Title: When Times Collide
Disclaimer: I don't own anything
Summary: When Max and Liz's daughter comes to the past seeking help, two times collide in a desperate race to save the future.
Chapter Two: A Tale of the Times
The room was silent. Completely and totally silent.
Liz was staring at her hand. It was all she could think to do, simply stare. It was no longer glowing, no flickering lights bursting from her fingertips. But Max was slumped onto the floor, holding his probably bruised ribs, and staring at her with a mixture of concern and fear, and the only thing she could comprehend was that somehow she had done something... different.
Max was the first to break the stunned silence. Looking to the strange girl who was now moving slowly towards Liz again, he asked, "Who are you?"
It was Liz who answered. "She's our daughter, Max."
Max gave her a bewildered look, his tawny eyes narrowed in confusion and disbelief. "Our what?" His voice seemed to have raised an octave or two in tone, and he looked so much like a lost child that Liz had to stifle a smile. "How is that... possible?"
"I'm from the future," the girl supplied helpfully, as though that actually made anything more understandable. Max was still staring in total shock, and not even the tiniest bit of comprehension dawned on his features. "Not so far in the future, though," she added, as though hoping maybe this would help explain the situation. "Not even twenty years, I don't think."
Max slanted a look at Liz. "You believe her?' he demanded.
Liz nodded, unsure herself why she was so certain this stranger was telling the truth. "Yes, Max. I do." She could feel it in her gut and she knew that this beautiful girl standing before her was actually her child. Someone she had raised and protected and...
And abandoned, she realized with growing dismay. The girl had spoken about her parents as though they were both dead. Was she really gone? Had she really left her daughter alone in whatever this horrible future was? Was Khivar even now plotting some apocalyptic future in which everything she ever cared about would be gone? Lost to some madman?
"I'm dead," Liz said slowly. "Max and I... we're dead in your future. Aren't we?"
The girl nodded slowly, a look of indescribable anguish in her eyes.
Again, Max repeated, "You believe her?"
Liz nodded, watching as Max opened his mouth once more. She knew he was trained never to accept people as trustworthy, a side-effect of who he was and how he had grown up. But this was their daughter, and as Max's expression betrayed his suspicion, she warned softly, "Careful." He gave her a sharp look, but seemed to understand what she was saying. If this really was their daughter, he would not want to say or do anything to upset her.
"Why were you on the floor when I came in?" Max asked finally, and to his credit, he kept his voice neutral even as he sent a quick look towards the stranger.
"I saw the future," Liz replied, a shudder running through her body as she remembered those flashes. Her head still throbbed from the intensity of it, but even more horrifying was the fact that she had only witnessed it, but her daughter had lived through it. "It was... oh, God, Max... it was horrible." Tears pricked her eyes, but she had to stay strong and present a collected front for her daughter.
Her daughter.
Finally, Max seemed to be unbending. He hesitated, then said, "What's your name?"
The girl, surprised by the question, replied after only a brief moment of faltering, "Ava."
Liz blinked. "But... Tess?' she muttered, sending a look at Max. Why would they name their daughter after the person so intent on breaking them apart?
Ava frowned at Liz and asked, "What does Auntie Tess have to do with anything?" She asked the question casually, but there was something in the way she said Tess' name that caught Liz's attention. The brunette raised one eyebrow questioningly, and Ava, seeming to recognize the implied inquiry, said softly, "She's dead, too. But she died before both of you... I never knew her, not really."
"So, it's just Michael, Maria, Isabel, and Alex in the future?" Max questioned curiously.
Again, Ava winced. "I... Auntie Isabel is..." She didn't finish the sentence, but left the obvious conclusion hanging in the silence. Then, brightening, she added, "Oh, but you forgot Uncle Kyle. He is alive."
"Why did we name you Ava?" Max pressed, switching the subject back to her name. He wasn't sure that he could handle hearing about the deaths of all the people he loved. Liz, Isabel... even Tess' death caused him pain.
"After Mom," Ava replied, giving Max a confused look. "Isn't that obvious?"
"But... I thought I was your mother?" Liz said, shaking her head. She had grown so attached to this girl in the few minutes, and to hear that she was actually Tess' daughter...
"You are my mother," Ava answered, now appearing thoroughly bewildered at the puzzled expressions on her parents' faces. "And Max is my father. And if I was a boy, you would have named me Zan. But I wasn't a boy, which was good for Uncle Michael and Aunt Maria..." She trailed off, realizing that no one was paying any attention to her ramblings.
"But Tess is Ava," Max said finally, barely able to force out the words. The thought of him having a child with Tess was so... sickening. It left him with a bitter taste of guilt in his mouth - how could he do this to Liz? He loved her and he would never give up on her. Ever.
"Auntie Tess?" Ava asked in surprise. Then something seemed to occur to her, a look of realization dawning on her features. "Oh... you don't know yet, do you?" She wrinkled her nose in distaste and said, "Another one of Nasedo's tricks. But he's dead now, isn't he?"
The way in which she spoke about death, as though it was commonplace, as though it happened all the time, made Liz flinch. Because it was commonplace in her daughter's future, and the fact that she would have left her daughter alone to face a life of constant loss and pain was more than just a little disturbing. Once again, she felt consumed with failure, as though somehow she should have had the power to stay beside Ava, protecting her even in death.
"Yes," Max answered quietly, frowning slightly, "but why would he trick us?"
Ava blinked. "Well... he did work for Khivar," she replied, surprised by her parents' astounded expressions. "Wait, you didn't know? I thought... I'm sorry," she muttered, seeming abashed. "I just don't know much about this time, or what you know and don't know yet. I guess I'm screwing it all up..."
Max reached out to catch her hand, a question forming on his lips, but as his skin touched her palm, a burst of something rushed through his body, and then images played before his eyes, forcing him to shut them tight against the light and fall to his knees, groaning in pain.
Khivar was clutching his head, laughing manically as images poured through his fingertips and suffused Max's pain-filled expression. He could see Liz dying, and the others falling all around him, terror and panic and aching pain running rampant. "This is what has happened to them, Max, and what will continue to happen after you die."
"Ava! No!" Michael screamed as an eight-year-old girl was roughly grabbed by two skins, their eyes holding identical expressions of cruel triumph. The smell of smoke and burnt wood and destruction...
"Khivar wants her. She's Max's daughter. She's the true Queen. We have to protect her. We have to keep her safe!"
"What... what is a Queen, Aunt Maria? What does that mean?" "It means you are meant to do great things with your life, Ava."
The world did not change.
She would change it. She would save it. She would bring back the true leaders, the ones who could fight back... the ones who could win.
Death, everywhere, and loss and ruin and...
God help us all.
When he opened his eyes again, Liz was kneeling beside him, trying her best to steady him. Ava floated around in the background, her expression contrite, apologetic for all the trouble she kept causing.
"Max?"
"Khivar mind-warped me until... until I died," Max whispered, horrified. "I..." He thought, suddenly, of the white room, of Pierce, of all the images he had been forced to watch, images of his family being tortured, of Liz dead... It seemed that regardless of who the enemy was - alien or human - it was his weaknesses, his love of others, that was continually used against him.
He looked at Ava. "You..." But the words caught in his throat, and instead, he said, "You have my eyes."
"I do." Ava smiled, and Max realized that she might have his eyes, but she had Liz's smile.
Max rose to his feet, and gestured for Liz to do the same. He reached tentatively towards Ava, and this time when their hands met, he felt the spark of familiarity, but did not receive any flashes. Both Liz and Ava let out a breath of relief, and Max pulled his daughter over to Liz's bed.
"Here, sit down," he requested. "You need to... to tell us everything. What happened? Why are you here?"
"Okay. I can try." Ava settled herself on the bed, gazing at her parents in adoration, reveling in the fact that they were here, right in front of her, so caring, so strong... so alive. "I mean, I don't know so much about the past. We never really talked about it. Uncle Michael and Aunt Maria didn't... well, after you and Mom and Aunt Isabel and Auntie Tess died... I guess they didn't really want to talk about the past. And then Khivar took over the world, so we had to focus on the present anyway."
"Tell us what you can, sweetheart," Liz prompted. Her eyes widened a moment later as she realized the endearment had fallen so casually, so instinctively, from her lips. But Ava was glowing at her mother's words, and even Max had a slight smile on his lips as he stared at his family.
His family.
"Okay. So, um... right. Nasedo was working with Khivar. You... have you guys met Kal yet?" Max shook his head wordlessly, answering in the negative. "Okay. Um... Kal is your real protector, see? Nasedo was... bad. Really bad. He made a deal with Khivar, and he... he wanted power. And to get power, he had to deliver all of you to Khivar. So... he made the book... the Destiny Book. And the hologram that was supposed to be from your mother. They were both fake."
"Fake?"
"Yeah."
"But... why?" Max breathed, feeling more and more confused as Ava's explanation continued. He could very well believe that Nasedo had been working with Khivar, but to have everything he had learned be a complete lie? So... who was he?
"I don't know," Ava admitted reluctantly. "Uncle Michael says that Khivar was always afraid of what would happen if the two of you found each other again. But I don't know why. I don't know what was supposed to happen."
"Again? What do you mean, get together again?" Liz demanded. She knew, although she could not say how she knew, that whatever Ava was about to say would turn her entire world upside-down, would completely rewrite the past she thought she knew.
"You and Dad were together. You know, on Antar. Zan and Ava..." Again, Ava looked confused. "Wait, you don't know that? How do you not know that?"
"Um... Ava, sweetheart," Liz started gently, "I think you must be mistaken. I'm not from Antar. I... I don't know what we told you, but..." she reached out and took her daughter's hand in both of her own, pressing her fingers into Ava's hand, "I'm human."
Ava just stared at her mother for what felt like eternity, before saying in an equally gentle voice, "I don't know what Grandma and Grandpa told you, Mom, but you're not human. You're a hybrid, like Dad. Like me."
"That's not... possible," Liz whispered, shaking her head in denial and jumping to her feet. She began to pace with agitation, her doe-eyed gaze focused solely on her daughter. Why would Ava believe something like that? It just couldn't be true. She was fully human, and the biological daughter of two fully human parents.
"So... you're saying that Liz is really Ava?" Max asked. Although he could hardly believed his daughter's revelation, he at least had enough presence of mind not to contradict her, but instead to try to find out details that might make the entire complicated situation suddenly form something like sense. "And Ava was my wife?"
"Yes," Ava said emphatically. "Yes."
"No," Liz retorted. "No, that's not right. I'm not... I can't be, okay? I mean, it's just not... not possible. At all."
Ava bit her lip and sent a desperate look at her father. She really had no idea how to respond to this sort of denial. She had just assumed that Max and Liz would already know all about their past lives, and yet here she was informing them about things she had taken for granted were common knowledge. She ran a hand through her hair, pulling at the strands, wishing she could think of the proper way to explain it all, some way that would make her mother believe her.
Max, seeing the conflicted look in his daughter's eyes, said softly to Liz, "Let's just let her finish the story, alright? We can discuss the particulars after."
"Right," Liz said slowly, as she too noticed how upset Ava seemed. "Okay. Um... I guess, go on with the story."
"I'm sorry," Ava apologized, "I know I'm not telling this the right way. Aunt Maria would be much better at it."
"It's fine," Liz said soothingly, inwardly cursing herself for allowing her distress to affect her daughter so much. The maternal instincts that had come out of nowhere were now berating her for it, because Ava had already spent so much of her life experiencing loss and pain, and Liz was supposed to help the situation, not make it worse.
"Right. So... anyway... Nasedo made this book because... see, Auntie Tess was royalty. Just different royalty. But if she had Dad's kid, then that kid would be royalty as well, because he or she would have come from two royal parents. See?"
"Sure," Max lied, pretending that it all made sense to him.
"Does Tess know about this?" Liz questioned, trying to think over all her interactions with the blonde hybrid. Tess had seemed to have single-minded focus on Max, but that was because she believed they were destined to be together. Had Nasedo lied to her as well, or was she somehow part of the scheme?
"Um... no, I don't think so," Ava said, and her voice grew sad. "Uncle Michael always said that when Nasedo found Auntie Tess in the desert, it was one of the worst things that happened to us. Because he and Khivar... they messed her up. And she was supposed to be an ally, but... I don't really know much about it, though. Uncle Kyle was the one who knew her best, but he never talks about her, not since Khivar killed her."
"Okay, so let me get this straight," Max decided to attempt a summary of what they had just learned, "Liz and I were married on Antar. And then all of us came here, and Nasedo kidnapped Tess and brainwashed her, and then faked all this stuff about destiny so that he could get Tess and I together, and then deliver us to Khivar and use our son as a way to get power?"
"Yes," Ava said happily, pleased that they seemed to be following her story. She did not see the look of utter bewilderment that passed between her parents, and so did not realize that, in fact, they still understood absolutely nothing.
"And then... how did Liz and I... I mean, how did Khivar...?"
Ava blanched and dropped her gaze to the ground, and Liz resumed her seat next to her daughter, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder and trying to offer some form of moral and physical support. Ava smiled shakily, but it did nothing to change the grief in her eyes or to make the haunted expression any less pronounced.
"The war on Antar basically destroyed the planet. So Khivar came to Earth. His skins killed Auntie Tess first, and then they killed Aunt Isabel. After that, he took over. He basically killed anyone who stood in his way... the leaders of all the countries, like the United States and Russia, and England, and China, Japan, and India, and Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. He called Earth his new Antar. You tried to oppose him, but... he killed you. First Mom, and then you, and... everything is just..." She didn't finish. There were no words adequate to describe the horror, no way to impress upon them what it felt like to helplessly watch the entire world crumble around her, falling prey the twisted desires of a madman.
Max slanted a quick look at Liz, but the brunette was wiping her own eyes, trying to keep away the tears, and so did not see Max's expression. The hybrid king looked back at Ava, wishing he could offer something remotely reassuring, but it seemed like all the words were stuck deep in his chest.
"So you see why you have to come with me, don't you?" Ava asked hopefully.
"Come... come with you?" Liz repeated faintly. "Where?"
"To the future," Ava answered with a frown. "You have to help. That's why I came back for you. Khivar was afraid of the two of you. That means you can stop him."
"The future?" Max repeated hoarsely.
Ava nodded, blissfully unaware of the denial, confusion, and stubborn refusal running through her parents' minds. "So, you'll help, won't you?"
"Ava, sweetheart, I don't... I'm not sure I..." Liz faltered, hesitant to dash all her daughter's hopes, but unable to remain silent while Ava babbled on about this ridiculous and unbelievable scheme. And besides, she was not at all convinced that the main premise of this story was true - that she was somehow originally from Antar. "I can't... I mean... my parents would have told me if I was adopted."
Ava pushed away from both her parents and rose to her feet. "I'm not lying to you!" she said, tears of frustration appearing in her eyes.
"I'm not accusing you of lying," Liz said quickly. "I'm not, I just..."
"Then why don't you believe me?" Ava asked hoarsely, interrupting whatever Liz had been about to say.
"Because I can't be alien," Liz answered, her voice rising a bit in volume. "I don't have a past life. I don't have powers."
"You blasted Dad just a few minutes ago," Ava interjected softly, and Liz's protests were brought to a halt by that simple truth.
"Liz," Max started, catching her by the elbow and pulling her around to look at him, "I think..." But whatever he thought was never uttered because the moment their eyes met, they were both suddenly propelled into a vision of something else, something incredibly foreign and terrifyingly familiar.
"Ava! Ava, where are you?" Zan screamed, running down the hallway. All around him, the cries of fear and panic, the blasts of weapons, the creaking of crumbling stone, swallowed his voice. But he could not give up, could not back down, until he found his beloved wife.
Rath appeared at his side suddenly, the General's eyes darkened. Zan rounded on him, wanting answers, but knowing he had none. Ava had disappeared during the middle of the fight, and that could only mean one thing.
Khivar had her.
"She's gone... my wife, my beloved Ava, I..." Zan sobbed, his words catching in his throat even as he tried to hard to deny the truth.
"Well, well, well... if it isn't the great King," a voice sneered, and Zan and Rath both turned towards the end of the hallway. One of the doors had been flung open, and Khivar appeared, dragging a terrified Ava with him. Her dark hair fell over her face, partially concealing the bruises that marred her pale skin. Her soft brown eyes quickly sought out Zan's face, and even though she was shaking with fear, she tried to give him a reassuring smile.
"Let her go!" Zan yelled fiercely, his face suffused with red, anger dancing in his eyes.
"Why should I?" Khivar sneered. "She makes quite a fine trophy in this battle..."
Ava twisted in his arms and spat in his face. He reached up to wipe the moisture from his cheek as she hissed, "I am not a trophy!"
"Feisty..." Khivar said with a grin. "But I already have the royal woman I want."
"Where is my sister?" Zan demanded, although he did not take his eyes from his beautiful bride.
"Safe," Khivar answered, his words a taunt. Zan and Rath both stiffened in fury, each understanding the fate that would soon befall Vilandra if they could not rescue her from this villain. Khivar saw their helpless rage, and practically cackled with delight.
"This is not over, Khivar," Rath threatened, taking a few steps forward. "We will destroy you!"
"Will you?" Khivar asked softly, his words laced with poison and ice. His gaze flickered to Zan, and he said, "You may think you will destroy me, you foolish little king, but I will destroy you first. And I will do it here and now."
And as soon as he had finished speaking, he placed one hand over Ava's chest, his palm glowing red. The Queen struggled, but could not break from his powerful grasp, and suddenly she was writhing in pain. The blood burst into her throat, gurgling around her lips, and her eyes glazed over as death claimed her.
Zan stood, paralyzed in horror, before suddenly coming to his senses and charging forward. Khivar flung Ava's body at him, and he caught his beloved wife. She collapsed into his arms, her eyes clouded over with pain, her lifeless body pulling him to the floor. Zan found himself screaming in rage and sobbing at the same time as he found he could detect no heartbeat, no breath, nothing at all.
She was gone.
"What is it?" Ava asked, shaking Max's shoulders as the two came out of the trance. She looked between both her parents, worried. "What did you see? What's wrong?"
Liz closed her eyes, trying to block out the images, and Max felt his entire body go tense with rage.
In that moment, he knew there was nothing he would not do in order to defeat Khivar.
