Chapter Twenty-Nine – Quandry

"So, basically what you're saying is that nothing that is happening right now is real?" Isabel asked. She sat, cross-legged on Alex's bed, looking amazingly unselfconscious at being found there so early in the morning.

Alex reached out and squeezed her hand gently, understanding the hidden meaning behind the question.

"No, what's happening now is real, this time is real, but it isn't where we're supposed to be." He reached out and brushed a stray lock of hair from Isabel's face. "It's real, Isabel, do you understand that. It's real."

"But that time when Nicholas shifted you all away," Isabel said. "You didn't remember any of the time you were gone. You never knew what happened to you."

"I think this time is different," Liz said, breaking into the conversation. "Nicholas keeps losing his grip on whatever it is he's doing to shift time. We're all able to remember things from our real time, and when I crossed over into our real time, I was able to remember things that happened here. I was even able to bring something back with me from our real time."

"Yeah, what?" asked Alex.

"Oh, um, nothing" Liz hedged, unwilling to admit she had a memorial card from Alex's funeral in her pocket.

"Look," said Michael abruptly. "We need to know something, and Liz says you're the one to ask. This thing we're in, what happens if we stay here, and don't go back to our original time."

"Well, I'm no expert but I would think the pattern would erode after time, and we'd be caught in some sort of limbo. Because Nicholas' grasp on the time switch is so tenuous, we've been safe, but if anything were to happen to make this pattern permanent, we would eventually be destroyed," Alex explained.

"What do you mean?" asked Michael. "I'm confused."

"Okay, Nicholas, put us here for a reason, and he must have some way of making it permanent, or else he wouldn't have bothered. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, go on," said Michael.

"But there is something he needs to do to make this reality the only one," Alex continued.

"I'm following you," said Michael.

"The only problem is, our bodies aren't made to shift through time. Maybe yours are, but ours aren't, and eventually, they'll start to degenerate, and we'll die."

"Oh," was all Michael could manage past the crush of emotions that filled his throat. "So like you, Maria and Liz would all die?"

"Everybody effected by this would die," said Alex, baldly.

Liz looked at Alex, her expression filled with anguish. She wanted to run from the room and hide away, rather than say what had to be said. She took a deep breath, and tried to steady her nerves before she spoke.

"Alex, about the paper I brought back from the other reality, well, I lied. It wasn't just a piece of paper. It was this."

Liz reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled out the creased memorial card and passed it to Alex. She looked down at her hands while her eyes welled up with tears. Finally, she forced herself to look up and saw Alex staring at the card wordlessly, while Isabel sat there with her hands pressed up to her mouth trying to stop the scream that threatened to erupt.

"H-how did it happen?" Alex asked, his voice hoarse.

"Tess mind warped you into decoding the some stupid book from their world. She mind warped you so much; your brain couldn't take it any longer. Eventually you started to remember what happened, and she tried once more into warping you into forgetting. It killed you," Liz spoke through the tears that filled her eyes and choked her voice. "She put you in a car, and used her powers to put the car in the path of an oncoming truck."

For several minutes, the four sat silent lost in the memories of another life, another time. Finally Isabel spoke.

"Why isn't she here now?" she asked. "Tess, shouldn't she be here?"

"She didn't show up until halfway through the school year, Liz said. Maybe we're not, oh hell, I don't know what I'm saying."

"No, you may be on to something," said Alex, struggling to put the fact that he was dead aside. "Nicholas brought us back to the time that brought us all together, when Liz got shot."

"Only this time, Maria got shot," said Liz. "I would have gotten shot but Maria pushed me out of the way. Instead I almost got hit by a truck, twice."

"And attacked, or almost attacked," Michael added slowly.

"Michael, what are you saying?" Isabel asked, her voice tinged with panic.

"I'm saying, I think Nicholas is trying to stop Liz from living. If she had died in the other time, the real time, none of us would have ended up together," Michael said.

"But if we stop him, Alex will die," said Liz.

"If we don't, you'll probably die, and so will the rest of the world," said Alex. "Any way you cut it, someone is going to die."

"Alex, you can't," said Isabel.

"Nobody's doing anything, Isabel, just relax," Alex said. He reached out and laid a soothing hand on her leg but she shoved it away angrily.

"Don't you dare try and patronize me," she cried.

"And don't you try and tell me what I can and can't do," Alex replied calmly.

Liz sat and wondered for a moment what their lives would have been like if Alex hadn't been murdered. What kind of life would Isabel and Alex had, had they been given the chance to have a life together?

"The question remains, what is it that Nicholas wants?" asked Alex. "Why is he trying to stop Max from healing Liz and from," he stopped, and struggled to remember. A faint memory tickled the edges of his mind, teasing him, darting into the forefront then dancing away as the images started to solidify.

"If Max never healed me," said Liz. "Then we'd probably never end up together, and Michael never would have destroyed the husks for the skins," she said triumphantly. "They can't live on earth. They have to use these husks to house their bodies, and Michael destroyed them all!"

"And Nicholas came after us to get something," continued Isabel. "He wanted something we had."

"The Granolith," Michael and Liz said together. "He wants the Granolith."

"We need to find Max, Kyle and Maria," said Liz. "We need to figure out what to do, but it has to be all of us. The four of us can't make this decision. We all need to lay all our cards out on the table and come up with a plan."

Liz pulled out her cell phone and quickly dialed Maria's number. She spoke briefly to her, and repeated the process with Kyle, while Isabel contacted Max. Within minutes, plans were set in motion, and the four left, with heavy hearts, to go to the arranged meeting place.