CHAPTER 33
Max

Max Evans was the type of alien who blamed himself for the state of the planet Earth. He ruefully shouldered the greenhouse effect and saw his existence as a contributing factor to the rising incident of cancer in the human population.

Max Evans was, by default, not the type of alien who would form attachments to a human being since this, in Max's opinion, would inadvertently put that human being's life in danger. Even having Max Evans close by, breathing the same air, placed the homo sapiens at a certain risk.

Consequently, it was not a fluke that Max Evans had never been in a relationship or that his adoptive parents would sometime speculate in their adoptive son's sexual orientation. With the exception of Maria DeLuca and his adoptive parents, the alien was at a complete lack of human relationships.

On the subject of Elizabeth Parker, Max was strongly motivated to keep his distance.

Elizabeth Parker was someone that he, almost instinctively, wanted to protect.

And the biggest threat, in Max's humble opinion, came from having contact with Max himself. The only problem was that he, for the first time in his Earthen life, felt very strongly about not staying away from this human being.

When his conscience wasn't watching, Max would even let himself indulge in the notion that he was protecting her by keeping close, not the other way around. He would wonder if a human girl like her could ever love an alien boy like him, without fear and second guessing. He would consider if her lips would feel as soft as they looked and if her body would fit against his. Sometimes, when his guard dropped away, he would imagine a future with that human girl.

A normal future.

But as he watched her tuck the ends of the bed sheet between the cushions of her sofa he knew that could never be so. His guard struggled out of its submission and his conscience started banging around mercilessly on the inside of his skull. He was here tonight for one reason and one reason only; to offer her a veil of security against a threat that his existence had created. If he hadn't entered her life, she would have gone about her normal life right now without having to fear about FBI agents and aliens.

She also might have been dead by now, killed by David Perkins.

He brushed the thought away because it was a feeble attempt at justifying his continued presence in her life, when he should have left long ago.

"I hope this is okay," Liz said, interrupting his mental torment. She straightened, wisps of her dark hair dancing around her face as she looked up to meet his eyes. An angel would fade in comparison. He took in the faint flush on her cheeks, the way she was biting her bottom lip, the warm brownness of her eyes, the porcelain shimmer of her skin. She was beautiful; a work of art.

"You okay?" She had taken a step towards him, concerned as she brushed some of the errant wisps of hair away from her eyes.

He got the strongest impulse to help her out, to brush that hair away, to touch her skin and trace the pink of her flush with his fingers.

An iron curtain slammed down in his mind and he held back a sigh. It could never be. She truly was an angel to him; unattainable.

"Sorry, just tired I guess," he replied, offering her an apologetical smile.

She looked at him wordlessly for a long second (her eyes seemingly seeing straight through him) before matching his smile. "Yeah, we should get some sleep."

He nodded and accepted the pillow she handed him. "Thanks."

"Well," she looked lost for a second, looking at him as if she was expecting him to say something. He couldn't figure out what, so he kept silent and let her fill in the end of their conversation. "Good night then."

"Night," he replied and with a small smile, she disappeared into her bedroom, not really closing the bedroom door behind her.

Two inches of space between the door and the doorframe kept the connection between the two rooms open, something that happened to relax him. Sitting down on the sofa, pillow across his lap, he reached for the switch of the floor lamp and let his eyes wander to the spot where Liz had disappeared before a flick of his thumb drowned the apartment in darkness.

It felt as if he had just closed his eyes when Liz screamed.

The scream froze the blood in his vessels and shot hot adrenaline into his heart. He was stumbling out of the sofa before he was even fully awake. He had heard her scream like that before, on the night she was attacked. He had heard it again and again in his premonitions. Still, he was convinced that he would never get used to the echoes of misery, anxiety and death that ripped through that scream.

There was only that single scream before the silence of the apartment followed, in which Max struggled to get to his feet, the sheet having tangled around his legs. He fell to the floor with a thump while his hand found the switch to the floor lamp. If the quiet of the night hadn't been peppered with the irregular moans of distress from the bedroom, Max might have feared that she had been abducted (would the FBI really go to such lengths to get ahold of a witness?).

He found her in her bed, dimly illuminated by the light from the living room behind him. She was curled up in fetal position, looking vulnerably small as she failed to occupy even a quarter of the large queen-sized bed. As he got closer to the bed, he instantly reached two conclusions; 1) she was still asleep and 2) she was bleeding.

Bleeding.

He inhaled deeply and pulled back the thin white sheet that was covering her body and covering the knowledge of what was the cause of the bleeding. The bottom part of her night gown was covered in blood and he swallowed. Being an EMT and an alien with the capacity to heal, illness, blood and trauma did not faze him. But it was different with Liz. Her pain ground through his soul like the rotating blades inside a shredder.

"Liz," he called softly. "Liz."

She returned to awareness with a harsh jolt, her dark eyes frantic as they rapidly flickered from side to side in a horizontal pattern. "My baby…"

Baby?

Max put a hand on her shoulder, but hastily removed it as she pulled away from him. "Liz, you're bleeding."

"They took it," she sobbed, curling further around herself. "They took my baby."

Max kneeled on the side of the bed, bringing his hand back to her shoulder. This time she let him touch her. "Liz, you have to wake up. You're bleeding."

She stilled underneath him, her breathing evening out, her eyes staring off into the darkness, past his face. He surveyed her face, unconsciously checking her color, looking for signs of her going into shock because of blood loss. "Liz?"

Her eyes snapped to his and he watched her pupils focus on him with recognition. "Max?"

He let out a breath he hadn't known he had been holding and gestured down towards her body. "Liz, you're bleed-"

His words came to a halt as his eyes caught up with his gesture and he came upon the white sheets. The white bloodless sheets.

"Wait," he murmured and let his hands slide down her body. Confounded by what his eyes had seen and what they were now seeing, he failed to notice what his unconscious touch was doing to Liz and how her breath got stuck in her throat as he brushed his hands up and down her bare legs, trying to find the blood that had been there.

"Max? What's wrong?"

Max lifted the sheet that he had thrown off her, looking underneath it, before looking back at Liz's body. "You were bleeding…"

Liz looked down at herself, at his hand resting against her bare knee, and her look at his hand made Max aware of himself again and he quickly pulled back from her body.

"Sorry," he mumbled and looked away. His mind was reeling. There had been blood. Where was the blood?

"It was a nightmare," Liz whispered, her voice coaxing him too look up at her. Tears were drying on her pale cheeks and her eyes were glittering from anguish in the dim light.

Max shook his head to try and clear it. Not many things surprised him, considering his background, but at that moment he found it hard to trust what he had seen. He took a hold of the sheet and pulled it back up over the lower part of Liz's now seated body. He was suddenly ashamed of what he had done, of the panic he had felt. Had her nightmare aggravated him into seeing things?

"I've had it before."

Max looked up at her again and fresh tears were rolling down her cheeks. His request was soft and non-demanding, "Tell me."

"It's raining and I'm crawling in mud. It feels like quick sand, because I can't seem to get out of it. The more I crawl, the more I sink. I've lost someone, but I can't remember who." She shakes her head as if this lack of recollection is hurting her and wipes some tears off with the back of her hand. "I think he's dead. And I think that the same person that killed him is the one coming after me."

"But it's a dream…?" Max questioned. It was as if she was describing a memory.

She bit her bottom lip, a sign Max had come to learn as a telltale sign of her uncertainty and nodded. But her reply was weak and deficient in conviction. "Yes." She sniffled and pulled the sheet to her chin. "But I've had it since I was little. In the dream… I think I'm pregnant."

Max nodded. "You were talking about a baby…"

"I was?" she wondered, brushing another set of tears off her now blotchy cheeks.

Max nodded again.

"I think I'm having a miscarriage."

Max's thoughts rushed to the blood he had seen, the blood covering her lower parts. He frowned. How was it possible? Had he really seen it? And how? "Have you ever talked to someone about this?"

She nodded, a faint tremor going through her body. "I was in therapy for years when I was little. I thought it helped since the nightmares went away. But ever since… I guess, starting my new job, they've returned."

"How did the therapist explain it?"

Liz shrugged. "As night terrors. Possibly my mind trying to deal with what had happened with my mom in that car crash, about the horrors I might've seen."

Max observed her closely. "And how do you explain it?"

Liz dropped her eyes. "I agreed with my therapist. At least I did then."

"And now?"

She looked up at him and the sudden determination in her eyes surprised him. "Why do you think you were sent here, Max? To Earth?"

His heart skipped a beat. "I don't know."

"What if…What if you've lived before? What if you were important enough to stow away on another planet?"

Max could feel himself getting cold all over. His immediate reaction was to deny it. He had lived by the 'deny everything'-solution since he had formed a secret pact with his alien friends (plus Maria) and it was firmly ingrained in him not to discuss his possible origin with strangers. But Liz was no stranger. Meeting her large eyes, moistened by her fear and sorrow, he was certain that he could talk to her about anything.

"I've never thought about it," Max mumbled, but it wasn't the whole truth.

Little had been discussed of their origin because of lack of proof, but Max's own dreams of Liz and Tess had spurred thoughts in him about possible previous lives. Why else did he have a feeling that he had been married to Tess but that Liz had been his one true love? But even though he could explain Tess' presence in his past, he couldn't explain what a human like Liz would be doing there. There were just too many holes in those probable explanations.

"I just…" Liz whispered, hugging the sheet closer to her as if the topic of conversation was chilling her. "I have this strong feeling that my nightmares have happened. That maybe I've lived before and those things happened to me."

She looked at him piercingly as if she wanted to add something, but wouldn't dare to.

"Liz, I…" Max began, but was halted in his words by the intensifying tremors of Liz's body. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just," she answered, on the border of teeth clattering, "so cold."

"Hang on," Max said and rose from his kneeling position next to her bed to retrieve the blanket from the living room which she had lent him to keep himself warm during the night. Her shivers had increased as he got back to the room and her lips were starting to look blue.

He kneeled on the mattress this time, folding the blanket around her shoulders and holding it closed at the base of her throat.

"I can't…get warm," she got out between shattering teeth.

"Here," Max whispered and got onto the bed, putting his arms around her trembling body, wrapping her against his front. He felt her cold hands move over the thin material of his T-shirt, around his middle and press up against his shoulder blades.

"Thank you," she whispered and buried her face against his chest. He could feel her breaths against the base of his throat and was certain that she must feel the throbbing of his pulse against her forehead.

"Liz," he said softly. "I need to do something, okay?"

"What?" she whispered, a large tremble moving through her as she repositioned herself closer to his body. He felt her acutely; he was aware of every millimeter of her body. He could feel how every small breath moved through her body, how the goosebumps prickled her skin and the viselike grip on his T-shirt that she had curled up in her fists.

He placed a kiss against her silky hair on the top of her head and let the comforting smell of her fill his nostrils as he asked, "Do you trust me?"

"Yes," she answered, no hesitation.

He took a deep breath and moved to cradle her face in his hands. She had a bewildered look as he guided her face away from its hiding place against his chest to meet his eyes. "I need you to look at me."

She nodded mutely and he formed the connection. Even when he was inside her psyche, inside the workings of her body, he could feel the curl of her fingers against the skin of his back through his T-shirt and hear the gasp brush her lips. He could feel her body tensing and her head leaning backwards but her eyes never let go of his.

His fingers pressed against the pliable flesh of her cold cheeks as he made sure that the connection stayed open long enough for him to search through her anatomy. His mind took on the scientific manner of a medical doctor, used to objectifying his patients in order to distance himself from what devastation he might fall upon, as he searched her body for injuries. He found a significant loss of blood volume, which would medically place Liz in a hypovolemic crisis, but found no explanation as to why that was.

His search of her uterus and ovaries was the most thorough, but there was no evidence of the state of the nightmare manifesting itself in real life. Except for the blood loss.

Before he closed the connection, before he felt her relax against him and her hands even out against his back, he stimulated her bone marrow to up-regulate its red cell production and the spleen to pump out some reserves in order to counteract the loss of blood.

Her eyes rolled back in her head as he broke out of her mind. The tip of his fingers curled into her hair as he attempted to regain her attention, her body having gone limp as a rag doll in his arms. "Liz?"

She shuddered and opened her eyes with a gasp. "What was that?"

"You're in shock," Max answered, looking at her closely. "That's why you're so cold. You've lost blood."

She shook her head weakly, her words almost slurred, "I didn't."

"I know," Max answered and frowned. "I can't explain it. But you're going to be okay." A thought occurred to him then as she nodded, seemingly satisfied with this explanation. "Has this happened before, after your nightmares?"

"I don't remember much afterwards," Liz answered, her voice sounding a little stronger and then she leaned in to put her head against his shoulder and sighed. "So tired. I'm so tired."

"Sleep," Max whispered. "I've got you."

Maybe a phenomenon of inexplicable blood loss every time she had a nightmare would account for why she couldn't remember them too well.

Max kissed the top of her head and scooted them down in bed so they ended up on their sides, facing each other. Liz had her eyes closed, her breathing evening out, but her hold on his body remained strong.