Part 3 - Liz POV - 1 hour earlier
I am sitting on my balcony, staring up at the stars.
The pendant Max gave me is clutched in my hand. I have a feeling that I won't be taking it off for a long time. It feels hot against my palm and I momentarily allow myself to imagine that it is Max's warmth, that I am touching him.
It doesn't work of course. It's only a piece of metal. But at least it was in his hands only hours before. It is the only thing I have left. The pendant, some photographs, my journal.and my memory.
Nothing will make me forget Max Evans. Ever. Which is a scary thing. Because I know it means that I am going to be lonely for the rest of my life.
I am never going to get over him.
I am pretty sure that there will be other Shawn Deluca's in my life - well, maybe not Shawn's. He was sort of a weird phase I was going through I think. I mean, if I was looking for Max Evans's polar opposite, I found it in Shawn.
But that's done. Even just the thought of anyone else just seems unbelievably tiring.
A tiny part of me actually wishes that Max and I had not made up before he left. This wouldn't be so hard if we were still at odds. I could pretend to hate him and pretend to get on with my life.
The pendant I am clutching in my hands means that that is never going to happen now. It represents the love we share, all that we've been through together. It represents the fact that we both know exactly what it is that we are losing.
True love.
Maria fell asleep on my bed a couple of hours ago. She and Michael had locked themselves in the Crashdown's bathroom for a good half an hour before he had left to go meet Max, Isabel and Tess. She looked like she had been through hell and back when she came out. I had just opened my arms to her and she had started to cry.
I haven't cried. I am numb, sort of like after Alex died. There are not tears enough to make me feel better anyway.
Kyle's been gone for a while. He wanted to stay, to make sure we were okay, but I told him that he needed to go be with his dad. The Sheriff has really grown to love Tess over the past few months. I know that he considers her leaving like losing his daughter.
I wonder if any of us are ever going to get over losing them?
It is so quiet now. I continue to stare up at the V constellation shining above. I wonder if they are gone.if they are even now arriving on their planet, stepping into danger.
I wonder if Tess's baby will be a boy or a girl, whether it will look like Max. I bite my lip, feel bile rising in my throat. I swallow convulsively, forcing myself to take deep breaths, to think of something - anything - else.
And that's when I remember something weird that Kyle said to me right before he left.
He was pulling a piece of paper out of his back pocket as he walked out.
"What's that?" I had asked curiously.
Kyle had looked embarrassed. "Er - its actually a shopping list. I promised my dad that I would stop and pick up a few things on the way home."
I had stared at him blankly, had suddenly felt an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh.
So we were going back to our regular lives that easily. One minute bidding good-bye to our best friends, saying good-bye to my soul mate - the next minute going grocery shopping.
"Yeah, Tess was getting some weird cravings."Kyle had continued. "We're completely out of ice-cream.and that is just totally unacceptable in the Valenti household. I mean, I have never seen anything as disgusting as the concoctions she's been whipping up over the past couple of days. I thought Tabasco was bad enough. But she's been dumping salt on EVERYTHING." Kyle stopped talking abruptly. "But I guess you don't want to hear about that." He grimaced, looked awkward. "I'm sorry Liz."
I had smiled sadly at him, shrugging. "It's okay Kyle." He had pulled me in for a brief hug before he left. I had felt him shaking with emotion. He was much more upset than he was letting on.
Something about that conversation had struck me as weird at the time, but I had not been able to put my finger on it. I had been too sad, too weary, too frustrated.
But now it hit me like a bolt of lightening.
Salt.
Tess was craving salt.
And I'm suddenly thrust back in time to a Saturday morning in the Crashdown about a year ago.
Isabel had come in for breakfast. Tess had been with her. It was before we knew who Tess was but right after Topolsky had disappeared.
I had been pleased to see Isabel. After the Topolsky fiasco we had all agreed that we would hang out at the Crashdown as much as possible, until we were sure that things had settled down again. No one wanted to have to worry about anyone else needlessly and since Michael, Maria and I were always there anyway and Max was usually right across the street at the Museum, the Crashdown had seemed logical. And so Isabel coming in had been one less thing to worry about on that sunny morning.
I had not been happy to see Tess though. Even then I had seen the looks she had been giving Max and they had made me uncomfortable. I had not been worried about him straying yet, but she had been clearly interested. It was annoying.
I laugh bitterly to myself as I remember, reflect on how innocent I was in those days. I wonder how I would have reacted then had I know that just under a year later Tess would be having MY boyfriend's baby.
But I'm letting myself get distracted again, I'm not thinking about the right thing. Isabel..something Isabel did that day that Maria and I had discussed at length later.
She had ordered waffles and instead of requesting her usual Tabasco as well, she had proceeded to dump a full shaker of salt on top of them. The reason we noticed at all was because she had come into the kitchen looking for more.
"What the heck's up with the salt? Are you trying to pickle yourself?" Maria had demanded, glancing at me like she thought Isabel was loony-tunes.
Isabel had just shrugged. "It's that time of the month." She had informed us. "Don't you guys get weird cravings?"
Maria had nodded emphatically, grinning. "Chocolate.lots of it."
"Ice cream." I added.
We had all giggled conspiratorially in silly girly fashion when Michael had come barging in. "Will you stop yakking and get those damn UFOmelettes out to the masses?" He had glared even more when we had all just kept giggling. "What the hell's so funny?"
"You wouldn't understand spaceboy. Alex tried once and he never recovered." Maria had replied, breezing past him and back out into the main restaurant. Isabel had returned to her breakfast and an extremely pissed off Michael and I had gone back to work.
But Maria and I had discussed it again later that night, wondered how else Isabel was different from us and how that meant Max and Michael were different, and what that meant for - ahem - other things.
This had of course brought up the topic of glowing hickeys again, which had proceeded to freak Maria out once more. She hadn't let Michael touch her for three days.
I had not been quite as circumspect with Max I remembered now with a smile.
Truthfully, until this instant, I had forgotten about that incident. But now it was back.
And I knew why too.
Tess was NOT pregnant. I knew it for a fact. If she was craving salt, that meant that she was NOT pregnant.
She was lying.
Which also meant that there was absolutely no reason for our friends to go anywhere.
"Maria!!!" I jumped up, practically threw myself through my window onto the bed. My best friend sat up with a jolt, rubbing her eyes.
"What the heck.Liz! What's wrong?" Her blue eyes were foggy, her cheeks still streaked with tears.
"Tess isn't pregnant!" I practically shrieked. "She's lying! We need to get out to the pod chamber NOW!" I was back on my feet, dragging Maria behind me.
****************************************************
"Maria! We're not going to make it! You have to hurry!" I was practically jumping up and down in the passenger seat. I felt like I was about to fly to pieces. We had to get there in time! We just had to!
"I'm going as fast as I can! Why does everyone seem to think I can win the Indy in this damn thing!" Maria shrieked back. We were both practically hysterical with tension. "Can't you try and do your connection thingy with Max? Tell him to stay where he is?"
I stopped moving abruptly. I hadn't even thought of that. "I don't even know if it would work." I replied, feeling a lump rising in my throat at the memory of just how completely Max Evans had changed me, how if I couldn't stop him I was never going to feel the way I felt with him again. "Isabel helped me the last time."
"Try Liz!" Maria insisted. "I just don't think we're going to make it in time otherwise."
I bit my lip, nodded, felt a shiver run down my spine. I had to get to Max in time - had to give him the chance to make this decision about going home with all the facts. I still didn't understand why Tess had lied about the whole thing, but I knew that she had.
It made me wonder what else she had been lying about.
I clutched at the pendant of the whirlwind galaxy which still hung around my neck. I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths.
I tried to remember exactly what Isabel and I had done the last time. I suddenly remembered distinctly just calling out to Max with every fibre of my being.
Since every fibre of my being was already calling out to him, I had to be doing something wrong. I was too overwrought. I needed to calm down.
I began to rub the pendant, forcing myself to make my breathing as even as possible.
I could feel the necklace beginning to heat up against my palm again.
And it was suddenly as though something shifted.I was falling.and the flashes began.
Flash*
Max, Tess, Isabel and Michael standing in a perfect square in a strange cone-shaped room..
Flash*
A close-up of Tess's face.the pupils of her icy blue eyes were dilated and staring directly at Max.
Flash*
Max and Tess intertwined in each other's arms, naked, writhing.
I pressed my eyes together tightly, fought against letting them snap open in horror.
Something strange was happening. I could feel another presence in my mind, someone trying to force me to keep watching that image play over and over in my head. I felt myself beginning to get nauseous. All I wanted to do was to stop the flashes, stop seeing them together.
But I knew that's what THEY wanted me to do. I would not allow it.
Flash*
Max holding a baby, Tess standing beside him, her hand on his arm.
Flash*
Max's face, a slightly dazed expression apparent, standing across from Tess, watching Michael place a crystal into what had to be the granolith.
Flash*
Tess touching Max's face, reaching up to kiss him.
Flash*
Michael stepping back to take Isabel's hand.they looked at each other, across at Max.and suddenly Isabel was screaming.
Flash*
A gigantic explosion.
It was so immense, the explosion, that it threw me completely out of wherever I had been.
I gasped for air, clutched at the pendant which was suddenly scalding hot against my hand.
"Liz!" Maria was glancing over at me out of the corner of her eye. "What did you see? What happened?"
"Maria, something's wrong! We NEED to get there now! This isn't just a matter of them leaving anymore."
"What do you mean?" Maria demanded, sounding terrified. I realized that it couldn't have been too pleasant watching me do whatever the heck it was I had been doing. I had probably completely zoned out there for a minute.
"Maria, I don't want you to panic here."
She cut me off. "Too late. Liz, just TELL me."
"If we don't get there and stop them from activating the granolith, they're all going to die." I told her, forced myself to stare straight ahead out the windshield into the dark.
I heard Maria's gasp in a small part of my mind, but I was already retreating again, rubbing the pendant, determined to reach Max.
I was going to stop him. I would not let HER win.
Because I now knew who was responsible for this entire debacle - and not accidentally, not by some twist of destiny either.
This had all been planned and deliberate.
She had deceived us all.
I was going to stop Tess Harding if it was the last thing I ever did.
I am sitting on my balcony, staring up at the stars.
The pendant Max gave me is clutched in my hand. I have a feeling that I won't be taking it off for a long time. It feels hot against my palm and I momentarily allow myself to imagine that it is Max's warmth, that I am touching him.
It doesn't work of course. It's only a piece of metal. But at least it was in his hands only hours before. It is the only thing I have left. The pendant, some photographs, my journal.and my memory.
Nothing will make me forget Max Evans. Ever. Which is a scary thing. Because I know it means that I am going to be lonely for the rest of my life.
I am never going to get over him.
I am pretty sure that there will be other Shawn Deluca's in my life - well, maybe not Shawn's. He was sort of a weird phase I was going through I think. I mean, if I was looking for Max Evans's polar opposite, I found it in Shawn.
But that's done. Even just the thought of anyone else just seems unbelievably tiring.
A tiny part of me actually wishes that Max and I had not made up before he left. This wouldn't be so hard if we were still at odds. I could pretend to hate him and pretend to get on with my life.
The pendant I am clutching in my hands means that that is never going to happen now. It represents the love we share, all that we've been through together. It represents the fact that we both know exactly what it is that we are losing.
True love.
Maria fell asleep on my bed a couple of hours ago. She and Michael had locked themselves in the Crashdown's bathroom for a good half an hour before he had left to go meet Max, Isabel and Tess. She looked like she had been through hell and back when she came out. I had just opened my arms to her and she had started to cry.
I haven't cried. I am numb, sort of like after Alex died. There are not tears enough to make me feel better anyway.
Kyle's been gone for a while. He wanted to stay, to make sure we were okay, but I told him that he needed to go be with his dad. The Sheriff has really grown to love Tess over the past few months. I know that he considers her leaving like losing his daughter.
I wonder if any of us are ever going to get over losing them?
It is so quiet now. I continue to stare up at the V constellation shining above. I wonder if they are gone.if they are even now arriving on their planet, stepping into danger.
I wonder if Tess's baby will be a boy or a girl, whether it will look like Max. I bite my lip, feel bile rising in my throat. I swallow convulsively, forcing myself to take deep breaths, to think of something - anything - else.
And that's when I remember something weird that Kyle said to me right before he left.
He was pulling a piece of paper out of his back pocket as he walked out.
"What's that?" I had asked curiously.
Kyle had looked embarrassed. "Er - its actually a shopping list. I promised my dad that I would stop and pick up a few things on the way home."
I had stared at him blankly, had suddenly felt an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh.
So we were going back to our regular lives that easily. One minute bidding good-bye to our best friends, saying good-bye to my soul mate - the next minute going grocery shopping.
"Yeah, Tess was getting some weird cravings."Kyle had continued. "We're completely out of ice-cream.and that is just totally unacceptable in the Valenti household. I mean, I have never seen anything as disgusting as the concoctions she's been whipping up over the past couple of days. I thought Tabasco was bad enough. But she's been dumping salt on EVERYTHING." Kyle stopped talking abruptly. "But I guess you don't want to hear about that." He grimaced, looked awkward. "I'm sorry Liz."
I had smiled sadly at him, shrugging. "It's okay Kyle." He had pulled me in for a brief hug before he left. I had felt him shaking with emotion. He was much more upset than he was letting on.
Something about that conversation had struck me as weird at the time, but I had not been able to put my finger on it. I had been too sad, too weary, too frustrated.
But now it hit me like a bolt of lightening.
Salt.
Tess was craving salt.
And I'm suddenly thrust back in time to a Saturday morning in the Crashdown about a year ago.
Isabel had come in for breakfast. Tess had been with her. It was before we knew who Tess was but right after Topolsky had disappeared.
I had been pleased to see Isabel. After the Topolsky fiasco we had all agreed that we would hang out at the Crashdown as much as possible, until we were sure that things had settled down again. No one wanted to have to worry about anyone else needlessly and since Michael, Maria and I were always there anyway and Max was usually right across the street at the Museum, the Crashdown had seemed logical. And so Isabel coming in had been one less thing to worry about on that sunny morning.
I had not been happy to see Tess though. Even then I had seen the looks she had been giving Max and they had made me uncomfortable. I had not been worried about him straying yet, but she had been clearly interested. It was annoying.
I laugh bitterly to myself as I remember, reflect on how innocent I was in those days. I wonder how I would have reacted then had I know that just under a year later Tess would be having MY boyfriend's baby.
But I'm letting myself get distracted again, I'm not thinking about the right thing. Isabel..something Isabel did that day that Maria and I had discussed at length later.
She had ordered waffles and instead of requesting her usual Tabasco as well, she had proceeded to dump a full shaker of salt on top of them. The reason we noticed at all was because she had come into the kitchen looking for more.
"What the heck's up with the salt? Are you trying to pickle yourself?" Maria had demanded, glancing at me like she thought Isabel was loony-tunes.
Isabel had just shrugged. "It's that time of the month." She had informed us. "Don't you guys get weird cravings?"
Maria had nodded emphatically, grinning. "Chocolate.lots of it."
"Ice cream." I added.
We had all giggled conspiratorially in silly girly fashion when Michael had come barging in. "Will you stop yakking and get those damn UFOmelettes out to the masses?" He had glared even more when we had all just kept giggling. "What the hell's so funny?"
"You wouldn't understand spaceboy. Alex tried once and he never recovered." Maria had replied, breezing past him and back out into the main restaurant. Isabel had returned to her breakfast and an extremely pissed off Michael and I had gone back to work.
But Maria and I had discussed it again later that night, wondered how else Isabel was different from us and how that meant Max and Michael were different, and what that meant for - ahem - other things.
This had of course brought up the topic of glowing hickeys again, which had proceeded to freak Maria out once more. She hadn't let Michael touch her for three days.
I had not been quite as circumspect with Max I remembered now with a smile.
Truthfully, until this instant, I had forgotten about that incident. But now it was back.
And I knew why too.
Tess was NOT pregnant. I knew it for a fact. If she was craving salt, that meant that she was NOT pregnant.
She was lying.
Which also meant that there was absolutely no reason for our friends to go anywhere.
"Maria!!!" I jumped up, practically threw myself through my window onto the bed. My best friend sat up with a jolt, rubbing her eyes.
"What the heck.Liz! What's wrong?" Her blue eyes were foggy, her cheeks still streaked with tears.
"Tess isn't pregnant!" I practically shrieked. "She's lying! We need to get out to the pod chamber NOW!" I was back on my feet, dragging Maria behind me.
****************************************************
"Maria! We're not going to make it! You have to hurry!" I was practically jumping up and down in the passenger seat. I felt like I was about to fly to pieces. We had to get there in time! We just had to!
"I'm going as fast as I can! Why does everyone seem to think I can win the Indy in this damn thing!" Maria shrieked back. We were both practically hysterical with tension. "Can't you try and do your connection thingy with Max? Tell him to stay where he is?"
I stopped moving abruptly. I hadn't even thought of that. "I don't even know if it would work." I replied, feeling a lump rising in my throat at the memory of just how completely Max Evans had changed me, how if I couldn't stop him I was never going to feel the way I felt with him again. "Isabel helped me the last time."
"Try Liz!" Maria insisted. "I just don't think we're going to make it in time otherwise."
I bit my lip, nodded, felt a shiver run down my spine. I had to get to Max in time - had to give him the chance to make this decision about going home with all the facts. I still didn't understand why Tess had lied about the whole thing, but I knew that she had.
It made me wonder what else she had been lying about.
I clutched at the pendant of the whirlwind galaxy which still hung around my neck. I closed my eyes, taking deep breaths.
I tried to remember exactly what Isabel and I had done the last time. I suddenly remembered distinctly just calling out to Max with every fibre of my being.
Since every fibre of my being was already calling out to him, I had to be doing something wrong. I was too overwrought. I needed to calm down.
I began to rub the pendant, forcing myself to make my breathing as even as possible.
I could feel the necklace beginning to heat up against my palm again.
And it was suddenly as though something shifted.I was falling.and the flashes began.
Flash*
Max, Tess, Isabel and Michael standing in a perfect square in a strange cone-shaped room..
Flash*
A close-up of Tess's face.the pupils of her icy blue eyes were dilated and staring directly at Max.
Flash*
Max and Tess intertwined in each other's arms, naked, writhing.
I pressed my eyes together tightly, fought against letting them snap open in horror.
Something strange was happening. I could feel another presence in my mind, someone trying to force me to keep watching that image play over and over in my head. I felt myself beginning to get nauseous. All I wanted to do was to stop the flashes, stop seeing them together.
But I knew that's what THEY wanted me to do. I would not allow it.
Flash*
Max holding a baby, Tess standing beside him, her hand on his arm.
Flash*
Max's face, a slightly dazed expression apparent, standing across from Tess, watching Michael place a crystal into what had to be the granolith.
Flash*
Tess touching Max's face, reaching up to kiss him.
Flash*
Michael stepping back to take Isabel's hand.they looked at each other, across at Max.and suddenly Isabel was screaming.
Flash*
A gigantic explosion.
It was so immense, the explosion, that it threw me completely out of wherever I had been.
I gasped for air, clutched at the pendant which was suddenly scalding hot against my hand.
"Liz!" Maria was glancing over at me out of the corner of her eye. "What did you see? What happened?"
"Maria, something's wrong! We NEED to get there now! This isn't just a matter of them leaving anymore."
"What do you mean?" Maria demanded, sounding terrified. I realized that it couldn't have been too pleasant watching me do whatever the heck it was I had been doing. I had probably completely zoned out there for a minute.
"Maria, I don't want you to panic here."
She cut me off. "Too late. Liz, just TELL me."
"If we don't get there and stop them from activating the granolith, they're all going to die." I told her, forced myself to stare straight ahead out the windshield into the dark.
I heard Maria's gasp in a small part of my mind, but I was already retreating again, rubbing the pendant, determined to reach Max.
I was going to stop him. I would not let HER win.
Because I now knew who was responsible for this entire debacle - and not accidentally, not by some twist of destiny either.
This had all been planned and deliberate.
She had deceived us all.
I was going to stop Tess Harding if it was the last thing I ever did.