June 8, 2015
Chase Residence
Seattle, Washington

Standing on the sidewalk, I peer uncertainly at the ordinary-looking house. If it weren't for the fact that virtually every car parked along the street looks brand-new, I'd be wondering whether I might have the wrong place.

I look down at my phone to check the address again, then make sure I entered it into Google maps properly. Just like the last few times, everything looks right. Everything but the house. When the two of us had gone to Blackwell together, I'd always pictured her living on a sprawling estate or looking down on the city from some well-appointed penthouse. It doesn't matter that Montlake is supposed to be one of the richer neighborhoods in town. This just looks too humble to be Victoria Chase's home.

There's only one way to be sure, though. Walking up hesitantly, I knock on the door. I only have to wait a few minutes before it opens, and my worldview takes another hit. At the gallery, Victoria's clothes had been the definition of professionally stylish. The skirt and blouse had been both simple and elegant, and her makeup had been applied flawlessly. Altogether, she'd made me feel a little shabby by comparison.

The Victoria standing in the doorway is wearing plain black leggings and a t-shirt with some pink-haired anime character on it. Her hair is just the slightest bit tousled, and she's got barely any makeup on at all. She looks normal. Not that she didn't look normal before, but now she looks normal-people normal.

"It's two minutes past nine," she says, her clipped tone derailing my train of thought. "You're late."

I blink, not sure if she's serious or not. "I...uh...I wasn't sure if I had the right place."

She delicately raises an eyebrow. "Meaning?"

"I guess it's not exactly what I expected?"

Crossing her arms, Victoria makes no move to invite me in. "And what did you expect, exactly? A castle?"

"No." Hoping to dispel the increasingly awkward feeling in the air, I risk a smile. "I just figured the Chases would have something a little more mansion-y."

Victoria's cool expression morphs into a harsh glare. "You mean like my family's home in Arcadia Bay, Max? The one your storm leveled with my mom and dad still inside?"

"I...I'm sorry, Victoria. I didn't..."

She sighs, pinching her brow as she waves off my apology. "No, I'm sorry. I know you didn't mean anything by it. I haven't had a lot of sleep. You brought the pastries, right?"

I wordlessly hold up a brown box from the bakery near my house.

"Good." She gestures inside, adding. "Take your shoes off."

Stepping in, I take a second to glance around; in some ways, the inside of Victoria's home is just as unexpectedly ordinary as the outside. Though there are some unmistakable signs of wealth - a framed photo on the wall, for example, that I recognize as being worth more than some cars - it still has a feeling of being lived in.

The small wooden bench by the door, while intricately carved and much nicer than the one at my parent's house, is half-hidden by a collection of jackets and scarves thrown over it. An equally nice table next to it is home to the usual collection of loose change, keys, and unopened letters. Even the several pairs of expensive looking shoes are offset by a pair of well-worn and slightly dirty runners dropped carelessly beside them.

"You're not going to uncover many secrets in my front hall, you know," Victoria points out, reclaiming my attention.

"Oh. Sorry."

"I'm just kidding, Caulfield." She rolls her eyes. "Come on."

Just as she had at the gallery, Victoria leads me upstairs and ushers me through the first door we reach, and the room beyond it just about takes my breath away. Every piece of furniture is made of the same dark polished wood and the plush red carpet feels wonderfully soft underfoot. What were probably clear windows to start with have been replaced with stained glass, and the light passing through the pattern of red, orange, yellow, and green facets give the whole space a kind of glow that makes me think of an autumn day.

"Whoa." The whispered word escapes before I can stop it.

"This was my dad's office," Victoria says, a little sadly, as she steps past me into the room.

"It's beautiful." Tall bookshelves cover two of the three walls, and the third is home to dozens of Chase family photos. The first one my eyes land on is of a very young Victoria proudly holding up a dollar bill. The obvious gap in her beaming smile makes it easy to guess where she got it from, and I let out a completely involuntary giggle. "Aww...you were so little!"

"Yeah, I guess I was."

"Was that your first visit from the tooth fairy?" I turn to find Victoria looking fondly at the photo. "You look pretty pleased with that dollar."

"I was ecstatic," she chuckles, surprising me a little. "At least until I found out all my friends got twenties. I felt kinda ripped off after that."

"Wow. Hashtag one-percent-problems."

"Oh, shut up." Rolling her eyes again, she points to a Keurig machine sitting on a small side table. "I'm going to make some coffee. Want some?"

"Yes, please."

Victoria nods, walking away and apparently leaving me to find my own seat; I decide that the safest choice is the one facing her father's desk. The seat is even more comfortable than it looks, stirring up the memory of the time Chloe and I had broken into Principal Wells' office at Blackwell and I had to talk her out of stealing the man's leather chair.

The sweet memory, like most I have of Chloe, is accompanied by the same familiar pang of sorrow in my chest. I close my eyes and try to will it away, and as a result I don't notice Victoria's return until a steaming coffee mug practically appears in front of me.

"It's not much, but it's definitely a lot better than the stuff at work."

"Thanks." I take a quiet sip as I watch Victoria step around the desk. Settling into the opposite chair, she peers at me across the polished wooden surface. "So, after Friday, I thought..."

"For the record," she cuts in smoothly. "I haven't completely ruled out the possibility that you're delusional."

"I'm not delusional."

"Would you know it if you were?"

"I..." I stumble over the question because she's technically right. If I actually were delusional (which I'm not!) I probably wouldn't know it.

She smirks. "Exactly."

I let out an irritated huff. "Are you done?"

"For now," she replies loftily. "So, you can travel through time."

It doesn't sound like a question, but I answer anyway. "That's right."

"How?"

"How do I do it, or how is it possible?"

"Both. But let's start with how it's possible."

I have no idea why I suggested that. "I actually don't know."

"Not a great starting point."

"Well, I don't." I throw my arms up, already frustrated. "It's not like it came with a user's manual!"

Her self-satisfied expression falters a bit, and she actually looks a little embarrassed. "Right. Sorry. I get that but I'm still feeling a little...I don't know..."

"Overwhelmed? Confused? Frightened? Existentially nauseous?"

She laughs softly. "Pretty much all of the above."

"Welcome to my life." I pause, reaching into the box on the desk and pulling out a cherry danish. "Look, I'll do my best but there's probably going to be a lot of questions I can't answer. Especially the technical stuff. And I've never had to tell the whole thing to anyone before, so the story might feel a little, y'know, non-linear."

"Didn't Chloe know about it?"

"Yeah, but she knew right from the beginning. We sorta worked things out together."

"Fair enough," she concedes. "Alright, we'll just figure it out as we go. You say you got your 'powers' the week of the storm, right?"

"That's right."

"How? Did you get bitten by a radioactive time bug or something?"

"No idea." I shrug. "They just kind of...appeared."

"You just woke up one morning and you could time travel?" she asks, sounding dubious.

"Well, no. The first time it happened was when Nathan shot Chloe in the girl's bathroom at Blackwell."

"...I beg your pardon?"

"When Nathan shot Chloe..." I pause. "I mean, he did shoot her, but then I went back and stopped it. That's why you wouldn't know what I'm talking about. Because it didn't happen. Sorry."

"Somehow, you're making less sense now than before you started."

"See, that's the whole non-linear thing I was talking about. How about I just start from the beginning?"

"I think that'd be a good idea."

"Okay." Collecting my thoughts, I lean forward to place my coffee mug on the desk. Victoria immediately gives me a dirty look, reaching across to lift the mug and place it on a coaster. "Alright, so I was sitting in Photography class on Monday, October seventh. I must have dozed off because I was having the most intensely vivid dream..."

Victoria listens quietly as I reframe the events of Arcadia Bay's last week in a way she'd never have imagined. After the first few minutes, she pulls a legal pad out of one of the desk's drawers and begins taking notes, occasionally looking back up with an intense gaze that makes me feel like a bug under a magnifying glass.

It takes over two hours to get through it all. I have to backtrack a couple of times to accommodate the alternate timelines, but only need to do one short rewind after I seriously put my foot in my mouth, not that I want to talk about that.

After I've finished, the only sound is the faint rustling of pages as she reviews the dozen (at least) pages she's filled with her notes, questions, and thoughts.

Finally, she looks up and shakes her head in amazement. "This is...I don't even know what this is."

"I guess it does sound pretty out there."

"No, it sounds like a Russian nesting doll of crazy. It's like, this is pretty crazy, but I bet there's some logic underneath it. Let's take a look. Nope, just some more crazy." Her laugh edges on hysterical.

"It's not like I'm making all this up."

"That's the thing. I know you aren't. It all meshes together too well." At my confused look, she continues. "I mean, as bizarre as it all sounds, the details still line up. There's no massive loose ends or obvious contradictions. Honestly, I've read bestselling novels with more plot holes."

"Thanks?"

"It wasn't a compliment." I must've looked a little put out because she adds, "Or an insult."

"Why do I sense a 'but' coming up?"

"Because nothing you've said answers my two biggest questions."

I'm a little confused. I'm pretty sure I told her everything. "What are those?"

"First of all, what does any of this have to do with me?"

Oh, right. That. It'd seemed like a good idea when I first came up with it, but now that I've laid everything all out I can't really imagine what new input she could bring to the table. But then, that's exactly the issue, isn't it? So far, my imagination hasn't been good enough.

"I know what I want to accomplish, but I can't figure out how to make it happen. I'm too close to it all. Too wrapped up in how I've always thought of these powers. I need a different perspective. Someone who can, y'know, think outside the box. Someone who'll see angles I can't."

"And you think that's me?"

"Well, yeah." At the risk of inflating her ego, I add. "You're smart, tenacious, and you don't have any preconceived notions."

It's funny watching her try not to visibly bask in the praise. "Sure, but so are a lot of people. Why me, specifically?"

I really hope she doesn't take this the wrong way. I don't want to make it seem like I only picked her for lack of any other options. "Because you're from Arcadia Bay."

She nods, slowly. "So you think I'd be a lot more invested in your success than someone else."

I try not to cringe. "Yeah, more or less."

She flips back a few pages, writes something down, then looks up to scrutinize me. "Which brings me to my second big question; what exactly are you trying to accomplish?"

This one I'm a little more prepared to answer. "I want to keep the town from being destroyed in the storm. To make sure Chloe knows she has cancer as early as possible." I think about it for a second. "For Mark Jefferson to get caught and put in prison."

Victoria snorts, muttering something that sounds suspiciously like 'or a shallow grave'.

"And I want to make sure Rachel's body is found. And that Nathan..." I trail off awkwardly.

"And that Nathan goes away for murdering her?"

"Yeah."

"It's been almost two years, Max. I came to terms with who and what Nathan was a long time ago. But yeah, I'd rather see him locked up in a mental hospital than killed by Jefferson." She sighs, tapping her pen on her notepad. "Anyway, I assume you're planning to use your Butterfly Effect thing to do all that, right?"

"My what thing?"

"Butterfly Effect," she repeats, clearly expecting me to recognize the reference. "The movie with the tall guy from That 70's Show?"

"I never saw it."

"Oh. Well, you didn't miss much. It was a crap movie with a creepy as fuck director's cut. The only reason I brought it up is because he could do that photo bullshit, too."

"It's not bullshit. I really can us-"

"It's not bullshit because it's fake," she interrupts, rubbing her eyes. "It's bullshit because it's stupid. Photographs aren't magic. There is absolutely nothing about them that should allow people to travel back in time."

I give her an unimpressed look. "And yet, that's exactly what I can do."

"That's what I mean. You're the one doing...whatever the fuck it is that you're doing. Not the photos."

"Then why is that the only way I can go so far back?"

"Maybe it isn't." Victoria shrugs. "Maybe they just give you something to focus on. How the hell should I know?"

I'm about to fire back with some snarky remark when I realize she's right. Rewinding is one thing; I might not be able to explain it, but I've never felt like there wasn't an explanation. Using a photo doesn't make any sense at all. "Whatever. I've already told you that I tried both of the photos I have. Neither one of them worked. That's why I'm here."

"And those were really your only options? I thought you guys were BFFs growing up or something."

"They're the only two that might've been useful." It's not the whole truth but explaining why I don't have more would mean having to bring up my issue with cameras. That would mean having to tell her about my visit-that-never-was to Jefferson's Dark Room. I'd rather keep that to myself unless it really becomes necessary to share it. "The only way to help her is to get her into treatment as early as possible. Any photo taken after we came to Seattle would be too late, and the only pictures earlier than the one from her bedroom are from two-thousand-and-eight. Using any of those is just asking for trouble."

"So all you have is the one from Valentine's, which won't work because by that point Chloe is wise to your time fuckery, and the one from Arcadia Bay's last week, which won't work because of bizarre impossible things that don't make any sense."

"Pretty much."

"She really couldn't hear you?"

"Or see me. She kept playing out her half of the conversation we had back then. Like she was seeing and hearing a version of me that I couldn't."

"Weird," she murmurs, scratching her chin. "Maybe it's like interference? Like whatever was going on that week was scrambling the signal?"

"Then why could I use the photo Warren took that week?"

She considers that for a second. "Maybe you could use them inside that week, or to leave that week, but not to go back into that week?"

I guess it's as good a theory as any, for what it's worth. Before I can say as much, my phone starts buzzing. "Crap. I have to get to class."

She gives me a funny look. "It's summer."

"Guess that's why they call them summer classes."

"Trying to graduate early?"

"Just trying to graduate. Last semester wasn't great for me."

"Why no-" Victoria makes a faint choking noise as she tries to physically stop the words from coming out. "Sorry."

"It's okay," I say, forcing myself not to be bothered. "People forget."

"I know." She frowns. "Still..."

"Even I forget, sometimes." And I want to beat the shit out of myself everytime I do. "Seriously, don't worry about it. I have to get going, anyway."

"I..." She hesitates a second. "I can give you a lift."

"Going to have the chauffeur bring the limo around?" I laugh a little as I say it, so she'll know I'm kidding. I guess it works because she just gives me a mildly unimpressed look.

"I'm perfectly capable of making a four-minute drive, thank you. Do you want a lift or not?"

"It's fine. I can get a cab."

"Rhetorical question. Come on." I follow her downstairs. "U of W, right?"

"Seattle Central College, actually." Her surprised expression makes me want to look anywhere but at her. "I don't want to talk about it."

"That's over by Anderson Park, right?"

I nod.

"A ten-minute drive, then." I get the impression that arguing isn't going to do me any good, so I don't bother. "C'mon."

Stopping at the front door to pull on the worn runners I'd seen earlier, Victoria grabs a set of car keys off the table and leads me down to a blue Volkswagen Golf I'd noticed when the cab dropped me off. Considering most of the other cars on the street were makes like BMW and Lexus, I'd sort of assumed it belonged to a housekeeper or something.

"This is your car?" Climbing in, I look around the interior curiously. There doesn't seem to be anything fancy about it at all.

"What did you think I drove?" she asks, a little defensively. "A Ferrari?"

I shrug. "Yeah, kinda."

"I drive what I can afford, Caulfield. And believe it or not, that isn't some dumbass Italian midlife-crisis-mobile."

"Don't you have a trust fund?" I wince; that sounded a lot snarkier out loud. Victoria doesn't answer, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, and after a few seconds I start to worry that I've crossed a line.

"The accounts are all locked."

That's...unexpected. "All of them?"

"My parents were smart about a lot of things, Max, but estate planning wasn't one of them. The will they left behind could be charitably described as a total dumpster fire and it's being disputed by at least nine other parties." She sighs, starting the car. "Their business partner, Jessica, has been making the best of it. But until everything gets resolved, most of my family's assets are frozen."

My understanding of how wills work extends about as far as what I've seen on television, but 'dumpster fire' says enough to get the point across. I glance back at the house. "So..."

"Bought and paid for in my mom's name," she says, guessing my question. "Which is nice, since my dad made the downtown penthouse a corporate property for some fucking tax reason and it got sold. The house and my college fund are all I've got, and I don't even have direct access to that; tuition payments get transferred directly to the university. And unfortunately, things like food and utilities cost money too."

"You don't say?"

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up," she mutters, pulling away from the curb. "Poor Victoria Chase has to live like one of the peasants now."

"Owning a house in Montlake doesn't exactly scream 'peasant'," I point out, cautiously.

"What about having to eat nothing but beans for a week and a half because I blew my grocery budget going out on a Saturday night?" She grimaces. "There's a lesson you only need to learn once."

"So what do you do for money?" My brain catches up with my mouth a second later. "I mean, if you don't mind me asking."

"Same thing as most people. I have a job. Or did you think I hang around the Chase Space all day for fun?"

"Oh. I...uh..." I'm not sure what to say. They don't exactly make Hallmark cards for former rich people. "That sucks."

"It is what it is. And if I'm being honest, having to choke down a little humble pie has probably been good for me."

"Right." Hoping to change the subject, I ask, "So what are you going to school for?"

Victoria laughs humorlessly. "Business management."

"Not your first choice?"

She shakes her head as we merge onto the I-5. "Definitely not, but it's the practical one. I still might need to run things one day."

The rest of the drive goes by in silence, and I spend most of it digesting what I just learned. It honestly never occurred to me that Victoria might be as broke as someone like her could be, or that she'd go to university for anything other than fine arts. Both seem to fly in the face of reason. I wonder if that had anything to do with her decision to help me?

Seattle Central College comes into sight soon after, and I turn to face her. "So, can I assume you're in?"

She taps her finger on the wheel again. "I have work all day tomorrow."

"Okay?"

"That means I won't be home until six."

"Oh." I think that for now, that's as close as I'm going to get to a yes. "Then I guess I should come by at six."

"Get out of the car, Max."

Climbing out and closing the door behind me, I lean over and smirk at her through the open window. "Should I bring anything?"

"I'm driving away now."

"What if we get hungry?"

"We'll just order a damn pizza or something!" she snaps. "Now go to class before I run over your toes."