Roswell Fanatics

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you for all of the wonderful feedback, and for the warm re-welcome. <33


“I found it!” That sounded like Isabel.

“Destroy it before Brody wakes up.” Max. Definitely Max.

“Oh, God! Is she gonna be okay? What about Michael? What happened to him?” A loud sniffle. Maria, most likely. “Max, hurry! She’s so cold…”

“I can’t break it!” Isabel.

“Use the gun.” Max.

“I don’t know how to use a gun!”

“What the hell are you people talking about?” It was Sean, incredulous. “Liz is dying and you’re worried about some stupid toy?”

“Tess, use your mind warp once we break that thing,” Max grumbled.

A gunshot echoed, followed by the sound of plastic breaking. “I got it!” Isabel, triumphant.

“Max!” Maria, completely hysterical now. “They’re not breathing! I can’t get a pulse and—”

At long last, he regained use of his motor skills. He was going to shoot someone if he had to listen to them for one more second. “Fuck, will you people stop yelling?” His ears were still ringing from their volume. Thankfully, he was rewarded with wonderful silence. Good. It was about damned time they listened to him. With a groan, Michael tried to sit up, ignoring the fierce burn in his stomach; it felt like he’d been run over with a semi, and then the driver had hit reverse. What had happened during his blackout? Had Brody decided to shoot him, too? He forced his limbs to cooperate.

“Liz?” Maria stared at him, her eyes round. Behind her, the others mimicked her surprise, gaping at him.

He ignored them. “How is she?” The ringing in his ears had yet to stop, but his voice seemed off, even above the dull roar. No one answered him, and he feared the worst. “She’s not… she didn’t…” He could not say it.

Maria squinted at him, leaning closer. “No way… Michael?”

Irritation tampered down the weight of guilt. He frowned at her. “What?” Why were they looking at him like that? Now was not the time to gawk. They should have been attending to Parker.

“Michael?” Maxwell Evans decided it was time to talk. “It can’t be… how is this possible?”

Tess Harding—who was still pregnant, goddamn it—crept closer to Max, fixated on Michael. “He… he must have transferred his essence over to Liz… but he would have to…” She frowned. “There’s no way; that thing made our powers useless, and Liz isn’t one of us, so even if he did have some kind of kali with her, it shouldn’t…” To his mounting aggravation, Michael watched as Tess got that faraway look in her eyes; the same expression Liz Parker always wore when she was trying to figure something out that stumped her.

What the fuck were they doing? What the fuck were they talking about? What the fuck was a… whatever the fuck that word was? This was one hell of a situation, with a person’s life at stake, and all they could do was sit there and stare at him with their thumbs in their asses. They might as well bust out the s’mores and start singing Kumbaya in this circle-jerk of freak-shows.

Michael glared at them, raising his hand to swipe at a dark tendril of hair that had fallen before his nose… and froze. His eyes grew large as he inspected the blood that covered his skin, his soft, tanned, feminine hand. A glance south revealed the blood-splattered canvas of his—her—stomach, the teal uniform ripped open to exhibit the damage done to Elizabeth Parker’s tiny form.

His small hands clamped onto the mounds that now adorned his torso, moving of their own accord; it was a male’s natural reaction to the revelation of full, round breasts suddenly nearly bare and within reach. “I have boobs?” He wondered aloud in Parker’s vocals. That, among other things, had him in a state of total paralysis. So this was why the others were so entranced, completely unable to look away—well, not that a mostly-nude young woman soaked in blood wouldn’t have rendered them immobile otherwise, but the very fact that Liz Parker’s body was not only moving, it had another occupant: him.

This time, Maxwell was the voice of reason. For once. “We can figure this out later. I need you to get out of there, Michael.” His voice was hard.

Did he not approve of Michael touching Parker’s rack? Because, technically, it was not necessarily Michael holding them… “This doesn’t come with a fucking manual, Maxwell. I don’t even know how I got in here.”

Max glared. “I need to connect with Liz. You’re not Liz.”

“No shit.” Why were they still talking? “Just do it.”

“I need to—”

“Liz isn’t here,” Michael growled, sick of this game. “You’re gonna have to improvise.”

Reluctantly, Maxwell agreed that Elizabeth Parker’s life was a bit more important than their squabble, and the alien King tentatively placed his palm on the crimson-stained navel. Upon skin to skin contact vermillion lightning, not unlike blood, cackled angrily beneath tanned flesh, engulfing Liz entirely in its voracious current. Michael, the inhabitant, hissed as fire danced within his—her—veins, burning him unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. It was enough for him to release the breasts in his custody. “Fuck.” He twitched in erratic spasms, his nerves screaming from the onslaught while wave after wave of electricity threatened to consume him inch by agonizing inch. Max immediately retracted his appendages, but Michael would not allow that. “No… just…” he bit out, panting. “Just do it.”

Michael instantly regretted it.

He was thrown from his current form, ingloriously torn from the shell of Elizabeth Parker and stuffed into the same body he’d known his entire life. Fully cognitive, the experience felt akin to being split apart, molecule by painful molecule, without the ability to scream or cry from the anguish. How had he entered Liz in the first place? Michael vowed that he would sooner die than ever willingly go through that again.

Liz seemed to share his sentiments; when Michael gasped into awareness, dizzy and shaky as all hell, Liz greeted her revitalization with an unholy screech that vibrated within the foundation of the building. As one, they shirked away from the small waitress as she writhed in jerky movements, her back arching off of the floor, her arms twisting in odd and unnatural angles, the jagged red tendrils crawling over her skin in a sadistic caress. This was not something he remembered from the first time Maxwell had saved Parker’s life, and that meant something was significantly different this time around.

Did this have to do with his unintentional invasion? Nothing had happened until Max touched her, so was it some kind of reaction to aliens? Though, again, nothing had occurred with Michael… damn it, what the fuck was going on?

“Guys,” Tess intoned, shouting over the screams. “Hurry up. I can’t keep the warp going for much longer.”

Isabel was still staring at Liz in horror. “But I broke that… that… that thing.”

Tess shook her head. “My powers are fading… because…” She gasped. “Guys! Now would be a good time!”

Shit. He was willing to bet that her powers were fading because of her pregnancy. Another reason to chew Max out once this was over.

A sizzling cloud of agony jolted him from his bitter train of thought, bringing his attention back to the owner of that particular sensation. Michael tore off his shirt and threw it over Liz; if they had to get out of here, they had to do it quick and without attracting too much attention. Since Max could not touch her without that red crap hurting both of them, Michael took it upon himself to grab her—they could deal with this issue once the problem of Brody, Amy and Sean DeLuca were taken care of—and carried the twitching brunette towards the pile of furniture. “C’mon,” he called over to the others, his voice dark with urgency. It was difficult to concentrate with Parker still crying out, whimpers occasionally breaking through, and he bit back an oath. That red shit was fizzling out a little, gradually morphing into sparkling emerald, and her volume was not nearly as high as before, but she had to stay quiet until they could help her. He could barely walk straight with her screaming both mentally and verbally.

‘Liz, you can bitch all you want later, but I need you to shut the fuck up right now.’ He peered at her contorted features, forcing calm into his next projection. ‘Please.’

Miraculously, she heard him. She must have, because she bit down on her lip, stifling anything other than the occasional murmur of discomfort in the back of her throat. ‘Good girl.’ Shouldering past the fumbling barricade, he left them to clean up their mess—well, Brody’s mess—with Elizabeth Parker tense in his arms, drowning in a shirt that was entirely too big for her. He was met with two frazzled Valenti’s at the top of the steps, who had obviously witnessed the whole ordeal, but did not badger him with a thousand questions; instead, they opened the doors for him and kept vigil while Michael snuck back into the Crash Down, rushing towards the staircase that led to the apartment above. He had no idea where the Parkers went when they left Liz alone to manage the restaurant, but he was glad they were nowhere in sight. If they knew what their daughter got into when they were not around…

“Is she all right?” Kyle breathed once they were safely within Parker’s room.

Michael shook his head, clearing away the unorganized piles of paper to place Liz on her bed. She was shivering, but no longer riddled with those strange currents, or holding back those awful screams. She, in fact, seemed quiet peaceful, if a little cold. Thankfully, that blanket of disorienting anguish had dissipated. “I’m not sure,” he replied, his brow furrowed. That shirt was ruined beyond all repair and if he ever got it back, he doubted he would wear it again.

Jim Valenti stared at the small girl for a moment, his face aging more by the second. With a small sigh, he turned to leave them. “I’m gonna go check on the others. Will you two be okay for a little while?”

Kyle nodded. “Yeah…” He glanced at Michael. “Yeah, we’ll be fine, dad.”

The senior Valenti followed his son’s eyes. “Michael,” Jim called.

“Hmm?” He was distracted and tense and relieved and a million things at the same time.

“Ya did good, kid.” Jim left, closing the door softly behind him.

A moment of silence passed. There were words to be said, questions to be asked, and the weight was unbearable enough that Michael sagged to the hardwood floor, leaning against a side of the mattress. He leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling, barely aware of Kyle mimicking his position, sitting to his left. Neither spoke, lost in their own thoughts, attempting to piece together the tumultuous events that had taken place in the UFO Center. Trying to figure out what had happened, why it had happened, and what it all meant. How did one begin to comprehend what their eyes had witnessed tonight? As the adrenaline ebbed from his body, Michael realized that he’d started shaking. If Kyle noticed, he did not comment.

Fuck. Didn’t aliens get some kind of paid vacation from this crazy shit?

NOTE: I have the worst attention span ever.


There were words exchanged, quiet and secretive. The whirring click of an old camera.

“You sure? He’s still snoring.”

“Trust me. I know he is.”

“That’s… that’s really, really weird, Liz.”

“Tell me about it.”

He grumbled beneath his breath. All of their babbling had kept him from trying to smother himself in the comfortable blanket of slumber, and he was irritatingly awake. The best nap in a long, long time, and those two chatterboxes had completely screwed it up. Admittedly, the snippet of conversation was intriguing enough to toy with the idea of feigning sleep for a little longer, but Liz somehow knew that he was conscious enough for coherency, and so that plan flew out of the window.

With a scowl, Michael rubbed at his eyes and yawned like a bear, confused by the soft bed beneath him; the last he remembered, he was sitting on the floor, trying to quell the inexplicable trembling in his limbs. How had they lugged him onto the mattress? Sure, Kyle used to play football and basketball, but midgets did not have that kind of strength, right?

“Morning, sunshine,” Kyle chirped.

Michael froze at the light touch on his bare stomach. Liz still had his shirt. Bleary eyes looked to see Kyle trailing his fingers down Michael’s abdomen, tracing the indent of each muscle. “What the fuck are you doing?” The growl was low and husky from sleep, but in no way did it convey a shred of humor. He smacked away the playful hand.

Liz, dressed in a small tank top and matching shorts, giggled shamelessly. Looking at her, one would never have guessed that she’d been shot twice in her short life. “Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!”

Confused and alarmed, Michael sat up and away from the two humans, glaring. He scoffed. “Sorry, I’m not into ewoks.”

“Or girls,” Kyle quipped, grinning.

“Girlfriend, remember? What, does Maria not count anymore?” What was with these two?

Liz cackled, holding up a square photograph. “Poor Maria. What will she say when she finds out you’ve been cheating on her?”

“The fuck?” Michael, aggravated, snatched the Polaroid and narrowed his eyes at the scene depicted; Kyle was lying on his side, entirely too close for comfort, while he coyly pinched one of Michael’s nipples. He was smiling down at the blond alien with some sick and twisted semblance of affection. The photograph burst into flames in his grasp. “You’re so dead, Valenti.”

“If you do that,” warned Parker in a strange sing-song, “I’ll have to distribute the rest of these to the entire student body. Roswell’s an awfully small town, Michael.”

Was she… was she blackmailing him?

It was a three-way stand-off on Elizabeth Parker’s bed, with Kyle lounging on his back between them sporting an impish grin, and Liz sitting with her legs crossed, leaning back on her hands in a disturbingly comfortable position. Michael bristled at the humans; what the hell had gotten into them? What the fuck had he done to deserve this? Why would Kyle willingly jeopardize his reputation just to play accomplice to Parker’s ridiculous little game? They were having fun at his expense, and while a part of him was infinitely glad that she was healthy and whole after the fiasco at the UFO Center, another part wished to grab her by her hair and demand where the remainder of those photographs were.

‘Hell hath no fury, Michael,’ her teasing whisper fluttered through his head.

The revelation did nothing to alleviate his annoyance with her. This was about what she’d overheard him say to Isabel? He’d already admitted that he thought she was attractive—that she had a nice ass, specifically—so what was the point? And why bring Kyle into the mix? There was not a single scrap of logic behind this strategy and he could not seem to find a reason, regardless of what perspective he tried, so he tore through their connected channel and dove into her mind, uncaring of how she would react to the sudden invasion, or that, if she tried, she could see into him just as clearly.

It was easy. Much too easy. Where once he could only glean the surface if he concentrated hard enough, he could now swim in the colorful waters of Elizabeth Parker with barely a thought. The ease of passage left him a little disoriented, but he barreled onward.

Humor was the first he encountered, a thin layer of shining emerald, and it left a faint trail of shimmering laughter in its wake, warming his insides. In spite of its exuberance, it was brittle and opaque, covering the murky lake of her emotions with a weak sheen of viridescence. Further within, the colors darkened until they were a singular, black mass, muddled with spots of sickly yellow. Icy fingers left a physical chill against his skin the deeper he settled into her psyche; there was a small grudge she held against Michael, he saw, about how callously he’d dismissed her in front of Isabel Evans, but even that small malice she reserved for him flickered with rich blues of sadness and the occasional glittering amber of… well, he did not know what that meant. The amber felt cozy and right, like winter nights by a roaring fire, or a home-cooked meal, or buying a brand new motorcycle and driving it around the desert with the wind whipping through his hair.

Michael delved deeper, pushing aside the odd feeling and venturing on. Jealousy, anger, hatred and a sorrow so deep, he could drown himself if he allowed the emotion to overwhelm him, pulsated in tandem with his racing heart. He had to tamper down the instinctive need to raise his defenses, backing away from that particular ball of woe, and selected another tangle to sort through before he risked going for that ebony mass of pain.

There was fear, a blinding fear that numbed his senses and froze his limbs, lurking around, tied to the memory of the UFO Center. He’d known that she was not as calm and stable as she appeared when Valenti had handed her that firearm, had known that she could not have shouldered that much responsibility without a smidgeon of trepidation, but he had not expected to encounter such a stark terror that constricted his lungs. In retrospect, he should have known better; she’d been shot before, had nearly died before, so holding the very instrument that had caused such pain would undoubtedly inspire such a strong reaction. She’d wanted to run far away from the gun, wanted to cry from the phantom wound she could still feel at times. A protective rush of anger threatened to pull him out of the web of her mind, ready to throttle Jim Valenti for being so fucking stupid, but he kept his wayward emotion in check, saving it for when he saw that idiotic old man.

His next adversary loomed before him, thick and darker than pitch. It was fucking huge, dwarfing all others, consuming her little by little. Too many memories, too many emotions. It made him dizzy and nauseous and he flinched away from the cold touch of that thing. What the hell was that, and why was it in Parker’s head? Gritting his teeth, he reached for it, determined to tear that cocoon apart to get to the bottom of this, when a flash, unbidden, surged forward, distracting him… and he knew, instantly, why she’d become so preoccupied with this silly little game of hers.

Shit.

Michael Guerin never claimed to know a girl’s heart, never claimed to know how to deal with them, or what to say to them. He didn’t always know how fix the problems they faced, or the plethora of emotions they threw themselves into, but even he knew devastation when he saw it—felt it. He was skimming the surface of this gunky wasteland her mind had become, but that image was enough to answer a few things. It was enough to indulge her in this little distraction for however long she needed to cope.

‘Liz…’ he tried, slowly retreating into the sanctuary of his own head. ‘I’m sorry…’

The smile on her face was strained, but she was forcing herself to retain it. ‘Don’t, Michael. Just… don’t, okay?’

What could he say to that? Maxwell Evans had made a lot of mistakes these past few weeks, but none more horrible than this last one; when Max had connected to Liz to heal her the first time, he’d taken flashes from her childhood. This time, it was Liz that stole a few fragments from him… and now, not only did she have firsthand knowledge of what Tess Harding looked like naked, but she was fully aware that Maxwell and his former alien wife were expecting a child. And yet, there was still a shadowed fragment of Elizabeth Parker that could not help her love for the alien King. Michael had seen it, had felt it, and he knew she hated herself for it more than anything else, hated the loyalty that she could not shake for her first love, hated that she loved and loathed him with everything she could muster. She was broken in more ways than he could count.

This senseless game with the Polaroid had been Kyle’s way of getting her to smile.

It sucked, but whatever. It kept Liz from crying, so he could withstand a few gay jokes, as long as Liz didn’t start bawling her eyes out. Because crying chicks? They were a pain in the ass to deal with. But crying Parkers? He had to feel that shit—had felt it—and there was no way he would willingly put himself through something like that again.

The cracks at his sexuality were hardly up to par with his verbal arsenal and he caught himself laughing a few times. Unexpected, but nice. An hour of lighthearted bickering and bantering found the three of them identically reclined, lying horizontally on Parker’s mattress; their ankles crossed, their hands clasped behind their heads as they stared sightlessly at the bland ceiling. Michael laid to the right of Liz with Kyle on her left, none of them speaking except for the occasional barb or quiet murmur of “Remember when…?” The silence was thick, each of them lost in their own thoughts, but Michael found that he did not mind it so much. It was soothing in its own way, knowing he was not alone. Parker didn’t seem like she was about to fly off the handle at any moment, so he declared his mission accomplished.

Michael wasn’t sure why he didn’t want to leave. He was exhausted, he had school and work to contend with, but he could not bring himself to get up and say goodbye. For that matter, he didn’t know why Liz had yet to kick them out. Maybe she wanted to talk? She hadn’t said anything for a while now, not anything of consequence. Even Kyle seemed contented with the simplicity of just existing in the moment.

It was peaceful. Michael never thought he would have ever attributed such a feeling with these two, least of all Elizabeth Parker.

He must have dozed off again at some point. He did not dream or remember falling asleep, but one moment he was lounging on Parker’s bed, allowing her fluctuating emotions to roll over him like cool water and in the next, he was shaken awake. He jerked into a sitting position, startled, surveying the room for possible threats and found only Maria hovering over him, Max and Isabel standing awkwardly by the door. Beside him, Liz must have felt his momentary panic and mimicked him, gasping a little when her eyes flew open.

‘What’s wrong? What happened? What’s going on?’

He cringed at the volume in Parker’s tone, her frantic confusion pounding in his skull. ‘Relax. It’s just Maria.’

He heard her sigh. ‘You scared ten years off of my life, Michael.’

‘That makes us even.’

‘What?’ She was staring at him. ‘Never mind. I’m too tired to try and decipher Guerinese right now.’

‘Shut up,’ he gruffed at her, though he admitted that she had a point: they were all too tired to deal with anything. Why were the others here, anyway? And where was Tess? What had happened in the UFO Center? Had someone taken care of Brody? What about Valenti? Michael did not see the former Sheriff going home without his son. Yawning, he realized that Maria was saying something but as he’d done so many times before, he let the words drift in one ear and out the other. After a moment, Maria moved to Liz, hugging her friend tightly. ‘Wake Kyle up.’

‘Can’t. Maria. Squishing me.’

He snorted aloud. Reaching behind the girls, he nudged Kyle a few times, who flew off of the bed to fall face-first onto the ground. Kyle executed a series of push-ups a second after impact and when he was finished, he plopped back onto the mattress as if there was nothing out of the ordinary, rubbing the slumber from his eyes. “What’d I miss?” was young Valenti’s tired question, finally acknowledging the newcomers.

“We’re having a meeting,” answered Max, his arms crossed as he glared at Kyle.

Of course they were. Michael rolled his eyes.

NOTE: So, I'm a horrible person. I've been sitting on this for a WHILE, just... not doing anything. Thank you guys, as usual, for the feedback - it helps, a lot. And, as always, lots of love for Whimsy, who reads all of the crap I fling at her.


“No, you’re not.”

Max gaped. “Yes, we are.”

Parker tensed. The anger she tried so hard to hide beat against his skull; Michael wanted her to get her shit together because it was giving him a headache. “I’m exhausted,” she reasoned, “we’re all exhausted. We can have a meeting some other time, preferably after some sleep.”

He had to give her some credit. At least she retained a semblance of civility.

Max shook his head, obstinate. “No, we’re having one now. We need to understand what, exactly, happened back there.”

“I’d really rather wait for that conversation,” Liz replied, still deceptively calm. “None of us understand what’s going on at this point, so talking about it now isn’t going to change that. In case you’ve forgotten, we have school in the morning and I haven’t even studied for my English exam.”

“We have exams?” Michael asked. His mind had been preoccupied.

The tension eased once her attention turned to Michael. “It’s been on the bulletin board for weeks,” she informed him dryly.

“Like I actually pay attention in that class.”

“Liar. You identified two lines of a Robert Frost poem in seconds. I know you pay attention.”

He dismissed it with a wave. “Lucky guess.” Robert Frost was hardly difficult to identify.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Ulysses,” was all she said.

He narrowed his eyes right back. “Don’t start your shit, Parker.”

“You guys have the same class?” Maria chimed in, her eyes darting between them curiously. “I didn’t know you were in Advanced English, Michael.”

Liz nodded, silently conceding defeat. “I have to admit, I was a bit surprised myself, but he’s actually pretty—”

“Guys!” Max interjected, his voice loud in the large room. “None of that’s important right now. What we need to do is figure out how Brody got ahold of that device, and how Michael was able to transfer himself into Liz.” Here, he lowered his volume. “Tess said something about a… a kali.”

Michael could have slapped Max for bringing up Tess; the spark he’d defused had reignited at the mention of the little blonde’s name, and Michael didn’t think he could distract Liz a second time. What a wasted effort. “Where is Tess?” asked Liz. The tone could be considered conversational to anyone who couldn’t read her like an open book. “She seems to know more than any of us do, so why not bring her to this meeting?”

“She was tired, so I told the Sheriff to take her home,” said Max. “She used up a lot of energy on the mind warp.”

This was not good.

“Gee, thanks,” piped up Kyle, “now I get to walk home.”

Max’s voice hardened. “She needed to rest, Kyle. I wasn’t going to have her up for the rest of the night.”

Liz was a ticking time bomb. “God forbid Tess gets a little shaky on her feet. God forbid she has to stand here and listen to you after such a tiresome, horrible ordeal she’s gone through, right Max? I mean, it’s not like none of us were there, none of us had gotten shot, or, you know, died.”

‘Whoa. Calm down,’ Michael sent at her. The vibrations he caught from her were distinctly off, entirely too familiar to that day by the bleachers.

She wasn’t listening to him. “It makes perfect sense for you to send your little Queen home with Kyle’s only ride without consulting anyone, Your Royal Highness, because god for-fucking-bid you consult anyone before making a goddamned decision!”

“Liz,” Max tried.

“No, you’re going to shut up and listen to me for a change, you bastard.”

Was Michael the only one bothered by the uncharacteristic profanity? Why was she swearing so much? That, for some reason, bugged him more than anything else.

“Liz,” Max tried again, but it was futile. Even Maria backed away from her best friend, alarmed.

Still, it was strangely gratifying that she wouldn’t listen to Max, either.

“How dare you? How dare you march in here and tell us that we have to sit through another one of your meetings when we’re exhausted? We’ve all had a crazy day. Don’t you even give a shit that your sister might need some comfort after you made her shoot a gun? I know it’s difficult, but if you try really hard Max, I think you’re perfectly capable of dislodging your head from your ass long enough to realize that none of us are in any shape for pandering to His Excellency. I am not one of your loyal subjects and I am not in the mood for your bullshit.”

A beat of thick, heavy silence followed her vulgar tirade.

Michael squashed down the vague sense of pride with a wave of disapproval. As entertaining as this was, he needed to get a handle on the situation before it spun out of control. He reached out to her with his mind and attempted a different approach. ‘You’re scaring Maria.’

‘Maria hasn’t given two shits about me or what I had to say before, so why should I give a fuck about what she thinks now?’ There was enough venom behind that mental reply that Michael winced, a black tendril of something horrible brushing up against his psyche as an afterthought. It was the same feeling he’d experienced when he’d encountered that disgusting tangle of writhing black tar hidden deep within her, the surface of which he’d barely skimmed. It made him shiver and brought with it the disturbing sensation of never feeling happy again; a part of him cringed away in revulsion while another hurried to soothe Parker with a wave of false calm.

‘Maria’s your best friend, Parker.’ He reminded. Christ, when had he agreed to play referee in the latest Parker-Evans Saga? This shit was getting old really fucking quickly and if he had to deal with one more outburst from her, he was going to punch someone. Probably Max, for provoking her. Or Kyle, for touching his nipple. ‘The only one you’re pissed at is Max. Don’t take it out on everyone else.’

‘I’m not taking it out on anyone.’ The vitriol, he noted, had lessened significantly. She was still defensive. ‘Max is just being unreasonable with his demands.’

‘This is news to you?’

The tension melted away, a spark of humor dancing around the edges of his senses. She didn’t laugh or smile, but that oozing tendril of whatever-the-fuck was no longer present. Their mental back and forth had taken no longer than a hair’s breadth of time and she probably seemed more than a little unstable, but he doubted she cared. Neither did he, for that matter. If she was happy, so was he; it meant not having to deal with a mental barrage of crap he shouldn’t have had to deal with in the first place.

Of course, Michael wasn’t a miracle worker. He couldn’t fix everything and when Max retrieved his jaw from the floor, his words were bitter. “You seem to be the only one that has difficulty with loyalty, Liz.”

Michael was going to punch the living shit out of Max.

Fuck nipples and midgets and incriminating Polaroids. Their alien king was going to pay for the explosion that went off in his head, his brain little more than crumpled and charred debris left in its wake. He groaned and rubbed at his temples, but the sensation of being ripped in two wouldn’t go away. The throbbing, the aching, the pulsing made him grit his teeth.

A lamp flickered off as it was yanked from the nightstand with unseen hands, flying past Michael’s head to crash into the wall behind Max; had he not ducked in reflex, it would have smashed into his face.

Well, that was new.

“Get out.”

Isabel jumped away from her brother with a look of surprise, uncomprehending, when the only other lamp in the room made a beeline for Maxwell Evans. Again, Max jumped out of the way. “What the—?” Another crash in the darkened room cut him off.

Michael stared dumbly at the shattered lamp.

“Get. Out.”

He really hoped this wasn’t what he thought it was.

“Liz?” With it being so dark, it was uncertain who had said her name.

“Get out!”

Shit.

When he and Kyle were bucked off of the bed, springs and all, Michael swore under his breath. An unnatural wind picked up and the room imploded, dressers toppling over, glass raining in from the broken windows. It was difficult to see with all of the light bulbs smashed, but the fluctuating power surged and roared, flickers of illumination that revealed a typhoon of mundane furniture turned into weapons with Parker standing at the vortex. Aside from her wild hair, she was motionless, wound tight while her dark eyes screamed bloody murder.

“What’s happening?” Maria had to scream over the whirling wind.

A shit-storm, Maria. Michael ducked an oncoming slipper-shaped missile and grabbed his hysterical girlfriend.

“We have to get out of here!” It was Isabel, panicked.

He grabbed her, too. Michael had every intention of getting them the hell out of Parker’s meltdown, but he doubted he’d be so lucky.

He shoved both young women, along with Kyle, out into the hall. One arm held high in defense, he grabbed a fistful of Max’s collar and flung him as far out of harm’s reach as he could, slamming the door closed behind them. He locked it for good measure, ignoring their shouts and roaring demands. As long as the others were safe, he could deal with the Parker problem unhindered and without a million questions to distract him. Never mind that they could blast through the door if they weren’t so irrational. Never mind that he had no idea how to go about doing that, as the last time they’d dealt with a power malfunction had been his own, during an argument with Liz in the Crash Down. The night he’d seen her falling apart over Alex; the night he’d somehow opened this strange thing with her and started this sojourn into the seriously fucked up.

This was bullshit. There wasn’t another way to describe this entire night other than complete and utter bullshit.

It wasn’t bad enough that Brody had gone off the deep end, again. It wasn’t enough that Liz had been shot. Again. It wasn’t enough that he’d unconsciously swapped bodies with her in order to keep her alive. It wasn’t enough that she’d found out about Tess’ pregnancy and she was even more off-kilter than she had been since Alex’s death.

No, that had just been a goddamned appetizer.

While Hank was hardly an example he wanted to live by, Michael had the sudden urge to down a keg.

He still didn’t understand why it had been Liz, of all people, he’d connected with. He didn’t understand why it kept growing, how it kept growing, why it suddenly became his obligation to protect the irritating human. He didn’t know why she was losing it like this, how it was possible that she was subconsciously using their powers, or why she was steadily turning into an entirely different person. Worst of all, aside from her sporadic ventures into the insane, he had no idea why this connection didn’t seem wrong to him. By all rights, it should have pissed him off, should have had him snarling to stay the fuck away from her.

But in the warzone that had once been Elizabeth Parker’s room stood a girl even more broken than the furniture around her and, for some fucking reason, he knew he had to fix it. Knew that he could.

It was the ‘how’ that was kicking his ass.

‘Liz,’ he tried, slowly treading towards her. He quickly dodged a twisted ball of metal and hopped closer. Had that been her lawn chair? ‘Liz, damn it, snap the fuck out of it!’

Nothing.

One of those weird tentacles brushed his skin, a tangible snarl of pure obsidian. He balked at the chilling caress, a quiver running down his spine at the icy touch. With a small mental push, the ugly thing leapt far away from him and retreated into the safe haven of Parker’s closed mind. Desperate, his consciousness followed it, hoping to find some kind of access, an ‘in’, to rip her out of her shell, as he’d done before.

Something stopped him.

The childe is lost.

What? He jerked, the voice both familiar and not. He shook it off, reaching for Liz again with quiet words he doubted she heard. When he pushed again, trying to force his way in, a painful snap pierced through something in his chest and he grunted, clutching at his collarbone.

You cannot reach her. It would consume you, as it consumes her.

The only thing consuming him was the feeling of loss. It left him breathless. He struggled to understand who—or what—was talking to him. There were no creepy vibes, no wild emotions, no vague impressions, no Liz. The line had been cut, unplugged, and it manifested as a pain both physical and mental; he imagined that an amputated limb would feel much the same way. Horror dawned on him when he realized what had happened, what he’d lost, and anger roared to the surface as a reflex shortly thereafter, demanding retribution for having something he’d grown so used to suddenly taken away.

Forgive me, dear one. It must be done.

He was reeling. Nothing made sense, least of all that.

But he’d be damned if he gave up so easily. He would not lose anyone else; they’d already lost Alex and he would not let Liz go, too. He’d put a lot of time and effort into making sure that brilliant little pain-in-the-ass stayed in one piece, had gone against his ‘royal’ obligations as Max’s Second to help her, had put aside differences to be the friend he’d never really been for her. He would be fucking damned if that all went to shit just because their fearless leader was on an asshole streak. So, slightly disoriented, he tried to use what mental feelers he had left to reach out with invisible fingers. They were weak and flickered dangerously, nearly giving out completely at one point, but they held true enough that he wrapped them around Parker and gave a gentle squeeze. With their link severed, even his telepathy was gone.

That did not mean he’d lost his voice. “Liz!”

Whether it was his emotions, his voice, or tattered remains of their link desperately trying to repair itself, he didn’t know. Whatever it was, he saw her eyes widen in recognition, a soft murmur falling from her trembling lips. He couldn’t hear it, but it might have been his name.

Relief flooded through him when the winds began to die down and some of the debris clattered to the floor.

Another point to Guerin.

He was ready to call it a night. Webs of pain shot down his spine, the steady throbbing in his chest weeping from what it had lost. He would deal with it tomorrow, after some much needed rest and a new shirt. Let everyone else deal with any more shenanigans that came up. He was done.

“Michael!”

Bone-tired, he didn’t have the strength to dodge the wayward bureau.

Something was crawling around his head, gentle and not entirely unpleasant.

‘Michael, please. I’m so sorry. Please. Michael…’

Soothing and sweet, like melted chocolate.

‘Michael. Michael, can you hear me? Oh, god, please, I’m so, so sorry. Open your eyes. Michael, open your eyes. Michael, Michael, Michael, MichaelMichaelMichaelMichaelMichaelMichael…’

There was a sharp, desperate tug in the vicinity of his chest. It stung and he instinctively resisted, his mind guarding him from further injury. It tugged again, persistent and strong, and he could not stop it from attaching itself, building scabs around a fresh wound, placating him with smooth insistence. The sting became a low burn he could stand, though the intrusion annoyed him. It felt familiar, felt right, but he had not given it permission, so it had no business being there. Still, something clicked into place, made an even bigger niche for itself, and stole away any lingering pain.

He remembered this feeling. The time and place were lost on him, but he remembered it and it reassured him.

A new bond must be forged. The old one will mend and fade, but the childe is stronger than I had believed. You will have to start again, learn again, but its pace and form will be your own.

“I can’t… I can’t bring him back.”

“But you have to! He’s not dead, I can still feel him! He’s not dead!”

“I know that, Liz, but… something’s keeping him from waking up.”

Someone, someplace, sobbed. It was a sorrowful mourning that echoed in his head, distraught and frantic.

‘Michael… please don’t leave me. Don’t you dare leave me, too.’

“Can’t you do that mind-speak thing you were telling me about?”

It will be stronger, dear one, than the last. She will make it so.

Who the hell were all of these people talking to him? It was giving him a headache.

“Mind-speak? What, like telepathy?”

“Yeah. Apparently, she and Chewbacca are one with the Force.”

“Since when?”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that, Evans. Yoda wasn’t omniscient, either.”

But take heed, my son. The vessel will need your strength. You are ready, though you do not yet know, while she is lost.

“I’ve been trying, Kyle. He’s not responding, he’s not even grumbling at me! I don’t know what to do, anymore. I can feel him, but it’s like he’s blocking me and I can’t get through it.” Labored breathing. A whimper. “But… god, I didn’t mean to hit him. The dresser just… I couldn’t stop it in time… I just… Isabel! Isabel, dreamwalk him, maybe you can find him, maybe you can bring him back—!”

“What do you mean, ‘feel’ him? Since when do you and Michael ‘feel’ each other?”

“Now is not the time, Maria.”

“You need to calm down.”

“I don’t need your permission to be hysterical, Max.”

“Much as I hate to admit agreeing with el jefe, you’re starting to freak me out.”

“Starting? I’d like to know when the hell my best friend turned into Jean Gray and feeling my boyf—”

“Kyle, shut up. Max, back off. Maria, now is not the time and why isn’t Isabel dreamwalking him, yet?!”

“I would, if you people would shut up and let me concentrate!”

“Do you think—?”

“I’m not talking to you, Liz.”

Silence. Wonderful, blessed silence. He gave an inner sigh of contentment at the peace, and then nearly threw a fit when not only could he feel someone trying to penetrate his orb, but the voices started up again. They were louder than before, full of panic and despair, and he wanted to cover his ears from the onslaught.

‘Michael, please.’

There will come a time when you will need to choose.

‘Why won’t you answer me? Michael, please, I don’t care if you curse or tease me for my butt or… god, just open your eyes!’

She has already chosen her Keeper.

‘Michael…’

The bond is yours to make. Yours to keep.

‘Michael!’

Yours to break.

His patience snapped. “Will you people shut the fuck up?” He groaned and rubbed his eyes, trying to ease the unhappy throbbing behind them. “Christ.” The voices had become echoes, words just out of his reach, but before he could try and grab them, the air was knocked from his lungs when both Isabel and Maria hugged him as if they would never let go. With a face full of blonde hair and his head still pounding, he did his best to quell the urge to throw them off of him.

It took him a moment to get his bearings. He was on a bed, he realized, still shirtless. Probably Parker’s bed. Once he’d hoisted himself into a seating position, his eyes instinctively looked for hers, taking in the ruined state of the furniture. He was silent as both Isabel and Maria fluttered over him, finally giving him some room to breathe. Even Max stopped being King Douche for all of twenty seconds to express his contentment. Kyle made some stupid joke he found amusing enough to smirk at and he replied in kind. Max gave Kyle a frosty glare but wisely chose to keep the hostility to a minimum; Isabel and Maria, two very different women for all of their similarities, didn’t seem to mind that they were practically on top of each other, both doing their fair share of hovering. Like he was some damned baby they had to worry about.

But where was Liz?

He had to stop himself from blurting out the question. Annoyed, he brushed off every “What happened?” and “Are you okay?” until they backed off, similarly annoyed with his refusal to answer their inquiries. He understood their paranoia and knew why they fretted so, but it was Parker that needed the help, not him. It didn’t seem right that they were all gathered in her destroyed bedroom—why hadn’t anyone fixed it, yet?—without her. The only other place he could think of to look was on her balcony, but with two girls caging him from the front and two boys on either side, it was difficult to see anything except their magnified pores.

He needed more sleep. Too much had happened tonight, too many questions and too many near-death experiences. Hybrids didn’t need as much sleep as humans did, they’d learned early on, but his head was swimming and his body was exhausted. He’d probably have to ditch both school and work in order to regain even a quarter of his stamina.

Still, he needed to see Liz. He needed to make sure she was all right.

Michael ignored whatever Maria was saying and reached out with his mind, something that was quickly becoming second nature to him. To his great relief, the invisible feelers were much more substantial than before, but nowhere near as sturdy as they’d been when he’d pulled his consciousness into Parker’s body. His chest began to ache. He stared blankly at a wall, searching for the compelling flicker of emotions he’d become so attuned to.

It was harder than before, when he hadn’t had to search at all to feel her. Stretching out as far as he could, he concentrated on the image of her in his mind; the scent of her hair, the soft gold of her skin, the distorted rainbow of her aura. Instinctively, he knew how to surf the airwaves and expanded his search past the borders of her room, his reach growing the longer he thought of her. It surprised him when he felt Max’s brooding, muddy brown signature, Maria’s flighty, bubbly pink, Isabel’s icy blue, and Kyle’s soothing emerald. He’d never seen theirs before. This inexplicable ability had been limited to Liz and himself, but now it had opened further, though it was dulled in its magnitude. He wondered if he could communicate with them as easily, if he could pick up impressions as he had with Liz.

As much as he wanted to experiment, his mind had been stressed past the breaking point. He needed rest and soon, but he needed to find Liz even more. Something screamed at him to find her, forced him to continue even when all he wanted to do was just pass out on her very comfortable mattress. After several minutes of his silence, pink exploded all over his inner vision and he jerked back into himself.

“Michael? Are you even listening?”

Maria. He rubbed a hand over his face, exasperated. “No,” he answered truthfully, biting back a yawn.

“Figures.”

He ignored her frustration in light of his own. “Where’s Liz?”

Only Kyle deigned to answer, as the others looked like they’d swallowed a lemon. “Out on the fire escape. I think.” While he seemed a little awkward, Valenti obviously held no malice against Liz. It was so stupid watching the others act this way, treating her like a parasite. He would have said something, told them to knock off the kiddy shit, before he remembered that not too long ago, he’d done the same damned thing.

He moved to get off of the bed, ready to push past the somewhat human wall to go see Parker for himself, when an unseen force knocked him back on the mattress.

The childe cannot be reached.

Maria was wailing, wondering why he’d fallen back so suddenly. Exclamations arose like wildfire, but all he heard was that voice. He ignored them, concentrating on the strange energy that kept him in place, hovering around the edges of his consciousness. Michael frowned, his vision growing dark around the edges. ‘Who the hell are you?’

Who I am is of no consequence.

“You think he has a concussion?”

“I healed him, Is. Physically, he’s fine.”

“Maybe he’s just tired.” Was that Kyle?

“Maybe. It’s been a long night.” Max. Definitely Max. “I’m so stupid. I should’ve listened to Liz. None of us were in any shape to deal with this.”

“Yeah, you should’ve listened to Liz.”

“That’s not fair, Maria. How was Max supposed to know she’d lose it like that? She’s not supposed to have powers.”

“Look, I get you’re defending your brother and all, but Liz told him she wasn’t in the mood. He didn’t listen, like always, and look what happened. I don’t care if Liz has powers or not, she’s the smartest, most rational person I’ve ever known. Like, I wouldn’t have survived school without her. I wouldn’t have survived puberty without her. So don’t go blaming this on Liz.”

“That’s very noble, especially when you were yelling at her for feeling your boyfriend not that long ago.”

“Oh, please. Just ‘cause I was jealous doesn’t mean I’m not on Liz’s side. She’s like, my best friend and I’ll bet she has a perfectly good explanation for everything.”

“What, like her brilliant theory that aliens killed Alex?”

“Don’t you dare bring Alex into this. We loved Alex more than anything and if Liz said—”

“I loved him just—!”

“Okay, that’s enough, ladies. We’re not getting anywhere with you two yelling at each other.” Kyle, the voice of reason.

Michael cursed inside. Their bickering made him edgier. ‘Where’s Liz?’ he demanded.

Rest, dear one, and do not fret.

His eyes were already closing.

“Let me call my dad. The big guy can crash at my place for a while,” Kyle said. “I don’t think we can explain him sleeping here.”

“I’ll let Mister Parker know he can’t make it in tomorrow,” said Maria.

“Sounds good. Can you guys get his notes? I only have Geometry with him.” Kyle, again.

“I can ask his teachers.”

“Thanks, Is.”

Michael slipped into slumber, still worried, still annoyed, and still wondering where Parker was.