Chapter 29

"Sir, we have retrieved the videotapes," the man said and put down the videotapes in front of the man with the boyish appearance.
"Excellent," he said.
As the messenger didn't immediately leave the room, the man behind the desk annoyed waved him off.
"Now leave!"
"Yes, sir. Of course, sir." The messenger bowed his head and disappeared out the door.
The man rose from his seat and plugged one of the videotapes into the VCR.
A little baby girl with brown hair and brown eyes were crawling on the floor, heading for the camera with outstretched arms – repeatedly voicing the two-syllabus word 'gaga'. Even though the child was only about three months old, the resemblance with her parents was evident.
"So the rumors were true. Zan does have an heir."

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"Morning," Liz smiled at Max as he walked out from the small bathroom, his hair wet from the shower.
"Morning," Max answered, unable to not be affected by her contagious smile. "Where's Emma?"
"She's outside, with Kira," Liz answered. Max took a seat on one of the chairs. The large storage room had now been furnished with a dining table and some chairs. Liz had made breakfast.
"Max, thank you," Liz said, as Max reached for the cereals. He met her eyes.
"For what?" he asked.
"For what you did tonight," Liz answered.
Max flushed.
"You were awake?" he asked.
Liz nodded.

"Well, I awoke when I felt you," Liz said, and what she said next was so softly that Max barely heard her, "I miss you so much, Max."
"I miss you too," Max said. The underlying meaning of her statement was not lost to him. They lost themselves in each others' eyes for awhile and then Max poured cereals in his bowl, and reached for the milk.
"Did it help?" he asked, referring to the healing.
"Yes, some," Liz answered truthfully. "The cough is gone..for now."
Max smiled as he poured milk over his cereals. He knew that the symptoms would be returning soon, but he was happy that he could ease the pain for now.
"That's good," he said.
"So what are you up to today?" Liz asked.
"I'm gonna go and get some things from your apartment, and then I'm gonna do some grocery shopping - well, just take care of some things I guess," Max said.
"That's good," Liz said, feeling a bit sad that she couldn't go with him. She had only been in this warehouse for less than a day, but the isolation was already creeping up on her. However, as long as Max was with her, she didn't feel lonely. But Max was not going to be here today, and she was afraid that would be a problem.

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"Nothing, sir," the same man that had given him the videotapes reported.
"What do you mean 'nothing'! It's a child and a woman. How difficult can it be to find a child and a woman?!"
"Well, sir. Some of the men claim that they've heard that she's with Zan, sir."
"She's with Zan?"
"Yes, sir."
"We can actually use that to our advantage. If Zan have found her, he will insist on keeping them hidden. But he will probably need to go and buy things. Acting like everything is all right. That's when we'll follow him - and he will lead us straight to them."
"The men are wondering what we're going to do about Lantier and Ava, sir?"
There was a pause as he thought out a decision.
"Have Lantier terminated. For some unknown reason he had already made the royal four believe that he is dead. He's of no use to us as a living dead."
"And what about Ava, sir?"
"She is infiltrated in the target group. She can be of some use to us. Check her up. See if the royal four trust her. If they seem to do, contact her and offer her a deal."
"What deal should she be offered, sir?"
"It doesn't matter. Make something up. She will not get anything out of it anyway. As soon as we have no use of her any longer she's worth nothing and she will be terminated as well."
"Yes, sir."

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Max drove around the warehouse and parked the car behind the building.
"Is something the matter?" Kira asked him as he stepped out of the car.
"Take Emma inside," Max said. "I don't want her to play outside any longer."
"Daddy!!!" he heard his daughter's voice and saw her running towards him, with a smile from ear to ear. "You're back!!!"
Max crouched and caught her as she ran into his open arms. He hugged her close to him, some of the demons in his mind disappearing when he knew that she was all right. He kissed the top of her head and rose with her in his arms.
"What has happened?" Kira asked suspiciously, as he followed Max and Emma inside the warehouse.
"I was followed, but I managed to shake them off - I hope," Max said. "The point is, if they ever come out here, they're suppose to believe that this is an abandoned warehouse."
Kira nodded. Max put Emma down on the ground and headed for Liz's and his bedroom.
"Is Liz in here?" he asked.
Kira turned around quickly.
"I don't think it's such a good idea to go in there," Kira said. Liz had certainly put him in an awful situation earlier, when she had made him promise that Max wasn't to go into the bedroom. Kira was pretty certain that she was to be his future queen and an order was an order. But Max was the king, and his order weighed just as much - if not more.
"Why?" Max asked suspiciously, his hand on the doorknob.
"She doesn't want anyone to come in," Kira answered.
Max couldn't help but feel frightened by that.

"How long has she been in there?" Max asked.
"About five hours," Kira said.
Max lifted his hand and knocked on the door.
"Liz?" he called through the thick door.
"Don't come in, Max!" he heard Liz's muffled voice answer.
"What's wrong?" Max asked.
"Nothing's wrong!" Liz said. "I just wanna be left alone."
Max paused for a couple of seconds. He didn't buy it.
"All right, I'm coming in," he said and opened the door. Liz hadn't even bothered to lock the door. She considered that act useless when she lived with a bunch of aliens.
Liz was laying on her side on the bed, a blanket spread over her. As Max entered, she pulled the blanket higher over her face.
"Max! Can't you respect that I want some privacy?" Liz said.
Now when Max didn't have a door separating them, he noticed that her voice sounded different.
"What's going on, Liz?" he asked and moved closer.
"Don't come any closer!" Liz said as she heard him move.
That sure didn't make Max feel any calmer.
"Liz, please tell me. Whatever it is, we'll deal with it together," Max said.
"I don't want you to see me," Liz said.
"Why?" Max asked confused.
"I just don't. Now, can you please leave the room?" Liz begged.

Max looked her over, her small form covered by the green blanket.
"Let me help you," Max said.
Liz didn't answer.
"Liz?"
Liz inhaled deeply.
"I look terrible, Max," she said.
Max smiled. What's that all? She was beautiful to him, didn't she know that?
"No, you don't," Max said.
"You haven't seen me, Max," Liz said.
Max grew suspicious and confused again. What was she talking about?
"Can you please stop talking in riddles?" Max said.
Liz took another deep breath.
"Okay, then help me," she said, her voice barely a whisper.
Max nodded slowly to himself, before he approached the bed. Now he was scared about what had happened. He kneeled beside her bed and she pulled down the blanket from her face. Max couldn't help but inhale sharply, and Liz grimaced as he did.
"Oh God, what happened?" Max asked, tracing his fingers along her face. Her face was completely swollen up. She couldn't open her eyes because of the swelling. Her cheeks were swollen, as was her throat.
"I don't know," Liz answered and Max understood why her voice sounded different. Her lips were swollen as well, and she probably had swelling on the inside of her throat, affecting her vocal cords. "It's probably the blocking."

Max traced her forehead and noticed that she was burning up - she had a fever. He lowered his hand and softly caressed her cheek with his hand, and Liz leaned into it - needing his strength.
"Maybe it becomes worse when you're not here," she continued. "Maybe I'm addicted to you."
Max smiled sadly.
"Normally I would be happy to hear that," he said. "But not under these circumstances. This means that my absence hurts you."
"Well, it does. I never like it when you're away and now I have to suffer these symptoms as well," Liz tried to joked and made an attempt to smile - but it looked more like a grimace.
Max threaded his fingers through her hair.
"Roll over on your back," he said softly.
Liz nodded and changed position.
"You don't have swelling anywhere else?" Max asked.
"No, only my face and my throat," Liz answered.
"Take some deep breaths and relax," Max said and he saw the tension in Liz visibly disappear. He put his hands on the sides of her head, burrowing his fingertips in her soft hair - and concentrated on her. It didn't take long before he was one with her. He found the water that had accumulated in her tissues, unable to drain from her cells. He focused on making an artificial concentration gradient of the solutes in her tissues to make the water leave her cells with her blood and flow to her kidneys. As the water balance was being restored, Max searched the rest of her body. Searching for any other symptoms. Because he knew Liz Parker. And he knew that if she was suffering from something else, she would not tell him until it was serious. To his surprise, he found that her ankle was sprained - she had seemed to walk normally to him. There was some water in her lungs - the signs of early pneumonia. He took care of that as well before he separated from her. They both shivered as the contact was broken. The feeling of loneliness surging through them. Max looked at Liz and saw that she was once again back to the person before the swelling. However, there was still much left to make her look like the old Liz Parker. Even though she slept good every night - in his arms - she had bruises under her eyes, her skin had a grayish tone and her cheek bones were very prominent.

She opened her eyes, and those big beautiful eyes - that seemed even larger in her emaciated face - met his.
"Am I still Quasimodo?" she asked.
Max shook his head. Liz smiled weakly as she rose into sitting position and wrapped her arms around him.
"Thank you," she said.
He held her close to him, and realized that now was as good as ever to bring up what he had wanted to talk to her about for ages.
"Liz, we need to talk," Max said gently.
Liz pulled away from him, and her confused eyes searched his face.
"About what?" she asked, her voice even.
"About what really happened five years ago....when I asked you out to that Gomez concert," Max said, not wanting to say 'when I saw you in bed with Kyle'.
Liz took a deep breath.
"How much do you know?" she asked, her fingers playing with the buttons of his shirt.
"I know what Maria told me, but I want to hear it from you," Max said.
"Maria told you?" Liz asked. She knew that she should be hurt, but she was merely happy that Maria had done that. If Liz had died, she wouldn't have wanted to take that secret into the grave with her - she had always wanted Max to know. And now she finally had her opportunity to tell him...everything.
"You know the night when you sang outside my window?" Liz asked.
Max turned red and looked down at her fingers, still playing with his buttons.
"That was embarrassing, huh?" he said, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
"Yes..yes it was," Liz said, giggling a little at the memory of it, but then turned serious again.

"Anyway, behind me up on the balcony stood another version of you."
Max looked up into her eyes.
"He said that he was from the future - 2014 - and he wanted to prevent what had happened in that lifetime from happening. So he had the Granolith modified into a time machine, which could be used for time travels."
Max nodded, not wanting to interrupt her. The biggest shock with this story, he had already gotten through Maria.
"The future version of you practically told me that the future was destroyed because of our love." Max shook his head at this absurdity. "He told me that Tess left because of us being together. You treated her badly, Max - and she got fed up with it and one day she left. All the four of you formed a complete unit. Without Tess in it, you weren't as strong as you should've been and everything went downhill as our enemies attacked. That's why you came back, in order to stop Tess from leaving. And the fantastic solution to that," Liz couldn't hide the hint of sarcasm in her voice, "was to break us up. The future version of you wanted me to help him make you fall out of love with me."
Max nodded, her words sinking in.
"So I tried...and I tried. But you wouldn't let go off me. I hated hurting you over and over again, especially since everything I did to make you stay away from me was a lie. So I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't. You wouldn't give up, so I gave up instead. But that's when the future version of you told me that Michael had died just before he went through the time machine," Max flinched at the mention of his best friend's name, "and Isabel had died two weeks before that." Max swallowed deeply, mentally imagining the loss of his sister. Then he nodded, understanding dawning on him. So, that's why she did it. "I couldn't be so selfish to put our love in front of their lives. I couldn't sacrifice them, Max. I guess that was what pushed me over the edge. That's also when Maria told me that Michael had cheated on her with Courtney, and I realized what I had to do. The one thing that you wouldn't forgive me for. So I staged it, so that you would think that I slept with Kyle. And..it worked. Future Max disappeared, because I had changed the future - and I was alone."

Max put his arms around her and pulled her close to him.
"Why couldn't you tell me?" Max asked. "We could've come up with something together."
"I guess I was afraid that if Tess saw us together, she would leave anyway - even if you treated her well or not. She was always out to get you, you know. That was what she had been taught under her whole upbringing - that she was suppose to be with you. She was to come to Roswell, find you and you would instantly fall in love with her. That was the only purpose of her life....and when I stood in the way of that...well, we know how it all ended when we actually got together.... she and Nasedo attacking me."
Max nodded and hugged her closer to him. They sat there for a while in silence before Liz pulled away from him to look him into his eyes.
"I would never do anything like that to you – never – not on purpose," Liz said, referring to what his future version had made her do. "It was the most difficult thing I ever have to do in my whole life...it was even worse than giving birth to Emma - even though it almost killed me. I had nightmares of you watching me with such hatred in your eyes-"
"I could never hate you. I never hated you," Max said.
Liz brought up her hand to his cheek.
"I know that now," she whispered. "But when I saw the hurt in your eyes - and I knew that I had put it there - that I was responsible for your misery - I just wanted to die. So, know this Max. I would never do that intentionally. I only did it because you asked me to. It was a future version of you. But it was still you. I would do anything for you. I would die for you." With that she refuted all the lies she had told him that night when she had told him that all she ever wanted was a normal life.
Max felt tears sting his eyes and he did the only thing he could do. He cradled her face with his hands and pulled her towards him, their lips meeting in a tender kiss that spoke volumes of their deep love.

TBC...