Hello all! I have good news! Over the past two weeks I've managed to have 6 chapters all typed out! That means (barring unforeseen catastrophe) six Saturdays of uninterrupted weekly uploads are guaranteed! I apologize once again for all of the delays, and I hope you enjoy the upcoming chapters!

After the two wielders made short work of the Darkside, Ruby left on her own to double check that they were in the proper reality. Shortly after her departure, Maxine pulled an old corkboard from some forgotten corner of the house and brought it to Chloe's room. "What's that about?" Chloe asked.

Maxine started pulling some of the various documents and scraps of paper they had accumulated over the past few days. "I thought it'd be cool to have our own conspiracy board! A place to organize our evidence and plan our next step." Maxine hesitated for a moment as her face fell. "I also wanted to apologize… What happened in that other timeline…"

"It's okay, Max," Chloe forgave. "It's like Ruby said, we've both messed up. I, um… haven't been… well, to be blunt, I've been treating you like shit ever since we hooked up again. I've been pushy and self-absorbed, and… I've been ignoring how I'm hurting people around me. I'm sorry."

Maxine silently absorbed the apology for a moment before smirking. "I guess I actually got through to you, huh?"

"Well, you and Ruby… and I think on some level myself," Chloe explained. "I'm sick of feeling sorry for myself. I want to do better. For mom, and for dad, and…"

"For Rachel?" Maxine guessed, locking eyes with her punk friend.

"Maybe not so much for Rachel anymore…" Chloe confessed, staring back into Maxine's gaze.

The two stared at each other silently until realization made them both turn red and whip their heads away.

"I mean, I still want to find her and beat some answers out of her, of course!" Chloe quickly covered.

"O-obviously," Maxine stuttered in turn. After another awkward silence, Maxine cleared her throat and offered some of the papers to Chloe. "So, let's find her. Let's solve all of this."

The pair smiled and began setting up their evidence board. A few minutes later, Ruby was climbing back into the window and saw their work. "Ooo! That makes me feel like we're real detectives now!"

"Right?" Chloe smirked. "So, how did things look 'out there'?"

"It looks like we're where we should be," Ruby announced.

"Good," Maxine nodded, not wanting to have to take another trip into a photograph.

The trio stared at the board, but the surprising amount of empty space made one thing perfectly clear.

"Even with everything we've already learned, we're still missing so much of the puzzle," Maxine voiced. "We still have absolutely nothing on our prime suspect. If we could just get ahold of Nathan's phone or something, I bet we could learn where he's been and who he's been talking to."

Ruby turned to Chloe. "The night we broke into the school offices, you mentioned that Nathan lives at the school? He has a dorm room?"

"Yeah, and it's worth a look. But Frank's journal here is what catches my eye," Chloe gestured to the handbook taped to the board.

Ruby took it down and started leafing through it. "This is gibberish."

"Jeez, you act like you've never done big crime," Chloe joked.

"I haven't?" Ruby pointed out.

"Look," Chloe took the journal and started pointing to the various notes and columns. "It's coded. These dog breeds probably represent his different customers, then these are the drugs, dollar amounts… It's a ledger. If we can decode this, we can figure out what exactly Nathan's been buying and when."

"He would need something special for what it seems to be doing to the girls he drugs," Maxine rationalized. "It would be good evidence."

"Okay, so how do we decode this?" Ruby asked.

Chloe frowned. "Well, he does come across and using half the stuff he sells… maybe he has a client list in case he's too fried to remember?"

"Seems a bit shaky…" Maxine admitted.

"Well, I gotta see him to pay him back anyway. No harm in checking," Chloe argued.

"Alright, Nathan's phone and Frank's supposed client list," Ruby nodded.

"And David's files," Chloe added.

"Haven't we searched the garage a bunch already?" Ruby countered. "Chloe, I'm not so sure David's actually involved."

Maxine frowned. "I understand you're feeling sympathetic, but he was mentioned by name in the creep files on the principle's computer."

"So… I dunno, maybe Nathan was just piggybacking on his surveillance?" Ruby theorized. "It's just… when I was picking through David's stuff the other day, I didn't get the vibe that he was some psycho creep like Nathan."

"Even if you're right, and I admit you might be," Chloe cut in, "that would still mean there might be more we haven't seen. With mom kicking him to the curb, he's moving a lot of his crap around… maybe there's something new?"

"I guess it wouldn't take too long to scan the garage one more time," Ruby conceded, though she remained unsure. "Anything else?"

"I think that's it," Maxine confirmed.

"Good," Ruby nodded, looking back at the board. Her eyes lingered on the notebook, and she smiled. "Hey, what dog do you think Chloe is in Frank's book?"

Chloe scoffed. "If he has any sense, he'd have me down as a pitbull. Or a rottweiler!"

Maxine smirked. "I'd put my money on 'poodle'."

Chloe gasped. "Maxine Caulfield! The betrayal! You know I'm way more hardcore than that!"

"I guess we'll see, won't we?" Maxine teased as she left the room.

Chloe smiled, her eyes lingering on the door.

It didn't go unnoticed by Ruby. "Did you two actually make up, or…?"

Chloe shook her head, a blush creeping on her face at being caught. "Yeah, we're cool. We traded apologies and all. It's all under the bridge. Or, at least it's a start…"

Ruby left the room next, throwing one last comment over her shoulder. "Just don't go breaking her heart, now."

Chloe stuttered. "B-breaking her what!? What's that supposed to mean!? Hey, get back here and explain yourself, young lady!"

Downstairs, Maxine had turned off the last step to see David staring at the family photos in the hall, his face unreadable. Maxine was starting to wonder if David even realized she was there when he suddenly spoke up. "You won this battle, Max. You broke up this family. I salute you."

Maxine frowned. "I didn't try to hurt you. But I won't let anyone hurt Chloe."

"Too late, isn't it?" David argued, his eyes lingering on a photograph if William. David picked up his back and turned to leave. "You better be damn careful with her. Don't you wander off into the dark…"

Ruby and Chloe made it downstairs, only catching the tail-end of David's cryptic comment as he walked out the door. "What was that about?" Chloe asked.

Maxine didn't respond. She was distracted by something at her feet, a book that had fallen out of David's bag. She picked it up and looked it over. A well worn paperback titled Coming Back Home: A Veteran's Guide.

I didn't get the vibe that he was some psycho creep.

"You two go ahead," Maxine finally spoke before walking out the front door herself.

Chloe was torn between backing Maxine up and going through with the garage plan. Her choice was finally made for her when Ruby tugged her jacket to pull her toward the garage. "Are you sure she'll be okay?"

"She can handle David, and if not she'll probably rewind. Then we'll know."

"Fair enough…"

The pair fully entered the garage and started visually panning the room. "If I were a file hidden away before but can now be found, where would I be?" Chloe pondered.

"Huh."

"See something, Rubes?"

"No, and that's the thing," Ruby answered. She pointed to a set of lockers. "When I was in here the other day, David's car was parked in front of those lockers." Ruby approached the lockers, her eyes quickly locking onto a padlock attached to one of them. "Yeah, this lock was open on the counter, too!"

"Hell yeah! Let me hear it!" Chloe cheered.

"Let's not be too hasty…" Ruby warned. She knelt down and started working the combination. "What was it again? I know I saw it… seven… One… Ah!" the lock clicked open, "open sesame!"

"Dork… so?"

"Hold on!"

Ruby opened the locker to reveal a single, if tightly packed, manilla folder. She opened it and began leafing through the papers. The longer time stretched, the wider Chloe's smile grew, until Ruby finally addressed it with a, "what?"

"Oh, you know what," Chloe replied.

Ruby sighed.

"Weeeell?"

Ruby shook her head before finally stating, "… you were right."

"I'm sorry, what was that?" Chloe leaned in with her ear out.

"I said you were right!" Ruby held out the files as she conceded. "Jerk."

"Hell yeah I was!" Chloe cheered, dramatically swiping the file offered to her. "Now, what does this bad boy have to say… woah! This is the motherload! It's like he put every last file he still had in one folder!"

"And locked it away…" Ruby realized. "Makes me wonder why."

"Who cares?"

Ruby gave Chloe a pointed look that made the punk girl wince. "Well… maybe he's trying to put this stuff behind him? It's kind of what broke things between him and mom… I mean, I wasn't any help, but I wouldn't have had the ammunition for it if he weren't spying on all of us."

"Yeah, what he did was still unforgivable… but if he did clean up his act, and Joyce invited him back… would you accept him into this house?" Ruby asked.

Chloe thought on that for some time. "I don't know… it still feels like dad's spot, y'know? And I know dad's not coming back... As much as it was the wrong thing to do, on some level I'll always be grateful to Max for giving me a chance to say goodbye. That helps. So maybe, if I'm ready for it by then."

Ruby nodded.

"Assuming he's not Nathan's partner after all, of course," Chloe reminded her.

"Well, yeah…" Ruby conceded, still holding her doubts about that.

"Anyway," Chloe changed tracks, putting a smile on her face, "let's get this upstairs and meet up with Supermax. Oh!" Chloe stopped in the doorway, "after one last thing…"

Ruby looked around the garage, confused. "What?"

Chloe smirked. "Let me hear it."

"Seriously?"

"C'mooon!"

Groan. "You were right!"

"I was riiiight~!" Chloe sang as she ascended the stairs.

Maxine caught up with David as he was climbing into his car and called out to him. David scowled. "Here to gloat some more."

"No," Maxine spoke calmly. "You dropped this."

There was a brief flash of vulnerability as David recognized the book. He snatched it out of Maxine's hands with a gruff, "thanks."

Maxine could tell now that Ruby was right, and she now doubted herself that David was truly involved. "Earlier you said I had won a 'battle'. But, David, the only war that was ever in that house is the one you started. You know that, right?"

"Your point?" David spat.

"That even if Chloe and I were the ones to bring it to light, everything that's happening is your fault. You allowed your paranoia to cloud your eyes until you couldn't tell ally from enemy, and you crossed a line… Chloe didn't make you put up those cameras and I didn't make you stalk Kate Marsh."

"I thought you said you weren't here to gloat?"

"I'm not gloating, I just…" Maxine's eyes shifted upward to Chloe's window. "I recently realized that you can't fix something if you can't admit to yourself what that problem is, that's all."

"So now you're trying to help me?"

"All I've ever wanted to do was help Chloe. And if helping you can in some way help her… well, it couldn't hurt to try."

For a brief moment, an understanding passed behind David's eyes. He looked up to Joyce's window, then Chloe's. He sighed and climbed into his car, turning over the engine but hesitating to move. "Max… Thank you." Saying what he wanted to say, he pulled out of the driveway and drove away without waiting for a response.

Maxine wasn't sure if her words actually got through, but she allowed herself a smile regardless. She heard the house door behind her and turned to face the approaching Ruby and Chloe. "Find anything?"

"The jackpot," Chloe answered. "Blackwell's next?"

"Actually, I want to see Kate. She should be able to take visitors today."

"Of course," Chloe nodded quickly, wincing at the memory of her rebuking Maxine taking Kate's call earlier in the week. Man, I really was a jerk… "Well, gang, to the mystery machine! First stop, hospital! Let's get you to your friend."