Debris
A/N: I imagine the story taking place after Shelter and Chiaroscuro but it's not necessary to read those to understand this story.
One: Penance
As Max adjusted the settings on her borrowed camera, she did her best to focus on the form of the image she was trying to capture, not on the what, or the who.
Rubble. Ruins. Debris.
The waning daylight lit up the western sky, turning the afternoon murk into a swirl of pale, peachy orange among swathes of steely grey clouds, now tinged with blue. The golden hour, she'd told Chloe once–the other Chloe in her wheelchair. Max readied the shot. It was now or never.
Debris stretched out to the horizon: wooden planks, lengths of siding, clumps of insulation like giant wads of cotton candy, mattresses, a window frame, a hot water tank. Ruined pieces of people's lives. Slightly to the left of centre, a tree trunk remained upright, most of its branches broken off, just a few stubs remaining like broken limbs. A car's bumper had been wrapped around its trunk by the force of the winds as if it were nothing more than a paperclip. It gleamed in the remains of daylight.
Max took the shot. She took several. She kept shooting until the light was too dim to go on.
And then she put away her camera, folded up the tripod, and picked her way back towards the nearest passable road. It wasn't long before she heard a sound she'd come to love over the past weeks: the rumble of Chloe's junker. The grumble of that run-down engine could make Max smile, even in the midst of all this desolation.
The truck pulled up and Max got in, only to be greeted by, "Price transportation at your service. I'm afraid advanced payment is required."
Setting down her gear, Max replied without even glancing at Chloe. "Do you take debit?"
"No."
"Credit?"
"No."
"Cheques?"
"Fuck no."
The camera and tripod now safely propped up against her leg, Max finally looked up and gave Chloe a once-over. Her tatty jeans were mud-spattered and her black T-shirt was covered in white plaster dust. A pair of thick work gloves, equally muddy, lay discarded between the two seats. Max spotted a thin red line slicing through the gold skull of Chloe's tattoo, like a long paper cut. "I don't think I can afford the ride then."
Chloe flashed a wicked grin. "We do accept sexual favours. In fact it's our preferred method of payment."
And rather than bothering to come up with an appropriately witty response to that, Max leaned in and pressed her lips to Chloe's in a lingering kiss. The scent of sawdust clung to her, and Max could feel bits tangled in Chloe's hair as she ran her fingers through it. But she was kissing her best friend, and she wouldn't trade it–wouldn't trade her. Not for all of Arcadia Bay.
Pulling back finally, Max quirked an eyebrow. "Will that do?"
Chloe was looking a little flushed, but quite pleased. "Paid in full."
"I won't ask what a ride to Seattle would cost."
A grin nearly split Chloe's face. "You hella should. I'd make sure it was the best ride of your life."
She was also flirting with her best friend–except not in the completely ironic way they once had, because of course now her best friend was also her girlfriend, and a few weeks was just not enough time to get used to that. "Whatever you say, Cassanova." Max was proud that she could deliver a comeback at all, when, at the back of her mind she was thinking of how soft Chloe's hands were when they brushed down her cheek, when they snuck under the hem of her shirt to tickle her ribs, and of how much more she knew those soft hands wanted to explore.
"Did you get what you needed?" Chloe asked, her chin jutting to indicate the expanse of debris.
"I think so." Max reached into her pocket and produced an old photograph of an unremarkable suburban home with a huge oak on the front law. Reaching for her camera–her dad's camera actually, hers on an indefinite loan–Max pulled up the shots she'd just taken and let Chloe peer from the photo to the screen.
"Fuck. It's the same place? Really?"
"It is," Max said quietly. The tornado had ploughed through this residential neighbourhood, leaving entire blocks like this one reduced to rubble. There were so few landmarks left it was painfully difficult trying to figure out where a particular house had once stood. But that was exactly what Max had been trying to do for her photography project. She needed before and after shots. She had the "before", a pic from an old album she'd left in Seattle. This evening she had gotten the "after".
The project had been Max's idea, a way of doing something for the community she'd helped to destroy. A sort of reparation for something she could never repay. And while her Blackwell classmates didn't need to do penance the way she did, they had been anxious to get involved. The goal was to create side-by-side images of pre- and post-storm Arcadia Bay– before and after photos of the town–and assemble a collection to raise money for rebuilding.
Warren had already prepped (of course) a Kickstarter campaign, though how he could get anything done on the computer when he still had one arm in a cast was beyond her. Max and Alyssa were working on gathering photos and Juliet was working on text. The sticking point at this juncture was what to officially name the project. Warren's suggestion of "Bayfore and After" had been immediately voted down.
Sighing, Max tried to turn her thoughts away from what her powers had done, and towards the one thing that made it all worth it. "Did you have fun with the cleanup crew today?'
"Hella fun. I got to use a chainsaw this morning."
Max blanched. "A chainsaw?"
"Don't worry, Maxattack, I had adult supervision and everything."
Taking several deep breaths, Max tried to calm her racing heart while a series of grizzly disasters involving Chloe and chainsaws flashed before her mind's eye. "Chloe, did you... medicate... this morning?"
Chloe snorted. "Are you asking me if I used a chainsaw while I was high? I'm not a complete fuckup, you know."
"I know." Max let out a long breath. "I just... I still worry. I guess I'm still afraid Arcadia Bay has it out for you."
"Max–"
"I know, I know," she cut in, staring down at her hands. "None of that emo shit, right?"
"That's not what I was going to say." Swivelling in her seat to peer out the back window, Chloe put the truck in reverse and performed a fantastically illegal U-turn in the middle of the road. "You hella need cheering up and I've got just the thing."
Max shot her a sceptical look. "Joyce won't be happy if we're late for dinner."
"We've got lots of time. Relax, Max. Reliable is my middle name."
"Your middle name is 'Elizabeth'," Max said, crossing her arms. The sunset had faded into dusk. By the time they got anywhere it would be dark, and with debris strewn everywhere and streetlights out in many neighbourhoods, wandering around after dark could be hazardous.
"I had it changed. Legally." She swerved around a series of pylons in their lane, which sectioned off what appeared to be the remains of a fishing boat's hull. "I went to City Hall and filled out the papers."
"City Hall doesn't have a roof. Or electricity."
There was more swerving and even though Max had grown up riding her bike up and down these very streets she realized she couldn't tell where they were. There was nothing recognisable.
"We're here," Chloe announced after a few minutes as she pulled over onto a swathe of mud, which had once been someone's front lawn until the storm had stripped it of grass.
There were no lights, but by now Max knew the shape of destructions just by its outlines, the jagged shapes in the dark that had once been homes. "Chloe..." She didn't get further than that before Chloe got out of the truck and pulled out her phone for the flashlight app. The tiny light preceded her as she moved towards the debris.
Max knew she could stay in the truck. She could. Theoretically. But she knew the truth of the matter was that she would always follow Chloe.
With a resigned sigh, Max opened the door and gingerly stepped out of the truck. Chloe held out a hand to her and, in spite of her many reservations, Max found herself smiling as she took those familiar fingers in hers.
With uncharacteristic care, Chloe led Max around the debris, towards a shape, jutting out of the ground, leaning at a precarious angle. It wasn't until the light shone directly on it that Max realized it was the skeletal remains of a tree. It was much like the one she'd been photographing–cleanly stripped of bark, with only a few stubby branches left. She couldn't even guess what sort of tree it was.
With a mad grin on her face, Chloe tugged Max down next to the tree and shone her light on the trunk. "Chloe, what..."
"Get closer," Chloe said, moving to one side.
Max scooted closer and leaned down to peer at the spotlight from Chloe's phone. As she looked more closely, she realized that there were deep gouges in the wood. A roughly circular shape and then scratches inside it. It didn't look natural. She squinted at the marks until she realized it wasn't a circle; it was a heart. "Oh!"
"I was gonna wait till tomorrow. It's hard to see in the dark. Can you make out the names?"
"Umm..." Max traced her fingers over the names, trying to get a better feel for them. "Susan and... Michael. No... Michelle?" She glanced up at Chloe. "Is that right?"
Chloe grinned. "Fuck yeah! Arcadia Gay!"
"You dork." But Max was smiling too. A little spring of happiness bubbled in her chest at the thought that at some point in time another pair of girls had crouched here, carving their names into this tree. Two girls who had been more than friends. Two girls like them.
Well except for the time travel. And the not-so-natural-disaster. And the almost dying a lot.
Fingertips still brushing over the carved names, Max was surprised when she felt the warmth of Chloe's fingers against hers as her friend tapped the bare wood. "Spotted it today while we were working around here."
For a moment, the world wavered before Max's eyes, as if she were looking at a rippling reflection. She put a hand down to steady herself.
And then everything was normal again.
Chloe's hand gripped her shoulder. "Max?"
"I'm okay. Just a little tired I guess."
"We can head back now."
They rose, but Max paused a moment to take another looked at the battered tree. Broken and stripped of bark, it still bore that inscription of love.
Glancing up, Max could spot tight clusters of stars appearing in the still-darkening sky. There were more than she normally could spot in town–because there were far fewer lights now in town. Breathing deeply of the cold November air, Max tried to take it all in. The good and the bad. The wondrous and the terrible. It was still a lot to process, but, in spite of everything, Max was so grateful to be here standing in the rubble with Chloe.
She leaned into Chloe and wrapped her arms around her, burying her face in Chloe's neck. "I love you," she murmured.
Chloe squeezed her tightly. "And that will cover your fare back home."
#
The scent of grease and grilled meat filled Chloe's nostrils the moment they stepped into Blackwell's cafeteria. The smell was hella better than when she used to be a student. The sound level was different too. Used to be full of chatter, all those Vortex bitches giggling at the central tables with the football pricks and their too-loud macho boasts ("I caught a pass this long." "Hey you know what else is this long..."). The cafeteria was a different world now, still noisy, but the swell of conversation was more muted and punctuated by crying babies and at least one bout of sobbing per meal. Hella depressing. But then it was food central for the Bay refugees. People who'd lost their homes to the storm. People like her and her family.
Max was looking around, her gaze lingering on the families crowded around the cafeteria tables. They did this every day and Max still got that pained look on her face every time, as if all this were her fault. And fuck that! Superpowers didn't come with instruction manuals.
She elbowed Max in the ribs. "Told you'd I'd get you home in time for dinner."
Max smiled. "I should never doubt my faithful chauffeur."
"Faithful chauffeur and companion," Chloe said, wrapping an arm around Max's waist as they picked their way through the crowded room toward the food line. She glanced around, daring anyone to say something–but no one did. She was almost disappointed. She wouldn't mind blowing off some steam, and telling someone off when they well and truly deserved it would do the trick nicely. They did get the stink eye from a middle aged woman with a fading blond dye job, but she looked away quickly when Chloe glared at her.
As they passed a table, Max waved, and Chloe realized it was one of their tent neighbours–a middle aged couple with a pre-teen girl and two dogs. FEMA had promised trailers, but so far only a few had materialized, and most people were still camped out in tents in the Bigfoots field–her and Max included. They'd spent a couple of weeks in Seattle with Max's folks but when Max had decided she needed to come back, they'd had to set up shop with all the other post-storm hobos. Booyah for camping. Chilly at this time of year, but not so bad when you got to share your sleeping bag.
And of course, there was Joyce decked out in a grease-stained apron, handing out dinner plates. And here Chloe had been hoping she'd still be in the kitchen. "There you girls are. I thought I was going to have to warm up something for you again."
Chloe huffed. "That only happened a couple of times."
"It smells great tonight, Joyce," Max said with a smile as Joyce served her a plate with what appeared to be a hamburger with honest-to-God meat in it.
"Did FEMA finally run out of Spam and hot dogs?" Chloe said as she got a burger of her own along with a side of salad–actual green salad rather than glow-in-the-dark coleslaw.
"A church group from Newport donated a freezer-full of ground beef and sacks of veggies today." Chloe lifted the hamburger bun and peered inside. "You're too late for ketchup. We ran out ten minutes go. Mustard and relish over there," she said, using her serving tongs to point towards the stand on one side of the room.
"Shitballs."
"Thank you, Joyce. I can't wait. I'm starved!" Max always knew what to say to make mom happy–which made one of them.
Joyce nodded. "Oh and there's another box of stuff to sort through for the lost and found if you feel up to it."
Fuck. Every time Max went through those boxes she ended up a sniffling mess. She said that she at least wanted to try to help people reclaim their belongings–especially the family photos–but as far as Chloe was concerned Max was just beating herself up, telling herself over and over that the clusterfuck funnel had been all her fault.
"Great," Chloe said. "Homework. It's just like being back in school."
Max shook her head. "I don't mind. It keeps me busy in the evening."
Chloe leaned into Max. "If you want something to keep you busy I'm pretty sure I could manage that."
"You don't come equipped with wifi," Max returned without missing a beat.
"Ow! Burn!" Chloe said, holding her tray in one hand and holding the other to her heart.
A rueful smile from Max and then, "Come on, drama queen, you're holding up the line." And then, with another thank you to Joyce, Max headed over to the condiments bar for mustard. Or relish.
#
Even when she'd been a Blackwell student, Chloe had never been one to spend time at the Bigfoots field. Jocks playing a glorified game of fetch? Pass. Or fumble. Or whatever. Now it was her home–another of Arcadia Bay's sick little jokes.
Floodlights illuminated the field, their stark white beams like a spotlight on the survivors' collective misfortune. The FEMA tents were white domed things, like giant albino turtle shells and were large enough to house an entire family. But a lot of people had already set up shop here before the feds had showed up, using scrounged or donated camping gear. The tents came in all shapes and sizes and in a rainbow of colours, a splash of chaos alongside the orderly FEMA additions. Porta-potties lined the sides of the field and on a bad day, a southbound breeze would carry the stench down their way. Definitely a shithole.
Max had already done a photo shoot of the place for the before and after project. It had been one of the most obvious shots to do.
Chloe sighed as she hefted the lost and found box to their tent. The place made her grumpy, especially with the damn floodlights on. Her boots squished through the once pristine turf, now reduced to muck. Darting a glance at Max, she caught one of those anguished looks on her face. She wanted to reach out and put an arm around her–to remind Max that she wasn't alone in this mess, that they were partners... but she was carrying the damn box.
"Home sweet hut," Chloe announced as they reached the tent they'd borrowed from Max's parents. Why they had ever thought lime green was a great colour for a tent she wasn't certain–maybe there'd been a sale. Max unzipped the flap and Chloe ducked inside and deposited the box in the centre of the tent. They spent a few minutes setting up some battery-operated lamps and arranging their assorted stuff so it was out of the way.
Chloe heaved a sigh. "I could hella use a shower about now." Since she had nothing better to do, she spent most days helping to clear debris. The national guard was working on clearing roads, and the city had signed a contract with some company in California that was used to cleaning up earthquake debris, but that didn't help with private property. No, that glorious task was left to volunteers. She couldn't help Max with her photos, but hauling trash into bins was doable. And hey the chainsaw had been fucking awesome.
"You could try the swim room showers," Max said. "There probably isn't a lineup now."
"Communal showers. Let me think..." She paused to rub her chin as if considering the matter deeply. "Nope. Not that desperate yet."
Max sat down, hugging her knees. "It would be nice if the dorms had power again." The storm had eaten up transformers and crocheted power lines all over town. It was going to be a while still before the power companies managed to restore service everywhere. Blackwell was currently running on some huge-ass generators provided by the national guard so only essential areas like the cafeteria and the Otters' shower rooms were in service. Both the boys' and girls' dorms were closed until power was restored.
"Hey at least your Blackwell pals were nice enough to collect all your stuff for you. You've actually got a working laptop." Chloe's laptop had perished with her family's house along with pretty much everything she owned except her cell phone.
A faint smile made its way to Max's lips. "Yeah. It was really good of Dana to do that."
"We've got some time to kill. I picked up a deck of cards today," Chloe said, producing the deck from her pocket. She slid the cards out of the box and riffled them as she spoke. "We could play Crazy Eights. Just like old times. Or," she went on, with a sly smile, "I could always teach you to play strip poker."
Max laughed. "You know I can't bluff to save my life."
"I'm banking on it." When she looked up from the deck, she could see a flush to Max's cheeks. She was so easy; it was adorable. "You're too cute, hippie. I'm gonna have to come over there and ravish you or something."
Glancing over her shoulder at the all-too-thin tent walls, Max grimaced. "I'd rather not put on a show for everyone." And then Max's gaze turned to the box and Chloe knew she'd lost her. "I should start in on this stuff anyway."
Sighing, Chloe set down the cards. "You don't have to."
Max shook her head. "At least it's something I can do."
Not for the first time in the past few weeks, Chloe found herself wanting to shake Max. She wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake the guilt out of her. Because it wasn't her fault that those stupid fucking powers had somehow caused a goddam time tornado, that somehow Chloe Price getting a second chance at life meant the universe had to take a bite out of Arcadia Bay. Well fuck the universe. At least they'd taken down that sicko Jefferson along with the town. Whatever else had happened, that alone was worth it.
But instead, Chloe shuffled across the tent floor and sat down close to Max so that their knees were touching.
The box was full of the usual assortment of odds and ends, with a pile of photos at the bottom. The usual drill was to wipe off any dried mud and dirt that they could and then photograph the items and post a note on the Arcadia Bay Lost and Found Facebook page. The stuff then got placed in the official storage room for lost possessions until someone came forward to claim it. It was hella depressing most of the time, sorting through pieces of people's lives that had been scattered all over town by the tornado.
The first thing in today's pile was a blue varsity jacket with fifty-six cents in one pocket and packet of gum in the other. After that was an Ipod, still in working condition. Chloe flipped through the musical selections and grimaced. "Boy bands."
There was a tangle of beaded necklaces, a Bible with a personal inscription on the inside cover, a trumpet which Max absolutely forbade Chloe from trying out, and a Spiderman lunchbox. After that, at the very bottom of the box, were the photos.
Nearly all were muddied and stiff from having been wet and dried off, making even recent photos look ancient. Some were torn or missing edges. There were baby pictures, school portraits, graduation photos, family trips– the usual stuff. Chloe brushed flecks of dirt off them one by one and tried not to look too closely.
Chloe was piling everything back up to be put away again, grateful that Max had managed to get through tonight without getting too teary–only one Kleenex needed; a new record!–when Max peered into the empty box. "Think we missed one." Max reached into the box and then recoiled as if she'd been bitten by something.
"Max?" The colour had drained from her face. "Dude, what wrong?" She didn't answer, just stared at the box. There was indeed one last photo at the bottom. Chloe snatched it up... and felt the hamburger in her gut start to churn.
It was a black and white image of a girl, lying on her side. A puffy mane of blond hair was elaborately piled on her head and appeared to have been hair-sprayed into submission. A spangled shirt poked out from under a faded denim jacket. Dark eyeliner stained her lids, which drooped as if she were only barely awake. Her eyes were glazed over.
When Max finally spoke, her voice was barely more than a whisper. "It looks like one of Jefferson's photos."
Chloe swallowed and licked her lips, her mouth feeling suddenly sandpapery. "It's a coincidence. It has to be."
Max reached out to touch the photo. Her fingers grazed the muddied surface of the image. And she went limp against Chloe's shoulder.
#
Max had seen Arcadia Bay destroyed many times: in her visions, in an alternate timeline, in her nightmares, and once, too, in reality.
But what she saw now was different. Max found herself standing on Arcadia Bay's main drag and what she saw was not destruction, but desolation. Stores with boarded up windows. Roofs almost stripped of shingles. Rusty gas pumps. Empty shopfronts. For sale signs that looked as beaten down as the buildings.
Her voice shook. "What the fuck is happening?" There were no cars, no people. Her voice was the only sound and even it seemed oddly muted.
I was in the tent with Chloe and I looked at that photo...
Max's heart lurched. So did her stomach and for a few seconds she was afraid she was going to puke.
But then she could hear what Chloe would tell her, "Come on, Supermax, chill the fuck down and figure this out." She drew in a deep breath and then another. Chloe might not be here–wherever here was–but it was comforting to know she had her own personal inner Chloe to help her keep it together.
Max reached into her pocket for her phone. It was there but when she tried to turn in on, the screen remained dark. Okay. So definitely more supernatural shit. Great.
"Let's review," she said to no in particular, just because the silence was starting to creep her out. There weren't even birds calls or the sound of ocean waves. Even the air seems stale, though in reality there was always a salty breeze off the bay.
She'd been looking at the creepy photo and then she'd been here. That was one of the reasons she'd started using her dad's camera: so she wouldn't have to worry about going back in time into a photo. But she hadn't focussed on the image, hadn't felt that fuzziness she'd experienced before when moving through time via photos. And it wasn't a photograph of her so she shouldn't have been able to reach into it anyway. None of this made sense.
Craning her neck up, she found herself staring at a billboard for the Prescott's Pan Estates. Scrawled across it, a faded red banner proclaimed "cancelled".
#
Max's eyes snapped opened and she was in the tent again. Chloe had an arm around her shoulders and was urgently repeating her name. "Max! Come on, Max! Don't pull this shit on me again."
"Chloe." Her voice sounded shaky.
Chloe held her by the shoulders. "You back with me?"
Max nodded. "Yeah. But... Chloe... I had another vision." Just saying it aloud was almost too much. She threw herself into Chloe's arms and held on to her as tightly as she could. She'd sacrificed everything to keep Chloe with her; she wouldn't let Arcadia Bay taker her away again.
"Max? Earlier tonight when we were looking at that tree... Did anything... weird happen?"
Max stiffened. "I–I'm not sure. For a second I felt... like my vision wasn't clear."
"Like stuff went all wobbly for second?"
She drew back to look at Chloe. "How did you know?"
"Cuz I saw it too. I wasn't sure it was real but..."
A shiver ran down Max's spine. She'd come back to Arcadia Bay hoping to make things better, just a little better if she could. Not to somehow put the whole town–and Chloe–in danger all over again.
"Chloe, I can't do this again. I just... can't." Cocooned in Chloe's arms, Max could feel the heat radiating from her friend's body, could feel the rapid thrum of her heartbeat. Chloe, her Chloe, so vibrantly alive in ever fibre of her being, every pore. She wouldn't let Arcadia Bay snuff her out. Not ever.
"It's gonna be okay, Max. We'll figure this out."
And wrapped up in Chloe, Max could almost believe it was true.
