Chapter Twelve: Max Headroom
The rain came down hard.
Hard enough that Max felt it like blows against his back as he hunched his shoulders under his coat. Hard enough that he could barely see his hand in front of his face. Not that he kept his hand there for long as he pulled the brim of his hat down lower as he hurried down the empty sidewalk, his steps splashing in the river at his feet as he tried to outrun it and the smell that filled his every breath. He knew that he was walking past buildings, but they were just vague outlines in the downpour. Ghosts in the night as he walked on and on…
Until he heard the music.
"...winds of promise that will blow away the doubt and fear. If I can dream of a warmer sun…" The King's voice was Max's lifeline and he followed it. Followed it until he saw the light. A light that was bright enough that it drove away the night that was closing in around him as he stood there and stared into a diner that looked full already.
"Any port in the storm," he muttered to himself because, like magic, the rain came down harder then. Hard enough that he stopped thinking and just ran past the big window that showed the streaks of being recently cleaned and the bright red letters painted on it that proudly declared itself The Gateway City's Best until he found the door. Found it and reached out…
And froze when he saw someone else's hand wrap around the doorknob.
No, it was his hand, Max realized with a start even though it couldn't have been even as he watched it twist the knob. Not when it was so smooth. Not when it was missing all the pockmarks and scars and lines that he'd picked up over the years.
He was still staring at it when he heard the waitress sigh as the bell over the door rang. But she gave him a tired smile anyway as she waved him in. "Don't worry, honey. I don't bite and we're not turning away anyone in this weather. I can't say how much room we have left, but there's coffee to spare tonight."
He knew he should have done something more than just nod, that he should have at least smiled back as he shrugged off his dry coat and his hat and put them both on the rack that was waiting for them, but the woman just nodded as she turned back to the man on the other side of the little window that separated the kitchen from the rest of the diner. It was a window that he'd spent more than one summer on the other side of when he wasn't at his grandparents' farm upstate, and the memory made him stare as he watched the harried cook pass over a tray.
The man looked thirty years younger than Max, and somehow just like the boss that he'd had back then. But every diner cook he'd ever met looked the same. Even the one in -
"I know this place," Max breathed as the place came alive with the sounds of silverware clinking against plates, muted conversations, and a radio playing Elvis. Sounds he reveled in as he turned back and watched the waitress slip around the counter with her tray held high.
And he followed them both as he stared at the booths that were suddenly full of people reading newspapers with black and white photographs as they puffed at their cigarettes, the men wearing suits and the women wearing dresses. None of them were wearing their Sunday best, but it didn't matter.
Everything felt right, but he knew it was wrong.
Newspapers had been using colored photographs for years now and he couldn't remember the last time he saw people smoking indoors like this. Besides, a place like this would have televisions blasting the news or whatever game was playing, not a radio blasting the oldies. There were too many anachronisms for it to be a diner in the real world.
But he knew this place.
"Gangway!"
"It can't be," Max said after he was almost bowled over by a boy who went charging by. A boy and a girl both, the brown-haired boy leading the way as he pulled at the redhead's hand. They were both younger than everybody else here by a good decade and they must have been out on a date because they were still holding hands even after they stopped at a booth. They were certainly dressed for it, even if the boy was the only one wearing denim in sight and the girl…
Max couldn't take his eyes off of her any more than the boy could as he walked past and sank into the last empty booth just a little further down, and it wasn't just because he'd never seen hair as red as hers before or because there was something off about seeing her in a black poodle skirt and a powder blue blouse.
No, it was because the big brown-furred thing that was printed on her skirt was the furthest thing from any poodle that he'd ever seen. It barely even looked like a dog, even if it was leashed. Not when he didn't even think that it had any eyes and -
And the rest disappeared when he heard something clink against the table in front of him. "You look the type," another waitress said with a smile as Max found himself looking down at the small cup of coffee in front of him. A thin wisp of steam rose from the black liquid, and he stuck a finger in it before pulling it back from the piping hot brew after she was gone. He stuck his finger in his mouth and blinked at the taste. He hadn't had coffee like this in decades, not since…
His eyes widened as he realized why he knew this particular diner. Why everything seemed so familiar. He hadn't been in this diner in a long time, but he often thought about it. The last time he'd sat in this diner he'd been in Saint Louis, Missouri and -
"Give that back, Doofus!" The girl in the other booth shouted so suddenly that Max couldn't help jumping and spinning in his seat just in time to see her face get as red as her hair and almost as fiery as the setting sun that he saw through the window behind her. And it stayed there even as she pulled at the green Harrington jacket that her little boyfriend was wearing, her hand wrapped around the bright white 10 that was proudly stitched into the shoulder of his left sleeve as he held a malt high in the air and out of her reach.
The boy's grin was even brighter, though, and almost as wild and messy as his hair as he kept leaning back as she chased the treat, her left hand clawing at the black t-shirt he had on under his jacket, her fingers almost tracing the black stripe that ran down the center of "
[his chest as she threw herself at him. "Make me, you - "
"That's enough, you two," Max started with a laugh even though he didn't know why as he watched the two play fight and he couldn't help smiling at the show that seemed like it was just for him. Lord knew that nobody else in the dinner was paying the two any attention
as the girl yanked at her boyfriend's jacket, but still. Not that the two kids were paying him any attention either. Not until he raised his voice a little and called out, "Ben! G - "
And then he stopped and blinked. Not because they stopped when he called out, but because they were both staring at him now like he was a Section 8 case. And maybe they should. He didn't even know where the names came from. "I - I'm sorry," He stammered out as they both turned away, the worry and confusion still clear on their faces as they went back to their malt and that was just a shadow of how he felt as the world spun around him. "I - ?"
And then it didn't.
"Really, Max," he heard a woman sigh from out of nowhere before he could finish his question again. The world slammed back down as he spun back around at the sound of his name as his hand flew for the pistol at his side. The pistol that should have been at his side, and he panicked when he didn't find the cool metal where it should have been. A pistol he forgot all about as he gaped at the vision of a woman who was sliding into the bench seat across from him.
A vision who was the most colorful person in the whole city. He was sure of it the second he saw her yellow sun-skirt and the short-sleeved blue jacket she had on over a purple blouse. And as bright as the kaleidoscope of colors she was wearing was, it was her eyes that drew him in just like they had the first time he saw her.
Eyes that were somehow the same shade of green as the kids, and just as sparkling as she gave him a look and teased, "I know that I'm a little late, but you're looking at another girl already? You Moon Men sure know how to make a girl feel special."
"I - " Max stammered, as he stared. Everything else disappeared as he drank her in. All of her, from the way that her delicate hand pulled off her black headscarf and brushed through the long red hair that spilled free before she pushed it back like she always did when she was nervous. Nerves that made her give him a smile that faded away all too quickly and still did things to the freckles that brushed her cheeks and nose...
"Verdona?" He gaped. He couldn't help it.
"Hey there, space cowboy," his wife said to him. His wife, just like he remembered. He would have said his world, but that wasn't big enough. It didn't match the light that he saw dancing in her eyes as she looked down at him. It was a light that always reminded him of -
"Starshine?" Max whispered her name again like a prayer as he reached across the table for her hand and squeezed it tight, never wanting to let go.
"Starshine?" Verdona repeated with a sparkling laugh as she sat down in the booth next to him. A laugh that she fought down so she could give him that look. The one she was always teasing him with and he'd forgotten all about. He didn't know how, or how much he missed it until now as she gave it to him with both barrels. "You're going to have to talk sweeter than that to get out of the hole that you've dug for yourself, Mister."
"I - I wasn't," Max stammered and it was only a little because of her words as reality wrapped around his heart and squeezed. "This can't be real, though. The last time we were here in this diner, it was…" His voice trailed off as he saw the sadness in her eyes. 1965. He froze up and swallowed. "Verdona, are…are we…?"
God, if they were here, if she was here…
"I'm dead, aren't I?" He whispered, suddenly tired.
And then he yelped as he felt her fingers, ink-stained fingers that he'd seen wrapped around a pen for more nights than he could count as she wrote away in her journals, pinch at the meaty part of his palm until he yelped and yanked it back. "Do you feel dead?" She asked, still teasing, but there was a worry in her eyes now. Worry that he remembered just as well as this diner. Worry, but not anger. Never anger.
She was always too good for him, and she proved it again now.
"Don't worry about it, Max. I'll forgive you. If you get me one of those malts that you can't take your eyes off of," Verdona sighed, and there was enough truth, enough hurt in those words that he flinched from it. She squeezed his hand and brought him back right as a waitress came back with a notepad.
"What'll you two have?" The woman asked, polite and bored as she gave them both a look that he remembered made her look so old back then even though looking at her now Max knew she couldn't have been more than forty.
The bored look faded only a little as Verdona's eyes flickered over at him, and it died as the love of Max's life cleared her throat. "Eggs over easy and toast for us both and add some steak on the second plate for the spaceman here," Verdona told the waitress with the ease of long repetition and the same daring delight that she always had when she could have breakfast for dinner. "And you don't have any tea, do you? Maybe…" Then she paused and bit her lip, her eyes darting to him before she added, "Darjeeling?"
"I'll check. Anything else?" the waitress said dryly and with a roll of her eyes as she wrote it all down on a worn pad before she closed the thing and -
And the notepad was so ragged from use that it looked like it saw a lifetime of the days that came after the good days, but even with all the wrinkles and stains, he could still see the green and black hourglass symbol that was printed across the cover.
It was an hourglass that Max stared at until he felt a hand smack his and he turned back to a woman's face that was flushed as red as her hair. "And a chocolate malt," he added with a hollow chuckle as he rubbed the back of his neck as the waitress nodded and walked away, but she wasn't the one who had his eye. Not then. Not when his Starshine was right there, still beautiful even if she was mad. "Sorry. My mind's a million miles away tonight."
"I suppose it would be," Verdona murmured as she eyed him again, and if he didn't know her better, he would have sworn that he was in trouble, but he knew her and he knew her real temper never faded with just a shake of her head like it did now, "but it's not so bad here. Is it? Even if it has been lonely without you. Have you missed me?"
"Every day." He confessed. "I…After you…" She let go of his hand and leaned across the table just enough to cup the side of his cheek, stroking her thumb underneath his eye.
"It's all right." She said softly as he took her hand and held it there. "I missed you, too." She smiled and pulled back, lounging against the upholstered diner booth in the way she always did when she was nervous and didn't want to show it and his smile turned into a full grin as he watched her. "And I never thought I'd say that to anyone that I just met a couple of days ago. So. Why don't you tell me about yourself? We've got nothing but time on our hands now and as much as I enjoyed the festival, I have to admit I've been wondering what it'd be like talking to you without a dozen bands playing around us."
"I - " Max started as he remembered that day. As he tried to, but it wouldn't come and panic came rushing in to take its place. It was a panic that flared bright as he ran his hand over his face and thought that he felt -
Felt like the whole world was counting on him, but…
"The here and now, Max," Verdona chided, her voice soft and lovely and her brow pinched as she stared at him. Stared and stared until she let out a puff of a breath before she hurriedly got up. For a second - for one terrible second - he was sure that she was going to go, that he'd have to say goodbye again even though that didn't make any sense…
But only for a second. One that was too short for him to even think about saying any of the things that he wanted to - that he needed to if only so she'd stay for another second. She was barely on her feet long enough for him to get a glimpse of the black leggings that were under her bright skirt before she forgot all about propriety and the eyes all around them and switched sides.
Then she was there again. There and sitting so close that he could feel her body pressed against his as she grabbed the back of his head, tangled her fingers in his hair, and pulled him down for a kiss…
It wasn't their first kiss, but it wasn't the quick thing that she gave him at the end of the festival either. The one that made her face burn and his heart pound so loud that he almost missed the phone number that she whispered in his ear before she disappeared, but it didn't matter. It felt like all of her kisses.
It felt like heaven.
And the feeling didn't go away either. Not even after she pulled away, even if she did it with a devilish titter of a laugh as she dared, "Unless there's somewhere else that you'd rather be?"
"No," Max breathed for what felt like the first time in forever as he put his arm around her and pulled her close so he could kiss her again, so he could feel the lips that were every bit as soft as he remembered and still tasted like strawberries.
"No, this is - "
- o - o - o - o - o -
Perfect. Until it wasn't.
The memories of Saint Louis washed by him in a rush, the weeks of lingering in the city with Verdona until duty called. He'd asked her to come one last time, sitting in that same diner, and she told him no, told him to go. And he had.
All of his early days in Houston in the NASA astronaut program flashed in a blur, the intensity and the drudge that suddenly carried no spark for him. He did it anyway because it was what he'd been gunning for and what had been important - because he thought it was important until he found something that mattered more. Someone…
Found her and lost her.
Then one day, as he was sitting in the small base house he'd been assigned after another frustrating training session, he heard a knock on his door. He looked away from the television where a strangely familiar boy and girl were in a group of children in an episode of The Outer Limits and stood up, walking to his door.
Verdona was on the other side with tears in her eyes and an unopened bottle of Coca-Cola in her hand, smiling at him. "I didn't have a bottle opener." She said, and all at once the world felt right again. He stumbled out of the door and fell to his knees, and she sank down with him as he let out a sob and buried his head into her shoulder. Men didn't cry, that was what a lifetime of experience had reinforced.
But he'd never been one for lessons, had he?
When they were done, and he didn't know how long that was, he took her hand and led her back inside his small house, his mind racing and empty all at the same time as they sat side by side on the couch with the TV that was still going on in the background.
"Come on, Doofus! You're making everyone else wait!"
"Gee willickers, Dweeb, can't a guy tie his shoes before…"
"Max?" Her hand turned his head and his eyes away from the black and white television, and he was lost in her eyes.
"You came back." He said, still wondering at her presence. "But you said…"
"A girl's allowed to be afraid about leaving her life behind to go chasing after a new dream." She told him. "She's also allowed to change her mind." He took her hand and brushed her fingers against his lips, kissing them. Add when she looked back up…
Her green eyes seemed to glow in the dim light of the living room, and he went still. "Max? Where's the - ?"
- o - o - o - o - o -
1966
A crack of thunder went off and Max reeled, finding himself soaked to the bone as he pushed the front door open and Verdona darted past him for the warm interior of their small little home. He flipped on the light with the switch by the front door, and he didn't get a good look at her until he closed it.
The rainstorm had come out of nowhere, soaking them to the bone in the race from the NASA building to their car, and from their car to the house. The photo-shoot for the day had Max wearing his astronaut flight suit, but Verdona had put out all the stops with a green sleeveless dress, a special hairdo, makeup, and mascara. She stood there in the middle of the living room, growling as water dripped down off of her and uttering things in Irish that he'd never heard her say before, but he didn't need a knowledge of Gaelic to know that she wasn't happy about how the day had gone at all.
She turned partway around while wringing her hair out and caught him looking at her. They stared at one another, and the only thought that came to his mind was that she looked like a drowned cat. He broke out laughing. A second later, so did she.
And hours later, with the storm still rumbling outside and a delicious happy buzz running through his sated and spent body, she turned in their bed and rolled over on her side, pressing one hand to his chest with her face flushed and her emerald eyes glittering as she leaned up and kissed him, soft and slow.
Her hand didn't leave his chest for any of it, but between the kisses and the view it took him forever before he realized that she was holding her other hand low on her stomach, and when he did…
Max gasped as he pulled his head back and just looked up at her lying there. Looked at her, naked and perfect in the moonlight because he'd completely forgotten about the curtains when they came in here and he forgot about them again as he watched her smile spread wide even as he stared.
"Took you long enough, Space Man," Verdona teased because this was the night they'd conceived Frank, he suddenly remembered. And somehow, she'd known it. He should have, too, just from the way she smiled as she leaned back down for a kiss and asked -
"Max, where's the Omnitrix?"
- o - o - o - o - o -
Time passed, and just like before, a man in a US Army uniform was somehow able to pull Max out of his training. Just like before, he was taken to a small room behind a locked and guarded door and told just a little bit more about the aftermath of his time in Vietnam. A little bit more about the 'truth' of the world. And then he was given a choice.
Stay an astronaut and have a chance to go to the Moon. Or quit - transfer out - and keep the world safe from the kind of aliens he fought off in the Vietnamese jungle, as part of a new organization. As part of a new team. "Is it worth it?" He'd asked the man dressed in an army uniform.
"Oh, it's worth it. If you're strong enough." The old man had said, packing up the photographs and files he'd brought with him. He only left behind a single business card with nothing on it but a number to call and left Max in that room by himself.
Just like before, Max decided that the chance to fly a spaceship to the Moon wasn't as important as keeping Verdona and their unborn child safe. And just like before, he then had to break the news to her.
So there they were, on a sunny day in Houston, sitting at a park bench and finishing up the picnic lunch she'd made for them, with Max about to change her life yet again. There were other families around, other kids running across the grass and yelling with laughter as they played games.
"Max, what did you want to talk to me about?" Verdona asked him. Max blinked a couple of times, and she smirked at him and pushed her hair away from her face where the breeze had taken it. "You're thinking awfully hard about something."
"Sorry, 'Dona. Just…trying to figure out where to start."
"I've heard that the beginning is a very good place," She countered, and he broke into a low chuckle despite himself. They'd gone to a showing of that musical at a drive-in only a few weeks before and she'd loved it. "Just say it, Max."
"I think I'll be quitting the astronaut corps." He confessed, and her smile froze and began to slip away. "There's…I can't do it."
"Okay. Why not, Max? Being an astronaut was your dream. It's all you could think about before." She was trying to stay calm, but Max could see the concern in her eyes. The worry.
"Get back here, you miserable little…!" A girl's voice yelled out, and Max jerked his head over to the side in time to see a red-haired girl running headlong after a brown-haired boy her age. She was looking fit to be tied and it had everything to do with the sunhat the boy must've stolen from her.
The one he gave back for a kiss.
It made Max smile, and he shook his head when he realized that was the answer he'd needed. Though, why did those two kids look so familiar? He brushed it away and focused on Verdona.
"I'm going to be a father. As much as I'd love for them to have a man who went to the Moon for a dad…" His voice trailed off, and the words stuck in his throat. I want to keep them safe, more than I want their dad to be a hero.
Verdona reached across the wooden picnic table and took his hand. "You don't want them to be without a father." She finished quietly. And it was all Max could do to nod. Because that's what he had done before. He'd been afraid to finish the sentence, afraid to tell her that he was going to walk away from being an astronaut into something just as dangerous. And probably even more.
A heavy bubbling guilt settled into his stomach as Verdona stroked the back of his knuckles with her thumb. It wasn't the first lie he'd told her - that had been about his last mission in Vietnam - but this was the first lie that changed things for them.
He closed his eyes, feeling the breeze and the warmth of the sun around him and the touch of Verdona's hand. He wanted it to last forever, to stay put in this moment instead of drifting ahead. It didn't last. Verdona's hand pulled back.
"Why do you keep lying to me?" She asked him, her voice sounding just a little bit off. A little bit wrong. His eyes snapped open to see Verdona looking at him, hurt and sorrowful. "Why didn't you tell me the truth?"
Why hadn't he? Would it have been better to tell her the real reason for walking away from Houston, uprooting their lives? Would it have made things better for Verdona if she'd known? Would it have made things better between him and his sons, or would Frank and Carl still have found a reason to regret things?
"Just tell me, Max." Verdona urged him, pushing up from the park picnic table and looming over him. "Where's the Omnitrix?"
His mouth went dry. "What?"
- o - o - o - o - o -
1969
The sheer noise drowned out everything, and Max whirled around as he caught sight of his Verdona in blue jeans and an oversized T-shirt smiling at him as she raised a hand over his head to a giggling weight that was pressed against it. "Easy now, Frankie. Your daddy needs that hat!" True to summer weather in New York, it was definitely scorching. Verdona was hidden under a sunhat and being careful to protect her stomach - she was pregnant again now - while their son Frank was perched up on his shoulders. And of all the places to find themselves, they were at a rock n' roll concert in upstate New York.
He'd taken his family on a trip to visit the old family farm while he was on R and R from his new duties, and had been enjoying it immensely when word came that one of their neighbors, Max Yasgur, had given permission for a massive 'Music Festival' to come in. The sleepy town of Bethel had been inundated with tens, hundreds of thousands of people who showed up and found that they didn't have to pay for tickets. What had brought Max and Verdona was that while there was a stage and musicians and people who came to listen, there were a lot less of things like food and water and medical care.
Max thanked his lucky stars that he'd packed several sets of those new silicone earplugs along because while they were situated behind the stage with the speakers pointed the other way, the noise of the crowd in front of the stage was coming at them full blast. Little Frankie's feet bounced off of Max's chest as he held his tiny hands over his ears and he mumbled the words "It's loud, daddy!"
"I know, Sport. It's great, isn't it?" Max laughed as Verdona handed out a few more sandwiches that they'd brought along with them to the technical crew running the show.
One of the "Please" officers who patrolled the venue with kazoos, smiles, and politely worded requests came over to where they were situated. "Hey, folks. We just wanted to thank you for coming out and giving us a hand."
"I wish we could do more," Max said with a wan smile. "It seems like they didn't quite get all the planning done for this event."
"Well, it's good of you to coordinate with the Army to get folks in and out of here, Mr. Army Man."
"I'm Air Force, actually. Retired." Max looked over to Verdona, and his wife raised an eyebrow in return. They were on vacation, thinking about military things or his Plumber days was the last thing on his mind, and he'd promised her that this week was all about being with her and their son. He'd expected her to protest, to tell him that they were leaving right now to get away from all of this craziness. She hadn't said much when Max had realized the trouble and moved to help coordinate the flights in and out of the farmland. Maybe it was because he was still with them, still with his family, and hadn't left them alone in a strange place surrounded by hundreds of strangers.
"Retired, maybe, but that doesn't stop you from trying to be a hero." She teased him. "And you take me to the strangest places, spaceman." She took Frank from his shoulders and grinned at him. "I think Frank and I will stick around for a while longer, and then we'll head back to the farm so he can take a nap. Catch up when you can, all right?"
"I promise," Max told her.
"Don't go making a girl a promise you can't keep." She warned him, a sentence that she somehow said at a normal volume which he ended up hearing perfectly anyways. It should've been impossible - they were wearing earplugs and the noise here was incredible with the band playing and the crowd cheering.
Except for some reason, all of that background noise was nothing now except a dull ringing in his ears, just out of reach. It made him pause on his way back to the radio setup that he'd been using and look back at Verdona. Her smile was gone, and in the eerie silence that made him hyper-aware of his surroundings, he could see that little Frankie was scowling, too, under his new pair of little glasses. Frowning at him like he wouldn't for years yet.
"What else have you been hiding from me, Max?" His boy suddenly asked him and Max blinked, stammered a bit, closed his mouth, and opened it again so he could say…
- o - o - o - o - o -
1975
Max stood in the phone booth outside of a diner with the Mojave Desert in the background, blinking as a young and hauntingly familiar voice spoke from the other end of the line. "But you promised, Daddy," Carl mumbled, hurt and disappointed. And Max was disappointed himself, he'd meant to be back home in California already but the mission had gone screwy.
"I know, champ." He told his youngest. "I know I did. But this job's turned out to be a bit more complicated than I thought it would be, and a man cleans up his own messes." His son, only five and already far more mature for his age than he should've been, didn't argue with him or yell or cry. He just sniffled a bit. Max felt a pang of guilt but pushed it aside. "I'll be home as soon as I can. Is your brother there? Can I talk to Frank?"
There were another few seconds of silence before Carl spoke again. "He ran up to the bedroom." He didn't want to talk to you, was what his son didn't say to him. He didn't have to. Max heard the truth like the dull throb of the headache he felt starting behind his eyes. "Mommy wants the phone. Love you, daddy," There was the sound of the phone receiver clattering on the counter, and Max's heart took another lump as his wife picked it up with a weary sigh.
"The boys miss you, Moon Man."
"I know." He said as he squeezed the bridge of his nose, an apology she'd heard far too often lying just beneath those two words.
"Frank was going to show you something from school. Something your sister helped him make."
"Oh? What was that?" With Vera, it could be anything. But at least she was there. At least she was finally feeling better if she was playing with the kids again.
"Sorry, spaceman. I'm not ruining their surprise." Verdona shrugged him off. "I know that you're trying to be a good provider, holding down these jobs that take you away from home for days or weeks on end. Just try to remember that you have a family who'd like to see you more than one or two weekends a month, all right?"
He swallowed down the hurt and nodded. "Okay. I'll be home as soon as I can, 'Dona." And he had some leave he'd been saving up. After this mission, he'd cash it in and give himself a proper month where he'd let everyone else in the Plumbers deal with saving the world. "I love you."
"Love you too, Max. Bye." With a click, the phone went dead. Max looked at the black receiver for a few seconds more, sighed, and put it back on the hook. He pushed the door of the phone booth open and went from being baked through the glass to being baked out in the open. Glad for his sunglasses, Max trudged the distance back to the pickup truck and flatbed camper that his team had been using. There was some talk about the Plumbers getting their hands on some new wheels, but for the moment they were stuck using what was reliable and didn't stick out much.
"Saddle up, boys." He told Phil and Coop, and the two shared a look before grumbling and turning for the camper. "And no more pork and beans!" Max shouted after them. Phil threw him the finger, and Max sighed as he opened up the driver's side door and slid inside. An amused Wes Green glanced over his shoulder at him, far more comfortable in the heat than Max was.
"You must be in a bad mood if you're cutting Phil off from his favorite comfort food."
"I'm just tired of hearing Coop bitch about the smell after." Max slammed the door shut and closed his eyes, letting his head loll back. "And I had to tell my boys I wasn't coming home this weekend."
"A pain I know well," The Navajo man agreed. "But until we track down who's sending these drones, the job isn't done. Merlin was as adamant about that as he was about getting your Galactic Enforcer contact off world as soon as possible."
Max let out a grunt for lack of anything worthwhile to add and reached for the ignition, turning the key until the well-tuned engine was purring so smoothly that it didn't even rattle.
"Oh, boy! A mission, finally!" A young and far too energetic voice exploded happily. Max jumped in surprise and turned, staring at the brown-haired boy in baggy pants and a white shirt with a black stripe sitting there where his second-in-command and friend should have been. "This trip's been getting so boring, I should've known you'd come through with some Hero Time when you said we were meeting Grandma Lizard!"
"Ben?!" Max blurted the name out and then found himself wincing in confusion. This was wrong. Why was it wrong? Because…Because Ben was never alone, there was always someone else with him. "Ben, where's Gwen?"
That little boy he'd called Ben stopped jumping up and down in the passenger seat and looked at him, far more seriously than any kid his age should have. "Why do you need Gwen? Is she important? I thought that it was this one."
Max blinked several times, a ringing in his ears roaring back as his eyes started to hurt. He put a hand over his eyes to shade them and squinted them shut. He waited until the ringing stopped before looking again, and sighed in relief when it was Wes sitting there in the seat beside him.
"You doing okay there, Tennyson?" His friend asked him, the lines on his face still cutting deep with worry.
"Must be the heat getting to me," Max said as he tried to shake off the ache he felt growing behind his eyes. "Hand me one of those Cokes, would you?"
But Wes didn't reach for the cooler down by his feet. He turned to face Max more directly and frowned at him. "Max, who are Ben and Gwen? And why do you keep talking about them?"
"I don't know." Again, Max heard that ringing in his ears as he muttered, "Maybe you should drive. We don't want to keep Xylene - "
His tongue stuck on the rest as Wes leaned in closer, and in the shadows between them, he caught an eerie shade of yellow in his friend's dark eyes that froze him to the spot.
"What are you hiding from me, Max Tennyson?"
"I don't - " Max started as the heat and the bright sunlight wrapped around something in his head and squeezed. "I don't - " he tried again as he brought his hand up to his eyes and felt - felt something.
"What are you hiding?"
Something wet and not from this Earth. Something that squeezed and squeezed against everything he'd thought he'd forgotten. Against all the memories he'd made himself forget. Memories that rushed up no matter how hard he fought them back even as everything else went dark. "N - "
- o - o - o - o - o -
The world was a blur after that.
A blur of fights that never seemed to end. Of drones and starships and aliens. The ones they fought and the ones that fought at his side. It was like those days in Vietnam all over again with them always outnumbered but never outmatched as days turned into weeks and months and the calls home happened less and less.
And through it all, he felt those green eyes on him as they raced from base to base, always a step behind until they weren't. Until they finally saw the monster that Xylene always swore was behind it all.
Vilgax.
Vilgax and fire.
- o - o - o - o - o -
Max watched the sky burn and a cloud rise high into the sky from where Vilgax's ship had been just moments ago before the Minuteman II slammed into it.
The mushroom cloud, and if the last few months had been just a little kinder maybe he would have realized what it looked like before he heard someone suck in a breath. Someone he knew. Someone whose voice he picked out even with all the noise around him as equipment fell and soldiers picked themselves up from wherever they'd hidden during the battle.
Dirty, bruised faces which were all staring at him when he turned around, but there was only one that mattered, and it wasn't just because she was the only woman on the base and the only one with a tail on the planet.
"Max," Xylene whispered the horror as clear in her voice as the fading light was in her three eyes. Eyes that were opened wide as she stared. "What did you do?"
"It's not the warhead," Max told her, his voice betraying him with a crack as he felt the adrenaline wear off and the world came back with a rush of aches and pains worth of reminders that he was almost fifty and too old to be fighting for his life. "It's just the rocket fuel going up with whatever was on that ship. It's still a good show though."
For all of their lives…
"A good - " Xylene said, her eyes jerking down so they could meet his, the purple light behind them glowing bright, but that wasn't what drew him in. No, it was the dirt that marred the soft bluish-green scales of her face, but not nearly as much as the bruise that was already leaving the left side of her face puffy and left him wondering where her helmet was even as he reached up to touch it. "I know it wasn't the warhead because my suit would have warned me if you were suicidal enough for that. Or if you'd unbalanced a fusion drive with that stupid stunt! Which you still might if my ship doesn't reach the crash site in time!"
The words sounded angry and the way that the tendrils on either side of her head writhed almost convinced him, but the way he felt her hand shake as she caught his put a lie to them both even as she hissed, "Not that you would have needed to risk it if you'd just followed the plan!"
"Had to make do," Max murmured back because they both knew the truth. The plan never stood a chance. Not against Vilgax. Not once after it all hit the fan and they'd gotten scattered, but for once it paid off. For once, he could just stand there and let himself relax as he watched the rest of his team stumble into the launch chamber. Wes and Daniels looked only a little worse for wear and even the two newbies…
Both of them were too young for this and it was never more true than now as he watched both of their faces burn as bright as Gwen's hair as she whispered something that looked a lot like an I told you so! to the boy at her side before Ben turned away with a nervous chuckle as his hand flew for the back of his neck. Max watched them both and wanted to laugh with them, but he never got the chance.
"You were lucky," the alien woman in front of him told him as she squeezed his hand and brought his attention back to her.
"Luckier than him at any rate," Max allowed with a rumble of a laugh, and the way she smiled when she heard it was even more of a rush than their win. That rush of that was the only thing that made him say, "Maybe if we had the Omnitrix Doohikey that you told me - " he started. Then he caught himself as something squeezed around his neck.
Her telekinesis, he realized as the purple light in her eyes burned bright a second before she pulled him down. Pulled him down and kissed him even with all the eyes on them. Eyes that kept watching even after he closed his…
- o - o - o - o - o -
The eyes were still watching days later, but they didn't matter. Not as much as the alien ship that was hovering over the rough desert sand in front of him.
Or the alien herself as she stood there, one foot on the gangway, the soft curves of her body lit by the soft green glow of the lights in the airlock behind her as her tail lashed at the air that was already getting chill even though the sun had just set as she said goodbye.
It all blurred together.
A lifetime spent fighting, in the schoolyard and the cockpit and everywhere else on Earth and beyond that man walked, was afraid to walk, or had never dreamed of stepping foot on. A lifetime of lying about what he did for a living to his wife and to his children. A lifetime of believing that it was worth the cost, that their safety was worth the disappointments. A lifetime of empty promises about tomorrows and I'll make it up to you until suddenly his boys were grown with girlfriends- fiancees - and expecting children of their own. A lifetime of fighting aliens and worse and protecting Earth from every threat outside of humanity - and a few from within.
A lifetime believing that it was all worth it until suddenly - devastatingly - his wife was dead in a fire. If it hadn't been for his sons panicking over wanting to be good fathers and turning to the only example they had, flawed or not, he would have wandered off and disappeared entirely. And yet.
And yet.
He was retired now. Vilgax was dealt with, gone. The Earth was safe, and the last great problem he'd sworn to deal with before retiring to spend time with his family was resolved. What was left of his family, small and broken, were all in this hospital. His sons and their wives were resting in the double-wide hospital room they'd been moved to after the delivery, and Max wasn't about to try prying Carl and Frank from them. Not when Sandra and Lili needed their rest so badly.
Max couldn't sleep himself, though. Not for anything in the world even though the chair he was in was surprisingly comfortable compared to the plastic things he'd spent the last couple of days on as he rocked back and forth in it.
"Must be the company," he teased. He heard the nurse who he shared the ward with let out a little giggle as she moved between the bassinets, but he wasn't talking to her.
No, he was talking to the two little wonders in his arms. Two babies who looked so much alike in their almost matching pajamas - one in pink and the other blue - and the wisps of hair on their heads. Soft red and brown that smelled like the cookies his mother used to make just dipped in milk.
And an ocean mustiness that never seemed to go away, but it didn't matter now.
If he could have taken his eyes off of their faces as they slept, he could have read the names on the tiny bands that were wrapped around their wrists, but he didn't need to. Not when he could still hear his boys' stunned voices echoing in his head after they told him as they all stared through the nursery window together.
Benjamin Kirby Tennyson. Gwendolyn Rose Tennyson.
God, they were so small. So perfect. Verdona would have loved them. And not for the first time, Max felt a well-deserved pang of regret as he wished that she'd been here to see them.
"Are you going to hog them all day, Maxwell?" His sister asked, her shadow falling over them as she snuck in. "Some of us would like to be introduced."
"You'll get your turn, Vera," Max shot right back even though he didn't know how he would ever be able to let his grandchildren go. Not for her or anyone else. Not when he felt his smile get even wider as he watched his grandson wake up and let out a tiny little yawn at the disruption before he started swinging his little fists as he opened his little unfocused green eyes and started looking for the only thing he seemed to care about.
The first time this happened, it was Gwen kicking and her indignant cries sent Max running for the nurse. But he'd always been a quick study and Ben calmed as soon as Max shifted him so he could reach his cousin. If Gwen cared that she was getting drooled on after Ben snuggled close and started gumming at her shoulder, she showed no sign. She kept letting out a snore as small as she was. "They've been doing this all - "
"Doing what?"
Then his words failed him as he finally realized that wasn't his sister's voice. It wasn't her shadow that fell over him as he sprung out of the chair still cradling his grandbabies against his chest like the treasures that they were. Not since her retirement. Not since the fire. Not since she started putting on weight like all Tennysons do after a certain age.
And that was an age eight years older than the woman Max saw now. A woman who wasn't any older than he was as he stared at her familiar red hair - hair that was a little thinner and had some faint traces of gray - and more wrinkles than she should have had. Wrinkles that deepened as she looked at her grandchildren.
Grandchildren that she never had a chance to meet.
"They're something, aren't they." Verdona Tennyson hummed. "So much potential. So much possibility. This is Ben and Gwen, hm? You were right."
"You would have loved them." He said shakily as his wife just kept staring at - studying - him and the babies in his arms.
"So. You weren't there for our sons," she mused. "And you promised yourself that you were done. That you were retired. That even if you'd been a terrible father, you could be a better grandfather."
"I'm damn well going to try. For their sake." Max exhaled. "I'm sorry, Verdona."
"For what? For lying to me - to them - all these years about what you were really doing?" He turned to her and found the spirit of his wife looking less than pleased. "You couldn't have just told me that you were running around trying to protect Earth. I had to find out from…" She stopped talking and bit her lip, and Max tried to swallow. He tried but found that his throat had closed up on him. If it wasn't for the babies in his arms, he would have reached out and…
And what?
"You're tired. All the time. And you're so full of guilt. Why?" Verdona fixed her gaze on him. "Why are these two so important to you? Show me."
"Show you…what?" Max grunted, flinching as the pressure of a sudden headache bore down on him and the ringing filled his ears again. Why was this happening? Why was…
Verdona didn't look away, didn't blink. "Show me."
- o - o - o - o - o -
Years flew by, ten years of his life gone on autopilot with Max having no control over it. His time as a semi-permanent resident of Bellwood flashed before his eyes like a movie on fast forward. Watching the kids grow up, watching and hurting as his boys kept a respectful distance and their wives, who'd once been as close as sisters started pulling apart and arguing over the best way to raise their kids.
Another sin laid at his feet, another failure that more than once had Max trudging to the cemetery so he could talk to Verdona and see the starlight reflected off of the polished granite of her headstone. How much better would it have been for his family if Max had been the one who died and they'd had Verdona in their lives instead? So many years had gone by, so many wasted opportunities. When they could have used a good parent to listen to and take advice from, he had nothing to give them. Nothing but a living example of what not to do.
But he could be there for his grandchildren. And he tried. He tried so hard, moving from campground to campground and running off to his sister's or traveling the country like he'd always promised Verdona they would when he retired, but with them. As much as he could. He took Gwen fishing. He took Ben camping. He showed them both the little tricks that they might have learned if either of them had been interested in the Scouts, although their attention spans made him wonder if the lessons stuck. He fretted over Gwen, who'd been a bright and eager and outgoing little girl, slowly turning into a prim and proper duplicate of her mother with all of her charts and schedules, gymnastics classes, and dancing. Her liking karate must have come out of left field for her parents, but Max took it as reassurance that there was still some shred of independence and vitality left in her that Lili hadn't snuffed out in her desperate effort to prove her own parents wrong. And Ben…
Ben, always striving, always a terror in his classes even if he was nearly a year younger than everybody else and they never let him forget it, always sulking at being the center of every fight between his mom and his aunt over which kid was turning out the best even as his parents tried to be everyone but themselves. It was only when he got his grandson out away from it all that those walls lowered enough for Max to see that Ben was going to turn out all right. Even if he put on a 'tough guy' routine.
But as the years passed and they got closer and closer to the summer of 1998, Max found himself struggling, straining not to go there. To not relive that memory. The incongruencies of sifting through all of those old memories, the ringing in his ears, the pressure on his head and his eyes, the strain around his neck…
Something was wrong. Something was wrong. What was it? Why couldn't he…Why couldn't he figure this out? The pressure on his head and his neck tightened and the ringing got loud enough that it drowned out his thoughts until he collapsed, begging it to stop.
Verdona pulled him back up onto his feet, sympathy writ plain on her tired, wrinkled features. This was the Verdona he'd seen the last time he drove away from home, worn down but still hopeful. "Honestly, Max. Why are you doing this to yourself? You don't have to drown in the guilt. Why don't you settle for the more pleasant memories?"
"You could have done so much better with them." He gasped, crying.
"Maybe." Verdona hedged. "But why does that matter? You can't change what happened, why beat yourself up over it? Just show me already. You fixate on your pain, and the biggest part of it's wrapped up in what you're trying to turn from now. Why relive all the pain from before and why avoid the pain of this?" She gestured out away from them, and Max's mouth went dry as he saw the trees and a clear night sky in the wilderness of Yosemite. He knew this park. He knew this night, and he knew what was about to happen all too well.
"No." Max forced the word out, grimacing and reaching for his throat with a clawed hand as something tightened there. "N - no…"
Verdona was in front of him again, and there was that flash of yellow behind her eyes again. It startled him so badly that his control slipped.
A shooting star. A meteorite, crashing down and hitting the ground not far from their campsite. He and Gwen, racing towards it, Max worried that Ben might be hurt. His grandson had…
"NO."
"SHOW ME!" Verdona hissed, her hands tight on his shoulders.
…They didn't find Ben. They found…
They found…
"A Pyronite?" Verdona said, surprised. The image froze as she reached her hand out towards Heatb - The Pyronite who was standing in the middle of a forest fire with his granddaughter and Max couldn't tell who looked more shocked as the ringing in his ears slacked off. The ringing and the throbbing ache behind his eyes, and with those gone he finally had enough focus to look at his dead wife. To really look at her.
"How do you know what a Pyronite is?" Max asked, suddenly haunted. Fearful.
Verdona spun away from the frozen image of their granddaughter looking goggle-eyed at the creature of igneous rock and fire. Her eyes were no longer warm. Her stare calculating.
"Why are you hiding this from me?" She questioned him, as cold as if she were a Plumbers interrogator. "Every time we get close to something around this memory, you resist. Don't. This doesn't have to be unpleasant. Just show me and then I'll take all of the pain away."
Max shook his head back and forth. This wasn't Verdona. This wasn't his Starshine staring him down. No. No, he wouldn't. Her eyes turned colder still. "Don't make me do this, Max." The ringing intensified, but he pushed back. He'd been trained to resist torture, he could resist this. He pushed back, and back, and back…
Until he couldn't. Until the levers that this lie had on him were too excruciating, and his control faltered. Just enough.
Like the needle on a record, it all skipped ahead. Max at the wheel of the Rustbucket as they passed a big sign that read You're now leaving Santa Mira, come back soon! As he left the town, Yosemite, and the fire of the wrecked alien robot burning behind them as fast as he could. He sighed, the stress and revelations of the evening still making his head swim. He'd been done with dealing with aliens and threats. He'd packed it away, never thinking that that life would catch up with him here. That it would ever threaten his family. His fingers went white as he gripped the steering wheel, trying to think of what to do next.
Gwen came up from the back, still smelling of smoke, fire extinguisher residue, and the stink of ozone that came from air seared by plasma and high-energy particle lasers. She had a pout on her face. "I can't believe that Doofus!" Gwen complained, dropping into the passenger seat and crossing her arms. "After all of that, he's still in the back fiddling with that stupid watch! Like it hasn't gotten us into enough trouble!" And then she added in a small voice as she turned and glared out her window with her legs crossed and her foot setting a land speed record as she kicked it back and forth. "He's going to get hurt."
"I'll talk to him as soon as I find a place to stop, Honey," Max promised with a smile he didn't feel.
"You don't have to," Gwen grumped into her arms as she sat there sullenly. "Grandma already said she would." And all at once, everything froze as the ringing came back and hit Max full force. So did his cognitive dissonance, because Verdona had been gone for ten years at this point. And he realized why everything around him had just stopped. Because he'd wanted it to stop. Because he was trying to hide this.
He tore out of his seat and ran to the back of the Rustbucket, almost stumbling over himself when he pulled up short of crashing into Verdona as she stood there by the back compartment with the privacy blanket pulled back in her hand. Or whatever specter had taken her form. She wasn't watching him anymore, or focusing all of that pressure and intent on him. She was fixated on the boy sitting in the lower bunk of the foldout beds, staring down at his arm and the alien device wrapped around it with one finger extended and pushing at one of the buttons around the dial.
All this time, one memory after another, one question had been asked of him over and over again. Where's the Omnitrix?
And there it was. On his grandson's arm, as it had been for that first summer.
"The abomination," The thing masquerading as his wife said with a hungry smile as she reached out. "Finally."
"No!" Max yelled at her as he forgot for a moment that this wasn't Verdona. But it looked like her and it sounded so offended just like his Starshine would have been when Ben vanished at her touch.
"What did you do?!" The thing wearing his wife's face roared and Max grit his teeth as her attention whirled back to him.
"Leave him alone! It wasn't - !" Max tried, the pain behind his eyes burning like a star as he fought for air. The Omnitrix had come racing down like a gift or a curse from the heavens, and it was a miracle it had ended up in the hands of his grandson. Someone young and still learning, but never hesitated to go running towards the danger instead of away from it.
Another memory, just a skip of time, passed by them. Ben and Gwen and Xylene at a picnic table at night. "...I got the Watch by mistake?" Ben stammered, looking at it.
"...I was sending it to Max." The Xylene in his memories archly replied. Verdona's doppelganger seethed, but moved on.
"Show me."
"No. You've seen enough." Max snapped back at her, only to find himself gagging for his troubles. He collapsed on his knees, wheezing for air and grabbing at an invisible force choking him.
The specter knelt beside him. "Show me." She repeated mercilessly.
His head screaming from the white noise, Max tried to resist.
He failed.
- o - o - o - o - o -
He wasn't in control and it rankled. Whatever she was doing, she flipped through the memories of three years of summers and more, fixated on the Omnitrix. All the times that Ben used it.
Getting into trouble in New Orleans and Las Vegas. "Irresponsible."
Facing off with the false Yenaldooshi. "Reckless."
The countless showdowns with Vilgax and the alien bounty hunters the warlord had sent. "Thoughtless."
Facing off against Kevin in San Francisco, and there her face went pale as she saw the amalgamation the boy had turned into. "Dangerous. The abomination is as dangerous as the Firstborn said it was."
No, Max struggled to say. "Threat identified." She mused, and the pressure on him stopped. He almost sobbed in relief until she looked at him again. "If we find the boy, we find the Omnitrix."
Oh God no. No. He couldn't…not like this. Again, he saw the yellow glow behind her eyes, but this time, in the flicker of the dark her entire face changed to something out of a nightmare. A living nightmare he'd almost forgotten about.
A Xenocyte, its singular eye bearing down on him unblinking.
"He…" Max choked on the word. "He doesn't have it." God, it had him. It was on him, just like the one that had taken Joan. It would take control of him, rip every thought out of him, turn him into…
"Of course he has it, Max. You can't lie to me." The Xenocyte faded and Verdona took its place again, smirking and triumphant. "We just saw…"
"HE HAD IT!" Max screamed, straining against his bonds and the vice grip of its presence in his mind. "Not anymore!"
That little smile the disguised Xenocyte wore dropped. "Show me," it demanded, with Verdona's voice and with all of her temper.
For once, it wanted to see exactly what Max wanted to show it. So he did.
- o - o - o - o - o -
Phoenix.
Vilgax. His ship, hanging in the sky, Ben and Gwen traumatized and holding on to each other, watching as the bloody, crystal-shattered remains of the lunatic were loaded into stasis container after stasis container.
Xylene and her ship. A flight somewhere Max didn't pay attention to, not even enough for a glance at the navigation computer. A little gray alien, tired and worn down by his failures.
A machine. The separation of the clasp, a darkening dial.
Ben picking it up, looking at it in disbelief before Gwen took him away.
Ben, dropping it in Max's hands as he walked out of that hidden lab. And there, there Max forced the memory to stop. He pushed it down, leaving them in darkness. He tried to settle his racing mind. He couldn't think about his grandchildren anymore. He didn't dare.
"So you have it." The doppelganger summarized. "What did you do with it, Max?"
Tennyson braced himself for the pain he knew was coming. "Tennyson, Maxwell. Captain. Air Force. Service Number 3682490FR." He rattled off his USAF service number and held to it as a mantra. As a shield.
It wasn't enough.
Verdona's face darkened. "Don't resist, Max. Don't make me do this. I have been kind. We have been, to you and your world!"
"Tennyson, Maxwell. Captain. Air Force. Service Number 3682490FR!" He got to his feet and stared down the monster wearing his wife's face.
"So. You have chosen the way of pain." Her hands snapped to the sides of his head seconds after the grip of the Xenocyte on his skull and his throat tightened in real life. "Where is the Omnitrix, Max?"
"Tennyson, Maxwell. Captain. Air Force. Service…." He coughed, straining, as his throat was choked off for a moment. "...service number 3682490FR."
"Where is the Omnitrix?" Her grip tightened. "Your body is weakening and the pollution in your system will not protect you much longer. We are the servants of the First Born, the Highbreed, and their will is everything. Darkness will not fall!"
"T-Tennyson, Maxwell. Captain. Air Force. Service Number 3682490FR." It hurt to fight back. It hurt to think. He kept on fighting.
"Where is the Omnitrix?! Where?"
Just hold on, he thought. Just hold on. "T-Tennyson, Ma-Maxwell. Captain. Air Force. S-s-service N-number 3682490FR!"
His existence was nothing but pain. It kept up, the crushing feeling turning into an unending fire all around his head and throat. Unceasing. His captor, so certain he would break, choking his defiance and crushing his mind until Max Tennyson could not speak, could not scream.
He screamed anyway as his vision went white.