By Didi
Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell... though I really wish I did, can you just imagine what fun I'd have with it. No profits are being made by this little endeavor and none will be made in the future (however hard I wish for it). Any infringement up any copyrights, ownership or claims is wholly unintentional and done without malice. (Have I covered all my basis yet?)
Timeline: On the road less traveled… where the hell am I?
Ratings: I guess PG-13 is still a good rating for this one... unless someone has an objection.
Chapter Summary: Maria asks for help and faces off with Alex, Max runs into trouble, Darlene returns, Isabel makes a confession and Tess meets an old friend.
Key: "Spoken" "Thoughts."
Author's Note: Okay, I didn't realize I had put off some people by the end of the last chapter. I do have a semi-working plan on what is happening next in my head… hence some inconsistent and often confusing choices that I make at time. Patience my dears, the answers will come to those who waits. Okay, enough of that… on with the story.
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Chapter 52 - More Than We Bargain For
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"About freakin' time!" Maria said as she reached out and grabbed Alex by the front of his shirt and yanked hard enough to leave an impression on the gangly youth.
"Want to tell me what the hell is going on?" Alex demanded as he barely avoid having the heels of his shoes snapped off as Maria slammed the door shut behind him. "What's the big emergency?" he wanted to know as he's pushed through the living room and into the kitchen with Maria checking each and every corner and window as they went. "What's the matter with you?"
"Will you be quiet and… why do you smell like the boy's locker room?" she wrinkled her noise in distaste.
"Why do you know what the boy's locker room smell like?" he returned with a smirk.
She gave him a look that told him she didn't particularly appreciate his humor at the moment. "I sincerely hope you didn't run all the way here."
"I wasn't not going to run twenty blocks even if you did make it sound like a life or death situation," he informed her and frowned as Maria check the windows and the back door once again. "Maria, will you please…"
"Hank Guerin just came to see me," she told him without preamble.
For a moment, Alex was stun stupid. "WHAT?"
Waving the concern and outrage away, Maria turned to face Alex with a serious face. "The FBI have been sniffing around Michael's Dad for information about Michael. They wanted to know everything; even went so far as to pay him money for the information."
Alex didn't move, didn't know what to say or do at the moment. "Then why did he…"
Making a helpless gesture, Maria shook her head. "Maybe he feels guilty for what he's been doing to Michael all these years, maybe he felt like sticking it to the Feds, maybe he was drunk and thought he'd brag about how he sold his son up the river yet again; I don't know, I don't care. I just know what I was told and the others have to know as well; for everyone's safety."
Nodding in agreement, Alex took a moment to consider this. "Why'd you call me?" he wanted to know, a little confused. "Why not call Tess or Michael? They're the ones that are actually connected to…"
"Because I don't know where Michael is and I'm not about to call the Sheriff's house to tell him. I know my sister, Tess needs to be handled with a delicate hand and I need to be there to do so; in person. And it's not like this is something I can spring on her over the phone. 'Hey, your alien boyfriend's dad is being paid off by the FBI for information from the past.'" Maria gave Alex a look of pure exasperation.
Blushing slightly, "Okay, I guess I can see your point there. So what can I do?"
"Find Michael," she informed him as if it should have been abundantly obvious. "Tell him what I just told you while I go handle Tess. I think she's at the Exhibit today, working on god knows what now and I do not want her flying off the handle when she hears that Hank Guerin a) he approaching me alone and b) was talking to the FBI about Michael."
Alex gave her a doubtful look. "Tess doesn't seem like the type to fly off the handle on anything."
Maria gave him a look. "You don't know my sister well enough to make that kind of statement. You don't know what she'd do if she thinks someone she cares about is being threatened."
Fresh on his mind was the lingering questions about Tess. "What will she do? What can she do?"
There was a heavy pause. Maria simply stared, her face struggling to be blank of all emotions or answers. "Is this the time for this, Alex?" the icy tone she asked the question with could have froze the blood in Alex's veins. She hated that she was afraid, afraid of Alex. "Is this really the time for you to go all paranoid on me here? And given the situation we are facing at the moment, does it matter?"
"It matters to me," Alex informed her tensely. "It matters that I know the truth."
"And what would knowing the 'truth,'" putting up air quotes with her fingers and swiping the space before her viciously, "Really do for you? Will it make the situation better? Will it let you sleep better? Will it make Tess a worse person? Will it make you a better one?"
"Don't do this," Alex said quietly, watching her with wearily eyes. He could go ten rounds with her and end up at the same place. Maria was Maria, she will always stand beside her sister. "I don't want to fight with you."
"And I don't want to fight with you," Maria replied quietly, the stress of the situation leeching her energy. "Why can't you just let things go?"
"Not in my nature," he responded with and looked at her with sad eyes. He hated that he was pitting himself again her and her loyalties. Seeing the conflict in her eyes, knowing that she wasn't going to waiver and knowing that he was hurting her in asking her to do so made him sick to his stomach. Maria was a good person, one of the best he knew. And when push comes to shove, Alex understood instinctively that Maria would choose to do the right thing. Was it enough knowing that? Probably. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Maria replied, knowing this reasoning and thanking him for his understanding. "She's my sister, Alex," in the way of an explanation. "My only sister."
He nodded and took a breath, letting go of his frustrations. "Okay. I won't ask you again."
Maria said nothing, letting the silence between them speak for itself. "Are you going to help me?"
"Of course," he answered with a rather sad little smile. "All you have to do is ask."
-&-&-&-
Fishing keys out of his pocket, Max mentally went through the list of things that he needed to take care of amidst the mess that was his life. The next step was to do something that would help breach the gap between his sister and Tess; the situation was intolerable. There was no telling when the two would need one another for any given reason and he really couldn't have them at odds. Besides, it was making it extremely difficult for him to get any alone time with Tess.
"Mr. Evans."
Max's hand froze on the handle of the door, his shoulder tensed visibly. "Yes?" not turning around yet but already preparing himself to do so.
"My name is…" the man stopped his approach when Max turned whirled around in a lighting fast move. "A little jumpy aren't we?"
Max's face was impassive as he opened his fist slowly from where he had held it. "Only when someone sneaks up on me unexpectedly."
The dark-suited man looked around the near empty parking lot. "Not much of a place to hide." He offered Max a smile that never reached his eyes. "Are you Max Evans?"
Caution took the form of defiance, "You wouldn't be asking unless you were pretty sure of it in the first place."
The man nodded his head in acknowledgment. "I'm Pierce, Donald Pierce," he shifted slightly, watching the young man as he pulled out his badge and held it out for a moment. Letting his identity sink in, "I want to talk to you about your friend, Michael Guerin."
Max's eyes sharpened and he mentally steeled himself. A barrage of information raced across his mind in a blink of an eye. "Then we have nothing to talk about."
"Mr. Evans," Pierce started, a little annoyed by the lack of cooperation. "We have reasons to believe that Michael Guerin is not who he claims to…"
"Michael is my friend," Max stated firmly, his eyes flashing ever so slightly. His father always said the best defense is an unexpected attack; throws the opponent off their game. "You have a problem with my friends, you have a problem with me. I won't hear you say anything bad about him. You want to know about Michael? Go ask Michael; don't be sneaking around behind his back asking his friends about him; asking us to betray him. And if you have any more questions for me, talk to my parents." He opened the door to his car and got in. Turning the ignition, he kept one careful eye on the FBI and reached for his cell. When he's pulled away and out of sight, he punched in the speed dial for home with a slightly shaky hand. "Issy? It's Max. No, listen; whatever it is can wait. We have a major problem on our hands."
-&-&-&-
Pierce stood there for a moment, watching the taillights of the jeep turn and disappear around a corner. He had misjudged young Mr. Evans badly. The boy wasn't just a smart kid on the fast track to following his parent's footsteps; he was unwavering loyal and annoying smart about his rights and privileges as a minor. Pulling out his cell phone, he half cursed himself for not reading Julia Topolski's extensive files before self-handling the case. Looks like the missing agent might not have been dragging her feet after all. "This is Pierce. Get me everything you have on the Evans; special attention on the son, Maxwell Evans. And I want it all on my desk before my plane tomorrow morning."
-&-&-&-
Kyle's feet dragged on the ground as he walked slowly along the street he had grew up on, blinding looking at the familiar fences and yards of neighbors that have known him since he and his father first arrived in the small two bedroom adobe house they call home. This day has not been anything he had expected. First he finds out the scouts aren't coming to the game until nearly April, then he has a nice long confusing conversation with an genuine man in black. Then he found out his lead linebacker walked away from a pickup game with a fracture wrist… things couldn't get any…
The woman in the pale blue dress stood up from the stoops of the Valenti's house as Kyle got closer. Her dark hair was cut short around her chin, the expensive white purse hung from her hand match the white sandals she wore and she stood waiting patiently as if she had all the time in the world. Kyle's feet faltered as he got closer, his eyes almost not recognizing the woman's face; then again, it has been nearly 17 years since he last saw her.
"Hello Kyle."
He stopped six feet short of her, unwilling to call her 'mom' but not knowing what else to call her. He just stood there and studied her for a moment.
Darlene Shaw held her breath, staring at the grown up young man before her. Kyle was wide across the shoulder and narrow around the waist, not what she had pictured him to be. Jim had always been slender in his youth, tall and almost gangly at times. Apparently, Kyle took after his grandfather. "How are you, Son?"
For a moment, all Kyle could do was stand there and stared expressionlessly at the woman that gave birth to him. All sorts of thoughts zapped their way through his mind, all the conversations he's had with himself, all the soul searching moments of what he would say if he ever saw her again. And here she was, at his front steps… and all he could do was stand there and stare at her.
"Kyle?" Darlene reached out with her free hand.
The sight of his mother reaching for him jolted Kyle out of his stupor. Moving forward, he dodged her and talked up the steps to the house, digging out his keys from his jean pocket.
She knew it was going to be hard, knew that he had ever right to be angry. But the rejection, the very lack of acknowledgement wasn't how she had ever imagined this reunion. "Kyle, please let me explain."
Pushing the front door open, Kyle turned and looked Darlene directly in the eyes. "You don't belong here," he stated simply. "Go back to the life you've been living."
The fact that he spoke gave her courage. "Honey, I just wanted to…"
"Didn't you hear me?" he asked calmly, a lot calmer than he would have expected himself to be. In many of the scenarios in his mind, he had been screaming his responses. "Go back to where you came from, you're not needed here."
Darlene felt her heart break a little. "Please son, let me explain..." she entreated.
"Leave us alone," Kyle answered quietly and with a great deal more dignity that she had ever allowed him. "You don't belong here anymore. And I'm not your son." He shut the door in her face before she had a chance to say another world. He stood there for a moment, gathering his courage and his emotions in his hands and putting them away. "She's not my mother. I don't have a mother."
-&-&-&-
"Max?" Isabel called out as she dropped her keys onto the table next to the front entry way. "Are you home?"
"I've been meaning to ask," Michael said as he shut the front door behind him and shrugged off his jacket as he usually does when coming into the Evans' home. There was something about the All-American feel of the house that made him want to behave himself in a manner that was slightly out of character. "Can you and Tessa just reach out and touch someone?"
"What are you talking about?" she asked as she picked up Michael's jacket from the chair and took it to the coat closet.
"Can you guys… you know, open your minds and know where there's someone around?" Michael asked as he followed to her the family room and dropped his backpack there. "You and her are both kind of mind readers, you seem to be able to…"
"We don't know," Isabel answer as she look through the doorway and into the kitchen. "This isn't exactly something you can discuss over lunch."
"Maybe you should," Michael suggested and sat down. "The more we know about our powers, the better we can use them."
"For what purpose?" she asked before she left to check Max's room.
Waiting for her, Michael idly picked up several sheets of drawings on the table, stacked under several large books that looked the size of dictionaries. They were pencil sketches. He didn't need to ask who had done them. "Max brooding again?"
"For once, no. He draws when he needs to think and lately, he's been thinking about a lot of stuff." Isabel answered and glanced at the drawing in his hand. "Pretty neat huh?" She smiled crookedly at him. "I think his drawings are the only things Mom allows to be littered around the house; makes us pick up everything else." She smiled as she picked up a sketch. "He's getting better and better at it every year; got more artistic talent in his one hand than I do in my entire body. Mom keeps talking to him about art school and submissions to galleries."
"Bet that didn't go over well with your father?"
Isabel gave a soft laugh. "Dad is still holding out hopes that Max or me will want to go to law school and be high power attorneys. But even Dad is seeing Max's potentials." She lifted one drawing of Michael and Isabel's profiles shadowed together. She loved the picture, coveted the picture but couldn't bring herself to ask Max for it. "If Max wasn't so determined to go to MIT or CalTech, I'd be on the bandwagon for the whole art school thing."
"Science is his forte," Michael said as he flipped over another sheet. "Besides, have you seen some of the night scenes he's done?" He smile as he flipped to the next sketch and found it to be one of Tess. It was a detailed drawing from some kind of fairy tale fantasy that Michael didn't even know Max was harboring. Tess was standing in a spot light, her glove hands clasp before her demurely and she was wearing a white dress one only believed a princess would be allowed to wear. Her eyes were serenely beautiful, her lips pulled into a calming half smile and she had a ethereal glow about her that made the drawing almost lifelike.
"I've seen this before," Isabel said quietly as she took the picture from Michael's hand.
"Well it is just laying around," Michael replied dryly, looking at the next picture, one of Liz Parker this time.
"No, I mean I've seen this scene before… in one of Max's dreams." She studied the drawing a little more closely. "God, it's almost exactly the way it was in his mind," peering closer, "Right down to the look in her eyes."
"Can we say 'obsession?'" Michael shook his head and flipped over a drawing of the whole Evans family to the next one that contained Liz Parker and Alex Whitman. "The nose is a little off on this one."
Isabel placed the drawing down and looked up worriedly. "Where is he?"
"Try calling him," he suggested absentmindedly as he continue to peruse through the stack of drawings.
She gave him an annoyed look, more so because she had forgotten about the cell phone, not quite use to the instantaneous communication. Dialing his number, Isabel continued to look at Max's drawings over Michael's shoulder, ignoring Michael's grunt of irritation when she leaned against his shoulder to see. She suppressed a shudder of pleasure at the touch and concentrated on the ringing phone in her hand. When Max's voice mail picked up, she hung up the phone. "Not answering."
"This thing with him and Tess," Michael said as he looked at yet another sketch of Tess, this one of her bend over a book. The loving details of the drawing was deeply telling of Max's feelings for her. "They're like totally connected in that kind of weird way people are connected sometimes."
"You do realize that that made almost no sense right?" Isabel replied with a smile. "But yeah, I know what you're talking about. They can't just be normal everyday teenager. They have to be this dramatic, over the top…"
"She's had dreams of him," Michael interrupted in a murmur, his eyes still on the drawings before him but no longer seeing them. "Told me so herself."
Isabel froze next to Michael, her body rigid with awareness. "What kind of dreams?"
He paused for a moment, knowing that he was entering the place where he said he wasn't going to go with her, not with Isabel. And yet he couldn't stop himself from replying honestly. "You know which kind."
Of course she did but she wanted to hear him say it. She didn't dare let herself think that… but she couldn't not think of it. "Michael…"
"I was lying."
It was like being back handed. "What?"
He still could turn to her. He was looking at the drawing of Isabel in his hands. "I was lying before, when I said this thing between us was a mistake." He couldn't bring himself to look at her even hearing the gasp and knowing that she was staring at him with those big wide eyes, urging him to tell her more. "But I wasn't wrong about…. I can't…" he closed his eyes for a moment. "Max is my best friend. You are my best friend. You guys are family, the only people in this universe that I trust."
"What about Tess?" Isabel could have slapped herself for asking that.
Michael considered it a moment. "Okay her too but it's different with her. I can't explain it but it just is." He took a breath frustrated knowing how none of that sounded right and yet he couldn't put into any better words what he was trying to convey to her. He turned to look at her, eyes dark with torment and fear. "Do you understand… do you know what you mean to me?"
Isabel wanted to say yes, wanted to reassure him in some manner that he will comprehend. But the intensity in his eyes stopped her. There was so much more here than she could see with her clouded eyes. "No," she answered honestly. "Tell me."
He turned his body to face her, to let her see into him. "You are family. You and Max … and Tess are the only ones that matter at all in my life. I can't… I won't mess that up. If I lose you, any of you, I would simply die." His face contorted for a moment in pain. The thought of being alone was more horrifying than anything he could endured with Hank Guerin. He closed his eyes to keep his resolve. "I can't go there with you because I don't know if I can be what you want me to be and if we were to…" he took a deep breath knowing he was about to fall apart and not wanting to do so yet again in front of Isabel. God it was always Isabel that broke him down and made him human.
She launched herself into his arms, her greedy fingers digging into the muscle across his back. Her heart hurt for him, for the fears he's kept so close that even his best friends hadn't seen it. "You won't lose me; you will never lose me no matter what happens," she whispered into his ears as she tightened her hold on him. "I would never let you go."
"You don't know that," he said tightly as he stood there, rigid in her embrace. "You can't know that."
"I do know," she said emphatically. She pulled back and stared him in the eyes, "I know," then kissed him full in the mouth.
He struggled for a moment, resisting the connection she was attempting to form with him. His mind shouted at him to stop, knowing that if things went bad, he'd lose everything that mattered. But his more basic instincts outweighed his best intentions and he reached up to push her away but he found his hands closing around her arms, holding her steady as he gave into the insistent pleasure of her touch.
A million stars exploded as their minds touched as only their alien minds could. Michael saw a world beyond that of his own. A firry princess with a smile that disarmed as quickly as her uniquely bowed staff. An army of men, dressed in black and red stood in attention and at his command. Isabel as she stood by a window, watching him watching her. The two of them, in the dreams that weren't quite dreams, loving as only two people can love. He saw them together and felt something ridiculously good inside. A golden haired child appeared between them, laughing and happy as Isabel kissed his chubby baby cheeks, her eyes aglow with the wonder of what they created between them.
She pulled away reluctantly, unwilling to let go of the connection, not wanting to stop the perfect little picture she saw of them. Gasping for air, she clung to him. "Michael," the words slipped out softly, gently, with a kind of new understanding she couldn't really define. "I love you."
Michael went still in her arms, his laboring breaths seem to stop completely as he mind raced through all sorts of explanations as to why Isabel would say… what she said. Pulling back slowly, he looked into her eyes. She was calm, a little fearful but perfectly steady in her countenance. His heart was rising fast with hope as his mind tried to tramp down the thought as fast as it could. He wanted to ask what she meant, in what context did she mean when she said that she… that she…
The ringing phone shattered the moment; they both jumped.
Swallowing hard, Isabel reached blindly for the receiver before breaking eye contact to concentrate. "Hello?"
"Issy? It's Max."
"Max," she started out of her slight stupor. "Where are you? We need to..."
Max's agitated voice cut her off quickly. "No, listen; whatever it is can wait. We have a major problem on our hands."
Isabel's head snapped around to look at Michael, who read her face correctly as he looked at her expectedly. Covering the mouth piece, "Max says we've got a major problem."
Michael didn't even look surprised. "When have we not?"
-&-&-&-
The lights flickered for a moment. Tess looked up as her screen blinked in and out. She was quick to hit the save button so no data was lost but it did concern that there was a power surge. Clicking her tongue, she exited the new star chart program Brody purchase for the new project, charting the usual alignment of the stars. It was late, she realized as she glanced at her watch, later than she thought it was. If she didn't get home soon, her mother was likely to come looking for her. She smiled as she stretched her back and silently berated herself for losing track of time yet again.
"Brody?" she called out as she picked up her bag and packed up her binders of homework and reading materials she had pulled out earlier while in search of a hair-tie. "Brody, I'm going home now!" she announced loudly as she zipped up her backpack and grabbed her thin jacket. "I'm leaving!"
When no one answered, Tess stopped. No matter how deep into his simulations he was, Brody always acknowledge when spoken to. It was one of those ridiculously polite things that Brody says was ingrained in him at a very young age.
The sudden concern for him begin to build as Tess remembered the flickering lights earlier. "Brody?" The silence that greeted her had her running toward the back room. "BRODY!"
The door to the Simulation Room was locked. Tess turned the knob back and forth uselessly. "Brody?" she pounded on the door with her fist. "Brody, are you okay in there?" it was stupid question but still had to be asked. "Brody!" she could feel herself panicking as she pressed her ear against the door and heard nothing from within. Glancing behind her at the dim empty hallway, she bit her lip in concern and frantically tried to think of any other way but the one she was already considering. "Michael is going to kill me," she muttered and pressed her hand against the door lock. A short burst of light erupted from her palm and then flickered away as she turned the doorknob carefully. "Brody?" she called out softly as she pushed the door slowly open, crouching slightly to prepare herself for anything that might jump at her.
The smoke that met her nose had her forgetting caution and rushing into the room almost tripping on the long color cables that ran across the floor and were attached to the prone thin man on the group, still wearing the VR gear on his head.
"Brody!" Tess dropped to her knees by his side and reached for his wrist, sighing with relief only when she felt the rapid heart beat under her fingers. Checking for any obvious physical damage and seeing none, she was carefully removed the virtual reality helmet to check for any signs of trauma to the entrepreneur's head. Soot across Brody's face and smell of burnt hair made Tess cringe with fear. "Oh geeze, what did you do?" She was tempted to find out what was wrong with him; a little touch would be all it took. But she knew she had already taken a risk with the door and if he were to wake while she took a peek inside… she couldn't imagine the consequences. "Not to mention the others would be pissed off."
With a sigh, she started to look around for the phone and call for an ambulance. But before she could so much as move, a steely-strength hand clamp around her wrist. Tess gasped as Brody's pale blue eyes came wide open and staring into her face. "Oh my god, you scared me."
Brody only continued to stare at her, his unblinking eyes unnaturally bright and focused.
"Brody, are you all right?" she clasped her free hand over his and gently tried to free herself but he wasn't budging. "Brody?" she could feel a mounting fear as the mild-manner, gentle-hearted man who had generously offered her a job seem to have disappeared. All his rants about alien abductions, mind altering states, lost times in his life, waking up in different cities with no memories of how he got there… all those stories Tess had so negligently dismissed as the works of an overactive imagination now rushed to the front burner making her sudden afraid of his man. "Brody?" she asked again cautiously.
He blinked once, his hand still not letting go, then recognition set in. "Ava?"
Startled, Tess didn't know how to react for a moment. "No, Brody. It's Tess; Tess Harding?" she tried to decipher his expressionless face, to see if there was any hint of understanding. "Are you all right? The circuits on the VR looks fried, I think you may have…"
"Ava," he breathed the word with what seemed like relief though his still blank face show none of that. Sitting up, he turned to face her.
"I don't think it's a good idea for you to move," Tess said gently, trying to keep him calm and still. "Let me call for an ambulance and get you to…"
"I can hardly believe that I have found you." Brody's unnaturally bright eyes bored into hers. "Avanita, it is good to see you again old friend."
"No Brody," she shook her head. "It's me; it's…"
"Ava," he repeated almost amused now, as if indulgent to a small child. "It's me; it's Larek."
To be continue…
