False Dichotomy

Chloe's funeral should have been the hardest thing Max ever lived through, but she couldn't bring herself to be upset. It didn't feel real to her, no more permanent than any other time she'd seen Chloe's corpse. She didn't cry once during the entire service, though she did wonder self-consciously if the other people in attendance thought she was cold-hearted.

The last few days of her life had been a blur, moving by without any initiative or recognition on her part. She was asked about the crime she had witnessed, she was recommended counseling, she was offered time off from school to cope with her grief, and it all flew past her without a moment's thought.

The only thing she really kept in mind was the storm, and the dire consequences of meddling with time. She didn't use her rewind power once, which was strange to her. At one point she had knocked over a glass of water and simply stared at it, at a loss for what to do. In a few seconds, she remembered herself and started searching for paper towels, but for a few moments, she had utterly stopped.

At the funeral, she made no mistakes worthy of a rewind. She didn't fall over or sneeze into the casket or any number of things that could have gone wrong. It simply came and went, cloaked in the same feeling of unreality she'd grown used to. It might have even been comforting to her.

"Hey, Max?"

She was snapped out of her train of thought- or perhaps the absence thereof- by a sharp voice. She was exiting the cemetery with the rest of the small group of people who had attended the burial, and had been approached by Victoria.

Most of the people who had shown up were either Chloe's classmates or friends, so Victoria's attendance had been something of a surprise. Max suspected she'd come out of a sense of responsibility, either for Nathan's actions or her own unkindnesses to Chloe when they'd attended Blackwell together. Her face was unreadable to Max, but that was the case for most faces, especially as of late.

"Yeah?" She didn't make eye contact, not quite sure how to carry the conversation.

"I, uhm…" Victoria paused. "Could we talk? Like, just us."

"I didn't know anyone else was talking," she replied unhelpfully.

"You know what I mean," she insisted. "Just… let's hang back a little, okay?" Even Max, tactless as she was, could tell Victoria sounded like she was being made to eat poison. Max was tempted to be belligerent, but it was clear Victoria was already reluctant to do this, and pushing it might deter her entirely.

"Sure."

The pair slowed, falling back to the back of the group. There really weren't that many people, which Max found sad in an indistinct, distant way.

Once they were far enough back for Victoria to be satisfied, she turned to Max, searching for eye contact that she wasn't granted. The pained, reluctant look returned to her face.

"What I wanted to say was that I'm sorry. I've been awful to a lot of people for a lot of stupid reasons, and one of those people is you, so. I'm sorry."

Max didn't accept or reject the apology, addressing an entirely different subject. "Why did you come?"

"Huh?"

"Why did you come to the funeral. Do you even know Chloe?"

Victoria was caught off guard, which didn't help how out of her comfort zone she already was. "Not really, no," she answered honestly. "When she still went to Blackwell I just thought she was some asshole stoner." She trailed off a little, uncomfortable talking about the deceased.

Max was not similarly put off. "So why are you here?"

"... When I heard about Chloe, I started thinking about Rachel Amber. The girl in all the posters. She went missing toward the end of last year, and-"

"I know about Rachel Amber. I just don't get what she has to do with you coming to Chloe's funeral."

Victoria seemed rather startled by Max's brusqueness but continued. "I just started thinking about how shitty I was to her, you know? And I just felt like… I might have set the ball rolling on all of this. Rachel dies or runs away or whatever happened to her, Chloe drops out, she gets shot… I know it's stupid, but I can't stop thinking about it."

Max came very, very close to laughing at Victoria's roundabout sense of responsibility for Chloe's death. The irony of the situation was almost unbearable.

"Plus, there was never a funeral for Rachel, and I thought this was probably the closest thing to that… They were really close. Like sisters or something," she said, skirting around the definite un-sisterly relationship between them.

However, Max did latch onto a certain part of her sentence. "They didn't have a service for Rachel?"

"Of course not. They're still not sure if she's even dead. I mean… Anyone who's not stupid is sure she is, but they never found a body. Her parents are in denial about it."

"They didn't-" Max frowned, trying to remember the details she'd halfheartedly watched rush by her over the last few days. Had the Dark Room not been discovered? Was that supposed to have happened yet? She hadn't done anything to nudge the investigation along, was she supposed to interfere? Or would that screw the timeline and start everything over?

Her head ached a little.

"Max? Are you okay?" Victoria frowned. "Sorry, this is a shitty time to be talking about this."

"I'm fine," she replied unconvincingly, her eyes slightly unfocused. She needed to figure this out, pin down her misstep. "They haven't found Rachel Amber. That's what you said?"

"Yes?"

"Yes they have or yes they haven't?"

"Rachel Amber is still missing. Max, what's wrong?"

"Is Mark Jefferson still the photography teacher?"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Just tell me, Victoria."

"What's going on with you? Two seconds ago you were acting normal- normal for you, anyway- and now you're... I don't know, off."

"Stress," she lied openly. "I'm just having a long day. Now tell me."

"Max. Do you know something about Rachel Amber?" Victoria was more astute than Max had given her credit to be. "You hadn't moved to Arcadia Bay yet when she disappeared, though, had you?"

"Just tell me if Jefferson's still teaching, Victoria."

"What does Jefferson have to do with this?" She wasn't budging, but the gears were turning faster than Max could run damage control. "Are… Are you saying he did it?"

"I'm not saying anything!" Maybe Victoria was refusing to answer, but Max could guess from her response that Jefferson hadn't been convicted or even suspected of anything. She could also guess that in the span of one conversation she'd interrupted the natural procession of this timeline and she already felt sick at the notion of trying to fix it.

"It makes sense, though, doesn't it?!" Victoria's eyes were wide. "She was his favorite student, and they'd always spend time together after classes. They might have even been fucking. If anyone did it, it was him." Then she frowned. "You were in a different state, how-"

"Victoria. If you give one shit about me, Chloe, or Rachel, or even just yourself, do this for me- please keep your mouth shut."

"Max, are you crazy? I can't just-"

"Yes you can, so do it. And be quiet for just one second so I can think, please."

For about three seconds, Victoria obliged her, and she took these seconds gladly. This timeline was obviously screwed, because original timeline Max couldn't have known any of what she'd just implied to Victoria, so she'd have to scrap it. How far back would she need to jump? Would it be enough to just redo the funeral and not have this conversation? Or would that be considered interfering?

It occurred to her that maybe no matter what course of action she took she'd be interfering with the natural timeline, because her natural action had been to save Chloe, and she hadn't. That was a dead-end thought so she shelved it for now.

Unfortunately, she was met with another dead-end regardless. She couldn't just jump back to before the funeral, because she hadn't taken any photos for days. She'd at least be going back to before Chloe's death. Was this her life now? Dancing on the edge of oversharing, slipping up, and moving back to square one every time she took a wrong move? She couldn't live like this.

"Max, I can't just keep quiet about this," Victoria interrupted her thoughts. "I owe it to Rachel, at least. I need to tell someone- the cops, maybe-"

"Shh!" Rachel. Rachel. Could it be Rachel?

All these timelines were a matter of constants and variables. Max was the variable, really. Every action she took, every mistake she made, affected the outcome, whether the timeline was viable or needed to be ended, cauterized by the storm. But she didn't know which ones mattered. All she knew was that every timeline ended with Chloe dead.

But didn't every timeline end with everyone dead? It was just the timing. It would be fine by her if Chloe died, 90 years old, after a long happy life. The problem was Chloe dying so immediately. Hadn't Chloe once said that Rachel had saved her life? In more of an abstract, implied-suicide way. Rachel was another constant, one Max hadn't ever even thought to try and change. Nathan Prescott had killed both Chloe and Rachel. Max didn't know when her powers had been granted to her, only that the first time she'd used them was to save Chloe.

Nothing made any sense, and it felt like she was heaping mounds of conjecture together all while grasping at straws, but she was running out of options. The timeline she was in wouldn't work. The next one probably wouldn't, either. She couldn't live like this, walking on eggshells and unsure if any move of hers might irreparably screw reality. She hadn't even been far enough through this one to know that the storm really wouldn't come for her.

"I need to go." She didn't even turn to Victoria as she dismissed her, walking as quickly as she could away.

"What?! Max, if you don't explain all of this, I'll-"

"I'll explain everything later, I promise," she said, with absolutely no intent of explaining anything.

When she got back to her dorm room she immediately started rummaging through old photos. Rachel Amber's missing posters claimed she had disappeared on April 22nd. Max needed to find one from just before then- Saturday morning was her best bet.

She hadn't brought over old ones from home to the dorm, obviously, and she swore when she realized it. Duh. Trying her second best option, she grabbed her phone and started checking as many social media profiles as she could.

Twitter was her savior. She found a selfie from early afternoon on the 20th. It would press her for time, but she could work with it.

Awkwardly, she saved the photo and ran to the library to print it; she hadn't yet tried to travel through a digital selfie, and right now wasn't the time for experimentation. As soon as she had a physical copy, and after offering no explanation to a confused librarian, she tried to clear her head and focus.

This was, objectively, a very bad idea. She'd tried going back to stop things before they started, and it had always ended badly. But things were already bad, and it was clear to her that just allowing time to march on without her wasn't an option. This timeline, this interlude had served its purpose; the universe had taken its breath, stabilized. It was now time for her to tear it all apart or die trying.

An unpleasantly familiar sensation of vertigo, a headache, and fear overtook her.

Maybe it wasn't very punk of her, but homework wasn't nearly as agonizing for Chloe as she wanted people to think it was.

Math, in particular, she'd always had a knack for. It just made sense. There were rules, formulas, and variables, and so long as she understood them they were all perfectly logical and predictable. If she didn't understand it, she could learn it, with a little free time and some help. She had a very active Khan Academy account, one of her best-kept secrets.

She'd been tackling a particularly contrived calculus problem when she heard a knock on the door downstairs. It was too late in the day for it to be mail, so it was probably David; he'd been out running errands for her mom since a couple of hours ago. She grimaced and started hiding the evidence, packing her homework into folders and putting out her cigarette. Preparing for impact was a well-practiced routine but it still sucked, and she considered faking sleep. If she was lucky he'd leave her alone. If she wasn't she'd get yelled at for wasting the day and not doing something productive like homework.

She heard her mom open the front door, and before she could decide whether to bite the bullet and go downstairs, she got a surprise- it wasn't his aggressive, intimidating voice that she heard, although it was familiar. It was uncannily similar to- but certainly couldn't be- a particular childhood friend. It couldn't be her, though, because she'd moved away years ago without so much as a word since, and even if she was in the neighborhood for some reason, it wasn't as if she'd turn up out of the blue without so much as a phone call. That was ridiculous. It couldn't be her, and she shot down the idea as quickly as she had it, ignoring the small feeling of hope that had latched onto her before she could stop it. 

She left her bedroom and started quietly moving to the top of the stairs to see who was at the door. Before she made it there, though, her mom yelled up the stairs, "Chloe! Got someone here for you!" Needing no further invitation, she rushed down the stairs, well-practiced at barreling down them without breaking her neck. She was about halfway down when she saw her hopes fulfilled against all odds- Max Caulfield was in the doorway, looking much more tired but not an inch taller than when they'd last met.

There were a great number of emotions swirling through Chloe's mind when she saw Max. Anger was definitely there, after so long without a word exchanged between them, but it was trumped by sheer excitement, and then curiosity- why was she here? She looked disheveled, even distressed. Was she alright?

"Max!" She couldn't think of anything better to say, and she was smiling despite her misgivings. Her mother stepped aside from the door to let the two meet properly. Max smiled, and despite looking tired and a little pained, she seemed relieved.

Confusion was winning out over the thrill of seeing her old friend again, and Chloe stopped just short of scooping Max up into a hug. "What's up? What're you doing here?"

"Long story," she said, sounding a little out of it. Was she on something? She sent a pointed look at Chloe's mom, who didn't notice it, but Chloe did.

Chloe hoped she was understanding Max right, taking her by the shoulder and grinning widely. "Man, it's been forever. How about we go on a drive and catch up? I'll be back in a few, Mom," she called back into the house as she pulled Max gently along to her truck.

"A few, huh?" Joyce shook her head but didn't stop them, clearly glad to see Max again but not too dense to see that something was off. She'd ask later, Chloe guessed.

As soon as the truck was started she turned to Max. "What's going on? You look like shit, no offense, and I don't think you're back here for the sightseeing."

"I just spent, like, two hours hopping buses trying to get over here," she replied, slouching back into her seat. "Just.. give me your phone. I need you to drive somewhere."

Chloe frowned, but handed over her cell phone. "Are you okay? I know it's been a while- thanks for that, by the way- but I know you and you're either freaking out or high or both."

"Closer to the first one," she replied, not looking up from the phone. She was punching in an address to the GPS, but Chloe couldn't see where it was. "Do you know what time it is?"

"... Max, you're holding my phone."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." Max pulled out her own phone to check the time. If Chloe wasn't worried before, she was now.

"Are you sure we shouldn't be going to like… a hospital, maybe?" She half-joked.

"I just need a nap," Max tried to reassure Chloe, not to much success.

"It's like five in the afternoon."

"It's been a long day." She handed Chloe's phone back to her, the GPS set to a fairly remote spot Chloe had never driven to before. She street viewed it to sate her curiosity, and found that it was a dilapidated old barn.

"... So why are we going to MurderBarn U.S.A.?"

"Chloe, if I had the energy to explain, I would, I promise. Just trust me."

She wasn't sure whether to press Max further or not. She looked exhausted, moreso by the minute, and she definitely wasn't helpful in her current state. But the whole thing seemed strange at best and dangerous at worst. A weird, out-of-it maybe-stoned childhood friend just shows up in the middle of the afternoon, out of nowhere, no warning, no text saying 'hey, Chloe, guess who's in town!'? And for some reason it's a matter of life and death to drive to some crappy old barn out in the sticks?

She sighed. "Yeah. Take a nap. I'll wake you up when we get there."

"Thanks." She went out like a light, and even the old truck's shitty suspension couldn't jolt her back awake.

"Hey, Max. We're here. Wherever 'here' is." Chloe prodded her slumbering friend as the put the truck in park. Max woke with a start, straightening up in a fight-or-flight response before waking up fully and calming down. Slightly.

Rubbing her eyes, she ordered, "Park somewhere you can't see from the road."

"Wow. This is getting more trustworthy by the second. The whole thing really screams 'I'm definitely not about to murder the crap out of someone'. Any suspicious drinks you need me to chug, by any chance?"

"Don't joke about that," Max said, brusquely and with unexpected reproach.

"Sorry?" Chloe raised her eyebrows. "Look, can you just explain what's going on?" The truck idled; she wanted her explanation before she would park.

Max had a troubled look, and she took a few moments- through which Chloe tapped on the steering wheel impatiently- to choose her words.

"… Something terrible is going to happen here unless we can stop it."

"Wow. That almost told me something."

"Chloe, we're here because Rachel's in danger."

Suddenly all of the humor of the situation was lost on Chloe.

"What? How? I just talked to her this morning, what's going on? And why would you know? How would you even know her ? Why didn't we go find her instead of some creepy old barn?"

"This is the only place I knew for sure we'd catch them," Max replied cryptically.

"Them? Who's them?"

"Chloe. Park the car and I'll show you."

"No! You've been stringing me along this whole time so far and I want at least one real answer."

"Okay. Ask me anything and I'll give you a full answer." She made eye contact with Chloe. Even though she'd just slept, she seemed just as tired as before, maybe moreso.

It took a veritable moment to choose the question she'd demand an answer to, but not too long.

"Is Rachel going to be okay?"

Max hesitated before saying, fully and honestly, "I don't know. But this is the best way to help her."

It hadn't been an automatic yes, which both concerned Chloe and convinced her of Max's good intent. She was being truthful, it was pretty obvious. If she'd just leapt at her with a 'yes, of course, everything's fine!' she'd have had to call bullshit. But the full truth wasn't quite comforting.

"... Okay." She put the truck back into drive and drove around to the back of the barn to park. Anyone driving up the road or entering the barn wouldn't be able to see it unless they were doing a full sweep of the area. It was the best she could do short of driving it through a mud pit and covering it in leaves.

Killing the engine and taking her keys, she stepped out and walked around the front of the truck to help Max out. She didn't seem like she was quite oriented enough to manage the step down, and it would really suck to get all the way out here just for Max to break her neck getting out of the car.

"We've got some time," she mumbled. Chloe wasn't sure whether Max was addressing her or just speaking to herself. "Let's go inside," she added, louder. "There's a missing piece of wall covered by some sheet metal on the left side. We can get in there."

The pair found the gap and headed inside. Chloe made sure to keep an eye on Max as she went- she looked like she was either seriously distracted or had a killer headache. Maybe both, by the look on her face. Even as irritated as she wanted to be, Chloe was more concerned than anything else.

Inside the barn, there weren't any big surprises. It just looked like a regular barn. It smelled a bit like rot, and it clearly hadn't been used in decades, but it didn't seem particularly nefarious.

Max, however, clearly saw past this straw-strewn ruse, making a beeline for something Chloe couldn't see. She followed quickly, walking over as Max dropped to her knees. For a moment she thought she'd tripped, until she saw her clearing away the straw. She crouched down to help, and they revealed a sizable trapdoor. Chloe tried it first, trying to pull it open with all her strength, but it was locked. She slouched as she dropped it and ran a hand through her hair as she caught her breath. "Crap. Do you have a key? Or was that not part of the mystery plan?"

A moment later, Max tried the door. She didn't produce a key, or bolt cutters, or anything else that would sensibly be necessary to force it, and yet it opened without her breaking a sweat. Chloe gawped.

"... Wanna tell me how you did that?"

"Long story," Max said. It felt like the hundredth time she'd said it, even though it couldn't be more than the third, and Chloe made a mental note to press her on it later. She peered around the opened trapdoor for just a second to look at the lock. It was completely broken.

Okay. Sure. Why not?

The trapdoor had revealed a downward stairway, cheerless grey concrete in contrast to the wooden building atop them. Max descended first, and Chloe noticed that she was shaking.

"Max? Are you okay?" She checked in. Max turned to nod; Chloe saw that her nose was bleeding. Pretty significantly, really; she was surprised Max hadn't wiped it away. "You're bleeding."

"Oh. Sorry." She tried to wipe it off and just smeared it. Chloe frowned.

"Hold still." With her jacket sleeve pulled over her palm she dabbed at Max's face, getting off most of the blood. "... Max, I don't know what's going on, but I can handle it if you're not in good shape." Wiping off her sleeve on her jeans, she put her other hand on Max's shoulder, trying to make eye contact. Max didn't reciprocate it but she tried to reassure Chloe.

"I'm fine," she said, resolved. "I just… want this to be over with as soon as it can be."

"Bullshit, you're not fine, you're a mess. But I'm with you on getting this done. Whatever 'this' is." Chloe gave her a reassuring squeeze before letting her go.

At the bottom of the stairs and down a hallway was a door. Massive, reinforced, it looked like it was straight out of a bunker. Maybe that was what this was? A keypad was next to it, and Max punched in the combination without more than a glance, though before the last digit she stopped for a moment to steel herself.

"... Chloe, be careful, okay?"

"Careful's my middle name."

Max smiled, weak but genuine. She finished the combination and opened the door.

Chloe wasn't sure what she'd expected. From the doorway it looked like it might have been a fairly standard storm shelter. On the far wall was a massive sink and a water tank, and to their right were shelves of bottles, cans, and boxes. It looked a lot like Madsen's makeshift garage bunker, actually, and the likeness didn't warm her to the place.

She started walking ahead of Max to look around but was stopped by a hand on her arm. Max had grabbed her.

"Don't split up," she said. She sounded as on-edge as she looked, which was very. Chloe acquiesced, slowing down for her and taking her by the hand without really thinking about it. Buddy system. Max seemed to appreciate it, judging by how tightly she was hanging onto Chloe.

On the left of the storage room was a translucent, plastic curtain, and Chloe held it aside for Max while she looked ahead into the next room.

She didn't quite know what to make of it when she first saw it. It was a well-lit, almost clinical looking room. She thought it was pretty big for a bunker, though she had no point of reference for the size of the average bunker.

From the curtain Chloe could see a few things. First, the wall across from her was lined with shelves, along with a filing cabinet. There was also a computer desk, and one of those fancy, expensive art tablets nearby. A printer was on the wall to her right. But what most interested her was to the left.

It seemed to be a setup for a photoshoot. A huge white tarp was rolled down from the wall onto the floor, and high-end photography lights were arranged all around it. In general, there was photography equipment all over the place. The only other real features of the room were the wall hangings, uncomfortable photographs and artwork, and a sofa and coffee table facing the left, maybe to watch the photoshoots as they happened.

Overall, the place definitely seemed weird, but not really dangerous. She turned to Max, and immediately felt like she just didn't find this place malignant because she didn't know enough about it. She was shaking, and Chloe could feel that her hand had gotten cold and clammy.

"Stay with me, Max." She squeezed her hand, trying to ground her. "What's up with all this? I don't think I'm getting the full picture here."

"It's called the Dark Room," she explains.

"Seems pretty bright to me," Chloe joked, trying to keep things as lighthearted as they possibly could be in such a foreboding situation.

Max didn't laugh, or even acknowledge her. Which was fair. "Mark Jefferson uses this place."

"The photography teacher?" Chloe raised her eyebrows, but quickly tried to assure Max that she believed her. She hadn't yet considered whether she did, but it was pretty obvious the last thing Max needed was to be called a liar. "Seems about right. Anyone with a goatee like that is usually skeevy as shit."

"I don't know how long he's been doing it, but he… doses and kidnaps girls and photographs them. Here. He usually kills them."

Oh.

Chloe was done joking, obviously, but she didn't know where to go ahead with this. She wanted to ask just how Max knew all this, but she was pretty sure she already knew the answer, and it wasn't a pleasant one to so much as think about - reciting it would do Max no favors. God, no wonder she was so freaked out. It didn't help knowing that drugging, kidnapping, and killing young women usually had another step in there; she didn't know if Jefferson wasn't that particular kind of scumbag or if Max had just omitted it, but again, would asking really help anyone?

She knew what she did want to ask, though, as soon as she thought of it.

"So Rachel's next. That's why we're here." A sharp pang of fear broke Chloe's fortitude for a moment at the thought that Rachel was in this kind of danger. If it weren't for Max warning Chloe… It wasn't something she wanted to think about, one of those thoughts that hurt just to have, so she pushed it aside. She wouldn't let it happen.

"Except instead of Jefferson we're waiting for Nathan Prescott to show up."

"You're shitting me." This wasn't really shocking to Chloe, considering Nathan's general douchebaggery, but it seemed a step up from his regular level of awful to just perverse.

"I wish. He's like… Jefferson's protege or something. He's trying to impress him."

"By killing Rachel."

"I don't think he's planning on killing her," she frowned. "But it would happen. If we let it."

"Oh, well, that's a lot better."

"I'm not defending him, I'm just saying the facts, as far as I know them."

"Well, to me, the facts say I've got to kick the shit out of a Prescott and a perverted teacher with a snuff fetish."

Max didn't argue with that. She looked around the room, searching for something. "I know security cameras are going to be installed in here sometime, but I don't know if they have been yet."

"Should I go through his computer? I could probably figure out from there if he's got cameras going or not."

"Yeah. Good idea," Max nodded. "I'll try and make this a bit safer for when Nathan shows up. There are probably guns all over the place."

They divided and conquered, Chloe scouring the P.C. for indications of surveillance while Max checked cabinets and shelves for anything that might endanger them in the event of a skirmish. Luckily, the computer was unlocked, which made enough sense. It was in a locked bunker; a startup password was probably overkill when it was already behind a foot of steel. She didn't find any indications of security cameras, though in her trawling for hints at them she found emails to SpyGuy Surveillance asking for a quote.

"We're all clear, Max. He's looking into them, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing installed yet."

"Good," she called over to Chloe from one of the shelves along the wall. She'd found a pistol and was nervously looking for a safer, inaccessible spot to stash it.

"How about the ceiling?" Chloe suggested. "We could pop one of the panels up and leave the gun up there. Nathan couldn't reach it." She started wheeling over the desk chair she'd been sitting in, and had it nearly over to Max before she bursted out, eyes wide, "No!"

Chloe paused, startled. Max coughed, seeming somehow embarrassed. "Get the stool by the cintiq. It's, uhm. Dangerous to stand on wheelie chairs. Trust me."

"... Oookay, Safety Max has spoken." She pushed the chair back over to the desk, letting it wheel independently to clatter against the wall, and grabbed the stool. Being taller, she did the honors of stepping up onto it, pushing one of the ceiling panels up and aside. Max handed her the gun and she stashed it in the ceiling. "Anything else before I get down from here?"

"Yeah, hang on for a second." Max grabbed a box off of a shelf and started sweeping the room, picking up what looked like prescription bottles and syringes. She handed it off to Chloe, who carefully situated it on one of the intersections of the ceiling panels, before heading back to the storage room, returning with a veritable armful of more drug bottles.

"Jesus. Someone needs a hobby, and that's coming from me," Chloe commented as she stashed them one after another as Max handed them off. "That everything?"

"Everything I could find. We should still be careful, though. We don't know what Nathan has on him."

Chloe slid the panel back into place and jumped down to the floor; the sound startled Max, which made her feel vaguely guilty. "I don't care if he comes in here dual-wielding shotguns, I'll kick that creep's ass."

"If we're reckless, it's not just us who can get hurt," Max reminded her. "If he's got Rachel with him, she won't be in the shape to look after herself. We don't want to start a fight if we can avoid it."

"It's not a fight if I'm just beating the shit out of him," Chloe replied, though she saw the wisdom in Max's caution. If there were shots being fired, Rachel was in danger, which sort of defeated the whole point. Picking up the stool and carrying it back over to the cintiq's desk, she figured Max seemed calmed down and lucid enough to answer some questions.

"So… I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth here, but what's up with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you've been doing a lot of weird shit since you showed up. Like the trapdoor- I tried to open it and it was locked, but two seconds later it's busted and you pop it right open. I know it's been a while, but I don't think you're ripped enough to pull open a lock like it's butter."

"... Chloe, I think you'd believe me if I told you, but I don't think it's a good idea for you to know. It doesn't help us right now, and it might hurt you in the long run."

"See, this is exactly the kind of weird shit that makes me wonder what's up with you! All I'm asking for is a straight answer." Chloe threw her hands up in exasperation. "Max, I'm asking because if you don't tell me I've got to make my own assumptions and that starts getting iffy real fast."

"... You think I'm involved in this?" Max looked stricken.

"Max, we haven't talked in years. I don't think you're the kind of person to have anything to do with this, but I'm just saying that if you can't tell me how you know all this and how you're doing all this weird stuff, that's the only logical thing to think. Even if I don't believe it, the cops aren't going to give you the benefit of the doubt."

Standing there looking rather pitiful, Max absorbed this for a few moments. She sighed.

"Chloe, I don't know how or why, but about…" She did a quick mental count then gave up. "A couple of weeks ago to me but sometime in like, October, I figured out I could time travel. I don't know why, and it's a long really shitty story, but that's the short version."

"Wow. Uhm. That's… a lot." Chloe wasn't quite sure what to make of that. It seemed startlingly plausible, actually, considering the door and the chair- had she, in some alternate timeline Max prevented, had some horrible rolling chair accident? "Fine. Do something time travel-y and I'll buy it."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea. It's not great to use it if I don't have to."

"Why? Does Doctor Who show up and kick you in the nuts?"

Max snorted with laughter. "No, it just gives me a headache. But if you want proof, I did use it to bust open the door. You were right about that." A moment later she added, more seriously, "By the way, I'm sorry I never called you or anything after moving. The bus ride over isn't even that bad."

"Yeah, that was kind of a dick move," Chloe agreed. "I guess it's water under the bridge, though? I mean, I lived. I'll kick your ass if you do it again, though," she joked.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Max promised. "I'm actually set up to attend Blackwell next semester. You haven't been expelled yet, have you?"

"Yet ? Do I get kicked out of Blackwell?" Chloe raised her eyebrows. "I got suspended last month, sure, but I'm not that bad. What do I do? Give me all the future secrets."

"I can't tell you, it would mess with the timeline," Max protested.

"Okay, well, if I'm about to do it, stop me. I actually kind of like school, I'm not gonna lie. It beats sitting at home all day dealing with step-douche."

"You like school?" Max feigned the deepest, most dramatic shock.

"No, okay, school is stupid and I hate it, but learning is okay."

"Oh my god, you're a geek."

"Max, if you time traveled just to come here and call me a nerd, I've got to wonder who let you get that kind of power."

"Chloe, I didn't time travel here to save Rachel, it was to nerd-shame you. It's true."

"Eat shit," Chloe laughed.

The evening was still young, and they had a couple of hours until Max expected Nathan to show up, so they whiled them away with catching up. It was a welcome interlude from the drama for both of them. Neither knew many details about the last few years of the other's life. Family, friends, music tastes… Anything they could think of to discuss, they did, getting along just as swimmingly as they had so many years ago.

Eventually, as the time ticked by, quicker than either would have liked, they were brought back down to Earth. They needed to prepare for the task they'd come to do.

"One of us could wait outside," Chloe suggested. "Come in after him, so he can't just run off."

"No," Max shook her head. "I don't want us to split up for any part of this."

"Come on. If anything goes wrong, can't you just go back and try again?"

"It's not that simple. We really need to do this right the first time, if we can."

"You'd know better than me, I guess," Chloe ceded, though she didn't sound wholly convinced. "We can just hide in here, then, be waiting for him. Should we get one of the guns down, to be safe? I know how to shoot."

"Chloe, the last not one but two times I saw you holding a gun you got shot. We're not bringing weapons into this if we have any choice."

"That was your weird, fucked up, delinquent Chloe. I'm way cooler and hotter and more competent," she argued, posing heroically.

"I'm serious, no guns."

"What if he brings one?"

"Then we deal with it. Chloe, if you make one bad shot Rachel's toast," Max reminded her. That was enough to settle it.

"Fine, no guns. Except these guns." She flexed, which was really sort of unimpressive. If she did have any muscle it wasn't visible through her jacket.

Max grinned nonetheless. "Wow. I feel safer already. We should figure out where we're going to hide. You're sure you can't hide the truck any better?"

"Short of burying it? Yes."

"... Maybe we should hide outside, actually," Max thought aloud. "There aren't many places in here, and we can follow him in. The only problem is he'd hear us opening the door and have a few seconds notice."

"He'll see us leaping dramatically from cover no matter where we are. It's your call," Chloe shrugged before remembering a rather important detail. "Max, hold up, the trapdoor's lock. Won't he notice it's broken?"

"Shit. You're totally right," Max frowned. "I should have done that better. There's nothing we can do to fix it now. Hopefully he'll just… figure it busted itself. Or Jefferson broke it last time he was here."

"I guess we've got to just count on Nathan being too fucked up to care," Chloe nodded. "I mean, he probably will be. Is he ever not drugged out of his mind?"

Max couldn't help but pity him, commenting, "He's got a lot of problems. Not all of them are his fault."

"Christ, Max, I don't care about his life story, he's killing people." Chloe shot back, not caring much for Nathan or his daddy issues.

Max shrugged noncommittally. As she did, Chloe took a moment to notice how much better she looked than their initial rendez-vous, or when they'd entered the Dark Room. Her nose hadn't bled again after the trapdoor- was it a side effect of time travel? Chloe had so many questions she hadn't remembered to ask even after hours of solid conversation.

After thorough consideration, they decided to ambush Nathan from behind, hiding outside behind the barn. Carefully, they tried to cover or get rid of any traces of their presence, replacing furniture and picking up any messes they'd left. Chloe had popped open one of the water bottles from the storage room, which had annoyed Max, and now she had to carry the empty bottle out just to make sure there wasn't a mysterious pile of trash left behind them.

With massive, safe-like door closed behind them and the trapdoor carefully replaced, Max and Chloe settled behind the barn and waited in silence.

They'd jumped the gun by a decent measure. It was a long, dragging hour outside in the dark before they heard the telltale sound of a car engine coming down the dusty path to the front of the barn. The very air felt tense enough to snap; Chloe could hardly stand hiding, unable to see, but the moment she moved to peer around the side of the barn Max grabbed her arm and shook her head pointedly. Had she just jumped back from a timeline where Chloe had peeked, and they'd been caught? Or was this just a judgement call?

Around the front of the barn, the distinctive noise of a car door opening was heard, then footsteps, then chains. Chloe raised an eyebrow in question, and Max whispered to her, "The barn doors are chained. He's opening them."

A creaking noise indicated success after a few long seconds, and he moved the car into the barn. Its headlights shining through cracks in the walls onto Max and Chloe, startling them. They crouched as low to the ground as they could, even though none of the cracks were big enough to see through without specifically trying to. The car's engine turned off, and took with it the headlights, but they didn't relax. This was a crucial moment. If he saw that the trapdoor had been broken into, the game was up.

A small thumping noise was heard, followed by Nathan swearing loudly. At least they knew it was him and not Jefferson.

The trapdoor opened moments later, slamming onto the ground loudly, and Max and Chloe made purposeful eye contact. As soon as they heard the bunker's door open, muffled but audible, they made their move, jumping to their feet as quietly as possible and sneaking back into the barn through the side. They tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to trip or make any noise to alert Nathan earlier than necessary. When they reached the bottom, they could see down the hallway that he'd left the door wide open, a lucky break for them.

Max whispered to Chloe, "He's got a gun in his jacket."

"Learned that the hard way?"

"Harder for you than me."

They crept through the door and into the storage room, only the curtain separating them from the Dark Room proper. From the other room they could hear footsteps, irregular and heavy, and a steady stream of mumbling speech they couldn't parse. Nathan sounded far from lucid, but clouded judgement might make him more dangerous. A sober Nathan might see that he was outnumbered and back down. Plastered Nathan probably wouldn't.

Chloe glanced to the curtain, pointing at herself then to it. Max shook her head and gestured to both herself and Chloe, then to the curtain. She really was insistent on sticking together.

Nodding, Chloe held up three fingers, counting down slowly and steadily to one before the pair barged blindly through the curtain.

It was more substantial than she'd expected, and she nearly tripped on her way through, but Max steadied her. Once through Chloe paused, taking in the situation and figuring out her next move, while Max just rushed past her.

In those initial moments Chloe saw Rachel before anything else, limp and unmoving on the couch around the middle of the room. Next she saw Nathan, looking off-balance as he turned from one of the shelves lining the walls to look at the intruders. Third, she saw Max, making a beeline for Rachel.

"Duck!" When Max yelled out, Chloe didn't hesitate, crouching a heartbeat before a bullet whizzed overhead. She jumped back to her feet as soon as it passed and got moving, heading straight for Nathan, who looked like he had no idea what was going on. Apparently he was the 'shoot first, ask questions later' kind of guy.

Nathan turned his attention to Max, who was closer to him with her head start. She'd stopped at the couch, trying to pick up Rachel and get her out of the crossfire, and he started aiming- if what his shaky hands were doing could be called aiming- for Max. Chloe was too far away to stop him directly, but for lack of a better idea, she chucked the crumpled remnants of her water bottle at him. She was genuinely surprised when it hit its mark, bumping harmlessly into his face but startling him enough to bring his attention back to her.

She tried to hold his focus, shouting, "Put down the gun!" She was not surprised when he did not put down the gun. Instead, he fired at her, missing by several feet to her right. She didn't even stop to avoid it.

Nathan had been backing up as he fired, placing the couch pretty directly between her and Nathan. Max had just lifted Rachel off of it, so Chloe vaulted it in a single motion, landing on the coffee table and bounding right over and off of it. Nathan was still moving away but had very little left of the room to flee to, bumping into one of the photography lights and knocking it over with a crash.

The noise startled him and he turned his head to see what had caused it, a mistake that lost him the fight. Chloe barreled into him, knocking him to the floor and sending the gun clattering to the ground about a yard away. He wrestled with her, trying to shove her off of him, but he was uncoordinated and not too strong to begin with, so it only took her a few seconds to control both of his hands with one of hers.

She considered whether to just start wailing on him, to make sure he wouldn't be any trouble and to make herself feel better about this whole mess. Looking down at him, she got a good look at his face, and it reminded her vaguely of a trapped animal: confused, pissed, and ready to kill anything within arms length.

"How the fuck did you get in here?" He met her glare with his own, not sounding quite as defeated as the average person might once pinned down and disarmed.

"You left the door open," Chloe replied flippantly. She called to Max, not taking her eyes off of Nathan, "How's Rachel?"

"She's asleep, but she's breathing, and she doesn't look hurt," she heard Max reply, before adding, "Are there any scissors in here?"

"Scissors? Why do you need scissors?" She frowned.

"Her hands are duct taped. Her ankles, too, I think."

"I've got a pocket knife, you can use that." Chloe produced it from a jacket pocket with her free hand. Max walked over to retrieve it, having put Rachel back down on the couch, but before Chloe handed it off she directed, "Hand me his gun."

"What? Chloe, I told you, don't-"

"Trust me." She glanced up from Nathan to give Max a pointed look. She had no intent of firing if she could prevent it, but she didn't want to be completely unarmed. Just holding the gun would be a good deterrent and make sure Nathan didn't start more trouble than he already had.

She wasn't sure if Max understood, or simply conceded, but she carefully handed off the gun to Chloe in exchange for the knife.

"Who the fuck is she?" Nathan glared daggers at Max, craning his neck to get a better look at her while she walked back to the unconscious Rachel.

"Not your business." Chloe aimed the gun down at him. "Stop moving or I might slip."

"You're full of shit," he said, and she almost took the bait and argued, but realized that despite his big talk he wasn't moving a muscle. Better to let beaten Prescotts lie.

She decided to press her advantage, since he'd been thoroughly trounced and knew it. "What did you do to her?"

"What, Rachel? I didn't do shit. She got wasted at a Vortex party, I offered her a ride. No harm done," he smiled, voice full of derision.

Pinning him down as she was, Chloe was hit with a sudden, beautiful awareness that she was in a very good spot to knee him right in the balls, so she did that. He crumpled and shouted out, "Fuck!", which degenerated into a very steady, very unhappy slurry of verbal abuse against Chloe. She ignored it, though Max turned around, startled. She seemed like she was about to suggest something distinctly un-fun like 'don't kick Nathan Prescott in the dick', so Chloe cut her off.

"He'll be fine, I promise. If he's not I've done the world a favor."

"Fuck you!" He interrupted Chloe and started fighting her grip again. "I wasn't going to fucking rape her or some shit, I was taking photos! She'd be back home by morning, wouldn't have even fuckin' known, until you two show up and make it a goddamn problem!"

She reminded him of the gun by shoving it nice and close to his face. "Hold still and shut the fuck up so we can decide what we're doing with you."

"We need to get out of here," Max added. "If Jefferson shows up this will get bad, and I don't know if he's going to or not."

"We could ask Nathan," Chloe suggested. "Is Jefferson coming?"

"Fuck you," he replied helpfully.

"Let's just go," Max insisted, not unreasonably.

Conceding, Chloe clambered off of Nathan, still holding him firmly and yanking him upwards. "You heard her, then. Stand up. Don't try anything." She kept the gun trained on him as he got his footing, though he swayed where he stood. The snap of plastic underfoot made her realize she'd pinned him down on top of the wrecked light's remains, and a little blood was on the ground, but she wasn't quite moved to tears. If he had glass shards stuck in his ass, he deserved it.

"I don't think I can carry Rachel all the way to the truck," Max confessed. "I can handle Nathan if you get her."

"Sure." Chloe passed the gun off to Max, and instantly regretted it. She seemed to know how to hold it, sure, but she kept it aimed at the floor. It might be proper gun safety, but the bigger danger here was the wasted psycho kidnapper guy, not a misfire. Still, Chloe was willing to take the risk in exchange for the opportunity to check on Rachel. She heard Nathan talking to Max behind her as she walked back to the couch.

"You look like shit," he commented. When she didn't respond he continued. "What the hell's your name, anyways?"

"Max." She engaged, which Chloe didn't think was a great idea.

"Christ, another dyke. Should have guessed it, though, if you know her." He glanced at Chloe.

"What does that have to do with my name?" she replied, floundering a little. She wasn't handling him nearly as well as Chloe would have liked her to, and she turned back to them.

"Don't even answer him, Max. He's trying to distract you."

"Sorry," she turned her head to reply to Chloe, who started to bark at her to keep her eyes on Nathan, but it was already too late to make up for her lapse in judgement. He threw a punch at her face, landing it at the base of her jaw. She yelped, jumping back without thinking, and he made his bid for freedom, sprinting for the curtain and the exit.

Chloe's gut instinct was to give chase, but she was more worried about protecting Rachel and Max than catching Nathan. It was by a small margin, but it was enough to keep her from running after him.

Despite the clear shot and uncluttered floor, Nathan suddenly tripped, plummeting face-first to the ground and landing with an unpleasant crunch. Suddenly, Chloe saw what had stopped him in his tracks. Rachel had lunged across the couch to grab his leg, now sprawled with her hand on his ankle. Too surprised to capitalize on Nathan's fall, Chloe gawped. Hadn't she been unconscious a second ago? "Rachel?"

Nathan kicked her off, striking Rachel's hand twice before she let go of his leg. He scrambled back to his feet and shot off again through the curtain, leaving a small spot of blood on the concrete floor where his face had impacted it.

"Jesus, Chloe, grab him!" Rachel's voice snapped Chloe out of her standstill, and she ran through the curtain in hot pursuit. He was already through the door and making for the stairs, and she tried to keep up, regretting her choice of footwear. Sneakers might have helped a touch more than combat boots- thank god this pair was already broken in.

He stumbled on the top few stairs, as she was just reaching the bottom, and he scrambled on all fours for a few seconds to reach level ground. Exhibiting surprising forethought, he stopped and closed the trapdoor above her before making a run for his truck. She pushed it open without too much trouble, but it was a delay, and he was opening the door of his car by the time she stepped out into the barn.

Nathan leapt into the vehicle while she ran to try and stop him. He started the engine and slammed into reverse, not even closing his door before he gunned it backwards out of the barn. She'd lost the race. Frustrated, she could do nothing more than flip him off two-handed as he drove away. Just in case he didn't already know she was pissed.

Defeated, she re-entered the bunker. When she passed back through the curtain she saw Max still standing helplessly near the far end of the room. Rachel was seated on the couch, her head in her hands and hair a curtain around her face.

"No dice?" She didn't look up when she called out to Chloe.

"He drove off. I'd have gone after him in the truck, but you guys would have been stuck here." She walked over to the couch, leaning down to around Rachel's eye level. "Are you okay?"

"My head hurts, but I'm good." She disentangled one hand from her hair to give Chloe a thumbs up.

"You don't look good," Chloe frowned. "How long were you awake for, anyway?"

"I woke up on the way in. He whacked my head on the door. I figured I'd pretend I was asleep until I knew what was going on."

"That's not a great plan. What if he'd-" She was interrupted by Rachel's hand feeling blindly for her, eventually patting her gently on the face.

"Chloe. I am aware."

Indignantly, she grabbed Rachel's hand and removed it from her face. "Clearly you aren't, since you're not freaking the hell out."

"I appreciate that you're worried, I swear, but let me be hungover or drunk or whatever for like, five more minutes before I have to actually think." Rachel's hand closed over her own.

"... Fine," Chloe sighed. "We'll talk later. Do you want a drink of water or something?"

"I love you," Rachel replied, grinning somewhere beneath the curtain of hair concealing her face. "Water would be great. Don't forget about Max, though."

Oh, shit, Max. Chloe looked up and saw she was still awkwardly nursing her jaw, wandering uncomfortably through the room. She looked slightly teary, and her face was bruising, though nothing looked broken.

"Hey, you okay?" She walked over to Max while she spoke. "Sorry I didn't catch Nathan. We should probably get out of here before he comes back. How bad did he get you?"

"It's fine," she replied. "It hurts but he didn't break it. He's pretty weak."

Chloe snorted. "Weak as hell. We'll get you some ice for it, at least," she promised. "Where are we going? I'd say my house, but step-fucker is home."

Rachel offered, "My dorm room could work. No one will care about curfew, with the party going on."

"Sounds like a plan." Chloe glanced to Max for her approval. She nodded, and Chloe announced, "I'll go start the truck."

"No splitting up," Max reminded Chloe before turning to call, "Rachel, can you walk?"

"I'm fine." She stood up from the couch to prove her vigor and hissed in pain through her teeth, clutching her head in her hands. Chloe rushed over to her.

"You sure you're okay?" She massaged Rachel's shoulder gingerly.

"I'm fine," she affirmed, smiling winningly at Chloe to reassure her, to limited success.

They left the bunker together, squeezing into the two-seater truck. The drive to Blackwell was fairly uneventful, aside from Rachel puking out the window (from the middle seat, no less). The drive took about an hour, and by the time they parked at the school all three were exhausted. Chloe was dangerously close to nodding off, blasting music to stay awake that she only turned off once they were in the parking lot.

"Hey, Max, you're getting the sneak preview of the place," Chloe grinned. "You know she's gonna go here next year?" She added the latter question for Rachel's benefit.

"Sweet," she replied. "Honestly, my second year's gonna suck, starting on all the real shit. I might see if I can graduate early and save a semester of tuition."

"What? No way, you can't leave me here alone!" Chloe's face twisted with mock horror.

"You won't be alone. I'll be with you… in your heart."

"Right next to my tit, just like always," Chloe joked.

Rachel laughed, warm and friendly, and Max felt the slightest twinge of fondness when she heard her. She was glad she'd saved Rachel not just for Chloe's sake, she found.

The trio talked back and forth as they walked to the dorms. No faculty bothered them on their way, unsurprisingly. Scattered all over the grounds were telltale signs of the Vortex party that had ended not much earlier, and curfew was the least of anyone's concerns on a night like this.

Chloe knew the way to Rachel's room better than the way to her classes, and the pair led Max along without issue. Rachel opened her door and held it open for the other two while Max asked, "Chloe, don't you have a dorm room?"

"Nah, I got exempt from living on campus for financial reasons," she explained. "Mom and step-fucker didn't want to pay for room and board."

"Which basically means Chloe and I are sharing mine," Rachel added. "Max, you can take the couch. Chloe, can you find her the spare blanket while I grab her some ice?" She crouched by a miniature freezer near the door while Chloe started searching for the blanket.

Looking around the room, it was comforting and familiar after the insane night they'd all just had. It was immaculately tidy, with posters and baubles decorating it wherever suitable but not cluttering it. It was clean enough to be comfortable but not so clean it didn't feel like a real person lived in it. The atmosphere was, in a word, homey.

She spotted the spare blanket folded neatly beneath Rachel's desk and took it, tossing it to Max. "Got it."

Max startled when the blanket impacted her with a gentle poff, but she caught it, saying, "Wait, shouldn't we talk about what happened before we go to sleep? Maybe even call the cops. That was serious stuff."

"No cops," Rachel said immediately as she handed off a plastic baggie of ice to Max, who was running out of hands. "I don't know what the hell was going on over there, but unless someone's literally at risk of dying, I don't want the police involved."

"Someone was, and that person's you, Rachel," Max argued.

"Was. I'm not dead now, so I think I'm gonna nix the police idea."

Max turned to Chloe for backup, hoping she would also understand the urgency of the situation, but she overestimated her loyalty.

"... I think maybe Rachel's right," she said. "I mean, getting the cops involved immediately might not be a great idea. It can at least wait until tomorrow."

Rachel nodded. "That's a good idea. Let's get a good night's sleep, then tomorrow we can talk this out, and if we think the cops need to get involved we'll do it then."

She didn't seem particularly pleased with this, or with how Chloe had sided against her, but Max shrugged and ceded. "... Fine. But tomorrow we really need to." She sat on the couch and started getting as comfortable as she could.

After taking a moment with her mirror to take off her makeup, Rachel started settling in for sleep as well, Chloe following her. They shared the bed, laying back to back and trying to catch what was left of the night's sleep. As she drifted off, Chloe pondered briefly whether she might wake up and find that the entire, strange day had been a dream all its own.

She did have a nightmare. The only part she would remember when she woke would be the vague image of a lighthouse in a storm.