Chapter Text
Monday
“Everything is going to be okay.”
There was no reaction to Victoria’s statement. And despite the number of times she’d repeated it, there hadn’t been for over an hour. She was laying beside Max, her wife in her arms, squeezing tightly as the brunette shook in bed beside her. Max hadn’t spoken since they’d left Kate’s neighborhood.
Her wife continued to clutch at her arms like a security blanket, as she trembled while staring at the wall. “Please just breathe,” Victoria whispered in her ear. “Listen to me, and just breathe, Max.”
Nothing. The brunette didn’t make a sound.
“Everything is going to be okay.”
“No. It’s not.”
Victoria clutched Max tighter, as her wife finally spoke. “It’s not going to be okay,” Max whispered. “Nothing is going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know what’s going to happen.”
“You don’t know that it’s going to happen this time.”
“It did the other two times.”
Victoria’s mind raced, as she tried to think of a way to soothe her wife. “Maybe Alice didn’t die when the truck hit her,” she offered. “Kids survive getting hit by cars all the time.”
“She didn’t.” Max sniffed, wiping her nose. “She couldn’t have.”
“Maybe she did. You said you rewound really fast.”
“You didn’t see what I saw.” She shivered. “I saw that car run her over. I saw her… the tire went right over her, and just-”
“Don’t.” Victoria grabbed for Max’s hand. “Don’t think about it.”
“I can’t not think about it.”
“Hey. Listen to me.” Victoria squeezed Max’s hand. “You don’t know if anything is going to happen. Okay? Maybe it will, but there’s no use panicking until you know for sure.”
Max drew a slow breath. “It’s going to snow tonight, just before the sun goes down.”
“It’s January. In Seattle. It might snow tonight anyway.”
Her wife was still, for a few seconds, before turning towards the black cylinder on their dresser. “Alexa?” she called, and the Echo came to life, casting a faint blue light against the wall. “Is it going to snow tonight?”
“Unlikely,” Alexa replied. “No snow is forecast until next Tuesday, with light flurries coming down from-”
“Alexa, off,” Victoria ordered. The Echo immediately stopped talking. “Weathermen are wrong all the time, Max. Please don’t-”
“It’s going to snow tonight. And tomorrow, there’s going to be a solar eclipse.” Max’s trembling got worse. “On Wednesday, they’re going to find dead whales on the beaches. Thursday night, there will be two moons in the sky. And on Friday…”
“No. Stop,” Victoria ordered her. “You don’t know any of that for sure.”
“Yes. I do.”
“Just because it’s happened before doesn’t mean it’ll happen again.”
Max bit her lip. “… is it snowing?”
Victoria glanced over her shoulder, towards the window. “No.”
“What time is it?”
“Little after three.” Victoria put her head back down, nestling in closer to Max. “Please, Max, just… let’s just calm down, and take a few deep breaths, okay? We don’t have a reason to worry yet.”
“But-”
“You said just before sundown, right? That’s when it happens?”
Max nodded.
Victoria let go of Max’s hand, reaching into her pocket and retrieving her cell phone before tapping on the screen. “Google says sundown is at four-thirty-seven,” she informed her. “It’s pretty close as it is, and there’s no snow. Please, Max, let’s wait and see if snow even happens before we start worrying. Okay?”
The brunette was silent for several seconds, before she slowly nodded. “… okay,” she breathed. “We’ll just… wait and see.”
“Exactly. We’re going to wait and see.” Victoria sighed in relief. “Will you eat something? Please? You haven’t had anything since breakfast.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Just a sandwich, Max. Will you just eat a sandwich? For me?”
“… fine.”
It took a few minutes to get the turkey-and-cheese sandwich together. By then, Max had left the bedroom and gone to her office. When Victoria walked in, her wife was in her chair next to the window. The brunette stared through the glass morosely, watching the sky with her phone in hand.
“Here you go.” Victoria put the plate down on the desk. “You want any chips?”
“No.”
“What about a soda?”
“I’m fine.”
Victoria knew she wasn’t. But she didn’t argue. She just sat on the desk beside Max and joined her in looking out the window silently. After several minutes, Max picked up the sandwich and took a small bite, her eyes not leaving the window.
“You said four-thirty-seven?”
“That’s right.”
She checked her phone. “An hour and fifteen minutes to go.”
Victoria hummed. “It was right before sundown, when it snowed?”
Max nodded.
“How long did it last?”
“Only a few minutes.” Max shrugged. “But it was pretty warm back in Arcadia Bay. Maybe it’ll last longer here.”
“Okay.” Victoria inhaled slowly. “How did it happen, exactly? What were you doing?”
Max looked at her, trying to remember exactly what had happened that day. “It was… right after I’d met Chloe again,” Max recalled. “We’d just snuck out of her parent’s house, and she’d driven us to the lighthouse. We were talking about Rachel Amber, and her stepfather, and then Chloe told me about Nathan trying to drug her.”
Victoria squirmed uncomfortably but kept listening.
“She was saying something about wiping out Arcadia Bay. I think the phrase she used was about dropping a bomb and turning it into glass.” Max paused. “I don’t know if that was the trigger, but right after she said that, I got a major headache and had some kind of… vision.”
“Of what?”
“The storm.” Max shivered. “A huge tornado. The biggest I’ve ever seen. Bearing down right on Arcadia Bay, wiping the entire town off the face of the earth. And the newspaper I saw showed that it was going to happen that Friday.”
“… oh my God.”
“Yea.” Max nodded. “Then I woke up with Chloe’s hand on my shoulder, and I was panicking, so I told her everything. Me reversing time, and seeing her die while I was in class. She didn’t believe me, of course, and… that was when it started to snow.”
Victoria nodded slowly. “Have you had any visions today?”
“No.”
“Then it sounds like it’s not going to-”
“But I didn’t have any the second time, either,” Max told her. “When I called the cops about the other guy, from the bar fight. So I don’t know if that’s a thing.”
“Jesus, Max.” Victoria rubbed her face. “It keeps coming back to this. You don’t know enough about this to freak out yet.”
“Victoria-”
“I mean, even if it DOES snow, so what?” Victoria waved her arm at the window. “It’s January, and it’s in the thirties right now. It might snow regardless.”
“There’s no snow in the forecast!”
“And how often is the weatherman wrong?!” Victoria took a deep breath. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m still just saying that you don’t know anything yet. And you need to stop freaking out about this.”
“I almost killed thousands of people last time I rewound to save someone’s life,” Max reminded her. “I am going to freak out as much as I want.”
“That’s not…” Victoria voice trailed off. Max looked at her and saw that the blonde’s gaze was focused on the window. She spun her head around quickly.
Snow. The lightest of flurries. But definite snow, falling gently from the grey sky.
Max’s breathing began to quicken. “… oh, God,” she gasped. “Oh, G-”
“No. NO.” Victoria grabbed Max’s shoulders. “Look at me. Look me in the eye.”
“It’s- it’s starting to-”
“It could’ve happened anyway. There’s no reason to think-”
“It’s just like last time, it’s just like-”
“STOP!!”
Max froze as Victoria yelled in her face. The blonde continued. “This doesn’t mean anything,” she told her firmly. “I told you, it’s Seattle, and it’s in the thirties. This doesn’t mean that a storm is coming.”
“B-but-”
Victoria let go, standing up and walking towards the window. She threw the blinds shut before turning back to Max. “We’re not dealing with this now.”
“We have to-”
“No. No, we don’t. We don’t have to do anything.” Victoria pointed at the sandwich. “You’re going to finish eating. That, and the bag of chips I’m going to bring you. If, IF, there is an eclipse tomorrow? Then we’ll start to worry.”
“But-”
“No buts.” Victoria walked towards the desk and pushed the sandwich closer. “Eat your fucking sandwich. Before I cram it down your throat.”
Maybe she’s right.
Max hadn’t stopped thinking about the snow. Despite Victoria closing all the curtains in the condo, and making her eat dinner, then making her to watch a show on Netflix they’d been meaning to catch up on. She hadn’t been able to concentrate all day.
Her wife had forced them to go to bed like normal, too. Max was curled up in Victoria’s arms, the blonde’s hand resting in its usual place beside her scar, as she stared at the wall and let her mind race. According to the clock on the nightstand beside her, it was just after one in the morning.
It could’ve meant to snow anyway. Max tried to steady her breathing. It is possible. Not like we haven’t had weird weather come out of nowhere before.
After I saved someone’s life by rewinding time, though…
No. Victoria’s right. I’m not sure yet. She breathed slowly out of her nostrils. Much as I wish I was an expert, I’ve only ever done this twice. I might be completely wrong.
Maybe Alice wasn’t really dead. It not like I got a great look.
Max glanced back at the alarm clock. Not a lot of time had passed. Need to try and sleep. If something is going to happen, I should be well-rested to figure it out.
She closed her eyes, and willed her breathing to slow down. For as much as her mind had raced, she was tired after having been up all day. Eventually, she felt sleep begin to pull at her.
Before she felt the jerking from her diaphragm, and a rushing of wind in her ears. Her eyes popped open, but she wasn’t in her bedroom anymore; she was flying through space, unable to see anything. It only lasted for a couple of seconds before she jerked to a stop. In a seated position, at a table, still wearing her t-shirt and sweatpants.
“Wh- the fu…” her voice trailed off, as she looked around.
Where the hell am I?
It looked like an old-timey diner. The décor was dated, and the posters were peeling off the walls. Out the window beside her was a road, a view of the ocean just past it. The floor was white tile, with black checkered diamonds at all the corners. And as she looked over her right shoulder, an ancient jukebox sat against the wall.
She was slowly starting to realize how familiar it all was.
Oh my God, this… is this the Two Whales?
Back in Arcadia Bay?
What am I doing at-
“Well, well, well.”
Her head spun back around to see that seat across from her was no longer empty. It was now occupied by someone with short brown hair, freckles, and a multitude of colored wristbands. Wearing a grey hoodie over a white wide-necked shirt with a black deer drawn on it, and a messenger bag over her shoulder.
Max’s mouth fell open as the girl who looked exactly like a younger version of her smiled widely.
“And here I thought we’d never see each other again.”