refused to return, but a different urgency had set in and Max realized that she hadn’t used the bathroom in at least 24 hours.

Slowly and ever so gently, she lifted the arm from her waist and slid out from under its grip, then carefully lowered said arm back to the mattress. She wasn’t sure when she had made it up off of her floor and to her bed. She suspected that Kate and Dana had made that happen, while she was asleep, and that thought brought with it a dual sense of love and guilt: love for the friends that had been so kind to her, and guilt over letting them see her that way and burdening them so.

Freed from her sleeping partner's grasp, Max at last noticed the photo clutched tightly in her other hand: the butterfly photo from the bathroom. She couldn't remember when she had found it, but she did remember the panic she had felt searching for it and worrying whether she had shredded it in her fury the previous night. Letting out a deep sigh, and with it so much tension that she hadn't even realized was there, Max held the photo close, the thought of parting from it too frightening to entertain.

Slow and steady with her movements, she eased out of her bed, taking note of the tall girl lying there under the blankets. Apparently Dana had been her mystery cuddler; although as she took another step towards the door, Max noticed a second girl asleep on her futon. Kate lay there curled under her own blanket that she must have brought in from her room, now deep asleep, and that same sense of love and guilt reared its head once more.

That was not going anywhere any time soon, but unless Max wanted to really embarrass herself ( even more ), she knew she had to move with a little more haste. Quickly, quietly, she slipped over to her messenger bag, and tucked the butterfly photo securely inside, and then, with great urgency, she slipped out into the hallway. A sense of panic eased in as she left her friends behind and ventured alone into the hall, but with a long, if nervous, sleep finally under her belt, the panic felt smaller and more manageable.

A few minutes later, without encountering another soul, she slipped back into her room. Before closing the door, however, she took note of the change in her dorm since that morning. The shredded photos were nowhere to be seen. Her storage bins and her shelving had been restored to their rightful place. The discarded food and laundry had been cleared away and the broken bulbs and lanterns were nowhere to be found. The floor lamp had been righted, and she suspected had a new, fresh bulb. Even Lisa and the spilled soil were gone, though the now emptied and clean pot had been relocated over by Max’s closet. The biggest surprise, however, came from the photo wall. The chaos of that sundered collage had been mended with new photos, photos from Dana and Kate, photos of the three of them, of Warren, of Allysa, and of Trevor, had filled the gaps that had been ripped through it in Max’s previous panic.

Max felt tears welling up, but for once they weren’t tears of grief or despair. There was something so beautiful about this simple act from her friends that she could barely keep the emotion at bay. She stood there just within her room’s threshold, the light of the hallway spilling through behind her, and she was mesmerized by how much these two cared for her. 

How had she ever suspected that their friendships were false, a figment of her imagination? She knew the answer of course. Distance and self-doubt were always Max’s enemies; but tonight with them here with her, she knew better and for now that was enough.

“Max,” a soft voice whispered, careful to not wake the other sleeping girl.

Max broke from her reverie and noticed Kate sitting up on the futon, wiping at her bleary eyes.

“Are you okay,” her friend asked.

Max smiled at her and wiped her own eyes and the fresh tears that had welled up there. “Yes, Kate. Thank you.” She choked on that last bit, her words caught in the emotion and Kate looked at her, expectantly, ready to run to her side.

“It’s okay,” Max said, regaining her composure. “Just, thank you…”

Her voice trailed off, but Max didn’t feel that she had said enough, so she gently shut the door and crossed the room to Kate. Sitting down beside her, she leaned over and pulled her into a deep hug.

“I’m so sorry, Kate,” she said, and Max hugged the girl tighter. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shhh…” Kate whispered, brushing her hands through Max’s hair, and slipping off Chloe’s beanie as she did. It was only then that Max realized that she was still wearing Chloe’s clothes and she felt her cheeks blush with embarrassment as she realized how much more her friends had seen than she had previously known.

“But…” she stammered. “I didn’t mean… I didn’t want…”

“Shhhh…” Kate whispered again, still stroking her hair, and pulling Max down to rest. “It’s okay, Max. Just go back to sleep. It’s all okay.”

And for that moment it was, and Max felt her exhaustion creeping back in with the surge of so many emotions, and she let Kate brush her hands through her hair and ease her back into a deep, and at last, peaceful sleep.

Chapter Text

Dec 1, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

“I just don’t understand why you didn’t let us know you weren’t going home,” Dana said. 

She sat on Max’s bed, her face lit aglow in the afternoon light.  Across from her, Max sat on the futon, her legs pulled under her as she snuggled into a blanket, and sipped from a steaming cup of tea. Kate sat at Max’s desk pouring a second cup of tea, which she offered up to Dana. 

“I know,” Max said. She had been dreading this conversation. 

She had been the first to wake, having slept almost the entirety of the previous day. As her exhausted friends had slept in (and it had only been five  in the morning when Max got up, so she really couldn’t blame them), Max had snuck off to shower and dress for the day, choosing her Jane Doe t-shirt and hoodie, so as to possibly delay the inevitable conversation about why she had been wearing Chloe’s clothes. They had enough to discuss as it was, and at least perhaps that one detail she could delay.

Once dressed, she’d grabbed a thick jacket and a scarf, pulled up her hood, and wandered out to the quad for a smoke, being careful to stay by the dormitory’s door in case of the need for a quick escape. This time, however, it wasn’t a need to remember Chloe that lured her out, so much as a need to calm her nerves. She knew it was a bad sign that cigarettes were now becoming a natural part of her coping strategy, but considering the huge amount of stress under which she had been buried the past few days, she had decided to let that be a problem for a future Max, like the Max who eventually actually went back to Seattle and had to either get the cigarettes under control or let her parents know she was now a smoker.

Her morning smoke out of the way, Max had bathed herself in air freshener, doing what she could to disguise the scent of the smoke, before returning to her room and dragging out her schoolbooks to the TV lounge, being careful not to wake Dana and Kate as she did. Once alone in the lounge she had dabbled at her homework, at least until seven am when the cafeteria opened. Then she had made her way to the main building suspecting correctly that the building would be open and that the cafeteria would have resumed operation. Arriving just as the cafeteria doors were unlocked, Max was the first student in and managed to grab three breakfast trays, and was halfway to the exit before spotting any other students. Just as she was leaving, Stella entered, school books in tow and setting up a morning study session in the cafeteria. Max cast her a friendly wave, then hurried on her way, hoping to avoid anyone else. 

As she exited the main building, she noticed a small trickle of returning students making their way to the dorms, including Warren, but she managed to duck out of sight until he had passed. She had most definitely not been ready to see him. Although his advances seemed to have eased off, she had not wanted to risk a potential return to their previous status quo.

From there she had brought breakfast to her friends, and, certain that Kate would not begrudge her for it, dipped into Kate’s room to brew them each a breakfast tea. Everything laid out across her ‘Keep Calm’ rug, Max stirred her friends, who had greeted her with those concerned eyes, but before they had started in on their worries, she had asked that they eat. The pleading in her own eyes must have been enough, because they did not question her, and simply ate and enjoyed each other’s company.

From there the day progressed slowly, neither girl willing to leave Max alone, always ensuring that one or the other were at her side, despite her assurances (false as they were) that she would be fine. They had tried to start in after breakfast, but Max had asked that they wait; and insisted instead that they tell her about their breaks, or watch a movie, or otherwise just enjoy the morning; and for her benefit that is just what they did.

Yet as the afternoon arrived, finally Max had no longer been able to delay. Kate had gone off for her kettle and brewed the three friends some fresh tea, and now here they sat, and Max knew that she had to be open with them; or at least as open as she could be.

“I know,” Max repeated, stretching out and shifting her legs over the front of the futon, kicking them about nervously. “But if I told you,” she continued, “I knew that you wouldn’t have let me stay alone.”

“You’re damn right we wouldn’t,” Dana started, only to be interrupted by Kate, who cast her a stern glare. 

“Dana,” Kate warned, and the cheerleader backed down, softening her words.

“We just… Max, even if we didn’t know how bad it was, there’s no way we would’ve wanted you alone over break.”

“I know,” Max nodded, ashamed. “But I didn’t want to leave.”

“And that’s what I don’t get,” Dana said.

“I…” Max searched carefully for her words, and started again. “I didn’t think my parents would let me come back. I thought for sure they’d take one look at me… really look at me, and they would’ve made me stay in Seattle.”

Dana and Kate both paused at this for a moment, Dana really seeming to mull over Max’s words. Finally, Dana asked, “Is that what you need?”

Too quickly, Max jumped in, barking out a very loud, “No!”

“Okay.” Dana held up her hands. “Just checking.”

Kate set her own cup of tea down, and placed her hands clasped in her lap, chewing at her lower lip, before speaking herself. “You want to be here,” she said.

“Blackwell,” Dana asked, but Kate shook her head, knowing that wasn’t the answer.

“Arcadia Bay,” Kate prompted. “That’s it isn’t it, Max? You want to be close… close to your friend?”

Max hung her head, not wanting to answer, but the act itself made her answer perfectly clear. Dana puzzled over Kate’s words and Max’s silent acceptance for a moment, until at last realization seemed to dawn in her eyes.

“Close to Chloe?”

Max winced at the mention of her name. She wasn’t ready to speak. She didn’t like being laid bare like this, but she knew that after all these two had done for her, she had to be honest. She nodded, and tried to answer them, but the words caught in her throat, and she merely swallowed them back, holding her emotions in check as best as she could.

“You hadn’t seen her in, what, five years,” Dana asked. 

Max nodded again, but she wanted to find a way to make them understand. Taylor knew some already, so would it really hurt to let them in, too?

“Yeah,” Max managed. “Sort of…”

She couldn’t tell them the complete truth, but a version of it; that might do.

“We were best friends… growing up,” she said. “She was the best friend I ever had. Here. Seattle. Just ever.” Max kept her gaze down staring at her feet as she toed with the boxes beneath her futon, unable to look her friends in their eyes.

“We… reconnected,” she started. She had to keep this simple; keep the lie as close to the truth as possible. Max knew she was a terrible liar, but the truth was too unbelievable, and telling them nothing, that was worse. And plus, in another timeline, it had been true, which is probably the only reason Max could pull off the lie at all. “Not long. A week… ish. But it was… it was like old times, again,” she said. Her voice cracked, and she caught herself, pulled herself back in, pulled her legs back up onto the futon and tucked them against her chest.  

Dana rose, and walked over to Max, sitting down beside her and wrapping her arm over her shoulder, pulling her in close. “I’m sorry.”

Max couldn’t look at Dana, but she cast her eyes up at Kate and she saw something there in Kate’s expression – a knowledge perhaps, and maybe even a question? It looked as if Kate were asking permission, and Max feared she knew what for, but she also felt that she owed her this much, so she nodded her silent assent.

Kate glanced down, her eyes wet, and sipped at her tea, while she tried to find the words. Dana simply hugged Max closer, having not yet picked up on the silent communication between her two friends. 

“She was… more,” Kate started, Dana looking up as Kate spoke. “More than a friend,” she finished, the question clear in her tone. Max didn’t know for sure how Kate knew, but from the way she asked, Max knew it was okay. Kate’s voice held no judgment, only acceptance and grief.

“I think… I think so…” Max nodded. “I think a few more days and maybe. Maybe before I even moved.”  She caught herself again at that; she had been thinking the same thing just the day before, and yet she had never admitted it out loud. Suddenly, she couldn’t hold it in any longer, and she broke down again, sobbing, her face buried into Dana’s shoulder. Dog, she cried too much these days. It was a wonder anyone put up with her at all.

Dana and Kate said nothing. Dana simply pulled her closer and tighter, and Kate rose and sat on Max’s other side, joining in the hug and holding her friend as Max finally opened up to them.

Max didn’t know how much time passed like this, wrapped in the embrace of her now two closest friends. It could have been a few minutes, it might have been twenty or thirty. What she did know is that when finally the three broke apart, she had managed to collect herself together at least enough to slow and stop her tears. She still had trouble looking either Dana or Kate in the eyes, not used to opening up as she had, and she felt raw once more, with a deep desire to talk about anything else – anything but Chloe, their time together, and how Nathan had ripped them apart once more. 

Having separated and Max having calmed, she could tell that Dana was preparing to launch into a new set of questions, so quickly Max deflected, hoping to delay at least the remainder of this heart-to-heart.

“I didn’t think you’d be back until today, Dana,” Max started. “Trevor called you?”

“Trevor,” Dana asked, shaking her head. “No. I talked to Juliet on Friday night. She told me you were here. I came back as soon as I could.”

Max shot Dana a quizzical look, confused as to where Juliet fit into the occasion.

“You know how Juliet is. If something’s happening at Blackwell, eventually she’ll know – and usually sooner than almost anyone else. She heard from Courtney, who apparently heard from Taylor that you were still in the dorms, at least by the time Taylor left on Wednesday. And, Juliet being Juliet, she confirmed you were still here as of Thanksgiving from a second source, who for some reason, she refused to name.”

“Oh.” Max looked away. “Okay.”

“Wait,” Dana shot back. “Trevor knew?”

Crap. Max knew she should have kept her mouth shut. She really didn’t want to get Trevor in trouble with his girlfriend.

“Uh… yes and noooo?” 

“Oh, I’m going to kill him.”

“No, no,” Max waved frantically. “No. He didn’t know until Friday, I promise.”

“Still dead.”

“But, but,” Max stammered. “He was really sweet, I swear. Kept insisting that he couldn’t lie to you.”

“Just not tell me that you were here, when he knew I was worried sick about you; especially in light of Nathan.”

Max winced at the mention of Prescott, but tried to play it down, slipping right back into her defense of Trevor.

“Really, Dana. I asked him not to tell you, and he swore he couldn’t keep it from you.”

“Words,” Dana said, her left hand imitating a scale, then raising her right hand palm up imitating a second scale. “Actions,” she finished. It was clear the latter weighed more heavily for her.

Max wanted to further defend Trevor, much as it appeared to be a losing battle, but before she could press further, Kate interjected.

“Why didn’t you tell us before?”

“Huh?”

“About Chloe…”

It seemed a simple question, and in ordinary circumstances, it likely would have been; but Max’s life had not been normal in a long time. The impossibility of that week defied explanation, and as such, everything that had transpired within that week became a knot of lies or omissions. To admit any of it, began the weaving of a complex web that could easily ensnare her at any moment. Even now, having merely admitted to spending a week reconnecting with ( falling for ) Chloe, and Max found the snare tightening. She was caught. She couldn’t tell them why she had kept it to herself, and yet she had to tell them something.

“Max,” Kate prodded, waking Max from her thoughts.

“Sorry,” Max said, swallowing back her nerves. “It’s.. It’s not like anyone knew. That time, after Chloe was… it wasn’t about me, and, like I said, maybe it was more, but we never had the chance to find out, so… so what right do I have to even claim that; to try to make her… her death about me?”

You don’t. ‘Cause it’s not. You’re just being self-centered as always.

Dana grabbed Max’s shoulder. “That’s not making it about you, Max. It’s letting someone in.”

“So they can help me. But I’m here. Chloe’s not. Yet, again, about me.”

“No,” Dana said. “No, you said it. You’re here. She’s not. We can grieve for her, but you, you we can help; but we can’t do that if you don’t let us.”

“You’ll let us,” Kate asked. “Right, Max?”

Max nodded.

“Okay,” Kate continued. “So tonight, your room or mine?”

“Huh?”

“Your room or mine?” Kate looked Max straight in the eyes, despite Max’s hesitance to meet her gaze. “You’re not sleeping alone tonight.”

“But I can’t ask that of you.”

“You didn’t,” Dana interrupted. “We offered. Well, technically Kate offered, but just because she beat me to the punch. So, now we’re both telling you. You’re not sleeping on your own. Not until we’re sure you’re okay.”

Max held her face in her hands. This was going to get complicated fast. She didn’t feel right accepting their help, but she felt worse refusing it. Not knowing what else to say, she made do with the only response that seemed acceptable.

“Thank you.”

“So, your room or mine?” Kate again.

“Here, please.”

“Excellent.” Max’s decision made, Kate perked up, rising from the futon. “I’m going to grab a few things, then I’ll be back.” Glancing to Dana she added, “play nice while I’m gone.”

“Of course,” Dana smiled, but Max didn’t trust that look in her eyes. As the door shut behind Kate, and the sounds of her footsteps faded away, a stern look replaced Dana’s smile proving Max’s fears correct.

“That doesn’t… doesn’t look like your ‘play nice’ face.”

“Matter of interpretation. See, Kate doesn’t want to push you, and I get that, but you’re not telling us something.”

“B-but—”

“— Nope,” Dana interrupted. “I’m not trying to be mean here, but Kate, she didn’t see you yesterday morning. She didn’t even see the worst of whatever tornado you unleashed in here.”

Max flinched at her words, but Dana didn’t seem to notice pushing on to whatever conclusion she had determined she was going to reach.

“So, she can look at the past few weeks, at the missed classes and the isolation, and, let’s be real, the depression, and she can take you at your word that it’s all about Chloe; even the nightmares. And don’t get me wrong, Max, I believe you, and I really am sorry, but what concerns me is that while everything you told us explains so much of what you’ve been going through, it doesn’t explain the absolute panic attack I saw. You were screaming and shaking and for a moment there I’m not even sure you realized that I was there.”

“I’m s-sorry.”

“I don’t need an apology, Max, but we meant it when we said you need to let us in.”

Max wanted to tell Dana that she couldn’t, that she couldn’t let her in, not on this; but she didn’t know how to say that to this girl who was only trying to help; to help her, the absolute craziest of the crazy at Blackwell. It didn’t even make sense why Dana would want to bother, but telling her that she wouldn’t let her in, well that would just be a slap in the face that Dana didn’t deserve.

“Max,” Dana prodded. “You’re zoning, again.”

“S-sorry.”

Dana let out an exasperated sigh, closed her eyes, and then centered herself in what Max could only guess was some sort of yoga exercise, her hands pressed palms together and pushed out as she exhaled. Calmed, Dana started again.

“You don’t need to keep apologizing. I don’t expect you’re going to tell me everything. Maybe not even, Kate. Still, I’d be a terrible friend if I didn’t press this at least a little.”

“Y-you’re a great friend.” Max blushed, realizing how childish she sounded. Well that came out stupid. 

“Thanks, but I’m not leaving here until I at least have some idea what set off that panic attack. So you can share with me, or you can share with the whole class when Kate returns.”

“You.” Max felt terrible, but the thought of telling Kate as well seemed too much for her to handle at the moment.

“Okay then.”

“Nathan.”

“What?”

“It was Nathan. That’s what set off my panic attack.”

“Hearing the news about Nathan’s bail?”

“Yes… and noooo?”

Dana paused, waiting for Max to elaborate. She didn’t have to wait long.

“Hearing about his bail was… well it was awful, yes. Hearing about it and being alone, that was worse. And yes, I see why it was a dumb idea to stay here alone over the break.”

“Well, it’s not like you could have predicted that would happen. Still, you found out on Tuesday after class…”

“That night, yeah, but after Taylor left on Wednesday,  I was doing alright I guess.” Just don’t mention how your panic attacks started before you even heard about Nathan… that won’t do… just keep it simple and close to the truth… you can do this.

“And…”

“And then, just being here alone, I started to picture him, Nathan, on the other side of every  door, around every bend. I mean, not right away, but I ran into David — er, Officer Madsen on, oh Dog, um, Friday? Yeah, Friday morning I think. He was, I guess, trying to make me feel comfortable in his own paranoid, delusional way. That’s not too mean is it?”

“I guess I’d have to hear more, but it sounds on point for Madsen.”

“Well, he wanted to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that he wouldn’t let Nathan onto school grounds no matter how much money his family donates to Blackwell.”

“Nathan under-house-arrest can’t-legally-be-here-anyway Nathan?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, before that I was mad, and hurt, but I hadn’t even considered that his family influence might cut him even more favors. Suddenly, I don’t know, I just… I s-saw him behind every door… and a-around every corner.”

“And when I came knocking…” Dana trailed off, but her question was clear. She was off, of course. Max had already collapsed to panic before Dana got there, but this was easier. She didn’t have to build the lie; just nod along and not deny it.

Max nodded.

“I’m sorry.”

Oh shit. She didn’t think this through. Max was looking for an easy way out of this confessional, not to put the blame squarely on Dana’s shoulders.

“No,” Max started, trying to think fast. Dog, she needed to learn to lie better. “I mean… I had already destroyed my room. It’s not like I hadn’t already gone batshit the night before.” Which is true. See, stick with the truth as much as possible.

“I guess.”

Another long quiet settled over the room, and Max prayed that Kate would return soon. How much stuff did she have to pack?

“The thing is, Max…” Oh Dog, how does she still have more questions… Give a dog a bone. Oh man, did I just compare Dana to a dog. That’s so not cool.

“Earth to Max,” Dana snapped her fingers in front of Max’s face.

“I zoned, again?”

“You zoned, again.”

“Okay. I’m back. All yours.”

“You sure?”

“Meh. Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll settle. So, I get that you’re afraid of Nathan, that you’re panicking because Madsen implied that he might try to get on campus. What I don’t get is why you think he would come after you. And fear, I get it, it’s not always rational, but from the news, he was there in that bathroom to meet Chloe. It had nothing to do with you, right?”

That question mark at the end seemed awfully pointed, but it wasn’t like Max had much of an answer to give Dana. Here, what she was saying made sense — if you discount the fact that Max witnessed him shoot Chloe. Nope, nope, nope. 

“Max? Right?”

“Right,” Max said. That was a direct lie. Well, direct-ish. Him being there had nothing to do with Max. But Nathan himself, well he had a lot to do with Max. He assaulted her in the parking lot. He assaulted her in the dorms, even drawing a gun. He had been working with Jefferson — who… No, no, nope, nopity nope.

“Uh huh.” Dana nodded, but Max felt pretty confident she wasn’t fully buying it.

Before Dana could start in again, however, a knock sounded on Max’s door. Thank you, Kate , she thought. Perfect timing.

“Come in,” she called, casting Dana an apologetic shrug. 

“Yo, Maximus,” Warren called out as he eased in. “How was break?”

Oh, Max thought. Why couldn’t you have been Kate?

“Oh, hey, Dana.” Warren flashed his nice guy smile, though it held an awful lot of anxiety behind it. Apparently barging in on Blackwell hipster and selfie weirdo Max Caulfield was one thing, barging in on Vortex Club royalty, cheerleader queen Dana Ward was another.

“Hello, Warren.” Dana smiled. Oh no, she wasn’t planning on setting them up was she? She knew about Chloe now, she wouldn’t try to play matchmaker here. Plus, completely wrong gender… although Max thought, I guess I didn’t say I was gay… just gay for Chloe Price. Am I gay? Oh Dog, how have I not worked through this yet? Aw crap.

“Max,” Dana said, pushing up from Max’s bed, “if you’re good here, I need to get cleaned up. You two, play nice.”

Oh, I’m so going to murder her.

“And Warren,” Dana continued as she pushed past the nerd boy and out into the hall. “Don’t get too comfortable. Kate will be along shortly.” She then mouthed an ‘I’m sorry’ to Max, while holding a finger phone to her ear as if to suggest she needed to make a call. Even so, Max flushed, both embarrassed and a little peeved that Dana would even insinuate the slightest hint of her matchmaker persona after the conversation they had just had. Once Max got over feeling guilty about this most recent panic attack, she was seriously going to have to have a talk with Dana about this Warren pressure BS.

“Um…” Warren gulped, his face flushing a deep, deep red. He scratched at the back of his neck, then returned his attention to Max, flashing his goofy grin. “Soooo….”

“Hi, Warren,” Max said, accepting that she wasn’t going to be avoiding him, today. Plus, with Dana taking her exit, the point had been kind of forced. If Thanksgiving break had made anything clear for Max, it was just how much she needed the few friends she had left if she was going to survive this timeline and make sure Chloe’s sacrifice had not been for nothing. “What’s up,” she finished, waving for him to take a seat on her bed, which yeah, awkward, but she’d rather that then he plop down beside her on the futon. 

“Oh, not much. You know,” he ran his hands through his bushy head of hair, “just got settled back in, and thought, hey, why not an impromptu movie night. You game?”

“Um, maybe. Like here, or…?”

“Oh, no. No, it's like a whole thing. Going to camp out in the boy’s TV lounge and claim it, so we can go co-ed, which come to think of it, I’m totally not supposed to be up here. You cool?”

“Yeah,” Max laughed. “Yeah, I’m cool.”

“Cool, cool. So, I’m thinking we go sci-fi, tonight, but I thought I’d give you the honors of movie selection.”

“Me?” Max so wanted to throttle him. This had better not be another attempt at a date. “Why not Brooke?”

A puzzled expression stole over Warren’s face. “Brooke?”

“Yeah, Brooke Scott. You know she’s totally into you, right?”

“She’s totally what?”

“Oh my god, you’re oblivious,” Max laughed. “Sorry, I don’t mean to laugh.”

“You wound me.” Warren feigns as if shot. “I mean, you know, I kind of had my eyes set elsewhere.”

Damn it, Warren. You can’t just take a hint, can you?

“Um, you know I’m gay, right?” Well, gay for Chloe , she thought. Still actually need to figure this shit out one day, when I’m not a complete mess. Probably should have just kicked Warren out, too… So tired of this stalkery, date me drama… but when he’s not hitting on me, I actually like him as a friend. If he could just get with the program already.

“What? N-no, I wasn’t; I didn’t mean. Crap.” Once more he scratched at his neck. He needed to get that tic under control. “That obvious?”

“You might as well have been wearing one of those sandwich boards with ‘I heart Max’ written on either side.” Max had to stop herself from adding an I’m sorry at the end. She was not going to apologize just to spare his feelings. He should have been able to take a no without her having to provide a reason. She'd already gone too far to spare his feelings. Warren was going to have to learn to put on his big boy pants.

“Damn. Sorry. Are you okay with me… like, should I go?” 

“No, we’re cool. Just, word of advice, maybe learn to take no for answer every so often.” 

“Yeah. Yep. Noted.” Oh, Dog. Did he have hurt puppy dog eyes. He’s just a kid, Max reminded herself. He’s like two years younger than you; uber smart and uber not mature yet. You don’t have to apologize to him, you don’t have to apologize to him, you don’t have to apologize —

“So what’s this about Brooke?” He interrupted her thoughts, the puppy dog look gone, replaced by a very well performed ‘all’s fine’ act or a seriously quick transference of emotions.

Max shook her head. “I’m not doing all the work for you. But how about this? After we pick out a good selection, you make sure you swing by Brooke’s and invite her. She’s just one door down.”

“Sounds like a plan, Maximus Prime.”

“And one more thing.”

“Yeah, anything.”

“Never ever, ever, under any circumstance, mention that you asked her out after I turned you down. Ever. Like even on your deathbed, ever.”

“Oh God, no. Never. These lips are sealed.”

“Excellent. So how about you throw me that drive,” Max said, rising and heading over to her computer, and we’ll see what we can pick out?”

“Sure thing.” Warren tossed her the drive, which Max immediately fumbled and had to retrieve from under her futon. Real smooth, Max. “Sorry, Maximus.”

“Completely on me.” Max rooted under her futon, snatching the drive and then heading back to her computer, while Warren appeared preoccupied with her photo wall. 

“I like the changes,” Warren said behind her. 

“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

“So, you like, refresh this every couple of months or something?”

“No,” Max mumbled, opening up the drive and rooting through a sci-fi folder, itself divided into numerous sub-folders, including one appropriately labeled time-travel. Hmmm… too on the nose? Or potentially useful? A failsafe? 

“No?”

“Well, um…” Max started. She really had to stop zoning out like that. “I mean, I don’t know. It’s sort of a Blackwell thing. I guess I’m still making the rules as I go. Half of those aren’t even mine.”

“Oooh, you’re taking submissions now?”

Oh Dog, what Pandora’s Box did I just open?

“Um, m-maybe? I don’t know. I think submissions just closed.”

“Aw.” 

Oh man, he sounded so hurt. Fine, throw him a bone. “For December.”

“Soooo, you’re saying there could be an open call in January?”

“Maybe. Kind of focusing here, Warren.”

“Oh yeah, right, right.”

“So… I see a few time-travel options here that I don’t know about. Primer? The Girl Who Leapt Through Time? Safety Not Guaranteed?”

“Ooooh. Eschewing the classics for cult gems. You’d like Safety Not Guaranteed.”

“Uh-huh. And the others?”

“The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is an anime about a school girl that gains the ability to leap through time, but ends up using it to fix awkward everyday scenarios, leading to unintentional consequences.”

Yeah that one sounds a bit too on the nose for tonight. Don’t think I can deal with that.

“And Primer?”

“Micro budget mindfuck of the accidental discovery of time travel and the creation of overlapping multiple selves and the friction between the two creators as one tries to undue and the other tries to preserve their invention.”

Promise. Maybe?

“Okay, let’s do that, and Safety Not Guaranteed. And you should pick something Brooke might like,” Max paused guessing Warren’s next question. “And don’t you dare ask me what that might be. That’s one’s totally on you.”

“Are you like a mind-reader Mad Max? You’re hiding secret superpowers, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

Max resumed perusing the drive, looking for other options for future study, then ejecting it and rising from her desk. “I may have to borrow this from you again, sometime.”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course,” Warren said, but Max had already stopped paying attention.

Who was that man peeking around the bend near Principal Wells’ residence? She couldn’t get a good look at him through her window. The corner of the building had him mostly concealed, but she could make out that he had a thick, stocky build, and was dressed in appropriate layers, while his face was shielded by glasses and a baseball cap. Even hidden under those layers and concealed by the bend in the dormitories, Max had the distinct feeling that the man was not part of the Blackwell faculty. And was he staring at her window? Was he watching her?

Don’t be paranoid, Max. This is why Dana and Kate don’t want you to be alone. All this business with Nathan has you seriously weirded out.

Yet that didn’t change the fact that there was a strange man on campus seemingly peering up into her dorm room. She glanced back but the man had moved on. Had she imagined him? Was she seriously losing her mind and making up imaginary stalkers now? Especially when her previous stalker was sitting on her bed right this minute. 

As if summoned by her thoughts, Warren called over to her.

“Hey, is that Chloe?”

“Huh?”

“On your photo wall? I see you’ve got a photo from the Tempest up here. That would have been 2010, when I was a freshman, you know before Blackwell went all weird with the senior, super senior extension program, or whatever this nonsense is we’re pulling nowadays.” 

Max walked over to look, forgetting instantly about the alleged man outside her window. “Where?”

“Right here,” Warren tapped at a photo placed almost center on the wall. In it she could make out a much younger Chloe in full costume and make-up standing center stage right beside Rachel Amber and a cast of familiar faces, including Juliet, Hayden, and Dana. It looks like there may have been another cast member there on the far left, but, whoever had been there, that portion of the photo had been cut off.

Max peered closer. Chloe’s hair was still its natural strawberry blonde, and she wore a skin-tight blue costume with blue feathered plumage around her shoulders and off from a bird-like headpiece, with glittery blue makeup framing in her eyes, and even more glitter spread over every visible portion of her skin. Oh Dog, how had she never seen this photo?

She knew the answer; she knew that she had cut Chloe out of her life for nearly five years, and this wasn’t the sort of blackmail material Chloe would have just handed over of her own free will, but Dog, she owed Dana. This had to be Dana’s photo, and now, it was quite possibly Max’s favorite photo on her wall. 

“Yeah, that’s her,” she said, smiling; all thoughts of the mystery man outside completely forgotten as she puzzled over this gem from Chloe’s missing years, and how she might actually have to let Dana’s misguided matchmaker attempt slide once more, if just on the value of this photo alone. Maybe. 

Chapter Text

March 17, 2013 - Current Timeline (Photo Jump)

Chloe could hear her voice, Rachel’s voice. White washed over the world, her vision blinded by light, yet there was her voice calling to her, as if echoing through a great void.

“Just pose for the camera, bitch.” Her laughter echoed in that void and Chloe knew she would do whatever this girl asked, fuck the consequences.

“Fuck that. Keep quiet before step-ass hears.” That was her voice, her own voice now, there in the white-washed echo. She remembered this. They had just come back from a Firewalk concert in Portland. They had snuck out on Friday night after Rachel got back from Blackwell for a belated birthday weekend. What better way to kick off Chloe’s nineteenth year than with a remaster of their first concert together — her and Rachel wreaking havoc in Portland. Well it might have been better if it had been at the Mill, just for old-time’s sake, but that ship had sailed, and Chloe sure as hell wasn’t telling Rachel that. No need to roll over and show her soft, mushy underbelly. That shit was dangerous. Although…

Head out of the gutter, Chloe.

“I need something to show for Jefferson’s class tomorrow.”

“Hell no. I’m not posing for your pervy teacher.”

“Come on. Play nice.”

“Here. Best I can do.”

A click sounded as the flash went off and the world slowly faded into focus. Chloe was in her room, Rachel leaning against her, both angled down posing for the camera in Rachel’s outstretched arm. Chloe had her middle finger extended. She never had liked Jeffer-shit. He’d been way too hipster, and yeah, fuck, she realized that between his poser, hipster bullshit, and his photography, he might as well have been a substitute punching bag for Max, but fuck him. Plus she knew better now. He was nothing like Max; he was a psychopath, and —

— Wait a second. I’m in my room and Rachel freaking Amber is right…

Chloe pivoted spotting Rachel leaning over her viewfinder, checking out the still of the two of them. “I don’t know, Chloe. I think it captures you. Cuts right down to your true self. Hard exterior, but a gooey, soft core.”

Fuck that. I’m hella hardcore. That’s what she was supposed to say; what she had said, originally. But… but Rachel Amber was right beside her. Rachel Amber for whom she had been searching for six months; Rachel Amber, her angel; Rachel Amber who they found in the junkyard, buried, decomposing — No. Rachel Amber, her angel. Hold with that.

“No witty comeback? You okay?” Rachel shot her a glance, running her hand back through that long, sandy blonde hair, giving Chloe an unimpeded view of her perfect face and that signature blue feather earring hanging down from her left ear.

Hell yes, I’m okay. You’re alive. You’re fucking alive. And I’m going to… I need to…

Rachel tilted Chloe’s face towards hers until their eyes locked. She was staring right into her, melting away her defenses like she always did, and she was there, and —

Chloe ran her hands into Rachel’s hair, seizing at the back of her head, grabbing tight to that soft perfect hair, gathering it around her fingers and holding on for dear life. She leaned in, pressing hard into Rachel until their lips met with a teasing brush, a tease of the kiss to come. She licked lightly at her lips, wet them, and pushed back in until this time the two locked together, meeting with a hard, insatiable desire. Chloe nibbled on Rachel’s lower lip, then flicked her tongue across it, parting those lips, and pressing in for a long, deep, and — fuck that’s passionate — much needed kiss. She had forgotten the faint cherry lip gloss taste of Rachel’s kisses, and Chloe held there, enraptured, lost in six months of fear and worry and longing. She held there and the two held together, united in a need too long denied, until at last...

…finally Chloe pulled away.

“Not complaining, but where’d that come from?”

Oh shit. She’d just kissed Rachel Amber. Rachel that had been cheating on her with Frank ‘Skeevy’ Bowers of all people. Rachel who had been lying to her for months. This Rachel right here. She was already seeing Bowers, flirting with Jefferson, making plans to escape to LA with anyone that would listen; anyone that would buy her bullshit. Chloe was angry at her. She was furious at her. 

My God, that girl was beautiful. Fuck, Price; you’re mad, not some cheesy schoolgirl with a crush. Show some God-damned, mother-fucking backbone.

Rachel’s expression shifted swiftly from that post-kiss ambrosia, to longing, to confusion. Damn it. She’s reading you. You can’t fucking hide your emotions. She always knows.

“Okay, so, now you’re pissed. One second you’re complaining about taking a photo, then you're kissing me like there’s no tomorrow, and now what, you’re mad at me? What the hell, Price?”

This was so not how this was supposed to go. Rachel should already be on her way out the window by now. She needed to get back to the Amber residence and her asshole dad so she could work her weird devil magic to skate out of any consequences for their impromptu weekend getaway and how she had ignored his texts all weekend; that and get back to Blackhell before tomorrow morning’s classes. She was supposed to be gone and Chloe would have had her room clear for Operation 'Save Your Backstabbing Ex from Her Pervy, Psychopathic Photography Teacher and His Sith Apprentice.' The name still needed some workshopping, but it fit in a pinch. Instead, Chloe’s damn emotions were flashing in neon letters on her sleeve again, and Rachel Amber didn’t appear to be going anywhere. 

Chloe moved over to her desk, digging and sifting through the layers of parking tickets, papers, and fossilized crap that she’d let settle there. When you don’t have an answer, deflect or ignore. Always sound advice. 

“Chloe, answer me.” Oh damn. She shifted gears, out of angry and confused and into that soft sultry voice. Chloe hated that gear. That one that said, it’s okay, I’m here for you, just do me this one thing and I’ll make everything alright. Well fuck that. She can’t make this alright. She fucking broke this bed and burned the mattress. She can sleep in the god-damned ashes.

“See, there it is again,” Rachel said. “You’re seriously pissed off. What? Is this about those frat dudes at the venue? I was toying with them, babe. You know that.”

No, it wasn’t about those frat dudes, but damn, wasn’t that just the problem? She was always toying. God damnit, Chloe Elizabeth Price. Focus on the mission. 

As Chloe snapped herself from her wandering thoughts, she noticed Rachel’s hand reaching up towards her chin. Oh no, that wasn’t happening. She was going to run that silky soft index finger along her jawline while gently angling Chloe’s face towards her own until Chloe went all weak-kneed and gave her whatever she wanted. It was like some god damn, R-Rated, Rachel Amber specialty, Jedi mindfuck. 

Chloe dodged out of Rachel’s reach, rushing across the room to her closet and began tossing it like she was robbing the place. Fuck it. The place already looked like it had been ransacked. Not like anyone will be able to tell the difference. Jesus. I let Max see my room like this. Oh crap, Max was flirting with me. Max had been flirting with her and she just kissed Rachel freaking Amber… seven months in the past… two minutes after Max flirted with her… God damn mind-splitting time shenanigans. Oh God. I've only been hanging with Max for five days and she's already got me thinking shit like shenanigans. Fucking hippie is ruining me.

Focus!

“Chloe!” Rachel had her hands on her hips and her perfect face tilted in an ‘I mean business’ slant. Damn. Amber was switching back to anger. Like full-on, heated anger. Angry Amber was chaos; angry amber was unpredictable. 

“You’re going to alert, Sgt. Pepper.” Chloe threw more shit out of her closet. Crap where was her diary? When was the last time she’d even written in that thing? It had been great for crafting angry letters to Max, but ever since Rachel showed up, well she just hadn’t had as much need to vent her anger at her imaginary pen pal. 

“Fuck, step-ladder.”

“Oh, God. Don’t call him that.”

“If you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll alert the whole neighborhood.”

“Just, I need to find my diary.” Chloe peeked over her shoulder. Yep, window was open. Wouldn’t be hard for angry Amber to hulk out and let the whole neighborhood in on their business. Oh hell… Chloe’s eyes widened as she caught the full-on, LSD, acid trip of an aurora outside her window. Although, aurora was the wrong word. This was more like a gigantic cigarette burn in a film strip, only it took over the whole damn sky, painting everything beyond her room in this bright white and flickering orange that just made no damn sense. What the fuck does time-travel have to do with photography anyway? Fucking time-travel, and journals, and cigarette-reel skies like I’m living in some sort of video memory. Damn if Chloe Price was going to accept some Butterfly Effect Ashton Kutcher flick as the bible of time travel. Hell to the no.

“Chloe, I swear — wait, did you say diary?” 

Damn it to hell. Angry Rachel vanished and switched gears straight into stubborn inquisitive. She’d just received a lead on a new toy, and no way Rach was letting that go.

“Rach.” Chloe needed to nip this and fast.

“You did, you said, diary.” Damn. That’s a swing and a miss.

“No, I didn’t,” Chloe tossed one last shelf, throwing out a box of old Max junk that she’d been too pissed to keep out and too hurt to let go — old drawings and hand-made comics, pirate gear, and even relics from their time capsule, complete with tape recorder and Max’s taped farewell. She’d spent too many hours listening to that goodbye. Still no diary, though.

“Ugh. Where is it?” Chloe tugged at her hair. How much time did she have here? Max said time was limited, right? Was that a few minutes? Five minutes? Ten? How much time had she been here already?

“You did. You said diary. Chloe Price has a diary.” Oh God, Amber’s grin had gone nuclear. If that girl found her diary, Chloe was never getting her out of this room, and she needed to get a message to her past self, her future self, her past-future self. Aargh. Whatever.

“Don’t you need to get back to Daddy Dearest?”

“Oh, he can so wait. You have a secret diary and I just realized exactly how you can make up for flipping out on me.”

“Aren’t all diaries secret? Wait — how I can make up to you?” Rachel Amber had been cheating on her for who knows how long. Sure, they hadn’t defined their relationship. Rachel Amber didn’t like labels, and Chloe didn’t really have enough friends to risk the one’s she had on forcing the issue (especially those friends that were most definitely, 100%, undefined but definitively more than friends), but still, Rachel knew how Chloe felt. Rachel should have told her what was going on. Yet here she is, here Rachel is, thinking I owe her an apology.

“You are NOT reading my diary.” Chloe moved over to the junk-pile flowing from the shelves near her Hi-Fi. That diary had to be here somewhere.

“So you admit you  have a secret diary.” Man, why couldn’t Rachel pipe down? Chloe just wanted to save her life, but Rachel, no Rachel had her eyes on a new shiny prize and had decided to play Rachel Amber mind games, which just wasn’t fair; Chloe’s brain was already fried from time travel nonsense, she didn’t need mind games added into the mix.

“They’re all secret, Rach. That’s why they’re diaries.” Chloe snuck another peek out her window. Shit. Was that fucking weird ass cigarette-reel aurora closer?

“What do you keep looking for out there?”

“An airplane engine.”

“What?”

“When are you going to watch Donnie Darko already?” Deflect and destroy. You got this.

“No, no. You are not deflecting.” Fuck. Another swing and a miss. And shit, when did this become a baseball analogy? Damn step-douche has been watching his sportsball too much. He’s ruining your idioms.

“I want to know about this diary,” Rachel continued, disrupting her mind tangent, and plopping down on the edge of Chloe’s bed patting the mattress beside her as if to invite Chloe over. Oh, and there's that seductive smirk. Stop trying to play me, Rach. Kind of on a mission here.

“There’s nothing to tell.” Nope. Not by the hi-fi. Fuck! Under the bed?

Chloe stormed over to the bed, Rachel’s eyes lighting up momentarily, until Chloe shifted, leaning down and peering under the mattress.

“Tease.”

“Busy here.”

“So what’s this diary look like? Please tell me it has unicorns and rainbows. Ooh! And glitter! Can it please be written in glitter ink?”

“It is NOT written in glitter ink. It’s dark and cool and punk and none of your business.” Chloe stole another glance. Shit, again. Now she couldn’t even see her window; the cigarette burn aurora time cloud whosamajigit actually breaching into her house and cutting right through her desk. Was she out of ti —

— wait a second. The whole video effect was gone and now it was just her room and clear skies beyond. Max never mentioned that. Did I break it? Fuck, I broke it, didn’t I? Oh, nope. There it is again. The strange aurora returned, one instant gone and the next back again, now once more beyond her window; although it did look like it was closing in now, and fast. Shit, fuck, damn, motherfucking cock-ass, stupid non-sensical, physics-defying time-travel bullshit (ha — I didn’t call them shenanigans that time, you hippie).

“Jeez, Chloe. You could at least play along a little. What’s up your ass all of a sudden?” Damn it. Still on this diary. Can't she just drop it.

“Just shut up about the damn diary for a second, will you!”

“Well damn. Tell me how you really feel.”  Really. That’s what she wanted. Chloe could totally do that.

“Fuck it, why don’t I?” Chloe snapped to her feet, standing tall and pushing into Rachel’s space. She blew it. That damn photo, video timefield crap was closing in. Chloe was out of time, so fuck Max’s way. She’d have to do this in pure Chloe freestyle.

“Chloe?” Rachel looked, not afraid, but shocked. Chloe had never really let loose on her before had she? This girl had Chloe wrapped around her finger and she had known, always known, that the one thing Chloe wouldn’t risk losing was her. Well, she’d lost her anyway, so fuck holding back. She had a mission. She had to keep this dumb, beautiful, horrible, manipulative, wonderful angel alive and, right now, that meant getting right in her face. She had to keep her away from Jefferson and Nathan and make sure she stayed safe until her Max was back.

“For once, just shut up and listen to me, okay.”

“Fine,” Rachel said. “But you keep yelling and step-douche will be up here in no time flat.”

“Fuck step-douche. Fuck him and his penis-envying, limp dick muscle cars. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass right now, what he says. I don’t give a shit about him, or your fucking two-faced asshole of a father, or the god damn neighbors or any of them. Just fucking listen.”

She didn’t even say anything back. Rachel Amber had just been knocked speechless. Score one for Chloe Price. 

“I don’t have much time. In a minute I ain’t going to remember shit. Not since you snapped that photo.”

“What?”

“No interruptions.”

“Chloe! Who do you have up there!” Oh Good. Cue Step-dick.

Chloe shot over and locked her door, then kicked a shelf in front of it for good measure, not once stopping her rant as she did.

“I ain’t gonna remember shit, okay.” Oh crap, the Southern’s coming out. Stupid Joyce. Push on Price. “I’ll be all like, whoa, what happened to my room and weren’t you taking my photo or some such shit, and what’s up step-dick’s ass?” Dick’s ass. Chloe snorted. What was she, twelve?

Outside her room, David started pounding on her door. “Chloe, I don’t care who you have in there, you let me in!” Well, totally ignoring that. Moving on. 

“But that doesn’t fucking matter okay. What matters is you listen to me. I need you to do what I say. I need you to stay the fuck away from —” From whom , she thought. From Jefferson, her teacher. From Nathan, her old Vortex buddy. God damn it, this wasn't going to be easy. And dammit, it sure would fucking help if my step-ass would stop pounding at my door. He's making it impossible to think straight. “Stay away from Frank,” she continued.

Oh wait. Crap. Foot. Mouth. Wrong name. Though fuck Frank. She can stay away from him, too.

“Chloe, I will take this door right off its hinges.” Oooh. He was using that stern, I used to be in military voice, now. Like that would somehow magically work for the first time ever.

“Great,” Chloe yelled back. “You do that. Just stop pounding on my door for one damned minute.”

“That’s it, Chloe. I’m getting my tools.”

“You’re a tool.” Okay, that one was weak. You’re losing focus, Chloe.

“Backup,” Rachel broke in. “Stay away from Frank? Your dealer?”

“No. Damn it. I meant Jefferson.”

“My photography teacher?”

Hey, Chloe thought. No more knocking. The tool’s actually gone down for his tools. Oh yeah, right. Rach. Keep away from Frank, no Jefferson, no — fuck!

“God bless it. No. Fuck. Words listen to my god damn brain. Prescott. You need to stay the fuck away from Prescott.”

“Hell, Chloe. Are there any guys I am allowed to see?”

“Oh, don’t act all high and mighty, like you aren’t banging that pig Frank behind my back.”

Rachel’s jaw shut tight. Yeah, I thought that would shut you up.

“I mean, fuck, I always say everybody pretends to care until they don’t, but you, you were supposed to be better than that.”

“I am.”

“No. Fuck that. Fuck everybody. You straight up lied to my face. You! How can I trust anybody now? Just one more coat of shit on my life.”

Rachel stood, heading towards the open window. “You know what, why don’t we talk after you cool down?”

“No. You need to just fucking listen. You betrayed me. I’m just asking that you stay away from Prescott.”

“You mean Bowers.”

“Him, too. And Jefferson.”

“See, I get Bowers, though shit Chloe, how long have you been stalking me?” She paused briefly, halfway out the window, straddling Chloe’s desk as she eased out onto the roof, looking for a moment like she actually wanted an answer, then shook her head. “No,” she continued, “we’ll come back to that. I want to know why Prescott and Jefferson. Hell, Mark’s my teacher. I can’t very well stay away from him.”

Outside Chloe’s door a new clatter broke through their argument as a heavy thud landed just beyond the door. Great. Step-fuck had his tools. As if to punctuate her point, David cut in.

“If I have to take this door down there are going to be serious consequences, soldier.”

“Consider this a mutiny,” Chloe yelled back, then returned her attention to Rachel, who was now fully out the window, and preparing to jump down from the awning. “And, as for Jeffer-shit,” she yelled, returning her ire on Rachel, “you can maybe not meet up with him after hours for private sessions.”

Rachel paused, kneeling with one hand on the ledge, ready to completely make her exit. She peeked over her shoulder, tears and mascara streaming down her face. “Am I just sleeping around the whole school in that delusional head of yours?”

“I don’t know. Are you? I’m not the one banging a skeezy drug dealer and cheating on her girlfriend.”

“You’re not my girlfriend!” Punctuating her point, Rachel leapt down vanishing within the closing time aurora.

“Well fuck you very much!” Chloe smacked her own head, hitting peak frustration levels.

And with that, the door fell back off its hinges, David looking quite smug with his tools and his porn stache.

“And fuck you, too, for good measure,” Chloe yelled, whipping around towards her step-ass, middle fingers flying. “Why don’t you go eat a bag of dicks?”

Before David could respond the white, cigarette-burn, aurora bullshit, timefield nonsense snapped closed and all blurred once more to white.

Well, fuck. That could have gone slightly better.

Chapter Text

Dec 2, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

Max always hated leaving Math Lab; actually she loved leaving math, but the classroom itself was up in 218 in the back corner of the academy, which always meant as long a trek as possible from class through the halls of Blackwell and all the teen drama that stalked those halls; and with only the one stairwell (a popular hangout for collecting school gossip), it was impossible to leave math without a maximum of social interaction. For Max, this was a nightmare scenario; or at least it usually felt that way.

Today, she left Math with Kate at her side, and Kate wasn’t letting Max go anywhere without her — or one of her other self-appointed protectors. After her revelations to Kate and Dana the day before, the two had been adamant that she lean on them for support. Moreover, Max wasn’t to be alone until they felt comfortable that it was safe for her to be so.

The previous afternoon, Kate had returned shortly after Warren discovered the photo of Chloe on Max’s Memorial Photo Wall. When she entered, Kate had her backpack, complete with a change of clothes and all her books for the next day (which really seemed like overkill with her living just across the hall), and struggling with Alice’s cage and supplies in hand. Warren had run over to help, confused as he was that Kate appeared to be moving in. Not ready to open up to a boy that had been creeping way too close to stalker territory, Max had made a fumbling excuse about a sleepover and Warren had thankfully been too oblivious by nature to pick up on the obvious tells from Max: not her inability to look him in the eye, not her stammer, not her worrying hands, none of it. 

After Kate had settled in and Warren had made his exit, the day had run fairly smoothly, at least for Max. Dana had returned to join them shortly thereafter once she had finished a call with Trevor who she had apparently placed in ‘timeout.’ Prompted by Max’s flustered concern, Dana had assured Max that all would be fine once Trevor had a couple days to sweat and learn his lesson. 

That evening the trio of friends joined Warren for his sci-fi movie marathon in the downstairs TV lounge, where a smug-looking Brooke had been sitting beside her long sought after prize. Of course, that hadn’t stopped boy wonder from keeping way too close of an eye on Max’s reactions to each film, resulting in Brooke storming out and Max having to encourage Warren to go after her. She had even illicited support from Dana after Max cast her some pointed glares indicating that it was time for Dana to ditch her Grahamfield shipping tendencies and to jump on board the Brooke and Warren train. So, despite the awkwardness for (and from) Warren, Max had actually considered the evening a win. 

That night, Kate had settled on Max’s futon, despite Max insisting that she take the bed, and though Max didn’t sleep nearly as peacefully as she had on Saturday night when she had slept cuddled with Kate, the sleep had at least been less embarrassing, and she had awoken surprisingly refreshed in the morning (5 am in the morning, but morning). Plus, her new roomie situation had brought some surprising but welcome benefits, like pre-class bunny snuggles and an early morning tea time. It had been her best morning since leaving that lost week behind.

While unfortunately neither Kate nor Dana shared first period World History with Max, Dana had accompanied her to class and Max had taken her usual seat beside Warren. As first period had ended, Dana and Kate’s promise to ensure one of them was always with her became much easier to fulfill, as Kate shared the next three classes with Max and had been waiting outside of World History to accompany her to Algebra. 

So, in that manner, the day had continued, Max forcing herself through class after class with the constant support of her friends, and by the time Math Lab had ended, Max could feel that inkling of her before self’s confidence returning, of that self before that week. Of course, that self hadn’t had much traditional confidence, but she had had enough to manage her way through the anxiety’s and social pressures of high school without constant breakdowns and panic attacks, and that was all the confidence that Max needed right now. The rest could come in time.

So, slightly missing her solitude (old habits never die with ease), Max found herself navigating the social labyrinth of Blackwell’s central stairwell side-by-side with Kate in the gap between third and fourth period. She felt surprised at how the new arrangements had given her this renewed confidence to face her first day back from break head-on. Lost in the high of her first truly good day since Chloe, she made her way down the stairs in a daydream-like daze.

“Nice wardrobe.” Victoria rolled her eyes as their paths crossed in the central lobby of Blackwell just as Max and Kate exited the stairwell. So much for those good day vibes.

“Tory!” Kate cut Victoria her no-nonsense big sister glare, which Max felt had made a surprising number of appearances of late. More, Max stared slack-jawed as Victoria actually slowed down in step with Kate and averted her eyes almost in apology. Only almost of course; one can’t expect miracles. And what was with that nickname? Just how much time had these two been spending together, and how self-absorbed had Max been in the past couple of months not to notice?

“What,” Victoria asked. As if to counter the obvious curtailment of her behavior, Victoria continued. “I paid her a compliment.”

“Please, play nice.” Kate’s glare never wavered.

“Fine. I like your sleep-shirt chic you’ve got going on there.” Victoria waved towards Max’s much-too-large-for-her rock chick t-shirt that she had chosen for the day. “I still think the spiked bracelet is a bit much, though.”

In response to another cut of the eyes from Kate, Victoria threw up her hands. “Look, I can only go so far. Honest criticism is needed if she’s ever going to learn.”

Kate shook her head and this new trio continued on down the hall, Courtney joining them as she exited from the left wing of the first floor. Max followed along, completely bewildered. What bizarro version of Blackwell had she entered, and what sort of strange mind powers did Kate have over Victoria? This was the absolute nicest that the queen beeatch had ever been to Max, but more disconcerting than that was the way Victoria seemed to actually bend to Kate’s glances and lock in with her as if seeking the smaller girl’s approval. For a second, Max wondered if she’d somehow photo-jumped into another alternate timeline, but a quick check of her texts showed nothing out of the ordinary. Weird.

Victoria glanced over her shoulder to Courtney, as Max cautiously watched the interlopers. “Aren’t you supposed to be going up to History?”

“Um… what? Oh.” Courtney stopped, adjusting the strap of her bag. “My bad. Kind of just hit on autopilot, there. Bye, Vic!”

Victoria shook her head, then glanced over Kate to Max. “You set for today’s assignment?”

“What?” Max still couldn’t understand why Victoria was walking with them, let alone talking to her. Max had spent so much time lost in her own problems of late, she really had no clue what had shifted in the social dynamics of Blackwell since October; she was going to need to have a serious sit down with Kate after class to get to the bottom of this.

“The assignment. The thanksgiving assignment. Two photos. Expressions of two elements of photography. Focuses on line and shape or whatever half-assed BS Wells found in the text.”

“Oh, yeah. That.” Max paused. She had definitely not done that assignment. “Sure,” she said. She also definitely had no intention of sharing her failure to comply with Victoria Chase.

“Uh-huh. I look forward to today’s critique.”

Max’s breath hitched, then quickly returned to normal. She could do this. “Today’s what now?”

“Critique,” Victoria said. “You know. That thing we do. Photos to the board. Open discussion. Criticism.” Kate glared at her, and Victoria made an on-the-fly correction. “Constructive criticism.”

Oh shit. Max totally hadn’t heard that part of Wells’ instructions. She must have been zoned out at the time. This would be the perfect day to skip, but, just as the thought began to take shape, there they were at the door to their Photography class, Principal Wells standing in the doorway formally greeting them as they entered. There was no escaping this now.

“Welcome back girls. Please go ahead and pin your assignments to the board before you get seated.” He nodded at them as they entered, and Max could feel her anxiety rising. This is okay , she told herself. This is normal anxiety. This is I-forgot-about-the-homework anxiety. 

She beelined for her seat in the back, immediately taking out her books and settling down at her desk. I can do this. I can handle this.

“Max?” Max glanced up to find Victoria hovering over her desk, her two photographs in hand. “Photos to the board, remember?”

Max flashed her eyes to Kate for help, hoping that whatever magic powers Kate had gained over Victoria could at least get her away from her desk. Kate shrugged, her own photos in hand, then turned to Victoria as if about to intercede on Max’s behalf.

“Whatever,” Victoria said, before Kate could even speak. 

She retreated to the tack board at the front of the class that had been rolled in for the assignment’s review. Stella and Daniel were already at the board pinning up their shots, and Taylor had just pinned up hers, turning and catching sight of both Victoria and Max. A look of absolute venom flickered over Taylor’s expression as she caught eyes with Max. It only lasted a moment, then her popular girl neutral demeanor resumed with the small flash of a smile to her queen bee and a stroll back to her seat.

Great, Max thought. Victoria’s decided to take a keen interest in my affairs. Wells gives the first actual photography assignment since Jefferson and I miss that it’s a public critique (though, in fairness, I would have been doomed even if I knew), and now Taylor is clearly holding a grudge. When did Photography become my least favorite class of the day? I mean, I’d even take a second helping of Math Lab right now.

As Kate returned from the tack board, she shot Max a questioning glance, clearly finally noticing that Max appeared to have nothing to pin up. Max simply shrugged her shoulders with an exaggerated grimace in response. There was nothing really to say.

Max immediately turned her attention towards coming up with any plausible reason why she had nothing to show for herself, although she knew full well she wouldn’t be able to lie her way out of the assignment. Acknowledging that fact, she shifted tactics, searching for any plan on even how to handle the obvious question from Wells, and the unwanted attention it would call to Max herself as the public nature of the classroom critiques meant that everyone would know she had ignored the homework. 

Lost in these thoughts, Max barely noticed as the bell to start class rang and Wells took his place in front of the board. He waved over towards a tall, stern woman with long dark hair, gesturing for her to stand beside him. Exceedingly pale, the woman was dressed in a dark pants suit that only accentuated her alabaster skin, and the overall effect provided for an impressive, if menacing figure. 

Apparently, the woman was a long-term sub and would be overseeing the class for the remainder of the semester - all two weeks of it. Wonderful, Max thought. We finally have a pseudo new teacher and I’ll be the only one who forgot the homework. That’ll be a great first impression. Another thought occurred to Max, and she scanned the tack board hoping against hope that Hayden would prove his usually over relaxed self and have slipped up as well. Nope. There were Hayden’s prints tacked under his name on the lower right of the board. Damn. The only empty slot remained the blank space for Max’s photos. 

Realizing there would be no reprieve, Max returned her attention to the new teacher at the front of the class. She appeared to be in the middle of an introduction, but Max had completely missed it. What had she said her name was?  Yeah, you keep nailing this class, Max. Great job.

She knew that she should focus in and stop digging this hole deeper, but that was the exact moment that Max noticed Principal Wells reviewing the tack board. He stood especially transfixed before the blank space where Max’s photos belonged. Yes, day, please keep getting better. Thank you.

She sucked in a nervous breath, trying to steady herself, and made to look away, as if to hide. Before she could, however, Wells turned his full attention right back on her. Please let it go, please let it go, please let —

“Ms. Caulfield.” Wells’ stern baritone called out to her, and they locked eyes. Yep. Everything’s coming up Max, now.

She rose from her seat, taking a walk of shame towards the front of the class and the open door to the hallway where the principal waited for her, gesturing for her to accompany him outside. As she left her seat, Kate, the angel on her right, cast her a sympathetic look. Victoria on the other hand, the devil on her left, shot her a disapproving glare, which followed her the entire way up to the door. She tried to ignore the other looks, a mix of curiosity, pity, and snide delight — that latter came from Taylor.

Once out in the hall, Wells shut the door to the classroom, providing Max some modicum of privacy. The two stood alone in the empty hall, a fact made all the more apparent and all the more daunting by the unusual silence of what for all intents and purposes was usually the main artery of the school. Without the laughter and taunts of her classmates, the hall took on an almost oppressive feeling. The principal’s crossed arms and withering scowl did little to lighten the mood.

“Ms. Caulfield,” he started. “You are aware that with the unusual circumstances for this semester, this assignment takes on an atypical level of importance towards your overall grade, correct?”

“Um…” What do you say to that? Very aware that she could not (or at least should not) rewind this conversation, rather than dive in and try to talk her way out of it, Max simply froze.

“Maxine, you’re here on a photography scholarship. You of all people should be turning in your top work. At the very least, you should be turning in something.”

Finally Max found her voice.

“I’m sorry.”

“You understand that without much else to go on this semester, this assignment counts for nearly 30% of your semester grade. Turning in nothing will make it nearly impossible to even pass this course.”

Dog. She definitely hadn’t realized that. 

In a small act of mercy, Principal Wells appeared to pick up on Max’s distress. “Now, the administration is very aware that you’ve had a difficult time since the incident in October.”

Way to sanitize it.

“However, that was nearly two months ago. So here’s what we are going to do. You have until Wednesday to complete the assignment. If you turn it in by the end of the day, I’ll request that you only be docked one letter grade. For every day that it is late after that, you will be docked another letter grade. That means anything turned in past this Friday is an automatic failing grade, although even that will be better than a zero. After Monday, you’ll be out of chances. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Max could barely get out the words. 

“I hope to see better from you, Maxine. I’d hate for this slip up to cause the academy to lose a promising student.” As Maxine’s puzzlement showed on her face, Principal Wells continued. “Ms. Caulfield, you’re a scholarship student. Scholarships rely on grades. Without meeting those standards, I’m afraid you will have no place here at Blackwell.”

As Max lowered her head in understanding, Wells opened the classroom door gesturing for her to rejoin her classmates. She had been so close to having a truly good day. She shuffled her way inside, as Principal Wells shut the door, leaving her to finish her second walk of shame for the day under the full scrutiny of the class.

The rest of the period drifted by in a haze, Max sitting quietly in the back of the room, listening in on the criticisms of her peers’ submissions and attempting on occasion to chime in, but never feeling quite up for the stress of participation. As soon as class ended, Kate had been at her side, and rushing with Max out the door with an apologetic wave to the new teacher. Max thought her name was Ms. Sturgess or Sturgull, or something like that. She really hadn’t paid that close attention.

Moments later, the warmth of the sun greeted Max, along with the chill of the December breeze. Kate held her hand leading her down the main stairs and out into the quad, already turning towards the far end of the green and where the next set of stairs would take them down to the breezeway and around to the Prescott dormitories. Content to be pulled along by her friend, Max moved listlessly behind Kate, as if with no driving force of her own. As such, when a second hand grabbed her shoulder from behind, Max found herself pulled to an immediate halt, letting her fingers slip from Kate’s grasp.

“You’re what? Just quitting?” Victoria had removed her hand from Max’s shoulder and now both her hands rested on her hips, that same disapproving glare from earlier plastered over her face. Kate attempted to intercede, but much as it appeared to pain her, Victoria did not let Kate deter her.

“She needs to answer, Kate.”

“Tory. Not right now.”

“Sorry, but yes now.”

Kate made to protest again, but it was at that moment that a breathless Taylor caught up with the odd trio. “Why… what… you ran out of class so fast…” The winded girl paused, leaning forward hands to her knees as she caught her breath. At last regaining some modicum of composure, Taylor took in the scene, taking note of Kate and Max. 

“Oh,” she said, turning her focus back to Victoria. “Soo… why’d you run out after the self-appointed selfie nerd and her prudish—” She stopped appearing to consider the rest of her statement, worrying at the hem of her shirt. “.. and her… and Kate… Sorry Kate.” Taylor avoided looking at Kate, keeping her eyes trained instead on Victoria and Max. “Old habits and all,” she finished still addressing Kate even if she couldn’t look her in the eyes.

Victoria didn’t even bother looking back at Taylor. “Just stow it for a moment, Taylor. Max, I need an answer.”

Again, Kate started to protest, yet this time, finally fading in from her daze, Max motioned for Kate to back down.

“It’s okay,” Max said, her voice lacking conviction, but she didn’t have the energy for anything more at the moment. She shifted her attention to Victoria. “I have until Wednesday… well Monday.”

“Which is it?”

“Um… Wednesday for a B. Monday for a high F, I guess.”

“You have until Wednesday.”

Max rolled her eyes, and made to rejoin Kate, her movements still borderline lifeless. She just needed to get this day over with. From behind her, she could hear Victoria following along, unwilling to yield.

“Max, you will turn in something on Wednesday, right?”

Max sighed. Why did she have to deal with Victoria right now? She so wanted to be having any conversation other than this one, but she could tell that the girl wasn’t going to just let this go.

“What do you even care, Victoria?”

“I hate to side with her of all people,” Taylor jumped in, following along as well, “but really, why are we helping her?”

“ We aren’t doing anything, Taylor, so shut up, already.” Victoria returned her attentions to Max. “Look, I don’t like being winner by default, okay? I want a real competition this time; not a repeat of the Every Day Heroes Contest.”

“By default,” Taylor asked, her voice picking up in pitch.

“Can it already, Tay. We both know you have no real interest in photography. Max is the only photographer in that class besides me with any real talent.” Way to be modest, Victoria.

Taylor huffed, but pulled into herself finally quietening down. Max had no idea why the girl put up with Victoria’s cold shoulder, but she guessed that wasn’t her concern. Taylor had made it clear where the two of them stood… after Max had kind of stuck her foot in her mouth. Okay, so this is a little bit on you. Fine. 

“Both of you, I’ve had a crap afternoon, so I’m sorry, but I don’t have the energy for this. Still, Taylor I do owe you an apology. I’m sorry. I should have asked about your mother sooner. I just… well…” Max’s voices caught in her throat, softening into a true murmur of contrition. “My excuses don’t matter. I’m just.. I’m sorry.”

“This is real touching and all, Max,” Victoria butted in, “but it doesn’t change that you’re letting me win without even putting up a fight.”

“You’re talented, you won. Can’t we just move on?”

“I won against everyone else. I haven’t won against you.”

“So that’s what this is about? Beating me?”

“No.” Victoria paused, grabbing Max once more and bringing the group to a halt by one of the nearby picnic benches. “No, it’s not about beating you. You’re talented, Max. Retro and weird with your hipster analog crap, but talented. Something I’ll deny I ever said if either of you ever repeat it. That goes for you, too, Taylor.”

Taylor waved her hand as if swatting the comment aside, clearly indicating that she wouldn’t dare say a word. Just then, Courtney of all people came running forward.

“There you all are. Wait, are we hanging with Max, now, too?”

“Ugh.” Victoria rounded on her two shadows, and this time Max couldn’t really blame her. She was just as frustrated by the growing crowd.

Dog, Max needed a smoke. Ignoring whatever the mean girl trio was up to, Max rummaged through her messenger bag searching for a pack of cigarettes, only stopping herself as she realized that would mean revealing her nasty habit to Kate. She paused. She also knew it was never wise to smoke near Victoria. She had not given up her crusade to rid Max of the habit. So, much as a cigarette would go a long way to calming her nerves right about now, Max finally dropped the flap of her bag closed and rounded back on Victoria.

“Okay. Let’s cut to it and get this over with. I’m talented and you want to prove you’re better.”

“Why is this so hard to understand? No,” Victoria rounded back on Max as well, ignoring Taylor and Courtney’s protestations. “I just want a fair contest, no matter the results.”

“Everything’s not a competition Victoria. I doubt I even turn in a photo, anyway.” 

“Don’t give me that bullshit!” Victoria’s voice kicked up a notch at this last outburst, and Max could feel the eyes in the quad turning on the five of them.

“Victoria,” Kate said, motioning a finger to her lips. 

“The quiet approach doesn’t work, does it, Max?”

Max grabbed her left arm with her right, almost shielding herself, and took a deep breath, before proceeding. “I just… j-just want you to drop it. I need to put today behind me.”

“So what, go up to your room and hide? I heard you did that all weekend?”

“Been talking to Taylor?” Max cut her eyes to Victoria’s blonde lackey standing off behind her.

“Bite me, Caulfield.” Taylor glared back, but that glare seemed forced now, a slight waver softening its blow. Even her voice held less venom, the words seeming more automatic than anything else. 

“Her, and others,” Victoria continued.

Kate tried to step in again, flashing Max another look of concern, before returning to Victoria. “Tory, I know you mean well. I do. But maybe this isn’t the right way.”

“I wish it weren’t, but coddling isn’t doing her any good.”

“Maybe I can make my own decisions,” Max cut in.

Victoria stared her down. “Which would be what? To hide in your room and flunk out of Blackwell. We all know you’re here for photography. If you don’t turn this in, you can almost guarantee that scholarship will be gone.”

“And then you can reign supreme.”

“I want the damn challenge, Caulfield; but I won’t have it if you self-implode.”

“Look, even if I wanted to, I just, I don’t have any inspiration right now.” Max toed at the dirt, averting her eyes. This whole conversation was making her extremely uncomfortable and Victoria’s volume had barely diminished. There were far too many eyes on them for Max’s comfort. 

Lucky for Max ( yay, me) , Victoria seemed to pick up on her physical cues, grabbed her by the arm, and hauled her around the side of the building, out of the view of the quad and the breezeway. The three remaining girls followed after.

“Look at me, Max.” Reluctantly, Max met Victoria’s gaze, staring into her determined, green eyes. Having Max’s complete attention, Victoria pushed on. “I haven’t even seen you take out your camera since October, not other than to set it on your desk in photography class. When’s the last time you even took a selfie?”

“It’s not that easy, Victoria.”

“Not that easy?”

Fuck it. Max needed that smoke. She reached into her messenger bag grabbing her pack of cigarettes, Kate’s eyes widening in shock.

“Max?” 

Max held up one hand to calm Kate, then pulled out a cigarette. Before she could even light it, Victoria had smacked it to the dirt and snatched her pack away. 

“Are we really going to play this game, again?” Max asked.

Victoria ignored her, turning to Kate. 

“See what coddling does, Kate?” Victoria held out Max’s half empty pack of cigarettes. “I bet she didn’t even tell you she was still smoking, did she? Probably told you she’d quit just so you and Dana would drop it.”

Kate didn’t respond, but Max could tell she was hurt. Victoria had hit pretty close to the truth. Max had told Dana that she quit — that it was just a one time thing on the night of the Halloween dance. She’d never told Kate she was smoking. Instead she’d taken to sneaking cigarettes behind the West Annex building to the north of the gym/natatorium. It stayed pretty isolated on that side of campus. Otherwise, she kept her smoking to late night, lonely corners of the quad or out about town, when she was on her own. 

Too late now. Only way to fix this would be a rewind, and bad as things seemed, Max was still convinced as ever to hold to her promise. There were no second chances any more.

“I’m sorry, Kate. It helps, okay. You know why. Same reason as the clothes, I guess.”

Kate nodded along, but Max could tell she still didn’t approve.

“Oh God, the fucking clothes.” Victoria rolled her eyes. 

Taylor, however, actually rose to Max’s defense much to her surprise, setting a hand on Victoria’s shoulder. “V, maybe ease up on this one.”

Victoria shrugged off Taylor’s hand. “Whatever. I may not get this Chloe worship you have,” she raised her hands in defense as she continued, “but no matter your reasons, that excuse is getting weak. Just drop the faux punk act — you’re barely there as is, just a hipster with a cigarette and a weird bracelet. Then get your ass in gear and take the damn shot.”

Max shut her eyes.

“Always take the shot. My number one rule in photography.” 

That voice slithered into her subconscious, coiling around her. Max could feel her arm trembling and she let her messenger bag drop from her shoulder as she grabbed her arm once more in front of her, as if to steady the building tremor. 

“It’s not that easy,” she said, again — wanting, needing Victoria to leave her alone.

“Sure it is,” Victoria said, kneeling down and gathering up Max’s messenger bag from the ground at her feet, where it had spilled half its contents out into the dirt, including a batch of old Polaroids, Max’s original camera (she kept William’s secure in her room now), and another pack of cigarettes. Victoria confiscated the second pack of cigarettes, then grabbed Max’s camera.

“Hey!” Max reached out for her camera, but Victoria ignored her, turning her back on Max, and scanning the little stretch of lawn between the main building and the wall to the breezeway.

“Come on, Tory.” Kate stepped up towards the queen bee, Victoria still focused on the green space in their isolated nook. “Please give her back her camera.”

“Maybe she’s right, V. You’ve made your  point.” Taylor still picked at the hem of her shirt, and she tapped her foot nervously in the grass as she looked about for any sign of other students.

“We could do to plan some for the End of the Year party. Or maybe even the New Year’s Blast?” Courtney chimed in.

Max said nothing. She could still feel the tremor in her arm and hear the soft echo of those words, his words, still whispering in her ear. 

Victoria ignored them all, suddenly stopping and peering into the viewfinder.

“See there, a squirrel. You always liked your nature shots, Max.” She snapped the shot, and the flash lit a firework over the moment. 

Max didn’t hear her. Instead she heard the click of the camera, a different camera, as Victoria snapped her shot of the squirrel. She was speaking, but Max didn’t hear her words. She heard a different voice, an angry voice, bubbling up from a past that never was.

“Oh, Max! You fucked up my shot!”

She cowered into herself. She could feel the tape on her wrists and ankles. She leaned back against the bricks of Blackwell, uncertain if she could stand, as that voice kept speaking.

“But please don’t worry, we have all the time in the world. For now.”

“No,” she muttered. Not this again. It was all auditory and touch. Visually she was still very much at Blackwell, but the borders between the school and that room were blurring. “No, no.”

“Yeah, Max. You did. You took a shit ton of nature shots.” Victoria said, oblivious of the other world now terrorizing the smaller girl. “We may not be best buds, but your choice of subject was always very clear. Nature. Hope and loss and other artsy shit. And selfies. Lots of selfies.”

“I knew you were special the second I saw your first… selfie.”  The disdain dripped from his voice with every word. She could feel him there, looming over her, and hear the clicking of his camera with each snap of the shutter. In fact, she could almost see him standing there, a spectral vision invading the cold December day. 

“Yes, I still hate that word.” He continued. “But I love the purity of your own image.”

Max felt filthy. She scrubbed at her arms, trying to rid herself of any evidence of that man, any trace that he had ever touched her, bound her, posed her.

“See, Max.” Victoria still droned on somewhere off in front of her, but Max paid her no further mind. Kate was beside Victoria. She was saying something. Trying to talk her down. Max couldn’t tell.

“She stays like this,” Victoria blurted out, “and we might as well just pack her bags. Look, Max. An abandoned bird’s nest on a barren branch. The way the light is shining right through those twigs. That’s your type of shot, isn’t it? Here.”

Suddenly Max could feel the plastic of the shutter release beneath her finger, as Victoria lifted her hand to the camera. “Just point and click.” Victoria lined up the shot, and pushed down on Max’s finger, triggering the shutter release.  

FLASH!

“Max, please do not move so much. I need you posed and framed my way!”

She could sense him hovering over her; feel his anger rolling across her prone form. 

“Maybe a new dose will calm you down…”

His footsteps were retreating, but Max knew what was coming.

“No, no, no…” she mumbled. She couldn’t seem to find her voice.

“Yeah, it's not that great of a shot. Not quite lined up right. Here, try again.”

Taylor placed a hand on Victoria’s shoulder. “I think… I think that’s enough, V. You’ve made your point.” Glancing about, Taylor appeared to be searching for something or someone, her gaze constantly shifting as she worried at her hem. 

Victoria grabbed Max’s hand, again. Max could feel it there, Victoria's hand shifting her own. Victoria’s hand? His hand? His hand was on hers, shifting her, posing her. She could feel the shutter release once more.

“Victoria, listen to Taylor. It’s time to stop,” Kate pleaded, somewhere beyond Max’s line of sight. Keep trying, Kate. He can’t break you. You’re stronger than ever and you’ll outlive him. 

Max’s hand was being shifted, the familiar feel of the Polaroid camera cold against her palms. Then there was that pressure, her finger being pushed down on the shutter release once more. “See, Max, it’s easy.”

FLASH!

Suddenly Max could hear Kate retreating, running off towards the quad. Keep going, Kate. Keep running. You leave him behind. Far, far behind.

“She’ll certainly outlive you.” That voice was so calm, with just the slightest hint of venom betraying the vile nature of the speaker. “Who knows?” Jefferson continued. “Maybe I’ll pay Kate a visit soon and test her faith again…”

“You will not get away with this. I want you to know that.” Max pulled at her wrists, but she could feel the tape binding them to that invisible chair, that prison of memory.

“Fuck.” Victoria shook her head. “Drama queen much? Nature not your thing, today?” 

“Jesus.” Taylor pushed her own now trembling hands into her face. “I thought we were done with this shit.”

“It’s for her own good,” Victoria replied, but Taylor didn’t appear to be paying her any mind. She turned, locking onto Courtney.

“Go help, Kate.”

“Huh,” Courtney stared back at Taylor confused.

“Just go find Dana or someone.”

By this point, Victoria was ignoring her minion completely. Behind her Courtney has already begun retreating, but Victoria had returned her focus to Max, turning the camera around in Max’s hand. 

Max paid her no mind. She had long since stopped focusing on the present moment. 

The school’s queen bee used the viewfinder to line up the shot, framing Max’s face. If Max could have deciphered past from present in that moment, if she could have actually perceived any nuance of what was happening around her, she might have caught the faintest glimmer of worry as Victoria framed up her face, but Victoria didn’t let it bother her for long. “Maybe you just need your trademark angle.”

Her finger pressed down ( was pressed down ) on the shutter release. The camera clicked, the flash exploding. The world went white, a blast of overexposure blinding out all else. The visual world vanished. Sound stopped. Time stood still…

Time stood still.

She couldn’t see it; she couldn’t see the world around her, nor could she hear it, but she could feel it, still and unmoving: everything and everyone frozen in a moment. His voice rose up once more…

“I could frame any one of you in a dark corner and capture you in a moment of desperation.”

Max gasped and the gears of the universe turned once more. The world returned to focus, sound fading up from that muted oblivion.

She was back. She was home.

She was in the Dark Room.

Chapter Text

October 11th, 2013  - Original Lost Week Timeline

Max could feel the rigid confines of that chair beneath her, its sharp angles biting into her as its cold dug in deep. Her whole body ached, and she had no idea how long she had been here, but she had already thought this place left behind, abandoned in a previous reality. She was supposed to be in Blackwell now; was in Blackwell.

Yet here she set, that tape binding her wrists and ankles (at least one of them), wound so tight it felt as if the restraints were cutting off her circulation. In the grand scheme of things, those bindings were only a minor agitation — not like the drugs coursing through her system, slowing and fogging her thoughts, nor like the stinging and throbbing in her head. Had she been struck? She didn’t know, and without clearing those damned drugs out of her, she couldn’t shake the haze and focus enough to be certain. And even with all these thoughts — the worries about the drugs and what damage they were doing, about her head, and how she was even here, back in this room, about where Jefferson was and how long he planned to keep her alive — it was the constriction of those bindings that kept nagging at her, the pressure like an itch that she just couldn’t scratch. She glanced to each, taking in her bindings. She needed rip that tape, rip that tape and scratch that itch. It was an overpowering drive, but no, that wasn’t right. 

None of this is right. You’re in Blackwell , she thought. Not here. Not again. Is this a memory? Am I still on that lawn?

She had to be there, there at Blackwell; not here, not back in the Dark Room. Everything looked just as it had, just as it had been on that night, which gave credence to the reliving a memory theory, which had to be what this was? Just some effed up PTSD hallucinatory nonsense, right? Yet the hallucination looked so real, smelled so real — felt so real. 

Fuck. God, no… I’m back here, again?! (I can’t be.) I thought I fixed everything.

Her focus on reality shifted again. The light before her faded and a shape coalesced out of the white fog of memory( ? ): Jefferson leaned over her, his brows furrowed together above those god awful, look-how-hip-I-am, dark-rimmed and white-templed glasses. 

“What did you say, Max?”

The white fog vanished completely, and there he stood, just a couple feet away, still in his slacks and his white button-up, with his sleeves rolled up and his arms crossed, standing almost as if he was ready to jump into another of his lectures. In a sense, he was, wasn’t he?

What? Jefferson should be in jail (yes, jail), not here.

“Jesus. It’s like you’re back in my class. You’re still spacing out.” He leaned over, his face pressing so close to Max, she could feel his breath tickling at her hair and she wanted to pull it out, to burn it, to rid herself of everything that any part of him, any particle of him touched. “It might be cool,” he continued pushing back into his disapproving professor stance, “if you took one of your patented selfie’s now…”

She couldn’t look at him. Her eyes wandered searching for some escape but still true focus eluded her. Everything at a distance might as well have been blurred, so she tested the routes close at hand instead. She pulled once more at her restraints, ever so gently so as not to catch the psychopath’s attention.

“…the transformation between the old Max and the new Max…” he continued.

Let him ramble. Her arms were still bound. Yes, she knew that; that itch that she couldn’t reach, that adhesive digging at her skin. Her ankles however, one of them had give. She didn’t know what advantage that might be ( yanking the cable ), but maybe it was something. Careful not to alert Jefferson to her movements, she shifted back into place; a proper prisoner bound and immobile as he wanted.

“…Anyway,” he leaned forward again, his oh-so-hip stubbled face pressing so close to hers as he waved his hands at her for emphasis. Shit, those are latex gloves he’s wearing. She could smell that rotten mix of chemicals and a cloying hint of vanilla mixed with the stench of his hot breath. “Answer my question please,” he finished, emphasizing each syllable with his gloved hand (and the connotations that came with that glove). How many girls had he tortured here? How many before coming to Arcadia Bay? How many binders had she and Chloe found? Chloe, who this bastard had shot and killed.

“Eat shit and die,” she said forcing herself forward into his face, seizing what little power and control she had in this situation. This psychotic ass had stolen Chloe away from her. He wanted to watch her innocence die; he wanted to bathe in her fear. Fuck that. She wouldn’t show him fear. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. And yet, she could feel herself trembling? She didn’t appear to be trembling. Why did she feel like she was? And where was the smell of grass coming from, and that warmth on her skin, not of his rancid breath, but of an all over dappled heat. 

“Something’s wrong. What did you do!?” It was a girl’s voice, but Max couldn’t place it and Jefferson seemed to pay it no mind, rocking back to his full height, his voice almost smiling as he applauded Max.

“Good answer. Good answer.” Didn’t he hear her?

“I don’t know. Max!” Another voice cried out for her, but it was just as formless as the one that had preceded it. It didn’t exist here. Only Jefferson and the Dark Room.

Yet the room wavered. A tree sprouted through one of the nearby speed lights, and a squirrel dashed over the couch behind Jefferson; and the darkness, it was retreating, fading beneath a great, warm light from above. 

Suddenly, Max could taste the blood in her mouth, two rivulets trickling down from her nose. Instantly, Jefferson was there, reaching those horrible gloved hands to her face.

“Hey, your nose is bleeding.” She tried to dodge those hands, to wiggle her head away from his grasp, but it was no use. Those sterile, gloved hands clutched the sides of her face firmly as he leaned in to examine her, his thumb brushing the blood from just above her lips.

At his touch, those other voices, the girls’ voices vanished. Max heard a soft pop not so much of a banging, not an explosion of presence, but more an implosion in absence, as if all those background sounds that make up the daily soundtrack but that are never noticed, just ceased — or in this case half of them. It was like something natural had died and all that was left was the mechanical hum of the bunker. More, in that implosion all the intrusions vanished as well, the squirrel disappearing mid-leap and the tree retreating from trunk to root, until once more the Dark was as it had been. 

And still his fingers danced across her cheeks, his thumb rubbing just above her lips. Just a little closer and she’d bite that damned thumb, do what damage she could. “Probably gave you too big of a dose,” he continued, and rose once more.

“Sorry about that, Max…” he said, the false concern and sympathy dripping from him with every word. “But, considering you’re about to die, a nosebleed is a first-world problem." 

The lights flickered and Max turned away from him, looking over her shoulder towards the nearest speed light and the shadow at its base; at the absence, a different unique absence, before it. Something was supposed to be there. Someone…

“Oh, I had to let Victoria Chase go.”

Almost instinctively, Max returned her gaze to Jefferson as he spoke ( Jefferson, not Mr. Jefferson, not Mark; never again. ) He was implying something. Victoria, Victoria had been there. Now she was gone… Let go?

“You let her —” Max started, but Jefferson’s rage cut her off instantly.

“Don’t be stupid, okay? She’s exactly where she deserves to be.”

“No…” She couldn’t be. It was Max’s fault she’d sought safety in Jefferson. It was her fault that Victoria had been caught; but that still wasn’t right. Victoria was right there… At Blackwell. In that little nook above the breezeway. She had just been with her… Hadn’t she?

“Oh, as if you care,” Jefferson said, his tone clearly demonstrating how little he believed Max felt for his latest victim. She did care, though, didn’t she? She had. She knew that she had. Did she still? So much had changed. Or had it? Was she still here? Did she ever really leave this room?

She blinked, frozen in place, trying to clear her head. To sort past from present from future; when from where. It didn’t make sense; but this man, this man had been the cause of it, hadn’t he? He’s the one that had manipulated Nathan. He’s the one that ultimately caused Rachel’s death. Caused Chloe’s death — in the bathroom and there by Rachel’s grave. He was the monster here, the big, bad boogeyman hiding in the dark.

She lifted her eyes up to this looming monster. She would look darkness in the eyes. ( No, no, you can’t.) She would stare into that void, and she would consume it. ( Run, you have to run. ) She would destroy it. ( No, You can’t be here anymore.) She could do this. ( couldn’t… he’ll devour you, warp you, leave you unrecognizable. ) She was strong enough ( broken, utterly broken ). For Chloe she could be ( For Chloe. ).

“Your iris,” he said, leaning in for a closer look. “That… dilation like a shutter… the pictures you’re taking of me now. Too bad you pissed away your gift. You could’ve won the contest, but you destroyed your own beautiful photograph. What a waste.”

He hung his head as if ashamed of his star pupil, then gestured toward the nearby rolling rack. “Sorry. I burned all your stuff. I got a little carried away.”

Following the implied line of his gesture ( ha, there’s that implied line, Principal Wells. Too bad I can’t take this picture. Ha. Why am I laughing? What implied line? What assignment… Why does my head hurt so… ), Max looked towards the rolling rack. The remnants of her diary, nothing more than ash, lay in a burnt heap at the bottom of a developing pan. 

Fuck! He burned my diary! That’s why I’m still here (is it?).

He’d been saying something else, but she didn’t care. She missed it in the haze. Too many drugs. Too many thoughts. Too many whens and nows. 

“… especially,” he continued on from that lost rant, “since you’ve developed from nerd to hero within a week.” ( And back again — there and back, again — nerd to hero to nerd. Or is it more just loser now… the broken, deranged hipster of Blackwell )

“There’s something…” he started, pausing as if searching for the right word. “…weird going on with you,” he finished. 

The lights flickered again, more intensely this time. Max could feel the breeze against her cheeks, and she could smell the fresh air. A bush flickered into existence just beyond the discarded rolling rack, and the darkness was fading again.

“Max, can you hear me? Max?”

( Hello formless voice, the now-her thought. What are you doing here? )

“Taylor,” that voice continued, desperate and pleading. “Taylor, what do I do?”

“I don’t know,” the other voice ( why are there so many bodiless voices ) returned. “Courtney… I sent Courtney —“

“Courtney’s about as useful as  —”

“Whoa!” ( Oh, that’s a proper voice, the now-her realized. His voice. It has body and form. And terror. ) “Did you see how crazy it is outside?” Jefferson chuckled then leaned in close to Max’s dazed form again. As his breath choked her, the darkness sped back in, the bush turned to dust and the dust to nothingness, and the voices died on the lifeless breeze that was no more. “Like I said… something weird.”

Max couldn’t focus. Were the drugs kicking back in? Was this a delayed effect, or had her photo jump given her strength over the drugs for a time, a strength that now waned. He was so close, this monster, this murderer. She could feel the violent echoes of his touch all over her, taste the salt of his sweat, and the smell of rot on his lungs. 

“There’s that fear,” he said, studying her face as if studying a masterpiece of art. “Oh, Max… it’s an honor working with you on these final sessions. I hope these images will be appreciated for what they truly capture. The loss… of youth.” He paused, then as if basking in his own genius; both a psychopath and a narcissist; though the two went hand in hand. He chuckled surveying his work. “At least… that’s the last lecture you’ll ever have to hear from me. And I promise you, no more nosebleeds.”

This was it. He was going to kill her. He was going to get the final dose, and that would be that. Her life would be over ( and I can join Chloe ). She’d be dead, just more fertilizer for the soil, just dust and bone and rot, so much rot, like Rachel. ( Chloe, doesn’t want me dead. Not me or anyone in the Bay — save for maybe Jeffer-Shit and Prick-Scott. ) There was nothing that she could do. Not with her hands bound, with that damn tape strangling her wrists. Nothing but plead, as powerless as it was; as much as the groveling would feed his narcissism; his deranged vanity. She had to do it, much as it sickened her.

“Mr. Jefferson,” she said, her voice breaking — her strength and anger vanishing in desperation. “Please… don’t do this. You don’t know what’s happening.”

“Shh-shhh… Quiet,” he said, his latexed hand shushing her, that chlorinated vanilla stealing over her. “Quiet, Max.”

“Max!” That bodiless voice yelled at her again. It was louder now. She could feel the heat of flesh against her cheeks, and a great pressure on either side of her face. “Oh God, Max, wake up!”

Jefferson turned, walking away from her, taking all hope with him. How could he be both hope and despair, her only chance, and yet the instrument of such wrong? 

“Please…” she begged. “Don’t do this!”

“I’m sorry,” the bodiless voice continued, and it was so desperate now, begging as she had begged; pleading and broken, and a great white light overtook her and she could feel the heat on her face, on her lips, and the breeze, as the dark room vanished, and that great white overexposure blinded out all else. She was gone.

The Dark Room was gone. 

It was gone. She was gone.

Max was gone.

Dec 2, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

Max was gone. Victoria knelt beside her, one hand cupping Max’s cheek, but she couldn’t reach her. Max wasn’t there, not in that moment with Victoria. She was somewhere else, somewhen else, and Victoria didn’t know how to bring her back.

“I’m sorry,” Victoria said, her voice cracking. She didn’t mean to do this. All she had wanted was for Max to take a photo, any photo, just one damn photo. The girl had been imploding ever since that Price girl got herself shot in the bathroom. Victoria’s best friend, Nathan Prescott, had snapped and shot her, and in the process he had destroyed the lives of the most gifted photographers in Blackwell other than herself: his own life and Max Caulfield’s life.

Victoria couldn’t fix Nathan. She couldn’t even face him now, not knowing what he had done; how he had killed Rachel Amber, how he had aided Jefferson, how he had killed Chloe Price. He had called her since being released on Tuesday – a lot – but she never answered. How could she? 

She should have seen it coming. She should have understood that he needed help. She had been his best friend and she’d noticed his manic behavior, but she had chalked it up to just the usual stress with his overbearing father. Now… now, she just didn’t know. Had he always been broken? 

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she had to undue her role in this psychotic teen melodrama. She’d apologized to Kate; she’d made good with the girl the best that she could, and Kate had forgiven her. If she hadn’t, then Victoria doubted that she would have been able to keep going with any measure of sanity. 

Yet, no matter how many times she’d pulled Max aside and tried to get her to stop her self-destructive spiral, that girl still seemed to be on a crash course with the gutter, her life spiraling and falling completely apart. Victoria hadn’t pulled that trigger; she hadn’t placed Max in that bathroom to watch Nathan kill her childhood friend ( her best friend, that’s what Taylor said, little sense as that makes ), yet she hadn’t gone easy on the girl either. Her hipster nonsense drove Victoria up the wall; her little shy, retro, nerd girl persona grated at her. How could she care so little about what others thought? Worse, how could she be so oblivious to her talent, talent that she’d been wasting even before Nathan destroyed her will to go on? It made no sense, and so she had targeted her, ridiculing her and harassing her and for what? What had she really gained? Now, for her own small part in Max’s torment, she had to make this right.

And that’s all she’d wanted. Max hadn’t snapped a photo in nearly two months. She’d practically been in love with that Polaraoid camera of hers before all hell broke loose in Blackwell. Now, she never even took out her camera unless it was to set it unused on her desk in Photography. Victoria just needed to know that Nathan hadn’t forever robbed that passion from her. Max was simply too talented to let that gift be taken away forever; especially without even putting up a fight for it. 

Just a few photos to remind her of that passion, a few snaps of that silly old camera, that’s all Victoria had intended. Sure, Kate and Dana had been helping Max, but they were both too soft – unwilling to accept that their friend’s tenure at Blackwell balanced on a precipice, and soon there would be no coming back. So, skipping out on the one and only graded assignment that they’d even been assigned since that October afternoon, that had been the last straw. Victoria had needed Max to take that camera in her hands, again. She’d needed her to take any photo, even one of her damn, narcissistic, analog selfies. Whatever. Just something. Something to show that she still could. 

Now, Victoria could barely look at what she had done. 

Max sat, knees hugged to her chest, rocking against the brick wall of Blackwell, a deep trail of silent tears drenching her cheeks, and — 

— and a bloody nose?

Victoria tilted Max’s face up towards her own with that hand on her cheek. 

“Hey,” she said, just talking to Max, saying anything to try to bring the girl back to the present. “Your nose is bleeding.” With her other hand she grasped at Max’s other cheek, Max squirming as if to evade her grasp.

“Sh-shhh…” Victoria whispered, trying to calm her. “Quiet. Quiet, Max.”

Max’s struggling had stilled and Victoria gently thumbed at the blood pooling just above Max’s lips, wiping it away. Why had she told Max to be quiet? She hadn’t been talking, just sort of wiggling her face from her hands; yet the words had come to her. Victoria winced and swallowed away the thought. There were more important matters right now.

“It’s okay, Max,” she whispered, trying to make her voice as soft and soothing as possible. The girl trembled beneath her hands, literally trembled. Shit. You always have to take the direct approach, don’t you? Yet what other choice did she have? Whatever Kate and Dana had been up to, that sure as hell wasn’t working either.

Wait a second. Victoria froze. Max’s eyes still shone with that glassy, dazed look that they’d taken on the moment Victoria had made her snap that selfie, yet, there was recognition there now. Max was looking straight at her.

“Max, Max, can you hear me?”

Max simply stared forward, unblinking, but there was a life there now, wasn’t there? Victoria wasn’t imagining it. No.

“Taylor,” she called. “I think she’s back.” She turned her attention once more to the hipster whose face she still held cupped in her own hands. “You see me, right? You’re here with us, now? Yes?”

Max just trembled, those tears still flowing; not even a hint revealed itself of the slightest inclination to speak. Yet, Victoria knew she saw life in those eyes. 

Taylor had stepped closer, glancing over Victoria’s shoulder, and had now resumed pacing behind her. “What did we do… what did we do…” the girl mumbled, biting at her nails. “What did we do…”

Maybe she doesn’t see it, Victoria thought; yet she knew what she had seen. She’d seen that spark come back. She’d seen so much more, too. Seen and heard. She’d heard Max mention Jefferson.

“Mr. Jefferson… Please… don’t do this. You don’t know what’s happening?”

Her soft, desperate voice kept playing, looping in her head, and Victoria couldn't shut it out. Things were so much worse than she had realized; so much fucking worse.

And what was happening, Max? Were you just pleading with him, or is there something else or someone else mixed up in all of this? 

As Max sat there rocking and trembling and uttering that name, Victoria had been able to picture him clear as day, him and his fashionable stubble and his stupid, messy hipster hair that she used to find so attractive. Now that image repulsed her, his smug little face making her want to retch. And that voice, she could almost hear him, a faint whisper, taunting Max.

“Whoa! Did you see how crazy it is outside? Like I said… something weird.”

He’d paused then, the words carried away, just Victoria’s imagination, right? Then, there came his voice again, an echo carried on gentle eddies of wind.

“There’s that fear. Oh, Max… it’s an honor working with you on these final sessions.”

Why had those words come to her? She’d never heard them. They’d just wrapped around her in his sickening voice, slithering in with the breeze as she clung to Max, as she tried to stir the girl back from her panic. It had to be her imagination, yet, it had almost been as if Max was reacting to those whispers of the wind, recoiling and trembling in concert with the misty threats.

“Can you answer me, Max?” Victoria tried again. “Taylor and I are right here. You see me, right?”

At last, Max nodded her head. Thank fuck! She’s finally responding.

“Good, good. That’s great, Max.” Just keep saying her name. Keep calling her back.

Behind her, Taylor’s pacing had not let up in the slightest. “What did we do… what did we do…” whispered over and over in some desperate mantra.

Fuck! Someone besides me hold it together.

“Just stop pacing for a damn second!” 

Victoria lightly squeezed Max’s face in an act of soft reassurance, forcing the girl to look her in the eyes. “Max, I’ll be right back. Will you be okay?”

Max said nothing. She did nothing. She just kept staring.

Well, it's not a no. That’ll have to be good enough.

Victoria rose to her feat, pivoted on her heel, and immediately reached out, grabbing her best friend, and bringing her to a sudden halt, even her mumbled mantra ceasing. “Taylor, you didn’t do anything, okay?”

“But – ”

“But nothing, look at me.” 

Taylor froze in Victoria’s hands, and Victoria paused, making sure that the girl was completely focused on her, before starting again. Once she was certain that Taylor had given her her undivided attention, Victoria spoke slowly and clearly, enunciating each word with as much force and conviction as she could muster. 

“You. Didn’t. Do. Anything.” 

Victoria seemed to be getting through to her friend, but she continued, nonetheless. Taylor had always suffered from anxiety, but right now Victoria needed her to snap out of it, so she could give Max her undivided attention. “This here,” she continued, “this was all me.”

“But – ”

“Not hearing it, Taylor. All me. You tried to stop me. Now, I need to help Max. So here. Take this.” Victoria handed Taylor Max’s camera. She hesitated, then handed Taylor Max’s cigarettes as well. “These too, I guess.” After what she had just seen, she couldn’t really blame the girl at the moment. “Now, tidy up her things and pack up her bag, while I look to Max, okay?”

“Okay.” Finally, Taylor seemed to regain some measure of focus. Good, good. One less person for Victoria to deal with. Taylor had something to do now, and Victoria could put all her attention back where it belonged — with the girl that she had just tortured into an absolute mental breakdown.

Kneeling back down beside the trembling girl, Victoria brushed her hand over Max’s hair, then tilted her face up, so that they locked eyes once more. Max shook harder at the touch, at the way Victoria had just angled her face up by the chin, and suddenly an unbidden image forced its way into Victoria’s subconscious — an image of Jefferson doing much the same, a gloved hand tilting Max’s face towards his. Victoria let her hand drift away at the unwanted imagery.

“Max, are you okay? Can you stand up?”

Max rocked back and forth, that terrible trembling still overtaking her, those glassy eyes, still staring but not responding. 

“Please, Max. Can you stand?”

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Max shook her head. That light sobbing returned and new trails of tears carved their way through the salty remnants of tears past. 

“I’m so sorry, Max. I… I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?” Crap. Now she shows up.

Victoria looked back over her shoulder and up to a very angry cheerleader. Why was Dana in her full cheer uniform?

“Practice was just starting,” Dana said, clearly reading the question written in Victoria’s puzzled expression. “You didn’t know what?”

Kate and Courtney turned the bend as Victoria stood to face Dana, but before anymore could be said, Victoria’s shift, revealed Max’s sobbing form pressed back up against the wall, still hugging herself tight in that curled up little ball.

“Jesus,” Dana gasped, pushing past Victoria. “What the fuck did you do to her?”

Victoria needed to tell her. She knew that. Max needed help; real help that she was not getting. Victoria needed to tell Dana that she had triggered some sort of flashback. That’s what it was; Victoria was certain of it — some sort of PTSD hallucination. She’d read about it, back when the school hired Mr. Madsen to replace Skip. She’d stolen a look at the new head of security’s personnel file, looking for future leverage and she discovered an ex-soldier recovering from the horrors of war. She’d done her research after that, but she’d never thought she’d see anything like this in one of her fellow students. Mr. Madsen had been a soldier. PTSD made sense… but Max…

Yet, there was no denying it. She had to tell Dana… Dana or Kate; someone who might actually be able to get the girl help. 

“Victoria. What didn’t you know?” Dana again.

Victoria looked back to Max. Dana was hovering over her, glaring Victoria’s way, while Kate had knelt down beside her, stroking Max’s hair and whispering soft assurances. Max, however, she had eyes for neither of them. Her gaze held frozen, locked squarely on Victoria. 

And there was something new in those eyes. They still held a hint of fear, but there was a pleading there now, as well, as if begging Victoria, begging her to keep quiet. Max shook her head, ever so slightly, her gaze never wavering. Fuck , Victoria thought. What have I gotten myself into?

She wanted to tell the girls’ friends; she wanted to wipe her hands clean of this; but it wasn’t her story to tell; it wasn’t Victoria’s place to reveal this secret, and Max seemed so desperate to keep it hidden.

“I didn’t know,” Victoria started, searching, looking for a way out. Any way out. “I didn’t know how bad it was.” Playing dumb it is. “How bad Chloe and Nathan had shaken her up. I just… I thought she was milking it, I guess.” Dumb and mean. They’ll buy that.

“Milking it!” Dana practically erupted in rage. Great. Focus on that. Focus on the mean girl. Don’t see what I saw. “She saw her friend shot and killed and you thought she was milking it for attention! Go to hell, Victoria!”

She should say something. Normally if someone spoke to her like that, Victoria would have been right back at the girl, spitting venom and vitriol and pushing right up into their face. She wouldn’t have stood for that. Right now, however, she couldn’t budge, she couldn't speak, she could only stand there and take everything that Dana threw her way.

Dana turned back to Kate. “Kate, can you get Max?” She then shifted back towards Courtney. “You, too, please. We need to get her back to the dorms.”

To Courtney’s credit, the girl didn’t even hesitate. She knelt down on the other side of Max from Kate and the two girls lifted her to her feet between the two of them.

“I’m so sorry,” Victoria said, her voice finally returning, a meek whisper of its former self.

“Fuck your apologies, Victoria,” Dana growled. “You can shove them right up your haughty, uptight ass. If Max didn’t need me right now, I’d be going straight to Wells. This, this is beyond the pale,” she said, waving at Max held suspended from Kate and Courtney’s shoulders. “You like torturing smaller girls. It makes you feel all better about your miserable self? Well, fuck you. Fuck you and your Vortex Club elitist bullshit.”

Victoria lowered her head. She hadn’t meant for this to happen, but deep down she knew that Dana was right. Off to her side, she noticed that Taylor had gathered up Max’s bag. She nodded Taylor towards Dana. No words needed to be exchanged. Taylor understood immediately and walked over handing the bag to the cheerleader.

Dana snatched it, letting out a strained, “thanks,” through gritted teeth; then she stood there for another moment, still squared off with Victoria as if waiting for anything, anything that might explain the girl’s actions; or maybe just waiting for Victoria’s trademark fight. Victoria had nothing left in her, though; she couldn’t speak up; she couldn’t fight back. She was the holder of a secret now, a secret that she didn’t want to know. So, she stayed silent.

Finally Dana shook her head, pivoting, and leading Courtney and Kate off towards the dorms as they carried Max. Over her shoulder, she called back to Victoria though, before they vanished around the bend.

“Enjoy your last moments at Blackwell, Victoria. I’m going to make it my personal mission to get your queen bitch ass expelled.”

Victoria ignored the words. She stood there with Taylor as the other girls disappeared from sight, but none of that anger lingered. Not the anger, nor the confrontation. What stuck with her were those eyes, that pleading look from Max, and the panic in her trembling form; Jefferson’s voice on the wind.

Max had been in the Dark Room. Victoria didn’t know when. She didn’t know how. She didn’t know why it had never been reported or if no one even knew. But she did know that Max had been there, and unlike Kate, Max remembered.

Max could feel the fog slowly lifting, as Dana opened the door to the dorms. She couldn’t quite bring herself to stand yet, hobbling along between Kate and Courtney. She also couldn’t quite figure out why Courtney was carrying her, but that was a mystery for another time. 

She let the three girls help her inside, down towards the central hallway and the main stairwell. A few eyes turned their way and Max couldn’t help but to wonder how many people had watched her be carried in through the quad. How many were watching her now, as she hobbled up the stairs between Kate and Courtney? As she reached the landing, she tried to shift off their shoulders, to take on her own weight. 

Her knees immediately buckled, and she fell forward, Dana catching her before she could hit the cement floor of the landing. “Take it easy, Max,” Dana said, helping her to her feet, and back between Kate and Courtney. Dana took one look at her then rushed up the last flight of stairs. “Let me check that the coast is clear,” she called down, then opened the door peering out into the girls’ hall.

Max didn’t respond. She let herself settle back against the two girls at her sides. She didn’t have the strength to stand on her own. Kate was whispering something into her ear — more words of calm, Max guessed. Her mind was wandering again, as if in realizing she couldn’t stand on her own, she let go of the hold she had on the present as well.

She was back leaning against Blackwell, the camera in her hands, turned to take a selfie. Victoria pressed her fingers to the shutter release and the world went white and… time stopped. She had stopped time. Was the storm coming? Had all this suffering over Chloe’s sacrifice been for nothing. Had she been holding back all this time, refusing to use her powers, just to fail now. Would stopping time cause the storm, or did she have to use her rewind to create it? Or did it only trigger when she saved Chloe? For all the sacrifices that had been made, she still didn’t have the faintest understanding of how her power worked; not of where it came from; not of how she had caused the storm. All she had were muddled notions of the butterfly effect and chaos theory, and none of them fully formed.

And there on that tiny stretch of lawn, after time had started again… had she been remembering, or… or had she been in a memory? Had she actually traveled back to the Dark Room or had it all been in her head? It had seemed so real, yet, it had been as if the present reality were invading the memory, as if she could feel them both, hear them both, see them both, at least in snippets; as if they had been overlapping. Then, when she’d finally come to, when finally that white of the void returned and faded back into the greens of Blackwell, then, her nose had been bleeding. Was that from her time stop in the white of the void, or was it from an actual jump back to that place and time? Is the storm coming?

The questions wouldn’t go away. She had been trying so hard to save Arcadia Bay, to do what Chloe wanted. She’d missed her so much, cried for her so much, and yet she had been trying so hard to live for her as well. Now, was that all for nothing? There was nothing to do but wait and find out.

Is the STORM coming?  

She’d been there; hadn’t she? In the Dark Room on the morning of the storm, just before David busted in after her. It had been raging outside with every flicker of the lights. Had she brought it back with her? Had it ridden on the tails of time to the here and now? Had he? Was Jefferson here?

He had been so real? And those trees, that squirrel, they had bled over. If the present could bleed into the past, could the past bleed into the present? What exactly had she done? Could she bring someone forward with her?

She couldn’t face him, again. She’d been there… there in the dark room… again. Her breathing hitched and Max could feel the panic returning, but she couldn’t control it. She felt so… powerless. That’s what it had been like there, unable to raise her hand, unable to grasp onto the flow of time. Powerless.

“Max, calm.” Kate’s voice. Distant. So faint, but it was there. Max tried to focus on it, to ground herself through Kate, but her mind still swirled with everything that she had seen and heard; everything that she had experienced.

All that had been ripped away from her. He had bound her. He had killed Chloe, and he had taken her and she had been there in that room, again. Now, much as she tried to tell herself it was only a memory, she couldn’t be sure. Her nose had been bleeding. Time had stopped. That blinding white of a jump had overwhelmed her. He had to still be there. No one had ever traveled with her before. It wasn’t possible, was it?

“Dana,” that faint voice called. “She’s hyperventilating.”

Another voice cried out, this one much more distant, a faint echo through an endless void. The world around her blurred in and out of focus. She could see the hall around her. There was Dana’s room, door wide open, but they weren’t stopping there. Up ahead, she could see a faint form, a blurred shape, but she couldn’t make it out. It had a voice though, of that she was sure; but what voice she didn’t know.

“Okay,” Kate yelled back to that blurred someone, that amorphous shape in the beyond of the distant hall.  “Just a little further, Max,” she said.

Just a little further until what?

Why was she slipping again? Why couldn’t she just snap out of it? She had to do better. Yet, something else was clawing at her; another image from that lawn. Max trembled and she could feel the tears welling up once more. Her body began to rock, as if pulsing to that muscle memory of that moment, curled up against the wall as Victoria looked down at her. As Victoria looked into her eyes, and she saw her, saw her for who she really was, for everything that she had seen. Victoria’s voice had called to her from the present into that past. Had her own voice called back? 

Those eyes had seemed so aware, so aware of everything. Victoria knew. Oh, Dog, she’d seen it. Max had seen that look of recognition in Victoria’s eyes. That wasn’t the look of someone surprised by the blubbering, damaged girl collapsed at their feet. That look… that look in Victoria’s eyes was the same look they had all given Kate; that look of pity and shock, that look that came with her scarlet letter. Now it was Max’s burden as well. Victoria knew. Max had seen it in Victoria’s eyes. She knew. She knew Max had been in the Dark Room.

Where did that leave them? And just who would she tell?

Fuuuuck! Victoria slammed her hand against Taylor’s wall. 

“Calm down, V. It’ll be okay.”

Victoria laughed. “I don’t see how.”

“She won’t do it.”

What , Victoria thought. What the hell is she talking about?

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Um…” Taylor took a step back picking once more at her hem. God, she needed to break that habit. “Dana,” Taylor sputtered. “There’s no way she’ll try to get you expelled.”

Oh. That. That didn’t matter.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“What?”

Taylor and Courtney had both gone along with her for the most part when she’d asked them to tone it down with Kate and Max; yet, old habits died hard. They were both still stuck in the idea that they owned the school; that they three were the rightful sovereigns of Blackwell, right there with the Zachary Riggins and Logan Robertson’s of the world — the Nathan Prescotts of the world. After Nathan did what he did, Victoria couldn’t hide behind that veil anymore. None of that seemed to matter; it was all just drama, unnecessary drama that soon enough wouldn’t mean a thing. Not once college started in just under a year for her. Maybe, two if she decided to go super senior with the extension program. No, none of it mattered. She’d destroyed a girl just a few hours earlier, broken down her defenses, and forced her to relive a hell that she could barely imagine. The rest of this, threats of expulsion, her status in the Vortex Club, it was all meaningless.

“Maybe she will,” Victoria said, pulling herself back to the present. “Maybe she won’t. It doesn’t matter. It’s meaningless. You saw what I did to her, to Max. Accident, no accident, it doesn’t matter.”

“She’s been crazy a long time, V. You’d didn’t cause it.”

“You know I did. You were the one muttering ‘what did we do, what did we do’ over and over again.”

Taylor shut up. She couldn’t deny that could she?

“Look, I appreciate you trying to make me feel better, but it's not going to help.”

“So, what is?”

Victoria sighed. She knew what she had to do. She just didn’t like it.

Max pushed herself up against the wall, bracing a pillow under her back, as she propped herself up. Courtney and Kate had settled her onto the bed when they reached her dorm room. She had barely moved since; yet she hadn’t slept either. She’d only really started to calm down, to truly return to the moment, about an hour ago. The sun had already set, and both Kate and Dana were still there. They had tried to get her to talk, but she hadn’t been able to find the words. 

Kate had told Dana what happened, the parts of it that she saw, and Dana had almost stormed out then and there, ready to throw Victoria to the wolves. It was the one time Max had managed to get out more than one word.

“Don’t. Please.”

She knew Dana didn’t understand. Max was furious, too; but she had seen the good in Victoria before, and fucked up as this afternoon had been, she had seen that same Victoria then. She’d been there for weeks, if only Max could have turned off her own rage-and-grief-filled blinders. Victoria wasn’t Kate and she wasn’t Dana. Her help, it didn’t look the same. It came direct and harsh. She didn’t polish the hard truths; she just confronted them.

Of course, Max hadn’t been able to explain this. Her head had still been spinning, still caught in questions of the storm and time travel, of the Dark Room and Jefferson. 

She knew she should say something. She couldn’t sleep and she wasn’t doing her friends any good sitting there in silence.

She’d heard her phone go off a few times. Dana had checked the messages. Just some worried texts from Warren and Alyssa. And Courtney. Juliet, too. Dana had texted them back. Max had been more nervous that her little breakdown had reached the school rumor mill. Nothing to be done about it now, though. 

Unable to open up and unable to sleep, Max had finally relented to Kate’s offer of tea. So she had pulled herself up, accepting a warm cup of chamomile. Blowing on the tea, Kate casting her a nervous smile from across the bed, Max paused as a knock sounded at the door. Dana rose from her place on the futon.

“I got it.”

She still wore her cheerleader outfit. She hadn’t returned to practice. She hadn’t even bothered to go to her room and change. Slowly crossing the room, Dana made her way to the door and cracked it open.

“Seriously. What do you want?”

Max couldn’t quite see out into the hall. Dana had barely opened the door at all, and she was blocking what little opening there was. The voice that greeted Dana, however, and Dana’s own irritation, made the speaker quite obvious.

“I need to talk to Max,” Victoria said. Max swallowed back the lump of apprehension forming in her throat. Victoria wouldn’t tell them, would she? She’d kept her secret there by the main building, there when Kate and Courtney had been kneeling beside her. She’d keep it now, right?

“To hell you do.” Dana made to close the door, only for it to halt almost immediately. “Get your foot out of the door.”

“No. Something’s wrong and I need to talk to her.”

“Something? Something’s wrong? Like you don’t know what? You bullied her into a fucking panic attack. You’re the last person she needs to talk to.”

“A panic attack from what, taking a picture?”

You know what, don’t you, Victoria? Please don’t say it.

“I don’t know.” Dana shrugged. “Maybe all the bullying reminded her of Nathan.”

“She hasn’t told you anything, then.”

Nope. Not me. Mum’s the word.

“Told me what? How you fucking tortured her until she could barely stand on her own. Until she couldn’t speak. Until she couldn’t stop crying for over three hours. No, she didn’t say a word.”

“Look, I’m sorry, okay.”

“Great. All better now.”

“I need to talk with her.”

“You said that. Will you move your foot now?”

“I’m not leaving.”

They both stood there, at an impasse. Maybe she should speak to her, Max thought. Although that would be hard since she was still speaking in single word phrases. Could make conversation difficult. Finally, Kate chimed in.

“Dana, maybe…”

“No. I get it. She’s nice to you, Kate. Maybe the ice queen actually has a heart and you, you she cares about. I’m even glad she’s been there for you. But she’s not talking to Max.”

“Gawd,” Victoria sighed. “What are you, her bouncer?”

“Yes. Apparently.”

Speak up, Max. Say something. Just anything.

“Fine.” For a moment Max thought Victoria might be leaving. From the looks of things, from how Dana’s shoulder relaxed, it appeared Dana thought the same. Then there was a loud thunk as Victoria’s shoulder slammed into the door, sending Dana pinwheeling back a couple steps; just enough for Victoria to wedge her way in.

“Max,” Victoria said, Dana already advancing to push her back out. “Are you okay?”

“No, she’s not okay,” Dana spat, trying to shove Victoria out the door.

“Hands off, you lanky baton twirler. Let her speak for herself. Max?”

“Eep.” It’s all Max could get out, just a little squeak. Not even a word, but it stopped Dana in her tracks.

“Um… does that mean you’re okay,” Victoria asked.

Max managed to nod this time; but that didn’t seem like enough. “Y-yes,” she followed up.

“Thank fuck.” Victoria breathed a sigh of relief. “When, Max?”

Victoria’s words were vague, but Max understood her meaning instantly. Fuck. She had to bring it up. Max’s eyes went wide.

“When what?” Kate asked.

Please don’t say. Please don’t say. The words rose unbidden, her own uncontrollable mantra.

Victoria was looking straight at her. Could she see the panic in Max’s eyes.

“It’s private,” Victoria said at last. Thank Dog.

“Then it can wait.” Dana stepped back between Victoria and Max. “We’re here for her. She doesn’t need you.”

“It’s okay,” Kate added. “We’ll watch out for her.”

Victoria glanced towards each of them, Max watching her intently. She could see the gears turning. Victoria was planning something.

“Kate,” Victoria started. “You’ve got a great heart. You do. You’re nicer than the world deserves. But I’m sorry. You’re not helping her.”

“B.S. Total B.S.” Dana was back in Victoria’s face, instantly. “Just get out.”

“Dana, you’re smarter than this. The two of you want to help, but you’re just enabling her. You keep this up, you’ll pity her right out of her scholarship.”

“Where do you get off —”

“You think this is fun for me. Fine. You’ve got tonight. If you can kumbaya your way into her somehow finishing her photography assignment tomorrow and turning it in before she flunks right out of the program, then great. I’ll wipe my hands of her, of all of it. Done. But when this proves not to be some minor one-off panic attack, some grief-laden block that she can push through, and she still hasn’t taken one photo, then I’ll be back. And I’m stepping in.”

“Go suck an egg, Victoria.” With that Dana finally shoved Victoria out the door and slammed it shut. 

Max could still hear Victoria on the other side of the door though. She hadn’t left. 

“Whatever,” she said. “I’ll be back in the morning. She’s not getting booted from Blackwell for this.”

“God, I can’t stand her.” Dana fell back into the futon. “I swear, you should let me just go talk to Wells, Max.”

“N-no,” Max said, still staring at the door. She knew Victoria. That girl would be back; and she wasn’t going to take no for an answer a second time.

Chapter Text

Dec 3, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

It was sometime after the first bell, when Victoria heard the knock at her door. She wouldn’t be going to classes this morning. She had things to do.

“Come in.”

The door opened and there stood her co-conspirator: Kate Marsh. She’d been the one to come up with the plan. She had texted Victoria that morning, letting her know that Max wasn’t getting better, but that there was no way Dana would let Victoria see her. Kate hadn’t slept at all. She said Max had been tossing and turning all night, screaming in her sleep. Victoria hadn’t needed Kate to tell her that. Half the hall had heard Max. She didn’t tell Kate that, though. She simply texted her back asking how she could help.

Kate said that her and Dana had agreed to take shifts. Kate would stay with Max in her room during their morning classes. Dana would come back during lunch and then take over for the second half of the day. Once Dana was on her way to that morning’s classes, Kate would let Victoria in to talk to Max, as long as Max agreed. Based on the fact that Kate was at her door, Victoria guessed the hipster had said yes. Well, if Kate Marsh of all people was skipping classes, Victoria sure as hell wouldn't be going in today.

Victoria pushed up out of her desk chair, where she had been idly browsing her social media to pass the time. She hadn’t been able to force any real interest in the act, however, which just served to show her how much things were changing as of late. A few months ago, her friends and followers had seemed so important, the online world of curated imagery and posts pivotal in the maintenance of social order. Now as she browsed those various sites, very little in her feeds bore any real interest. Everyone was just going about living their day; yet here, her best friend had turned out to be a psychopath, her two next closest friends seemed to be borderline sycophantic sheep, her former rival was falling apart, and Victoria had taken it on herself to ensure that the girl had a fighting chance to get her life back. The only good thing that Victoria had going for her right now was Kate’s increasing presence in her own life. 

Victoria had bullied the girl to the verge of suicide, and even if Kate had never attempted it, Victoria wasn’t naive enough not to understand how close the girl had come to that act. Over the past couple of months, Kate’s happiness had increasingly become Victoria’s primary concern, as if helping her back from the brink would somehow absolve Victoria from her own sins, from her role in the harassment that had led Kate down that path in the first place. In the beginning, that had meant apologizing. From there, Victoria had visited Kate frequently, stopping in to check on her almost daily. Those check-ins evolved into tea dates and movie nights, and soon enough, Victoria had been unable to deny that she felt a genuine kinship with the girl, her protectiveness of her ever growing  — which unfortunately had led her down a harsher path with Max than might have been necessary. With that girl’s inability to screw her head on straight tormenting Kate for so long, Victoria had initially started trying to force Max to face her demons simply to unstick the girl’s head from her ass and give Kate her best friend back.

Now, well, now Victoria had taken it too far. This wasn’t about Kate, anymore. It had stopped being about Kate the moment that Victoria had realized that the annoying waif hipster across the hall was about to get herself booted from school. That’s when it had hit her how much Nathan had destroyed Max’s life, and how much Victoria had herself contributed to that torment. And that wasn't even counting the torment that the girl must have seen in that... that room. Now, now, Victoria had to make amends with Max, just as much as she had previously needed to right her wrongs against Kate. She doubted the two of them would ever be friends — they were so different — but she had never expected to form a real friendship with Kate either. Life… could be weird.

“So, we’re doing this,” she said, more than asked. Kate nodded.

“Yes. Just, go easy on her, okay?”

“Of course.” Victoria noticed the concern in Kate’s eyes and sighed. “Really. I know I went too far yesterday. I didn’t… didn’t mean for —”

“I know,” Kate interrupted. “Just, today, please —”

“Go easy on her. I understand.” Victoria screwed up her courage as best as she could, quickly massaging the tension out of her neck, then stretching out her arms. It felt as though she were preparing for battle, although she hoped that it would run more smoothly than that analogy implied. There was a lot that needed to be said, and as much as she had run through scenarios since receiving Kate’s texts, she still had no idea where to start.

“Shall we,” she asked. She may not have known how to start, but Victoria knew that this conversation needed to happen, and it needed to happen as soon as possible.

Kate nodded, and the pair made their way across the hall. Kate tapped three timid knocks on the door, then slowly eased it open. “Max?”

“Hey,” Max responded. Her voice came out weak and nervous, a hesitant  act of acknowledgement, devoid of any real force or emotion.

“Hey,” Kate said back, imbuing the single word with more empathy and concern than should have been possible. “You’re still okay… if…” Kate glanced nervously between Max and Victoria.

Max nodded. She sat curled into a nest of blankets on her bed. Kate settled onto the mattress beside her, while Victoria made her way over to the futon. 

Crossing from the door, she noted the little details of the room: the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On” rug in the center of the floor, the acoustic guitar leaning against the futon, the wall of Polaroids and other photos, a couple vinyl records and a mix of indie rock posters adorning the walls. All the room needed was a string of Christmas lights or flimsy paper lanterns and the hipster chic look would be complete.

Victoria sat herself down, tapping her fingers in a slow rhythm against her leg. A quiet had settled over the room as if each of the girls were waiting for someone else to begin. Normally she’d have plowed right in and said her piece, but this required a more tactful approach than Victoria’s usual bull-in-a-china-shop, consequences-be-damned mannerisms. She wanted to help the girl, not send her into another meltdown. The real problem was Kate. Most of what needed to be said couldn’t be vocalized, not with Kate in the room; not unless Max agreed to share her story, which from the look in Max’s eyes the previous afternoon, Victoria was pretty sure was a permission she would not be granting.

“So…” she started, still with no idea how to really get the ball rolling.

“So,” Max agreed, shifting her eyes ever so slightly towards Kate, as if signaling the obvious dilemma. 

Victoria nodded her head along in the ensuing quiet, still tapping out that nervous rhythm against her thigh. This was going swimmingly. 

“I really… I am sorry,” she began again. “About yesterday.”

“Mmhmm.” Damn. Victoria puzzled over Max’s pseudo response, frustrated by its ambiguity. The little hipster could have at least thrown her a bone. She was trying here.

Kate chimed in, obviously attempting to break through the awkward hesitation.

“We’re worried, Max. Victoria’s worried. You’ve given up on your photography.”

Max hung her head, while Kate mulled over her next words in silence for a moment. 

“It’s just…” Kate continued. “I don’t want, we don’t want to see you… to have you lose your scholarship.”

“I know.” Max still kept her eyes averted. Victoria watched as the girl reached out, her hand brushing over a one-eyed teddy bear just off to Max’s side. 

“Victoria took the wrong approach, yesterday,” Kate said. “We know, but…”

Max snorted. Victoria couldn’t blame her. ‘The wrong approach’ was a massive understatement.

“I fucked up,” Victoria corrected. She might as well own it.

Kate paused, once more mulling over her words. The girl was sweet, but she was also too innocent for her own good, still struggling over swear words as if they were toxic. The more Victoria got to know her, the more endearing she found that reservation, even if a little childish. In better days, she also saw it as a challenge, a limit to push for Kate’s own good. Today was not that type of day.

“She messed up,” Kate started again. “But if you don’t submit the assignment soon –”

“ – by tomorrow,” Victoria interjected.

“ – soon,” Kate continued, pushing past Victoria, “we’re afraid you’ll be sent home. No one wants to see that happen, Max.”

Kate laid a hand on Max’s shoulder then, as if to punctuate the concern in her voice.  Victoria was fairly certain that the girl didn’t notice the way Max flinched at the touch, nor the slight twitch as she bit at her lip. Blackwell’s resident hipster was not ready to open up in front of Kate. The girl simply hugged that one-eyed teddy bear close, seemingly dropping any reservation about being seen with it by the other two girls. She was seeking solace wherever she could find it.

“Kate,” Victoria said, calling the girl’s attention.

“Yes?”

“Do you think you could get us some tea?”

“I suppose.” Kate looked over to Max as she asked. Max nodded and forced a small hint of a smile, assuring the girl it was okay. Obviously Kate didn’t feel comfortable leaving the two of them alone together. She’d make quick work of the request and be back before Max and Victoria could even delve into the matter. Victoria would need a longer distraction.

“Have you eaten, Max,” she asked, cutting a strongly pointed glare in Max’s direction.

“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled.

“Max.” Victoria placed as much disapproval into the name as she could, forcing the girl to look up and meet her gaze. When at last Max was looking at her, Victoria cut her eyes briefly to Kate. “You need to eat something.”

The quiet stretched out. Victoria was certain she had made her point, but she needed Max to play along if this was going to work. Finally, the girl nodded.

“You’re right. I could eat.”

“Great.” Victoria let a small sigh escape, then turned to Kate who was noticeably frowning.

“But, the cafeteria’s closed,” she said.

Victoria knew this already, but she played along, rubbing her chin for a moment in false consideration of the news . “Well…” She let the pause stretch out, further playing the moment, before continuing as if in realization. At least her brief stint as a drama kid understudy hadn’t been for nothing. “What about that diner up on the main strip? I’ve seen you there a couple times, Max. The Two Whales?”

Victoria feared Max would continue in her withdrawn silence, but luckily this time she played along with no resistance. 

“I do like a good Belgian waffle…”

“What do you think, Kate? Could you run by and grab Max some breakfast and some tea?”

“I don’t know…” Victoria couldn’t blame Kate. In her position, Victoria wouldn’t trust herself either. Hopefully that characteristic Kate-naïveté, however, would play in her favor. Victoria could tell the girl was considering it, torn as she was.

Thankfully, Max weighed in. “It’s okay, Kate. Really.”

“You’re sure,” she asked, glancing between the two girls.

“Yes,” Max nodded. “I’m sure.” 

“I guess.” Kate pushed herself up. “I’ll just be a phone call away. Ok?”

“Yeah.”

“You promise you’ll be… nice.” That last bit was said with a pointed look at Victoria. 

“Yes, Kate. I promise.” Victoria nodded along as she assured her friend, hoping that her relief wasn’t written plain across her face. She didn’t want the girl to know she was up to something, and was praying that Kate was too trusting to truly suspect her.

Kate opened the door (not without one last concerned look, of course), then stepped out into the hall, pausing only momentarily in the threshold.

“You promise you’ll call if… you need to?”

“I promise,” Max said. At last, Kate reluctantly shut the door, leaving the pair alone in Max’s lair. Victoria let out an audible sigh, before returning her attention to her hipster rival.

“Alright. I guess we’re doing this.”

“I guess,” Max returned, the nervousness from before bubbling back up into her voice.

“So…” 

“So.”

Here we are, back at square one, Victoria thought, resuming her rhythmic tapping along her thigh. She clasped the guilty hand with her other, ceasing the nervous habit. No time like the present.

“You know… that I know.”

Max shot her a questioning look, the slightest hint of yesterday’s trembling returning as Max hugged herself tighter in her nest of blankets. The girl needed confirmation; she needed to hear exactly what Victoria thought she knew, but it was just as clear that Max didn’t want to hear that confirmation no matter how much she needed it.

“I don’t know when,” Victoria continued, a slight quiver entering her own voice. “Not when or how… but I know you were there… with him.” She wanted to avoid using the bastard’s name. Max looked so fragile right now, curled against the wall, wrapped in blankets, clinging to that old teddy bear.

“Nathan,” she asked. Max’s voice held out a faint hint of hope. God. Victoria didn’t want to squash that hope; she really didn’t. She also didn’t see any way to avoid doing so.

“No, Max,” she said. “The other one. I know.”

Max lowered her eyes again, focusing now on her teddy bear and avoiding Victoria completely. She shuddered, the tremor running through her entire body, then slipping out with a meek, trembling question.

“Who have you told?”

“God, Max. I’m not telling anyone. I… I can’t… I don’t do that… not since Kate.”

Max bit at her lip, still avoiding eye contact. The two sat in silence, the secret finally out in the open. Victoria wanted to know more. She wanted to understand how Max could have been there in that room without anyone else knowing; how it hadn’t come up in the investigation or the news; but she also knew that this was something only Max could volunteer. Victoria had no right to dig deeper; not unless the girl was ready to talk. Still, they weren’t done here; not by a long shot.

“After Nathan… I went to her room… Kate’s room, to apologize. I told you. I don’t know if you remember.”

“Yeah.”

“I saw what I had done, Max. I saw her room. I’d seen rooms like that before… before my mom tried…”

“Victoria.” And there’s that trademark Max Caulfield concern. Victoria used to think that was just a part of Max’s whole shy girl act, but as the semester wore on, Victoria had started to have her doubts. There was a sincerity there, annoying as it was, and Max might just actually be that empathetic. It was nauseating.

“No. That’s neither here nor there.” Victoria collected herself in silence, then continued. “I knew where she was headed. Kate. I’ve tried so hard since then, to fix it; if that’s something that I can even ever do. I may not be the nicest girl on campus –” 

– Max snorted, interrupting. Victoria decided to let it slide this once. 

“Understatement, I know… but I never meant to actually hurt anyone, like really hurt them. So, yeah, I’ve tried to be there for her. For Kate. I… I may not seem it, Max, but I’m not the same girl anymore. I don’t want to be that girl.”

“Unless it’s to torment a selfie hipster. Then torture is okay.”

Victoria hung her head.

“No. Not even then. Tempting, but no.”

She’d hoped to break the mood; to garner a laugh or even the slightest chuckle. Instead, Max just sat there, stone-faced. Well, I can't say I blame her.

“Shit. I wasn’t… I was never trying to torture you. Not since, since Chloe… I was trying to help.”

“Help?”

“Look, I don’t know how to soften the truth. I just… I confront it, okay? I say what’s on my mind. I say what I mean, and well, I try to force solutions. If I see a problem, I try to push straight to the fix. I’m not really delicate about it. I’m trying to be, but we all have our strengths, Max. This isn’t mine.”

“You don’t say.”

“I was trying to help. That’s all.”

Here, Max actually did laugh, a light, tense laughter, but laughter nonetheless. At first, Victoria hoped that it was a sign that things were moving in a positive direction, but that delusion was quickly doused.

“Doesn’t matter.” That tense laughter still seeped through each of Max's words. “I’ll be gone soon.”

“Well, maybe. Maybe not. That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

“You’re going to magically make me better so that I don’t implode every time I take a photo?”

“Probably not. Not right away, at any rate.”

“Oh. Then I don’t see me sticking around.” A melancholy penetrated Max’s voice then, almost like she had actually hoped that Victoria had the magic bullet, the pill to just suddenly make everything better.

“See, that’s where I disagree.”

“Oh.” And there it was: hope. That’s right, hipster. Just a little bit of hope to keep you around.

“You think you could show me how you do your weird hipster bullshit?”

“My what?”

“You know. How you make your little artsy retro-Polaroids with your antique camera?”

“Could you be more condescending about it?”

“Probably.”

“Okay. Say I show you how to use my camera. How does that help?”

“Do I really have to spell it out?”

“Apparently.”

“Fine. You and I, we’re taking a field trip, today. Wherever you like. You point out the shot. However it is you pick out your artsy nature shots, or whatever it is that catches your eye. You point it out. You show me how you do you, with that ancient thing,” Victoria pointed at William’s camera. “Then I take the picture.”

“Wait. So you’re offering to do my homework?”

“For now. To keep you in here, since obviously you’re not going to tell the administration why you can’t do the assignment. Are you?”

“No.”

“Then yes. But you show me the shot. You’ll be picking out the framing, the focus, the lighting, all of that. I just snap the picture.”

“That’s… that’s actually really nice of you.”

“I know, right.”

“But, I still can’t.” Victoria saw this coming, but she waited for Max to explain anyway. “If I even hear the shutter… if I see the flash…” Exactly what Victoria thought.

She reached into her own bag, which she’d dropped at the edge of the futon, and pulled out a thick pair of headphones and a sleep mask.

“Noise-canceling,” she said, hefting the headphones up as she did. “I’ve got you covered. You point. You disappear into these. I shoot.”

“We’d be cheating, you know.”

“Well, it’s that, or you can explain to Wells why you’re unable to take photographs right now. One or the other. I’m not letting you get booted from Blackwell because of what that sick fucker did to you.”

“A field trip you say?”

“Atta girl.”

Chapter Text

Dec 3, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

“ This is where you want to take photos?” Victoria couldn’t help but let the disgust slip into her voice, and Max couldn’t help but to notice, snickering at the thought that Victoria just couldn’t help but to be Victoria.

“What’s so funny,” the queen of Blackwell asked, obviously caught off guard by Max’s laughter.

“Nothing,” Max said.

“Not buying that.”

“Just, it’s nice is all. This. You, trying.”

“Of course it is. I’m helping.” Dog. Did she sound offended just then? Way to stick your foot in your mouth, Max.

“Yes,” Max laughed. “Yes, you are.” The smaller girl hugged herself with one arm, resuming her usual defensive posture. It felt… strange, entering American Rust with Victoria in tow; and not just because of the obvious disconnect between the filth and poverty inherent in the setting and the elegance and wealth that Victoria embodied – although Victoria’s outfit definitely cost more than Max’s tuition. Perhaps Max should have warned her of their destination before they had departed Blackwell. She remembered how upset Victoria had been about getting paint on her cardigan. How would she react if she snagged her cowl-neck designer sweater on a stray sign or rusted car frame? 

Max huddled into her hoodie sweatshirt combo, bracing herself against the December chill, extremely cognizant of the fact that she was also wearing Chloe’s beanie. She looked over her shoulder, catching Victoria maneuvering through the debris of the junkyard, keeping a careful distance between her expensive outfit and the filth and dangers of the setting. Yeah, Max should have warned her, but it really wasn’t just the contrast between American Rust and Victoria’s image that made the pairing so strange. There was also a nagging sense of betrayal eating at Max as she welcomed Victoria into Chloe’s private lair. She offhandedly tugged Chloe’s beanie down tighter as she thought about that growing sense of treachery. This place had meant something to Chloe. American Rust had been special, a safe haven where her friend had retreated from all the shit  and hurt of the outside world, and had found some refuge and peace. How would she feel knowing that Max had invited one of her least favorite people into that private domain?

“So,” Victoria started again. “Are you going to clue me in on why this place of all the places in Arcadia Bay? Or do you just like keeping me in the dark?”

She’s trying, Max reminded herself. Don’t snap. Be nice.

“I’d prefer Blackwell,” Max said, doing her best to maintain a friendly tone. “Kind of hard not to get caught cheating there, though.”

“Wait, your favorite place for photos is Blackwell?”

“Dog, no.” Max laughed a little at the thought. “Oh man, um… It’s just easier, you know. We could just get it over with.”

“That’s the spirit.” Max shook her head. Did Victoria have to say that with so much sarcasm?

“How do I put this…”

“Forget it, Max. You don’t owe me anything.” Victoria lifted the camera from Max’s messenger bag at her side. “It’s not like I’ve been the best of friends to you. Just point me to our target.”

“No.” Max sighed. “You deserve… better.” She lightly kicked at the body of an old SLR camera, resting on a discarded tire. It deserved better, too. Chloe had enjoyed taking her frustrations out on the random junk of American Rust, but as Max knocked over the camera all she could think about was how she had destroyed its peaceful rest. Destructive escapes might not have been her thing after all. 

“Blackwell…” she continued. “It’s not so much easier as it is… safer? Does that make sense?”

“This place does look like a breeding ground for disease,” Victoria said, running a gloved finger across the rusted hull of an ancient, blue boat. “And tetanus.”

“There is that, but I kind of meant something else.” Max shrugged. “Blackwell is… crowded…you know. And my room is close by, which, you know, plus.” She hung her head at that last part. She knew how stupid it sounded.

“Easy to escape back to the hipster lair?” Apparently, the implication had not been lost on Victoria.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“I get it, I guess.” Victoria rubbed her glove against Max’s messenger bag, and as Max watched she suspected the girl was attempting to clean off a smudge of rust from her gloved finger. She figured she’d let that one slide. Much as Victoria may not have been Max’s ideal confidant, in some ways she knew more than even Kate and Dana now. She knew about the Dark Room and Jefferson, even if neither girl had explicitly named either. If Max were ever going to open up, it appeared that her choice of counselor had been made for her. Of course, it had to have been the closest person Max had to a rival or adversary in the entire school. Fate had an awkward sense of humor like that.

“It’s not just the quick retreat, really.”

“No?”

“There’s just… there’s less a chance of seeing Nathan.

Victoria stopped in her tracks. Max understood. She and Nathan had been close. Bringing him up, it had to be a sore subject. Still, Victoria had her confronting photography. Nathan’s friendship to Victoria couldn’t be any more traumatizing to her than Max’s new found association with cameras and the Dark Room was for herself. She slowed down, toeing the dirt as she waited for Victoria to say something. Anything. 

“He’s under house arrest,” Victoria said at last.

“So I’ve heard.”

“Not seeing him unless you decide to pay him a visit, really.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Max didn’t believe that for a moment, but she appreciated Victoria’s attempt at comfort; although honestly she wasn’t certain if that attempt was for her or for Victoria herself.

“You guess?” Okay, maybe it was stupid to expect Victoria to drop it.

“Just something David – Mr. Madsen said.”

“Oh. He’s a paranoid fuck. Maybe don’t lend him much credence.”

“Maybe.”

“Shall we?” Victoria raised Max’s camera once more, and Max guessed now was as good a time as any. She couldn’t delay the inevitable forever.

“Yeah. It’s just up ahead,” she replied, pointing off towards an all too  familiar, graffitied, cinder-block hovel near the tracks. “Follow me.”

As the two girls made their way through the maze of junk and discarded memories, Max pondered the unusual course of her day. When she had first stirred that morning, she had never imagined she would be spending the hours ahead traipsing across Arcadia Bay with Victoria freaking Chase. Yet, surprised as she had been when Kate suggested the three of them talk, she had understood the need to confront Victoria. 

Their encounter the previous day had laid bare some deep wounds, and Max needed to know if that trauma was hers to keep, or if it had been made public. She had been surprised to discover that Victoria had not only kept her secret, but fully intended to do so indefinitely. She had been even more surprised to learn just how far Victoria was willing to go to help her. The girl was certainly rough around the edges ( in a much different way than Chloe ), but it had been nice to see that core fragment of good surface once more that she had seen in the previous timeline. Perhaps, in a different life, one where Max hadn’t murdered her best friend and didn’t find herself weighed down by multiple timelines of trauma, she would have initiated a plan to seize onto that little spark of good and help Victoria polish it; to help that kindness shine through and diminish those sharp edges. Now, well, now Max just hoped that she didn’t dim that spark with her own self-interest and grief. 

Thankfully, even in Max’s absence, Victoria had Kate to help draw that light out. Upon Kate’s return that morning, the three had taken breakfast in Max’s room, sitting cross-legged  in a pseudo-circle on Max’s rug and enjoying the finest the Two Whale’s had to offer. Kate had brought Max back the tea that Victoria had requested, and the Belgian waffle for which Max had asked, but Kate being the truly kind soul that she was, had also brought an assortment of eggs, bacon, and pancakes to split between herself and Victoria as well, with enough left over for seconds. She obviously understood that Max would likely starve herself if easy access to meals was not provided and, as such, had thought ahead.

As the girls ate, Victoria and Max had been forced to lay out their plan with Kate, or at least their plan for a field trip. Max and Victoria had agreed before Kate’s arrival that their mutual friend did not need to know that Victoria would actually be taking the photos for Max. Neither had felt the need to implicate Kate in their own misdeeds by giving her foreknowledge of their plan to cheat the system. Of course, minus the knowledge that Victoria would be doing the assignment for Max, Kate had immediately offered to join the two of them.

Max shot a panicked glance towards Victoria. They both knew that Max was a terrible liar. Omission of the truth was one thing; fabricating a falsehood was quite another.

“Kate,” Victoria started, taking the lead. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

Kate frowned and Max hoped that the girl wasn’t feeling excluded. They had already quite obviously sent her away for breakfast, and now once more they were asking to exclude her.

“No offense Kate, but Max and I, we’re going to be skipping class, and we don’t really know when we’ll be back,” Victoria continued. “One of us being absent, well that’s no big deal. The two of us, we don’t really have a history of hanging out, so our absences might draw some attention but they’re not likely to be connected. The three of us though?”

Kate raised a questioning eyebrow. Clearly she had needed Victoria to spell it out.

“Kate, people know you and I have been hanging out. You and Max, well your friendship isn’t really a secret. The three of us all being absent, the fact that we’re skipping will be blatantly obvious.” 

Kate seemed to consider Victoria’s words, and, being the trusting the girl that she was, Max felt certain that she didn’t see past them either; that she didn’t for a moment suspect that Victoria and Max might have other reasons to cut her out. As much as that thought was a relief, it brought with a strong sense of shame. For every step forward, Max seemed to be taking an equal or larger step back.

“And the two of you will be okay, together?” Kate’s question cut through Max’s shame. A palpable  uncertainty gnawed at Max’s friend. She needed to do something to ease her mind.

“We didn’t kill each other while you were gone, earlier,” Max offered. Absurd as it was, she felt that  it was a very strong point, nonetheless, and even a surprising one given her track record with Victoria.

“And Max is speaking in complete sentences again,” Victoria chimed in. “That’s a plus in our favor.”

“True,” Max said; though in hindsight, the monosyllabic one word response probably hadn’t lent the statement much credence. 

“Okay,” Kate nodded. “But, I want you to text me.”

“Text you…” Victoria trailed off. 

“I just want Max to let me know she’s doing okay. At least once every hour or so, until you get back.”

“It’s like you don’t trust me, Kate.” Victoria laid her hand on Kate’s knee.

Kate shot her a look, a mix of guilt with just enough of a shrug to admit that yes, Kate did not in fact entirely trust Victoria.

“Okay, that’s fair,” Victoria agreed. “I haven’t really earned that yet, when it comes to our resident selfie artist. Max?”

“I-I’ll text. Promise.”

“Great," Kate nodded, finally satisfied with the plan. "Any advice on not being murdered by Dana when she shows up for lunch?”

Max grimaced. She hadn’t thought that part through. “I always like the… l-lock yourself in your r-room approach. Though, given the circumstances, maybe you shouldn’t follow in my footsteps…”

Kate let out a deep, worried sigh. “Victoria?”

“She already hates me. You could always suggest I tricked you and kidnapped her?”

A long silence had interrupted their shared breakfast then, each girl picking at their food, contemplating their options. Finally, Kate had looked up from her eggs, toying with a stray bite on the end of her fork and shrugged with a defeated sigh.

“That’s alright,”she said. “I’ll think of something. Just, don’t be too long.”

Max had thanked her then, Victoria agreeing, and the two had prepped for their day trip, finally departing with a wish of luck from Kate.

Max pocketed her Sharpie and stepped back to admire her handiwork. Her gentle script spelled out  ‘Max was here’ across the cinderblock wall, just below the messages from Chloe and Rachel spelled out in similar Sharpied graffiti. 

Behind her, Victoria stepped idly from foot to foot, not so much pacing as shifting. Max had offered her a seat, but Victoria had taken one look at Chloe and Rachel’s hideout with its years of discarded cans, pizza boxes, and cigarette stubbs and opted to stay standing instead. Her loss.

“You sure about this?” Victoria’s voice cracked a little, a hint of vulnerability that caught Max off guard. She couldn’t blame her, however; after the flashback( ? ) she’d suffered yesterday, it seemed appropriate that Victoria might worry what effect this place would have on Max’s mental state. Rachel’s body had been found in this very junkyard, and, as the graffiti within made readily apparent, this hovel had obviously been a special hangout for Chloe, who Max had witnessed shot and killed by Victoria’s best friend not two months prior. Yet, here Max was, writing her name up along the wall as if she were one with this duo of dead girls: girls that had both, in their own ways, been victims of Jefferson, their lives stolen away by his apprentice.

“Yeah,” Max said. “There’s meaning here.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You wanted to know how I do my hipster bullshit, right?”

“I guess,” Victoria agreed. 

“Well, this is how.”

Max knelt on the cement floor and motioned for Victoria to join her. The girl took one look at the dirt-stained floor and glanced nervously back to Max.

“Can I not,” she asked, obviously wishing to avoid dirtying her drainpipe trousers.

Max bit back a sarcastic comment, then removed her hoodie, laying it down across the cement directly behind her. 

“Here,” she said. If you’re going to get the shot, there’s no avoiding it.”

“You want a shot of graffiti.”

“Yes… and no. Look,” Max said, using her index fingers and thumbs to create a square, Polaroid-shaped frame around her desired image. Victoria knelt behind her on top of Max’s hoodie, as Max angled her hands up just right to capture the graffitied text in near the bottom left third of the frame. The top right of the frame became dominated by the open sky and the tops of a few pine trees, caught in the makeshift picture window of a missing cinder block. The angle created a perfect filter for the light to shine in, breaking in angles of angelic rays that provided a contour light to the cinder blocks, while illuminating the graffitied words in a heavenly glow.

“Positive and negative space,” Max said, “with implied lines – rays of light – and physical lines – the mortar – framing up tranquility and hope in the natural light and sky, contrasting with the loss and grit entombed in the words of… v-victims.” Max stumbled over the last word, knowing that in taking the shot, she’d be immortalizing herself as one of Jefferson’s victims as well, even if only her and Victoria would know of the truth of that association.

Victoria shook her head. “I asked for hipster bullshit,” she muttered. “I get hipster bullshit.”

“True that,” Max laughed, pushing past the somberness of the subject matter. “You think you got it?” 

“Yeah,” Victoria nodded. “Cake walk.”

“Great.” Max stepped behind Victoria, delicately shifting a bong out of one of the carseats, and sitting herself down as she donned the noise-canceling headphones and sleep mask. Satisfied that the noise of the shutter would be blocked, she closed her eyes and shouted, “Ready!”

Nothing happened. She sat in a darkened quiet, alone with her thoughts. She imagined Chloe and Rachel meeting up in this mish-mash of found furniture, Rachel flipping through fashion magazines, while Chloe scribbled on the walls, each sharing drinks and cigarettes, staring out makeshift windows and dreaming of another life in Los Angeles, while hundreds of miles away she sat alone in her Seattle bedroom dreaming of the day she could work up the courage to reunite with her childhood best friend. Now all those dreams had been shattered and it just wasn’t fair.

A sudden pressure pushed on her shoulder and Max flipped up the sleep mask. Victoria leaned over her, gesturing for her to stand up. Removing the noise-canceling headphones, Max stood, stretching out her back as she did and letting her thoughts of murdered dreams fade to the background.

“All done?” 

“All done,” Victoria said, and twirled her arm, camera in hand, in an extravagant, curtsy-like gesture motioning towards the exit. “Lead the way, oh Polaroid Princess.”

“Polaroid Princess? Really?”

“I figured it was better than Selfie Slut, but your call.”

Max picked up her hoodie from its place on the cement floor, tossing it over her shoulder as she stepped out into the junkyard. She waved for Victoria to follow. “Polaroid Princess it is, Camera Chum.”

“Nope.”

“Camera Comrade? Companion? Crony?”

“No, no, and no.”

“Photography Pal?”

“Still no.”

“Meh. Nicknames were always Chloe’s department anyway.” And with that Max began weaving through the labyrinthine path to their next destination.

“Okay, now you have to be shitting me.” Victoria stood, one hand on her hip, and the other palm up, motioning towards the partially taped off area of the junkyard before which Max knelt. Max glanced over her shoulder at Victoria behind her, her brows knitted as she puzzled over how to explain herself.

“No,” she said, hoping she could bypass that whole explanation part. No, Victoria, she thought. I am 100% not shitting you.

“Yes. You are. You’re shitting me. Absolutely shitting me. Otherwise, this is just morbid.”

“Sure it is. But, there was a beauty here once,” Max said, rising from her haunched position. She gestured towards the clearing just beyond the abandoned police tape, right towards the discarded piles of dirt that they both knew represented the remnants of Rachel Amber’s former grave. “A deer stood right there. Stared right at me.”

“There’s no deer now, Max.”

“No, but there was, and it was  full of a sense of magic and possibility. I want to reclaim that.”

“Pretty sure the bank foreclosed on your magic.”

“Fuck the bank. And fuck Prescott. And doubly fuck Jefferson.” Max kicked a rusted out washing machine, just off from the clearing. Come to think of it, she could see how rage-coping might have worked for Chloe afterall. “Those bastards… they’re not robbing me of this. Th-they t-took t-too much, already!”

“Okay. I see that.” Victoria pinched at her nose. “But, tell me, Max, how do you expect to make anyone in Arcadia Bay see what you see?”

“Look behind the tape. Do you see that sign?” Max waved at the rusted out and dented carcass of a long-forgotten crab shack.

“Sure.”

“Pacific Steve’s Famous Crab - a literal sign of a better past, its posts angled down towards the… g-grave… same as the bent frame of the swings, the concrete post, the stray rebar, all protruding up towards the sky, their angles all mirroring the jutting angles of the trees in the background and the reeds and grass in the foreground. Nature claiming relics of a beautiful past.”

“And a fucking grave.”

“Which in itself is nature reclaiming something great: Rachel Amber.”

“Oh my God. Why did I agree to this?” This time Victoria didn't bother pinching her nose and just plain squeezed the palms of her hands back against her tired eyes.

“Because you felt guilty,” Max said. She knew she was stating the obvious, and she knew that on some level it was mean, but she also knew that if they were going to do this, they had to take the pictures that only Max’s eye would have found. 

“Damn straight I feel guilty. Why couldn’t you have been one of those photographers that just took pictures of beautiful sunsets or portraits of truckers or some such mess?”

“You said you wanted to help.”

“Yesssss.” Victoria drew out the word, clearly regretting the affirmation. “Because apparently I’m a sadist,” she continued. “So, if we’re going to do this, just tell me one thing? Okay?”

“Sure.”

“When you’re taking pictures of squirrels and other nature shit, is this the type of stuff you’re thinking about?”

“No. I’m thinking oh look, a cute squirrel. Want. Need cuddles.”

“Thank Fuck.” Victoria nodded to Max. “Alright. Time to gear up.”

Max smiled moving aside and donning Victoria’s headphones and sleep mask once more.

Max withdrew her buzzing phone from her pocket: the readout clearly displaying Dana Ward Calling.

“Her again,” Victoria asked behind her. 

“Yeah,” Max said, hitting the decline button and pocketing her phone once more. The call ended before it began, and she returned her focus once more to her balancing act upon the railroad tracks. 

“You know, you’re going to have to answer eventually?”

“I could say the same for you,” Max said, her arms splayed to either side, almost like a child playing airplane, as she wavered from side to side struggling to maintain her position on the left-most rail.

As if on cue, Victoria’s phone began to ring.

“See,” Max said.

“Bite me.” Victoria switched her phone to mute. “You know, she’s your friend. You’re the one that’s going to have to deal with an angry Dana.”

“That’s future-me’s problem. Present-me just wants to ride the rails.”

“Uh-huh.”

Their phones muted, the pair resumed their walk in silence, Max remembering a different day in that lost week, her hand clasping Chloe’s as they made their way down this same path.

“Now you have me to protect you,” she said, her fingers grasping Chloe’s own, offering her momentary support. It had been an act of play, of balancing, but also an assurance as Chloe struggled with the numerous disappointments of her life, and of the people that had failed her, including Max.

As their hands slipped apart, Chloe replied. “I’m just glad you were here.”

They had been talking about Frank then, about their encounter with an angry drug dealer, who also happened to be wearing Rachel’s bracelet. Without Max’s rewind, she doubted Chloe would have made it out of that meeting alive, not that it mattered now.

It was a different journey on the tracks, however, that cried for Max’s attention: a journey back to the junkyard after a (near)fatal train accident: once near, many times fatal. Time travel confused reality. 

That return trip though, that had been a one-time affair, Max and Chloe bonded, Chloe’s arm around Max’s shoulder and Max’s around Chloe’s waist. They had been so close, Chloe’s warmth pressed to Max’s side. Cigarettes and cheap cologne had never smelled so incredible, so full of wonder and hope and anticipation.

“My powers might not last,” Max said. 

Chloe shot an honest grin her way, briefly locking eyes with Max. She could have lost herself in the blue of Chloe’s gaze. She tried to pause the memory in her head, to hold that image as clear as she could, but time marched on, and so did the memory.  

“That’s okay,” Chloe said. “We will – Forever.”

Max stumbled, slipping from the rail onto the tracks proper. Try as she might, she couldn’t hold back the single tear that had snuck its way up from the depths of memory. She wiped at her cheek, attempting to hide the gesture with a stretch and a yawn.

“You okay, Caulfield?”

“Yeah. Just clumsy is all.”

“Uh-huh.”

Victoria knew Max was full of shit. Max knew that Victoria knew. They both silently agreed to pretend otherwise. 

Max considered that perhaps she should open up. Victoria already knew about her depression and grief. She knew that Chloe’s death had been the trigger. She knew about her panic attacks and about the Dark Room and Jefferson. She had most of the pieces of the puzzle. Would it really hurt to give her a few more? The time travel part, that was out of the question if Max didn’t want to be locked in a looney bin, or break her promise with Chloe and plummet Arcadia Bay into catastrophe once more. But, Dana and Kate already knew about her week reconnecting with Chloe, at least in theory. It could be nice to have someone with whom she could be more open; someone who had a more complete picture than the rest. Much as she appreciated both Kate and Dana’s friendships, Max just couldn’t see herself volunteering to let anyone else in on… her time with Jefferson; which left Victoria as her only option.

“So, we almost to the next shot,” Victoria asked.

Max paused, listening to the sounds of nature all around her. She could feel a gentle breeze stirring, and a light chill in the air. Up ahead, she could see a switch in the tracks, and a small station on a tiny hill. 

“Yeah,” she said, noticing how the composition would easily frame the structure in the background. She passed it off as if that were by happenstance. “This seems as good a spot as any.”

“Wonderful. Mind setting the scene?”

Max dropped her hoodie from her shoulder, setting it just off from the tracks. She knelt in front of it, framing up the shot with her finger-thumb viewfinder. Victoria watched, kneeling on Max’s hoodie so as to take in the planned shot.

“So,” Victoria started. “Just some empty tracks and an old substation or storage shed or whatever the hell that is?”

“Not quite. I would have used a tripod on this one. Timing’s important.” Max stepped onto the tracks. “Check the composition. Tell me when I’m in the left third of the shot, my hairline just under the cutoff so there’s no gestalt funny business.”

"You sure about this?"

Max gestured as if to cover her ears, silently letting Victoria know that she had no intention of hearing the shutter click.

“Yeah, yeah, gotcha,” Victoria said, as Max began walking the tracks. “I suppose no Caulfield photoshoot would be complete without at least one selfie.”

“Now you’re getting it.” Max smiled. She knew Victoria couldn’t see her, but that didn’t matter. There was a banter between them, and minus Victoria’s usually pointed insults, Max found it comforting if not altogether familiar.

“Okay. Stop.”

“Right here?”

“Almost. Back up a scootch.”

“A scootch?”

“Fuck you, hipster.”

“Loud and clear.” Max took one tiny step back. “That a scootch?” 

“Perfect,” Victoria said. “You ready?”

“Not yet.” Max pulled out Victoria’s headphones, sitting them on her head, but not yet covering her ears.

“Um… are we waiting for anything in particular?”

“The train,” Max said. “There’s usually one in about,” Max pulled out her phone, checking the time. “Five or ten minutes.”

“So we just sit here for five or — wait, you’re in the middle of the tracks.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll move.”

“Yeah… I’m not really up for snapping photos of a depressed hipster standing on the train tracks waiting for an incoming train.”

“Lines. Real and psychological. Tracks and impending impacts. Negative spaces, liked depressed mind sets. It all,” Max snorts, “tracks with the assignment.” 

“Okay. That was terrible.”

“The pun,” Max asked, looking over her shoulder. “Or the explanation?”

“Both? Why are we really here?”

Take the leap, Max. This was it: her moment to open up.

“No reason,” she said. Good job, Max. Way to seize the day there.

“Not buying it. You’re a terrible liar, Max.”

“So I hear.”

“Hmmm.” Victoria set Max’s camera down and took a seat on her hoodie.

“What are you doing,” Max asked. Off in the distance came the faint sounds of a train.

“Oh this,” Victoria asked, cracking her knuckles and settling back on her haunches. “I thought I’d take five.”

“But… the train.” Max shot Victoria a pleading look. 

“Yep. Sounds like it's on the way. If only I felt we really needed this shot.”

Max rubbed at her face, caught off guard by a sudden realization. “Aww. Are you cereal?”

“If that’s retro nerd girl talk for serious, then yes.” Victoria paused, considering her words, then continued. “Also, never use that phrase again.”

Max ignored Victoria’s latter statement, refocusing on the threat. “But… that’s blackmail.”

“That tracks. Hmm. Look I can waste time with nonsensical puns as well.”

“Oh, Dog. This isn’t fair.”

Victoria curled her fingers, studying her cuticles. “Huh. That’s nice. Do you hear a train coming?”

Yes, yes, Max did hear a train coming.

“You know,” she said. “Even when you’re helping, you’re evil.”

“Time’s a wasting Nerd Girl.”

“Fine. Take the shot and we’ll talk.” Max straightened herself back into position, waiting for the train.

“Nope. No dice.”

“What? But the train’s coming.”

“Hmm… that sounds like a you problem.”

“Fine. Okay. I give.” Max pivoted. “Before Chloe died, we reconnected, alright?”

“That’s why you told Taylor she was your best friend?”

“She told you?”

“Of course she told me. She tells me everything. You’re still not connecting the dots for me here.” A whistle sounded in the distance, and Victoria tapped at her wrist. “Sounds like we’re on the clock.”

“Alright. We reconnected. We were childhood best friends and we met up again, and we became friends again, best friends”

“In a week?”

“It was… an eventful week. Okay? We went all over Arcadia Bay, but we came here. A lot. The junkyard, the train tracks… a couple other stops. She was looking for Rachel, and, well, we found out about Nathan. And Jefferson.” Oh Dog. Max definitely didn’t mean to reveal that much.

Victoria slipped, catching herself, one hand bracing against the rusted tracks. “You what?”

Fuck. Now Max had to lie or botch this whole thing.

“We didn’t know for sure, okay? But we kind of spied on Frank. We connected some dots with the Vortex party and Kate’s missing time. Her video. It tracked to a Prescott barn, but we just… we didn’t have proof.”

“So the bathroom? Meeting Nathan in the girl’s room?”

Yeah, that works, Max thought. She was always better when she could lie without having to spin the tale herself. “Yeah,” she said.

“Shit, Max. Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“Well, no point. We needed proof. You don’t just accuse a Prescott, but… after Nathan confessed everything…”

“You didn’t have to come forward. You didn’t have to tell anyone about… about the Dark —”

“— Right,” Max cut in. She had no desire to hear that place named. The train whistle grew louder, the cargo train coming into view around the bend ahead. “Can you take the shot, now?”

“Sure.”

Thank, Dog. Max put on the noise-canceling headphones, closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the train had drawn considerably closer. She glanced back to find Victoria coming her way, pocketing a couple Polaroids.

Ripping off the headphones she hurried from the tracks, jumping to the side and collapsing against the hill as the train whistled past. 

“Holy Hell. Promise me there are no more shots like that.” Victoria steadied herself against the force of the passing train.

“I promise,” Max said, catching her breath as the departing train’s gale whipped at her hair and clothes. “No more death-defying shots.”

“Thank, fuck.”

Dana Ward: Answer your phone.

12/03/13-12:08 pm

Dana Ward: Or open your door.

12/03/13-12:09 pm

Dana Ward: Wait? Why is Kate locked in her room?

12/03/13-12:11 pm

Dana Ward: WTF You’re with Victoria?

12/03/13-12:18 pm

Dana Ward: She fucking kidnapped you?

12/03/13-12:21 pm

Dana Ward: Ok. Kate admitted that part’s a lie.

Which means you went of your own free will.

R U CRAZY?!  

12/03/13-12:26 pm

Dana Ward: answer the phone!

12/03/13-12:28 pm

Dana Ward: Answer the phone!

12/03/13-12:29 pm

Dana Ward: ANSWER YOUR PHONE

12/03/13-12:32 pm

Dana Ward: (⋋⋌)

12/03/13-12:36 pm

Dana Ward: Glad you texted an all clear to Kate. Now text me.

12/03/13-12:39 pm

Dana Ward: I’m going to keep texting.

12/03/13-12:48 pm

Dana Ward: Until.

12/03/13-12:49 pm

Dana Ward: You.

12/03/13-12:49 pm

Dana Ward: Answer.

12/03/13-12:50 pm

Dana Ward: Me.

12/03/13-12:50 pm

Dana Ward: Starting third period science lab. Told Ms. Grant you’re sick. 

I better hear from you before class lets out.

12/03/13-12:57 pm

Taking care of of my photog assignment. Needed Victoria’s help. :Max

12/03/13 - 1:13 pm

All good. I promise. :Max

12/03/13 - 1:14 pm

Have to make one more stop. Be back by dinner. :Max

11/29/13 - 1:16 pm

As she carefully drove down the long dirt road from American Rust, Victoria snuck a quick glance towards Max in her passenger seat. The girl had barely said two words since leaving the train tracks behind. Victoria couldn’t really blame her. She had reverted to her usual forceful ways and although she had gotten what she wanted from the little hipster (most of a confession), she had probably used too much blunt force as usual. She could give the poor girl a moment to recuperate. For now, Max simply sat with her head leaned against the passenger window, idly tapping out a message on her phone.

“Finally answering Dana?” Okay, so she meant to give the hipster a moment, but best intentions and all that.

“Yeah,” Max replied then returned to her silence. Over the next couple of minutes she tapped out, deleted, and retapped a couple more messages, before finally pocketing her phone.

“We good now?”

“With Dana,” Max asked, her eyes focused now on the passing scenery off the dirt drive leading away from American Rust.

“Yeah.”

“Meh. Don’t know. She’s in class still.”

“Ah. Sure.” Victoria kept her eyes forward, concentrating on the dirt road as it led up to Main Street. On one side of the intersection an old, beige van had pulled over to the side, just off from the path to American Rust. On the other side of the road, the afternoon sun glistened off the calm waters of the Bay, a small fleet of fishing boats dotting the horizon. Silence once more crept in, accentuating the awkward tension between the two girls.

“The pictures hold up,” Victoria asked, ready to murder the uncomfortable silence of the drive.

“Huh?”

“I thought you would have given them a once over by now. Set them on the center console when I got in.” Victoria eased the car out onto the main drive paralleling the bay.

“Um, yeah. No… I was distracted I guess.” Max still hadn’t lifted her gaze away from the window, watching the shifting landscape as they drove.

“You holding up? At the tracks…” Victoria hesitated, her throat constricting ever so slightly as she waded into traumatic waters. “…those were some, how should I put this?”

“Fucked up confessions,” Max offered, at long last turning her attention inward on Victoria and the gulf between the two of them. Max shuffled the pictures from the console, listlessly thumbing through the assorted shots. “They’re good,” she mumbled. “The pictures I mean.”

“Thanks. Not my first time.” Victoria flashed an uneasy grin and ran a free hand through her pixie cut hair. “Back to the confessional…”

“You know,” Max said — ignoring Victoria’s subject change, much to her frustration — “looking through your Polaroids, it doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.”

“Your Polaroids. Just think of me as your camera. And, backtracking a second here, it hurts to look through photos now?”

“Not much,” Max said, as if the matter of degree made it okay somehow. “And not all. These specifically, and not for the reason you think. Because of that week. My time with Chloe, not that… that other time.”

“While you and she were playing Scooby Doo?”

Max turned away, her eyes scouring over the passing landscape once more; only Victoria suspected that it wasn’t the scenery she was watching, so much as she was parsing over a panorama of memories. 

“I liked to think of it as CSI: Arcadia Bay, myself,” she said, apparently tearing herself away from the past long enough to respond.

“You can be Veronica Mars for all I care. The analogy doesn’t matter. That week apparently does.”

“Yeah… yeah, it does.”

“And now we are recreating the highlights in hipster analog?”

“Not all of them. Can’t really skip class to break into the pool. Wouldn’t want to go to her hou — well, um, yeah just, we can’t go everywhere.”

Victoria could tell Max was hiding something; she wasn’t exactly subtle. Still, she supposed Max was allowed a secret or two.

“Is this a guilt thing? That week led you to Nathan? To that bathroom? Now you have to revisit it? Relive it like some twisted kind of punishment? Cause I really don’t want be your chauffeur for your downward spiral.”

“I mean, yeah, I feel guilty. If not for me, she doesn’t end up in that bathroom, but no, that’s not what today is about.”

Well there’s a revelation we’ll have to unpack at some point , Victoria thought, breezing past it despite her better judgment. “Oh?”

“I think we were… I don’t know. Falling in love?”

“You and Chloe Price?”

“Yeah. So... that’s a thing. Is that a problem?”

“Oh, god No. More just taken aback. Didn’t picture you having a thing for punks.”

“You spend time imagining my type do you?”

“Bite me, selfie slut.”

“I think I preferred Polaroid Princess.”

“And this one,” Victoria asked. 

Max took in the scene before her: an empty bench on a cliffside overlook, the bay stretching out towards the horizon as the lighthouse loomed overhead on the right side of the “composition.” How could she summarize everything encapsulated in this spot: the genesis of everything, the first vision, the scene of that final goodbye and that first real kiss, and so much more.

“A lot of meaning, I guess. This was one of the first spots where we really reconnected. The last place where we met… before that morning at Blackwell. The place where we admitted where… we were headed.” 

“Yeah, that sounds like a lot.”

Max eased back into the preceding silence, her gaze shifting over the lapping waters below and the sporadic fishing boats scattered across the horizon. A cool wind blew in, riding up along the coast and over the bay, Max relaxing into its gentle caress. The sun shone overhead, warming her skin in that comforting contrast to the December chill, not a cloud in the sky. Yet, for Max, a different sky waited above. She closed her eyes, letting the wind transport her away, gliding along the breeze with the currents of time, until a different memory superimposed itself over the scene: a memory of a cyclonic monster, an otherworldly storm twisting and writhing in supernatural fury, churning up the violence of the sea as it swallowed up fishing vessels and the random flotsam and jetsam drifting over the surface. 

That storm, The Storm, had faded in time, pushed down beneath weeks of repression and grief, of comfort and healing, of momentum and regression. Max had made Chloe a promise on this overlook, a vow to put things right, to return them to their natural order, even if it meant sacrificing her, and in so doing, to save the town and everyone in it. In making that vow, she had promised, even if wordlessly, never to use her powers lest she risk the return of that storm. For this, Chloe had given her life. 

Yesterday, Max knew now, she had tapped into that power again. She didn’t know how nor even what she had done, but she knew that for a moment she had been back in that Dark Room. Even now, thinking upon the end of the week, recalling the surging seas and the violence of the encroaching storm, she wondered if it were memories alone biting into her, or if that cold wind whipping against her exposed skin, and that sting of pelting rain, came true, a past solidified into the present, or a present slipped into the past. In that room, it had been as if the two times had merged, her existing and slipping between each simultaneously.

“Max,” Victoria called, and she opened her eyes. No clouds remained, no rain fell, and no storm raged in that bay. Only a memory , today, she thought; but her certainty about the previous day did not falter. Yet there had been no reports of snow, and even if there had been, it wouldn’t have been out of season. Still, did a new storm await on that horizon? Had she already broken her promise with Chloe?

“Max,” Victoria called again, and this time Max pivoted, leaving the bay behind her and returned her attention to her… friend( ? ), rival( ? ); it was unclear the relationship now forming between the two.

“Sorry. As I said, a lot of meaning. I guess I got lost for a second.”

“I noticed. You have a framing in mind?”

Max stepped back, taking in the entirety of the scene. “The lighting’s off.” It’d be better at dusk, in that golden hour; Max knew that, but she also couldn’t ask that of Victoria. The sun wouldn’t set for another three hours or so, and the girl had already given enough of her time. “But I think we can make do,” she continued.

Following their now established pattern, Max demonstrated the composition she wanted, retreated into isolation beneath the sleep mask and headphones, and Victoria snapped the shot, along with some spares. Trained on digital cameras, she was not as accustomed to the restraint of using actual film as was Max. 

That done, Max opted to take a seat on the bench, staring out over the city. Victoria took the space beside her, both settling once more into the silence, yet now it had become familiar; not the uncomfortable quiet of uncertainty, but something more familiar, more welcome. Max had shared much already that day, and Victoria seemed increasingly at peace with her tendency to sink inward. Thus, relaxed into the peace of the afternoon, Max focused not on the sea or the empty skies, but instead on the city of Arcadia Bay itself.

Looking down upon the sights from upon high – the sparkle of the sun off the distant diner, the dirt and age of the stray billboards, and the rustic charm of the docks cutting through the waterfront – Max couldn’t help but to ponder what it was that she had saved. A layer of grime coated the city, a film of decay and rot. The seas had begun to die long before the storm had threatened its approach, and the boats along the distant horizon, though many, were far fewer than those that had roamed the waters in Max’s childhood. Death had come to the fishing trade, the bounty of the waters dwindling, and with that changing tide, the fortunes of the town had dwindled. 

The Prescotts propped up the city with their wealth, and with the new developments cutting through the previously pristine forests of the distant outcrop encircling the other side of the bay; yet those new builds did little to disguise the shuttered shops of Main Street, nor of the  barren beaches, devoid of the tourists or even the day-trippers that once made their way down from Tillamook or Pleasant Valley. Perhaps they had shifted their attention to the larger distractions of Tillamook Bay, Cape Meares, and Bay City, or they had moved further down the coast towards Lincoln City and Beach. Whatever the fate, the waters and roads of Arcadia Bay were no longer what they had been. Max had bought the city time, sure; but was its death not still inevitable?

She didn’t want you to save the city, Max. She sighed, realizing the truth of the invading thought. She wanted you to save the people in it. Which was true. Their livelihoods might be on the way out, but the people of Arcadia Bay would see the death of their town coming; they would have time to leave, to move on and start new lives; time she had given them by ending the one life about which she cared most.

“So,” Victoria interrupted. “You think you have the shots you need?”

“Yeah,” Max nodded, leaving her thoughts of the town and of Chloe behind. “There’s one more spot I’d like to… capture ( one more moment in time ), but it’s not necessary. Not for this.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, but… would you… I mean another day?”

“Sure, Max. I’ll take you when you’re ready.”

“Thanks.” Max pushed up from the bench. “I suppose we should get going then.”

“I suppose.” Victoria rose beside her, following along as Max led the way down the trail and towards the parking lot, where they had left Victoria’s BMW behind.

As they descended from the overlook, Max pondered the course of the day. She had so many new shots, thanks to Victoria’s help, definitely more than enough to satisfy Wells, and yet she couldn’t help but to consider that none of them were really hers. She had framed them up, more or less. They used her camera and Victoria had tried her best to capture Max’s eye and sensibilities, yet in the end, the shots were still Victoria’s. They would buy her time, but would she ever be able to return to photography? Would she be able to explore that passion in the same way that she had before Nathan and Jefferson stole away her innocence ( that moment innocence evolves into corruption. That shift from black to white to gray… and beyond ).

About halfway down the path, Max tossed the question that was plaguing her over her shoulder towards Victoria trailing behind her.

“Do you think… I don’t know… that one day I might actually… you know… be able to do this on my own, again?”

“I don’t know,” Victoria said. The girl never gave false hope, and Max realized that she actually liked that about her. “Maybe. I’d like to think you will. Right now, though, all I can do is help buy you time.”

“Yeah,” Max nodded. “That makes sense.” 

Once more quiet fell over the pair, until at last they broke through the trees into a small asphalt clearing just off from the beach. Victoria’s BMW waited, parked just off from the trail head. The car beeped as Victoria unlocked it with her keyfob, but she hesitated before entering, pausing and looking out over the distant water.

“Max?” Victoria called the girls’ name in a questioning tone, and Max walked around the car, joining her in leaning against the driverside.

“Yes,” she asked, rummaging through her bag and pulling out a cigarette. “You mind?”

Victoria glanced over at the cigarette in Max’s hand, scowled a little, then shrugged. “Can’t say I approve, but I understand. For now.”

“For now?”

“Your days are limited,” she said, snatching the cigarette away and lighting it for herself.

“Hey! I thought you said you didn’t mind.” 

Victoria scowled at her, again. “I don’t. This one’s mine. Get your own.”

Max shook her head. She’d never fully understand Victoria, but she also realized she didn’t have to. They had reached a truce, maybe something more, and Max could make do with that. She rummaged once more in her bag, pulling out a second cigarette. Cupping her hand against the wind, she lit it, then settled back against Victoria’s BMW with a long satisfied exhalation of smoke.

“You were saying,” Max asked.

“That other place?”

“Just a place Chloe and I used to go. As kids. Nothing from that week, really.”

“Not that place. The Other Place.”

Max took another puff from her cigarette and kicked at a pebble at her feet. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Victoria agreed.

“I guess you’ve earned that.”

“Maybe.” Victoria blew out a smoke ring, and both girls paused watching the wisp of smoke twirl off along the breeze. “Maybe not. That’s really your secret to divulge, Max.”

“No. You’ve earned it.”

“Whatever you say.”

Max kicked at a second pebble, sending it skittering towards the edge of the wood. “What do you want to know?”

“What you’re willing to tell, I guess.” Victoria cast her a warm look, perhaps the softest look Max had ever seen on the Vortex queen. “When, I guess.”

Oh, Dog. That’s a hell of a question.

“It’s foggy, if that makes sense.” Max would have to think on her feet. No rewinds here. “That week. The week Chloe and I reconnected. We were in the junkyard. Isolated you know.”

“We?”

Crap. Now you have to work Chloe out of this without a bullet to her head.

“Yeah, Chloe and I. There in that shack. You know, where we started, today.”

“Okay.”

“Well, she was there. I’d stepped out. Wanted to get some shots, I guess. It was near, well where they’d later find Rachel.” Always best to steer close to the truth. “I don’t know, maybe he was returning to the scene. That’s something psychopaths do, right?”

“I’ve heard something to that effect before.”

“Whatever the reason, I didn’t hear him coming. One second I was right there, looking over that grave – I didn’t know it was a grave yet of course, but I had seen a deer there, and I had wanted the shot.”

Always take the shot.

“Anyway,” Max continued, “I guess I had hoped the deer would be back. I know, stupid right. Instead I feel this jab in my neck.” Instinctively Max reaches to her neck, itching where the needle had punctured skin – only it never had; not this skin – and how did that work? Turning back time? Jumping into previous bodies? Alternate bodies? Other Max’s bodies?

“Well, next thing I know… I’m… I’m… I’m…” Max skipped, a broken record on an infinite loop. A gentle pressure eased onto her shoulder, and she looked over to find Victoria’s hand resting there. She looked up towards the taller girl. She wasn’t crying, but she could see the water pooling there in those glassy eyes.

“It’s okay, Max. You don’t know have to. I think I get the picture.”

“Thanks.” Max let herself relax then, gently knocking her shoulder into Victoria’s as she slid into the girl, the two taking comfort there in the empty parking lot, the salt of the sea breeze filling the afternoon air, and the gentle caw of the gulls piercing through the wind.

Max barely even noticed the beige van parked on the far end of the lot. She definitely didn’t register that she had seen it once already that afternoon.

All that mattered in that moment was the reassuring embrace of her former rival as Victoria stretched out an arm, wrapping it around Max’s shoulder and pulling the girl in close for an awkward, yet surprisingly comforting, side hug. Max rested her head against Victoria’s shoulder then, and Victoria rested her own head against Max’s. 

“You ready to go back,” the taller girl asked.

“In a moment,” Max replied, but she made no move to go. She simply basked in the comfort of the embrace. To her credit, Victoria made no attempt to rush her, settling herself into that same embrace. As the sun continued its slow descent, the two huddled together, watching the waves and listening to the gulls, and hoping for better times ahead.

Chapter Text

October 11th, 2013 - Current Timeline

Max clutched at her head, tearing at her hair, as the pain, the searing, overwhelming, hot-poker-gutting-through-her-brain, excruciating torture of the return stabbed into her. She fell to her knees with a splish ( splish splash ) as she landed in a pooling puddle of mud. That puddle of mud. That same one. It was always that puddle, that rain-soaked, mud-logged stretch of earth in that same clearing; the misshapen shell of the lighthouse looming over them, as the storm erupted all around, that furious twister tearing through the waters of the bay on her left, while Chloe stopped mid-sentence above her, staring down in horror as Max collapsed.

“Fuck, Max,” her friend screamed! “What now?”

In an instant, Chloe fell to her knees at Max’s side, her hands cupping Max’s cheeks. God. Her touch sent electric tremors racing through Max, the warmth of Chloe’s skin against hers almost enough to shock her from the pain jigsawing through her system. A gentle pressure at her chin, and Max’s face tilted up to meet Chloe’s. So much concern registered in those eyes, so much pain and fear in the deep blues of that gaze. The familiar trickle of blood dripped down from a fresh nosebleed, and as that coppery taste ran across her lips, the rain watering it down, Max understood that concern. A strong chill seized her as the torrential downpour soaked her through. 

“Another rewind,” Chloe asked. “A vision?”

That’s right, Max thought. She doesn’t know yet. Not now. This is a new Chloe. An old Chloe? A different Chloe? How many Chloes had there been now? How many Maxes? Was this still her Chloe? Was she still her Max? No matter how many times she jumped or rewound or reset, returned, or revisited, no matter what time fuckery she experienced, Max still felt herself bogged down in the existential crises running rampant in the infinite possibilities raised by the ever-shifting inconstant of her powers.

Oh damn. The pain surged again. The timeline, it was catching up. The reset needed to resolve. Too much time had lapsed. No time had lapsed. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the pain, the mind-boggling, never-ending pain. Her vision blackened, eclipsed by the blinding hot poker once again cutting through her gray matter. Max gave in to that pain, to all the pain that ever had been and all the pain that would be. She gave in and she screamed.

In one moment the warmth of Chloe’s hands against her cheeks, the comfort of her proximity, enveloped her; in the next, Max felt only the cold embrace of the wet earth. She curled into herself, coiled into a fetal ball making herself as small as she could, holding herself tight and rolling in the chill wet of the mud and dirt as the fierce rain pelted down upon her and the waves of agony rolled over her in endless succession. 

Through the pounding of the storm and the howling cries of the wind, Max could discern a distant voice calling to her – feeble and broken by the void of pain and the surging screams of time calling out to be righted.

“Shit, Max,” called that voice. There was a familiarity to it; a comfort in the vulgar that called forth an image of blue hair and coiling vines, but Max could make no sense of it. She could not connect the dots, nor untangle the knotted ball of memories, not as the pain ripped at her insides. “Speak to me,” yelled that voice, that faint echo on the storm, and she wondered who was there. What did they want from her? Why wouldn’t they let her die in peace?

She held her eyes shut tight, against the pain, yes, but more against the confusion that awaited with sight, with every moment more from this central point, from the hard return and the limitless possibilities so many of which had already transpired. She had worn this point thin, a faded stretch of tape on an old cassette. It had been recorded too many times and she feared the static and the double images; more she feared the fraying fabric itself and what would happen when it finally snapped.

A new pressure pushed down on her chin. God. What was that about? And why could she taste so much blood in her mouth? That new pressure, it pushed, fighting against Max, straining to unlock her jaw. Fuck that. She was Max ‘Fucking’ Caulfield, Time Warrior. She didn’t give in to anyone; not Nathan, not Jefferson, not David, or Sean, or Ambrose, none of them. She didn’t give two fucks what this new force wanted. She bit down harder. Fuck you. That’ll show you. 

As she contemplated the infinite, as she wondered at what new adversary awaited with what new change, a familiar scent drifted down to her, carried by the rain and the wind and by the rivers of tears – some hers, some not. The fragrance of cheap cologne and sweat, of cigarettes and weed, pierced through the all-consuming cacophony of the storm. As remembered comforts stole over her, Max’s resistance waned. Slowly she eased back, and only as she did, did she become aware of the split in her lip where she had bit down in her pain. And that hand, those confusingly calloused yet soft fingers retreating from her chin, she knew them, too. Her spasms faded as the timeline locked into place. It wasn’t settled yet. There would be aftershocks, but for now there was a lull, and Max opened her eyes, the strings of her memory still tugged by those familiar scents.

“Chloe…” Her voice cracked, barely above a whisper, but the question rode clear on her lips. Above her, a blurry form hovered; a shock of blue hair the only thing upon which Max could focus. She tried to reach for that hair, to touch it and return herself to a better past, but she was too late. The aftershocks were upon her.

She jerked with the sudden assault, riding new waves of pain as she fell to her side and grasped once more at her head, the horrors inside it threatening at once to both explode it out and implode in upon her – to both crack open in her skull and release the pain and to burrow inward as that same pain ate her away from the inside out, hollowing away everything that she had ever been, was, and would one day become.

“Max, dammit! Stay with me, Max!”

That was Chloe’s voice. Her voice. Her beautiful, wonderful voice. It showered over Max, a hailstorm riding the rain. That’s not right. There had been no hail in this time. Not this timeline. That was a different mistake. A past mistake. One she had never made, but might still?

That blurry form above settled down over Max, and the torrent of rain eased, blocked by the larger girl huddling over her. One of those confusingly soft and calloused hands ran across Max’s brow, wiping away the slick of the storm, yet still Max could not focus on that face – all a blur. Her tears ran too strong now, clouding out all true sight, and blood still gushed from her nose. How much damage had been done by time already? Did that damage always reset, a fresh body with each return, or did some of those wounds linger, like a cancer, growing inside, hidden deep, a malignant time-bomb evolving with each jump?

A flash of lightning lit the sky and that blurred face disappeared into the split-second, never-ending instance of the electric afterglow. The thunder followed an eternity later, a gunshot ripping through the storm-riddled morning, and lifetimes of trauma flooded in. 

Max doubled in on herself, hiding from the onslaught, but she could not escape it, no matter how small she tried to be. As the overexposure of the lighting faded down, a deep red tint fell over the out-of-focus world around her, and she could feel viscous rivers flooding up the reservoirs of her eyes and rushing out over the spillways, until that dam broke and the tears and the blood flowed freely.

“What’s happening,” that Chloe-voice asked from somewhere above her, with only a faint hint of reverb. They were as of yet still in sync, at least for the most part, but that would change exponentially the further Max stayed within the return.

Max blinked away the tears and blood and rain, wiping her palms across her eyes as she attempted to clear her vision. She needed to see her, to see that face, again. That blurred form waited still, so close above her. Max relaxed into a stuttering breath. Chloe had asked a question, hadn’t she? “What’s happening?” How could she explain it? Time was paramount, yet all Max wanted was to relax into those arms and be done with the infinite even if only for a finite moment.

“We don’t know,” she said, her gaze finally locking back into sync with Chloe’s own blue eyes. They shifted, faint echoes of other eyes, of other Chloes overlapping and then stuttering away, creating a strobing effect – multitudes of previously lived realities baring themself to her. “Not exactly,” she continued, holding her gaze to the most solid of those images – to this Chloe, the one that existed now, in this moment. “One you called it a hard return. Another called it a save point.”

“A save point,” Chloe’s question echoed down to her. The multitudes were splitting. One rose and walked towards the cliffside. Another already stood off to the left, its own mirror images stuttering around it. How many conversations had they had there before the pain became too much to stand? Max needed to concentrate, to remember which Chloe was when.

“Doesn’t matter, Chlo.” Oh God, I had explained it before, not passed over it. Now more of those Chloes would move out of sync. She’d introduced too many variables. 

“Wait,” the nearest Chloe started, her face shifting closer, leaving dozens of mirrors in her wake, as if piercing and rising through the shimmering surface of a veil of water that now rippled with her reflections behind her. Those Chloes still listened, awaiting Max’s ongoing explanation. Thankfully she rarely heard her past self, other self, different self. “One me?” Chloe continued, struggling to understand.

“A future Chloe.” Max said, trying so hard to keep her focus on the Chloe of the here and now. “Another Chloe.” And there were so many of them, dozens ( dozens of dozens ) teeming across the overlook, most in clusters – some in this huddled mass, others nearby stuck in that fated conversation – but some as stragglers walking their own paths of a few or one. Some of those were the Chloes that didn’t have a Max; those that she’d managed to warn in some way before… whatever fate befell that Max. Those Chloes always looked so lost, alone on that cliff. One of those other stragglers, however, one still engaged with her own past Max, would grow to be that one, the one that called it a save point. Which one was it now — the straggler by the map, or the one who had climbed to the bench? Max couldn’t remember anymore, so she focused instead on the Chloe close at hand.

“No matter. That version of you is gone. Reset.” It was true, even if her echo remained here in this time-place, this fraying fragment both of and outside of reality.

“Reset,” that closest Chloe asked.

“So you arrive here when another timeline fails,” that multitude behind her asked, the Chloe huddle that had listened. Among it wavered variants, those that had picked up some subtle shift, some flap of a butterfly’s wing in a blink of an eye or a stutter of a word, and they had their own questions.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“What are you hiding, Caulfield?”

“Fuck, Max, how many resets have there been?”

“You were always crap  at video games.”

Max liked that last variant, shifting back to a good old Chloe deflection. That one made her think of happier times. What had this one asked? Reset. She needs clarity.

“I’m stuck, Chloe,” she started, hoping she was looking into the right pair of blue eyes. “No matter what I choose, we always end up back here.” Max dabbed at her eyes again, as if blotting out the tears and blood would do anything to ease the temporal-multiversal poly-vision that forged the true crux of her visual dilemma. She swatted her hand away flinging off a spattering of blood and tears as she did, then paused as those droplets splashed into the nearest puddles sending out their own ripples, creating their own infinitesimal changes, hurled out into the universe. What storms would they bring?

A finger snap drew her gaze back towards Chloe. That hadn’t happened before, and it made finding the right Chloe so much easier. “Back to me,” that temporal pirate called to her. “Back to your Captain. We’ll get through this.”

God, Max hoped so. Time had fucked with them too much, raked them through the muck and over the coals and dipped their lives in shit. She didn’t even know if she was her anymore or if they were them, but she wanted to believe that they could be again.

She tried to speak, then stopped, swallowing back a mass of regret and fear as she did, along with the words that would never grace this temporal river.

“Max, what is it?” Her Chloe. This Chloe.

“But without your power…” That was the old conversation, right. Too much reverb. Too many replays.

“What do you mean die?” Oh God, the damned huddle. If she came back here, if she survived again, she needed to relocate. This location had become too loud. Too crowded.

“So a save point, you say?” Fuck. I remember that one. That Chloe always lagged behind; always one or two conversations back from the rest of the huddle.

This Chloe, Max. This one. Focus.

“I don’t think we will,” she said. She was pretty sure that was the right reply. Hard to say really. Might as well just keep going and hope for the best. “I don’t think I can get through this. I’m sorry.” And God was she sorry. The changes were too much, the strain had reached a breaking point. Hell, she’d passed that months ago? Years ago? Moments ago? Who could say? 

“I know,” she continued, “I’m supposed to have the answers; that I’m supposed to be… to be Super-Max, but… I… I don’t feel super.” This was new, too, this whole portion of the conversation. The giving up. She’d already introduced one new variable. Might as well introduce more. The ensuing chaos would create clarity; it would expand the difference, strengthen the curvature at the inflection point. When did I learn math? 

Max stared out at the many Chloes. They all started the same here, the Chloe from that one lost week, but inflection point, that sounded like a long-haired blonde Chloe. God, she’d forgotten about her. If only she could see her again. There was comfort in knowing that there was a math and science prodigy Chloe out there somewhere, one that had managed to escape the trauma that had so hurt and fractured these Chloes. Of course, that Chloe didn’t have a Max anymore and she had to wonder if that hurt her as much as it hurt herself to be without a Chloe.

Oh God. This Chloe was talking. What had Max missed?

“... Caulfield. You were the strongest person I knew even before you rewound time.”

Huh, Max thought. That seems slightly like hyperbole.

“And you’re not alone, Max” this Chloe continued. Max looked out at the many versions of her Chloe scattered across the overlook, infinite grains of sand whipped about in the storm, and she wondered if this Chloe had any idea how right she was. Max could never be alone upon this hill.

“I’m right here,” the girl continued. She had shifted, again, left the huddle behind her. Now Max could focus better, the poly-vision reduced, isolated by the unique instance diverging here. “We will think of something.”

“They’re getting harder, Chloe,” Max admitted. “More painful.” She waved at her own tear-streaked, blood-stained face. Obviously things had become much worse and for once that was literally painted on her face, not in some vague expression, but in clear, viscous, gory detail. There was so much more that she should tell her, but it always hurt, causing Chloe pain. If there was one thing Max now knew for certain, it was that a Chloe could never stand to see a Max hurting. How much should she share? How much hurt should she cause?

The silence stretched between them. The storm raged on, and the ghosts of timelines lost continued to split. Too many images were now crowding the space around her, and they would only grow as the minute changes took over and split the huddled masses further. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

“If the timeline resets, again...” Max started. “If I come back here, again…” She had to tell her, didn’t she? Chloe would want to know. “I’m…” Plus… Max had to try something new. “I’m not sure I can survive.”

Chloe froze at those words. She’d done it. Max had broken her. Giving up; no Chloe ever survived unscathed when a Max surrendered like that. How would this one react? Hurt? Compassionate? Angry?

Max trembled as she waited for the reverberations of her words to play out – for the new changes to lock into place. Chloe shivered with her, fear dancing in her eyes, matching the fear that must have been mirrored in Max’s own.

“That’s bullshit!” Chloe exploded. Anger maybe? Always a common course. “You’ve got this,” that Chloe continued. Okay, inspirational. That was a different tactic, but not unheard of. “I know it’s hard, fuck, more than hard, it’s astronomically insane, but you’re going to make it, and then this whole week, it’ll be behind you, because you, you’re going to make time your bitch. You hear me?”

  Yeah, I hear you , Max thought; but she didn’t believe her. If she was really going to make time her bitch, wouldn’t she have done it by now. Would so many Chloe echoes really be milling around this overlook, lost in this storm, if Max knew how to win this battle? She shuddered, considering the likelihood of her failure. After all this time, she still wasn’t good enough. 

Off beyond this Chloe, standing in the central spot, that pivotal progenitor of all that would later now then come to be, stood a different Chloe. Or was that her Chloe? She was mid-speech… that speech, the one that would bring the forever choice, the false binary that had so long led them astray…

“… but you’re Maxine Caulfield…” that Chloe said. “And you’re amazing.”

“You think I’m amazing,” she asked; but Chloe didn’t answer, not the one standing there leaning over, her arms outstretched grasping at shoulders that were not there.

“Yeah, Max,” a different Chloe answered, this one closer at hand. This was her Chloe, the current Chloe. The only one that could hear her. “You’re Maxine Caulfield, Time Master. You’re hella amazeballs.”

Max laughed, a small hiccup of a laugh, then sniffled, wiping at the mass of blood washing over her lips and chin. Hella . That always made her laugh, always broke through the morass of trauma and fear and for a moment made Max feel like Max again, the before Max, the one still fresh from Seattle, wrapped in naïveté and a coat of innocence, not yet fully crumbled, even if marred. Of course, Chloe had never told her that word had been an import, a rent-to-own purchase from a certain Rachel Amber. The perfectness of that, the line through time and storms that it drew, made Max want to laugh even harder, only stopping as Chloe’s voice broke through to her once more.

“Max, this is the only way.”

She stood there in the rain, a look of resignation clear across her face as she reached out handing a small ghost of a Poloroid out towards her, towards the open air.

“No, Chloe,” she said. “I don’t want that. Not again.”

“What are you talking about, Max? Back to me.” That voice came from closer at hand. She’d mixed them up again. This one here, she reached up to Max, placing a finger against her chin and tilting it down until their eyes met. This was her Chloe now. “Focus here, Maximus. On me. On now. What’s happening? Where — when were you? Fucking confusing time travel.”

You don’t know the half of it, Chloe.

“It’s getting hard to keep track,” she said. “To know when, which when.”

“Explain it to me.”

“No time.” Max laughed as if that was the funniest thing that she had ever said. So much time had already passed. So much more would yet. Still time was not as unidirectional as once she had thought. It could be stopped; it could go forward or backward; it could be replayed or rewritten. Yet even so, the ribbon could only be recorded in so many possibilities before the data became corrupt. So much limitless possibility, still bound by an underlying fabric that Max could never understand. Suddenly, it didn’t seem so funny anymore.

“I can’t keep changing it, Chloe,” Max said, locking eyes with Chloe, again. This was her Chloe, right? The rain and tears had clouded her vision once more, and that blue hair hovered a blur at the edge of her oddly limited vision.

“Okay, Max,” Chloe said. “No changing it, whatever it is.” Chloe’s hand paused over her back pocket. Even blurred as her image of her now was, Max could see the pregnancy of that pause, all the implication held back yet shining out  within that hesitation. “The butterfly photo, Max? Is that it?”

“There is no right choice,” Max mumbled; and yet it always came back to this, this decision. “You’re all that matters, Chloe. My number one priority.”

“No, no,” Chloe started. “No, fuck that, Max. You matter. Joyce matters. Kate matters. Hell, forgive me, but Arcadia Bay matters!”

“You always make that call, don’t you?”

“Not once, Max. Not once in my pissy life, but… but there’s so many people in Arcadia Bay who should live… Way more than me… I know I’ve been selfish but for once, I think I should accept my fate… our fate —”

“— No!” Max interrupted, crying out in a mix of anger and frustration. How many times did Chloe have to throw that offer at her? How little did she value her own life? How could she not see how much that life meant to Max? How much she meant to Max?

“Fuck that, Chloe.” That pounding began in her head again. Why now? She couldn’t stop to wait it out. She had to push forward. “We can’t keep having this conversation. We can’t… can’t keep making this same choice… I can’t make this choice.”

“You’re the only one —”

“Don’t you dare say it,” she cut her off. “Not one more time, Chloe.”

Chloe jammed the heel of her palm to the ridge of her nose. “Is this another rewind?”

Max rolled away from Chloe’s arms, pained by the loss of her touch, and fell onto her back in the pooling mud. How did she even explain this to Chloe? Did it matter if she did? What mattered was that they try something new; that they finally break this loop. She stared up at the stars, or at least where once there were stars and now there roiled those angry clouds, and she tried to find some explanation, some way to break through to Chloe and end this logjam.

“A return,” she said, and she stretched out as if to make angels in the mud, the pain finally washing away as the aftershocks dwindled and were no more. “A hard return.”

“Chloe…” she continued, but she didn’t know where to go from here. They needed to end the storm, but which storm? All of them, of course; this one and so many others, but was there a path without one at its end?

“Just tell me, Max. But make it quick.”

“How am I even here?”

“Beats the shit out of me,” Chloe said. “My punk ass is the side-kick, not the sage mentor.” Chloe stared down at her then, and Max could feel her eyes wandering over her rain-soaked clothes, lingering in places for a little too long. God , had Chloe always been this obvious? Had I always been so oblivious?

Suddenly, Chloe laid onto her own back, stretching out and taking Max’s hand in hers. Yes, Max realized. Chloe always had been, and Max had always been too shy and naive to see it – too full of self-doubt and loathing. She tightened her fingers over Chloe’s allowing herself this one moment of peace.

“Okay, Maxi-pad, what now?”

“You stop calling me that.”

“Never.”

“Damn it, Chlo.”

“Sorry, you’re stuck with it.”

Stuck with it? Yeah, Max was stuck. She knew that. She was, and yet, no path held. All were reversible, rewritable. In the infinite possibility of choice, where did it ever end?

“It doesn’t matter what I choose. It doesn’t stick.”

“No, Maxi-pad, I’m pretty sure it sticks. This name’s going nowhere.”

“Fuck you, Chlo.” Max punched Chloe’s arm. Not too hard, but just enough. She needed this… the banter. Something to break her from the ever-present dread of the storm.

“Ow. Since when are you violent,” Chloe asked.

Her break came to an end. Since when are you violent? She let out a sob; although let out seemed too passive a word. The sob stole out, it broke out, it burst out, and Max had no control over it. One moment she had been fine, the next that sob had leapt forth and legion followed in its wake. Since when are you violent? How long has it been now? When did that switch flip and what did that make her?

“I’m sorry, Max,” Chloe shouted beside her, shaking her lightly by the shoulder. “I didn’t mean it. Come on, Maxaroni. Come back to me. We got this. Remember. Time’s your bitch.”

Max wanted to believe her; to trust that there might be some end in sight after all; yet nothing from her experience seemed to support this theory. Oh, she’d have respites. A few days here, a couple of months there, but it rarely lasted long. How long would this next one last, before Max was forced to confront this hill again – if she even could.

Lost in this downward spiral of thought, Max almost didn’t notice the tears beginning to flow; not her tears, but Chloe’s. Beside her, that Chloe that had joined her in the mud had started to cry. Max could see her attempting to wipe away the tears, to shift her visage away from the bay; she knew the struggle that Chloe must be enduring. For her, the destruction of Arcadia Bay was a first; an only; it would happen and it would be done. She didn’t have the luxury of time’s malleability as a concept.

At last, that Chloe tore her vision back down to Max, and Max looked up into her eyes, her own tears still flowing.

“It doesn’t have to be your choice, Max,” Chloe said. “I can choose. It can be on me this time.”

Max’s sobs eased. Chloe always tried to fix it. 

“That’s right, Max. Come back to me. I can choose.”

Max glanced about the overlook, watching as other Chloes held court with their own invisible Maxes. How many of them were offering just that – a way out; a decision that Max didn’t have to make? She then shifted her gaze to that original huddle of Chloes, those standing and having that conversation. How many of them were telling her that she was the only one that could choose? How had all of them been so wrong?

Max placed her own palm against Chloe’s cheek, locking their eyes together. 

“No, Chloe. I told you. I don’t know how many more times I can do this.”

“How many –”

“This time, Chloe, this time we have to choose together. It’s the only thing we haven’t tried.” Well that wasn’t entirely true. In a multiverse of infinite possibilities, there had to be other options that she had missed, but sometimes hyperbole had its place.

“Max? I don’t understand.” Chloe looked so confused, but soon that wouldn't’ matter. Soon this Chloe would have answers. Soon, if this worked, Max might not be so alone in the endless path of time. 

She pulled herself to her knees, searching through her messenger bag. Flinging out her journal, her camera, and so many photos, she kept rifling through the contents. She knew what she needed. She’d tried this variable before of course, but not like this. Perhaps this time, with this change, things could be different. At last, she paused, pulling out a very familiar poster, one of thousands of such posters scattered across Arcadia Bay. The poster didn’t matter, however. The important part was the photo clipped to the poster itself, the folded photo that she had stolen while snooping through Chloe’s room.

“You won’t have long, Chloe,” she said. “Not if this works.”

Around her, Max watched as various Chloe’s popped out of existence. Ah, they were making their choices now. Those other Maxes and Chloes.  Over in the standing huddle, Max caught the tail end of that familiar speech. She paused listening to it. Her Chloe was speaking, confused, but right now Max needed to hear that other moment.

“Wherever I end up after this…” those Chloes said, the words echoing each slightly off sync, as subtle nuances had shifted the variants by microseconds from one another. “In whatever reality…” those ghostly Chloes continued. “All those moments between us were real, and they’ll be ours.”

They are , Max thought, and with her nearest hand she took ahold of Chloe’s own hand. With her other hand, she removed the folded photo of Rachel and Chloe from the poster to which it was clipped and offered it out to her Chloe.

“Grab the photo,” she said.

As Chloe did as she was asked, Max continued to listen to that huddle.

“You’re the only one who can,” those Chloes said. “Max… it’s time.” 

And then they shifted, the psychedelic trail of huddled Chloes shifting into two, as each new huddle explored one side of that false binary. 

One stepped back, while the other Chloe mass wavered, paused as if watching something off by the cliff.  A moment passed and both masses moved. One returned to its original position, now in an embrace with an absent Max. The other stepped forward towards the cliff. “Max…” that Chloe huddle said. “I’ll always be with you.” 

In the other huddle, the Chloes pushed out of their embrace. “I know, Max. But we have to. We have to save everybody, okay? And you’ll make those fuckers pay for what they did to Rachel.”

A beat passed, then the cliffside huddle shifted their left arm out at an angle, clasping an invisible hand as those Chloes stared off towards the twister ripping Arcadia Bay to shreds.

The other Chloes pushed on with their final words, their voices cracking under the strain of the emotion. “Being together this week… it was the best farewell gift I could have hoped for. You’re my hero, Max.” Then  her lips parted, and her hands held to a waist that was not there, and Max, this Max, she could taste the smoke and breath mints of that kiss; she could feel that embrace, and remember that passion as she finally told Chloe with that last kiss how she truly felt.

Turning back to her present, Max noticed Chloe’s hand on the photo. They were now locked together, two hands clasped in each other’s, two hands on the photo. 

“You won’t have long, Chloe. Write yourself a note. Tape it. Tell Rachel. Something. But both of you have to stay away from Prescott… and Jefferson. Don’t let her go near Jefferson.”

“What do you mean I won’t have long?”

Max watched those other Chloes for a final beat. That kiss had parted now, and the huddle staggered back. “I’ll always love you… Now, get out of here, please! Do it before I freak.”  They had retreated so far now, heading for the tree line. “And Max Caulfield? Don’t forget about me…”

Never , Max thought, and turned her attention to the Chloes on the cliff. Their left hand no longer held out at an angle, but instead jutted out perpendicular from her (them?), wrapped around an invisible shoulder. 

“What do you mean I won’t have long,” her Chloe asked, and Max turned back from the ghost Chloes of the overlook.

“I’m not sure this will work,” she said. Maybe it won’t. Everything is so broken now. Time… I think time is broken. I’m not sure if that will make it easier or more difficult.”

“Max?”

“Stare into the photo, okay.” It was time. Ha. Time . “Focus on it.”

Chloe could do this. Max knew that she could. She began to focus herself, hearing the faint whispers of a long away moment, the images of the photo blurring and pulsing before her. Chloe should be headed back now, she thought, and yet Chloe was still there. She tightened her grip on Chloe’s hand, as if by pure force of will she could force Chloe to focus in and make the jump; and yet still, nothing changed. 

Max turned towards Chloe and realized that the girl was staring at her, rather than the photo.

“I know I’m gorgeous,” she said, “but eyes on the photo, Chloe.” As the girl beside her hesitated a moment more, Max felt that familiar flutter of attraction and anticipation, but she pushed it down. That would have to wait. “Chloe,” Max said again, forcing as much determination into that one word as possible — not so much a rebuke as a demand.

Finally, Chloe shifted her gaze back to the photo. The whispers bubbled up, and the colors and focus shifted once more. 

“Just pose for the camera, bitch.” Rachel Amber. Max had heard that voice before, although it had been many jumps since she had last heard it. How much time had passed, relatively speaking?

“Fuck that. Keep quiet before step-ass hears,” a Chloe voice called out from the photo.

“I need something to show for Jefferson’s class tomorrow,” Rachel said, and Max shivered at that name. All these realities, all these timelines later, and still she could not hear that name without the threat of that Dark Room supplanting her current reality. Would she ever recover?

“Hell no. I’m not posing for your pervy teacher,” Chloe said.

“Come on. Play nice.”

“Here. Best I can do.”

A shutter clicked. That’s it. If Chloe were going to make the jump, she’d be there now. She’d be back by now. Time travel was a mess like that.

A wave of dizziness and nausea slammed into Max, sending her off balance and teetering back into the mud. Well this is new , she thought, clutching at her stomach. Suddenly she felt her insides lurch, and found herself vomiting the contents of her stomach out onto the muck and debris of the overlook. The whole world tilted; time and space tilted, and sputtered; then it rocked itself back into position, a quick staticky waver, like a heat mirage on distant asphalt, flickering across her vision, then once more the storm-clouded sky and the pelting rain of this place and time settled back in. Chloe still sat beside her, although she had shifted a foot away from her previous location. They both had. Well, a different Chloe and Max had been on this hill then, Max supposed. They couldnt expect the end result to be the same. 

Chloe’s gaze registered a glazed shock. Yes, she was returning, and Max with her. That must have been the sputter of reality. She had never sent someone else back… it would have changed her too, and yet her consciousness never moved backward, so it remained present and yet hurtled to the new timeline, skipping across the rivers of the timestream and settling in, bringing with it a wave of seasickness ( time nausea? ) that Max had never before known.

It felt far from pleasant. She’d have to reserve this method for rare use only.

Gathering herself, trying to regain what composure she could, she reached out towards Chloe.

“Are you… are you okay?”

“Max…” Chloe started.

Max stared up at the rain and the storm and the fury of time. Why was it unchanged? She had expected something, something more than a subtle shift of position.

“Nothing. It didn’t work,” Max started.

“Max,” Chloe said again. “Max… I think I messed up.”

“What?” Max pulled her attention away from the storm and back to Chloe. 

“I… I fucked it up.”

“Tell me everything,” she said. Maybe, just maybe, they could still make this right.

Chapter Text

Dec 14, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

Max huddled against the cold as she exited Victoria’s BMW,  bundled once more in a mix of her trademark hoodie, a sweatshirt, scarf, gloves, and, of course, Chloe’s beanie. That had been the only article of Chloe’s clothes Victoria had permitted her to wear today. Apparently, opening her life to the queen of the Vortex Club had come with conditions, and now Max found her wardrobe under intense scrutiny. There was a time she might have resisted that, yet now she understood Victoria’s intent. It wasn’t so much that Victoria needed to approve of her fashion sense (she didn’t approve), as it was that Victoria wanted to make sure Max wasn’t wallowing in the past by constantly wearing Chloe’s clothes.

“You get one Chloe shirt a week,” Victoria had told her on Monday. “That includes Amber’s things, too. I see you exceed that and I burn whatever you’re wearing.”

Max had doubted that Victoria would have actually followed through with that threat, yet she had been unwilling to test her. She’d worn her favorite Rock Chick t-shirt on Tuesday, and apparently the week hadn’t reset yet, so no misfit skull tank for her. Victoria had only relented on Chloe’s beanie when she realized Max owned no hats and after a long discussion in which she had had to explain to the hipster that hoodies did not count as winter gear. What’s more, she had completely vetoed Chloe’s spiked bracelet; at least until she felt confident that Max was in a better headspace. 

So, Max tucked her hair tight into her beanie, blew into her cupped hands, and tried to warm herself against the morning chill as Victoria enjoyed another moment in the car, listening to one of Taylor’s Katy Perry albums. Honestly, of all the things Max had had to endure since Victoria and she took their day-trip through Arcadia Bay nearly two weeks prior, it was the pop songs that had been the most insufferable. She had tried to introduce Victoria and her gang to Angus & Julia Stone, Syd Matters, even some Foal. The trio had been less than accommodating.

As Max pondered their musical differences, Taylor stepped out behind her, exiting the backseat and casting Max a worried glance as she did. Taylor and she had come to a truce in the intervening weeks, Max apologizing again for not asking after her mother sooner, and Taylor apologizing for her harsh reaction, having not taken into account the trauma with which Max had been dealing. All things considered, perhaps that should have been that, the air cleared and the waters smoothed, but life rarely ran so smoothly, the ideal always a goal and almost never an actuality. No, Taylor and Max were still not friends, but they had come to an understanding, the bad blood replaced with an earnest neutrality. 

Max still didn’t like the way that Taylor looked at her though; definitely not the way that she looked at her that morning as she exited Victoria’s car. The pity always played so clearly in that gaze. Taylor may not have had all the facts; Max had never opened up to her the way that she had to Victoria, and yet, Taylor had been there that afternoon when Max had slipped into that moment – had retreated into the Dark Room. She knew Max suffered from more than simple panic attacks, and she had heard her cry out Jefferson’s name. The two girls may have refrained from discussing the source trauma, but Taylor was smart enough to connect some of the dots. Now, when she looked at Max, Max knew that all she saw was a victim.

With Victoria, on the other hand, her glances weren’t so much filled with pity as they were with concern. It was a minute differentiation, but it made a world of difference. Victoria displayed no pity, only a desire to help her overcome, and a worry (and a frustration) when Max backslid, and, more, a sense of understanding. She didn’t treat her like some delicate flower, but came at her with blunt force when necessary, and a modicum of tact when circumstances required that instead. Sure, Max wasn’t taking pictures on her own yet, but with Victoria’s help, she did find herself thinking about it. She imagined the shots; she pictured herself with a camera and she saw a future where perhaps she returned to that passion.

The nightmares hadn’t stopped, of course, and she had no desire to return to her former glory as the Selfie Sovereign of Blackwell, but she did hope to uphold her newly minted title as Polaroid Princess. She had even decided to spend the holidays with Victoria, which had gone over less than ideally with her parents, or Dana for that matter. Yet Max knew it was for the best. Victoria’s family lived here in Arcadia Bay, despite their work up in Seattle, and it meant Max could both stay close to Chloe, while also not being left without her support network. Both Dana and Kate had also offered their homes, and even though Kate only lived a little outside out of Arcadia Bay – close enough that it wouldn’t have been a problem – Max had no desire to put up with Kate’s mother and any potential conversations around Nathan Prescott. Dana’s family lived in town, and could have been a good choice as well, but the thought of spending the holidays around Dana and Trevor, well, as happy as Max was for them, she didn’t feel like being their third wheel, and she doubted that it would have done her much good being around the happy couple while she still struggled with her own grief over the loss of Chloe. So, Victoria’s place had seemed the best option.

Still, Max was thankful for all of her Blackwell friends. She hadn’t spent a single night without either Kate, Dana, or Victoria in her room since Thanksgiving break had ended, and she had to admit that she’d been the better for it. Slowly Max had found herself trying again, and, though this was harder to admit, living again. Kate and Alyssa had taken to helping her catch up on her English assignments, while Victoria helped her with photography, and Max reluctantly accepted help from Warren with her science and math work. Her former stalker seemed to have gotten the message, and though she still felt uncomfortable with his previous behavior, she had decided to give him one last chance; and so far, he hadn’t blown it.

Whereas her other friends had been there for her academic support, Dana had filled in as Max’s go to for a hug and for social encouragement. Hell, it was Dana that had convinced her she should attend the final Vortex party of the semester, the End of the Year Bash that Courtney had been busy planning for the past few weeks. That was actually why Courtney hadn’t joined the girls on this most recent excursion, leaving Max alone with Victoria and Taylor.

“Thanks,” Max said, her eyes wandering the dirt lot, focusing occasionally at her feet as they toed with the gravel and at other times with the squirrels skittering from branch to branch, and at still other times, simply skimming over the sky as the morning light cut through the needles of the pines above her; but never stopping to focus on Taylor behind her, still struggling with her own self-doubt and with it her hesitance at direct eye contact. 

“You’re welcome,” Taylor mumbled back, but without much enthusiasm. Max heard her exhale, and could smell the smoke from her cigarettes. They weren’t Chloe’s brand, but that didn’t stop Max from craving her own smoke. Her fingers twitched at her side, as she considered asking to bum a cigarette from Taylor.

“Don’t even think about it.” The driver-side door slammed shut as Victoria finally made her exit and Katy Perry ended her song. Victoria always knew when Max was about to cave.

“Cereal?” Max shook her head. It just wasn’t fair. 

“I thought I told you to never use that phrase again.”

“Bite me, Chase.”

Victoria snickered. “Go fuck your selfie,” she tossed back, but without the venom that had accompanied those words in the original timeline. Victoria and Max had developed a less than complementary shorthand over the past couple of weeks, but it held none of the animosity that the words alone might have suggested.

“I mean, just one? I didn’t have one this morning,” Max said, averting her gaze.

While initially Victoria had allowed Max her cigarettes after their conversation at the lighthouse, she had become more controlling of Max’s nicotine allotment since, doling it out only sporadically through the day at first, and had tried (somewhat successfully) to wean her down to only 1-2 cigarettes a day now. On her own, Victoria probably would have failed miserably, but with this bad habit Victoria had felt no shame in sharing with Dana and Kate. Between the three of them, they had hunted down most of Max’s stashed packs and it had become increasingly difficult to sneak off for a midday smoke (or a morning smoke, or a late night smoke for that matter). 

“So that wasn’t you behind the Annex building this morning?”

“Dog,” Max sighed. “Who saw me?”

“Logan and Zachary were tossing a ball or whatever it is the two of them get up to. Sometimes it’s best not to know.”

“Damn.” Max shrugged her hands into her pockets and turned her attention to the trailhead at the end of the lot. She wasn’t going to win this fight, so she might as well get the morning’s trek underway. “Shall we get going?”

“Lead the way, hipster.”

With that, the trio started on their hike, passing sporadic clearings in the woods set aside for campers as they went. North Shore Park was no Overlook Park, but it had its own charm, if, oddly enough, no actual shore. A couple miles east of American rust and about four miles north of Blackwell, the park tucked into the foothills of the surrounding peaks. Rumor was, a few decades back the park had stretched all the way to the public beaches of Arcadia Bay Shore, but bit-by-bit parcels of land had been sold to local lumber interests, and the various families with their own vested interests in Arcadia Bay’s prosperity (the Prescott, Chase, Robertson, and Wagner families, among others). Now, North Shore remained simply an isolated oddity with the offer of decent camping and a labyrinth of hiking trails for those with an outdoorsy inclination. Max had realized not so long ago that any delusion that she had about being outdoorsy was nothing more than a fantasy imposed upon her through a love of nature photography and memories of childhood pirate adventures throughout the wilds of Arcadia Bay. In reality, she was easily winded and even more easily burned. Today, however, she had a plan, and unfortunately it required a trek through the woods and a return to those misadventures of her youth.

“How much further,” Taylor asked.

“Not too far,” Max lied with a slight pang of guilt. I mean, it might not be too far. I haven’t really been here in five years; it’s not like I remember the way perfectly.

“You better not be lying, Caulfield.” Victoria brushed the dust from her leggings. Max had warned her that this morning’s adventure would be far from glamorous, and that perhaps she should wear something a little less elegant, but Victoria had insisted that her leggings, cashmere peasant top, and stadium coat were as dressed down as she was willing to go.

“Of course not,” Max said, hoping she would not come to regret those words.

“Thirty-five minutes is not my definition of ‘not too far,’ Max.” Victoria swiped her phone messages away, and huffed, staring up at the ramshackle construction perched in the trees overhead. They were a few minutes off the nearest trail, some thirty minutes up from the lot – maybe less if some genius hadn’t had to spend a quarter of her time backtracking after taking a wrong turn. “I thought you said you knew where you were going?”

“I got us here, didn’t I?” Max shrugged and Victoria wanted to throttle her. Yeah, she’d gotten them here alright, wherever here was.

“Where are we,” Victoria asked. Max had been less than forthcoming on the details. All Victoria knew was that they had one last photography assignment before the semester came to a close, and Max had been insistent on the location for their final shoot. Victoria and the girl had gone out for  a couple more sessions since that first day-trip, and at this point, Taylor knew about their arrangement, if not the finer details of Max’s trauma ( and do I even have those ) and often tagged along as well. 

Victoria wished that Max and her could just let bygones be bygones and move on already. They had both ostensibly forgiven one another for whatever perceived slights had taken place over Thanksgiving, yet the two maintained a rather distant relationship. If they’d just get to know one another, they might realize they were actually quite similar. Max and Taylor were both tightly wound bundles of nerves, royal pains in her ass, and two of the most caring people she knew – even if they were both Scrooges by comparison with Kate Marsh, but who wasn’t?

“It’s the pirate fort,” Max said, as if that explained anything. “At least what’s left of it.” The girl stared up wistfully at the aged remnants of a tree house clinging precariously to its perch in the branches above. It didn’t look like much to Victoria, but it obviously had some meaning to her hipster friend.

The deck of the fort was just a little above their heads, maybe no more than six feet off the ground. A ratty, wooden railing lined the boxy floor plan around two sides, which exposed a narrow strip of balcony before the enclosed portion of the fort that made up the remainder of that boxy layout. It actually had a shingled roof, although that roof looked like it may have collapsed in at least one location; Victoria couldn’t be certain from this angle. The only aspect of it that seemed to shout pirate, were the circular, porthole-like windows lining the sides of the enclosed portion, some with actual glass, others with the glass long since shattered out in some random act of vandalism.

“Okay,” Victoria nodded. “Care to elaborate?”

Taylor pulled at the cuff of her jacket sleeve, her face an odd mix of emotions, swirling somewhere between her usually better-concealed anxiety and an odd half-smile of amusement. Victoria had noticed that Taylor seemed far more relaxed in shedding her usual calm facade and openly displaying her anxiety around Max (fully aware of how odd a temperament it was that Taylor’s relaxing meant that she was more visibly anxious), but it was quite unusual to see her actually seeming to enjoy herself in her company.

“You, too, Taylor. Something’s up with you. Spill.”

“Just, well…” Taylor started. God, is she picking up some of Max’s habits, Victoria thought, or had she always hemmed and hawed like this when nervous?  “You’ve been up by the old lighthouse, right?”

“Duh,” Victoria said. Yet she took careful note of how Max’s eyes suddenly widened as she listened to Taylor, then shifted immediately to the ground and her feet in that ridiculous timid way that Max had of always averting her gaze.

“You know the map up there? And that weird skull and crossbones just above the tents,” Taylor asked.

Recognition clicked. Victoria pivoted towards Max. “You marked your tree fort on the town map?”

“Not exactly…” Max kicked at the dirt. Yeah, try going silent on me, Victoria thought. Let’s see which one of us outlasts the other. 

The silence stretched, but it didn’t take long for Max to cave. 

“Chloe did it,” she offered, a strange mix of adoration and shame playing out over her reddened cheeks as she bit at her lower lip in yet another nervous habit of hers. Off to Victoria’s other side, Taylor continued to fidget with her sleeve while finally cracking a wide smile, but keeping her thoughts otherwise to herself.

Victoria collapsed her face into her hands. “You both need some damn Xanax, you know that.”

“Or a cigarette,” Max chimed, a slight hopeful waver in her voice.

“No.” Victoria shook her head. “Nice try though.” She relaxed her face from her hands, running her gaze over both Taylor and Max, then finally back up to the ramshackle tree fort above. “So how long has this thing been up here?”

Max appeared to be running the mental arithmetic as she counted out the years on her fingers. When she ran out of fingers, she glanced back at Victoria with a shrug. “Ten, maybe eleven years. My pop built it for us. Him and William.” Max must have noticed Victoria’s questioning eyebrow as she jumped in with one final clarifying detail. “Chloe’s dad. William. He and my pop were close once… I guess.”

Max didn’t really talk much about her parents. Sure, Max and her had only really been on speaking terms for about two weeks, but she’d already heard a lot about Joyce, Chloe’s mom, in that time, but she really didn’t know a single thing about the Caulfields. Something about that gnawed at Victoria, yet at the same time, it’s not like she’d offered up much information about her own parents, Oliver and Theodora Chase. Some doors were best left closed. That being the case, perhaps it was time to get on with the show.

“I take it we’re back on the Chloe Price & Max Caulfield world tour?”

“Something like that,” Max said, still toying with the dirt. “I have some ideas for a few shots.” 

With that, Max waved her over and began pointing out a couple of compositions to Victoria. As the two planned out the framing and focus for the shots, the three eased into the increasingly familiar routine, settling in for the morning ahead.

“We’re almost done,” Max shouted down. Victoria stood dusting her leggings once more seemingly oblivious to Max who stood on the rickety balcony above her. Max knew she was only pretending not to hear her, though. 

“Come on, already, Victoria. Just get up here.” 

Victoria looked up to Max ( I knew you were faking ) and then back down over her poorly chosen outfit. 

“I’ll do your laundry. I just need a couple more shots, okay. And we can’t get them from down there.”

“This is dry clean only, Caulfield.”

“And I’m not the one who decided that was an appropriate outfit for a hike,” Max shot back. At that, she swore she could hear Taylor snickering somewhere down below. Maybe they were finally breaking through to one another. As much as Taylor followed Victoria around like some mean girl lackey, she didn’t seem nearly as elitist as Victoria came across; not once you got to know her. Unlike Victoria, Taylor had prepared herself for the day with jeans, a denim jacket, and boots. Yes, those jeans were faded and torn in designer fashion, as was the jacket, and her boots were some Frankensteined amalgamation of heels, platforms, and Doc Martens, but at least the theme was on point and nothing she was wearing appeared like it couldn’t be salvaged with a run through a normal wash cycle. Max wanted to pursue that line of thought further, but that train derailed as it became apparent that Victoria had heard Taylor’s laugh as well.

“What’s so funny, Tay?”

“Nothing, V,” she giggled back with a little too much emphasis on ‘V.’

“I swear, if you two actually start getting along and tag teaming me…”

She trailed off. Max knew, unfinished as it was, the threat was idle at best.

“Just get up here, already,” Max said. “Otherwise we’ll never wrap up in time for lunch.” 

“Fine.” Victoria rolled her eyes and made her way to the frayed rope ladder Max had rolled down after climbing the tree to reach her old pirate fort – a feat she had failed twice, before Taylor had finally given her a boost. 

Max circled around the balcony and back through the low door of the tree house, just as Victoria pushed up through the trap door in the floor. As she entered, the Queen Bee appeared to take note of the low ceiling of the tree house, then glanced about the dusty interior.

“Yeah,” Max offered up. “You’re probably not going to find a clean place to sit.” Before Victoria rolled her eyes again, Max tossed over her favored gray hoodie. Victoria knew exactly what to do, folding it out below her before taking a seat.

“You really want some shots in here?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Max said. “Really, I think I just needed to see it again, but… well there are a few good compositions.” Max’s eyes had locked on the collapsed ceiling and the birds alighted upon the branches above, singing in the morning sun.

“Let me guess,” Victoria chimed in. “Shot through the dilapidated roof to the birds singing, preferably with a few rays of sun angling down in a semi-heavenly glow. Nature overcoming civilization. Life goes on. That sort of nonsense.”

“It’s like you just get me,” Max laughed, and this time there was no stopping the eye roll from Victoria.

“You need to change up your shit.”

“I don’t know,” Max mused. “The classics are classic for a reason, right.”

“Meh.”

Victoria lined up the shot. “You want to try,” she started and Max immediately froze. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. Not ready. Victoria shook her shoulder softly. “Not the shot, dummy. Just maybe looking through the viewfinder? Letting me know if I’ve got the framing right? Could you do that?”

Max chided herself internally. Victoria had been trying so hard, and she had been so much more careful since that day after Thanksgiving break. Max should have known better than to think she’d actually thrust the camera at her again, trying to force this point again, before she was ready. Dog, you’re an idiot , she thought, then tried to shake the self-loathing aside.

“Max?” Victoria interjected, the concern clear on her face. “Too far?”

“No.” Max shook her head, a lighter, more communicative shake this time. “Not at all. Just… n-not ready quite yet.”

“Okay,” Victoria nodded, squeezing Max’s shoulder. “We’ll get there.”

And they would, wouldn’t they? That was one of the reasons that Max had decided to stay with Victoria over the holidays. In doing so, maybe, just maybe, they could work through her paralysis just enough that she could take some shots on her own again. This arrangement would only work for so long.

“Hey,” Taylor announced herself as she pushed up through the trap door as well. “Are you two done making out, yet?”

“Ewww,” Max said, blushing at the suggestion. She knew Taylor didn’t mean anything by it. She was fairly certain that Taylor didn’t even know she was gay. Wait, I guess I’ve decided that now? I’m gay… not just gay for Chloe. Huh. When did I reach that conclusion?

“Well damn, Caulfield,” Victoria teased. “I’m that repulsive am I?” 

“Uh… No… I…” Max could feel her cheeks flushing, both from Victoria’s apparent offense and from being caught questioning her own sexuality – as if Victoria and Taylor could see through her, right down into her innermost thoughts.. She had no way out. What the hell had she just stumbled into. “It’s not… I’m not trying –”

“Shove it,” Victoria cut in. “I’m teasing. You’re too easy to fluster, you know that?”

Max nodded, but kept her mouth shut. Why did this whole situation make her feel so awkward? 

“Can we just get back to the shots, maybe?”

“Sure.” Victoria motioned to the messenger bag. “Gear up.”

As Max slid on the noise-canceling headphones, she watched Victoria settling into position for the shot. She wasn’t sure how life had taken such a positive turn in the past couple of weeks, and she was even more baffled at Victoria being at the center of that shift, yet in this moment, right then, she was thankful.

After the shot had been captured, Max removed the sleep mask and headphones and began sifting through the remains of her childhood scattered throughout the fort. Here and there she caught signs of hers and Chloe’s past exploits – discarded pirate gear, old drawings, and the like – yet she felt more drawn to the signs that the fort had not in fact been entirely abandoned: cigarette butts lining an ashtray in one corner, discarded flyers for concerts, and the odd band poster here and there, most bearing scantily clad women front and center. Not too subtle there were you, Chloe?

Thinking of Chloe spending an odd afternoon in their old fort, Max smiled to herself. She hoped that her friend had found some peace on those afternoons, away from David and Blackwell and everything that had been troubling her. Could their childhood retreat have been another safe haven for Chloe? Had they been given more time, would this have become a familiar hangout for them, much as American Rust had been prepared to become?

“Hey, Caulfield.” The look of concern on Victoria’s face spoke volumes.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure this trip down memory lane isn’t a bit much?”

“No, it’s good, really. There are only happy memories here.”

“That’s good,” Taylor offered. Her voice held little conviction, as if she was speaking simply to be a part of the conversation. Or perhaps so as not to be left out? Have you thought about that, Max?

“You see anything of interest over there, Taylor?” Max threw out a lifeline. Maybe it was time that she tried to include the girl. Once, before everything, Max knew she had been a good person; the type of girl that would have picked up on Taylor’s distress; the type of person that would have tried to make the lives of those around her better, rather than simply drowning in her own self-pity.

Taylor ran her hands idly over various childhood relics. An old stuffie, now waterlogged and moldy. Aww… Squishy the Octopus. You’ve seen better days, bud.

From there, Taylor flicked at the latch of an old trunk and eased it open. Her hands brushed over aged garments inside, and she turned back to Max with the faintest trace of a smile.

“I think I found an old costume bin, if that counts as of interest?”

“Yeah, it does.” Max shambled over, keeping low to avoid the sagging roof.

“Wait,” Victoria said. “I thought we were here for photographs? Are we just playing stroll down  memory lane, or what?”

Max ruffled through Taylor’s find, pulling out an old purple bandana and an eyepatch. She hadn’t seen these since the day… since the day of William’s accident. The familiar tug of grief pulled at her, but Max fought to stay grounded in the joy of those artifacts instead; of one last pirate adventure with Captain Bluebeard. Holding to that latter thought, she donned the bandana and eyepatch and turned back to Victoria.

“Arrr,” Max said in a weak attempt at a pirate snarl. “Long Max Silver sails, again.”

“Oh my God.” Victoria rolled her eyes. “I knew you were a dork.”

“Or a pirate of Arcadia Bay.”

“How’s this Max?” 

Max turned to find Taylor decked out in a captain’s hat, complete with crossbones and a red sash running as a trim along the bottom of the hat. Max’s eyes watered, and she looked down, dabbing quickly to banish the tears before they came. She could do this. She could have a truly happy morning.

She glanced back up, attempting to don a more cheerful mask, some facade to banish the pain of those memories. She didn’t appear to be succeeding.

“I’m sorry,” Taylor said, lifting to remove the hat. “Bad memories?”

“No.” The word came out sharper than she had wanted, and with a bit too much haste. “Really, it’s fine. Good memories, actually. And it looks great on you. Worthy of Captain Bluebeard, herself.”

Taylor grinned. “Captain Bluebeard?”

“Aye.” Max chuckled, while behind her she could almost hear Victoria pressing at the bridge of her nose in frustration.

“You were both dorks, weren’t you?”

“Pirates,” Max corrected. “Partners in crime.”

“As long as you’re my partner in time.”

“Dorks.”

Max returned her attention to the trunk. Had Chloe stowed all their pirate gear here, she wondered. Had it been too painful to keep at the house? Rummaging through the assorted clothes, Max removed her old plastic cutlass, and continued searching a moment more. At last she gave up finding no sign of the old spyglass. Maybe some things had remained behind at the Price residence afterall.

She slipped the cutlass through the a loop in her jeans, and scanned the remainder of the fort. Nothing else immediately caught her interest, so Max instead turned her focus on the exit to the balcony.

“Alright. You ready for another shot, Victoria.”

“Oh hell yes. Does that mean we’re almost done here?”

“Maybe…”

With that, Max lead Victoria out to the balcony and the rickety railing that ran its length. At the junction where the two railings met at the peak of a corner post, rose a trio of wooden cylinders, carved almost like a telescoping rod. At the top, a metal u-like hook rested at the peak of a set of rusted metal cylinders and knobs that had once adjusted the angle and height of the clasp. 

Max sighed, not so much at the rust that had taken over the contraption, but rather at the absence represented in the empty clasp. 

“I’m afraid Mr. Spyglass is no more.”

“Mr. Spyglass,” Victoria asked.

Max rested her hand on the contraption, loosening a few of the rusted knobs and twisting it this way and that, staring out through the hook from about a foot back, as if her trusty spyglass were still in place. 

“Yeah,” she said. “Every good crow’s nest had one. For spotting shore, and pillagers. The high seas are a dangerous place.”

“Oh my God, Max. Can you warn me next time you’re planning cosplay?”

“No.” Max shook her head. “Now come here.”

Victoria obliged, and Max pointed off at an angle  lined through the empty clasp above the railing. Following the implied line of her cutlass drew a path through the parting treetops and up towards an overlook, where the lighthouse waited, and beyond it, the open seas. 

“Right there,” she said, preparing the sleep mask and headphones once more.

A few shots later and the girls had descended from Max and Chloe’s old fort, preparing to depart for the parking lot. Both Max and Taylor still wore their minimal pirate costumes, each casting the other the occasional ‘arr’ or ‘matey,’ much to Victoria’s chagrin.

“You know the rules about Chloe’s clothes,” Victoria started, gesturing at Max’s outfit.

“Ha. Got you there. These were mine,” Max said, gesturing at her bandana and eyepatch. She then waved her hand towards Taylor and her pirate’s hat. “Those were Chloe’s.”

“Technicality.”

“BS. This is so totally fair game.” With that Max shot a hand to her bandana pressing it tight to her head, as if daring Victoria to remove it.

“Fine.” Victoria rolled her eyes once more. She had been doing that a lot this morning. “We ready to go, now? Or do you have some secret treasure map we need to follow?”

Max’s eyes lit up with more joy than Victoria had ever seen. Oh God, those dorks did have a treasure map, didn’t they? 

“Max… Please tell me there’s not a treasure map.”

Max’s grin widened. “That’s Long Max Silver to you, knave.”

“Oh my God, I’m turning around and leaving right now.”

“No, no,” Max started, dropping her pirate act. “Wait!”

“Yeah,” Taylor chimed in. “I want to hear more about this treasure map!”

Damn it. This stupid adventure had broken the logjam between those two. Now they were being friendly weren’t they. This trip was supposed to get Max behind the viewfinder, again; not cement a Max-led mutiny against me with Taylor at her traitorous side – and oh fuck, now she has me thinking in pirate speak!

“Nope!” Victoria shouted. “No maps. We’re out of here.”

“No, really,” Max called. “No map. Just one more shot, okay?”

“Sure.” Victoria slowed to a halt. At least this request was on theme with the whole original point of the excursion. “One more shot. You thinking you might try to get behind the viewfinder this time?”

“Nooo…” Max said, drawing out the word. “But I did think I would try something a bit new.”

Well, that’s something I guess.

“Let’s hear it.”

“Taylor, do you mind going back up and hiding in the fort? Maybe just the pirate hat and a hint of your hair viewable in one of the portholes?” Max pointed out one of the windows on the front of the fort, indicating her desired positioning for Taylor.

“Sure, Max. I’ll give it a shot.” Taylor made her way to the dangling rope ladder and up into the tree house as Victoria eyed Max suspiciously.

“Okay… what do you have planned?”

“I want to create a memento before we hit up the diner.”

“Elaborate, please.”

At that, Max backed up towards the rope ladder, placing one hand on its side and one foot on the lowest rung. With her other hand, she raised her cutlass as if threatening the occupant of the fort above, then grinned over to Victoria.

“Long Max Silver’s mutiny.”

“Wait.” Victoria didn’t like this one bit. “Are you asking to pose for the shot?”

“I’ll be looking away from the camera up towards our old fort. I’ll be shouting,” she said, shutting her eyes and baring her teeth in a silent approximation of a deafening scream. “Like that,” she continued, dropping the act. “So I shouldn’t be able to see much. Just an homage to old times.”

“I don’t know.” Victoria could feel her stomach turn. This was a bad idea. How did she get the girl to see it? How didn’t she see that already? “Max,” she continued, using her first name for once, hoping that might stress the importance of her words. “This is pushing it.”

“Just two quick shots. Please.”

“Two? Seriously?”

“Cereal, even.” What is it with this girl and that stupid phrase? She has to know how dorky she sounds, but she just doesn’t care. And why does that make me want to cave?

“No.”

“No to the shots, or to the phrasing?”

“Both.”

Max cast Victoria an innocent puppy dog face. Oh fuck me. She’s pulling out the big guns. What is this girl doing to me?

“Fine,” Victoria grumbled. “But I am going on record that this is a stupid idea.”

“You’re the best,” Max grinned, then quickly repositioned into her silent mutiny pose.

Yes, Victoria. You are the best. And she has no fucking clue.

“Here we go, Caulfield,” she said. “Three. Two. One.”

She clicked the shutter release. The flash went off and the Polaroid ejected from the camera. Victoria grabbed it and set it aside ( none of that silly shaking the shot off crap ), then studied her model. Max still held her pose, eyes winced shut in that pirate grimace; but were those eyes shut tighter now? Was that grimace less forced and more real?

“Max, we’re done.”

“Uh-uh,” she grunted. “One more.”

Victoria could tell the girl’s voice was strained. Stupid, bad, no good idea.

“This is a stupid, bad, no good idea.”

“You mean terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea?”

“Yeah, that.”

“Don’t care. Take the shot.”

Fuck!  She wasn’t going to get Max to cave. Not this time. The best she could do was take the damn shot and get this over with.

“Okay, Max,” she said. “Three. Two. One.”

The shutter clicked. The flash lit up the forest; and the photograph released from the camera. There. We’re done. Thank, Fuck.

“There. We’re done. Thank, fuck. Let’s go.”

Max didn’t move. Or rather, Max, didn’t leave from under the fort, but her grimace had faded, and she no longer held onto the rope ladder. Instead, she had slumped over into the dirt, her eyes open and blank. That glassy look had returned.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! She knew this had been a shitty idea.

“Taylor, get down here,” Victoria yelled, trying to ignore the shakiness of her own voice as she ran up to Max.

Kneeling by the girl, she shook her once more lightly by the shoulders. “Come on, Max. Snap out of it, girl.”

The trap door above opened, revealing Taylor. “What happened?”

“She wanted to be in the shot. She wanted to try to actually take another fucking nerdgirl selfie. I don’t know.”

Taylor didn’t say anything. She just froze and Victoria couldn’t blame her.

“Come on, Max,” she said, shaking her again. As she did, she noticed the trickle of blood running from Max’s nose. Hadn’t that happened last time , she thought. Why would PTSD cause nosebleeds?

It wouldn’t. She knew it wouldn’t. This was something more.

“Damnit, Max. Just what in the hell is going on here?”

Max didn’t answer. She sat there, still as could be – catatonic. In point of fact, while the girl had slumped over onto her lap, while Victoria was holding her and trying to call to her, she also knew, knew with an absolute certainty, that Max wasn’t here anymore. Not now.

No, Max thought. I’ve left the fort behind.

At least that fort.

She had just wanted to get a shot, some homage to her childhood; something to represent all the adventures of their childhood, and all the adventures that could have been. Yes, it had been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea, but it had been her idea, and once it had come to her, she had been unable to shake it. Her eyes had been closed; her reaction shouldn’t have been that bad, right?

Yet she had still heard the click of the shutter and even with her eyes shut, she’d sensed the flash in a lessening of the darkness behind her lids. She’d felt the Dark Room stealing in, but she’d fought it. She’d focused on the tree fort and on her and Chloe hiding above, Chloe shouting orders on their secret adventure; and in that moment she’d felt secure. She’d felt like she could take the second shot. The Dark Room had slipped away. She’d banished that place and time and Max had held onto the pirate fort and to Chloe instead. 

She’d been able to hold her own and argue with Victoria – to stay present, grunting her response at first, then resorting to a friendly jibe. Still, Victoria had resisted, and then there was that voice again.

Always take the shot.

And Max had lost it. 

“Don’t care,” she had said. “Take the shot.”

Those words had tasted like rot in her mouth. She had gagged on their filth. Yet they had gotten the point across. Victoria had taken the shot, and then suddenly the Dark Room came hurtling back towards her.

No. Not going there, she thought, and she had raised up her defenses. She had curled into herself and it was as if she’d seized onto some invisible thing, some hidden barrier, and suddenly the Dark Room was no more. Time froze – again. Last time it froze, she had feared the storm, and yet, it had never come. Two weeks had passed and there hadn’t even been a gust of hard wind. What about now? Would the storm come now?

Time slipped away once more, returning to its normal flow, and Max rose, the tree fort looming high above her. It felt off somehow, yet she couldn’t place why. She considered slipping off her eyepatch and bandana, pocketing the makeshift costume as best she could in her tiny skinny jean pockets, but even as she considered the idea, she cast it aside, compelled to leave them in place.

Okay, you two. Let’s go. I’m good . Her voice still shook, and she knew she couldn’t have been too convincing, but maybe they’d let her slide.

Nothing. No response greeted her, and a bubble of anxiety rose up and burst in her gut. Something was wrong.

Victoria, she called. Taylor?

Again, neither girl responded. And her voice? Something was off… like her words were stuck in her throat. She called to the girls, again.

Taylor! Victoria!

No voice actually sounded. She screamed and shouted but it all rattled around inside, never escaping her lips.

As the panic began to set in, a different voice greeted her from up above. 

“Aboard, Mate. Quick. There be trouble on them there waters!”

“Aye,” she said, grabbing onto the rope ladder, her cutlass between her teeth. On my way, Captain Bluebeard ( What! What am I saying? Why am I speaking? How am I speaking? ).  

Only now the oddity hit her; that strangeness that had plagued her since she opened her eyes. She was too short. Her clothes weren’t her own. She still wore her eyepatch and bandana, but her costume had been fleshed out in boots and sashes and even a scabbard for her cutlass. She was in her nine-year-old body at best, ascending the rope ladder to a fort that seemed impossibly high above her, warped into the majestic by the fantasy goggles of childhood.

She pushed through the trap door, shouting to her captain.

“Captain!”

“On deck, Mate!”

Long Max Silver burst forth onto the balcony, her long-haired captain pressed up against the spyglass, rotating it on its holder above the railing. Dog, Chloe looked fierce ( Chloe was so young. Nine, ten? When was this day? When are we? ). Max loved when they played pirate like this, and she was so glad that the girl had convinced her to run off to the fort with her. Chloe always had a way of pulling Max out of her comfort zone, encouraging her to just have fun and get out of her own head.

“Scallywags approach from the starboard!”

“Scallywags? Are you cereal?”

“Dare challenge your Captain? This be mutiny, ye hear! Ye want the plank?”

“No, Captain.”

“Arrr.”

Captain Bluebeard returned her focus to the spyglass, barking orders behind her.

“Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen, me heartie. We’ve a Man-O-War approaching broadside. Heave ho! All hands on deck!”

“Aye, aye!”

Max hurried round the bend of the balcony, raising the imaginary anchor as she did. Hurrying to her captain’s orders, and used to doing so in the relative quiet of their fort’s isolation, the sound of a twig snapping off in the surrounding wood surprised her. Pausing to listen, she could make out the rustle of leaves as well and the unmistakable approach of footsteps. 

The sun hung low in the sky, sunset approaching, and it seemed odd to Max (the now Max; not then Max) to be out so late. Yet that sound of approaching footsteps, coupled with the encroaching dusk, jarred loose a long forgotten memory. Max knew when she was. 

“Max, what’s going on? Can you hear me?”  Whose voice was that? Now-Max heard it… she could almost place it, but it didn’t belong to this time.

And why had the setting sun now melded with a noon-day sun? ( Two suns… two moons… ) As Now-Max pondered the invading noon light, she found herself equally transfixed by the way some broken branches rejuvenated, and others grew a sort of double vision. Moreover, the tree which had been lush in this memory time, now showed in spots barren branches, and other full in green-leafed glory. Most confusing, however, were those blurry, double-vision branches that seemed to exist with a faded echo, solid in their spring glory, yet, wavering ghost-like in their barren winter coat.

Even the railing existed in Twain, solid in its pristine state, but with a ghostly echo of a ruined rail running alongside it. ( Present and past, simultaneous ) Now-Max felt a sense of understanding dawning, only to have her attention jolted back to the solid existence of the past.

Then-Max kicked a pebble from her station on the balcony over towards Chloe. She needed the girl’s attention, but without alerting the intruder.

“Blimey! Ye be wanting the plank, ye scurvy dog!?”

Then-Max pressed a finger to her lips in the universal signal to shush, while pointing off into the wood. Chloe ignored her first mate, scowling back at her.

“Answer ye grog blossom!”

( Dog, Chloe had been dense sometimes, Now-Max thought.) Then-Max simply tiptoed over to her friend, and swiveled the spyglass towards the woods where she’d heard footsteps.

Finally catching on, Chloe leaned into the spyglass.

“Shit,” she said, spotting someone that Then-Max had yet to see: William. The two had been found out. “Uh… Inside,” Chloe whisper-shouted, waving to the fort. “Quick.”

Oh Dog, we’re in so much trouble.

Knowing they were about to be found out, a familiar knot of worry rose up and Max rushed inside, Chloe close on her heels. Now-Max knew what was coming. The two girls had been at the end of their playdate, Max’s parents on the way to pick her up and take her home for the evening, when Chloe had come up with the bright idea of escaping to their tree fort to continue their adventure. They’d snuck off out the back and over the fence, while William had been helping Joyce in the kitchen, making excuses of playing pirate on the swings. In this one instance, they probably shouldn’t have been so close to the truth in their lie. Obviously when William had discovered his two pirates missing from the swings, he’d known where else they were likely to set sail.

As Chloe shut the balcony door behind her, Max, peered over to the large trunk on the far side of the fort.

“Good thinking,” Chloe said, rushing over and emptying the contents. “Get in.”

Max obliged, watching as Chloe hid herself under the emptied contents of the costume bin before she herself shut the lid and ensconced herself in darkness.

Down below a familiar voice called up. From the sound of it, William stood just under the trap door.

“Girls. I know you’re here.”

They said nothing. ( I heard you , Max remembered.)

“I heard you,” William continued, “on my way up the trail. You’ve scallywags to plunder, eh?”

Then-Max wanted to tell him that they were only defending Bluebeard’s treasure from a rival ship, but instead she stayed quiet, hoping that he would move along and they could return to their adventure.

“Look, girls,” William started, again. (Dog, I’ve missed that voice.) “You know I love your imaginations, and I love us having Max over, Chloe, but if you sneak off every time the Caulfields come to pick Max up, they’re going to stop letting her come over at all.”

That had been a low blow. Max could feel the fear rising in her past self’s gut. She could sense the tears forming. She didn’t want to lose Chloe. Chloe was her best friend. Her only friend. She let a muffled cry escape, and instantly she could hear Chloe shifting from her pile of costumes outside the trunk. Then the shouting started, Chloe rising to defend her First Mate.

“Them’s fighting words, Old Salt!”

“Chloe,” William shouted up, finally raising his voice. “I’m not playing.”

Then-Max sniffled from her hiding place in the trunk, and suddenly Chloe wasn’t playing either.

“Stop it! You’re scaring Max.”

“I’m sorry, Max,” William called up. “Just come on down, please.” 

Chloe opened the trunk holding her finger to her lips. What had she been thinking? The jig had obviously already been up. Still, she’d held that finger there, then with her other hand she’d patted at Max’s back as if to comfort her.

“Chloe,” William shouted. “I know it's hard when a playdate ends, but it's not like you won’t see her again soon.”

( Not soon enough , Now-Max thought.)

“Fine,” Chloe said, sagging her shoulders. “Come on, Max. It’s time to strike colors.”

Max wasn’t sure what she meant by that, not Then-Max nor Now-Max ( I’m a bit rusty on my pirate lingo ), but she had acquiesced, climbing out from the trunk and following Chloe towards the trap door.

Of course, William couldn’t see that they had given in to his demands, so still he called up from below. 

“Girls,” he said. “Come on down from that fort, before Ryan and I end up regretting having built it in the first place. I need you to be strong, okay?”

“Okay,” Chloe shouted back, not so much in agreement but more of a pre-pubescent predecessor of her punk defiance. Max couldn’t focus on that though, much as she remembered being in awe of her friend’s courage at the time. No, now her mind focused on only one thing.

Be strong.

That voice on the cliffside. 

Be strong.

That voice carried on the wind.

Be strong.

It had been his voice calling to her; William’s voice calling out from years past; William’s voice piercing time and dreams and death to tell her once more to be strong.

The fort fell away, the planks rotting, then sifting to sand and ash, and finally drifting away on a formless breeze in the boundless void. Max stood hovering in a nothingness that stretched on for eternity. 

Alone.

“Chloe,” she shouted and it was then that she realized once more that she had a voice - not some past self, but this self, this Max lost and alone in some great timeless emptiness had a voice. She tried again. “Chloe!”

No answer came.

Then the darkness dimmed, a soft light piercing through, and the void took form, a tall, elongated structure stretching upward from the yawning darkness until once more the broken lighthouse loomed above her. The debris-filled overlook came into focus as well, along with the collapsed cliffside and that great expanse of the bay. Beyond it lay the shattered remnants of a town that she had let die ( but I saved it? ). 

Footsteps approached from the trail behind her, and Max turned. Cutting through the trees and around the fallen logs, she saw a man that she had not seen in over five years.

“Hi there, kiddo,” he said, and even though she knew she must be dreaming, the tears began to flow and no matter what she did, Max could not stop them.

“Ah. No need for the waterworks, Max,” William said, then leaned over, a tissue in hand, and dabbed at her cheeks. “There you go, Max. All better, okay?”

“Okay,” she sniffed. She knew it was a dream – she knew it – but she couldn’t help but to run up and hug this man, this man that had been like a father to her; this man whose family she had abandoned and whose memory she had dishonored. “I missed you,” she said, the tears streaming once more. “I’m… I’m so s-s-so s-s-sorry.”

“Shhh… No apologies, today.” He ruffled her hair and gave her a light squeeze around the shoulder before turning and walking towards the cliff. Beyond him he saw it, he had to see it – the ruins of Arcadia Bay; the city and the people that Max had condemned. 

“I didn’t want to do it,” Max said. 

“I know, Max. It’s okay.”

“B-b-but Joyce…”

“She’s okay now. It’s you I’m worried about.”

“But Chloe…” Max ran over to the cliffside casting her eyes down towards the waters below. She could still see her there, stepping over the cliff in that last dream, just over two weeks ago. 

“She’s not there,” William said, still looking out over Arcadia Bay. “Your time is almost done here, Max. You’ll have to be strong. You hear me?”

Max sniffled, again. This was too much. She needed to wake up. She needed to get out of this dream. She needed…

“Chloe...” she said again, although this time it came more a whisper to herself; a plea set loose into this place whatever it was; a prayer.

“What about her,” an unfamiliar voice asked from behind her.

To Max’s left, William sighed. “I thought we agreed I’d have this conversation.”

“Pfff,” came that unfamiliar voice again. “Agreed might be a strong turn of phrase. Plus, I want to meet the infamous ‘Max, never Maxine, Caulfield.’”

Max wanted to turn then. She felt compelled to look back. She feared she knew who she would see there and she did not know how she felt about that at all. So instead, she stared out over the bay with William in silence.

Finally, a crow cawed murdering the quiet, and Max reluctantly turned. She pivoted towards the bench where she and Chloe had first discussed her powers; where they had watched the sun set and the snow fall. She turned and she saw that bench below the wreckage of the lighthouse and on it sat a girl just about her height, maybe a fraction taller. She had sandy blonde hair that she wore down long, billowing over the back of the bench and over the red flannel jacket into which she huddled. A soft hand rose, pushing back that hair to reveal the blue-feathered earring that Max had known would inevitably be there.

“Nice to meet you, Max,” Rachel said, her face split in a genuine yet mischievous smile. 

Max felt dizzy. She felt her world spinning. This wasn’t right.

“Max! Come back, girl!”

The winds were picking up now, and she could sense a storm brewing.

“This is why I was supposed to speak to her, Rachel.”

“I know. It’s just Chloe, she wanted me…”

Their voices faded away, their conversations lost to the dream as Max stirred, and once more found herself below her old pirate fort.

“Max!” Victoria shook her lightly. 

“Oh, thank God,” came a nervous sigh from up above, where Taylor still huddled around the trap door.

“You’re back with us, right?” Victoria said, the mix of fear and relief in her voice unbearable.

“Yeah,” Max said, but she wasn’t sure that was entirely true. She wiped at her face, her sleeve coming back red from the blood still flowing from her nose, and even then she could barely focus on the present. All she could hear were those two voices, one of a father figure long since dead, and another of a ghost whom she had never met – both arguing over who was supposed to speak with her. 

And about Chloe… and what Chloe wanted. 

Max let out a deep sigh. Things just kept getting weirder.

Chapter Text

Dec 14, 2013 - First Choice Timeline

“You went there, again, didn’t you?” Victoria glared over at Max from the driver’s seat. Max hung her head in response.

“No?”

“Why is that a question? You went there or you didn’t.”

“Went where?” Taylor asked from the back.

It had taken over thirty minutes to find the tree fort on the way there. The way back to the car had taken only twenty. It went a lot quicker when someone actually memorized the route, something Victoria had made sure to do after the first wrong turn by Max. The hike back had been quiet, Victoria and Taylor both first focusing in on Max and making sure she was really back with them; that she wasn’t lost in whatever memory had stolen her away with the stupid flash of the stupid camera for her stupid mementos. 

I should have never let her push herself so soon , she thought, trying to focus on something grounded - something tangible to which she could hold herself to account. Not those other things, not those voices that she never should have been able to hear. No, it had to be that room, the Dark Room, that's the only thing that made sense. She needed to know; she needed that confirmation. Yet...

“Nowhere, Tay." Victoria buried those thoughts down deep. As much as wanted answers, Victoria hadn’t even considered pushing Max for details until they were safely back at her car. Now, the parking lot some five minutes behind them and the roads of Arcadia Bay stretching before them, she finally felt safe to push once more for answers. Apparently, Taylor did, too.

“It’s okay,” Max mumbled. “She probably knows anyway.” 

Oh Fuck. There’s pouty, Max. Victoria had been sure she left her behind over a week ago. How many nights had she slept in Max’s room, waking her from those nightmares, working with Kate and even Dana on occasion, to try to get Max back to some semblance of normal? You had to go and fuck it up and let her take a ‘selfie’ didn’t you?

“You don’t have to tell me, Max.” Taylor again. 

“Well, maybe not all the details,” Victoria cut in. “But I need to know what happened.”

“Vic?”

“It’s fine, Taylor,” Max said. 

“So, you were there again?” Victoria turned the wheel, steering now onto Main Street. They’d be at the Two Whales soon. It wasn’t exactly Victoria’s notion of an ideal lunch, but Max and Kate had made the plans already and a little grease would probably do the girl good, anyway.

“No?” Max said again with that infuriating uptick of a question at the end. 

No? But it had to be there, that place, right? It's the only thing that made sense.

“No?” Victoria asked. She could play this game, too.

“I started to, I don’t know, slip back there, to that room…”

“Jefferson’s – ”

“Shut it, Taylor!” If Taylor wanted to join the in-the-know club (current membership: two), she could do that on her own time. “You started to slip back there and…”

“I don’t know.” Max rested her head against the window, staring out at the buildings as they blurred by. She let out a deep sigh before continuing. “I tried to focus on a different memory, something other than that place.”

“Okay.”

“And then, I was there. I was back at the pirate fort with Chloe. We were maybe eight or nine. She might have been ten. I don’t know. But instead of that room, I held onto that other memory, and it was like I was living it all over again.”

“I don’t think that’s how PTSD works, Max.”

But she was telling the truth, wasn't she? Those voices... the pirate fort... it made sense. It makes no sense at all.

“Fine," Max said. "You tell that to my brain.”

“So you went to your fort instead of Jefferson’s… ” Victoria rolled her eyes as Taylor attempted to join the club once more, probing for that confirmation. A quick glance over to Max assured her that the girl was okay to share.

“Yes, Taylor. Now, please, don’t mention that name ever, again.”

“Got ya.” Taylor ran her pinched thumb and pointer finger across her lips as if zipping them shut.

“Now, Max, you understand my worry, right?” Victoria took her eyes off the road long enough to catch Max’s puzzled expression beside her. “About what you just said. Slipping into that place after the picture, yeah, I see that. That makes sense. Going to your pirate fort with Chloe, that doesn’t sound like post-traumatic stress. Yet, you were pure catatonic.”

“Uh-huh.” Max nodded then resumed staring out the passenger-side window.

Victoria let her own eyes drift over the street ahead of her, as flashes of memory stirred within: her grabbing to Max, trying to stir her. Ghost-like silhouettes of leaves had stirred on the barren trees around her, and those two voices floated up, rustling through those non-existent leaves.

“Weigh anchor and hoist the mizzen, me heartie. We’ve a Man-O-War approaching broadside. Heave ho! All hands on deck!”

“Aye, aye!”

No, no. That didn't... that couldn't... 

Victoria tightened her grip on the wheel, returning her attention to the here and now.

“That’s worrisome, Max,” she continued. “That shit needs to get checked out.”

Max ignored her, signaling no response, not even a shake of her head to disagree. “Can I see the shot,” Max asked instead.

“In your bag.” Victoria returned her focus to the road. This was pointless. The girl wanted help, but she refused to even consider anything resembling professional help, anything that would require an actual record of her time in the Dark Room was apparently out of the question. 

And even if it weren't how does that explain those images... those voices...

Beside her, Max ruffled through her messenger bag pulling out the morning’s photos. She flipped a moment through them, then paused on the last two shots of her threatening the Chloe pirate stand-in in the fort above her. 

And son of a bitch if the little shit isn’t smiling like a god-damned kid on Christmas morning. Dog, this girl was going to ruin her. Wait… dog? Son of a -

Five minutes later and Victoria’s BMW eased into the parking lot of the Two Whales. Max pocketed one of the two photos of her at the tree fort, then slipped out the passenger door, as Taylor and Victoria exited as well. An odd mix of emotions tugged at her, all battling for the driver’s seat, but Max had no idea which was really in control.

On the one hand, the dream of William and Rachel ( you were awake; that’s not a dream, Max ) had her guts tied into knots. She barely had attained a sense of normalcy around the concept of time travel and now she had cryptic dreams of dead people taunting her. Plus, she couldn’t forget that she had frozen time. Again. That’s twice since murdering Chloe. How many times was she going to risk throwing away Chloe’s sacrifice? The fear threatened to tear her to shreds.

On the other hand, she had the perfect gift for her reunion with Joyce, which brought with it an upswelling of joy. Well, maybe not perfect, but she believed that Joyce might appreciate the thought – knowing that Max hadn’t forgotten about her daughter.

Don’t you forget about me.

Max winced as Chloe’s voice invaded her consciousness. She didn’t have the wherewithal to suffer through that memory right now; although it did bring her to that third hand ( wherever that comes from ). Seeing William again, seeing the old pirate fort, playing with Chloe at dusk for one more adventure of the Pirates of Arcadia Bay – it brought with it a flash flood of grief that could easily wash her away if Max wasn’t careful.

So, that mix of fear and joy and grief swirling about inside her ( like that damnable twister threatening the Bay, looming over it, a beast on the verge of utter destruction ), Max fell into place beside Victoria and Taylor slipping a mask of silence between them. She could tell that they were worried. They're furtive glances in her direction were not exactly subtle. Yet, Max could do little to calm their fears and she definitely couldn’t say anything, not as uncertain as she was to which emotion would take over at any minute. Who knows what she might let spill out if she attempted to speak?

“You sure you’re okay for this, Caulfield?” Victoria tapped her shoulder to get her attention.

Damn. There goes that not speaking bit.

“Yeah,” Max said, her voice practically buried in grief, even that single word coming out in a mix of hitched breaths.

“That sounds okay, alright.”

“Smartass.” This time Max felt that she had her emotions a little better under control. Maybe if she kept her responses monosyllabic, or at least single words, she might be able to prevent too much emotion from breaking in unwanted. That wouldn’t signal that anything was wrong at all.

Taylor held the door for Victoria and Max as they approached, and the trio entered attempting to put on their best game faces. Victoria and Taylor seemed to have theirs down, but Max doubted she had been nearly as successful.

“What’s wrong?” Kate rose from the table, her hand to Max’s back as she looked over with those kind eyes, one hand fidgeting with her crucifix necklace as she spoke.

Yep, you’ve got that happy face down pat, Max.

“Nothing,” Max said, trying to ignore the tremor that ran through her voice this time. Okay, now we’re back to fear. Good going.

“Some difficulty on the shoot, today,” Victoria offered when it was clear that no one was buying Max’s denial. She waved for Max to take a seat between Kate and Dana, then slipped in across the booth, Taylor following after. “Genius here opted to take us to one of her childhood hangouts with Chloe the pirate.” She waved at Max as she said this, as if one look at Max would verify her story, which seemed odd to Max, but she didn’t really want to be bothered thinking that one through at the moment. “I guess she wasn’t quite prepared for the memories is all,” Victoria finished.

Max sniffed a little as she settled onto the bench seat, Kate settling in beside her. Technically, everything Victoria had said was true, but at the same time, it was a lie by omission. Nonetheless, Max couldn’t help but be thankful for Victoria’s quick thinking.

“Sorry, guys,” she said, not bothering to hide her grief this time and swallowing back the lump forming in her throat.

“No problem,” Taylor said. 

Kate simply took Max’s hand, giving it a light squeeze. Dana, however, looked less certain, casting sideways glances between Max and Victoria as if she could suss out the truth on visual observation alone.

“Really, Dana. Nothing. Don’t worry,” Max said. Her voice cracked. Monosyllabic, Max. Monosyllabic , she reminded herself . “ It’s fine. My plan. All me.”

From the look Dana shot her, Max felt fairly confident the girl didn’t believe her. Considering the entire week that Trevor had ended up in the proverbial doghouse after Thanksgiving, Max sensed a hard few days ahead.

Before she could travel too far down that line of thinking, a familiar Southern drawl broke in.

“Hello, girls.” Joyce approached the table, a stack of menus in hand. She hadn’t noticed Max, yet, hidden in between Kate and Dana as she was. It didn’t take her long, however, to spot the familiar hipster. Joyce paused half way through distributing the menus.

“Max? As I live and breathe.”

“Hi, Joyce,” she said, keeping to her monosyllabic approach. “How are you?”

“I won’t lie, Max. It’s been hard; but you’re a sight for sore eyes.”

“You, too.”

Joyce dabbed at her cheeks, regaining her composure, then jumped right back into waitress mode. “So, could I get you girls something to drink while you look over the menu?”

Good a time as any to have my first ever beer, Max thought, but she kept that to herself. “Just an OJ for me, Joyce.”

Kate asked about the teas, Dana joining her in the order, while Taylor ordered a Diet Coke. Victoria, always a force unto herself, opted for a coffee.

“Alright. I’ll give y’all a minute to look over the menu and be right back with those drinks.” Before she left, Joyce cast Max a warm smile. The girl almost immediately cracked, gripping hard to Kate’s hand. To Kate’s credit, she didn’t even yelp, despite the fact that Max quickly realized she had to be hurting her.

“Sorry, Kate.”

“It’s okay,” she said, giving Max a light squeeze back.

Max took a deep breath in, attempting calm her chaotic emotions. Beside her, Dana ran a hand across her back.

“You going to be okay?”

“Yeah.” I’ll be okay if everyone just stops asking me that, she thought a little too harshly. “Thanks, Dana.”

“Okay. But if you need me to kick anyone’s ass…”

In that moment, her frustration threatened to bubble over. Max could scream at Dana, and if she pushed her much more, she just might. She knew the girl meant well, but she was also very aware of how Dana had focused on Victoria while making that promise. Victoria had obviously noticed as well.

“Then you better hope that particular anyone doesn’t see you coming,” Victoria said. “Otherwise it won’t go as planned.”

Dana looked ready to reply herself, but Max elbowed her in the side and luckily the girl restrained herself. Max hadn’t trusted that she could have kept it civil if she had opened her mouth to speak. A growing pitch of anger had snuck in and begun to mingle with that grief and fear and that faint, struggling glimmer of joy.

“So,” Kate broke in, clearly trying to squash the tension. “I know things were rough, but did you take any good shots, Max?”

“A few,” Max lied. The shots were good, but no matter what Victoria said, she knew they were Victoria’s and not her own. 

“Don’t be modest.” Victoria glared at her. Based on the slight edge to her tone, Max suspected even Victoria herself knew they were her photos; and she definitely didn’t seem keen on Max downplaying the results. Max decided to at least have a little fun with her. Maybe it wold help brighten her mood.

“There might be one or two half decent shots, I guess.” Victoria's fingers tightened against her rolled up silverware. “But mostly pretty crap output for the morning.”

Beside Victoria, Taylor burst into laughter, while Dana narrowed her eyes again, once more trying to puzzle out what secrets the three of them were concealing. Kate on the other hand paid none of them any mind, focused still on Max.

“Oh, I’m sure they’re not that bad.”

Max pointedly looked to Victoria. “Oh, I don’t know. They’re not my best work.”

“I will murder you, Max.”

Max snickered, while Taylor continued to struggle to restrain her laughter.

“Can I take a look,” Kate asked, still not picking up on the jabs being thrown across the table.

“Sure,” Max agreed, finally cutting Victoria a break, pulling up her messenger bag and rifling through for the photos. Finding the batch of half a dozen shots from the morning, she withdrew the stack and handed them over to Kate.

Immediately, Kate began flipping through them, turning her artistic eye on each and every photograph. She paused on the first shot of the birds framed through the collapsed fort roof.

“What do you mean, Max. This is a great shot. The lighting in this is beautiful.”

Across from Kate, Victoria beamed, even as she rolled her eyes at the nature of the shot in question. 

“And this one,” Kate called out. “The framing of the lighthouse and the bays through the trees. The composition is gorgeous.”

Well that I can take credit for , Max thought, sticking her tongue out at Victoria who would surely recognize Max’s role in that particular aspect of the shot.

“And the focus…”

Crap. That’s all Victoria.

The girl in question beamed once more, fully aware of how the tides had turned.

As Kate continued to flip through the shots, doing her best to raise Max’s spirits, Dana continued to eye both Victoria and Max, and even the snickering Taylor. She eyed until at last her eyes went wide with realization, and she slammed an elbow into Max’s side.

“Max,” she whispered. “Do we need to talk about something?”

“Uh… No?” Max said. Dog. The jig was up.

Dana didn’t seem ready to drop it, but thankfully Kate called Max’s attention over before Dana could prod her further.

“Why are there two of these?” Kate knew enough about photography (and the cost of Polaroid film) to know that Max wouldn’t have taken two of the same shot without cause. “And who took these two?” The shots in question were of course the shots of Max below the tree fort, preparing to charge up the rope ladder. “Was that you, Tory?”

“Yeah, Tory,” Dana said before Victoria could answer, a knowing tone in her voice. “Are those shots yours?”

Max hung her head. She really didn’t want to have another of those conversations.

Victoria just nodded along. Max knew that she had no way out, so it was better that Victoria just own up to at least the last two shots; which is exactly what she did.

“Yeah. Max wanted a memento. I’m guessing one for her, and one for someone else?”

“Yeah,” Max muttered, just as Joyce approached with their drinks. Quickly Max gathered the photos back up, tucking all but one away, as Joyce handed out the beverages. 

“Y’all need another moment,” Joyce asked. “Or are ya ready to order.”

Kate looked around measuring the looks of her friends and nodded up to Joyce. “We’re ready.”

Max knew what she wanted, but she still wasn’t ready to order. As Joyce began jotting down the meal orders from each of them, Max found her mind wandering back to that last shot, to her replay of that memory of her and Chloe playing pirate at dusk, and to that strange waking dream of Rachel and, more to the current point, William. Just barely thirty minutes earlier, Max had been staring up at Williams’ smiling face. He had hugged her, and ruffled her hair, and wiped her tears. He had spoken to her in that sage, silly way that he always had about him, and it had been as if Max had gained back a long lost father. She could still smell his aftershave and feel the warmth of that hug. She could still hear him, telling her to be strong.

And now, she sat in a booth just feet away from his widow, who had grieved that loss for over five years. Did he come to her in her dreams as well? Max would like to think that he did, but between that momentary freezing of time and the nosebleed that she had discovered upon stirring, she doubted that this was the type of dream that waited for most upon leaving the day behind.

“Max?” 

Max looked up from her thoughts catching Joyce staring down at her, a look of concern marring her expression.

“Sorry,” Max started. “Zoned out for a moment there. Is it too late for a Belgian waffle?”

“Not at all, hon. Figured you might be wanting one.”

Max grinned. “A creature of habit I’m afraid.”

Joyce pocketed her pad and nodded back at Max. “No problem. I’ll get this in and be back right with that order.”

As Joyce made to make her exit, Max tapped Kate on her shoulder. “Do you mind,” she asked, nodding toward Joyce retreating towards the counter.

“Not at all.” Kate sidled out of the booth, letting Max pass.

“Joyce?” Max hurried after her, stopping at the counter just as Joyce rounded it and clipped the ticket up on the order wheel. Joyce turned back, leaning over the glass pastry case.

“You need something else, Max? Some cake?”

“No… well, actually that sounds great, but that’s not it.”

Joyce opened the back panel, pulling out a slice of red velvet cake. “Still partial?" 

Max nodded, already salivating. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Always Joyce, Max.”

“Yes, Joyce.”

“So, if it's not cake…”

“I… I wanted to say that I’m… I’m sorry.” Max hung her head as she apologized.

“You don’t have anything to apologize for, Max.”

She was wrong, so very wrong. She had done it, again, and it was eating her up inside.

“I do,” she said. “I… I should have been there. Then… you were just, you opened up your house to me… you let me gather up my own keepsakes, and then… then I just left. Again.”

“Again?” Joyce pushed back from the pastry case, rounding the counter and placing a hand on Max’s back. “Why don’t you step back here for a second? Can you do that?”

“Sure,” Max nodded, allowing Joyce to lead her through the door to the back room just off from the kitchen. As they entered the pseudo-pantry, pseudo-storage room, Joyce motioned to a foldout chair propped in one corner near an ashtray and some discarded drinks.

As Max sat, Joyce knelt down in front of her taking Max's hands in hers.

“When you say again, you don’t mean William, do you?”

Max couldn’t meet Joyce’s gaze, keeping her eyes turned towards her feet as had become habit.

“Max, you were just a kid. You didn’t have a say in leaving.”

“But I could have called,” Max choked. 

“Honey, that wasn’t on you. Not then. You’d never lost anyone before. No one expected you to know how to handle that. And I sure didn’t hold you any ill will. I knew you were struggling, too.”

Max nodded and sniffed, but she didn’t know what else to say.

“Can you look at me?”

Max lifted her gaze up to Joyce. She couldn’t look her in the eyes, but she tried to look in the general direction of her face. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Joyce said, holding Max’s hands tight in her own.

“I abandoned you… again.”

“Well, let’s just drop that again nonsense right now, darlin.”

“Sorry,” Max muttered, doing her best not to look away.

“Max.”

Max shook her head, forcibly stopping her self from apologizing again. “Bad habit. Kind of hard to break.”

“I understand. But no more apologizing. Not for then. Not for now.”

“But it's been nearly two months.”

“Honey, you take all the time you need. If this is too soon for you, we don’t have to talk today. I’ll be here when you’re ready.”

Max nodded. How is Joyce so good at this, she thought. Then another thought followed that one unbidden; one that she tried to suppress. Why hadn’t she been this good at this with Chloe? This wasn’t the time for that thought, so Max let out a shaky breath, then returned her attention to her initial goal for this lunch.

“You’re too good to me, Joyce.”

“Nonsense,” she said, releasing Max’s hand and easing herself back to her feet.

“Wait.” Max grabbed Joyce’s hand before she could step away, then let out a soft chuckle as she rose herself. “I came here hoping to be here for you.”

“Caring isn’t a one-way street, hon.”

“I guess not,” Max shrugged, then reached into the pocket of her hoodie. As she did, Joyce grabbed at her shoulder, her eyes locked on that blood-stained sleeve.

“Are you okay? What happened to your…”

“Oh.” Max paused, her hand still in her pocket. Now would have been a great time to still be able to rewind. She would have definitely left this hoodie in the booth. “It’s nothing. Just a little nosebleed.”

“Doesn’t look little to me. You sure you’re okay? I don’t need to be calling your mother, do I?”

Max gulped. “No, no. No need for that.” She paused, thinking over what she was saying. “Actually, I imagine she’d love to hear from you. But not on my account.”

“Okay. But if something’s going on, you know you can come to me, right?”

“Of course.”

“Good. So you wanted something?”

“Yeah.” Max slipped the photo from her pocket, holding it out towards Joyce. “I have something for you.”

“Is this a Caulfield original?”

“Sort of. I had help.”

Joyce took the photograph from Max, smiling  a sad little smile as she looked over the old pirate fort, Max threatening to climb the ladder, while a captain’s hat could just barely be seen in the porthole above.

“I wanted you to know that I was thinking about her. That I still am… That I’ll… I’ll always remember her.”

“I know,” Joyce said, choking back her own sob. “I kind of already knew… that she was on your mind that is.”

“You did?” Max looked puzzled, trying to figure out how Joyce had known. 

“Of course I did. It’s kind of hard not to recognize Long Max Silver.”

“Huh?”

Joyce gestured towards Max’s head, and it was then that Max realized she was still wearing her bandana. 

“Oh.” She turned looking for and finding a mirror on the wall behind her. Not only did she still have her bandana on, but her eyepatch was still there, even if pushed aside from her temple so that the patch hid partially beneath her hair. How zoned out had she been not to notice that she was still dressed up?

“Dog,” she said. “I could have sworn I took these off.”

“Guess not. Now, how about we get you back to your table and your cake. Pretty sure my other tables are about ready to mutiny.”

Max chuckled, attempting to play off her embarrassment, but she couldn't do anything about the blush in her cheeks. “Okay, Joyce.” 

Uplifted as she felt after finally coming around and seeing Chloe's mom, again, Max felt a twinge of displeasure as well. Her piece said, and her guilt softened, there were a couple someones waiting on the other side of that door that she needed to be taken down a peg or two.

As Joyce led her back into the diner proper, Max popped her eyepatch back over her eye with a snap and a very pointed glare directly at Victoria and Taylor. The two immediately erupted in laughter.

After a belabored moment trying to keep a straight face, Max cracked, and burst into laughter as well. She couldn't help it. It felt good.

She felt... good? 

No. It was more that. She felt...

She felt happy. Actually, truly, happy.

Chapter Text

Dec 18, 2013 - First Choice Timeline 

You got this, Max thought, rolling her shoulders and shaking out her nerves. You can do this. And she really thought that she could. Her nervous exhale aside, she felt confident; she felt strong; she felt good.

Oh yeah, it had been a terrible couple of months full of fits and starts, of one step forward and two steps back, but she felt as though recovery were really possible now. She couldn’t forget about Chloe – she wouldn’t even if she could – but she just might be able to get on living, the way that her friend had wanted her to do. Even with the trouble of the last few days, with the slip into another memory and the stoppage of time yet again, she still felt in control. No signs of a storm had revealed themselves. Animal life continued on unabated with no birds dropping dead, nor whales beaching themselves. No double moons or strange eclipses marred the skies. No weather anomalies baffled the meteorologists. All continued as normal, and it seemed that her actions had been completely inconsequential, which was an oddly soothing realization.

As if in harmony with that thought, a comforting, familiar hand gripped Max’s shoulder.

“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Dana made sure to catch Max by the eyes when she said that. Max had noticed of late that Dana had really picked up on how rarely Max looked anyone in the eyes. The girl was too observant. Damn her. Max tried her best to hold that gaze with Dana. 

“I know,” she said. “But I want to.”

And she did. School was out. As of four hours earlier, the last bell had rung for the semester. Winter break was now upon the student body, and somehow, miraculously, with Victoria’s help ( and Kate’s and Dana’s, of course ), Max was still a part of that student body. She had two-and-a-half  weeks of vacation ahead of her, most of which would be spent working through her photography hangups with Victoria, but before that kicked off, she had only a couple days left with the remainder of her friends. They would all begin their homeward bound journeys either tomorrow or the next day, and with that being the case, tonight Max would kick off that last hurrah of 2013. 

She had made up her mind. She was going to a party.

She  was going to a Vortex Club party.

The world was not going to hold her back any longer. 

Sure, she knew it would be an odd way to end the year, but most of her peers would be there, and, more importantly, a good many of her closest friends. Dana, of course, stood at her side already. Victoria, Taylor, and Courney were already inside, as was expected of Vortex Club elites – and who would have thought you’d count that trio as friends? Honestly, Dana should have been in there already as well, but she’d made it her personal mission to ensure Max did not enter that party alone.

The cheerleader had  swung by Max’s room two hours earlier to help her pick out an outfit and even apply some makeup. Max had thought to protest that last bit (and she knew Courtney would be hurt that Dana got the chance to do Max’s makeover and not her), but in the end, Max knew how important these events were for Dana, and so she’d just gone along with it. Luckily, Max’s wardrobe lacked any true party girl outfits, and Dana being the tall sasquatch that she was, none of Dana’s outfits were a good fit for Max. In the end, they’d made do with one of Max’s least geeky, closest to chic t-shirts, a dark pair of jeans, her chucks, and her only non-hoodie jacket: a light gray, box-store cardigan. That was about as fancy as Max was willing to go. Then, much to Dana’s chagrin, she topped the outfit off with Chloe’s beanie. That had become a staple of Max’s wardrobe and she wasn’t going to let some party snobs stop her from being herself.

“Well, then,” Dana started. “You ready?”

Max hesitated. She was ready. She could do this. So why couldn’t she get her feet to move and carry her inside? And why was Dana watching her so closely?

“You really don’t have to. Don’t put on the brave face for me. I’m sure Kate and Alyssa would love to have you at the counter-Vortex movie night.”

That they would , Max thought. 

Apparently Alyssa had gone full anti-Vortex Club after she’d wound up knocked into the pool at the End of the World Party in October, and, well, Kate, after she’d gone viral she didn’t have any inclination to attend any parties where the alcohol flowed freely. The two had banded together and declared a movie night in the downstairs TV lounge, where co-ed was an option. Last Max heard, Daniel and Luke had opted in along with a few of the super senior art kids that Max didn’t really know too well. It was an option…

Max pulled up her phone, parsing through an insanely long string of texts on a group chain attempting to encourage her participation in the anti-Vortex Club movie night. She appreciated the sentiment, that for some reason this group wanted her to be included, and yet she had wanted to tackle the party – to face that challenge head on. Still, reading the many texts did boost her spirits. She might as well give them one more look.

Kate Marsh: Movie party starts in an hour. Everyone’s welcome! :)

12/18/13-7:02 pm

Kate Marsh: That includes you, Max! You can still back out of the Vortex Bash. 

12/18/13-7:03 pm

Alyssa Anderson: Already set up and holding down the fort. Got a good book to keep me company until backup arrives.

12/18/13-7:03 pm

Kate Marsh: Oh. I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have set it up by yourself. I’ll be right down. Do we need anything down there?

12/18/13-7:03 pm

Alyssa Anderson: Alice.

12/18/13-7:04 pm

Kate Marsh: Anything besides Alice?

12/18/13-7:04 pm

Dana Ward: No bunny cuddles without me!

12/18/13-7:05 pm

Warren Graham: Running late. Brooke wants to hit up the Vortex shindig. Maybe we can get our geek on after?

12/18/13-7:05 pm

Kate Marsh: No problem, Dana. Alice secured in Room 222. Bunny cuddles reserved for the afterparty?

12/18/13-7:06 pm

Dana Ward: Kate Marsh? Are you inviting me to your room for an afterparty? I’m shocked. Shocked, I say.   =^_^=

12/18/13-7:06 pm

Kate Marsh: What? No. Just bunny cuddles. Don’t be mean to me.

12/18/13-7:07 pm

Luke Parker: Wait? I want bunny cuddles. Kate? You have a bunny?

12/18/13-7:07 pm

Daniel DaCosta : On my way. Bringing my sketchbook if anyone would be up for posing. Looking for a new muse.

12/18/13-7:09 pm

Luke Parker:   Dude. Don’t be the creepy guy trying to get all the women to model for you.

12/18/13-7:11 pm

Daniel DaCosta : Oh no. I’m sorry. No, that’s not what I meant. I can leave the sketch book. 

12/18/13-7:12 pm

Kate Marsh: Luke! Daniel’s not creepy. He’s sweet. He can bring his sketchbook if he wants to.  I’ve actually got some sketches I’d like to share too, if you’re interested.

12/18/13-7:13 pm

Daniel DaCosta : Absolutely. Thanks, Kate.

12/18/13-7:14 pm

Alyssa Anderson: I’m almost done with my chapter. Where is everyone?

12/18/13-7:15 pm

Kate Marsh: Sorry. Just looking for my sketches. Be right down.

12/18/13-7:15 pm

Dana Ward: You were sneaking in Alice cuddles weren’t you?

12/18/13-7:16 pm

Kate Marsh: Maybe.

12/18/13-7:16 pm

Brooke Scott: OMG! Why are u all blowing up my phone?

12/18/13-7:17 pm

Brooke Scott: Wait. What the hell, Warren! We haven’t even made it to the party and you’re already planning an escape!

12/18/13-7:18 pm

Warren Graham: What?

No. No. Afterparty, babe. We’ll dance first.

12/18/13-7:20 pm

Brooke Scott: Will we

12/18/13-7:21 pm

Warren Graham: What?

Of course. I’ve got you, Brooke.

12/18/13-7:22 pm

Brooke Scott: Do you

12/18/13-7:22 pm

Luke Parker:   Bro, you are so busted.

12/18/13-7:23 pm

Warren Graham: Of course I’ve got you.

Wait. That wasn’t an actual question was it? 

12/18/13-7:23 pm

Warren Graham: WAS IT?

12/18/13-7:24 pm

Warren Graham: Frak.

Dr Graham is signing out. 

12/18/13-7:25 pm

Alyssa Anderson: Still waiting. About done with my second chapter. Where are you all?

12/18/13-7:27 pm

Alyssa Anderson: On second thought, story’s getting good. Take your time.

12/18/13-7:28 pm

Luke Parker:   So is anyone there, yet?

12/18/13-7:39 pm

Kate Marsh: Yeah. Alyssa and I are here. Daniel, too. Just comparing sketch books. We’ll be good to start the movies as soon as everyone is ready.

12/18/13-7:40 pm

Dana Ward: Luke! Not cool. Don’t text in for a roster just so you can weigh your options.

12/18/13-7:40 pm

Luke Parker:   I didn’t even know you were still on this chain.

12/18/13-7:40 pm

Dana Ward: I didn’t even know you still attended Blackwell.

12/18/13-7:41 pm

Kate Marsh: Don’t be mean, Dana.

12/18/13-7:42 pm

Dana Ward: Fine. But I’m holding you to that bunny cuddles afterparty.

12/18/13-7:43 pm

Kate Marsh: Yay! Bring Max. =D

12/18/13-7:43 pm

Alyssa Anderson: She appears to have lost her phone.

12/18/13-7:44 pm

Dana Ward: She’s here. Just finishing up her makeup. She says hi.

12/18/13-7:45 pm

Kate Marsh: Hi, Max!

12/18/13-7:43 pm

Alyssa Anderson: Makeup? No joining the dark side, Max!

12/18/13-7:43 pm

Warren Graham: Pictures!

12/18/13-7:43 pm

Luke Parker: Didn’t you sign off?

12/18/13-7:44 pm

Dana Ward: Bro! Brooke’s on this chain.

12/18/13-7:45 pm

Warren Graham: Frak

12/18/13-7:45 pm

Kate Marsh: You can still come to movie night, Max! Don’t let Dana force you to go to the party if you don’t want to.

12/18/13-7:46 pm

Dana Ward: I would never do that…

12/18/13-7:47 pm

Send help. She made me put on makeup and is forcing me to adfasdf :Max

12/18/13-7:48 pm

Dana Ward: Max’s phone has been confiscated until further notice.

12/18/13-7:49 pm

Kate Marsh: Awww. We’ll miss you, Max!  :)

12/18/13-7:50 pm

“Aww,” Max said, staring at her phone. “Do you think I should text them back? Kate really seems to want me there.”

“Hey!” Dana scowled looking down at Max’s phone. “How’d you get your phone back?” She playfully reached over as if to re-confiscate Max’s phone, and, playing along, Max yanked her hand away in an exaggerated evasion.

“Eeep.” Max pocketed her phone, stuffing it deep into her cardigan.

Dana laughed, seeming to enjoy the friendly antics. Max supposed it had been a while since she and Dana had just relaxed together. Come to think of it, Max wasn’t sure that they ever had. They hadn’t really become close until after Chloe had died, and ever since then, Dana had been acting the mother hen, protecting and comforting Max. She had tried to get her out for the Halloween party, but that had been a spectacular failure. Since then, had she gone to any social events with Dana that didn’t involve a quiet evening in or a big emotional confrontation, like the lunch at the diner over the weekend?

“It’s cool, Max,” Dana said, cutting into Max’s thoughts. She seemed to be taking Max’s quiet for hesitance to attend the party. “You really don’t have to come if you don’t want to. I’m not just paying you lip service.”

“No, it’s fine. I really do want to.” Max looked up and off to the side as if puzzling out a rather elusive thought. “Like, really want to? Huh. Honest to Dog.” Max was as surprised by this revelation as Dana, but with that surprise came a peace of mind. She was ready. She was really ready to live, again.

“Great. Can we go in then?” Dana motioned towards the gym doors, signs for the End of the Year Blast plastered on either side of the entrance. Max couldn’t help but to notice the many abandoned red solo cups and the streamers of toilet paper hanging from the trees or crumpled in wads on the sidewalk. The whole thing gave her massive End of the World Party vibes, and yet, painful as that memory was, it wasn’t yet marring the moment. 

“We’ve been standing out here for ten minutes now and it’s like five degrees above freezing at best,” Dana continued. As she spoke, she eyed Max expectantly. Her patience might have been wearing thin.

“Sure.” Max took an exaggerated step forward, then rounded on Dana with an equally overemphasized cool girl pose. “Ready for the mosh pit, shaka brah.”

Dana shook her head, as she placed a hand on Max’s shoulder, gently turning her back towards the gym. “No, Max. Just no.”

“No shaka brah?”

“No shaka brah. Like, ever.” Dana shook her head.

“All my friends are no fun. No shaka brah. No cereal. Next thing you know I won’t be allowed to say wowsers.”

Dana snorted at this. “That’s correct.”

“Wait, wowsers is banned, too? Hella uncool.”

“See, Max,” Dana said as she reached for the door. “This is what happens when you hide away in your room all the time. You form some sort of mutant hybrid language that no one understands.”

Max was about to reply that Chloe would have understood, when her words stuck in her throat. She wished that it was because she had thought better of that approach; that she had realized that if tonight was about moving on and living again, then maybe she shouldn’t be throwing Chloe in everyone’s faces; but she couldn’t say that. No, the words failed her because of the shock of seeing David Madsen stumbling around the bend from the main quad towards the parking-lot side entrance of the gym.

“Hold on a moment.” Max grabbed Dana’s arm, pulling her back from the door.

“Oh God.” Dana took one look at Mr. Madsen and immediately recoiled. “What’s he doing here? These events are supposed to be a Blackwell Security no fly zone.” 

“I want to know how he got here,” Max said, noting his wobbly stance, and the way he swayed as he approached. He could barely walk a straight line.

“Shit. Is he drunk?”

“What you girls gawking at?” As he approached, David stumbled into the trash can right before the cordoned off walkway to the entrance. He grabbed onto the lid, perhaps to stabilize the trash can before it tipped, perhaps to stabilize himself. Both seemed just as likely to Max. “You never seen security at a party before?”

Dana shook her head. “Not at a Vortex party, no.”

“Fuck.” David forced himself to stand up straight, sticking out his chest as if to stress his alpha male status. The whole gesture looked sad more than it did anything else. Not noticing, or not caring, he continued on. “Shit you kids get up to. Off duty my ass. This is exactly when you need security.”

“You’re supposed to be off duty?” Max asked.

“Yeah. Good old, Principal Wells sent the orders. Stand down, soldier.” Madsen gave a half-assed salute at that, then blinked a few times, his eyes suddenly widening in recognition. “Maxine, is that you?”

“Never Ma–” Dana started only for Max to wave her down.

“It’s okay,” she said, glancing to Dana. She then turned on Chloe’s stepfather. “Mr. Madsen, how’d you get here?”

“What? What type of question is that?” He stumbled from the trash can towards the belt line divider on the left side of the sidewalk. As he fell into it, this time the stanchion was not as lucky as the trash can and collapsed over into the bushes. David, however, somehow managed to stay on his feet. “Fucking cheap ass stanch… thing.”

Despite Dana’s urging to leave him alone, Max put a hand to David’s arm and tried (for once in her life) to look him straight in the eye. “Mr. Madsen? Did you drive? Do I need to call Joyce?”

“No,” he said, bolting upright as if the name of his wife alone sobered him right up. “I’m fine. I took the bus.”

“Okay…” Max started. “But that won’t be running all night.”

David jostled the keys on the right side of his belt. “I appreciate the concern, Maxine, but got a solid couch in the security office if needed.”

“Okay.”

“Do they have a coffee maker in there,” Dana asked.

David’s paranoid security facade snapped back in place instantly. “Young lady, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t give me any lip.” 

“No lip, Mr. Madsen.” Max waved a hand down behind her gesturing for Dana to stay quiet. “We’re just worried is all.” With that last comment, Max’s eyes fell on the gun still holstered at David’s side. He should definitely not be wearing that right now.

“It’s fine, Maxine. I’m good.” Maybe he thought he was good, but Max was pretty certain when Principal Wells got stuck between Prescott and Madsen on why security showed up to a Vortex event, Wells would side with Prescott. And why was Sean Prescott still funding these events anyway. Wasn’t that a giant red flag, all things considered?

“I know. I do,” Max continued. “But will everything be alright if word gets back to Wells that you were here?”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Dog, no.” Shit. There’s no talking to him like this. I only have one choice left, she thought; and she really didn’t want to make that choice. Yet, his hand drummed so close to that gun, Max didn’t trust David to stay on the grounds tonight. She had to go nuclear. “It’s just… you’re Chloe’s stepdad. You and Joyce, you mean a lot to me.” Max had to struggle to keep her disgust from showing in her expression at that last remark. She loved Joyce, but David, yeah, maybe there was some good in him somewhere ( way down deep ), but he was still the man that had hit his step-daughter – that had hit Chloe. Yeah, she’d erased that blow, erased it along with the rest of that missing week, but if he’d done it once in any timeline, how many times had he done it before? She never did get to ask Chloe, but she didn’t need to. That one act said all she cared to know. 

“I’d hate for you to lose your job,” she continued. “I know that would be hard on both you and Joyce, right now.”

David eyed her, as if weighing whether he was hearing rational concern or another threat. Max wouldn’t want to bet on those odds, so she remained quiet, hoping not to trigger any of his delusions with the slightest misstep. Is this how Chloe lived all those years? Quiet and with bated breath? Just hoping she didn’t wake this man, call his attention and with it his temper ?

At last, David grunted. “I don’t trust most of these brats. Not farther than I can throw them. If you and that haughty, know-it-all Ms. Grant hadn’t fought me on those cameras, I wouldn’t have to be out here, right now.”

“You don’t have to, David. Cameras or no cameras. I’m not saying anything, but how many other students have seen you here? What happens when Wells finds out?”

David shook his head. Is he trying to say no, Max wondered. Trying to shake off the drunkenness? Shake himself sober? All of the above?

“Fine,” he said, his gruff tone doing little to provide any answers to the questions swirling in Max’s head. Still, he seemed to be acquiescing, and that was for the best. “You all can have the gym,” he continued, “and the lot, but the main grounds are mine.” With that, he turned, swayed, then straightened and went on his way.

“Thank you, David!” Max called after him.

“Mr. Madsen on campus, Maxine,” he called back, never turning, never looking her way; and never removing his hand from his holster.

Max let out a deep sigh then shifted back to Dana. “Let’s get inside.”

“Yes, please,” Dana nodded, then hurried into the gym.

Once inside, Max and Dana were met with a familiar site. Once more, the entryway had been curtained off to form a make-shift coat check area, a thumping bass invading the cordoned off entry and flashing lights piercing through the gaps in the curtains from the party proper. Some sort of electronic-pop mix blared through the speakers spread throughout the gym, and Max already regretted coming to the party – not because it reminded her of that terrible night in the lost week ( it does ), but because the music was just so awful. She could really go for some Mud Flow or maybe some Jose Gonzalez. She’d even take Firewalk or PissHead over this.

With a shaking hand, she pulled her cardigan off. It was hot in the gym, at least in comparison to the near freezing temperatures outside, and Max didn’t want to sweat all night in her jacket if she didn’t have to. 

“Max, you're trembling.” Dana grabbed her arm. 

“I know.” Max nodded back to her. “It’s not what you think.”

“David really freaked you out, didn’t he?”

“Okay, nevermind. It’s exactly what you think. Let’s just wrap up here and get out to the dance floor. What do you say?”

Dana grinned. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Smiling back, Max turned and waved to Stella. “Hey, Stella!  How much do I owe you for the coat check?”

“Hey, Max! Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Figured I’d be at the counter-party movie night?”

“Kind of.” 

“Yeah… normally you’d be right. So?” Max handed Stella her coat.

“Ah. Two dollars.”

Pulling a bill from her pocket, Max handed over a five. “Keep the change, Stella.”

“Really?” Stella knew Max didn’t come from money and Max suspected that while she had no difficulty taking cash from the Vortex elite, she probably felt a little more reserved on the matter with her fellow scholarship students.

“Yeah, Stella. You deserve it putting up with this all night,” Max gestured to the air and then pointed off towards the nearest speaker to indicate the music.

“Not to your liking?”

“No.” Max laughed a little, and she noticed that her hands were shaking less the further she got from the memory of David Madsen stumbling the Blackwell grounds drunk with a gun in his holster. With that thought, the tremor returned and she quickly clasped her hand to her side to steady it.

And there’s that tremor, again.

“Well, mabe at least the drinks will be good. Thanks for the tip, Max!”

“No problem. Take care, Stella.”

“You, too!”

With that, Max turned, grabbed Dana by the arm, and hurried off through the curtain to the party on the other side.

Upon entering the main area of the gym, Max’s first thought was to wonder why Courntey had spent so long planning this party. It looked to be a virtual carbon copy of the End of the World Party: the same curtained off areas, the same DJ setup on the far end of the pool ( though maybe not DJ Doomsday, tonight ), and the same strobing lights. There was even the same virgin bar off to Max’s left; and she suspected the same real bar would be waiting for her in the VIP section. 

As she and Dana passed by the diving board, making their way through the crowd towards the VIP section, Max noticed Warren and Brooke dancing poolside. Warren had absolutely no rhythm, but he appeared to be in luck, because it didn’t appear Brooke did either. As she glanced in their direction, Brooke happened to look up and upon seeing Max immediately soured. She pulled Warren in closer, dancing around him, and shifting him to make sure that his back was to Max. 

I’m not an idiot , Max thought. I know you’re trying to make sure he can’t see me. How fucking insecure can you get? Although, as she contemplated Brooke’s jealousy, Max did remember Warren asking for pictures of her in the group text chain. On second thought, she probably couldn't blame the girl for being jealous. But Dog, it's not like she had any interest in Brooke’s man, or any man for that matter. 

Trying to ignore Brooke, Max continued on behind Dana, turning at the corner of the pool and drifting past the virgin bar as she did. Justin leaned against the makeshift countertop shouting over the music towards the ‘bartender.’ 

“What do you mean you can’t make a pickleback? You got pickles back there? You got Jamison?”

The bartender leaned in close as he answered Justin. Max couldn’t make out his words, but it was clear that he didn’t have what Justin wanted. I mean, dude, they don’t serve alcohol to the peasants, bro.

“Fuck!” Justin shook his head. “That’s totally uncool. I bet they have Jamison in the back. Pickles, too. Who doesn’t have fucking pickles!”

Max shook her head and continued on, nearly colliding with Evan as she turned back towards Dana.

“Whoa, watch it, Max,” Evan shouted, balancing his red solo cup carefully in one hand and his camera in the other. 

“Sorry, Evan.”

“No problem, I just hate to damage the equipment.” He hefted up his camera at that.

Max didn’t even know how to respond. She simply flashed Evan an apologetic smile and continued pushing her way through the crowd behind Dana. Some bros to her left started tussling over a spilt cup, and suddenly Max felt herself jostled to the side, just barely catching herself before she would have fallen into the pool.

Alyssa stumbled straight into the water with a scream as the music blasted and two boys started laughing. “Epic fail!”

Max had to warn her. Lifting her hand, she grabbed hold, searching for that river of time and turning it back. 

No. That was then. The music blared and the strobes flashed, sending Max stumbling forward.

“You okay, Max?” Dana had stopped, picking up on Max’s shifting mood.