"Hi Isabel," Tess said meekly, unable to look the girl breathing hard across from her, straight in the eye.
"Hey," Michael said, finally pulling himself from the couch and walking over to Isabel, "who is…" He had draped an arm around Isabel's shoulders when he saw exactly who it was just beyond his door. Tess stood there, a baby in her arms, just behind Max.
"Michael," She said meekly as well.
Max pushed his way into the apartment, pulling Tess along with him. Isabel grabbed his other arm, stopping him and pulling him to face her. "Max, what is –she– doing here?" She asked, barely controlling her anger and hurt.
"Yes Maxwell," Michael said, closing the door behind him, "Enlighten us."
"I…well, I don't know," Max admitted, "She just showed up."
"So that was you that crashed last week," Michael said, glaring at Tess.
She nodded slowly, knowing where this conversation would be headed. "It was an accident."
"With an Air Force Jet?" He asked disbelievingly.
Tess sighed, knowing what he wanted to hear, "It was trying to shoot us down. I don't know why." She sighed again, "A typical human response, I guess. The ship was destroyed, and I…I woke up just as they were about to take Zan." She cursed herself; she hadn't wanted to give away that much information about when she first arrived. At least they didn't know about…
"...So what did you do?" Max asked apprehensively, afraid of what she might say.
"I protected my son." She said, staring straight into his eyes, as if willing him to see the truth of what she had done…or had not done.
"And how many people did you kill in the process?" Isabel spat taking a menacing step closer to her.
"I…don't know..." Tess stuttered, she knew they believed her a murderer, but to hear them accuse her of more deaths, she couldn't handle it.
"How many?" Michael asked stepping up to her as well.
"I don't remember!" Why didn't they believe her?
"How many?" Michael shouted in her face, making Zan start to cry.
Tess shielded the baby, trying to comfort it, "Fifteen, maybe twenty! I didn't stop to count!" There, were they happy now? She said what they wanted to hear, what they would believe coming from her.
"I can't believe we ever trusted you..." Isabel sneered, glaring at Tess.
Tess shrunk back as Max moved to block her from his angry friends, "Enough." He said to them, sending a silent command to back off.
"Why defend her Maxwell?" Michael asked a while later. Tess was sitting by herself on the couch, he back to the boys feeding her son. They refused to let her leave from their view, not even to feed Zan. "She's a murderer."
"She killed Alex!" Isabel added, "We should just…" She raised her hand as if to send a blow to Tess' back, when Max rushed forward to block it.
"Isabel, NO!" He shouted at her.
Tess glanced up from the couch, wondering why Max even bothered any more. She had given up herself. To just hear how much Michael and Isabel wanted to hear that she had killed again had convinced her that she couldn't win. She had been wrong to even attempt to come back and clear things up. They wouldn't listen, and she couldn't tell them now.
She looked up as she finished nursing Zan, Max was heading towards her, he wanted her to tell them what had happened, or at least what she had told him. She sighed and rose, turning to face those who condemned her…
I
I
I
Outside Michael's apartment, a very excited Liz Parker arrived. Things had been a little stressed between her and Max lately. He'd been distant, but it was the night that they had agreed that she go on a double date with Max, as Isabel and Michael came too. Truth be told, she was still angry with Michael and Isabel for what they had done to Maria, but still, she wanted to see Max, and if this was the way to do it, she would. She smiled to herself as she reached for the door…
Back inside, Tess has just finished telling her story to Michael and Isabel when a sudden blast of green sent her flying through the air. She hit the wall hard as Liz stood in the open door way, hand crackling with green sparks. "Get up, bitch!" She shouted, blasting Tess again, "I'll kill you!"
"LIZ!" Max shouted, running in front of Tess, "NO!" He threw his hand out, sending Liz flying into a wall, just as she had done to Tess.
Max stared at his hand, had he really just done that? Had he just attacked…Liz? He had, he realized. It was as if some primal instinct had risen up within him urging him to protect Tess at all costs, from anyone, including Liz.
Before Max knew what he was doing, he was kneeling by Tess, checking to see if she was injured. After her repeated, yet shocked, reassurance that she was fine, Max looked up to see Liz backing out of the door, tears and fear in her eyes.
Max looked away; he hadn't meant to hurt her, but she…
Liz shut the door to Michael's apartment, not really believing what had just happened, that Max had attacked her. Whipping out her cell phone she dialed the only person she could think of talking to, "Maria?" She asked when someone answered the phone. "It's Liz, can you come over to Michael's please. It's an emergency…"
And that was how it came to pass that the Pod Squad and the I-Know-An-Alien club met once again in the small confines of Michael's apartment. Maria had brought Kyle and Jim with her not sure of what she would be dealing with when she reached Michael's. None of them were prepared for the appearance of Tess.
It had gotten dark out as the group argued on over what to do with Tess. She stared out the window of Michael's apartment, watching as the sunset and the streetlights began to come on. Zan was asleep and safe, so Tess tried to tune out the current topic of the group discussion. What to do with her?
It pained her that the majority of them wanted to turn her over to the FBI, it pained her even more to hear that Kyle wished it and Jim wasn't defending her.
She tried to hold in the tears as she listened to the conversation taking place. "I just don't understand why you haven't killed her yet." Kyle said.
Michael shrugged, "The king wouldn't let me." Isabel scoffed.
Maria turned to the group, "No. This is not just an alien decision. She killed Alex. She killed my best friend. I think that we should all get to vote, yes we turn her in to the Feds, no…we pick something else."
Tess shook her head, it seemed as if her prediction of Antar were coming true, either way, she'd die, either way she'd be punished for something she didn…
"No, we can't turn her in." Max said in one final attempt to gain sanity for the group, "They would throw her in a white room and study her like a lab rat for the rest of her life. I've been there. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy." 'How could I wish that for the mother of my child?' he mused to himself as he glanced at Tess' back.
"I vote yes," Maria said, driving the conversation back to a vote that would determine the fate of one woman.
To Tess' surprise, Isabel voted no. She didn't know why, but the look that Isabel sent to Michael suggested the reason.
"I say yes," Kyle said after a moment's hesitation.
"Kyle..." Tess started softly, turning to look at her once brother.
"We took you into our home," he explained, glaring at her with so much hatred, Tess felt as if she were a piece of dirt beneath someone's shoes. "We protected you. And how did you repay us? You brainwashed me into carrying Alex's dead body!"
Tess shook her head vigorously, tears of pain spilling out of her eyes, "I never meant to hurt…"
"Well, too late!" Kyle shouted.
"But you've never even heard my side of the story…" She tried to argue, she needed to tell them, even if they didn't believe her.
"You have a side?" He asked incredulously, "The murderer has a side!"
"I was raised by a killer, Kyle..." she said, trying to make him see what she had to deal with, all that she had to resist, "He was a sick and twisted man but I..."
"Don't play the victim here, Tess." He said cutting her off, "You know, of all the aliens I've met... you're the only one who has no soul."
That hit her hard, to hear her kind of brother say that about her. She turned, not letting them see how much she hurt. She stared out the window, not listening to the voting going on behind her.
She was about to give up and tell them to go find the FBI when a movement out side caught her eye. She placed a hand on the glass window, as if bracing herself for what she might see. A figure cloaked in black was walking slowly down the street and up to the apartment complex.
Tess' eyes widened as recognition, "Oh no…" she thought to herself. "No," she said out loud. The group quieted, looking back at her. "No…no, no, no, no." She repeated over and over. Her hand started to tap the glass, "Not yet, not yet." She then shocked the group by bolting out of the apartment…