Chapter IX: Some tricks of desperation

The first thing she saw was Max, thirteen again, small and young and nervous.

The second thing she saw was her father, his arm around her, a camera in his hand.

There was nothing else she could do, no other possible branching timeline from this moment, this version of future-Chloe's mind in past-Chloe's body: she hugged her Dad. He was there. Solid. No longer a ghost of a memory. No longer a version of herself dredged up from her mind and given a shape she knew. No longer a photograph sealed up behind glass. She'd forgotten what he smelled like. How it felt to hug him, to wrap her arms – skinnier than she was used to – and bury her face against him.

"Wow, I guess you really like the picture, huh?"

"Dad!"

"Yes, honey?"

He was so real and alive and here and she was young again, and all the grief and nightmares and drugs and loss and tears were only memories. They didn't have to happen, anymore. Her dad was alive.

"Is everything okay? Did I do something?"

"No, no, I just…" Chloe looked up, wiping away tears. "I just got really emotional, I guess. I love you, Dad."

"I love you too, sweetie."

The phone rang.

"Hold on, let me get that."

Chloe felt something sick and solid forming in her throat.

Don't take the call.

"Chloe, follow me. I've got the keys," Max whispered, tugging on her shirt. She followed, in a daze, as Max opened up the sliding door screen and pulled them both out into the backyard.

"Holy shit."

"Chloe, we have to be careful."

"Holy shit."

"Chloe, listen to me."

"He's alive. He's right there. I'm…"

"Chloe!" Young Max gripped both of her arms. She'd seen this expression on the Max of the future, but not this one. Not young, scared, Max. Except…

A memory she'd almost forgotten. Max, tearful and strange, on this very day.

"Chloe, are you listening to me?"

"Yeah."

"I tried this before. I tried to save him. He took the bus and lived. But you…you didn't. I know you want to save him, I know it's so cruel to let you see him and then take him away again, but you'll die if he lives to give you that car."

"But what if I tell him I don't want a car."

Max stopped, confusion rippling across her face. "Chloe, I don't know…"

"I can fucking explicitly tell him I don't want a car. I'll just ride the bus everywhere, become a public transit advocate or whatever. Voila, everybody lives."

Max hugged herself, looking around nervously.

It felt so wrong to be here, five years in the past, in the soft warm glow of the afternoon fading into evening. Two kids, suddenly made aware of the joys and horrors of a life they both already lived and might never live again.

Max took a deep breath. "I've seen you die too many times. If the universe, or multi-verse, really wants you dead, it'll try to find a way."

None of the rules made sense. They'd defied enough of them already.

Max shouldn't have brought me back here. I can't just let him go die.

"Max. Do you not get it? I fucking traveled through time with you! The universe has tried to kill me a lot, sure, but I'm still here, right? What if we already paid the price? We'll never know if it was worth it, but we've got this incredibly awesome power to fix all the shit we had to deal with before!"

Max curled up at the foot of the slide, her arms wrapped around her legs. "I just can't lose you again."

Chloe squeezed beside her – one of the benefits of being a kid again. She put her arm around Max's shoulder and kissed her on the cheek. "You won't. This time we're sticking together."

Max swallowed. She nodded, then wiped away the few tears that were forming.

"I guess we're in uncharted territory. Even if I feel like I've lived this day a million times."

Chloe could understand that. She'd lived this day more times than Max, even without time travel. A thousand different versions of what could have happened. A thousand alternate timelines. Did they all exist too?

"Can we…can we save our game or whatever? Take another picture. You know, just in case?"

Max shrugged. "It messed me up before, going back in time while already back in time."

"But it was just you before. Now it's both of us. Partners in time for reals."

"For reals?"

"Hey, I'm a kid again, I can say for reals."

"Fair."

"See, you're getting it. But think about it, together we teleported to some place outside of time. You didn't do that alone." Chloe smiled. "Who knows what other powers we have now?"

"That's what I'm afraid of."

"I'm scared too. But not of us."

Suddenly the camera appeared in Max's hands.

"How'd you…oh, rewind."

"Yeah. Let's see if this works." She aimed the camera above them, the two of them still clinging to each other. Chloe hugged Max tighter, as if the more of her she could feel and touch, the more safe they'd be. The flash went off.

"If you'll do the honors," Max said, handing Chloe the Polaroid. She flipped it around, watching the image slowly emerged from darkness. Max and Chloe, closer than they'd ever been as kids. Something different behind their eyes, as if the camera could capture the five years that shouldn't be there.

The sliding door opened. Her heart caught again. Her father, alive, real.

"Hey girls, you wouldn't happen to have seen my keys out here? I can't for the life of me remember where they were. Your mother's probably worried sick."

She felt Max's gaze on her. This was it. Give her father the keys, let him drive off to his death, live in a world where Max was there to comfort her. That was a better world. Maybe Max would come back from Seattle sooner, or manage to convince her parents not to leave at all. But even if not, they'd call constantly. She believed her now, after everything. Even if there was David again, maybe this time they'd get along, knowing what she knew about him. This Chloe had already gone through most of her teenage years. Max and her would have to go through high school again – and that was hell – but it didn't seem as bad this time. They'd dealt with worse. They could stop Jefferson before he did anything. Save Rachel. Stop all the terrible shit with Rachel's mother and Damon Merrick. And if, after everything, the storm still came, maybe they could convince enough people to leave. Or at least save their families. At the first sign of a strange eclipse, they'd be gone. It would be, undoubtedly, a better world. Fate would take the life of William Price, and save everyone else.

"No, sorry!" called Max. "Didn't see anything. Maybe you could take the bus?"

"The bus? Well, I guess. Joyce'll get a kick out of that. Alright girls, don't burn the house down while I'm gone!"

The door slid shut.

Chloe's heart didn't stop hammering. "Max, you…"

"You deserve him. You deserve everything. Just be careful. And definitely don't drive."

"Deal. I've had enough driving for one lifetime. Or a lot of them."

They sat, curled in each other's arms, for a couple minutes more. Max was taut, stretched somewhere between contentment and a watchful anxiety.

"We should be skipping forward soon," she said, looking off into the distance.

"Oh yeah, you didn't live five years in that alternate timeline, right?"

"No, usually it only lasts long enough for me to make some big change, and then everything goes back to the day I first went back. It's...confusing."

"Wait…does that mean that we'll forget about this, about us? How will I remember not to drive?"

Max jolted up. "Fuck. I didn't think of that…Chloe, we can't jump forward yet, we have to…we have to…"

"Remember. We have to remember."

Dear Chloe,

Don't get a car when you turn 16. Tell Mom & Dad you don't want one ever.

You &Max are time travelers. Not a joke or game. You came back from 2013. You went through shit, but here's what matters:

You love Max, and Max loves you. (like love love, seriously!) Surprise, you're gay!

A photographer named Mark Jefferson will start to teach at Blackwell. He's a sociopath who drugs girls and takes pics of them and will KILL! The Prescotts are involved.

SAVE RACHEL AMBER!

Don't owe drug dealers $$$

Talk to Max every day. Text, call, anything

You might be able to rewind time w/ Max. Hold her hand.

You won't remember any of this soon.

I'm sorry.

-Chloe

Her letter, handwriting shaky but still legible, was tucked safely in her pocket. They were in her room now, laying on her bed and staring up at the ceiling, listening to the song from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride from Max's old Pirate Power mix CD.

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me

We kindle and char, inflame and ignite

Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho

In any other context, this was basically all she ever wanted to do. Just like when they were kids, wasting time and enjoying the quiet of the sunset, hand in hand. But now it only felt like they were waiting for the tides of time to pull them away. They'd be replaced by some other Max and Chloe, who'd travel on a set path, live and love and struggle through life until sometime in the end of October 2013. Five years. Then those minds would be erased, and the Max and Chloe right now would take over, with nothing but pictures or journals to mark the passage. And what if time really did want her dead? What if the other Chloe was killed? What would happen to her?

"Fuck, this is scary."

"Yeah."

She found Max's hand and squeezed.

"This has gotta work, right? I mean, we'll just wake up here and see these and have no memory of writing it, right?"

"I think that's how it would work. I never tried leaving a note for myself before."

We burn up the city, we're really a fright

Drink up, me 'earties yo ho

"If it doesn't, at least I'll die to a pirate shanty."

Max laughed, though Chloe could tell it was more from fear than from her joke.

"The way a true pirate should."

"It's been amazing sailing with you."

Pressure in her head. Blue and red light.

"It's happening," Max said. "Chloe, hold on!"

She caught a glimpse of blue tendrils around their hands before everything burned away. Holes in paper. Burnt spots on a film reel.

Max and Chloe waking up on a bed, notes in hand, blushes creeping up their necks.

The entire Price family waving goodbye as the Caulfields drive away, Max's hand to the glass pane of the window, tears in her eyes.

Max and Chloe, phones in hand, staring out at their own windows into the blue sky, no storm in sight.

Max and Chloe embracing at a bus stop, a bag slung around Max's shoulders.

It's going too fast – I'm missing so much!

Max hiking with the Prices, hand in hand with Chloe.

Max and Chloe at a show, pushed up to the front, still just kids.

They're going to die. Whoever this Max and Chloe end up becoming, they're going to die when we take over.

Chloe at Blackwell, raising her hand in science class.

Are they all like this?

Chloe drumming in some garage, Max on guitar, Steph playing bass.

Are those other Chloes me too? If I can't remember them, are they still me? Does anything matter if we can just change it? Can I ever make a mistake if every outcome is always happening?

Chloe watching as Mark Jefferson walks into his classroom for the first time, students swooning.

Chloe?

Max?

I don't want to miss all of this…what if something bad happens?

Chloe and Rachel, laughing.

This is wrong.

A raven in a dark forest cocks its head and caws. A whale falls from the sky. The sound of thunder echoes. A hundred Chloes roast s'mores on a beach. Rachel screams and the wildfire begins.

Max, what's happening?

A rushing train bursts forth a cloud of ravens. Two moons hang in the sky. The Price house catches flame. Max and Chloe hold a child in their arms. Rachel and Chloe drive past the Hollywood sign. Max and Chloe drown in a flooded Nevada desert.

Max? Max? NO DON'T LEAVE ME!

William in a hospital gown, bald and tired. Rachel in a hospital gown, glaring at her father. Rachel in a hospital gown, embracing her father. Chloe, paralyzed, gliding along the sand in a mechanical chair. Jefferson sticking a needle into Max's neck.

C'mon Chloe, think, you have power, use it, get off this, get out, let me out, let me out!

Rachel as Prospera, sitting alone on an island. Rachel dead in the junkyard. A tornado above the lighthouse. Max's hand outstretched, eyes flickering like lightning. Max is Rachel is Max is Rachel is Max is

I need to

It was mine art,when I arrived and heard thee, that made gapethe pine and let thee out!

STOP!

The ringing of a bell. An old jukebox blaring. A door closes. The smell of coffee in the air. Quiet conversation.

"Chloe?"

Her mother.

"Chloe, you alright, sweetie? You look a little out of it."

Chloe opened her eyes. She was sitting in a booth at the Two Whales, her mother standing beside her, a plate of eggs and bacon perched precariously in one hand and a platter of pancakes in the other.

"Mom?"

Joyce set the plates down and stared. "Earth to Chloe."

In less than a second Chloe was hugging her. She'd thought of her in the diner – this diner – as the storm destroyed it. Dead in a rush of flames and lightning. She'd grieved for two weeks. And now, this. Was this going to be her life now? Her parents alive? Everything good?

"I'm sorry! Sorry for being a shitty daughter, sorry for everything…"

"No, no Chloe, you've been a great daughter! What's this all about?" A few other people in the diner were staring at the two. Joyce seemed confused, but touched. Chloe broke away from the hug as they both wiped away tears.

"I just…just felt like saying it."

"Well, I appreciate it, I really do. Maybe next time a little less dramatic?" She winked and walked away, pushing herself behind the counter and arguing amiably with the truckers and police officers.

Chloe ran her fingers through her hair. Her long hair. She dug into her jeans and pulled out her phone, flipped it open to see the date.

September 29th, 2011.

Three years after where they came from...but two years before the present.

That's not how time travel is supposed to work.

Her head pounded with the aftershock of something, like a stone dropped in a pool. Suddenly she remembered. Images of time flashing through, memories and dreams and...other things she tried to forget about.

We stopped it. Stopped the time travel.

Max.

Another shock.

She remembered all of it. Waking up on the bed, reading the note, feeling confused and awkward and somewhat terrified. Max being forced to leave, calling her every night, visiting all the time.

This wasn't what Max described. The mind of this new Chloe had somehow merged with the Chloe she knew. She remembered the years of 2008-2011 as she first lived them - William dying, Max abandoning her, meeting Rachel, the wonderful and terrible first few days with her and everything that happened with Sera and James and Damon Merrick...but she also remembered this new life. William living, Max and hers burgeoning friendship, occasionally dipping into something more but both still too nervous to take that step. Becoming friends with Rachel, but nothing like their crazy first week.

Her phone rang. She picked it up.

"Chloe?"

"God, Max, do you…"

"I remember!"

"Fuck yes. This is insane. Where are you?"

"Driving."

"Max…"

"I didn't know! I literally had to pull over on the side of the road. It was so scary."

Chloe leaned back against the window and lowered her voice. "Where are you?"

"Evidently on the way to meet you. I'm sixteen now. Again. Also, you should see me."

"I always want to."

"No really, I'm pretty punk."

"Wait, what?"

"It's really weird, I can remember this other life...we're still close, so thank god for that. But I've been...um…"

"What?"

"Well, let's say that New Old Max hasn't been taking living in Seattle well. I remember fighting with my parents a lot. I'm evidently rebelling in the Chloe Price way."

"Holy shit, do you have blue hair?"

"You'll have to wait and see."

Chloe turned to see her own reflection in the mirror. Someone she only half recognized peered back at her. This Chloe's hair hung down to her shoulders, and was her natural brown. She wore an oversized sweater, jeans, black boots, and had a nose stud. In a half-panic, she pulled up her sleeve.

A dragon tattoo snaked up her arm, long and sinuous with blue scales, antlers, and breathing what appeared to be lightning.

"This is fucking weird."

"What do you look like? The memories are coming back, but they're not all there yet."

"Hey, if I have to wait, you'll have to wait."

"I'm totally confused. But I'll be there before you know it. Do you remember anything else? From this timeline, I mean?"

Chloe leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes and straining. It almost hurt, having so many conflicting visions of the past, so many records that would always grate against each other. The new timeline's memories were more distant, like the plot of a TV show she'd been watching all her life. Intimately familiar, but at a remove.

Her father died in a car crash when she was fourteen. Her father gave her a drum-set for her sixteenth birthday.

Max never called after her family left. Max ran away from home to meet her.

She stopped caring about school, because why the fuck should she? She was a straight A student, keeping her eye on Stanford, if she got a scholarship.

She messed around with Elliott and other guys before Rachel. She had barely dated anyone, but knew she only liked girls – Max in particular.

All the memories blurred together like a painting in the rain. Did the other versions of them remember everything that had happened in the minds of Max and Chloe Prime? It didn't seem like it, they'd made too different choices. But something must have slipped through. They were closer than they were, even as kids. Max was different, running away from her life to stay with Chloe with a dedication only this version of Max possessed. They didn't remember about Jefferson…but they distrusted him immediately.

Jefferson.

Rachel?

What about Sera?

You're thinking too much, Chloe. Just go outside. It's fucking Arcadia Bay, whole again.

"Chloe?"

"Ah, sorry. It's hard to remember anything straight."

"Yeah, wow, I feel the same. Hella strange."

"Hella strange. Well let's meet in person and hash it out. How far away are you? I'm at the Two Whales."

"The Two Whales? Is Joyce okay?"

"Yeah, she seems pretty normal."

"And William?"

"Alive. At least, I remember him being alive. The other Chloe does. Fuck, we're going to need an easier way to talk about the other versions of ourselves."

"Agreed. Let me know if you think of anything. Oh, yeah, where am I going to meet you? I'm about an hour away. How about your house?"

"Works for me. I…I have a bike? Just remembering."

"A motorcycle?"

"No, like a regular-ass bike."

"Oh. I'm going to go drive now. Probably shouldn't be talking at the same time."

"As Chloe Price, public transit advocate, I have to agree. Be safe, Max."

"I will, Chloe. I love you."

"Love you too. Wait."

"Can't take it back, you said it."

"I don't think we're, uh, a thing, in this timeline. I think we're about to be, or we're secretly a thing, or something, but we're not out yet."

"Oh."

"We can fix that."

"Good. See you soon!"

"See you soon."

Chloe Prime hadn't ridden a bike in years. This new Chloe – not quite Chloe 2 but something different – was great at it. It just made sense. She flew past people on the sidewalk – a few gave her dirty looks when she got too close, but a few waved as if they knew her. Maybe they did. She didn't think it would ever stop being weird. Thoughts kept creeping up about the metaphysics of merging memories, but the sheer fucking joy of seeing Arcadia Bay whole made the worries seem unimportant. It was a beautiful fall day. Her parents were alive. She could play drums? Max was coming to see her. She was a senior in high school.

Weird, I never got to be a high school senior before.

She passed the beach. No dead whales. Blue skies, no storm. No wildfire, either.

She was still smiling when she pulled up to her house. It was still the same house, intact, but even better. There was still William to keep it in shape in this timeline. She searched in her purse – she had a purse!? – and found the garage keys. She let herself in and left her bike against the wall. A drum-set was clustered in a corner, with a few sticks haphazardly laying on the ground.

"Fuck yeah." Evidently her parents didn't mind the noise.

William wasn't home yet, so she walked through the house, feeling like someone had made a museum of her dreams. She'd wished for so many years that something could have happened differently, and here it was, a house with William still in it, and without David. It was so obviously familiar, but different, better.

Her room was still mostly the same, though the posters were a weird mix of expected and unexpected. This Chloe wore her love of science more openly than Chloe Prime. She still loved music, and she caught a few of the same band posters she used to have. Minus one "I can't sleep" scrawl. Plus one D&D character sheet and dice collection. Callamastia, an Elf Barbarian. Still piles of dirty clothes.

Good to see this Chloe isn't too different.

She laid down on her bed and flipped through her phone contacts. Her parents, of course. Her messages with Max kept stretching back and back. It looked like they texted every day. She still hated emojis, it looked like. There were messages from Steph, Justin, Juliet…and Rachel. Not too many, but it looked like they were friends. She was alive.

This better not be a dream. God, or whatever gave us this, please don't let this be a dream. We've all suffered too fucking much. I can't go through losing them all again.

A knock at the door.

Chloe ran out of her room and down the stairs, heart hammering like her drums. Her hand reached for the door. It didn't matter who it was. It was someone alive.

She opened the door.

Max Caulfield stood on the doorstep to the Price House, dressed in all black. Black jeans, a black Firewalk t-shirt, winged black eyeliner, black nails. And hair dyed black, too. She held her arm awkwardly, as if she was showing off a Halloween costume.

"Wow."

"Whoa."

"Your hair!"

"Your hair!"

Within seconds they were kissing on her doorstep. This Max still smelled like the Max she knew, though her clothes had traces of smoke and weed. Up close, her eyes were the same. That's what mattered. Whatever spark of Max that made her Max, that was still there, still burning bright.

Suddenly a cough broke the spell. They pulled away quickly to see Joyce and William in the driveway, William with a large bag of groceries tucked under his arm.

Being seventeen again must have seeped into their bones deeper than they thought, for their faces lit up red as they parted to let Joyce and William through.

"Hello Max, good to see you," said Joyce, trying to hide her own embarrassment. Behind her, William grinned. He was almost laughing.

A few minutes later, her parents sitting on the couch, she stood next to Max, hand in hand.

"So…"

Why is this so hard? You've been through a ton of worse shit. This is easy. They basically already know. What's the worst thing that could happen?

You don't know what they're like in this timeline, not really. Maybe Max has been a dick to them? Maybe they found Jesus or something. We can't even legally marry in this shithole country.

They love you. They'll be fine. And if they're not, fuck it. They don't know everything you've been through.

Still, she couldn't speak. The words tried to crawl up out of her, but something kept holding them down.

"We're kind of a thing," said Max. She looked at her, smiling, a wordless support.

My angel.

"Finally!" said William, giving a loud clap. Joyce put a hand on his shoulder.

"What your father meant to say was, we're happy for you both. We're…you have our blessing."

William put his hand on the side of his mouth, as if to whisper to them alone. "It's not like it was very subtle, girls."

Max laughed. "No, I guess not."

Chloe remembered finding Rachel's body in the junkyard. Remembered that sudden gut punch, that feeling of having every foundational pillar of her joy smashed in a single swing. Her body struggling to process the intensity of her response. The fucking anger and despair of it all.

This was the opposite of that. She couldn't understand how things could go this well. But they'd earned it, right? She'd earned this. The universe had punished them, and now they would get their reward.

"Well, let's give the lovebirds some space, and get to dinner-making, why don't we?" William pushed himself off the couch.

Chloe hugged him.

There was no possible future where she didn't.