For the eighth time in as many minutes, Max cursed her stupid luck as she poked and prodded at her new accommodations. The good news was that it was clean and looked quite comfortable; she'd already helped herself to a bottle of water and the assortment of Japanese snack food in the mini-fridge. The bad news was that the front door was locked from the outside, and all attempts to jimmy the latch had thus far failed. The door was also much sturdier than it looked, easily resisting any and all efforts she made to try and smash it down with physical force. Her loud calls for someone to come and answer her questions went unheeded.

She found it disconcerting that she couldn't remember how she'd gotten here. It wasn't that she had a big, blank gap in her memory, more like the memories she was able to call up were fuzzy and indistinct. She could recall that...a whole bunch of something happened to her between Wednesday afternoon and this point now, but it was like trying to read a book in a dream. Her mind kept sliding away from any useful comprehension or understanding. The exact same thing happened to her the last time she used her photo power to change the timeline, so it wasn't exactly unexpected, but still damned inconvenient.

Naturally, the most obvious solution to her current predicament was to rewind herself back down the timestream until she was out of confinement, then see what went wrong. However, she quickly discovered she could only go back to the point where she 'woke up' in the newly created timeline. As before in New York City, some strange 'wall' stood in her way, forbidding her from moving back any further.

Fuck, that's weird. What the hell's going on?

She tapped her lips as she considered.

Wait, think this through, Max. Did this happen the last time you changed the past on Tuesday? Let me see...I jumped back to 2008, altered a few things, and then I woke up in a new timeline. Just like now, I couldn't honestly remember what happened in the altered past. I spent roughly twelve to fourteen hours at Other Chloe's house, and then jumped back from that alternate timeline and changed the past in 2008 again. Finally, I woke up in the newly-restored previous timeline, also twelve to fourteen hours later from when I first tried to change the past. Then I wound back all that time to make up the difference, so I could spend the afternoo- ah ha! See! See! Then, I was able to rewind back past the moment I 'woke up' after changing shit around. But now I can't.

She paused, as she continued to puzzle through.

Hold on...maybe me jumping into 2008 from the Other Chloe timeline doesn't count, as far as the Universe is concerned, because I went back and wiped that timeline out with the sole purpose of restoring the previous timeline exactly the way I found it. So that second change never actually happened at all. Maybe if I had tried to rewind all the way beyond the original point I initially changed the past on Tuesday morning, I would have hit the same 'wall' I'm hitting now.

Fuuuuuck! I wish I'd tried, then I'd know for sure.

Max tugged at her hair in manic frustration, before letting out a short yell.

SHIT! Ugh, this bullcrap still makes my head hurt, even after five years!

As she angrily flopped down onto the bed, Max took stock of the situation.

Probably best to assume this is a room in some sort of Zaibatsu facility. But why the hell would they lock me up? I mean, I can't imagine they treat all their prisoners so nicely. But obviously I'm under lock and key. Wait...

Oh shit, I hope Chloe is okay!

Guilt and worry burned acridly through her chest. She pounded gently at her forehead and groaned, "Note to self: Start keeping a fucking journal! That way, when the timeline changes, maybe I'll have a record of what the hell happened before."

The thought of writing in a journal made her sit up and take stock of what items were presently available to her. Other than the furniture and appliances in the room itself, there was a small closet; inside that was her duffle bag. Quickly checking its contents, she found her clothes, toiletries, a few personal items…

...and the camera Chloe gave me! Oh score!

Turning out her pockets, she found little more than a few photos, including the picture of Chloe and herself from 2008, as well as the one from the fair, along with the picture they took together on Tuesday night.

Double score! Wow! These guys must have no idea how dangerous it is to leave me with this stuff! Weird, though. Why would they give me any of my gear at all? Why leave anything to chance? I mean, I don't have my guns, so they must have taken them, but letting me keep everything else seems to be a violation of what I'd consider standard prisoner protocol. Which means maybe I'm not a standard prisoner. What if they're trying to figure out what the fuck to do with me in the long term? Orrrr...maybe they're trying to lower my guard, treat me nice enough, so that I'll go along with whatever they ask of me? Like...a little bit of the carrot and the stick? God! If that's true, I almost wish they'd just be honest, no matter what their intentions. For cereal.

Beyond that, the only other things she could find were a few towels, a notepad and pen, and a book of the collected teachings of the Buddha.

Geeze, it's like these guys are running a fancy hotel or something.

Again, her thoughts turned to Chloe. Max could deal with anything that was headed her way, but without any solid information about her girlfriend, she was driving herself insane with worry. She 'knew' that Chloe was still alive, but she couldn't recall any other details beyond that.

Huh. I have all the tools I need to go back in time and try again. To warn Chloe about this but...fuck! I'd be going in totes blind. I can't tell her what went wrong; for all I know, any advice I give her now could make things way, way worse. If only I could talk to myself in the future, find out exactly what's going to happen, and what I need to do to avoid it. Assuming it's something I should avoid at all. On the other hand, maybe I should just cool my heels and see what happens. Buuut...on the other other hand, forewarned is forearmed. And what if they're doing something really bad to Chloe, right this minute?! I need that information! I need to scout ahead. It'll…

And then it came to her.

...it'll be just like what Chloe and I talked about doing Tuesday night, except this time, it won't be a joke!

Max walked back to the closet, deftly snatched the camera, and carried it over to the nearby desk. As she cradled it in her hands, she considered exactly how to proceed.

I'm probably being monitored. I can't rewind past the point of me taking the picture - I think? But I can write a message to myself, and then when I'm done, hold the letter in my hand, then rewind back so that the letter is written but the event of me writing it is taken out of the timestream. So in the end, it looks to anyone peeking in on me that I'm just bored and goofing around, taking selfies.

Max took a deep breath, and mentally crossed her fingers as she peered down at the camera on her lap. She pointed it up towards her face and pushed the button…

...her vision whited out.

She looked up and sat there for a good minute or two, waiting for something, anything to happen. She tapped her feet, as she tried her best to be patient.

Well...huh. I wonder what's taking so long? What did it feel like, last time? I don't remember. But this time is different. I mean, this time around, I'm waiting and expecting to be taken over, so that should count for something, right? It should be instantaneous from my perspective, so what's the hold up? Awww shit! I guess that means it didn't work, after all.

Aimlessly, she turned the camera around and around in her hands, until she spotted the remaining exposure counter on the back.

Oh hell! It did work! There's one less exposure left than there was a few minutes ago. Hah! I've been sitting here the whole time like a doofus. Weird. Now that I'm really thinking about it, I suddenly remember writing something, but I don't remember what, or why. Except, I put it in my hoodie pocket….

Max reached in and retrieved several neatly folded sheets of paper. Her heart raced with excitement as she opened them up, mind swimming with the possibilities.

Wowser! Best plan ever! Let's see what Future Me has to say…

She held up the letter and started to read.

Max,

I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised this worked. It's just that it's been a long, long time since I've tried this trick, and even after we stabilized the worst of what happened during The Fracturing, it's sometimes been harder for me to go back in time than it used to be.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Well, first the good news I suppose, not that it will mean much in the long run. If I remember right, in about an hour or two, Reese will personally burst in here to free you. And man, I still remember: he was so hella pissed. Him and Shimiko. Seems the local cell of the Zaibatsu that Rachel and Victoria brought you to - which was in Hawaii, by the way - wasn't exactly following orders. They were instructed to accord you all possible hospitality, but someone decided you were too dangerous to just wander around freely, so they locked you all up. I guess they figured they were honoring the 'spirit' of their orders by imprisoning you in their fancy guest suites, as opposed to the actual holding cells. Still, people at the top - mostly Shimiko - were p-i-s-s-e-d! I vaguely recall that someone had to commit ritual suicide in the end to make it right. Honestly, it all worked out so quickly, I didn't even bother jumping back to tell you. At the time I figured 'Why bother?'

But Reese and Shimiko end up being good to their word. They don't ever try to exploit you against your will, or turn you into a weapon. They don't keep you chained up or tied down. In the beginning, Shimiko and I mostly work together on her various science projects, trying to figure out how my powers work, and ways to create practical applications from temporal science. Things like better weather and natural disaster prediction, speeding up growing times in order to increase crop yields, creating 'slow time' chambers so that people in medical distress would have enough time to make it to the hospital. It's all crazy, pie-in-the-sky junk, but she's smart enough to start making some of it work.

But she'd probably do better if Cammie was still around to help her out. Can't remember if you knew for sure at this point, but just in case: she's dead. She sacrificed herself to kill Martinet and destroy the PAN-Opticon. Essentially, she pounded S.O.A.P. and Damocles hard into the ground. After that, it's total chaos for a few weeks; Alanna and a few others quit outright, and go off on their own. She actually joins Rachel's group for a bit, and God knows they needed her help. By the end of 2016, the Zaibatsu are on top, and no one else can seriously challenge them. I know that sounds scary and ominous, but it actually works out for a while, mostly because Shimiko can be really ruthless about maintaining order when she has to, but she doesn't get off on doing it, either. Not like Martinet did.

Reese died, though. Killed himself in late 2015. He kept his promise: he figured out how to give my folks their memories back. All of them. But he did it by stealing and then injecting himself with this experimental drug that Shimiko was cooking up. One which boosted his powers, but burned his brain out at the same time. He spent months watching me interact with my parents at the secure facility the Zaibatsu was keeping them safe at. And how they struggled to recall, and how sometimes they would come close to lucidity, so near to remembering me, only to have it fall apart in the blink of an eye. I guess after a while, it was too much for him to take. He felt like Shimiko wasn't able to fix things fast enough, so he took matters into his own hands.

Reese...you fucking asshole. God, I miss you.

I was there at the end, as he lay dying. It was tragic and sad, but he was at peace, too. As if he finally wiped his slate clean. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was crying so hard, and yelling at him, asking why did something so stupid. He talked about being Moses at the edge of the Promised Land, how he led me there, even though he himself couldn't enter. And then he was gone, like someone flipped a switch and turned him off.

Chloe and I initially settled down in this awesome little village on the coast of one of the islands of Fiji, near one of Shimiko's research facilities. It's like paradise, you know? For the first few years, the two of us were so happy together. Rachel and Victoria came to visit a lot, and we kinda-sorta became good friends. We were so sure the future was gonna be bright and shiny.

That was until The Fracturing.

It's a long and complicated story, so I'll try to keep it short; Incident 34, the whole shit that went down in New York City? Cammie thought her inventions contained the worst of the damage caused by your powers and that Chinese kid's Emergence violently and repeatedly interacting in the same place and time. She was pretty certain it wouldn't spread, and that nothing was going to be permanently altered, at least not in any bad way. But with only a couple days to analyze the data before she died, it turns out she was wrong. She missed something. It was like a tiny crack in a windshield: minor to start, but filled with deadly potential. Reality didn't splinter all at once, but over the next five to eight years years, shit spidered slowly outward, causing almost imperceivable anomalies until all of the sudden, it crossed a certain threshold and blew up into something too obvious to ignore. The laws of physical reality started randomly breaking down, out from the epicenter of Manhattan. Time would run backwards, or skip in places. As things got worse, multiple alternate realities all tried to exist at once in the same space and time, often with disastrous results. The damage spread out further and faster, and the world descended into chaos. Entire crops would fail, diseases beyond imagination broke out, all kinds of horrible, crazy monsters appeared and devastated the land, like Cloverfield and Godzilla all rolled up into one. Sometimes, millions of people would just up and drop dead, or disappear into thin air, with no rhyme or reason.

It was years before Shimiko went back and fully looked over the quantum damage in New York City. In the beginning, she was simply too busy fighting with S.O.A.P. to bother; that, and she was so arrogantly certain that Camilla - whom she was crazy in love with - could not have missed anything important, that she put it out of her mind. It wasn't until around 2017, when we were running some experiments together, that she finally detected the first big signs. But by then, it was too late to completely stop the process. All we could do was focus on how to stabilize the worst of what was coming. Slow it up and buy ourselves enough time to figure out how to stop it completely.

She had the craziest plan, one which involved building this giant machine at the top of Mt. Everest, and then hooking me up into it, like a living temporal core. I'm talking wacko Matrix shit. The most frustrating part was how long it look to construct the damn thing while the world started blowing up. Once it was built, she put me in it. For five years. Kept me in a medically-induced coma while her device worked to contain and counteract the worst of The Fracturing, using my own natural temporal stability as a quantum template.

And it worked. Mostly. She ultimately created this massive pocket of reinforced space/time that encompassed most of East Asia. It became a place for survivors and refugees to flock to and start life anew. We found out later that as a result of our work, other smaller areas of stability naturally formed across the globe. But even today, in my time, it's still incredibly dangerous to travel from one 'bubble' to another. There are a few Specials that can traverse the distances without immediately dying in the attempt. Also, there's me; I'm like Super Awesome Courier Number One. The Fracturing can't touch me, because it acts like it recognizes its own fucking mother!

Max, when I jumped back to give you this message, the date was December 18th, 2033. I suppose you could say that humankind is okay. Or it's going to be. Still, most of the world is not in good shape. Except for Shambala, the new country Shimiko and the Zaibatsu founded and still administer. It's clean, and safe, and incredibly high tech. We just got flying cars a year or two ago! But most the rest of the world - and by that I mean the parts that exist in stable pockets of space/time - has been driven back into a largely agrarian existence, with useful bits of technology helping to keep civilization going. Europa Majora and the Empire of the Gateway Arch are the only two places other than Shambala that have any sort of industrial base to speak of.

I guess, in a perverse way, Shimiko is fulfilling her personal life mission: helping Mankind weather the worst of its new Dark Age. Shambala is the center of the known world, filled with culture and art, science and technology. It's almost paradise, at least for the privileged few who live there.

But there's no Chloe in my life. Not anymore.

She's not dead, though it would almost be easier if that's what actually happened. No. She continued to be amazing. Almost every day, for those five years when Shimiko had me hooked up to her machine, she'd come to my chamber and sit next to me. Tell me about what was going on, or just read to me, even though I couldn't hear her. She never gave up hope that I was coming back to her. When they finally brought me out from my coma, the first thing I remember is her lips pressed to mine, waking me up with a kiss, like my own Princess Charming.

You would think our love would be enough to keep us together, and I suppose it would have...if I didn't destroy it, like I destroyed the world.

Over the weeks I spent recovering, I read all the reports detailing what happened. The lives that were lost, the devastation and havoc wreaked. For instance, it turns out Arcadia Bay was wiped out by that tornado after all. The local fabric of space/time there was a mess;I'm pretty sure you can guess why. Joyce and David, and so many other people we knew were wiped out in the storm while we were safely hiding on the other side of the world.

They were the lucky ones, in that they died quickly.

Once I was strong enough to walk again, I made myself spend several months traveling across what was left of the planet. I can't even begin to fully describe what I've seen. The corrupted, alien, hostile places, the horrors that have taken over what we now call the Greater Wylding, which makes up the majority of the planet. And within the Wylding are barely protected areas where humankind survived, but time passed differently for them; tens or even hundreds of years. They're now little more than Iron Age throwback villages which exist in the cracks between the more civilized and fortunate city-states.

Villages that now fearfully worship or venomously spit upon the name of Kronos.

I've seen the statues and the temples they've built to the idea of me, after it was seared upon their collective subconscious. In some of these settlements, they call me Kronos the Implacable, a literal force of nature to whom they offer up sacrifices, so that I'll spare them any further chaos and destruction. Another group of villages exalt me as Kronos the Savior, the warrior-goddess who holds The Black End at bay; but really, they're nothing more than petty kingdoms where tyrants claim the divine right to rule in my name. And finally I've seen the places where they call me Mother Of All Evils. Hater of Humanity. Where they burn me in effigy, as part of their harvest rituals.

And why shouldn't they?! There are billions of people who are dead now! It's all my fault! I just couldn't live with it. The guilt became too much for me to bear. Why me? Why?! I only wanted to help people, to save them, and to make the world a better place, but thanks to me, most of the Earth is an absolute nightmare, a twisted wreck that will never fully recover.

When I returned from my travels, I fell apart. Completely. I started drinking pretty heavily to cope, and took to locking myself in my room for hours, sometimes days at a time. And Chloe...Chloe tried. So fucking hard. To be supportive, and wonderful, and there for me. She was so loyal and devoted…

...but I found out that even true love has its limits.

It's not that she stopped loving me; she just couldn't deal with my shit anymore. For three long years, she tried her best, and I pushed her away, again and again. By the time she was gone, I finally realized what I'd done, but it was too late. She moved on. Last I heard, she got elected Chief Administrator of one of the prefectures that make up Shambala. Never thought of Chloe as the type to get into politics, but there you go. I think she's started dating again, too; I nearly disintegrated my liver from the bender I went on when I found that out. But I couldn't, shouldn't have expected her to not get on with the rest of her life. She gave me everything that she could, but in the end, I had to be the one to stand up and take the hand she offered.

I didn't. Simple as that.

It's too late for me, for all of us. But not for you, Max! Because I finally know what needs to be done. To stop The Fracturing. Stop ME.

Tonight, I finally found what I was looking for. This picture! Can you believe it? It took me weeks of journeying back to Fiji, to the ruins of my old house, in desperate hope there was something there I missed years ago. Turns out the damn thing was stuck on the back of one of the drawers I used to keep my clothes in. I had to savagely beat and kill this...thing. It was like a cross between a baboon and a weasel, with seven eyes and three mouths. A mutant wam-besel, I guess? The creepiest thing was that it could talk, so I asked him..her...it? to give me my picture back. But they wouldn't. So I beat the fucker to death with my bare hands and took back what was mine.

Fucking wam-besel. I warned it what would happen if it didn't listen to me. I warned it!

…

Anyhow, here I am. In the past, writing this letter to you.

I've spent so many nights, thinking about how I could stop it; I mean, Incident 34. Talking to Shimiko, over and over, until even she was sick of hearing me ramble on. But it seems so obvious now; you need to jump back and stop yourself from ever Emerging in the first place. I mean, I guess we'd have to destroy the old picture, and then somehow convince our younger self not to think about trying to change the past, right at the moment when our Emergence is going to happen.

Or we could kill ourselves. Not a favorite, but I'd do it if there was no other way. Not my call to make, though. It's all up to you now. I lost the picture of Chloe and me from 2008 a long time ago, when the world was falling apart. And then I stupidly destroyed a bunch more after Chloe left me, because it hurt too much to look at them.

Simply put, I can't do this without you.

The kid who blew up in New York was the fire, but my powers interacting with that leftover spatial damage was akin pouring a massive amount of kerosene on it. Reality would have probably recovered from what he did, but not from the two of us together. Without my powers existing, The Fracturing will never take place. Maybe millions of New Yorkers will die...but maybe you can prevent that, too! I mean, shit, I'd be doing all this myself, if I only had that fucking picture back!

So I have to ask you...beg….plead. Go back. Do it. Do it now. There's no point in waiting. I've told you what's coming. You can't do anything to change it. Believe me, I've spent years thinking how we could have done it all differently. Seems to me, the best answer is to make sure I'm never stuck carrying this fucking curse around. I mean, who's to say New York City even has to happen!? Ever wonder if it only occurred because you existed? Like the universe became unbalanced by your very existence, and that Chinese kid was only part of the continuing fallout?

Just...please do this. God, I'm begging you. Please.

You know, I wonder what'll happen to me, if you succeed. Will I wake up in a better world, but still remember everything? Or will I just die and fade away into nothing? Surrender to a much better existence than my own. I think it'd be worth it. All the blood on my hands, all the innocent people who are dead because of me. To simply fade away into nothing; it's better than anything else I deserve.

I know in my heart that even without my powers,Chloe and I will still end up together. I have that much faith in our destiny. And I'll be a better person, the kind of woman who's worthy of her.

You know what you have to do.

-Max Price-Caulfield.

Max rose up from her chair in a daze, staring off into space as she slowly, mechanically folded the pages of the letter up and put it back where she found it.

"I...I just…". She swallowed against the dryness in her throat and tried again, her voice breaking out into a soft whimper.

"Just wanted to see what was gonna happen for the next few days. Or weeks. Not…"

She hadn't planned on staring so deeply into the abyss.

Max didn't remember falling onto the bed, or curling up into a fetal ball, but that's where she found herself a short while later. She couldn't believe what she'd just read. She couldn't not believe it either. She felt utterly flummoxed, trapped on the edge of a knife, unable to continue forward in any direction.

"Oh God, Oh God, Oh God…!" she breathed out, repeating over and over again, as it became a mantra. She didn't want to continue down this timeline, knowing full well the futility of it. On the other hand, how could she simply give up? How could she take without argument the word of some future version of herself, someone whose sanity was clearly questionable?

How can she just demand I undo it all? What did she think would happen? That I'd sit there and go 'Oh. Okay. Well let's get it over and done with.'?

Maybe she could fix it somehow, now that she knew what was coming. She could warn Shimiko. That would be so simple. What's to say she didn't have a second chance?. A chance to make everything better?

But what...what if she couldn't?

What if this fate is unavoidable now? Like how William was killed, and when I tried to stop that again, Chloe ended up slowly dying in his place? What if all of this is happening because I saved him the first time?!

She thought to just grab the picture, the one from all those years in the past. The one of her and Chloe together. She could already feel it in her jeans pocket, its very presence burning against her thigh, demanding that she stop it, stop all of it. All of the madness that lay in wait!

But she couldn't.

She couldn't bring herself to do it. There was still the urge to fight, to deny that her future was written in stone. Part of her was convinced that there still other means to avoid the worst of what was to come.

It occurred to her at one point to simply grab the picture she took of herself a few minutes earlier and destroy it. After all, if it didn't exist, then maybe these things wouldn't come to pass. But when she started to try, she found she couldn't push herself past the cold, chilling dread that seized her; the primal fear that creating such a blatant paradox would somehow cause reality to break down quicker, sooner.

In the end, she could only lay there, trapped in her mind, for an hour or two. It was only the soft, sharp hiss of the door to her room opening that jerked her out of her fugue state. She sat up, on the edge of the bed.

I...I guess we'll find out how much Future Me knew. Whether this is really the Zaibatsu come to let me out.

Part of her hoped against hope that the news wouldn't be good. That her salvation was not at hand. Because if her future self was wrong about this, then maybe Max looked into the 'wrong' future, and her plan was flawed from the beginning.

Maybe I only looked into a potential future, and not the one I'm going to live in...

But as soon as she saw Chloe's shining, smiling face emerge from the tiny hallway and into her bedroom, her heart sank as it simultaneously sang. Her girlfriend practically pounced on her, and her vision was obscured by curtains of blue hair as a mouth quickly sought her own in a relieved kiss.

"Oh, Max! Baby, I'm really glad to see you. Are you okay? They didn't hurt you?"

Max shook her head, laughing low, light and hollow. "No...No I'm okay. I'm fine." she lied. "How about you?"

"Yeah! Well, I mean, you know me, I was super pissed at first, but people have been hella apologizing since they sprung me fifteen minutes ago. You're never gonna believe who finally put the smack down on the assholes who decided to put us into 'protective custody'" Chloe said, before she stopped straddling her lap and sat down beside her, reaching out to tightly grasp one of her hands.

A couple seconds later, a familiar face entered the bedroom.

"Reese!" Max gasped in surprise. Despite the fact that she literally told herself this exact moment was coming, it was still completely surreal to see him again at long last. She leaned in to kiss Chloe on the cheek and then rose up, quickly crossing the short distance between her and her old friend.

"Max, let me just say, I am so sorry that…!" Reese was interrupted, surprised by the tight hug she gave him. He stood there awkwardly at first, before finally returning it.

"It's fine, it's fine, it's just...really good to see you!" she said. Her spirits lifted, if but a touch. It wasn't so much that she'd forgotten the terrible reality of what her attempt to peer into the future showed her, more that it was getting easier to rebuild the public mask to hide the worst of her shock and dismay.

At least for the time being.

"Well...anyhow, let me explain: Shimiko personally informed the base commander here to extend every courtesy when you and the others arrived. That did not mean 'put her in your nicest guest room and then lock the door from the other side.' Believe me, there is going to be hell to pay! But...but the important thing is you're here, Max. Finally. You'll be safe with us now, I promise you! Despite the bad start we've had here, I swear to you, it's going to be different!" Reese gripped her arms tightly as he reassured her.

Smiling lightly, Max replied, "I believe you, Reese. Really, I do." As she spoke, it was difficult not to think back on what she read. How guilt would ultimately drive him into committing a suicidal act in order to bring her parents back to her. More and more, Max was understanding how looking into the future was the worst possible curse of all.

She hugged him tight again, afraid she might lose him in an instant. She then pulled back, and held out a hand towards the bed. "Uh...so hey. This is...this is Chloe. My fri...my girlfriend." Max said, a blush on her cheeks.

"Did you forget we met already, Maxima?" Chloe smirked. She then glanced over to Reese and said, "Thanks for not mind-wiping me this time around." Her teasing grin widened further as she spoke.

Self-consciously, he rubbed at the back of his head, and muttered, "Yeah. Jesus. Sorry again, about that."

"S'cool", the blunette said. "I mean, Max explained to me why you did it. How you were just trying to protect me. And considering you made it possible for the two of us to escape the Feds, and your asshole friends when they were being assholes, I figure we can just call it even."

He chuckled at this and nodded. "Yeah. Great. Still, I'm gonna be making it up to you both for a while. Uh - are you hungry? I mean, I know there were goodies in the minibar, but that hardly counts, right? How about brunch? Oh! And Shimiko's going to be here, we'll have a huge celebration dinner. And then tomorrow, we'll sit down and figure out where we go from here. Believe me, Max - the sky is definitely going to be the limit from here on out. Anyhow, why don't you two come follow me. Rachel and Victoria should be out by now. I...god. I guess I probably owe them a bonus after this…"

Reese continued to chat, his arms moving in an animated fashion as the two of them walked behind, hand in hand. The rest of the facility followed the same ultraclean, extra-white, minimally decorated scheme of the guest room, though Max didn't bother taking in too many details. She leaned in and whispered to Chloe, "Ummm...I don't really remember anything between Wednesday, when I gave you the warning, and a couple hours ago. Can you fill me in real quick?"

"Wow. Really? Just, like...what? Total amnesia?" Chloe asked incredulously.

"Not quite. It's complicated. It's like there are placeholders in my mind, but I can't really examine those memories. Like someone else was driving, which I suppose in a way is true."

"Huh. Hella creepy. But yeah, it went just like you said it would. You know, the whole 'staking a claim' bit? But I promise, as soon as we got off the Ferris wheel, I delivered - uh...your? - message. So we hung around just a little bit more at the fair, and then went straight back to Arcadia Bay."

"Oh? That...that's sad. I mean...really sad. In the original timeline, we spent hours eating, and riding the rides and making out, and then went to a campground and - uh. Hee. Heh." Max said with a blush.

"Hah! Yeah well, we might have done the deed at my house this time around. Fortunately, you know how to keep from screaming too loud." Chloe ribbed her, stealing another quick kiss. "Anyhow, the next day, I got in touch with Rachel. Blew her fucking mind. That was probably the coolest part of it. I got to be all, "Hey Rachel you hella suck and I hate you, but I know you're looking for Max, and she wants to be found, so I guess you can come on over, if you hella kiss my ass and apologize forever."

Max shook her head, snorting loudly, as she tried to imagine the conversation that must have actually taken place.

"It was seriously fucked up, finding out she and Victoria were like you. With superpowers, I mean. And it was kinda sweet, in a twisted way, when Rachel said was gonna pay off Frank, and how sorry she was for treating me like shit; how she thought she was pulling off this whole cruel-to-be-kind thing. Anyhow, after we warned her how badly our first attempt to make it to the extraction point went, she decided she wasn't gonna play around. Called up Reese, and got him to send this...like...armored bus thing. There was actually a totally awesome street battle at one point: us against some other government vans. I'm talking people shooting out flames, and I think there was a rocket launcher involved. Maybe lasers? But they couldn't touch us! Anyhow, we made it to the airfield and escaped."

Max blinked, almost stumbling. "Wait. If Damocles found us, how the hell did we escape in a plane? They have enough pull, they could have called in some military jets to hunt us down."

"Yeah! They did!" Chloe laughed, clearly grooving on retelling the tale. "They totally did. But I guess one of the people on the jet can make shit turn invisible? I didn't understand exactly what was going on, but you seemed so calm about everything, so I didn't worry either. We totally shook them off our tail...epic win! Then it was a straight shot to Hawaii."

A cold, hard throb of dread pounded against her sternum at the word.

"Uh yeah. Yeah. Makes sense, I guess," she said, her head bowing slightly.

"Max? Are you sure you're okay? You kinda...I don't know. Look like you've seen a ghost, or something."

Swallowing hard, Max looked up and tried her best to smile reassuringly. "Just tired, baby. Jumping around through all these timeline changes wears me out. Remember, from my perspective, barely two hours ago I was dying, and then giving you a warning."

Chloe nodded, readily accepting the lie. "Oh yeah. I remember, like - uh. Like last time. God, that's twice in one week now. Or is it three times? Anyhow, you gotta cool it for a while, okay babe?" She wrapped an arm tight around her, voice heavy with concern.

Max leaned in close against Chloe and closed her eyes, before breathing out, "Yeah. Alright."

"Oh man! That dinner was hella epic. The only thing that could make it any better would be a soak in a luxurious hot tub." Chloe casually leaned against the traditional Japanese-style wooden tub, then made a playful show of doing a double take as she turned her head towards it. "Holy shit, babydoll! Look what I just found!"

The suite they'd been put up in was plush to the point of decadence, continuing the understated white color scheme with splashes of Japanese art and exotic plants. A king size bed with all sorts of adjustable bells and whistles dominated the bedroom. In a sunken living room area was white leather upholstered furniture that looked as expensive as a fancy car, situated around a massive wall mounted OLED TV that probably cost as much as a house. With the small kitchen area and the master bathroom, it was more like one of the world's most incredible condominiums. Fancier than anything either of them had seen in their lives.

Max laughed softly at her girlfriend's antics. She was pleased to see how quickly Chloe was adapting to their new situation. Far from being pissed, angry, and eternally distrustful of their hosts, she was instead enjoying their newfound status with complete gusto. But Max couldn't help but wonder if the bluenette was cluing in to her own somber attitude, and thus was trying to do her best to cheer her up, to the exclusion of being paranoid of and pissy at the Zaibatsu.

"Dinner was pretty amazing, I'll agree."

Lavish would have been a better word. All four of them, herself, Chloe, Rachel and Victoria, were given new designer clothes for the 'celebration', and the meal consisted of extremely expensive sushi, bottles of wine, incredibly fancy desserts...the whole works.

Can't help but think they're pouring it on a little thick. Like they figure I'd been so fucked over by S.O.A.P. that all they have to do is put on a big show for the night, and I'm putty in their hands. Aww...maybe I'm being a little too harsh on Reese, even Shimiko. I mean, he's seriously operating under a massive guilt trip. Who knows, some of that might be driving her as well. On the other hand, she's probably also jazzed to get me out of government hands and study me. But any experiments she wants to run will probably be a lot...nicer. I mean, Future Me made it sound like we got to be real friends, and that I even enjoyed all the science work we did together.

But she still felt pretty low about the maudlin toast she proposed at dinner…

"To all the people who made sacrifices, in order for me to be here today." Max nodded to Reese, who smiled uncomfortably, before she added, "Especially Camilla. May she rest in peace."

"Certainly, we're holding on to hope that she made it out alive, Max." Shimiko quickly interjected. "We haven't received confirmation either way…" There was a look on her face: she knew damn well what the truth was, but couldn't face it yet. In a fit of pique, Max answered, "No. She's dead. I've….I've seen that much."

Max immediately regretted saying it. It was a shitty thing to do, and she privately apologized to Shimiko about it after dessert. And while the Asian woman appreciated the apology, she was also intensely curious as to what Max meant, exactly.

"I'll tell you some other time. Promise."

"So? So? Can we, can we, can we?" Chloe ask-begged, having already stripping down naked.

Max giggled once. "Wowser. Guess we have no choice now. It would be super awkward if i just left you there by yourself." She began to disrobe.

"Yeah, and if nothing else, I need someone to scrub my back." Chloe added with a lilt. She clambered up the stepping stool, and then lowered herself into the steamy water. "Oh. Oh yeah. This is so the life right now. Ahhhhh!" Max joined in soon afterwards, scooting up close to Chloe's side and laying her head on her shoulder.

Together, they quietly looked out through the massive picture frame window - polarized in such a way that they could look out without anyone being able to peer back in - and watched as the last few fingers of light from the setting sun retreated across the sparkling blue ocean.

Max was the first to break the silence. "I hope our parents are okay…"

Chloe blinked, then blushed, bowed her head, and whispered. "Yeah. Fuck. I feel like a total bitch, now. Didn't even occur to me that they might be in danger from the Feds."

Blanching at having brought down Chloe's mood, Max quickly added, "I'm sure they're okay. We can talk to Shimiko later tonight; if her people aren't already keeping a watch out for them, I'm sure they will if we ask them to."

"Good. Good, thanks, baby." Chloe gave a sigh, and rolled her eyes. "Damn if I still don't feel like a shitheel for not thinking of it myself."

Kissing her cheek and hugging her tightly, Max reassured her, "Please don't. We've been through a lot, and I know we both assumed they'd be fine; they'd be able to take care of themselves. Anyhow, let's just relax…" She turned to curl up against Chloe's side, trailing soft kisses across the shoulder.

They didn't speak again for another minute, before Max suddenly asked, "Chloe? Would...would you marry me?"

Clearly unprepared for the question, Chloe coughed. Face flushed, she started to answer, "Ah, um….ah! Whoa. Wait. Okay, hold on, that...I mean, of course but...I. Shit! Baby, I wasn't expecting that question out of the blue."

Max grimaced. "Sorry, I hadn't planned on asking it out of the blue, either. I guess I should tell you what's been on my mind."

"Please?" Chloe asked, starting to rub her back. "Something's been up since we sprung you. Did they do something to you?"

Max took a deep breath. "No. They didn't...it's just. From my perspective, I was dying one moment, then I jumped back in time to Wednesday, and warned you what happened, and then as soon as my mind jumped back, I was trapped in that room, with no clear memory of what happened. So I - uh - I tried something. You remember our Tuesday trick? Where we were gonna try and look into the future, and instead I totally fucked around with you?"

"Of course I remember, baby. I almost thought you were pulling the same thing with me on the Ferris wheel, after you took that photo and started telling me what happened in the future."

"Heh. Yeah. Well, I tried it again. For real. I only thought I'd get a few hours or days, or maybe even weeks. Just enough to find out if I should try and go back in time and change things again. It worked…"

Chloe leaned in, murmuring against her ear. "Did you see something really bad? Is that why you're...well, maybe not freaking out, but…"

Max nodded, and in a small voice said, "Yes. I mean...I saw more than I meant to. Some stuff coming up is really good, but there's some bad stuff, too. Things I wish I hadn't seen. And now, I don't know how to handle it. I guess it made me think about how little time we really might have, and why we shouldn't wait. And I know I love you, Chloe. I've loved you my whole life." She shook her head and groaned, "So I mean it when I say I want us to get married someday, but I didn't mean to put weird pressure on you. If anything, I've obviously ruined what could have been an awesome day in the future, where one of us does the proposing."

"Oh God….baby." Chloe blinked, before hugging her ferociously. "No wonder. Do you want to talk about what you saw?"

Max emphatically shook her head. "No! I mean...maybe someday. I can't deal with it, not right this moment."

God. How can I tell you that I destroyed the world, and then killed our relationship in a years-long cloud of drunken self-pity?

"It's okay. It really is. But Max? Now that you've seen all that shit, you know you can change it, right? Just like you changed me getting killed a bunch of times, and you changed Kate committing suicide. You totally have the power to make it better. I know you can. I believe in you! I mean, you've done it so many times already. And God! How could I forget, what about New York City?"

Max felt a sickness roiling in her stomach at the mention, which she did her best to suppress. But as the rest of Chloe's words sunk in, she started to feel a calm denied her ever since she read that letter from the future.

Maybe Chloe has a point. Sure, it looks bad now, but that was before I knew everything that was gonna happen. And she's right; look at all the things I've prevented. Hell, she and I came so close to dying for real, and I changed that. Who's to say that I can't make it better this time around. Yeah! Maybe if I warned Shimiko tomorrow, she'll have enough time to fix it. And if I confront Reese right now, tell him that he doesn't need to kill himself for my sake, because of what happened to my parents, maybe that'll lessen some of his guilt.

She started to relax at long last, tears of relief welling up in her eyes.

Yeah! God! I shouldn't be freaking out over this, I should be looking at it as a blessing. A second chance. Hell, this is probably the best thing that could have happened to me. And I can keep making 'spot checks' of the future. I can totally save the world from what's coming, and everyone can live happily ever after!

Like a train suddenly switching tracks at the last possible second, Max felt an internal emotional lurch. She was sure that the road ahead would be fraught with problems and unforeseen complications, but Chloe's simple-but-honest pep talk was exactly what she needed: a reminder of who she was, and what she could do.

I'm SuperMax! Heh...watch out world, I'm totally gonna protect you from doom!

Crushing Chloe against her, she nodded. "You're right. God. You're...hold on. I'm gonna rewind back."

"What? Wait, why?!" Chloe asked.

"So it's a surprise, when I propose to you for real. Or when you do it, someday!"

With that, she casually wiped out the past few minutes, to the point where they were both quietly watching the sunset again. Feeling happier now, Max smiled eagerly to herself, as she shifted over to aggressively straddle her girlfriend's hips.

"Well hellllo there." Chloe smiled brightly. "There's an otter in my water. Or is that a hungry shark I spy?"

"Just thought I could give you something better to look at than the sunset." Max whispered huskily.

"Way, way better." Chloe agreed, reaching out to stroke her face and hair.

Their lips met hungrily, melding into a passionate kiss. Max was determined to lose herself completely tonight, to take exultant joy in their escape, and to celebrate and revel in the new future they would build for themselves.

Much later in the evening, she made a mental note to apologize to Shimiko, for all the water that sloshed out of the tub, and the mess she and Chloe made.

A/N: ...and Chloe and Max lived happily ever after. Not a single problem darkened their days. Seriously, the next four chapters are just romantic fluff. ;-)

So...hey Swanketteers. It's good to see you all again. While it's been nice to no longer have to keep writing, I do miss the regularity of publishing. As some of you may have seen on my profile, this series is now publishing "as chapters become available." That means no set schedule, but I suspect that chapter 39 will either be published later near the end of this week, or sometime next week.

Sadly, after that, the three part finale may not publish out until mid to late August. Maybe sooner, probably no later. But I'm going to publish all three parts over a single week, so no more waiting once it begins.

Okay, with that out of the way...let me tell you about this chapter. Oh fuck. This fuckty fucking chapter!

(Fucking wam-besels!)

This has probably been the most grueling piece of the entire series to work on...and through. First off, the ending for this story has changed in very significant ways, multiple times, since I started Black Swan nearly a year ago (eleven months today!) When I wrote Once More Unto The Breach, things changed, but the ending was more or less the same as when it started out. And that was over the course of a year and a half and 450K words. Not so, with Black Swan. There has been a LOT of changes, a LOT of adaptations and back and forth and...ugh. Buuuut...it was all for the best. Really. As much as I grumble and groan, it was all for the best. The original ideas I had were just not as strong; that will be Black Swan's epitaph, if nothing else.

From a technical standpoint, this was probably the most challenging chapter of all. First off, I wrote it as a single 15,000 word piece, but that's getting split up. We were pretty close to publishing 38 when NuQueerWarhead, she of the editorial eagle eyes, spotted a MAJOR plot hole that needed serious fixing. Which I did, and which she was very happy with. She really saved my bacon there. But this morning, while I was doing the four to five hours of proofreading, I found a major continuity gaff that I kind of lamely managed to patch up but...ugh! Suffice it to say, I probably should have re-read this thing one or two more times but SHIT I am sick to death of it. I've been sitting on this thing long enough that if I don't get it out tonight, it's going to stay in the hopper a few more weeks, and I think I'd rather get through this hardest point, warts and all, than delay any further. This was one of those pieces where I just kept fixing and tweaking and changing, and rearranging, and if I didn't pull the trigger, it was going to drive me insane, worse than the False Dawn couplet did. So yeah...sorry if this one is not quite as good and polished. It should get easier from this point on. I mean, it's all written up at this point, it's just a matter of edit and polish.

Oh, and hey, look! rowanred81 is back! Also, I'm going to give a shout out to a couple of other folks and their stories:

1) In "Executive Rewind" Lonesomebard dares to ask the question, "What if Max was a Generation Xer (my generation, and thus the best generation :-D) and somehow accidentally changed time, becoming President of the USA in the process. It's a lot of great fun!

2) Supagreg is doing something rather intriguing in his story "A Flying Artist"; an AU retelling of Grande Dame (with my blessing) from Daniel DaCosta's point of view.

Have a great week, folks!