Hi! Me again!

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Alex

BethluvMax

Molly

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Chapter 14


This couldn't be happening... What was wrong with Liz? He had sworn to himself that he was going to protect her and yet something had happened to her. He hadn't had any premonition about anything happening in a party.... but what if he had and he just hadn't recognized it for what it was. What if his lack of perception and attention somehow had managed to put Liz in danger. The worst thing was the not knowing. He didn't know what had happened...

He burst through the doors, barely registering all the people around him, giving him weird looks as he stormed through the building. He didn't know where Isabel and Liz were, but fortunately he could always sense Isabel when she was close by. As if he could somehow zoom in on her essence, hear her soul whispering to him at the back of his mind, and the closer he got to her, the higher the whisper grew. The easier he could feel his sister's upset emotions. He put his hands up against the door marked 'Ladies' and hastily pushed it open. He immediately saw her, laying on the floor. Isabel was sitting on the floor, Liz's head in her lap.

Max didn't register any of the other persons standing in the bathroom as he came to kneel beside Liz's still form.

"What happened?" he asked Isabel. Isabel looked up at him and relief spread across her face at the fact that her brother was finally there. The waiting had seemed like an eternity even though the long hand on the clock had merely moved ten steps. Merely ten minutes had elapsed, but during that time Liz hadn't moved. Perspiration was glistering on her deathly pale forehead.

"I don't know, she was looking sick and I decided to take her to the rest room and then she just collapsed," Isabel explained.

"Is she gonna be all right?" a voice he didn't recognized said.

He looked up to see a girl with blond hair and blue eyes staring intently at him.

"Yeah," he answered, and averted his eyes back to Liz. "Let's get her home."

He tucked one of Liz's strands of hair, which had come undone from the hairdo and had become plastered on her forehead, behind her ear. He tucked his hand beneath her back. The other arm he hooked in the hollows of her knees and lifted upwards. Her head rolled lifelessly backwards and an icy chill went down his spine. He quickly pushed all the thoughts of her dying out of his mind and moved his arm so that his upper arm was supporting Liz's head. With her cradled against his chest he began walking, with Isabel trailing closely behind him.

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The rain was pelting down around her, and her feet felt heavy as they stumbled over the uneven ground. The dark trunks of the surrounding trees were hovering menacingly over her, their pegs spreading out like long fingers, wanting to capture her. The anguish in her heart was suffocating. Thoughts were tumbling around in her head, none of them making any sense to her. The air around her was filled with screams and animalistic cries. As she run over a muddy area she slipped and fell to the ground. Her hands and upper body became covered in mud as she tried to get up. She had to get up. She had to keep running....

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Max gently lowered Liz on her bed.

"Maybe we should undress her," Isabel said.

Max couldn't help but feel slightly uneasy.

"Yeah, you do that, Isabel," he said.

Isabel grimaced. "Max, I think I need your help," she said, noticing Max's discomfort. "I need you to lift her up, otherwise I will have difficulties to pull off her dress."
Max swallowed, but after some hesitation, he nodded slowly.

"Why don't you start by removing her shoes," Isabel instructed.

Max nodded, letting out a soft sigh of relief. Removing her shoes...he could do that. That couldn't be too difficult. Isabel smiled inwardly as she watched Max move to the end of the bed. She started to pull the hairpins out of Liz's hair, freeing the restrained tresses.

Max gentle put his fingers to the small clasp on Liz's shoe, feeling the texture of her smooth skin under his fingertips. After some fumbling, the clasp came undone and he pulled the shoe off the small foot. He repeated the process with her other shoe. Isabel put the last hair pin on the night stand and caught sight of her brother removing Liz's right shoe. His movements were so gentle. It was as if he was removing the shoes off a porcelain doll...

"Max," Isabel said as Max put the shoe on the floor. "Come her and lift her up."

"Okay," Max said softly, moving to Liz's side again. He put his arm under her shoulders and gently pushed her upper body upwards. He supported the back of her head with his hand, being extremely aware of the silky texture of her hair enveloping his fingers.

He watched as Isabel put her hand on the zipper and he averted his eyes as he heard the zipping sound of Liz's dress becoming undone.

He tried to focus on something else and suddenly a thought crossed his mind. He couldn't heal Liz as long as she was unconscious, if she even suffered from something that he could heal. He had to have eye contact. But he could heal simple things without the other consciously cooperation. He closed his eyes and started to gather the energy inside of him that was always simmering below the surface of his skin. He focused on creating a channel which would serve to transfer the energy. He could feel his fingertips begin to tingle against the skin of Liz's head and then he slowly and carefully started to fuel her with his energy, hoping that it would help her somewhat.

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She was crawling through the mud, the rain running down her forehead into her eyes, obscuring her vision. Then she heard laughter. It sent a chill down her spine since the presence of cheerful and carefree laughter in this milieu was eerily unnerving. She turned her head and saw a woman standing in the rain. But she was not wet. She was completely dry. The woman's mouth was formed into a loving smile and was looking directly at her. Then the surroundings started to change and suddenly she wasn't covered in mud any longer. The surface under her knees went harder, and for a moment she let her eyes travel around her surroundings. It had stopped raining, but she was still soaking wet. The dark, ominous forest was gone and instead there were high walls towering around her, closing in on her. She turned her head back to the woman and in an instant she just knew. She opened her mouth to scream, but the surroundings went blurry and she was suddenly on a green meadow, where the sun was shining. She blinked in the bright light. The sun was warming and comforting, but as she turned around on the vast open landscape, she realized that she was all alone.

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"Max, Max!"

Max lost his concentration and re-focused his eyes on Isabel.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Nothing," he mumbled. She stared at him for a second, obviously considering if she was to let the subject go or pursue it further.

"Can you put her back down? I need to pull down the dress," Isabel said.

"Oh," Max said, and his eyes moved to encounter the bare skin of Liz's stomach. "Oh," he said again, embarrassment in his voice as he turned his eyes away.
Isabel suppressed a giggle at her brother's antics. His face was turning into a nice red nuance and he was very eager to lower Liz's head back down on the pillow so that he could avert his eyes. But his tenderness with Liz was not lost in his hasty movements.
Isabel pulled the black dress down Liz's body, pulling a little harder to get it over her hips. She put the dress on a chair nearby and turned her eyes back towards Liz.

"Uhm... well, I guess we should've thought about that earlier," Isabel mumbled.

"What?" Max asked, fighting very hard to keep his eyes away from Liz's body.

"I guess we just have to lift her again," Isabel said.

"We do?" Max asked, thinking of all the naked skin he had to touch in order to do that. Not that he didn't want to touch Liz, but strangely enough he wasn't sure he could even control his own feelings if he had to do this any longer. He had never reacted this way to a girl before. Maria had even at one time asked him if he was gay... He had to admit that he hadn't acted like all the other teenage boys as a teenager. But then he wasn't an ordinary teenager. He was an alien in a teenager's body, whatever that meant. Nevertheless, that had never been a good excuse, since Michael, who was just as alien as Max was, had always found girls extremely interesting. Even though Michael had never really dated anyone (he thought it was a waste of time), Max had caught him staring at girls a couple of times at school.

But not Max. Isabel had always defended him and told the others that it was because he was just too shy to even utter one word to a girl that he was never able to start a relationship with anyone... They all knew, however, that if Max had wanted a girlfriend he could easily get one. Many girls in high school had been swooning over him and some had even asked him out on dates, just because he never asked anyone out. He always said no though, in a firm but gentle way. He just wasn't interested. But it was something different with Liz. Ever since he had first seen her in his premonition he had sensed that something was different about her. She wasn't just another girl. She was something more.

"Max!"

He broke out of his reverie by Isabel snapping her fingers in front of his face and he realized that she had probably been calling for his attention for some while.

"Yeah, we should probably do that," Max said, swallowing as he put his arm in the hollows of Liz's knees, cradling the other arm around Liz's shoulder. He was only wearing a T-shirt and the touch of the naked skin of her shoulder blades against his bare arms was making his heart beat faster. He tried taking deep breaths. What was wrong with him?!

"So, that's it," Isabel announced. "You can put her down now, Max."

Max lowered Liz's limp body back on the bed, noticing the cold temperature of her skin.

"Isabel, she's cold," he said, fear seeping into him.

Isabel put her hand against Liz's stomach and then moved her hand to Liz's forehead.

"She's cool, but not cold," she said. "Don't worry, Max. There's nothing wrong with her temperature..."

She left the sentence hanging in the air, speaking volumes of everything else that could be wrong with her. Max took a hold of the covers and pulled it over Liz, tucking it carefully around her body.

"Does she has a blanket somewhere?" he asked Isabel.

Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know... maybe in the closet."

"Right," Max said, moving to the closet. He found a blanket neatly folded on the top shelf and pulled it out, spreading it over Liz.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, stroking Liz's hair away from her forehead. Isabel watched him in silence for a couple of minutes. She was both wondrous and scared of the compassion she could see fleeting over Max's face.

"Max, something's wrong with her," she spoke, breaking the silence.

"Has anything like this happened before?" Max asked, thinking about all the moments he couldn't watch Liz...as for instance when she was working.

Isabel shook her head. "Not that I know of...but Max, this isn't normal."

Max looked up at her. "What do you mean?"

"Max...."

There was a beat, and she sighed. "I don't think this is such a good idea."

"What?" Max asked.

"Getting involved like this," Isabel said.

"She's in danger, Isabel."

"But what if she attracts something - someone - to us."

She knew that she was being selfish, but the fear of being captured and experimented on went deep and had after 18 years become an integrated part of her personality.

"Why would she do that?"

"She had a lot of spectators tonight," Isabel said. "It isn't normal to just faint at a party and then remain unconscious. We don't even know what's wrong with her. She's just laying there."

Max looked at Liz, his hand moving down to take Liz's cold hand in his. What if she never woke up again? The thought of losing her was making him dizzy and nauseous...

"I'm not leaving her, Isabel," Max declared adamantly.

"This isn't just about you," Isabel said. "We are a group, and we have to make our decisions as a group. During these last couple of weeks, since you started to develop this new power, we have been patient with you and let you go off on your own crusades. But New York? Saving a girl? And now we are practically living here? Are we even going back, Max?"

"Of course we're going back," Max said.

"It doesn't feel like it," Isabel mumbled, noticing how Max was holding Liz's hand. "What you do don't just affect you. It affects all of us! Michael, Maria and me. Liz starts acting strange, people notice and suddenly people start talking. It's not good to be here when people start talking, you know that Max."

"I know," Max said tiredly. He was so fed up with his whole life situation. Why couldn't he just be normal?

"Maybe it's just for the best if we leave Liz alone, you know," Isabel suggested. "She must be confused too... two strangers walking into her life-"

"You don't know what I've seen," Max said, pain in his voice. "She's gonna die, Isabel. My premonitions say that she's gonna die and I'm afraid I'm the only one who can stop it from happening-"

"Max, maybe it's just not meant to be. Maybe there's a greater plan to all of this and she is meant to die-"

"No," Max said, shaking his head. "She isn't meant to die. I get these premonitions for a reason Isabel...to prevent the future from taking place. To change the future."

"I just think this is a bad idea," Isabel said.

"Can you live with the fact that you are indirectly responsible for a girl's death?"

"That's not fair, Max," Isabel objected.

"It's the same thing. How can you just sit there and know that Liz is going to die, and then not do something about it?!"

"We don't know her, Max," Isabel said. "We don't know anything about her past at all."

"I know everything I need to know," Max said with certainty.

Isabel just shook her head.

"Well, I'm leaving," she said.

"What?"

"I'm going back to Roswell."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to wake up in a laboratory one day," Isabel said. "I want to go back to Roswell and continue with my life."

"Fine," Max muttered.

Isabel looked at him. She wasn't comfortable leaving him, but maybe that would make him realize that he needed to get home too. That staying here was the wrong thing to do. Things were moving downhill too quickly and she was just so afraid that someone would get killed along the way.

"I'll wait until tomorrow," Isabel said.

Max gave an almost imperceptible nod and Isabel sighed in resignation.

"Are you coming back with me to the hotel?" she asked.

"I'm staying with Liz," Max said, having already made up his mind about that since he had found Liz laying lifelessly on the bathroom floor at the building where the party was held.

"Okay," Isabel said. "Bye then."

"Bye," Max mumbled.

Isabel took a deep breath and then walked out of the bedroom towards the front door. She waved her hand over the locks, unlocking them, and closed the front door behind her.


TBC...