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*
~~~~~
"It's sunset," Alex announced as he stared at the glowing red fireball that was slowly disappearing from beyond the horizon. His stoic eyes revealed nothing as he stood by the window, facing the direction in which he had come. The past month have aged him, not physically though he was showing signs of fatigue, but emotionally and mentally, he's aged a decade. "Where are they?"
"Max is probably taking his time to talk her around," Isabel suggested softly, feeling distanced from him. His mind was elsewhere, on someone else.
"She's not going to want to do it," he murmured, obviously deep in thought. "If he offers it to her in request form, she'll turn him down. She'd have to."
"You don't know that," Kyle interjected heatedly but his face reflected his doubt.
"Of course I know that," Alex replied, still staring at the retreating sun. "You don't spend so much time with someone that not know their very nature." There was a pause then he snorted with amusement suddenly and glanced over his shoulder at the room at large with a smirk. "Well... then again..."
"Rub it in, why don't you?" Kyle growled and sat down in a chair his brows knitted together with concern.. "But Max won't let her, right? I mean, he won't let her just die, will he?"
Alex watched him soberly for a moment, not saying a word.
Liz frowned and patted his shoulder. "Of course Max won't let Tess die. He loves..." her eyes narrowed for a moment. "He loves his child too much to allow anything to happen to him."
"Besides," Isabel said with confidence. "It's not like we really need her to use the healing stones."
"You'd force her hand, Isabel?" Jim Valenti asked quietly, obviously troubled by the this.
She didn't even flinch. "If need be, yes I would."
"And you think Max will allow that?" Kyle asked, torn between horror and relief. An enormous part of him knew that he would do anything to save Tess. But was that small nagging conscious that asked him whether it would be worth violating Tess's rights to do so.
"Max won't let her die," Alex agreed with great reluctance. "But that doesn't necessarily mean that Tess will allow him to save her."
Liz read the words carefully, tearing it apart piece by piece. "What will Tess do if Max insists?"
Alex shrugged his shoulders, more concerned by that thought than he would have liked to admit. "Tess has done some pretty crazy things, you've all seen that, to protect Max. If she thought Max was in danger because of whatever the reason, she'd take pretty drastic measures to cure it."
Valenti did not like the sound of it at all. The volatile nature of human hormones combined with the fire power that he's seen these kids pack, don't not always go well together. And Tess... he knew that the girl was hurting and people hurting tends to make mistakes. *Kid, don't do something we're all going to regret.*
"Like jumping off a bridge?" Kyle asked, always the first to state the obvious thing that no one else is willing to say.
"I think she can do better than that old cliché." Alex frowned as the fun finally disappeared behind the hills. "Where are they?"
"Michael will come for us when they are ready," Liz assured him with a gentle pat on the arm.
"She's going to need dinner soon," Alex muttered to himself, his thoughts already on what to make. "She's suppose to stay in bed but she always wants to make dinner."
"Roast beef and mash potatoes," Kyle interjected with a fond smile. "She always puts cranberry sauce in. I think its cause she likes the color."
"Meatloaf sometimes when she's not feeling so hot," Alex concurred with a nod. He kept glancing out the window. "I've bought so much tasaco sauce that the guy at the grocery store asked me if I was sick or something."
"So what did you tell him?" Liz asked, a small smile curling on her lips.
Alex grinned suddenly. "I told him I was a cooking student experimenting with some recipes. Now he asks me about my cooking classes every time I come in. I think he wants to hire me to cook for him now."
Isabel laughed softly, her eyes showing amusement for the first time. "I take it he doesn't know that you can't boil water without making a mess."
"Boy, wouldn't he be surprised when he finds out," he laughed before turning to the window to watch the rapidly darkening sky. Sighing, he lost all humor in the situation. "I'm not going to wait anymore." Picking up his jacket from the near by chair, he headed for the door.
"Alex," Isabel called as she reached for his hand. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going back," he called over his shoulder as he pulled the door open. "Someone's got to be there when the shit hits the fan."
~~~~~~~~~
"What do you think is going on in there?" Maria asked as the noise died down from the room. The glass against the wall did nothing to improve hearing as the movie people would her believe. It only served to make her ear ach from pressing against the glass too hard.
"Not sure," Michael replied distracted as he paced the full length of the room. "Doesn't sound like Max is doing a particularly good job in convince Tess to go along with our plans." He sighed and ran a hand through his curls. *Of course, she never was very good at going along with what was planned. Damn it Tess, I would have preferred to live the rest of my life hating you. I would like to have never seen what our lives were like on Antar.* But that was a futile wish. For he had caught a glimpse of what it was like and what they all went through to survive.
"Michael, what's wrong with you?" Maria asked quietly as she continued to watch him with concern. "You look like a caged lion that's ready to roar."
"I'm just frustrated, that's all," and he was certainly that. And confused as hell. There was so much that he didn't understand and too much that he did. A part of him prays that Max can talk her around. Another part of him.... *What, you idiot? You really want history to repeat itself?*
"With what?" Maria asked with insistence as she watched the anger and aggravation mount on his face. The way he paced, much like a caged animal, sent shivers of uncertainty through her. This was not the Michael Guerin she knew so well, not the man she had spent a frightful night making love to. He was someone different now, someone she didn't recognize at all. "Michael, what's wrong?"
He turned to look at her. Maria. Sweet, innocent, beautiful, human Maria. The night he made love to her, nothing about the physiology mattered. So what if he was a hybrid and she was a full-blown human. That night, they had been one. Yet now, as he stood there staring at those soulful liquid chocolate eyes, he couldn't seem to forget that she was human and that he wasn't, at least not completely. He also couldn't forget that the he lived once before, as another. *As a warrior. As Isabel's fiancée.*
Swallowing hard, he turned from her. *Isabel's fiancée. Isabel's betrothed. Isabel's lover.* He couldn't forget that. He couldn't forget those god-awful images of him and her, on the rocks, loving like there was no tomorrow. Couldn't forget the smile on his face as he held that precious little boy. Couldn't forget that since of wonder and joy... and loss when he awoke alone.
He can't remember Vilandra, but he instinctively knew she had been ever bit as beautiful and wonderful as Isabel. He knew that.
The distance she felt from him, not physically, frightened her. She could almost see the shifted as he pulled away from her. "Michael?"
Jerking his mind away from the thoughts of a certain blonde, and not the right one at that, he turned to Maria with a quick smile that offered reassurance. "Don't worry, everything will be fine."
There was doubt in her eyes, the same doubt she could hear in his voice. "Will it?"
Michael stared at her, willing himself to tell her so. But a part of him knew that something had changed, not just between the two of them but with everything else in the world. It was no longer so clear, Tess's actions had seen to that. And he couldn't lie to Maria to spare her pain.
Before Michael to utter a word, the front door slide open soundlessly to reveal Alex followed by the rest of the members of the alien conspiracy team. "What you are guys doing here?"
"We got tired of waiting around for word," Alex explained and lifted the grocery bag of food onto the kitchen counter. "Max still in?"
Michael nodded slowly, exchanged concerned glances with Isabel. "The stones?"
"In here," Valenti said as he lifted the worn backpack from his shoulders. "We thought it better not to leave them lying about." His eyes trailed to the shut door across the room. "How is everything in there?"
"Not too great from what we heard earlier," Maria commented as she helped Alex unpack grocery.
"Why do you say that?" Kyle asked.
"There was yelling, screaming, crying and someone knocked over a glass earlier." She shrugged and glanced at Michael. "And I have a feeling that ole' silent one here knows more than he is telling."
"Michael?" Isabel asked, her eyes seeking answers that he knew wish he couldn't even begin to answer. But unlike himself, Isabel remembers nothing, needs to remember nothing. He could bear the pains of the past for them both.
Shaking his head, Michael leaned against the wall next to the door and crossed his arms. "I don't know what's happening. All I know is no matter what Maxwell thinks, Tess is not going to make this easier on him, her or the rest of us."
There was silence as they stared at the door as if to will it to open. Then... it did.
An exhausted Max stepped out, eyes lightly red fro the burning tears that he refused to let fall. Running an aggravated hand across his face, he looked up to see his friends stare back at him with expectation. For a moment, he wanted to lie to them. It would be so easy to just lie and say that everything was fine, even knowing that it was far from it. But he could not do it: not even to protect them. "She said no."
"Where you surprised?" Alex asked quietly, his face school to blankness as he moved about the kitchen to prepare dinner. He was a little surprised that he could speak at all; his heart seemed to have taken up new residence in his throat. That last shred of hope that he didn't even know he had been carrying withered and died.
Max shook his head slowly, his face reflecting the heaviness in his soul. "I'm not sure what I expect anymore. I'm not sure of anything anymore."
"Well at least that's a start," Alex commented, slicing tomatoes with easy strokes. He was glad that sandwiches were easy and did not require the use of the stove. "I think maybe it's time you all went back to Roswell now. School will start soon and..."
"We're not leaving," Michael said before anyone else, and there were plenty, could get a word in. Shaking his head slowly, he felt the anger built from somewhere deep within. "She's not going to get away with this again. I won't let her." He stomped toward the bedroom door.
"Michael, what are you doing?" Max asked, his eyes wide with question and concern as he grabbed hold of Michael's arm to stop him. The intense purpose in his best friend's face was frighteningly serious. It was something hauntingly familiar about it.
"Taking care of a few things from the past," he said pulling his arm away and taking hold of the knob.
"What do you plan on doing in there?" Max asked once more pulling the door closed even as Michael reached to push it open. "Michael..."
"Trust me, Maxwell." He turned and looked at his friend, his king, solidly in the eyes, trying to wordlessly convey the importance of this. For to him, it was important. It was time to put a few things to right, staring with Ava... Tess.
Max hesitated for a moment, an unreasonable fear unfurling in his stomach. But this was Michael, his best friend Michael who would never do anything to hurt... Nodding, his took a step back, allowing him access to the room and praying that Michael could do what he can't. Convince Tess to live.
TBC....
~~~~~~~~~~
R&Rs are always welcomed!
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*
~~~~~
"It's sunset," Alex announced as he stared at the glowing red fireball that was slowly disappearing from beyond the horizon. His stoic eyes revealed nothing as he stood by the window, facing the direction in which he had come. The past month have aged him, not physically though he was showing signs of fatigue, but emotionally and mentally, he's aged a decade. "Where are they?"
"Max is probably taking his time to talk her around," Isabel suggested softly, feeling distanced from him. His mind was elsewhere, on someone else.
"She's not going to want to do it," he murmured, obviously deep in thought. "If he offers it to her in request form, she'll turn him down. She'd have to."
"You don't know that," Kyle interjected heatedly but his face reflected his doubt.
"Of course I know that," Alex replied, still staring at the retreating sun. "You don't spend so much time with someone that not know their very nature." There was a pause then he snorted with amusement suddenly and glanced over his shoulder at the room at large with a smirk. "Well... then again..."
"Rub it in, why don't you?" Kyle growled and sat down in a chair his brows knitted together with concern.. "But Max won't let her, right? I mean, he won't let her just die, will he?"
Alex watched him soberly for a moment, not saying a word.
Liz frowned and patted his shoulder. "Of course Max won't let Tess die. He loves..." her eyes narrowed for a moment. "He loves his child too much to allow anything to happen to him."
"Besides," Isabel said with confidence. "It's not like we really need her to use the healing stones."
"You'd force her hand, Isabel?" Jim Valenti asked quietly, obviously troubled by the this.
She didn't even flinch. "If need be, yes I would."
"And you think Max will allow that?" Kyle asked, torn between horror and relief. An enormous part of him knew that he would do anything to save Tess. But was that small nagging conscious that asked him whether it would be worth violating Tess's rights to do so.
"Max won't let her die," Alex agreed with great reluctance. "But that doesn't necessarily mean that Tess will allow him to save her."
Liz read the words carefully, tearing it apart piece by piece. "What will Tess do if Max insists?"
Alex shrugged his shoulders, more concerned by that thought than he would have liked to admit. "Tess has done some pretty crazy things, you've all seen that, to protect Max. If she thought Max was in danger because of whatever the reason, she'd take pretty drastic measures to cure it."
Valenti did not like the sound of it at all. The volatile nature of human hormones combined with the fire power that he's seen these kids pack, don't not always go well together. And Tess... he knew that the girl was hurting and people hurting tends to make mistakes. *Kid, don't do something we're all going to regret.*
"Like jumping off a bridge?" Kyle asked, always the first to state the obvious thing that no one else is willing to say.
"I think she can do better than that old cliché." Alex frowned as the fun finally disappeared behind the hills. "Where are they?"
"Michael will come for us when they are ready," Liz assured him with a gentle pat on the arm.
"She's going to need dinner soon," Alex muttered to himself, his thoughts already on what to make. "She's suppose to stay in bed but she always wants to make dinner."
"Roast beef and mash potatoes," Kyle interjected with a fond smile. "She always puts cranberry sauce in. I think its cause she likes the color."
"Meatloaf sometimes when she's not feeling so hot," Alex concurred with a nod. He kept glancing out the window. "I've bought so much tasaco sauce that the guy at the grocery store asked me if I was sick or something."
"So what did you tell him?" Liz asked, a small smile curling on her lips.
Alex grinned suddenly. "I told him I was a cooking student experimenting with some recipes. Now he asks me about my cooking classes every time I come in. I think he wants to hire me to cook for him now."
Isabel laughed softly, her eyes showing amusement for the first time. "I take it he doesn't know that you can't boil water without making a mess."
"Boy, wouldn't he be surprised when he finds out," he laughed before turning to the window to watch the rapidly darkening sky. Sighing, he lost all humor in the situation. "I'm not going to wait anymore." Picking up his jacket from the near by chair, he headed for the door.
"Alex," Isabel called as she reached for his hand. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going back," he called over his shoulder as he pulled the door open. "Someone's got to be there when the shit hits the fan."
~~~~~~~~~
"What do you think is going on in there?" Maria asked as the noise died down from the room. The glass against the wall did nothing to improve hearing as the movie people would her believe. It only served to make her ear ach from pressing against the glass too hard.
"Not sure," Michael replied distracted as he paced the full length of the room. "Doesn't sound like Max is doing a particularly good job in convince Tess to go along with our plans." He sighed and ran a hand through his curls. *Of course, she never was very good at going along with what was planned. Damn it Tess, I would have preferred to live the rest of my life hating you. I would like to have never seen what our lives were like on Antar.* But that was a futile wish. For he had caught a glimpse of what it was like and what they all went through to survive.
"Michael, what's wrong with you?" Maria asked quietly as she continued to watch him with concern. "You look like a caged lion that's ready to roar."
"I'm just frustrated, that's all," and he was certainly that. And confused as hell. There was so much that he didn't understand and too much that he did. A part of him prays that Max can talk her around. Another part of him.... *What, you idiot? You really want history to repeat itself?*
"With what?" Maria asked with insistence as she watched the anger and aggravation mount on his face. The way he paced, much like a caged animal, sent shivers of uncertainty through her. This was not the Michael Guerin she knew so well, not the man she had spent a frightful night making love to. He was someone different now, someone she didn't recognize at all. "Michael, what's wrong?"
He turned to look at her. Maria. Sweet, innocent, beautiful, human Maria. The night he made love to her, nothing about the physiology mattered. So what if he was a hybrid and she was a full-blown human. That night, they had been one. Yet now, as he stood there staring at those soulful liquid chocolate eyes, he couldn't seem to forget that she was human and that he wasn't, at least not completely. He also couldn't forget that the he lived once before, as another. *As a warrior. As Isabel's fiancée.*
Swallowing hard, he turned from her. *Isabel's fiancée. Isabel's betrothed. Isabel's lover.* He couldn't forget that. He couldn't forget those god-awful images of him and her, on the rocks, loving like there was no tomorrow. Couldn't forget the smile on his face as he held that precious little boy. Couldn't forget that since of wonder and joy... and loss when he awoke alone.
He can't remember Vilandra, but he instinctively knew she had been ever bit as beautiful and wonderful as Isabel. He knew that.
The distance she felt from him, not physically, frightened her. She could almost see the shifted as he pulled away from her. "Michael?"
Jerking his mind away from the thoughts of a certain blonde, and not the right one at that, he turned to Maria with a quick smile that offered reassurance. "Don't worry, everything will be fine."
There was doubt in her eyes, the same doubt she could hear in his voice. "Will it?"
Michael stared at her, willing himself to tell her so. But a part of him knew that something had changed, not just between the two of them but with everything else in the world. It was no longer so clear, Tess's actions had seen to that. And he couldn't lie to Maria to spare her pain.
Before Michael to utter a word, the front door slide open soundlessly to reveal Alex followed by the rest of the members of the alien conspiracy team. "What you are guys doing here?"
"We got tired of waiting around for word," Alex explained and lifted the grocery bag of food onto the kitchen counter. "Max still in?"
Michael nodded slowly, exchanged concerned glances with Isabel. "The stones?"
"In here," Valenti said as he lifted the worn backpack from his shoulders. "We thought it better not to leave them lying about." His eyes trailed to the shut door across the room. "How is everything in there?"
"Not too great from what we heard earlier," Maria commented as she helped Alex unpack grocery.
"Why do you say that?" Kyle asked.
"There was yelling, screaming, crying and someone knocked over a glass earlier." She shrugged and glanced at Michael. "And I have a feeling that ole' silent one here knows more than he is telling."
"Michael?" Isabel asked, her eyes seeking answers that he knew wish he couldn't even begin to answer. But unlike himself, Isabel remembers nothing, needs to remember nothing. He could bear the pains of the past for them both.
Shaking his head, Michael leaned against the wall next to the door and crossed his arms. "I don't know what's happening. All I know is no matter what Maxwell thinks, Tess is not going to make this easier on him, her or the rest of us."
There was silence as they stared at the door as if to will it to open. Then... it did.
An exhausted Max stepped out, eyes lightly red fro the burning tears that he refused to let fall. Running an aggravated hand across his face, he looked up to see his friends stare back at him with expectation. For a moment, he wanted to lie to them. It would be so easy to just lie and say that everything was fine, even knowing that it was far from it. But he could not do it: not even to protect them. "She said no."
"Where you surprised?" Alex asked quietly, his face school to blankness as he moved about the kitchen to prepare dinner. He was a little surprised that he could speak at all; his heart seemed to have taken up new residence in his throat. That last shred of hope that he didn't even know he had been carrying withered and died.
Max shook his head slowly, his face reflecting the heaviness in his soul. "I'm not sure what I expect anymore. I'm not sure of anything anymore."
"Well at least that's a start," Alex commented, slicing tomatoes with easy strokes. He was glad that sandwiches were easy and did not require the use of the stove. "I think maybe it's time you all went back to Roswell now. School will start soon and..."
"We're not leaving," Michael said before anyone else, and there were plenty, could get a word in. Shaking his head slowly, he felt the anger built from somewhere deep within. "She's not going to get away with this again. I won't let her." He stomped toward the bedroom door.
"Michael, what are you doing?" Max asked, his eyes wide with question and concern as he grabbed hold of Michael's arm to stop him. The intense purpose in his best friend's face was frighteningly serious. It was something hauntingly familiar about it.
"Taking care of a few things from the past," he said pulling his arm away and taking hold of the knob.
"What do you plan on doing in there?" Max asked once more pulling the door closed even as Michael reached to push it open. "Michael..."
"Trust me, Maxwell." He turned and looked at his friend, his king, solidly in the eyes, trying to wordlessly convey the importance of this. For to him, it was important. It was time to put a few things to right, staring with Ava... Tess.
Max hesitated for a moment, an unreasonable fear unfurling in his stomach. But this was Michael, his best friend Michael who would never do anything to hurt... Nodding, his took a step back, allowing him access to the room and praying that Michael could do what he can't. Convince Tess to live.
TBC....
~~~~~~~~~~
R&Rs are always welcomed!