Part 3 - Do What You Have To Do - Liz POV

What ravages of spirit
Conjured this tempestuous rage?
Created you a monster
Broken by the rule of love.
And fate has led you through it
You do what you have to do.
And fate has led you through it
You do what you have to do.
But I had the sense to recognize
That I don't know how to let you go.

Every moment marked
With apparitions of your soul.
However swiftly moving
I'm trying to escape this desire,
The yearning to be near you
I do what I have to do.
The yearning to be near you
I do what I have to do.
And I had the sense to recognize
That I don't know how to let you go,
That I don't know how to let you go.

A glowing ember burning hot, burning slow.
Deep within I'm shaken
By the violence of existing
For only you.
I know I can't be with you,
I do what I have to do.
I know I can't be with you
I do what I have to do.
And I had the sense to recognize
That I don't know how to let you go,
Don't know how to let you go,
Don't know how to let you go.

I don't know how to let you go.

Sarah McLachlan

Max is staring at me in disbelief. I don't really blame him. I can't for the life of me figure out how those words just came out of my mouth either.

"I am going to help you find him."

It is the supreme irony. I am going to help him find the child that I will never be able to accept.

I really have no choice. I don't know how to do anything else.

Because, the cold, hard truth is, I can't let him go. I can't lose him again. I don't WANT to let him go.

I try not to think of the tiny part of me that is imagining the world where we never find the baby, where Max has to give up, where we are together and there is no resentment because I did my best to help him and he knows it and loves me even more because of it.

And it is that tiny part of me that knows that I have to tell him the truth. Because, if I don't, and if we don't find his son, I am never going to be able to live with the guilt.

"Liz, I can't ask you to do that." Max is saying, and I know he really means it. "It's just too much. You've done enough."

"Max, you don't get it." I say, before he can build me up into some big heroine. I can't let him do that. It was one of the reasons we had so much trouble the first time. He puts me on this pedestal. I'm not that special. What I am is someone who just wants the hurt to stop. I want to stop loving him - I really do. And I really tried after the last break I made, at the prom. I tried with Sean. I really did.

It just doesn't work. It's Max and I can't get what I have shared with him out of my head, out of my heart.

How can any regular boy compare to someone with a soul as beautiful as Max Evans's? Because no matter the mistakes he has made - and he has made a lot - he is still that Max. She can't have changed him that much.

The truth is though, I don't know if he has changed. I don't really know him at all anymore. But I think I owe it to myself to see if he is still MY Max. I owe it to HIM too. Maria told me so, and I am beginning to see what she meant.

He was never supposed to turn into the monster he became after Alex died. Something was just wrong there. He was supposed to be my husband, my soul mate, my true love. It was what was fated from the moment he saved my life in the Crashdown that day.

And we screwed with it - Future Max and I did that is. We had our reasons, but in the process we destroyed the wonderful person that Max Evans was, that he was meant to be. He has to have another chance to get it right.

Unfortunately this means finding his son. Which means that I have to give him an ultimatum. And its an awful one. But I know its the only way I will be able to do this because if there is one truth I know it is that I will never be able to accept the child.

How can I even tell him this? I feel like some evil stepmother, one who wants to send his kid off into the woods to get eaten by a witch. But I can't help the way I feel. I don't know how I'll feel tomorrow, next week, next year, but I do have to tell Max how I feel NOW.

"You have to understand Max." I tell him. He is looking at me, a slightly befuddled expression on his face, like all of his dreams are coming true, but like he also has this feeling that a nightmare is about to begin. "I don't know if I'm going to be able to get over what happened between you and Tess." His eyes are fully accepting. He knows this already. But I don't think he understands the true meaning. "I'm going to help you find your son, but we can't be together again. Not like before."

He closes his eyes briefly. I can see that he is upset, but that he is not surprised. "I know." He finally says. "I do want you to know Liz, that it was a mistake. It was the night you left for Sweden you know. Things were so bad between us and she...she was just there. The morning after it happened..."

I put up my hand. "Please stop. I really can't know Max." He does stop immediately, but I can tell he's frustrated - that he really needs to get some of this off of his chest. But I can't listen to it. Not now, maybe not ever. I don't want to know what a big mistake it was because, somehow, that makes it worse.

Of course that was the excuse I used when he demanded an explanation about Kyle. "It was a mistake Max." No wonder he was so confused. The fact that nothing was going on between Kyle and I after must have made it hurt even more. He must have felt like he didn't know me at all.

Sort of how I feel right about now. About Max. But also about me.

"Okay." Max looks sad for a moment, than he says, "Why are you doing this Liz? I don't get it."

"I have to see it through to the end." I say and its the complete truth. I will not be able to let Max go until I know he is truly lost to me, that what Future Max and I did, changing everything so that this baby could be born, was the right thing to do. I will never be able to move on with someone else until I know for sure that he and I aren't meant to be.

The thing is, I still don't know it. Because, now, with Tess gone, it seems like maybe we have a second chance. But she's still there, lurking in the shadows, her baby the winning trump card, the card that tells me that she will always have a piece of him that I can't have.

I'm not just talking about his first time either. I'm talking about a piece of his soul - a part of Max Evans that I never knew and never understood. Because the Max I thought I knew would never have been capable of what he has done since I destroyed him by letting him catch me in bed with Kyle. Was that part of him always there? Or was it only born after I broke his heart?

I have to understand him. I have to know if I really knew him. I have to know if someone can really change that much.

"Do you even know where to start?" I ask him now. He is standing at the edge of my balcony, staring off into the sky, an unreadable expression on his face. "I mean, the granolith is gone. Its not like we can just hitchhike to the next galaxy to start looking for him." I pause. "Do you think there was a back-up? There were two sets of you all. Maybe there were two granoliths?"

"Maybe." Max says, sounding distracted. "But I don't think so." He sighed. "Actually, technically, we don't even know if the thing Tess took off in WAS the granolith. It doesn't fit with what we were told about it in New York." By we, I know he means him and Tess. I sigh heavily.

"We don't even know how much of what Tess told you was true." I add. "She apparently wasn't the most reliable source."

Max laughs bitterly. "That's an understatement." He turns to look at me. "She was working against us from the beginning you know. Nasedo made a deal with Khivar before we were ever even born." I can see the hurt on his face. I think Max has realized something - that, ironically, the people he most should have been able to trust completely betrayed him, while the people he was never supposed to be able to have faith in - me, Maria, Alex, Valenti - the ones HE betrayed - were the only ones he should have trusted.

"What was the deal?" I ask quietly, although I can guess.

"Tess was supposed to get pregnant and then bring me, Michael and Izzy back with her and Nasedo. We would all die and Khivar would have my heir so that our people would let him rule in my son's name. Tess and Nasedo would be spared of course." He shakes his head. "And I fell for it. She almost murdered my best friend and my sister. She DID murder your best friend." Max collapses into the other chair. "I just don't understand how I could have been so fooled. I mean, I KNEW her. I didn't trust her when she first came. Why did I let her in?"

I want to comfort him, but I don' t know how anymore. He's right. He wasn't the only one who ended up trusting her. I never LIKED her, but I did trust her, did believe that she only had Max's best interests at heart, that she was only trying to reclaim the place that was rightfully hers.

"It was a mistake." I reply. "But you have to make sure that you don't make any more like it. We can't let Alex's sacrifice be for nothing. We have to make sure that she doesn't keep your son."

Max flinches at the mention of Alex. "I think he might be the place to start actually." He tells me finally. "I had a dream about him last night. He told me that he knew much more than we ever imagined."

At the mention of Alex, I feel tears fill my eyes. I shake my head. "I don't get it. We know what Alex was doing. He was translating that book for Tess. It was a dream Max. I've had dreams about him too since he's...since he's been gone. It doesn't mean anything."

Max frowns slightly. "It was so real." I can see a flash of something else cross his face, like he's not telling me everything, but he quickly shakes it off, continues. "But we don't know everything he did during those months Liz. He was gone a long time." He pauses. "Like that...that girl." I can hear the guilt in his voice. "The one I almost killed. What about her?"

"Leanna?" I look at him, realization dawning. "You think she was more than just a decoy? That she might know something?"

"Isn't it possible?"

I stand up, nodding. "It makes sense. So that's where we start."

Max stands up too, moving towards the ladder. "We'll go back to Las Cruces tomorrow." He says resolutely.

"What about the others?" I ask as Max moves to swing himself over the ledge and onto the ladder.

Max sighs. "Isabel has had enough to deal with lately. Michael - I'll tell him eventually, but he's wrapped up in Maria right now..." He trails off, looks at me sadly. Thinking about how close Michael and Maria are...it only drives home the point that it is unlikely that we will ever be that way again. "If you're willing to help me, well, maybe we can keep them out of it for a while."

I nod. "Okay."

Max makes a move to leave, then pauses again. "Liz, I really appreciate this. I know it's totally above and beyond the call of duty...after everything."

"We can't change the past Max." I tell him, feeling a pang that, ironically, if there's one thing I know thanks to Future Max, this isn't true. But for us, in this time, now, it is. "We just have to do what we have to do and see where we end up."

"I wish that we weren't here." Max tells me. "I wish we could go back..."

They were the exact words he had said to me when we were in that van, the FBI chasing us...the first time he told me he loved me. Then he had wanted to go back to a time before everything had gone crazy, before Tess. I had a feeling that now we would both give everything just to go back to that moment, when we still had each other, still KNEW each other.

I can't help myself. I reach out and touch his face - the face I have loved for so long. "I know. But we can't. All we can do is go forward."

His eyes are shining. I can't tell if its with unshed tears or if its just the candles on my deck. "Bye Liz." His voice cracks slightly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Bye Max."
*****************************************************

I have the early shift at the Crashdown.

Maria is on with me and she is clearly on Cloud 9. Michael is working too and I catch them making out in the break room. I can't help but smile wryly. It is just so weird. It's like Michael, Maria, Max and I have switched places. Just over a year ago, it would have been Max and I kissing all the time, Michael and Maria on the rocks, unsure of where they stood with each other.

I am serving a couple of tourists when Maria comes whirling out of the back, smoothing her hair down, her cheeks flushed. "Are you planning to do any work today?" I ask teasingly as she plops herself down on a stool and stares off dreamily into space.

Maria looks at me, smiles secretly to herself. "Liz, I have to tell you something."

I glance around the restaurant. All the customers seem happy for the moment so I drop down beside her. "Okay. What's up?"

"Just wanted to let you know that Czechs don't bite your head off. You know - for future reference." She grins at me, blushing slightly.

It takes me a moment to understand what she's saying. "Maria! Did you and Michael..." Her hand jets out, slaps over my mouth.

"I got flashes Liz. I saw him as a little boy and I really saw HIM." She pauses. "He really loves me."

I feel a pang of grief so intense it almost knocks me off my stool. The unfairness of it all continues to amaze me.

I, of course, love Maria. I am thrilled that Michael has finally gotten his act together. I've never understood what his problem was anyway. He and Isabel never pursued THEIR supposed destiny. I never understood what was so different about Max and Tess. While Michael broke Maria's heart time after time and Isabel dated her weekly older sleaze (the thought of Grant still gives me the willies), Max and I were caught in this limbo, madly in love but unable to be together. And Max didn't even know why. I did, but it still wasn't fair.

How could something as wonderful as we had shared have resulted in the end of the world? In that moment I hated Tess Harding more than I ever had. It was all her fault. If she hadn't been so selfish...

But then, in that previous life, Max and I had been the selfish ones too, hadn't we? We had had our fourteen wonderful years and then our entire world was destroyed.

And it is in that moment that I forgive Future Max. He didn't know that Tess was evil. He only knew that without her the Royal Three were too weak to repel Khivar and his minions. How was he supposed to know that it wasn't Tess at all that was needed - that it was her child?

I realize that Maria is still waiting for my response. "That's so wonderful Maria." I reach out and hug her so that she can't see my face. "I'm really happy for you."

She pulls back, stares at me knowingly. "What's wrong Liz?" She pauses. "You saw Max last night, didn't you?"

"Yeah. But its okay. We're going to be friends for now." Maria's face falls. "I can't be anything more right now Maria. Not after all that's happened."

"It's because of HER isn't it? Because of what he did with her." Maria sounds furious. If there's anyone who hates Tess its Maria. She's disliked her all along, but now...after what she did to Alex - Maria would blame the end of the world on her. Not that she would be far off, but still...Tess wasn't the only one to blame.

"It's not just her fault Maria. Max did it too. And we- me and him - drove our relationship to the point where he WOULD do that."

Maria tossed her head. "Whatever. She's the one who wouldn't leave him alone. She was so fake Liz. I was sure she and Kyle were..."

"Poor Kyle." I say, trying to change the subject. "And the poor Sheriff. They really loved her. They must be devastated."

"Kyle will be okay." Maria says confidently. "He knows that she didn't deserve his love OR trust. She used him."

"Yeah, but the Sheriff considered her to be like his daughter." I tell her.

"I know. But he loved Alex too, won't forgive her for that." Maria replied. "He'll get over it."

The doorbell over the entrance rings. Maria's face becomes cold. "Oh great. Just who we need."

I turn. Sean is coming in, heading straight for me. He sees the daggers Maria is shooting him though and veers to the right, plopping himself down in a booth and picking up a menu. I know he wants to talk to me though. "Uh oh. He's going to want an explanation."

"For what?" Maria demands. "Like he deserves one - for anything."

"Well, he was over when Max came last night...." I pause. Maria doesn't know that I threw myself at her cousin the night I thought Max was leaving. "And -er - well, something sort of happened between us on the night we thought the Czechs were leaving."

Maria's eyes widen in outrage. "He took ADVANTAGE of you?" She stands up, looks ready to go over there and kill him.

"NO! I mean...not really, Maria. He was just there for me." She seems to calm down a little bit, but still looks peeved.

See the thing is, Maria is really on Max's side. She always has been. At least since the summer. I have no idea what voodoo hex he put on her while I was in Florida, but whatever it was, she will always want Max and I together.

But then Max is good at inspiring loyalty. It's probably why he will make a great leader someday. Or would have if Future Max and I hadn't screwed with him. He may still. It's another reason I have to be there for him. He deserves that second chance to become the man he was supposed to be.

He worries me sometimes though. He is so dependent on others. The people he loves have so much control over him. What I did with Kyle...it almost destroyed him.

Deep down, I know its the reason I can't desert him now. Because I feel like all the changes that I've seen in him are my fault.

What did I ever do to make him love me so much? I'm just a normal girl for God's sake. The burden is really hard to carry sometimes.

"I'll just go over and get it over with." I tell Maria now. "Can you watch my tables for a few minutes?"

She nods, still looking irritated. "Fine. But if you need me, just call. I'll get Michael to throw him out."

I roll my eyes. "He isn't Caligula Maria."

She scowls. "He ain't Prince Charming either." She whirls away again in typical Maria fashion, goes to take an order. But I can see that her eyes are following me as I make my way to join Sean.

I smooth down my apron, sit across from him. "Hi."

"Hi." He is looking at me in that Sean way - like he is trying to understand me, but is finding it almost impossible.

I remember the way Max and I used to be in perfect sync - in the time before Tess - even before we were officially together. We just GOT each other. It's why I know that Sean is never going to replace Max. Even if Max and I are never together again, I won't settle for anyone less than someone who GETS me.

I once told Max that I kept my journal so that if I ever met someone else who touched me in the way he did, I would remember what it was supposed to feel like. I realize now that I wasn't just talking about physically.

Max touched my soul. I want that again. I don't know if its going to be with Max, but if not, I want it with someone else. And it's just NOT Sean Deluca.

But that doesn't mean I don't care about him, that I want to hurt him.

"I'm sorry about yesterday." I say now.

"You don't have to be sorry Parker." Sean tells me. "I'm just worried about you. I thought you had finally given up on that chump."

"Well, you don't understand about me and Max..." I begin. I know that I'm making excuses, but what else can I do? There is no excuse that Sean will ever understand. He doesn't get Max and I. Lots of people don't. Our closest friends don't really get it. They don't get that the bond that was created when he saved my life, when I saw into his soul...you can't just erase that. This is why its so hard to let him go.

"I understand that he makes you miserable." Sean says firmly. "Listen Parker, I know that I don't deserve you either, but he definitely doesn't. I have never once seen you smile in his company since I've been back."

"I don't know what to say to you Sean." I say. "I can't explain it to you. What Max and I have..."

"Yeah I know. Friends plus." Sean interrupts, sounding annoyed. "Don't you think you deserve more than that?"

"It's not "friends plus" anymore." I tell him. "We're just friends. We're always going to be friends." I swallow. "And anyone who wants to date me is just going to have to accept it."

Sean's eyes darken. "And what if they can't?" He demands. Because he knows what I'm telling him. I'm willing - maybe - to date Sean. But I am not willing to give up Max for him.

"They just will." I reply firmly.

Sean snorts, looks over my shoulder. "I don't think you're ever going to get any dates then Parker." He nods in the direction of the door. "Even if someone you date accepts HIM, that guy is NEVER going to accept anyone else in your life."

I turn around, know already that Max has come in. He's with Isabel but he's staring at me and Sean. When my eye catches his, he smiles. I can tell that he is trying to pretend that he's okay with the fact that I'm sitting with Sean, but I can tell he's not. It makes my heart skip a beat. Because it's the old Max smile. The one that he used to use when I was still dating Kyle and we were technically "just friends," but we so weren't. The semi-shy one...the one that says he can't quite believe that he can smile at me and that I might smile back.

And I do. I can't help myself.

Max's face lights up in a way I haven't seen in weeks, months. It's in a way I haven't seen since before the whole thing with Kyle actually.

It's in that instant that I know it. I am in real trouble. There is no way on this Earth that I am ever going to be just friends with Max Evans. Not when a simple smile from him can make me so breathless I feel like passing out.

This is going to be hell.

To be continued...