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.