Chapter One
Lynchpin

If anyone had been awake to witness it, a blue butterfly landing on the windowsill of a suburban house in the wee hours of the morning would have been a strange occurrence, but not one worth remembering. Oftentimes the smallest harbingers of change are the most important.

A shrill tone sounded abruptly from inside the house, and the butterfly flew off, to wherever the winds of change might take it.

There was a groan from within as a hand reached for the phone, swiping a thumb across the screen and bringing it up to her ear. "Who the fuck is this?"

"Chloe? It's… it's Max. Max Caulfield."

Chloe Price rocketed upright, sparing a glance at her alarm clock. "Max? Why the hell are you calling me at three in the morning?" She paused. "After not calling me at all for five years?"

"Listen to me, Chloe. I don't have a whole lot of time to explain this to you, and you wouldn't believe me anyway. Not yet at least."

"Well save it 'til morning then."

"I can't. I took the photo just now, and the next one I take will be too late to save Rachel."

Chloe's mind went blank, then flashed with rage and confusion. "Rachel? How the hell do you know about Rachel? Didn't think you still knew I existed, now you're talking about my best friend?"

"Like I said, there's no time for this, Chloe. Rachel's in danger. You have to help her."

"Haha, very funny, Max, but I just cracked the mystery. I never unfriended you on Facebook. That's about to get remedied." She stood up and began walking over to her computer.

"Chloe, listen to me! This isn't a prank, and I'm sorry for not calling you! I'll explain everything in six months when I move back to Arcadia Bay. But right now I need you to believe me!"

She froze halfway through reaching to the computer, her free hand hovering just above the keyboard. "Wait, you're moving back?"

"Not yet. But in July I'll get an acceptance letter from Blackwell Academy. I'll run into you again. And if things go the way they did before… it won't end well. Especially not for Rachel."

"Max, you are both freaking me out and pissing me off. What do you mean, Rachel's in danger?"

"It involves Nathan Prescott, drugs, and a secret dark room. If you let her go with him… you'll never see her again. Please, Chloe. You don't have to forgive me. But you need to believe me. Please."

"Alright, Max. I'll go out on a limb for you. Worst case scenario I can kick your ass when you show up here. If you don't I'll head to Seattle and do it there."

"Thank you, Chloe. And when you see me again, I won't remember this conversation. At least not until October 18th. You'll have to be patient with me until then."

"Uh… sure, Max. Whatever you say."

"I love you, Chloe. I want you to know that."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm only doing this because it's Rachel."

"I know. That's what you told me you'd say."

"What?"

"Hurry, Chloe."

The phone disconnected, and Chloe stared at it dumbly for several moments before dialing.

"Hello? Chloe?"

"Hey, Rach. Listen, I know it's early, but you're not gonna believe who just called me…"

"Uhhhhh…." Max Caulfield rubbed her temples, as if waking from a long dream. She opened her eyes, blinking in the sudden light. She was sitting under a tree in the central pavilion of Blackwell Academy, in the middle of a cool October day. For the moment, she was alone.

"Hey there, sleepyhead!"

Or not.

A face popped into view, with dirty blonde hair, green eyes, and a feather earring dangling from one ear. Max did a double take and gasped. "Rachel!"

"Yeah, silly; it's me. You on anything?"

"No, I just… where's Chloe?"

"Off doing who knows what. I'm the one who still goes here, remember?"

"Right. Yeah. Of course I remember."

Rachel Amber sat down next to her, resting her back against the trunk. "You feeling okay, Max?"

She laughed. "I'm feeling great!" Max leaned over and hugged Rachel tightly, which the other girl awkwardly returned. "Let's find Chloe!" She grabbed Rachel by the hand and started dragging her off.

"Whoa, hold your horses there." Rachel escaped from her grip and held up her hands in front of her. "Chloe warned me today was important. She's waiting for us at the hideout."

Max went pale, frowning as she stared at the other girl. "I guess that's as good a place as any. I have a lot to tell you."

"Well, school's out for the day, so why hang around?" She brandished a set of keys. "I'll drive."

The junkyard by the train tracks looked just as Max remembered it, save for one detail: there wasn't a shallow grave. Rachel led her past the pile of refuse into a shack constructed from cinderblocks, where a certain angry blueberry lay in wait.

"Chloe!" Max burst forward to embrace her best friend, who was, as usual, dressed like she was auditioning for a music video. The other girl returned the hug, and they separated just enough for Rachel to join in as well. "Thanks for waiting. I… I have a lot to explain."

"Damn straight you do." Chloe picked up her beer and took a swig, then passed it to Rachel, who did the same. Max waved her hand to indicate that she preferred to abstain, and the three of them sat down. "Six months ago you called me saying Rachel's in danger, next thing I know you show up at Blackwell just like you said you would."

"And I made a new friend," said Rachel. "You take amazing photos."

She smiled. "I guess in a way I'm meeting you for the first time. There's a lot to go into, so I'll start with how I knew you were in danger."

"Please do."

Max looked at Chloe. "This is gonna sound super weird, and I swear I'm not making any of it up."

"Can't promise I'll believe you Max, but I can at least hear you out."

"Okay then, here goes." She took a deep breath. "I have the power to rewind time."

They both blinked, exchanged a glance, then turned back to Max.

"Yeah, good one, Max. But seriously, what's the truth?"

"It is the truth," she insisted. "How else would I know what was going to happen to Rachel? How would I even know about her in the first place?"

Rachel nodded. "Good point."

"Again, you probably Facebook-stalked me. I'm not even sure she was in danger. I only did it because I wasn't about to take that chance."

"Chloe, I called you in the middle of the night after ignoring you for five years. Does that really seem like something I'd do if everything was fine?

"I don't know. Could've just wanted to mess with me."

"She did know she was gonna get into Blackwell," said Rachel. "And believe me, that's not easy to predict."

"Alright, fair enough."

"Thank you." She turned to Rachel. "And for the record, you really were in danger. Nathan Prescott was going to drug you and take you into a secret darkroom, then take photos of you. But in the timeline I came from, he got the dose wrong and he... he killed you. Then he buried you right over there."

By this point she had started to tear up. She sniffled a bit and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Rachel stared at her in complete shock.

"Nathan was acting a little creepy at the time," she admitted. "I'm glad Chloe warned me to stay away. And I'm glad… I'm glad you reached out to her."

"Alright, let's say you can rewind time," said Chloe, leaning forward and placing her fingertips on top of the beer bottle, spinning it in place. "How'd you learn to do it?"

"By watching you die."

"What?!" they shouted in unison.

Max shook her head. "I guess you could say Nathan killed both of you on accident. He dosed you at a bar and took you back to his dorm room, and tried taking creepy photos of you. You escaped, then tried to blackmail him so you could pay back the money you owed Frank Bowers."

Chloe blinked. "I still owe him that money. How the hell did you know about that?"

"Time travel, remember?" said Rachel. "Try and keep up."

"Okay, so what happened next?"

"The two of you met in the girl's bathroom at Blackwell, and I happened to be in there at the same time. He had a gun, and he freaked out and shot you on accident. I saw you… die." She clenched her fist. "I reached out my hand, and the next thing I knew I was back in Mr. Jefferson's class, listening to a lecture I'd already heard. Then I went to the bathroom again, set off the fire alarm, and you lived."

"Awesome! Now I get to call you Super Max!"

"Over the next week, we tried to find out what happened to you," she continued, looking at Rachel. "We hoped you were just missing, but in the end we found the Dark Room, and then we found your body. We also found out Mr. Jefferson was behind the whole thing."

"Wait, what? Mark Jefferson? You're serious?"

She nodded.

"Then that means he's still…"

"Yes."

"We have to do something! We should call the—"

"I'm not finished."

They both looked at her attentively.

"While all that was going on, I kept having visions of a tornado. Bigger than any I've ever seen. And it came true. It was supposed to happen last Friday."

"Well, obviously it didn't," said Chloe. "So much for your fortunetelling."

"That brings me to why I decided to find a way to save Rachel," she said. "For good."

Rachel raised an eyebrow. "What are you talking about?"

"When the tornado came, Chloe handed me the picture I took that day in the bathroom. One of my powers allows me to travel back through time using photos, further than I'd be able to reach back normally. She thought if I went back and let her die, it would stop the chain of causality that was leading to the tornado."

"Why would it do that?"

"It wasn't the only weird thing happening. On Monday we saw snow in eighty degree weather, the next day there was a solar eclipse, then dead whales started washing up on the beach, and on Thursday there were two moons in the sky. Reality was falling apart, like a video tape that's been rewound too many times. And it all started when I saved Chloe from dying. But I wasn't about to let her die just based on a theory."

Chloe frowned. "As much as I hate myself for asking this, why didn't you?"

"Because in the end, that didn't make sense either. I used my power to save myself and people other than you so many times and it didn't give me more than a bloody nose. And for that matter, I got the vision of the tornado before I even found you and discovered my powers. So I ripped the photo in half and we drove up to Seattle to stay with my parents."

She reached into her bag, producing a small photo. "That's where I found this."

"A three a.m. selfie?"

"I took it two days before Rachel disappeared in the other timeline. That's when I travelled back to, and called you. We, meaning me and the other version of you, figured out it wasn't your death that caused all this to happen."

She turned to Rachel. "It was yours."

Rachel reared her head back and put a hand to her chest. "What?"

"You have… some sort of connection to the nature in this area. Something that keeps everything in balance. When you died, everything went haywire, and entropy took over. The laws of nature no longer applied. That's probably how I got these powers in the first place."

"That's impossible."

"Maybe. But when Chloe first showed me this junkyard—the other Chloe, I mean—I saw a spirit of a doe, the same one I saw when I had a vision of the tornado. It didn't show up in the picture I tried to take of it, and it was standing right on your grave. I think… I think it was you. Your ghost, anyway."

Rachel's head disappeared into her hands, and she slowly rubbed her temples. Chloe squinted at her.

"On top of that, the fish had been dying for a long time, not just after I saved Chloe. I think me using my powers sped up the entropy and made everything get so weird. Which meant I had to go back to the beginning. I had to save you."

"I need some air," Rachel muttered, standing up and staggering to the door. As soon as she was outside, they heard the sounds of vomit hitting the dirt.

"You stay here," said Chloe. "I'll go talk to her."

She nodded.

"And thanks, Max. For everything. I mean it."

"You're welcome."

She found Rachel sitting on an old car seat that had been ripped out of some minivan ages ago. Chloe trotted slowly up to her, hands in her pockets, saying nothing. They exchanged a silent glance, and she lit a cigarette, taking a long drag before exhaling. She held it to her side, extending it towards the other girl.

Accepting the offering, Rachel took a drag and passed it back.

"Think it's true?"

"After everything else she was able to prove? I don't doubt it. Doesn't mean I'm not freaked out."

She let the hand holding the cigarette dangle by her waist. "Wanna know something funny? I believed her already."

"Oh yeah?" Rachel took a drag. "Then why give her so much shit?"

"Payback for staying out of touch so long."

"Heh."

"I knew it was true the night she called me," Chloe continued. "Max isn't creative enough to pull all that out of her ass, not to mention she can't lie worth shit. And… it was you. I'd do anything to keep you safe."

"Same here." She handed the cigarette back, and the blue-haired girl put it in her mouth and breathed in deep. "You know what this means, don't you?"

Chloe exhaled, producing a cloud of smoke. "I think so."

"If I'm tied to this land in some way…"

"Then we can't leave."

"Right."

They sat there for a minute or so, taking turns with the cigarette. Finally Rachel growled furiously and stood up, gesturing wildly.

"It doesn't make any sense!" she yelled. "I wasn't even born here! Why am I so important?"

Chloe shrugged. "Because you're the center of everybody's universe?"

"Funny."

"When I first met you," she began, her face taking on a somber expression, "when you kicked over that trash can and set fire to the oak tree, you screamed, and the wind seemed to scream with you. I didn't realize it at the time, but I think Max could be right."

"Always did seem to find the best hiking trails," she admitted. "What kind of a nature person am I if I started that wildfire, though?"

"Hey, fire can be cleansing. Some species of pinecone need extremely high temperatures to open. Nature starts plenty of fires on its own."

"Thanks, that totally helps." She groaned. "I still can't wrap my head around all this."

"Hey, me neither. If you need some space just say the word."

"What I need," said Rachel, "are more answers. And if Max doesn't know them, we'll need to find them on our own."

"Agreed. But… maybe nothing will happen if we leave. Can't hurt to try."

"Chloe, if we were really gonna leave we would have done it by now. Frank gave us that money months ago. You can't tell me you really stuck around just to hear Max's explanation for all this. I think there might be something bigger at work here."

"Yeah." She dropped the cigarette and snuffed it under her heel. "Mr. Jefferson, huh? Isn't he that hot photography professor?"

She nodded. "Always thought he seemed a little too perfect."

"I've heard half the school wants to bang him, and the other half wants to pose for him."

"If he and Nathan really have been drugging and photographing girls, then…"

"I know. We should at least tell someone about it before anyone else gets hurt."

Rachel nodded. "This has been a weird day."

"Same."

"Well, we've kept Max waiting long enough. You up for a little fun?"

Chloe smiled. "Always."

"So answer me something, Max," said Rachel as the two of them re-entered the shed. "Earlier you said that in a way you're meeting me for the first time. What did you mean by that?"

"It has to do with how my powers work," she answered as Rachel and Chloe took their seats again. "When I travel back through time using a photo instead of just rewinding, then whatever changes I cause take effect, and I only become aware of it on the same day in the new timeline. Until then everything proceeds as it otherwise would have."

Chloe nodded. "Meaning you could give me a warning call, but couldn't get down here to help save Rachel yourself."

"Exactly."

"Is that why you spaced out under the tree earlier?" asked Rachel.

She nodded. "Whatever happened between when I called Chloe that night and today, I don't remember it at all."

"So that night when we stole some old wine and had a threesome up by the lighthouse…?"

"A what?!" She rocketed to her feet, and the two of them started laughing.

"Wow Max, I didn't know your voice could get that high!" said Chloe. "Look at her face; you could plant her in a tomato field and lose track of her in two seconds!"

After a few seconds, Max's brain unfroze and she joined in on the laughter. "Very funny, guys."

"Sorry." Rachel wiped her eyes clean and continued to giggle. "I just needed something to break the tension. We did hang out at the lighthouse a few times, but there was no ménage-a-trois involved."

Max slowly descended back into her chair, still blushing. "Oh. Well, that's good, I guess."

"You almost sound disappointed."

"I…"

"Oh my god, she does," said Chloe, leaning in closer and grinning. "Well now I definitely feel bad. We've planted something in her head that'll keep her busy all night."

"Chloe!"

"What? Too far?"

"What do you think?"

"It's okay," said Max, chuckling. "In the other timeline, Chloe and I… it's not important. What matters is you're alive now."

"Wait, did we make out in this Back to the Future bizarro world?"

The blush grew more intense.

"…Did we do more than that?"

Max nodded.

"Well damn, Caulfield. Didn't know you had that in you."

"Please, it was all your idea."

"Now that makes more sense."

Rachel frowned, staring hard at the floor. Chloe turned to her. "Hey, you okay?"

"I'm fine." She nodded vigorously. "I just feel bad for making a stupid joke now."

"Hey." Max leaned forward, reaching out and cupping Rachel's hand in her own. "I didn't come back here for anything like that. The goal was always to save you. When Chloe told me about you, I figured out the way she felt about you wasn't… wasn't just friendship. I won't get in the way of that."

Rachel slowly withdrew her hand, then glanced at Chloe.

"Sorry! Did you not know that?"

"Please, I blurted it out at her the first day we met," said Chloe. "Right here in this junkyard, actually. Not a day I like to remember, but…" She smiled, then turned to Rachel. "That was the first time we were completely honest with each other."

She smiled back. "It was. God, what happened to those days?"

"I dunno. But we're all here now. Max is right: you're alive. That's what matters."

"We don't need to figure this all out right now anyway," she said. "And I've definitely had enough of sitting around feeling sorry for myself. It's Friday night, and Arcadia Bay is our oyster. You girls want to blow off a little steam?"

They nodded. She stood, finishing off the last of the beer with a long swig.

"Then let's roll."

Author's Notes: I came up with the concept for this story after coming to the same realizations about Rachel Amber that Max describes in this chapter. The first episode of Before the Storm was great, and made me fall back in love with this series after the original game's rather disappointing ending. I once tried to write a continuation fic, but quickly ran out of places to go. So why not start over from the beginning?

I have three additional chapters written out, so updates will be weekly for at least the next three weeks. Enjoy, and please let me know what you think!