Title: Dimensionality
Disclaimer: I don't own anything
Author's note: Okay, I know all the chapters so far have not really had a whole lot of action in them. This one doesn't either. But, starting after this, there will be action and problems and answers and all that sort of thing…
Summary: How many more times could he screw this up, he wondered, and just how many more until he finally got it right?
The Third Dimension: Depth
Ever it has been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.
-Kahlil Gibron
"I don't know who the hell you are or how you managed to trick Isabel into believing you…"
"Michael, stop it! Just listen to us…"
"He's a shape-shifter. Or a skin. Get out of the way, Izzy!"
Part of Max figured that he should have known this would happen. He had half-hoped that Michael would not be quite so reckless, would at least listen to his explanation before making snap judgments and acting on them. But he should have known better, because even in the future, even after the war had made Michael more cautious, the hybrid General was still not known for his patience.
Which was why Max now found himself standing in the living room of Michael's apartment, with Michael – arm outstretched and face etched with signs of distrust and determination – ready to attack him. Tess and Alex stood behind Max, looking both a little stunned by this turn of events, but Isabel had moved herself immediately in between the two feuding aliens. She stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at Michael.
"Do you really think I'm stupid enough to bring an enemy alien here?" she asked sharply, her tone filled with disbelief. "Do you actually think I wouldn't have verified his identity first?"
That caused Michael to hesitate, but he did not lower his arm. "He can't be Max," he said finally, his words hard and cold. "It isn't possible. Look at him."
"He's from the future," Alex offered, speaking up for the first time since they had entered the apartment.
Michael's gaze moved past Max and settled on Alex for a moment. Then he scoffed and said, "That's the best cover-story he could come up with? And you all actually believed it? "
"It's not a cover-story, it's the truth," Isabel insisted.
"I really am from the future," Max added, a little ironically.
"I didn't ask you," Michael snapped, glaring at the hybrid King.
Max ran a hand through his hair and stifled the urge to groan. "What do I have to do to convince you?" he asked, one eyebrow raised. He knew Michael, knew him well enough to read the expression on his face, to interpret the dark look in his eyes. Michael was not being rational at the moment, and it was unlikely Max could change that.
Sure enough, Michael retorted, "You can't. You can't convince me because you are obviously lying."
"Oh, for God's sake, Michael," Tess suddenly interjected, rolling her blue eyes and striding forward, annoyance evident in her stance. "Stop being such a stubborn idiot and at least hear him out."
A faint smile tugged at Max's lips as he heard Tess' words. Although she had certainly mellowed over time, her sharp tongue never completely disappeared. She and Maria were quite similar in that regard. And in the future – his future, the one he had come from – that sharpness, and the frequent idea that Michael was a stubborn idiot, was something that had brought the two would-be enemies together.
Michael turned his furious expression towards Tess and opened his mouth to say something, but Isabel cut in quickly, her words calm and measured, but underlined with steel.
"Michael. Just… trust me. You still remember how to do that, right?"
Michael seemed to waver, then he slowly lowered his hand and nodded, his expression still skeptical, his gaze still laced with suspicion. Then, as if for good measure, he added bitterly, "Don't make any sudden moves."
Max nearly laughed. Michael had never been able to give in graciously, a trait that he sometimes found exasperating, sometimes found amusing. Things had changed, people had changed, but that aspect of Michael remained constant throughout the war.
"Michael! Michael, come on. We need to get out of here…" The panic in Isabel's voice was obvious, but so was the grief, the horror.
Michael did not hear. He stood, blinking unseeingly, nothing else registering but the blood spilling out at his feet, and Maria's eyes, which would never open again.
Max snapped his attention back to the people in the room, and knew by the look in Isabel's eyes that she had quickly learned to recognize his unfocused stare as a sign that his mind was elsewhere, in a different memory, maybe even a different time.
Max glanced down at his hands. That memory had been more vivid than many of the others, and for a moment, he even wondered if it might have left traces of blood on his hand, a reminder that he had failed to heal his friend. He wondered if Michael had blamed him for that, for not saving Maria, for not being able to prevent yet another unnecessary death.
"Yo, Maxwell. You in there?"
Michael's voice, sharp and filled with sarcasm, brought his attention back to the situation. He walked slowly over to the sofa and sat down, feeling drained of energy.
His mind went back to the Michael from his timeline, the one who he had left outside the pod chamber, the one he had left to die at the hands of the skins. He licked his dry lips, unable to bear that thought, to face the reality that he was the only one left. Michael dead because of the skins, and Liz probably killed when the pod chamber crashed around her…
Liz.
He swallowed and looked quickly towards Isabel.
She was staring at him, her eyes narrowed.
"I can feel him. All the time. Even when I'm not sleeping. Max, I can't get him out of my head! It's like…" her voice wavered, "he wants me. And I can't stop it, can't stop him."
"Max?" Isabel asked softly.
"What is going on? Is he brain-dead?" Michael cut in, his question harsh, rough around the edges. He walked to the other side of the room so that he was now standing directly in front of Max, and leaned against the wall. His arms folded over his chest, his gaze fixed firmly, resolutely, on Max, waiting for an explanation.
"He's seeing the future," Tess supplied, her tone just a little bit sarcastic.
Michael raised an eyebrow.
Max twisted to look at Tess who had come to stand behind him. He could see the remnants of anger in her eyes, and he supposed he could not blame her for it. He had, after all, accused her of being a traitor, accused her of a crime that she had not yet committed – and might never commit. But those memories were strong, so strong. And he could not even begin to describe to her what it had felt like when that wall of hatred and betrayal slammed into him, when the mere sight of her made him sick with guilt and rage.
It was Isabel who explained, as best she could, in a tone that indicated no one was allowed to disagree with her. "Max thinks he has come back in time more than once. It's created different timelines, different futures. Something about this last trip triggered all his memories of those futures… so he's been having flashes of the other timelines."
There was a pause, then Michael said, "That's insane. Why do you keep believing this junk that the shape-shifter comes up with?"
"He's not a shape-shifter," Isabel answered sharply. "Will you stop with that already?"
Michael glared at her, but instead of responding to her retort, he glanced over at Tess and asked, "And what's your problem with him?"
Max inwardly groaned. Michael was hardly the most perceptive person he had ever met, a trait which would get him in trouble with Maria quite frequently in the future. So it both annoyed and impressed the hybrid King that his friend had somehow managed to pick up on Tess' dislike.
But, to Max's surprise, Tess didn't answer the question. Instead, she said coolly, "Whatever my problems are, they aren't based on any thoughts that he is a shape-shifter."
"Fine," Michael hissed, clearly outnumbered by the others in the room. "Then let's suppose I believe you. What's your story? What are you doing here?"
Max ran a hand through his hair in an absent-minded gesture. He inhaled slowly, carefully, then let the breath out in a rush of air. Somehow, he doubted that saying he was here to save the world would be enough. Michael wanted specifics, and Max wasn't sure that was something he could give. He'd already gone through it once for Isabel, and the idea of recounting each and every painful moment…
It seemed like far too much.
"Well?" Michael prompted, waiting impatiently.
Max lifted tawny eyes and said, "The skins have won. Our enemies… they've taken over the world, destroyed everything. I want to stop that, to keep it al from… from being ruined." As an afterthought, he added in a low whisper, "Although I don't know how."
"What do you mean that they've won? Won how?" Michael questioned.
It was a simple enough question, but it made Max flinch. Did Michael actually want him to recount, moment by moment, blow by blow, how the skins had destroyed them? Did he think that would help?
In a tone as hard as granite and cold as ice, Max answered, "Everyone is dead. Maria, Isabel, Kyle, Tess, Alex. People you don't know yet. Serena. Kal. And our parents, other students in Roswell, random people all over the country that probably didn't even know we existed."
At the mention of Maria, Michael had jerked his gaze away, some dark emotion passing momentarily through his eyes. Max saw it, but said nothing, letting it come and go. He knew that feeling of hatred, of fury. He'd felt it strongly when Isabel was slowly suffering, torn apart by Khivar's dreams, and felt it even more when she finally came undone completely, and died before them.
He looked at Isabel for a moment, and was not surprised to see the sheen of tears in her eyes.
She looked away.
Alex, who had remained silent until this point, spoke up now, "So what are we going to do about it? How do we stop this from happening? How do we keep everyone safe?"
The room tilted sideways, and everything fell away until Max was staring at emptiness, at something cold and dark and lonely. Alex's words seemed to reverberate through the room, and before his eyes, Max could see a scene unfold, an echo of some other time.
"You just left, Maxwell," Michael snarled at the alien king.
"I left a note," Max replied carelessly. The fight had drained from him, and now he appeared weak and tired, exhausted by the past, and by the bleak future.
"Do you have any idea how worried we were?" came Liz's soft voice, laced with tears. "How could you do this?"
But Max's reply was a frosty glare, harsh words, and not a hint of remorse. "How could you wait so long to tell me what you knew about Kyle?" he demanded.
"Because I was trying to keep you from doing something stupid!" Liz shot back, flushed.
"Nice job," Michael cut in sarcastically.
"Guys, arguing isn't going to help us," Alex spoke up softly, glancing back and forth between the two aliens and Liz. "What matters now is that everyone is safe."
Then Max was back in the room, back among the people from the past, and the vision was gone, leaving behind only a sense of unease and a throbbing headache. He rubbed his temples slowly, willing away the pain, but that motion did little to alleviate the gnawing worry that twisted in his stomach.
"Max?" Again, Isabel's worried voice.
"We were arguing. I'd done something… hadn't told anyone where I was going. And…" a quick, slanted look at Michael, "nobody was happy that I had just disappeared." He rose to his feet and began to pace, his motions slow, deliberate. It was as though he could feel the edges of the memory spreading out in his mind, opening to reveal some other truth. But he couldn't quite grasp it, and it left behind an imprint, the remnants of emotions and fragments of thoughts.
Michael clicked his tongue impatiently and muttered, "Figures he'd come back as a basket case."
"Michael!" Isabel snapped, rounding on him with blazing eyes.
But Max felt himself relax slightly at Michael's words. The comment was so stereotypical of Michael that it almost made Max laugh. The hybrid General might be wary of him, might not fully trust him, but it still made him feel more at ease to see that, no matter what, Michael was still Michael.
The headache continued.
Max blinked a few times, looking at the others in the room. He felt as though his grip on reality was slowly disappearing, and it left him with the strangest sensation of grasping at air, of trying desperately to hold on to something insubstantial, something that was practically melting away before his very eyes.
He looked again at Tess, and did not feel the same anger and fury that had hit him before. Now there was just a lingering guilt, the idea that maybe he could have fixed this, should have fixed this. Maybe, if only he had tried a little harder, he could have somehow made it all work out.
The problem was, though he was left with the idea that something needed to be fixed, he had no idea what that something was. What had he done that was so bad? Why did he feel guilt?
Tess met his gaze with her own questioning look. He couldn't read her expression beyond that vague confusion, and it frustrated him. He didn't know her that well in this time, not like he knew Michael and Isabel, and that lack of understanding left him a little uneasy. She'd become an open book later, but right now she was too much of an enigma.
"So… did anyone tell the other Max? The current one?" Michael asked finally, breaking the silence.
"We can't," Isabel replied quickly, automatically. "They can't be in the same room. There is this whole thing about space and time and… I don't really understand it, but… well, Max said they can't be in the same room." She finished the explanation with a half-hearted shrug and a quick look at Max.
Michael scoffed, but did not push the subject.
And then the door was flung open and Maria walked into the room.
All eyes turned towards the pixie blonde. Alex jumped, and a guilty expression passed momentarily through his eyes. Isabel looked at Max, her gaze thoughtful and calculating. Michael and Tess both remained impassive, although there was a fleeting look of surprise about Tess.
Max felt his breath catch in his throat.
Maria had frozen only a few steps into the room, her gaze fixed solely on Max. The door swung shut behind her, closing with a loud slam. Out of the corner of his eye, Max saw Alex jump once again, startled by the loud noise of the door, but otherwise the room was quiet.
"What the…? What is this? Who is he?" Maria demanded sharply, apparently finding her voice again. She extended her arm, an accusatory finger pointing towards Max.
"It's Max," Isabel said softly.
Maria swung to face the statuesque hybrid, rolling her pretty eyes. "What, did he suddenly age? Is this some crazy alien thing? Are you all going to get old?"
Max's eyes flashed as he answered, "I'm in my mid-twenties, Maria. That's not old." Then he began to realize the complete and utter pointlessness of that statement, and a dull flush suffused his face. He heard Isabel stifle a snicker, and even Michael looked amused by the comment.
Maria folded her arms over her chest as she gazed at him, and the stance was so similar to the one Michael had adopted during his questioning that Max did a double-take. It was eerie, how similar they were. Eerie and just a little bit frightening.
"Who are you?" Maria asked again.
"I'm Max," Max answered. "From the future."
Maria's mouth opened and closed as she gaped like a fish out of water. "How?" she asked, her voice laced with suspicion and an edge of dislike.
"The Granolith," Max replied, and Maria stared at him blankly. "Alien energy. It's… complicated. I used it to travel back in time." He looked over at Michael, and saw the taciturn hybrid was nodding slowly, as though he perhaps understood and believed what Max was saying.
Max let out a breath of relief. It wasn't much, but at the moment, it was something he would gladly accept.
And then, quite suddenly, he was no longer in the room. He was somewhere else entirely, a hotel hallway, perhaps, sitting on the worn carpet with his knees pulled to his chest and a mass of indecipherable emotions rushing through his already confused mind.
"Max." It was Maria's voice, and he lifted his gaze to see her, shaking with righteous indignation, as she stood above him.
"Maria." He rose to his feet.
"Liz is worried about you," she said, and her voice rose higher and higher with every word she said, as though she was preparing for a rant.
"She's here," Max murmured, cutting into her anger with his own quiet whisper.
Maria stuttered to a stop, and then raised an eyebrow, "Who?"
In answer, Max slammed his open palm into the wall, suddenly filled with fury and pain and anger and grief and a million other flickering feelings. "How do I tell Liz? I have to, but I don't want to worry her. But I need to pursue this, I need to!"
"Uh… Max, you're starting to scare me," Maria said, tilting her head to the side as though she was afraid Max might completely lose it. "What are you talking about?"
"Tess."
It was a different timeline, he thought to himself as the memory faded. A different place, a world where something entirely different had happened, and he couldn't even begin to put the pieces together. They stuck out, all wrong angles and odd shapes, jarring and troubling. There were no answers there, just more questions he didn't think he could face.
Isabel reached up and brushed her hand against Max's arm, as though trying to physically pull him back into reality. He started and turned towards her, noticing that she was biting her lip, that she was afraid.
For him? Of him? He wasn't sure, and he didn't really want to know.
Isabel might have picked up on his momentary lapse into a different memory, but Maria did not. She looked around the room and asked, "Is Liz here?"
Max dropped his eyes quickly, looking away from everyone else. His heart pounded frantically in his chest, matching rhythm and time with the throbbing of his headache. He didn't want to think of Liz, to face that problem quite yet.
"She's not," Isabel replied finally, when it became clear to the others that Max was not going to speak. "We haven't told her."
"Why not?" Maria snapped, her tone sharp, defensive. "Is this an alien only thing? Are us mere humans suddenly not good enough to be included in your club?" If she noted that her words were ill-founded, given Alex's presence, she showed no signs of it. Instead, Max frowned as he saw the way her eyes darted towards Tess with silent accusation.
"He just showed up here a few minutes ago," Michael interrupted, giving his sort-of girlfriend an annoyed look. "We only just started discussing this. We haven't had time to figure out anything."
"Yeah? Well don't you think Liz and I should be here for the discussion?"
Max closed his eyes, almost wishing he could tune out Maria's words. But the abrasive blonde was too loud and too determined to be ignored, and he knew that well enough to know that there was no point in even trying.
"We were getting there," Michael hissed his reply.
"Yeah. Right." Maria rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say, Mikey G."
That name sounded so familiar to Max, and yet he couldn't place it. As far as he knew, Maria only called Michael one of three things – Michael, Guerin, or Space Boy. But Mikey G was ringing faint bells, and he searched through every corner of his brain, trying to come up with the answer.
Then he remembered.
Courtney.
Mikey G was what she had called Michael, and Maria had used it as a reminder of that, as an accusation against her boyfriend and the blonde skin.
And that thought made Max tense slightly, and he wondered if they knew the truth about Courtney yet. Had Michael discovered that she was a skin, had they learned about the rebels who wanted Rath in charge? Obviously Courtney wasn't yet dead, or Maria would have been more sensitive about the issue. In the end, Michael and Courtney had been friends, and Michael had been hurt by her death. And Maria, for all her anger, still loved Michael far too much to deliberately hurt him with something like that.
No, Courtney must be alive.
Michael was glaring at Maria, but he hadn't taken the bait. She was smiling in reply, an icy smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.
How long were they going to keep arguing, Max wondered, and how long until they realized just how perfect they were for each other?
The strange alien with the inhuman green eyes shrieked with words of twisted rage, "You won't win! Fool, do you really think we will let your humans live?"
They were in a hospital room, a place of sterile white and hushed voices and the constant drone of machinery working in the background, keeping people alive. Max was slumped over at Liz's side, and the brunette's eyes were slowly blinking open, her uncomprehending gaze moving around the others.
The alien pointed his hand at Liz, his eyes blazing.
There was a flash, a burst of energy, too quick for Max to raise his shield, too quick to stop the inevitable. Max opened his mouth to scream, but the words never made it out from between his lips, and everything seemed to slow down and speed up at the same time…
…as Maria threw herself forward, body sprawling in front of Liz, the energy slamming into her chest and filling her with an eerie glow…
…and Michael screamed out a guttural cry of horror as Maria's eyes glazed over and closed.
Some things don't change, he realized. The consistencies were there, threads that linked each timeline to the others, ties that bound them all together. How many times had Maria sacrificed herself to save Liz? How many of her futures had ended with a similar brutal death, a desperate attempt to save Liz, a haunted cry from Michael? He had watched Maria die more than once in the past twelve hours… how many more times would he see it?
"I need some water," he muttered, and was not surprised to find his voice was dry and scratchy.
"You know where it is," Michael replied, and Max could sense the challenge underneath. It was Michael's way of saying that if he really was who he said he was, he should know his way around Michael's apartment. He nodded slowly, seeing no reason in arguing that point, and turned away from the others.
He half-expected Isabel to follow him in concern, or perhaps Maria to continue to demand explanations, but to his relief, they left him alone. He stood alone in the kitchen, running his hand over the smooth tile counter, glancing out towards the window. A few wisps of clouds drifted lazily across the bright blue sky, and the sun shone with its usual desert intensity.
In only a few years, the sun would be shining down on blood-soaked sand. In only a few years…
He sighed.
Walking quickly to the cupboard, he pulled out a glass and filled it with cold water from the faucet. He drank it in one gulp, a few drops escaping the edge of the glass and spilling down the front of his shirt. He brushed them aside easily. For a moment, he considered refilling the glass, but instead he left it by the sink and walked back towards the living room.
He paused just out of sight, listening to the soft rise and fall of voices.
"…worried about him. Those memories… changed so much… in just the past twelve hours… Looks like… hurts him…"
"…don't understand… memories?"
"…different timelines…"
He couldn't hear everything they were saying, couldn't hear it clearly enough. But it didn't matter, he could still easily understand exactly what they were talking about. It was clear that Isabel had picked up on his rapidly fraying grasp of reality, and it was worrying her. They were arguing about him, about the best way to proceed, and some part of him wanted to stay there until they had come up with a plan so that he wouldn't be forced to do any thinking. Let them figure it out.
But he couldn't. He was the only one with the knowledge of the future – all the futures – and they needed him. They needed him to figure out how to save the world.
He walked back into the room.
The others looked at him as he entered, and he could see the telltale signs of awkward anxiety in their expressions as they wondered how much of their conversation he had heard. He wished he could smile reassuringly and tell them everything would be alright… but would it?
He sat down on the sofa.
"I still don't understand why Liz isn't here," Maria said bluntly. "She belongs."
"No one is arguing that she doesn't," Isabel said wearily, slanting a look at Max. He stiffened ever so slightly under her gaze, but otherwise said nothing. She chewed her lower lip thoughtfully, then added, "Now is a good time to call her, Max."
Wanting to delay the inevitable, Max said, "I'd like to get a handle on the time, first. Just to pinpoint exactly where I am. You've already dealt with Whitaker, right?"
Isabel swallowed and looked away. "Yes," she answered in a low tone, clearly not liking the memory of that. Max looked at Tess, and was not surprised to see that she had averted her gaze, apparently finding the floor fascinating. What Whitaker had done was a painful memory for her as well.
"Have the Dupes shown up?"
"Who?" Maria questioned, bewildered.
"Hm… I'll take that as a no. What about the Harvest? Have we been to Copper Summit yet? Have you met Nicolas?"
Michael shook his head, looking both confused and interested by Max's questions. "What's the Harvest? What's at Copper Summit?"
"More aliens. Evil ones," Max answered. "And trust me, you don't want to mess with Nicolas. Not unless you absolutely have to." He hesitated, almost not wanting to ask the next question. Bringing up any mention of Courtney was dangerous, and the last thing he wanted was to create more problems between Michael and Maria, problems that might interfere with their ability to focus on the task at hand.
But… he had to ask. He had to know what they did and didn't know. He had to be careful, had to gather all the knowledge he possible could. Or else…
Or else he might not succeed.
"Have you found out that Courtney is a skin yet?"
Maria gaped at him. "She's what?" Then, with a triumphant smirk, she turned to Michael and said, "Guess your new friend wasn't quite what you thought, huh?"
Michael glared heatedly at her as he answered, "I told you the whole reason that I was spending time with Courtney was to figure out what exactly was going on. I'm the one who told you that there was something not right about her."
"Yeah, right. And you had to make-out with her to figure that out?"
"Hey," Tess cut in sharply, "why don't you two settle the personal stuff some other time. You know, when the fate of the entire world isn't hanging in the balance."
Michael and Maria both turned angry stares to the fourth hybrid, but Tess just gazed coolly at them, refusing to back down. She wasn't easily intimidated, a trait that had served her well during the war. Max smiled slightly, appreciatively, as he watched the silent show-down. None of his friends, his family, were easily intimidated, not anymore. They'd all been strong fighters and good people.
Of course, that hadn't been enough to save them.
He turned his attention back to Michael and Maria and said, "She's not the enemy, though. And don't worry, Maria, her interest in Michael is purely political."
"Huh?"
"She's part of a faction of rebel skins that believed if Michael… he went by the name of Rath in our past lives… had been on the thrown, he could have prevented civil war. She's here looking for you because she thinks you can save everything." Max frowned at Michael and added, "She thinks you're the messiah."
"Great," Maria muttered. "Just what we need. Michael with an even bigger God-complex."
"The God complex is more Max's thing," Michael replied.
Max ran a hand through his hair and added softly, "She'll die soon. If we don't change the future, she'll die, saving us from Nicolas." He didn't add that Michael would be devastated. He didn't add that Isabel would nearly end up sacrificing herself to save them as well. He didn't add that Tess would lose control of her powers and conjure a giant ball of fire that would wipe out the skins, but leave her feeling scared and vulnerable.
Some things it was just better not to know.
"I think we should call Liz," Alex said, breaking the silence. "And then I think we should go through all the memories you have of the different timelines. Whatever answers we're looking for, they're probably in there."
Max did not argue. He could not delay the inevitable any longer. He'd gotten through the first meeting with Michael and Maria, with Isabel, with Alex, with Tess… and now it was time to face Liz.
But the knowledge that he had to do this, that he didn't have any choice, did not ease the fear that coalesced into a knot in his stomach, did not stop his mind from wondering just how he was supposed to survive seeing her so soon after he had left her behind.
