Disclaimer: Anything familiar to you, I don't own. This is a work of fanfiction for personal amusement, fulfillment and a bit of self-therapy. I make nothing from any of it.
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Theseus at Aegeus' Feast
September 18th, 2011 3:24 PM
Chloe turned bleary eyes on the westernmost hall of Blackwell Academy. Something jumped out at her as wrong the moment she did, but it was hard to place just what that was. There certainly wasn't anyone around. Given that lockers stretched most of the hallway, it was usually the most bustling spot in the building. Unless everyone's in class, Chloe realized. What class am I supposed to be in right now? When Chloe thought about it, no answer came up. Guilt bubbled up in her: she had been shirking school so often and so badly that she didn't even remember what class she was supposed to be in and when? Her father was going to be disappointed. She glanced about once, twice for the nearest classroom, but found no doors waiting for her along the side of the halls. Instead, blue and red and orange, the lockers simply stretched on forever.
The only door was one at the far end of the hallway. Thick and wooden, she recognized it immediately as the door to the art room, only that stretch of wall should have held a pair of glass double doors which led outside. Not right, Chloe thought. Not right at all. Then again, none of this was right. Only a few minutes ago, it seemed, she was extracting a promise from Rachel that she would stay up and shake Chloe and Max awake before they made it back to Arcadia Bay. Chloe hadn't been looking forward to stumbling back home half asleep with the prospect of telling Steph everything still ahead of them. You're asleep. You're dreaming, genius.
Chloe took a moment to glance down at herself. Satisfied that this was not one of those 'showed up to school in my underwear' dreams she was so fond of having before tests, Chloe decided to have fun with things. If she was going to be the flavor of nerd who had dreams about being in school, she should at least make full use of it. The hallway was laid out wrong and far too dim for her liking. Looking up showed the expected lights lining the ceiling. It's also quiet, too quiet. Chloe exhaled and then, with little more than a hitch in her breath, told herself that the lights were on, the hall was full of students.
Usually, when Chloe found herself in a dream, it was that simple. Today it was not. The hall stayed eerily quiet and dark. That's weird, she told herself as she made for the door at the end of the hall. That only usually happens when- ah, right. Chloe noticed right off the bat that something felt strange about the floor beneath her feet but it became evident only seconds later that she was not getting any closer to the tall, thick wooden door waiting for her, teasing her. Of course. The art room. Chloe sighed. This was not going to take simple lucid dreaming.
She understood why the floor moved beneath the soles of her boots or her arms ached when she tried to lift them in slow motion. She understood why the lights did not come up or the hall populate spontaneously with people. Chloe closed her eyes against the rest of the hallway, the familiar cool tile floor and rows and rows of lockers. Sure enough, coming from the direction of that door, she could hear a girl's voice. This was not her dream. Oh no. The thing was, her dream or not, dream physics could still be bent her way or at least ignored completely. It was just a different trick.
When she opened her eyes again, the hall looked different. It was still dark, certainly but less hued as well. From there Chloe did not walk so much as glide. It was less the floating of a ghost from a shitty cartoon and more like sliding across ice. This was part of moving through dreams, to dreams, from dreams. This was not her world so she did not need to be part of it. The girl on the other side of the classroom door became more and more audible as Chloe approached, practically skating down Blackwell's hall. Max, it sounded like, was becoming more and more distressed by the second. Max's dream. Chloe looked around the dark, elongated hallway missing many of its doors. Max's nightmare.
Eventually, Chloe could reach out to the door. When she tried to turn the knob it did not want to give. She would have been lying if she had told someone she hadn't been expecting that. She watched her pale-blue nails pass first through the wood, then fingers which seemed longer than normal, distended in this form, this echo of Chloe Price. Far sooner than expected she was on the other side of the barrier, feeling as if perhaps she had walked through a stream of water pouring down around her, and it was cold water. Max was calling out for people as Chloe righted herself, shivering.
"Hayden? Kate? Juliet?" the girl gave one quick jerk as she glanced about the room, pressing herself into one corner of the room. Then, as if desperate, "Victoria? Anyone?" She's looking for people who would be in class with her? Chloe asked herself, turning to take in the room. Max was staring at the front with wide, unblinking blue eyes that somehow in the darkness of the room were vibrant and live with her fear. That was where Chloe started and how she realized Max had not been alone in this strange, distorted mirror of the art classroom.
Sitting behind Mrs. Drewer's desk was a man who looked to be in his mid to late thirties. This man was dressed in a dark brown suit, the blazer hanging open casually to reveal an absurdly pristine, almost hospital-light-white dress shirt beneath. He was watching Max in total silence from behind thick black rimmed glasses through eyes Chloe couldn't make the color of out. Is this Jefferson? He did have a certain good look to him, sharp features and a fairly nice looking dark goatee. He was not quite the playboy Max had made him out to be, by the looks of things, but handsome. Should I be here? Chloe asked herself.
The last time she had stumbled into one of Max's dreams by accident, Max had been less than pleased. She won't notice me until I want her to, Chloe thought. It was just that, as Chloe traced her eyes across the darkened classroom, Max was fucking terrified. She was rooted to the spot, pressing herself as far back into the corner as possible, as if she would have loved to melt into the wall and never be seen again. Should I get out of here incase this violates her privacy or should I just end the dream? That was well within her powers, after all. Chloe hadn't thought of the repercussions, but she could end someone else's dream almost on a whim.
Or just show yourself. Last time she was pissed because I turned up in the middle of shit she was trying to keep secret. This Jefferson guy isn't a secret anymore. Up at the front of the room the man sat silent, his face a little querying, eyebrows slightly raised and hands folded atop the desk. It looked, for all the absurdities of the world around her and Max's fear, as if he had asked her a question and was waiting patiently for an answer. She heard some shuffling from the back and turned toward Max. The brunette was dressed in the grey sweatshirt that was probably ruined beyond all hope of repair, judging by the the state it had been in last time Chloe had seen her wear it. It was from this that she pulled her cell and began to press at the screen. Even with Max forced to look away, Jefferson remained unmoving, calm, patient. It was starting to become disturbing, surreal.
"Why is there never any signal?" Max exclaimed all of the sudden. "Rachel, Chloe, are you there?' She was not yelling into the phone. It lay discarded at her feet, apparently nonfunctional. "Steph? Kate? Taylor? Victoria? Anyone?" No, fuck this, Chloe decided and reached out. She was not reaching for Max, she was reaching up for the surface. The dream was like a pond and she had taken herself from the top down to the bottom so that she could move as she pleased through this fucked up mirror of her school. Now, she needed to breach that surface yet again. It happened all at once, really. One moment Chloe was watching the scene unfold with some confliction on what was ethical and the very next her feet hit the ground with a louder than average thump, her arms weighed a million pounds and she felt Max's exhaustion and even her fear as if it was her own.
Jefferson didn't even seem to notice her but the noise was loud enough that Max's head swung around. Chloe held up both hands to calm her. For a moment, Max felt relief. Chloe knew this because she felt it, too. This was the unfortunate side effect of this ability of hers. What Max felt, she felt, and often times they shared thoughts, ideas, sensations. Right now, Jefferson was waiting for Max to turn in a photo.
"So this is Jefferson?" Chloe asked her, when she was sure Max was paying enough attention to hear her. Max nodded, either eagerly or dismissively and started to motion Chloe over to her. She wants to protect me from him.
"Yes, get away from him. Like you promised me." Instead, Chloe watched the man behind the desk. He still hadn't turned to face her, to regard her at all. She played by the rules of the dream, but she was not part of it. There was nothing she could do to change that. "Chloe, please, get away from him."
"Max," Chloe said, as assertively as possible. "Listen to me." She took one long stride toward the front of the room and felt Max's anxiety tick up a notch. Chloe had hesitated too long, this had gone on too long. "Listen, you're having a nightmare." For a moment, she was met with skepticism, even outright doubt and suspicion. Then, slowly, Max's face changed to meet a new rush of emotions: comprehension, relief, sadness. "You understand? You're dreaming." Chloe glanced away from the girl even as she approached, checking the walls and ceiling of the room. They began to almost shimmer as Chloe reached Max. Slowly, the dark veil over the room faded to a light grey and began to drop like a fog, one sharp enough to obscure Jefferson before he vanished entirely. Either the dream's breaking down or Max has been practicing this 'lucid dreaming' thing herself. Still, it's nothing like what I can do.
"I'm dreaming," Max finally repeated to her and then reached out for Chloe. "Are you... you know, real?"
"I think so," Chloe told her, honestly. It was a rather disturbing thought that she might not be sure whether she was Chloe passing into Max's dream, or a Chloe belonging into Max's dream. Yeah, no, not in the mood for any existential shit today. Rachel and Max have had enough of that, as it is.
"You're in my dream, right?" Chloe tried to hold onto the mental image of Jefferson's face, at least until she could wake up and look him up on the internet, but it was possible she only had a short time before Max began to wake. Lots of people were forced awake when they realized they were dreaming. Though, if she has been practicing lucid dreaming, she might be good at it by now. Chloe reached out and when Max nodded her consent, wrapped her right arm around Max's shoulders. This apparently felt real enough to the brunette that she sagged slightly against Chloe. "We're on the bus, right?"
"Yes," Chloe told her in as calming of a voice as she could. The slow way with which Max spoke was something like computer lag, Chloe thought. Getting jarred out of your idea of what was real and what was not is disturbing. A few extra seconds of processing time to hold a conversation was more than reasonable. She tightened her arm around Max. "We're going home and this is just a shitty dream."
"For now," Max whispered, and began to steer the both of them toward a table. The pale, foggy room was at least stable around them, impressively enough. What a difference a year makes, Chloe thought. "But he's coming."
"I understand," Chloe lied. The truth was that she didn't entirely. Jefferson was a boogeyman from another world but he was coming to theirs and unfortunately the only one who really knew what that meant was Max, who was staring at her hands as if trying to convince herself that she wasn't really there instead of on a bus bound for Arcadia Bay from Portland. I should kill this dream. If I leave and a dream takes over, she might end up in a nightmare again.
"No," Max said, quickly. "No, please. Just a minute or two more, please." Chloe did not even blink at the transference of knowledge from her mind to Max's. Then again, when she spoke in here, wasn't that basically what she was doing, anyway? "I want to go home, Chloe."
"I definitely understand that," Chloe promised and sat on the table beside her, scooting close.
"I want you to try this again sometime, when I'm not... you know, having a nightmare?" Chloe blinked. "Coming into my dream, I mean."
"I didn't mean to come, it was an accident."
"It's okay," Max whispered to her. "Try it again some time... when we're home." Max turned more directly to Chloe, shifting beneath her arm. "I can't believe it, but it isn't just being with you and Rachel that makes it home. Blackwell fucks with me, but it's home. Is that crazy?"
"No." I think it's time to wake up. "Hey Max?"
"Yeah?"
"I'll see you on the other side, okay?"
The other side, as it turned out, was a surprisingly quiet Arcadia Bay. As Chloe settled onto the inter-city bus that would eventually take them as close as possible to Steph's house, she couldn't help but note the smell of smoke that still hung in the air, or the way that the roads were abandoned. If she had to guess there was some sort of warning in effect suggesting that everyone remain indoors, with the wind bringing smoke from a fresh wildfire to the city. In the last four decades the area around Arcadia Bay had seen two wildfires and they had had the same source each time. It was no surprise that the town's residents might be particularly stringent about staying out of the smoke.
In fact, as Chloe and her girls got off this second bus in relative silence, she wondered if classes had been canceled that day. It was certainly unlikely but not impossible. The smoke was truly thick in the air and parents bitching about the risk to Little Johnny's health might have been able to convince the school to take a day off and hope the wind changed direction. Chloe wasn't sure what the patterns were for the area, never having paid much attention but she also wasn't convinced that the prevailing winds were so easily influenced. Unless there's a storm rolling in, or something.
Me
Honey, we're home!
Steph
Had to hide the beer because reasons, but I've got coke, get in here.
Me
You mean the brown drink, right?
Right?
Steph
;-)
Me
NO EMOJI!
Steph's house (my house, too, right?) came into view a minute or two later. Her phone had not ceased to vibrate every few seconds since the last message, which led her to believe it was currently being spammed with emoji. Chloe decided it was better for them all if she did not check. Instead, she turned and, walking backwards, examined her girls. They still walked like the living dead. Humorously, the silence between the three was not stress or distance, even though if they had ever had a couple of more stressful or emotional days in a row, Chloe could not place them. No, they were just tired. That's not right, she told herself. I'm tired. They're beat to hell.
Less than twenty-four hours ago, still, Max had come into the house, drenched in mud and fuck knew what else, asking Chloe for the keys to her truck. Chloe turned away from the girls. Said truck came into view and she made for it, not feeling at all asinine that she wished to greet it before she went inside. Her phone continued to buzz every few seconds. Asshole's spamming me. She felt a little like a different person than she had been. Maybe I'm a smarter person. Nah, still a dumbass. Just the way I like it.
The girls behind her woke enough that Max mumbled something about her being a drama queen when she stopped behind the tailgate of her truck and gave it a soft pat. They were both still at the end of the driveway, though, so what did they know? Tracing her hand along its side, she came to a stop and paused at the driver's side door. Leading down from the handle were a couple of muddy streaks that looked too consistent to be random flecks of dirt that had just run down it.
"What's that?" Max asked. Chloe turned, surprised to find that the both of them had managed to sneak up behind her without her notice.
"I don't actually know," Chloe told her. Max had barely spoken since waking, saying just enough for Chloe to know that she was alright or at least, she wasn't angry. "It almost looks like pawprints?" Shaking her head Chloe ran her eyes over first Max's face and then Rachel's. As before, both looked ready to drop. "We don't actually have to do this tonight. I can take you back to the dorm and we can all talk tomorrow."
"There's a lot we need to get taken care of," Rachel disagreed. "We should at least start here." Why do I have the feeling they've been plotting something behind my back?
"Fine," Chloe answered as Max gave a nod of agreement. "Steph's been blowing up my phone with emoji ever since I told her we were back in town. I need to get inside before she starts back up." That, at least, earned a small, half-hearted smile from the blonde in front of her.
By the time that Chloe pushed the door open and made to announce herself, she could instantly tell that something was different. She was allowed only half of a second to guess at what that was before Rachel pushed her forward softly and she was forced to let the two in behind her. A loud noise met her ears that her brain registered as a dog barking from the kitchen. Rapid, light tapping, something small and hard against the hardwood floor followed next. Dog? Chloe thought, thickly. She glanced behind herself to see Max reaching back for the already shut door behind her. Definitely a dog, Chloe told herself as something squat and brown shot into the hallway.
"We've got a visitor," Steph called from the kitchen, her voice a little bit playful. "And I think he knows you." The brown blur was quicker than Chloe's thoughts in the moment but when it came to a stop, crouched and jumped she still recoiled into Rachel, who had to reach out to steady her. The dog in question was not lunging at her, but trying to reach up to her shoulders for the sake of, she realized, trying to lick her face. Oh holy shit. One loud bark sounded from an inch away from maybe her stomach before the dog landed and Chloe took a step toward him, giving Rachel and Max some room to breathe.
The dark brown shepherd-pit mix dropped immediately down onto all fours, as if looking to play. The fuck is Pompidou doing at our place? When Chloe reached for him, he pushed himself sideways, practically slamming into the wall. It didn't seem to matter to the dog, slim tail thumping against the wall with a powerful, rapid beat.
"Holy shit is that who I think it is?" Max asked. When Chloe glanced back, the photographer was easing past Rachel as Chloe trudged forward, trying to get the dog to back up and give them all a little more room. "Hey there, you little shit. I've been looking for you for a long, long time." Chloe stepped aside and let Max kneel down to his level which most dogs would've taken as an immediate sign that someone wanted to play. This fucking hound rolled onto his back and immediately bared his stomach, a sure sign that Max was what Frank had called a habitual offender when it came to spoiling the dog.
"I haven't seen him since he was a baby," Rachel told them both, sounding a little more alive if not quite as delighted as Chloe and Max. She certainly sounded relieved. Chloe was relieved too, come to think of it.
"I have," Chloe said. "Every time I came by."
"Same," Max replied, and then briefly began to rub the dog's bared stomach. "He's a fucking attention hound, aren't you, you little shit?" No matter the language she was tossing playfully at the dog, there was an absurd amount of joy in Max's voice. Chloe wanted to laugh, but the laughter felt a little unhinged where it gathered in the back of her throat, so she swallowed it.
The only question is why he's here. For one absurd moment, she thought that if she took the few steps toward where Steph was waiting on them in the kitchen, she might see Frank waiting with some sort of smartass comment about Rachel owing him a new house. That's not going to happen. Frank's dead. Her stomach knotted up, but when Max stood and the dog rose to follow suit, Chloe made for the kitchen. She heard Pompidou circling in front of Max and Rachel, blocking them in his excitement, but only whistled to call him along. As much as the three of them had decided they owed Steph an explanation, it was possible that Steph had one for them, too.
Pompidou nearly knocked her from her feet as he bolted past her and into the kitchen. Chloe rounded the corner and despite the stupidity of it all, looked once for a tall man in a dark jacket and a baseball cap before her eyes landed on Steph, instead. Steph had just sat down at a table set for four, at least, set with a can of coke. Life giving caffeine, Chloe thought to herself. My hero. The young dog paused in front of Steph and sniffed at her offered hand for a moment before plopping onto the floor beside her. Chloe couldn't help but notice the dog's head turning back and forth between Steph and Chloe, but she let eye contact drop when Rachel and Max rounded the corner as well. She hoped they were awake enough to get through this talk. And whatever else they're planning. Before anyone else could speak, Steph took one look at Max in the fresh tie dye and faded brown sandals.
"Did you run off to join some sort of hippie commune?" Steph asked the brunette. "Because that's totally you, and I can respect that." The comment broke ice that Chloe hadn't particularly noticed in her vague sense of disturbed wonder and she watched first Max, then Rachel pass her to settle around the table with Steph, greeting her with great strain evident in their voices. "Damn, you two look like shit frozen over, warmed back up and then left out on the lawn." Poetic, Steph. Chloe stopped a couple steps from the table.
"The fuck is Pompidou doing here?"
"Is that his name?" Steph asked her, gesturing for Chloe to sit the hell down. Chloe heard the pop of three different soda cans opening but she wasn't sure if it was that noise or the dog's name that made his ears perk up. It was, however, endearing. "What does that even mean?"
"I don't know, it's French or some shit," Chloe said, which was always the answer Frank gave if anyone asked. Frank, she considered, stopping yet again to stare down at the dog, who seemed blissfully unaware of her train of thought. "What in the hell is he doing here, though?" Despite herself, she laughed as the dog put his nose up and sniffed toward the table. She wondered if the soda left a particularly strong scent in the air.
"He just showed up last night after you left, I found him trying to fit into that deck chair you like so much. Didn't go so well for him." Steph kind of shrugged. "I told him to go home, but he didn't listen. Just kind of sat there and looked pathetic, and the smoke was kind of thick in the air and it was getting late, so I guess he wore me down. I figured you knew him because when I gave up and let him in he went right upstairs and went to sleep on your bed." Steph's a fucking softy, big surprise. Always taking in strays. Wait, my bed?
"He what?" Chloe asked. It actually made some sense that Pompidou might look for a familiar scent and come to that, given that there was probably a wall of fire between him and the RV. At that thought, Chloe was wildly relieved that the dog didn't get himself hurt. Not to mention that David didn't hurt him. "Did you sleep over here last night boy?" Chloe finally settled into a chair. Pompidou shifted on the ground between her own seat and Steph's, but he was clearly watching Chloe with a wagging tail. The pit-shepherd mix was not big but he was damn powerful and Chloe could hear it in the sound of tail against floor.
"Yep. I picked him some food up before I went to sleep. I don't know whose he is, but I left him and a bowl of kibbles out back this morning. He's scary well behaved." Chloe nodded. Frank was not necessarily what you might consider a good guy but he was not the monster some made him out to be. Pompidou was well behaved and generally kind. He just didn't seem to care for trespassers or threatening voices. Frankly, neither did Chloe.
"His owner died yesterday," Rachel said, a pronouncement that took the relatively amiable air away from the table. "He um, he killed himself, and then he got caught in that wildfire. I'm so glad Pompidou got away." Chloe would have reached for Rachel but she was sitting on the far side of the table from her. All the bluenette could do was hope that Max was aware enough to hear the tension and conflict in the blonde's voice. I could always say 'fuck this whole "tell all" thing' and make them both go to sleep for a few hours.
"You lost your owner boy?" Steph asked him. Of course, Pompidou was a dog. He did not respond. Chloe was thankful for that. It had been a crazy fucking day already and a talking dog would be enough to make her wonder how much of it had been imagined. Max is a time traveler, she reminded herself. Feeling just a bit more blank than a moment before, she reached down and offered the dog her hand. He sniffed it one or twice and gave it quick lick before flopping onto his side and demanding a belly rub. "Well, he seems to be all about you, Chloe and I like him. What do you think? Should we have a dog?" Chloe would much rather have seen Pompidou with them than wandering the streets, that much was for sure. Besides, she wouldn't admit this out loud but the idea of a dog that would react to people lurking around the house was comforting.
"What will your parents say?" Steph's face changed instantly, but not in the 'I'd rather not talk about it' way that it usually did whenever her parents were brought up. This was more like, 'I have something to tell you, so hold onto your ass.'
"About that," she started, "Dad's gonna be home in a few. Probably only for a few days." Chloe had met him once but at that point it had just been a "sleepover" and she had left a few hours after meeting him. This time things were going to be different.
"Oh," Chloe said. "Oh shit."
"He won't care about the dog and I sort of told him about you already."
"Does your mom know I'm living here?"
"Mom hasn't called me in a month," she said in response. "She didn't ask, I didn't tell. It's really dad's house, at this point and he's almost never here."
"Guess I gotta meet the landlord," Chloe said uneasily. At this she turned her eyes on Max and Rachel. They were still holding it together though neither had spoken in a few seconds. Max, in particular, had been especially quiet. The girl was looking down at her hands and something about the gesture told Chloe they needed to move on, and fast. How about before her dad gets here?
"Yep," Steph mused, "now about Pompidou?" The dog perked up at hearing his name. He had just stopped receiving the belly rubs he was asking for.
"Better here than the pound. Though, Frank kept him around to scare people who got too close to the RV."
"Frank? The dealer? He's dead?"
"Yes," Rachel said. Max still looked down at her hands. They're both exhausted. Half-lidded eyes and slouching postures gave that away.
"Damn, wait, the big ass dog barking in the back of the RV was you, little guy?" Steph leaned down toward him as if to examine him and laughed, pulling back all at once a moment later when his response was to accidentally stick his nose in her face. "Alright, that seals it. A dog who will bark when anyone skeevy or weird comes in the house sounds fine by me. But, fair warning."
"What?" Chloe asked.
"He slept on your bed last night, remember? Dog hair."
"Little shit," Chloe responded and then leaned back in her seat. Max hadn't looked up in some time but Rachel met her eyes when Chloe went searching and nodded her encouragement. Okay, so this is like the whole asking Max out thing all over again, she thought, we have something big to say, so it's up to me to start it. Chloe spared a second to figure out precisely what form her revenge was going to take and then just started. "So, Steph are you busy?"
"Not super, got an essay to outline later." The air changed immediately. Max looked up, Steph grew quiet and Rachel folded her hands in front of her. Pompidou didn't notice this, though. Instead he got to his feet and began to idly sniff around the table. Chloe noticed that Rachel was watching him not out of concern but out of curiosity. The blonde reached down for him when he came near and the dog spent an inordinate amount of time smelling her.
"We kind of want to tell you some things," Max said, surprising Chloe that not everything was going to be her responsibility on that front. I mean, I still don't quite grok the time travel thing completely myself. Chloe let loose a sigh of relief.
"Yeah, I got that, actually," Steph shot back, leaning forward with her hands resting around her mostly untouched can of coke. Chloe looked down and realized she had not yet opened her own. It pierced the sudden, thick silence. "You said you would tell Chloe and I 'everything'."
"Yes," Max agreed. "But it's more than that. All three of us are going to tell you pretty much everything, but um, you might not believe some of it."
"What, are you secretly the returned Jesus Christ or something?"
"No," Max said, making sure to emphasize her lack of amusement. It wasn't particularly great if Max was starting to find herself in a bad mood. That was typically a defense mechanism, as Chloe knew all too well. Maybe I will take over. For the moment Chloe rested her left hand against the dark wood table and used the right to drain half of the can of its sweet, sweet caffeine.
"But Chloe can spy on peoples' dreams and I can kind of, mess with wind, rain and fire," Rachel shot. Chloe rolled her eyes at Steph's dubious response. Yeah, and I'm the King of France.
"Sure, and I rode the first flying pig in existence to east Asia last night," was Steph's off the cuff response. Never mind, that's better. Chloe glanced between Max and Rachel once. The brunette took the lead again. Chloe decided she wasn't going to feel bad about it: sure, Max was tired but she was also the one who had suggested they tell Steph about all of this, just after returning home from one of the more stressful days of her life, of all the times. Chloe quite suddenly wished she could drag Max off to a quiet room and talk to her about how well she was holding together. The elder Max Caulfield had made it clear to Chloe that Max was probably going to be "a bit broken" for a while, needing time to think and put the pieces together, but her silence on, well, many things but especially the issue of her mental state was disturbing.
"When I first came to Arcadia Bay," Max started, "I thought I was a different person."
"What does that mean, exactly?" Steph asked her. "I mean, I've heard snippets of all of this for a while now, but I don't know what you mean."
"We didn't either, until this morning," Rachel reassured the girl. "Just listen."
Steph promised she would and, frankly, as Chloe listened, she came to understand even more about Max than she had while sitting in that shitty hotel restaurant, listening to Max struggling with trying to get an answer out of her older self, an answer that the older Caulfield simply kept telling her she already knew. That had been about the big revelations, the generalities. This time, when Max opened up, Chloe began to put together one hell of a picture of just who her girlfriend thought she was when she came back to Arcadia Bay.
Max's early time at Blackwell had been spent constantly "rewinding," constantly trying not to say something to upset anyone, constantly trying to make friends with Victoria and her crew, Nathan, even other members of the Vortex Club, always and forever, over and over. It sounded completely exhausting to Chloe's ears and she felt like, if she heard it in any greater detail than Max told the story to Steph, then Chloe might want to go lock herself in her room for a couple of days, too. By Max's figuring her first month in Arcadia Bay lasted almost three. This was a concept that Chloe knew Steph had trouble grappling with but, if anything, it put a piece or two about the last couple of days firmly into place.
All that bullshit, three months worth of work to try to fit in, try not to bring any trouble down on herself and to help people who needed it and Max had still gotten Nathan two months later. Chloe wondered what attracted Nathan to Max and couldn't help but think that maybe it was just her obvious vulnerability at the time. Nathan seems like a sick enough fucker. Maybe, though, it was her trying to reach out to him. Either way, listening to Max's description of losing the memories and feelings of her other self, or atleast experiencing them as they died down could have been the narrative of someone's descent into madness. Steph spent most of her time nodding to acknowledge Max or looking with concern at the other two. Max had just gotten to their return flight from LA when Steph shifted in her seat and the photographer's voice rose a notch. At the same time, Max lowered her head and winced a little, as if pained.
"And yes, Steph this is the part where you ask for proof, so I'll tell you something you've never told anyone." Half a second of silence later, without the expression on her face changing from that same one suggestive of a massive headache, Max spoke. "You've only kissed one boy to see if you were into them and it was hella awkward because he was your b-"
"That's enough," Steph called all at once, eyes widening. Her left hand rose to pull at the neck of her shirt in an exaggerated, cartoonish gesture of discomfort. "I believe you, I believe you." Max shut her mouth and, looking as if the pain was fading, relaxed. A small smirk rose to the photographer's face, enough that Chloe very nearly reached across the table to shake her, to make her finish that thought. Steph looked between Rachel, who had yet to sit back up, and Chloe. Rachel's not going to last much longer at this rate. "And you believe all of this, right? I'm not losing my mind?" Well, Chloe thought, I did hear you watching The Next Generation yesterday before school. Still, when it came down to, it, she thought this called for a serious response.
"Last week before that test on chapter eight of Slaughterhouse Five, you had a nightmare about working in a slaughterhouse," Chloe told Steph, shifting in her chair to face her directly. The movement was quick enough to draw Pompidou's attention from where he sat between Rachel and Steph."Only all the pigs were alive on the hooks." Steph blanched a little, and Chloe felt guilty for bringing it up. "I ended up in it by accident. Decided it was getting too bad and did my best to kind of, well, kind of break the dream."
"I woke up after that and couldn't get back to sleep for half an hour," Steph told her. "I know I didn't tell anyone about that." Now Steph turned her attention on Rachel. Chloe shook her head but Rachel only held up her hands.
"Trust me," she said, "You do not want me to show the shit I can do in your kitchen." Steph's mouth dropped open. And, she believes us. Max seemed to realize this too as the brunette huffed once and then drained what was left of her soda. "But for the most part Chloe's told you about all that comes up about her power: she can go through peoples dreams and learn things, talk to them, help them out of nightmares, that kind of thing. It's actually really cool and sometimes feels," Rachel both perked up and started to turn a little red at this but finished, "sometimes it feels really special. But I've used mine for kind of uh, messy things."
"Like the wildfire that they can't get put out?" Can we stop with the verbal dramatic stings? Rachel was finally sitting up straighter, but it was not due to any kind of positive energy, Chloe thought.
"It was an accident," Rachel promised. "Mostly, I mean. I meant to start a fire but it got too hot, spread too fast."
"I thought it was weird we'd have a fire this time of year. It's so wet and cold. Like that last one." Rachel lowered her head again as Steph figured it out.
"I didn't know that I could do things, back then," Rachel promises her. "That one was an accident that I don't think I can entirely be blamed for, but this one's my fault." Chloe wanted to argue with her. The truth was that there was some blame to go around for all of them. There was silence in the kitchen (beyond the sound of Pompidou panting, lazily) until Chloe asked if Steph had any questions.
"I do, actually." Of course you do. Chloe was starting to feel as if the day was never going to end, but the thought made her feel guilty, herself. Compared to the brunette and blonde beside her, did she really have any right to complain? They had both been through some serious shit.
"Go on," Chloe told her. She looked down at herself, the light overshirt, pale tee, ragged jeans. Strangely enough, Chloe wasn't sure if this was what she was wearing the night before or not. Okay, time's starting to get a little confusing for me and I'm not the time traveler. We need to wrap this up, hard.
"Do you go to peoples' dreams by choice?"
"Sometimes," Chloe admitted, feeling her face heat up a little. "If it's Rachel, who gave me permission, I do. Otherwise, I could be be in my own dream and accidentally just, slip into another or "wake up" in someone else's dream while asleep." Usually Chloe just immediately exited the scene whenever that happened. It had become surprisingly simple to just slip out of someone's mind and into nothing. All of that being said, if things were really bad in a dream she found her way into, she had trouble leaving people suffering. "As for my own dreams, I usually just use them to try to work out problems. It's scary useful when you can just talk to your own brain." I wonder if any of them are going to be able to get that.
"And you don't just naturally set things on fire?" Steph asked Rachel, as if Chloe's answer was sufficient. Oh, thank God. I need a power nap.
"It only happens when I am very, very angry and then most of the time, that's just accidental."
"Really, really angry like last November?" Steph queried her.
"Yes," Rachel shot back, her voice hard as if to say that she was not ashamed, not ashamed of that at all. Chloe watched the two girls share a knowing look. Max, on the other hand, was looking pointedly down at Pompidou who now had his head in her lap, demanding attention. Max itched between the dog's ears. He always gets it, the hound.
"As for you," Steph rounded on Max all at once, causing the girl to lift her head a little higher, "have you ever used her powers to, I don't know, mess with me?"
"The first two sessions of your D&D game, that first one? I used my power then." Steph was looking at her, open mouthed and incredulous. It took Chloe a second to figure out why. Max almost laughed as it hit her, too. "Not for the game, but to make sure that I didn't fuck up and upset someone with something I said. I feel guilty about it now but back then it seemed so important."
"And that's the only time?" Steph pushed.
"I mean, I've probably done it about five or six times since then to stop you from some minor accident, and then once when you almost ran into Nathan throwing a fit early the first week of school." Steph looked pensive for a second.
"This explains why you're always wherever anyone needs you to be, always there when something goes wrong for them. God damned superhero." That doesn't sound like another question.
"Max," Chloe started, "Rachel, you two are going to want to take like, a half hour nap or something."
"Why?" Max asked. "I mean beyond being fucking tired?"
"Because I'm fucking tired."
"Pompidou's bed isn't big enough for all three of you," Steph declared and then rose to her feet. "Someone's gonna have to take the couch and the other can have my bed. As for Chloe, there's a floor or she can fight the dog for it." Yeah, sounds good.
"Fight the what for who?" This last voice came from a tall man of obvious Mediterranean descent, his dark hair slicked back as if to distract from the fact that it was beginning to thin. Even if Chloe had not met George once before, she would have recognized him as Steph's father in an instant. As if realizing he had somehow missed the sound of the front door opening and admitting the man, Pompidou leapt to his feet, barking and sped across the room to check out this new person and see if he liked them. Oh god, this day never ends.