So, once again, I have taken an entire week to update, which I don't like very much, but it's happened. And what's worse, I have to update without actually writing the next chapter that I was working on. This whole thing is seriously being detrimental to my cushion here. I should totally kick my butt into gear and get working on this, but I don't know when that will happen. In the meantime, thanks to everybody who commented! Oh and btw /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/ indicates either the beginning or the ending of a flashback, whichever the case may be, but you should be able to tell the difference.
Tanya7496-Yeah well you know, Khivar's evil. On the bright side, you're right, at least Max and Liz have someone on their side.
Redrumm-Hmmm...good question. Unfortunately for me, I don't really have an answer yet. There are upsides and downsides to both options. Unfortunately for you, I wouldn't tell you even if I did, though if I did, I might give you some very telling clues.
Jennifer-Yes he might. In fact, I'll let you in a little secret. I plan for him to make a major difference in the outcome of the end. Although certain other characters will make bigger differences.
orphyfets-Thanks, and for the rest of your comment, see the reply to Tanya.
Flamehair-thanks
And now, sit back with your popcorn and enjoy...
Chapter 21
January passed without any significant event. Liz and her parents had talked for a long time the day after she told them about her pregnancy, and they decided that she should at least go back to Winnaman to finish out the semester which would end with exams in just a couple of weeks. Over the next couple of weeks that Liz was at school, she talked to her parents everyday, and when the end of the semester came, she set up a meeting with Ms. Noble to talk about her situation. She had told her parents what Serena had said about the pregnant girl the previous year, and they decided that the best thing to do was to make it a point to talk to the headmaster, explain everything, and go from there.
The meeting had gone remarkably well. Ms. Noble said that the rumor of the other girl had been exactly that, a rumor. What really happened was the the parents decided that they couldn't let their daughter continue to go to a school where they couldn't keep an eye on her themselves, and they had taken her out of classes abruptly. But that could have been for any number of reasons. Ms. Noble said that she had no problem allowing Liz to stay at Winnaman, as long as her grades stayed high enough to keep the scholarship she had earned. Liz reassured everyone, that her grades were actually the best they had every been, and she had no intention of ruining her life any further by getting kicked out of school.
Everyone decided that it would be in Liz's best interest to stay at Winnaman at least for the rest of the year. Then Liz would transfer back to Roswell High for her senior year, and hoped that maybe she could still graduate with honors, even if she was raising her own kid. After the meeting, Liz made a point to stop into Ms. Noble's office once a week to tell her how the week went and prove that she was keeping up her grades. Ms. Noble was also the one that helped Liz find an obstetrician in the area. Not that Liz actually went to him, but she had to keep up appearances nonetheless.
Liz also had several conversations with her parents about what she was going to do over the summer and what she was going to do once she had the baby. Her parents tried desperately to convince her to either give the baby up for adoption, or let them raise the baby themselves, but Liz refused. Obviously, there was no way that she could give up her daughter to an unsuspecting family when Alexa would most likely develop powers and would need protection and training, but there was also no way that Liz could hand her baby over to her parents. Liz had already connected with her. She knew Alexa, and there was definitely no way that Liz would be able to give up her her daughter in any way, even if she would still live in the same house. So Liz came to terms with the fact that she would probably not be able to go to a great college if at all at first, and hoped that her parents would continue to support her.
Currently, Liz was sitting in her physics class next to Serena and listening to the teacher drone on. Normally, this was a pretty good class, and Liz loved it, because she could secretly goof off with Serena, and have fun at the same time. But for some reason, today was especially difficult to pay attention, and Liz didn't have the patience for it. Unfortunately, the class was just starting too, so Liz would have to suffer through another hour and a half of class before she could go work on her powers.
Liz's mind wandered through the entire lab explanation, and when the teacher suddenly announced that they were to begin, Liz panicked a little. "Serena! I wasn't listening! What are we doing?" Liz frantically whispered.
"Calm down Liz. We're just repeating last week's lab, because apparently, only one group of lab partners did it correctly. Personally, I think that was us, so I don't know why we have to redo it, but she said that the correct lab group would get extra credit for a second lab turned in correctly, so I guess that's something."
Liz breathed a sigh of relief. Last weeks lab had seemed pretty easy. They were just figuring out the coefficient of friction for leather and wood by sending a box with leather attached to the bottom down a wood board and measuring the time it took to reach the bottom with different weights in the box. It wasn't like it was a big deal at all.
Liz went to the get supplies for the lab as Serena set up the paper to take observations; they were always lab partners and worked well together. It almost made Liz sad, because her and Serena were nearly as good of lab partners as her and Max had been. Almost always anticipating what was needed and who would get it. As Liz went to get the equipment, the teacher was issuing a reminder. "Remember class, the weights that you are using for this experiment are very expensive because they are so precise. Make sure that you don't drop them and break them, or you will be buying them!"
Liz half-heartedly listened to the warning, because it was the same warning that the teacher gave every time they did a lab. "Be careful with the equipment. It's expensive." Obviously precise and accurate equipment might be expensive. All of these students were honor students. Couldn't they figure that out themselves and just be cautious? Did the teacher really have to warn them every single time? Liz shook her head as she turned to pick up the wooden box, and as she did, she suddenly got a little light-headed, which caused her to loose her balance and run right into the person next to her who was picking up their set of weights. That caused the other person to accidently drop all of their weights on the ground in order to steady Liz, as well as knock a few of the weights off the counter. Liz continued to fall to the ground along with the girl she knocked into and after a few seconds, Liz raised her pounding head to see the teacher glaring at her.
Liz was mortified, she had never done anything quite so publicly embarrassing as this, and this was really making her worried. She had surely just cost the science department nearly a thousand dollars worth of equipment, and that meant that she would probably loose her scholarship, since it came from the science department. Liz tuned out the teacher's ranting to the same effect, and dropped her head in her hands. She was still a little light-headed and all she could think about was that she wished she could go back in time just by a couple of minutes and prevent it.
A thousand of different ways that Liz could have prevented the whole thing ran through her mind as Liz sat with her head in her hands and listened to her teacher prattle on. Then suddenly Liz was on her feet and walking in the direction of the counter. Liz was startled by the way the sudden change and stopped dead in her tracks, only to realize something that almost made her faint. Everything in the room was exactly as it had been two minutes earlier! The weights were back on the counter, the teacher was in the middle of her verbal warning, and Liz was five feet away from picking up her equipment. The teacher's voice sounded far away as Liz waited for a second longer and realized that the girl she had run into before was picking up her weights. Liz felt the light-headedness come over her again, but this time, because she had stopped walking and was away from the counter, Liz simply reached out her hand and steadied herself on the desk next to her.
As Liz was realizing exactly what was going on, and that she had somehow affected time, the rest of the students just walked around her, until Liz felt someone tap her shoulder. "Liz? Are you okay? You look a little pale..." Liz turned around to see Serena's worried face, and mumbled something to placate her. Then she told Serena that she suddenly wasn't feeling well and was going to ask for a pass to the Nurse. Serena nodded, and Liz headed over to the teacher.
All of Liz's teacher's knew about her pregnancy by now, and while they didn't try to give her any special treatment normally, they all still tried to look after her, if it looked like she needed something. So Liz was fairly sure that she would have no problem getting a pass to the Nurse. So when she did receive it, she just Liz smiled in appreciation and headed to the Nurse's office, wondering the whole time, if maybe she had just imagined it, or if this was some kind of crazy new power she was getting.
*****
It was their third week back to school, and Isabel was heading to Alex's locker. With just a little over two weeks 'till Valentine's Day, Isabel was kind of hoping that Alex would ask her out so that they could make their relationship official. Alex had been acting as her best friend for a while now, and Isabel was not too proud to admit that she was developing a serious crush on him. Because she had dream-walked Alex the year before, Isabel was a fairly sure that Alex felt the same way, but that didn't stop her from thinking that maybe things had changed by now. When Alex's locker came into view she saw Tess standing at his locker too and smiled.
Tess looked up to see Isabel striding toward Alex. Tess smiled back at Isabel and then turned to laugh at Alex when she saw Isabel turn all of her attention toward him and adopt a determined expression. It was not unlike the expression Tess had seen on Isabel's face a few weeks ago, when school got back in session, though Tess doubted that the determined expression was for same reason.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
It was the first day back to school after Christmas break and Isabel had had enough of wondering what was going on with her brother. All break she had tried unsuccessfully to get Max to tell her why he was so depressed, but it was no use. Every time she tried to talk to him, he just ignored her, and a couple of times he had even thrown her out of his room with his powers and then locked the door with some kind of special power that wouldn't allow her back in. It was one of the most frustrating things that Isabel had ever had to endure with her brother, but she was going to at least try to find out what was going on from Tess because things seemed to have gotten worse right after that talk she saw them have. So this day found her walking to Tess's locker with determined strides and a set jaw.
When Isabel actually arrived at Tess's locker, she was surprised to see her and Kyle making out. The last Isabel had heard, Tess was still after her brother. But Isabel was too angry to be flustered by the relatively heavy make-out session in front of her, and she grabbed Tess's upper arm and forced her away from Kyle.
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Isabel heard Tess exclaim at the same time Kyle yelled "What the- Tess!"
Isabel gripped Tess's arm harder and gritted out, "What did you do to my brother?"
"Nothing!" Tess huffed as she raise her hand to Isabel chest to push the other girl off of her, even if she had to use her powers to do so.
Isabel felt the painful jolt of electricity and saw the soft glow of Tess's hand and lost it. She ended up shoving Tess back and saying, "What do you mean nothing? My brother is nothing like he use to be and I know you had something to do with it. He's been depressed since October, but it suddenly got even worse after I saw him talk with you on Christmas Eve. And what are you doing with him?" Isabel jerked her head over to indicate Kyle, "Trying to get even with Max? Cause I don't think it will work!"
Tess started to reply but Kyle cut her off. "Hey! Where do you get off causing a scene here in the middle of the hallway with Tess? She hasn't done anything to Max so buzz off!"
Tess couldn't help but feel excited about the fact that Kyle had stuck up for her, but she also couldn't let that distract her from getting the point across with Isabel. Tess lowered her voice, but it still held all the energy of her anger when she said, "What I'm doing with Kyle is my own business, but since it might just help me explain this to you I'll tell you. I have no idea why Max suddenly got moody in October; I noticed but I didn't cause it. And as to what happened on Christmas Eve? All I did was apologize, because I felt bad about pushing LIz away. Now that I'm with Kyle, I realize how hard that must have been for him, and I felt that I should recognize that in some way, but don't go blaming me for Max's problems."
Isabel felt all of the fight suddenly leave her body, as she listened to what Tess was saying. "You apologized to Max?" she said slowly.
"Yes!"
"And that's it. No mind games. No nothing."
"No, that's it. Just a simple but sincere apology."
"Oh." Isabel's, mind was reeling and she needed a moment to think, so she turned around and left, leaving Kyle and a ticked off Tess behind.
When Tess turn back to Kyle, she was still a little angry at Isabel's outburst, but when Kyle asked "Do you know how hot you are when you're ticked off?", and proceeded to drag her to the eraser room to make out some more without being interrupted, Tess quickly brushed it off.
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
That was the beginning of Isabel and Tess getting to know one another better. It would have made sense for Isabel to just leave it at that, but later she had come to Tess once again, and demanded answers once more, albeit in a lot more friendly manner, and somehow, Tess and Isabel ended up friends, though neither one really knew how. But they were both thankful, because neither one had ever had a good girlfriend before who they could just hang out with, so they started forming their friendship and were quickly becoming best friends.
That was actually the reason Tess was at Alex's locker this morning. Isabel had confided in her that she liked Alex, and it was Isabel's plan to tell him today and get him to ask her out for Valentines Day, but Tess had gotten an idea late last night, and she thought it might work better. So she had to intercept Isabel first.
"Hey Isabel! I'm so glad I found you, I've been looking everywhere. I really need to talk to you about something!" Tess quickly grabbed Isabel's arm and dragged her in the direction she had just come, while Isabel looked over her shoulder and shot confused glances to a baffled Alex.
The Consequences of Turning Green (CC/Teen) Complete 6-12
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ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
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ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
As always, thanks to everybody who left feedback. It is always greatly appreciated. I'm sorry that this chapter is so late in coming, but it is nearly three times longer than normal. Which also means that it'll be posted in two parts due to length.
Sternbetrachter-I'm glad you like that Tess and Isabel are getting along. I think they could have an interesting relationship.
Kitten-thanks
Redrumm-I kind of see the time manipulation thing as Liz's thing. I think the whole idea is pretty cool too, but I might be slightly biased.
L-J-L 76-No problem with the questions. I enjoy being asked. That just doesn't mean I'll necessarily answer them right away. I will tell you that you'll kind of read about Tess's plan in this chapter. But I'm afraid I set it up to be better than it actually was.
Roswelllostcause-thanks
Flamehair-yes, the Tess and Isabel friendship may be important later, but the question is, what relationship, romantic or otherwise, will be the most important?
orphyfets-thanks
Jennifer24-I like to see the group becoming more of a whole group, so i enjoy being able to write the scenes where Tess or Kyle are involved. However, they are a little more difficult to write sometimes.
Tanya7496-Liz will come home for good. Eventually.
polar vixen-Thank you so much. Your comment competely made my day when I got it, and I had to read it to both my mom and and my sister, and even my dad. I'm glad you like the writing, my sister has pointed that out to me a lot, because she is my beta, and we got into a lot of "heated discussions" in the beginning because our writing styles are so different. But I have to say, she has made my writing better in many sections, particularly in the chapter I'm posting now.
Emz80m-I'm very honored that you're reading my story. I've read many of your fics, and I really like them. I hope you continue to like this and continue to read it.
aliensister-Your comment, like polar vixen's comment was one that I had to read to my sister. She uses your comment as backup too when she says that my writing is obviously doesn't have all the problems that she sometimes thinks it has. I'm very pleased that you have enjoyed my writing so far.
bluebballjumper-Thanks. You rock too. To anybody who does not know, blubballjumper is my sister and beta!
lab6651-Well I hope you didn't fall off while waiting for my update. Hope you enjoy this chapter!
Okay everybody, so the plan is that you should all be able to expect new chapters of this story every Sunday for at least the next month or two.
And now on to the story...
Chapter 22
Alex and Isabel sat side by side at the kitchen table, leaning over their books and doing homework. At least Alex was pretending to do homework. In reality, he was just kind of staring at a book and turning a page every now and then, while secretively sneaking glances at Isabel. She looked so beautiful with her hair hanging down around her face, and somewhat shielding his view. Alex was also trying to get up his courage to do something that he had dreamed about for nearly forever.
A few nights ago, Maria had knocked on Alex's door, and said that she would make a deal with him. If Alex would help Michael plan a romantic, meaningful Valentine's Day date, then Maria would get the inside scoop on Isabel, and what she really thought of Alex. Alex of course had agreed, and the following day Maria had shown up again with information encouraging him to ask Isabel out on their first official date for Valentine's Day. Now Alex just had to bolster his strength to do it.
Isabel abssent-mindedly copied a problem out of her math textbook while she snuck a few quick glances at Alex through the drape of her hair. In the last half hour the two had been sitting there, Isabel had only gotten three problems done. Normally she would have already been more than half-way through with her homework by now, but Isabel couldn't keep her mind on her work. The entire time she had been focusing more on what Alex was doing. Or rather she was focusing more on her thoughts about Alex. There were only seven more days until Valentine's Day, and while Tess had assured her that this plan would work, Isabel wasn't so confident.
The plan had been to go to Maria and have her convince Alex to ask Isabel out for a date on Valentine's day. Isabel trusted Maria enough to follow through with the plan, especially since Michael would be getting romantic lessons through it, but Isabel was a little worried that Alex wouldn't want to ask her out, or that maybe he would, but just to help Maria. The whole idea just sounded so much like junior high, and when had that ever even worked then? What was she thinking to trust Tess on this? What kind of experience did Tess even really have with guys? Other than Max and Kyle?
"Isabel?" Her thoughts were suddenly cut off when, Alex spoke up. She raised her head to look Alex in the eyes, and noted that he looked a bit nervous. She held her breath in hopes that the nervousness would mean what she wanted it to mean. "I was wondering...I know we've been friends for a while now...look you can say no if you want to but...willyougooutwithmeforValentine'sDay?"
Isabel let out her breath and smiled. Alex may have said that too fast for her to even comprehend, but she knew what he asked. She knew, because it was exactly what she had been hoping for. She nodded her head said she would love to, and gave Alex a hug. She was going out on her first date with Alex!
Alex was a little shocked by Isabel's reaction, but that didn't stop him from issuing the biggest smile he could when she threw her arms around him. He was going to take out the girl of his dreams on a date! And she wanted him to! He had had his qualms about believing what Maria said, but after this, he supposed he would have to believe her. He never imagined that he would get so lucky as this.
*****
The last few remaining days 'till Valentine's Day passed quickly, and it was almost too much to get done, but Alex managed to set everything set up the way he wanted with relatively little trouble. He called the best restaurant in town to set up reservations, but was disappointed to find out, that apparently the place always filled up about a week in advance with reservations for Valentine's Day, so although Alex had heard a few guys get their reservations just a few days before, Alex was a little out of luck. But no one ever said that Alex was a quitter; he just decided to make the date perfect some other way. So Alex had convinced his mother to teach him how to cook something, and while what he had decided to cook was by no means difficult, Alex was still proud that he had been able to do it himself.
Alex had then decided on the spot he wanted to go, the outfit he wanted to wear, and what he wanted to give to Isabel, and Alex was set. The whole thing really wasn't that difficult, and now that Alex was getting out of his car to pick up Isabel, he couldn't help but feel the little butterflies in his stomach he got from just the idea of how tonight might play out. Alex grabbed his gift for Isabel out of the car, and headed to the front door, where he shifted from foot to foot waiting for someone answer the door. When Max answered the door, Alex stilled and started to feel a little guilty. Here Alex was taking out the girl of his dreams, while his best friend had to be half a country away from the love of her life.
Max opened the door, expecting some meaningless date for Isabel. He didn't expect it to be Alex. Max stood at the door just a second before he let Alex come in and said that he'd go check on Isabel. After he told Isabel that Alex was here, and sent her down to him, he made his way to his own room where he laid down on his bed, turned on his music, and contemplated once again what he had done to deserve the crappy life he now lived. He had never gotten to take Liz out on a Valentine's Day date. Last year he had been forced to watch her with Doug Shellow, and the time he did spend with her, he didn't even remember. He wanted to be Alex right now, taking out his own dreamgirl for the first time, with a fresh start, but no. He had to be Max. The guy who was dumped by his girl he loved without a second thought.
Isabel couldn't read the look on her brothers face when he came to her room to check on her, and she couldn't help but feel a little pang of guilt at the fact that she was going to get to go out with Alex tonight, when her brother couldn't have Liz. But all of Isabel's thoughts about her brother flew out the window when she walked into the room and saw Alex standing there. He had on black pants and a dark red shirt and was carrying a single red rose.
Alex was stunned into silence for a second or two by the vision of Isabel in her red dress before he regained his composure enough to give Isabel her rose. "This is for you," he said quietly as he brought his hand out from behind his back, "as is this."
Isabel couldn't help but laugh at the teddy bear Alex pulled out from behind his back, but she had to. It was white with red for the pads of its paws and the inside of its ears, and it was holding a pink heart that said 'Will you be my Valentine'. Isabel giggled again, and asked, "Why did you get me this?"
Alex blushed slightly and laughed. "Well it is our first date. I had to get you something that pointed to the holiday. Besides I seem to remember you saying that you loved the 'cheesy stuff'," Alex used it fingers to make quotes in the air, "like this. Remember?"
Isabel smiled again and nodded before saying, "I do. Thank you Alex" Isabel looked into Alex's eyes for a moment while she smiled before she excused herself to put up her bear and flower. After she was gone for just a few minutes, she returned to Alex, and looped her arm through his as they walked out the door to the car.
*****
Maria stood in front of her closet and just stared. What was she suppose to wear? Supposedly Michael was trying out the whole "romantic surprise" date thingy, but Maria found that hard to believe. In all likelihood, Michael was probably really just trying to keep her from getting upset, since he most likely had nothing planned at all. Of course Alex had promised to try to get Michael to plan something special, and Isabel and Tess had promised to do all they could do too, but how much help could they really be? Michael needed all the help he could get, and even then that might not be enough. Maria could just see Michael slightly messing everything up. But then again, just in case, Maria needed to prepared for everything to go beautifully, and in that case what in the world was she suppose to wear?
Maria spent a few more moments pulling random things out of her closet and throwing them on the bed, before she just decided to call someone for an outside opinion. Maria picked up her phone, dialed her best friend's number and tapped her foot while she waited for Liz to pick up. Luckily for Maria, even with the time difference and the early curfew, Liz wasn't in bed quite yet.
"Hello?" Liz answered quickly.
"Liz! I'm so glad you answered. I'm in dire need of help here." Maria rushed out.
"Maria?! What's wrong?!" Liz was a little alarmed at first because she had no idea why Maria would be calling her, and she couldn't think that it would be for anything good.
"Liz what am I suppose to wear? Michael supposedly has this whole date planned out. But you know how he is, well maybe you don't know how he is now, but you know how he can be, and I don't know how I'm supposed to dress. It could be a wonderful date where I'm suppose to dress nice, or it could be a dud that I shouldn't bother with. You never know with Michael. One minute he's being a jerk, and the next he's making nice with your mom. What should I do?"
Once Maria paused to actually take a breath, Liz was able to get a few words in that actually worked together to make up a sentence. Prior to that, Liz was just getting a few syllables out here and there, and Maria just plowed on completely ignoring what was going on.
"Okay Maria first you're going to breathe. You got that? Good. Now, I guess the best you can do is just plan for the middle. How about you wear a simple dress, one that you could wear nearly anywhere. Or you could wear a nice skirt and blouse. You would be just a little over dressed if Michael doesn't do much, or just a little underdressed for a nice restaurant. How does that sound?"
"Okay. Okay. Yeah that sounds good. Why didn't I think of that before?"
"Maybe because you were too worried about what Michael was planning. What time is your date?"
"Oh my goodness! Michael's supposed to pick me up in twenty minutes and I'm not ready yet! I gotta go!"
"Okay Maria. Call me later." Liz hung up the phone and then just stared for a little while. Just a little less than a year ago, she would have thought that this Valentine's Day would be perfect, because Max and her had just gotten together, and of course they would stay together forever. But things changed so quickly. Here she was pregnant with his baby, and he didn't even know it. Nor would he ever know. Because it wasn't really even his baby. It was his future self's baby, and should he really be responsible for it when he didn't even make the decision that conceived his daughter? The whole thing was a little more than a little confusing, and Liz didn't really know what she thought about it all. So she pushed it to the back of her mind and climbed into bed, hoping that someday, somehow, things would get better than they were now.
After Maria set the phone down, she quickly decided on a soft faux leather brown skirt with a cute orange blouse and heeled boots. When she was finished getting dressed and doing her hair, she looked at herself in the mirror and had just approved of the whole look when the doorbell rang. She took a deep breath and after a nod of her head, she went to answer the door.
Michael shifted from side to side as he waited for Maria come to the door. He didn't really know why he was acting so nervous. It wasn't like this was something altogether new for him, but for some reason, he was having a little trouble reassuring himself, that even if all the effort that he put into tonight was wasted because Maria didn't like it, it was still okay. He had handled it before, and he could handle it now. But thinking that wasn't really the same as believing it.
The door finally swung open to reveal Maria, and Michael forgot what he was suppose to do. So he thrust his bouquet of flowers into Maria hands with a stiff "Here" then they stood and stared at one another for a few more minutes saying nothing. Michael couldn't think of anything to say because Maria looked so beautiful to him, and he forgot what he was suppose to do, and Maria refused to say anything until Michael did. So the two just stared at one another for a while before Michael finally said "So, are we going or not?" and waited for Maria to walk in front of him out to the car.
Maria sighed and walked to the car, wishing one more time that Michael could be just a little more romantic. Hopefully, Michael had planned something special for Valentine's Day, because the beginning of this date was not going terribly well right now.
Sternbetrachter-I'm glad you like that Tess and Isabel are getting along. I think they could have an interesting relationship.
Kitten-thanks
Redrumm-I kind of see the time manipulation thing as Liz's thing. I think the whole idea is pretty cool too, but I might be slightly biased.
L-J-L 76-No problem with the questions. I enjoy being asked. That just doesn't mean I'll necessarily answer them right away. I will tell you that you'll kind of read about Tess's plan in this chapter. But I'm afraid I set it up to be better than it actually was.
Roswelllostcause-thanks
Flamehair-yes, the Tess and Isabel friendship may be important later, but the question is, what relationship, romantic or otherwise, will be the most important?
orphyfets-thanks
Jennifer24-I like to see the group becoming more of a whole group, so i enjoy being able to write the scenes where Tess or Kyle are involved. However, they are a little more difficult to write sometimes.
Tanya7496-Liz will come home for good. Eventually.
polar vixen-Thank you so much. Your comment competely made my day when I got it, and I had to read it to both my mom and and my sister, and even my dad. I'm glad you like the writing, my sister has pointed that out to me a lot, because she is my beta, and we got into a lot of "heated discussions" in the beginning because our writing styles are so different. But I have to say, she has made my writing better in many sections, particularly in the chapter I'm posting now.
Emz80m-I'm very honored that you're reading my story. I've read many of your fics, and I really like them. I hope you continue to like this and continue to read it.
aliensister-Your comment, like polar vixen's comment was one that I had to read to my sister. She uses your comment as backup too when she says that my writing is obviously doesn't have all the problems that she sometimes thinks it has. I'm very pleased that you have enjoyed my writing so far.
bluebballjumper-Thanks. You rock too. To anybody who does not know, blubballjumper is my sister and beta!
lab6651-Well I hope you didn't fall off while waiting for my update. Hope you enjoy this chapter!
Okay everybody, so the plan is that you should all be able to expect new chapters of this story every Sunday for at least the next month or two.
And now on to the story...
Chapter 22
Alex and Isabel sat side by side at the kitchen table, leaning over their books and doing homework. At least Alex was pretending to do homework. In reality, he was just kind of staring at a book and turning a page every now and then, while secretively sneaking glances at Isabel. She looked so beautiful with her hair hanging down around her face, and somewhat shielding his view. Alex was also trying to get up his courage to do something that he had dreamed about for nearly forever.
A few nights ago, Maria had knocked on Alex's door, and said that she would make a deal with him. If Alex would help Michael plan a romantic, meaningful Valentine's Day date, then Maria would get the inside scoop on Isabel, and what she really thought of Alex. Alex of course had agreed, and the following day Maria had shown up again with information encouraging him to ask Isabel out on their first official date for Valentine's Day. Now Alex just had to bolster his strength to do it.
Isabel abssent-mindedly copied a problem out of her math textbook while she snuck a few quick glances at Alex through the drape of her hair. In the last half hour the two had been sitting there, Isabel had only gotten three problems done. Normally she would have already been more than half-way through with her homework by now, but Isabel couldn't keep her mind on her work. The entire time she had been focusing more on what Alex was doing. Or rather she was focusing more on her thoughts about Alex. There were only seven more days until Valentine's Day, and while Tess had assured her that this plan would work, Isabel wasn't so confident.
The plan had been to go to Maria and have her convince Alex to ask Isabel out for a date on Valentine's day. Isabel trusted Maria enough to follow through with the plan, especially since Michael would be getting romantic lessons through it, but Isabel was a little worried that Alex wouldn't want to ask her out, or that maybe he would, but just to help Maria. The whole idea just sounded so much like junior high, and when had that ever even worked then? What was she thinking to trust Tess on this? What kind of experience did Tess even really have with guys? Other than Max and Kyle?
"Isabel?" Her thoughts were suddenly cut off when, Alex spoke up. She raised her head to look Alex in the eyes, and noted that he looked a bit nervous. She held her breath in hopes that the nervousness would mean what she wanted it to mean. "I was wondering...I know we've been friends for a while now...look you can say no if you want to but...willyougooutwithmeforValentine'sDay?"
Isabel let out her breath and smiled. Alex may have said that too fast for her to even comprehend, but she knew what he asked. She knew, because it was exactly what she had been hoping for. She nodded her head said she would love to, and gave Alex a hug. She was going out on her first date with Alex!
Alex was a little shocked by Isabel's reaction, but that didn't stop him from issuing the biggest smile he could when she threw her arms around him. He was going to take out the girl of his dreams on a date! And she wanted him to! He had had his qualms about believing what Maria said, but after this, he supposed he would have to believe her. He never imagined that he would get so lucky as this.
*****
The last few remaining days 'till Valentine's Day passed quickly, and it was almost too much to get done, but Alex managed to set everything set up the way he wanted with relatively little trouble. He called the best restaurant in town to set up reservations, but was disappointed to find out, that apparently the place always filled up about a week in advance with reservations for Valentine's Day, so although Alex had heard a few guys get their reservations just a few days before, Alex was a little out of luck. But no one ever said that Alex was a quitter; he just decided to make the date perfect some other way. So Alex had convinced his mother to teach him how to cook something, and while what he had decided to cook was by no means difficult, Alex was still proud that he had been able to do it himself.
Alex had then decided on the spot he wanted to go, the outfit he wanted to wear, and what he wanted to give to Isabel, and Alex was set. The whole thing really wasn't that difficult, and now that Alex was getting out of his car to pick up Isabel, he couldn't help but feel the little butterflies in his stomach he got from just the idea of how tonight might play out. Alex grabbed his gift for Isabel out of the car, and headed to the front door, where he shifted from foot to foot waiting for someone answer the door. When Max answered the door, Alex stilled and started to feel a little guilty. Here Alex was taking out the girl of his dreams, while his best friend had to be half a country away from the love of her life.
Max opened the door, expecting some meaningless date for Isabel. He didn't expect it to be Alex. Max stood at the door just a second before he let Alex come in and said that he'd go check on Isabel. After he told Isabel that Alex was here, and sent her down to him, he made his way to his own room where he laid down on his bed, turned on his music, and contemplated once again what he had done to deserve the crappy life he now lived. He had never gotten to take Liz out on a Valentine's Day date. Last year he had been forced to watch her with Doug Shellow, and the time he did spend with her, he didn't even remember. He wanted to be Alex right now, taking out his own dreamgirl for the first time, with a fresh start, but no. He had to be Max. The guy who was dumped by his girl he loved without a second thought.
Isabel couldn't read the look on her brothers face when he came to her room to check on her, and she couldn't help but feel a little pang of guilt at the fact that she was going to get to go out with Alex tonight, when her brother couldn't have Liz. But all of Isabel's thoughts about her brother flew out the window when she walked into the room and saw Alex standing there. He had on black pants and a dark red shirt and was carrying a single red rose.
Alex was stunned into silence for a second or two by the vision of Isabel in her red dress before he regained his composure enough to give Isabel her rose. "This is for you," he said quietly as he brought his hand out from behind his back, "as is this."
Isabel couldn't help but laugh at the teddy bear Alex pulled out from behind his back, but she had to. It was white with red for the pads of its paws and the inside of its ears, and it was holding a pink heart that said 'Will you be my Valentine'. Isabel giggled again, and asked, "Why did you get me this?"
Alex blushed slightly and laughed. "Well it is our first date. I had to get you something that pointed to the holiday. Besides I seem to remember you saying that you loved the 'cheesy stuff'," Alex used it fingers to make quotes in the air, "like this. Remember?"
Isabel smiled again and nodded before saying, "I do. Thank you Alex" Isabel looked into Alex's eyes for a moment while she smiled before she excused herself to put up her bear and flower. After she was gone for just a few minutes, she returned to Alex, and looped her arm through his as they walked out the door to the car.
*****
Maria stood in front of her closet and just stared. What was she suppose to wear? Supposedly Michael was trying out the whole "romantic surprise" date thingy, but Maria found that hard to believe. In all likelihood, Michael was probably really just trying to keep her from getting upset, since he most likely had nothing planned at all. Of course Alex had promised to try to get Michael to plan something special, and Isabel and Tess had promised to do all they could do too, but how much help could they really be? Michael needed all the help he could get, and even then that might not be enough. Maria could just see Michael slightly messing everything up. But then again, just in case, Maria needed to prepared for everything to go beautifully, and in that case what in the world was she suppose to wear?
Maria spent a few more moments pulling random things out of her closet and throwing them on the bed, before she just decided to call someone for an outside opinion. Maria picked up her phone, dialed her best friend's number and tapped her foot while she waited for Liz to pick up. Luckily for Maria, even with the time difference and the early curfew, Liz wasn't in bed quite yet.
"Hello?" Liz answered quickly.
"Liz! I'm so glad you answered. I'm in dire need of help here." Maria rushed out.
"Maria?! What's wrong?!" Liz was a little alarmed at first because she had no idea why Maria would be calling her, and she couldn't think that it would be for anything good.
"Liz what am I suppose to wear? Michael supposedly has this whole date planned out. But you know how he is, well maybe you don't know how he is now, but you know how he can be, and I don't know how I'm supposed to dress. It could be a wonderful date where I'm suppose to dress nice, or it could be a dud that I shouldn't bother with. You never know with Michael. One minute he's being a jerk, and the next he's making nice with your mom. What should I do?"
Once Maria paused to actually take a breath, Liz was able to get a few words in that actually worked together to make up a sentence. Prior to that, Liz was just getting a few syllables out here and there, and Maria just plowed on completely ignoring what was going on.
"Okay Maria first you're going to breathe. You got that? Good. Now, I guess the best you can do is just plan for the middle. How about you wear a simple dress, one that you could wear nearly anywhere. Or you could wear a nice skirt and blouse. You would be just a little over dressed if Michael doesn't do much, or just a little underdressed for a nice restaurant. How does that sound?"
"Okay. Okay. Yeah that sounds good. Why didn't I think of that before?"
"Maybe because you were too worried about what Michael was planning. What time is your date?"
"Oh my goodness! Michael's supposed to pick me up in twenty minutes and I'm not ready yet! I gotta go!"
"Okay Maria. Call me later." Liz hung up the phone and then just stared for a little while. Just a little less than a year ago, she would have thought that this Valentine's Day would be perfect, because Max and her had just gotten together, and of course they would stay together forever. But things changed so quickly. Here she was pregnant with his baby, and he didn't even know it. Nor would he ever know. Because it wasn't really even his baby. It was his future self's baby, and should he really be responsible for it when he didn't even make the decision that conceived his daughter? The whole thing was a little more than a little confusing, and Liz didn't really know what she thought about it all. So she pushed it to the back of her mind and climbed into bed, hoping that someday, somehow, things would get better than they were now.
After Maria set the phone down, she quickly decided on a soft faux leather brown skirt with a cute orange blouse and heeled boots. When she was finished getting dressed and doing her hair, she looked at herself in the mirror and had just approved of the whole look when the doorbell rang. She took a deep breath and after a nod of her head, she went to answer the door.
Michael shifted from side to side as he waited for Maria come to the door. He didn't really know why he was acting so nervous. It wasn't like this was something altogether new for him, but for some reason, he was having a little trouble reassuring himself, that even if all the effort that he put into tonight was wasted because Maria didn't like it, it was still okay. He had handled it before, and he could handle it now. But thinking that wasn't really the same as believing it.
The door finally swung open to reveal Maria, and Michael forgot what he was suppose to do. So he thrust his bouquet of flowers into Maria hands with a stiff "Here" then they stood and stared at one another for a few more minutes saying nothing. Michael couldn't think of anything to say because Maria looked so beautiful to him, and he forgot what he was suppose to do, and Maria refused to say anything until Michael did. So the two just stared at one another for a while before Michael finally said "So, are we going or not?" and waited for Maria to walk in front of him out to the car.
Maria sighed and walked to the car, wishing one more time that Michael could be just a little more romantic. Hopefully, Michael had planned something special for Valentine's Day, because the beginning of this date was not going terribly well right now.
Last edited by ultimatepickupline on Sun Oct 01, 2006 6:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
*****
Tess couldn't stop smiling. She was sitting in a beautiful restaurant wearing an elegant dress, that her boyfriend picked out for her, and glancing at the wonderful red and white roses he also bought. Tess remembered reading once that red and white roses together symbolized unity, and while Kyle probably bought both just because he couldn't decide on a color, Tess thought it was oddly, somewhat appropriate. In fact, if Tess were truthful with herself, she would have to admit that she was falling in love with Kyle.
Kyle just stared at the beauty across from him. He could have never known that such a good thing would come as a result of getting involved with the alien abyss, but he was very happy that he got something out of the whole thing. Being inducted into a group by getting shot doesn't normally lead to successful relationships, so he hadn't had high hopes, but he couldn't deny that he was now thankful for being brought back from the death by an alien.
Kyle grinned at Tess and lifted the glass to his mouth while he took a slow look up and down Tess's body. At least he took as much of a look as he could, the table was covering up a lot. He was very pleased with how the dress looked on her. He had never bought clothes for a girl before, but he wanted to get everything for her to make the night really special. So he had bribed Isabel into helping him find a dress, and it was well worth it. Tess looked beautiful in the midnight blue dress, and Kyle couldn't help but stare at her as he had been doing for the past fifteen minutes.
Tess saw Kyle's gaze drop from her face, and she felt herself blush a little, but she couldn't help but feel excited at the same time. No one had ever payed so much attention to her just because they wanted to. If anyone had ever spent any real time with her, it was because he or she wanted something, but Tess knew that Kyle was different. They had been sitting in a comfortable silence for a while now just staring at one another, and while Tess was enjoying it, she decided to break the silence, "Kyle, how long have you been planning all of this? It's so extravagant and perfect."
Kyle was thrilled that Tess seemed to like all the hard work he had gone to for this date to be perfect. It looked like he had indeed succeeded in his goal. "Well, I got the reservations for this about a month ago, so that was the first thing I did. Isabel helped me with the dress, is everything alright with it?"
Tess grinned back at Kyle "There were a few things that weren't quite right, but it was nothing that I couldn't easily alter." she said as she lifted her hand
Kyle ducked his head and blushed slightly, "Oh, I didn't think of that. I guess I didn't have to be so worried about it then."
"That's okay. I think it's sweet. Besides, it would have fit fine even without the alterations; I just wanted it to look extra good for you." Tess reached over and touched Kyle's hand during her comment, and he looked into her eyes and just beamed. Everything about the two just radiated happiness, and many of the older couples in the restaurant looked on the happy pair and thought of their own high school sweet hearts.
Kyle and Tess settled back into the comfortable silence and just stared into one another's eyes and held hands for a while. Tess even smiled when she remembered a comment she overheard Maria make once about how Max and Liz were the stare into your eyes type of couple. At the time it had really irked Tess, but now Tess was just overjoyed that she had found that with someone else. She couldn't imagine having this with Max, it would just be too much bad blood between them. What with Tess trying to get rid of his soulmate and all.
Kyle and Tess were still silently holding hands when the waiter came over to deliver their food and startled them. They both slightly jumped and Tess knocked her water glass all over the table and the two of them. "I'm so sorry. I did not mean to do that," Tess apologized as she reached for her glass and grabbed a napkin to start wiping the spill.
"That's okay; it happens all the time, " the waiter consoled, as Tess felt the cold liquid start to seep through her dress.
"Tess why don't you go to the bathroom to clean up? We'll take care of this." Kyle was trying to make sure that Tess was comfortable, but Tess quickly and emphatically shook her head.
"No I'm fine, the water hasn't even gotten on me."
"Are you sure?" the waiter interrupted, "'cause it looks like the water has come off the side of the table into your lap."
"No! I'm fine! This napkin looks full, can you bring us more?"
The waiter quickly took off for the back apologizing for not thinking of it sooner, and Kyle gave Tess a slightly quizzical look. Tess completely understood and quickly but quietly explained, "Okay, so I do have water on me, but if i get up everyone will see it," While she was talking, Tess had run her hand over her dress to dry it, and she had also run her hand over the edge of the table cloth to make sure that it didn't look like the water had spilled onto her lap.
Kyle understood what was going on almost the second Tess had started explaining, because he saw what she was started to do. His eyes darted around the restaurant checking to make sure that no one else was aware of what his girlfriend was doing, and when he was done checking and she was done explaining, he asked for her to dry the little bit of water that got on him. So Tess stood up and discretely ran her hand over Kyle's shirt drying the water as she left and headed off to the bathroom.
As soon as Tess left, the waiter came back to help clean up and asked where Kyle's date had gone. Kyle made the excuse for her and the waiter replaced the tabel cloth with a new dry one, then set the table with their food. He was just leaving as Tess returned, and he helped her sit and push her chair into the table. Both Kyle and Tess thanked him for his help and the evening continued. Tess was a little embarrassed at first at her clumsiness, but Kyle thought it was kind of endearing to see Tess make a mistake, and actually blush about it. She always presented this outside air of either not making mistakes, or not caring what happened if she did. But she did care, and it was pretty cute.
The rest of the meal passed without incident and afterward Kyle took Tess to the park to talked. Toward the end of the night, Kyle felt like he couldn't hold it in anymore, so he turned Tess to face him and said some of the most important words that he had ever said. "Tess, I love you."
Tess stared at Kyle for a few seconds before she responded and Kyle was a little worried that she didn't feel the same, and started to fidget, but before he could do anything truly embarrassing, Tess thew her arms around his neck and hugged him. "I love you too Kyle. I would have never imagined that I would feel this way about a human, but I do. I love you!"
Kyle laughed for a second before replying with, "That's good, because I think it might be too late for me to stop me from being born human."
Tess smirked and thanked God once again that she was lucky enough to fall in love with such a wonderful guy. "I don't know, there might be something I can do," she said as she raised her hand to his head.
Kyle immediately pushed her away and exclaimed, "Okay, I love you, but stop with the alien voodoo!" Tess laughed and and playfully shoved Kyle back, then they walked to the car and drove home, where Kyle walked Tess to her room and gave her a goodnight kiss before going to sleep on the couch.
*****
Alex kept glancing nervously over at Isabel beside him in the car. He thought he had planned the whole thing perfectly tonight, but what if he had missed something? Or what if Isabel just didn't like it? Would they never go out again? He had waited most of his teenage years for this kind of opportunity, and he really did not want to screw it up.
Isabel felt the nervous anticipation over what was going to happen tonight. She had never felt this way about any date she had ever gone on before, but she had to admit that she was putting more pressure on herself for this one. It use to be that all her dates were just designed to keep up the appearance of a popular girl, but this was differrent. This date was for her, and she had been waiting for this for a while now, even when she didn't know she was waiting, and now she was a little worried she would screw it up. What if Alex realized that he didn't really like her like that at all?
Isabel's thoughts were halted by the deceleration of the vehicle. They weren't really near anything, but Isabel easily recognized the place as the turn-off for the pod chamber. "Alex where are we going?" Isabel asked almost accusingly.
Alex was a little flustered by Isabel's tone. he had been a little worried that this wasn't the best plan, but maybe if he explained it wouldn't ruin anything? "Well I couldn't exactly get a reservation for the restaurant I wanted. So I thought it would be nice to have a picnic, and because it's February and it's not so warm, I thought we could eat in the pod chamber.." Alex trailed off.
Isabel smiled at Alex's explanation, as they arrived at their destination. Alex quickly turned the car off and raced to get his seatbelt off and scurry around the front of the car to opened Isabel's door for her. He then held her hand as he escorted her up to the chamber door and motioned for her to open it. "If you don't mind Miss." Isabel let herself smile a little and lifted her hand to open the chamber door. "After you," Alex said while nodding and lifting up his open palm. After they were both inside and Isabel had turned around to look at him expectantly, Alex excused himself to get the rest of the stuff out of the car.
Luckily for Isabel, Alex returned quickly with his arms loaded down with stuff, so she didn't have to wait by herself for a long time, but she did get to inwardly laugh at how ridiculous Alex looked when he came back. He looked more than a little awkward carrying two chairs, a table, a picnic basket, and a duffel bag, and Isabel couldn't even begin to figure out how he carried all of that stuff from the car. She tried to offer some of her help, but Alex declined claiming that he was taking her on the date, not the other way around, and therefore he was the one that should be doing the physical labor. So Isabel just watched somewhat amazed as Alex set up the table and chairs, then took a table cloth, a vase, a silk rose, two plates, and two sets of silverware out of the duffel bag and set them up on the table. Next he preceded to go over to the picnic basket and take out two wine glasses which he set on the table after he poured some water from a two liter, which he also got from the picnic basket.
Isabel was interrupted from watching Alex when he broke the silence to say, "Why don't you sit down while I set up the food?" He pulled out the chair for Isabel and pushed it in after she sat down, and once she was settled he went ahead and started a bit of conversation. "Sorry about the fake rose, but I didn't want a real one to get ruined in the bag."
"Oh it's okay. This is actually pretty amazing. It must have taken so much planning and work."
"It wasn't that hard." Alex blushed as he got the chicken, asparagus, and mashed potatoes out of the basket and served it to both plates. He was just getting ready to sit down when he realized he forgot something. "Okay just one more minute here." Alex quickly reached into the duffle bag and retrieved a silver candle stick and a white candle. He placed it on the table and then put his hand in his pocket to get some matches to light it. When he was done he sat down and smiled at Isabel. "Do you like it?"
Isabel smiled, nodded and lifted her fork to take a bit of her food as she said, "I love it. It's very nice Alex."
"Wait! Umm...you're kind of going to have to warm this up for us. I didn't have any way of keeping it warm," Alex admitted a little embarrassedly.
"No problem." Isabel grinned and let her hand hover over the food for a second. When she was done, Alex could see the steam rise for a bit, and he took he first bite.
Their meal passed pretty quickly while they talked, and before they knew it, there was nothing left to eat. So Alex went over to the duffle and got one last thing out of the bag. "I thought we could do some stargazing. So I brought some warm blankets for outside."
Isabel grinned and took the offered blankets, then the two went outside and huddled together while they looked at the stars. Alex told Isabel some of the ancient myths about the stars, and Isabel told Alex about looking up at the stars as a kid and wondering which one was her planet and which was her sun. But as Isabel laid her head on Alex's chest later she couldn't help but think that she no longer cared which star was her planet.
*****
Maria rolled her eyes as she got out of the car and agitatedly walked up to her door. Why couldn't Michael ever do anything right? This was Valentine's Day for goodness sake; things were suppose to be perfect! But no, Michael had to mess up everything once again. Maria reached her door and angrily jerked the zipper open on her purse, then she rooted around for her keys and thrust them into the doorknob once she found them.
"Maria! What's your problem?" Michael had been watching Maria the whole time, and he could definitely tell she was angry and he didn't really know why, but he really saw the anger when Maria whirled around to face him.
"What's my problem?! WHAT'S MY PROBLEM?! How you could not know Michael? Today is Valentine's Day! Everything's suppose to be perfect and romantic on Valentine's Day. But you can't even manage one night!"
"Hey! Watch where you're flinging your arms! You might poke an eye out. And what do you mean I couldn't even mangage one night? I thought it went fine!"
"Miiichaaeel! When you gave me the flowers you just shoved them at me. When we went to go to the restaurant, you didn't reserve it, so we had to go to Denny's-
"You said you liked Denny's!"
"Yeah as a place to eat with friends that's not my place of work. Not on what's suppose to be a romantic date! Then you got me a bathroom scale! For Valentine's Day!"
"You've been saying you wanted a scale!"
"You don't get a girl a bathroom scale for Valentine's Day! It implies that you think I'm fat!"
"I was just trying to get something you said you wanted. And I had to save my money for that. Do you know how expensive those can be?"
"I don't care about the price Michael. You don't get your girlfriend a scale ever! Not if you still want her to be your girlfriend!"
"Fine! Then give it back!"
"You can't take back your gift!"
"Well, you don't like it!" Michael and Maria just stared at one another, scowling for a while, before Michael finally said exasperatedly . "I don't know what to do for you. I worked hard planning this date. I may not have done things perfectly right, but you can't just expect me to know everything. And I may not have gotten you the perfect flowers, but I don't have a whole lot of money. I took everybody's advice. I got you flowers. I planned on taking you to a nice restaurant. I got you a gift, and I dressed up. What do you want from me?!"
Maria was taken aback by Michael's vehement explanation. What was wrong with her expecting her boyfriend to treat her right? And wasn't it like kind of just her job to tell him what he was doing wrong so he could change? Maria definitely didn't think it was too much to ask Michael to actually put some effort into their relationship. It wasn't like she was rooting for him to fail. What purpose would that serve her? But then again, it did seem like he had gone to a lot of trouble for the date. Maybe she was being too hard on him. "I don't know! I don't know."
"You don't. You don't have anything else listed as something I could improve on?"
"Oh no. I definitely have that. But maybe I have been too picky. You at least tried." Maria looked up at Michael with an apologetic expression that made is his anger slowly fade.
"Yeah. I did."
"Okay." For the second time that night, Maria and Michel just stood on her front porch and stared, but this time they rested in the knowledge that they had reached some sort of understanding. "Well I should probably go in."
"Yeah."
"Okay. Good night. See you tomorrow." Maria turned around and pushed the door open then went inside, leaving Michael alone on the porch.
"Good night."
Tess couldn't stop smiling. She was sitting in a beautiful restaurant wearing an elegant dress, that her boyfriend picked out for her, and glancing at the wonderful red and white roses he also bought. Tess remembered reading once that red and white roses together symbolized unity, and while Kyle probably bought both just because he couldn't decide on a color, Tess thought it was oddly, somewhat appropriate. In fact, if Tess were truthful with herself, she would have to admit that she was falling in love with Kyle.
Kyle just stared at the beauty across from him. He could have never known that such a good thing would come as a result of getting involved with the alien abyss, but he was very happy that he got something out of the whole thing. Being inducted into a group by getting shot doesn't normally lead to successful relationships, so he hadn't had high hopes, but he couldn't deny that he was now thankful for being brought back from the death by an alien.
Kyle grinned at Tess and lifted the glass to his mouth while he took a slow look up and down Tess's body. At least he took as much of a look as he could, the table was covering up a lot. He was very pleased with how the dress looked on her. He had never bought clothes for a girl before, but he wanted to get everything for her to make the night really special. So he had bribed Isabel into helping him find a dress, and it was well worth it. Tess looked beautiful in the midnight blue dress, and Kyle couldn't help but stare at her as he had been doing for the past fifteen minutes.
Tess saw Kyle's gaze drop from her face, and she felt herself blush a little, but she couldn't help but feel excited at the same time. No one had ever payed so much attention to her just because they wanted to. If anyone had ever spent any real time with her, it was because he or she wanted something, but Tess knew that Kyle was different. They had been sitting in a comfortable silence for a while now just staring at one another, and while Tess was enjoying it, she decided to break the silence, "Kyle, how long have you been planning all of this? It's so extravagant and perfect."
Kyle was thrilled that Tess seemed to like all the hard work he had gone to for this date to be perfect. It looked like he had indeed succeeded in his goal. "Well, I got the reservations for this about a month ago, so that was the first thing I did. Isabel helped me with the dress, is everything alright with it?"
Tess grinned back at Kyle "There were a few things that weren't quite right, but it was nothing that I couldn't easily alter." she said as she lifted her hand
Kyle ducked his head and blushed slightly, "Oh, I didn't think of that. I guess I didn't have to be so worried about it then."
"That's okay. I think it's sweet. Besides, it would have fit fine even without the alterations; I just wanted it to look extra good for you." Tess reached over and touched Kyle's hand during her comment, and he looked into her eyes and just beamed. Everything about the two just radiated happiness, and many of the older couples in the restaurant looked on the happy pair and thought of their own high school sweet hearts.
Kyle and Tess settled back into the comfortable silence and just stared into one another's eyes and held hands for a while. Tess even smiled when she remembered a comment she overheard Maria make once about how Max and Liz were the stare into your eyes type of couple. At the time it had really irked Tess, but now Tess was just overjoyed that she had found that with someone else. She couldn't imagine having this with Max, it would just be too much bad blood between them. What with Tess trying to get rid of his soulmate and all.
Kyle and Tess were still silently holding hands when the waiter came over to deliver their food and startled them. They both slightly jumped and Tess knocked her water glass all over the table and the two of them. "I'm so sorry. I did not mean to do that," Tess apologized as she reached for her glass and grabbed a napkin to start wiping the spill.
"That's okay; it happens all the time, " the waiter consoled, as Tess felt the cold liquid start to seep through her dress.
"Tess why don't you go to the bathroom to clean up? We'll take care of this." Kyle was trying to make sure that Tess was comfortable, but Tess quickly and emphatically shook her head.
"No I'm fine, the water hasn't even gotten on me."
"Are you sure?" the waiter interrupted, "'cause it looks like the water has come off the side of the table into your lap."
"No! I'm fine! This napkin looks full, can you bring us more?"
The waiter quickly took off for the back apologizing for not thinking of it sooner, and Kyle gave Tess a slightly quizzical look. Tess completely understood and quickly but quietly explained, "Okay, so I do have water on me, but if i get up everyone will see it," While she was talking, Tess had run her hand over her dress to dry it, and she had also run her hand over the edge of the table cloth to make sure that it didn't look like the water had spilled onto her lap.
Kyle understood what was going on almost the second Tess had started explaining, because he saw what she was started to do. His eyes darted around the restaurant checking to make sure that no one else was aware of what his girlfriend was doing, and when he was done checking and she was done explaining, he asked for her to dry the little bit of water that got on him. So Tess stood up and discretely ran her hand over Kyle's shirt drying the water as she left and headed off to the bathroom.
As soon as Tess left, the waiter came back to help clean up and asked where Kyle's date had gone. Kyle made the excuse for her and the waiter replaced the tabel cloth with a new dry one, then set the table with their food. He was just leaving as Tess returned, and he helped her sit and push her chair into the table. Both Kyle and Tess thanked him for his help and the evening continued. Tess was a little embarrassed at first at her clumsiness, but Kyle thought it was kind of endearing to see Tess make a mistake, and actually blush about it. She always presented this outside air of either not making mistakes, or not caring what happened if she did. But she did care, and it was pretty cute.
The rest of the meal passed without incident and afterward Kyle took Tess to the park to talked. Toward the end of the night, Kyle felt like he couldn't hold it in anymore, so he turned Tess to face him and said some of the most important words that he had ever said. "Tess, I love you."
Tess stared at Kyle for a few seconds before she responded and Kyle was a little worried that she didn't feel the same, and started to fidget, but before he could do anything truly embarrassing, Tess thew her arms around his neck and hugged him. "I love you too Kyle. I would have never imagined that I would feel this way about a human, but I do. I love you!"
Kyle laughed for a second before replying with, "That's good, because I think it might be too late for me to stop me from being born human."
Tess smirked and thanked God once again that she was lucky enough to fall in love with such a wonderful guy. "I don't know, there might be something I can do," she said as she raised her hand to his head.
Kyle immediately pushed her away and exclaimed, "Okay, I love you, but stop with the alien voodoo!" Tess laughed and and playfully shoved Kyle back, then they walked to the car and drove home, where Kyle walked Tess to her room and gave her a goodnight kiss before going to sleep on the couch.
*****
Alex kept glancing nervously over at Isabel beside him in the car. He thought he had planned the whole thing perfectly tonight, but what if he had missed something? Or what if Isabel just didn't like it? Would they never go out again? He had waited most of his teenage years for this kind of opportunity, and he really did not want to screw it up.
Isabel felt the nervous anticipation over what was going to happen tonight. She had never felt this way about any date she had ever gone on before, but she had to admit that she was putting more pressure on herself for this one. It use to be that all her dates were just designed to keep up the appearance of a popular girl, but this was differrent. This date was for her, and she had been waiting for this for a while now, even when she didn't know she was waiting, and now she was a little worried she would screw it up. What if Alex realized that he didn't really like her like that at all?
Isabel's thoughts were halted by the deceleration of the vehicle. They weren't really near anything, but Isabel easily recognized the place as the turn-off for the pod chamber. "Alex where are we going?" Isabel asked almost accusingly.
Alex was a little flustered by Isabel's tone. he had been a little worried that this wasn't the best plan, but maybe if he explained it wouldn't ruin anything? "Well I couldn't exactly get a reservation for the restaurant I wanted. So I thought it would be nice to have a picnic, and because it's February and it's not so warm, I thought we could eat in the pod chamber.." Alex trailed off.
Isabel smiled at Alex's explanation, as they arrived at their destination. Alex quickly turned the car off and raced to get his seatbelt off and scurry around the front of the car to opened Isabel's door for her. He then held her hand as he escorted her up to the chamber door and motioned for her to open it. "If you don't mind Miss." Isabel let herself smile a little and lifted her hand to open the chamber door. "After you," Alex said while nodding and lifting up his open palm. After they were both inside and Isabel had turned around to look at him expectantly, Alex excused himself to get the rest of the stuff out of the car.
Luckily for Isabel, Alex returned quickly with his arms loaded down with stuff, so she didn't have to wait by herself for a long time, but she did get to inwardly laugh at how ridiculous Alex looked when he came back. He looked more than a little awkward carrying two chairs, a table, a picnic basket, and a duffel bag, and Isabel couldn't even begin to figure out how he carried all of that stuff from the car. She tried to offer some of her help, but Alex declined claiming that he was taking her on the date, not the other way around, and therefore he was the one that should be doing the physical labor. So Isabel just watched somewhat amazed as Alex set up the table and chairs, then took a table cloth, a vase, a silk rose, two plates, and two sets of silverware out of the duffel bag and set them up on the table. Next he preceded to go over to the picnic basket and take out two wine glasses which he set on the table after he poured some water from a two liter, which he also got from the picnic basket.
Isabel was interrupted from watching Alex when he broke the silence to say, "Why don't you sit down while I set up the food?" He pulled out the chair for Isabel and pushed it in after she sat down, and once she was settled he went ahead and started a bit of conversation. "Sorry about the fake rose, but I didn't want a real one to get ruined in the bag."
"Oh it's okay. This is actually pretty amazing. It must have taken so much planning and work."
"It wasn't that hard." Alex blushed as he got the chicken, asparagus, and mashed potatoes out of the basket and served it to both plates. He was just getting ready to sit down when he realized he forgot something. "Okay just one more minute here." Alex quickly reached into the duffle bag and retrieved a silver candle stick and a white candle. He placed it on the table and then put his hand in his pocket to get some matches to light it. When he was done he sat down and smiled at Isabel. "Do you like it?"
Isabel smiled, nodded and lifted her fork to take a bit of her food as she said, "I love it. It's very nice Alex."
"Wait! Umm...you're kind of going to have to warm this up for us. I didn't have any way of keeping it warm," Alex admitted a little embarrassedly.
"No problem." Isabel grinned and let her hand hover over the food for a second. When she was done, Alex could see the steam rise for a bit, and he took he first bite.
Their meal passed pretty quickly while they talked, and before they knew it, there was nothing left to eat. So Alex went over to the duffle and got one last thing out of the bag. "I thought we could do some stargazing. So I brought some warm blankets for outside."
Isabel grinned and took the offered blankets, then the two went outside and huddled together while they looked at the stars. Alex told Isabel some of the ancient myths about the stars, and Isabel told Alex about looking up at the stars as a kid and wondering which one was her planet and which was her sun. But as Isabel laid her head on Alex's chest later she couldn't help but think that she no longer cared which star was her planet.
*****
Maria rolled her eyes as she got out of the car and agitatedly walked up to her door. Why couldn't Michael ever do anything right? This was Valentine's Day for goodness sake; things were suppose to be perfect! But no, Michael had to mess up everything once again. Maria reached her door and angrily jerked the zipper open on her purse, then she rooted around for her keys and thrust them into the doorknob once she found them.
"Maria! What's your problem?" Michael had been watching Maria the whole time, and he could definitely tell she was angry and he didn't really know why, but he really saw the anger when Maria whirled around to face him.
"What's my problem?! WHAT'S MY PROBLEM?! How you could not know Michael? Today is Valentine's Day! Everything's suppose to be perfect and romantic on Valentine's Day. But you can't even manage one night!"
"Hey! Watch where you're flinging your arms! You might poke an eye out. And what do you mean I couldn't even mangage one night? I thought it went fine!"
"Miiichaaeel! When you gave me the flowers you just shoved them at me. When we went to go to the restaurant, you didn't reserve it, so we had to go to Denny's-
"You said you liked Denny's!"
"Yeah as a place to eat with friends that's not my place of work. Not on what's suppose to be a romantic date! Then you got me a bathroom scale! For Valentine's Day!"
"You've been saying you wanted a scale!"
"You don't get a girl a bathroom scale for Valentine's Day! It implies that you think I'm fat!"
"I was just trying to get something you said you wanted. And I had to save my money for that. Do you know how expensive those can be?"
"I don't care about the price Michael. You don't get your girlfriend a scale ever! Not if you still want her to be your girlfriend!"
"Fine! Then give it back!"
"You can't take back your gift!"
"Well, you don't like it!" Michael and Maria just stared at one another, scowling for a while, before Michael finally said exasperatedly . "I don't know what to do for you. I worked hard planning this date. I may not have done things perfectly right, but you can't just expect me to know everything. And I may not have gotten you the perfect flowers, but I don't have a whole lot of money. I took everybody's advice. I got you flowers. I planned on taking you to a nice restaurant. I got you a gift, and I dressed up. What do you want from me?!"
Maria was taken aback by Michael's vehement explanation. What was wrong with her expecting her boyfriend to treat her right? And wasn't it like kind of just her job to tell him what he was doing wrong so he could change? Maria definitely didn't think it was too much to ask Michael to actually put some effort into their relationship. It wasn't like she was rooting for him to fail. What purpose would that serve her? But then again, it did seem like he had gone to a lot of trouble for the date. Maybe she was being too hard on him. "I don't know! I don't know."
"You don't. You don't have anything else listed as something I could improve on?"
"Oh no. I definitely have that. But maybe I have been too picky. You at least tried." Maria looked up at Michael with an apologetic expression that made is his anger slowly fade.
"Yeah. I did."
"Okay." For the second time that night, Maria and Michel just stood on her front porch and stared, but this time they rested in the knowledge that they had reached some sort of understanding. "Well I should probably go in."
"Yeah."
"Okay. Good night. See you tomorrow." Maria turned around and pushed the door open then went inside, leaving Michael alone on the porch.
"Good night."
-
ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
Chapter 23
Hey everyone. Thanks for reading the last chapter. I know it was long. But I kind of saw it as a stand alone and didn't want it to last two chapters. Okay, this chapter is shorter. Enjoy!
orphyfets-thanks. I was kind of laughing with Michael and Maria.
And I'm glad that people liked the stargazer part too.
Redrumm-I'm thinking Michael will eventually get it right. And I think that it'll start getting better now (plus the getting it wrong thing is harder for me to write).
Sternbetrachter-Well you're the first person to ask for Alex all to yourself (from me at least), so you can have him in my mind. How's that?
thetvgeneral-thanks for reading
Jennifer24-I'm glad you liked Alex's picnic. That was a really hard scene for me to come up with. Yeah I kind of think of Kyle/Tess as a sweet couple with sass. I hope it came across that way. Yeah Michael and Maria are ususally great for a laugh, but those are so hard for me to write! I'm glad people appreciated it.
aliensister-Yeah I kind of agree about Max, but you'll have to wait to see what happens. And my sister helps me out sooo much. We have very different writing styles, but it works out for the best when working together, cause her strength is my weekness. If you want to read her stuff (she only has the beginning of one fic) look her fic up, her name is bluebballjumper, and I think the fic was called Alone in the Crowd (to tell the truth, I always get her title mixed up with someone else's).
Flamehair-I'm so glad the Stargazer part made everyone go 'awww..' So I have to confess that that Maria and Liz conversation was greatly affected by the fact that before I wrote that scene I had watched four or five episodes of Gilmore Girls. If you watch that show, you'll see that that conversation was completely a scene between Lane and Rory, with Maria as Lane and Liz as Rory. But I'm glad you liked it, cause it served a purpose for me.
Kitten-thanks
Tanya7496-Yes it time it will definitely happen with our dreamer couple. I'm just not saying when.
L-J-L 76-yeah updates are on going to be every Sunday. Is that soon enough?
Now sit back, but with both seat belts, and enjoy the ride...
Chapter 23
"Okay so here's my room. There's the dresser, my bed, Eileen's bed, my closet, her closet. I think you get the picture." Liz was smiling as she was showing her room to Maria and Alex. They had used a few of the skills they had acquired over the past year to get Alex passed anybody who would get Liz in trouble for letting Alex in her room. Liz had enough turmoil in her life without the added drama of getting in trouble at school for having a boy in her room. Of course, had they been caught, Liz was reasonably sure that she could have mindwarped the person. But that was a touch and go thing. Sometimes mindwarps were completely successful. Sometimes not so much. That was something that she still had to work on.
"Can I just say that I am extremely happy right now that I don't live in a dorm room? This is small!" Alex exclaimed while looking around. "Do you even have computer in here?"
Liz laughed before she answered "We have a computer lab. I don't need my own computer." This comment just made Alex guffaw and mutter that everybody over the age of 12 needed their own computer. Liz laughed again before going on. "So what do you guys want to do? We could go walk around town, stay here, or go to a party. Although people might not see me as the most fun party person," she said while looking down at her stomach.
"Yeah chica, let's talk about that. Look how big you've gotten!" Maria had been really excited to see her best friend after three months of virtually no contact, but she hadn't expected Liz to grow so much. That was a bit of a shock. Though she really should have expected it, Liz was five months along now.
"Gee thanks Maria. I mean, I didn't already feel fat enough."
Maria tried to correct her comment while Alex looked around the room pretending to be very interested in the decorating. He absolutely did not want to be drug into this. He remembered what it was like when his cousin was pregnant last year, and he knew it would never end. "You're not fat Liz. You're pregnant. And you're still extremely small, I mean you're all baby."
"Uh huh. Sure. You say that now." Liz didn't really take offence to Maria's comment before. It wasn't one that she hadn't heard it pretty much every day for the past couple of weeks anyway. She just wanted to give Maria a hard time, because it sounded fun, and when other people said that, she had to be all calm and just answer their questions. It seemed that nearly everyday, someone new was discovering that she was pregnant. She almost just wished that the school would make an announcement over the intercom saying, "Yes everybody, what you think you see about Liz Parker is indeed true. She is pregnant, and will be expecting the baby in August." Of course, the baby was actually due in July, but Liz had to keep up the cover story that had everybody believing she didn't get pregnant until she came to Winnaman.
"So how is everything back in Roswell? I haven't really heard from you guys for the last couple of weeks."
"That would be because we all got busy, including you. Ooooo, guess who finally got a girlfriend." Maria teased in a sing-song voice while looking over at Alex. Alex on the other hand suddenly became very interested in his own shoes, and if Liz didn't know better she would almost think that Alex was blushing.
"Really? Are you dating Isabel now? When did that happen?"
Alex finally looked up to tell one of his best friends some of the best new he had had in his life. "Yeah. You are looking at the first official boyfriend of one Isabel Evans."
"That's great Alex!"
"Yeah our first date was on Valentine's Day."
"And you waited this long to tell me?"
At this point, Maria took over. "We didn't want to upset you chica. I mean you had the whole stare-into-each-other's-eyes soulmate thing with Max, but you didn't even get to spend Valentine's Day with him. How could we rub it into your face that Alex finally got a date with the girl he was pining after, and that even though my Valentine's date was the worst in the history of the holiday, it ended with a great understanding between me and spaceboy?"
"You guys. I still want you to tell me stuff, even if you think it'll make me upset. We're best friends right?" Liz waited for Maria and Alex to nod before she continued. "Good then, we have to tell each other everything. The good and the bad. With the exception of intimate details if we're talking about or with Alex." Liz finished with a half-joke and a small smile.
"Yes. Please spare me the girl-talk." Alex said with a mock panicked look on his face, at which Liz and Maria both giggled. When the laughter died down, Maria decided to go ahead a bring up the subject that previously she wasn't sure about.
"Okay, so...Liz there's something that we should probably tell you. Tess and Kyle are definitely a couple now. They're practically inseparable. So I don't think Tess will be leaving Roswell anytime soon." Maria paused for a second to let the information sink in, and then a second longer to let Liz figure out what it meant. "Do you think that maybe you could tell Max the truth now?"
"Maria, No! I have to make sure no one knows that Alexa is Max's, including Max. Besides, how would Max feel to know that he essentially caused all this pain? Not to mention the fact that I would suddenly be thrusting a fatherhood that Max isn't exactly responsible for on him. I can't do that."
"Fine don't shoot the messenger. I just thought you should maybe consider the possibility." Maria said while lifting her hands up in mock surrender.
Liz apologized for her outburst, and the three went on as normal. They spent their entire spring break together, talking, goofing off, and exploring the city. Liz even introduced Maria and Alex to Serena, when Serena returned back from spring break early. But almost the entire thing was a show for Liz. Sure she had fun at times, but she couldn't get it out of her mind that maybe she hadn't done the right thing when Future Max told her to help him fall out of love with her. It seemed that Tess would be staying in Roswell of her own accord now, so maybe Liz didn't really have any reason to hurt Max so dramatically in order to get her way. Of course now it was too late to make any changes; she didn't know how to work the granolith, and her own time manipulation abilities only worked for half an hour of manipulation at best. She just had to live with the consequences of what she did, because there was no way she could change it. And when she really thought about it, she wasn't so sure she could give up Alexa anyway.
*****
Max was bored. It was the first day of spring break and he had nothing to do. He had asked for more hours to work at the UFO Center, but apparently, Brody didn't have enough business this time of year to give Max more than his normal hours during the school year. Then his teachers had assigned a shockingly little amount of homework, and with Max working so for the past few months trying to keep his mind off of a certain former lab partner, he was nearly two weeks ahead in every class. So Max was left with absolutely nothing to do.
Well that was it. This was going to be a turning point. He had spent too much time by himself trying to get over it. Now it was time to get back together with his friends and actually live a little. He did still have friends didn't he? Well he would just have to see. Max jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes before he went downstairs for breakfast and then drove over to Michael's.
Michael had been sound asleep when he heard a knock at the door. Who the heck would be knocking on his door at 8 AM?! This was suppose to be his week to sleep in. He was tired! Michael wearily got out of bed and grumbled all the way to the door as he stumbled with half-closed eyes. He didn't even bother to open them when he finally swung the door open and barked "What do you want?"
Max smiled at his friend's behavior. It was so typical of Michael, and he had to admit that he kind of missed it. "Just trying to see if my best friend wanted to do something today." Max said in a chipper voice while bouncing on his feet and smiling.
Michael finally opened his eyes all the way to see Max and to say that he was shocked was an understatement. "Please tell me you're drunk, because there is no way you would show up at my house before the sun came up and be happy about it!."
"Nope, I've just decided to change. Oh, and the sun is up." Max grinned as he pushed past Michael and into the room. Michael let the door shut behind him, as he turned around to stare at Max before he shuffled over to the couch and flopped down.
"Well bring back the old Max, because this one is creeping me out."
"Fine." Max changed his tone from the singsongy one he was using to his normal matter-of-fact tone. "I just decided that I had secluded myself enough, and I wanted to get back to normal a little bit, and actually hang out with you and Isabel again."
"Okay. But why couldn't this have waited until at least ten?"
"Sorry, I'm used to getting up early pretty early everyday. This is sleeping in for me."
"Okay that's just sad man. And I'm not used to it, so can I please get some more sleep?"
"Sure I'll just sit here."
"Great." Michael had barely let Max get out his sentence before he turned to the back of the couch and started falling asleep, so he missed Max looking around the apartment for something to do that wouldn't wake Michael. After a couple hours had passed, Michael woke up on his own, and rose to get some breakfast in the kitchen, where he saw Max sitting at the table, playing Michael's gameboy. "So what do you want to do?"
Max didn't even look up from the game to say, "Don't know. You?"
Michael plopped down with his cereal bowl in the chair next to Max, and took a bite, "Why should I have any ideas? You're the one that wanted to hang out Maxwell." Michael mumbled around his food.
It was at that point that Max died, and he finally brought his head up to look at Michael. "Well I only got as far as the fact that I didn't want to be by myself laying in bed and listening to counting crows."
"Fine, wanna play some playstation?"
"Sure whatever."
Max and Michael had been playing for a couple of hours when they heard a knock at the door. They were getting ready to pause the game to answer it, but before they could, the door flew open and in stepped Isabel. To say that Isabel was a little shocked at Max's presence was a bit of an understatement, but she was careful to hide it and she calmly walked in with her arms full of groceries. "What is this? Was there poison over at your guy's house?"
Isabel briefly glared at Michael before she explained. "I didn't know that Max was here, and I thought that maybe since both of our significant others are out of town, that we could hang out a bit. Besides, I kind of figured that with Maria being gone that you might need some food."
"I get my own food thank you very much. And where's Tess? You couldn't find anything to do with her?"
Isabel shook her head as she sat down on the chair next to the couch. "No. She wanted to be with Kyle all day."
Max had been glancing back and forth between the two for a bit now, and finally asked for some clarification. "Both Alex and Maria are gone? Where did they go?"
Isabel and Michael exchanged a brief but knowing glance, and Isabel ducked her head as Michael just blurted out, "They went to visit Liz."
"Why didn't Liz just come here? Wouldn't it be cheaper to get Liz to come home, than for Maria and Alex to go out there?"
Michael just shrugged, because he knew that Maria had said something about that, but to be honest, he hadn't really been paying attention at the time, so he didn't really have a clue. Isabel on the other hand just told Max what Alex had told her, hoping that Max wouldn't be mad about bringing up Liz in the first place, and hoping even more that he wouldn't ask too many questions, 'cause Alex had been a little lax in telling her what exactly was going on. So she didn't have much information to start with. "Alex just said that Liz wasn't planning on coming home until summer, and that he and Maria thought it would be fun to go see where she lived."
Max was a little surprised that Liz wasn't coming home for spring break, and a little disappointed. He had recently decided that even if he couldn't have Liz in his life as a girlfriend, that he could at least have Liz in his life as a friend, and he had been looking forward to trying to start that relationship with her over spring break. He figured that it would be perfect, because they could start their friendship, and then she would go back to Winnaman, and they could just have a long distance friendship for a bit before she came home for the summer. It would keep the pressure off that would invariably come if they tried to spend too much time together at the beginning. But he guessed he would just have to wait for a little while longer to become friends with her again.
orphyfets-thanks. I was kind of laughing with Michael and Maria.
And I'm glad that people liked the stargazer part too.
Redrumm-I'm thinking Michael will eventually get it right. And I think that it'll start getting better now (plus the getting it wrong thing is harder for me to write).
Sternbetrachter-Well you're the first person to ask for Alex all to yourself (from me at least), so you can have him in my mind. How's that?
thetvgeneral-thanks for reading
Jennifer24-I'm glad you liked Alex's picnic. That was a really hard scene for me to come up with. Yeah I kind of think of Kyle/Tess as a sweet couple with sass. I hope it came across that way. Yeah Michael and Maria are ususally great for a laugh, but those are so hard for me to write! I'm glad people appreciated it.
aliensister-Yeah I kind of agree about Max, but you'll have to wait to see what happens. And my sister helps me out sooo much. We have very different writing styles, but it works out for the best when working together, cause her strength is my weekness. If you want to read her stuff (she only has the beginning of one fic) look her fic up, her name is bluebballjumper, and I think the fic was called Alone in the Crowd (to tell the truth, I always get her title mixed up with someone else's).
Flamehair-I'm so glad the Stargazer part made everyone go 'awww..' So I have to confess that that Maria and Liz conversation was greatly affected by the fact that before I wrote that scene I had watched four or five episodes of Gilmore Girls. If you watch that show, you'll see that that conversation was completely a scene between Lane and Rory, with Maria as Lane and Liz as Rory. But I'm glad you liked it, cause it served a purpose for me.
Kitten-thanks
Tanya7496-Yes it time it will definitely happen with our dreamer couple. I'm just not saying when.
L-J-L 76-yeah updates are on going to be every Sunday. Is that soon enough?
Now sit back, but with both seat belts, and enjoy the ride...
Chapter 23
"Okay so here's my room. There's the dresser, my bed, Eileen's bed, my closet, her closet. I think you get the picture." Liz was smiling as she was showing her room to Maria and Alex. They had used a few of the skills they had acquired over the past year to get Alex passed anybody who would get Liz in trouble for letting Alex in her room. Liz had enough turmoil in her life without the added drama of getting in trouble at school for having a boy in her room. Of course, had they been caught, Liz was reasonably sure that she could have mindwarped the person. But that was a touch and go thing. Sometimes mindwarps were completely successful. Sometimes not so much. That was something that she still had to work on.
"Can I just say that I am extremely happy right now that I don't live in a dorm room? This is small!" Alex exclaimed while looking around. "Do you even have computer in here?"
Liz laughed before she answered "We have a computer lab. I don't need my own computer." This comment just made Alex guffaw and mutter that everybody over the age of 12 needed their own computer. Liz laughed again before going on. "So what do you guys want to do? We could go walk around town, stay here, or go to a party. Although people might not see me as the most fun party person," she said while looking down at her stomach.
"Yeah chica, let's talk about that. Look how big you've gotten!" Maria had been really excited to see her best friend after three months of virtually no contact, but she hadn't expected Liz to grow so much. That was a bit of a shock. Though she really should have expected it, Liz was five months along now.
"Gee thanks Maria. I mean, I didn't already feel fat enough."
Maria tried to correct her comment while Alex looked around the room pretending to be very interested in the decorating. He absolutely did not want to be drug into this. He remembered what it was like when his cousin was pregnant last year, and he knew it would never end. "You're not fat Liz. You're pregnant. And you're still extremely small, I mean you're all baby."
"Uh huh. Sure. You say that now." Liz didn't really take offence to Maria's comment before. It wasn't one that she hadn't heard it pretty much every day for the past couple of weeks anyway. She just wanted to give Maria a hard time, because it sounded fun, and when other people said that, she had to be all calm and just answer their questions. It seemed that nearly everyday, someone new was discovering that she was pregnant. She almost just wished that the school would make an announcement over the intercom saying, "Yes everybody, what you think you see about Liz Parker is indeed true. She is pregnant, and will be expecting the baby in August." Of course, the baby was actually due in July, but Liz had to keep up the cover story that had everybody believing she didn't get pregnant until she came to Winnaman.
"So how is everything back in Roswell? I haven't really heard from you guys for the last couple of weeks."
"That would be because we all got busy, including you. Ooooo, guess who finally got a girlfriend." Maria teased in a sing-song voice while looking over at Alex. Alex on the other hand suddenly became very interested in his own shoes, and if Liz didn't know better she would almost think that Alex was blushing.
"Really? Are you dating Isabel now? When did that happen?"
Alex finally looked up to tell one of his best friends some of the best new he had had in his life. "Yeah. You are looking at the first official boyfriend of one Isabel Evans."
"That's great Alex!"
"Yeah our first date was on Valentine's Day."
"And you waited this long to tell me?"
At this point, Maria took over. "We didn't want to upset you chica. I mean you had the whole stare-into-each-other's-eyes soulmate thing with Max, but you didn't even get to spend Valentine's Day with him. How could we rub it into your face that Alex finally got a date with the girl he was pining after, and that even though my Valentine's date was the worst in the history of the holiday, it ended with a great understanding between me and spaceboy?"
"You guys. I still want you to tell me stuff, even if you think it'll make me upset. We're best friends right?" Liz waited for Maria and Alex to nod before she continued. "Good then, we have to tell each other everything. The good and the bad. With the exception of intimate details if we're talking about or with Alex." Liz finished with a half-joke and a small smile.
"Yes. Please spare me the girl-talk." Alex said with a mock panicked look on his face, at which Liz and Maria both giggled. When the laughter died down, Maria decided to go ahead a bring up the subject that previously she wasn't sure about.
"Okay, so...Liz there's something that we should probably tell you. Tess and Kyle are definitely a couple now. They're practically inseparable. So I don't think Tess will be leaving Roswell anytime soon." Maria paused for a second to let the information sink in, and then a second longer to let Liz figure out what it meant. "Do you think that maybe you could tell Max the truth now?"
"Maria, No! I have to make sure no one knows that Alexa is Max's, including Max. Besides, how would Max feel to know that he essentially caused all this pain? Not to mention the fact that I would suddenly be thrusting a fatherhood that Max isn't exactly responsible for on him. I can't do that."
"Fine don't shoot the messenger. I just thought you should maybe consider the possibility." Maria said while lifting her hands up in mock surrender.
Liz apologized for her outburst, and the three went on as normal. They spent their entire spring break together, talking, goofing off, and exploring the city. Liz even introduced Maria and Alex to Serena, when Serena returned back from spring break early. But almost the entire thing was a show for Liz. Sure she had fun at times, but she couldn't get it out of her mind that maybe she hadn't done the right thing when Future Max told her to help him fall out of love with her. It seemed that Tess would be staying in Roswell of her own accord now, so maybe Liz didn't really have any reason to hurt Max so dramatically in order to get her way. Of course now it was too late to make any changes; she didn't know how to work the granolith, and her own time manipulation abilities only worked for half an hour of manipulation at best. She just had to live with the consequences of what she did, because there was no way she could change it. And when she really thought about it, she wasn't so sure she could give up Alexa anyway.
*****
Max was bored. It was the first day of spring break and he had nothing to do. He had asked for more hours to work at the UFO Center, but apparently, Brody didn't have enough business this time of year to give Max more than his normal hours during the school year. Then his teachers had assigned a shockingly little amount of homework, and with Max working so for the past few months trying to keep his mind off of a certain former lab partner, he was nearly two weeks ahead in every class. So Max was left with absolutely nothing to do.
Well that was it. This was going to be a turning point. He had spent too much time by himself trying to get over it. Now it was time to get back together with his friends and actually live a little. He did still have friends didn't he? Well he would just have to see. Max jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes before he went downstairs for breakfast and then drove over to Michael's.
Michael had been sound asleep when he heard a knock at the door. Who the heck would be knocking on his door at 8 AM?! This was suppose to be his week to sleep in. He was tired! Michael wearily got out of bed and grumbled all the way to the door as he stumbled with half-closed eyes. He didn't even bother to open them when he finally swung the door open and barked "What do you want?"
Max smiled at his friend's behavior. It was so typical of Michael, and he had to admit that he kind of missed it. "Just trying to see if my best friend wanted to do something today." Max said in a chipper voice while bouncing on his feet and smiling.
Michael finally opened his eyes all the way to see Max and to say that he was shocked was an understatement. "Please tell me you're drunk, because there is no way you would show up at my house before the sun came up and be happy about it!."
"Nope, I've just decided to change. Oh, and the sun is up." Max grinned as he pushed past Michael and into the room. Michael let the door shut behind him, as he turned around to stare at Max before he shuffled over to the couch and flopped down.
"Well bring back the old Max, because this one is creeping me out."
"Fine." Max changed his tone from the singsongy one he was using to his normal matter-of-fact tone. "I just decided that I had secluded myself enough, and I wanted to get back to normal a little bit, and actually hang out with you and Isabel again."
"Okay. But why couldn't this have waited until at least ten?"
"Sorry, I'm used to getting up early pretty early everyday. This is sleeping in for me."
"Okay that's just sad man. And I'm not used to it, so can I please get some more sleep?"
"Sure I'll just sit here."
"Great." Michael had barely let Max get out his sentence before he turned to the back of the couch and started falling asleep, so he missed Max looking around the apartment for something to do that wouldn't wake Michael. After a couple hours had passed, Michael woke up on his own, and rose to get some breakfast in the kitchen, where he saw Max sitting at the table, playing Michael's gameboy. "So what do you want to do?"
Max didn't even look up from the game to say, "Don't know. You?"
Michael plopped down with his cereal bowl in the chair next to Max, and took a bite, "Why should I have any ideas? You're the one that wanted to hang out Maxwell." Michael mumbled around his food.
It was at that point that Max died, and he finally brought his head up to look at Michael. "Well I only got as far as the fact that I didn't want to be by myself laying in bed and listening to counting crows."
"Fine, wanna play some playstation?"
"Sure whatever."
Max and Michael had been playing for a couple of hours when they heard a knock at the door. They were getting ready to pause the game to answer it, but before they could, the door flew open and in stepped Isabel. To say that Isabel was a little shocked at Max's presence was a bit of an understatement, but she was careful to hide it and she calmly walked in with her arms full of groceries. "What is this? Was there poison over at your guy's house?"
Isabel briefly glared at Michael before she explained. "I didn't know that Max was here, and I thought that maybe since both of our significant others are out of town, that we could hang out a bit. Besides, I kind of figured that with Maria being gone that you might need some food."
"I get my own food thank you very much. And where's Tess? You couldn't find anything to do with her?"
Isabel shook her head as she sat down on the chair next to the couch. "No. She wanted to be with Kyle all day."
Max had been glancing back and forth between the two for a bit now, and finally asked for some clarification. "Both Alex and Maria are gone? Where did they go?"
Isabel and Michael exchanged a brief but knowing glance, and Isabel ducked her head as Michael just blurted out, "They went to visit Liz."
"Why didn't Liz just come here? Wouldn't it be cheaper to get Liz to come home, than for Maria and Alex to go out there?"
Michael just shrugged, because he knew that Maria had said something about that, but to be honest, he hadn't really been paying attention at the time, so he didn't really have a clue. Isabel on the other hand just told Max what Alex had told her, hoping that Max wouldn't be mad about bringing up Liz in the first place, and hoping even more that he wouldn't ask too many questions, 'cause Alex had been a little lax in telling her what exactly was going on. So she didn't have much information to start with. "Alex just said that Liz wasn't planning on coming home until summer, and that he and Maria thought it would be fun to go see where she lived."
Max was a little surprised that Liz wasn't coming home for spring break, and a little disappointed. He had recently decided that even if he couldn't have Liz in his life as a girlfriend, that he could at least have Liz in his life as a friend, and he had been looking forward to trying to start that relationship with her over spring break. He figured that it would be perfect, because they could start their friendship, and then she would go back to Winnaman, and they could just have a long distance friendship for a bit before she came home for the summer. It would keep the pressure off that would invariably come if they tried to spend too much time together at the beginning. But he guessed he would just have to wait for a little while longer to become friends with her again.
-
ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
Chapter 24
Hey all. So here's the deal. I now currently have nearly a four chapter cushion which I hope to be uping to a six to eight chapter cushion before I leave for Germany. So the good news is that I see no problem with continueing updates from Germany at this point. The bad news is that I'll have to use a computer lab, and the lab isn't open on Sundays. And due to some crazy busy stuff going on this weekend, I doubt I'll be able to update until next Monday, in which case, my updates will start being on Mondays. I hope you guys aren't too dissappointed there.
Shiesty23-thanks, and I refuse to give updates before they are due. However, if you're really nice to me, you might be able to persuade me to send you teasers via PMs.
Redrumm-Yeah the original plan was to have Max just kind of depressed until pretty much the end. But I got bored with that, and didn't feel like he was doing enough, so my sister helped me when she suggested the Max stuff for the spring break chapter, cause I really didn't know what to write about for a whole chapter of spring break with Liz Maria and Alex. Originally the idea was that spring break would be when Liz connected Maria and Alex to Alexa, but I ended up moving that up to Christmas, and then I didn't know what to do for fill that time. But I think it all worked out.
aliensister-Thanks so much. I feel very complimented by the fact that you wanted more. You might want to read my comment back to Shiesty.
Flamehair-Well I could tell you, but I just can't bring myself to ruin it. I can tell you that you will find out for sure in chapter 25.
thetvgeneral-well I could find a way to get the "crazy kids" together...Or I could give you tons of angst. Hmmm....that's a really tough decision.
Emz80m-thanks. Update will be either every Saturday or every Monday.
orphyfets-Thank you. Writing interaction between characters can sometimes be difficult for me. It's much easier for me to write internal monologues. So I'm glad you liked it.
RiaRath101-I am so glad you referenced that drunk line specifically. I've had several lines that I've thought were funny, but no one else seemed to enjoy them as much as I did. I'm glad someone finally did! Thanks! And yeah Michael and Maria are pretty funny sometimes. I laughed while writing that fight.
Kitten-So I realized the other day, that if I were the one reading this fic, I would have already skimmed ahead to find out when Max finally finds out about the pregnancy. I'm so glad that none of you have had that opportunity though, because I've been envisioning the scene where Max finds out since before I even started writing this fic. In fact, I've had a bit of that scene written since January. I will tell you that I have already completely finished that part, so it will definitely be happening soon. I hope you guys aren't getting too frustrated with me here.
Jennifer24-Thank you, I'll try to keep up to the standard I've been writing. I won't tell you about Max's plans right now. But I will tell you that you won't have to stay in suspense too long. Because I wrote that part last night, so at most you have to wait is a few weeks.
suicide_eagle_rath-I'm very flattered by your compliments, especially the excellent dialogue part. I have to admit though that my sis has to help me a lot with that sometimes. She helped me a ton witht he dialogue on Kyle and Tess's date for Valentine's Day. I wrote it all myself of course, but she helped it actually flow a little better.
izzyandkyle-Yeah I know, it would drive me nuts that Max doesn't know yet too. You can read my comment to Kitten for more on that.
L-J-L 76-thanks.
And now we return to our feature presentation...
Chapter 24
Beep....Beep....Beep...Beep....
Thehlec wearily opened his eyes as his brain finally registered the soft continual beeping. He sat up and stretched his neck as as he realized that he had once again fallen asleep at his work station. For some reason over the past month, he had found the need to spend an insane number of hours there, and while Soirafen just saw it as a young scientist who was devoted to his work, Thehlec saw it as self-imposed torture. But he had to do it.
Thehlec had been spending less and less time in the storage room listening to Khivar's conversations of late. It was too sickening. He had always wanted to get a better idea of who his leader was because Khivar was like an untouchable. But to actually know how evil Khivar was turning out to be, made Thehlec's stomach turn. He couldn't really handle any extended period of time observing the tyrannical leader.
In fact, if Thehlec were completely honest with himself, he would have to admit that he had indeed already sworn his loyalties to King Zan in his heart, without ever having even met the re-made King. But then again, there was no way Thehlec could believe that anyone could be as dishonest, or as evil as Khivar. So anyone had to be better right? The problem was that Thehlec had been raised to be nothing if not loyal, and he wasn't used to going against his authority figure. Even if the leader was horrible. But he couldn't just blindly follow either could he? He needed to do something to even the playing field. And so he had spent countless hours in front of the communication devices following every little thing that was going through them. And then he had spent countless more hours figuring out a way to protect King Zan, Queen Ava, Princess Vilondra, and Commander Rath.
As Thehlec came out of his drowsy state, the consistant beeping finally registered. Now what could that be? He looked around the room at all the different equipment trying to be sure that he wasn't hearing things, because everything looked normal. Then he saw the readout for the Granolith. The power on the thing was reading sky high! What happened?
Thehlec quickly glanced around the room, and when he saw that no one was there, he rushed over to the door to lock it. He had to hide this. But how? Thehlec looked around the room frantically for something to do, and when he realized that all he was doing was looking around the room every two seconds, he forced himself to take a deep breath and take a chair over to the readout machine so he could figure something out. He just sat and stared at the contraption for a bit and then he saw something. There was a small button the side of the machine. It wasn't labeled and he didn't know what it could possibly be for, but at this point, he supposed it wouldn't hurt to try pushing it. He had to do something, and quick!
Thehlec tentatively reached out and pressed the button, then bit his lip as he waited for something to happen. About half a second later, a keyboard and screen popped out of the base. What was that? He had never heard of anything being inside the readout machine. But if he really thought about it, no one had used the readout machine for it's intended purpose in nearly a hundred years. Probably no one knew what all it could do anymore.
Thehlec frantically tried to bring up the database to see what all it held. The problem was that it didn't work like their normal technology anymore, and he hadn't had enough experience with the ancient technology to know what to do off the top of his head. He didn't have time for this! Okay calm down. What was he going to do?
Thehlec started bouncing his knee as he moved through the folders on the computer to find anything he could manipulate. The readout machine actually had a wide variety of folders. It seems that the Granolith automatically recorded anything that happened within it's immediate vicinity, and that meant that Thehlec had a lot of information to go through if he wanted to. But he didn't have time for that.
Finally Thehlec found the folder for the main controls of the computer. He adjusted them to make the readout look like they use to, even though they were registering more power, and closed everything up just in time to hear banging on the door.
"Hey why is this door locked?" Thehlec heard Soirafen yell through the barrier the door created.
Thehlec frantically ran over to the door, taking off his shirt as he went and swung the door open as soon as he reached it. "Sorry I was changing. I wanted to keep an eye on the messages I have to send out, and I didn't want to leave. Was that okay?"
Soirafen looked at Thehlec a little suspiciously. Was it normal for an employee to be this devoted? Or was he up to something? Nah he couldn't be. He was just an eager but somewhat slow student scientist.
*****
Liz shot up out of her bed from a dead sleep. What was going on? Why was the room so bright? Why did it take her so long to get her brain going in the middle of the night? And oh no WHY WAS HER STOMACH GLOWING SO BRIGHTLY?! This wasn't suppose to happen!
Liz was panicking as she threw on a sweatshirt and her winter coat, and tried to think of somewhere she could go to cover up the glow. What if her roommate woke up and saw? She wasn't suppose to be inducting any more people into the "I know an alien club"! That was NOT her intention! Liz rushed to the bathroom and closed the stall. She figured if she were in a well-lit place, the glow wouldn't stand out so badly.
Liz tried to focus on the power she felt flooding her body and get it do die down and even out, but she couldn't do it. This of course terrified her and she started to notice that the more she panicked, the more her stomach glowed, and it was starting to spread! She could see the faint glow on her hands. She couldn't deal with this alone. She couldn't deal with this herself.
Liz raced out of the bathroom and ran directly into the Hall's counselor. "Liz are you okay? What's going on with you're face?" Liz freaked out again, and her face started glowing pretty brightly. This was not good. "Liz. What's going on? You're not suppose to be going out right now. Especially with if you want to stay here in your condition. We better go see Ms. Noble."
The counselor started to reach for Liz's arm, and Liz made the sudden decision to mindwarp her. She needed to do this well, the pressure was on, and she needed to figure out how to erase a memory ASAP! Liz closed her eyes, and tried to get in the mind of the counselor. Unfortunately, Liz didn't realize that all of the power would go into this, and instead of just gently getting into the counselor's mind, Liz connected without even touching her. Liz saw the pictures of the counselor's life rush at her, and it was coming so fast, she couldn't make out a single thing. This connection was completely uncontrolled, and that scared Liz. So the mindwarp and memory erasing ending up overwhelming the counselor and made her pass out.
Crap! That wasn't suppose to happen either! And what was worse, the counselor had hit her head on the way down. Liz crouched down to place her hand on the counselor's head and heal it, when she had a better idea. Liz closed her eyes, concentrated as hard as she could, and turned back the time by two minutes. When she opened her eyes back up, she was standing in the stall again.
Liz took a breath to try to calm down, then opened the door, and stealthily walked to the door of the bathroom, trying to sense the counselor in the hall. When Liz found her, she gently eased into her mind and essentially put her mind on a loop to see only the empty hallway. Then she eased out of the counselor's mind and tiptoed back to her own room.
Liz grabbed her phone and walked back out to the stairwell. No one was ever there at night. She flipped her phone open and dialed the first number she thought of that could help. She bounced up and down and paced as she waited for five rings before she got an answer. But when she heard the deep and groggy hello, she slammed the phone shut. Why had she just called Max? He wasn't suppose to know about any of this!
Max took his phone away from his ear. What the heck was that? Who would be calling in the middle of the night and then not even talk? And why the heck didn't he have a caller ID for his phone? Well he could *69 them. But he was tired, and it wasn't really worth it. So Max shook his head, rolled over and went back to sleep.
Liz on the other hand, freaked out a little more, and started to glow even brighter. "Okay Liz calm down. You can do this." She started to say to herself over and over. Then she called Maria. Maria answered much quicker, and Liz started rushing out her story. The funny thing was that as soon as Liz started telling someone about it, it wasn't as stressful, and she started feeling the power stop building and then kind of deflate. As Liz talked it over with Maria more and more, the only thing they could figure was that this was nothing more than her grand entrance into her third trimester. Of course that in and of itself was a big enough entrance. If this was what the third timester started like, how would the birth be? Liz didn't even want to think about that right now.
Shiesty23-thanks, and I refuse to give updates before they are due. However, if you're really nice to me, you might be able to persuade me to send you teasers via PMs.
Redrumm-Yeah the original plan was to have Max just kind of depressed until pretty much the end. But I got bored with that, and didn't feel like he was doing enough, so my sister helped me when she suggested the Max stuff for the spring break chapter, cause I really didn't know what to write about for a whole chapter of spring break with Liz Maria and Alex. Originally the idea was that spring break would be when Liz connected Maria and Alex to Alexa, but I ended up moving that up to Christmas, and then I didn't know what to do for fill that time. But I think it all worked out.
aliensister-Thanks so much. I feel very complimented by the fact that you wanted more. You might want to read my comment back to Shiesty.
Flamehair-Well I could tell you, but I just can't bring myself to ruin it. I can tell you that you will find out for sure in chapter 25.
thetvgeneral-well I could find a way to get the "crazy kids" together...Or I could give you tons of angst. Hmmm....that's a really tough decision.
Emz80m-thanks. Update will be either every Saturday or every Monday.
orphyfets-Thank you. Writing interaction between characters can sometimes be difficult for me. It's much easier for me to write internal monologues. So I'm glad you liked it.
RiaRath101-I am so glad you referenced that drunk line specifically. I've had several lines that I've thought were funny, but no one else seemed to enjoy them as much as I did. I'm glad someone finally did! Thanks! And yeah Michael and Maria are pretty funny sometimes. I laughed while writing that fight.
Kitten-So I realized the other day, that if I were the one reading this fic, I would have already skimmed ahead to find out when Max finally finds out about the pregnancy. I'm so glad that none of you have had that opportunity though, because I've been envisioning the scene where Max finds out since before I even started writing this fic. In fact, I've had a bit of that scene written since January. I will tell you that I have already completely finished that part, so it will definitely be happening soon. I hope you guys aren't getting too frustrated with me here.
Jennifer24-Thank you, I'll try to keep up to the standard I've been writing. I won't tell you about Max's plans right now. But I will tell you that you won't have to stay in suspense too long. Because I wrote that part last night, so at most you have to wait is a few weeks.
suicide_eagle_rath-I'm very flattered by your compliments, especially the excellent dialogue part. I have to admit though that my sis has to help me a lot with that sometimes. She helped me a ton witht he dialogue on Kyle and Tess's date for Valentine's Day. I wrote it all myself of course, but she helped it actually flow a little better.
izzyandkyle-Yeah I know, it would drive me nuts that Max doesn't know yet too. You can read my comment to Kitten for more on that.
L-J-L 76-thanks.
And now we return to our feature presentation...
Chapter 24
Beep....Beep....Beep...Beep....
Thehlec wearily opened his eyes as his brain finally registered the soft continual beeping. He sat up and stretched his neck as as he realized that he had once again fallen asleep at his work station. For some reason over the past month, he had found the need to spend an insane number of hours there, and while Soirafen just saw it as a young scientist who was devoted to his work, Thehlec saw it as self-imposed torture. But he had to do it.
Thehlec had been spending less and less time in the storage room listening to Khivar's conversations of late. It was too sickening. He had always wanted to get a better idea of who his leader was because Khivar was like an untouchable. But to actually know how evil Khivar was turning out to be, made Thehlec's stomach turn. He couldn't really handle any extended period of time observing the tyrannical leader.
In fact, if Thehlec were completely honest with himself, he would have to admit that he had indeed already sworn his loyalties to King Zan in his heart, without ever having even met the re-made King. But then again, there was no way Thehlec could believe that anyone could be as dishonest, or as evil as Khivar. So anyone had to be better right? The problem was that Thehlec had been raised to be nothing if not loyal, and he wasn't used to going against his authority figure. Even if the leader was horrible. But he couldn't just blindly follow either could he? He needed to do something to even the playing field. And so he had spent countless hours in front of the communication devices following every little thing that was going through them. And then he had spent countless more hours figuring out a way to protect King Zan, Queen Ava, Princess Vilondra, and Commander Rath.
As Thehlec came out of his drowsy state, the consistant beeping finally registered. Now what could that be? He looked around the room at all the different equipment trying to be sure that he wasn't hearing things, because everything looked normal. Then he saw the readout for the Granolith. The power on the thing was reading sky high! What happened?
Thehlec quickly glanced around the room, and when he saw that no one was there, he rushed over to the door to lock it. He had to hide this. But how? Thehlec looked around the room frantically for something to do, and when he realized that all he was doing was looking around the room every two seconds, he forced himself to take a deep breath and take a chair over to the readout machine so he could figure something out. He just sat and stared at the contraption for a bit and then he saw something. There was a small button the side of the machine. It wasn't labeled and he didn't know what it could possibly be for, but at this point, he supposed it wouldn't hurt to try pushing it. He had to do something, and quick!
Thehlec tentatively reached out and pressed the button, then bit his lip as he waited for something to happen. About half a second later, a keyboard and screen popped out of the base. What was that? He had never heard of anything being inside the readout machine. But if he really thought about it, no one had used the readout machine for it's intended purpose in nearly a hundred years. Probably no one knew what all it could do anymore.
Thehlec frantically tried to bring up the database to see what all it held. The problem was that it didn't work like their normal technology anymore, and he hadn't had enough experience with the ancient technology to know what to do off the top of his head. He didn't have time for this! Okay calm down. What was he going to do?
Thehlec started bouncing his knee as he moved through the folders on the computer to find anything he could manipulate. The readout machine actually had a wide variety of folders. It seems that the Granolith automatically recorded anything that happened within it's immediate vicinity, and that meant that Thehlec had a lot of information to go through if he wanted to. But he didn't have time for that.
Finally Thehlec found the folder for the main controls of the computer. He adjusted them to make the readout look like they use to, even though they were registering more power, and closed everything up just in time to hear banging on the door.
"Hey why is this door locked?" Thehlec heard Soirafen yell through the barrier the door created.
Thehlec frantically ran over to the door, taking off his shirt as he went and swung the door open as soon as he reached it. "Sorry I was changing. I wanted to keep an eye on the messages I have to send out, and I didn't want to leave. Was that okay?"
Soirafen looked at Thehlec a little suspiciously. Was it normal for an employee to be this devoted? Or was he up to something? Nah he couldn't be. He was just an eager but somewhat slow student scientist.
*****
Liz shot up out of her bed from a dead sleep. What was going on? Why was the room so bright? Why did it take her so long to get her brain going in the middle of the night? And oh no WHY WAS HER STOMACH GLOWING SO BRIGHTLY?! This wasn't suppose to happen!
Liz was panicking as she threw on a sweatshirt and her winter coat, and tried to think of somewhere she could go to cover up the glow. What if her roommate woke up and saw? She wasn't suppose to be inducting any more people into the "I know an alien club"! That was NOT her intention! Liz rushed to the bathroom and closed the stall. She figured if she were in a well-lit place, the glow wouldn't stand out so badly.
Liz tried to focus on the power she felt flooding her body and get it do die down and even out, but she couldn't do it. This of course terrified her and she started to notice that the more she panicked, the more her stomach glowed, and it was starting to spread! She could see the faint glow on her hands. She couldn't deal with this alone. She couldn't deal with this herself.
Liz raced out of the bathroom and ran directly into the Hall's counselor. "Liz are you okay? What's going on with you're face?" Liz freaked out again, and her face started glowing pretty brightly. This was not good. "Liz. What's going on? You're not suppose to be going out right now. Especially with if you want to stay here in your condition. We better go see Ms. Noble."
The counselor started to reach for Liz's arm, and Liz made the sudden decision to mindwarp her. She needed to do this well, the pressure was on, and she needed to figure out how to erase a memory ASAP! Liz closed her eyes, and tried to get in the mind of the counselor. Unfortunately, Liz didn't realize that all of the power would go into this, and instead of just gently getting into the counselor's mind, Liz connected without even touching her. Liz saw the pictures of the counselor's life rush at her, and it was coming so fast, she couldn't make out a single thing. This connection was completely uncontrolled, and that scared Liz. So the mindwarp and memory erasing ending up overwhelming the counselor and made her pass out.
Crap! That wasn't suppose to happen either! And what was worse, the counselor had hit her head on the way down. Liz crouched down to place her hand on the counselor's head and heal it, when she had a better idea. Liz closed her eyes, concentrated as hard as she could, and turned back the time by two minutes. When she opened her eyes back up, she was standing in the stall again.
Liz took a breath to try to calm down, then opened the door, and stealthily walked to the door of the bathroom, trying to sense the counselor in the hall. When Liz found her, she gently eased into her mind and essentially put her mind on a loop to see only the empty hallway. Then she eased out of the counselor's mind and tiptoed back to her own room.
Liz grabbed her phone and walked back out to the stairwell. No one was ever there at night. She flipped her phone open and dialed the first number she thought of that could help. She bounced up and down and paced as she waited for five rings before she got an answer. But when she heard the deep and groggy hello, she slammed the phone shut. Why had she just called Max? He wasn't suppose to know about any of this!
Max took his phone away from his ear. What the heck was that? Who would be calling in the middle of the night and then not even talk? And why the heck didn't he have a caller ID for his phone? Well he could *69 them. But he was tired, and it wasn't really worth it. So Max shook his head, rolled over and went back to sleep.
Liz on the other hand, freaked out a little more, and started to glow even brighter. "Okay Liz calm down. You can do this." She started to say to herself over and over. Then she called Maria. Maria answered much quicker, and Liz started rushing out her story. The funny thing was that as soon as Liz started telling someone about it, it wasn't as stressful, and she started feeling the power stop building and then kind of deflate. As Liz talked it over with Maria more and more, the only thing they could figure was that this was nothing more than her grand entrance into her third trimester. Of course that in and of itself was a big enough entrance. If this was what the third timester started like, how would the birth be? Liz didn't even want to think about that right now.
-
ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
Chapter 25
Hey everybody. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to update yesterday like I had wanted to. But getting internet while I'm in Europe is apparently harder than I thougth it would be.
aliensister-I know. We all wish she would have just talked to Max. But alas that wouldn't fit into my evil plan.
RiaRath101- yeah it was a little silly for Liz to think that nothing alien would happen. But she prolly would have freaked herself out if she had thought about everything that could have gone differently from normal.
thetvgeneral-thanks
Redrumm-I'm glad you like Thehlec. So do I. And I'll just tell you now...I have plans for him.
Emz80m-I know, he should have *69'ed Liz. But that conversation would have been hard for me to write. And it would have messed up the part that's going up now.
Kitten-thanks. the will go ahead and tell you now, that the rest of the actually pregnancy itself, will go pretty smoothly.
tigerr100-I'm glad you found the last chapter funny. It can be difficult to write humor.
Flamehair-Well thanks for understanding my reason in not telling. You'll find out in just a few minutes here anyway.
orphyfets- um...dun dun DUUNN!!
lab6651-hehe. You'll see Max's reaction this chapter. Hope it doesn't disappoint.
L-J-L 76- um...okay?
Roswelllostcause-Yeah Max isn't going to find out the whole truth for a while yet. What do you mean by "Go Tigers"? I mean I am not opposed to Tigers seeing as that's my school mascot. I was just wondering.
Please, no talking during the presentation...
Chapter 25
Liz sat on the bus and nervously anticipated her arrival in Roswell. She had not thought that the return trip would stress her out so much, but she had neglected to consider one tiny, little thing. There was now the possibility of running into Max at any given time, and this time, she was eight months pregnant, so it might be a little obvious that she had completely betrayed him and their love. Then after the story got out about how she didn't know who the father was, she would end up hurting him even more. The whole idea made Liz really anxious to get the confrontation over with.
Liz leaned her head on the window as she saw the welcome to Roswell sign. She needed to calm down. Ever since she had woken up that one night in her dorm with the tremendous amount of power, she started noticing that anytime she wasn't paying attention to herself, the handprint would start glowing brighter, until it couldn't be contained by the handprint anymore and spread to the rest of her body. Then after a while, it would spread even more to the rest of her body.
Liz had tried to work on control and get the power to run through her body like it once had, but with the excess energy she really just needed to let it out, and there was no way she could let out a massive amount of power without anyone noticing at school. She had even tried to expel the energy through time manipulation, but whether she was spinning it back or rolling it forward, she felt almost no energy change at all. If anything, she gained energy from spinning time back. So she was waiting until she got back home to Roswell and could train in the desert. Liz also wished she had someone to help train with her that actually knew a little of what she was dealing with, but she supposed that she would never end up getting that.
The only good thing Liz could see about the extra energy right now, was that it was easier to do the everyday things she needed to in order to get by. And lately that included mindwarping nearly everyone into thinking her stomach was a little smaller than it actually was. Liz vainly very much appreciated this ability, and she secretly hoped that she had this much power after the baby was born so that she could use it to make herself look better anytime she chose. But practically, the whole exercise just made sense. By making people think she looked smaller, Liz actually looked like she might not be due until August, instead of early July, and that was something for which Liz would be eternally grateful.
As the bus pulled up to the stop and Liz gathered her stuff, she looked out the window and saw Maria waiting for her. She was pretty surprised that her parents didn't pick her up. They had been calling her every day for the past couple of weeks to make sure she was okay coming home by herself while pregnant. They even offered to buy a ticket for the seat next to her so she could have more room. But Liz had declined saying she didn't want to waste the money, and the trip to Boston had been less than crowded so she would probably be fine.
Seeing Maria, Liz couldn't deny that she was a little relieved. She had been expecting her parents to end up pestering her the entire ride home, and she was emotionally wrecked enough as it was. She didn't need to get into it with her parents. Even hoping for the best, Liz would have at the very least had to fend off their questions about her health, the baby's health, the possibility of figuring out who the father was, etc.
Maria tried to look through every window of the bus to see Liz, but it was pretty useless. For some reason this bus had insanely tinted windows. What happened to the busses that always drove her insane because it was impossible to get the sun out of your eyes so you could sleep? Those busses would have allowed Maria to spot Liz right away. She doubted there would be many pregnant women on the bus. Fortunately, Maria didn't have to wait long, because just as she was about to let out an exasperated sigh, she saw Liz descending from the stairs and let out a squeal instead and started running to her best friend.
Liz didn't even have to look up from the ground to know that the squeal came from Maria. She would recognize it anywhere, and the squeal actually set her a little more at ease. It just happened to be one of the sounds of home. So as soon as Liz was actually out of the bus and on the ground, she walked as fast as she could to meet Maria. The two crashed into each other with a big hug, and they stayed that way for a awhile rocking from side to side and grinning from ear to ear.
"Look at you girl! I can't believe how much you've changed again!" Maria placed her hand on Liz's stomach, then teased Liz "We really can't go three months without seeing each other again. I may not be able to recognize you next time."
"Maria!" Liz playfully swatted Maria's hand away. "You don't know the half of it," she continued a bit more seriously, "Check this out." Then Liz preceded to drop the mindwarp over Maria. It was always easier to just mindwarp everyone in the general vicinity and then selectively drop it for a few people, than it was to think of it the other way around.
"Wow! You ARE huge! I...I mean...um"
"It's okay. I know I am. But I have a right to be, I'm eight months pregnant!"
"Of course. It's totally allowed." Maria vigorously nodded her head, hoping that Liz would just let it drop. After her blunder over spring break, Alex had filled her in on some of the more colorful stories he had of his pregnant cousin, and Maria didn't really want to go there with Liz, particularly since Liz apparently had super-powers. "Well shall we?" Maria asked while picking up Liz's luggage and turning to the direction of her car.
Liz was a little less enthusiastic. "Yeah...okay."
"By the way Liz. There's probably something I should tell you about..."
*****
Max sat the table and stared at his food. Why had he decided to come here today? He had been spending more of his time here the last couple of months since spring break, because he had started hanging out with his friends again. But he really didn't like coming alone still. At least not when Maria wasn't working. When she was working, Max could at least discretely try to get information about Liz, or just have a friend to talk to in general. But being alone kind of stunk. Currently, Michael was in the back on the grill, Maria was at some undisclosed location, and he hadn't even talked to Isabel, Alex, Tess, or Kyle today. Although to be truthful, he never really talked that much to Kyle anyway. He had decided to forgive Liz, so that should have carried over to Kyle too, but somehow, the tension between them was almost volatile sometimes. So here he was staring at his food just wondering what he was doing here.
He had tried to ask Maria when Liz was going to be coming home, because he wanted to figure out how he wanted to greet her. He had considered being at the crashdown when she came home, so that they could start things off as friends right off the bat. But he wasn't sure about that. He hadn't seen Liz in six months, and essentially being at her house when she came home from school might not be the best way to rekindle a friendship, especially when it could easily change into something else on accident if they let it, which wasn't something he wanted. So maybe Max should be at home when she came back into town, then he could just casually bump into her sometime in her first week home. He was sure he would have plenty of time for that since they had just gotten out of school, and he didn't have summer hours for the UFO Center yet.
It was then that Max heard the bell on the door ring. When he immediately heard Maria's voice, he decided that he should probably at least act like he was actually eating, instead of just sitting there waiting for one of his friends to randomly show up. So Max didn't turn to the door to see who was with Maria until he heard the second voice.
“Maria!” Liz said while laughing, “I can open my own door. You know I have been taking care of myself for the past five months. Now in about month I will take all the help I can get, but until I ask, could you please not treat me like an invalid?”
Max had practically given himself whiplash from turning so quickly to see Liz when he heard her voice. He had thoughts racing through his head about maybe trying to sneak out so he could meet her for the first time over the summer in a more planned out manner, but all thoughts flew out of his head for a few seconds when he actually saw her. This wasn't an unusual occurrence for him really, that tended to happen anyway whenever he got his first Liz glimpse of the day, but this time it was for a completely different reason. There was Liz standing, talking, and laughing with Maria, and she was definitely pregnant. There was no denying it.
Max couldn't believe the amount of pain he felt at the sight. He had thought that he had dealt with the whole Kyle and Liz thing already, but what he realized now was that he had started to convince himself that it had never really happened. But here there was undeniable proof that Liz had at least slept with someone, and since she wasn't the type of girl to sleep around, that meant Liz most likely was having a baby with Kyle Valenti. Max ran his eyes over her figure a few times before looking up at her face at the exact same time Liz ended up scanning the restaurant. So the two pairs of eyes ended up meeting across the room, and as Max concentrated on masking his hurt, Liz made her way over to Max's table.
Max tried to avoid looking at Liz's stomach, “Liz?”. It was one word that could have been said so many different ways, but the question in Max's voice seemed to yell at Liz. She had been nervous the entire ride home because she was afraid something like this might happen, but she had let her guard down on the way home from the bus station, because Maria was there. If only she had stayed a little on edge, she would have seen Max's car in the parking lot, and she would have made sure to go in the back entrance, where he was much less likely to see her. Well there wasn't much she could do about it now.
“M-Max!” Liz stuttered, “How are you?”
Well it seemed that Liz had chosen to ignore the situation at hand, so Max might as well ignore it too. Then he could just never come here again, and forget about his whole friendship plan. “Fine. You?”
“Fine” Liz looked around somewhat frantically, and an awkward silence fell over the three teenagers, none of them knowing exactly how to deal with the situation.
“Well we better be going “ Maria intervened after a few seconds had past. “ I have to start my shift soon and I want to help Liz get settled first.”
“Um... yeah. Go ahead.” Max excused the duo, and Maria pulled Liz to the back room of the crashdown and upstairs to the apartment, leaving Max alone in the diner. Later, Liz reflected on the fact, that Max had indeed slammed the door shut on their connection so solidly in December that she hadn't even felt and inkling of a twinge to indicate that Max had been near by. She supposed that the connection might be truly gone. Lost forever now.
aliensister-I know. We all wish she would have just talked to Max. But alas that wouldn't fit into my evil plan.
RiaRath101- yeah it was a little silly for Liz to think that nothing alien would happen. But she prolly would have freaked herself out if she had thought about everything that could have gone differently from normal.
thetvgeneral-thanks
Redrumm-I'm glad you like Thehlec. So do I. And I'll just tell you now...I have plans for him.
Emz80m-I know, he should have *69'ed Liz. But that conversation would have been hard for me to write. And it would have messed up the part that's going up now.
Kitten-thanks. the will go ahead and tell you now, that the rest of the actually pregnancy itself, will go pretty smoothly.
tigerr100-I'm glad you found the last chapter funny. It can be difficult to write humor.
Flamehair-Well thanks for understanding my reason in not telling. You'll find out in just a few minutes here anyway.
orphyfets- um...dun dun DUUNN!!
lab6651-hehe. You'll see Max's reaction this chapter. Hope it doesn't disappoint.
L-J-L 76- um...okay?
Roswelllostcause-Yeah Max isn't going to find out the whole truth for a while yet. What do you mean by "Go Tigers"? I mean I am not opposed to Tigers seeing as that's my school mascot. I was just wondering.
Please, no talking during the presentation...
Chapter 25
Liz sat on the bus and nervously anticipated her arrival in Roswell. She had not thought that the return trip would stress her out so much, but she had neglected to consider one tiny, little thing. There was now the possibility of running into Max at any given time, and this time, she was eight months pregnant, so it might be a little obvious that she had completely betrayed him and their love. Then after the story got out about how she didn't know who the father was, she would end up hurting him even more. The whole idea made Liz really anxious to get the confrontation over with.
Liz leaned her head on the window as she saw the welcome to Roswell sign. She needed to calm down. Ever since she had woken up that one night in her dorm with the tremendous amount of power, she started noticing that anytime she wasn't paying attention to herself, the handprint would start glowing brighter, until it couldn't be contained by the handprint anymore and spread to the rest of her body. Then after a while, it would spread even more to the rest of her body.
Liz had tried to work on control and get the power to run through her body like it once had, but with the excess energy she really just needed to let it out, and there was no way she could let out a massive amount of power without anyone noticing at school. She had even tried to expel the energy through time manipulation, but whether she was spinning it back or rolling it forward, she felt almost no energy change at all. If anything, she gained energy from spinning time back. So she was waiting until she got back home to Roswell and could train in the desert. Liz also wished she had someone to help train with her that actually knew a little of what she was dealing with, but she supposed that she would never end up getting that.
The only good thing Liz could see about the extra energy right now, was that it was easier to do the everyday things she needed to in order to get by. And lately that included mindwarping nearly everyone into thinking her stomach was a little smaller than it actually was. Liz vainly very much appreciated this ability, and she secretly hoped that she had this much power after the baby was born so that she could use it to make herself look better anytime she chose. But practically, the whole exercise just made sense. By making people think she looked smaller, Liz actually looked like she might not be due until August, instead of early July, and that was something for which Liz would be eternally grateful.
As the bus pulled up to the stop and Liz gathered her stuff, she looked out the window and saw Maria waiting for her. She was pretty surprised that her parents didn't pick her up. They had been calling her every day for the past couple of weeks to make sure she was okay coming home by herself while pregnant. They even offered to buy a ticket for the seat next to her so she could have more room. But Liz had declined saying she didn't want to waste the money, and the trip to Boston had been less than crowded so she would probably be fine.
Seeing Maria, Liz couldn't deny that she was a little relieved. She had been expecting her parents to end up pestering her the entire ride home, and she was emotionally wrecked enough as it was. She didn't need to get into it with her parents. Even hoping for the best, Liz would have at the very least had to fend off their questions about her health, the baby's health, the possibility of figuring out who the father was, etc.
Maria tried to look through every window of the bus to see Liz, but it was pretty useless. For some reason this bus had insanely tinted windows. What happened to the busses that always drove her insane because it was impossible to get the sun out of your eyes so you could sleep? Those busses would have allowed Maria to spot Liz right away. She doubted there would be many pregnant women on the bus. Fortunately, Maria didn't have to wait long, because just as she was about to let out an exasperated sigh, she saw Liz descending from the stairs and let out a squeal instead and started running to her best friend.
Liz didn't even have to look up from the ground to know that the squeal came from Maria. She would recognize it anywhere, and the squeal actually set her a little more at ease. It just happened to be one of the sounds of home. So as soon as Liz was actually out of the bus and on the ground, she walked as fast as she could to meet Maria. The two crashed into each other with a big hug, and they stayed that way for a awhile rocking from side to side and grinning from ear to ear.
"Look at you girl! I can't believe how much you've changed again!" Maria placed her hand on Liz's stomach, then teased Liz "We really can't go three months without seeing each other again. I may not be able to recognize you next time."
"Maria!" Liz playfully swatted Maria's hand away. "You don't know the half of it," she continued a bit more seriously, "Check this out." Then Liz preceded to drop the mindwarp over Maria. It was always easier to just mindwarp everyone in the general vicinity and then selectively drop it for a few people, than it was to think of it the other way around.
"Wow! You ARE huge! I...I mean...um"
"It's okay. I know I am. But I have a right to be, I'm eight months pregnant!"
"Of course. It's totally allowed." Maria vigorously nodded her head, hoping that Liz would just let it drop. After her blunder over spring break, Alex had filled her in on some of the more colorful stories he had of his pregnant cousin, and Maria didn't really want to go there with Liz, particularly since Liz apparently had super-powers. "Well shall we?" Maria asked while picking up Liz's luggage and turning to the direction of her car.
Liz was a little less enthusiastic. "Yeah...okay."
"By the way Liz. There's probably something I should tell you about..."
*****
Max sat the table and stared at his food. Why had he decided to come here today? He had been spending more of his time here the last couple of months since spring break, because he had started hanging out with his friends again. But he really didn't like coming alone still. At least not when Maria wasn't working. When she was working, Max could at least discretely try to get information about Liz, or just have a friend to talk to in general. But being alone kind of stunk. Currently, Michael was in the back on the grill, Maria was at some undisclosed location, and he hadn't even talked to Isabel, Alex, Tess, or Kyle today. Although to be truthful, he never really talked that much to Kyle anyway. He had decided to forgive Liz, so that should have carried over to Kyle too, but somehow, the tension between them was almost volatile sometimes. So here he was staring at his food just wondering what he was doing here.
He had tried to ask Maria when Liz was going to be coming home, because he wanted to figure out how he wanted to greet her. He had considered being at the crashdown when she came home, so that they could start things off as friends right off the bat. But he wasn't sure about that. He hadn't seen Liz in six months, and essentially being at her house when she came home from school might not be the best way to rekindle a friendship, especially when it could easily change into something else on accident if they let it, which wasn't something he wanted. So maybe Max should be at home when she came back into town, then he could just casually bump into her sometime in her first week home. He was sure he would have plenty of time for that since they had just gotten out of school, and he didn't have summer hours for the UFO Center yet.
It was then that Max heard the bell on the door ring. When he immediately heard Maria's voice, he decided that he should probably at least act like he was actually eating, instead of just sitting there waiting for one of his friends to randomly show up. So Max didn't turn to the door to see who was with Maria until he heard the second voice.
“Maria!” Liz said while laughing, “I can open my own door. You know I have been taking care of myself for the past five months. Now in about month I will take all the help I can get, but until I ask, could you please not treat me like an invalid?”
Max had practically given himself whiplash from turning so quickly to see Liz when he heard her voice. He had thoughts racing through his head about maybe trying to sneak out so he could meet her for the first time over the summer in a more planned out manner, but all thoughts flew out of his head for a few seconds when he actually saw her. This wasn't an unusual occurrence for him really, that tended to happen anyway whenever he got his first Liz glimpse of the day, but this time it was for a completely different reason. There was Liz standing, talking, and laughing with Maria, and she was definitely pregnant. There was no denying it.
Max couldn't believe the amount of pain he felt at the sight. He had thought that he had dealt with the whole Kyle and Liz thing already, but what he realized now was that he had started to convince himself that it had never really happened. But here there was undeniable proof that Liz had at least slept with someone, and since she wasn't the type of girl to sleep around, that meant Liz most likely was having a baby with Kyle Valenti. Max ran his eyes over her figure a few times before looking up at her face at the exact same time Liz ended up scanning the restaurant. So the two pairs of eyes ended up meeting across the room, and as Max concentrated on masking his hurt, Liz made her way over to Max's table.
Max tried to avoid looking at Liz's stomach, “Liz?”. It was one word that could have been said so many different ways, but the question in Max's voice seemed to yell at Liz. She had been nervous the entire ride home because she was afraid something like this might happen, but she had let her guard down on the way home from the bus station, because Maria was there. If only she had stayed a little on edge, she would have seen Max's car in the parking lot, and she would have made sure to go in the back entrance, where he was much less likely to see her. Well there wasn't much she could do about it now.
“M-Max!” Liz stuttered, “How are you?”
Well it seemed that Liz had chosen to ignore the situation at hand, so Max might as well ignore it too. Then he could just never come here again, and forget about his whole friendship plan. “Fine. You?”
“Fine” Liz looked around somewhat frantically, and an awkward silence fell over the three teenagers, none of them knowing exactly how to deal with the situation.
“Well we better be going “ Maria intervened after a few seconds had past. “ I have to start my shift soon and I want to help Liz get settled first.”
“Um... yeah. Go ahead.” Max excused the duo, and Maria pulled Liz to the back room of the crashdown and upstairs to the apartment, leaving Max alone in the diner. Later, Liz reflected on the fact, that Max had indeed slammed the door shut on their connection so solidly in December that she hadn't even felt and inkling of a twinge to indicate that Max had been near by. She supposed that the connection might be truly gone. Lost forever now.
-
ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
Chapter 26
Okay guys, just in case you were wondering, I should be able to stay on the update every Monday schedule until I return to the USA. Yay for regular updates right?
Flamhair-yeah it is sad that Max doesn't know the truth, and unfortunately I can tell you right now, he won't find out for a while yet.
Tigerr100-no it wouldn't be right for Max to continue to think that the baby is Kyle's, espcially because that put Kyle in rather tough position, but I don't see Liz telling Max the whole truth very soon. Do you?
orphyfets-no Liz being home won't be a walk in the park. But it'll get better semi soon. Well sort of.
Emz80m-yeah that might be a good idea for Max to open the connection, but I don't know if he'd actually know what was going on with the baby thing. It's a little bit of a weird situation.
L-J-L 76-You can rest assured that this fic is indeed dreamer insured (otherwise I'd have to put it in the alien abyss), but otherwise all I'll tell you is that it'll all culminate in a big way.
izzyandkyle-I'm glad you think I'm staying true to character. Sometimes it seems hard for me to do. I will tell you that eventually everything will work out. I'm a happy ending kind of person.
Roswelllostcause-well it looks like you don't have to wait long for an update do you? Because I happen to be updating on the same day.
Now sit back and relax while the dishes proudly present...your dinner...
Chapter 26
Max looked through the college brochures once again. He had put them up once before, to save for another time, when he wasn't so busy. But now seemed like the perfect time to get them out again. School had just let out, he didn't have hardly any hours of work yet, and was suddenly very interested in getting away from Roswell as soon as possible.
Shortly after Liz had left Max in the diner, he had realized that there was only one reason he had been so surprised by her reappearance, and that was because he had shut their connection, and he had stopped paying attention to it long before that. What else could explain why didn't he feel that something was going on with Liz when she was home for Christmas? And how else had he not have felt her coming closer this time?
The thing that really hurt though was that he had thought that he was becoming good friends with the group, and no one had told him about Liz. He was sure that Alex and Maria had probably told Isabel and Michael about her, so why didn't Michael and Isabel tell him? Sure they were probably trying to protect him. He could understand that. But at least Isabel had to know that Max would have rather been told so he could figure out how he woud greet Liz. It didn't matter if knowing wouldn't have made any difference in the long run. They should have told him, and they didn't.
So Max was currently sitting on his bed trying to figure out where he could run to. Liz had run, he was sure of it now, so why couldn't he? There had to be plenty of colleges that would accept him early, especially with the grades he had made this past year when he threw himself into his school work.
Max was so busy thinking and looking at the different applications and figuring out what would be his best bet, that he didn't hear the knock on his door. So when the door burst open and Michael barrelled in, Max was completely oblivious. It wasn't until Michael whacked Max on the shoulder that Max recognized he was there. "What the heck?!"
"I've been trying to get your attention, but you're completely out of it man. I thought we were suppose to go play basketball today." Michael said while tossing the ball from hand to hand. He had never seen Max so completely unaware of the world around him, but that didn't cause Michael any concern at the moment.
"I can't I'm busy."
"Doing what?" Max tossed Michael a college brochure that he had already decided against, and continued to scour the material in front of him, to decide which application to fill out. "You're looking at colleges? Why?"
Max briefly glared at Michael before turning back to the applications, picking one, and answering. "It's what some people do, particularly good students, of which I am apparently. Besides, I need to figure out what to do out of graduation."
"Seriously? We haven't even started our senior year! I'm just looking forward to getting out for good. What are you going to list as your interests anyway? Running from the FBI, stalking local waitresses, and learning what it means to be an alien in today's world?"
"No. Can you leave now?" Max was really getting fed up with Michael's attitude. He had to know what was going on, and even if he didn't, why couldn't he just leave Max alone?
"What's your problem?!"
"What do you think? Why didn't you tell me about Liz?"
"What about her?"
"That she's pregnant! Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"She's pregnant? Holy crap! What are you going to tell your parents? Wait when were you together?" Michael was a little confused, he thought his best friend would have told im if he had had sex. That was kind of a huge thing, and what if something was different because of their alien status? Michael had a right to know that.
"We didn't sleep together Michael."
"What?! No way Liz would sleep with someone else!" Michael had never really been Liz's biggest proponent. But he had read her journal. He knew that Liz was hopelessly in love with Max. There was no way she would sleep with someone else.
"Yes she would. And she did. She slept with Kyle"
"Wow Liz must be really open for a girl if she told you all that."
"She didn't have to tell me Michael. I saw her! Why do you think I pulled away from everyone earlier this year?"
"What? You saw her and Kyle together?"
"Yes!"
"So this happened a long time ago? And you're just now getting upset about it?" It seemed to MIchael that Max's anger was a little belated. Why hadn't he done something about it before? What made him wait so long to actually try to get out of Roswell?
"I had decided to forgive her and try to be friends. But this changes everything."
"How?" Silence ensued for a bit while Michael waited for an answer, and Max tried to figure out how Michael could be so dense as to not know why Liz's pregnancy changed everything. Finally the silence was broken by Michael's explanation. "Look here's the way I see it. You already knew that Liz had slept with someone else. So why is it suddenly different now that she's pregnant? If you really wanted to be her friend, you would still be her friend. She probably needs as many friends as she can get now." Michael waited for a few moments to let what he said sink in, and when he didn't think Max would be responding anytime soon, he tossed the ball to the other side of the room and told Max to come find him when he wanted to actually play then left.
Max ended up spending almost the entire day laying on his bed thinking about the situation and about what Michael had said. Who would have thought that Michael would actually give good advice? Max never thought Michael had it in him. Michael had always been the one to make the rash decisions that affected everyone, but this time, Michael was the voice of reason, and he happened to be a pretty decent one.
*****
Michael was floored by the news of Liz's pregnancy. So as he headed to Maria's house to see if she wanted to do anything today, he was replaying everything in his head. He had been wanting to take his and Maria's physical relationship to the next level, but it seemed that any time Michael made even the tiniest move in that direction, Maria back away and made up an excuse to be somewhere else. He uncharacteristically tried to ask her about it a couple of times, but Maria had skirted around the issue. Now maybe he understood.
Just knowing that Liz had gotten pregnant scared Michael half to death for a couple of reasons. He had always thought of Max and Liz and the smart, rational ones. So if Liz could go and get herself pregnant, then how much more likely would it be for him to accidently get Maria pregnant? They weren't the best at thinking things through, and with him being alien, they had an unknown factor to take in consideration too. What if normal birth control didn't work if he was involved. The other thing that worried him was that he had always thought that Max and Liz would eventually work things out. He had read Liz's journal the year before, and he had been jealous of Max at the time because Max had someone to care so much about it. And how could he not know how Max felt about Liz? Wasn't Michael the one Max use to drag to the diner everyday to watch Liz as she worked? If they couldn't make it when they loved each other so much, how would he make it with Maria? He couldn't loose her, she was the only one who loved him because she wanted to, not because she felt she had to.
Michael was still thinking about everything when he arrived at Maria's house and knocked on her door. Luckily for him, Maria was the one to answer the door, because Michael didn't even wait till the door was open to start asking questions. "Why didn't you tell me Liz was pregnant? Is that why you've been kind of distant lately?
Maria was surprised to see Michael at the door. He had told her that he was going to spend the day with Max. So she had been planning on having a girls day with Liz. She had just been on her way out the door when Michael showed up. "What are you doing here?"
"Nothing. I just want to know why you didn't tell me Liz was pregnant. I thought we were suppose to be honest with each other."
Maria didn't even bother to figure out why Michael was asking this question. She just responded to the question so she could get out of the house and see how Liz was. "I was honest with you. Why would it matter that I didn't tell you my best friend was pregnant? She not really your friend."
"It matters because it destroyed my best friend."
"Well Liz didn't want anyone to know besides me and Alex. So it was none of your business. Now please excuse me. I want to get over to the Crashdown so I can spend some time with my best friend." Maria gently pushed past Michael smiling to herself that she handled the confrontation pretty well. Michael on the other hand, just stared at Maria as he watched her get into her car, and wondered when it was that he started feeling like he had to tell Maria everything and vice versa. It was almost starting to freak him out.
Flamhair-yeah it is sad that Max doesn't know the truth, and unfortunately I can tell you right now, he won't find out for a while yet.
Tigerr100-no it wouldn't be right for Max to continue to think that the baby is Kyle's, espcially because that put Kyle in rather tough position, but I don't see Liz telling Max the whole truth very soon. Do you?
orphyfets-no Liz being home won't be a walk in the park. But it'll get better semi soon. Well sort of.
Emz80m-yeah that might be a good idea for Max to open the connection, but I don't know if he'd actually know what was going on with the baby thing. It's a little bit of a weird situation.
L-J-L 76-You can rest assured that this fic is indeed dreamer insured (otherwise I'd have to put it in the alien abyss), but otherwise all I'll tell you is that it'll all culminate in a big way.
izzyandkyle-I'm glad you think I'm staying true to character. Sometimes it seems hard for me to do. I will tell you that eventually everything will work out. I'm a happy ending kind of person.
Roswelllostcause-well it looks like you don't have to wait long for an update do you? Because I happen to be updating on the same day.
Now sit back and relax while the dishes proudly present...your dinner...
Chapter 26
Max looked through the college brochures once again. He had put them up once before, to save for another time, when he wasn't so busy. But now seemed like the perfect time to get them out again. School had just let out, he didn't have hardly any hours of work yet, and was suddenly very interested in getting away from Roswell as soon as possible.
Shortly after Liz had left Max in the diner, he had realized that there was only one reason he had been so surprised by her reappearance, and that was because he had shut their connection, and he had stopped paying attention to it long before that. What else could explain why didn't he feel that something was going on with Liz when she was home for Christmas? And how else had he not have felt her coming closer this time?
The thing that really hurt though was that he had thought that he was becoming good friends with the group, and no one had told him about Liz. He was sure that Alex and Maria had probably told Isabel and Michael about her, so why didn't Michael and Isabel tell him? Sure they were probably trying to protect him. He could understand that. But at least Isabel had to know that Max would have rather been told so he could figure out how he woud greet Liz. It didn't matter if knowing wouldn't have made any difference in the long run. They should have told him, and they didn't.
So Max was currently sitting on his bed trying to figure out where he could run to. Liz had run, he was sure of it now, so why couldn't he? There had to be plenty of colleges that would accept him early, especially with the grades he had made this past year when he threw himself into his school work.
Max was so busy thinking and looking at the different applications and figuring out what would be his best bet, that he didn't hear the knock on his door. So when the door burst open and Michael barrelled in, Max was completely oblivious. It wasn't until Michael whacked Max on the shoulder that Max recognized he was there. "What the heck?!"
"I've been trying to get your attention, but you're completely out of it man. I thought we were suppose to go play basketball today." Michael said while tossing the ball from hand to hand. He had never seen Max so completely unaware of the world around him, but that didn't cause Michael any concern at the moment.
"I can't I'm busy."
"Doing what?" Max tossed Michael a college brochure that he had already decided against, and continued to scour the material in front of him, to decide which application to fill out. "You're looking at colleges? Why?"
Max briefly glared at Michael before turning back to the applications, picking one, and answering. "It's what some people do, particularly good students, of which I am apparently. Besides, I need to figure out what to do out of graduation."
"Seriously? We haven't even started our senior year! I'm just looking forward to getting out for good. What are you going to list as your interests anyway? Running from the FBI, stalking local waitresses, and learning what it means to be an alien in today's world?"
"No. Can you leave now?" Max was really getting fed up with Michael's attitude. He had to know what was going on, and even if he didn't, why couldn't he just leave Max alone?
"What's your problem?!"
"What do you think? Why didn't you tell me about Liz?"
"What about her?"
"That she's pregnant! Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"She's pregnant? Holy crap! What are you going to tell your parents? Wait when were you together?" Michael was a little confused, he thought his best friend would have told im if he had had sex. That was kind of a huge thing, and what if something was different because of their alien status? Michael had a right to know that.
"We didn't sleep together Michael."
"What?! No way Liz would sleep with someone else!" Michael had never really been Liz's biggest proponent. But he had read her journal. He knew that Liz was hopelessly in love with Max. There was no way she would sleep with someone else.
"Yes she would. And she did. She slept with Kyle"
"Wow Liz must be really open for a girl if she told you all that."
"She didn't have to tell me Michael. I saw her! Why do you think I pulled away from everyone earlier this year?"
"What? You saw her and Kyle together?"
"Yes!"
"So this happened a long time ago? And you're just now getting upset about it?" It seemed to MIchael that Max's anger was a little belated. Why hadn't he done something about it before? What made him wait so long to actually try to get out of Roswell?
"I had decided to forgive her and try to be friends. But this changes everything."
"How?" Silence ensued for a bit while Michael waited for an answer, and Max tried to figure out how Michael could be so dense as to not know why Liz's pregnancy changed everything. Finally the silence was broken by Michael's explanation. "Look here's the way I see it. You already knew that Liz had slept with someone else. So why is it suddenly different now that she's pregnant? If you really wanted to be her friend, you would still be her friend. She probably needs as many friends as she can get now." Michael waited for a few moments to let what he said sink in, and when he didn't think Max would be responding anytime soon, he tossed the ball to the other side of the room and told Max to come find him when he wanted to actually play then left.
Max ended up spending almost the entire day laying on his bed thinking about the situation and about what Michael had said. Who would have thought that Michael would actually give good advice? Max never thought Michael had it in him. Michael had always been the one to make the rash decisions that affected everyone, but this time, Michael was the voice of reason, and he happened to be a pretty decent one.
*****
Michael was floored by the news of Liz's pregnancy. So as he headed to Maria's house to see if she wanted to do anything today, he was replaying everything in his head. He had been wanting to take his and Maria's physical relationship to the next level, but it seemed that any time Michael made even the tiniest move in that direction, Maria back away and made up an excuse to be somewhere else. He uncharacteristically tried to ask her about it a couple of times, but Maria had skirted around the issue. Now maybe he understood.
Just knowing that Liz had gotten pregnant scared Michael half to death for a couple of reasons. He had always thought of Max and Liz and the smart, rational ones. So if Liz could go and get herself pregnant, then how much more likely would it be for him to accidently get Maria pregnant? They weren't the best at thinking things through, and with him being alien, they had an unknown factor to take in consideration too. What if normal birth control didn't work if he was involved. The other thing that worried him was that he had always thought that Max and Liz would eventually work things out. He had read Liz's journal the year before, and he had been jealous of Max at the time because Max had someone to care so much about it. And how could he not know how Max felt about Liz? Wasn't Michael the one Max use to drag to the diner everyday to watch Liz as she worked? If they couldn't make it when they loved each other so much, how would he make it with Maria? He couldn't loose her, she was the only one who loved him because she wanted to, not because she felt she had to.
Michael was still thinking about everything when he arrived at Maria's house and knocked on her door. Luckily for him, Maria was the one to answer the door, because Michael didn't even wait till the door was open to start asking questions. "Why didn't you tell me Liz was pregnant? Is that why you've been kind of distant lately?
Maria was surprised to see Michael at the door. He had told her that he was going to spend the day with Max. So she had been planning on having a girls day with Liz. She had just been on her way out the door when Michael showed up. "What are you doing here?"
"Nothing. I just want to know why you didn't tell me Liz was pregnant. I thought we were suppose to be honest with each other."
Maria didn't even bother to figure out why Michael was asking this question. She just responded to the question so she could get out of the house and see how Liz was. "I was honest with you. Why would it matter that I didn't tell you my best friend was pregnant? She not really your friend."
"It matters because it destroyed my best friend."
"Well Liz didn't want anyone to know besides me and Alex. So it was none of your business. Now please excuse me. I want to get over to the Crashdown so I can spend some time with my best friend." Maria gently pushed past Michael smiling to herself that she handled the confrontation pretty well. Michael on the other hand, just stared at Maria as he watched her get into her car, and wondered when it was that he started feeling like he had to tell Maria everything and vice versa. It was almost starting to freak him out.
-
ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
Chapter 27
izzyandkyle-Next up Isabel's reaction! Hope you like it.
Flamehair-I'm glad you liked Michael's thoughts. Sometimes it's difficult to get in his head. It's good to know it was successful. Hope you enjoy Isabel's reaction too.
thetvgeneral-You made my day by telling me I was the only good thing Monday have going for them. Just thought you should know that. As for Isabel's reaction. Will she get mad at Alex for not telling her? Or mad at Liz? Let's find out!
orphyfets-well to tell you the truth about Michael, I don't think we're going to see anything real specific from him again. As for Isabel's reaction. That's up now.
tigerr100-Of course there will be another soon. New chapter every Monday.
RiaRath101-Yeah I reread the Maria acting casual thing, and I think it turned out better than I had though originally. I'm glad you enjoyed it. And I thought Michael being the smart one and making Max really think about it was a nice change of pace.
Tinkerbell_Luvs_Roswell-Yeah it has to kind of suck for Kyle until Liz sets them straight. But who's to say the kid will actually look like Max?
Bon Apetite....
Chapter 27
Isabel was sitting at a table in the crashdown with Alex, waiting for Kyle and Tess and maybe Michael and Maria. They hadn't made any plans, but it was kind of just a known fact between them that they meet on Saturdays to do stuff together for the afternoon. Alex and Isabel had already ordered their lunch and were waiting for it to show up when Kyle and Tess walked in the door.
"What do you mean I can't do an Australian accent?" Tess said a little miffed as she pushed open the door to the Crashdown making the bell above the door ring.
"I'm just saying that while there may be some accents you can do, Australian really isn't one of them." Kyle said while holding one hand on the door to keep it open and holding the other hand up in surrender.
Tess slapped Kyle's arm as he let the door shut and they made their way further into the restaurant. "Well I think it was perfect. Here let me do it again." Tess opened her mouth to start up her normal routine, when Kyle nudged her and pointed out that Alex and Isabel were already sitting in a booth.
"Hey guys!" Tess said as she slid into the booth before Kyle. "What do you think you want to do today?"
Alex started bouncing his knee next to the wall nervously. This was when he would have to say that Liz was back, and then let them start planning everything they wanted to do, only to have Liz walk in in a little bit and have them all find out that she was more than a little pregnant. He really didn't understand why Liz hadn't let him and Maria tell them she was pregnant while she was at school. It would have made the whole thing much easier. But then again, he didn't really want to be the one to tell them that she was pregnant. In fact, that was the reason that he never tried to talk some sense into Liz before. He just didn't want that kind of responsibility. But he might as well start this whole thing off. "Actually, Liz just got back from boarding school. So we thought maybe we could do something with her."
Tess was a little surprised. She didn't know how she felt about hanging out with Liz. Sure she was with Kyle now, and she wouldn't want to change that any time soon, but there was still some bad blood so to speak between her and Liz. "Oh really? Um...when did she come home?" Maybe if Liz had just gotten home, she would want to unpack or something? Please?
"Oh she got home a few days ago." Alex thought this was all going a little better than he had expected. Well he didn't really know how he expected this to go, but he hadn't expected Tess to be cordial. Granted, Tess and Kyle seemed pretty happy together, but that didn't mean that Tess had to act like she cared. If anything Tess kind of had a right to not like Liz. Tess got both Max and Kyle after Liz did, so Tess was kind of like the rebound girl.
Tess felt a little deflated that she really didn't have a leg to stand on if she wanted to discretely try to not hang out with her. Oh well. She supposed that she would have to start getting to know Liz as a friend anyway. So she might as well start sooner rather than later.
Kyle started feeling a little weird. He hadn't told Tess about the whole thing he and Liz set up. What if Liz brought it up now? He hadn't expected Tess and Liz to ever really be friends, and even if he had, he hadn't thought that Tess would mean so much to him. But he couldn't afford to loose Tess now. She meant too much to him, and if someone were to actually want the truth, Kyle would confess that he thought Tess might be the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. So he really couldn't mess this up.
Isabel noticed that the rest of the people at the table were kind of acting antsy about Liz being back in town, which puzzled her. She could understand Tess and Kyle maybe, because there was the whole ex-girlfriend aspect for Kyle. But she really didn't understand Alex. Liz was his best friend, and he went to visit her at spring break and everything. What was going on with him being anxious about her arrival? Isabel for one, was secretly hoping that Liz's return would put Max in a better mood. He had been getting better since spring break, but had suddenly took a turn for the worse. Maybe if he and Liz could work things out, he would return to his normal self. He had never really been the same since last summer when Liz left Max behind.
The table sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes, each in their own thoughts, none knowing what to say. Isabel was just getting ready to say something when Kyle and Tess both gasped at the same time. "What?" Isabel tried to decipher the looks on their faces, but she was having a hard time of it. It wasn't until Tess nodded her head to indicate that Isabel should look behind her that Isabel even had an idea of what was going on. But Isabel was definitely not ready for what she saw, when suddenly before she could even turn around to look in the direction of the back room, Maria, Liz, and Liz's rounded stomach showed up next to the booth.
As soon as Alex had seen the shocked expressions on Kyle and Tess's faces, he knew what was going on. So he had already been prepared to try to smooth things over, and as soon as Liz and Maria came over to the table, he was prepared to speak. "Hey guys. We were just wondering what you would like to do. Maria, is Michael coming?"
"Well he said he was coming, but you can never tell with him you know." Maria said as she turned toward a table to slide it over to the booth. Liz started to help Maria move the table, but Kyle immediately saw and moved to gently push her out of the way.
"You shouldn't be moving heavy stuff like this in your condition Liz." Kyle couldn't help but throw Liz a questioning glance as he coerced Liz away from the table. Liz briefly met his eyes, but just almost imperceptibly shook her head before she lowered her eyes for a second, only to look back up, put a fake smile on her face, and attempt to act normal. Kyle wasn't exactly sure what the whole interchange meant, because he wasn't exactly sure what he was asking Liz, but he knew that he wasn't suppose to ask any questions for now.
"Kyle! I've been by myself for the last six months. Don't you think I may have done a few things on my own?" Liz said with a teasing tone.
"Yeah you probably did. But you probably shouldn't have, and I don't know what kind of friend I would be if I let you now."
They finally got everything settled and Liz and Maria sat down at the table. A few more second of awkward silence ensued before Tess finally asked a question about the topic on everyone's mind. "So...um...Liz. How far along are you?"
While Liz knew the questions were going to come, she wasn't exactly sure she was ready to deal with it yet. But she guessed it would be better to go ahead and get it over with. " About seven months? I'm due in August. " and there I go lying again, she thought.
"Wow" Tess said, then she was at a loss as to what to say. What were you suppose to say to a pregnant teen who was only kind of your friend? And more specifically what was she suppose to say to Liz, the girl who use to be the epitome of responsibility?
Unfortunately for liz, Isabel had no such inhibition. "Who's the father Liz?" she asked with a considerable amount of malice in her voice.
Liz was a little taken aback by Isabel. She thought Isabel would have had a little more tact. But then again this was Isabel, and if she thought something was a threat to her or her own, she would attack. Isabel was nothing if not protective. "Umm..I'm not really sure."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I just don't..."
"You just don't know Liz? How is that suppose to be okay? What were you thinking?"
"Well I wasn't exactly thinking. I was drunk, and it just happened."
"I can't believe this. I never pictured you as a slut Liz."
Isabel's last statement got to Liz more than she had thought anything would, and she couldn't deny that it stabbed her. She had expected commenst like that to be made behind her back ,but she had never expected for Isabel, a person she would have considered her friend at least a little to say that to her face. Liz felt the tears start to come, so before she could completely loose it in front of everybody she got up from the table as quickly as she could, and walked to the back room.
Everyone just stared at Isabel for a second before Maria gave her a dirty look and ran after Liz. "I can't believe you just said that to Liz!" Kyle said. He had known that Isabel could be harsh, but he didn't think Isabel would ever treat Liz the way she had tonight.
"Isabel! What was that for?" Tess didn't like Liz all that much, and she didn't know how to treat her, but she wasn't about to practically crucify Liz like that.
Alex had be quiet for a bit, trying to get his anger under control. He knew this would be a hard situation, and he had wanted to avoid it as much as he could. But he wasn't going to let anyone mistreat his best friend like that. Not even Isabel. He lowered his voice but his voice definitely held a considerable amount of anger when he spoke. "Do you have any idea what Liz has given up for you guys? Her entire life was changed when you can into her life. She was there whenever you needed her, always trying to help. She almost gave up her relationship with me to protect you, and you go around and just stab her in the back? I can't believe you would do something like that. Let me out of the booth, I can't be here right now."
Alex's words brought the guilt crashing down on Isabel. She didn't mean to react so badly, but the whole thing just got to her. When she saw that Liz was very noticeably pregnant, it all clicked. Maybe this was the reason Max had been so upset the past couple days, and she couldn't let anyone get away with hurting her brother like that. Not even Liz. But as Isabel slid out of the booth to let Alex out, she made a decision, and after Alex left the diner altogether, she excused herself from Tess and Kyle and made her way to the back room to apologize to Liz. When Isabel got there she quietly opened the swinging door, and just when she was getting ready to speak up, she heard Maria and Liz talking and decided to stay and listen instead.
"...You're right Maria. You're right. I shouldn't let what anybody says get to me. I know the truth. But Isabel is one of the people this whole thing was suppose to help! How can I just ignore what she says?"
"Well chica, I don't think Alexa was actually suppose to help Isabel. Just concentrate on what you have to do to survive okay?"
"I try but it's so hard now that I'm back in Roswell. And Max couldn't even stay to actually talk to me when he found out."
"Yeah, I wanted to talk about that with you. How are things with you and the virgin father?"
"Maria!" Isabel heard Liz let out a half-laugh followed by a sniffle. "I guess things are as to be expected. Max won't talk to me. He hasn't even showed up at the crashdown...He had no idea what he was asking."
"Which he are you talking about? Your Max? Or 2014 Max?"
At this point, Isabel's curiosity got the best of her, and before she could realize that it would be better to listen longer for information, she rounded the corner and cleared her throat. Liz and Maria look surprised at first, and then Liz started looking panicked. It was then that Isabel remembered why she had come back here in the first place, so she decided to get her apology out of the way first. "I just wanted to come back here and apologize Liz." Liz slowly nodded her head while keeping her wide-eyed expression focused on Isabel. "I didn't mean to be so mean, I just saw you as hurting Max. I know it isn't an excuse, but I truly am sorry."
Liz nodded her head again and continue to stare, but she couldn't bring herself to actually say something to find out how much Isabel heard. Maria watched the whole interchange, but refused to step in, because she was secretly glad that Isabel might have found something out, but she didn't want to betray Liz by telling Isabel what was going on, so she kept silent. This left Isabel with nothing to do but break the silence somehow. "So who's Alexa?" Liz pointed to her stomach. "And who's the virgin father?"
Liz blushed before answering, "Your brother."
"Oh...I see...How is that?" Isabel had to wait a full minute before getting her explanation, but Isabel was definitely able to bend people to her will when she really wanted it, so before too long, the entire story of Future Max came tumbling out of Liz's mouth. It was actually a bit relieving for Liz to tell one of the pod squad the tale. She felt like maybe it was actually all going to be all okay. Isabel was humbled by the story. She had not expected this to all come about because of her essentially, and when Liz explained everything she had gone through since the time Future Max disappeared, Isabel couldn't help but feel a little guilty. "I am so sorry about before Liz. I had no idea."
"Yeah I kind of knew you didn't." The three girls sat in silence for a little bit, not knowing how to proceed. Isabel had never had any really good girl friends, and while she was becoming good friends with Tess, most of the time the ended up talking about their alien heritage. She highly doubted that that type of conversation was involved in a normal friendship. So she didn't know where to go from there. Maria and Liz sat in silence, because they weren't too sure about Isabel. They knew her relatively well, but they had never really hung out just the three of them.
"So...you have powers now?" Isabel thought she might as well revert back to what she knew, especially since it did kind of work.
"Um...yeah. I've been trying to work on them, but I'm not sure what all I can do." Liz paused for a moment before she remembered that she had really wanted an alien to train with. Maybe this was her chance to get exactly what she wanted. "Would you like to train with me?"
Isabel was a little surprised by Liz's offer, but she was happy about it, so she readily accepted, and before long, the two girls had worked out exactly when they were going to practice. Isabel had mentioned training with Tess too since Tess had always known more about her powers, but Liz refused saying she didn't want anyone else to know the truth. At least not yet, but possibly not ever. So Isabel had gone along with it, and promised not to tell anyone, but that didn't mean she wouldn't try to convince Liz otherwise.
Flamehair-I'm glad you liked Michael's thoughts. Sometimes it's difficult to get in his head. It's good to know it was successful. Hope you enjoy Isabel's reaction too.
thetvgeneral-You made my day by telling me I was the only good thing Monday have going for them. Just thought you should know that. As for Isabel's reaction. Will she get mad at Alex for not telling her? Or mad at Liz? Let's find out!
orphyfets-well to tell you the truth about Michael, I don't think we're going to see anything real specific from him again. As for Isabel's reaction. That's up now.
tigerr100-Of course there will be another soon. New chapter every Monday.
RiaRath101-Yeah I reread the Maria acting casual thing, and I think it turned out better than I had though originally. I'm glad you enjoyed it. And I thought Michael being the smart one and making Max really think about it was a nice change of pace.
Tinkerbell_Luvs_Roswell-Yeah it has to kind of suck for Kyle until Liz sets them straight. But who's to say the kid will actually look like Max?
Bon Apetite....
Chapter 27
Isabel was sitting at a table in the crashdown with Alex, waiting for Kyle and Tess and maybe Michael and Maria. They hadn't made any plans, but it was kind of just a known fact between them that they meet on Saturdays to do stuff together for the afternoon. Alex and Isabel had already ordered their lunch and were waiting for it to show up when Kyle and Tess walked in the door.
"What do you mean I can't do an Australian accent?" Tess said a little miffed as she pushed open the door to the Crashdown making the bell above the door ring.
"I'm just saying that while there may be some accents you can do, Australian really isn't one of them." Kyle said while holding one hand on the door to keep it open and holding the other hand up in surrender.
Tess slapped Kyle's arm as he let the door shut and they made their way further into the restaurant. "Well I think it was perfect. Here let me do it again." Tess opened her mouth to start up her normal routine, when Kyle nudged her and pointed out that Alex and Isabel were already sitting in a booth.
"Hey guys!" Tess said as she slid into the booth before Kyle. "What do you think you want to do today?"
Alex started bouncing his knee next to the wall nervously. This was when he would have to say that Liz was back, and then let them start planning everything they wanted to do, only to have Liz walk in in a little bit and have them all find out that she was more than a little pregnant. He really didn't understand why Liz hadn't let him and Maria tell them she was pregnant while she was at school. It would have made the whole thing much easier. But then again, he didn't really want to be the one to tell them that she was pregnant. In fact, that was the reason that he never tried to talk some sense into Liz before. He just didn't want that kind of responsibility. But he might as well start this whole thing off. "Actually, Liz just got back from boarding school. So we thought maybe we could do something with her."
Tess was a little surprised. She didn't know how she felt about hanging out with Liz. Sure she was with Kyle now, and she wouldn't want to change that any time soon, but there was still some bad blood so to speak between her and Liz. "Oh really? Um...when did she come home?" Maybe if Liz had just gotten home, she would want to unpack or something? Please?
"Oh she got home a few days ago." Alex thought this was all going a little better than he had expected. Well he didn't really know how he expected this to go, but he hadn't expected Tess to be cordial. Granted, Tess and Kyle seemed pretty happy together, but that didn't mean that Tess had to act like she cared. If anything Tess kind of had a right to not like Liz. Tess got both Max and Kyle after Liz did, so Tess was kind of like the rebound girl.
Tess felt a little deflated that she really didn't have a leg to stand on if she wanted to discretely try to not hang out with her. Oh well. She supposed that she would have to start getting to know Liz as a friend anyway. So she might as well start sooner rather than later.
Kyle started feeling a little weird. He hadn't told Tess about the whole thing he and Liz set up. What if Liz brought it up now? He hadn't expected Tess and Liz to ever really be friends, and even if he had, he hadn't thought that Tess would mean so much to him. But he couldn't afford to loose Tess now. She meant too much to him, and if someone were to actually want the truth, Kyle would confess that he thought Tess might be the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. So he really couldn't mess this up.
Isabel noticed that the rest of the people at the table were kind of acting antsy about Liz being back in town, which puzzled her. She could understand Tess and Kyle maybe, because there was the whole ex-girlfriend aspect for Kyle. But she really didn't understand Alex. Liz was his best friend, and he went to visit her at spring break and everything. What was going on with him being anxious about her arrival? Isabel for one, was secretly hoping that Liz's return would put Max in a better mood. He had been getting better since spring break, but had suddenly took a turn for the worse. Maybe if he and Liz could work things out, he would return to his normal self. He had never really been the same since last summer when Liz left Max behind.
The table sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes, each in their own thoughts, none knowing what to say. Isabel was just getting ready to say something when Kyle and Tess both gasped at the same time. "What?" Isabel tried to decipher the looks on their faces, but she was having a hard time of it. It wasn't until Tess nodded her head to indicate that Isabel should look behind her that Isabel even had an idea of what was going on. But Isabel was definitely not ready for what she saw, when suddenly before she could even turn around to look in the direction of the back room, Maria, Liz, and Liz's rounded stomach showed up next to the booth.
As soon as Alex had seen the shocked expressions on Kyle and Tess's faces, he knew what was going on. So he had already been prepared to try to smooth things over, and as soon as Liz and Maria came over to the table, he was prepared to speak. "Hey guys. We were just wondering what you would like to do. Maria, is Michael coming?"
"Well he said he was coming, but you can never tell with him you know." Maria said as she turned toward a table to slide it over to the booth. Liz started to help Maria move the table, but Kyle immediately saw and moved to gently push her out of the way.
"You shouldn't be moving heavy stuff like this in your condition Liz." Kyle couldn't help but throw Liz a questioning glance as he coerced Liz away from the table. Liz briefly met his eyes, but just almost imperceptibly shook her head before she lowered her eyes for a second, only to look back up, put a fake smile on her face, and attempt to act normal. Kyle wasn't exactly sure what the whole interchange meant, because he wasn't exactly sure what he was asking Liz, but he knew that he wasn't suppose to ask any questions for now.
"Kyle! I've been by myself for the last six months. Don't you think I may have done a few things on my own?" Liz said with a teasing tone.
"Yeah you probably did. But you probably shouldn't have, and I don't know what kind of friend I would be if I let you now."
They finally got everything settled and Liz and Maria sat down at the table. A few more second of awkward silence ensued before Tess finally asked a question about the topic on everyone's mind. "So...um...Liz. How far along are you?"
While Liz knew the questions were going to come, she wasn't exactly sure she was ready to deal with it yet. But she guessed it would be better to go ahead and get it over with. " About seven months? I'm due in August. " and there I go lying again, she thought.
"Wow" Tess said, then she was at a loss as to what to say. What were you suppose to say to a pregnant teen who was only kind of your friend? And more specifically what was she suppose to say to Liz, the girl who use to be the epitome of responsibility?
Unfortunately for liz, Isabel had no such inhibition. "Who's the father Liz?" she asked with a considerable amount of malice in her voice.
Liz was a little taken aback by Isabel. She thought Isabel would have had a little more tact. But then again this was Isabel, and if she thought something was a threat to her or her own, she would attack. Isabel was nothing if not protective. "Umm..I'm not really sure."
"What do you mean you don't know?"
"I just don't..."
"You just don't know Liz? How is that suppose to be okay? What were you thinking?"
"Well I wasn't exactly thinking. I was drunk, and it just happened."
"I can't believe this. I never pictured you as a slut Liz."
Isabel's last statement got to Liz more than she had thought anything would, and she couldn't deny that it stabbed her. She had expected commenst like that to be made behind her back ,but she had never expected for Isabel, a person she would have considered her friend at least a little to say that to her face. Liz felt the tears start to come, so before she could completely loose it in front of everybody she got up from the table as quickly as she could, and walked to the back room.
Everyone just stared at Isabel for a second before Maria gave her a dirty look and ran after Liz. "I can't believe you just said that to Liz!" Kyle said. He had known that Isabel could be harsh, but he didn't think Isabel would ever treat Liz the way she had tonight.
"Isabel! What was that for?" Tess didn't like Liz all that much, and she didn't know how to treat her, but she wasn't about to practically crucify Liz like that.
Alex had be quiet for a bit, trying to get his anger under control. He knew this would be a hard situation, and he had wanted to avoid it as much as he could. But he wasn't going to let anyone mistreat his best friend like that. Not even Isabel. He lowered his voice but his voice definitely held a considerable amount of anger when he spoke. "Do you have any idea what Liz has given up for you guys? Her entire life was changed when you can into her life. She was there whenever you needed her, always trying to help. She almost gave up her relationship with me to protect you, and you go around and just stab her in the back? I can't believe you would do something like that. Let me out of the booth, I can't be here right now."
Alex's words brought the guilt crashing down on Isabel. She didn't mean to react so badly, but the whole thing just got to her. When she saw that Liz was very noticeably pregnant, it all clicked. Maybe this was the reason Max had been so upset the past couple days, and she couldn't let anyone get away with hurting her brother like that. Not even Liz. But as Isabel slid out of the booth to let Alex out, she made a decision, and after Alex left the diner altogether, she excused herself from Tess and Kyle and made her way to the back room to apologize to Liz. When Isabel got there she quietly opened the swinging door, and just when she was getting ready to speak up, she heard Maria and Liz talking and decided to stay and listen instead.
"...You're right Maria. You're right. I shouldn't let what anybody says get to me. I know the truth. But Isabel is one of the people this whole thing was suppose to help! How can I just ignore what she says?"
"Well chica, I don't think Alexa was actually suppose to help Isabel. Just concentrate on what you have to do to survive okay?"
"I try but it's so hard now that I'm back in Roswell. And Max couldn't even stay to actually talk to me when he found out."
"Yeah, I wanted to talk about that with you. How are things with you and the virgin father?"
"Maria!" Isabel heard Liz let out a half-laugh followed by a sniffle. "I guess things are as to be expected. Max won't talk to me. He hasn't even showed up at the crashdown...He had no idea what he was asking."
"Which he are you talking about? Your Max? Or 2014 Max?"
At this point, Isabel's curiosity got the best of her, and before she could realize that it would be better to listen longer for information, she rounded the corner and cleared her throat. Liz and Maria look surprised at first, and then Liz started looking panicked. It was then that Isabel remembered why she had come back here in the first place, so she decided to get her apology out of the way first. "I just wanted to come back here and apologize Liz." Liz slowly nodded her head while keeping her wide-eyed expression focused on Isabel. "I didn't mean to be so mean, I just saw you as hurting Max. I know it isn't an excuse, but I truly am sorry."
Liz nodded her head again and continue to stare, but she couldn't bring herself to actually say something to find out how much Isabel heard. Maria watched the whole interchange, but refused to step in, because she was secretly glad that Isabel might have found something out, but she didn't want to betray Liz by telling Isabel what was going on, so she kept silent. This left Isabel with nothing to do but break the silence somehow. "So who's Alexa?" Liz pointed to her stomach. "And who's the virgin father?"
Liz blushed before answering, "Your brother."
"Oh...I see...How is that?" Isabel had to wait a full minute before getting her explanation, but Isabel was definitely able to bend people to her will when she really wanted it, so before too long, the entire story of Future Max came tumbling out of Liz's mouth. It was actually a bit relieving for Liz to tell one of the pod squad the tale. She felt like maybe it was actually all going to be all okay. Isabel was humbled by the story. She had not expected this to all come about because of her essentially, and when Liz explained everything she had gone through since the time Future Max disappeared, Isabel couldn't help but feel a little guilty. "I am so sorry about before Liz. I had no idea."
"Yeah I kind of knew you didn't." The three girls sat in silence for a little bit, not knowing how to proceed. Isabel had never had any really good girl friends, and while she was becoming good friends with Tess, most of the time the ended up talking about their alien heritage. She highly doubted that that type of conversation was involved in a normal friendship. So she didn't know where to go from there. Maria and Liz sat in silence, because they weren't too sure about Isabel. They knew her relatively well, but they had never really hung out just the three of them.
"So...you have powers now?" Isabel thought she might as well revert back to what she knew, especially since it did kind of work.
"Um...yeah. I've been trying to work on them, but I'm not sure what all I can do." Liz paused for a moment before she remembered that she had really wanted an alien to train with. Maybe this was her chance to get exactly what she wanted. "Would you like to train with me?"
Isabel was a little surprised by Liz's offer, but she was happy about it, so she readily accepted, and before long, the two girls had worked out exactly when they were going to practice. Isabel had mentioned training with Tess too since Tess had always known more about her powers, but Liz refused saying she didn't want anyone else to know the truth. At least not yet, but possibly not ever. So Isabel had gone along with it, and promised not to tell anyone, but that didn't mean she wouldn't try to convince Liz otherwise.
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ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
Chapter 28
Flamehair-Yep I got to say that my beta and I got in a fight about Isabel's venomous reaction at first. I wanted it to be the way I ended up posting it, and my beta said it was too mean and came out of nowhere. In the end, I kept it the way it was because I felt that it needed to happen in order for stuff to happen later in the chapter. So I'm glad that you still think that Isabel's reaction made sense. It seemed to go over better with my readers than it did with my beta.
Sternbetrachter-Yeah I can't really stand people eves-dropping like Isabel did either. But it was needed, and things are better for it in this case. As to Isabel's "direct" reaction, read my response to Flamehair.
DreamWeaver-yes apparently lot's of people are happy that at least some one from the pod squad knows the truth. We'll have to see later how that goes.
PolarVixen-yep, wait till chapter 29: power practice.
thetvgeneral-I hope you didn't turn blue while holding your breath. that could have been a dangerous thing to do.
83 AlienAngel-I don't think you've left a comment before. thanks for the encouragement.
Kitten-yes I imagine all of us are a little relieved to have someone help Liz with her powers. As for Isabel's harsh reaction, please reference my comments to Flamehair. There's a story to it. kind of.
RiaRath101- yes, shocked is indeed the general consensous. Want to know more? Read my comment to Flamehair.
Tiger100-glad you enjoyed it. Updates will continue to come on every Monday for either the foreseeable future or until the fic is complete.
katydid-glad to see you like Isabel and approve of her actions.
orphyfets-you thought it was going to be worse than that? I would really pity Liz then. But I suppose you didn't foresee Isabel being so nasty to Liz only to find out the truth, and then been on her side huh? yeah even my beta didn't see that one coming.
PML-Thank you so much. It means a lot that you think both Isabel being harsh, and her wanting to help were very her. Thanks for the comment, especially since I see that you haven't made many comments on the board in general.
Emz80m-Yes, the quesiont is who's more stubborn? Isabel or Liz? Or who has more to lose by giving in?
izzyandkyle-Thankyou for agreeing with the way I portrayed Isabel. As for the way Alex stood up to Isabel, I also really liked that. Did you notice the similar thought patterns between Alex wanting to protect Liz, and Isabel wanting to protect Max?
sonii-thanks for the pat on the back, and welcome aboard.
behrstars-thanks for your comment.
thetvgeneral-getting so anxious for an update that you feel the need to comment three times eh? Well, I fell loved!
Okay this chapter is one of the last of what I call the lull chapters. Enjoy! and don't get popcorn butter on the keyboard.
Chapter 28
Three weeks had passed since Liz had arrived back in Roswell, and the due date was drawing ever nearer. Things had settled into a type of routine, and Liz was happier than she thought she would be while she was in her home town but unable to tell anyone the truth. It was much easier to tell strangers or friends she knew she would never see again a lie than it was to tell her best friends one. The hardest part for Liz was seeing the disappointed looks on her parents faces everyday. They tried really hard to cover the looks up, but Liz could tell they were there, and she couldn't even blame them. She already knew that if she had to go through this with Alexa, she would be very disappointed. Liz couldn't be too sad though because one thing had gone much better for her than she had expected.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Liz was once again sitting at a table in the Crashdown. She didn't know why she continued to torture herself showing up in the diner portion of the Crashdown. It seemed every time she did, someone had some horrible reaction to finding out she was pregnant. Sure it had turned out alright with Isabel. In fact, it may have all worked out for the better that Isabel knew, because now Liz had an actual czechoslovakian to train with. But that didn't mean that Liz was ready to go shouting from the rooftops that she was pregnant. Of course by showing up to the busiest diner in town, she might as well be yelling it out for all to hear.
Liz was so busy dreading her next encounter with someone, that she didn't even realize that someone had been calling out her name for the past couple of minutes. She started to blush as she looked up to see Max standing by her table.
"Can I sit down?" Max had been thinking about this for the last couple of days, debating about whether he should try to be friends with Liz or just cut his losses and get as far away as possible from her. In the end, the deciding factor was a conversation he had had with Isabel. She was very cryptic and he really didn't get half of the stuff she said, but the underlying theme was that maybe he should give Liz a chance because more was going on than he could guess. That conversation doubled with Michael's stop-feeling-sorry-for-yourself-and-go-after-what-you-want speech, really got to Max. They had been so against letting anyone in the group from the beginning, that he thought maybe they would go that direction again. But apparently they wouldn't, and with even them encouraging him to pursue some type of relationship with Liz, Max really couldn't pretend to not notice anymore. So he had come to a decision.
Liz was a little shocked that Max would want to sit with her, so she could do nothing but nod, but she had to admit that she could feel a little flame of hope rising up in her too. "Wh-What's up with you?"
Max nodded to Liz's attempt at normalcy and decided to go ahead and continue the small talk for a bit before he actually got into the reason he came. "Not much. I'm getting more hours at the UFO center since it's officially a big vacation time. You?"
"Not much to report. Just getting ready for the baby." Liz regretted mentioning the baby almost before it was even out, and considered spinning back time by a couple of seconds to redo it, but when Max didn't seem to have any negative reaction, she decided to go with it. She kind of had a policy against manipulating time too much anyway. It just didn't seem fair.
"Yeah. Do you have a lot to do for that?"
"A fair amount. I haven't really bought anything, so I have to go buy all these clothes and toys and bottles and diapers and pretty much everything else."
"Yeah" Max pause for a couple of seconds before ploughing into what he came to say. "Listen I just came to say that I'm not mad at you. I really have not right to be. We weren't together when you slept with Kyle so..."
"The baby isn't Kyle's." Liz abruptly cut Max off before he even got out his explanation.
"Oh." Max didn't even know how to respond to that. He considered asking, but he really didn't want to pry, and he wasn't even sure he wanted to know, because now Liz had obviously slept with more than one person. But he sort of got his answers anyway when Liz briefly explained that she knew she got pregnant at school, but wasn't sure who the father was. Max couldn't deny that he was hurt by the fact that Liz had apparently slept with so many guys she didn't even know who the father was, but he pushed it deep down inside reminding himself that it didn't matter anyhow. "Well, I just wanted to say that I'll be there for you. I'll help out if you ever need a friend. You know, just call.
Liz was speechless when Max said that to her, so all she could get out was "Thank you Max." before he stood up, patted her on the back, and left the restaurant.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Liz was currently getting ready to go shopping with Maria, Isabel, and Tess. Apparently, Max had really meant it when he said that he would be there for her whenever she needed, because he had shown up a couple of days ago with a list of things that she would need to buy for her baby. She had broken down with Isabel one day about not being ready for the baby to come, and Isabel must have gone home and told Max, because the following day Max had shown up with The List. Liz already had most of what was on the list, but there were still some things she needed to get. So she decided to go shopping with Maria and Isabel, and, in an effort to not leave anyone out, Liz invited Tess along too. So the four girls were going to the mall today to get all kinds of things for the baby. Liz was just wrapping slipping on her shoes and grabbing her purse when she heard a knocking on the door. She waddled as quickly as she could to the door and opened it to find Tess on the other side.
"Oh. Hi Tess. Come in." Liz stepped away from the door and motioned for Tess to come in and sit on the couch. "No one's here yet. Can I get you something to drink?"
Tess felt a little anxious at being the first person to show up. She had expected Isabel at least to already be there, with Isabel being obsessed with punctuality and all. But obviously, you didn't always get what you wanted. "Oh no Liz. I don't need anything." Tess waited for a couple of seconds of awkward silence and quickly decided that in order to break it, she would go ahead and do something she had been debating about for a while now. "So...um Liz I kind of wanted to talk to you about something."
Liz was a little surprised that Tess actually wanted to talk to her about something, and she hoped that it wouldn't be too painful. She supposed she wasn't really giving Tess a chance if she just assumed it would be painful, but she couldn't help the way she felt. Sure Liz had invited Tess to come along today, but it had kind of been a pity invite. She hadn't actually expected to have to interact with Tess individually on any level. She had thought that Maria and Isabel would act as a great buffer, but obviously they weren't here now. "Oh…really?"
Tess nodded and looked down at the ground briefly while she shifted from foot to foot. "Yeah. I already apologized to Max for running you out of town, and I know that that may not actually be the reason you left, but I just wanted to apologize to you too. You know, I'm sorry that I tried to go after Max so much."
"Oh no. You know, it was something you had been told all your life was suppose to be real. Besides you guys make up a complete unit. I get it."
"No I don't think you do. Yeah we make up a complete unit, but Max and I don't have to be together to do that, and I think I might have ruined something special between you and Max."
"Oh. Well…thanks…Tess."
Tess nodded and then just started to look around the apartment, with Liz watching her. What had started out as a pretty awkward beginning, ended in a semi-comfortable silence, which was more that Liz had ever thought possible with Tess. Luckily for both of them, both Isabel and Maria showed up shortly after, and they all headed to the mall.
"Okay how can you say no to this Liz?" Maria said while holding up a small, stuffed duck. "It's like the cutest thing ever!"
"Maria you've said that about every baby toy there is! I'm suppose to be getting things I need, not things I think the baby might want to play with! Besides, I doubt that a baby will even be able to play with as many toys as you want to get today!"
"Fine! Don't buy it!" This of course somehow meant that Tess was suppose to sneak the toy behind her back and let Isabel or Maria buy it while Liz wasn't looking. Tess didn't really know how she got stuck with the job, though she suspected it might have something to do with her mind-warping ability. The curious thing was that anytime Tess tried to use it, Liz seemed to give her a weird look, which Tess couldn't help but worry was an indication that Liz knew that she was being mind-warped. It puzzled Tess a bit, but more than anything it worried her. What if she was losing some of her skill due to lack of use? She should probably remedy that pretty soon.
Liz had a sneaking suspicion that her refusal to buy stuff didn't help her in the least. The shopping bags seemed to multiply in every store regardless of whether she bought something or not. "Okay, let's go to the next store," she said while slightly shaking her head.
"Yeah okay chica. But I have to go to the restroom. Why don't you guys go on ahead?" Maria smiled at Liz and elbowed Tess when she didn't say anything right away.
"Hmph...right. Yeah, I kind of have to go too. So I'll stay with Maria" Tess smiled but as soon as Liz and Isabel left the store she slapped Maria and rubbed her own ribs. "Gee Maria, could you be anymore obvious?"
Maria waved Tess's complaints off. "Don't worry about it. Liz already knows something's up; she just doesn't know what. Besides she won't have to wait long. She'll love it." Maria then smiled a little deviously and took the stuffed duck from Tess. "So what do you think about making this one from Kyle?"
Tess thought for a moment then shook her head and smiled back. "No, I think this one should be from Michael."
"Perfect!" Maria took the money out of her pocket and brought the toy to the register to pay.
Meanwhile Isabel was dragging Liz through the baby clothes. "Come on Liz! You have to let me buy something perfect for my little niece."
"But Isabel, you've already gotten her five sleepers, three stuffed animals, two blankets, four books, and might I add the most expensive one, a baby carrier! You don't need to spend your money on anything else."
"So I've bought a lot. This is my niece we're talking about. I should be allowed to spoil her rotten, even if no one else knows she's my niece." Isabel said the last part very pointedly, and Liz couldn't help but sigh as she realized they were about to go into that conversation all over again.
"I already told you Isabel. I can't tell Max. It's not his responsibility."
"But whether you believe it or not, Alexa is his. He has a right to know about his daughter."
"I don't want to thrust teenage fatherhood on him. H e has a right to a normal life."
"You know that Max would never really have a normal life anyway. And he wouldn't want one without you in his life."
"That doesn't matter. I can handle this myself, so I'm not going to bother him."
"What about that feeling you've been having? I know it weighs you down, because it does me, especially after I found out about all of this."
"What feeling?"
"The feeling that you have to prepare for something big. You're not the only one having it. Tess and I have too."
Liz had not expected that. She had started to think that the feeling was normal and she was just getting anxious about becoming a mother. "You and Tess both?" Isabel nodded. "Okay. Maybe we should start training together before Alexa comes." Liz sighed; here was one more thing she would have to worry about for sure now. Suddenly, Liz realized that they were still standing in the middle of the baby clothes.
"So you wanted to buy one more thing?"
Isabel smiled and picked up the outfit she had been looking at. "Yes! I was thinking something like this."
Liz took one look at the jean jumper outfit with an alien's head on it and started protesting. But Isabel insisted that the next generation of czechoslovakians had to know their heritage from birth. In the end Liz just gave in, deciding that she would choose her battles more wisely than this, because she doubted she could win against Isabel for too long.
Sternbetrachter-Yeah I can't really stand people eves-dropping like Isabel did either. But it was needed, and things are better for it in this case. As to Isabel's "direct" reaction, read my response to Flamehair.
DreamWeaver-yes apparently lot's of people are happy that at least some one from the pod squad knows the truth. We'll have to see later how that goes.
PolarVixen-yep, wait till chapter 29: power practice.
thetvgeneral-I hope you didn't turn blue while holding your breath. that could have been a dangerous thing to do.
83 AlienAngel-I don't think you've left a comment before. thanks for the encouragement.
Kitten-yes I imagine all of us are a little relieved to have someone help Liz with her powers. As for Isabel's harsh reaction, please reference my comments to Flamehair. There's a story to it. kind of.
RiaRath101- yes, shocked is indeed the general consensous. Want to know more? Read my comment to Flamehair.
Tiger100-glad you enjoyed it. Updates will continue to come on every Monday for either the foreseeable future or until the fic is complete.
katydid-glad to see you like Isabel and approve of her actions.
orphyfets-you thought it was going to be worse than that? I would really pity Liz then. But I suppose you didn't foresee Isabel being so nasty to Liz only to find out the truth, and then been on her side huh? yeah even my beta didn't see that one coming.
PML-Thank you so much. It means a lot that you think both Isabel being harsh, and her wanting to help were very her. Thanks for the comment, especially since I see that you haven't made many comments on the board in general.
Emz80m-Yes, the quesiont is who's more stubborn? Isabel or Liz? Or who has more to lose by giving in?
izzyandkyle-Thankyou for agreeing with the way I portrayed Isabel. As for the way Alex stood up to Isabel, I also really liked that. Did you notice the similar thought patterns between Alex wanting to protect Liz, and Isabel wanting to protect Max?
sonii-thanks for the pat on the back, and welcome aboard.
behrstars-thanks for your comment.
thetvgeneral-getting so anxious for an update that you feel the need to comment three times eh? Well, I fell loved!
Okay this chapter is one of the last of what I call the lull chapters. Enjoy! and don't get popcorn butter on the keyboard.
Chapter 28
Three weeks had passed since Liz had arrived back in Roswell, and the due date was drawing ever nearer. Things had settled into a type of routine, and Liz was happier than she thought she would be while she was in her home town but unable to tell anyone the truth. It was much easier to tell strangers or friends she knew she would never see again a lie than it was to tell her best friends one. The hardest part for Liz was seeing the disappointed looks on her parents faces everyday. They tried really hard to cover the looks up, but Liz could tell they were there, and she couldn't even blame them. She already knew that if she had to go through this with Alexa, she would be very disappointed. Liz couldn't be too sad though because one thing had gone much better for her than she had expected.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Liz was once again sitting at a table in the Crashdown. She didn't know why she continued to torture herself showing up in the diner portion of the Crashdown. It seemed every time she did, someone had some horrible reaction to finding out she was pregnant. Sure it had turned out alright with Isabel. In fact, it may have all worked out for the better that Isabel knew, because now Liz had an actual czechoslovakian to train with. But that didn't mean that Liz was ready to go shouting from the rooftops that she was pregnant. Of course by showing up to the busiest diner in town, she might as well be yelling it out for all to hear.
Liz was so busy dreading her next encounter with someone, that she didn't even realize that someone had been calling out her name for the past couple of minutes. She started to blush as she looked up to see Max standing by her table.
"Can I sit down?" Max had been thinking about this for the last couple of days, debating about whether he should try to be friends with Liz or just cut his losses and get as far away as possible from her. In the end, the deciding factor was a conversation he had had with Isabel. She was very cryptic and he really didn't get half of the stuff she said, but the underlying theme was that maybe he should give Liz a chance because more was going on than he could guess. That conversation doubled with Michael's stop-feeling-sorry-for-yourself-and-go-after-what-you-want speech, really got to Max. They had been so against letting anyone in the group from the beginning, that he thought maybe they would go that direction again. But apparently they wouldn't, and with even them encouraging him to pursue some type of relationship with Liz, Max really couldn't pretend to not notice anymore. So he had come to a decision.
Liz was a little shocked that Max would want to sit with her, so she could do nothing but nod, but she had to admit that she could feel a little flame of hope rising up in her too. "Wh-What's up with you?"
Max nodded to Liz's attempt at normalcy and decided to go ahead and continue the small talk for a bit before he actually got into the reason he came. "Not much. I'm getting more hours at the UFO center since it's officially a big vacation time. You?"
"Not much to report. Just getting ready for the baby." Liz regretted mentioning the baby almost before it was even out, and considered spinning back time by a couple of seconds to redo it, but when Max didn't seem to have any negative reaction, she decided to go with it. She kind of had a policy against manipulating time too much anyway. It just didn't seem fair.
"Yeah. Do you have a lot to do for that?"
"A fair amount. I haven't really bought anything, so I have to go buy all these clothes and toys and bottles and diapers and pretty much everything else."
"Yeah" Max pause for a couple of seconds before ploughing into what he came to say. "Listen I just came to say that I'm not mad at you. I really have not right to be. We weren't together when you slept with Kyle so..."
"The baby isn't Kyle's." Liz abruptly cut Max off before he even got out his explanation.
"Oh." Max didn't even know how to respond to that. He considered asking, but he really didn't want to pry, and he wasn't even sure he wanted to know, because now Liz had obviously slept with more than one person. But he sort of got his answers anyway when Liz briefly explained that she knew she got pregnant at school, but wasn't sure who the father was. Max couldn't deny that he was hurt by the fact that Liz had apparently slept with so many guys she didn't even know who the father was, but he pushed it deep down inside reminding himself that it didn't matter anyhow. "Well, I just wanted to say that I'll be there for you. I'll help out if you ever need a friend. You know, just call.
Liz was speechless when Max said that to her, so all she could get out was "Thank you Max." before he stood up, patted her on the back, and left the restaurant.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Liz was currently getting ready to go shopping with Maria, Isabel, and Tess. Apparently, Max had really meant it when he said that he would be there for her whenever she needed, because he had shown up a couple of days ago with a list of things that she would need to buy for her baby. She had broken down with Isabel one day about not being ready for the baby to come, and Isabel must have gone home and told Max, because the following day Max had shown up with The List. Liz already had most of what was on the list, but there were still some things she needed to get. So she decided to go shopping with Maria and Isabel, and, in an effort to not leave anyone out, Liz invited Tess along too. So the four girls were going to the mall today to get all kinds of things for the baby. Liz was just wrapping slipping on her shoes and grabbing her purse when she heard a knocking on the door. She waddled as quickly as she could to the door and opened it to find Tess on the other side.
"Oh. Hi Tess. Come in." Liz stepped away from the door and motioned for Tess to come in and sit on the couch. "No one's here yet. Can I get you something to drink?"
Tess felt a little anxious at being the first person to show up. She had expected Isabel at least to already be there, with Isabel being obsessed with punctuality and all. But obviously, you didn't always get what you wanted. "Oh no Liz. I don't need anything." Tess waited for a couple of seconds of awkward silence and quickly decided that in order to break it, she would go ahead and do something she had been debating about for a while now. "So...um Liz I kind of wanted to talk to you about something."
Liz was a little surprised that Tess actually wanted to talk to her about something, and she hoped that it wouldn't be too painful. She supposed she wasn't really giving Tess a chance if she just assumed it would be painful, but she couldn't help the way she felt. Sure Liz had invited Tess to come along today, but it had kind of been a pity invite. She hadn't actually expected to have to interact with Tess individually on any level. She had thought that Maria and Isabel would act as a great buffer, but obviously they weren't here now. "Oh…really?"
Tess nodded and looked down at the ground briefly while she shifted from foot to foot. "Yeah. I already apologized to Max for running you out of town, and I know that that may not actually be the reason you left, but I just wanted to apologize to you too. You know, I'm sorry that I tried to go after Max so much."
"Oh no. You know, it was something you had been told all your life was suppose to be real. Besides you guys make up a complete unit. I get it."
"No I don't think you do. Yeah we make up a complete unit, but Max and I don't have to be together to do that, and I think I might have ruined something special between you and Max."
"Oh. Well…thanks…Tess."
Tess nodded and then just started to look around the apartment, with Liz watching her. What had started out as a pretty awkward beginning, ended in a semi-comfortable silence, which was more that Liz had ever thought possible with Tess. Luckily for both of them, both Isabel and Maria showed up shortly after, and they all headed to the mall.
"Okay how can you say no to this Liz?" Maria said while holding up a small, stuffed duck. "It's like the cutest thing ever!"
"Maria you've said that about every baby toy there is! I'm suppose to be getting things I need, not things I think the baby might want to play with! Besides, I doubt that a baby will even be able to play with as many toys as you want to get today!"
"Fine! Don't buy it!" This of course somehow meant that Tess was suppose to sneak the toy behind her back and let Isabel or Maria buy it while Liz wasn't looking. Tess didn't really know how she got stuck with the job, though she suspected it might have something to do with her mind-warping ability. The curious thing was that anytime Tess tried to use it, Liz seemed to give her a weird look, which Tess couldn't help but worry was an indication that Liz knew that she was being mind-warped. It puzzled Tess a bit, but more than anything it worried her. What if she was losing some of her skill due to lack of use? She should probably remedy that pretty soon.
Liz had a sneaking suspicion that her refusal to buy stuff didn't help her in the least. The shopping bags seemed to multiply in every store regardless of whether she bought something or not. "Okay, let's go to the next store," she said while slightly shaking her head.
"Yeah okay chica. But I have to go to the restroom. Why don't you guys go on ahead?" Maria smiled at Liz and elbowed Tess when she didn't say anything right away.
"Hmph...right. Yeah, I kind of have to go too. So I'll stay with Maria" Tess smiled but as soon as Liz and Isabel left the store she slapped Maria and rubbed her own ribs. "Gee Maria, could you be anymore obvious?"
Maria waved Tess's complaints off. "Don't worry about it. Liz already knows something's up; she just doesn't know what. Besides she won't have to wait long. She'll love it." Maria then smiled a little deviously and took the stuffed duck from Tess. "So what do you think about making this one from Kyle?"
Tess thought for a moment then shook her head and smiled back. "No, I think this one should be from Michael."
"Perfect!" Maria took the money out of her pocket and brought the toy to the register to pay.
Meanwhile Isabel was dragging Liz through the baby clothes. "Come on Liz! You have to let me buy something perfect for my little niece."
"But Isabel, you've already gotten her five sleepers, three stuffed animals, two blankets, four books, and might I add the most expensive one, a baby carrier! You don't need to spend your money on anything else."
"So I've bought a lot. This is my niece we're talking about. I should be allowed to spoil her rotten, even if no one else knows she's my niece." Isabel said the last part very pointedly, and Liz couldn't help but sigh as she realized they were about to go into that conversation all over again.
"I already told you Isabel. I can't tell Max. It's not his responsibility."
"But whether you believe it or not, Alexa is his. He has a right to know about his daughter."
"I don't want to thrust teenage fatherhood on him. H e has a right to a normal life."
"You know that Max would never really have a normal life anyway. And he wouldn't want one without you in his life."
"That doesn't matter. I can handle this myself, so I'm not going to bother him."
"What about that feeling you've been having? I know it weighs you down, because it does me, especially after I found out about all of this."
"What feeling?"
"The feeling that you have to prepare for something big. You're not the only one having it. Tess and I have too."
Liz had not expected that. She had started to think that the feeling was normal and she was just getting anxious about becoming a mother. "You and Tess both?" Isabel nodded. "Okay. Maybe we should start training together before Alexa comes." Liz sighed; here was one more thing she would have to worry about for sure now. Suddenly, Liz realized that they were still standing in the middle of the baby clothes.
"So you wanted to buy one more thing?"
Isabel smiled and picked up the outfit she had been looking at. "Yes! I was thinking something like this."
Liz took one look at the jean jumper outfit with an alien's head on it and started protesting. But Isabel insisted that the next generation of czechoslovakians had to know their heritage from birth. In the end Liz just gave in, deciding that she would choose her battles more wisely than this, because she doubted she could win against Isabel for too long.
-
ultimatepickupline
- Enthusiastic Roswellian
- Posts: 62
- Joined: Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:29 am
- Location: USA
Chapter 29
Well I hope that this part goes over as well as the last part did. I must confess that this is the first part ever never to be read by my beta. At least not to the best of my knowledge. But it's not my fault! I sent it to her two weeks ago! Oh well, I suppose I might be having a talk with my sister, when I get back in the country.
katydid-Thanks. I like Tess in this too. I kind of see her as a good alien with poor circumstances.
Dream Weaver- well you know something bad is coming with Khivar. The question is, how bad will it be?
Flamehair-Yeah the whole Max and Liz thing right now is a little weird but sweet.
izzyandkyle-Yeah for Isabel to know that she has a niece is a really big deal for her. If you like the Liz/Tess friendship, you might be happy to know that I'm playing with an idea that will explore that a little more. I dont know when I'll start writing it though.
tigerr100-as do we all
Kitten-Of course we all know that Max wouldn't back away from responsibilty. I think Liz know that too. But she doesn't want him to have to deal with her bad decision.
RiaRath101-glad you thought the shopping part was cute, and that the Max/Liz interaction was sweet.
thetvgeneral-okay I'll just tell you now, that I don't think Alexa will resemble Max. At least not for the very beginning, and that's the part that's important. But stay tuned, you know Max will have to find out sooner or later.
orphyfets-yeah Maria can be really pushy when she wants to be.
GLCW2-rest assurred that Max will find out the truth. I'm just not telling you how or when yet.
sunshine6258-i'm glad so many people like Isabel and Tess, and thanks for the compliment on the characters flowing well overall. That's something I worry about sometimes.
vampyrax-thanks
BETHANN-thank you for your understanding with Liz. It will get better, I promise. Just not yet.
Roswelllostcause-No prob.
Now sit back, but with both seatbealts, and get ready for the ride of your life! Okay you may have to wait a few more weeks for that one. But enjoy anyway!
Chapter 29
Thehlec looked at the monitor and smiled. He hadn't really though about what earth would look like, but it was amazing. He had never seen a planet with such distinctly different sections, and the distinct land masses and water looked pretty amazing. Of course maybe if he had paid more attention in astronomy class, he would have seen more similar planets. But he had never thought he would actually get off the planet. Khivar had long ago outlawed civilians from leaving the planet, and he usually only sent a few people out every ten years or so. Thehlec would have never guessed that he would actually go with Khivar at some point. Of course, there were times when Thehlec almost wished he weren't on this trip at all, at least not with Khivar, but that wasn't the point.
As Thehlec watched earth come closer, he decided he should probably go spy on Khivar one last time, while it was actually easy to do. So he got out of his seat and started in the direction of the storage room closet. He approached the door, as stealthily as he could, which really wasn’t that hard for him. With all the time he had spent hiding his actions from others the past six months, Thehlec had gotten pretty good at the whole thing; by now it was almost second-nature. He rarely ever made the conscious decision to do it anymore. Sometimes he would find himself looking over his shoulder when he didn’t even need to.
Thehlec noted that no one was around, so he quickly opened the storage room door and went in. As soon as he settled himself to listen, Thehlec heard Khivar dismiss Nicolas, which was a bit of a disappointment for Thehlec. He knew that any chance he had of finding out more was greatly decreased with Nicolas’s dismissal. But he stayed anyway knowing that occasionally Khivar talked to himself, and it was during those incidents that Thehlec could learn the most. Unfortunately for Thehlec, this was not one of those times, so after waiting for about an hour, Thehlec returned to his room where he watched another monitor showing their descent to earth and anticipated finally meeting the royal four.
*****
“Sir, the scientists say we will land on earth today.”
Khivar slowly turned his head toward Nicolas and waited for him to go on. He saw Nicholas started to fidget and decided he that Nicolas was apparently too much of an imbecile to know what was expected of him. But Khivar was feeling somewhat gracious today so he was going to try to prompt a response. “Is that all?” when Khivar saw Nicolas nod, he continued. “Why must you interrupt me to tell me things I already know? What I want to know is how many skins are going to be there to welcome us and how much information they’ve gotten on King Zan and his bride.”
“Well…um…I’m not sure about that.’ Realizing his answer would not be enough for Khivar, Nicolas started to tremble. But what else could he do?
“You have greatly disappointed me Nicolas. Make no mistake. Disappoint me again, and it will cost you your life.”
Nicolas gulped. There had been a time when he had truly thought Khivar would be the best ruler for Antar and maybe even the Galaxy, but Khivar had changed. And all Nicolas knew for sure now was that his own life was in more danger now than ever. Nicolas sweated while he waited for Khivar to tell him what to do, hoping that task wouldn’t be too hard.
“I want you to personally contact the skins and make sure they will have a good welcoming Party for us. Then inform them that they will have 48 hours to get their entire population to where we are. I don’t want to waste any time getting to the Queen while she is vulnerable with the heir. So the skins better have the exact location of Ava.”
Nicolas was still trembling, completely frozen to his spot. Would he really be the one held responsible if the skins weren’t as organized as Khivar wanted them to be? Because Nicolas knew that lately nothing could please Khivar, and that meant that these skins who knew next to nothing about him, would undoubtedly raise Khivar’s anger, which meant Nicolas was in some seriously hot water. It wasn’t until Nicolas heard Khivar’s sharp “Dismissed” that Nicholas was able to make himself move out of his spot again.
*****
Soirafen kept his eyes focused on the communication devices when he felt the ship land on solid ground. He knew that everyone would be getting off to explore the new planet a little bit, for one reason or another, and Soirafen wanted to too. But he couldn’t. He had been packing up a few things to leave the ship when Nicolas had come in half an hour ago and basically threatened his life trying to get him to contact the skins right away. Soirafen had immediately started to try contacting while Nicolas looked over his shoulder. But the more he worked on the communication devices the more he suspected that the system had been tampered with. He couldn’t prove it yet, but he was reasonably sure that the skins had never actually received at least the last couple of messages. As Soirafen’s fear mounted that someone had purposely corrupted his department’s responsibilities, so did his resolve to make the culprit pay dearly.
*****
“Are you sure you want to do this now?” Isabel asked as she turned off the engine to the jeep and looked out at the desert.
“Yeah, I really feel like I need to prepare for something, and this is the only way I know I can.” Liz wasn’t really all that sure that she did want to do this now, but she couldn’t ignore what she felt, and she didn’t have a good enough reason to. Of course that didn’t mean that she had the will power to make herself move from just staring ahead either.
Isabel turned her head to glance at Liz’s stomach seriously reconsidering her next question, but felt that she needed to ask. “You’re sure. ‘Cause you look like you’re about to pop any second. Maybe you just need to prepare for Alexa’s birth.”
“Isabel! Don’t make me regret dropping the mindwarp over you!” Liz bit out and sharply turned to face Isabel. It wasn’t that she was really that angry at Isabel for the comment. It was more that she was fighting herself to not take the wide opening Isabel was giving her to not train today. So when Isabel just continued to sit there and look at her stomach, Liz ended up snapping. “Just help me out of this car!”
Isabel leisurely took her seatbelt off, opened the door, and glided around the car to help Liz out. Once Isabel made it to Liz’s open door, Liz mumbled an apology which Isabel silently accepted as she helped Liz out of the car. The two girls then trekked a little ways from the car and thought about what things they could do. Both would have liked to go a little further, but neither knew if Liz would be able to handle all that much walking. So they stopped at the first place that seemed to have a decent place to sit down, which happened to only be about fifty yards from the jeep.
“So where do we start?” Isabel asked. She didn’t really know why she was deferring to Liz, but it just seemed the right thing to do. Besides Liz had actually been practicing her powers recently specifically for the purpose of improving. Isabel had just been using her powers for her normal recreational activities.
“Um…Well what do you know you can do?”
Isabel was a little surprised that Liz had asked her, because she thought Liz would have known already, but she guessed Liz was just being logical. It was exactly what Max would have done. Thoughts of Max made Isabel feel a guilty. She was keeping a big secret from her brother. One that he had a right to know, and she really wanted to tell him. She didn’t even really know what was stopping her from going ahead and telling him, but for some reason she just felt she had to respect Liz’s wishes. “Umm...most dreamwalking, but I can form connections, play CDs, and do the regular molecular manipulation thing too.”
“Have you ever tried more? Because I can dreamwalk, mindwarp, heal, manipulate molecular structure, and manipulate time. I was-”
“What?! What the heck is manipulating time?”
“-wanted to try blasting…” Liz barely muttered out her suggestion after Isabel’s outburst. She had had a feeling that she was going to have to explain this one, but that didn’t really help her know how to explain it now. “Um…I can spin back time or roll it forward when I want. I don’t do it all that much because it doesn’t seem fair to go back in time and change things for my own benefit, and going forward is just confusing. But if I really wanted to, I could.”
Isabel was astounded. She had never heard of actually being able to manipulate time, and even if she had, she would have guessed that it was only possible with a massive, technical machine, not that it would be possible for a human changed alien. Isabel wanted to know more. “Show me.”
Liz was expecting to have to give proof, but it made her uneasy. “I don’t know if I can. Every time I do it, no one even seems to realize it, so I don’t know if you would even be aware of it.”
“Well try.”
“Fine…um…give me your hand.” Liz guessed that it might be easier to take Isabel’s mind with her if they were at least touching. It might be more possible if they were connected, but Liz didn’t know if she would have the concentration to keep the connection open and manipulate time at the same time. Besides, Liz wasn’t all that sure she really wanted to completely connect to Isabel yet anyway. Liz gave one last brief glance to Isabel and shut her eyes. Liz took a second to gather her energy then pictured a clock in her head. She imagined the hands on the clock moving backwards, as well as brought an image from a half hour earlier to the forefront of her mind. She felt something shift and she was completely unaware of the world around her physical body. Instead she felt like she was submersed in a current of water, and was being pulled back against the current with a rope. Although time during the actual spinning back or rolling forward was impossible to measure, it only felt like a few seconds to Liz. Then she felt a click suddenly she was bouncing. When she opened her eyes she saw that she was indeed once again in the jeep with Isabel bouncing their way over the desert terrain. They sat in silence for a bit, until Liz figured that the Isabel beside her had no clue as to what had happened. But Liz couldn’t very well not test it either, so she decided to ask. “So Isabel, have you ever thought about going back in time?”
Isabel looked at Liz strangely. What kind of question was that? Was this Liz’s way of making small talk? Cause it kind of stunk. But what the heck, Isabel didn’t have anything to loose by answering, so she shrugged and replied. “Not really. I’ve kind of always been more interested in just finding out where I came from.”
“Oh yeah. I only really ever thought about it in books.” Now Liz was at a loss as to what to say, so the jeep fell silent once more. Liz knew how this all played out. Basically the silence continued until they arrived to where they got out of the car, and Liz didn’t necessarily want to live that boredom over again, so she decided to go back to her previous time. Liz shut her eyes and concentrated on the image of her and Isabel holding hands before she left. Liz quickly felt herself fall into the current, and before she knew it, Liz was back with Isabel. Liz let go of Isabel’s hand quickly and looked out over the desert before answering. “It didn’t work. I tried, and you didn’t remember anything.”
Isabel wanted to believe Liz, because Liz had never really lied about something like this before, and she really didn’t have a reason to now. Okay so maybe Isabel did kind of believe Liz. But she still wanted proof, if for no other reason but the fact that it would be cool to actually see with her own eyes so to speak. Suddenly Isabel got an idea. “Okay what about this. I’m thinking of something I’m going to tell you in ten minutes. You can go ahead in time and find out what it is then come back and tell me.”
Liz considered the plan for a bit and realized it was probably the best plan to try to prove it to Isabel so she shrugged her shoulders and agreed. Then she shut her eyes and concentrated on rolling time forward for a bit. It was harder to do when she didn’t have a clear picture of where she wanted to go, but it wasn’t that much harder. She just concentrated on the minute hand of the clock more. The current quickly brought her along, and once Liz felt the click and opened her eyes, she found herself standing further way from Isabel, and Isabel had some red gel-like substance in front of her. Liz yelled across to Isabel to get her attention and Isabel dropped her hand making the red gel disappear. Liz decided not to ask Isabel about it because she knew she would be reliving this in a bit anyway, so she just thought she would get a start on Isabel’s little phrase. “Hey it’s been ten minutes now. So what were you going to tell me?”
Isabel waited for Liz to come closer to her and said, “Purple monkeys eat pink bananas.”
“Seriously? What is that suppose to mean?” Liz asked while trying not to laugh.
“Nothing. I was just trying to think of something completely absurd.” Isabel smiled and ducked her head quickly as she remembered the time Alex had tried to think of the most absurd things he could think of to get her mind off her problems. The first thing he had said had made her laugh despite herself, and she had slowly stopped dwelling on her problem. Alex always seemed to be making things better for her. He made Isabel more human, and Isabel liked who she was with him. She could no longer even fathom being with anyone else, and she had no doubt that Alex was her soul-mate. Just like she had no doubt that Liz was her brother’s soul-mate.
Liz saw the small smile that came to Isabel’s face and guessed that she was thinking of Alex. It made Liz happy that Alex had someone care for him the way he deserved, but Liz couldn’t think about it too much because it just reminded her that she no longer had Max. So before Liz could let her thoughts start taking a depressing turn, she started to concentrate on spinning back time. She fell into the current, and as soon as she felt the click she burst out the sentence before she even opened her eyes. Once she did she saw Isabel’s shocked face.
“Well okay then.” Isabel had barely end decided on what she wanted to say before Liz was telling her. For some reason Isabel had expected it to take a little bit of time, which of course was silly since Liz could come back to the exact same time she left, so there would be no passing of time. Actually if you really thought about all the time travel stuff it could really become mind-boggling. Maybe she should focus on something else, like blasting. “So you said you wanted to try blasting?” Isabel waited for Liz’s affirmation before continuing. “Have you ever tried that before?”
“No. I haven’t had the opportunity. There aren’t a whole lot of places you can try blasting in a city.”
Isabel nodded. “Yeah. Well I’ll try with you.”
“Okay.” Liz looked around for a good target and spotted a rock a few yard away. “I’m going to aim for there,” she said while pointing. Isabel nodded, and Liz started to search her body for her power. Then she concentrated on collecting it in a central place, and when she raised her hand to aim at the rock, she let the entire ball go at once.
The resulting explosion startled both girls, and suddenly everything looked red. The rock that Liz had aimed for had definitely been hit, but so had everything within a two foot radius. It left a rather large crater, and when the debris had gone up into the air, Isabel had held up both hands and the red gel-like substance Liz had seen in the future had sprung up between them and the explosion.
“What’s that?” Liz couldn’t help but ask out loud.
Isabel didn’t answer at first because she was trying to make sure it didn’t disappear yet. But once she felt it was fortified enough she told Liz about Max’s shield. “I’m not really sure. I know Max used something like it before on me and Michael. His was green though.”
Liz rounded the shield and put her hand on it. She didn’t feel anything really definite at first. It just felt a little cooler than the air around it. But once she started to push on it, she felt a cool gel-like substance that had resistance right away. In fact, Liz was only able to push the shield about an inch before it stopped giving completely. “Can you make it stonger?”
“I can try.” Isabel focused more energy into the shield and Liz kept her hand on it. As Isabel pushed more energy into it, Liz felt the shield become warmer and warmer until she couldn’t keep her hand on it any longer. Isabel pushed even more energy into it, and the shield started to crackle. The crackly surprised her a bit and she flinched back, dropping her hand and making the shield disappear. “Wow.”
“I wonder if it can act as a shield against everything?” Liz mused out loud. Before Isabel could even offer a possible answer Liz turned and waddled away.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to send a blast to your shield to see what happens.” When Liz saw Isabel’s eyes widen she hurried to consol any fears forming. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to send such a big blast this time. I don’t have the energy for that even if I wanted to. And I’m going to send it to the edge of your shield to begin with. So it won’t actually it hit you just in case.” Liz took a deep breath, waited a few minutes for Isabel to uncertainly raise her shield, and brought up her own hand to blast. Once she felt they were ready she let a small amount of power loose and watched as the shield seemed to bounce it back. Liz instinctively held up her hands because she couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, but was very pleasantly surprised to see her own lilac shield form and bounce the energy again. This time the energy that was bounced back was greatly diminished and ended up completely dissipating before reaching Isabel again.
After that Liz and Isabel both felt the need for a break; so they brought out their packed lunches and talked about anything they could think of. After lunch they worked on blasting and shielding more and found out that while small blasts bounced off the shields, large blasts were sometimes absorbed into it. They couldn’t really figure out when it happened exactly, but when they went home at the end of the day, they left with plans for the next training sessions and a lessened urge to prepare.
katydid-Thanks. I like Tess in this too. I kind of see her as a good alien with poor circumstances.
Dream Weaver- well you know something bad is coming with Khivar. The question is, how bad will it be?
Flamehair-Yeah the whole Max and Liz thing right now is a little weird but sweet.
izzyandkyle-Yeah for Isabel to know that she has a niece is a really big deal for her. If you like the Liz/Tess friendship, you might be happy to know that I'm playing with an idea that will explore that a little more. I dont know when I'll start writing it though.
tigerr100-as do we all
Kitten-Of course we all know that Max wouldn't back away from responsibilty. I think Liz know that too. But she doesn't want him to have to deal with her bad decision.
RiaRath101-glad you thought the shopping part was cute, and that the Max/Liz interaction was sweet.
thetvgeneral-okay I'll just tell you now, that I don't think Alexa will resemble Max. At least not for the very beginning, and that's the part that's important. But stay tuned, you know Max will have to find out sooner or later.
orphyfets-yeah Maria can be really pushy when she wants to be.
GLCW2-rest assurred that Max will find out the truth. I'm just not telling you how or when yet.
sunshine6258-i'm glad so many people like Isabel and Tess, and thanks for the compliment on the characters flowing well overall. That's something I worry about sometimes.
vampyrax-thanks
BETHANN-thank you for your understanding with Liz. It will get better, I promise. Just not yet.
Roswelllostcause-No prob.
Now sit back, but with both seatbealts, and get ready for the ride of your life! Okay you may have to wait a few more weeks for that one. But enjoy anyway!
Chapter 29
Thehlec looked at the monitor and smiled. He hadn't really though about what earth would look like, but it was amazing. He had never seen a planet with such distinctly different sections, and the distinct land masses and water looked pretty amazing. Of course maybe if he had paid more attention in astronomy class, he would have seen more similar planets. But he had never thought he would actually get off the planet. Khivar had long ago outlawed civilians from leaving the planet, and he usually only sent a few people out every ten years or so. Thehlec would have never guessed that he would actually go with Khivar at some point. Of course, there were times when Thehlec almost wished he weren't on this trip at all, at least not with Khivar, but that wasn't the point.
As Thehlec watched earth come closer, he decided he should probably go spy on Khivar one last time, while it was actually easy to do. So he got out of his seat and started in the direction of the storage room closet. He approached the door, as stealthily as he could, which really wasn’t that hard for him. With all the time he had spent hiding his actions from others the past six months, Thehlec had gotten pretty good at the whole thing; by now it was almost second-nature. He rarely ever made the conscious decision to do it anymore. Sometimes he would find himself looking over his shoulder when he didn’t even need to.
Thehlec noted that no one was around, so he quickly opened the storage room door and went in. As soon as he settled himself to listen, Thehlec heard Khivar dismiss Nicolas, which was a bit of a disappointment for Thehlec. He knew that any chance he had of finding out more was greatly decreased with Nicolas’s dismissal. But he stayed anyway knowing that occasionally Khivar talked to himself, and it was during those incidents that Thehlec could learn the most. Unfortunately for Thehlec, this was not one of those times, so after waiting for about an hour, Thehlec returned to his room where he watched another monitor showing their descent to earth and anticipated finally meeting the royal four.
*****
“Sir, the scientists say we will land on earth today.”
Khivar slowly turned his head toward Nicolas and waited for him to go on. He saw Nicholas started to fidget and decided he that Nicolas was apparently too much of an imbecile to know what was expected of him. But Khivar was feeling somewhat gracious today so he was going to try to prompt a response. “Is that all?” when Khivar saw Nicolas nod, he continued. “Why must you interrupt me to tell me things I already know? What I want to know is how many skins are going to be there to welcome us and how much information they’ve gotten on King Zan and his bride.”
“Well…um…I’m not sure about that.’ Realizing his answer would not be enough for Khivar, Nicolas started to tremble. But what else could he do?
“You have greatly disappointed me Nicolas. Make no mistake. Disappoint me again, and it will cost you your life.”
Nicolas gulped. There had been a time when he had truly thought Khivar would be the best ruler for Antar and maybe even the Galaxy, but Khivar had changed. And all Nicolas knew for sure now was that his own life was in more danger now than ever. Nicolas sweated while he waited for Khivar to tell him what to do, hoping that task wouldn’t be too hard.
“I want you to personally contact the skins and make sure they will have a good welcoming Party for us. Then inform them that they will have 48 hours to get their entire population to where we are. I don’t want to waste any time getting to the Queen while she is vulnerable with the heir. So the skins better have the exact location of Ava.”
Nicolas was still trembling, completely frozen to his spot. Would he really be the one held responsible if the skins weren’t as organized as Khivar wanted them to be? Because Nicolas knew that lately nothing could please Khivar, and that meant that these skins who knew next to nothing about him, would undoubtedly raise Khivar’s anger, which meant Nicolas was in some seriously hot water. It wasn’t until Nicolas heard Khivar’s sharp “Dismissed” that Nicholas was able to make himself move out of his spot again.
*****
Soirafen kept his eyes focused on the communication devices when he felt the ship land on solid ground. He knew that everyone would be getting off to explore the new planet a little bit, for one reason or another, and Soirafen wanted to too. But he couldn’t. He had been packing up a few things to leave the ship when Nicolas had come in half an hour ago and basically threatened his life trying to get him to contact the skins right away. Soirafen had immediately started to try contacting while Nicolas looked over his shoulder. But the more he worked on the communication devices the more he suspected that the system had been tampered with. He couldn’t prove it yet, but he was reasonably sure that the skins had never actually received at least the last couple of messages. As Soirafen’s fear mounted that someone had purposely corrupted his department’s responsibilities, so did his resolve to make the culprit pay dearly.
*****
“Are you sure you want to do this now?” Isabel asked as she turned off the engine to the jeep and looked out at the desert.
“Yeah, I really feel like I need to prepare for something, and this is the only way I know I can.” Liz wasn’t really all that sure that she did want to do this now, but she couldn’t ignore what she felt, and she didn’t have a good enough reason to. Of course that didn’t mean that she had the will power to make herself move from just staring ahead either.
Isabel turned her head to glance at Liz’s stomach seriously reconsidering her next question, but felt that she needed to ask. “You’re sure. ‘Cause you look like you’re about to pop any second. Maybe you just need to prepare for Alexa’s birth.”
“Isabel! Don’t make me regret dropping the mindwarp over you!” Liz bit out and sharply turned to face Isabel. It wasn’t that she was really that angry at Isabel for the comment. It was more that she was fighting herself to not take the wide opening Isabel was giving her to not train today. So when Isabel just continued to sit there and look at her stomach, Liz ended up snapping. “Just help me out of this car!”
Isabel leisurely took her seatbelt off, opened the door, and glided around the car to help Liz out. Once Isabel made it to Liz’s open door, Liz mumbled an apology which Isabel silently accepted as she helped Liz out of the car. The two girls then trekked a little ways from the car and thought about what things they could do. Both would have liked to go a little further, but neither knew if Liz would be able to handle all that much walking. So they stopped at the first place that seemed to have a decent place to sit down, which happened to only be about fifty yards from the jeep.
“So where do we start?” Isabel asked. She didn’t really know why she was deferring to Liz, but it just seemed the right thing to do. Besides Liz had actually been practicing her powers recently specifically for the purpose of improving. Isabel had just been using her powers for her normal recreational activities.
“Um…Well what do you know you can do?”
Isabel was a little surprised that Liz had asked her, because she thought Liz would have known already, but she guessed Liz was just being logical. It was exactly what Max would have done. Thoughts of Max made Isabel feel a guilty. She was keeping a big secret from her brother. One that he had a right to know, and she really wanted to tell him. She didn’t even really know what was stopping her from going ahead and telling him, but for some reason she just felt she had to respect Liz’s wishes. “Umm...most dreamwalking, but I can form connections, play CDs, and do the regular molecular manipulation thing too.”
“Have you ever tried more? Because I can dreamwalk, mindwarp, heal, manipulate molecular structure, and manipulate time. I was-”
“What?! What the heck is manipulating time?”
“-wanted to try blasting…” Liz barely muttered out her suggestion after Isabel’s outburst. She had had a feeling that she was going to have to explain this one, but that didn’t really help her know how to explain it now. “Um…I can spin back time or roll it forward when I want. I don’t do it all that much because it doesn’t seem fair to go back in time and change things for my own benefit, and going forward is just confusing. But if I really wanted to, I could.”
Isabel was astounded. She had never heard of actually being able to manipulate time, and even if she had, she would have guessed that it was only possible with a massive, technical machine, not that it would be possible for a human changed alien. Isabel wanted to know more. “Show me.”
Liz was expecting to have to give proof, but it made her uneasy. “I don’t know if I can. Every time I do it, no one even seems to realize it, so I don’t know if you would even be aware of it.”
“Well try.”
“Fine…um…give me your hand.” Liz guessed that it might be easier to take Isabel’s mind with her if they were at least touching. It might be more possible if they were connected, but Liz didn’t know if she would have the concentration to keep the connection open and manipulate time at the same time. Besides, Liz wasn’t all that sure she really wanted to completely connect to Isabel yet anyway. Liz gave one last brief glance to Isabel and shut her eyes. Liz took a second to gather her energy then pictured a clock in her head. She imagined the hands on the clock moving backwards, as well as brought an image from a half hour earlier to the forefront of her mind. She felt something shift and she was completely unaware of the world around her physical body. Instead she felt like she was submersed in a current of water, and was being pulled back against the current with a rope. Although time during the actual spinning back or rolling forward was impossible to measure, it only felt like a few seconds to Liz. Then she felt a click suddenly she was bouncing. When she opened her eyes she saw that she was indeed once again in the jeep with Isabel bouncing their way over the desert terrain. They sat in silence for a bit, until Liz figured that the Isabel beside her had no clue as to what had happened. But Liz couldn’t very well not test it either, so she decided to ask. “So Isabel, have you ever thought about going back in time?”
Isabel looked at Liz strangely. What kind of question was that? Was this Liz’s way of making small talk? Cause it kind of stunk. But what the heck, Isabel didn’t have anything to loose by answering, so she shrugged and replied. “Not really. I’ve kind of always been more interested in just finding out where I came from.”
“Oh yeah. I only really ever thought about it in books.” Now Liz was at a loss as to what to say, so the jeep fell silent once more. Liz knew how this all played out. Basically the silence continued until they arrived to where they got out of the car, and Liz didn’t necessarily want to live that boredom over again, so she decided to go back to her previous time. Liz shut her eyes and concentrated on the image of her and Isabel holding hands before she left. Liz quickly felt herself fall into the current, and before she knew it, Liz was back with Isabel. Liz let go of Isabel’s hand quickly and looked out over the desert before answering. “It didn’t work. I tried, and you didn’t remember anything.”
Isabel wanted to believe Liz, because Liz had never really lied about something like this before, and she really didn’t have a reason to now. Okay so maybe Isabel did kind of believe Liz. But she still wanted proof, if for no other reason but the fact that it would be cool to actually see with her own eyes so to speak. Suddenly Isabel got an idea. “Okay what about this. I’m thinking of something I’m going to tell you in ten minutes. You can go ahead in time and find out what it is then come back and tell me.”
Liz considered the plan for a bit and realized it was probably the best plan to try to prove it to Isabel so she shrugged her shoulders and agreed. Then she shut her eyes and concentrated on rolling time forward for a bit. It was harder to do when she didn’t have a clear picture of where she wanted to go, but it wasn’t that much harder. She just concentrated on the minute hand of the clock more. The current quickly brought her along, and once Liz felt the click and opened her eyes, she found herself standing further way from Isabel, and Isabel had some red gel-like substance in front of her. Liz yelled across to Isabel to get her attention and Isabel dropped her hand making the red gel disappear. Liz decided not to ask Isabel about it because she knew she would be reliving this in a bit anyway, so she just thought she would get a start on Isabel’s little phrase. “Hey it’s been ten minutes now. So what were you going to tell me?”
Isabel waited for Liz to come closer to her and said, “Purple monkeys eat pink bananas.”
“Seriously? What is that suppose to mean?” Liz asked while trying not to laugh.
“Nothing. I was just trying to think of something completely absurd.” Isabel smiled and ducked her head quickly as she remembered the time Alex had tried to think of the most absurd things he could think of to get her mind off her problems. The first thing he had said had made her laugh despite herself, and she had slowly stopped dwelling on her problem. Alex always seemed to be making things better for her. He made Isabel more human, and Isabel liked who she was with him. She could no longer even fathom being with anyone else, and she had no doubt that Alex was her soul-mate. Just like she had no doubt that Liz was her brother’s soul-mate.
Liz saw the small smile that came to Isabel’s face and guessed that she was thinking of Alex. It made Liz happy that Alex had someone care for him the way he deserved, but Liz couldn’t think about it too much because it just reminded her that she no longer had Max. So before Liz could let her thoughts start taking a depressing turn, she started to concentrate on spinning back time. She fell into the current, and as soon as she felt the click she burst out the sentence before she even opened her eyes. Once she did she saw Isabel’s shocked face.
“Well okay then.” Isabel had barely end decided on what she wanted to say before Liz was telling her. For some reason Isabel had expected it to take a little bit of time, which of course was silly since Liz could come back to the exact same time she left, so there would be no passing of time. Actually if you really thought about all the time travel stuff it could really become mind-boggling. Maybe she should focus on something else, like blasting. “So you said you wanted to try blasting?” Isabel waited for Liz’s affirmation before continuing. “Have you ever tried that before?”
“No. I haven’t had the opportunity. There aren’t a whole lot of places you can try blasting in a city.”
Isabel nodded. “Yeah. Well I’ll try with you.”
“Okay.” Liz looked around for a good target and spotted a rock a few yard away. “I’m going to aim for there,” she said while pointing. Isabel nodded, and Liz started to search her body for her power. Then she concentrated on collecting it in a central place, and when she raised her hand to aim at the rock, she let the entire ball go at once.
The resulting explosion startled both girls, and suddenly everything looked red. The rock that Liz had aimed for had definitely been hit, but so had everything within a two foot radius. It left a rather large crater, and when the debris had gone up into the air, Isabel had held up both hands and the red gel-like substance Liz had seen in the future had sprung up between them and the explosion.
“What’s that?” Liz couldn’t help but ask out loud.
Isabel didn’t answer at first because she was trying to make sure it didn’t disappear yet. But once she felt it was fortified enough she told Liz about Max’s shield. “I’m not really sure. I know Max used something like it before on me and Michael. His was green though.”
Liz rounded the shield and put her hand on it. She didn’t feel anything really definite at first. It just felt a little cooler than the air around it. But once she started to push on it, she felt a cool gel-like substance that had resistance right away. In fact, Liz was only able to push the shield about an inch before it stopped giving completely. “Can you make it stonger?”
“I can try.” Isabel focused more energy into the shield and Liz kept her hand on it. As Isabel pushed more energy into it, Liz felt the shield become warmer and warmer until she couldn’t keep her hand on it any longer. Isabel pushed even more energy into it, and the shield started to crackle. The crackly surprised her a bit and she flinched back, dropping her hand and making the shield disappear. “Wow.”
“I wonder if it can act as a shield against everything?” Liz mused out loud. Before Isabel could even offer a possible answer Liz turned and waddled away.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to send a blast to your shield to see what happens.” When Liz saw Isabel’s eyes widen she hurried to consol any fears forming. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to send such a big blast this time. I don’t have the energy for that even if I wanted to. And I’m going to send it to the edge of your shield to begin with. So it won’t actually it hit you just in case.” Liz took a deep breath, waited a few minutes for Isabel to uncertainly raise her shield, and brought up her own hand to blast. Once she felt they were ready she let a small amount of power loose and watched as the shield seemed to bounce it back. Liz instinctively held up her hands because she couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, but was very pleasantly surprised to see her own lilac shield form and bounce the energy again. This time the energy that was bounced back was greatly diminished and ended up completely dissipating before reaching Isabel again.
After that Liz and Isabel both felt the need for a break; so they brought out their packed lunches and talked about anything they could think of. After lunch they worked on blasting and shielding more and found out that while small blasts bounced off the shields, large blasts were sometimes absorbed into it. They couldn’t really figure out when it happened exactly, but when they went home at the end of the day, they left with plans for the next training sessions and a lessened urge to prepare.