A/N: This fic is a follow-up to Here at the End of All Things. All you really need to know is that things here are different, but if you want to know why, and in what way, please consider reading the earlier work.

Chapter 1; Plan B

You are the angel
I am the asshole
I am the one who caused a trillion tears
And no-one wants to hear
But I feel... bad

-Jill Sobule, Angel/Asshole

May 24th 2012

She ran.

Designer shoes slapping in the mud, Victoria Chase fled more or less at random through the Blackwell campus. Overhead, the sky glowered and brooded. Thick, weighty clouds hung low. A chill, damp wind blew in random, chaotic gusts, rushing in no particular direction. Thunder rumbled overhead, loudly predicting the first big storm of the summer to anyone who would listen.

She wasn't crying. Not yet anyway, but the threat of it hung around her in the air. Just like the rain, it was coming.

She scrambled up the steps that led from the dormitories to the main quad and stopped. Looking back, she could see through the window into the hallway of the 3rd floor girl's dormitories.

Home.

Well, sort of. Home away from home, at least for the last two years. And now she knew, with a crushing, depressing certainty; They wouldn't miss her when she was gone.

She turned and ran into the courtyard. In front of her stood the statue of whatsisface, reaching one arm to the sky... wait. He had both hands on a cane, didn't he? Victoria pursed her lips as she struggled to remember. She walked by the damn thing every day but yet she couldn't recall it very clearly. Was this one of Nathan's ancestors?

Oh, God! Nathan! How in the hell was she going to tell Nathan? Thunder rumbled across her features.

Whatever little Victoria recalled about the statue, she was, however, pretty sure it shouldn't be moving. She quickened her pace, and as she drew closer, could see that there was a figure climbing on its shoulders. The arm held aloft belonged to to the climber, not the statue.

In the stormy sky, Victoria saw a flicker of lightning jump within the clouds, silhouetting the climbing figure. "Whoever that is, they're going to get their dumb ass fried!" she said to herself, and ran forwards. This was the last thing she needed, of course, to be babysitting some suicidal nature lover, but contrary to popular belief, even Victoria Chase doesn't always get what she wants.

"Hey!" she cried out, "Hey, stupid, can't you see the storm?" The figure was on the smaller side. Lean. Probably a girl.

"Idiot, you're going to get electrocuted! Get your bony ass down off that statue!" She yelled, running now, to get closer. She saw long brown hair flapping in the breeze. Who had brown hair and was sad all the time? Stella? Alyssa maybe, but... Victoria smirked at the idea of Alyssa climbing anything. Whoever it was, the figure was ignoring her, reaching skyward.

There was another rumble of thunder. Victoria shouted, "Hear that? That means all freaks down off the statue. The last thing we need is a charred dumbfuck floating in the fountain before..."

She was interrupted by another flash of lightning. This one struck the ground, somewhere on the far side of the gymnasium. In the momentary light, she saw a glimpse of blue dancing in the wind by the figure's head. Thunder followed, immediate and breath-taking; so close she felt it in her bones.

"Rachel!" she gasped, "What the fuck are you doing?" She had reached the fountain, but Rachel was ignoring her, looking skyward, an arm extended, a vacant look in her eye.

"Rachel fucking Amber! I do not want to have to tell my therapist about your grisly death, alright? So you get your bony... Rachel! Can you even fucking hear me?"

Another flash, deep inside the clouds. Another all-too-close rumble of thunder. Rachel's gaze was still transfixed on the sky. She muttered weakly, "It's... calling me... "

"Goddammit!" spat Victoria, "Seriously Rachel, you're going to die!" She climbed onto the brick ledge of the fountain and tried to grab Rachel's leg. No good. Not close enough.

"Calling me home!" muttered Rachel, although she still didn't look down. Victoria couldn't be sure whether Rachel was even aware of her presence.

"You're buying me new shoes, you drugged-out lunatic!" cried Victoria, as she splashed through the fountain water and onto the base of the pedestal. She grabbed the leg of Rachel's jeans with both hands and tugged as hard as she could. What the hell was Rachel on? And where did she get it? The only local dealer she knew was Sheldon, and he barely managed to keep up a halfway decent weed supply, let alone anything harder.

"...I'm coming...", Rachel said to nobody and suddenly she was slipping. Victoria fell back off the pedestal and dragged Rachel with her. The two landed in a heap in the turgid waters of the fountain, smelling of rotten leaves and some soapy chemical. As her limbs flailed through the waters she kicked up a dozen coins that had lain on the bottom for who knows how long, now disturbed from their resting place. People's wishes. And she was spoiling them.

Good. Fuck 'em!

Just as the water closed over her head, Victoria saw the dazzling flash as a bolt of lightning struck the top of the statue, exactly where Rachel had been a split second earlier. It seared into her retina, a great wide swath of fire across her vision.

"And here we are in the fucking water", she thought, "I guess this is how it ends."

But it didn't. Some day, looking back, she would know exactly why the lightning didn't harm her, but in the moment, she supposed it must have had something to do with the construction of the statue itself. Maybe they grounded it somehow? Physics had never been her strong suit.

Rachel returned to her senses and sat up on her hands and knees, her wet face, blue feather stuck to her cheek, hovering only a few inches above Victoria's head as she held it out of the water. "Victoria? What the fuck?" Rachel asked in apparent surprise.

"You fucking tell me what the fuck!" Victoria spat back, "Why was Rachel Amber trying to get herself electrocuted?"

Rachel sat back on her haunches in the water and looked around like she'd just woken up. She looked up at the clouds in a daze, shaking her head. With a rumble like an avalanche, the sky opened and the rains came, making a joyful, rattling din in the shallow fountain. She stood and offered a hand to Victoria, shouting, "We should get out of this rain! Let's get back to the dorms!" She pointed, but the dorms were gone, hidden behind a curtain of gray deluge.

Victoria slapped Rachel's hand aside and stood under her own power. "Fuck the dorms!" She shouted, "The pool is closer!" The wind sliced into her, seeming to cut right through her wet clothes and skin and suck the warmth right from her core.

"It'll be locked!" countered Rachel, wrapping her arms around herself. The wind was picking up and the chill of the downpour was unseasonably cold. The blue feather thrashed and jibed.

"Perks of being Vortex Club Treasurer!" countered a shivering Victoria, pulling a key ring from her pocket.

The acrid sting of chlorine never smelled so good. The humid air from the heated pool held a warmth to it that revitalized the two storm-tossed refugees, not unlike holding up a mug of warm tea just below the nose, but on a grander scale. The Otters' lair was renowned for its cozy, comfy towels, but Victoria still felt the need to stop at her locker and fetch her own. Larger, higher thread count and with a VMC monogram in pink in the corner, just in case anyone forgot who was boss.

Rachel's approach was to grab a half-dozen towels. One for her body, one for her hair, and two each for them to sit on. Victoria smirked internally. Towel slut.

Clothes hung to dry over the lifeguard chair, the pair sat down in their towels by the edge of the pool, dangling their feet in the warm water. Victoria stared at her companion's wavy reflection in the ripples. Rachel wore a concerned and confused expression and seemed to be staring blankly up at the skylights. Victoria cleared her throat and asked, "Okay, so now I have to know. Why were you up on that statue?"

Rachel shook her head, still staring at the weather. "I... can't. It's... it's impossible to explain."

"Well, until this rain breaks, we're not going anywhere, so you might as well try."

"You won't believe me."

"Because you know what it looked like?" Victoria said, her brows knitting into a frown, "It looked like you were trying to get yourself killed."

Rachel finally turned to face her. Her eyes played over Victoria's features as if she were only realizing now that she wasn't alone. Her mouth pulled into a smirk, "Victoria Chase... are you... concerned?"

"Don't change the subject."

Rachel blinked. Looking away, she adopted a more serious tone to reply, "I wasn't trying to kill myself. Okay? What about you? What were you doing out there?"

Victoria blanched. "I... wasn't..."

"You weren't?"

"I wasn't crying!"

Rachel raised an eyebrow, "I didn't say you were."

Victoria's face scrunched up into a ball of consternation.

"Victoria, what is it?"

'Mind your own business, bitch!' came to mind. 'Go cry by yourself, emo-slut! Some of us have better things to do!' followed shortly thereafter. But really, what the hell dignity did she even have left to salvage? She had been in a fountain a minute ago. In a fucking fountain! Common as a penny! While not 100 yards away, people she counted as friends sang mocking songs about her. Reluctantly, she offered, "It's ... next year."

"What's so bad about next year?" chirped Rachel brightly. "With Marisa graduating you'll probably be President of the Vortex Club, right? Isn't that what you wanted? You're going to be queen bee! Or, no, Queen V!"

Victoria's face quivered and the facade broke down. Now she was crying, and ugly crying at that, bow lips trembling in a full-on meltdown. She wondered if Rachel would take out her phone and film it. That was certainly something Victoria herself might have done in the past. She might have even gone so far as to register a domain name specially for it. HotSnottyTears dot com or something similar. To her surprise, Rachel took her hand and seemed to wear a concerned, caring expression. But then again, this was Rachel Amber. She was good at seeming.

"What's the problem? It's everything you ever wanted! You'll have this place wrapped around your finger and you'll only be a Junior! People would kill for your spot!"

Victoria sobbed, "I don't have a spot! I'm leaving! I wanted to get serious about photography and so I looked into programs at other schools."

"You're transferring?"

"After the summer, I start at a place called Northfield Mt. Hermon. It's in Massachusetts."

"Whoa!"

"Yeah."

Rachel put her arm around Victoria's bare shoulders. "Well, what can I say, Vic? I'm impressed! Taking such a huge gamble to chase your dream! Pun intended. And relished. The place won't be the same without you."

Victoria bawled, "I know! It'll be a thousand times better!"

"What?"

"I'm going to have to start all over there! And Northfield is big, Rachel. Like, ten times as many students as Blackwell!"

"You're afraid you won't be Queen there," Rachel said, shaking the towel down out of her hair to use to dry Victoria's tears.

"I'm afraid I won't be anything there!" cried Victoria, breaking into heavy sobs. "I told Dana and Juliet I was going, and I overheard them in the bathroom making jokes. They were glad I was leaving! They were singing that stupid, fucking song!"

"Song?"

Victoria's eyes narrowed accusingly, "Oh, you know the fucking song! It came from the theater crowd. You probably helped write it! I bet you're singing in your head right now! Go on, get it the fuck out of your system already!"

Rachel looked up at the skylight and then down at the pool. Victoria wondered if the weird little truth bubble they'd been occupying had finally burst, but after a minute, she heard Rachel's soft, silky singing voice echo off the cavernous walls:

"Victoria Chase, Victoria Chase,
Whenever she speaks, you want to spray her with mace!
Poster child for resting bitch face!
Victoria-toria Chase!"

"Yes, that's the fucking song alright!" sighed Victoria. Really, though, how mad could she be? It was all true. She deserved every word of it. Leave it to the theater geeks to make it rhyme!

"It's from 101 Dalm..."

"I know what it's fucking from, Rachel!" spat Victoria, cutting her off. "I worked so hard to make a place for myself, to try and build something, and all I did was make everybody hate me!"

"But you can start again at this new school, right?" Rachel asked, reassuringly rubbing Victoria's back, "You'll be okay!"

"No, I can't! I don't want to just make another batch of people miserable, but I don't know how to do it any other way! I'm always going to just be the girl they sing villain songs about!"

"Vic, if that's really how you feel, you can make a change, you just..."

"You don't know what I'm up against, Rachel! My parents... we didn't have money when we came to Seattle. I can still remember a time when dessert was a once-a-week luxury and my mom drove this old beater that wouldn't start in the winter. They built the Chase Space out of nothing, and it only became what it is because they were relentless... savage in promoting it! Running down other galleries to anyone who would listen, sabotaging relationships between artists and other dealers, that kind of shit!"

"That sounds like a rough example to grow up with," nodded Rachel "Do you get a lot of pressure from them?"

"Not directly. It's not like Nathan's dad. But there's this... unspoken weight. Like, we made all this money so you could have all these clothes and all these cameras and go to this fancy school. Better prove you're worth it! I mean, they named me after winning for Christ's sake!"

"I think I know what that's like, believe it or not. My mom has this effortless charisma. Everybody loves Sera! She doesn't even have to say anything and people just gravitate around her! I've always tried to be like that, but I can't. I have to fake it, even when I was a kid. And my Dad...", Rachel trailed off, gazing up at the rain beating on the skylights.

"When I was a kid, I didn't have play-dates like everybody else, I had networking opportunities. And now, I don't have friends! I have rivals and whatever you call people who are too chicken-shit to be rivals. I only know how to compete. I don't know how to connect with people. I'm not like you, Rachel!"

"Victoria, that's what I'm saying: I'm not like me!"

Whatever else was on her mind, Victoria's bully senses were finely honed. The sudden admission of weakness pulled her to attention. She asked, "What do you mean?"

Rachel waved her hands in the air in exasperation, "This is all a front, okay? The Rachel everybody loves; Rachel the angel, Rachel friend to all. It's not real! Everything about me is fake! My Dad..."

Victoria couldn't help but notice Rachel stalled out twice on the same subject. Ordinarily, she'd store that nugget away for potential future exploit; Rachel Amber, weaknesses: Daddy Issues. But what was the point in fighting her now? Rachel was breaking down in front of her and Victoria herself was leaving. Whatever beef was between them was over, but Victoria still couldn't quite turn off the part of her brain that wanted to figure out if that meant she'd won. She tried to ignore it.

"He's a lawyer, right?" she asked, "District Attorney?"

"It's as much a political position as it is a legal one. He's got a different face for everybody he knows and he's always worried about appearances. And I love him, but I don't love this feeling that I'm turning into him. He knows how to take the mask off, at least around me and Mom, but I don't anymore! I'm becoming this politician. I know exactly what everybody wants to hear and I can't stop myself from saying it. That's why I'm not with Chloe any more! That's why I was running outside in a storm! That's...", she gestured up at the grey sky emptying its fury outside the skylight, "That's just fucking why, okay?"

"Okay, but I heard you broke up with her. We all thought you were finally growing out of your girl on girl phase."

Rachel ignored the dig, shaking her head and sighing wistfully, "Chloe is a total stud. Adventurous, confident... I defy any girl who's anywhere north of a Kinsey zero to not fall in love with Chloe. That long, lean body, that razor sharp wit, that relentless realness! I feel like in some ways she's the only person here who knew the real me."

"So what was the problem? And why were you out there moping about a break-up that was your idea?"

"... she's in love with someone else. She doesn't even know it yet, but… trust me. She is." Rachel admitted after a long pause. An arc of lightning flashed outside the skylight, its reflection torn into a thousand dancing shards by the ripples of the pool's surface.

Victoria visibly boggled. What kind of goddess... what kind of paragon could turn anybody's head away from little miss perfect? Dating Rachel Amber was the kind of thing you put on your college application, not the kind of thing you walk away from! The status metrics of it had never made any sense to Victoria. Rachel Amber and Chloe Price. Why? How? Was Rachel not aware of just how thoroughly she was socially slumming it? Did she just not care, or was that part of the appeal? How was one to operate in a world where the most popular girl in school chose for her arm candy some lanky nerd girl instead of the likes of Zachary and/or Logan? Were decorative sides of beef out? Was being bi the new hotness? And after all that, it had been Chloe that moved on first. It defied all possible calculation! She had to ask, "Anybody I know?"

Rachel shook her head, blue feather dancing, "No. She lives in Seattle, but she and Chloe talk all the time and visit each other every few months. You'd like her, though. She's a photographer."

Victoria wasn't sure about that. Just the notion of another skilled photographer on campus made her hackles rise. It was bad enough having to compete with just Evan! She was going to have to get over that in a hurry when she transferred.

A sudden rumble of thunder shook the walls and rattled the skylights. The two girls gasped and reflexively huddled together, holding each other by the arms. Victoria caught a whiff of jasmine from Rachel's hair. Given what their relationship had been previously, it seemed unlikely, but maybe she could yet leave Blackwell behind with at least one actual friend.

"Well, for what it's worth, I want to know the real you," she muttered to the ground.

"Well, I want to know the real you too, Victoria."

"I think you already do, Rachel. I think Queen V is the real me. I think that... exaggerated bitch... that fucking cartoon villain who tried to steal your part in the Tempest... that's me. That's Victoria fucking Chase. That's all I'm ever going to get to be!"

"I don't believe that," countered Rachel, shaking her head, "I think the way you want to change... the person you want to become. That's the real you and I think she's gonna be pretty cool!"

Victoria turned her red eyes and stared at Rachel's face. Her perfect, delicate, inscrutable face; hypnotic and unknowable, like staring into a fire. "Is that you being real? Or are you just being the politician?"

Rachel pondered the question, "I don't know. I can't even fucking tell any more! But I want it to be true!"

"I'm so sorry about that, by the way! The Tempest, I mean. Like, legit ashamed. That one keeps me up at night some times. Why are you even talking to me? I'm horrible!" Victoria wailed, burying her head in her hands.

Rachel's lip quivered. Her eyes began to cloud over and her voice choked as she protested, "Maybe I'm horrible too, Vic. Maybe I'm turning into my Dad and I don't know how to stop! Maybe that's why I had to leave Chloe, because she's like some sort of truth elemental and being around her makes me realize what a lying, manipulative piece of shit I really am!"

"No, I'm a piece of shit! Everybody hates me and they're 100% right to!"

"We are both pieces of shit!"

"We are!"

"We suck!"

The rain thrashed outside the skylights as Victoria Chase and Rachel Amber sat crying in each others' arms, weeping bitter, rueful tears of self-recrimination. Heaving, choking sobs echoed through the empty chamber, underscored occasionally by rumbling thunder. HotSnottyTears dot com would have had a field day. Slowly, both the weather and the two girls eased into calm as an awkward silence descended.

Rachel spoke first, sniffling quietly into Victoria's neck, "You could change. I could help you. I want to help you!"

Victoria retreated to arms' length and gave her a confused look.

Rachel continued, "How about this? I'll help you learn to be better with people, and you... you help me keep it real."

"You want my help?" Victoria exclaimed, struggling to process the concept. Perfection incarnate required assistance? It was the sort of sentence you'd use to make a robot's head explode.

"No, but I need it. You've got a finely honed bullshit detector and you're the only one here who sees through me. I could use someone in my life who calls me on it. Slap the fake out of me."

Victoria grinned, "Do I really get to slap you?"

"Only if I'm naughty", sung Rachel's honeyed voice, playfully. Her eyes shot a sultry glance. It was exactly flirtatious enough that Victoria couldn't tell if she was serious. Perfectly pitched. Probably practiced that shit in the mirror.

"Okay, so what's step one?"

"Step one...", started Rachel, reaching for Victoria's face with deliberate slowness, "...is relax. You carry all your tension right here. Everybody can see it." Victoria jumped slightly as Rachel's finger touched her lips. She traced her way around the edges, smoothing. "You've got like this perma-purse thing going on...", she muttered, adding, "Yeah, that's it exactly!" as Victoria's face tensed up. Rachel leaned in, staring at Victoria's mouth. She felt her face flush. "Relaaaaaaax, Victoria. It's okay if everything doesn't go according to plan. Maybe there doesn't even need to be a plan. Here, stand up."

Victoria obliged and Rachel took her hands and shook her arms out. "You don't always need to be tensed up for a fight. Learn to relax a little and you'll be ready for anything!"

"That sounds like hippie horse shit, but I'll try," mumbled Victoria. She shook her head to the side and tried to unpurse her lips. Rachel ducked behind her and rubbed her neck and shoulders.

After a minute, she asked, "Relaxed yet?"

"I guess."

"Ready for anything?"

"Sure," she sighed, and then added hastily, "If you kiss me, I will fucking punch you."

"Okay then. Plan B!" replied Rachel.

Plan B, as it turned out, was pushing Victoria into the pool. On her way down, she wondered what it meant that she wasn't even really mad. Sure, she was vaguely annoyed she'd have to dry off, again, this time using the communal towels, but the usual venom was conspicuous by its absence. Ordinarily she'd have a revenge plan crafted before she even hit the water. Maybe teach Rachel why you do not hand a bully a wet towel. As of right now, however, her mind was occupied with more pressing concerns. Namely, could she really change? Could she make at least some modicum of amends in the time she had left? Could Rachel help her? Could she help Rachel?

And most importantly; what in the hell, exactly, had been Plan A?