Liz took a second just blinking in astonishment. Technically she didn't really need to, as she wasn't horribly surprised by Maria's demand, but it seemed just about as good as any other way to occupy the time while she figured out a plan. "You're sure?? You want to try and go see Alex tonight, no matter what? No matter who else might be there, and no questions asked?" She did her best to make that last part seem ominous, wondering if she could frighten Maria off, though it seemed unlikely. Also, the more vaguely scary she could be, the more Maria would be slightly prepared for meeting Rath, and she would have less grounds for resenting Liz keeping his involvement a secret, though Liz didn't want to actually mention his name yet.
"Umm... yeah, yes I'm sure," Maria managed to stutter out.
"Okay then, cell phone?" Liz replied, holding out her hand. "I left mine upstairs somewhere today... don't think you want to wait for me to find it."
Maria surrendered the handset without a word, and Liz dug a small scrap of paper out from her uniform pocket. "I'll just give Ava's pager a ring, before we start to close up. She said she might not be able to get back right away, so we'll head over once we're done either way."
"Umm, Ava?" Maria repeated vaguely. "As in Tess' punk clone from New York? Liz, are you sure that we can, well, you know..."
Liz had already punched in the code for 'need to come over ASAP,' added Maria's cell number, and hung up the phone. "Yes, Maria, I trust her. If I hadn't, then Max would have been squashed flat by a platform on that Manhattan sidewalk, and Lonnie would have earned a free ride home off it. Think of her as an absolute opposite to Tess."
"No, there's only one person I know who's quite that good and sweet, to qualify as Tess' polar opposite," Maria replied, "and I'm looking at her. Okay, well, let's get at it."
Maria was in a manic energy cycle, and Liz was herself feeling excited about going back to see Alex, and bringing another of his best friends in the whole world to visit. It seemed like only a few minutes before all of the necessary cleaning chores were done, and the two of them left by the side door. Then Liz locked it behind them, having already locked the dining room front door from the inside.
"No reply from the page," Maria noticed aloud. "I know you said that wasn't necessary, but I'll just ask once: Liz, are you sure about all of this?"
"Yes," she insisted fiercely. "Where did you park?"
"Umm, across the street, just outside the UFO center," Maria replied, and Liz led the way over to the car, waiting by the passenger side door until Maria switched the master locks up. "Head west on second, and I'll tell you when to turn left."
The drive proceeded in tense silence, much as Liz's earlier trip this way with Rath had, except for occasional directions. Finally they had parked, and Liz led the way once again, to the abandoned house that three unlikely conspirators had appropriated.
"This is where Alex has been hiding out?" Maria asked dubiously.
"What did you expect, the Ritz? Granilith chamber?? Or maybe he was just sleeping in the geometry classroom," Liz shot back, and instantly regretted it. "Sorry babe, it's just been a long and kinda strange day, and you were getting on my nerves a little. Umm, err... I guess I'd better knock, and both of us stand where we can be seen easily from the windows. They're being careful about visitors, I should expect." Suiting action to word, Liz rapped as loudly as she could on the heavy door, ten or eleven times, and then hustled Maria off to a point in about the center of the long-neglected porch. They waited one minute, and then two, with no obvious response from within.
"Umm, maybe they didn't hear," Liz muttered, worried that she was seriously losing credibility here.
"Well, how about the doorbell this time?" Maria suggested evenly, pointing to a small round button set in the wall where Liz hadn't noticed it in the mix of twilight and streetlight shadows.
"Umm, I'm not sure if they have any electrical power to run it with..." But Maria had already run forward and pressed the button, and sure eough a low and mellow DING-DAANGG-DONG could be heard from inside. The two of them waited a little bit longer, maybe thirty-five seconds, and then there were footsteps audibly approaching inside, and the distinctive sound of a deadbolt going *Thwunk* as it was levered back into its socket. The front door opened, but only a crack. "Get in here, you two," a low voice called out to them.
Liz followed after Maria nervously, guessing what might happen next. Inside the dim front hall, the other waitress was getting her bearings, fathoming the familiar, shadow-cloaked face of the person who had let them in.
"Michae-- no." She shook her head, caramel brown waves of hair flying all over the small room. "Not Michael. Dupes. Rath. What the hell do you have to do with Alex?"
"He got a look inside Tess' head when she was there in New York," Liz filled in, "realized she was trouble, came here to Roswell to try and figure out what exactly she was up to. With Ava. If it weren't for the two of them, Alex would probably be dead for real, or dying at least, and who knows what Tess might have pulled with Max and the others. Rath was the one who helped pull Alex out of that wrecked car, and created the fake body we saw buried." Turning to the young hybrid man she had been talking about, she continued. "Hey. Ava out on the town?"
"She's picking up a few supplies and possibly hitting the intenet cafe, if it isn't too busy, for a little research," he replied. "You looking for the guest of honor?"
"Pretty much," Liz replied. "Maria might feel more at ease if you gave us plenty of space, to start out with at least."
"Hey, sure, go right ahead. He's in his bunk, up the stairs and second on the left." Rath smiled faintly and shuffled backwards a little.
"Wait a second," Maria put in, stepping towards the duplicate of the one she loved. Rath turned back towards her, and was entirely caught by surprise at the ringing slap she delivered to the side of his face.
"Maria!" Liz exploded while Rath was still stunned silent. "What the heck was that for?"
She delivered the answer to the one she had punished. "For snaking a kiss from Liz, when she thought you were Michael!"
"Umm... yeah, okay," Rath replied slowly. "I guess I do deserve that, yeah."
"Are you quite through avenging my honor?" Liz quipped sarcastically. Maria nodded silently, and so Liz led the way up the stairs and to the room that Rath had indicated. Some kind of faint music could be heard within.
Liz knocked on the door and called out at a volume she judged to be loud enough to be heard inside. "You've got two visitors, Whitman."
There was a flurry of sounds from within that went on for a little while, and finally the door opened, revealing Alex in a brightly plaided dressing gown that had clearly seen better days, though it still performed its role adequately. "M... Maria!!" he exclaimed, looked almost ready to sweep her up into a giant hug, and then changed his mind. "Are you gonna give me the third degree too??" he asked softly.
"Umm..." The question stymied her for a long moment. "Well, I know that Liz has probably covered the ground much better than I could, but yeah, I kinda need to hear something that only, well, at most the three of us would know."
Alex smiled. "Okay, well, I've had a little while to think of some good ones. In november of '98 you had a huge blowout fight with your mom about you wanting to join a band, and having to help her with the family business, and what clothes you could wear to go out with Liz on Saturday nights, and you packed up everything you thought you couldn't do without, and were all set to steal the Jetta and drive off to Dodge City and, umm, either live with Billy Darden's parents or convince him to run away with you and sing on the street corners of New York for pocket change."
"Whaat??" Liz asked. Maria shot a dirty look at Alex.
"Well, I figured just in case you thought Liz might be in league with an impostor, better to start with something not even she knew," he explained, a lopsided smile dominating his face. "And it's kind of time she learned about your sordid past, Maria."
"Okay, I'm convinced you're the genuine article," Maria conceded. "No alien impostor could quite match that trademarked 'Alex Whitman' twisted sense of humor. But... but how??"
Alex shot a look at Liz. "What have you told her?"
"Only a few bits and pieces," Liz admitted. "She thought I had gone looney when I showed up for my shift actually happy, and once I'd convinced her it was even possible you were alive, she insisted on seeing with her own two eyes."
"Yeah, I guess I'm not surprised at that," Alex admitted. "Well, come on in guys, no reason to stand out in the hall." He led them into a dim room, obviously squatted and scrounged in the same way as the rest of the house was. On an old futon sat a slightly batterred accousti guitar, missing one string. "Well, I guess you can probably imagine how surprised I was to walk into my living room one afternoon and see two hybrid clones waiting for me. What was worse neither of them were even Isabel's... yeah, I know Lonnie is pretty twisted and a remorseless killer, but I gotta say, those tattoos? HOTT!!"
Liz laughed softly as she sat on the dresser top, (which seemed just about solid enough to support her weight,) and listened to Alex tell the tale from his own point of view.
----------
The much-mentioned 'get-together at Kyle's place' the next day never really happened, or at least, it didn't happen at the Valenti house, or start at the time it was supposed to have. Maria was insistent that the news be spread to 'the guys', ie Max and Kyle, as soon as possible, and she got Liz and Alex to agree to that after about ten minutes of repeating herself. The result was that all seven of them, Alex, Ava, Kyle, Liz, Maria, Max, and Rath, (going alphabetically,) met up at the abandoned house early the next morning. The story of how Alex's death had been averted was told all through again, as well as what had led up to it and what had happened afterwards.
Kyle and Max seemed to show the same conflicting emotions that Maria and Liz felt even more strongly... frustration that they had been left out of this inner secret for so long, overwhelming relief that Alex was actually okay, and ironic bitterness at the obvious fact that of all of them, the one who would be happiest to know that Alex was back, the one person of all who possibly loved him most dearly aside from his parents, was currently completely unavailable to get the news.
"Don't worry about it," Alex insisted when Max brought it up. "Isabel will be fine, and she'll be back soon, I'm sure of it. In the meantime, what do we do about my folks, and about... well, letting me walk around in public without getting the catholics up in a lather? Liz, you mentioned you had part of an idea yesterday. Any progress??"
"Things are starting to come together, yeah," she said. "First thing, well, on the face of it we're going to need to dig up the grave and get rid of Rath's fake 'body'. No matter how we handle your reappearance, someone, officially or unofficially, is going to get the idea of finding out exactly what, if anything, is in the grave if it isn't Alex, and possibly testing whatever they find. You never mentioned exactly what it was, Rath, but I'm sure that the DNA and the cell structures aren't human, and that's just not anything we want someone else to find out about. So, the grave will have to be empty, which raises its own possibilities. Maybe we don't worry about coming up with an explanation of what happened to Alex, just have him come back home to his parents and let anyone who worries about the mystery come to their own conclusion."
"Hmmm..." Kyle considered this. "So, grave robbing. Sounds like something off of 'Buffy'. Should we do it tonight??"
"No time like the near future, I guess," Ava said. "As soon as safely possible, whenever that would be."
"Probably the later we can leave it, the less likely anyone else is going to be sneaking in," Maria agreed. "So, do we leave the grave open or something, so that it looks like he might have dug himself out, or like someone else might have??"
"I think that would be pretty transparent," Liz put in. "Remember, it's been, what, about three weeks now since he was buried? No way anyone could have survived that long without fresh air, food, or water, no matter what his state of health before. But, well, if do our best to make it obvious that the grave was dug up again after the body was put in, and then sealed over, it might not be easy to know for sure WHEN that happened."
"I think I get it," Max replied. "Funeral home finds an empty grave, realize that they've lost a body. Rather than admit it, which could be bad for business, they cover the grave back up and hope that the family didn't notice. Might have happened only a day or two after Alex was buried, or so we might be able to convince people."
"Yeah, sounds like that could work," Rath replied. "There's... there's something else that I should probably tell you guys. You mentioned Isabel, and how she'd want real bad to know that Alex is still with us, but can't 'cause she's not in the sector, right??"
"Umm, yeah, definitely," Alex replied after a moment of stunned silence. "Didn't you... no, I guess I never really talked about her to you guys, did I? Sorry, I just didn't want to get myself bummed out about her, in addition to the homesickness and cabin fever I was already struggling with."
"I understand," Rath mentioned. "But, well, maybe you shoulda said something earlier. The thing is, I know somebody who's learned a bit about sending messages long distance... like, truly impressive interstellar distances. Should even be able to get the news to Isabel, if she and Michael headed where you thought they did."
"Who??" Kyle asked. Max and Liz guessed the answer before Rath said it.
"Lonnie, of course."
---------
The sound of a syncopated rapping dragged Michael away from fairly passionate dreams about Maria. "Damn, what is it??" he called out, tried to sit up in bed... and fell out of the hammock quite awkwardly. Ohh, yah, right.
When the two of them had finally allowed helpful colonists to show them to rooms where they could spend the night, Michael and Isabel had already been bone-tired. There'd been so much to learn from the Antarians, (and a few members of other species who lived there,) and a lot that they could do to assist in preparations for the looming attack. It had been a most unpleasant surprise to find out that the beds available were subtly incompatible with the human spines that they had inherited from that side of their DNA. Something about the way a supportive framework had been built into the matress made even lying down on it uncomfortable for them, and forewarned of incredibly sore muscles if they should actually try sleeping a night like that.
Realizing that even fabricating a jerry-rigged cot with an even distribution of padding could take a while and divert resources that might be better put to use elsewhere, Michael had suggested the hammocks as a simpler and more efficient alternative. Now, testing the status of his body, he was starting to regret the bright idea.
At first he thought the stream of unintelligible sounds were a manifestation of his own frustration, but then he realized that they seemed to be coming from the door. "Oh no." As if they didn't have enough problems, his translator pack must have worn away. They were probably asking if everything was okay, after hearing the noise of his fall.
Picking himself up, Michael considered. He had practiced enough in Antarian the day before to acquire a decent vocabulary... and that should still be available if he tried hard enough. 'Good morning, what news?' was 'Karivna shebvli ccor davvanz,' and that sounded like it should do. He repeated the words, paying due care to the pronunciation, and strained his brain to decipher whatever reply came back.
It wasn't *that* hard, when he was trying. "Are you alright, sir Guerin?? Girdachliquen would like to meet you and your companion for breakfast."
Michael smiled. Breakfast he thought he could cope with... the Antarian food they had had last night put earth cuisine to shame, as far as a hybrid palate was concerned, and of course lots of it was REALLY spicy and REALLY sweet. "Yes, I'm fine. Does protocol allow for bathing before eating?"
"Ummm... yes, of course m'lord. There is a sanitary antechamber adjoining your room... look for a small black square a little above waist height on the wall. It'll be touch-sensitive, to control the portal."
"Oh, right, thanks," Michael replied, thinking that he should have expected that much. These people seemed to have a deep-seated dislike of doors that actually looked like doors. Quickly Michael was able to find the appropriate touch pad, and a hole appeared in a place that had been solid wall an instant before, leading into a small room
Michael had had experience with Antarian bathrooms the day before, at least. (Natural functions and the grime of the swamp had been among their most important concerns when they got to the settlement proper, after all.) Some of the details seemed quite unusual by human standards... instead of utilitarian sinks, the standard seemed to be fountain-like devices that could be controlled with respect to the temperature of the water they jetted out, and how high it went, along with basins of various sizes that could be used to catch some of the water at a convenient height, then dump it out into the fountain drain. There were also no towels and cloths as Michael was familiar with them, but puffy sponges of a range of sizes and textures that could be used for the same purposes. Soap, or the equivalent, was a powder that fizzed and foamed up when it got wet. The overall feel was a little bit decadent, but Michael thought he could get used to decadence.
The actual waste disposal unit, on the other hand, was quite similar to a relativly fancy Earth toilet. (Maybe that was the only design that would be functional for a humanoid life form... Michael couldn't really think of anything significantly different that would work as well, at least.) This bathroom also had a few touches that the one he'd been to before didn't include, such as a small pool that was situated where it could get filled up with fountain water... definitely larger than the biggest bathtub he'd ever seen before. (Not that different in size from a jacuzzi hot tub though, maybe.)
Soon enough, Michael had taken care of everything that was needful in the sanitary chamber, including trying to clean off his only clothes a little bit. When he got back into the bedroom proper, he immediately looked for another contact patch similar to the black one, and found it in a moment. Taking a deep breath, he pushed it, and another doorway immediately materialized, leading out on the corridor, where a young Antarian was still waiting for him. "Okay, I'm ready for breakfast I guess."
"Very good, m'lord. Is it your pleasure to wait on Princess Isabel?"
Michael smiled. "As long as she won't *take too long!*"
Isabel's voice sounded through the opposite wall from Michael's room, in English. "I'll be TWO minutes, Michael."
It seemed more like three or four, but Michael didn't check his watch until he had already been waiting a bit. When the second door whooshed open, Isabel stepped through, definitely not in the Earth clothes she had been wearing for the trip in the Granilith. Instead, she was clothed mostly in a one piece dress/tunic that Michael had noticed some of the Antarian women here at the settlement wearing, in a deep purple color that set off her rich golden hair strikingly. "Where did you get that??"
She looked at him for a long moment, as if it were a truly stupid question. "From the dresser, in my room." Oh. Now that he thought of it, there had been a large blocky piece of furniture in Michael's quarters too, with a column of controls down one side of the front, but he hadn't taken the time to experiment. Maybe each button would have opened up a different drawer or something like that. Well, for now he felt more comfortable in human clothes - going native could wait.
----------
"What news of our enemy patrol ship?" was the first thing that Michael asked when they were led into the room. Gird was sitting at a table about as big as the Evans' dining room table, and he had started on breakfast without them.
He smiled a welcome, (smiles, at least, seemed to mean pretty much the same thing among their two cultures,) wiped his long multiple-jointed fingers off on some kind of cloth napkin, and consulted a small mobile data screen a little smaller than a palmpilot. "Almost here... they'll have to make transit from warp space to the relativistic universe any moment now, I think. They'll be in range to send a transmission in about a day-segment." (That term indicated a little less than an earth hour, Michael had figured.) "But we'll have more than enough time to worry about them later. Sit, eat your fill, and while I have a free moment we can talk about other things."
"Um, okay." The two of them pulled up stools to the table, and Michael reached for a few things that looked like they'd taste good. Some of them turned out to be good, but in an opposite way than he'd expected... the soft, flat, fluffy round reddish-pink items tasted like garlic bacon, while the brownish crispy, crunchy sticks were like raspberry and pancakes. Well, they went well together anyway, and he poured some of the sweet red-purple drink that he remembered from yesterday into a beaker.
Aside from small talk about if their quarters had been comfortable, the settlement leader didn't raise much conversation for a few minutes, and Michael and Isabel were both too hungry to talk much on their own initiative. Gird's mini-palm beeped at one point and he looked at intently for a few seconds, but Michael decided not to ask if that was about the patrol ship re-entering normal space.
"I realize it might be hard to come up with anything that makes much sense to one of us," Gird said, maybe once he had decided that his guests were no longer attacking the food with as much urgency, "but I'm very curious what it has been like for you, living and growing up again on Earth." Michael and Isabel exchanged a long look, thrown by the request even though they probably should have expected it.
"Umm... I have to admit, I'm not quite sure how to explain it," Michael started after a moment. "We grew up in Roswell, which is a small city mostly surrounded by desert. But there's way too much of earth to be described in a few sentences, or even a few days."
"Yes," Gird agreed after a moment's thought. "I suppose that would be true of practically any planet supporting intelligent life. The same of the people??"
Michael struggled to find a few generalizations that weren't hopelessly unfair. "Some of them are... amazing, especially in the way that they accepted us after finding out that we weren't truly their own kind. And some of them are still... well, a little narrow-minded, or afraid. That's not too hard to understand under the circumstances I suppose, though I've run into a few humans who took the distrust approach WAY too far."
"When I think of Earth now, I guess I think of my adoptive parents most of all," Isabel said. "They... they found Max and I out in the middle of nowhere, and I think my Mom fell in motherly love with the two of us right then and there. They took us to the authorities first, because they had to see if our 'real' parents could be located. Back then, they had no way of knowing that our only true blood relatives were light-years away, and even we didn't understand it back then. But... Mom and Dad raised us as if we were their own. I'll never forget that they loved me enough to do that."
"I think that tells me a little of what I was wanting to know," Gird said after a moment. "Well, you had better eat up. The enemy captain will be calling through soon, and you probably shouldn't be here when I take the call. Unless you can think of a good reason to be, that is. I just thought it would give him information that we have no reason to surrender at this point."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Michael. "I'm sure that there's more that we can do to help with the preparation... just find Niiki or someone else with anything that needs doing, right?"
"Yes, I imagine so. Ohh, I forgot to mention that I've received word from the underground. A small task unit will be here in a little over three days, including a 'cloaked' hyperskiff that is often used to allow Royalist leaders to travel between stars without Kivar's fleet monitoring the comings and goings. Tess will be able to leave aboard that vessel, and the two of you can return to Earth in the Granilith then if you wish. After that, Kivar's ships will hopefully see no good reason to engage our reinforcements in battle."
"Umm, Michael," Isabel broke in. "I'd actually like you to come with me and talk to Tess. There's some things I think we need to ask her. And if I can get some quick guesses from you, Gird, about what options she'd have, if any, after the baby is born."
"Ask Tess questions?" Michael repeated, a little uncertainly. "But why?"
----------
"I have to admit, I'm a little curious about that too," Tess said to Isabel. They were sitting on metal armchairs inside the guarded quarters that Tess had been assigned. "What makes you care what I'd have to say??"
"I don't believe in being dragged down to the lowest level, Tess," Isabel said shortly. "Not when I absolutely don't have to let that happen. You were scheming to take our choice away, essentially. Sure, you didn't force any of us outright to say that we'd go back to Antar with you in the G, but you conspired to manipulate the circumstances well enough that every other option looked like it was closed to us. Right?" Tess nodded slightly, and Michael was signalling his agreement with what she was saying much more clearly.
"Well, I don't believe in tit for tat. Even though you didn't grant us the same privilege, I think that your right to have a say in your fate is important enough that I'm not going to take that away from you. That's not to say that I'll go along with whatever you ask... there are consequences to your actions, and other people who have a stake in your future now, like, say -- MAX. But the least I can do is let you speak your piece. Do you still want to go back to Antar, say?? If we give you up to the patrol ship, you'll probably be taken to Kivar there."
"Yeah, right," Tess sighed. "I'm not sure if you'll have thought this through the same way already, but I can't afford to go to Kivar alone, or with nothing but Max's baby on the way. That's not nearly the leverage he wants. According to the most generous possible reading of the old deal that Ed made, we... now I, was supposed to deliver at least two of the rest of you, or the Granilith, or all of the above if I could. The privations that royal supporters will put me through look like mercies, compared to the hospitality I'll get if I show up on Antar without any of those things."
"Okay, that's fair," Michael said gruffly. "One choice out of the way. We talked to Gird about what you can expect from the rebellion, by the way. If you're interested."
"Of course I am, don't be stupid Michael," she grumped.
"The meat of it is, you'll be under constant guard and restricted movement until the baby is born," he said. "You won't be allowed to raise him or her yourself, or even be close to the child much. We've all agreed..." and he shot a look at Isabel to make sure she was still resolved, "that you've forfeited a mother's usual rights with what you did, and what you tried to do."
For a second, Tess' look of stoic calm cracked, and Michael could see the utter misery in her eyes. A few tears dripped down her cheeks. "I... I kind of expected that, though it's gonna be hell," she whispered. "What else??"
"Probably no other specific punishment," Isabel answered softly. "The rebels have enough to worry about without guarding you in jail for the next seventy years or however much you deserve. You can probably try to earn their trust and join in the army if you want, or find a colony world or somewhere else to settle down, if you don't raise any more trouble."
"Hmmm." Tess thought about that. "Could be. A place like this, they probably wouldn't ask too many questions, if I was willing to do my part. Or I could try going to Rahlicx; that's Larek's world. He always had a soft spot for Ava -- maybe he'd take me in and protect me, even knowing what I did."
"Could be," Michael replied evenly.
"But, what if I wanted to... to go back to Earth??" Tess blurted out. "I know I won't be able to hitch a ride with you guys, and getting a ship that will take me such a long way won't be easy. But..."
"Gird mentioned that possibility," Michael replied. "Frankly, I think the two of us had a hard time with the notion that you'd ever want to come back to Earth. You were always the one who wanted to come back 'home' at any cost... and I guess I do mean ANY cost."
"But I can't really go home, not now," Tess replied softly. "And I guess I've just now realized that I'll always be much more of an outsider anywhere in the Antarian sphere of influence than I was on Earth. Back there, we could blend in, we'd been tweaked for it. And... it really is the world that I was born, and where I was raised, though not terribly well. Here, no-one will ever be able to see past my human face, and the story of my betrayal."
"Forgive me if I don't have too much sympathy for that," Isabel snapped. "I think that, speaking for myself, if you can get your ass back to Earth and want to live there, that's fine. So long as you don't bother us, or cause any trouble that comes to bite the people I love in the butt. I don't like the notion particularly, but I don't really think we have exclusive rights to the planet, or quite enough justification to exile you from it after your baby gets taken away. Michael??"
"I'm not sure," Michael admitted. "We're not the only ones who have a say in it, and I don't really want to make a decision for Max, for Liz and Maria and Kyle. Even for Mister Valenti, for Alex's parents who don't know the truth about what really happened to their son." He sighed. "And by the time you get to earth, it'll be too late to come up with a negative answer. Maybe you'd better just stay away, unless you hear differently from us, Tess. I know that answer might never come, and that's just too bad on you."
Tess nodded slightly, and there was a long, pregnant moment. "Umm, well, we have other things we should be helping out with," Isabel said uncertainly. "Oh, Tess, is that style of bed as uncomfortable for you as it is for us??"
"Probably more."
"And you didn't want to complain or mention anything about it?" Michael asked softly, and Tess nodded once.
"I was actually afraid that they'd just laugh at me."
Michael considered. "We'll make sure you get something a little better. A hamm... no, probably better NOT a hammock, actually. Could hurt the baby if you fall out of it."
"We'll sort out a cot or something," Isabel assured her. "See ya."
"Bye." Tess sighed. "Thanks for coming to visit."
----------
Liz almost jumped when the telephone rang. Debated with herself whether to let her parents take it, like she had told herself over and over she should, and then her willpower broke so definitely she imagined she could hear the little snapping sound. Taking a moment to try to compose herself, she scooped up the phone receiver. "Hello?"
It probably didn't make any difference -- the woman on the other end was so excited she probably wouldn't have noticed anything unusual about Liz's real mood. "Liz, is that you?? It's Gloria Whitman."
"Umm, uh hi Mrs Whitman. What are you c--"
"I... I don't know how to say this other than to blurt it out, how to prepare you except that it's like a miracle," the woman rambled. Liz smiled a very private smile to herself. "Alex is... is here!! He's back, he's alive somehow. I don't really know how to explain it, he hasn't been able to say that much that makes sense of the story yet, but it's definitely our Alex. At least... if the young man sitting in my living room is NOT acually my son, then both John and I are sharing a joint delusion, and in that case, it'd probably still be a good idea for you to come over, so that you can decide that and break the news to us gently..."
"Umm... you're kind of rambling a bit, and I don't exactly understand," Liz said, deliberately overacting, since there was no way that Mrs Whitman would be able to notice, and might completely miss any underreaction. "Something about Alex, and you want me to come over??"
"You, your parents... I've already called Maria and her mother," she enthused. "I was all set to call the Evans place and make sure that Isabel knew, before I remembered that she'd run away from town. Such a shame, I know that Alex would have wanted to see her as soon as possible, but..."
"We'll drive over as soon as we can, Mrs. Whitman," Liz said. "And, um, well say hi to whoever it is for me."
She deliberately said as little as possible to her parents, who were happy to come over to visit, and figure out if Alex's parents were having a nervous breakdown because of grief and loss, or if something really weird was going on. Liz had to fight hard to make sure the private smile she was feeling inside didn't show at all.
----------
Things were already a little crazy at the Whitman house by the time the three of them got there. Liz's mother and father each visibly blanched a little at the sight of Alex... Mom was about to say something when Dad touched her arm, just slightly. She looked up at him, caught a subtle message in his eyes. and nodded slightly.
Alex smiled at the little moment. "Mrs Parker, Mister Parker. I can understand that you're surprised... I don't understand what's happened myself. But it really is me."
"I'll vouch for that, Jeff," Amy Deluca put in. "The poor boy has been answering so many questions, he must be long past tired of it, so please don't you start."
"Ummm... hmph," Jeff Parker sat down on the couch, a frown on his face. "Well, then I'll ask the rest of you. Do we have any idea what really happened??"
"I'll tell you what I remember," Alex volunteered. "It'd... it'd be less annoying than hearing someone else try to remember the important points." Liz went over briefly to touch the fingers of Alex's hand, and sit down on the floor near him. She was surprised at how bad he looked.
That had been part of the plan that Alex himself had insisted on. In trying to reduce the points of complexity in the picture that they were presenting, draw attention away from Ava and Rath (who would be hard to explain, if found,) and make the 'buried alive' idea more credible, Kyle had suggested that Alex say something about having found himself in the middle of the woods and taken a long time finding his way out, thus explaining where he had been for at least some of the time since his funeral. Alex had agreed with the idea in principle, but pointed out that since he'd been eating pretty well while enjoying the hospitality of the dupes, no-one would believe that he'd been roughing it unless extreme measures were taken.
So, Max had reluctantly connected with his young friend, not to heal but to harm, just a little bit, to make their story believable. Wrecking the stored food reserves and muscle tissue to simulate a long period of semi-starvation, half-healed scrapes and cuts, and several other little touches that the other members of the group had suggested. Then he'd been dropped off where the two-lane highway cut through a bit of Frazier woods, and watched from a distance until it was clear that he'd found a friendly driver to give him a lift into town and the vicinity of his parent's house. At least, that had been the plan, which Max and Kyle had taken care of, and apparently something of the sort had worked since Alex was now here.
"I don't really remember much of... of anything," Alex was saying. "I remember having had a few things on my mind, getting the keys to dad's car. I was thinking of driving out to a place in the desert near the highway, where I liked to sit and think sometimes. I... I don't remember anything weird about the drive at all."
"If, if Alex had some sort of epileptic fit and lost control of the car," John Whitman explained to Liz's parents - this was an idea he'd thought of when hearing the story the first time, "it might explain why he seemed... um, seemed dead after the accident. There are cases in the literature of epilelptic sufferers who've been through trauma remaining comatose for days, with heartrate and breathing so faint that they couldn't be detected without special equipment, and body temperature dropping by eight degrees or more, even a sort of cramping in the muscles from lack of blood that approximates 'rigor mortis.' And no-one would have checked for this specific condition, because... because we had no prior idea that Alex was epileptic." He looked at his son with love and relief. "As soon as there's a chance, we'll have to get you in for an EEG test, to see if that'll confirm it." Maria looked alarmed for a second, but Liz nodded reassuringly at her quickly. If they could make this explanation of Mister Whitman's work, then they would, and otherwise he'd think of something else. The fact that Alex was so visibly alive trumped the evidence that seemed to record his death.
"Yeah, umm," Alex tried to find his place in his own cover story. "The next thing I remember, actually, is waking up out in the woods, in this rather, umm, torn and ratty suit." That had been Ava's bright idea -- the real Alex had never had a suit put on him at the funeral parlor, of course, and the real suit that had been put on the fake body was way too rank to do anything with than burn, along with the body. (After it had been shapechanged out of human form, of course, a precaution that Max pointed out they should have used with Pierce's body, if they'd thought of it at the time.)
But Ava had had the sense to transform some other fabric into a replica of the same suit, aged appropriately, and given it to Alex to change into before his triumphant return to town. "I didn't understand what had happened, but I was able to find some water, edible fruits and berries... make a kind of rough shelter, not that there was really any bad weather. Set a few snares for catching meat, got a fire going after MANY days experimenting with banging rocks together. Explored a bit more of the forest every day, until I finally heard cars in the distance, and followed that sound."
"Hey, I saw you guys on the campout," Jeff said, teasing. "You're not exactly an expert woodsman, Alex, I hate to say."
"What can I say," Alex replied weakly. "Necessity is a mother-- uh, well... I had a lot of time, and some determination, and just worked out what I could from first principles, trial and error. Didn't really do as well as I'm making it sound maybe, but I was able to stay alive, and that's what counts I think."
"Surely," Nancy Parker agreed, coming to his aid.
"Well, what next?" Jeff asked, a little uncertainly.
"I suggest we go down to the sheriff's department," Amy DeLuca said confidently. "Not quite sure how to go about getting an official death certificate revoked, but we're going to need to, and Sheriff Blackwood will know the procedure, or be able to look it up at worst."
There was a moment's silence, and then Mrs Whitman nodded. "I agree. No reason to delay in making it official."
TO BE CONTINUED...