Confession: It's a little bit fun to leave you guys in suspense. Plus I get more reviews. But I have written ahead enough to feel comfortable promising regular updates from here on out.
Content warning: This chapter sticks with Liz, who has, of course, been kidnapped and locked in a cave in the middle of the desert all day. Her thoughts are not the most cheerful.
Syntax warning: I started overthinking tenses and managed to confuse myself. If anything seems unclear or incorrect to you let me know so I can fix it.
Liz woke up to darkness.
Not that there was a whole lot of light in this place at the best of times.
Her neck was killing her. She'd finally managed to drift off with her head flopped forward onto her chest. It was definitely not a position she ever wanted to sleep in again.
But she wouldn't have to. She smiled to herself, tears of relief pricking at her eyes. Isabel had managed to reach her while she slept. Help was on its way.
...
Liz had spent the previous day trying everything she could think of to reach someone. She remembered Ava's words about her being 'different' and she latched onto the idea that she might be able to reach out with her mind, warn Max somehow, or Isabel who was the one with mind reading related powers. But if anything she tried had any effect she couldn't tell. It mostly felt as useless as shouting, though she tried that too.
Tess had left her a large water container, one of those squishy camping ones that fit in a backpack and had a straw, but she hadn't left any food. And she hadn't come back after school either.
Liz tried ignoring the hunger, but then it had gone past hunger into actual pain. She drank all of the water hoping to trick her stomach into feeling full. It helped a little. Until an hour later, when she needed to pee. She held on as long as she could, but the human body wasn't meant to work that way.
She cried when she finally gave in and released her bladder all over herself. Then she had to sit in that initially hot but quickly cold puddle.
Liz had never felt so powerless in her entire life. She tried to imagine walking out of here. She thought about what she would eat and drink. She thought about the joys of toilet paper and soap. She thought about music and books and pillows. She thought a lot about pillows actually.
She thought about Max.
She thought about Future Max and the child they'd inadvertently created in their moment of grief for a future that would never be. A future that she now knew was safer, happier, better than the one she'd found herself in.
She had thought about her Max, the one she'd actually wanted to lose her virginity to, the one who hated her now for cheating on him and accusing him of getting Alex killed.
But it wasn't his fault Alex was dead. It was hers.
She still hadn't told anyone that. Even Maria, who knew all of the facts, didn't know that Alex had been alive at 19 in the alternate future that they would never see. She thought that she should feel relieved that no one would know that Alex's death was her fault, but instead she felt guilty. She'd caused all of this, had torn their lives apart. They deserved to know that. They deserved to know who was really to blame.
Liz had drifted for a while, focussing on the physical pain of hunger rather than the turmoil her own thoughts created.
But whose fault was it, really? Her actions had caused this, but she'd been trusting Max, and not just Max but an older future version who had infinitely more knowledge than she did. Of course she'd trusted him.
And he'd trusted himself and the people around him who thought they understood time travel. She scoffed at that, hadn't people seen enough time travel movies to know how wrong everything could go? What had possessed them to think they had any idea what they were doing? And he'd trusted Tess, a girl he'd known for a matter of months 14 years before he jumped in the Granolith and came back to see her. If he'd really seen so many battles how could he still be so trusting, so naïve? He'd rested his entire plan on a person he barely knew. It was his fault more than it was hers.
But the problem with blaming Future Max and his Future Friends, Liz had realised after writing several angry mental letters to each of them, was that they didn't exist. The Max that did exist hadn't made any mistakes, had no part in Alex's death, and didn't deserve to be blamed for something he hadn't done. She'd already decided that when she realised that she was pregnant. Max wasn't responsible, so regardless of genetics, he shouldn't be thrust into this mess.
Didn't seem like he'd get a choice now. Tess wanted to take all of them to Antar. He'd almost certainly hear that he was the father then. Whether he'd believe it would be a different question, though. And whether she could keep the more dangerous powers of the Granolith a secret from Kivar and his allies when Max asked the dreaded question of how was an even bigger concern.
She didn't want to think about that.
Think about something else.
Something better.
Something good.
Was there anything good left to think about?
She'd thought that the baby was a good thing, after a minor panic attack. She'd thought it was an amazing, magical gift. A fraction of the future she'd never get to have. Granted, she'd known it was the hardest fraction, but she'd believed it would be the most rewarding too.
She hadn't considered that they'd end up prisoners on another planet before the baby was even born.
She wished she could kill it.
She wondered if she should feel guilty about that. She'd only considered abortion very briefly when she realised she was pregnant. She was a rational person and considering all options was important. But she'd found herself thinking about the challenge of a child as something beautiful, so she'd chosen quickly to keep it.
She found herself regretting that as she lay there, completely helpless, drenched in her own urine, destined for slavery and death in another solar system.
Her child would be brought up a slave. Wouldn't it be better never to have lived at all?
Though, it had occurred to her, that might still happen anyway. Tess hadn't reappeared since her first vicious reveal of her plans. Liz had wondered how long a foetus could survive in a malnourished mother. Maybe that was Tess's real plan; if Liz's child died then that would leave room for a new heir. What if Tess just intended to leave Liz here to starve to death and carry out her original plan? What if she was seducing Max right now?
She'd cried some more then.
But maybe it wasn't over yet. She rallied her spirits. People would know she was missing soon, and no matter what they'd said to each other in anger yesterday Liz trusted that Max would drop everything if he thought something was actually wrong. And none of the others would just give up on her either. Since Tess still didn't have a plan to get them off of this planet then there was still time for someone to find her. She could still have the life she'd imagined, staying with her aunt until she gave birth, maybe finishing high school by correspondence, or getting some kind of job. Raising this little creature she was building. Teaching it and learning from it. Perhaps someday even coming home.
Was that really what she wanted? She pondered. To run away? To never tell her child about its father? A father that she loved so completely?
What if she just told Max? Would he ever forgive her? Would any of them forgive her for inflicting Tess on their lives? Would Max be able to look at her again, knowing what she'd done? Was it cruel to stay, parading around with a child that was and wasn't his?
Endlessly the tumult of thoughts had plagued her, until finally, her chin had dropped down onto her chest and she'd fallen asleep.
...
After she'd woken from her dream conversation with Isabel, Liz had found herself counting. She wasn't even aware that she was doing it consciously, but she would find herself counting up into the hundreds. And then she would realise that she'd lost count and would automatically start again. A few times she tried to calculate how long it had been based on her inaccurate counting. Long enough to drive here from Roswell? No. Probably not. Probably a little longer. And the counting would go on.
But eventually she had to admit that the answer to that question had to be yes; probably time enough to make a round trip twice. And Isabel hadn't come.
She was starting to wonder if it had really just been a normal dream, her subconscious reaching for salvation, when she heard the crunching sound of the door sliding open.
Her heart started pounding in her throat as she watched the sliver of light grow into a doorway and through the door… Tess.
"Morning, Liz!" Tess spoke up brightly then frowned at the sight of her, "Wow, you are disgusting."
Tess waved her hand and the mess Liz had been forced to sit in all day vanished in a blink.
"I suppose I probably should have come back last night, but I was a little busy making sure Isabel didn't get into your mind." Tess stepped forward to replace Liz's water and offer her another smoothie.
"Unfortunately, I fell asleep on the job and missed one of her attempts, as you're probably aware. Were you expecting her to walk through the door this morning?" Liz rolled her eyes at Tess's cheerful tone as she guzzled down the smoothie. "Well, Isabel did have a moment last night when she was most upset with me, but now she's back to being my best friend. It was only a little bit harder than making humans forget."
Tess leaned closer.
"And," She whispered conspiratorially, "Your little stunt gave me an idea. It's prefect. I already have an excuse to leave this planet right in front of me. So don't get comfortable because in 48 hours we'll be on our way to Antar."