Part 66
"So is that it?" Michael demanded into the silence that greeted Max's statement about Nicholas, and his seemingly now clear loyalty issues. "Is that why we're stuck here? To find out that the little weenie is responsible for everything?"
"If it was," Max replied, his gaze focused on Will, "We'd be home."
Liz grimaced, looking between Max and Will. She could see that her boyfriend's patience was reaching its limit when it came to dealing with his past life rival. Will was returning Max's stare stonily, his expression revealing nothing.
When Will finally spoke, his voice was flat. "So we're blaming me for this, are we? I'm the one who is keeping us here, because I can't accept that the one person I thought I could always count on was a traitor?"
The controlled tone with which he spoke sent a chill down Liz's spine. She wondered if she was the only one who understood that Will was not talking about Nicholas at all. Although the reasons were still unclear, Nicholas was the logical choice for who had to have been behind most of this. Even Will had to accept that.
No, it wasn't Nicholas that Will was talking about at all. And Liz knew it. She could tell that it was taking all his willpower not to look at her. She felt her heart break for him. Even though she knew that she did not love him, she did still feel a bond to him - whatever Rowena's connection had been to Khivar, it still existed between her and Will. It was not the romantic love that Will wanted, but it was something.
Liz knew that it would hurt to let it go. But it seemed that the only way that Will was ever going to accept any of this - which, by now, it seemed was the only way for them to get out of the granolith - was for her to break the bond completely.
Was this the only answer? Was she going to have to make him hate her? And, if so, how could she manage it, when she didn't even know why he felt so strongly about her? It couldn't all be about what Nicholas had told him she had meant to him in a past life. What was it that refused to let Will recognize that they barely knew each other - that he couldn't love her, because he didn't know her?
"Will, no one's blaming you," Tess said softly.
"We aren't?" Michael demanded. "I think, in fact, that we…"
"Michael, shut up!" Tess exclaimed. "He can't help the way he feels. If he doesn't believe that it was Nicholas, then maybe we need to think about who else it could have been."
Will's brow was furrowed slightly, as he stared at Tess. "I never said I didn't think it was Nicholas," he finally said.
"Oh," Tess said, sounding surprised. The expression on her face indicated that perhaps Liz was the only one who understood that Will's issue wasn't with Nicholas at all, but, rather, with Rowena. With Liz. But, as Liz met Kate's gaze across the room, she could see from the resigned look on Will's sister's face that Kate too understood exactly what was going on.
Tess seemed to catch the look exchanged between Liz and Kate, and she seemed to understand it, because she lowered her gaze. Liz frowned. Her sister's disappointment was palpable.
Oh dear Lord, Liz thought. What exactly happened between those two while they were alone together on Sardica? Were they all doomed to just repeat exactly what had happened in their last lives? Tess, like Serena, would pine for Will, who like Khivar, couldn't let go of the past. Max and Liz would be together, but with the knowledge, that had also been possessed by Zan and Rowena, that loving each other meant that they were hurting almost all the people they most cared about.
It was more than past time to take the bull by the horns, Liz thought, frustrated. The whole thing was just so stupid and unnecessary.
"Will, I need to talk to you," she said firmly. "Alone."
She didn't look at anyone else, including Max, before leaving the room. She expected Will to follow her. She wasn't quite sure how she would make him do so, if he decided not to, but she would cross that bridge when she came to it.
Much to her relief, when she turned around after the door had slid shut behind her, Will had indeed come with her.
"What is it going to take for you to get over this?" Liz demanded, pretending more anger than she actually felt. Mostly she just felt sorry for him.
"I am over it," Will replied, sounding annoyed. "Why won't anyone believe me? Why won't this stupid thing believe me?" He didn't need to specify what stupid thing he was referring to. Liz knew it was the granolith.
"If that's true, then we wouldn't still be here," Liz reminded him.
Will eyed her for a long moment. "So it has to be me, right? It just has to be me, because no one else will admit that they're just as screwed up as I am."
"Will, you're not screwed up," Liz said, her tone more gentle. "It's not your fault. None of this is. You can't blame yourself for Nicholas' lies."
"I can't?" Will demanded, his tone fierce, his stony control finally slipping. "Are you sure? Because I do. I don't even know why he betrayed us, but I do blame myself. If Khivar had inspired any kind of loyalty, none of this would have ever happened, would it? His wife wouldn't have betrayed him, and his general wouldn't have either. None of this happened to Zan, did it? Everything I've always believed - that he was the evil one, the troublemaker - was one big, fat lie. So why can't I blame myself? For not knowing the truth, for not knowing that I was the bad guy. I was the one who worked with Nasedo. And now I'm the one who is trapping us all here." There was a long pause. "How can I not blame myself, Liz? Tell me how. Because if I knew, I wouldn't."
"Oh, Will." Liz stepped forward, wrapping her arms around him. She hugged him tightly. "I'm so sorry."
He was stiff in her embrace. "I don't want you to feel sorry for me, Liz. That's the last thing I want."
"I don't," Liz replied, pulling back, and looking up at him. "I don't feel sorry for you. I just feel sorry that you don't understand anything. How can you not see it? How can you not see the loyalty and love Kate and Jack feel for you? How can you not see it, and know that it means so much more than what I - a stranger - or what Nicholas - who was never worth caring about, obviously - could ever offer you? And they aren't even the only ones. Tess, too. In the short time you spent with her in here, it's pretty obvious you put some kind of voodoo hex on her. I think she'd follow you to the ends of the universe, if you'd only let her. If you'd only give her a chance."
Will stared at her. "That makes no sense," he finally said. "We barely know each other."
"Will, you barely know me either , and, yet, you seem to think that we belong together. If that's so, why not Tess? You can't possibly tell me that you can't see it," Liz said, shaking her head. "Will, how blind can you possibly be? Why is it that you're so focused on what you can't have, and won't open your eyes to what you do have? Why is that so hard for you?"
"I'm a king," Will said, shrugging slightly. "All I'm supposed to want is what's best for my people. And what I was always told was that it was you, Rowena. That is was my job to marry you - to love you - and unite our people."
"That's what Nicholas told you," Liz reminded him. "And I think it's pretty clear that everything he told you was a lie."
"But how can I know?" Will asked. "How can I ever know for sure?"
Liz sighed heavily, hugging Will again. "I don't know, Will, but you're going to have to figure it out. Please. You have to."
"Liz, if we could just try…" Will said desperately. "Please. Just for a little while. If we could just try to make it work…I know that we could…"
She sighed again, leaning back and shaking her head, interrupting him before he embarrassed himself any further. "No, Will. I'm with Max. It's Max I love." She reached up, placing her hands on either side of his face, forcing him to meet her eyes. He did, his blue-eyed gaze sullen. "I'm sorry."
"It's not fair," he said bitterly. "I never had a chance."
"I'm sorry," Liz said again, gently. She felt her heart contract at the tears in his eyes. He was breaking down. He wasn't going to be able to handle this. His entire being was so wrapped up in what he had been told they were supposed to be to each other. It was what had helped him survive the long years growing up on Earth. It was what he had known would help him rule the planet destined to be his. But none of it was real. And he couldn't accept it.
How did Liz know this? She could barely explain it to herself. All she knew was that she could feel it. She felt connected to him as their gazes met. Not like she felt when she connected with Max, but she could read him, just by looking into his eyes. This was her gift. It was the gift that Rowena had bestowed upon her.
And, yet, in spite of all of this, she still found herself shocked by what happened next.
"I never had a chance," Will repeated, his tone fierce. "I deserve at least one chance."
Liz gasped in astonishment as he pulled her towards him, and pressed his lips to hers.
It was the last thought of her own she knew, as she felt herself pulled into a connection with Will. It was a connection that she had not asked for, a connection over which she had no control. Not only that. It was a connection that made her see what Will was really capable of…a connection that frightened her more than anything she had yet experienced in all of this.
It was a connection that changed everything.
For, in it, she became what he could become. What, in another life, he had become.
She became a monster capable of carrying out the end of a world.
Alex jerked awake, blinking frantically. He heaved a sigh of relief when he realized that he was still huddled against the wall in the silver cone of the granolith chamber. He had been in the middle of a nightmare about being sucked into the alien mixmaster, as Kyle had taken to calling it. His heart was still thundering in his chest.
As he came back to full awareness, he was surprised that he had managed to fall asleep at all. One would have thought that the idea of ceasing to exist, because your friends were in the process of changing the past, which could seriously screw the present, would be enough to keep a body awake. Apparently not. The stress of the mere idea must have knocked him out.
It took Alex a moment to understand what had woken him up. Glancing around the granolith chamber, he realized it hadn't been his nightmare.
The dull hum that had emanated from the granolith since Liz, Max, Isabel, and the others had activated it had ceased. Not only that. As he felt his just returning to normal heart start to speed up again, all the lights in the entire chamber extinguished themselves.
This could not be good. Not at all.
Maria was snoring softly against him. Alex nudged her awake.
"Mom, what? Five more minutes," she complained groggily.
"Maria, wake up," Alex ordered, impatiently. He didn't mean to be short with her, but he was trying to hide how freaked out he was. If he had thought he had known fear before, he was wrong. This fear - that the entire existence he knew - and, in spite of all his recent thoughts to the contrary, he loved - was being threatened.
What would he do if he actually ended up on the outside? If what was going on in this granolith meant that he would be out of the alien abyss, once and for all? Not only that. He wouldn't even know about the existence of the alien abyss. For him, for Maria, for the sheriff, and for Kyle, it would be as though the aliens had never existed. They wouldn't remember them, and they'd never know them.
It was now, when he was actually threatened with losing his friends, with losing his membership in a very exclusive club, once and for all, that Alex finally understood.
He didn't want out at all. He and Maria had wondered earlier if they could stand being on the fringes, which being wholly human members of the "I know an alien" club meant for them. But now Alex knew the truth. If it was only going to be the fringes, then it was enough. Knowing Kate, and Isabel, and Max, and Michael….and, of course, most importantly, Liz…was more than worth all of the agony that went along with it.
"Alex, what's happening?" Maria whispered. Her fear was reflected in her voice, although it was so dark now, Alex could no longer see her face.
"I don't know," he replied honestly. He raised his voice. "Sheriff? Kyle?"
Alex heard someone snort somewhere to his left. It sounded like Kyle, and he was apparently sleeping, if his snoring was any indication. "Hey, Kyle!" he said again. When there was no answer, Alex reached out with his foot, connecting with Kyle's leg. Kyle snorted again, but seemed to awaken, because his breathing changed.
"What?" he muttered groggily.
"Where's your dad?" Alex asked.
There was a long pause. "Why's it so dark?" Kyle finally asked, sounding afraid. He didn't seem to want to answer the question about his father. Alex thought he understood why. Kyle obviously didn't know, and based on what had happened to Grant a few hours ago, a missing Sheriff Valenti was not a good thing.
"Do you think it's started?" Maria asked softly, when neither she, nor Alex, knew what to say to Kyle. After all, they had no idea why it was so dark either.
"What?" Kyle demanded.
"The end," Maria said, tears in her voice. "I mean, everything changing. I don't want this. I don't want to forget them, Alex."
"We won't," Alex said sternly, knowing that he had to be the strong one. "We won't forget, Maria."
"But what if we do, Alex? What if we leave the granolith…because, I mean, we can't stay in here forever… and we forget them? I can't. I can't forget Liz…" She trailed off, then added softly, "Michael…" It was almost a lament, her pain at the idea was so great.
Alex brought his arm up, pulling Maria closely against him. "We won't," he said again, less certainly. Because he didn't know what to tell her to make her feel better. He didn't know what to tell Kyle, now that it seemed that both his father, and quite possibly the only person who could explain any of this, Whittaker, had been pulled into the granolith after Grant.
"We won't forget," he repeated more strongly. "We won't."
This seemed to reassure Maria, because she relaxed against him. "We won't," she agreed, her voice strengthening.
And it was just as those words passed her lips that Sheriff Valenti's voice sounded through the darkness.
"Kids! Kids, are you awake?"
Alex blinked as a dull light appeared on the wall across from him. It was door-shaped, and Alex realized it was the portal leading down to the room under the granolith had been opened. The sheriff stood framed in its light, having just opened it.
"Dad!" Kyle exclaimed, on his feet and across the chamber. "You're still here!"
"Of course," the sheriff replied, sounding surprised, until it dawned on him what the trio remaining in the granolith chamber must have believed. "I'm sorry, son. I was just below with the congresswoman."
Alex stood, pulling Maria up after him. "What happened to the lights, Sheriff?" he asked.
"The granolith turned itself off," the sheriff replied. "I guess it must have turned off the juice up here, too." He turned, calling down the staircase. "Can you hit the lights for up here, Serena?"
Moments later, the inverted cone was again emitting a faint glow.
"What do you mean the granolith turned itself off?" Maria asked, sounding a little panicked. "Why would it do that? Are they trapped in there now?"
The sheriff looked at her. "I'm sorry. I should have said so earlier. The granolith's done what it had to do. That's why it turned off. Serena, she knew. She woke me, and we went down to meet them."
Alex felt his heart stop, then leap with joy as it started pounding again. "Sheriff, are you saying what I think you're saying?" he asked, barely daring to breathe, in case he was disappointed.
"Yes, son," the sheriff acknowledged, with a wide grin. "They're back. Every single one of 'em. Safe and sound." He paused, then added, "At least physically."
Alex blinked. What was that supposed to mean?
"Michael!" Maria almost screeched, apparently not catching the sheriff's last warning. She was already across the chamber and flying down the stairs before Alex even had a chance to catch his breath.
Kyle followed her, and the sheriff moved to do so as well, until he seemed to notice that Alex had not moved.
"Are you coming, Mr. Whitman?"
Alex stared at him, wondering why he had suddenly been hit by a wave of fear. He couldn't explain it, but he could feel it. Something was wrong. His friends were back and, yet, he knew, absolutely, that this didn't necessarily mean that any of them were approaching a happy ending.
And, yet, he remembered his decision of several moments before. He had been given a second chance. He had not lost his friends. He could not let his fear rule him. Not anymore.
"I'm coming," he said firmly, following the sheriff into the light.