Max loped away from the Price residence in a daze.
The sun had completely set now, the red orange of the dying light and the oblong shadows cast by the eclipse having faded into the darkness of night. Crickets chirped, and the meanings of dying whales echoed like tragic songs across the town of Arcadia Bay. Dead birds dotted the streets, crunched beneath car wheels or eaten by stray dogs.
She didn't bother taking another bus. Instead, she elected to wander through town like a drunk, head foggy with images of burning pictures and the half remembered conversations of the evening.
The night with the Price family should have been wonderful. Joyce's cooking was amazing as always, Williams sense of humor was sharp as always, schmaltzy as it was hilarious, and Chloe had done nothing but smile and tease her weakly, respirator straining her still fierce voice.
Yet Max had spent the entire evening fighting the urge to scream, to claw at her face and sob until her body dried up and withered away. From conversations with the Price's and a keen yet overwhelmed ear, bits of information about this new world. She was on the cusp of being a professional photographer, ripping up the pro-scene in Seattle and winning any competition she'd entered. She was a member of the Blackwell elite, a part of the Vortex club who hung out with the likes of Victoria and Nathan.
Warren was dating Stella, and hadn't even glanced her way. Not that she minded, but it was bizarre.
Everything was fucked. And it was entirely her fault.
Her well-tailored, expensive looking clothes felt wrong on her body. They were an anachronism, a far cry from the plain jeans and t-shirts that made up the majority of her wardrobe.
She clenched her left hand into a fist. Tremors of power echoed up her forearm, a prickling vibration that briefly distorted her vision and made the world shake backwards half a moment. Then she stopped, letting the power go and letting time flow normally.
Was this the price of her power? Of abusing it?
All she'd wanted, all she'd ever wanted, was to make things right. Her power let her do that, turn back the clock and rejigger the world in slight but significant ways.
It had saved Chloe's life. It had helped her save Kate's, even though it had burned out from excessive use.
Those were things her power had fixed.
And then she'd seen Chloe, angry, grief-stricken tears in her eyes, blaming the world and her father and his death for all the pain in her life.
How could she not try to fix it? How could she not, whether it be purposeful or not, will her self back in time through the photo, through that piece of time, and save William?
She's saved Williams life.
Yet it had cost Chloe her legs, and it had warped the world beyond recognition.
Seeing Chloe in that chair had broken. Taken a sledgehammer to her heart and scattered the pieces to a violent wind. Staggered by the weight of her own thoughts, Max leaned against a nearby street lamp, leg's trembling. Chloe was the most important person in the world to her. More than that, even.
Less than twelve hours ago, she'd been having the time of her life despite the narrowly avoided tragedy the day before.
It had been fun. Breaking into school and investigating. Swimming in the pool, their conversation flowing as naturally as a river.
Their sort of kiss….
"What have I done?" she whispered.
"What you've done," said a voice from down the street, startling Max upright, "Is learned a valuable lesson on why not to screw with time."
Max looked up….and suddenly she was looking into a mirror. Sort of.
Standing no more than ten paces down the sidewalk was a young women in a sky blue dress with a floral pattern. She wore sensible shoes, with just the slightest elevation of the heels, and had her hand folded almost coyly behind her back.
Forty-eight hours ago, Max would've stared agape, cried out in surprise or otherwise reacted with shock and awe. After the events of this evening however, all she could do was stare.
The woman was…herself.
Her hair was longer, well past shoulder length, and her face had different lining to it, though not significantly so. Older, yet no more than a few years.
There was a long, strained pause.
"So….you're me, then," Max said. It wasn't a question, though her voice wavered.
Her older self smiled. The same smile Max had seen in countless family photos. It was creepy.
"Yep." She said nothing else, just smiling in a strangely maternal way, with an air of understanding about it.
Max said nothing. What was there to say? Her brain and heart were beyond fried, in no condition to process any of this. Then again, she'd proabably crunched time into a universe ending paradox, that's why she was seeing double.
The Older Max looked up at the star salted sky. A breeze swayed her skirt.
"Mind going for a walk?" she asked. "It's a nice night."
Numbly, Max nodded.
They ended up going in the direction of the lighthouse, walking between ancient pines and mighty oaks.
Despite the unusually warm autumn weather, none of the usual hooligans lurked in the woods setting of firecrackers or smoking pot. News of Kate's suicide attempt had spooked Arcadia Bay's parents, so tonight they were keeping a firm hand on their children, safe at home.
For more than ten minutes, the identical pair walked in silence.
A thousand-no a million questions cluttered Max's mind.
"I'm twenty-two, if you're wondering," said the Older Max, plucking a question from the bundle of many. She walked with an almost alien confidence, one foot after the other, hands still clasped against her lower back.
Okay, Max thought. That was one question out of the way.
"Why….how are you here?" she asked quietly. "You jumped back four years, but….I'm here, and….are you still in this world, with Chloe like this and –"
"Stop," her older self said, cutting off her rambling. "One thing at a time. Trust me, I know it's confusing. This isn't the first time I've done this."
Max felt her eyebrows crawl towards her hairline.
"It….isn't?"
Old Max shook her head.
"Weird thing is, I'm going off a script right now. Every word that comes out of my mouth is recited from memory. Last time I had this conversation, I was you, and I'd just had the worst experience of my life." She paused, placing a comforting right hand on Max's should. "It's been a rough day or two hasn't it?"
Max let out a long, shuddering breath.
"Yeah, it has. I feel like I've destroyed everything." Unconsciously, she clenched her left hand, yet no power flowed. Was her older self doing that?
"I know how you feel," the older woman replied, and her tone showed just how true that was. "Heck, I know more about how you feel than you do. Time helps put things in perspective, see things you didn't before."
"So you're from...from after? After tornado, after everything crazy?" Older Max nodded. "So, I become you?"
Older Max shrugged.
"Maybe. It's not that simple."
She took removed her hand and paced further into the woods, bracken crackling beneath her feet. Twigs and leaves poked at her bare legs, though she didn't seem to mind.
Pale moonlight creeped in through the canopy, illuminating her fully. The dress left her upper back exposed, and Max could see a blue butterfly tattooed across her left shoulder.
"Time is in flux right now," she explained, glancing back at the eighteen year old. "I'm just a possibility, not a definite future."
As she spoke, her whole body flickered. It shimmered translucently, like glass, before re-solidifying. Max felt her body tighten at the sight.
"The tornado you saw," Older Max continued, "isn't a tornado at all. It looks like one, has the wind of one, but it's so much more than that." Her face grew dark, as if remembering a nightmare. "It's a torrent, ripping away at space like a hot knife through butter. It won't just destroy Arcadia Bay, it'll end everything."
"…How do I stop it?"
It was a child's question, really. Just one of many. How did she find Rachel Amber? How stop the Tornado? How did she fix Chloe? How did she tell her-
"I'm not here to tell you that," Older Max replied, stepping forward again. Her left hand was still curled behind her back. "That's something you, and Chloe, need to figure out for yourselves."
"But Chloe is!-" she broke off, eyes welling with tears.
"I know," Max the elder said. "But as you know, time can be rewritten. It can be shifted around and changed.
"Isn't that what got me into this mess?!" she was yelling now. The weight of everything was smothering her, and the floodgates had opened.
"Yes," said Older Max. "But just because you screwed up with your power, doesn't mean it can't still be useful, that things can't be put right. Think about what brought you here."
"…The picture." She could still feel it on her fingers, still see the surface vibrate like the surface of a lake.
"Yes, the picture. Chloe last truly happy memory. Think, Max Caulfield, think about the last few days. What have they taught you, what have they shown you?"
Memory, like photographs on her wall, hung before. Little pieces of time, just like Mr. Jefferson had said.
Walking with Chloe alongside the train tracks, shooting the shit and reminiscing about old times. Hiding in her closet, then laughing afterwards as they maid their way to the lighthouse. Sneaking out to investigate Rachel's disappearance, swimming in the pool, kissing…..a dare she'd accepted without hesitating.
"Wouldn't it be wicked if we could hang out here forever, just like when we were kids?"
"You make me feel like you know what I'm doing."
"You give me a reason to stay in Arcadia Bay."
She saw herself standing on the cliff near the lighthouse, Tornado looming over like some great beast out of myth. A thousand possibilities flood in, her and Chloe dying and living in a thousand different ways, bloodied on the rocks, walking into the sunset, sitting quietly in the ruins of their hometown.
The images and the images blurred together in cacophony of sound and color.
Suddenly, her older self was beside her. Whispering.
"I know how you feel, Max. I've seen what you're seeing. Now, tell me what I know. Tell me what you feel."
"I love her."
Three simple words only half spoken, yet they were like a revelation.
Her older self smiled.
"And there is it. That's the key." Lifting her hand for the first time, she pressed something into Max's closed fist.
Max looked down.
The polaroid taken of her and Chloe, laying in bed in nothing but boy shorts and t-shirts, grinning like idiots.
On her older self's hand, a diamond ring glittered. Max's eyes widened, and her older self smirked.
"That's a story you'll have to figure out on your own." She jabbed a finger at the picture. "Use it. Go back to that moment, re-live it. Maybe this time spend the morning making out instead of crawling around Frank's shithole RV.
Their hand flickered with power, the polaroid shimmered, and for a brief moment Max saw an ethereal doe, staring at her.