Swim
by
Disclaimer: I disclaim. Not mine. M. Metz, Jason Katims, UPN. All not me.
Summary: What will it take to get a little communication going between the so-far alienated Max and Liz this summer? Plus, how is Liz interacting with the rest of the crew?
Rating: PG-13
Chapter Two
Liz had to wait an hour and half, mostly filling her time with diving and lap swimming, before Max got off duty. When the clock finally turned, she saw him jump from his post, and prepared to make her move. But he disappeared into the changing room, and she continued swimming, knowing he'd have to come back out to let Isabel know what he was doing.
She waited patiently, and Max reappeared five minutes later, having swapped the bright red life-guard trunks for a more... Max-like approach to life: plain black. She laughed a little at the thought. Nothing about Max was plain. But he had a tendency to blend into the background as his chosen color often did. In that way, he was nothing like Michael.
She continued to swim her laps, moving from the deep end into the middle, where she could stand. If it came to that, she wanted to be able to be standing while fighting rather than treading water or hanging onto the edge. There was just something more... dignified about it.
Max jumped into the pool with a huge splash, an unusually playful smile playing around his lips. Of course, it wasn't an open smile, because the King was always serious, but Liz could see that he was in a better mood now than for a while. Surprising, because Kyle had continued to harass him into the last minutes of his shift.
Using a strong crawl stroke that Liz was sure had been one of his major assets in training, he swam up to Liz, and the smile disappeared. But he didn't appear, as he often did, unhappy, just appeared more serious than before. Then, all semblance of serious disappeared as he hooked an arm around her, under the armpits, and started to swim with her against his chest.
Liz laughed, but didn't struggle. Max's alien strength propelled them around the pool easily, and from the side, she heard his life-guarding buddy yell "Go, man!"
"What are you doing?" She asked, between laughs.
"Practicing," Max told her, straight-faced. She couldn't believe this was her Max. He was so out of character. But she decided to enjoy it while it lasted.
"Practicing what?" She asked.
"My life-guarding skills."
They reached the shallow end of the pool, and Max set her down, taking his arm from around her chest. She wasn't surprised to find that she wished he was still touching her.
"Look, Liz, we need to talk."
"I know."
"Tomorrow?"
"After I get off. Here again, five o'clock?" She asked.
Max nodded. He looked at her longingly. Liz knew he wanted to kiss her. She knew because she wanted the same thing, desperately. But she forced herself to pull away from him, and smile as she left the area. She headed towards her pile of stuff.
Isabel was lounging beside her things on a reclined lawn chair. She had turned over since Liz had been back, and now the almost-thong that made up the back of her swimsuit was exposed.
Liz picked up her stuff, and wrapped a towel around herself. "Isabel?" She asked.
Isabel turned her head in Liz's direction. "Yeah?"
"Do you want a ride home? I don't know if Max is going to be leaving soon, and I don't know what you think, but I think Michael and Maria might want to get home as fast as possible." She motioned to the couple, curled up with a decent amount of space between them, but with the same towels draped over them. One of Michael's hands was fondling her hair, and the other ran up and down her back, Liz could tell from the movements. She hoped they remembered that they were in public.
Isabel looked at Liz, then nodded. "Just a minute. I'll ask Max if he's going to stay."
She walked to the poolside, and motioned her brother. Liz could hear her talking to him, and then she returned. "Sure," She responded. "I'd like a ride. Thanks."
She gave a little smile, and Liz returned a bigger one. Maybe she could crack Isabel's shell, yet.
Liz returned to the pool the next day, more than a little apprehensive. She and Max had a lot of talking to do, she knew that. And she wasn't so sure that the pool was the appropriate locale, but she wanted to be out in the open where Max couldn't use his powers. She wasn't afraid of him, but she was afraid that he might do something rash that could get discovered by someone.
She slipped into the water, smiling and grimacing a little at the same time. It was cold, and made her shiver, but the day was hot, and it felt good to get away from it. She plunged in to her shoulders, and quickly swam a lap using her own decent crawl stroke.
"Liz!" She turned in the water, treading it between her feet, fixing her hair with her hands, to see Max waiting on the side. He was in trunks, but only wet up to the ankles. She swam over to join him.
"Hey," He greeted her with a shy smile. Liz loved that look. She wished, of course, that he wasn't uncomfortable talking to her, but at the same time, that abashed look made him look so... cute.
Suddenly, they found themselves in the moment, as they often had in the past. Nothing existed except both of them, and their problems went out the window. Max didn't have a son on a far-off planet, Liz wasn't keeping a secret about why she'd pretended to sleep with Kyle. And Alex wasn't dead, Tess hadn't betrayed them.
Max leaned in slowly, and while Liz's mind was screaming at her to retreat, she didn't. Instead, she just closed her eyes, and let his lips brush hers in a feathery kiss. He pulled away after just that, unsure where they stood, but Liz tugged lightly on his lower lip with her teeth, and he came back to her.
In seconds, they were so wrapped up in each other that they didn't remember the pool, or the people in it existed. They didn't realize that around them, children were staring, single young adults were smiling wistfully, older, married couples tolerantly, and some elderly people and a few parents were glaring. Thus, the blow of the whistle was a sharp assault on their senses.
"Hey, Evans!" Yelled the life-guard, who sometimes partnered with Max. "Take it somewhere else!" He smiled a little, tolerantly, as he said this.
Max looked up, and into Liz's eyes. Or, rather, he tried to, since she wouldn't meet them. She blushed, and Max pulled her out of the pool, handing her a towel. They headed onto the grassy area surrounding the pools, and sat in the far corner. Liz lay out her towel, and sat down on it, rubbing her hands together nervously.
"Why are you working here?" She asked, out of the blue. It was just a question that had been rolling around in her head over the beginning of the summer, and she was curious as to the answer.
Max smiled a little, glad that she wasn't as embarrassed now that they were out of the public eye. Or, at least, farther out of it. "My mother's idea, and Isabel made me do it."
Liz shot him a questioning glance. "Mom thinks that I spend too much time inside, and Izzy thinks that I'm spending too much time trying to find... my son." He looked down, not having intended to bring up the touchy subject.
But Liz was determined not to let touchy subjects get in the way of her and Max having a real, honest talk. "Okay."
Max looked up, surprised that she wasn't upset, or at least not acting like it. "So... what did we need to talk about, Liz?" He asked.
It was Liz's turn to look at the ground. She knew what she wanted to say, but she wasn't sure how to say it, or even if she possessed enough courage to actually spit it out, should she figure out how she wanted to say it. "I guess... I guess I think we need to talk about us, Max."
The dark-haired alien wouldn't meet her gaze when she said this. "Yeah, we do, don't we?" He responded softly.
Liz nodded. "Max, we can't keep our hands, or our mouths" They both blushed, "Off each other. We have to do something."
Max reached up, and tilted her chin so that she was looking at him. "Well, how do you feel about it?" He asked.
Liz tried to escape his grip, but he held onto her, firmly but gently. "I can take whatever you tell me, Liz. And the truth needs to be forefront."
Liz met his eyes. "Well, then, I guess I'd have to say I'm not sure what to think. Or feel. I want to touch you, and I want to kiss you, and I want to feel the way we felt two years ago, but I'm hurt by what you did with Tess, and I'm scared that you'll have to leave someday, and I'm not sure what to think about the fact that you have a son out there somewhere." She looked down at the ground, surprised by the bluntness of her own speech.
Max sat back a little, trying to absorb it all. "I'm sorry, Liz, about what I did with Tess. But I thought we were over, and it hurt me, too, you know."
He looked at her, hard. "Liz, I need to know. What happened last year, the night of the concert?"
Dear Diary,
It's a new day, and I'm Liz Parker. Actually, it's a new night, but it was day when I talked to Max today, at the pool.I told him. I told him everything. From Future Max warning me that we would cause the end of the world, to how awful I felt when I pretended to sleep with Kyle. And we both cried so hard, and leaned on each other, and asked silly, pointless questions like why hadn't we known that Tess was bad.
I haven't felt so free in a long, long time. A weight is lifted off my shoulders, the world belongs to the King again, and is no longer sitting on the skinny, petite frame of this unfortunate girl, almost woman, who just happened to fall in love with an alien.
I almost don't remember that I once felt this way about life all the time. That there was a time when I didn't worry about slipping up and telling someone the Pod Squad's secret. That there was a time when I could laugh about aliens and an interplanetary war. That there was a time when I used to enjoy wearing antennae, and laughing at fake alien stories from tourists with cameras.
And though I don't have all those things back, I have something. I have my freedom. I have no more secrets from Max, nothing to tear us apart like we tore each other away from the other all of last year. Nothing that can ruin us in a moment, again.
Except one little child out there somewhere in the black of the universe.
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