Roswell Fanatics

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”


Thanks to everyone for your patience in my somewhat sporadic posting of late. Does everyone remember where we left off? Diane and Philip made an appearance, Kyle's freaking about getting powers, and even Alex and Isabel had a moment together. And Tess came to Max offering him a slight ray of hope . . .


From Part 49

“Take these,” Tess tossed the scrubs to him. She wasn’t allowed to get too close. She turned back to the doorway, giving him privacy to dress.

“Wait!” Max called out as he scrambled into the scrub pants and pulled them up over his hips.

Tess stopped, keeping her back to the camera. “I can’t stay. He won’t let me.”

“Please,” Max took a step toward her, clutching the scrub top in his hand. “Liz? Can you tell me about Liz?”

Tess shook her head and uttered, “No.”

At the same time she sent him an image; of Liz in a cell exactly like this one, alive and appearing unhurt. The vision showed her sitting on the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest, wearing a pair of scrubs just like his.

The flash ended too quickly, but it gave Max the reassurance he desperately needed. Zan hadn’t hurt Liz. At least not yet, if he could believe what Tess was showing him.

“Tess–”

She whirled around to face him, letting her eyes flick to the hidden camera once again. “I can’t talk to you.”

She backed out the door without saying another word, leaving Max locked in his white world. But as she left she sent him a final vision, an image for him to hold on to, of a golden sun warming his skin, green grass soft beneath his feet, walking hand in hand with Liz under a glorious blue sky. A vision of freedom.

For the first time since his arrival here he had a reason to hope.




Aftermath
Part 50


The Parker livingroom stretched wall to wall with warm bodies, laid out in a row. Maria fidgeted in her sleep, mumbling as she turned over inside her sleeping bag. Michael lay on top of his with his hands behind his head, eyes closed but conscious of every movement in the room.

Isabel slept nearby, curled in on herself, exhausted from her efforts to reach Max. Alex slept beside her, offering his warmth and his support.

Kyle snored softly on a bed of cushions a few feet away.

Ava pushed herself up from the couch and gingerly maneuvered around them, careful not to step on anyone. She wandered through the apartment, not needing sleep like the rest of them. A few hours a night was all she needed. The rest of the time could be spent watching over them. She didn’t bother checking the locks on the doors or the windows. No lock could keep Zan or Rath or Lonnie out if they wanted in.

She wandered into Liz’s bedroom touching objects as she went; a science book on the desk, a photograph on the dresser, trying to get a sense of her, or some clue to where Zan might have taken her. Not that the others could take on Zan and ever hope to win. Their only hope against Zan was if he made a mistake, and Zan never made mistakes.

Or did he?

He never lost control, or became emotionally attached, or wavered on his Mission. Not until now. Not until Liz.

Pausing in front of the bedroom window, Ava took Zan’s Mission book out of the oversized pocket of her jacket. She’d found it in the motel room, left behind with all their other belongings, which meant they weren’t done yet. They planned on coming back.

She opened the cover and stared down at the rows of symbols, knowing what they represented. She touched one to open the file, seeing the page morph into the image of one of their victims.


1999. Agent Daniel Summers. Head of Special Investigations, Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation.


She closed that file and opened another, touching more symbols, showing more victims, some dead by their hands, some killed by the others that came before them.


1992. Congressman John T. Whittaker, 2nd Congressional District, New Mexico, USA.

1985. General Marcus Sizemore, Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.

1973. Sheila Hubble, Mesaliko Tribal Leader. Bitterlake, New Mexico.

1967. Special Agent Brian del Bianco. Project Bluebook. Air Force Space Command, Peterson AFB, Colorado.

1962. Special Agent Robert T. Lewis. 45th Space Wing, Patrick AFB, Florida.

1959. John Atherton. Investigative Journalist, Marathon, Texas.

1948. Captain Richard Dodie, 509th Fighting Unit. Rogers Air Force Base, New Mexico.


The list went back through the years, over 50 years in the making, hundreds, maybe thousands of names.

“Where did you get that?”

Ava whirled around to see Michael standing in the doorway. His eyes lifted from the metal book she held in her hands, up to her face, revealing the depth of his distrust.

“How did you get the Destiny Book?” Michael demanded.

“This isn’t yours,” Ava held it up for him to see. She had no intention of hiding anything from them.

Kyle appeared behind Michael, rubbing the back of his hand across his tired eyes. “What’s going on?”

“That’s what I want to know,” Michael folded his arms over his chest, blocking Ava’s passage. She wasn’t going anywhere until he got some answers.

* * * * *

Max lay sprawled across the padded floor of his cell, exhausted from the ordeal he’d been through, yet unable to find a peaceful sleep. His hand twitched, his eyelids fluttered, his dreams haunted him, showing him a visual record of a life that wasn’t his.


He tracked the mark from a cautious distance, perched high atop the clock tower. His hand remained steady on the trigger, skilled after years of stalking his victims. Her file had been committed to memory, the details of her life laid out before him, a record of where she went, and when, and why.

The mark slowed, checking her appointment book, thinking she had places to go, people to see, things to do. Little did she know, opening that book would be the last act she ever performed.


Max whimpered in his sleep as his dream played out; the violence inevitable, unstoppable, a visual record in all its bloody glory. His finger pulled the trigger. The mark’s body jerked convulsively, dropping her books as her skull exploded in a geyser of blood.


2000. Doctor Laura Holt. Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University.


* * * * *

Zan moved around the control room, fighting the nearly overpowering urge to go to the view panel to look in on his captive. He felt drawn to her, like a moth to a flame, searing his wings every time he got too close to her light but unable to resist. Her pull was so strong.

He sensed her moving around restlessly, heard the near whisper sound of her footsteps against the soft panels on the floor under her feet, the brush of her fingers over the cushioned walls as she wandered around the room. He’d turned the speaker volume down earlier in an effort to keep her out, though her sounds stayed with him. His connection to her wouldn’t leave him alone.

And he didn’t want it to. He understood that now. It wasn’t something he could deny. She’d awakened something in him he’d never known he was lacking.


“So when you healed me, you risked all this getting out. Why?”

“It was you.”


The memories plagued him; memories that belonged to another man, but the words could have been written for him.


“I really wish this could be something . . . more. But it can’t.”


Despite that, Max Evans hadn’t been able to deny his connection to Liz, anymore than Zan could.


“I look at you, and I know you’re the person I’m supposed to be with. I’ve always known it. What happened here that day, when you got shot, and how that brought us together . . .

“It’s fate. You’re the one, Liz. The only one.”


What did Max Evans know that he didn’t? Was there more to his declaration than just the love struck words of a teenage boy? Was it fate or merely circumstance that had brought them together?

“Zan . . .”

He whirled around at the sound, for a moment thinking she was in the room with him, her voice was so clear, but she remained in her prison on the other side of the view panel looking right at him, almost as if she could actually see him. It frightened him, and yet it thrilled him just to hear her say his name.

“Zan, please. I need to talk to you . . .”

His resolution to avoid direct contact with her crumbled under the weight of her plaintive voice. He moved across the control room until he was standing directly in front of her. Hesitantly, he lifted his hand to toggle the speaker switch.

“About what?”

His voice seemed to come from everywhere around her, but he couldn’t fool her. Liz sensed exactly where he was. He must have known it too, for seconds later the molecular structure of the wall changed, white panels turning into glass, revealing his presence on the other side.

She took a deep breath to fortify her resolve, and then plunged forward with what had to be done. She would do anything, if it meant keeping Max safe.

“About us.”

Outside the control room, Tess paused to listen at the door, using her powers to nudge it open slightly so she could hear better. Voices drifted to her, Zan’s clear and distinct, Liz’s muffled and faint.

“What about ‘us’?” His tone came out more vulnerable than he wanted it to, but he couldn’t help the way she made him feel. He thought he could be strong, and stick to what he knew must be done, until she said ‘us’.

“Not like this,” Liz said, studying his face. “Not with this wall between us.”

For a long moment there was no sound and Tess could only imagine what was happening inside. Would Zan hold strong, intent on completing his mission? Or would he waver, and cave in to the irresistible hold Liz had over him? Tess knew what Max would do if faced with a situation like this, but Zan wasn’t Max. Or was he?

The sound of Zan’s fast approaching footsteps gave Tess her answer, and forced her to flee before he caught her spying on him. She raced to hide around a corner to her right just as the door to the control room flew open and Zan hurried out, turning toward the left, headed straight for Liz.

* * * * *

Liz tensed as the wall panel swung inward, steeling herself for what she had to do. She knew she was playing with fire and, if they survived this, that Max might not ever be able to forgive her, but she was willing to do anything if it would buy Max his freedom. She could live with the consequences of her actions as long as it meant he would live.

Zan filled the doorway, staring at her with a face that looked so much like Max it nearly took her breath away. His honey colored eyes dominated his features, commanding and yet fragile at the same time, like one wrong word from her might break him. His full lips parted slightly, just enough for his tongue to slip out to moisten his lower lip, a nervous gesture he couldn’t hide. She saw him visibly shake himself as he pushed the door closed behind him.

“You wanted . . . to talk,” he said.

Now that he was here she hesitated, uncertain how to proceed. She’d never tried to seduce anyone before. It was a dangerous game she was playing.

“Before . . . when you kissed me . . . I felt something . . .”

Zan moved a step forward, unable to resist. Why did his chest hurt? Why was his heart racing? Why did his stomach feel so strange?

He drew in a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Like what?”

“It’s hard to explain,” she told him truthfully, for she had felt something. The first time he kissed her, that morning in the back of the Crashdown, she’d seen an alien vision. Of darkness and death, a bleak landscape of suffering. But when he kissed her in this room just a short time ago, she’d felt something very different. A man reaching out for something he’d never had; a connection that he desperately wanted.

“Try,” Zan said, afraid to get too close.

Liz moved forward instead. She stopped just in front of him. “You want me.”

Zan couldn’t deny it. He wanted her with every fiber in his body. He screamed with need for her, not just to possess her, but to love her, to cherish her.

“Yes,” he whispered, unable to take his eyes off her face.

Her hand lifted from her side, sliding under the edge of his leather vest to settle on his bare chest, just above his heart. He couldn’t hide his sharp inhalation when her skin touched his, or the compulsive way his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed.

“I’ll give you anything you want. If . . .”

From the first moment he saw her, this was what he had wanted. For her to come to him, willingly. Not by force, but by choice. His right hand lifted to cover hers, wrapping around her delicate fingers.

“If what?”

She moved even closer, standing in his space, stretching her body upwards while at the same time his head lowered to get closer to hers. Her lips, just a breath away from his, parted as she said, “I’ll do anything you want . . . if you let Max go.”

Zan hesitated, staring down at her. “I can’t do that.”

“You can do anything.”

He studied her face, knowing she was right. He could. There was no directive in place concerning Max Evans. The Skins didn’t even know he existed. He hadn’t told them yet.

“If you let Max go,” she said, looking up into his eyes, “I’ll stay with you, if that’s what you want. I’ll go anywhere you want me to. I’ll be anything you want me to be. If you let him go.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You can’t have both of us. Do you want him?” she asked, cupping his cheek with the palm of her left hand. “Or do you want me?”

“You,” Zan said without hesitation. His lips lowered to touch hers, not rough and forceful like before, but soft and tender. This kiss wasn’t about control, at least not for him.

“And you’ll let Max go?” she asked with her lips brushing against his lips, her body leaning into his body, her hopes all riding on this moment.

“Yes,” Zan breathed out, willing to give her anything she asked for.

“You’ll let Tess take him home, and you’ll leave him in peace?”

“Yes,” Zan promised before sealing his lips to hers. His hand cupped the back of her head, holding her close, angling for deeper contact, wanting her to want him.

Liz told herself not to give in to the fear, to hide her true emotions so he wouldn’t see. She closed her eyes and pretended he was Max, his same smell, his same soft lips, his same tender caress. Her fingers spread out over his bare chest feeling his hard muscles, his warm skin, his heart beating under his flesh, and that’s when it hit. A flash. A vision. A portent of things to come.


White walls. Stainless steel. A cautious search for freedom.

Cold metal in her hand, honed to razor sharpness. Her only defense.

She runs, trying to find the way out, trying to find him. Footsteps echo all around her, but not hers. Her bare feet make no sound.

She senses him near, but which one is he? The one she’s running from, or the one she’s running to?

She rushes around a corner and suddenly he is there. She runs right into him. His amber eyes grow wide, disbelieving as he looks down at his chest and sees the spreading patch of red.

In shock she lets go of the scalpel. It stays imbedded in his chest.


Liz broke off the kiss abruptly, shocked by the vision and unable to hide it.

“What?” Zan asked, breathing heavily. He felt the loss of her warmth as she moved out of his reach. “Liz?”

“I saw –” she started, but then stopped, covering her mouth with her hand. She couldn’t let him know.

Coldness seeped inside Zan, lancing right through his heart.

“What? You saw what?” he asked, almost afraid to know. She couldn’t mean what he thought she meant. That would be impossible, unless . . .

Liz stood frozen, unable to move. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

“Tell me,” Zan advanced on her. “Tell me what you saw.”

“Nothing,” Liz denied it. She backed away, but the wall behind her was unyielding.

“Show me,” Zan insisted, closing the distance between them. His hands lifted to flank her face, holding her in his grip. His eyes locked onto hers, forcing his way inside.

She tried to hide the images away but they were too fresh, too close to the surface. Zan forged a connection, seeing inside her mind. What he saw there chilled his very soul, giving him answers he wished he’d never asked. Her vision flashed through his mind, in vivid color, right down to the red blood spreading across his chest.

He stumbled backwards, pierced by her vision, a vision of something that hadn’t happened – yet. He’d never believed in it before, the whispers of a future preordained, but her vision made him question everything he’d ever learned. Was she the one the Skins feared, and Antar prayed for? Could one small human topple empires? Destroy armies? Bring kings to their knees?

“It’s you, isn’t it? That’s why they sent him to protect you.”

“Who? I don’t know what –”

“You’re the one,” Zan stared at her. “Max Evans knew it the moment he saw you.”

“No –”

She could deny it all she wanted, but the truth was there for Zan to see. The Granilith had foretold of her birth long before she was conceived. For 50 years they’d searched for her, not knowing her name, or what she looked like, knowing only that her rise to power would change everything. The world as he knew it was about to end – if he let her live.

“Zan –”

“Do you know what you are?” Zan trembled under this new found knowledge.

“No,” Liz shook her head, “I’m just – I’m just me.”

“Not anymore. Not since he healed you.”

Self-preservation forced Zan to spin on his heels, blindly groping for the way out. He couldn’t look at her, knowing what had to be done. But it was the only way to ensure her future didn’t come to pass. He’d come to this world as a soldier, embarking on a predetermined path. He followed orders. He completed his assignments. He waited for the next. He neither questioned, nor cared why they were chosen – until now. But what if the legends were true? That She would rise to power and amass an army that would end centuries of Skin dominance.

“Zan . . .” Liz cried out as he opened the door.

He turned back to look at her, knowing her vision had sealed her fate, or his if he did nothing. His hand pressed against his bare chest, feeling the phantom blade rend his skin, the flow of his blood from the wound, the ache in his heart that wouldn’t go away. His voice cracked, showing more emotion than she had ever heard from him before, for the life he would never live, the joy he would never know, the love he would never feel.

His face looked haunted and pale as he said his final goodbye, a testament to how she had changed him.

“I would have been gentle with you.”



TBC . . .



Here’s the link to my newest story. It’s a Max/Liz/Zan story posted over on the UC board, with an NC 17 rating:

Tres Amantes


Here’s the links to a few of my other stories:
Maxeo and Lizziet
Captive Hearts
A Walk in the Park
Downfall
Pieces of the Past

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”



Aftermath
Part 51


Tess paused in the hallway, looking left and then right, to make sure she was alone. She knew Zan was still with Liz, or she hoped he was, because if he found out what she was about to do, her life would be over.

She looked down at the silver orb in her hand, hoping something would come of this. They needed more information, and this alien device might be able to give them something to go on. It might be a long shot, but it was worth a try, because nothing else was working. She couldn’t escape this place, and there was no way to reach anyone. No working phones. No computer to send a message. She couldn’t even dreamwalk one of the others without a picture to make a connection. What she was about to do might be risky, but it was better than standing around doing nothing.

With one last look around her, she pushed the door open to Max’s cell, knowing she had to work quickly.

The change in pressure when the door opened caused Max to bolt to his feet. He tensed in anticipation of another attack, and then sagged in relief when he saw it was Tess. The irony wasn’t lost on him, that just a few weeks ago he thought he couldn’t trust her at all, and now she might be his only hope. If Liz trusted her, then he would too. Liz had always been a better judge of character than he was.

“What’s happening?” Max launched into a series of questions as Tess moved into the room. “Have you seen Liz? Is she okay? She isn’t hurt, is she?”

“She’s fine,” Tess said, hiding things he was better off not knowing. “She asks the same about you. If you’re okay. Are you?”

“Tell her not to worry about me. I’m fine.”

“Really?” Tess pinned him with her pale blue eyes.

“Tell her I am,” Max said, even though they both knew that he wasn’t.

“Okay,” she let it ride. She saw him shoot a look into the upper corner of the room, knowing what he was thinking. “He’s not watching right now.”

“Do you think – is there any way . . .?”

He didn’t finish his sentence, but he didn’t have to. She knew what he was asking. His desperation to escape this place was clearly apparent.

“Not yet. We can’t do anything while he’s awake. He sees everything. Maybe when he’s asleep, if . . .”

It was Tess’s turn not to finish her sentence this time. There was no way to try to escape while Zan was awake and alert. But if he made her share his bed with him when he slept, then how could she sneak away to try to free Max or Liz? It was a catch-22. So far, the only hope she could see was the continuing disintegration of Zan’s unit. If she worked it right, they might implode from within, and then she and Max and Liz – all of them –would be free.

“Where is he?” Max asked. His stomach churned waiting for her to answer.

“He’s talking to Liz.” The sudden dread that swept across his face made Tess hurry to add, “He won’t hurt her.”

“Are you sure?” Max had to ask.

Tess nodded, not wanting to say any more. How could she tell Max that Zan was in love with Liz? That he wanted her. That he wanted her to love him back. That Liz was willing to give herself to him, if it meant Max’s safe release.

“What about the others?” Max asked. “Lonnie and Rath?” He cringed just saying their names, fighting back the memory of what they’d done to him earlier.

“Zan sent them into town for supplies. They won’t be back until tomorrow.”

Max slumped in visible relief. At least for the next few hours he wouldn’t have to contend with their special brand of torture.

“Max,” Tess moved across the room to join him. “I brought this. It might be able to help.”

Tess lifted her hand to show him the silver orb, with its rainbow of colors pulsating from the emblem in the center.

“Where’d you get that?” Max reached for it, taking it out of her hand. “I’ve never seen it light up like this before. It didn’t have colors like this that night in the desert with Liz.”

“This one isn’t yours. It’s Zan’s. There’s an incoming message in it, but Zan hasn’t listened to it yet. Rath and Lonnie are pissed about it, but they can’t activate it without him. It’s keyed to his biological signature.”

“Then why did you bring it here?” Max looked at her.

“Biologically, you’re the same as Zan. See if you can activate it.”

“Me?” Max shifted his gaze from Tess to the orb. “What if it makes things worse?”

“How could things get any worse, Max?”

Max lifted his gaze to Tess again, seeing the unspoken implication on her face. He was used to hiding, to taking a wait and see attitude, to passively watching, but under the current circumstances, that would probably only get them killed. All of them.

“What if it sends out a message? What if it alerts more of them to where we are?”

“Max, the message is for Zan. They already know he’s here. They expect him to answer,
and when you do, they’ll think you’re him.”

Max looked down at what he was wearing, the green scrubs of his imprisonment. He quirked an eyebrow at Tess and said, “I don’t think so.”

With a quick touch of her hand to his shoulder and then to his thigh, Tess turned the scrubs into black leather, pants and a vest to match Zan’s style of dress. She touched his hair next, and then his face, lengthening his follicles to recreate Zan’s image. Long hair around his face, and the beginnings of a scruffy beard on his cheeks and chin.

“Tess –”

“Now you look like Zan,” she interrupted, bringing his attention back to the orb. “If it sends a message back, all they’ll see is him.”

Still feeling hesitant and uncertain, Max stared at the silver object in his hands. “I’m not sure what to do.”

“Just hold it,” Tess suggested, “and use your mind to activate it.”

An older, scruffier looking Max cupped the orb between his palms, feeling its odd warmth. His eyes slid closed while he prayed for a miracle, then he opened them to look into the swirling design, forging a connection.

* * * * *

Zan stood under the black velvet of the night sky, looking up at five pinpoints of light, the V Constellation high in the northern quadrant, the place of his conception. He didn’t remember the world Rath and Lonnie called ‘home’. They wanted to go back, though he could never understand why. It wasn’t home to him. They’d never breathed the air on Antar, or walked through its fields of grasses, or swam in any of its oceans. They didn’t belong there, anymore than they belonged here.

Their unique physiology isolated them, making them alien in their own skin. Antarians created them in the likeness of humans, but only skin deep. Zan knew ‘his kind’ would find no home on Antar, nor acceptance on Earth. That left only the Skins, who had breathed life into him, who had set his course, who had given him purpose. Without the Skins, he would be adrift, yet . . .

He turned toward the lights behind him, the stark military structure looking less severe in the dark. Her light reached him even here, offering him a glimpse of what might have been.


“If you know so much, then tell me, Max. What’s my destiny?”

“I only know the part I’m hoping for.”


But Zan’s hope was gone. Her vision had taken it away from him. If he allowed her to live, it would seal his destruction. But how could he complete his mission, when he loved her so?

The truth was, he couldn’t, and a part of him had always known it. From the moment he came to town he’d felt the difference, between what he once was, and what he was becoming. His life had always followed a set path, with clear goals and objectives, until one look at Liz Parker changed him into something else. It was her fault he felt so off balance, and he knew what it would take to fix it.

He couldn’t do it himself, though, which left him only one option. He would have to make someone else do it, and he knew just who.

* * * * *

Tess stood transfixed watching Max connect to the orb. The pulsating emblem in the center shot a beam of light straight into his eye, linking him directly to the alien device.

“Retinal scan complete, confirmation pending . . .”

Tess heard the unearthly voice but she couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It sounded all around her, coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The air in the center of the room began to shimmer, revealing an alien presence, a holographic image with large black eyes in a pale gray face.

“Identity confirmed. State your location.”

Max darted a hesitant look toward Tess. He’d expected a message, not a real time transmission. If he said the wrong thing this whole façade could come crumbling down around him. Swallowing back his fear, he said in as steady and as strong a voice as he could muster, “Eagle Rock Military Installation, Roswell, New Mexico.”

“Location confirmed. Report status of target Elizabeth Parker.”

At first Max had no idea how to answer. But if he didn’t say something soon, his behavior might give away who he really was. He tried not to stutter when he said, “Target under observation.”

“Excellent,” the alien stood military straight.

Max noticed how its mouth moved strangely out of sync with the words he was hearing, like an old Japanese movie dubbed into English. He glanced down at the orb in his hands, realizing it was more than just a communicator; it was a translator, as well.

“Stand by for instructions. The Granilith has revealed an additional target at your location.”

The image in front of Max and Tess changed, growing fuzzy and faint at first, and then coalescing into a new image, and a familiar one at that. Tess inhaled sharply when she recognized the face.

* * * * *

Zan left the night behind him and opened the heavy steel doors into the facility, intent on what had to be done. He strode through the halls with purpose, his mission once again firmly in control.

He buried the inner voice that screamed inside him, the human conscience that was so alien to him. He locked it away, along with the human emotions she elicited in him, emotions he was never meant to feel.

She represented the destruction of everything he knew, he couldn’t let her live.

* * * * *

Liz sat in a corner of her white room, hungry, thirsty, in need of sleep, but unable to rest. The vision she’d seen wouldn’t leave her alone. Was the future set in stone? Inevitable? Impossible to change? And if it was, which one was it she would kill? Was it Zan? Or was it Max?

The vision had shown his face, and what she’d done to him, but she couldn’t tell which one he was. The shape of his chin, the length of his hair, the color of his skin, all the parts made a picture perfect image of Max, but didn’t Zan look the same? The emotion in his eyes told her it had to be Max, but she’d seen that spark in Zan as well, the humanity in his eyes.

She bolted upright, torn from her thoughts by the feel of him nearing her again. She trembled, afraid of what he would do this time, but his presence walked right by her room without stopping, heading deeper into the facility, straight toward –

“Max!”

* * * * *

A lifelike image filled the air in the center of his cell, making both Max and Tess stare at it in open shock.

“Kyle,” she whispered. “It’s Kyle.”

Max heard the catch in her throat, but he wasn’t as surprised as she was. He’d seen Kyle’s image on the page from the Destiny book. Tess didn’t know he’d been added to the “wanted poster”.

She turned to Max, looking at him with tears clouding her crystal blue eyes. “Why do they want to hurt Kyle?”

In that instant, looking at the candid emotion on her face, Max realized how much she’d changed from the deceitful alien who first slithered into their midst. He had no time to reflect on it, though. The alien voice once again filled the room.

“Target identified as Kyle Valenti, subordinate to Elizabeth Parker. Current residence, Roswell, New Mexico. Terminate with extreme prejudice.”

“What’s that mean?” Tess leaned into Max, unconsciously seeking his guardianship. “Extreme prejudice?”

Max felt the urge to console her, to wrap his arm around her and share the pain, but the orb cradled in his hands prevented it. He said softly, so his voice wouldn’t carry, “They want him dead, just like Liz.”

* * * * *

Zan’s footsteps echoed through the hallways as he neared his destination. His alien programming reasserted control, releasing endorphins and adrenaline that fed his bloodlust and suppressed all human emotions, an enhancement created by the Skins to keep their soldiers in line.

Soldiers weren’t allowed to feel. Soldiers weren’t allowed to care. Soldiers weren’t allowed to love.

There was only the mission.

* * * * *

Inside her cell, Liz panicked. If Zan wasn’t coming for her, then that left only one other likelihood. She had to warn Max, so he could prepare himself for the encounter, for whatever Zan might be planning to do to him.

She closed her eyes, reaching with her mind for his familiar presence, to form their connection.

* * * * *

In Max’s cell, the alien face replaced Kyle’s image, asking, “Do you request additional assistance?”

“NO!” Max said, more emphatically than he intended. The last thing they needed was another team of assassins roaming around Roswell trying to kill them.

“Zan” the alien made a grating noise in its throat, what in a human might have been a chuckle. “Always the independent one. Your unit is understaffed.”

“Has my unit ever failed a mission?” Max challenged, mimicking the authoritative tone he’d heard Zan use.

“Your exploits are legendary,” the alien ‘chuckled’ again.

‘Max!’

Max startled at the voice in his head. He looked around quickly, physically reacting to the sight of Liz, bathed in a glowing light, floating in the air just a few feet away. “Liz . . .”

Tess heard him whisper the name and shot a quick glance at the door, but no one was there. She followed the direction of his gaze, but the room was empty, just her and Max and the hologram projecting from the orb.

“What are you looking at?” Tess whispered sharply.

“Liz. She’s back.”

“Where?”

“Can’t you see her?” Max whispered, darting a look at the Skin. Could he see Liz?

‘Max!’ Liz frantically yelled. ‘He’s coming! Zan. Tess has to get out of there!’

“Liz says you have to go,” Max hissed. “Zan’s coming.”

“Zan?” the Skin’s voice rose. “Is there a problem?”

“No, of course not,” Max answered, straining to sound confident. Liz’s panic seeped into him, magnifying all of his fears.

‘Max! Hurry! If he finds out Tess is helping us –’

Too many things were happening. He had to get Tess out of the room before Zan got there. He had to end the transmission before the Skin realized he wasn’t Zan. He had to get rid of the orb before Zan caught him with it. He broke out in a full body sweat, frightened almost immobile.

‘MAX!’

“Additional target acknowledged,” Max barked at the hologram, sounding more commanding than he felt. “Mission objectives adjusted.”

The Skin inclined his head in accord as Max waved his hand over the orb, ending the transmission. He didn’t even have time to speculate on how he knew how to do that, before turning to Tess and pushing the orb into her hands.

“Go! You have to get out of here!”

In the outer corridor, Zan’s hand closed around the doorknob.

‘Max, your hair! Your face!’ Liz shouted, nearly jumping out of her skin. She couldn’t physically do anything except watch the disaster unfolding.

“Oh, shit!” Max looked down at his legs, encased in leather.

“What, Max, what?” Tess felt the tension, the panic in the air. She saw him swipe a hand over his thigh, turning the leather back to cotton, finally breaking through her confusion. She stuffed the orb in her pocket and shot her hand toward his hair, turning it short again.

“Go!” Max pushed her toward the door. “Save yourself.”

“No,” Tess touched his face, removing the heavy growth and leaving just a trace of stubble. She wouldn’t leave him until his appearance was back to normal. As the door swung open Tess yanked the leather vest off Max’s back.

Liz collapsed in her cell, back in her own body now, disoriented and breathing heavy from stress and exertion, praying that Zan hadn’t seen her.

Zan filled the doorway to Max’s cell, sweeping his cold gaze over the two occupants in the room. Max stood in the center, looking defenseless and weak and exposed. Bare chest. Bare feet. Goosebumps on his skin. Tess stood a few feet away with her hands behind her back.

“What are you doing here?” Zan focused on her.

Tess forced herself not to react to the coldness in his voice. Something had changed; the hard edge was back in his tone. She cautiously pulled her hand out from behind her, showing him a plastic bottle filled with clear fluid, a bottle that just moments before had been a black leather vest.

“I brought him something to drink. I didn’t think you’d want him to get dehydrated.”

“Is that right?” Zan looked her up and down, judging her. Was she lying to him?

Tess straightened her back and lifted her chin, staring right back at him. “He’s no good to us dead.”

Zan stepped away from the door, holding it open for her. “Go.”

He appraised her as she neared him, the way she walked, the way she moved, the way she didn’t look at Max. As she passed him his hand shot out and gripped her face, stopping her in place. He squeezed tightly, leaving finger indentations in her skin.

“Go to your quarters,” he commanded. “Don’t leave your room for the rest of the night unless I call you.”

His eyes bore into hers causing the familiar pain to flare inside her head, warning her what would happen if she disobeyed. She bowed her head in silent consent, subjugated by his will. When she left, he closed the door behind him and turned to face Max.

Time to set his world right.




TBC . . .



Here are the links to a few of my other stories:
Maxeo and Lizziet
Captive Hearts
A Walk in the Park
Downfall
Pieces of the Past

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”


Author note: Did you miss me? I’m finally back with a new part. Sorry about the long delay. Does everyone remember where we left off? Probably not, huh? Let’s see, what happened in part 51? Tess took Zan’s orb to Max in his cell. Max activated it after changing his appearance to look like Zan, which was a good thing since a real live alien was on the other end of the transmission. The message told them Kyle’s name had been added to the hit list. Zan’s human side was pushed to the background when his programming kicked back in, turning him into Zan the Terrible again. Liz had to do her space walk thingy (don’t you love my technical terms?) to try to get Tess out of Max’s room before Zan found her in there, but ….

From part 51


Zan filled the doorway to Max’s cell, sweeping his cold gaze over the two occupants in the room. Max stood in the center, looking defenseless and weak and exposed. Bare chest. Bare feet. Goosebumps on his skin. Tess stood a few feet away with her hands behind her back.

“What are you doing here?” Zan focused on her.

Tess forced herself not to react to the coldness in his voice. Something had changed; the hard edge was back in his tone. She cautiously pulled her hand out from behind her, showing him a plastic bottle filled with clear fluid, a bottle that just moments before had been a black leather vest.

“I brought him something to drink. I didn’t think you’d want him to get dehydrated.”

“Is that right?” Zan looked her up and down, judging her. Was she lying to him?

Tess straightened her back and lifted her chin, staring right back at him. “He’s no good to us dead.”

Zan stepped away from the door, holding it open for her. “Go.”

He appraised her as she neared him, the way she walked, the way she moved, the way she didn’t look at Max. As she passed him his hand shot out and gripped her face, stopping her in place. He squeezed tightly, leaving finger indentations in her skin.

“Go to your quarters,” he commanded. “Don’t leave your room for the rest of the night unless I call you.”

His eyes bore into hers causing the familiar pain to flare inside her head, warning her what would happen if she disobeyed. She bowed her head in silent consent, subjugated by his will. When she left, he closed the door behind him and turned to face Max.

Time to set his world right.





Aftermath
Part 52


The Mission Book sat in the middle of the coffee table in the Parker’s living room with six pairs of eyes staring at it. None of them wanted to touch it.

Isabel sat on the couch cringing away from it. Michael stood ramrod straight, legs apart with his arms folded over his chest, scowling at it. Kyle stood by the window darting looks at it. Maria stood behind Michael not wanting to get near it in case it started glowing or beeping or sending out death rays. Ava watched Alex reach for it, his curiosity getting the better of him.

“Don’t touch it!” Isabel grabbed for his hand.

“It’s not gonna zap me,” Alex quipped, and then shot a look at Ava. “Is it?”

“No, it won’t zap you. It’s only a visual record.”

Alex, sitting on the couch beside Isabel, picked up the metal book and opened it to a random page. He ran his fingers lightly over the carved symbols, making them glow.

“Oh my God!” Maria cried out. Alex snatched his hand back, and then tentatively reached for it again. The symbols glowed under his fingertips while Maria intoned in the background, “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.”

Ava drew in a sharp breath. “It shouldn’t be doing that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Michael demanded, dropping his hands to his sides in case he needed to blast something. Like maybe Maria if she didn’t shut up.

“He’s human,” Ava said. “It shouldn’t react to him. It takes powers to activate –”

“Oh god,” Kyle groaned across the room.

“See if you can do it,” Alex held the book out to him.

“No. No–no,” Kyle shook his head. “Absolutely not. Keep that thing away from me!”

“Don’t be such a wuss,” Michael jeered at him. “Touch the damn thing!”

“Who are you calling a wuss?!” Kyle riled.

Michael grabbed the book away from Alex and thrust it toward Kyle. Kyle stared at it, gritting his teeth and clenching his jaw. With a strangled growl protesting his own actions, he slammed his hand down on the open page, making the symbols glow brightly under his palm.

“Shit!” he snatched his hand away, curling it into a fist. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

“You try it,” Michael shoved the book in front of Isabel’s face.

With great reluctance, Isabel touched one of the symbols on the page. It glowed brightly, stronger than it had for Kyle. Michael touched it next, getting the same result. Lastly, he turned to Maria, visually softening his demeanor. He held the book out to her, asking instead of ordering.

“Maria?”

“Me?” she swallowed hard. She stared at the book, and then Michael’s pleading face. She chewed on her lower lip debating her options to stay or cut and run, but there never really was a choice. She was in this all the way, had been ever since she learned their secrets. She lifted her hand and touched the page.

“Nothing,” Michael voiced what they all were witnessing. Maria let out a trapped breath of air and snatched her hand away. The book didn’t recognize her. Ava spoke, bringing everyone’s attention back to her.

“Its reaction to Alex was the weakest. Kyle’s a little stronger. Michael’s and Isabel’s full power.”

“What does that mean?” Isabel asked.

“That Alex and Kyle are still changing,” Michael answered. “Max healed Kyle first. His powers are stronger.”

“So, what? Am I an alien now?” Kyle grappled with it.

“No,” Ava tried to offer him some consolation. “You’re still human, just . . . changed. Max activated parts of your brain that haven’t been used before.”

“He’s a jock,” Alex joked, “he never used any of his brain before.”

“Shut up, Whitman!” Kyle picked up an empty coke can and threw it at his head. But the joke had done what Alex intended, lessoning the strain and giving Kyle a physical outlet for his frustrations. Everyone snickered, except Maria, the last unaltered human in the room.

* * * * *

Zan kicked a chair into the center of the room and commanded, “Sit down.”

Max stood frozen against the wall. His blood still pounded through his veins from the stress of the last few minutes. Tess getting caught in his room, Zan almost seeing the message from the orb, Liz’s panicked warning, being stuck in here without the ability to warn Kyle he was a new target. Add to that the strain of why Zan was here, and what he was going to do, it was a wonder Max was still standing.

“I said, Sit Down!” Zan growled. He lifted his arm in Max’s direction showing him exactly who was in charge here. Max found himself propelled into the chair, like a puppet on a string, invisible hands dragging him across the room forcing him into it. He sat down hard gripping the arm rests with white knuckled hands.

“That’s better,” Zan’s stance relaxed a little. He circled Max like a bird of prey waiting for its moment to pounce. “Things will be much better for you if you cooperate.”

Max sat rigidly in the military issue chair, digging his fingers into the cold metal arms. His skin sweated against the upholstered back, sticking to it. He tracked Zan with his eyes, cringing as he circled behind him, nearly jumping out of his skin when Zan suddenly spoke directly into his ear.

“She’s not who you think she is.”

* * * * *

Rath and Lonnie prowled the dark streets of Roswell, turning over mailboxes, slashing car tires, breaking storefront windows, just for the hell of it. Rath pitched a rock at a streetlamp, shattering the alien face painted on the globe.

“I never seen a place more boring!” he growled. “Does everyone in this hick town go to bed at nine?”

“There’s the UFO Center,” Lonnie pointed excitedly. “Let’s go fuck it up!”

The gleam in Rath’s eyes told her he was game. They were just about to dart across the street, when the doors to the Crashdown opened and out walked a group of familiar faces. The two miscreants slunk back into the shadows so they wouldn’t be seen.

Ava emerged first, handing the Mission Book to Isabel. “Hide it in a safe place.”

Michael took it from her, saying, “I know where to put it.”

“The pod chamber?” Maria asked.

Michael nodded, sliding it inside the waistband of his jeans. “I’ll take the jeep. Kyle, you can drive Isabel and Alex over to his house so they can check the computer link to the lab in Las Cruces. Maybe we’ll get lucky with the Destiny Book translation.”

“We’re not getting any sleep tonight, are we?” Kyle grumbled.

“We can sleep after we get Max and Liz back,” Michael snarled, heading for the jeep.

Maria chased after him, grabbing him by the hand. “I’m going with you.”

“No,” he looked down at her, trying to ignore the warm sensation of her hand touching his skin. “You should go home,” his voice softened, “away from all this, where you’ll be safe.”

“I’m safer with you.”

“No, Maria, you’re not!” the hard edge returned to his voice. “Don’t you get that?”

“Why are you always pushing me away, Michael?!”

“Because I don’t want you to get hurt, alright!” he shouted and then cringed, feeling everyone’s eyes on him. His voice softened, lowering to an intimate tone, shutting out the others. “Go home, Maria. Please.”

Maria looked into a pair of eyes that weren’t hiding his true emotions anymore. His fear for her safety was starkly evident, but so was the reason why he cared so much. It gave her all the motivation she needed.

“Let me stay with you.”

Michael stared down at her with his protest dying on his lips, his better judgment overcome by her pleading tone. With a deep sigh he gave in to her. “Oh Christ, get in the jeep.”

“Doomed,” Kyle slumped his shoulders and shook his head. “We’re all doomed.”

Rath and Lonnie watched them climb into two separate vehicles, Michael and the whiny blonde into the jeep, Ava, Isabel and the two human boys into a fiery red Mustang.

“What the hell’s Ava doin’?” Lonnie hissed. “Why’d she give ‘em the Mission Book?”

“Who should we follow?”

Lonnie slid her eyes toward Rath, smiling with a wicked gleam. This was gonna be so much fun.

* * * * *

Zan backed off, pleased to see the rattled look on his double’s face. He continued to circle the room scrutinizing Max’s reactions.

“You think she’s a saint. Your salvation. But she’s not. She’s your destruction.”

“NO!” Max bolted from the chair, but with a simple wave of his arm Zan flung him back into it. To Max’s horror, the metal arms melted and reformed, flowing over his forearms and wrists and then solidifying again, trapping him in the chair.

“Oh, but she is,” Zan came to a stop directly behind Max, towering above him, feeling the rush of control. Endorphins flowed through his brain giving him an unnatural high, a programmed stimulant to keep the Skins’ killing machines focused on their purpose. Zan slapped his hand over Max’s eyes, jerking his head backwards, aroused by his yelp of pain. He lowered his lips to Max’s ear, his heated breath making Max shiver as he whispered, “See what I’ve seen . . .”

Max cried out trying to squirm out of his grasp, but Zan only tightened his hand, sending Max images that he had seen in his mind, using his powers to amplify Max’s own hidden fears, torturing him with it. Max squeezed his eyes tightly closed but he couldn’t keep out the sight of Isabel dead. Michael dead. Maria. Alex. The Valenti’s. All dead. Blood on their faces. Dead eyes staring at nothing.

“No,” he moaned, trying to stop the memories but they wouldn’t go away. Blood. Bodies. Death.

“She did it,” Zan whispered in his ear. “Liz. Your precious Liz destroyed them all.”

Max sat rigidly in the chair with his fingers digging into the metal armrests. Some part of him knew what he was seeing wasn’t real, that the images originated with Pierce, in the White Room, images used to try to break him, but that knowledge weakened under Zan’s relentless assault.

The line between reality and illusion blurred.

* * * * *

“Are you alright?”

Kyle jumped at the sound of the voice, the tone of it familiar, yet different. He turned from Alex’s bedroom window to see Ava standing just a few feet behind him, looking at him with those familiar crystal blue eyes.

“Yeah,” Kyle tried to shrug it off, pretending he wasn’t completely freaked out here. “I’m fine.”

Ava reached down to pick up something he dropped when she startled him. She turned the slip of paper over, seeing it was actually a photograph of Tess, taken in a random moment a few weeks ago, cracking up over one of his lame jokes. Ava held on to it for a moment, absorbing a rush of images before handing it back to him. Kyle hesitantly took it, slowly pulling it from her fingertips, cupping it in the palm of his hand.

“You’re worried about her, aren’t you?” Ava asked.

Kyle nodded, holding his gaze on the photograph.

“You care about her.”

“Is that wrong?” Kyle looked up at the face reflecting Tess’s mirror image. If Ava was the ‘good’ alien, was Tess the ‘bad’ one? Would Zan’s control force her alien side back to the surface, stripping away what she was becoming? The others didn’t know her like he did, hadn’t noticed her human side the way he had.

“No,” Ava said, hiding her melancholy. “It’s never wrong to care about someone you love.”

“I didn’t say . . .” Kyle’s voice trailed off.

“You didn’t have to,” Ava responded. She could see it written all over his face. He might not want to admit it, but there was something deeper than just friendship between Kyle and Tess, or there could be, if given the time to let it develop.

“We’re in!” Alex declared from his spot on the far side of the room. He drilled his index finger against the computer screen, refocusing everyone’s attention on the reason why they were there, the translation of the Destiny Book.

Looking almost grateful for the interruption, Kyle crossed the room to join Alex and Isabel. Ava watched him go, reminded that she might look like Tess, and sound like Tess, but their lives weren’t interchangeable. Zan could never be Max. She could never be Tess. She wondered if there was someone out there who would ever look at her the way Max looked at Liz, or Kyle looked at Tess. Would anyone ever see her for who she really was? Or love her?

Would she survive long enough to find out?

* * * * *

The headlights of the jeep illuminated the white center line in the road as Michael and Maria made their way out of town. The lights of Roswell fell behind them, giving way to a dark landscape beyond the safety of the windows. Starlight softened the blackness of the night sky, but did nothing to ease the tension inside the moving vehicle.

“What if Liz and Max aren’t even on Earth anymore?” Maria stared out the passenger window, voicing one of her deepest fears. “What if they took them away on a spaceship or something?”

“Maria,” Michael sighed at her typical overreaction. “Don’t freak out on me here.”

“Freak out?” she cried, turning her head to gape at Michael. “Freak OUT?! Our best friends are missing! I think I’ve earned the right to freak out here!”

“We’ll get ‘em back,” Michael defended, checking the rear view mirror as he drove.

“How?” Maria demanded. “You heard Ava. Zan and the others – they’re not human!”

Michael’s jaw clenched and his hands tightened on the steering wheel. When he spoke, his voice came out low and strained. “Neither am I.”

“Michael,” Maria sagged. He was always taking things the wrong way. “You’re more human than you give yourself credit for.” When his eyes remained riveted to the road in front of them, she added, “That wasn’t an insult, you know.”

“It wasn’t?” he shot her a look through narrowed eyes.

“No, it wasn’t,” Maria said with infinite care. “Because if you weren’t human, you’d be like Rath.”

Michael let that sink in for a minute. According to Ava, Rath was a stone cold killer. An alien monstrosity, with no compassion, and no remorse. He killed, maimed, and tortured, without a conscience to haunt him. If that was what made the difference between them, that Rath was alien, and he was human, then for the first time in Michael’s life, he was glad of what he was. He’d always thought being alien would be better, but what if he’d been wrong all these years?

“Human, huh?” he looked at Maria, with just the faintest trace of a smile turning up his lips.

“Human,” Maria nodded, seeing something new in him, an acceptance of all the parts that made him who and what he was. He’d fought against being human for so long, it was surprising to see him becoming at peace within his own skin.

Michael let out a dismissive snort and turned his attention back to the highway, but he didn’t disagree with her. Maria watched him, silently adapting an old, familiar phrase. ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for Michael Guerin’. Coming to terms with his human side was a huge change for him. Still, they had to stay alive to reap any benefit from it.

“So what are we gonna do with this?” Maria asked, holding Zan’s Mission book on her lap.

“Hide it,” Michael answered. “In the pod chamber, so no one can find it.”

Behind them, hidden by the cover of darkness, a Camero drove with its lights off. Two predators following their prey, eagerly anticipating the slaughter.

* * * * *

“She’s the enemy.”

“Noooo,” Max whimpered, crumbling under Zan’s relentless assault. He’d been at him for hours now, or was it days? Time held no meaning anymore. No food. No drink. No water. No sleep. His parched throat burned with every faltering breath. The visions in his head made him wish for death.

Zan forced another to the surface, torturing Max with his own memories.


Heels clicking across a hard sterile floor.

A feminine arm clothed in a white lab coat.

A scalpel clenched in a small delicate hand, cutting into his chest.


“She wants to kill you,” Zan whispered into Max’s ear. “She wants to see you dead.”

“NO!” Max cried out. That was just a dream he’d had, a nightmare. Not real. Not real. Was it real?

Zan spun the chair around; stopping it with his face almost nose to nose with Max. Amber eyes burned into amber eyes. “She’s not the saint you think she is.”

“Stop,” Max pleaded in a trembling whisper.

“You think she loves you –”

“She does! SHE DOES!” Max shouted, clinging to the only thing he was sure of.

“Does she?” Zan taunted him. “Does she really? Or is there another she wants? Another who knows the feel of her lips? The softness of her skin?”

Max drew in a sharp breath, horrified by Zan’s insinuation. His voice came out low, spoken between clenched teeth. “What did you do to her?”

“You want to know?” Zan goaded, feeding Max’s anger, glorying in it. Anger was good. Anger was a negative emotion, and one negative emotion could be turned into another. And to get Max to do what he needed him to do, it would take a copious amount of negative emotion. “You want to know what I did to her? What she did to me?”

Zan slapped his hand against Max’s forehead, sending him a rush of images.


In the backroom of the Crashdown, Liz with someone who looked just like him . . .


But it wasn’t him, and he knew it. He’d never pushed Liz up against the wall like that before. Which meant only one thing; it had to be Zan. Zan, in the backroom of the Crashdown, kissing Liz. Liz kissing him back.

More images rushed at Max, assaulting his senses.


Zan on a bed with Liz, kissing her roughly while her hands left scratch marks across his back.

Liz, stripped to just her panties and a bra, on her knees in front of Zan, his pants unzipped and his sexual arousal clearly evident.


“NO!” Max screamed, trying to break away from the images.

“She wanted me,” Zan clamped his hand down harder, tightening his hold. More images rushed at Max, making his heart nearly stop beating.


“Before . . . when you kissed me . . . I felt something . . .”


Max froze, unable to move, unable to breathe, seeing Liz’s face in his mind, knowing the words she was saying weren’t directed at him.


“You want me.”


In his mind, Max saw her hand slide under the edge of Zan’s leather vest, touching his skin, caressing his skin, loving his skin.


“I’ll give you anything you want.”


Max groaned in agony seeing the way she kissed him, the way she touched him, the way she looked at him. The scene shifted, showing the two of them on a bed, Zan pulling on her bra strap, Liz digging her fingers into his naked skin. The scene shifted again, this time gagging Max with revulsion. Liz on her back, beneath Zan, sweat beading on her skin, his skin, their bodies slapping together, Liz moaning, Zan shuddering, cursing over and over as he comes inside her.

“No,” Max whimpered, but he couldn’t deny what he was seeing. Liz and Zan. Together. “Oh, God. No. Please, no. It can’t be. It can’t . . .”

A new image filled his mind, even more horrifying than the last. Zan, breathing heavily from exertion, rolling off Liz, onto his back, gently stroking his fingers through her hair. Liz, curling into his side, her head resting on Zan’s shoulder, her hand intimately lying across his chest.

“Liz,” Max choked back a sob. “Oh God, no . . .”



TBC . . .

AN: I'll heading to New York next weekend to attend the Tribeca Film Festival, so the next update won't be until the following week at the earliest.

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”



Author note: Some of you have asked about my trip to New York, and whether I met Jason, and the answer is YES! Take a look at my new avatar! That’s my picture of the man himself! I’d post a few more pics, but I’m not sure we’re supposed to, what with the bandwidth issues and stuff. I don’t want to do any no-nos!

Now, let’s get on with the story . . .

When last we met, Isabel, Alex, Kyle, and Ava where at Alex’s house to check on the translation for the Destiny Book. Michael and Maria were headed to the pod chamber, with Lonnie and Rath following like a couple of rabid dogs. And Zan was doing very bad things to Max, like making Max think Zan and Liz had been “together”, and sending poor Max images to prove it. Does everybody remember? If not, here’s a reminder . . .


From part 52 . . .

Max drew in a sharp breath, horrified by Zan’s insinuation. His voice came out low, spoken between clenched teeth. “What did you do to her?”

“You want to know?” Zan goaded, feeding Max’s anger, glorying in it. Anger was good. Anger was a negative emotion, and one negative emotion could be turned into another. And to get Max to do what he needed him to do, it would take a copious amount of negative emotion. “You want to know what I did to her? What she did to me?”

Zan slapped his hand against Max’s forehead, sending him a rush of images.


In the backroom of the Crashdown, Liz with someone who looked just like him . . .


But it wasn’t him, and he knew it. He’d never pushed Liz up against the wall like that before. Which meant only one thing; it had to be Zan. Zan, in the backroom of the Crashdown, kissing Liz. Liz kissing him back.

More images rushed at Max, assaulting his senses.


Zan on a bed with Liz, kissing her roughly while her hands left scratch marks across his back.

Liz, stripped to just her panties and a bra, on her knees in front of Zan, his pants unzipped and his sexual arousal clearly evident.


“NO!” Max screamed, trying to break away from the images.

“She wanted me,” Zan clamped his hand down harder, tightening his hold. More images rushed at Max, making his heart nearly stop beating.


“Before . . . when you kissed me . . . I felt something . . .”


Max froze, unable to move, unable to breathe, seeing Liz’s face in his mind, knowing the words she was saying weren’t directed at him.


“You want me.”


In his mind, Max saw her hand slide under the edge of Zan’s leather vest, touching his skin, caressing his skin, loving his skin.


“I’ll give you anything you want.”


Max groaned in agony seeing the way she kissed him, the way she touched him, the way she looked at him. The scene shifted, showing the two of them on a bed, Zan pulling on her bra strap, Liz digging her fingers into his naked skin. The scene shifted again, this time gagging Max with revulsion. Liz on her back, beneath Zan, sweat beading on her skin, his skin, their bodies slapping together, Liz moaning, Zan shuddering, cursing over and over as he comes inside her.

“No,” Max whimpered, but he couldn’t deny what he was seeing. Liz and Zan. Together. “Oh, God. No. Please, no. It can’t be. It can’t . . .”

A new image filled his mind, even more horrifying than the last. Zan, breathing heavily from exertion, rolling off Liz, onto his back, gently stroking his fingers through her hair. Liz, curling into his side, her head resting on Zan’s shoulder, her hand intimately lying across his chest.

“Liz,” Max choked back a sob. “Oh God, no . . .”



Aftermath
Part 53


Max sat in a corner of a strange room trying to shake off the murky haze clouding his mind. He couldn’t be sure of where he was, or how he’d gotten here, or who brought him here, or why. This wasn’t the same room he was in before . . . was it?

‘She’s the enemy.’

Max reared back against the white concrete wall, looking left and then right, searching for the voice, but nothing was there. Only gleaming stainless steel countertops and storage cabinets. He was alone, with just the voice in his head to keep him company. A familiar voice, one he should know, one he did know, if he could just remember . . .

‘She wants to kill you. Us. Everyone. You must protect the group. The unit. You must fulfill-’

“–the Mission,” Max nodded his head slowly. The haze in his mind cleared, reminding him of who and what he was. Max, subordinate to Zan, backup leader to the Mission.

‘You must terminate the target.’

Max looked down at the knife lying on the floor between his boot clad feet. He didn’t question where the boots came from, or the black leather pants that covered his legs, or the leather vest that adorned his chest. There was only the Mission. His hand reached for the blade, lifting the cold steel scalpel, feeling the weight of it on his palm. He had an assignment implanted into his mind, and a visual image of the target.

Dark hair. Dark eyes. Evil hiding behind innocence.

Time to complete the Mission. Time to eliminate the target. Time to find –

“Liz . . .”

* * * * *

Liz huddled in a corner of her white prison with her arms around her knees, trying to keep from falling asleep. She wasn’t sure what time it was anymore, or even what day. Was it Tuesday yet? Or maybe Wednesday? Locked in this white room, she couldn’t tell. She’d have to ask Tess the next time she saw her. Or maybe she should try to reach Tess with her mind, like she’d done with Max before. Would that work? Or could she only do it with Max because of the connection they shared?

She closed her eyes and leaned her head forward to rest on her knees, trying to concentrate on making the connection, but she was so tired, so weak, it only made her head spin. A dull ache began to form behind her eyes.

“Damnit!” she growled in frustration, fighting back the sting of tears. She refused to cry, refused to give in, refused to let Zan win. She closed her eyes again and tried to force a connection, but the effort was fruitless. She couldn’t reach Tess, and Max was blocking her out. She felt his presence right within her grasp, but the connection wouldn’t form. It scared her, wondering what Zan had done to him, or might still be doing.

A subtle click came from the direction of the door, quiet enough to be overlooked in a normal room, but resounding in this empty white space. Liz bolted to her feet, suddenly aware of Zan’s presence in the outer hall. She’d been concentrating so hard before; she didn’t feel him as he neared. Holding her breath, wondering what he would do this time, she waited, and waited, but the answer wasn’t coming. After a few tense seconds, she felt him move away.

Liz let out a shaky breath and slumped forward, relieved not to have to face Zan again. She didn’t have the energy. His will was so strong, so commanding, it was growing harder and harder to stand up against him. Next time he came for her, would it be her final breath?

Her ears felt the change first; the subtle shift in atmospheric pressure that usually indicated someone entering the room. She bolted upright once more, waiting for the door to swing open, expecting to see Tess sneaking in now that Zan was gone, but nothing happened. The door didn’t move.

“Tess?” Liz ventured a step in that direction. She couldn’t feel her on the other side of the door, but who else could it be? Not Zan, she could sense him somewhere deeper inside the facility, on the far reach of her perception. Not Lonnie or Rath either. After what she’d seen and heard, she knew their methods weren’t subtle. If they were on the other side, they would have barged right in by now.

“Tess?” Liz said again, moving closer to the door. The seam where it met the wall, normally flush and smooth, now showed a slight ridge, running from the floor to nearly a foot over her head. Her wary steps brought her closer, close enough to feel a current of air drifting in, fresh air, air that smelled like freedom. Was it possible that Zan had just made a mistake? Had he unlocked the door with the intention of coming in, then changed his mind and walked away without resealing it? Or was he toying with her, teasing her with the hint of escape, waiting to pounce on her when she tried?

Or was it Tess, skulking through the hallways, moving stealthily under Zan’s radar, grabbing at the first opportunity to help her escape? If she tried to flee now, without a plan, would Zan be waiting for her, or was this the only chance for freedom she might get?

With a trembling hand, Liz wedged her fingertips into the crack in the wall and prayed she wasn’t making a mistake.

* * * * *

Zan prowled the empty hallways, passing unmarked doors and corridors, boots echoing into the deepest corners of the facility, impatient for the hunt to begin. Soon the Mission would be over and he could move on, taking his new charges under his wing, bringing his unit to full fighting power. They would become invincible, unstoppable, the Power of Eight with the strength to bring worlds to their knees.

He made his way to the control room, virile and bold, striding with confidence and self anointed with a brash sense of invincibility. He grasped the door handle in his hot grip, certain of who and what he was meant to be. A leader. A force to be reckoned with. And no waifish little girl would deter him from his destiny. No matter how dark her eyes were, or how warm her hand was, or how soft her lips felt –

“No!” Zan tightened his grip on the doorknob. He would not think of her that way. She was the enemy. An enemy that must be eliminated. The future depended on it. The girl was too dangerous to let live.

Soon, it would be over and she would meet her end. And in doing so, her death would solidify his unit. The knowledge should satisfy him. He should be in the control room watching it right now. So why wasn’t he? He liked to watch his victims walk unwittingly into his traps. He liked to see his plans come to fruition with a good kill. There was no better feeling in the world, except . . . maybe . . . her soft lips on his –

“Fuck!” Zan’s hand nearly crushed the metal doorknob. Why wouldn’t these thoughts leave him alone? She meant nothing to him. Nothing.

Nothing.

To prove it to himself, he wrenched open the control room door, determined to witness what had to be, what must be, just another name to add to the long list in his Mission book, of assignments successfully completed. He marched to the far wall, boots thundering on the tiled floor beneath his feet, leather pants rustling with every long stride. He would watch the events unfold from the monitors, but first he’d prove she had no power over him. He reached the view panel, jaw clenched, drawing labored breaths through flared nostrils, hands fisted at his sides, just in time to see Liz slip through the door of her white room, making a bid for freedom.

“Yes. Take the bait. Find the fate that’s waiting for you.”

He watched her as she disappeared from sight, with only the trembling of his hand suggesting a deeper sense of emotion.

* * * * *

“What the hell is that?”

“The alien translation,” Alex sat in front of his computer, unfazed by Kyle’s anxious question.

“Alien is right,” Kyle grumbled, staring at the computer screen. “I guess even super computers can only do so much with an alien language. Does anyone understand how the hell to read that? We need a translation for the translation!”

“Hush!” Isabel growled, irritated by Kyle’s rambling. She was trying to read the words aloud, but understanding them was something entirely different. “Command of the Emissaries, offer here the intent of Antar from, written of proven for. What the hell does that mean?”

“It says,” Alex quoted, reading from the screen, “Ambassadors from Antar, your mission goals and directives are set forth, documented on these pages.”

“How in God’s name did you get that from that?” Kyle jabbed his finger at the computer.

“You can read that?” Isabel openly stared at Alex in stunned disbelief.

“Of course,” Alex shrugged his shoulders casually. “Can’t you?”

“Um, NO!” Kyle growled. “Intend of the purpose, touch of the soft skins primary?”

Without skipping a beat, Alex provided the translation, “Original Objective: First Contact with the peoples of Earth.”

“Holy shit!” Kyle exclaimed. The words on the screen might be in English, but strung together they made absolutely no sense. ‘Birth of forward knowledge’, ‘Soft skins of the image made’. Who could read that shit?

Ava spoke up in a soft voice, the only one who knew what was going on. “Read the rest of it, Alex.”

“Okay,” Alex swiveled the chair to look squarely at the computer screen again. He read clearly the words no one else could decipher.

“Ambassadors from Antar, your Mission Goals and Directives are set forth, documented on these pages.

Original Objective: First Contact with the peoples of Earth.
Purpose of Mission: Exploration and Scientific Exchange.

Directive Modification: Protection, Preservation, and Guardianship.

You were created by Antarian scientists for the purpose of initiating First Contact with the Human race, to offer a hand of friendship across the galaxies and expand the opportunities for scientific advancement. You were made in the likeness of humans so that you could walk among them without your appearance inciting fear or alarm.

A warrior race known only as the Skins has necessitated the alteration of your Prime Directive. Before your mission to Earth could be launched, Antar was invaded and the technology used to create you was appropriated by force. The Skins’ origins are unknown; they are a parasitic race, inhabiting the bodies of the races they conquer, moving through the galaxy from planet to planet, leaving death and destruction in their wake. They have taken control of the Granilith and have subverted its purpose, using its time/spatial distortion to chart future events and target those deemed obstacles to their dominion. The Skins have enslaved Antar, and used our cloning technology to create others like you, human hybrids, programmed to serve as soldiers in their plan for Universal Dominance.

Your Modified Directive is to initiate a first line defense of planet Earth, to assist its denizens against an impending invasion, to protect the Human race from the enslavement that has befallen Antar. A prototype of the Granilith has been entrusted to you. Use it to find the one you must protect.”

“Oh my God!” Isabel covered her mouth with her hand.

“How can he read that?” Kyle blurted out.

“It’s his gift,” Ava said, drawing everyone’s attention. “His power. When Max healed him, he gave Alex the ability to visualize patterns in the written word, and extrapolate the meaning.”

“Wow!” Alex let out a snort. “I’m a linguistics specialist, huh? Cool!”

“A living, breathing, code breaker,” Kyle voiced.

Alex hit the print icon on the computer screen. “We better show this to Michael.”

* * * * *

Max finished the reconnaissance of his new surroundings, mapping out the best locations for silent observation, or sneak attacks, or going in for the kill. Satisfied with his preparation, he leaned back against the concrete wall, waiting for his target to enter his domain. He slowly slid down to crouch on the floor, deciding the best course of action would be to conserve his energy, in case the target proved to be a worthy adversary.

As he waited he fingered the leather material covering his legs, frowning slightly. Since when did he wear leather? Hadn’t he been wearing jeans before? Or was it his favorite pair of khaki’s? Or . . . something . . . green?

He shook his head, thinking too hard made his mind hurt. He rubbed his fingers against the tension in his temples; what did it matter what he used to wear?

‘Can you take your shirt off?’

Max snapped his head up. His eyes swept the room, but no movement gave any indication of another’s presence. The voice was only in his head, echoing with all the others.

‘I can’t do it to you.’

‘I’m glowing on the inside . . .’

Max shrugged out of the leather vest; it didn’t feel right on his skin. It brushed against the needle mark on the inside of his left elbow.

‘Don’t even try to use your abilities, Max. The serum we injected you with – very effective in suppressing the neurotransmitters in your cerebral cortex.’

His heart rate climbed. His breathing became more labored. His hand touched the center of his chest feeling a phantom stab of pain.

‘Max, what did they do to you?’

‘I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I can’t tell you what I don’t know!’

“Stop!” Max pressed the heels of his palms against his forehead trying to will the voices away. The movement caused the cold steel of the blade in his hand to nick his right thumb. He jerked his hand down quickly, surprised to see a droplet of red blood bead on his skin. He gaped at it in shock, watching it well up and trickle down the pad of his thumb. He waved his left hand over the wound to heal his injury, but nothing happened. The blood continued to flow. He couldn’t heal himself.

‘Open him up!’

“NO!” Max shouted at the walls, tightening his hand around the handle of the scalpel. Blood dripped from his thumb leaving red drops on the floor. “Leave me alone!”

* * * * *

Zan stood stiffly in front of the security monitors watching Liz move stealthily down the main corridor, looking forward and back, her large eyes showing her nervousness and fear. She tested each door she passed; turning each doorknob, but only one would open to her. Zan had made sure of that.

“Yes. Just a little further.”

His pulse quickened when her hand closed around the designated door, the one that would lead her to her fate. She hesitated when the knob turned, looking behind her again, causing Zan to wonder if she might be searching for him? Expecting him to jump out at any moment to return her to her room? Was her heart racing with the hope of freedom, or the fear of having it snatched away from her? Did she know what was waiting for her beyond that white steel door?

Zan shifted his gaze to the monitor on the right, seeing Max crouched in a corner, rocking forward and back on his heels. He’d been screaming at the walls earlier, but he was back under control now. A few well chosen words whispered over the intercom had been enough to refocus him on the Mission.

Liz moved quickly though the unlocked door, carefully closing it behind her, trying not to make a sound. Zan shifted his attention from Max back to her, watching her cautious infiltration into the kill zone.

A bead of sweat trickled down Zan’s spine, a cold sweat, instead of the heat that usually burned inside him. A good kill was cause for celebration, a job well done, a Mission completed. He should be feeling the thrill of the hunt, the bloodlust heating his veins, not the cold dread sitting in his stomach, or the dead weight pressing on his heart.

‘Tell me, Max. What’s my destiny?’

“To die by his hand,” Zan told the voice in his head.

But the prospect wasn’t as appealing as it should be. In fact, his apprehension grew watching her fate unfold on the monitors in front of him. Max rose to his feet, staring at some sound in the distance, convulsively clutching the scalpel in his hand. On a second monitor, Liz moved closer to her death.

* * * * *

“Let’s go,” Rath wrenched open the driver’s side door of the Camero. He was anxious to do a little playing with the girl, before he killed her, of course. He’d even be generous; he’d let Michael watch.

“Wait,” Lonnie grabbed his arm.

“C’mon!” Rath huffed. “They’s gettin’ away.”

“Let’s see where they go,” Lonnie growled under her breath.

Michael paused at the base of the Vasquez rocks, sweeping his gaze over the moonlit desert terrain.

“What?” Maria moved closer to him, chilled by the night air.

“Nothing,” Michael shook his head, eyeing the long shadows cast by the full moon. Upright cacti masqueraded as men, large boulders provided excellent hiding places. The normally tranquil desert seemed menacing tonight. Feeling a chill of apprehension, he turned Maria toward the rocks, letting her lead the way. He could protect her better from behind. All along the steep incline, he watched the desert floor for any kind of movement. He wouldn’t feel secure until he had Maria safely inside the pod chamber.

* * * * *

Zan moved restlessly around the control room trying to force himself to stay away until the deed was done, but his eyes kept returning to the monitors, charting Liz’s progress through the labs. Like an animal being led to slaughter, she moved steadily closer to Max, opening the doors Zan had meticulously planned out for her. On a second monitor, Max paced the floor in his new environment, gripping the instrument of Liz’s demise in his hand. Soon their destinies would converge. Soon Zan would be witness to it. Soon, he would see the blood run from her lifeless body.

Against his will, Zan found himself drawn to Liz’s image again. He moved to the monitor, toggling a switch on the control panel to zoom in on her face.

“Why did it have to be you?” he implored the screen. Just looking at her made him weaken, the endorphins in his brain sequestered by stronger emotions.

‘Before . . . when you kissed me . . . I felt something . . .’

Zan lifted his hand to touch the screen, to touch the image of Liz Parker.

What had she felt when he kissed her? Was there some spark inside her that might have burned for him? Had she felt the way he burned for her? He couldn’t deny it. She’d been working her way under his skin for months now, first in his dreams before he ever knew she existed, then even more so when he arrived in Roswell and saw her with his own eyes.

“Could you have loved me? The way you love him?”

The memory of her vision flooded his mind; the scalpel in her hand, the blood running down his chest. He’d made steps to ensure that vision wouldn’t come true, that it would be her blood spilled, her life taken, but could he really stand here and let it happen?

On the screen, Max prowled in Liz’s direction, only a room away from his target.

“No,” Zan’s hands began to shake. He leaned into the desk, talking to the monitor, saying things he never thought he would. The words tumbled from his mouth, a traitor to his Mission. “Go the other way, Liz. Go the other way!” Unfamiliar emotions sprang from some deep recess in his being, human emotions that had been suppressed for years, never given a chance to grow. But she made him feel. For good or for bad, she made his humanity come to life.

Zan toggled a switch, shouting with sudden panic. “RUN, LIZ! RUN!”

When she didn’t react, he flipped another switch, and then another, desperately trying to activate the speakers hidden in the ceiling above her.

Max covered his ears with his hands trying to block out the shouting voices. He couldn’t tell if this one was in his mind, or a phantom on the wind. Who was supposed to run? And why?

“Jesus!” Zan fumbled with another switch. “Why won’t you fucking work!” His fist pounded on the control panel, growling out in frustration. “Liz! LIZ!”

Liz spun around, banging into a stainless steel dissection table. The familiar voice echoed around her. “Max?”

Zan startled in relief, heedless of who she thought he was, only caring that she could hear him. “Get out of there, Liz!” he yelled into the microphone. “He’s coming for you!”

“Max?” Liz searched the corners of the room for a camera. “Where are you?”

“Jesus, Liz, get the hell out of there! Now! NO!” Zan shouted when he saw her turn the wrong way. “Back! Go back the way you came!”

“That way?” she felt the panic in his voice seeping into her. She turned and ran for the door behind her. As she fled, her mind tried to process what was happening. Had Max escaped too? Had Tess freed them both from their prisons? Was Zan now hunting them both?

“Yes,” Zan called out, following her flight from one monitor to another, switching cameras to track her as she fled. “Yes. Keep going that way,” he intoned, intent to lead her to safety. He didn’t think beyond the moment, of what his rash actions would mean to his own future. His carefully crafted life was irrefutably changing.

Liz slammed into a door finding unexpected resistance. She twisted at the knob but it wouldn’t turn. Her hand gripped it tightly and started to glow.

“No! Not that way!” Zan shouted at the monitor. In shock, he watched her open a door she shouldn’t have had access to. She was running in a blind panic, lost in the maze of labs, headed right toward Max.

“Go back! GO BACK!” he shouted, but she couldn’t hear him. “FUCK!” he hissed, turning from the monitors and running from the control room.

If he didn’t get to her soon it would be too late.



TBC . . .


Note: For those of you interested, I’m in the process of reposting A Special Kind of Love here

And here are the links to a few of my other stories:
Maxeo and Lizziet
Captive Hearts
A Walk in the Park
Downfall
Pieces of the Past
Echoes of Tomorrow

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”



Aftermath
Part 54


Max paced the tile floor, raking a hand back through his hair, feeling restless and agitated. The air in the room had turned cold, raising goose bumps on his flesh, or maybe it just seemed cold without the leather vest to keep him warm. He thought about putting it back on, but he didn’t like the way it felt, like it belonged on someone else, not him.

He rubbed his hand up his arm to warm his flesh, frowning at the feel of something hard against his skin. He looked down to see the sharp blade of a scalpel in his hand. Where did that come from?

‘She’s the enemy.’

“Who?” Max spoke to the voice in his head.

A face filled his mind, Liz smiling shyly, sitting next to him at their lab table, blushing and then biting on her lower lip when she read his note, asking her to meet him in the eraser room.

‘She wants to see you dead.’

“Liz?” Max frowned at the voice. No, Liz didn’t want to see him dead. Liz could never –

But then another image filled his mind, blotting out the first. Heels clicking across a sterile floor. A feminine arm clothed in a white lab coat. A scalpel clenched in a small, delicate hand, the blade cutting into his chest.

“NO!” Max tossed the scalpel away, covering his ears with his hands as it clattered against the tile floor. That wasn’t Liz. It wasn’t Liz.

Was it Liz?

‘She’s not the saint you think she is.’

“STOP TALKING!” Max shouted at the walls. He moved toward the door, trying to flee the voice.

‘Stay in this room.’

Max froze with his hand just inches from the doorknob. Why did he need to stay?

‘Wait for her to come to you.’

“Why?” Max turned in a circle, searching blindly for a voice that was only in his head.

‘You know what to do when she gets here.’

Another image flashed in Max’s head; of Liz on the floor, underneath him, his thighs straddling her hips, holding her down. His hands tore open her white lab coat, then ripped apart her green scrub top, exposing her pale skin. He used his knees to pin her arms to her sides, then took the blade and stabbed it into her flesh. He carved a line down the center of her chest, then reached inside and pulled her beating heart out.

“NOOOOO,” Max sank to his knees, covering his face with his hands.

‘Fulfill your Destiny. Be what you were meant to be. Do what you were meant to do.’

Max lowered his hands from his eyes and rose to his feet, breathing heavily. Time to fulfill his destiny, his purpose, his reason for being.

Time to find Liz.

* * * * *

Zan raced down the long corridor, heart pounding in his chest, stomach twisting with an agony unfamiliar to him. He’d never tried to save anyone before.

For years he’d lived by the Skins’ edicts. He’d followed their orders to the letter. He’d lived and breathed for their command. Until a dark haired girl changed everything. Now, every truth he’d ever known was being called into question. All the people he’d killed. All the lives he’d torn apart. For the first time in his life, Zan questioned his loyalty to the Skins and found it wanting.

Until now, the blood on his hands had never bothered him. It was his job. His mission. The only life he knew. It was what he was bred for; a soldier without emotion, but Liz had changed all that. She’d torn down the walls that imprisoned his humanity, releasing a torrent of human emotion, something totally alien to him.

Or had it always been there, and he just couldn’t see it? There’d been times, in the beginning, when he hadn’t always been cruel. He’d never felt a bond with Ava, but he’d still protected her. He’d shielded her from Rath’s aggression, and defended her from Lonnie’s belligerence. Only now did he see the stark differences between him and Ava, and Lonnie and Rath.

Lonnie and Rath had no humanity in them. He and Ava did. It was the only explanation for what he was doing now, trying to save the life of his intended victim. His humanity wouldn’t allow him to kill the one he loved.

He raced headlong down the hallway, with time running out.

* * * * *

“C’mom, C’MON!” Liz fumbled with another locked door. She’d taken a wrong turn somewhere, but she wasn’t sure where. Everything looked the same, a maze of abandoned labs, stainless steel and chrome, concrete walls and tiled floors. Her footsteps echoed hollowly as she ran from room to room, only now hers weren’t the only ones. Another set of footsteps was following her, chasing her, just like in her vision.

“GOD!” Liz twisted the doorknob, trying to get it open. “Please,” she muttered, adrenalin making her heart pound. Her hand glowed against the lock, hoping her new power would last until she escaped this place, otherwise she’d be trapped.

A muffled shout made her gasp, how close or far away she couldn’t tell. It sounded a little like her name, but was it Max calling her, or Zan stalking her, enjoying his vicious games? How much longer until he found her and brought the game to an end?

When the lock clicked Liz burst through the door into another featureless lab, the same as all the others. Nowhere to hide. No sign of freedom. She raced to the next door, but her foot hit a wet spot on the floor that sent her sprawling. She fell face down on the tiles with the wind knocked from her lungs.

She lay there stunned for a moment, gasping for breath, assaulted with pains in her knees and her wrist and her chin, all points of impact from her fall. Her vision swam in and out of focus. When it cleared, she tried to push herself up from the floor, but her hand touched something wet and sticky. And red.

“What . . .?” Liz muttered, looking from her hand to the red spots dotted on the floor. Her eyes grew wide as she realized what it was.

Blood. Someone had bled in this room, and recently.

She pushed herself up from the floor and took a step, wincing at a sharp pain in her ankle. She must have twisted it when she fell. She looked down at the smeared bloodstains on the floor, then at the mess on her clothes, red stains on the legs of her green scrub pants, and marring the front of her white lab coat. She wondered if it was Max’s blood? Or maybe even Tess’s? She hadn’t seen the girl for hours. Had Zan done something to her?

A door slammed somewhere close, another muffled shout reached her ears, spurring Liz to run again. She took a faltering step, biting back the pain, refusing to give in to it. Giving up now would only get her killed. She grabbed another doorknob, surprised when this one opened freely. It hit something when she swung it wide, and sent it skittering across the floor. Her heart leapt when she saw what it was; the steel handle, the sharp blade, her only means of protection. She grabbed the scalpel off the floor and ran for her life.

* * * * *

“So what was it like?”

“What was what like?” Michael struggled to get a bag down from an alcove where they’d hidden it. Inside he felt the healing stones shift. He brought it to the floor of the cavern and opened it, revealing all their otherworldly possessions. Healing stones, scraps of silvery metal scoured from the desert floor, a necklace with an alien symbol. He added the Mission book to the collection.

“Coming out of the pod?” Maria asked, standing in front of the withered elliptical structures.

Michael came up behind her, stopping just inches away. “Kind of like being born, I guess.”

“You remember it?” Maria wrapped her arms around herself.

“A little,” Michael shrugged. “Bits and pieces. I remember clawing my way out. It was dark, but I could see okay. Everything was . . . glowing.” He shook off the memory and went back to retrieve the bag, to put it away for safekeeping. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

* * * * *

“LIZ?” Zan burst through another door, breathing heavily. His wild gaze swept the room but it was empty, just like all the rest. Sweat beaded on his brow, more trickled down his side, dampening his leather vest.

Where was she? He didn’t have a monitor to track her location anymore. Instead, instinct told him which way to go, bred by years of tracking victims.

But this time the stakes were higher. This time his Mission was different. This time the only orders he was following were his own.

A sound in the near distance alerted him to her presence. He ran in that direction.

* * * * *

Max pushed his way into another room, searching for the one he must find. It was his duty, his charge, his mission to . . . to what?

To protect her –

‘No, you must kill her.’

“No,” Max clamped his hands over his ears. “That’s not right!”

‘You almost did it once. You can do it again.’

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

But even as he said it, a memory surfaced of a warm day at the lake, relaxing on the dock, falling asleep with his fingers laced between hers, then waking up with his hand around her throat, trying to strangle the life out of her.

“I didn’t mean to hurt her!” Max shouted at the walls.

‘Complete what you started.’

“I won’t. I can’t!”

‘She’s not who you think she is.’

“You’re wrong!”

‘You think she loves you.’

“Stop talking! STOP TALKING!”

‘She wanted me.’

“SHUT UP!”

‘She liked what I did to her.’

“NO!”

Despite his denial, Max’s mind filled with the images again. Her lust for another. Her betrayal. Her body opening to Zan. Max sickened at the vision, of Zan slamming into her, of Liz lifting her hips to meet him, their skin sweating, his pounding thrusts, his grunting moans, her legs spread, her breasts bouncing, his hands on her hips, holding her down, his fingers digging into her skin – her skin –

There was something wrong about her skin.

The image froze in Max’s mind, of Zan with his hands on Liz’s hips.

Her bare, unblemished hips.

* * * * *

“Michael?” Maria called out as she wandered around the pod chamber. “What are you doing?”

“I’ll . . . there . . . minute.”

Maria rolled her eyes at his muffled response, muttering, “A minute my ass. He’s probably in there playing with that oversized snowcone.”

“Did you miss me, Babe?”

Maria let out a gasp as a strong arm wrapped around her from behind, nearly sweeping her off her feet. She felt his hot breath on her throat, and then his hand groping under the lower hem of her shirt.

“Michael!” she slapped his hand. “What’s gotten in to you?”

She tried to push away, but his arm only tightened around her. Under different circumstances, she might have welcomed this kind of behavior from him, but his libidinous actions seemed inappropriate now, too intimate given the status of their relationship.

“Got a little sumpin’ for me, Babe?” he nibbled on her throat.

“Michael!” Maria cried out when he bit her. She put her hand up to her throat to check for blood and turned around to glare at him. “What’s you prob –”

The words stuck in Maria’s throat when she saw who was standing behind her. Michael wasn’t Michael any more. His clothes were all wrong. His hair was all wrong. His eyes were all wrong. She was used to seeing a perpetual frown on Michael’s face, not the leer she was looking at. She sickened as he rolled his pierced tongue out of his mouth and wiggled it at her suggestively.

“Who – who are you?” Maria stumbled backwards.

“Hey, Lon?” he shot a question over his shoulder. “I got time ta play wit her?”

Maria’s eyes widened even more as another figure stepped out of the shadows. She watched in shock as the woman turned her dark curls into long blonde tresses, and her punk style clothes into teenager chic, taking on the spitting image of Isabel Evans.

Lonnie appraised the human, looking her up and down. “She ain’t your type. All mouth and no body.”

“Mouth is good enough for me,” Rath backed a frightened Maria up against the rock wall.

“MI –” she started to scream for Michael, but Rath slapped his hand over her mouth. She bit the heel of his hand. He retaliated by slamming her head against the rock wall behind her.

“Keep her quiet!” Lonnie hissed. “I’ll go take care of the other one.”

* * * * *

Tess cautiously opened the door to her quarters, inching out just far enough to look left, and then right, relieved that the hallway was empty. She’d awakened to the sound of running, and shouting, like all hell was breaking loose in the facility. She wasn’t supposed to leave the room, per Zan’s instructions earlier in the night, but she couldn’t feel the imperative to stay sequestered anymore. For some reason, things were different.

She closed the door behind her and carefully made her way to the control room, listening at the door for any sound, any clue, that might tell her whether Zan was inside. What would he do to her if he found her out of her room? A sound echoed from down the hallway, like a plaintive cry, or a desperate plea, driving her inside. What she found there made her blood run cold.

Tess stood in front of the viewing panel, with her hand covering her mouth to hold back a cry. The room stood barren and empty, a wedge of light streaked across the floor from the open doorway. How had Liz gotten out? She whirled around to look at the monitors, drawing in another gasp.

Max’s room – empty.

Liz running through the labs on bare feet, bloodstains covering her clothes.

Two men chasing her, a hunter and the hunted, but which one was which?

* * * * *

Liz ran as fast as she could, ignoring the pain in her ankle, and her knees, and everywhere else in her body, still desperately trying to find the way back to the main corridor. How had she gotten herself so turned around?

Footsteps came at her from all directions; in front of her and behind her, so loud they couldn’t possibly be real. This had to be a dream, right? Just a nightmare? Because in the real world, she should be serving greasy food to the starving masses, or sitting under the stars on her balcony writing in her journal, or making out with Max in the backseat of the jeep out at Buckley Point. She shouldn’t be running bare foot through an old abandoned military installation wearing bloodstained clothes. She shouldn’t have an alien assassin chasing her, intent on killing her. She shouldn’t have an entire race of alien invaders wanting to see her dead.

None of it made any sense. She was just a small town girl, not even out of high school! How could she be a threat to anyone? It was crazy.

She drew in a sharp breath, hearing Zan’s distant shout somewhere behind her, muffled through the walls. She stopped to catch her breath, holding her hand to her aching side, her heart fluttering wildly. She swept her eyes around the perimeter of the ceiling trying to find a hidden camera. Was Max still in the control room? Could he help her find her way to freedom?

“Max? Can you hear me? I can’t find the way out!”

The only response to her plea was the crashing open of another door, much closer than before. Too close. She took off running again, ignoring the pain in her ankle, the ache in her side, the burning in her lungs. If she gave in to it, she’d never survive.

The door in front of her stood wide open, like a giant maw ready to swallow her. She ran for it, suddenly filled with a sense of déjà vu, certain she’d been this way before. Was freedom just up ahead? Hope filled her as she raced through the doorway certain she was heading the right way now, only to have her hopes crushed when she collided with a solid object.

At first she was too stunned to move, the impact taking the air right out of her lungs. She would have stumbled backwards, except for the pair of strong hands gripping her by the shoulders. His face loomed above hers, amber eyes growing wide in shocked surprise as he looked from her face down to his chest. She pulled her hand away like it was on fire, leaving the scalpel embedded there, her vision now reality.

“Liz?” her name caught in his throat. He stumbled backwards on shaky legs feeling the damage the razor sharp blade had done; rending skin, slicing through tissue, sliding between his ribs to sever his aorta. Death would be quick. His legs collapsed and sent him to his knees as blood began to bubble up into his throat.

“Oh God!” Liz covered her mouth with her bloody hands. She watched him pull the blade out of his chest, witnessed the arterial spray of blood pumping from the wound. The scalpel fell from his limp hand and clattered to the floor.

He reached out his hand to her, staring up into her horrified face, then collapsed forward with a sickening thud. He whispered her name one last time, then slipped into oblivion.


TBC . . .


And here are the links to a few of my other stories:
Repost in progress:
A Special Kind of Love
Completed fics:
Maxeo and Lizziet
Captive Hearts
A Walk in the Park
Downfall
Pieces of the Past
Echoes of Tomorrow

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”


A/N: Does everyone remember where we left off? Just in case you might have forgotten, here’s a little reminder . . .

From Part 54


The door in front of her stood wide open, like a giant maw ready to swallow her. She ran for it, suddenly filled with a sense of déjà vu, certain she’d been this way before. Was freedom just up ahead? Hope filled her as she raced through the doorway certain she was heading the right way now, only to have her hopes crushed when she collided with a solid object.

At first she was too stunned to move, the impact taking the air right out of her lungs. She would have stumbled backwards, except for the pair of strong hands gripping her by the shoulders. His face loomed above hers, amber eyes growing wide in shocked surprise as he looked from her face down to his chest. She pulled her hand away like it was on fire, leaving the scalpel embedded there, her vision now reality.

“Liz?” her name caught in his throat. He stumbled backwards on shaky legs feeling the damage the razor sharp blade had done; rending skin, slicing through tissue, sliding between his ribs to sever his aorta. Death would be quick. His legs collapsed and sent him to his knees as blood began to bubble up into his throat.

“Oh God!” Liz covered her mouth with her bloody hands. She watched him pull the blade out of his chest, witnessed the arterial spray of blood pumping from the wound. The scalpel fell from his limp hand and clattered to the floor.

He reached out his hand to her, staring up into her horrified face, then collapsed forward with a sickening thud. He whispered her name one last time, then slipped into oblivion.




Aftermath
Part 55


“Oh God,” Liz moaned through her hands. She trembled looking at the carnage on the floor, and the growing circle of blood spreading out around his body.

A part of her wanted to flee, to save herself, but another part of her wanted to go to him, to see if he was alive, to find out if the wound had been fatal. She inched forward with growing dread, afraid to touch him, afraid to know what her heart was telling her. He looked like Zan, he dressed like Zan, but a gnawing doubt plagued her. When he’d reached out his hand to her right before he collapsed, his eyes had looked so . . . human.

Was it possible? Had she been running for freedom at the same time Max had forsaken his own in order to save her? Had his love for her sent him here to find her? And his reward for his nobility was to be fatally stabbed in the chest? How could she live with herself if she had caused his death?

“Max?” she knelt beside him, stretching out a trembling hand. A gasp behind her made her spin around, eliciting a startled gasp of her own. She stared into a second set of amber eyes, so cold they sent a chill up her spine. He looked at the bloodstains on her hands, her clothes, then at the dying body on the floor.

He’d seen it all, everything she’d done. Her hand around the scalpel. The blade sinking into the other one’s chest. The blood on her white lab coat.

‘She’s the enemy. She wants to see you dead.’

He took a step forward.

Time to complete the mission.

* * * * *

“Are you okay?” Michael shifted on the floor, trying to find a comfortable position. His shoulder hurt from where he’d impacted the wall. His chest hurt from the blast Lonnie had hurled at him that made him hit the wall in the first place. His wrists and ankles hurt from the alien force field holding them bound. His pride hurt from the easy way with which Lonnie had overpowered him.

But most of all, his heart hurt from seeing Maria in such danger.

“Am I okay?” Maria’s voice gave away the stress and strain of being held prisoner by two ruthless, murdering aliens. “Am I okay?! NO, I’M NOT OKAY!”

“You gotta death wish or somethin’?” Rath hissed at her. He hadn’t been around her for very long, but she was already seriously pissing him off. If she didn’t shut up, he was gonna have to do it for her.

“Maria, please,” Michael begged her under his breath.

“Michael, I’m so scared,” her voice trembled.

With their wrists secured behind their backs, their movements were restricted, but not enough to prevent the human contact they both needed. Despite the ache it caused in his wrists, Michael reached for her hand and held it. Together they watched Rath and Lonnie circle around the Granilith.

“Are you sure?” Rath looked the structure up and down. It didn’t look like the damn thing even worked.

“A’course I’m sure,” Lonnie shot him an irritated look. “We seen it in the Mission Book.”

“How’d it get here? Why ain’t we heard about it?”

“It ain’t the original, Einstein,” Lonnie grumbled. “They musta made a copy.”

“You think it works?”

Lonnie laid her hand on the glasslike bell, feeling for a vibration, or some sense of power, or force. The Granilith was legendary. Controlling it would give her the power to control the universe.

Lonnie turned to look at Michael, her dark eyes cold, her tone chilling. “Where’s the key?”

“What key?” Michael stammered.

“The key that starts it,” Lonnie hissed. “Don’t you fuckin’ know anything?” She waved her hand in the air, showing him a three dimensional image of a crystalline object. She watched his face change with sudden recognition.

“Where is it?” she demanded.

“I – I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael lied.

“Do I hafta blast it outta ya?” her face turned livid with rage. “I want that key!”

“I don’t know anything about a damn key!” Michael shot back. Maria’s hand squeezed his tighter.

Lonnie whirled on Rath, ready to force the issue. “You want the girl? Go ahead and have her. Let’s see how Mikey boy likes it!”

“No!” Michael blurted out. He felt Maria’s hand wrenched out of his as Rath jerked her to her feet.

“Michael!” Maria struggled. “Michael!”

Rath’s fingers dug into her arms. He yanked her close, rubbing his body against her obscenely. Michael fought against the restraints but he couldn’t get free. Maria kneed Rath in the groin. She ran for her life but Rath grabbed her by her hair and yanked her back.

Lonnie advanced on Michael. If he wasn’t going to tell her what she wanted to know, then she’d just have to rape his mind for the information she wanted. This was gonna be fun.

* * * * *

Liz scrambled backwards, scooting across the floor, nearly paralyzed with fear. Her hand slipped on the widening pool of blood on the floor. She looked from the body next to her, to the man advancing on her, unable to tell which was which. Their auras felt too similar, containing both light and dark, good and bad. Which one was Max? Which one was Zan?

Her hand hit something hard in the expanding puddle of blood. She seized it, gripping the sticky blade as the man with the cold amber eyes advanced on her. His face looked hard, set, inhuman, so much like Zan’s, but . . . there was something familiar there, despite his appearance.

Everything about him looked like Zan; his boots, his leather pants, the way he stalked her across the room with his hands clenched at his sides. His eyes burned right through her with deadly menace.

“Please,” she tried to stand but her feet slipped on the blood. She came down hard on her elbow, knocking the blade from her hand. She groped for it, but he was on her in a flash, grappling with her, wrenching the blade away from her.

“You thought you’d kill me?” he hissed in her face, pinning her to the ground. He reared back, straddling her hips to hold her down. “I won’t let you do it again.”

“Don’t,” Liz whispered, reeling from the flash she’d received when he touched her. Her eyes swept over his bare chest, seeing it now, recognizing what she’d been missing. The heart shaped tattoo with her name inside it said it all, confirming who he really was. She looked up at his malevolent face, whispering his name. “Max.”

For a moment she saw him waver, just the barest flicker in his eyes, and then they darkened again, turning almost black with alien malice. He pinned her arms to her sides with his powerful thighs, tore her bloodstained lab coat open, then ripped the green scrub top apart, baring her chest. He gripped the scalpel in both his hands and raised it high above his head.

* * * * *

Tess raced down the central corridor of the facility trying to think of where they might be. She had to get to Max and Liz before Zan did something to them. But all the doorways looked the same, and she wasn’t sure where to start. Liz’s room was empty, so was Max’s, and she didn’t know the facility well enough to navigate it by heart. They could be anywhere.

She wasn’t sure what game Zan was playing, but she knew it couldn’t be good. Max and Liz didn’t stand a chance against him. He’d been using his powers for years, honing them to perfection, carrying out his missions with precision and deadly skill. She’d seen a glimpse inside him, of the things he’d seen and done over the years, and the memory of it left her chilled deep in her soul. How could anyone be so cruel?

But there’d been more than just cruelty in the flashes she’d seen. There’d been moments in his life, back in the beginning while he waited for Ava to mature, when he went off by himself and sat for hours contemplating their reasons for being here. Even after the bonding, it’d taken time for his cruelty to equal Rath’s and Lonnie’s. But he was the leader. He had to be strong. Failure wasn’t an option.

She wondered what their lives might have been like if she had been with Zan from the beginning instead of Ava? They would have bonded right away because they were made to be together, and in the end their programming would have made them just like Rath and Lonnie. The bonding had done something to him, changed him into what he’d become. How ironic that the bond between Zan and Ava brought out the worst in Zan, but the same bond between Max and Liz brought out the best in Max.

The crash splintered their group into 3, Max, Michael and Isabel in one group, Zan and his cohorts in another, and herself all alone under the watchful eye of her ‘protector’. If it hadn’t been for the crash, would she have become just as cold blooded and ruthless as the others? The idea that her human side was what kept her from being a monster was sobering. For years she’d shunned it, and it was only now that she’d come to accept it, and even embrace it. Would she get a chance to live it?

She turned another corner, desperately rattling locked doorknobs as she dashed along the hallway. She thought about calling out to Max or Liz, but she didn’t want to alert Zan to her presence. If he was stalking them, and from what she’d seen on the monitors in the control room it appeared that was exactly what he was doing, her only advantage would be surprise.

But which one was Max, and which one was Zan? They were both dressed the same. One wore a leather vest and the other one didn’t, but that didn’t give her any clue. How would she be able to tell them apart?

A door suddenly yielded to her frantic probing, yawning open to reveal a stark and empty lab. A distant shout reached her, muffled and indistinct, but distinctly male. Was it Max? Was he in trouble? He was no match for Zan.

Swallowing her fear, Tess cautiously entered the laboratory.

* * * * *

For Liz, the world went into slow motion. Her senses didn’t register the cold, hard floor beneath her. She couldn’t feel Zan’s expanding pool of blood soaking into her hair. The only thing she was aware of was Max, pinning her arms to her sides, ripping apart her clothes, holding the scalpel above his head ready to plunge it into her chest.

She wouldn’t hold him to blame for what he was about to do. In the flash she’d seen what Zan had done to him, brainwashing him, twisting his memories, torturing him. He’d stripped Max of his sanity, and along with it his humanity. He wasn’t responsible for what he was about to do.

As the blade began to descend, she locked her eyes on Max’s and whispered her final words. “I love you.”

Max’s downward motion faltered. His eyes looked into the girl’s, the target, the mission he was here to complete. He knew what he was supposed to do, he’d been given clear instructions, but her eyes . . . there was something in her eyes.

‘I look at you, and I know you’re the person I’m supposed to be with. I’ve always known it.

When I was in that room, and they did what they did to me, you’re what kept me alive.

The thought of you.

The way your eyes look into mine.

Your smile.

The touch of your skin.

Your lips.

Knowing you has made me . . . human.

Whether I die tomorrow or fifty years from now, my destiny is the same. It’s you. I want to be with you, Liz.

I love you.’

Max wavered as the connection deepened. Her eyes bared her soul, flooding him with emotion and memories, breaking though the blocks in his mind. Reality resurfaced.

“Liz?”

She saw it as soon as it happened, when the Max she knew returned. The darkness left his eyes, exposing his confusion and growing horror. His hand loosened on the blade. It slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.

“Oh god,” Max pushed away from her. Blood covered his leather pants, his shoes, his hands. “What have I done? What have I done?”

“Max,” Liz pushed herself up to a sitting position. “You didn’t –”

“Oh god,” he scampered backwards across the floor, putting distance between them. His back hit the cold concrete wall.

“Max,” she crawled over to him, sensing he wouldn’t – couldn’t – hurt her. “You didn’t do anything.”

“I almost killed you,” he whispered, staring at her through tear filled eyes.

“But you didn’t,” she cupped his face with her hand. “You couldn’t.”

She felt him tense as she touched him, and for a moment she feared he might withdraw to a place where she couldn’t find him, but then in a rush his arms were around her, clinging to her, burying his face against the warmth of her breast, spilling hot tears onto her skin.

“We’re okay,” she whispered into his hair, praying it wasn’t just a platitude. She looked around the room, knowing they couldn’t stay there.

“Max,” she lifted his chin, wiping the tears off his cheek with her thumb. “We have to go. We can’t stay here.”

He nodded in understanding, sweeping his eyes over the carnage in the room. Liz helped him to his feet and together, leaning into each other, they staggered from the room.

* * * * *

Tess neared another open doorway, listening closely. She’d heard noises a few minutes ago, like the sound of a struggle, but everything was quiet now. She peered into the next room, using the same caution she had with all the others, but this time what she saw made her gasp out loud.

She saw his boot first, and then a leg, and then the full impact hit her. There’d been a struggle in this room. Blood covered the floor, not just around the body, but smeared everywhere. It formed an instant picture in her mind, a supposition based on what she was seeing, leading her to a horrifying conclusion.

“Max!” Tess cried out, racing into the room. She dropped down next to him, unmindful of the blood around his body. He must have fought with Zan trying to protect Liz, but Zan was too powerful, too strong. Max was no match for him. She turned him over to see how badly he was hurt, gasping again at the amount of blood covering him. She pushed his vest aside to see where it was coming from.

“Max, Max, I’m here, I’ll help you,” she spoke to him, searching for his injury. She wiped at the blood on his chest until she found where it was coming from. “I’ll help you,” she repeated again, pressing her palm against the wound to staunch the flow. She concentrated on the healing, wondering how much blood was left inside him.

“Come on, Max,” she cried, trembling with the effort to heal him. “Don’t die on me. Liz needs you.”

Her palm glowed against his skin, sending every ounce of healing power that she had into him. She felt the damage inside, the severed tissue, muscle, and arteries, concentrating all her efforts on healing them. When she was finished there, she put both hands on his chest, sending power into his lungs.

“Breathe, Max!” she growled at him. “Damnit, breathe! Liz needs you! You don’t want him to have her, do you? BREATHE!”

The body gasped beneath her, causing her hand to skid across his chest. Her palm smeared away a layer of blood, revealing the outline of a tattoo on his skin. She watched in fascination as the blood on his chest was absorbed into his body, and then in growing horror as the tattoo became clear. Her eyes grew wide, recognizing the swirling alien symbol.

“Oh God!” she reared back just as his eyes popped open, as black as an alien night.

* * * * *

“There!” Liz pointed at a sight sent straight from heaven. The main doors loomed right in front of them. Freedom was within their grasp. “C’mon! Hurry!”

They raced for the door, bursting through to the outside. They ran hand in hand into the night, Liz leading Max despite the rocks and stones cutting into her bare feet. She didn’t stop until she reached the lone car left in the parking lot.

“The Jetta?” Max pulled up short, feeling another knot of fear forming in his stomach. He knew it was irrational, but they’d been in this situation before. Last time they’d made their escape in the Jetta. It hadn’t proven all that reliable.

“It’s all we have, Max,” Liz stated the obvious. Her hand rubbed his trembling back trying to soothe him.

Max fought back a shiver. He swallowed hard, still trying to catch his breath. “Okay.”

“Wait,” Liz suddenly turned back, looking in the direction they’d just come.

“What?” Max leaned against the car. His legs were too unsteady to hold him up.

“I have to go back –”

Max grabbed her arm to stop her, nearly overcome with panic. “No! We have to get out of here!”

Liz whipped her head back to look at him. “We can’t leave Tess! She’s been trying to help –”

Her words were cut off by the sound of a blood curdling scream coming from the direction of the facility. It echoed over the desert terrain, full of terror and fear, rising to a sharp crescendo, before simply ending, cut off in mid scream. The implication of it chilled both Max and Liz to the bone.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Max pushed Liz toward the car. “We can’t help her now.”



TBC . . .



And here are the links to a few of my other stories:
Repost in progress:
A Special Kind of Love
Completed fics:
Maxeo and Lizziet
Captive Hearts
A Walk in the Park
Downfall
Pieces of the Past
Echoes of Tomorrow

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”



Aftermath
Part 56


“Where are we going?”

Max watched the desert landscape flash by from the passenger seat of the Jetta, shivering despite the heat radiating from the vents. He folded his arms over his chest trying to keep warm, and so Liz wouldn’t see how much his hands were shaking.

“Somewhere safe,” she answered.

Max lowered his head. He doubted such a place existed. Nothing felt safe anymore.

“Maybe,” his voice faltered, quivering with strain. He had to close his eyes to say it. “Maybe you shouldn’t be near me.”

“Max –”

“I tried to kill you, Liz,” he looked at her with such pain it made her eyes fill with tears. “It’s not safe for you to be with me.”

“That wasn’t you,” she reached for his hand. “He made you do those things.”

Max tried to resist her but he couldn’t. She threaded her fingers between his. His hand tightened around hers, holding onto her like a lifeline. Just touching her was like a soothing balm to his tortured soul, but he couldn’t stop his inner fears.

“Wh – what if I tried to do it again? What if –”

“Max, don’t do this to yourself. We’ll heal from this.”

He lowered his gaze, whispering, “I can’t heal anything.”

“What . . .?” her voice trailed off, noticing the way Max rubbed at the inner elbow of his left arm. His eyes lifted to meet hers, looking haunted.

“He drugged me. The same drug Pierce gave me to take away my powers. So I wouldn’t be able to fi –,” Max struggled, nearly choking on the words, “–to fight him. He – he got inside my head. He made me see things.”

“It’s over now,” Liz squeezed his hand tighter, the image of Zan’s body lying in a pool of his own blood still fresh in her mind.

Max looked at her, wanting to believe her, but he doubted it would ever be over. Some things would never go away, like the memory of how close he’d come to taking her life with his own two hands.

“There’s still Lonnie and Rath,” Max reminded her, remembering their own brand of torture. “If they’ve got Tess . . .”

“I know, but we can’t do anything about that right now,” Liz looked in the rear view mirror, hearing the echo of Tess’s scream in her ears. Lonnie and Rath must have come back and found Zan, and turned on Tess to find out what happened. They’d have to go back and try to get her out of there, but not tonight. Max couldn’t take anymore stress tonight, and neither could she. They needed to rest, and come up with a plan.

Liz saw a sign come into view, illuminated by the headlights. She turned on the blinker and slowed the car. Max shot her a questioning glance.

“The Indian Reservation?”

“We can’t go back to Roswell,” she reasoned. “Not until we’ve rested, and you get your powers back. Neither one of us is in any condition to face another confrontation right now.”

“You’re right,” Max acknowledged the wisdom of her words. Without his powers he was no match for Lonnie and Rath. “But why here? What about the pod chamber? We could hide there –”

“Tess knows about the pod chamber,” Liz explained, retaining the ability to analyze the situation despite what they’d been through. “We need to go someplace Tess doesn’t know about. So she can’t give away our location.”

“You mean . . .”

He shivered, realizing what she was really saying. They both knew what kind of torture Rath and Lonnie were capable of to get the information they wanted.

“Where’s the one place we can hide, where no one will look for us?”

Max thought about it for a minute, and then understanding dawned. “The cave?”

“We’ll be safe there. We can contact Michael and Isabel, and have everyone meet us there. Then tomorrow, after you’re rested and your powers come back, we’ll go back for Tess.”

They looked at each other, neither one saying what they both feared. When she first came into their lives Tess had caused nothing but heartache and trouble, but she’d changed. Her willingness to help them back at Eagle Rock proved it. It hadn’t been a ploy, or a ruse to use it against them, but something real, as real as the growing humanity blossoming inside her. She deserved a second chance; she’d earned it, but was it already too late?

* * * * *

“Wait,” Zan leaned against the doorframe, needing to rest before his legs gave out on him. The army cot that served as his bed was just a few feet away, but the distance looked daunting. His legs had no strength, his vision swam in and out of focus, he was both literally and figuratively almost dead on his feet.

And he would have been – dead that is – if it hadn’t been for the girl helping to hold him up right now. Not that it was her intention to help him, or that she had any control over it now. She would have willingly abandoned him, run for her life to save herself, if it hadn’t been for him using the last of his strength to bring her back under control.

“Okay,” he sucked in a breath and pushed off from the doorway. He leaned heavily against Tess, ordering, “Take me over to the bed.”

Tess complied without comment; it wouldn’t do any good to resist. The pain would only explode in her head if she tried. If only she’d realized at the time that it wasn’t Max on the floor in a pool of his own blood. If she’d let Zan die, instead of healing him, she would have been free now, instead of captive once again.

Zan collapsed onto the cot, too exhausted to stand for another moment. He rolled onto his back, not caring about the blood that was drying on his skin, or sticking to his clothes. He needed sleep, hours and hours of sleep, to replenish his strength and restore his weakened powers. He was vulnerable now, more vulnerable than at any other time in his life, and he needed Tess to guard him while he healed. He used the last of his power to force her into compliance.

“Don’t leave this room,” Zan demanded, locking his eyes onto hers. “Don’t let anyone in.”

Tess slumped into a chair, knowing she had no choice. Even in his weakened state, his will was stronger than hers. She’d used up all her powers trying to heal him; she had nothing left to fight him with.

* * * * *

“Damn,” Kyle stumbled on the rocky shale at the base of the pod chamber. “We should have brought a flashlight. It’s so dark I can’t see a thing –”

A sudden glowing light to his right cut off Kyle’s words. He snapped his head toward Ava, seeing her smiling face illuminated by the glow emanating from her hands.

“Is that better?”

“How do you do that!” Kyle openly stared at her.

“Are you guys coming?” Isabel tossed an impatient look over her shoulder. Alex paused beside her, halfway up the incline.

“Coming,” Kyle called out, hurrying to catch up with them.

“Do you think I’ll be able to do that?” Alex cupped his hands together. He shrugged in disappointment when nothing happened.

“You’re really digging this alien shit, aren’t ya?” Kyle grumbled.

“Well, yeah!” Alex admitted with a wide grin. “C’mon,” he led the way up the rocks.

“I should try dreamwalking Max again,” Isabel fell into step behind him, with Ava and Kyle bringing up the rear.

“What was that?” Alex stopped short. They all paused, listening to the silence of the desert night.

“What was wha –”

“That,” Alex cut Isabel off.

“Was that a moan?” Kyle jeered. “Are they in there moaning? I don’t wanna see –”

“Hush!” Isabel glared at him.

Alex neared the opening to the chamber, treading cautiously. He didn’t want to see Michael and Maria moaning all over each other either, but he wasn’t sure that was what he heard. Ava’s sudden appearance beside him increased his uneasiness.

“Be careful,” she warned in a low whisper, unnerved by something she couldn’t put her finger on. Something felt wrong. She looked out over the desert landscape but nothing seemed amiss, until she saw the glint of metal hidden amidst the tumbleweed and scrub grass. A car. Camouflaged. A Camero. “Oh God!”

“What?” three voices chimed in together.

Before Ava could answer, a high pitched scream shattered the night air.

* * * * *

“These will keep you warm.”

“Thank you,” Liz said softly, taking a stack of colorful blankets from River Dog’s outstretched hands.

“There is food to nourish you,” River Dog swept his arm toward his nephew Eddie as the teen set another bag on the ground just inside the entrance of the cave. “And fresh clothing to change into.”

“Thank you,” Liz said again, self-conscious of her bloodstained attire. She sliced a glance toward Max, huddling at the back of the cave with his arms hugging his naked chest. In the light of the lantern, he looked miserable. Lost, and alone, and frightened.

Turning back to River Dog, she asked, “You wouldn’t by any chance happen to have a cell phone on you?”

“Yes,” River Dog smiled indulgently, pulling the modern convenience from a coat pocket. “But,” he shook his head, “it won’t work here. These caves block reception. This whole area lacks coverage.”

“Oh,” Liz slumped in disappointment.

“You wish to inform the others of your whereabouts.”

“Yes,” Liz nodded, not surprised by his quick assessment. “We need to let them know we’re okay.”

“It will be dawn soon. You must rest,” his voice came out soft, soothing. “I will send my nephew into town to deliver your message.”

“He should try the Crashdown, or Michael’s –”

“I know where to send him,” River Dog gently asserted.

“Thank you,” she let out a sigh, grateful for his help. She wanted to ask him how he knew the things he knew, but she was too exhausted to formulate the questions. She turned toward Max, needing to be with him, sensing his need to be with her.

“Wait,” River Dog closed his hand around her arm. She stopped at the unexpected contact, turning back to face him. He saw her eyes widen for a moment, seeing something he couldn’t fathom, and then they cleared, focusing on him again.

“What . . .?” she asked, easing her arm from his grasp.

River Dog slanted a look toward Max, then lowered his voice. “Is he worthy of your trust?”

Liz tensed, narrowing her eyes a little. “You asked me that once before. Why?”

“A face can hide many things. And his face . . .”

“What are you saying?” Liz shivered.

“Be careful, child.”

Liz backed away, certain of where her loyalties lay. She made her way toward Max, holding the blankets in one arm and reaching out to him with the other.

“What did he say?” Max asked, taking her hand in his. He threaded his fingers between hers, clinging to their connection.

She watched the old Indian quietly depart, then turned her full attention to Max. His eyes looked tired, weary, achingly haunted. She leaned into him, seeking and giving comfort.

“He said we’ll be safe here.”

* * * * *

Four friends raced into the pod chamber, stopping short in the empty space, until a second scream sent them sprinting toward the Granilith chamber. They barged right in, lacking any kind of skill or finesse. Of the four of them, only Ava had experience in the art of war, but not the skill to lead them.

Isabel let out a startled gasp, seeing a dark haired look-alike advancing on Michael’s bound form. She held her hand out menacingly, the glow from her palm making him writhe on the floor in agony. Maria let out another scream as a Michael look-alike, sporting a Mohawk and tattoos, grabbed her by the hair and hurled her to the ground. Ava shot her hand out to blast him with a bolt of energy, but Kyle beat her to it. With a surge of adrenaline, he raised his hand and froze Rath and Lonnie in place.

Stunned silence filled the room as everyone absorbed what they were seeing, until Kyle’s shaky voice broke it.

“Did I do that?”

“Holy Shit, Kyle!” Alex slapped him on the back.

Kyle’s legs felt like rubber. He wasn’t sure if it was from the shock of his explosive burst of power, or the drain it had caused in his simple human body, but if he didn’t sit down now he was going to fall down.

Michael crawled across the floor to Maria, freed from his bonds now that Lonnie was incapacitated. He hugged her trembling form to his body, rocking her back and forth.

“Oh my god,” Maria cried into Michael’s chest. Hot tears splashed onto his throat.

“It’s okay,” he stroked her hair, letting her cry. “We’re okay.” He looked around at their rescuers, grateful for their timely entrance. “Thanks. But how’d you know?”

“We didn’t, not about them,” Alex waved a hand toward Lonnie and Rath. “We came to show you the translation.”

“God, look at them,” Isabel walked around the stiff bodies, frozen in place. Lonnie’s dark curls matched her dark eyes. Alien tattoos colored her bare arms. Her camouflage pants gave her a militaristic appearance, menacing and harsh. How could two people with the same face look so different?

“You should stay away from the punk look,” Alex suggested to Michael as he looked Rath over.

“Are you okay?” Ava knelt down beside a crouching Kyle, touching him gently on the shoulder. He nodded his head, but she could feel the trembling inside him. It was going to take him time to come to terms with his new abilities.

“How long will they stay this way?” Alex asked.

They all looked at Ava for the answer, but she could only shake her head. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen this power before.”

“So what do we do with them?” Kyle climbed back to his feet, with a little assistance from Ava. He had the ability to freeze things, but still didn’t know how to unfreeze them.

“Someone needs to watch them, while the rest of us try to find Max and Liz,” Isabel suggested.

“I can help you with that,” a voice spoke from the chamber entrance.

* * * * *

Liz finished spreading the Indian motif blankets over the ground, creating a pallet for her and Max to sleep on. They’d eaten some of the food River Dog provided, both ravenous from their imprisonment, though they were both too spent to relish the taste. They’d shoveled food in their mouths to satisfy the need, washing it down with copious amounts of bottled water. Now, with their stomachs full, what they needed most was rest.

She returned to the cache by the cave entrance, sorting through the bags until she found the clothing. She pulled out a pair of dark sweatpants that looked like they would fit Max, then a t-shirt to go with them. Next she found a pair of leggings for herself in a size too big, but she wasn’t about to complain. Anything would be better than the bloodstained clothes they were wearing. She set them aside and continued searching for a shirt, darting looks toward Max every few seconds, noticing the way he jumped at every little sound. Tension filled his every muscle. She gathered the clothes to her breast and crossed the cave to join him.

“I found us something to wear,” Liz said when she reached him, though even the soft timbre of her voice made him startle. He tried to hide it, but she couldn’t be fooled. She dropped the clothes on the floor and took him into her arms. He stiffened at first, but seconds later relaxed, melting into her.

“Liz,” he whispered into her hair. He didn’t know what he would do without her. She connected him to the real world, not the one Zan tried to plant in his mind.

“I’m here,” she held him tightly. If she had the power, she’d take all his pain away. They held each other for a minute, then Liz pulled away, instinctively knowing what she needed to do. She cupped his face between her hands and kissed him, slow and gentle, then lowered her hands to his leather pants.

“Liz?” he reached to stop her, surprised by her actions. He wanted her, but he didn’t have the strength.

“No,” she spoke softly, soothing his frayed nerves. “Not that. I just want to hold you.”

“Okay,” he managed a slight smile, taking his hand away from hers. It calmed him, knowing how in tune she was to his needs. He felt her fingers lower the zipper, and then the hated material slid down his legs, glad to be free of it. He stepped out of the leather pants and boots, the last vestiges of Zan now gone. He watched her slowly disrobe, first shedding the white lab coat, then the green scrubs. Self hatred filled him again, looking at the torn and tattered top, until she pulled his face back to hers, kissing him softly. He closed his eyes, living in the kiss.

“Come,” she took his hand, leading him to the pallet of blankets. He followed her lithe form, nude now that she’d shed her panties and bra. His libido stayed in check though, too tired and too traumatized to act on sexual impulses.

Besides, what she was about to do didn’t have anything to do with sex.

* * * * *

Tess sat on an upholstered chair with her legs drawn up to her chest, chin resting on her knees. She rocked back and forth, watching Zan from a distance. She felt hungry and tired, but she dared not sleep, and food wasn’t an option. She couldn’t leave this room. She’d tried several times already, but the pain in her head became blinding. She’d pushed it too far once, and ended up passed out on the floor. Whatever power Zan had over her, she couldn’t break it.

She had no way of telling time, but she knew another day had come and gone. Dusk was falling, and soon it would be night. The window in the room looked out over the desert, freedom just beyond a thin pane of glass, yet impossible to reach. She wondered where Max and Liz were now, if they were safe, or if they would come back for her. She wouldn’t blame them if they didn’t.

Zan mumbled on the bed, twisting back and forth, hands fisting at his sides and then relaxing. She wondered if he was dreaming, or if his restlessness was caused by the yellow light rippling under his skin. It’d started hours ago, first around the area where the knife had pierced his flesh, then spreading out over his entire chest, his alien metabolism working hard to repair the damage. How much longer before he would heal himself completely?

And then what would happen?

Would he seek revenge on Max and Liz? Would he carry out his mission, forcing her to help him? Would he ever let her leave this place?

“Liz,” Zan moaned from the bed. His hands tightened into fists again, and then he relaxed, sighing out her name again. The yellow glow beneath his skin started to fade, while Tess watched, and waited.

* * * * *

“How long are they gonna be like that?” Alex whispered.

“I don’t know,” Isabel matched his tone. She knew not to disturb them.

She’d been elated when Eddie showed up at the pod chamber and told them he knew where Max was, but she hadn’t been prepared for what she would see. When she arrived at the cave she’d shouted out for her brother, and his failure to answer had caused her to panic. She ran inside, and this was how she found them.

Max and Liz lay on the ground on a cushion of blankets, wrapped in each others arms, legs entangled. Their bare shoulders showed above the edge of a brightly colored blanket, hinting at their nudity beneath it. Under other circumstances, Isabel might have been embarrassed to see her brother in such a compromising position, except it was hard to look past all the glowing.

Deep in sleep, Liz’s hand cupped the back of Max’s head, holding him to her breast while her palm glowed with alien energy. A steady stream of it flowed from her hand like a living thing, moving from her to him, connecting them both together. They’d been like this for hours, neither one of them moving, encased in a protective force field that zapped anyone who tried to touch it. Isabel’s right hand was still stinging from it.

“What’s happening to them?” Alex asked.

Isabel’s answer was simple and to the point. “She’s healing him.”

Inside their protective cocoon, Max held on to Liz, feeling her energy surround him, warm and comforting. Scenes from his life flashed through his mind; the first time he saw her, the first time he kissed her, the first time they made love. All the good moments pushed aside the bad.

He snuggled his face closer to her skin, moving for the first time in hours. He floated contentedly in a place somewhere between awake and asleep, connected to her as never before, a part of her, and her a part of him. Her scent filled his senses, the softness of her breast cushioned his cheek, the heat of her body warmed his soul. A smile crossed his lips as he drifted closer to consciousness, slowly becoming aware of her naked skin surrounding him.

“Hi,” she whispered as he stirred, watching his eyes open to meet hers. His haunted look was gone, at the moment showing only sleepy innocence.

“Hi,” he smiled back. Had she ever looked more beautiful?

He rejoiced as their faces inched closer and their lips met, touching gently in a loving kiss. His arms tightened around her, pulling her naked form tighter against his. What hadn’t been possible before now pressed stiffly into her stomach.

“Feeling better?” she chuckled against his lips.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he pushed in for another kiss.

“Yeah, it’s pretty obvious to all of us.”

Max and Liz broke apart with a start, their alarm at the sound of the voice quickly turning into embarrassment. Heat filled both their faces, seeing Alex, Isabel, Michael and Maria, all standing over them.

“Ah, Liz?” Alex spoke up again, pointing toward her chest. “You might want to cover up there.”

Liz tugged at the blanket to cover her exposed cleavage; Max pulled her closer trying to shield her.

Tears filled Isabel’s eyes, looking down at her brother. Her worst fears hadn’t been realized. When he wouldn’t let her into his dreams, she’d been afraid she’d never see him again.

“Max,” she let out a sob. Alex put his arm around her to comfort her.

“Shit, man, where’ve you been?” Michael asked.

Max and Liz looked at each other, knowing there was no quick answer to his question. Liz nodded to Max, letting him speak for both of them.

“Um, you guys wanna turn around so we can get dressed? We’ve got a lot to tell you.”

Alex snorted as he turned his back. “You’re not the only ones.”

* * * * *

Across the desert, another pair of amber eyes opened.



TBC . . .



And here are the links to a few of my other stories:
Repost in progress:
A Special Kind of Love
Completed fics:
Maxeo and Lizziet
Captive Hearts
A Walk in the Park
Downfall
Pieces of the Past
Echoes of Tomorrow

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”



Aftermath
Part 57


Liz finished fastening the small buttons on her borrowed shirt, keeping a protective eye on Max while he dressed. He stood only a few feet away, tugging on the dark gray sweatpants River Dog had lent him, then pulling a black t-shirt over his head. Watching him, she thought his movements seemed sluggish, lethargic even, as if a great weight held him down.

“Are you almost ready?”

Max jumped at the sound of her voice, then tried to hide it, but Liz couldn’t be fooled. The things that happened to him at Eagle Rock had taken a heavy toll. She watched him dart a look toward their friends standing near the entrance to the cave, his gaze looking naked and raw, until he shuttered it, hiding his emotions behind a false face.

“Almost,” he smiled for her, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You go ahead,” he stooped to slip his boots on. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

“Are you sure?” Liz worried. “I can wait –”

“No, go ahead,” Max squatted on the ground, fidgeting with one of the black boots. He didn’t want to put it on again. It wasn’t his style.

Liz moved to stand behind him. When she touched him on the shoulder his eyes closed, and he leaned his cheek into her hand.

“We’ll be okay,” she whispered softly.

Max let out a shuddered breath, wanting to believe her. “I know.”

She knelt beside him, bringing her gaze level with his. She didn’t say anything, she didn’t need to, their connection said it for her. She kissed his forehead and then his lips, then left him to finish dressing. While she moved to join the others, he turned back to the shoe, using his returning powers to alter its appearance, changing it into a black and white striped sneaker. It gave Max a modicum of comfort to be free of Zan’s visual trappings, though he wondered if his mind would ever be free of him. His scars ran more than skin deep.

“Liz!” Maria wrapped her friend in her arms. “What happened to you guys? Where have you been? What was going on with you and Max? Why was he glowing? Why were you glowing! Do you know what almost happened to me and Michael?”

“Whoa,” Liz clamped her hand over Maria’s mouth. “One question at a time.”

Maria pulled her friend’s hand away, still babbling incoherently. Liz stiffened at the contact, though no one else noticed. Images flashed over her, shocking yet mercifully quick, the final one forcing out a fearful gasp.

“Liz?” Maria puzzled. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” Liz covered. “I’m fine.”

“What about my brother?” Isabel kept her voice low, watching Max tie the laces of his shoes. When he stood to come their way, she thought she saw him waver on his feet. She started to go to him, but Liz held her back.

“He’s been through hell,” Liz said gently. “Let him come to you.”

Max hesitated as he neared the group, seeing five sets of eyes staring at him, judging him. They looked to him for answers, but he was just a seventeen year old kid. What the hell did he know?

“Max,” Isabel’s voice cracked as she wrapped her arms around her brother. “I was so scared. Where’ve you been? What happened to you?”

He tensed at first, her questions an unpleasant reminder, but he forced it back. He wasn’t going to let Zan win. He’d heard a saying once, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’. He survived Pierce, and he survived Zan. He wouldn’t let anyone ever do that to him again. He returned Isabel’s hug, and then stepped back to address the group.

“Let’s sit down,” Max reached for Liz’s hand, entwining his fingers between hers. “We have a lot to tell you.”

For the next few minutes the group listened raptly to Max’s and Liz’s descriptions of what happened, and where they’d been. Max finished by saying, “Tess is still there. We think Rath and Lonnie got her.”

The other four members of the group exchanged glances, silently electing Michael to do the talking.

“We have something to show you.”

* * * * *

“You did this?” Max walked around the still forms of Lonnie and Rath. He inwardly shuddered, remembering what they’d done to him back at Eagle Rock; how they’d laughed at him, and jeered him, and tortured him within an inch of his life. Would there be satisfaction in doing the same to them? Would vengeance be served by tightening his hands around their throats? Or sinking their faces below the water? Would revenge help him sleep at night?

“Yeah,” Kyle folded his arms loosely over his chest, pleased with himself.

Max looked straight at Kyle, assessing the human in front of him. He’d had his issues with Kyle over the years, mainly caused by his jealousy over Liz, but that was behind them now. For the first time in days, an actual smile touched Max’s face. He clapped a hand to Kyle’s shoulder and said, “That’s pretty impressive.”

“Thanks,” Kyle basked in Max’s praise. If he had to get turned into a superhero, he was glad he had a cool power. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

“How do you take it off?” Max asked, resuming his perusal of Lonnie and Rath.

“Um,” Kyle hedged. “I don’t know that part.”

“You can’t reverse it?” Max slanted a look at Kyle again, noting his friend’s discomfort.

Kyle shrugged, staring at his right hand. He turned it backwards and forwards, griping, “It didn’t come with a manual.”

Michael snorted at Kyle’s comment. “None of us did.”

“So what are we going to do with them?” Isabel spoke up. Looking at her double was giving her the creeps.

“Kill ‘em,” Michael growled. His hands fisted remembering what Rath almost did to Maria, and how Lonnie had nearly broken him. He didn’t like feeling helpless.

Liz noticed the way Max’s face blanched at Michael’s heated words. Max was a healer, not a killer. Consigning someone to death would never sit easily with him, especially after what he’d been through. Committing murder would bring him down to Zan’s level, a place he never wanted to be again. She crossed the chamber and leaned into his arm, threading her fingers between his.

Max gratefully squeezed Liz’s hand, feeling their connection open. Whenever they touched it roared to life, binding them together. Max lightly pressed his lips against her forehead.

Drawing on her strength, he squared off with Michael. “We can’t just kill them. We’re not murderers.”

“Do you think they have any second thoughts about that?” Michael hurled back. “You didn’t see what they did to me and Maria!”

Max closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, his voice came out low and controlled. “I know perfectly well what they’re capable of.”

The tortured look in Max’s eyes made Michael pause in mid rant. Of course Maxwell knew what they were capable of. Shit. In frustration, he raked his hand through his shaggy hair. “Look, I didn’t mean to imply –”

“Kyle,” Liz cut in, growing pale. “When did this happen?”

“That?” Kyle pointed a finger at Rath and Lonnie. “About,” he turned his wrist to look at his watch, noticing it was well after midnight. “20 hours ago, give or take. Yesterday morning. A little before dawn.”

“What’s wrong?” Max felt her tense beside him.

“Max,” she looked up at him with fear. “If Lonnie and Rath were here at the same time we were running from Eagle Rock . . . who made Tess scream?”

* * * * *

In her dream, Tess walked the halls of West Roswell High, hand in hand with her boyfriend, the star quarterback of the football team. People waved at them as they passed by, friends and acquaintances, the guys giving Kyle the thumbs up, the girls all envious of her. Life couldn’t get any better.

Everyone liked her.

Everyone was her friend.

Everyone was happy.

Tess slumped forward losing her precarious balance on the chair again, startling herself awake. Her eyes popped open, for a moment caught in that world between sleep and reality, uncertain where she was until a face appeared in front of her, terrifyingly real. She blinked, trying to make it go away, but it only swam into sharper focus. Her face paled under the assault of his deadly amber eyes, her nightmare back to haunt her. His hand clamped around her upper arm and jerked her to her feet.

“Time to go.”

* * * * *

“Is it possible he’s still alive?”

“I don’t know,” Max couldn’t answer his sister’s question. He’d been so out of it at the time; everything that happened was just a blur. He remembered seeing Zan’s body on the floor, in all that blood, but they never actually checked to see if he was dead. He turned his haunted gaze toward Liz.

“I don’t know, either,” she shook her head. “I didn’t touch him.” When her vision played out in real time, she was certain he was dead, but now she wasn’t so sure. If Rath and Lonnie were here at the time, who else could have made Tess scream that way?

“We can’t leave her there,” Kyle implored. “You said she was trying to help you guys. That should account for something.”

“She was. It does,” Max offered, forming a fist with his right hand. He didn’t want anyone to see how it trembled. Just the thought of going back there made him ill. “We’ll have to be careful. If he’s still alive –” his voice choked, cringing at the thought.

Liz leaned into Max, tightening her hand around his upper arm. “I don’t want you to go.”

“I’ll go,” Kyle declared.

“You can’t,” Max overrode him. He steeled himself inside, looking from Liz, to Michael, to Isabel and the others, before settling on Kyle. “You can’t go. You’re the only one who can keep these two like this,” he jerked a thumb toward Lonnie and Rath.

“But –”

“Kyle, we need you here. If they get loose and team up with Zan again, we don’t stand a chance.” Max didn’t voice the rest of his fears, that their odds against Zan alone weren’t good, either. He knew what kind of power his double had, the kind of power Max feared he could never hope to equal.

Kyle, on the other hand, couldn’t hide a self-satisfied smile. He’d always been the big dog in the popular crowd, a top jock with a following to prove it, but all that seemed trivial now. This was what was important, having something to give to the group, a part of himself to make the whole better.

“I’ll take Isabel and Ava with me,” Michael informed the group.

“I’ll go with you,” Max spoke unemotionally.

“NO!” Liz grabbed for his arm.

“Liz,” he pressed his fingertips against her soft lips to stop her protest. He, Michael, Isabel and Ava formed a four square, their only advantage against a man like Zan. It was the only way. Liz closed her eyes in defeat, knowing she couldn’t change his mind. He drew her close, speaking to the others over the top of her head.

“We’ll go in using Ava’s mindwarp to cover us. Alex, you and Kyle stay here with Liz and Maria.”

“I –” Liz tried to protest but Max talked right over her.

“Kyle, you watch Rath and Lonnie. Do we have anything we can secure them with?”

“I’ve got rope out in the trunk of my car,” Kyle suggested.

“Go get it,” Max nodded in approval. “We’ll tie their hands and feet, just in case they come out of, well, whatever that is.”

“I’ll be right back,” Kyle jogged his way out of the pod chamber. He made his way down the rocky ledge in the darkness, lamenting he hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight. Inside the pod chamber you couldn’t tell if it was day or night. For that matter, he wasn’t even sure what day it was anymore. Had it only been a week ago every thing felt relatively normal? Or as normal as life could be when you were turning into a human superhero!

Kyle hit the desert floor and sprinted toward his car. He opened the trunk and removed a coiled length of rope, checking it to make sure there was enough. Satisfied, he started to close the lid but hesitated when his gaze fell on a small cloth bound package. He looked around in the dark, debating whether he should take it or not, then unwrapped it and tucked his father’s gun into the waistband of his jeans.

* * * * *

Tess stumbled on the uneven ground, going down hard on one knee. She let out a pained cry at the feel of sharp rocks cutting into her palm. Even worse though, was the way Zan jerked her back to her feet.

“Get up!” he snarled.

“Zan, please,” she couldn’t hold back the cry. He’d forced her out of the facility an hour ago and they’d been trudging through the desert ever since.

He ignored her protest. Instead, he tightened his hand around her arm and picked up the pace, forcing her to nearly run just to keep up with him. Her side ached, her arm hurt, and Zan didn’t give a damn. He pressed on unrelenting until they reached the main highway.

“Zan, where are we going? Roswell’s miles away. I can’t walk that far!”

Zan wrenched her upwards until only her toes touched the ground. He lowered his face to just an inch from hers. “You’ll walk if I tell you to walk.”

“Are you going after her? Is that what you’re doing?” she blurted out. She saw his jaw tighten and his nostrils flare, confirming her suspicion. She reacted to the brief moment of emotion she saw flash in his eyes. “And what are you gonna do when you find her? Complete your mission? Can you really do that Zan?”

His jaw clenched furiously, fire dancing in his amber eyes. His lips parted to speak, though whatever he was about to say was interrupted when a pair of headlights rounded a curve far behind them. He yanked Tess close to him and pointed in its direction.

“You see that car? I want it. Use your warp to make it stop.”

Tess closed her eyes in defeat, knowing she had no choice.

* * * * *

Liz stood beside Max watching him test his powers. He changed his sweatpants into jeans, turned a small stone into sand, practiced putting up his shield.

“You got your powers back,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” he gently lifted her arm and healed a nasty looking bruise, wondering if it was caused by Zan, or if it was a bruise he’d inflicted on her when he almost killed her. He avoided looking in her eyes.

“I can’t stop you, can I?” she leaned into his body. He wrapped his arms around her to hold her close.

“You said it yourself back at the facility. We can’t leave Tess there. We have to at least try to help her.”

“But why do you have to go? Haven’t you been through enough already?”

“Michael, Isabel, Ava and I make a four square. We can’t fight Zan alone, but together, maybe . . .”

Liz sagged into his chest knowing she couldn’t talk him out of it. She wished she would get a flash, a premonition, anything to tell her he was going to be alright, but she couldn’t make it happen. The visions always hit her out of the blue, like when she touched Alex in the Crashdown and saw his accident, or in the White Room, when she touched Zan and saw herself stab him in the chest. She turned her head a little, landing her gaze on Maria in Michael’s arms across the chamber. She shuddered knowing what was about to happen.

* * * * *

Tess stood shaking by the side of the road while Zan wrenched the car door open and yanked the hapless driver out. She knew if she actively opposed him it would be the last thing she ever did, but she couldn’t just stand by and watch him murder an innocent man.

“Outta the car!” Zan grabbed the balding, heavyset man by his tie and pulled him out of the front seat like he was a rag doll. His hand tightened around the frightened man’s throat.

Tess raised her trembling arm, building up the power to unfurl a deadly blast. Maybe with his attention diverted she could take him unawares. If his powers weren’t back to full strength, she might have a chance. She felt it building, growing, surging to be released – and then Zan did something totally unexpected.

Instead of crushing the frightened man like a bug, or disintegrating his molecules with a wave of his hand, Zan let the driver go.

“Get outta here!” Zan growled menacingly and shoved the fat man down the road. “Keep walkin’ and don’t look back!” When the man appeared too frightened to move, Zan got him going with a snarled, “GO!”

With free access to the car now, Zan grabbed Tess by the arm and forced her inside. He pushed her across the console to the passenger seat and then slid in behind the wheel. He gunned the engine and slammed it into drive, leaving the heavyset man standing on the shoulder of the road, abandoned but alive. Tess openly stared at Zan as he drove into the night.

After several minutes, Zan began to fidget in his seat, tightening his hands on the steering wheel. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.

“WHAT?” he growled. “Whadda ya starin’ at?”

“You let that man go,” Tess stated.

“Yeah,” Zan scowled at her. “So?”

“That’s not like you.”

“You want I should go back and kill him?” Zan lifted his foot from the gas pedal. The car slowed.

“No,” Tess hastened. They drove in silence for another mile until she got the courage to speak again. “Where are we going?”

“Roswell,” Zan answered.



And here are the links to a few of my other stories:
Repost in progress:
A Special Kind of Love
Completed fics:
Maxeo and Lizziet
Captive Hearts
A Walk in the Park
Downfall
Pieces of the Past
Echoes of Tomorrow

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”



Aftermath
Part 58


Zan drove down the deserted streets of Roswell, past darkened shops and shuttered storefront windows. He neither knew, nor cared what time it was. He’d slept through an entire day to let his body heal from his injuries, and now he was on the prowl. Nothing would stop him from finding what he was after. He parked under the unlit Crashdown sign and roughly pulled Tess from the car. She whimpered in pain, but he barely noticed. He was too busy focusing his senses trying to feel for Liz.

He walked to the alley, dragging Tess with him, but it was a fruitless quest. He sensed Liz wasn’t there. He climbed the ladder anyway, keeping Tess in tow, forcing her across the balcony to Liz’s bedroom window. He used his powers to unlock it; nothing could keep him from what he wanted.

Inside, the apartment was quiet. Only Zan’s footsteps broke the silence. He paused by Liz’s bed, remembering how he’d stood here watching her sleep, how he’d touched her face and looked inside her dreams. Even though she wasn’t here, her presence called to him. Her spirit lived inside these walls.

“No one’s here,” Tess climbed through the window to follow him into the bedroom.

Zan ignored her comment; he was too engrossed in a strip of photographs on Liz’s nightstand. The pictures looked recent, taken in one of those cheap photo booths, Liz sitting on Max’s lap, Max with his arm around her, both smiling for the camera. Without letting Tess see, he slipped the photos into the front pocket of his leather pants.

Turning away from the bed, Zan moved through the apartment with agile grace, until he reached the living room and took in the sight of six sleeping bags lying abandoned on the floor. He did the math quickly in his head.

“He’s making his eight,” Zan muttered.

“His eight?” Tess frowned. What was that supposed to mean?

* * * * *

“I’ll be back soon,” Max let his lips linger on Liz’s forehead before reluctantly pulling out of her arms. He turned to face Michael, Isabel, and Ava on the other side of the pod chamber, steeling himself for a trip back to hell. “C’mon,” he met their tense expressions. “We better go.”

Liz nibbled at a thumbnail, growing more agitated as Max moved across the chamber. She pulled in a breath to speak, and then stopped; wishing fervently that her visions weren’t real. But they were real, and she knew what they meant now; not a harbinger of doom to come, but a portent of what had to be. Alex and his accident. Stabbing Zan in the chest so that she and Max could escape. And now . . . Maria. She couldn’t change what was going to happen. In fact, she needed to make sure it did.

“Michael,” Maria clutched his hand as he moved away from her. “Be careful.”

“I will,” he covered her hand with his, letting down his stone wall. He kissed her hard on the lips, not caring who was watching. When the kiss ended and the four aliens moved toward the mouth of the cave, Liz couldn’t keep quiet anymore.

“Wait.”

They all turned to look at her, something in her tone commanding their attention. Max stepped forward, speaking for the group. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“You can’t leave yet,” she told them. Her gaze moved from Max, to Michael, and then Maria, feeling her stomach tighten with every passing second.

“Liz?” Max sensed the turmoil churning inside her. He came to a stop right in front of her, reaching for her hands to strengthen their connection.

“There’s something you have to do,” she looked up into his questioning face. She knew he didn’t understand. None of them did. None of them possibly could.

“Do?” he asked.

“You can’t leave yet, because –” her voice caught on the lump in her throat. She looked at Michael and then Maria before finishing what she had to say. “Because . . . in the next few minutes . . . one of us is going to kill Maria.”

* * * * *

“We can’t go in there!” Tess pulled on Zan’s arm, trying to hold him back, but he shook her off without a second glance. His long strides carried him swiftly over the manicured lawn and across the porch to the front door.

“They don’t know anything!” Tess pleaded, but to no avail.

Zan’s hand glowed on the doorknob. They both heard the distinctive click as the lock released, and Zan pushed the door open to the home on Murray Lane. He walked inside like he owned the place.

His alien eyes scanned the entry hall, easily seeing how neat and tidy the house was, even in the dark. Framed photographs lined the walls, showing a face that might have looked like his – if he’d ever been young. In one photo a dark haired boy tackled monkey bars in the park. In another he belly flopped into a swimming pool on a bright summer day. In a third he smiled behind the wheel of an old army jeep, barely big enough to see over the steering wheel. All scenes from a life Zan would never know.

A light switched on flooding the foyer in brightness. “Philip, I know I heard somethi –”

Diane Evans stopped in mid sentence in the hallway just outside of the kitchen, stunned motionless in the act of tying her robe around her waist. Philip stood wide-eyed right behind her.

“Max?” Diane’s hand pressed into her breast to still her pounding heart. Her paralysis lasted only a second before she flew across the parquet floors and into what she thought was her son’s arms. “Max, honey, where have you been?! We’ve been so worried!”

Zan stiffened at the physical contact, and at the rush of emotions suddenly flooding over him. Worry. Anxiety. Fear. Relief. Projections of a mother’s love. Another thing he’d never known.

“Max,” Diane brushed her fingers through Zan’s hair, then cupped his cheek with her hand. “Honey, you look so tired. What have you been doing? Where’s your sister? Why didn’t you call? We haven’t heard from you in days!”

Zan peeled her hand away from his face, tightening his fingers around hers in a painful grip. The look on her face changed from motherly concern to painful disbelief causing a pang of something unfamiliar in his chest. He pushed it aside, burying it so he wouldn’t have to face it.

“You have a lot of questions,” Zan’s voice came out rough, hard. “I have one of my own. Where the fuck is your son?”

* * * * *

“NO!” Michael paced back and forth in agitation. “No fuckin’ way! This is crazy! You’re insane if you think I’m gonna do that!”

Michael’s shouts just added to the bedlam already running rampant through the pod chamber. Michael argued with Liz, while Isabel comforted a stunned Maria, and Alex and Kyle vocally denied the inevitable. Only Max remained silent, trusting in what Liz had to say.

“Michael,” Liz tried to reason with him. “Do you think this is easy for me? I’ve seen it. I know what has to happen.”

Michael whirled on her. “One of us is gonna shoot Maria? There’s no way! We don’t even have a gun here!”

Michael towered over Liz, but she wasn’t intimidated. Her sense of will was strong. She didn’t know where the gun would come from, but she had no doubt that it was already here. Her visions didn’t lie.

“Um,” Kyle stepped forward, garnering everyone’s attention. He pulled the hand gun from the waistband of his jeans and said, “Yeah, yeah we do.”

“Put that fuckin’ thing away!” Michael bellowed. He grabbed it out of Kyle’s hand, ready to melt it into a harmless pool of liquid. Liz took it away from him before he had a chance.

“Give it back!” Michael lunged for it.

Max pushed him back with a hand against his chest. “Listen to what she has to say.”

Michael stumbled to a stop, shocked nearly speechless by what they were suggesting. That one of them would shoot Maria. That Max would have to heal her. That this was something that had to happen, not something to be prevented.

“You’re crazy,” Michael raked a trembling hand back through his unruly hair.

“No,” Liz stepped in front of Max to face Michael. “I’m not. What I saw is real.” She shifted her gaze to Maria, standing alone near the rock wall, looking more scared than she’d ever looked before. “I’m sorry.”

Liz swept her gaze over the faces staring at her; Alex who should have died in a car accident, and Kyle, saved from a bullet wound much like her own, each of them brought back from the brink of death by Max’s healing hand. And changed in the process, each of them now something more than they were before. Only Maria was left. They had a destiny to fulfill, and it would take all eight of them to do it.

“How do we even know Max can heal anyone?” Michael argued. “Zan drugged him. What if his powers aren’t back to full strength? What if she actually dies, and Max can’t save her!”

Ava stepped forward, speaking up for the first time. “I can heal. If Max can’t –”

“No,” Max’s voice came out low, yet commanding. His eyes met Liz’s, joining in understanding. “It has to be me.”

* * * * *

“Who are you?” Diane asked the man with her son’s face. He might look like Max, but the similarity was only skin deep. He prowled instead of walked. His touch brought pain instead of comfort. His voice grated harsh and cruel, instead of Max’s sweet and gentle tones.

“I ask the questions here!” Zan growled. He paced the living room like a caged animal, muscles bunching beneath his skin.

Diane watched him silently from the couch where she sat beside Philip. The girl, Isabel’s and Max’s friend, sat perched on a chair looking as scared as Diane felt. What was going on here? Who was this man? Why was he here, with Tess, in the middle of the night? Why did he look so much like Max? Was he someone from her son’s past? Family perhaps? A brother? Or a twin? Had Max’s twin brother come here to find him? It was the only thing that made sense, but if he was Max’s brother, why was he so cruel? Menace oozed from him.

Zan’s gaze swept the room, frustrated and angry. Max wasn’t here. There was no scent of Liz, not recent anyway. These humans had no answers for him.

“What do you wa –” Philip started to ask, but pain flared in his head before he could get the sentence out. Zan didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. Philip doubled over in pain; Diane fussed over him, not understanding what was happening.

Zan had no compunction about hurting the man; Philip Evans was an alpha male who would defend his unit, his home and family, at all costs if given half a chance. But the woman, Diane, the way she looked at him, the way her eyes made him feel, the emotion he’d felt from her when she thought she was holding Max –

NO! He turned away, refusing to acknowledge the love she showed for Max, and the fear she showed for him. It didn’t matter. Humans didn’t matter. Emotions didn’t matter. He moved restlessly around the room, touching things randomly. A crystal vase, a porcelain statue, a photograph in a sliver frame of a dark haired boy and a little blonde girl. He recognized them right away, Max and Isabel, so young, no more than 6 or 7. He’d never been that young. He’d never been a child. He’d never played in a park, or unwrapped presents under a Christmas tree, or had a mother tuck him into bed at night. This life was alien to him.

His fingers brushed against a ceramic toy house sending him images he was ill-prepared to handle.


A park. A bench. His mother. Secrets weighing heavy on his heart.

“Max, nothing you are could ever turn me away from you. I love you. You’re my son.”


Zan pulled his hand back quickly. He turned to look at Diane Evans, with both hatred and longing on his face. No one had ever loved him like that. No one had ever cared. His podmates were the only family he had, and they would be happy to see him dead.

Zan lifted the toy house and smashed it on the floor. He didn’t understand these feelings, and he didn’t want them. His life had been fine before he came here, before these emotions interfered with his well ordered world.

He turned to Tess, taking his frustration out on her. His hand clamped against her face forcing her to look at him, forcing his way into her mind.

“Show me where they are!”

“Zan, please,” Tess squirmed, but she couldn’t get away. His grip was too strong, and his mind too powerful. She tried to hide her thoughts and memories, but he forced his way inside.

Diane’s eyes grew wide. What was this man, this Zan? She saw his hand glow against Tess’s face, saw her squirm in obvious pain, saw the triumphant look that crossed his face.

“The pod chamber,” Zan smiled. He had all the information he needed now.

* * * * *

Maria took the gun out of Liz’s hand, feeling the cold, dead weight of it heavy on her palm. Her stomach churned with uncertainty and fear, caught in the depths of the alien abyss. She could turn and run right now, just walk away and never look back, or she could stay and become a part of them, the eight of them linked together. As scared as she was, it didn’t take her long to make her choice.

Maria turned toward Michael and held out the gun. “I want you to do it.”

“Oh, hell, no,” Michael turned as white as a ghost. Jesus, she couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t. He just . . . couldn’t.

“Michael,” Maria advanced on him, backing him into a corner. Her voice broke, revealing the strain she was under. “I love you, Michael. If – if someone has to – to – I want it to be you.”

“I can’t,” Michael whispered, staring down at the gun in her hand. His eyes slowly lifted to hers, full of anguish and pain.

“Take it,” Maria turned the handle toward him. “Please . . .”

Shaking inside, Michael let her slip the butt of the gun into his palm. He felt the weight of it pull on his arm, and on his heart. How could he do this to her, aim at her and pull the trigger when his heart screamed at him not to?

Maria stepped back. Her breathing turned rapid, almost hyperventilating with fear. Where was her cedar oil when she needed it? She knew the intelligent thing to do was to walk away, to put this alien encounter behind her and never look back, but she couldn’t do that. She was in this, lock, stock, and barrel. After all that had happened, she could never go back to normal. None of them could. She bit her lip and waited.

Michael raised the gun, pointing it at a spot below her ribs. The others all stepped back, out of the line of fire. Silence filled the cavern. His hand shook, not from the weight, but from the strain of what they were asking him to do. His vision blurred from the tears that filled his eyes.

A sob of despair escaped his throat and he lowered the gun to his side. Everyone in the room let out a tense breath. Michael wiped his face against the sleeve of his left arm, then raised his gun hand again, trembling even more than before. Maria closed her eyes, bracing for the impact, trying not to think about what it would feel like to die. To have a bullet tear into her skin, to feel the pain as it pierced her organs and blew a hole through her back. What if Max didn’t have the power in him to heal her? What if he was too drained and this act was in fact her final moment? She opened her eyes to meet Michael’s once again, facing death head on. She felt faint on her feet as she waited.

Michael swallowed hard. This time he didn’t even try to wipe the tears out of his eyes. He let them fall down his cheeks, not caring who saw him cry. His breath hitched as his finger tightened on the trigger. He bit his lower lip drawing blood, but he didn’t register the coppery taste of it in his mouth, or feel the rapid beat of his own heart. He could only see Maria, her frightened eyes, her pale face, living and breathing just a few feet away from him, and he was supposed to take that away. He was to be the instrument of her death, holding her destruction in his fingertips. Looking into her eyes, he knew he couldn’t do it. He didn’t have it in him.

When Michael lowered the gun a second time, Liz took matters into her own hands. She snatched the weapon away from him. Two strides put her face to face with Maria, with the barrel of the gun pressing into Maria’s stomach. The two girls stood eye to eye, Maria too scared to speak, Liz tortured but full of conviction. This was destined to be.

“I love you, Maria,” Liz whispered around the lump in her throat.

And then she pulled the trigger.


TBC . . .


And here are the links to a few of my other stories:
Repost in progress:
A Special Kind of Love
Completed fics:
Maxeo and Lizziet
Captive Hearts
A Walk in the Park
Downfall
Pieces of the Past
Echoes of Tomorrow

Author: Debbi aka Breathless
Category: Max and Liz, CC/UC
Rating: PG 13 to NC 17

The mythology of this story is different than the show. Max and company (Zan and his cohorts too) did NOT live previous lives. Max was never a KING. Tess was never his WIFE. Isabel wasn’t a PRINCESS.


From Sexual Healing:

“What are you doing here, Max?”

“Well, I have orders from my planet. To take over the Earth.”


AN, Thanks everyone for your kind words and support. I love writing about Max and Liz, and I'm just glad you all enjoy reading it!

So let's get to it . . .



Aftermath
Part 59


“I knew you couldn’t do it Spaceboy.”

“Maria,” Michael choked, cradling her head on his lap. Her face looked pale, drained, blood covered her shirt, the ground, the wall behind where she’d been standing.

“You’re too human,” her voice came out no stronger than a whisper. “You’re not a killer.”

Panic set in as Michael watched her eyes drift closed and her features slacken. “MARIA! Don’t you die on me! Open your eyes, Maria! Open your eyes!”

Her eyelids slowly lifted to half mast, clouded with intense pain. “You’re shouting at me? I’m dying here and you’re shouting at me? Someone should kick your ass.” Her weak attempt at humor ended in a coughing fit. Blood sprayed from her mouth. When the spasm passed, she whispered, “It hurts . . .”

“Max,” Michael looked up at his kindred brother. “Hurry.”

Max knelt beside Maria. Liz cried softly in the background against Isabel’s shoulder. He knew she was certain of her convictions, but that didn’t mean pulling that trigger was easy for her to do. He knew it would haunt her for a long time to come.

“Maria,” Max slipped his left hand under the back of her head. “Look at me.”

“Max . . .” her hooded eyes slid in his direction. She blinked slowly trying to focus on him. “You have a halo around your head.”

“Don’t try to talk,” Max urged. “Just look at me.”

His voice came out soft and gentle, belying his inner tension. Inside he prayed this would work, but his confidence was sorely lacking. Stress always affected his powers. He’d never be able to face the others if he let anything happen to her.

He pressed his right hand against her bloody shirt while his eyes bore into hers to make the connection he would need to heal her. He saw the light leaving her eyes as her lifeforce faded, making him push harder to get inside her mind. Sweat beaded on his brow, his body trembled with the strain, his hand gave off a sickly glow, weak and ineffective.

“Maria!” Michael cried.

Points of light swam in front of Max’s face, a physical warning for him to either breathe or pass out. He gasped and slumped forward but the healing wasn’t enough. Maria’s eyes closed as she slipped away. A soothing hand touched his back as Liz knelt beside him. Her large eyes looked into his, brimming with unshed tears.

“I know you can do it, Max,” she pledged her faith in him. “Try again.”

Her presence strengthened him, just as it always had. The synergy of the two of them together far exceeded what they were alone. Soon, the power of eight would bind them all, but not until Maria joined them. Max turned his attention back to Maria with renewed confidence and belief. He slipped his hand under her shirt, bringing his palm into direct contact with the wound. A vibrant glow spread out around them.

Ava stood in the shadows as the chamber filled with illumination, bathing her seven companions in a golden hue. Isabel stood shoulder to shoulder with Alex. Michael held Maria’s head on his lap. Max and Liz sat side by side on the hard floor, each of them radiating a warm light. Even Kyle’s face reflected the healing glow.

But the light didn’t reach Ava. It didn’t light her skin the way it lit the others. Her destiny wasn’t with them. Their bonds weren’t alien in nature, but rather tied together by human emotion; sentiment like love, and compassion, and trust, and faith. Their bonds had been forming for years, ever since a young boy climbed off a yellow school bus and came face to face with his destiny. Max and Liz, the leader of each group, formed the foundation for their unit, but Ava had no place with them.

The light emanating from Max’s hand grew to near blinding intensity, until Maria gasped, filling her lungs with life sustaining breath. The blood on her shirt evaporated into the air as the light blinked out, leaving Maria staring up into Michael’s tear streaked face.

“Michael,” she smiled.

Michael touched her face, her hair, engulfed her small hand in his and brought it to his lips. “What, I’m not Spaceboy anymore?”

* * * * *

“What the fuck was that?” Zan came to a sudden stop. Tess nearly walked right into him.

“What was what?” she took a step back, hiding her hands behind her back. She’d been too busy looking at them to watch where she was going.

“That light,” Zan scanned the desert, searching the distant rock formations. It’d only lasted for a moment, but it’d been bright, lighting up the night sky. He turned back to look at Tess, scowling, “Didn’t you see it?”

“No,” her voice wavered. Her legs turned to jello. “Wh – what light?”

“Over there,” Zan waved toward the towering peaks of the Vasquez Rocks. “Like a flash. Or an explosion with no sound.”

“I – I didn’t see anything.”

Zan’s eyes narrowed. He took a step toward her. She took a step back. He cocked his head, looking her up and down. “What are you hiding?”

“Nothing,” Tess answered quickly. Too quickly.

Even in the darkness she could see his features harden. He didn’t like being lied to. He pounced on her before she had a chance to react, yanking her hands out from behind her back. She let out a cry of fear, bracing for his wrath, but he only released his painful grip, turning away from her impatiently.

Tess let out a stilted breath, surprised she was still standing. She lowered her gaze to her hands, letting out a silent sigh as relief flooded through her system. They weren’t glowing anymore.

“Which way?” Zan grabbed her arm and pulled her up beside him.

“South,” she squeaked. “I think it’s south of here.”

“No,” Zan focused on a spot in the distance. His boots dug into the desert sand again, leading toward that brief flash of light. “It’s this way.”

* * * * *

Max collapsed into Liz’s arms when the healing was over. He felt drained, but energized too, stronger than before. Everything was coming together. Her lips kissed his forehead, his face pressed into the warmth of her breast.

“Are you okay?” Liz stroked her fingers through his hair. He nodded, then lifted his face up to hers.

“I’m fine,” his eyes traveled over her face, lingering on her lips, her eyes, leaning closer to form a connection to show her he wasn’t lying. Their lips touched, gentle and comforting.

“You can’t even see it now,” Maria rubbed her hand over her bare stomach. No pain. No blood. No bullet wound.

Max pulled away from Liz, his lips turning up in a half smile at Maria’s childlike awe. Liz understood exactly how she felt, though, being brought back from the brink of death by an alien was pretty awe inspiring.

“Can you stand?” Michael scooped his hands under Maria to help her up. When she settled on her feet, he pulled her into his arms engulfing her in a tight hug. Over the top of her head he silently mouthed his gratitude to Max.

“You should rest,” Liz helped Max up from the ground.

“Later,” he stroked a thumb along her cheek. “After we get Tess back.”

“But –”

Max cut off her protest with a finger to her lips. “You know I have to do this. I can’t let the others go into that place without me.”

Liz nodded, accepting it even though she didn’t want to. It wasn’t just Tess he was going after. He needed to face his demons, and conquer them. Max kissed her softly, letting his lips savor the taste of her so he could carry it with him. Reluctantly, he parted from her and turned to face the others.

“Ava, Isabel,” he called for their attention. He turned to Michael lastly, silently telling him it was time to go. Michael reluctantly nodded. With the four of them ready, Max shifted his attention to Kyle. “If they move,” he jerked a thumb toward Lonnie and Rath, “zap ‘em again. Do you think you can do that?”

“Yeah,” Kyle appraised the frozen statues. “I think so.” He could feel the energy now, flowing underneath his skin. A week ago it would have freaked him out, but now it felt natural, as normal as the rest of his senses.

“Here,” Michael pressed the gun into Kyle’s hand. “If the freezing thing doesn’t work, use this on ‘em.”

“Right,” Kyle took the gun. He was an expert marksman at target practice, but he didn’t think he could ever use it on a person. But then again, Rath and Lonnie weren’t exactly human. It made the thought of dusting their asses more palatable. He checked to see if the safety was on, and then tucked it in the waistband of his jeans.

“Okay then,” Max braced for what had to be done. Time to go.

Liz grabbed his arm as he turned toward the mouth of the pod chamber. “Let me come with you.”

“No,” Max emphatically shook his head. It was bad enough that he had to go back to Eagle Rock; he wasn’t about to let Liz go anywhere near it. He didn’t know where she would be safer, but the farther away from Zan, the better.

“Be careful,” Liz cupped his face between her hands, resigned to staying behind.

“We’ll be back soon,” Max promised, giving her a final kiss.

Liz hoped it was a promise he could keep.

* * * * *

The towering formations of the Vasquez Rocks loomed tall and formidable as Zan neared his destination. The sky in the east was just beginning to lighten, a precursor to the impending dawn.

“Zan,” Tess picked her way through the desert scrub, following closely behind him. Her efforts to misdirect him had so far proven ineffective. Making the car run out of gas hadn’t worked; Zan had just abandoned it on the highway and made them walk. Trying to turn him in the wrong direction hadn’t worked either; he acted like a hound dog tracking a scent. Now they were running out of time, and the only option she had left was one almost too frightening to think about. If he reacted badly, there was no telling what he might do to her.

Drawing on her courage, Tess asked, “Why do you think we’re different?”

“Stop talking,” Zan growled without breaking stride.

“We’re not like Lonnie and Rath,” she ignored his surly rebuke. “We almost were, but something changed. I’m not like I used to be. Neither are you. I think it’s because we started feeling human emotions. It started for me after I met Kyle. You started to change after you met Liz–”

Zan whirled on her, with fire blazing in his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Tess stood her ground. “She woke something up inside you, didn’t she? Something you never felt before. You’re fighting it because it feels so alien to you, but it’s not. It’s part of who you are. This is part of you now,” she drilled a finger into his chest, pointing right at his heart. “You can’t kill her, can you? Your human half won’t let you.”

Zan slapped her arm away. He advanced on her, lifting his deadly hand up to her face. “You talk too much.”

* * * * *

Liz stood outside the entrance of the pod chamber feeling the sun’s rays peeking over the horizon in the east, revealing the promise of a new day. Would this one end better than the last?

She watched Max make his way down to the cars below with Michael, Isabel and Ava following behind him. When they reached the dark outline of the jeep, Max turned back to look at her. In the faint light Liz could make out his weary eyes.

“Do you think they’ll be okay?” Maria spoke from behind her, breaking the pregnant silence.

Liz couldn’t give her an answer. Her visions didn’t happen on demand. She had no more knowledge of what was going to happen now than Maria did. All Liz could do was pray for the best, and hold her breath until Max came back safely.

“Let’s go back inside,” Alex suggested.

The others followed him, but Liz stayed where she was, watching the jeep drive off until the dirt road curved to the left and it disappeared behind the tumbleweed and desert scrub. Only then did she go back inside.

* * * * *

“How long have they been gone?” Maria leaned back against one of the smooth walls in the Granilith chamber.

“Not long,” Alex slid down the wall to sit beside her. “They’re probably not even there yet, let alone . . .” his voice trailed off, none of them wanted to talk about it. He turned his focus on Maria instead. “How’re you feeling?”

“Starving,” she answered. Her stomach growled loudly to confirm it.

Liz tore her gaze away from the conical shaped Granilith. “The food Riverdog gave us is out in the car. I’ll go get it.”

“Do you want me to help?” Kyle asked.

“You have to stay here,” Liz reminded him with a nod toward Lonnie’s and Rath’s bound forms. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She left the chamber to the sound of Maria talking to Alex in full ‘Maria Mode’.

“What do you think that thing does? Can ET phone home with it? Maybe it’s like a big cellular phone. Or maybe it’s like a portal or something, like on Stargate. Then if the thingamajiggies lined up right we could go anywhere in the universe!”

“Thingamajiggies?” Alex teased her use of technical terms, but Maria didn’t notice. She just kept right on talking.

“Do you think the atmosphere on Mars is red? Do giants live on Jupiter? Oh! Oh! If we went through a portal to another world, would we be able to breathe the air?”

“Evidently you don’t have to breathe here,” Kyle quipped.

Liz smiled, knowing Maria’s non-stop chatter was just her way of burning off nervous energy. She’d been through a lot these last few days, they all had, and they each coped with it differently. The last thing she heard before she left the chamber was another Maria question, followed by Alex’s answer.

“What do you think my power will be?”

“To talk people to death?”

* * * * *

Liz opened the back door of the Jetta and pawed through one of the bags they’d brought with them from the cave. Riverdog had generously provided them with an assortment of fruits and breads and dried meats, and even a box of donuts, the kind Max liked so much, which only reminded her he’d left without having a chance to eat them. Her stomach churned, thinking about where he was right now, what he might be doing, what might be happening to him. She had to have faith, though. Faith that he would come back to her.

She picked up the bag from the back seat and closed the Jetta door. She turned to make the trek back up to the pod chamber, but a sound behind her made her pause. When she turned again, the sight before her made her drop the bag on the ground.

“Max?”

He stood at the base of the incline, breathing heavily as if he’d just run a great distance. His cheeks looked flushed from over exertion, or maybe it was from the warmth of the morning sun soaking into his skin. His eyes looked at her with smoldering intensity.

“Liz.”

The way he said her name made her shiver. She wasn’t sure if it was from the sensual timbre of his tone, or from the deep longing in his eyes. His clothes looked dirty to her, dust from the desert clinging to his jeans and turning the white stripes on his sneakers to an orange hue. His smile looked tentative, like a young boy seeing unlabeled presents and hoping they’re meant for him. She sensed he wanted to run to her, but something held him back.

“Is it . . .?”

“It’s over,” he answered her unfinished question. “Zan’s dead.”

“Dead?” After a pause, Liz asked, “What about Tess?”

“She’s fine. The car, it broke down, I ran,” he said in broken phrases. “I had to see you again.”

She thought he looked so vulnerable, emotionally holding on by a string. The events of the last few days must be catching up to him. His eyes had always been the windows to his soul, and right now they looked so fragile. It broke her heart to see him so wounded. It must have taken a great toll on him to go back into Eagle Rock.

“Was Zan,” she asked tentatively, “did you have to kill him?”

He shook his head. “He was dead already.”

“But we heard Tess scream. Why did she?”

“She thought it was . . . me,” he finished with a slight hesitation.

“Is it really over?” Liz took a step in his direction. He answered with a mirrored step of his own.

“Let’s go away, Liz. You and me. Someplace where no one knows us. Where we can put all this behind us and start over.”

“”Max, we can’t.” She understood his need, but they couldn’t run away. There was so much more they needed to do.

“I love you, Liz. I never knew what that meant before, but when I look at you, when I’m near you, everything – changes. I don’t want to lose this feeling. I don’t want to lose you.”

His voice came out so heartbreakingly real, so emotionally charged, it broke the dam that had been holding her back. She raced down the incline to take him in her arms, to wrap him in her love, to kiss his lips and heal his wounded psyche. He opened his arms to her, but as soon as they touched she knew it wasn’t him. He wasn’t Max at all.

On the highway, Max suddenly slammed on the brakes. The jeep swerved to a screeching stop.

“What the fuck?” Michael braced his arm against the dashboard to keep from flying through the windshield. “What’d you do that for?”

“Liz is in trouble.”




TBC . . .


And here are the links to a few of my other stories:
Repost in progress:
A Special Kind of Love
Completed fics:
Maxeo and Lizziet
Captive Hearts
A Walk in the Park
Downfall
Pieces of the Past
Echoes of Tomorrow