Twined Roads (AU, CC, Adult) ch. 38 - 08/13/16

[sarammlover]

WTH! A little wrench in the story??? AH HA HA! I love it. I am so grateful Tess is good in this. She is going to be such a wonderful help!!

I can't wait for more of this. SO GOOD!!!!

[Roswelllostcause]

Why am I not surprised that Maria adopted Michael's daughter? This will take some getting use to a good Tess!

[keepsmiling7]

Well, well.......Tess had lots of answers!
And the name on Emily's birth certificate was Courtney Banks........father unknown.
No wonder Michael's powers are out of whack........
Now what......??
Should be very interesting from this point on.
Thanks,
Carolyn

[Eva]

Just to say that I still belong among the living : -) My life just took over. I hope to return as soon as possible, hopefully even for the holidays.

[begonia9508]

Oh yes, Eva, happy about your note because I am impatiently looking for more! Thanks in advance

EVE

[Eva]

Thanks for the patience (or impatience ) but I can say that a new chapter is on its way!

[begonia9508]

Still and hopeful, waiting...

EVE

[Eva]

@ Eve: Yeah, a big part of the puzzle appeared in that last chapter. It was very exploding, in many ways. But if that will keep kyle quiet? I'm not sure about that. We'll see. The truth will have an effect on everybody, that's for sure.

Thanks for waiting for me!

@ Sara: That last chapter revealed a lot. In their quarrel, Michael, isabel & Max forgot the others around them. And with a snowball effect, everything turned up.

Tess is indeed another woman in the story. She has lived with humans and learned the hard way that Nacedo told her a lot of crap. And now that she has met her only real family, she wants to help. Because it concerns her and her future too.

@ Roswelllostcause: This Tess is not perfect but she isn't evil either. I hope you'll like her.

@ Carolyn: The combined information from Max and Tess explains a lot. Maybe they can pull it of together, depending on how everybody will react on this big news. Because big it was!


A/N: A catchphrase from the original episode “285 South” can be found in this chapter.


Chapter 29


She had seen several dazzled faces pop up after she had ordered Max to stop. Most of them hadn’t noticed it but she had seen Michael shaking from penned-up emotions. It had reminded her a lot of Emily, who could sit there in exactly the same way after an emotional tantrum. Other kids would scream the place down to vocalize their anger but Emily crawled into her shell. Just like Michael.

For the first time the truth hit her. Michael was Emily’s father. How small could the world be?
And what consequences would that bring with it?

Before she could contemplate it more, she noticed Michael from the corner of her eye. On autopilot he walked off, blatantly ignoring everyone who tried to make eye contact.

In reaction a frantic Isabel jumped up. “No! Michael!”

When he didn’t listen to her, she directed her attention to her other brother. The panic clearly filtered through her voice. “Max, stop him. Come on, hurry.”

Calmly Max shrugged his shoulders. “There’s nothing we can do to stop him.”

“He needs time to process everything,” Maria added before exhaling loudly. “God, we all do. I know I do anyway.” Several heads nodded in agreement.

“But what if he disappears again?” Isabel panicked.

She didn’t know how she had the knowledge, maybe because he had done the same thing a couple of days ago and returned afterwards, but Maria could feel it in every fiber that Michael would come back. That he just needed some time alone. Gently she touched Isabel’s arm. “He’ll be back. Give him some space.”

Blazing like a wildcat Isabel withdrew her arm and bit out, “How would you know! It’s not because you fucked him that you think you know him inside out, do you?”

The sudden attack left Maria speechless for second before she collected herself. “And you do, huh? That’s why you hadn’t seen him for a year, right?”

Maria’s sharp remark didn’t miss its goal. With a sharp pull Isabel collected her purse, threw it over her shoulder and barged outside. A couple of minutes later they could hear her speed away with screeching tires.

“Sorry.”

Apologetically she looked at Max but he shook his head. “Don’t be. You were just the lightening conductor. Isabel is mad at us. At Michael for not letting her in. And at both of us for leaking out our origins when she couldn’t.”

Absentmindedly Maria nodded. What a mess! She couldn’t help herself, her mind drifted away. To Emily, to Michael, to both of them.

“Are you ok?”

Maria looked up into Liz’s worried eyes. The compassion she read there made her bravado crumble. In all the drama she had kept her mind on the others, keeping herself strong for Michael, for Kyle. A tear escaped and rolled over a cheek. She wiped it away with the palm of her hand. Within a second Liz rushed to her best friend and took her in a warm embrace.
Maria snuggled a moment in her arms before pulling herself together. With both hands she brushed the last of her tears away and let her hands rest against the sides of her head.

“What will happen to Emily? Is she really in danger?” she addressed the remaining aliens, her tone and manner determined and resolute.

“Yeah, you never finished the story. How real is the threat?” Max backed her up and looked at Tess too.

“Ok,” Tess nodded, visibly relieved that she could share her worries, “First you have to know this: Nacedo was not like us. He wasn’t a hybrid; he was one hundred percent alien. He called himself a shape shifter because that was what he was. He could change and take on another appearance within a minute.”

Max tried to grasp what she was saying. “So, he could just be anybody he wanted to be?”

The blond woman nodded her head. “Exactly. Now I heard Nacedo communicate several times with another person. From everything they said my understanding was that he was a shape shifter too.

“Which means there were two shape shifters who were sent down on our ship with us before it crashed,” Max thought aloud.

“Right! Now Nasedo disappeared in 1994. His death was never confirmed but something in me believes he is. I lived for five years with him and he never would’ve abandoned everything. He was very consistent in his way of guarding us. He could kill a man without blinking but the Royal Four were everything in his eyes.”

“But we never met him!” Max expressed his disbelief in a loud exclamation.

“Oh, but he knew all of you.” Tess contradicted with a snort. “I found pictures of all of you in a box after his disappearance.”

Baffled Max just stood there. They had always thought they were alone on this planet, abandoned with no real link to their origins. And then some girl came to tell them that someone had kept an eye on them from a distance. A girl who said she was his sister.

Unaware he ruffled a hand though his hair again. With a face completely blank he tried to strike an attitude. But just before he masked his feelings, Liz saw his unease in his features.

Softly she laid a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe he waited until you guys were more mature to grasp his information? He couldn’t exactly approach little children without raising any suspicions. Besides, after your adoption, you were well taken care of. ”

“I'm gonna shed a tear.” Kyle’s cynical and wry remark pierced through Liz’s reassurance.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” Kyle exclaimed while putting his hands up when different offended faces gave him a nasty look. “All this family reunion stuff is nice to hear but you’re forgetting the point here. How can I protect MY family?”

The others didn’t miss the way he emphasized the last two words. It took Max no more than a second to bridge the distance and tower over Kyle. “She is our family too!”

Although Max rose more than five inches above Kyle, he didn’t back down. On the contrary. Kyle straightened his back, ready to give him a piece of his mind, or even more, starting an attack himself. To her despair Maria saw an earlier incident repeating itself.

“God, what is it with you guys!” she exclaimed loudly. Furiously she pushed the guys away from each other. “There is no right or wrong here! Killing each other won’t help Emily a bit!”

For a moment Kyle stared at his sister before he clutched her wrist. “No, you’re right. Pack your bags, M! We’ll collect Emily and we’re gone.”

Determinedly she released himself from his grip and looked him right in the eye. “We can’t walk away, Kyle.”

“Why not?” Pleading, he looked at her. “I didn’t understand you when you wanted to adopt a little baby. But now I can’t imagine life without her. You love her. Our parents adore her. We simply can’t jeopardize her safety.”

“No, we can’t.” Now it was her turn to lay a hand on his arm. “Think about this, Kyle. Whoever wants to harm her already knew her before we met Michael. Before we knew about her and his origins. If we run away now, the danger will return. They will hunt her down. And I’m not so sure we could save her. Above all I don’t want a life on the run. My mom dragged me around the country and it was awful. I don’t want that for my baby. Not for her. But together with them,” she pointed to the two remaining aliens, “we might work this out. You know strength in numbers and all that.”

Impressed by her emotional plea Kyle stayed quiet. Although he found it hard to admit there was reason in her argument, rationally he knew she had point.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” His muttered curse escalated in one loud exclamation. With his hands in his hair, he paced back and forth like a caged animal.

Carefully Tess approached him. She stopped right in front him, forcing him to stand still. “I’m not your enemy, Kyle. Deep down I’m sure you know that. We,” she motioned to Max and herself, “didn’t ask for this either. We just wanted to live our lives, just like you were doing.”

Her soft but firm voice made him look up. She knew she had his undivided attention now.

“But then the other day, you asked me to investigate your little niece’s hit-and-run. Can you imagine how my world was rocked when I established the parallels between Emily’s case and Michael’s file?”

With his arms crossed and his hands tucked in his armpits, he just nodded at her.

The plea in her voice was undeniable when she proceeded. “There’s a lot at stake for us too, you know. And I’m not only talking about Emily. Think about it. Obviously somebody is not pleased with Michael’s girls. He’s chasing them down without mercy. Why? Is it because he’s alien? Or is it, and this’s just my personal belief, because he’s an Antarian Royal?”

“Either way, our children will all be bait,” Max concluded softly.

Liz whistled out loud while Maria gasped for air.

Tess looked directly at Max and nodded, “Yeah, exactly,” before glancing back at Kyle. Hoping he would understand. Somehow she felt it was important to her that he would comprehend what she was saying. That he would accept the fact that they were harmless, and above all that he wouldn’t turn down the woman she was.

Slowly he nodded. It would take him a long time to absorb everything he had heard today. He wasn’t ready to process everything. It all felt so unreal; at this moment he could only understand the danger his little niece was in, and that was what he refocused on. “Do you have any idea who’s behind this?”

Disappointment crushed her heart a bit but she knew she couldn’t force him. She had never believed in chivalry but every time she had talked to him, Kyle had amazed her with his generosity and humour; making her believe that maybe that shining knight could make the fairy tale come true for her. Something she had never thought could happen, certainly not with her background. But now she had met her fairy tale prince. And he was good-natured, handsome and amusing, and now he knew who she really was too.

Tess tried to suppress the butterflies in her stomach and to approach the situation professionally. “I keep thinking, what about the other one?”

“The other shape-thing-man, you mean?”

“Yes. I think I’m close to tracking him down. But I have to be careful to avoid drawing his attention too much, so I would like to verify some things.”

Glad that the conversation had been redirected to the actual reality instead of the science fiction he had been hearing, he grabbed the opportunity with both hands. “Ok, let’s get to work! What information do you have to go on?”

Kyle took a seat at the nearby dining table and looked ostentatiously at the others. “Come on! There’s no time to waste!”

And while the others followed his lead, Kyle grabbed his cellphone out of his back pocket and speed dialed one of the numbers. “Yeah, Dad, it’s me.”

Cautious and ready to react, Max placed himself in front of the guy he didn’t trust completely at the moment. He could understand the man’s need to guard his family. But he was still the old sheriff’s son too. As a teenager Jim Valenti had freaked him out as nothing else had. His piercing eyes still sent shivers down his spine. Like the man had suspected something about their origins but could never quite put his finger on it.

Maybe he had fostered too much unfounded suspicion against Kyle’s father. Maybe the man had looked at everybody the way he had glared at them. As the local sheriff he took his responsibilities very seriously. Anyway, Max had never trusted him. So he had made it his goal in life to keep them off of the man’s radar; something that had been very difficult with a brother like Michael who had gotten himself into a lot in trouble back in those days.

So his inner antennae went on alert when he heard Kyle talking to him. Determined to end the phone call if necessary, he gave the conversation his utmost concentration. Cautious he heard a warmhearted and jovial Kyle inquiring about their and little Emily’s whereabouts. The call was so quick and lighthearted that it was over before he had even realized it.

Kyle saw the alert look in the other man’s eyes and snorted cynically. “Surprised, Evans? I do know my job, you know.” He clacked his tongue disapproving, “what’d you think? That I would lie like a sleeping dog and warn my old man?” Kyle shook his head now. “No, I don’t think so.”

And then he smiled at his sister. “Maria, she’s alright. They’re at that indoor playground in town. Hearing the background noise that place is loaded with little monsters. So I think she’ll be ok there. I’m not sure about mom and dad though.” He grinned before becoming serious again. “Anyway, nobody’s going to risk something in a place full of outsiders and little kids.”

Relieved she put her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “Thanks, Kyle.”

“They’re staying there another hour of two, so let’s get to work, guys.”

After a short but tender ruffle through his hair she grabbed the chair next to him. Tess joined her almost directly. With a quirk of his eyebrow Max asked Liz to join him. Uncomfortably she wavered a bit, her eyes on the ground.

“Liz?” Max called her when she didn’t react.

“I – I’m not sure I belong here.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Max’ spontaneous response warmed her. Unsure she looked at him from beneath her eyelashes.

“I would really appreciate it if you would stay and brainstorm along with us. Your objectivity would be an asset and above that, I could really use your support right now.” He captivated her with a look and tried to send every bit of emotion he was feeling through it.

“Not to say, me too.” Maria put her two cents in.

“Ok, if I’m that indispensable, who am I to argue that one?” Liz smiled. “But if I’m going to support you guys, I’m going to start be asking what you’d like to drink.”

Maria shook her head. With all the drama around she had forgotten her well-known hospitality. “No, you don’t-”

But before she even could stand up, Liz held her back. “No, please, let me. As I see it, you all need to start with Emily’s hit-and-run. But I can’t give those details. You can.” Liz winked. “So, what will it be?”

[begonia9508]

Great part Eva!
The aliens should start to understand that they need the humans, to help them and even maybe, show them another way of dealings with the things happening! Even with the Ice Queen stupid attitude or her tantrum!

Thanks and waiting impatiently for the next part! EVE

[keepsmiling7]

Things appear to becoming more clear for everyone.
I hate the thought that the alien's children will be bait.
This is so good, thanks for writing!
Carolyn