Chapter Text
January 20th 2014, Monday, 7:00 AM Skookum Lake, Southeast of Arcadia Bay, Oregon
Oh, man, that would have been the perfect shot. Max Caulfield looked around nervously and raised her hand drawing back her palm - getting ready to rewind. She changed her mind.
I can’t keep on thinking like this. It could be a disaster.
For the last several months, Max had dealt with the temptation to use her power to rewind time for her own advantage. It lingered there - her power did - at the back of her mind. It was a painful reminder of the trauma that she had weathered for three months.
Instead, she held out her hand hopelessly as the eagle flew beyond her grasp. She let her arm drop to her side as she looked down at her loaner camera.
I really wish Roberts had let me use my camera. You know… one that doesn’t suck.
Unfortunately for Max, digital photo editing required the use of digital cameras, and so Max fumbled with the unfamiliar buttons of the new camera, as the eagle wheeled around to make another pass.
She took a few steps to the right and reset her shot as she waited for the eagle to come back. Hmmm, let’s try a little longer exposure. She inspected the camera’s buttons - pressing a couple - before she looked back up to find the eagle again.
The eagle flew into view again, and Max took the shot. The camera beeped, and half an instant later, she heard the shutters open and close. She took a look at the camera’s LCD screen and frowned. I don’t think this is going to work.
A fuzzy black and white streak was drawn across the viewer, and the background was a bleached out light blue. Let’s try setting it the other way.
She repeated the process a third time. Fortunately, the bald eagle was a cooperative model. A lot of her shots this morning had been one-offs, with her subjects running off into the tall fir trees as soon as they noticed her.
Max looked at the viewer again. The new image was serviceable. A little editing would clean it up. The eagle wasn’t centered in the frame, but it and the background were fairly sharp. It was a little bit grainy, but it wasn’t too bad. It would have been better if I had a zoom lens.
Long exposure had been a mistake. It was usually used to show movement. Sometimes it was used in landscape photography. The camera would just absorb whatever light came into it, and the end result was a picture that might have some parts blurred. The general use of this was to reflect the passing of time. You could show the movement of stars in the sky, or cars on a highway, or water down a waterfall. Those were basically the limitations of long exposure. Would long exposure look different if time was stopped?
The thought of the eagle stopping in mid-air amused her.
Of course, she couldn’t stop time. There were too many ways that it could go wrong, and the thought of changing outcomes depressed her. It had been three months. She missed Chloe, but there wasn’t any other solution for it. Chloe had volunteered to sacrifice herself for Arcadia Bay. Who was Max to say no?
That didn't totally assuage Max's feelings of guilt. She still wrestled with the fact that she had been the one who had acted directly to cause Chloe's death. Sure, Nathan pulled the trigger, but Max's reversal of time had made that possible.
She didn’t want to think about that for too long. Blaming herself only caused more headaches. This was made more frustrating by the fact that in this timeline, the last time that Max had even spoken to Chloe had been five years ago. She still beat herself up regularly for that particular failure. Joyce only barely recognized her at the funeral. Of course, Chloe’s mother had been happy to see Max, but under the circumstances, it made Max feel scummy. Joyce had invited Max to the diner later and had given Max a box of old photos for posterity - to remember happier times.
The eagle flew off into the distance - empty-taloned. “No fish for pretty birds today,” Max muttered to herself.
Max turned the camera off, and opened her camera bag. She carefully laid the camera in the bag and-
"Max!"
She jumped at the sudden voice, dropping the camera and bag - the contents scattering across the ground. A pang of frustration flashed through her thoughts as she gathered the bag and camera and looked around.
No one.
She scanned the nearby trees and high grass, but to no avail. No one was there. What… in the… heckin heck…
It might have been easier to rewind and see what had caused that noise, or even if she had been imagining things, but finally, Max shrugged and started back to her vehicle.
“Hey! Max!”
She heard it more clearly this time, but as her eyes searched for a source, she eventually realized that the search was fruitless.
Still nothing. Is someone out here with me?
Max shook herself and continued.
You’re just hearing things.
She thought about the voice she had just heard. She didn’t recognize it.
Finally, she zipped up her camera bag, and slung it over her shoulder - heading back to the 1995 Geo Tracker that she had got as a Christmas present from Mom and Dad. It's not brand new, but it's got a certain nostalgia to it. She put the case in the rear seat.
Calm down Max. No one is in here with you. She sighed and turned back around to start the tracker, she twisted the key in the ignition. You’ve just got a lot on your mind, and you’re running low on sleep and -
"MAX CAULFIELD!!!"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!"
The vision before her - no, it was a hallucination in front of her, for surely what she was seeing was not real. It couldn't be real. As Max looked up to find the owner of the voice within the rear view mirror, she could see the countenance of a person that she had only ever seen in photos.
"Rachel Amber?"