[b] Part 8 - Max POV - Strange World[/b]

[i] We walk without a sound

Across a barren landscape.

Your eyes are twisted down

To a dew entrailed ground.

We watch the stars as they slowly fade away

And in the clearing sky

I see the cold stone face of morning setting in on me.

It's a strange world.

It's a very strange world

That leaves me holding on to nothing

When there's nothing left to lose.

Your touch is cold and damp,

The devil's in your eyes.

I wonder why I always let you lead me on this way.

Cause you see only what you want to see.

You feel only what you want to

And I am on the outside of your strange world.

It's a strange world.

It's a very strange world

That leaves me holding on to nothing

When there's nothing left to lose.

We're walking hand in hand,

We'll walk this way forever

Our eyes have risen to the water's edge

Watching with the tides.

The stars have fallen to another day

And the sun warms out path

To find the reasons leave us far behind in our strange world.

It's a strange world.

It's a very strange world that leaves me holding onto nothing

When there's nothing left to lose.

Sarah McLachlan[/i]

I feel Liz's panic before I actually hear her scream.

I am sorting my way through a filing cabinet in the den off the back of the kitchen, mildly annoyed and getting impatient with the complete lack of anything that even resembles a clue, when the wave of fear and horror washes over me.

"Liz!"

I almost knock Michael over, pushing past him. He is on his way to the staircase too because Liz's scream has echoed through the entire house. "Keep Maria down here." I order him. For once, he listens to me, but I can already hear Maria arguing with him to let her past.

I take the stairs two at a time. "Liz! Liz? Where are you?"

There is no answer. Only dead silence.

I am frantically searching every room on the second floor. There is no sign of Liz anywhere. It is like she has disappeared off the face of the planet.

"Maxwell! What's going on up there?" Michael bellows from the first floor.

"Michael! She's gone! Liz is gone!" I can hear the panic in my own voice.

"Michael, let go of me!" Maria is shrieking at him and I can hear her moving up the stairs now. "Max! Max, where is she?"

I am standing in one of the bedrooms, staring around, stupidly hoping that Liz is going to suddenly materialize in front of my eyes, but it is no good.

She is completely gone.

I collapse onto the bed, stare at Maria as she bursts into the room, Michael on her heels. "Max?'

"She's gone."

"Gone? Where?" Maria is at the window, staring out. It is closed of course. She didn't go out that way. "Where is she Max? She couldn't have just disappeared?" Her voice is beginning to rise hysterically. Michael grabs her, pulls her against him, in a totally ludicrous effort to comfort her.

"We need to find her." He says, stating the obvious.

"Starting where?" I ask dumbly, willing him to take control, to find her.

The three of us just stare at each other in silence.

Because there is nowhere to start.

She is gone and there is no way to explain it.

And it is in that instant that I see Michael's fingers beginning to tap against Maria's back. I stare at those tapping fingers, my heart suddenly in my throat.

I let my face fall into my hands. "Oh my God. No."

"Maxwell! What's wrong?"

"Tess." I manage to say it. My hands are clenched at my sides, although my entire body is screaming for me to smash something - anything. My rage is that great. "Tess has Liz."

**********************************************

[b] Liz POV - Lost[/b]

[i] By the shadows of the night I go.

I move away from the crowded room,

That sea of shallow faces

Masked in warm regret.

They don't know how to feel,

They don't know what is lost.

Lost in the darkness of a land

Where all the hope that's offered

Is memories of being taken by the hand

And we are led into the sun.

But I don't have a hold on what is real

Though we can only try.

What is there to give or to believe?

I want it all to go away,

I want to be alone.

Sympathy's wasted on my hollow shell.

I feel there's nothing left to fight for

No reason for a cause.

And I can't hear your voice,

And I can't feel you near.

Lost in the darkness of a land

Where all the hope that's offered

Is memories of being taken by the hand

And we are led into the sun

But I don't have a hold on what is real

And we can only try.

What is there to give or to believe?

I wanted a change,

Knowing all I could do was try

I was looking for someone.

Sarah McLachlan[/i]

I see Max come storming into the room, see Michael and Maria in a blur as we pass them on the staircase, see it all but cannot make them see me. And believe me, I'm trying. My heart is thundering in complete terror. I have never been this scared in my entire life - not even when Max was in the White Room, not when we faced down the Skins, not when I realized that there was a murdering alien on the loose after Alex was killed.

Because I now know who that murderous alien was and here she is, back again and she is mindwarping them all and she is kidnapping me from right under their noses.

And she hates me. She didn't hate Alex and she killed him mercilessly anyway.

You also have to understand that I am not only afraid for myself. I am afraid that she might drop the mindwarp, that Max and Maria and Michael might become her targets too.

This is one reason for why I am not fighting her. Because I bet you're thinking that I could take her. This IS Tess after all. We are pretty much the same size and with the force of my hatred and outrage I could probably fight her pretty easily.

But, you have to understand, that this IS Tess, but its not too.

Just like Future Max WAS Max but not Max at the same time.

Because it has not taken me long to figure out that this is not the same Tess Max sent off in what we thought was the granolith only three days ago.

This is another Tess. A stronger Tess - and I don't just mean physically.

Because, somehow, she is mindwarping me into doing what she wants me to do. I wasn't imagining things when I felt myself being pulled towards that room. She wanted me there - and now she's making me leave.

I can't even turn my head to look at her. I am just walking quietly beside her, although every ounce of my being is screaming in fear and anger and frustration.

But I don't need to look at her to know that this is not the same Tess. This is another Tess. An older Tess. Her hair is long, half-way down her back, but it is streaked with grey beneath the bright blonde that still gleams under the street lamps. Her face is lined, no longer young, is twisted with bitterness and from years of shattered dreams.

And from hate. Let's not forget hate.

She's wearing leather, in a style not dissimilar to what Future Max was wearing when he came for his destructive visit a few months ago. I inanely wonder why leather has become the fashion of choice in the future.

Because this is Future Tess and she is one pissed off alien queen and so reflections on leather seem a little inappropriate at this time.

"Get in." She snarls, pushing me hard from behind, so that I sprawl on the back seat of the Jetta. She climbs into the front, sweeps her hand across the ignition and the engine roars to life.

I am still frozen. I desperately want to scream, want to struggle, but I am incapable of moving.

I see her cold blue eyes in the rear-view mirror. "Stop fighting it. You're only going to tire yourself out. I need you strong and healthy for what I have planned for you." Her eyes are gleaming with disdain and annoyance.

The tone of her voice sends a sharp stab of petrifying fear down my spine. We are headed out of town, are soon on the highway.

She is muttering to herself. "…knew I should have taken care of this myself from the beginning….don't understand why every guy in the universe falls in love with her but I'll put a stop to this nonsense once and for all…running out of time."

She is distracting herself with her own rage. I feel the mind-warp or mind control or whatever it is she is doing to me begin to slip.

I manage to croak her name. "Tess!"

Her eyes snap back to the mirror. "Shut up! I don't want to hear your simpering voice! If I could do this without you, I would!" She turns the wheel sharply, sends the car careening off the highway and into the desert. It is dark, but I recognize the route well, having only driven it a couple of days before.

The pod chamber.

She stops the car so abruptly, I go tumbling of the seat and onto the floor. She has hauled me out of the car by my hair before I can even begin to process what has happened.

My entire being is screaming out for Max, hoping against hope, that by some tiny miracle, he will hear me. He heard me once after all - that time in New York. But that time Isabel was helping me. I have no idea if I am capable of connecting with him on my own.

Future Tess is staring down at me, her face contorted with hatred. "God, you're just as insipid as I remember." She grabs at my hair again. "I can't believe he's mourned [i]you[/i] all these years."

I can't speak again. I am pleading with her with my eyes to release me, to at least let me talk. She notices. "What? You have something to say Miss Smarty?" She sneers, but waves her hand in the air. I feel my vocal cords come back under my own control.

"What…why are you here?"

She pauses, her entire face changing. Suddenly she does not look at all threatening, just annoyed. "You don't seem surprised to see me Lizzie dearest. I never knew for sure, but now I do. You've had visitors from the future before. Max won't talk about it."

I am a little confused by what she is saying, but I can see no reason to lie to her. "Yes. Max came. He told me to try and get the two of you together."

Tess rolls her eyes. "Well I'm guessing from the way MY life turned out that it was a big success. Let me guess - was this right around the time you all went to Copper Summit?" When I nod, she snorts. "Somehow you haven't fixed that whole mess yet! God, you screwed us really well Parker."

I feel a stab of anger, which momentarily overshadows my terror. "You're the one who ended up pregnant with his child and back on Antar, where you wanted to be all along." I retorted. "Thanks to me."

Tess eyes me for a long moment, a bewildered expression gradually taking over her face. "So you really don't know - yet anyway."

"Know what?"

She no longer looks at all angry. In fact, she looks suddenly hopeful. "He didn't tell you."

"Who tell me what?" I am beginning to think that she is completely loony. She is jumping from one topic to another, none of it making any logical sense.

"Max of course. About Serena."

I start at the familiar name. "He mentioned her. He told me that she was my friend. She's the one who fixed the granolith so he could come back in time through it."

Tess narrows her eyes. I can see the wheels spinning inside her head as she tries to put the pieces of some puzzle I can't even see together. "When did he come back from?"

I don't know what else to do besides answer her. "Fourteen years in the future."

"Fourteen years. She was only thirteen years old then. That was the year Khivar killed Isabel and Michael…." She trails off. "Oh my God. He started the whole thing in motion. It wasn't supposed to be this way."

I am openly gaping at her now. "Tess, what the hell are you talking about?"

Tess tilts her head, smiles again. She flicks her wrist again and I feel the control she has been exerting over my body disappear completely. It is so sudden, I stumble, falling to the ground, hard.

"I'm talking about your daughter Liz. Your daughter - Serena. The one who has not been conceived yet, but is supposed to be, right around this time. Fool. He tried to save Isabel and Michael and only made everything worse." She sounds sad and proud and disgusted all at the same time. I don't understand how I notice this, because I am sure that I am gaping at her like some sort of fish out of water. She pauses and proceeds to shock me even further. "Oh, and just so that you stop calling me by that traitor's name….I'm not Tess, I'm Ava, and we have a lot of work to do."