October 11th, 2013 - Current Timeline
Max clutched at her head, tearing at her hair, as the pain, the searing, overwhelming, hot-poker-gutting-through-her-brain, excruciating torture of the return stabbed into her. She fell to her knees with a splish (splish splash) as she landed in a pooling puddle of mud. That puddle of mud. That same one. It was always that puddle, that rain-soaked, mud-logged stretch of earth in that same clearing; the misshapen shell of the lighthouse looming over them, as the storm erupted all around, that furious twister tearing through the waters of the bay on her left, while Chloe stopped mid-sentence above her, staring down in horror as Max collapsed.
"Fuck, Max," her friend screamed! "What now?"
In an instant, Chloe fell to her knees at Max's side, her hands cupping Max's cheeks. God. Her touch sent electric tremors racing through Max, the warmth of Chloe's skin against hers almost enough to shock her from the pain jigsawing through her system. A gentle pressure at her chin, and Max's face tilted up to meet Chloe's. So much concern registered in those eyes, so much pain and fear in the deep blues of that gaze. The familiar trickle of blood dripped down from a fresh nosebleed, and as that coppery taste ran across her lips, the rain watering it down, Max understood that concern. A strong chill seized her as the torrential downpour soaked her through.
"Another rewind," Chloe asked. "A vision?"
That's right, Max thought. She doesn't know yet. Not now. This is a new Chloe. An old Chloe? A different Chloe? How many Chloes had there been now? How many Maxes? Was this still her Chloe? Was she still her Max? No matter how many times she jumped or rewound or reset, returned, or revisited, no matter what time fuckery she experienced, Max still felt herself bogged down in the existential crises running rampant in the infinite possibilities raised by the ever-shifting inconstant of her powers.
Oh damn. The pain surged again. The timeline, it was catching up. The reset needed to resolve. Too much time had lapsed. No time had lapsed. It didn't matter. All that mattered was the pain, the mind-boggling, never-ending pain. Her vision blackened, eclipsed by the blinding hot poker once again cutting through her gray matter. Max gave in to that pain, to all the pain that ever had been and all the pain that would be. She gave in and she screamed.
In one moment the warmth of Chloe's hands against her cheeks, the comfort of her proximity, enveloped her; in the next, Max felt only the cold embrace of the wet earth. She curled into herself, coiled into a fetal ball making herself as small as she could, holding herself tight and rolling in the chill wet of the mud and dirt as the fierce rain pelted down upon her and the waves of agony rolled over her in endless succession.
Through the pounding of the storm and the howling cries of the wind, Max could discern a distant voice calling to her – feeble and broken by the void of pain and the surging screams of time calling out to be righted.
"Shit, Max," called that voice. There was a familiarity to it; a comfort in the vulgar that called forth an image of blue hair and coiling vines, but Max could make no sense of it. She could not connect the dots, nor untangle the knotted ball of memories, not as the pain ripped at her insides. "Speak to me," yelled that voice, that faint echo on the storm, and she wondered who was there. What did they want from her? Why wouldn't they let her die in peace?
She held her eyes shut tight, against the pain, yes, but more against the confusion that awaited with sight, with every moment more from this central point, from the hard return and the limitless possibilities so many of which had already transpired. She had worn this point thin, a faded stretch of tape on an old cassette. It had been recorded too many times and she feared the static and the double images; more she feared the fraying fabric itself and what would happen when it finally snapped.
A new pressure pushed down on her chin. God. What was that about? And why could she taste so much blood in her mouth? That new pressure, it pushed, fighting against Max, straining to unlock her jaw. Fuck that. She was Max 'Fucking' Caulfield, Time Warrior. She didn't give in to anyone; not Nathan, not Jefferson, not David, or Sean, or Ambrose, none of them. She didn't give two fucks what this new force wanted. She bit down harder. Fuck you. That'll show you.
As she contemplated the infinite, as she wondered at what new adversary awaited with what new change, a familiar scent drifted down to her, carried by the rain and the wind and by the rivers of tears – some hers, some not. The fragrance of cheap cologne and sweat, of cigarettes and weed, pierced through the all-consuming cacophony of the storm. As remembered comforts stole over her, Max's resistance waned. Slowly she eased back, and only as she did, did she become aware of the split in her lip where she had bit down in her pain. And that hand, those confusingly calloused yet soft fingers retreating from her chin, she knew them, too. Her spasms faded as the timeline locked into place. It wasn't settled yet. There would be aftershocks, but for now there was a lull, and Max opened her eyes, the strings of her memory still tugged by those familiar scents.
"Chloe…" Her voice cracked, barely above a whisper, but the question rode clear on her lips. Above her, a blurry form hovered; a shock of blue hair the only thing upon which Max could focus. She tried to reach for that hair, to touch it and return herself to a better past, but she was too late. The aftershocks were upon her.
She jerked with the sudden assault, riding new waves of pain as she fell to her side and grasped once more at her head, the horrors inside it threatening at once to both explode it out and implode in upon her – to both crack open in her skull and release the pain and to burrow inward as that same pain ate her away from the inside out, hollowing away everything that she had ever been, was, and would one day become.
"Max, dammit! Stay with me, Max!"
That was Chloe's voice. Her voice. Her beautiful, wonderful voice. It showered over Max, a hailstorm riding the rain. That's not right. There had been no hail in this time. Not this timeline. That was a different mistake. A past mistake. One she had never made, but might still?
That blurry form above settled down over Max, and the torrent of rain eased, blocked by the larger girl huddling over her. One of those confusingly soft and calloused hands ran across Max's brow, wiping away the slick of the storm, yet still Max could not focus on that face – all a blur. Her tears ran too strong now, clouding out all true sight, and blood still gushed from her nose. How much damage had been done by time already? Did that damage always reset, a fresh body with each return, or did some of those wounds linger, like a cancer, growing inside, hidden deep, a malignant time-bomb evolving with each jump?
A flash of lightning lit the sky and that blurred face disappeared into the split-second, never-ending instance of the electric afterglow. The thunder followed an eternity later, a gunshot ripping through the storm-riddled morning, and lifetimes of trauma flooded in.
Max doubled in on herself, hiding from the onslaught, but she could not escape it, no matter how small she tried to be. As the overexposure of the lighting faded down, a deep red tint fell over the out-of-focus world around her, and she could feel viscous rivers flooding up the reservoirs of her eyes and rushing out over the spillways, until that dam broke and the tears and the blood flowed freely.
"What's happening," that Chloe-voice asked from somewhere above her, with only a faint hint of reverb. They were as of yet still in sync, at least for the most part, but that would change exponentially the further Max stayed within the return.
Max blinked away the tears and blood and rain, wiping her palms across her eyes as she attempted to clear her vision. She needed to see her, to see that face, again. That blurred form waited still, so close above her. Max relaxed into a stuttering breath. Chloe had asked a question, hadn't she? "What's happening?" How could she explain it? Time was paramount, yet all Max wanted was to relax into those arms and be done with the infinite even if only for a finite moment.
"We don't know," she said, her gaze finally locking back into sync with Chloe's own blue eyes. They shifted, faint echoes of other eyes, of other Chloes overlapping and then stuttering away, creating a strobing effect – multitudes of previously lived realities baring themself to her. "Not exactly," she continued, holding her gaze to the most solid of those images – to this Chloe, the one that existed now, in this moment. "One you called it a hard return. Another called it a save point."
"A save point," Chloe's question echoed down to her. The multitudes were splitting. One rose and walked towards the cliffside. Another already stood off to the left, its own mirror images stuttering around it. How many conversations had they had there before the pain became too much to stand? Max needed to concentrate, to remember which Chloe was when.
"Doesn't matter, Chlo." Oh God, I had explained it before, not passed over it. Now more of those Chloes would move out of sync. She'd introduced too many variables.
"Wait," the nearest Chloe started, her face shifting closer, leaving dozens of mirrors in her wake, as if piercing and rising through the shimmering surface of a veil of water that now rippled with her reflections behind her. Those Chloes still listened, awaiting Max's ongoing explanation. Thankfully she rarely heard her past self, other self, different self. "One me?" Chloe continued, struggling to understand.
"A future Chloe." Max said, trying so hard to keep her focus on the Chloe of the here and now. "Another Chloe." And there were so many of them, dozens (dozens of dozens) teeming across the overlook, most in clusters – some in this huddled mass, others nearby stuck in that fated conversation – but some as stragglers walking their own paths of a few or one. Some of those were the Chloes that didn't have a Max; those that she'd managed to warn in some way before… whatever fate befell that Max. Those Chloes always looked so lost, alone on that cliff. One of those other stragglers, however, one still engaged with her own past Max, would grow to be that one, the one that called it a save point. Which one was it now — the straggler by the map, or the one who had climbed to the bench? Max couldn't remember anymore, so she focused instead on the Chloe close at hand.
"No matter. That version of you is gone. Reset." It was true, even if her echo remained here in this time-place, this fraying fragment both of and outside of reality.
"Reset," that closest Chloe asked.
"So you arrive here when another timeline fails," that multitude behind her asked, the Chloe huddle that had listened. Among it wavered variants, those that had picked up some subtle shift, some flap of a butterfly's wing in a blink of an eye or a stutter of a word, and they had their own questions.
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"What are you hiding, Caulfield?"
"Fuck, Max, how many resets have there been?"
"You were always crap at video games."
Max liked that last variant, shifting back to a good old Chloe deflection. That one made her think of happier times. What had this one asked? Reset. She needs clarity.
"I'm stuck, Chloe," she started, hoping she was looking into the right pair of blue eyes. "No matter what I choose, we always end up back here." Max dabbed at her eyes again, as if blotting out the tears and blood would do anything to ease the temporal-multiversal poly-vision that forged the true crux of her visual dilemma. She swatted her hand away flinging off a spattering of blood and tears as she did, then paused as those droplets splashed into the nearest puddles sending out their own ripples, creating their own infinitesimal changes, hurled out into the universe. What storms would they bring?
A finger snap drew her gaze back towards Chloe. That hadn't happened before, and it made finding the right Chloe so much easier. "Back to me," that temporal pirate called to her. "Back to your Captain. We'll get through this."
God, Max hoped so. Time had fucked with them too much, raked them through the muck and over the coals and dipped their lives in shit. She didn't even know if she was her anymore or if they were them, but she wanted to believe that they could be again.
She tried to speak, then stopped, swallowing back a mass of regret and fear as she did, along with the words that would never grace this temporal river.
"Max, what is it?" Her Chloe. This Chloe.
"But without your power…" That was the old conversation, right. Too much reverb. Too many replays.
"What do you mean die?" Oh God, the damned huddle. If she came back here, if she survived again, she needed to relocate. This location had become too loud. Too crowded.
"So a save point, you say?" Fuck. I remember that one. That Chloe always lagged behind; always one or two conversations back from the rest of the huddle.
This Chloe, Max. This one. Focus.
"I don't think we will," she said. She was pretty sure that was the right reply. Hard to say really. Might as well just keep going and hope for the best. "I don't think I can get through this. I'm sorry." And God was she sorry. The changes were too much, the strain had reached a breaking point. Hell, she'd passed that months ago? Years ago? Moments ago? Who could say?
"I know," she continued, "I'm supposed to have the answers; that I'm supposed to be… to be Super-Max, but… I… I don't feel super." This was new, too, this whole portion of the conversation. The giving up. She'd already introduced one new variable. Might as well introduce more. The ensuing chaos would create clarity; it would expand the difference, strengthen the curvature at the inflection point. When did I learn math?
Max stared out at the many Chloes. They all started the same here, the Chloe from that one lost week, but inflection point, that sounded like a long-haired blonde Chloe. God, she'd forgotten about her. If only she could see her again. There was comfort in knowing that there was a math and science prodigy Chloe out there somewhere, one that had managed to escape the trauma that had so hurt and fractured these Chloes. Of course, that Chloe didn't have a Max anymore and she had to wonder if that hurt her as much as it hurt herself to be without a Chloe.
Oh God. This Chloe was talking. What had Max missed?
"... Caulfield. You were the strongest person I knew even before you rewound time."
Huh, Max thought. That seems slightly like hyperbole.
"And you're not alone, Max" this Chloe continued. Max looked out at the many versions of her Chloe scattered across the overlook, infinite grains of sand whipped about in the storm, and she wondered if this Chloe had any idea how right she was. Max could never be alone upon this hill.
"I'm right here," the girl continued. She had shifted, again, left the huddle behind her. Now Max could focus better, the poly-vision reduced, isolated by the unique instance diverging here. "We will think of something."
"They're getting harder, Chloe," Max admitted. "More painful." She waved at her own tear-streaked, blood-stained face. Obviously things had become much worse and for once that was literally painted on her face, not in some vague expression, but in clear, viscous, gory detail. There was so much more that she should tell her, but it always hurt, causing Chloe pain. If there was one thing Max now knew for certain, it was that a Chloe could never stand to see a Max hurting. How much should she share? How much hurt should she cause?
The silence stretched between them. The storm raged on, and the ghosts of timelines lost continued to split. Too many images were now crowding the space around her, and they would only grow as the minute changes took over and split the huddled masses further. Speak now or forever hold your peace.
"If the timeline resets, again..." Max started. "If I come back here, again…" She had to tell her, didn't she? Chloe would want to know. "I'm…" Plus… Max had to try something new. "I'm not sure I can survive."
Chloe froze at those words. She'd done it. Max had broken her. Giving up; no Chloe ever survived unscathed when a Max surrendered like that. How would this one react? Hurt? Compassionate? Angry?
Max trembled as she waited for the reverberations of her words to play out – for the new changes to lock into place. Chloe shivered with her, fear dancing in her eyes, matching the fear that must have been mirrored in Max's own.
"That's bullshit!" Chloe exploded. Anger maybe? Always a common course. "You've got this," that Chloe continued. Okay, inspirational. That was a different tactic, but not unheard of. "I know it's hard, fuck, more than hard, it's astronomically insane, but you're going to make it, and then this whole week, it'll be behind you, because you, you're going to make time your bitch. You hear me?"
Yeah, I hear you, Max thought; but she didn't believe her. If she was really going to make time her bitch, wouldn't she have done it by now. Would so many Chloe echoes really be milling around this overlook, lost in this storm, if Max knew how to win this battle? She shuddered, considering the likelihood of her failure. After all this time, she still wasn't good enough.
Off beyond this Chloe, standing in the central spot, that pivotal progenitor of all that would later now then come to be, stood a different Chloe. Or was that her Chloe? She was mid-speech… that speech, the one that would bring the forever choice, the false binary that had so long led them astray…
"… but you're Maxine Caulfield…" that Chloe said. "And you're amazing."
"You think I'm amazing," she asked; but Chloe didn't answer, not the one standing there leaning over, her arms outstretched grasping at shoulders that were not there.
"Yeah, Max," a different Chloe answered, this one closer at hand. This was her Chloe, the current Chloe. The only one that could hear her. "You're Maxine Caulfield, Time Master. You're hella amazeballs."
Max laughed, a small hiccup of a laugh, then sniffled, wiping at the mass of blood washing over her lips and chin. Hella . That always made her laugh, always broke through the morass of trauma and fear and for a moment made Max feel like Max again, the before Max, the one still fresh from Seattle, wrapped in naïveté and a coat of innocence, not yet fully crumbled, even if marred. Of course, Chloe had never told her that word had been an import, a rent-to-own purchase from a certain Rachel Amber. The perfectness of that, the line through time and storms that it drew, made Max want to laugh even harder, only stopping as Chloe's voice broke through to her once more.
"Max, this is the only way."
She stood there in the rain, a look of resignation clear across her face as she reached out handing a small ghost of a Poloroid out towards her, towards the open air.
"No, Chloe," she said. "I don't want that. Not again."
"What are you talking about, Max? Back to me." That voice came from closer at hand. She'd mixed them up again. This one here, she reached up to Max, placing a finger against her chin and tilting it down until their eyes met. This was her Chloe now. "Focus here, Maximus. On me. On now. What's happening? Where — when were you? Fucking confusing time travel."
You don't know the half of it, Chloe.
"It's getting hard to keep track," she said. "To know when, which when."
"Explain it to me."
"No time." Max laughed as if that was the funniest thing that she had ever said. So much time had already passed. So much more would yet. Still time was not as unidirectional as once she had thought. It could be stopped; it could go forward or backward; it could be replayed or rewritten. Yet even so, the ribbon could only be recorded in so many possibilities before the data became corrupt. So much limitless possibility, still bound by an underlying fabric that Max could never understand. Suddenly, it didn't seem so funny anymore.
"I can't keep changing it, Chloe," Max said, locking eyes with Chloe, again. This was her Chloe, right? The rain and tears had clouded her vision once more, and that blue hair hovered a blur at the edge of her oddly limited vision.
"Okay, Max," Chloe said. "No changing it, whatever it is." Chloe's hand paused over her back pocket. Even blurred as her image of her now was, Max could see the pregnancy of that pause, all the implication held back yet shining out within that hesitation. "The butterfly photo, Max? Is that it?"
"There is no right choice," Max mumbled; and yet it always came back to this, this decision. "You're all that matters, Chloe. My number one priority."
"No, no," Chloe started. "No, fuck that, Max. You matter. Joyce matters. Kate matters. Hell, forgive me, but Arcadia Bay matters!"
"You always make that call, don't you?"
"Not once, Max. Not once in my pissy life, but… but there's so many people in Arcadia Bay who should live… Way more than me… I know I've been selfish but for once, I think I should accept my fate… our fate —"
"— No!" Max interrupted, crying out in a mix of anger and frustration. How many times did Chloe have to throw that offer at her? How little did she value her own life? How could she not see how much that life meant to Max? How much she meant to Max?
"Fuck that, Chloe." That pounding began in her head again. Why now? She couldn't stop to wait it out. She had to push forward. "We can't keep having this conversation. We can't… can't keep making this same choice… I can't make this choice."
"You're the only one —"
"Don't you dare say it," she cut her off. "Not one more time, Chloe."
Chloe jammed the heel of her palm to the ridge of her nose. "Is this another rewind?"
Max rolled away from Chloe's arms, pained by the loss of her touch, and fell onto her back in the pooling mud. How did she even explain this to Chloe? Did it matter if she did? What mattered was that they try something new; that they finally break this loop. She stared up at the stars, or at least where once there were stars and now there roiled those angry clouds, and she tried to find some explanation, some way to break through to Chloe and end this logjam.
"A return," she said, and she stretched out as if to make angels in the mud, the pain finally washing away as the aftershocks dwindled and were no more. "A hard return."
"Chloe…" she continued, but she didn't know where to go from here. They needed to end the storm, but which storm? All of them, of course; this one and so many others, but was there a path without one at its end?
"Just tell me, Max. But make it quick."
"How am I even here?"
"Beats the shit out of me," Chloe said. "My punk ass is the side-kick, not the sage mentor." Chloe stared down at her then, and Max could feel her eyes wandering over her rain-soaked clothes, lingering in places for a little too long. God, had Chloe always been this obvious? Had I always been so oblivious?
Suddenly, Chloe laid onto her own back, stretching out and taking Max's hand in hers. Yes, Max realized. Chloe always had been, and Max had always been too shy and naive to see it – too full of self-doubt and loathing. She tightened her fingers over Chloe's allowing herself this one moment of peace.
"Okay, Maxi-pad, what now?"
"You stop calling me that."
"Never."
"Damn it, Chlo."
"Sorry, you're stuck with it."
Stuck with it? Yeah, Max was stuck. She knew that. She was, and yet, no path held. All were reversible, rewritable. In the infinite possibility of choice, where did it ever end?
"It doesn't matter what I choose. It doesn't stick."
"No, Maxi-pad, I'm pretty sure it sticks. This name's going nowhere."
"Fuck you, Chlo." Max punched Chloe's arm. Not too hard, but just enough. She needed this… the banter. Something to break her from the ever-present dread of the storm.
"Ow. Since when are you violent," Chloe asked.
Her break came to an end. Since when are you violent? She let out a sob; although let out seemed too passive a word. The sob stole out, it broke out, it burst out, and Max had no control over it. One moment she had been fine, the next that sob had leapt forth and legion followed in its wake. Since when are you violent? How long has it been now? When did that switch flip and what did that make her?
"I'm sorry, Max," Chloe shouted beside her, shaking her lightly by the shoulder. "I didn't mean it. Come on, Maxaroni. Come back to me. We got this. Remember. Time's your bitch."
Max wanted to believe her; to trust that there might be some end in sight after all; yet nothing from her experience seemed to support this theory. Oh, she'd have respites. A few days here, a couple of months there, but it rarely lasted long. How long would this next one last, before Max was forced to confront this hill again – if she even could.
Lost in this downward spiral of thought, Max almost didn't notice the tears beginning to flow; not her tears, but Chloe's. Beside her, that Chloe that had joined her in the mud had started to cry. Max could see her attempting to wipe away the tears, to shift her visage away from the bay; she knew the struggle that Chloe must be enduring. For her, the destruction of Arcadia Bay was a first; an only; it would happen and it would be done. She didn't have the luxury of time's malleability as a concept.
At last, that Chloe tore her vision back down to Max, and Max looked up into her eyes, her own tears still flowing.
"It doesn't have to be your choice, Max," Chloe said. "I can choose. It can be on me this time."
Max's sobs eased. Chloe always tried to fix it.
"That's right, Max. Come back to me. I can choose."
Max glanced about the overlook, watching as other Chloes held court with their own invisible Maxes. How many of them were offering just that – a way out; a decision that Max didn't have to make? She then shifted her gaze to that original huddle of Chloes, those standing and having that conversation. How many of them were telling her that she was the only one that could choose? How had all of them been so wrong?
Max placed her own palm against Chloe's cheek, locking their eyes together.
"No, Chloe. I told you. I don't know how many more times I can do this."
"How many –"
"This time, Chloe, this time we have to choose together. It's the only thing we haven't tried." Well that wasn't entirely true. In a multiverse of infinite possibilities, there had to be other options that she had missed, but sometimes hyperbole had its place.
"Max? I don't understand." Chloe looked so confused, but soon that wouldn't' matter. Soon this Chloe would have answers. Soon, if this worked, Max might not be so alone in the endless path of time.
She pulled herself to her knees, searching through her messenger bag. Flinging out her journal, her camera, and so many photos, she kept rifling through the contents. She knew what she needed. She'd tried this variable before of course, but not like this. Perhaps this time, with this change, things could be different. At last, she paused, pulling out a very familiar poster, one of thousands of such posters scattered across Arcadia Bay. The poster didn't matter, however. The important part was the photo clipped to the poster itself, the folded photo that she had stolen while snooping through Chloe's room.
"You won't have long, Chloe," she said. "Not if this works."
Around her, Max watched as various Chloe's popped out of existence. Ah, they were making their choices now. Those other Maxes and Chloes. Over in the standing huddle, Max caught the tail end of that familiar speech. She paused listening to it. Her Chloe was speaking, confused, but right now Max needed to hear that other moment.
"Wherever I end up after this…" those Chloes said, the words echoing each slightly off sync, as subtle nuances had shifted the variants by microseconds from one another. "In whatever reality…" those ghostly Chloes continued. "All those moments between us were real, and they'll be ours."
They are, Max thought, and with her nearest hand she took ahold of Chloe's own hand. With her other hand, she removed the folded photo of Rachel and Chloe from the poster to which it was clipped and offered it out to her Chloe.
"Grab the photo," she said.
As Chloe did as she was asked, Max continued to listen to that huddle.
"You're the only one who can," those Chloes said. "Max… it's time."
And then they shifted, the psychedelic trail of huddled Chloes shifting into two, as each new huddle explored one side of that false binary.
One stepped back, while the other Chloe mass wavered, paused as if watching something off by the cliff. A moment passed and both masses moved. One returned to its original position, now in an embrace with an absent Max. The other stepped forward towards the cliff. "Max…" that Chloe huddle said. "I'll always be with you."
In the other huddle, the Chloes pushed out of their embrace. "I know, Max. But we have to. We have to save everybody, okay? And you'll make those fuckers pay for what they did to Rachel."
A beat passed, then the cliffside huddle shifted their left arm out at an angle, clasping an invisible hand as those Chloes stared off towards the twister ripping Arcadia Bay to shreds.
The other Chloes pushed on with their final words, their voices cracking under the strain of the emotion. "Being together this week… it was the best farewell gift I could have hoped for. You're my hero, Max." Then her lips parted, and her hands held to a waist that was not there, and Max, this Max, she could taste the smoke and breath mints of that kiss; she could feel that embrace, and remember that passion as she finally told Chloe with that last kiss how she truly felt.
Turning back to her present, Max noticed Chloe's hand on the photo. They were now locked together, two hands clasped in each other's, two hands on the photo.
"You won't have long, Chloe. Write yourself a note. Tape it. Tell Rachel. Something. But both of you have to stay away from Prescott… and Jefferson. Don't let her go near Jefferson."
"What do you mean I won't have long?"
Max watched those other Chloes for a final beat. That kiss had parted now, and the huddle staggered back. "I'll always love you… Now, get out of here, please! Do it before I freak." They had retreated so far now, heading for the tree line. "And Max Caulfield? Don't forget about me…"
Never, Max thought, and turned her attention to the Chloes on the cliff. Their left hand no longer held out at an angle, but instead jutted out perpendicular from her (them?), wrapped around an invisible shoulder.
"What do you mean I won't have long," her Chloe asked, and Max turned back from the ghost Chloes of the overlook.
"I'm not sure this will work," she said. Maybe it won't. Everything is so broken now. Time… I think time is broken. I'm not sure if that will make it easier or more difficult."
"Max?"
"Stare into the photo, okay." It was time. Ha. Time. "Focus on it."
Chloe could do this. Max knew that she could. She began to focus herself, hearing the faint whispers of a long away moment, the images of the photo blurring and pulsing before her. Chloe should be headed back now, she thought, and yet Chloe was still there. She tightened her grip on Chloe's hand, as if by pure force of will she could force Chloe to focus in and make the jump; and yet still, nothing changed.
Max turned towards Chloe and realized that the girl was staring at her, rather than the photo.
"I know I'm gorgeous," she said, "but eyes on the photo, Chloe." As the girl beside her hesitated a moment more, Max felt that familiar flutter of attraction and anticipation, but she pushed it down. That would have to wait. "Chloe," Max said again, forcing as much determination into that one word as possible — not so much a rebuke as a demand.
Finally, Chloe shifted her gaze back to the photo. The whispers bubbled up, and the colors and focus shifted once more.
"Just pose for the camera, bitch." Rachel Amber. Max had heard that voice before, although it had been many jumps since she had last heard it. How much time had passed, relatively speaking?
"Fuck that. Keep quiet before step-ass hears," a Chloe voice called out from the photo.
"I need something to show for Jefferson's class tomorrow," Rachel said, and Max shivered at that name. All these realities, all these timelines later, and still she could not hear that name without the threat of that Dark Room supplanting her current reality. Would she ever recover?
"Hell no. I'm not posing for your pervy teacher," Chloe said.
"Come on. Play nice."
"Here. Best I can do."
A shutter clicked. That's it. If Chloe were going to make the jump, she'd be there now. She'd be back by now. Time travel was a mess like that.
A wave of dizziness and nausea slammed into Max, sending her off balance and teetering back into the mud. Well this is new, she thought, clutching at her stomach. Suddenly she felt her insides lurch, and found herself vomiting the contents of her stomach out onto the muck and debris of the overlook. The whole world tilted; time and space tilted, and sputtered; then it rocked itself back into position, a quick staticky waver, like a heat mirage on distant asphalt, flickering across her vision, then once more the storm-clouded sky and the pelting rain of this place and time settled back in. Chloe still sat beside her, although she had shifted a foot away from her previous location. They both had. Well, a different Chloe and Max had been on this hill then, Max supposed. They couldnt expect the end result to be the same.
Chloe's gaze registered a glazed shock. Yes, she was returning, and Max with her. That must have been the sputter of reality. She had never sent someone else back… it would have changed her too, and yet her consciousness never moved backward, so it remained present and yet hurtled to the new timeline, skipping across the rivers of the timestream and settling in, bringing with it a wave of seasickness (time nausea?) that Max had never before known.
It felt far from pleasant. She'd have to reserve this method for rare use only.
Gathering herself, trying to regain what composure she could, she reached out towards Chloe.
"Are you… are you okay?"
"Max…" Chloe started.
Max stared up at the rain and the storm and the fury of time. Why was it unchanged? She had expected something, something more than a subtle shift of position.
"Nothing. It didn't work," Max started.
"Max," Chloe said again. "Max… I think I messed up."
"What?" Max pulled her attention away from the storm and back to Chloe.
"I… I fucked it up."
"Tell me everything," she said. Maybe, just maybe, they could still make this right.
