It'd been a wonderful couple of months.

Chloe and Max had settled into their own little state-of-the-art dream house, right on the coast of Fiji, just like her future self said they would. The house, along with the surrounding lot, was eye-scorchingly beautiful, with its own little private beachfront. The two of them immediately took a long, well deserved break from the craziness that'd swallowed their lives not all that long ago. Despite their young age, Max couldn't help but feel surprisingly adult; she and her girlfriend were buying furniture and decorations together, cooking meals, and taking long walks on the beach, hand in hand. Most nights, they'd be watching movies or reading books together. It was as if the world existed only for the two of them, an eddy of tranquility that kept out the mean and petty stupidity of the rest of the world.

Oh, and the sex, of course. The ridiculous amounts of that going on. Daily.

Shimiko and Reese were getting things taken care of, in terms of helping them get established in their new lives. Chloe's parents remained blissfully unaware of the truth of her current existence; the Zaibatsu had seen to it that they were undisturbed by any Damocles agents, and she'd even been able to give them a phone call to let them know she was fine. Of course, she had to weave an elaborate tale about a new life in Portland; someday, she'd have to tell them the truth, but that day was not yet here.

Max's parents were secured as promised, even though it gently broke her heart that they were now little more than birds in an especially shiny gilded cage. But they were well cared for and comfortable, and she visited them almost every day. They got along well, as if Ryan and Vanessa subconsciously remembered she was their daughter; there were even times Max swore she almost saw glints of recognition start to break through.

On the first day she was reunited with them, Max made sure to take Reese aside after her visit and force him to promise not to do anything stupid or rash, no matter how slow the progress went with restoring her parents memories.

"This isn't on you, Meredith. I know you blame yourself, and there were some days where I blamed you too...but in the end, Martinet victimized the both of us! I will never, ever hate you for what he made you do, even if you think I should. I totally trust you and Shimiko, that you're going to do what you can to make this right. And that's what matters the most to me. So...so don't go doing anything crazy. Nothing risky that's going to end up hurting yourself. Okay? I don't want to lose any more of my friends or family. Have faith that sooner or later, we'll all figure it out. We have the time."

She'd grabbed him by the arms, and looked him straight in the eye as she said the last part. She could see she'd touched something inside him. While it was obvious he'd still need the occasional reminder, she was absolutely certain that she'd started him down a different path. One that would save him from himself, and from the fate that the letter from the future spelled out.

As Max walked back towards her house, she smiled softly to herself in recollection of the follow up meeting she'd just had with Shimiko, barely an hour ago.

"...I want to thank you again, Max. I realize how upsetting this must have been for you, the intelligence you obtained in this letter from your future self. After our initial discussion, I put my best people on it, and they've been monitoring the situation in Manhattan since. We don't have anything perfectly conclusive yet, but after two months of continuous study, I think we're seeing enough troublesome things to more-or-less confirm what you've told me. It's quite subtle though, slow moving. Had you not given us such specific warnings, it's possible it would have continued unchecked until after we passed the point of no return."

"Suffice it to say, we have some good ideas on how to contain, or at least slow the rate of progress. We can't stop it outright at the moment, but we can buy ourselves time to figure it out, make preparations. Perhaps even…." The older woman paused, glancing out through one of the windows, "...perhaps what you've helped us to discover will be enough to convince the new Director of S.O.A.P. to put aside our private little war and work with us."

Max was feeling on top of the world, or pretty damn close to it. In a mere two months time, she'd gotten the girl, set Reese on a path away from self-destruction, and from the sound of it, helped prevent the absolute worst of the The Fracturing from happening.

Sure, there were still unknowns, and certainly, not all of the news was good; she still mourned for Camilla, and the actions her mentor was forced to take to ensure the world was spared the likes of Paul Martinet. But as far as her thoughts on the future? All was well.

I mean...I suppose I could try again. Take a picture, wait a few years, jump back and write another letter…

But she knew in her heart, she'd never be able to go through with it again. No matter how many times she thought to make herself try, she simply couldn't muster the courage to take another peek into the future. She'd been given too bad a scare from the last time.

Besides, what's the point? If shit gets really bad and I have to change history again, I've been taking a lot of pictures, just to make sure! Yeah, it's best that I just not open that Pandora's Box, unless I have no other choice.

As Max walked into the bright, open, and airy living room of her house, she called out, "Heyyy baby. I'm home. Wanna do lunch and then go for a swim? Maybe we can walk in the jungle this afternoon, and find a nice palm tree to cut down and decorate for Christmas…"

She blinked, then walked around, peering into the various rooms on the first floor, wondering where the hell Chloe was, and why she wasn't answering. She checked the counters in the kitchen, and on the fridge, just in case a note was left behind. She started to head back out towards the front door when she gasped, nearly crashing headlong into her girlfriend.

Chloe was dressed in a blue bikini with a long, filmy silk wrap tied around her waist. Her normally fair skin was now toasted a golden and mellow brown from days of lying in the sun, and she smelled gloriously of coconut oil. It made her seem all the more sensual and exotic, and Max had to admit she absolutely loved the look on her.

But the somber expression on her face clashed with her colorful mode of dress. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, as if..

...has she been crying?

"C-Chloe?" Max stammered. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

The other woman didn't answer at first. She had a distant expression, her gaze piercing, looking more through than at her. Before Max could say something, Chloe raised up her hand.

She was holding a letter.

"Did you write this?" she asked in a pained tone of voice.

Max's guts turned to ice, heart freezing in place for several beats as she took in the situation. She recognized the handwriting, and was familiar with the words, even if she still couldn't remember the actual act of writing them down.

Blinking once, Max all but whispered out, "I did." Biting down on her lower lip, she followed up with, "Chloe...where did you find that?"

Fresh clouds of sadness blew across Chloe's eyes as she murmured, "Didn't mean to. I was just putting away the laundry, you know? Trying not to be such a lazy slob anymore, like when it was just me living at home." She gave a thin, distant smile, and then motioned to the letter in her hand again, "But I tripped. Reached out to try and stop myself, and pulled out one of the drawers all the way. Found this. Guess you'd taped it to the back, but it flew off, and I couldn't help but start reading as I picked it up. I've spent all morning trying to figure out what to feel, what to say.."

Max silently cursed herself for not burning the damn thing. She almost did, but realized there was a chance she still might need to refer back to it while she was trying to keep the future from happening the way the letter foretold.

Should have put it in a better place, at least! Left it with Shimiko.

Taking a long, hard breath, Max said, "Sweetie, look. Yeah, I wrote that. I did the whole trick we talked about trying that first week, to see into the future. Remember in October, when I was stuck in the guest room with no memory of how I got there? I figured I'd do some recon. Only I didn't think I'd get twenty fucking years worth of it!" She reached out, grabbing Chloe's other hand, half-afraid she'd pulled it back, and so terribly glad when she didn't.

"Yeah, I didn't tell you about this because I didn't want you to be freaked out. Actually..." She stopped short. "I told you once. The night it happened. I mean, not so much what the letter said, just that I'd done this, and gotten a bad scare. I took back our discussion because - um - reasons. But you helped me get through my fear and my dread with it. And when I went to talk to Shimiko the next day, she said it was probably best that as few people as possible know about it. So I just...I didn't tell you. Again. Not that I had anything to hide, but because I didn't want to do anything more to put you at risk!"

Chloe nodded listlessly, and then slowly drifted over towards the plush leather sofa in the middle of the living room. She sank down onto it, and looked away.

"J-Jesus, Max! How can you be so fucking calm about this? About the world ending! And...and Arcadia Bay getting wiped out. And worst of all, about us breaking up!"

Max quickly dashed to her side, sat down and took her hand. "It's going to be okay now! I know it! I already talked to Reese, and I think I convinced him not to go down that road. And Shimiko says she would have missed this Fracturing thing if I hadn't warned her, but now she can slow it up. Maybe even keep it from happening." She took Chloe's hand and raised it up, kissing the knuckles as she continued, "Everything's going to be good, from this moment on. I promise. Really, that letter was probably the best thing to happen. And if something goes wrong, then I'll just go back, again and again, as many times as I have to, until we get it right!"

Chloe reached over to stroke her cheek and hair, her eyes watery as she asked, "How do you know that for sure? How do you know you're not making things worse, every time you change the present?" She swallowed hard, and glanced away from her. "I've been thinking about it for the past couple hours, about everything that led to this. Like...how I had you try to save my Dad again, and it fucked me up. How you and I died once, trying to get away from the Feds, and that's not counting all the other times you saved me from dying that week!"

She reached up, wiping furiously at her teary eyes and added, "I keep coming back to the one point in time that caused all this. What set off the whole chain of events, all those years back." She bowed her head, and in a voice filled with guilt and close to cracking, said...

"I did this. All of it. It was...me."

Max was stunned, uncertain how to respond. Of every single thing she could have expected, Chloe's guilt wracked self-recrimination was the last. She wasn't even certain she'd heard her correctly.

"I...what...Chloe? How could you blame yourself for this? For anything that's happened? For shit in the future that probably isn't gonna even occur now."

Chloe sniffled hard, tears streaming slowly down her cheeks, her voice strained, but passionate. "Because it's the only thing that makes sense! I mean...think about it, Max, really stop and work it out for a minute. What happened, when you changed the past for the first time? And why?"

Max tried to laugh; it came out forced and overly nervous. "I was with you. I did it because you'd just lost William, and you were hurting badly. I wanted to do anything I could to make you happy. To make the pain go away. Oh God, Chloe, I can barely remember anything else that happened in that old timeline, but I still remember how much it hurt, to see you like that…"

Chloe's chest heaved with another sob. "That's m-my point, baby. That's the whole point. You did it all for me. You did it to make me happy. Because I was the one in pain. You were so in love with me, even though you were only thirteen, that you literally bent time itself to give me what I thought I wanted." Max started to respond, pausing as fingertips brushed against her lips. "Past couple of months, I've been reading a lot, about Specials. Shimiko was cool enough to let me into her science library. Can't say I understand half of it, but I'm not an idiot either, Max."

"I never, ever thought you were…" Max protested, until Chloe tenderly shhhed her.

"I've read all these case studies. People who got powers because of the situation they were in. One story, about a guy in 1976, who was drowning. Freaked out, Emerged, and all the sudden, he can survive without needing to actually breathe. And...and this other time in...uh...1993, I think? Woman trapped in a burning building, and she's so fucking desperate and afraid. Bam, now she's a cryokinetic and can make all the ice and cold she wants. I mean, it's not how every Special goes through their Emergence, but a little more than half seem to be from shit like this; adapting to some immediate primal need or want."

"What does this have to do with us?" Max asked. In the back of her mind, she already knew the answer, but she wouldn't believe it until Chloe made it real.

"What if you only gained the power to control time because of me?! Think of it...you wanted...you needed to make me stop hurting. And you got the power to do just that. They say Specials are the next phase of human evolution, but I've studied evolution, Max. So I know, not every mutation is... beneficial. "

Chloe burst out into a fresh wave of sobbing, "It's all my fault, Max! Can't you see? My fault you got taken away from your parents, my fault you were a prisoner in some hella fucked up hole in the ground for five years, my fault that you've already lost a year off your life, and...and if all of this shit happens, with Reese, and this Fracturing thing, if there's even a chance it still happens." She pounded hard on the couch. "It's on me! God! I never saw it before. But finding that letter? It was a moment of clarity, Max. Suddenly, I understood everything that's happened. And why."

They sat together in silence, punctuated by Chloe's sobbing. Max couldn't help but feel the same sort of frustrated helplessness, the identical desperate need to make it all better, that she experienced back in 2008. She cleared her closed throat, and spoke quietly, "I never saw it that way, Chloe. How Cammie always explained it, and given all the other things happening to me, it sounds like I was going to Emerge, no matter what happened. Even if your Dad didn't die…"

Chloe looked up, giving her a sad, wet smile, and laughed harshly, "But no one's ever had your kind of power, Max. No one's even been close. Maybe under different circumstances, you would have Emerged with some awesome power that wasn't so dangerous. But I can see now, that some things aren't meant to happen. I thought I understood that when you brought me back those pictures and videos from the Other Chloe. But that was just the tip of the fucking iceberg. I completely, utterly understand what it all means now. What you have to do."

Max sat perfectly still as Chloe reached out, cupping her face.

"M-Max...I need you to go back. Just like that letter said. I need you to go back and stop it from all happening…"

"No!" Max cried out instinctively.

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. It was like she was in some sort of crazy, terrible nightmare. "Why? Chloe, this makes no sense! If I go back, you're gonna lose your Dad! I mean, that extra year you got with him..."

"I know," the blunette whispered out delicately. "I know. But...h-hey. I won't know what I'm missing. And I'll have the love of my life back. And she'll still have her parents...and…and...oh God...I know we'll still be together, no matter what happens. Just like the Future You said. We'll still fall in love, and be a couple, and have a happy ending. I know that'll happen! But I can't go on like this Max. If there's even a chance, more than absolute and complete zero, that the world's gonna get totally fucked up...I can't live with that! I can't go on knowing that all of this happened because the girl, the awesome, amazing, heroic woman, whom I totally do not deserve, was only trying to make me happy." She then leaned in, and kissed her mouth gently. "Please Max. There's no point in waiting. Please. God, before I change my mind. I need you to take it all back. For both of us."

Max pulled back, faster than she intended. She hugged herself, the surreality of the moment making her head spin, and waves of panic tear up and down her spine.

"Chloe...I. I can't. I just...I can't! What about us, what about..?"

"Please. I know this sounds crazy. I know you're probably scared. Part of me is too. But I think you know this was always how it was going to end. How it has to! I can get the photo right now. It's just up on the bedside table…"

"I can't!" Max protested, louder this time. She rose up from the couch, and started to drift back away.

"Baby, please!" Chloe shouted almost, almost hysterical. "I don't want anyone else to die! Because of me!"

"I can't" Max roared out.

Suddenly, she wanted to be somewhere, anywhere, other than here. Her eyes shut tight as she turned away from Chloe.

When she opened them again, Max suddenly found herself lying on her back in bed. Her head swam, as her brain struggled to process the sudden change in orientation. She silently screamed, her voice caught in her throat. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest, like an out of control jackhammer. She all but leapt on to her feet, instantly regretting it as the world briefly spun around her as she stumbled into the bathroom. She was certain she was about to vomit, and spent fifteen minutes curled up at the foot of the toilet, waiting for her body to make up its damn mind.

But it passed. The shakes subsided, the nausea and chills and cold sweat bled away, leaving her spent and exhausted. Five fingers slowly crawled up the onto the sink, pulling herself up to her feet. She looked into the mirror, her face pale and sallow, her eyes dark rimmed. It was all of five seconds before she turned away.

What the…? Holy shit. I'm still in Hawaii? Oh God. That wasn't just a dream, though. It couldn't have been! It was so real. I know the difference between a dream and reality!

She could still feel the last of the day's warmth fading from her skin, and a whiff of the coconut tanning lotion that Chole was wearing still lingered in her nostrils. She felt as awake and alert now as she did before she found herself lying in bed.

She checked her lifeclock: the time was a little after five-thirty in the morning, on October 12th, 2013. Beyond that, there was no new two month discrepancy in her objective and subjective ages, nothing to indicate that she had somehow done the impossible and rewound weeks instead of hours. She stepped out of the room and walked down the hallway, in order to confirm that none of the 'border limits' that were present during her photo-jumps were in place.

She returned to the bathroom, and hugged herself tight. She closed her eyes tightly, fighting back a sudden urge to cry.

Chloe. Oh shit...

What was it she'd experienced? A prophetic vision? A crisis-induced temporary expansion of her powers - one of several she'd had since escaping S.O.A.P. - that somehow tossed her mind permanently back to this point?

She turned back to the mirror and stared long and hard at herself, before peering over past her shoulder to where Chloe's peaceful, sleeping form was curled up in bed.

Chloe. I love you so much...

Gripping the edge of the sink, she slumped forward with almost all of her weight. In the span of a few heartbeats, she could feel it happening.

Her will, breaking at last.

This was a fight she was never meant to win..

It was crystal clear to her now. The future would always keep finding ways to punish her. Like Icarus, flying high, arrogant and free, Time itself would always find new and terrible ways to melt her wax wings and force her to come crashing down into the sea. Yes, she saved Chloe's father, but he died anyhow, and she lost her freedom and her parents in the bargain. Yes, she saved New York City, but it made her a murderer, and started a whole chain reaction of events that would ultimately destroy most of the world. And maybe, just maybe, she could figure out how to prevent that, but then she'd lose Chloe...or worse.

Sure, maybe she saved Kate's life, but who knew how long the Universe would let her have that victory? Perhaps it would at least take pity on the fresh-faced and innocent Blackwell student. Max could only hope there were moments that Reality didn't mind having changed about, and prayed fervently that was one of them.

But in the grand scheme of things, in regards to whatever path she herself was on? All she could see now was the never-ending struggle. A constant chess game, an ongoing and eternal duel. She and Time, forever destined to trick and trap each other.

A line from an old movie she once saw as a small child rose up unbidden in her mind…

…the only winning move is not to play.

There was still a naive piece of her: the eternal optimist. The part that wanted to fight, to never give up hope, to struggle until the very end against impossible odds. She brutally quashed those natural impulses down as hard as she could. She needed to do this, and do it fast. Go back, erase and rewind. Knock out the keystone, and let the whole framework of her life over the past five years fall apart. Just like her Future Self demanded. Just like the Chloe would beg...had already begged her to do.

But she didn't have to sit idly by and let it happen, either. She'd be in a time and a place where she could still make a difference. One last face-off. If the Universe wanted William Price to die in 2008, then so be it. But there was still so much more she could do, afterwards…

As she stepped out the door, her girlfriend was there waiting, eyes still blurry and half lidded. The first few rays of dawn shone softly through the window.

"Mmmm...Max? Baby? Y'okay?"

Max swallowed hard, feeling like she was pushing razor blades down her gullet. She nodded rapidly, pushing gently past, towards the chair where she inelegantly threw her clothes. Her hands dug quickly through, until she found what she was looking for: the picture of the two of them, from 2008.

She sat down on the edge of the bed, obscuring the photo from her girlfriend. She couldn't allow her to see what she was about to do until it was too late. She glanced at her lifeclock, figuring that knowing the time at this moment could be useful for what was about to happen

CURRENT LOCAL TIME: Saturday, October 12th, 5:57 AM (GMT - 10)

Finally glancing over towards Chloe, she said, "B-bad dream. Must be all the stress and weirdness catching up with me at last. Sweetie, could...could you could sit behind me, give me a shoulder and neck rub?"

Chloe smiled tenderly, leaning in to give her a sweet, soft kiss on the lips before curling up behind her. Long, surprisingly delicate fingers moved to seek out the knots in her muscles. She leaned in and whispered against her ear, "It's gonna be okay, babydoll. I promise. We're gonna get through this. As long as we're together. We can get through anything."

Max barely nodded, finally turning the picturing around in her hand. Narrowing her eyes and focusing on it intently. Chloe continued to murmur encouraging words, her voice mingling in Max's mind with soft snatches of laughter from a younger version, years past. It was easier to push through this time; God knows, she traveled this particular path enough so that she could suss out the directions by instinct.

The photo was already fuzzing around the edges. Another few seconds, and she'd experience the now-familiar mental jolt, as her psyche was transported across the years.

She breathed out her last words in this timeline.

"I love you, Chloe Price. I always will."

Max immediately gets to work as she assumes control. With Chloe and William happily bantering away in the kitchen, it's easy for her to snatch the offending picture off the table and carelessly toss it into the fireplace. It peels, melting into sludge, sizzling quietly as it becomes ruined. She expects to feel something. Anything. After all, she's just created a massive causal paradox.

She has a lot of work to do, and not so much time to do it in. Then laughs at herself, as she realizes that no, actually, she has all the time in the world. However long it will take to pull off this one last trick.

It's easier to freeze the flow of Time this go around; there are no headaches or bloody noses, as if the Universe wants her to do this. She thinks it takes her an hour of thought to decide how to proceed, but what is an hour, when hours are meaningless?

Making her way over to a nearby desk, she retrieves a pen, a notepad, and several envelopes. The first letter she writes is her magnum opus, the grand narrative of her years at the mercy of S.O.A.P. and the Damocles Initiative. She straddles the line between highly detailed and overwhelmingly exhaustive, but it's critically important that if - hopefully when - Camilla receives the letter, it is nothing short of absolutely convincing. She gets the point across, why it's so important that Davies listens to the words of some random stranger from a timeline that no longer exists, and why Max needs her to try and save New York City, five years from now.

All while keeping it quiet from Martinet.

By the time she finishes, her fingers throb painfully from exertion, and her eyes ache from reading and re-reading what she's written. She gathers all of the pages up and deposits them into a large manilla envelope, with instructions to hand deliver the letter to Camilla's personal address before the year 2011; she figures that ought to be enough time for her younger self to figure out how to make it happen, and for her old mentor to do something useful with the information.

The next letter is short and to the point. Sealed in an envelope marked "MAX: DO NOT OPEN UNTIL JANUARY 1st, 2013." Hopefully she'll do so, this version of herself she's about to dramatically change the life of. In the process, maybe Stella Hill will be spared, not to mention preventing Kate from being pushed to the brink of suicide.

The final letter she leaves folded up, bereft of an envelope. This is the message that explains the other two. The one that ties all of the pieces together as neatly as possible. Max realizes that she has absolutely no idea if any of this is going to work; she's taking it entirely on faith. But at the same time, she knows herself. She thinks about what she might do, if their positions were reversed.

She's barely able to get to her backpack, sitting as it is in the front hallway, almost out past the border of where she can interact. It's a difficult reach, but she manages to tuck the letters away, hopefully to be discovered only after it's too late to do anything about poor William.

Max is so tired now. Spent. God only knows how long she's been up. She feels like she should be hungry, thirsty, needing to take a bathroom break. But there is only the pain in her fingers.

And eyes.

And heart.

She does her best to keep from mourning over what's about to happen. Again. For the first time. Restoring the chain of events that led to this long, strange saga in what had been, up to this point, an otherwise perfectly normal thirteen year-old life. She hopes against hope that things go the way they should, because she's obviously not going to get another shot at this.

She knows she'll be strong when Chloe needs her to be, in the weeks and months to come. She hopes that when the moment arrives, and her past self passes near that threshold of human evolution, she'll somehow keep herself from crossing over.

Crossing...over…

Max reminisces over the horrible realization she made, when finishing the last letter.

"What happens when the timeline straightens out? What...what if I wake up, in her body...and…"

...and effectively kills the new version of herself. One that's hopefully happier; one who belongs in this timeline, one who deserves to go on to a long and joyful life.

Max feels ashamed, as she realizes that, despite the need for all of this, she doesn't want to die…

...but she doesn't want to kill to prolong her life, either!

She tried her best to warn herself. She prays that perhaps it'll work out differently this time. Maybe with some warning, and with her not wanting to go forward, and with the long-overdue restoration of the prime timeline, everything will go the way it should.

...but she's still scared to die.

This is the dichotomy that forces the tears from her eyes, and the soft, silent sobs from her chest. When she hears William heading out the door, she gasps and tries to pull herself together; Time apparently got tired of waiting for her to release her hold, and took the opportunity to reassert its flow.

She glances quickly over her shoulder, catching a brief glimpse of Chloe's father, for what she knows will be the very last time.

Chloe notices her; she walks over, concern and confusion written all over her face.

"Hey, Max. Are you okay? What's wrong? Are...are you crying?"

Chloe and the living room...it all fades away.

"It-it was a really nice service, Chloe. Your Dad - I mean - I think he would have..."

Max regretted the words as soon as they left her mouth; they sounded so weak, so stupid. As if the perfect way to wipe away Chloe's grief was somehow out there, and she was a shitty friend for not immediately divining what it was. The other girl seemed too lost in her mourning, tears flowing freely down her cheeks and mouth, to have noticed; for this small kindness, Max found herself grateful.

She instead focused on tightening her embrace, comforting arms wrapped around her best friend since - well, as far back as her memory could take her. It was barely two weeks ago, when they had been laughing and fooling around, Chloe and her father making pancakes and talking about their someday-future trip to Paris, before the call came in.

The one from Joyce.

The one that ended up killing William.

"Oh God. It hurts Max. It hurts so fucking much."

Chloe had tried to hold it together during the funeral - tried too hard, really - and it was finally gushing all those previous days where she should have been crying, freaking out, and angry, but wasn't - like she was just in shock - was now rising up to the surface. She dammed it up, and now that dam was cracking at last.

This was no dream; there would be no miracles. Wonder Woman wasn't going to swoop down and save everyone at the last second. There'd be no clever sitcom twist, where everyone realizes William's death was just a big misunderstanding. There was only what was in the here and now: his passing would mar the lives of all who had known and loved him.

For Chloe? There was a Daddy-shaped hole in her heart that would never close again.

Max stared numbly out at the wall, feeling so terribly small and helpless against the world, filled as it was with cruel indifference. She'd never dealt with death before aside from a housepet. Both of her parents, and all of her grandparents were still alive, not one of them yet ripped away from her. At the end of the day, she'd leave this room, walk away from Chloe and her Mom, back to her own home. To the loving embrace of her own mother. And her own, still quite alive father.

Not..fair. It's not fair! I'm a failure! I'm SUCH a failure, oh Chloe, I'm so sorry! What can I do? How can I make you feel better. How can I...?

She stifled a soft groan, closed her eyes tightly as a wave of pain swept over her forehead, burrowing down acidly into her stomach, where it blossomed into another fresh swell of nausea. Max told herself it was just from all the shittiness of William's passing - not to mention the really, really creepy letters she found in her backpack, the day after he died - blithely ignoring the fact that the headaches began a good month earlier, although they'd only rapidly grown in frequency and intensity since that day.

As she worked to figure out how to distract herself from her own physical pains, she squeezed Chloe a little tighter, tenderly stroking her sandy blond hair; then stared off into space, letting her gaze focus on a blank spot in Chloe's wall…

...she couldn't help but feel that something important was missing there.

No...really...there should be something…

All at once, she felt supremely light-headed. Almost giddy. In one extraordinary moment the world pulsed around her, and she was absolutely possessed by the notion that if she concentrated hard enough, focused her will, she could do it! She could go back, and using her knowledge of events to come, change the past. She could spare Chloe and herself all the terrible heartache of William's tragic death. The universe would grant her heart's desire, but only for this one singularly unique moment in time.

All she had to do was wish hard enough. And just figure out how to go back!

Her eyes darted around the room, desperately searching.

If only...if only…why couldn't she..?

And then her heart froze solid, and panic seized her, to the point where she wanted to burst out crying.

Oh...oh shit! Oh shitohshitohshit! It's happening! Just like the letter said it would! I didn't believe it before, not really! But now I do... I don't...understand! Don't think about changing the past….that's what it said. Don't think...don't think about….don't! Oh God! Make it stop! Please! Please make it stop! I don't want this! I dont!

Max buried her face against Chloe's shoulder, dimly grateful that her friend interpreted her action as one borne of a shared grief. She willed herself to think of everything and anything but going back and changing the past.

So instead, she thought of the future.

She thought of the dark days yet to come. The hard, frustrating, agonizing times that she and Chloe would go through. Wondering how, and why, fate could be so cruel.

But they would go through them together. And together, they would be strong enough to survive.

I believe in you, Chloe! I believe in us! Maybe we can't change the past, but we can make a better future for ourselves! I'm going to be there with you, every step of the way. I promise…

"...I p-p-promise!", she sobbed out.

That small window supreme potential faded at last, like a blooming flower opening up, but then closing after a few precious seconds, ultimately unnoticed and unappreciated. Max felt that moment, where the eyes of Reality were set upon her and her alone, quickly bleed away, her fear replaced with equal parts relief and regret.

She was absolutely certain she'd just missed her chance to be something spectacular, something more than merely human.

But at what cost?

Later that evening, as she was getting ready for bed, Max opened up her desk drawer and silently stared at the three letters sitting inside.

I gotta get a lockbox or something to keep these in. Now that I know that this is all real...for cereal.

She forced herself to pick up the letter on the top. It was still a bit wrinkled, having been originally crumpled up and tossed into the trash, then retrieved and smoothed out a week earlier. She opened it up, placed it down on her desk, and made herself read the words, truly understanding and believing in them now:

Dear Max,

This must be really fucking weird for you, huh? Finding this letter, in your own handwriting. And there's this gap in your mind: maybe you recall writing these words, but you don't remember why. You might not even have realized you put it in your backpack, until you open it up, and there it is. That was me, from five years in the future. My mind, in your body, taking control. Cleaning up a few critical issues, and then writing these letters to you. Life is strange that way, I guess. Sorry, but it's about to get a lot stranger.

If everything goes the way I hope it does, you're reading this after William's death. I'm sorry. You have no idea how much that hurt me.

..no, you know exactly how much. Because you're me, and I'm you.

In two weeks from now, you and Chloe will be sitting in her room after the memorial service. She'll be in such pain. Now, this is the part that's going to be hardest for you to believe, but you need to. I can't even begin to explain how important it is that you do exactly as I say.

You're going to have a feeling - although that barely describes how powerful it will be - that you can go back and change the past. That you can save William. That you can end Chloe's pain, and make everything good, the way it should be. That you can be a hero...you can be her hero. Your best friend in the whole wide world. It will feel like nothing you've ever experienced before.

I know this because five years ago - from my perspective - I was you, and I accepted this insane, crazy notion. There were headaches and nausea and generally just feeling like shit, worse and worse, over the past month. It all blew up on that one day. I was so desperate to give Chloe peace that I locked onto a picture hanging on her wall; it's one that doesn't exist anymore, the one that William took of you and Chloe on the day he died, and that I've now destroyed. In my timeline, I just sort of fell into it. Fell back into the past.

With my knowledge of what was going to happen, I stopped William from being killed. And then I woke up in a whole new timeline, where he was still alive, and Chloe...oh God! She was so happy! Even more amazing, I found I could now control the flow of time. I could rewind back a few minutes. I could fix mistakes and win bets. I always had the right answer to give in class, because I'd just rewind back and act like I knew it all along. And I could warn people, when something bad was about to happen to them.

I was an actual superhero! For real. And for a little while, they felt like the best days of my life.

But then the Government found me. I won't scare you with the details, but it was pretty terrible, the things they did to me over the course of five years. They wanted to turn me into a weapon, into their own personal oracle. I thought it was all worth it though, when they sent me out to use my now-massively enhanced powers to prevent a huge disaster from occurring. But it turns out that the way I tried to save everyone only made things worse. For the entire planet. Billions dead.

And they were the lucky ones.

I had to go back, Max. I had to undo everything. I need you to understand that something happened that was...amazing, and incredible, and fantastic...but so wrong, and deeply terrible. But at the same time, this is my chance. This is our chance to make everything better.

You're going to experience that same moment, that epiphany. Where you feel like you can do anything, and you understand everything, and the universe is going to be willing to grant you your fondest hearts desire.

DON'T CHANGE THE PAST! DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!

Please! Accept that what's happened is supposed to happen. As shitty and unfair and stupid as it seems. The best thing you can do is be there for Chloe. Keep being the best friend that you've been to her, for all these years. Help her get through the pain and the heartbreak. Help her find a better future for herself. Never let anyone or anything keep you two apart! She is amazing, and the two of you together are the most fantastic thing ever.

So only focus on that future, Max. The future you two are going to share.

Now, I'm sorry, but I have to ask you to do two more things. You're probably freaking out like crazy at this point; I don't blame you, but I know you can be strong. A lot of lives are at stake. There's a big manilla envelope, with a Seattle address on it but no name. That's intentional. I need you to hand deliver it to that address. DO NOT mail it, that would be a really bad idea. But you need to get it to that address as soon as possible, certainly before the year 2011. You can just slip it under the door. Please don't read any of what's inside. I mean, I can't stop you, but believe me when I say it's for the best if you don't. I don't mean to put more pressure on you, but there are literally millions of lives at stake in the future and the only person who can possibly do anything about it needs all of the information in that envelope. Please, please, please deliver it.

And there's the last letter. Do what it says: open it, but not before January 1st, 2013. I mean, I suppose you could go and peek inside early if you really want to, but you won't understand it much until the time is right. There's also lives on the line, and a chance to save them.

Finally: this is the part I have been avoiding. I almost don't want to tell you, but I realize you have every right to know what might be coming for you. Let me jump to the point: This is not the first time I've 'taken over' your body, trying to fix the past. It's more like the fourth. So I have a fair amount of experience about how this aspect of my power works. While I am hoping and praying that this time it will be different, it's also possible, even likely, that on Saturday, October 12th, 2013 around 8:57 A.M. (if I'm remembering the difference in time between Oregon and Hawaii correctly...long story) your mind will suddenly be permanently 'overwritten' my mine. You will simply cease to exist as a person, and I will take over completely. It seems to be a side-effect of my ability, when I go back this way and change the past. I'm telling you, because I'm seriously hoping that somehow, you knowing this will tip the odds in your favor. Or at the very least, I think you have the right to know, so you can prepare for the end.

I am so, so sorry. Believe me, I don't want to hurt you. But it's too late now. When that day in the future comes, either nothing will happen, and you'll go on living your life, or suddenly, my mind will overwrite and destroy yours; I will wake up in this new timeline with no real memories of all the changes that have occurred.

Have the best possible life, Max. I mean that. I suppose I may see you in five years...but to be honest, I hope you never hear from me ever again.

Sincerely,

Max Caulfield

October 12th 2013.

Max suppressed the urge to burn the letter. When she read it the first couple of times, she almost laughed to herself. It sounded impossible to the point of insanity. As creepy and unnerving as reading it felt, there was a loud, strong part of her brain that clung fast to the comforting simplicity of Occam's Razor; surely, she was the victim of an incredibly elaborate practical joke.

But now? After today, after what she experienced, where she was certain she could have somehow found a way to go back into the past and change it, but was convinced to do otherwise?

Her Future Self's final words of warning echoed hauntingly in her mind.

Folding the letter back up, and putting it away in her drawer, she slowly crawled into bed and turned off the light. Hugging one of her stuffed animals to her chest, she stared up numbly at the ceiling for hours, tears dripping from her eyes. She didn't understand much of what was going on, but she knew she didn't want to die.

"Oh my God. What do I do now?" she begged.

A/N: Hey folks...

So I thought to myself, "It's not like I need to stagger the publication of chapters so I have time to write. So why make folks wait until next week for this?" However, as I mentioned previously, it may be a good month before the three part finale is published. But my plan is to put out all three pieces over the course of one week, so that will require a lot of extra time to polish, and get 25K or more worth of words ready all at once. And work is going crazy, and then I have a two week vacation coming up, and NQW has her busy life as well. But yeah, we'll get it out as soon as we can :-)

As I mentioned in previous notes, the ending for this series has been extra-difficult to pin down over the last few weeks and months. It's very different from what I conceived of almost a year ago when I started, but I think it's better and makes more thematic sense, both within the context of the story itself, and as a reflection of the events in the game. At once point, there was a brief discussion about THIS chapter being the very end, and while the shock factor appeals to me somewhat, I just couldn't leave that many questions unanswered. I then had another idea, but that would have required a 100K to 150K word denouement - or more!, and 25K is big enough as it is :-) Anyhow, I'll go more in depth over the envolution of the ending process as I post the pieces up; I don't want to give away too much right now.

Suffice it to say both Corentin IV and NuQueerWarhead have made tremendous contributions in terms of ideas, critique, and brainstorming with regards to the ending, and things would be very different without their input.

I'm sure some folks will love the ending, others may..not so much. But I guess we'll find out in a few weeks, huh? :) And can you believe it? I'm starting to think there's a chance we might actually - if just barely! - crack the 300K mark by the very end.

Have a wonderful weekend!