Reflections
Chapter 15
XV
Michael stepped out of the portal with Maria and Liz into the palace reception area. As they passed a large mirror on the wall, he stopped and looked at his reflection for a moment. Without a word, he turned the mirror backwards to the wall and continued into the foyer. Maria gave him a little push, and he plopped onto the oversized Antarian sofa. She sat down beside him and threw her legs over his, resting her head against the plush armrest, then she reached up with one hand to rub Michael's shoulders and back.
"You trying to pin me down to keep me here," Michael asked with a slight smile.
"If that's what it takes," Maria said.
"Well, you know I still have one place I have to go."
Maria frowned. "I know. But I don't like it. And I know you don't look forward to it either."
Michael shook his head. "No, I don't… but I have to go… It's drawing me there."
"You don't have to do it if you don't want to, Michael."
"Yes, I do," Michael insisted. "I do! It's more than just finding out who I am… I don't know why yet, but it is."
Maria gave Michael that little pouting look.
"Well, maybe I don't have to go right now… right this moment," Michael said. "It could be tomorrow… or the next day."
Maria smiled a little. "That should give us time, I guess."
"For what?"
"For me to cure your headache."
Michael smiled.
As they were talking, Liz walked back into the room with Max at her side and a glass of Cherry Cola for each of the "guests."
"Hey, Michael! How goes the search… and what's with the mirror," Max asked, noticing the mirror turned to the wall behind Michael.
Michael grinned. "I thought I'd seen enough of my face for a while, Max. Do you know what it's like having three of me running around all at once… all with my face?"
"I thought it was adorable," Maria said, squeezing Michael's face and shaking it playfully with one hand."
"Well, I'm happy enough to only see one of me in the mirror each morning, thank you," Michael said. "I think I learned some things, Max. Of course… I still haven't faced my biggest demons…"
"Rath? And Kivar?"
"Yeah… and all that that lifetime meant… you know?"
"So what did you find out on Earth?"
Michael breathed out a sigh. "I've always wondered, I don't know, if maybe I was supposed to be more like Rath and maybe would have been except for how I grew up… you know… with Hank and all."
Max looked at him questioningly.
"Yeah, well, you see, Max, when you and Isabel and I were found out in the desert when we were six, you and Isabel went to live with the Evanses. They treated you decent, and you grew up with… you know… nothing negative pressing on your mind… keeping you from being whoever you were supposed to be. But I grew up with Hank. Not exactly the social butterfly of Roswell… You know what I mean?"
"Yeah, I get your drift. But how would that keep you from being who you were supposed to be?"
"That's what I had to find out, Max… did it keep me from being the Rath that I once was? And is that who I really am but just don't know it because that part of me was repressed or something by Hank… maybe still is? I don't want to do anything someday and hurt Maria or something because I'm not who I… who she thought I was."
Maria gave him a gentle poke on the arm. "You would never hurt me, Michael. You may not know it, but I do."
Michael smiled slightly.
"Repressed how," Max asked.
"Well… Wouldn't it just be a bitch, Max, if the only reason I'm not an exact copy of Rath is because of Hank… if I found out I actually owed Hank some kind of debt for treating me bad… repressing the fierceness of Rath by abusing me the way he did?"
"Did you come to any conclusions after seeing Hank again?"
"Yeah. I don't think Hank made me who I am."
"Well, I'd say that's definitely a good thing, Michael," Liz said.
Michael nodded. "Yeah, it is. Hank abused me, and I didn't even realize it was abuse till I was older… but the feelings I had… the way I reacted… was always me. It was just me. Whoever 'me' is. It was never Hank that made me feel that way. Maybe he made me stronger… gave me an edge or something… but he didn't change who I was… you know, inside. The part of me that he affected was all on the surface. Hank made me frustrated, angry, hurt… all those things sometimes, but he didn't make me who I am. Something else did that. I realized it when I watched that little boy… me… in Hank's trailer. I had to see it from a different perspective. No matter how much Hank pushed him around or abused him, that kid still had spunk."
"How do you figure?"
"Well, he could have caved, you know… become a total basket case or, worse, become a copy of Hank to survive. But he didn't. He never cried. He never showed any emotion. It made Hank furious. Hank never could get to him… He could hit him, beat him, belittle him… but it was like spitting into the wind… It always just flew back and stuck to him.
Max nodded. "We're glad Hank couldn't make you into a copy of himself."
Liz nodded her agreement. "Michael, we always knew you weren't anything like Hank. You might have been different in some ways, but not like Hank. And I agree that Hank didn't make you who you are."
"Yeah, I was different. I cut my hair different, I skipped school all the time, I got into trouble…"
"And you were a hell of an artist," Maria reminded him. "I don't think you got that from Hank or Rath."
"That's true," Michael said. "I didn't get that from them. Hank couldn't draw a stick man without a picture to copy it from… and Rath… I don't remember Rath ever being artistic. He was a soldier… like me."
"But you're a soldier with a heart," Liz said.
"Well, Rath had a heart, too," Michael replied. "It was just more hardened. I think he had seen too much killing… too much pain. But he was always loyal… He was loyal to the very end."
"And you haven't seen pain and killing, Michael?" Max asked him.
"Well, yeah… I've seen some things and been through some stuff, you know, but maybe not like Rath. I don't know."
Max nodded and smiled. "So now you know that you don't owe Hank any kind of debt for making you not turn out as a carbon copy of Rath, and you know that Hank failed to make you into a carbon copy of himself or make you who you are. What about the other timelines you visited?"
Michael nodded. "I wanted to see if maybe my deprived childhood was a factor in who the real me is… not Hank directly, but indirectly, you know. I saw Maria, Kyle, and Alex at Liz's party when she was six, and at first I felt hurt. I mean… how could Hank's kid from the trailer park know someone like Liz Parker? But then I realized that it didn't matter, because Max and I got you and Maria in the end… We were the real winners."
Maria smiled and kissed Michael on the lips. Max took advantage of the break in talk to kiss Liz at the same time. "Michael's right, you know, Liz. I am a winner," he said, as their lips finally parted.
Liz smiled and kissed him again.
"I watched my younger self in the CrashDown and in the Jetta… and then at the motel… and in the desert, and the only thing I could think of was that I was glad that I've changed since then. He was me, but he was too rude to Maria sometimes… and also… I don't know… too immature."
Max laughed out loud, and Liz and Maria both grinned.
"But the important thing was that he wasn't a copy of Hank…" Michael continued. "…or anything like Hank, and he didn't seem to be 'repressed.' Whoever he was inside, Hank hadn't been able to extinguish his spirit."
"I can attest to that, Michael," Max said.
"So there you have it, Max. I guess you think it's kind of stupid… I mean… you don't need to go lookin' for who you are…"
Max shook his head. "No, Michael, it's not stupid! You may have to find out for yourself what the rest of us all think we already know about you, but you've been nothing if not a good and fast friend to me and to Liz and to everyone on Antar. The scientists named you, "Father of Antarian Science" for your work in rescuing them and rebuilding Antar's Linked Science Lab network…"
Michael laughed. "Yeah, I should have taken that certificate and medal back with me and shown it to Mister Bergen, our science teacher at Roswell High. Wouldn't that be a kicker! He failed me in science!"
"You worked tirelessly to rescue all those children not so long ago. Kiraugo loves you like a father."
Michael smiled in spite of himself and nodded.
"Who else would have rescued all those Dragon children, Michael? The Dragons were our enemy. Now they're our friends and allies. You had a lot to do with that."
"Okay, Max, I get your point. So I'm sometimes Mister Good Guy." He shook his head. "I guess I realized that, too, in a way, back on Earth. Now I just have to face Rath… and my first life."
"Why," Max asked. "If you found out that you're not a copy of Rath or of Hank… and that Hank didn't make you who you are, what's left to find out?"
Michael looked at his reflection in the glass he was holding, and he pointed it out to Max. "Look at the glass, Max. What do you see? How much of Rath do you think is in me? Am I Rath… just with different life experiences, but with the same potential to become… what Rath became? And would it be wrong if I did? Maybe Rath is who I'm supposed to be… not the Michael that you know. Am I going to change some day because of some genetic link to a past I barely remember?" Michael took a couple of swallows from the glass, and he and Max looked at it again. It was still Michael's face, but it looked different now. With the glass only half full, the face that looked back at them appeared to be split in the middle. "Don't forget the dreams, Max. Those dreams were real. They were telling us something."
Max turned visibly pale. Deep inside, he had the same gut feeling…
tbc
Coming Next: "A Storm in the River of Time"