Chapter One-Part A: The News
Five Years After the Fire
"Of course, I'll tell them, Dad," Kyle Valenti was whispering into his cell phone. "They are out right now but when they get back…I won't forget."
He said his goodbyes and hung up his phone. He looked up into a nearby mirror and noticed the deep frown on his face. Kyle was worried and scared witless. All he had to do now was figure out how to not frighten Michael and Liz with the news.
Kyle felt small in the empty house. Michael and Liz had gone out with Bella about an hour ago, leaving Kyle to his lonesome. Well, he and the television anyhow.
Kyle stretched his stiff leg and began to walk around the house. His eyes landed on their most recent family picture. It was almost a year ago, if he remembered correctly. Kyle stood next to Michael who had his arm wrapped around Liz's waist. Next to her was the beautiful Bella, the apple of everyone's eye.
She had Liz's hair, eyes, and small nose. Kyle smiled at bit at the notion that she most definitely had Michael's temper and lack of patience. At a little bit past four years of age, she had shaken up the Guerin household.
He had only been living with them for about two years now. It had been his idea and he couldn't deny that it helped.
Drinking yourself into oblivion was something to be done in a dark hotel room but doing it in a house with an impressionable four year old around, wasn't his style. Kyle had been sober now for six months. Michael and Liz decided it was best to keep him out of a rehab center due to the fact that his powers acted up when he was drunk. Kyle knew it was safer to be with them but sometimes when he couldn't stop shaking in the middle the night or when Michael had to physically hold him down to make him put down a drink, Kyle didn't believe there was a safe anymore.
But now he knew there was. And he'd be damned if he was just going to sit back and let Max Evans ruin it.
Slowly, his mind began to reach back to when he had last seen Max.
***Somewhere in Kansas, 2005***
"Another shot, please," Kyle slurred unattractively to the female bartender in front of him.
"Don't you think you've had enough, sugar?" she asked politely but firmly. Kyle looked around him. Everyone else had come and gone and it was a half an hour until closing time. Kyle groaned when he realized he still had to walk back to the hotel and knew it was time to leave.
"Dammit," Kyle grumbled as he grabbed his coat. "I was just beginning to have fun."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something and froze. It was her. "Isabel.." he whispered. The women with short dark hair and light eyes brushed past him and went into the crowd.
Kyle quickly got up and began after her, his feet shuffling. He was beginning to get dizzy from walking so fast but he had to catch her. He loved her. He missed her. He had to tell her that.
Finally he caught up to her and grabbed her arm.
"Can I help you?" a very un-Isabel voice said. Kyle stumbled back and felt his heart drop. It wasn't her. Tears threatened to spill over and he brushed them away, quickly.
"Sir, are you okay?" she asked again.
"I'm sorry…I just.." Kyle stammered and turned around causing beer to spill on the shirt on the guy behind him.
The burly man stared down at him with a warning. "Watch it, asshole."
"Whatever," Kyle said, trying to get past him.
"No," he said loudly, pulling Kyle back. "You going to buy me another drink or what?"
Kyle shoved him back and growled out, "Fuck off. It wasn't my goddamn fault."
"What did you just say?" the man bit off, getting in Kyle's face. Kyle rubbed his eyes and in his drunken state, the guy didn't look that dangerous, so he took a step closer too.
"I said to fuck off."
The man swung to hit him and caught him in the jaw. Kyle staggered back and next thing he knew, he was engaged in an all out fight. Suddenly, he was being pulled away by another guy, whose voice was kind of familiar.
"Come on, Kyle," another voice said. This one was more feminine and again familiar.
Kyle looked around him, dazed. He raised his arms to push the guy away only to have the guy push him against a wall. "What the hell is your problem, Kyle? Your hands are glowing!"
Kyle blinked several times to find that he was in the back alley. He also saw who the voice belonged too, which made him fight harder against him. "Butt out, Max," he growled, pushing against him.
Max narrowed his eyes and frowned at Kyle. His hair was tousled, his lip was bleeding, and he was drunk out of his mind. "What the hell happened to you, Kyle?" Maria gasped from behind Max.
Max ignored Maria and focused back on Kyle. "You could have exposed us."
Kyle just shrugged and wiped some blood off his lip. "Max, we can't leave him like this," Maria said to Max. "Just look at him."
Max reached out his hand to Kyle. "Come on, you can come home with us and sober up."
Kyle stared at Max's outstretched hand. "Wow, Max the giver. I'm not the only one who changed apparently."
Max's eyes clouded at his comment but didn't say anything. "You can't drive home."
"I walked here, Maxwell. I can take care of myself."
Max blanched and winced as if we were in pain. Maria put a hand on his shoulder. "He doesn't know, Max."
"Doesn't know what?" Kyle asked, his eyes switching from Max to Maria.
"So you're an alcoholic," Maria said once they arrived at their apartment. Max was about to give Maria a scolding look when Kyle snorted and flopped down on the couch.
"Something like that. I get drunk easily but it wears off pretty quickly. I think it's an alien thing," he explained. Which was true, even though he had downed twelve shots in the past two hours, now all he had was a hangover.
Maria began to speak again but Kyle pinned her with a glare. "You can take a couple wild guesses about why I drink. It's no big secret."
Maria ducked her head. "You could have come to us for help."
"I left you guys for the exact reasons why I wouldn't come back. Why did you guys settle in Vermont? It's not the usual desert graveyard you guys like to live in."
Max pierced his lips together. "It's safer now."
Kyle looked down. "I know. It just seems like they got what they want, you know," he said quietly.
Maria swallowed and sat down next to Kyle. "Kyle, they killed Michael and Liz."
"What?" Kyle said, his body tensing. "When?"
"They killed Michael and Liz and set our rooms on fire to get rid of us..." Max began to tell Kyle about the fire and how they hadn't been able to find Michael and Liz. How the FBI had taken their bodies...
All Kyle would comprehend was that Liz was dead. He'd put a block on any dream walking because he didn't want anyone to see what he had become. He never thought that Liz was dead.
Max and Maria were both in tears when they finished the story. Kyle stood up numbly. "I'm going to go now."
They looked at him incredulously. "What? You can't just leave."
"What reason do I have to stay?" he asked quietly.
"It's been so long, Kyle. Just stay and talk with us," Maria pleaded.
Kyle almost felt bad. He could see how much they had changed. However, all he remembered was how they were those years back, demanding and stubborn. He could only imagine how Michael and Liz were living before the fire.
"I miss them too, Kyle. All of them but maybe we could stick together," Max tried.
Max's comment pushed the fact home that Liz and Michael were dead. Kyle needed a drink. God, he needed a drink. He needed someone to blame. "I shouldn't have left her with you. I thought she'd be safe."
Max grew angry at Kyle's accusation. "Where were you? You didn't call or visit. Liz tried to dream walk you several times. You shouldn't have left at all!"
"What would that have changed? All Liz would have seen was that I'm a fucked up drunk, traveling city to city to find the best bar," Kyle spat out, self-loathing evident in his voice.
"You made yourself this way, Kyle."
Kyle shook his head and knew in that moment that he never wanted to see these people again. "I hated you when I left. Both of you. I hated you for what you did to me and Liz. I hated that I could go for weeks without seeing Liz smile or laugh. And I still do hate you. I may be a drunk and have severe emotional problems that could drive any therapists up the wall, but I'd rather be that then what I would have become if I had stayed with you."
And he left and never returned.
Two months after that, Kyle contacted his father and found out that they were alive and in held captive by the FBI. Since then, he had to rebuild himself from the ground up and he finally mourned for Isabel and moved on. Thinking about those years, made Kyle weary and uncomfortable.
"Honey, I'm home!"
Kyle beamed a smile as a small brown-headed Bella came through the front door and ran for her 'uncle'. Kyle picked her up quickly and spun her around. "My name is Kyle, not honey," he scolded teasingly.
Bella crinkled her nose and reached up a hand to trace his forehead. "You have worry wrinkles," she said with concern in her voice.
Kyle placed her on her feet and met Michael's eyes from across the room. He had heard Bella's words and judging by Kyle's serious expression, he knew something wasn't right. "Bella, go help Mom bring in the bags, OK?"
Bella ran outside and as soon as she was out the door, Kyle spoke. "My dad just called. Max called him and asked him for records of the fire or any dirt he could get on that night."
Michael blanched and pulled Kyle into the kitchen. "What are you trying to say?" he asked 's heart broke at Michael's devastated expression. It took some getting used to so actually see Michael happy and smiling. But now, it was like he was looking at an 18-year-old Michael.
"Michael, I don't know how to say this," Kyle faltered. "Max thinks you and Liz are alive."
"You've been quiet all night, Michael. Is something wrong?" Liz asked before she turned off the lamp in their bedroom. The stars had been out for a while and she had found her husband facing the window, his eyes glazed.
Michael had been going through the motions all day. He and Kyle were whispering when she was in the room and not telling her anything. She knew something was wrong. Liz crossed the room and pressed her cheek to his back. "Baby, please tell me what's wrong," she pleaded. Michael didn't respond and Liz frowned against his back.
"You really shouldn't make me worry, you know. Shane will be able to tell," she said with a small smile.
"That's cheating," Michael deadpanned, his body vibrating. "Shane is barely a fetus."
Liz laughed and poked her husband with her protruding belly. "Well you tell him that because I sure as hell look six months pregnant."
Michael finally relented and turned around to face her. "I thought this was your cute bump stage."
Michael couldn't help but smile. Liz had coined that phrase as soon she started to get really big. Liz, being very petite, didn't start showing with Bella until five months and all you could see was a very small bump.
Instead of finding her smiling, her brown eyes flew to his and she sucked in a deep breath. "Is it really that bad?"
It wasn't that Michael didn't want Liz to know, but he just didn't want Liz to worry over nothing. He had been thinking about it all day and all he had come to was that if Max wanted to find them, he would.
Michael could feel his world coming apart. He had a family-one he wanted to keep far away from Max. He was happy. For once in his life, he was happy.
Then he told Liz the news.