Tess ran as fast as she could out of the apartment, she could tell that Max had followed her, but she didn't care. She had to stop him…she hadn't gotten a chance to tell them yet.
She ran outside, right up to the cloaked figure. She grabbed his shoulders, pushing him slightly to stop him in his trek. "What are you doing here?" she asked. Max and the others had caught up to her, and stood there in confusion. What had she just said? It was some sort of foreign language to the humans; the aliens however were somehow able to understand the rapid Antarian in which Tess and the stranger were now conversing.
"You weren't supposed to come yet!" Tess yelled, "I haven't gotten a chance to tell them!"
"I thought you said that you'd contact them on Antar." The stranger said, the Antarian was slower but the aliens understood it nonetheless.
Isabel stared at the stranger, the voice was oddly familiar.
"I did, believe me I tried, but they think I killed you!" Tess shouted.
Michael was getting edgy, according to what Tess had alluded to she had killed Kivar back on Antar…was this him?
"WHAT!" The figure shouted angrily. "How did they come up with that load of bull?"
"I don't know, something about Kyle and Amy tapping their fingers and…" Tess made a motion of tapping her fingers, giving the humans an idea of what they were talking about.
The figure suddenly let out a curse that even the aliens didn't recognize, "Finger tapping!"
"What are you two talking about!" Maria demanded after hearing her mother's name mentioned.
"Nothing," Tess said, in English to the humans, before turning back to the figure and continuing in her Antarian conversation. "Do you know how hard it was to contact someone when they think you're a cold blooded killer! Even their subconscious wouldn't let me in! Do you know how hard it was to just contact Isabel for you!"
By now Michael and Isabel were beginning to get frightened. Some one that Tess killed who wanted to talk to Isabel, it had to be Kivar.
Apparently the mention of Isabel led the humans to the same conclusion, "What do you want?" Maria asked the figure this time.
"Maria, shut up," Tess said, turning back to the stranger. Effectively pissing off Maria. "I didn't even get a chance to tell them about you."
"What were you doing for the last 12 hours than?" The figure asked.
"After I made it to Max he took me here, Liz called a meeting, and they were just voting on which way would be the best to off me."
"WHAT!"
"What is going on!" Maria shouted.
"MARIA!" The figure shouted in English, shocking them all. "Do you EVER shut up!" The figure pulled down his hood, revealing…
"Alex?" Isabel asked softly, not believing her eyes.
"Hello Isabel," Alex said, glaring at the group, "I can't believe you didn't tell them." He said to Tess.
Tess scoffed and shook her head, "Well, what did you want me to do? Walk up to them in broad daylight saying, 'Hey guys, I'm back, Kivar's dead, you have a son Max, oh and I didn't kill Alex, in fact, he came with me to Antar?' They didn't even let me get a word in. What was I supposed to do?"
Tess turned sharply and stalked back into the complex, fuming at Alex. She knew she should have been calmer about it, but she was reaching her end. She had come back trying to make peace, to be sent into a corner, and having people she cared about plot her demise. She knew she should give Alex more credit, he had given up everything to help her, his life, his future, Isabel…but still, she was tired.
Alex sighed, rubbing his head as he watched Tess walk off. He should have been more lenient with her, she had been through hell and back twice, once with the birth of Zan, and the other when Kivar…
He could still hear her screams in his nightmares, when Zan was born. He chuckled slightly at the memory, Zan, formally Ale-Zander of Antar. He loved irking Tess by calling Zan, Al, she hated it.
He looked up at the group who had been in the process of condemning their savior, and shook his head. "You guys are such…idiots." That was all he said as he pushed past them to go find Tess.
The group stood there, they couldn't believe that Alex was alive. Maria felt the air leave her, just moments ago she had been pushing for Tess' death on the premise that she had killed Alex…but she didn't. Maria felt like she'd be sick, she could have been responsible for the torture and possible death of an innocent woman and possibly a baby. Kyle felt sick as well, all the evil, cruel things that he had said to Tess…he just…what had he done?
The aliens were in no better shape, true they had voted not to kill Tess, seeing her with a child had made Isabel reconsider her previous notions of Tess as a cold-hearted bitch. In her opinion, how could anyone so concerned and loving of a child kill some one innocent. Seeing Tess holding Zan, reminded her of the dreams she had been having of the child she and Michael might have in the future.
The group, completely disgusted in themselves soon found themselves heading back up to the apartment where shouts could be heard coming from Michael's room, he could understand that it was about when Liz blasted her. He sighed, taking the lead, Tess and Alex had to quiet down soon otherwise there would be hell to pay with his neighbors.
As soon as Michael had entered the room, Alex wheeled on him, "How could you guys believe that Tess KILLED me?" He shouted to all of them. They all looked down in shame. Alex shook his head, "I cannot believe you!" he said quietly. He picked up a pillow from the couch and hurled it at the wall. The girls flinched; they had never seen Alex this angry before.
Tess placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, signaling him to calm down. He took a deep breath, "What is wrong with you?" He asked them again, "No, wait, let me guess…scapegoat."
"What?" Kyle asked.
"Tess is your scapegoat, you all blame her for your problems. You find ways to make her responsible for everything, just because she isn't as human as you. Well, maybe you'd do well to remember, she was raised by a killer, a sick and twisted man." He said, echoing the words that Kyle had scoffed at moments ago…yup he felt like a piece of shit right now. "He wouldn't let her show emotions, emotions were a weakness to him. He raised her to believe whole-heartedly in destiny, and because of the way HE raised her, you ignored her."
A baby's cry drifted into the room and Tess immediately went to check on Zan, "Did any of you know that she knew exactly where you three were after she hatched. But Nasaedo took her, he searched for you three, but she KNEW where you were." The aliens looked at one another in silence, each wondering why Nasaedo had never found them till recently. "She never told him," Alex said, answering their unasked question. "She didn't want what was happening her to happen to you three too. She could tell that you were happy, she didn't want Nasaedo to turn you three more alien than you already were. So you three alienated her for being more alien than you were because she protected you from becoming alien, is that right?"
The baby's cries quieted to a gurgling noise, as Tess' quiet laughter sailed into the room. "And the only one who accepted her right off the bat…was me. No Kyle," Alex said cutting off his argument, "You had to be consoled after you discovered she was alien, you were weirded out by her, in her words. I saw her the day that Nasaedo died, she cried, did you three know that? No, I was there for her when her safe haven was taken from her. I was there when we decoded the book, I was there when she found out she was pregnant, and I was there when she found out that the baby couldn't survive here."
The humans gasped, they didn't know that the baby had been sick. "You might remember that conversation Kyle." Tess said stepping into the room, Zan held in her arms. "I'm sorry I mind-warped you, but you couldn't know about the baby."
"I think I remember," Kyle said, eyes squinted slightly trying to remember, "I walked in and you were both crying, Alex said something about the royal four…" He shook his head, unable to remember the exact words.
"I said, 'You are the royal four. You are created from the genetic materials of your alien predecessors and human subjects, you should be able to do something…"
"And I noticed you were by the door," Tess added, sitting down and bopping Zan on her lap.
"You are given human forms so you can survive on earth, what happened?" Alex finished, he stared at the group, "and I often wonder if you three would have reacted as I did to the news that the baby might die See, Tess became one of my best friends, and to think that one of my 'friends'" he said, sneering at the word friend, "could get her pregnant, that she could loose the baby, and that she could have died also, it scared me."
There was silence as the truth dawned on the group; the gravity of the situation had finally hit them. "But what about the other mind warp?" Kyle asked.
Tess looked at him confused, "Other mind warp?" she asked.
"Alex was telling you that you destroyed his mind with your mind warps, and that he'd be better off dead…and you killed him."
Tess' mouth dropped open in shock, "I never…we never had that conversation…did we Alex?" She looked genuinely confused at what Kyle had said.
"No, I never said that, or anything close to that, why would I?" Alex asked.
"But I could have sworn…" Kyle trailed off, wondering where that memory had come from.
Then, it dawned on Alex. He turned to Tess, and spoke in Antarian, "When did Liz start showing powers?"
Tess shrugged, before turning to Max and asking him. Liz was getting uncomfortable after repeatedly hearing her name mentioned.
"A few months now, just after you left." Max replied in English, yet another reminder of the things he still had to learn about Antar, the language included.
Tess turned to Alex, who nodded, an answer forming in his mind. "It's a common female trait among Antarians to possess the powers over the mind. Mind warping, dream walking, it all ties in with the basic balance of life, male and female, mind and strength. My guess is that when Max healed Liz, his subconscious knew that he could never be with Liz, physically speaking, if she was not half alien, so when he healed her he made is so that her genetics changed and she started to gain access to that part of her brain. If she wanted my killer to be alien, and wanted it to be Tess strong enough, she could have mind warped Kyle without knowing it and made him believe he saw Tess kill me."
He turned to face the group, who were looking at him with open mouths and wide eyes. Michael turned to Isabel and whispered, "Is it bad that I understood everything he just said?"
"That's not possible," Liz said, speaking for the first time in a while.
"And why not?" Alex asked.
"I would never mind warp Kyle." Liz said firmly.
"Yeah, and I would have noticed and remembered if she had," Kyle added.
"No you wouldn't," Tess said, "You didn't when I mind warped you. You know I would never mind warp you if I didn't absolutely have to."
It was possible. And the group didn't know what scared them more, the fact that Liz could mind warp, or the fact that she wanted Tess out of the picture so much that she was willing to, subconsciously, frame her for murder.
"Alex," Tess whispered, "I'm going to take a nap. Could you explain what happened to them, please?"
Alex nodded, "Oh course…Good night Al, your highness." He added after a moment.
"You know I hate it when you call us that." She muttered, leaving the room.
Alex shook his head; turning to notice the confused looks on everyone's face. "Oh, yes, I was there for the birth of your child Max." He said, glaring at them. How they could not have gone with Tess, to leave her to fight a war on her own…how Max could let her leave pregnant… "She picked a name is a combination of the Queen's best friend Alex, and of the Queen's love, Zan. You obviously wouldn't know this, but his formal name is Ale-Zander."
He stared down Max for a few moments before sitting on the couch ready to start the story of the hell that had been the last four months.