...but I'm back.
Chapter 21
“Oh my God, Maria,” Michael croaked, scooping his daughter’s tiny body from her mother’s arms, “She’s so little…so pretty…” He stared up at Maria with tears in his eyes. “I think I’m in love.” Just like that all and any latent resentment between them melted away as they stared down at the tiny being they had created together.
Liz watched the sweet scene unfold and felt as if she’d been kicked in the gut. She seriously considered following Razba’s example and excusing herself out into the hallway because she hurt so much. Amy had left a few moments before him with the intention of buying out the entire hospital gift shop for her precious granddaughter. Liz couldn’t help but wish she had gone with Amy when she had the chance. Yet, somehow she managed to smile through her envious tears, to find genuine joy in witnessing her two good friends croon over their new baby. It was especially touching after the awkward greeting they’d shared.
It had to be extremely disconcerting to walk into your wife’s hospital room and find her with her hospital gown lowered while seemingly locked in intimate conversation with your brother but Michael handled the situation rather well. He had thanked Razba for taking care of his wife in his absence and then turned his undivided attention towards said wife and his newborn daughter. Razba had read between the lines quite easily and had removed himself from the room soon after.
“We need to think of a name, Spaceboy,” Maria interjected presently, “She can’t be baby girl Guerin forever.”
“She’ll always be my baby girl,” Michael murmured, nuzzling the baby’s sweet-smelling temple. “But I suppose your mother’s right,” he sighed, “You do need a name, don’t you, sweetheart?”
“I was thinking about Aurora…you know like we talked about,” Maria said, “What do you think, Liz? Does she look like an Aurora to you?” Maria lifted her arm and motioned Liz closer. “Come here and see.”
Liz drifted forward on legs made of jelly, excited and full of dread all at once. As she advanced closer she was reminded of all the chances she’d lost with Claudia…all the chances she might possibly never have. Liz saw Max’s face clearly before her, most particularly his expression in the restaurant that day when he told her that he didn’t want more children. There had been no wavering on his part, no vacillating. He had been utterly certain about his feelings and Liz knew it.
Seeing Michael and Maria’s baby now, seeing the joy she brought to their faces made it impossible for Liz to lie to herself any longer. The odds were very great that she and Max would probably never have a baby. Unfortunately, Liz didn’t think she could live with that probability.
But when Liz saw the delicate little girl nestled in Michael’s arms she lost awareness of all other emotions and thoughts save for the love swelling in her heart. Liz skated her fingertips across the baby’s forehead, noting the softness of her skin, the alluring wideness of her eyes, which were a becoming mix of her father’s and mother’s. Brown swirled through with green. She was breathtaking. Liz actually gasped looking at her, her eyes misting over with tears.
“I know,” Michael whispered, recognizing the expression on Liz’s face, “She did the same thing to me.”
“You’re right, Maria,” Liz remarked softly, never taking her eyes from the baby’s face, “She does look like an Aurora. A beautiful name for a beautiful baby.” Liz had to swallow several times before she could speak again. “It’s a little big though,” she reasoned hoarsely, “Maybe you could think about shortening it?”
“What do you think…like Rory?” Michael suggested on the spur, “What if we call her Rory?”
Maria’s eyes widened with pleasured surprise and the mumbled the name to herself again and again. “Rory Guerin,” she finally sighed aloud, “I think it will work.”
“Aurora Katherine Guerin,” Michael announced triumphantly, “It’s a mouthful but I think it works.” He smiled down at the infant in his arms. “What do you think, Rory-Kate?”
Maria leaned closer so she could get a better glimpse of her daughter. “Yes…what do you think, sweetheart?” she crooned to the dozing newborn, “You like the big name Mommy and Daddy have picked out for you?” In answer, Rory scrunched up her small face and let out a delicate, baby sneeze. Michael, Maria and Liz all laughed.
“I guess that answers that,” Liz chuckled.
“You wanna hold her,” Michael offered, noting, and not for the first time, the longing in Liz’s dark eyes.
Liz fell back a few steps and wrung her hands nervously, darting a look from Michael to Maria. “Is it okay?” she asked, nibbling at her lower lip.
“Liz!” Maria cried in exasperation, “Stop being a goober and hold your goddaughter!”
The second Liz held little Rory in her arms she knew. She would never feel complete without children of her own. She nuzzled against the baby’s downy head, simply wanting to envelope Rory’s warmth. Her heart felt full, complete…satisfied for the moment. “Oh wow,” Liz breathed, feeling tears burn the backs of her eyes, “She’s…she’s amazing, you guys.”
“Yeah, she is,” Maria murmured in agreement, “I suppose that means you and Max should get cracking.”
“Maria--,” Michael muttered in warning but he was too late. Liz was already depositing the baby back into Michael’s arms, tears spilling from her eyes.
“I’m going to wait outside with Raz,” she sniffled, “You and Maria have a lot to talk about.”
As she all but ran from the room Maria held out her arms for Rory, a concerned frown knitting her forehead. “What the hell was that about?” she mumbled.
“Max told her he never wants to have kids.”
“Oh my God…”
“Look, Maria, that’s not the important thing right now,” Michael cut in brusquely, “Something’s happened.”
Maria reflexively cradled the baby closer. “What’s wrong?”
“Isabel’s been kidnapped?”
“What?” Maria burst out, “By who?”
“You know the man I went over to Afghanistan to find?” Maria nodded slowly. “Well, somehow his people found out I took him and they snatched Isabel hoping they could use her as leverage for a trade.”
“Oh my God,” Maria uttered again, “David must be going out of his mind…” Michael lowered his eyes, refraining from comment but for Maria it was answer enough. “Oh no…” she moaned out mournfully, “Please don’t tell me…”
“We think he might be dead,” Michael confirmed gently.
“No,” Maria hissed in aggrieved fury, shaking her head in denial, “They just got married. He can’t be dead. Isabel…Isabel would never survive it. She barely got over Alex’s death. That can’t be true. David can’t be dead.” She stared up at Michael with sorrowful eyes. “I suppose this means you’ll be leaving again…to find Isabel…”
“No,” Michael answered thickly, “I think I need to stay here with you. We’ve got some things we need to talk about.”
“Michael, if…if this is about what you think you saw when you first arrived,” Maria stammered, “There’s a reasonable explanation for that.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Michael mumbled, deliberately avoiding her gaze as he answered, “Not now.” He folded himself down beside her on the bed. “Let’s just concentrate on our daughter,” he suggested gruffly, “We’ll figure out the rest of it later.”
Maria swallowed past the thick lump of tears in her throat, nodding her agreement almost desperately. “Yeah,” she croaked faintly, “We’ll talk about it later.”
******
“I think you’re playing with fire.” Liz dropped down in the empty chair opposite Razba. “That Jello doesn’t look too appetizing, Raz,” she remarked, nodding towards his choice in dessert.
He shoved it across the table in unspoken agreement. “I wasn’t going to eat it,” he said, “I needed a distraction and watching this stuff wobble just seemed like the way to go.”
Despite his rare attempt at joking Liz didn’t laugh. Instead she drummed her fingertips against the tabletop, acutely aware of his sullen expression. “What’s going on with you and Maria?” she asked finally. Her tone was devoid of accusation but soft with sympathetic understanding, which was the reason he didn’t jump on the defensive immediately.
Razba regarded her from beneath his lashes but he was careful to keep his emotions masked. “Nothing,” he mumbled, “We’re just friends.”
“Only friends?”
He stabbed her with a sharpened glance. “What are you suggesting, Liz? What else can we be to each other?” he queried curtly, “She’s in love with Michael. You saw the way her face lit up when he stepped into the room.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Liz whispered, “I was too busy looking at your expression when he walked in the room, Raz. You looked devastated.”
“I was disappointed that he had missed the birth of his child,” Razba brazened, “It was important to Maria that he be here and she was disappointed.”
“But she’ll forgive him,” Liz predicted.
“Because she loves him,” he choked out in reply.
“And I’m thinking you love her,” Liz prodded quietly. She leveled him with a frank stare. “Am I right?”
“Does it matter?”
Liz frowned. “Do you always answer a question with a question?”
“When I want to avoid answering, I do,” he replied baldly, “Human tactic and it works quite well I think.”
Liz leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers together beneath her chin. “You don’t have to say a word, Raz,” she said speculatively, “The look on your face right now tells me all I need to know.”
His expression became positively dour. “And what’s that?” he challenged.
“You’re in love with your brother’s wife.” When he didn’t bother to deny her charge Liz expelled the breath she’d been unconsciously holding. “Let me reiterate…you’re playing with fire, Raz,” she told him again, “This can’t work out well for anyone involved, especially that little baby.”
Razba huffed a little sigh of exasperation. “This is not Days of Our Lives, Liz,” he replied sardonically, “I don’t intend to go wrecking homes in the near future.”
“Then what are your intentions?” Liz wondered, “Because you and Maria were looking pretty cozy when Michael and I arrived.” At her persistent questioning Razba’s countenance was growing increasingly belligerent. Liz regretted that. The last thing she wanted was to make him feel like she was attacking him. She decided to try another tact.
“I’m not trying to put you on the spot, Raz,” she soothed, “In the last two years I’ve come to regard you as a brother. That’s why I’m even bringing this up at all. I care about you and Michael and Maria. I would hate to see something like this come between the three of you, especially because I know how close you are with Michael and Maria.”
“Don’t you think I know that already?” was his plaintive reply, “But what am I supposed to do about it? I don’t choose to have these feelings, Liz. They just happened. I spend so much time with Maria that it almost seemed inevitable and now I don’t know how to make them stop.” He looked so miserable over that fact, so lost and afraid that Liz wanted to cry for him. “Now it’s too late. I’ve given her my heart,” he muttered so low Liz almost didn’t hear him, “It’s hers to keep.”
******
“He’s been with us for the last few days,” the doctor explained as he led Max and Kyle down the hall, “He had no identification on him when he was found and he had been beaten rather severely. We’ve been keeping him on life support all this time.”
“And you say he was found in an alley behind the Shivas Village Resort,” Max asked pointedly.
“Yes, sir,” the doctor confirmed, “It’s a miracle he survived at all.” The doctor halted abruptly when they reached the door to the ICU. “Wait here while I get clearance,” he instructed.
“Do you think it’s him?” Kyle queried when they were alone.
“I doubt they get many violent shootings around this area,” Max reasoned quietly, “It has to be him.”
“The doctor said he was brain dead,” Kyle murmured worriedly, “Can you heal that kind of damage?”
“I don’t know,” Max answered, “I’ve never healed someone who’s brain dead. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
A few minutes later the doctor reappeared and waved them forward. “He’s just down the hall,” he said, “You can determine for yourself if he’s your brother-in-law.”
Max and Kyle crept toward the glass partition separating the main corridor from the patient room with a heavy sense of dread. Nothing in their imaginations prepared them for the mangled mess they saw lying there. David’s face was nearly unrecognizable, what little they could see beneath the swath of bandages. And what they did see was grotesquely swollen and discolored in several places. Max might have doubted it was him at all were it not for his bone structure and the shock of blond hair peeking out through his white head bandage. He could remember all the times he had ribbed David for being a “pretty boy.” He didn’t seem nearly so pretty now.
“That’s him,” Max told the doctor, “What’s the extent of his injuries?”
“Besides being clinically dead, you mean?” Max replied with a terse nod. The doctor proceeded to tick off the list of injuries with succinct efficiency. “His nose and jawbone have been broken. His cheekbone was pulverized so badly it can no longer support his eye. If he makes a full recovery, which is in my medical opinion, very doubtful he’ll most certainly lose that eye. He also has several cracked ribs, a bruised kidney and a punctured lung besides the bullet wound in his head.”
The doctor surveyed Max long and hard. “We were unable to remove the bullet,” he informed Max, “It’s still lodged in his brain.” Both Max and Kyle groaned at the revelation. “Now I realize that your first instinct might be to keep Mr. McKee on life support in the hope he may recover but I assure you that will not happen,” the doctor explained flatly, “Only those machines keep his heart pumping and blood circulating through his system. He cannot survive without them, sir. For all intents and purposes, Mr. McKee is dead.”
“We want to see him,” Max demanded, matching the doctor’s brusque tone.
“Of course,” the doctor murmured, stepping aside, “Please feel free to have me paged when you’re ready.”
“He sure is the optimistic one,” Kyle muttered as they entered into David’s ICU room, “I’m surprised he and the nurses aren’t standing over David’s body singing death dirges.”
Max barely heard Kyle’s caustic remark as he came to lean over David’s unconscious form, sighing heavily. “This is gonna change things,” he muttered to himself.
Kyle heard him anyway. “You don’t have a choice,” he insisted, “I hate to agree with that quack but…if you don’t do something David is toast. Isabel would never get over it, Max.”
“And if I do intervene I’ll be changing David’s life forever,” Max considered softly, “When I healed you and Liz I didn’t realize what the consequences would be. Now I do. It’s like I’m taking the decision right out of his hands.”
Kyle clapped a heartening hand onto Max’s shoulder. “I know the consequences, Evans,” he said, “And I’m not sorry. I’m sure if David were awake and able to choose between life as a vegetable or life as a freak, he’d choose the latter any day.”
Max snorted a quiet laugh at that. “I suppose you’re right about that.”
“I am,” Kyle replied immodestly, “So get cracking.”
After inhaling a shaky breath Max closed his eyes and spread his palm over David’s forehead. At first he sensed nothing. No flashes. No brain activity. No life. Max felt much the way he had when trying to heal Alex, like he was forcing a connection that could not be made. His heart balked at the thought. This couldn’t be like Alex. He couldn’t fail Isabel again. Kyle was right. She wouldn’t survive it this time.
Gritting his teeth, Max delved deeper, searching desperately for a connection. And then he heard it. Faint, thready, almost indistinct. He heard: Isabel? David was still in there, faint and far, but still there. Max latched onto that awareness and connected. His heart picking up speed, Max gathered his powers forth, preparing himself for the massive amount of strength it would take to heal his brother-in-law. Energy pulsed from his body like a flowing stream, pooling into David’s broken body and bathing the tiny room in an unearthly glow. With the knowledge that Isabel needed him too, Max thought he would only heal enough to stabilize David, thereby conserving his energy for Isabel’s rescue.
And then, without warning, Max lost control of the energy current. What he had been carefully measuring into David’s body was now being sucked out of Max at an alarming speed. David’s body healed at a rapid rate, regenerating lost cells and tissue while Max’s body was taxed to the limit and growing progressively weaker.
Kyle didn’t know whether to rejoice or panic. The color and vivacity was quickly coming back to David’s face, his bruises melting away like face paint in the rain. However, Max was rapidly loosing color and his body began to shake with convulsive fits. “Max, stop!” Kyle cried in a panic, making a desperate grab at his friend, “Break the connection, man!” But it was already too late.
The room exploded with a brilliant pulse of light as the last of Max’s energy force burst from his body throwing Kyle back from him with stunning force. Kyle rolled upright in time to see Max fall away from David’s hospital cot and crumple to the floor.
Where the Road Goes (CC / Adult) (COMPLETE)
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Deejonaise
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Deejonaise
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Chapter 22
Liz rapped sharply on the door of Maria’s hospital room before poking her head inside. “Feel like some more company?” she chirped brightly.
“Come on in, Liz,” Amy invited, “Maria and I were just gabbing on, but now that you’re here I think I’ll creep back down to the nursery and get another peek at that granddaughter of mine.” She pressed a motherly kiss to Maria’s forehead before leaving.
“I hope she didn’t go on my account,” Liz remarked in concern.
“You’re fine,” Maria said, “She was just telling me about her problems with Jim. Apparently, Deborah’s been making a nuisance of herself while Kyle’s been away and Jim refuses to put her in her place. Mom’s a little stressed.”
“Oh,” Liz replied. She glanced around the room, realizing for the first time that Michael wasn’t present.
“He went down to the cafeteria,” Maria said, reading the look on Liz’s face and answering her question before she could voice it, “He said he hadn’t had anything to eat since last night and he was starved.”
Liz refrained for commenting. She had just come from the cafeteria and she didn’t remember passing Michael on her way up at all. However, rather than upsetting Maria with that piece of information, Liz curled into bed beside her friend and drew Maria into her arms. “So how are you feeling?” she queried solicitously.
Maria leaned her head back against Liz’s shoulder with a shuddering sigh. “Like I pushed a bowling ball through an opening the size of a dime,” she replied, “Trust me, Liz…it’s every bit as painful as they say.”
Liz’s smile faltered a bit. “Well, I’m just going to have to take your word on that one.”
At her reply, Maria twisted around in her arms, her eyes sympathetic as they darted over Liz’s pale features. “Michael told me about what Max said,” she whispered.
“Of all the things going on right now, Maria, that is so not important in the grand scheme of things,” Liz brazened, “Isabel’s in trouble and David might very well be dead.”
“Come on, Liz,” Maria huffed, “You know Kyle and Diadne will find them. And if they’re hurt, Max will fix it and make it right. This baby issue isn’t going to resolve itself so easily.”
Liz shrugged away from her, tight-lipped. “I don’t want to talk about it, Maria.”
Of course, Maria ignored her edict, which Liz didn’t find all that surprising. “Does Max know how badly you want a baby?” Maria wondered, “He couldn’t tell you no…not if he understood how important it is to you.”
“He does know,” Liz informed her flatly, “And he still doesn’t want to. He says our world is too dangerous a place to raise a child and, looking at what happened to Isabel, it looks like he’s right.”
“And?” Maria prodded perceptively.
“And it doesn’t change my feelings one bit,” Liz whispered in misery, “I still want a baby, Maria. I want Max’s baby so damned bad it hurts inside. I mean…God…even Tess got to share that with him so why can’t I?”
“Liz, you should tell him that.”
“I did,” she cried mournfully, “I did and it doesn’t make a difference. He doesn’t want kids.” Liz calm façade of togetherness dissolved completely then. She buried her face in her hands and began to weep softly. “God, Maria…oh God…he doesn’t want to have kids with me.”
Feeling tears sting her own eyes to see her friend in such pain, Maria helplessly patted Liz on the back as she cried brokenly into her hands. In a desperate attempt to redirect Liz’s morose thoughts and distract her from her sorrow, Maria blurted, “I’m attracted to my brother-in-law.”
Maria accomplished what she set out to do. Liz’s crying ceased abruptly and she snapped her head up with an incredulous sniffle. “Are you kidding me?” she uttered. Maria slowly shook her head negative. Liz gaped at her in open shock. “Oh my God! I…I knew he had feelings for you but I didn’t know they were…mutual!” she finished in a horrified tone, “Does Michael know?”
“I think he might,” Maria muttered uncertainly, “He…he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh Maria, this is so bad,” Liz groaned, whisking away the traces of her tears as her distress shifted from herself to her best friend, “Please tell me you haven’t--,”
“Nothing has happened between us,” Maria said, cutting her off mid-sentence, “Nothing will happen. I love my husband. I want my marriage. Ruining it has never even been a consideration, Liz.”
“Then it’s not a big deal,” Liz sighed in relief, “I mean…you’re married but you’re not dead, Maria. You can look all you want.”
“It’s not that simple, Liz,” Maria whispered, “I care about Raz. I really, really care about him.”
“What are you saying?”
“That I’m not going to cheat on Michael but that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it,” Maria confessed shamefully, “because I have…especially these last few days when Raz has been nothing but wonderful to me.”
“Maria, you can’t!”
“I’m not!” she vowed heatedly.
“I’m serious,” Liz persisted, “You could totally ruin Michael and Raz’s relationship forever with this, not to mention your marriage. Maria, this is just a bad thing on so many levels.”
“Don’t you think I’ve already considered all this?” Maria cried, “Don’t you think I’ve been torturing myself for days for feeling the way I do? But it’s not all my fault, you know! Michael’s not blameless. He’s never around when I need him, Liz. Some cause is always greater or more pressing than I am. And while he’s away doing God knows what Raz is the one who dries my tears and spends time with me. Raz is the one I talk to.
“He’s always been there for me when I needed him!” Maria ranted on, “Think about it, Liz! Raz is the one who’s stuck with me through my pregnancy when Michael was too damned busy to be bothered. And Raz is the one who brought me to the hospital when I went into labor. God! He was the one in the delivery room holding my hand while I gave birth! He’s everything Michael isn’t.”
“Except your husband,” Liz pointed out quietly.
Now it was Maria’s turn to cry. Her tears poured from her eyes like a guilty torrent, tracking down her ruddy cheeks in an unchecked stream. “I just want Michael to pay me that same kind of attention,” she wept, “Is that too much to ask for?”
“Oh Maria,” Liz crooned gently, pulling her dejected friend back into her arms, “And I thought my life was screwed up.”
Maria started to respond with a teary giggle but the sound quickly became a choked scream of horror when Liz’s eyes suddenly rolled back in her head and she fell from the cot to the floor in a fit of wild convulsions.
******
“Whatever you have going on with my wife ends now.”
Razba calmly finished his inspection of the shuttlecraft and swerved around to face Michael. Meanwhile, the pilot ducked respectively out of sight for what he suspected would be an intensely private discussion. “I was expecting this,” Razba sighed wearily, “You really misinterpreted what you saw.”
Michael ignored that declaration completely. “I thought I could trust you,” he spat in unconcealed hurt, “How could you do this? What about your so-called ‘Antarian loyalty?’ Was that just bullshit?”
“There was nothing done,” Razba responded mildly, “Maria was having trouble feeding the baby. I helped her. That was all you saw.”
“Like hell! I saw the way you were looking at her,” Michael hissed, “Don’t pretend you don’t have feelings for her!”
“Then I won’t,” Razba countered, “But I have never acted on those feelings and I never intend to! You are my brother, Michael! You are the only reason I came to this planet. Don’t you think that means something to me?”
“Our concepts of brotherhood may be two entirely different things, Raz,” Michael whispered, “You might not see anything wrong with chasing after your brother’s wife but here on earth that doesn’t go over well.”
Razba actually laughed at that, a bitter, ironic sound. “I have not chased after her,” he denied, “More often than not you are the one who’s left her in my care. I have never insinuated myself into her life or yours.”
“I left you here to watch after her, Raz, not woo her!” Michael snapped, “That wasn’t part of the arrangement!”
“I’m not wooing her,” Razba cried out in exasperation, “We are friends and nothing more! It’s your own guilt which is causing you to see something that isn’t there!”
Michael snapped back a step, his expression veering from angry to guilty. “What are you saying?” he scoffed, “Are you blaming me for what you’ve done?”
“And what have I done?” Razba charged softly, “Is there some law that states that I cannot care for Maria. That I cannot be her friend? Is it wrong that I respect and admire her…that I love her?”
“She’s my wife,” Michael hissed.
“Then act like it,” Razba hissed back, “Don’t blame me for the problems in your marriage that you’ve created!”
“You son of a bitch!” Michael started to launch himself at Razba, fists raised for the assault when Amy suddenly appeared from out of nowhere. She ran between the two would be combatants, breathing hard, her face flushed with panic.
“Michael, you have to come quick!” she implored frantically, “Something terrible has happened!”
Michael’s anger drained immediately and was replaced with an awful sense of dread. “It’s not Maria, is it…or the baby?”
“It’s Liz,” Amy clarified in a rush, already catching hold of his arm and dragging him back towards the stairs leading back inside the hospital, “Her heart’s stopped.”
******
Isabel turned the splintered piece of wood over and over again in her hand, waiting for the moment when light would inevitably flood her cramped prison. It had taken her hours to pry a loose board from the wall and then even longer to break off a portion into a weapon. In the meantime, she had slept very little. Her heart was beating in her chest like a primitive drum, her body saturated with adrenalin. She could hardly sit still.
When the door finally creaked open Isabel actually held her breath. She forced herself not to flinch away from the light as her captor ducked inside, her food tray and tranquilizer syringe ready. “Time to take your medicine, Princess,” he laughed scornfully.
“I think I’ll pass today,” Isabel threw back sardonically.
He laughed at her. “If only you had a choice.”
However, the moment he stepped towards her Isabel flipped up her wooden dagger and sent it deep into her captor’s leg. He set up an immediate howl at her unexpected attack, crumpling at her feet. Isabel scrambled over his mewling form, quickly sweeping up the dropped syringe and stabbing the needle directly into his chest. His pained whimpers died down to unintelligible gurgles before he fell still altogether.
Panting like a frightened rabbit, Isabel quickly fumbled on his prone person for a weapon. When she found the revolver in the waistband of his pants she all but sobbed with relief. She curled her shaking fingers around the handle and carefully crept from her makeshift jail cell with the gun poised in front of her.
Isabel found herself in a dark, narrow hallway that lead to a wooden staircase. Apparently, they had been holding her in some sort of basement or cellar. Above her head the trap door was laid wide like the gateway to Nirvana. Yet, Isabel hesitated to make the climb, uncertain whether she would find more pain at the top…or freedom.
She thought of David, lying helpless in a pool of his own blood and Isabel knew she couldn’t afford to be frightened. He needed her and if she was going to help him she’d have to get out of there first. Swallowing down the remainder of her trepidation, Isabel began the long ascent up the stairs.
Before emerging from the cellar, however, Isabel peeked a glance over the edge of the trap, wisely scanning her surroundings. The cellar led out into a blessedly empty kitchen though in the distance Isabel could make out faint, accented tones coming from another part of the house.
Shaking off a wave of fatigue, Isabel deftly pushed herself from the trap door and crept in the opposite direction of the voices, hoping to find a means for escape. Her hope for escape grew progressively dimmer as she stealthily circled the empty parts of the house and noted that all possible exits were heavily guarded. She’d never make it out of there, even with the gun as protection. She still wasn’t able to concentrate enough to use her powers so that wasn’t an option for her either.
However, Isabel pressed on despite her grim prospects until she found herself at the very back of the house. Through the glass windows she could see the guards standing outside in the courtyard. There were at least four visible to her eyes and probably countless others that she couldn’t see at all. Chances were slim that she would make it past them but Isabel still felt compelled to try. What did she have to lose? Squeezing her eyes shut, Isabel raised her gun…
It was shouting from the far side of the house that kept her from pulling the trigger. She didn’t’ understand any of the words being spoken but she discerned rather quickly that she was the reason for it. Isabel whirled away from the door and started back down the hall, ducking into a nearby bedroom just in time to miss the heavy pattering of boot falls as they rushed past.
Trembling with agitated fear and realizing her options were running out fast, Isabel darted her eyes about the room for a hiding place. Her only alternative seemed to be a large cedar chest located at the foot of the bed. Left with very little choice, Isabel flipped up the heavy lid and climbed inside, closing herself into the tiny, dark place.
For what seemed like hours she lay curled in a tight ball, listening to yelling, gun fire and panicked running. Her body became slick with sweat, her breathing heavy, hitching gasps of fear. She had no doubt they would find her eventually and when they did… Isabel had no doubt they would kill her. The seconds passed quickly and Isabel’s hope steadily faded with them.
She tightened her fingers reflexively around the gun in her hands, weighing her options. So close to discovery Isabel knew she couldn’t lie to herself any longer. The chances were good that David was dead. She’d most likely never see him again; even if she did somehow make it out of this mess. All her hopes and dreams for the future had been dashed. They had died with him. Isabel’s heart shattered with the realization. First Alex and now David…maybe she wasn’t meant to be happy at all.
Isabel felt that she had two options. She could live out her days in terror, waiting for the day when these maniacs would kill her or…she could meet death on her own terms. She placed the barrel of the gun in her mouth just as the trunk lid flipped up.
Liz rapped sharply on the door of Maria’s hospital room before poking her head inside. “Feel like some more company?” she chirped brightly.
“Come on in, Liz,” Amy invited, “Maria and I were just gabbing on, but now that you’re here I think I’ll creep back down to the nursery and get another peek at that granddaughter of mine.” She pressed a motherly kiss to Maria’s forehead before leaving.
“I hope she didn’t go on my account,” Liz remarked in concern.
“You’re fine,” Maria said, “She was just telling me about her problems with Jim. Apparently, Deborah’s been making a nuisance of herself while Kyle’s been away and Jim refuses to put her in her place. Mom’s a little stressed.”
“Oh,” Liz replied. She glanced around the room, realizing for the first time that Michael wasn’t present.
“He went down to the cafeteria,” Maria said, reading the look on Liz’s face and answering her question before she could voice it, “He said he hadn’t had anything to eat since last night and he was starved.”
Liz refrained for commenting. She had just come from the cafeteria and she didn’t remember passing Michael on her way up at all. However, rather than upsetting Maria with that piece of information, Liz curled into bed beside her friend and drew Maria into her arms. “So how are you feeling?” she queried solicitously.
Maria leaned her head back against Liz’s shoulder with a shuddering sigh. “Like I pushed a bowling ball through an opening the size of a dime,” she replied, “Trust me, Liz…it’s every bit as painful as they say.”
Liz’s smile faltered a bit. “Well, I’m just going to have to take your word on that one.”
At her reply, Maria twisted around in her arms, her eyes sympathetic as they darted over Liz’s pale features. “Michael told me about what Max said,” she whispered.
“Of all the things going on right now, Maria, that is so not important in the grand scheme of things,” Liz brazened, “Isabel’s in trouble and David might very well be dead.”
“Come on, Liz,” Maria huffed, “You know Kyle and Diadne will find them. And if they’re hurt, Max will fix it and make it right. This baby issue isn’t going to resolve itself so easily.”
Liz shrugged away from her, tight-lipped. “I don’t want to talk about it, Maria.”
Of course, Maria ignored her edict, which Liz didn’t find all that surprising. “Does Max know how badly you want a baby?” Maria wondered, “He couldn’t tell you no…not if he understood how important it is to you.”
“He does know,” Liz informed her flatly, “And he still doesn’t want to. He says our world is too dangerous a place to raise a child and, looking at what happened to Isabel, it looks like he’s right.”
“And?” Maria prodded perceptively.
“And it doesn’t change my feelings one bit,” Liz whispered in misery, “I still want a baby, Maria. I want Max’s baby so damned bad it hurts inside. I mean…God…even Tess got to share that with him so why can’t I?”
“Liz, you should tell him that.”
“I did,” she cried mournfully, “I did and it doesn’t make a difference. He doesn’t want kids.” Liz calm façade of togetherness dissolved completely then. She buried her face in her hands and began to weep softly. “God, Maria…oh God…he doesn’t want to have kids with me.”
Feeling tears sting her own eyes to see her friend in such pain, Maria helplessly patted Liz on the back as she cried brokenly into her hands. In a desperate attempt to redirect Liz’s morose thoughts and distract her from her sorrow, Maria blurted, “I’m attracted to my brother-in-law.”
Maria accomplished what she set out to do. Liz’s crying ceased abruptly and she snapped her head up with an incredulous sniffle. “Are you kidding me?” she uttered. Maria slowly shook her head negative. Liz gaped at her in open shock. “Oh my God! I…I knew he had feelings for you but I didn’t know they were…mutual!” she finished in a horrified tone, “Does Michael know?”
“I think he might,” Maria muttered uncertainly, “He…he didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh Maria, this is so bad,” Liz groaned, whisking away the traces of her tears as her distress shifted from herself to her best friend, “Please tell me you haven’t--,”
“Nothing has happened between us,” Maria said, cutting her off mid-sentence, “Nothing will happen. I love my husband. I want my marriage. Ruining it has never even been a consideration, Liz.”
“Then it’s not a big deal,” Liz sighed in relief, “I mean…you’re married but you’re not dead, Maria. You can look all you want.”
“It’s not that simple, Liz,” Maria whispered, “I care about Raz. I really, really care about him.”
“What are you saying?”
“That I’m not going to cheat on Michael but that doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it,” Maria confessed shamefully, “because I have…especially these last few days when Raz has been nothing but wonderful to me.”
“Maria, you can’t!”
“I’m not!” she vowed heatedly.
“I’m serious,” Liz persisted, “You could totally ruin Michael and Raz’s relationship forever with this, not to mention your marriage. Maria, this is just a bad thing on so many levels.”
“Don’t you think I’ve already considered all this?” Maria cried, “Don’t you think I’ve been torturing myself for days for feeling the way I do? But it’s not all my fault, you know! Michael’s not blameless. He’s never around when I need him, Liz. Some cause is always greater or more pressing than I am. And while he’s away doing God knows what Raz is the one who dries my tears and spends time with me. Raz is the one I talk to.
“He’s always been there for me when I needed him!” Maria ranted on, “Think about it, Liz! Raz is the one who’s stuck with me through my pregnancy when Michael was too damned busy to be bothered. And Raz is the one who brought me to the hospital when I went into labor. God! He was the one in the delivery room holding my hand while I gave birth! He’s everything Michael isn’t.”
“Except your husband,” Liz pointed out quietly.
Now it was Maria’s turn to cry. Her tears poured from her eyes like a guilty torrent, tracking down her ruddy cheeks in an unchecked stream. “I just want Michael to pay me that same kind of attention,” she wept, “Is that too much to ask for?”
“Oh Maria,” Liz crooned gently, pulling her dejected friend back into her arms, “And I thought my life was screwed up.”
Maria started to respond with a teary giggle but the sound quickly became a choked scream of horror when Liz’s eyes suddenly rolled back in her head and she fell from the cot to the floor in a fit of wild convulsions.
******
“Whatever you have going on with my wife ends now.”
Razba calmly finished his inspection of the shuttlecraft and swerved around to face Michael. Meanwhile, the pilot ducked respectively out of sight for what he suspected would be an intensely private discussion. “I was expecting this,” Razba sighed wearily, “You really misinterpreted what you saw.”
Michael ignored that declaration completely. “I thought I could trust you,” he spat in unconcealed hurt, “How could you do this? What about your so-called ‘Antarian loyalty?’ Was that just bullshit?”
“There was nothing done,” Razba responded mildly, “Maria was having trouble feeding the baby. I helped her. That was all you saw.”
“Like hell! I saw the way you were looking at her,” Michael hissed, “Don’t pretend you don’t have feelings for her!”
“Then I won’t,” Razba countered, “But I have never acted on those feelings and I never intend to! You are my brother, Michael! You are the only reason I came to this planet. Don’t you think that means something to me?”
“Our concepts of brotherhood may be two entirely different things, Raz,” Michael whispered, “You might not see anything wrong with chasing after your brother’s wife but here on earth that doesn’t go over well.”
Razba actually laughed at that, a bitter, ironic sound. “I have not chased after her,” he denied, “More often than not you are the one who’s left her in my care. I have never insinuated myself into her life or yours.”
“I left you here to watch after her, Raz, not woo her!” Michael snapped, “That wasn’t part of the arrangement!”
“I’m not wooing her,” Razba cried out in exasperation, “We are friends and nothing more! It’s your own guilt which is causing you to see something that isn’t there!”
Michael snapped back a step, his expression veering from angry to guilty. “What are you saying?” he scoffed, “Are you blaming me for what you’ve done?”
“And what have I done?” Razba charged softly, “Is there some law that states that I cannot care for Maria. That I cannot be her friend? Is it wrong that I respect and admire her…that I love her?”
“She’s my wife,” Michael hissed.
“Then act like it,” Razba hissed back, “Don’t blame me for the problems in your marriage that you’ve created!”
“You son of a bitch!” Michael started to launch himself at Razba, fists raised for the assault when Amy suddenly appeared from out of nowhere. She ran between the two would be combatants, breathing hard, her face flushed with panic.
“Michael, you have to come quick!” she implored frantically, “Something terrible has happened!”
Michael’s anger drained immediately and was replaced with an awful sense of dread. “It’s not Maria, is it…or the baby?”
“It’s Liz,” Amy clarified in a rush, already catching hold of his arm and dragging him back towards the stairs leading back inside the hospital, “Her heart’s stopped.”
******
Isabel turned the splintered piece of wood over and over again in her hand, waiting for the moment when light would inevitably flood her cramped prison. It had taken her hours to pry a loose board from the wall and then even longer to break off a portion into a weapon. In the meantime, she had slept very little. Her heart was beating in her chest like a primitive drum, her body saturated with adrenalin. She could hardly sit still.
When the door finally creaked open Isabel actually held her breath. She forced herself not to flinch away from the light as her captor ducked inside, her food tray and tranquilizer syringe ready. “Time to take your medicine, Princess,” he laughed scornfully.
“I think I’ll pass today,” Isabel threw back sardonically.
He laughed at her. “If only you had a choice.”
However, the moment he stepped towards her Isabel flipped up her wooden dagger and sent it deep into her captor’s leg. He set up an immediate howl at her unexpected attack, crumpling at her feet. Isabel scrambled over his mewling form, quickly sweeping up the dropped syringe and stabbing the needle directly into his chest. His pained whimpers died down to unintelligible gurgles before he fell still altogether.
Panting like a frightened rabbit, Isabel quickly fumbled on his prone person for a weapon. When she found the revolver in the waistband of his pants she all but sobbed with relief. She curled her shaking fingers around the handle and carefully crept from her makeshift jail cell with the gun poised in front of her.
Isabel found herself in a dark, narrow hallway that lead to a wooden staircase. Apparently, they had been holding her in some sort of basement or cellar. Above her head the trap door was laid wide like the gateway to Nirvana. Yet, Isabel hesitated to make the climb, uncertain whether she would find more pain at the top…or freedom.
She thought of David, lying helpless in a pool of his own blood and Isabel knew she couldn’t afford to be frightened. He needed her and if she was going to help him she’d have to get out of there first. Swallowing down the remainder of her trepidation, Isabel began the long ascent up the stairs.
Before emerging from the cellar, however, Isabel peeked a glance over the edge of the trap, wisely scanning her surroundings. The cellar led out into a blessedly empty kitchen though in the distance Isabel could make out faint, accented tones coming from another part of the house.
Shaking off a wave of fatigue, Isabel deftly pushed herself from the trap door and crept in the opposite direction of the voices, hoping to find a means for escape. Her hope for escape grew progressively dimmer as she stealthily circled the empty parts of the house and noted that all possible exits were heavily guarded. She’d never make it out of there, even with the gun as protection. She still wasn’t able to concentrate enough to use her powers so that wasn’t an option for her either.
However, Isabel pressed on despite her grim prospects until she found herself at the very back of the house. Through the glass windows she could see the guards standing outside in the courtyard. There were at least four visible to her eyes and probably countless others that she couldn’t see at all. Chances were slim that she would make it past them but Isabel still felt compelled to try. What did she have to lose? Squeezing her eyes shut, Isabel raised her gun…
It was shouting from the far side of the house that kept her from pulling the trigger. She didn’t’ understand any of the words being spoken but she discerned rather quickly that she was the reason for it. Isabel whirled away from the door and started back down the hall, ducking into a nearby bedroom just in time to miss the heavy pattering of boot falls as they rushed past.
Trembling with agitated fear and realizing her options were running out fast, Isabel darted her eyes about the room for a hiding place. Her only alternative seemed to be a large cedar chest located at the foot of the bed. Left with very little choice, Isabel flipped up the heavy lid and climbed inside, closing herself into the tiny, dark place.
For what seemed like hours she lay curled in a tight ball, listening to yelling, gun fire and panicked running. Her body became slick with sweat, her breathing heavy, hitching gasps of fear. She had no doubt they would find her eventually and when they did… Isabel had no doubt they would kill her. The seconds passed quickly and Isabel’s hope steadily faded with them.
She tightened her fingers reflexively around the gun in her hands, weighing her options. So close to discovery Isabel knew she couldn’t lie to herself any longer. The chances were good that David was dead. She’d most likely never see him again; even if she did somehow make it out of this mess. All her hopes and dreams for the future had been dashed. They had died with him. Isabel’s heart shattered with the realization. First Alex and now David…maybe she wasn’t meant to be happy at all.
Isabel felt that she had two options. She could live out her days in terror, waiting for the day when these maniacs would kill her or…she could meet death on her own terms. She placed the barrel of the gun in her mouth just as the trunk lid flipped up.
-
Deejonaise
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 385
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Chapter 23
When Isabel saw Diadne’s face peering down at her she released a harsh sob of relief. She didn’t think she could have pulled that trigger if it had come down to that. “Thank God,” she wept, letting the gun fall from her limp fingers. It landed with a heavy thud at the bottom of the chest. Isabel reached up and looped her arms around Diadne’s neck and gave into harsh tears.
Diadne stared between Isabel’s tear-streaked face and the weapon lying so harmlessly on the chest floor. “You should have known we’d find you, Isabel.” she whispered gently, helping her Princess out from the trunk, “We’ll always find you.”
“It wasn’t lack of confidence,” Isabel replied weakly, “but your timing.” She flashed Diadne with a tired but teasing smile as she struggled to stand on jellied legs. “It was a little off.”
A moment later, Kadon was there flanking Isabel’s other side, his eyes soft with loyal concern. “Are you injured, highness?” he asked. He’s hands swept over her person lightly, searching for scars and broken bones.
“No…I’m fine,” Isabel answered fuzzily, shaking her head. She looked towards the open bedroom door. “Those men…”
“They are dead, highness,” Kadon finished flatly, “They’re all dead.” Isabel crumpled against him, her body finally slumping with the grief she’d been holding at bay for what seemed like an eternity. She was saved and her captors were dead but David… He was still lost to her. As her knees gave out from beneath her Kadon swung her up into his arms. “He’s alive, highness,” Kadon said, reading her despair as he bore her towards the foremost shuttle, “I’ll take you to him.”
“David is alive?” Isabel croaked weakly.
Kadon nodded. “His lordship is with him. He will heal Master David’s injuries. All will be well,” he promised.
“Take me to him,” Isabel ordered as she began to slip off into unconsciousness, “Take me to him now.”
******
They tried to resuscitate Liz for thirteen harrowing minutes. Maria’s hospital room exploded in chaos during that time as everyone crowded around Liz’s unconscious form and worked hard to bring her back. Thirteen minutes of defibrillators and CPR. Thirteen minutes with no response. Thirteen minutes before the doctor reluctantly called the time of death. She was pronounced dead at 8:27 p.m. Not even Razba could revive her and he tried several times even after the doctors had given up.
Maria started screaming. Nothing her mother or Michael said or did could calm her. “I d-don’t un-understand…” she sobbed hysterically, “She was fine! She was fine! She was j-just fine! How did this happen? How did this happen?”
“Mr. Guerin, I’m sorry,” the doctor murmured to Michael, “We did all we could.”
“Do you know what happened to her?” Michael croaked.
“Her heart just stopped,” the doctor explained, clearly baffled by the fact, “We won’t be able to determine the cause of death until we do an autopsy. Her family will have to be notified in the meantime.”
Michael barely heard him because he was watching the orderlies cover Liz’s prone body with a sheet. He thought of Max and what his reaction would be. He was sure to be devastated. After the blow of losing Zan, Max didn’t need to deal with this, too. He’d never recover. Michael knew it. The grief over that realization threatened to overwhelm him and he felt sick with it.
Surveying the various anguished faces before him the doctor politely excused himself to leave the family to pay their final respects. When he and his team of nurses and equipment were gone the room was left strangely quiet, except for the sound of Maria’s harsh weeping.
The moment the doctor was gone Michael stooped alongside Liz’s still form and peeled the sheet back from her face. Licking at the tears collecting around his mouth, Michael forced himself to look down at her. Her features were slack and colorless, her lips an alarming indigo blue. She looked…dead. Michael pressed his fingers to the underside of her neck, feeling for a pulse. He found none. And still his heart warred with his reason. Though he was ready to grieve and feeling the inevitable pull to weep when faced with such undeniable evidence Michael couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe Liz was really dead. This had to be a nightmare…or a trick.
Razba stooped across from him, staring down into Liz’s still features. “She’s not dead,” he declared after a moment, speaking aloud what Michael was already quietly considering in his mind.
Still he felt the need to deny it because the evidence spoke so loudly to the contrary. “Raz, she doesn’t have a pulse,” he said flatly, “We need to call her parents and tell them what’s happened.”
Razba grabbed hold of Michael’s arm when he started to rise to his feet. “She’s not dead,” he insisted, “This occurrence is alien related, Michael.”
“Alien related?”
“Her body is healing itself,” Razba explained, “I realized that when I connected with her because I was still able to connect. Liz is in there….hard to find but she’s there.”
“But why does she need to heal?” Michael wondered, “She was just fine this morning.”
“Max must have found David,” Razba reasoned softly, “His injuries had to have been severe for this kind of reaction in her. Max is probably going through the same thing.”
Michael’s heart rolled over at the reminder of Max and Liz’s phenomenal connection. Razba was right. If Liz was experiencing this near death state then most likely Max was experiencing it as well. “This is bad,” Michael uttered in a low tone, “She was just pronounced dead. In a few minutes those orderlies are going to come back to take her body to the morgue.”
“We can’t let them do that,” Razba said, “We should take her back to the palace. She should be home and in familiar surroundings. Her recuperation will progress quicker that way.”
“Do you know how crazy it will look if we insist on taking a dead body out of here with us?” Michael hissed, “I don’t even know if that’s legal, Raz.”
“She’s not dead!”
“Tell them that! They’ll think we’re a bunch of loons!”
They both glanced up simultaneously when Maria and Amy’s shadows fell across them. Michael reflexively whipped the sheet back over Liz’s face. “I want to see her,” Maria insisted hoarsely, “Pull it back.”
“Maria, she’s not dead,” Michael informed her gently, “But seeing her this way is just going to upset you, okay.”
Maria stumbled back against her mother, her green eyes wild with dismay and hope. “What do you mean she’s not dead?’ she gasped, “Is this an alien thing? Please tell me it’s an alien thing…”
Razba nodded tersely. “We need to leave the hospital before they come back to take her. She needs to be in Roswell so she can heal.”
“Leave the hospital?” Amy burst out incredulously, “My daughter just had a baby less than twenty-four hours ago. She’s not stepping foot outside of this room!”
“Amy, this isn’t the time!” Michael bit out sharply, “They’re not just going to let us waltz out of here with Liz’s body. We’re going to have to leave quietly. Very, very quietly.”
“Your daughter is less than a day old, Michael!” Amy yelled, “My God…think! You and your lunatic brother are NOT taking her out of this hospital.”
“Mom, calm down please,” Maria soothed, “Michael knows what he’s doing.” She looked straight at Michael as she finished up her declaration. “I trust him more than anyone.” Her implicit statement didn’t escape Razba’s notice and he hurt with it.
Michael nodded gravely, comprehending her unspoken message to him. “Okay, you handle getting Rory together. Buzz the nurse and tell her you want her brought to your room,” he said, “In the meantime, Raz and I will take care of Liz. We’ll rendezvous at the shuttle in twenty minutes.”
******
Kyle snatched back his hand from Max’s wrist when he didn’t feel a pulse, letting his friend’s arm fall back to the floor limply. “Shit. This is bad,” he muttered to himself, “This is really bad.” He gave Max’s shoulder a frantic shake. “I didn’t sign of for this, Evans! You need to get up!”
A serrated groan sounded overhead and Kyle glanced up to catch David rolling upright in bed. David groaned again, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and clutching at his temples. “My head feels like it’s the practice spot for a marching band,” he muttered, massaging his temples, “I feel like fucking hell.” Kyle gulped and whispered his name. David started at the sound and frowned over in his direction. “Valenti?” he uttered, “What are you doing here?”
That’s when David noted for the first time that he wasn’t aboard his father’s yacht and that the bed he’d slept in wasn’t the one he shared with Isabel. He glanced around the room, assimilating the assortment of hospital monitors and equipment with a deepening scowl of bafflement. He also became aware of the various tubes and electrodes attached to his body. He began systematically removing them, growing increasingly annoyed as they seemed to grow in number rather than diminish. Finally, David lifted a shaky hand to his hair, feeling for the bandage swathed around his scalp.
“What the hell happened to me?” he breathed, “Where’s Isabel?”
“McKee…dude, I promise to answer all your questions,” Kyle vowed frantically, “But could you give me a hand first.”
For the first time David recognized that Max lay prone on the floor less than three feet away. “Did he faint or something,” he asked as he scrambling down from the bed, hiking up his hospital gown as he did. “Holy shit!” he cried when he felt the draft waft across his backside. He clutched the back of his hospital gown together. “I’m bare assed!”
“David!” Kyle barked in between administering CPR to Max, “Could you fucking focus a minute here? Max’s heart just stopped!”
“Well, call a doctor,” David exploded, finally recognizing the urgency of the situation. He began pumping Max’s chest in time with Kyle blowing air into his lungs. “We’re in a damned hospital after all! God!” His eyes flicked to the call button but before he could press it Kyle was putting the kybosh on the idea.
“They can’t help! This is…alien related,” Kyle explained during puffs, “He collapsed…while he was healing…you…”
For a second time David froze. Too much was happening all at once and he was having a hard time processing it all. “Healing me?” he echoed. He thought back on the bandage on his head as well as Isabel’s absence. “What happened to me, Valenti? And where the hell is my wife?” His last clear memory was of playing around with her on the beach. After that everything was pretty much a blur. “I’m so confused.”
“Later!” Kyle snapped, “Fuck, this isn’t working!” He gave Max a violent shake, as if he expected for that to pop open his friend’s eyes. “Don’t do this to me, Evans,” he moaned, “Liz will never get over it if I don’t bring you home safe.”
David’s pumping of Max’s chest slowly ground to a halt. “You don’t think he’s…”
“There’s no pulse,” Kyle uttered grimly, “There’s nothing…” He stared at David with dulled eyes. “I think he’s dead.”
******
“Why isn’t she waking up?” Maria asked worriedly as she came to stand over Liz’s still form strapped into the transporter cot. “You say she’s not dead but she still looks like shit. Maybe she should see a doctor.”
“Maria, get into your safety harness!” Michael and Razba shouted out simultaneously. Michael sent his brother a quelling look. “Get strapped in,” he ordered his wife in a gentler tone, “We can’t take off until you and the baby are secured.” Maria continued to linger over her fallen friend, uncertain. “Maria, a doctor can’t help her,” Michael told her mildly, “This is all alien related. Raz says she’ll be fine so we have to believe that.”
Maria nodded and made her way over to the seat they had designated for Rory. “Are you sure these things were designed for car seats,” she wondered as she gently fastened the baby into her safety seat. Her daughter was utterly content, lost in newborn sleep. She didn’t seem the least bit plagued by the anxiety that had the adults frantic. “It seems strange flying in a spaceship,” she finished in a mutter.
“I still don’t think this is a very good idea,” Amy said but, as had become the custom in the last few minutes, no one listened to her, “Maria and the baby should have medical care.”
“Mom, I’m fine,” Maria soothed, “Raz fixed me up and I’m right as rain again.” Right as rain, Maria thought in horror. She had been in Texas much too long. When her mother was properly mollified Maria turned her attention back to her husband. “What are we supposed to tell Liz’s parents, Michael?” she queried, strapping herself in, “We know Liz isn’t dead but if they see her it’s going to take some convincing to get them to believe it.”
“We’ll worry about that later,” Michael said, switching on the various control panels even as he watched the roof for storming hospital personnel, “Right now we need to concentrate on getting the hell out of here.”
Maria frowned. “Since when did you learn how to fly one of these things, Michael?”
Michael threw her a grim glance over his shoulder. “Today.”
“He’s co-flying,” Razba clarified, nodding a glance over at their pilot, “Cron and I are really the ones doing all the work. Now everyone hang on…we don’t have much of a launch pad so this take off is bound to be bumpy.”
******
Diadne caught Kadon eyeballing her as she hovered over Isabel’s sleeping form. She had been sensing latent resentment from him all morning and even the day before. Rather than allowing it go on, Diadne decided to tackle his passive animosity head on.
“You seem as if you have something on your mind,” she remarked calmly, “Why don’t you just spit it out, Kadon?”
“I do not know what you mean,” he brazened.
“It’s all over you,” Diadne retorted in exasperation, “You wouldn’t be trying to block my connection right now if it weren’t something serious.”
“Very well. I believe you are trying to usurp my position,” Kadon said, “That is not the way of our people, Diadne. I do not approve.”
“U…Usurp your position?” Diadne sputtered, “I’m not even thinking about your position, Kadon The only thing I’ve been concentrating on is getting Isabel to safety.”
“You’re using your relationship with the king to circumvent my advice to him,” Kadon ground out, “I did not condone this ludicrous idea that we split up. His lordship should have been present to welcome his sister to safety.”
“Someone had to stay behind and find David,” she muttered tautly.
“Your human lover would have sufficed.”
Diadne rolled her eyes at him, a decidedly human gesture and a fact she knew didn’t please him in the slightest. “And what was he supposed to do when he found him, huh,” she charged sharply, “David was shot. Kyle doesn’t have healing ability, Kadon!” He responded with nothing more than a clenched jaw. “Are you intimidated, Kadon?” she insinuated sweetly, “Do you think Max will offer me back my position as Royal Advisor? Relax…I don’t want it so you can stop acting like you have a stick up your ass.”
Kadon frowned over her phrasing. “You see?” he pressed, “I do not like this. I do not approve of how…human…you’ve become. You’re nearly as bad as Razba.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, Kadon, our Royal family is human,” Diadne reminded him softly, “You might want to keep aware of that in the future.” But she hardly expected him to heed her advice. His pride wouldn’t let him.
******
“You want to take his dead body back to Roswell?” David questioned flatly. He was clearly not enthused over Kyle’s haphazard plan.
“Well, we certainly can’t leave him here,” Kyle reasoned, “He’s got to have a proper burial and all that. We owe it to Liz and Isabel to take him home.”
David knew Kyle spoke the truth and, besides, Max was the very reason he was sitting there breathing to begin with. The least he could do was bear his brother’s-in-law body home. “Okay,” he agreed with a shuddering breath.
“You wait here with him and I’ll run up to the roof to get the pilot,” Kyle told him, “We’re going to need help carrying Max’s body.”
As Kyle rushed dejectedly from the hospital room David stared down at Max’s still face and felt tears burn the backs of his eyes. “Thank you, Max,” he whispered, “Thank you for everything.”
When Isabel saw Diadne’s face peering down at her she released a harsh sob of relief. She didn’t think she could have pulled that trigger if it had come down to that. “Thank God,” she wept, letting the gun fall from her limp fingers. It landed with a heavy thud at the bottom of the chest. Isabel reached up and looped her arms around Diadne’s neck and gave into harsh tears.
Diadne stared between Isabel’s tear-streaked face and the weapon lying so harmlessly on the chest floor. “You should have known we’d find you, Isabel.” she whispered gently, helping her Princess out from the trunk, “We’ll always find you.”
“It wasn’t lack of confidence,” Isabel replied weakly, “but your timing.” She flashed Diadne with a tired but teasing smile as she struggled to stand on jellied legs. “It was a little off.”
A moment later, Kadon was there flanking Isabel’s other side, his eyes soft with loyal concern. “Are you injured, highness?” he asked. He’s hands swept over her person lightly, searching for scars and broken bones.
“No…I’m fine,” Isabel answered fuzzily, shaking her head. She looked towards the open bedroom door. “Those men…”
“They are dead, highness,” Kadon finished flatly, “They’re all dead.” Isabel crumpled against him, her body finally slumping with the grief she’d been holding at bay for what seemed like an eternity. She was saved and her captors were dead but David… He was still lost to her. As her knees gave out from beneath her Kadon swung her up into his arms. “He’s alive, highness,” Kadon said, reading her despair as he bore her towards the foremost shuttle, “I’ll take you to him.”
“David is alive?” Isabel croaked weakly.
Kadon nodded. “His lordship is with him. He will heal Master David’s injuries. All will be well,” he promised.
“Take me to him,” Isabel ordered as she began to slip off into unconsciousness, “Take me to him now.”
******
They tried to resuscitate Liz for thirteen harrowing minutes. Maria’s hospital room exploded in chaos during that time as everyone crowded around Liz’s unconscious form and worked hard to bring her back. Thirteen minutes of defibrillators and CPR. Thirteen minutes with no response. Thirteen minutes before the doctor reluctantly called the time of death. She was pronounced dead at 8:27 p.m. Not even Razba could revive her and he tried several times even after the doctors had given up.
Maria started screaming. Nothing her mother or Michael said or did could calm her. “I d-don’t un-understand…” she sobbed hysterically, “She was fine! She was fine! She was j-just fine! How did this happen? How did this happen?”
“Mr. Guerin, I’m sorry,” the doctor murmured to Michael, “We did all we could.”
“Do you know what happened to her?” Michael croaked.
“Her heart just stopped,” the doctor explained, clearly baffled by the fact, “We won’t be able to determine the cause of death until we do an autopsy. Her family will have to be notified in the meantime.”
Michael barely heard him because he was watching the orderlies cover Liz’s prone body with a sheet. He thought of Max and what his reaction would be. He was sure to be devastated. After the blow of losing Zan, Max didn’t need to deal with this, too. He’d never recover. Michael knew it. The grief over that realization threatened to overwhelm him and he felt sick with it.
Surveying the various anguished faces before him the doctor politely excused himself to leave the family to pay their final respects. When he and his team of nurses and equipment were gone the room was left strangely quiet, except for the sound of Maria’s harsh weeping.
The moment the doctor was gone Michael stooped alongside Liz’s still form and peeled the sheet back from her face. Licking at the tears collecting around his mouth, Michael forced himself to look down at her. Her features were slack and colorless, her lips an alarming indigo blue. She looked…dead. Michael pressed his fingers to the underside of her neck, feeling for a pulse. He found none. And still his heart warred with his reason. Though he was ready to grieve and feeling the inevitable pull to weep when faced with such undeniable evidence Michael couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe Liz was really dead. This had to be a nightmare…or a trick.
Razba stooped across from him, staring down into Liz’s still features. “She’s not dead,” he declared after a moment, speaking aloud what Michael was already quietly considering in his mind.
Still he felt the need to deny it because the evidence spoke so loudly to the contrary. “Raz, she doesn’t have a pulse,” he said flatly, “We need to call her parents and tell them what’s happened.”
Razba grabbed hold of Michael’s arm when he started to rise to his feet. “She’s not dead,” he insisted, “This occurrence is alien related, Michael.”
“Alien related?”
“Her body is healing itself,” Razba explained, “I realized that when I connected with her because I was still able to connect. Liz is in there….hard to find but she’s there.”
“But why does she need to heal?” Michael wondered, “She was just fine this morning.”
“Max must have found David,” Razba reasoned softly, “His injuries had to have been severe for this kind of reaction in her. Max is probably going through the same thing.”
Michael’s heart rolled over at the reminder of Max and Liz’s phenomenal connection. Razba was right. If Liz was experiencing this near death state then most likely Max was experiencing it as well. “This is bad,” Michael uttered in a low tone, “She was just pronounced dead. In a few minutes those orderlies are going to come back to take her body to the morgue.”
“We can’t let them do that,” Razba said, “We should take her back to the palace. She should be home and in familiar surroundings. Her recuperation will progress quicker that way.”
“Do you know how crazy it will look if we insist on taking a dead body out of here with us?” Michael hissed, “I don’t even know if that’s legal, Raz.”
“She’s not dead!”
“Tell them that! They’ll think we’re a bunch of loons!”
They both glanced up simultaneously when Maria and Amy’s shadows fell across them. Michael reflexively whipped the sheet back over Liz’s face. “I want to see her,” Maria insisted hoarsely, “Pull it back.”
“Maria, she’s not dead,” Michael informed her gently, “But seeing her this way is just going to upset you, okay.”
Maria stumbled back against her mother, her green eyes wild with dismay and hope. “What do you mean she’s not dead?’ she gasped, “Is this an alien thing? Please tell me it’s an alien thing…”
Razba nodded tersely. “We need to leave the hospital before they come back to take her. She needs to be in Roswell so she can heal.”
“Leave the hospital?” Amy burst out incredulously, “My daughter just had a baby less than twenty-four hours ago. She’s not stepping foot outside of this room!”
“Amy, this isn’t the time!” Michael bit out sharply, “They’re not just going to let us waltz out of here with Liz’s body. We’re going to have to leave quietly. Very, very quietly.”
“Your daughter is less than a day old, Michael!” Amy yelled, “My God…think! You and your lunatic brother are NOT taking her out of this hospital.”
“Mom, calm down please,” Maria soothed, “Michael knows what he’s doing.” She looked straight at Michael as she finished up her declaration. “I trust him more than anyone.” Her implicit statement didn’t escape Razba’s notice and he hurt with it.
Michael nodded gravely, comprehending her unspoken message to him. “Okay, you handle getting Rory together. Buzz the nurse and tell her you want her brought to your room,” he said, “In the meantime, Raz and I will take care of Liz. We’ll rendezvous at the shuttle in twenty minutes.”
******
Kyle snatched back his hand from Max’s wrist when he didn’t feel a pulse, letting his friend’s arm fall back to the floor limply. “Shit. This is bad,” he muttered to himself, “This is really bad.” He gave Max’s shoulder a frantic shake. “I didn’t sign of for this, Evans! You need to get up!”
A serrated groan sounded overhead and Kyle glanced up to catch David rolling upright in bed. David groaned again, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and clutching at his temples. “My head feels like it’s the practice spot for a marching band,” he muttered, massaging his temples, “I feel like fucking hell.” Kyle gulped and whispered his name. David started at the sound and frowned over in his direction. “Valenti?” he uttered, “What are you doing here?”
That’s when David noted for the first time that he wasn’t aboard his father’s yacht and that the bed he’d slept in wasn’t the one he shared with Isabel. He glanced around the room, assimilating the assortment of hospital monitors and equipment with a deepening scowl of bafflement. He also became aware of the various tubes and electrodes attached to his body. He began systematically removing them, growing increasingly annoyed as they seemed to grow in number rather than diminish. Finally, David lifted a shaky hand to his hair, feeling for the bandage swathed around his scalp.
“What the hell happened to me?” he breathed, “Where’s Isabel?”
“McKee…dude, I promise to answer all your questions,” Kyle vowed frantically, “But could you give me a hand first.”
For the first time David recognized that Max lay prone on the floor less than three feet away. “Did he faint or something,” he asked as he scrambling down from the bed, hiking up his hospital gown as he did. “Holy shit!” he cried when he felt the draft waft across his backside. He clutched the back of his hospital gown together. “I’m bare assed!”
“David!” Kyle barked in between administering CPR to Max, “Could you fucking focus a minute here? Max’s heart just stopped!”
“Well, call a doctor,” David exploded, finally recognizing the urgency of the situation. He began pumping Max’s chest in time with Kyle blowing air into his lungs. “We’re in a damned hospital after all! God!” His eyes flicked to the call button but before he could press it Kyle was putting the kybosh on the idea.
“They can’t help! This is…alien related,” Kyle explained during puffs, “He collapsed…while he was healing…you…”
For a second time David froze. Too much was happening all at once and he was having a hard time processing it all. “Healing me?” he echoed. He thought back on the bandage on his head as well as Isabel’s absence. “What happened to me, Valenti? And where the hell is my wife?” His last clear memory was of playing around with her on the beach. After that everything was pretty much a blur. “I’m so confused.”
“Later!” Kyle snapped, “Fuck, this isn’t working!” He gave Max a violent shake, as if he expected for that to pop open his friend’s eyes. “Don’t do this to me, Evans,” he moaned, “Liz will never get over it if I don’t bring you home safe.”
David’s pumping of Max’s chest slowly ground to a halt. “You don’t think he’s…”
“There’s no pulse,” Kyle uttered grimly, “There’s nothing…” He stared at David with dulled eyes. “I think he’s dead.”
******
“Why isn’t she waking up?” Maria asked worriedly as she came to stand over Liz’s still form strapped into the transporter cot. “You say she’s not dead but she still looks like shit. Maybe she should see a doctor.”
“Maria, get into your safety harness!” Michael and Razba shouted out simultaneously. Michael sent his brother a quelling look. “Get strapped in,” he ordered his wife in a gentler tone, “We can’t take off until you and the baby are secured.” Maria continued to linger over her fallen friend, uncertain. “Maria, a doctor can’t help her,” Michael told her mildly, “This is all alien related. Raz says she’ll be fine so we have to believe that.”
Maria nodded and made her way over to the seat they had designated for Rory. “Are you sure these things were designed for car seats,” she wondered as she gently fastened the baby into her safety seat. Her daughter was utterly content, lost in newborn sleep. She didn’t seem the least bit plagued by the anxiety that had the adults frantic. “It seems strange flying in a spaceship,” she finished in a mutter.
“I still don’t think this is a very good idea,” Amy said but, as had become the custom in the last few minutes, no one listened to her, “Maria and the baby should have medical care.”
“Mom, I’m fine,” Maria soothed, “Raz fixed me up and I’m right as rain again.” Right as rain, Maria thought in horror. She had been in Texas much too long. When her mother was properly mollified Maria turned her attention back to her husband. “What are we supposed to tell Liz’s parents, Michael?” she queried, strapping herself in, “We know Liz isn’t dead but if they see her it’s going to take some convincing to get them to believe it.”
“We’ll worry about that later,” Michael said, switching on the various control panels even as he watched the roof for storming hospital personnel, “Right now we need to concentrate on getting the hell out of here.”
Maria frowned. “Since when did you learn how to fly one of these things, Michael?”
Michael threw her a grim glance over his shoulder. “Today.”
“He’s co-flying,” Razba clarified, nodding a glance over at their pilot, “Cron and I are really the ones doing all the work. Now everyone hang on…we don’t have much of a launch pad so this take off is bound to be bumpy.”
******
Diadne caught Kadon eyeballing her as she hovered over Isabel’s sleeping form. She had been sensing latent resentment from him all morning and even the day before. Rather than allowing it go on, Diadne decided to tackle his passive animosity head on.
“You seem as if you have something on your mind,” she remarked calmly, “Why don’t you just spit it out, Kadon?”
“I do not know what you mean,” he brazened.
“It’s all over you,” Diadne retorted in exasperation, “You wouldn’t be trying to block my connection right now if it weren’t something serious.”
“Very well. I believe you are trying to usurp my position,” Kadon said, “That is not the way of our people, Diadne. I do not approve.”
“U…Usurp your position?” Diadne sputtered, “I’m not even thinking about your position, Kadon The only thing I’ve been concentrating on is getting Isabel to safety.”
“You’re using your relationship with the king to circumvent my advice to him,” Kadon ground out, “I did not condone this ludicrous idea that we split up. His lordship should have been present to welcome his sister to safety.”
“Someone had to stay behind and find David,” she muttered tautly.
“Your human lover would have sufficed.”
Diadne rolled her eyes at him, a decidedly human gesture and a fact she knew didn’t please him in the slightest. “And what was he supposed to do when he found him, huh,” she charged sharply, “David was shot. Kyle doesn’t have healing ability, Kadon!” He responded with nothing more than a clenched jaw. “Are you intimidated, Kadon?” she insinuated sweetly, “Do you think Max will offer me back my position as Royal Advisor? Relax…I don’t want it so you can stop acting like you have a stick up your ass.”
Kadon frowned over her phrasing. “You see?” he pressed, “I do not like this. I do not approve of how…human…you’ve become. You’re nearly as bad as Razba.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, Kadon, our Royal family is human,” Diadne reminded him softly, “You might want to keep aware of that in the future.” But she hardly expected him to heed her advice. His pride wouldn’t let him.
******
“You want to take his dead body back to Roswell?” David questioned flatly. He was clearly not enthused over Kyle’s haphazard plan.
“Well, we certainly can’t leave him here,” Kyle reasoned, “He’s got to have a proper burial and all that. We owe it to Liz and Isabel to take him home.”
David knew Kyle spoke the truth and, besides, Max was the very reason he was sitting there breathing to begin with. The least he could do was bear his brother’s-in-law body home. “Okay,” he agreed with a shuddering breath.
“You wait here with him and I’ll run up to the roof to get the pilot,” Kyle told him, “We’re going to need help carrying Max’s body.”
As Kyle rushed dejectedly from the hospital room David stared down at Max’s still face and felt tears burn the backs of his eyes. “Thank you, Max,” he whispered, “Thank you for everything.”
-
Deejonaise
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- Posts: 385
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Now, Scottie, you know better, lol. On a different note, I'll admit that I had this whole angsty arc planned for this story but I think I'm just going to scrap it. TWLG is angsty enough and it's depressing me to write it. I don't want to have two angsty fics going at once so I'll definitely be lightening things up in this fic. It won't be all sunshine and roses but it will be better. I think I and anyone who's reading TWLG right now needs a good laugh. I'll do my best to deliver...but not with this part, lol.
Chapter 24
Michael’s shuttle was the first to land on the designated strip situated in the middle of little Antar. They had barely taken a step off the shuttle before attendants were swarming aboard to bear them off for the palace. Michael quickly learned on the way there that Diadne and Kadon were returning with Isabel and that Max and Kyle’s shuttle wasn’t far behind them. Soon they would all be together again and then they could figure out what to do about Max and Liz.
While Razba and Cron bore Liz’s limp body down the hall towards his bedroom and Maria tended with their fussing daughter, Michael put in a call to the Evanses and the Parkers to apprise both sets of parents of the current situation. Needless to say that general panic and chaos has ensued afterwards. After he’d concluded his frantic conversations, Michael clicked off his cell phone and wandered into the bedroom where Maria had taken the baby.
She was stretched out across the bed, leaned up on her elbow above their sleeping daughter and stroking Rory’s back with reverent joy. Upon his approach, however, she glanced up, breaking the beautiful mother/daughter moment long before Michael was ready to see it end.
“The Parkers and Max’s parents are on their way,” he announced, “It’s going to be a zoo here but I guess it’s understandable considering the hell we’ve gone through these last few days, huh?”
Maria nodded her agreement. “This situation is just so screwed up, especially this thing with Liz. Is she really going to be alright?” she whispered anxiously, pushing herself into a sitting position and folding her legs beneath her, “She still looks so pale. And she’s not breathing…not that I can tell anyway.”
“Razba said her heartbeat’s still going…” Michael told her, “It’s just barely detectable right now. But as long as he can still form a connection everything should work out.” He nodded towards his daughter, smiling a bit at how her tiny bottom was tilted so adorably skyward. “Why do they sleep like that?” he wondered aloud.
“The nurse at the hospital said it’s because they get so used to being crammed into the womb that sleeping curled up like that is a natural position,” Maria told him softly.
She was painfully conscious of the fact that this was the first moment of relative peace they’d had since he and Liz walked in on the tail end of her conversation with Razba. Michael had spoken little about it but still the tension was like an elephant in the room, enormous and impossible to ignore. Maria just wanted to clear the air so that the tremendous heaviness in her heart could finally be lifted.
But Michael must have sensed her intentions because he asked quite suddenly, “Where’s your mother?” He crossed the room and climbed onto the free side of the bed so that Rory lay between them. “After the way she carried on at the hospital I would have thought she’d have to be pried away from you and Rory-Kate with a crowbar.”
“She called Jim to let him know she’d gotten back,” Maria explained, “I guess their conversation must have gotten a little intense because she left a few minutes later and she was still talking on the phone with him.”
“What’s the problem with them?” Michael asked, frowning.
“Mom thinks something is going on between Jim and Deborah.” Michael stabbed her with a sharp glance, his brown eyes boring into her steadily. “Of course, he’s not,” she added on weakly, “It’s all in Mom’s head.”
Michael wasn’t so stupid as not to realize that Maria’s words had a double meaning. “Is this your round about way of making a point, Maria,” he demanded tersely.
“I’m just saying that you mistook what you saw in the hospital the other day,” she replied in tentative explanation. She reached out to touch him then, just to brush her fingers across the back of his hand where it lay against their daughter’s head but he recoiled from her overture.
“I don’t think I ‘mistook’ anything at all, Maria,” he ground out fiercely, “Now I really don’t want to do this with you. Not when everything is so uncertain.”
“No, you’re not going to put me off, Michael,” Maria persisted, “You can’t just brand me as a cheater in your mind and then totally dismiss me. That’s not how it works.”
“I don’t want to hear your fucking justifications, Maria!”
“That’s good,” she tossed back, “Because I have nothing to fucking justify! I’m not cheating on you, Michael, and I’m a little pissed off that you would think I could and with Raz, of all people! He’s your brother! How little do you think of me that you would believe I’m capable of something like that?”
Michael wasn’t completely certain how it happened but Maria had managed to put him on the defensive. Now instead of being filled with anger he was saturated with guilt and the need to atone. “Maria, it’s not that I think little of you,” he sighed, “But I know I haven’t been the most attentive husband lately and… Well, I could get where you might want to turn to someone else, even if the very idea kills me.”
“I haven’t turned to anyone,” Maria reassured him, “Raz and I are just friends.”
“Now,” he emphasized, “But will things stay that way? That’s the part I’m worried about, Maria. I already know Raz has feelings for you and there was definitely something going on in that room when Liz and I walked in. It was like a kick in the gut.”
“Oh, Michael--,”
“It hurt a lot, okay,” he confessed brusquely, “And I’m mad as hell about it but I feel like I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. It’s frustrating because I never meant to cut you out, Maria. I wanted you to be proud of me. You and Rory…you’re everything in my life that matters.”
“No, Michael,” Maria protested, “Your job matters, too, and I know that. I know you get a rush from the thrill of the chase and all that. I don’t want to be selfish and deprive you of that but… I need a little time, too. Raz shouldn’t be the one I go running to with my problems. That person should be you. It would be you if you were ever home.”
“Are things too far gone to be fixed,” he asked meekly, lowering his eyes in fearful shame, “Do you want to leave me?”
Maria swallowed, taking a few moments to comprise her next words carefully. She recognized Michael’s emotions were extremely raw at the moment and she wanted to tread lightly. “Okay…” she began with a fortifying breath, “I’ll admit to you that I have developed an inappropriate attraction for Raz. But I have not acted on it. I haven’t even thought about acting on it, Michael. Raz and I love you way too much to go there. Nothing has happened between us so none of the damage that’s been done is beyond repair. We can work through this if you want.”
“So there has been damage, huh?” Michael concluded glumly.
“Michael, we don’t talk anymore,” Maria told him, “At least not the way we used to. That’s the death knell for a relationship and…we never used to have that problem before. We’d yell and scream until we got it out. We’d break up and make up again but we always, always knew what was going on in each other’s heads.”
“I don’t always understand the stuff that goes on in your head, Maria,” Michael muttered.
“That’s not the point,” she said dryly, “At least you were willing to listen and you were there. I miss you, Michael.”
He didn’t wait any longer, but leaned forward and cupped the back of her head for a languid kiss of reconciliation. “I’ve missed you, too,” he whispered, nuzzling against her nose before ducking his head for another kiss, “I’ll be better, Maria…I promise.”
******
Almost the moment Isabel stepped off the shuttle onto the launch pad her mother had her enfolded in a suffocating hug. Isabel endured the embrace with a weak smile; unconsciously roaming her gaze over the faces of her loved ones searching for a desperate glimpse of David.
“He hasn’t made it back yet,” her father said, correctly reading her unspoken look, “He’ll be here soon, sweetheart.”
“Are you alright?” Diane cried in concern, “You look…”
“Like hell?” Isabel provided when her mother seemingly couldn’t find the right word, “I know it, Mom. I’m bone tired.”
“Oh my baby,” her mother crooned, framing her daughters face in her hands, “What did those monsters do to you?”
“Nothing I want to remember,” Isabel whispered, averting her eyes, “I just want to sleep for the next hundred years…after I’ve taken a shower first.”
“Well, before you go crash,” Michael interrupted, winding his way up to the front of the crowd with his baby daughter cradled in his arms, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet first. Rory-Kate, this is your Aunt Isabel.”
Isabel gasped when she saw the baby, her tired expression giving way to surprised awe. “Oh my God,” she whispered, scooping the baby from Michael’s arms before he had the chance to offer, “I can’t believe Maria had the baby already. What did you say her name was again?”
“Aurora Katherine,” Michael said, “But I like to call her Rory-Kate.”
“Aren’t you, precious?” Isabel whispered to the tiny bundle in her arms. She stroked to baby soft smoothness of Rory’s palm, her heart delighting when the baby’s small fist closed around her finger like a vise. “She’s got quite a grip,” Isabel remarked softly before tossing Michael a proud smile, “I think she looks like you.”
“God help her then,” he muttered.
“Maria must be so stoked,” Isabel said, searching among her loved ones for her friend. When she couldn’t find her she asked Michael, “Where is she?”
Michael’s smile faltered a bit at the question. “She stayed behind at the palace to watch over Liz.”
Isabel’s smile collapsed as well. “Why?” she asked with mounting dread, “What’s going on with Liz?”
“We think that Max had a little trouble when he was trying to heal, David--,” her father began tentatively but he got no further than that before Isabel went into a full-fledged panic.
“What are you saying?” she fired hysterically, “Are you saying that Max is hurt? That the healing wasn’t successful? Tell me what’s going on! Are they coming home or what?” Her agitation jarred the baby and Rory began fussing in her arms.
“Here,” Diane offered, holding out her arms for the newborn, “Give me the baby while Michael and your father fill you in on the details.”
“Okay, so what’s going on?” Isabel demanded after her mother had taken care of Rory, “What’s happening with Max and David? And don’t sugarcoat it, okay! I’ve been through hell these last few days and I can’t stand the tiptoeing!”
“Calm down, Izzy,” Michael barked shortly, “Max is fine. He’s going to make a full recovery, just like Liz. But we know because of their reaction that David’s injuries must have been pretty extensive.”
“They shot him in the head, Michael,” Isabel revealed thickly, “It doesn’t get anymore extensive that that.” Her eyes welled up with anguished tears of remembrance. “I thought he was dead…that I’d never see him again…”
Philip reached out to pull his daughter into his arms. “But he’s not,” he whispered to her soothingly, “David is fine and Max will be. They’re coming home soon, Isabel, and everything will be the way it’s supposed to be.”
As if on cue a loud whirring sounded overhead as the shuttle zapped into the atmosphere. When it appeared a thunderous boom accompanied it, shaking the foundation of the landing strip. Isabel immediately broke from her father’s arms and began running towards the shuttle as it made its descent to the ground. The moment the mechanized doors swooshed open, however, David burst through them, colliding with Isabel in a heartfelt embrace that had been a long time coming.
“Oh God! Oh God, thank you!” she wept into his neck, “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
David pulled back long enough to survey his wife’s tear streaked face, roam his hands over her cheeks and hair and shoulders before pulling her back into another tight embrace. “Kyle said you’d been kidnapped by terrorists,” he told her gruffly, “He said that Diadne and Kadon were on their way to you, but… I didn’t believe you were alright until this second.”
“David, I’m sorry,” Isabel sobbed out in a rush, “I should have told you about the danger…about Liz’s premonition and I didn’t. What happened is my fault. You were shot because of me and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Isabel, Isabel,” he mumbled, raining kisses all over her face, “I know why you didn’t tell me, sweetheart. I’m not holding you accountable. I promise I’m not.” But he could tell from her expression that it wasn’t enough. He could forgive her a thousand times over and it wouldn’t matter. Isabel would never forgive herself. He couldn’t say anything further or even argue with her about it because Kyle and the pilot had already started to exit the shuttle bearing Max’s body.
They barely cleared the doors, however, before a throng of Antarians with a ready cot, Isabel and her parents all formed a crowd around them.
“God, he looks terrible,” Diane remarked in horror as her son was strapped onto the gurney. “Why does he look so pale and lifeless?” she asked Michael, “I thought you said he was just recuperating.”
“His heart is barely beating,” Michael told her honestly, “It’s going to take him some time to recover.”
“Should we use the healing stones?” Isabel asked as David came to flank her.
They all began making their way back to their respective vehicles to transport Max back to the palace. “Raz says they’re not needed,” Michael told her, “He says that Max and Liz’s recovery time will go by faster if they’re together.”
“So we’re taking him back to the palace?” Isabel concluded, “And you’re sure he’ll be alright? He doesn’t need more than that?”
“He needs Liz,” Diadne told her, “Once they’re together everything will right itself.”
As Diadne jogged up ahead of her to join Kyle and share in a quiet reunion, Isabel looked over at her husband and silently acknowledged the trueness of her friend’s words. Six minutes earlier her world had seemed bleak and meaningless and full of uncertainty. But all that changed the moment her husband ran off that shuttle. But looking at him now, so weary and uncertain, Isabel couldn’t stop the guilty tears from forming in her throat.
He had almost died because of her…because he loved her. Isabel didn’t know if she could live with the idea of endangering him that way, not when she loved him so much in return. It was like Alex all over again. Isabel had to ask herself if the desire for happiness was really worth the cost to David’s safety and well being…his life…
It was definitely something she’d have to think about.
Chapter 24
Michael’s shuttle was the first to land on the designated strip situated in the middle of little Antar. They had barely taken a step off the shuttle before attendants were swarming aboard to bear them off for the palace. Michael quickly learned on the way there that Diadne and Kadon were returning with Isabel and that Max and Kyle’s shuttle wasn’t far behind them. Soon they would all be together again and then they could figure out what to do about Max and Liz.
While Razba and Cron bore Liz’s limp body down the hall towards his bedroom and Maria tended with their fussing daughter, Michael put in a call to the Evanses and the Parkers to apprise both sets of parents of the current situation. Needless to say that general panic and chaos has ensued afterwards. After he’d concluded his frantic conversations, Michael clicked off his cell phone and wandered into the bedroom where Maria had taken the baby.
She was stretched out across the bed, leaned up on her elbow above their sleeping daughter and stroking Rory’s back with reverent joy. Upon his approach, however, she glanced up, breaking the beautiful mother/daughter moment long before Michael was ready to see it end.
“The Parkers and Max’s parents are on their way,” he announced, “It’s going to be a zoo here but I guess it’s understandable considering the hell we’ve gone through these last few days, huh?”
Maria nodded her agreement. “This situation is just so screwed up, especially this thing with Liz. Is she really going to be alright?” she whispered anxiously, pushing herself into a sitting position and folding her legs beneath her, “She still looks so pale. And she’s not breathing…not that I can tell anyway.”
“Razba said her heartbeat’s still going…” Michael told her, “It’s just barely detectable right now. But as long as he can still form a connection everything should work out.” He nodded towards his daughter, smiling a bit at how her tiny bottom was tilted so adorably skyward. “Why do they sleep like that?” he wondered aloud.
“The nurse at the hospital said it’s because they get so used to being crammed into the womb that sleeping curled up like that is a natural position,” Maria told him softly.
She was painfully conscious of the fact that this was the first moment of relative peace they’d had since he and Liz walked in on the tail end of her conversation with Razba. Michael had spoken little about it but still the tension was like an elephant in the room, enormous and impossible to ignore. Maria just wanted to clear the air so that the tremendous heaviness in her heart could finally be lifted.
But Michael must have sensed her intentions because he asked quite suddenly, “Where’s your mother?” He crossed the room and climbed onto the free side of the bed so that Rory lay between them. “After the way she carried on at the hospital I would have thought she’d have to be pried away from you and Rory-Kate with a crowbar.”
“She called Jim to let him know she’d gotten back,” Maria explained, “I guess their conversation must have gotten a little intense because she left a few minutes later and she was still talking on the phone with him.”
“What’s the problem with them?” Michael asked, frowning.
“Mom thinks something is going on between Jim and Deborah.” Michael stabbed her with a sharp glance, his brown eyes boring into her steadily. “Of course, he’s not,” she added on weakly, “It’s all in Mom’s head.”
Michael wasn’t so stupid as not to realize that Maria’s words had a double meaning. “Is this your round about way of making a point, Maria,” he demanded tersely.
“I’m just saying that you mistook what you saw in the hospital the other day,” she replied in tentative explanation. She reached out to touch him then, just to brush her fingers across the back of his hand where it lay against their daughter’s head but he recoiled from her overture.
“I don’t think I ‘mistook’ anything at all, Maria,” he ground out fiercely, “Now I really don’t want to do this with you. Not when everything is so uncertain.”
“No, you’re not going to put me off, Michael,” Maria persisted, “You can’t just brand me as a cheater in your mind and then totally dismiss me. That’s not how it works.”
“I don’t want to hear your fucking justifications, Maria!”
“That’s good,” she tossed back, “Because I have nothing to fucking justify! I’m not cheating on you, Michael, and I’m a little pissed off that you would think I could and with Raz, of all people! He’s your brother! How little do you think of me that you would believe I’m capable of something like that?”
Michael wasn’t completely certain how it happened but Maria had managed to put him on the defensive. Now instead of being filled with anger he was saturated with guilt and the need to atone. “Maria, it’s not that I think little of you,” he sighed, “But I know I haven’t been the most attentive husband lately and… Well, I could get where you might want to turn to someone else, even if the very idea kills me.”
“I haven’t turned to anyone,” Maria reassured him, “Raz and I are just friends.”
“Now,” he emphasized, “But will things stay that way? That’s the part I’m worried about, Maria. I already know Raz has feelings for you and there was definitely something going on in that room when Liz and I walked in. It was like a kick in the gut.”
“Oh, Michael--,”
“It hurt a lot, okay,” he confessed brusquely, “And I’m mad as hell about it but I feel like I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. It’s frustrating because I never meant to cut you out, Maria. I wanted you to be proud of me. You and Rory…you’re everything in my life that matters.”
“No, Michael,” Maria protested, “Your job matters, too, and I know that. I know you get a rush from the thrill of the chase and all that. I don’t want to be selfish and deprive you of that but… I need a little time, too. Raz shouldn’t be the one I go running to with my problems. That person should be you. It would be you if you were ever home.”
“Are things too far gone to be fixed,” he asked meekly, lowering his eyes in fearful shame, “Do you want to leave me?”
Maria swallowed, taking a few moments to comprise her next words carefully. She recognized Michael’s emotions were extremely raw at the moment and she wanted to tread lightly. “Okay…” she began with a fortifying breath, “I’ll admit to you that I have developed an inappropriate attraction for Raz. But I have not acted on it. I haven’t even thought about acting on it, Michael. Raz and I love you way too much to go there. Nothing has happened between us so none of the damage that’s been done is beyond repair. We can work through this if you want.”
“So there has been damage, huh?” Michael concluded glumly.
“Michael, we don’t talk anymore,” Maria told him, “At least not the way we used to. That’s the death knell for a relationship and…we never used to have that problem before. We’d yell and scream until we got it out. We’d break up and make up again but we always, always knew what was going on in each other’s heads.”
“I don’t always understand the stuff that goes on in your head, Maria,” Michael muttered.
“That’s not the point,” she said dryly, “At least you were willing to listen and you were there. I miss you, Michael.”
He didn’t wait any longer, but leaned forward and cupped the back of her head for a languid kiss of reconciliation. “I’ve missed you, too,” he whispered, nuzzling against her nose before ducking his head for another kiss, “I’ll be better, Maria…I promise.”
******
Almost the moment Isabel stepped off the shuttle onto the launch pad her mother had her enfolded in a suffocating hug. Isabel endured the embrace with a weak smile; unconsciously roaming her gaze over the faces of her loved ones searching for a desperate glimpse of David.
“He hasn’t made it back yet,” her father said, correctly reading her unspoken look, “He’ll be here soon, sweetheart.”
“Are you alright?” Diane cried in concern, “You look…”
“Like hell?” Isabel provided when her mother seemingly couldn’t find the right word, “I know it, Mom. I’m bone tired.”
“Oh my baby,” her mother crooned, framing her daughters face in her hands, “What did those monsters do to you?”
“Nothing I want to remember,” Isabel whispered, averting her eyes, “I just want to sleep for the next hundred years…after I’ve taken a shower first.”
“Well, before you go crash,” Michael interrupted, winding his way up to the front of the crowd with his baby daughter cradled in his arms, “there’s someone I’d like you to meet first. Rory-Kate, this is your Aunt Isabel.”
Isabel gasped when she saw the baby, her tired expression giving way to surprised awe. “Oh my God,” she whispered, scooping the baby from Michael’s arms before he had the chance to offer, “I can’t believe Maria had the baby already. What did you say her name was again?”
“Aurora Katherine,” Michael said, “But I like to call her Rory-Kate.”
“Aren’t you, precious?” Isabel whispered to the tiny bundle in her arms. She stroked to baby soft smoothness of Rory’s palm, her heart delighting when the baby’s small fist closed around her finger like a vise. “She’s got quite a grip,” Isabel remarked softly before tossing Michael a proud smile, “I think she looks like you.”
“God help her then,” he muttered.
“Maria must be so stoked,” Isabel said, searching among her loved ones for her friend. When she couldn’t find her she asked Michael, “Where is she?”
Michael’s smile faltered a bit at the question. “She stayed behind at the palace to watch over Liz.”
Isabel’s smile collapsed as well. “Why?” she asked with mounting dread, “What’s going on with Liz?”
“We think that Max had a little trouble when he was trying to heal, David--,” her father began tentatively but he got no further than that before Isabel went into a full-fledged panic.
“What are you saying?” she fired hysterically, “Are you saying that Max is hurt? That the healing wasn’t successful? Tell me what’s going on! Are they coming home or what?” Her agitation jarred the baby and Rory began fussing in her arms.
“Here,” Diane offered, holding out her arms for the newborn, “Give me the baby while Michael and your father fill you in on the details.”
“Okay, so what’s going on?” Isabel demanded after her mother had taken care of Rory, “What’s happening with Max and David? And don’t sugarcoat it, okay! I’ve been through hell these last few days and I can’t stand the tiptoeing!”
“Calm down, Izzy,” Michael barked shortly, “Max is fine. He’s going to make a full recovery, just like Liz. But we know because of their reaction that David’s injuries must have been pretty extensive.”
“They shot him in the head, Michael,” Isabel revealed thickly, “It doesn’t get anymore extensive that that.” Her eyes welled up with anguished tears of remembrance. “I thought he was dead…that I’d never see him again…”
Philip reached out to pull his daughter into his arms. “But he’s not,” he whispered to her soothingly, “David is fine and Max will be. They’re coming home soon, Isabel, and everything will be the way it’s supposed to be.”
As if on cue a loud whirring sounded overhead as the shuttle zapped into the atmosphere. When it appeared a thunderous boom accompanied it, shaking the foundation of the landing strip. Isabel immediately broke from her father’s arms and began running towards the shuttle as it made its descent to the ground. The moment the mechanized doors swooshed open, however, David burst through them, colliding with Isabel in a heartfelt embrace that had been a long time coming.
“Oh God! Oh God, thank you!” she wept into his neck, “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
David pulled back long enough to survey his wife’s tear streaked face, roam his hands over her cheeks and hair and shoulders before pulling her back into another tight embrace. “Kyle said you’d been kidnapped by terrorists,” he told her gruffly, “He said that Diadne and Kadon were on their way to you, but… I didn’t believe you were alright until this second.”
“David, I’m sorry,” Isabel sobbed out in a rush, “I should have told you about the danger…about Liz’s premonition and I didn’t. What happened is my fault. You were shot because of me and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Isabel, Isabel,” he mumbled, raining kisses all over her face, “I know why you didn’t tell me, sweetheart. I’m not holding you accountable. I promise I’m not.” But he could tell from her expression that it wasn’t enough. He could forgive her a thousand times over and it wouldn’t matter. Isabel would never forgive herself. He couldn’t say anything further or even argue with her about it because Kyle and the pilot had already started to exit the shuttle bearing Max’s body.
They barely cleared the doors, however, before a throng of Antarians with a ready cot, Isabel and her parents all formed a crowd around them.
“God, he looks terrible,” Diane remarked in horror as her son was strapped onto the gurney. “Why does he look so pale and lifeless?” she asked Michael, “I thought you said he was just recuperating.”
“His heart is barely beating,” Michael told her honestly, “It’s going to take him some time to recover.”
“Should we use the healing stones?” Isabel asked as David came to flank her.
They all began making their way back to their respective vehicles to transport Max back to the palace. “Raz says they’re not needed,” Michael told her, “He says that Max and Liz’s recovery time will go by faster if they’re together.”
“So we’re taking him back to the palace?” Isabel concluded, “And you’re sure he’ll be alright? He doesn’t need more than that?”
“He needs Liz,” Diadne told her, “Once they’re together everything will right itself.”
As Diadne jogged up ahead of her to join Kyle and share in a quiet reunion, Isabel looked over at her husband and silently acknowledged the trueness of her friend’s words. Six minutes earlier her world had seemed bleak and meaningless and full of uncertainty. But all that changed the moment her husband ran off that shuttle. But looking at him now, so weary and uncertain, Isabel couldn’t stop the guilty tears from forming in her throat.
He had almost died because of her…because he loved her. Isabel didn’t know if she could live with the idea of endangering him that way, not when she loved him so much in return. It was like Alex all over again. Isabel had to ask herself if the desire for happiness was really worth the cost to David’s safety and well being…his life…
It was definitely something she’d have to think about.
-
Deejonaise
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Believe it or not...this fic is starting to wind to a close. Maybe another five parts left and that's it. What a ride it's been! I definitely think this has been my favorite trilogy to write. Thanks for sharing it with me.
Chapter 25
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Liz’s beautiful face. Content to watch her sleep just a bit longer, Max slid his fingers over the ridge of her cheekbone, marveling in the baby softness of her skin. Her features were relaxed, her mouth parted slightly so that soft, lilting snores could escape. Max smiled to himself. To this day she didn’t believe she snored. She couldn’t imagine herself doing something so indelicate but Max found it oddly endearing.
At the moment her eyelids were twitching rapidly as she entered into REM sleep. Max didn’t have to wonder about her dreams though. He already knew them. Just like he knew she was pregnant.
He wasn’t sure where the awareness had come from but Max simply knew it. When he opened his eyes he knew three things immediately: he was home, Liz was beside him and she was carrying his child. He had felt the presence of his son just as strongly as he’d felt his connection for Zan, but this time it had come unbidden. The consciousness, the connection to this tiny being growing inside her was already being ingrained in his bones.
Max could feel himself on the verge of a meltdown with the knowledge. He couldn’t decide whether he was happy or disappointed with the development but he did know he was petrified. Completely and utterly petrified.
That was the very reason he let himself become absorbed in watching Liz sleep…touching her… Because if he thought of the implications now, if he let his mind wander to that terrifying place Max didn’t know what he’d do, not after the harrowing few days they’d already endured. The thought of bringing a baby into that… Max knew he would have to eventually talk to Liz about the pregnancy, which he was certain happened during their trip to Cancun, but he wanted to put off that conversation. He wanted to put off even thinking about that conversation as long as he could.
Without warning, Liz’s eyes snapped open and she jerked to attention with a slight gasp. However, when she saw Max lying there, lifted up onto his elbow and watching her Liz’s initial panic began to recede. “You’re here,” she breathed in relief, “I dreamed…I dreamed you were dead.”
“I know,” he whispered, “I dreamed the same thing about you. But that’s all it was, Liz…it was just a dream…”
Liz brushed her hands over his face and shoulders, as if she was having a difficult time believing he was really there. “But it seemed so real,” she mumbled to herself, “I felt it, you know.” She frowned then, recognizing they were back home in their palatial bedroom. “How did we get here?” she asked, veering up slightly, “Last thing I remember I was in Houston and Maria had just had her baby.”
“Last thing I remember is being in a Grecian hospital standing over David,” Max told her, “After that is a big, fat blank.”
“Oh my God! David!” Liz rushed in exclamation, “Is he alright?”
Max responded with a nonplussed grimace. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said, “I was trying to heal him when everything just went crazy.”
“What happened, Max?”
“I don’t know…” he murmured in recollection, “It’s like I made the connection and…one minute I was controlling the power flow and the next the energy was just being sucked out of me. I…I think David’s injuries might have been too extensive for me to try and heal on my own. It was too much for my body to handle. I guess you got a taste of that, huh?” he finished, brushing a kiss across her forehead. He hated the thought of her suffering because he did. Sometimes the connection between them, quite frankly…well, it sucked.
“So David’s injuries were really bad then?” Liz concluded in a small voice.
“He probably would have died if we hadn’t gotten there. Honestly, he was already clinically dead anyway,” Max whispered, “The situation wasn’t good. What about you? What were you doing when it all went crazy?”
“Comforting Maria,” Liz answered with a confused grimace, “Or maybe she was comforting me…I don’t really remember. All I know is that I felt really lightheaded and then there was nothing.”
“Maria was comforting you?” he echoed uneasily, “Why?”
Liz gaze became shuttered then and she ducked her head and Max felt the connection between them shut down as she broke eye contact altogether. He knew than that whatever she was about to say was not something he wanted to hear. Max braced himself.
“Max, there’s something I need to talk to you about and--,” she began only to have her stomach rumble loudly in interruption. The seriousness of the moment was shattered by Max’s choking laugh and Liz’s mortified giggle. “Oh my God,” she uttered, “I’m hungry but I didn’t think I was that hungry. It sounds like a rhino in there. How long do you think we’ve been out of it?”
Max rolled over to search the nightstand for the television remote. When he found it, he clicked on the set and switched to the preview channel. He and Liz waited for the channel selections to scroll through for that day’s date. When they saw it they both gasped simultaneously.
“Three days?” Liz uttered, “We’ve been out cold for three days?” She looked over at Max who, unfortunately, appeared just as confused as she did.
“Well, that explains one thing,” he muttered wryly.
“What?”
“Why my bladder feels like it’s about to explode,” he said, hopping from the bed, “Stay right there. I’ll be right back.”
“Not if I get there first,” Liz tossed back, already on her feet and making a mad dash for the bathroom.
******
Kyle was jarred out of his sleep by Rory-Kate’s insistent wailing. Her fitful cries echoed stridently from the room next door. He groaned and rolled, expecting to snuggle with Diadne’s warm body but finding empty space instead. He snapped upright in a panic only to find her a few seconds later, curled up in the window seat.
“What are you doing over there?” he asked, his voice husky and gruff with sleep.
“Rory-Kate wakes up every two hours,” Diadne replied quietly, “I just decided to give up the idea of sleep altogether.”
Kyle climbed from the bed, wrapping the sheets around his naked form and padding over to join her on the window ledge. They shared a tender kiss good morning. “So,” he prodded, noting her pensive expression as she stared out the window, “How do you feel?”
It was a loaded question. Last night Diadne had given him her virginity, human and Antarian. For Kyle the experience had been profound and surreal. He had never done acid in his life, but sex with Diadne had hallucinogenic effects. He had seen colors he’d never dreamed of before, his every sense magnified by about a hundred. And when she finally climaxed Kyle shattered. That moment of awareness when he felt his pleasure and the pleasure he was giving her had almost given Kyle a heart attack. It had been intense and he was wondering if Diadne had found it a little too intense.
“No,” she answered.
Kyle frowned at her. “I’ve told you to stop doing that,” he admonished her dryly, “It’s weird to have you answer my questions when I ask them in my head.”
“Sorry…force of habit,” she murmured in chagrin.
“So what are you thinking about?” he asked, a bit aggravated that the mind reading thing didn’t go both ways.
“A lot of things.”
“Like what?’ he prodded.
“Like…we’ll never be like the others,” she whispered sadly.
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll never be able to have babies together,” she whispered, “We’ll never have a truly normal relationship.” She stared at him with forlorn eyes. “Your mother will never accept me, Kyle.”
He groaned over the mention of his mom. Since returning he hadn’t had time to share more than a few passing words with his mother. He and Diadne were supposed to have lunch with her later that afternoon. For the first time it dawned on Kyle that Diadne’s quiet demeanor might spring from her anxiety over that and not the fact they had slept together.
“No, I’ve got some issues about that, too,” she told him.
Kyle fixed her with a mock glower. “Can you please stop doing that?” Diadne had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. “Tell me why you think my mother won’t accept you first and then we’ll talk about the rest of it.”
“She wants you with a normal human girl, that’s why,” Diadne answered flatly, “I’m not exactly the lifemate she envisioned for her only son. She thinks you’re making a big mistake by committing to me.”
“You’ve really got to stop reading other people’s thoughts, Pip,” Kyle scolded lightly, “It’s not a good thing.”
“I only read them when they pertain to me,” she said as if that should excuse it.
Kyle knew better than to try and argue points of logic to her on that matter so he decided to stick solely with the problem at hand. “Okay, first of all…my mother doesn’t know you, Diadne,” he replied gently, “She can’t dislike you already. And if she did,” he added quickly when she opened her mouth to comment, “it wouldn’t matter a damn to me because I make my own decisions. She’s been out of my life for over a decade. I’m not just going to let her start running it.”
“But you love her,” Diadne reasoned quietly, “You want to please her.”
“Not at the expense of my own happiness,” he answered.
“Do I really make you happy, Kyle?” she asked, as if she were astounded by the very idea.
“Most of the time, yeah.”
“And it doesn’t matter that I’m an alien and that I’ll never give you children or that I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of you kissing me,” her cheeks flaming, Diadne lowered her voice to a deliberate whisper as she finished, “down there?”
Kyle had to cough to cover his answering laugh. But it wasn’t enough. He started laughing so hard that he actually fell out of the window seat. When he hit the floor with a groaning thud Diadne started laughing as well. She ended up falling out of the window seat, landing on Kyle before he could roll away to safety. His answering groan of pain only spurred on more laughter and they were in tears by the end of it.
“So you didn’t like that, huh?” he asked breathlessly when most of their laughter had subsided and they lay in the middle of the floor, tangled in the sheets.
“Hmm…no,” she replied, “And the fact you tried to kiss me afterward… Well, I was quite disgusted. Don’t you know what happens…down there?”
Kyle couldn’t help it. He started laughing all over again. “Well, since you put it like that,” he chuckled, “I might never go “down there” again.”
******
“I think we should get a divorce.”
David ignored his wife’s dire pronouncement altogether as he looked over the restaurant advertisements in the morning paper. “I’m in the mood for pancakes,” he said, “What about you, sweetheart? Could you go for some pancakes?”
Isabel could only sputter as he calmly set aside the paper to finish getting dressed. “Didn’t you just hear what I said?”
“Yes, I did,” David answered as he buttoned one shirt cuff and then the other, “And I’m ignoring you…because you’re being absolutely ridiculous.”
“You were almost killed, David!” she cried.
“So were you. So was Max. So was Liz. And Michael, and Kyle and Diadne,” David recounted as he ticked off the list with his fingers, “That comes with the nature of your existence. I knew that when I married you, Isabel.”
“They shot you, David.”
“Yeah, I know it,” he said as if it wasn’t a big deal at all.
“I saw them shoot you,” Isabel emphasized, “You…you don’t remember what they did to you in that room but I do. What’s worse is I know it was entirely my fault. Maybe if I had come to you sooner with the truth then none of it would have happened.”
“Then you learned a lesson,” David concluded in the same unaffected tone, “No more secrets. It’s behind us.”
“No, it’s not,” she insisted, flopping down onto the bed, “David, my life is dangerous. I don’t want you to get hurt.” She stared down at her hands as if she were about to reveal something extremely profound. “I’m letting you go.”
David pivoted to face her, rolling in his lips and compressing them for fear of laughing outright. He knew Isabel well enough to realize she was being sincere in her offer. She really did believe that “letting him go” as she put it was the good and noble thing to do. Didn’t she realize he would never be brushed aside that easily?
He crossed the room and joined her on the bed, lightly stroking his hand down her back. “I get that the kidnapping shook you up,” he said gently, “What those bastards did to you was unspeakable but you can’t let that one bad experience dictate the rest of your life.”
Isabel had definitely been traumatized by the experience though she had admitted it to no one but him. She couldn’t be in complete darkness now. The thought of sleeping cloaked in blackness had utterly terrified her. As a result, David agreed to keep the nightstand lamp clicked on the entire night and eventually Isabel had fallen asleep. She was healing physically from her ordeal but David knew the emotional scars were still there, which was why she’d taken this insane notion into her head that leaving him was somehow in his best interest.
“Isabel,” he whispered, scooping up her trembling hand in his own, “You can’t control every little thing that happens. You seem to think divorcing me is going to keep me safe but I could easily step off a curb and get hit by a speeding bus. You just never know, sweetheart…that’s the whole point.
“Life is a gamble, Isabel,” he told her, “If you spend all your time being afraid of what might happen you’ll never live. You’ll always end up limiting yourself…and that’s not a very happy existence.”
“But I’ve ruined your life,” she sobbed, burying her face into his shoulder, “You…you were almost killed and now…well, now you’re going to turn into a freak of nature just like me because of the healing…”
“A freak of nature?” he echoed, tipping up her chin, “I’d describe you as many things, Isabel McKee, but freak of nature isn’t one of them.”
“You won’t be normal anymore,” she whispered.
“Why the hell do I care?” he countered sweetly, “I haven’t been normal since the day I met you and I like it that way.”
“You do?” she asked, her shimmering eyes wide with hope.
David couldn’t help it. He had to kiss her then, if for no other reason that to erase the despondent darkness from her eyes. “Yes, sweetheart,” he murmured, angling her back against the bed, “I really do.”
Chapter 25
The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Liz’s beautiful face. Content to watch her sleep just a bit longer, Max slid his fingers over the ridge of her cheekbone, marveling in the baby softness of her skin. Her features were relaxed, her mouth parted slightly so that soft, lilting snores could escape. Max smiled to himself. To this day she didn’t believe she snored. She couldn’t imagine herself doing something so indelicate but Max found it oddly endearing.
At the moment her eyelids were twitching rapidly as she entered into REM sleep. Max didn’t have to wonder about her dreams though. He already knew them. Just like he knew she was pregnant.
He wasn’t sure where the awareness had come from but Max simply knew it. When he opened his eyes he knew three things immediately: he was home, Liz was beside him and she was carrying his child. He had felt the presence of his son just as strongly as he’d felt his connection for Zan, but this time it had come unbidden. The consciousness, the connection to this tiny being growing inside her was already being ingrained in his bones.
Max could feel himself on the verge of a meltdown with the knowledge. He couldn’t decide whether he was happy or disappointed with the development but he did know he was petrified. Completely and utterly petrified.
That was the very reason he let himself become absorbed in watching Liz sleep…touching her… Because if he thought of the implications now, if he let his mind wander to that terrifying place Max didn’t know what he’d do, not after the harrowing few days they’d already endured. The thought of bringing a baby into that… Max knew he would have to eventually talk to Liz about the pregnancy, which he was certain happened during their trip to Cancun, but he wanted to put off that conversation. He wanted to put off even thinking about that conversation as long as he could.
Without warning, Liz’s eyes snapped open and she jerked to attention with a slight gasp. However, when she saw Max lying there, lifted up onto his elbow and watching her Liz’s initial panic began to recede. “You’re here,” she breathed in relief, “I dreamed…I dreamed you were dead.”
“I know,” he whispered, “I dreamed the same thing about you. But that’s all it was, Liz…it was just a dream…”
Liz brushed her hands over his face and shoulders, as if she was having a difficult time believing he was really there. “But it seemed so real,” she mumbled to herself, “I felt it, you know.” She frowned then, recognizing they were back home in their palatial bedroom. “How did we get here?” she asked, veering up slightly, “Last thing I remember I was in Houston and Maria had just had her baby.”
“Last thing I remember is being in a Grecian hospital standing over David,” Max told her, “After that is a big, fat blank.”
“Oh my God! David!” Liz rushed in exclamation, “Is he alright?”
Max responded with a nonplussed grimace. “I couldn’t tell you,” he said, “I was trying to heal him when everything just went crazy.”
“What happened, Max?”
“I don’t know…” he murmured in recollection, “It’s like I made the connection and…one minute I was controlling the power flow and the next the energy was just being sucked out of me. I…I think David’s injuries might have been too extensive for me to try and heal on my own. It was too much for my body to handle. I guess you got a taste of that, huh?” he finished, brushing a kiss across her forehead. He hated the thought of her suffering because he did. Sometimes the connection between them, quite frankly…well, it sucked.
“So David’s injuries were really bad then?” Liz concluded in a small voice.
“He probably would have died if we hadn’t gotten there. Honestly, he was already clinically dead anyway,” Max whispered, “The situation wasn’t good. What about you? What were you doing when it all went crazy?”
“Comforting Maria,” Liz answered with a confused grimace, “Or maybe she was comforting me…I don’t really remember. All I know is that I felt really lightheaded and then there was nothing.”
“Maria was comforting you?” he echoed uneasily, “Why?”
Liz gaze became shuttered then and she ducked her head and Max felt the connection between them shut down as she broke eye contact altogether. He knew than that whatever she was about to say was not something he wanted to hear. Max braced himself.
“Max, there’s something I need to talk to you about and--,” she began only to have her stomach rumble loudly in interruption. The seriousness of the moment was shattered by Max’s choking laugh and Liz’s mortified giggle. “Oh my God,” she uttered, “I’m hungry but I didn’t think I was that hungry. It sounds like a rhino in there. How long do you think we’ve been out of it?”
Max rolled over to search the nightstand for the television remote. When he found it, he clicked on the set and switched to the preview channel. He and Liz waited for the channel selections to scroll through for that day’s date. When they saw it they both gasped simultaneously.
“Three days?” Liz uttered, “We’ve been out cold for three days?” She looked over at Max who, unfortunately, appeared just as confused as she did.
“Well, that explains one thing,” he muttered wryly.
“What?”
“Why my bladder feels like it’s about to explode,” he said, hopping from the bed, “Stay right there. I’ll be right back.”
“Not if I get there first,” Liz tossed back, already on her feet and making a mad dash for the bathroom.
******
Kyle was jarred out of his sleep by Rory-Kate’s insistent wailing. Her fitful cries echoed stridently from the room next door. He groaned and rolled, expecting to snuggle with Diadne’s warm body but finding empty space instead. He snapped upright in a panic only to find her a few seconds later, curled up in the window seat.
“What are you doing over there?” he asked, his voice husky and gruff with sleep.
“Rory-Kate wakes up every two hours,” Diadne replied quietly, “I just decided to give up the idea of sleep altogether.”
Kyle climbed from the bed, wrapping the sheets around his naked form and padding over to join her on the window ledge. They shared a tender kiss good morning. “So,” he prodded, noting her pensive expression as she stared out the window, “How do you feel?”
It was a loaded question. Last night Diadne had given him her virginity, human and Antarian. For Kyle the experience had been profound and surreal. He had never done acid in his life, but sex with Diadne had hallucinogenic effects. He had seen colors he’d never dreamed of before, his every sense magnified by about a hundred. And when she finally climaxed Kyle shattered. That moment of awareness when he felt his pleasure and the pleasure he was giving her had almost given Kyle a heart attack. It had been intense and he was wondering if Diadne had found it a little too intense.
“No,” she answered.
Kyle frowned at her. “I’ve told you to stop doing that,” he admonished her dryly, “It’s weird to have you answer my questions when I ask them in my head.”
“Sorry…force of habit,” she murmured in chagrin.
“So what are you thinking about?” he asked, a bit aggravated that the mind reading thing didn’t go both ways.
“A lot of things.”
“Like what?’ he prodded.
“Like…we’ll never be like the others,” she whispered sadly.
“What do you mean?”
“We’ll never be able to have babies together,” she whispered, “We’ll never have a truly normal relationship.” She stared at him with forlorn eyes. “Your mother will never accept me, Kyle.”
He groaned over the mention of his mom. Since returning he hadn’t had time to share more than a few passing words with his mother. He and Diadne were supposed to have lunch with her later that afternoon. For the first time it dawned on Kyle that Diadne’s quiet demeanor might spring from her anxiety over that and not the fact they had slept together.
“No, I’ve got some issues about that, too,” she told him.
Kyle fixed her with a mock glower. “Can you please stop doing that?” Diadne had to bite her lip to keep from smiling. “Tell me why you think my mother won’t accept you first and then we’ll talk about the rest of it.”
“She wants you with a normal human girl, that’s why,” Diadne answered flatly, “I’m not exactly the lifemate she envisioned for her only son. She thinks you’re making a big mistake by committing to me.”
“You’ve really got to stop reading other people’s thoughts, Pip,” Kyle scolded lightly, “It’s not a good thing.”
“I only read them when they pertain to me,” she said as if that should excuse it.
Kyle knew better than to try and argue points of logic to her on that matter so he decided to stick solely with the problem at hand. “Okay, first of all…my mother doesn’t know you, Diadne,” he replied gently, “She can’t dislike you already. And if she did,” he added quickly when she opened her mouth to comment, “it wouldn’t matter a damn to me because I make my own decisions. She’s been out of my life for over a decade. I’m not just going to let her start running it.”
“But you love her,” Diadne reasoned quietly, “You want to please her.”
“Not at the expense of my own happiness,” he answered.
“Do I really make you happy, Kyle?” she asked, as if she were astounded by the very idea.
“Most of the time, yeah.”
“And it doesn’t matter that I’m an alien and that I’ll never give you children or that I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of you kissing me,” her cheeks flaming, Diadne lowered her voice to a deliberate whisper as she finished, “down there?”
Kyle had to cough to cover his answering laugh. But it wasn’t enough. He started laughing so hard that he actually fell out of the window seat. When he hit the floor with a groaning thud Diadne started laughing as well. She ended up falling out of the window seat, landing on Kyle before he could roll away to safety. His answering groan of pain only spurred on more laughter and they were in tears by the end of it.
“So you didn’t like that, huh?” he asked breathlessly when most of their laughter had subsided and they lay in the middle of the floor, tangled in the sheets.
“Hmm…no,” she replied, “And the fact you tried to kiss me afterward… Well, I was quite disgusted. Don’t you know what happens…down there?”
Kyle couldn’t help it. He started laughing all over again. “Well, since you put it like that,” he chuckled, “I might never go “down there” again.”
******
“I think we should get a divorce.”
David ignored his wife’s dire pronouncement altogether as he looked over the restaurant advertisements in the morning paper. “I’m in the mood for pancakes,” he said, “What about you, sweetheart? Could you go for some pancakes?”
Isabel could only sputter as he calmly set aside the paper to finish getting dressed. “Didn’t you just hear what I said?”
“Yes, I did,” David answered as he buttoned one shirt cuff and then the other, “And I’m ignoring you…because you’re being absolutely ridiculous.”
“You were almost killed, David!” she cried.
“So were you. So was Max. So was Liz. And Michael, and Kyle and Diadne,” David recounted as he ticked off the list with his fingers, “That comes with the nature of your existence. I knew that when I married you, Isabel.”
“They shot you, David.”
“Yeah, I know it,” he said as if it wasn’t a big deal at all.
“I saw them shoot you,” Isabel emphasized, “You…you don’t remember what they did to you in that room but I do. What’s worse is I know it was entirely my fault. Maybe if I had come to you sooner with the truth then none of it would have happened.”
“Then you learned a lesson,” David concluded in the same unaffected tone, “No more secrets. It’s behind us.”
“No, it’s not,” she insisted, flopping down onto the bed, “David, my life is dangerous. I don’t want you to get hurt.” She stared down at her hands as if she were about to reveal something extremely profound. “I’m letting you go.”
David pivoted to face her, rolling in his lips and compressing them for fear of laughing outright. He knew Isabel well enough to realize she was being sincere in her offer. She really did believe that “letting him go” as she put it was the good and noble thing to do. Didn’t she realize he would never be brushed aside that easily?
He crossed the room and joined her on the bed, lightly stroking his hand down her back. “I get that the kidnapping shook you up,” he said gently, “What those bastards did to you was unspeakable but you can’t let that one bad experience dictate the rest of your life.”
Isabel had definitely been traumatized by the experience though she had admitted it to no one but him. She couldn’t be in complete darkness now. The thought of sleeping cloaked in blackness had utterly terrified her. As a result, David agreed to keep the nightstand lamp clicked on the entire night and eventually Isabel had fallen asleep. She was healing physically from her ordeal but David knew the emotional scars were still there, which was why she’d taken this insane notion into her head that leaving him was somehow in his best interest.
“Isabel,” he whispered, scooping up her trembling hand in his own, “You can’t control every little thing that happens. You seem to think divorcing me is going to keep me safe but I could easily step off a curb and get hit by a speeding bus. You just never know, sweetheart…that’s the whole point.
“Life is a gamble, Isabel,” he told her, “If you spend all your time being afraid of what might happen you’ll never live. You’ll always end up limiting yourself…and that’s not a very happy existence.”
“But I’ve ruined your life,” she sobbed, burying her face into his shoulder, “You…you were almost killed and now…well, now you’re going to turn into a freak of nature just like me because of the healing…”
“A freak of nature?” he echoed, tipping up her chin, “I’d describe you as many things, Isabel McKee, but freak of nature isn’t one of them.”
“You won’t be normal anymore,” she whispered.
“Why the hell do I care?” he countered sweetly, “I haven’t been normal since the day I met you and I like it that way.”
“You do?” she asked, her shimmering eyes wide with hope.
David couldn’t help it. He had to kiss her then, if for no other reason that to erase the despondent darkness from her eyes. “Yes, sweetheart,” he murmured, angling her back against the bed, “I really do.”
-
Deejonaise
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- Posts: 385
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Chapter 26
“I could eat this kitchen table and all the food on it,” Liz announced as she and Max surveyed the massive smorgasbord of goodies before them, “I’m going to eat until I explode.”
Max grimaced. “Thanks for the visual, Liz.”
“I’m starving,” she replied unapologetically, sitting down at the table to dig in.
Max watched as she packed her cheeks full of grapes and cheese cubes like a foraging chipmunk. His own hunger was forgotten as he regarded her in unconcealed amusement as she unabashedly stuffed her face. God, was she adorable! He wondered if her massive appetite had to do with the fact that she hadn’t eaten in three days or because her pregnancy was manifesting itself. The thought came unbidden and with a sobering reminder. Max knew he couldn’t put off talking to her indefinitely.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” Liz asked after swallowing her current mouthful. She made a rollup of ham and cheese and took an eager bite only to realize at the last moment that Max had yet to touch anything on the table. That fact was alarming in itself. Liz knew he had to be as hungry as she was! However, she knew the moment she couldn’t read him that something was the matter and her appetite immediately fled.
“Max,” she whispered anxiously, shoving aside her plate, “what is it?”
“I think we need to talk,” he began gravely.
Liz groaned internally. She wondered guiltily if she hadn’t shut off the connection soon enough before and maybe Max had discerned what she’d meant to discuss with him earlier. She cringed at the thought because, since coming downstairs with him, Liz was beginning to have second thoughts about broaching the subject at all considering all the drama they’d endured the last few days. And then maybe Max had a point…maybe their environment wasn’t the safest environment to bring up children…
Deliberately lowering her eyes to the table as she shielded her thoughts, Liz traced the pattern round the rim of her dinner plate. “What did you want to talk about, Max?”
“Babies,” he stated succinctly, “We should talk about babies.” She jerked a startled glance his way. “I know you’ve been thinking about it--,”
“Max, please,” Liz interrupted before he could go further, “I understand that things have gotten more emotional between us since Maria had her baby but… I’ve been thinking and maybe you’re right. Right now our world is too dangerous to bring up children. I think about what happened with David and Isabel and I cringe. It doesn’t mean things won’t change in the future but, in the meantime, I can wait for the tension to die down. You don’t have to give me the ‘I’m not ready for children’ speech again, Max. I totally get where you’re coming from.”
“That’s nice, Liz,” Max interjected wryly when she had finished babbling, “But actually I was going to say waiting to have a baby is a moot point now.”
“A moot point?” she echoed dumbly, “I don’t understand.”
“Liz…I don’t know how to tell you this but…you’re already pregnant,” he revealed prudently, “This whole time we’ve been arguing about whether or not we should have a baby and Fate took it out of our hands completely.”
She coughed out a started laugh. “Huh?”
“I’m serious,” Max said when he was met with her dubious reaction, “There’s a baby.”
Joyful tears pricked the back of Liz’s eyes as she slid her fingers down the slope of her flat tummy, an enraptured smile hovering at her lips. “There’s a baby…” she murmured to herself in amazement. And then she lifted her shimmering gaze to Max’s face. “But how do you know…how….”
“I just…feel him…”
“Him?” Liz said, almost crying with happiness.
“Yes…” Max confirmed thickly, “It’s a boy.”
Liz expelled a tiny rush of breath. “Oh my God…” she whispered, her heart already swelling with maternal instinct, “Oh my God…” Liz was trembling with happiness; almost laughing with it so it took her a bit of time to recognize Max’s reaction was far more subdued. She regarded him in uncertainty. “What…I mean…how do you feel about this?”
“I don’t think we should talk about it right now,” Max evaded gently.
That was almost a sure sign that Liz probably didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Her head told her to back off as he’d suggested and shelve the conversation for another time but her heart was already on the defensive and spoiling for a fight.
“What do you mean you don’t think we should talk about it, Max?” she asked sharply, “I mean…I know you’re scared and everything but… We’re having a baby. Can’t you find just a little joy in that?”
“Liz, my feelings about this haven’t changed,” Max replied with soft insistence, “If…If you’re expecting me to be glad over this pregnancy or something….I can’t be.” Liz stared at him mutinously. “Isabel and David were nearly killed a few days ago. Is that really the kind of world you want to bring a baby into?”
“It’s a little late to debate on it now,” Liz argued, “The baby’s here already.”
“But it’s not too late to do something about that,” Max countered quietly.
Liz initial shock slowly gave way to trembling anger. “You’re not seriously suggesting to me…” she gasped tearfully, “I don’t get it. You can have a baby with Tess Harding but you can’t have one with me? You want to get rid of him?”
“No, Liz, you’ve got it all wrong,” Max replied in anguish, “If you just let me expla--,”
“Oh my God! You’re both awake,” Maria exclaimed in squealing surprise as she came breezing into the kitchen, Rory cradled in one arm and a diaper bag slung over the other, “You guys were sleeping like the dead. We were starting to get worried.” She seemed blissfully unaware of her friends’ grim expressions as she went about packing her diaper bag with frozen containers of breast milk.
Acutely aware of the betrayed glower Liz was directing his way, Max tried to smooth the situation by asking Maria, “So this is the baby, huh?” He came to his feet as Maria nodded, peering over her shoulder at the sleeping baby. “What’s her name again?”
“Aurora Katherine,” Maria said, “But Michael has this thing about calling her Rory-Kate which I think sounds completely back hills. His even gotten Diadne and Kyle started so please don’t jump on the bandwagon.”
Max chuckled a little over Maria’s cross tone, his gaze fixed on his little niece sleeping countenance. She was definitely her father’s girl. “Wow…Maria…” he breathed, “She’s really beautiful…”
“Would you like to hold her?” Maria offered gently.
He appeared stricken by the question, backing up several steps. Liz suffered with his reaction as she realized with a heavy heart that Max wasn’t going to simply come around about the baby.
“No…no,” Max refused shakily, “She’s…she’s so small. I wouldn’t want to hurt her.”
“Max, you already know how to hold a baby,” Maria retorted in mild exasperation, simply depositing the baby into his arms before he could protest further, “Now get over yourself. She’s not gonna break.”
It broke Max’s heart to hold her. Looking down into Rory’s sweet sleeping face Max felt a hundred different emotions bombard him at once. Fierce protectiveness. Undying love and devotion. Swift infatuation. And this baby wasn’t even his child. Max couldn’t imagine the emotion that would inundate him when he held his and Liz’s child in his arms. But the feelings came right along with fear, too. To think that he would love their child so much, need him and still be unable to protect him paralyzed Max. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. He wasn’t ready.
“Here, Maria, take her,” he croaked gruffly, carefully passing the dozing baby back to her mother, “I…I gotta go…get some air.” He all but ran from the kitchen, leaving a flabbergasted Maria and a tearful Liz in his wake.
“You mind telling me what all that was about?” Maria asked Liz, but then when she recognized how close her friend was to tears she anxiously fell into the empty chair beside Liz. “Chica, what’s wrong?” she queried gently, “You and Max didn’t have another baby discussion, did you? Is that why he freaked over holding Rory?”
“Partly,” Liz confessed gruffly before dissolving into tears completely.
“Oh sweetheart,” Maria crooned, cradling her weeping friend with one arm and her sleeping daughter with the other, “I swear I’m going to kick Max’s ass for this! He’s being such an insensitive prick! And I thought Michael had cornered the market on that.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Liz sniffled tearfully, blowing her nose on a nearby napkin as she straightened, “Maria…I’m pregnant.” Maria’s jaw worked for several moments but no sound escaped her constricted throat. “Yuh,” Liz said with a grim smile, “that’s exactly how I feel about it.”
“Does Max know?” Maria whispered, her eyes round over the thought.
“He’s the one who told me in the first place,” Liz sighed dejectedly, “I guess it happened sometime while we were in Cancun.”
“But…But Liz you were on the pill,” Maria argued in a low tone, “I mean…you were on the pill, weren’t you?”
“I did not trick Max into getting me pregnant, Maria," she replied tartly, "The pill isn't 100% effective, you know."
“Okay, well no harm, no foul,” Maria said, “Sometimes shit happens. Now you just have to deal, you know. But you guys have got a great support system around you…everything’s going to work out.”
“I think Max might want me to get rid of the baby,” Liz revealed in a small tone.
For the second time in less than a five-minute span Maria’s jaw dropped into her lap. “You are NOT serious.”
Liz shook her head sadly, wishing she wasn’t. “That’s what he was suggesting when you walked in,” she whispered, “I swear your timing was a blessing in disguise because if he had actually finished what he wanted to say I just might have skewered him with a butter knife!” She couldn’t understand how she had gone from enjoying her time with Max so much that morning to wanting to strangle him that afternoon. “I don’t guess I expected him to take it well but… I never expected him to suggest that, Maria.”
“So now it looks like you have to make a choice,” Maria concluded softly.
“Huh?”
“All I know is that if I had to choose between Michael and Rory…well, Rory would win hands down.”
Liz stared at her friend’s face in painful surprise. “Are you saying that I should leave Max?”
“Either that or you don’t have the baby,” Maria told her, “Ultimately it has to be your decision, Liz. After all…you’re the one who’s going to have to live with it.”
******
“We had the same idea.”
Isabel let her hand fall away from Zan’s headstone and swiveled around to regard her brother. “I was just here visiting Alex and I thought I’d say hello to Zan, too,” she said softly, “What about you?”
Max shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I had to get my head on straight about a few things,” he said.
“Does that mean you’re feeling better?” Isabel asked when he stooped down beside her, “Are you fully recovered now?”
“As much as I can be,” Max muttered.
“Thank you for saving his life, Max,” Isabel whispered, “I don’t know how I would have gone on without him.”
Max reached forward to trace the engraved letters of his son’s name. “You would have found a way,” he muttered to Isabel tonelessly, “Trust me.”
“Max, what’s going on? You…you seem lost or something. Are you sure you should be out already? Maybe you need more rest.”
“Rest won’t change the fact that Zan is dead, will it?” he queried bitterly, “There’s no getting around that, Isabel.”
“Max, you’re scaring me,” Isabel told him in alarm.
“I’m scaring myself,” he whispered, tipping his head back towards the sky so that he could keep his tears from falling. “Liz is pregnant,” he announced flatly.
“That’s great--,” Isabel started to exclaim until she saw her brother’s less than enthused expression and then she quickly amended, “Is…isn’t it?”
“It’s too dangerous to bring a child into our environment,” Max said.
“Maria and Michael did,” Isabel pointed out.
“That was their decision though,” Max replied, “I don’t think I could make that same decision for myself, however.”
“Looks like the decision is out of your hands.”
“No, there are other options,” Max said, shaking his head in denial, “Liz and I do not have to have this baby.”
Isabel groaned over his response. “Please don’t tell me you said that to Liz.” But one look at his sheepish expression was answer enough. “Max, you idiot!” she hissed, “The last thing you tell a woman who’s been wanting to get pregnant for the last year now is that you want her to have an abortion when she finally does.”
“I didn’t say she should have one,” he retorted defensively, but knowing he didn’t have a leg to stand on, “I just thought we could discuss it.”
“Ugh, we can’t be related,” Isabel snapped, “You’re too stupid to be my brother!”
“Gee thanks.”
“No, I’m serious,” Isabel said, “You finally share the ultimate bond with the girl you’ve loved nearly your whole life and what do you do? You promptly set about trashing it. Are you thinking with your head or your ass?”
“I’m thinking how am I supposed to protect this new baby when I couldn’t even protect Zan,” Max snapped, pushed beyond his limited patience by his sister’s barbs, “He died before his first birthday, Isabel, and not because of some natural complication but because of who I am…because I made the decision to put him into Tess’ arms and pretty much signed his death warrant.”
“Oh, Max…” Isabel murmured sadly, her anger fading as she became aware of the reason for her brother’s callous reaction towards Liz’s pregnancy. “You’ve never forgiven yourself for that, have you? For giving Zan over to Tess?” Max didn’t’ answer but quickly lowered his glistening gaze to the ground but not fast enough for Isabel to miss the guilt burning there. “Max, none of us could have known what Tess would do,” she whispered, “Had I been in your place I would have done the same thing. So would Michael. We have never, never blamed you for that. But you blame yourself, don’t you? That’s why you don’t want more children…you don’t think you deserve them.”
“All I know is that he’s in the ground because of me,” he sobbed hoarsely, “I live with that reality everyday, Iz. I can’t let it happen again. I just can’t.”
Isabel clapped her hand onto her brother’s shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. “I’m going to tell you something someone told me just this morning,” she whispered, “Life is a gamble, Max. You’ll never be truly happy if you spend all your time being afraid of it.” She pulled her weeping brother into her arms and held him hard. “God, let yourself be happy, Max,” she advised him thickly, “Let Liz be happy, too.”
“I could eat this kitchen table and all the food on it,” Liz announced as she and Max surveyed the massive smorgasbord of goodies before them, “I’m going to eat until I explode.”
Max grimaced. “Thanks for the visual, Liz.”
“I’m starving,” she replied unapologetically, sitting down at the table to dig in.
Max watched as she packed her cheeks full of grapes and cheese cubes like a foraging chipmunk. His own hunger was forgotten as he regarded her in unconcealed amusement as she unabashedly stuffed her face. God, was she adorable! He wondered if her massive appetite had to do with the fact that she hadn’t eaten in three days or because her pregnancy was manifesting itself. The thought came unbidden and with a sobering reminder. Max knew he couldn’t put off talking to her indefinitely.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” Liz asked after swallowing her current mouthful. She made a rollup of ham and cheese and took an eager bite only to realize at the last moment that Max had yet to touch anything on the table. That fact was alarming in itself. Liz knew he had to be as hungry as she was! However, she knew the moment she couldn’t read him that something was the matter and her appetite immediately fled.
“Max,” she whispered anxiously, shoving aside her plate, “what is it?”
“I think we need to talk,” he began gravely.
Liz groaned internally. She wondered guiltily if she hadn’t shut off the connection soon enough before and maybe Max had discerned what she’d meant to discuss with him earlier. She cringed at the thought because, since coming downstairs with him, Liz was beginning to have second thoughts about broaching the subject at all considering all the drama they’d endured the last few days. And then maybe Max had a point…maybe their environment wasn’t the safest environment to bring up children…
Deliberately lowering her eyes to the table as she shielded her thoughts, Liz traced the pattern round the rim of her dinner plate. “What did you want to talk about, Max?”
“Babies,” he stated succinctly, “We should talk about babies.” She jerked a startled glance his way. “I know you’ve been thinking about it--,”
“Max, please,” Liz interrupted before he could go further, “I understand that things have gotten more emotional between us since Maria had her baby but… I’ve been thinking and maybe you’re right. Right now our world is too dangerous to bring up children. I think about what happened with David and Isabel and I cringe. It doesn’t mean things won’t change in the future but, in the meantime, I can wait for the tension to die down. You don’t have to give me the ‘I’m not ready for children’ speech again, Max. I totally get where you’re coming from.”
“That’s nice, Liz,” Max interjected wryly when she had finished babbling, “But actually I was going to say waiting to have a baby is a moot point now.”
“A moot point?” she echoed dumbly, “I don’t understand.”
“Liz…I don’t know how to tell you this but…you’re already pregnant,” he revealed prudently, “This whole time we’ve been arguing about whether or not we should have a baby and Fate took it out of our hands completely.”
She coughed out a started laugh. “Huh?”
“I’m serious,” Max said when he was met with her dubious reaction, “There’s a baby.”
Joyful tears pricked the back of Liz’s eyes as she slid her fingers down the slope of her flat tummy, an enraptured smile hovering at her lips. “There’s a baby…” she murmured to herself in amazement. And then she lifted her shimmering gaze to Max’s face. “But how do you know…how….”
“I just…feel him…”
“Him?” Liz said, almost crying with happiness.
“Yes…” Max confirmed thickly, “It’s a boy.”
Liz expelled a tiny rush of breath. “Oh my God…” she whispered, her heart already swelling with maternal instinct, “Oh my God…” Liz was trembling with happiness; almost laughing with it so it took her a bit of time to recognize Max’s reaction was far more subdued. She regarded him in uncertainty. “What…I mean…how do you feel about this?”
“I don’t think we should talk about it right now,” Max evaded gently.
That was almost a sure sign that Liz probably didn’t want to hear what he had to say. Her head told her to back off as he’d suggested and shelve the conversation for another time but her heart was already on the defensive and spoiling for a fight.
“What do you mean you don’t think we should talk about it, Max?” she asked sharply, “I mean…I know you’re scared and everything but… We’re having a baby. Can’t you find just a little joy in that?”
“Liz, my feelings about this haven’t changed,” Max replied with soft insistence, “If…If you’re expecting me to be glad over this pregnancy or something….I can’t be.” Liz stared at him mutinously. “Isabel and David were nearly killed a few days ago. Is that really the kind of world you want to bring a baby into?”
“It’s a little late to debate on it now,” Liz argued, “The baby’s here already.”
“But it’s not too late to do something about that,” Max countered quietly.
Liz initial shock slowly gave way to trembling anger. “You’re not seriously suggesting to me…” she gasped tearfully, “I don’t get it. You can have a baby with Tess Harding but you can’t have one with me? You want to get rid of him?”
“No, Liz, you’ve got it all wrong,” Max replied in anguish, “If you just let me expla--,”
“Oh my God! You’re both awake,” Maria exclaimed in squealing surprise as she came breezing into the kitchen, Rory cradled in one arm and a diaper bag slung over the other, “You guys were sleeping like the dead. We were starting to get worried.” She seemed blissfully unaware of her friends’ grim expressions as she went about packing her diaper bag with frozen containers of breast milk.
Acutely aware of the betrayed glower Liz was directing his way, Max tried to smooth the situation by asking Maria, “So this is the baby, huh?” He came to his feet as Maria nodded, peering over her shoulder at the sleeping baby. “What’s her name again?”
“Aurora Katherine,” Maria said, “But Michael has this thing about calling her Rory-Kate which I think sounds completely back hills. His even gotten Diadne and Kyle started so please don’t jump on the bandwagon.”
Max chuckled a little over Maria’s cross tone, his gaze fixed on his little niece sleeping countenance. She was definitely her father’s girl. “Wow…Maria…” he breathed, “She’s really beautiful…”
“Would you like to hold her?” Maria offered gently.
He appeared stricken by the question, backing up several steps. Liz suffered with his reaction as she realized with a heavy heart that Max wasn’t going to simply come around about the baby.
“No…no,” Max refused shakily, “She’s…she’s so small. I wouldn’t want to hurt her.”
“Max, you already know how to hold a baby,” Maria retorted in mild exasperation, simply depositing the baby into his arms before he could protest further, “Now get over yourself. She’s not gonna break.”
It broke Max’s heart to hold her. Looking down into Rory’s sweet sleeping face Max felt a hundred different emotions bombard him at once. Fierce protectiveness. Undying love and devotion. Swift infatuation. And this baby wasn’t even his child. Max couldn’t imagine the emotion that would inundate him when he held his and Liz’s child in his arms. But the feelings came right along with fear, too. To think that he would love their child so much, need him and still be unable to protect him paralyzed Max. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. He wasn’t ready.
“Here, Maria, take her,” he croaked gruffly, carefully passing the dozing baby back to her mother, “I…I gotta go…get some air.” He all but ran from the kitchen, leaving a flabbergasted Maria and a tearful Liz in his wake.
“You mind telling me what all that was about?” Maria asked Liz, but then when she recognized how close her friend was to tears she anxiously fell into the empty chair beside Liz. “Chica, what’s wrong?” she queried gently, “You and Max didn’t have another baby discussion, did you? Is that why he freaked over holding Rory?”
“Partly,” Liz confessed gruffly before dissolving into tears completely.
“Oh sweetheart,” Maria crooned, cradling her weeping friend with one arm and her sleeping daughter with the other, “I swear I’m going to kick Max’s ass for this! He’s being such an insensitive prick! And I thought Michael had cornered the market on that.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Liz sniffled tearfully, blowing her nose on a nearby napkin as she straightened, “Maria…I’m pregnant.” Maria’s jaw worked for several moments but no sound escaped her constricted throat. “Yuh,” Liz said with a grim smile, “that’s exactly how I feel about it.”
“Does Max know?” Maria whispered, her eyes round over the thought.
“He’s the one who told me in the first place,” Liz sighed dejectedly, “I guess it happened sometime while we were in Cancun.”
“But…But Liz you were on the pill,” Maria argued in a low tone, “I mean…you were on the pill, weren’t you?”
“I did not trick Max into getting me pregnant, Maria," she replied tartly, "The pill isn't 100% effective, you know."
“Okay, well no harm, no foul,” Maria said, “Sometimes shit happens. Now you just have to deal, you know. But you guys have got a great support system around you…everything’s going to work out.”
“I think Max might want me to get rid of the baby,” Liz revealed in a small tone.
For the second time in less than a five-minute span Maria’s jaw dropped into her lap. “You are NOT serious.”
Liz shook her head sadly, wishing she wasn’t. “That’s what he was suggesting when you walked in,” she whispered, “I swear your timing was a blessing in disguise because if he had actually finished what he wanted to say I just might have skewered him with a butter knife!” She couldn’t understand how she had gone from enjoying her time with Max so much that morning to wanting to strangle him that afternoon. “I don’t guess I expected him to take it well but… I never expected him to suggest that, Maria.”
“So now it looks like you have to make a choice,” Maria concluded softly.
“Huh?”
“All I know is that if I had to choose between Michael and Rory…well, Rory would win hands down.”
Liz stared at her friend’s face in painful surprise. “Are you saying that I should leave Max?”
“Either that or you don’t have the baby,” Maria told her, “Ultimately it has to be your decision, Liz. After all…you’re the one who’s going to have to live with it.”
******
“We had the same idea.”
Isabel let her hand fall away from Zan’s headstone and swiveled around to regard her brother. “I was just here visiting Alex and I thought I’d say hello to Zan, too,” she said softly, “What about you?”
Max shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I had to get my head on straight about a few things,” he said.
“Does that mean you’re feeling better?” Isabel asked when he stooped down beside her, “Are you fully recovered now?”
“As much as I can be,” Max muttered.
“Thank you for saving his life, Max,” Isabel whispered, “I don’t know how I would have gone on without him.”
Max reached forward to trace the engraved letters of his son’s name. “You would have found a way,” he muttered to Isabel tonelessly, “Trust me.”
“Max, what’s going on? You…you seem lost or something. Are you sure you should be out already? Maybe you need more rest.”
“Rest won’t change the fact that Zan is dead, will it?” he queried bitterly, “There’s no getting around that, Isabel.”
“Max, you’re scaring me,” Isabel told him in alarm.
“I’m scaring myself,” he whispered, tipping his head back towards the sky so that he could keep his tears from falling. “Liz is pregnant,” he announced flatly.
“That’s great--,” Isabel started to exclaim until she saw her brother’s less than enthused expression and then she quickly amended, “Is…isn’t it?”
“It’s too dangerous to bring a child into our environment,” Max said.
“Maria and Michael did,” Isabel pointed out.
“That was their decision though,” Max replied, “I don’t think I could make that same decision for myself, however.”
“Looks like the decision is out of your hands.”
“No, there are other options,” Max said, shaking his head in denial, “Liz and I do not have to have this baby.”
Isabel groaned over his response. “Please don’t tell me you said that to Liz.” But one look at his sheepish expression was answer enough. “Max, you idiot!” she hissed, “The last thing you tell a woman who’s been wanting to get pregnant for the last year now is that you want her to have an abortion when she finally does.”
“I didn’t say she should have one,” he retorted defensively, but knowing he didn’t have a leg to stand on, “I just thought we could discuss it.”
“Ugh, we can’t be related,” Isabel snapped, “You’re too stupid to be my brother!”
“Gee thanks.”
“No, I’m serious,” Isabel said, “You finally share the ultimate bond with the girl you’ve loved nearly your whole life and what do you do? You promptly set about trashing it. Are you thinking with your head or your ass?”
“I’m thinking how am I supposed to protect this new baby when I couldn’t even protect Zan,” Max snapped, pushed beyond his limited patience by his sister’s barbs, “He died before his first birthday, Isabel, and not because of some natural complication but because of who I am…because I made the decision to put him into Tess’ arms and pretty much signed his death warrant.”
“Oh, Max…” Isabel murmured sadly, her anger fading as she became aware of the reason for her brother’s callous reaction towards Liz’s pregnancy. “You’ve never forgiven yourself for that, have you? For giving Zan over to Tess?” Max didn’t’ answer but quickly lowered his glistening gaze to the ground but not fast enough for Isabel to miss the guilt burning there. “Max, none of us could have known what Tess would do,” she whispered, “Had I been in your place I would have done the same thing. So would Michael. We have never, never blamed you for that. But you blame yourself, don’t you? That’s why you don’t want more children…you don’t think you deserve them.”
“All I know is that he’s in the ground because of me,” he sobbed hoarsely, “I live with that reality everyday, Iz. I can’t let it happen again. I just can’t.”
Isabel clapped her hand onto her brother’s shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. “I’m going to tell you something someone told me just this morning,” she whispered, “Life is a gamble, Max. You’ll never be truly happy if you spend all your time being afraid of it.” She pulled her weeping brother into her arms and held him hard. “God, let yourself be happy, Max,” she advised him thickly, “Let Liz be happy, too.”
Last edited by Deejonaise on Fri Apr 30, 2004 11:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Deejonaise
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Chapter 27
“So this party tonight was whose brainchild again,” David queried skeptically as he stepped out from the shower. He surveyed his wife with a knowing look.
Isabel paused in her primping and fixed him with wide, innocent eyes. “It wasn’t me this time,” she said, “I swear it. Maria just wanted to do a little something for us before we returned to New Haven.”
“And with no hints from you?” David countered suspiciously, briskly drying his wet hair with a towel, “Did hell freeze over today?” Without warning, Isabel snatched his towel from his fingers and wound it up around her hand so she could snap his naked hip with it. David yelped at the unexpected attack and danced out of her reach. “No fair,” he pouted. She snapped him again, in the vicinity of his upper thigh. “Hey, watch it…precious goods!”
“Next time maybe you won’t be such a smart mouth,” she laughed, flicking him again as he tried to duck out of harm’s way.
“Alright,” he growled, making a lunge at her, “Now you’re going to get it!”
Their playful tussle ended on the bed with Isabel sprawled onto her back and pinned there beneath David’s naked form. When he began kissing her neck, his hands snaking up her top to caress her breasts, Isabel whined, “Oh…David, don’t…you’ll ruin my make-up.”
An hour later her make-up was definitely ruined as was her hair and clothes but Isabel was sporting a smile a mile wide despite that. “I love you,” she whispered to David as he dozed beside her, “I wish we could be like this forever.”
“We will,” David murmured in sleepy promise.
“And you’ll love me forever?”
“Forever and a day,” he vowed, yawning.
“And then, maybe sometime in the future, we’ll have babies, too, huh?”
Babies? The desire to sleep fled David immediately and his eyes popped wide. “Say what?”
“Weeeell,” Isabel dragged out, tracing her fingers over the sprinkling of hair in the middle of his chest, “I’ve just been thinking about children a lot lately. I’m not suggesting we try any time soon, okay. I definitely want to finish school first but--,”
“But what?” David prompted.
“Michael and Maria did just have a baby and…”
“And?” David coaxed, his anxiety rising.
“Liz just found out she’s pregnant,” Isabel revealed, “And it just got me to thinking about you and me…having a baby, too.”
“Oh.” David considered that in silence for a moment. “So Liz is pregnant, is she? Wow.”
“What do you think of that?” she asked him carefully.
“I know how badly she wanted to have another baby after the miscarriage,” he replied carefully, “I imagine she’s over the moon right now. Good for them.”
“Well…how do you feel about it?” Isabel queried.
David tipped down his head to regard her. “About Max and Liz having a baby?”
Isabel punched him in the shoulder and rolled her eyes. “About you and me having a baby, dumbass,” she clarified glibly, “What do you think? Maybe after I’ve graduated from school?” David appeared pensive at the suggestion. “Have you ever even thought about it?” she prompts.
“I’ve thought about it a lot.”
“And…”
“And I just never figured you’d be the type to want kids.”
Isabel reared back in affront. “What?”
“You’re a princess, sweetheart,” David returned glibly, “No offense but…you’ve just never struck me as the motherly type.”
“You’d better be happy I love you, David McKee, otherwise I just might be tempted to smother you with this pillow.” He laughed when she actually attempted to make good on her threat and easily wrestled her back against the bed. “Get off me, you bully!” she ordered, making the futile attempt to buck him off.
“I’d love to have babies with you,” David whispered solemnly, abruptly bringing an end to her squirming, “I can’t think of anything better. You’re going to make an excellent mother, Isabel. There’s not a doubt in my mind.”
“I’m not suggesting any time soon,” Isabel said again, more to convince herself than David, “I definitely want to wait until I finish school.”
“That’s good,” David agreed, “Because I don’t want us trying to divide our times between trying to build our careers and a baby. We need to be able to devote our full attention to a child if that’s what we want to do.”
“I totally agree.”
“Then it’s settled?”
“It’s settled,” Isabel concurred. But then she fell silent, pursing her lips in thoughtful consideration. “Are you sure you can wait that long to have a baby?” she asked him.
“Can you?” he countered.
Isabel slowly shook her head. “I don’t think I can wait that long.”
“Neither can I.”
She leveled him with a particularly sultry look. “You wanna try right now?”
Her husband merely grinned and flipped over onto his back so that she straddled him. “I thought you’d never ask.”
******
“There she is,” Kyle said, pointing over to the far end of the restaurant where his mother sat. He frowned when he realized that she wasn’t alone.
“Who’s that with her?” Diadne asked, frowning at the slim blonde who sat alongside Deborah. By the time she and Kyle reached the table Deborah was on her feet and frowning, too.
“I didn’t realize you were bringing your…er…friend,” Deborah remarked as Kyle leaned forward to kiss her cheek.
“Mom, I told you I was bringing her,” Kyle said in exasperation, pulling out a chair for Diadne before taking his seat beside her, “And my friend has a name, Mother…kindly use it.” His mother made a grumbling reply but Kyle ignored her. He nodded across the table toward the blond girl. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Lora Bergman,” his mother replied, “She’s in my AA group.”
“Is she now?” Kyle murmured, wondering why his mother would invite someone from her AA group to lunch in the first place when it was supposed to just be the three of them.
“Your mother’s told me so much about you, Kyle,” Lora said, fluttering her eyelashes. She reached across the table to stroke the back of his hand. “She says you’re a bounty hunter and, from what I hear, you always get your man.”
Kyle snatched his hand away, his ears reddening as he realized the girl was openly flirting with him. He snuck a sideways look over at Diadne, hoping that she hadn’t noticed. She’d noticed. Her features were stony with gathering rage.
“Did Deborah also tell you that Kyle has a girlfriend,” she clipped tartly to the blond, “I’m a bounty hunter as well and I know at least half a dozen ways to kill a man.” She paused with unuttered menace. “…Or a woman.”
Lora Bergman snapped back with the unspoken threat, gulping loudly. “Oh…oh,” she trilled nervously, “That’s very interesting.”
“Isn’t it,” Diadne agreed with a travesty of a smile.
“She’s a little brute, isn’t she?” Deborah muttered in disapproval.
“Mother?” Kyle said in a warning tone.
“Well, I just don’t understand why you can’t be with one of your own kind, Kyle,” his mother sighed, giving up all pretense at politeness, “Lora is really a sweet girl. I think you could really like her if you just gave yourself half a chance.”
“I’m with Diadne,” Kyle stated, “I’ve told you a hundred times already.”
“That’s not a real relationship,” Deborah replied with a wave of her hand, “You two don’t even sleep in the same bedroom.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Kyle stated quietly, pushing to his feet and taking Diadne along with him as he did, “I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into you but I’m not going to sit here while you insult my fiancée.”
“Fiancee?” Deborah, Lora and Diadne echoed at once.
“Since when?” his mother cried.
“Since now,” Kyle announced, turning to Diadne. He brought her hands to his lips and pressed a fervent kiss to her knuckles. “What do you say?” he whispered.
“No!” his mother cried, “You can’t do this! Don’t you realize what a horrible mistake you’re making? I won’t let you do this, Kyle!”
“You don’t have a say,” Kyle fired out sharply, “You might have insinuated yourself into Dad’s marriage and put it on the skids but I’ll be damned if you do the same thing to me and Diadne. We’re together now, Mom. You can either accept it or not. I don’t fucking care anymore.”
And then he shocked all the occupants at the table and the surrounding area when he dropped down on one knee before Diadne. She nibbled at the corner of her lip, her cheeks flaming as Kyle favored her with an entreating smile. “Diadne of the House of Zhad, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife and lifemate?”
Diadne felt the very human instinct to cry and she had to blink her eyes rapidly to keep her tears from falling. “Yes, Kyle Valenti,” she answered softly, “I’ll marry you…whenever and wherever you want.”
******
“She’s a very sound sleeper, isn’t she?” Razba observed quietly, as he peered over the edge of the rocking chair to catch a glimpse of his sleeping niece. Maria regarded him with a wary stare. “Where’s Michael?” he asked casually.
“He’s gone to the store for more diapers,” she said, “You’d be surprised how many she can go through.” She watched as he pulled up an additional chair from across the room and sat down before her. “What are you doing in here, Raz?”
“I thought we should talk,” he replied softly.
“Raz, we can’t,” Maria told him in an insistent whisper, “Michael is already very sensitive about what’s going on between us. We don’t want to make it worse.”
“What is going on between us, Maria?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she muttered, staring down into her baby’s face, “Nothing good, I suppose.”
“Do you feel for me like I feel for you?” he queried in a velvety tone.
Maria forced herself to meet his gaze because she knew it wasn’t enough for him to merely hear her words. He had to see the truth in her eyes as well. “There is definitely something there,” she confessed softly, “When I look at you, Raz…I feel things, but… I’m in love with Michael. I want my marriage. Whatever is going on between us has to end now.”
“I thought you might say that.”
“And…”
“And you’re right,” he agreed softly, “I do not want to interfere with your lifebond, Maria, so I know what I must do. Tonight, after the party, I am leaving Roswell.”
“You’re what?”
“I can’t remain,” he went on, “Not with the feelings I have for you. It would be too difficult…for me and for you.”
“No…Raz, you can’t leave,” Maria protested in earnest, “Roswell is your home now. Your family is here…your people… You can’t just pick up and leave. What about Michael and Kadon and Rory? What about me?”
“I’m leaving for you,” he insisted gently, “You could never be truly happy if I remained, Maria.”
“Does Michael know what you’re planning,” she asked stiffly.
“He will…soon.”
Maria chewed at her lower lip. “I don’t want you to leave,” she whispered.
“I don’t want to either,” he concurred.
“Next to Liz…you’re my best friend, Raz.”
“You’re mine as well…period,” he replied, “I’ve never had another friend besides you, Maria. I have never loved anyone besides you.”
“Don’t say that,” she whimpered.
“I will always love you,” he vowed, “Wherever I go, whatever I do…my heart will always be bonded to you…until I die.”
“Raz,” she wept brokenly, swiping away the tears falling on her cheeks, “I don’t want you to do this.”
“There’s no other way,” he answered, leaning forward to kiss her forehead before rising to his feet, “Take care of yourself, Maria.” He cupped her jaw and bestowed a gentle kiss to her mouth, his first…and his last. “I love you.”
Maria didn’t turn to watch him leave. That would have been too much. But she did cry for a long, long time after he was gone.
******
“Are you going somewhere?” Max asked softly when he entered their bedroom and found Liz packing her suitcase.
“I’m leaving,” she clarified, “After the party tonight I’m going to stay with my parents until I can figure out what I want to do next. But no matter what…I’m having this baby, Max.”
Max’s heart leapt into his throat and he trembled visibly as he blood began roaring in his ears. He crossed over to the opposite side of the bed in a panic. “Don’t you think you’re being a little extreme?” he asked her, “Liz, we haven’t even had an opportunity to talk about this!”
Liz pinned him with a daggered glance. “We’ve talked and talked already and it gets us nowhere,” she replied brusquely, “I’ve tried to be patient with you, Max. I’ve tried to wait for you to overcome your fears and not push but…I can’t anymore. I’m pregnant now and…you can either learn to deal with that or live without me.”
His heartbeat picked up speed as she snapped her suitcase closed. “Liz, please…” he begged plaintively, “Please…don’t do this.”
“I love you, Max,” she declared hoarsely, “There isn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do for you, give up for you but not this…not my baby. I’m sorry but if there has to be a choice…I choose this child.” She flicked him with forlorn brown eyes before lugging her suitcase from the bed and heading towards the door. “Goodbye, Max.”
“So this party tonight was whose brainchild again,” David queried skeptically as he stepped out from the shower. He surveyed his wife with a knowing look.
Isabel paused in her primping and fixed him with wide, innocent eyes. “It wasn’t me this time,” she said, “I swear it. Maria just wanted to do a little something for us before we returned to New Haven.”
“And with no hints from you?” David countered suspiciously, briskly drying his wet hair with a towel, “Did hell freeze over today?” Without warning, Isabel snatched his towel from his fingers and wound it up around her hand so she could snap his naked hip with it. David yelped at the unexpected attack and danced out of her reach. “No fair,” he pouted. She snapped him again, in the vicinity of his upper thigh. “Hey, watch it…precious goods!”
“Next time maybe you won’t be such a smart mouth,” she laughed, flicking him again as he tried to duck out of harm’s way.
“Alright,” he growled, making a lunge at her, “Now you’re going to get it!”
Their playful tussle ended on the bed with Isabel sprawled onto her back and pinned there beneath David’s naked form. When he began kissing her neck, his hands snaking up her top to caress her breasts, Isabel whined, “Oh…David, don’t…you’ll ruin my make-up.”
An hour later her make-up was definitely ruined as was her hair and clothes but Isabel was sporting a smile a mile wide despite that. “I love you,” she whispered to David as he dozed beside her, “I wish we could be like this forever.”
“We will,” David murmured in sleepy promise.
“And you’ll love me forever?”
“Forever and a day,” he vowed, yawning.
“And then, maybe sometime in the future, we’ll have babies, too, huh?”
Babies? The desire to sleep fled David immediately and his eyes popped wide. “Say what?”
“Weeeell,” Isabel dragged out, tracing her fingers over the sprinkling of hair in the middle of his chest, “I’ve just been thinking about children a lot lately. I’m not suggesting we try any time soon, okay. I definitely want to finish school first but--,”
“But what?” David prompted.
“Michael and Maria did just have a baby and…”
“And?” David coaxed, his anxiety rising.
“Liz just found out she’s pregnant,” Isabel revealed, “And it just got me to thinking about you and me…having a baby, too.”
“Oh.” David considered that in silence for a moment. “So Liz is pregnant, is she? Wow.”
“What do you think of that?” she asked him carefully.
“I know how badly she wanted to have another baby after the miscarriage,” he replied carefully, “I imagine she’s over the moon right now. Good for them.”
“Well…how do you feel about it?” Isabel queried.
David tipped down his head to regard her. “About Max and Liz having a baby?”
Isabel punched him in the shoulder and rolled her eyes. “About you and me having a baby, dumbass,” she clarified glibly, “What do you think? Maybe after I’ve graduated from school?” David appeared pensive at the suggestion. “Have you ever even thought about it?” she prompts.
“I’ve thought about it a lot.”
“And…”
“And I just never figured you’d be the type to want kids.”
Isabel reared back in affront. “What?”
“You’re a princess, sweetheart,” David returned glibly, “No offense but…you’ve just never struck me as the motherly type.”
“You’d better be happy I love you, David McKee, otherwise I just might be tempted to smother you with this pillow.” He laughed when she actually attempted to make good on her threat and easily wrestled her back against the bed. “Get off me, you bully!” she ordered, making the futile attempt to buck him off.
“I’d love to have babies with you,” David whispered solemnly, abruptly bringing an end to her squirming, “I can’t think of anything better. You’re going to make an excellent mother, Isabel. There’s not a doubt in my mind.”
“I’m not suggesting any time soon,” Isabel said again, more to convince herself than David, “I definitely want to wait until I finish school.”
“That’s good,” David agreed, “Because I don’t want us trying to divide our times between trying to build our careers and a baby. We need to be able to devote our full attention to a child if that’s what we want to do.”
“I totally agree.”
“Then it’s settled?”
“It’s settled,” Isabel concurred. But then she fell silent, pursing her lips in thoughtful consideration. “Are you sure you can wait that long to have a baby?” she asked him.
“Can you?” he countered.
Isabel slowly shook her head. “I don’t think I can wait that long.”
“Neither can I.”
She leveled him with a particularly sultry look. “You wanna try right now?”
Her husband merely grinned and flipped over onto his back so that she straddled him. “I thought you’d never ask.”
******
“There she is,” Kyle said, pointing over to the far end of the restaurant where his mother sat. He frowned when he realized that she wasn’t alone.
“Who’s that with her?” Diadne asked, frowning at the slim blonde who sat alongside Deborah. By the time she and Kyle reached the table Deborah was on her feet and frowning, too.
“I didn’t realize you were bringing your…er…friend,” Deborah remarked as Kyle leaned forward to kiss her cheek.
“Mom, I told you I was bringing her,” Kyle said in exasperation, pulling out a chair for Diadne before taking his seat beside her, “And my friend has a name, Mother…kindly use it.” His mother made a grumbling reply but Kyle ignored her. He nodded across the table toward the blond girl. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Lora Bergman,” his mother replied, “She’s in my AA group.”
“Is she now?” Kyle murmured, wondering why his mother would invite someone from her AA group to lunch in the first place when it was supposed to just be the three of them.
“Your mother’s told me so much about you, Kyle,” Lora said, fluttering her eyelashes. She reached across the table to stroke the back of his hand. “She says you’re a bounty hunter and, from what I hear, you always get your man.”
Kyle snatched his hand away, his ears reddening as he realized the girl was openly flirting with him. He snuck a sideways look over at Diadne, hoping that she hadn’t noticed. She’d noticed. Her features were stony with gathering rage.
“Did Deborah also tell you that Kyle has a girlfriend,” she clipped tartly to the blond, “I’m a bounty hunter as well and I know at least half a dozen ways to kill a man.” She paused with unuttered menace. “…Or a woman.”
Lora Bergman snapped back with the unspoken threat, gulping loudly. “Oh…oh,” she trilled nervously, “That’s very interesting.”
“Isn’t it,” Diadne agreed with a travesty of a smile.
“She’s a little brute, isn’t she?” Deborah muttered in disapproval.
“Mother?” Kyle said in a warning tone.
“Well, I just don’t understand why you can’t be with one of your own kind, Kyle,” his mother sighed, giving up all pretense at politeness, “Lora is really a sweet girl. I think you could really like her if you just gave yourself half a chance.”
“I’m with Diadne,” Kyle stated, “I’ve told you a hundred times already.”
“That’s not a real relationship,” Deborah replied with a wave of her hand, “You two don’t even sleep in the same bedroom.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Kyle stated quietly, pushing to his feet and taking Diadne along with him as he did, “I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into you but I’m not going to sit here while you insult my fiancée.”
“Fiancee?” Deborah, Lora and Diadne echoed at once.
“Since when?” his mother cried.
“Since now,” Kyle announced, turning to Diadne. He brought her hands to his lips and pressed a fervent kiss to her knuckles. “What do you say?” he whispered.
“No!” his mother cried, “You can’t do this! Don’t you realize what a horrible mistake you’re making? I won’t let you do this, Kyle!”
“You don’t have a say,” Kyle fired out sharply, “You might have insinuated yourself into Dad’s marriage and put it on the skids but I’ll be damned if you do the same thing to me and Diadne. We’re together now, Mom. You can either accept it or not. I don’t fucking care anymore.”
And then he shocked all the occupants at the table and the surrounding area when he dropped down on one knee before Diadne. She nibbled at the corner of her lip, her cheeks flaming as Kyle favored her with an entreating smile. “Diadne of the House of Zhad, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife and lifemate?”
Diadne felt the very human instinct to cry and she had to blink her eyes rapidly to keep her tears from falling. “Yes, Kyle Valenti,” she answered softly, “I’ll marry you…whenever and wherever you want.”
******
“She’s a very sound sleeper, isn’t she?” Razba observed quietly, as he peered over the edge of the rocking chair to catch a glimpse of his sleeping niece. Maria regarded him with a wary stare. “Where’s Michael?” he asked casually.
“He’s gone to the store for more diapers,” she said, “You’d be surprised how many she can go through.” She watched as he pulled up an additional chair from across the room and sat down before her. “What are you doing in here, Raz?”
“I thought we should talk,” he replied softly.
“Raz, we can’t,” Maria told him in an insistent whisper, “Michael is already very sensitive about what’s going on between us. We don’t want to make it worse.”
“What is going on between us, Maria?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she muttered, staring down into her baby’s face, “Nothing good, I suppose.”
“Do you feel for me like I feel for you?” he queried in a velvety tone.
Maria forced herself to meet his gaze because she knew it wasn’t enough for him to merely hear her words. He had to see the truth in her eyes as well. “There is definitely something there,” she confessed softly, “When I look at you, Raz…I feel things, but… I’m in love with Michael. I want my marriage. Whatever is going on between us has to end now.”
“I thought you might say that.”
“And…”
“And you’re right,” he agreed softly, “I do not want to interfere with your lifebond, Maria, so I know what I must do. Tonight, after the party, I am leaving Roswell.”
“You’re what?”
“I can’t remain,” he went on, “Not with the feelings I have for you. It would be too difficult…for me and for you.”
“No…Raz, you can’t leave,” Maria protested in earnest, “Roswell is your home now. Your family is here…your people… You can’t just pick up and leave. What about Michael and Kadon and Rory? What about me?”
“I’m leaving for you,” he insisted gently, “You could never be truly happy if I remained, Maria.”
“Does Michael know what you’re planning,” she asked stiffly.
“He will…soon.”
Maria chewed at her lower lip. “I don’t want you to leave,” she whispered.
“I don’t want to either,” he concurred.
“Next to Liz…you’re my best friend, Raz.”
“You’re mine as well…period,” he replied, “I’ve never had another friend besides you, Maria. I have never loved anyone besides you.”
“Don’t say that,” she whimpered.
“I will always love you,” he vowed, “Wherever I go, whatever I do…my heart will always be bonded to you…until I die.”
“Raz,” she wept brokenly, swiping away the tears falling on her cheeks, “I don’t want you to do this.”
“There’s no other way,” he answered, leaning forward to kiss her forehead before rising to his feet, “Take care of yourself, Maria.” He cupped her jaw and bestowed a gentle kiss to her mouth, his first…and his last. “I love you.”
Maria didn’t turn to watch him leave. That would have been too much. But she did cry for a long, long time after he was gone.
******
“Are you going somewhere?” Max asked softly when he entered their bedroom and found Liz packing her suitcase.
“I’m leaving,” she clarified, “After the party tonight I’m going to stay with my parents until I can figure out what I want to do next. But no matter what…I’m having this baby, Max.”
Max’s heart leapt into his throat and he trembled visibly as he blood began roaring in his ears. He crossed over to the opposite side of the bed in a panic. “Don’t you think you’re being a little extreme?” he asked her, “Liz, we haven’t even had an opportunity to talk about this!”
Liz pinned him with a daggered glance. “We’ve talked and talked already and it gets us nowhere,” she replied brusquely, “I’ve tried to be patient with you, Max. I’ve tried to wait for you to overcome your fears and not push but…I can’t anymore. I’m pregnant now and…you can either learn to deal with that or live without me.”
His heartbeat picked up speed as she snapped her suitcase closed. “Liz, please…” he begged plaintively, “Please…don’t do this.”
“I love you, Max,” she declared hoarsely, “There isn’t anything in the world I wouldn’t do for you, give up for you but not this…not my baby. I’m sorry but if there has to be a choice…I choose this child.” She flicked him with forlorn brown eyes before lugging her suitcase from the bed and heading towards the door. “Goodbye, Max.”
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Deejonaise
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- Posts: 385
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Kate! My girl! Where have you been, woman? Don't you know I've been going through withdrawals, lol. Man, am I glad you're back.McGees wrote: Gah, so many conflicting emotions! At least I know there's NO WAY this story could be wrapped up in 3 more parts...RIGHT? I'm banking on 30 more. Okay, hoping for 30...
As for this story...what if I told you that part 28 is the last before the epilogue and then it's over? You would come back just in time for the end, lol.
And, on another note, you should like the name Michael chose for the baby. It was definitely a shout out to you!
Dee
Chapter 28
“I’m going to celebrate all night!” Kyle announced loudly as he walked into the palace patio courtyard, “I love you all! I’m on top of the fucking world!”
Michael and Max watched him from their respective lounge chairs on the patio deck as he all but skipped up to the mini bar to order a drink. He seemed not to notice the servants eyeing him with unconcealed amusement.
“What’s with you?” Max asked sourly when Kyle rejoined them, drink in hand.
Kyle couldn’t stop grinning. “I just asked Diadne to marry me,” he announced.
Michael’s eyes flared with interest. “And?” he prodded.
“And she said yes,” Kyle burst out, “I can’t believe it! I’m getting married, dude!” He surveyed Max with a smug smile. “That’s three down and one to go,” he teased, “You might want to get cracking, Evans.”
“That might be a little difficult for him,” Michael muttered when Max didn’t respond.
“Why? What’s up?” Kyle asked, becoming aware of Max’s dour expression for the first time, “Who the hell died?”
“His relationship,” Michael declared flatly, “Liz left him tonight.”
“Get the hell out,” Kyle uttered in stunned disbelief.
“And on that note,” Max said, hoisting himself from the lawn chair, “I’ll take myself off so the two of you can talk about me behind my back in proper fashion.”
But the instant Max was alone he wished he had stayed behind and listened to his friends roast him over his bad judgment. At least they served as distractions. Without Kyle’s chirpiness and Michael lamenting his marital woe Max had no choice but to think about that afternoon’s events.
He wasn’t stunned that she’d decided to leave him. He expected that. Nor was he surprised that she wouldn’t consider alternatives for the pregnancy. He had expected that, too. What had surprised him into speechless shock, however, were his own feelings. As scared as he was and as uncertain as he was…he wanted the baby. Even after all the fighting and denial underneath it all Max truly did want their child.
The truth really didn’t hit him until Liz walked out the door and he realized he’d just fucked up in a major way. That’s when Max started weighing the pros and the cons. Yes, he was afraid and yes, there were uncertainties and dangers involved with raising a baby in their world but, on the other hand… He did miss that sweet baby smell and the sounds, the round-eyed discovery and the changes that happen so quickly they leave you wondering were the time has gone. He did miss being a father.
Yes, Max missed all those things, wanted all those things again and he was tired of being afraid. What Isabel had told him today at Zan’s gravesite was totally true. He would never be happy until he stopped being so afraid of living. Max knew, in spite of the fear and churning uncertainty, he was ready.
However, getting Liz to believe and understand that was another matter entirely. She had refused his calls and refused to see him when he went over to the Crashdown personally later that day. His only other option was to wait for her to show at Isabel and David’s going away party tonight and corner her then.
Consequently, he waited over near the courtyard entrance, shooing away his well-meaning attendants and quietly awaited Liz’s arrival. By the time she made it most of the guests had already arrived and the party was in full swing. Max knew that she’d chosen to straggle in late on purpose, hoping to go unnoticed by the partygoers until she had to put in an appearance. Wasting little time, Max swooped forward and grabbed hold of her forearm as she walked past, dragging her into the shadows with him.
“Max! What are you doing?” she snapped, jerking her arm from his grasp.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Will you hear me out before you jump to all the wrong conclusions?”
“Did you or did you not suggest an abortion to me today?” she demanded tartly.
“Yeah, but you--,”
“Then we have nothing else to say to each other, Max,” she interrupted sadly, “You made your choice and now I’m making mine.”
“Oh for God’s sake!” Max groaned as she started to walk away. And then he did something completely unprecedented. He snagged hold of her wrist and in one deft motion slung her over his shoulder like a sack of flour.
“Max, put me down!” Liz cried, beating ineffectually against his back as he strode off for the pool house, “I mean it! Put me down right now! I’m gonna kill you for this!” He did as she asked, but only when they were safely closeted away and he had melted the lock to prevent her from leaving. Liz folded her arms mutinously over her breasts. “You can’t make me talk to you,” she declared petulantly.
“Fine,” he said, “Don’t talk, just listen. I’m not going to try and make excuses for myself. I was a complete ass for suggesting what I did this afternoon. It was stupid and wrong and hurtful. I was panicking and I said the first thing that came to my mind, but I know it was a mistake and I’m sorry, Liz.”
“You didn’t just say it, Max,” Liz reminded him dully, “You ran out right after. I didn’t see you again for hours.”
“I needed to get my head together,” he told her, “I was just all over the place after we talked and feeling really bad about what I said. I couldn’t face you, Liz. I’m so sorry I said those things to you.”
Instead of being comforted and reassured by his fervent confession Liz seemed even more dejected. “But it’s how you feel, Max,” she replied glumly, “Even if you are sorry for being an insensitive jackass, which you were, it still doesn’t change the fact you don’t want this baby.”
“That’s not true, Liz,” he denied softly, “I do want the baby. I just didn’t realize it until after you left me this afternoon. I want this baby, Liz. I want you…and us.”
She wanted badly to believe him. He could tell by the expression on her face, still she shook her head in refutation. “No, you’re just saying this because I left you today,” she replied huskily, “You’ll say anything right now to get me to come back home.”
“You’re right,” he agreed, “I will say anything to get you to come back to me…but that’s not what I’m doing right now, Liz.” He paused to expel a massive sigh. “I don’t want you thinking that I preferred to have a baby with Tess to having a baby with you. I don’t want you to feel shortchanged that way.”
“How can I not?” Liz wondered gruffly, “You loved Zan so much it just seems like our baby won’t even have a chance, Max. I don’t want you to spend all your time comparing him to his brother and finding him lacking. That’s not fair.”
“I won’t do that,” he promised.
“Won’t you?”
“Liz, I loved Zan…more than I ever thought possible to love another person…even you,” he whispered, “And I love our baby just as much. I didn’t want to and that’s what scared me so much. That already I was putting such hopes into him and wanting him so bad and I’ve only known about him for a day. I just felt…helpless.”
“Really?” she breathed, beginning to soften a little.
“Remember how you said I loved being a father too much to want to spend my whole life without children?” Max asked. She nodded mutely. “Well, you were right, Liz. I don’t want that life for us. I want to fill this whole place with babies…yours and mine. I guess I just needed a hard kick in the ass to realize it.”
Liz nibbled at her lip pensively. “Do you really mean this, Max?” she whispered in hesitation, “You’re not just telling me what I want to hear right now, are you?”
“Yes, I do mean it,” he uttered, “God, yes! I’m not going to tell you that I’m not afraid anymore because I am, Liz. I’m terrified but at the same time I’m overjoyed and…I think I want to focus on the positives rather than the negatives this time.” Max did more than just say the words, however, he let his feelings wash over her completely, holding nothing back until she was before him trembling with the emotional onslaught. Liz didn’t just know his fear in that moment but his abounding happiness as well, his excitement…
“Max,” Liz murmured, her tears starting for a completely different reason than before.
“Do you think that I could hold you now?” he asked timidly.
Liz went into his open arms without further hesitation and buried her face into the folds of his shirt. “I thought I was going to have to hate you forever,” she sniffled fiercely, her voice muffled into his chest.
Max laughed. “Well, I guess we had that in common then.”
She tipped her head back to regard him quizzically. “What?”
“I thought I was going to have to hate me forever, too.”
“Oh, Max,” Liz whispered, leaning up on her tiptoes to kiss him softly, “I knew you’d come to your senses…eventually.”
“I’m glad at least one of us had faith in me,” Max whispered, slowly sinking to his knees before her. He pressed his face into her belly, cradling her hips in his hands. “Don’t take any of the stuff Daddy said earlier seriously,” he told the baby, “Sometimes he’s just plain silly.” Liz giggled and Max offered her an infatuated smile. “Fortunately, he has Mommy to keep him in line.”
“Oh, Max,” she murmured again, but there was something decidedly sensual about her tone as she sank down on her knees to join him. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he replied fervently, “Forgive me for how I reacted today. I was thoughtless and stupid.”
“Yes, you were,” Liz agreed, nuzzling against him, “But I forgive you, Max.”
“Thank you, Liz,” he mumbled, kissing her shoulders and neck and jaw line with reverent hunger, “I promise, even if it takes the rest of my life, I’m going to make it up to you.”
“Take tonight instead,” Liz whispered, pulling him down to the floor with her.
“What if someone comes?” Max considered anxiously as she inched his shirt up over his torso before whipping it over his head and tossing it away.
“You melted the lock, didn’t you?” Liz queried, urging him onto his back so that she could press moist, fervent kisses down the expanse of his chest.
“Um…yeah, but…uh…anyone could…” He trailed off into pleasured confusion when Liz surged her tongue into the groove of his navel and swirled it there in sensual circles.
She lifted her head to stare at him with glassy eyes. “Make love to me, Max,” she implored.
And he did. Max left no part of her body untouched. Despite the fact a party was going on less than twenty feet from where they lay Max took his sweet time touching her, kissing and exploring all her most secret places, delighting in the whimpers of pleasure he elicited from her. When they finally came together it was more than a simply bonding of their flesh, but a merging of their spirit as well, a healing from all the old scars and disappointments. In waving rush of their mutual orgasm they were washed clean, made new, heart and soul, ready to begin again….ready to be a family.
When it was over Liz and Max cuddled up against each other, their bodies curving into one another’s naturally, fitting so closely there was no discerning line where her limbs began and his ended. They were simply…one. “You know what this means, don’t you?” Max whispered as he stroked through the sweaty tendrils of Liz’s hair.
“Hmm…what?” Liz mumbled sleepily.
“You have to marry me,” he declared, “I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Okay,” she yawned, settling against his chest as sleep began to claim her.
Max jostled her and she reared up slightly to toss him a disgruntled look. “Okay?” he parroted dubiously, “I ask you to marry me and all you have to say is ‘okay’?”
“Well, that proposal was kinda lackluster,” Liz teased him impishly, “I mean…Kyle proposed to Diadne in a restaurant full of people. I’d think you could at least top that, Max. Geez, you’re an alien king, after all, throw in a little creativity.”
Max pinched her butt playfully when he realized she was making fun of him. “You’re a wench, you know that?”
She kissed him soundly on the mouth. “Don’t pretend you don’t love it!”
As their laughter died down, however, Max looked up at Liz with a solemn expression. “Are you ever sorry, Liz?” he whispered, “Are you ever sorry you chose this path…to be with me?”
“Not ever,” she said, “Not one single time. I like where this road has taken me, Max, and I’m looking forward to where it’s going.”
“You are?” he whispered in wonderment.
Liz nodded and settled back against his side. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she whispered, “After all…it brought me to you.”
The End