CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
November 15, 2000, 9 p.m.
Whitman Residence
A breeze blew as Tess stood in Alex's front yard, lit only by a streetlight a couple of houses down and the soft glow coming from the windows of his house. "You know, you could have rung the doorbell," Alex said. "And we don't have to hang in the front yard. You can come inside the house."
A car went by behind them; Tess waited until it passed before speaking. "I'd rather not. This is kind of...sensitive."
"Ah," Alex said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "So it's about Max."
"What? No," Tess said quickly. "I need a favor. I need your language skills."
"You need a tutor?" Alex said. "That's why we're standing in the yard?"
"No, I don't need a tutor, and we're standing in the yard because this is what I need help with."
Alex's eyes widened when he saw what she had in her hand. "What...what is that?"
"It's from our home," Tess said. "Go ahead—take it. It won't bite."
Alex gingerly took the alien book from her as though afraid it might self-destruct, and for all they knew, it might. She was taking a risk nicking it from the pod chamber, but this was important enough to gamble the ire of the Others if they found it missing. "Wow," Alex said softly. "It looks heavy, but it isn't. What's it made of?"
"No idea," Tess said. "And we also have no idea what it says. That's where you come in."
"If all of you don't know what this says, how am I supposed to?"
"You're good with languages," Tess said. "That's a language. Maybe you could figure it out."
"Looks more like hieroglyphs," Alex said, leafing through it. "And...whoa. Is that...is that all of you?"
"As children," Tess nodded, "and then older."
Alex stared at the etched drawings in dismay. "So they knew exactly what you all would look like? That's creepy." He flipped a page. "But not as creepy as this," he added, coming upon the etchings of her and Isabel. "Is this...are you…"
"Pregnant," Tess confirmed, "or that's what it looks like."
"And Michael's with Isabel," Alex murmured. "Good luck with that. He just screwed Maria over with Courtney."
"What I need to know is if you can decode this," Tess said, not the least bit interested in the latest ill-conceived love affair with a human.
"You'd need a lot more than just me," Alex said. "This calls for some serious computing power. You'd need a super computer."
"Oh," Tess said, crestfallen. "Where do I get one of those?"
"Usually a university," Alex said. "I think Las Cruces would be the closest one."
"Is there any way to copy this?" Tess said. "I can't very well hand this book to just anybody."
"Good point," Alex said. "I'm not even sure if this is made of something found here on Earth. But I can scan it and print out a paper copy, or we can put the scans on a floppy disk so you can carry it around more easily."
"Can we do that now? Without your parents seeing it?"
Alex glanced back at his house. "Come with me, and be very quiet."
He led her around to a back door, where they slipped inside and tiptoed to the stairs. Laughter roared from a television, masking any noise they made, and they arrived at Alex's room with no one the wiser. "Let me pop this on the scanner," Alex said, "and then we're in business."
Tess meandered around the room while Alex got to work. It was a typical geek's room, all computer stuff and books, with one important exception: It was clean. Most guys didn't have such neat bedrooms.
"Sorry about the mess," Alex said, heedless of the irony. "I didn't know I was expecting company."
"Mess?" Tess said. "This is white glove clean compared to Kyle's room."
"Really?" Alex said. "Interesting. And so is this," he added as the pages of the book appeared on his computer screen. "You know, this is really fascinating. And you have no idea what it says?"
"Nope. None."
The printer whirred, spitting out printed pages. "Here's your paper copy," Alex said, "and here's a floppy disk with a computer file of the same images. Now you can put the book in a safe place and just walk around with the contents."
"But is it safe to walk around with the contents?" Tess said doubtfully. "I'm not sure it's safe to show this to anyone. They're going to want to know where it came from, and what would I tell them?"
"If you want it translated, you'll have to show it to someone," Alex said.
"That's why I wanted you," Tess said. "You're good with languages, and you already know about us. You're the perfect person to do it."
"Like I said, you need more than just me," Alex said. "You need a super computer and a whole lot of time, and I don't have either. This isn't going to be easy to figure out. Whoever does it will have to look for something familiar, like...like these symbols under your pictures. The odds are good that these are your names, your alien names. That would be a good place to start."
"I don't even know our alien names," Tess sighed, sinking onto the bed. "And even if I did, I'd have to tell someone way too much in order to translate this."
"Max must think it's worth the risk or he wouldn't have you doing it," Alex said.
Tess's eyes dropped. "Max does know about this, doesn't he?" Alex said.
"Uh...not really," Tess admitted. "It's a surprise," she said quickly. "A gift, sort of. It's something we all want, but we just don't know how, so I decided to see if I could do it. If I can pull it off, I'm hoping he might see me as more of a partner than…"
"An interloper?" Alex suggested.
"Yeah," Tess admitted. "That."
Alex was quiet for a moment. "It's a nice thought, but you're going to have to spill a lot of information to whoever cracks this, so I think all of you need to be in on it just in case, you know, it goes south. Like things tend to."
"You're right," Tess nodded. "Well...thanks for the copies. You've been very helpful. Oh, and...I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't mention this to Max. I'd like to tell him myself."
"Sure thing," Alex said. "No problem."
Five minutes later, Tess leafed through the paper copy of the book as she headed back to the pod chamber. Max might very well see her as a partner if she pulled this off, but she had another reason for doing this. Max may never come around, and if he didn't, she had some decisions to make. Decisions required information, and there was information in this book that was out of her reach, out of all their reach. She wanted to see it first so she could decide what to do if the rest of them decided to abandon their world and settle down with humans because there was no way she was going to do that.
"You need a super computer and a whole lot of time, and I don't have either."
Perhaps that's the place to start, Tess thought. She'd found the perfect person to translate this. Now she just had to find him the right tools.
********************************************************
Evans Residence
Trig, Isabel thought distastefully, bent over her math book. Ugh. It wasn't that it was hard; she could do it if she wanted to, but the point was she didn't want to. Math was boring, just strings of numbers, or letters standing in for numbers arranged in puzzles called word problems or equations or theorems, and the only reward for solving those puzzles was getting the right answer, at which point you were handed yet another puzzle. It was a never-ending chain of work which resulted in no practical gain, and she glanced hopefully at the clock, wondering if now was a good time to take a break. After all, she'd been at it for nearly ten solid minutes.
Her phone rang. "Hello?" she said hopefully.
"What is it with women?" Michael's voice demanded. "Why are they so suspicious? Why do they just assume that whatever you say is wrong? Why do they just assume you're lying to them?"
Crap, Isabel thought wearily. She'd been so grateful for the distraction that she'd neglected to check who was calling, and now she was saddled with the only thing more boring that math problems—Michael's love life. "Do I take this to mean that you and Maria have hit a rough patch? What'd you do now?"
"More like a 'Maria freak-out patch', but...wait. What'd I do? What makes you think I did something? Why couldn't it be Maria doing something?"
"Fine, what'd she do?"
"She poked her nose where it didn't belong," Michael said. "I was investigating Courtney, and then she starts investigating Courtney—"
" 'Investigating'?" Isabel said. "Why are you investigating Courtney? What'd she do?"
"Nothing, but that's not the point," Michael said.
"It isn't? Then what is?"
"Would you just stop talking?" Michael said crossly. "I was investigating Courtney, and then Maria started doing the same thing. She found a picture of you, me, and Max in her locker with my face circled."
"Of course she did," Isabel said. "Everyone knows Courtney has the hots for you."
"She does?"
"Everyone but you, apparently," Isabel amended.
"Okay, but why a picture of the three of us?" Michael said.
"Maybe because we're together a lot?" Isabel said. "I know this is backwards because I'm usually the paranoid one, but I just don't find that alarming. So she had a picture. So what? Get to the part where you—I mean Maria—did something."
"She brought it over to Courtney's house," Michael said. "And I was already there, and she got all pissed off about it."
"Who? Maria or Courtney?"
"Maria," Michael said. "Courtney was in the shower."
"The shower?" Isabel said, suddenly interested. "What was she doing in the shower?"
"What'dya think? She was taking a shower. The point is—"
"The point is that you were in another girl's house while she was in the shower," Isabel interrupted. "That's weird."
"I told you, I was investigating her," Michael said impatiently. "I had to get her out of the way so I could nose around."
"And she wound up in the shower? How did that happen?" Isabel paused. "Michael," she said warningly when he didn't answer, "what did you say to her? What could you possibly have said to her that would make her take a shower?"
An exasperated sigh floated over the phone. "I kind of told her that a clean girl was a...a sexy girl."
"What?" Isabel exclaimed. "Do you mean you were...you were going to…"
"No! No way!" Michael declared. "I just needed her out of the way so I could nose around."
"Oh, I see," Isabel said with mock relief. "So insinuating that you going to sleep with her was the only way you could think of to get her out of the way so you could 'nose around'. And what exactly were you going to do when she got out of the shower?"
"Make up an excuse about why I had to go," Michael said. "I only needed a few minutes, and I didn't even get that because Maria showed up when I wasn't expecting her."
"Oh, for sure," Isabel said dryly. "Did Maria know Courtney was in the shower?"
"Well, Courtney came out wearing a towel while she was here, so, yeah, she did."
"A towel? Oh, God," Isabel groaned.
"I wasn't going to do it!" Michael exclaimed.
"Try telling that to Maria!" Isabel retorted. "Oh, that's right—you already did. Not surprised that one didn't go over."
"So, what, you think I'm lying too?"
"No," Isabel sighed. "No, Michael, I don't think you're lying, but I can see why Maria would."
"Hey, Maria was doing the same thing I was—investigating Courtney," Michael protested. "Why is it okay for her to do it and not me?"
"Because her way didn't involve being naked in a towel," Isabel said wearily. "It's not what you were doing, it's the way you were doing it. I don't see a way out of this one unless Courtney turns out to be a fang-gnashing alien."
"Thanks a heap," Michael said sourly.
The line went dead. Sighing, Isabel tossed her phone on the desk and tried to go back to math, but every little thing distracted her: Her father's chair scritching back and forth in his office, the canned laughter from the television show her mother was watching, that thump from Max's room…
Curious, Isabel went to the window. She knew the sound of a threshold being breached, and sure enough, a dark figure walked across the lawn. Smiling, Isabel abandoned her homework and went to her brother's bedroom.
"I take it all back," she said from the doorway. "The serenade worked."
Max sat motionless on the bed, hands clasped, eyes on the floor. "I heard the unmistakable sound of shoes on a windowsill," Isabel went on. "Fortunately Mom didn't. Sounds like the ice age is over—Liz Parker has paid you a visit." She paused. "Max? Why do you look like that? Isn't this good news?"
"She doesn't want to be with me," Max said dully.
Isabel stared at him for a moment. "Oh," she said finally, having forgotten that the pendulum could swing either way. "Oh, I...I'm sorry."
"She says she wants to be with normal boys," Max went on, in that toneless voice as though he couldn't quite believe it. "She wants to have kids, and she wants them to be safe." He looked up at last, his eyes haunted. "She says she doesn't want to die for me."
Isabel winced. Ouch. "Okay...Max, I know this must hurt like hell, but...can you blame her? She never asked to be sucked into this. And God knows she's gone to hell and back for us, so she's paid you back for saving her life. She doesn't owe us a dime."
"You think this is about owing us?" Max said. "I love her."
"I know," Isabel said patiently, "and for what it's worth, I think she loves you too. She's just not up for all the baggage that comes with loving you."
"Yes, she is," Max protested. "She's proven she is."
"Just because she can handle it doesn't mean she wants to," Isabel pointed out. "And if she's thinking of the future, of having children and what being married to you would mean for them, well, that's very different than anything she's done so far. And can we even have children? I mean with humans? Is that even possible?"
"Nasedo told Tess we have human bodies," Max argued. "Human bodies can produce human children."
"We don't know that for sure," Isabel said. "Maybe we can have kids with each other, but not humans. We don't know. Liz just doesn't want to be the guinea pig who finds out, and I can't blame her for that."
"But she doesn't mean it!" Max insisted. "She loves me. She was wavering. She was this close to coming back to me. I know she was."
"Maybe she was," Isabel allowed, "and then she thought better of it. People who are wavering can waver in either direction, not just the direction you want."
"I know her," Max insisted. "I know her. I know she loves me, and I know she was ready to get back together. Something else did this. Something changed her mind. What could do that?"
"Oh, I don't know," Isabel said. "Maybe the thought of having a kid with green scales?"
"You're not helping," Max muttered.
"Okay, then, how about having a normal kid who winds up dead because we're running for our lives? She's not just thinking about today or tomorrow, she's thinking about next year, and the year after that, and ten years down the road. Based on what's happened so far, you've got to admit it doesn't look good. But at least she told you," Isabel added gently. "And she had the guts to tell you to your face. I admire that, even if you don't like what she said."
Max slumped on the bed, thoroughly dejected. "What do I do?" he said miserably.
Give up, Isabel thought, knowing full well that her smitten brother would do no such thing. "My advice? Go to the one person who knows Liz better than anyone."
Max suddenly looked ever so slightly more alive. "Right. Yes. Good idea." He stood up and grabbed his jacket. "Uh...thanks, Iz."
"No problem," Isabel said. "Relationship advice is what I'm all about tonight."
Isabel returned to her desk, having had a change of heart. Numbers didn't love you or leave you. Word problems were hypothetical, not real. Equations bore no resemblance to reality. Their reality was so fragile, so volatile, so unpredictable; perhaps some abstraction was the way to keep sane.
Her mother appeared in the doorway. "How's the homework, sweetheart?"
"Just great, Mom," Isabel smiled. "I love math."
*********************************************************
November 16, 2000, 7:30 a.m.
West Roswell High School
Liz Parker looked miserably down the hallway, her hands gripping the straps on her backpack as though it were a life preserver. She was heart sick and exhausted, having slept hardly a wink last night. Her bedroom, once a place a refuge, was now a place she spent as little time as possible because that's where Future Max was most likely to show up. She didn't want to see him again right now; after last night's debacle with Tess and her subsequent visit to Max's house, she was fresh out of ideas about how to turn him away from her and completely out of initiative. Since she wasn't sleeping anyway, she'd gotten up much earlier than usual and made excuses about needing to get to school so she could tutor someone; in reality, she'd crept into a corner of the theater and dozed, hoping no one would find her. No one had, and the sound of students spilling into the school had roused her, leaving her to face the second person she most wanted to avoid, in this timeline or any other.
"Hey, Tess," Liz said.
Sharp eyes peered from around the locker, bored into hers. "Look, I'm really sorry about last night," Liz rushed on. "I had no idea he'd see me."
"What were you even doing there?" Tess demanded. "What, you couldn't wait for a report? It was working, Liz! We were talking about the book, and then you had do the peeping Tom thing and mess the whole thing up."
"I'm really sorry," Liz said. "I just...I guess I just wanted to see if it worked. And I know I should have just waited. I...I screwed up."
"You think?" Tess muttered.
"I'll make it up to you," Liz promised. "I'll—"
"Don't," Tess said firmly. "It's almost like this whole thing was a set-up. Make me think you were helping me with Max, then screw it up so he thinks less of me than he ever did, if that's even possible."
"No!" Liz exclaimed in horror. "No, that's not...that's not at all what I was trying to do. I know we haven't exactly been friends, but...do you really think I'd do that to you?"
Tess's expression softened. "No. I don't. We may not have been friends, but you've always been decent to me, which is more than I can say for some. I don't think you were trying to screw me over, I just think you're crappy at setting up your ex-boyfriend. Just please, don't 'help' me any more. I'll take it from here. Assuming there's anything left to take."
Tess left, and Liz walked dejectedly to her own locker. Well...that could have gone worse. Maybe things were looking up, at least in that couldn't-be-worse sort of way.
"That's the look of a girl who tried to set up her boyfriend with his ex-wife, and got caught," a voice announced.
"Maria?" Liz said. "How do you know about that?"
Maria leaned against the lockers next to her. "I had a late night visitor from a certain Czechoslovakian of our mutual acquaintance."
Liz's eyes closed. "Max."
"He says you paid him a visit," Maria went on, "spouting Shakespeare and claiming he's dangerous."
"I was talking about how Romeo and Juliet is also a tragedy, not just a love story, and he is dangerous," Liz said. "And he's not my boyfriend. And Tess isn't his ex-wife; they were married when they died."
"Details," Maria said dismissively.
"Important details," Liz insisted. "Look, I don't want to get into it. I'm feeling bad enough as it is. And you of all people should understand because you don't want to tell me why you're mad at Michael."
"Still don't. The whole thing still makes smoke come out of my ears. And no worries," Maria went on. "We're on the same page. When Max told me what you'd done, I realized you meant business, and I told him so. I told him to let you go."
Liz paused, her hands full of books. "You did?"
"Yeah, I did. And for a moment there, I thought I had him. I thought he was actually going to throw in the towel. But then the moment passed, and he said he loved you, and he couldn't help it."
"When did this happen?" Liz asked.
"Last night when I was closing," Maria said.
Closing time… "The Kleenex box," Liz whispered. "He couldn't grab it, and then he could...it almost worked. It almost worked!"
"What are you talking about?" Maria said warily.
"I...never mind," Liz said. "It just...it seems like I almost got through to him."
"Yeah, well, don't get your hopes up," Maria sighed. "I predict more Max encounters in your future, and I don't even need Madam Vivian for that. See you in class.
Great, Liz thought disconsolately. She still had to come up with something which would make Max turn away from her permanently, but at least now she knew it could be done. She'd almost succeeded. Why didn't that feel like a good thing?
"Hey, Liz. You okay?"
"Alex!" Liz said. "Hi. Um...yeah. Why?"
Alex's face was wreathed with concern. "I was just wondering how you were getting on after that thing with Max and Tess didn't work last night."
Liz slammed her locker door in consternation. "You mean you know about that too? That was supposed to be a secret. Does everyone know about it? Was there a newspaper article, or a P.A. announcement, or something?"
"No," Alex said carefully, as though afraid she might explode. "I just happened to be at the Crashdown last night when it happened. And for what it's worth, if you really want something to be secret, don't do it at the Crashdown."
"Right," Liz said faintly. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm just...I'm not all here."
"You and Maria both," Alex said.
"Do you know what happened with her and Michael?" Liz said. "She won't tell me."
"I gather it involves Courtney wearing a towel," Alex said. "And nothing but a towel."
"Oh," Liz said faintly.
"Yeah, 'oh'," Alex said darkly. "I'd love to tell Guerin exactly what I think of him. I'd ask you to come with, but I think you've already got enough on your plate."
I'll say, Liz thought sadly as Alex walked away. If she didn't succeed in turning Max away from her, it wouldn't matter who was mad at whom because none of them would survive.
********************************************************
Langley Residence
Zan slipped through the front door as quietly as he could. He wasn't really in the mood for talking, never mind arguing, so it would be best if...
"Welcome back," a voice called from the kitchen.
Shit, Zan thought darkly. He'd been hoping that hybrid stealth would be a match for Covari hearing, but apparently not. He found Brivari in the kitchen tending pans of sizzling bacon and eggs.
"What's this?"
"Breakfast," Brivari replied. "You were so hungry yesterday, and humans do so love bacon. Perhaps that's why they call it the 'marijuana of meat'."
"How did you know I'd be here for breakfast?" Zan asked.
"Lucky guess. You were gone yesterday morning when I got up, you didn't come home last night, you tried to sneak in this morning...if I were the suspicious type, which I am, I might think you were avoiding me."
"I was busy," Zan said shortly.
"Saving the planet?" Brivari said.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact I was," Zan said. "Or trying to, anyway."
"I assume you're referring to your aborted attempt to reunite your younger self with your wife?"
Zan stared at him. "You're following me?"
"Of course I'm following you," Brivari said. "I'm not about to let you wander this timeline unchaperoned, and besides, it's my job."
"Then it's really too bad you didn't do your job when I was younger," Zan retorted. "We never so much as laid eyes on you."
"If you never saw me, how do you know where I was?" Brivari said. "And for the record, you did see me. Do you recall an evening not long after your hopelessly stupid healing of the Parker girl, in broad daylight and in public no less, when some friends of her then boyfriend paid you a visit?"
Kyle's friends, Zan thought, recalling that exceptionally painful encounter. "Yes," he said guardedly, "I remember. What about it?"
"Perhaps 'paid you a visit' is a bit of of a stretch," Brivari amended. "More like they beat the ever-loving shit out of you. You needed a hospital, which would have proven problematic, so I healed you in the street where you fell. Until you ordered me away, of course, but I was almost done by then. You did the rest."
Zan gazed at him in shock. "You were...you were that guy? That guy who bent over me and...that was you?"
Brivari raised an eyebrow. "Don't sound so surprised. I helped River Dog guide you in healing Michael when he almost died from his encounter with the sweat lodge. I was there when he fled his foster father, when you were held captive by the Special Unit, when your sister killed Vanessa Whitaker." He paused. "In our language, the root of the word 'Covari' means 'hidden'. I'm always there, Your Highness, even if you don't see me."
Zan sank slowly into a chair, mentally rewriting some of the biggest events in his life. "So...you killed Hank? Is that what you're saying?"
"Jaddo and I disposed of that sorry excuse for a human being," Brivari confirmed.
"And...you knew River Dog?"
"River Dog is one of my oldest and dearest friends on this planet."
"So…you're Nasedo," Zan said. "River Dog's Nasedo, I mean."
Brivari smiled faintly. "He told you Nasedo 'befriended them all'. Does that sound like the Nasedo you knew?"
"No," Zan admitted, "it doesn't."
"Jaddo was never much into 'befriending'," Brivari said. "When he left with Tess, he needed something for her to call him. He knew River Dog called me 'Nasedo', and he inexplicably grabbed that."
"Why did he leave with Tess?" Zan asked.
"Didn't I explain that in your other life?"
"We were fighting a war," Zan said. "We didn't exactly have time for chitchat."
"The four of you emerged from your pods much too late and much too young," Brivari said. "You were supposed to have emerged much earlier and fully grown, and your memories should have returned in short order. Instead you emerged as young children who remembered nothing, and we disagreed over how to raise you. I thought you should be placed in families familiar with children, but Jaddo didn't want you raised by humans. He thought we should raise you ourselves."
"But why not two and two?" Zan said. "How did he wind up with only Tess?"
"Because she was the last to emerge, and he left without telling me," Brivari said. "I was furious with him for that, and I didn't know where he was for years. I could have found him, of course, but I found life much quieter without him. We disagreed, Jaddo and I. A lot."
"I remember," Zan chuckled. "You used to…" He stopped, puzzled. "How do I remember that? Why am I suddenly remembering things?"
"Spending time with those who knew you in your previous life will jog memories," Brivari said. "Your turn. I thought the future was in peril because I rejected the treaty. What does Ava have to do with it?"
Silence descended on the kitchen as Zan's eyes dropped. Admitting to Courtney that he'd inadvertently scuttled an alliance which could have saved the planet was one thing; admitting it to his Warder was another.
"Here's how this works," Brivari said, loading plates with food and plopping one down in front of him. "If you want me to support that treaty, you're going to tell me what happened in that other timeline. None of this 'I can't tell you much' crap that you plied the Parker girl with. You and I both know that if you succeed in changing the future, what happened before is irrelevant."
"No, it's not," Zan insisted. "Serena was very clear that even if we change the future, we may not change as much as we think. The same things could happen, just at a different time, or maybe we get there via a different route. We still need to know what happened originally so we can tell if we're still on that trajectory."
"Is this the 'Serena' you referenced before?"
"She's the one who helped us modify the Granolith so it would send me back in time," Zan said.
"The Granolith?" Brivari said skeptically. "So you're saying it's a time machine? Good thing I brought it with me."
"Good thing I told you to bring it with us if we ever needed to evacuate," Zan said. "If I figured out it could be used that way, others could too. Just imagine what would happen if Khivar gets his hands on it."
Brivari fixed him with a hard stare. "For the record, I think I'm smart enough to keep experimental technology away from the enemy without you telling me. I'm not an idiot."
"For the record, neither am I," Zan retorted. "I'm not the neophyte you remember, Brivari. I've been at war for months. I've had crash courses in politics, battle tactics, and public opinion that go way beyond anything you taught me. You haven't walked in my shoes, so stop acting like you know everything."
Brivari regarded him in silence for a moment. "Fine. Educate me. Tell me everything, and I do mean everything, that happened to you. Start at the beginning, and don't leave anything out."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'll post Chapter 54 on Sunday, August 14.
) One of the things we did was tour the "other" side of Ellis Island, the hospital wings not currently open to the public. They're offering "Hard Hat Tours" to raise money for the renovations which will hopefully let them open that part of the island to the public in the future. It was fascinating to hear about those who stayed at Ellis Island, sometimes briefly, sometimes for years, and tour the old buildings. If you're interested, get your tickets early--they go fast!
Courtney and Rath weren't an item on Antar, but she's hoping they will be an item in the future, especially since FutureMax told her that she and Rath got together in his timeline. 
