Author Notes:

Back with another Chapter, this time Max POV. There's a little overlap with the end of the first chapter. Anyway, onward!


Max Caulfield didn't know what the hell was going on. She sat at her desk racking her brain as Mr Jefferson's class emptied, desperate to restore a measure of normality to her understanding of the universe. It had started with her waking up at her desk, having slept through half of Photography class. Never a good look for a struggling student, especially when said class is the only thing keeping her GPA high enough to avoid losing her scholarship. The substance of her dream, or rather nightmare, had been none to pleasant either. A 'Wizard of Oz' scale tornado wiping out her town of Arcadia Bay. Max liked to think the traumatic effects of the dream had also temporarily compromised her better judgement. That would provide her a nice excuse for subsequently being caught taking a selfie in the middle of Mr Jefferson's lecture.

"Ok", she breathed. "Now the really confusing part."

Max's memory was hazy for a period of around thirty seconds immediately after taking that selfie, as though she had entered an almost trance-like state. Perhaps trance-like was a poor choice of words though, as it conjured images of perfectly calm, relaxed people waiting to be given hypnotic suggestion. Max had felt entirely the opposite of calm and relaxed. She had been more furious than she thought possible, like she wanted someone dead and would have gladly slit their throat herself, or used her bare hands to rip their throat open, were a knife not conveniently handy. She couldn't remember why, or at whom these feelings were directed, but merely knowing she was capable of that level of hatred made her sick. Max had vague recollections of other things as well, scribbling something on a bit of paper, and catching something flying toward Kate, but it was mostly drowned out by a murderous desire to go for the jugular. Was she going insane?

The next thing Max knew, everything had gone back to normal, she was no longer feeling insanely angry, and at least to the best of her knowledge everyone still had their windpipes and carotid arteries intact. Her moment of relief at not committing a felony was sadly ruined by the sudden intrusion of Mr Jefferson, delivering his sanction for class disruption: ambushing her in front of the class with a photography question. Fortunately, it turned out that Max had written the correct answer on her exercise pad during that trance period. Before Jefferson had even asked the question. Queue X-Files music.

Staring blankly at the exercise pad which had so helpfully provided the model answer, Max suddenly noticed another small note, scribbled on the exercise pad's bottom right corner. "PTO after class." She turned the page carefully and found a short letter, apparently written to and from herself.

Dear Me.

First, don't let anyone see this. Seriously, look up now and check the damn class.

The note didn't miss a trick. Victoria was still at her desk and staring straight at Max, bitch-gaze set to high beam. "Geeze", Max thought, "what have I done now?" Was Mr Jefferson ambushing her with some hard theory question not punishment enough? Yes she had gotten it right in the end, but that was only thanks to the weird future note. Why did someone like Victoria, so smart, attractive and talented, have to act so horribly toward everyone?"

It was clear Max wasn't the only one to have a problem with Victoria's behaviour. Taylor Christensen, Victoria's semiautonomous drone (emphasis on the semi) was looking extremely putout, though probably more at Victoria acting in a less than dignified manner than any concern for Max. Bullying and insulting other students were totally acceptable to a Vortex Club acolyte, but fixing someone with a death-stare for two minutes moved you into weirdo territory, and cast the whole Vortex Club in a bad light. Max shot a confused "what the hell" gesture to Taylor, who silently glanced back "whatever", sighed and somehow convinced Victoria to resume her usual after-class activity: failing to chat up Mr Jefferson.

The pain of watching Victoria's clumsy teacher-seduction attempts for the fifth time that month was too much for Taylor, who made a discrete exit from the classroom. Meanwhile, Victoria sauntered over to Mr Jefferson's desk in her best "Jessica Rabbit walk" emulation. Max groaned at how thick Victoria was laying it on: on arrival Victoria apparently suffered a partial leg malfunction, since she felt the need to lay her top half on Jefferson's desk while conversing with him, hips thrust out and periodically swaying.

"Is it wrong I kind of feel like walking up there and smacking that?" Max wondered, slightly hypnotised by the back-and fourth action of Victoria's tailbone." Just to see her enraged reaction, of course."

Managing to pry her eyes from Victoria's hindquarters, Max checked the rest of the classroom. Aside from Victoria and Mr Jefferson, the only other person remaining was Kate Marsh, the kindest, most sincere person Max had ever met. Kate was a seemingly rare creation, the only devout Christian Max knew who was completely dedicated to the whole "love your fellow man" bit. To be fair, Max didn't actually know that many strongly religious people, but the ones she'd seen (usually on television) seemed far more focused on other areas of theology, like governments "overtaxing the rich", not allowing people who loved each other to get married, and maintaining their own pious self-image. Kate, on the other hand, never judged anyone for having different beliefs to herself, was always kind to others, and spent most of her free time volunteering for community work.

In Max's mind, Kate's kindness and sincerity made her one of the most beautiful people she had ever met, though her physical attractiveness wasn't entirely lost on Max either, in spite of Kate's largely conservative wardrobe and hairstyle. Kate had a beautiful face, and was a dab hand at applying makeup to accentuate her features. The limit to Max's makeup skills was a modest application of eye shadow. Their weekly tea dates had been a highlight for Max and she found Kate could turn a bad day around with a single smile. But recently, something had been taking a heavy toll on Kate. It had started with small things: neglecting her violin practice and postponing tea dates. Today she seemed utterly miserable, staring blankly at her notepad. Max just wanted to rush over and do, well, anything to make her happy. Exposing the letter once more, she resolved to talk to Kate after finishing reading it.

As you might have gathered, this note contains information from the future. I doubt you'd believe me if I told you how this was achieved, so I'm going to show you instead. When you're ready, go to the girl's bathroom.

Before that though, check up on Kate. She's going through hell right now and really needs support.

"Oh thanks future note, as if I couldn't figure that much out myself. Maybe you could suggest something I wasn't going to do already."

AND HAND IN YOUR 'EVERYDAY HEROES' ENTRY. This will improve things in ways you can't even imagine. And completely unofficially, you have a very good chance of winning.

"I had to ask," Max groaned. Her 'Everyday Heroes' entry had been sitting on her desk all period: a shot of herself from behind looking toward the sum total of her life-experiences as represented by her photo wall. Not that she was trying to cast herself as the hero. Not exactly, anyway. It was more that everyone, even the boring and plain person in the photo, had heroic moments in their lives. She'd gone to the extra trouble of manipulating the depth of field to blur herself in the foreground, just to sell that she was a stand-in for the viewer. A difficult task on an old Polaroid model with no built-in focal options, but she had managed to-. But Max found her train of thought derailed with a wave of doubt and self-criticism. There was no point patting herself on the back for a minor technical accomplishment, especially when the substance of her shot left so much up to the viewer to interpret.

"Hard to imagine this crap could win anything. I probably should have just photographed a fireman getting a cat out of a tree." Max took a breath, and looked back at her future note. "Maybe I'm being too hard on myself. And the note's already made me look good in front of Mr Jefferson once. I guess I should trust it again."

Yourself in time,

Max.

The "Back to the Future" reference eliminated the last doubt in Max's mind that she was the letter's author. Tracing her eyes across the desk, Max suddenly noticed the presence of another foreign object sitting there, a crumpled ball of paper. Some vague recollection surfaced in the back of her mind, of plucking the ball out of the air in overly bad-ass fashion, like she was the terminator, or someone moderately competent at sports. She uncrumpled it, and recognised Taylor's handwriting.

Hey Kate, love your porn video.

Fucking moronic drone. What the hell is this about? Max couldn't decide whether to be enraged or bewildered. She couldn't think of anyone less likely to be involved in pornography than pure, innocent, Kate. It seemed completely unimaginable. Well, perhaps if she took her hair out of that enormous bun in front of the object of her affections, let it cascade perfectly into position with the flick of her head, all while gradually unbuttoning her white dress shirt and whispering "teach me to sin" with those bright red lips...

Ok, so maybe it wasn't completely beyond Max's imagination, though she was utterly disgusted with herself in admitting as much. Still, it was a ridiculous fantasy. Maybe they found some porn star who closely resembled Kate, and were trying to pass her off as the genuine article? Whatever the case, they were assholes.

"Right", Max thought, "I can either try to cheer up Kate, who's been bullied horribly over something I only have the vaguest inkling of, and will need to be treated with the utmost sensitivity and care. Or hand in my competition entry." In the end, she resolved to do the easy option first, so headed over to Kate.

Dark rings silhouetted the bottom of Kate's eyes, an unpleasant combination of too little sleep and too many tears. She was trying to put on a brave face, but couldn't completely conceal the desperate look in her watery eyes, which seemed to be screaming "save me". Her notepad still had last period's class notes on it – ray diagrams for optics. Max fought off a brief panic as to which side of the lens she should put the focal point on, as Kate's having meticulously drawn a hangman's noose alongside seemed far more concerning.

"Hi Kate." Max began lamely.

"Max." Kate looked up, and for an instant, Max thought she saw a glimmer of hope flash across her otherwise dead expression. "Thank you for what you did in class. You were incredible."

Initially, Max didn't know what Kate was talking about. All she remembered was stupidly disrupting the class with her camera then almost failing to answer one of Mr Jefferson's questions. Then it dawned on her. The whole "intercept the paper ball launched by the harpies just before it hit Kate in the face, without even looking" thing. Not that she really remembered it. Being practically worshiped as a hero made Max uncomfortable, and she instinctively executed her signature nervous gesture, bringing her hand to the opposing elbow. She was momentarily startled by an unexpected warm, wet sensation on her hand, and Kate's eyes suddenly bulged in shock.

"My lord, Max! Your arm!"

Max felt herself going pale. The bottom half of her hoodie's sleeve was saturated in what looked very much like blood. She gingerly pealed back the sleeve, afraid some unnoticed injury was about to begin spouting like a fountain the moment it was uncovered. Kate's face grimaced, anticipating the same thing. Nothing. Her arm was completely fine. An awkward pause ensued, as both Kate and Max began thinking of alternate explanations that explained the red-soaked sleeve.

"I think my pen must have leaked."

As far as explanations went, it was far from convincing. Max's pens were all small ballpoints, with nowhere near enough ink to explain her sleeve being completely soaked. Max recalled, in horror, her desire to kill during that strange trance period. Had she followed through? Surely not, the entire class would have seen her do it, and she'd be in police custody by now. And none of the class seemed to have any grievous injuries.

"Or maybe Samuel the Caretaker was painting, and forgot to put up a warning sign?" Kate suggested.

That seemed a little more plausible. Max was known for being slightly clumsy, so accidentally leaning on wet paint wasn't beyond the realm of possibility for her. Rummaging around in her bag, Kate managed to produce a small, half empty box of tissues. Max felt horrid taking them from her, since Kate's current emotional state meant she clearly had need of them herself. Over Kate's incredibly polite objections, Max elected to just shed her hoodie and pack it within her trusty sling bag, rather than consuming Kate's entire tissue supply dabbing it dry. Instead, Max restricted herself to the bare minimum of tissues needed to dry her bare arm off. Max was inwardly furious at herself, instead of comforting Kate, it was Kate who was helping her. Still, Kate did seem slightly more emotionally sturdy now, with Max's situation proving something of a distraction to her own problems. "Perhaps I should just try to keep her distracted", she wondered, and did her best to drum up a conversation.

"I'm going to hand in that 'Everyday Heroes' entry today," Max began weakly. "Though the way Victoria acts it's like she's already got the competition sewen up."

"Max, she's got nothing on you." Kate's reply was remarkably matter-of-fact, as if stating the obvious. "Are you just talking to me to stall handing in your entry?"

"No!" Kate looked rather sceptical after that outburst. "Well, to be honest that is a pretty welcome side effect. But mainly I just wanted to talk to you."

"Max. I'm sorry but I don't think I'm feeling up to casual conversation today. In fact I think we'll have to take a rain check on getting tea this afternoon too. But if you want to make me feel better, please hand in your 'Everyday Heroes' entry. I'd never wish bad on anyone, of course, but I'm sure I'd feel a little relieved if the chances that Victoria win this competition were worsened in favour of someone more worthy, less tainted by moral turpitude…" Max was taken aback. That last comment was incredibly harsh by Kate's usual standards, and when translated back from "Angelic Saint" it roughly equated to "Go pimp-slap the fucking hoe."

Slightly buoyed by Kate's encouragement, or perhaps her own "translation" thereof (Max found the idea of donning a purple felt hat and backhanding Victoria across the face strangely appealing), Max bid Kate farewell and set off for the teacher's desk. But as she made the short journey to the front of the class, her courage quickly began to evaporate. Victoria was as intimidating as ever, having at least three to four inches on Max in height, and from certain angles Mr Jefferson had a strangely imposing figure for a high school photography teacher. It took another glance back at Kate for Max to find some reserve of courage and interrupt the two of them to present her photo.

"Um, excuse me."

"Yes! Excuse you!" Victoria was apparently none too pleased about the interruption, though to be honest Max was probably saving her from further embarrassment. Her attempts at romantically pursuing Jefferson were becoming something of a farce. Fortunately Jefferson seemed glad of the interruption too. He was probably running out of ways to politely pry Victoria off his leg.

"No Victoria, excuse us. I'd never let one of photography's future stars miss handing in her entry."

"Here it is" Max began, shyly handing the photo to Mr Jefferson. "Though I'll admit I'm not that confident. I feel like such a loser displaying my work publically."

"I know I'd feel like a loser trying to put selfies on public display as art. " Victoria sniped

"Now Victoria, even John Lennon said that he felt like loser half the time, so I guess that'd put Max in good company." Victoria didn't know the quotation Jefferson was referencing, but resolved to immediately add Beetles quotations to her reading list. Whatever the case, it annoyed her to no end that Max was, once again, scoring points with Mr Jefferson.

"Victoria, I think you were saying you had an entry to hand in as well?"

Victoria presented her own photo, a confident air about her. Jefferson took the shot in hand, studied it for a moment, and then placed on the desk. Right next to Max's photo. He made a show of comparing them side by side in silence for some time, and Max noticed Victoria's smug self assured posture seemed to be slipping. What the hell was going on? Why was he so intent on directly comparing their entries immediately? Shouldn't he be giving all the entries equal scrutiny, instead of focusing entirely on their ones? Answers were not forthcoming however, as when Mr Jefferson finally spoke, it was on a different topic.

"Now, I understand you both want, or perhaps need some extra credit work". Jefferson made a show of looking directly at Victoria as he said 'want' and Max as he said 'need'. Max felt this a little gratuitous. Her least favourite thing about meeting her own photography hero was how aloof and superior he sometimes acted. It occasionally appeared that he felt himself above everyone else, an authority unto himself.

"Since you both handed in your 'Everyday Heroes' entries before the deadline, I've decided to come to the table. The only catch is you're working together."

Victoria immediately protested. Max said nothing but looked rather despondent.

"I absolutely can't work with her! Her… Artistic sensibilities are incompatible with my own." Max felt herself try to recoil involuntarily at Victoria's rebuke. The second part of it was almost exactly like how she imagined an official letter of rejection from an art gallery sounded. Jefferson was having none of it though.

"Now Victoria, if you want to be a professional, you'll have to learn how to work with people you have, uh, creative differences with. Not glaring at them for two minutes straight after class." He then turned and looked Max straight in the eye. "You too Max."

Max flinched in disbelief. What- what had she done?

"You normally act in such a reserved manner, so I was incredibly shocked with the expression you were wearing during the class's questions segment. I don't know what differences you and Victoria are having, but for a second there you looked like a ball of uncontrolled rage. Almost like you were going to vault your desk and go for the nearest person's jugular." Jefferson laughed. "Though, since I was the nearest person, I do appreciate your restraint."

Oh, right, the whole "inexplicable homicidal trance that was apparently somehow linked to time travel". Mr Jefferson apparently felt he was on a roll now, launching into what Max was sure he intended to be an insightful mentoring speech based on his own experience.

"Listen girls, if you continue on this path of photography, you'll inevitably find out that people aren't always how they appear at first glance. That their true natures are sometimes very different from how the present themselves and act around others. That terrifying display by Max is a near-perfect illustration of this."

" I'd like the two of you to explore this idea. You're going to bring me a series of photos of each other. The style, layout, etcetera does not concern me. You can even include other people in the frame if you wish, and can rope them into helping you. What I want is for each of you to show me something non-obvious about the other. In so doing, perhaps you'll also show me something about yourselves."

"It might also be educational for the both of you to feel what it's like on the other end of the camera lens. Consider this a first step in that direction. Being a photographer gives you a lot of power over the models you are working with, and you need to develop an understanding of that. They'll only have the confidence to give you the shots you need if you can forge a relationship of trust and respect with them."

"Unless, of course, you plan on sedating your models", he added with a wink, "but of course I can't recommend that."

At that moment, something strange happened. Jefferson appeared to stagger a little. Fortunately, he had his chair handy, so quickly decided to sit down. Victoria's leg affliction appeared instantly cured, as she immediately got off the desk and moved to offer aid, looking genuinely concerned. Jefferson raised a hand to waylay her.

"I'm fine. Just felt slightly anaemic for a second. I guess – I guess it must be a few too many late nights grading class work. At my age it's starting to catch up to me."

Max decided it was time to leave. She'd done most of what the note suggested: handed in her 'Everyday Heroes' entry, and tried to cheer up Kate. Max wished she'd had another chance at the "cheering up Kate" part though. Made it less about herself and somehow given her more hope. She'd better follow through with the remainder of the note's instructions and head on to the girl's bathroom. To be honest though, Max would have probably headed there anyway. She'd felt an awful lot of stress that period, from angst about handing in her entry, to getting chewed out in class for taking that selfie, to suddenly discovering something looking a lot like blood covering her arm. She really needed a timeout, maybe splash some water on her face. Perhaps she could even wash the red stuff of her hoodie sleeve off in the basin. Probably not though, with the level of saturation, her hoodie was probably badly stained.

Meanwhile, Victoria found herself glaring for the second time this class, watching Max exit the classroom. Victoria was sure she was making progress with Mr Jefferson this time, about to even setup a "proper date" under the pretext of "reviewing her portfolio or something", when Max fucking Caulfield had charged in and stuck her antlers in the moment's backside. Then Max had handed in her 'Everyday Heroes' entry: A selfie, just as predicted. But unless she was misreading what happened after that, it seemed Max and Victoria's entries were the favourites. Part of her was relieved at this revelation, it validated her work to get into the school's top two. But the other part realised there was a fifty percent chance of losing to a fucking selfie. A selfie of Max Caulfield! After all the rejections Victoria had suffered submitting to art galleries, that would be the final insult. Oh, wait, no it wouldn't. The final insult would be having to work with Max on that cooperative task Mr Jefferson just assigned them! Victoria subconsciously began balling her fists, then stormed out the door hot on Max's heels. She couldn't do anything about Mr Jefferson temporarily taking leave of his artistic sensibilities, and treating Max's selfie as a masterwork. She couldn't do anything about having to work with Max on a group project. But she could definitely chase Bambi down right now and teach her the law of the jungle.


Concluding Author Notes:

Oh god, another "Victoria and Max take photos of each other" scenario. As if that hasn't been done already. Hopefully I can put a little spin on it at least. I think Victoria following Max into Toilets for the "Chloe gets shot (for the first of many times) scene" has also been done before. Hopefully I can branch this story in a previously unexplored direction soon enough. Thanks to everyone who manages to read this anyway.