Part 4 - Max POV - Witness
Make me a witness
Take me up out of the darkness
Out of doubt
I won't weigh you down
With good intentions
Won't make fire out of clay
Or other inventions.
Will we burn in heaven,
Like we do down here?
Will a change come while we're waiting
Everyone is waiting.
And when we're done
Soul-searching
And we carry the weight
And die for a cause
Is misery made beautiful
Right before our eyes?
Mercy be revealed
Or blind us where we stand.
Will we burn in heaven
Like we do down here?
Will change come while we're waiting
Everyone is waiting...
Sarah McLachlan
I try my hardest not to stare at Liz and Sean. I have the menu up in front of my face, but I am not reading it. I could recite the thing from memory I have used it so often to hide behind over the years. Isabel is in the middle of telling me about some college she wants to apply to, but I am barely listening to her.
It really sucks how much it hurts to see Liz with Sean, even though she did smile at me when I came in. Since my dream, every time I do, that part where Sean was kissing her and reciting words I once said to Liz comes racing back into my mind. There is something paralyzing about it. Something I don't understand.
And it makes me ill, needless to say. I know I have no right to feel jealous and angry when Liz is with another guy. But right and wrong have nothing to do with it. Its just the way I feel.
Even now that I know the truth about Kyle and Liz, a tiny knot still exists in my stomach that clenches with fury and hurt whenever I think about it. It has haunted me for so long. And while I am not angry with Liz about it anymore, in some way, I am.
It was that one night that turned me into someone I didn't even recognize. I know that Liz had no idea how badly things would go down after what she did, she didn't know Tess was a murderous traitor, but its still there, this irrational fury. It burns deeply, not strong enough to mean anything, but its still there.
It doesn't matter though. The love and respect and admiration I have for her is far more strong and will stay so.
Love and hate. The line between them runs very thin - especially with me and Liz. Loving someone as intensely as I love her means that hating her is so much easier too. The power she has over me is kind of scary.
Do you want to know a really, really bad thing? You're not going to like it, but I have to tell you anyway.
Sometimes being with Tess, even though I never loved her, was just easier. Because I didn't care so much.
I know its sick, but there it is.
"Max!" I lower my menu to look at my sister, who is scowling at me. "Are you even listening to me?"
"Yes." I say, lying of course.
"Well, what do you think?" Isabel gives me THE look - the sister look. The one that says she knows I am lying and wants to make me feel like an even bigger moron before I have to admit it.
"Ummmm..."
She sighs heavily. "Never mind." Her expression is suddenly sympathetic and she turns around in her seat to look at Sean and Liz, who are still in deep conversation. Liz does not look pleased. "She doesn't care about him Max."
"It doesn't matter Iz. Liz and I are just friends." I say, glancing at the menu again.
Maria has come up at this point. She has her order pad in her hand and exchanges a look with Isabel, not even saying hi. She just launches into typical Maria opinionated statement mode right away. "Ha. Right. Friends. Friends don't hold on to each other like the two of you did two days ago. I'm telling you Max. It was romance novel worthy."
Isabel snorts. "I wish that you and Liz would just get over yourselves and get back together. You know you both want to. This is boring." She waves her hand in the air dismissively and turns to Maria to order.
See Iz, that's where you're wrong. Liz doesn' t want to get back together with me. But Isabel has no idea of all the stuff that lies between us. Sure, she knows about me and Tess, but she has no idea about the Kyle stuff. She never knew and she never will. She can't know that it was her death - hers and Michael's - that resulted in my future self coming back to fix things.
Oh, he fixed us good all right.
But Isabel can't know. She will never forgive herself. Our relationship has been rocky over the last year, to say the least. If she knew that she was responsible for hurting me in any way, even so indirectly, she would be devastated. Under normal circumstances this would not be true - she would understand that it wasn't her fault.
But since the whole Vilandra thing....
My sister is fragile, scared at every moment that she is going to betray me. Our huge fight over the whole college thing was part of that I think. She wanted to go so badly and was hurt that I wouldn't let her. But I think, deep down, she was only fighting against the part of her that was scared of hurting me. She wanted to leave because of it.
She thought that by getting away from me, she could protect me.
Isabel blames herself for a lot of stuff. I know she is still dealing with Alex's death and for some reason she also blames herself for Grant Sorenson's untimely demise, although she had nothing to do with it really.
I know my sister and I know how her mind works. Getting away from me after Alex died, she could protect me. And yet, since we learned about my son, all that has changed.
Because, suddenly, since Tess left, all the colleges Isabel talks about attending are in New Mexico.
"What'll it be your highness?" Maria asks when I continue to stare at my menu in a stupor.
"Nothing." I say, noticing that Liz is standing and moving away from Sean. His eyes are following her as she comes towards me. "Liz looks like she's done. We're going for a drive."
Then it happens.
Sean's gaze falls on me and for one split second we are staring right at each other.
And a shiver runs down my spine - one unlike anything I have ever felt before.
I break the eye contact first, clench my fists under the table.
That guy totally hates my guts.
"What?" Isabel is saying in annoyance. "MAX! You always do this to me! You invite me here to eat and then you desert me. I hate eating alone and I am so not walking home."
But Maria is smiling at me, pleased, because she thinks that this means that Liz and I are getting back together, despite what I just said a few minutes ago. "Michael and I'll drive you Isabel. Our shift is over in half an hour," she says, just as Liz arrives.
"I'm just going up to change Max. I'll be down in five minutes." She says, her expression blank. She doesn't meet my eyes. I frown slightly.
"Okay."
Liz is true to her word. We are on the road barely ten minutes later. She has changed into jeans and a red tank top that reminds me of the one she was wearing on the night of our first kiss, making my heart thump just thinking about that event. Her hair is loose and blowing in the breeze as I head out of town towards Las Cruces.
It still astounds me how beautiful she is. I've hung out with Liz long enough now that I sometimes forget because I know she is even more beautiful inside, but seeing her like this reminds me of the days when I didn't know so much about her, before I healed her, when the closest I could get to her was exchanging pleasantries and passing lab equipment to her in Bio and staring at her in the Crashdown.
I can tell that she has something on her mind, so I don't really talk to her. I concentrate on the road, trying to forget that the last time we took this road was the night I had to tell her about Tess. It was also the night I almost killed an innocent girl.
I wonder if that's what Liz is thinking about.
But apparently not, as what she says next makes clear.
"Max, I just want you to know that there is NOTHING going on between me and Sean." Liz blurts out so abruptly, I take my eyes off the road by whipping my head around to stare at her.
"Liz, you have a right to date other people." I say the words automatically, because I know that I am supposed to. They sound ridiculous even to me. I hope she doesn't catch the little note of pleasure that has crept into my voice. I am such a jerk.
Liz sighs. "I know Max. And I will, but not him."
Well so much for that moment of happiness. "Okay." I say. "Why are you telling me this?" I ask a moment later.
"Max, I saw the look on your face when you came in and saw me talking to him." Liz replied, sounding annoyed that she HAD seen that look. "We're friends. I don't want to hurt your feelings. So just know that, while I fully intend to date other people eventually, for the moment I am all yours."
I almost swerve off the highway.
"Er - to investigate." She adds quickly. I can feel the warmth traveling up my neck at having almost killed us both.
You see what I mean about Liz affecting me on every level all the time. It's embarrassing.
"Right." I say, decide that changing the subject is a good idea. "So how are we going to go about this?" I ask, knowing that even when things are tense with Liz, when we have to work together on a problem, it always changes things - we are able to connect easily.
"Well, I was thinking about Leanna." Liz replies. "Or Jennifer Coleman I should say. That's her real name." She adds when I look at her questioningly. "We never did just TALK to her. I brought along a picture of Alex - to see if she recognizes him."
"To see if she was working with Tess or if she was just some random girl that Tess used?"
"Yeah." Liz is quiet for a moment and then asks, "I wonder how Alex learned Swedish anyway? It was all a pretty elaborate ruse Tess had going on there."
"It does seem unlikely that she was working alone." I agree. "Maybe Jennifer can tell us something about that too. If she wasn't working with Tess, then maybe she can at least give us an idea of who might have been."
"Maybe."
We are both quiet again until I pull into the university about half an hour later, each lost in our thoughts about what we might uncover - what we'll do if we don't uncover anything.
As we reach Jennifer Coleman's dorm-room, I flash back to the night I almost committed cold blooded murder in this exact building. I remember Liz's words to me that night. "This isn't you Max. It isn't planned out."
But the scary thing is, it WAS me. Sure I was in Borg mode that night, but I don't think Liz has any idea about the lengths I would go to protect those I love. There was no way I was leaving Earth that night with the thought that the murderer was still out there, threatening Liz and Maria and Kyle and even Valenti.
At least that's what I was thinking when we were in Jennifer Coleman's dorm. Once I knew that she wasn't the killer, I was more than willing to leave Liz and the others with no idea who their enemy was. How she can forgive me for that, I'll never know...I don't even know if she has.
A little ironic though that, in the end, I was taking their enemy with me. So, in a way, leaving with Tess was protecting the others - the humans anyway.
I wonder if any of this would have happened if I had gotten together with Tess when I first knew about our destiny. Would she still have felt compelled to kill Alex, to continue Nasedo's plan? Or could I have gotten through to her in those first important days of contact? Could she have tapped into her human side if I had been what she had expected me to be - her mate, her husband, her king?
Was Tess's betrayal my fault?
"Max?" Liz is looking at me strangely, has her hand up to knock. "Are you okay? You look a little weird."
I blink, shake my head. Now isn't the time to second guess myself. But I can't help it. So many decisions I have made were wrong. So wrong. What if bringing Liz in to help me find my son is wrong too?
What if I'm putting her in more danger?
"Maybe you should wait in the car." I say suddenly. She just stares at me. "She might recognize you from that...that night."
"Who cares?" Liz asks logically. "She never knew what that was about. I was just some random weirdo to her."
She's right of course. But how can I tell her that I beginning to think this is all a bad idea - that I am suddenly scared that we are going about this all wrong, that somehow I am going to hurt her again without even wanting to?
It is too late. Liz has turned away and is knocking on the door. A curly-haired blonde answers a few seconds later. She eyes Liz suspiciously. "Its you. Jennifer says she never told anyone they could borrow her notes so don't even think about coming in here."
Liz glances at me, looks a little embarrassed. "I came to apologize about that." She improvises quickly. She whips a sheet of paper out of her purse quickly. "And to return them." She says triumphantly.
The blonde girl rolls her eyes. "Jenn! One of those girls from the other day is here!" She calls, heading away from the door and into the kitchenette.
And suddenly she is there. She looks exactly like the picture of her that Liz has in her purse - the one with Alex.
I have to admit I didn't get much of a look at her the last time I'd seen her. It would have been too hard to do what I had intended to do if I had looked at her, seen her face. Even in Borg mode.
Don't get me wrong. I would have done it, but it would have been harder. That cold side of me would have taken over though - the alien side - and I would have done it.
Jennifer is looking at Liz like she might recognize her but is unsure. "Yeah?" She asks, clearly not placing her.
"Hi." Liz replies in her friendly way. "I'm Liz. And this is Max. We need to talk to you about someone we think you might have known." Liz is pulling the picture of Leanna and Alex out of her bag and I move forward from where I am leaning against the wall beside the door, a little out of Jennifer's eye-shot. I want to get a good look at her face when she sees herself in that picture.
She doesn't look at the photo right away though. Her eyes shift to me and the colour totally drains from her face.
"It's you." She whispers. "Zan."
And, I kid you not, she faints.
To be continued...
Make me a witness
Take me up out of the darkness
Out of doubt
I won't weigh you down
With good intentions
Won't make fire out of clay
Or other inventions.
Will we burn in heaven,
Like we do down here?
Will a change come while we're waiting
Everyone is waiting.
And when we're done
Soul-searching
And we carry the weight
And die for a cause
Is misery made beautiful
Right before our eyes?
Mercy be revealed
Or blind us where we stand.
Will we burn in heaven
Like we do down here?
Will change come while we're waiting
Everyone is waiting...
Sarah McLachlan
I try my hardest not to stare at Liz and Sean. I have the menu up in front of my face, but I am not reading it. I could recite the thing from memory I have used it so often to hide behind over the years. Isabel is in the middle of telling me about some college she wants to apply to, but I am barely listening to her.
It really sucks how much it hurts to see Liz with Sean, even though she did smile at me when I came in. Since my dream, every time I do, that part where Sean was kissing her and reciting words I once said to Liz comes racing back into my mind. There is something paralyzing about it. Something I don't understand.
And it makes me ill, needless to say. I know I have no right to feel jealous and angry when Liz is with another guy. But right and wrong have nothing to do with it. Its just the way I feel.
Even now that I know the truth about Kyle and Liz, a tiny knot still exists in my stomach that clenches with fury and hurt whenever I think about it. It has haunted me for so long. And while I am not angry with Liz about it anymore, in some way, I am.
It was that one night that turned me into someone I didn't even recognize. I know that Liz had no idea how badly things would go down after what she did, she didn't know Tess was a murderous traitor, but its still there, this irrational fury. It burns deeply, not strong enough to mean anything, but its still there.
It doesn't matter though. The love and respect and admiration I have for her is far more strong and will stay so.
Love and hate. The line between them runs very thin - especially with me and Liz. Loving someone as intensely as I love her means that hating her is so much easier too. The power she has over me is kind of scary.
Do you want to know a really, really bad thing? You're not going to like it, but I have to tell you anyway.
Sometimes being with Tess, even though I never loved her, was just easier. Because I didn't care so much.
I know its sick, but there it is.
"Max!" I lower my menu to look at my sister, who is scowling at me. "Are you even listening to me?"
"Yes." I say, lying of course.
"Well, what do you think?" Isabel gives me THE look - the sister look. The one that says she knows I am lying and wants to make me feel like an even bigger moron before I have to admit it.
"Ummmm..."
She sighs heavily. "Never mind." Her expression is suddenly sympathetic and she turns around in her seat to look at Sean and Liz, who are still in deep conversation. Liz does not look pleased. "She doesn't care about him Max."
"It doesn't matter Iz. Liz and I are just friends." I say, glancing at the menu again.
Maria has come up at this point. She has her order pad in her hand and exchanges a look with Isabel, not even saying hi. She just launches into typical Maria opinionated statement mode right away. "Ha. Right. Friends. Friends don't hold on to each other like the two of you did two days ago. I'm telling you Max. It was romance novel worthy."
Isabel snorts. "I wish that you and Liz would just get over yourselves and get back together. You know you both want to. This is boring." She waves her hand in the air dismissively and turns to Maria to order.
See Iz, that's where you're wrong. Liz doesn' t want to get back together with me. But Isabel has no idea of all the stuff that lies between us. Sure, she knows about me and Tess, but she has no idea about the Kyle stuff. She never knew and she never will. She can't know that it was her death - hers and Michael's - that resulted in my future self coming back to fix things.
Oh, he fixed us good all right.
But Isabel can't know. She will never forgive herself. Our relationship has been rocky over the last year, to say the least. If she knew that she was responsible for hurting me in any way, even so indirectly, she would be devastated. Under normal circumstances this would not be true - she would understand that it wasn't her fault.
But since the whole Vilandra thing....
My sister is fragile, scared at every moment that she is going to betray me. Our huge fight over the whole college thing was part of that I think. She wanted to go so badly and was hurt that I wouldn't let her. But I think, deep down, she was only fighting against the part of her that was scared of hurting me. She wanted to leave because of it.
She thought that by getting away from me, she could protect me.
Isabel blames herself for a lot of stuff. I know she is still dealing with Alex's death and for some reason she also blames herself for Grant Sorenson's untimely demise, although she had nothing to do with it really.
I know my sister and I know how her mind works. Getting away from me after Alex died, she could protect me. And yet, since we learned about my son, all that has changed.
Because, suddenly, since Tess left, all the colleges Isabel talks about attending are in New Mexico.
"What'll it be your highness?" Maria asks when I continue to stare at my menu in a stupor.
"Nothing." I say, noticing that Liz is standing and moving away from Sean. His eyes are following her as she comes towards me. "Liz looks like she's done. We're going for a drive."
Then it happens.
Sean's gaze falls on me and for one split second we are staring right at each other.
And a shiver runs down my spine - one unlike anything I have ever felt before.
I break the eye contact first, clench my fists under the table.
That guy totally hates my guts.
"What?" Isabel is saying in annoyance. "MAX! You always do this to me! You invite me here to eat and then you desert me. I hate eating alone and I am so not walking home."
But Maria is smiling at me, pleased, because she thinks that this means that Liz and I are getting back together, despite what I just said a few minutes ago. "Michael and I'll drive you Isabel. Our shift is over in half an hour," she says, just as Liz arrives.
"I'm just going up to change Max. I'll be down in five minutes." She says, her expression blank. She doesn't meet my eyes. I frown slightly.
"Okay."
Liz is true to her word. We are on the road barely ten minutes later. She has changed into jeans and a red tank top that reminds me of the one she was wearing on the night of our first kiss, making my heart thump just thinking about that event. Her hair is loose and blowing in the breeze as I head out of town towards Las Cruces.
It still astounds me how beautiful she is. I've hung out with Liz long enough now that I sometimes forget because I know she is even more beautiful inside, but seeing her like this reminds me of the days when I didn't know so much about her, before I healed her, when the closest I could get to her was exchanging pleasantries and passing lab equipment to her in Bio and staring at her in the Crashdown.
I can tell that she has something on her mind, so I don't really talk to her. I concentrate on the road, trying to forget that the last time we took this road was the night I had to tell her about Tess. It was also the night I almost killed an innocent girl.
I wonder if that's what Liz is thinking about.
But apparently not, as what she says next makes clear.
"Max, I just want you to know that there is NOTHING going on between me and Sean." Liz blurts out so abruptly, I take my eyes off the road by whipping my head around to stare at her.
"Liz, you have a right to date other people." I say the words automatically, because I know that I am supposed to. They sound ridiculous even to me. I hope she doesn't catch the little note of pleasure that has crept into my voice. I am such a jerk.
Liz sighs. "I know Max. And I will, but not him."
Well so much for that moment of happiness. "Okay." I say. "Why are you telling me this?" I ask a moment later.
"Max, I saw the look on your face when you came in and saw me talking to him." Liz replied, sounding annoyed that she HAD seen that look. "We're friends. I don't want to hurt your feelings. So just know that, while I fully intend to date other people eventually, for the moment I am all yours."
I almost swerve off the highway.
"Er - to investigate." She adds quickly. I can feel the warmth traveling up my neck at having almost killed us both.
You see what I mean about Liz affecting me on every level all the time. It's embarrassing.
"Right." I say, decide that changing the subject is a good idea. "So how are we going to go about this?" I ask, knowing that even when things are tense with Liz, when we have to work together on a problem, it always changes things - we are able to connect easily.
"Well, I was thinking about Leanna." Liz replies. "Or Jennifer Coleman I should say. That's her real name." She adds when I look at her questioningly. "We never did just TALK to her. I brought along a picture of Alex - to see if she recognizes him."
"To see if she was working with Tess or if she was just some random girl that Tess used?"
"Yeah." Liz is quiet for a moment and then asks, "I wonder how Alex learned Swedish anyway? It was all a pretty elaborate ruse Tess had going on there."
"It does seem unlikely that she was working alone." I agree. "Maybe Jennifer can tell us something about that too. If she wasn't working with Tess, then maybe she can at least give us an idea of who might have been."
"Maybe."
We are both quiet again until I pull into the university about half an hour later, each lost in our thoughts about what we might uncover - what we'll do if we don't uncover anything.
As we reach Jennifer Coleman's dorm-room, I flash back to the night I almost committed cold blooded murder in this exact building. I remember Liz's words to me that night. "This isn't you Max. It isn't planned out."
But the scary thing is, it WAS me. Sure I was in Borg mode that night, but I don't think Liz has any idea about the lengths I would go to protect those I love. There was no way I was leaving Earth that night with the thought that the murderer was still out there, threatening Liz and Maria and Kyle and even Valenti.
At least that's what I was thinking when we were in Jennifer Coleman's dorm. Once I knew that she wasn't the killer, I was more than willing to leave Liz and the others with no idea who their enemy was. How she can forgive me for that, I'll never know...I don't even know if she has.
A little ironic though that, in the end, I was taking their enemy with me. So, in a way, leaving with Tess was protecting the others - the humans anyway.
I wonder if any of this would have happened if I had gotten together with Tess when I first knew about our destiny. Would she still have felt compelled to kill Alex, to continue Nasedo's plan? Or could I have gotten through to her in those first important days of contact? Could she have tapped into her human side if I had been what she had expected me to be - her mate, her husband, her king?
Was Tess's betrayal my fault?
"Max?" Liz is looking at me strangely, has her hand up to knock. "Are you okay? You look a little weird."
I blink, shake my head. Now isn't the time to second guess myself. But I can't help it. So many decisions I have made were wrong. So wrong. What if bringing Liz in to help me find my son is wrong too?
What if I'm putting her in more danger?
"Maybe you should wait in the car." I say suddenly. She just stares at me. "She might recognize you from that...that night."
"Who cares?" Liz asks logically. "She never knew what that was about. I was just some random weirdo to her."
She's right of course. But how can I tell her that I beginning to think this is all a bad idea - that I am suddenly scared that we are going about this all wrong, that somehow I am going to hurt her again without even wanting to?
It is too late. Liz has turned away and is knocking on the door. A curly-haired blonde answers a few seconds later. She eyes Liz suspiciously. "Its you. Jennifer says she never told anyone they could borrow her notes so don't even think about coming in here."
Liz glances at me, looks a little embarrassed. "I came to apologize about that." She improvises quickly. She whips a sheet of paper out of her purse quickly. "And to return them." She says triumphantly.
The blonde girl rolls her eyes. "Jenn! One of those girls from the other day is here!" She calls, heading away from the door and into the kitchenette.
And suddenly she is there. She looks exactly like the picture of her that Liz has in her purse - the one with Alex.
I have to admit I didn't get much of a look at her the last time I'd seen her. It would have been too hard to do what I had intended to do if I had looked at her, seen her face. Even in Borg mode.
Don't get me wrong. I would have done it, but it would have been harder. That cold side of me would have taken over though - the alien side - and I would have done it.
Jennifer is looking at Liz like she might recognize her but is unsure. "Yeah?" She asks, clearly not placing her.
"Hi." Liz replies in her friendly way. "I'm Liz. And this is Max. We need to talk to you about someone we think you might have known." Liz is pulling the picture of Leanna and Alex out of her bag and I move forward from where I am leaning against the wall beside the door, a little out of Jennifer's eye-shot. I want to get a good look at her face when she sees herself in that picture.
She doesn't look at the photo right away though. Her eyes shift to me and the colour totally drains from her face.
"It's you." She whispers. "Zan."
And, I kid you not, she faints.
To be continued...
