Almost Home - AU M/L YTEEN - 1/1 [COMPLETE]

[sylvia37]

Okay, I know this is weird but I got this idea and I couldn't get it out of my head so I wrote it down and now I'm posting it. It's short, 1 part.

It's kind of angsty, (what else do I write) so...sorry.

Summary: Max reflects on his life. (Lame, I know)

Rating: YTEEN

Disclaimer: Don't own nothin'


Almost Home

The night was turning out to be chilly. He lit the fire, shivering. Putting his hands out towards the warmth, he closed his eyes as his muscles protested the movement. It wouldn’t be long now.

Looking around the cave, he gazed at the husks of the pods still there. It was appropriate that this was where it was going to happen. He and the others had been born here. They had entered their new world from this cave and this is where it should end.

Sitting back from the fire on his sleeping bag, he grasped the cup of warm chocolate laced with Tobasco. His hands shook as he lifted it to his lips, but he ignored the annoyance, drinking as he leaned back against the cold cave wall. His breathing sounded loudly in the quiet, echoing slightly but he didn’t mind. He was used to being alone.

Closing his eyes again, he thought back over his life. He had many regrets over the years, many painful memories but there was one thing he would never regret even though it had brought him here.

He could still remember that day so clearly as though it were yesterday. Sitting in the café with Michael, watching out of the corner of his eye as she served her customers and laughed with Maria. She was a bright spot in his otherwise carefully quiet life until that moment when a shot rang out.

Seeing her lying on the ground had nearly stopped his heart, and there was really nothing he could do except save her. Every instinct he’d had to hide his differences from the world had flown right out the window in the face of her impending death. He put his hand over the wound and healed her.

Afterward, she confronted him with the evidence and he had confessed, knowing in his heart that she wouldn’t betray him and she confirmed his belief in her. But she did him one better. She not only kept his secret, she grew to love him as he did her and they became inseparable.

He and the others with the help of her and her friends, came to find out many things about themselves, not the least of which was that there had been another one of them. When they found the pod chamber, they found the remains and the three of them instinctively knew that it was another girl. Her pod looked damaged and rotted, not like the others. And they found orbs that when activated told them that they had been sent to earth as an experiment to test how their alien essence mixed with human DNA. Their planet was dying and their scientists were trying to find a way to help their people survive. That was all. There was no other message.

They had to assume that since no one had come back for them that their planet had indeed perished. They were the lone survivors of a lost civilization. It was hard at first to reconcile that they were alone in the universe, but their human friends were there for them and they vowed to live out their lives on earth.

He smiled a little as he thought about those early days.

They had lived normal teenage lives, going to school, going to prom, graduating. And always, she was there beside him. Their love never faltered and no one ever tried to come between them. It was obvious to anyone who knew them, that they were soul mates. Destined to spend their lives together. They made love for the first time their senior year and it was awkward and beautiful and they discovered in each other, the other half of their souls.

He gave her an engagement ring as a graduation present, and her face had been radiant with happiness. Their lives were perfect. She was perfect.

His smile faded.

It wasn’t until that summer when they were getting ready to go to college that he was captured by the FBI. They hadn’t been aware that they were being watched by the special unit. They had her uniform with the bullet hole and Agent Pierce had been biding his time, piecing together his theory. They snatched him late one night on the way home from her house and put him in a white room.

They tortured him and probed him and taught him to hate in the two days that they had him. By the time his friends found him, he was near the breaking point. He remembered the look on her beautiful face when she and the others burst through the door of the room to rescue him. He must have looked like death warmed over to put that expression on her face, but she didn’t falter, just helped him up and moved him towards freedom.

They never saw the man who shot her.

Michael and Isabel had been fending off their attackers, but one bullet got through. Michael blasted the man a split second too late.

His powers were non existent at that point and all he could do was watch and hold her as her life ran out on the cold ground. She looked up at him, her eyes brimming with tears of pain, but no condemnation. Just love for him. She whispered it to him through her parched throat and held his hand as long as she could before finally giving in.

He hadn’t believed it at first. He’d sat there holding her, not allowing anyone to touch her or take her from him. He knew if he let go, it would be real. It wasn’t until later that he found out Michael had knocked him unconscious so they could get him to safety.

Those first few days afterward were numb. He didn’t remember talking or eating or feeling. But then a fire started to burn in his belly, and he began to plan. Biding his time, regaining his strength, he went through the motions of life, outwardly normal, inwardly a ticking time bomb. Working methodically, he tracked his enemies and when the time came, he slipped off without a word to his sister and Michael.

The destruction he wrought was performed without a flicker of remorse. His rage was great and his retribution was devastating and when it was over, everyone he held responsible for her death was dead. He stood amidst the bodies, covered in ash and blood, his soul crying out for what he’d lost and that’s how Michael found him. Working quickly to cover their tracks, Michael took over, hiding the evidence and dealing with the aftermath. Then he’d dragged him to the pod chamber and confronted him.

She wouldn’t have wanted him to kill for her, Michael said. She would have felt responsible for all of those deaths. She would have wanted him to go on without her.

He stood there listening to Michael’s words, realizing what he’d done. The next few days, the news was inundated with the terrible tragedy that had killed so many people. They had families, children and parents who looked back at him from the television, their eyes reflecting the same pain of loss in his own eyes, and he was crushed under the weight of his guilt. His parents were at a loss over what to do for him as he retreated into himself, unable to face the world he was stuck in without her.

Then one night, he was watching the news once again and saw that one of the children whose parent had died was in the hospital with cancer. He stared at the face of the child of his enemy and knew what he had to do.

Michael insisted on coming with him. They disguised themselves and he went to the hospital and found the child and healed him. And then he healed all of the other children there as well.

It was hailed as a miracle, but he knew differently. It was his penance. And it didn’t end there.

They lived a nomadic life, traveling from place to place, finding people in need of a miracle. Always they were disguised and were careful to cover their presence, but the stories began to appear anyway. Stories of healings and deathbed recoveries and of silver handprints. They began calling him The Healer and people started to leave messages in the papers and on television of their loved ones who needed his help. Other’s began to follow his trail trying to catch him in the act. And every day in his heart, he mourned her and asked for forgiveness for the lives he had taken in his grief.

He hadn’t expected Michael to follow him around as he paid for his sins, but his friend was always there. Michael said that he had no other commitments and finding ways of thwarting the ones looking for them was more fun than living a normal life, but he knew differently. Michael was in love with her best friend, Maria, the fun loving girl who used to tease them about being joined at the hip. Maria had loved him too, but Michael insisted that it wasn’t meant to be.

It was over a year later that he began to notice the changes. At first he thought it was just fatigue, but then he realized that his body didn’t seem to recover as quickly after he used his powers. His appetite waned and he had trouble resting. Still he carried on until one night, he was healing a small child of a tumor in his head. Michael was waiting for him to come out of the room and when he didn’t, he came in and found him on the floor, unable to stand. He had to do some quick maneuvering to get them out before they got caught and Michael was angry and more than a little upset to find out that he had been experiencing these symptoms for more than a little while.

Michael insisted they stop, but he couldn’t. He tried to get his friend to leave, to stop following him but he wouldn’t listen. For a while they played cat and mouse with each other, him slipping away, only to have Michael catch up with him in a day or two. After a while, he stopped trying to get away, realizing that he was fast approaching the day when he would no longer be able to function on his own. His powers were deteriorating along with his body. He’d used himself up.

The end came one night when after a healing, he passed out completely and didn’t wake up until almost the following day. Michael was there along with his sister, and they angrily confronted him. He could see the pain he was causing them so he acquiesced.

But it was too late.

He went home to his parents and asked their forgiveness. They welcomed him with open arms and he lived with them long enough to gain his strength and make some plans.

The cave was warmer now and he opened his eyes and sat up. Reaching into his backpack he found the letter he’d written for Michael and laid it carefully to his side, then he laid down, head resting on his bent arm.

Michael. He hoped the letter he’d sent Maria had been enough. Michael had given up enough of his life, he deserved happiness. He explained to Maria the truth of the situation and he was sure that she would be here for his friend when he needed her.

He’d written a letter to Alex as well, knowing that he would help Isabel through.

Now there was nothing more to do but sit here and wait.

He sighed tiredly. He was ready to go. He longed for relief from the constant pain in his body, but more than that, the pain in his soul. A soul too long without it’s other half.

His eyelids flickered as he stared mesmerized at the fire. Shadows danced on the wall behind it and he allowed the warmth and peace to steal over him as his eyelids flickered again before he finally closed them.

She was waiting for him. He could see her shimmering silhouette standing in the light as he walked towards it, and his heart swelled as her beautiful features became visible. She was smiling serenely, holding out her hand to him and when he finally got there and reached for it, her fingers curled around his, the fit perfect and familiar.

“Liz…..”

“Max…..”

They smiled at each other and turned simultaneously towards the light.

He was almost home.