Hello everyone! Thanks for all of the comments - I hope to be able to answer them soon. I'm just dropping this off on my way to the family BBQ. Have a good weekend!
Chapter Twenty One
“What the fuck were you thinking, Nate!”
When Max had quietly dropped Nate off at his driveway, Nate had been surprised that they hadn’t returned to New York. Then again, there wasn’t much point in imposing on those who lived there – it wasn’t like the kidnappers were going to just drop Liz and Emily off where they’d taken them. He’d managed to pry a little bit of information out of his father – ironically, apparently Jackson and Aubrey were already on Antar, having safer and faster means of travel than those any human could survive.
Now, sore and exhausted from his journeys, Nate was slouched on the couch, his feet far-spread, his eyes dismally fixed on the floor. Before him, Alyssa stood in the middle of the living room, her body sort of bent forward in that confrontational manner that so reminded Nate of her mother. Speaking of which, Maria and Michael were outside with Jake, pushing him on his swing in the back yard to prevent the tot from hearing the inevitable explosion inside of the Spencer household.
“Don’t give me the silent treatment,” Alyssa demanded. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
Nate glanced at her, worked his mouth and returned his gaze to the floor. He pitied his poor daughter, no doubt sensing and fearing her mother’s rage.
“Okay, let me recap,” she began, trying to even out her tone. “You vanished in the middle of the night, Nate. You left me a goddamned note! You couldn’t even have the decency to wake me up and talk about what you wanted to do?”
Nate knew why he hadn’t done that – simply because she would have tried to talk him out of it. Not that she was going to give him a chance to voice that thought, even if he wanted to.
“And I know why! You didn’t wake me up because I would have told you your plan had a million holes in it. I would have told you that it was a fool’s errand. And then you would have had to listen to me. Which brings me to my next point!”
Nate cringed slightly. He knew what was coming.
“You blocked me out of your mind?!” she said incredulously. “You tell me to go bother Jeremy instead? And you kicked me out of your mind? What was that, Nate!”
Nate scratched the side of his head. He couldn’t make her understand why he’d done any of it, that he’d left her out to protect her. Especially not while she was yelling at him. In the back of his mind, he wondered how high her blood pressure had risen and what effect it was going to have on the baby.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“Sorry?! You’re sorry! It’s not like you just knocked over my favorite houseplant, Nate! You left me behind and went to a time when neither of us existed! You could have made sure that neither of us ever existed. And all you can come up with is sorry?!”
Nate met her eyes, his full of pain and worry. “Al, please calm down –”
“Ugh!” Alyssa yelled as she threw her hands into the air. “Don’t tell me to calm down! And stop calling me Al!”
He should have ducked. He should have known it was coming. But he still flinched and jumped in surprise anyway. The lamp on the end table beside the couch suddenly exploded, sending shards of glass and metal in a bunch of directions. Luckily, Nate had the foresight to put up the shield and the sharp pieces of debris bounced off harmlessly.
Weary, Alyssa slumped onto the arm of the easy chair, her chest rising and falling noticeably with her anger, her gaze fixed in space. Nate dropped the shield and watched her sympathetically. When he’d returned home, overjoyed that Alyssa and Jake and baby girl Spencer still existed, he’d wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and hold her, to be with her, to kiss her everywhere. But when he’d opened that door, he’d been met with the expressionless face of Michael Guerin and the angry face of his daughter.
The worst part about Michael’s reaction was that it wasn’t a reaction at all. Nate had expected words of anger or possibly even some physical threat, but from Michael all he’d received was a silent look of disapproval. Maybe he had really messed up something in the past because suddenly Michael was non-confrontational and Max was willing to slug someone to get them to comply.
“Just tell me something,” Alyssa said, some of the anger gone from her voice. “Why did you think you had to do this all on your own? You can tell me, Nate. Did you fall into some macho hero trip or something?”
Nate shook his head. “No, I just felt it was my responsibility,” he said quietly.
Alyssa’s head jerked up, her expression revealing that the fight was definitely not over just yet. “What do you mean it was your responsibility?”
Nate bit his bottom lip before responding. “It’s my responsibility because I let her down.”
Alyssa snorted and shook her head. “Wonderful. That’s all great. We all pay so you can ease your conscience.”
Yep, she’d only been taking a breather – round two was just around the corner.
“You and your fucking guilt!” she said, rising to her feet again. “My God, Nate! Not everything in this world is your responsibility to fix. It could have been anyone else to send them away, it could have even been Max! He could have easily mistaken Emily’s fear as not wanting to get on the plane. Easily! Even Liz didn’t catch it and she’s Emily’s mother! But, oh no, Nate Spencer misses one obscure clue and now everyone had to accept that fact that he’s going to do something incredibly stupid to try to fix the problem!”
Nate’s gaze returned to the floor. He knew he’d had his reasons for doing what he’d done, he knew that it had all made sense to him. But now she was making it sound so stupid…
“You want to talk about responsibilities? What about this?” Alyssa pointed both index fingers at her belly. “Do you in any way feel responsible for her?”
“Of course I do.” How could she even think he didn’t?
She pointed out the window next, where Nate could see Michael chasing a giggling Jake. “What about him? Do you think you have any responsibility to him?”
“Alyssa, you know that I love my son,” Nate began.
“I didn’t ask you if you love him or not, Nate,” she said in a clipped tone. “I don’t doubt that you love Jake. I asked if you felt any responsibility to him. Because your actions prove that you’re responsible to everyone else first.”
Nate’s mouth dropped open. “That’s not true!”
“Isn’t it?” she challenged. “What were you going to do with the granilith? You were going to steal it before a whole lot of important things involving it happened. You would have effectively changed history. You might not have been around when the deal was done. Don’t you think that might mean that a child you made might not be around either? Didn’t you feel some responsibility not to steal the life from your own kid?”
Nate looked to the floor in shame. In truth, he’d prevented himself from thinking too much about Jake because he knew that everything Alyssa was saying was true. If he thought about his son, he never would have been able to go through with any of it.
“Did you consider Jake?” Alyssa asked, her voice more curious than confrontational. “You didn’t, did you?” She let out a sad laugh. “My God, it absolutely frightens me how you could just put him out of your head.” She shook her head in sympathy. “And you claim you love him.”
Nate felt a stinging at the back of his eyes. He was so tired, so mentally weary from everything that he just felt like sobbing. His wife was speaking the truth and he himself had to wonder how he’d managed to not deal with the consequences to his son. Nate had never been more ashamed.
“I can’t do this,” Alyssa said, her voice suddenly vulnerable.
When Nate looked up, he saw that she’d curved one arm around her abdomen and he was immediately worried for his baby. Quickly, he got to his feet and went to her.
“Alyssa, are you okay?” he asked, taking her arm, which she started to flinch away, but forced herself to stop. “Sit down.”
She straightened her body and shook her head. “No. I can’t do this anymore, Nate.”
With that, she pulled away from him and headed for the bedroom. Nate watched in confusion, then followed after her. He was expecting to see her thrown on the bed, crying or something, but instead he found her dragging out her suitcase.
“What are you doing?” he asked in alarm.
“I can’t be here with you,” she said without looking at him, tossing the luggage onto the bed. “I’m leaving.”
“Alyssa, no!” Nate cried, knowing better than to try to physically stop her.
“Is this the way it’s going to be?” she asked, her voice level, as she pulled some clothes from the dresser. “Every time you want to do something I don’t agree with, are you going to just slip away in the middle of the night?”
“I told you I was sorry,” Nate repeated. “I meant that. I really am.”
She said nothing, simply placed the clothes in the bag. As she stood to get more items for the case, however, she let out a little gasp and winced, her arm going to her belly. The pain was enough to make her sit down on the edge of the bed. Immediately, Nate knelt before her, his hands going to her abdomen. Inside, he could feel her body in stress, her blood pressure up, heart rate elevated. The baby was feeling it, its own body reacting accordingly.
“You’ve got to calm down,” Nate said soothingly. “We can work things out, Alyssa. I want to be with you. I want to be with our children. I love you so much.” He lost the battle with his emotions, silent tears showing in his blue eyes.
Alyssa drew in a long breath, smoothed her belly with her hands. When she reached Nate’s hands, she gently removed them, much to his surprise.
“I love you, too, Nate,” she said evenly. “But I can’t be with you right now. I’m simply too angry. It’s not good for her. I’m leaving.” There was finality in her words.
Nate met her eyes for a long moment, then stood in resignation. “No,” he said quietly. “You stay here. I’ll go.”
He wanted so much to hold her, to make everything all right. He wanted nothing more than to lie down on that bed with her and calm her frazzled nerves. He wanted to fall asleep with her, his hand cradling his unborn daughter. But instead he turned on one heal and walked out of his house.
The sun was waning over the horizon as Nate climbed into his truck and started the engine. He wanted to run behind the house and spend some time with his son, but he knew that his reappearance and subsequent disappearance was only going to confuse the tot. His eyes drifted to the small house they’d worked so hard to make a home and he’d never felt more like a visitor in his life.
Resolved to his fate, Nate backed the truck onto the street and started driving. He had no idea where to go. He certainly couldn’t go to Max’s house – the scene there was no more pleasant than the one he’d just left behind. New York was too far away.
Before long, he found himself passing through the gate at the Ramirez estate. It was now dark, the sky starless due to cloud cover. Nate pulled his truck to a stop before the garage and turned his gaze upward to the loft. He remembered how it used to annoy him that Jeremy would just drop in unannounced and found himself unable to return the favor.
Hand shaking slightly, Nate reached out and rang the doorbell to the big house. He didn’t yet know what Isabel’s reaction to his actions would be. If Jeremy had told her about Nate’s talk with his dead mother, it was entirely possible that Isabel wouldn’t be happy to see him at all.
In short order, the door swung open. Isabel looked surprised but not necessarily angry.
“Hi, Nate,” she said, a hint of curiosity in her tone.
“Please don’t turn me away,” he said, his voice cracking and his composure finally disintegrating all together as he broke into sobs. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”
tbc
Fathers and Sons (CC ALL,MATURE) {Complete} 10/01
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Midwest Max
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Last edited by Midwest Max on Mon Sep 05, 2005 8:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Twenty Two
Nate winced as the cotton ball made contact with his injured cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Isabel said, pulling the ball back, then dabbing the wound delicately. “Well, I guess this explains Max’s swollen hand.”
On the plane, Nate had done almost everything in his power to not look at his father. He hadn’t noticed that Max’s hand was damaged, but now he realized something – while Max hadn’t healed Nate’s injuries, had hadn’t healed his own either.
Isabel frowned and sat back slightly. “That looks bad, Nate. I’m not sure that it doesn’t need medical attention.” She turned to Jesse, who was stirring a pot of stew on the stove. “Jesse, do you think Nate needs to go to the hospital?”
Without turning around, Jesse replied patiently, “Max would have taken him if he needed to go, honey.”
Isabel returned her gaze to Nate, brushed the wound gently with the side of her thumb. “I wish I could heal it. I would if I could.”
He gave her a small smile. “I know you would, Aunt Isabel.”
She cocked her head to the side. “But you could heal it, couldn’t you?” Nate blushed slightly. “Then why haven’t you?” When he didn’t answer in a reasonable amount of time, Isabel snorted lightly. “My God. You two love your pain, don’t you?”
Nate looked away. Alyssa had pretty much laid him open emotionally and he wasn’t sure he could withstand any more psychoanalysis.
“I don’t like pain,” Jesse said cheerfully, turning from the stove. “As a matter of fact, I have a new wine I was wanting to try. You game, Nate?”
Nate nodded numbly. He didn’t want wine, he didn’t want anything to dull his senses, but he knew how Jesse was when he finally found someone who could share a drink with him. There was no stopping the man.
As Jesse headed for the wine cellar, Isabel reached over and brushed Nate’s hair out of his eyes.
“Feeling better now?” she asked.
He nodded slightly. It was odd how ordinary this night seemed, what with Liz and Emily still missing. Jesse was making dinner, Isabel was mothering her nephew, and the creepy twins were off somewhere being creepy. It was a normal night and that in itself made it not normal.
“What’s on your mind?” Isabel asked gently, placing a reassuring hand on Nate’s leg.
He shrugged. “I was just wondering why you’re so calm. I mean, with everything going on.”
“You have to have faith,” she replied, her eyes showing for the first time that she wasn’t all that pulled together. “We have to believe that Jackson and Aubrey can bring them back to us. They have methods we don’t, Nate. They have armies at their disposal. They’re better suited for this than we are.”
He frowned. “I feel so…helpless.”
One corner of Isabel’s lip lifted slightly. “Is that why you did what you did? Because you felt helpless?”
He nodded weakly.
She sat back in her chair. “I’m not going to lecture you, Nate. I’m sure you’ve heard more than enough from Max and Alyssa.”
Actually, he hadn’t heard much at all from Max, but it let that slide.
“But I will tell you this,” Isabel continued. “We’re stronger as a team. You might not have been so helpless if you hadn’t separated yourself from the group.”
Even though her words were without judgment, Nate looked at the floor anyway.
Isabel reached over and took him beneath the chin, lifted his face upward. She was smiling. “Stop being so hard on yourself. You’re back here now and I know that soon Aubrey is going to bring them home. Things will be fine. You’ll see.”
Without thinking, Nate shook his head.
“What is it, Nate?”
He glanced at her, then drew in a breath. “I think Max hates me now.”
Isabel laughed. “He doesn’t hate you.” She glanced at Nate’s cheek. “Despite that, I’m willing to bet he doesn’t hate you.” Her expression was affectionate. “How can he hate you when he sees so much of himself in you?”
Nate raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“It’s true. He sees you trying so hard to make everything right and not always knowing how to do that. He sees you wanting to do the right thing but not always making the right choices. The two of you are not so different.”
“Am I one of the bad choices he made?”
Isabel’s easy demeanor slid away slowly. “I wouldn’t go that far, Nate.”
“Did you feel that way twenty five years ago?” he asked, no malice in his tone.
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked a little uneasy. “Max and I weren’t getting along so well when you were conceived.”
“So you hated me from the beginning,” he concluded glumly.
“No, I never hated you.” She was silent for a moment, possibly as she searched for the right words. “Once Max and I cleared the air, he told me that he was going to be a father. I was surprised, to say the least, but I was also kind of excited. I was happy because Max seemed to be happy. Shell-shocked, yes, but still a little in awe that he was going to be a dad.”
“Happy?” Nate echoed, taken aback. “He was happy that Tess was pregnant?”
“Maybe happy isn’t the right word. He was proud.” Isabel smiled. “Yes, he was proud he was going to have a son. And he was worried for you. At the time, Tess had convinced him that you would die if you stayed here on earth. He didn’t want to see that happen, Nate. He cared about you so much already, so much that he was willing to leave earth and everything he knew behind.”
Nate gave her a sad smile. She had never talked about Tess before and it was good to see that she could do so without bitterness or anger in her tone. He wondered if maybe she’d come to terms with what had happened years ago.
“I said some pretty mean things to him, Aunt Isabel,” he confessed quietly.
“Like what?”
“About how I came to be,” he said.
“Oh.” She looked and sounded like she could feel his pain. “Was that before or after he hit you?”
Nate snorted a small laugh. “Before. So I guess I deserved it, huh?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. But I do know that if he had to hit you, he hasn’t let himself off the hook for it. You know the old saying – this is going to hurt me worse than it hurts you? Well, in Max’s case, it’s the truth.”
Nate felt a stab of guilt as he watched Isabel slip from her chair at the counter and circle to the stove to stir the stew.
“Just out of curiosity,” she said, lifting the lid. “What made you go to Roswell in the first place? I mean, what would cause you to just up and leave in the middle of the night like that, especially right after we’d met to talk about our next action?” Her voice was genuinely curious and held no hint of reprimand.
Nate wasn’t sure how much he should say. After all, Isabel may have put Tess out of her immediate thoughts, but how would she react to knowing Nate had had contact with her – both in death and in a time before his birth?
Then something inside of him hit its limit. He was done with secrets. He was done pussy-footing around issues that affected all of them. Out of respect for her as a person, Isabel deserved to know the truth.
“Jeremy helped me talk to my mother,” he said.
Isabel stirred the stew and glanced over her shoulder, her brow furrowed. “Nate, I know her death is recent, but you should still try to let go –”
“Not that mother.”
She froze, the pot lid dripping condensation onto the stove top. Finally, she placed it back onto the pot and put the spoon on the rest. “Oh.”
“I found out some things from her, Aunt Isabel,” Nate continued, trying to act nonchalant about the revelation.
Isabel slid her still-slim body back into her chair. “Like what?” Her dark eyes were unreadable.
At that moment, Jesse re-entered the kitchen, a dusty bottle of red wine in his hands. The amount of dust on it led Nate to believe that it wasn’t a bottle the man had just acquired as he had implied earlier. Not that Nate felt he’d lied to him – it was simply Jesse’s way of being welcoming.
Hospitable or not, Nate wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about certain things in front of him.
Isabel waved her hand. “It’s okay. Jesse and I have no secrets from one another.”
Jesse looked up, beaming. “Not anymore! Honey, where is the cork screw?”
“In the drawer,” she replied, pointing.
As Jesse began rummaging for the utensil, Isabel returned her attention to Max’s son.
“What did she tell you?” she asked.
Nate was slightly surprised that she didn’t try to argue that it wasn’t really Tess Harding who had come to him, that it must have been a mindwarp or something. He had to wonder if somewhere along the way, she’d seen and talked to dead people also.
So Nate told her about the reason Emily was abducted, about the absent seal, about the bad guys wanting to put her on the throne and manipulate her. As he relayed his story, Isabel looked more and more worried, her pretty face contorted in thought.
Jesse didn’t interrupt them, but simply poured a couple of glasses of wine and set one before Nate. For Isabel, he retrieved some ginger ale and placed it in an identical wine glass, never wanting to make her feel left out.
“So if they conclude that Emily has the seal and is more alien than human, they will put her on the throne,” Nate concluded. “And they will kill Liz. Regardless.”
Isabel had sat back in her chair and was looking a little stunned. Jesse was leaning on the counter, his eyes round.
“Wow,” he said. “No wonder you took off like a bat out of hell.”
Nate gave him a grateful glance. It helped to have someone understand, even if it was a little late.
“Seriously,” Isabel agreed. “God, Nate, that’s a lot of news to absorb. Did you believe her?”
He nodded solemnly. “Aunt Isabel, do you believe it was really her?”
She nodded in return. “Jeremy is good at what he does. Apparently she wanted to talk to you.”
“Do you trust her?”
She looked at him quickly, one eyebrow arched. “No. But what does she have to gain from this? She’s dead. And the only information she gave you was to help, not to harm.”
Always supportive, Jesse reached over the counter and put a hand on her shoulder, gave her a comforting squeeze.
“I’m sorry if this upsets you,” Nate said. “I thought you should know the truth.”
“Thank you.” She sighed and looked out of the darkened window for a moment, then looked back to him. “This had to have been so hard for you. Your mom just died and then Liz and Emily get taken. Then your birth mother comes looking for you from beyond the grave. I don’t fault you for acting a little irrationally.”
He gave a self-conscious laugh. “Thanks.”
“Things haven’t gotten much better, have they?” she asked sympathetically. “Now you and Max are fighting and Alyssa has kicked you out.”
“I left,” he offered weakly.
Tears gleamed in her dark eyes. “My poor Nate,” she said as she bridged the gap between them and gave him a tight embrace.
Nate closed his eyes and enjoyed her comfort, though he found it difficult to let himself off the hook entirely. He wasn’t worthy of her sympathy, not being the dumbass Kyle had proclaimed him.
He suddenly felt a shiver up his spine and before he could respond to it, Isabel was pulling away from him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, but she wasn’t speaking to him.
Nate followed her gaze over his shoulder, then whirled to find Justin and Jason standing in the doorway.
“They’re coming,” one of the twins said.
“They’ll need our help,” said the other.
tbc
Nate winced as the cotton ball made contact with his injured cheek.
“I’m sorry,” Isabel said, pulling the ball back, then dabbing the wound delicately. “Well, I guess this explains Max’s swollen hand.”
On the plane, Nate had done almost everything in his power to not look at his father. He hadn’t noticed that Max’s hand was damaged, but now he realized something – while Max hadn’t healed Nate’s injuries, had hadn’t healed his own either.
Isabel frowned and sat back slightly. “That looks bad, Nate. I’m not sure that it doesn’t need medical attention.” She turned to Jesse, who was stirring a pot of stew on the stove. “Jesse, do you think Nate needs to go to the hospital?”
Without turning around, Jesse replied patiently, “Max would have taken him if he needed to go, honey.”
Isabel returned her gaze to Nate, brushed the wound gently with the side of her thumb. “I wish I could heal it. I would if I could.”
He gave her a small smile. “I know you would, Aunt Isabel.”
She cocked her head to the side. “But you could heal it, couldn’t you?” Nate blushed slightly. “Then why haven’t you?” When he didn’t answer in a reasonable amount of time, Isabel snorted lightly. “My God. You two love your pain, don’t you?”
Nate looked away. Alyssa had pretty much laid him open emotionally and he wasn’t sure he could withstand any more psychoanalysis.
“I don’t like pain,” Jesse said cheerfully, turning from the stove. “As a matter of fact, I have a new wine I was wanting to try. You game, Nate?”
Nate nodded numbly. He didn’t want wine, he didn’t want anything to dull his senses, but he knew how Jesse was when he finally found someone who could share a drink with him. There was no stopping the man.
As Jesse headed for the wine cellar, Isabel reached over and brushed Nate’s hair out of his eyes.
“Feeling better now?” she asked.
He nodded slightly. It was odd how ordinary this night seemed, what with Liz and Emily still missing. Jesse was making dinner, Isabel was mothering her nephew, and the creepy twins were off somewhere being creepy. It was a normal night and that in itself made it not normal.
“What’s on your mind?” Isabel asked gently, placing a reassuring hand on Nate’s leg.
He shrugged. “I was just wondering why you’re so calm. I mean, with everything going on.”
“You have to have faith,” she replied, her eyes showing for the first time that she wasn’t all that pulled together. “We have to believe that Jackson and Aubrey can bring them back to us. They have methods we don’t, Nate. They have armies at their disposal. They’re better suited for this than we are.”
He frowned. “I feel so…helpless.”
One corner of Isabel’s lip lifted slightly. “Is that why you did what you did? Because you felt helpless?”
He nodded weakly.
She sat back in her chair. “I’m not going to lecture you, Nate. I’m sure you’ve heard more than enough from Max and Alyssa.”
Actually, he hadn’t heard much at all from Max, but it let that slide.
“But I will tell you this,” Isabel continued. “We’re stronger as a team. You might not have been so helpless if you hadn’t separated yourself from the group.”
Even though her words were without judgment, Nate looked at the floor anyway.
Isabel reached over and took him beneath the chin, lifted his face upward. She was smiling. “Stop being so hard on yourself. You’re back here now and I know that soon Aubrey is going to bring them home. Things will be fine. You’ll see.”
Without thinking, Nate shook his head.
“What is it, Nate?”
He glanced at her, then drew in a breath. “I think Max hates me now.”
Isabel laughed. “He doesn’t hate you.” She glanced at Nate’s cheek. “Despite that, I’m willing to bet he doesn’t hate you.” Her expression was affectionate. “How can he hate you when he sees so much of himself in you?”
Nate raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“It’s true. He sees you trying so hard to make everything right and not always knowing how to do that. He sees you wanting to do the right thing but not always making the right choices. The two of you are not so different.”
“Am I one of the bad choices he made?”
Isabel’s easy demeanor slid away slowly. “I wouldn’t go that far, Nate.”
“Did you feel that way twenty five years ago?” he asked, no malice in his tone.
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked a little uneasy. “Max and I weren’t getting along so well when you were conceived.”
“So you hated me from the beginning,” he concluded glumly.
“No, I never hated you.” She was silent for a moment, possibly as she searched for the right words. “Once Max and I cleared the air, he told me that he was going to be a father. I was surprised, to say the least, but I was also kind of excited. I was happy because Max seemed to be happy. Shell-shocked, yes, but still a little in awe that he was going to be a dad.”
“Happy?” Nate echoed, taken aback. “He was happy that Tess was pregnant?”
“Maybe happy isn’t the right word. He was proud.” Isabel smiled. “Yes, he was proud he was going to have a son. And he was worried for you. At the time, Tess had convinced him that you would die if you stayed here on earth. He didn’t want to see that happen, Nate. He cared about you so much already, so much that he was willing to leave earth and everything he knew behind.”
Nate gave her a sad smile. She had never talked about Tess before and it was good to see that she could do so without bitterness or anger in her tone. He wondered if maybe she’d come to terms with what had happened years ago.
“I said some pretty mean things to him, Aunt Isabel,” he confessed quietly.
“Like what?”
“About how I came to be,” he said.
“Oh.” She looked and sounded like she could feel his pain. “Was that before or after he hit you?”
Nate snorted a small laugh. “Before. So I guess I deserved it, huh?”
“Well, I don’t know about that. But I do know that if he had to hit you, he hasn’t let himself off the hook for it. You know the old saying – this is going to hurt me worse than it hurts you? Well, in Max’s case, it’s the truth.”
Nate felt a stab of guilt as he watched Isabel slip from her chair at the counter and circle to the stove to stir the stew.
“Just out of curiosity,” she said, lifting the lid. “What made you go to Roswell in the first place? I mean, what would cause you to just up and leave in the middle of the night like that, especially right after we’d met to talk about our next action?” Her voice was genuinely curious and held no hint of reprimand.
Nate wasn’t sure how much he should say. After all, Isabel may have put Tess out of her immediate thoughts, but how would she react to knowing Nate had had contact with her – both in death and in a time before his birth?
Then something inside of him hit its limit. He was done with secrets. He was done pussy-footing around issues that affected all of them. Out of respect for her as a person, Isabel deserved to know the truth.
“Jeremy helped me talk to my mother,” he said.
Isabel stirred the stew and glanced over her shoulder, her brow furrowed. “Nate, I know her death is recent, but you should still try to let go –”
“Not that mother.”
She froze, the pot lid dripping condensation onto the stove top. Finally, she placed it back onto the pot and put the spoon on the rest. “Oh.”
“I found out some things from her, Aunt Isabel,” Nate continued, trying to act nonchalant about the revelation.
Isabel slid her still-slim body back into her chair. “Like what?” Her dark eyes were unreadable.
At that moment, Jesse re-entered the kitchen, a dusty bottle of red wine in his hands. The amount of dust on it led Nate to believe that it wasn’t a bottle the man had just acquired as he had implied earlier. Not that Nate felt he’d lied to him – it was simply Jesse’s way of being welcoming.
Hospitable or not, Nate wasn’t sure he wanted to talk about certain things in front of him.
Isabel waved her hand. “It’s okay. Jesse and I have no secrets from one another.”
Jesse looked up, beaming. “Not anymore! Honey, where is the cork screw?”
“In the drawer,” she replied, pointing.
As Jesse began rummaging for the utensil, Isabel returned her attention to Max’s son.
“What did she tell you?” she asked.
Nate was slightly surprised that she didn’t try to argue that it wasn’t really Tess Harding who had come to him, that it must have been a mindwarp or something. He had to wonder if somewhere along the way, she’d seen and talked to dead people also.
So Nate told her about the reason Emily was abducted, about the absent seal, about the bad guys wanting to put her on the throne and manipulate her. As he relayed his story, Isabel looked more and more worried, her pretty face contorted in thought.
Jesse didn’t interrupt them, but simply poured a couple of glasses of wine and set one before Nate. For Isabel, he retrieved some ginger ale and placed it in an identical wine glass, never wanting to make her feel left out.
“So if they conclude that Emily has the seal and is more alien than human, they will put her on the throne,” Nate concluded. “And they will kill Liz. Regardless.”
Isabel had sat back in her chair and was looking a little stunned. Jesse was leaning on the counter, his eyes round.
“Wow,” he said. “No wonder you took off like a bat out of hell.”
Nate gave him a grateful glance. It helped to have someone understand, even if it was a little late.
“Seriously,” Isabel agreed. “God, Nate, that’s a lot of news to absorb. Did you believe her?”
He nodded solemnly. “Aunt Isabel, do you believe it was really her?”
She nodded in return. “Jeremy is good at what he does. Apparently she wanted to talk to you.”
“Do you trust her?”
She looked at him quickly, one eyebrow arched. “No. But what does she have to gain from this? She’s dead. And the only information she gave you was to help, not to harm.”
Always supportive, Jesse reached over the counter and put a hand on her shoulder, gave her a comforting squeeze.
“I’m sorry if this upsets you,” Nate said. “I thought you should know the truth.”
“Thank you.” She sighed and looked out of the darkened window for a moment, then looked back to him. “This had to have been so hard for you. Your mom just died and then Liz and Emily get taken. Then your birth mother comes looking for you from beyond the grave. I don’t fault you for acting a little irrationally.”
He gave a self-conscious laugh. “Thanks.”
“Things haven’t gotten much better, have they?” she asked sympathetically. “Now you and Max are fighting and Alyssa has kicked you out.”
“I left,” he offered weakly.
Tears gleamed in her dark eyes. “My poor Nate,” she said as she bridged the gap between them and gave him a tight embrace.
Nate closed his eyes and enjoyed her comfort, though he found it difficult to let himself off the hook entirely. He wasn’t worthy of her sympathy, not being the dumbass Kyle had proclaimed him.
He suddenly felt a shiver up his spine and before he could respond to it, Isabel was pulling away from him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, but she wasn’t speaking to him.
Nate followed her gaze over his shoulder, then whirled to find Justin and Jason standing in the doorway.
“They’re coming,” one of the twins said.
“They’ll need our help,” said the other.
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Thank you for your patience
Part Twenty Three
To see them from a distance, one would have thought Justin and Jason Ramirez to be normal late-teenaged boys. Perhaps a little dorky, definitely of mixed nationality, but nothing so much out of the ordinary. Close proximity, however, could reveal that there was absolutely nothing ordinary about them at all.
If asked about his cousins’ day to day activities, Nate wouldn’t have been able to formulate a good answer. As for what kinds of movies they liked or what kind of music they listened to, he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t even tell if they had different likes, because they were so alike in every aspect he more or less assumed that their interests were alike as well. He realized that that assumption was probably folly, but he had little to base his opinion upon.
As for girls, Nate had never seen either of the twins with one. Were they gay? He didn’t think so, simply because he’d never seen them with boys either. In fact, he’d never once seen them with a friend, never a sleep-over when they were younger, never an outing to a ballgame with the guys.
The twins were an enigma and their actions of late were doing nothing to answer the riddle.
As the car bounced quickly down the road, with Jesse at the wheel and Isabel riding shotgun, Nate studied his cousins from his peripheral vision. He’d never actually been in such close proximity to them, squished together like they were in the back seat, and he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it now. Behind them, Jeremy followed in his SUV and Nate was still wondering how he’d ended up riding in this car instead of with his friend. Although he did feel a certain need to be where he was.
Perhaps it was because despite their outwardly bizarre personalities, the twins seemed to be the ones with the knowledge. After they’d delivered their cryptic message about someone coming and needing help, Isabel had immediately sprung into action while Nate had been frozen in place, staring at his cousins like they were the latest sideshow attraction. She had finally grabbed him by the arm and shoved him toward the door, ordering Jesse to turn off the stew lest the dinner catch fire and burn down the house in their absence.
“Are you sure about this?” Nate had asked as Isabel had then stuffed him in the back seat of Jesse’s car. “How do you know that they know what they’re talking about?”
“I don’t question it,” she’d replied, motioning for her two strange boys to get into the car as well. “They’ve never been wrong before.”
They’d never been wrong before.
Nate’s brow furrowed slightly and he tried to hug closer to the door, which was nearly impossible since he was already so tight against it that the handle was grinding into his leg. Isabel’s words had implied that the boys had warned her of impending doom or trouble or something before this night. He realized that he didn’t know everything that went on in the Ramirez household, but this was the first time he’d heard of the twins’ ability to predict or forecast what was coming. When else had they done so? Better yet – how had they done so?
“Take a left,” one of the twins said, his voice sort of monotone and not very loud at all.
Jesse glanced in the rearview mirror and gave a nod, then pulled the car onto what appeared to be nothing more than a dirt path.
Uneasiness started in Nate’s stomach. Soon, the car was enveloped in foliage, invisible to anyone passing on the main road. He was reminded of the winding path that had led to the cabin where he’d stashed Max. Chautauqua may have been many miles from Boston, but the woods all looked the same.
Without the lights from the public road to deaden them, the headlights from Jeremy’s SUV now shined brightly through the back window of the car, which gave Nate reassurance that his friend was still back there, following them faithfully. Of all of the people he’d met since finding out whom he really was, he would forever be thankful that he’d met Jeremy. Pure in heart, Jeremy was an all-around good guy, someone who had never judged Nate for his misguided beliefs, someone who was always there when he was needed.
Nate frowned. He was grateful for Max and Alyssa too, though he had no idea where he stood with either of them. He’d been so unfair to both of them. It was possible that Max would turn his back on him forever. It was possible that he was also now homeless.
Naturally, Nate’s thoughts drifted to Alyssa and he hoped that she wasn’t aware of what was going on right now. He hoped that she’d gone to bed early, to rest her body and protect her baby. But it was highly possible that Max had called for Michael’s aid and she’d found out by proxy. Nate knew that she’d want to be here and he knew that she shouldn’t be. Not this time.
A gnawing sensation tugged at Nate’s brain and he turned to his left to find not two, but only one twin staring at him. He jerked in response, his blood chilling for a second, but the twin remained expressionless for a very long moment before turning his attention straight forward again.
Nate frowned in frustration. One of these days he was going to have to bluntly ask those two why they were so damn disturbing.
“Stop here,” the non-staring twin said.
“Here?” Jesse asked, looking in his rearview mirror again.
“Please,” the twin said politely.
Jesse pulled the car to a halt, Jeremy pulling along side of them and deadening his lights. As soon as the car stopped rolling, Nate threw open the door and slid out, vowing that he would definitely ride home in the SUV. Jeremy stepped of his vehicle and glanced at their surroundings.
“What’s this?” he asked Nate.
Nate shrugged and tipped his head toward the car. “Ask Heckle and Jeckle.”
Jeremy stooped slightly to look through the open car door; the twins were still sitting in the same positions they’d been in, unmoving.
“What’s up, guys?” Jeremy asked. “Why are we stopping here?”
The twins’ heads turned in unison, their eyes emotionless, their expressions blank.
“They’ll come,” one said.
“Be patient,” said the other.
Then they faced forward again, silent.
Nate shuddered.
Jeremy straightened and shrugged toward Nate. “I guess we wait.”
Jesse and Isabel got out of the car, Jesse immediately taking his wife’s side. Isabel looked worried, but Nate knew that there was a warrior lurking under that cautious exterior – after all, this was the same woman who had dragged Annie O’Donnell kicking and screaming into a desert cave against her will. Nate was still convinced that Isabel could kick anyone’s ass she set out to.
“What are we supposed to do?” Jesse asked, looking first at his wife, then his son.
“They say wait,” Nate said, indicating his was referring to the twins.
“And don’t forget to be patient,” Jeremy tacked on, a devilish twinkle in his eyes.
Jesse surveyed their surroundings – nothing more than a small clearing amongst a lot of tall trees - then shook his head. “I don’t like this. In the middle of nowhere like this…”
“I think that’s the point,” Isabel said, then continued when he looked at her in confusion. “We need to be away from anyone who might see.”
“Might see what?” Jesse asked.
She gave him a wary look and he withdrew slightly. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said quietly to him. “I’ll understand if you want to go back, take Justin and Jason with you.”
Nate cocked his head slightly at that remark – was she saying that the twins lacked the ability to defend themselves?
“No, I’m staying here,” Jesse said. “Whatever happens.”
Isabel gave him a grateful look and Nate remembered a past that he’d changed; the Jesse of that timeline had given his all for his wife. He’d committed a crime by helping to highjack a television station, he’d gone to jail, he’d escaped from that jail, he’d helped steal a car and in the end he’d given his life. That Jesse would have done anything for the woman he loved and Nate knew that that Jesse and this Jesse were the same.
Nate’s reflection of events that had never really been was interrupted by a set of headlights coming up the same path they’d followed. Quickly, he looked before Jesse’s car at the small clearing, but with no road leading out on the other side. With the car approaching on the narrow path, they’d be trapped here. Perhaps Jesse had cause to be uneasy.
Discretely, Jeremy raised his hand before him, ready to blast any threat to their existence. The twins remained motionless.
The car pulled to a stop and two familiar figures piled out. Relief flooded through Nate as Isabel sighed audibly.
“What did we miss?” Michael Guerin demanded, jogging up to the group.
“Nothing yet,” Isabel said, giving him a cursory hug. She motioned to the twins. “We need to wait a bit, apparently.”
Nate looked away as Max stepped into his sister’s arms next. He wasn’t sure how his father would react to his being there. It was possible that Max didn’t want anything to do with him.
“You okay?” Isabel asked Max as he pulled away. Her face was etched with concern as she touched his cheek.
Nate snuck a glance at Max, saw that his face was haggard, tired, worried. Even his posture seemed lacking, like he could barely hold himself up straight.
“Hang in there,” Isabel said. “We’re going to do this right, Max.”
He nodded mutely, stepping away from her. A long silence ensued and when Nate looked up, he found Max watching him with wounded eyes. Immediately, he looked at the ground again. He felt stupid and ashamed and unworthy.
But then Max pulled him in to a manly embrace, squeezing him tightly. Not now, Nate thought at he felt his throat clench. He couldn’t afford to become emotional now.
“Thank you for coming,” Max whispered over his son’s shoulder.
Nate pushed back carefully, nodding his response. Still unable to fully meet his father’s eyes, he looked at the ground again. Max placed a hand on his shoulder, but before he could say anything more, one of the twins spoke.
“They’re coming,” he said, his voice devoid of panic.
The group outside of the car exchanged startled glances. Finally, Michael bent at the waist to address the twins through the car door.
“You want to expand on that? Throw us a bone maybe?”
All attention was drawn toward the sky, where something was moving very quickly. It became larger, its light growing in such intensity that they had to shield their eyes against it. There was a loud crack, like thunder magnified a thousand times, as the object struck the ground. Nate threw his arm up, shielding himself from any debris that might come his way. Nothing hit him and he got the sense that the light was dying down.
On the ground lay four figures, still illuminated to the point that he couldn’t make out what they were. Soon one of them moved and stood up and he realized it was Aubrey, his heart filling with joy at seeing her safe again. Another of the figures stood – Jackson.
The light surrounding the remaining two figures dissipated and Nate froze in his tracks. Neither of the figures was moving, but he could now see plainly who they were.
Liz lay on her side, her knees curled up to her chin. Emily lay beside her, sprawled on her back, her dark hair a halo about her head. With glee, Nate realized that while she wasn’t conscious, the child was definitely alive.
Liz, on the other hand, was not breathing.
The instinct to heal kicked in immediately and Nate found himself in a foot race to the spot where they lay.
Before they could reach them however, another bright object appeared high in the sky.
tbc
Part Twenty Three
To see them from a distance, one would have thought Justin and Jason Ramirez to be normal late-teenaged boys. Perhaps a little dorky, definitely of mixed nationality, but nothing so much out of the ordinary. Close proximity, however, could reveal that there was absolutely nothing ordinary about them at all.
If asked about his cousins’ day to day activities, Nate wouldn’t have been able to formulate a good answer. As for what kinds of movies they liked or what kind of music they listened to, he couldn’t tell. He couldn’t even tell if they had different likes, because they were so alike in every aspect he more or less assumed that their interests were alike as well. He realized that that assumption was probably folly, but he had little to base his opinion upon.
As for girls, Nate had never seen either of the twins with one. Were they gay? He didn’t think so, simply because he’d never seen them with boys either. In fact, he’d never once seen them with a friend, never a sleep-over when they were younger, never an outing to a ballgame with the guys.
The twins were an enigma and their actions of late were doing nothing to answer the riddle.
As the car bounced quickly down the road, with Jesse at the wheel and Isabel riding shotgun, Nate studied his cousins from his peripheral vision. He’d never actually been in such close proximity to them, squished together like they were in the back seat, and he wasn’t entirely comfortable with it now. Behind them, Jeremy followed in his SUV and Nate was still wondering how he’d ended up riding in this car instead of with his friend. Although he did feel a certain need to be where he was.
Perhaps it was because despite their outwardly bizarre personalities, the twins seemed to be the ones with the knowledge. After they’d delivered their cryptic message about someone coming and needing help, Isabel had immediately sprung into action while Nate had been frozen in place, staring at his cousins like they were the latest sideshow attraction. She had finally grabbed him by the arm and shoved him toward the door, ordering Jesse to turn off the stew lest the dinner catch fire and burn down the house in their absence.
“Are you sure about this?” Nate had asked as Isabel had then stuffed him in the back seat of Jesse’s car. “How do you know that they know what they’re talking about?”
“I don’t question it,” she’d replied, motioning for her two strange boys to get into the car as well. “They’ve never been wrong before.”
They’d never been wrong before.
Nate’s brow furrowed slightly and he tried to hug closer to the door, which was nearly impossible since he was already so tight against it that the handle was grinding into his leg. Isabel’s words had implied that the boys had warned her of impending doom or trouble or something before this night. He realized that he didn’t know everything that went on in the Ramirez household, but this was the first time he’d heard of the twins’ ability to predict or forecast what was coming. When else had they done so? Better yet – how had they done so?
“Take a left,” one of the twins said, his voice sort of monotone and not very loud at all.
Jesse glanced in the rearview mirror and gave a nod, then pulled the car onto what appeared to be nothing more than a dirt path.
Uneasiness started in Nate’s stomach. Soon, the car was enveloped in foliage, invisible to anyone passing on the main road. He was reminded of the winding path that had led to the cabin where he’d stashed Max. Chautauqua may have been many miles from Boston, but the woods all looked the same.
Without the lights from the public road to deaden them, the headlights from Jeremy’s SUV now shined brightly through the back window of the car, which gave Nate reassurance that his friend was still back there, following them faithfully. Of all of the people he’d met since finding out whom he really was, he would forever be thankful that he’d met Jeremy. Pure in heart, Jeremy was an all-around good guy, someone who had never judged Nate for his misguided beliefs, someone who was always there when he was needed.
Nate frowned. He was grateful for Max and Alyssa too, though he had no idea where he stood with either of them. He’d been so unfair to both of them. It was possible that Max would turn his back on him forever. It was possible that he was also now homeless.
Naturally, Nate’s thoughts drifted to Alyssa and he hoped that she wasn’t aware of what was going on right now. He hoped that she’d gone to bed early, to rest her body and protect her baby. But it was highly possible that Max had called for Michael’s aid and she’d found out by proxy. Nate knew that she’d want to be here and he knew that she shouldn’t be. Not this time.
A gnawing sensation tugged at Nate’s brain and he turned to his left to find not two, but only one twin staring at him. He jerked in response, his blood chilling for a second, but the twin remained expressionless for a very long moment before turning his attention straight forward again.
Nate frowned in frustration. One of these days he was going to have to bluntly ask those two why they were so damn disturbing.
“Stop here,” the non-staring twin said.
“Here?” Jesse asked, looking in his rearview mirror again.
“Please,” the twin said politely.
Jesse pulled the car to a halt, Jeremy pulling along side of them and deadening his lights. As soon as the car stopped rolling, Nate threw open the door and slid out, vowing that he would definitely ride home in the SUV. Jeremy stepped of his vehicle and glanced at their surroundings.
“What’s this?” he asked Nate.
Nate shrugged and tipped his head toward the car. “Ask Heckle and Jeckle.”
Jeremy stooped slightly to look through the open car door; the twins were still sitting in the same positions they’d been in, unmoving.
“What’s up, guys?” Jeremy asked. “Why are we stopping here?”
The twins’ heads turned in unison, their eyes emotionless, their expressions blank.
“They’ll come,” one said.
“Be patient,” said the other.
Then they faced forward again, silent.
Nate shuddered.
Jeremy straightened and shrugged toward Nate. “I guess we wait.”
Jesse and Isabel got out of the car, Jesse immediately taking his wife’s side. Isabel looked worried, but Nate knew that there was a warrior lurking under that cautious exterior – after all, this was the same woman who had dragged Annie O’Donnell kicking and screaming into a desert cave against her will. Nate was still convinced that Isabel could kick anyone’s ass she set out to.
“What are we supposed to do?” Jesse asked, looking first at his wife, then his son.
“They say wait,” Nate said, indicating his was referring to the twins.
“And don’t forget to be patient,” Jeremy tacked on, a devilish twinkle in his eyes.
Jesse surveyed their surroundings – nothing more than a small clearing amongst a lot of tall trees - then shook his head. “I don’t like this. In the middle of nowhere like this…”
“I think that’s the point,” Isabel said, then continued when he looked at her in confusion. “We need to be away from anyone who might see.”
“Might see what?” Jesse asked.
She gave him a wary look and he withdrew slightly. “I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said quietly to him. “I’ll understand if you want to go back, take Justin and Jason with you.”
Nate cocked his head slightly at that remark – was she saying that the twins lacked the ability to defend themselves?
“No, I’m staying here,” Jesse said. “Whatever happens.”
Isabel gave him a grateful look and Nate remembered a past that he’d changed; the Jesse of that timeline had given his all for his wife. He’d committed a crime by helping to highjack a television station, he’d gone to jail, he’d escaped from that jail, he’d helped steal a car and in the end he’d given his life. That Jesse would have done anything for the woman he loved and Nate knew that that Jesse and this Jesse were the same.
Nate’s reflection of events that had never really been was interrupted by a set of headlights coming up the same path they’d followed. Quickly, he looked before Jesse’s car at the small clearing, but with no road leading out on the other side. With the car approaching on the narrow path, they’d be trapped here. Perhaps Jesse had cause to be uneasy.
Discretely, Jeremy raised his hand before him, ready to blast any threat to their existence. The twins remained motionless.
The car pulled to a stop and two familiar figures piled out. Relief flooded through Nate as Isabel sighed audibly.
“What did we miss?” Michael Guerin demanded, jogging up to the group.
“Nothing yet,” Isabel said, giving him a cursory hug. She motioned to the twins. “We need to wait a bit, apparently.”
Nate looked away as Max stepped into his sister’s arms next. He wasn’t sure how his father would react to his being there. It was possible that Max didn’t want anything to do with him.
“You okay?” Isabel asked Max as he pulled away. Her face was etched with concern as she touched his cheek.
Nate snuck a glance at Max, saw that his face was haggard, tired, worried. Even his posture seemed lacking, like he could barely hold himself up straight.
“Hang in there,” Isabel said. “We’re going to do this right, Max.”
He nodded mutely, stepping away from her. A long silence ensued and when Nate looked up, he found Max watching him with wounded eyes. Immediately, he looked at the ground again. He felt stupid and ashamed and unworthy.
But then Max pulled him in to a manly embrace, squeezing him tightly. Not now, Nate thought at he felt his throat clench. He couldn’t afford to become emotional now.
“Thank you for coming,” Max whispered over his son’s shoulder.
Nate pushed back carefully, nodding his response. Still unable to fully meet his father’s eyes, he looked at the ground again. Max placed a hand on his shoulder, but before he could say anything more, one of the twins spoke.
“They’re coming,” he said, his voice devoid of panic.
The group outside of the car exchanged startled glances. Finally, Michael bent at the waist to address the twins through the car door.
“You want to expand on that? Throw us a bone maybe?”
All attention was drawn toward the sky, where something was moving very quickly. It became larger, its light growing in such intensity that they had to shield their eyes against it. There was a loud crack, like thunder magnified a thousand times, as the object struck the ground. Nate threw his arm up, shielding himself from any debris that might come his way. Nothing hit him and he got the sense that the light was dying down.
On the ground lay four figures, still illuminated to the point that he couldn’t make out what they were. Soon one of them moved and stood up and he realized it was Aubrey, his heart filling with joy at seeing her safe again. Another of the figures stood – Jackson.
The light surrounding the remaining two figures dissipated and Nate froze in his tracks. Neither of the figures was moving, but he could now see plainly who they were.
Liz lay on her side, her knees curled up to her chin. Emily lay beside her, sprawled on her back, her dark hair a halo about her head. With glee, Nate realized that while she wasn’t conscious, the child was definitely alive.
Liz, on the other hand, was not breathing.
The instinct to heal kicked in immediately and Nate found himself in a foot race to the spot where they lay.
Before they could reach them however, another bright object appeared high in the sky.
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Twenty-Four
There was a flurry of activity everywhere, a jumbled mess of voices all shouting different things. Nate tried to block them out as he raced along side his father, both of them intent on aiding Liz. Out of nowhere, something slammed headlong into his soul, something that took his breath away and stopped him in his tracks.
It was Emily’s presence.
She’d come back to Nate with full force, reaching out to him even though she was still unconscious, grasping for some stronghold on this world. Just like she’d done when she’d been born. Nate gasped and grinned at the same time, relief flooding his body.
I’m here, little sister, he told her. Hold on, I won’t let go.
Nate remembered that Max said he could always feel Liz’s presence as well and quickly looked to his father to see if he had the same goofy look of relief on his face. By now, Max had reached Liz’s side and Nate could see that he looked anything but relieved. Deftly, he rolled Liz onto her back; she was as limp as a noodle.
“Look out!” Michael called.
Nate looked up in time to see the second bright object that had appeared in the sky descending at a rapid rate. There was barely time for him to jump out of the way, grabbing Max by the arm and taking him along, before there was another loud clap of thunder and the area exploded in blinding white light.
Nate fell to the ground, his face striking the floor of the woods and he briefly tasted dirt and pine needles. Quickly, he rolled onto his back and watched the light fade out until he could make out three figures, none of which were familiar.
The worst part was that the figures were now positioned between Liz and Emily and the rest of the group.
“Sir, I must advise you to stay back!” Aubrey said hurriedly, already having regained her feet. Nate had never heard her voice so strained before.
“Who are they?” Nate asked, reaching down to pull Max to his feet.
“Please stay back,” Aubrey said, then motioned for Jackson to confer with her.
Nate whirled in a circle, taking in the scene. Michael, Jesse, Isabel and Jeremy were jogging toward them, having also been flattened by the arrival of the new visitors. Jason and Justin were still in the car.
“Liz,” Max said quietly, hopelessly.
Nate’s eyes settled on the small woman and he realized she still wasn’t breathing. Every second they lost, they stood a greater chance of not being able to save her. Given that she had still been in the condition to be saved when she’d arrived, that was.
“We have to get this done quickly,” Nate told Aubrey, motioning towards Liz.
Aubrey’s eyes shifted in that direction and he couldn’t read her emotions. “We must tread lightly, sir.”
“Well, well,” a decidedly female voice cooed. “The king himself. And the boy king, too. My lucky day.”
As all heads turned in the direction of the new-comers, Nate hung his head in defeat. Even though he didn’t recognize her face, he recognized her voice, even her exact words. He’d taken those words back, five years prior. And yet here she was again, threatening his family.
“Who are you?” Michael demanded.
She’s the one who killed you with one blast in an altered life, Nate thought bitterly.
The stranger stepped forward, her steps slow and deliberate. The two men behind her, henchmen, no doubt, followed suit without a word. They stopped about twenty feet from the others.
“I know who you are,” she replied to Michael. “The deposed second.” She had a condescending, pitying tone to her voice.
Michael shrugged like he couldn’t care less. “Everyone knows that,” he replied, his tone indicating it was common knowledge after all these years. “Now, I asked you who you were. The polite thing would be to answer me.” His words were ridiculous, but Nate knew that he was only puffing himself up to show he wasn’t afraid of her.
“Who would you like me to be?” she asked coyly. “I can be anyone. How about this person?” In an instant, she was the exact replica of Maria Deluca-Guerin.
Nate had to give Michael credit – while Jesse and Isabel reacted immediately to the “appearance” of Maria, Michael didn’t even flinch. How this person knew about Maria, a mere human, Nate couldn’t tell, but the prospect was certainly unsettling.
“You don’t like that one?” the visitor asked. “How about this one?” Her next image was none other than Tess Harding. Her blue eyes shifted to Isabel. “You remember me, right?”
Isabel took a step backward, her expression a little ill. Nate reached over and took her by the arm.
“Don’t listen to her,” he said. “She’s trying to control you by manipulating your emotions.”
‘Tess’ turned her attention to Nate. “Aren’t we the clever one?” she asked. “We’ve met before – do you remember?”
Nate set his jaw and remained silent. He had to wonder if somehow she’d retained some of her memories from that altered lifetime, though he wasn’t sure how that could be possible.
“A long time ago, when you were just a baby.” A grin split her face, a smile that was so inhuman that it sent a shiver down Nate’s spine. “When she called you Zan. But I didn’t call you Zan. I called you unfit to sit on a throne.” Her tone dropped to something a little more menacing. “Then I gave the order to have both of you killed.”
Nate swallowed, memories from his dream coming back to him – Tess in prison, a small child on her lap. He imagined what she must have felt, knowing that she’d been double-crossed, knowing that her execution was eminent. But she’d been strong enough to escape. Somehow.
“What do you want with us?” Michael demanded, his eyes shifting to Liz and Emily again. Emily was starting to stir.
“Well, we don’t want anything with you,” she answered matter-of-factly. “As far as we’re concerned, you can sit and rot on this nasty planet.” She glanced over her shoulder. “We only wanted the girl.”
“Then let us take Liz,” Isabel said.
Nate and Max both looked at her in surprise, thinking she was sacrificing Emily to these cretins. Then Nate realized that it was just a ploy to get Liz back quickly so they could help her – they had more time to bargain for Emily.
The visitor let out a laugh. “Why?”
“She’s of no use to you,” Max chimed in, obviously going along with his sister’s plan. “She’s just a human.”
Their tormentor cocked her head in his direction. “Are you really that stupid, your majesty? Do you really think we’d give her back, knowing that you could easily create another child to vie for the throne?”
“Max could do that with any chick he wanted to,” Michael said crossly.
In spite of the moment, that comment nearly made Nate laugh. The thought of Max randomly picking up chicks to populate the world with half-alien/half-human contenders for the throne of Antar was ludicrous.
“Oh, but that’s not true, is it, your highness?” The woman’s voice took on a patronizing tone.
Max held silent, swallowed visibly.
“I’m willing to bet that Mr. Evans couldn’t even get it up for another woman,” she taunted, strolling towards him and stopping within an arm’s length of him.
Nate’s fist clenched at his side, prepared to defend if he needed to.
“You couldn’t, could you?” she baited Max. Briefly, she glanced at Nate. “I’m surprised you could get it up long enough for Tess Harding to conceive. Oh, no. Our once and future king can only perform for one woman.” She looked over her shoulder, then returned her gaze to Max, false-pity in her expression. “She’s not looking so good.”
As Max looked desperately at his fallen wife, Nate felt the first seeds of true anger taking hold inside of him. He’d been scared to death of this person in that altered lifetime. But then he’d been a young man, unable to control his powers, unfamiliar with the evilness that lay within her. Five years and many mistakes had taught him much. If anything, it had taught him to hate her.
She stopped before Nate, her face familiar but her eyes dead. “How about you, bucky? You only got a Jones for one woman? Let me guess who.” Her next form was that of a non-pregnant Alyssa Guerin.
Nate clenched his jaw so tightly that his teeth hurt.
“Got any offspring?” she asked. She paused for a moment, almost as though she was listening to something. “A baby boy,” she finally said with satisfaction. “Generation number three. How sweet. And what’s this? Another one in the works? My my, aren’t you the busy one? Looks like when my work here is done, I will need to pay them a visit.”
Nate felt blinding rage building up inside of him. He imagined this person strolling into his little brick bungalow and casually killing his wife and children. His breathing started to become more rapid and shallow, his fury clenching his fists tightly together.
“What makes you think you’re going to get out of here?” Michael asked. “There’s eight of us and only three of you. I could take you by myself.”
She only smiled, a knowing smile that sparked a memory in Nate’s head.
As though propelled back five years to another life, he recalled that dank warehouse, a set up, only three people there to ‘greet’ them. Somehow, those three people had been enough to dispose of Aubrey and her considerable talents. Then the group had found out that there weren’t only three of them – there had been a hundred, blended into the walls, camouflaged like chameleons.
Nate frantically looked to the trees, his eyes trying to penetrate the darkness enough to make out any life forms hiding there.
“It’s a trap,” he breathed.
Isabel and Max looked at him quickly.
“This happened before,” he said, still searching. “There’s a reason they led us here, to this place.”
“What are you talking about?” Jeremy asked, his dark eyes round.
Nate whirled in a circle, looking to the treetops. There could be thousands of them out in this wilderness. “We’re surrounded,” he whispered.
As the others looked at him, stunned, Nate dropped his gaze back to their tormentor.
“What a bright one you are,” she replied coolly. “And to think you weren’t royalty material.”
With one snap of her fingers, the trees and bushes started to move, images taking shape as they slid from their hiding places. There was a loud rustling of leaves and branches, a volume too large to be made by only a few beings.
“Oh, fuck,” Michael breathed.
“So, we come to it at long last,” she said as the troops filled in behind her. “The end of the king, the boy king, and all of those who should have died on another planet long ago.” She glanced at Emily. “Except for her. I think I’ll keep her. Maybe even raise her as my own.”
She let out a laugh, a laugh so evil that Nate felt his blood begin to boil. Emily would forever be his baby sister, a giggling little girl who liked the crunchy kind of Klondike bar. She was all hair ribbons and curly hair and pretty dresses. She was tea parties and mud pies, cupcakes and baby dolls.
This creature would take all of that and kill it. She would take a gifted, innocent child and twist her into a being of evil, an unkind and uncaring person. She would murder all that was Emily Evans.
Nate could barely hear her taunts over his anger, the blood rushing through his veins. His fingers clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms, making his skin bleed. His breathing became rapid as every angry thought he had buried in the back of his subconscious came to the fore – Emma Spencer dying an unfair death, Max Evans never loving his birth mother, Annie O’Donnell’s betrayal, the FBI’s torture, Michael Guerin’s unfounded hatred of his son-in-law, this creature’s manipulations of Emily, and finally his own misguided thoughts and impeccable ability to mess up everything he touched. It all built up until he could no longer contain it. As he heard his own cry in his ears, he felt heat all around him, against his wounded cheek, against his bare arms. He got a glimpse of rolling balls of fire, but before he could register what had happened, he was falling backward onto the floor of the woods…
“Nate?”
The voice was soft, concerned, and coming from somewhere close. Nate forced open his eyes, saw stars high in the sky above him. It also appeared to be…snowing?
“Nate, buddy, you in there?” It was Jeremy’s voice this time.
Nate blinked twice, then rolled his head to the side, catching sight of his friend.
“Are you all right?” Jeremy was looking at him sort of like he was a science experiment of some kind.
“Can you sit up?” Isabel asked from his other side.
Nate nodded and slowly pushed himself to a sitting position. The “snow” was gathering on his legs. He poked at it in confusion. “What is this?” he asked, realizing that the same substance was also collecting in Isabel’s and Jeremy’s hair.
“Skin guts,” Jeremy said.
Nate dropped the fluffy blob he had between his fingers. “What?”
“Do you know what happened?” Isabel asked carefully.
Nate shook his head, lost. Then his eyes settled on a scene twenty yards away – Max was knelt over Liz, his brow contorted in concentration, while Michael held a sobbing Emily in his arms.
The visitors from Antar were nowhere to be found.
Max sat back on his heals, grief written on his face. Nate knew in that instant that his father couldn’t heal Liz.
At least not by himself.
tbc
There was a flurry of activity everywhere, a jumbled mess of voices all shouting different things. Nate tried to block them out as he raced along side his father, both of them intent on aiding Liz. Out of nowhere, something slammed headlong into his soul, something that took his breath away and stopped him in his tracks.
It was Emily’s presence.
She’d come back to Nate with full force, reaching out to him even though she was still unconscious, grasping for some stronghold on this world. Just like she’d done when she’d been born. Nate gasped and grinned at the same time, relief flooding his body.
I’m here, little sister, he told her. Hold on, I won’t let go.
Nate remembered that Max said he could always feel Liz’s presence as well and quickly looked to his father to see if he had the same goofy look of relief on his face. By now, Max had reached Liz’s side and Nate could see that he looked anything but relieved. Deftly, he rolled Liz onto her back; she was as limp as a noodle.
“Look out!” Michael called.
Nate looked up in time to see the second bright object that had appeared in the sky descending at a rapid rate. There was barely time for him to jump out of the way, grabbing Max by the arm and taking him along, before there was another loud clap of thunder and the area exploded in blinding white light.
Nate fell to the ground, his face striking the floor of the woods and he briefly tasted dirt and pine needles. Quickly, he rolled onto his back and watched the light fade out until he could make out three figures, none of which were familiar.
The worst part was that the figures were now positioned between Liz and Emily and the rest of the group.
“Sir, I must advise you to stay back!” Aubrey said hurriedly, already having regained her feet. Nate had never heard her voice so strained before.
“Who are they?” Nate asked, reaching down to pull Max to his feet.
“Please stay back,” Aubrey said, then motioned for Jackson to confer with her.
Nate whirled in a circle, taking in the scene. Michael, Jesse, Isabel and Jeremy were jogging toward them, having also been flattened by the arrival of the new visitors. Jason and Justin were still in the car.
“Liz,” Max said quietly, hopelessly.
Nate’s eyes settled on the small woman and he realized she still wasn’t breathing. Every second they lost, they stood a greater chance of not being able to save her. Given that she had still been in the condition to be saved when she’d arrived, that was.
“We have to get this done quickly,” Nate told Aubrey, motioning towards Liz.
Aubrey’s eyes shifted in that direction and he couldn’t read her emotions. “We must tread lightly, sir.”
“Well, well,” a decidedly female voice cooed. “The king himself. And the boy king, too. My lucky day.”
As all heads turned in the direction of the new-comers, Nate hung his head in defeat. Even though he didn’t recognize her face, he recognized her voice, even her exact words. He’d taken those words back, five years prior. And yet here she was again, threatening his family.
“Who are you?” Michael demanded.
She’s the one who killed you with one blast in an altered life, Nate thought bitterly.
The stranger stepped forward, her steps slow and deliberate. The two men behind her, henchmen, no doubt, followed suit without a word. They stopped about twenty feet from the others.
“I know who you are,” she replied to Michael. “The deposed second.” She had a condescending, pitying tone to her voice.
Michael shrugged like he couldn’t care less. “Everyone knows that,” he replied, his tone indicating it was common knowledge after all these years. “Now, I asked you who you were. The polite thing would be to answer me.” His words were ridiculous, but Nate knew that he was only puffing himself up to show he wasn’t afraid of her.
“Who would you like me to be?” she asked coyly. “I can be anyone. How about this person?” In an instant, she was the exact replica of Maria Deluca-Guerin.
Nate had to give Michael credit – while Jesse and Isabel reacted immediately to the “appearance” of Maria, Michael didn’t even flinch. How this person knew about Maria, a mere human, Nate couldn’t tell, but the prospect was certainly unsettling.
“You don’t like that one?” the visitor asked. “How about this one?” Her next image was none other than Tess Harding. Her blue eyes shifted to Isabel. “You remember me, right?”
Isabel took a step backward, her expression a little ill. Nate reached over and took her by the arm.
“Don’t listen to her,” he said. “She’s trying to control you by manipulating your emotions.”
‘Tess’ turned her attention to Nate. “Aren’t we the clever one?” she asked. “We’ve met before – do you remember?”
Nate set his jaw and remained silent. He had to wonder if somehow she’d retained some of her memories from that altered lifetime, though he wasn’t sure how that could be possible.
“A long time ago, when you were just a baby.” A grin split her face, a smile that was so inhuman that it sent a shiver down Nate’s spine. “When she called you Zan. But I didn’t call you Zan. I called you unfit to sit on a throne.” Her tone dropped to something a little more menacing. “Then I gave the order to have both of you killed.”
Nate swallowed, memories from his dream coming back to him – Tess in prison, a small child on her lap. He imagined what she must have felt, knowing that she’d been double-crossed, knowing that her execution was eminent. But she’d been strong enough to escape. Somehow.
“What do you want with us?” Michael demanded, his eyes shifting to Liz and Emily again. Emily was starting to stir.
“Well, we don’t want anything with you,” she answered matter-of-factly. “As far as we’re concerned, you can sit and rot on this nasty planet.” She glanced over her shoulder. “We only wanted the girl.”
“Then let us take Liz,” Isabel said.
Nate and Max both looked at her in surprise, thinking she was sacrificing Emily to these cretins. Then Nate realized that it was just a ploy to get Liz back quickly so they could help her – they had more time to bargain for Emily.
The visitor let out a laugh. “Why?”
“She’s of no use to you,” Max chimed in, obviously going along with his sister’s plan. “She’s just a human.”
Their tormentor cocked her head in his direction. “Are you really that stupid, your majesty? Do you really think we’d give her back, knowing that you could easily create another child to vie for the throne?”
“Max could do that with any chick he wanted to,” Michael said crossly.
In spite of the moment, that comment nearly made Nate laugh. The thought of Max randomly picking up chicks to populate the world with half-alien/half-human contenders for the throne of Antar was ludicrous.
“Oh, but that’s not true, is it, your highness?” The woman’s voice took on a patronizing tone.
Max held silent, swallowed visibly.
“I’m willing to bet that Mr. Evans couldn’t even get it up for another woman,” she taunted, strolling towards him and stopping within an arm’s length of him.
Nate’s fist clenched at his side, prepared to defend if he needed to.
“You couldn’t, could you?” she baited Max. Briefly, she glanced at Nate. “I’m surprised you could get it up long enough for Tess Harding to conceive. Oh, no. Our once and future king can only perform for one woman.” She looked over her shoulder, then returned her gaze to Max, false-pity in her expression. “She’s not looking so good.”
As Max looked desperately at his fallen wife, Nate felt the first seeds of true anger taking hold inside of him. He’d been scared to death of this person in that altered lifetime. But then he’d been a young man, unable to control his powers, unfamiliar with the evilness that lay within her. Five years and many mistakes had taught him much. If anything, it had taught him to hate her.
She stopped before Nate, her face familiar but her eyes dead. “How about you, bucky? You only got a Jones for one woman? Let me guess who.” Her next form was that of a non-pregnant Alyssa Guerin.
Nate clenched his jaw so tightly that his teeth hurt.
“Got any offspring?” she asked. She paused for a moment, almost as though she was listening to something. “A baby boy,” she finally said with satisfaction. “Generation number three. How sweet. And what’s this? Another one in the works? My my, aren’t you the busy one? Looks like when my work here is done, I will need to pay them a visit.”
Nate felt blinding rage building up inside of him. He imagined this person strolling into his little brick bungalow and casually killing his wife and children. His breathing started to become more rapid and shallow, his fury clenching his fists tightly together.
“What makes you think you’re going to get out of here?” Michael asked. “There’s eight of us and only three of you. I could take you by myself.”
She only smiled, a knowing smile that sparked a memory in Nate’s head.
As though propelled back five years to another life, he recalled that dank warehouse, a set up, only three people there to ‘greet’ them. Somehow, those three people had been enough to dispose of Aubrey and her considerable talents. Then the group had found out that there weren’t only three of them – there had been a hundred, blended into the walls, camouflaged like chameleons.
Nate frantically looked to the trees, his eyes trying to penetrate the darkness enough to make out any life forms hiding there.
“It’s a trap,” he breathed.
Isabel and Max looked at him quickly.
“This happened before,” he said, still searching. “There’s a reason they led us here, to this place.”
“What are you talking about?” Jeremy asked, his dark eyes round.
Nate whirled in a circle, looking to the treetops. There could be thousands of them out in this wilderness. “We’re surrounded,” he whispered.
As the others looked at him, stunned, Nate dropped his gaze back to their tormentor.
“What a bright one you are,” she replied coolly. “And to think you weren’t royalty material.”
With one snap of her fingers, the trees and bushes started to move, images taking shape as they slid from their hiding places. There was a loud rustling of leaves and branches, a volume too large to be made by only a few beings.
“Oh, fuck,” Michael breathed.
“So, we come to it at long last,” she said as the troops filled in behind her. “The end of the king, the boy king, and all of those who should have died on another planet long ago.” She glanced at Emily. “Except for her. I think I’ll keep her. Maybe even raise her as my own.”
She let out a laugh, a laugh so evil that Nate felt his blood begin to boil. Emily would forever be his baby sister, a giggling little girl who liked the crunchy kind of Klondike bar. She was all hair ribbons and curly hair and pretty dresses. She was tea parties and mud pies, cupcakes and baby dolls.
This creature would take all of that and kill it. She would take a gifted, innocent child and twist her into a being of evil, an unkind and uncaring person. She would murder all that was Emily Evans.
Nate could barely hear her taunts over his anger, the blood rushing through his veins. His fingers clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms, making his skin bleed. His breathing became rapid as every angry thought he had buried in the back of his subconscious came to the fore – Emma Spencer dying an unfair death, Max Evans never loving his birth mother, Annie O’Donnell’s betrayal, the FBI’s torture, Michael Guerin’s unfounded hatred of his son-in-law, this creature’s manipulations of Emily, and finally his own misguided thoughts and impeccable ability to mess up everything he touched. It all built up until he could no longer contain it. As he heard his own cry in his ears, he felt heat all around him, against his wounded cheek, against his bare arms. He got a glimpse of rolling balls of fire, but before he could register what had happened, he was falling backward onto the floor of the woods…
“Nate?”
The voice was soft, concerned, and coming from somewhere close. Nate forced open his eyes, saw stars high in the sky above him. It also appeared to be…snowing?
“Nate, buddy, you in there?” It was Jeremy’s voice this time.
Nate blinked twice, then rolled his head to the side, catching sight of his friend.
“Are you all right?” Jeremy was looking at him sort of like he was a science experiment of some kind.
“Can you sit up?” Isabel asked from his other side.
Nate nodded and slowly pushed himself to a sitting position. The “snow” was gathering on his legs. He poked at it in confusion. “What is this?” he asked, realizing that the same substance was also collecting in Isabel’s and Jeremy’s hair.
“Skin guts,” Jeremy said.
Nate dropped the fluffy blob he had between his fingers. “What?”
“Do you know what happened?” Isabel asked carefully.
Nate shook his head, lost. Then his eyes settled on a scene twenty yards away – Max was knelt over Liz, his brow contorted in concentration, while Michael held a sobbing Emily in his arms.
The visitors from Antar were nowhere to be found.
Max sat back on his heals, grief written on his face. Nate knew in that instant that his father couldn’t heal Liz.
At least not by himself.
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Twenty-Five
“Do you want me to take you home?”
Nate paused as he climbed into Jeremy’s SUV, realizing that he’d never told his friend that Alyssa had given him the boot. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t go there.”
Jeremy’s eyebrows rose sharply, but typical to his gentle nature he didn’t pry. “Where to, then?”
Nate sighed as he closed the door of the vehicle. “Can we just drive?”
Jeremy frowned slightly, concerned, but nodded anyway.
As the car started its bumpy retreat down the dark, wooded path, Nate slid down in his seat, his arms wrapped around his midsection and his gaze fixed outside. His cheek was throbbing and he felt drained both physically and mentally. It occurred to him that he hadn’t really rested since Max had knocked him unconscious…if unconsciousness counted as resting, he wasn’t sure.
In the back seat of the SUV, Aubrey sat visibly, silent. She was cradling one of her arms to her chest - Nate hadn’t even realized that her journeys had injured her until the group had disbanded and they’d moved for the SUV. He had asked if he could help her, but she’d refused. He’d had to remind himself not to be offended that she didn’t want his help, that it was in her nature to give and never take, a thought that made him even sadder than he already was.
Of course, there were still so many questions that needed to be answered – how had Jackson and Aubrey traveled to and from Antar so quickly? How had they managed to free Liz and Emily? Who was that person who hated all of them so? And how had the twins known where to go? Nate’s head ached with all of the unknowns.
“I don’t know, man,” Jeremy said as he pulled the SUV onto the main road. “All I can say is that I hope I never make you mad at me.”
There was a hint of humor in his tone, but Nate didn’t feel like being light hearted at the moment. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said quietly, watching a few cars pass them on the right. It was probably the truth. While he’d heard stories of Max and Michael knocking each other around more than once, he couldn’t even imagine the friendly, chipper Jeremy ever doing anything to warrant violence. Nate had a hard time fathoming what it must have been like for Max to have a second who was always pulling his strings and pushing his buttons. Talk about adding an extra layer of tension.
But thoughts of Max and Michael’s tumultuous relationship couldn’t purge the nagging thoughts at the back of Nate’s head, the knowledge that he’d just committed mass murder. It wasn’t a good feeling, to know that he pretty much single-handedly had destroyed a woods full of alien beings. It was nice to be free and unthreatened, yes, but it wasn’t nice to know he was capable of such an act.
“You did good tonight,” Jeremy added, the playful tone gone from his voice. “Real good, Nate. We owe you. All of us. Especially Liz and Emily.” The last sentence was said with a smile.
Subconsciously, Nate put a hand to his chest. He could still feel his little sister there, alive, vibrant, so unaware of how important she was. Closing his eyes, he relished the feeling of having her back with them; he felt a peace within that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
That peace was fleeting, however, as he realized that even though Liz and Emily had been returned, some things were still unresolved. Alyssa might never forgive Nate his actions and even though father may have outwardly forgiven his son, Nate knew that on the inside, Max was still hurt – deeply. Nate knew it because he’d felt it.
It had taken both of them, Max and Nate, to bring Liz back fully into this world. And while the three of them had been connected, Nate had felt and seen so many things, many of which he hadn’t had a clear understanding of until now. Many of which he wished he didn’t now know.
It hadn’t been easy to get those thoughts from both Max and Liz at the same time. It had been like a relentless barrage of history, of things Nate had only heard of in past-tense. But to feel how Liz had felt the first time she realized she loved Max, to feel how she’d felt when Alex had died, to feel how she’d felt when she’d learned of Nate’s impending arrival…all of it was so overwhelming that Nate wasn’t sure how to absorb it. From Max, he’d gotten the overwhelming love he felt for Liz, all the time, even though he’d been conflicted and confused by so many things so often. The one constant had always been his love for Liz.
Nate had also seen images from when he’d arrived in Roswell, looking for his birth parents. Max had been surprised, then anxious, then excited to meet his adult son. Liz, not so much. She’d been afraid of Nate, afraid of what his presence would mean, afraid that he might be like his mother.
And apparently in some ways he was.
“Ah, good,” Jeremy said from behind the wheel. “I was just starting to miss New Hampshire.”
Nate looked up and saw the ‘Welcome to New Hampshire’ sign drift past his window. They’d been driving for almost an hour, straight north. Time had flown while he’d been mired in his thoughts.
“How far we going?” Jeremy asked. “Maine? Quebec?”
“We can turn around,” Nate said, realizing that he couldn’t use his friend as a chauffer indefinitely.
“Do you want to stay with me?” Jeremy offered, looking for an exit ramp. “The couch isn’t bad, at least not for a few nights.”
Nate nodded his thanks. How the roles had been reversed – once upon a time, it would have been Jeremy on the couch and Nate playing host.
They turned around and headed south. Nate turned in his seat and watched out of the windshield instead of out the side window.
“Your face looks bad,” Jeremy said, glancing at him. “Does it hurt?”
Nate nodded.
“Why don’t you just fix it then?”
Because I’m punishing myself for being a dumbass, Nate answered in his head. “I will,” he said aloud. “Eventually.”
Jeremy glanced at him again. “Did she do that?”
Nate looked at him incredulously. “Who? Alyssa?”
Jeremy nodded.
At that, Nate gave a small laugh, imagining his spitfire wife packing a punch that wicked. “No,” he answered, then his sense of humor faded. “Max did this.”
Jeremy looked at him with sympathy, but said no more.
They drove in silence most of the way back to the Ramirez estate. Nate wondered what Alyssa was doing. Did she know that Liz and Emily were okay? Did she know what Nate had done in the woods? Would it only make her angrier?
Nate’s thoughts drifted from his livid wife to what Max must be doing now. Liz had yet to regain consciousness when they departed the woods and the image of Max carrying her limp body to Michael’s car would forever be emblazoned on Nate’s brain. Emily had been trotting along behind, tripping over twigs, sobbing and crying for her mother. Even recalling it brought a lump to his throat.
“Mommy’s going to be okay, baby,” Max had said, his tone tired but reassuring. “She just needs for us to take her home and let her rest.”
In his head, Nate got an image of the three of them – Liz, Max and Emily – curled around one another on Max and Liz’s bed, a war-weary lot. He imagined Max praying to a god he didn’t believe in to please let Liz be okay. He imagined Emily haunted by what she’d seen.
Weary, Nate rubbed his eyes. What had she seen? He had no doubt that Liz could rationalize and deal with her experience – and if she had trouble doing so, she knew to seek help. But Emily was just a child. She didn’t have the capacity to work through what she’d been through and Nate feared the long-term effects of her abduction.
The sky was just starting to lighten as Jeremy pulled into Cape Cod – morning was coming soon. High overhead, Nate could hear the call of sea gulls and looked that way. It seemed like a lifetime ago he’d looked up in the dark and had seen that white ball of energy falling to earth. It seemed like a dream, like it had never happened at all. Glancing in the side-view mirror, he saw Aubrey sitting in the back seat and was reassured that it definitely wasn’t a hallucination. All of those things had really happened.
“It looks like we have a visitor,” Jeremy said as he pulled into the driveway.
Nate glanced up curiously and saw Alyssa’s car parked beside his truck. Immediately, he sat up straight, his body tingling with apprehension. He felt a big confrontation coming, right around the corner.
“Need me to run interference?” Jeremy grinned as he pulled the SUV to a stop. “Want me to blast her one?”
Nate cocked his head.
Jeremy gave a giggle. “Just trying to help, man.”
As they stepped out of the vehicle, the door to the garage loft stairwell swung open quickly. Alyssa half-waddled/half-ran into the drive. In the early morning light, Nate could see the tracks of her tears on her smooth cheeks, the worry in her eyes.
“Where were you?” she said, though her voice was more a worried cry than an accusation. She bustled past Jeremy without acknowledging his presence and came to a stop before Nate, tilting her head back to look him in the eyes.
“Uh…I’ll be upstairs,” Jeremy said and quickly made his exit.
“Where did you go?” Alyssa asked, her voice choking in her throat. “I’ve been so worried, Nate. Daddy told me what happened and then I couldn’t find you and all I could think of was that they weren’t all dead and that one of them had found you instead of me finding you and that now you were dead.” On her last word, she finally broke into tears, burying her face in her hands.
Nate felt his heart lurch inside of his chest. He wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and hold her against him, but he knew that she was so angry with him for what happened before that he wasn’t sure he dared. Then he gave a mental shrug – things couldn’t possibly be worse than they were between the two of them, what did he have to lose?
Without hesitation, Nate reached out and pulled Alyssa to him, which only prompted louder sobs from her. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her hair, losing himself in their embrace. Her hair smelled fresh, like she’d just washed it. He felt her tremble against him, her shoulders shaking as she cried.
“I’m okay,” he whispered against her ear. “No one’s going to find me. No one’s going to hurt me.”
Alyssa pulled back, her eyes puffy, red and wet. “Daddy told me what you did, Nate.”
He reddened slightly. The others seemed ready to taut him as a hero – he was still feeling like a mass murderer.
“They would have died if it weren’t for you,” she said, sniffling. “All of them. Including Emily and Liz.”
Nate shrugged self-consciously. “Not really. I mean, it was Aubrey and Jackson who got them back, not me.” He motioned toward Aubrey, who was leaning against the bumper of his truck like a faithful Labrador waiting for its ride.
Alyssa shook her head in dispute. “They got them back to earth, Nate, but Daddy told me there were so many of them in the woods that everyone would have died. If it hadn’t been for you.”
Nate looked down at his boot, kicked at the gravel.
“I want you to come home with me,” she announced.
He looked at her in surprise. Was she serious? She’d just kicked him out not twelve hours before.
Alyssa nodded. “I do, Nate. You belong with your family. You belong with your son.” Her voice cracked again and she started to cry harder. Before Nate could take her in his arms, however, she pushed him away. “I’m fine. Just please get in the car.”
“We can take my truck –” he began.
“I said get in the car!” she snapped and he jumped, not sure if it was anger or hormones.
“Okay.” Tail somewhat between his legs, he started for the driver’s side.
“I’m driving,” she announced.
He glanced at her, started to protest (knowing how difficult it was for her to reach the pedals these days), thought better of it and obediently climbed into the passenger side. Aubrey got in the back.
Alyssa wedged herself behind the wheel and checked her swollen eyes in the rearview mirror. “Dammit,” she hissed as she ran her fingers under her eyes, clearing her makeup.
Nate watched her with a mixture of sympathy and wariness. The caution proved to be founded, as Alyssa abruptly ceased her grooming and pinned him with a glare. The words and tone that came out of her mouth left no doubt that she was a descendant of Maria Deluca.
“Don’t for one minute think that just because I’m scared and hormonal and asked you to come back home means that I have in any way forgiven you for what you did.”
Nate nodded. He understood completely.
tbc
“Do you want me to take you home?”
Nate paused as he climbed into Jeremy’s SUV, realizing that he’d never told his friend that Alyssa had given him the boot. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t go there.”
Jeremy’s eyebrows rose sharply, but typical to his gentle nature he didn’t pry. “Where to, then?”
Nate sighed as he closed the door of the vehicle. “Can we just drive?”
Jeremy frowned slightly, concerned, but nodded anyway.
As the car started its bumpy retreat down the dark, wooded path, Nate slid down in his seat, his arms wrapped around his midsection and his gaze fixed outside. His cheek was throbbing and he felt drained both physically and mentally. It occurred to him that he hadn’t really rested since Max had knocked him unconscious…if unconsciousness counted as resting, he wasn’t sure.
In the back seat of the SUV, Aubrey sat visibly, silent. She was cradling one of her arms to her chest - Nate hadn’t even realized that her journeys had injured her until the group had disbanded and they’d moved for the SUV. He had asked if he could help her, but she’d refused. He’d had to remind himself not to be offended that she didn’t want his help, that it was in her nature to give and never take, a thought that made him even sadder than he already was.
Of course, there were still so many questions that needed to be answered – how had Jackson and Aubrey traveled to and from Antar so quickly? How had they managed to free Liz and Emily? Who was that person who hated all of them so? And how had the twins known where to go? Nate’s head ached with all of the unknowns.
“I don’t know, man,” Jeremy said as he pulled the SUV onto the main road. “All I can say is that I hope I never make you mad at me.”
There was a hint of humor in his tone, but Nate didn’t feel like being light hearted at the moment. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he said quietly, watching a few cars pass them on the right. It was probably the truth. While he’d heard stories of Max and Michael knocking each other around more than once, he couldn’t even imagine the friendly, chipper Jeremy ever doing anything to warrant violence. Nate had a hard time fathoming what it must have been like for Max to have a second who was always pulling his strings and pushing his buttons. Talk about adding an extra layer of tension.
But thoughts of Max and Michael’s tumultuous relationship couldn’t purge the nagging thoughts at the back of Nate’s head, the knowledge that he’d just committed mass murder. It wasn’t a good feeling, to know that he pretty much single-handedly had destroyed a woods full of alien beings. It was nice to be free and unthreatened, yes, but it wasn’t nice to know he was capable of such an act.
“You did good tonight,” Jeremy added, the playful tone gone from his voice. “Real good, Nate. We owe you. All of us. Especially Liz and Emily.” The last sentence was said with a smile.
Subconsciously, Nate put a hand to his chest. He could still feel his little sister there, alive, vibrant, so unaware of how important she was. Closing his eyes, he relished the feeling of having her back with them; he felt a peace within that he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
That peace was fleeting, however, as he realized that even though Liz and Emily had been returned, some things were still unresolved. Alyssa might never forgive Nate his actions and even though father may have outwardly forgiven his son, Nate knew that on the inside, Max was still hurt – deeply. Nate knew it because he’d felt it.
It had taken both of them, Max and Nate, to bring Liz back fully into this world. And while the three of them had been connected, Nate had felt and seen so many things, many of which he hadn’t had a clear understanding of until now. Many of which he wished he didn’t now know.
It hadn’t been easy to get those thoughts from both Max and Liz at the same time. It had been like a relentless barrage of history, of things Nate had only heard of in past-tense. But to feel how Liz had felt the first time she realized she loved Max, to feel how she’d felt when Alex had died, to feel how she’d felt when she’d learned of Nate’s impending arrival…all of it was so overwhelming that Nate wasn’t sure how to absorb it. From Max, he’d gotten the overwhelming love he felt for Liz, all the time, even though he’d been conflicted and confused by so many things so often. The one constant had always been his love for Liz.
Nate had also seen images from when he’d arrived in Roswell, looking for his birth parents. Max had been surprised, then anxious, then excited to meet his adult son. Liz, not so much. She’d been afraid of Nate, afraid of what his presence would mean, afraid that he might be like his mother.
And apparently in some ways he was.
“Ah, good,” Jeremy said from behind the wheel. “I was just starting to miss New Hampshire.”
Nate looked up and saw the ‘Welcome to New Hampshire’ sign drift past his window. They’d been driving for almost an hour, straight north. Time had flown while he’d been mired in his thoughts.
“How far we going?” Jeremy asked. “Maine? Quebec?”
“We can turn around,” Nate said, realizing that he couldn’t use his friend as a chauffer indefinitely.
“Do you want to stay with me?” Jeremy offered, looking for an exit ramp. “The couch isn’t bad, at least not for a few nights.”
Nate nodded his thanks. How the roles had been reversed – once upon a time, it would have been Jeremy on the couch and Nate playing host.
They turned around and headed south. Nate turned in his seat and watched out of the windshield instead of out the side window.
“Your face looks bad,” Jeremy said, glancing at him. “Does it hurt?”
Nate nodded.
“Why don’t you just fix it then?”
Because I’m punishing myself for being a dumbass, Nate answered in his head. “I will,” he said aloud. “Eventually.”
Jeremy glanced at him again. “Did she do that?”
Nate looked at him incredulously. “Who? Alyssa?”
Jeremy nodded.
At that, Nate gave a small laugh, imagining his spitfire wife packing a punch that wicked. “No,” he answered, then his sense of humor faded. “Max did this.”
Jeremy looked at him with sympathy, but said no more.
They drove in silence most of the way back to the Ramirez estate. Nate wondered what Alyssa was doing. Did she know that Liz and Emily were okay? Did she know what Nate had done in the woods? Would it only make her angrier?
Nate’s thoughts drifted from his livid wife to what Max must be doing now. Liz had yet to regain consciousness when they departed the woods and the image of Max carrying her limp body to Michael’s car would forever be emblazoned on Nate’s brain. Emily had been trotting along behind, tripping over twigs, sobbing and crying for her mother. Even recalling it brought a lump to his throat.
“Mommy’s going to be okay, baby,” Max had said, his tone tired but reassuring. “She just needs for us to take her home and let her rest.”
In his head, Nate got an image of the three of them – Liz, Max and Emily – curled around one another on Max and Liz’s bed, a war-weary lot. He imagined Max praying to a god he didn’t believe in to please let Liz be okay. He imagined Emily haunted by what she’d seen.
Weary, Nate rubbed his eyes. What had she seen? He had no doubt that Liz could rationalize and deal with her experience – and if she had trouble doing so, she knew to seek help. But Emily was just a child. She didn’t have the capacity to work through what she’d been through and Nate feared the long-term effects of her abduction.
The sky was just starting to lighten as Jeremy pulled into Cape Cod – morning was coming soon. High overhead, Nate could hear the call of sea gulls and looked that way. It seemed like a lifetime ago he’d looked up in the dark and had seen that white ball of energy falling to earth. It seemed like a dream, like it had never happened at all. Glancing in the side-view mirror, he saw Aubrey sitting in the back seat and was reassured that it definitely wasn’t a hallucination. All of those things had really happened.
“It looks like we have a visitor,” Jeremy said as he pulled into the driveway.
Nate glanced up curiously and saw Alyssa’s car parked beside his truck. Immediately, he sat up straight, his body tingling with apprehension. He felt a big confrontation coming, right around the corner.
“Need me to run interference?” Jeremy grinned as he pulled the SUV to a stop. “Want me to blast her one?”
Nate cocked his head.
Jeremy gave a giggle. “Just trying to help, man.”
As they stepped out of the vehicle, the door to the garage loft stairwell swung open quickly. Alyssa half-waddled/half-ran into the drive. In the early morning light, Nate could see the tracks of her tears on her smooth cheeks, the worry in her eyes.
“Where were you?” she said, though her voice was more a worried cry than an accusation. She bustled past Jeremy without acknowledging his presence and came to a stop before Nate, tilting her head back to look him in the eyes.
“Uh…I’ll be upstairs,” Jeremy said and quickly made his exit.
“Where did you go?” Alyssa asked, her voice choking in her throat. “I’ve been so worried, Nate. Daddy told me what happened and then I couldn’t find you and all I could think of was that they weren’t all dead and that one of them had found you instead of me finding you and that now you were dead.” On her last word, she finally broke into tears, burying her face in her hands.
Nate felt his heart lurch inside of his chest. He wanted nothing more than to take her into his arms and hold her against him, but he knew that she was so angry with him for what happened before that he wasn’t sure he dared. Then he gave a mental shrug – things couldn’t possibly be worse than they were between the two of them, what did he have to lose?
Without hesitation, Nate reached out and pulled Alyssa to him, which only prompted louder sobs from her. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her hair, losing himself in their embrace. Her hair smelled fresh, like she’d just washed it. He felt her tremble against him, her shoulders shaking as she cried.
“I’m okay,” he whispered against her ear. “No one’s going to find me. No one’s going to hurt me.”
Alyssa pulled back, her eyes puffy, red and wet. “Daddy told me what you did, Nate.”
He reddened slightly. The others seemed ready to taut him as a hero – he was still feeling like a mass murderer.
“They would have died if it weren’t for you,” she said, sniffling. “All of them. Including Emily and Liz.”
Nate shrugged self-consciously. “Not really. I mean, it was Aubrey and Jackson who got them back, not me.” He motioned toward Aubrey, who was leaning against the bumper of his truck like a faithful Labrador waiting for its ride.
Alyssa shook her head in dispute. “They got them back to earth, Nate, but Daddy told me there were so many of them in the woods that everyone would have died. If it hadn’t been for you.”
Nate looked down at his boot, kicked at the gravel.
“I want you to come home with me,” she announced.
He looked at her in surprise. Was she serious? She’d just kicked him out not twelve hours before.
Alyssa nodded. “I do, Nate. You belong with your family. You belong with your son.” Her voice cracked again and she started to cry harder. Before Nate could take her in his arms, however, she pushed him away. “I’m fine. Just please get in the car.”
“We can take my truck –” he began.
“I said get in the car!” she snapped and he jumped, not sure if it was anger or hormones.
“Okay.” Tail somewhat between his legs, he started for the driver’s side.
“I’m driving,” she announced.
He glanced at her, started to protest (knowing how difficult it was for her to reach the pedals these days), thought better of it and obediently climbed into the passenger side. Aubrey got in the back.
Alyssa wedged herself behind the wheel and checked her swollen eyes in the rearview mirror. “Dammit,” she hissed as she ran her fingers under her eyes, clearing her makeup.
Nate watched her with a mixture of sympathy and wariness. The caution proved to be founded, as Alyssa abruptly ceased her grooming and pinned him with a glare. The words and tone that came out of her mouth left no doubt that she was a descendant of Maria Deluca.
“Don’t for one minute think that just because I’m scared and hormonal and asked you to come back home means that I have in any way forgiven you for what you did.”
Nate nodded. He understood completely.
tbc
Last edited by Midwest Max on Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Twenty Six
Jake Spencer had greeted his father with much celebration. The same couldn’t be said for Jake’s mother.
While Alyssa hadn’t prevented Nate from sleeping in their bed, there was a definite barrier from his side to hers. After brushing his teeth and taking a quick shower, he had tentatively approached the bed in which she was already lying, waiting for an invitation or an eviction. Neither had come, so he’d slid as quietly as possible between the sheets and waited for her to say something. She never did.
Sunlight had already filled the room, but Nate had been so tired from the last few days that he’d fallen asleep almost immediately. As he drifted off, he had reminded himself to thank Maria and Michael for taking Jake off their hands for awhile so that they could get some rest.
When Nate had awakened, he’d found himself alone in the bed, the sound of water running in the shower coming from the bathroom.
Now he sat at the head of the bed, watching his wife through the partially-closed master bathroom door. She was wrapped in a fuzzy white robe, her hair knotted atop her head in a towel. Nate felt a pang in his soul just watching her go about her daily grooming. He’d never loved anyone as much as he loved Alyssa and to see her so close and yet so far was heartbreaking.
Not that he blamed her. She had every right to never speak to him again. In fact, he felt that she’d been more than generous by letting him come back home so quickly.
Through the door, Nate watched as Alyssa awkwardly lifted one of her feet to the edge of the bathtub. Since part of her body was blocked from view, he couldn’t really tell what she was trying to do, but he saw a lot of squirming and heard a lot of swearing. Leaning to the right, he saw that she was trying to clip her toenails and could no longer reach past her belly to do so. A wave of sympathy rippled through him and he pushed himself to his feet, walked soundlessly to the bathroom door.
“Son of a bitch,” Alyssa hissed softly as she tried reaching from the other side of her leg.
Nate cleared his throat to announce his presence as he entered the bathroom. Alyssa blew out a weary sigh and shook her head, but didn’t look in his direction.
“Hey,” he said softly, coming up behind her. He took her by the upper arm, sliding his hand down to hers to retrieve the clippers. “Let me help you.”
But Alyssa didn’t want his help. Jerking away, she said sharply, “I can do it myself, Nate.”
Nate frowned, wanted to disagree with her, but knew it was pointless. Rebuked, he simply left the room, changed into something more appropriate for daytime, and went the kitchen to make some lunch.
As he was putting together a sandwich, Michael and Maria returned with Jake; it was already past noon. Upon seeing his father, Jake let out a squeal and ran straight for him.
“Hey, buddy!” Nate said happily, reaching down to hoist his son into his arms. “You hungry? I know I am.”
Jake pointed at the cupboard where he knew the Goldfish crackers were kept.
“Sure, we can have those,” Nate said, moving to get them. Over his shoulder, to Michael and Maria, he said, “Thanks a lot, you guys. I needed the sleep.”
“I’ll bet you did,” Maria said, smirking slightly. “Friggin’ firestarter.”
Nate blushed. He didn’t want to talk about that – and he certainly didn’t want to talk about it in the joking tone she was using. He knew she didn’t mean anything by it, however – Maria always made jokes out of serious things.
“Mom?” Alyssa called from the bedroom.
“Yeah?” Maria replied over her shoulder.
“Could you come here? I need your help.”
Nate felt a stab of jealousy, a stab of indignation – Alyssa wouldn’t accept his help, but she would ask for Maria’s. Most days, Maria was the scourge of the earth. Not today – today Nate had claimed that throne.
As Maria disappeared down the hallway, Nate plopped Jake into his high chair and put a pile of crackers on his tray. With the child occupied, he returned to the counter to finish making his sandwich.
“You hungry?” he asked Michael. Conversation with his father-in-law was always stilted.
“Nah, I’m good,” Michael replied, pushing hands into the pockets of his jeans.
Mentally, Nate sighed at the silence that ensued. The clang of the knife against the mayonnaise jar was nearly deafening.
“Look,” Michael said finally, looking rather uncomfortable. “We’re going to have to have a meeting soon, find out from Aubrey and Jackson what happened, where we stand.”
Nate nodded his agreement.
“I mean, I think maybe our position has changed, I’m just not sure yet.”
Nate retrieved a drink from the refrigerator, sat down beside his gurgling son. Michael shifted his weight for a moment, then cleared his throat. Nate looked up at him with a mouthful of turkey and lettuce.
“I wanted to say thank you,” Michael said, like it took every ounce of courage to do so.
Nate swallowed, raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Thank me?”
“For saving our asses back there. If it weren’t for you, Nate…well, I don’t want to think what would have happened.”
Nate stared at his food for a moment, then turned sideways in his chair to face Michael. “But isn’t this what you were afraid of, Michael?”
Michael’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Weren’t you afraid that I was going to turn out like my mother, that I was going to inherit some of her gifts?”
Michael glanced out the window, not denying he’d once said as much to Nate – in a parking lot in South Dakota.
“Well, I did,” Nate said pointedly. “Can’t help it, Michael. I’m Tess Harding’s son – her blood runs in my veins, her powers are a part of me. I am what I am. And I’m done apologizing for it.” He swiveled back around and picked up his sandwich, took a bite before he could allow himself to say anything more.
After another long pause, Michael pulled out a chair and sat down beside him. Nate looked at him warily.
“Yes,” Michael agreed slowly. “You are Tess’s son. But you’re not Tess, Nate. I know that. You’re your own man.” He looked pensive for a moment, then added, “You’re a good man.”
Nate was so taken aback that he nearly choked on his food. It was all he could do to mind his manners and not let his mouth drop open.
Michael extended his hand. “So please accept my gratitude.”
Still a little stunned, Nate took his hand and shook it. Jake watched them curiously with dark eyes.
As Michael released Nate’s hand, he smiled – as much as Michael ever smiled.
“The little tramp can’t reach her toenails,” Maria snorted as she entered the kitchen.
The moment between him and Nate broken, Michael turned to his wife. “You seem to forget how large you got when you were pregnant.”
“I did not,” Maria retorted in disgust. “I’ve always been this thin and sleek and sexy.” As punctuation, she burst out laughing.
“As sleek as a weather balloon in those days,” Michael replied, getting up from his seat. “Say goodbye to Nate and Jake, honey – I’ve got to chase down some aliens and get the scoop on what went down yesterday.”
Maria kissed Jake on the top of the head, then Nate on his unblemished cheek. As they left the house, Nate simply stared at them in stunned disbelief. If there could be peace between Nate and Michael, world peace might stand a chance after all.
Dressed and dried, Alyssa joined them in the kitchen. Nate immediately looked at her toes, which were perfectly groomed and felt a little sad.
“Want me to make you something?” he asked her cautiously.
“Nope, I got it,” she replied as she opened the refrigerator, took out a cup of yogurt and an apple, and promptly left.
Nate looked at Jake, who was busy trying to put one of the Goldfish up his nose.
“I’m in the dog house, buddy,” he said.
At that, Jake squealed and fell into giggles.
“It’s not really funny,” Nate laughed, trying to keep his voice down.
Jake only laughed harder.
“Yeah, you wait until some day you get married and you have to go through this. You won’t find it so funny, buster.”
The conversation ended there as the cracker managed to disappear halfway into Jake’s nostril and Nate needed the next ten minutes to pry it out without damaging him.
Alyssa spent most of the day in their bedroom, but Nate knew it wasn’t entirely a cold shoulder act. When he concentrated hard enough, he could hear the slow, even rhythm of her breathing and knew that she was sleeping part of the time that she was in there. She must have been exhausted and he decided to just let her rest.
Later in the afternoon, the phone rang and Nate sprang for it lest it awake his sleeping wife.
“Hello?” he whispered hurriedly into the receiver.
“Nate? It’s Liz.”
Relief flooded every pore of Nate’s being – his whole body relaxed and until that moment he hadn’t realized he’d even been tensed up. “Oh, God, Liz! How are you?”
“I’m okay,” she said, a tired smile in her voice. “Hey, listen. I’d like to see you.”
“Certainly,” he agreed readily. “I can be over there in fifteen minutes.”
“I have a better idea. Max and I are taking Emily to the park. Why don’t you guys join us?”
Nate looked down the hallway toward his bedroom. He would love to take Alyssa and Jake to the park, but somehow he didn’t think she’d go for it. “Okay, that sounds good,” he told Liz.
“Half an hour?” Liz suggested, her voice sounding a little weary.
“Sure. Are you sure you’re up to this?”
“Absolutely. Thanks to you.”
Nate didn’t know what to say. He never had been able to take a compliment. “See you then,” he replied.
At the bedroom, he pushed the door open cautiously. Alyssa was reclining against the headboard, her eyes red either from sleeping or crying, Nate wasn’t sure. She looked at him silently.
“I’m sorry if the phone woke you,” he said.
“I was awake,” she replied.
“That was Liz,” he explained. “They want us to meet them at the park.”
Alyssa shook her head. “I want to stay home.”
“Okay,” he said, relenting. “I’ll still take Jake with me.”
“Very generous of you, Nate.” There was no bite to her tone, but the sarcasm wasn’t lost.
Nate looked at the floor for a moment, drew in a deep breath, then walked to her side of the bed. She watched him with curious eyes as he sat down at her hip.
“I love you, Al,” he began quietly, then gave a mirthless laugh. “And I fucked up big time. You’re entitled to be angry with me. I get that. But what I don’t get is why you asked me back here just so you can snap at me, even when I’m trying to help.”
Alyssa looked down at her round belly.
“God knows I want to make this work,” he continued. “But I have to wonder if you do. And if you don’t, then for my sake, your sake and most of all Jake’s sake, you need to tell me now because none of us needs to go through this hostility. You can be mad at me, hit me, throw me out, whatever makes you feel better. But this is getting us nowhere. I’m willing to admit I messed up. I can’t make up any excuse to justify it. But you won’t even give me the chance to discuss it. And maybe if we can’t talk through this like adults, we just shouldn’t talk at all.”
tbc
Jake Spencer had greeted his father with much celebration. The same couldn’t be said for Jake’s mother.
While Alyssa hadn’t prevented Nate from sleeping in their bed, there was a definite barrier from his side to hers. After brushing his teeth and taking a quick shower, he had tentatively approached the bed in which she was already lying, waiting for an invitation or an eviction. Neither had come, so he’d slid as quietly as possible between the sheets and waited for her to say something. She never did.
Sunlight had already filled the room, but Nate had been so tired from the last few days that he’d fallen asleep almost immediately. As he drifted off, he had reminded himself to thank Maria and Michael for taking Jake off their hands for awhile so that they could get some rest.
When Nate had awakened, he’d found himself alone in the bed, the sound of water running in the shower coming from the bathroom.
Now he sat at the head of the bed, watching his wife through the partially-closed master bathroom door. She was wrapped in a fuzzy white robe, her hair knotted atop her head in a towel. Nate felt a pang in his soul just watching her go about her daily grooming. He’d never loved anyone as much as he loved Alyssa and to see her so close and yet so far was heartbreaking.
Not that he blamed her. She had every right to never speak to him again. In fact, he felt that she’d been more than generous by letting him come back home so quickly.
Through the door, Nate watched as Alyssa awkwardly lifted one of her feet to the edge of the bathtub. Since part of her body was blocked from view, he couldn’t really tell what she was trying to do, but he saw a lot of squirming and heard a lot of swearing. Leaning to the right, he saw that she was trying to clip her toenails and could no longer reach past her belly to do so. A wave of sympathy rippled through him and he pushed himself to his feet, walked soundlessly to the bathroom door.
“Son of a bitch,” Alyssa hissed softly as she tried reaching from the other side of her leg.
Nate cleared his throat to announce his presence as he entered the bathroom. Alyssa blew out a weary sigh and shook her head, but didn’t look in his direction.
“Hey,” he said softly, coming up behind her. He took her by the upper arm, sliding his hand down to hers to retrieve the clippers. “Let me help you.”
But Alyssa didn’t want his help. Jerking away, she said sharply, “I can do it myself, Nate.”
Nate frowned, wanted to disagree with her, but knew it was pointless. Rebuked, he simply left the room, changed into something more appropriate for daytime, and went the kitchen to make some lunch.
As he was putting together a sandwich, Michael and Maria returned with Jake; it was already past noon. Upon seeing his father, Jake let out a squeal and ran straight for him.
“Hey, buddy!” Nate said happily, reaching down to hoist his son into his arms. “You hungry? I know I am.”
Jake pointed at the cupboard where he knew the Goldfish crackers were kept.
“Sure, we can have those,” Nate said, moving to get them. Over his shoulder, to Michael and Maria, he said, “Thanks a lot, you guys. I needed the sleep.”
“I’ll bet you did,” Maria said, smirking slightly. “Friggin’ firestarter.”
Nate blushed. He didn’t want to talk about that – and he certainly didn’t want to talk about it in the joking tone she was using. He knew she didn’t mean anything by it, however – Maria always made jokes out of serious things.
“Mom?” Alyssa called from the bedroom.
“Yeah?” Maria replied over her shoulder.
“Could you come here? I need your help.”
Nate felt a stab of jealousy, a stab of indignation – Alyssa wouldn’t accept his help, but she would ask for Maria’s. Most days, Maria was the scourge of the earth. Not today – today Nate had claimed that throne.
As Maria disappeared down the hallway, Nate plopped Jake into his high chair and put a pile of crackers on his tray. With the child occupied, he returned to the counter to finish making his sandwich.
“You hungry?” he asked Michael. Conversation with his father-in-law was always stilted.
“Nah, I’m good,” Michael replied, pushing hands into the pockets of his jeans.
Mentally, Nate sighed at the silence that ensued. The clang of the knife against the mayonnaise jar was nearly deafening.
“Look,” Michael said finally, looking rather uncomfortable. “We’re going to have to have a meeting soon, find out from Aubrey and Jackson what happened, where we stand.”
Nate nodded his agreement.
“I mean, I think maybe our position has changed, I’m just not sure yet.”
Nate retrieved a drink from the refrigerator, sat down beside his gurgling son. Michael shifted his weight for a moment, then cleared his throat. Nate looked up at him with a mouthful of turkey and lettuce.
“I wanted to say thank you,” Michael said, like it took every ounce of courage to do so.
Nate swallowed, raised his eyebrows questioningly. “Thank me?”
“For saving our asses back there. If it weren’t for you, Nate…well, I don’t want to think what would have happened.”
Nate stared at his food for a moment, then turned sideways in his chair to face Michael. “But isn’t this what you were afraid of, Michael?”
Michael’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Weren’t you afraid that I was going to turn out like my mother, that I was going to inherit some of her gifts?”
Michael glanced out the window, not denying he’d once said as much to Nate – in a parking lot in South Dakota.
“Well, I did,” Nate said pointedly. “Can’t help it, Michael. I’m Tess Harding’s son – her blood runs in my veins, her powers are a part of me. I am what I am. And I’m done apologizing for it.” He swiveled back around and picked up his sandwich, took a bite before he could allow himself to say anything more.
After another long pause, Michael pulled out a chair and sat down beside him. Nate looked at him warily.
“Yes,” Michael agreed slowly. “You are Tess’s son. But you’re not Tess, Nate. I know that. You’re your own man.” He looked pensive for a moment, then added, “You’re a good man.”
Nate was so taken aback that he nearly choked on his food. It was all he could do to mind his manners and not let his mouth drop open.
Michael extended his hand. “So please accept my gratitude.”
Still a little stunned, Nate took his hand and shook it. Jake watched them curiously with dark eyes.
As Michael released Nate’s hand, he smiled – as much as Michael ever smiled.
“The little tramp can’t reach her toenails,” Maria snorted as she entered the kitchen.
The moment between him and Nate broken, Michael turned to his wife. “You seem to forget how large you got when you were pregnant.”
“I did not,” Maria retorted in disgust. “I’ve always been this thin and sleek and sexy.” As punctuation, she burst out laughing.
“As sleek as a weather balloon in those days,” Michael replied, getting up from his seat. “Say goodbye to Nate and Jake, honey – I’ve got to chase down some aliens and get the scoop on what went down yesterday.”
Maria kissed Jake on the top of the head, then Nate on his unblemished cheek. As they left the house, Nate simply stared at them in stunned disbelief. If there could be peace between Nate and Michael, world peace might stand a chance after all.
Dressed and dried, Alyssa joined them in the kitchen. Nate immediately looked at her toes, which were perfectly groomed and felt a little sad.
“Want me to make you something?” he asked her cautiously.
“Nope, I got it,” she replied as she opened the refrigerator, took out a cup of yogurt and an apple, and promptly left.
Nate looked at Jake, who was busy trying to put one of the Goldfish up his nose.
“I’m in the dog house, buddy,” he said.
At that, Jake squealed and fell into giggles.
“It’s not really funny,” Nate laughed, trying to keep his voice down.
Jake only laughed harder.
“Yeah, you wait until some day you get married and you have to go through this. You won’t find it so funny, buster.”
The conversation ended there as the cracker managed to disappear halfway into Jake’s nostril and Nate needed the next ten minutes to pry it out without damaging him.
Alyssa spent most of the day in their bedroom, but Nate knew it wasn’t entirely a cold shoulder act. When he concentrated hard enough, he could hear the slow, even rhythm of her breathing and knew that she was sleeping part of the time that she was in there. She must have been exhausted and he decided to just let her rest.
Later in the afternoon, the phone rang and Nate sprang for it lest it awake his sleeping wife.
“Hello?” he whispered hurriedly into the receiver.
“Nate? It’s Liz.”
Relief flooded every pore of Nate’s being – his whole body relaxed and until that moment he hadn’t realized he’d even been tensed up. “Oh, God, Liz! How are you?”
“I’m okay,” she said, a tired smile in her voice. “Hey, listen. I’d like to see you.”
“Certainly,” he agreed readily. “I can be over there in fifteen minutes.”
“I have a better idea. Max and I are taking Emily to the park. Why don’t you guys join us?”
Nate looked down the hallway toward his bedroom. He would love to take Alyssa and Jake to the park, but somehow he didn’t think she’d go for it. “Okay, that sounds good,” he told Liz.
“Half an hour?” Liz suggested, her voice sounding a little weary.
“Sure. Are you sure you’re up to this?”
“Absolutely. Thanks to you.”
Nate didn’t know what to say. He never had been able to take a compliment. “See you then,” he replied.
At the bedroom, he pushed the door open cautiously. Alyssa was reclining against the headboard, her eyes red either from sleeping or crying, Nate wasn’t sure. She looked at him silently.
“I’m sorry if the phone woke you,” he said.
“I was awake,” she replied.
“That was Liz,” he explained. “They want us to meet them at the park.”
Alyssa shook her head. “I want to stay home.”
“Okay,” he said, relenting. “I’ll still take Jake with me.”
“Very generous of you, Nate.” There was no bite to her tone, but the sarcasm wasn’t lost.
Nate looked at the floor for a moment, drew in a deep breath, then walked to her side of the bed. She watched him with curious eyes as he sat down at her hip.
“I love you, Al,” he began quietly, then gave a mirthless laugh. “And I fucked up big time. You’re entitled to be angry with me. I get that. But what I don’t get is why you asked me back here just so you can snap at me, even when I’m trying to help.”
Alyssa looked down at her round belly.
“God knows I want to make this work,” he continued. “But I have to wonder if you do. And if you don’t, then for my sake, your sake and most of all Jake’s sake, you need to tell me now because none of us needs to go through this hostility. You can be mad at me, hit me, throw me out, whatever makes you feel better. But this is getting us nowhere. I’m willing to admit I messed up. I can’t make up any excuse to justify it. But you won’t even give me the chance to discuss it. And maybe if we can’t talk through this like adults, we just shouldn’t talk at all.”
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Twenty Seven
As soon as Nate pulled Alyssa’s car to a stop in the lot at the park, his eyes lit on Max, pushing Emily on a swing. Nate searched for Liz and found her sitting on a bench a little ways away. The sun was shining off her dark hair, its highlights shimmering in the early-autumn air. He found himself staring at her, having to convince himself that she was really alive. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been dirk-streaked and unconscious, without oxygen for an alarming amount of time. The fact that she’d bounced back enough so quickly to be sitting here less than twelve hours later seemed a miracle.
In the backseat, Jake also spotted Max and immediately began to whine frantically. Nate swiveled around and lifted an eyebrow at his son.
“Patience, little man,” he said, turning off the engine.
But Jake only complained more, reaching his hands outward in Max’s direction. Nate sighed, got out of the car and patiently dodged Jake’s flailing arms as he tried to release him from his car seat. Once the tot was loose, Nate checked for any cars moving through the parking lot, found none, then put his son on the ground. Immediately, Jake ran for Max, chattering wildly. He fell twice, but eventually made it to his grandfather, who swept him into his arms and tossed him playfully into the air. Nate smiled at the scene, grinned wider when Max put Jake down and Emily immediately gave him a clumsy hug.
As the children began to play with Max, Nate walked over to the bench were Liz was sitting. She smiled at him as he sat down beside her.
“I figured you had to be here somewhere,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward Jake. “Unless he drove himself.”
Nate laughed lightly. “It’s sickening how much he likes his granddad.”
Liz snorted a little laugh. “Well, Grandpa spoils the living daylights out of that baby.” She let out a tired sigh and met him with grateful eyes. “Thank you for coming, Nate. Did Alyssa come with you?”
Nate shook his head.
“Oh.” Liz looked at her husband, her gaze far off. “She’ll come around,” she said wistfully. “I know she must be upset with you. With what you did.”
Nate looked at the ground, feeling the old familiar guilt rushing in once again. Then he felt a soft hand in his and looked up to find Liz looking at him intently.
“I know what you did,” she said without accusation. “I know what you were willing to give up to get me and Emily back. I just wish you would have thought about what you were giving up before you did that.”
Nate chewed the corner of his lip. He hadn’t realized that Liz had asked him here to lecture him.
But Liz’s gaze softened as she squeezed his hand lightly. “You’ve got so much to live for, so much to be happy for. If I had what you had, I’m not sure I’d trade it for anything else in the world.”
Nate’s gaze drifted over to Max, who had fallen on his back in the grass and was being mauled by his daughter and grandson. “Oh,” he said with a small smile, “I think maybe you do have what I have.”
Liz followed his gaze and smiled. “You’re right – I do have a lot to be happy for. But my point is that you need to think of yourself first sometimes. Alyssa needs you. Jake needs you. And your new baby is going to need you.”
“But what about what I need?” Nate asked quietly, drawing a curious look from Liz. “I do need Alyssa and Jake and the baby, but I needed to get you back, Liz. I needed to have Emily here. Doesn’t that count for something as well?”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah, it does.” For one moment, he thought he saw a tear form in her eye, but she blinked hard and it disappeared. “How did you know where we were?”
This was something he wasn’t sure he could talk to Liz about. Not about Tess. But just as he’d decided that Isabel Ramirez deserved the truth, so did Liz. “My mother told me.”
Liz lifted a dark eyebrow. “Your mom?”
“Not Mrs. Spencer,” he said, shaking his head. “Tess.”
Liz looked a little surprised but didn’t react otherwise. “How did she tell you?”
“After you were gone, she came to me in a dream. Then Jeremy helped me talk to her.” Nate’s brow furrowed. “Unless I was hallucinating it all.”
Liz looked into the distance, shook her head. “No, I doubt it.”
“Are you upset about that?”
She shook her head again. “No. I think under it all, Tess could have been a good person. I think she wanted to be a mother to you, Nate. She never had the chance.”
Nate felt a pang of loss deep within, loss for something he’d never even had. “That woman, the one who died in the woods – she was the one who ordered Tess to be killed.” He paled slightly. “And me, too, I would guess.”
Liz nodded. “I would guess that, too.”
“Do you think that’s why Tess wanted me to find you? So that I could do…what I did?” Was it possible that Tess had reached from beyond the grave and asked Nate to avenge her?
“One thing I’ve learned,” Liz replied, “is that anything is possible. Especially in the I Know An Alien Club.” She looked toward her alien, rolling on the ground like a forty-something-year-old kid. “He hates himself for hitting you, you know.”
Nate’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as Liz turned to him again.
“He does,” she confirmed. “It was one of the first things he said to me – ‘Liz, are you okay? I hit Nate’.”
Nate tipped his head, not quite believing it.
Liz giggled. “Okay, so it wasn’t quite like that.” She fell serious again. “But he never mentioned Tess, he didn’t talk about what happened in the woods – he just told me what had happened in Roswell and that he’d hit you.”
“I didn’t give him much of a choice,” Nate confessed shamefully. “Liz, I said some pretty awful things to him.”
“About what?”
“About my mother. About how I came to be. I wouldn’t blame him if he never talks to me again.”
Liz’s eyes softened as she tilted her head sympathetically to the side. “Max loves you so much, Nate. Nothing you could ever do or say would make him stop talking to you.”
Nate offered a wan smile in response. He wanted to believe that was true.
Liz disentangled her hand from his. “I think it’s my turn to play with the youngins,” she laughed. “I just wanted to thank you for helping Max save me. I know if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here. And I wasn’t ready to die yet.”
She smiled softly at him, then kissed his damaged cheek. Nate nearly winced, waiting for the inevitable pain, but it never came. Before pushing herself to her feet, she wiped her thumb across his cheek as if to clear a lipstick smudge. But as she walked away, he realized that his cheek no longer ached, that the swelling below his eye was gone. Awed, he brought his fingers to his face, astounded that Liz Evans had just healed him in return.
“Hey, Grandpa,” Liz called as she crossed the park. “Don’t you wear those kids out – I haven’t had my turn yet!”
Nate watched as Max got up from the ground, dusted himself off and smiled widely as he embraced his wife. Emily immediately wrapped herself around one of Liz’s legs while Jake tugged on Liz’s hand. Max kissed the side of Liz’s head and said something to her that Nate couldn’t discern from that distance. She smiled, however, and Max was still smiling as he started walking toward Nate. Liz plopped down on one of the swings and pulled both kids onto her lap.
“Hey, Nate,” Max called as he approached the bench.
Nate lifted his hand in a small wave.
Max dropped down to the bench and let out a long breath. “Damn, I’m getting too old for this. Those runts are wearing me out!”
Nate gave him a little smile.
“How are you?” Max asked.
“Okay,” Nate replied, struggling to make conversation.
Max tilted his head to look at Nate’s cheek, then he grinned. “My wife does good work, eh?”
Nate nodded, touching his cheek again. “Since when can she heal?”
Max shrugged as he rummaged for a drink in a cooler under the bench. “I think it’s something new. Maybe you and I did it to her, who knows?”
Nate lifted an eyebrow. Max didn’t seem astounded or worried that Liz had gained a new power. Then again, maybe the shock of her developing powers at all had desensitized them both to it.
Max offered Nate a drink that he politely refused. After a long sip from a bottle of water, he let out a small sigh and Nate knew “the talk” was coming. “I’m sorry for hitting you, Nate,” Max said guiltily.
“I deserved it,” Nate replied.
“No one deserves to be struck,” Max said with a tinge of bitterness in his tone.
“I didn’t give you much choice. In fact, I should be apologizing to you for what I did, for what I said.”
Max sat back on the bench. “I know why you did what you did, and while I appreciate the fact that you wanted to help, I wish that you would learn to trust the rest of us.”
Nate looked surprised. “I do trust you.”
Max shook his head. “I don’t think so. If you did, you wouldn’t have gone off alone, in the middle of the night. You would have talked it over with the rest of us just to see if it was a viable solution.”
Nate looked at the ground, ashamed once again. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that…” His voice trailed off and he let out a sigh. “It’s just that I felt like I was the one who messed up and I should be the one to set things right.”
Max let out a little laugh. “Do you really think the rest of us have never messed up? And do you really think that the rest of us haven’t helped one another if they did manage to mess up? Trust me – we’ve messed up more than you can believe.”
Nate frowned. He wasn’t feeling any better about things.
Max put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re a team. All of us. No one was going to blame you or turn their back on you. You’ve known us for five years now – haven’t we proven that to you yet?”
Nate nodded somberly.
“Look, I know you were in a bad place – I suspect maybe you still are,” Max continued. “It’s somewhat understandable why your actions didn’t make a lot of sense. Your mom had just passed, Emily and Liz were gone and as far as you knew, your dad wasn’t aware of what you are.”
“And my real mother was talking to me,” Nate added, sort of testing the waters.
Max paused, his expression unreadable, then agreed. “Yes, she was.”
“Max, I’m sorry about the things I said to you in regard to her. I had no right.”
Max looked at the ground, capped his drink and set it on the grass. Leaning forward, he folded his hands together between his knees. “You were right, Nate – I didn’t love her. Not the way I should have.”
Nate frowned even though he was relieved that Max was finally talking about Tess.
“I wanted to love her,” Max said. “I wanted to believe that it was as simple as someone coming to my door and telling me that I was destined to be with them.” He looked toward Liz, who was sitting on one end of a teeter-totter with both kids on the opposite end. “Believing that was true hurt a lot less than trying to reconcile what was going on with me and Liz. But the truth was that I loved Liz. I have loved Liz since I saw her in the third grade. I’m always going to love her, and no one else.”
Nate looked down at the ground, sad.
“But, Nate,” Max continued. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.”
“How can you?” he asked sullenly. “When you didn’t love the one who made me?”
“Do you think Emma Spencer loved you?”
Nate nodded – that was a no-brainer.
“And how about Jonathan?”
Nate nodded again. He knew that even though Jonathan Spencer was a man of little outward emotion, he did care deeply for his adopted son.
“They didn’t love Tess either,” Max pointed out. “But they still managed to love you anyway. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
Nate nodded, his gaze shifting to Emily.
“And since you brought it up,” Max said, his voice a little firmer. “I do not love Emily more than you. I will never trade one of you for the other. Don’t ever accuse me of such a thing again.”
Nate reddened, dully admonished.
They sat silently for a while, perhaps waiting for the ill will to clear the air. Nate sneaked a glance at his father and found that he didn’t look angry, but perhaps a little hurt.
“She’s special, isn’t she?” he asked.
Max nodded, taking in his daughter.
“Does she have the seal?” Nate asked, remembering that Tess had asked him when the last time was that he’d seen it.
“Yeah,” Max said.
Nate swallowed. “Does that I mean I don’t anymore?”
Max looked at him, smiled slightly. “Sorry – you don’t get off the hook that easily.”
Nate raised his eyebrows in question.
“If you’re a descendent, you’ve got it.”
Nate looked toward Emily, who had stopped playing and was staring straight at him. There was so much knowledge in her young eyes, more so now that she’d been to their home world. What did she see? he wondered. There was a single word response, deep inside of him, that made his whole body feel warm.
Peace.
tbc
As soon as Nate pulled Alyssa’s car to a stop in the lot at the park, his eyes lit on Max, pushing Emily on a swing. Nate searched for Liz and found her sitting on a bench a little ways away. The sun was shining off her dark hair, its highlights shimmering in the early-autumn air. He found himself staring at her, having to convince himself that she was really alive. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been dirk-streaked and unconscious, without oxygen for an alarming amount of time. The fact that she’d bounced back enough so quickly to be sitting here less than twelve hours later seemed a miracle.
In the backseat, Jake also spotted Max and immediately began to whine frantically. Nate swiveled around and lifted an eyebrow at his son.
“Patience, little man,” he said, turning off the engine.
But Jake only complained more, reaching his hands outward in Max’s direction. Nate sighed, got out of the car and patiently dodged Jake’s flailing arms as he tried to release him from his car seat. Once the tot was loose, Nate checked for any cars moving through the parking lot, found none, then put his son on the ground. Immediately, Jake ran for Max, chattering wildly. He fell twice, but eventually made it to his grandfather, who swept him into his arms and tossed him playfully into the air. Nate smiled at the scene, grinned wider when Max put Jake down and Emily immediately gave him a clumsy hug.
As the children began to play with Max, Nate walked over to the bench were Liz was sitting. She smiled at him as he sat down beside her.
“I figured you had to be here somewhere,” she said, gesturing with her chin toward Jake. “Unless he drove himself.”
Nate laughed lightly. “It’s sickening how much he likes his granddad.”
Liz snorted a little laugh. “Well, Grandpa spoils the living daylights out of that baby.” She let out a tired sigh and met him with grateful eyes. “Thank you for coming, Nate. Did Alyssa come with you?”
Nate shook his head.
“Oh.” Liz looked at her husband, her gaze far off. “She’ll come around,” she said wistfully. “I know she must be upset with you. With what you did.”
Nate looked at the ground, feeling the old familiar guilt rushing in once again. Then he felt a soft hand in his and looked up to find Liz looking at him intently.
“I know what you did,” she said without accusation. “I know what you were willing to give up to get me and Emily back. I just wish you would have thought about what you were giving up before you did that.”
Nate chewed the corner of his lip. He hadn’t realized that Liz had asked him here to lecture him.
But Liz’s gaze softened as she squeezed his hand lightly. “You’ve got so much to live for, so much to be happy for. If I had what you had, I’m not sure I’d trade it for anything else in the world.”
Nate’s gaze drifted over to Max, who had fallen on his back in the grass and was being mauled by his daughter and grandson. “Oh,” he said with a small smile, “I think maybe you do have what I have.”
Liz followed his gaze and smiled. “You’re right – I do have a lot to be happy for. But my point is that you need to think of yourself first sometimes. Alyssa needs you. Jake needs you. And your new baby is going to need you.”
“But what about what I need?” Nate asked quietly, drawing a curious look from Liz. “I do need Alyssa and Jake and the baby, but I needed to get you back, Liz. I needed to have Emily here. Doesn’t that count for something as well?”
She nodded slowly. “Yeah, it does.” For one moment, he thought he saw a tear form in her eye, but she blinked hard and it disappeared. “How did you know where we were?”
This was something he wasn’t sure he could talk to Liz about. Not about Tess. But just as he’d decided that Isabel Ramirez deserved the truth, so did Liz. “My mother told me.”
Liz lifted a dark eyebrow. “Your mom?”
“Not Mrs. Spencer,” he said, shaking his head. “Tess.”
Liz looked a little surprised but didn’t react otherwise. “How did she tell you?”
“After you were gone, she came to me in a dream. Then Jeremy helped me talk to her.” Nate’s brow furrowed. “Unless I was hallucinating it all.”
Liz looked into the distance, shook her head. “No, I doubt it.”
“Are you upset about that?”
She shook her head again. “No. I think under it all, Tess could have been a good person. I think she wanted to be a mother to you, Nate. She never had the chance.”
Nate felt a pang of loss deep within, loss for something he’d never even had. “That woman, the one who died in the woods – she was the one who ordered Tess to be killed.” He paled slightly. “And me, too, I would guess.”
Liz nodded. “I would guess that, too.”
“Do you think that’s why Tess wanted me to find you? So that I could do…what I did?” Was it possible that Tess had reached from beyond the grave and asked Nate to avenge her?
“One thing I’ve learned,” Liz replied, “is that anything is possible. Especially in the I Know An Alien Club.” She looked toward her alien, rolling on the ground like a forty-something-year-old kid. “He hates himself for hitting you, you know.”
Nate’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as Liz turned to him again.
“He does,” she confirmed. “It was one of the first things he said to me – ‘Liz, are you okay? I hit Nate’.”
Nate tipped his head, not quite believing it.
Liz giggled. “Okay, so it wasn’t quite like that.” She fell serious again. “But he never mentioned Tess, he didn’t talk about what happened in the woods – he just told me what had happened in Roswell and that he’d hit you.”
“I didn’t give him much of a choice,” Nate confessed shamefully. “Liz, I said some pretty awful things to him.”
“About what?”
“About my mother. About how I came to be. I wouldn’t blame him if he never talks to me again.”
Liz’s eyes softened as she tilted her head sympathetically to the side. “Max loves you so much, Nate. Nothing you could ever do or say would make him stop talking to you.”
Nate offered a wan smile in response. He wanted to believe that was true.
Liz disentangled her hand from his. “I think it’s my turn to play with the youngins,” she laughed. “I just wanted to thank you for helping Max save me. I know if it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t be here. And I wasn’t ready to die yet.”
She smiled softly at him, then kissed his damaged cheek. Nate nearly winced, waiting for the inevitable pain, but it never came. Before pushing herself to her feet, she wiped her thumb across his cheek as if to clear a lipstick smudge. But as she walked away, he realized that his cheek no longer ached, that the swelling below his eye was gone. Awed, he brought his fingers to his face, astounded that Liz Evans had just healed him in return.
“Hey, Grandpa,” Liz called as she crossed the park. “Don’t you wear those kids out – I haven’t had my turn yet!”
Nate watched as Max got up from the ground, dusted himself off and smiled widely as he embraced his wife. Emily immediately wrapped herself around one of Liz’s legs while Jake tugged on Liz’s hand. Max kissed the side of Liz’s head and said something to her that Nate couldn’t discern from that distance. She smiled, however, and Max was still smiling as he started walking toward Nate. Liz plopped down on one of the swings and pulled both kids onto her lap.
“Hey, Nate,” Max called as he approached the bench.
Nate lifted his hand in a small wave.
Max dropped down to the bench and let out a long breath. “Damn, I’m getting too old for this. Those runts are wearing me out!”
Nate gave him a little smile.
“How are you?” Max asked.
“Okay,” Nate replied, struggling to make conversation.
Max tilted his head to look at Nate’s cheek, then he grinned. “My wife does good work, eh?”
Nate nodded, touching his cheek again. “Since when can she heal?”
Max shrugged as he rummaged for a drink in a cooler under the bench. “I think it’s something new. Maybe you and I did it to her, who knows?”
Nate lifted an eyebrow. Max didn’t seem astounded or worried that Liz had gained a new power. Then again, maybe the shock of her developing powers at all had desensitized them both to it.
Max offered Nate a drink that he politely refused. After a long sip from a bottle of water, he let out a small sigh and Nate knew “the talk” was coming. “I’m sorry for hitting you, Nate,” Max said guiltily.
“I deserved it,” Nate replied.
“No one deserves to be struck,” Max said with a tinge of bitterness in his tone.
“I didn’t give you much choice. In fact, I should be apologizing to you for what I did, for what I said.”
Max sat back on the bench. “I know why you did what you did, and while I appreciate the fact that you wanted to help, I wish that you would learn to trust the rest of us.”
Nate looked surprised. “I do trust you.”
Max shook his head. “I don’t think so. If you did, you wouldn’t have gone off alone, in the middle of the night. You would have talked it over with the rest of us just to see if it was a viable solution.”
Nate looked at the ground, ashamed once again. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that…” His voice trailed off and he let out a sigh. “It’s just that I felt like I was the one who messed up and I should be the one to set things right.”
Max let out a little laugh. “Do you really think the rest of us have never messed up? And do you really think that the rest of us haven’t helped one another if they did manage to mess up? Trust me – we’ve messed up more than you can believe.”
Nate frowned. He wasn’t feeling any better about things.
Max put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re a team. All of us. No one was going to blame you or turn their back on you. You’ve known us for five years now – haven’t we proven that to you yet?”
Nate nodded somberly.
“Look, I know you were in a bad place – I suspect maybe you still are,” Max continued. “It’s somewhat understandable why your actions didn’t make a lot of sense. Your mom had just passed, Emily and Liz were gone and as far as you knew, your dad wasn’t aware of what you are.”
“And my real mother was talking to me,” Nate added, sort of testing the waters.
Max paused, his expression unreadable, then agreed. “Yes, she was.”
“Max, I’m sorry about the things I said to you in regard to her. I had no right.”
Max looked at the ground, capped his drink and set it on the grass. Leaning forward, he folded his hands together between his knees. “You were right, Nate – I didn’t love her. Not the way I should have.”
Nate frowned even though he was relieved that Max was finally talking about Tess.
“I wanted to love her,” Max said. “I wanted to believe that it was as simple as someone coming to my door and telling me that I was destined to be with them.” He looked toward Liz, who was sitting on one end of a teeter-totter with both kids on the opposite end. “Believing that was true hurt a lot less than trying to reconcile what was going on with me and Liz. But the truth was that I loved Liz. I have loved Liz since I saw her in the third grade. I’m always going to love her, and no one else.”
Nate looked down at the ground, sad.
“But, Nate,” Max continued. “That doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.”
“How can you?” he asked sullenly. “When you didn’t love the one who made me?”
“Do you think Emma Spencer loved you?”
Nate nodded – that was a no-brainer.
“And how about Jonathan?”
Nate nodded again. He knew that even though Jonathan Spencer was a man of little outward emotion, he did care deeply for his adopted son.
“They didn’t love Tess either,” Max pointed out. “But they still managed to love you anyway. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
Nate nodded, his gaze shifting to Emily.
“And since you brought it up,” Max said, his voice a little firmer. “I do not love Emily more than you. I will never trade one of you for the other. Don’t ever accuse me of such a thing again.”
Nate reddened, dully admonished.
They sat silently for a while, perhaps waiting for the ill will to clear the air. Nate sneaked a glance at his father and found that he didn’t look angry, but perhaps a little hurt.
“She’s special, isn’t she?” he asked.
Max nodded, taking in his daughter.
“Does she have the seal?” Nate asked, remembering that Tess had asked him when the last time was that he’d seen it.
“Yeah,” Max said.
Nate swallowed. “Does that I mean I don’t anymore?”
Max looked at him, smiled slightly. “Sorry – you don’t get off the hook that easily.”
Nate raised his eyebrows in question.
“If you’re a descendent, you’ve got it.”
Nate looked toward Emily, who had stopped playing and was staring straight at him. There was so much knowledge in her young eyes, more so now that she’d been to their home world. What did she see? he wondered. There was a single word response, deep inside of him, that made his whole body feel warm.
Peace.
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Twenty Eight
Jake watched intently as Nate tied a piece of pink ribbon around the stems of the daisies Jake had plucked while at the park. There were only two of them, but it seemed a huge bouquet to the small boy.
“Here,” Nate said, holding the flowers out to his son. “Take these to Mommy.”
Jake took the flowers in his chubby hand and looked at them quizzically.
“Mommy,” Nate repeated, pointing toward the kitchen, where Alyssa was sitting at the table writing out bills. “Take them to Mommy and tell her you love her.”
Jake blinked, then grinned. He took off at a dead run and Nate feared he’d fall and crush his prize.
When the child disappeared around the corner, Nate sat back on the couch and let out a tired sigh. It had been an exhausting few days and he didn’t feel like he’d ever catch up on his rest. After returning home from the park, the family had eaten a quiet, uncomfortable dinner together; the snark had left Alyssa and even though she was uncharacteristically quiet, he was grateful for the loss of hostility.
Nate heard Alyssa’s laugh echoing from the kitchen. “What’s this?” she giggled, followed by a garble of Jake-speak, words that only a parent could understand. “Well, I love you too.”
Nate grinned as his eyelids slowly slid shut. One of his favorite things in the world was to watch Alyssa interact with their son. She was a fun mother, always making their boy laugh, always willing to do silly things to keep him entertained. But she was also a loving and caring mother – in the rare times that Jake had taken ill, Nate had seen her wracked with worry as she’d clutched her sick baby to her, rocking away his fever and tears. One might think with her sometimes-flippant attitude and by-spells inappropriate behavior she may have missed out on the best maternal instincts, but Nate knew that was far from the truth.
Sleep snuck up on him and he found himself floating quietly, his body relaxing into the cushions of the couch. Soon he was in a warm place, sunny without being intrusive. Looking down, he saw that Emily was holding his hand, her little face tipped toward his. He smiled down at her and she smiled back. She was wearing a pale yellow dress with daisies on it, her curly dark hair pulled into a ponytail and fastened with a white bow.
“I saw peace,” she said to him, though he never saw her lips move. “And freedom. And hope.”
He frowned slightly. “Can there really be peace and freedom?” he asked.
Emily grinned a little wider. “As long as there’s hope!” With that, she scampered off, evaporating into the distance.
“Wait!” Nate called. “Come back here!”
He ran after her, though he didn’t really have the sensation of moving. He felt like he’d been running forever and couldn’t catch up with her, couldn’t see her really. Finally he stopped running and looked around in confusion. From behind him, he got the sense of another presence and turned slowly toward it.
She was still young. She was still pretty, blond and blue-eyed. She was smiling gently at him.
Thank you, my sweet boy.
Nate jerked awake, startled.
“Whoa, it’s only me,” Alyssa said quietly, using her Jake’s-in-bed voice. Her hand was on his chest where she’d touched him and she slowly removed it as she sat down beside him.
Nate looked at the clock – he’d been asleep for over an hour. “I’m sorry,” he said, pushing himself up awkwardly. “I was planning on giving Jake his bath and putting him to bed.”
“It’s okay,” Alyssa said. She looked down at her hands, held up the wilting daisies. “Jake ties a pretty good bow.”
Nate lifted one corner of his mouth into a half-smile. Taking the chance, he reached over and took her hand in his; her skin was soft and warm and until that moment he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed touching her. She didn’t pull away, instead gave him a gentle squeeze.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
She nodded.
Nate glanced at her belly. “And my little girl?”
Alyssa nodded again.
Nate bit the corner of his lip with longing. “Can I say hi?”
She tipped her head to the side, pain in her eyes. “Nate, you don’t have to ask that.”
He looked away bashfully, then ran his hand over her belly. Immediately, the baby jumped to attention, as though she’d realized he’d been gone of late. She gave a swift kick against his palm and Alyssa winced.
“Jesus,” she laughed.
Nate laughed lightly, made a small circular motion on her stomach. His smile faded as he stopped rubbing her belly, though he left his hand where it was.
“I am so sorry,” he told her, ashamed to look her in the eye. “I know that sorry is not enough, that it’s never going to be enough. I don’t think anything will ever be enough to make up for what I did.”
Alyssa remained silent, giving him his say.
“I thought I could fix it. I thought I could fix everything,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I thought I could handle the situation.” He paused, guilt very near the surface. “I thought I could handle the power to change the past. And I was wrong. I didn’t have any right to do what I did. I know I hurt you, Alyssa, and that’s not what I intended to do.”
She looked down at the floor, worked her hands together. “What about Jake?” she asked quietly. “What about what may have happened to him?”
“I didn’t want anything to happen to him.”
“But it could have, Nate. Very easily.”
He was silent for a long moment. “I know you think that I didn’t consider Jake in all of this, but I did. I wanted to believe that I could change the past without altering the present.”
Alyssa gave a laugh of disbelief.
“I know,” Nate agreed, blushing slightly. “It was stupid to even think so. But I wanted to believe that I could get Liz and Emily back, take the granilith back to the year 2000 before anyone noticed it was gone and get back here without changing anything. After all, Max said that the group didn’t even know about the granilith yet – it’s not like anyone was going to miss it.”
“What in the world would lead you to believe that would ever work?” Alyssa asked incredulously.
Nate shrugged in defeat. “I wanted to hope.”
“Hope?” Alyssa’s eyebrows rose in question.
He nodded.
“Well, you were never Mr. Optimism, Nate, and you picked a hell of a time to convert.”
Even though her words held no accusation and even a bit of humor, he still felt a little deflated. Perhaps the rift between them was irreparable. Maybe there were some things that could just not be overcome.
“I’m a mess,” he confessed softly, prompting her to look at him with concern. “I loved my mom so much, Al. She was always there for me, putting a Band-Aid on a scraped knee, kissing me goodnight, taking me to the zoo or wherever, always willing to listen to me. Dad never said much of anything at all and he was usually at the store so he rarely went anywhere with us when I was a kid. I spent my days with my mom. Even when I got older, she let me be the person I wanted to be. If I got drunk at a party I wasn’t supposed to be at, there was no lecture but I always got her message loud and clear – if you’re going to do that, do it responsibly. She never judged me. And then I found out as she was dying that she knew what I was all along. Even then she didn’t judge me. She was just my mom. And then she was just gone.”
Nate looked at the floor as he fought to keep the tears from pooling in his eyes, memories of Emma Spencer so fresh in his mind.
“Then on the heels of her dying, my birth mother starts playing tricks with my head,” he continued. “I didn’t know anything about that woman other than what people had told me, and none of it was any good. I never heard that she was a good friend, or a fun person or anything – all I heard was that she was a murderer and a betrayer. And I know that no one has only one dimension. Jeremy helped me talk to her and she told me what to do, how I could help. She showed me the prison where she and I were waiting to be murdered on our home planet. She told me that Liz would soon be dead and Emily would soon be manipulated. I couldn’t ignore that kind of warning, Al – don’t you understand that?”
Alyssa nodded slowly, her dark eyes shining with the first sign of tears.
“I had to go,” he said simply. “I had to heed her warning. So I went. And I was wrong to do it in the middle of the night, I was wrong to do it without talking to you first and I was wrong to kick you out of my head when you were worried about me.” Nate shook his head, biting his bottom lip. “I was wrong.”
Alyssa looked away, a silent tear rolling down her cheek.
“I got back to 2000,” Nate said, letting out a deep sigh. “And I saw my mother.”
Alyssa looked at him in surprise.
“I saw her sitting alone, her only parent dead, no one there to comfort her.” There was still a hint of bitterness in his tone at the memory. “And I was there with this big ball of grief inside of me, knowing how it feels to lose someone who raised you and I just felt so angry that no one was there for her. No one. Not even Max. And the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. To top it off, I saw her with him. Alyssa, he could barely stand to look at her. He seemed disgusted by her or something and I realized that these were the two people who made me and there was no way that I was a good thing for either of them.”
“Oh, Nate,” Alyssa said, her tears flowing freely.
“And with my head being fucked up like it was and having that added realization tossed in with it, I actually convinced myself that I could do what I needed to without harming you or Jake. I had to do it.” Nate frowned, finally losing the war with his tears. “I had to do it to prove that I was worthy of you, worthy of Max, worthy of everyone.”
A look of utter devastation was on Alyssa’s face as she reached out and put her arms around him. Nate closed his eyes and buried his face in her golden hair, squeezed her tightly.
“How can you think that?” she said against his ear, her words choked. “How can you ever think you’re unworthy of anyone?”
“I’m a mess,” he whispered in response.
They sat together for a long time, Alyssa stroking his hair, the two of them clinging together like they were afraid to let go. Finally Nate pushed back and wiped the tears from his wife’s cheeks.
“I can’t ever make up for what I did,” he said, taking her face between his hands. “But you are all that matters to me. You and Jake and whoever is in your belly. I can’t imagine a world without you. Please, Al, tell me you’ll give us a chance.” His blue eyes searched her dark ones.
Alyssa nodded silently, sniffing back her tears.
Nate breathed a relieved sigh, gave a cautious smile. “Thank you,” he said, pulling her in for another hug. “Thank you so much.”
Later, they crawled into bed together, the bridge on the mend but not yet fully repaired. When Nate moved over to her side and questioningly put his hand on her hip, she nodded and allowed him to spoon her. The simple act of holding her made him cry again, silently, his face buried against her shoulder. Maybe his dream had been right – as long as there was hope, there could be peace.
“I’m not used to you talking so much,” Alyssa said in the dark, a hint of playfulness in her tone. “While you’re at it, is there anything else you’d like to confess?”
Nate grinned and nuzzled her hair. “Yeah,” he said. “I stole Alex Whitman’s bike.”
tbc
Jake watched intently as Nate tied a piece of pink ribbon around the stems of the daisies Jake had plucked while at the park. There were only two of them, but it seemed a huge bouquet to the small boy.
“Here,” Nate said, holding the flowers out to his son. “Take these to Mommy.”
Jake took the flowers in his chubby hand and looked at them quizzically.
“Mommy,” Nate repeated, pointing toward the kitchen, where Alyssa was sitting at the table writing out bills. “Take them to Mommy and tell her you love her.”
Jake blinked, then grinned. He took off at a dead run and Nate feared he’d fall and crush his prize.
When the child disappeared around the corner, Nate sat back on the couch and let out a tired sigh. It had been an exhausting few days and he didn’t feel like he’d ever catch up on his rest. After returning home from the park, the family had eaten a quiet, uncomfortable dinner together; the snark had left Alyssa and even though she was uncharacteristically quiet, he was grateful for the loss of hostility.
Nate heard Alyssa’s laugh echoing from the kitchen. “What’s this?” she giggled, followed by a garble of Jake-speak, words that only a parent could understand. “Well, I love you too.”
Nate grinned as his eyelids slowly slid shut. One of his favorite things in the world was to watch Alyssa interact with their son. She was a fun mother, always making their boy laugh, always willing to do silly things to keep him entertained. But she was also a loving and caring mother – in the rare times that Jake had taken ill, Nate had seen her wracked with worry as she’d clutched her sick baby to her, rocking away his fever and tears. One might think with her sometimes-flippant attitude and by-spells inappropriate behavior she may have missed out on the best maternal instincts, but Nate knew that was far from the truth.
Sleep snuck up on him and he found himself floating quietly, his body relaxing into the cushions of the couch. Soon he was in a warm place, sunny without being intrusive. Looking down, he saw that Emily was holding his hand, her little face tipped toward his. He smiled down at her and she smiled back. She was wearing a pale yellow dress with daisies on it, her curly dark hair pulled into a ponytail and fastened with a white bow.
“I saw peace,” she said to him, though he never saw her lips move. “And freedom. And hope.”
He frowned slightly. “Can there really be peace and freedom?” he asked.
Emily grinned a little wider. “As long as there’s hope!” With that, she scampered off, evaporating into the distance.
“Wait!” Nate called. “Come back here!”
He ran after her, though he didn’t really have the sensation of moving. He felt like he’d been running forever and couldn’t catch up with her, couldn’t see her really. Finally he stopped running and looked around in confusion. From behind him, he got the sense of another presence and turned slowly toward it.
She was still young. She was still pretty, blond and blue-eyed. She was smiling gently at him.
Thank you, my sweet boy.
Nate jerked awake, startled.
“Whoa, it’s only me,” Alyssa said quietly, using her Jake’s-in-bed voice. Her hand was on his chest where she’d touched him and she slowly removed it as she sat down beside him.
Nate looked at the clock – he’d been asleep for over an hour. “I’m sorry,” he said, pushing himself up awkwardly. “I was planning on giving Jake his bath and putting him to bed.”
“It’s okay,” Alyssa said. She looked down at her hands, held up the wilting daisies. “Jake ties a pretty good bow.”
Nate lifted one corner of his mouth into a half-smile. Taking the chance, he reached over and took her hand in his; her skin was soft and warm and until that moment he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed touching her. She didn’t pull away, instead gave him a gentle squeeze.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
She nodded.
Nate glanced at her belly. “And my little girl?”
Alyssa nodded again.
Nate bit the corner of his lip with longing. “Can I say hi?”
She tipped her head to the side, pain in her eyes. “Nate, you don’t have to ask that.”
He looked away bashfully, then ran his hand over her belly. Immediately, the baby jumped to attention, as though she’d realized he’d been gone of late. She gave a swift kick against his palm and Alyssa winced.
“Jesus,” she laughed.
Nate laughed lightly, made a small circular motion on her stomach. His smile faded as he stopped rubbing her belly, though he left his hand where it was.
“I am so sorry,” he told her, ashamed to look her in the eye. “I know that sorry is not enough, that it’s never going to be enough. I don’t think anything will ever be enough to make up for what I did.”
Alyssa remained silent, giving him his say.
“I thought I could fix it. I thought I could fix everything,” he said, meeting her eyes. “I thought I could handle the situation.” He paused, guilt very near the surface. “I thought I could handle the power to change the past. And I was wrong. I didn’t have any right to do what I did. I know I hurt you, Alyssa, and that’s not what I intended to do.”
She looked down at the floor, worked her hands together. “What about Jake?” she asked quietly. “What about what may have happened to him?”
“I didn’t want anything to happen to him.”
“But it could have, Nate. Very easily.”
He was silent for a long moment. “I know you think that I didn’t consider Jake in all of this, but I did. I wanted to believe that I could change the past without altering the present.”
Alyssa gave a laugh of disbelief.
“I know,” Nate agreed, blushing slightly. “It was stupid to even think so. But I wanted to believe that I could get Liz and Emily back, take the granilith back to the year 2000 before anyone noticed it was gone and get back here without changing anything. After all, Max said that the group didn’t even know about the granilith yet – it’s not like anyone was going to miss it.”
“What in the world would lead you to believe that would ever work?” Alyssa asked incredulously.
Nate shrugged in defeat. “I wanted to hope.”
“Hope?” Alyssa’s eyebrows rose in question.
He nodded.
“Well, you were never Mr. Optimism, Nate, and you picked a hell of a time to convert.”
Even though her words held no accusation and even a bit of humor, he still felt a little deflated. Perhaps the rift between them was irreparable. Maybe there were some things that could just not be overcome.
“I’m a mess,” he confessed softly, prompting her to look at him with concern. “I loved my mom so much, Al. She was always there for me, putting a Band-Aid on a scraped knee, kissing me goodnight, taking me to the zoo or wherever, always willing to listen to me. Dad never said much of anything at all and he was usually at the store so he rarely went anywhere with us when I was a kid. I spent my days with my mom. Even when I got older, she let me be the person I wanted to be. If I got drunk at a party I wasn’t supposed to be at, there was no lecture but I always got her message loud and clear – if you’re going to do that, do it responsibly. She never judged me. And then I found out as she was dying that she knew what I was all along. Even then she didn’t judge me. She was just my mom. And then she was just gone.”
Nate looked at the floor as he fought to keep the tears from pooling in his eyes, memories of Emma Spencer so fresh in his mind.
“Then on the heels of her dying, my birth mother starts playing tricks with my head,” he continued. “I didn’t know anything about that woman other than what people had told me, and none of it was any good. I never heard that she was a good friend, or a fun person or anything – all I heard was that she was a murderer and a betrayer. And I know that no one has only one dimension. Jeremy helped me talk to her and she told me what to do, how I could help. She showed me the prison where she and I were waiting to be murdered on our home planet. She told me that Liz would soon be dead and Emily would soon be manipulated. I couldn’t ignore that kind of warning, Al – don’t you understand that?”
Alyssa nodded slowly, her dark eyes shining with the first sign of tears.
“I had to go,” he said simply. “I had to heed her warning. So I went. And I was wrong to do it in the middle of the night, I was wrong to do it without talking to you first and I was wrong to kick you out of my head when you were worried about me.” Nate shook his head, biting his bottom lip. “I was wrong.”
Alyssa looked away, a silent tear rolling down her cheek.
“I got back to 2000,” Nate said, letting out a deep sigh. “And I saw my mother.”
Alyssa looked at him in surprise.
“I saw her sitting alone, her only parent dead, no one there to comfort her.” There was still a hint of bitterness in his tone at the memory. “And I was there with this big ball of grief inside of me, knowing how it feels to lose someone who raised you and I just felt so angry that no one was there for her. No one. Not even Max. And the more I thought about it, the angrier I got. To top it off, I saw her with him. Alyssa, he could barely stand to look at her. He seemed disgusted by her or something and I realized that these were the two people who made me and there was no way that I was a good thing for either of them.”
“Oh, Nate,” Alyssa said, her tears flowing freely.
“And with my head being fucked up like it was and having that added realization tossed in with it, I actually convinced myself that I could do what I needed to without harming you or Jake. I had to do it.” Nate frowned, finally losing the war with his tears. “I had to do it to prove that I was worthy of you, worthy of Max, worthy of everyone.”
A look of utter devastation was on Alyssa’s face as she reached out and put her arms around him. Nate closed his eyes and buried his face in her golden hair, squeezed her tightly.
“How can you think that?” she said against his ear, her words choked. “How can you ever think you’re unworthy of anyone?”
“I’m a mess,” he whispered in response.
They sat together for a long time, Alyssa stroking his hair, the two of them clinging together like they were afraid to let go. Finally Nate pushed back and wiped the tears from his wife’s cheeks.
“I can’t ever make up for what I did,” he said, taking her face between his hands. “But you are all that matters to me. You and Jake and whoever is in your belly. I can’t imagine a world without you. Please, Al, tell me you’ll give us a chance.” His blue eyes searched her dark ones.
Alyssa nodded silently, sniffing back her tears.
Nate breathed a relieved sigh, gave a cautious smile. “Thank you,” he said, pulling her in for another hug. “Thank you so much.”
Later, they crawled into bed together, the bridge on the mend but not yet fully repaired. When Nate moved over to her side and questioningly put his hand on her hip, she nodded and allowed him to spoon her. The simple act of holding her made him cry again, silently, his face buried against her shoulder. Maybe his dream had been right – as long as there was hope, there could be peace.
“I’m not used to you talking so much,” Alyssa said in the dark, a hint of playfulness in her tone. “While you’re at it, is there anything else you’d like to confess?”
Nate grinned and nuzzled her hair. “Yeah,” he said. “I stole Alex Whitman’s bike.”
tbc
-
Midwest Max
- Addicted Roswellian
- Posts: 461
- Joined: Sun Aug 03, 2003 8:11 pm
Part Twenty Nine
“I think you’ll like this one,” Jesse said, handing the glass to Nate. “It’s from the Chicama winery, out on Martha’s Vineyard.”
Nate sniffed the wine, then took a small sip. He gave Jesse a nod of approval, sending the man away happy. Nate glanced at Alyssa, who raised a suspicious eyebrow. He grinned sheepishly and put the wine glass on the coffee table.
They were gathered at Isabel and Jesse’s house, since it was the only one that was large enough to accommodate everyone. Always the gracious hostess, Isabel was in the kitchen frantically putting together some appetizers, all the while dodging Michael, who kept slipping his hand onto whatever tray she was preparing.
Across the room from Nate and Alyssa, Max and Liz sat together in the same chair, Liz on Max’s lap. Her expression was far-off and Nate felt a twinge of sadness. He knew that she’d probably experienced something unpleasant on that other world and he had to wonder if the memories were going to haunt her forever. Then Max squeezed her and kissed her cheek and she giggled, once again back in the present.
Nate looked over at his wife again and picked up her hand. She gave him a small smile, then turned to continue watching Jake playing contentedly in the corner with Emily. Things between them weren’t fixed entirely, but at least the hostility had abated. Nate knew that he had damaged her trust in him and there simply weren’t enough words to be spoken to convince her to have faith in him again. It was going to take many months if not years of proving himself through his actions for Alyssa to understand that he wasn’t going to repeat his past actions. But he could be patient and wait for that day if it meant he got to stay with her.
“I made cheese puffs,” Isabel said, placing the tray on the coffee table. “I also have some shrimp on ice that I’ll bring out and I picked up some pastries at the bakery as well.”
Michael plopped into the chair, slouching like a teenager, his cheeks puffed out with food. “Mmm – I highly recommend the pastries,” he said around a mouthful of crumbs.
Maria clicked her tongue in disgust. “Jesus, have you lost all of your manners?” she said as she stopped beside his chair.
A devilish twinkle in his eye, he reached over and pinched her ass, making her jump. “Apparently.”
Nate waited for the disgusted sigh from Alyssa, but it never came. He looked at her in surprise and found her smiling instead. It didn’t seem so long ago that she’d found all of her parents’ actions offensive and now she was laughing. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who had changed…
“Are we ready?” Max said, sitting up a little straighter, Liz leaning back against his shoulder so he could address the group.
“Wait for me!” Jeremy called breathlessly, running into the family room still zipping his pants.
Isabel shot him a pointed look and he flushed slightly. Nate hid his smirk behind his hand as Jeremy sat down beside him.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “I had to…um…take Chloe…home…” He glanced at all faces in turn, then fell silent, duly embarrassed.
“Well then,” Isabel said, ignoring her randy son’s excuse for being late. “Max, I think we’re all here now if you’d like to start.”
Max nodded and stood up, leaving Liz behind in the chair. “Over the last couple of days, Michael and I have been debriefing Aubrey and Jackson on the events of last week. We know that they were able to open a worm hole and follow the Skins back to Antar.”
“Skins can survive that kind of travel?” Jesse asked skeptically.
Max nodded. “And Aubrey and Jackson’s people as well.”
“And humans,” Maria grinned, sharing a look with Liz.
Max shook his head. “No, not humans.”
Nate looked sympathetically at Liz, remembered how her lifeless body had felt beneath his hands as he and Max had struggled to revive her.
“If it hadn’t been for Nate,” Max continued gratefully, “Liz wouldn’t be here.”
Nate met Max’s eyes and saw a world of gratitude there. Forever humble, he simply nodded his acceptance and hoped Max would move on. Which he did.
“So, Aubrey and Jackson followed them to Antar. They had just performed the test on Emily and found that she does have the seal.”
As Max looked toward his daughter, so did the rest of the room. In the corner, playing with a Barbie, she looked like any other five-year-old girl, not someone who had traveled to another planet.
“Aubrey was able to infiltrate their ranks. While she was retrieving Liz and Emily, Jackson opened up another worm hole and got them back here,” Max explained. “You guys know the rest of the story.”
Nate’s brow furrowed in confusion. Looking around the room, he didn’t see the twins, so he leaned over to Jeremy and whispered, “Where are your brothers?”
Jeremy shrugged, seeming unconcerned. Nate realized that if the twins weren’t hiding in new girlfriend Chloe’s panties, there was little chance of his cousin knowing their whereabouts.
“What about Jason and Justin?” Nate asked aloud. “How did they know where to go?”
Max looked to Isabel, who gave him approval. “It’s one of their powers. They can communicate telepathically. With each other, with other people. From great distances. Jackson told them where to go.”
“Who was that woman, Uncle Max?” Alyssa asked. “Why did she do all of this?”
Max sat down on the ottoman before Liz’s chair. “She was the last of a rebellion who wanted to see the old king of Antar returned to the throne.”
“The last?” Maria asked, looking surprised.
Max nodded. “It seems that people on Antar don’t care about us anymore.”
The whole room reacted, some surprised, some relieved.
“They don’t,” Michael confirmed. “From what Jackson and Aubrey told us, the people there would rather have us here, out of sight out of mind, than on their home world causing problems.”
“You see, Antar is at peace now,” Max explained, his words laced with a hint of sadness. “After Khivar was destroyed here, the people regrouped, formed a new government. Their people are prosperous and happy. They don’t want the old regime to return.”
“What does that mean?” Maria asked, toying with her necklace.
“It means that we’re free,” Michael said simply.
The room was so quiet Nate could hear his own breath leaving his lungs. On each person’s face, he saw the cautious optimism, the willingness to believe. To hope.
“It means after twenty five years, I’m unemployed,” Michael added.
Liz laughed lightly, reaching forward to put her arms around Max’s waist. “So is my hubby.” Nate got the feeling she wasn’t upset about that development at all.
“Well, not entirely,” Max said, causing some of the optimism to falter. “We know there are many alien races on this planet. They’re peaceful races, but there will still be work to do to maintain that peace.” Then he grinned. “But I can’t see that taking more than a few weeks a year.”
Nate’s head felt a little light. Could it be true? Could it be possible that they were going to be safe now?
Isabel answered that question. “We still have the FBI to be concerned about,” she said, a worry line appearing on her forehead.
“Yes,” Max agreed. “We do have to remain cautious, but – thanks to Nate – the lion’s share of our enemies has been destroyed.”
Nate felt the burn of unwanted attention as everyone expressed their gratitude. It still seemed strange to be congratulated for a mass killing. Jeremy clapped him on the knee, gave him a toothy Ramirez grin.
“You kicked ass, brother,” he laughed.
Alyssa fidgeted with her emerald necklace, the same one Nate had bought for her seventeenth birthday so long ago. Her confused expression matched her mother’s. “Can it really be? Are we really free?”
Max nodded slowly. “From this threat, yes.”
Nate squeezed Alyssa’s hand, feeling a sense of disbelief coming from her. She reached down and smoothed her belly and he could practically read her thoughts – her children were going to group up in a much better environment than she ever did.
“There will be peace,” Emily said, causing Nate to jump. She had managed to cross the living room unnoticed and was standing between his knees, her dark eyes serious. “Someday.”
A memory flashed through Nate’s mind, a dream of walking a city street as free as any other man. In those days, he’d believed that he would be the catalyst of that peace, that it was up to him to do something drastic to make it all happen. That belief had led to the hijacking of a television station and death for everyone involved.
Now he realized that he was not going to be the one to lead his people to peace. That person was standing before him in the package of a tiny little girl with dark curly hair and big brown eyes. She didn’t know it yet, but she was destined to change the lives of all of her people.
Or perhaps she did already know. And it was going to be Nate’s task to help her make that miracle happen.
Later that night, Nate and Alyssa put Jake in his crib, the child already fast asleep. Arm in arm, they watched him sleep for a long time, his little chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Then they went to their bedroom, where they both lay staring at the ceiling, more than a little stunned.
“You still don’t believe it, do you?” Nate said softly in the dark.
Alyssa shook her head, her hair rustling against her pillow. “I want to believe it. But, all of my life, I’ve been fighting this battle, running from this enemy.”
Nate shifted onto his side, propped his head up on his elbow. He didn’t understand what it was like to grow up like that – he’d live an idyllic life compared to his wife. His days had pretty much consisted of dealing with the never-ending boredom of a tourist town, not dealing with the never-ending threat to one’s existence.
“What if it is true?” he asked. “That means we could go anywhere, do anything.”
She turned her head to the side to look at him, her features barely visible in the faint moonlight. “Where would you go?”
He shrugged. “Anywhere.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t like it here?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it here,” he amended quickly. “It’s just that I was raised in the country, away from the hustle and bustle of big city life. Here we live in the suburbs -Chautauqua doesn’t even have a suburb.”
“I didn’t grow up in a big city either,” Alyssa pointed out.
“I’m only here because we went to school here. Because Max and Aunt Isabel are here.”
“I’m only here because you are.”
Nate stopped in surprise. “Are you saying you don’t like it here, either?”
“I’m saying I’ll go wherever you go.” She smiled softly, warming his heart.
He smiled in return, rolling back over so that he was looking at the ceiling again. Alyssa rolled in his direction, slid her arm across his body as she laid her head against his chest; her firm belly pressed into his side.
“Tell me what you want,” she said softly. “You always ask me, but you never tell me what you want.”
Nate looked at the ceiling for a long time, ordering himself to be true to his heart, to think of himself first as Liz had suggested.
“I want to move back to New York and take care of my dad’s store so he doesn’t have to work anymore,” he said. “I want to spend time with him because he’s an old man now and I know soon he’ll go, too.”
Alyssa looked into his face, hers surprised.
“We don’t have to,” he added quickly. “It’s just a pipe dream –”
“No, it’s not,” she interrupted, laying her head back down and caressing his chest. “It’s what you want.” She paused and when she spoke again, there was conviction in her tone. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk to the bank, see if we can do it.”
Nate grinned widely, gave her shoulders a squeeze. He imagined Jake hanging out in the tree house, carving his first love’s initials into the lumber. He saw his son growing up surrounded by friends, spending his long summer days at the lake. He saw his daughter playing in wide-open fields, her long blond hair shining in the sun. And he saw Alyssa, happy, finally at peace with her world.
He wanted to believe that those images were sent from some higher power, that they weren’t just fantasies, that they were meant to be. He wanted to believe that his people were free, that Emily had been right – there was peace and freedom in the future.
Then he remembered something else Emily had told him – there would always be a chance for peace and freedom, as long as there was hope.
“Do you believe it’s all true?” Alyssa asked him, the conversation coming full-circle.
Nate shook his head. “I’m not sure I believe it’s true,” he replied, kissing her forehead. “But I hope it is.”
THE END
“I think you’ll like this one,” Jesse said, handing the glass to Nate. “It’s from the Chicama winery, out on Martha’s Vineyard.”
Nate sniffed the wine, then took a small sip. He gave Jesse a nod of approval, sending the man away happy. Nate glanced at Alyssa, who raised a suspicious eyebrow. He grinned sheepishly and put the wine glass on the coffee table.
They were gathered at Isabel and Jesse’s house, since it was the only one that was large enough to accommodate everyone. Always the gracious hostess, Isabel was in the kitchen frantically putting together some appetizers, all the while dodging Michael, who kept slipping his hand onto whatever tray she was preparing.
Across the room from Nate and Alyssa, Max and Liz sat together in the same chair, Liz on Max’s lap. Her expression was far-off and Nate felt a twinge of sadness. He knew that she’d probably experienced something unpleasant on that other world and he had to wonder if the memories were going to haunt her forever. Then Max squeezed her and kissed her cheek and she giggled, once again back in the present.
Nate looked over at his wife again and picked up her hand. She gave him a small smile, then turned to continue watching Jake playing contentedly in the corner with Emily. Things between them weren’t fixed entirely, but at least the hostility had abated. Nate knew that he had damaged her trust in him and there simply weren’t enough words to be spoken to convince her to have faith in him again. It was going to take many months if not years of proving himself through his actions for Alyssa to understand that he wasn’t going to repeat his past actions. But he could be patient and wait for that day if it meant he got to stay with her.
“I made cheese puffs,” Isabel said, placing the tray on the coffee table. “I also have some shrimp on ice that I’ll bring out and I picked up some pastries at the bakery as well.”
Michael plopped into the chair, slouching like a teenager, his cheeks puffed out with food. “Mmm – I highly recommend the pastries,” he said around a mouthful of crumbs.
Maria clicked her tongue in disgust. “Jesus, have you lost all of your manners?” she said as she stopped beside his chair.
A devilish twinkle in his eye, he reached over and pinched her ass, making her jump. “Apparently.”
Nate waited for the disgusted sigh from Alyssa, but it never came. He looked at her in surprise and found her smiling instead. It didn’t seem so long ago that she’d found all of her parents’ actions offensive and now she was laughing. Maybe he wasn’t the only one who had changed…
“Are we ready?” Max said, sitting up a little straighter, Liz leaning back against his shoulder so he could address the group.
“Wait for me!” Jeremy called breathlessly, running into the family room still zipping his pants.
Isabel shot him a pointed look and he flushed slightly. Nate hid his smirk behind his hand as Jeremy sat down beside him.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “I had to…um…take Chloe…home…” He glanced at all faces in turn, then fell silent, duly embarrassed.
“Well then,” Isabel said, ignoring her randy son’s excuse for being late. “Max, I think we’re all here now if you’d like to start.”
Max nodded and stood up, leaving Liz behind in the chair. “Over the last couple of days, Michael and I have been debriefing Aubrey and Jackson on the events of last week. We know that they were able to open a worm hole and follow the Skins back to Antar.”
“Skins can survive that kind of travel?” Jesse asked skeptically.
Max nodded. “And Aubrey and Jackson’s people as well.”
“And humans,” Maria grinned, sharing a look with Liz.
Max shook his head. “No, not humans.”
Nate looked sympathetically at Liz, remembered how her lifeless body had felt beneath his hands as he and Max had struggled to revive her.
“If it hadn’t been for Nate,” Max continued gratefully, “Liz wouldn’t be here.”
Nate met Max’s eyes and saw a world of gratitude there. Forever humble, he simply nodded his acceptance and hoped Max would move on. Which he did.
“So, Aubrey and Jackson followed them to Antar. They had just performed the test on Emily and found that she does have the seal.”
As Max looked toward his daughter, so did the rest of the room. In the corner, playing with a Barbie, she looked like any other five-year-old girl, not someone who had traveled to another planet.
“Aubrey was able to infiltrate their ranks. While she was retrieving Liz and Emily, Jackson opened up another worm hole and got them back here,” Max explained. “You guys know the rest of the story.”
Nate’s brow furrowed in confusion. Looking around the room, he didn’t see the twins, so he leaned over to Jeremy and whispered, “Where are your brothers?”
Jeremy shrugged, seeming unconcerned. Nate realized that if the twins weren’t hiding in new girlfriend Chloe’s panties, there was little chance of his cousin knowing their whereabouts.
“What about Jason and Justin?” Nate asked aloud. “How did they know where to go?”
Max looked to Isabel, who gave him approval. “It’s one of their powers. They can communicate telepathically. With each other, with other people. From great distances. Jackson told them where to go.”
“Who was that woman, Uncle Max?” Alyssa asked. “Why did she do all of this?”
Max sat down on the ottoman before Liz’s chair. “She was the last of a rebellion who wanted to see the old king of Antar returned to the throne.”
“The last?” Maria asked, looking surprised.
Max nodded. “It seems that people on Antar don’t care about us anymore.”
The whole room reacted, some surprised, some relieved.
“They don’t,” Michael confirmed. “From what Jackson and Aubrey told us, the people there would rather have us here, out of sight out of mind, than on their home world causing problems.”
“You see, Antar is at peace now,” Max explained, his words laced with a hint of sadness. “After Khivar was destroyed here, the people regrouped, formed a new government. Their people are prosperous and happy. They don’t want the old regime to return.”
“What does that mean?” Maria asked, toying with her necklace.
“It means that we’re free,” Michael said simply.
The room was so quiet Nate could hear his own breath leaving his lungs. On each person’s face, he saw the cautious optimism, the willingness to believe. To hope.
“It means after twenty five years, I’m unemployed,” Michael added.
Liz laughed lightly, reaching forward to put her arms around Max’s waist. “So is my hubby.” Nate got the feeling she wasn’t upset about that development at all.
“Well, not entirely,” Max said, causing some of the optimism to falter. “We know there are many alien races on this planet. They’re peaceful races, but there will still be work to do to maintain that peace.” Then he grinned. “But I can’t see that taking more than a few weeks a year.”
Nate’s head felt a little light. Could it be true? Could it be possible that they were going to be safe now?
Isabel answered that question. “We still have the FBI to be concerned about,” she said, a worry line appearing on her forehead.
“Yes,” Max agreed. “We do have to remain cautious, but – thanks to Nate – the lion’s share of our enemies has been destroyed.”
Nate felt the burn of unwanted attention as everyone expressed their gratitude. It still seemed strange to be congratulated for a mass killing. Jeremy clapped him on the knee, gave him a toothy Ramirez grin.
“You kicked ass, brother,” he laughed.
Alyssa fidgeted with her emerald necklace, the same one Nate had bought for her seventeenth birthday so long ago. Her confused expression matched her mother’s. “Can it really be? Are we really free?”
Max nodded slowly. “From this threat, yes.”
Nate squeezed Alyssa’s hand, feeling a sense of disbelief coming from her. She reached down and smoothed her belly and he could practically read her thoughts – her children were going to group up in a much better environment than she ever did.
“There will be peace,” Emily said, causing Nate to jump. She had managed to cross the living room unnoticed and was standing between his knees, her dark eyes serious. “Someday.”
A memory flashed through Nate’s mind, a dream of walking a city street as free as any other man. In those days, he’d believed that he would be the catalyst of that peace, that it was up to him to do something drastic to make it all happen. That belief had led to the hijacking of a television station and death for everyone involved.
Now he realized that he was not going to be the one to lead his people to peace. That person was standing before him in the package of a tiny little girl with dark curly hair and big brown eyes. She didn’t know it yet, but she was destined to change the lives of all of her people.
Or perhaps she did already know. And it was going to be Nate’s task to help her make that miracle happen.
Later that night, Nate and Alyssa put Jake in his crib, the child already fast asleep. Arm in arm, they watched him sleep for a long time, his little chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Then they went to their bedroom, where they both lay staring at the ceiling, more than a little stunned.
“You still don’t believe it, do you?” Nate said softly in the dark.
Alyssa shook her head, her hair rustling against her pillow. “I want to believe it. But, all of my life, I’ve been fighting this battle, running from this enemy.”
Nate shifted onto his side, propped his head up on his elbow. He didn’t understand what it was like to grow up like that – he’d live an idyllic life compared to his wife. His days had pretty much consisted of dealing with the never-ending boredom of a tourist town, not dealing with the never-ending threat to one’s existence.
“What if it is true?” he asked. “That means we could go anywhere, do anything.”
She turned her head to the side to look at him, her features barely visible in the faint moonlight. “Where would you go?”
He shrugged. “Anywhere.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t like it here?”
“It’s not that I don’t like it here,” he amended quickly. “It’s just that I was raised in the country, away from the hustle and bustle of big city life. Here we live in the suburbs -Chautauqua doesn’t even have a suburb.”
“I didn’t grow up in a big city either,” Alyssa pointed out.
“I’m only here because we went to school here. Because Max and Aunt Isabel are here.”
“I’m only here because you are.”
Nate stopped in surprise. “Are you saying you don’t like it here, either?”
“I’m saying I’ll go wherever you go.” She smiled softly, warming his heart.
He smiled in return, rolling back over so that he was looking at the ceiling again. Alyssa rolled in his direction, slid her arm across his body as she laid her head against his chest; her firm belly pressed into his side.
“Tell me what you want,” she said softly. “You always ask me, but you never tell me what you want.”
Nate looked at the ceiling for a long time, ordering himself to be true to his heart, to think of himself first as Liz had suggested.
“I want to move back to New York and take care of my dad’s store so he doesn’t have to work anymore,” he said. “I want to spend time with him because he’s an old man now and I know soon he’ll go, too.”
Alyssa looked into his face, hers surprised.
“We don’t have to,” he added quickly. “It’s just a pipe dream –”
“No, it’s not,” she interrupted, laying her head back down and caressing his chest. “It’s what you want.” She paused and when she spoke again, there was conviction in her tone. “Tomorrow, we’ll talk to the bank, see if we can do it.”
Nate grinned widely, gave her shoulders a squeeze. He imagined Jake hanging out in the tree house, carving his first love’s initials into the lumber. He saw his son growing up surrounded by friends, spending his long summer days at the lake. He saw his daughter playing in wide-open fields, her long blond hair shining in the sun. And he saw Alyssa, happy, finally at peace with her world.
He wanted to believe that those images were sent from some higher power, that they weren’t just fantasies, that they were meant to be. He wanted to believe that his people were free, that Emily had been right – there was peace and freedom in the future.
Then he remembered something else Emily had told him – there would always be a chance for peace and freedom, as long as there was hope.
“Do you believe it’s all true?” Alyssa asked him, the conversation coming full-circle.
Nate shook his head. “I’m not sure I believe it’s true,” he replied, kissing her forehead. “But I hope it is.”
THE END
Last edited by Midwest Max on Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.