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If Max were anyone else, she’d probably be disoriented after suddenly waking up in a grassy clearing.
Unfortunately, this was routine at this point. Wake up in the junkyard, be forced to walk to a shallow grave, gunshots, crimson, needles. Only then would she be granted the relief of waking up for real, holding onto Chloe and reassuring herself that they were far from that place.
Even as she had learned to recognize when she was dreaming, it never seemed to get easier to make it through. All she could do was try to cross the threshold between knowing that her mind was playing tricks on her and actually being able to break free from its grasp.
Strangely, the unseen force seemed to be taking its time now. Max curled up on her side and closed her eyes again, hoping that she could will herself out of this nightmare before the horrors began.
Then, a light hit her eyelids.
Max’s eyes snapped open. In the fraction of a second before she realized what she was looking at, her mind flickered through several possibilities, most involving people she never wanted to see again standing over her with a flashlight. She squinted and watched as the light became a friendlier shape and started to glow with a softer tone.
Why is this thing still following me?
Despite her confusion, Max did feel a sense of comfort seeing the doe again. She felt a kinship with the creature, and it seemed to show up whenever she needed guidance.
Max sat up and held out her hand, the same way she would for a stray dog. Maybe if it got closer, it could help her get out of here.
The doe stared back, unblinking.
“It’s okay, I don’t bite,” Max assured. If only she had something to offer up besides a friendly voice. The sparse amount of trees and bushes around the junkyard were too far away for her to pick a leaf without standing up.
Suddenly, the doe’s ears twitched. It turned and bounded towards the trees in the distance, leaving Max alone again.
Defeated, Max pulled her hand back. She would never be able to catch up if she followed. Ending up lost in the woods didn’t seem like a good idea, dream or not.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she?”
The sound of a feminine voice cutting through the silence hit Max’s spine, causing her to freeze in place. It definitely didn’t belong to Chloe. A few seconds of her mind racing told her that it didn’t belong to any of the girls she’d gone to school with, either.
“You can look at me, Max. It’s okay.”
Max slowly turned to look behind herself, out of fear of a needle (or bullet) entering her neck if she didn’t. She stared at the person sitting on the back of an old car at the edge of the clearing.
She would’ve recognized those cat-like eyes anywhere, after seeing them in the missing flyers plastered around the dorms for the duration of her time at Blackwell. And if not for that, the long blonde hair and the feather hanging from the girl’s left ear would certainly be a giveaway.
“I’m sorry I had to meet you here,” the figure was saying. “But I’m pretty sure I can only talk to you in places where we’ve been together and, well…” She slid off of the car and dusted her shorts off.
Max’s ears began to fill with the sound of her own heartbeat. This had to be a trap. Any second now, she’d blink and the form of a deceased teenage girl would be replaced with that of a man with a gun.
Rachel took a few small steps closer. “Come on, It’s not polite to stare,” she said. Her tone immediately struck Max as the same one she herself had used to speak to the deer just a moment ago. “Can I sit over there with you?”
“Who are you?” Max tried to make her voice as firm as possible. She couldn’t let whoever this was think that she was falling for the deception.
The girl in front of her seemed surprised by the question, but slightly amused. “Damn, all that time spent looking for me and you don’t even know my name?”
“Fuck off,” Max spat. “Stop using a dead girl’s image to shield yourself.”
“Oh.” Rachel slowly sat down, still quite a few feet away from Max. “I really scared you, didn’t I?”
Max didn’t know how to respond. She couldn’t fight or run. She couldn’t force herself to wake up. What else was left? She glared back and pulled her knees up to her chest as if they could protect her if things went south.
“Don’t you think that if I wanted to hurt you, I would’ve just done that?” Rachel asked calmly.
Max considered this. There was no one else out here, except for the doe that was probably on the other side of the woods by now. She was out in the open, completely vulnerable. If this was something else, it didn’t need to pretend to be Rachel to get to her.
She finally answered, using her own question. “If you’re really Rachel, then why are you here?”
“Because I wanted to talk to the great Max Caulfield, why else?” Rachel leaned forward, as if speaking to someone who couldn’t quite hear her. “And I have to say, you’re exactly how I imagined.”
This statement made Max shiver. She never considered that thanks to Chloe, Rachel would’ve known a lot about her without them having to meet.
But it was only fair.
“Why do you want to talk to me?” Max asked.
Rachel shrugged nonchalantly, as if the answer was incredibly obvious. “To make sure you don’t regret that absolutely badass decision you made for Chloe.”
Max froze again, and this time it came with a wave of emotion that formed a lump in her throat. “It wasn’t ‘badass,’” she quietly insisted. “I was scared, and I had to decide fast, and I…” she trailed off, unsure of where she was going with this.
“You couldn’t let her die.”
Max nodded. “Maybe it was selfish, but I couldn’t lose her.”
Rachel leaned back and hummed thoughtfully. “I think you’re allowed to be selfish.” She slapped her thigh like a judge bringing down a gavel. “I’m decreeing it right now. Selfish acts done in the name of love are no longer punishable.”
Even with the weight of her actions still hanging over her mind, Max couldn’t help but laugh, just a little bit. Maybe Chloe had been right to assume that she and Rachel would get along.
Rachel smiled, clearly satisfied to get a positive reaction. “You’ve done great taking care of each other.” she told Max. “You probably know that already, but it’ll help to hear it from someone else for once.”
“T-thanks.” Max put her knees down to sit normally. She didn’t feel like she needed to hide herself now. “I still fuck up sometimes, but thank you, Rachel.”
“Max. Maxie. Listen to me. If everything you’ve done is ‘fucking up,’ then everyone else must be dancing with the devil himself.”
“That’s a bit dramatic.”
Rachel threw an arm up into the air. “Congratulations, you’ve officially met Rachel Amber!”
Max laughed again, louder this time. None of the photos she’d seen of Rachel could’ve fully prepared her for this.
Rachel lowered her arm and sighed. “I wish I could stay, but I don’t have much time, and I have to see Chloe before I leave.”
“Leave to where?” Max had assumed they’d be here until she was woken up, probably by Chloe asking what she wanted for breakfast.
“I’m not exactly sure,” Rachel admitted. “But I’ve stuck around way longer than I should have. Like, months longer than most people can stay after they pass on.”
“Oh.” Max had a feeling she wouldn't get any answers if she pressed further. “Well, I hope wherever you go, it’s peaceful.”
“It will be. I know that much.”
Max didn’t really have a choice but to accept this statement. Just as she was about to ask how Rachel was going to get out of here, a new question entered her head.
”Wait, do you know where the doe came from?”
”The one you were talking to when I showed up?”
“Yes!” Max felt a glimmer of hope, until Rachel shook her head.
“I wish I could say. She helped you and Chloe find me, so at least you know she carries good energy, right?”
“Very good energy,” Max agreed. She yawned, realizing that despite assumedly being asleep, she was starting to feel extremely tired. She put an elbow on her knee so she could rest her chin on her hand.
As the edges of her vision started to darken, Max heard Rachel say one last thing.
“Thank you for finding me.”
* * *
The first coherent thought Chloe managed to form as her eyes fluttered open was when the hell did we get purple lights for this room?
The second was Max doesn’t have a map on her wall.
Chloe shot straight up- or rather, she tried to, but her haste and shock caused her to almost fall off the side of the bed. After catching herself with an arm to the floor, she was able to pull her body up. Before she had time to figure out how she could've been transported here, someone else made their presence known.
“Wow. I didn’t even say anything yet.”
Okay, it’s one of these dreams again.
Chloe turned to see Rachel sitting beside her on the bed and staring at the little dots of light on the ceiling, a thin smile on her lips.
“Still a better reaction than accusing me of being a doppelgänger.”
“What?”
Rachel finally turned to meet Chloe’s eyes. “You know, those things that can make themselves look exactly like a specific person?”
Chloe was used to her dreams being cryptic, but this was just irritating. “I know what a doppelgänger is, Rach. What’s next, a lecture about vampires? Some werewolves?”
“You missed those ones, sorry.” Rachel stared at Chloe, seemingly waiting for something more. “But for real, you’re not surprised to see me? Do you see dead people often?”
“Not once in my entire life.” Chloe was getting more mileage out of her sarcasm than she’d expected to tonight.
“Oh, right. Your dad.” Rachel leaned back on the headboard of the bed and gestured for Chloe to do the same. “Do you have dreams about me, though?”
Might as well play along, Chloe decided. It was the only way to get whatever message the universe wanted her to have now. She laid herself down next to Rachel and answered, “Sometimes. Not so much anymore.”
Rachel perked up at this. “Oh? What kind of dreams?”
“Not the kind you’re thinking of.”
“I was genuinely asking! Get your mind out of the gutter,” Rachel scoffed as she lightly smacked Chloe’s arm.
Chloe stared at the spot where Rachel’s hand had made contact. Usually, if another person managed to touch her within a dream, she couldn’t feel it. Now, her skin even stung a little bit where one of Rachel’s nails had grazed her.
“Anyways, I’m gracing you with my presence to make sure you’re doing okay.” If Rachel had noticed Chloe’s confusion, she was undeterred. “So, how’s it going?”
“Got a pack of smokes in here somewhere?”
“No. Answer the question.”
Chloe suppressed an eye roll. “Well, you’re dead. My parents are dead. A lot of other people died so that I could live. So it’s going fucking fantastic, actually.”
“You have Max,” Rachel reminded her. “And that girl loves you so much that she couldn’t fathom a life without you.”
Chloe didn’t need to answer. She’d already grappled with the realization that someone could love her enough to keep reality bent for her.
“The other reason I’m here,” Rachel continued, “Is to tell you what you need to hear. I’ve decided that if I’m going to be at peace after this, so are you.”
Ah yes, here was the “sage advice” part of the dream. Usually this was her father’s job, but it wasn’t unheard of for other people to show up to give her some sort of guidance.
“You couldn’t have stopped me.”
Chloe was more than a little taken aback. “Stopped you from what?”
“You know what,” Rachel groaned in exasperation. “And you wouldn’t have been able to stop me if you had found out back then. I wanted to get out.”
“I would’ve told you not to be fucking stupid.” Chloe hoped that there was no one else in this corner of reality that could hear her voice starting to rise. “We agreed Frank was bad news.”
“He was racking up a lot of cash, and I needed to get out of the Bay somehow,” Rachel retorted. “You know, the plan?”
“The plan that was supposed to involve both of us? That fucking plan?”
“Oh my god.” Rachel swung her legs over the side of the bed as if to leave. With her back towards Chloe, she muttered, “You can’t keep thinking about this.”
“I know, I’m just the worst person ever because I’m mad that someone I trusted lied to me.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” Rachel stood up and walked to her desk, running a hand over the wood. “Be mad at me if you want. I’m telling you that you can’t dwell on it because it wasn’t your responsibility to stop me.”
“I would have anyway!” Chloe shouted loud enough to put a strain on her throat. “Even if it made you hate me forever, I’d tell you to get the cash some other way and beat Frank’s ass from being a creep!”
Still looking down at her desk, Rachel calmly replied, “Well, it’s too late for that.”
That felt like a punch to Chloe’s gut. Having it laid out so clearly in front of her- that there was no way to go back- felt like digging Rachel’s bones up all over again. Instead of answering, Chloe let her eyes fill with tears as she curled in on herself. She noticed Rachel look up right as her vision blurred and she closed her eyes.
The bed shifted for a moment before an arm wrapped around her shoulders and Rachel’s voice quietly commanded, “Come here.”
Chloe let herself be pulled closer until her head was resting in the crook of Rachel’s neck. She breathed in deeply, trying to ground herself with the scent of the jasmine soap Rachel always used. In doing so, however, she caught something else. An earthy, muddy smell, like ground after a rain shower. It made Chloe feel sick to her stomach, but she couldn’t let go.
“I loved you, you know.”
“I know you did,” Rachel replied solemnly. She planted a kiss on Chloe’s forehead and held her tighter.
Chloe felt as though she could lay there forever. She would never be able to feel Rachel arms around her like this again, too vivid to be confined to her mind, but still not quite real.
After what could’ve been hours or just a few minutes, Rachel suddenly pulled away. Chloe opened her eyes to see her undoing the clasp of the necklace she often wore.
“I want you to have this,” Rachel said insistently as she pushed the piece of jewelry into Chloe’s hand.
Chloe turned it over in her hands, looking at the two stones embedded into the clay of the pendant. She remembered the first time she’d noticed Rachel wearing it, after Blackwell Academy’s performance of The Tempest.
“I… don’t know if I should have this.” Chloe tried to give the necklace back, but Rachel shook her head.
“Take it. Keep it safe.” Rachel rolled onto her back to look at the lights again. “Or do whatever you want with it, I guess I’ll have no way of knowing.”
Chloe closed her fist around the necklace. “I’ll keep it safe,” she promised hesitantly. “But wouldn’t you rather give it to your mom?”
“Sera? I gave her my bracelet.”
“I thought Frank had that.”
Rachel let out a short laugh. “I’m somehow talking to you post-dying and you think I couldn’t have gotten my bracelet back?”
“Good point.”
Chloe stared up at the lights. She remembered when the two of them would spend time trying to find patterns that looked like real constellations in them. When they ran out of those, they’d make up their own constellation myths.
Rachel pointed up at the ceiling. “One last star hunt before I have to go?”
“You really can read my mind.”
* * *
The feeling of a jolt on the other side of her bed interrupted Max’s slow wake. She blinked the fuzziness from her eyes and rolled over to see Chloe sitting straight up in the early morning light coming from the window, looking around frantically. After seemingly scanning every corner, she pulled her hand up to her chest and sighed.
Max quickly sat up as well, resting her head on Chloe’s shoulder. This movement solicited no reaction, and Max wrapped her arms around her partner’s waist, hoping to bring at least a little bit of comfort.
“It’s okay,” she whispered awkwardly. Max was usually the one who needed calm words and gentle touches to stop her from panicking after a nightmare. It wasn’t nearly as often that Chloe needed the same in return.
“You’re going to think I’m fucking crazy.” Chloe took in a deep breath, causing her shoulders to shake and Max to hold on tighter. “But that wasn’t just a dream.”
Max felt everything in her body tense up. “What wasn’t a dream?” she asked slowly.
Chloe held her closed fist out to the side so Max could have a view of it. “Look.”
Max watched as Chloe turned her hand over and opened it to show what she’d been clutching. Tan pendant, red and green stones, and black cord. She’d seen this before. Rachel had been wearing it in some of the photographs Chloe had in her room.
“She gave it to me.” Chloe’s voice grew thick as she blurted out a clumsy explanation, “She was here- or I was there? Something like that. But we talked and she gave me this and I just- where else would it have come from?”
“I believe you,” Max assured, gently rubbing Chloe’s shoulder. “And I think she visited me, too.”
Chloe didn’t answer, and for a second Max wondered if she should’ve stayed quiet. Maybe it was better to let Chloe believe that Rachel only spoke to her, that she had this moment all to herself.
“You got to meet her,” Chloe finally said in awe. She ran her finger over the pendant in her hand.
“I can see why you loved her,” Max whispered.
A quiet sob escaped from somewhere deep in Chloe’s chest as she hunched over. “Don’t say things like that,” she choked out.
“Sorry.” Max let go of Chloe so she could move to be in front of her. “Sorry,” she murmured again as she tilted Chloe’s face to look up at her. “Fuck, I didn’t mean to upset you more.”
As she laid her eyes on Chloe’s face, Max finally got to see the effect Rachel’s visit had on her. Her cheeks were covered in tear stains, and her eyes still occasionally shifted as if she was looking for someone. She closed her hand around the necklace again, squeezing it tightly.
At the risk of saying the wrong thing again, Max softly asked, “Why don’t you wear it? Then you won’t have to worry about losing it.”
“I don’t know if I should.” Despite the hesitation in her words, Chloe opened her hand and held it out to Max, who carefully took the necklace and began to put it around Chloe’s neck.
“Okay?” Max asked as she attended the clasp. After receiving a nod in response, she sat back on her heels and waited.
“I don’t think I can go back to sleep,” Chloe said after a moment. “I’m too freaked out.”
“Me too.” Max racked her brain for what else to say in this situation, but not much was coming to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“My dream-that-wasn’t-a-dream?”
“Yeah.”
Chloe shook her head. “Not now.” She pushed the blankets to the side and made her way out of bed. “I just need some water.”
Max followed Chloe downstairs without being asked. The two of them stayed quiet while Chloe took two glasses out of the cabinet and filled them both with water. She handed one to Max, leaned against the counter, and broke the silence.
“Are we still on for that road trip one day?”
Max shrugged and looked down into her water glass. “One day.”
“It doesn’t matter when, we’ll get to do it eventually.” Chloe paused to take a sip of water and look around thoughtfully before continuing. “How do you feel about Southern California?”
Max was surprised to hear Chloe mention the place where she and Rachel had wanted to run away to. “Why, do you want to go there?”
“I think I should.” Chloe tapped the pendant on the end of Rachel’s necklace with her free hand. “I have a friend of a friend there who I want to talk to.”