What is the Truth?
By Didi
Disclaimers: Do I really need to do this? I mean how many of you would believe me if I did say that I owned them all?
Note: Starts just at the end of Season 2 but I'm writing it my way cause I simply refused to except the way the writer screwed up that storyline. So, here's my take on the end of the episode and what happens afterwards. Forget everything that was on UPN, it didn't happen.
Caution: I can handle creative criticism and all but please no flames of any sort. Oh and if you are a Max/Liz fanatic, I doubt you'll like this story much.
"Spoken," *thoughts*
~~~~~
"He looks pretty good for a dead man," Michael commented as he stood leaning against the wall of the motel room they had rented. "Good colors, good tone, good breathing patterns..."
"Will you stop that?" Isabel snapped in a quiet hiss as she touched Alex's head with a moist towel. "And was it really necessary to knock him out like that?"
"A sleeper hold was the nicest way to put him out of commission for a while, Issy," Michael said with a grim smile. "It would have been a lot worse had I simply knocked him over the head with a rock. Which I'm still tempted to do for his boneheaded decision to team up with Tess."
"And what was that all about anyways? I only caught half of the conversation and it didn't make any sense to me." Maria asked, her eyes never leaving Alex's sleeping face.
"They were in cohorts to pull something fast on us all," Valenti replied, his eyes on the sleeping boy. "Someone call Kyle and make sure he and Liz are all right watching Tess."
"They're fine," Max murmured sitting in the only chair in the room. "Tess is too weak to do anything more than sit up, we all saw that." He had been watching Alex for the past hour now, replaying the conversation he had over heard over and over again in his head. *She hadn't betrayed me, not really. But why did she lie? And why did Alex let her pretend to kill him? So many questions and only one way to get the answers to them all.*
Reaching over to pull Isabel away, he glanced up at Michael and looked pointed toward Alex.
Reaching over, Micheal shook the slighter boy's shoulder firmly but not roughly, he was still having a hard time believing that Alex was alive. "Yo, Sleeping Beauty! Time to wake up." *And answer some questions that's burning holes in our heads.*
Groaning, Alex rubbed his forehead for a moment, trying to orient himself to the unfamiliar surroundings. He tried his best not to react to the sight of Michael and Max, who stood side by side in front of him, stern looks gracing their youthful faces. *Calm down, they don't know anything yet and they're not going to. Tess needs you to pull this off for her, not to mention Isabel. You can do this, Alex!* Trampling down the sudden panic, he shook his head. "What the heck is this?"
"That's a good question, kid. That's what we'd all like to know." Valenti murmured softly but still managed to startle Alex as the boy whipped around to stare at him... no at the girl standing next to him.
Isabel's eyes held all her doubts, all her fears... all her pains. "Hello Alex."
Steeling himself for the toughest battle of his life, he turned his back on her. *It's easier if I don't look at her. Now I know how Tess felt. God, all I had to do was die but she had face them all for... stop thinking about that now. Just get through this!* "Look, you do know that K and R is a federal offense?"
"K and R?" Maria asked her voice floating from somewhere behind Michael. "What's that?"
Alex raised one brow arrogantly. "Kidnap and Ransom. And it has twenty to life jail sentence attached to it. But I'm a generous guy, you let me go now and we'll forget this ever happened."
Michael laughed. "Can't charge us for kidnapping a dead man."
Knowing that it was true, Alex played along anyways. "You're threatening to kill me now?"
"Alex..."
"Why do you people keep calling me Alex?" He asked, hoping he was as convincing as Tess obviously had been. "My name is Colin."
"Alex, I think the game is over. Let's just get to the truth and sort this whole mess out." Valenti advised in his usual quiet dignity. He felt bad for the boy, from the look in the kid's eyes, he's scared.
"Who's playing games?" Alex leaned forward and stared at Max, the only one that seemed to be perfectly calm. "I don't know who you people think you are, but you're going to be spending the rest of your lives in..."
"Cut the crap, Alex," Michael growled.
"Alex, why are you doing this?" Isabel asked, stepping forward to reach out, to touch. *God please, don't take him from me again.*
He swallowed the lump in his throat and restrained himself from going to her; to ease the pain he could hear in her voice. The desperation tore at his heart. "Look, I think you people probably have me confused with someone else. So in light of that, I think I'll just be going now." He got up but found himself toe to toe with Max Evans.
Max didn't know exactly what he wanted to do, needed to do but knew that he needed the truth. "You tell us what we want to know or I walk over to that nice little cabin by the woods and shake it out of Tess." He saw the concern in Alex's eyes. If nothing else, it would appear that Alex cared a great deal for the blonde beauty. "In her condition, I doubt she'd last more than few minutes."
"That's what you think." Sitting down again, Alex crossed his arm over his chest and stared at Max, as if gauging his reaction. "Ask away."
There was a pause of silence as each of the three aliens struggle to ask.
Maria, impatient by nature, threw up her hands and sighed. "Okay, I'll go first." She marched up at Alex and asked point blank, "Why the hell did you help that lying bitch?"
"Maria, with all due respect to you anger and misunderstandings of the situation at the moment," Alex began with quiet dignity and all the regal starch of a white knight on the defense, "Don't start labeling people until you get all your facts straight. It makes a person look small and vindictive in the process."
Mouth hanging open like a gutted fish, Maria sputtered for a moment before getting a hold of herself. "Okay, let me try this again. Why did you help Tess?" She smiled at him with clinched teeth, letting him know of her displeasures.
"Cause I trusted her."
"TRUSTED HER!" Maria exploded, her face infused with disbelief. "How can you trust that witch?!? She's evil. She killed..." that stopped the tirade rather abruptly.
"Me?" Alex suggested helpfully.
Crossing her arms, Maria sat down on the bed with a huff. "Oh shut up!"
"And here I thought you wanted me to talk," Alex mused ironically.
Michael sat down on the bed and pulled Maria against him to clam her. "Why did you trust her? Especially when the rest of us..."
"She made a convincing argument," Alex said quietly, remembering the long conversation they had just before she gave him the alien book for translation. There was actually very little he had to do, Tess had already deciphered most of the journal with the fragments of memories she had recovered. All had to do was set up everything else for the others to find.
"Why you?" Isabel asked, her eyes full of question. "Why did she approach you but not any of..."
"And did you ever think that maybe I was the only one willing to listen to what she may have to say?" Alex asked quietly, looked at her truly for the first time. He wanted her to understand. "You've never made it a secret that you didn't trust her, Isabel. None of you did."
"I trusted her," Max said as he turned to stare at the window.
"Did you, Max?" Alex asked, shaking his head in disbelief. He couldn't get the image of Tess crying herself to sleep at night; those heart-wrenching sobs of agony that broke his heart to hear. "Did you really? If you did, you won't have been so quick to assume that..."
"I didn't," he answered, watching the sky. The sky was gray, not the kind is looks like it was about to rain, just a very unhappy gray. "I didn't want to believe but she said..."
"What did she say?" Alex's eyes searched his. "I mean, what did she really say to you?"
"She said that she killed you!" Max spat out in anger for his own disgust with himself. *How could I have believed her? How could I have believed that she was capable of murder? Was it cause no matter what, she was always Nasado's child? Not to be trusted no matter how hard she's worked to prove her loyalty only to you?* He shut his eyes against the vile taste in his throat. "She said..." Then he paused, playing those last moments in the cavern with her over and over again in his head. "She didn't answer me."
"She told you want Nasado's plans had been," Alex cleared for him. "She told you want you need to hear to believe. But she never said the words, did she?"
The others all looked at Max, who stared at Alex. "No, she didn't."
"But you chose to believe," Alex was grime and shook his head again. "And you wonder why she didn't come to any of you for help? Why it was so easy for her to make you believe? You wanted to believe. You needed someone to be angry at for all the shit that you went through, and she's the outsider, so you chose her."
There was a heavy silence as the others run it through their minds. Michael cleared the discomfort in his throat. "Why did she..."
"Have to lie?"
He nodded. "Yeah. We'd like to know now."
"Nasado's plan was to have Tess return with Max's child and deliver Max, you and Isabel to Khivar. Tess and Nasado would get safe passage back to the home planet. With Max's child safely in his possession to be raised as his own, the people would accept him as King."
Valenti nodded his head in understand. "Then there would be no need for Max to be around."
Alex smiled at the former sheriff. "That's right, Max would die once the child was born. Khivar needed one or the other to keep the people in line."
Michael shook his head, trying to clear the idea. "So she lied about killing you to make Max stay here on Earth, where he would be safe?" The theory had holes big enough to drive semis through. "What would keep Khivar from sending an army to kill Max once the baby was born on Antar?"
Surprise appeared on Alex's face. "Wow, Tess was right. You're a lot sharper than most people give you credit for."
Michael was tempted to sock him one.
"Answer to that: nothing. But notice that Tess isn't on Antar." Alex turned to Max, who was watching him with an intensity that was almost frightening. "Tess knew that she couldn't go to Antar, not when Max's life would be in danger and Khivar ready to take her child away from her. But she did send the message beacon on to inform Khivar of her impending childbirth."
Maria shook her head. "I don't get it, if Blondie wasn't going to go home, why would she send an announcement?"
"So that Khivar knows that she's got a child," Max answered, everything making since now. "She needed Khivar to know that there's a child out there with my DNA that the people of Antar will accept as heir to the throne. But going to Antar means that Khivar would kill me, so Tess doesn't leave Earth." He sat down suddenly on the hardback chair, his legs no longer willing to support him. "Khivar can't kill me without an heir to present to the people. I would get on with my life without danger. And with Tess and the baby dead, Khivar would never know."
Alex watched with some sympathy for the tortured man. "Give the man a cigar," he said dryly but not unkindly. "He got it."
TBC...
By Didi
Disclaimers: Do I really need to do this? I mean how many of you would believe me if I did say that I owned them all?
Note: Starts just at the end of Season 2 but I'm writing it my way cause I simply refused to except the way the writer screwed up that storyline. So, here's my take on the end of the episode and what happens afterwards. Forget everything that was on UPN, it didn't happen.
Caution: I can handle creative criticism and all but please no flames of any sort. Oh and if you are a Max/Liz fanatic, I doubt you'll like this story much.
"Spoken," *thoughts*
~~~~~
"He looks pretty good for a dead man," Michael commented as he stood leaning against the wall of the motel room they had rented. "Good colors, good tone, good breathing patterns..."
"Will you stop that?" Isabel snapped in a quiet hiss as she touched Alex's head with a moist towel. "And was it really necessary to knock him out like that?"
"A sleeper hold was the nicest way to put him out of commission for a while, Issy," Michael said with a grim smile. "It would have been a lot worse had I simply knocked him over the head with a rock. Which I'm still tempted to do for his boneheaded decision to team up with Tess."
"And what was that all about anyways? I only caught half of the conversation and it didn't make any sense to me." Maria asked, her eyes never leaving Alex's sleeping face.
"They were in cohorts to pull something fast on us all," Valenti replied, his eyes on the sleeping boy. "Someone call Kyle and make sure he and Liz are all right watching Tess."
"They're fine," Max murmured sitting in the only chair in the room. "Tess is too weak to do anything more than sit up, we all saw that." He had been watching Alex for the past hour now, replaying the conversation he had over heard over and over again in his head. *She hadn't betrayed me, not really. But why did she lie? And why did Alex let her pretend to kill him? So many questions and only one way to get the answers to them all.*
Reaching over to pull Isabel away, he glanced up at Michael and looked pointed toward Alex.
Reaching over, Micheal shook the slighter boy's shoulder firmly but not roughly, he was still having a hard time believing that Alex was alive. "Yo, Sleeping Beauty! Time to wake up." *And answer some questions that's burning holes in our heads.*
Groaning, Alex rubbed his forehead for a moment, trying to orient himself to the unfamiliar surroundings. He tried his best not to react to the sight of Michael and Max, who stood side by side in front of him, stern looks gracing their youthful faces. *Calm down, they don't know anything yet and they're not going to. Tess needs you to pull this off for her, not to mention Isabel. You can do this, Alex!* Trampling down the sudden panic, he shook his head. "What the heck is this?"
"That's a good question, kid. That's what we'd all like to know." Valenti murmured softly but still managed to startle Alex as the boy whipped around to stare at him... no at the girl standing next to him.
Isabel's eyes held all her doubts, all her fears... all her pains. "Hello Alex."
Steeling himself for the toughest battle of his life, he turned his back on her. *It's easier if I don't look at her. Now I know how Tess felt. God, all I had to do was die but she had face them all for... stop thinking about that now. Just get through this!* "Look, you do know that K and R is a federal offense?"
"K and R?" Maria asked her voice floating from somewhere behind Michael. "What's that?"
Alex raised one brow arrogantly. "Kidnap and Ransom. And it has twenty to life jail sentence attached to it. But I'm a generous guy, you let me go now and we'll forget this ever happened."
Michael laughed. "Can't charge us for kidnapping a dead man."
Knowing that it was true, Alex played along anyways. "You're threatening to kill me now?"
"Alex..."
"Why do you people keep calling me Alex?" He asked, hoping he was as convincing as Tess obviously had been. "My name is Colin."
"Alex, I think the game is over. Let's just get to the truth and sort this whole mess out." Valenti advised in his usual quiet dignity. He felt bad for the boy, from the look in the kid's eyes, he's scared.
"Who's playing games?" Alex leaned forward and stared at Max, the only one that seemed to be perfectly calm. "I don't know who you people think you are, but you're going to be spending the rest of your lives in..."
"Cut the crap, Alex," Michael growled.
"Alex, why are you doing this?" Isabel asked, stepping forward to reach out, to touch. *God please, don't take him from me again.*
He swallowed the lump in his throat and restrained himself from going to her; to ease the pain he could hear in her voice. The desperation tore at his heart. "Look, I think you people probably have me confused with someone else. So in light of that, I think I'll just be going now." He got up but found himself toe to toe with Max Evans.
Max didn't know exactly what he wanted to do, needed to do but knew that he needed the truth. "You tell us what we want to know or I walk over to that nice little cabin by the woods and shake it out of Tess." He saw the concern in Alex's eyes. If nothing else, it would appear that Alex cared a great deal for the blonde beauty. "In her condition, I doubt she'd last more than few minutes."
"That's what you think." Sitting down again, Alex crossed his arm over his chest and stared at Max, as if gauging his reaction. "Ask away."
There was a pause of silence as each of the three aliens struggle to ask.
Maria, impatient by nature, threw up her hands and sighed. "Okay, I'll go first." She marched up at Alex and asked point blank, "Why the hell did you help that lying bitch?"
"Maria, with all due respect to you anger and misunderstandings of the situation at the moment," Alex began with quiet dignity and all the regal starch of a white knight on the defense, "Don't start labeling people until you get all your facts straight. It makes a person look small and vindictive in the process."
Mouth hanging open like a gutted fish, Maria sputtered for a moment before getting a hold of herself. "Okay, let me try this again. Why did you help Tess?" She smiled at him with clinched teeth, letting him know of her displeasures.
"Cause I trusted her."
"TRUSTED HER!" Maria exploded, her face infused with disbelief. "How can you trust that witch?!? She's evil. She killed..." that stopped the tirade rather abruptly.
"Me?" Alex suggested helpfully.
Crossing her arms, Maria sat down on the bed with a huff. "Oh shut up!"
"And here I thought you wanted me to talk," Alex mused ironically.
Michael sat down on the bed and pulled Maria against him to clam her. "Why did you trust her? Especially when the rest of us..."
"She made a convincing argument," Alex said quietly, remembering the long conversation they had just before she gave him the alien book for translation. There was actually very little he had to do, Tess had already deciphered most of the journal with the fragments of memories she had recovered. All had to do was set up everything else for the others to find.
"Why you?" Isabel asked, her eyes full of question. "Why did she approach you but not any of..."
"And did you ever think that maybe I was the only one willing to listen to what she may have to say?" Alex asked quietly, looked at her truly for the first time. He wanted her to understand. "You've never made it a secret that you didn't trust her, Isabel. None of you did."
"I trusted her," Max said as he turned to stare at the window.
"Did you, Max?" Alex asked, shaking his head in disbelief. He couldn't get the image of Tess crying herself to sleep at night; those heart-wrenching sobs of agony that broke his heart to hear. "Did you really? If you did, you won't have been so quick to assume that..."
"I didn't," he answered, watching the sky. The sky was gray, not the kind is looks like it was about to rain, just a very unhappy gray. "I didn't want to believe but she said..."
"What did she say?" Alex's eyes searched his. "I mean, what did she really say to you?"
"She said that she killed you!" Max spat out in anger for his own disgust with himself. *How could I have believed her? How could I have believed that she was capable of murder? Was it cause no matter what, she was always Nasado's child? Not to be trusted no matter how hard she's worked to prove her loyalty only to you?* He shut his eyes against the vile taste in his throat. "She said..." Then he paused, playing those last moments in the cavern with her over and over again in his head. "She didn't answer me."
"She told you want Nasado's plans had been," Alex cleared for him. "She told you want you need to hear to believe. But she never said the words, did she?"
The others all looked at Max, who stared at Alex. "No, she didn't."
"But you chose to believe," Alex was grime and shook his head again. "And you wonder why she didn't come to any of you for help? Why it was so easy for her to make you believe? You wanted to believe. You needed someone to be angry at for all the shit that you went through, and she's the outsider, so you chose her."
There was a heavy silence as the others run it through their minds. Michael cleared the discomfort in his throat. "Why did she..."
"Have to lie?"
He nodded. "Yeah. We'd like to know now."
"Nasado's plan was to have Tess return with Max's child and deliver Max, you and Isabel to Khivar. Tess and Nasado would get safe passage back to the home planet. With Max's child safely in his possession to be raised as his own, the people would accept him as King."
Valenti nodded his head in understand. "Then there would be no need for Max to be around."
Alex smiled at the former sheriff. "That's right, Max would die once the child was born. Khivar needed one or the other to keep the people in line."
Michael shook his head, trying to clear the idea. "So she lied about killing you to make Max stay here on Earth, where he would be safe?" The theory had holes big enough to drive semis through. "What would keep Khivar from sending an army to kill Max once the baby was born on Antar?"
Surprise appeared on Alex's face. "Wow, Tess was right. You're a lot sharper than most people give you credit for."
Michael was tempted to sock him one.
"Answer to that: nothing. But notice that Tess isn't on Antar." Alex turned to Max, who was watching him with an intensity that was almost frightening. "Tess knew that she couldn't go to Antar, not when Max's life would be in danger and Khivar ready to take her child away from her. But she did send the message beacon on to inform Khivar of her impending childbirth."
Maria shook her head. "I don't get it, if Blondie wasn't going to go home, why would she send an announcement?"
"So that Khivar knows that she's got a child," Max answered, everything making since now. "She needed Khivar to know that there's a child out there with my DNA that the people of Antar will accept as heir to the throne. But going to Antar means that Khivar would kill me, so Tess doesn't leave Earth." He sat down suddenly on the hardback chair, his legs no longer willing to support him. "Khivar can't kill me without an heir to present to the people. I would get on with my life without danger. And with Tess and the baby dead, Khivar would never know."
Alex watched with some sympathy for the tortured man. "Give the man a cigar," he said dryly but not unkindly. "He got it."
TBC...