Chapter Text
Northern Oregon Coast
August 6th, 2017, 8:45pm
1 month and 2 days since the surrender at the border
3 years, 9 months, and 30 days since the death of Chloe Price
It was the blue hour, a full moon. The waves crashed on the rocks hundreds of feet below. Max had never really been one for landscapes, but she and Lukas had been driving for the better part of a day and had stopped to stretch their legs. Lukas needed to feed his vice and as he pulled the pack of cigarettes out of his windbreaker pocket, Max stepped out of the passenger side of the car, approached the overlook, and took in the sights, the sounds, even the smell of the coast. The raw, almost primal energy of the horizon before her was calling, and she needed to capture it.
Reaching into her bag, worn from both overuse and memories she refused to let go of, she grabbed her polaroid camera and, click , the moment was forever preserved. She briefly paused to admire the shot, knowing that if she had more professional equipment at her disposal it would have turned out even better. But she had to make do, and she had always been a fan of this particular form of photography, anyway.
Placing the camera back in her bag, she held onto the photo, closed her eyes and breathed in the salty spray. It was calming. The voice that called out from behind her was a rude awakening, both in how it pulled her from her reverie and in how unwelcome it was.
“Another storm is coming. You feel it, right?” Lukas said.
In her mind’s eye, she caught a glimpse of a massive tornado on the water. The fury of nature on full display was overwhelming. Trapped in the middle of a storm she could not escape, she could only watch helplessly as it careened towards Arcadia Bay. The smell of the ocean in that memory was the only link to the present that she could find.
Max took in the scenery again: calm, serene, nothing like the horror she had just relived, if only momentarily. She turned in the direction of the voice to find her “traveling companion” leaning against the side of his car. A folded newspaper was in one hand, his cigarette in the other. He brought the cigarette to his mouth, holding it in place with his lips while he took a drag and ran his now free hand though his short auburn hair, tousling it up a bit. He looked up from the paper to make eye contact with her as he took the cigarette back in his hand. She still wasn’t sure how to get a read on him.
“I think you and I have a different idea of what a storm looks like,” she said, making a not-so-subtle attempt at dry wit. “Things seem pretty calm right now.”
He chuckled in response, but it was almost patronizing. “I didn’t ask if you could see a storm coming. I asked if you could feel it.”
Max narrowed her eyes. She didn’t understand what the difference was. Storms had a definite feel to them. The change in temperature, air pressure, wind. But you could usually see the changes in the atmosphere when a storm was on the horizon. The physical and the visual working in concert was almost always a given.
“Different question, same answer,” she responded. “What is your deal anyway? Can you cut the ‘mysterious wanderer’ bullshit and just clearly answer my question that I asked you yesterday? How do you know about my powers?” She knew there was a caveat to that question, but she wasn’t ready to reveal that yet. She needed to keep that card close to her chest.
She watched Lukas take another drag. The last one. Inhale. The embers flickered and glowed. Exhale. He tossed the butt away and their eyes met. Max was doing her best to convey a sense of disgust. Disgust for the habit? Not at all. Chloe had smoked around her and she didn’t give a shit. No, this disgust was for the fact that he had been withholding information from her. Considering they had been on the road from San Francisco since that morning with little more than a brief introduction, a few choice words, and a plea for help, he definitely owed her a more detailed explanation. It wasn’t like they didn’t have time to spare. Right?
He walked over to where Max stood. Side-by-side there was a noticeable difference in stature, but Max had always been slightly below-average in height. He seemed to take in the view she had already so handily captured via polaroid. It really wasn’t a bad view at all. He appeared to be contemplating how best to respond to her question. When he finally spoke, it was to the ocean, not Max.
“When you manipulate time, it creates a ripple effect. The more frequently you do it, the stronger the effect becomes.” He glanced over at her and smirked. “You were pretty busy that week.”
“If by busy you mean doing everything I could to stop Arcadia Bay from being wiped out,” Max remarked. The sadness came, readily apparent in her eyes. “Then I realized there was nothing I could do without sacrificing my best friend. So, yeah, if that’s what you mean, then I was pretty busy.” The sadness dissipated, quickly replaced by resentment and anger.
“You tried to change too much, too fast. Too many do-overs,” he explained. “It’s like constantly picking at a scab. If you don’t stop, it’s never going to heal. Fucking with time kind of works the same way. When you make a change, you create a wound. You need to give it time to heal, before you change anything else.”
Max was getting frustrated. He was still fucking doing it. All she wanted was a straight answer and he kept talking in metaphors. If it weren’t for the fear of being stranded in the middle of nowhere, or worse, she would have punched his smug face. But that wasn’t who Max was. She had always been passive, to a fault. Sure, when the moment called for decisiveness she was clearly able to deliver, but it was certainly not her forte.
“Ok, cool, when you manipulate time you hurt the space-time continuum or some shit. I get that.” The exasperation in Max’s voice was easily detectable. “But even if what I was doing was making these, what did you say? Ripples? What does that have to do with you?”
Lukas chuckled again, apparently lacking self-control. “You’re not the only one with a superpower Max. The one you have, how you use it, certainly is unique to you. But there are other people, with other powers. Some related to time, some not. It’s complicated. And we don’t exactly have a lot of time for a collegiate-level lecture on it.”
Lukas pulled up the zipper on his hoodie a little more and crossed his arms as he spoke. The breeze coming off the ocean was surprisingly cold for an August evening. “Short version? I can...move through, or, I guess, visually see different timelines in my mind? I can see different scenarios, the events leading up to them, and can try to manipulate things in the present to create a specific outcome. But it requires some degree of subtlety and--” He glanced over at her, as if he was weighing his next words carefully. “--talent.” Max did not budge. He continued, “When I’m seeing these scenarios and outcomes, I become acutely aware of fluctuations like the ones you caused. I can’t outright change the past, like you can. But I can attempt to change the future.”
Lukas continued to speak, but his words were lost in a mental fog. Max’s eyes widened as she thought back to the moment she and Lukas had first crossed paths.
He had stopped her as she was walking back to her car from one of her classes at SFAI, asking for directions to a cafe nearby. Max knew the place and knew her car was on the way there. Under normal circumstances she would not have just asked some random guy to walk with her so she could give him directions, but it was the middle of the day in a fairly crowded public space, so she could afford to be a good samaritan.
As they walked they had made small talk about what he was doing in San Francisco (visiting some friends from college, he had said). When they had neared her car parked at a meter (and probably out of time) she stopped to verbally guide him the rest of the way. Her words, in fact her entire being, were stopped dead in their tracks when out of nowhere the screeching of tires and ear-piercing cacophony of metal twisting into yet more metal filled the air.
Looking to her left, her car was a complete and total wreck. A sideswipe had caused a vehicle in motion to t-bone her car, right where she would have been sitting. She would have died instantly. She turned back to the man, intending to ask if he was ok, but his stare stopped any words from leaving her mouth. He had not moved, not even remotely phased by the vehicular carnage taking place mere feet from him. His focus was entirely on Max.
“I know who you are Max Caulfield,” he had said, “I know what you can do. And I need your help.”
She had been so blindsided by everything she hadn’t asked many questions. With Lukas, all Max had to go off of was a plea for her trust and a promise of answers along the way to wherever it was they were heading.
It was probably a bad idea, placing any sort of trust in him. Max’s life had just briefly flashed before her eyes while this stranger revealed they knew her secret. But they had been driving all day, and despite Lukas’ rambling into what clearly was a collegiate-level lecture, the topic of her powers still had not been broached, nor how she could use them to help him. What was she doing? How could she help this guy she barely knew when the truth deep down, the answer she needed, was there the whole time?
Max held up her hand, signaling him to shut up. “Look, I don’t know what you think you know about me, but I haven’t used my powers since Chloe died.” Saying her name, suddenly the conversation felt more real, more raw. She could tell by Lukas’ unwavering gaze that she did not have to explain. She pressed on. “I swore to never mess with time again after that shit. I’m not even sure I have them anymore.”
Lukas smiled. It was genuine, endearing. “Really, Max? How do you know?”
Max could not believe this asshole. Had she stuttered? Did it matter if she hadn’t used them? “Why do you care?” she snapped. “You say you need my help. But I can’t help you if the reason you need it is exclusively because of my powers. Even if I could still use them...I can’t. The danger is too great.” She tore her eyes away to look back at the ocean. “If something were to happen that put innocent lives at risk, I couldn’t live with myself if-”
“Clearly you haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said Max,” Lukas interrupted. “I can see different scenarios. I can manipulate the outcome. Why would I have bothered tracking you down and, for lack of a better way of putting it, saving your life, if in every scenario I looked at, you didn’t have your powers anymore or using them would cause disaster?”
The harshness of his words cut through Max like a knife. “So you’re saying you would have just let me die otherwise?”
“People die every day Max.” Lukas was being incredibly terse. “I know this is harsh, but something is coming that is bigger than either of us. Bigger than Arcadia Bay. If you didn’t still have your powers, I would not have been there that day. And yes, you would have died. But people like us don’t exist to right all the wrongs of the world Max. We have to think about the greater good. You figured that one out the hard way.”
Max couldn’t believe what she was hearing. For that one week she truly believed she could create real, permanent change. Change for the better. Even small, simple changes. Giving Warren a better, well-deserved grade on his chemistry homework, warning Alyssa about airborne projectiles...saving Kate.
But for every positive change she tried to make, the universe seemed to conspire against her with disastrous consequences. The greater good? The only thing she truly had done for the greater good was swearing off her powers.
An annoying repetitive noise brought her back from her quiet contemplation. Lukas had rolled up the newspaper he had been reading into a cylinder and was tapping it against his leg. He was staring at her intently.
“Do you want to bring Chloe back?” he asked.
“W-what?” She knew the answer to that question in her heart of hearts. But she also knew the cost. Chloe knew the cost. And Chloe had been willing to pay it.
“What if I told you there was a way that we could?” Lukas seemed like he was just trying to get a rise out of her.
“Fuck you, Lukas,” Max spat. “You barely know me. You don’t know what I went through. Do not walk into my life, talking about time manipulation and some doomsday shit, and then try to coerce me with empty promises of bringing my dead friend back to life.” Max had not felt such anger in so long. The last time she truly felt this anger was towards Jefferson, and that sick fuck was thankfully safe behind bars now. “You will never know how much she meant to me and she died knowing the cost of her survival was too great. There’s no going back after that.”
“You’re right, Max.” He smiled again. “There is no going back. Not that far. We can move forward. And we can still bring Chloe back.”
“How?” She asked.
Lukas checked his watch and made a tsk sound. “Another time, Max. We’ve wasted enough of it as it is. We need to get back on the road. Good talk though.” He turned to walk back to the car.
What. The. Fuck. Max was not going to take that sitting down. She refused to have her best friend dangled in front of her face, only to have her snatched away again. Especially just so he could drag her along for the ride. Max reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing Max?” Lukas called from over by the car, his voice carrying an air of annoyance.
“Going home. We’re done here,” she said as she scrolled through her apps to find Uber. Opening the app, there wasn’t a driver within 75 miles. Fuck, they really were out in the sticks. She started to Google taxi services, hoping to find somebody, anybody, to pick her up. She didn’t feel threatened enough to call the police, but there was no way she was getting back into a car with him. As she went to tap the number she had found, her phone was ripped from her hands.
“I’m sorry Max. I can’t let you do that. I need you.” Lukas’ voice rang out from just outside her peripheral. Before Max could even react, he had tossed her phone over the cliff.
“Wait! Stop!” Max reached out her hand and time began to freeze. Slowly, then increasingly faster, time reversed. The phone flew back up the cliffside and back into Lukas’ hands. She continued to rewind until it was back in her own. She needed to think fast on how to change the situation. At Blackwell she usually had to react quickly to change what had just played out moments before. She was about to release time back into its normal flow, maybe run before Lukas could get to her. Then, she saw it. Lukas was standing there, but it wasn’t just a repeat of the events. He was present, making direct eye contact, cognizant of exactly what she was doing.
“Can’t use your powers anymore, huh?” He smirked. “You can stop now. Your phone is safe.”
Max released time. She stared at Lukas incredulously for a few moments. It was smooth, she had to admit. He’d managed to coax her powers out of her and she hadn’t even realized he was doing it.
“Max, I know that this is a lot to take in right now, and I know I don’t even remotely deserve it, but I need you to trust me. A storm is coming, and only a few of us can stop it.” Lukas placed his hands into a praying gesture, imploring Max with his words. “I promise you, if you stay with me on this, you will see Chloe again.”
Even now, Max still couldn’t completely get a read on Lukas. She wanted to trust him. She wanted to believe his words were true. She had seen his power in action and he obviously knew more about her and her past than he let on. Could she really get to see Chloe? She knew, deep down, that she wanted that more than anything else in the world. Even if, just for a little while, she could see how this played out, she was game. The only problem was that, if Lukas could manipulate her powers at will, she would be completely defenseless against him. But the hope of seeing Chloe was enough to push that out of her mind.
Max nodded in affirmation. “Ok, I’m in. For now.” Lukas grinned and started to head back to the car. Max closely followed, stopping him before he could open the driver’s side door. “But I get full say on the usage of my powers. And if I want out at any point, you won’t stop me. Deal?” She extended her hand to him.
Lukas appeared to contemplate the offer. His mind was clearly working in overdrive. If there was any ill will or malice in his thoughts, his eyes did not show it. He took her hand in return, firmly. “Deal.”
Lukas got behind the wheel and placed the newspaper cylinder in one of the cupholders. Max climbed in the front passenger seat as Lukas started the engine. “Looks like we have enough gas to get us to our next stop, I think,” he mumbled absent-mindedly as he put the car in drive. Max grabbed the newspaper in the cupholder and unrolled it to the article that Lukas had been reading. It was a continuation of a front-page piece, so she rearranged the paper back into its proper order and read the headline:
16 YEAR OLD FUGITIVE SEAN DIAZ TAKES PLEA BARGAIN. 15 YEARS FOR VOLUNTARY MANSLAUGHTER OF SEATTLE POLICE OFFICER.
“You said that ‘only a few of us’ can stop it,” Max noted while continuing to read the article. “Since there’s only two of us, I assume there’s someone else you haven’t mentioned yet?”
Lukas nodded without taking his eyes off the road. “Let’s just say we have some work to do.”
As they drove into the night, the headlights of Lukas’ car illuminated a road sign that read “Beaver Creek - 45mi”.
To be continued...