Roswell Series: Before I Knew You: Fic 13: Fear (1/4)
Author: X_tremeroswellian
Email: faithboscorelli1@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Not mine. The dialogue and scenes that you don't recognize are mine, the rest belongs to Jason Katims, the WB, Melinda Metz...etc, etc, etc...Don't sue. The song "Fear" is by the goddess of music, Sarah McLachlan, and appears on her albums, "Fumbling Towards Ecstacy," and "Mirrorball." One comment~ when "Fear" was played during the Pilot of Roswell, at the end of the episode, it credited the version as being the one on "Mirrorball," which is inaccurate. The version played in the Pilot is actually from, "Fumbling Towards Ecstacy." "Mirrorball" is Sarah's live album.
Rating: R for violence, language and situations
Author's Note: This is the eigth story of my "Before I Knew You" series. I'd read the other seven first.
Spoilers: Pilot and for the rest of my series.
"But I fear
I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose
Here in this lonely place
Tangled up in our embrace
There's nothing I'd like better
Than to fall
But I fear
I have nothing to give..."
-Sarah McLachlan, "Fear"
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Fear (Part One)
"Okay, I have got one Sigourney Weaver, that's for you. And one Will Smith. Can I get you guys anything else? Green Martian shake? Blood of alien smoothie?" Liz asked the two tourists at her table.
"No, thanks. We're good," Larry replied.
Liz looked at them for a moment. "Are you guys here for the Crash Festival?"
"Yeah, can't wait!" Jennifer exclaimed. She narrowed her eyes and studied Liz carefully. "So...does your family come from Roswell?"
Liz bit back the urge to grin. She just loved anxious tourists. "Just four generations," she replied matter-of-factly.
"Uh, well, does anyone in your family have stories about the UFO crash?" Larry asked, peering at her through his dark-lined glasses.
Liz stifled the urge to laugh. She pulled a photo out of her apron and held it out for them. "Well, I guess it would be okay to show you guys this," she said slowly. Maria leaned over their shoulders for a moment, looking at the photograph and shaking her head at Liz, grinning. Liz fought the urge to grin back. Some tourists were so gulliable.
She turned her attention back to Larry and Jennifer. "My grandmother took this picture at the crash sight right before the government cleaned it up."
"Do people know about this photograph?" Jennifer demanded, looking from the picture to Liz.
"Well, I know about it...and now, you know about it."
"Whoa!" Jennifer exclaimed.
"Wow!" Larry said in awe.
That was it. Liz couldn't take anymore. "I'll be right back. Don't show that to anyone," she warned them. Man, if her dad caught her right now, she'd be in trouble.
"No..." Jennifer agreed.
She walked around to the counter, meeting Maria on the way back. Maria shook her head with a wide grin on her face. "You are sooo bad, girl. Oh, and Max Evans is staring at you again."
Liz's eyes widened. Max was here and she hadn't noticed? "No way! Maria, that is so in your imagination." Maria had been trying to convince her for the past month that Max had a crush on her.
Liz turned to look over where Max was sitting with his best friend, Michael Guerin. Max met her gaze for a very brief second, and then turned his attention back to Michael. "Max Evans?" Liz repeated, turning back to Maria and throwing her thumb towards the mysterious sophomore. Then she pointed to herself. "This? No, un-uh...it's not..."
Maria smiled and pinched her cheeks. "And with those cheeks...." Maria rattled off something in Spanish that Liz didn't understand.
"Maria!" she exclaimed, shaking her head. She leaned against the counter for a moment. "And, and even if it weren't, I'm going out with Kyle. I mean, he's steady and loyal...and he appreciates me." Okay, so maybe it wasn't completely true, but it sounded good.
"Sounds like you're describing a poodle," Maria commented, grabbing two plates of food and heading back to the floor.
Liz stared after her for a moment, sighing.
"You ask me to give you another day? You're running out of time!" an angry voice shouted from a table. Liz looked up in time to see several dishes fly off his table and shatter on the floor.
"Liz!" Maria screamed.
"I want the money today! Not tomorrow!" the man shouted, standing up. The man sitting across from him stood up as well, and the other man drew a gun.
There were screams from throughout the cafe, as people dropped to the floor. Liz's eyes widened in horror as they locked on the gun. She couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe.
Oh, my God! she thought. A shot exploded through the air. Liz felt a searing pain in her stomach, but she couldn't cry out, couldn't scream. She hit the floor hard and felt warmth soaking into her uniform. Blood.
I'm going to die, she realized, her heart racing.
Visions of Maria, Alex, her grandmother Claudia and her parents flashed through her mind. Then everything grew dark.
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Max sucked in a breath. Jesus! He glanced at the other customers and then to the men, who took off out the door of the cafe.
He saw Maria crawling on her hands and knees on the floor, looking towards the counter. "Liz!" she cried, her voice cracking.
Max moved his eyes to see where she was looking. Liz was lying on the floor, partially hidden behind the counter. His heart nearly thumped out of his chest as he pushed himself off the booth seat and stood up. Michael grabbed his arm. He glared at him. "What are you doing? Let go of me!" he commanded.
Michael shook his head. "Max, what are you gonna do?" he demanded.
Max jerked his arm away from him. Maria had gotten to her feet, as well, and was hurrying towards the counter. Max grabbed her shoulders and shoved her away. "Call an ambulance!"
He moved around the counter and looked down at her in horror. She was unconscious, a blood stain growing on her waitress uniform. He quickly knelt down beside her and grasped the buttons of her uniform, tearing it open. "Oh...It's gonna be okay," he whispered to her.
I won't let you die, he thought.
"Oh, my God!" he heard someone exclaim.
He turned to look in time to see Michael grab the blond tourist and her boyfriend and shove them behind him. "Hey, get back!" he shouted.
Max turned back to Liz. He put one hand under her head, and said softly, "Liz! Liz, you have to look at me."
Her eyes opened slightly--just enough. Max placed his hand over the gunshot wound in her stomach.
Images burst in his mind.
Liz, a young child, wearing a red cupcake dress, looking miserable.
Liz, jumping rope with a friend.
Liz, playing a game with Maria in front of Roswell Elementary.
He and Isabel, stepping off the bus hand-in-hand the first day of school.
Max and Liz staring at one another a moment later.
The images stopped and he blinked, breathing in deeply. He looked down at her stomach. The wound was gone, but the blood still stained her stomach and uniform.
She'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'salive...
Max drew in another deep breath and then looked into her eyes. He leaned closer, he could literally feel her terror. Their eyes locked. "You're all right now," Max whispered, staring into her deep brown eyes. He could feel her trembling beneath him. "You're all right," he repeated in a soothing voice.
"Keys! Now!" Michael shouted from behind him.
Max blinked in awareness, reached into his jeans pockets and tossed the keys to Michael, who took off out of the cafe.
Max thought quickly and reached up to the shelf just above Liz's head. He grabbed the bottle of ketchup there, broke it open and poured it on her dress and stomach. "You broke the bottle when you fell. You spilled ketchup on yourself. Don't say anything, please," he urged quietly, rising to his feet and backing away.
Liz stared after him, grabbing her uniform closed and stood up. He reached the exit of the Crashdown and turned to look one last night, needing the last bit of reassurance that she was all right. Their eyes locked once again, briefly. Then he pushed the door open and hopped into the passenger side of the jeep as Michael pulled up. Then he was gone.
"Are you okay?" Maria asked, her voice shaking.
Liz blinked, swallowed hard, tried to think. Max had saved her somehow. She'd been shot, she had almost died, but Max brought her back. The gunshot wound was gone. The pain had disappeared. But how?
"Liz?" Maria repeated fearfully.
She drew in a deep breath. Max's voice echoed in her head. "Don't say anything, please!" He'd sounded so urgent. "I'm okay," she said finally, looking at Maria with what she hoped was a convincing facade. "I just..." She glanced back over to where she'd been lying on the ground seconds ago, and saw the broken ketchup bottle and red stains on the floor. "I broke a bottle of ketchup on myself," she said, motioning to the bottle.
"Oh, thank God!" Maria hugged her, not caring if her uniform got ketchup stains on it or not.
Liz hugged her back, greatful to be leaning against her for support. She wasn't sure she'd be able to stand on her own feet alone right then.
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Liz was relieved when she'd finally escaped to her bedroom an hour later. She walked over to the mirror. She stared down at her stained uniform. Thank God no one had looked closely. Because you could definitely make out traces of blood under the blobs of ketchup.
She swallowed hard as she reached down and ran her index finger through the hole in her dress. The bullet hole, she thought. She shuddered and quickly pulled the uniform off. What was she going to do with it? It was stained in blood, ketchup and had a bullet hole in it...if anyone saw it, they'd put two and two together and realize she had been shot.
But how was that even possible? How could Max heal a bullet wound? She spotted her book bag on her bed and quickly stuffed the dress inside. Then she walked slowly over to the mirror, her hands resting on her stomach. When she moved them, her eyes widened. There was a silver handprint on her abdomen. She gasped and turned away from the mirror.
"I'm just seeing things. I'm losing my mind," she said aloud. She turned around and looked in the mirror again. The print was still there.
I got shot today. I almost died, she thought, suddenly overwhelmed by nausea. She backed into her bathroom just in time to raise the toliet seat before she got sick.
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Max lay awake that night, terror gripping him. He thought about what he had done, he thought about how Liz had almost died...and he shuddered.
Michael had freaked out, as expected. He yelled all kinds of obscenities at him before he went home that evening. Thank God Isabel hadn't been home.
Isabel.
How was he going to explain this to her? She'd be furious. Izzy didn't usually lose her cool unless something really bad happened, but Max was pretty sure this qualified as something big.
"What if she tells someone? What if someone saw?" Michael had shouted.
"She won't tell anyone, Michael. And you pushed everyone back, no one saw anything," Max had replied, trying to remain calm.
Staying calm was hard to do when someone you loved was nearly killed. Max focused his thoughts on Liz.
He wondered if she was okay. Of course she's not okay. She nearly died today. Hell, I'm not even okay, and I'm not the one who got shot, he thought.
Right now he wasn't worried about her telling anyone else. If she had told someone, the police would have shown up by now, so Max was positive she'd done as he'd asked.
He dreaded the next day. Liz was his lab partner. She would be there in class, he knew that without a second thought. She never missed class unless she was really ill. She was going to have questions...A lot of them.
Max rolled onto his side and stared at the clock which read 10:13. He blinked and stared into the darkness of his room. He'd known for awhile now that he was going to tell her the truth about who he was one day, he just didn't expect it to happen this soon.
An image of Liz, lying on the floor of the Crashdown, pale, unconscious and near-death flashed into his mind and he sat straight up in bed, feeling ill.
"She's okay," he whispered aloud to himself.
And for the first time in his entire life, Max was thankful that he wasn't just an average teenage boy.
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Liz tried to focus on what Ms. Hardy was saying that morning in biology, but she couldn't do it. The only thing running through her mind was that Max hadn't shown up to class yet. What did that mean? Had he run away? Was he avoiding her? She needed to see him more than anything else. She needed to look at him, to see that he was alive, just to confirm that she really was, too.
Liz blinked and acted like she was paying attention as her biology teacher explained the lab they'd be doing that day. Her heart was aching. Where is he? she wondered, pained.
She'd lain awake all night last night, unable to erase the image of Max kneeling over her, the feel of his hand on her stomach, the sound of his voice as he told her that she was all right. He'd leaned in so closely to her for a moment, that Liz thought he was going to kiss her. She blinked and snapped back to attention when the door to the biology room opened.
Liz whirled around in her seat to see him. Thank God! she thought, swallowing hard. He met her gaze, but only for a second. He stuck a pencil in his mouth and sat down beside her, flipping through his biology text book.
"Mr. Evans, so nice of you to join us," Ms. Hardy commented, giving him a dirty look. Max looked away. "Okay, everyone on the right prepare a slide with the vegetable sampling, everyone on the left, take a toothpick and get a sample from your cheek."
Max froze for a moment. He swallowed hard again and shifted his eyes to look at Liz, who was also frozen. Then he took the pencil out of his mouth, set it down on the lab table and stood up.
"Mr. Evans?" Ms. Hardy questioned.
"Could I get a bathroom pass?"
Liz stared at him, unmoving.
"High maintenance today, aren't we?" Ms. Hardy commented as she handed him the slip of cardboard and Max took off out the door.
Liz closed her eyes for a brief moment and then took the toothpick Ms. Hardy handed her. She swabbed the inside of her cheek with it and brushed it onto the slide as Ms. Hardy continued talking. "It's very easy to look on the outside and say what differentiates humans from other species. But what about what's on the inside? Everyone, look at the human cells and describe everything you see on your lab sheet."
Liz looked through the microscope at her cells. Then she backed away from it, her gaze dropping to Max's pencil. She swallowed hard, feeling like what she was about to do was an incredible invasion of privacey. She reached for the pencil and scraped it against a slide. Then she looked through the microscope at Max's cells. Her eyes widened.
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Never in her life had Liz Parker been so greatful for a class to be over with. She raced from the room out into the hallway. She spotted Max just a few feet in front of her. "Max! Max!" she said loudly. He didn't turn around. She pushed her way through the flood of students. "Excuse me, excuse me!" She finally caught up to him. "Max!" She grabbed his arm gently. "I have to talk to you!"
Max swallowed hard and glanced down at her hand on his arm. Then he followed her into the bandroom. He saw a figure in the back of the room beating on the drums.
"Kyle!" Liz exclaimed. She took a deep breath as he turned around to see her.
"Hey!"
"Hey!" she repeated, hoping her voice didn't sound half as nervous as she felt.
"Hey, Max," Kyle said coolly.
"Hey," Max said, shifting uncomfortably.
"So'd you get my message?" Kyle asked, stepping towards her.
"Oh...Yeah, I did. I was, uh, just a little..."
"Shaken up?"
Liz nodded and forced a smile. "That's what I was."
Kyle glanced past her to Max. "I know. My dad told me about the gun going off. You okay?"
"Oh, yeah, I am. It was just loud and then it was over," Liz lied.
"So you guys are--?" he questioned.
"Um, we're looking for a place...to study...for our bio midterm," she answered, nodding.
"Oh. Right. Right, okay, biology. All right. I was leaving anyway," Kyle said as he walked toward the door. Max moved out of his way, and walked to the other side of the room.
"Great. Um, that's good," Liz replied.
Suddenly, Kyle spun around to face her. "Oh, I got my costume for the Crash this Friday. It's great--"
Just leave, she thought in frustration. She had to shut him up. She needed to talk to Max, and one look at him told her that he was already very uncomfortable. "Kyle, we've got to study," she interruped him. "Sorry."
"Right. See ya, Max."
Max just nodded as Kyle left the room, leaving him and Liz alone together. "So...You're going out with the Sheriff's son?" he said quietly.
Liz heard something in his voice...hurt? Disappointment? She wasn't sure, but she didn't want him to think that she and Kyle were serious or something. "Um, yeah. Well, it's kind of like this...this casual...." Liz shook herself mentally. This was all wrong. They were getting way off track here. She took a deep breath and turned to face him. "Okay, Max, can we just focus here for one minute, please?"
Max nodded and set his books down on a stool. When he looked at her again, Liz was sliding her shirt up her stomach. He froze, his breath caught in his throat, his eyes wide. What was she doing? That was when he saw it. A single, silver handprint on the flat, smooth skin of her abdomen. "Wow," he whispered. That had never happened before. Of course, the only other healing's he had done were on were just minor things, like cuts and bruises.
"Um, I-I scraped some cells from your pencil. This is really hard to say," Liz said softly, setting her books and bookbag down on a desk. "I'm trying very hard to keep from blacking out here. Um, the cells weren't normal. So, Max, what I'm going to suggest to you is that we just go back to the bio lab now, so that I can take a sample so that I can see what I'm thinking is wrong, you know? That I got the wrong cells."
Max looked up, met her eyes. "You didn't."
Liz swallowed hard. "Okay. Um, so...help me out here, Max. I mean...What are you?" She stared at him, her heart pounding so fast she felt like it might explode.
"Well, I'm not from around here," Max said softly.
She nodded slightly, her gaze unwavering. "Where are you from?"
This is it, he thought. He met her gaze slowly and raised his index finger, pointing skyward.
Liz watched as he did so, his entire presence being illuminated by the sun beams from the sky lights above him. It was almost like he was...glowing...like an angel. "Up north," she said.
Max pointed higher and Liz's eyes followed in the direction he was pointing. She suddenly remembered just a couple weeks ago, when they'd been on that biology campout under the stars, observing constellations.
"What if...someone you'd known for a really long time told you this huge secret that this person hadn't told anyone else?"
Her eyebrows furrowed. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"I mean, say this secret was like, really huge. Something that could change everything--the way you saw the person. What would you do if you found out that someone you thought you knew was really completely different than who you thought they were?"
Liz swallowed hard.
"Do you ever wonder if there's something else out there?" he had ventured carefully.
"Like--?"
"I don't know. Aliens or something."
It all fell into place. His cells were different. He'd healed a gunshot wound that she would certainly have died from. Liz knew the truth without asking. But she did it anyway. "You're not an...an alien...I mean, are you?"
"Well, I prefer the term not of this earth." Liz's eyes widened and when he saw her reaction, he quickly added, "Sorry. It's not a good time to joke." He swallowed hard and met her gaze again. "Yeah, I am. Wow. It's weird to actually say it."
Liz blinked rapidly. Max is an alien. I was shot. Max saved my life. I almost died. Her thoughts swirled around in her head. She suddenly felt like she was being suffocated. She needed air. She grabbed her books and bookbag and headed straight for the door.
"Liz--" Max started, his voice full of fear.
She shook her head. "Um, Max, you know, I have, I'm gonna be late for my U.S. government class, so I'm just gonna--" She'd reached the door when Max stopped her from opening it. He leaned against it, staring at her intently. She couldn't meet his eyes. Not right now. She always got lost when she looked into Max's eyes, and right now, she just needed time to think. She could hardly breathe.
"Liz, listen to me," Max said urgently. "You can't talk to anyone about this. Not your parents, not Maria. No one. You don't understand what'll happen if you do. Liz, please," he whispered. She finally looked up at him, and their eyes locked.
Liz's heart thudded in her chest. God, he looked so terrified. Of her? The thought almost killed her.
"Now my life is in your hands," he said quietly.
The words froze her for a moment. Max had saved her life. If she told anyone...she didn't want to think about the consequences. An image of Max, captured in some biology lab, about to be dissected flashed through her mind. It was enough to send her out the door of the bandroom, running down the hallway. She raced out the doors onto the courtyard of the school, gulping in breaths of fresh air. She just had to think. Had to have time to process. Then she'd figure out what to do.
Email: faithboscorelli1@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Not mine. The dialogue and scenes that you don't recognize are mine, the rest belongs to Jason Katims, the WB, Melinda Metz...etc, etc, etc...Don't sue. The song "Fear" is by the goddess of music, Sarah McLachlan, and appears on her albums, "Fumbling Towards Ecstacy," and "Mirrorball." One comment~ when "Fear" was played during the Pilot of Roswell, at the end of the episode, it credited the version as being the one on "Mirrorball," which is inaccurate. The version played in the Pilot is actually from, "Fumbling Towards Ecstacy." "Mirrorball" is Sarah's live album.
Rating: R for violence, language and situations
Author's Note: This is the eigth story of my "Before I Knew You" series. I'd read the other seven first.
Spoilers: Pilot and for the rest of my series.
"But I fear
I have nothing to give
I have so much to lose
Here in this lonely place
Tangled up in our embrace
There's nothing I'd like better
Than to fall
But I fear
I have nothing to give..."
-Sarah McLachlan, "Fear"
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Fear (Part One)
"Okay, I have got one Sigourney Weaver, that's for you. And one Will Smith. Can I get you guys anything else? Green Martian shake? Blood of alien smoothie?" Liz asked the two tourists at her table.
"No, thanks. We're good," Larry replied.
Liz looked at them for a moment. "Are you guys here for the Crash Festival?"
"Yeah, can't wait!" Jennifer exclaimed. She narrowed her eyes and studied Liz carefully. "So...does your family come from Roswell?"
Liz bit back the urge to grin. She just loved anxious tourists. "Just four generations," she replied matter-of-factly.
"Uh, well, does anyone in your family have stories about the UFO crash?" Larry asked, peering at her through his dark-lined glasses.
Liz stifled the urge to laugh. She pulled a photo out of her apron and held it out for them. "Well, I guess it would be okay to show you guys this," she said slowly. Maria leaned over their shoulders for a moment, looking at the photograph and shaking her head at Liz, grinning. Liz fought the urge to grin back. Some tourists were so gulliable.
She turned her attention back to Larry and Jennifer. "My grandmother took this picture at the crash sight right before the government cleaned it up."
"Do people know about this photograph?" Jennifer demanded, looking from the picture to Liz.
"Well, I know about it...and now, you know about it."
"Whoa!" Jennifer exclaimed.
"Wow!" Larry said in awe.
That was it. Liz couldn't take anymore. "I'll be right back. Don't show that to anyone," she warned them. Man, if her dad caught her right now, she'd be in trouble.
"No..." Jennifer agreed.
She walked around to the counter, meeting Maria on the way back. Maria shook her head with a wide grin on her face. "You are sooo bad, girl. Oh, and Max Evans is staring at you again."
Liz's eyes widened. Max was here and she hadn't noticed? "No way! Maria, that is so in your imagination." Maria had been trying to convince her for the past month that Max had a crush on her.
Liz turned to look over where Max was sitting with his best friend, Michael Guerin. Max met her gaze for a very brief second, and then turned his attention back to Michael. "Max Evans?" Liz repeated, turning back to Maria and throwing her thumb towards the mysterious sophomore. Then she pointed to herself. "This? No, un-uh...it's not..."
Maria smiled and pinched her cheeks. "And with those cheeks...." Maria rattled off something in Spanish that Liz didn't understand.
"Maria!" she exclaimed, shaking her head. She leaned against the counter for a moment. "And, and even if it weren't, I'm going out with Kyle. I mean, he's steady and loyal...and he appreciates me." Okay, so maybe it wasn't completely true, but it sounded good.
"Sounds like you're describing a poodle," Maria commented, grabbing two plates of food and heading back to the floor.
Liz stared after her for a moment, sighing.
"You ask me to give you another day? You're running out of time!" an angry voice shouted from a table. Liz looked up in time to see several dishes fly off his table and shatter on the floor.
"Liz!" Maria screamed.
"I want the money today! Not tomorrow!" the man shouted, standing up. The man sitting across from him stood up as well, and the other man drew a gun.
There were screams from throughout the cafe, as people dropped to the floor. Liz's eyes widened in horror as they locked on the gun. She couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe.
Oh, my God! she thought. A shot exploded through the air. Liz felt a searing pain in her stomach, but she couldn't cry out, couldn't scream. She hit the floor hard and felt warmth soaking into her uniform. Blood.
I'm going to die, she realized, her heart racing.
Visions of Maria, Alex, her grandmother Claudia and her parents flashed through her mind. Then everything grew dark.
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Max sucked in a breath. Jesus! He glanced at the other customers and then to the men, who took off out the door of the cafe.
He saw Maria crawling on her hands and knees on the floor, looking towards the counter. "Liz!" she cried, her voice cracking.
Max moved his eyes to see where she was looking. Liz was lying on the floor, partially hidden behind the counter. His heart nearly thumped out of his chest as he pushed himself off the booth seat and stood up. Michael grabbed his arm. He glared at him. "What are you doing? Let go of me!" he commanded.
Michael shook his head. "Max, what are you gonna do?" he demanded.
Max jerked his arm away from him. Maria had gotten to her feet, as well, and was hurrying towards the counter. Max grabbed her shoulders and shoved her away. "Call an ambulance!"
He moved around the counter and looked down at her in horror. She was unconscious, a blood stain growing on her waitress uniform. He quickly knelt down beside her and grasped the buttons of her uniform, tearing it open. "Oh...It's gonna be okay," he whispered to her.
I won't let you die, he thought.
"Oh, my God!" he heard someone exclaim.
He turned to look in time to see Michael grab the blond tourist and her boyfriend and shove them behind him. "Hey, get back!" he shouted.
Max turned back to Liz. He put one hand under her head, and said softly, "Liz! Liz, you have to look at me."
Her eyes opened slightly--just enough. Max placed his hand over the gunshot wound in her stomach.
Images burst in his mind.
Liz, a young child, wearing a red cupcake dress, looking miserable.
Liz, jumping rope with a friend.
Liz, playing a game with Maria in front of Roswell Elementary.
He and Isabel, stepping off the bus hand-in-hand the first day of school.
Max and Liz staring at one another a moment later.
The images stopped and he blinked, breathing in deeply. He looked down at her stomach. The wound was gone, but the blood still stained her stomach and uniform.
She'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'saliveshe'salive...
Max drew in another deep breath and then looked into her eyes. He leaned closer, he could literally feel her terror. Their eyes locked. "You're all right now," Max whispered, staring into her deep brown eyes. He could feel her trembling beneath him. "You're all right," he repeated in a soothing voice.
"Keys! Now!" Michael shouted from behind him.
Max blinked in awareness, reached into his jeans pockets and tossed the keys to Michael, who took off out of the cafe.
Max thought quickly and reached up to the shelf just above Liz's head. He grabbed the bottle of ketchup there, broke it open and poured it on her dress and stomach. "You broke the bottle when you fell. You spilled ketchup on yourself. Don't say anything, please," he urged quietly, rising to his feet and backing away.
Liz stared after him, grabbing her uniform closed and stood up. He reached the exit of the Crashdown and turned to look one last night, needing the last bit of reassurance that she was all right. Their eyes locked once again, briefly. Then he pushed the door open and hopped into the passenger side of the jeep as Michael pulled up. Then he was gone.
"Are you okay?" Maria asked, her voice shaking.
Liz blinked, swallowed hard, tried to think. Max had saved her somehow. She'd been shot, she had almost died, but Max brought her back. The gunshot wound was gone. The pain had disappeared. But how?
"Liz?" Maria repeated fearfully.
She drew in a deep breath. Max's voice echoed in her head. "Don't say anything, please!" He'd sounded so urgent. "I'm okay," she said finally, looking at Maria with what she hoped was a convincing facade. "I just..." She glanced back over to where she'd been lying on the ground seconds ago, and saw the broken ketchup bottle and red stains on the floor. "I broke a bottle of ketchup on myself," she said, motioning to the bottle.
"Oh, thank God!" Maria hugged her, not caring if her uniform got ketchup stains on it or not.
Liz hugged her back, greatful to be leaning against her for support. She wasn't sure she'd be able to stand on her own feet alone right then.
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Liz was relieved when she'd finally escaped to her bedroom an hour later. She walked over to the mirror. She stared down at her stained uniform. Thank God no one had looked closely. Because you could definitely make out traces of blood under the blobs of ketchup.
She swallowed hard as she reached down and ran her index finger through the hole in her dress. The bullet hole, she thought. She shuddered and quickly pulled the uniform off. What was she going to do with it? It was stained in blood, ketchup and had a bullet hole in it...if anyone saw it, they'd put two and two together and realize she had been shot.
But how was that even possible? How could Max heal a bullet wound? She spotted her book bag on her bed and quickly stuffed the dress inside. Then she walked slowly over to the mirror, her hands resting on her stomach. When she moved them, her eyes widened. There was a silver handprint on her abdomen. She gasped and turned away from the mirror.
"I'm just seeing things. I'm losing my mind," she said aloud. She turned around and looked in the mirror again. The print was still there.
I got shot today. I almost died, she thought, suddenly overwhelmed by nausea. She backed into her bathroom just in time to raise the toliet seat before she got sick.
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Max lay awake that night, terror gripping him. He thought about what he had done, he thought about how Liz had almost died...and he shuddered.
Michael had freaked out, as expected. He yelled all kinds of obscenities at him before he went home that evening. Thank God Isabel hadn't been home.
Isabel.
How was he going to explain this to her? She'd be furious. Izzy didn't usually lose her cool unless something really bad happened, but Max was pretty sure this qualified as something big.
"What if she tells someone? What if someone saw?" Michael had shouted.
"She won't tell anyone, Michael. And you pushed everyone back, no one saw anything," Max had replied, trying to remain calm.
Staying calm was hard to do when someone you loved was nearly killed. Max focused his thoughts on Liz.
He wondered if she was okay. Of course she's not okay. She nearly died today. Hell, I'm not even okay, and I'm not the one who got shot, he thought.
Right now he wasn't worried about her telling anyone else. If she had told someone, the police would have shown up by now, so Max was positive she'd done as he'd asked.
He dreaded the next day. Liz was his lab partner. She would be there in class, he knew that without a second thought. She never missed class unless she was really ill. She was going to have questions...A lot of them.
Max rolled onto his side and stared at the clock which read 10:13. He blinked and stared into the darkness of his room. He'd known for awhile now that he was going to tell her the truth about who he was one day, he just didn't expect it to happen this soon.
An image of Liz, lying on the floor of the Crashdown, pale, unconscious and near-death flashed into his mind and he sat straight up in bed, feeling ill.
"She's okay," he whispered aloud to himself.
And for the first time in his entire life, Max was thankful that he wasn't just an average teenage boy.
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Liz tried to focus on what Ms. Hardy was saying that morning in biology, but she couldn't do it. The only thing running through her mind was that Max hadn't shown up to class yet. What did that mean? Had he run away? Was he avoiding her? She needed to see him more than anything else. She needed to look at him, to see that he was alive, just to confirm that she really was, too.
Liz blinked and acted like she was paying attention as her biology teacher explained the lab they'd be doing that day. Her heart was aching. Where is he? she wondered, pained.
She'd lain awake all night last night, unable to erase the image of Max kneeling over her, the feel of his hand on her stomach, the sound of his voice as he told her that she was all right. He'd leaned in so closely to her for a moment, that Liz thought he was going to kiss her. She blinked and snapped back to attention when the door to the biology room opened.
Liz whirled around in her seat to see him. Thank God! she thought, swallowing hard. He met her gaze, but only for a second. He stuck a pencil in his mouth and sat down beside her, flipping through his biology text book.
"Mr. Evans, so nice of you to join us," Ms. Hardy commented, giving him a dirty look. Max looked away. "Okay, everyone on the right prepare a slide with the vegetable sampling, everyone on the left, take a toothpick and get a sample from your cheek."
Max froze for a moment. He swallowed hard again and shifted his eyes to look at Liz, who was also frozen. Then he took the pencil out of his mouth, set it down on the lab table and stood up.
"Mr. Evans?" Ms. Hardy questioned.
"Could I get a bathroom pass?"
Liz stared at him, unmoving.
"High maintenance today, aren't we?" Ms. Hardy commented as she handed him the slip of cardboard and Max took off out the door.
Liz closed her eyes for a brief moment and then took the toothpick Ms. Hardy handed her. She swabbed the inside of her cheek with it and brushed it onto the slide as Ms. Hardy continued talking. "It's very easy to look on the outside and say what differentiates humans from other species. But what about what's on the inside? Everyone, look at the human cells and describe everything you see on your lab sheet."
Liz looked through the microscope at her cells. Then she backed away from it, her gaze dropping to Max's pencil. She swallowed hard, feeling like what she was about to do was an incredible invasion of privacey. She reached for the pencil and scraped it against a slide. Then she looked through the microscope at Max's cells. Her eyes widened.
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Never in her life had Liz Parker been so greatful for a class to be over with. She raced from the room out into the hallway. She spotted Max just a few feet in front of her. "Max! Max!" she said loudly. He didn't turn around. She pushed her way through the flood of students. "Excuse me, excuse me!" She finally caught up to him. "Max!" She grabbed his arm gently. "I have to talk to you!"
Max swallowed hard and glanced down at her hand on his arm. Then he followed her into the bandroom. He saw a figure in the back of the room beating on the drums.
"Kyle!" Liz exclaimed. She took a deep breath as he turned around to see her.
"Hey!"
"Hey!" she repeated, hoping her voice didn't sound half as nervous as she felt.
"Hey, Max," Kyle said coolly.
"Hey," Max said, shifting uncomfortably.
"So'd you get my message?" Kyle asked, stepping towards her.
"Oh...Yeah, I did. I was, uh, just a little..."
"Shaken up?"
Liz nodded and forced a smile. "That's what I was."
Kyle glanced past her to Max. "I know. My dad told me about the gun going off. You okay?"
"Oh, yeah, I am. It was just loud and then it was over," Liz lied.
"So you guys are--?" he questioned.
"Um, we're looking for a place...to study...for our bio midterm," she answered, nodding.
"Oh. Right. Right, okay, biology. All right. I was leaving anyway," Kyle said as he walked toward the door. Max moved out of his way, and walked to the other side of the room.
"Great. Um, that's good," Liz replied.
Suddenly, Kyle spun around to face her. "Oh, I got my costume for the Crash this Friday. It's great--"
Just leave, she thought in frustration. She had to shut him up. She needed to talk to Max, and one look at him told her that he was already very uncomfortable. "Kyle, we've got to study," she interruped him. "Sorry."
"Right. See ya, Max."
Max just nodded as Kyle left the room, leaving him and Liz alone together. "So...You're going out with the Sheriff's son?" he said quietly.
Liz heard something in his voice...hurt? Disappointment? She wasn't sure, but she didn't want him to think that she and Kyle were serious or something. "Um, yeah. Well, it's kind of like this...this casual...." Liz shook herself mentally. This was all wrong. They were getting way off track here. She took a deep breath and turned to face him. "Okay, Max, can we just focus here for one minute, please?"
Max nodded and set his books down on a stool. When he looked at her again, Liz was sliding her shirt up her stomach. He froze, his breath caught in his throat, his eyes wide. What was she doing? That was when he saw it. A single, silver handprint on the flat, smooth skin of her abdomen. "Wow," he whispered. That had never happened before. Of course, the only other healing's he had done were on were just minor things, like cuts and bruises.
"Um, I-I scraped some cells from your pencil. This is really hard to say," Liz said softly, setting her books and bookbag down on a desk. "I'm trying very hard to keep from blacking out here. Um, the cells weren't normal. So, Max, what I'm going to suggest to you is that we just go back to the bio lab now, so that I can take a sample so that I can see what I'm thinking is wrong, you know? That I got the wrong cells."
Max looked up, met her eyes. "You didn't."
Liz swallowed hard. "Okay. Um, so...help me out here, Max. I mean...What are you?" She stared at him, her heart pounding so fast she felt like it might explode.
"Well, I'm not from around here," Max said softly.
She nodded slightly, her gaze unwavering. "Where are you from?"
This is it, he thought. He met her gaze slowly and raised his index finger, pointing skyward.
Liz watched as he did so, his entire presence being illuminated by the sun beams from the sky lights above him. It was almost like he was...glowing...like an angel. "Up north," she said.
Max pointed higher and Liz's eyes followed in the direction he was pointing. She suddenly remembered just a couple weeks ago, when they'd been on that biology campout under the stars, observing constellations.
"What if...someone you'd known for a really long time told you this huge secret that this person hadn't told anyone else?"
Her eyebrows furrowed. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."
"I mean, say this secret was like, really huge. Something that could change everything--the way you saw the person. What would you do if you found out that someone you thought you knew was really completely different than who you thought they were?"
Liz swallowed hard.
"Do you ever wonder if there's something else out there?" he had ventured carefully.
"Like--?"
"I don't know. Aliens or something."
It all fell into place. His cells were different. He'd healed a gunshot wound that she would certainly have died from. Liz knew the truth without asking. But she did it anyway. "You're not an...an alien...I mean, are you?"
"Well, I prefer the term not of this earth." Liz's eyes widened and when he saw her reaction, he quickly added, "Sorry. It's not a good time to joke." He swallowed hard and met her gaze again. "Yeah, I am. Wow. It's weird to actually say it."
Liz blinked rapidly. Max is an alien. I was shot. Max saved my life. I almost died. Her thoughts swirled around in her head. She suddenly felt like she was being suffocated. She needed air. She grabbed her books and bookbag and headed straight for the door.
"Liz--" Max started, his voice full of fear.
She shook her head. "Um, Max, you know, I have, I'm gonna be late for my U.S. government class, so I'm just gonna--" She'd reached the door when Max stopped her from opening it. He leaned against it, staring at her intently. She couldn't meet his eyes. Not right now. She always got lost when she looked into Max's eyes, and right now, she just needed time to think. She could hardly breathe.
"Liz, listen to me," Max said urgently. "You can't talk to anyone about this. Not your parents, not Maria. No one. You don't understand what'll happen if you do. Liz, please," he whispered. She finally looked up at him, and their eyes locked.
Liz's heart thudded in her chest. God, he looked so terrified. Of her? The thought almost killed her.
"Now my life is in your hands," he said quietly.
The words froze her for a moment. Max had saved her life. If she told anyone...she didn't want to think about the consequences. An image of Max, captured in some biology lab, about to be dissected flashed through her mind. It was enough to send her out the door of the bandroom, running down the hallway. She raced out the doors onto the courtyard of the school, gulping in breaths of fresh air. She just had to think. Had to have time to process. Then she'd figure out what to do.