Always With You 3:3B
Always With You Part Three by Watcher Tara
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Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Roswell.
Summary: Max and Kyle have to team up to save Liz from an unexpected threat. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang returns to Marathon, Texas looking for answers and finds more than they anticipated.
Category: Max/Liz
Rating: PG
“What was that, Harrison?” The Dean’s voice lacked its customary impatience.
“That, Dean Whittier was a confession. Videotaped evidence that would stand up in any court of law that there are aliens among us.”
“Aliens.” He scoffed, but his voice lacked its usual conviction. “Do you know how crazy you sound?”
“Are you denying what you just saw, what you just heard? The one saying that they were to act like ‘normal teenaged kids’, and that no one was to say the word alien, and the other saying how Topolsky was there to trap them into admitting who they really were.” Tom continued, “You know that my brother is in the FBI?” The Dean nodded. “He’s the one who sent me that tape. The Topolsky person they were talking about was the agent in charge of his team for several months.”
Seeing that the Dean still wasn’t convinced, Tom continued, “They actually had one of those boys in custody for a while, and the tests they did on him were conclusive: he wasn’t human. The alien who released him killed at least two humans, including our best friend, Doug Matheson. After that, the government just dropped the whole project. My brother and his team were called back to Langley, and even now, the evidence of the whole mission is being destroyed. The tape you just saw was scheduled for incineration last week, as were all the others like it. He was able to pocket this one, but was afraid to try for any of the others.” Tom held out his hands in entreaty. “Don’t you see what’s happening? The government knows that there are aliens out there, and they’re covering it all up, just like they did in 1947!”
“Why would they cover it up?”
“Why not? It’s what they are good at.” Tom said with heavy irony. “I mean think of the crash. They said a weather balloon went down in the New Mexican desert. A ‘weather balloon’ for Christ’s sake. Did you know that New Mexico holds the world’s record for most consistent weather? They have sun with temperatures in the high 70’s, low 80’s three hundred and forty days a year. What the hell did they need a weather balloon for? It was obviously a scam. A cover.” He sighed before adding, “The problem with our government is that they think that we are all gullible fools.”
“Ok, so why not just capture all six aliens and exterminate them?”
“I told you. The aliens are killing off any humans who get in their way. More than likely, the government discovered or was afraid that there were a lot more living here than they thought. I mean, it’s been fifty-years since the crash, and who knows how many other ships that we don’t know about have landed. It’s three generations later, and what if they procreate like bunnies?” He leaned closer to say, “Ok, hypothetical situation: Let’s say there were twenty to begin with in forty-seven at the time of the crash. Ten women and ten men. A human female can bear children between the ages of 15 and 60, give or take. That’s 45 years of childbearing. Even if each of the 10 females had only one child every year, that’s 450 offspring. The first group of children would have been bearing children for thirty years now, and their children’s children would now be at the age of childbearing. In fact, they would be just about the age of those kids in that tape.”
The Dean sat down in one of the hard conference room chairs, and Tom sat next to him. “Look, I did the math on it one night, and following that scenario, there would be, right now, over eleven thousand of them living in the United States today. Eleven thousand,” he emphasized. “And that’s one child a year, by human standards. What if they have litters, or lay eggs? The real numbers could be mind-boggling. If you were the government, would you risk pissing off thousands of aliens by killing off six of their children? Or would you quietly pack your things and go back home to Washington DC?”
“Your brother has actually seen proof that they are aliens, and it’s not just some joke?”
“Yes.” Tom thought of the silver handprint his brother had seen on Agent Matheson’s chest. “Yes, sir. There’s no doubt.”
“Ok, Thomas, what did you have in mind?”
After that, things had snowballed to bring him to where he was, sitting behind the wheel of a getaway van while a group of professionals hired by his brother, snatched one of the females from her bed. Snatching an alien… It had become sort of an ironic joke amongst the men as they drove to Roswell.
His brother had provided them with the aliens’ names and addresses. They had originally intended to take the one called Maria, because she was less protected, living with only one other grown up in a small house, but also because, he intended to study their reproductive organs and habits, and by the look of things on the video, she could be impregnated right now.
Unfortunately, when they’d gotten to her house, Maria was gone. There were no clues as to where she’d gone or that she’d be returning any time soon. Rather than lose the opportunity, they’d gone with the back up plan, and headed to the CrashDown Café located on Roswell’s main street.
Between the drugs they given her at the hospital and her exhaustion, Liz never heard the men enter her bedroom. One second she was deeply asleep, the next, she was being pulled out from underneath her covers. A cloud was covering the moon, and the room was in total darkness. She struggled blindly, ferociously as they tried to secure her hands. She opened her mouth to scream, only to have a plastic bag placed over her head. Fear of suffocation sent her from panic into terror. Still, she tried to scream, and a hand clamped over her mouth.
A voice heavy with malice and evil, whispered, “If you don’t want me to kill you right now, you’d better be quiet.”
She barely heard him over the pounding of her heart. Her fight or flight instincts had kicked in, and she was struggling for all she was worth, but it was no use. Unbeknownst to her, one of the men was a Marine, and the other two were Army soldiers trained in guerilla warfare. She was defenseless against them.
Keeping their hands away from hers, as they had been warned that the aliens’ palms were dangerous, they carried her down the stairs and out the front door.
She was running out of oxygen inside the plastic bag, and spots were swirling in front of her eyes, but she refused to give up. The professor saw them coming and hurried to open the door to the van. Inside, there was a large metal cage that looked like a kennel, but was constructed out of a very special metal. He held the door to it open.
Liz saw it, and used the last of her reserves to avoid being put inside, but again it was no use. Tears were running down her hot cheeks, and as she lost unconsciousness, she heard the gate being dropped into place, and the lock secured. Her last thought was, “Max.”
“Let’s go,” the Marine ordered.
Thomas was quick to obey.
As soon as he returned to the driver’s seat, he said, “Get that bag off her head. We don’t want her dead.”
He put the van in drive, and they began the return trip to Arizona.
The force of the reaction was enough to throw Max Evans out of his bed. He’d been sound asleep, immersed in a vague nightmare. Then, without warning, he was sitting on the floor, with his head pounding. His limbs were shaking so badly he was afraid to try to stand. With his stomach rolling like it was, he knew he had to get to the bathroom, but wasn’t sure he was up for the trip.
His forehead was beaded with sweat, but he could barely lift his arm to wipe it away. What was wrong with him? His heart was beating at a hundred miles an hour as panic set in. If there was something wrong with him… Isabel hadn’t come in, which meant that they hadn’t returned from their trip to Texas yet. This would not be the ideal time to get sick. His stomach gave another lurch, and he forced himself to stand. He had to get to the bathroom. With the room spinning wildly around him, he felt his way down the hall. In the bathroom, He knelt by the toilet, but nothing would come up. He couldn’t understand what was happening to him.
He hoped he didn’t have food poisoning, too. The only other time he’d felt like this was… He shot to his feet, adrenaline shooting through his system, overriding everything else. He’d only ever felt this way twice before in his life, and both times had been a sign that Liz was in mortal danger and needed him. He flew back down the hall; his thoughts focused on Liz, and grabbed whatever jeans were laying on the floor. After stepping into them, he pulled on a pair of socks and slid his feet into his shoes. Waving his hand over the laces, they tightened and tied themselves.
His keys and wallet were on the dresser and in seconds, he was in the Jeep and on his way to Liz’s. He pulled alongside the CrashDown, and bolted up the ladder that was attached to the balcony outside Liz’s window.
He pulled up the window, and whispered loudly, “Liz.” He climbed over the sill, but in the darkness miscalculated the distance to the dresser. Several items crashed loudly to the floor. “Damn,” he swore. “Sorry about that. Liz. Liz? Liz!” He felt his way to her bed, tripping on blankets that were strewn across the floor.
He found her bed by the expedient method of banging into it with his shin. “Ow. Damn it.” He reached toward the mattress, hoping to feel soft warm flesh, but there were only pillows and sheets. Liz wasn’t in her bed. He looked around for the light switch, when suddenly light bloomed under her door.
He must have woken her parents. He fled to the window. The door behind him opened. He hurried to escape, and barely had time to get over the sill when the lights came on in the room. “Oh my god! Liz!” It was Nancy’s voice.
Max hurried across the balcony and let himself down the ladder. He could hear her shouting, “Jeff. Jeff! Come here, it’s Liz. She’s gone.”
Max climbed into the Jeep and drove with all possible speed to Sheriff Valenti’s house. He looked at his watch. It was four in the morning. He felt kind of bad for waking the sheriff up, but Liz was missing. He had no doubt that she had been taken, and every second they wasted, whoever it was that had her took her further and further away from him.
A rumpled, but alert Jim Valenti opened his front door within a minute of Max’s knock. As an officer of the law, he was conditioned to waking completely up in an emergency.
“Max.” Valenti was shocked. Max Evans was the last person he would have guessed to have been standing there. “What’s…”
He didn’t even get to finish, before Max stated: “Liz is gone. She’s been taken… kidnapped.”
“What? How do you know?” Just then, the phone rang. Valenti shot Max a look, anticipating what the call would be about. “Hello?” He listened for a minute. “No, it’s ok. I was up.” He listened again. “Yeah. I’ll be right there, Nancy. Don’t worry. I’m sure she just wandered off. No. No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I’ll stop by to see on my way there. In the meantime, don’t touch anything, and I’ll send one of my deputies right away.” He was silent for another minute, and then said comfortingly, “We’ll find her. Don’t worry Nancy. The two of you just sit tight and someone will be there soon. All right… Fine… We’ll see you in a couple of minutes.”
He hung up the phone and looked at Max who had followed him inside. “All right, Max, that was Liz’s parents. They are worried sick. What’s going on here?”
“I don’t know, Sheriff.”
“How did you know she was missing?”
“I couldn’t sleep, and went over to look in on her. I climbed up her balcony, and went into her room through the window.” He had to edit the story because he didn’t want to have to explain his connection with Liz. “I’m afraid I woke up her parents when I knocked some stuff off her dresser. She wasn’t in her room. Her blankets were on the floor. I left just before her mom came into the room.”
Max took a step forward. “We have to find her, Sheriff.”
“Do you have any idea who would have taken her?”
“Taken who?” Kyle Valenti was standing in the hallway in a t-shirt and gym shorts. “What’s going on?”
“Liz’s parent’s just called to tell me that she was missing.”
“What? Where is she?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. Max?”
“No, Sheriff. I haven’t seen or heard anything suspicious lately.”
“So you don’t think it was one of those aliens that guy was talking about? One of the ones who think me, Kyle and Liz are aliens like you?” The sheriff was referring to last week when a group of aliens had come to Roswell in search of Max and his siblings. Through some strange circumstances, the aliens had made the mistake of thinking that Liz and Kyle were Max’s family, not Isabel and Michael. They also thought that Sheriff Valenti was the shape-shifter, Nasedo. Unfortunately, he had communicated that incorrect information to his colleagues before they could stop him. Now they all had to be extra careful, because when trouble came to town, it would be looking for the wrong people.
“I don’t know,” Max replied. “I mean, if they were here to kill us, why take Liz?”
“I see your point. Wait here. I’m going to get dressed, then we’ll see what we can find out about whoever it was that took her.” Valenti hurried into his room, and pulled on his clothes. Kyle followed suit.
Max was too anxious to sit, and so he paced in front of the door. The queasiness and shaking had all passed within five minutes of his having woken up. He was terrified what it meant. He prayed as he paced, “Please God, let her be all right.”