Always With You 3:3C
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
The first time he had reacted to Liz being in danger was right at the beginning of the summer. Tess had used her powers to make Liz see a car speeding at her down the sidewalk, causing Liz to jump into the street to avoid it. The whole thing had been a hallucination designed to kill her. It nearly worked. She had inadvertently jumped right into the path of the oncoming car. It had hit her, and she had been severely injured. Sheriff Valenti had been pursuing the speeding vehicle at the time, and called for an ambulance, then had called Max. The reaction Max had that day was mild compared to the one from earlier, but Liz hadn’t really had a chance to be scared - the whole thing had happened too quickly.
The second time he’d felt this way was just last week. Nasedo had attacked her and Alex and Maria. Fortunately, Liz had been able to use the Shield to protect them until Max and Michael had gotten there. She had been scared to death that day, too but she was able to fight. Able to stay in control. Until the Shield took control of her anyway. His reaction that time lasted longer than the first one, and had been a little more severe.
He couldn’t begin to imagine the terror she’d felt as whoever it was attacked her in her bed. She would have fought valiantly until they subdued her by force. The force of his reaction told him it was bad whatever it was they did to her. And now she was in the custody of whoever it was that had taken her, and they were taking her who-knows-where.
Where was she? What did they want from her? Did they know about him, or was her disappearance an amazing coincidence? There was no question of what he’d do if they were planning to use her to get to him. He’d do anything to have her returned to her family.
He was going crazy torturing himself with these thoughts. He needed to figure out where they’d taken her…
Wait! His thoughts came to a standstill. The dream-walking ability he had. If he could dream-walk her, maybe she could tell him where she was, or who had her. He wasn’t as adept as Isabel, but he had done it a couple of times. It was how he’d eventually freed Liz from the hypnotic spell the Shield had put on her. He didn’t know if he could do it again, but he had to try.
He went to the Valenti’s sofa and sat down. Closing his eyes, he cleared his mind, and tried to relax his muscles a little. He turned up his powers, felt them humming inside his body, and turned them inward. He reached out with his mind, and tried to connect with Liz’s subconscious. Nothing. Concentrating harder, he tried again. Still nothing. Suddenly, he knew what was wrong.
He snapped his eyes open at the same time Kyle Valenti stepped into the room and said, “What are you doing, meditating?” The other teen had finished dressing and had been watching him.
“Kyle. Get me a picture of Liz.”
“What? No. I don’t have one.”
Max stood, and said, “Yes you do. I know there’s one in your room, under your bed. I need it.”
Kyle was affronted. “How do you know that?”
Max wasn’t about to admit that he and Liz had broken into the Valenti residence one day last year looking for her lost journal. He ignored the question and said, “Just get it.”
Kyle didn’t move. The sheriff spoke from behind them, “Kyle…” It was that dad tone. Kyle reluctantly moved to obey his parent. “What’s going on, Max?”
“Remember how I told you that we could connect with people sometimes?” Max asked.
It wasn’t likely that he’d ever forget what he’d felt the day Max had connected with him. It was the day that one of the evil aliens had shape-shifted into him and had come here looking for the Shield, thinking that the sheriff was Nasedo. Max and his friends had arrived to see two of him standing pretty much where he was now. In order to determine which was which, Max had created a connection with him, which had allowed the teen to see some of his memories. “Yeah.”
“Well, we can also reach out and touch a person’s subconscious. That was how everyone knew I was being held at Eagle Rock and about your Deputy Fisher actually being Agent Pierce the alien hunter. Isabel was able to communicate with me with her mind, even though she had no idea where I was.”
“So you think you can do this to Liz? But she’s human.”
“That won’t matter. My problem is that Isabel is much better at it than I am. I’ve only done it a couple of times. And that was recently.”
“But you might be able to find out where she is?”
“If it works, yes. If Liz knows where she is, she’ll be able to tell me.”
Kyle came back into the room, and grudgingly held out a small picture frame that contained a photo of him and Liz from last summer. “Here.”
Max returned to his spot on the sofa. He lightly touched Liz’s face in the picture causing it to waiver slightly. The watching Valentis held their breaths. Max again called up his powers, stoking the higher and higher. When he was ready, he closed his eyes and reached out with his mind.
This time, something felt different. He was going down a long, long tunnel. He went down it as quickly as he could, causing the walls to blur at the speed of his passing. He could feel her presence getting closer, and knew it was working. Why was she so far away? Where was she?
Suddenly, he completed the connection. The tunnel was gone. He looked around quickly. He and Liz were in a strange room. The walls were purple and red, but hazy. Objects were floating in the air. “Liz? What is this? What’s going on here?” Something whizzed past his ear.
Liz was sitting on her bed. Her knees were pulled up, and her arms were wrapped around her legs. “What? Oh, that. It’s the drugs. From the hospital. They still haven’t completely worn off yet. It’s getting better, though,” she said as she ducked a runaway picture frame. “They aren’t going as fast as before.”
Max came over to sit beside her. “Liz, look at me. Where are you? Who did this to you?”
“I don’t know. They didn’t say anything.”
He grabbed her face. “Look at me. Let me see what you remember.” From within her subconscious, he formed a connection with her, and had her replay everything she’d seen and heard. It was like watching a horror movie. He again felt her terror at being woken up and dragged from her bed. Saw the cage, and heard the door clang shut behind her. He hadn’t seen anyone’s faces, nor could he see the kind of vehicle they were driving.
“Listen, Liz. Open your ears to what’s going on around you. Let me hear it, too.” Suddenly music filled the air. Under the sound of the music came the sound of a car engine, no, bigger than a car, he thought. A truck or van maybe. Under that, he could hear the road going by under the tires of the vehicle.
The connection was weakening. He wouldn’t be able to hold it much longer. “Liz, I’ll get you out of this, I swear. Have faith in me. No matter what happens, I want you to know that I’m coming for you. Will you remember that?”
“Yes.”
“When they get to wherever they’re going, try to see as much as you can. You need to find out where they’re taking you. Can you do that?”
“Yes, of course.”
“I love you, and I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She whispered, “I know.”
Then it was over. His mind came crashing back into his body. He opened his eyes and stood up. “Well, Max did it work? What did you see?”
He handed the picture back to Kyle. “They’ve taken her out of town, Sheriff. They’re in a large car; maybe a truck or van, and they’re on a highway moving fast. She didn’t get a look at any of them, and she has no idea where they are going.”
He headed toward the door. “We’ve got to find her, Sheriff. Who knows what they’ll do to her.”
“We will. Let me stop by my office, then we’ll go to the CrashDown to see if they left us any clues.”
Kyle grabbed his coat off the back of the sofa and headed for the door. “I’m coming, too.”
“Kyle…”
“No, dad. Not with Liz in trouble. If I can help, I will.” His dad looked ready to argue, and he added, “I can either ride with you, or I’ll drive myself, but I’m coming.”
Max was already out the door and in his Jeep. The sheriff didn’t have time to stand there and discuss this. “Ok, fine, come on.”
At the sheriff’s office, Valenti put out an APB for all midsize to large vehicles leaving Roswell, and asked the highway patrol to put up roadblocks on 285 and 380, the two highways that passed through the area. Remembering the time displayed on the clock on his nightstand when he’d first woken up, Max was able to tell them that the abductors had been on the road for about 50 minutes. With that information, they were able to estimate viable locations for the roadblocks.
The CrashDown was in chaos as one might suspect. The deputy had found the hole in the door. They were dusting for fingerprints but at a glance, it looked like a pretty professional job. No one knew what to make of it. Liz’s parents were in hysterics. Valenti and Max did what they could to offer comfort, but it looked pretty bleak all around.
Professor Harrison was elated. They’d just turned off of 380 West onto 70 West. In Hondo, they’d switched drivers, and now he was sitting in the back of the van with the specimen. She hadn’t moved once in the last hour, even when they’d stopped the van. He got out his notepad and started to make observations. It seemed that the creatures slept very heavily. A human female would not have remained unconscious for this length of time, he was sure. Of course, he didn’t know about her exhausting trip to the hospital the day before.
He wondered how long she would be out, and what her reaction would be when she finally came to. He was tempted to wake her up just to find out, but, in the interest of science, he refrained. He noted little things about her appearance. She looked completely human. She even had a small scar just above one eyebrow. He wondered if their skin repaired itself like a human’s. He’d have to find out.
Tom was still disappointed that they couldn’t get the other female, the one called Maria. She would have made a fascinating study, especially if she was breeding, but this female would do just as well. Anyway, she seemed pretty close to the male in the videotape, the one who seemed to be in charge of the six of them. Perhaps they’d get lucky, and she’d be breeding after all. Wouldn’t that be something?
He could barely wait to begin the experiments.