Whom among us, part nine
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Isabel watched as Max headed off towards Liz Parker, swept her gaze across Bentor and Alex Whitman, busy with all the observational equipment Liz had set up, and edged her way over to Tess.
"Could I have a moment, sister?" she whispered. Tess jumped a little - Isabel didn't use that form of address often, though by the customs of their people it was justified, and led the way apart from the rest of the gang in a new direction.
"What's on your mind, telepath?" Tess joked once they were alone.
Isabel didn't feel like forcing a smile. "You... I think you know how hard it's been - struggling with my gift." Tess nodded, all serious now. "I -- tonight, I've caught a glimpse of something that might help, another mind which might be able to offer me some of the peace I've been missing. But the... personal situation is, well... awkward."
Tess looked back towards the crowd gathered around the telescopes, her gaze resting on Kyle Valenti for a moment. Isabel shook her head, and Tess caught the motion and move on. With Tess's somewhat uncertain second choice, Isabel signalled correct.
"Whitman?!" Tess breathed. Isabel nodded again. "Who'd a thunk it." Catching the beginnings of a glare from her sister-in-law, Tess quickly amended. "Not to say that Alex hasn't always been quite a guy. But inner peace?"
"There's more to him than cracking jokes and excitable energy, Tess," Isabel said with the quiet of certainty.
"Okay. And you said this peace he has could help you out? How??" From the look on Tess' face, Isabel could tell she had already guessed the answer.
"A core mind-link. After that, we'd always carry a piece of the other inside us - I think I'd be able to learn his peace, without any danger of taking it away. Not directly, at least..." Isabel sighed loudly. "But how could I ask that of Alex. Damnit, Tess, I broke his heart! I abandoned him!!"
If Tess Harding-Evans felt any surprise at being the bulls-eye for Isabel's vented frustrations, she didn't show it. "You had to," she whispered softly. "To do what we've done, over the past four years, you had to leave Alex behind."
"Did I have to hurt him so much??" Isabel flared. "And now, to even *think* about touching his life in an intense a way as this and then leaving again - I can't do it. I shouldn't do it, I just have to forget about it..."
Tess was shaking her head. "Just ask Alex about it. I have a feeling he'll surprise you. And if he doesn't have a problem with it, why should you??"
Isabel's face fell into a hard, bitter line. "If I'd asked Alex beforehand if he was sure he wanted to get involved with me, knowing I'd probably leave him, he'd have said yes. That doesn't mean he's better off now."
Tess considered for a second, then nodded a farewell and headed back towards the assembled company. Max and Liz were making their way back too, from the other direction, and Isabel could see Max's smile as he caught sight of his wife.
She also saw Liz's face fall when *she* saw that smile too.
* * * *
Liz tried to put the Max/Tess thing out of her mind as she walked back up to the radio telescope. "How are we doing?" she asked Alex and Bentor.
"The Perseus trajectory has been completely surveyed," Alex reported earnestly. "No trace of the radio signal we're looking for. We were just getting ready to take bearings for the zone you'd marked out in Taurus."
"Are you sure?" Liz turned to Bentor. "If we've missed something in Perseus, there won't be another chance to find it after that constellation sets. Not until tomorrow night." Liz left the words 'and tomorrow isn't good enough' go unsaid. They all understood that.
"I am sure," Bentor assured her solemnly. "In any event, Perseus is already close enough to the horizon that attempting to recheck it would be troublesome. We might receive false positives from human radio transmissions, bounced off the atmosphere and shifted in frequency. And Taurus is not much higher than Perseus. If we take the time to verify Perseus, Taurus will be close to the horizon by the time we could completely survey *there*..."
"All right, I *get it*!" Liz shot back. Bentor definitely didn't know when to shut up. He had a little bit of the 'commander data' quality about him - an endless fountain of facts and opinions, without an easy to use off switch. "So it's Taurus. We'll take a bearing by Aldebaran first, vector over to Hyades two and use that to find our 'zone.'"
"As you wish." Bentor waved her forward to the optical telescope they were using to take bearings on visible stars and Liz realized as she looked through the eyepiece that it was already oriented on Alpha Taurus, the star named Aldebaran. Ah well. Without a word Liz checked the telescopes viewfinder for the second-brightest star in the hyades cluster, and started making rough calculations on her scratch pad. Bear right by twenty degrees, and...
* * * *
Alex shot a look back at Liz and walked away. Now that she had returned, it was pretty clear that Alex was relieved of his duties as assistant star-watcher. Liz hadn't even been about to trust what he'd said about the Perseus trajectory. Whoever that Bentor guy was, Liz trusted his opinion more than she did Alex's own.
"Hi, Alex." He turned around and there she was. *Isabel*. Even though he'd known she was here in Arizona, and they'd ridden over to this deserted meadow at the same time, he hadn't really gotten a good look at her. Or maybe he could never get a good enough look at her.
Iz looked even more beautiful than he remembered from high school. Her golden blonde hair was short - just about shoulder length, and she was dressed unpretentiously in jeans and a light sweater. Over the past few years, she'd definitely grown up, but there was a strange way in which she almost seemed to be younger. At first, Alex had hoped that it was that she had lost the 'Ice queen' aspect, but that was definitely still present, for him at any rate. For so long, Alex had wanted to be the one who let Isabel take that barrier down.
She started to turn away, and Alex was jolted out of his stream of consciousness. She must think I'm a space case, Alex thought, just standing here and staring at her like that. "Hey," he called out loud, freezing Isabel's motion in mid-spin. "Did you want to talk to me about something??"
"Umm..." A pause ensued for many long seconds. "Yes, yes I did, Alex." She smiled faintly at him. "I wanted to ask you something, in fact -- I wanted to ask you... How've you been, Alex?"
That wasn't the question that was gnawing at her. This observation was so plaingly obvious that even Alex, master of the obvious that he was, felt no need to comment on it. Isabel was trying to get over the awkwardness of needing to ask him something unpleasant after all of their history, and both of them knew it.
"Umm... not bad." He smiled back at the young woman who had grown out of the girl of his dreams. "Computer science at Stanford not doing too badly. I'm following my heart, picking the courses I'm interested in, which means that I may be the one Stanford Comp sci graduate to end up unemployable, but hey. What can you do, right?" He chuckled a bit at himself, and Isabel smiled back. "What about you? Life as an alien rebel princess keeping you busy?"
"I'd say so," Isabel agreed, looking down at the ground they were standing on. "But I'm pretty sure I'm not having as much fun as you are."
Okay. He was starting to depress her. Enough of the small talk. "What did you really want to ask me, Isabel?"
Isabel's eyes slowly came back to his, their brown depth seeming to draw him in even in the dim light. "It... it's difficult to explain. Did... did Liz or anyone tell you that I've-- I've learned a lot about my powers, since we last talked??"
"Well... no," Alex admitted. "Like what?"
"I... I'm a telepath," Isabel blurted out. "I've been training pretty much non-stop at reading minds, influencing thoughts, and learning to work with the forces that underpin psyche itself. I..." Suddenly at a loss for word, she searched Alex's face for a response.
Alex's first reaction was... Okay, she can read my thoughts. She could probably tell when I was rehashing all those old fantasies about her. And she can probably tell that I'm thinking this right now.
His second reaction was... coool!!
Isabel giggled. Alex smiled back at her. This didn't seem to be so scary.
"But it's not all fun and games," Isabel sighed. "I've been having a bit of a rough time of it lately -- always having to shut out people's thoughts when I need a little peace and quiet inside my own head. Trying to balance not taking advantage of the people around me with the needs of the mission. Sometimes not even being quite sure where I end and the rest of the world begins."
"Hmm... yeah, I guess I could see that," Alex agreed vaguely. "Umm... why are you telling me this, Isabel?"
"Because...." Alex realized that, defying belief, Isabel was blushing. She turned so that she was facing away from the moonlight, probably trying to keep Alex from seeing her face clearly. "When I first say you again, back at the suite, I realized something, Alex. You have a really together mind."
"I... I do?" Alex didn't feel all that together right then.
"Yes, you do," Isabel repeated confidently. "And... I think that there's a way that you could spread the luck around. I mean, that you could help *me.*"
"Sure!" The word slipped out before Alex could censor himself. "Anything."
"Don't say that too quickly," Isabel warned him. "First, this can't be a gift with any strngs attached. I'm with Michael, we're happy together. I'm not gonna fall into your arms so grateful that... well, you get the picture."
Alex was about to protest that he hadn't been thinking any such thing, then decided he wasn't so sure that he hadn't been, on some level, especially if Isabel had felt the need to warn him. "I understand."
"And... this thing I'm asking - it's big. It's called a core mind-link. Probably a fair bit like those 'vulcan mind-melds' on Star trek - I'm not completely sure. The point is, I connect our minds on a deep enough mental level that each of us takes part of the other when the link is finished. I'll take your mental strength - well, not take it away from you, you'll still have it, just learn from it. Copy it, maybe, in a sense. But you..."
"I'd always have some piece of you," Alex breathed.
"Yes. I understand why you might not want that..."
"Why not?" Now it was Isabel that was surprised, almost afraid to meet Alex's gaze as he looked at her. "If I can't be with you, this would be the next best thing, right??"
Isabel couldn't find enough breath to speak for a few seconds. Then, "D-don't say that, Alex. You have no way of knowing how hard it might be... for the person you love to be as close as your thoughts and yet... unobtainable."
"Don't be so sure," Alex muttered darkly.
"For the rest of your life," Iz warned him.
"If I'm as strong as you say, I'll survive, right?" Alex countered. Isabel turned away again. "Do it. Right now, just do it."
"N--- no," Isabel's words came out half-choked, and Alex wondered if tears were on Isabel's face - and if she would let him see them if there were. "I won't do it now. At the very least, think about it. Decide if you have any questions for me about what will happen. Maybe before this is all over, if you've really given my proposal due consid... der... deration, then I'll go through with the link."
"I've thought about it for as long as I need to," Alex told her softly. "But I know I can't force you. Whenever you think I'm ready, or you're ready, or whatever needs to happen, I'll be waiting."
Isabel pushed on deeper into the night. Alex didn't want to go back to the group, (and have to wonder if Michael knew about this little soap opera,) so he just turned and looked up at the moon.
* * * *
"No, no," Kyle was telling Ardra. "It's through enlightenment that a soul escapes the circle of transmigration and reaches Nirvana."
"Why would you want to escape transmigration?" Ardra countered. "Why would a soul want to run away from the universe?" Kyle started to say something, and the hybrid woman cut him off. "I know, I know... 'Existence is suffering.' That's a very depressing philosophy though, don't you think."
"I don't know," Kyle countered. "A lot of what I've seen and lived through would tend to back that up. And I mean, look at you guys. Exiled from your home planet, imprisoned in bodies that are half-alien to your original natures. Forced to go through these battles and oddyseys to regain your motherland... wouldn't you say that your existence is an arduous challenge?"
"A challenge, yes, but not a punishment," Davin put in. "There is suffering, yes, but there is also joy. You can't ignore either one."
"Moving on," Ardra suggested. "What about this 'enlightenment.' Who defined enlightenment?"
"It's not a question of defining it, it's a question of discovering it," Kyle countered.
"So... it's, what... the cosmos' standard of enlightenment? That all of you Buddhists are running around trying to figure out and live up to."
"Well..." Kyle stopped short and thought about that for a moment. "Well, I *guess* you could put it that way, but that makes it sound..."
Max stopped paying attention to the interspecies philosophical symposium and wandered over to the telescopes. Bentor had sat down on an old but sturdy wooden bench and Liz was running her fingers through her hair in a gesture of relief, so Max guessed that some part of the mission had just been completed. "So, where do we stand?" he called out hopefully. "Have you found our capsule for us, Liz?"
"Afraid not yet, fearless leader," Liz replied, favoring Max with a friendly smile. "We've checked out three of the routing possibilities that Bentor and I worked out earlier today. But that just means we're going to find it on number four, right?"
Max could hear the effort with which Liz was keeping her confidence up. "Well, let's find out. Where's number four?"
Bentor let a low-throated chuckle escape, which set Liz off into giggles for a few seconds. "We can't find out yet. The fourth zone is between Lyra and Saggitarius, which means that right now it's..." Liz oriented herself and pointed at the far side of the meadow - definitely down towards the ground rather than up into the sky. "There. It won't rise into view for another hour and a half, and testing conditions won't be good for about an hour after that. Radio noise bouncing off the atmosphere near the horizon, you know."
Max checked his watch and mentally added two and a half hours. "Will you have enough time to finish the survey before morning twilight gets in the way?"
Liz checked her own watch. "We'll be - Bentor?" She turned to the old alien sage for confirmation, and he gravely nodded. "We'll be fine."
"The twilight is not so important a factor in the radio survey part of the operation," Bentor added. "Earth's sun is not a notable producer of radio wave energy at this frequency. Once we have determined the boundaries of the range, we should be able to track it and continue making observations until sunrise."
"Yeah," Liz agreed. "So, if it's alright with you guys, I'm gonna nab a bed in that RV and catch some Z's. I am officially tuckered. Have someone wake me up in two hours, okay Bentor?"
"So it shall be done," Bentor answered solemnly.
Liz was already heading off. "Sweet dreams, Liz," Max called after her.
Liz stopped, and turned around, looking into Max's eyes. "We'll see." And then she was on her way again.
Max turned to raise an eyebrow at Bentor, only to find that the older hybrid had stretched out on the bench and closed his eyes. Like all of the Others, he could go to sleep anywhere and wake up on a timer cue. (Sometimes it seemed to Max like they were less sleeping than turning themselves off to recharge.) Max wandered off to think.
He wasn't sure quite what to make of this new Liz Parker. Confidant, take-charge, and dynamic. Sometimes, Max even thought she was flirting with him, even though she had to guess that he was commited to his marriage with Tess now. Or had he been flirting back? Max couldn't be sure. One thing was definite, though - Liz version 2004 was a welcome improvement on Max's last memories of her before meeting here in Arizona. "At least she's talking to me," he whispered to himself.
* * * *
(December 22 2000)
It was the Christmas season in Roswell, but Max wasn't filled with the holiday spirit. He and Michael had stood by and watched as a man died in the Christmas tree lot, hit by a car while they were looking for a christmas tree that would satisfy Isabel. And now, the dead man was appearing to Max in his mind, blaming him for his death, saying that Max should have healed him. It was driving Max out of his mind.
So, Max broke the unspoken agreement that had held for the last three weeks and went to see Liz.
She had been sitting at one of the tables next to the window in the Crashdown, wearing this cute pink holiday-type sweater and working on what looked like a list of last-minute shopping. He just stood there watching her for half a minute watching her before Liz looked up, and he caught the briefest possible flash of a smile before she buried it.
By the time Liz met him, just outside the door, she was all business. "Why are you here?"
"I... I need a friend," he told her softly.
Liz sighed, shaking her head, and taking a step away from the cafe door. Max steppen backwards, keeping the pace with her. "I... I can't help you, Max," she whispered.
"You have to!" he pressed. "Something... something terrible has happened, and... and I just need someone whose judgement I trust to help me sort through it. That's all it is, I promise..."
"I believe you," Liz said, cutting off Max as he was about to protest that this wasn't the first part of some scheme to get Liz back. "But... oh god, I don't know how to say this so you'll understand me. I want to be your friend, Max, but I can't yet. I'm not ready. And I'm not s... I'm just not ready." Max knew what Liz had kept herself from saying. She wasn't sure he was ready to be 'just friends' either.
"But I *need* you, Liz..."
"You're just going to have to go to someone else," Liz insisted, tears brimming up in her eyes. "Go to Tess, maybe." That last phrase was a low mutter, filled with resentment.
"Tess isn't a substitute for you!" Max flared. "And why is everything about Tess lately, anyways??"
"I hate to break it to you, Max, but it's 'been about' Tess for a long, long time," Liz sighed. "You've been refusing to accept it... which is flattering, really, kinda..." Liz chuckled half-wryly, "but your future is with her, and the sooner you can accept that, the better off we'll all be. Now seems like a good time to start."
Max started to protest again, but Liz jumped in and talked over him. "Don't come to me again, Max. If you don't want to talk to Tess, talk to Michael, Isabel, Maria, or just sit out here by yourself. But don't come back here. Not until I come and tell you that I'm ready."
"Are you *trying* to be a cold-hearted bitch, or do you not get how painful this is for me?" Max exploded, grabbing Liz by the wrist, not enough to hurt.
Liz looked up at him, and he noticed that the tears were now streaming down her face. "I could ask you the same question," she murmured ever so quietly, without breaking eye contact. "With a different terms substituted for the b word, of course." Max dropped her arm and turned away. "I know how hard this is for you, Max," Liz's voice continued. "But I can't give in on this. Please tell me that you can."
"I can," Max sighed, turning around again though he couldn't hear to look at Liz's face again yet, "on one condition. There's something that I have to ask you about that nobody else can answer. Give me a minute of your time, if not as a friend then for the sake of everything we've been through, and then I'll go."
Liz took a second to consider. "Alright."
"I... someone died last night," Max blurted out. "Someone who I could have saved, maybe, but didn't because I was too afraid of exposing myself. Too afraid of ending up in something like the white room. And this someone... he was like you. Not obviously, maybe, but he was..."
"I think I understand what you're getting at," Liz put in. "You're asking me if I would blame you for not having saved my life, if you hadn't?" Max nodded. "No, Max, I couldn't ever *expect* that out of you. You risked so much because of that day in the Crashdown, and put Michael and Isabel through so much. The consequences are only now starting to die down. And the stakes would get even higher if you were to be identified near the scene of another suspicious healing."
"It's not that easy, Max," the ghost said, suddenly blinking into existence behind Liz, talking over her head. "I wouldn't be here if something inside you didn't know that things have gone wrong. You need to restore the balance."
Max started to bite off an angry reply to the ghost, then stopped. He really didn't want to burden Liz with any of this stuff - it didn't have anything to do with what he'd asked of her. "Thank you, Liz," he said sadly, and turned and walked away.
* * * *
"Not a merry Christmas," Max mumbled to himself. He had hatched a plan to 'restore the balance' after Maria had told him about Brody Davis' little daughter with cancer, Sydney. Save the little girl's life as a way of making up for the life that he hadn't been able to save. But it hadn't worked out that way.
Sydney Davis had had a relapse and been taken to a special hospital in Phoenix. (Which wasn't far from Tempe, Max suddenly realized.) Max and Michael had actually gone to the hospital themselves, and Max had been toying with the thought of trying to help other kids as well as little Sydney.
But after a little bad luck had seen the two of them almost arrested and filled the hospital with security guards looking for two mysterious intruders, there had been nothing for it but to burn rubber back to Roswell as quickly as they could. Max had never even gotten inside the pediatric cancer ward.
And, as another dismal little note, when they finally got back to Michael's apartment, Tess had been waiting for them, her suitcase packed and quite bound and determined not to go back to Jim Valenti's house. Things had been said before Christmas dinner that couldn't easily be taken back.
* * * *
Liz woke up with a start. Was something wrong?? A dream! She had been dreaming...
Something about a car. Yes, Liz had been driving in the dream... (which was odd since it wasn't something she did often in real life - more of a public transit kinda girl...) Anyways, she had been driving down a long, lonely road in the dead of night, heading towards... Max? Yes, she'd told someone in the dream that she was meeting the love of her life, Max Evans.
Liz shook off the dream and reached out for her watch, pushing the button that made it glow visibly in the darkness. Her wakeup call would be arriving in a little more than ten minutes, if Bentor were as punctual as the alien 'Jeeves' he often seemed like. "Well, not really much point in trying to get back to sleep then," Liz sighed, sitting up further.
Pete's laptop was strapped safely into a little cargo stowaway next to the bed Liz had been sleeping in, and she reached out to free the valuable lump of circuitry into her hands. Boot back up out of hibernation mode... battery life is still at ninety percent, good. After a second's thought, Liz plugged her cell phone into the wireless modem and surfed off to check her email.
Spam, spam, disgusting spam, spam. A reminder about the starlight club social that had taken place earlier in the evening. Sales pitch for a registered copy of the demo word processor she'd been using.
Message timestamped 11:26 pm that night from pete_wil@desertnet.com Subject 'Just dropping a line.'
Smiling slightly in the darkness, Liz opened up the email.
"Hey, Liz. Petey boy here, as you might have guessed. Just thought you'd probably appreciate it if I left you a note to reassure that I got to my parents' place safe and sound. I don't know what all that stuff was about, back on campus, but that's okay. When you're ready to tell me, I'd like to know. But not pushing.
It would seem, to the casual observer, (i.e. me,) that your life is pretty crazy all of a sudden since your 'friends' came to town. So I'm going to take that question I asked you this morning, and put it up in the cupboard... yeah, here oughtta do -- just so that it's out of your way. Once things have settled down a little, you can take it back out of the cupboard and give me your answer.
I'm attaching three friendly hugs to this email in OOO format. Just in case you need them. :D
@---,---'---,---'----
Miss you already, Lizzie.
XXX
Pete
(Okay, I had really better hit send now, before I qualify as a stalker.)"
Liz grinned again, logged into her pager without much hope that Pete would be online... (it was almost four in the morning for god's sake... sure enough the only person online was a classmate who had been idle for five hours and obviously forgot to turn her pager off,) and hit the reply button. A knock sounded on the RV door.
"Hey, Miss Parker?" It was Davin. "Your wake-up call - except that you're already awake."
"I'll be out there in five minutes," Liz assured him, and turned her attention back to the computer.
"Pete,
Thanks for the hugs, and the reassurance. You're not crossing any lines.
Sure, for right now your question is probably best kept up in that cupboard where nobody'll bump it accidentally. But in the meantime do me a favor and keep being your sweet and charming self.
The rose is beautiful. I didn't have a vase for it, so I put it in a Java JAR file. ;)
XXXX back,
Liz."
As she got out of the RV, Liz noticed that a tent had been set up in the meadow. She sighed and headed back over to the radio telescope.
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Isabel watched as Max headed off towards Liz Parker, swept her gaze across Bentor and Alex Whitman, busy with all the observational equipment Liz had set up, and edged her way over to Tess.
"Could I have a moment, sister?" she whispered. Tess jumped a little - Isabel didn't use that form of address often, though by the customs of their people it was justified, and led the way apart from the rest of the gang in a new direction.
"What's on your mind, telepath?" Tess joked once they were alone.
Isabel didn't feel like forcing a smile. "You... I think you know how hard it's been - struggling with my gift." Tess nodded, all serious now. "I -- tonight, I've caught a glimpse of something that might help, another mind which might be able to offer me some of the peace I've been missing. But the... personal situation is, well... awkward."
Tess looked back towards the crowd gathered around the telescopes, her gaze resting on Kyle Valenti for a moment. Isabel shook her head, and Tess caught the motion and move on. With Tess's somewhat uncertain second choice, Isabel signalled correct.
"Whitman?!" Tess breathed. Isabel nodded again. "Who'd a thunk it." Catching the beginnings of a glare from her sister-in-law, Tess quickly amended. "Not to say that Alex hasn't always been quite a guy. But inner peace?"
"There's more to him than cracking jokes and excitable energy, Tess," Isabel said with the quiet of certainty.
"Okay. And you said this peace he has could help you out? How??" From the look on Tess' face, Isabel could tell she had already guessed the answer.
"A core mind-link. After that, we'd always carry a piece of the other inside us - I think I'd be able to learn his peace, without any danger of taking it away. Not directly, at least..." Isabel sighed loudly. "But how could I ask that of Alex. Damnit, Tess, I broke his heart! I abandoned him!!"
If Tess Harding-Evans felt any surprise at being the bulls-eye for Isabel's vented frustrations, she didn't show it. "You had to," she whispered softly. "To do what we've done, over the past four years, you had to leave Alex behind."
"Did I have to hurt him so much??" Isabel flared. "And now, to even *think* about touching his life in an intense a way as this and then leaving again - I can't do it. I shouldn't do it, I just have to forget about it..."
Tess was shaking her head. "Just ask Alex about it. I have a feeling he'll surprise you. And if he doesn't have a problem with it, why should you??"
Isabel's face fell into a hard, bitter line. "If I'd asked Alex beforehand if he was sure he wanted to get involved with me, knowing I'd probably leave him, he'd have said yes. That doesn't mean he's better off now."
Tess considered for a second, then nodded a farewell and headed back towards the assembled company. Max and Liz were making their way back too, from the other direction, and Isabel could see Max's smile as he caught sight of his wife.
She also saw Liz's face fall when *she* saw that smile too.
* * * *
Liz tried to put the Max/Tess thing out of her mind as she walked back up to the radio telescope. "How are we doing?" she asked Alex and Bentor.
"The Perseus trajectory has been completely surveyed," Alex reported earnestly. "No trace of the radio signal we're looking for. We were just getting ready to take bearings for the zone you'd marked out in Taurus."
"Are you sure?" Liz turned to Bentor. "If we've missed something in Perseus, there won't be another chance to find it after that constellation sets. Not until tomorrow night." Liz left the words 'and tomorrow isn't good enough' go unsaid. They all understood that.
"I am sure," Bentor assured her solemnly. "In any event, Perseus is already close enough to the horizon that attempting to recheck it would be troublesome. We might receive false positives from human radio transmissions, bounced off the atmosphere and shifted in frequency. And Taurus is not much higher than Perseus. If we take the time to verify Perseus, Taurus will be close to the horizon by the time we could completely survey *there*..."
"All right, I *get it*!" Liz shot back. Bentor definitely didn't know when to shut up. He had a little bit of the 'commander data' quality about him - an endless fountain of facts and opinions, without an easy to use off switch. "So it's Taurus. We'll take a bearing by Aldebaran first, vector over to Hyades two and use that to find our 'zone.'"
"As you wish." Bentor waved her forward to the optical telescope they were using to take bearings on visible stars and Liz realized as she looked through the eyepiece that it was already oriented on Alpha Taurus, the star named Aldebaran. Ah well. Without a word Liz checked the telescopes viewfinder for the second-brightest star in the hyades cluster, and started making rough calculations on her scratch pad. Bear right by twenty degrees, and...
* * * *
Alex shot a look back at Liz and walked away. Now that she had returned, it was pretty clear that Alex was relieved of his duties as assistant star-watcher. Liz hadn't even been about to trust what he'd said about the Perseus trajectory. Whoever that Bentor guy was, Liz trusted his opinion more than she did Alex's own.
"Hi, Alex." He turned around and there she was. *Isabel*. Even though he'd known she was here in Arizona, and they'd ridden over to this deserted meadow at the same time, he hadn't really gotten a good look at her. Or maybe he could never get a good enough look at her.
Iz looked even more beautiful than he remembered from high school. Her golden blonde hair was short - just about shoulder length, and she was dressed unpretentiously in jeans and a light sweater. Over the past few years, she'd definitely grown up, but there was a strange way in which she almost seemed to be younger. At first, Alex had hoped that it was that she had lost the 'Ice queen' aspect, but that was definitely still present, for him at any rate. For so long, Alex had wanted to be the one who let Isabel take that barrier down.
She started to turn away, and Alex was jolted out of his stream of consciousness. She must think I'm a space case, Alex thought, just standing here and staring at her like that. "Hey," he called out loud, freezing Isabel's motion in mid-spin. "Did you want to talk to me about something??"
"Umm..." A pause ensued for many long seconds. "Yes, yes I did, Alex." She smiled faintly at him. "I wanted to ask you something, in fact -- I wanted to ask you... How've you been, Alex?"
That wasn't the question that was gnawing at her. This observation was so plaingly obvious that even Alex, master of the obvious that he was, felt no need to comment on it. Isabel was trying to get over the awkwardness of needing to ask him something unpleasant after all of their history, and both of them knew it.
"Umm... not bad." He smiled back at the young woman who had grown out of the girl of his dreams. "Computer science at Stanford not doing too badly. I'm following my heart, picking the courses I'm interested in, which means that I may be the one Stanford Comp sci graduate to end up unemployable, but hey. What can you do, right?" He chuckled a bit at himself, and Isabel smiled back. "What about you? Life as an alien rebel princess keeping you busy?"
"I'd say so," Isabel agreed, looking down at the ground they were standing on. "But I'm pretty sure I'm not having as much fun as you are."
Okay. He was starting to depress her. Enough of the small talk. "What did you really want to ask me, Isabel?"
Isabel's eyes slowly came back to his, their brown depth seeming to draw him in even in the dim light. "It... it's difficult to explain. Did... did Liz or anyone tell you that I've-- I've learned a lot about my powers, since we last talked??"
"Well... no," Alex admitted. "Like what?"
"I... I'm a telepath," Isabel blurted out. "I've been training pretty much non-stop at reading minds, influencing thoughts, and learning to work with the forces that underpin psyche itself. I..." Suddenly at a loss for word, she searched Alex's face for a response.
Alex's first reaction was... Okay, she can read my thoughts. She could probably tell when I was rehashing all those old fantasies about her. And she can probably tell that I'm thinking this right now.
His second reaction was... coool!!
Isabel giggled. Alex smiled back at her. This didn't seem to be so scary.
"But it's not all fun and games," Isabel sighed. "I've been having a bit of a rough time of it lately -- always having to shut out people's thoughts when I need a little peace and quiet inside my own head. Trying to balance not taking advantage of the people around me with the needs of the mission. Sometimes not even being quite sure where I end and the rest of the world begins."
"Hmm... yeah, I guess I could see that," Alex agreed vaguely. "Umm... why are you telling me this, Isabel?"
"Because...." Alex realized that, defying belief, Isabel was blushing. She turned so that she was facing away from the moonlight, probably trying to keep Alex from seeing her face clearly. "When I first say you again, back at the suite, I realized something, Alex. You have a really together mind."
"I... I do?" Alex didn't feel all that together right then.
"Yes, you do," Isabel repeated confidently. "And... I think that there's a way that you could spread the luck around. I mean, that you could help *me.*"
"Sure!" The word slipped out before Alex could censor himself. "Anything."
"Don't say that too quickly," Isabel warned him. "First, this can't be a gift with any strngs attached. I'm with Michael, we're happy together. I'm not gonna fall into your arms so grateful that... well, you get the picture."
Alex was about to protest that he hadn't been thinking any such thing, then decided he wasn't so sure that he hadn't been, on some level, especially if Isabel had felt the need to warn him. "I understand."
"And... this thing I'm asking - it's big. It's called a core mind-link. Probably a fair bit like those 'vulcan mind-melds' on Star trek - I'm not completely sure. The point is, I connect our minds on a deep enough mental level that each of us takes part of the other when the link is finished. I'll take your mental strength - well, not take it away from you, you'll still have it, just learn from it. Copy it, maybe, in a sense. But you..."
"I'd always have some piece of you," Alex breathed.
"Yes. I understand why you might not want that..."
"Why not?" Now it was Isabel that was surprised, almost afraid to meet Alex's gaze as he looked at her. "If I can't be with you, this would be the next best thing, right??"
Isabel couldn't find enough breath to speak for a few seconds. Then, "D-don't say that, Alex. You have no way of knowing how hard it might be... for the person you love to be as close as your thoughts and yet... unobtainable."
"Don't be so sure," Alex muttered darkly.
"For the rest of your life," Iz warned him.
"If I'm as strong as you say, I'll survive, right?" Alex countered. Isabel turned away again. "Do it. Right now, just do it."
"N--- no," Isabel's words came out half-choked, and Alex wondered if tears were on Isabel's face - and if she would let him see them if there were. "I won't do it now. At the very least, think about it. Decide if you have any questions for me about what will happen. Maybe before this is all over, if you've really given my proposal due consid... der... deration, then I'll go through with the link."
"I've thought about it for as long as I need to," Alex told her softly. "But I know I can't force you. Whenever you think I'm ready, or you're ready, or whatever needs to happen, I'll be waiting."
Isabel pushed on deeper into the night. Alex didn't want to go back to the group, (and have to wonder if Michael knew about this little soap opera,) so he just turned and looked up at the moon.
* * * *
"No, no," Kyle was telling Ardra. "It's through enlightenment that a soul escapes the circle of transmigration and reaches Nirvana."
"Why would you want to escape transmigration?" Ardra countered. "Why would a soul want to run away from the universe?" Kyle started to say something, and the hybrid woman cut him off. "I know, I know... 'Existence is suffering.' That's a very depressing philosophy though, don't you think."
"I don't know," Kyle countered. "A lot of what I've seen and lived through would tend to back that up. And I mean, look at you guys. Exiled from your home planet, imprisoned in bodies that are half-alien to your original natures. Forced to go through these battles and oddyseys to regain your motherland... wouldn't you say that your existence is an arduous challenge?"
"A challenge, yes, but not a punishment," Davin put in. "There is suffering, yes, but there is also joy. You can't ignore either one."
"Moving on," Ardra suggested. "What about this 'enlightenment.' Who defined enlightenment?"
"It's not a question of defining it, it's a question of discovering it," Kyle countered.
"So... it's, what... the cosmos' standard of enlightenment? That all of you Buddhists are running around trying to figure out and live up to."
"Well..." Kyle stopped short and thought about that for a moment. "Well, I *guess* you could put it that way, but that makes it sound..."
Max stopped paying attention to the interspecies philosophical symposium and wandered over to the telescopes. Bentor had sat down on an old but sturdy wooden bench and Liz was running her fingers through her hair in a gesture of relief, so Max guessed that some part of the mission had just been completed. "So, where do we stand?" he called out hopefully. "Have you found our capsule for us, Liz?"
"Afraid not yet, fearless leader," Liz replied, favoring Max with a friendly smile. "We've checked out three of the routing possibilities that Bentor and I worked out earlier today. But that just means we're going to find it on number four, right?"
Max could hear the effort with which Liz was keeping her confidence up. "Well, let's find out. Where's number four?"
Bentor let a low-throated chuckle escape, which set Liz off into giggles for a few seconds. "We can't find out yet. The fourth zone is between Lyra and Saggitarius, which means that right now it's..." Liz oriented herself and pointed at the far side of the meadow - definitely down towards the ground rather than up into the sky. "There. It won't rise into view for another hour and a half, and testing conditions won't be good for about an hour after that. Radio noise bouncing off the atmosphere near the horizon, you know."
Max checked his watch and mentally added two and a half hours. "Will you have enough time to finish the survey before morning twilight gets in the way?"
Liz checked her own watch. "We'll be - Bentor?" She turned to the old alien sage for confirmation, and he gravely nodded. "We'll be fine."
"The twilight is not so important a factor in the radio survey part of the operation," Bentor added. "Earth's sun is not a notable producer of radio wave energy at this frequency. Once we have determined the boundaries of the range, we should be able to track it and continue making observations until sunrise."
"Yeah," Liz agreed. "So, if it's alright with you guys, I'm gonna nab a bed in that RV and catch some Z's. I am officially tuckered. Have someone wake me up in two hours, okay Bentor?"
"So it shall be done," Bentor answered solemnly.
Liz was already heading off. "Sweet dreams, Liz," Max called after her.
Liz stopped, and turned around, looking into Max's eyes. "We'll see." And then she was on her way again.
Max turned to raise an eyebrow at Bentor, only to find that the older hybrid had stretched out on the bench and closed his eyes. Like all of the Others, he could go to sleep anywhere and wake up on a timer cue. (Sometimes it seemed to Max like they were less sleeping than turning themselves off to recharge.) Max wandered off to think.
He wasn't sure quite what to make of this new Liz Parker. Confidant, take-charge, and dynamic. Sometimes, Max even thought she was flirting with him, even though she had to guess that he was commited to his marriage with Tess now. Or had he been flirting back? Max couldn't be sure. One thing was definite, though - Liz version 2004 was a welcome improvement on Max's last memories of her before meeting here in Arizona. "At least she's talking to me," he whispered to himself.
* * * *
(December 22 2000)
It was the Christmas season in Roswell, but Max wasn't filled with the holiday spirit. He and Michael had stood by and watched as a man died in the Christmas tree lot, hit by a car while they were looking for a christmas tree that would satisfy Isabel. And now, the dead man was appearing to Max in his mind, blaming him for his death, saying that Max should have healed him. It was driving Max out of his mind.
So, Max broke the unspoken agreement that had held for the last three weeks and went to see Liz.
She had been sitting at one of the tables next to the window in the Crashdown, wearing this cute pink holiday-type sweater and working on what looked like a list of last-minute shopping. He just stood there watching her for half a minute watching her before Liz looked up, and he caught the briefest possible flash of a smile before she buried it.
By the time Liz met him, just outside the door, she was all business. "Why are you here?"
"I... I need a friend," he told her softly.
Liz sighed, shaking her head, and taking a step away from the cafe door. Max steppen backwards, keeping the pace with her. "I... I can't help you, Max," she whispered.
"You have to!" he pressed. "Something... something terrible has happened, and... and I just need someone whose judgement I trust to help me sort through it. That's all it is, I promise..."
"I believe you," Liz said, cutting off Max as he was about to protest that this wasn't the first part of some scheme to get Liz back. "But... oh god, I don't know how to say this so you'll understand me. I want to be your friend, Max, but I can't yet. I'm not ready. And I'm not s... I'm just not ready." Max knew what Liz had kept herself from saying. She wasn't sure he was ready to be 'just friends' either.
"But I *need* you, Liz..."
"You're just going to have to go to someone else," Liz insisted, tears brimming up in her eyes. "Go to Tess, maybe." That last phrase was a low mutter, filled with resentment.
"Tess isn't a substitute for you!" Max flared. "And why is everything about Tess lately, anyways??"
"I hate to break it to you, Max, but it's 'been about' Tess for a long, long time," Liz sighed. "You've been refusing to accept it... which is flattering, really, kinda..." Liz chuckled half-wryly, "but your future is with her, and the sooner you can accept that, the better off we'll all be. Now seems like a good time to start."
Max started to protest again, but Liz jumped in and talked over him. "Don't come to me again, Max. If you don't want to talk to Tess, talk to Michael, Isabel, Maria, or just sit out here by yourself. But don't come back here. Not until I come and tell you that I'm ready."
"Are you *trying* to be a cold-hearted bitch, or do you not get how painful this is for me?" Max exploded, grabbing Liz by the wrist, not enough to hurt.
Liz looked up at him, and he noticed that the tears were now streaming down her face. "I could ask you the same question," she murmured ever so quietly, without breaking eye contact. "With a different terms substituted for the b word, of course." Max dropped her arm and turned away. "I know how hard this is for you, Max," Liz's voice continued. "But I can't give in on this. Please tell me that you can."
"I can," Max sighed, turning around again though he couldn't hear to look at Liz's face again yet, "on one condition. There's something that I have to ask you about that nobody else can answer. Give me a minute of your time, if not as a friend then for the sake of everything we've been through, and then I'll go."
Liz took a second to consider. "Alright."
"I... someone died last night," Max blurted out. "Someone who I could have saved, maybe, but didn't because I was too afraid of exposing myself. Too afraid of ending up in something like the white room. And this someone... he was like you. Not obviously, maybe, but he was..."
"I think I understand what you're getting at," Liz put in. "You're asking me if I would blame you for not having saved my life, if you hadn't?" Max nodded. "No, Max, I couldn't ever *expect* that out of you. You risked so much because of that day in the Crashdown, and put Michael and Isabel through so much. The consequences are only now starting to die down. And the stakes would get even higher if you were to be identified near the scene of another suspicious healing."
"It's not that easy, Max," the ghost said, suddenly blinking into existence behind Liz, talking over her head. "I wouldn't be here if something inside you didn't know that things have gone wrong. You need to restore the balance."
Max started to bite off an angry reply to the ghost, then stopped. He really didn't want to burden Liz with any of this stuff - it didn't have anything to do with what he'd asked of her. "Thank you, Liz," he said sadly, and turned and walked away.
* * * *
"Not a merry Christmas," Max mumbled to himself. He had hatched a plan to 'restore the balance' after Maria had told him about Brody Davis' little daughter with cancer, Sydney. Save the little girl's life as a way of making up for the life that he hadn't been able to save. But it hadn't worked out that way.
Sydney Davis had had a relapse and been taken to a special hospital in Phoenix. (Which wasn't far from Tempe, Max suddenly realized.) Max and Michael had actually gone to the hospital themselves, and Max had been toying with the thought of trying to help other kids as well as little Sydney.
But after a little bad luck had seen the two of them almost arrested and filled the hospital with security guards looking for two mysterious intruders, there had been nothing for it but to burn rubber back to Roswell as quickly as they could. Max had never even gotten inside the pediatric cancer ward.
And, as another dismal little note, when they finally got back to Michael's apartment, Tess had been waiting for them, her suitcase packed and quite bound and determined not to go back to Jim Valenti's house. Things had been said before Christmas dinner that couldn't easily be taken back.
* * * *
Liz woke up with a start. Was something wrong?? A dream! She had been dreaming...
Something about a car. Yes, Liz had been driving in the dream... (which was odd since it wasn't something she did often in real life - more of a public transit kinda girl...) Anyways, she had been driving down a long, lonely road in the dead of night, heading towards... Max? Yes, she'd told someone in the dream that she was meeting the love of her life, Max Evans.
Liz shook off the dream and reached out for her watch, pushing the button that made it glow visibly in the darkness. Her wakeup call would be arriving in a little more than ten minutes, if Bentor were as punctual as the alien 'Jeeves' he often seemed like. "Well, not really much point in trying to get back to sleep then," Liz sighed, sitting up further.
Pete's laptop was strapped safely into a little cargo stowaway next to the bed Liz had been sleeping in, and she reached out to free the valuable lump of circuitry into her hands. Boot back up out of hibernation mode... battery life is still at ninety percent, good. After a second's thought, Liz plugged her cell phone into the wireless modem and surfed off to check her email.
Spam, spam, disgusting spam, spam. A reminder about the starlight club social that had taken place earlier in the evening. Sales pitch for a registered copy of the demo word processor she'd been using.
Message timestamped 11:26 pm that night from pete_wil@desertnet.com Subject 'Just dropping a line.'
Smiling slightly in the darkness, Liz opened up the email.
"Hey, Liz. Petey boy here, as you might have guessed. Just thought you'd probably appreciate it if I left you a note to reassure that I got to my parents' place safe and sound. I don't know what all that stuff was about, back on campus, but that's okay. When you're ready to tell me, I'd like to know. But not pushing.
It would seem, to the casual observer, (i.e. me,) that your life is pretty crazy all of a sudden since your 'friends' came to town. So I'm going to take that question I asked you this morning, and put it up in the cupboard... yeah, here oughtta do -- just so that it's out of your way. Once things have settled down a little, you can take it back out of the cupboard and give me your answer.
I'm attaching three friendly hugs to this email in OOO format. Just in case you need them. :D
@---,---'---,---'----
Miss you already, Lizzie.
XXX
Pete
(Okay, I had really better hit send now, before I qualify as a stalker.)"
Liz grinned again, logged into her pager without much hope that Pete would be online... (it was almost four in the morning for god's sake... sure enough the only person online was a classmate who had been idle for five hours and obviously forgot to turn her pager off,) and hit the reply button. A knock sounded on the RV door.
"Hey, Miss Parker?" It was Davin. "Your wake-up call - except that you're already awake."
"I'll be out there in five minutes," Liz assured him, and turned her attention back to the computer.
"Pete,
Thanks for the hugs, and the reassurance. You're not crossing any lines.
Sure, for right now your question is probably best kept up in that cupboard where nobody'll bump it accidentally. But in the meantime do me a favor and keep being your sweet and charming self.
The rose is beautiful. I didn't have a vase for it, so I put it in a Java JAR file. ;)
XXXX back,
Liz."
As she got out of the RV, Liz noticed that a tent had been set up in the meadow. She sighed and headed back over to the radio telescope.
TO BE CONTINUED...
