Empire of the Son (CC ALL,MATURE) {Complete} - 04/30/05

[Midwest Max]

Title: Empire of the Son
Author: Karen
Rating: MATURE
Disclaimer: Characters from the show belong to Katims and co. Alyssa and Nate are mine
Summary: This is the sequel to The Son Also Rises. Nate has now exposed the aliens and their secret. What happens next?
Author's Note: Beautiful banner by IAmLongTimeFan. It looks great, sweetie!

Part One

There was no turning back now. They were coming for them. The deed was done.

Nate Evans swallowed hard as the light atop his father’s camera went dark – they were off the air. Anxiety and doubt swirled in his stomach. Maybe this had been the wrong decision after all. Maybe they were all going to go die now. Maybe this wouldn’t be the end to their struggles but rather the beginning of a lifetime of hell. At any moment, he expected the FBI Special Unit to bust through the TV station doors and mow them all down with one round of machine-gun fire.

Dark eyes wide, Max Evans poked his head from around the camera and tried to give his son a smile of reassurance – it fell flat. Then he turned to the other camera operator – Michael Guerin – and gave a short nod of his head. Both men stepped out from behind the cameras as Jesse Ramirez joined them from the back of the studio.

“Well,” Nate breathed, feeling like there was a foot planted deep in the center of his chest. “That’s that then.”

Max nodded grimly. Michael pursed his lips and appeared ready to flatten Nate at any moment. Jesse was extremely calm and collected considering the fact that Nate had just told all of Boston – and most of the world, if the networks had patched into their affiliate – that he was an alien.

“What now?” Nate asked, trying not to choke. Somehow his heart had climbed into his throat and was obstructing air passage. Maybe he’d suffocate to death and none of this would matter in the end.

“We wait,” Max said simply. His voice was steady but Nate could see the trepidation in his eyes. Maybe he was having his doubts as well.

“It’s what we’re waiting for that worries me,” Michael muttered unhappily.

Around them, they could hear the hurried, hushed whispers of the station crew. Nate couldn’t see them, but he could imagine them all hiding under desks or in closets, in fear of the aliens who had just taken command of their world. He felt a wave of pity for them – this was their turf and it had just been violated in a major way.

“All right, get the fuck out of my seat!”

Nate jumped, startled, then whirled in the direction of the angry female voice. It was coming from the anchorwoman he’d ousted when they’d taken over the station. Her face was red and her blond hair was billowing behind her as she angrily stomped toward him.

“I mean it, you little bastard!” she screeched and Nate flinched. “Get up!”

He stumbled from the chair and she jerked it from beneath him as he’d barely gained his feet. “Did you see my broadcast?” he asked, timidity suddenly overtaking him.

“No, I didn’t,” she huffed, flopping herself down into the chair and starting to adjust her clothing. “I was phoning the police. They will be here any minute to haul your sorry ass out of here. I have a broadcast to do – so why don’t you just beat it?” She shuffled her papers and turned to look at the cameras. Her eyes settled on Max, Michael and Jesse, then drifted down to her familiar cameramen, who were still incapacitated on the floor. “Oh, fuck,” she mumbled, holding her head.

Nate felt sorry for her as well. Sure, she was rude and abrasive and swore like a sailor, but they’d pretty much interfered with her job, her profession. “Ma’am,” he said softly.

The woman dropped her hand and snapped in his direction. “Don’t you call me ‘Ma’am’, you little shit!” She whipped toward Max. “Did you assholes kill my cameramen?”

Max’s brow furrowed in confusion, then he looked to his feet where the two men lay. “No,” he said quietly. “They’re not harmed.”

“Then tell them to get the fuck up and start the cameras!”

There was no movement in the studio. The anchorwoman looked at each of the intruders, then slumped visibly in her seat.

“Miss,” Nate tried again. “Did you see my broadcast?”

Perhaps somewhat deflated, she didn’t hurl any more insults at him, but simply shook her head.

“Then you didn’t hear what I had to say.” Trying to put her at ease, he sat down on the edge of the news desk. “What’s your name?”

“Christy Carmichael,” she said with a snort – like everyone was supposed to know who she was.

Nate cocked his head. No way that was her real name.

“Christy” seemed a little sheepish. “Susan,” she said quietly.

“Okay, Susan,” Nate echoed. “If I knew how to roll back video tape and show you what I said, I would. But I can, so I’ll just have to tell you face to face.” He looked over his shoulder at Max, who gave him a nod. “Susan, I’m an alien.”

Susan’s eyes searched his for a long moment, then her eyebrows rose to her hairline and she started laughing. “Sure you are, kid. That’s a good one.”

Nate shook his head slowly. “I am. The government already knows about us. They’ve known about us for years.”

She laughed again, but this time it was a little less certain.

Nate gestured toward Max. “That’s my father. We’ve both been tortured by the FBI. My dad decades ago, but only a year ago for me. So yes, the government really knows about us.”

Susan’s grin fell away permanently. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

Nate could almost read the rest of her thought – Or maybe you’re crazy. Without a word, he waved his hand over the news reports she’d discarded on top of the desk. The words distorted, disappeared, then reappeared again. He saw a flash of fear in her eyes and knew that he needed to calm her as soon as possible. “We’re not going to hurt you. We don’t want to hurt anybody.”

Susan worked her mouth and Nate could sense her flight instinct kicking into gear. Maybe he needed to approach this differently; maybe he needed to appeal to her on a more personal level.

“Susan, this could be the story you’ve waited your whole life for.”

Some of the fear dissipated and she looked at him with renewed interest.

“Think about it,” Michael chimed in, approaching at a non-threatening pace. “Do you really want to be a local news anchor for the rest of your career? This could launch you straight to the networks.”

Nate grinned slightly – it was just possible that maybe Michael had gotten past his bias enough to get Nate’s back now that he needed it.

Susan looked at her visitors in turn again.

“Stick with us no matter what,” Nate offered. “You won’t be sorry.”

Her eyes narrowed when they landed on Jesse. “Do I know you?”

Jesse grinned – the affable counselor once again. “We’ve crossed paths more than once.”

She blinked, obviously concentrating hard, then her eyes flew open wide. “You’re Jesse Ramirez.”

He nodded.

“You’re an alien?” she asked incredulously.

Jesse chuckled. “No, I’m human. I’m just here for legal reasons.”

One corner of Susan’s heavily glossed lip quirked upward. “Jesus Christ. Even the extra-terrestrials have lawyers these days.” She blew out a sigh and slumped backward in her chair, all composure forgotten.

“So, you’re with us?” Nate asked hopefully.

Susan nodded in resignation.

Nate grinned at Michael and Max, who still looked a little ill.

“But I called the police,” the newswoman confessed apologetically.

“It’s okay,” Max said, stepping up to join Michael. “It’s what we want.” He swallowed hard at the end of his words – Nate knew that Max was still a little wary of this plan.

“How can that be what you want?” Susan asked in disbelief. “Being different isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

“That’s why we need you,” Max said levelly. “That’s why we need the press. This is so much bigger than us. Bigger than you. Bigger than you can even imagine.”

Nate felt another surge of uncertainty. It wasn’t only the humans out there that they needed to worry about. There were God knows how many other alien races on the planet and he was sure that none of them – who had all been hiding in plain sight up to this point – was going to be real happy about what they had just done.

A commotion in the hallway prompted the group to turn in that direction. Nate’s heart leapt from his throat to his temples and started to pound painfully.

“Police!” came a stern voice from the hall. “Put your hands above your heads!”

Max looked at the others and nodded barely perceptibly. They raised their hands and turned to face the police squad that was lining the hallway. Nate could just make out many dark figures in SWAT gear, rifles pointed in his direction.

“Let the woman go!” came the next command.

“You’re free to go,” Max said softly, not turning to look at Susan. “We’re not keeping you here against your will.”

Nate closed his eyes, waiting for the scene to play out, then heard Susan’s chair squeak as she stood. The clack of her high heels sounded in the quiet studio as she rounded the desk and approached the hallway. Hope fell to Nate’s toes – she was going to abandon them.

But when she got to the door, she walked casually to the person in charge and started speaking with him in words that Nate couldn’t hear. It could be that she was telling them to blast the daylights out of them. It could be that she was telling them the group was all crazy.

To Nate’s surprise, the policemen lowered their weapons and straightened out of their combat stance. Max shot him a startled glance, but left his hands over his head. In a few minutes, a heavy-set police detective came from the hallway, Susan in tow. A couple of deputies slid inside the door, fell into an attention stance, blocking the exit.

The detective crossed the room to the group, a smirk on his pudgy face. He stopped before Max, who refused to look away or back down. Nate would never stop being astounded at Max’s composure in such situations. Then again, Max had probably been a victim of much worse.

“So, you’re an alien,” the cop said, chuckling.

“Yes, sir,” Max answered.

“And you want me to take you to my leader.”

There were a few chuckles out in the hallway and Nate felt indignation flair in his gut.

“Yes, sir,” Max said, never showing the insult Nate knew he must be feeling inside. “Before we do that, however, there are some people that I’d like for you to take into protective custody, people who are going to be in danger.”

The policeman raised an eyebrow and Nate now felt a surge of fury – he was making fun of them. “Is there now? Who are these people?”

“There’s a list in my pocket,” Max said, starting to lower his hand.

“Eh – I’ll get it,” the cop warned. “Which one?”

“Back left,” Max said, raising his hand again.

The cop patted Max’s pockets on the outside, then reached into his back pocket and pulled out a piece of folded paper. He skimmed over it, then laughed aloud.

“Are you for real?” he asked. “How did I guess that there would be someone in Roswell on your list? Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

“Sir, these people are in eminent danger –“ Max began.

All humor faded from the cop’s face. His skin suddenly flushed a deep red. “No, you’re in eminent danger, punk. You have broken about a dozen FCC laws. You’re guilty of breaking and entering. And I don’t even want to know what you did to those men!” He pointed angrily at the fallen cameramen.

“They’ll wake up…in time,” Max said quietly.

The cop stepped close to him. “I had tickets to the Celtics game tonight, you stupid prick. You ruined that for me. You and your band of lunatic followers.”

Nate’s eyebrows rose sharply and his mouth dropped open. Oh, no.

“Cuff them!” the cop yelled over his shoulder and the two men at the door hurried forward to take the intruders into custody.

“Wait,” Nate protested as they pushed him to the ground. “You have to help the people on the list!”

“Ah, save it, kid,” the cop snapped. “And why don’t you exercise your right to remain silent while you’re at it.”

“But, they’re in danger if –“

“Shut up!”

Nate winced as they slapped the cuffs around his wrists. They didn’t believe them. No one – except maybe Susan the anchorwoman – believed them. It wasn’t something they’d planned on. He craned his head to the side where Max had also been pushed to the floor. Behind them, he could hear Jesse rambling something in legaleze, but Nate couldn’t concentrate on it.

“It’s okay,” Max whispered. “Just be quiet. We’ll get through this.”

Then he was jerked to his feet and out of Nate’s view. Shortly, Nate was upright as well and being pushed rudely toward the door. He felt like vomiting. Because somewhere out there, every person he loved was now in terrible danger.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Two

Nate landed roughly on the back seat of the police cruiser, his head nearly colliding with Michael’s as he was tossed in from the other side. Michael grunted in indignation and shuffled his weigh to right himself without the use of his bound hands. Nate followed suit, struggling to sit up straight.

“Well, that went well, dontcha think?” Michael snarked as the officers moved toward the front doors of the car.

“Don’t bitch at me,” Nate said sullenly, his mind a million miles away from Michael Guerin and his selfish dismay at being arrested. “You didn’t have to come.”

“What? And stay home with the women and children?” Michael’s eyes were hard and Nate suddenly got the impression he was only being abrasive to avoid dealing with the situation at hand – so much easier to make Nate feel like an ass than to fess up that he was worried.

“At least you’d be safe there,” Nate tossed back, deciding to wound Michael’s pride instead of letting him off the hook.

“For how long?” Michael snapped back.

“Hey!” the officer behind the wheel called over his shoulder. “You two shut the fuck up!”

Nate sank into the seat but Michael remained rigid, his jaw set and his lips pursed. Nate was amazed at the man’s blatant disregard for authority. Had he always been this way? Not that Nate had the time to dwell on that – because what Michael had said was very true. How long would the “women and children” be safe?

Despair sank into Nate’s bones as the cruiser’s lights suddenly split the cold Massachusetts night and the car pulled onto the street. Ahead of them, Max and Jesse were in the back of another car, while a crowd had gathered on the street outside of the television station. Susan Carmichael – if that was her real name – was nowhere to be found.

Nate tried to imagine what Alyssa was doing at that moment, tried to picture her pretty, flawless face as she worried over the situation. He could almost see her in his mind’s eye, pacing Isabel’s family room, wringing her hands together. Closing his eyes in agony, he wished he could see her, could hold her against him one last time. Because he knew in his soul that if this night ended badly, he might never see her again.

The clink of metal broke Nate from his sullen state. He turned to look at Michael, who was dangling his handcuffs from one wrist. Nate looked horrified, but Michael looked victorious.

“What are you doing?!” Nate demanded in a heated whisper. In the front seat, the officers had commenced making many jokes about aliens and were oblivious to Michael’s escape.

Michael laughed and twirled the cuffs around one finger.

“Put them back on!” Nate demanded, his eyes following the shining silver in tight circles.

“What’s the point?” Michael asked in a normal voice. “They already know I’m an alien.”

“What was that?” the driver barked in the mirror.

Michael held up the cuffs and Nate hung his head in defeat. “Looks like Deputy Dog there didn’t do his job very well – my cuffs fell off.”

The officer in the passenger seat whirled around, his eyes hard as they fixed on Michael, who was dangling the cuffs like a carrot before a donkey. “Goddammit!” he spouted. “When this car stops, you little punk, you’re going to be sorry you did whatever it was you did to get out of those!”

Michael shrugged and tossed the cuffs onto the floor of the cruiser. Then he sat back and got comfortable. The officer spouted a few more obscenities and when he resumed his conversation with the driver, their words were a little less jovial.

Nate stared at Michael with a mixture of disbelief and disappointment. They weren’t to reveal any of their powers until the time was right. In the back seat of a police cruiser with people who thought they were crazy was not the right time. So much for sticking to a plan.

Michael suddenly turned in Nate’s direction. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Can’t get yours off?”

Fury boiled in Nate’s blood. His wrists were hurting, he couldn’t sit comfortably with his hands behind his back and Michael was being an ass. This night couldn’t get worse.

*****

“And so we’re asking for your help. My people are just like you. We’ve walked among you for years and you haven’t been able to tell the difference. We laugh, we cry. We have families. Cut us, we bleed. We don’t want to harm anyone, but our lives are now in imminent danger. Just as we won’t harm you, we hope that you won’t harm us. We only ask that the FBI is not sent to our aid – they already know about us and haven’t been welcoming.”

On the screen, Nate’s eyes shifted to the right and he gave a nod of his head. Turning back to the camera, he swallowed hard and then finished his plea for help. “I thank you for your time and apologize for coming into your homes this way. Please believe me. Please help us. Thank you.”

The television went black, then displayed the logo of the television station, a message that there were technical difficulties.

Alyssa felt suddenly uneasy, like she’d just been spotted racing across a battlefield with no cover in sight. Her hand went to her necklace and toyed with the gem Nate had given her last year on her birthday. He’d looked so foreign on the TV, so different than he did in real life. He’d looked so alone…

“So now we wait,” Liz said from behind Alyssa.

Alyssa’s dark eyes went to the clock. How long to wait? They were now sitting ducks, waiting for someone – whether it be the police or an enemy about to kill them – to come to the door. She hated waiting, hated not knowing what was going on with Nate and the rest of them.

Isabel walked between Alyssa and the television set and pushed the button to turn it off. The tall alien was remarkably cool, considering her brother, best friend, husband and nephew were now at the mercy of the world. She gave Alyssa a small smile and put an arm around her shoulders.

“Come on,” she said. “Sit down.”

Alyssa sat on the couch between Liz and her aunt. In the hallway, she could hear her cousins preparing to flee if necessary – Jeremy was irritable, not a trait of his normal demeanor; the twins, as per usual, were disaffected about what was taking place around them. On Liz’s lap, Emily gurgled happily, oblivious.

Alyssa eyed the baby and felt a pang of loneliness. For the first time in what seemed years, she missed her mother, missed Maria and her nagging ways. Yes, that woman was a royal, inconsiderate pain in the ass most times. But, sometimes she was very comforting and supportive. And at least she respected Alyssa’s relationship with Nate, even if her father didn’t.

“How long do we wait?” Liz asked casually, like she was inquiring if the mail had gone yet that that. She gnawed on Emily’s neck, making the infant sputter in laughter.

“An hour,” Isabel said levelly. “If we haven’t heard anything in an hour, then we move for the shelter.”

The shelter. She meant the hiding spot. They all had them. There was one on the east coast for present company, and one in the middle of the New Mexico desert for the Roswellians. Alyssa imagined the same scene at the Evans home – a gathering that would include Kyle and Jim Valenti, Diane and Philip Evans and Maria. There was so much paranoia between those two points she could practically feel it.

“Liz,” Isabel said softly, so softly that it unnerved Alyssa.

Liz glanced up, bounced her baby a couple of times.

“What about your parents?” There was sympathy in Isabel’s dark eyes. A secret kept so long, now exposed.

Liz looked away for a moment and Alyssa wondered what she was thinking – was she upset that the cat was out of the bag? Was she afraid of being ostracized by her family? Was she afraid they’d be the ones to lead the lynch mob?

“I guess they know now,” Liz finally answered, her gaze on her daughter instead of on the inquisitive eyes studying her. She gave a shrug of non-committal. “I guess it wasn’t probably the best way for them to find out…”

Sympathetic, Isabel reached over and put a hand on Liz’s arm.

Alyssa felt a tug of remorse inside. She’d worked for Liz’s dad for a couple of years while she’d been in high school. She’d liked Jeff Parker, had thought that he was a kind, giving man. It wasn’t fair that he’d been betrayed in this way. Then her mind shifted to Nate’s adoptive parents – people Alyssa had never met – and her remorse doubled. What must they be thinking? The same things Liz’s parents were thinking? What was Nate thinking about it? The same things as Liz? This whole situation was so unfair.

With a jolt, harsh reality came tumbling down on Alyssa’s young shoulders. Nate was really gone, out there somewhere with her dad and uncles, perhaps never to return. She could still feel him on her lips as he’d kissed her goodbye, could still smell him on her clothes if she tried hard enough. It was as if the ghost of Nate Spencer had been left behind when Nate Evans had walked out the door of this Cape Cod estate. And maybe he was never coming back. Maybe she was never going to see him again.

Alyssa looked down into her lap, bit back her tears. Nate had to come back. He had to. She had something to tell him.

And it wasn’t something she wanted to tell him in a dream.

*****

The ink felt cool and slippery under Nate’s fingertip as the officer rolled his finger from one side to the other then pressed it on a white card. She was nicer than the other officers had been, if only that meant she was a little aloof and didn’t care that Nate thought he was an alien. Down the counter from him, Jesse, Max and Michael were also being printed. Nate looked at the marks his fingers left behind and felt a little ashamed inside – he’d never for the life of him believed he’d be in the situation that demanded his fingerprints. With a pang, he thought of his parents and how crushed they’d be to see their son at this moment.

Then again, the fact that he’d more or less disassociated himself publicly by calling himself by the name “Evans” had to have broken them into so many pieces maybe there was nothing left to ruin.

“Okay, spacemen,” a burly officer called. “Down the hall to the holding tank.”

Stripped of their possessions – including their belts – the quartet was ushered down the corridor of cells, where drunks, prostitutes and probably murderers taunted them as they passed. Nate kept his eyes on the floor, hoping that he wasn’t as “pretty” as Alyssa was always telling him he was. Being pretty wasn’t necessarily a good thing in a prison…

The officer opened an empty cell and held it open for the newest inmates. “In you go,” he said. “Welcome to the mother ship.”

There were many guffaws all around and Nate burned with humiliation as the group filed into the cell.

“You’re making a mistake,” Max said to the cop in a quiet, non-threatening tone.

“I doubt that,” the man said, giving Max a little shove to get him into the cell, then closing the barred door behind him. “Freakin’ lunatic.”

“I want to make my phone call,” Jesse called from behind Max.

“Later,” the cop said and walked away.

The group stood in silence for a moment, no one daring to speak. The cell smelled like urine, Nate thought, glancing around for the odor.

“Yep,” Michael said. “Wonderful fucking plan, Junior.”

Nate cast him an intolerant look, then tossed himself onto the bench that sat along the solid outside wall.

“Just be calm,” Max said. “We have to remain calm.”

Nate felt a tug inside of his chest. Somewhere out there, Alyssa was probably telling herself the same thing. But how much time had passed since the broadcast? If they didn’t convince someone soon that they were serious, there was a good chance she was going to slip from his life forever.

And that wasn’t a way he wanted to live.

“Well, I can tell you for sure the entertainment isn’t over,” Michael smirked sarcastically.

The trio looked at him questioningly.

“You can just about bet they’re running our records,” he explained. “That ought to really help our credibility.”

Nate closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten to calm his nerves. He didn’t even want to contemplate what that comment meant.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Three

Too much time had passed.

Nate knew that now. He knew that somewhere out there, the people who had been on Max’s list of those who needed to go into protective custody were now scrambling for their lives. It was preservation of their race, if nothing else. Of course, Nate’s broadcast had not included pictures or names of the affected parties, but anyone who knew him knew who he was associated with.

A sense of loss settled over Nate’s soul as he imagined Alyssa gathering up the bare necessities and fleeing Boston with her relatives. He hoped and prayed that if he managed to fall asleep this night, that she would come to him in his dreams. She hadn’t done so since they’d moved in together, but Nate knew she probably still possessed the ability. He wished with all of his heart that she’d use that skill tonight, just to let him know she was okay.

But it wasn’t just fear for his loved ones that was troubling Nate. There was something else. He wasn’t sure exactly what. It wasn’t necessarily a feeling of apprehension or of impending doom. It was just…something. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it also wouldn’t just go away. It was starting to severely frustrate him.

“We need to talk,” Jesse said quietly to the group in the cell, trying not to draw the attention of inmates in the other cells. “They’re going to try to separate us,” he explained. “They’ll take us out of here one at a time.”

Nate swallowed hard, his mind immediately racing back to his imprisonment at the FBI compound in New Mexico. Separated, they could easily lose track of one another, be lost forever. No, there was definitely strength in numbers.

“I’m not going to let that happen,” Jesse continued. “When they come for you, tell them you want your legal counsel with you. That will be me.”

Nate lifted an eyebrow. Maybe having Jesse along wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

“That way, they can’t question all three of you at the same time and you don’t have to say anything without me being present. I’ll know everything that is going on with all three of you – they can’t lie to you and play their good-cop/bad-cop games.”

For the first time in what seemed like days, Max smiled. “That’s pretty smart of you, Jesse.”

Jesse grinned, showing even, white teeth. “It’s what I do, brother. It’s what I do.”

“They’ll take me first,” Michael said from the other side of the cell.

“Why do you say that?” Max asked, turning in his direction.

Michael shrugged, as though the answer should be obvious. “Rap sheet.”

Max sighed and any relief he’d appeared to have felt at Jesse’s clever plotting seemed to slip away. Running a hand through his dark hair, he looked at the floor like a man who had lost his last dollar down the storm drain.

“They’ll take me first,” Nate contradicted softly. Michael pinned him with a gaze. “My crime is a little more recent.” Recent as in less than two hours ago.

Max turned his head to regard his son, his eyes full of regret.

“It’s okay,” Nate said with a nervous grin. “It was my decision to do this. I’ll take responsibility for it.”

Max clapped a hand on his son’s knee. “I’m not worried about our legal problems right now, Nate. We have bigger things to worry about. Aside from you, all of us have been in jail before so it’s really nothing new.”

Nate felt that familiar squeeze in his stomach – not only Michael, but Max and Jesse too?

“I’ve never been in jail,” Jesse corrected, though Nate thought he detected a hint of glee under all of the attorney’s actions. After years – decades? – of sitting on the bench, it seemed that Jesse was more than excited to finally be part of the action.

“I stand corrected,” Max offered in apology.

“Why were you in jail?” Nate asked, silently wondering why he could ask Max that question so freely, but asking Michael was out of the question.

Max’s eyes drifted momentarily to Michael before returning to his son. “I was in a fight in a casino in Vegas.” Nate lifted his eyebrows in surprise - Max Evans didn’t seem the type to pick fights in a casino. Max waved him off with a hand. “I was young. It was a long time ago.”

“Look, that’s in the past,” Jesse said, trying to drag the conversation back on course. “It’s going to show up on your records, but Max is right – we need to concentrate on the issue at hand.”

Nate glanced at Michael, who was remaining surprisingly silent, his lips pursed. There seemed to be some concern over records here and Nate had the feeling that Michael’s would be the most inflammatory.

“We stick to what we decided earlier,” Jesse recapped. “No one reveals anything until Max is questioned.”

Max nodded gravely.

“Max will assess the situation and decide from there what the next course of action is,” Jesse continued.

“We’re all in this together,” Michael said from the other side of the cell. “We should all have an equal say.”

Nate watched Max deflate slightly.

“Michael,” Max began. “We’ve talked about this. We agreed when the time came to demonstrate what we can do, that it would be me to do so. Listen, I have to be able to count on you to stick with that plan. Can I – count on you?”

Michael’s lips pushed out farther, but he nodded reluctantly.

Before anything else could be said, the lights in the jail flickered three times, then went dim leaving only security lights in their wake. Nate felt a stab in his gut. What time was lights-out in a jail? Eight o’clock? Nine? It didn’t really matter, because he knew for sure what it signaled.

“They won’t come for us until morning,” Jesse said after a long silence.

Nate’s stomach lurched. Their time was up.

Jesse sighed. “I guess we know now that Plan B is being followed.”

*****

Alyssa was glad it was dark in the back of the van so that the others couldn’t see her silent tears. The time had come and Nate’s plan had backfired. Now they were crammed into the Scooby van, heading for an undisclosed location, running for their lives.

Liz was behind the wheel and Alyssa had to give her credit – she was managing to drive like someone who wasn’t being hunted. Her speed was steady and under the limit, her hand steady on the wheel. They were drawing absolutely no attention. But then again, if one were hunting aliens, would they look to a minivan as being the get away car?

Jeremy was riding shotgun, while the “creepy twins” (as Nate called them) were in the middle seat with Emily’s car seat between them. Isabel had taken the far back seat with Alyssa, her graceful demeanor firmly in place. Did nothing ever rattle that woman?

They were heading north, to New Hampshire, to somewhere only Liz knew where to go. The hiding places had been kept pretty much secret and Alyssa had no idea where the New Mexico group was headed. There was a lost feeling inside of her soul, not knowing where the Valentis or the Evanses or her mother was headed. They were divided now, cut into three groups adrift, struggling just to survive.

This so wasn’t what Nate had planned. The hideouts had been a contingency none of them had ever considered seriously using. It has been a stupid assumption. But, lying in bed with him, listening to his words in the dark, Alyssa had been convinced that he was right – this was the first step necessary to them being able to achieve the vision he’d seen in his dreams. Peace for his people and the people of earth. She felt another tug of grief as she remembered the conviction of his words, his determination to convince the others that his plan would work. What must “the others” be feeling right now?

Alyssa hoped that her father wasn’t about to kill Nate.

Not that Michael would do such a thing, but he had to be very, very angry at this point. Alyssa had seen him truly angry before and it had been enough to send her scurrying for cover. His wrath had never been directed at her – she was his pumpkin, after all – but usually aimed at the inconsiderate paparazzi and more than once at Maria. Of course, Michael had never laid a hand on Maria, but their arguing matches had been so volatile that more than one glass vase had been destroyed in the Guerin home – whether it was thrown by Maria or simply combusted spontaneously as a result of Michael’s pent-up powers.

Thinking of the arguments that went on in her childhood home only brought into sharp focus the absence of such things in the home Alyssa and Nate had created for themselves. Tears stung the backs of her eyes as she turned to look out of the darkened window, her mind filled with all things Nate. He’d never so much as raised his voice to her. That wasn’t to say that they didn’t disagree. They did – every once in a while. But while Michael and Maria screamed, Nate and Alyssa discussed. He was always considerate of her feelings, her opinion and he never once made her feel stupid for speaking her mind. Nate was the kindest, gentlest person she’d ever known. Outside of her Uncle Max, that was.

“Does Nate know?”

Alyssa turned from the window to find her Aunt Isabel watching her sympathetically. For a moment, panic flared inside of her. There was no way that her aunt could know, was there?

“Know what?” she snorted, thinking the snort only made her denial sound all that much more unconvincing.

Isabel smiled knowingly and reached over to pick up her niece’s hand. “You know what I’m talking about.”

Alyssa looked at the floor of the van. She should know by now that you can’t keep anything a secret around the pod squad. Silent, she shook her head.

“You didn’t tell him,” Isabel said, more a statement than a question.

“I couldn’t,” Alyssa said, looking up again.

Isabel raised her eyebrows in question.

Tears flooded Alyssa’s dark eyes again. “I knew if I told him, he’d never go through with this.”

*****

“Rise and shine, pretty boys!”

Nate blinked against the light that suddenly filtered into their cell. Somehow, he’d managed to fall asleep sitting up, his neck now aching from its crooked position. Aside from the physical pain, he felt hollow inside – Alyssa hadn’t come to him in his dreams and he didn’t want to think what that could mean. On the other side of the bars, a few of Boston’s finest were waiting for the group to awaken. They all had cocky smirks on their faces. Nate hated all of them.

“Hey, you,” one of them called in Michael’s direction. “You Guerin?”

Michael nodded as he eased his aching back from the bench where he’d slept. “In the flesh.”

The cop snorted. “Where would you like me to begin?”

“Here it goes,” Michael murmured, reaching down to pull on his shoes.

“Breaking and entering, held on suspicion of murder twice before you were eighteen – one of which was a federal agent, defacing public property, assault in a Vegas casino, ten more assault charges over the past eight years filed by various paparazzi. Tell me something – Maria Deluca really your wife?”

Nate’s mouth was hanging open – Michael hadn’t been kidding about his record. And from the cop’s stance, he had the feeling that wasn’t the complete list.

“Ex-wife,” Michael replied to the cop, seeming unaffected by the interrogation.

“This all a publicity stunt to boost record sales?” the cop accused.

“Nope. She doesn’t need my help.” Michael was cool – too cool for Nate’s comfort.

“You’re first,” the cop barked. “On your feet.”

Michael’s eyes shifted to Jesse and Nate could tell that they were all wondering if Michael was going to defy their plans. “Not without my lawyer,” he said, to everyone’s relief.

The cop rolled his eyes. “That’s fucking wonderful. Who’s your counsel?”

Michael pointed at Jesse, who gave a wide, court-room grin.

“Perfect,” the cop deadpanned. “You can come as well, Mr. Ramirez.”

Nate watched as Michael took as much time as possible getting out of the cell, Jesse on his heels. Before the door closed, however, the cop gestured toward Nate with his chin. “You’re coming, too.”

Nate shook his head nervously. “Not without my lawyer –“

“You don’t need your lawyer. You have a visitor. Get on your feet.”

Nate glanced uncertainly at Max, who shrugged apologetically.

“Hurry up!” the cop barked and Nate jumped to his feet.

He followed the crowd down the hallway, hated that they’d left Max alone in that nasty cell. When they got to the interrogation rooms, Michael and Jesse were led in by the policeman who had done all of the talking and the door was shut behind them. Nate continued to follow the remaining cop around a couple of corners to another small room with a table and a couple of chairs.

“You have a half hour, no more,” the cop said sternly, waiting for Nate to step inside. “Do you hear me?” the cop asked the person in the room. “Half an hour.”

The woman nodded her head in agreement.

Nate stopped in his tracks as the door closed behind him. He didn’t know whether to be happy or angry that this person had re-entered his life. Mostly, he didn’t know how to feel because he didn’t know what role she’d played in all of this.

“Do you smoke, Mr. Evans?” she asked in a flirty tone, slipping a cigarette from a silver case.

Nate shook his head.

“Mind if I do?”

He shook his head again.

She lit the cigarette and then studied her guest silently, though Nate could tell she was inspecting him like a specimen under a microscope. Finally, curiosity got the best of him.

“I’m sorry,” he began. “But what are you doing here, Ms. Carmichael?”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Ouch! The muse bit me!

Part Four

“Please,” the reporter said. “Call me Susan.”

Nate frowned. Being around Michael had affected his politeness with strangers – he had to fight back the urge to tell her had better things by which to call her. Instead, he said, “Is that really your name?”

She nodded and he saw no deceit in her eyes. “Susan is, yes, but not Carmichael.”

He raised an eyebrow silently.

“Moore. My name is Susan Moore,” she explained, using her pinky nail to hook the ashtray and drag it before her. She pulled on her cigarette, then gave him a weak grin as though baring her name to the world was equivalent to baring her soul. “Not a real good television name.”

“Hence Christy Carmichael,” Nate said.

She nodded, then motioned toward the chair across from her with the cigarette. “Will you sit?”

Nate eyed the chair, still not certain why she was there.

“We don’t have that much time,” she reminded. “Half an hour, that’s it.”

Nate’s brow furrowed slightly. “Just how did you manage to get in here?”

She shrugged, the devil coming back to her expression. “I have certain... er, facts that the Boston PD would rather not get into the open.”

He frowned again. “Blackmail.”

“Yes, but not enough to keep them at bay forever.” Susan leaned out and looked around him, toward the door. “We really don’t have much time. Please sit down.”

Nate cautiously pulled out the plastic chair and sat, his eyes never leaving her, his curiosity never leaving his mind. Where was the hard-as-nails reporter who had thrown every cuss word know to a whole species of truck drivers at him not twelve hours before? This woman was polite and courteous, not the same one who had told him to “get the fuck out of [her] seat” and had called him a “little bastard”…which, ironically enough, he was.

“Okay,” Nate said quietly. “I’m sitting. Now are you going to tell me why you’re here?”

Susan’s eyes met his briefly, then flitted away again as she snuffed her cigarette butt. For the first time, Nate realized she was nervous. “I want to help you,” she said.

Nate lifted his eyebrows. “Help me?”

“All of you. I want to help you and…your people.” There was that nervous flitting of the eyes again.

Nate’s eyebrows drew together as he scowled. “The way you helped us last night?”

Regret passed over her pretty face. “I couldn’t help you last night. What was I going to do?”

“Tell the police you know what I am,” he tossed back, his tone flecked with just a tad of anger.

Susan snorted. “They weren’t going to believe me. They were going to haul you away regardless.”

“What did you say to them?”

“I just told them that you were the ones who’d broken into the police station, the ones I’d called them on. That was it. Nate, please, believe me. There’s nothing I could have done.”

He sat back in his chair, still scowling, disappointed in this human to whom he’d revealed his powers.

Fingers trembling slightly, Susan picked up the pack of cigarettes and lit another one. “Look, Nate,” she said, blowing out the first breath of smoke. “I didn’t sleep last night.”

“Imagine how I slept,” he accused.

She looked at him apologetically, then let out a long breath. “I had a visitor.”

“A visitor?”

Susan nodded, dragged more deeply on the cigarette. “A woman. Well, at least I thought it was a woman. She said she knew you.”

Nate’s mind raced. For a moment, he feared that the woman was Liz or Isabel or Alyssa and that they’d defied Max’s order to flee if no one had come to protect them within the hour of Nate’s broadcast. They needed to be safe somewhere, not confronting TV anchorwomen.

“What did she look like?” Nate managed.

“Tall, nice suit, didn’t have much of a sense of humor.”

Relief flooded through Nate’s body. Aubrey.

“Do you know her?” Susan asked.

“Yes,” Nate confirmed. “She’s my body –“ The word cut off in his throat. It was going to sound really stupid, but now that he’d started, he had to finish. “She’s my bodyguard, my protector. She won’t hurt you.”

Susan shook her head quickly. “No, she didn’t try to hurt me. But she was a little…um, intimidating.”

Nate had never seen Aubrey in action with a presumed enemy, but he couldn’t imagine she’d used any kind of force or threat without permission from him and he had given her none. “Why do you say that?”

Susan let out a nervous laugh again and Nate saw the corner of one of her eyes twitching. “I don’t know how she got into my apartment,” she said, rolling the cigarette between her fingers. “I got home late and I was walking around getting ready for bed and one minute she wasn’t there and the next she was. Not a sound out of her. Just standing there like a statue in my hallway.” She worked her lips and Nate knew that she was asking for some confirmation that she wasn’t going crazy.

And there was nothing insane about this reporter. Nate had learned over the last couple of months that Aubrey was only seen when she wanted to be seen. That explained how she could stake out the Evans home the night she’d come to offer her services without the neighbors calling in a prowler – she’d been there the whole time, only invisible to those she didn’t want to see her. Nate only imagined that the “army” that had come to their aide to fight Nicholas and Khivar were of the same race since he could sense them but never see them.

“What did she say to you?” Nate asked Susan, deciding to keep Aubrey’s “gift” a secret for now.

Susan snuffed the half-smoked butt into the ashtray and blew out a last lungful of smoke. “She convinced me that you guys weren’t just crackpots, that what you’d done last night to change my notes hadn’t been a trick of some kind.” She met Nate’s gaze. “I believe you now.”

Nate’s eyebrows rose slightly. “You didn’t believe me last night?”

She shook her head, her gaze steady. “Not really. I mean, I knew what I saw. I knew it was unnatural, but in this day and age, how can you be sure of anything you see? I wanted to believe you, Nate. I really did. And after my talk last night with that woman-“

“Her name is Aubrey,” Nate offered.

“Okay, Aubrey. After my talk with her I realized that it was all true. And I knew I needed to help.”

One corner of Nate’s mouth lifted into a smirk. “And get a story.”

Susan laughed and gave a shrug. “Well, of course. It’s what I do, after all.”

He relaxed enough to return her smile, then it was back to business. “How do you want to help?” A little piece of Nate wondered why it all mattered now – Alyssa was lost to him, roaming around in a van with the creepy twins as companions.

“Grant me exclusive interviews,” she offered, a little excitement coming into her posture, some of the tension abating.

Nate shrugged. “Okay.” It wasn’t like the rest of the media was bagging down the jail house doors.

“I have a couple of cameramen who are willing to work confidentially,” she revealed. “You should remember them – your daddy worked the whammy on them last night.” She cocked her head. “Just what did he do to them anyway?”

Nate shook his head. “I don’t know. Max works in mysterious ways.”

Susan let the explanation slide – for now. “I don’t think we should do the interviews here. That’s a problem.”

“Not really such a problem.”

“Yes, it is,” she argued lightly. “I told you when you came in here that my favors would only take us so far. They’re not going to let me drag a camera crew in here and film an hour-long interview with you.”

Nate gave another shrug. “What if we weren’t in here?” he asked behind his hand, so that anyone looking through the window in the door wouldn’t be able to read his lips.

Susan’s eyes were round. “You can get –“

Nate shook his head once, cutting her off.

“You can,” she said in closure. “Then why haven’t you before now?”

“No reason to,” he said half-heartedly. “After all, this is what we wanted – protection.”

“Nate, this isn’t protection – this is incarceration.”

Were the two concepts so different in the end? Nate frowned slightly.

“Whatever,” Susan said, whisking the issue away with a toss of her hand. “Let’s say you can do what you just suggested. I can give you an address where I’ll be. Just me and the camera crew.”

Nate’s eyes narrowed. “No tricks.”

She held up her hand in a Scout’s Honor salute. “No tricks, I promise.” She glanced at the door. “How’s your memory?”

Well, actually, Susan, I can remember things that happened to me when I was six months old. Not bad, eh? Nate barely kept himself from snorting at the question. “Okay,” he answered.

One more glance to the door, then Susan recited an address to him. “Do you have it?”

Nate nodded, repeated it back once behind his hand.

“Good.” Some of the color was coming back to her cheeks – the eager journalist about to nail down her subject.

“You should know that this isn’t just my decision,” Nate said.

Susan nodded and Nate wondered if the glee she’d felt two seconds ago had just abandoned her.

“I’ll talk with the others,” he continued. “If they agree that it’s a good idea, then we’ll be there. Sometime after dark.”

“Okay,” she agreed. “There’s only one problem.”

“What’s that?”

Another spark of regret in her eyes – or was it fear of losing her story? “I can’t offer you protection. It’s just me and the guys. No one at the station knows I’m doing this. If the police show up, then I can’t help you.”

Nate grinned. “I think we can cover that base.”

“What do you mean?”

Leaning back in his seat slightly, Nate called into the air, “Oh, Miss Aubrey. Come out, come out wherever you are.”

An instant later, Aubrey appeared at the end of the table, sitting like a perfect lady in one of the cheap plastic chairs. Susan jumped visibly, nearly knocking over the ashtray. She turned startled eyes to Nate.

“She was here the whole time?” she said in a strained voice.

Nate’s grin grew a little wider as he leaned across the table toward the reporter. “Yep. And there’s more like her out there. There could be a dozen of them in this very room for all we know.”

Susan swallowed visibly, then groped for her smokes once again.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Five

When Nate returned to his cell, he found Max still there and Michael and Jesse still absent. Max was staring at the floor, his gaze fixed on nothing. For one moment, Nate thought he could feel the waves of defeat rolling off his father, a sense of great loss. But as the door to the cell slid open, Max looked up and smiled at his son like there was nothing at all wrong in the world.

Nate gave him a little smile back, then waited until the officer left before going to sit down on the bench beside him.

“What did they want?” Max asked softly, his eyes shifting toward the door.

“It wasn’t them,” Nate answered in a whisper. “It was Susan.”

Max looked confused.

“From the station last night.”

Max’s eyes grew round, then his brow furrowed and he withdrew slightly. “What did she want?”

“She wants to help us.”

There was apprehension in Max’s eyes. “How?”

“She wants to meet us.” Nate glanced over his shoulder, then at the adjoining cells. The novelty of their newness had worn off and the other inmates looked like they couldn’t care less about what was going on in the cell. “Tonight.”

“Tonight?” Max grimaced. “Nate, we’re in here –“

“We don’t have to be,” he challenged.

Max paused, then blew out a breath. “Are you really suggesting that, Nate?”

He shrugged. “What have we to gain by staying here? They’re obviously not taking us seriously, Michael’s rap sheet is enough for them to keep us here forever and it’s only a matter of time before they place a call down south that’s not going to go in our favor – if you know what I mean.” What he meant, of course, was that eventually the FBI was going to be knocking on the Boston PD’s door.

Max looked away, his face a little pale as he contemplated the escape. “Do you trust her?” he whispered, meeting Nate’s gaze after a long silence.

Nate snorted. “No. Not really. But she has as much to gain from this as we do.”

“What do you mean?”

“She wants the exclusive. Michael was right – she is looking to go network. And there’s something else.”

“What?”

“She had a visit from Aubrey.”

There was a spark of amusement in Max’s eyes. “Really?”

Nate nodded. “She’s had more than one visit from Aubrey. Let’s put it this way – I don’t think she’ll be pulling any monkey business on us.”

Max laughed lightly though Nate could tell he was still apprehensive. “We do this like we always have – by majority vote. When Jesse and Michael come back, we’ll talk to them about it.”

“Okay,” Nate agreed and left it at that. He hoped that the others would see his way, because he had spoken the truth – they had nothing to gain by sitting in this cell.

An hour later, an irritated Michael and Jesse returned to their prison. It was lunch time, so the officers didn’t even look in Nate or Max’s direction. Michael flopped down on the bench on the opposite wall, immediately slumping into a posture of defiance. Jesse sat down casually, the seasoned veteran. Silence filled the cell for a long moment, then Max cleared his throat.

“How did it go?” he asked.

“They think we’re fucking nuts, Maxwell,” Michael spouted, then threw an accusing glance at Nate. “Great plan, Junior.”

“Hey,” Max said sharply, making everyone in the cell jump. “Leave him alone. I didn’t see you coming up with a plan to help us out.”

Michael threw his hands up in the air. “Help us out of what? Just what exactly were we having problems with?”

Max set his jaw and Nate suddenly felt a little uneasy. Somehow he felt that in the turmoil that was Max and Michael’s past, the two had come to blows more than once. He knew that Max didn’t lose his temper easily and could only guess that Michael was an expert at pushing him until he snapped.

“Our whole lives were the problem, Michael,” Max said evenly. “Running all the time, hiding all the time, never getting to live a normal family life.”

Michael shrugged. “I was doing okay.”

“Maybe you were,” Max retorted, a bitterness in his tone that Nate had never heard before. “But I wasn’t. Liz has been an alien war widow. I’ve got a daughter now, one that I stood the chance of never seeing grow up. While you were at home playing papa to Alyssa, I was out doing all of the dirty work, Michael. It had to stop.”

“For you?” Michael accused. “Is that a selfish streak I see in Saint Maxwell? Sacrificing a whole race just so you can stay home and play papa, as you put it?”

Patience snapping, Max jumped to his feet, fists clenched at his sides. His neck and ears had gone red and Nate wanted to curl into a ball just to protect himself. Jesse was on his feet just as swiftly, however, and gracefully stepped between the warring parties.

“Relax,” he said in a soothing tone, holding up a hand in Max’s direction. “We don’t need to draw unnecessary attention.”

Max was breathing noticeably and his jaw was set in anger, but he met his brother-in-law’s gaze for a long moment, then stepped down. As he regained his seat, he shot Michael a look that was half anger, half disappointment.

“Now, let’s be rational,” Jesse said as he remained standing. Nate imagined him addressing a jury in the same manner with which he was addressing them. “It’s not so bad if they want to do psychological test,” he explained, his gaze primarily on Michael. “They should be able to see that you aren’t crazy. Unless, of course, you keep up this kind of behavior.”

Michael glared up at Jesse, but the attorney only winked at him.

“Time’s wasting,” Max sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Every day they move farther away from us.”

Nate looked down at his boots, his heart sinking at the thought of Alyssa drifting away as the moments ticked by. He’d done pretty well not thinking about her because to think about her was to tear a hole right through his soul. But now that Max had brought them up…

Nate felt that gnawing in his self-conscious again, that something that was reaching for his attention. He tried to concentrate on it, but it flitted away like a nervous bird.

“The wheels of justice move slowly,” Jesse said calmly, leaning against the outside wall of the cell and sticking his hands in his pockets. “I know we didn’t plan on things turning out this way, but now we’re here and we’ve got to deal with it.”

Max dropped the hand he’d been using to massage his temples and gave Nate a look that said it all – no they didn’t have to deal with it and Michael was going to explode when he heard Nate’s next plan. Max sighed and looked up at Jesse.

“We don’t have to,” he said softly.

Jesse raised an eyebrow. “No?”

Casting only brief glances at Michael, Max quietly told of Nate’s meeting with the reporter, of their option to break out of the jail once darkness came.

“You’re out of your fucking head,” Michael said from the other side of the cell.

“Keep your voice down,” Max commanded. “And I’m not out of my head. I think Nate might be right – we have nothing to gain by staying here.”

“We have one thing to gain,” Michael countered. “The angry mobs are out there and we’re in here. Did you forget that you pissed off half a dozen angry alien nations, Max? All of those beings you’ve been working with and assuring there would be peace? Do you think they’ve just shrugged off what happened and have gone about their slimy, extra-terrestrial lives?”

“Have you forgotten about the FBI?” Max said hotly. “I’ll take the slimy extra-terrestrials anyday.”

Silence filled the cell while Max and Michael glared at one another. Nate wondered who would win in a hand to hand battle – Max was more muscular but Michael was just big. It was hard to tell which would be the advantage.

Finally, Max sighed again. “We don’t have to decide now.”

“Max is right,” Jesse agreed. “They will no doubt come for him and Nate after lunch. They’ll interrogate them, we’ll act like nothing is going on, then we’ll decide later. Agreed?”

There were nods all around, some reluctant.

“Good,” Jesse said. He looked at each of them in turn, a big brother aura about him. “Let’s not fight among ourselves, guys. We’re all we’ve got.”

The atmosphere in the cell remained tense. After what seemed a long period of time, Nate and Max started looking for the officers to come and get them for interrogation. Every time a cell door opened or they heard policemen talking in the jail, they waited to be summoned.

But the summons never came. In its place, there seemed to be a lot of whispering and hushed words, some glances stolen in the direction of the cell. By the time the afternoon light started to wane, paranoia was replacing the discord in the minds of the captives. Something had definitely changed. That morning, the cops had been almost jovial, making fun of their “alien” guests, allowing Nate to accept a visitor. Now they seemed a little uneasy and had no interest in subjecting Nate and Max to the same questions they’d asked Michael.

After Jesse was refused his phone call once again, the group exchanged a silent look of understanding and agreement. The FBI was more than likely on its way.

They needed to make a break for it.

*****

As night fall over New England, the wind bit into the faces of the group who stood at the bottom of a cliff face. Alyssa shivered, her teeth chattering together. It wasn’t just the cold – something inside of her just didn’t feel…right. She didn’t feel sick or in danger, she just felt out of sorts and couldn’t really put her finger on why exactly.

“Is this the place?” Isabel asked, looking up toward the cold, starlit sky.

“This should be it,” Liz said, following her line of sight.

Behind them, Jeremy waited silently with his brothers, his attitude that of mild annoyance. Alyssa wished she knew what was troubling him – he’d been this way since their return from New Mexico. True, what they’d endured there had been unpleasant, but it had caused such a shift in his personality that she was beginning to worry for his stability.

“It’s going to take all of us,” Liz said, glancing over her shoulder at the boys. “Come on, guys – this is going to be a big task.”

Jeremy schlepped forward unenthusiastically while the twins silently obeyed.

“Are we sure this is the right thing to do?” Alyssa asked, trying to shove her gloved hands deeper into her coat pockets.

“It’s what Max said,” Isabel said simply, as though that was all the convincing she should need. “I mean, what’s the harm in it? If they don’t believe him, then they will think it’s a miracle of God or something.” She shrugged, oblivious to the sacrilege in that statement. Then her expression turned a little more startled, like something had just occurred to her. “Are you feeling up to this?”

Alyssa blushed. She’d forgotten that there was no hiding anything with Aunt Isabel around. She nodded meekly and caught Liz’s curious gaze over her aunt’s shoulder.

“Okay then,” Isabel said. “Come on, boys. Let’s fix this thing.”

Together, the six of them raised their hands, palm-forward and concentrated. In a short while, there was the unmistakable sound of rock grating on rock and the first piece lifted into place. They were all panting from the exertion – it was going to be a long night.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Six

The moment the lights went out in the jail house, Max slid silently from the bunk and quietly put on his shoes. The others followed suit, their subtle movements lost in the various sounds of the other inmates settling in for the night. The group met beneath the window, which was high on the wall and not very large.

“How are we going to do this?” Max whispered as they all huddled together.

“It will be too obvious to just open the door and walk out,” Jesse said. “Besides, there are probably surveillance cameras in the halls.”

“Good point,” Max said.

Nate pointed up to the window. The others tipped their heads up to look at it, then Michael snorted.

“No one will fit through that, Junior,” he whispered harshly.

“No kidding, Captain Obvious,” Nate threw back, twenty-four hours penned up with Michael finally taking its toll. “Why can’t we make it bigger?”

The group was silent, then Max tipped his head in agreement. “You’ve got an idea there.” He turned to look at the window again.

The window sill sat perhaps seven feet from the floor, easily within reach of the taller prisoners. Although the opening was probably only seven or eight inches high and maybe eighteen inches long, it was still barricaded with bars.

“Can you guys make it bigger quietly?” Jesse asked. “One loud noise and our plan is foiled.”

“I can try,” Max said. Reaching up, he grabbed the sill with his fingers, then kicked against the cinderblock wall. The soles of his shoes squeaked and he immediately fell silent. A tense moment passed, then he looked down at the others. “Help me,” he whispered.

Rolling his eyes slightly, Michael turned around and placed his butt against the wall, bent at the waist. Max stepped onto his back and Michael gave a grunt. Nate smirked at Michael, happier than he should have been that the man was experiencing some discomfort.

Nate’s attention was soon drawn from Michael to the window, however. Nearly silently, Max moved his hand over the bars and they seemed to melt under his touch. When the bars were gone, he drew in a breath and concentrated on the opening. In a few minutes, it was bigger – not huge, but large enough for each of them to slither through. His job done, Max eased himself back to the floor and the group huddled together once again.

“It looks like the window leads to an alley between the police station and a garage of some kind,” Max explained. We can probably get out undetected, unless there are cameras in the alley as well.”

“I doubt it,” Jesse said. “They know that no one can fit through those windows – what would be the point of putting up cameras outside of them?”

Max agreed with him, then looked at each of them in turn. “Are we ready for this?”

There was a collective nod.

“Jesse,” Max said, his voice full of regret. “You don’t have to come with us.”

Nate was surprised at the tone of his father’s voice. He wasn’t telling Jesse he didn’t have to help them escape, he was telling him something more. In a rush, it occurred to Nate that Jesse was sacrificing perhaps more than all of them – after helping to highjack a television station and now aiding in a jail break, it was highly likely that the former Boy Wonder attorney was going to be disbarred. Jesse was sacrificing everything that made him comfortable and secure in the world.

“No, I’ll come,” he said, no bitterness in his tone. “I miss my wife, after all.”

Max gave him a sad smile, then turned back to business as he addressed everyone. “When you get outside, go to the right, into the alley and behind the garage. We’ll meet back there, then be on our way. Michael, you go out first. Keep the window in sight until you see me come out – I’ll go last.”

Michael, surprisingly, agreed without conflict.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Silently, the men helped hoist Michael up to the window. Nate watched anxiously – if anyone was going to get stuck, it was going to be Michael as he had the largest frame of the four men. But he slithered through and soon dropped out of sight. Max paused a moment, perhaps waiting for the sounds of policemen calling for Michael to halt, then motioned for Jesse to go next. Soon he was outside as well.

Max turned to Nate, put a hand on his shoulder. “Be careful,” he warned, then helped boost Nate to the sill.

Nate squirmed and kicked and slid out of the window headfirst. He barely had the time to realize his folly when he hit the pavement hard, his forearms taking most of the abuse. The air rushed out of him, but he knew he had to move. Wincing, he limped toward the back of the building and met Jesse and Michael there.

“Nice belly flop,” Michael jabbed.

“Up yours,” Nate answered, turning back to see if Max was coming yet.

A few tense moments passed, then Max slid from the window. He held the outside sill with one arm, however and Nate could see him moving his free hand over the opening.

“What’s he doing?” Jesse whispered.

“Covering the evidence,” Michael replied. “That will keep ‘em guessing.”

Shortly, Max met them and motioned silently for them to run behind the garage. They ran for several blocks, staying out of the streetlights, avoiding the stares of anyone they passed. Once there was a good distance between them and the police station, they finally stopped to catch their breath.

“Remember where we’re going?” Max asked Nate.

Nate nodded. Dread suddenly surged through him – the Boston PD had their wallets, their identification, all of their money. They couldn’t rent a car or even hop a bus. And Nate had a feeling that Susan Moore’s meeting place wasn’t going to be anywhere near the police station from which they’d just escaped.

“Well, where is it, Junior?” Michael barked impatiently.

Nate jumped, startled from his musing, and quickly recited the address. Max turned to Jesse.

“Do you know where that is?” he asked.

Jesse nodded, turned and pointed down the street. “About twenty miles – that way.”

Despair replaced the dread in Nate’s mind – they were doomed. This had been a stupid idea. He was stupid for coming up with these ideas and the rest of them were stupid for following him.

But then Michael stepped casually to a sedan parked at the curb, put his hand over the door lock, then got into the car. Nate’s mouth dropped open as he watched Michael add grand theft auto to his list of crimes against humanity. Jesse and Max seemed just as surprised as they stood motionlessly on the sidewalk. As the car jumped to life, Michael lowered the window.

“Are you coming with me?” he asked.

Max glanced at his companions, then wordlessly rounded the car and climbed into the passenger seat. Nate got in the back with Jesse and gave him an apologetic glance – there was no way he was keeping his right to practice law after this last stunt.

*****

Alyssa’s whole body was trembling with the stress of using her powers to lift the huge pieces of rock into place. They’d been at it for an hour and she was just beginning to make out the shape they were looking for, a structure that had been destroyed when she was just a baby. They had so much work ahead of them and yet she felt like she couldn’t go on much farther.

“Let’s take a break,” Liz suggested, dropping her hand and let out a tired sigh. Squatting, she opened the cooler at her feet and started passing out water bottles. The night was cold but Alyssa found the water extremely refreshing.

“Did you ever see it?” Isabel asked, pointing to the towering cliff face. “I mean, before it fell?”

Liz shook her head. “No. That was before Max and I moved here. You?”

Isabel shook her head. “Jesse and I meant to make it up here, but it just never happened.”

Alyssa frowned, thinking of her Uncle Max and her Uncle Jesse. Where were they tonight? Were they still with Michael?

Were they still with Nate?

Tired, she sat down on the cooler after Liz closed it. Ironically, Max’s hideaway for the east coast fugitives had turned out to be a cottage by the ocean. Nate had often told Alyssa of seeing such a place in Max’s subconscious, a place Nate believed he’d retreated to in order to escape the tortures of his captors. The thought that he’d send his loved ones there at a time like this was endearing, but it was also extremely painful to be in such a meaningful place without Nate at her side.

“You okay?” Isabel asked, smoothing Alyssa’s hair.

The girl nodded, though she felt anything but okay. In her soul, she ached to have Nate beside her, to hear his voice again, to just be able to snuggle up against him when the night got cold. But in her body, she was starting to feel uncomfortable, like doom was impending. She had the sinking feeling that she might end up without ever seeing Nate again…and that the little piece of him she did have wasn’t meant to be.

*****

“Up here, on the right,” Jesse said, craning his head to check out the large building that was looming into view.

Nate glanced at the decrepit brick buildings that lined the streets, windows broken away, trash in the gutters. His skin crawled a little and he gave Jesse a wary glance.

“This is the address,” he said in his slight Latino accent. “This is the address you gave me. Isn’t it?”

Michael glared at Nate in the rearview mirror and Nate didn’t even have to think twice about what he was thinking.

“Yeah,” Nate said, looking at the faded numbers on the side of the building.

Michael cut the engine and turned off the lights and the group studied the building cautiously. After a long pause, he shrugged and opened the door. Nate gulped and didn’t move until Max did – after all, Max seemed to have tons more common sense than Michael did. As soon as Nate stepped out of the car, he felt them again – all of those unseen allies he’d felt in the desert. He grinned immediately. Aubrey was efficient to a fault.

“Aubrey,” he called softly.

Momentarily, she appeared beside the car, all Armani business suit and serious expression.

“Sir,” she said. She turned slightly to Max and dipped her head in sub ordinance. “Sir,” she repeated.

“Good work, Aubrey,” Max commended as he checked each way down the street.

“Thank you, sir.” She turned to Nate and awaited her next order.

“Who’s inside?” Nate asked.

“The reporter. Two cameramen.”

Inside, Nate leapt for joy – Susan hadn’t been lying about that. “And outside? Have you seen anybody else?”

“Not yet, sir.”

Max managed to smile, then nodded his thanks to Nate’s protector. Of course, Max had his own protector since he’d reacquired the throne – a humorless gentleman by the name of Jackson. Jackson wouldn’t make an appearance in Boston, though – Nate knew that Max had secretly ordered the shapeshifter to follow Liz.

“Let’s get off the street,” Max suggested. He clapped Aubrey on the shoulder. “Keep up the good work.”

Aubrey nodded, then faded into nothingness again.

Inside, Susan was biting her nails and Nate could smell cigarette smoke in the air. Oddly, the first night he’d met her, he hadn’t detected that she smoked – he had to wonder if Aubrey’s hocus pocus had driven Susan to fall off the wagon.

“She’s out there, isn’t she?” she asked, not even bothering to ask how they’d managed to escape from the jail.

Nate glanced over his shoulder. “Who?”

“That…woman.”

He managed to suppress his grin – but barely. “Yes, she is. I told you she would be.” Nate motioned behind him. “We didn’t get to introduce ourselves properly. This is my father, Max Evans.”

Susan stopped looking anxiously toward the door and shook Max’s hand. “Susan Moore.”

“Ma’am,” Max said and Nate was reminded of being reprimanded for calling Maria Deluca ma’am. Was it possible that the “ma’am” gene had passed from father to son?

“I think you said you already know Jesse Ramirez,” Nate continued.

“Mr. Ramirez,” Susan said, taking his hand.

“Call me Jesse.”

“And that’s Michael Guerin,” Nate said, trying to keep the dismissal out of his tone.

Susan’s eyebrows drifted up a little as she took Michael’s hand, her eyes skimming over his broad form, his wild hair. “Pleasure,” she said.

“Of course it is,” Michael teased.

Nate waited for Susan to smack him, but instead she giggled…Nate grimaced. Mr. Gruffness had the ability to make headstrong news anchors giggle. He could have gone the rest of his life without knowing that.

“So,” Susan said, withdrawing her hand reluctantly. “I hate to dispense with formalities, but we do have the whole fugitive issue to deal with. We probably shouldn’t waste much time. My cameramen are in the next room.” She looked at Nate. “We should probably tidy you up a bit, so that you’ll look better on camera.”

“Tidy me up a bit?” he asked.

“Um, make up,” she said sheepishly.

Nate withdrew slightly.

Susan sighed. “Everyone wears make up on TV. I want you to look as normal as possible and if we don’t fix you up a bit, then you’re going to look gaunt.”

“Oh.” Nate frowned. Alyssa would love to be here to witness this.

“No,” Max said softly.

Everyone turned to look at him. Nate raised his eyebrows in question. Max met his gaze, his eyes full of courage and apology and resignation.

“I want to do it,” he revealed.

“What?” Nate spouted before he could stop himself. “Max, no.”

Stepping forward, Max took Nate by the arm and pulled him aside. “Nate,” he said quietly. “This is my responsibility. Not yours. I can’t hide behind you.”

“You’re not hiding behind me,” Nate protested. “We agreed that I would be the ‘face’, that I would be the one who would put myself out there. You’re supposed to remain anonymous, Max. So that you can live the quiet life you’ve always wanted.”

Nate knew that Michael’s snide remarks in the jail were weighing heavily on Max’s conscience. But Max hadn’t been acting selfishly – he’d been acting for all of them. It wasn’t just Max’s peace and quiet and family life that had been in jeopardy – it was all of theirs. As long as the cycle of hiding was allowed to continue, then future generations had nothing to look forward to. That had been the whole reason for this. If anything, Max had already done his time and deserved to “retire” with his wife and baby. It had been Nate’s idea in the first place to be the one to go public, just so that Max could have that one little reward. And now he was giving it all up.

Max was watching him compassionately. “Don’t make me order you,” he said without an ounce of threat in his voice.

Nate hung his head, stared at the toes of his shoes. It just wasn’t acceptable. He whirled toward Susan and directed his question at her. “What if we do it together?”

Susan was barely able to contain her glee – double the prize! “I don’t think that will be an issue.”

Nate looked at Max. “What do you say, Max?”

Nate saw a burst of pride in his father’s eyes. “Yes. Let’s do it together.”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

I will try to fb fb later.


Part Seven

“I should fill you in on some background stuff,” Susan Moore said as she dabbed Max’s nose with a triangular makeup sponge.

“What kind of stuff?” Nate asked from behind her, his nose already properly sponged.

“The rest of the world doesn’t know about your broadcast last night,” she said, brushing a fallen eyelash from Max’s cheek.

Nate met his father’s gaze and frowned. His plan had failed.

“It hit the web as one of those stranger-than-fiction stories,” the reporter continued. “But that’s about it. Of course, anyone tuning in for my broadcast last night in the Boston area would have seen it.”

There was a pang of guilt in the middle of Nate’s chest. They’d pretty much fucked with this woman’s existence, with her life. In truth, she was just an innocent bystander, a victim of all that was the alien conspiracy. It was inconsiderate of them to have treated her in such a way.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said, his voice laden with guilt.

Susan stopped touching up Max and looked over her shoulder. “For what? For giving me the biggest story of my life?”

Nate shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at his shoes. “No, I mean for just barging into the TV station.”

She waved him off with a hand, then turned to complete her “tidying up” of Max. “Let it go, kid. If you feel that guilty about something like that, I can’t imagine the load you’ll carry by the time you’re my age.”

Nate cocked his head, gave her the once over. He’d pretty much assumed Susan was somewhere between his age and Max’s. How much baggage had she managed to acquire over that short period of time?

Susan stood up straight and gave Max a smile. “You’re really quite attractive,” she observed cheerfully.

“Thank you,” Max replied, blushing slightly.

It was a sweet compliment, but Nate knew that he and Max both understood its real meaning – the world liked attractive people and might be more accepting of an alien who looked like Max than one who was less appealing.

“Okay,” Susan said, addressing both men. “Here’s the deal. We’re going to record the interview tonight. It won’t be aired live.”

Max shot Nate a glance. “But we thought…”

She held up a well-manicured hand. “Trust me here, fellas, it’s what I do.” She paused, her hand frozen in place, then she dropped it slowly to her side. “Is that it? You don’t trust me?”

Nate shuffled uneasily in his spot, eyes fixed on the floor again. Max gave her a sympathetic look.

“It’s not that,” he said quietly, in the calming tone he always seemed to posses. “It’s just that we’ve been carrying this secret for so long…” He swallowed, his eyes showing just a hint of vulnerability. “Our lives depend on this.”

Susan glanced at Nate, bit her bottom lip, then looked back to Max. “I’m not going to screw you over. I have no need to. Besides, there’s that creepy vanishing woman to deal with.” She practically shuddered. “I’m afraid if I do anything out of line, she’ll pop up and flatten me.”

One corner of Nate’s mouth lifted into a smirk. He wanted to tell Susan not to be afraid of Aubrey, but he liked having her where he wanted her.

“So, back to the game plan,” Susan said, sitting down beside Max. “We’ll record the interview. My guys have acquired a copy of your broadcast from last night. I’m going to take it and the interview from tonight to the network tomorrow. Agreed?”

Nate felt that familiar apprehension in his stomach, but nodded anyway.

“Okay, then. Let’s go meet the guys.” Susan stood up abruptly, turned on an impossibly high heel and strode for the adjacent room.

Michael and Jesse were already waiting there, Michael with his arms crossed over his chest looking like a bouncer more than anything. In the room, someone had constructed a small set – a couch, a chair, a coffee table and a backdrop of plain grayish fabric. There were very bright lights that illuminated the whole area, making the warehouse appear to be bright and cheerful rather than old and dank. Two cameras had been set up – one pointed toward the couch and one at the chair. Once the recording was made, there was no way anyone could ever tell where it was shot.

“These are my guys,” Susan said, gesturing to the camera men. “Jose and Patrick.”

Max held out his hand and both of the men looked at it apprehensively. He dropped it to his side and gave a little frown. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For what I did last night. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
The one named Patrick shrugged it off like it was no big deal. It was obvious he was the tough guy – but he still didn’t want to shake Max’s hand.

“You can trust them,” Susan said.

Jose said something to Jesse in Spanish and Jesse nodded.

“It’s okay,” Jesse confirmed. “They just want to help.”

Max nodded, then gave Nate one last look. Without further hesitation, they walked over and took their seats on the couch, Max closest to the chair. Susan took the chair and picked up a notepad that had been lying on the table.

“I may ask some questions you don’t want to answer,” she said, checking over her notes. “You can decline at any time – we’ll just edit out the ones you don’t respond to. Don’t worry about speaking perfectly – it will only add to your credibility if you don’t sound too rehearsed.” She dropped the pad and looked at them in turn. “Ready?”

They nodded simultaneously.

Susan turned to the camera men, who had donned headphones and had turned on their cameras. Patrick held up his fingers and silently counted down from five. A few seconds later, Susan fell into reporter mode.

“You may have seen them on the evening news, testifying to the Boston area that they are alien beings and that they need help. Hello, my name is Christy Carmichael and tonight I have with me two of the men who commandeered the television station.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Nate saw one of the cameras pan in his direction and warned himself not to start getting nervous.

“Could you start by saying your names, please?” Susan said.

“I’m Max Evans,” Max said, glancing at the camera.

“And I’m Nate Evans,” Nate said, consciously reminding himself not to use the name Spencer.

“You two are related,” Susan replied, leading them.

“Max is my father,” Nate said simply. He knew that in the real world, he would suck at giving interviews.

“So, we are to assume that alien beings can procreate?”

Max nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

Susan glanced at her notes and beneath her breath said, “Don’t say ma’am.”

Max looked at little sheepish and cleared his throat.

“Well, let’s start at the beginning,” she said aloud. “I mean, obviously you look human. You speak perfect English. If you are an alien being, as you claim, can you explain why you look and sound this way?”

“I’m actually a hybrid,” Max said slowly, knowing his words were going to sound ridiculous to the public. “I’m half human, half alien.”

“A government experiment.”

He shook his head. “No. I was designed this way, by beings from my home planet.”

Susan’s gaze shifted to Nate. “So, you’re a hybrid, too?”

Nate shook his head. “No, I’m biologically human.”

“How is that possible?”

“Max is a hybrid, my mother was a hybrid, the two human halves made a whole human.” At least that’s how it had been explained to him, not that he fully understood it.

Susan raised her eyebrows. “So then it’s possible that two alien halves could make a whole alien?”

Max shifted in his seat. “It’s possible, but we haven’t seen it happen yet.”

“We?” she asked. “You mean there are more of you?”

Max nodded slowly. It was such a precarious thing to do – to show the world that aliens had been on the planet forever without freaking them out at the same time. “Yes, there are.”

“How many?”

“From my planet?”

Susan swallowed visibly and Nate worried that she was the one who was about to freak. “There are other beings from other planets here as well?”

“Yes.”

“How many?” she repeated, a slight tremor in her tone.

Max paused. Nate knew that he didn’t want to give up the real number – it was sure to incite a panic of some kind. “We’ve been here for any years,” Max finally said. “We have blended seamlessly into society. I don’t really know how many beings are here, but we obviously aren’t a threat to you. We didn’t arrive yesterday – we’ve been here for years.”

Susan also paused, whether to plot her next question or to calm her nerves, Nate wasn’t sure. “How long have you been here? How did you get here?”

“I was born here,” Max explained. “So, I guess I’m really an earthling after all.” He attempted a grin, but it was weak. “My ship crashed in the desert of New Mexico in 1947.”

At that, Susan looked like she’d lost all confidence in anything Max was saying. She slumped visibly, the pad in her hand tipping towards the floor. “Mr. Evans, are you seriously saying you were in the infamous Roswell crash?”

He nodded. “Yes, I was.”

“That’s just a myth. Something dredged up by the conspiracy theorists, those people who are certain the government is up to no good.”

“It’s not a myth. It happened.”

“Okay, let’s say it did.” Her tone held much annoyance. “You’re what – forty?”

“I’m thirty-eight,” he said softly.

“The Roswell crash was almost eighty years ago. How can you explain that?”

Max looked away from her for a moment and Nate felt just as much annoyance coming from his father as he did from Susan. “I wasn’t born until nearly fifty years after the crash.”

“How old was your mother by then?” Susan’s head was cocked in defiance.

“I didn’t have one. I was in an incubation pod.”

There was a long moment of silence that would eventually hit the cutting room floor and Nate felt control of the situation sliding away. Somehow, they were coming off as crackpots instead of people who were seriously asking for help. It seemed as though Susan was losing perspective, that she was beginning to doubt them. If only Aubrey were around to remind her…

Almost as soon as he had the thought, Susan jumped visibly in her seat, her round eyes fixed over Nate’s head. Nate whirled and found his protector out of line of the camera, her intense eyes fixed on the reporter. Inside, he grinned, deciding he’d rather see an Aubrey/Michael smack down than a Max/Michael smack down – especially if Aubrey won.

“O-okay,” Susan stammered, needlessly shuffling through the notepad.

“I know it sounds strange,” Max said soothingly, leaning toward her compassionately. Nate imagined him using this tone of voice with other creatures he’d had to calm over the years. “But I’m not human. It’s possible for me to be born from a pod, to have been engineered in a lab by fusing two species together. I will gladly submit blood for testing – it will be irrefutable truth that I am what I say I am.”

Susan rubbed her temples. “Mr. Evans, aren’t you concerned how the government will react when they find out about you?”

Max shook his head and sat back slowly. “No, Miss Carmichael. Because your government already knows about me.”

tbc

(the interview will continue in the next part)

[Midwest Max]

Part Eight

Susan blinked, then shook her head as if to clear the words Max had just put there. “Do you know what you’re saying?”

Max nodded silently.

She blinked a couple more times, then let out her breath in a whoosh of air. “Cut,” she said barely audibly, then barked, “I said cut!”

Behind the cameras, Jose and Patrick jumped and the lights atop their equipment went dark.

“Does the government really know about you?” Susan asked Max steadily.

“Yes,” he affirmed. “They’ve known about me for more than twenty years. They’ve known about aliens in general at least since 1947. They held one of the members of that crash captive for many years….” His words drifted off and he swallowed visibly. “…experimenting on him.”

Susan sank into her chair, all poise forgotten, her gaze turned to the floor. “This is huge,” she said to herself. “It’s bigger than Watergate. First Woodward and Bernstein, and now Carmichael.” She gave a hysterical giggle, then looked quickly to her guests. “I need a cigarette.”

With that, she was off, click-clacking away on her high heels, in pursuit of a smoke. Max and Nate watched her go, then turned to one another.

“If she keeps that up, she’s going to die of lung cancer before this interview ever gets aired,” Nate said.

“I think she’s doing remarkably well,” Max replied, always the gentle soul. “We’ve told her some pretty hard-to-believe stuff. I mean, how does she know we’re for real?”

Nate grinned, over-brimming with confidence. “Because of Aubrey. Did you see her just now?”

Max shook his head. “No. What did she do?”

“She was right behind us, right back there. Snapped Susan right back on track.”

One corner of Max’s mouth lifted slightly. “Is that what she was looking at?” He chuckled lightly, then his eyebrows drew together. “How did you get Aubrey to show herself? I didn’t hear you call her or anything.”

Nate thought back, gave a shrug. “I don’t know. I just thought about how great it would be if Aubrey were here to push Susan back into the interview.” His own brow furrowed as the realized how silly that sounded. How did Aubrey know she should make herself known? “Do they – Aubrey’s people – have the ability to communicate telepathically?”

Max shook his head, looked a little concerned.

Nate felt some of his confidence draining away. Somehow Susan had seen Aubrey. The question was – how?

*****

Alyssa leaned against the van as she watched Jeremy toss their cooler into the back. The night air was crisp, their bodies tired from finishing their mission. She got the impression, however, that she was more tired than the others – and that worried her.

“All in a good night’s work, eh?” Isabel said, sliding open the door so that Alyssa could get in.

Alyssa nodded mutely and climbed into the far back, immediately stretched out on the seat. She’d barely closed her eyes when she felt cramping in her belly, an unwelcome jarring deep inside of her. She drew her legs up to her chest and breathed shallowly, trying to wait out the cramp until it went away. Again she felt that little twinge of something just not being quite right.

Apparently Isabel had notice as well. “Jeremy,” she said, “why don’t you climb in the back with Alyssa? Be nice to her, okay?”

Jeremy mumbled something under his breath, then Alyssa heard Isabel’s murmured voice, couldn’t really make out what she was saying. A moment later, Jeremy was sliding in beside his cousin. Alyssa started to sit up, but he sat where her head had been and motioned for her to lie back down.

“It’s okay,” he said, his voice holding the tone of the falsely optimistic. “You just rest, okay?”

She looked at him warily, then laid her head in his lap, the squeezing in her abdomen unrelenting. Jeremy awkwardly rubbed her shoulder.

“We’ll be home soon,” he told her. “Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

The doors of the van slammed and shortly it was moving. Out of her window, Alyssa caught just a slight glimpse of their creation as it passed and felt a small tug of satisfaction – no matter what was happening inside of her, at least she’d been able to help out Nate and the others.

Whether she could help herself remained to be seen.

*****

Having satisfied her urge for nicotine, Susan settled back into her seat and gave her guests a big grin. “Shall we continue?” she asked.

Max nodded, glanced at the cameras.

“Whenever you’re ready,” Patrick said from his post.

“I’m going to pick up where we left off,” she said to Max, then cleared her throat. “Mr. Evans, you must understand how ludicrous that sounds, that the government already knows about you.”

“I understand that,” Max answered calmly. “But it is the truth. When I was seventeen, I was abducted by the FBI and experimented on.” He looked away and Nate felt a jolt deep within for his father – his pain was still so near to the surface, after so many years.

“What did they do to you?” Susan asked carefully.

“They drugged me. And tortured me. And threatened to harm my friends and family.”

“To what purpose?”

“They wanted information that I didn’t have. They knew what I was and figured I could answer questions they had lingering from the 47 crash. They didn’t know that I knew less about myself than they did.”

Susan jotted something on her pad. “How did they know about you?”

“That I’m an alien?”

She nodded.

Max looked at Nate and Nate could see the turmoil in his eyes. To tell the truth was to expose Liz and that was just something that Max couldn’t do.

“There was a series of events that led to that,” Max finally said. “I’d rather not discuss them here.” Susan looked up at him with an are-you-shitting-me look on her face. “To protect the innocent,” he added. “It doesn’t matter. The FBI knows what I’m talking about. They have files on me.” He glanced at Nate. “They have files on my son.”

Susan cocked her head in Nate’s direction. “Were you abducted as well?”

Nate shook his head. “No, Ms. Carmichael. I turned myself in.”

Despite of himself, Max grinned at Nate’s self-deprecating honesty.

“Why did you do that?” Susan asked incredulously, giving Nate a look like he was the dumbest creature ever given permission to walk the earth. “Why would you do that after knowing what your father went through?”

“I didn’t know,” he answered simply. “I knew that something had happened, but I didn’t know how bad it was. The FBI was looking for me and I thought if I gave myself up, they’d leave the others alone.”

“But if they knew where you were, wouldn’t they know where the others were?” There was confusion on Susan’s pretty face.

“I didn’t raise Nate,” Max admitted, prompting a surprised look from their host.

“Then who did?”

Nate shook his head immediately, but Max was already on the same page.

“That will remain confidential,” Max said, his tone no-nonsense. “They are good people and don’t deserve to be caught up in this.”

“Okay,” Susan agreed. She checked her pad and then looked at Nate. “Where is your birth mother?”

“She’s dead,” Nate said levelly.

“Was she abducted as well?” There was just a hint of sarcasm in the reporter’s voice and Nate wasn’t sure he liked it.

“She was killed by the military in 2002,” Max said, his jaw set in annoyance. On a base in New Mexico. Big explosion. I’m sure you can find documented proof of it.”

Susan caught the anger and offense in Max’s tone and her eyes softened. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.” She leaned forward, crossed her arms over her thighs. “It seems to me like you’ve done a pretty good job of surviving in the world on your own, even with the few run ins with the government. Why come out of hiding now? Why expose yourselves?”

Max drew in a long breath before speaking. “I’ve been running my whole life, Ms. Carmichael. Running from the FBI, running from beings you know nothing about. A few months ago, it became pretty clear that running wasn’t going to save us anymore.” He glanced at Nate. “We don’t want to harm anyone. We just want help. We can’t do it alone anymore.”

There was a long pause as Susan checked her notepad. When she spoke, she met Max’s gaze levelly. “You know that people are going to think you’re crazy.”

“Yes, I do,” Max replied.

“You seem sane to me,” she continued. “And the measures you’ve taken to bring your cause to the attention of the public have been drastic. You’ve risked much by doing this and I believe you.”

“Thank you.”

She paused, worked her hands, then asked her next question. “But how are you going to silence the doubters out there? How are you going to prove you are what you say you are?”

Max smiled slightly. “As a measure of good faith, we have restored one of your landmarks. When daylight comes, look to the Old Man of the Mountain.”

Susan was momentarily thrown. “In New Hampshire?”

Max nodded.

“That crumbled twenty years ago!” she exclaimed.

Max simply nodded again.

Susan blinked again, then grinned at them. Nate could practically read her mind – if the mountain was restored, then Max was what he said he was. If it wasn’t, she still had a story because they were definitely crazy.

“Okay,” she said, turning to the camera. “This is Susan Carmichael and personally, I’m heading north to Franconia tomorrow morning.” She smiled into the camera, then said, “Cut!”

Patrick and Jose silenced their cameras, both giving the thumbs-up sign.

Susan looked warily at Max and Nate. “The Old Man of the Mountain? Are you serious?”

Max nodded, bit his lip. “Yep.”

“But, all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put that back together,” she argued.

Max grinned. “Exactly.”

Nate wanted to share in Max’s small victory at having stunned Susan speechless, but that little thing inside of him that had been nagging for his attention had suddenly gone silent.

*****

“She’s burning up, Liz,” Isabel said as she hovered over Alyssa’s bed, smoothing a washcloth over the girl’s forehead.

Alyssa shivered and made a feeble attempt to shove the washcloth away – it was only making her colder. Her room was dark, the only light coming from the hallway. In the shadows, she could see Isabel and Liz moving about, trying to tend to their patient.

“We need Max,” Liz said, her voice a little frightened and a little lost.

“That’s not an option right now,” Isabel replied in a strained tone.

“Nate…” Alyssa cried softly, feeling like her stomach was going to explode.

Liz sat down on the end of the bed and smoothed her hair away from her face. “I’m sorry, sweetie. Nate can’t come right now.”

Alyssa knew that. She knew that they’d been separated, but she didn’t want to accept it.

Not while his child was slipping from her body.

“She needs a doctor,” Liz said apologetically, her face turned in Isabel’s direction.

“Liz, no. We can’t risk it.” Even though there was warning in Isabel’s tone, there was also fear.

“Isabel, she’s really sick. We have to do something.”

“Okay, okay,” Isabel replied nervously. “What are we going to do? If people have seen Max, they’re going to associate him to you. Jesse and I were all over the society papers – they’re going to know I’m his wife. We can’t do this inconspicuously, Liz.”

“We can’t let her die.”

“I know that. I just…I just don’t know what to do.”

There was a tense silence in the room, followed by Jeremy’s voice from the door. “Let me take her.”

Alyssa shivered and hugged her blanket around her shoulders as Liz and Isabel turned to him.

“I’ll say she’s my wife,” Jeremy offered, his tone full of concern. “I still have the IDs Uncle Michael made for us when we went to South Dakota to save Uncle Max. No one knows what I look like. No one knows what Alyssa looks like.”

Another silence passed, then Isabel crossed the room and put her arms around her first born son. Alyssa knew that she wasn’t only thanking him – she was saying goodbye. Because once they split off from the group, there was no going back.

tbc

Go here - Old Man Crumbles - to read about the collapse of the Old Man of the Mountain

[Midwest Max]

Part Nine

Nate plumped his pillow and dropped it at the head of the cot, mild depression clouding his mood. He didn’t know why he felt that way, only that something had happened that he should be sad about, but he didn’t really know what. It was depressing and frustrating all at once. To top it off, he’d discretely asked Aubrey if she’d appeared to scare the bejesus out of Susan and the protector had indicated that she had not. That left quite a mystery – and quite an apprehension – swirling in Nate’s soul.

Pulling back the heavy military-issue blanket that was covering his cot, Nate glanced over at Jesse, who was kneeling beside his own cot, apparently saying a prayer before he went to sleep. Nate watched silently, religion never having been an integral part of his upbringing, couldn’t make out Jesse’s whispered words. Finishing his prayer, Jesse crossed himself and smiled lightly as he picked up one of his shoes and removed the insole. Nate’s brow furrowed in curiosity, then he saw Jesse pull a picture of Isabel and his kids from his shoe and lay a kiss on it.

“Good night, my angel,” he said, still smiling blissfully to himself. Then he climbed onto the cot and pulled the blanket up to his shoulders; he placed the picture beside his pillow where he could look at his wife as he fell asleep.

Nate swallowed and felt the sting of tears at the back of his eyes. His mind shifted to Alyssa, somewhere on the run, his own little angel. It had only been a couple of days since they’d been separated, but it seemed like a lifetime. For the first time, he doubted that he could physically keep living without her, the void within him was that deep. He envied Jesse’s ability to gratefully accept what he’d been given and be content with sleeping with Isabel’s picture instead of the woman herself. Nate envied the fact that Jesse had stashed a very valuable treasure in a unique hiding place where the Boston PD would never find it – all of Nate’s pictures of Alyssa, as well as his wallet, were now locked up in an evidence room somewhere.

Sighing and biting back the urge to fall head first into an irreversible funk, Nate sank to the cot and looked at the floor, his back to the happy attorney. He knew that one of the reasons Jesse looked so happy was probably because Isabel would dreamwalk her husband this night; maybe they’d talk and catch up, or maybe they’d make love. If Nate had been Jesse, he would have had a grin on his face as he fell asleep, too. He could only hope that Alyssa would come to him this night, just to assure him she was okay.

Nate felt extra weight on the narrow cot and lifted his head to see Max sitting down beside him. On the other side of the basement, Michael was shedding his jeans, getting ready to climb into his own cot. They were in the home of Jose, the cameraman, hiding in the cellar until Susan found someone to take them seriously. No one would think to look for them here, in a Spanish-speaking household, and even if they did there was a virtual army of Aubrey’s soldiers blanketing the area. No one would ever get past her and that made Nate feel very safe.

“You doing okay?” Max asked, his voice soft and private.

Nate nodded. “Yeah. You?”

“I’ve been better,” Max confessed, then gave a shrug and a boyish grin. “I’ve also been much worse.”

Nate smiled lightly, then sighed. “What if they didn’t get it fixed?” he asked. “What if we just told the world to look for the monument and tomorrow morning it’s still just a pile of rubble?”

Max’s confidence didn’t waver. “It will be done. Isabel and Liz will see to it. By hook or by crook, the Old Man will live again tomorrow.”

It was a small comfort to sooth Nate’s wounded soul.

“What else is going on?” Max asked gently.

Nate thought about just saying he was tired or was just stressed, but he knew that Max would know better. He sighed and deflated slightly. “I don’t know how you do it,” he half-laughed, half-snorted.

“Do what?” Max blinked. “The separation thing?”

Nate nodded.

Max’s gaze fixed into the distance and he gave a sad shake of his head. “It’s not easy. I’m not going to lie to you. It rips your heart out every time.” He glanced over his shoulder at Jesse, who had fallen asleep rapidly. “And if you don’t have some gift to help you out, you’re just kinda…lost.”

Nate frowned. That wasn’t encouraging. “Then how do you deal with it?”

Max shrugged as though the answer was simple. “I don’t think about being apart. I think about being together, about what it will be like the next time I see her.”

“But…what if you never see her again?”

“I don’t allow myself to think that way. It’s not an option.”

“But it’s a possibility.”

Max’s jaw set in defiance and he gave a quick shake of his head. “No. You can’t think that way. If you do, there’s no point in going on, Nate. If you think that way, then everything we’ve done has been for not. Like I said, it’s not an option.”

Nate looked at the floor, wished he had his father’s optimism.

Max clapped his son on the knee. “Rest tonight,” he advised. “We’re safe. You never know what tomorrow might bring.” Before he rose to his feet, he winked at his boy, then retreated to his own bed.

Nate stared at the floor for a long time, until he heard three separate snores in the basement. Lifting one corner of his mouth in disbelief, he looked from one man to the next and wondered why in all of these years, with all of their powers no one had bothered to fix their sinus problems.

*****

“You’re going to be okay, honey….Honey?...Can you hear me?”

Alyssa shivered and forced her eyes open. Her vision was blurry, but she could just make out the face of a black woman hovering over her, a white hat atop her head. She flinched, ready to make a run for it if she could only find the strength – this person was definitely unfamiliar.

“Just lay back, sweetie,” the woman said as she glanced up at something.

Alyssa heard muffled sounds and couldn’t center in on any one of them. Frustrated and frightened, she started to cry.

“It’s okay, baby,” the woman said. “Don’t be afraid…here, there’s someone here for you…”

Nate! Hope jumped inside of Alyssa – Nate had found her! He was going to help her, he was going to get her out of here!

But it was someone else who loomed into view, who took her hand. It wasn’t Nate. Disappointment settled over her, but then she realized that the person holding her hand wasn’t foreign. He wasn’t Nate, but he was familiar and she clung to him for dear life.

“That’s right, sweetie,” the woman said. “You just hang in there...You’re going to feel a little prick, okay?”

Alyssa registered the woman’s words too late to respond, after the needle had already pierced her arm. She wanted to tell the woman not to poke her, but her vision was already clouding and she was starting to float toward the ceiling, weightless, without a care in all of the world…

*****

It took Nate two hours to fall asleep, what with all of the snoring going on around him. It was nice to know that the others were comfortable here, but their deep slumber was robbing him of his. To make matters worse, he kept thinking about being dreamwalked while he slept and he looked so forward to it that he couldn’t sleep – it was like Christmas was coming when you awoke, but you weren’t able to get to sleep in order to awake. Horrible irony at work there.

But eventually he did fall asleep, after burying his head beneath his pillow to block out the rumbles around him. For the longest time, he slept dreamlessly, exhausted from the events of the last two days. But sometime in the wee hours of the morning, he felt someone tapping on his subconscious. So overjoyed was he that he nearly woke himself up.

But the person who appeared to him was not his girlfriend. It was his aunt and she looked distressed. Within the dream, he could feel her fear, her apology. She was on the other side of a window, talking to him, but he couldn’t make out her words.

I don’t know how to hear you, he said to her, frustrated. What are you trying to tell me?

She frowned, her pretty face streaked with tears. She touched the glass that separated them, then made a circular motion against it with her palm. Before Nate, the glass displayed a series of images – the Old Man in restoration, a van ride, Jeremy, a hospital –

And Alyssa shivering and sweating with fever, her dark eyes rolled back in her head.

Immediately, Nate was on his feet in the darkness of the basement. His heart was slamming painfully into his ribs, his wheezing breath drowning out two thirds of the snoring chorus. Panicked, he shook his head to make sure he was awake, then replayed the images Isabel had shown him.

Alyssa was sick. Jeremy had taken her to a hospital. Another hot flash of panic raced through Nate – there were a hundred hospitals in New England and he hadn’t been privy to the location of the east coast hideaway as it was. There was no way he stood any chance of finding her. Concentrate! he chided himself. Closing his eyes, he tried to recall every detail of the hospital Isabel had shown him, and a sign drifted into view.

Portsmouth General.

New Hampshire. It made sense – it had to be right. They had been in Franconia Notch State Park to restore the monument. Even though it was in up-state New Hampshire, that didn’t mean the hide-out was. In fact, Max would have moved them away from the park, away from their handiwork to avoid suspicion. If they were moved south, then Alyssa could very well be in the hospital in Portsmouth.

Without another thought, Nate dropped to the cot and retrieved his shoes, started shoving them on. He paused only once, remembering Max’s super human hearing, and listened to see if he was stirring. When Nate was sure all was clear, he tied his shoes and jumped to his feet.

As he made it to the bottom step, he looked regretfully at the three sleeping men. He knew the rules – if there was direct contact with the public, then the person who made the contact was to remain separated from the group, lest they should be followed and reveal hiding places and identities that were supposed to remain unknown.

But it wasn’t like he was unknown to the world. He’d pretty much held up a sign that said, “Here I Am – Come Get Me.” The same with Max. Michael and Jesse were guilty by association. There was no one here to protect anymore.

But Alyssa needed his help, and Nate was never going to turn his back on her. Without another thought, he silently climbed the steps and slid into the night, looking for the car Michael had stolen.

*****

In Alyssa’s arms, baby Emily slept soundly, her little hands balled into fists. It was the first time Alyssa had been able to hold her new “cousin”, her first trip to Boston. She didn’t know how she knew that detail – she just did.

Beside her, Nate was sitting close enough that she could feel the warmth of his thigh against hers, the softness of his breath across her neck.

“I want one of these someday,” she said. “I want one with my eyes and your eyelashes.” She touched his face, her thumb brushing over his long, dark lashes and he grinned.

“I want a baby someday, too,” he agreed.

She felt a need, a yearning deep within. She wanted to give him a child more than anything. Their child would be special – if not to the world, then to them. Something in her arms changed and she looked down to see that she was now holding a different baby, one with lighter hair and a sleeper adorned with trains. A boy, their son.

“Look, Nate!” she squealed in delight. “It’s a boy!”

Nate squeezed her around the shoulders and kissed the side of her head. “He’s perfect, Alyssa. Thank you. Thank you for giving him to me.”

She beamed at him, then felt a rush of grief as the baby disappeared and her arms became empty.

*****

Eyes stinging from lack of sleep, Nate took the first New Hampshire exit he found that indicated a hospital was nearby. He followed the blue signs until he found the building, illuminated in the dark, cold night. Inside, he felt a tugging – she was in there. Swallowing back his anxiety, he pulled the car into a parking spot and studied the building.

It was four o’clock in the morning. Obviously past visiting hours. Besides, by now the world would probably recognize him as that crazy alien guy. How was he going to get in there unseen? How was he going to find her?

Finding her was going to be easy – her whole being was reaching out to him, begging him to come to her. Getting in unseen was going to be the tough part. He watched the building for movement, detected very little, then got silently out of the car. As he passed the vehicle, he put his hand on it and changed the color to a dark burgundy – it would be harder to identify as stolen this way.

Stealthily, he crept in the shadows to the emergency room entrance. Emergency rooms were always open and there were always people in them – he could just slide in and take a seat like he was waiting for someone while he plotted his next move. Small steps. That’s how he had to tackle this.

“It will be okay, Harold,” he heard an older woman say.

Nate turned and saw a couple walking toward the entrance, the man breathing heavily.

“They’ll help you here,” the woman assured the man and Nate had to wonder if their trips to the emergency room were frequent.

He felt a stab of sympathy for them, but pushed that aside as he fell into step behind them, knowing that once they hit the doors, the staff would attend to the man and not give Nate a second look.

He was right.

With the staff huddled around the newest arrival, Nate slid in undetected, closed his eyes for a moment, then followed Alyssa’s plea for help. He took the stairs to avoid meeting others in the elevator, stopped at the third floor. Cautious, he looked through the small window in the fire door, craned his neck this way and that, looking for anyone who might see him. He saw no one, so he pushed open the door and slipped into the hallway.

Where are you, Alyssa? he asked silently, his senses answering by propelling him forward and to the left. As he rounded the corner, however, he saw a nurse at the end of the hall, just exiting a patient’s room. Panicked, Nate slid back around the corner, trapped. From the other direction, he heard more voices – someone approaching. He was going to get caught. These people were going to turn him back in to the police. The police were going to give him to the FBI and Alyssa was never going to know that he came for her.

They can’t see me, he said to himself, pretending he was still six-years-old and that kind of delusion still worked. They can’t see me.

To his surprise, the two people he had heard conversing behind him walked right past him without giving him a second glance. And it wasn’t like he was hiding – a blind person could have seen him lurking there out in the open. Nate straightened, his expression one of utter disbelief. Joy and fear filled him all at once. Oh my God.

They can’t see me!

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Ten

Nate forced himself to not freak out, to push his anxiety at realizing he couldn’t be seen down to his toes, to concentrate on getting to Alyssa’s room. He wasn’t really sure what was going on – was he now invisible the way Aubrey could be invisible? Or was it something else?

He didn’t really care – because it was getting him where he wanted to be. Drawing in a breath and dropping his eyes to the floor just in case his invisibility was temporary, he stepped around the corner and walked in the direction Alyssa was pulling him. The nurse who had first sent him scurrying back around the corner stopped with her med cart and checked her clipboard, unconcerned. She can’t see me she can’t see me she can’t see me, he repeated over and over as he walked right past her. The woman never even looked up.

Nate looked over his shoulder in disbelief as he stopped outside of one of the rooms. The nurse made some comments on her clipboard, then moved on to the next room. Nate shook his head to clear the confusion, then slowly pushed open the door.

On the bed, Alyssa looked smaller and younger than he remembered her being. Inside, his heart lurched at the sight of her so pale, so sick. He let the door close silently behind him, then went to stand beside the bed. Reaching behind himself, he tugged a chair to the bedside and sat down quietly, taking her hand in his. Her skin was warm and damp – she was running a fever. Tears stung at the back of his eyes as he reached up to brush her hair away from her forehead. He’d seen her only two days before – how had she gotten so sick so fast? At his touch, she didn’t even stir. His eyes fell on her chest and he noticed that she was breathing shallowly – she was sedated.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.” Picking up her hand, he brought it to his lips and laid a kiss on the back of it, fatigue finally clouding his eyes with tears. “I’ll make it better, I promise,” he choked.

Of course, he wasn’t sure how to make it better. He’d yet to understand fully how he’d managed to heal Max when the group had found him beaten within an inch of his life. It had just happened. As he reached over to lay a hand on Alyssa’s abdomen, he prayed that it might “just happen” again, that maybe some alien instinct would kick in and help him save her.

Just as his hand was about to land on her belly, the curtain separating her bed from the next whipped back abruptly, the curtain rings zinging loudly in the room. Nate recoiled quickly, ready to dash for the door. Then a very tired, Latino face peeked around the curtain.

“Nate?” Jeremy said incredulously. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

Nate’s mouth dropped open. “You can see me?”

Jeremy’s brow furrowed. “Of course I can see you – you’re sitting right there.” He pointed toward Nate’s chest. “You aren’t going crazy, are you?”

Nate shook his head, but wasn’t really sure that wasn’t the case. “What are you doing over there?”

Jeremy swung his legs off the side of the bed. “I was sleeping. I snuck in after they brought her back from surgery. The friggin’ Nazis told me I couldn’t stay here with her. I said screw that – I’m not leaving her alone.”

Nate blinked. Surgery? His eyes dropped to his girlfriend and he looked for obvious evidence of incisions and found none. His heart started to thud a little heavier as dread started to settle over him.

Jeremy slid off the bed and stretched his arms toward the ceiling. He yawned and when he dropped his arms he saw Nate looking at him warily.

“Surgery?” Nate finally managed, nearly choking on the word. “Jeremy, what happened to her?”

Jeremy went a little pale, obviously having divulged information Nate didn’t know. “She lost the baby, Nate. Dude, I’m really sorry.” He looked at his feet.

Something stabbed Nate right in the gut and forced all of the air out of him. The room spun a bit and he had to grab the edge of the mattress to steady himself. Confusion clouded his mind, a thousand questions flooding into his head at once. What baby? When did she get pregnant? She said she was on the pill. Why hadn’t she told him?

Was the baby that little presence he’d felt knocking on his subconscious of late?

“Nate,” Jeremy said cautiously, and Nate looked up at him. “You didn’t know?”

Nate shook his head slowly, an overwhelming sense of loss displacing the confusion. He looked down into Alyssa’s face, his heart breaking for her, for both of them. “Why is she so hot?” he managed.

“A virus,” Jeremy said, circling the bed and sitting down by Alyssa’s feet. “They don’t know what it is. They’re not sure if that’s what caused her to lose the baby or not.”

A virus. Nate swallowed. Did aliens succumb to different viruses than humans did? Had this happened to anyone else before?

“What are they doing for her?” he asked.

“Antibiotics,” Jeremy said, pointing to the IV that ran into her arm. “They said it’s the best they can do until they figure out what the virus is.”

That meant blood tests and cultures and all kinds of things. Nate knew that their interview would not air until sometime that day, if they were lucky – it was highly possible these people were not aware of aliens among them. Of course Alyssa’s blood was probably human in structure, but what about the virus attacking her? What if it was an alien life form of its own? Was some lab technician about to blow the whistle on them before they had a chance to do it themselves?

“Jeremy, we have to get out of here,” Nate said, rising to his feet.

Jeremy’s eyes were round and disbelieving. “You’re going to leave her here?”

“Absolutely not,” Nate said, looking around for a tissue. He found a box on the night stand and wadded one of the tissues in his hand. Carefully, he pulled the IV tube from her arm and quickly pressed the tissue to the needle hole.

“What are we going to do – just walk out the front doors?” Jeremy questioned, watching his cousin with curiosity.

“No – we’re going to walk out the emergency room doors,” Nate said, pulling back Alyssa’s blankets. “Where are her clothes?”

Jeremy gestured toward the narrow closet on one side of the room.

“Get them,” Nate instructed. “Be quiet about it.”

Jeremy did as he was told.

“Put them in the bag – we’ll dress her later.”

Nate separated the blankets and gingerly wrapped one around Alyssa. Then he slid his arms beneath her and hoisted her upward – it was an easier task than he’d anticipated. His mind shifted back a couple of nights to when she’d crawled onto his lap in the rocker – he’d thought then that she seemed thin and now he had to wonder if her weight loss was attributed more to whatever was attacking her than her experiences in the desert with Nicholas and Khivar.

“Listen, Jeremy,” Nate said meeting the boy’s eyes seriously. “We can’t talk. Just stay with me, stay out of peoples’ way, take the stairs down to the emergency room. Wait for the doors to open, slip through once they are. Don’t open them yourself.”

One corner of Jeremy’s mouth lifted slightly. “Er…won’t they see us?”

Nate shook his head, which prompted a surprised look from his friend. “Ready? Let’s go.”

After checking the hallway once, they stepped out into it and moved silently toward the stairwell. They can’t see us, Nate said to himself as they passed a couple of nurses in the hall. Jeremy looked at them incredulously, but Nate urged him forward. Once the nurses disappeared, they slid into the stairwell and started the spiral downwards.

As he took the steps, Nate looked into Alyssa’s slumbering face and felt like his soul was being cleft in two. A baby. Why hadn’t she said anything? The reason suddenly came crashing home – because if she had, he might not have gone through with the plan to go public. Tears burned in his eyes again. She knew him too well.

Soon they were on the bottom level of the hospital. Jeremy peeked out of the stairwell door, looked this way and that, then nodded and pushed the door open. There were more people in the emergency room now and getting out was going to be easy. As they reached the doors, a man bleeding from a head wound stepped through and they quickly circled him and stepped into the early morning air. Nate shivered and hoped the blanket he’d put around Alyssa was enough to protect her.

Silently, Nate led Jeremy to the car and motioned for him to open the back door. Jeremy did so and Nate slid Alyssa onto the back seat, then climbed in after her. “You drive,” he said, handing his cousin the keys over the seat.

Jeremy climbed in behind the wheel and glanced over his shoulder. “Where are we going? You know we can’t go back to the hideaway.”

“Boston,” Nate said. “Get on 95. Go south.”

Jeremy hesitated only momentarily, then put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot.

Nate maneuvered until Alyssa’s head was in his lap, her body shifted onto its side. Ignoring the motions of the car, he laid his hand on her abdomen, bit back grief, and tried to concentrate on healing her. Closing his eyes, he tried to think about where she was sick, where she was hurt, to zero in on what needed fixing –

And couldn’t.

Sighing in defeat, he opened his eyes and found Jeremy looking at him in the rearview mirror. “No luck?” he said.

Nate shook his head and looked out of the window. The sun was just starting to come up, casting the area around them in purple and pink hues. Soon the others would be rising and they would know that he was gone.

“I need Max,” he said quietly, ashamed that he couldn’t fix his love. “Drive fast, but not too fast, Jeremy. We don’t need to get pulled over – this car’s stolen.”

Jeremy cast him a surprised look in the mirror, then quietly returned to his task.

An hour later, they were pulling the stolen vehicle into a spot before Jose the cameraman’s house. Jeremy looked at the old home and then glanced over the seat.

“This the place?”

Nate nodded and pushed one of the doors open. “Come on. Be quick,” he advised, stepping onto the street and pulling Alyssa after him. “Get the door, please.”

Typical with old houses, the entrance to the cellar was outside of the dwelling. For this, Nate was thankful – he wouldn’t have to try to explain to Jose’s wife why he was dragging a body into her home. Jeremy scampered before him and opened the door, held it while Nate stepped through. He took the steps one at a time, trying to be quiet.

Max was awake.

Nate swallowed at first sight of his father – he was sitting on the edge of his cot, elbow on knee, chin in hand, looking like all was lost. He should have told him where he was going. But…would Max have stopped him?

Upon hearing their shoes on the steps, Max jumped to his feet, his eyes full of alarm and relief all at once. Then he saw Alyssa and looked worried instead. Nate crossed over to his bed and laid her down, then turned to his father.

“Max, I need your help,” he said apologetically, waiting to be reamed for breaking about a dozen rules of their plan.

But Max didn’t judge. He simply crossed the room and knelt by the sick girl. In the cot beside her, Jesse stirred, rubbed his eyes, then grinned widely when he saw his son. He quickly jumped from his bed and gave Jeremy a tight hug, which obviously embarrassed the boy.

“Can you help her?” Nate asked, looking down at Max.

Max was lost in concentration as he methodically passed his hands over her body. He lingered over her lower abdomen, then turned a surprised glance to his son. Nate swallowed, but refused to look away in shame. Max nodded his head in understanding, then continued his surveying of Alyssa’s ailing body.

“What did you do?”

Before he could even comprehend the words, Nate was propelled backward into the wall, the air whooshing out of him as his back struck the cinder block. Michael’s eyes were full of fury as he clutched Nate’s jacket, practically lifting his feet from the floor.

“I didn’t do anything,” Nate managed to struggle out, his eyes shifting over to Alyssa.

“What the fuck were you thinking, Junior?” Michael demanded. “You couldn’t keep your hands off from her for two fucking days so you had to go get her and bring her back here caveman style?”

“She’s – ” Nate began, but Michael tightened his grip and choked off his words.

“Michael, stop it,” Max said, rising from the cot.

“Always thinking with your dick, aren’t you?” Michael accused as he watched Nate’s face starting to turn red. “She was perfectly safe where she was, but you couldn’t stand that, could you?”

“Michael, let him go,” Jesse said, trying to negotiate amicably. “He meant no harm.”

Nate’s ears started to buzz and his vision started to blur. This maniac was going to kill him! But Max was there, hauling his friend off his son. Nate slid down the wall, gasping for air and Michael tried to grab him once again.

“Stop it!” Max demanded, shoving Michael back a few steps. “Just stop it and look at your daughter!”

Chest heaving, Michael finally comprehended Max’s words and he turned toward the cot. In an instant, Nate saw more pain in Michael Guerin’s eyes than he ever thought possible.

“She’s sick, Michael,” Max said, half in reprimand. “If anything, Nate saved her rather than put her in danger.”

Michael’s eyes filled with tears and the fight flooded out of him. Biting his lip, he knelt by his unconscious daughter and picked up her hand. With a gentleness that belied his outward brute appearance, he lovingly stroked the back of her hand, her tiny fingers lost in his.

“Fix her, Max,” he said.

Max helped Nate to his feet and made sure he was okay before returning to his patient. Nate watched silently, thoughts of unexplained alien viruses filling his mind. He tried to get some indication from Max’s facial expressions if he knew how to help her, but Max revealed nothing.

A beam of sunlight shined through the small basement window and landed against the side of Nate’s face. In a short amount of time, they would know if the repair of the Old Man of the Mountain had been noticed. If it had, and if the networks picked up Susan’s interview, then his people could be on their way to freedom.

But the truth was, if Alyssa wasn’t part of that freedom, it would no longer matter to Nate.

tbc