Chloe was feeling pretty good.

Even though they didn't have too much to their name, it had still taken awhile to get everything moved in to their new place and set up the way they liked it. 'Thankfully most of our shit is buried in rubble. Already bursting at the seams here.'

Once they had finished moving in, Max had offered to go grab a few supplies from the one convenience store in the area. In return, Chloe had gotten the electricity and water all set up out back. With their place now lit by a comforting glow of a lamp they had scavenged from the city, she had enjoyed a quick smoke before hopping in the shower to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

She had even decided to splurge and order the two of them some Chinese food from the one place still open in the area for dinner. And as she sat on the floor chilling in her night shirt and shorts, she felt pretty damned proud about the day.

Despite the feel good buzz she had going on, she had still decided to try and be a bit more productive while Max was gone. All around her were scraps of paper, as well as a single spiral notebook she had fished out from her truck. Sitting there alternating between eating her food and chewing on a pencil, she occasionally wrote down an idea as it came to her.

Max and her still had relatively few ideas about how her abilities worked, and were riding blind when it came to the other person controlling time around them. Now that they had a place to hole up, it seemed like a good time to start piecing out the puzzle.

It was also a lot like the work they had done to try and solve Rachel's murder. And while she had been stressing about finding Rachel, it had also been fun to work the mystery with Max. And thinking about solving this mystery was getting her excited to start piecing out the clues again.

'PI. Price has a pretty nice ring to it.'

Chloe put her food down and grabbed the journal, leaning back against her bead as she held it above her head and looked through her notes. So far she had a few things in a list under the 'Tap that Max power' list, and nothing under the list for 'Find Nega-Max'. Not that she hadn't had a few ideas, but none of them seemed really safe, especially if that creepy coyote was going to show up again.

As she was giving it some thought, she heard the door unlock, and let the journal drop on to her bed as she looked over to see Max walking in with a few bags full of shit they needed. She stepped inside and placed the bags on the stove before taking off her coat and throwing it on the door handle to the bathroom. Just behind her, she saw Kate poke her head around the door frame and give Chloe a small one hand wave.

"Evidently we have a neighbor Chloe," Max said, pointing her thumb at Kate. "I found her moving in a few rows over and invited her over. Is that okay?"

Chloe waived back at the girl, before gesturing around the room. "Cool with me. Mi casa es su casa. Grab some lo mein and take a seat somewhere."

"Thank you, Chloe," Kate said, stepping out of Max's way as the other girl began putting away her bags and moved into the bedroom area. Looking around, she grinned. "Oh, I didn't know you managed to save any of your photos Max. That's so wonderful. I always loved your wall."

Kate was leaning close to the wall above Max's bed, investigating the dozen or so photos that Chloe had been able to salvage from the wreck of Blackwell. Chloe grinned at Kate's compliments. She had pinned them up right after Max left, hoping to surprise her with them when she got back.

Max stopped what she was doing, and turned to look at the wall. Her eyes widened, and for just a moment Chloe thought she saw panic there before the girl rushed into the room with a smile on. She looked at the photos for just a second before turning to look at Chloe, "Wowsers. Did you really find all those in the wreck, Chloe?"

Chloe nodded slowly, "Yeah. Most were trashed in the storm, but you took so many luck had to be on your side to save a few, right?"

"Yeah," Max said. "I was worried about making this place feel like home, guess that won't be a problem at this rate." She smiled at Chloe again, though it didn't seem to quite reach her eyes. She then went back to putting away the last of the goods in various corners and shelves. She stared at her friend's back before she gave it up and faced Kate as she took a seat on the floor nearby.

"I love it," Kate said, smiling brightly. "it really brings the room together. Dana and I still need to decorate our place somehow, the walls are just so boring. But I bet Dana will find a way to fix that soon." Kate reached out towards one of the carton's of Chinese food, her hand lingering there a moment as she waited for Chloe to give her an idle wave of the hand to show she was actually okay to dig in.

'If she weren't such good friends with Max, I'd be kind of put off by just how polite she acts. The girl is kind of creepy.'

Kate began to poke at her food, blowing on it to cool it as she looked at the papers on the floor. "Do you mind my asking what you were working on?"

Max stepped over, taking a seat next to Chloe and just grabbed her food and began digging in without hesitation. "Yeah, what's all this about?"

Chloe looked at Kate for a moment, and then back at Max, letting her take the lead on this one. They hadn't really had the time to tell the other girl about the coyote incident or the time skips Max had reported experiencing over the past week. She didn't think there was any reason not to mention it, but since it was happening to Max, it felt wrong for her to be the one to go around and tell people about it.

Max leaned closer and braced herself with a hand on Chloe's shoulder as she leaned over to look at her notes. In doing so, her head was right in front of Chloe's face, her hair just a few inches from her nose. The scent of Max's shampoo and sweat hit her, and Chloe could feel her stomach do a flip at the sudden rush to her senses. She could feel her throat tighten and felt the heat spreading across her cheeks at the sudden rush of lust Max's near contact brought her.

As the other girl pulled back to sit normally, she tried to look anywhere but the two other girls in case they could see her reaction. 'Now is not the time for this, Chloe.'

"Ideas on the time travel stuff?"

"Yeah," Chloe said, clearing her throat to hide her momentary dry mouth. Hoping she wasn't quite so easy to read by the new girl, she looked at Kate. "Max here has had a few more odd things happen, and we're trying to figure it out."

"Oh," Kate said, looking suddenly a bit uncomfortable. "I can leave if you'd like."

"No Kate," Max said, looking at Chloe as well to make sure they agreed. Chloe finally made eye contact with her friend and nodded to show her she was on board before continuing. "Its fine, really. Its just a lot of stuff to go through, even with the quick explanation we gave you the other day. Not to mention that we don't really understand it ourselves. A new set of eyes would be great, though."

"If you're sure, Max. I'm not sure what I can help with, but I'm glad to try."

Chloe listened as Max explained the trouble with the long time freeze a week ago, and the short time hops since. She also filled in some details about how she had used her power previously. Chloe hadn't realized how much thought Max had given the whole matter before. She realized that it must have been tough trying to make sure each rewind she had made it look as continuous as possible. In retrospect, she could remember a few times where Max had not been where she had thought she should be, but for some reason it hadn't really stuck out to her until Max was talking about it. It really seemed that it should far more apparent that something was off with the sudden starts and stops of her power than it was, and she wondered if that was something else they could test.

Grabbing a piece of paper, she jotted down her thought on a list of things to look into. Once Max had finished explaining, she tossed the pad of paper into Max's lap. "All right. Enough of the talk. Might as well get to testing out this stuff, right?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea Chloe? I notice when time stops for the other guy. He might realize something is going on if I use my power."

"If that man was stuck in the storm, then he already knows, Max." Chloe nodded at what Kate said. They had left behind subtlety a week ago when they had frozen a freaking storm out on the bay.

"Exactly. And if his weird power stuff is anything like yours, he won't know where you are. And if we're wrong and that guy isn't part of this, maybe whoever is will make a mistake if he suddenly realizes someone else out there can do this too."

Max looked at the two of them, chewing at her lip. Chloe wasn't sure what was going on, but Max was acting hella nervous all of a sudden. She knew the man and the coyote had freaked her, but she didn't think it had been this bad. Honestly, she had seemed pretty chill about the short time stops throughout the week, all things considered. "Do you mind closing the blinds, Kate?"

"Oh, good point," Kate said, standing up and beginning to make sure they wouldn't be spotted through the window at the front of the back of the small little building. Chloe looked at Max, who had picked up the list of ideas and was focusing on them, looking as if she was just reading through the list of ideas. Something was off with the girl, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

Leaning over, she bumped Max's shoulder with her own. "I'm right here with you, Max. Nothing more than just a little superhero training."

The girl gave her a bit of a wane smile, leaning over to bump her shoulder back. "Thanks, Chloe." She then pointed down at the list, arching an eyebrow at her, " 'See if when Max drinks all the rum and rewinds the bottle magically refills?' Really, Chloe?"

She grinned at her friend. "Hey. Seeing what happens to the timeline if you remove something is useful. Life what if we just accept that the rum never existed. That is good shit to know. And not to mention, all the cool mutants learned some party tricks with their powers."

"I take back my earlier comment. You're not a dork, you're a nerd."

Chloe gave her the finger, "And proud of it. I can drop all the names of the Flashes back to the silver age. You're just jealous of my skills."

Kate giggled, "You mean the one with the weird helmet?"

"Wrong era, but good eye for the classics church girl. Anyway, we doing this?"

Max sighed, tossing the journal lightly on to the floor before standing up. "All right. I guess we can start with the big question first. You ready to try this out Chloe?"

She nodded, hopping up to her feet as well and standing in front of Max. The first thing she had thought to write down was whether Max could pull someone into a rewind again. Last time had obviously been a fluke, but if she could control that shit, that would be huge.

Grabbing on to Max's outstretched hand, she looked at Kate who was sitting there watching them with a look of excitement. "Let us know if you see anything weird, all right?"

Kate nodded, "You can count on me. I'm a rapt audience."

"You good for this, Chloe?" Max looked up at Chloe as she asked after her, and Chloe squeezed her hands and gave a cocky smile.

"Born ready, Maximilian. Lets do this."

Max looked at her for a moment longer before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, her face adopting a look of intense concentration. And for just a moment, it stayed that way before suddenly shifting into a look of exhaustion, her friend breathing hard and dripping blood from her nose. "Woah. You okay there Max?"

Max took a moment to catch her breath before squeezing her hand and standing a bit straighter. "Yeah. I'm fine. I can see why I passed out last time if I wasn't ready for it. Pulling you in took me a moment, like I was running up a really steep hill. And when I finally got to the top the exhaustion hit me suddenly. Its still pretty tiring, but I think I could get used to it."

"Like training to hold on to it longer?"

"Yeah," she replied. "Its really hard to describe, but it feels like I'm trying to hold something really heavy up with my mind. Maybe if I work at it it will be easier."

Chloe nodded. It made as much sense as she supposed something like that could. "Got to buff up your mutant muscles I guess. You want to see what happens if we let go?"

Her friend nodded, "Yeah. If we're going to try out a few more things tonight. I don't want to hold this too much longer and still be useful for much else."

"Okay," she said. She gave Max a salute with her free hand, "See you on the other side then." With that, she slipped her hand out of Max's. For a brief moment she could see the world slow down, just like when she had nearly lost her grip on Max during the storm. And then the world sped back up around her, and she rode on a wave of pain in her skull, the pressure behind her eyes causing the world to go white for a moment. She fell to her knees as blood began to flow down her chin to drip on the carpet below.

Max immediately was kneeling at her side, an arm around her shoulders as she fretted over her. "Chloe! Are you okay? What happened?"

Chloe took a deep breath, and felt the pressure in her skull receding as fast as it came on. Pulling her arm across her face to wipe away the blood before it pooled on the floor, she leaned back to sit on her ass. "Damn, that is one tough landing."

In the initial commotion, Kate had quickly torn grabbed a few paper towels and wet them down in the sink, bringing them over and handing them to Chloe. "Did something go wrong?"

"Damned if I know. But I definitely don't think I'm made for time travel. Looks like we should hold off on that particular trick unless we really need it."

Max nodded, "Yeah, no kidding. Your nose looks bad. Do you want some ice?"

"Yeah, thanks." Max made to move to grab the ice, but Kate had beaten her to it, having moved to put some ice in a plastic bag as soon as Max had suggested it. She accepted it with a thanks and placed it to her face, feeling the cold stem the bleeding and help get rid of the remaining pain in her head from the headache.

'I hope if we need to do that again in the future, it gets easier.'

Kate went back to the sink and brought another wet paper towel, handing it to Max to clean up her own face. "You look like you were bleeding a bit too Max. Are you sure this is safe?"

"I've bled a few times doing it," Max said. "I'm not really sure if its safe or not, but it rarely ever hurts, and that is only if I push myself really hard. And I feel like I can handle more rewinds than I could when I started. Maybe I'm just used to it, or whatever reason I have these powers means it doesn't affect me as much. Does that sound crazy?"

"Oh, no. I think that sounds reasonable." Kate looked between the two, "But maybe we should put off more tests. I know we wanted to do more, but its getting late and its not a good idea to hurt yourself trying things out."

"Yes mom," Chloe muttered, though she kept her tone light and joking. Max just kicked her lightly in her legs.

Kate smiled, "Good. I'll leave you two to the weird time travel stuff. I'll be here to make sure you two don't do anything too crazy and clean you up afterwards."

This originally was supposed to go with the last chapter, but for some reason this section was giving me no end of trouble. Still, it feels good to get it done and out of the way for more interesting developments and chapters. As a warning some darker topics are coming up soon. I don't plan to get graphic, but there will be some referencing the things that might have happened in the dark room. I will make sure to provide warnings for those who do not feel comfortable reading about that sort of thing.

Look forward to having a new chapter out sometime soon.

Like, comment, follow, etc. It makes my dog happy. Not me, of course. That would be too selfish.

Clear Skies,

Rylkan