Hey now think about what to do,
think about what to say,
think about how to think
Pause it play, pause it play, pause it

Max shifted in the bed, trying to get comfortable, now that she was awake and the drugs had mostly worn off, she was feeling all the aches and pains in her body. It was late, if the time on the clock had anything to say about it but Max had learned that time was more of an idea than a fixed point in her experience. Her parents had left a couple hours ago, staying well past the allowed visiting hours which was to be expected considering where Max was and why she was there. She couldn't fault them for wanting, no, needing to keep their eyes on her for as long as humanly allowed. She had felt the same when she woke up and saw Chloe. She had spent almost a week sleeping, she was wide awake, her mind unable to slow down as thoughts, memories and questions ran a nonstop parade through her head. Of course almost all of them centered on a certain blue haired girl with a very appealing punk aesthetic.

Chloe, such a small name considering the huge amount of thoughts and feelings it brought up. It might as well have been the longest word in the English language for the way Max reacted to it. She had no clue what she was going to do, how she was going to be able to bridge the gap that seemed to make the Grand Canyon look small in comparison. To say she was disappointed at how fast it seemed Chloe couldn't wait to get out of there was an understatement. Max kept going through everything from the other timelines, well almost everything. She very deliberately stopped herself from thinking about Jefferson and anything connected with him, forcing her thoughts to stop with a mantra of Chloe kissed me, Chloe loved me, we can get there again. Still, Max wasn't in so much denial that she was willing to turn off the small light over her bed.

Thoughts of everything they had done, that had brought them to that place, not only physically on the cliff by the lighthouse, but emotionally. Where they were both at the same place to admit that their friendship was much deeper than friendship. Max thought she always knew, some part of her always knew that she was in love with her best friend. Thinking back, Chloe was always the standard that she held everyone else too. It was so ingrained into her DNA, her personality that she didn't even realize she was doing it most of the time until some random thought would pop in her head like 'Chloe would have loved this idea, Chloe would have found that funny, Chloe would have understood'. It wasn't as if Max had been a friendless freak in Seattle, she had a few good friends but never another best friend. There was a part of her that always held back, that made her anxious because these new friends, these new people, she didn't know what they were going to say or do. She couldn't tell in just one glance what they were feeling or thinking. She was always on the shy side but it got much worse when she didn't have Chloe there to drag her out of her shell. Her social anxiety only increased.

The changes to this timeline meant that a lot of the things her and Chloe had shared, which had rekindled their friendship along with new realizations about their feelings, would never happen. The thought didn't scare Max as much as it should have. There was a firm conviction inside her that she knew, without a doubt that her and Chloe were meant to be. She couldn't think of a single other reason why she would have been given this power, this ability to save Chloe's life if it wasn't because they were suppose to be together.

Really? The only reason you can think of or the only reason you're willing to believe? Max heard the other Max from her nightmare in her head sneer. Max shuddered wondering if that side of her was a true reflection of one facet of her personality that she keep buried deep in her subconscious or if it was a fractured Max from a different timeline, a result of the way she had kept bending and twisting time to fit her needs.

Thinking about her power and the reason for it, Max looked down at her currently useless arm. Her doctor had said that she'd get a sling for it in a few days when they released her. Maybe this was the cosmic payback the storm demand, or some universal force giving her a time out from her powers as it was. Max hadn't set out to abuse her powers, but she also knew that the road to hell was paved with good intentions. There was a knot of apprehension in her stomach that the universe or whatever wasn't quite done with her, that for every action there was an equal or greater reaction. But wasn't saving Chloe her reward or her cashing in her karma after living through the Dark.. the Jefferson shit? Saving Nathan from being killed as disturbed as he was, stopping Jefferson from ever hurting another girl, for getting justice for Rachel, for saving Kate? She really hoped that all of that was enough to equal out the one main selfish thing she did which was to save Chloe without destroying Arcadia Bay. It was crazy to think she would ever understand how all of this worked, as if there was some cosmic scales weighing Max's choices, judging them to see which side they fell on until they balanced out.

Max shifted again, her head was starting to hurt, whether from all the over thinking or from the throbbing in her chest she wasn't sure. It was probably a combination of both. While Chloe was her number one priority, she wasn't the only person she was worried about. She had to check on Kate, to see how Nathan's arrest was affecting her. Max was confused, why hadn't she heard about Jefferson being arrested? Why hadn't they said anything about Nathan killing Rachel Amber? Max had been watching the news earlier and the only thing they said was Nathan was being questioned still in connection to other crimes, it was a developing story.

Before they had left, Max's parents had told her that she would need to speak to the police, to give her statement on what happened. It was going to be hard, to only tell them what she should only know in this timeline. Not being able to tell them about the Dar...about Jefferson and where Rachel's body was buried… how it had gotten there. It didn't make sense, Max thought that things would be fixed the minute Nathan was arrested, he was so on edge, she thought for sure he would have spilled everything the minute they started questioning him. An uneasy feeling started to creep up on Max. Maybe she hadn't gotten justice for Rachel yet, maybe Nathan hadn't given up Jefferson yet. A cold sweat broke out on the back of Max's neck as the uneasy feeling grew into dread, her heart was pounding in her chest, increasing the rate of the beeps from the machine next to her. Maybe Jefferson was still out there, running free...

She needed her phone, she had to look online to see if there was more information on what Nathan was saying to the police. She needed to know more than the 4 minutes she heard on the news earlier.

Even though it was after midnight, Max pressed the call button for the nurse. She had to know, it was rapidly becoming an all consuming thought, she had to get rid of the dread that had over taken her.

"Hey, Max, is everything alright?" the same nurse from earlier, Nurse Rachel, asked as she walked through the door a few minutes later. She took a look at the monitor with Max's elevated heart rate and quirked a well sculpted, dark eyebrow, concern flashed across her face. Max had been taking deep breaths while waiting, trying in vain to calm herself down.

"Um, yeah, I, I really need my cellphone, I've been out for almost a week, I really need to see what I've missed." Max made a heroic effort to pushed aside the panic, to act as if she was bored, looking for a way to pass the time like any other teenager who was constantly glued to their cellphones.

"It's after midnight, Max, you need your rest. Is the pain keeping you awake?" Nurse Rachel walked over to the machine next to Max to look at her vitals, she pressed a few buttons, made a few hmm noises before she took to look at Max, her deep brown eyes etched with sympathy. "Aw, it looks like you're due for another dose of your pain meds, these should help you sleep, too."

The machine started beeping rapidly as soon as Nurse Rachel grabbed a syringe from the drawer under the machine and pulled out a vial from her scrubs pocket. Blind panic hit Max, her eyes went wide, her small frame shook. No, she couldn't go to sleep, she couldn't let them drug her. Flashes of Jefferson in the Dark Room coming at her with the syringe, her mind foggy as he kept snapping pictures, the flash, the syringe… He could be out there, he could be waiting just outside her room for her to be too drugged up...

"No, please, no needles, I can handle the pain. Please..." Max begged. Her face showing the terror that was spilling out over her, consuming her.

Nurse Rachel looked critically at Max, she had worked in the hospital for over 16 years and had seen all sorts but Max's visceral reaction to the syringe was the most immediate and severe she could ever recall seeing. There was something else going on, something she knew had to be very traumatic for the petite, girl laying in the bed before her. "Shh, shhh, it's ok, Max, no one is going to hurt you, I promise. Please, Max, calm down, you'll hurt yourself."

Max was shaking uncontrollably while shrinking back on her bed, getting as far from the syringe as possible, she still felt the pinch on her neck from another timeline, something that had never happened in this timeline but had happened to Max all the same.

"I don't need it, really, I'm fine, I don't need, keep it away, please."

The pure terror in Max's blue eyes made Nurse Rachel pause, she didn't want to go against Max's wishes but at the same time if Max didn't settle down she risked further injury to herself, it wouldn't take much to reopen up the wound in her chest or even do further damage to her right shoulder. She went to reach out, to calm Max down but the brunette cowered back, throwing her good arm over her eyes. Her breathing was erratic, as she tried to take huge gulps of air.

"Max, Max," Nurse Rachel called out to try and reach Max through her terror., "Sweetie, I don't have to use the syringe on you. It's ok, you're fine I promise you, I just need to put it in your IV bag, that's all, honey."

Close to hyperventilating, Max couldn't hear the nurse, she kept seeing Jefferson, hearing his voice, the flash of the camera, the feel of the syringe going in her neck.

Realizing there was nothing she could do to reach her patient, Nurse Rachel emptied the syringe into the IV, the sooner she got her patient to calm down the better she would be and the less chance she had to do further injury to herself. Max still had her arm over her eyes, whimpering, her body shaking like a leaf in the middle of a storm.

"Look, Max, look, sweetie, I'm putting it away, see it's all gone." Nurse Rachel said in soothing tones holding up the syringe and making a show of putting it in the receptacle bin for medical waste. "It's ok, sweet child, oh, Max, honey, what happened to you?"

Nurse Rachel sat on the side of Max's bed and gently gathered the upset girl into her arms, mindful of her injuries, as if she was her own daughter. There was nothing else she could do, every instinct in her as a Nurse and a Mother pulled at her. Max was still breathing heavy but not having the syringe in view was helping her gain control over her emotions. She allowed the Nurse to hold her and gently rock her as she whispered soothing words. "Oh, sweetie, I don't know what happened to you but you're safe now, Nurse Rachel isn't going to let anyone hurt you here. You're ok, Max, you're safe now, no one can hurt you here."

Max was too caught up in her panic attack to feel embarrassed, she didn't resist the comfort the older woman was giving her. Slowly, her thoughts started calming down, this wasn't the same feeling she'd had when Jefferson had drugged her. It felt more like a warm embrace as she started falling asleep, thoughts of Jefferson replaced with images of Chloe dancing on her bed, riding in Chloe's truck listening to some old Saves the Day on the cd player, playing pirates with Chloe when they were kids. These images grounded her until her breathing evened out and she was asleep.

Nurse Rachel gently got up, carefully moving Max's head to rest on the pillow. She looked down at the sleeping girl, her heart hurting for whatever the small girl was going through. Looking over Max's chart, there were no mentions of a history of panic attacks. This must be a result of the shooting, she assumed, she made a note on Max's chart to have one of the hospitals psychologists come and talk to the brunette.

In her 16 years she's had never had to comfort anyone in such a manner, she can't remember if she's ever seen such a look of terror on someone's face so young. Shaking her head sadly at the long road ahead for Max Caulfield, she walked out of the room, determined to make sure that girl got the help she needed.

Bang…

Chloe took a long drag from her joint, the astray on her stomach as she laid down sideways on her bed, feet propped up on the wall.

Bang…

Why hadn't Max contacted her when she found out she was coming back to Arcadia Bay?

Bang…

Chloe released the smoke, watched it swirl above her head, wondered if she could read it like people read tea leaves.

Bang...

Why hadn't she even called since she'd been back?

Bang…

Chloe took another long drag.

Bang…

"Dammit, Chloe, knock it off, I'm trying to sleep!"

The sound of David yelling from across the hall caused her to miss the tennis ball she'd been tossing against the wall and catching for the last half an hour. It bounced off the wall and hit her in the forehead before rolling off the bed and out of sight. She coughed up the smoke she'd be holding in her lungs to the point of feeling dizzy.

"I'm not doing anything!" She yelled back because technically she wasn't doing anything, anymore. "Asshole" she added under her breath.

The clock on her desk said it was just after 10pm, Joyce would be home soon from the diner then she could tell her mom how she'd offered their home to Max to recover at. Joyce wouldn't mind, that wasn't the problem. The problem was Chloe wasn't sure why she offered. Sure, she'd drive Max to and from physical therapy but part of her knew that Vanessa would have put up a much bigger fight if Max was planning on going right back to her dorm. For some reason the thought of Max leaving when Chloe just found out she was there really bothered her. Denial wasn't just a river in Egypt. On the other hand, Max hadn't even bothered contacting her even after she'd been back so maybe Max didn't want Chloe in her life, she certainly hadn't acted like she did for the last 5 years. Besides, once Max saw what a fuck up Chloe had grown up to be she was sure Max would run as far and as fast as she could from the mess Chloe had grown into, just like Rachel had.

Rachel, where the fuck are you? After putting up hundreds of fliers, calling the Ambers and checking in with the ABPD regularly, Chloe was no closer to finding her lost friend. Her head told her that there was no way, no matter what, that Rachel would have just left her without even contacting her but then she couldn't be sure because Max had promised to call, write, stay in touch and Chloe hadn't heard from her until she was getting shot right in front of Chloe's face. So it wasn't like Chloe didn't have any experience in people just up and leaving without a word to her again, it wasn't out of the realm of possibility. But Rachel wasn't Max. Rachel knew how much Max never contacting her had fucked her up, Rachel would never do the same to her. But it was much easier to believe that Rachel was being a careless bitch than it was to think about the alternative, especially because her parents hadn't heard from her either.

Chloe had met Rachel a month before Rachel turned 16. Rachel had just moved to Arcadia Bay with her family. It was a hot June day and Chloe was down at the beach, sitting on the edge of the sand, letting the waves lap against her feet, smoking a joint. A shadow had fell on her as she felt someone sit next to her. She was going to give her customary fuck off and sneer until she looked at the girl sitting next to her and almost dropped her joint into the surf.

She was the prettiest thing Chloe ever did see, like a California dream. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail at the base of her neck and she was smiling at Chloe with the most knowing smile. It was almost painful how perfect her smile was coupled with the look Rachel had in her hazel eyes when she looked at Chloe, like she knew some secret and was going to share it with Chloe. Rachel sat down, not caring that the long flowing skirt she was wearing would get ruined by the sand and the water. She smiled that smile at Chloe then took the joint right of Chloe's mouth and took a long pull before handing it back. They became inseparable that summer.

The only reason Chloe had even gone to Blackwell was because Rachel talked her into it and she got free tuition because David worked there. Something changed though, when they started going there, Rachel changed. She had always been popular but she always had time for Chloe. Little by little though Rachel started hanging out with other people, started making more memories without Chloe, started having secrets that she kept from Chloe. It was a gradual change, one that Chloe didn't realize until it was to late and it felt as if Rachel had this whole other life without Chloe, even though they still talked every day, even though they saw each other almost every day. It got really bad after Chloe got kicked out of school.

That was the start, Rachel would make plans with Chloe then break them at the last minute or show up hours late with some lame excuse. It started putting a distance between them no matter how hard Chloe tried to keep it from growing it kept getting bigger until Chloe didn't know where Rachel was, or what she was doing for days at a time. Chloe knew it was pathetic, she would readily admit it was, that she spent her days waiting around for Rachel, waiting for a call or for her best friend to show up while Rachel had this other life away from Chloe. A life with other friends, other things to do. Rachel was involved in school activities, clubs, she had homework, she got into the Vortex Club. She had a life, Chloe only had Rachel.

There wasn't any one thing or event that Chloe could point to and say, there, this is when it started to change, it was a thousand different things that added up to the point where half of Chloe fully believed Rachel would have skipped town without her and the other convinced she would never do that. Rachel knew Chloe was in love with her, Chloe had confessed it enough even during that first summer. That never seemed to cause a problem or awkwardness between them. Rachel loved the attention, loved that Chloe was in love with her, she even loved Chloe but she was never in love with Chloe.

Rachel welcomed Chloe's attention and would even make out with her when they were drunk or lonely or in front of guys but it never went beyond that and Chloe understood how it was. It didn't stop her from getting jealous at times but she understood. She even went out and had a few boy toys of her own, mostly to prove to Rachel she understood that they wouldn't be together in the way Chloe wanted, to show Rachel it wasn't a big deal and maybe, in her moments of self awareness, to make Rachel a little jealous. Rachel wouldn't have left Chloe just because Chloe was in love with her because Chloe had been in love with her since they had met. Rachel didn't know a version of Chloe that wasn't in love with her. That's how it was between them.

But now Rachel was missing and Chloe was the only one who still cared, who was still looking. Now, she kept her memories of Rachel locked in a box that she held close in almost sacred reverence. Sometimes, she thought she'd go to Los Angeles and look for Rachel herself there. Sometimes she thought she'd open a magazine and see Rachel's hazel eyes staring back at her with that knowing look in them still. Sometimes she'd have awful dreams that she was too late and Rachel was being sold as a sex slave or even worse. Given the choice between awful and fucking horrible, Chloe would take "fucking horrible" before she ever accepted "or worse". Her mind wouldn't allow her to go there, it would flirt with the idea before Chloe could feel herself get physically sick and have to smoke up to forget the thought of the merest hint of that idea ever firmly forming.

The sound of the front door closing pulled Chloe out of her thoughts of Rachel. It was much easier to think of Rachel than to think of Max. All she had been doing was worrying about Max and thinking about Max for the last 6 days, to the point where she started feeling guilty because she hadn't been thinking about Rachel. And really how messed up was that?

"Hi, hun, how's Max doing?" Joyce asked as Chloe walked into the kitchen. Joyce was going through some of the mail, her mouth frowning at yet another bill stamped past due. For a woman in her 40s, Joyce was still in great shape, slender with toned arms from years of carrying plates to hungry diners. Her honey brown hair only held a few streaks of gray, since William had passed away there were a few more lines around her green eyes but they gave her more character than aged her.

"She finally woke up and remembered who I was, which you know, shocking considering I thought she had forgotten I existed." Chloe shrugged, as if it didn't bother her, as if she hadn't been an emotional wreck and in tears the first three days Max was unconscious until Ryan and Vanessa had convinced her that Max wasn't going to die.

Knowing her daughter as well as she did, Joyce wasn't buying it but refused to be baited into that topic with her daughter. When Chloe got like this her mom knew she was looking for a reason to fight, as a way to vent out the confusing emotions she couldn't deal with. Better, in Chloe's mind, to start an argument with her or David than facing what was really bothering her. Joyce had sent Chloe to counselors and even had her on an antidepressant but she still had problems coping with certain things, Max being one of them.

"That's great news, sweetie!" Joyce looked up from the mail and smiled at Chloe, ignoring the scowl on her daughter face. "Any news on when they're going to let her come home?"

"Yeah, about that," Chloe started, looking down at the floor, shifting from foot to foot, her blue hair covering her eyes like a blue barrier between her and her mom, hands jammed in her pockets. "Ah, do you mind if Max stays here for a little bit? Her right shoulder is pretty messed up so she really can't stay in the dorms by herself."

"Of course she can! I wouldn't think of letting her stay anywhere else, Max is always welcome here." Joyce smiled, she was happily surprised but had learned to show restraint expressing when she was pleased at something Chloe had done or said, it made her daughter more surly. Chloe refused to see any of the good she had in her and worked at pushing it as far away from her as possible, it broke Joyce's heart. She only wanted to see her little girl happy, a dream she hadn't give up even after all this time.

"Yeah, I figured you wouldn't mind, you've always loved Max." Chloe replied, even though she didn't say it outloud, they both heard the unspoken, more than me.

"Well, she was like a second daughter to me when you two were growing up. I'm glad you two are reconnecting." Joyce said carefully, not wanting Chloe to take it the wrong way and beat herself up even more than she already did. Chloe had fully convinced herself that she was less than or only tolerated, regardless of how much Joyce had tried to show her that she was important, she was loved so much by herself and even David.

"Kind of hard not to when she took a bullet for me."

Joyce looked up sharply, her heart squeezing at the very thought of what could have happened to her daughter. While she was horrified that Max had been hurt, it was an impossible situation because Chloe could have been killed. Joyce didn't want to think about what could have happened if Max hadn't been there. It made her feel like a horrible person, that she would be thankful that Max was there and got hurt, instead of Chloe being killed. It was such an abhorrent thing to be thankful for. But there it was and Joyce had to deal with the lesser of two evils no matter how much it broke her heart.

"Chloe, don't be flippant, not about this." Joyce reprimanded her daughter, "You could have been hurt or worse. It's horrible enough Max was hurt but what if he hadn't stopped there?" Joyce's voice softened as she reached out and brushed the bright blue hair out of Chloe's face, mildly surprised when the girl didn't pull back but allowed Joyce the motherly touch. "Chlo, I can't lose you, too, not after your father. You're my greatest joy, the best thing I've ever done, even when you're being a little shit."

It made Chloe uncomfortable, soft tender moments with her Mom, or most anyone, really. She wasn't use to the soft moments, she lived in the hard edges and sharp angles. The soft spaces didn't allow her a place to grip onto, to anchor herself. She found anger, despair and regret much more honest than the soft moments. Soft moments were whispers, too quiet, too easy to lie or say things you didn't mean. She craved the loudness of screaming her words, hurling them like missiles, the truth dropping like bombs.

The younger woman resisted the urge to make a sarcastic remark, even she knew when her mom was at her limits, her breaking point. Instead she gave her mom a grin, throwing an arm around her shoulders.

"Well, how about you make your greatest joy some of your greatest pancakes?"