Part 49
Michael stretched his arms over his head and glanced at Maria where she lay sleeping beside him. She was curled up tightly, a clear indicator that she wasn't relaxed. She had a tendency of sprawling when she was relaxed and for someone her size she could take up more than her fair share of the bed. He knew her mind was going over everything that had happened over the past 24 hours, sorting through the information, picking it apart, and then settling on the parts that centered around Alex.
There was no way of knowing what had really happened the night Liz had maybe been visited by a future version of Max. It was an unknown factor. He sighed and ran a hand over his face. There were too many unknown factors in their situation and he hated all of the uncertainty. He had never been the kind of guy that needed to have every step of his life planned out. That had been Max's cross to bear and he had been content to let him haul that burden around.
Now that they were living on the run he had a better appreciation of having a good plan. He shifted onto his side and pulled Maria into him when he heard the nearly inaudible sound of distress as she tried to curl up even tighter. He rubbed her arm and felt the rigidity in her body ease fractionally. He hated what this life had done to her.
Maria had never exactly been naïve, but any innocence she'd had left was slowly being whittled away. He could see the changes in her, could see the signs that this life was taking more from her than it could ever give back. These days there was a moment of hesitation before she jumped into a conversation with someone she didn't know. The hesitation was fine. He wanted her to be careful, to exercise caution around strangers and unknown situations, but it was the rest of it that worried him.
Sometimes he would see a flash of fear in her eyes when they were around people. Sometimes it was suspicion that caused her green eyes to dull. He knew how heavily this life was weighing on her and he hated it. Life was never predictable but being on the run had forced them to adapt in a way none of them had ever imagined.
They had to find a way to get off of the road. That thought had been picking at the back of his mind before they had gotten stranded but after seeing her as she relaxed around the Stevens family, watching her smile and laugh openly for the first time in so long, that thought had really started to take root.
They were gonna have to split up. It was their best chance for ever having anything that might come close to resembling a normal life. She hadn't liked it when he'd mentioned splitting the group up before. They lived under constant stress but he couldn't help but wonder if her reluctance to split the group up had more to do with leaving Liz or staying with him. It was a big decision and one he knew had to be made. Soon.
He knew the decision had basically been made. At least as far as he was concerned. It was just a matter of timing. There were certain things that had to fall into place first. The others knew it had to happen eventually even if they weren't ready to face that fact. He was certain that Canada was the key; if they could cross the border undetected their chances for some sort of normalcy would increase exponentially. He rolled his eyes. Exponentially, he thought with a mental snort. Obviously he'd been spending too much time around Liz.
He turned his head to take a quick look at the bedside alarm clock. They were supposed to be meeting up over at Max and Liz's cabin at five-thirty and it was coming up on five o'clock already. It would take a good 45 minutes to get Maria up, motivated, and out the door. At the very least, he mused as he gently shook her to wake her. They needed to get their act together because Edward's suspicion of them was still on high alert. The man hid it well but it was there. He could see it, could feel it, every time they were under the man's watchful eye.
Maria grumbled and burrowed deeper into him, doing her best to avoid waking up. He muttered under his breath and leaned over to press a kiss to her temple before rolling out of bed. Coffee might ease the annoyance of being disturbed from her nap. Coffee and maybe a little heat, he decided when his feet hit the cold floor. Drag her out of bed and into the cold and pleasant wasn't going to be a word he would be using to describe her mood. The cabin did feel colder than it normally did in the mornings.
He pulled on clothes, started the fire, got a pot of coffee going, and wandered over to look outside. The tree branches swayed in response to the forceful bursts of howling wind and the sky overhead hinted at the possibility of more snow. He let the back of his hand rest against the glass for a moment before jerking it back and shoving it in his pocket. The glass was so cold he was surprised it didn't shatter.
Daylight was quickly slipping away and making way for the seemingly endless night. Sure, the days had been shorter in the wintertime back home too, but they hadn't felt this short. Maybe it was because they were so far north? Maybe he should've paid more attention in… well, whatever class that kind of information would've been taught. Or maybe it was because the frigid temperatures made it feel so much more confining.
"Is it already time to get up?"
He smiled slightly at the sleepy question and turned away from the window. "Yeah, I don't wanna be late. No reason to give Edward anymore reason to be suspicious of us. We've given him more than enough reasons already."
She didn't comment, just nodded and got up. She hissed at the cold and quickly pulled her feet back up off of the floor. "What're the chances we can hideout in Jamaica?" God, Canada was even farther north and it would probably be even colder.
"Slim to none," he said, watching her as she jerked a pair of socks on.
"Jamaica would mean sandy beaches, lots of sun, temperatures that would encourage a woman to reveal more skin…" she trailed off and looked up at him through her eyelashes.
"Yeah," he said slowly. Yeah, he could live with that.
She smiled at his gruff response. "Well, Canada has to have summer too, right?"
"I hope so."
"That wind sounds bad," she said as she forced herself out of bed.
"Yeah, and it's colder than it was earlier too."
"You should warm the van up."
"Why? It's not that far to walk."
"No, but it's freezing cold and there's no reason to end up with frostbite before we get up to the house either. Besides, it'll be dark when we come back and that means it'll be even colder than it is now."
He rolled his eyes and moved into the kitchen to grab their mugs. "Waste of gas."
"Michael."
He sighed and nodded. "Fine."
She rolled her eyes and made her way into the bathroom to splash water on her face. He would never admit it but he didn't want to walk up to the house in that cold either. He would grumble about it but he would do it for her. She didn't care why he did it, she decided when she heard the front door open and close, just as long as he did it. Even if he insisted the walk wouldn't be that bad she knew he didn't care for the bitterly cold weather. She also knew most of his grumbling was for show because as soon as he realized just how cold it was he would've decided on the van himself. She smiled at that thought and went into the kitchen to scoop up the mug he had filled for her.
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Liz awoke to the dual sensations of comforting warmth and paralyzing cold. From the neck down her body was a nice toasty temperature but from the neck up her face felt like a frozen mask. She tried to move her facial muscles and they felt like taut rubber bands. Well, that was an interesting sensation, she thought as she pulled the blankets up over her head in an attempt to thaw her face out.
Max was asleep behind her, not seeming to be bothered by the cold permeating the room. She had learned that he could sleep through just about anything when he was relaxed, which wasn't very often. She was glad that he was sleeping so deeply after everything that had happened. Her eyes snapped open and her heart started to race as the memories of all that had been revealed so recently came back against her will.
Questions continued to plague her and she knew they wouldn't stop until she could find a way to quell the doubts running through her head. Realistically she knew the chances of ever knowing the truth were slim, but she just needed something that would allow her to close the door on that event. Was that version of so-called future events possible? Did she have the ability to push Max to leave her behind to die alone if it meant his leaving could change the past and save all of them?
She closed her eyes as she tried to imagine the end of the world as he had described it. Their world at the mercy of their enemies, their friends and loved ones dead, and no hope of survival. Tears squeezed past her tightly-closed eyelids as she imagined Maria, Kyle, all of their parents, most likely all dead before Isabel and Michael.
It was unthinkable.
She felt Max frown against her shoulder when her stomach knotted with nausea and she trembled slightly. She slipped out of bed, needing space as much as she wanted to avoid disturbing his sleep. She wandered into the living room, desperately needing relief from the oppressive thoughts. She grabbed the thick flannel shirt buried amid the pile of winter gear hanging behind the door and pulled it on, wrapping it around her and burrowing her nose into the soft material. The fact that it smelled like Max slipped past her as her mind continued to taunt her with the odd pieces of the unfinished puzzle in her head.
She stood before the fireplace, the only light in the cabin coming from the nightlight over the sink in the kitchen. She sighed as she reached out to trace a finger over the journal lying on the mantle. She reached for one of the pieces, mentally turning it over before fitting it into place as she came to a conclusion in regard to the question that wouldn't leave her alone. The answer was yes, she decided. She could see herself pushing Max to go back in time to attempt to prevent what had happened to all of them.
It's who she was. She looked for the answers; she was driven to search for the answers to even the most complex problems. It was why she loved science so much. There was an order to collecting data, it was method. She smiled slightly. It was sanity. It was classifying the data, categorizing it, and searching for the patterns that would eventually lead to a conclusion. Yes, in the situation that Future Max had described she could see herself pushing him to leave her behind if there was even the slightest chance that they could all be saved from certain death.
She knew Max was certain that he wouldn't leave her regardless of the circumstances, but she knew the man she had married. His alien side had once been a king. She had no doubt that in that situation he would have known she was right and he would have done whatever was necessary to save everyone they loved. She let out a groan that was nearly audible before drawing in a sharp breath as she thought about the sacrifice she had made to give him up because what she believed to be a future version of him had insisted it was the only way to save them.
Her fingertips brushed over the journal again and she picked it up, following the worn edge of the paper in search of the ribbon bookmark. In spite of the darkness surrounding her she sought the comfort she knew the tactile sensation would provide. The journal lay open in her left hand and she closed her eyes for a moment as she ran her fingers over the paper and soaked up the feeling of the letters indented in the slightly rough paper. If she concentrated hard enough she could make out some of the words and she smiled as a moment of peace descended over her.
Her serenity was short-lived as she felt herself being pulled back down into the memories that surrounded her and pulled her under like quicksand. The more she fought to get away from them the more they sucked her in and refused to let go. Had Future Max been real? Had he simply tried to change the past using a plan that was flawed? Anger coursed through her. If it was real, how had HE changed the past? She was the one he had been pushing to come up with a way to make him fall out of love with her. Had he come up with the plan that had proved to be the mother of all mistakes? No, he had pushed her to come up with something that would essentially crush him and destroy his trust.
She sighed as the anger began to slide into the background. Before she had enough time to relax, she felt the heat of rage beginning to build once again. Maybe it was all a lie and Tess had gotten into her head. The alien girl would've known that she would've done anything for the love of Max. It didn't matter now, she reminded herself. There was no way to discover the truth and even if she could it wouldn't change anything. There was no magically-altered Granolith that was going to take her back in time to prevent Tess from killing Alex, to stop the Special Unit from coming after them, or to fix things so that they were able to live like normal people with normal lives.
She shuddered, releasing a heavy sigh as she uttered a single grief-laced word. "Alex." A tear spilled over and rolled down her cheek and barely a breath passed before a second one took up the chase in an effort to catch up with the first one. She stumbled over to the couch, heedless of banging her knee against the edge of the coffee table. She closed the journal with a ragged sigh and placed it on the table, reaching up at the same time to wipe away the tear that was clinging to her chin. She slowly sat up and reminded herself to breathe, inhaling and exhaling methodically as she brought herself under control.
Liz leaned back and stared up at the ceiling as she mentally organized the pieces of the puzzle to take a clearer look at them. There were things now that were so glaringly obvious. Things that hadn't made sense, things that had nagged at her at the time but there had been no time to process them and lay out an intelligent argument.
Her spine stiffened as she recalled his insistence that she had given herself to him, cementing their relationship in his words, the night of the Gomez concert. He had been so sure of himself. So… so… almost smug in what he claimed to be first-hand knowledge. He had stood there, claiming to have the memory of something she knew she hadn't been ready for at the time. Hindsight really was 20/20, she thought, so incensed that it stilled her tears.
And then of course, there was the mariachi band question. Isabel was so sure that Max would never stoop so low. Even though her brother had been acting like a lovesick puppy she insisted there was a line he wouldn't cross. Not to mention, Isabel had made a good point about him using his powers in front of others.
She sat back and rested her head against the cushions, looking around the cabin in a futile effort to get off the Future Max merry-go-round. Her gaze landed on the window, momentarily distracting herself with the snow and Christmas coming. Thoughts of her parents popped into her head and her eyes widened at the memory of her dad interrupting them that night, calling out and asking, "Is that Max again?" He had even walked up to the wall bordering the balcony in time to catch a glimpse of Max as he made his escape.
How had she forgotten that?
She started to gnaw on her bottom lip. Why hadn't she just asked Max directly about the mariachi band? She shook her head, annoyed that the question only now seemed to be so obvious. She was pulled out of her thoughts when the wind started to gust and the temperature in the cabin seemed to drop a little more each time it blew.
She rubbed her arms, the soft flannel feeling like sandpaper against her frozen skin. She got to her feet and walked over to the window, straining to see the Christmas lights on the Stevens' porch and whispering a prayer of thanks for the gift of being off the road and safe for a little while.
The others were right, she decided as she stared at the tiny dots of blurry light she could now make out. The wind was blowing the freshest snow around, giving the cheery lights a hazy appearance. Obsessing over the Future Max thing didn't serve a purpose. She had to find a way to let it go.
She turned to stare at Max. Her eyes had acclimated enough to the darkness to make out his form if not his features. She made her way back over the bed and slipped beneath the covers. She was quickly enveloped in her husband's warm, loving arms. She would do it, she vowed. It was going to be her mantra. To embrace Max and reach for the future, and let go of Future Max and everything associated with that time in their painful past.
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The atmosphere felt confined, as if the endless boundaries of his mind had become solid walls that were slowly closing in on her. She reached out and felt resistance, which confused her. She was surrounded by white and that didn't make sense either. His mind could be complex at times, strangely intriguing at times, and disgustingly male at others, but the one thing his mind never was, was closed off.
"He'll never be an open book."
She turned as the dreamscape changed from the confusing and blinding sea of white, a multitude of colors slowly lending vibrant life to the scene. Alex stood there, his appearance as surprising as it was comforting. "You can't be here," she said as the moment from her past, from another foray into the dream world that would be forever immortalized in her mind, leapt to life.
"It's the upside to this existence," he said patiently.
It didn't make any sense. "But it's not even my dream."
"No," he shrugged. "It was always one of my favorites though." He smiled as he cued the music and offered his hand to her.
Isabel slipped her hand into his, feeling the familiar pang in the vicinity of her heart at the contact. He felt so real and she knew he wasn't, knew he couldn't be. For an endless moment in time she allowed herself to get lost in the moment, letting her heart believe that he was still alive and they were dancing to their song.
Reality couldn't intrude in this place, but even on the dreamplane there were distractions. It was there, just beyond the borders of the intimate setting. Something flickered in the darkness, the insistence irresistibly drawing her gaze time after time. Kyle. Her gaze shifted to focus on those flickers and after a while her palm moved to rest against Alex's cheek, shocked once again at how alive he felt in these moments.
"It's Kyle," she murmured as she kissed him gently. "I need to go check on him. There's so much going on with him and he isn't confiding in me the way he normally does. I just need to find out what I can do to help him." She stared into his gray eyes that had always seen so much more than she was comfortable revealing. "Promise me you won't leave."
He shook his head. "As long as you need me I'll never leave you, Isabel." His hand came up to brush her hair back and he smiled as he stepped back, putting space between them. "Go now, I'll be waiting when you get back."
She left the warmth of Alex's presence and ventured further out, surprised when the flicker began to take shape and white walls began to erupt from the equally white floor below her feet to stand high on all sides. She experienced a bout of vertigo when she was suddenly thrust up into the air and her arms shot out at her sides so she could maintain her balance. She frowned as she looked around, trying to place why the white walls below seemed so familiar.
She stood, precariously balanced on one short wall as she studied the sharp turns, dead ends, and endless possibility of directional choices. It was a maze, she realized. A maze with interior walls made of mirrors. Okay, that was a little weird. Out of all the dreams she had ever visited this had to be one of the more confusing. No, Kyle wasn't an open book exactly, but usually there was a sense of order to the dreams.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when a large hand reached down beside her to pull up one of the partitions. Obviously Kyle shouldn't have eaten whatever he'd found to snack on after she had gone to take a nap because it was giving him nightmares. Her eyebrows lifted when she saw Kyle enter through the opening created by the Hand and a moment later the partition was replaced and the Hand withdrew.
He took a few steps, one hand reaching out to touch the mirrored wall and she moved to see what he was looking at when he jumped back and emitted what could only be described as a high-pitched squeal. "We've officially moved beyond weird and confusing," she muttered when she caught sight of his reflection. Instead of his own reflection, the image reflected back at him looked like a white lab rat. With his face. He shrank back into a corner as he looked up and she turned her head to follow his gaze. Appearing in the form of giants hovering above the maze, Michael, Max, Liz, Maria, and herself were gathered around the maze, faces close together as they waited to see what their experiment would yield.
If the realization of his fear wasn't so palpable she would've laughed at the expressions of demented glee on their faces when their experiment took a few halting steps. Michael, hair in disarray and spiked as if he'd recently been struck by a high-voltage shock, dark eyes crazed, laughed maniacally and demanded that the subject perform.
She wondered if this was how he saw them. How he saw her. That thought hurt and she hoped it was just his overactive mind creating these images. She hadn't known just how freaked out he was at the thought of developing his powers. They would be an asset, something that could be beneficial to all of them, and she couldn't imagine why he wouldn't want them.
"Did you want to be different?" Alex appeared beside her, hands deep in the pockets of his jeans, his gray sweatshirt hanging comfortably on his tall frame. "When you were little and you discovered that you had abilities that set you apart from everyone else? When you realized that those differences could be dangerous?"
"No, I guess I didn't."
"He's a human developing alien powers. Liz had a difficult time with it too. What Maria likes to refer to as your 'secret powers' isn't exactly something any of them want." He smiled at her when she rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know, but the main reason she refers to them as such is because it drives a certain hybrid nuts."
"It's not a bad thing." She paused for a moment, watching Kyle as he fumbled his way through the maze, occasionally poked and prodded by his observers. "Is it?"
"Not if it's something you want, something you asked for. It's not just that they're developing abilities that're alien, Isabel; they're changing, becoming different. You don't see them as some other lifeform because this's who you are; having the ability to heal, to blow things up, to make the occasional trip into someone's subconscious, those are things you three have spent your lives coming to terms with. They're running for their lives and trying to adapt to changes to not only what they can do, but who they are. Liz, she's had some time to begin adjusting to it, to accept that she's still the same person inside. But Kyle? This's not only new to him but he's got Michael breathing fire down his back about showing everyone what he can do." He chuckled. "I know he means well, but it wouldn't hurt for someone to remind him that Kyle's not a trained seal."
"Michael doesn't come across like that intentionally. He's just…"
"I know, he's wired. There's a lot going on and it's got him on edge. Under what passes for normal circumstances for you guys these days that edge is a good thing. It keeps him alert but if it's not balanced out it tips the scales and he loses sight of what's right in front of him. Kyle's weirded out by his new abilities and I think this nightmare demonstrates just how cornered he feels right now."
Isabel turned to look at the maze and she frowned when the rat released a terrified squeal and jumped back as a wall slammed down, effectively trapping him in a small cubicle. He stood and felt along the walls that were suddenly seamless and she followed his gaze when he glanced up in time to see a net dropping down to ensnare him. She felt the familiar tug as the dream began to fade out and she awoke abruptly.
Kyle drew in a harsh breath as he fought against the net that had wrapped around him, panicking when his struggling only seemed to draw it tighter. He hit the wall behind him and he froze for a moment before clawing at the net again. He snarled in frustration and jerked back, smacking his head hard just as he broke free of the net and his eyes snapped open.
"Damn it," he muttered as he reached behind him to rub the back of his head. He looked at the mangled mess of his blanket, making a sound of annoyance when he realized it was twisted and wrapped around him. He pushed at it, unknotting it and kicking free of it so he could get to his feet. He gave the pillow a vicious kick and then leaned over to grab the mattress, tossing it back on the bunk and then grabbing the pillow and throwing it in the same general direction. He folded his arms on the top bunk and sighed heavily as he rested his forehead on one fisted hand.
Isabel watched him from the living room and her heart went out to him. He was under a completely different kind of pressure right now and it was taking its toll on him. She moved to the kitchen, making enough noise to let him know he wasn't alone without intruding into his space.
It wasn't the sound of movement that caught his attention so much as the scent of freshly brewed coffee. Kyle lifted his head and slowly turned around before shuffling out of his room. He passed by the kitchen, appreciating it when Isabel let him pass without comment. In the bathroom he got himself ready to go to dinner and shook his head as he caught his reflection in the mirror. His hair looked worse than Michael's had looked back in high school, he thought as he tried in vain to smooth it down.
"Crap," he muttered. He had no idea how his powers worked and he wasn't about to try any of that on his head. With the way his luck seemed to be going here lately he'd probably set his hair on fire or something. He looked around and finally ducked out of the bathroom long enough to snatch a comb off of Isabel's dresser. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. He ran the comb under the faucet and shook it out before running it through his hair, nodding to himself when that did the trick.
He shook off the remnants of the nightmare and wiped the comb on his jeans before leaving the bathroom. He placed the comb right back where he had found it and then left her room to join her in the kitchen.
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Michael nearly lost his footing as he rounded the van and he inhaled sharply as he caught himself by grabbing onto the door handle. He cursed under his breath as the sensation of broken glass creeping down his esophagus began to fade. Why would anyone voluntarily live anywhere that had weather this cold? It made no sense to him. He had a feeling Canada was even colder and he was certain he would have moments where he wondered what he had been thinking, but their situation was different.
He wrapped his hand tighter around the handle and gave it a solid tug. And frowned when it didn't so much as budge. He gripped it with his left hand, pressed the release with his right thumb and gave it another yank. Nothing. What the hell was wrong with it? The damn thing had worked fine the day before.
That would be the day before when it was inside the slightly warmer mechanic shop, right, El Capitan? He could practically hear Kyle's mocking voice taunting him. He arranged his hands into the position he had just attempted and did a rapid push/pull that would have anyone watching in stitches. The van rocked back and forth but the door stubbornly remained closed. The damn thing was frozen solid. Okay, fine, that was easy enough to fix.
He shook his head and glanced around, making sure he wasn't being observed. He pulled the glove off of his right hand and placed his palm over the thin gap between the door and the frame, putting all of his concentration into heating the frame so he could get the door open. For just a moment the metal glowed but it quickly faded and he grasped the handle once more, gave it a good solid yank… and frowned when it didn't open.
He leaned in closer and studied the door before snarling out a curse and jerking on the handle erratically. He finally stopped pulling on it and sighed heavily, his breath appearing in the freezing air for just a moment before melting away. His hand fell away from the door and he stomped around the van to grab the handle for the sliding door, giving it a rough yank and rolling his eyes when it complied with ease.
He reached over the front seat and popped the lock on the passengers' side door. He pulled his hand back but before he could attempt opening the front door Maria appeared beside him, placed her small hand on the handle, and pulled it open without an ounce of resistance. He cupped one hand under her elbow to make sure she didn't slip as she climbed up into the front seat and then shut the door after her.
He clambered inside and shoved the sliding door closed before squeezing himself between the front seats. He dropped into the drivers' seat and shoved the key into the ignition, huffing and puffing as he wiggled and squirmed around to get himself behind the steering wheel.
Maria watched him as he grunted and cursed his way into position. The bulky winter gear was doing nothing to help things along and it took an effort to wait until he was finally situated before she spoke. "Um… Michael?"
He placed his hands on the dashboard, silently insisting that the engine heat faster. "What?" he rumbled when warm air finally began to kick out through the vents.
"Is there a reason you didn't just get in on the drivers' side?"
"Do you know how long it took to get up here from the back?"
"Well, yeah." She motioned to herself. "I was here for that entire production."
"If someone had to get up here in a heartbeat we'd be screwed. We're gonna have to figure something out should that situation ever arise."
"Um-hmm." Frozen door, she decided.
He turned to glare at her but because of the bulky clothing he didn't quite pull it off. "What're you not sayin'?"
"You tried to thaw out the lock and melted it," she deduced with a knowing smile.
"No, I didn't."
"Yes, you did."
"No, I… I'm not gonna argue with you about this."
Well, that'd be a first, she thought with an amused smirk on her face. She watched him for a few moments, seeing him as she had the night he had stood in front of her car, surrounded by a cloud of smoke after essentially frying her battery. She chuckled quietly. "Feels like old times," she murmured. She reached over to put her hand into his, giving it a squeeze. "Try it again."
"Maria, it's not even gonna take a minute to get over to pick up Kyle and Isabel," he complained.
For a split second her mind took her back to that raunchy porno-Aladdin hotel room she had shared with him and she leaned into him, bringing her other hand up to touch his jaw. "Please, Michael?"
His eyes locked onto hers as he released a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding and he gently pulled his hand free of hers to tug his glove off. He shifted around, twisting his body until he was completely uncomfortable, so he could rest his hand over the spot he had melted on the opposite side. He focused on the task at hand and he heard a nearly inaudible 'pop' as the door's locking mechanism became un-welded.