Part 21 - Max POV - "Elsewhere"

I love the time and in between,
The calm inside me,
In the space where I can breathe,
I believe there is a distance I have wandered,
To touch upon the years,
Reaching out and reaching in.
Holding out, holding in.

I believe this is heaven
To no one else but me,
And I'll defend it
Long as I can be left here
To linger in silence.
If I choose to
Would you try to understand?

I know this love is passing time,
Passing through like liquid.
I am drunk in my desire.
But I love the way you smile at me,
I love the your hands reach out
And hold me near.
I believe...

I believe this is heaven
To no one else but me,
And I'll defend it
Long as I can be left here
To linger in silence.
If I choose to
Would you try to understand?

Oh the quiet child
Awaits the day
When she can break free
The mold that clings like desperation.
Mother can't you see
I've got to live my life
The way I feel is right for me.
Might not be right for you
But it's right for me.

I believe this is heaven
To no one else but me
And I'll defend it as long
As I can be left here to linger in silence.
If I choose to
Would you try to understand?

I would like to linger here in silence.
If I choose to
Would you understand?

Sarah McLachlan

"Max, this isn't working." Maria says after we've driven in circles around town for close to two hours. She has called her mother on her cell a couple of times to see if Sean has come back, but it is clear that Mrs. Deluca has no idea [I]what[/I] she's talking about. She doesn't remember Sean at all and keeps demanding that Maria come home, until Maria finally hangs up on her, grimacing.

I know Maria's right - it isn't working - but I don't know what else to do. "I know he's around here somewhere Maria. I just know it. We need to find him - and soon."

The fact that Maria's mom doesn't remember Sean anymore...It is totally freaking me out. It is becoming ever more clear that he has let go of his cover entirely, is now out in the open. He obviously has no intention of ever going back to the Delucas. Which means that his mission is nearing its end.

And while I still don't feel like Liz is in any particular danger right now, I don't know how soon that is going to change. Because until I figure out who he is, how he is connected to Tess and why they both want Liz, we're never going to be able to defeat him.

I know he is not Khivar. I know it in my bones. The way he touched me earlier...I could feel his hatred, but there had been something else there too. I was only now remembering it as I tried to figure out how I know that he is [I]not[/I] my enemy, even though he [I]thinks[/I] he is.

He touched me as though he [I]wanted[/I] to kill me, but also like it was the one thing on Earth he most wanted to do... That he couldn't quite believe that he was allowed to.

It was very, very weird. Because the fact that his gift seemed to run in the vein of the mind-warp, and the fact that he definitely was working with Tess, were making it that I was close to coming to a conclusion about who he was that was almost too disturbing to even contemplate.

It cannot be.

But, in my heart, I know that it is.

Because don't I know better than anyone, thanks to the visit from that idiotic future version of myself, that it [I]is[/I] possible?

I still push the thought aside though. Because if it is true, it means that we are totally screwed - because there is no way I am going to be able to kill him. He'll be completely in control and I will have no choice but to just watch whatever it is he wants to do.

Because if he is who I think he is...

I reach into the inside pocket of my jacket, pull out the granolith and narrow my eyes at it. How could one little piece of crystal cause so much trouble?

I wonder if I destroy it right now, if everything will somehow fix itself - go back to the way it's supposed to be. Because all it has done is cause problems - first on Antar and now here on Earth.

Getting rid of it would probably be a blessing.

"So Max, do you really think he's Khivar?" Maria is asking. She sounds afraid again.

I turn my head and look at her, swallowing hard. "Maria, take this." I order, putting the granolith in her lap before she can even answer me.

"Why? What's wrong?" She is staring down at in fearfully, like she expects it to explode or something.

"I think that's how he got here." I tell her. "With that. Which makes me really want to break it. And I [I]know[/I] that is not the right thing to do. So just hold onto it please."

"Okay." She replies, still sounding confused. But I watch in satisfaction as she opens her purse and tucks it away.

We continue to drive in silence, both lost in our own thoughts, when a piercing ringing practically makes us both jump out of our skins.

Maria is twisting around, looking for the source of the noise. It is, of course, a cell phone. And it's not hers.

She finds it under the seat. I frown. We are in my parents' car and they don't [I]have[/I] a cell, my father being something of a Luddite.

"It's Liz's." Maria says, holding it up in confusion.

I frown. "She must have dropped it earlier," I guess. When she jumped out of the car like the bats of hell were after her after seeing those flashes of me with Tess. The guilt, which I have managed to suppress during the past few hours during the search for Liz, comes rushing back.

The phone is still ringing. "Answer it!" I tell Maria impatiently. The noise is beginning to seriously grate on my nerves.

"What if it's her parents?" Maria asks reasonably. "What am I supposed to say?"

"I don't know. But we're going to have to tell them something eventually anyway. If we don't find her." I add when Maria looks like she is about to flip out. "Which we will."

Maria grimaces, but hits the talk key on the phone. "Hello?" She asks tentatively. There is a pause. "No, this is her friend. Liz left her phone with me. Who's this? Why are you talking so quietly?" She asks, beginning to sound suspicious. "Max? Yeah, he's here. Just a sec." She holds the phone out. "It's a girl. She says she needs to talk to either you or Liz."

I frown again. "Why is someone calling [I]me[/I] on Liz's cell?"

"Max, do I look like I know?" Maria demands impatiently. We are seriously beginning to get on each other's nerves, our worry for Liz taking its toll. "Just talk to her."

I sigh, take the phone. "Hello?" I keep my eyes pasted to the road.

"Is this Max?" She's whispering. I can barely hear her.

"Yeah. Who is this?" I demand, beginning to get a little paranoid now.

"It's Jennifer Coleman." She is still talking in a low voice, like she's scared someone is going to overhear her.

I start in surprise. "Hi." I reply. "What's up?" This cannot be good. Not good at all. I had been sure after Liz and I had left the girl we had all known as Leanna hours before that, in her mind, if she never saw either us again, it would be too soon.

"I...I didn't know whether I should call you or not." She tells me, sounding scared still. "It took me this long to work up the courage." She adds. "I was thinking I should stay out of this...but then I looked at that picture of me and Ray together and...I just had to do it. I owe him. Because I let those people find him."

By now my heart is in my throat. I can feel that I am not concentrating on the road, should not be driving. "Hold on one second Jennifer." I try to keep my voice smooth, soothing. "I'm driving. I just want to pull over so that I can give you my complete attention."

I pull the car to the side of the road. We are on some residential side street now, having continued to cruise the streets of Roswell aimlessly, although why I am not sure. I [I]know[/I] by now that Liz is nowhere near here.

"What's going on?" I ask after I have set the car carefully in park. The last think I need right now is to crash another car, when I was still supposedly grounded for destroying the Jeep. I can feel Maria's anxious eyes on me, as it has apparently dawned on her who I am talking to.

"That picture that you showed me this afternoon." Jennifer tells me, her breath short. "I didn't look at it too closely. You know the one with you two in it... and Ray and the girl you wanted me to identify."

The prom picture. "Yeah. I know the one you mean." I try not to sound impatient. "What about it?"

"Liz dropped it on her way out. I just found it."

"Oh. Okay." I sigh. "It's okay. I think there are other copies..."

"No. That's not what I mean. I really [I]looked[/I] at it again." [I]She[/I] is beginning to sound impatient now, like she thinks I am incredibly dense. "At the other people in it I mean." There is a pause. "I recognized someone else. Someone I once saw with Ray...er, Alex, I mean." She amends, clearly now trying to think of our friend by his real name. Because he, at least, deserves that.

I know exactly who's in the picture of course, although I don't remember exactly who is standing where. There were only two other guys in it besides me and Alex. Michael and Kyle. It [I]had[/I] to have been one of them. "What does he look like?" I ask, although I can already guess what she's going to tell me.

"He's standing behind the blonde girl. The one who came here. He has brownish hair. He's [I]not[/I] the guy in the apron."

Kyle then. I was right. So apparently Kyle had been mind-warped for a lot longer than any of us had ever imagined. Because I am pretty damn sure Kyle doesn't remember visiting Las Cruces, or seeing Alex there.

This is getting more and more complicated by the minute.

"Max? Max, are you still there?"

"Yeah. Listen I have to go Jennifer. Thanks for calling."

"Am...Max, do I need to be worried about anything?" She asks, sounding scared again.

"Not if I have anything to say about it. Thank you. You've been a [I]really[/I] big help." I tell her, meaning it. "I'll be in touch."

"Well?" Maria is waving her hands in the air impatiently as I hang up. I hand her the phone.

"Call the Sheriff." I instruct her. "Tell him to meet us back at his house."

"Why? Max, what's going on?"

"Kyle's life is in danger Maria." I tell her as I pull the car back onto the road. "Just call. Please. I'll tell you in a minute. Call Izzy and Michael too."

I glance at her. She looks freaked again. "Okay." She agrees without further argument.

As soon as she has taken care of contacting the others, she pounces on me again. "Tell me. Now."

And so I do. She sits there, taking it in, a perplexed expression on her face. "So she used both Alex [I]and[/I] Kyle as her minions?" She demands when I am done, sounding outraged. "Okay, I am getting seriously upset that that girl is on another planet Max. She deserves to pay for what she's done."

And she does. More with every passing day. She deserved to pay for what she had done to Alex and I had had to let her go and now it appeared that it wasn't just Alex that she had screwed with.

The thought of anything happening to Kyle, after all that the Sheriff has done for us, it literally makes me sick to my stomach. Especially because I am the one who asked the Sheriff to look after her. All the Valentis had ever done was let her into their home and their hearts and she had completely betrayed them.

We pull up outside Valenti's house. It is still dark. I glance at my watch. It is close to three in the morning. We're going to be out all night again. My parents are going to kill me.

But I can't worry about that right now. I have the feeling that Kyle is going to be able to provide us with some invaluable information - if he would just [I]get[/I] here.

I begin to tap my fingers against the steering wheel impatiently. My chin is propped on my fist on the window-sill. As I stare out the window my thoughts return to Liz.

God, I hope she's okay. I reach out with my thoughts, still cannot connect with her at all. It's like she is completely gone from this world. I close my eyes, trying to shut out the thought of what a world without Liz would be like.

I cannot handle thinking about it right now. I need to focus, need to concentrate on gathering my energy because I am aware that there is only one way to make sure that Tess had not turned Kyle's brain to mush like she did Alex's.

I have to go in there and heal him. And it is going to take all of my concentration and strength. Because this is one healing I cannot afford to screw up.

"Max, what are you doing?" Maria suddenly whispers from beside me. I open my eyes, glance at her. She is staring at my hand on the steering wheel like there is something wrong with it.

I realize that my fingers are still tapping.

I consciously try and stop them, know that I am freaking her out. Hell, I'm beginning to freak [I]myself[/I] out.

Because I cannot make my fingers stop.