Still Yours (HLDR,XO,CC,ADULT) [WIP]

[Kzinti_Killer]

Title: Still Yours
Author: KK
Disclaimer: The characters that count in this do not belong to me in any way shape or form. I simply borrowed them from someone else's toy box.
Category: Crossover Roswell/Highlander A/I +CC
Rating: MATURE shifting to ADULT later on.

STILL YOURS - Part 19b
(The Evidence of Things Not Seen)


Isabel hitched a breath. "I don't know. We never discussed it much. We were just taking one day at a time until...." Maria cut her off.

"There ya go. There's your answer," Maria said.

"I don't..." Isabel began, only to be cut off again, this time by Liz.

"Iz, do you love Alex?" she asked gently.

Isabel blinked. "Of course I do. I said so! What happened last night couldn't have happened if I didn't. Loving him is what this is about!"

"Then just go with that and the rest will take care of itself," Liz said. "We'll have each other for as long as we have each other. Maria and I gave our hearts to the men that we love, knowing that the future was uncertain for them and for us; for all of us. If normalcy and stability were what we craved, we'd have run like rabbits on the first day that we knew what you were." Liz giggled and then, seeing Isabel's face, she sobered abruptly. "There's a difference between potential life span, and actual life span." Liz sighed and put on her scientist hat. "If I were the alien scientists that created you, I'd have had to be an idiot to not build in a significantly lengthened life span."

"You don't know that," sputtered Isabel, giving voice to her own greatest fear. Premature death.

Liz shook her head. "Oh yes I do. Logic says so. The Antarians must have expended a *lot* of resources on you. The interstellar mission alone is beyond human reach. They wouldn't create you with *less* than a human life span. And they probably gave you quite a bit more, to give you every possible chance."

"Chance for what?" Isabel asked, thinking hard now.

Liz shrugged. "I haven't a clue, yet. Whatever it was it was important enough for them to create you and launch the mission in the middle of what had to be a bloody civil war. You don't do things like that on a lark."

Isabel stopped and stared at Liz, then Maria for a long moment. "You guys really talked about this? Really?

Maria nodded. "Yup, long ago…and we'd have discussed it with you eventually…girl friend’s word of honor, but with things happening so fast lately that we never got around to it."

"So Max and Michael know what you think? How do they feel about it?"

Both girls shrugged.

"Max is interested," Liz said, as she blushed. "Nothing against Kyle, but Max was the first boy besides Alex that was actually interested in what I thought." She paused for breath. "Anyway he thinks that I'm right."

"Michael's just relieved," Maria said. "He's relieved that I don't care, so he doesn't have to care either. He really didn't you know. Before me he didn't care how long he lived. Now he only cares about how long *I* live."

Isabel sighed. Liz was right. A potential life span didn't necessarily equate with an actual life span. None of them knew what might happen tomorrow, or even in the next hour. All they had to hold onto was love...and each other. Immortality be damned. Then she sighed. "You do realize that the day will come when I'm a middle-aged woman with a teenaged lover?"

Maria giggled. "And this is a bad thing, why?"

Liz snorted. "Just let the future take care of itself. Isabel, with your powers, or the greater powers of your fusion, you might be able to adjust Alex's cosmetic age to keep pace with your own."

Isabel looked startled. She hadn't thought of that. She'd been too busy bemoaning cruel fate.

"If that works, at least your kids won't have to wonder why dad still looks like a kid himself," Maria said with a chuckle. Then she stopped when she saw Isabel's face fall. "What? What is it?"

"There won't be any children," Isabel whispered. "There can't be. None of the Immortals are able to produce them. They're sterile, men and women alike."

Both Liz and Maria froze in shock. This was yet another thing that they hadn't seen coming.

"Iz, are you sure?" Liz asked. "I mean...."

"I'm sure," Isabel said firmly. "It's a part of the lore of Immortals going back to the beginning. Alex believes it. And it's another reason that he resisted me so hard. He wanted me to have the chance to be a mother."

Maria sighed. This would have been a crushing blow for any woman to take. For her it wouldn't have been a deal breaker, because she still wasn't certain that she and Michael could even produce children. They wouldn't know that until they tried, and failed, though Kyle and Tess gave them hope. In fact it wasn't even certain that, should she become pregnant, she could carry Michael's baby to term safely. But she took a determined breath...because it wouldn't stop her from trying! It was also certain that none of this had occurred to her mother yet either, otherwise Amy would have been trying to slam on the brakes in her relationship with Michael. "How do you feel about it?" she asked Isabel.

Isabel took a deep breath and said, "This may sound trite, but I don't care. I mean, I care.....I want children. I want Alex's children, but it isn't a condition of my love for him."

Liz nodded in agreement. "This is the same way that I am with Max, and I'm pretty sure the same way that Maria is with Michael. No one knows the future. Every couple faces a version of this, one way or another. Ours is just a bit larger due to the 'we're different species' thing." Liz paused and sighed. "I'll tell you one thing though, and this isn't the scientist talking. This is the woman in me. My intuition, my hunch, tells me that we're supposed to be together, Max and I, Michael and Maria, Alex and you, and for all I know, Tess and Kyle too. I've done a lot of thinking about destiny and fate since Max saved my life, and even more after Tess showed up. And my mistake was in believing that destiny was what other people told me it was. Not what my heart told me it was. If I....if *we* had all listened to our hearts to begin with, we could have saved ourselves and those that we love, and who love us, a lot of pain and anguish." Liz smiled again. "I know what I *believe*. I believe that fate didn't bring us together randomly. I believe that our abilities and our composites are a part of that. And I *believe* that, being fated to be together, destiny will *not* steal motherhood from us."

Isabel's right hand slid downward and she absentmindedly caressed her lower abdomen, imagining for just a fleeting moment what the strange flutter of a new life within her might feel like. Unlike the frightening emotions engendered by the pregnancy dreams that she'd had when Tess and Nasedo had arrived, this was a good feeling. She blinked slowly as if she had cleared her eyes of some obstruction....and with it gone she could see clearly for the first time that morning. She sighed and reached out to each of her friends in turn. "Thank you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being here. And thanks for being my friends." She turned to Liz and said, "I'll believe as long as you do."

Liz nodded and got to her feet, then extended a hand to Isabel. "Then let's get moving. You have to get dressed. The guys are cooking breakfast."

Maria chuckled. "Yeah, and you have no idea how cranky Michael can get if you aren't right there when he puts it on the table."

Isabel snorted with laughter as she got to her feet. "Want to bet? I was putting up with his moods long before you, oh petite one."

Maria laughed outright and was about to get up herself when she noticed that Isabel had fallen silent and was wearing the most peculiar look on her face. Liz noticed too.

There was only one thing that could cause that sort of look. Because they'd both seen it before, on each other.

Alex was finally 'phoning home'.

Las Vegas, Nevada.........same time

"Sweetie, wake up. We have to get up, eat breakfast, and get ready to go to the bus station." Maggie Stone Eagle shook her daughter's shoulder gently. "Honey? Please wake up, today's the day we go home to see grandpa." That got the little girl's attention as few things could. She was normally shy and withdrawn to the point that her parents had actually become concerned enough to seek medical opinions. Some doctors had labeled her 'developmentally disabled', some had diagnosed her as mildly her autistic, and a few as seriously autistic, but any possibility of spending time with her Grandpa could really make her jump. The old man claimed that the little girl was quiet simply because she didn't see anything worth talking about very often.

Theresa Stone Eagle threw off her covers and vanished in the direction of the bathroom. Her mother was left with the distinct impression of a pink blur accompanied by the slap of small bare feet on tile. The bathroom door slammed and she heard the sound of running water begin almost at once. "Autistic my ass," she muttered. She was gratified to see her daughter was wearing her pajamas, instead of one of her father's old shirts. Maggie smiled, as she repeated herself. "Autistic my ass." Her daughter could speak she just didn't often use words to do her talking. Maggie gazed fondly around her daughter's room. Every vacant vertical surface had pictures tacked up on it. Drawings done in pastel, or charcoal that showed an artistic sense that your just didn't find in your average nine year old. Maggie had stacks of old ones that she refused to part with.

On his infrequent visits, Theresa's uncle called her a prodigy in private, and kept urging Maggie to get her into a school that could help her develop her gifts. Publicly he'd nicknamed her 'Kodak', because of her ability to operate like a camera. Once she saw something, even if only for a moment, she was able to replicate it on paper with an almost photographic quality, she'd been doing so since the age of five. That was when she'd started using any piece of paper and writing tool that came to hand to sketch everything in her line of sight. Eventually she and Charlie had given up and simply kept Theresa in art supplies. It had been the only way to keep a working pen or pencil in the house. Moving from picture to picture Maggie was again stirred by the expectation that they would actually move and breathe if you stared long enough. Their neighbor's new puppy, a single rose, a crowd of children at school, one of Maggie herself in the kitchen, a woman with a child on a street corner, Theresa's school teacher, and, for some reason, a patch of random weeds that seemed to have an otherworldly grace and beauty about them. These were just a few of the subjects of her daughter's compulsive need to set what she saw down on paper. Whatever the subject, she drew it with absolute fidelity, and perhaps with a touch of something more. Even the most everyday objects and people were imbued with something that lent them grace and beauty, no matter what their actual state of being. It was as if her daughter could see and portray something that others could not. Even as her heart swelled with maternal pride, Maggie frowned.

Theresa's grandfather said that she had a portion of the old magic. Robert Stone Eagle was what was referred to as a 'traditional'. He cherished the old ways. He often took it a step further than most traditionals, choosing to shun the use of his anglo first name. Electing only to be called Stone Eagle. Needless to say, the fact that his two sons had both turned their backs on the traditional ways, and embraced the white man’s culture, had created a rift that had only deepened with time. When Maggie's husband Charles had been alive, he'd held his father at arm's length in an effort to prevent him from turning Theresa into a stereotype that he hated. An Indian. Charlie had even disliked the words 'native american' because they were simply a polite euphemism that carried the same ethno-cultural baggage in the minds of people outside the Res’. He and his brother had both felt that their people's hope lay in the future, not the dead past.

So, both being strong stubborn men, Charlie and his brother had turned away from the reservation, and made their own way in the world. Yet their strength of will proved more than ever that they were the sons of their father in Maggie's eyes. Though hardly a traditional herself, when Charlie had been killed, she had begun taking Theresa back to the reservation twice a year. Her brother-in-law had strenuously objected at first, seeing it as his duty to hold the line for Charlie. But the fact that the visits seemed to be good for 'Kodak', brightening her face, and making her smile for weeks afterwards, made him retreat from his position; something which he, by his very nature, wasn't accustomed to doing. Likewise, even as her grandfather and his friends sought to teach Theresa the old Sioux art forms, Robert was learning to appreciate what the outside world had taught his grand-daughter. Watching the child of your child sketch a prairie dog or a red-tail hawk with a more than photographic clarity will do that for anyone.

Thus, while Robert Stone Eagle may disapprove of Maggie's work in the casinos, or dislike the fact that his daughter-in-law was half-white, or feel grieved by the fact that his youngest son died building the white man's pleasure palaces, or still feel estranged from his oldest boy, he loved and adored Theresa. For their family she was a bridge. Between the old and the new. Between red and white. Between one generation and the next. Maggie sighed. It was time to take Theresa home to add a little more to the bridge. Walking out of her daughter's bedroom and down the hall, she paused at the door to the bathroom.

"Don't take too long honey," she said, speaking loud enough to be heard over the water. "I want to feed you breakfast and get us to the Greyhound station by 10:00." She was thrilled as she always was on those rare occasions when Theresa answered directly.

There was a long silence, then Theresa spoke. "I won't mommy," came the reply.

Maggie sighed happily, as she always did when her daughter spoke, and headed for the kitchen. "Autistic my ass." It was time to go home to South Dakota.

Happy as Maggie was, she couldn't know that destiny had something more 'interesting' in store for she and her daughter today than the boredom of a long bus ride. In a very few hours, on an isolated and mountainous stretch of I-70, fate would take a sharp left turn. Long sundered bloodlines would meet again under dire circumstances, in total ignorance of their common heritage; and, though they would not know it then, or for a long time to come, the direction of their lives would be forever changed.

Brody had once lectured the Roswell group on causality and 'the butterfly effect'. Today the butterfly would flap its wings, and the inevitable doom of the future would be replaced by a glimmer of hope.

Bear Run Asylum.....8:40 AM Friday

Alex woke up abruptly. He opened his eyes and tried to remember where he was and what had happened the night before. Then he *did* remember, where upon he sat up abruptly. "Oh...my...God!" he burst out.

"Well glow worm, it's about time that you woke up," said a sardonic voice.

Turning Alex found Richie leaning against a wall by the one window in their room, and regarding him quizzically. Alex hadn't the foggiest notion of what to say in response.

"You and your lady friend caused quite a flap here last night," Richie went on. "Except for Duncan, who's on watch at the moment, everyone else is sitting on pins and needles waiting for *you* to wake up. They would like to *talk* to you," Richie finished with a smirk.

Alex's brain was still trying to process what had happened to he and Isabel last night when something that Richie had said initially, finally sank in. "Glow worm?" Alex croaked out.

Richie laughed. "You didn't know? Whatever you and she were up to last night it had you glowing blue, like a neon sign. When Amanda tried to wake you up, she got knocked on her ass by an energy discharge." Thinking of what Alex had done to *him* just twenty-four hours earlier Richie snorted. "Serves her right if you ask me. Anyway, she panicked and called in Cass. Cass went into your mind after you and got kicked out even faster.

Alex paled as memories began to surface and integrate themselves. "Cass, did she....I mean, is she.....?"

"She's fine Alex," Richie said. "She didn't blame you for what happened. Neither, I think, did anyone else......except Amanda. And she doesn't actually blame *you*. She blames your girlfriend."

"It wasn't Isabel's fault!" said Alex stoutly.

Richie shrugged. "As may be, you still have to sell that to Amanda. And once I tell the others that you're awake it's going to be time to face the music. So I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to trot downstairs to the bathrooms. That will give you time to get yourself together, or fall on your sword, whichever you choose to do. But be sure of one thing my brother. The price of breakfast this morning is a grilling that will make the Spanish Inquisition look like an episode of Sesame Street, complete with 'Amanda the Grouch'." Richie started to make for the door, but before he left the room he tossed the words, "I hope that you're in a talkative mood," over his shoulder.

Alex sat there with his head in his hands. "Damn it Isabel," he
thought, "what have we gotten ourselves into!"

"~A lot,~" came a voice inside of his head, backed by a feeling of warmth and love, "~is all that I'll admit to this morning. Are you sorry about it Alex?~" There was a tinge of worry now in the voice's emotional tenor.

Alex started violently. "~Isabel? Is that you?"

"~You were expecting someone else?~" she said, as her merry chuckle rolled over the connection, and into his mind. "~Too bad I can't put Liz and Maria on the line. They're with me right now. We were having along heart to heart about men, fusions, and the future. Not necessarily in that order.~"

"~Er, tell them I said hi?~" Alex said uncertainly.

The Happy Travelers Campground....Same Time

Isabel's eyes cleared of that thousand yard stare and she looked at her friends, who were watching her expectantly. Breaking out in a grin she said, "Alex says hi."

Liz and Maria broke out in happy squeals, high fiving and hugging for all that they were worth. They jostled their taller friend as they wrapped their arms around her in a group hug.

"~Isabel? Are you there? Is something wrong?~" came the voice in her head.

"~I'm fine Sweetheart. It's just that Liz and Maria are trying to crush me to death with happy hugs at the moment.~" Isabel responded, punctuating her words with a mental 'Oomph!' as her friends gave her another enthusiastic squeeze.

A wave of loving warmth drifted over connection and into her heart. "~For what it's worth, I wish that I were there to share it with you.~"

"~Me too 'Ommmph'.....me too,~" she answered back. "~Alex, give me a minute here. I'll be right with you.~"

"~Okay Iz, you take as long as you need to. I'll be right here.~"

Isabel sent Alex a mental kiss, but left the connection wide open. After so much time without him as a part of her waking world, she didn't want to part with a single moment of this experience. Then she turned to the still enthusing girls and said, "Alex says that he wishes that he were here to hug you back for me."

Maria was still grinning in delight when she said, "Oh no he doesn't. Because I still owe him an ass kicking for refusing to talk to us the other night, and he'll need every ounce of his vaunted immortality to survive it!
I'd kill him first, *then* hug the stuffing out of him."

Isabel snorted with laughter. "I'll pass that on in a minute. Right now, could I have some alone time? You'd better get outside before they send out search parties."

Liz was reaching for the door handle, still grinning when she paused at looked at Isabel. "They're going to notice that you didn't come out with us. And the way our emotions have been ping-ponging all over the place in here, Michael and Max are both going to be on alert, even more so than they were before. What do we tell them?"

Isabel frowned. "Well, I have to tell them everything before we leave here this morning. So, start them out with the fact that Alex and I fused last night, I'm in here talking to him, and that anyone who interrupts us
does so at risk of their life. And that I'll be out in a few minutes." Isabel paused, the added, "Oh, and one more thing."

"Yes?" Maria prompted.

"That red headed troublemaker Cassandra tried to meddle again last night," Isabel said with a smirk.

"And?" Maria was balancing forward on her toes now in anticipation.

"Our Composite tossed her out of the dreamscape so hard that I'm pretty sure that she bounced when she came down at the far end," said a very satisfied Isabel.

"All right!" crowed Maria, as she slapped Isabel's hand in both a high *and* a low five. "Way to go girl friend."

"Thank our composite, not me," Isabel answered. "To It, her meddling was only an irritation."

Liz started to turn the door handle, thinking furiously. "Good for both of you then, and our thanks to your composite. By the way...Max and I find it easier now that we've chosen a name for It. I suggest that you do the same." She was wondering if a Composite could shrug off Nicholas the same way that it had shrugged off Cassandra...and would Max be willing to take a risk in order to find out?

"I'll take it up with Alex later on today. Right now you'd better get out there," Isabel said, nodding towards the door.

Liz recognized Isabel's desire to be alone and latched onto Maria's sleeve, as she swung the door open and stepped outside. "Let's go, we have people to enlighten."

Maria resisted a moment then went along, stopping at the open door to say in a loud voice, as if Alex could hear her, "Be sure to tell him that I love him......but that I'm still going to kick his ass."

Both girls stopped outside the door to find the occupants of the campsite staring at them as the clustered around the fire pit where Jim and Michael were turning out pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast.

Michael straightened slowly from where he was bent over. He'd been having jitters for the last fifteen minutes as he'd felt Maria's emotions jitterbugging all over the place. "You love who, Maria? And whose ass are you going to kick?"

Liz saw the green-eyed monster dancing on the edges of Michael's expression, and moved to head it off at once. "Alex," she said. "Isabel is talking to him at the moment."

Max jumped to his feet. His own nervous energy was wound up tight as well. "You've got him on the cell again? He called? Won't he just duck the issues again by refusing to talk?"

"Er...no," Liz said hesitantly.

Jim was looking hopeful. "He's talking then? Can we get an exact location?"

"Er...that isn't quite what I meant...exactly."

Michael was exasperated now. "What didn't you mean? Did you call him? Did he call you? Is he talking? What?"

An impatient Maria broke in to say, "What she means is that he can't avoid talking now. He has nowhere to hide any longer. Because of something that happened last night Isabel knows everything now...and as a result they're talking directly without the benefit of any modern technology. Get it? They now have a 'connection' that he can't hide from, run from, or hang up on."

Being the first one to connect the dots, Max's knees weakened abruptly and he sat down heavily. 'A fusion? In a dream walk? Is that even possible?"

Maria grinned. "To answer your questions in order….yup; yup; and how should I know?"

That's when the riot started.

[Kzinti_Killer]

Title: Still Yours
Author: KK
Disclaimer: The characters that count in this do not belong to me in any way shape or form. I simply borrowed them from someone else's toy box.
Category: Crossover Roswell/Highlander A/I +CC
Rating: MATURE shifting to ADULT later on.

STILL YOURS - Part 19c
(The Evidence of Things Not Seen)


Meanwhile........back inside the motor home

As soon as the door had closed, Isabel had started to compare notes with Alex. They both remembered what the Composite had done.

"~It was your influence in Junior that caused him to stop that meddler from hitting the ground,~" Isabel said firmly. "~If it had been just me driving I'd have tried to see how high she'd bounce.~"

Alex gave a mental chuckle. "~Then I'm glad that I was there. She regrets what they had her do the first time. And from what I understand she doesn't blame us for what happened...but Amanda does.~"

"~Amanda?~" Isabel queried. "~The tall elegant dark-haired one with the mother complex?"

"~The very same,~" Alex answered sounding aggrieved. "~Apparently she doesn't like you a whole lot.~"

"~Is that so? Well tough!~" Isabel shot back. "~If mommy dearest tries to get in my way, I *will* see how high she bounces.~" She felt Alex about to argue with her, and cut him off. "~Don't Alex. This is between me and her. If she wants a fight, don't try to get between us. You'll only get hurt.~"

Alex sighed. This wasn't going to go down easily...or well. "~All right, just give her the benefit of the doubt, will you?~"

"~You tell *her* that,~" Isabel responded sharply. "~Then we'll go from there.~"

"~Okay, I......~" Alex began, and then he halted with, "~...Ooops.......company here. Hang on a minute?~"

Isabel sighed. First Liz and Maria at her end, now whoever it was at his. "~I'll be here.~"

Bear Run Asylum........Same Time

Richie walked in the door to their room to find Alex staring into space with this vacant look in his eyes. "Alex? Are you ready?" It didn't look like he'd done anything since Richie had left. "Alex?" His friend was still playing zombie. Worried now, Richie squatted down next to him and passed his hand in front of Alex's eyes. There was nothing for a moment the Alex blinked and jerked back suddenly, as if noticing Richie for the first time.

"Richie?"

Richie frowned. "You were expecting the Tooth Fairy? Come on bro'. It's time to face the music."

Alex sighed. "Give me a minute. Go on down, I'll be along behind you."

Straightening up, Richie stared at Alex, looking uncertain. "They're chomping at the bit down there now. Duncan is leaving watch simply to restrain Amanda. Don't keep them waiting." Which was a polite way of saying 'I'm trusting you, don't make me look like an idiot...again'."

Feeling the walls closing in on him Alex was getting exasperated. "All right, just give me some time. I'll be down as soon as I can." He couldn't tell Richie that his girl friend was on the line. Not just yet anyway. Not without laying some groundwork

Richie shook his head. "Five minutes. No more than that," he said. "Then Amanda will come up here and drag you down." With that he spun on his heel and breezed out the door. He'd discharged his duty to the Tiger Lady. Now she was someone else's problem.

Alex sighed again, resting his head in his hands. "Why did everything have to be so damn complicated?" he wondered to himself.

Feeling his upset, Isabel nudged him gently with her mind, stroking his spirit tenderly through the connection. "~You're worried. What's the matter?~"

"~We put on quite a show here last night,~" he answered. "~Richie just came up to tell me that the others would like some explanations to go with their breakfast. I don't see any way to wriggle out of it, and I don't know what to tell them or where to start.~"

Alex heard Isabel laughed softly in his mind as she reached out to enfold his soul with her own. "~You tell them everything, and you start at the beginning, silly.......where you first became aware of us.~"

Alex was silent for a moment then asked carefully, "~Isabel, are you sure that that's a good idea? I mean Max and Michael........~"

"~To quote my good friend Maria DeLuca, 'screw that',~" Isabel shot back. "~You and I have already settled this once, or so I thought. There are three adults and three teenagers outside who know all about us, who didn't two years ago, and I for one wouldn't and couldn't do without any of them now. Furthermore, thanks to the fusion, I know all there is to know about your friends now...and our friends will know everything that *I* know as soon as I walk outside, which will be as soon as you and I are finished here. The cat is well and truly out of the bag, and you can't possibly hope to stuff it back in again Alex. The time for lies, evasions, and bending the truth is over. I may have a personal beef with some of your friends, and Amanda may have a personal beef with *me*. But they deserve the truth just the same.~"

Alex had stood there frozen during diatribe and let her wind down. Into the ensuing silence he said, I love you, you know that?~"

You'd better, because you can't escape me now,~" She sent back, garnished with happiness. "~I love you too. Now you'd better move it. We'll pick this up later on today. And don't be afraid to reach out for support. Oh, and before you march out there to your doom...~" she told him quickly of her talk with Maria and Liz, finishing with, "~...so you see Sweetie? Immortal or not you don't know how long you'll live any more that Max, Michael, or I. So screw the Immortality/Mortality issue...and tell them I said so when they bring it up!~"

Alex halted and swallowed against a lump in his throat. He'd have to *really* thank Liz and Maria for this. He might even *let* Maria kick his ass. "~I really love you Izzy. Bye!~"

"~I really love you too, Alex. If they don't believe you, tell them to call Liz's cell. We'll take it from there. Bye!~"

"~Will do!~"

Then Isabel dialed the connection down a little, but didn't shut it all the way. She had her love back now, and she wanted to be able to reach out and feel him anytime that she needed to. Like a touch stone. She stood up and checked herself in a mirror. She looked like crap. Bed hair, no makeup, and an old tee shirt; the Ice Queen of old would have been properly horrified. The current edition of Isabel Evans didn't give a damn. Pulling on a pair of jeans, she dragged a brush through her hair then tied it back, and stepped out to face her public.

Bear Run Asylum........Same Time

Alex slowly descended the stairs to the communal area of the abandoned asylum. There had been an intense conversation going on when he'd reached the top of the stairs, with Amanda and Cassandra taking opposite sides of what was shaping up to be a knock down drag out argument.

"I don't give a damn about love. How many times have all of us been in love over the centuries and millennia? And it never panned out. If they were Immortals they eventually got bored and moved on. If they were mortal...they simply grew old and died. You get a broken heart *either* way. Love is *not* the criteria that Alex needs to be using to make choices right now. He has enough problems to deal with right here." Amanda paused for breath before going on. "The girl is mortal, and dangerous as hell, he needs to see that."

Cassandra was opening her mouth to rebuke Amanda when Richie cleared his throat, catching their attention and indicating the top of the staircase. "Rip Van Winkle is awake, and I think that he might have an opinion to offer."

Amanda flushed at having been overheard, but looked defiant. She opened her mouth to speak, but was silenced when Alex held up both hands.

"Amanda, whatever you've got to say it can wait until I've got a cup of coffee in one hand and something to eat in the other."

Richie chuckled, hugely enjoying Amanda's discomfiture, and earning himself a sizzling glare that told him that he was building up bad karma with her at a record rate. He didn't care. They were going to have this out, now. Today. Whatever else happened, he had a feeling that the Tiger Lady's fangs were about to be pulled, and that she'd be a while re-growing them.

Breakfast was camp made sausage and egg sandwiches. Once Alex was munching his way through one and chasing it with sips of coffee, he felt better. Swallowing his first bite he said, "Okay, I've got clearance from headquarters...meaning Isabel. You get the full and unabridged truth as I/we know it."

"Well, isn't that generous of her," Amanda said acidly.

"Can it Amanda," Alex shot back. "You're my friend, you've done a lot for me, and I love you dearly. But don't try to make me choose between you and Isabel. You'll lose. I'd like us to come out of this as friends, but don't push it."

Amanda's mouth closed with a snap, and her glare faded into something less angry and aggressive, and into something more...wounded.

Before she could say anything further, Methos cut in. "Why not start at the beginning and go up to the point where that girl killed you."

Alex chuckled. "I can go further than that, in point of fact, Tess didn't...." then it hit....

**FLASH**
He was seeing a night time clearing in Fraser's Woods. He'd been making preparations for a stargazing date with Isabel. He hadn't even asked her yet, fearing her answer, but she'd never been able to turn down stargazing. And it wouldn't be a date...not really, not like a movie or dinner, it would just be...together time. If only she'd listen to him. He was stashing some books, blankets, and equipment...his good telescope... under a tarp when the Skins had ambushed him.

He remembered now, just a fragment of memory that hadn't been erased. Still, it was enough to traumatize. He remembered Nicholas, his sneer, and the pain as the Antarian Commander had field stripped his mind; rewriting him into a slave. He remembered the alien's taunting words, as he said, "So, this is the skinny human stripling that would bed a princess! How ironic that I'm about to remake you into someone who might actually have a chance at her....if you weren't going to die before you could get anywhere!" Nicholas laughed. "She's such a waste of your time boy. She's just not that good, believe me I know. Back on Antar I got there before you. Hell, back on Antar damn near *everybody* on the planet got there before you!" Nicholas seemed to find his own wit funny beyond words, but his good humor didn't last long as Alex, realizing that he had no way out, spat in his face. The alien's face twisted in fury, as he backhanded Alex with a closed fist. Then, with two of his minions restraining Alex, he'd cupped the side of Alex's head with a glowing hand. Alex lived again the pain and the bellowing blackness that had consumed him from within. It had felt like he was being torn to pieces inside. Like he was dying.

**END FLASH**

Back in the asylum common area, the Immortals watched with concern as their young friend's explanation stumbled to a stop, as he turned pale and stared at something unseen...and, by the look on his face, horrifying. Abruptly Alex collapsed to his knees on the dusty floor, his stomach instantly voiding itself of the scanty bit of food that he'd eaten.

Amanda looked vindicated. "I was right! He can't even talk about it." Getting down on her knees she held his head up until the violent stomach contractions eased.

"I don't think so Amanda," Cassandra said. "Call it a guess, but I think that this is something else entirely. Something that took him by surprise." Cassandra was a student of the human body, as much as she was the human mind. All Immortals were, to one degree or another. That particular skill had survival value. Her own skills in that direction were simply honed sharper by practice and discipline. Just as she had picked up the subtle body language of Alex and his friends that day in the Crashdown, she now picked up subtle motions in his throat and jaw muscles as his spasms faded and he sat up. "I'll be damned...he's sub-vocalizing," she thought. "Either he's talking to himself...unlikely under the circumstances, or he's talking to...someone else...somewhere else." She smiled to herself. "Whatever is coming, I get the feeling that I'm going to enjoy this enormously."

Alex had pushed away from Amanda and sat back, wiping his mouth, and still staring into space. But this time his internal dialog wasn't with the past. It was very much with the present.

"~ALEX!~" the urgent demand thundered into his mind. The moment of trauma had been so intense that Alex's mind had done the only thing that it could. As it had bordered on shutting down completely, it had reached out to Isabel, seeking a quiet place in the maelstrom to anchor itself. Alex's soul mate had responded with her strength, while at the same time reading the memory flash herself; since Alex was unable to keep it from her. Even second hand it had devastating power. "~Are you all right? Answer me damn it!~"

Still shaky Alex responded to the fierce tenderness in her words. "~I'm not 'all right' but I'm better than I was a minute ago, and I'll get still better now. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to....~"

"~Screw that!~" Isabel snapped while suffusing the connection with fierce love. "~This is what we're about now, you and I...and the others.~" She paused, and he could feel her summoning more strength from somewhere within as she regained some composure, but her fury still seemed to be growing. "~I swear by all that's holy, I'm going to find that little worm Nicholas and fry him to a cinder in his own grease. When I think...~" Alex felt a shudder along the connection. "~I mean, I knew in an academic sort of way what he'd done to you. But to actually experience some of it? It made what I went through in your Quickening look like a kiss on the cheek. He's going to be a very long time dying if I get to him first. And no one, but no one, had better get in my way! I'm going to exfoliate that little bastard to death!~"

Alex shook his head. "Good" he thought. "Nothing rattles." The pain in his head was fading. It had been mostly remembered pain anyway. "~I'm good here, Iz. Honest. I'll be okay, though I'm going to have to talk hard and fast. I was starting to explain things to my friends when the memory flash hit me, and....~"

"~....and your friends now think that you're a whack job,~" she finished for him. "~Okay, I get it. I'll leave you be, but talk sitting down, and try to eat something. And if you have even a twinge of another flash, I mean even the faintest rarest hint of one, you reach for me instantly! You here me, Alex Whitman? Don't even think of trying to play iron man with me!!~"

"~Yes ma'am,~ he responded with mock meekness.

Reading his wry and playful amusement through their connection, Isabel saw through him at once. "~I am *not* a 'ma'am', I'm the woman who loves you, and I'm also answerable to Liz and Maria for your well-being. So......~" she stuttered, "~A-A-Alex you got caught alone because I was being a stubborn bitch, and you were out there trying to set up a way to get past my defenses. What you were doing was so sweet that I'd probably have said yes...but I...It was my FAULT!~"

"~No Iz, it wasn't, and don't even think that! We'll talk about this later.~" Alex looked around, seeing his friends staring at him in various states of worry.

"~You're damn right we will,~" came her response. "~I have a lot to make up for. Love you!~" Then she fell silent, but the connection was still humming at high tension. Isabel the Lioness was on full alert.

By now his friends concern was such that Amanda had been about to reach out and shake him in an effort to snap him out of his apparent stupor, only to have Cassandra restrain her.

"What do you think you're doing Glinda?" Amanda snapped, her eyes glinting. "He needs help."

Cassandra shook her head. "No he doesn't. Let him finish talking to her, then he'll explain what's going on."

Amanda looked at Cass as if she'd been dropped on her head. "Talking to who?"

Cassandra wore a grin decorated with metaphorical canary feathers. "Why, whoever it is he's been talking to." Then, noticing that Alex was looking at her, she inclined her head as if to say 'Am I right, or am I wrong?' Alex simply nodded faintly as he started trying to get up. Cassandra extended her hand, which Alex took with his own, and she heaved; putting her weight against his and pulling him to his feet.

Alex cleared his throat. "Um, sorry about that. Something that I wasn't expecting snuck up on me." He looked around and spotted the remains of his sandwich on the floor. He was bending over to pick it up when Amanda stopped him.

"I don't care if you're Immortal or not," she said in her best mother hen tone. "Tell me that you aren't planning on putting that thing in your mouth?"

Alex shrugged. "I'm still hungry."

Amanda reached down and snagged a plastic bag. Tossing it to him she said, "Have a bagel, while Methos makes some more eggs and sausage." Then she nailed Methos with a glare and nodded at the stove.

Methos found this to be too funny for words, but decided to play along. "Yes ma'am," he said, in mock servile tones, “right away ma'am." Then he turned to the stove camp stove, and got it going again. Fortunately the skillet hadn't cooled yet, so turning out some more food wouldn't take long. Meanwhile he kept his ears focused on Alex. Like Cassandra, he'd picked up on something odd with their young friend, though he hadn't nailed it the way she had. He suspected that this was going to be an interesting morning indeed.

Manfully chewing on a bite of bagel, Alex accepted another coffee from Richie. "Thanks," he mumbled around the mouthful of tough chewy dough. "Ahem," came the sound of a woman's throat being cleared, and Alex looked up to see Amanda waiting with folded arms.

"We're still waiting," she said. "You can talk and eat at the same time. For starters, what happened a minute ago, and why does Cass think that you were talking to someone?" Amanda still thought that Cass was nuts, and was looking to Alex to vindicate her opinion.

Alex swallowed hard to dispose of his mouthful of bagel and chased it with a gulp of coffee. With food in his abused stomach he was starting to feel better. Taking a less ambitious bite of bagel he considered how to do this, and decided that there was no 'right way'. All that he could do is just start talking.

"Well-l-l-l, she's right. What Isabel and I underwent last night..." his statement was punctuated by Amanda's snort that seemed to say, 'Ah ha! I knew it!', "....seems to have a couple of side effects. One is a swap of knowledge. I now know everything she knew up to that moment, and vice versa."

Duncan interrupted. "So your friends know about us now? *All* about us? Including where we are, and what our situation is?"

Alex sighed and nodded.

"Par for the course," Duncan muttered. "Well, we can expect them at our door by Sunday at the latest then. I just hope to God that they don't arrive in the middle of a war...or that if they do, they can handle themselves."

"Enough!" Amanda broke in. "Let Alex finish!"

Alex took a deep breath. 'Finishing' was going to take a while. "Okay, second side effect. Telepathy. I can talk to Isabel and she can talk to me. We can swap emotions, concepts, even memories and images at will."

Amanda's mouth was drawn in a flat line. "Did she have anything to do with the near-stroke that you had a minute ago?"

Alex shook his head. "No, that was a flash of suppressed memory from before I was killed. One of the pieces of information that I got from Isabel turned out to be the key that unlocked it. When I started to say Tess’ name, the memory came up on me and whacked me right where I live. It was like living it all over again."

Cassandra was frowning. "Tess? That would be the girl that was responsible for your death?"

Alex sighed. "No, that would be the girl that I *thought* was responsible for my death. It turns out that it was someone else, and that she was as much of a victim in that mess as I was."

"You're not making sense, but I expected that," Duncan said, speaking from where he stood leaning against the stairway banister. "I thought you said that her specialty was mind control?"

"It was...I mean it is..." Alex began then halted as he paused to collect his thoughts. "Look, on the first day that they saw me, Methos and Cass both twigged to the fact that my friends and I were tense and on battle alert. We had been for a while, between one enemy and another. Well, one of our enemies was very good at mind stomping. Good enough to make Tess look like an amateur. He and his people caught me alone and he worked me over. You could call it 'mind rape', which is as good a term as any. To make it simple he turned me into a slave with a self-destruct program. One that would keep breaking down unless someone kept shoring it up. Eventually no amount of fixing would hold it together, and I would die. He thought that it was a good joke. Then he coerced Tess into taking on the job of keeping me alive."

"She couldn't warn your friends?" Amanda asked, interested now in spite of herself.

Alex shook his head slowly. "Nope...when I say he 'coerced' her, I mean he 'COERCED' her. He fixed her so that she couldn't even talk about it without risking pain and instant death. She never had a chance." He sighed. "And now she's in the hands of a psychopath, and pregnant with my friend's child."

"Ma-a-an," Richie drawled. "You guys were playing with some serious hard-ball types. It makes what we've got coming at us here sound bush league by comparison.

Cassandra frowned in thought. The sorts of manipulations that Alex was discussing were not possible for her. Her abilities were as powerful in their own way, but they ran more towards sympathetic magic and a keen use of the power of suggestion through the strength of her trained will. She had abilities that ran to the paranormal, but nothing like what Alex was talking about. The idea of being able to overwrite someone so completely ran counter to everything that she believed. Her ethics, as an adept of her craft, were offended. Her mouth flattened into a hard line. She needed more information.

"It sounds like you and your friends have a lot of experience in this field," Cassandra said slowly, choosing her words with care. "Take the process you went through last night. You've only been into it for less than a day, but you seem to know a lot about its potential and its side eff...." she glanced at Amanda, "I mean its benefits. I assume that the knowledge came from Isabel? Is this something that she's been through before?"
Alex shook his head. "She hasn't been through it before, no. Don't ask me why, but there's sort of an assumption that this is a 'one to a customer' sort of thing. The label that they hung on it is 'the fusion'. The thing is, this is a recent development for us. My friends Max and Liz were the first, just a few days ago. Isabel and I will be the second I gue...." he broke off suddenly and cocked his head, listening to an internal voice.

"~Alex? We're the third. I found out this morning that Michael and Maria have already taken the plunge too. Two days ago.~"

"~Are you reading my mind?~" he asked with some trepidation. The idea of mind reading made him uncomfortable.

"~Nope,~" she responded. "~But when you speak, I can pick up what you're saying if we're closely connected, like we are now. I wonder if the others can do this? Or if they even know about it? Liz and Maria didn't mention it.~"

"~We'll leave that for later,~" he said. "~Right now I have some more explaining to do.~"

Alex chuckled. "I stand corrected. My better half," Alex heard warm feminine laughter in his mind, " informs me that we're the third couple to make the leap. Our friends Michael and Maria stepped off into the Twilight Zone two days ago as well."

Amanda stared at Alex for a moment. "You're talking to her now?"

Alex shrugged. "I guess you could say that she's monitoring. She caught a piece of that memory flash I had, and she's jumpy about me having another like it without her support. She can hear what I'm saying."

Amanda nodded. "Good, then ask her just what the hell she thought that she was doing last night with Cassandra?"

Duncan made a disgusted noise. "Give it up Amanda, will you please?"

Amanda glared. "It's a fair question!" She looked at Alex. "Well?"

Alex hesitated. "Oh boy," he thought. "Every man's worst nightmare. Refereeing between two angry women." He paused and took a deep internal breath. "~Er, Isabel?~" he began. "~Amanda has a question for you.~" When he put the question to her he could detect her icy anger, yet behind it was a note of humor.

Isabel didn't hesitate. "~Sweetheart? I understand her. Now, repeat my words exactly, all right? Are you ready?~"

Alex gulped. Yup, he was squarely in the middle. "~Okay, go ahead.~" He looked at his friends and said, "I'm repeating her words, verbatim, at her request." He paused. "She says...I can't claim responsibility. The composite did what had to be done. *However* I agree with Its actions one hundred percent, and I will not hesitate to repeat them myself as necessary. I *will* protect my territory and defend my chosen mate." Alex gulped and flushed. "Sooner or later we're going to meet face to face, and you'd better get one thing straight before we do. Alex was mine before he was yours. He was ours before he was yours. I love him, and he loves me, and as far as I'm concerned he's still mine; even more so than he ever was before. Immortality be damned. That's all I have to say about it. If that doesn't suit you, tough. Deal with it." Alex stopped talking except for a brief internal dialogue.

"~That was a little harsh, Izzy.~"

"~It was necessary Alex. You forget, I know Amanda now as well as you do. I think that she's being a pain in the ass because she loves you. I sympathize with that, but it doesn't mean that I can back down. I need to state my claim to you beyond any doubt or argument. Amanda has to know that, however much she loves you, I love you more. However hard she'll fight for you, I'll fight for you harder. I think that she'll respect that. I'm going to go now and deal with our friends.~" She nuzzled him briefly through the connection. [/i]"~Talk to you later. I love you.~"[/i]

"~I love you too,~" he answered. Then he felt her recede, almost shutting down the connection. "I guess she's decided to trust me after all," he thought. Looking at his friends he said, "Okay, she's 'hung up the phone' for now, so that we can get on with this." He paused. "Now, where were we?"

Methos, who had been listening quietly, handed him a plate with two assembled breakfast sandwiches on it. "You were going to tell us...what was it? Oh yeah, I remember now," he said with a quirky smile. "You were going to tell us everything."

Alex sighed. "As nearly as we can make out, the story starts long ago and far away, but my part of it begins the year before last, when my friend Liz starting acting weird. It was after the shooting at her parent's cafe. I was worried about her, in part because she was asking me to do stuff, illegal stuff, and refusing to explain why. And she was keeping secrets from me. This was really out of character for her. At first my other friend Maria was as suspicious as I was, then she clamed up and started acting weird too. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that my two best friends in the world were stonewalling me. Eventually I had to offer Liz an ultimatum under desperate circumstances before I was allowed into the big secret." He snorted. "I don't know what I was expecting, but when they finally ‘fessed up to what was going on, I was so shocked that I had to go away for a while just to come to terms with it."

Amanda snorted. "I'll bet. So what was the big secret, aside from a few of them being able to do some magic tricks?" That drew her a sour look from Cassandra.

Alex grinned at her. Suddenly he had the strangest feeling of kinship with Max Evans. "That Max, Michael, and Isabel weren't from around here."

Amanda frowned and looked like she was about to speak, but Duncan beat her to the punch before she could dig the hole that she was in any deeper. "Since we're in Seattle and they're from New Mexico, take it that you're speaking in a broader sense?"

Alex nodded encouragingly.

"So where are they from?" Duncan responded. "Europe?"

Alex chuckled out loud and took a bite of a sandwich. Chewing and talking at the same time he said. "Not broad enough Duncan. Not even close." His eyes were twinkling as he said, "I mean that they're *really* NOT from around here." He was still getting blank looks, but he was so enjoying the anticipation of what was to come in the next hour or so that he decided to try one more hint. "Think about what my home town is famous for......."

[Kzinti_Killer]

Title: Still Yours
Author: KK
Disclaimer: The characters that count in this do not belong to me in any way shape or form. I simply borrowed them from someone else's toy box.
Category: Crossover Roswell/Highlander A/I +CC
Rating: MATURE shifting to ADULT later on.

STILL YOURS - Part 19d
(The Evidence of Things Not Seen)

Happy Travelers Camp Ground....a few minutes earlier

Liz and Maria were both beaming happily as they endured the barrage of questions for nearly a minute and a half, before Amy stood up, brought her fingers to her lips, and gave a piercing whistle.

"Time out people! I've heard three people ask the same question twice in the last minute, and I'm one of them. Let's all chill out a second here. This isn't a crisis situation, so there's no reason to flip out," she said firmly and, for her, uncharacteristically. "It's amazing what you can do when you have to," she thought to herself. "Now," she said, addressing Liz and Maria aloud, "when exactly did this 'fusion' happen?"

"Last night, before Liz and I went to the bathroom," her daughter answered.

"And you didn't wake any of us up?" Amy responded.

Maria shrugged. "We thought that Liz and I watching was enough of a violation of her privacy. This was a girl friend thing anyway. Besides, what would you have done? Helped her? How? Or stopped her? How? She wouldn't have welcomed either one I can promise you. The last thing that you want at a moment like that is an audience. Liz and Max had one, and they shouldn't have, but we were all too surprised to look away. Now Michael and I......." Maria trailed off and her eyes got big as her brain caught up with her mouth, and there was a longish and very pregnant pause. "Ooops," she whispered, and slapped her hands to her mouth.

Amy stared at her daughter for a moment, taking in her words, and her behavior after she fell silent. She glanced at Michael who was suddenly very interested in a skillet, and trying to ignore Jim Valenti's eyes, which were currently boring a hole into the back of his head. Amy opened her mouth to try and speak, but nothing came out. For one of the very few times in her life she'd been entirely robbed of speech. She sat back down slowly and carefully staring at nothing.

"Mom," Maria began, only to have Amy suddenly raise a hand to stop her.

"Sweetie, I'm not angry, really I'm not. It's...just...," She turned suddenly to Brody. "Do you have any booze in that rolling palace of yours? If so, I'd like some right now please?"

Brody took one look at her face and said, "I'll be right back." He was reaching for the door handle when it opened and Isabel stepped out. "Excuse me," he said as he went around her and stepped up into the motor home. He was only gone a moment, then he was back with a bottle of brandy.

Taking the bottle from him Amy poured a healthy dollop into her coffee and downed the mixture with a single long gulp. Then she held her coffee cup out to Jim Valenti, who was watching her with sympathetic eyes. "More," was all she said. He poured her cup about two thirds full of coffee, understanding that she would take care of the remaining third herself. Amy filled the remainder of the cup with the potent liquor and took a healthy sip before settling down to stare into the cup, oblivious to the world.

Isabel took in the tableau, looking from Michael, to Amy, to Maria and back again. "Uh oh, I think that the party started without me," she muttered. She sighed and took the plunge. "Look, obviously I missed something, but we don't have time for this. Yes, I fused with Alex last night. I know where he is, and I also know what's coming." She walked over to where Amy was sitting and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Mrs. DeLuca? Amy? Look at me please?"

Amy looked up at Isabel and smiled faintly. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm just not as flexible as thought I was. It just caught me by surprise, you know? Maria and Michael. I just......it just hit me that this is snowballing beyond anyone's control. The most that I had ever expected to have to worry about with Maria was sex and pregnancy. I'd steeled myself to deal with it, and thought out every possible scenario in advance. How was I supposed to prepare for this?"

Isabel smiled sadly. "You couldn't. No one could. About half an hour ago I was where you are now. Your daughter and Liz snapped me out of it. I used to complain about how unfair life was when I was a kid, and our dad told me that I wouldn't like it if life *were* fair. Can you imagine a world where each of us got exactly what he or she deserved, all the time? I doubt that many of us would live past childhood. Or worse, a world where the horrible things that happen to good people are actually seen as just by whatever God there is. Who would want to live in that world? I certainly wouldn’t."

Amy smiled wanly, then thought for a moment and snorted with laughter. Taking another sip of her coffee she said, "You're right of course. I know that you're right. Which makes the job of us adult types all the more urgent, and I still can't escape the feeling that I'm blowing it the same way that my mother did."

"No, you're not," came Michael's voice. "Mrs. DeLuca, the daughter that you raised has not only managed to keep her head through all of this, she managed to…to turn me into a human being."

There was a loud snort Maria, "You always *were* a human being Spaceboy, you were just in denial about it, which led you to behave as if you were raised by wolves." Then she spoke to him through their connection. "~As it is, you're still a work in progress.~"

Michael grinned at his better half. "~You can work on me anytime you want to, Short Stuff.~" Then he looked back at Amy. "Look at her." Amy's head swung to look at her daughter, who blushed under her mother's open scrutiny. "What she *is*…is a credit to you." He sighed. "I wish that we knew more about what's happening to us and why, but we don't." He looked at the ground. "I'm sorry." There was no way on God's green earth that they were telling the 'rents about the source of that earthquake. Not yet anyway. And lying about it, even by omission, made him feel guilty. He really respected Amy DeLuca, and loved her in his own way as the mother he’d never had.

Amy sighed, then she looked at her remaining coffee and made a show of dumping it on the ground, then she held out her cup to Jim for a refill. After he had obliged her she took a sip and then put the cup down so that she could walk over to a contrite (and very guilty) Michael and give him a hug. She waved her daughter over and hugged her to, and then she hugged Jim for good measure. "Okay," she asked. "Just when did this happen?"

Maria shrugged. "Two days ago. The day that Spaceboy asked me to marry him." She mock glared at her mother. "With your permission I might add. Which reminds me...you and I need to talk about that....later."

Amy was about to open her mouth to answer when a mewling squeak from Isabel's direction caused everyone to refocus their attention. Isabel was staggering under the barrage of Alex's memory flash, literally. Her breath was coming in gasps and hiccups; and she was trembling as her knees began to buckle.

"Oh shit!" Liz shouted. "Max! Help me!" She was at Isabel's side in three steps, and Max was on the other a heartbeat later. Between them they guided her towards the seat that Amy had vacated.

"What's the matter with her?" Amy demanded.

"You'd be better to ask, ‘what's the matter with Alex?’," Maria said with a strained note of worry in her voice. "Look at her eyes. That's the 'gone seriously telepathic' look. Whatever is going on, she's had to go in really deep to deal with it. Something is very wrong out at Alex's end of the connection."

Isabel was only 'gone' for a moment. Her eyes cleared for a moment and she held up a hand to show everyone that she was all right. Her frown seemed to indicate that she was less than happy about something. Then she 'disappeared' into herself again. A few moments later she was back. She heaved a great sigh of relief and staggered to her feet. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm starved. Let's eat."

"Whoa Sis," Max said. "I'd like an explanation of what just happened first."

"Multi-task, Max," Isabel shot back. "You need to learn to multi-task. If we do things one at a time, we'll be here all day, and I still won't get to eat." She snagged a plate and started dishing up eggs, bacon, and sausage. Looking at Michael she said, "Well? Pancakes anytime if you please?"

Suddenly galvanized, Michael ladled batter onto the griddle. "It'll be just a minute."

Nodding, Isabel began to eat. Between bites she started talking as she waved her fork for emphasis. "Alex was talking to his friends when he finally tripped over the memory, obtained from me last night, that Tess wasn't the one that killed him. That tripped a memory flash of the night that Nicholas captured him and worked him over."

"Wait a minute," said Kyle. "I thought that the walking pimple farm erased all of those memories? That's the impression that he gave Tess and I the night that he worked *me* over."

"Did he get all of yours?" Isabel asked.

Kyle shook his head. "No, not even close, otherwise I wouldn't remember squat, but then I don't think that he was trying for that. I think that he *wanted* me to remember everything, right before I dropped dead. That was the object of the exercise. But you’ll recall, Alex got a different treatment than I did. His memories were supposed to be completely false."

"And *I* think that it's because the little worm isn't as omnipotent as he wants us to believe he is," Isabel replied. "He's had us running scared for too long. IT stops NOW," she grated out. "Whether or not it was part of a full latent memory, or just a residual fragment that toad boy missed, Alex got to relive his mind rape in full surround sound and technicolor. I know, because I was in there with him for some of it."

Liz looked concerned. "Is he okay? Are you?"

Isabel nodded as she continued to eat methodically. Michael signaled that the pancakes were done, so she took them on her plate and drenched them in butter, syrup, and tabasco as he started more cooking. "He's shaken, but okay." She took a hurried bite of food. "I can tell you this though. When I get my hands on that little slug Nicholas, he's road kill. I intend to give the little bastard a dermal peel the likes of which he'll never get over."

Kyle snorted. "You'll have to get in line behind me, sister."

Isabel eyed him narrowly. "We'll decide when the time comes. Flip a coin, whatever. Whichever one of us it is that gets to go first has to leave enough of him for the other."

Kyle considered a moment then nodded. "Deal."

Jim was looking a little nervous about the bloodthirsty tone of the conversation. The alien may have been a dangerous enemy, but Isabel and Kyle were discussing him like he was a Thanksgiving turkey. In an effort to divert things he said, "So, what did you learn last night that can help us?"

Isabel grinned then, as if a memory had intruded, her grin faded to a wan smile. "I know everything that Alex knows now. Where they are, what they're up to, and WHO exactly they are. I...., she broke off abruptly, her gaze turning inward, then she was back for a moment, "Give me a second here, I need to help Alex out with something.

Isabel's eyes blanked again, but they could follow her side of things by watching her face. While they waited Liz and Maria hastily helped themselves to some food, scooping scrambled eggs and the trimmings onto paper plates. While Liz was pouring syrup on her pancakes Maria nudged her.

"Uh oh, Chica," she said, nodding towards Isabel.

Liz looked in the indicated direction and saw the look on Isabel's face. "Maria's right," she thought. "Man is she pissed off about something!"

It was only a moment later that Isabel's eyes cleared, then she took a deep breath and blew it out before she resumed eating. "Oh we *are* going to have trouble there," she muttered. Then she looked up and saw the others staring. "It wasn't much," she said. "I was keeping a close...er...ear on Alex and I heard him give some obsolete information about just how many fused couples there were."

Max looked puzzled. "You 'heard' him? Um...Iz, we've pretty much established that reading your soul mate's mind isn't a part of the package with a fusion. Sharing memories, emotions, or images willingly through the connection, or as a part of the fusion, yes; but you can't just reach in and read his thoughts."

Isabel frowned. "I'm not reading his thoughts...exactly...I think. I was clinging like a leech after that memory flash. It nearly took him down. It would have if I hadn't been there when he reached out to me. So I didn't want him to have to reach very far if it happened again. Anyway, when I was closely coupled with him I could 'hear' what he was saying as he said it, like an echo. But not the thoughts leading to it, nor could I hear people around him." She was looking thoughtful now. "You guys never mentioned it, so I thought that maybe it was unique to me, Alex, and our fusion."

Jim interrupted Max as he was about to answer. "That's all well and good, but we need information now, so that we have some background to use in our planning. You all can compare notes later. We need information *now*."

Isabel sighed and nodded her acquiescence. "The key piece of information that we were missing is that Alex's kind are effectively immortal. You'll recall that we sort of speculated on that the other night, but didn't follow it up? Well, it turns out that that's the way it is. They stop aging at first death, and short of being beheaded in the Game they're effectively unkillable, in any really permanent sort of way at least. They can 'die' again, temporarily, but they return to life in a remarkably short time. Without losing their heads, they simply don't stay 'dead'." Isabel got a grim look. "This has interesting drawbacks. One memory I got from Alex was a story that Duncan told him about an Immortal that was marooned on a tiny desert island that had little in the way of food or water. After he'd consumed everything he 'died' of starvation. After a while the few living things on the island recovered, and so did he. Again, he ate all that there was available, and starved to death again, and again, and again. He did that for nearly a century before he was rescued."

"Ick!" said Amy. "I'll take one death to a customer any day." She frowned. "How are you with this? I mean, he's forever young?"

Isabel shrugged. "I was pretty freaked about it. But apparently your daughter and Liz have discussed it a lot because of their involvement with Max and Michael."

It was Amy's turn to frown. "What do you mean?"

Max and Michael both stirred restlessly, but sensing a Zen like calm in their respective soul mates they relaxed. Maybe it was time to get this out in the open.

Again Isabel shrugged. "How long do Antarians live? Longer than humans it would seem. But do Antarian rules even apply to us, since we're a mixture of both races? Liz seems to think that we were probably designed to outlast the average human life span.” Isabel’s mouth briefly flashed a bitter-sweet smile. “We were always scared that it was the other way around. And when you get right down to it, none of us knows how long we'll actually live. Not even the so-called Immortals. Methos is over five thousand years old. Cassandra is thirty-seven hundred. Amanda is over a millennium. Duncan is over four centuries. Richie is only a few years older than Alex, both as an Immortal, and otherwise." Isabel smiled. "You see, it doesn't matter, we'll live as long as we live and that's it. And if we love every day that we live, regardless of how *long* we live, we all live the same length of time. You can't reject love by second guessing it to death, by second guessing it *until* death, otherwise you might as well be dead anyway."

Amy looked solemn as she studied Isabel, her daughter, and the rest of the old/young children in their group. "That sounds very...sensible." She sighed internally and vowed to have some quality time with her daughter when this was over. She'd always believed her daughter to be an 'old soul'; but it seemed that her that this life that Maria had been propelled into was aging the kids, including the aliens, far beyond their ability to cope. "Or is it just beyond *my* ability to cope?" she wondered silently. Either way, she was going to grab some time with Maria while there was still a trace of her little girl left in the woman she was growing into.

"Anyway," Isabel continued, "it plays out like this. There's an extremely old Immortal, one that dates back to ancient Rome. This guy was, no kidding, a centurion under the command of Julius Caesar himself. About once a century he recruits a band of Immortals and goes on a rampage through the Immortal community. Generally speaking the people he recruits are pretty low class. They're relatively young, stupid, gullible, and more than a bit sociopathic."

Jim nodded his eyes narrowed in thought. "They sound like cannon fodder."

Isabel nodded. "That's exactly what they are. The rules of The Game demand single combat. By using a gang he abrogates single combat and racks up a lot of kills fairly quickly and safely. Eventually things catch up to him though. Casualties deplete his minions, and sooner or later another Immortal, or a group of them beat his thugs. Then he either kills the rest himself, or just cuts his losses and fades into the woodwork to wait for the next century so he can start the cycle again.

"And this guy is coming after Alex and his friends now?" asked Michael.

"Yes," she answered, looking grim. "That bastard that Alex killed was some low life that Mr. Big sent to scout Duncan and his friends prior to his making a move on them. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, Raphael Conterras couldn't keep his appetite for murdering new Immortals under control and tried to make a personal project of Alex. That tipped Mr. Big's hand, giving Duncan and his crew time to do some preparation for his arrival."

"Arrival?" Maria sang out. "What arrival? Why aren't they running like hell? You tell Alex that I said he was to get his bony butt on the first train out of town! Preparation my ass!"

Isabel shook her head. "You know him better than that Maria. He won't run as long as the others stand and fight. And the others are sick of this bloodthirsty moron having things his own way. They know that their homes have probably been scouted to a fare-thee-well, so they've chosen an isolated abandoned building that's built like a fortress and settled in for a siege. The fact that they've changed the venue will make their enemy cautious, but they're counting on the isolation of their position to lure him in. According to the Watchers, he's already on the ground in Seattle, with his full crew; himself, two lieutenants, and fifteen soldiers."

"How many people do Alex and his friends have?" queried Jim. He had to ask, even though he'd already done the math. Three to one odds would make it a massacre.

"Six," Isabel said. "Just six."

"Okay, screw this!" Maria said. "Girl friend, you get him on the connection right *now*! And tell him to get the hell out of Dodge. Let the rest of them play Custer's Last Stand if they want to. Alex is Alex, not Davy freakin' Crockett at the Alamo!"

Isabel shook her head. "I'll try Maria. I'll try, but I can't promise that he'll listen. I'm not even so sure that he's wrong. You forget that I have Alex in my head now. His training says that they have to assume that they're being watched. If one of them were to run now, they'd be run down and killed pretty quickly."

Maria opened her mouth to argue further, but Michael walked over and gripped her shoulders, forcing her to turn to face him. "She's right Maria, you know that she is. I've read Sun-Tzu, which means that the same knowledge is tucked away in your head too now too. Their best chance is to make a stand in a fortified position. Fortifications are always a force multiplier."

Maria opened her mouth, closed it, and her lips started to tremble; bursting into tears she shouted, "Screw you Michael Guerin! And screw ancient Chinese philosophers too. This isn't a theoretical situation, this is our friend’s life!" Then she spun and ran back into the motor home, slamming the door behind her.

Amy sighed. It looked like there was more of her little girl in there than she'd thought...not that she didn't agree with her daughter's sentiments. When Michael started towards the motor home with a determined look on his face Amy stopped him. "Leave her be for now Michael. In an hour she'll be sorry and apologetic. Right now she just needs to cool down, and I need something in my stomach besides coffee and brandy. How about some pancakes?"

Michael glanced away from her, towards the motor home and his eyes narrowed as he sought a chink in the barrier that Maria had thrown up. It was as tight and as hard as a turtle's shell. He could have broken it, but that would have been tantamount to 'attacking' her. He sighed deeply. Amy was right. It was time for discretion to be the better part of valor. Looking back at his future mother-in-law he said, "Sure thing Amy, coming right up." Then he turned back to manning the griddle, even though his attention was focused on the wall that Maria had thrown up around her mind as he patiently settled in to out wait his soul mate.

Jim had pulled out a notebook and jotted down a few notes, an ingrained habit of police work. He paused for a moment to study the words, hoping that something would jump out at him. Nothing did, so he looked up at Isabel, who was just finishing her breakfast. "Isabel, can you find this place? Point it out on a map?"

Isabel smiled. "I could do it in my sleep sheriff. What Alex knows, I know. It's on I-90. A few miles west of Preston, Washington there's a turn out onto what looks like just another abandoned logging road. It isn't. I'll know it when I see it. It goes back into the edge of Tiger Mountain Reserve where the Bear Run Asylum is."

"Asylum?" Jim's eyebrows rose. "As in an insane asylum?"

Nodding, Isabel said, "The very same." Her eyes stared into space. "Delving into the memories that I got from Alex, I can see the place clearly. It looks medieval."

Jim smiled and jotted down a few more notes. "How are you on drawing and sketching?"

"Only fair," she answered. "Why?"

Jim finished his coffee and stood up, slipping his notebook in a breast pocket, stretching. He could feel the tension in his muscles unwinding for the first time in days. He was a cop on solid investigative ground at last. "Because I want you to sketch everything that you can about that place. Everything. Floor plans. Outside views. Inside views. Terrain layout. Anything at all that might conceivably give us a leg up if we have to go in there. It hasn't got to be fancy. Just as accurate as you can make it." He paused then mumbled a curse to himself and pulled out his pad again. "I'm sorry, I was so busy reveling in the wealth of information that I forgot to ask. What's the name of the boss bad guy?"

Isabel, who was stuffing the remains of her breakfast into a garbage bag, turned and said "Britanicus Musa is his original name. These days he goes by Roland Kingsgate."

"Bugger!" came an explosive outcry.

Looking over at Brody, who had been silent until now, anyone could see that he was startled beyond measure.

"What's wrong Brody?" Valenti asked curiously.

"Did you say Roland Kingsgate? As in, the reclusive billionaire, Roland Kingsgate?" Davis queried Isabel. When she nodded, he cursed again, softer now.

Michael looked at him suspiciously. "You know this guy?"

Brody looked like he was sucking on a raw lemon. "Oh, you could say that. That wanker is why I'm in Roswell, and not running my software company. After I got the company started I needed some capital to grow, and Kingsgate Investments Ltd. was where I got it. He claimed to be an entrepreneur, a venture capitalist. Hmmph! Pirate is more like it. He took a big slug of stock, *my* stock, as collateral on an expansion loan, which gave him a seat on the board of directors. We paid off the loan ahead of schedule, but he'd become such a fixture in the company by then that he stayed on the board despite the fact that the stock he'd been voting returned to me with the retirement of the loan. After that he kept picking up more stock here and there. Enough to give him a tidy little voting block to secure his position with. The trouble started after my...er...abduction became semi-public knowledge. The bastard started spreading rumors that to the effect that I had bats in my belfry. It was nothing concrete that I could refute, just a whispering campaign. The next board of directors meeting he showed up with his own stock, a big block of proxies that gave him voting control, and a bank draft. I was bought out, packed up, and shipped out before I knew what hit me. I had more money than God, but I'd lost my company to a raider, and the business community thought that I was a loon." He smiled bitterly, and his accent really came through as he said, "D'you honestly think that I actually had a lifetime ambition t’run a tourist concession in Roswell, New Mexico; while my comp'ny, *my* brainchild, Davis Smartware Inc., became a wholly owned subsidiary of Kingsgate Investments?"

Brody turned away and started walking. "I'm going to hit the WC before we leave." He'd only gone a few paces before he stopped and turned. "You've probably guessed this, but I'll just say it so there's no doubt. Should one of Alex's friends happen to kill that sonofabitch, someone else will have to drive the bus, because I'll be too busy dancing and clapping my hands with glee." Then he turned and walked on, at a slower pace, towards the bathrooms.

There was a long collective exhale as Brody disappeared from sight.

"Whoo-eee," Kyle said quietly. "I think that man needs Buddha more than *I* do. That is some very serious hate."

Max shook his head. This was a side of is usually jovial boss that he'd never seen before. A soft voice whispered in his mind. "~He'll be all right Max. Besides, whatever made you think that you had an exclusive on having hidden depths that few people ever see.....aside from me?~"

Max looked over at his soul mate and smiled. "~Smart ass.~"

"~No, just smart. I love you, don't I?~" she said as she rounded up the debris from breakfast. "~Michael, Kyle, and I can handle clean up.~" She looked over her shoulder at where Isabel was still talking to the sheriff in low tones. "~Right now I suggest that you follow your nose over to Isabel and Valenti. They'll be coming to you shortly anyway.~"

Max winced and nodded. "~You remember that video we watched last year? That cheesy old Mel Brooks movie ‘History of the World’, where Brooks’ character said, 'It's good to be the king'?~"

"~Yes?~" came the reply with an undertone of amusement.

"~Well, he was wrong.~" Max said in an aggrieved tone as he walked over to join his sister and the sheriff as his soul mate smiled after him before turning back to her own chores.

Liz’s smile died abruptly as a sudden chill danced along her spine. She paused in her efforts to police up the camp site and looked around. Things didn’t look any different, but somehow they felt gray and washed out. She looked around a moment longer, but failed to detect anything that looked like a threat. Shrugging she wrote it off to a passing mood went back to work.

She didn’t know it then, but driven by changes in her body at the sub-cellular level, her ancient heritage was emerging. The future was beginning to make itself felt.

Before the day was out, a boundary would be crossed, lives would be saved, and lives would be lost.

Danger was coming.

[Kzinti_Killer]

Title: Still Yours
Author: KK
Disclaimer: The characters that count in this do not belong to me in any way shape or form. I simply borrowed them from someone else's toy box.
Category: Crossover Roswell/Highlander A/I +CC
Rating: MATURE shifting to ADULT later on.

STILL YOURS - Part 19e
(The Evidence of Things Not Seen)


Bear Run Asylum........11:00 AM

"Knock it off Amanda!" growled Alex as he knocked her hand away. She'd been pretending to feel his forehead in an effort to see if he had a fever.

Amanda grinned and said, "Oh come on Alex. You can't feed us a story like this and not expect us to wonder where it came from! I mean...aliens?"

Alex shrugged angrily. "I've given you guys the straight truth. You either believe or you don't."

"Leave off Amanda," Cassandra snapped. "I believe him. I saw them together, and you didn't. What I saw was...," she stumbled a moment then finished, "...more than human."

"I believe you too Alex," Methos said quietly as he stared Amanda down. "He doesn't have it in him to lie to his friends...unlike some of us. And no delusion would be so consistent, or hang together so well." He stared off into space. "Deposed royalty, power grabs, and intrigue." He took a deep breath and grinned. "Alex my boy, you've only scratched the surface there, and I'm already hooked. It sounds so much like Imperial Rome that I feel two thousand years younger. And we get aliens to boot!" His eyes grew distant again. "And I was there just before it all started. I knew some of the people involved. I wonder now…" he said as he trailed off. After a moment he shook himself. "I wonder if Jesse ever knew? Or Hal?"

Alex frowned. "I beg your pardon?

Methos sighed. "I knew people that were there in '47." He glanced at Alex and gave a slight chuckle. "I never told you how Cass and I came to be in Roswell when you were killed, did I? Did anyone else, assuming that they knew?" He glanced at Cassandra who shrugged and shook her head, then back at Alex who was regarding him with a blank look. Methos sighed. "Okay, the short version is that I was in the States up until 1946, on loan from the RAF. I was stationed in Roswell to teach night bombing to Yank pilots, and I was shipped home right after it was obvious who had won the war. I got to be pretty good friends with quite a few people there during that time. The two that stick out for me though are Jesse Marcel, who earned his place in history for announcing the crash, and Hal Carver a real hell raiser of an officer who never made it into the history books. I played cards, chess, and drank brandy with Marcel. I shot pool, chased women, and drank everything else with Carver. Good men, both of them. Marcel I dropped contact with because it wasn't safe anymore, and as far as I can tell, Carver just walked off of the face of the earth." He noticed that Alex's face now bore a peculiar ‘I beg your pardon’ look. Taking it for curiosity he began to launch into a more detailed story of his time in Alex's hometown, but Alex cut him off with a wave of the hand.

"You did say, Hal Carver, didn't you?" Alex asked with exaggerated care. When Methos nodded, Alex broke into a broad grin. "Then I have some proof for Amanda. My friend Michael met him."

Methos blinked. "It's my turn to say, I beg your pardon?"

Alex collected his thoughts and began to speak. "Carver was retired, and not in very good shape health-wise, but he still came back to Roswell for the reunion of the 509th Bomb Group last year, before I was...before my life changed. Michael was in trouble in school, as usual, and to bail himself out he had to do a special project that turned out to be more than he bargained for. He had to write a paper based on an interview with one of the veterans of the 509th while they were in town. Guess who he drew?"

Methos snorted with equal parts of amusement and disbelief. "Oh my God! I'd have paid money to be there for that! Hal never had any patience with idiots, kids, or animals. If your friend Michael is a typical teenager, I'm surprised that Hal let him live!" He was about to say more when Amanda cut him off.

"This trip down memory lane is intriguing boys," she smiled slightly to take the sting out of her words, "but I could use a little less reminiscing and a little more proof. Because of your rambling explanation I know why the first thing that you did this morning was to have your eyes roll back in your head while you lost your breakfast. What I want to know now is, who caused that and why."

Alex reviewed things in his mind. He'd brought them up to the point of the Destiny message. Amanda had been skeptical about his claim of FBI involvement until he'd simply snapped at her that he'd been there and she hadn't. That had caused her to tone down the sarcasm somewhat. Of all of them, Methos had been the most intent, as if he were soaking up information like a sponge. Alex tried to organize an agenda in his head, but gave it up after a few moments. He was going to have to keep doing this piecemeal or not at all.

"Okay," he began. "Here's how it plays out. After the Destiny message there was a long and confused time where none of us knew how to treat each other. The aliens and humans were holding each other at arm's length. The aliens were trying to understand their 'destiny', and we human types were trying, with varying degrees of success or failure to give them room to do so. Their 'guardian' would have been just as happy had we humans simply ceased to exist. To put it simply, he hated our guts. I'll spare you the personal angst and jump ahead to a relevant piece of information. I told you that Max's alien donor, King Zan was overthrown in what amounts to a coup d'etat. If there was an exact reason why, we don't know about it. The guy leading the revolt was a strong man named K'var. From what we've been able to pick up here and there, after he killed Max and his immediate family, he seems to have settled in to a protracted power struggle with the other power blocks on Antar. We're still not sure how everything is set up there now, but it sounds like there are five independent worlds, and/or parts thereof, all playing politics against each other."

Cassandra nodded. "It sounds like Renaissance Italy. There was constant sniping and maneuvering for advantage, and there was a blood bath or an assassination a week it seemed like, interspersed with the occasional serious raid or all out war." She gestured to him to continue. "But I digress. Go on please...."

Alex grinned. Having a bunch of walking talking history books at his disposal had never seemed so handy. Noticing an impatient look on Amanda's face he resumed his meandering explanation of what it was like to be a member of the 'I know an alien club'. "Okay, to begin answering Amanda's question, the enemy is here. We assume that Max's mother, or people who supported her, launched the mission to Earth. Somehow K'var found out about it and sent one of his senior lieutenants with some troops to track down Max and the others and make sure that there would be no royal comeback. They didn't have too much luck, so they settled in to play a long-term waiting game until Max or one of the others did something to betray their location. Setting off the Destiny message was it. Apparently it functioned as a beacon as well. Anyway, once that was done, Nicholas and his Skins knew where to look." He noticed raised eyebrows and guessed at the reason. "They're called Skins because of this thing that they wear. It's sort of a life form itself, called a husk. Its external appearance perfectly mimics a human body. They have to wear it twenty-four/seven to survive here. If it ruptures, they die instantly. They found us about the time that their husks were starting to reach the end of their life span. So they were pretty hot to go home."

"Nicholas?" Amanda queried.

Alex nodded. "K'var's senior man."

Methos' eyes narrowed. "Who told you that?"

Alex's eyes narrowed as he thought about it. "Why...no one. He's here. He seems to be in charge. We simply assumed..." he stopped when he noticed Methos eyebrow go up as he glanced at Duncan.

Duncan traded stares with Methos for a long moment. "You're not buying this old man?"

Methos nodded. "Yes," he said curtly. "Did you see their mistake?"

Duncan nodded back and looked at Alex. "How much of your information on the way things are in this situation originated with this 'Nicholas' character?"

Alex looked thoughtful and sighed. "Most of it. The ‘protector’ Nasedo gave us a few tidbits too. And there were a couple of 'friendlies' that we've met along the way. But they weren't exactly forthcoming with information. They had agendas of their own.

Cassandra laughed. "Definitely Renaissance Italy. They wanted to help, but not too much so as to preserve their own leverage."

"I thought so," Duncan said, ignoring the interruption. "What was the first rule of combat strategy and tactics that I drilled into you when you arrived in my dojo?"

"Never assume anything," Alex said, flushing faintly. He could tell where this was headed. He was about to get his tail chewed.

"That's right," Duncan responded. "Never take anyone's word on whether or not the gun is loaded. Check it yourself. When the chips are down, never believe that someone, whom you don’t know, is your friend until they prove it. And *never* completely trust information from an outside source that you can't verify. Sometimes you *do* have to trust your gut, but relying on it exclusively is an invitation to a sudden reduction in height. And none of you, for all your unique experiences, were salty enough to do it consistently and get away with it." Duncan glanced at Methos who nodded back at him. They both saw eye to eye. An extended seminar was in order.

Methos chimed in saying, "This assumption of yours that this Nicholas is a senior man of K'var's may be valid. As you said, he's here, and he's in charge. But *my* gut tells me that if he's a senior anything, he's a senior screw up, and this is banishment to the Foreign Legion. I've been around too long, dealt with too many empires, tyrants, and military bureaucracies not to recognize something that obvious in an opponent. Spending fifty years in a space suit, no matter how comfortable it is, on an alien world, can't be pleasant duty. Furthermore, since you and your friends are still alive, and with all due respect to your pluck and resourcefulness, I'm assuming that you managed to defeat a supposed veteran combat leader and his troops... however many there are. One who should have been able to kill the lot of you, if he were actually what he was billed to be. This argues that the man is far from a genius, and in fact it tells me that he's probably been exiled here to expiate some sin or other in his master's eyes. In short, he's probably an over-confident bone head. Dangerous I grant you, but a bone head nonetheless."

Alex blinked and considered the analysis that he'd just been handed. He and Isabel were going to have a *lot* to discuss later today. One thing was certain, Max and Michael *had* meet Methos. Looking across at the senior Immortal he saw something in his eyes that he'd never seen....or perhaps never recognized. Experience. Wisdom. He could see millennia of know-how in how to stay alive when the other guy wants you dead. It was sort of unsettling. "Any other observations?" he queried. Then he cleared his throat and added, "And he's not a 'man'."

Methos grinned. "Probably lots, but not without more information." He paused. "Okay, I'll bite. It's obvious that he's not human, so I take it that 'he's not a man' means something else?"

Alex grinned. "A husk's appearance doesn't have to follow age lines or, I assume, even gender lines. Nicholas has been an adolescent boy for the last fifty years, and it's made him...bitter."

Duncan snorted wryly. "Not another Kenny? Please, anything but that!"

Amanda chuckled in sympathy, but with a sour note. Kenny had been one of the few people, mortal or Immortal, ever to make a fool of her. An innocent appearing adolescent outside, with the soul of a jackal inside...and with a lot of centuries of taking heads by deceit under his belt. The little punk had nearly killed Duncan twice, the second time because she'd trusted him. "So, this alien in a 'boy' suit would be the one that arranged your death, and left this Tess' fingerprints on it? The...'what did you call it'...mind rapist?" When Alex nodded she developed a feral looking smile. "Well then, it looks like mama is going to have to arrange a trip to the wood shed for junior."

Alex snorted some coffee that he was in the act of sipping, and choked. Richie whacked him on the back as he coughed. "W--w-what was that?"

Amanda grinned. "I'm going to kill him."

Alex wiped streaming eyes. "You'll have to get in line. Michael wants a piece of him just on general principles, Kyle has dibs because of Tess, and Isabel said something about 'exfoliating the little bastard to death'."

Amanda laughed aloud, and for the first time when Isabel was mentioned in conversation. "We'll settle it when they get here. A nice friendly game of cards, and I'll go to the head of the line."

Cassandra cleared her throat. "What exactly did he do to Tess to insure her cooperation?"

"What I got from Isabel's memories is that he had some piece of alien biotech that he used on her," Alex responded. "It was an artificial life form. It enters the body and takes up residence, like a parasite, and if you fail to do as you're ordered it punishes you automatically with increasing levels of pain, ending in death."

Cassandra's eyes narrowed. "Methos may be right," she thought. "The bastard might *not* be a genius, but he certainly gets top marks for thorough, ruthless, and brutal." She went on aloud. "He did this to a pregnant woman? I don't know why I'm horrified. I've seen worse things in my life. But somehow assault on a woman carrying a child always manages to turn my stomach."

Alex sighed. "Not that I don't agree with you, but that's not quite the way it happened." Alex collected his thoughts, trying to 'recall' everything that he'd picked up from Isabel, then he told them about Kyle's recovered memories, and his brush with death when he regained them. And of Tess' spectacular departure for Antar aboard the granolith

Amanda made a 'tsking' sound. "Junior really loves to spread the joy, doesn't he? I think that trip to the wood shed should happen sooner rather than later." Dropping the sarcasm she went on. "So the girl chose to become pregnant and it kept her from defying the sonofabitch." Amanda sighed wistfully. "There are times when I'd give anything to be a mother. Then there are others when I think that we didn't get such a bad deal." Her eyes hardened. "Any chance of getting her back?"

Alex shrugged. "They haven't gotten that far yet. Too much else has been happening lately," he said as he gestured at their surroundings.

"Ahem," Duncan said, clearing his throat. "I guess that we've got the gist of it. Now I'd better get back up on the roof. We've spent enough time with our pants down around our ankles." He glanced at the others. "If you learn anything else of immediate concern, let me know." Then he looked back at Alex. "I told you the other day that you had a streak of honor a mile wide. So I know that you aren't lying...and I know that you aren't crazy either, though I wish that you were. I believe you. I believe the whole hard to swallow, impossible mess."

Alex broke in to say, "Duncan, before you go, there are one or two things...specific things that I should tell you about. The first relates to Methos' friend Carver, and that proof for Amanda. The second is broader in scope, but no less important." He paused for breath. "Okay, first things first. For reasons of their own, the Antarians made two sets of hybrids. My friends have identical twins out there."

"Twins?" Richie interjected.

Alex nodded grimly. "They're an interesting contrast. The people that I knew as my friends in Roswell were like any other teenagers, no better, no worse. However, the other set were left to fend for themselves in the sewers of New York. They're incredibly dangerous, completely vicious and amoral. Their Isabel and Michael equivalents, named Lonnie and Rath, have already killed their counterpart of Max, who was called Zan after his alien donor, in a power struggle. Their Tess equivalent, called Ava, seems to be the only one that's even close, as a human being, to the hybrids that I know in her behavior, even if she is lacking a little in the personal ethics department. Lonnie and Rath wanted to return to Antar, and they were quite willing to lie, cheat, steal, and murder to get there." Alex went on to outline what he and his friends knew or had learned about the murder of Zan, the summit, and the deceit that Lonnie and Rath had practiced to get Max and Tess to New York.

Cassandra nodded and glanced at Methos and said, "You'd better talk to Joe Dawson when this is over. If those three are still out there, it behooves us to know *where*. The Watchers excel at finding people and tracking them. Let them do something besides playing Peeping Tom with Immortals."

"You...they don't have to do that," Alex started to say, but Amanda cut him off.

"Bullshit," she snapped. "You're family now. And, by extension, and on probation, until we meet them, that makes your friends family." She winced a bit and added. "Even Isabel."

Methos cleared his throat to break the tableau and said, "What exactly do the duplicates have to do with Carver?"

Alex sighed. "Carver got caught in the middle of the cover-up in '47. From what he told Michael he suspected that the military had killed at least one woman, a nurse, to protect their cover story. And he's absolutely certain that they killed another woman, a female reporter. The atmosphere around the base turned paranoid. Friends were spying on friends. There were guys with cameras following you around. His superiors making threats, both overt and covert. It was real cloak and dagger stuff. Eventually they forced his resignation."

Methos looked grim. "Hal was a real stand up guy. He could be a jerk at times, but he really *believed* that anyone who wore the uniform was his brother. All those shenanigans couldn't have set too well with him. Being the maverick that he was, I can see where he'd have gotten into trouble."

Alex nodded. "He did at that. That's why we knew that the Dupes were out there before they even arrived on our doorstep. Your buddy penetrated the base where the wreckage from the crash was being stored. He was specifically looking for something that he and a fellow officer had been assigned to transport in from the crash site. The sacks with the embryos in them."

Amanda stirred. "You mean the things that incubated..."

"No," Alex said. "Not the pods that my friends were in. These were sacks. There were four of them, two embryos to a sack. That makes eight." Alex paused to let that sink in, and then he went on. "Carver intended to take pictures. Get evidence, go to the papers, and blow the whole thing sky high. The problem is, someone else got there first. Carver found two researchers dead. The two surviving alien protectors had come for the sacks, even though the job was hopeless; at least as Carver saw it. He recognized them for what they were because he'd already had a near miss with one on the drive from the crash site to the base. They likely would have killed him had he and they not achieved a moment of understanding. They knew why he was there, and vice versa. So, while they worked to rescue their charges, Carver let himself be detected by base security, and proceeded to play fox to their hounds. He led them a merry chase, giving the protectors time to do their work unmolested, even though he still considered it an impossible task. In doing so he lost his camera with the pictures that he'd taken. He had no evidence left." Alex looked somewhat wistful. "All those years he thought that he'd failed, that they'd been caught, and he blamed himself. It wasn't until Michael heard his story, and decided to reveal himself for what he is that Carver realized the real value of what he'd done. He could die a happy man after that."

Cassandra cleared her throat, trying to swallow against an emotion that she didn't want to put a name to just then. "Your friend took a big risk Alex. Nearly as big as the one that Carver took. That was...noble of him."

Alex nodded. "It was all the more...unusual, because Michael was always the paranoid one to begin with. He didn't voluntarily like or trust humans at all. He had to be dragged into it, kicking and screaming."

"Why were the Dupes so different from your friends?" Richie wondered aloud.

Alex shrugged. "Who knows? I guess the causative factor depends on which school of developmental psychology you subscribe to; Nature, or Nurture. After seeing how different the Dupes were from my friends I got curious and went looking for some answers. We never discussed it, but I think that Liz did too. The Dupes had stronger powers, and a belief in their own superiority to the Roswell group. They claimed that this was because they had a higher percentage of alien DNA. However, Nasedo always said that my friends' powers were one hundred percent human...just very advanced human. The problem is that when you're dealing with known and proven liars, it's hard to sift out the valid data from the lies. Who's lying when, and how much? If you're from the 'Nature' school of thought, then the Dupes' vile behavior matches up nicely, because most of the aliens that we've bumped up against are ethically and morally pretty vile by human standards."

Cassandra looked thoughtful. "I'm inclined to think that your friends were the superior of the two groups, because more care was taken to assure their well-being, and they were left in the possession of that artifact of power. The granolith you called it?" When Alex nodded she continued. "I tend to believe this Nasedo's statement about the nature of their powers, because in my lifetime I've known about three human children, widely scattered in time and geography, who displayed similar abilities. Sadly they were all killed by their families or neighbors before reaching maturity." Cassandra frowned. "The last one died long, long ago, and those were savage days. Back then a child that different was doomed from birth."

Alex looked interested. "Really? They'll be interested to hear that. Very much so."

"It's too bad that this K'var got his hands on that granolith," mused Duncan. "That can't be a good thing."

Alex sighed. "It’s worse than you know." Then he told them about the events surrounding the 'Future Max' incident. They all had to sit down after that one.

"Let me get this straight," Richie said. "They invaded us?"

Alex nodded. "According to what Isabel told me, and her memories that I now have back this up, K'var invaded in 2014. Max and Liz were the only ones to survive from our group. Tess had left years before. Michael and Isabel were dead, which I assume means that Maria and I were likewise dead. They had a friend, whom we apparently haven't even met yet, who MacGyvered the granolith into a time machine. The future analog of Max was short on details with our present day Liz, but it sounded like the entire planet had fallen and was being pounded flat by the time that he and his Liz became desperate enough to try the H. G. Wells solution."

[Kzinti_Killer]

Title: Still Yours
Author: KK
Disclaimer: The characters that count in this do not belong to me in any way shape or form. I simply borrowed them from someone else's toy box.
Category: Crossover Roswell/Highlander A/I +CC
Rating: MATURE shifting to ADULT later on.

STILL YOURS - Part 19f
(The Evidence of Things Not Seen)

Methos looked pensive. "This bears thinking about," he ruminated silently. "We don't have enough to go on to see what information that we do have in the proper light. Military conquests happen for a variety of superficial reasons, but those reasons that always boil down to one underlying cause. The invadee has something that the invader wants. But what? The granolith sounds like one hell of an impressive artifact, but is it enough to launch an interstellar invasion that beggars descriptions of Normandy, Anzio, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa all rolled up into one horrific package? No. It won't wash. We don't have enough information, but my gut still says *no*. And just exactly how were four untrained children supposed to fight such a thing anyway?"

Amanda was staring off into space. She didn't know what to feel at the moment. Her preconceptions of Alex's friends had been on shaky ground for the last hour. Now their foundations had simply collapsed. A girl, who was scarcely more than a child, whom she'd never met, had sought to immolate herself and her love to save a planet...and by extension Amanda and her friends. "Have I ever done anything that could even come close to that?" she wondered silently. Once, several centuries ago in the Hindu Kush, a fortune telling mystic had described her as 'a warrior in search of her war'. When the old Afghan fakir had first said it, she'd laughed it off because it simply didn't describe her image of herself. But, for some reason, the words had stayed with her, haunting her. Now, at long last, feeling ecstatic shivers along her back, she thought that just possibly the old man's statement might have had some truth to it. She had found her war. Looking at Alex she said, "How is she now? Your friend Liz I mean."

Alex smiled and shrugged. "Better than she was, once Isabel pulled everyone together and squeezed the truth out of her. She and Max have patched things up. Of course, finding out that the whole 'strange sex' thing was a con helped too."

Amanda nodded. She was beginning to look a little more charitably on Isabel Evans. These children had been through hell and back again, with almost no support at all. It was no damn wonder that Isabel was unwilling to back off of Alex. Under similar circumstances she wouldn't back off of Duncan either. "Max and Isabel can't keep this a secret from their parents forever. You know that, don't you?"

"I think that they know that," Alex replied looking thoughtful as he accessed memories that were not his own. "In fact, I'm certain that they know that...and I think that the thought of their parents finding out, and rejecting them scares them more than K'var and the FBI combined." He sighed. "When it comes down to it, I don't think that they're going to tell their parents the truth until they have absolutely no choice. We're in the same boat now, they and I. How do I tell the parents of the woman that I love and want to marry that I'm going to live forever?"

Before anyone could respond Duncan stood up abruptly. "This is where I have to head upstairs. This isn't need to know information, and whether or not the enemy is sneaking up on us *is*."

Methos stood up as well. "I think that I'll join you in a little while. There's something that I wanted to talk to you about." Turning away from Duncan's retreating back he turned to Richie and said, "Do me a favor, and come with me while I run a quick check on the cellar and the parking area? I want to make sure that the motion detectors are on line and that at least one other person knows how they work. There are also a few surprises I want to set up. After Duncan comes off watch I'll take him down and repeat the process." He walked over to the supplies and hauled out another walkie-talkie. "I picked this up the other day, along with a few more like it. After this morning we'll all be carrying them." Tossing it to Richie he said, "The batteries are in it already," then he turned and dug out a few more, tossing one to Alex, another to Cassandra, and keeping one himself. He nodded to the older unit lying next to Amanda. "That one's yours Grandma." Then he addressed them all. "After this, carry your radio everywhere. We've been using channels three, seven, and eleven. If you see or hear anything even slightly off, hit the general call button and sing out. From here on out we're on 'yellow alert'."

Beckoning Richie, Methos strode away towards the stairs leading to the basement. Richie, for his part, looked relieved as he followed. Alex was left blinking after them. He stared at both women who were smiling at him.

"Was it something that I said?" he asked.

Cassandra chuckled. "Actually yes. I don't know about Richie, but while Methos and Duncan have managed to learn to deal with emotional matters...in private, in a public venue they still do what every man since the Garden of Eden has done when matters of the heart come up unexpectedly in conversation. They run for their lives." She sighed. "You started talking about feelings, so they bolted. You have to remember that despite the fact that they live in modern times, their instincts in such matters were laid down in the long ago time when they were young."

Alex grinned. "I keep forgetting, not every member of my gender had the privilege of growing up with Maria DeLuca and Liz Parker for best friends." When he saw Amanda raise an eyebrow he laughed. "When it came to 'girls nights', make up and dress up parties, and assorted other girl stuff I was accorded the title of honorary 'girl friend'." He looked pained. "Honestly, I love'em both to death, but playing make up dummy so that they could experiment with different looks was a chore I could have done without. You haven't lived, as a guy, until you've had two precocious little girls talk you into letting them wax your legs. I was ashamed to be seen in fifth grade gym class for weeks afterwards."

Amanda started laughing out loud. Now that she knew the truth she was a little more sanguine about Alex's friends. She halted in mid-laugh as she realized just how readily she'd accepted Alex's wild story as 'the truth'. She studied him in silence for a long moment, considering the window into the lives of his friends that he'd given them. They needed guidance, that much was clear, and they needed protection. "Just the same," she thought, "his lady fair isn't going to get a free pass from me. If he's really serious about her, then she'd better be serious about him. Anyone can talk a good game. We'll just have to see if she's willing to back words with deeds." She shook herself out of her own thoughts and rejoined that conversation. "Your Liz and Maria really sound like something," she said. "They've got to have all kinds of guts to hang on for the ride the way they have."

Alex nodded, then he smiled faintly and answered, "Love will do that for you," before turning to address Cassandra. "Now you see why you and Methos didn't throw me for a loop when you broke the news to me about Immortals, and what I was, all those months ago. Because, next to what my recent life had been like up to that point, your revelations were hardly more than business as usual. And it just keeps on getting more and more bizarre all the time."

Cassandra frowned. "Just how much stranger can it hope to get?"

Alex chuckled wryly. "Apparently, alien attributes are contagious. The two people that Max has brought back from the edge of the grave, both Liz and Kyle, have lately begun to manifest powers similar to the hybrids abilities, and I'm pretty certain that they were just normal human kids before that. Kyle had to engage an enemy alien all by himself day before yesterday, and he blew the Skin into the middle of next week." Cassandra looked like she was about to comment, but Alex rolled on. "Then there’s me. After I 'died' Max tried to bring me back, and failed. But he must have had some effect. I've never had a low tolerance for booze before. I haven't exactly been a lush, but I've never gotten tipsy from a single sip, let alone been put out like a light. The low alcohol tolerance seems to be an alien attribute. Based on Max's experience I'd say that they're all facing the same risk. Even a single sip of liquor knocks them right on their butts." He flushed faintly. "Or should I say, it knocks *us* right on our butts."

Amanda frowned. "Okay, we don't offer them a drink when they get here. Anything else?"

Alex nodded and solemnly said, "Sweet and spicy."

"Huh?" Amanda responded.

Alex smiled. "They like their food very spicy, so they go through hot sauce like nobody's business. But their favorite taste combination in the entire world is something extremely sweet with something extremely spicy. They like nothing better than, oh say, a nice slab of rich sweet chocolate cake drenched in tabasco sauce."

Amanda made a gagging noise.........

Apparently they wouldn't be offering Alex's friends anything to *eat* either.

Mercer Island, Seattle.... Outside home of Methos aka Adam Pierson....10:45 AM

Joachim sat behind the steering wheel of the rented van and fidgeted. They'd begun cautious house-to-house operations at 7:00 AM that morning. The quick surveillance of the night before had shown that all the residences were quiet, unnaturally so in fact. This seemed to indicate that their quarry had caught their scent and fled. So they'd come down to today. There were two man observation teams watching all the residences while Joachim, Malorte, and one of the more disciplined of the rankers named Frank Pastiche were driving quietly from house to house in an innocuous appearing service truck. Wearing tool belts and carrying bulky (as well as false and misleading) equipment cases, they had overridden one security system after another. And there were a lot of them to override, interlocking and overlapping. These people were *alert* and careful, which was a polite way of saying that they were paranoid.

They'd gained entry to the red haired woman's home first. Joachim and Pastiche had been the penetration team that time, while Malorte had kept watch and waited in the van. Everything had been in order. If she had gone elsewhere, she hadn't been in a hurry when she did so. Joachim had even tested the soil in the potted plants. They had been watered recently, perhaps as recently as the day before. People who are blowing town for good seldom stop to water the plants before they flee for their lives, or arrange to have them watered. Wherever she was, she was planning on coming back. A fast search had showed nothing amiss, so Joachim had looked again, this time with a view to what *wasn't* there. That had taken longer, because it's often possible to miss the obvious when you're not certain of what exactly it is that you're looking for. Anyone as old and experienced as their quarry would have been prepared for anything, for any possible environment or set of circumstances. What was missing?

There had been a slight disarrangement in the clothing in the woman's highly organized closet. A condition that anyone not attuned to look for it would have missed. It had suggested what clothes she had taken with her. Rough clothing. Camping or hiking clothes. And boots, there had been no boots in the house. Joachim suspected that she'd taken to the hills, which was unlike their suggested profile of her. Which hadn't bothered him terribly much then, and still didn't. Truly old Immortals were like icebergs when it came to matters of character. You seldom saw more than a small portion of what they were capable of. Even his own employer could still surprise him, even after all these years. That was what made them so intriguing to be around. It also made profiling a tool of questionable value. Immortals who have lasted this long in the Game were like chameleons, always taking on the color of their surroundings. Thus a given profile only applied until you turned up the heat on the individual under consideration...and thus burned away the veneer that your profile was based upon. Sometimes you peeled off several layers, like an onion, before you reached the real person within. Yup, it made them intriguing. It also made tracking them a royal pain in the ass.

Grabbing a radio from his belt he'd thumbed the call switch.

"Oui?" Malorte had answered in his soft Quebecois accent.

"She's gone," Joachim had stated firmly, "But she's definitely planning to come back."

Malorte had been silent for a moment. "Do you think that she fled because she knows about us?"

Joachim had chuckled. "If what I know about these people is at all accurate, "fled" isn't the correct word to use. 'Tactical withdrawal' or 'strategic redeployment' would be closer to the mark."

"So they've forted up somewhere to wait for us to come to them?" Malorte had responded.

Joachim had grinned to himself. That question had told him that perhaps Britanicus hadn't shared everything that they'd turned up with

Malorte. "Yes, you could say that."

"That doesn't speak too highly of their opinion of us, now does it?" Malorte had responded with just a hint of sardonicism. "In their shoes I'd have split up and run like hell. Their habit of sticking together is what makes them a tempting target. So, which of the houses do you think they're at?"

The majordomo had snorted derisively. "None of the above. For one thing, you've heard the reports. All of the houses are quiet as tombs. Including that secret townhouse of Pierson's." Joachim had paused. "God knows what he has it for, because in all the weeks that we had him under surveillance, he never gave the appearance of living there...even if he did visit it regularly. Most men would stash a mistress in a place like that. That we know of, Pierson doesn't have one to stash. His primary residence is here on Mercer Island, like the woman's, hiding out amongst the pseudo-wealthy upper crust in this town. Just another wolf hiding out among the sheep." He had shaken himself out of his digression and had gotten back on track. "For another thing, the evidence here, scanty though it is, tells me that the woman cleared out of here prepared for rough living, but planning to return home. And I'm willing to bet against any odds that you'd give me that all the other residences will yield the same set of clues as well."

Joachim's own amusement had vanished when Malorte had chuckled and said, "Then they must be at that abandoned dust trap up in the hills."

That had been over two hours ago.

Joachim now sat outside in the van and fidgeted. His employer could still surprise him, though he shouldn't have been caught unawares like that. Britanicus knew basic command strategy well enough to have replicated everything that Joachim knew about the current campaign in discussions with Malorte. When you have two deputies, it's always best to keep both of them fully informed in case one of them buys the farm.

But it still bugged the hell out of him.

His radio hissed softly and he keyed his mic. "Yes?"

"We're finally in," came Malorte's soft accent. "Ye Gods, I've never seen so many layers of security. The man makes the woman look like a trusting slacker. I...sacre!" Malorte's voice ceased abruptly.

Joachim sat up. "What?! Malorte? Report!" He was getting ready to get out of the van when the radio hissed again. "What happened!" he snapped.

Malorte sounded chagrined and strained at the same time. "Well, we missed one. We were so wrapped up in electronic security that we forgot the old fashioned approach. There was a deadfall...in the foyer for God's sake. Pastiche is...well…seriously inconvenienced."

"Dead?” Joachim queried. He knew that whatever else had happened, the booby trap couldn't have taken Pastiche's head; otherwise he'd be hearing a Quickening right now.

"Oui," responded Malorte, sounding out of breath. "For the time being anyway."

"Well, get him out of there," Joachim snapped. "Now! We can't be sure that..." He jumped as the panel door of the van slammed open and Pastiche's body was unceremoniously dumped in the cargo bay, to be followed by Malorte. Joachim had spun and had a handgun centered between Malorte's eyes when he finally turned back from slamming the door. "Don't…do…that…again," he gritted out.

"Shut up and drive you stupid Boshe," Malorte rapped out.

Joachim hesitated only a moment then turned started the engine and backed down the driveway quickly, but casually, so as not to attract undue attention. Depending on how willing Pierson was to risk official exposure, there might have been something rigged to that deadfall that would notify the local authorities. They couldn't afford to tangle with the police just at the moment, so discretion was the better part of valor. They would move to the next target, and return here later. If no official interest was apparent, they could pick up where they'd left off. For now though it was time to see about MacLeod's Dojo. Joachim fumed quietly as he drove off, careful not to violate residential speed limits, cursing paranoid ancients, stupid Frenchmen, and clumsy subordinates.

Back in the foyer of the Pierson residence, an insignificant electronic relay did its job and placed a pre-programmed phone call, then it powered down. Its task was done.

Bear Run Asylum....Noon

Methos was in an astoundingly cheerful mood when he climbed up to the catwalk behind Richie who was in turn going up to relieve Duncan. He was actually whistling.

Duncan was lying on his stomach, in an effort to present as small a silhouette as possible, while doing a slow pan of the surrounding landscape with binoculars. The arrival of his relief caused him to give a grunt of approval as he rolled over to regard Methos with a bemused expression. "What's gotten into you?" Duncan asked curiously, "If you get much happier and you'll be worthy of a Disney Channel Special.”

Methos grinned and shook his head as he idly caressed the pager clipped to his belt. “I’ll tell you downstairs. For now though, let’s just say that modern technology can be a wonderful thing.” And, thinking of the deadfall in his foyer, he added silently, “But there *is* something to be said for doing things the old fashioned way too.” He paused as he added a note to himself to show Cass the ins and outs of his personal system of booby-traps at some point in the future…even as it failed to register with him that was thinking in terms of a future with Cassandra.

It never fails. Fifteen years, fifty years, or five thousand years…love can make a fool of anyone. It has to, for without the boundless optimism of love the human race would simply die out.

Methos would have been mortified, had he realized the shift in his thinking. As it was however, he was a happy man. That was enough for now.

The Wasatch Mountains, near Salina, Utah…1:00 PM

On a twisting sun-baked ribbon of asphalt, nothing moved. There was no dust, and no breeze to stir it. Even the day-time desert creatures had more sense than to wander out onto that blacktopped furnace at this time of day. Its only inhabitant today was Fate, which moved unseen.

Fate is a strange and sometimes perverse creature. It can weave together seemingly unrelated events into a tapestry that can be as stunning as it is mundane, as wonderful as it is terrifying…depending on whose eyes it is seen through. Sometimes time can change the perspective of those eyes completely, revealing beauty, wonder, and serene necessity hidden behind the horror, fear, and chaos of a given moment.

Such a moment was coming to an isolated switchback on I-70 in the Wasatch Mountains.

And it was coming today.

Fate….minus 30 minutes and counting.

Aboard Greyhound Inter-urban 102 approaching Salina from the West…1:05 PM

Maggie wondered for the umpteenth time, what was going on in her daughter’s mind…though not in a bad way. Her love of her little girl forbade that. Whether they were in a car, on a bus, or rarely (only once in fact) aboard a plane; Theresa pasted herself to a window seat and silently watched the scenery flash by. Later, whenever they arrived at their destination, Theresa’s sketch pad would come out; and an amazing array of images would come pouring out of her flying hands. Small things, big things, live things, even dead things, Theresa’s mind seemed to capture them all, as she rendered each and every single image with effortless ease and that otherworldly fidelity that was uniquely hers. Theresa seemed like a gift from directly from God…if for no other reason than that neither of her parents had an artistic bone in their bodies. Maternal pride stirred in Maggie. Her little girl wasn’t the slow-witted defective that so many specialists had claimed she was. She was simply different, tuned to another wave-length, and she was going places in this life. Maggie just knew it.

She simply didn’t realize that the journey that she foresaw was going to begin sooner rather than later.

She stared out over her daughter’s head on last time and turned her gaze back to the interior of the bus. It was only half-full, and they’d taken seats at the very back leaving a large gap between them and their nearest fellow passengers. That would probably change as they passed through more towns, but for now it kept people at arms length. It kept strangers from passing judgment on her daughter.

It would also keep them alive.

Fate….minus 25 minutes and counting

Brody Davis’ RV approaching Salina from the East…1:20 PM

Liz was riding shotgun with Max, who had taken over driving once they had crossed from Colorado into Utah. Brody had gone back and stretched out on the bed to relieve a headache that had started creeping up on him almost as soon as they had hit the road that morning. Jim Valenti’s SUV was playing chase car about half a mile back, and all was right with the world. The walkie talkie on the dash trilled and Liz picked it up, depressing the talk button as she did so.

“Yes?”

Jim Valenti’s voice came back. “Liz is that you?”

“Yes Sheriff,” she responded. “What’s up?”

Valenti chuckled. “We have to make a pit stop. Amy says that Mother Nature has been calling her for the last ten miles, and that the last mile or so it’s gone beyond calling and into screaming. We need to find a powder room, pronto. Salina is coming up on the map. They’re bound to have facilities there, so I’m going to leap frog you. Watch for me to pass you in the next few minutes.”

Max beckoned to Liz. “Let me talk to him?” Liz nodded and handed over the radio. “Sheriff, this is Max. If it’s an emergency we can pull off and she can use the john in the RV.”

Amy’s voice answered. “That’s sweet of you Max, really it is, but I prefer my bathrooms to be a little roomier than the phone booth that Brody has on that thing.” Amy’s disparaging tone moderated somewhat to sound almost embarrassed. “Besides, I don’t want to be any trouble.”

Max chuckled. “It’s okay Amy, Liz isn’t happy with it eith…...” His statement was truncated by an… ”OUCH!” …as his outraged girl friend’s petite fist punched him in the arm.

“Too much information, Max!” she hissed. “Besides, you make me sound like a wuss. Isabel and Maria are no happier than I am!”

Max’s grin widened. “Skip it Amy. We’ll be watching for you.”

Fate….minus ten minutes and counting

[Kzinti_Killer]

Title: Still Yours
Author: KK
Disclaimer: The characters that count in this do not belong to me in any way shape or form. I simply borrowed them from someone else's toy box.
Category: Crossover Roswell/Highlander A/I +CC
Rating: MATURE shifting to ADULT later on.

STILL YOURS - Part 19g
(The Evidence of Things Not Seen)


Parking Lot of the Sidewinder Bar and Grill & Service Station....Just outside of Salina, Utah….1:23 PM

Jake Myers was sitting in his metallic blue pickup truck, and he was pissed drunk. It was too early in the day to be plastered, but he didn’t care. Cindy Ann was leaving. She was going back to Ogden, presumably to marry the man that her family had chosen for her to begin with. Of course there was the small matter of her marriage to Jake to deal with first. And of course, this was Utah…where, even though the state courts, the newspapers, and the LDS denied it, the Mormon dominated government could still occasionally play favorites with its native sons and daughters. He could just hear it now. “Cindy Ann is a good Mormon girl led astray by a gentile that she was now trying to get shut of.” So she could then marry some good Mormon boy. Jake was about to get hosed. Jake knew it, everyone else knew it, and worst of all, Jake knew that they knew it; of course the fact that Jake was an idiot who was far too fond of his beer wasn’t a factor in his reasoning. All this couldn’t possibly be his fault. Therefore Jake was a time bomb waiting to go off. This was Utah, where no one wins a pissing contest with the Latter-Day Saints, and Jake’s few friends didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.

Crossfire.

That was an appropriate word for his schedule of the day’s events.

Jake reached out and caressed the Colt Peacemaker on the seat next to him. His voice was a drunken slur as he muttered to himself. “God may have created men, but Colonel Colt made them equal.” He chuckled blearily at his own wit as he twisted off the cap on another Coors and took a healthy swallow. “Ah! That’s the straight goods!” he thought. “None of that watered down horse piss that was all that the LDS would allow within their precious state’s borders.” He’d drunk a twelve pack and a half since he’d started at 8:30 this morning, which represented the tail end of his current supply from his monthly beer runs into Nevada. Early yesterday morning, over breakfast, was when Cindy had told him that she was divorcing him and moving back to Ogden. Presumably to marry that milk-toast Mormon kid that her folks had always seen as her only option in life. He’d spent an entire day in denial, going from one friend to another looking for sympathy…and getting more and more drunk with every stop. Last night he’d slept on his own front porch because the door was bolted shut. This morning she’d told him that he could stay or go, but that her family was coming to move her out around noon, and that she would be gone before sunset. Before he’d gotten drunk once again, it would have never occurred to Jake to examine himself in his scenario of blame for his sinking marriage, and now that he *was* drunk, he really didn’t care all that much. As usual.

Jake cursed and took another pull on his beer. Setting it in the dash board cup holder he flipped open the cylinder to check the load again, then flipped it closed again and gave the cylinder a theatrical spin. He squinted at the dash board clock and his alcohol sodden brain did the necessary mental gymnastics that allowed him to realize that he didn’t have much time left. They’d all be there now; Cindy’s prim, upright, and more than a little crazy family. He straightened in the seat and reached for the ignition. The big V-8 came to with a satisfying rumble. After feeling his jacket pocket where the extra ammunition was hanging out, he slammed the truck into gear and threw a rooster tail of gravel as he roared out of the parking lot and out onto I-70 headed east.

It was time to go home and take care of some business.

It was also Fate….minus seven minutes and counting.

On I-70 near Salina….Headed West…..1:26 PM

The big Peterbilt tractor passed out of the highway tunnel and began clawing its way up the shallow grade of the long switchback before it in low gear. It was slow going. One more reason that Bruce Connor didn’t care for mountain driving. It was an inevitable part of over-the-road freight hauling, but he didn’t have to like it. As he down shifted into another curve of the switchback it was almost as if he had nerve endings joined with his rig. He could feel the wear and tear on his beloved truck; which, to his mind, translated as a hemorrhage in his profits for the trip. “C’mon Sweetheart, only a couple of more miles, then we’re through the saddle in the mountains and we can drop down into Salina on the other side. Be good for me, and daddy will score you a nice big fix of diesel when we get there. After that, it’s just another thirty miles and then when can get that load of steel off your back.”

His load consisted of steel I-beams, consigned to a UDOT highway improvement project on the other side of Salina. Not his favorite load to haul. If he’d had his druthers he’d have spent his entire career hauling lettuce from the Imperial Valley to the rest of the country. Low weight, minimum wear and tear on his rig and a fast turn around. Alas however, an independent has to hustle work where he can. That included hauling multi-ton loads of steel that made his truck brake and accelerate like the Queen Mary. Once he passed the notch above Salina he could stop worrying about his gear box and engine…and start worrying about his gear box and his brakes. He worried about his load too. It was secured adequately to the flat bed behind him. It wasn’t going anywhere without him. All the same, he checked the tie-downs frequently, just to be certain. If one of them failed, even on a shallow grade like the one that he was currently on, he’d lose his load in the blink of an eye. But that wasn’t happening today.

So far, so good.

Where he went, the steel went…and vice versa.

It was Fate minus 4 minutes….and counting.

Jim Valenti’s SUV…Going West on I-70….1:28:30 PM

Jim had his foot nearly to the firewall, goaded along by Amy’s urgency. Privately he couldn’t see the sense of suffering when there was a bathroom in the RV, but Amy had declared it unfit for her use, and that was that. So Jim was in a hurry. He’d blown by the RV a few miles before they’d entered the tunnel. There was no traffic to speak of, so he had a clear shot at the road ahead. Throwing caution to the winds he emerged from the other end of the tunnel like a shell fired out of an enormous cannon. He was a man with a mission, and God help his upholstery and his love life if he failed.

The switchback ahead caused him to slow somewhat, but not as much as your average civilian would have had to. Years of pursuit driving saw to that. All the same it was a big switchback, leading up the mountain, to the pass above Salina. Under other circumstances it would have been a pretty drive. The smooth mountainside being dotted with house-sized multi-hued sandstone outcrops that the road builders hadn’t bothered to move as they built the highway on its sinuous path around and through them.

He wasn’t paying attention today though. No amount of natural beauty could stir him the way that “Sidewinder Bar and Grill – Food - Gas - Restrooms - 8 MILES” could. He could see Amy staring at the sign the way the Children of Israel must have looked at the Promised Land. “Hang on Baby,” he said. “I’ll have us there in a couple on minutes.

In actuality it would take a bit longer than that.

Fate….minus ninety seconds and counting.

Aboard Greyhound 102…..1:29 PM

The driver had bypassed Salina. There had been no passengers or freight to pick up, they’d had a stop for lunch in Marysvale, and his tanks had enough fuel to make Denver. So he was pushing on. There would be no stopping this side of the Utah/Colorado border.

Not for the first time Maggie thanked her lucky stars that she had an undemanding daughter. She’d heard so many horror stories about ‘special children’; tales of violent behavior, incessant noise, no impulse control, or all of the above. Her daughter was none of those things. She was as sweet and gentle a child as you could ask for. She simply didn’t speak much. That alone reinforced her belief that there was nothing wrong with Theresa. She was ‘special’ in that she was simply different, not because she was defective. As a result she was calm and cheerful under circumstances that would have had even normal children throwing tantrums out of sheer boredom.

Theresa was still glued to the window, with Maggie’s arm around her, when her muscles tensed, signaling a change in her attention level. Theresa leaned forward as an SUV roared past them, headed back up the switchback towards Salina.

“What’s the matter Sweetie?” Maggie asked her daughter.

“Nothing mommy,” Theresa responded, as she went back to studying the landscape flying by their window.

Maggie wasn’t put off. Her daughter wasn’t apathetic by any means, but she seldom displayed this much overt interest in other people unless they approached her first. “Was it something about that truck, Honey? Is something wrong?”

Not taking her eyes off the scenery Theresa shook her head with unchild-like slowness, as if she were only giving her mother part of her
attention. “No, I was just watching the mommy and daddy go by.”

“The mommy and daddy?”

“Yup,” Theresa answered, bobbing her head to emphasize her reply.

Maggie sat back and smiled. “How many kids did they have with them?”

“None,” came the one word answer.

“Then how do you know that they were a mommy and a daddy?”

Theresa shrugged eloquently.

“Theresa?”

“They just were, that’s all,” Theresa responded with finality. “They’re nice.”

Maggie was still hunting for a response when fate caught up with her.

With a noise like the end of the world.

Salina Pass…..1:30 PM

Bruce Connor downshifted and headed into the blind curve the lead the last short leg of highway headed up into the notch in the mountains. He could already feel his tension levels dropping as he entered the home stretch, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Because it meant that he wasn’t on top of his game when the Jake Myers’ pickup truck came weaving around the curve ahead on two wheels and cut a line straight for his left bumper.

With the distance so short there was no where to go, and beyond the narrow shoulder there was simply a steep boulder strewn slope leading down to the leg of the switchback that he’d just been on…and the one below that….and the one below that. Connor was still trying to brake when Jake Myers made his estranged wife’s life far easier by making her a young widow. The impact of his truck on the eighteen-wheeler’s left bumper had one other result. It applied a new vector to Bruce’s still moving Peterbilt that sent it rolling inexorably over the drop off and down the slope towards the road below it.

Jim Valenti’s SUV….Same time

“JIM!”

Amy’s terrified scream galvanized him, even as time slowed to a crawl. He’d been focused on the road…but now instinct took over and his foot ground the gas pedal to the floor. It was pure cop instinct. Don’t stop in the middle of a situation. Get out of it first then look back to see what happened; and what, if anything, you can do about it. The SUV jumped like a frightened jack rabbit, covering the hundred feet or so to the curve in front of them in a split second, whereupon Jim braked sharply and fishtailed the SUV into a quarter turn…..just in time to see the runaway semi-truck roar down the slope like the wrath of god, and slam into the blacktop that they’d been occupying only a moment earlier.

Whatever control that the luckless driver had had was lost as the doomed tractor’s front end ground into the asphalt, causing the big rig to jack knife as the Peterbilt rolled onto its side accompanied by thunder that Jim could feel through the tires and frame of his truck. Ordinarily the trailer would have rolled with it, but the structural steel in the load had too much mass and momentum for that. It wasn’t any load of California lettuce. Also, under ordinary conditions the truck would have lost its load in the jack knife, but Bruce Connor was too cautious a hauler. His tie-downs were the best that money could buy, and he used more than were required by regulations. Anywhere that steel went; the trailer it rode on was going too. This was too much for the shackle joining the trailer to the rig…which broke…leaving the trailer roll ponderously onward, over the edge of the road and picking up speed as it slid down slope to the next leg in the switchback. Jim could only watch the nightmare scenario unfold as the Greyhound bus that they’d just passed emerged from the road cut coming out of the lower curve into the path of the oncoming trailer. The driver couldn’t have seen it coming, and couldn’t have done anything even if he had. The trailer load of steel t-boned the bus perfectly ramming it sideways off the road and rolling it as the trailer sheared through the fabric of the Greyhound’s body and frame, tearing it in two, like cardboard. With its speed barely diminished the trailer rolled on down the next slope, its path slightly altered by the vector imparted by the doomed bus…straight for the mouth of the tunnel at the bottom of the switchback…the tunnel from which the RV would be emerging at any moment.

Jim was still reaching for the walkie talkie when the trailer, approaching from an angle, slammed into the far side of the highway tunnel in a cloud of dust and debris. Amy’s second scream caused him to look up as the trailer’s momentum and the sudden stop combined to cause its tie downs to fail at last. The shifting load rolled the trailer onto its left side, leaving left side of the road clear…but the right side, the side the kids would be on, was entirely blocked. Jim sat there for long paralyzed moments; clutching the radio in unresponsive fingers….until a miracle occurred as the unmarked motor home crept slowly out of the cloud of dust to maneuver around the wrecked trailer and came to a stop. Jim silently, and not for the first time in recent history, offered his thanks to God.

The kids were okay.

Brody’s RV…moments earlier

Max was still driving, with Liz riding shotgun. “Liz? Is there anything to drink left in the refrigerator?” Max asked as he eyed the approaching tunnel. “Or have the bottomless pits that we call our friends and family cleaned it out already?”

Liz chuckled. “Even if the good stuff is gone, I know there’ll be water. And that’s good enough for humans and aliens, especially when you consider what you usually drink. Two Dasanis, coming right up.” With that she stood up and headed back to the kitchen, passing the dining area she saw Kyle stretched out asleep on the seats along on side of the table while Isabel sat across the table from him and played solitaire. Michael and Maria were silently wrapped up in each other in one of the two large lounge chairs next to the TV, which was off. They didn’t seem to be doing anything, other than watching the scenery fly by, though Liz would have bet that there was some sort of exchange going on. It simply wasn’t vocal. Her train of thought was pulled back to her mission when Max spoke again.

“I can handle water, but only if there’s no cherry coke!” Max sang out. ~If there is, could you see if we have any Tabasco left, to go with it?~”

“~Don’t worry, I have a reserve stash in my purse, just for…~” Liz broke off suddenly as a wave of fear swept through her mind like a flood tide. The presentiment of this morning was back with potent force. They were all in deadly danger. NOW!

“~Liz? What…~” Liz cut Max off abruptly.

“~Stop the RV Max!~”

The RV plunged into artificial night as they entered the highway tunnel. Looking out through the windshield, from where she stood, Liz could see the far end of the tunnel as a bright square of light…and she feared it like nothing she’d ever seen before in her life. And Max could feel it. Her terror was creeping into him through the connection, despite her efforts to keep it constrained.

“~Max, if you trust me, if you love me, for the love of God, STOP THE RV NOW!~” Unable to contain the flood any longer, Liz cringed as the nameless fear roared out of her mind and into Max’s. He responded at once, shouting “Everyone grab something and hang on!” as he stamped on the brake pedal, locking the brakes and bringing the RV literal screeching halt fifty feet short of the end of the tunnel to the accompaniment of assorted shouts, curses, and at least one short sharp shriek from the rear of the RV. A split second later there was a dull boom as a runaway flatbed trailer with its load of steel and a cloud of assorted debris impacted the right edge of the tunnel. A pall of dust rushed up the tunnel past the idling RV. Fortunately the windows were up, so the choking cloud was kept outside. However the darkness of the tunnel increased to stygian levels as the light level dropped nearly to zero.

The door to the rear bedroom was flung open abruptly. “What the bloody blue-nosed hell is going on?!” bellowed an enraged Brody Davis. “Max? Liz? Anyone? Is anyone hurt? And who the hell was driving?”

“~Liz? Are you all right?!~” came Max’s silent query. The question was redundant. Max would have known at once if anything were seriously wrong with his soul mate, but he had to ask anyway.

“~I’m all right Max. I’m fine…just a little shaken up. You know I had more warning than everyone else. I hit the deck a second before you hit the brakes. Things happened fast, but I think I heard someone bounce off the lounge table. It had to be either Michael or Maria….if not both of them.~” Liz rose shaky legs. “~Get us out into the open if you can, while I handle things back here.~” By ‘things’, Liz meant Brody. She turned to address him as she felt the RV begin to ease forward. “Brody, it’s okay. There was an accident right in front of us, and there was no time for Max to do anything but shout a warning and slam on the brakes.”

Brody blinked in the gloom, trying to get his eyes to adapt. “Good lord! Where are we?”

“In a highway tunnel,” Liz answered. “The accident happened right at the mouth of the tunnel. Max is trying to get us out of here.”

“Max?” Brody called out as he tried to feel his way forward. “Can you see anything? Which way are we going?” He paused, remembering their other friends. “Maria? Michael? Kyle? Isabel? Sound off!”

“I’m okay, aside from a shot to the ribs and some bruises,” Isabel responded. “Alex is freaking, so if you don’t mind…?”

“Go ahead,” Brody shot back as Isabel fell silent. Then he turned his attention to the others. “Kids? I’m waiting?”

“I’m okay,” answered Michael in a strained voice. “I’ve got Maria too, but she’s unconscious. The sudden stop yanked her out of my arms, and I think I can feel blood on the side of her head. I can’t *see* damn it!”

Kyle chimed in to say, “I’m fine. I was stretched out on one of the bench seats at the dining table, facing the back of the bus. All the sudden stop did was force me harder into the seat.”

Brody was still cautiously making his way forward as the others had reported in. As Kyle fell silent Max spoke. “We’re moving forward, slowly. I don’t dare back up, because I’m almost blind. I want us out of the tunnel before we get rear-ended by someone else who’s driving blind too. “

Brody nodded to himself. There was really nothing else that Max could do. He reached the front and blinked at the slowly increasing light as he flopped into the passenger’s seat. “Keep it up. We’re getting close to the end I think.”

At that moment the dust parted cleanly and allowed them to emerge into clear air. Max cut the wheel slightly to steer clear of the jumble of wreckage strewn occupying the right lane and shoulder of the road. Broken trailer, structural steel, and fallen rock from the lip of the tunnel combined to create a tangled and dangerous barrier for them to get around. Max did so quickly, both to clear the lane that he was in, and to get out from between the wreck and any traffic coming behind him.

“~Max! Are we in the clear?~” Liz’s mind voice rang out sharply.

“~For the moment yes, Liz...I,~” he didn’t get to finish the thought.

“~Get your ass back here Max. Maria needs us. She’s hurt!~”

Max pulled onto the shoulder and slipped out of the driver’s seat. “Maria’s hurt, I’m going to go see what I can do.”

Brody nodded. “Go Max.” At that moment the walkie talkie trilled. Brody grabbed it. “Yes?”

Jim Valenti’s unsteady voice answered. “Can I just say that the last thirty seconds trimmed thirty years off of my life that I can’t do without?”

“What happened, Jim?”

“I’m not sure Brody. I didn’t know that anything *was* happening until Amy screamed a warning. A runaway eighteen-wheeler came down the slope from above. It missed us, but bisected a bus on the next leg down before it just missed you guys on the leg below that.” Brody heard Jim draw a shaky breath. “Is everyone okay down there?”

Brody hesitated. “It’s mostly bruises and shaken feelings as far as I’ve been able to discover.” He paused again. “Amy, don’t panic, but Maria’s hurt. Max and Liz are with her now.”

[Kzinti_Killer]

Title: Still Yours
Author: KK
Disclaimer: The characters that count in this do not belong to me in any way shape or form. I simply borrowed them from someone else's toy box.
Category: Crossover Roswell/Highlander A/I +CC
Rating: MATURE shifting to ADULT later on.

STILL YOURS - Part 19h
(The Evidence of Things Not Seen)


Bear Run Asylum….Same time

Alex was climbing the ladder to the roof when it happened. They’d decided to let him take a turn on watch, though they still didn’t let him stand a watch alone. Amanda was joining him, and she waited at the bottom of the ladder for him to get clear. The shock hit when his foot was between rungs and he froze, unmoving, as a host of impressions poured into his mind through the connection.

Watching from below Amanda stared at him for a moment as she waited for him to move. When he didn’t, she spoke with concern in her voice. “Alex, what’s the matter?”

“Something bad,” he muttered. “Something very bad.” He slid down the ladder, landed heavily, and crouched against the wall as his mind turned inward.

“~Isabel?~”

“~Hang on Alex, we’re kind of busy here,~” his soul mate responded.

Amanda squatted next to him and keyed her radio. “Is anyone listening?” It was Methos, who was up on the roof, who answered her page first.

“Yes grandma?”

“Can it old man,” she shot back. “Something is wrong. We were on our way up to relieve you when Alex froze. Now he’s squatting against the wall down here, white as a sheet, with that ‘seriously-out-to-lunch’ glaze to his eyes.”

Cassandra came on the radio. “Hang on, I’m on my way.”

Meanwhile Isabel had finished updating Alex about what had happened. Cassandra had just slid to a halt in front of them when Alex felt Isabel’s level of consternation rise sharply. He tensed as she did. “~What’s the matter?~”

“~Damn it!~” came Isabel’s response. “~This is no time for a composite to go on strike!~” Then she told him what was happening.

To the eyes of his two surrogate mothers Alex promptly turned even paler and put his head down on his knees.

All he said was, “Maria.”

Jim Valenti’s SUV….Same time

Amy was trembling violently, as much from fear for her daughter as she was for relief that they weren’t all dead.

“Honey?” Jim addressed her. “Are you okay?”

Amy looked up at him, startled. “I will be in a minute.” With that she threw her door open and stumbled out of the truck, purse in hand, and into the desert scrub next to the road. Jim was out of the truck and, after a moment of hesitation, he let her have her moment alone. After all, they’d never made it to a bathroom.

Jim sighed, he knew that the last thing that they needed was official attention, but simple humanity outweighed all other considerations right now. It was time to start the ball rolling. He flipped on his roof lights, and grabbing the mic on his dash radio he flipped across the channels until he caught a broadcast. A man’s voice.

“Margie, is Dave back in his office yet? I still need a tow for that abandoned junk heap out on 89,” came the chatter.

Valenti keyed the mic. “Any officer. Any officer. Officer needs assistance,” he said urgently.

The voice answered back at once. “Sheriff Bryce Lathrop here. I know every voice that should be coming over my radio and yours isn’t one of them, whoever you are. If this is joke, it isn’t funny.”

Jim grimaced. “I wish it were. This is Sheriff James Valenti out of Chavez County, New Mexico. I’m on vacation with my,’ Jim tripped over the word; “…family in your fair state, and you just had one hell of an accident out on I-70.”

“Where and how bad?” Lathrop snapped back.

“If I understand where I am, we’re on the switchback grade just before you reach Salina from the east. A big rig driver lost control at the top of the grade.” Jim hesitated, and edited events carefully. “His rig came straight down the mountain and narrowly missed creaming me and my family, then he jack knifed and lost his trailer, which went on to t-bone a bus the next leg down. It went through the bus like it was made of paper. Then it went down one more slope to hit the mouth of the highway tunnel at the bottom.”

“A semi trailer wouldn’t do what you just described,” Lathrop said suspiciously.

“No, it wouldn’t all by itself,” Valenti shot back. “But the load of steel on its back would.”

“Casualties,” Lathrop asked.

“Unknown,” Valenti answered.

“Why not?” Lathrop shot back.

Jim cleared his throat. “We were in search of a restroom when all this happened. Right now the roadside desert scrub makes as good a pit stop as any, so I called you while I’m waiting.”

Lathrop gave a grim chuckle. “Been there, done that. Okay, give me your best guess.”

Jim looked over the torn remains of the big rig and the bus. “I give the semi driver 80/20 odds. Anyone seated in the middle of that bus is dead, barring the direct intercession of the Almighty. The front and back ends are anyone’s guess. I’d say, roll out every piece of emergency equipment you can get your hands on and hope that it’s enough. It’ll be better to have too much than too little.”

“I agree,” Lathrop answered heavily. “I’m rolling now, but even at pursuit speeds I can’t be there for twenty-five minutes or more.” He paused. “Valenti, you said that your first name was James? Do people call you Jim?”

“Yes”

“Okay Jim, can you stay on scene?”

“Yes,” Valenti answered simply.

“Margie, have you got your ears on?” Lathrop sang out to his dispatcher. “What’s our situation?”

The radio hissed for a second then cleared as the dispatcher keyed her mic and spoke. “I’ve put out an all stations/all officers. Only five deputies are close enough to be able to do any good. The closest is Bud Harnnet, and he says his ETA is twenty minutes. The Salina Volunteers are rolling. They’ll be fifteen minutes. The air ambulance from Marysvale will be about as long. Also, two UHP cruisers are rolling in from the east and the west, but they’ll be half an hour at least.”

“Okay,” Lathrop answered. “Jim, you’re temporarily deputized into the Sevier County sheriff’s department. You’re the ranking officer on scene until Bud Hamnet gets there,” he paused, “but I’d appreciate it if you stay in the saddle until I get there. Bud’s kinda green.”

Valenti chuckled. “How do you know that I’m not?”

“This is the southwest, Jim. A lot of space and few people, and the law enforcement community out here has fewer people still. Rumors and reputations travel. Your name, and your father’s name, precedes you….though I couldn’t recall it there for a minute.”

Smiling wryly, and wondering if that was a good thing, Valenti
answered, “I have to stay to give a statement anyway.”

“Thanks much, Sheriff,” Lathrop responded. “I’ll see you soon. Keep your radio tuned to channel 3. Lathrop out.”

Jim racked the mic and looked up to see Amy emerging from the scrub. She looked better than she had.

“Are you okay?”

Amy shrugged. “I should have used the bathroom in the RV. Compared to a spot behind a bush it would have been like the Ritz-Carlton. You’re just lucky that I didn’t ruin your upholstery.” She looked down the hill at the enormous spread of wreckage. “Let’s go see what we can do.”

Jim sighed. ”Honey I can try four-wheel down that slope, but I wouldn’t give you much for our chances.” He shook his head as he looked at the partially blocked road. “The thing is, we may not get to the kids any other way.”

Amy took a cleansing breath and nodded as she kept walking towards the SUV. As much as the mother in her wanted to have hysterics right at the moment, they couldn’t afford them. Sometimes you had to have a little faith. “Then we’ll start at the top and work down. Maria may be hurt, but she’s with Max and Liz. As long as she’s still alive, they’ll see that she stays that way. Lets see what we can do for the others first.”

A moment later they were rolling towards the smoking wreckage of the big tractor.

Inside the wreckage of Greyhound 102……same time

Maggie Stone Eagle struggled upwards through the twilight world that was, at best, reluctant to let her go. Pain and discomfort buffeted her, like powerful winds, trying to keep her in the gray half-light between awake and unconscious. By dent of raw guts and a mother’s love, she clawed her way back to consciousness. The first thing that she was aware of was the pain and constricting pressure that kept her from taking a full breath. It was as if her chest were in the coils of some mammoth boa constrictor. Breathing only in sips, she was getting just enough air to keep her awake, with none to spare. The next thing that she registered was the fact that she was held fast by something and was unable to get loose, or even to move her arms. She could feel them, she could feel her abused muscles strain against the bindings that held her, and she could certainly feel the pain that went with those efforts; but she could not move an inch. The third thing was the smell. A mix of fumes from spilled diesel fuel, overlaying the dry scent of hot dust and hotter metal, and under all that was the bright metallic odor of fresh blood.

Her eyes fluttered open as she struggled to orient herself. She couldn’t spare any strength to even shake her head to clear it, so her vision remained blurry. The cause of her shortness of breath and forced immobility was immediately obvious. Severed from the rest of the bus, the rear end had gone its own way and impacted a house-sized boulder causing the rear to telescope a bit. She was still in her seat, but the seat in front of her was now in her lap, and the two seatbacks were squeezing her like a bug in a vise. It was nothing short of a miracle that her ribs hadn’t collapsed from the impact. Staring upwards at the ceiling she tried to orient her self and remember what had happened. Something had happened. They were riding the bus, and there was a noise, a really loud noise….after that…then her thoughts oriented themselves by priority and she realized that *they* had been on the bus.

“Theresa!” It came out in a hoarse whisper born of desperation. Theresa had been next to her in the seat, and now she wasn’t. Maggie blinked her eyes furiously in an effort to clear her vision. It worked well enough, because when the pained whimper came her head snapped around to the right, and she saw her daughter. What she saw sent adrenaline surging through her veins like liquid fire. She tried to scream, but couldn’t find enough air to do so. Failing that she fought her confinement like a wild cat, she failed at that too. Already suffering from oxygen deprivation and modest injuries, the effort to break free and the hot agony that it brought with it exhausted her meager reserves. She saw blackness creeping in on the edges of her vision, as the bus shifted slightly jolting her painfully. In a final insult, a fiber and plastic ceiling panel fell loose at one end and swung down in her face, obscuring her line of sight to Theresa. With her last strength she whispered, “Hang on baby, help will come. Just hang on a little longer.” Silently she spoke to a God that she’d almost stopped believing in when her husband had died. “Please, don’t make a liar out of me. Not today.”

Then the darkness claimed Maggie Stone Eagle once more.

Brody’s RV……Same time

Everyone watched with mounting concern as Max and Liz tried again to fuse, to no avail. Their composite was no where to be seen. Michael was crouched over an unconscious Maria, holding gauze pad from the first aid kit to a deep gash on her temple that the edge of a table top had put there. It was saturated with blood, as were the two that had come before it. Michael felt the beginnings of panic rising in his chest as he felt the fire of Maria’s life begin to flicker and weaken.

“Damn it Max, where the hell is it? Maria needs you guys *right now*!”

Both of his friends had identical expressions of naked guilt and sorrow on their faces, but Michael didn’t care. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have dared to attempt a major healing himself, but he was getting very close to going for broke, and both Max and Liz could see it in his eyes. They also knew that his panic at being unable to connect would elevate his unpracticed efforts at healing from the merely harmful to outright disastrous. Only moments earlier they’d reached for each other through the connection only to feel as if they were slipping past each other, with neither able to find purchase on their soul mate’s “self”. The connection was there, but the composite remained missing in action. Without their composite, the possibility of helping Maria was remote indeed.

Max Evans began to feel some of what his friend was feeling. They’d only had the composites for a brief time, but they’d already come to depend on them, too much it would seem. “~Max?~” spoke a gentle voice in his mind. He immediately felt his heart slow as her presence soothed him and he allowed himself a moment of awed admiration for the woman that was his chosen mate. She was as terrified as he was, he could feel it, but she was suppressing it ruthlessly so that they could handle the situation. “And now she’s having to handle *me* as a part of the situation,” he thought. “Okay, suck it up Evans, it’s time to live up to your alleged title.” He shared a long look with Liz and saw his own determination mirrored in her eyes. He reached for her again through the connection as he drew her close and her arms went around his neck as they knelt next to Maria and Michael. It had worked the first time, maybe it would work again. As he bent to kiss her, she blocked his mouth with two fingers.

“It wasn’t about the kiss, was about the love and the need, Max. We love and need each other, not just you and me, but all of us.” She settled closer to his chest, inhaling his scent, preparing herself; as she threw open the floodgates of her mind and soul. “I need you now Max, and I need you to need me back, like you did that night, because Maria needs both of us.”

Max met her in the connection, dipping into his memories to recapture the hope and hopelessness that had fired his need for Liz the night of their first fusion in the Crashdown. As they met in the connection they sought to surround each other to prevent the ‘slipping’ phenomenon that they’d experienced earlier, and thanks to the insane topology of that place in which their souls touched, they succeeded.

***FUSION***
It was awake, but something was wrong. There was a sense of incredible deprivation. Had It been human the feelings would have resembled a mélange of starvation, suffocation, and terrible thirst, while not being a perfect match for any of the three. Its continued existence, in this here and now, was now coming at the price of draining Its constituents, moment by moment they grew weaker as they had in the beginning. It knew why It was there, and It had to act quickly if It were going to act at all. Reaching out with the max’s hand, It groped for the maria, forcing the connection. Repairing the depressed skull fracture and sorting out the cerebral tissue damage was the work of a moment. A fast scan revealed the beginnings of trauma associated shut down of vital functions. It weighed Its choices for only half a heart beat, then borrowed a bit of life force from each of Its two halves and infused the maria. That was the best that It could do. She would recover fully now, but it would take time. Its job done, It shut down abruptly, before the max and the liz killed themselves with their caring

***FISSION***

Michael had realized what was happening as soon as Max’s hand had groped for Maria’s shoulder. He gently wiped away the blood that marred her temple and matted her hair, using his powers sparingly to assist him in cleaning her up. The skin underneath was healthy looking and pink, and the nightmarishly deep depression was gone. He sensed that she wasn’t fading anymore, but that was all that he had time for as Max’s hand jerked back, breaking contact with Maria. He opened his mouth to rip into Max about leaving the job half-done when Max and Liz slowly folded over, still hanging on to each other, and collapsed to the floor. Kyle was there in an instant.

“Max? Liz? What’s wrong?”

Liz stirred and groaned as she said, “We’re tired, that’s what’s wrong. There’s something that the composite needs to exist, that it couldn’t find this time…which is why it was so hard to initiate, so it took what it needed from us.”

“Something it needs?” Michael was frowning now. “We didn’t know….”

“Apparently there’s a lot that we didn’t know,” Max said, cutting him off in a tired voice. “You were right, Michael. The composites are dangerous, but not the way that you thought that they were. They can kill us because we don’t learn enough about them before becoming dependent on them. There is or was something that the composite needs, like air to breathe, and it’s lacking now. Before Liz and I…well, before we resolved the situation, what it needed must have been present, it just couldn’t get as much as it wanted. Now it’s not there at all. So we were back to square one. Only before, where it was doing stuff that was pretty low draft energy-wise, this time was a full emergency healing. “ Max rolled over and ran a trembling hand across his face. “It cost us, a lot.”

Brody had walked back to join them while they were talking and stood silently listening. “Most kids their age are worried about peer pressure, grades, and their first car”, he thought. “Ours have to balance life and death. Speaking of which…” he spoke aloud. “Kids, I just got off the walkie talkie with the sheriff. He and Amy checked on the truck driver that the trailer belonged to. He’s alive...injured, but he managed to drag himself out of the wreck, and he’ll last until help arrives. The sheriff has also been in contact with local law enforcement, the first rescue units will be on scene in fifteen minutes or so. We have fifteen minutes tops to do what we can for the survivors, and then he wants us to turn around and backtrack to that county road we passed about three miles back the other side of the tunnel. It will cost us another hour, but he doesn’t want you on record as having been at this accident scene, and neither do I. Not when you’re supposed to be in another state entirely!” He looked at Max and Liz sharply as they both tried to stagger to their feet. “That doesn’t mean you two. You stay put!”

Max looked rebellious for a moment, but he subsided and looked at Michael. “You’re second. Maria will be out of it for a while, but she’ll recover now. I need you out there.”

Michael’s face set in stubborn lines for a moment, and then he nodded. There’d been so many times in his life, before that day in the Crashdown that led Max to finally follow his heart, when Michael had wondered just why Max was running things for the three of them, and not him. Now he knew. It was the ability to make to hard choices. He looked down at the petite blonde that he cradled in his lap. Planting a kiss on her newly healed temple he hugged her as if she were made of soap bubbles, then he surrendered her to Max and Liz and stood up. “Let’s move.”

Brody nodded. “I’m going to move us up the switchback so that we’re *above* the debris field of the bus, after that you’re on foot.”

Brody and Michael walked to the front of the RV, and Michael watched as Brody started the engine moved them up and around the curve. Michael looked back down hill and then up hill. The path that the runaway trailer had taken was obvious, but their problem was closer to hand…downhill. “Alright, everybody out, and look at your watches. The clock is ticking, and I want plenty of time margin left when we pull out of here. Be back here in less than fifteen minutes, no longer. Do what you can as ordinary humans would, no more than that. If I have to come after you when it’s time to leave, you won’t like it when I find you.”

In the back of the RV Max winced. That line was pure Michael. He longed to get out there and buffer the others, but he was too exhausted to try….and Michael had to learn sometime.

As they piled out of the RV carrying supplies from Brody’s ample first-aid kit…if you could call a box the size of a military footlocker a ‘kit’….Michael nodded towards the rear half of the bus, sitting upright now twenty yards down slope. Thankfully the slope here was longer and gentler than the others. They wouldn’t have to play mountain goat as well as paramedic “Kyle, Isabel, you take the rear. I’ll take the front.” He turned to Brody. “Stay with the RV and keep the motor turning. It’ll keep it cool for Max, Liz, and Maria,” he noted as the heat was already bringing sweat out on his skin. “And it’ll save time if we have to pull out in a hurry.” He glanced at his watch. “Twelve minutes, let’s move.” With that he took off down slope towards the front end of the shattered Greyhound.

[Kzinti_Killer]

Title: Still Yours
Author: KK
Disclaimer: The characters that count in this do not belong to me in any way shape or form. I simply borrowed them from someone else's toy box.
Category: Crossover Roswell/Highlander A/I +CC
Rating: MATURE shifting to ADULT later on.

STILL YOURS - Part 19i
(The Evidence of Things Not Seen)


Bear Run Asylum…a moment later.

Alex had just emerged from the connection long enough to give Amanda and Cassandra an update on things before he dove back in to be with Isabel. He didn’t bother her with questions, but instead elected to be ‘the angel on her shoulder’.

Duncan had arrived at a dead run, along with Richie. He took one look at Alex and made a brusque query. “What the hell’s happening?”

Amanda made a shushing motion. “Relax Duncan. Alex’s friends just got caught in the middle of a traffic accident out on an interstate in Utah. A semi cut a Greyhound bus in two, right in front of them. They have a casualty that they’re trying to deal with. A friend.”

Far away the results of Max and Liz’s efforts had finally borne fruit, and Alex relaxed visibly as Isabel passed him the information. “They did it. They managed to summon their fusion and heal Maria. They’re already fanning out and try to help the other injured with what little time they have left.”

Duncan frowned. “What little time?”

Alex paused for a few long moments, as if listening to someone else, and then he nodded to himself as much as to Duncan. “Sheriff Valenti contacted local law enforcement. The first rescue units will be there in a quarter of an hour. He wants no official record that any of my friends were anywhere in the area, when they’re supposed to be a half a state further east.”

Duncan nodded. “That makes sense….” He trailed off as Alex’s face paled. “What is it?”

“Give me your cell phone,” Alex rapped out, as he held out his hand. When Duncan hesitated, Cassandra handed him hers. Punching in a number from memory Alex waited for the connection, then spoke. “Liz, Isabel and Kyle need you and Max, right now.”

In the debris field of Greyhound 102….

Isabel and Kyle were trying to enter the rear half of the wrecked bus through the shredded opening made when the trailer cut it in half. The wreckage was a hodgepodge of twisted metal, dislodged seats, torn insulation, and shattered luggage from the cargo compartment. At first glance there appeared to be no one in that half of the bus, but Kyle’s ear caught a mouse-like whimper. He paused for a moment, listening hard, peering into the gloomy interior.

“There’s someone in there. I heard something,” he said.

Isabel nodded. “I did too.” She glanced over her shoulder to where Michael was trying to work his way into the front half of the bus. “Ordinary human abilities be damned,” she muttered. Her hands reached out and stroked the twisted wreckage. Torn metal flowed and bent back out of the way.

“Atta girl, princess,” Kyle encouraged. “We can’t help them if we can’t get to them.”

With Kyle giving her a boost, Isabel scrambled up the sloping aisle in the middle of the torn bus using the remaining seat stanchions as handholds and footholds. Some had their seats completely or partially missing. She’d only made it about ten feet when a distinctive smell reached her, the metallic taint of fresh blood. She didn’t have to look far for the source of the odor as a faint line of red appeared, trickling down the sloping floor to her left. Scrambling forward a few remaining feet she found herself in a crumpled section where the seats to her left were completely missing. To her lasting horror she found the source of the blood. A little girl, perhaps eight or nine years old, looking small and thin for her age…and terribly pale. The reason for the pallor was obvious, since the middle of her slender right thigh was impaled on the ragged end of a seat stanchion which projected a good eight inches out of her skin. She was bleeding heavily. Reaching across the aisle to grip a stanchion she saw something else that froze her. Feet. Someone’s feet on the floor three seats further back. A fallen ceiling panel obscured the head and upper body of whoever it was.

“Kyle,” she panted. “I’ve got this one, there’s another one on the right.”

The person on the right made her gender known with a breathy whisper. “Help her, please. My little girl.”

Isabel remembered her first-aid lessons from the time that her mother, on a family self-improvement kick, had signed them up for classes at the local Red Cross. Max had bullied her into going because he believed that it couldn’t hurt to know what to do in case they were ever in a position where they couldn’t use their powers on a serious injury without exposing themselves. Given the location of the puncture wound, she was amazed that the child hadn’t bled to death. “I’ll help her ma’am.” Isabel gently probed the girl’s upper thigh, feeling for the femoral artery. Finding the blood vessel and applying pressure she slowed the bleeding, but this wasn’t something that first-aid was going to handle. This child was too close to the edge as it was. As if to underscore the issue the little girl whimpered slightly and her eyelids flickered. Either someone was going to have to keep pressure on that artery until the EMT’s arrived, or a more permanent solution was needed, at once. Internally she winced at what she was about to do, as she reached out through the connection. Thinking that Michael was going to burst a blood vessel, she gave Alex the situation and made her request.

Further up the aisle Kyle reached Maggie Stone Eagle. He violated Michael’s directive a bit himself as he struggled upright and braced himself so he could get his hands on the ceiling panel. He wasn’t exactly experienced enough to show a lot of finesse, but he was good enough to dissolve to anchor points holding the other end of the panel. He took the modest weight himself to keep the panel from coming down on the woman he was there to help, as he shifted it and tossed it down to the torn end of the bus with a clatter. He glanced at Isabel and saw her glaring at him.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

Isabel’s glare softened. “A little warning would be nice.” Her eyes shifted to the woman pinned between the seats. “How is she?”

Kyle shrugged. “I’ll let you know in a minute.” Then he turned back to Maggie, only to find her eyes wide open, and regarding him with naked supplication.

“Her name is Theresa,” she whispered thinly, “she’s my daughter.”

“Okay, but what’s *your* name?” Kyle asked.

“Maggie,” she whispered.

“How do you feel Maggie?” Kyle asked as he surveyed the damage. His father had seen to it that his son knew more and better first-aid than most kids his age. Kyle’s practiced eye saw cuts and bruises that needed attention, but he was more concerned about the places he couldn’t see.

“Hurts some…can’t get my breath….can’t move.”

Kyle sighed, and was about to speak when a noise down the aisle, at the severed end of the bus, drew his attention. It was Max and Liz.

Brody’s RV…a few moments earlier

Liz’s cell phone had shrilled inside her purse. She was too tired to move from where she was resting against Max, with Maria’s head in her lap, so she looked at Brody and said, “Could you get it?”

Brody nodded sympathetically and snagged her purse. After fishing around for a minute he came up with the phone. “Hello?” There was a pause. “No, this is Brody. Hang on.” He held the phone out to Liz. “It’s Alex.”

Liz snagged the phone eagerly, her exhaustion forgotten. “Alex? We’re okay here, didn’t Isabel tell you that?”

“Yeah, Liz, she did,” Alex responded. “I don’t mind telling you that you guys scared ten years off of me. Don’t’ make a habit of that, please? Just because I can afford it now doesn’t mean that I enjoyed the experience.” He paused, listening to a prodding plea from his soulmate. “That isn’t what I called for though. Isabel has a situation outside, she had me call you. She knows that you and Max are at your limits, and she wouldn’t ask unless things were pretty dire, but she needs you both. There’s a little girl out there who’s going to bleed to death without some serious intervention.”

Liz closed her eyes a moment as her energy seemed to drain away from her. “Alex, I don’t know what we can do. Our composite could barely last long enough to heal Maria.”

Alex sighed. “I know that Liz, and so does Isabel. She said to tell you that the kid is semi-conscious right now, so if you hurry, Max may be able to do the job solo.”

Liz gave an answering sigh and looked at Max as she fed him Isabel’s plea through their connection. “~Max? Its your call.~”

Max sighed. “Last year I let a man die when I could have saved him. One ghost haunting me is enough.” He extricated himself from Liz and stood on unsteady legs. He snagged a pillow from a nearby chair and handed it to Liz, who slid it under Maria’s head as she shifted Maria off of her lap. “Let’s go get it done. With luck one of us will still be conscious when this is over.”

The debris field of Greyhound 102...

Michael saw Max and Liz emerge from the motor home and head for the other half of the Greyhound with exhaustion written all over them, and cursed. He was too busy to intervene at the moment. The bus driver was dead, as were six of the passengers in that part of the bus, but there were four other people whom he was trying to help. None of them were conscious, but they were alive, though one of them was iffy. He’d been applying first aid to any obvious wounds, while ruthlessly suppressing his desire to appeal to Max and Liz for further help. The sight of them involving themselves despite Brody’s earlier declaration to the contrary made him angry on two counts. The first was that they were bucking his authority out here, and the second was that the idiots could be risking their lives. Now that he’d had a brief taste of leadership, he’d decided that he didn’t want it to be a full time gig unless it was forced on him. He knew that he could handle it if he had to, but having Max nearly kill himself the way he had in that pediatric cancer ward wasn’t the way for it to happen.

The front half of the bus had come to a stop sitting more or less upright, as the back half had. That had kept him from the time consuming chore of moving people before he could help them. If that had been the case, there would have been little that he could do in the time that he had. Silently thanking god one more time for seat belts and for people who had sense enough to use them, he fixed a last bandage to an ugly gash on the forehead of an elderly woman in a flower print dress, did a quick survey looking for anything that he had missed, then glanced at his watch. They had four minutes left. Carefully skidding down the sloping center aisle he jumped out of the ragged end of the bus. Turning back he cast a mental apology to the survivors for not doing more, and then took off at a full run towards the other half of the bus, praying silently that his brother, friend, and king hadn’t managed to kill himself. Family came first.

Inside the rear half of Greyhound 102…..

Hurry Max,” came Isabel’s urgent plea.

“We’re coming Iz,” Max answered. “Hang in there.”

Max and Liz scrambled up the aisle, moving slowly, being careful not to expend the last of their strength before getting to where it would be needed. They reached Kyle and Isabel just as a sudden noise from back the way they’d come announced Michael’s arrival.

“Max! Are you two out of your minds?” Michael snapped as he scrambled up the aisle, with less care than his friends had taken.

“Maybe I am Michael,” Max said tiredly, “but I’ll sleep better than I would if I didn’t try at all.”

“Stow it Michael,” Isabel growled.

Michael looked down at where Isabel was laying, braced against a broken seat, trying to keep Theresa Stone Eagle from bleeding to death, and his heart broke. He swallowed his retort and gave a jerky nod. “All right, whatever you’re going to do, do it fast. You have three minutes, no more.” Turning to Kyle he asked, “How is she?” indicating the trapped woman.

Kyle’s mouth drew a grimace. “She seems to be okay, aside from the obvious problems. She’ll be better if we can get her out of here.”

“Okay then, let’s get with it,” Michael said briskly. Suiting deeds to words he wrapped a hand around the warped rear stanchion of the seat pinning Maggie and let his power do the rest. The metal groaned and bent like warm taffy as Kyle braced Maggie with his arms and raised one leg to bear down on the seat back with his foot. Once there was space between Maggie and the seat, Michael braced his feet to hold himself upright while he laid both hands on the seat back and really turned it on. The seat glowed softly as it pulled back far enough to let Kyle free Maggie Stone Eagle.

Maggie was too confused to notice what was happening. All the attention that she could was focused on her daughter. “W-what are they doing?”

“Trust me, Maggie,” Kyle grunted as he got an arm around her, taking her weight. “They’re helping her. They’re friends of mine, and they’re helping her.”

While that was happening, across the aisle, Max and Liz were kneeling next to Isabel and a semi-conscious Theresa.

Max looked the little girl over quickly. “For this to work, we need that metal out of her leg. And just pulling her off of it will do more damage.”

Isabel nodded sharply. “Her name is Theresa. Get ready,” she said as she awkwardly twisted her arm to reach under Theresa’s thigh and placed her hand on the bloody stump of metal where it entered the girl’s body. The steel glowed and began to evaporate soundlessly, leaving a slowly bleeding hole in Theresa’s thigh. “Now,” Isabel said.

Placing a hand gently under Theresa’s head, Max took her hand and leaned close to her. “Theresa, listen to me.” He squeezed her hand slightly to get her to focus. “Listen to me, you need to look at me.”

Theresa’s eyes cleared momentarily as she focused on the face above her. Shock and blood loss had placed her beyond pain. A dreamy smile drifted to her lips as she muttered, “Pretty man.”

Max grinned back at her. “Look at me, Theresa.”

And she did. The connection flashed into being, and the healing commenced.

The flashes that came and went in Max’s mind were unique. Everyday things and people in them suddenly seemed wondrous and beautiful beyond comprehension.

This was the first time that Liz had experienced Max in a connection with someone else since their fusion had been sealed. It was nothing like her memories of their healing work in the fusion. It wasn’t a matter of being connected to Max, who was connected to someone else. It was as if their own connection had broadened to include Theresa. At first Liz was a passive spectator, but after a few seconds she got a sense of what Max was doing, and instinctively began to add her own meager store of power to his. One day she would be a healer in her own right, for now she was an apprentice. After only a minute the connection turned blurry as Max pushed the limits of his endurance. Liz tried to shore him up, but even she had her limits, and she was fast approaching the end of them.

Across the aisle Maggie stared in astonishment as Max’s glowing hand shifted to her daughter’s leg. She looked at Kyle and asked, “What’s he doing? Who are you people?”

Kyle sighed. “We’re people who help people, Maggie. Let him help her. She’ll be okay now.” He glanced at Michael. “For now, we need to get you out in the open away from this wreck. You’ll do better lying down, and all the fuel leaking around here isn’t safe.”

“I won’t leave Theresa!” Maggie said adamantly.

Seeing her looking panicky, Michael broke in as he leaned forward to grasp her right arm. “You aren’t leaving her, and our friends won’t leave her either. Right now we need to get you out of here.”

Maggie protested weakly, but she was in no shape to resist as Kyle and Michael eased her out of her seat. She could manage a stumbling walk, so with Kyle and Michael supporting her, she was led down the aisle and out of the bus. Once they were out in the open, Michael hoisted her into his arms and hustled her to a shady spot against a boulder about twenty yards from the wreck where he helped her sit down with her back against the stone. Kyle had already scrambled back into the bus.

“You’ll be okay here,” Michael said. “I need to….”

“Michael!” Isabel bellowed.

“Ah shit!” Michael exploded. He knew that tone. Iz was scared. “I’ll be right back.” With that he dashed to the bus and dragged himself inside. Sure enough, Max and Liz had overdone it.

Isabel was cradling Theresa in her arms when Michael arrived, and Max and Liz were out cold.

“They both just collapsed,” Kyle gritted as he hoisted Liz into a fireman’s carry.

Michael checked to be sure that Max was still breathing and cursed. “I knew this would happen! I’m going to burn Max for this when he wakes up.” He glanced at his watch. “Shit! We’re two minutes past the deadline.”

“Then lets get moving,” Kyle said as he started awkwardly down the aisle with Liz.

“Oh sure,” Michael grunted as he heaved Max onto his shoulder. “Leave the heavy one for me.” After he had Max where he wanted him he started down the aisle. Without turning he said, “Isabel, clean up all the blood before you come out. I don’t want anything to show that there was ever a serious injury aboard this half of the bus.” He didn’t wait to hear her acknowledge him as he staggered to where he had to put Max down so he could scramble out of the bus himself. Turning he jerked Max back up and started towards the motor home. He met Jim Valenti’s SUV halfway there as it threaded its way through the sloping rock strewn terrain. The SUV’s window came down as the truck slowed.

“When you get to the motor home, stay there. I’ll send Isabel along in a minute. Be ready to roll,” Jim Valenti ordered.

“What about you?” Michael panted.

“I promised to stay on scene. Someone has to. Now move it. I hear a helicopter.”

Michael didn’t spare time to nod. “There were four people alive in the other half of the bus,” he grunted. Then he struck off towards the motor home in as close to a sprint as he could manage. Arriving at the door he passed Max to the waiting arms of Brody, who dragged Max inside with a grunt. Michael was gasping heavily when he looked back to see Isabel standing with the sheriff next to the boulder where he’d left the injured woman. “C’mon Isabel! Get your ass in gear!” he bellowed.

Back at the boulder…barely a minute earlier

Isabel had managed to crawl out of the bus with Theresa as the sheriff had pulled up. They’d spotted Maggie in the shade of the boulder, and Amy was now trying to get her to drink some water while Jim dealt with the worst of her cuts. Isabel trotted up with Theresa in her arms and Maggie reached for her.

“Please, give her to me.”

Isabel surrendered her without a word. While Maggie cuddled and cooed to her semi-conscious daughter, Isabel addressed Valenti. “I cleaned up all the blood where she was on the bus.”

Jim nodded. “Good, but you missed something.” He indicated Theresa’s torn and bloody denims.

Michael picked that moment to bellow, “C’mon Isabel! Get your ass in gear!”.

Isabel sighed. “I’m so going to kick his ass.” Then she ran a hurried hand over the fabric of ruined jeans, on both sides of the leg. In the blink of an eye, they were whole and the blood stains were gone.

“Good girl,” Jim said. “Now scram. Company is almost here.”

Isabel took off at a dead run. Jim paused, holding his breath, to see her scramble into the motor home, which was already rolling before the door had closed. He didn’t allow himself to breathe again until saw the RV vanish into the highway tunnel.

Barely a second later a helicopter roared over the top of the Salina Cut and pulled up sharply over the accident scene. It hovered for a moment as the pilot seemed to be picking out a landing spot, then started to settle towards the macadam of the highway a hundred feet away.

Jim jumped up and trotted over to wait for the chopper to land while Amy stayed behind with mother and daughter. They’d made a quick stop at the RV on their way in so that she could check on Maria. The sight of her healed and sleeping daughter had relaxed her considerably.

Amy felt eyes on her and looked up from her efforts to deal with a long nasty scratch on Maggie’s left forearm to find the woman staring at her inquisitively. Now that she had her daughter in her arms, she was beginning to process everything that she’d seen.

“Thank you,” Maggie said simply.

Amy smiled. “You’re welcome.

Maggie rubbed her cheek against her daughter’s head. “Thank them for me too.”

Amy looked uncertain for a moment, then she spoke. “We don’t have much time to talk, but I have to say something. I don’t mean to be offensive, but if you talk about what happened here today a lot of people will suffer for it. One of them would be my daughter.”

Maggie frowned. “Would it be so bad? What they did was miraculous.”

Amy shook her head. “People are afraid of the unknown. The young man that healed your daughter got caught by some very bad people not long ago. They wanted to know how he did what does.” She pointed at Jim where he stood, helping the air-rescue team unload their gear. “He was there when they got him out. He’s never given me details, but the things that were done to Max were unspeakable….inhuman. After what happened to him, exposing his secret by helping your daughter took an act of courage worthy of a hero.”

Maggie looked away. “He said something. I wasn’t…all there, but he said something about …sleeping better knowing that he’d tried.”

Amy looked sad and bitter. “Last year he had to let a man die. A total stranger. He’d been fatally injured in public, where everyone would have seen. I think that it still haunts his dreams. I sometimes wish that they weren’t the way they are. It’s aging them beyond their years.”

Maggie nodded. “I’ll keep quiet. You have my word, on my daughter’s life”

Amy studied her sharply, looking for the lie. “You could be famous. There would be money too.”

“I could,” Maggie said, then she looked at her daughter before adding, “but to quote our young friend Max, this way will let me sleep better at night.”

Amy smiled once more. “From one mother to another, thank you.”

Maggie grinned. “Anything for a fellow mother.”

As Amy nodded back at her new friend in mutual understanding, a fire truck and ambulance appeared at the top of the cut led by a county sheriff’s deputy, sirens screaming. The next hours were very busy and confused, but eventually she and Jim were finally able to slip away and see about catching up with their wayward offspring, even as the kids and Brody strained to make up the lost time.

Behind them they and the rest of the Roswell family had left new friends who would in the fullness of time come to realize the gift and the curse that they now owned a part of.

The butterfly had flapped its wings, and the ripple effect would keep spreading.

Time was the key.

More than ever now, time was both their bitterest enemy and their dearest friend.

End of Part 19

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