It was almost sundown by the time that Victoria and the gang returned from shopping, and Nathan did not even initially notice them. He had been too busy receiving messages he had no interest in for the night to focus on anything really, and it's not like he was terribly troubled with getting his homework done tonight. Why do homework when you can peruse your digital portfolio at a school table, sins in full view of those who would be incapable of observing?

He had murdered a girl at 4:06pm today, and then he had taken it back. He had done a lot of fucked up shit in his life, but that was an element that had never been present - he could take it back. And, while he was at it, he got to show up that asshole of a principal, but even time travel couldn't fix some of his other problems. The girl, Chloe, might not be a problem herself anymore, but the flak he was getting for it from his father was plenty to compensate. Not that his father had said very much, but it was enough for Nathan.

Dad: I heard you ran into some trouble today after class. I hope this won't be an ongoing conflict.

Nathan did not respond. Most parents might have been frightened, or at the very least deeply annoyed at that lack of response, but no fighting back from Nathan tended to mean that he got the message. And he did. If this cropped up again, Nathan was going to be in deep shit one way or another. Instead of turning the situation with Chloe into a win, a way to resolve how poorly Nathan had handled himself with Marsh, Nathan had only appeared more incompetent not only to Jefferson as a photographer, but to Dad as a son.

Nathan could do little about that, but his frustration became focused on his photography. Pleasing his father was next to impossible, but Jefferson . . . Nathan just had to get a bit better and fuck stuff up less. With time travel, the second part should be a piece of cake. Nathan would just have to keep the stupid bitches from the bathroom under control - although now, he figured he'd have to play it indirectly. He had no idea if he would be able to rewind taking a bullet to the stomach, never mind straight to the face like Chloe had intended for him.
No, he'd have to play an indirect game with these girls. Chloe seemed sufficiently scared, but that Caulfield girl didn't seem to have enough fear in her. He'd fix that, one way or another - and next time, she wouldn't have that fag Graham being brave in such a stupid way. Nathan had enjoyed beating his ass, but he didn't savor the idea of the load of shit he'd be in if something like that were to happen again. His power over the security staff could only go so far.

There was a significant buffer of pictures in Nathan's camera to hide the treasures. The little shoot with Chloe had been partially deleted, leaving only three shots, but none of them were of the quality it would take to impress Jefferson, especially considering the connected failures. There was one directly into her eyes, but the expression was all wrong - it was like she'd seen a ghost, and not at all his taste. For one, she looked too old, and for another, her expression was too blank. There was another just as she was coming to, and that one had panic to it. It just might be good enough to hand into Jefferson, if Nathan worked on it with Neonvault a little. Then there was another one - one of her just curled up in the fetal position on the floor. He wasn't sure exactly how he felt about this one. The lack of emphasis on her face meant it was completely out as something to share with Jefferson, but Nathan still kept it around. It just felt so familiar. He could barely stand to look at her in person, but something about this picture stuck with him. She looked child-like, in an abstract way. And it was such a contrast, because a single glance at the picture could tell you how far from safe she was, and yet looking at it made him feel safe.

He didn't even recognize that it was snowing. He just became transfixed for a time, even once he moved on. He skipped through buffer pictures - landscape, random individuals, whatever - and came upon his photo shoot with Kate Marsh. Despite Jefferson's disappointment, there were many, many pictures here that Nathan was proud of, and had secretly kept even after the editing was completed on Neonvault and he was supposed to be rid of them. There was the one of her face-down that Jefferson had actually liked and added to the portfolio, but there were so many others, legitimate to the shoot and not. One of his favorites fit one of his favorite motifs, though he had taken it when he shouldn't have. It was Jefferson taking a moment to look at the prize of an unconscious girl in Nathan's trunk at the edge of the lights at the gas station they met up to carpool to the studio. The way he kept one gloved hand on the trunk's lid, peering down through his pretentious glasses, like he had just found a hidden chest filled with gold. It was cold and flat, but there was a feeling of accomplishment in the posture and in the eyes. Nathan had to capture it - Kate was barely in the picture, just the hint of white from her clothes. Jefferson was big, and she was small.
If Nathan had been allowed to capture such a thing, Jefferson probably would have loved it.

Back a little further, and there were pictures of Nathan and Victoria at the Vortex Club party. There were plenty of others more in Nathan's tastes, of passed-out girls amidst a sea of motion, but the shitty-flash illuminated faces of him and Victoria are what he paused on.
God, their faces were so bright . . . he felt like the flash was in his eyes. It stabbed at him like he was hung over. The pain spread, down through his skull, a sudden, splitting headache. He dropped the camera back down on the table to cradle his head in his hands.


His eyes snapped open to pelting cold, like icy needles all over his skin. But no, no, it was nothing but cold rain, winter rain almost. It was dark everywhere, as if the sun had set in an instant. An unrelenting wind howled all around him, and he was freezing before he had a moment to breathe.
He stood far along a familiar path, leading up towards the city light house from the beach where Frank liked to chill out until the police told him he had to leave after 10pm.

Despite the rain, a single bright spot appeared in Nathan's vision, like a splotch of blue. It fluttered towards him, unfettered by the deluge despite being so small. Nathan quickly realized that it was, in fact, heading towards him, and he reached out his hand. Gracefully, the tiny butterfly settled on the edge of his fingers, and Nathan realized why it was unbothered by the rain. It was not entirely there. Its entire body was translucent, like a ghost - or at least, a Hollywood rendition of a ghost.
Then, the butterfly took flight again, and began to fly along the path up the hill. Nathan would have stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, but he found them filled with water, and he decided he preferred them out in the open, vulnerable though they were. He began to hike along the path after the butterfly. Several boulders tumbled past him from further up, but they fell off along a bend in the path before he turned it, conveniently saving his skin. A few seconds later, he head a loud crash, and continuing forward, he found a freshly-collapsed tree in his bath. He heaved himself over the obstacle and continued on after his fluttering guide.

It wasn't until he reached the top of the hill that he realized he was walking this path with another person, like the butterfly were following them up the path just as he was following it. Near the precipice of the hill to the left of the lighthouse, a dark figure stood, in sharp contrast to that which Nathan only now could see. A massive swirling storm, just off the coast of Arcadia. He continued forward a little, and realized that he could see the movement of the hurricane by the moment - as if it were just inch-by-inch, the torrent spun towards the coastal city. It took him a moment to comprehend the size of the storm, but as he compared the two - town and storm - for longer, he realized that they were quite similar. The town would be utterly consumed in the hurricane's onslaught.

The butterfly continued, unfazed by this situation. It continued to fly towards that dark figure on the other side of the hill, and Nathan followed quickly, dreading to be left alone in this storm. The figure continued to one of the most remote corners of the hill . . . and then, a bolt of lightning struck the top of the light house. Nathan stood and watched in horror as the structure began to collapse, which only grew as it crushed the path ahead of him, leaving him separated from the only other figure here.
The butterfly did not seem to care about the intensity of all of this. It simply flew over the gap in the land.

Nathan swallowed, then raised his hand, and rewound. It was amazing the sorts of things that could become undone - in this case, how the very top of the lighthouse shot back from the air between the cliff and the sea, bringing the land it had destroyed with it, and reasserting itself back atop the lighthouse's body. As Nathan left the rewind, he heard the lightning again, but just continued forward, crossing the bridge of land that collapsed when the light house fell on it. He should have marveled at the power of that instant. But the butterfly still flew, flew forward until it landed on the shoulder of the figure, who held a newspaper in their hand.

"October 11? Is this . . . Friday?" The voice came quietly, but Nathan could hear it just fine despite the storm. It cut through everything else, as if it were spoken near his ear.
The wind ripped the newspaper from the figure - who Nathan now recognized as wearing a dark, indistinct hoodie and soaked jeans - and Nathan took the last few steps forward, placing his hand over the butterfly to capture it, palm locking onto the shoulder of the small person, who turned around and-

Everything was bright, and Victoria jumped, almost ready to scream before she saw that it was just Nathan. Her hand clutched to her chest in the same instant nonetheless, and she stepped back against the bill board, shoes digging into a point on the face of a Rachel Amber poster she had just torn from its rightful place.
"Oh, god, it's just you, Nathan. What's up? Are you all right?"

Nathan could feel the muscles of his face - how his eyes were wide in surprise or terror, but what he couldn't feel were his legs. A second later, his legs gave out, but he found his descent remarkably easy as Victoria stepped forward to support him in her arms. "I . . . I . . . what's going on?" Nathan asked, his whole body feeling chilled from the cold rain. But it wasn't rain falling on his body right now - it was snow.
Victoria was quick to crouch down with him, and wrap Nathan up more tightly, beginning to drag her fingers through his hair comfortingly. "It's just snow, Nate. We're at school, and it's just snowing."

Nathan was shaking so bad. He hadn't been shaking no matter how cold it was. He didn't know why he was shaking. "I saw her, Tori. I saw Rachel. I think I saw her at the lighthouse. It was so dark."
Victoria shook her head and squeezed her best friend. "No, Nate. It's just her posters. I promise. No one has seen her."

And Nathan could see it as she floated away - just another poster of Rachel in the dark room. The paper lifted once and fell, then fluttered its way down the steps towards the street.

"I see her everywhere," Nathan confessed.
Nathan felt Victoria nod, chin grating along the top of his head. "I know."

He didn't know why he began to cry.