"RACHEL!" screamed Chloe Price as her body shook from the surge of oncoming tears. "No, no, please not her!"
Totaled cars and bits of trash and scrap were strewn all around them in the Arcadia Bay junkyard. A hole freshly dug up by Max Caulfield and Chloe Price had revealed the body of Rachel Amber, whose disappearance they had spent the past several days investigating.
Max rushed to her blue-haired friend's side, attempting in vain to offer some kind of comfort, but when she reached out to touch her, the scene suddenly shifted. Now, Chloe was dead, shot in the head, and Mark Jefferson was standing over her, gun in hand.
"Max," he said in that sweetly condescending tone she despised so much, "Come be with me in my Dark Room. We can be together forever, Max. Or at least, your forever."
"Go to hell, you fucking pervert," seethed Max.
"Oh, but Max," he replied with a twisted smile. "You're bound for hell yourself. After all, you killed far more people than I ever did."
"I refused to let my best friend die!" Max countered. "Chloe is my priority, and she always will be!"
"Oh, yes, you made that blatantly fucking obvious, Max. Chloe is your priority. Certainly over me, which I suppose is understandable, given what I did to you and Rachel, but what about Brooke? Frank? Warren? Joyce? They're all waiting for you down here with me, you know. They're all waiting so they can ask you why you let all of them die."
"Don't you dare stand there and act like you give a shit about them!" shouted Max. "You would have killed them all if they got in the way of your sick plans!"
"Just like you did, Max," snapped Jefferson. "They were in the way of you being with your precious Chloe, so they had to die."
"So, what, you're saying I'm just like you?" asked Max. "Because that's bullshit and you know it."
"Is it really, though?" asked a new voice. Twenty one year old Max Caulfield walked out from the shadows and stood beside Jefferson. Her brunette hair was significantly longer, and her bangs were swept to the left, tucked behind her ear. She wore a red flannel shirt with a black t-shirt underneath and black pants with horizontal tears running down the front, and a pair of black Converse shoes. Rachel's outfit.
"A lot of people are dead now, you stupid teen hipster brat," she continued. "And they're all dead because you had to have your prize, and nothing was gonna get in the way of that."
"Chloe is not a prize!" screamed eighteen year old Max. "She's my best friend, and she didn't deserve to die!"
"Maybe she didn't," admitted the older Max, "But you certainly do. You deserve to be dragged down to hell with all the rest of them."
"Yes," agreed Jefferson. "And I'd be happy to punch your ticket." He lifted the gun, took aim briefly, and squeezed the trigger.
"NO!" screamed twenty one year old Max as she bolted upright from her nightmare, right hand instinctively outstretched to try and rewind. Before she could focus her power, Chloe caught her wrist, gently lowering the hand back onto the red bed sheets.
"Shhh, Max, it's okay," she whispered gently. "I'm here. I'm right here with you, Max. It was just a nightmare. None of it was real. You're okay."
Max brushed her hand against Chloe's hair. It was green now, and longer. She shifted her gaze to Chloe's right arm, where her previous tattoo had been mostly covered with a blackout sleeve. Good, this was real. She then checked the alarm clock on the nightstand. Four thirty two AM.
"Oh, Chloe, I'm so sorry," began Max as tears began to well up, but her lover put a finger to her lips to shush her as one would a toddler.
"It's okay, Max. You saw him again, didn't you? You saw Jefferson?"
"Y-yes," admitted Max. "Oh, God, it was so horrible. It was from the other timeline. The one where he shot you, Chloe. I was eighteen again and he kept telling me that I was gonna come down to hell with him, so I could answer to all the… the people I killed."
The tears flowed uncontrollably as her body racked with short sobs.
"You didn't kill anyone, Max," reassured the green-haired punk, gripping Max in a tight hug. "That storm was not your fault."
"Yes, it was!" cried Max between sobs. "I caused that storm to happen, but I couldn't bring myself to let you go! And now they're all dead! The universe wanted you dead, and I defied that, and everyone else paid the price!"
"You didn't let me go, and I am so grateful for that every single day. But you were given powers you didn't ask for with no idea or instruction on how to use them. If the universe really wanted me dead that badly, then why did it give you the power to save my ungrateful ass?"
"I don't know, Chloe, and I don't think I'll ever know. But I… I just want the nightmares to stop. Every night I see Jefferson or Warren or Kate, and they always blame me for killing them. But tonight was different. Tonight, I saw me."
"What do you mean?" asked Chloe.
"I mean, in my dream, I was eighteen, but then the current me came in and started siding with Jefferson. Blaming me for everything."
"Fuck that, it's not your fault," said Chloe, pulling her closer. "All that means is that you've been having these nightmares so much that you're starting to believe them more than normal."
"But what if they're right?" asked Max desperately. "What if it really is all my fault, and they're all just waiting for me in hell?"
"Then they'll have to wait awhile, 'cause I'm not letting you go there yet," said Chloe firmly.
Max knew she should try and seek professional help, but what therapist could ever be qualified to handle the kind of trauma time travel wreaks upon someone? She hated having to unload all of this heavy bullshit on Chloe, but who else in the world would even believe her, let alone understand her pain? Chloe was the only one she could talk to about this.
Max cried for several more minutes until finally the tears stopped flowing, and her breathing slowed to a normal rate. Being in Chloe's arms was the only comfort she had left to deal with the nightmares.
Once Chloe realized her girlfriend was mostly calm, she slowly, gently guided her out of the bed. She always looked so cute first thing in the morning with her messy hair and polka-dotted PJs.
"Come on, babe. Let's go downstairs and I'll make you some tea," she said.
Okay, maybe Chloe's embrace wasn't the only thing. Tea helped, too.
"Yes, please. That sounds great," said Max, wiping the last few tears from her face. "Sorry to wake you up early again."
"Don't apologize, Max. It's okay," replied Chloe with a smile as she opened the bedroom door and descended the stairs. "I love you, and I'm always happy to help you in any way, at any time."
"I love you, too, Chloe," said Max, finally able to smile a bit herself as she followed her lover down towards the kitchen. Even so, that nightmare bothered her. Nightmares were normal for her now; she had at least two per week, but this was the first time another version of her had shown up to join in the blame game. Maybe Chloe was right; maybe it was just a sign that she was starting to more strongly buy into what the people in her nightmares were saying. But one other detail was also bugging her.
Her thoughts were interrupted by her green-haired girlfriend holding up two boxes in front of her.
"Which strikes your fancy?" asked Chloe. "Jasmine or lavender?"
Max thought about it for a moment before deciding on lavender. Chloe gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and got to work. "Go sit, Max. I'll be there once the kettle is set."
Max made her way from the kitchen into the living room, taking a seat on the leather sofa the two had recently purchased. Max looked around their Santa Monica apartment. They had moved there to honor Rachel Amber's memory. It was all very modern, with off-white walls and black furniture. Max wasn't too big a fan of how "current" it looked, and the black-and-white design motif would sometimes remind her of Jefferson's lectures on chiaroscuro. Even so, it was the best they could afford at the moment, but Max was closing on a deal with an art gallery in New York that she hoped would change that.
Her fists clenched until her knuckles whitened. Every time she even had a passing thought about Mark Jefferson, it filled her with a white-hot rage. How many more people would have become his so-called 'subjects' if she hadn't come along? Hell, if it weren't for her rewind powers, she would have been one as well, to be photographed for his sick pleasure and then discarded like…
Like Rachel Amber.
Chloe set a teacup down on the coffee table in front of her. "Drink up, Mad Max. Hope it helps."
"Thank you, Chloe. I don't know what I'd do without you." She gave her girlfriend a kiss before turning her attention to the lavender tea in front of her. She sipped slowly so as to not burn her mouth.
"What time do you have to go into the shop today?" asked Max. Chloe had gotten a job as an auto mechanic at a small shop close to their apartment.
"I don't. Today's my day off," replied Chloe. "Which means we get all day to do whatever the fuck we want."
Max smiled at the thought of that. But that little detail from her dream suddenly occupied her mind once again. Maybe that detail wasn't so small after all.
"Hey, Chloe, there was something else about my dream I didn't mention earlier."
"What's up? You know you can talk to me about these things. I like to think I've gotten pretty good at analyzing your nightmares."
"I think so, too," agreed Max between sips of tea. "Which is why I'm hoping you'll know what this means. Remember when I said that the current me showed up?"
"Yeah, what about it?" asked Chloe hesitantly.
Max set her cup down, and turned to look her girlfriend directly in the eyes. "Why do you think she was wearing Rachel's outfit?"
