Mary
by
Disclaimer: I don't claim. Talk to Jason Katims, UPN, WB, etc.
Summary: When the aliens receive news that a little girl, who hasn't yet been born, will save the earth, what must they do?
Rating: By chapter.
CHAPTER THREE--PG-13
Liz
God, I envy Isabel. Not for the position she's in, but for being brave enough to do it. I told Max that, and he told me that I would be brave enough, too, but I don't know. It hurt me enough to do as Future Max told me. This time, I might have said, "Screw the world!"
She and Maria have been talking, and though Maria's still uncertain, I think she and Isabel are starting to see each other through a new light. Maria's also a little more confident, now that Michael seems to have claimed her as his own. I can't believe she slept with an alien, but then, I shouldn't talk, because if it weren't for parents, it would probably have been me, more than a year ago.
And if that's what sleeping with the person you love brings you, I can't wait! I mean, they barely leave each other's sides, now. Maria is forever telling me to cover for her, and I think she's spent more nights 'at my house' this month, than in the last year! We told her mother that we have a big project with Max, Isabel and Kyle, and that we've been working on it.
But Maria knows she's going to have to cut back on the nights that she spends at Michael's soon, because if she doesn't, sooner or later, one of my parents is going to pick up the phone and say, "What? Maria's not here."
I could never imagine doing what she did, either. I'm not talking entirely about the sex, though I do find it a little scary that she went into that experience without knowing what would happen. But Maria's like that, she's always spontaneous. And she's fine, so I'm trying not to worry.
But mostly, I'm talking about sharing yourself with someone like that. I don't know, maybe I'm over dramatizing things, maybe sex is the physical, and love is something separate, but when Max and I were about to... it felt like everything would change when we took that step. The world would spin a different way.
And it could have. The things you learn when your boyfriend is a 'Czechoslovakian'.
Isabel called me a few minutes ago, and told me she needed some 'remembering time' but she didn't want to be alone. She told me to dig out all the old things I have of him, and she'd bring hers. I can identify. Sometimes I want to think about Alex so desperately, but I just know it's going to make me cry, and I don't want to be alone in my room.
The parents aren't much help. So I know how she feels, and I think it's good that she wants to get together and talk, and remember, and cry. Because sometimes I feel so selfish, not wanting to think about one of my best friends, just because it makes me sad. I feel like I'm not honoring his memory, or something, since I'm not thinking about him.
I hope this helps her.
I hope this helps me, too.
Kyle
It's been two weeks since the big event, and Isabel's beginning to resemble a girl who swallowed a pillow, or a whale, or even the world. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, though, I find her oddly attractive with her stomach rounding gently outward. It's odd, but I guess it's something biological. Or maybe I'm just weird.
The male instinct of protectiveness has flared up with a vengeance, too, and poor Isabel has to deal with me thinking she can't take care of herself, all while trying to do just that. God. I'm not much help right now, so I've asked her to tell me when I can do something, anything, but so far, she hasn't come to me.
I'm lying on the couch, a book on my lap, waiting for something interesting to come on TV, or my father to get home, or just, something to happen. I hope someone rings the doorbell. God, I'm bored. I could go the local gym, and use their pool, because I'm hot, too, but I try to stay out of the spotlight now that I'm the hated 'son of a bitch who got the Evans girl pregnant!'
(That was some old man, who apparently knows Mr. and Mrs. Evans' parents. Thankfully, I slipped out before things got ugly.)
Needless to say, I don't spend too much time at their house these days, either. At least when I'm there, though, I don't think I'm in immediate mortal danger.
A knock on the door startles me, but I'm insanely grateful for the distraction. All I do these days is think, and it's not really in my nature to do that. I'm more of a doing person than a thinking person, but being a functioning human member of the 'I know an alien club' requires a lot of heavy brain use.
I rise slowly from the couch where I still sleep, unable to face Tess's room, and head for the door, calling, "I'm coming!"
The last person I expected to see is on my doorstep, but I open it quickly, and bring her in. She's crying, hard, and I feel a strong urge to comfort her. Experimentally, I put an arm over her shoulders. She doesn't move away, and I lead her to the couch, kicking my book off to make enough space.
"Iz, what's wrong?" I ask gently.
She sobs harder, and again, I wish desperately that I could do something. "Isabel?"
She looks at her hands in her lap, and starts to choke out her problems. "I... wanted to go swimming," She tells me, and I nod to show her that I'm listening.
"I put on my bathing suit... and I looked in the mirror... and I just looked so... fat and ugly!"
I put my other arm around her, and pull her closer to me. She doesn't resist.
"But, I told myself... that I was going to the pool... so I did... but when I got there, everyone started whispering, and staring and..." She trails off into incoherent, heart-breaking sobbing coughs.
"Shh, Iz, it'll be okay," I soothe her. I mutter nonsense comforts under my breathe to her for long moments, and then she quiets, calming bit by bit.
She looks up, her face streaked with tears, my shoulder wet. "Oh, God, Kyle, I'm sorry," She says, trying to get away. I let her go, but when she makes for the door, I call her.
"Isabel!"
She turns, refusing to look me in the eye.
"It's okay. Really. Stay, please?"
She seems to weigh her options for a long moment, and then nods, still a little shy. "Okay. But I have to be home for dinner."
"Sure. But for now, do you have your bathing suit, Isabel?"
She nods again, looking a little anxious.
"Why don't you go put it on?" I ask of her. She looks hesitant, but complies. "The bathroom's right there. Meet me outside," I tell her, and she nods silently, again.
She disappears, and I wander into Tess's room, trying not to look at anything, grab my swim trunks, and go out. I disrobe quickly, in the side yard in case Isabel comes out, faster than expected, and pull them on.
I pull over a very, very old sprinkler head that swivels on a base, and then the hose, into the middle of our yard. I hook them up, make sure that they're working, and then wait on the deck for Isabel.
She comes out moments later, looking beautiful, but painfully shy about her appearance. It's true, her pregnancy has changed the way she looks, but not in a bad way. Her breasts have enlarged a little, and they fill her bikini top. Her stomach pushes out of the lower half of her suit, but she's beautiful, so beautiful, and I fight to keep from staring.
I walk up to her, and take her hand. She follows me, then starts to balk a little as we head for the sprinkler. "Kyle," She says, not really asking a question, but not really making a statement, either.
"It's okay," I reassure her. Then, with a sudden movement, I run into the spray, pulling her with me. She shrieks in surprise, and a smile wraps over my face.
"It's cold!" She accuses me.
I smile. "Yeah, but it's a hot day. Thus, this is a good thing."
She looks at me with a straight face for a long moment, and I hope I'm not about to get my ass kicked. Then, she smiles, and grabs my hand, and I know I'm home free.
THREE MONTHS LATER
Isabel
God, I can hardly move. And this is only seven and a half months in. I can't imagine carrying this child around for another month and a half, she's already causing my stomach to be about 700% of it's usual size.
But I'm not going to whine. So, on a completely different note, I got my high school diploma in the summer, because I wasn't really sure what would happen when the baby was born. Now, I'm glad I did, because I certainly don't want to be gallivanting around school with this belly. Did I mention I can't wait until she's born?
Max has 'allowed' me and Kyle to name this child. We know she's a girl, and we've decided to call her Mary. Mary like the virgin Mary, because, like her, this child is going to be a person of great importance. Who knows, maybe two thousand years from now, the story of this Mary, my Mary, will be intertwined in a religion just as the virgin Mary's is.
After all, the people of earth, the ones lucky enough not to know about the extraterrestrial battle that's being waged on their own grounds, have to make up some excuse for all the unexplainable things that happen, right? Not every person is Fox Mulder, and wants to believe. In fact, most of them would rather remain ignorant.
Have I mentioned that I watch a little too much of the X-Files, being here at home by myself nearly every day?
Kyle's been really good for me. He never seems to run out of patience, and he's always around to comfort me even when my brother can't take it anymore. God knows, Michael's always the first one to give up. If he ever tries at all in the first place. But I don't blame him, that's just his way. He's not good with emotions.
With the possibly exception of Maria. Regarding everything. And maybe anger and lust, pre-Maria. But he's not good with the softer emotions, like sadness and fear and stress and love, and never has been.
A summer job at the Crashdown, something I never, ever thought I'd do, is partially responsible for me and Kyle having enough money to rent a little apartment. Barely more than a studio. But it serves our needs, and it will serve Mary's, when she joins our little family.
I still don't know why I did this. I must have been really ditzed up. Why couldn't Liz or Maria carry this child? Oh, right, because they're human. Well, yippy-yay for aliens. Think we get to have all the fun? Try being seven months pregnant with the child who's going to save the world.
Sorry. I'm just a little moody, in case you haven't noticed. But it's time to go to work, and the Crashdown awaits. Another wonderful day of having my stomach stared at, just the thing to brighten my slump.
Maria
Isabel showed up at the Crashdown on time, as usual. She gripes and complains and picks fights with me and Michael and sends insults Michael's way and otherwise annoys the entire workforce, but she shows up on time, and I have to give her credit for having the most amazing amount of patience with the customers.
The uniform we give her has to be unbuttoned in the middle to allow her stomach out, so she wears a white leotard underneath it. But she's forever complaining she has to be the hottest person in the state. Which, mind you, is not true. Poor Michael works over a grill all afternoon.
I guess you can see why we don't always... co-exist amicably.
Liz just came in the door, panting from running, and dripping with sweat. Also, I might add, with suspiciously smudged lipstick all over her face. I hope things are slow tonight, because I need to interrogate her, majorly.
And, yes, here comes the last of our wayward employees, and also today's latest, at fifteen minutes past his shift start. He wanders in at his usual slow amble, and is about to kiss me when Mr. Parker walks in, and sends a little glare our way. Oh, yes. The infamous 'no-fraternizing while working' policy.
Like he ever stopped Liz and I from chatting. Personally, I think he's having trouble with me being a little older than eight. Or maybe nine. Because that would mean that his own daughter is also growing up, a thing worse than death.
And getting pretty thoroughly kissed, if the lipstick is any indication.
Michaels stomps off towards the changing room, denied his usual pre-work grope session by Liz's father's presence, and Liz and I pull on our antennae. Mr. Parker stays long enough to chastise us for being late, which, by the way, I wasn't, and tell Isabel that she needs a new uniform, and to pick up the next biggest size from him tomorrow.
Maybe work will be better. I wander out into the restaurant, looking around at the current staff. All decent enough people, and currently fighting about who gets to take off now that I'm here.
And, oh, look, there's the local jock crowd, minus Kyle, which might have made them tolerable, waiting to try to cop a feel from one of us. They may use their crotch for a brain, but they're not completely ignorant. In fact, they know very well when the three 'babes', as they like to call us, on their good days, come on duty.
And since we're the only three working this shift, they can't lose, right?
Isabel ends up serving them, which is bad for her, but good for me and Liz, at least. Sometimes I feel like we should keep a tally sheet on who's turn it is to go over there and try not to get mauled. Except that me and Liz do actually try to do it more often than Isabel, because some of those guys have some really perverted thing about pregnant women.
Apparently, she's tired of them, because she hauls back and slaps one of them when he grabs at her backside. I clap with Liz, glad that one of those apes finally got what was coming to them, but I also hope to God that Mr. Parker is not still around. I did that once, slap a guy, in ninth grade, to some jerk who'd tried to put his hand on my breast, and I almost got fired. Only Liz's influence on her father had saved me, and Isabel doesn't have that.
I'm also glad that the guy didn't end up a flaming cinder, or maybe ashes, because with the mood she's in, combined with what Michael calls 'pregnancy irrationality', I don't trust her to care who finds out about her powers. That's why she's only allowed to be on when Michael's here, because he has the best chance of concealing some kind of... explosion.
Hopefully, not in the literal sense.
Max just showed up, and is sitting in the front, at a table I'm sure he knows is oddly enough, placed so that a waitress has to go by it to get to almost every table in the place. And not only does Liz go by it, she stops every single time, too. Michael doesn't improve the situation by trying to solve it with some mild profanity, which gets major glares from the parents of a couple of children in the back.
I'm their server, so they look to me, and I shrug helplessly back. What am I supposed to say? That that doofus is my boyfriend, and I'm hopelessly in love with him? I don't think so. They'll never come back. But when I get a chance, I do go behind the curtain, and chew Michael out.
He asks me why I don't tell the parents to get the sticks out of their asses. I groan, recognizing his impossible mood, and stomp away to act sugar-sweet to some other annoyed, restless customer.
God, this is going to be a long day.
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