The sharp crack of the handgun reverberating around the tiled bathroom deafened Chloe. Her body was numb, but her brain knew that she was dead before she hit the floor. A 9mm to the chest at point-blank would do that. As her head clattered against the tiled floor, its dingy white stained by an ever- increasing crimson pool. The last thing that her subconscious registered before the last connections between brain and eyes failed was a figure, sat, slumped almost, against the far end of the stalls, sobbing quietly.
Max...
Chloe's sight gave out with a blinding white as her hearing slurred with a bang as the bathroom door was kicked in.
Chloe snapped upright, finding herself in a white room. Not the surgical white of an Operating Theatre, nor the dingy white of that bathroom. No, this was something else. She stood up and faced what appeared to be a porthole. Her eyes widened as she saw what it beheld, as it moved in slow motion. Her body, lying motionless in a pool of blood with a gunshot wound. Nathan Prescott frantically trying to provoke some response from her, still unable to believe what he had just done. Just out of his sight, where Chloe had seen her... sat Max. The pool forming on the floor tore at Chloe's heart. Yet at the same time, the emotion of heartbreak at seeing Max so distraught was countered by those of abandonment. And anger.
"You were in there Max. You could've done something. Why the fuck didn't you do something?" She screamed at the image, shaking with anger, and to a somewhat lesser extent sadness. There was so much she wanted to say to Max- admittedly, most of it not polite- and now that opportinity would never arise.
Tears were pooling in Chloe's eyes. She hadn't cried like this since her Dad's funeral.
"I still believed you cared, Max. But...you never did...did you? You fucking let me die!"
"Wrong again, shit-for-brains!" Chloe jumped at both the voice behind her, and the sound of the approaching footsteps. A hollow clunking, not like trainers but not like a prosthetic. She turned to face the approaching unknown. She gasped as her mind fully registered the details.
The necklace, with a trio of bullets strung to it, the battered leather jacket and jeans, suspenders hanging loose below a vest top with a skull, the black boots. And a beanie concealing a brilliant blue mess of hair.
"You're-"
"You. Yes. Surprised?" This version of herself stopped about four feet from her. Chloe backed up against what she assumed was a wall, or maybe some kind of barrier, in this odd place.
"Max does give a fuck about you, which is why she didn't save you this time. Your fault, actually."
"W...what do you mean... this time?"
"What do you think I mean, or have all those years of using drugs gone to your head? Wierd as it sounds, Max... found that she could manipulate time itself. Twist it round her fucking fingers and rewrite the present, and the future."
"Bullshit! It's not even possible!"
"Man, if I had a dollar for every time you've been wrong just now, I'd probably have enough to go to Paris myself, little miss Einstein. In case you missed it, this wasn't the only timeline, if you'd care to open your motherfucking eyes."
Other-Chloe gestured at another porthole that had formed in place of the one Chloe was up against.
"Max set off the alarm that time around, and saved you. Which led everything else to go to shit."
Chloe snapped. She didn't take this kind of smack-talk from anyone- even herself.
"Then what the fuck posessed her to come back and un-save me?! That doesn't seem like something a friend would do!"
Other-Chloe sighed slightly. "Like I said, thatwas your fault, entirely. Like getting your dumb ass shot in the first place."
The image in the porthole changed again. The lighthouse. Chloe remembered every day she'd spent with Max there, playing at pirates and repurposing the map, under that construct that stood Sentinel over the Bay.
This time, it was dark. As though the sun were blotted out, likely so with so much cloud cover. And... a tornado?
This can't be real! Tornadoes are virtually unheard of in Oregon, and they're never that fucking big!
"I know what you're thinking," said the Other-Chloe, now stood with a hand on her shoulder, "This isn't real. Well, it was. Or it would have been, had Max stepped in and saved you once again. Four days from now, the Universe pulls this on the Bay. Tears it to the fucking ground. All because she though that your sorry life was still worth something."
"No...it...it can't be!"
"What? Not so keen on turning the place to glass now, are we?" Chloe turned to stare the Other in the eyes.
"Bu...but... how the fuck is this my fault?!"
"How? Really? Let me help you get it into your damn skull!"
With that, Other-Chloe headbutted Chloe in the bridge of the nose. As Chloe collapsed to the ground, groaning and clutching her bleeding nose, Other-Chloe staggered about, giving a slight groan before laughing.
"I totally forgot, headbutting something as thick and braindead as you would hurt that much."
Chloe felt herself being grabbed by the shoulders and dragged onto her feet, before her head was taken in a hand and twisted to view another porthole.
"Max, this is the only way. You could use that... to change everything, right back to when you took the photo. All that would take is for me to... to..."
"No...no way! Fuck that, you are my number one priority now!"
"See? YOU gave her that as an option. Heh, it's the first time you've cared about anything other than yourself in forever. I've something else to show you, too: you remember Rachel, right?"
Chloe's blood ran cold. The mention of her name, now of all times, was a hella bad precursor.
R...Rachel? No, no! She can't be- she isn't dead!
"I knew you'd think that. Here, take a look." The view changed again.
American Rust, in a little corner by that old school bus and the pile of signs. A small hole in the ground, maybe a foot square, and a few inches deep. An object covered by a blue tarpaulin. A few feet to one side and sobbing inconsolably was Chloe, with Max trying desperately to comfort her.
Chloe couldn't believe it.
"No! No fucking way is that true! Rachel's alive and I know it!"
Other-Chloe shook her head, visibly shaken by seeing this for the second time.
"I wouldn't bullshit where Rachel's concerned. Or Max, come to think of it. Because if you think that's bad, just you wait."
The view changed yet again. Arcadia Bay Cemetery. Three headstones next to one another. In the center, Dad's, with Chloe's name beneath it She took a closer look at the left headstone.
Rachel Amber. 7.22.1994-4.2013
A sense of dread filled Chloe's stomach, as the occupant of the third grave occurred to her.
Maxine 'Max' Caulfield 9.21.1995-2.11.2013
Chloe collapsed against the side of the barrier, hardly believing either. Tears welled up in her eyes: the two people who meant most to her in the world, dead.
"You see, Chlobear, Max did care about you. Her curse was that while she could rewind and prevent events from happening, she still remembered every other timeline."
"Here. Have a read of this. I guarantee you're not gonna like what you find." With that, Other-Chloe passed her a battered journal. Chloe begun to read through it, her grief becoming more and more overwhelming with every new page. It was Max's journal, and- like Other-Chloe had told her- it was full of events that hadn't happened , that were yet to happen.
We kissed? Wow. And...and...she had feelings for me too? God, why did I have to be such a fucking idiot and try blackmailing the local rich psycho?
Chloe reached the final page of entries, dated November 2nd, 2013. Just short of five weeks from now. The page was barely readable, due to spatters of something on the page, but it was clear enough to make out.
I...I can't cope with this anymore. Chloe meant such to me. Even if we only did get those five days, it meant more to me than most of my life. I can't even talk to anyone about it, they'll think I've lost my mind. All those moments that never happened- No. They happened, just not in this timeline. Oh, why did I do this? Why did Arcadia Fucking Bay take any kind of priority over Chloe? I am a fuck-up. And there's only one way I can think of to fix this.
Chloe, if you're up-or down- there, I'm coming.
I need my partner in crime back. Nothing else matters to me now. You are my only priority, forever and always.
Chloe let the journal drop as she covered her face and broke down completely. This was too much for her to take in, that Max would do that. And in the vague hope it'd reunite them, too. It hadn't broken Chloe's heart, so much as strapped it to dynamite and blasted it into oblivion. That was what Chloe couldn't cope with. Her very best friend, estranged as she was until now, had cared about her, even loved her.
Other-Chloe sat down beside her, wrapping an arm around her.
"W-why the fuck...would...y-you show...me that?" Chloe spluttered out between sobs, as Other-Chloe rested her head against the side of her own.
"You think I'm cruel enough to show you what's gonna happen without giving you some kinda way to make this shit right?"
"W-what...do...y-you...m-mean?"
Other-Chloe sighed. "As that teacher-prick, Jefferson, said to Max about half an hour ago," she explained, putting on a Jefferson impression, "You have a gift. And I'm a psychopathic asshole who loves abusing and photographing young women like a creep." Other-Chloe chuckled. "Well, he never said the last part, he just... kinda did it."
By now, Chloe had more or less composed herself enough to make coherent conversation. "Rewind, just a mo': what gift, exactly?"
A grin appeared on Other-Chloe's face. "I'm not going to tell you. In fact, it's more fun to show you."
A/N
As I have decided during the writing of chapter 13, I've decided to bin the preface notes, as it no longer really fits as it should. It makes more sense to put the notes at the end of the chapter and I shoulda figured that. Hopefully the ideas so far make sense and there aren't many plot holes.
Also, because Chloe's powers are technically dissimilar to Max's, her actions avoid breaking the rules of the space-time continuum as Max's supposedly did.Also, Other-Chloe is an iteration of Chloe. She will become far more significant later in the story (at the time of writing this, around Chapter 13, it's yet to be written) and massive consequences will ensue.