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 Forty-Three: Liekos III V IX

December 22nd, 2011 8:25 PM

It was usually a sad occasion right before a break, especially one of the longer ones, when Chloe and Rachel were forced to say goodbye to Max. Certainly Christmas Break was not nearly as long as bad as say, summer, but it was still a fair amount of time apart, time when Chloe and Rachel could wake up and reasonably assume the ability to see each other whenever they wanted. They just would not have quite the same easy access to Max. For this reason among others it was not a surprise that the air in the Gingrich household was rather somber that evening. It was, however, a little worse than usual.

Over this break, you see, it was not just the distance that was going to be able to mess with them but also the promise of what was coming. By the time she and Rachel were reunited with Max-who was now pressed to her side balancing a glass between her knees-Blackwell Academy would have changed: Max's favorite teacher would be dead at the hands of an aggressive type of cancer and the man hired to take her place would be on his way to Arcadia Bay. By all signs, the celebrity alum was a monster who was already slated to take over next year, anyway.

With Max's help, Chloe, Rachel and Steph had long since looked up what they could on Mark Jefferson. What became clear pretty immediately was that his past was not exactly spotless. By some unsubstantiated reports he had some tendencies that made him come off rather shady, especially in relation to how he acted around young women. Since none of those had ever come to fruition there had not been any legal proceedings to mar his record, but she was still a little impressed that the hint of impropriety had not been enough to make Blackwell's collective nose turn upward. Max's otherworldly predictions looked to be coming to fruition. The Devil was coming to Blackwell.

Chloe took a long sip from her glass as she tried-and failed- to make it seem as if she was paying more attention to the television screen than the girl up under her arm. Tonight's drink was very sophisticated for them: cheap, off brand root beer mixed with Kraken rum. At least, that was what most of them were drinking. Sitting on the table at the far end of the couch, beside Steph, was a half-empty glass next to a bottle of, frankly, expensive whiskey. Chloe recalled her distaste for the drink upon trying it. She had been forced to ask Steph why she would willfully drink the swill.

Her answer: 'I like this scotch. A lot. I like the taste. I like the smell. I like the feel of it in my hand.'

Chloe shook her head. Some people were strange about their drink and, apparently, Steph was one of those. Chloe sat her drink back on the table and brought the hand that was not wrapped around Max's shoulder to rest atop the girl's knee. Max lifted her head, smiled briefly and returned to watching the reboot of Battlestar Galactica. It was, at least, safe sci-fi. Chloe had never seen it before and was doing her best to give its leading characters a chance to live up to the antics of Chewey, Han and the bunch. Few things beyond maybe Firefly managed that.

"Max, you okay?" Chloe murmured as the show stretched on. She had made a concerted effort to keep the question quiet, both not to interrupt the show for Rachel or Steph and not to draw attention to the stiff way Max's face sat, frozen, unchanging. This again forced the brunette in her arms to look up. Rachel reached over to the table beside her as she sat in the recliner and took a long sip from her own drink, hazel eyes locked on the two of them as if she had heard and taken notice, after all.

"Not really," Max finally answered, then, as if trying to be flippant, she muttered, "But I'm getting there. Maybe in another drink I will be." Chloe didn't like that answer, but all she could think to do was tighten her right hand on Max's right knee and shake it softly. "I'm ready for it, if that's what you mean." By this point Steph had turned to listen in on the conversation. Attempts to keep things quiet had failed so Chloe abandoned the pretense and voiced a concern she had been keeping in all night.

"Rachel said you talked to Drewer yesterday," some tense half-political situation unfolded on the screen between Old Big Shot Military Guy and his son, Young Big Shot Military Guy. Chloe tuned it out in the moment, in favor of Max's response. She would rather they had a chance to talk things out before Max left the next day.

"I did," the girl told her. "I thanked her, told her she was my favorite teacher, that she touched my life and my art and-you know what?" Max asked. "It's true. She did. I feel like a lot better of a photographer now than when I came here. I've been taking lots of pictures this month."

"That's for sure," Chloe told her. "You've probably burned through more film in the last month than half of last school year."

"Well, it's something that, you know, that other Max told me back in LA. After I came to Blackwell, I used to tell myself it was my motto, now, but I hadn't really thought about it in a while."

"What was that?" Steph asked, not having been present. Then again, Chloe had been there and couldn't quite pick out what Max might have been talking about.

"'Always take the shot.'" Max paused a moment as if tasting the words on her tongue and then shrugged. "Anyway, I took a photo of Drewer and I together. I'll probably send it to her family, or put it up somewhere when the news hits the school." Rachel was leaning forward in her chair. Chloe gestured for Max to go on. There was something about the lilt to the girl's voice that made it clear there was more she wanted to say. Considering that Max had said very little since Chloe picked her and Rachel up from the school four hours ago, Chloe was ready to hear it. Tonight had been reminiscent of Max's bad days back when she was keeping her fears a secret: just quiet enough to be disturbing. "It's making Jefferson a lot more real to me. By the time I come back, he'll probably already be here and then it all starts. "

"What all?" Steph asked, as if looking for clarification. "All the shit he does?"

"All the shit we'll have to do to keep up with him, to catch him in the act but do it before someone gets hurt. I have to find out it happened within a certain time frame to really be able to use my power to help, unless..."

"Unless what?" Rachel prompted her.

"Well, unless I take a photo every day and make sure to time and date it."

"That shouldn't be too hard," Chloe said, both encouragingly and a little teasing. "Maybe a morning selfie?"

"Have you seen my bed hair?" Max asked, whipping out her 'Max humor'. Chloe gave her a sympathy chuckle and smiled, reaching out to mess up Max's hair. The girl clearly did not see it coming but she did huff once, loudly about it when Chloe was done. Rather than conversation dying out or really shifting topics, surprisingly it was Rachel who kept the conversation going. Hopefully it would help to exorcise some of Max's demons before the brunette was out of their reach.

"I got Victoria to stop being an asshole long enough yesterday to start talking about her favorite photographers," Rachel said. "I don't know what you said to her at that halloween party, but it did something." Max shrugged noncommittally. "Jefferson's one of them, you know? One of her heroes."

"I know," Max said. "She will trust him implicitly and this timeline is so different now that I don't know if she'll be safe from him for as long as she was in the other one. But if I'm honest?" Steph patted the girl on the shoulder to prompt her. "If I'm honest, I hope that the Chases are the reason Wells hired Jefferson. Or maybe he just did it because he was a famous Blackwell alum. Either way, I really hope he's not in league with the Prescotts yet."

"If he was, though," Rachel asked," doesn't that mean we know where to pay attention?" Max nodded as if she had not quite considered that and then shook her hand as if the idea was lukewarm to her.

"Yeah but it also means there's not much we can do to stop him from getting his claws in Nathan. Maybe he already has them. Either way, Nathan could have already given him the idea to drug people, take them down to the Dark Room and photograph them." I really don't like Max leaving us before something like this. This is our last night together before Mrs. Drewer dies, and the kind of creep that makes Max scared comes to take her place.

Chloe jumped as Pompidou's head suddenly wormed its way onto Max's leg from where he stood just in front of them. Max chuckled as the dog sniffed at her and then looked up at her with those large, begging eyes. Chloe wondered if he could tell Max was feeling unwell or just wanted ear scratches which Max gave out by the boatload. Rachel fell quiet again. The actress had been going through a thing or two, too. Chloe was well aware that rachel had had trouble processing her part in Frank's death, not to mention started thinking about college. Unfortunately, Chloe thought, she can only talk to her therapist about one of those things.

One thing was for sure, Chloe realized as she moved her right hand and joined Max in petting the shepherd-pit mix who was giving a bit too much in the way of attention to the glass Max was holding out of his reach. The couch was going to end up as the scene of a mass cuddling before the night was through.

January 17th, 2012 7:15 AM

They had been back at the school for a week but, given Monday off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Rachel had decided that she and Max were going to take that day to themselves. Unfortunately, on Monday, Max and Rachel had been out on the grounds of campus when the newest teacher at Blackwell Academy finally arrived. Rachel had seen him in photos but had been forced to admit to Max that he was fairly attractive in person. Mark Jefferson, she learned that day, swaggered when he thought only one or two people were watching, but when there were more eyes on him he walked with a practiced, composed and confident stride. The man had actually stopped and took a photo of the school before going into it. Max had theorized he was probably preparing his classroom for himself but she had also wanted to leave campus immediately. Rachel had understood and found a fair compromise in the two of them spending a couple of hours together at American Rust, where their hangout remained mostly untouched.

As pleasant as things had been after they abandoned campus, she was rather glad that the day was over. There was just one little problem. It was the morning of Tuesday the 17th and for the first time since mid-October, Max could not bring herself to eat. Originally, Rachel tried not to feel worried, but it did feel like a bit of a step backward for the girl. Her solution to this, for now, was to simply not attempt to push too much attention on her. Unfortunately, plenty of people were noticing. Max coming back to the table with only a small plastic cup of apple juice was enough for most of the breakfast crew (Chloe, Rachel, Kate, Steph and now, Stella) to share a look between them. Kate and Stella were, obviously, still on the outside of why this was happening, but were very obviously no less concerned.

It would be easier if I could just talk to Max and Chloe alone, but, Rachel shot a glance around the table. Stella had her long, dark hair held back and one equally thick eyebrow raised whenever she shot a look at Max, who intentionally turned her eyes away from anyone who looked too long at her. It wasn't like Rachel was annoyed at the others: even if this was the days without a wider friend circle, the walls still had ears. David was keeping his distance while watching over breakfast from the other side of the room. He had been steering clear of them and remained rather subdued in general. (Chloe doesn't trust it and the truth is, neither do I . David doesn't seem like the type to be talked or scared into rationality.) The prevailing theory was that he would go back to himself in time, when he had had time to mourn his divorce.

Honestly, Rachel thought, spearing a bit of egg with her fork, we've had to fuck with David enough. David was never going to be their friend but as long as he left them alone, she rather thought they could use him if Jefferson got up to the tricks Max said he would. Jefferson was the immediate threat and that meant that she couldn't particularly turn her frustrations with David into some sort of vigilante cause. Frankly, she thought that it was time to hang up the cape and tights. Hell, maybe it had never been a good idea.

The worst part of all of this is that Max is going to have to be in Jefferson's class without me or Chloe. It was enough to make Rachel uneasy and she had been doing her best not to dwell on shit, lately. The thing was, a potential sexual predator on campus who even then, further had potential to become a murderer was something that one fucking dwelt on, as far as Rachel was concerned. The table had become rather quiet over the last few minutes. She prompted Kate to talk by asking her something, but the question was forgotten as soon as it left her mouth.

Mark Jefferson had had a considerable effect on Max and the idea of the girl stuck in a room with him without her there jacked her own anxiety up a notch. But, she had to remind herself, Hayden and Kate will be in the room with her and I trust them. It was as she tried to tune in to Kate's answer and catch Chloe's eye that the air in the entire cafeteria changed and Rachel finally got to see Blackwell's newest Antichrist up close and personal.

The photography teacher, Mark Jefferson strolled into the cafeteria at close to 7:30. It was not unheard of for teachers to eat from the breakfast line and Jefferson apparently had not had breakfast. Rachel watched openly as he gave the room a brief smile before turning to the line. She recognized the smile; it said, 'I'm a chill teacher who you won't have to worry about.' It was an appeal to the 'kids' not to worry about him. When Rachel looked around, she felt her stomach drop slightly, taking in the wide spectrum of reactions throughout the room. Victoria began to immediately fawn over him and, most alarmingly, make bedroom eyes his way. Predictably, Taylor and Courtney followed suit, because that is what they do, that is what they always do. She says jump, they say 'how high?'. Nathan, on the other hand, looked up once at the man and gave a brief nod to himself. Rachel wasn't quite sure she could begin to guess what that meant but, considering what Max claimed would happen when the two connected-assuming they haven't already-the nod did not particularly feel wholesome. There came a soft spread of gossiping voices passing about the room.

"I've heard he's a really, really good photographer," Kate said, drawing Rachel's eye back to the table. She was about to balance trying to find a way not to appear too unusual to Kate without giving the impression she particularly cared for the man when she realized that Max had gone still as a statue. The photographer's pale lips were shut into a tight, thin line and her hands grabbed to the table as if they had been crafted that way. Rachel understood what was happening. Kate had been trying to draw Max into conversation, but it was not working. Kate has no reason at all to understand. Rachel got that.

"Alright," Rachel started. She pushed her tray away all at once deciding that she wasn't going to let this escalate. Up at the front of the room, the man of the hour was peering down at the trays of breakfast food, likely doing what all of them did each morning, trying to work out what looked good and what was probably going to be, honestly, subpar that day. "Chloe, can you do me a favor and take that up for me when you're done?"

"Um," Chloe answered, humming in the back of her throat. One look at the artist said she knew just what was going on and could probably assume that Rachel was going to try to help Max who still had not spoken or even looked at anyone at the table. "I feel like I should come."

"Yeah, if you want to," Rachel told her, in as soft and caring a voice as she could manage. "Max and I are gonna go grab some fresh air," she told the table at large. Chloe apologized briefly to the table and hurried off with her and Rachel's tray as Rachel began to try to shake Max a little. Steph was verbally trying to redirect conversation at the table from Max, because that was what Steph did: she looked out for hers. It took a few more seconds, but Max finally unclenched her fingers and stood up. Rachel shivered slightly (goose walked over your grave) as she glanced toward the front of the room, drawn to it by a force that was hard to explain. When she looked, she found that the man in question had turned from his tray and glanced toward them. Jefferson was looking at them through thick lensed glasses, his left hand reaching out to grab the lapel of his suit jacket and straighten it, as if the action was completely subconscious.

It's a completely innocent glance, Rachel had to tell herself as his eyes shifted from Max, to her. It's just the brain reacting to movement. Nothing more. It holds no meaning. To him, Max is as big of a stranger as I am. Hell, to Max he's a stranger. She just knows what he is. We are alright. The man watching her faked some look of sympathy as he shifted his eyes back to Max, who was clearly in some form of discomfort. Fuck this, we're getting out of here. Rachel nudged Max, who started moving but not before she saw the dark blue eyes fix for a moment on the teacher. Rachel wondered precisely how he was going to interpret the look of complete and utter terror on the girl's face.

It was as they were approaching the door that David, arms crossed and a sneer visible on his face which seemed half-assed (his lip did not quite curl high enough, he did not look around the room with enough contempt in his features) up at them as if suspicious. Then the man grunted, looked down and pretended not to have noticed. Immediately, Rachel felt an insane urge to warn the man, but there was nothing she could really say, was there? Quietly, she thought that later she might be able to convince Max and Chloe to let her anonymously send David some of their research on the man. Unless, Rachel told herself as she urged Max forward, he's smarter than David. If he's all that Max says he is he might know someone is onto him and get shiftier than Max expects. Maybe we won't catch him when he makes a move.

Once they were out of the room Max started to become responsive again immediately and by the time they were at the doors to the building and Chloe had caught up to them hauling her own bag and Max's, the photographer was answering Rachel in simple 'yes'es and 'no's. With Chloe at the lead, they lapped the campus once. While doing so, Chloe further managed to draw Max into talking.

"It-it doesn't happen much outside of dreams but, sometimes that other Max- her um, her memories do resurface in pieces. Seeing him brought up some bad ones."

"It might help you to tell us," Rachel told Max. Voicing fears didn't always rob them of power, but trying to fight them all on your own frequently gave them more power. They settled in, eventually, at Steph's favored picnic table.

"I remembered, like actually remembered her being his captive. I can feel the needle pressed against my neck, fear, right before David comes running in." Then, the girl paused and looked up, both hands rising as if to push her hair back from her forehead but instead gripping at it. Rachel reached up slowly and fought the urge to remind Max that it had not been (or would not be) her neck. Instead she focused on resting her hand against Max's. She had seen a similar gesture once in Stella, during a particularly unpleasant meltdown in which the girl had begun to pull at her own hair. Whether this was Max's motivation for grabbing at her own locks or it was a reaction of concern, Rachel wasn't ready to find out. She slowly freed one of Max's hands from her thick brown hair and, taking hold of that hand, brought it down. "By that point, Victoria was already dead- Chloe had been for hours and hours." The brunette brought her left hand down, too, and then leaned forward. "It's not alright, it's not alright, that Chloe had to find Rachel's body and then get fucking shot right after."

The girl spoke rapidly and despite the fact that there was no one around Rachel would have liked it for everyone's sake if the upset girl were a little bit quieter. Chloe scooted closer but this was the signal for Max to free her hand from Rachel's and stand up, shaking her head. She did not walk away but it was clear that for the moment touch was disturbing to her. Rachel hoped it did not remind her of Jefferson's hands. Chloe was not hurt by this gesture any more than she was judging by the small nod the bluenette gave in response to Max standing.

The photographer was upset.

"I know, alright, I know that this was all another world, another Max, another Chloe, another Rachel. But – god damn it."

"Max, we understand."

"Definitely," Chloe backed her up immediately. "It's not stupid to be upset, especially having to remember shit like that. It's not your fault that you remember that." When Max exhaled just then, it came out sounding half like a sob and Rachel realized that try as she might, Max had not banished her fears, the ones which used to drive her to secluding herself, to locking herself into her closet, to not sleep or eat for far longer than healthy. She had not silenced the voice telling her that she might be the rightful heir to the memories like the ones she had experienced today. "It's bound to be worse with him actually here, right?" Max nodded, trying to reason with herself as she tugged at the neck of her shirt, ran her hand over the knee of her jeans, grabbed at the bag over her shoulder; she moved with nerves and a lack of direction. If this were early September, Rachel might think Max was about to run away from them.

"But here's the thing," Rachel promised her, standing to step closer to Max's personal bubble and draw her attention. "The minute, the fucking second he steps over the line, we're going to ruin him. Do you hear me? The only place that will hang his photos is the Museum of Dumbass Psychopaths Who Get Outsmarted By Their Students. M-D-P-O-T-S for short." The fuck am I even saying? Rachel asked herself. Max laughed, though it was still hard to distinguish from a sob and when she looked up again some of her fire looked to be back. Chloe opened her arms and took a step forward, questioningly. When the photographer lowered her back to the ground, shuffled her feet, digging her relatively new converse into the dirt a bit and nodded, Chloe stepped forward.

The tallest of the three of them wrapped her arms around Max's shoulders and asked if Max thought she was going to be able to handle class.

"I'll do my best."

"Take a table with Hayden or Kate- or both," Chloe said. While the two were distracted in their embrace, Rachel freed her phone and sent the two other photography students a quick message.

Me

Max is gonna hate that I did this, but stick with her through photography class today, please? She's not doing so hot.

"That's smart," Max told Chloe finally, "especially if Nathan's getting up to his old shit again." Okay, we're back on the topic of what to do, instead of what happened somewhere else. Rachel felt like she could actually help with this. She slipped out of her jacket and when Chloe stepped away from Max, wrapped it around the girl's shoulders. Fuck it: let her keep it today.

"Have you given any more thought to how to figure out if Jefferson has any connections with the Prescotts yet?" In the past, Max had said that the only thing she can think to do is the same thing she did in September when she stole a copy of Nathan's files (which were quite the read if Rachel did say so herself. "You never explained how you got the information before or how you want to do it now."

"I sort of- well, basically I used my powers to get into the Wells' office." Chloe made an impressed noise and-Rachel was happy to see-Max slipped her arms into Rachel's jacket. "Wells is kinda so far down the hole on alcoholism that his mind is sorta in the shit. He always keeps an item on his desk that references his password. It's not that hard to get into his computer; I've done it three times. One time his password was literally written on a post-it and stuck on the underside of the desk." Chloe laughed. At this Max seemed to lighten up slightly and Rachel relaxed, taking each of the girls by a hand. "I wanna do it tonight. I want to get this part over with."

"Can I help you?" Rachel asked. It was not really a request and Max knew it, because she looked sheepishly down at the ground.

"I mean, it's a lot harder to get caught by yourself," Rachel lifted her chin and continued to stare at the brunette, who raised her eyes briefly to see that the idea had not gone over well and then lowered them again and sighed. "Having lookouts would help, I guess."

"I'd come along for this one, especially since you two always get the fun illicit adventures on campus all to yourselves, but I sort of agreed to work hard on that history essay and it's due on Thursday." Rachel promised her, as the warning bell signalling ten minutes until class rang, that she could come along for the next time they decided to break into the school.

"Thank you," Chloe responded, sounding relieved. "Fact is, I haven't been included in many plots lately."

"That," Rachel said, "is because you've been busy doing homework or odd jobs around your neighborhood. Actually, I hear that pays pretty well over there." Chloe laughed.

"I'll take you two out to dinner, somewhere that isn't the diner. Which basically means chinese food."

"I'm in," Max chimed in immediately, looking a little more herself as she fixed her widest, most 'aww' inducing smile on Chloe. Rachel immediately marked this moment down in her memory as evidence that Max was just fine using the fact that she was cute to manipulate the shit out of them if it meant chinese.

"It might have to be tomorrow, but we can totally do it."

"I'll be happy to carb load."

"And you're going to eat lunch with us later," Rachel prompted the girl.

"I'll try. I've been doing better," Max said, defensively. "I am trying."

"I know that and I'm happy for you, Max." Rachel settled herself on the end of the side of the bench that Chloe and Max moved to sit back down on and enjoyed the feeling of the three of them simply close to one another until the bell rang again. Today, school, tonight, Mark Jefferson gets his shit wrecked, maybe?