Anyway, thanks to all your fb! I know the abortion thing is a controversial issue, and personally, I don't want to get into it. Whatever is expressed in this fic isn't necessarily my POV on the issue, or what I'd do, but I tried to make this as realistic to Liz as possible. I know some of you probably feel she should get an abortion, and others are adamant against it, and I know that either way, someone isn't going to be happy with the outcome, but honestly, I'm trying to be as in character as possible.This also took awhile because of Max. I had to work to get into his head, and Liz's, all at the same time, and keep them straight
Those two are complicated people. Some people might think some of this is out of character, but then, I also tried to make it as realistic to two eighteen year olds as possible, not only the characters. If you want an explanation as to my depiction of them in this story, PM me and I'll try to explain. But I've put a lot of thought into this, and how they'd act and react, because I'm a dork like that and I love psychology and people in general. Dreamer hearts should like this part.
Warning: Lots of dialogue.
Chapter Nine
I was wrong. Things definitely didn’t look better, or feel better, in the morning. The only good thing to come out of my night’s sleep was that Max was no longer hiding in the shower, but lying asleep on the opposite bed. In sleep he didn’t look like a little boy anymore. I remembered the first time I’d awoken to his face in the morning, out in the desert after we’d found the orb, and he’d looked so innocent. Not anymore. There were shadows, and dark circles, and strain that hadn’t been there. But in sleep, he was relaxed, and even though he looked his age or older, he was relaxed. Not so tense that just a glance in his direction made my muscles cramp.
I sat up, smoothing down my jeans that had bunched at my knees in sleep. I wished for a change of clothes, it never felt right to wear clothes you’d slept in but I had no choice. My shirt needed a shower as much as I did. I figured if Max was still asleep, I could get a shower and then we’d talk. But that was running again, even if only temporarily, and it was giving Max a chance to run. So before I could muster an argument against it, I walked over to his bed, sitting down beside his prone form.
“Liz?” he asked, not moving his head from the pillow. Our connection was once again silenced as it had been for months, but we were still tuned to one another. I wasn’t sure that would ever go away. I didn’t want it to. It was always nice to know I wasn’t alone.
“We need to talk, Max. Now, before we have to deal with Cal again, or--or anything else that might be thrown at us. Please, we just, we need to talk.” I begged, laying down beside him, on my side.
His face was half buried in the pillow, one eye peeking out at me. Pushing up on his hands, he rolled to his side, so we faced each other. “We do. I just don’t know what to say.”
Tears built up in my eyes, but I blinked them back quickly. They were an unfair advantage over Max, and I wasn’t going to guilt him into anything. I wanted honesty. I needed it. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes fell away from mine, following his hand as he reached out to touch my abdomen. Pushing the shirt out of the way just enough to slide underneath it, he brushed his fingers across my skin. “I know.” His amber gaze met mine once more. “But Khivar wasn’t stupid, Liz. He tricked you, and he--unfortunately, he knew exactly what he was doing.”
“What should I do?” I hated that I deferred to him, put more pressure on his shoulders, but I just couldn’t stand to make him hurt more, or get angry with me. And I honestly didn’t know. In the light of day, all those little things that get hidden in the shadows come out for you to face. Sometimes it’s better not to turn on the lights, not to know for sure whether there’s a monster under the bed or not. Because if there really is a monster, and you turn on the light, there’s nothing to protect you anymore.
My monster was real, an alien with resources we couldn’t imagine, and he wanted the child I was carrying. He’d gone to so much trouble to have her conceived, and I knew he wasn’t going to let it go. He’d come after us. All because of me. I couldn’t let that happen, but I just couldn’t destroy an innocent life. Maybe if it were a normal pregnancy, where I would have had so much more time before a real baby, a real life form began to develop, but it wasn’t.
“I can’t make that decision for you, Liz.”
That’s the thing about Max Evans that makes him so difficult to leave, to tear myself away from. He always knows the right thing to say, sometimes when I want to hear it, and sometimes when I don’t. But a single sentence, and I knew he trusted me to make my choice on my own. He trusted me to make the best decision for me, for everyone, himself included, and it gave me the strength I needed to open back up to him, because I wanted to trust him too.
“There isn’t much of a choice to be made.” I responded bitterly. I couldn’t help it, but I knew what I had to do. “I can’t keep her. It. Khivar will not stop until he’s won, especially not with his child on the line, he went through a lot of trouble for all this. There has to be a reason.”
“We can deal with Khivar. Once we have the seventh amplifier, he won’t be a problem.” His hand moved up to push the hair behind my ear from where it had fallen over my eyes. “I wouldn’t let him hurt you, or your daughter, Liz. You know that. No matter what.”
Why did he have to be so sweet? Why couldn’t he get angry, scream at me, like he had when Alex died? It would’ve made everything so much easier. But he wasn’t that man anymore. I didn’t think he’d ever really changed on the inside, I had my own private theory that while Tess hadn’t directly mindwarped him, she’d used every bit of twisted psychology, with a slight alien kick, to make him into someone else. Someone who was cruel to his family.
I cleared my throat. “I know. Thank you, Max.” I laughed, tears falling onto the sheets. “But I really don’t deserve this, you being so kind. I really messed everything up--”
“Liz, you forgave me. Even after I’d been so horrible to you, to everyone, you forgave me. And not only that,” he raised his eyebrows, staring warmly at my face. “Not only that, you risked your future to help me find my son. And now I find out you gave me up, you pushed me away that year, because I asked you to. To save the world, even if I was being an idiot.” His hand stroked my face, no longer using the guise of a ‘hair thing.’ “I could never be stronger without you.”
Was it possible to die of shame and love all at once?
“I won’t lie to you, Liz. I--I hate that this has happened, and I want so badly to be angry, furious, with you, but I can’t. I just can’t. I’m hurting, but I know you’re hurting too, because I can feel it in here.” He placed his other hand on his chest, just over his heart. “This thing, this connection between us has lasted through so much, no matter how much we ignore it, it’s always there. And I’m grateful, I don’t want it gone. This way, I always know you’re near, even if you’re on the other side of the world. And I can always find you. You’ll always be part of me, and that’s something no one, not Tess, not Michael and Isabel, not Khivar, not Cal, not even my own stupid self, can take away from us.”
I closed my eyes.
“Why did he do this?” I asked. Even if Max didn’t have an answer that would help, I needed to ask. It was wonderful just to be able to talk to him, to lay with him despite all we’d been through and all we were facing. “Why would he do all this? I mean, this baby won’t even have the seal, right? So did he do it just to hurt you? To get back at you? And I helped . . .”
Max was silent, and I worried. Had my questions made him realize how foolish he was being? That he’d been too forgiving? He must’ve felt my fear because he moved his hand to cradle my cheek. “Liz, Khivar knew what he was doing. He knew exactly what he was doing with all of this.”
“I know that, Max.” I didn’t know what Max was hinting at, though. There was something in his eyes that scared me. He knew something that I didn’t, and whatever it was made him furious.
“No, Liz. You don’t know because I didn’t tell you last night. I should’ve, but I just couldn’t--I still can’t--” he stopped, controlling his breathing back to a steady rate. He looked at me helplessly. “Khivar wants a child with the seal, so that he can kill me and still have control of the throne. He can’t produce an heir with the seal. But he can manipulate genetics, Liz.”
My mouth fell open slowly. The pieces he lay before me were fitting together too well.
Max continued. “Why father your own child when you can father someone else’s?” His tone was dark, and thick with emotion.
“Oh my god.” I cried, unable to form any other words. “Oh my god.” I started crying again, and immediately wiped away the tears with a swipe of my hand. I was not going to fall apart again. I could handle this, it should’ve been a relief for me. It was Max who should be upset. Khivar had used Max’s genetics to impregnate me. He hadn’t had a a part in it, or a choice but for me, my only thoughts were glad. Thank god my child wasn’t Khivar’s. Thank god.
“Max, we have to deal with this, and with everything else between us. We can’t keep dodging the hard stuff, it’ll only make things worse and we have to beat Khivar. To do that we need a foursquare, and so we need to trust each other, not just with our lives, but with our hearts too. And even without the whole Khivar thing, I need to trust you. There is so much between us that we just never talked about, and that’s why this happened. I never told you how much it hurt me when you talked about your son, or how much it hurt to know that you’d been with Tess. We never talked about why I set up that night with Kyle. And now you know the reason behind it, but you don’t know how much it killed me to do that. How guilty I felt, and how I just wanted to let the world end so that I could have you. We can’t keep all this stuff hanging over our heads or it will drown us.” I pleaded. It certainly wasn’t the best time, but there might never be, and I was not going to give up on us because of pride. Because I couldn’t admit how jealous I was that Tess had something of his I never would. Or because I was afraid. He could reject me, but it wasn’t nothing that wouldn’t happen anyway if we didn’t talk.
“I know.” he whispered back, eyes closing. “And we have to talk now, before we find out anything else, before we deal with Cal again, or face Khivar. Before we tell Michael you’re pregnant.” He smirked a little at that. Taking a deep breath, he began. “So, should you go first or should I?”
“You.” I wasn’t ready. My hands were shaking. I hadn’t eaten in awhile, and I was sure an alien pregnancy was making me physically weaker than normal. But most of it was nerves.
“I hate him.” He responded instantly. “I hate him more than I ever believed I could hate anyone. More than Pierce. I hate what he’s done to you, and I hate what he’s been doing our whole lives. From before we were even born, he had plans to get Tess pregnant with my heir, and kill the rest of us. I want him dead, and I want him to suffer a long time beforehand.” He opened his eyes, amber meeting mine with resolve. “I hate how much it hurts to think of you with him. I’m not perfect, Liz, and I hate how much power you have over me. When I saw you last year, with Kyle, all I could think about was what you’d said the night before, about wanting normal boys and I thought--I thought you’d been lying when you told me you loved me, because I couldn’t imagine loving someone and then going off and sleeping with someone else. And then, of course, that’s exactly what I did. But at the time, I thought you’d never really loved me at all, and it killed me. Now, though, now I know you did it all because I asked you to, told you to. The thing with Khivar, you were drunk, and I know that Khivar took advantage of you, completely, and I know you love me, but it still hurts. But no matter what, Khivar doesn’t know you like I do. He hasn’t seen your soul, or felt what you felt, or just lain here and talked with you like I have.”
I blinked harshly at the tears I knew were just waiting to fall. “I’m sorry.”
“I know that what I had with Tess was just sex, and what you did with Khivar was even less than that. He raped you, Liz, even if you don’t want to realize it. It doesn’t help to classify it like that, I know, but it’s the only way I know to explain to you. Liz, I admit that I did care for the person Tess pretended to be, because I was fooled by her stupid lies and tricks. But I never loved her. It was never about love, and even if I loved my son, I never wanted her to be his mother. I regretted that, I still regret that. She never knew me like you know me, she’ll never have my heart, or my soul, or even my body. Because even if sex is considered intimate, it wasn’t. Not with Tess. I never kissed her just because I wanted to, I never just held her hand because I couldn’t stop touching her. And I never let her see me, see into me, the way you do. She never knew my favorite drink is Cherry Coke, or that I hate coffee no matter how much sugar or Tabasco you put in it, or that my favorite movie is Crouching Tiger, that I’ve always wanted a cat, or that strawberries are my favorite food.” He grinned slightly at that. “She never knew that I wanted to be a pediatrician, not a leader, or a king. And I knew absolutely nothing about her, aside from her wanting to be queen and go back to Antar at all costs.”
“I’ve hated Khivar from when I first heard of him. Now, I don’t know how to describe what I feel for him, because it’s something deeper than hate. He killed an innocent boy, he went through immense trouble and cost just to hurt you, when he’d already killed you once. And if he’s spent so much time obsessing over you, how well do you think he’s been ruling Antar? And he’s the reason I had to do all that I did when Future Max came. He wouldn’t have had to come at all, because the world wouldn’t have ended if Khivar had just left us alone. He’s the reason we’re all in this mess we’re in, he’s the reason Tess was able to come between us. We all share a little blame but none of it would’ve even happened if it hadn’t been for Khivar. And I hate--loathe him for it. And then to know that I actually--I actually gave my virginity to him, God, I-I can’t stand it! How could I have been so stupid? And then I remember that I was hurt, that’s why I started drinking that night. Because every time I looked up, I expected to see your face and I wanted it to stop. I kept thinking about you and Tess, and how she’d killed Alex, and I didn’t think it was possible for you to be so close to someone, and not know she was a murderer, or at least hiding something. But then I guess I was wrong, because I slept with Khivar and I had no idea he was evil, or even anything more than just a boy.
“It hurt so badly every time you mentioned your son because he was a part of you, and not me. Because he was part of Tess, and you loved him so much. And when you told me you’d given up on ever going home, or finding your son, I was happy. It was so selfish, and so stupid, but I was happy. And then you had that flash from your son, and focused on him so much that everything, including me and our relationship, got pushed back, and even though I wouldn’t have expected you to just ignore your son, it felt like you were leaving me for Tess all over again. But I didn’t want to lose you, so I went along, and I tried to help you. But then I started having all those changes, and they scared me because I’m not supposed to have them. They weren’t powers like you and Michael and Isabel, they were just weird things that I couldn’t control and that didn’t make any sense. Then I bombed the interview for Harvard, because I couldn’t hear what he was saying because of whatever was--is happening to me. And I thought that once again, I’d put my future on hold for you. Because of you. I loved you, so I was okay with that. But then when you tried to use the healing stones, and it was hurting me and you wouldn’t stop, it was like everything I’d been feeling since May was being doubled, and tripled, and made physical and I couldn’t stand it anymore.
“The thought of you with Tess, having sex with Tess, holding her hand in the hallway, kissing her, sharing yourself with her the way you had with me, it destroyed me. I wanted to just scream, and scream at you because it wasn’t fair that I loved you so much and you could just move on to her like I was nothing. I know it was irrational, and now, I know you thought the same of me and Kyle, but it didn’t change how I felt. I was suffocating, and I had to get out of there before I lost everything I had always been on my own, to you. Before everything in my life was based on you, revolved around you. But it was already too late, and I knew that, but I thought I could go back to being the Liz Parker I was before that day I was shot. I couldn’t.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, fighting with his own tears. The connection between us had been blown wide open once more, and it had become difficult to distinguish between our mutual sorrows. The parallels in how we thought, how we dealt with things, was frightening.
“You know what I want, more than anything in the world?” I asked him, suddenly wanting to share with him the things Future Max had revealed to me, the imaginings that kept me going most of the time. “I want what the future us had. Making love the night of Gomez, a wedding in Vegas at the Elvis Chapel, fourteen years. Even if the world ends, it has to be better than this.”
He raised an eyebrow. “We got married in Vegas?”
I nodded, smiling. “Yeah. We were nineteen.”
He rolled on to his back, swinging one arm across his stomach. “How on Earth or any other planet could I have given that up? All I’ve ever wanted was to marry you, to be with you. I can’t imagine thinking I’d be better off without you.” He looked over at me from the corner of his eye, one hand reaching to grasp mine. “I need you, Liz. I know that things’ll be rough, but I can’t just lose you, not now. Not after everything. I just can’t. I refuse to let them win. That’s what they wanted, Khivar and Tess, to split us up, to divide us but I won’t let them.”
“It’ll be more than rough, Max.” I said, not wanting to ruin his determination but sure not yet it had really hit him. I was pregnant, with his child genetically, when I’d slept with his enemy. And if this damn seal was keeping Khivar from being officially king, he wouldn’t stop just because we found one way to prevent his coming and goings. He’d find another. I voiced my thoughts. “And even if we manage to stop Khivar, my parents, god I needn’t be worrying about evil aliens, it’ll be my parents who kill me. And what’s worse, they’ll take one look at this baby and know who the father is, and if they hated you before, that’ll be nothing in comparison.”
He reached over to pull me up against his side, my head resting on his chest. His hands found their way to my hair like magnets. “It’ll be alright. Technically speaking, we could both have graduated at the end of last semester, we have enough credits. We’re both eighteen now and we’ve both had jobs for most of high school. I’ve got enough money saved up for tuition at pretty much any college. Not Harvard, maybe, but still a good school. You can go to school, and I can get a decent job at the least. We’ll deal with Khivar now, and we have the rest of our lives to make things right.”
“You shouldn’t have to deal with this. This baby, it’s my mess. I really should--” I coughed, cursing myself for crying. “I really should get an abortion, but I just can’t. I can’t. I know it will make everything easier, safer, but I just can’t take an innocent life. Not now that I know she’s real, and I’ve seen her, and felt her heartbeat. And adoption, that isn’t even in the picture. Not with alien blood and a much-sought after royal seal. But this is my fault, Max. My problem. You shouldn’t have to worry about--”
“You shouldn’t have had to worry about FBI, or alien invasions, or the end of the world, or skins, or alien blood, or royal seals, or alien babies, or any of this crap. You shouldn’t have to worry about being arrested for armed robbery. God, Liz, I made you carry the gun. What was I thinking? Why did you let me do that to you?” he asked, wiping a hand down his face.
That was easy to answer, even if it was foolish on my part. “It was you.” I answered with a grin. Maybe comparing his saving me, and risking everything in the process, with his using me wasn’t a proper one, but it was the only true answer I could give. It was Max.
He ruffled my hair then smoothed it back, returning a half-grin. “I do love you, Liz. I always have, and I know I always will. I really just want this to work. I’m sick of us hurting each other, and--” His eyes trailed to my stomach. “I have no idea what we’re gonna do with a baby. But we’ll do it together.” He took a deep breath. “We’ll do this together, because we can. I think it’s the only way we can.”
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P.S I'll be updating everything else ASAP but RL has been tough recently. That and I've been sick, so this was all I managed to write, and only because I was inspired. CoE and OSG are next on my agenda, then Vegas.
