Ending Two, Part 12 (or Part 88)

Max waited until his parents had been in bed for a while before he crept out into the hallway and tiptoed down the hall. He pressed himself up against the wall and squeezed past the squeaky floorboards and then ducked into Isabel's room. He shut the door as quietly as possible and then ran over to her bed, jumping up on it and shaking her.

"Hey, Iz," he whispered loudly.

"Cut it out, Max," she hissed as she sat up. "Gimme the picture."

"Um… I forgot it."

"Well, go get it. And be quiet!"

He narrowed his eyes at her but got down off of the bed and went over to the door, pulling it open and sneaking down the hallway again. He crept along, pretending he was a secret agent who was charged with retrieving some secret device. Or maybe an adventurer like Indiana Jones searching for some great treasure and fighting off the bad guys. The fate of the universe was in his hands and he had to remove the artifact and return to the safety of his camp where the… He paused for a moment, his hands inches from the picture frame as he thought up a role for Isabel. She could be… he shrugged when nothing cool came to mind. Anyway, he would take the artifact to the witchdoctor and she would reveal its truth with her secret powers. He grinned at his clever imagination and resumed his adventure as he hurried across the living room and down the hall, careful to watch out for imaginary snakes.

Isabel was waiting impatiently when he squeezed into her room and closed the door again. "What took you so long?" she demanded.

He didn't bother answering, silently congratulating himself for the successful completion of his mission as he presented the artifact to the witchdoctor. He ignored her when she snatched the artifact from his hands without a single word of thanks. Witchdoctors were always rude and mean, everyone knew that. He just grinned and climbed up on the bed to sit beside her while she ran her fingers over the picture and looked at him like he was crazy.

She just looked at him and shook her head. "You are so weird, Max."

"Am not."

"Are so."

"Just do the dream thing," he interrupted, familiar with the am-not, are-so argument and knowing well that it could last for hours.

"Shut up so I can think." She took the picture frame and held it in her hands, staring down at it and frowning when her mind remained blank. "Okay, you had the flash and saw him while you were holding this picture so…" she pushed the frame in his hands, "I think you should hold the picture and concentrate on it, try to get another flash, and I'll try to do the dream thing and connect with you."

That sounded pretty complicated. "Is that gonna work?"

"It's the only way I can think of to try to connect with him. I still don't know how it happened that night I dreamed about him so we're gonna try it this way."

He shrugged. "Okay."

They lay down side by side and she waited until she could tell that Max had made the connection before she ran her fingertip over her brother's face in the picture. She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, searching for that tiny flicker that rose up in the darkness. She moved toward it and felt the warmth of her brother's presence as the light began to spread, slowly expanding until it lit up the planes of his subconscious.

Max had a beautiful mind. He was warm and loving, and being on the dreamplane with him made her feel safe and comforted. Really it was how she felt with him most of the time. Not that she would ever tell him that. But many of the people she connected with on the dreamplane lacked that light and that warmth. As she began to look around trees began to appear along with a lake surrounded by craggy outcroppings of rock. She recognized the landscape and knew it was the lake where Daddy and Max went fishing sometimes. She wrinkled her nose. She hated fishing. The worms, sitting in that tiny boat being quiet and still, and then the ugly fish with their mouths gaping open as they dangled from a hook, she hated all of it.

She moved across the rocky ground when she recognized her brother's form up ahead and she broke into a run to reach him faster. "Max," she called when she finally stood beside him. She touched his arm when he didn't speak or look at her. "Max, look at me."

"We have to follow him," he murmured, raising his right hand and pointing at something in the distance.

She turned her head to follow his pointing finger and she felt some of the warmth being pulled away as a shadowy figure began to emerge from the darkening edges of the dreamplane. She felt a moment of trepidation as she looked at her brother. His eyes were locked on the man as if he couldn't look away. And maybe he couldn't, she realized. Maybe they would lose their connection to him if Max looked away from him. "Okay, let's go."

They set off in the man's direction and she reached for her brother's hand as the calm of the dreamscape began to change. The longer they followed him the darker the landscape became and the more uneasy she began to feel. The trees that had been bursting with friendly green leaves playfully dancing on the light breeze had changed and now resembled blackened shells, their branches devoid of leaves and reaching out to each other to form an intimidating wall that surrounded them on all sides.

They were getting closer to the man and she squeezed her brother's hand tighter. She was curious but she was also afraid. The man's mind was powerful, it was dark, and it overshadowed Max's dreamplane. She had visited the subconscious of many people but she had never been in one so dark.

"Isabel, look."

Her eyes widened when light rose in the distance and she swallowed hard. "What do you think it is?"

Max shrugged. "I don't know."

They reached the outer edges of the light and they hovered there, hiding in the shadows as they looked in on the scene. The landscape had given way to a large airy room, and in the center the man stood facing a dark blue couch. He moved suddenly and the children looked at each other when they saw the woman sitting there.

"Who's she?" he murmured quietly.

"I don't know. But you're not looking at him now, Max."

"What's that mean?"

"I don't think we're on your dreamplane anymore. I think it's his." She looked around, taking in the setting. Her brother's dreamplane was always filled with light, never darkness.

He frowned. "But how? You've never done that before, right?"

"No, I didn't even know you could do that but I think we did."

"Do they know we're here?"

"I don't think so. I mean, it's never happened before." She was confused by the change but she knew they had to find out who the man was if possible. "Shh, let's listen to what they're saying."

They crept around the room, careful to stay in the shadows as they watched the couple in the center of the light. The man looked angry as he paced back and forth and the woman looked calm as she watched him.

"You've saved their lives, Michael, but to complete your mission you have to talk to them," the woman said quietly. "You prevented the accident when they returned from vacationing in Florida and now you have to make sure they understand how to prevent Liz and myself from dying. If the mission is to succeed you're going to have to speak with them in person."

Max and Isabel exchanged a look.

"They're talking about us," Isabel said in a shocked murmur.

"She said Liz is gonna die!" Max exclaimed in a loud whisper.

The man, Michael, paused in his pacing to turn and look at the woman. "Maria, I don't know how to talk to them! Put me in front of a crazed religious fanatic, a warlord, a band of rebels, or any other armed threat and I know how to deal with it. I've talked to presidents, dignitaries, and any number of military leaders, but I have no idea what to do with two nine-year-olds!"

"Michael," her voice was calm, "the three of you share something very significant. Something no one else on this planet has in common with you. You need them and they don't know it yet but they're gonna need you too. The future depends on the three of you working together, saving the others, and making sure when the time comes you're ready to do what's necessary to save this planet."

Max's eyes widened. "Save the planet," he whispered. He looked at his sister, awestruck. "We're like real superheroes, Isabel."

She glanced at him. "You think so?"

"That's what she just said. Who else could save the planet?" And save Liz Parker.

"But how am I supposed to explain this stuff to a couple of nine-year-olds?" Michael asked.

Maria leaned forward and caught his hand, tugging on it, and he complied with the silent request. He sat beside her, his body angled towards her and his arm resting along the back of the couch behind her. She reached up to place her hand alongside his jaw, keeping his gaze on hers. "You can do this. They're nine-year-old children, but they're not your average human children. Max and Isabel have an alien side and that'll allow them to process information that a normal nine-year-old wouldn't be able to understand. They won't understand all of it because it's a lot to take in but when you talk to them, just answer their questions. And trust me, I know Max and Isabel Evans, they're gonna have questions."

Max and Isabel stared at each other. "They know about us!" they whispered at the same time.

"I should've told that damn piece of alien technology that you were coming back with me before I let you go." His eyes traced over her face. "You traveled from one universe to another, so what would it have mattered if you'd traveled back in time to help me do this before going back to your universe?"

"That's not the way it was supposed to happen."

"Let's not talk about this anymore." He shifted closer to her. "We can talk about it later."

She laughed, the sound warm and friendly. "I think we've done all we're gonna do tonight."

He frowned at that and leaned back to look at her when she placed a hand against his chest to stop him from moving in closer. "It's a dream… there're no limits in dreams."

"But there are when you have company."

"What?" His eyes narrowed and he slowly shifted to follow her gaze when she nodded at something over his shoulder. He froze when he saw the two children hiding in the shadows and he shook his head as the darkness suddenly began to close in. He jerked around to look at Maria but she disappeared just as he reached out for her.

Isabel and Max sat up in bed, their hearts beating fast and their breath coming in pants as they looked at each other.

"Nothing like that ever happened before," Isabel said. "They shouldn't have been able to see us or even know we were there."

"But they did." Max flopped back against the pillow and stared up at the ceiling. "They said we've gotta save Liz," he said slowly.

Isabel rolled her eyes. Of course that would be the one thing he would focus on. The two people had talked about saving the planet and had known she and Max were aliens, but was he concerned about either of those things? No, because his secret crush had been mentioned. He was probably daydreaming about her right now, imagining her as Lois Clark and him as Superman flying in to save the day. She made a mental gagging sound before moving forward.

"How're we gonna find him to talk to him?" she asked.

"I think he's gonna find us. But Iz," he rolled onto his stomach to look at her, "Mom an' Dad aren't gonna let us talk to some man they don't know."

"I know. We've gotta come up with a way to talk to him."

"We could ride our bikes over by where the railroad tracks are. Mom an' Dad never caught us out there." They had discovered the old path through a wooded area back behind the high school and they had spent plenty of Saturdays exploring along the tracks.

"Yeah, we could do that." She lay down beside him and closed her eyes. "Maybe we could think about it tomorrow," she said tiredly.

"Okay." Max yawned and curled up on his side.

Isabel nearly gave him a push and told him to go back to his own room but after the dreamwalk she didn't want to be alone. Instead she reached for the picture and set it aside before turning onto her side and wiggling under the blankets. She was exhausted after exerting herself to connect with Max for the dreamwalk and within minutes she was asleep.

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Michael sat up on the couch and ran a hand through his hair. Sometimes he really hated dreams. He hadn't minded that one so much until it had been invaded by a couple of kids and they had ruined his plans and chased Maria away. He remembered Maria telling him that Isabel had the ability to go into people's dreams but he didn't understand how that worked exactly. He was sure if the person she was intruding on could be made aware of her presence Maria would've mentioned that. It seemed like kind of an important piece of information.

He sighed and dropped back against the cushions. He had to figure out how to get them alone. It had to be someplace that was fairly isolated because otherwise he would never get the chance to talk to them. He shook his head. If any law enforcement officer could hear his thoughts he'd be arrested. It sounded creepy even to his own ears. He shook that thought off. There was nothing inappropriate about what he was trying to do but it wasn't something he could explain to anyone who caught them so he had to be very careful about selecting a meeting place.

He closed his eyes and shifted around to get comfortable. Maybe he could go back to sleep and figure the rest out tomorrow. An image of the local high school, railroad tracks, and then two child-sized bicycles suddenly flashed into his mind and his eyes snapped open again. He didn't understand this connection but it was the only word he could think of to describe the pictures that kept flashing into his mind. He would go out first thing in the morning and scout the area around the high school, see if it was a feasible meeting place. He yawned and stretched out on the couch, shifting around to get comfortable.

The dream had been odd. He and Maria had never had that conversation. Maybe it was his mind's way of providing him with a way to approach the children. It would make more sense coming from Maria. She had talked to him about Max and Isabel during their time together, told him things about them, and described their personalities. Maybe between that and his own mind piecing things together he had been given his answer. His eyes drifted closed and as he let sleep take him his last thought was of Maria, and he wondered at his chance of seeing her again tonight.