Chapter Text
Chloe turned the radio on, but Max was the one flipping through stations until she finally settled on some talk radio show she’d never heard of. She wasn’t really in the mood for music right then.
The two of them were driving down some back road in Arcadia Bay, going who knows where at who knows what time to do literally anything but lie in bed and think. Max didn’t know why Chloe wanted to be here - even if she could probably guess, she didn’t want to know - but she knew that she could not lie in her dorm room and dream about Kate stepping off that rooftop one more time without breaking something.
The radio was just white noise for Max, fading into the background of her thoughts, her worries, her plans for whatever could possibly happen to her future now that she could change it whenever she wanted. She was anxious enough to jump a little in her seat when Chloe reached over and turned it up.
She glanced at her friend, but didn’t even have to voice the question on her lips before Chloe answered it.
“They’re talking about a missing girl,” she said, and Max heard the hope for Rachel in Chloe’s tone rather than in her words.
“Look, just because I won’t show you the notebook doesn’t mean I don’t trust you! I promise, I’m telling you what you need to know. We’re going to find her, man.”
“Ben, you don’t trust me. I’m fine if you won’t show me the damn notebook-”
“-Are you?”
“I…” The man’s sigh crackled in the radio static. “I trust you to show me when you’re ready. It’s just hard right now.”
“You think I don’t know that, Sammy? I promise-”
Chloe switched the station then, and when Max looked over at her she saw tight lips and a tighter grip on the steering wheel. She was glad Chloe changed it. Something about the mix of frustration and determination in Ben’s voice hit a little too close to home.
It felt like they were intruding on something they weren’t meant to hear, but at this point Max is used to intruding into other people’s lives.
It would be nice to know who the girl was, though, to know if she could match that name to Rachel or to Nathan or to any other conspiracy too large for this small town.
Max raised her hand, and -
She was standing next to Chloe’s truck, watching her best friend climb down from her bedroom window with a little more appreciation that was probably necessary.
“Do you listen to talk shows at all?” she asked when they were both in the truck, but Chloe shook her head and put the truck into gear.
“Like, on the radio? Never. It’s just shitty politics or useless gardening facts.”
Max just nodded and put on her seatbelt. They had barely pulled out of Chloe’s driveway when she reached over to turn the radio on. She couldn't remember what station she had been on, though, and ended up settling for something that was almost more static than indie music.
“I was thinking,” Max said a couple of songs later, trying not to look at Chloe or think about the way the moonlight played off of her blue hair. It would make such a pretty shot, Chloe, framed by the night and lit by the moon… but there were only so many photos you could take of your best friend before it got a little weird. She looked out of the window, instead, where the trees of Arcadia Bay’s old forests whipped past like nothing more than shadows. “Have any other girls gone missing before Rachel?”
Chloe shrugged, the motion just registering in Max’s peripheral vision. “Hell if I know. Definitely not any other girls our age, but maybe… There was this woman at the library. Disappeared just a few days ago, some of the guys at the station called home and asked step-douche if he’d seen anything at the school.”
The radio popped and fizzed without warning, and Chloe cut herself off to reach over and hit it until it settled back into a station. But it wasn’t the staticky guitar from earlier in this timeline, it was the same two men just minutes before their conversation that Max, at least, would be hearing for the second time.
“Emily would have told me if she was just going to leave, Sammy! She hasn’t left or run away or started a new life, she is missing.”
“I believe you, buddy! It’s not me you have to convince.”
Chloe looked over at Max and Max couldn’t stop herself from looking back, seeing something light up in her eyes. “That was her name! I never met her, but she knew Rachel. You think these guys know something?”
The two men on the radio kept arguing while Chloe was talking, circling around from trust to Emily the librarian to the notebook, like CD stuck on repeat.
Max raised her hand and Chloe’s voice slipped into the whisper of time along with Ben and Sammy.
This time around she barely waited for Chloe to turn on her truck before she reached over and started spinning the radio through channel after channel. There had to be more to this story - they had to explain it, somewhere.
Chloe had started to look at her weird, and maybe she had been about to reach out, touch Max’s shoulder and ask what was wrong. But this Max wouldn’t know. This Max jumped back when the radio sparked and shorted, and then finally Sammy and Ben were talking on the speakers.
“Good evening, fine people of Arcadia Bay. Today on Arcadia AM Ben and I have a very serious topic for you listeners calling in - any of our past listeners know about the case of Emily Potter. She’s only been missing for a few days, now, but we already miss her…”
“A lot.”
“Yeah. Today, though, we have news. Not- not good news, but news.”
“Another girl went missing a while ago. I didn’t know anything about her, I just assumed the cases weren’t connected like an idiot-”
“Ben, it’s not your fault. Even the police assumed this girl was a runaway teenager, no one suspected anything.”
Chloe pulled over in the middle of the forest and turned up the radio.
“I should have known, Sammy! God, I’ve got so many stupid plans and all these complicated theories down in this notebook and it’s already been a couple of days since Emily’s been gone and I haven’t done a goddamn thing and now? We’ve discovered another girl went missing and what if it’s a serial killer, Sammy, what if it’s just one bastard with a thing for pretty girls and it has nothing at all to do with the weather or my dreams or anything?!”
“Ben! Ben, it’s okay, you’re doing all you can. Just listen to me, okay. Put the notebook down and trust me. We are going to find her. Her, and the other girl who went missing. I don’t care if it was aliens or the forces of nature or one bastard with a thing for pretty girls, we are going to figure it out and get them home. We can plan it together, okay, with a new notebook. We’ll get more evidence and prove that they’re missing and didn’t just run away.”
Max risked a glance at Chloe, and the other girl sat hunched over her steering wheel, head low and breathing hard. “Are you okay?” she asked, tentative.
“Fine,” Chloe snapped. “I just want to listen more.”
She wasn’t fine, but Max didn’t argue. They were getting into the part Max had heard before, Ben insisting that Emily wouldn’t have run away and Sammy trying to soothe accidentally ruffled feathers and just getting Ben more worked up. She wished that her powers could extend to other people, wished that she could let Sammy try again and again until his own friendship was safe. She couldn’t, though, so she just listened.
“You think I don’t know that, Sammy? I promise I will tell you everything as soon as I can. This whole time, I needed somebody, needed someone I could trust.”
Max sits up a little, listening harder. This is new.
“You’ve got me, Ben. Let’s talk more about this off-air, okay? In the meantime, should we maybe do our jobs and take some callers? Let’s go with something positive for today’s topic, we know it’s been a long day for everyone. Maybe you guys could share some stories about the good things you’ve had happen to you today. Remember, you can call us at 424-279-3858, or hit us up on twitter at @KingFallsAM or @KingFallSammy.”
Chloe was dialing the number before Max could do anything, and she had the feeling something had just started tonight.
She didn’t try to go back and change things.
“Hello? You’re the guys who were just talking on the radio about the girl who disappeared, yeah?” Chloe was constantly in motion, even with the car pulled over she kept fidgeting with the headlights, flicking the windshield wipers on and off and drumming her fingers against the wheel.
“That would be us,” one of the men said. “I’m Sammy and my co-host here is Ben. Who do we have the pleasure of speaking with tonight?”
He didn’t really sound like it was a pleasure, the politeness a little bit forced. Max could hear him through Chloe’s phone and again, a second or two later, over the speakers in the car. An echo of every word.
Chloe didn’t seem to care, just kept moving forward. “I’m Chloe, and I need to know everything you’ve heard about Rachel Amber.”
“I’m sorry, who?” Sammy asked.
She sighed in frustration, the sound coming through the radio in a crackle of static. “The girl who disappeared! Before the librarian lady!”
“Emily.” That was the other man. His voice quiet, but firm. “Her name is Emily.”
“Yeah, her. I was Rachel’s - we were -” Chloe didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence, and Max wasn’t sure what she herself was hoping Chloe would say. “She was my best friend,” Chloe ended up finishing. Max can’t say anything but the look she knows is on her face… It probably says more than she could.
“Emily was mine,” Ben says.
Max doesn’t know it, but up in the old radio station by the lighthouse Sammy has the same expression that she does. Neither Ben nor Chloe notice.
Chloe and Ben talk for a while. The posters that Chloe put up, a notebook that Ben has started, people who Chloe’s noticed around town and the ideas that Ben has for future investigation. It’s so late it’s early, and Max is nodding off against Chloe’s shoulder by the time Sammy clears his throat and pointedly asks what time school starts for Chloe tomorrow. Chloe just laughs, but Max looks at her with sleepy eyes and she trails off.
“Yeah, I’d better go. Meet up at Rosa’s Whales day after tomorrow, see what we’ve learned?”
“Sounds good,” Ben says, and Chloe hangs up. She flashes a bright grin at Max, seemingly not tired at all.
“That was fucking awesome, I bet these guys can totally help us! But in the meantime…”
Somehow, Chloe convinces Max to head to the school with her to snoop around, instead of just dropping Max back off at her dorm. Chloe’s good at convincing like that.