Kaukasos

by TheOV

Two nights after Firewalk, Chloe stood on stage, accepting her descent into the madness of Rachel Amber's life, but out there in the crowd, Max Caulfield's face awaited her. Struggling to navigate life at Blackwell, Chloe, Rachel and Max face curve balls, blooming romances and all three of them are plagued by demons from without and within.

70. Epilogue: Leave it all Down Here

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.

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Epilogue: Leave it All Down Here

October 11th, 2013 6:22 AM

The unfortunately still familiar sight of the boiler room almost spinning unnaturally around her was the first sign that she was dreaming. It had been more than a year and a half since she was actually tied up down here, but still she returned time and time again. Chloe groaned and shifted her arms and legs. They were bound tightly this time, insistently, as if the boy in front of her remembered his death and had declared, never again. Nathan Prescott stood out in sharp detail, while the rest of the room swayed. He was not alone. Dark, humanoid shapes, smoke and shadow were spread throughout the room. She could not make them come into focus. Chloe blinked her eyes trying, but she could not tell who they were supposed to be. She never could. Panic threatened to set in, even knowing she was in a nightmare. The urge to break it, shatter this dream into a million pieces set in.

The moment this decision was made, Nathan looked up at her. His false eye was gone, and what remained was a dark, misshapen gap, shaped unlike an eye socket. He was pale and it made the red stain spreading across his red-brown jacket from the gaping chest wound stand out in contrast all the more. No, no, no, Chloe thought, grasping, reaching for the edges of the dream, of her dream. She could not take her eyes off of Nathan's face. When he turned more directly toward her, he opened his mouth to speak. There were no teeth, it was simple, black void, the black of death. His words did not reach her ears, but in their place she heard wind, thunder and rain. Then, the rain manifested in the boiler room and began to soak her, began to obscure her vision of this Prescott wraith. The mental effort, that energy expended as she tried to take hold of and tear the edges of her dream faltered. Chloe screamed for Nathan to back away from her, but the void of his mouth emitted the sounds of storm and swallowed her words whole.

Chloe struggled against her binds, both around her ankles and her wrists, but they were vice like, this time. This time Nathan had made sure she was his, she was trapped. This time, she was going to die. The rain soaking her to the bone, the wind battering her eardrums and the thunder which made her chest shake more than even the violent protestation of her heartbeat could do, she knew what it was. It did not come from a storm, it came from The Storm. Chloe looked for Nathan's gun, but it was nowhere to be found, not in his hands, not on the floor and his jacket would not fall open for her to look. He leaned forward, several steps from her still. Nathan Prescott was bringing The Storm to her, and Chloe knew she had to stop it. She knew she had to pull her dominant hand free as she had once before, she had to get hold of his gun and fire into that damn void until the bullets stopped coming. She knew if she looked too long at his chest she would never do that, because the muscle of his ruined heart was visible any time the jacket shifted well enough.

That, was when Nathan moved. He lumbered forward, still hunched over. The arms which had been hanging unnaturally at his side rose, reaching out for her, hands grasping. It was not the pose of a shitty B-movie zombie, but of someone ready to grab a throat and wring every last drop of life from it. Her hands were still stuck, still held tightly together by thick, monstrous, snakelike rope. Chloe looked past his grasping hands, his slow approach, the otherworldly voids that were his mouth and right eye socket, she looked up toward the staircase that ascended toward freedom. She begged and pleaded at the top of her lungs, through sobs and screeches for Max and Rachel to rend the door from its hinges and come, fire and sunlight, to her rescue. What was worse, what was more terrifying by far than the door not opening, was the fact that The Storm grew louder in her ears as Nathan closed the gap between them and perhaps what was the scariest was that the shadow forms along the edges of the room faded from being. Nathan screamed at her when the last one was gone in a voice of lightning strikes and falling trees. The scars along the right side of his face lit up, no longer dark against the pale of his skin but the hue and lux of lightning frozen and bottled. Chloe screamed into The Storm, screamed into his face, screamed into the void. The chair jostled as she tried to leap up and down but the ropes only squeezed tighter to her ankles and wrists. Her left hand would not budge this time.

That was when Chloe sensed a new emotion. She sensed it, meaning she felt it, she knew it but it was not her own. There was distress, illness, fear but the fear was of a different flavor from her own. These were not mortal terror, they were being chased and not wanting to be caught, and, too, a fear she used to know like an old friend: a fear of loss. Someone near her was terrified, terrified they would lose their home, they would lose their dog and that they would lose Chloe. Bit by bit, as Nathan's hands closed around her throat, Chloe's brain seized on this. While she looked into the void of his eye socket, of his mouth, she focused on that other person's fear. I am dreaming. It was a horrible nightmare, but it was a nightmare and it was her own and, oh god, why had she dragged Steph into her nightmares again? Why? Guilt flooded over Chloe, somehow wiping out her own terror at the scene before her. Nathan's hands shivered, faltered, released her.

Still with that same guilt in her heart she tried to tune out the sounds of a brutal Storm which she had never experienced. The moment she took hold of the dream and sent Nathan away, she too was sent away. No longer in the boiler room beneath Arcadia Bay, Chloe stood on a hill, near the lighthouse, one which overlooked a version of October 11th, 2013 that was not the same as her own, as the one she went to sleep just after midnight of. A young woman who looked a lot like her, except that Chloe thought she looked a lot more angular, a lot sharper, stood beside another Max Caulfield. She had seen them once, long ago and since then her brain had tried to recreate them a time or two, but never like this. Chloe tried to ignore the two of them as they ignored her but she couldn't help but approach them, join them in looking down on the town below for just a second.

She reached the edge of the cliff, walking clean through her counterpart. Somewhere behind her, the emotions, the feelings and ideas that Chloe thought must be Steph's intensified, darkened. Parts of Arcadia Bay danced and shifted in the wind as the tornado reached into the heard of it and tore it from the earth below. Steph's discomfort had reached highs Chloe had not been able to predict. She allowed the sight of Arcadia Bay rising into the air bit by bit to stick in her mind, unsure if she was replaying a slice of the nightmare she had stumbled upon Max having or just imagining it all the same. Still, that image was there to remind her of why she had chosen to accept Nathan on her conscience and as bad as Chloe felt for it, she thought she needed to see it. She ripped the dream apart a moment later, with that image shining in her subconscious. She caught sight of what she called the dream void, what Max called the Timescape, a place they could exist simultaneously and Max would never see her and then, before the view of The Storm tearing her hometown apart could escape, Chloe woke up with a gasp.

Chloe opened her eyes to the pale stucco of the bedroom ceiling. Her walls, once the beige of a guest room were now dark blue, a shade which in the sunlight reminded her of Max's eyes. Unfortunately, as Chloe calmed her nerves and steadied her breathing, the light was low enough that it seemed a bit off-shade for that. She glanced at the alarm clock on her bedside table. In red blocky letters, it declared that it was 6:27 in the morning. Slowly, she rolled to her left and then to her right. Her hands were not bound, her legs were free save for the restriction provided by the quilt overtop her which last night had seemed like a reasonable precaution as it was rather cool, but now seemed stifling. Slowly, she sat up in bed. At the foot of that bed, Pompidou stirred, eyes opening as she jostled him awake like the careless monster she was. Chloe looked apologetically down at the dog, but his head rose and his tail thumped against her bed as he stared up at her. He really had not mellowed out much in the time since he had come to live with them, but he was surprisingly well behaved at night when people needed sleep.

"Pompidou," Chloe called, just above a whisper as she righted herself so that her back was pressed against the headboard. That was all the beckoning he needed to fight to his feet, yawn once and then bound toward her edge of the bed. "Good boy," she muttered. Her attempts to stay quiet seemed to be for naught, as moments later the sound of Steph's bedroom door opening reached her ears. Pompidou dropped onto the left side of the bed, the one she was not in, buried his face against her stomach and waited for ear scritches or pets. Chloe obeyed, because what kind of jerk did not? Not even she was so monstrous as to deny Pompidou attention.

"Chloe," the girl's voice came through soft, but she was clearly trying to be heard just in case Chloe was awake. She sighed as the knock sounded at her door. To think that, after all of that time, she was back to dragging Steph into her bullshit. Chloe hated it. For all the shit that Steph did or had ever done for her, one would think Chloe could keep her nightmares to herself. She had even managed it for a while but this one, well, it was a hell of a nightmare for Steph to be pulled into. Was she pulled into it or did my nightmare just spread into her? Chloe did not know much about how her abilities worked. She knew that stress could cause her to project her dreams onto others or to be swallowed up by theirs and she knew that on occasion, times of extreme exertion, she could bring these parts of her brain out in her waking life, parts which could take on the form of a person she knew and help her parse through what was happening to her. The first time had been unpleasant and she was not eager to ever experience it again.

"I'm sorry," Chloe answered, settling her right hand in her lap as the fingers of her left hand dug through Pompidou's fur. The dog tilted his head back and yawned again. Not even petting Pompidou quelled her guilt, so she was unsurprised when the apology did not. Pompidou, who was unaware of this fact, continued to lounge under the attention. Steph did not reply immediately, but Chloe heard the knob start to turn and then stop, as if Steph had suddenly pulled her hand back. Whether this was out of being unsure whether she wanted to talk to Chloe or out of respect for her privacy, Chloe did not know.

"It's okay, Chloe," Steph said, more firmly, loudly now. "Can I come in, please? That one was – that one was kind of bad." Chloe knew that Steph had never been exposed to images of The Storm from the other timeline before. No matter how bad Chloe's nightmares had gotten over the past year and a half, they had not been that bad. There's so much bullshit going on, no wonder I'm fucked up right now, she told herself. The images Steph was probably still dealing with, the ones Chloe held onto as a reminder as to why she had allowed herself to pull the trigger, to take a life, they had come to her not even second hand, more like third hand. They still hurt to see, to consider, to think of. Chloe took a breath.

"Come in." Steph, Chloe thoughts as the girl eased the door open, took one look at Pompidou on the bed beside Chloe and shook her head ruefully, had changed very little over the time since that shitty day. She wore her hair longer and dressed a little more seriously, but that was not such a huge change. (At the moment, that hair was rather wild and messy from sleep.) Chloe did not foresee joining Steph in letting her hair grow and she certainly intended to relinquish neither her grungy clothes nor the joy of bright colors in her hair any time soon, but she had been considering a change from her signature blue to the neon green she had loved so much for a short time.

The other artist looked her over quickly, nervously with eyes which were normally cool and relaxed but now looked wider than they had any right to at around 6:30 in the morning. Then, seeming to sigh a bit as if whatever she was afraid she would see was not there, she settled on the left side of the bed forcing Pompidou to scoot, roll and flail until he was more or less in Chloe's lap as she took the spot he had abandoned. Chloe laughed and did her best to accommodate the dog who did not seem to understand that he was a bit bigger than a lapdog. Steph leaned her back against the headboard beside Chloe, reached over and pet the mix breed's exposed belly.

"I'm really, really sorry," Chloe said, with all honesty. Exposing Steph to the hell she had just sat through was high on the list of things she would have never wanted to do, though Steph had been forced to witness nightmares about the boiler room before. Not that they have ever been like that. Jesus Christ, never like that. If there was any right in the world, it would never be like that again. Pompidou was clueless, happy as his tail struck Chloe in the stomach over and over. After a second or two of silence, Steph's right arm rose and settled across Chloe's shoulders. Chloe sighed against the lack of condemnation. "I've been trying," she promised. I've been trying to control it, to keep it from happening again."

"It's been like, four months since the last time," Steph told her. "I know you've been trying. You've been doing your best. It's not all sunshine and rainbows."

"I thought we were all rainbows, here?" Steph tried to chuckle, but her sense of humor was never particularly well revved up before breakfast. Chloe did not hold that against her. Steph was tired, Chloe got that. Chloe was still tired, too. She did not know if she would sleep again before it was time to shower and drive to Blackwell. She only had half an hour before they had to get up and hit the shower. That was not much time and all she could think about when she closed her eyes, even to blink, was the sound of The Storm emitting from Nathan's open, gaping mouth. Chloe leaned her head against the other girl's shoulder. Pompidou, seeming to sense finally that the air was not ideal for fun, rolled over on her lap, pushed to his feet (stepping on her legs in progress) and settled at the end of the bed as if he were to go back to sleep. He did, however, turn his dark eyes upon them in the pale golden light of the morning. Steph rubbed her shoulder.

"I'm proud of you, you know?"

"Why?" Chloe asked. She could not for the life of her think of a reason for Steph to be proud of her. It was not summer anymore so she was working a single day every week and she still wanted desperately to quit her job. It seemed pointless and stressful. She had never followed through on a promise to try and learn to cook anything more basic than say, pasta or hamburgers, so she was not especially helpful around the kitchen and she barely functioned beyond her roles as student, as player in a tabletop campaign and sometimes, as a part time Vortex Club member. Chloe had done nothing to be proud of and plenty to be frustrated about.

"For lots of reasons," Steph told her and Chloe was about to write it off before she continued. "For agreeing to see a therapist tonight when you were so sure it wouldn't do anything even a couple weeks ago, and of all the places, that place. You're so much fucking stronger than you think you are." Chloe exhaled. It was true that she had been resistant to the idea of seeing a therapist for almost a year, but things were escalating and no, it hadn't helped that Sean Prescott was the man responsible for the opening of the only mental health clinic in Arcadia Bay. The little fuck.

"That place being my best option was probably the biggest reason I held off as long as I had." Steph shrugged as if to say that she got it, but she did so softly enough it didn't jostle Chloe's head where it laid. Chloe closed her eyes, but not to sleep. No, she did so to make it easier to focus on, just one more time, the mental image of the destruction of Arcadia Bay that she, Max and Rachel had averted. This had to be worth it, in some horrible, twisted, asinine manner. It had to make sense, because if it did not then nothing was right in the world. "I think, if it starts to help, I'm going to start backing Rachel when she tries to get Max to go."

"Max will never give that place any business, not a second of her time or a dime of her money, Chloe." Chloe knew Steph was right. She understood where Max was coming from.

"Maybe not, but Max has gotten worse in some ways when it comes to her own shit and I'm starting to get worried that it's going to go really, really bad after graduation, especially if she goes off to Seattle by herself." The brunette would not technically be by herself. She would have her mother and father and, of course, the other Seattle resident in her life: Victoria. That being said, Chloe did not like the idea of Max, as bad as she had gotten this last month or so, outside of Chloe's proverbial arm's reach. Steph did not speak again about Max. There was nothing to be said on that front.

"Either way, I'm proud of you for doing what you need to do."

"Thank you."

"I'm going to try to steal a few more minutes of sleep before my alarm goes off." Chloe smiled apologetically as Steph moved her arm. Pompidou, who had lain his head down to stare up at them, not comprehending a word they said, perked up a little bit, looking at the door as Steph stood up as if he was considering whether to follow her out or stay in his spot on the bed, covering the old yellowed quilt with further dog hair. He plopped his head back down and stayed at her feet.

"Try to get some rest, sis," Chloe told the girl as she watched the bedroom door shut behind Steph. "And how's the good dog?" she asked Pompidou in a voice both quieter but a little more rowdy when she heard Steph's footsteps recede down the hallway. Chloe paid the dog attention for the next few minutes, not laying back down and not quite ready to rise out of bed even to relieve her protesting bladder or unnecessarily indulge her increased appetite. Shortly before seven arrived, though, Chloe stretched her arms above her head, pushed the quilt down toward her ankles and slowly but surely extricated herself from the bed which had, so far, not been able to lure her back to sleep but which she thought would do so the moment she needed to get up.

Chloe grabbed underwear and socks from her drawer, a pair of jeans from the one below that which looked like they flew well in the face of the image of an uptight pristine stick-up-the-ass school, a tee chosen at random from her closet, her beanie and a long sleeved shirt to wear over the lot of it then popped her bedroom door open. She made a quick clicking sound with her mouth and Pompidou bounded from the foot of the bed to the floor without hesitation. The only real struggle when it came to the dog in the mornings was getting downstairs to let him out and use the downstairs shower without tripping over him and breaking her neck before she got down there at all.

The hall lead back into the still dark kitchen. In the living room, Steph had either left the television on last night or gone down to it at some point when Chloe was not paying attention this morning. Chloe took the bundle of clothes she had been grasping in both hands and placed it down on the kitchen counter as Pompidou circled her twice and made for the door. Smart dog. He had predicted correctly that she was going to let him out. While Pompidou did his business, she tried to ignore her body calling for her to go do her own and filled both his food and water bowls. It was cool enough outside that he could probably get away with having some time out back while they were at school. The poor dog deserved to blow off some energy. Once the bowls were in place and the dog satisfied for the morning, Chloe shut the door, padded back inside and took her clothing into the downstairs bathroom. Upstairs, she could hear Steph already in the shower. Chloe was not one to be outdone, normally, but it was alright that Steph had a head start. Chloe had the advantage of fairly short hair that would not take so long to dry or brush out.

She still felt a little silly taking as long as she did in the shower but when she stepped out her body and mind were both somewhat more relaxed. It was not as if the shower washed away all memory of the horrible things she had seen and exposed Steph to or the concerns she felt about Max's deteriorating mental health state of even her worries about Rachel's big day. There was just something about warm water rolling down stiff muscles that tended to loosen them up and feel positive enough to neutralize her mood. She dressed quietly, waiting until she was relatively put together to look in the mirror for the first time that day. Mercifully, the circles under her eyes were not as bad as she expected and the careful application of a little bit of makeup mitigated the damage they did to her attempt to appear 'put together.'

Chloe finished drying her hair, tossed the towel to the side to rest over the edge of the sink and leaned toward the mirror, wiping freshly coalesced fog from the mirror. After too short a time the fog fought its way back, but that was fine. It did not take Chloe more than a second or two to confirm that her roots were beginning to show. That's alright. She had saved up plenty of money from the summer before, at least in comparison to what her bank account usually looked like. She had enough to take care of her hair and work on the truck, besides. The honest truth was that its brakes could use some TLC before they got much worse. Chloe would hate to find out how bad they could get in a tight situation. Then again, there hadn't been too much in the way of breaking speed limits, lately. No need had arisen to rush much of anywhere. The world, it seemed, was calmer. Come to think of it the last time I rushed anywhere was last Spring Break. Chloe had been forced to hurry herself, Rachel and Max to the bus station for their trip to Seattle.

Seattle. Chloe sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. Max was going to be going back to Seattle alone this Thanksgiving and probably winter break, as well. It didn't have to be the end of the world, she knew, it just felt a little like it. Chloe had not been as focused as she should have been on school work or the play, yet it didn't seem to be showing. Her grades were fine, even a little better than last year's. She might have been no Rachel or Dana when it came to memorizing her lines but she had been no slouch. Chloe slipped from the room when her hair had been pushed back enough to settle naturally into its usual position. She wandered around the kitchen while she waited for Steph to descend the stairs.

Frankly, I'm surprised it's taken Keaton this long to shove me and Rachel into Romeo and Juliet. 'For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo.' Chloe rubbed at her eyes as she settled down at the kitchen table. Her bookbag sat against the far wall of the room and for a moment she was confused when it did not have her board sticking out of it. Eventually she remembered that the board was where it had been for almost half a week; untouched in the middle seat of her truck. Footsteps drew her attention. Chloe looked up from the spot on the floor where she had been staring at her bag absentmindedly for what might have been a minute or ten. Her hair felt dry when she looked up. Chloe reached over to the table and pulled her beanie off it as Steph rounded the corner.

"I want to make it to school before most of the eggs are gone," Steph declared. Chloe nodded her agreement and didn't try to read Steph's expression. She merely pulled her hat down over her head, heaved her bag from the floor and grabbed her keys from the hook by the front door. Steph did the same, but then aimed toward the adjoining garage. I'm not feeling eggs, really. Maybe like, a huge bacon sandwich? That sounds like a plan. She could also probably get away with a bit of extra orange juice. That sounded good too. Then again, there were usually biscuits and gravy and hash browns and a small supply of pancakes. Her stomach roared in protest and in threat. Chloe pushed out through the front door. Her stomach had been making too many fucking decisions for her lately. She had never signed up for that.

Chloe pulled the door to her truck open, settled into the driver's seat and eased the door shut, petting the wheel even as she might have Pompidou. Normally, she rode with Steph to the school unless she intended to stay extra late on campus and didn't want to bother Max or Rachel to drive her home. Tonight, though, was special, right? Because she was going to go to the big mental health clinic, the only one in her little town. She was going to walk into a building bearing that name and spill as many details she safely could about what she was experiencing: nightmares, memories of being abducted, depression, her out of control appetite and the times when she thought of quitting her job and shutting herself up in her room. She got to talk to a stranger in a building built by Sean Prescott about her guilt over her stupid brain and the stupid shit it was doing to her. She just hoped that the people inside weren't Prescott lapdogs. Victoria claimed they weren't and Victoria certainly had plenty of reason to talk to her therapist about Nathan Prescott, so Chloe had hope.

Still, this all felt stupid. This day was special for them all and the only one for whom it could possibly be seen as positive was Rachel and even she was a little terrified about her meeting that afternoon. Chloe grumbled as the garage door began to rise. She had spent all morning focusing on shitty things. It's okay to focus on good things, she reminded herself as she turned the key in the ignition and her truck roared to life. Chloe dug into her pocket and freed her phone, unlocking it while Steph backed her car out of the garage. There, the background of her lock screen, was a photo of Max and Rachel in Seattle. Looking at the two of them, it seemed like they had not changed a bit in the last couple of years, at least to Chloe. That made her smile a little bit. In the photo, Rachel held onto Max from behind, her chin buried in the girl's hair as they posed in front of the large, bright ornate archway which marked the entrance to Seattle's Chinatown. Chloe remembered that Max seemed more excited than Chloe had expected that day. Then again, they ended up meeting up with two of her friends from Seattle for noodles. That certainly explained Max's mood. She was weak for her favorite type of food.

Chloe slid the phone beneath her skateboard beside her as Steph caught her eye, waving. The garage door began to slide closed and, encouraged by Steph's apparent wakefulness, Chloe waved for her to go first. She followed Steph back down the driveway and waited her turn to pull out into the road, holding in her mind a different image this time. Instead of the sight of Arcadia Bay being torn to pieces, she was holding onto the mental image of a hastily put together toast and bacon sandwich. Her stomach growled loudly enough that, to silence it, Chloe turned on her radio.

It was breakfast time. What that meant above all else was her first chance of the day to see her girls. She needed to see them, and maybe do a bit more than see.

October 11th, 2013 7:00 AM

Klaxons, as it happened, were really effective sounds for alarm clocks to blare in one's ear if one was to wake immediately. At 7:00 on the dot, Rachel Amber's eyes opened. Despite that sudden, abrupt start, she slowed as she reached for her alarm clock, slammed the snooze button and let her mind come to true wakefulness. It was the morning of October 11th. She could guess from the slow, unmolested way that she woke, yawning, that she had been the lucky recipient a good night's sleep. That was impressive. A good night's sleep was not always a guaranteed thing on big days. Today, Rachel recognized as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and rolled her head back to the side to look up at the ceiling, was a very, very big day. Rachel inhaled deeply. She could swear her pillow still smelled faintly of Max's shampoo from the girl laying beside her until she fell asleep the night before. Rachel had not noticed Max leave.

In another timeline, in another world, this was the day in which her corpse was lost, her mom killed and in which most of the people she knew died. Because of that, it was a very big day for Max. In this world, today was the day that Chloe, driven by her worsening depression and the nightmares which had begun over the last half year to actually affect those who slept under the same rough as her, was going to Sean Prescott's new mental health clinic in town, the one which Rachel refused to transfer to despite it being in Arcadia Bay and the one which Max refused to use for fear of 'legitimizing even Sean Prescott's fucking existence in any manner whatsoever.' (The photographer had taken issue with the way Sean Prescott had painted her and the rest of Nathan's victims in the months after Nathan's death and Rachel had been dumbfounded to find out how many girls from Arcadia Bay and the surrounding cities Nathan had attacked, all together coming to about twenty. Max thought there were more still scared to come forward.)

Then there was Rachel herself. For her, this was going to be one hell of a day. Not just because it was important to her girls but because of the fact that the culmination of her mother Sera's 'Secret Project' almost two years in the works, came today, forty-five minutes after school let out. This meant, as it went, that Rachel only had a short time, maybe twenty minutes to screw around with her girls and Steph after class let out. Today, Rachel was going to get into her car, drive south to Edgeton and meet her maternal grandmother. The woman had been resistant to coming back into her daughter's life even after learning that Sera and Rachel were close. Apparently, Sera losing Rachel originally and then going on to remain on drugs had been a major bone of contention between the women though the final straw had been Sera stealing money from her, or perhaps the robbery she had committed.

Rachel still remembered Sera confessing all of this, one ugly day four months ago when she had first revealed the nature of this secret project. On that day, Sera's aging mother had agreed to speak to her finally for the first time in a decade. Rachel had not been entirely capable of comprehending the emotions pouring out of Sera. After some time, though, she came to. Sera had been so relieved, relieved that her mother had agreed to meet Rachel, that she had been unable to stop crying and nothing Rachel could think to do had helped. Now, as Rachel rolled over in her bed and thought of that night, she felt a knot form in her stomach. Of course, that only made sense: it had been unpleasant. Now, though, she was trying to figure out precisely why she felt nervous.

She rubbed at her eyes a second time. Part of her was eager to learn about the last remaining member of that side of her blood lineage. She was not sure the word 'family' would really extend any further than Sera, as far as that went. It's funny, Rachel thought, sitting up slowly and cracking her neck. I don't really have any warm memories of trips to a grandma's house. I think I met James' mom once by accident. Never did meet mom's. Really, in retrospect, the whole idea of family and blood and the difference between them was kind of a clusterfuck. Steph and Sera both might be more family than her mom, the woman who had raised her. Her mother and the girl who had taken Chloe first under her wing and then into her home were definitely more family than the man who had fathered her.

At 7:03, she received a text. Not only had she been expecting it, but as she reached for the phone with the bright green case sitting beside her bed, she knew precisely who it was who was trying to reach her this early in the morning and almost exactly what it would say. She popped it open anyway, ran her eyes over it and grimaced. It used to be rare that Max beat her to the shower. It was not anymore. It was a sign of poor sleep on Max's part. While that hadn't been rare in forever, one of her particularly bad times, had never lasted this long before. Rachel marked it down to this day coming, to how Max had been counting down to it since around a week before her birthday. It was an odd thing to count down to, considering that it had not happened to Max, but in a way she carried the echoes of memories of the Max it had happened to.

Max

Just got out of the shower. I'll be chilling in my room when you're all finished. ^_^

If someone were to put a gun to Rachel's head and ask her how many full nights of seven to eight hours of sleep Max had gotten since her birthday, she would have to guess no more than seven or eight and she was fairly certain the effects of marijuana on the girl's anxiety played a role in helping her on those days. All in all, Rachel thought as she pushed her legs off to hang over the side of the bed and scooted sleepily toward the edge, Max was trying to play this off but the closer they had gotten to this day, the worse Max had gotten. There was what, three days where she ate basically nothing a couple weeks back? Rachel, Chloe and even Victoria's best efforts to convince her to eat had been met with failure and in one case Max becoming ill. Hell, that evening the brunette had even taken herself out for some chinese takeout and still barely managed to get down half of her order of Moo Goo Gai Pan.

Max was not spilling the beans on whether the fact that she was found asleep in her car in the school parking lot with a nosebleed suggested she had used her powers and rewound to get safely to the school after that failed trip to the Dawn Dragon or not. Victoria theorized that Max had been involved in some sort of accident on her way home, probably the result of a combination of malnutrition and sleep deprivation and had been forced to rewind to safely make it back to the school. Chloe was still a big supporter of this potential explanation and Rachel figured it to be the case because ever since then, Max had forced herself to eat at least twice every other day. That being said, Rachel considered the current state of Max's mental health officially a crisis situation. Unfortunately neither she and Chloe nor Victoria could do a thing about it until Max truly hit rock bottom, which Rachel was grateful to note she had not. The girl had not touched a drop of alcohol since that day, had started to run in the afternoons (David had hassled her the first couple of times, assuming she was up to something,) and generally tried to keep functional. Rachel had not yet made the choice to steal Max's car keys and hide them from her.

As for Rachel, she had been focused on school, bringing her grades back to the top of the class and practicing for Romeo and Juliet alongside Chloe and Steph. Max, she was happy to hear, had decided to partake in the spring play. Rachel was happy for that. She always enjoyed acting alongside both of her girls and Max had enjoyed watching the spring play the year before. As for elephant in the room, the three of them had been working together with Rachel's mom to find an apartment just outside of Los Angeles to move into after graduation. Her mom, however, had pushed them toward finding a place in the city, saying that it would be cheaper on transportation costs. The cheapest place they had been able to find had rent around a reasonable sounding $950. It was impressively cheap even for a small, one bedroom studio apartment.

Rachel gathered her clothing and, thinking of that dream scenario where the three of them shared that studio apartment together, made toward the showers. Victoria was in the room when Rachel entered, staring blearily into the mirror as she applied makeup, apparently having finished her shower, too. Rachel could not quite muster the energy to make a joke about asking if Victoria had just missed Max or whether they had shared a stall. When she tried to greet the blonde photographer, it came out like a grunt. Victoria tried to smile at her. That came out like a grimace. Apparently, neither of them were entirely awake yet. Silently, she took a shower stall, pulled the curtain across herself and discarded her fresh clothes, other than her shower sandals, alongside her dirty clothes.

While she went through the motions of the morning, she pondered that potential future. The future is cloudy, indeed. Even with the minimum wage increase set to go into effect in Los Angeles next July, the three of them working even full time jobs wouldn't keep even that cheap studio apartment. She knew her mom was all too willing to pay a third of that cost: the woman was always angling for some way to have some more control over Rachel's life. Or maybe she really was trying to help. Rachel could never be sure. The honest fact, though, was that with Chloe unsure of what to do professionally, the nebulous nature of both girls being accepted at UCLA and Max floating the idea of spending a semester in Seattle because she was not going to be capable of contributing her fair share off the bat, Rachel did not know what to do. We can keep talking. We don't have to worry so hard about that right now. Not when we're all still fighting uglier battles. Rachel was pulled from the reverie of warm water soothing her body and mind by Victoria's voice. She jumped.

"It's today," Victoria said matter of factly from what sounded like the center of the room instead of peering into one of the mirrors over the sinks on the opposite wall. "Isn't it?" Rachel paused halfway through soaping up her hair. That was a pretty vague statement, honestly. There were a lot of things that 'it' could be. Victoria had at one point or another been made aware of every single it in question. It was just interesting to wonder precisely what was on her mind. Probably, considering how poorly she had at first taken the three of them letting her in on their powers and how impressively her mind had blown at Max demonstrating her own, she was thinking about the alternate Arcadia Bay's demise, since that was what had been weighing on Max so heavily.

"Which 'it' do you mean?" Rachel asked nonetheless, raising her voice a bit to calling over the shower. It sounded a little hoarse to her ears, so she immediately cleared her throat. Frankly, Rachel had been surprised at how well Victoria had taken not just the exposure of their abilities, not just the story of most of the shit Max had been through but also the fact that Max had not filled her in for almost four months after they began their – well, whatever it was. Rachel considered it a relationship. Max and Victoria had just been insistent on not labeling anything. That didn't stop Max from giving Victoria an embarrassing pet name, Rachel reminded herself. Even still, she derived a little more amusement than necessary from memories of Victoria's reaction to Max demonstrating her ability to time travel by correctly predicting where, when and how hard Justin Williams and Chloe were going to fall off of their boards. She was also a little unsure of how willing Max had been to let Chloe eat it really had on a kickflip gone horribly, horribly wrong, but when Max had told Chloe later, the girl had laughed at her, called her a prick and then kissed her rather... animatedly. Chloe, it seemed, had not minded.

"All of them," Victoria replied, in a voice that sounded slightly weary at the idea. Rachel could understand. This had all the makings of a wearying fucking day.

"Yeah," Rachel agreed. She chuckled a bit and stuck her soapy head under the stream of water pouring down on her. "It's today."

"Good luck," Victoria told her. Rachel, running her hand down her face to clear suds away from her lips, was about to reply, but Victoria had not yet finished. "I'll take of Max til you get back tonight. I promise." I knew you would. Rachel grinned to herself. Victoria had become quite adept at 'taking care of' Max, and Rachel meant that entirely without innuendo. Originally, Victoria Chase had sort of crumbled in the face of one of Max's really bad breakdowns and it had been up to Chloe and Rachel to help her understand what to do. That had been in the early days of their new friendships and so Rachel recalled being concerned about how Victoria would take instruction from them. Speaking of friends... you do still have one option when it comes to that apartment.

"Thanks, Victoria." The girl made her escape from the room without responding. Rachel sighed, finished rinsing her hair and the rest of her, then shut the water off. The three of them had come up with an idea that might guarantee that they could get that little, one bedroom apartment in northern Los Angeles, an area called Studio City. Rachel had been rather uncomfortable about it, but now as she considered the alternative, she decided it was best to act on the idea. At the very least she could ask. It would require certain sacrifices... and a fold out couch. Those sacrifices weren't going to be hers or Chloe's or even Max's to make though, so as she grabbed hold of her towel and began to dry off, she mentally plotted out exactly how to float the idea. They had mutually agreed on it as an option, but none had come up with a way to start the conversation yet.

Rachel dressed in silence before emerging from her stall as Kate and Stella entered. Save for the flip flops on her feet that she wore only in the shower, Rachel was dressed for the start of the day, already. Kate and Stella were both still dressed for bed. So wrapped up in her thoughts of the future she was that Rachel almost walked right past the two of them attempting to greet her. Rachel shook her head hard (wishing she had brought her brush with her to the showers) and paused halfway to the door, standing roughly where Victoria must have been standing only a few moments ago.

"Hey," Rachel called back. Stella fixed extremely dark blue eyes on her, those darker than Max's and, with a small half-smile, spoke.

"Someone's still a little asleep?"

"Maybe I wish I was," Rachel told her. The truth was that Rachel knew exactly what was wrong with her. She was anxious as all hell about today and transferring that anxiety to the far off future, to potential college living situations. It was not healthy, it was not rational but it had been effective in distracting her from thinking about her meeting tonight with her mother's mother for several minutes. Guiltily, Rachel planned to continue to indulge that horrible coping mechanism. "How'd you two sleep?" She had a few seconds to stop and talk, not that they would not see each other in a short time for breakfast, anyway.

"I slept pretty good," Stella told her, sounding as if that was the best gift in the world a person could receive. Rachel, who had done fairly well on that front herself, empathized. Kate, on the other hand, announced she had had some whacky dreams and absentmindedly straightened her early morning ponytail. Rachel thought about pursuing that line of questioning, but she had a thick head of hair to tame and a short brunette to check up on. "Hey, I'm sorry I gotta run off, but I'll see you both for breakfast." She tossed her damp towel over one shoulder, waited for their responses and then hurried from the showers to her room. She saw no sign of Juliet or Dana, nor Alyssa at all. It seemed everyone else was getting a hell of an early start on the day. Today, Rachel looked like the slacker.

She did not take a lot of time once back in her room. She made sure she had her keys, phone and wallet in her pockets, attacked her hair with a brush she intended to still have in her hands when Max opened her room up to Rachel and then set aside her shower sandals. Slowing in the process of taming her thick locks, Rachel pulled her socks and then first one boot and then the other on. They were not visually dissimilar to Chloe's (which, the girl had not worn as often since she returned to skating) but happened to weigh a pound or so less, as far as Rachel was concerned. After making sure her towel was draped across her computer chair to dry, she paused in front of the mirror hanging from the back of her closet door.

"You," Rachel told herself in the mirror, "look like you're freaking out." It was true, but she nonetheless decided to give in and apply a little bit of eyeliner, flash a thumbs up to what she considered an otherwise pleasant appearance and left the room. It's definitely me just transferring bullshit from what's going on with Sera to all of that L.A. shit, Rachel thought as she considered precisely how best to lead in with her pitch over breakfast. Sure, she was anxious about the future but when she questioned herself about it as she knocked once or twice on Max's door, there was no way that it took any precedent over the three ways her focus was split today.

First, Chloe's afternoon trip to a counselor needed to go well enough to convince her to go back. Second, her biological maternal grandmother might only be coming to Arcadia Bay to see her and she knew damn well that part of Sera wanted a connection with her mother. Finally, the brunette behind the door she was paused outside of, and said girl's potential mental state on this of all days, scared her. In short, she had her plate full of now problems. Adding on anxieties about futures which were nebulous at best was stupid. Still, as Rachel heard Max call for her to wait a second, she was imagining when the best time to pitch the idea of sharing an apartment with that fourth person would be. Should she wait for the girl to get done with her food or catch her early on? Certainly it would be rude to interrupt her meal with some sort of serious discussion like that, right?

She was nearly done brushing out her hair when the door opened and, stretching, Max gestured for her to come inside. Certainly, Rachel did enter without a word, but slowly and emphatically she pulled the door from Max's grasp and shut it behind her, turning her eyes on the brunette after. Max had not backed away from her or gone to any other part of the room, but she was smiling for some reason where she stood a step or two away dressed for a rather cool day already. Usually, Rachel knew why Max smiled. Today, in this moment, she did not. She also didn't bother to try to analyze it, if she was going to focus on anything it would be any signs of extreme emotional fatigue in the girl's face or voice. Certainly, the rings forming beneath her eyes had not gone away. Rachel took Max's right hand in her left.

The photographer was certainly ready to go, her chucks were on and she even had her bag around her shoulders already. As for Rachel, she placed her own bag down on the ground by Max's bed, laid her hairbrush down on the table nearest the door and made for Max's bed. With neither of them having yet said a word, Rachel pulled at her connection with Max, and the brunette, her smile widening slightly, landed, unresistant, in her lap. This earned Rachel a laugh, however tired and half-hearted it might sound. It was still a pleasant noise and was she pressed her lips into Max's cheek, she relished it.

"Good morning to you, too," Max told her. Rachel released Max's hand and wrapped her arms around the girl's midriff from behind. She held Max, though not too tightly. She did not want to cause her discomfort, she just wanted the brunette to know that she was adored, that Rachel being able to press her chin to Max's shoulder, and feel the photographer's fingers tracing shapes across Rachel's back was a blessing. Then, the brat had the audacity to ask if she was alright. "Are you okay?" Rachel did not control her snort.

"I'm okay," Rachel replied. Then, instead of saying anything about the lack of an apocalyptic storm, Chloe's coming therapy or Rachel's own meeting with her grandmother, she breathed out all at once. "I'm going to ask Steph today at breakfast, or at least float the idea by her." Max turned her head and regarded Rachel with some curiosity and a little bit of concern written into her freckled features. That was all the confirmation Rachel needed to know that she was worrying about the absolute wrong thing at the absolute wrong moment but when she reached for Max's left hand where it sat atop the girl's knee, Max simply intertwined their fingers and held her rather tightly. Rachel's right arm tightened just slightly around Max's midriff in response.

"Ask her what?" Max queried, and then her tired face transformed slightly. "Oh." She sounded a bit, not disturbed exactly but certainly like someone jolted from a great reverie. In this case, Rachel was certain that Max not thinking about the same thing she was happened to be a sign that at least the photographer was processing things better than Rachel was. "Oh, alright."

"Does that upset you?"" Max shook her head rapidly as if to reassure her. If Steph agreed, theoretically she would be locked into a small apartment with them as long as the lease ran but they were generally close enough friends that it would be doable.

"This might actually be a good time," Max told her, sounding a tiny bit dreamy as if they were talking about something that belonged to another life, another world, one of the tabletop campaigns they played under Steph or Chloe alongside Brooke and, occasionally when he could get to town, Mikey. "Steph seems like she's been having a good time of things lately. If there's a time to ask, this is it." Rachel rather agreed and told Max so. The artist had received an award in a statewide contest for a small comic she had drawn and was bigger on the idea of animating than ever before. "Hell, if we go with that place in Studio City, we can even keep Pompidou, though walking him is going to be a fucking trip." Rachel laughed legitimately this time at the idea of Chloe, Steph or Max or herself being pulled along by the dog around street corners with little baggies in hand. It wasn't necessarily a pleasant thought but it was funny.

Unable to resist one or two more stolen moments, Rachel pecked Max on the cheek twice in rapid succession, earning a tightening of the girl's grip on her hand in response. Max shifted imperceptibly in her lap, as if to get comfortable or angle toward her a little more, and then craned her neck to return the kiss. Wherever that might have gone, whatever it might have led to, Max held up one finger and put an end to it all by putting that finger to Rachel's lips. She did not look particularly serious faced while she did so, rather regretful in fact. Then, the brunette said something that Rachel rather thought in the moment was a little unforgivable.

"You know we'll have to leave eventually," Max teased her. In response, Rachel tightened her hold on the girl one more time and buried her face in the nape of Max's neck.

"Nuh-uh," Rachel told her. "You're all mine today. Everyone else can go fuck themselves." For a few minutes, they sat like that. Max tried to be playful and fully aware, but Rachel had long since ascertained that she was tired. Max's grades were bound to take a hit if something didn't change soon on the grand scale. Rachel was aware she had been an enabler on that front, though. Max became apologetic if it ever came up, but last week the photographer had turned in a paper on a book they had read for English which Max herself had outlined but Rachel had more or less written for her. Max typically wouldn't have allowed anyone to do that sort of thing for her, but this was one of the class's bigger papers and Rachel had refused to let Max's relatively good grades take a massive hit in her final year. She just hoped that Max never found out that she and Chloe had both spoken to a couple of teachers and received assurances of some understanding on the front of Max's spacy behavior in class.

Rachel sighed as Max finally got up from her lap and, securing Rachel's brush, did her best to restyle her hair. Not that she has anywhere near as much as me, Rachel thought. She had now done everything that morning but think in any detail about her meeting with her maternal grandmother. All she really knew about the woman is that things were tense between her and Sera and she had once been a piano teacher for some music school in southern California, that she had once spent a lot of time and money trying to support Sera before the incident or incidents which ultimately had caused their estrangement.

"I'm kind of worried about tonight," Rachel confessed to the brunette as Max opened the door to her dorm room and ushered Rachel out. She got to her feet, leaving the bed behind and grabbed her bag on the way out the door. Max's immediate response was to take her hand and bump her left hip against Rachel's right. While a lovely gesture of affection, it did not say much about how Max was feeling or any ideas as to what Rachel should do. For a moment or two, Rachel looked around, taking the hallway in with some strange hyperawareness of the pale walls, the text-covered slates beside each door and the old, rather ratty carpet lining the hall.

"Look," Max started as they reached the end of the hall and began to descend the stairs. "It's going to be okay. If the two of them really have so much shit between them, then your grandmother coming to see you right now must mean she really wants to meet you. It can't be that bad." There was some pretty sound logic to that statement. After all, who traveled across a couple of states to visit their estranged daughter and a teenage girl they had never met unless one or both of them were somehow important to her? Rachel was fairly certain she would never undertake such a trip lightly. There was still bound to be tension.

"I'm actually not sure how much I really want to know her." Rachel confessed, the words new to her own ears and mind. Someone had left the television running in the TV lounge or was having a morning 'veg sess'. Rachel turned her attention back to the photographer. The morning was fucking cold around them as Max pushed the door open and let cool air rush into the dormitories. With Eliot and Nathan gone, there was no major threat to hurry them in and out of the dormitory building. They lingered on the doorstep for a second while Max adjusted herself against the cold.

"That's fair," the photographer told her, now shifting the weight of her messenger bag from one shoulder to another. Rachel wondered if the cheap digital camera which Max kept for 'special use' was in that bag or still in the girl's drawer. Max still preferred her polaroids. "You guys are total strangers, after all." Sometimes, Max understood Rachel better than she understood herself, she thought. Rachel pulled that dark leather raven themed jacket tighter across her shoulders and then followed Max out onto the grounds. Max had just unintentionally given voice to a neglected thought in the back of Rachel's mind. This woman, Mrs. Gearhardt, was a total stranger who might have expectations about some kind of inherent familial bond between them.

Okay, that's actually fucking terrifying.

The pair emerged onto the grounds and Max pressed tight against Rachel's side, giving Rachel an opening to rest her right arm over Max's shoulders as they walked. Blackwell Academy was not without its tensions, its romance attempts and failures, its aggravations between staff and student body and certainly not without problems between students and Wells, who, it had come out, continued to play an active hand in 'mitigating' the 'damage' to Nathan's reputation over a year after his death. The fact was, though, Rachel thought as she looked around for any sign of anyone else out on the grounds at the moment, that there was only one adversary left for them on campus. Since the day that Max had threatened him with exposure of all of his secrets and made it clear that she was just fine exposing people for what they were, to boot, David had remained mostly inactive. The one time David had really gotten on to any of them had been the time when Chloe caused a bit of a disaster on campus by knocking someone over on her skateboard.

That someone, Rachel recalled with a rueful smile, had been Wells himself, so Chloe had taken her lumps, received two after school detentions and been informed that any further incidents would result in a suspension. To top it all off, her skateboard was 'unwelcome' within the walls of the school. Nonetheless, it usually sat in Chloe's truck and could often be seen around campus when she, Trevor and Justin decided to 'shred' or whatever the skate lingo was. Rachel was woefully undereducated on the vocabulary, which even Max occasionally teased her for. That was fine, Rachel could be dumb about slang and Max could remain the one of them with the inability to so much as snap her fingers on beat with a song. One day, Chloe would educate them both.

Rachel considered, as Max leaned against her side, providing a little more warmth for the both of them on the cool fall morning, that Max had not spoken about how bad last night had been for her. The girl was walking and talking fairly coherently, though her eyes looked heavy. It was possible that this had been a good night, but Rachel did not push. Max would have to tell her, tell them all before the day was up or Rachel would get impatient though. She was not the only one. Max didn't like it but there were a lot of eyes on her and had been since she fell asleep in three classes in a row the week after her birthday. That was part of the Really Bad Week, but people still worried about it some time down the line.

Rachel and Max were, unsurprisingly, the first from their table to reach the cafeteria. What was surprising was when Max took the opportunity to veer straight for the breakfast bar. Rachel slowed, releasing the girl, and watched her go. Max was wearing normal fall fare, including a replacement for the old flannel shirt she had stolen from Rachel long ago. Max had told her once that the old one was still around but that there was a blood stain on it so she kept it mostly packed away somewhere because she couldn't bare to throw it out. Max was, sometimes, overwhelmingly sentimental. Slowly, Rachel followed her, but not before turning back at the sound of one of the cafeteria doors being bumped as someone entered.

David made his way in, clad in his security cap and jacket as if no one on campus knew who the unnecessarily bulked up man was. Despite the cessations of hostilities as a result of Max making it clear that she was indeed capable of and willing to blackmail him to make him act like a human being, Rachel couldn't help but wonder if the man had been following them. Still, she returned his stare with a polite nod and joined Max. Rachel took her tray and progressed slowly down the line. She couldn't help it: she watched Max stack her tray with biscuits and gravy. The gravy had gotten much better that year. I'll be doing the same, methinks. Rachel followed in Max's footsteps, ultimately tossing a few hash browns into the mix to give it all the makings of an unhealthy, fattening breakfast. Oh god, it looks amazing. The hashbrowns looked and smelled freshly made, not frozen, which probably led to Rachel loading her tray with twice as much as she had planned and then, after grabbing her drink and reaching their usual table, scraping about a quarter of that onto Max's tray.

The brunette all but pouted for half a second and then covered it up. She did not say anything to suggest she was genuinely upset. Come to think of it, she hasn't said anything since we left the dorms. Rachel thought this might be a bad sign, considering they were coming down to a meal, but she did not comment. She only bumped Max's left shoulder with her right, picked up her fork and shamelessly mixed her own hash browns into the gravy. Bless whatever crazy fucker who convinced Blackwell to have a fucking buffet for breakfast. I swear if I ever find religion, I'll say prayers for your entire family until the day I die. Rachel took one bite, savoring the hot, chewy heaven that was biscuits and gravy and looked around the room.

Dana and Logan were already at their usual table in the back, though there looked be very little talking going on. In fact, neither of them were particularly even turned toward one another. Rachel did not know why, but when Max saw her looking at them, the girl frowned in their direction with big, doe-like eyes. She redirected the brunette's attention from whatever had her sad by offering a bite of hashbrowns from her own fork. Max rolled her eyes and took that bite, earning a chuckle and a small smile from Rachel. It even looked mechanical in nature, but Max ate and did not even give Rachel a 'damn you for making me do it' look. To others, this sight might have been sad. To Rachel it just meant that her girl was trying to do her damndest to start an ugly day off right. The small carton of orange juice Max took a sip from was at least healthier than the rest of either girl's meal. Rachel popped her own open as the brunette took her fork and set to work about her own tray.

Daniel DaCosta sat in the other back corner of the room at a table that used to belong to Nathan and Eliot. They, thankfully, were gone now. She suspected Warren Graham would join him, soon and Luke was already there. He looked somewhat angrier than usual this morning and judging by the way Daniel side eyed him over his own juice, Rachel wasn't the only one who had noticed. Luke had been pretty pissed off a couple of days ago, too, come to think of it. She suspected that Logan or Zachary might have been bullying him or Daniel. There seemed to be no convincing them to change their stripes though Dana claimed to be making progress with Logan. The other option is Luke got into a shouting match with Evan. That happened far more often than probably healthy for their weird, sometimes confrontational friendship.

Rachel understood why, though. Evan Harris was not a monster, but he was, without a doubt, exactly what Chloe called him: a pompous ass. Max thought he was funny more often than not and Rachel thought he was a seriously underappreciated photographer. Of course, she might have been a little biased as, other than Max, he was the only one of them who had ever really asked her to be a subject for his photos. Rachel didn't think she was too vain, but he had stroked her ego just enough to get her to agree on more than one occasion. He took wildly different pictures from Max's and Rachel rather liked the powerful, mature version of herself that his camera seemed to find. Still, he was more than capable of pissing her off.

Speaking of Evan, Rachel thought as she glanced at their still relatively empty table, he's been poaching from us. On occasion, Brooke would spend either breakfast or lunch at Daniel, Evan and Luke's table. Rachel wasn't sure whether this was better or worse than the option of her bringing Evan to the table or not. She was glad that Brooke was over Warren and on to Evan, she just missed her on days when she spent both of the early meal times with him. Dinner wasn't a problem as, half of the time, Evan liked to photograph through dinner. Sometimes, Brooke told them that she thought his pompous attitude was a front. Other times she declared him beyond helping. Rachel hoped she decided soon.

As if summoned by Rachel appraising the table as rather empty, Kate and Stella made their way into the cafeteria, calling a greeting to the two of them just in time to catch Rachel with a full mouth so that all she could do was wave back. Alyssa usually joined them for lunch, nowadays, but was 'not a breakfast person' so her not being with them was not especially noteworthy. Their little table had a couple too many chairs at it nowadays for school policy but no one gave them shit. Max had apparently had to convince Alyssa that it was alright to join them as she had been originally dubious. Apparently the Vortex Club used to give her the 'heebie jeebies'. Rachel had understood that.

Now there was always a wide variety of conversations going on at the table. Things got lively. Victoria, Courtney and Taylor would have been welcomed, too, but they seemed to be fitting together pretty well with Dana, Logan and Juliet's table. That didn't mean that occasionally they didn't steal Max over to theirs or Max didn't do the same to Victoria, but Rachel had long ago decided that she was ultimately supportive of whatever the two photographers had going on. If that meant sacrificing a meal with her once every other day or even more often than that, that struck Rachel as right.

Rachel realized as the two new arrivals reached the table with her food that she had split most of her concentration between looking at Max and looking around the room. She realized this, in part, because when her eyes shot back at Max after they sat down, Max responded by sticking her tongue out at Rachel, food and all. She was either in fairly good spirits, judging by the cheeky grin she levied on Rachel as the thespian turned back and took her first bite of food in a minute or two, or she was overcompensating. Well, Rachel thought, if I can worry about everything but meeting my grandmother, Max can overcompensate. More people began to trickle into the room as Rachel ate, no longer checking to make sure that Max was trekking forward through a meal that probably seemed entirely unappetizing to her. In retrospect, watching Max so closely had been a bit insulting. The girl was trying her ass off to be alright and had been for a while. Still, they were treading the line between 'crisis state' and 'emergency state' pretty finely, as far as Rachel was concerned.

Evan and Brooke walked in together next. Evan was talking, Brooke was not listening. It seemed to be working for the two of them as they angled past the table, greeting Rachel with a wave and made for Evan's usual seat. Luke did not glare their direction as they approached, so Rachel upped her suspicion that Zachary and Logan were being extra douchey at the moment. The next to enter was Victoria, who came in alone, making for their table and, before saying anything to anyone else, setting her oh-so-expensive purse down on the table beside Max and wrapping her arms around the girl's shoulders. Rachel remembered her promise to take care of Max that afternoon as the two of them matched eyes over Max's shoulder. She was no longer sure it was an entirely innocent one, because after greeting the table at large, Victoria whispered something into Max's ear which left her cheeks flaming bright red. Without responding to Rachel's amused, questioning glance, Victoria sauntered off for her morning eggs.

Rachel did not ask. She did, however, consider making a new guess at the pet name she and Chloe had overheard Victoria teasing Max about using for her, but Max looked tired and embarrassed enough as she cleared her throat, took a long drink of OJ and returned to her dinner. In addition to being kind of cute, it was a little pitiful for this early in the morning. Rachel decided not to push. Looking down she saw that most of her hashbrowns were gone and she was left to turn to what remained of the biscuits as conversation started to pick up at the table, Stella and Kate firmly into their own, slightly healthier meals.

Chloe and Steph arrived shortly later. Chloe was not dressed for her first therapy session. If anything, she looked a little grungier than usual and Rachel was fairly certain that those hole-y jeans were torn along the right knee from Chloe's last fall from her skateboard. The immediate thing that she could ascertain about the pair was that there was a certain amount of guilt in Chloe's face. Judging by her side eying and smiling at Steph whenever possible as they gathered their breakfast, Rachel thought Chloe might have had another nightmare and dragged Steph, metaphorically kicking and screaming, into it. It's been a while since that happened, right? Poor Chloe. Poor Steph.

Max noticed this too, because her mechanical eating and occasional pause to check if her stomach was going to keep the food down, came to a complete standstill, as did her part in whatever conversation about photography the three of them had been having. Kate and Stella tried to keep it up and even Rachel turned her attention back to the table, mostly for Stella's sake. Stella was much improved in how relaxed she could be but when awkward silences arose, she seemed to get upset, if not a little scared easily. Max watching Chloe, frowning profoundly, was certainly a little awkward. The table still greeted the pair as they finally sat down, Chloe on Max's right and Steph on Rachel's left, closest to Kate. The bluenette waved across the room at Brooke, who, unbeknownst to Evan but much to Luke's apparent amusement, jerked her head toward the bespectacled photographer to her right and mimed blowing her own brains out as Evan continued to speak. So, not a great day for them, then? Rachel thought to herself as Steph snorted into her drink.

Rachel paused in eating even as Max resumed to watch Chloe load up two pieces of toast with what looked like six or seven pieces of bacon. There was a very small mound of scrambled eggs next to the thick impromptu sandwich and a banana at the edge of the tray beside a carton of milk. Rachel was fairly certain that that meal was at least slightly more balanced than hers or Max's. Chloe had been prone to a much larger appetite than that, lately, though. Is this a good sign? Am I overanalyzing fucking everything? Isn't that supposed to be Chloe's shtick? Steph looked to be enjoying her own eggs, it was just that she had this horrible habit of getting a bit of the gravy she liked to ladle over her toast on them. Rachel wasn't a picky eater but to her that just seemed like it would taste weird.

If there had been a nightmare, Steph did not look as bothered about it as Chloe did, considering the way the girl tried not to look directly at her. In fact, other than her brief exchange with Max a moment ago, Chloe looked to be trying to avoid everyone's eyes. Maybe she thought she was fooling someone with her quick makeup job to cover up the slight bags under her own eyes. Sure, they were not as bad as Max's, but they were still notable. I wish everyone could just get good sleep. Steph was talkative at least, though, engaged with Max and Stella about mostly their recent history lesson on World War II era US.

For the next five or six minutes or so, Rachel went over the plan for the day in her head: keep it together during school, try to convince Max to have something small during lunch, get Chloe to talk about what was going on in her head, see Chloe off to therapy, go meet her grandmother, come back, cuddle Max all afternoon. Bonus points if Chloe comes back to campus. That meant bonus cuddling, after all. Rachel exhaled when she heard the conversation slow, a pause between topics arising. Her own tray was more or less empty though she wished she had a piece of toast to sop up the rest of the gravy. She would probably go grab one shortly. Rachel glanced sideways. Max was genuinely chuckling at something Chloe had just whispered to her. Stella and Kate were relaxed and Steph had just slammed down her empty carton of milk. This is as good a time as I'm gonna get. Rachel shifted her chair so that it was turned more toward the girl to her left and grinned.

"Steph," she said, crossing her arms over her chest, "We've got a proposal for you." When Steph released her drink carton and turned to Rachel expectantly, she glanced back at Chloe and Max. This had not been lost on either of them, she thought. Chloe was rigid, as if concerned. The auburn haired girl reached for her fork and then laid it back down on her tray and waited. "It involves, cohabitation, a foldout couch and about 950 bucks a month split four ways. Maybe a little less." What Rachel had not expected was for Steph to gesture vaguely with her hands and in a low voice and forced accent, parody The Godfather at her.

"You don't even think to call me Godfather. You come into my house, on the day my daughter is to be married, and you ask me to cohabitate." Rachel felt a bit of tension she had not noticed sneak into the back of her neck loosen up. Her bright eyes shining slightly at the victory of making Rachel smile through a tense moment, Steph circled one hand in the air as if demanding she go on. "I am interested in hearing your proposal." Instead, Rachel decided to play along with the teasing atmosphere. She turned back to Chloe and gestured for Chloe to take over. For a moment, the bluenette opened her mouth, dumbfounded and audibly scrambled to find words, looking a little like there would be revenge in Rachel's future. Rachel all but beamed at her and then waved dismissively to suggest she was kidding. Chloe, red faced, glared back in response and flipped her off across the table.

"Chloe," Steph told the girl, her voice low and scolding. "You two can make plans for that after this." At finding no help from her best friend, Chloe turned back to Max and immediately, loudly talked about where they could catch dinner that evening after Chloe's therapy session. Rachel just returned her attention to Steph as Max indulged the skater and smiled her appreciation for Steph joining in on the teasing. Still, she was forced to exhale a moment later and make her pitch.

"How would you like to move in with us in L.A. after school and make our apartment officially the coolest place in California? Honestly, Steph, we'd be lost without you. You are the guiding force of cool in all our lives." Besides, with Rachel, Chloe, Max and Steph under one roof, how could there be anywhere cooler?

October 11th, 2013 2:58 PM

As far as Max was concerned, Louise Burke was a better teacher than Mark Jefferson could have dreamed of being even if he hadn't been a predator. Her comparatively little first hand experience was more than made up for by the wholehearted engagement she took both in her relationship with her topic and that with her students. Neither of them even touches Drewer, though, rest her soul. Max tried and failed to stifle a yawn as she glanced around the photography classroom. It hadn't been changed a ton since its days as a platform for the wanted Jefferson's personal ego stroking. Photos and posters mostly chosen by him still lined the wall, among them a class photo taken the year before. It had the whole crew, as far as the photography classes were concerned. Max sometimes thought that if she tried very hard to ignore the boy standing over Victoria's left shoulder in the picture, she could still look at that photo where it sat in a case along the back wall.

Sometimes.

Max managed to cover her mouth before maybe her hundredth yawn of the lesson escaped and, eyes watering, she looked across her table to Victoria. Victoria was a studious enough individual but as Max looked at her, the blonde's eyes wandered from Burke, the thirty-something with a degree from NYU and caught Max watching her. The girl wiggled her eyebrows quickly and a little suggestively across the table, forcing Max to look away immediately and pretend she didn't hear Taylor laugh. Nothing Burke was saying about the Daguerreian Process was particularly humorous in the least. If that chuckle had had anything to do with the warmth in Max's cheeks, she was going to get Taylor back, one way or another.

Burke's voice, notably poised to go into a lecture on the origin of the Daguerreian Process, was cut across by the shrill ring of the bell denoting that school was finally, mercifully over and Max could be as sleepy and out of it as she so desired. It wasn't that Max didn't enjoy the class, or any of her classes, exactly it was just that anything beyond the most basic of note taking was questionable in her current state. She could count the number of hours she had slept in the last couple of days on one hand. That was not, strictly speaking, good. Max took a moment to pop her knuckles and then stand as Victoria, Taylor and Courtney gathered their gear. She had gotten into such a habit of only setting out the basics in Jefferson's class that it had stuck with her. Her notebook and pen went into her bag in a fraction of the time it took the others to gather themselves up. Only a table or two over, Kate, Stella and Hayden were in conversation about something but Max wasn't sure what. All she knew was that it involved Hayden pretending to frame something or someone and Stella chuckling.

Max glanced back at Victoria as the girl shouldered her purse, smoothed wrinkles that did not exist in the front of her top and generally tried to make herself look presentable for – well, Max wasn't sure what. Then, and only then, was Victoria good to go. It only took Taylor a moment or two more to pack her stuff up and then Max led them out of the room. When she stopped to raise her eyes to Burke, who sat relatively at peace behind her desk sorting through the photos they had turned in at the start of that class period, Max felt a tiny bit guilty. She really didn't want to give the woman the idea that she did not care for her class. She just yawned at everything and not even the light spilling in from the three huge windows taking up the majority of one wall of the room was quite enough to wake her.

Max moved forward when she felt Victoria's hand on her shoulder. She wasn't sure whether the girl was trying to nudge her onward, be reassuring or just seeking contact. Max was okay with any of those options because she didn't mind the contact. She did however, turn back to look at the girl over her shoulder. Victoria was the no nonsense type. She did not cloak how she felt unless there was damned good reason to and hurting your feelings was good enough reason most of the time, but other times she seemed to see it as a necessary side effect of progress. It was refreshing and it meant they talked very openly, very bluntly and very often. Communication with Victoria was a lot simpler than she had expected. Today, Victoria's face had said multiple times that she wanted Max. They hadn't exactly in a location where showing that in the way of physical affection would have been considered acceptable. Now, though, she looked like she was in a different kind of hurry. Max didn't question it, she just led the way from the room and posted up on the opposite side of the hall as the three followed her out.

Courtney was the first of them to spot the science lab's door opening just down the hall or the flash of bright blue hair which stuck out. She nudged Max and nodded toward Chloe as she emerged from the door first, her face a little pale. Steph followed her out a step or two behind. Chloe, it seemed, noticed she was being watched because she and Steph had joined them before anyone who Max had just come out of her classroom with had a chance to really say anything. Steph looked a little frustrated, as if maybe Chloe was being a little hard to deal with at the moment. Behind Max, Kate called out a greeting and passed with Stella in tow. Evan and Hayden followed shortly after.

"Hey," Steph waved to Kate on the girl's way past them. Then she turned back to the group at large about the same time that both Taylor and Victoria stopped flicking through their phones, likely just checking for messages. "How was class?" she asked, making it clear with the way she glanced from face to face that it was rather an open ended question.

"Not bad," Victoria answered, sounding a little unimpressed. "Someone kept being distracting." Max frowned at Victoria. She was not at fault for any of the no doubt uncouth thoughts that might or might not have been going through Victoria's head throughout the day. That was on her. "I meant the yawning, you perv," Victoria informed her when she guessed rather successfully at the general trend Max's thoughts were taking. Even in her state, Max had to admit that Victoria was cute when she glared at Max as if she wasn't the more aggressive of the two of them, as if neither of them knew better. Pot, the kettle called.

"So," Max said without answering to show how dubious she was of this, and turned toward Chloe. Victoria sighed and threw her hands up as if she just couldn't with Max. "Are you gonna be ready for today?"

"Do you mean the tabletop tonight?" Chloe asked, innocently, her face earnest and confused. Max decided to stare at her, unimpressed. They held this staredown for a beat before Chloe sighed and deflated slightly. "Yeah, I'll be good to go in about five minutes. I just wanna stretch first." Max nodded.

"I'm still coming," Max insisted as Taylor and Courtney announced they were off to the dorms. Max expected Victoria to turn and follow them, so she leaned in quickly and placed her lips to Victoria's cheek. The blonde turned her head to accept the kiss but then, looking past Max to Courtney and Taylor, called out that she would talk to them later. Leave it to Victoria to sneak even a goodbye kiss under false pretenses. While Max considered what to do about that, Victoria stepped away from her to where Chloe leaned against one of the old blue lockers lining the hall and joined her against it.

"Mind if I come with you?" Victoria asked Chloe. Max didn't particularly mind the idea but she was a little bit surprised by it. Chloe, it seemed, was too, but the bluenette was far quicker on her feet and tried to cover it up much quicker than Max could. Every time Max blinked her eyes stung and eyelids felt heavy. There was no point in any pretense about any of the emotions that came to her face and she knew it. Since Rachel was going to see her mother and grandmother his evening, Max was slated to be waiting alone outside of the disgusting, shitty place while Chloe was inside. She wasn't going to be against company while she waited. Besides, Victoria might be able to keep her mind off how satisfying she would find it to punch Sean Prescott right in his smug prick face.

"Works for me," Chloe told Victoria, who responded with a genuine smile and then turned to rest her back against the cool locker. Max followed the girl's line of sight down the hallway and smiled herself. In the middle of a group of students pouring from the opposite hall and mostly heading toward lockers or the exit nearest the dormitories, Rachel looked a little more harried than she had at lunch, but she walked with a purpose as she parted from the dispersing crowd, shared a high five with Hayden as he passed by her going the opposite direction and then walked right up to Chloe without letting her get up off of the lockers, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pecked her on the cheek once.

"You gonna be ready?" Chloe's response to being asked the same thing Max had just asked was to roll her eyes at Steph, who rolled them back as if Chloe was the one being difficult. Max high fived the girl. Steph had not committed hard and fast one way or another to the proposal Rachel had made to her over breakfast but Max was kind of hopeful. It would be beneficial for their plans if they had a fourth roomie and that being a friend they valued and trusted would be for the best. It would be especially important considering Max was not currently in a state to contribute more than about a grand and did not know how well her funds would hold out until that time and as such was looking at the possibility of spending the better part of a school semester in Seattle before moving in with the others.

"Of course I'm ready," Chloe grumped. "It's just therapy."

"It's your first session," Victoria told her, turning back to face Chloe a little more directly. Slowly, Max stepped up alongside Steph, who was making a face as if she suspected that things were about to get a little bit tense. Max blinked at her, but Steph merely shook her head as if in warning. "It'd be kind of normal to be nervous."

"Well, I'm not," Chloe shot back, her tone low and a little bit aggravated. Victoria held up her hands as if to say she meant nothing by the comment but rather than look too terribly irritated herself, she simply stared at Chloe as if she did not believe the girl was quite handling the idea of therapy as well as she was letting on. Max couldn't say she had noticed much animosity between the two of them in a while. If Chloe was snapping for no reason it did not speak very well as to how well she was with handling the idea of talking to a stranger about her problems. When she glanced about and realized that everyone except Victoria herself was looking at her in concern, Chloe shrugged. "Sorry. That wasn't okay .I'm just- I'm tired of all of this shit. I want it to be over with."

"Yea-ah," Rachel started, as if about to deliver bad news as she tightened the arm she had around Chloe's shoulders and ruffled the girl's hair a bit. "Bad news. That's really not how it works."

"That's alright," Chloe exhaled, "I'll figure it out." At that, Rachel disengaged from Chloe and took a step or two across the little group to peck Max on the cheek.

"What?" Victoria joked, "nothing for me?" Rachel pulled back from Max, frowned first at Victoria and then, turning to Max with a stern look on her face, Rachel raised one finger damingly.

"Max," she started, "you're not neglecting Tori are you?" It took Max, tired as she was, a second to understand exactly what Rachel was saying, or rather, playfully accusing her of. When she did, Max glared and Victoria sighed, simultaneously. Chloe perked up behind Rachel, as if waiting to see if there was some small sign that Rachel's guess had been correct. Max didn't have the heart to tell them they'd already guessed that name twice and she had neither confirmed nor denied it either time.

"Stop trying to guess the name," Max groaned, feeling more tired than she had a moment or two before and embarrassed all over again. Would they just get over it? Of course she knew the answer to that. Rachel and Chloe were not the type to let either Max or Victoria live that down.

"Hell no," Rachel said, shaking her head slowly and sadly as if disappointed in Max. "You have a sappy pet name for Victoria and I wanna know it."

"If you tell her," Victoria threatened suddenly, turning away from Chloe to look toward Max and Steph, "I swear I'll buy that Camera Porn site you love so much and close it down. You'll have nowhere to go to look at all your pictures of vintage cameras." Max pouted at Victoria this time, but she knew everyone was being mostly playful here. Mostly. Rachel and Chloe were curious as to what the pet name was that she used for Victoria ever since they caught the girl teasing Max about it. Originally Max thought that that was because she and the girls didn't have pet names. How many times, though, had Chloe called her by some silly childhood nickname with an adoring look in her eyes? How many times had Max called Rachel 'Rach' in a heated moment? They had their pet names. Rachel and Chloe just loved to tease and push at Max's buttons and if they made Victoria give Max a hard time in the process, that probably sounded like a bonus.

Max crossed her arms over her chest, turned to the side and tiredly engaged Steph in conversation. Steph, who began to fill her in on an idea for another comic, was no longer on edge and Max had a feeling that that had to do with other people talking to Chloe, who seemed testier than normal. Occasionally, one of the other members of the Vortex Club would pass by, on their way to do some early prep for tomorrow night's party. Max felt bad that not only were she, Rachel and Chloe taking the day off, but now they were bringing Victoria with them to boot. That was alright, though. The parties were still rather nice but they were no longer what they had once been. They required a lot less preparation and a lot less money. Not to mention a lot less beer. Things were strictly Bring your own Buzz, now. A couple of people in the school still had connections for recreational drugs but with David now watching every party like a hawk, no one drank or took anything publicly. If you wanted a buzz, you did it in private, pregaming.

On the plus side the Vortex Club had gone back to the purposes for which it originally had been founded, providing a haven for people who felt isolated by their peers and surroundings to come together, even if it was in a party situation and doing more community outreach projects. More than half of its members helped with the Meals on Wheels program Kate Marsh ran on Thursdays. Max was usually among that number but she had been feeling pretty low energy yesterday. Running meals around Arcadia Bay had been pretty questionable. Besides, Max had not driven in about three weeks, having hung up her keys after nearly crashing the old car her mother and father had gotten her into a light post in the school parking lot. (I mean, to be technical it's more like after I crashed the car and then rewound, but if I ever admit that to Chloe or Rachel they'll hide my keys from me.) Eventually the crowd began to disperse so that the five of them were relatively alone in the hall and when that happened the questioning which Max had been dodging all day, finally hit full force.

"Are you okay?" Chloe asked her, pointedly during a lull in conversation. Four sets of eyes came to a rest on Max.

"I mean, it is today," Victoria said, as if Max needed reminding.

"Yeah, it's today," Max confirmed. Unfortunately, at this exact moment a yawn hit her. The hallway of Blackwell Academy became hazy behind heavy, sore watering eyes.

"I think someone was up all night," Steph muttered as Max rubber her eyes. Max laughed a little harshly at getting the third degree from just about everyone at the same time, except Rachel who was standing quietly, with her hands in her jacket pockets.

"Were you?" Victoria pushed her on that last point and Max held up her hands, shaking her head.

"Yes, I had trouble sleeping," she told them and then lowered her voice a bit as she glanced up and down the hall. The nearest person, Daniel, was far enough down the hallway opening his locker that he could not possibly hear them. "and yes, today's the day The Storm happened in the other timeline." Victoria opened her mouth to say something and judging by the look on her face it was going to either be pushing her to tell them more or maybe just some snarky comment, so Max spoke over her. "And yes," she added, drawing this last word out longer than any monosyllabic word had a right to stretch, "I'm fine." Victoria again raised her hands defensively and closed her mouth before letting them drop.

This last point was something of a fib. She was not fine. She wasn't even okay. She would ideally like to be cuddled up with one or two of the people in front of her somewhere quiet and away from everyone and everything. Ideally, somewhere where she could still see the fairly sunny looking fall day for herself. Eventually, the group began to meander toward the nearest exit. Max knew they were moving as a whole toward the parking lot considering neither Chloe nor Rachel had a lot of time before they had to leave if they wanted to make it to their individual destinations on time and Steph needed to get home to feed Pompidou. Max watched the one person who had not partaken in the game of 20 questions as they walked.

Rachel's attempts to rebuild her relationship with her mom Rose and expand one with her mother, Sera, had been mostly successful. Rose was just a really complicated area and Rachel had only really recently explained why. Rose, Rachel had confessed, was probably a bit of a sociopath. As a result she had learned a lot of unhealthy emotional habits from her mom, who still practiced most of them to top it all off had trouble hiding the fact that she harbored less than fond feelings toward Rachel's relationship with Max and Chloe. It was Rachel's fear that her mom would one day decide that she needed to drive them apart, but Rachel also told them she could not be sure that she was not just being paranoid and a little distrustful. Max had noticed her mom's bizarre behavior and inconsistent personality traits during their trip to San Francisco a year prior. Either way, Rachel's relationship with Rose had been pretty significantly strained and to Max, that was sad.

Considering that Chloe and Joyce communciated mostly in periodic text messages, Max felt blessed that her mother and father were so supportive and ultimately accepting of her girls. They had even come to understand that Max had a connection with Victoria that was really important. Max had never come out and said anything to either of them about the fact that Victoria was more than a friend but then, she had never done so about Rachel or Chloe, either and it was evident in how her father playfully referred to them as the 'future Mrs. Caulfields' (mercifully for Max, never in earshot of either one of them or Victoria) that they understood the nature of that relationship. In the end, Max hoped Rachel could find and keep strong ties with the parents she had left, considering that James was out of the picture, presumably for good. And that's one choice I can't blame Rachel for in the least.

Eventually, the party reached the parking lot and Max was forced to exchange a goodbye hug with Rachel shortly before she and Chloe did and then clear way for Steph to do the same for Chloe. Max hung back beside Victoria by the nose of Chloe's truck while the others said their goodbyes and was amused to find the blonde looking nervously at the vehicle beside them. She took Victoria's hand. Victoria was different about holding hands than Rachel or Chloe. To either of them, you might as well be half cuddling one another if you were holding hands. To Victoria, that simple connection seemed to be special in and of itself. Max intertwined her fingers with Victoria's and leaned back against the nose of the truck.

"Just chill out and be yourself," Rachel told Chloe, then she looked past her to Max. "I'll be home around six or seven."

"This is a big day for you too," Max told Rachel. "Take as much time as you can. Like, make it count." If there was any hope for any kind of connection to this woman coming from southern California to meet her then Max thought that Rachel might as well take the time to make it work. Victoria stayed mostly quiet, which Max understood. Friendship had built up between the lot of them, but it had taken a fair amount of time to reach this point. There was just a bit of a past between Chloe and Victoria, one whose depth Max had never really guessed at until the two girls began to work it out. It was not especially positive either, Max thought as Rachel and Steph departed for their cars. By now the two could even be seen talking together in the halls, though what mutual interests they discussed was a concept that still eluded Max. After all, their styles were pretty different, they did not seem to have a ton of interests in common and, to Max's knowledge, no one had managed to sway Victoria toward anything sci-fi or fantasy genre in any medium. And you know first hand that they don't have shit in common for music tastes.

Chloe climbed into the driver's seat of the truck like a condemned man walking to the gallows, so Max led Chloe around to the passenger side and got in herself. Watching Victoria try not to judge the machine as she settled into it would have been comical if Max didn't have so much affection for the Frankentruck. Max had told Victoria most of the honest truth about the things she had gone through since coming to Arcadia Bay, but she did not know if Victoria understood that Max had learned to drive in this thing, even if that had been under unusual circumstances – that being a time loop in which Max tried and failed (for what might have been the about a month of waking time to her) to save Rachel from either harm, the hospital or being arrested. The Frankentruck was kind of her baby in a way as much as it was Chloe's vehicle. When the truck grumbled and started forward as soon as Chloe shifted it into gear, Victoria jumped. Max was far too tired to pretend not to chuckle so she accepted the blonde's glare graciously.

"Chill, Victoria, it's a truck. It won't eat you."

"If you say so." Max turned to Chloe to say something to her, but she found the bluenette looking at them with a shit eating grin on her face. She allowed Chloe one chance to turn back to the road and when she instead opened her mouth to say whatever it was that Max was going to pretend she did not see coming, Max let her have it.

"Shutty," Max told her, narrowing her eyes at the girl. Shrugging a little bit as if to say it didn't bother her, Chloe turned back to the road and continued the trek to the center of Arcadia Bay. When Max looked back at Victoria, she was red in the face. "You know it's going to be okay right?" Max asked Chloe after she had had time to get over the urge to flick the girl on the tip of the nose while she drove.

"I hope so. I just really hate the idea of using this place," Chloe said. Max was going to agree but Victoria spoke first.

"I did too," Victoria admitted, looking past Max as Chloe glanced sideways at her. "Like, a lot."

"A lot, a lot," Chloe echoed. Max sighed when Victoria took the moment to reply.

"A lot, a lot, a lot." Mutually enjoying annoying Max might be the biggest thing they had in common second to being cute as hell doing it. To put an end to the gimmick before it genuinely got on her nerves, Max reached out and turned on the old radio. The station playing the closest thing to Chloe's music began to blast through the cab, volume having been left way up. Max did not turn it down, not even when Victoria rolled her eyes or Chloe began air drumming at a stop light. As exhausted as she was, she welcomed silencing the shitty thoughts in her head and the music made thinking quite difficult. Max reached out with either hand, squeezed either girl on the knee supportively and then settled back into her seat.

Maybe ten minutes later, Max stood just inside of the now familiar waiting room for the Nathan Prescott Memorial Mental Health Clinic, colloquially called the Prescott Clinic. No matter which name you chose, the place made her feel like she was going to break out into hives every time she stepped foot in it. Until now that had only been to run Victoria to her appointments on days when the girl thought she might need someone there with her afterward. She rarely waited in the building after Victoria went back to her own therapist and as soon as Chloe disappeared behind the small wooden door in the back of the room, Max intended to be out of the shitty, beige and sea green mess of a room. Every time she sat down in this room, Sean Prescott's speech at the building's dedication came to mind. Sometimes, that was enough to make her gag.

"Are you sure you wanna wait with me?" Chloe asked her as they sat down. Max did her best to cloak her disdain for every detail of the place. She also knew that that was useless and pointless as she had voiced it any number of times to the girls on either side of her.

"You might be waiting five or ten minutes," Max insisted. "I don't want you stuck in here alone while you wait." Try as Chloe might to say everything was fine over and over, Max knew better. The girl was nervous about coming, dubious about this being able to work and stressed about the fact that she could only let on about bits and pieces of the things she had experienced. Max placed her hand over Chloe's on their shared arm rest and this earned, at least, a smile from Chloe. Victoria, who had just finished walking the artist through checking in, settled her expensive purse on her lap and sat quietly on Max's other side. She wished she could get into either girl's head the way that Chloe could get into theirs. Sometimes, Chloe did more than slip between dreams or project images of people in her waking life which only she could see. The mechanic claimed that she sometimes sensed peoples' presences in the waking world much as she did in dreams.

Max wasn't sure what to make of that, but right then she would have given anything to be able to go into Chloe's or Victoria's dreams and see if either or both of them were alright. Victoria had not exactly scaled back her own visits to the clinic and Max knew she had stopped letting Max in on the wide range of her own difficulties when Max had gotten really bad, emotionally, around her birthday. Actually, the near month since her party had been kind of hellish in its own way. Max pushed all of that out of her mind and watched Chloe shift uncomfortably in her seat as she eyed the strangers working behind the counter as receptionists or assistants.

"Think about it like this," Victoria told Chloe, leaning forward to look past Max. "They're getting paid for this, so they're probably pretty smart about this kind of thing. This is the Prescott Family ass covering. It better be Grade A." Chloe's chuckle was polite but hollow. She was beyond humor at the moment and they all knew it. "It's alright. This is the first time. It'll suck but next time will suck a little less. You'll get used to it after a couple more." This seemed to be the most comforting thing Victoria could think to say and it was, Max was given to understand true. She had, herself, vehemently refused to partake in the place despite pressure from everyone from Chloe, Rachel, Victoria or Kate all the way up to her own parents. There was no way in hell that any of them were going to get her to validate Sean Prescott's bullshit by giving the clinic her business, regardless of the discount in place for Blackwell students. If they chose to, that was their choice and she respected it, but Max could not forget the language laced within the speech Sean Prescott made at the building's dedication.

The man had practically accused her and everyone who had ever spoken out against Nathan of bullying him to the point of committing a violent act. At one point, he had even implied that Nathan would be alive today if it weren't for the 'intolerant, socialist left' as if his wealth and not his propensity to drug, molest and photograph teenage girls had something to do with the situation that resulted in Chloe having to shoot him. (Frankly, how Chloe or Victoria swallowed that shit well enough to agree to come to the clinic was beyond Max.) There were now bets being made as to whether or not he was going to attempt to make their class's graduation about Nathan. For her part, she very much hoped so. She would be glad to engage Sean Prescott in front of a crowd of people live and let them hear how absurd he sounded. That was her own pettiness coming through, she knew but she was just a bit bitter that a sexual predator – whatever else could be said about the rest of his mental health – was the victim and that the people who spoke out about his assaulting him were the monsters in Sean Prescott's twisted little narrative.

Max must have become visibly irritated during this line of thought because Chloe had just asked her if she was sure she was going to be okay when a woman called Chloe's name. Max exhaled, leaned sideways and patted Chloe on the hand as the girl got up.

"Everything's gonna be okay," Max assured Chloe, though her hands wanted to curl into fists and she wanted to vomit. Chloe pulled her hat down over her hair, sighed and made for the back where a woman who looked entirely unlike Victoria's therapist waited. Max stayed turned as Chloe gave her one last look, pausing by the door and then followed the doctor through to the back. Almost as soon as the door shut behind her, Max stood up. "I need out of here, right now," Max told Victoria, who rose to her feet without complaint but not without giving Max a look as if she questioned whether the girl was really alright or not.

Max made for the front doors of the building and did not slow down as she crossed the seagreen disaster of a carpet and passed through the doors. She did not slow, frankly until such time as she was settled into the middle seat of the truck and had thrown Chloe's skateboard into the driver's seat. Victoria climbed in through the still open door a few seconds later and Max did not look. She knew Victoria was trying to keep her expensive outfit from getting dirty and it normally looked endearing and all, but Max was just feeling a little frustrated with everything. Hell, even the seat beneath her felt lumpy. Neither of them buckled in but after Victoria shut the door Max could feel the blonde watching her and even, she suspected, raising an eyebrow her way. After a second, Max exhaled loudly, raised a middle finger to the grey lettering across the orange brick building, the lettering that bore Nathan's name and then lowered it when she thought she had gotten her point across to the completely innocent letters who had never done a damned thing to her in their life.

"Did that help?" Victoria asked as Max calmed slightly. Max shrugged.

"I'm bitter," she said, "as usual. Also, fucking tired and I'm always shit about hiding how I feel when I'm tired." There was some quiet before Victoria spoke again, blunt and matter-of-factly.

"I know you don't like this place. It's pretty fucking cool for you to come here anyway, for me and now Chloe, too." Max shrugged.

"That doesn't bother me. I care about you two. I just think this place is part of a shitty plot to make Sean Prescott look like some tragic hero so that he can jerk off to the press about how does everything for this town, or some shit." Victoria pulled a face, probably at the image left behind by Max's colorful language and then, without missing a beat or changing her tone shrugged as if she didn't even care.

"Probably is," Victoria agreed, "but the good news is that that's not our problem. I get it Max, and we all know today's really fucking with you even if you say otherwise, but you can relax." The girl's voice dropped in both tone and volume as Victoria reached out and ran one hand down the length of Max's neck, to rest on her shoulder. "It's just you and me now." Max swallowed, involuntarily. Leave it to her, Max thought, to try shit like this now.

"You're right," Max told her, suddenly looking up at Victoria cheekily. "I will chill." Without warning she shifted her butt over toward the driver's seat spun to her left and then leaned backward so that her head was resting on Victoria's thigh. She smiled up at the blonde as she sighed and threw her hands up momentarily.

"You take everything to extremes, don't you?"

"You should know this by now," Max shot back. She still smiled as she felt one of Victoria's perfectly manicured hands begin to work through her hair, softly across her scalp. Max wondered how Victoria would feel if she fell asleep like that. If the girl kept that up it might even be possible. Sadly, it was not to be. Max did not fall asleep, but Victoria spoke to her and Max listened, rarely replying. Victoria talked about music, about Seattle, about photography and about the way Max's eyes glinted when she plotted, which they were doing now. Max didn't have the heart to tell her that the only thing she was plotting was what to do the next time they had a little privacy to themselves. She spoke of Max's birthday party, about how happy she was that they got to spend time in Seattle over the summer, including at Victoria's place. She spoke in a sort of quiet, gilded voice and tried to make Max fall asleep.

It did not work, but it was no less appreciated. What it did do was fill Max's mind with good memories, good (and, occasionally, devious) thoughts. It reminded Max of days when she had simply wanted Victoria to talk to her, without any snark or jokes or a sense of superiority. In the end what it had taken to make Victoria think about who she was and how she was acting hadn't been some great life-changing moment or horrible disaster, though those came later. It had been an act of kindness and, maybe, for all that Max had talked about wishing Victoria would just calm down and be her friend, there hadn't been much kindness between them until then. She didn't think that was all on her, at all, but it did make her wonder how much actual kindness the girl had experienced in her life beforehand. Max was not a fan of Victoria's parents and, certainly it seemed like Nathan more or less simply used her.

They did not talk about Nathan much.

"'Ria," Max half whined, half muttered in protest when Victoria momentarily stopped petting her hair, no doubt guessing incorrectly that Max had fallen asleep.

"Shut up, she could come back any time now," Victoria scolded, suddenly sounding serious even though she kept her voice low to match Max's. Max did not have to open her eyes to know Victoria was flustered. She smiled widely.

"Thanks for coming," Max told her, not reacting to Victoria's admonishment.

"Yeah, whatever," Victoria replied. Max had learned a long time ago that that was not at all an uncommon way for Victoria to say, 'you're welcome.'

---

Note: I wanted to thank you all for taking time to come with me on this long and, for me at least, emotional ride. The support for this story has been mindblowing. I understand that my current work, Aphelion might not be everyone's bag, but if you can give it a try, I'd appreciate it. If not, stay tuned, because not too long from now, barring any major problems (I've been having some scary hardware issues) I'll be starting a story shortly after Aphelion ends in roughly seven weeks. It's a story concept that I've been told has promise, so hopefully it will earn some enjoyment. We're not done in the Kaukasos timeline, either, I promise. You people have been so supportive, so engaged that it's honestly done wonders for me as a writer and as a person.

Kaukasos started as a way to exorcise some of my inner demons, through Chloe, through Max, through Rachel. It quickly took on a life of its own and became something huge, unruly, and obviously unoptimized. We all know it was a total fucking mess, but it was my total fucking mess and the fact that some people enjoyed at all is genuinely moving. Thank you all. Before I go I want to repeat, from my note at the end of P3... to those who are out there struggling with mental and emotional difficulties, with any kind of long term illness or any condition which robs them of their spoons unduly, you are not alone.

Thanks, folks, and goodnight.