Part 20

They stare at each other for what feels like forever. Time freezes in those first moments and, for that eternity, they are the only two people in the world. Because, really, for him, there has never been anyone else who matters anyway.

This is Liz, and she is alive, and he becomes aware that her dark eyes are shining with tears. He knows in that instant that she is still his and that the last five years have been worth every single second of torture to see her look at him that way again.

He sits immobile across from her. It is not where he wants to be, but he feels powerless to move. He has come for her, but now it is up to her to cross this last hurdle. He has used up the last of his strength to get here. He has escaped from hell, because, somewhere deep inside, he knew it was time.

But, finally, he begins to wonder why it has taken five years. How could she have been shut off from him for so long? If he had known she was alive, he would have moved heaven and earth to get to her long before now.

"I thought you were dead," he says. He needs her to know this, so that she does not think that he has deliberately stayed away. Not from her. Never from her.

"I know." She smiles sadly. "I'm sorry."

"I don't understand," he tells her simply. "Where have you been?" He glances at her still clenched hands. "Liz, why can't I feel you?"

Because he cannot. She is sitting right across from him, he can sense her presence on the edge of his consciousness, but they are not connected.

"Because I'm not Liz," she replies. Her voice trembles slightly. "Max, I don't remember you."

"What?" He frowns. "What do you mean?"

He knows that she is lying. Why is she lying to him? Because she must remember. If she did not, she would not be looking at him the way she is. She knows how it is between them. He can see it with his own two eyes. He can feel it in his heart, even if he cannot feel it in hers.

He should be able to feel it in hers. What is wrong here?

"Five years ago..." She trails off, and reaches up a shaking hand to push a long piece of dark hair behind her ear. He watches her hungrily, his hands itching to reach out and grab her. He feels something building between them. It is a steadily increasing tension, one that will not be ignored for long. He can barely concentrate on what she is saying, but he makes himself focus.

"Five years ago we jumped off a bridge," she continues. "You were captured and..." She swallows visibly. "I was lost." She smiles through her tears. "I don't remember anything."

It hits him abruptly that she means that she literally cannot remember him. He sees that beneath the flame in her eyes, there is something darker. There is an emptiness there, and it is lack of memory. She truly does not know who he is.

And, yet, she found him anyway. She was not the only one who was lost, after all. She does not remember him, but she found him, in spite of all the odds.

There can only be one explanation. He feels a rush of relief. The connection is not broken. It still exists, but it is blocked by her injured mind. He knows it is not permanent though. He can heal her.

She has not called him back only to save him. It is for her too. He is meant to help bring back her true self. He is the only one who can do it, because he is the only one who knows who she truly is. Just as she is the only one who has ever really known him.

"Liz." He falls to his knees in front of her. She gazes at him steadily, unafraid. He reaches up and gently cradles her face between his hands. They have yet to break their locked gazes. Since the moment she opened hers, their eyes have not looked away from each other.

"Max," she whispers. She lowers her head and kisses him and they both gasp as, so simply, the connection flares to life between them. She instantly opens herself completely, trusting that he will bring her back as fully as she has done for him.

He makes himself brush aside the rush of images that greets him, although some do penetrate his consciousness. He resists analyzing their meaning.

He does not allow himself to concentrate on the sweetness of her lips. He will not reflect on how his heart is hammering in his chest, begging him to lose himself in her. Because this connection must be about so much more than how much he physically desires her.

Instead, for the first time in five and a half years, he connects with living tissue, instinctively knowing how she is injured, and what he must do to heal her. It does not feel like it has been five years since he was last truly free to use his powers. It is the most natural thing in the world to find the shadowed corners of her brain and, once he has discovered the injured areas, to bring them back to the light.

This is his gift, and she is his life. He will not fail her.

And, when a new set of flashes begin to push their way into his consciousness - scenes that he recognizes from before Pierce, from before the bridge; scenes he senses she now remembers too - he knows that he has succeeded.

It is only then that he allows himself to relax. But he does not stop kissing her. There is more to this healing than the physical. He is not just healing her, but himself as well. With every brush of her lips, he feels his soul releasing the pain and agony of the past five years. Because, when he is with Liz, there is no White Room. There is no Pierce. There are no five years without her.

There is only peace.

Until he becomes aware of the fact that they are not alone.

He is not certain of exactly when he becomes cognizant of the fact that it is no longer just the two of them in the connection. Perhaps it is when he starts to really see the memories that are not Liz, but are instead who she has been for the past five years. Perhaps it is when she starts to pull away, whispering that she must explain; that there are things they need to talk about now, before he sees and does not understand. Perhaps it is when his heart processes the understanding that she has indeed been lost since they leaped from the bridge, but she has not been alone.

In the end, it does not matter when he realizes the truth of it. It changes everything and, yet, not for the worse. He never imagined that he could welcome anyone into what he shares with Liz, but, almost instantly he accepts it.

Of course, he is momentarily shocked; there is a slight pang of regret that it will never be just the two of them again. But then his heart lightens and the one fear of disappointing her that he has held in his innermost heart, because of the one gift he knows that he will never be able to give her, evaporates and he knows what it means to find true purpose for the first time in his life.

She has not been alone, and she has been sometimes happy, but it does not mean that she has ever stopped being his. Because he has been with her for the past five years. In her heart, as she has been with him, but physically too. Because that was him in those flashes.

He has always hated the word destiny, but he knows that he will never been able to run from his. Fate has not always been kind to him, but it has landed him back in Liz's arms again. He is not going to allow jealousy or anger to interfere with that. They have both been through too much to permit such petty emotions to get in the way. If he ever wants to be happy, then he is just going to have to believe that all things happen for the good.

They will continue to be tested, but the love he has always felt for her will bring them through to the other side.

"I can explain," Liz says quietly. Now that the connection is no longer blocked, he can sense her fear. He aches to reassure her. He does not quite understand all that he has seen - does not yet know the hows or the whens or the whys - but he is not angry.

He knows that she is his. He also senses that the life she carries within her is meant to be his as well. Not fathered by him, but his nonetheless. His child. And, yet, there is a story here that he must allow her to tell, if only to dispel her unease that he will not understand.

But explanations must wait. Because, as he is sitting back on his heels waiting for her to unburden herself, a burning pain pierces his left shoulder. He grimaces, surprised. Then he grabs his stomach, bending at the waist as the same pain, only more intense, stabs him there.

"Max!" Liz exclaims. She grabs him by the shoulders. "What's wrong?"

But he cannot hear her. His eyes are rolling up into his head, and for a strange moment, he is staring up at a blue sky.

A face stares down at him, terror written in every line.

"I bleed," he mutters, not at all afraid when the face above him is obscured by the gun pointing down at him.

Max jerks as he feels the third bullet enter his body.

And, yet, the entire time, he is fully aware that none of this is happening to him. This is another him. He is living this moment with that other self, who - when Max leaves him in this lonely place - will no longer exist.

Max regrets it, but he knows that he must not stay. What is happening here means that he does not have to.

What is happening here means that he cannot stay. He can never go back to the selfish indulgence of blaming himself for all that has gone wrong in the lives of his loved ones. He has more important things to worry about now. The White Room can no longer be allowed to haunt him. He cannot allow that what has happened on this deserted highway ends up being for nothing.

As he leaves, he senses that his other self receives his acceptance, and that he is grateful. Max hopes that he understands fully just how grateful Max is back.

He shakes his head firmly, once more becoming fully aware of Liz, although she has been with him the whole time. She is white-faced, but when she sees that he is again focused on her, she drops to the floor beside him and throws her arms around his neck.

He holds her tightly, but he is not afraid. He knows that whatever that was - whatever horrible nightmare momentarily claimed him - it is over.

For a time there were two, but now there is one. He is the only Max left and he will not allow the gift of it to go to waste.

They are no longer alone. He glances over Liz's shoulder at Sheriff Valenti, who is hovering behind the bench. He does not say anything, but he is obviously concerned.

"Max. It's good to see you, son," the sheriff says when Max has finally climbed to his feet, pulling Liz up with him. She is still trembling.

"Thank you, Sheriff," he replies. "You, too." He glances down at Liz, who is staring up at him, her dark eyes pained. "But we can't stay."

It is the painful truth. What he has learned in the past few minutes has made it so that he knows that he and Liz have one chance to protect the future. And, to do so, they cannot remain in New York. He feels a pang that he will not be able to see Isabel, and Michael, and the others, but they will follow eventually.

For now, Liz - and the precious life growing within her - must be his only concern.