The shitty, run down old church may have been the best Arcadia Bay had to offer, but it still wasn't nearly good enough. Chloe knew that nothing would be, but the world could at least put in some fucking effort.

The church wasn't even big enough to fit everyone. And that was another thing. Way too many fucking people. That was just wrong. The only time Max could stand a crowd was when she could escape to its edges and watch it from the sidelines. She wouldn't have wanted this great throng of people, most of whom didn't even know her.

Chloe did her best to ignore them. It was a struggle not to turn and snarl at every pretender, let loose all of her viciousness and impotent rage. But Max wouldn't have wanted that either. Max would have wanted her to be better. So Chloe kept her eyes forward.

Fixed on the coffin displayed so prominently.

She was supposed to help carry it out, soon. Another thing that was wrong. She should be carrying it on her own. Max was hers, after all. It was stupidly selfish, so many other people loved Max. But she had had so little fucking time with her heart back in her body. It wasn't fair to have it carried away and put in the ground so soon.

People had tried to talk to her. Chloe ignored them. None of them mattered. None of them were her.

As the priest droned on, Chloe stood. Crossed the room as his voice faltered and came to an awkward end. Good. Max would have made fun of that pompous asshole's stupid turkey neck.

There was supposed to be a part of the ceremony set aside for this, even a specific order for people to do it in. As Chloe stood by Max's coffin, she found she didn't give a single shit.

Next to her, a giant picture of Max's face smiled down at the room. In a room filled with unacceptable wrongness that was worst of all. All the goddamn selfies Max took and this was the picture they went with? It wasn't even Max's work!

It utterly failed to capture her warmth, her beauty. Her bright wit and gentle heart. Only Max's incredible talent could have.

"Jesus, talk about morbid." Rachel muttered quietly next to her.

Chloe didn't bother to respond.

The model took two steps forward and took hold of the coffin as Chloe voiced a wordless objection, utterly unwilling to see the ruin a madman's rage had made of her beloved.

Her cry was ignored, the other girl throwing back the lid of the coffin without hesitation. Chloe tried to look away, but found her sight transfixed. Not with the expected horror, but with the wonder unfolding before her.

Disbelieving eyes widened at the sight of a kaleidoscope of butterflies exploding out of the grim wooden box. They flew around her, unbearably bright and beautifully blue, an unending stream of life where she had expected to see only death. An instant later, a new colour was added to the mix. For every blue butterfly that flew past there was another, equally radiant and impossibly pink.

The butterflies swirled and danced around them, the two girls at the eye of a glittering storm of fluttering wings.

Rachel Amber smiled, golden mane glowing, and whispered.

"Wake up."

Chloe wheezed a breath past immobile lips and into frozen lungs. She still sat on her bed in the hospital, the gun pointed at Max's sleeping form jerking around erratically, the tattered rags the would-be assassin wore making him seem even more unstable.

"I have to." He muttered in a shaky, frantic voice. One moment slow and halting, the next tumbling forward in a stammering rush.

"Have to have to have to. I don't…it's not that I w-want to. It's just…I, I showed you right? Again and again. Last night most of all. Too much, you are too much. Time itself…..it's too much. He will take it. It's what he does, what he is. Take it all, take everything. I saw, when I crept inside. Hunger is all he is, all he has. Nothing will be enough, not…..not ever. And you can't stop him, none of us can. But he can't, he can't, he can't can't can't. This is the only way to stop him, only way only way. He can't take what isn't there. You have to…have to go. I…I have to save the world!"

His voice gained strength at last, final few words transitioning to a defiant shout. His hand calmed, gun still and steady as it was levelled at Max Caulfield's unconscious body. His finger curled on the trigger and at last whatever fog had held Chloe vanished in an instant.

Grabbing the first thing she could, Chloe threw the stupid stuffed novelty bulldog Frank had given her as a joke at the lunatic. It was a particularly pathetic projectile, but her opponent was far from being a trained gunman. All she needed it to do was distract him, and the stupid toy did it's job. The unstable man jerked wildly to the side in shock just as he pulled the trigger, gun roaring and bullet cracking into Max's bed.

The failed assassin gaped at Chloe in shock.

"You! You can't….you should be gone now! Floating away like all the rest, no one sees no one knows! How did you get out? How are you awake?!"

Chloe didn't get a chance to respond. The madmen threw up a hand and hissed, deranged voice strangely gentle.

"Dream."

Max's coffin pressed down on her shoulder, a burden heavier then any she had ever expected to bear. The other pallbearers didn't seem to mitigate the weight at all. Chloe lurched forward, barely able to lift her feet and gritting her teeth against the pressure. Blinking away tears, Chloe focused on putting one foot in front of the next. The idea of failing her once more, of dropping that burden, was enough for her to push through any pain. Any discomfort.

The people around her were strange. A few were familiar, Max's family her Blackwell peeps and the few Seattle friends she had described to Chloe, but most were somehow generic. Vague figures in dull suits, with blank faces, formless and shifting.

More the idea of mourners then specific individuals.

The wrongness of it pricked at her, an itch she couldn't scratch that grew with each step. But what was there to do? She couldn't stop. Not now. Max was counting on her.

It wouldn't bring her back, but Chloe could give her a dignified farewell. It was all she had left. All she could give her dead girlfriend.

And yet….

The suspicion grew. Step after step, minute after minute. Like acid eating it's way through her body. Vicious. Relentless.

Chloe focused on the pain instead. The weight on her shoulder, the burning of her eyes. The nails of her other hand, digging into her palm hard enough that Chloe had left drops of blood scattered along her path. The complete emptiness she had fallen into, with Max dead.

This was right. This was how life was. It only ever gave you something worth having in order to see you break when it was taken away. There was no way she could ever hope to hold onto something as fulfilling as Max Caulfield. No way the world would let up long enough to actually let her be happy.

And yet…

It still seemed wrong. Somehow. Even with the familiarity of the pain she had come to expect from the world, something was off. Chloe probed at that feeling, testing it. Reaching as deep into herself as she could.

What she found was faith.

Not in any vaunted higher power, but in something far closer to home. Maxine Caulfield had broken reality to be by her side. Chloe's partner in time would not have allowed this grim ending. Not for an instant. Life never hesitated to kick Chloe in the teeth, but ever since Max's return there was someone kicking back. And she wasn't letting anything beat her any time soon. Time after time Max Caulfield had stared death in the face. Time after time, death had known better then to try it's luck and chosen to back off.

Chloe stopped walking.

She had faith. Faith that Max was still out there, that this fucking lie Chloe was carrying around would not stand. And faith that, even if she was wrong, Max would forgive. The way she always did.

Chloe stepped aside, the pallbearers vanishing into mist and the coffin falling to the ground with a heavy thud. The coffin's lid somehow bore a padlock, thick heavy metal keeping her away from her objective. So Chloe attacked the lid instead, hands slamming down with bruising force. Scrabbling, tearing and clawing at the hard wood.

As Chloe's hand splayed out from her latest attempt a smashing her way through, a fire axe slammed down between her fingers and Chloe jerked back in shock, stumbling back onto her ass.

"I'm sure you would get through eventually," Rachel said with a wink from where she now stood on the coffin. "But this might be a touch quicker."

It was so very Rachel Chloe thought, reminded once more of why she had loved the girl. She had a way of enhancing whatever you felt, turning contentment into bliss, anger into fury. Then she would embrace it and run with it. If you put a streak of cheap blue kiddie dye in your hair, she would show up one day with a full container of salon quality dye in a far more vibrant shade. And a challenging twinkle in her eye. If you were getting your rage on with some wood, she would show up with a goddamn axe.

Rachel pulled the axe back and slammed it down even harder. Then again, and again, grunting with effort each time. The casket was good, solid wood. But, as everything did, it ultimately gave way to Rachel.

As a kaleidoscope of butterflies swarmed out of the torn wood and around her, a swirling mass of blue and pink, she looked down at Chloe.

Rachel Amber smiled, golden mane glowing, and whispered.

"Wake up."

Chloe blinked her eyes as reality reasserted itself. She was sitting up in bed while the distracted gunman's hand turned back to Max. His hand raising and finger curling around the trigger, the young time traveller somehow having slumbered through a gunshot narrowly missing at close range.

Three years ago Chloe had failed, standing by on the sidelines as the light which had only just started to brighten her life was almost snuffed out by Damon Merrick's knife. Only Frank's mercy giving her an opportunity to spirit Rachel away.

More recently Chloe had hesitated, the fear of Nathan's gun holding back her rage as she realized that, no matter whatever edgy crap she scrawled across the walls, she very much wanted to live. Only Max's powers giving her the distraction she needed to strike back.

As the gun once more threatened Max's life, Chloe did not pause. Did not hesitate.

Chloe threw herself across the room with a speed which would have left her disappointed PE teacher's weeping, crashing into the armed man in a tackle which rattled her teeth. She wasn't the bulkiest girl, but she was at least tall, and her target was even thinner then her, gaunt and half starved. They went down together in a tangle of limbs, gun roaring time after time as he pulled the trigger frantically, sending bullets into wall, ceiling and even floor.

There were no shouts of inquiry, no frantic rush of nurses and security. Like Max, the hospital slept calmly while Chloe struggled and fought for their lives.

Chloe wound up on top, pinning him with her weight, but any victory she felt was short lived. She had to jerk wildly to avoid the gun he was still waving and almost lost her position entirely. Reaching out with her left hand, she grabbed the wrist of his gun hand and pinned it against the floor. His other hand was scrabbling at her, trying to push her off and after failing that trying to claw at her throat. She grabbed that hand with her right, pushing it down so that she had him completely pinned.

With both her hands holding him down, she had Max's would-be killer helpless before her but no way to tear at him, to give him what he deserved. Unless…

She pulled her head back before snapping it forward as fast as she could, slamming her forehead into her opponent's with enough force that she felt it in her goddamn ankles. As the headbutt connected all she could see were his eyes. Up close they were enormous, but still containing precious little sanity. She found herself falling forward, as darkness swirled around her and reality fell away until she stood on light, short grass.

Row after row of gravestones surrounded her, stretching onwards out of sight in every direction. Real graveyards had something to break up the monotony. A tree, a fountain, a big ass wanna be mausoleum slapped together for some dickhead who couldn't conceive of generosity even once they were dead and could never enjoy their money again.

But this latest dream didn't bother with such details.

Chloe knew what she would find when she looked down. The simple headstone before her, Maxine Caulfield carved into it.

"Fucker knows how to stick to a theme, I will give him that." Rachel said, handing her a shovel.

"So do you." Chloe said, raising her shovel and shoving it deep into the freshly dug grave.

"Lies. I am fickle and flighty. Like the wind. Or a hobo. Or a cat. Windy hobo cat, that's me." Rachel hefted a second shovel, sinking it just as deep as Chloe's while the punk raised an eyebrow at her actions.

"Hey, she helped you dig me up, remember? Only fair I return the favour." There was a world of sadness in Rachel's quiet smile which Chloe couldn't bear to see. Nothing so beautiful should look so desolate.

Chloe yanked her shovel out, tearing a hunk of dirt free and dumping it. Rachel mirrored her action, if less vigorously.

They dug in silence, so much to say that there was nowhere to begin. Shovels tearing at the cold earth the only sound in the empty graveyard. Soon Chloe was sweating, even in her thin and tattered tank top. It was worth it, though, with each clump of dirt excavated she was that much closer to Max.

Chloe raised her shovel…..

…..and slammed her right fist down into his face once more.

Rachel raised hers….

….and Chloe's left fist smashed down this time.

Chloe drew back her hand for another punch…..

….and sank her shovel into rich brown earth.

Dream and reality intermingled. There was only the work in front of her, shovels rising and falling as the grave was excavated, fists pummelling down one after another as she gave the assassin what he deserved.

Each moment seemed to take her closer to reality. The flashes of his broken, bleeding face, getting longer and more frequent. Chloe looked at her shovel, frowning at the chipped and broken blade, and all of a sudden she was looking at her hand, skin torn and knuckles bleeding, fingers bent at impossible angles.

She pushed aside the pain, the worry. She and Max had come so fucking close to that happy ending. She wasn't letting anyone take that away, no matter how many fucking literal nightmares they threw at her.

She and Rachel raised their shovels with a yell, striking down as hard as they could to dig away the last of the dirt blocking her.

One last time, the butterflies exploded around them, swirling out of the open grave. Almost all pink, now.

Rachel Amber smiled, golden mane glowing, and whispered.

"Wake-"

"-Yeah, babe, I get it. I'm awake." Chloe interrupted.

Rachel threw back her head and laughed, half way between the practiced tittering of her father's high society friends and the full-bodied belly laugh of the fattest man in the bar. Chloe's heart ached to hear it.

She hadn't known how much she had missed that laugh. Had needed to hear it again. Her eyes teared up with the sudden realization that every step she had taken to escape this dream and return to Max had been a step away from this world where Rachel was here beside her, beautiful and vibrant.

Rachel smiled again, reaching forward to brush a tear from Chloe's cheek.

"Hey now, none of that. You still have a life to live – go live it. And be happy enough for the both of us!"

Smiling through the tears, Chloe nodded. The kaleidoscope of butterflies thickened, one final burst of light and life, until it was all she could see. And all of a sudden she was straddling a man she had beaten unconscious in a hospital room.

Her left hand ached, throbs of pain that had a physical presence, like a snake tunnelling it's way under her skin from her hand to her wrist. Her right hand was far more worrying. From that she felt nothing. No pain, no warmth, no sensation at all. The whole hand was a dull grey block of nothing, to her senses. As If all the nerves there had gone on strike to protest harsh working conditions.

But, however bad her hands were, they had nothing on the horror they had wrought. The only word that could apply to her attacker would be mangled. And even then that would be too light a description.

The pool of blood under his head had spread so far that her knees were soaked, even where she sat around his navel. His eyes were glassy and bloodshot, or rather his eye was glassy and bloodshot. The other one couldn't really be called an eye anymore, more a spattered lump of milky white and bloody red material. His nose was crushed almost flat, blood smearing down from both nostrils and over his mouth, which hadn't needed any help getting blood everywhere, split lips dribbling thick red liquid over broken teeth and in the spaces where missing ones should be. Far more blood was coming from the severed stump of his tongue, unable to survive the misfortune of being between bottom teeth and top when she had hit his jaw. Thankfully he had spat the severed muscle out, rather than choke on it, and now it sat beside him. As wet and red as the long tears her assault had torn in the skin of his head, flesh ripped from muscle. Worst of all though was his skull, caved in in a way no skull should be. With every ragged breath she heaved in from her position on top of him his body moved in response, and with every jerk of transmitted motion his head moved too. As it did parts of his skull…..flowed. Moving freely where there should only be rigid firmness.

It would have been such a mercy to blame the dream, to label this the act of her body while her mind had been elsewhere, but Chloe knew better. Looking down at the man she had brutalized, Chloe knew that the horror she felt was a selfish thing, born of shock at the fact that she could do this to a person, a need to deny that such monstrosity could be a part of her. She knew because as she looked at the place inside where regret and pity should be she found only a grim satisfaction at having done this to the man who would kill Max Caulfield.

Chloe tried to stand, wanting to be as far from him as possible but found her body rigid, moving jerkily. It wasn't until gentle hands took her by the shoulder to help her away that she noticed Max was awake, voice reassuring and full of love.

Chloe looked to her girlfriend, mouth opening with a hundred explanations all crowding to get out at once, only to be silenced by an embrace, Max not needing the slightest explanation in the face of Chloe's pain.

She just held her girlfriend.

Slowly, making no sound, a doe wandered through the hospital halls. Away from the room where two girls cradled each other over a comatose man. She displayed none of the panic and uncertainty one would expect of a wild animal trapped in a human building, and as the hospital awoke around her none of the staff or patients seemed to see the doe even though she wandered in plain sight.