-Small declaration ahead: I was so happy to hear there'll be a prequel to LiS and I can't wait to return into the new old world. For those who don't know it yet: "Before the Storm" will tell the story of Chloe and Rachel, which I try as well in my AU. But I'll try to "avoid" the new game in order not to influence my image of the characters. So if the characters in the game will develop completely different from what I write in my story, please note: "Before the Storm" does storywise not belong (or at least not necessarily) to my LiS-AU.-

Max froze like a doe in the headlight. She stared at her teacher's face for two seconds without being able to move. A cold raindrop had sneaked into her sweat jacket and was now trickling down her back unpleasantly cold.
"Come on, get in, I won't bite", Mr. Jefferson called through the pelting rain. He leaned from the driver's seat over the center console and pushed the passenger door open. Then he raised one eyebrow, inviting.
Max awakened from her rigor and flopped into the seat before rashly closing the door. It had already started to rain inside the car.
"Good evening, Max", Mr. Jefferson's velvety voice said as the car started. The windowpane next to Max rolled up with a zooming. Alone with Mr. Jefferson in his dark car with the smoked windows, Max thought. Her heart was beating heavily, and not only because she had walked so quickly before.
"What does a young lady do alone at the main road in the evening?", Mr. Jefferson wanted to know.
Lady?
"I - I wasn't alone. I met someone. A friend. I met a friend." Max couldn't find any words. "And now - I - the rain caught me off-guard. The bus - there are no more busses today. The bus to Blackwell."
As if my brain had the blue screen of death. Great.
"And your friend couldn't give you a ride?", Mr. Jefferson asked. Max shook her head, then she realized her teacher was focused on the street and she murmured: "No."
"Ho-hum", the photographer just said. Then: "I left some documents in the teacher's lounge. I have to get back to the Academy anyways. I'll drop you off there."
"Thanks", Max said shyly. Then there was silence. Mr. Jefferson drove in a focused, yet not fraught manner. His back touched the upright seat, the strong yet filigree fingers of his left hand encompassed the steering wheel, his right hand lay softly on the gear shift.
Max realized how well manicured her teacher's hands were. The nails were neatly clipped, no dirt was under them. He had a plain mole on the knuckle of his right little finger. Max would have loved nothing better than to stroke over it. She forced herself to look ahead again.

Outside, in the meantime, it looked like doomsday had come. Mr. Jefferson adjusted the windshield wiper to the highest speed and laid off the gas pedal a bit. The sky gave everything it got. One could only see a few metres through the torrents pouring from the clouds. Mark Jefferson didn't seem to be very impressed by the weather. He steered his vehicle as confidently as a captain, who has been at sea for twenty years, steers his ship. But the loud pelting of the rain didn't make the awkward silence any more bearable.
Max realized how her eyes had wandered to Mr. Jefferson and were now stuck to his face. With a big amount of willpower she detached them from him. She dug her fingers into her knees and looked unflashy around the car. The dashboard was made of shiny, reddish wood. There was no car air freshener hanging from the rear-view mirror (in fact it smelled, just like Mr. Jefferson himself, like citrus and cypresses), no plush dices nor a pair of child's shoes - such kitsch wouldn't fit the plain, elegant style of Mr. Jefferson. There were no frills in the vehicle at all. No lose coins, trolley tokens or gas station vouchers, no charging cables or CDs. The complete contrast to Chloe's car...!
Chloe!
The thought of this silly cow made Max sigh quietly. Hopefully she'd get home safely despite this horrible weather. Her style of driving was rather hazardous even when there was clear sight and a dry lane.
The town limit came in sight. Jefferson had not said a word yet. Max didn't quite know if she should be thankful for that or if the silence made everything even more uncomfortable. From the corner of her eyes she saw his serious mien. Goddammit, he could be so intimidating!
Usually not a trait that she really liked. But instead of being annoyed or angry, she just felt this traction in the center of her body.

They passed the sign that welcomed arriving people in Arcadia Bay. The Academy wasn't too far away anymore. Max was relieved, yet somehow disappointed. Back when she received the approval for her scholarship, she imagined for days and nights how it would be talking to ace photographer Mark Jefferson for hours about their favourite topic and maybe even impress him with her knowledge. She knew from the beginning how naive that thought was.
And now, being actually alone with him and having the opportunity to say something witty, her tongue lay in her mouth, as useless as a dead slug, and her brain was chronically empty like Chloe's wallet.
As if he had read her mind, Mark Jefferson suddenly said: "Have you already thought about my offer?"
She should have known that he'd get back to that topic again. She just couldn't get away from him.
"You are pretty persistent", Max said with an insecure grin.
Mr. Jefferson didn't smile. His dark eyes flashed behind the lenses. His left hand gripped the steering wheel firmer. Max lost her grin.
"You know why, Max." His voice sounded calm and low-pitched, somehow threatening, like a stalking predator. Max nervously stroked her fringe off her forehead.
"Do you really think I'm that talented?", she quietly asked. "I mean, there are Evan and Victoria and..." She sighed. "I just don't think the art world needs a Caulfield", she confessed. It sounded like she was fishing for compliments, but it was exactly what she thought. And she knew that Mr. Jefferson was aware of that as well. But he remained silent.
In the meantime they had reached Blackwell. Mr. Jefferson drove his car to the faculty parking and turned off the engine.
Max removed her seatbelt. From this parking lot, that was on the back side of the Academy - near the teacher's lounge - she had to walk farther to her dorm room than from the student's parking. Outside, a lightning pierced through the dark clouds. Two seconds later a thunderclap followed.
Oh great. But if I'm struck by lightning, at least he won't bother me with that contest anymore.
"Well ... thank you for giving me a ride, Mr. Jefferson", Max said, putting her hand on the door handle.
"Wait, Max." Again, this was no request.
Yes, Sir!
"You won't leave before we talked about your entry."
The girl felt heat ascending in her. She turned to look at the handsome man next to her.
Mark Jefferson had his seatbelt removed as well, took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes with a sigh. He twisted the glasses briefly between his hands before putting it back on again.
"Why don't you see how talented you are?"
Max knew no answer to that. She mainly didn't know an answer because she looked at the movement of his muscles under the white shirt with great interest and now she imagined how this fantastic photographer was standing in the drenching rain with a soaking wet, see-through top.
"Max? Max, did you even listen to me?"
His voice brought her back into the precious vehicle. She went red and plucked at her fringe. Why did her body always have to stab her in the back?
"Y-yeeees?"
He watched her thoughtfully. Those brown eyes once again had a lock on her.
"Where are you with your thoughts again?", he asked with a quiet, throaty voice, tilting his head to the side.
You wouldn't wanna know!
Mr. Jefferson sighed again and averted his gaze. There was silence in the car for a few seconds, then he said: "When I was a bit younger than you, about fifteen years old, I was horribly shy. Probably even more than you are."
Max frowned. What? She couldn't imagine that Mark Jefferson had ever been shy.
He kept on talking: "I loved photography and dreamt of reaching what I've got today. But if my former mentor didn't discover me serendipitously and pushed me towards the right direction, I maybe had become a gardener like my father. Or an accountant or a caterer, who knows. Maybe not a bad life, but never what I really wanted."
He turned back to Max who listened to him, her mouth slightly open.
"I decided to give lessons in order to find rough diamonds and urge them out of their shell if necessary. Max, you're a dreamer, you've got this shy innocence -"
Shy innocence?
"- and you shall keep it -"
What? Excuse me? Was that a compliment?
"- but not in a way that hinders you from doing what you love. And you do love photography, don't you?"
That was a question Max immediately knew the answer to: "Yes", she confirmed and nodded.
"Then I don't know what your problem is. You've got talent, Max. Forget the others. Your role models and fellow students. You're not them and that's a good thing."
Was that a compliment as well?
Mark Jefferson lifted his hand and stretched his forefinger in Max's direction. "You must get your doubts out of here", he said, leaning slightly forward and tapped his student softly against the forehead twice. This tiny touch caused warm waves inside her, that, on their way through her body, made her heart race, her stomach flutter and her knees shake.
More of it, please.
But Mark Jefferson already leant back again and now looked stricter than ever. Max could see how small furrows settled on his forehead as he frowned. She bit her lower lip.
"Maxine Caulfield", his voice demanded with an unusual acerbity, "I will now walk you to the dorm rooms. Until then you have time to think about five pictures you give me for analysing. I'll wait ten minutes in front of the dormitories. If you think that you don't have to hand me any photos, I will not give you any more feedback except for graded test."
Max's jaw dropped open. This unfair, arrogant prick! Who did he think he was? And he had called her Maxine. Nobody called her like that! The bubble was burst. Max was angry.
"Are you serious?", she finally managed to say. Are you cereal?, her mind repeated.
Mr. Jefferson lifted one corner of his mouth to that hemi smirk, his eyes had a challenging expression. The answer was obviously Yes.
"It doesn't seem to work any other way, Max."
"Wowser", she murmured.
Mr. Jefferson lifted his eyebrow. Why did she again have the urge to immediately obey him? What was that thing with his natural authority? That wasn't the kind of authority that other teachers had.
Before she could protest against it, Mr. Jefferson pulled a huge umbrella from behind her seat. Then he got gracefully out of the car, opened the umbrella and walked over to Max's side of the car to open her door. She had no other choice but to stand close to him under the black umbrella and to pad through the drenching rain that flooded the asphalt with little rapids. Her mud-shoes splashed through the puddles. Her teacher wasn't spared from the water either. His white shirt had some wet parts now, but Max, frantically wondering which photos to give him, didn't see any of this. It felt like eating humble pie.
The picture of Dad and me on the Space Needle? No, too touristy, plus not taken by me. The flower photo from Volunteer Park in Seattle? No, that has nothing to do with "Everyday Hero" at all! It should fit the topic at least a bit! Damn it, damn it!
They approached the dormitories.
"I'll wait here", Mr. Jefferson announced and stopped under the canopy of the boys' rooms. He gave Max his umbrella and a smile that might be encouraging and made her heart skip.
The raindrops ran like pearls on a string from the umbrella. Max entered the now dark hallway of the girls' dormitory and nearly slipped with her wet, dirty shoes on the linoleum covered floor. Inelegantly, she waddled to her room, took - after a short hesitation - three Polaroids from her photo wall and two from a folder on her shelf and crammed them into an envelope. She paused for a second, went to her desk, where her newer work was, and took a sixth photograph. After that, she went back outside where Mr. Jefferson waited patiently. With shaky legs, she approached him. Despite the raw weather, she felt rather warm at the sight of his figure.
When Max reached him, he was still showing his encouraging smile. Thoroughly a proud teacher that had made an F-student an A-student.
The brunette took one last deep breath, then she gave her mentor the envelope. He did not check the inside or fumbled on it to see if it had any content - he obviously knew what effect he and his intimidating manner and not least his threat had on his student. He put the envelope in the breast pocket of his shirt, tapped it contentedly and said: "Well done, Max." His accents were now peaceable, understanding. "I know, it's no easy step to take. Believe me. But remember what I always tell you: The only thing that separates the artist from the amateur is the step into public. You're not made for being an amateur. You're a champion, Max Caulfield."
Through the rain and thunder Max nearly thought she heard her teacher say "my champion", but that was just her imagination for sure.
Good to know that, besides my ability to speak, my ears are played out as well.
Still, she couldn't help but smile. Such words from this man ... she twisted her fringe between her fingers.
A loud thunderclap led Mr. Jefferson's look from his student to the sky.
"I guess", he said, "the weather won't get any better. I should go fetch my documents quickly and get home before the street will be flooded or something." Then he looked back at Max. "I'll contact you via e-mail concerning the pictures. Then we can talk about them calmly. Maybe even tomorrow, if you are free, or on Monday after your classes", he let her know. Max could just nod.
"Oh, and Max?"
"Yes, Mr. Jefferson?"
"No matter what you decide to do concerning the contest -"
So I do have a choice now?
"- you can be proud of yourself." He tapped against his breast pocket again, where the photos in the envelope waited to be looked at by him.
Now or never!
"Mr. Jefferson, I don't want to occupy too much of your time or something -"
"Max...!"
"Um, well, so ... I've got another photo. I'm not quite sure whether it fits in the row, but ... here you are." And before she could change her mind she took the last photograph which she hadn't put into the envelope, and held it out to Mark Jefferson.
He recognized the subject an smiled even more. It was the selfie she had taken during his class the other day. He lifted his hand to take it. But he didn't only take the photograph.
He took Max's hand.
His hands were cold - unsurprisingly with that bloody weather - but Max didn't even realize it. Within the split of a second, all the blood from her body went into her head. She didn't manage to look at him, but she could see his smile in her mind. This proud smile. He was proud of her and he held her hand.
Max swore that in that moment, her heart stopped for a few seconds.
Jefferson's thumb stroked over Max's, once, twice.
"Great, Max. The art world will be thankful for this", the teacher said. Then he drew his hand back, along with the picture. When Max's heart finally returned to duty, it was racing as if it had to catch up on the last few beats.
Mr. Jefferson had turned around and diverged from the dormitories. "Good night, Max", he called when he was already a few metres away, without turning around. How did he know she was still standing there, staring after him like a total moron?
"Good ... night ... Mr. ... Jefferson", she stuttered in a low voice.