Kyle followed Liz towards the back of the house where she'd taken refuge in his room. He closed the door behind him to give them privacy.
Liz was shaking with tears, dragging in shuddering breaths between sobs. Kyle waited quietly by the door while she fell apart across from him. He knew that she was aware of his presence and that she would reach out if she wanted physical comfort and would speak up if she wanted to talk it out.
After a few minutes her breathing had steadied and her tears had slowed. Kyle reached out to offer her the tissue box that lived on his desk. She took several tissues to mop at her face and blow her nose. When she had pulled herself together she sat on his bed and looked up at him with a wry smile.
"I really thought I was ready for this." She admitted.
"Yeah," Kyle settled beside her, leaving a careful gap between them to ensure he didn't accidentally touch her, "I thought I wanted it to happen, that the anticipation had to be worse than actually facing them all again. Boy was I wrong."
"I can imagine," Liz said, "If what they're going to be feeling in the future is anything like what they're feeling now then it must feel like a barrage of emotions to you."
"Pretty much," Kyle sighed, "I couldn't handle all of them. I know we had planned on getting a read on each of them to decide whether we could trust them but it was too much. Even focussing on Tess was hard. Kept having to close my eyes, block out the conversation, and do breathing exercises."
"Well," Liz offered, "You didn't burst into tears and run away, so you're still doing better than me."
"Yeah, but I'm also shutting out as much as I can. I know you were actually pushing to see anything from them, so you have nothing but my respect."
"That wasn't even the worst of it," Liz admitted, "It wasn't easy, but I was ready for their futures. It was my own past that was the problem. I thought I'd dealt with my feelings about everything a while ago, but actually seeing Max again, especially with Tess right there, it brought everything back."
"Yeah, I'm actually kind of glad that their emotions were so overwhelming that I was distracted from my own. Really not looking forward to having to deal with that."
Liz nodded sadly, then with a deep breath straightened her shoulders and put her business face back on.
"Did you get anything useful from them? All I got was that their futures are emotional and full of yelling from various sources." Liz wrinkled her nose at the memory of it all.
"Not much." Kyle sighed, "They're all full of mixed feelings, the kind that's hard to sort out. But Max and Tess both had a familiar sort of mix that I see a lot in the trauma survivors group that I volunteer with. Whatever they went through wasn't pleasant for either of them. Michael and Isabel weren't the same, but there were too many feels going on for me to figure out what was different."
Liz snorted, "Yeah, I saw Tess mourning. Like seriously devastated. She was crying and screaming in grief. I'm not surprised to hear that the last years haven't been great for her. I wish I could say I'm sorry for that, but I guess I'm not a good enough person to have sympathy for her after what she did."
"I'm not sure," Kyle hesitated, "I dropped Alex's name into the conversation and Tess felt guilty. I'm not saying that she deserves our trust or forgiveness, but if she feels guilt then there is at least a chance for her. I don't know if I'm a good enough person to give her that chance either, but I know that people don't reform if you don't give them the opportunity."
Liz sighed, pondering his words. She knew rationally that getting Tess onto their side was the safest way to resolve the situation, but she had no desire offer forgiveness. Besides, she just didn't think she could ever trust the girl again. How could you trust someone who could mess with your mind and memories?
"I know you might be right," Liz replied firmly, "But I'm not willing to risk that on one moment of guilt. We stick with the plan until we have something more to go on."
"Agreed," Kyle nodded slowly, "Which means we should really get back out there. Are you ready for more?"
"Yeah," Liz stood, gesturing for Kyle to lead the way.
...
Isabel looked up as Kyle and Liz returned.
After the pair's dramatic exit, the remaining group had sat in awkward silence. Isabel had tried to find something to say, but everything she could think of seemed either too frivolous for this moment or too important to talk about while Liz and Kyle weren't there.
She was used to that feeling. The majority of the weeks travelling here had been spent in a similar state. She and Michael had grown apart over the years, though they always remained allies. They were united in their purpose, but not in their beliefs. He hated everything he found on Antar, while Isabel had found a place where she was more than just a pretty face with a dark secret. Somewhere that she could be honest and intelligent and actually felt like she could make a difference.
She and Michael had mastered both the meaningless conversation and the direct confrontation during their time away from Earth and neither of them knew anymore how to get back to the way things used to be.
On the trip back to Earth, she'd chosen instead to spend most of her time with Max. They had sat together, crying and reminiscing, speculating about what they might find when they arrived. But the few times she'd tried to talk about what had happened in the intervening years he shut her down quickly. He didn't want to think about what had happened and he didn't believe there was anything worth remembering about their home planet.
Tess was the only one who had any kind of regret about leaving Antar behind, but the more Isabel talked to her the more she realised that Tess wasn't the same person she'd known before. There was something in Tess's eyes that sent a chill down her spine when Isabel mentioned the things left behind on Antar. Isabel had found herself avoiding Tess, and then wondering why she'd done so.
"Sorry about that," Liz spoke up when she stood in the centre of the room again. "This is just a little overwhelming."
"Of course," Isabel gave her a sympathetic look, "This is strange for all of us."
"What… Um…" Liz hesitated and then settled onto the floor across from all of them, her back to the wall, before she continued. "What happened to you?"
Isabel exchanged a look with Michael and Tess, but Max carefully avoided everyone's gaze, staring instead at his own lap.
"It's a long story," Isabel warned.
"Give us the highlights then," Kyle suggested.
Isabel glanced at the others again but none of them seemed inclined to do the talking. She looked back at the humans arrayed around them and took a steadying breath.
"They were waiting for us when we landed," She kept her voice calm and factual, "It's not surprising really. They're always scanning for certain kinds of energy, so they saw the Granolith coming the instant we showed up in their solar system. When we opened the doors there were dozens of soldiers waiting for us. The resistance movement had heard about it and they showed up too. They started a pretty big fight over us, and in the chaos we got separated."
"We were together for less than an hour after leaving Earth before we lost each other." Michael snorted at their own naiveté. He frequently laughed about how stupid they'd been to leave the safety of Earth so blindly.
"Michael and I both got smuggled away from the fight by different groups of loyalists to the old monarchy." Isabel continued. "It was months before we saw we saw each other again. But Max and Tess were captured by Kivar's forces and…" Isabel hesitated, unsure how much of their story to tell.
Michael saved her from having to decide.
"It took us years to convince the resistance movement to break into Kivar's stronghold to save them." Michael said. "And then it took more years to get people into the places we needed them inside Kivar's palace."
"We broke in and got Max and Tess out a couple of months ago." Isabel continued the story. "We knew there was nowhere in that solar system where we would be safe after that, so we stole the fastest spaceship in Kivar's fleet and came here."
"The second fastest," Michael corrected irritably.
Isabel sighed and spoke in a voice that was clearly sick of having this conversation, "You know the Granolith would have been the worst possible getaway vehicle. And we sabotaged it permanently. They can't use it against us or build another one without the key."
Kyle frowned in confusion at this, "I thought the Granolith could only be used once."
"No," Isabel responded, "I think that was a mistranslation. Translation isn't exactly straightforward even for people who are fluent in two languages, let alone for a computer looking for patterns of repetition. The Granolith was set up to make one trip from Earth back to Antar as soon as the key was inserted. I think the message in the book was probably that once the Granolith left Earth it probably wouldn't be coming back."
"So let me get this straight," Liz spoke up fiercely, "You liberated Kivar's most prized prisoners, broke one of his most powerful weapons and ran away to the first place he's going to send spaceships to look for you?"
Silence followed her question.
"So how long do we have before an army of aliens shows up here?" Liz asked angrily.
"We took precautions." Isabel defended, "We sabotaged all of the long range spaceships that were in that building, which was most of them. It will take months to repair them or to build new ones. And the ship we took is the prototype, so there aren't any others that travel that fast anyway. It should be months before Kivar can muster the resources to get here."
"And did you have a plan for what to do when that happens?" Valenti asked calmly.
Once again, the aliens found themselves speechless.
"We didn't have a choice!" Isabel insisted. "This was the only way to get Max and Tess out of his grip."
"Did you just decide that their lives are worth more than every human being on this planet?" Liz asked wearily.
"We decided it was worth the chance!" Isabel burst out, "We have hope here. We have allies and time to come up with a plan. There is no hope left on Antar for anyone. If we want a chance at winning then we needed a place to fall back and regroup."
"What allies do you have here?" Liz asked, "A deputy sheriff in a mostly rural county? A biology grad student? A volunteer peer counsellor? What were you expecting to find when you landed here?"
"We expected to find friends." Max spoke for the first time. "We wanted to come home."
Liz sighed and dropped her head into her hands.
Isabel wiped at the tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes. There were so many reasons why they had chosen to come back here, and they'd all made so much sense at the time. But faced with Liz's accusations Isabel found it hard to explain why it was a good idea, why it was worth risking this entire planet.
"Well, the damage is done." Liz raised her head again, "You're here now and whoever follows you will come. You say we have time before then, so I guess we'll just have to add it to the long list of problems we have to deal with."
Valenti nodded in agreement.
"How about we start with some of the simpler problems then," He suggested, "You said you came in a spaceship. Do we need to do something to hide it or move it?"
Isabel shook her head, "No, it has a built in camouflage. We left it out in the desert, but no one should be able to find it."
"Okay," Valenti said encouragingly, "That's good. One problem solved already. Then there's the fact that you're all officially dead, and there are enough people in this town that might recognise you that staying here could raise some awfully awkward questions. Not to mention your rather eye-catching outfits."
"I'd kill for a shower." Tess spoke up quietly from her place on the sofa. Liz noticed the way Kyle flinched at her choice of words.
"There we go," Valenti gave her a nod, "Problems we can fix. The boys can borrow some clothes from here, but we don't have much in the way of women's clothes."
"I can grab something from home," Liz offered. "I don't know what's still there; the only things left at Mom and Dad's are things I haven't worn since high school. There should be something you guys can use though."
"You're not still at the Crashdown?" Max asked, suddenly acutely aware of the chasm between the Liz he knew and the one sitting in front of him.
Liz shook her head, "Just back for the holiday. It's Easter," She clarified, "If you didn't know. I've been in Chicago for about 5 years."
Liz pushed herself to her feet and turned aside before they could ask more questions. She knew that she would have to talk to them about everything eventually, but she wasn't up for an interrogation tonight.
"I should go see what clothes I can find." She mumbled as she turned aside.
"I could come with you," Isabel offered. "It might be harder to find something of yours that will fit me and it's going to be a long wait for a shower here anyway."
Liz hesitated, shooting a glance at Kyle, before nodding, "Sure, Isabel."
Liz spared one glance back at the others as she led the way through the door. The silence around them was heavy with all of the things that weren't being said by each of them. None of them seemed very keen to open up any time soon.
Liz turned back and walked out to the car ahead of Isabel. She'd have to start digging into those uncomfortable silences soon. She needed to have as much information as possible to be able to prepare for what might come next. But she hoped that Isabel was right about them having some time to regroup before it all fell apart.
Well, before it fell apart more.
Look, another chapter for you. Surprise, I haven't quite given up on this story yet!
Why do I always start working on these things so late? I should be sleeping right now. Instead I'm staring at the same sentences over and over trying to figure out if they make sense out side of my own sleepy brain.