Disclaimer: I don't own Life is Strange or the song 101 by WALLA.
"Are you sure?"
Chloe lingers at her bedroom door, keeping it perfectly halfway between open and closed.
Max sits up in the bed, still in her pirate outfit after being too emotionally exhausted to exchange it for pajamas. "I'm sure, Chloe," she says. "I don't think I'd make it. Not today."
"Do you want me to stay with you?" she asks.
Max shakes her head. "You know you can't. This is your only second chance. Don't waste it on me."
"It wouldn't be wasted," Chloe insists. "It would never be wasted for you."
Max feels a smile tug at her lips. She's afraid that if she lets it show, Chloe really will stay and throw away her chance at a better future. "I'll be fine, Chloe. The time to think might help me sort through things."
Chloe sighs, defeated. "If you're sure," she says. "I'll stop by at lunch, and we can go eat together."
She moves into the hall outside her door, but stops and looks back at Max before closing it. "And you better not be in that bed and pirate costume when I come pick you up for our lunch date, Max."
She winks and closes the door, thankfully before she sees the red blush flood Max's face.
She's just teasing. It's not like it ever bothered you before. Why now?
After the past few weeks, she can't help feeling closer to Chloe than ever before. It's not a bad thing, and she'll admit that Chloe has been her rock lately, but she wishes her heart would stop fluttering with every smile from Chloe. She wishes Chloe's teases would stop making her breath get stuck in her throat and flooding her face with heat.
"Stop thinking like this, Max," she tells herself. "You're just glad you can hang with Chloe after a few weeks of crazy. It's nothing."
Still, her words do nothing to quiet the little nagging feeling in her chest. After all she willing went through just to keep Chloe alive and well. She could have left things as they were, but she went back time and time again into The Dark Room.
The little moments they shared leading up to the Vortex Club play themselves over in her mind, but she tries to dismiss them. Swimming with Chloe in the middle of the night in Blackwell's pool. The sadness in her voice when she asked Max about Blackwell bros. Her anger towards the Jefferson imposter.
She had to feel something for Max.
Pull it together. Just best friends… like always.
She's on the cliff again, looking out at the sun over the ocean before she knows she has to head to Chloe's funeral. She remembers every detail of the week she spent with Chloe, reconnecting after a five year silence between them.
But in this timeline, Chloe was murdered never hearing from Max again after she left for Seattle. She never knew that her best friend sat a matter of feet away as she bled out on a bathroom floor feeling alone in the world and abandoned by the people she loved the most.
The area around her changes and Max is in the Two Whales with Warren.
"Max, you've been staring at that picture for awhile," he says. "Are you okay?"
She blinks and looks around the little diner, feeling like she's experiencing it for the first time. "Yeah, I guess," she says.
This body isn't hers, not originally. The memories flooding her mind aren't hers either. She was not this girl from birth, but has become her after she left this physical shell. The one thing she's certain of is that all this Max held dear is gone now. She fled and left a new consciousness behind. A new soul with the same name and memories.
"I'm just feeling a little left behind," she admits.
Warren puts his hand on his shoulder. "I'm right here for you, Max," he says. "We'll get through this storm and figure out those wicked time traveling powers of yours."
The ghosts of Jefferson's touch feels fresh on her skin, having only been free for a short time by now. The memories are enough to turn her stomach into a nauseous mess.
"Thanks, Warren. I've had a long night, and it must be getting to me."
"You could probably take a nap in the storage room. I doubt we'll be able to leave anytime soon and there aren't any windows there. It's the safest place to hide from a storm at the Two Whales."
"That doesn't sound like a bad idea. I can barely keep my eyes open."
A flash of lightning followed by roaring thunder in her dream brings Max back to reality and she peels her eyes open. She gets up and browses through the closet. Chloe's clothes don't fit her very well, but Rachel's do. So Chloe spent a few hours one day separating Rachel's into one section for Max to use. They might not be exactly her style, but they're comfortable.
The smell of smoke sticks to the clothes in the closet. Chloe tries to smoke outside or near an open window, but the scent lingers on her belongings. In Seattle, Max hated walking passed smokers on the sidewalk. Yet, here on Chloe's things, it's different. Comforting, somehow.
She grabs a set of clothes, showers, and heads downstairs to find Joyce in the kitchen, scrubbing dishes from breakfast.
"Hey there, Max," she greets. "I didn't know you were still here."
"Hey, Joyce," Max says. "Yeah, I didn't quite feel up to school today."
"Chloe told me about it this morning. Some people really don't think about their actions. I hope Principal Wells finds out and disciplines that boy. I'd give him hell if he were my son."
"I just wasn't expecting something like that," Max says.
"How could you? Anyway, you hungry, Max? The eggs should still be warm, and I can cook you up some toast to go with them. No bacon this time. Ran out, I guess."
Max feels the emptiness weighing in her stomach at Joyce's offer. "That sounds amazing, Joyce. I'm starving."
Joyce chuckles and gives Max a small smile. "Then you sit on down. Breakfast is coming right up."
Max returns Joyce's smile, and it feels so natural for the corners of her lips to pull up for once. There isn't pity in Joyce's expression, only kindness. And Max fools herself into thinking that maybe, just maybe, Joyce understands what it's like to be hurt and not want everyone to coddle you. No matter how much you might need it, you only want certain people to know and acknowledge your vulnerability.
"Everyone's talking about what happened last night," Chloe says from across the table in their booth at the Two Whales.
Max sighs. "Great. Just what I need."
But Chloe shakes her head. "Not what you think. The kid who dressed like, uh, him got suspended—though I'm still hoping he'll end up expelled. Principal Wells found out and apparently wasn't happy. I can't blame him. I wasn't thrilled to see that kid last night either," she says. "You missed it, but I threw him into the pool."
Max laughs, imagining Jefferson being thrown into a pool by Chloe—the cool image he tried so hard to create and preserve ruined by a bit of water. "I kinda wish I stuck around to see that."
Chloe smirks. "I'm not against doing it again."
"I hope that won't be necessary." The momentary joy fades from Max. "It was scary, Chloe. I thought that was really Jefferson at first."
"Great costume. Horrible costume choice."
Max pokes at the food left on her plate, what she couldn't finish from her generous portion.
"Are you gonna be alright?" Chloe asks.
Max mulls over Chloe's question, biting back the automatic 'I'm fine' resting on the tip of her tongue, then sets her fork down with a soft clink and looks at Chloe, whose blue eyes search for an answer. "I don't know," Max says. "I mean, it's not last night that bothers me, not really. It's how easily it happened, you know? How can something so small, so simple like a costume, make me absolutely lose it?"
Chloe reaches across the table and gives Max's hand a tight squeeze. "That wasn't small, Max. You thought that someone who tormented you for nearly a week straight—and much longer from what you tell me about timelines and junk—was standing right in front of you. You hella deserved to lose your shit after that," she says. "Anyone would have."
"Maybe."
"Not even close to being a 'maybe', Max. It's okay to not be okay. Okay?"
Max sighs. "Okay."
Chloe takes Max with her back to Blackwell when lunch is over, but Max heads to her dorm again instead of class. She doesn't want to deal with other students after her episode. Chloe made her admit that she's not okay, but that doesn't mean she won't stop pretending to be around everyone else at Blackwell.
She makes a mental note to ask David about changing her door's lock. To ease her mind, she moves her chair from her desk and props it under the doorknob.
She grabs her laptop and Warren's flash drive in preparation of a mini movie marathon until Chloe is done with classes for the day. She sets the laptop up on the floor so she can see it when looking over the side of her bed and starts a movie—called Mysterious Skin, or something like that. Warren's stash of movies never lacks the odd and unknown.
She doesn't pay much attention to the movie. Instead, she mostly listens to it while looking at the pictures composing her Max Caulfield Photo Memorial Wall. In so many of the pictures she appears in, she's smiling and truly happy. But Max no longer knows this innocent version of herself and seeing her image like it's a stranger's is frightening. Will she forget herself, or the person she used to be, given enough time?
She gives the pictures on her wall a final glance, but one catches her eye and she pulls it from its spot.
"What the—" she mutters.
It's Chloe and Rachel. Their arms held above their heads and their hips cocked in a dancing pose. The burning sun behind them nearly made their images into silhouettes, but Rachel's dangling necklace glinted and Chloe's smile could barely be seen.
Max flips the photo over in her hands. When she looks again, it's the same image.
Where did this come from?
She puts the photo down and grabs her laptop. Pausing the movie, she launches her web browser and types in 'Mandela Effect'. The first links reiterate what Chloe told her the other day. A few mention confabulation, and Max looks into them when it's clear the other links offer very little new information.
She keeps the page open and waits for Chloe to pick her up at the end of the day. At least she should have some useful input about the picture and idea of false memories.
"I remember this," Chloe says. She holds the photo by its edges, careful not to smear its surface. "We just finished a long week at Blackwell—a couple big tests and whatever. So when Friday came along, we pretty much said 'fuck it' and drove to the beach. Rachel brought a small radio and we jammed out in the sand for hours."
"It was just you and Rachel?" Max asks. "What about the picture? Someone had to take it."
Chloe shrugs. "I have about as many answers as you do to that. It was just Rachel and me. No one else, I swear. There never was a picture taken of us that day. Well, maybe of Rachel at Blackwell before we left since everyone practically begged her to model for various art projects."
Max takes the photo back as Chloe hands it to her and places it back on her wall in the spot left open in its absence. "Do you think it has to do with the Mandela Effect you mentioned the other day?"
"Maybe. Most likely. At the end of the day, I'm flying just about as blind as you are."
Max opens her laptop and shows Chloe the web page she left up. "When I looked up 'Mandela Effect', this came up as well," she explains. "I was hoping you might have a little input."
"'Confabulation,'" she reads aloud.
Max gives her a few minutes to read through everything.
"I get it," Chloe announces. "It's like an alternate explanation to the Mandela Effect. Instead of things slipping through timelines, people simply create false memories unintentionally. But how does that explain when the memories are shared among many people? Weird."
"Weird?" Max asks. "Really, Chloe? You tell me that you think my belongings are shifting through timelines, and this is the thing you find weird?"
"Given your recent time manipulation, which one makes more sense?"
Max sighs. "Fine, I concede. Plus one point to Chloe's logic."
"Seriously, Max. Take that picture for example. Confabulation only deals with memories. You can't unintentionally create a picture with your imagination and then have it become real. That's ridiculous." she says. "In some timeline, you came back to Arcadia when Rachel was still alive and took that picture of us."
"Do you think we would have been friends? Honestly?" Max asks. It's a little off topic, but it's only one of the questions currently eating at her.
Chloe nods. "I really do. She had a way of seeing the best in people and finding common ground with them. She could always find something to build a bond off of."
"Did you love her?"
Chloe's eyebrows raise and almost reach the hem of her beanie while her mouth opens and closes like a fish's. She takes a deep breath and moves her focus to the Max Caulfield Photo Memorial Wall. "Of course I loved her, but I wasn't in love with her. Infatuation, maybe. A little crush. But she appeared in my life when I needed an angel the most and saved me from myself. Of course I felt something after that. Not that it would have mattered if I was in love with her. She clearly didn't feel that way about me."
Of course it would matter.
"Sorry," Max says. "I didn't mean to bring up painful memories. The question just kinda slipped out."
Chloe shakes her head. "It's fine. I needed to hear myself say it, anyway. As a way of finding closure. Sorting it out with myself."
Chloe turns the laptop off and puts it on the desk. "I didn't realize it at the time," she says, softly, "but my love was already somewhere else. Even before I met Rachel."
Chloe clears her throat and looks back at Max, only for her attention to be pulled away. "I thought you ate your bear's eye when you were a kid?"
"Uh, yeah. My parents rushed me to the ER," Max says. "I guess they were afraid it'd cut open my intestines. Not that I was old enough to understand or care about consequences."
"See?" Max lifts the familiar softness of her bear up to show Chloe, but Chloe shakes her head and points at its eyes.
"See two eyes? Because that's what your bear has."
Max turns her bear over and find that he has two eyes now. She sighs and sets him down. "Even my bear is changing? This sucks. How do I stop this? What's going on that's messing with the timelines?"
Chloe takes a seat next to Max on the bed. "I wish I could give you all the answers you want, Max," she says. "But I have no idea what's going on either. Just know that I'm going to be right here through all of it, okay?"
"Thanks, Chloe. I—" Max cuts herself off for a second. "I really appreciate it."
I think I'm falling for you.
By mid-November, Max finds herself waking up too close to sunrise for any sane creature and stumbling into Chloe's truck. In the driver's seat, Chloe is barely more alert.
Their first stop is ten minutes from Chloe's house at a cafe, where they load up on beautifully caffeine-loaded coffee. Only at this point does Max feel almost human again and scorch her tongue and throat due to her eagerness to energize. While they drink at a little table in the corner, she savors the smell of coffee beans and freshly baked pastries bursting with fruits. A glance at the glass case filled with delectable sweets is enough to make her mouth water.
Want. All.
"I went to a lot of cafes in Seattle," she says, breaking their amicable silence. She pulls on the hems of her hooded sweatshirt's sleeves to cover her hands. The cold air forces both of them to dress a little heavier, but Max loves the picture of a sleeping kitten with the words 'Not Right Meow' written across the chest of her hoodie. "But the city is so big that most of them were always busy and overflowing with people. It's like no one had a minute to spare and relax, the way they rushed in and out."
Chloe grins over the rim of her steaming mug, washing down crumbs of the two danishes she devoured in record time. "Oh? The perfect city isn't so perfect. Even as a kid, you idolized that place. It was your dream for years," she says.
"I idolized a lot of things I shouldn't have," Max says. "My dreams changed, too. Seattle was nice, but it wasn't what I imagined."
"What are your dreams now?" Chloe asks.
"I don't know. I'm still looking."
"Will you let me know when you find them?"
"Hell, Chloe. I expect you to be right next to me during them."
Chloe laughs. "Now that sounds like a plan I can get behind."
On their way out of the cafe, they order another cup of coffee apiece to-go. The temperature continues dropping as winter nears, so a warm beverage is perfect to keep their hands toasty as they pack back into Chloe's truck.
Max ends up holding both coffees as Chloe drives, due to the lack of cup-holders. She almost lets go of them after Chloe speeds over a couple nasty bumps in the road and forces Chloe to be a little more careful as she would very much like to avoid being burnt to a crisp. To which Chloe replies that they're on their way to a hospital anyway, so she'll be fine.
Despite her punk appearance, Chloe lets Max play a mix of acoustic covers through her radio. She seems to enjoy the slower beat and raw, raspy voices spilling through her speakers. So Max is able to contently stare out the window as they go and let her mind drift.
"We should be there in a half hour or so," Chloe announces.
Max fidgets in her seat. "That felt like a pretty quick drive."
Chloe shrugs, tapping her hands on her steering wheel. "It's just far enough to be annoying, but not far enough to set aside more than a day for."
"I could have taken the bus or something if you didn't want to drive," Max says. She never wanted to annoy Chloe with what she thought would be a simple request.
"That's not what I meant," Chloe says. "I really don't mind driving you there. I guess it just doesn't seem like a high priority to me to visit Nathan."
Max says, "He's not bad. He needed help, and no one gave it to him."
"Kindred spirits?"
"What?"
"You and Nathan," Chloe explains. "You both needed help, but weren't receiving it. You because of your stubbornness."
"And Nathan because of his family and circumstance," Max finishes for her. "I never considered him a kindred spirit, but maybe we are."
"It's a weird world, right."
Max snorts a laugh. "That doesn't even begin to describe it. I miss when we were kids and everything was simple."
"I think everyone feels that way to some extent," Chloe says. "You have the memories, and that has to be enough."
"Does it ever feel like enough to you?"
Chloe honks at a driver who cut her off and flips her middle finger at him. "No. It never does."
They pull into the gated parking lot of the Oregon State Mental Hospital.
"This isn't what I expected," Max says. "It actually looks pretty nice."
The building itself is tall and new, built with plenty of windows dotting its sides. Max thought it would be old and decrepit. A building falling apart that no one would want to enter, except to hunt for ghosts as it looked like a prime haunted location waiting to unleash crazy upon the living who enter.
The surrounding area is composed of trees with an array of leaf colors: brown, orange, yellow, and red. It's secluded without feeling isolated. More like a cabin in the woods to visit for a bit than a hospital to be locked away in.
"You don't have to go in and see him, Max," Chloe says. "We can turn around and go home."
The way she holds onto the steering wheel with enough force to color her knuckles white leads Max to believe that she's the one who's more nervous.
Max hides her hands in her sleeves. She doesn't want Chloe to see them shaking or notice that anything is off. Already, her mind feels like it's on the edge of an abyss threatening to swallow her whole. Whispers of his words tickle her ears.
It's just Nathan, she reminds herself. He helped you, and he never wanted anyone to get hurt.
"If you become Zombie Max in there, they might lock you away," Chloe adds after Max's silence. "It won't be as easy to be released the second time."
"I won't go Zombie Max," she says, sounding more confidant than she is. "It's just Nathan, and he's the reason I'm alive right now. It's my turn to help him."
She takes a deep breath and steps out of Chloe's truck, facing the walkway to the hospital's entrance. Chloe follows her lead.
"Here we go," she says.
A/N: Thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, follows, and favorites!
Here's the question: should we torment Max more and have her go zombie, thereby being locked away with Nathan, or should we give her a break and have her maintain her sanity for now?
