Don’t forget, don’t forgive, to love, you must just get by.
Title: After the second crash
Author: ken_r AKA ken 242 AKA Kenneth Renouard
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me, I just improved the original script to make better sense. I did it with respect
Couples: conventional
Rating: Mature
Summary: Tess took off in the granolith. There was no third season, that was the first good thing. Nasado had more evil that we ever imagined. See how the couples manage to rebuild their lives.
After the second crash.
Kyle was driving Max, Liz and Isabel back home. His little car was filled with both sorrow and anger. No one was talking and even the radio was off. Isabel had reached over and turned it off the minute Kyle started the engine. Kyle understood the non-intended rudeness she had shown. She couldn’t stand anything intruding upon her thoughts. Max and Liz were still working through their problems. They had both betrayed each other, in each other’s eyes and they must somehow come to terms with this.
Kyle felt that he had been betrayed by the whole alien conspiracy. His father had lost his job, because of it and with the loss of the job his father seemed to have lost his initiative and, maybe, some of his soul. The conspiracy had cost Kyle his girlfriend. Liz was the girl of his sophomore year. He had picked her because she was bright, cute and, generally, fun to be with. Sure, she was too serious about school, but Kyle wasn’t serious about anything much. So, he felt that if any of Liz rubbed off on him, it would be a blessing.
Liz was shot. She was dying. She was brought back to life and by a method Kyle could never match, or so he thought. Max Evans, the boy his father was investigating, had healed her. Of course, Kyle didn’t know anything about this at the time. He could only see that Max was moving in on his girl and that, ultimately he, Kyle, lost her. After that, Kyle, the super stud, much like his father, lost his way. Philosophy, religion and rebellion had not helped him find anything.
Then, he was presented with a housemate. A sexy waif who was orphaned, ended up living at the Valenti house. At first, Kyle was upset that the essential bachelor character of their home was changed with boxes of kotex, hanging lingerie and other female things.
Then, his male teenage mind turned to the fact that behind the closed door was a beautiful girl. One who would, from time to time, wander down the hall in her panties and bra to the bathroom without any thought about what she was doing to him. Then sometimes, she almost seemed to be coming on to him.
During several times when just the two of them were at home and Jim, his father, was working somewhere, Kyle and the beautiful girl, Tess, would, with almost abandon, be sitting on the couch together watching TV or some DVD laughing and carrying on. It was, almost more than he could stand.
She had a thing for Evans. She wouldn’t give it up, at least at first. Then as the hopelessness of the situation became evident to everyone, she did seem to turn to Kyle. Kyle was fine with this. He was taking one of Evans’ castoffs. Then, Tess would go away for a time and return charged up to, again, assault the Evans-Liz Parker mountain. Kyle would be forgotten for a time until, again, she would decide the quest for the king was futile.
That was what she thought Evans was. He was supposed to be a king. King of a world, light years away. Tess was convinced that she was to be his wife. Somehow, even Liz was convinced of this and she had set up a scenario to force Max into the arms of Tess. With Kyle’s help, Liz faked a betrayal of the loss of her innocence with him as the co-conspirator. This did drive Max into Tess’s arms and she got pregnant or, at least, that is what she said.
Tess forced one of the group, Alex, to translate a book using a super computer. The strain of this led to Alex’s death. Tess, with total callousness, didn’t seem to care. She had a way to leave earth and she was trying to take the rest of the aliens with her. When found out, she still took off. She took off, alone, or so they thought. The rest of the aliens were left to pick up their lives.
Max and Liz had to find where they would go after mutual betrayal. Isabel who was in love with the murdered Alex, needed to mend a broken heart and a strong guilt that she hadn’t given him love before his death. Kyle was left to be as alone as Isabel with the memory that, at one time, he thought he loved the beautiful Tess. Now, he was just trying to get them all home to Roswell and, then, find his own way. What would they all do? Kyle had no idea.
Finally, he dropped the Evanses off at their house and Liz off at the Crashdown, the restaurant her parents ran. Kyle went home to a cold house with a father who was having a break down. Kyle only grunted as he passed his father watching TV. He proceeded to his room and ripped all of Tess’s mementos off wall and dresser. With her junk thrown into the corner, Kyle just passed out. Kyle wasn’t sleeping. He was comatose. He was totally dead to the world. His father looked in and, except for a gentle snoring, he would have been convinced that Kyle had died.
It wasn’t a gentle rest though. In his mind, Tess was still sitting on the couch. She was walking down the hall in her panties. She was in his arms at the Prom with every intention of him making love to the beautiful creature, afterward. That was before a fraternal feeling took over him and he almost puked at the thought that he was planning to sleep with a woman who was his sister. Then, there was a cry. Kyle couldn’t identify the cry. It was like a night bird, but it was calling his name.
Kyle awoke to a buzzing. It was incessant like a bee trapped in his ear. Finally, Kyle woke enough to lean over and turn off the alarm. He opened one eye and saw that it was ten o’clock. The alarm went off at seven so the buzzer had been ringing for three hours.
By the time Kyle had got up and dressed, it was noon. He only made it to his afternoon classes. He saw Liz from a distance. Max and Michael were talking down at the end of the hall. Maria was hurrying toward them. Isabel was going to her class like she was a robot. She showed neither emotion nor life in her face. She was just an automation.
Kyle struggled to his class. If there was anything said or assigned, he had no memory of it afterward. He only had two classes in the afternoon, so after he finished the next one, Kyle thought he would head back home and catch up on his sleep.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon when Kyle got home. His father was out and that was no surprise. Jim was still trying to find his way. Kyle fell onto his bed without even taking off his clothes and again passed out again. This time there were many dreams. Some time during the night, Kyle did take off his outer clothes. There was more calling that the night.
‘Kyle, Kyle,” the voice familiar and yet so strained that he couldn’t recognize it.
Kyle finally woke up. He looked at the clock. It was three o’clock in the morning. He had slept 12 hours. Kyle woke up and he didn’t know what had woke him. He was just so unsettled. He got up and walked into the kitchen. He could hear his father snoring in his room, so his father had gotten home, someway. Kyle didn’t know what had caused him to awaken.
He got a glass of milk and was sitting in the dark dressed in just his shorts. He heard the voice in his head calling, “Kyle, Kyle.” He went outside. At this time of the night there was no one on the streets so Kyle sat in a chair just listening to the night noises.
He saw a shadow walking down the street in front of the house and he kept quiet. If he said nothing, no one would know he was there dressed in only a pair of boxers. The shadow was small and willowy. Kyle recognized the shadow and, forgetting his dress, he softly called out, “Hey, Liz.”
The shadow stopped and turned, looking for the person behind the voice. “Kyle, is that you? Where are you?” she called out softly also.
“Here on the porch,” he replied.
Liz turned and approached him. Kyle hadn’t thought of his dress. Liz was wearing a tank top and hip huggers with sandals. She appraised what she could see in the shadows and just sat down. “You can’t sleep either?”
“Oh I was sleeping all right. I slept right through morning classes. And I came home and fell back asleep until about an hour ago when something woke me. Then I couldn’t go back to sleep again. I keep hearing someone calling me. I should recognize the voice, but I don’t,” Kyle replied.
“I keep waking up and falling back to sleep, then, waking again,” Liz said. “I don’t know what to do.”
“You made up with Evans yet?” Kyle inquired.
I don’t even know if I am supposed to make up with him. He did sleep with Tess. Maybe, he no longer wants me,” she mused.
“Yeah and you made him think you slept with me. So he probably feels you are even.” Kyle was just pointing out the obvious. He still didn’t know why Liz wanted someone, especially the boy she really loved, to think she had lost her virginity.
“Yeah, we both really screwed up. Maybe, we won’t be able to make up and we will be forced to go elsewhere,” Liz stated sadly. She turned to him, “How are you holding up? You really cared for Tess at one time.”
“Yeah, but she killed Alex. She, also, made me carry his body out to her car so she could dispose of it. I think she is a psychopath. It is kind of hard to care about someone like that.” Liz could tell that Kyle was talking to himself more than her.
Liz stood up, “Kyle, I better get going. You really shouldn’t sit out in the open in just your underpants. There might be other people who don’t understand you as I do.”
Kyle just laughed. “With what we have all been through, I don’t think my lack of clothes would bother anyone.”
Liz laughed softly and got up to leave. Kyle just remained there thinking. He had just been talking to his ex girlfriend with almost no clothes on. He had never been that familiar with Liz when he was going with her. They had made out several times He had felt her body through her clothes, but his hands had never been on her flesh.
They had pretended to be intimate so she could convince Max about something. Kyle never would understand that. Now, they had sat for several minutes talking just like they were comfortable friends. Oh, well, she didn’t seem to be upset.
As he was sitting and thinking, Kyle heard again, “Kyle, Kyle.” It had to be the wind because he was sure that if the voice had been that loud, others in the neighborhood would have heard it. The night air was starting to get chilly. Kyle got up and went in.
He lay down on his bed, but the voice in his head kept calling. Finally, he just got up. His mustang had a full tank. He had filled it before he returned home the other night after dropping off the others. Kyle dressed, put on a jacket and, quietly, backed out of the driveway.
He waited until he was some distance from his home before he floored the little car. He felt the engine take over and the growl of the exhaust, as he headed out of town. From time to time, he kept hearing the voice, “Kyle, Kyle.”
The top was down and the wind was in his face. The night smells were whiffing by as he drove. From time to time, he could still hear the call, “Kyle, Kyle.”
It was driving him mad; the distraction was making it hard to think. He came to a forest road. They were called forest roads even though they were through the desert, because it was the responsibility of the forestry department to do their up keep.
The little mustang was not meant for off road travel, but Kyle turned up the road anyhow. He had to slow considerably because the little car had almost no traction on the gravel. He was going to have a terrible time fixing his paint job, but Kyle kept going.
The call, “Kyle, Kyle,” came again. Finally, the road had such ruts that there was no way that Kyle could take it further. He pulled the car off to the side and parked it. Still having no idea where he was going or why he was going there, Kyle kept pushing on.
The daylight was just breaking as Kyle noticed that he was no longer in the desert. He was in low hills and, before him, he saw the mountain rising blotting out the sun in its shadow. Kyle was an accomplished athlete and he had gone on many hikes. He was young and in good condition. He just couldn’t figure out his motivation for doing this. The only thing was that the call was getting clearer and clearer in his head.
By mid-morning, Kyle was in pretty rugged mountains. He was proceeding up the crest of a ridge hoping this was the way he was supposed to go. If it was wrong, Kyle would have to backtrack five or six miles back down to try another ridge. The canyons on each side were getting steeper and steeper. Kyle didn’t have any water. He was worried about this. If the sun got bad, he could suffer heat stroke and no one knew where he was.
It was noon when he saw a scar in the ridge. The scar cut toward a group of trees. The scar was fresh. Kyle could still see the edges sharply defined. The wind hadn’t had time to blow the scar into just an indentation. As he proceeded into the trees, Kyle began to see fragments of some sort of un-natural material. The rocks were scared by something. The tree trunks had been laid bare of bark as something had brushed against them.
Kyle was curious as he ascended up the slope. When he finally came to a jackstraw of trees, all of them broken recently, Kyle began to pull at the brush. Working his way to the center of the mess, Kyle saw a dark cylindrical object. The object, by its position among the tossed pines clearly was the cause of the destruction.
Lying just outside the cylinder was a frail body buried under the debris. Kyle caught his breath. It was a sight he had never thought he would see again. There, under everything, was Tess. Several trees were pinning her to the ground. At first, Kyle didn’t know whether to be happy to see the little blonde or to be angry that she might still be alive. In the end, Kyle was a kind person at heart so he moved to free the frail body from its imprisonment.
Kyle was a weight lifter and a practiced athlete. What he couldn’t lift he managed to move with pry bars made from other fallen trees. Finally he got close enough to the body to touch it. Her bright blue eyes fluttered open and Kyle’s heart flew up to his throat. “Kyle, you came. I was hoping you would be enough in tune with me to hear my call,” the weak voice said.
“Tess what do I do?” Kyle asked. He was accomplished at athletics not medical rescue. Somewhere, he remembered that you must be careful about removing someone hurt in an accident.
“Kyle, you must pull me out first,” she gasped. Talking was a strain upon the small woman.
“Won’t I hurt you more, by moving you, that is?” Kyle inquired.
“No, Kyle, the hurts we will take care of, but I must be free of this wreckage to keep from dying,” she attempted a smile as she talked.
Kyle reached down and pulled her by her shoulders. All the time trying to keep her back in a straight line, he got her free of the fallen pines.
Tess spoke again, “Kyle, you must do exactly as I say. Go to the granolith and right between those two trees that are leaning against it, walk into the wall. Immediately after entering, turn right and walk exactly fifty paces. Then, turn left and walk fifteen paces through the wall. You will be in the storage area. Mark where you entered the storage room. You must exit exactly at the same spot. You will find white containers of water, brown containers of food and red containers of medical supplies.”
“Tess, that whole thing is only about ten feet in diameter and about twenty feet long. How can you talk about walking fifty paces?” Kyle asked.
“Kyle, the granolith is, how do you say it, not all in this dimension. Inside, you will be disoriented so you must keep careful count of your steps. You need to hurry. I may not have much time left if you don’t.” Tess was about to give into the pain and trauma of her ordeal.
Kyle kept thinking of some of his Buddhist teachings. “Appearance is not the true measure of a thing.
‘ He walked to the place where Tess had indicated and walked up to the granolith. Kyle expected to be stopped by the shell of the machine. It was the weirdest thing he had ever experienced. He just walked through the solid wall.
Once inside, he was presented with a long hall. He turned right and carefully counted fifty paces. Then, he abruptly turned and walked through the wall again. Kyle felt in his pocket and found some change. He dropped the change right where he had entered the room. He found the three containers that Tess had requested and reversed his path emerging, once again, back in the ruined forest. Kyle shook his head. It wasn’t until he was free from the ship, that he was also free of the dizziness of the experience.
Tess was lying where he had left her. Her eyes were closed and Kyle felt of her neck to find a pulse. At his touch, her pulse strengthened. She, again, opened her eyes. She looked at him. “Kyle, I need some water”
Kyle opened the white container and there were several cups packed with it. He poured a cup of water for Tess and, tenderly, held it to her lips. She drank sparingly. Then he filled the cup for himself. He hadn’t had a drop the whole morning. Kyle began to think, the wreck must have happened right after take off, so Tess hadn’t had anything to drink for almost three days. He poured another cup for her and held her head as she attempted to drink again.
“Tess, it will take me the better part of a day to hike back out of here to get help. Do you think you can hold out that long?” he asked.
“No, Kyle, I must attempt to heal myself. I must do this soon or I am not going to live,” Tess was almost whispering now.
“What do you want me to do?” he inquired.
“Take off your shirt. Then, take off my blouse and bra. Hold me against your naked chest tightly. Empty your thoughts and I will try to do the rest,” Tess instructed.
Kyle did as she requested. He pulled her broken body into his lap and with his arms wrapped around her he tried to think of nothing. Suddenly his mind was flooded with scenes from biology book, of the broken bones and ripped blood vessels of her body. Kyle was not a student, but he was fascinated with the scene before him. It was, almost, like that movie he saw when he was a kid, “Fantastic Voyage.” As he passed broken bones he slowed and they repaired themselves. As he went past bleeding vessels they were repaired.
Kyle looked down at his chest. He was glowing, much like Max’s hands when he healed. As Tess got stronger, she put her arms around his neck and pulled him tighter to herself. Suddenly, she relaxed and let him free from her grasp. Kyle was worried, but looking at Tess, she smiled, “I have to let you regain your strength. I have taken all I can from you at the moment. Let’s rest and, maybe, eat. Then, we can try again.”
Kyle raised his eyebrows in question. Tess attempted a smile again, “Nasado said that anything we do is possible for humans. Humans just do not know how to do them. I was showing you how to heal and you were healing me.”
Kyle wasn’t going to argue. Most of the alien things he had witnessed since he found out about them, he didn’t really understand. Kyle found himself famished and thirsty. First, he poured water for each of them, Then, he broke open one of the food containers and found a kind of mush that passed for food. Tess ate slowly. She hadn’t had a thing to eat since before the crash.
Kyle tried a handful of the mush and, surprisingly, it wasn’t that bad. They finished their meal with another cup of water. Tess looked pained. “Kyle, I need to go to the bathroom. You are going to have to help me. I can’t stand without help and I, probably, can’t walk.”
Kyle bent. Putting her arm around his neck and standing, he straightened her body. He led her to the edge of the clearing they were now standing in. Tess smiled an embarrassed smile, “Kyle, please turn around. I still have a bit of pride left. I will tell you when I am through and you can help me stand again.”
Kyle turned and he heard her as she relieved herself. He could imagine after being trapped for almost three days, how much pain her bladder was in. Tess called and he carefully helped her stand again. Then they hobbled back to the center of the clearing. Tess made a painful face, “Kyle do you think you can find that room in the granolith again? We need some blankets to keep us warm tonight.”
Once again, Kyle braved the disorienting experience of entering the strange dimensions to retrieve a package of blankets. Neither of them had put back on their upper coverings so Kyle handed Tess her blouse and bra. She left the bra off, but put the blouse back on. Kyle put his shirt back on and they snuggled against each other as the cool night air came upon them. Kyle hadn’t, yet, started to think that no one knew where he had gone. No one knew where to look for him.