Chapter 1. Chloe is alive.

Max emerged in the bathroom.

Shaking off the nausea and the dizziness she crawled to her hiding place. Protected by the stalls she curled and began to cry. All she had to do was do nothing and yet it was a formidable task.

The bathroom door opened and Nathan began his lunatic monologue. He was another victim, neglected by his own father and exploited in the cruelest way by Jefferson, however, Max could not help but hate him. In a few seconds he was going to kill Chloe.

Some deeds just can't be forgiven.

The door opened again.

Max sank further, clinging to the only motives she had for not losing her sanity. She was saving an entire town, hundreds of lives each of them with its own story, joyous or miserable, as real as her own. How many lost loves?, how many parents burying their children? Chloe was fully aware of this, a single decision that fell upon her denied the infinite paths that the lives of the inhabitants of Arcadia Bay could take. The useless punk, the dropout who wished to glass the town that had caused her so much pain was sacrificing herself to save them.

Talk about heroes.

I hope you checked the perimeter, as my step-ass would say. Now, let's talk bidness.

Chloe was a fake. Her false bravado, her aggressive appearance, her imposed stiffness and the "I don't give a shit about anything" attitude. Everything was a forgery. A persona made up to hide her fear and insecurities. Once a young girl full of life, blessed with loving parents and true friendship, everything was taken from her for no reason. Instead of experiencing the affection of her parents and best friend, she grew up with loss and abandonment. Seemingly she had changed a lot, but for Max, she was still the cheerful and affectionate little girl she knew so well. A girl who secretly hoped that her father would return home someday and her best friend would call her.

Some things are beyond our will although we can still try to fix what lies within our reach.

Max had returned to Chloe's life after so many years of suffering for the two girls and all that was granted to them was a small glimpse into a better future, only be ripped away immediately.

Chloe didn't want to die now that she had reasons to live, so she confessed herself, the problem was mathematics have no intent, they exist only in the realm of pure logic. One in front of hundreds seems like a very simple operation. A single victim, actually two, counting Max who wasn't really going to die, but how to call life the endless void that awaited her.

The worst lies are the ones you tell yourself and Max had had enough of those. She hadn't gotten over Chloe's separation, never made any real new friends, the photography program was not her main reason for attending Blackwell and Chloe wasn't just her best friend.

All lies.

And she certainly didn't want to sacrifice Chloe whatever that implied.

It was Chloe's decision, the redemption moment at the end of the movie, Uber and Donowitz killing Hitler, Leonidas falling under a barrage of arrows. She didn't want to die, but she found herself devoid of options.

Where'd you get that? What are you doing? Come on, put that thing down!.

Was it really Chloe's call? What purpose did it serve to hold so much power inside you if you can't protect the one you care the most? Saving an entire town seemed like a good enough reason... not for her.

Imagine this Maxine. In front of you there are two lines. On one side, queuing up, all the inhabitants of Arcadia Bay, on the other just one person, Chloe Price. The same questions every time. Who are you saving, who are you dooming? The same answer every time and the line moves. At the end the seemingly endless line is empty, only one person remains. Is the choice you've already decided more edible this way? Are you less of a killer?.

You don't know and honestly, you don't care.

You are going to get in hella more trouble for this than drugs.

"No fucking way".

Acting out of pure instinct, she used the bathroom wall to get momentum and lunged at the maintenance cart, knocking it over and spilling its contents in the floor. The enclosed space boomed with a metallic roar. A storm in a teacup. A bizarrely adequate metaphor.

Amidst the screams and confusion that ensued, Max stood up regaining her balance and peered out of her hiding place. Taking advantage of the distraction, Chloe had already escaped. Nathan was crawling across the floor to reach the gun that had ended up under the sinks, clumsily, as if his body was doing the second task before the first, Nathan retrieved the gun and hid it under his jacket rushing towards the door.

Before he was gone, he turned his head and spotted Max "You will pay for this, bitch".

And with that, Max collapsed.

Chloe is alive. That was all she could think as she was coming out of the blackout stupor.

A banging on the door startled her.

"There's someone there, what happened?" David Madsen's unmistakable voice thundered inside the bathroom. Nothing that happened in Blackwell seemed to elude his control and yet he had not been able to stop Jefferson without the help of two teenagers.

"Is everything alright inside there?" he insisted "answer at once or I'm coming in".

"I'm OK" Max replied. The roughness of her own voice surprised her until she realized that the last time she had spoken she was in another timeline, soaking wet and screaming to make herself heard over a storm. Apparently, hoarseness was maintained across different timelines.

Another invaluable lesson in time traveling.

"I'm sorry, I tripped over the cart and knocked it over, I'm fine though, I've picked everything up myself".

"Be careful Miss" A discontent grunt was heard from the other side of the door in true Mr. Madsen style before adding "You have no business with the maintenance cart, that's for Samuel, the bathroom is supposed to be for... other functions".

Rules and guidelines... even for bathroom use, that's your regular Mr. Madsen.

Max waited until she was sure that he had walked away to get out of the bathroom. With her gaze fixed on the floor avoiding any kind of human interaction, she headed for the front yard, looked for a tree away from prying eyes and sat down.

The implications of her choice were clear. A storm was going to ravage Arcadia Bay and shockingly she didn't feel overwhelmed by guilt. Instead, Max felt a contained euphoria. Images of a determined future piled up in her mind. Not the debris of what once were homes nor the piles of corpses, drenched and reeking of rotting and decomposition; her hometown's fate or her close friends lives; it didn't even matter that she had miserably broken her promise to Chloe. Nothing was of significant importance to Max.

The only thing that mattered was that Chloe was alive and she couldn't help feeling alive too. Nothing was of greater value than her. Nothing.

Chloe is alive.

What kind of monster had she become?.

Her cell phone went off and the message reception alert light blinked. Max shoved the phone out of her pocket and read Warren's message asking for his flash drive back with a smirk. She was fully entering Déjà Vu land.

Something clicked in her head.

In the bathroom she had been too shocked from the time trip and the events after to realize. A small change had happened. She had not triggered the alarm, instead, she had overturned the cart and such an insignificant change meant she hadn't had to face Wells. For sure David had gotten involved, but he had been dodged without much effort and most certainly he didn't even recognize Max as the bathroom occupant. No one knew that Max had been the third person in the bathroom except for Nathan, and he was without a doubt not going to tell anyone, even if only for his own sake. The heat was no longer on Max which gave her ample leeway to manoeuvre.

Her mind was buzzing. Could she change more than that?.

Chloe didn't want to die, not after having Max back in her life. She had laughed and smiled like she hadn't done in years and that was thanks to her. She only wanted to save people, the same people that didn't care if she lived or died. They had both assumed that Arcadia Bay's fate was linked to Chloe's. Was that necessarily true? The equation was designed so that only Chloe or Arcadia Bay could be saved or there were other options?.

Was dying really her destiny?.

They didn't know the answer, but Max knew that Chloe wasn't going to risk it when there was so much at stake. She was going to make the same decision over and over again.

Just like herself.

Chloe was going to sacrifice herself a thousand times if that was what it took.

And that was the exact number of times Max wasn't going to let her die.

It was like that old 80's movie she saw nestled next to her father in Seattle, when she was so depressed that she spent all her leisure time locked up at home.

Stalemate, mutually assured destruction.

The only winning move is not to play.

Or change the game so that the rules are entirely rewritten.

Hands shaking, she pulled out her cell phone and called a number she knew very well. The phone rang only once before an overly eager voice answered.

"Max, how are you? it's about the flash drive? if you need more time just let me know, no prob".

"Hey Warren, actually not about the flash drive, I have... um... sort of a technical question".

"You called the right number, anything I can do for you, just name it".

"You see... if I had to create an anonymous account to use on the Internet what would be the best way".

"I would need a little more intel, like what would you use the account for?".

"Let's say I have a piece of information and I want it to reach as many people as possible in the shortest time and to be completely anonymous". Warren's response delayed a bit and she imagined him indulging in all sorts of weird fantasies.

"007 Max, are you a sexy undercover secret agent on a special mission? How exciting, I'm volunteering to be your sidekick".

Indeed, weird fantasies.

Max sighed before answering "Such a special agent I would be, asking her friend how to do her job. None of that, just a school assignment, and please, use simple terms and be concise I'm in a bit of a hurry".

Max swore she could heard Warren disappointment through the phone "I will, I will... I guess the first thing would be to get hold of a public computer, right here in Blackwell we've got a bunch of them, and create a profile on various social networks... "

Warren finished his exposition and although she sometimes struggled to keep up with him, Max had taken the precaution of recording the conversation. True to his word, he was brief.

"... and I think that's it, that will do the trick?".

"Sure, thank you very much I owe you one". Max pulled the phone away from her ear and squeezed it against his collarbone, feeling guilty. "Warren... I´m sorry".

"What for?" Warren replied with concern.

Max raised her right hand and rewound.

She checked her cell phone. The sound file with the conversation that had never existed was there. She felt relieved as she wasn't one hundred percent convinced it would work. Truth is you can never be certain about how time travel works.

She stirred in her bag and pulled out the earbuds, plugging them into her phone and played the file to familiarize herself with Warren's instructions. Once the recorded conversation started, she got up and headed towards the inside of the main building.

It was almost an hour later, Max was sitting in front of a computer screen with multiple tabs in her web browser. The process of signing up in various networks had been relatively straightforward. Problems started when she had to figure out the message to send. She had considered several options before deciding that it was best to publish the same message on all networks, which necessarily meant that it had to be short because of space limitations. It was at that point when she hit an unexpected wall, discovering the hard way that it is one thing knowing what you want to say and a very different story knowing how to say it.

She wrote, erased and rewrote variations of the same sentences dozens of times while cursing inwardly at her own grammatical limitations. She was just moderately satisfied with how it had turned out, but she assumed she couldn't do any better.

This should work, the most important thing is the message itself not the way it's delivered.

There was still an awful lot to do, however posting the message was liberating. One more change, one more step towards Chloe.

Back in the courtyard, everything around her looked familiar. Fly Brooke's drone, talk to Miss Grant about surveillance cameras, ask Justin and Trevor for skate moves...pointless errands that seemed so meaningless now. Just for a second, she was tempted to wander across checking on everyone. Reiterate every small action from the previous week will send her in the same direction, which was by all means what she was trying to avoid. Her resolution in the bathroom dramatically altered the course of action and she had to act accordingly.

Feeling liberated, she headed for the dorms.

Kate was sitting on the bench, head down in misery. Max, using the path next to the Tobanga, approached her and without a word sat by her side. She turned her eyes and marked another notch in Max's growing list of failures. Her gaze was already lifeless. She was considered Kate's best friend in Blackwell, she was the one who should have realized, unfortunately, she was too immersed in her own world of insecurities.

"I know about the video".

Kate averted her eyes, embarrassed. Max hastened to hold her hands "I haven't seen it and I'm not going to see it" she said in a reassuring tone.

"Th..thank you".

Max released her and placed her hand on Kate's face turning her delicately until they were both face to face "you have to be strong". She tried to look away again, but Max kept up the pressure, delicately and firmly "look at me, please, you have to be strong, you have to hold on".

"That's easy to say, you're not the one in that video" Kate answered too abrupt for her gentle manner of speaking.

Kate's words were those of someone who knew she had been defeated. The truth didn't matter, she was apparently a pious and religious girl who had drunk too much at a party and had unleashed her true self. A hypocrite, a Pharisee, a Jezebel in the words of her own aunt, all that was left was to face rejection and that, she could only accept to a certain extent. Part of her own family and church had turned their backs on her. The confrontations with Mr. Madsen and Mr. Jefferson were sealing the deal, two authority figures who were going to blame her for what had happened without attending her explanations. Max had to avoid those encounters at all costs while trying to comfort her.

Rest. This was what Jesus offered according to Matthew's gospel, peace, a shoulder on which to weep.

"That wasn't you, I know your drink was spiked".

"How... how do you know?" Kate stuttered "truth is it doesn't matter anymore everybody has their opinion already formed, I'm just a... nothing is going to change that".

"How I know is not what matters now, there's a lot more going on in Blackwell, I know about that and it has to do with what happened at the party, you were drugged".

"Do you have proof? Kate said as she began to rise "We must go immediately to the police".

Max stopped her "We should wait".

For a brief moment her eyes had shown a glimmer of hope, now the dejection returned. "why? if what you say is true then I have a chance, I...I don't understand why we have to wait".

Max paused. Saving Chloe had been a reflex act and although it was not a decision she regretted or intended to change, she lacked a fully outlined plan. This said, taking care of Kate was out of the question. Keeping a low profile and avoid drawing too much attention seemed a good starting point while she figured out the rest

"You know I'm not a religious person, don't you?".

"I know," Kate answered without understanding the question.

"You know about how this works more than I do... listen, I know this is a lot to ask, even so, I need you to have faith in me".

"Faith in you?" Kate repeated.

"Going to the police is not the solution, at least not right now. I promise you the truth will come out soon, in the meantime, I need you to be safe and strong".

Kate looked away in disappointment "You assure me you have evidence and then you ask me not to do anything about it, can you imagine what it means to me to be marked as a? ... I've been disowned by my church and my family".

"I failed you as a friend, I should have been more attentive to you these days". Kate's swollen eyes revealed that she had been crying for too long and most likely that was the only reason tears weren't flowing. Max thought about Chloe, in a way, she and Kate had gone through similar situations. Being so defeated, thinking that everything and everyone is against you that you are forced the only way out that makes sense. In Chloe's case the anger, the rebellion, the drugs; in Kate's case jumping from a rooftop. "Please" Max insisted "Waiting is for the best, I'll take care of you in the meantime".

"Will you?". Kate answered doubtfully.

"You have my word, I will protect you until all is solved".

"You're the only person who cared about me instead of watching the video and making fun... I guess that means something".

"A lot of people care about you, now you don't see it, but I assure you it's like that".

"How long do we have to wait?" Kate asked.

"Sooner than you think, time is already running out".

"OK. I'll trust you in this one".

"Just hold on a little longer" she said as she hugged Kate. The two girls separated and Max could see some light returning to her friend."Don't tell anyone about this, whenever you need to talk, you call me".

"I will," Kate replied.

"Go back to your room and rest you haven't probably slept in a few days, I'll check on you later".

"I've tried that before". With a slight nod, Kate pointed to the dorms. Sitting on the steps, Victoria in all her Queen Bee glory and her drones were immersed in a passive display of high school power.

"Give me five minutes".

Max stood up and steadily walked toward the three girls. Once she was in front of them, not giving Victoria a chance to recite her offending lines, she made a strange move. Instead of standing in front of the Victoria as it was supposed from everybody who acknowledged Blackwell's hierarchy, she positioned herself at the right end of the group, right next to Taylor, crouching slightly until she was at eyes level.

And that was before she spoke, which proved even stranger to the three girls.

"Taylor, how is your mother doing?