Fathers and Sons (CC ALL,MATURE) {Complete} 10/01

[Midwest Max]

Hey everyone! Thanks for the fb, I will try to answer it later. Went to Best Buy and there were only 2 copies of S3 left


Part Eleven

Isabel Ramirez was far braver than Nate had ever given her credit. For while he was still retreating from his father’s angry eyes, she stepped forward and put her arms around her brother. Nate bumped into Alyssa, who was standing quietly behind him, Jake just starting to stir in her arms. She looked at Nate with round eyes; apparently, she’d seen Max in Rambo mode before as well.

Stiffly but still managing to be gentle, Max pushed Isabel away from him. “What happened?” he asked, his voice strained. He may have spoken softly, but there was no mistaking the anger in his tone.

Nate looked down at the floor in guilt.

“Jesse called us when Liz and Emily didn’t show up at Logan,” Isabel explained, her eyes finally filled with worry now that Max was here and she no longer felt the need to be the strong one. “Nate and I went to the airport in Buffalo – we know that Liz returned the rental car, but records show that they never got on the plane.”

Nate glanced up and found Max staring straight at him. The man’s jaw was clenched so tightly Nate had to wonder if he was in danger of damaging his teeth. Nate swallowed and looked to the floor again; a few seconds later he felt Alyssa’s reassuring hand on his back.

“Nate,” Max said coolly, drawing his son’s attention. “Why are you afraid to look at me?” There was an iciness in his voice and it took everything in Nate’s power not to back pedal right into Alyssa.

“I’m – I’m not,” he stammered, looking up at Max, then quickly away again.

Never before had his father put him so on the defensive. Max’s normally warm brown eyes were harsh and accusing. Never in a million years had Nate thought it was possible, but he was definitely feeling intimidated by Max.

Playing the peace keeper, Isabel reached out and took her nephew’s hand. “It’s been a long night,” she said, giving Nate’s hand a reassuring squeeze and turning her gaze back to her brother. “Nate’s just as upset as the rest of us, Max.”

“What do you know?” Max asked his son, barely giving Isabel a second glance.

“Nothing,” Nate said quietly. “It’s just…Emily was afraid to get on the plane.”

Max tilted his head slightly, curiosity in his eyes.

“Well, not really on the plane. She…um, she didn’t want to go to the airport.” Nate looked away in shame again, his stomach aching. “I didn’t listen to her,” he admitted. With a pang of frustration, he realized the backs of his eyes were starting to sting – all he needed was to start crying now.

“None of us listened to her,” Alyssa pointed out, smoothing Jake’s back with her hand. “It’s not Nate’s fault.”

There was a long, tense moment, then Max’s entire demeanor changed. He seemed to deflate visibly, his shoulders sagging and the rage leaving his eyes. Wordless, he walked unsteadily to the Spencer’s living room and dropped to the couch, his head in his hands.

Isabel gave Nate a sympathetic glance, then followed her brother. Nate and Alyssa followed quietly behind. In the living room, Isabel knelt before Max and pulled his hands away from his face. Gone was the anger, replaced by unparalleled grief.

“I can’t feel her anymore, Isabel,” he said in a whisper.

She reached up and touched his face and Nate felt a stab of agony deep within. In a flash of memory, he recalled the first night he’d met Liz Evans – they’d been hiding out from Annie’s father at the pod chamber. Liz had been instructed to stay home, but she’d come anyway, disobeyed orders. Max should have been upset and angry, but Nate had seen the relief on his face when he’d realized she was there – he became a new person, a whole person. Nate wasn’t sure what Max meant by saying he couldn’t feel her anymore, but he had a suspicion that there was a gigantic crater in the center of Max’s soul.

“What do you mean, Uncle Max?” Alyssa asked carefully, sitting down beside him and adjusting Jake on her lap. The child whimpered softly, unwilling to be awake so soon.

Max turned pained eyes to his niece, one hand going to his chest. “I can always feel Liz. Right here. Even half a world away, she’s with me. Inside.” He worked his mouth, then shook his head. “But not now.”

Alyssa couldn’t respond – to reply would be to put words to everyone’s worst fears.

“Max,” Isabel said bravely. “You’re not saying Liz is –”

Max shook his head vigorously. “No, I don’t think so. I would’ve…” He paused in agony, then drew in a deep breath. “I would have felt that. And I didn’t.”

Nate felt a hot wave wash over him. Max would be able to tell when Liz died. When Alyssa passed away, would Nate feel it, too? His eyes shot to her and he felt a little sick inside. He simply didn’t know how he’d deal with the loss.

“I’m sorry, Nate,” Max said.

Nate’s gaze shifted to his father.

“I didn’t mean to sound like I was accusing you. It’s just…” His voice trailed off as he struggled for words.

“I understand,” Nate said quietly. And he did understand - it was just that Max was mad with all of the horrible thoughts that had plagued him since hearing the news that Emily and Liz weren’t where they were supposed to be.

“If you know anything,” Max pleaded, “please tell me. Even if it’s bad news.”

Nate shook his head. “I don’t, Max. I just wish I had listened to her. I just wish I wouldn’t have blown her off.”

Isabel rose to her feet and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “We can’t beat ourselves up, Nate. We don’t have the time for that. Right now we have to concentrate on finding Liz and Emily, on finding who may have done this.”

Nate shuffled slightly, then glanced at Max. “You don’t think it’s possible Liz…um, left. Do you?”

Max looked like someone had smacked him across the face with a two-by-four. Nate knew why – in Max’s universe, Liz leaving him wasn’t even a possibility.

“It’s a valid question,” Isabel said uneasily, receiving a disbelieving look from her brother in return. “Max, is there any chance of that?”

The man was simply too stunned to speak. The others waited patiently, waited for him to either explode or to finally validate the question as plausible.

Finally, he let out an exasperated breath and shook his head. “No. Liz didn’t leave me.” His voice hitched on the last two words.

“Good,” Isabel said. “We won’t bring that up again.” As Max hung his head, she cast Nate a wary glance and rolled her eyes slightly, explosion averted.

Unaware of the discord around him, Jake rubbed his sleepy eyes, grinned, then climbed onto Max’s laugh. He smiled at the child, but it was forced and weak. Jake didn’t notice as he grinned widely and threw his arms around Max’s neck, laid his head on his shoulder. Relieved from the boy’s weight, Alyssa stretched her back and rubbed her swollen belly.

“Sit down,” Isabel said to Nate as she took a chair opposite the sofa. “Let’s all just sit down and calm down.”

Nate reluctantly took the chair beside hers. He wasn’t comfortable sitting – he was far to strung out to sit still.

“Good,” she said, trying to be optimistic. “Let’s take a couple of deep breaths and clear our minds.”

Max cocked his head, pursed his lips.

“Oh, I know you think it’s ridiculous,” she said. “Do it anyway.”

Collectively, they drew in a long breath and let it out. Nate thought it was a rather amusing sight and nearly wanted to laugh again. It was very possible that he was developing the urge to giggle at inappropriate times. Emma would have been horrified.

But after the third breath, he did feel better, a little calmer.

“Excellent!” Isabel said, obviously the self-appointed cheerleader of the group. “Now, where do we start?”

There was a brief silence, then Alyssa said to Max, “Well, what about your conference? Did anything strange happen there?”

He gazed across the living room at nothing. “No, not really. We kind of seemed to be at an impasse, then a couple of days ago…” His voice trailed off and a look of utter realization came to his face.

“What, Max?” Isabel asked.

“They were suddenly very agreeable.” Max looked nauseous. “But maybe they weren’t so agreeable. Maybe they only conceded so that the conference would end and they could be out of there.”

Nate felt his heart start to thump a little harder in his chest at the possibility. He imagined Max happy that negotiations had finally taken a turn for the better – only to realize it was a ruse.

“I guess it’s possible,” Isabel said carefully. “It’s a definite possibility.”

Max sat in stunned silence for a long moment, his jaw set and his eyes regaining some of the fired they’d shown when he’d first entered the bungalow. Nate knew that in his head, he was recalling events from the past week that might add credence to the theory.

“If they took them,” Alyssa said, “where would they put them?”

Max shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”

There was a heavy silence in the room. Nate felt helpless. Helpless and responsible. Even though Isabel had warned him not to get caught up in might-have-beens, he couldn’t stop himself. If he’d only listened to Emily. If only someone had gone to the airport with them…

“I could try to dreamwalk them,” Isabel said hopefully.

Max glanced at her. “Do you really think they’re sleeping right now? Abducted?”

She deflated visibly. “It’s worth a try.”

“Sure it is,” Alyssa interjected. “What’s the harm? I could even try, too, Aunt Isabel.”

Max sighed. “I don’t know. If I can’t feel Liz anymore I don’t know if you’ll be able to get through to her.”

“Max,” Isabel began. “Maybe Liz has done something to protect you. Maybe she’s turned off whatever it is that you can feel so that they can’t find you. Or something like that.”

Pure anguished showed in Max’s eyes at the thought Liz would sacrifice herself to protect him.

“Let’s try it,” Alyssa coaxed. “Where’s my purse? I have pictures we can use.”

As Isabel and Alyssa started searching for the purse, Nate felt a strange buzzing in his head. Once, he’d had to have his tonsils out and when they put him to sleep, he’d felt the same way. Buzzy. Floating. Adrift.

Zan. Remember.

An image drifted through his mind, a land of crimson sand and muted skies. The picture was foreign, but familiar all the same.

When he opened his eyes, not having realized he closed them, Isabel, Max and Alyssa were looking at him strangely. They’d frozen in place, their actions halted abruptly.

“Nate, what was that?” Alyssa asked, her eyes round with worry.

Nate shook his head, the buzzing dissipating rapidly. To clear his thoughts, he rubbed his face with the palm of his hand, then asked a question that startled every one of them.

“Who’s Zan?”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Twelve

“Nate, you know who Zan is,” Alyssa said, her voice tinged with disbelief and worry.

Nate looked at her questioningly, lost. There was absolute, stunned silence in the Spencer living room.

“You remember,” she continued, trying to bait him into recalling on his own.

At the word “remember”, Nate felt that dizzy, woozy sensation again. In his head, he saw the same scarlet shores, the same dull sky. A shiver ran through his body and he shuddered involuntarily, for this time the image was accompanied by a feeling and it wasn’t a pleasant one.

“Nathan.” Max’s voice, strong and authoritative.

Nate opened his eyes as if he’d just walked into a brightly lit room, his head still swimming from the images.

“Are you okay?”

Nate nodded weakly.

“I’m Zan,” Max reminded him. “Or at least I was in a prior life. My dupe was Zan. And you were Zan for a very short period of time. Do you remember that?”

Nate was feeling rather sick to his stomach now and set his gaze on the wool rug before the fireplace. Once upon a time he’d received a history lesson from Max on how the hybrids had been created, how there’d been eight in total, of how Max’s duplicated had been murdered by the others. Eventually, Nate had learned that he’d originally been named after Max’s past persona by Tess, a name which was forever changed once the Spencers adopted him. To him, the history was interesting but not something he thought about every day.

Alyssa was before him, touching his thick dark hair. “Baby, you’re frightening me,” she said quietly, anxious.

He looked up at her and could indeed see the fear in her eyes.

“What’s going on with you?” she asked.

He wished he could answer her, but he simply didn’t have a reason for what was happening to him. Lowering his gaze proved that Max and Isabel were equally concerned. This much Nate knew was true – he was hearing voices in his head. And that could only mean one thing.

“I think I’m going crazy,” he whispered.

There it was. He was nuts. After all, for years he’d believed he was an alien, he’d thought he’d met various other aliens, he’d believed he was being protected by a label-obsessed invisible shape-shifter and that he’d been born on another planet. Finally, the charade was crumbling and he now understood that he was certifiable.

Max was before him, the anger and ice gone from his eyes. All Nate saw there now was concern and compassion. The old Max, squatting before his chair with a comforting touch on his arm.

“Why do you think you’re crazy?” And he even managed to ask the question without cracking a smile or showing his absolute agreement.

Nate bit his lip and looked up at his wife, who nodded her head in encouragement.

“I’m…seeing things,” he said, feeling stupid as soon as the words came out of his mouth.

Max looked around the room. “What kinds of things? Where?”

Nate shook his head. “No, not here. Not in this room.” He pointed to his temple. “In here.”

Concern turned to something a little stronger in Max’s eyes. “What do you see?”

“I don’t know. Sand, I guess.”

“Sand,” Isabel repeated, her tone saying it all – they’d been born in the desert, they’d grown up in the desert, Nate had crashed in the desert. Why was sand so upsetting?

“What else?” Max prodded gently.

“Sky,” Nate said. He was having the hardest time putting words to the things he’d seen. He simply couldn’t find the words to tell them he hadn’t seen normal sky or normal sand.

“Sky?” Max asked, lifting a curious eyebrow.

“Uncle Max, do you think maybe Emily is trying to tell him where she is?” Alyssa asked, barely containing the excitement in her voice.

“Sand and sky sure narrows it down,” Isabel said without malice.

“I guess that’s the problem communicating with five-year-olds,” Max mused. “They don’t have the best means by which to give directions.” He studied his son for a moment. “Do you think that’s what’s happening? Is Emily trying to say something to you?”

Nate’s cheeks flushed slightly. “I don’t know if Emily is saying something to me…but someone is.”

Max looked perplexed and Alyssa recoiled slightly.

“What are you saying?” she asked.

Wow, this was going to sound stupid, but it had to be said anyway. “Someone is, um, talking to me,” Nate said, avoiding all eyes.

Another deafening silence, a silence that remained until Nate finally spoke.

“I knew it,” he sighed in resignation. “I’m nuts, aren’t I?”

“No,” Max said quickly, nearly patronizingly and Nate wondered if he was really considering the possibility. “You’re not crazy. What is the voice – there’s only one, right? What is the voice saying to you?”

Nate shrugged, feeling like an insect under a microscope. “Not much, really. But it’s called me Zan twice and told me to remember. That’s when I saw the sand and sky.”

Max’s expression remained pensive, but not necessarily concerned to the point where he thought Nate needed help. Isabel rose from her chair and came to stand beside her nephew. She placed a soothing hand on his shoulder.

“It’s been a rough few weeks,” she told him compassionately. “What with your mom being sick, trying to help your dad, and now this with Emily and Liz. I don’t think you’re crazy, Nate. I think you’re exhausted and stressed.”

Max nodded. “I have to agree.”

Nate didn’t like the way they were talking. He felt vulnerable and unable to help.

“I think we should still try to dreamwalk them,” Alyssa said.

“I do too,” Isabel agreed.

Max nodded. “You’re right. Alyssa, find those pictures. Nate, I want you to go lie down.”

Nate’s mouth dropped open in protest. “Max, no! I’m not going to go take a nap while all of this is going on!”

“I insist,” Max said, the authority back in his voice. “You’re not looking well, Nate. And you’re hearing things in your head. I want you to rest. When Isabel and Alyssa are done with the dreamwalk, we’ll wake you.”

“I’m not going!” Nate protested.

“You have an order,” Max said bluntly. In his eyes, Nate saw that the anger was starting to return.

“I won’t be able to sleep,” he argued weakly.

Isabel laughed lightly. “Yes you will.”

“I don’t think so. Not with everything that’s happening.”

“Oh, but I’m coming with you,” she said with a wink, reaching for his arm and pulling him to his feet.

Alyssa looked at him sympathetically while Max simply moved out of their way. Jake giggled and waved bye-bye. Isabel led Nate to the steps and together they started to climb them.

“Please, Aunt Isabel,” he pleaded. “I don’t want to do this. I want to help you guys.”

“You can’t dreamwalk,” she pointed out. “Trust me, when you wake up, you’re going to feel a lot better.”

“I’m not nuts.”

“I know you’re not,” she agreed easily, pushing open his bedroom door. “Lie down.”

Reluctant, Nate sat down on the bed, then laid all the way down when she cast him a stern glance. Immediately, he rolled over onto his side and pulled his knees up to his chest. Her eyes filling with compassion, Isabel kneeled by the bed and brushed his bangs away from his forehead.

“I don’t think you’re crazy,” she said softly. “I think you’re tired out, stressed out, and you’re not going to be of much help the way you are. You’re a brave, strong man, Nate Spencer. But all of us need to refuel once in a while.”

As she talked, she made soft, brushing motions against his forehead. Before long, he started to feel exhausted, sleepy, then everything went dark and warm…

Nate opened his eyes in wonder. Everything around him was cast in a reddish hue, making it difficult to distinguish the sky from the ground. The air was still, silent, not a bird in the sky. And yet there was a familiarity about this place.

Do you remember, Zan?

Not really afraid of his new adventure, somehow understanding it was only a dream, he rotated slowly, looking for the source of the voice. He couldn’t find it, but in the distance he saw a structure made of a shiny, polished metal. With nowhere else to go, he started walking toward it.

As often happens in dreams, he was upon the building without ever taking a step. The structure was squat and long, the sides seeming to have no entrances. He circled the building slowly, looking for a way in – or perhaps a way out. Inside, he felt a tug of remembrance. Like he’d lived here once.

Nate rounded the building and found a yawing opening, nothing more than a plank lowered from the side of the building. Since it was a dream and he couldn’t be harmed, he walked up the ramp. Instinct told him to turn left once he was inside, then right. He followed his intuition, moving slowly but without panic through the hallways of the building. The halls themselves were identical to the outside, with no obvious doors of any kind.

As he turned right, he saw a rectangle of light coming from one side of the hallway. He felt sort of happy about that, like he’d found something he’d lost long ago. His pace quickened and he jogged to the open door, a smile on his face. When he reached the doorway, he pulled up short, no longer so certain about his whereabouts.

Inside the room sat a small blond woman, young and very pretty, her hair long and curled loosely. She had beautiful blue eyes – his eyes. Though her expression was kind, he got the impression that she could be anything but.

“Do you remember, Zan?” the woman asked, her voice echoing in the hollow room. Before he could ask her what he was supposed to recall, she shifted her gaze to the opposite side of the room.

Fear struck Nate in the chest and he back-pedaled toward the hallway. The other side of the room was barred, the scene behind the bars anything but pleasant. Poor creatures, some of them maimed beyond aid were pleading and clawing for his help. A foul odor filled he air, a scent of death and sickness. Nate wanted out of the dream as fast as he could move, but when he tried to step backward, he found the entrance had slammed shut.

The woman was looking at him with regret. Nate’s eyes fell to her lap, where she was holding a small child with black hair and blue eyes.

It was the same child Nate had seen tortured in his dreams so long ago.

“Oh, no,” he breathed, the air catching in his chest. His eyes shot to the woman, who had a single tear rolling down her cheek. “Why?” he demanded. She didn’t answer and he couldn’t help but look back to the baby on her lap.

But the boy was gone and in her place was Emily…

Nate was suddenly awake, his clothes soaked with sweat. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel it at every pulse point in his body. For one terrifying moment, he couldn’t remember where he was, then his eyes focused on Alyssa squatting near the side of the bed. There were tears in her dark eyes.

“It didn’t work,” she choked out. “Aunt Isabel and I can’t reach them.”

“I know,” Nate breathed hoarsely, clutching a fist to his hammering heart. “You can’t reach them because they’re not on earth anymore.”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Thirteen

Their expressions were identical, father and son – lost, stunned, somewhat spooked.

They sat side by side on the couch, their postures the same, their eyes fixed on nothingness. Nate’s bombshell had totally thrown the group for a loop – there hadn’t been doubt in any of their minds that they could rescue Emily and Liz once they were located. But now that they’d been located in another solar system…

Jake sat contentedly on a blanket on the floor before the silent fireplace, playing with some toys Alyssa had retrieved from his travel crib. He had always been a good baby, but it seemed as though he sensed the discord in the air – he’d been exceptionally well-behaved and self-occupied. Nate eyed him with a twinge, images of imprisoned toddlers still fresh in his mind.

“Could it be a mistake?” Isabel ventured weakly. “Are we sure that what you saw wasn’t just a bad dream?”

Nate shook his head somberly. “It was too real.”

“What did you see?” Max asked. Of course, Nate had already filled them in, but it was simply too much to believe.

“A prison. Red skies and shores,” Nate said tiredly.

Max reached over and took Nate’s hand in his, startling him slightly. “Is this what you saw?” he asked carefully.

Nate almost asked him what he was talking about, then he felt a stirring in his brain. A split second later, he saw images similar to the ones he’d seen in his dream. The pictures were gone as quickly as they’d come and Nate’s eyes opened wide in surprise.

“Yes, sort of,” he told Max. Then his brow furrowed. “You’ve been there, too?”

Max shook his head as he withdrew his hand. “No.” He looked across the room at Isabel, defeat and apology in his eyes. “I got those images long time ago.” He drew in a deep breath and returned his gaze to Nate. “From your mother.”

Nate looked away, unable to look at his father at this moment. He’d been vague about the woman in the prison, for several reasons. First, the only clear image he’d ever received of Tess Harding was the one that had been created by an enemy years ago now. In the timeline that he’d altered, the malevolent shapeshifter had taunted him by turning herself into a likeness of his birth mother. There was no telling if the image he’d seen was true or not – the woman in the dream could have been an accurate depiction of Tess and yet it could also have been a repressed memory of the shapeshifter that had conjured the likeness. Secondly, he wasn’t sure how the others would react to knowing that Tess had appeared to him in some way, if indeed she had.

Because, most of all, Tess Harding was dead. Tess Harding had been dead for nearly twenty-five years.

“What do we do?” Alyssa asked quietly from her chair. She looked tired.

They all looked at one another in turn, no one having the right answer.

“I’m going to call Michael,” Isabel announced. “He should know what’s going on and we need all the help we can get.”

“Good idea,” Max agreed, scrubbing the stubble of his beard with his fingers. The anger was gone out of his eyes – he appeared shell-shocked.

Nate’s blue eyes drifted to the clock. It was noon. “Shit,” he muttered.

Max looked his way. “What?”

“I’m supposed to be at the store.”

“Then go,” Isabel said.

Nate looked at her incredulously. “Are you kidding? Getting Liz and Emily back is more important than selling minnows to the local fishermen!” There was an edge of anger in his tone.

“Part of getting them back,” Max began calmly, “is keeping our cover. Your dad doesn’t know about us, remember?”

“He’s right,” Alyssa said.

Nate whirled toward her, snorting in disbelief.

“Nate, if you don’t go, your dad’s going to think something has happened,” she reasoned.

“Al, something has happened!” he retorted.

“You know your responsibilities,” Max said, still very much in control of his emotions, cool almost. “When we have a breakthrough, we’re going to come for you, Nate. For now, you have to do this.”

Nate blinked a couple of times, still not believing his ears, then glanced at each of them in turn. They were serious. Snorting in disgust, he pushed himself from the couch and left without saying goodbye.

As he drove to the store, he felt angry in his heart, sick in his soul. His baby sister and step mom had been abducted to another world – a world that only he had ever been to – and he was being banished to the world of fishing tackle and firewood. The whole thing was just preposterous.

Of course, Nate knew in his soul that this was the right thing to do. But he allowed himself ten minutes of irrational anger, allowed himself to lash out internally at everyone else around him. What else was there to do when nothing could be done?

At the store, he had to paste on a smile and act calm as he went in to relieve his father for lunch. “Hey, dad,” he said. “Sorry I’m late. I went to take a nap and overslept.”

Jonathan only chuckled and shook his head as he hopped down from the stool behind the counter. The fact that the man was sitting was a good indication that business had been slow. As he rounded the counter, Nate had a stab of anxiety that he was going home for lunch and would stumble upon the pow wow in his living room.

“So, what’s for lunch today?” Nate asked as he picked up the clipboard to check his duties for the afternoon.

“Errands,” Jonathan grunted. “Bills to pay, the like.”

“Oh? You want me to do them for you?” Internally, Nate wanted the answer to be no – if he did the bank run, then Jonathan might go home for lunch. But he had to offer – because he’d been raised to be polite and do such things.

“Nah, I got it,” Jonathan said, hanging his shop apron over a nail inside the store room door. “I need to catch up with a few people anyway.”

“Okay. Have a good lunch.” Nate waved as his father exited the shop, then he craned his neck as he watched the man back out of the parking lot.

Once he was gone, Nate began surveillance of the store. There was no one in the building, so he quickly pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed the familiar Boston number. While the phone rang, he kept an eye on the door, prepared to hang up if he had to.

The phone was answered on the fourth ring, a dead, monotone voice. Nate cringed – it was one of the twins, once again camped out in the wrong home.

“Hey, Justin, it’s Nate,” he said, trying to sound somewhat happy to hear his cousin on the other end of the line.

“I’m Jason,” the twin said.

“Of course you are,” Nate sighed. There was no point in making conversation with this drone. “Is Jeremy around?”

“He’s downstairs working on his car.”

“Could you get him please?” In his mind, Nate imagined Jason schlepping nonchalantly down the steps, stopping to stare blankly at a spider crawling by, forgetting what he was supposed to be doing and leaving Nate hanging on the other end of the line. “Can you tell him it’s important?” he added.

“Okay. Just a minute.”

Nate heard the phone settle onto the coffee table with no particular sense of hurry. His brow furrowed – he would never understand those two. Never. Not in a million years or across a million galaxies.

“Hello?” came Jeremy’s breathless voice suddenly, causing Nate to jump.

“Hey, Jeremy.”

“Oh, Nate! How’s it going?” He sounded surprised that it was Nate on the phone and Nate had to wonder if Jason had left out that vital detail.

“Not so hot, buddy. I need your help.”

Jeremy listened intently on the other end of the line while Nate filled him in on the disappearance of Liz and Emily, on Max’s arrival in Chautauqua and of the dream that Nate had had early that morning.

“Oh, God,” Jeremy said. “What can I do to help?”

Nate glanced at the door to make sure no one was coming. “I didn’t tell them something important about the dream,” he confessed.

“Oh?” Surprise in the young man’s tone.

“Jeremy, I think the woman in the prison might have been my mother.”

There was silence on the other end of the line and when Jeremy finally spoke, he sounded as though he had struggled for the right words to say. “Nate, her death was recent and still very fresh in your mind. It’s only natural that you should –”

“Not that mother.”

There was no end to Jeremy’s silence this time. Nate had stunned him into speechlessness.

“That’s why I need your help,” Nate explained.

“What can I do?” he asked tentatively.

“Well, I remembered that you can communicate with the dead.”

From hundreds of miles away, Nate could practically feel Jeremy shudder.

“Yes, that’s true,” he admitted reluctantly. “But it’s not like picking up a phone and dialing whomever I want.”

Nate’s hopes started to deflate. “Are you saying that you’ve never been able to single out someone and contact them?”

“No, I’m saying that most times I can’t.” Jeremy sighed softly. “I’ll give you an example. One time I really wanted to talk to Houdini.”

“Houdini?” Nate couldn’t help himself from laughing.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Jeremy said, somewhat embarrassed. “I was ten and I thought all that escapism stuff was pretty cool – especially since that dude didn’t have any alien powers to help him out. At least not that we know of.” There was a brief pause while Jeremy pondered the possibility. “Anyway, I tried forever to get Houdini to come to me and the bastard just wouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I guess he didn’t want to talk.” Jeremy drew in a deep breath. “But there have been others, Nate, who have come when I’ve called them. Is that what you’re asking me to do?”

“Yes,” Nate confirmed, the word coming out with just a hint of pleading.

“To what end?” Jeremy asked frankly. “Connecting with the dead isn’t always a picnic, Nate. It might not be a very pleasant experience. What do you hope to get from her?”

“At least an answer that she really is dead.”

“You don’t believe she is?” There was surprise in the young man’s tone.

Nate shrugged. “I don’t know. She had mind control powers – who’s to say that she didn’t make me have that dream? How do we know that she isn’t the one who look Liz and Em?”

“Hmm,” Jeremy replied pensively. “For the record, I believe she’s dead. It’s been a long time for her not to have resurfaced. And like I just said, even if she’s dead, she still might not come forward and you still won’t know if she’s alive or not.”

Nate rubbed his eyes from the stress of the day. “I’m desperate, Jeremy.”

“Okay. Of course I will help you, but I just wanted you to understand that this might not be the answer you’re looking for.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll get some stuff together and see if I can get a late flight.” Jeremy paused, then said, “I think perhaps you’re overlooking one possibility.”

Nate’s eyes shifted to the door as a customer walked in. “What’s that?”

“You’ve assumed that Tess Harding is either dead or the bad guy. Have you considered that she’s dead, but trying to help?”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Fourteen

Finding a cabin in which to hide Max away had not been easy. The final push of tourist season was in full swing and it took some finagling and favor-pulling for Nate to secure a small cottage that sat not on the lake, but a mile away from it. Its very location had made it unattractive to other tourists, but Max Evans was anything but the ordinary visitor. Nate was relieved to finally find someone willing to loan out the cabin because his next option was putting the king of Antar up in the tree house.

As Nate was closing up the store for the evening, his cell phone rang and he immediately recognized Alyssa’s cell as the incoming number.

“Daddy’s here,” she said.

Nate glanced at his watch – Michael Guerin must’ve flown in from New York to make such good time. Either that or he had driven quickly. Or he’d figured out how to teleport.

“Good,” Nate said, twisting the combination lock on the small safe in his father’s storage-room office. “Did you tell him where to find the others?”

“Yeah. I’m on my way over there now,” she said, her voice sounding tired.

Nate paused, his brow furrowed slightly. “Are you feeling okay? You sound exhausted.”

“I’ll be alright,” she said solemnly.

“I’m sure everyone would understand if you wanted to stay –”

“Not on your life, Nate.”

He knew better than to argue with her, but he was genuinely concerned about her and the baby. He knew that if his insides were twisted into a ball, hers must be as well. “Okay,” he relented. “I have a few more things to do, then I’ll be on my way as well. Is Jake with you?”

“No, I left him with your dad.” Alyssa chuckled softly. “He thinks we’re on a romantic interlude.”

Nate stopped short, his cheeks flushing. He and his father weren’t ones to discuss their “romantic interludes.” As a matter of fact, sex was rarely discussed at all in the Spencer household. And knowing Alyssa’s tact in such matters, Nate could only imagine what she’d said to his father.

“I can feel you blushing through the phone,” she laughed lightly.

“Al,” he began, scratching his head like he did when he was uncomfortable. “My dad and I don’t talk about that stuff.”

“Oh, chill, worry wart. I didn’t say anything that would embarrass you.”

He grimaced slightly – his list of things he considered embarrassing was much longer than hers would ever be.

“I’m almost there,” she said. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Okay, love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Nate hurried around the store, flipping off the remaining lights and double-checking the locks on the doors. As he stepped into the cool night air, he shivered slightly, the night damp and chilly. One twist of the key in the deadbolt and he was on his way.

As he rounded the building, however, he let out a screech that was neither subtle nor manly. Falling back a few steps, he realized that the visitor who had scared the living daylights out of him was laughing.

“That’s not funny,” Nate said, his tone anything but amused.

Jeremy Ramirez found it amusing, however. His grin, a younger replica of his father’s, displayed white teeth in the moonlit night. “It looked pretty funny to me,” he retorted.

Nate fumbled on his key ring for the keys to his truck. “Jesus, Jeremy. What are you doing lurking in the shadows?”

He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Can’t help it – it’s in my genes.” He was still grinning, his hands shoved smugly into the pockets of his cargo pants.

Nate blinked a couple of times, then motioned for Jeremy to get into his truck. “You’re an ass,” he said without malice.

As they backed out of the gravel lot of the store, Nate felt some of his fury slipping away. Deep inside, he was happy to see Jeremy. Sometimes he felt like the young man was the only one of the whole clan who really understood how Nate felt about things. Yes, Max and Isabel were painfully supportive, but Jeremy was of the same generation and if not for circumstance, he and Nate would have probably grown up as closely as Max and Michael had.

“Seriously,” Jeremy said from the passenger seat. “You should have seen your face. I didn’t know you could open your eyes so wide.”

Nate glanced at him as he pulled onto the dirt road that would lead them to the cabin. “You’re pretty satisfied with yourself, aren’t you?”

“Not to mention that girlie scream.” Jeremy gave a little laugh. “That will scare our enemies away for sure.”

Nate sighed and decided to accept the gentle ribbing without further rebuke. They rode in silence for a while, Nate waiting for the next barb and not getting it.

“Jackass is in town,” he finally said.

Jeremy looked at him curiously. “Michael?”

Nate nodded.

Jeremy gave another little laugh. It was pretty much common knowledge that Nate and Michael had declared peace long time ago…at least to the outside world. They might smile and shake hands like friendly relatives on the outside, but in smaller circles their opinions of one another had not changed much.

“He called you dickless the other day,” Jeremy informed his cousin.

Nate shrugged. He’d been called worse. “How can I be dickless when I keep having kids with his daughter?”

“Maybe he’s hoping they’re not yours.” Another toothy smile.

“Funny,” Nate mumbled.

The road turned bumpy and pothole-filled and Jeremy grabbed the door handle to steady himself. “Sweet Jesus. Where is this place?”

“I could only get a cabin out in the woods.”

Jeremy’s head turned as he followed something along the side of the road. “Dude, I’m pretty sure I just saw the Blair Witch back there.”

Many times, Nate was grateful for Jeremy’s unflappable good nature. Tonight, however, the constant cheerfulness was wearing thin.

“Nate.”

Jeremy’s tone had softened, surprising Nate into glancing at him.

“I know you’re worried. So am I. But you need to loosen up. You’re wound up like a damn spring.”

Nate worked his mouth, squinted into the distance at what appeared to be the lights at the cabin.

“In that cabin up there,” Jeremy began and Nate immediately remembered that his friend had better night vision than most humans. “In that cabin up there, we’ve got the best alien force on the planet. There’s nothing that group of people can’t do – including rescuing Liz and Emily.”

“Yeah?” Nate deadpanned. “Could they keep them from being abducted?”

Jeremy frowned. “Pull the truck over.”

Nate scowled at him.

“I’m serious,” Jeremy said levelly. “Pull the truck over or I will and it won’t be pleasant.”

Nate hated the power trip – literally – but he knew that if he didn’t pull over, Jeremy would use his powers to stop the truck, probably with a jolt. Sighing in defeat, Nate stopped the truck on the narrow path.

“You say you want help,” Jeremy began, in full lecture mode. “You say you want to contact your mother, but you’re such a friggin’ ball of skepticism and negativity, how do you ever expect to open your mind up enough to accomplish that, huh?”

“Jeremy,” Nate began evenly. “My baby sister and step mother have been abducted – to another planet. The last time I checked, United Airlines wasn’t booking intergalactic flights. On top of it, my supposedly deceased mother might be knocking on my subconscious. I think I have a right to be a little tense.”

“No, brother. You had a right to be tense. Now you have a responsibility to get a grip on yourself and find a solution to the situation. And I can tell you this – blaming anyone for Liz and Emily’s abduction is only going to be counterproductive.” Jeremy paused, gave Nate the once-over. “That includes blaming yourself.”

Nate felt a small wave of guilt. Jeremy was right. Then he looked at his cousin like he was more than just alien. “Why are you so damn insightful?”

“Good genes. My dad when to Cornell, you know.” Big grin. “Let’s get moving, you’re holding us up.”

Nate rolled his eyes and put the truck into gear. Within a few minutes, they were pulling up beside Jonathan’s truck, which Alyssa had borrowed. As they got out of the truck, Nate felt like all of his movements were amplified in the quiet night air and cringed slightly – they all needed lessons in stealth.

The inside of the cabin was cozy compared to outside. As Nate and Jeremy entered, four pairs of hybrid eyes and one pair of human ones greeted them. Nate was surprised to see Maria Guerin in the mix and it appeared that everyone else was surprised to see Jeremy. Isabel was on her feet immediately, clutching her son against her. Jeremy rolled his eyes to the ceiling and silently accepted her mother-henning.

“I didn’t know you were coming,” she said, pulling back to hold him at arm’s length.

“I didn’t either until earlier when Nate called,” he said.

Nate glanced at him quickly, his blue eyes wide. He didn’t want the others to know about why he’d called Jeremy, about the little séance they were planning for later.

“I mean, I wanted to be here to help,” Jeremy clarified.

Isabel hugged him again. “You’re such a good boy!” she gushed.

“I’m a man now, Mom,” he said patiently.

While Jeremy tried to escape his mother’s vice-like grip, Nate’s eyes drifted to Michael. The man seemed to be waiting passively enough for the family reunion to abate, but Nate saw something in the man’s eyes – Michael Guerin was not a moron and he could tell that Jeremy was there for more than just adding strength to their numbers.

Or maybe Nate was becoming paranoid as well.

Breaking gaze with his father-in-law, Nate walked over to the faded couch and sat down by Alyssa, who looked entirely drained. He put a hand to her belly and didn’t like what he felt – the baby was restless, but not in a playful way. The child could feel the discord around her and it was affecting her well-being. Nate frowned slightly and put his arm around Alyssa, kissed her on the side of the head.

“Well,” Isabel said, “I guess we should get down to it.” She cleared her throat and glanced at Max.

It wasn’t until she did so that Nate really noticed his father. Max was sitting in an overstuffed chair, his dark eyes fixed on the floor. It seemed like the life had been sucked out of him since the last time Nate had seen him. Max’s cheeks appeared sunken, his eyes dull. He suddenly looked like a man ten years his senior.

Something had happened.

Anxiety kicking into full gear, Nate glanced at Michael, at an extremely fretful Maria, then finally at Isabel. “What happened?” he managed.

Isabel sized up her brother, then decided to speak for him. “Max got a phone call this evening.”

Nate took a quick glance at Max, who flinched slightly at the retelling. “From whom?”

“The kidnappers,” Isabel said.

Nate felt an overwhelming sense of dread boiling in his stomach, a sense of foreboding that couldn’t be denied. “Who was it?”

“Some old friends,” Michael interjected, a hint of accusation in his tone. “You see, Junior, you can change the past. But you can’t change your enemies.”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Fifteen

Nate could still see her face. All of her faces, actually. All except the one that mattered.

She had been Annie O’Donnell. And Tess Harding. And Christie Carmichael/Susan Moore. But she had never shown her true self, what her face really looked like.

She had been his tormentor, the end to all of those he loved.

She had been evil.

And Michael Guerin was right – Nate may have gone back and corrected his mistakes in delivering them to her, but he had done nothing to deal with the root of the problem. She was still an enemy – in that altered time line or this one.

It would have been so easy for her to shapeshift into a security guard to a counter attendant and convinced Liz to follow her for some reason. Maybe there’d been a bomb scare on the plane. Maybe there had been an urgent message from her husband. Anything that would have made Liz quietly and calmly take her daughter by the hand and follow a complete stranger. Maybe she’d even driven the car rental shuttle bus, waiting until Liz and Emily were aboard then driving them to their fate.

Nate put a hand over his mouth and gagged back his dinner.

“I see you remember her,” Michael said bluntly.

In his head, Nate saw Aubrey disintegrating into a pile of dust and blowing away in the cold Boston air. Yes, he remembered the person who had put them there.

“Don’t pick on him,” Isabel said to Michael.

Michael pursed his lips and started to argue.

“It’s not his fault,” she said, cutting him off. “He had no way of knowing that this was going to happen.”

“He knew what she was made of. He’s the only one who remembers what happened.” Michael jabbed an accusing finger in Nate’s direction.

“Leave him alone,” Max said quietly, staring at the floor.

“I’m not going to,” Michael argued. “We could have taken care of that bitch a long time ago if Junior here had just – ”

“I said leave him alone!” Max’s words were so abruptly loud that half of the people in the cabin jumped. “It’s not his goddamned fault, Michael.”

There was a stunned silence in the cabin, wide eyes all around. Eventually Max returned his gaze to the carpet. Always the bravest when it came to her brother’s uncharacteristic outbursts, Isabel crossed the room and sat down on the arm of his chair. Without condescending in any way, she put an arm around his shoulders and gave him a reassuring squeeze.

“If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine,” Max said, his voice once again quiet. “I left the conference. I walked away from the table. It was me they were angry with.”

Nate felt a stab of remorse. Max had left that conference to be with him while Emma was slowly slipping away.

“You went back to the conference,” Isabel reminded Max carefully.

He nodded. “I did. By then I think the damage was done.” He drew in a deep breath. “When I returned, they weren’t interested in negotiating any more. They more or less rejected everything I put on the table, then they just called the whole thing off, said they weren’t looking for concessions at this time.” He frowned. “I guess they really weren’t.”

“I don’t understand,” Maria said, her fingers fidgeting with her necklace. Nate noticed for the first time that her makeup was rather garish, even for the outlandish person she was. Then he realized what it was – stage makeup. She’d left a show to be here. “I don’t understand why they’d want Liz. She’s just…human.” She said the last word with utter confusion.

“She is Uncle Max’s wife,” Alyssa offered, not sounding confident. “Maybe it was a way to get to him.”

Jeremy looked sympathetically at his uncle before he spoke. “Maybe it wasn’t Liz they wanted.”

A dread-filled silence weighed heavily in the room.

Emily.

Max clenched his eyes tightly and ran his hands through his hair. Nate’s heart dropped to his toes. All of those years Liz refused to have children with Max – she’d been right in assuming that someday something bad was going to happen to their baby.

“What do we do?” Maria asked, her eyes moving from one alien to another.

“What can we do?” Isabel countered. “They’re up there. We’re down here.”

“We don’t even know if they survived the trip,” Michael said.

As Max flinched visibly, Maria gasped and smacked Michael on the arm.

“Jesus Christ, Michael! Have a little compassion!” she chided.

“I’m only stating a fact,” he said glumly. “And unfortunately that’s what we have to deal with right now, as ugly as the facts may be.”

“Michael’s right,” Isabel agreed solemnly, giving her brother’s back a quick, circular caress.

“Tess survived the trip,” Maria pointed out indignantly. “Twice!”

“Tess was a hybrid,” Michael replied.

“Well – Emily’s a hybrid, of sorts.” Maria’s words had lost conviction.

“And Liz is not.” Michael’s words may have seemed cruel, but Nate detected a hint of sadness in eyes.

“Liz isn’t quite human anymore, either,” Isabel said.

“That’s true,” Jeremy said hopefully. “She could have survived.”

“Only Nate didn’t see her in his vision,” Alyssa added sadly. “Only Emily.”

“Dreams aren’t literal,” Nate told her. “Just because I didn’t see Liz doesn’t mean she isn’t there and completely fine.” Inside, there was a twisting of guilt at not mentioning the appearance of Tess in his dreams.

“If it was a dream,” Isabel countered. “Was it a dream? Was it a vision? Or was it a mindwarp?”

A warm rush of panic skipped over Nate’s skin. The one secret that he and Liz shared was their mindwarping abilities. Of course, Max and Alyssa knew, but no one else.

“Who would mindwarp me?” Nate asked his aunt incredulously.

Max lifted his head slightly, eyeing his son. Nate could practically read his thoughts – Liz may have mindwarped him.

“I don’t know,” Isabel answered. “No one ever said our gifts are race-specific. We know that Tess was the only one of us who could mindwarp, but we don’t know if there are others out there who can as well.”

“This is getting us nowhere,” Michael interjected impatiently. “Nothing is resolving the issue that they’re up there and we’re here.”

“Well,” Alyssa began slowly. “How did they get up there?”

There was another silence in the room as everyone pondered the question. It was a good one, with no easy answer.

“Maybe that’s our first line of business,” Isabel decided. “We need to figure out just how they got Liz and Emily off the planet. Maybe we can use the same method they did.”

Nate’s eyes were round. Never did he think his alien status would require him to leave the planet. It was all too surreal, all too science fiction for him. He looked toward the window, toward the night sky – was it possible that he could visit those stars? Of course, he knew that he already had, but he’d been just an infant when he’d returned to earth and remembered little of it. It was like someone else had lived that experience.

“Maybe we couldn’t survive the method they used,” Michael was saying when Nate tuned back in. “How do we know it’s not a trap and that it might kill all of us?”

Isabel shrugged. “We don’t know, Michael. We don’t know anything until we start searching for answers.”

“So, when we do find out how they did it, who goes first?” Michael’s eyes landed on Nate.

Mentally, Nate lifted a middle finger in his father-in-law’s direction.

“We can figure that out later,” Isabel said to Michael, oblivious to his barb against Nate. “Right now, we need to pool our resources, find out all we can.”

“How do we do that?” Maria asked nervously.

“Aubrey,” Nate replied simply.

Within seconds, Aubrey was standing beside Maria, who jumped, startled.

“Jesus!” she screeched. “I hate when you do that.”

“I apologize,” Aubrey said passively.

“We’re going to need your help,” Nate said to his protector.

Aubrey nodded once. There was no point in rehashing their conversation as she’d been in the room for the whole thing, invisible to the naked eye.

“And Jackson, too,” Max said, offering up his protector.

The man appeared by the door – he was wearing an Armani suit and a pair of dark sunglasses, even though it was night.

Maria shuddered and started glancing around the room as if there were unseen aliens everywhere.

“Is it a good idea to give up your protectors?” Alyssa asked warily.

“We’ll be fine,” Max answered for both himself and his son.

Anyone in the room could read Max’s expression – if Liz and Emily were gone, he’d rather be dead anyway.

Nate pushed the thought out of his mind and turned to Aubrey. “You know your mission,” he said.

She nodded. “I can do this alone, sir. I’ll get back with you in the morning. You should go home where it’s safe.”

Nate cocked his head slightly to the side, an amused look on his face. Odd that Aubrey understood the concept of “home”, and that she’d deemed the Spencer bungalow as being safe.

“We’ve secured this dwelling as well,” she said, exchanging a glance with Jackson. “You will all be safe here until we return.”

“So, that’s it?” Michael asked gruffly. “We all camp out and wait?”

“For now,” Isabel agreed. “Aubrey and Jackson can get answers faster than we can. Then when we have a clue, we’ll decide what to do.”

Michael rolled his eyes and sort of threw his hands up in the air. He was not a man of inaction.

Max sighed and looked at Nate. “Go home,” he said softly. “Get some rest.” His eyes shifted to Alyssa. “Take care of your daughter.”

The meaning of his words was not lost on them and a tear sprang to Alyssa’s eyes as she curved her arm over her abdomen.

“The king has spoken,” Michael muttered.

The group disbanded, with Jeremy walking out with Nate and Alyssa. Nate helped her into Jonathan’s truck, then made sure she was on her way before turning to his cousin.

“When can we do this?” he asked, as unwilling to wait for answers as his father-in-law.

Jeremy shrugged. “Whenever you want.”

“Come home with me.” Nate glanced at the cabin, then jerked open the door to his truck and shoved Jeremy inside. “Before someone sees you leave.”

Hastily, they were on the road, leaving the cabin and turmoil behind them.

“When we get to my house, go to the tree house,” Nate said. “I’ll go in to make sure Alyssa and Jake are okay, then I’ll meet you there. Do you remember where the tree house is?”

Jeremy grinned. “Of course. And don’t forget I can practically see in the dark.”

Nate glanced at him. “Right.”

At the Spencer bungalow, Jeremy departed for the tree house and Nate quietly opened the front door to the house. It was after two in the morning by now and the house should have been dark and quiet.

But it wasn’t.

Dressed in a robe with a cup of coffee before him, Jonathan Spencer sat at the dining room table, watching the door. Nate suddenly felt guilty, like he’d just broken curfew.

“Hi, Dad,” he said carefully.

“Come in,” Jonathan encouraged. “We need to talk.”

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Sixteen

Nate shuffled self-consciously to the dining room doorway, where he shoved his hands into his pockets and tried to avoid his father’s gaze.

“No, come in,” Jonathan said, his tone friendly and yet still authoritative.

Nate took a couple of steps closer.

“Sit down, Nate,” the man said bluntly.

Warily, Nate pulled out a chair and slid into it, though his posture was anything but relaxed. Silently, he watched Jonathan take a long sip from his coffee mug. The elder Spencer was not a man to be up in the middle of the night – he was definitely a go-to-bed-at-nine-get-up-at-four kind of person. Nate should have been alarmed that his father was up so late, but something in his calm movements led Nate to believe that nothing was really “wrong”…but something was definitely up.

After an uncomfortable period of silence, Jonathan met Nate’s eyes squarely, nearly making Nate cringe and look away. He knew better, however – he had been raised to meet peoples’ eyes when being addressed.

“Nate, did I raise you to be an honest man?” Jonathan asked.

Nate swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

“Did I ever lead you to believe that I’m of limited intelligence?”

“No, sir.” In his head, Nate was twelve years old again, being punished for helping a friend egg a neighbor’s house on Halloween.

Jonathan sipped his coffee again. “Then may I ask you why it is you thought that I wouldn’t notice all of the strange goings on around here lately?”

Nate looked at the floor, his mind pushing the guilt aside and desperately grasping for an excuse. Of course, his silence alone was enough to confirm that there were indeed unusual behaviors of late.

“I’ll fill in the blanks for you,” Jonathan offered. “Your pregnant wife hauled herself out of this house after dark, with an excuse that to me wasn’t quite believable.”

Nate cringed. He wasn’t really sure he wanted to know what excuse she’d made up.

“Then you don’t come home after the shop is closed.”

Nate wanted to lie. He wanted to say that he and Alyssa had wanted to spend the evening together, but he couldn’t since Jonathan had subtly reminded him that he’d been raised to speak the truth.

“I go to check on your Aunt Isabel to see if she’d like to have some tea with me and what did I find?”

Nate glanced up, then away quickly.

“Do you know what I found, Nate?”

“No, sir.”

“Her room was empty – and the window was open.” There was a tinge of disbelief in Jonathan’s tone. “Can you explain to me why a guest in my house felt the need to escape through a window?”

Nate cringed again. An uncharacteristic slip-up from a woman he’d admired for being able to manipulate her way out of any situation.

Jonathan sat back in his chair, sipped from his cup again. “Then I started thinking.”

Nate glanced at him, curious.

“I started thinking about things your mother had tried to tell me.”

With a jolt, Nate’s heart started to thump in his chest and he had no way of hiding his surprise. He mused that on the outside he must have looked like a frightened rabbit.

“And then I started adding things together,” Jonathan continued. “Especially after I saw Max Evans heading out of town today.”

Nate hadn’t considered that Jonathan would run across Max while returning to the store from lunch. All of their devious planning, only to be busted in the end.

“Nathan.”

Nate met his father’s gaze and wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t read the emotions behind them.

“I don’t want to know what’s going on,” Jonathan stated bluntly. “But I do want you to know that I realize something is going on. So stop the pussy-footing around.”

Nate tried to smile but couldn’t.

“Take care of whatever business is at hand without the cloak and dagger.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Nate?”

“Yes?”

“Be the man I taught you to be.”

At that, Nate sat up a little straighter in his chair, forced himself to look his father in the eye. Jonathan looked somewhat pleased at the gesture.

“Now I’m going to bed.”

Nate nodded and watched the man rise from his seat somewhat stiffly, not a young man anymore. As he passed Nate’s chair, he gave him a silent pat on the shoulder and shuffled off to his bedroom.

For a long few minutes, Nate sat in stunned silence in the dining room. Jonathan had come as close as he ever would to acknowledging that Nate wasn’t of this earth. And that seemed to be okay.

The clock in the living room chimed and Nate glanced up at it – it was already quarter of three in the morning. Not wanting to waste another minute, he sprinted out of the front door and across the lawn, his shoes leaving footprints in the dew-laden grass. The moon hung large in the sky and lighted his path to the tree house.

“I was beginning to wonder what happened to you,” Jeremy said, poking his head out to watch Nate ascend the ladder. “I was starting to think my nuts would freeze off if I stayed here much longer.”

“Sorry,” Nate apologized as he plopped onto the wooden floor of the house. “Family business. So, let’s get started.”

Jeremy raised an eyebrow. “Eager, aren’t we?”

“Wouldn’t you be? How do we do this?”

Jeremy shrugged lightly. “I try to contact her. If I find her, then I bring you in. But remember, I can’t guarantee she’ll want to talk. She could be off plotting against me with Houdini.”

Nate snorted a laugh. “Okay, I understand. Just give it a try.”

Jeremy closed his eyes and drew in a long breath. He’d barely finished exhaling when his eyes popped back open.

“What?” Nate asked.

“It seems you’re not the only one who’s eager,” Jeremy replied. Then his expression fell to one of sympathy. “Tess Harding is definitely dead and wants very badly to speak with you. I’m sorry, Nate. But I told you this might not be pleasant.”

“What are you talking about?”

Before the words were out of Nate’s mouth, Jeremy had reached over and placed his hand on Nate’s shoulder, right where it met his neck. Nate felt a sudden stab in his brain, an unbearably sharp jab, then his world went dark…

When Nate opened his eyes, he found himself in a void, everything around him silent and dark. He didn’t feel threatened or uncomfortable, however – he felt at peace, sort of like he was floating.

Zan…

At the sound of the word, he looked around quickly for the source. Shortly, he felt another presence with him though he couldn’t see it.

My baby boy.

“Hello?” Nate called, trying to free his vision so that he could see his visitor. “Where are you? I can’t see you.”

I have no form, that is why you can’t see me.

With a sense of gloom, Nate realized he wasn’t really hearing her either – she was speaking into his brain, like she had before.

I can take a form, however, if that makes you more comfortable.

“Please.”

Suddenly he was with a small blond woman with brilliant blue eyes. His eyes. “Is that better?” she asked.

Nate nodded, trying to soak in every detail of her face. “Are you my mother?”

“Yes.”

“Have you been trying to contact me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you trying to harm Liz and Emily? Or any of us, for that matter?”

She seemed taken aback. “No. Why would I?”

Why would she hurt Alex Whitman? From what the others had said, Tess Harding had always had an agenda. Even stuck between the living world and the land of the dead, Nate still found himself unable to be that blunt.

It didn’t seem to matter – she understood fully anyway. “I’m dead,” she stressed. “Nothing that happens in your world matters to me anymore.”

“Then why are you contacting me? Why are you trying to tell me where Liz and Emily are?” Unless it was a trap.

She looked away from him for a moment, then back into his eyes. “I did some bad things when I was alive, Zan. In the end, the person who showed me mercy was Liz. She doesn’t deserve what is to come her way.”

“Are they really on Antar?”

“Yes.”

“Is Liz still alive?”

“Yes.”

“And Emily?”

“Yes.”

“Why are they there? Why would someone take them there?”

“To get back at Max. To put his heir on the throne.”

Nate withdrew slightly. “But I’m his heir.”

She shook her head. “No, Khivar rejected you as the heir many years ago.”

“Because I was too human.” Nate had heard the story before. “But I have the seal.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’ve seen it.”

“When was the last time you saw it?”

Nate blinked a couple of times, tried to remember. With a jolt, he realized the last time he saw it was after Max and the others had perished – in that other timeline.

He hadn’t seen it in five years.

“I don’t understand,” he said in confusion.

“Either your seal is lying dormant, Zan, or it has died.”

“How can it die?” He felt a rush of panic, ironic in light of the fact that having the seal used to flip him out to no end.

“If there’s another heir, a more dominant heir.” For a being with no true form, she was pretty good at showing remorse.

Nate shook his head. What was she talking about? “Emily?”

She nodded.

“But she’s human too…”

This time she shook her head in the opposite direction.

Nate let out a nervous laugh. “Sure she is. She has a human mother and a hybrid father…” His words trailed off as he realized she was still shaking her head.

“Max’s daughter is more alien than human, Zan.”

His eyebrows shot up quickly.

“If they test her and determine that she has the seal, they will put her on the throne.”

“But she’s only a baby!”

“All the better for them to manipulate.”

Even unconscious, Nate felt his stomach start to churn. “What will they do with Liz?”

His visitor didn’t respond.

Nate held his head in his hands. “Oh, God. What can I do?”

The presence touched him on the arm and he looked up at her. “You know what you can do.”

His brow furrowed. He didn’t know what he could do – that’s why he’d asked. After all, he was on earth and they were on Antar…

“I can survive space travel,” he said slowly.

She nodded.

“I can help them.”

Another nod. “They don’t deserve this.”

“How do I get there?”

“I have to go now.”

“Wait! Help me! How do I get there?”

You’ll figure it out. My sweet boy.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Part Seventeen

Daylight was just breaking as Nate sat in the chair in his bedroom, watching his wife sleeping. After returning from the tree house, he’d deposited Jeremy in Isabel’s vacant guest room, but sleep had eluded him. Instead, he’d spent the last few hours rehashing his conversation with his dead mother.

Nate’s heart ached at the thought of his little sister being thrust onto a throne she didn’t understand, being manipulated so those in charge could have their way. Emily was such a bright, shining light and he knew that in a very short amount of time, she’d be as jaded and dim as they could make her.

What haunted him most was the memory of her face as he’d dismissed her only two days before. She was only five years old, but he had seen a world of hurt and understanding in her dark eyes. She knew that something bad was going to happen to her. She knew that Nate was going to let it happen. He’d let her down.

Alyssa wasn’t going to understand what he was about to do, but he had to do it nevertheless. In time, maybe she’d forgive him.

Rising silently, Nate paused at the end of the bed and looked down into the travel crib at his slumbering son. Jake always sucked one finger when he slept and Nate smiled gently at that. It was never the same finger and this night he’d chosen his right index finger. Bending at the waist, Nate placed a kiss on the toddler’s dark hair, smoothed his small back before rising and circling the bed to stand by his wife.

Alyssa had been so tired of late, the stress of the situation and her impending motherhood wearing her down. As a result, she was sleeping like a log, her hands folded beneath her cheek. Nate kissed her on the cheek and she didn’t even stir. Then he slid his hand down to her belly to say goodbye to his daughter. The baby was still restless, uneasy, so he sent her a feeling of peace, a small nudge of comfort. For the time being, she stopped struggling and rested quietly inside of her mother’s belly. Nate smiled to himself and wished deep down that he’d be around to see her enter the world.

At the dining room table, Nate penned a short note to his wife, trying to explain why he was doing what he was doing. He also enclosed a note to Jeremy, asking him to take care of Alyssa and Jake while he was gone. There was no one else in the world that Nate trusted as much as he trusted Jeremy in these situations. To him, they were brothers.

Outside, Nate put his truck into neutral and prepared to push it down the driveway – he didn’t want to start the engine until it was clear of the house for fear of awakening someone. When he glanced up, he saw Jonathan standing on the front porch and felt a stab of regret. But the old man simply waved, no explanation necessary. Nate waved in return then got in the truck and headed for the airport.

Nate was happy to get an early flight to Chicago, which would then connect to a flight to Albuquerque. The sooner he got out of New York, the harder it would be for anyone to follow him. Of course, he didn’t really know why he was going to New Mexico – it just seemed like a good place to start.

Once the plane was in the air, Nate glanced over at the empty seat beside him. It was strange to be traveling without Aubrey, who was always at his side. But she was off with Jackson, trying to find answers on how to get Liz and Emily back. Nate knew that when the sun came up and the others found him missing, he was in for a royal ass-chewing.

But something his father had said the day before had stuck with him – Be the man I taught you to be. And being a man meant taking responsibility for your actions and doing whatever was necessary to set things straight. It was Nate’s fault that he hadn’t listened to Emily. It was his fault that he was deemed unworthy of the crown of Antar. It was his fault that Max was without his wife and daughter.

It was his responsibility to set things right. No matter the cost.

The only sleep Nate had had in the last three days had been the hour or so when Isabel had put him under for his own good. Isolated, alone on the plane, he felt incredibly weary and was soon nodding off.

Sleep wasn’t peaceful however. As soon as he’d entered the dream plane, he was met with an irate half-alien, a pissed woman that he’d left sleeping only a few hours before.

“Where are you, Nate?” she demanded, marching straight for him, the anger emanating off her in waves.

“Stay out of this, Al, please,” he said, his voice sounding echo-y and not quite like his own, as it always did in the dream world.

“Stay out of it?! Are you fucking kidding me, Nate?”

Even in a dream, Nate hated to hear her swear. He cringed visibly.

“Did you forget that I’m six months pregnant?” she demanded.

“No.”

“Then where the fuck are you going? What’s with this bullshit note you left behind?”

“I have to do this. Please understand.”

“Understand what? That you’ve just run out on me – on us? You have a son here, too, Nate. I can’t help but think you’re off to do something terribly stupid. I don’t want to raise these kids by myself, you selfish asshole.”

Nate wondered for a moment whether she was really dreamwalking him or if he was imagining the whole scene, because at this moment she sounded more like Michael than she did herself. Then again, maybe he’d infused some of Michael’s hostility into her dreamwalk. The dream world certainly was confusing…

“Are you listening to me?” she barked.

“Yes.”

“Wherever you are, get your ass back here. We always do everything as a team, Nate.”

“Not this time.”

“Oh, quit being the goddamned martyr!”

“Not this time,” he repeated apologetically. “Talk to Jeremy. He’ll explain everything.”

With that, he closed his mind to her, blocking her out. It wasn’t without remorse that he did so – he’d never shut Alyssa out of anything and to know that he’d just crossed that line was heart-wrenching.

Chicago brought another wave of insomnia. Nate switched planes and rode most of the way to New Mexico with his nose pressed to his window, refusing food and drink when offered by the flight attendants.

Being in Albuquerque should have felt like coming home, but it didn’t. The desert air was sweltering and Nate realized he’d forgotten to bring lighter clothes. He slipped out of his jacket and rented a car, then sat behind the wheel for a long time.

Where to start?

Where had everything started? At the pod chamber. Most of his past had been revealed to him in that cave. It was also where he’d changed the past, where he’d turned back time and prevented the deaths of all who were dear to him. He didn’t know why he needed to go there, he just knew he should.

The desert roads were empty and Nate put the gas pedal to the floor, a plume of dust kicking up behind the rental car. There was a lingering sense of unease in his mind, Alyssa’s anger still very fresh in his memory. He may have been wrong about her forgiving him someday. But he definitely hadn’t been wrong about her not understanding.

For the first time since he’d left New York, Nate’s cell phone rang in his pocket – he’d had the device turned off while on the planes, cell phones being banned during air travel. Taking his eyes off the road, he glanced at the incoming number – it was Max. Nate frowned and turned off the phone.

A few hours later, he pulled up outside of the rock formation that contained the pod chamber. Cutting the engine, he climbed out and stretched his tired body. Overhead, the sun was high and oppressive. Seeking shelter more than anything, Nate opened the chamber and stepped inside.

He’d never been to the pod chamber by himself and he felt a chill down his spine. Everything seemed damp, ghostly, eerie. Cobwebs hung around the pods themselves, which still glowed a light blue. There were no answers in those pods.

Or maybe there were.

Nate dug back in his memory and recalled that when he and Alyssa had come here to travel back in time, she’d crawled through one of the bottom pods to get to a chamber behind them.

The granilith chamber.

Nate felt a jolt of hope – Tess had used the granilith to leave earth. He could use the granilith to leave earth. Except – the granilith was gone.

Hope faded and Nate frowned. Then he recalled something else about that day – Alyssa had pulled out a book that Michael had been deciphering, a book that had told them how to use the black cone to change something in the past. That book had been pretty thick. Too thick, in fact, to only hold information about using the granilith to return to Antar and using the cone.

On the hope that the book would hold a clue on how Nate could return to Antar, he crawled through the bottom pod, fighting off the willies as some cobwebs trailed over him. On the other side, he found the sliding doors and made them open. Before him was the gaping hole where the granilith had been housed. Looking over the edge, he felt a little queasy at the depth of the abyss. Before vertigo could get him, he stepped back from the edge and surveyed the chamber. Where had the book been?

All of the way on the other side of the chamber.

Nate didn’t like heights – the tree house was about as high as he dared. The tree house was also structurally sound – this chamber could be anything but. Some areas of the walkway were only a foot or so wide and if they gave away, he was going to be tumbling into darkness forever. Biting past his fear, he started inching his way over to the other side of the room.

This could all be in vain, he thought. He could get all of the way to the other side and find that the book held nothing that would help him. Or, worse, that the book was gone. Perhaps after Michael learned that Nate had used the cone, he’d swiped the book for fear Max’s son would do something else stupid.

But eventually Nate arrived at the other side of the room and found the alcove where Alyssa had found the book the last time they were there. Groping in the darkness, his fingers landed on the metal box that would hold the book, if it was still there. Nate pulled the box from the hole and sat down on a nearby rock, balancing the box on his knees. It was time for the moment of truth.

The book was still in the box. As was the cone. Nate picked it up, his brow furrowed in confusion. But he’d used the cone to alter the past…which meant that he hadn’t really used the cone, he’d erased that event as well. He shook his head – the whole space-time-continuum business would always be confusing to him.

Carefully, Nate put the cone on the floor and turned his attention to the book.

For two hours, he poured over the book. He learned a good deal about conflict a million miles away, about how the original hybrids had been engineered, about the destiny that had been laid out for each of them. He could understand how Tess had gotten wrapped up in the mythology – if the book was all she’d ever had to go on, if Nasedo had been her only guide, then it was easy to see how she could have believed and lived it to the letter. With a sad irony, Nate mused that it must have been very confusing to her for Max to not be interested in her in the slightest – after all, the book had demanded it so.

But in all of the pages, there were no answers on how to return to their home planet, other than to use the granilith. Hope deflating again, Nate continued to the back portion of the book, where Alyssa had looked up the instructions on how to use the cone. As she had said, the cone had been devised to allow the user to amend one wrong he had committed. Nate had already used it for that and he wasn’t really sure how the cone could help him anyway – it’s not like it was a ship to transport him off the planet.

He continued to read, however, and found that the absolution of one past wrong was not the cone’s only use. Michael Guerin had lied to his daughter – the cone had more than one use, it appeared. It could be used at any time, to travel to any particular point in the past, as long as the travel did not involve the correcting of a past action.

Nate stopped cold, his whole body going silent for a very long moment. He had his answer.

All he had to do was use the cone to travel back in time – to when the granilith was still on earth.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

*borrowed pieces from a scene in Ask Not


Part Eighteen

Nate hurt everywhere. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to move. It hurt to open his eyes.

And when he did manage to open his eyes, everything was dark. For one terrifying moment, he remembered what it was like to be in that land of nothingness when he’d talked to Tess Harding and wondered if he was dead. When he rolled his head to the side, however, he saw that it was not pitch black as he had first thought.

But it was nighttime. He was in an alley of sorts, a Dumpster having blocked out the security lights behind the low brick building. One thing he hadn’t considered – he’d assumed that the cone would plop him right back at the pod chamber. Apparently that wasn’t the case, unless at some point in time a restaurant had sat at the rock formation. Another jolt of panic brought another thought –what if he’d gone forward instead of backward? What if it was the year 3000 or something?

Nate pushed himself to his feet and steadied himself against the trash receptacle. He reminded himself to calm down, that now was not the time for panic. He needed to figure out where he was and when it was. Sitting in an alley panicking was not going to get the job done. Testing his weight on his legs, he took a few steps, then moved for the end of the alley.

Doubt was replaced with optimistic relief. As soon as Nate rounded the corner, he was greeted with the chasing lights of the Crashdown – he was still in Roswell. Quickly, he looked to the license plate of a car parked at the curb – the plates were good until 2001. Nearly unable to believe it, he let out a hysterical laugh – he’d made it. He stood on the sidewalk chuckling to himself until passersby started to look at him warily.

Clearing his throat, Nate put his head down and started walking. He needed transportation, preferably of the non-public kind; he needed to draw as little attention to himself as possible. He was aware of the impacts of going back in time, he knew that one false move could change the fate of the world. He needed to be very, very careful.

His first thought was to steal a car and he was sure at some point in the future, Emma Spencer had just rolled over in her grave. Nate stopped before a small red car and eyed it for possibility – it was unlocked, it looked like it might run…but he wasn’t sure if it would run all of the way to the pod chamber. It was banged up, the bumper hanging by a coat hanger, a green alien head skewered to the antenna. He lifted one corner of his lip in amusement, found it even more humorous that the car was a Jetta, a model that had gone extinct long before he could even drive.

A voice froze Nate in his tracks – the voice was foreign but familiar all the same. Quickly, he ducked behind a hedge for fear of being seen. In no time, a very young Maria Deluca emerged from the alley beside the Crashdown.

“Oh, come on, mopey,” she was saying. “Getting out will do you some good.”

Fascinated, Nate followed her line of sight and soon found Liz Parker dragging up the rear, her shoulders slumped unenthusiastically.

“I don’t want to go out,” Liz said sullenly.

“Sure you do,” Maria baited, pulling on the door handle of the Jetta; the door screeched like a cat as she jerked it open. “Look, I’ll run interference if we happen to run into him, okay?”

Liz stopped in her tracks, her expression heartbroken.

“Lizzie, it’s a small town. Sooner or later you’re going to run into Max Evans. We’re going to have to learn to deal with this town not being big enough for the two of you. Get in.”

Nate gulped as the girls climbed into the car and started to back out – it was only a matter of time before he ran into Max Evans. He needed to move, now, even if it meant committing grand theft auto. Before he could move, however, he straightened and simply stared after the Jetta – he’d just seen Maria Deluca pre-record contract, and Liz Parker pre-Liz Evans, pre-Harvard professor. It was fascinating.

And also dangerous. As intriguing as it was, Nate was still playing with fire by being so near to those who would influence his life later on. He broke into a jog, running across the street and down a few blocks. Soon he came across a small park and started to cut across it. He was clearly in the shadows when he noticed a small blond woman sitting on a bench, staring into space. His pace slowed as he neared her. An overwhelming sense of sadness washed over him – he knew her, this lonely person, no more than sixteen years of age.

Although he knew better, Nate approached her carefully. When he was within about ten yards of her, she looked up at him and he felt an electric jolt all of the way to his toes. She didn’t appear to react whatsoever.

She was alive. She was real. He was never going to get this opportunity again.

“Can I sit down?” he asked, nearly stumbling over the words.

Her blue eyes were inquisitive for just a moment, then she nodded. There was no harm in letting him sit – she could blast him into a billion pieces if she wanted. Nate sat down slowly.

“Why are you sad?” he asked her. In the back of his mind, he realized that he might seem like some creepy old man to her, ironic in the fact that he hadn’t even been born yet.

“My father just died,” she said, her words even and measured. Her voice sounded different than it had the last time he’d talked to her – she sounded young, vulnerable.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Nate said, trying to deal with the surreal encounter. “Were you close?”

She smiled sadly. “He was all I had.”

All she had? Nate frowned slightly. Here she sat, grieving and completely alone. Where were her friends? Didn’t anyone care that she was hurting?

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked stupidly. He knew he needed to get out of there.

She looked at him curiously for a long moment and he had a fear that she’d somehow figured out who he was. Or at least maybe that he was an alien. Could they tell that just by meeting someone?

“I think you should go,” she said without malice.

Nate lifted an eyebrow. “Okay,” he said as he rose.

“Thanks for stopping.”

He nodded and started to move away, stealing one last look over his shoulder. He couldn’t help but think that she was warning him about something, that he needed to go for some reason other than she wanted to be alone. He had just slipped from the light of the security towers when he heard her voice, emotionless.

“Hey, Max.”

Nate stiffened and slipped behind a tree, truly panicked this time. From his vantage point, he saw Max warily approach the bench where she sat. She hadn’t even looked his direction when she’d addressed him, a fact that led Nate to believe she could detect when another alien was near. It was a curious thing that she hadn’t busted him.

Enthralled, Nate watched his future parents as they conversed on the park bench. Their body language was speaking volumes – especially Max’s. With a stab of sadness, Nate realized that Max wasn’t going to let her get anywhere near him, that he was keeping as much polite distance as he could. She was also tentative, but Nate got the impression that she wanted so much more than Max was willing to give her.

Unable to abandon them, Nate followed them when they got up to leave. He assumed that Max was walking her home, since it was dark and that would be the gentlemanly thing to do. There was no more affection between them as they walked than when they’d been on the bench – in fact, Max had his hands shoved in his pockets, a measure to prevent her from reaching for his hand, Nate realized with a growing sense of discord.

At her house, they talked for a few moments on the porch. Nate couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he did see her reach up to touch his face – and he saw Max remove her hand, his movements gentle but leaving no doubt as to the way he felt.

It was hard to imagine that in less than a year, those two people would produce a child and Nate couldn’t even fathom the circumstances that would allow that to happen. It was obvious that Max didn’t love her, though it was hard to tell how she felt about him. Unable to watch any longer, Nate turned and started to jog away from the house.

A gnawing anxiety started to grow in Nate’s belly. He had already known he was an accident, but now he could see just how much of an accident he was. He had not been bourn out of love, but truly out of trickery and deceit. There was no way that in six month’s time, Max Evans was going to forget about Liz Parker, fall even partially in love with Tess Harding and happily father a child with her.

Tears stung Nate’s eyes and he ran faster. He’d seen the look in Max’s eyes. Yes, it was true that Max was a young, inexperienced man – but there was so much uncertainty and tentativeness about him when it came to Tess. If his eyes could speak, they would have said plainly, “I know I’m supposed to like you…but I just don’t.”

Nate knew now what it was he had to do – he was more certain of it than he’d ever been. Max was meant to be with Liz. They were meant to have children together, they were meant to have Emily. If not for Tess, if not for Nate, that would have happened long before it had.

It was up to Nate to get them back. To right his wrong, to right his mother’s wrong.

On the outskirts of town, before a large, nicely-kept home, Nate found a bicycle lying on the grass. Quickly, he looked over his shoulders and found no one watching. Without further thought, he grabbed the bike and started pedaling toward the road that would lead to the desert, to the pod chamber. Sure, it wasn’t going to be fast and the bike would be hard to ride in the dark, but it was better than nothing.

Before the lights faded completely, Nate noticed the forgotten bicycle lock wrapped around the frame of the bike. Flipping it over, he saw the word “Whitman” etched in black Sharpie.

Shit, he thought, I just stole Alex Whitman’s bike.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

I cringed a lot when I wrote this chapter


Part Nineteen

Nate sat huddled in the corner for a long time, legs drawn up to his chest, head buried in his knees. It was really there – the granilith.

The room was undamaged, no gaping hole in the stone floor. The walls were covered in a reflective glass of some kind, which would eventually be destroyed by the ship’s departure. In the middle of it all, gleaming like a gem was the granilith.

Lifting his head, he looked at the large, upside-down cone and couldn’t help but feel a shiver of anxiety. It looked so dark, so menacing, so ultimately evil. This was the ship that had propelled him and his mother away from earth, banished due to her killing Alex. In addition to that, Nate had heard rumor that Max had used the granilith for another purpose…

Everything hinged on this. One more step and things would be changed irrevocably. It was a foolhardy plan at best – use the granilith to jump forward in time, then use it to get himself to Antar, hopefully in time to save Liz and Emily. The unknown was what would happen as a result – it was idiocy to believe that he could do these things without changing the world that he knew.

For the first time in quite a while, Nate’s mind drifted to Alyssa, his pretty wife. Pain jabbed his heart, making it jump into his throat for a few beats. Separating himself from her was torture, but if he didn’t live through this, he knew that she would be okay. She would meet someone else, someone without so much baggage, someone of whom her father would approve. Alyssa was strong. She would be fine.

As for Jake…well, Nate couldn’t bring himself to think about Jake at all.

Tilting his head back, Nate followed the inverted cone as far as he could see, wondered how big the ship really was. It seemed rather small, actually, to be traveling in space. He swallowed and bit his lip. Was it going to hurt? Would he stay conscious the whole time? How long would it take?

Tentative, he pushed himself to his feet and started to circle the granilith. There was a panel toward the floor with a few slots in it. He had wound up in this reality without the decoded book and he was having difficulty remembering what it said about operating the ship. Was he missing something? A key perhaps? Fingers shaking slightly, he reached toward the panel. Maybe he could push some buttons or something and figure it out.

“Nate! No! Don’t touch that!”

Nate jumped back as if stung, retracting his hand close to his body. The voice belonged to Max Evans - not the Max Evans of the year 2000 but a much older version. Nate took a couple of steps backward as Max rushed through the sliding doors, his face a frightened mask of worry.

“Don’t touch it!” Max reiterated, insinuating himself between his son and the ship.

The initial shock wore off and Nate’s brow furrowed. “How did you get here?”

“The same way you did.”

Inside, Nate felt a twinge of fury – so, only certain people had been entrusted with the purpose of the cone. Even amongst their tight ranks, there was still a pecking order.

“You can’t be here,” Max said, shaking his head to make his point. “I can’t be here.” He glanced at the granilith and Nate saw a touch of nausea pass over him. “We aren’t even aware that this exists yet.”

Good, Nate thought. Then no one will miss it.

“What are you doing here?” Max demanded, his eyes showing a jumble of anger, fright and confusion.

“I’m going to Antar,” Nate announced, straightening himself. When he wasn’t slouching, he was taller than his father and he wanted that one little piece of dominance. “I’m going to get Liz and Emily back.”

“Now?” Max asked incredulously, not quite the grateful reaction Nate had expected. “It’s the year 2000, Nate. You haven’t even been born yet! What were you planning on doing, sitting around Antar for the next twenty five years waiting for them to arrive?”

Nate set his jaw. “No. I’m going to use the granilith to jump ahead to our time, then I’m going to Antar.”

Max stopped short, his expression one of a deer in the headlights.

“I can do that, can’t I?” Nate challenged.

Max kept eye contact with his son, but he said nothing.

“Show me how,” Nate said, gesturing past Max’s shoulder to the granilith. “Show me how you did it.”

Max’s shoulders sagged slightly. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit!” Nate snapped, causing Max to jump. “I know what you did, Max! It’s great alien folklore, how you traveled into the past to try to scare Liz into pushing your younger self to my mother. You keep stuff from me, Max, but others are still willing to share!”

Max looked at the floor and ran a hand through his hair. Nate wondered if he was trying to come up with who had told Nate that story.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” he asked, his tone a little less harsh.

Max nodded in defeat.

“Then help me, Max.” Nate couldn’t help the pleading tone his voice took. “Help me do this. Help me get them back.”

Max raised his eyes and slowly shook his head from side to side.

“Why not?” Nate demanded.

“Because, Nate, if you take the granilith now, you will change everything that is to come from this day forward. Certain events that happened because of the granilith will not happen.”

“Like you jumping into time to do exactly what I want to.” Pleading had turned to accusation.

“That was different,” Max said evenly.

“Of course it was, Max! It’s always different when it comes to you and Liz, isn’t it?”

A small fire started to smolder in Max’s eyes, but Nate didn’t care. He’d seen how Max had treated Tess and for the first time he wasn’t sure that the others were always the victims.

“Nate,” Max said, his voice cool – too cool. “If I have to stop you, I will.”

Nate snorted. “I’m not afraid of you. I’m going to do this with or without you. I will figure it out. When I get to Antar, I will do what I can to send Liz and Emily back to you.” For a moment his resolve wavered. “Even if that means I stay.”

Max’s eyebrows shot up. “Nate, no! You can’t do that.”

There was sad irony in Nate’s eyes. “I can, Max. I will stay on Antar and you can have Emily back.”

The anger in Max’s eyes faded and was replaced with utter devastation. “What makes you think I could trade one of my children for the other?”

Nate felt the animosity draining from his body. “I saw you with her, Max.”

Max’s brow furrowed. “With who?”

“My mother.”

Max closed his eyes slowly, drew in a deep breath. “When?” he asked.

“A few hours ago. In a park.” Nate paused, recalling Tess’s sad demeanor as she’d sat alone on that park bench.

“Did you speak to us?” Max asked. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

“I talked with her,” Nate confirmed and Max winced. “Wanna know what she said? She said her father had just died and that he was all she’d ever had. She was alone, Max. She was alone when she should have been surrounded by people who cared.”

“Nate, Tess was still new here and –”

“And then it hit me,” Nate continued, interrupting his father. “I realized that no one cared about her.” He shook his head sadly. “Not even you.”

Nate knew that he was hurting Max, that perhaps he was judging him without all of the facts, but he’d seen what he’d seen and there was no mistaking how Max had felt about her.

“You never loved her,” Nate concluded.

Max was silent, but didn’t look away.

“Not even when you created me.” He shrugged. “I was an accident, a mistake. Emily is not. You love Liz. You loved Liz even when you were having sex with my mother.”

Max shook his head. “Nate, please listen to me. We can talk about all of this stuff once we return to our time. I assure you that things aren’t as bleak as you’re making them out to be.”

“I don’t see how they can be much different than how I’m making them out,” Nate said bluntly. “Were you happy when Tess Harding told you she was pregnant with me?”

Max set his jaw. “Nate, I was seventeen.”

“That shouldn’t matter. Were you happy?”

Max said nothing.

“Were you happy when Liz told you she was pregnant with Emily?”

Max looked away, the anger and annoyance returning to his expression.

“I know you were,” Nate said. “I still remember you telling me at Carlsbad. You couldn’t keep the grin off your face. Bet you didn’t grin once when Tess was pregnant with me.”

Max was silent for a moment, but when he turned to Nate, he had a new fire in his eyes. “Tell me something, Nate. Were you happy when Alyssa told you she was pregnant with Jake?”

Nate blinked in surprise. He hadn’t expected Max to turn the tables on him.

“You remember Jake, right? My grandson, your son? Adorable little guy, isn’t he? What about the new baby? A little girl, right? Were you happy that she was coming?”

It was all Nate could do to keep from cringing.

Max jabbed a finger toward the granilith. “Let me tell you something, Nate. If you use this, chances are Jake isn’t going to exist anymore. Changes are you won’t exist. Is that what you want?”

Nate looked away for a moment, then set his jaw. “Maybe it’s the way things should have been.”

Max coughed out a disbelieving laugh. “I don’t for one moment believe you feel that way, Nate! Listen to me – the longer we stay here, the worse things could be. We have to go – now.”

“I’m not going with you,” Nate said in defiance. “I’m going to figure out how to use this thing and do what I planned.”

A flash of pity shined in Max’s eyes, momentarily taking Nate off guard. “Don’t make me do this,” Max said quietly.

“Oh, I forgot – you’re going to try to stop me,” Nate said in a semi-mocking tone. “What are you going to do – blast me? You can’t blast any more than I can.”

With that, he started to push past Max.

“I’m sorry, Nate,” Max whispered.

Nate turned to throw another accusation in Max’s direction, but he never had time. The last thing he saw before blackness closed in on him was Max’s fist advancing toward his face at an alarming rate.

tbc

[Midwest Max]

Chapter Twenty

“Christ, Max, how hard did you hit him?”

The words weren’t spoken with sympathy or concern or accusation. They were spoken with a laugh, as only Kyle Valenti could. Nate got the sense that Kyle was standing very close to him, and even though his face felt like it had been struck with a mallet, he said nothing and made no attempt to show that he had regained consciousness.

“Only as hard as I needed to,” came Max’s subdued reply, muffled as though it was coming from another room.

“I haven’t seen a shiner like that in a long time.” Kyle’s voice was moving away, his tone still rather merry. He let out a laugh from a good distance away. “Have you considered that your kid might be a dumbass?”

Max’s reply was indiscernible this time. The next time Kyle spoke, Nate realized that he couldn’t understand him, either; he was now alone wherever he was. Whenever he was.

Fighting a raging headache, he tried to open his eyes and found that only one of his eyelids functioned properly. The other one sort of struggled to lift until it let in a blinding stab of light and Nate quickly closed it again. Tentative, he reached up and touched his face, had to bite his lip to keep from crying out. The fact that Max possessed the ability to heal and yet had left the evidence of striking Nate firmly in place was not lost on him.

Point taken, Nate thought bitterly.

The nagging questions of where he was and what year it was forced him to keep trying to open his eyes. When his injured eye didn’t want to cooperate, he resorted to squinting and blinking to try to clear his vision. The first thing he saw was paneling. A lot of paneling.

It was entirely possible that Max had miscalculated and taken them back to 1974.

A few more minutes of struggling with his sight and Nate was able to finally focus on the room. It was a very small bedroom and he was laid out on a twin bed, his boots hanging off the end by a few inches. The walls were indeed paneled in a dark walnut finish, a style not seen in homes for decades. In the corners were stacks of boxes and unused sports equipment. If Nate had to guess, he was in Kyle’s spare bedroom, which also served as storage.

The year was still a mystery, but since Max didn’t seem to be panicked to leave, Nate could only assume that they were back in the present. How they got there, he wasn’t sure.

Closing his eyes to relieve the pain, Nate rolled onto his side and pulled his knees up to his chest. There was a constant throbbing in his cheekbone and he had to wonder if perhaps his orbital bone had been broken. Of course, he could heal that wound himself if he wanted to, but a defiant piece of him wanted to show Max that his abuse didn’t hurt him. On the outside, Nate needed to be the tough guy.

Because on the inside he was anything but. When he’d set out from Chautauqua, he had believed that he was doing the right thing. He had believed that it was his mission to travel to Antar and save Liz and Emily. No matter the price, no matter the effort involved. Somewhere along the line, he thought maybe the plan had gotten out of hand, but he wasn’t really sure where. The only thing he was sure of was that he was a failure.

Again.

And things were no better than they were when he’d started on this journey. They were worse. He was pretty sure he’d alienated his wife and God only knew what torment awaited him when they returned home. As far as he knew, Liz and Emily were still on Antar and in danger. To top everything off, he had a growing sense of resentment toward his birth father.

Things between him and Max had never been worse. While the things Nate had said in the pod chamber were candidly honest, they had been said out of turn and in a totally destructive manner. He realized this and he also knew that there was no taking back something that had already been said.

Unable to stop himself, Nate let out a little sob, squeezed his knees tight to his chest. He’d messed up everything.

“You know what I think?” Kyle said from the hallway, still speaking to Max. “I think you need to get that cone and destroy it. As long as the temptation is there, something like this is going to happen.”

Nate cringed with shame. He knew that Kyle was essentially telling Max that Nate couldn’t be trusted with something so powerful – and perhaps he was right.

“I’m serious, dude,” Kyle continued. “That thing is pure evil. What happens if it gets in the wrong hands? What happens if someone decides to go back and save Nazi Germany or something? It’s a serious problem, Max. I think before you catch your flight, you should take a road trip and put an end to this.”

Nate laid there for awhile longer, listening to muffled voices but not hearing what they were saying. Kyle’s tone was playful as always, but Max’s was reserved, tired.

“What time is your flight?” Kyle asked. After a pause while he was apparently waiting for Max’s reply, he said, “Think we should try to wake up Dumbass in there pretty soon? It’s going to look suspicious if you haul an unconscious person onto a plane. You didn’t damage him beyond repair, did you?”

Nate got the sense that someone was hovering in the doorway of the bedroom. He tipped his head that way, looked out through the slits of his eyelids.

“Apparently not!” Kyle chirped. “He’s already awake – all on his own! Are you hungry, Dingo Bait?”

Nate shook his head, recalling that when he’d first come to Roswell – a lifetime ago now – Kyle had nicknamed him Dingo Bait after finding him sprawled along side the road at night. He hadn’t really found it funny then and it hadn’t gained in humor since that time.

“I’ve got fresh coffee,” Kyle baited. “And some eggs and stuff. Ya know – manly breakfast foods. Why don’t you come out and join us?”

If Nate had his way, he would have stayed holed up in this ugly room for the rest of his life. Anything as long as he didn’t have to face Max again.

“I’m sure you’ve got a nice thumper going on there,” Kyle said, pointing at Nate’s head. “How about I go away and let you get up slowly?”

Nate was grateful for that tiny bit of courtesy – perhaps the deputy wasn’t as clueless to others’ feelings as he had assumed. After Kyle left, Nate heard murmurs coming from that other room, voices that were intentionally low, a few heated whispers. Call it paranoid, but he got the impression they were discussing him.

The first time Nate tried to sit up, his head gave one loud thump and he had to lie back down. After waiting a few minutes for the pain to abate, he sat up more slowly, his world buzzy and swaying around him. To steady himself, he rested his elbows on his knees and held his head in his hands, being careful not to touch the wound on the side of his face. Eventually he was able to push himself to his feet.

As he glanced toward the door, a sense of dread filled every sense of his being. He could still hear the men talking and he knew that as soon as he left the safety of this small room, he’d have to face Max. It always sucked when it was time to pay the consequences for one’s actions.

Chewing on the corner of his lip, Nate took a step forward, nearly lost his balance and steadied himself against the wall. There was a pretty good possibility that he had a concussion. A little awed, Nate gave his head a gentle shake – never had he suspected Max would strike him, never had he suspected Max was actually much stronger physically than he looked.

But Nate also knew he deserved it. He’d been deserving it for years.

The next couple of steps went better than the first and soon he was in the hallway, following the sound of Kyle’s voice as he told Max about a woman he’d met at a bar the week prior. Self-conscious, Nate shoved his hands into his pockets and looked down at his boots. The ten steps he had to take to get to the kitchen seemed like a mile – uphill.

Kyle’s back was to Nate, but Max was facing him. Before Nate could decide what mask to put on, Max caught his eye. For a moment, Nate thought he saw relief in his father’s eyes. But relief soon turned to hurt before Max effectively turned neutral once again. Kyle followed his friend’s gaze over his shoulder.

“Hey, Dingo Bait, have a seat before you fall down,” Kyle laughed. Sometimes, he really irritated Nate.

The tension was so heavy in the small house that Nate felt like he could hardly breathe. Between that and the pain in his head, he was surprised he hadn’t collapsed yet. His eyes drifted to the wallpaper – a horrid green plaid – and he felt his stomach churn slightly.

“Yeah, I know,” Kyle said, picking up his coffee cup. “Ugly, ain’t it? My dad liked it. This was his house before he retired. He lives in a condo now, says he got sick of taking care of the place.” He shrugged lightly. “I’ve just never had the time to remodel. I mean, really – who cares about that crap?”

Kyle was talking a lot. Nonsensically. Trying to ignore the proverbial elephant in the living room.

“Are you okay?” Max asked, his voice cautious but still concerned.

Nate nodded, his eyes fixed on the table cloth.

“Did you really steal Alex Whitman’s bike?” Kyle laughed.

Nate reddened.

“I returned it,” Max said quietly, frowning slightly.

“Good,” Kyle said. “What’s a geek without his bike?”

Nate waiting for a lecture regarding the potential ramifications of stealing the geek’s bike, but none came. No lecture came at all. He thought maybe he’d rather be lectured than have to deal with the silence.

“We have a flight in a couple of hours,” Max said to his son. “We should be going pretty soon. You well enough to fly?”

Nate nodded again. In truth, he thought that maybe the change in air pressure would cause his brain to hemorrhage, but he wasn’t going to tell Max that. He would go back to New York, his tail between his legs, bail revoked, without resistance.

“I can take you to the airport,” Kyle offered. “I’m working the night shift.”

In the squad car, Nate mused how the situation must look to passersby – he was in the back seat, caged in, his face a bruised mess. He looked like a criminal that Deputy Valenti had had to beat into submission.

Kyle talked all of the way to Albuquerque. And talked. And talked. Nate slunk further down in the seat, wishing that he had the power to muzzle the man. Max sort of grunted in reply, made a polite comment here and there. For the most part, Nate was happy that they were ignoring him.

There were strange looks at the airport, especially from the guards at the security checkpoints. Nate mustered the acting skills he’d received from his aunt and pasted on a smile, told them that it was a football injury. If needed, he could probably conjure up a nice heroic tale to go along with the wound. Lying was inherent to his species.

The flight was miserable. Just Nate and Max in a row by themselves. Max took the window seat and spent a good deal of the time with his face to the glass. Nate spent his time wondering when they were going to talk about what had happened. He wasn’t really sure why it hadn’t happened yet. He figured that either Max was just too worn out to discuss it, or he was simply too angry to even try.

“Max?” Nate finally said. “Can I ask you something?”

Max turned from the window and nodded somberly.

“How did we get back here?” It was a question that had been gnawing at Nate all along. Had Max somehow used the granilith again? Because the cone didn’t exist in the year 2000.

Disappointment flashed in Max’s brown eyes. Shaking his head lightly, he simply said, “I can’t tell you.” Then he turned back to watching the clouds float by his window.

Shame coursed through Nate’s veins and he looked a little sickly. In his heart, he knew that it wasn’t that Max couldn’t tell him how they’d returned to the present – it was a matter of wouldn’t.

Nate had lost Max’s trust.

tbc