Zan gurgled once again, sending Tess' maternal instincts into motion, alerting her to the fact that he was hungry. She sighed, stepping out of the room to see Alex about to knock, "Hey, morning sleeping beauty." He joked, "I was just coming to see if the alluring smell of some human food would be enough to wake you."
Tess shook her head, giggling slightly shocking Alex. "Yeah, food sounds nice, I was just going to feed Zan. What are we having?" She asked following Alex down the hall.
Max stood there for a moment; he felt something just then, was it…jealousy? What was he jealous of? He asked himself. His smarter part of the brain responded with an answer, he was jealous of Alex. Jealous that Alex spent time on Antar with Tess, jealous that Tess was more comfortable with Alex than himself, jealous that Alex was able to get through to Tess and read her like he had never been able to.
Max shook his head, he deserved it. It was his decision not to follow Tess, his choice of Liz over her. A decision he was coming to question.
When Max finally joined the rest in the small kitchen, he was slightly shocked to see that Isabel was still there. He would have expected her to have gone home by now, but the look on her face and the grip she maintained on Michael's hand made Max believe that something was wrong.
"Hey," Max said, pulling up a chair as Alex and Tess started to eat some chocolate chip pancakes.
Isabel leaned over to Michael and whispered something in his ear, his face turned serious and he nodded. Tess chewed her food slowly, noticing the silence between the two.
Isabel turned to face Tess, "Hey, um…" she started, unsure of how to continue. "Michael and I were talking…for a while, about a lot of things…we…um…we…"
She looked over to Michael asking him with her eyes to finish what she started, "We want to go to Antar, with you."
At this Tess started to choke on her pancake. She had not expected this; she had not expected Michael or Isabel to agree to go. She hadn't expected any of them to agree. She thought she'd end up returning to Antar with Zan to tell the people that there were events on Earth that prohibited the Royal three to return with her.
After taking a large gulp of her sweetened OJ, Tess took a breath, "What?"
"We want to go to Antar." Michael repeated. He wasn't sure what awaited them there, but Isabel was determined to return, and Michael wasn't about to let her go by her self, Kivar gone or not.
"Why?" Tess asked, still not sure this was really happening.
"Well…" Isabel started, "I've been thinking about what Lonnie told me, when she came to Roswell. About how I…I…" She took a deep breath, "I betrayed everyone. About how the war was because of me…I want to apologize and have a just punish…"
Tess shook her head and reached out her hand hesitantly before setting it on Isabel's own hand in, what she hoped was a comforting way. She hadn't received a lot of comfort lately, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to give any.
"It wasn't your fault." Tess said with a sad sigh. "Kivar used you, you didn't know."
Isabel stared at her with an expression of confusion coupled with hope; hope that it really, truly wasn't her fault.
Tess sighed again, "Vilondra and Rath were very much in love, and they really were. They were engaged to be wed after Vilondra's coronation day. Vilondra was Zan's younger sister, she wasn't the oldest. She truly didn't want any claim to the throne, Lonnie lied. You should have known after what happened in NY not to believe anything she said. Anyway, Rath knew that a war was coming; he knew that he had to prepare the troops. So, he had to leave Vilondra quite a few times, for many months."
Tess glanced at Alex, who nodded her to continue. "Kivar came to the palace under the impression that he was an emissary from a neighboring moon interested in joining Zan's alliance. Zan wanted to create a golden era, an alliance of all the planets and moons in our solar system. He only really needed a few more moons and one planet to complete it…" She stopped, noticing that she was trailing from the story, "He impersonated an emissary and started to play with Vilondra's feelings. He told her stories that he had 'heard' about what Rath was really doing when he wasn't with her."
Tess paused, gently picking up Zan who was squirming next to her. "Vilondra didn't believe him at first, but…as you have seen with the whole 'I killed Alex' situation, when no one is there to tell the other side of the story, you start to believe what you're being told. Zan found out that Kivar wasn't a real emissary and that he had been bribing the guards for information. Needless to say, he had Kivar removed from the palace; Vilondra didn't know why he was forced to leave. Kivar came to her and begged her to let him in to talk to the King about a way to speed up the alliance. So she did, and she died just after receiving Rath's forgiveness for her mistake."
Tess looked up from Zan to see Max and Michael stone faced with Isabel close to tears. Seeing the pain in Isabel's eyes reminded her of her own pain at Kivar's expense. She rose, handing Zan to Alex to feed as she went to be alone for a moment.
Tess entered the bedroom and stared out the window, fist by her mouth thinking. She heard the door open and didn't even have to turn to know that it was Max who had followed her. "You know," Tess said, glancing back at Max standing awkwardly in the doorway, before returning her gaze back outside the window, "Antar had one of the most amazing preservation techniques. Bodies don't even begin to decay for a good hundred years." She stopped, turning to face him, "When…when Kivar took me…he wanted to show me just how powerful he was. He…he…he took their bodies from the grave." Tears were now falling freely down her cheeks; Max was immediately by her side. "He put my family's heads on pikes leading up to the castle, their bodies…they were…they were left dismembered at the end of the pikes…" Max wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as her tears subsided.
She pulled herself away from him, wiping her eyes, she hated being seen weak. She had been through too much to be seen as a weakling. "So," She said, voice cracking slightly from her tears, "You want to know what really happened?"
Max nodded, he needed to know. Tess shook her head; he'd regret it later. "What Alex said…what Kivar…it was true, but Kivar didn't capture me, I gave myself up."
Max was staring at her, he had believed it from Alex's point of view, that was how Alex and the rest of them had interpreted her capture; that Kivar's men had taken her. He had never considered that she would have given herself up, why would anyone?
"I didn't want to fight, that flash…if I had fought, they would have blown up the base…they…they would have killed Karina too." She looked at Max, again telling herself that he didn't remember Karina either. She sighed, "Karina was my best friend, she was a servant in your castle when I arrived with Gali, she…she watched over the two of us as if we were her own sisters. She was still alive on Antar, she managed to escape when the Castle was taken. I was so happy to see that she made it out all right. I couldn't let her die after fighting so hard for us. So…I gave in when Kivar's men came to get me."
Tess shuddered involuntarily thinking of all that had happened. "They…" she cleared her throat, "They did some pretty basic things to prisoners. They wouldn't let me eat, or sleep for a while. They…they beat me, and whipped me, and…played mind games with me…When I fought back they put me in the cell…a um…a kind of isolation cell for a while or put me in the subzero chamber, to let me freeze to death…or at least close to it…and that's it."
She turned away from him, praying that her general description would be enough for Max. She couldn't talk about it in detail just yet…it was too…she couldn't describe it.
As if sensing Tess' reluctance to talk, Max accepted what she had told him. He stepped out of the room, moving to spend some time with his son as his mother spent some time alone.
I
I
I
When Max returned, a sleeping Zan in his arms, it was dark out side. He opened the door to see Tess squirming around on the bed, a nightmare in the making.
He quickly put the baby in his crib before running to Tess' side. He stroked her face gently, as he had done before, but was unable to calm her. She started to struggle against him, murmuring incoherent things in fear to some unseen enemy.
He grabbed her shoulder to shake her awake, when a flash overtook him. In one single instant, all the terrors that Tess had lived through, all the agony and the pain she suffered through, he had seen and felt.
He reeled back onto the floor, Tess calming as if her terrors were passed to him. He sat there breathing deep and fast, images blurring as they spun through his head. He fell on his back on the floor, twitching in pain as if living through all that Tess had endured in a single moment. It was excruciating, when it passed, Max couldn't move. Sweat layered his body, his bones were stiff, he couldn't even lift an arm with out pain searing up it.
So he laid there, at the foot of the bed, next to the woman who had endured unexplainable pain for those she loved. Max's eyes drooped with exhaustion; never had he experienced a flash like that. Sleep over came him, plagued by visions of red blood and cruel eyes.