Whom among us, part eight
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: No, I don't own any of the Roswell characters. I don't plan to steal them and lock them up in white rooms either. ;-) I just let them out to play from time to time and see what happens.
Distribution: Distribute anywhere you like, now based at http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Feedback: YES PLEASE!
Category: Roswell future-fic
Rating: PG
Summary: Liz's life changes when, as a university junior, she runs into Max again.
Spoilers: Up to 'end of the world,' kinda
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Liz hurried down the last flight of stairs and across the small, empty landing, trying to make the huge metal tube she was carrying feel normal.
Max and Michael had broken into the nebula analyses lab using their powers, but they'd suggested that Liz carry the score over the stretch of ground where the risk of discovery was greatest, within the Physical sciences building. Because she was known to most of the students and professors, and might even be able to convince them that she had a perfectly good reason to be in possession of one of the Department's radio telescopes.
Liz pushed the blank metal door open carefully and peered out as well as she could. No sign of Michael and Max, no sign of anyone in fact. "Where are they?" After a second's thought, Liz propped the telescope up against a corner of the wall where it would be safe and unlikely to be noticed for a moment, and opened the door further, poking her head out and looking this way and that. Still nothing.
But it seemed like she had only just let the door swing closed when there was a knock upon it. Liz swung the portal open a third time and there was Max, Michael standing right behind him.
Liz didn't ask what had kept them. "Your turn," she said, hefting up the telescope and handing it to Max. "Take it back to base camp, ASAP. We move out at eighteen forty-five hours."
"What about you?" Michael asked. "Aren't you coming back to base camp with us now?"
Liz shook her head. "Got a few things to deal with at my place. I'll be there soon." She smiled at the two alien guys, pushed past them and out the doorway, heading back to her dormitory room.
* * * * *
Tess left her room and headed out into the rest of the apartment. Nobody her own age (in Earth terms,) was around. Bentor was staring thoughttfully at the laptop computer screen, and Ardra was struggling against Davin in a mockup game of 'Cantapheria,' a strategy game from their homeworld.
Shrugging, Tess headed over to her once and present tutor, Ardra. "Hey, where is everybody?"
Ardra seemed to welcome the excuse to not make her next move anytime soon. "Isabel is centering herself. Being this close to so many other young people is hard on her, I think."
Tess smiled sadly. They each had their burdens to carry, but what Isabel had gotten herself into when she began relearning her skills as a telepath was harder than most. "And Max? Michael??"
"Another raid," Davin said. "A radio telescope that Liz and Bent need to verify the object of our search - if we can find it."
"They left with Liz fifteen minutes ago," Ardra added. "Should be back soon, if everything goes according to plan."
Tess thought about that - and felt her mouth curling up in a disappointed pout. "Why didn't anybody tell me. I would've been up for a little larceny in a good cause... use my powers to keep anybody from seeing us, that sort of thing..."
"I suspect," Ardra confided, "that Max knew your powers needed a rest. He worries about you, and if the Kaffarras find us tonight out on the desert..."
"The desert..." Tess repeated questioningly, glowing inside a little from what Ardra had said about Max's concern for her. "What're we heading out there for?"
"To get a good view of the sky to use the radio gizmo with," Davin related.
"That's great," Tess bubbled. "I'll start getting things ready for the trip." She smiled and headed off into the kitchen.
* * * * *
Liz hurried back up the stairs to her residence hall, it was check-in time yet again. For one thing, she wanted to pack some more clothes and other essentials for the star-watching trip tonight - the clothes that she'd picked for comfort in Max and Isabel's warmly heated suite after getting soaked wouldn't be too nice out in the chill of a spring night in the desert. Also, Maria's regular telephone call would be coming through in ten - no, make that nine minutes, and Liz could really do with some good advice from her oldest, bestest friend in the whole wide universe.
It was with a considerable amount of surprise that Liz recognized the voices coming from further up the hall as she approached: "So I decided not to go out for the football team again last fall. I mean,
Zen meditation principles did a lot for my running game, but at a certain point, you have to ask yourself 'So what'? When everything's said and done, knocking other people down to catch a ball and carry it over a line just isn't a very enlightened pursuit, you know what I mean??"
"Kyle? Could you stop talking about Buddhism for just a second, please?!"
"Alex??" Liz hurried forward to see the two young men waiting across from her door. "And Kyle! What are the two of you doing here in Arizona?!"
"I decided that a visit was long overdue, Liz," Alex said, pulling his full height up from a squat and then bending down to give Liz a hug and kiss hello. "Kyle spotted me in L. A. and chose to tag along."
"What can I say?" Kyle took his turn to hug the still shocked Liz after Alex had let go. "It was either this or kraft dinner and ketchup at my dad's place again."
"You... you..." For some reason, in the confusion Liz's mind focused on that last tidbit. "You go back home to Roswell much, Kyle?"
The USC jock (or ex-jock) smiled. "A couple of times a month, I guess. I saw a screening of Maria's latest movie a few weeks ago, by the way. The scripts are getting better in her little 'film society.'"
"'Film company,'" Alex corrected offhandedly. "So, how have you been, Liz? We haven't caught you at a bad time, I hope?"
"Things are *completely* crazy around here right now," Liz confessed, looking up into Alex's eyes. "You wouldn't believe who just..." Something clicked, some little mannerism that Liz couldn't consciously identify, that gave Alex away. "You know, don't you, Alex Charles Whitman. You heard that Isabel's here, and that's why you've come."
"I resent that," Alex retorted, "at least I would, except that it's true. I'm sorry Liz, especially since that makes it look that I wouldn't get off my duff just to come down here and visit with you, which I should have, I know, but..."
"It's okay, Alex," Liz assured her friends' ramblings. "I've been busy too. So..." All of a sudden a ringing phone could be heard from the other side of the door into Liz's dorm room. "Oh, my god - that'll be Maria. Just stay right here --" Liz already had her keys out and was fumbling with the lock and the doorknob "-- I've gotta take this..."
The door flew open and Liz stumbled through it, orienting quickly on the phone and scooping the handset up. It had been only two rings so far, which was good. Maria had a tendency to hang up on the third or fourth ring. "Hey, it's Liz," Liz blurted out as soon as she had hit the 'TALK' button.
"Uh, hey Liz," Maria drawled lazily, obviously picking up the tension in her best friend's voice. "What's going on?"
Liz smiled weakly into the phone that could neither see nor relay on her facial expressions. "Well, let's see. *Everyone's* here in Arizona, for starters."
"Everyone?" Maria's voice picked up. "As in who??"
"Well, Alex and Kyle just showed up for starters. And..." Suddenly Liz remembered the warnings about not saying the names of the royal four where they could be overheard, because of the androids - and she had mentioned Isabel by name to Alex. Oh well, it probably wouldn't matter this time. Still, Liz reached out with her foot and closed the dorm room door soundly. "Max, Michael, Isabel, Tess, and their new friends," she whispered into the connection.
"Oh, boy," Maria whispered. She didn't seem to have any difficulty placing the reference to 'new friends,' which jived with the fact that Max had said Maria and Alex knew about his discovery of four other alien hybrids on Earth. "So... are they... I mean, Max and Tess, are they still..."
"Like you wouldn't believe it," Liz shot back, collapsing onto her bed. "Acting all lovey-dovey and married, the whole nine yards. Makes me want to gag." Actually, Liz hadn't been finding it all that bad lately - seeing how sincerely devoted Tess was to the man Liz loved and how much Max seemed to care about her in return, it was hard to work up that much bile. Still, hyperbole had its own pleasures.
"Oh, god," Maria breathed. "How are you dealing? If it were me, I wouldn't stand ten minutes without trying to slit her throat."
"It is you," Liz whispered, too quietly to be heard clearly over the phone, but instantly regretted it and resolved not to mention anything about Michael and Isabel to her best friend. "Don't worry about me, Mar, I'm fine. Max bumped in to me, asked for some help, and I'm doing what I can. It's the least I could do, for him."
"Okay," Maria said slowly. "You're sure you're fine? Don't need to unburden yourself any more with Lady Maria??"
"Positive."
"Okay, moving on then. What's the deal with our other guys, Alex and Kyle? Do you know why they showed up?"
"I think Alex was masochistically hoping to run into Isabel, and Kyle was bored. Nothing special there." Liz considered. "Oh, my god, something *else* happened that I have to tell you about, Maria. Boy, what a busy couple of days it's been!"
"I'm all ears."
"Okay, do you remember Pete Wilson? You met him at that New Year's Eve party in Baha."
"Oh god, like I could forget. You like Pete, you don't like Pete. You're going to ask Pete out, now Pete's dating your best friend. Boy, how is it you keep living in these kind of soap operas, girl??"
Liz tried to fight down a blush, even though no-one could see it. "Just bad luck I guess."
"Anyways, what's the latest development?"
"Pete asked me out."
"Oh, my god. You told him yes, right?"
"Um... well no, no I didn't."
"You told him no?"
A pause. "I told him I'd have to think about it."
Maria hmmmed as she considered that. "And this sudden bout of pensiveness - does it have anything to do with the fact that Maxwell Evans has returned to the picture, as spoken for as he may seem?" Liz stayed quiet for a long time, after which Maria whispered questioningly "Busted?"
"Not entirely," Liz insisted in her own defense. "I mean, yeah, the fact that Pete asked me out right after Max walked back into my life... it gave me pause, yes. Not that I expect to be able to get back together with Max, or anything. But... I really thought that Max was going to be 'the one.' Quote marks, capital letters, the whole deal, forever. Now I know better. So how the heck do I know about a guy like Pete?"
"Good point," Maria said slowly. "But let me ask you a question. How does *not* going out to dinner with Pete help you figure out if he is or isn't quote 'the one' end quote?"
"Once again you have a point, Maria DeLuca."
"On the other hand, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of being reunited with Max quite so quickly, young lady."
"Maria!!"
"Hey, I'm just sayin', girl. If I had even the glimpse of a second shot with Michael, I'd give it every single ounce of effort I had. Destiny be damned. And I think if you give Pete that answer without being one hundred percent sure that the ghost of Max Evans in your heart has been laid to rest, you'll never be sure who you really love."
"Eck," Liz groaned. "I *hate* it when you're right, Maria."
"Then how come we've stayed friends for so long?" Maria teased.
"Because this happens so rarely," Liz joked back.
"Okay, I'm feeling unappreciated now, you'd better hang up before one of us says something we'll regret."
"Okay, I will," Liz decided. But before she hung up, she whispered four words into the telephone mouthpiece. "I miss you, Maria."
"Miss you, Liz Parker." The line clicked and went dead.
After sitting and thinking about that conversation for a long forty-five seconds, Liz got up and started gathering up the stuff she'd wanted to grab. It didn't take too long, and when she stepped out of the door again, both Alex and Kyle were staring at her impatiently.
She didn't worry about that. "Well, I guess you guys had better come along," she said casually, leading the way back to the Congreve tower.
* * * * *
"Ahh-mah-nih-tah-lee..." Isabel softly chanted. "Ahh-mah-nih-tah-lee." It was her mantra - didn't mean anything, just a string of sounds to concentrate on while she was centering herself.
It was days like this when Isabel almost wished she hadn't been reborn on earth with her telepathic talent. Sure she could do things that in some ways were more impressive than anything the rest of them could do with the power, but with great power came great drawbacks.
Like feeling the thoughts and emotions of half a town at once, just below the level where she could pick them out individually. Ardra had told Isabel that back on the homeworld, most telepaths struggled with telempathic overload, but almost all of them could deal with it entirely using meditation techniques. Mantra as well as she might, Is never really felt it to be more than halfway effective. Who did Arda think she was, anyways? Isabel's mentor?! More like Tess's tutor. Ardra's telepathic talents were at best moderate.
It was at about this point that Isabel realized that she had slipped out of meditation into a mental ramble mode, and carefully tested the state of her mind. About as well as could be expected. And the clock read 7:20 pm.
What was going on outside? None of the group bothered Isabel while she was 'centering,' which was both comforting and frustrating in its way. Once Max, Michael, and Davin had fought off four Skin assasins alone rather than call for help while she was meditating.
Isabel rose gracefully from her cross-legged pose on the bed, jumped down onto the floor, and looked at herself in the mirror. She was wearing the tight black pants and muted yellow tank top that she had put on after waking up this afternoon, and her blonde hair was falling down with just a hint of wave to it. With an offhand mental effort, she tightened the golden locks into windswept curls, then caught herself and cringed. Androids. Well, hopefully such a small exercise of the power wouldn't be enough for them to tune in on.
Out in the living room, Ardra and Kenner were trying their hands at some game with Earth-style playing cards. "Hey, where's the rest of the gang?" she called out.
"They've left to begin observations for the space capsule outside of town," Kenner reported, as gruffly un-ruffle-able as ever. "We've been waiting until you finished your -- meditations."
Isabel almost growled. Would this mania never bow to common sense? Suddenly a new voice entered the conversation.
"Yeah, and getting pretty tired of waiting too, I have to admit." A familiar voice. Well, it had once been familiar, years ago. Now, it was just... recognizable. Isabel turned around. "Kyle Valenti. What are you doing here?"
Before Kyle could reply, someone else stepped into the hallway beside him, and it was all Isabel could do not to cry out in shock. Not because she recognized the face as that of Alex Charles Whitman. By now Isabel couldn't resist making general telepathic contact along with eye contact. And even at first 'glance,' there was something truly incredible about Alex Whitman's mind.
At first Isabel would have mentally labeled it 'inner peace,' but that was probably misleading. There was little that was peaceful about the outer layers of Alex's mind and essence - and deeper down, where Isabel was seeing what she was seeing, it was hard to say if such a description was even meaningful. What had caught Isabel's attention seemed to be some kind of deeply buried inner strength...
"Well, we should be heading off now," Ardra said, snapping Isabel out of her own thoughts. She noticed that the servitors had packed up their cards somewhere, and Ardra was pulling on a jacket.
Isabel sighed slightly and headed over to where she'd stowed her duffel bag in the bottom of a closet to pull out a coat that would be sufficient against the nighttime wind off the Arizona desert in February. Once she was ready, Isabel turned around and noticed Kyle and Alex also getting into jackets.
"Don't tell me," she drawled. "We have to take you guys along?"
"Hey, not my idea," Kyle shot back. "I just came here to visit with Liz. And what does our good Miss Parker do but drag me back here, wherever 'here' is and take off with your alien friends on us."
Isabel noticed out of the corner of her eye that though Alex didn't attempt to join in the conversation, his skin flushed slightly when Kyle mentioned 'just come here to visit Liz.' She didn't have to do a telepathic probe to guess what was on that young man's mind.
But she turned back to Kyle for more sarcastic banter as they left the suite. "Well, we didn't expect to run into frat week. I didn't even know we were going to bump into Liz here in Tempe. So I guess everybody has to roll with the punches, huh??"
"That was a lame comeback, Is," Kyle chided her. "What happenes to the legendary Isabel Evans wit? Oh - I forgot - it got traded in for the Guerin family obviousness, didn't it??"
Now it was Isabel who was blushing, partly because she knew Alex was listening. "How did you know about that?!"
Kyle's face was a study in seriousness. "I guessed. You just confirmed."
The five of them walked over to the elevator in silence. Trading barbs with Kyle Valenti had just lost its appeal. "So... how about the weather out there?" she asked vaguely.
The elevator door rang.
* * * * *
"God, what's taking this so long?" Michael grumbled, staring out into the sky. "We got Liz the gizmo that she needed. Maybe she just doesn't know what to do with it, huh?" He guffawed coarsely at Tess, who shrugged embarassedly, not commenting.
Liz had tactfully ignored a few other comments throughout the operation so far, but something inside her snapped. Standing up from her crouching position near the telescopic equipment and putting some distance between her and the delicate sensors before she spoke, she walked up to Michael. "Oh, I know *exactly* what I'm doing here - I'm attempting the impossible for you guys!! This radio signal is so faint that even *with* the portable radio telescope you guys so kindly 'liberated' for me, we have to narrow the scan to no more than a few square arc seconds of the sky to be sure of hearing it. Even just a few years ago, that kind of narrow focus wouldn't be *possible*!"
Michael shrugged slightly, which just spurred Liz on. "You don't get it, do you? Well, an arc second is an extremely *tiny* amount of apparent distance." She held up two fingers, almost, ALMOST touching, as a demonstration. "So small that you wouldn't even be able to see it with the naked eye - unless there was a bright star or something else in that arc second to draw your attention to it."
"There are something like eight hundred billion square arc seconds in the sky. Even with the calculations that Bentor and I have done, we've got margins of error that are several arc minutes long and nine or ten arc seconds wide. So *excuse* me if this is taking a while and DON'T TALK WHILE I'M TRYING TO WORK!!"
As Liz's rant finished, she noticed that everyone around was kind of staring at her. "Well, what are you all looking at?"
"Perhaps you should take a rest," Bentor suggested diplomatically. "I believe we have learned enough to continue making the observations without you." He gestured to himself and Max, who had been paying the closest attention as Liz explained the scanning procedure.
Liz forced herself to cool down. "No, that's okay. I'm okay. I'm cool, I'm cool..."
"Yes, you are," Max said softly, stepping up to her. "But Bentor's right too. You've been working so hard on this for what... seventeen hours now, in one way or another? All of the rest of us have taken some crash time. There are some sleeping bags in the van, maybe you should..."
"No," Liz shook his head. "There's no way I could sleep while you guys are finding out if my figures are any good or not..."
"Then maybe just take a walk?" Max smiled at her sheepishly. "You can come and take over for me in fifteen minutes or something." Liz considered making another protest, but decided to defer to Max's judgement.
"Okay, I'm on the bench. See yas in fifteen." She forced a smile, waved teasingly, and headed off towards the other end of the field. As she left, she noticed that an RV was pulling up. That'd be Alex, Isabel, Kyle, and the 'other' two. She didn't want to go over to talk to them or anything. So Liz just kept on walking into the darkness.
What was she doing here, really?? Well, she was here because Max needed her help. Which was all well and good on the face of it. But what about what Liz Parker needed? If any of the four of them had been nearly as concerned about what Liz said as about all their alien drama...
No, that wasn't fair. Max, Michael, Isabel... even Tess had never let her down when Liz had come to any of them for help... (though she'd hardly ever had reason to *ask* Tess for anything...) Not exactly. But what about --
'Future Max.' The one thing that Liz had wanted, that she had needed more than anything in the world, and that time-travelling turd had had to take it away from her. No - not just take it away. He'd made Liz jump through hoops to push it away, to find some way of throwing what she felt for Max so far into the muck that neither of them would want to go back and get it.
How dare he? Liz had never asked to have the fate of the world on her shoulders, never wanted to be mixed up in alien destinies or any of this other crap. She had found something incredible with Max, and it *irked* her to the very depths of her circulatory system to have to give that up, for a reason that was probably far-fetched enough to make anybody laugh out loud. "Oh yeah, I love Max, but I had to break up with him and fake losing my virginity to my ex because his future self came to me and told me that the world would be destroyed in 2014 if he didn't get back together with his alien bride." Sheesh.
God! She had understood the pain in Future Max's eyes, that this was costing him as much or more than it was costing her, and that was what had kept her from arguing further with his premise. Why did it have to be that particular moment in time, that particular line of events alone, which could save the world? Why not find some way of making Tess feel like she belonged that didn't involve handing over Max's heart? Why not find some other alien that Max, Michael, and Isabel could have teamed up with? For god's sake, why not just find some way to kick this Kivar's butt before he could invade the earth?!
The tapestry of time was complicated enough, there had to be *some* other way to divert the course of history. Or had to 'have been'. The soulmate ship had sailed...
* * * * *
It had been the West Roswell high spring dance of 2001. Against her better judgement, Liz had accepted Alex's offer to take her to the dance 'just as friends,' and up to this point she'd actually been having an okay time. Just hanging around, listening to the music, (someone had gotten this pretty cool teenage bluegrass group to play,) and, along with Alex, making mild and toothless jokes at the expense of other partiers.
"Where am I today, I wish that I knew,
'Cause looking around, there's no sign of you."
"Oh, hey, punch glass empty," Alex said, taking the plastic cup from her hand with a smile. "I'm refill-man." Liz smiled back as Alex headed around the edge of the dance floor towards the refreshments table.
"I don't remember one jump or one leap,
Just quiet steps away from your lead."
Liz knew that Alex had asked her to the dance tonight as much to keep his mind off his own heartache as to keep Liz's mind off hers -- Michael and Isabel had made it quietly clear that they would be coming together, their first public date. Maria had chosen a different way to deal - she had sworn off the dance and was sitting at home with a popcorn sunday and a romantic comedy triple feature on videotape. Liz had offered to make it a girl's night in, but Maria encouraged her to come here with Alex.
"I'm holding my heart out, but clutching it too:
The feeling is short of the love that we once knew,"
While she waited for Alex to get back, Liz moseyed idly closer to the dance floor to watch, maybe make some toothless jokes all by herself.
"Callin' this a home when it's not even close,
And playing the role with nerves left exposed."
And that's when she saw them - he looking incredibly handsome in a conservative tux, she much more beautiful than she deserved in a pale lavender gown. Max and Tess, slow-dancing.
"Standing, on a darkened stage. Stumbling, through the lie.
Others have excuses. 'I have my reasons why.'"
They didn't notice her, Liz could tell that much. The way they were staring so deeply into each other's eyes, how could they?
Liz just stood there, shocked, watching them. She had known it in her mind, that Max and Liz were together, but seeing it was something else entirely. Did it all end, everything that she and Max had been through, right here?
"We get distracted by the dreams of our own,
But nobody's happy while feeling alone, (you're not alone,)"
She had to admit that viewed objectively, it seemed sweet. If you didn't know them, Max and Tess looked like a cute couple.
"Knowing how hard it *hurts* when we fall --
...Lean another ladder against the wrong wall!"
Tess leaned up on her tiptoes to whisper something towards Max's ear. Max smiled and murmured a throaty word or two in response.
"And climb - HIGH - to the highest rung,
To shake fists at the sky."
And then, Liz didn't realize how it had happened, but they were kissing, a chaste but tender public kiss, right out there in the middle of the dance floor. As Liz looked on, too morbidly fascinated to turn away, Max and Tess seemed to begin to glow with a soft bluish light.
"Others have excuses - *I have my reasons why.*"
Nobody else in the entire crowded gymnasium seemed to notice anything on, except Michael and Isabel, who Liz just noticed, and who were also looking with surprise at Max and Tess, as they broke this kiss, still gently shining with blue light. But Liz somehow knew that the was no illusion, no mind-warp invented to rub her nose in the fact of Tess' final victory. If only because she didn't think Tess was a good enough actress to create such an effect without having given some sign of knowing that Liz was there.
After everything that she'd been through with Max and his friends, everything that she'd seen, now some quirk of fate was letting her perceive the awful truth.
"With so much deception, it's hard not to wander away (hard not to wonder...)"
Max Evans and Tess Harding had just fell in love.
Liz turned about and ran out of the gym, tears flowing down her cheeks as she went, oblivious to the fact that Alex was finally on his way back with the punch. She tore the sleeve of her dress on the jagged splinter in the gym door, and never even noticed.
In a way, Liz knew she had kept on running until she got to Arizona.
* * * *
"Penny for your thoughts," a familiar voice said, jogging her out of her thoughts. Liz looked up and saw Max's face, dimly lit in the starlight as he stepped across the grass towards her.
"No sale," Liz answered before thinking about it. "So, what about the telescopes?"
"Alex is taking a turn," Max explained. "I wanted to talk to you in private. I'm sorry it it seemed like I was making you out to be the bad guy - er, bad person."
"Just a *little,*" Liz told him with a sigh.
"Well, that's not what I tought," Max asserted. "Michael was being a nasty jerk, which is a bad habit he's gotten into lately, and you put him in his place. End of story. Except... you seemed a little more irritable than you should be, Michael or no Michael. I thought you really could use a break, and didn't want to risk you breaking the surveying equipment if you lost your temper again before you got it." The teasing smile on Max's face let her knwo that he was just joking about that last part.
"And, you thought it would be a face-saver for Michael if you told him to shape up just among you guys, rather than take the outsider's side against him in public," Liz suddenly guessed. "Well, I guess I can understand that. We should be heading back over there."
"What's the hurry?" Max smiled again, a lazy smile that made him seem at one with the universe. "You're still on break, last I checked, Liz Parker."
"Okay, then what the heck are we going to *do* on my break?" Liz laughed back. "I'm bored stiff wandering around out here."
Max shrugged slightly. "We have the stars," he said, making a grandiose gesture up and around.
Liz couldn't fight a snort. "And what good does that do us?"
"C'mon, Liz, you're into this stuff now - you..." Max smacked a hand to his forehead. "You get technical data and theories shoved into your head all day until you're just *sick* of stars, don't you?"
Liz nodded. "Not quite, but almost, yeah."
Max considered that for a moment in silence. "I look up at the stars, and I wonder what they really look like from our home world. I remember a few facts, and tidbits, about the constelattions of our people, their legends about the stars, but I can't get the true sensation of how it *feels* to look up at another sky."
Liz grinned. "What kind of legends?"
"Well, let's see..." Max took a moment to orient himself, then pointed up at a bright star about fifty degrees above the horizon. "That's the one that earth astronomers call Deneb, right?"
"Um... yeah," Liz agreed after checking a few mental star maps of her own. "Also Alpha Cygni. A bluish-white supergiant, thousands of light-years away from Earth, but still first-magnitude -- one of the very brightest stars in our sky."
"My homeworld is considerably closer to it, so it's even brighter in our sky. Brighter than any true star is as seen from earth, probably even brighter than Venus at the height of its brilliance."
"Wow." Even though Liz could accept intellectually that this might be so on an alien world far away in space, it surprised and shocked her on a deeper level."
"According to the constellations that my people worked out long ago, Izmatar - our name for Deneb, is the brightest jewel in 'the crown.'"
"Oh," Liz commented. "You have a crown constellation too? Actually, we have two, as I'm sure you know if you were able to find Deneb. Cepheus and Cassiopeia, the king and the queen."
"Yeah, I know," Max agreed good-naturedly. "For queeens, we have what I suppose you'd call a 'Tiara constellation.' But it was Izmatar alone that became significant when the unified Monarchy of our world was instituted. For five hundred years that star signified the solidarity of our government, of our people. And it was a constant reminder that the first duty... of the king, was to the people for whose sake he ruled..."
Liz could tell by now that talking about this was upsetting Max for some reason, probably because he felt he had 'let down his people' in that other life so long ago. So she opened her mouth to change the subject. "So, do your people have a star of love??" Now, what had posessed her to ask about that?!
"Um... uh, yeah," Max said, recovering his composure. "Elendril, the heart of the bride. The bride and the groom are standing right next to each other, of course."
"Of course," Liz agreed quietly. "Maybe we'd better go back to the others."
This time, Max didn't argue with her.
To be continued...
Author: Chris Kenworthy
Email: Chris_Kenworthy@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: No, I don't own any of the Roswell characters. I don't plan to steal them and lock them up in white rooms either. ;-) I just let them out to play from time to time and see what happens.
Distribution: Distribute anywhere you like, now based at http://www.fanfiction.net/~chriskenworthy
Feedback: YES PLEASE!
Category: Roswell future-fic
Rating: PG
Summary: Liz's life changes when, as a university junior, she runs into Max again.
Spoilers: Up to 'end of the world,' kinda
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Liz hurried down the last flight of stairs and across the small, empty landing, trying to make the huge metal tube she was carrying feel normal.
Max and Michael had broken into the nebula analyses lab using their powers, but they'd suggested that Liz carry the score over the stretch of ground where the risk of discovery was greatest, within the Physical sciences building. Because she was known to most of the students and professors, and might even be able to convince them that she had a perfectly good reason to be in possession of one of the Department's radio telescopes.
Liz pushed the blank metal door open carefully and peered out as well as she could. No sign of Michael and Max, no sign of anyone in fact. "Where are they?" After a second's thought, Liz propped the telescope up against a corner of the wall where it would be safe and unlikely to be noticed for a moment, and opened the door further, poking her head out and looking this way and that. Still nothing.
But it seemed like she had only just let the door swing closed when there was a knock upon it. Liz swung the portal open a third time and there was Max, Michael standing right behind him.
Liz didn't ask what had kept them. "Your turn," she said, hefting up the telescope and handing it to Max. "Take it back to base camp, ASAP. We move out at eighteen forty-five hours."
"What about you?" Michael asked. "Aren't you coming back to base camp with us now?"
Liz shook her head. "Got a few things to deal with at my place. I'll be there soon." She smiled at the two alien guys, pushed past them and out the doorway, heading back to her dormitory room.
* * * * *
Tess left her room and headed out into the rest of the apartment. Nobody her own age (in Earth terms,) was around. Bentor was staring thoughttfully at the laptop computer screen, and Ardra was struggling against Davin in a mockup game of 'Cantapheria,' a strategy game from their homeworld.
Shrugging, Tess headed over to her once and present tutor, Ardra. "Hey, where is everybody?"
Ardra seemed to welcome the excuse to not make her next move anytime soon. "Isabel is centering herself. Being this close to so many other young people is hard on her, I think."
Tess smiled sadly. They each had their burdens to carry, but what Isabel had gotten herself into when she began relearning her skills as a telepath was harder than most. "And Max? Michael??"
"Another raid," Davin said. "A radio telescope that Liz and Bent need to verify the object of our search - if we can find it."
"They left with Liz fifteen minutes ago," Ardra added. "Should be back soon, if everything goes according to plan."
Tess thought about that - and felt her mouth curling up in a disappointed pout. "Why didn't anybody tell me. I would've been up for a little larceny in a good cause... use my powers to keep anybody from seeing us, that sort of thing..."
"I suspect," Ardra confided, "that Max knew your powers needed a rest. He worries about you, and if the Kaffarras find us tonight out on the desert..."
"The desert..." Tess repeated questioningly, glowing inside a little from what Ardra had said about Max's concern for her. "What're we heading out there for?"
"To get a good view of the sky to use the radio gizmo with," Davin related.
"That's great," Tess bubbled. "I'll start getting things ready for the trip." She smiled and headed off into the kitchen.
* * * * *
Liz hurried back up the stairs to her residence hall, it was check-in time yet again. For one thing, she wanted to pack some more clothes and other essentials for the star-watching trip tonight - the clothes that she'd picked for comfort in Max and Isabel's warmly heated suite after getting soaked wouldn't be too nice out in the chill of a spring night in the desert. Also, Maria's regular telephone call would be coming through in ten - no, make that nine minutes, and Liz could really do with some good advice from her oldest, bestest friend in the whole wide universe.
It was with a considerable amount of surprise that Liz recognized the voices coming from further up the hall as she approached: "So I decided not to go out for the football team again last fall. I mean,
Zen meditation principles did a lot for my running game, but at a certain point, you have to ask yourself 'So what'? When everything's said and done, knocking other people down to catch a ball and carry it over a line just isn't a very enlightened pursuit, you know what I mean??"
"Kyle? Could you stop talking about Buddhism for just a second, please?!"
"Alex??" Liz hurried forward to see the two young men waiting across from her door. "And Kyle! What are the two of you doing here in Arizona?!"
"I decided that a visit was long overdue, Liz," Alex said, pulling his full height up from a squat and then bending down to give Liz a hug and kiss hello. "Kyle spotted me in L. A. and chose to tag along."
"What can I say?" Kyle took his turn to hug the still shocked Liz after Alex had let go. "It was either this or kraft dinner and ketchup at my dad's place again."
"You... you..." For some reason, in the confusion Liz's mind focused on that last tidbit. "You go back home to Roswell much, Kyle?"
The USC jock (or ex-jock) smiled. "A couple of times a month, I guess. I saw a screening of Maria's latest movie a few weeks ago, by the way. The scripts are getting better in her little 'film society.'"
"'Film company,'" Alex corrected offhandedly. "So, how have you been, Liz? We haven't caught you at a bad time, I hope?"
"Things are *completely* crazy around here right now," Liz confessed, looking up into Alex's eyes. "You wouldn't believe who just..." Something clicked, some little mannerism that Liz couldn't consciously identify, that gave Alex away. "You know, don't you, Alex Charles Whitman. You heard that Isabel's here, and that's why you've come."
"I resent that," Alex retorted, "at least I would, except that it's true. I'm sorry Liz, especially since that makes it look that I wouldn't get off my duff just to come down here and visit with you, which I should have, I know, but..."
"It's okay, Alex," Liz assured her friends' ramblings. "I've been busy too. So..." All of a sudden a ringing phone could be heard from the other side of the door into Liz's dorm room. "Oh, my god - that'll be Maria. Just stay right here --" Liz already had her keys out and was fumbling with the lock and the doorknob "-- I've gotta take this..."
The door flew open and Liz stumbled through it, orienting quickly on the phone and scooping the handset up. It had been only two rings so far, which was good. Maria had a tendency to hang up on the third or fourth ring. "Hey, it's Liz," Liz blurted out as soon as she had hit the 'TALK' button.
"Uh, hey Liz," Maria drawled lazily, obviously picking up the tension in her best friend's voice. "What's going on?"
Liz smiled weakly into the phone that could neither see nor relay on her facial expressions. "Well, let's see. *Everyone's* here in Arizona, for starters."
"Everyone?" Maria's voice picked up. "As in who??"
"Well, Alex and Kyle just showed up for starters. And..." Suddenly Liz remembered the warnings about not saying the names of the royal four where they could be overheard, because of the androids - and she had mentioned Isabel by name to Alex. Oh well, it probably wouldn't matter this time. Still, Liz reached out with her foot and closed the dorm room door soundly. "Max, Michael, Isabel, Tess, and their new friends," she whispered into the connection.
"Oh, boy," Maria whispered. She didn't seem to have any difficulty placing the reference to 'new friends,' which jived with the fact that Max had said Maria and Alex knew about his discovery of four other alien hybrids on Earth. "So... are they... I mean, Max and Tess, are they still..."
"Like you wouldn't believe it," Liz shot back, collapsing onto her bed. "Acting all lovey-dovey and married, the whole nine yards. Makes me want to gag." Actually, Liz hadn't been finding it all that bad lately - seeing how sincerely devoted Tess was to the man Liz loved and how much Max seemed to care about her in return, it was hard to work up that much bile. Still, hyperbole had its own pleasures.
"Oh, god," Maria breathed. "How are you dealing? If it were me, I wouldn't stand ten minutes without trying to slit her throat."
"It is you," Liz whispered, too quietly to be heard clearly over the phone, but instantly regretted it and resolved not to mention anything about Michael and Isabel to her best friend. "Don't worry about me, Mar, I'm fine. Max bumped in to me, asked for some help, and I'm doing what I can. It's the least I could do, for him."
"Okay," Maria said slowly. "You're sure you're fine? Don't need to unburden yourself any more with Lady Maria??"
"Positive."
"Okay, moving on then. What's the deal with our other guys, Alex and Kyle? Do you know why they showed up?"
"I think Alex was masochistically hoping to run into Isabel, and Kyle was bored. Nothing special there." Liz considered. "Oh, my god, something *else* happened that I have to tell you about, Maria. Boy, what a busy couple of days it's been!"
"I'm all ears."
"Okay, do you remember Pete Wilson? You met him at that New Year's Eve party in Baha."
"Oh god, like I could forget. You like Pete, you don't like Pete. You're going to ask Pete out, now Pete's dating your best friend. Boy, how is it you keep living in these kind of soap operas, girl??"
Liz tried to fight down a blush, even though no-one could see it. "Just bad luck I guess."
"Anyways, what's the latest development?"
"Pete asked me out."
"Oh, my god. You told him yes, right?"
"Um... well no, no I didn't."
"You told him no?"
A pause. "I told him I'd have to think about it."
Maria hmmmed as she considered that. "And this sudden bout of pensiveness - does it have anything to do with the fact that Maxwell Evans has returned to the picture, as spoken for as he may seem?" Liz stayed quiet for a long time, after which Maria whispered questioningly "Busted?"
"Not entirely," Liz insisted in her own defense. "I mean, yeah, the fact that Pete asked me out right after Max walked back into my life... it gave me pause, yes. Not that I expect to be able to get back together with Max, or anything. But... I really thought that Max was going to be 'the one.' Quote marks, capital letters, the whole deal, forever. Now I know better. So how the heck do I know about a guy like Pete?"
"Good point," Maria said slowly. "But let me ask you a question. How does *not* going out to dinner with Pete help you figure out if he is or isn't quote 'the one' end quote?"
"Once again you have a point, Maria DeLuca."
"On the other hand, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of being reunited with Max quite so quickly, young lady."
"Maria!!"
"Hey, I'm just sayin', girl. If I had even the glimpse of a second shot with Michael, I'd give it every single ounce of effort I had. Destiny be damned. And I think if you give Pete that answer without being one hundred percent sure that the ghost of Max Evans in your heart has been laid to rest, you'll never be sure who you really love."
"Eck," Liz groaned. "I *hate* it when you're right, Maria."
"Then how come we've stayed friends for so long?" Maria teased.
"Because this happens so rarely," Liz joked back.
"Okay, I'm feeling unappreciated now, you'd better hang up before one of us says something we'll regret."
"Okay, I will," Liz decided. But before she hung up, she whispered four words into the telephone mouthpiece. "I miss you, Maria."
"Miss you, Liz Parker." The line clicked and went dead.
After sitting and thinking about that conversation for a long forty-five seconds, Liz got up and started gathering up the stuff she'd wanted to grab. It didn't take too long, and when she stepped out of the door again, both Alex and Kyle were staring at her impatiently.
She didn't worry about that. "Well, I guess you guys had better come along," she said casually, leading the way back to the Congreve tower.
* * * * *
"Ahh-mah-nih-tah-lee..." Isabel softly chanted. "Ahh-mah-nih-tah-lee." It was her mantra - didn't mean anything, just a string of sounds to concentrate on while she was centering herself.
It was days like this when Isabel almost wished she hadn't been reborn on earth with her telepathic talent. Sure she could do things that in some ways were more impressive than anything the rest of them could do with the power, but with great power came great drawbacks.
Like feeling the thoughts and emotions of half a town at once, just below the level where she could pick them out individually. Ardra had told Isabel that back on the homeworld, most telepaths struggled with telempathic overload, but almost all of them could deal with it entirely using meditation techniques. Mantra as well as she might, Is never really felt it to be more than halfway effective. Who did Arda think she was, anyways? Isabel's mentor?! More like Tess's tutor. Ardra's telepathic talents were at best moderate.
It was at about this point that Isabel realized that she had slipped out of meditation into a mental ramble mode, and carefully tested the state of her mind. About as well as could be expected. And the clock read 7:20 pm.
What was going on outside? None of the group bothered Isabel while she was 'centering,' which was both comforting and frustrating in its way. Once Max, Michael, and Davin had fought off four Skin assasins alone rather than call for help while she was meditating.
Isabel rose gracefully from her cross-legged pose on the bed, jumped down onto the floor, and looked at herself in the mirror. She was wearing the tight black pants and muted yellow tank top that she had put on after waking up this afternoon, and her blonde hair was falling down with just a hint of wave to it. With an offhand mental effort, she tightened the golden locks into windswept curls, then caught herself and cringed. Androids. Well, hopefully such a small exercise of the power wouldn't be enough for them to tune in on.
Out in the living room, Ardra and Kenner were trying their hands at some game with Earth-style playing cards. "Hey, where's the rest of the gang?" she called out.
"They've left to begin observations for the space capsule outside of town," Kenner reported, as gruffly un-ruffle-able as ever. "We've been waiting until you finished your -- meditations."
Isabel almost growled. Would this mania never bow to common sense? Suddenly a new voice entered the conversation.
"Yeah, and getting pretty tired of waiting too, I have to admit." A familiar voice. Well, it had once been familiar, years ago. Now, it was just... recognizable. Isabel turned around. "Kyle Valenti. What are you doing here?"
Before Kyle could reply, someone else stepped into the hallway beside him, and it was all Isabel could do not to cry out in shock. Not because she recognized the face as that of Alex Charles Whitman. By now Isabel couldn't resist making general telepathic contact along with eye contact. And even at first 'glance,' there was something truly incredible about Alex Whitman's mind.
At first Isabel would have mentally labeled it 'inner peace,' but that was probably misleading. There was little that was peaceful about the outer layers of Alex's mind and essence - and deeper down, where Isabel was seeing what she was seeing, it was hard to say if such a description was even meaningful. What had caught Isabel's attention seemed to be some kind of deeply buried inner strength...
"Well, we should be heading off now," Ardra said, snapping Isabel out of her own thoughts. She noticed that the servitors had packed up their cards somewhere, and Ardra was pulling on a jacket.
Isabel sighed slightly and headed over to where she'd stowed her duffel bag in the bottom of a closet to pull out a coat that would be sufficient against the nighttime wind off the Arizona desert in February. Once she was ready, Isabel turned around and noticed Kyle and Alex also getting into jackets.
"Don't tell me," she drawled. "We have to take you guys along?"
"Hey, not my idea," Kyle shot back. "I just came here to visit with Liz. And what does our good Miss Parker do but drag me back here, wherever 'here' is and take off with your alien friends on us."
Isabel noticed out of the corner of her eye that though Alex didn't attempt to join in the conversation, his skin flushed slightly when Kyle mentioned 'just come here to visit Liz.' She didn't have to do a telepathic probe to guess what was on that young man's mind.
But she turned back to Kyle for more sarcastic banter as they left the suite. "Well, we didn't expect to run into frat week. I didn't even know we were going to bump into Liz here in Tempe. So I guess everybody has to roll with the punches, huh??"
"That was a lame comeback, Is," Kyle chided her. "What happenes to the legendary Isabel Evans wit? Oh - I forgot - it got traded in for the Guerin family obviousness, didn't it??"
Now it was Isabel who was blushing, partly because she knew Alex was listening. "How did you know about that?!"
Kyle's face was a study in seriousness. "I guessed. You just confirmed."
The five of them walked over to the elevator in silence. Trading barbs with Kyle Valenti had just lost its appeal. "So... how about the weather out there?" she asked vaguely.
The elevator door rang.
* * * * *
"God, what's taking this so long?" Michael grumbled, staring out into the sky. "We got Liz the gizmo that she needed. Maybe she just doesn't know what to do with it, huh?" He guffawed coarsely at Tess, who shrugged embarassedly, not commenting.
Liz had tactfully ignored a few other comments throughout the operation so far, but something inside her snapped. Standing up from her crouching position near the telescopic equipment and putting some distance between her and the delicate sensors before she spoke, she walked up to Michael. "Oh, I know *exactly* what I'm doing here - I'm attempting the impossible for you guys!! This radio signal is so faint that even *with* the portable radio telescope you guys so kindly 'liberated' for me, we have to narrow the scan to no more than a few square arc seconds of the sky to be sure of hearing it. Even just a few years ago, that kind of narrow focus wouldn't be *possible*!"
Michael shrugged slightly, which just spurred Liz on. "You don't get it, do you? Well, an arc second is an extremely *tiny* amount of apparent distance." She held up two fingers, almost, ALMOST touching, as a demonstration. "So small that you wouldn't even be able to see it with the naked eye - unless there was a bright star or something else in that arc second to draw your attention to it."
"There are something like eight hundred billion square arc seconds in the sky. Even with the calculations that Bentor and I have done, we've got margins of error that are several arc minutes long and nine or ten arc seconds wide. So *excuse* me if this is taking a while and DON'T TALK WHILE I'M TRYING TO WORK!!"
As Liz's rant finished, she noticed that everyone around was kind of staring at her. "Well, what are you all looking at?"
"Perhaps you should take a rest," Bentor suggested diplomatically. "I believe we have learned enough to continue making the observations without you." He gestured to himself and Max, who had been paying the closest attention as Liz explained the scanning procedure.
Liz forced herself to cool down. "No, that's okay. I'm okay. I'm cool, I'm cool..."
"Yes, you are," Max said softly, stepping up to her. "But Bentor's right too. You've been working so hard on this for what... seventeen hours now, in one way or another? All of the rest of us have taken some crash time. There are some sleeping bags in the van, maybe you should..."
"No," Liz shook his head. "There's no way I could sleep while you guys are finding out if my figures are any good or not..."
"Then maybe just take a walk?" Max smiled at her sheepishly. "You can come and take over for me in fifteen minutes or something." Liz considered making another protest, but decided to defer to Max's judgement.
"Okay, I'm on the bench. See yas in fifteen." She forced a smile, waved teasingly, and headed off towards the other end of the field. As she left, she noticed that an RV was pulling up. That'd be Alex, Isabel, Kyle, and the 'other' two. She didn't want to go over to talk to them or anything. So Liz just kept on walking into the darkness.
What was she doing here, really?? Well, she was here because Max needed her help. Which was all well and good on the face of it. But what about what Liz Parker needed? If any of the four of them had been nearly as concerned about what Liz said as about all their alien drama...
No, that wasn't fair. Max, Michael, Isabel... even Tess had never let her down when Liz had come to any of them for help... (though she'd hardly ever had reason to *ask* Tess for anything...) Not exactly. But what about --
'Future Max.' The one thing that Liz had wanted, that she had needed more than anything in the world, and that time-travelling turd had had to take it away from her. No - not just take it away. He'd made Liz jump through hoops to push it away, to find some way of throwing what she felt for Max so far into the muck that neither of them would want to go back and get it.
How dare he? Liz had never asked to have the fate of the world on her shoulders, never wanted to be mixed up in alien destinies or any of this other crap. She had found something incredible with Max, and it *irked* her to the very depths of her circulatory system to have to give that up, for a reason that was probably far-fetched enough to make anybody laugh out loud. "Oh yeah, I love Max, but I had to break up with him and fake losing my virginity to my ex because his future self came to me and told me that the world would be destroyed in 2014 if he didn't get back together with his alien bride." Sheesh.
God! She had understood the pain in Future Max's eyes, that this was costing him as much or more than it was costing her, and that was what had kept her from arguing further with his premise. Why did it have to be that particular moment in time, that particular line of events alone, which could save the world? Why not find some way of making Tess feel like she belonged that didn't involve handing over Max's heart? Why not find some other alien that Max, Michael, and Isabel could have teamed up with? For god's sake, why not just find some way to kick this Kivar's butt before he could invade the earth?!
The tapestry of time was complicated enough, there had to be *some* other way to divert the course of history. Or had to 'have been'. The soulmate ship had sailed...
* * * * *
It had been the West Roswell high spring dance of 2001. Against her better judgement, Liz had accepted Alex's offer to take her to the dance 'just as friends,' and up to this point she'd actually been having an okay time. Just hanging around, listening to the music, (someone had gotten this pretty cool teenage bluegrass group to play,) and, along with Alex, making mild and toothless jokes at the expense of other partiers.
"Where am I today, I wish that I knew,
'Cause looking around, there's no sign of you."
"Oh, hey, punch glass empty," Alex said, taking the plastic cup from her hand with a smile. "I'm refill-man." Liz smiled back as Alex headed around the edge of the dance floor towards the refreshments table.
"I don't remember one jump or one leap,
Just quiet steps away from your lead."
Liz knew that Alex had asked her to the dance tonight as much to keep his mind off his own heartache as to keep Liz's mind off hers -- Michael and Isabel had made it quietly clear that they would be coming together, their first public date. Maria had chosen a different way to deal - she had sworn off the dance and was sitting at home with a popcorn sunday and a romantic comedy triple feature on videotape. Liz had offered to make it a girl's night in, but Maria encouraged her to come here with Alex.
"I'm holding my heart out, but clutching it too:
The feeling is short of the love that we once knew,"
While she waited for Alex to get back, Liz moseyed idly closer to the dance floor to watch, maybe make some toothless jokes all by herself.
"Callin' this a home when it's not even close,
And playing the role with nerves left exposed."
And that's when she saw them - he looking incredibly handsome in a conservative tux, she much more beautiful than she deserved in a pale lavender gown. Max and Tess, slow-dancing.
"Standing, on a darkened stage. Stumbling, through the lie.
Others have excuses. 'I have my reasons why.'"
They didn't notice her, Liz could tell that much. The way they were staring so deeply into each other's eyes, how could they?
Liz just stood there, shocked, watching them. She had known it in her mind, that Max and Liz were together, but seeing it was something else entirely. Did it all end, everything that she and Max had been through, right here?
"We get distracted by the dreams of our own,
But nobody's happy while feeling alone, (you're not alone,)"
She had to admit that viewed objectively, it seemed sweet. If you didn't know them, Max and Tess looked like a cute couple.
"Knowing how hard it *hurts* when we fall --
...Lean another ladder against the wrong wall!"
Tess leaned up on her tiptoes to whisper something towards Max's ear. Max smiled and murmured a throaty word or two in response.
"And climb - HIGH - to the highest rung,
To shake fists at the sky."
And then, Liz didn't realize how it had happened, but they were kissing, a chaste but tender public kiss, right out there in the middle of the dance floor. As Liz looked on, too morbidly fascinated to turn away, Max and Tess seemed to begin to glow with a soft bluish light.
"Others have excuses - *I have my reasons why.*"
Nobody else in the entire crowded gymnasium seemed to notice anything on, except Michael and Isabel, who Liz just noticed, and who were also looking with surprise at Max and Tess, as they broke this kiss, still gently shining with blue light. But Liz somehow knew that the was no illusion, no mind-warp invented to rub her nose in the fact of Tess' final victory. If only because she didn't think Tess was a good enough actress to create such an effect without having given some sign of knowing that Liz was there.
After everything that she'd been through with Max and his friends, everything that she'd seen, now some quirk of fate was letting her perceive the awful truth.
"With so much deception, it's hard not to wander away (hard not to wonder...)"
Max Evans and Tess Harding had just fell in love.
Liz turned about and ran out of the gym, tears flowing down her cheeks as she went, oblivious to the fact that Alex was finally on his way back with the punch. She tore the sleeve of her dress on the jagged splinter in the gym door, and never even noticed.
In a way, Liz knew she had kept on running until she got to Arizona.
* * * *
"Penny for your thoughts," a familiar voice said, jogging her out of her thoughts. Liz looked up and saw Max's face, dimly lit in the starlight as he stepped across the grass towards her.
"No sale," Liz answered before thinking about it. "So, what about the telescopes?"
"Alex is taking a turn," Max explained. "I wanted to talk to you in private. I'm sorry it it seemed like I was making you out to be the bad guy - er, bad person."
"Just a *little,*" Liz told him with a sigh.
"Well, that's not what I tought," Max asserted. "Michael was being a nasty jerk, which is a bad habit he's gotten into lately, and you put him in his place. End of story. Except... you seemed a little more irritable than you should be, Michael or no Michael. I thought you really could use a break, and didn't want to risk you breaking the surveying equipment if you lost your temper again before you got it." The teasing smile on Max's face let her knwo that he was just joking about that last part.
"And, you thought it would be a face-saver for Michael if you told him to shape up just among you guys, rather than take the outsider's side against him in public," Liz suddenly guessed. "Well, I guess I can understand that. We should be heading back over there."
"What's the hurry?" Max smiled again, a lazy smile that made him seem at one with the universe. "You're still on break, last I checked, Liz Parker."
"Okay, then what the heck are we going to *do* on my break?" Liz laughed back. "I'm bored stiff wandering around out here."
Max shrugged slightly. "We have the stars," he said, making a grandiose gesture up and around.
Liz couldn't fight a snort. "And what good does that do us?"
"C'mon, Liz, you're into this stuff now - you..." Max smacked a hand to his forehead. "You get technical data and theories shoved into your head all day until you're just *sick* of stars, don't you?"
Liz nodded. "Not quite, but almost, yeah."
Max considered that for a moment in silence. "I look up at the stars, and I wonder what they really look like from our home world. I remember a few facts, and tidbits, about the constelattions of our people, their legends about the stars, but I can't get the true sensation of how it *feels* to look up at another sky."
Liz grinned. "What kind of legends?"
"Well, let's see..." Max took a moment to orient himself, then pointed up at a bright star about fifty degrees above the horizon. "That's the one that earth astronomers call Deneb, right?"
"Um... yeah," Liz agreed after checking a few mental star maps of her own. "Also Alpha Cygni. A bluish-white supergiant, thousands of light-years away from Earth, but still first-magnitude -- one of the very brightest stars in our sky."
"My homeworld is considerably closer to it, so it's even brighter in our sky. Brighter than any true star is as seen from earth, probably even brighter than Venus at the height of its brilliance."
"Wow." Even though Liz could accept intellectually that this might be so on an alien world far away in space, it surprised and shocked her on a deeper level."
"According to the constellations that my people worked out long ago, Izmatar - our name for Deneb, is the brightest jewel in 'the crown.'"
"Oh," Liz commented. "You have a crown constellation too? Actually, we have two, as I'm sure you know if you were able to find Deneb. Cepheus and Cassiopeia, the king and the queen."
"Yeah, I know," Max agreed good-naturedly. "For queeens, we have what I suppose you'd call a 'Tiara constellation.' But it was Izmatar alone that became significant when the unified Monarchy of our world was instituted. For five hundred years that star signified the solidarity of our government, of our people. And it was a constant reminder that the first duty... of the king, was to the people for whose sake he ruled..."
Liz could tell by now that talking about this was upsetting Max for some reason, probably because he felt he had 'let down his people' in that other life so long ago. So she opened her mouth to change the subject. "So, do your people have a star of love??" Now, what had posessed her to ask about that?!
"Um... uh, yeah," Max said, recovering his composure. "Elendril, the heart of the bride. The bride and the groom are standing right next to each other, of course."
"Of course," Liz agreed quietly. "Maybe we'd better go back to the others."
This time, Max didn't argue with her.
To be continued...
