Without a Song
Disclaimer: I do not own any television shows that I write fics for. Nor do I own the lyrics.
'I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant but nothing, I said nothing can take away these blues. Cause nothing compares to you." –Sinead O' Connor
I stood motionless over Max's lifeless body. Yeah, Max. He was just sitting there in this sick, serene state. It didn't even look like him. Piles of make-up to cover the damage, but the sad plastered look of discontented realization was still on his face. Max looked as though he knew at that moment that he would die.
I had tried so hard not to feel, not to cry. Isabel and Michael had that right, that bond. I didn't, but even as the others disappeared to their corners, I just couldn't walk away. It made no sense for him to die…
Me? Maybe. Alex and Maria who were utterly powerless? Definitely. Max? No. In my mind I began to think that this was some sort of demented joke. I was waiting for the "Punk'd" cameras to show up at any moment. Nothing.
Who died twice? No one. Max would come back again. I nodded to comfort myself. I had a vision about him last night and he was alive. Somehow, I just had to help him and save him, no… us from this torture.
"Please come back to me Max. Don't leave us here. You have to pull through." I spewed, trembling like crazy. "You're going to have your first baby girl. Don't you want to see that happen?" I nearly fell to my knees, but this was not the time to fall apart.
"Please." I begged, desperate for a response. At that moment, I saw how Juliet could just end it like that when she saw her Romeo laying there lifeless and she was helpless to stop it. I wondered how long it would take me to follow her suit—Focus. I forced myself to take his hands in mine and tried to stop shaking so much.
I started to look for some sort of sign or marking on his body, but stopped when I heard scurrying and footsteps. When things sounded quiet again, I resumed my search.
Max wouldn't leave us stranded like this. He wouldn't—the handprint. There was a silver handprint between the end of his chest and the beginning of his belly button. Not only had Max known that he was going to die, but he tried to heal himself.
"Thank you." I whispered, sighing in relief and placing my hand where his hand had once been. My breathing intensified, but I tried to ignore it. This was making me sick. I took my other hand in his, placing it to my stomach, but later changing it to my heart.
"Come back to me…" I began chanting every phrase I had ever herd of over the course of my 26 years, all of the things I browsed when looking at those magic books, dreading Max's funeral.
The more I chanted, the less I found myself able to breathe. Tears swelled from my eyes, glistening, and wetting both my skin and Max's. I tried to control my breathing, but by this time, I was completely out-of-breath.
I wanted to get in there with him, curl up beside my husband, and be apart of Max once again. I could not function without him. I hadno function, no motivation to fight, to live.
"I love you." I whispered, realizing that as insane as this idea of saving Max was, I could not let go until something happened. Giving Max one more goodbye kiss, I removed my hands for a second, only to feel a jolt in my body.
Soon, I couldn't breathe at all. As I struggled for air, my head felt lighter and lighter until the only thing I saw was the back of my eyelids.
When I woke up, the familiar face of Max was no longer in front of me, but I was face-to-face with the other members of our group. Maria, Michael, Isabel, and Kyle were all here.
"Wh-Where's Max?" I woke up in a panic. Did it work? Where was he?
"You know the answer to that question honey. Max isn't with us anymore." Maria sat down beside me, holding my hand.
"But, I thought…" My voice trailed off. "I had a premonition guys. Max was alive. I'm sure he--"
"I've had enough of your little visions!" Michael yelled out suddenly. "Remember the last one … huh? You saw them coming. You said we would get out of this. You said--"
"Why don't we leave her alone Michael?" Maria demanded me as I sighed, finding that my breathing was normal again. "I think I should have a talk with her." She offered as Michael backed off.
The two of them weren't able to look at each other again since the break-up and Maria started seeing other people. They still loved each other and it was obvious, painfully obvious. I would give anything to be in her situation again, to have Max two feet away from me, even if we weren't technically together.
"I don't want to talk to you." I whispered to Maria quietly. "I have a lot on my mind."
"Your husband just died. You're seven and a half months pregnant. You have a right to feel the way you do, but please Liz do not shut me out. You are the only reason why I'm still here, why I'm living this life that I've never wanted." Maria admitted while sitting beside me and curling her arms around me.
I couldn't find my solace, not even in the arms of my sister-like best friend. I wanted so bad just to call up my parents and go back to Roswell, New Mexico. That was a death sentence. I still had to make sense of my premonitions and see what went wrong, why Max died.
"I need you to do some research for me Maria. I need you to find out how to bring Max back--"
"Liz … Liz."
"No!" I screamed. "He came back before. There is a way."
"Liz. Max is gone. Michael will get his powers again, just like last time." Maria mumbled sadly.
"It hasn't happened yet."
"It will." Maria promised as I rested my head on her. This was going to be tough. And it was.
It had been Fifteen days and seven hours since I'd lost Max, since the funeral. What Maria had been so sure of that day of the burial, she now looked as worried as I was. Michael hadn't gotten the powers. We all had checked over and over again.
"Nothing." I whispered as the crew gathered into the living room.
"What Liz?" Isabel spoke up suddenly. I could see the worry in her eyes too.
"Michael hasn't gotten Max's power."
"Maybe it just disappeared with him." Kyle offered optimistically.
"No. Your powers just don't die. Those aliens that attacked us, they had Tess's power and now they probably have Max's power." I sighed sadly.
"You don't know that. My powers have been getting stronger." Michael offered as I looked at the faces all around me. They all said the same thing, no matter what words came from their mouths. We were all just waiting, biding our time until another attack, until we all just gave up.
"I know that the power is out there somewhere. I think you all should know … Max had a handprint on his chest. He was trying to save himself." I announced as everyone began to be completely consumed with his or her own thoughts and scenarios.
"He knew he was going to die." A weird sound escaped my mouth, a combination of shortness of breath, a gasp, and trying to hold back tears. "Maybe Max also knew a way to transfer his power."
"Do you think he gave up his power?" Isabel wondered, biting her nails nervously.
"I'm out." Michael exited the room as I braced myself for what was next.
"I don't know." I shrugged, as my thoughts of him started to over-power me. I had been having a lot of dreams and premonitions about him all the time, at night, in the middle of the day, it didn't matter what I was doing. "I think we should … finish this later." I muttered. "It's all too heavy."
"Agreed." Maria answered, rushing to my side. When everyone was gone, I attempted a normal conversation with her, which failed. "It's okay to mourn."
"I'm not mourning Maria. I have to find a way to get him back." I chocked out, trying not to cry. "Don't do this just … I feel like something's blocking my view. If I can just somehow get it out of my way--"
"Liz, would you listen to yourself? You're losing it. You're saying all these things, talking in riddles. I don't understand you anymore." Maria expressed softly. "And you're obsessing about Max like you can raise him from the dead. You can't. You should be focused on your daughter and protecting her. They will probably come back if they know about her."
"Don't tell me how to live my life." I snarled back. Unbelievable. My own best friend was turning against me. "Maybe that's the problem … the pregnancy. Since it happened, everything's been a little off."
"Glad we got that explained. Maybe you should just be un-pregnant." Maria sighed, seeing that her rationale was useless to me. I was determined. I had my goals. I would solve this and afterwards, I didn't care what happened to me.
"I have to get her out of me. Out," I said erratically, knowing that I was being reckless beyond repair. "I want it out now!" I screamed, tears streaming from my face. I was so empty. Everything was changing and it drove me crazy.
"That's not how it works."
"I have to save Max." I explained as my breathing started to become uncontrollable again.
"Liz. Are you okay?"
"It's happening Maria. Now. The baby…" My voice trailed off as my breathing pattern became more wild and unmanageable. Once again, I found myself as I had been upon my last encounter of Max, or at least the shell of him, feeling a sharp shock through my body and then blacking out completely.
"Liz … not you too…" I could hear Maria's hysterical voice running through my mind, but I had to finish this. I had to run through this maze happening in my mind. Max was there. He was trying to tell me something … I would reach him. I did and in that moment, I was so willing to stay with him forever in whatever nothingness he had dissolved into.
As I reached out and touched his hand, I was so surprised at how real this was, just like I predicted. Max and I were hand-in-hand. There were so many things I wanted to tell him, like how I loved him so much that it hurt, too much.
I would physically hurt myself to be with him again. Self-starvation, mutilation, selftorture, anything to be with him, to be his eternally. But Max knew all this. And in the few minutes we had together, I could see it in his eyes. The peace.
We were okay. It was perfect. It was—
"Liz! Thank God." Maria's loud voiced echoed in my brain as I fought to keep my eyes closed. No. I was losing sight of Max. I couldn't see him in my view …. "No." I whispered, feeling my heart beating. The sound got louder and louder as did my panting.
"I thought we lost you." Maria's cold lips kissed my check. My eyes fluttered open. Max had gone. He had long since left me. "You went into a coma… after you had the baby …it's only been a few weeks…" Maria explained. I nodded.
"I saw him …" My voice broke. "I saw Max. I want him back Maria. I want him so bad."
"I'm sorry honey." Maria hugged me tightly. "But don't you ever leave me again." I nodded, resting back on the hospital bed. I felt so confused … like the thing I had been searching for was gone. Would there ever be any answers for me?
"Can you get me out of here?" I asked.
"It's too soon. You just woke up."
"I think I'm ready to move on with my life." I sighed sadly. Max and I were in two different worlds again. I wasn't sure if we were ever meant to meet.
"That's good, but--"
"I'm leaving. You can help me or not." I answered, ignoring the lethargic, light-headedness that surrounded me. "I just want to see my baby for a little while." I lied as Maria nodded and started helping me. She went and found some clothes for me. I changed in the bathroom, marveling at how this Liz was so different from the one I had been hours earlier in dreamland with Max.
I just wished I could go back there. To Maria, it was a darkness, but for me it was a light. As I removed my hospital gown, I tried to cover my hair with my body. I hated my body, always had. But Max … he loved it and made sure that I knew it every second we were together since our wedding.
"Max." I muttered before coiling my hair up behind my neck. I paused as my hair freed itself wildly. The silver handprint … it was on me again, somehow … I fell to my knees then suddenly it all made sense. I had Max's power now. Everything he was, good and bad, I could carry it with me forever. I was Max.
[A/N: I'm doing a lot of one-shot pieces lately and this isn't any exception. I just watched a really gut-wrenching documentary about the death of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes and it is driving me insane. So many things are racing through my mind that I don't know if this story will even make sense. Just bare with me and review. –NL