Chapter 26 Love you til the end
Isabel was the first to react. She jumped to her feet and was in the process to storm towards the ruins when Max put his arms around her middle to keep her from hurting herself. There wasn´t anything they could do at this point, the damage was done and anyone still inside the mine was already dead. No one would have been able to survive the weight of a few thousands tons of soil, much less the explosion that had occurred before.
" Let me go, we have to help him. We have to drag him out of there, I don´t want him to be alone".
Liz and Tess started to cry again at the pleading from the girl that was known for her composure. They didn´t had the connection with Michael like the others, but it was enough to mourn his dead, to be sad about his loss. For Liz it was even worse, because her best friend was gone as well.
Max shed a few tears himself for his brother and he didn´t want to believe that everything they had fought for was in vain. Tigthening the grip on his sister, he wanted to prevent from losing anyone else. There could be still some gas that could shot the whole place up and he was rather safe right now. " Stop it Iz, we can´t help him anymore. He´s gone".
" I know, but I can´t bear the thought that he´s lying under all this dirt, alone", Isabel knew that she was making no sense, but a part of her wanted to see him for a last time and make sure that he was really dead.
Jim rubbed his eyes, trying desperatedly to hide the fact that he was crying. His kids needed him to be strong for them. But it was hard to keep his sorrow down when he knew that two of his charges were buried under all that stuff, dead or still fighting for their lifes while they were safe. " We come back tomorrow and look for him. We have to make sure that it´s safe for us to dig around before we do anything. Besides we need tools for all that clutter".
Kyle, who was holding his girlfriend in his arms and was stroking her back, nodded in agreement. He didn´t want to be there any longer and stare at the remains that had killed two of their friends. And he was so damn tired, tired of this drama and tired of being miserable. They would need their strength to bury the dead. " Then let´s go".
" What about Kivar? What if he has survived?"
Max shook his head, being sure that Michael had made sure that their enemy wouldn´t make it out of this alive as well. To the end, he would want the others to be safe from that monster, to be free of any worries. " I don´t think he´s alive anymore".
Together the group made their way to the awaiting cars. Tony and his goons were silently staring at the mess that had been a mine at some point. Dropping their heads, they clasped their hands and started saying a small prayer for those lost. Tony even shed a few tears for his daughter, who had been too brave for her own good. He would always keep her memory for standing up for her beliefs alive.
Everyone glanced over their shoulder for the last time before they went inside the vehicles, just wanting this day to end. The drive into town and to the Crash Down was pretty quiet, aside from the hiccups from the girls and the cooing from their boyfriends. Amy was thankfully still out of it or she would have thrown a fit for just leaving.
Piling into the restaurant, which was still closed and had still the yellow crime scene tape around the entrance, they watched the evidence that the last days had really happened. Glass splinter were still covering the floor, the window was still broken and the tables were damaged beyond repair. Finding a relative unharmed booth, the teenager squeezed into it. Jim, Tony and Amy had gone straight home to make a few arrangements.
" Someone want a shake? I think the machine is still running".
Everyone gazed at Liz like she had grown another head. But no one said anything about that, just shook their heads. The last thing they could think about was food or drinking. However Liz made her way behind the counter, feeling the need for something chocolaty with a lot of calories. Keeping busy with handling the machine, she could escape for a moment the truth that her best friend would never come through those doors and talk her ear off with something that Michael had done wrong. Again. Losing herself in a memory that had been before the aliens had invaded their lives; she wondered where they would be now if the shooting had never happened. Would she still be with Kyle? Would Maria finally have managed to ask Doug Sohn out?
Alex left the others at the booth and sat at the counter, like he had so many times to spent time with his two favourite girls. Now that was over, because there was just one girl and the Crash Down would probably be closed for a long time. " I can´t believe it. I always thought the first to die would be me".
" Do you think Maria could be still alive? I mean I just thought about it, Maria disappeared. Why would she do that? If she would have died then we would have seen her body. But she just vanished. Don´t you think it´s a little strange".
Alex was sure that there was some logical behind the words, but he was also sure that Liz didn´t want to believe that Maria was dead. What did they knew about human-alien pregnancies? This could be some saving mechanism to protect the mother from getting tested on or something. " Liz, I know that you want to deny what happened, but we have to accept the fact that Michael and Maria didn´t make it out of the mine".
Liz couldn´t accept that, not as long as she had no the proof in the form of the dead body. But until then she would still hope for a better outcome. It couldn´t just be the end of the book, the stories didn´t work that way, there´s always a happy ending. " Listen to me, there´s something weird at the picture".
" Stop it, okay. Deal with the pain like the rest of us", Alex didn´t want to admit that some part of him wanted to believe that so much, but he was afraid that the blow would be worse when they would find the corpse of Maria lying in the ruins. He wouldn´t be able to bear the pain of losing her twice.
Suddenly Liz put her hands in front of her face and started crying hysterical, her whole body shaking with the sobs. Alex was instantly at her side and threw his arms around her, sharing the pain with her. They both had lost so much in the last days and it was even worse for Liz, because she had lost her father as well, which she didn´t know yet. That would probably pull the carpet right under her feet again.
Isabel watched them and she realized that it was the first time she saw both of them so devastated. Averting her eyes from the scene, she gazed at her brother who was playing with the saltshaker. His glance was blank, like he wasn´t really with them at the moment, which was probably true. He and Michael had fought a lot in the past and they hadn´t been able to find a compromise in their battles, but that hadn´t meant that they hadn´t loved each other.
" I never listened to him. He had always been playing his role as a protector, getting to know the danger lurking in the dark while I tried to close my eyes from it. I never wanted to find out what I am, afraid that I wouldn´t like it. And now he died and I never got the chance to tell him how sorry I am, how much I appreciate his friendship and how I loved him", Max didn´t have to look up to know that his sister was giving him her worried glance.
Isabel put her hand on his, needing the contact just as much as her. They just had each other right now and of course Tess, although she was always with the Valentis and not so much with them. " He knew all that. Why do you think he did what he did?".
Max couldn´t keep it all inside anymore and he dropped his head on the table top, deep sobs breaking out of him, he wasn´t just crying for Michael, but for Maria as well, even though she had made him question her loyalty sometimes. But she had come through in the end and saved their lifes. He felt bad for the things he had accused her off, the harsh words he had thrown at her. He had never been a good friend and even a worse leader. So many mistakes he did and Michael had still stood behind him, still believed in him and he just blew it.
Kyle swallowed the big lump in his throat, sick of all the crying already. He just wanted to wake up to realize that it was a nightmare, a bad dream that was forgotten as soon as he was awake. Tightening his arm around his girlfriend´s shoulder, he wondered how long it would take before everything would be normal, well normal for them, again. " I think we should take a drink for the two of them. Something that lets them remember that we appreciate what they did for us".
" That´s a good idea, but we do it with Shakes", Tess was immediately in agreement and so she went behind the counter, where Liz and Alex were still standing with their arms around each other. Their sorrow was slowly dwindling down and the tears were getting less and less. Waving her hands over the machine, she miracly conjured six glasses of choco Milkshakes.
Everyone sat around the booth with their drinks held in front of them and toasted to the lost lifes of their best friends. Then they started telling the funniest stories about the two of them. Liz and Alex remembered their small trip to the desert where they had found a thing that had looked like some alien artifact, but was a broken walkie talkie piece in reality. Maria had been really happy about her discovery and saw herself already tingling through talk shows, giving interviews and posing for magazines. Liz hadn´t wanted it, but she had to burst the bubble from her friend and explained to her that it was nothing out of this world; it was just a piece of junk.
Alex managed a small smile at that, knowing that Maria had always been such an impulsive person and she was really passionate about things. " She had been so disappointed that we needed ice cream and cookies to brighten her up again".
" Which ended with us spending the whole day in bed, because the ice cream and cookies were coming out of every opening", Liz shuddered at the memory. It wasn´t something she thought back with a good feeling. Ice cream was pretty digusting if it came up again and it burned in your nose.
Max could picture young Maria like that. She had eaten a lot of ice cream with him during the summer of broken hearts. They had bonded literally over it. He would really miss their junk food feasts while they watched bad horror movies. They had usually dissed the bad acting, the overreacting actors and the even worse story. " Michael was like that, too. Just that we couldn´t comfort him with food. He was always looking for some sign that we weren´t alone and everything that appeared weird or strange could be from the spaceship. Isabel was the only one able to keep him under control".
Isabel shook her head sadly, knowing the only reason she had been able to not get Michael in too much trouble was the oldest trick in the books, which meant she started telling him that she was afraid that something would happen to him and she didn´t want to lose him mixed the whole thing with a little getting teary eyed and that was it. " I wish I would have that power of him. The only one really able to have some control over him had been Maria".
" They had been a strange couple and yet they seemed like a match made in hell. I never saw two people so like und unlike each other. Everyday I wondered what would happen with them. One thing is for sure, it was never boring", Alex wished he could hear them bicker like they always did, fighting about something trivial.
In that moment the bell over the door started ringing and a couple entered the restaurant, looking slightly worse for wear with damaged clothes and wounds covering every visible piece of free skin and seemingly in the middle of an argument. They didn´t even realize that they were indoors or that a whole booth of people was watching them like they were all seeing a ghost.
Alex instantly thought that it was his doing and he wished for a million dollar. Unfortunately nothing happened and he was sure that they were probably all having a mass halluzination. " I´m losing my mind".
" Thanks guys for waiting for us. We had to tramp all the while back from the desert with some UFO freak, who wanted to get us hospitalized", Michael glared at them all, finally realizing that he wasn´t alone with Maria anymore. He was in no good mood and he wanted them to know it.
Maria rolled her eyes while she pushed past her boyfriend and sat at the next booth to her friends. She was tired, hungry and she needed a shower, but she was glad that she was home again and that mattered to her the most right now, that and a few hours in her own bed with nothing to worry about than to get rest. " Keep it down, spaceboy. I have enough of your grumpy mood for today".
Michael gave her an annoyed look but shut his mouth and followed her lead. She was right, which didn´t happen to often, he was wasted and he shouldn´t waste his energy on getting angry. He could still do that tomorrow and maybe the day after that as well. Glancing at the others, he was confused why they were still staring at them in awe. " What´s wrong? Did you lose your voices? Hello!".
" We thought you were dead".
Maria took a few napkins out of the holder and wiped the dirt from her hands. She knew that she would need water to get everything off, but that meant she had to move and she was too tired to do that. She felt like a bus had crashed on her and her body would probably need a few days to recover. " Obviously we´re not. Although it had looked pretty bad for a while, because Han Solo over there didn´t listen to me".
Michael lounged in his seat besides his girlfriend, not caring that he just got dissed. He would take the blame like always; it would spare him the trouble of getting into a fight with her. It would take him a week to get back into his old self and recharge his batteries. But then Maria should look out, because then he would take revenge for every insult. " Yeah, it´s my fault, nothing new there. Is there anything edible here, I´m starving".
" You´re hungry?", Liz didn´t know what to do. She wanted to wrap her arms around her best friend and squeeze the hell out of the girl, but she was afraid that she was dreaming or that it was just a trick her mind was playing her.
Maria saw the uncertainty in her best friend's eyes and she knew that everyone else was just as carefully. They did surely not believe what they were seeing or else they would have already said something. " We´re really alive and we´re real".
Alex was the first one to get to his feet and walk towards the two people who had been assumed dead. Stretching his arm out he was surprised when he felt Maria´s arm. As soon as he was sure that she was really there with them he embraced her, tears streaming down his face, but this time it were happy tears. " Don´t do that to me again".
" It´s okay, I´m fine. Everything is over", Maria patted his back, crying softly. They had been lucky in the mine, damn lucky; it could have been easily different. Kivar wasn´t afraid to die, but he wanted to make sure to take them with him in the afterlife. Thankfully Michael wasn´t so defensless either and they had managed to find shelter in some hole that had safed their lifes.
That got everyone in action as well. They all went to their friends and more tears were shed, hugs were giving and words of love spoken. It was just a bundle of arms and bodies, tangled into another. It took the booming voice of Michael to let them all step back from them and give them space to breathe.
But now that they were all curious what happened and how they had managed to escape the cave in. They were bombarding their friends with questions and more questions. Maria wasn´t in any shape to endure a full interrogation and let Michael talk his way out of this.
" I will explain everything tomorrow, right now I just want to eat, have a shower and sleep through. Just one thing, Kivar is dead, we´re all alive and for the moment we´re safe".
Maria snuggled against her boyfriends shoulder, feeling her eyelids getting really heavy. The only thing keeping her from sleeping was her grumbling stomach. She started smiling when she felt a strong arm winding its way around her middle and caressing her side. Yep, they were safe for now. " Until the next crisis strikes again, but hopefully when I´m on vacation".
Alex was happy to see that his best friend hadn´t lost any of her dry humor, even though she just cheated death, which was reminding him that he wanted to ask her how she had done that and why Mike had disappered like that if she hadn´t died. " Okay just one more thing. What happened to Mike and how did you manage to just vanish?".
" He changed the present and is probably back in the future", Maria put a hand on her stomach where her boy was resting. Seconds later she felt Michael´s hand on hers, both of them sharing the feeling of their child. She was so glad that he wasn´t a normal baby or she would have been dead by now. " I´m pregnant with an alien child, so that means I´ve got some of his powers, which in return means that I can shift".
Liz was already thinking about a project, testing Maria´s blood and finding out what happened contrary to a human pregnancy. She would take notes and see if it was even possible for them to procreate with aliens at all. Maybe someday she and Max would take that step as well and she wanted to be prepared. " Are you okay".
Maria smiled at her friend. She wasn´t alright, not by a long shot, but she would recover and that mattered the most. Glancing at Max, Isabel and Tess she wondered if they were still angry at her for playing them like that. " Are we good again?".
All three of them exchanged a look with each other before they turned to her and nodded their heads. They couldn´t be mad at her for saving them all and saving Michael, in the end she came through and that was what counted in their books.
" Okay, I don´t want to be a diva, but could any of you get me something to eat before I started getting nasty!".
Kyle chuckled at Michael and he was sure that no one wanted to see the commander getting pissed off. Jumping to his feet and taking Tess with him, in case there would be some blast getting thrown around; he stalked off towards the kitchen to look for something edible.
" I´ll look for some clean clothes you can borrow", Liz stood up from the booth and made her way up the stairs to her bedroom, Max closely behind her, probably hoping to have a word or two with her while they were searching for something they could give their friends.
Alex and Isabel watched for the couple for a moment, witnessing something that was new and wonderful. Both were talking in hushed whisper with each other, holding hands and looking at the other like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. Feeling like they were intruding in a private moment they decided to get something cool to drink.
A few minutes later, everyone was standing in front of their booth, staring in awe at the picture of Michael and Maria sleeping peacefully in each others arms. Their faces were childlike and happy, like nothing had happened the last few days. Keeping quiet the others left them to rest, knowing they had earned the right to do that.
For now they were all safe and tomorrow was a new day.