NOTE: This chapter is inspired by a episode we all know so well, Chant Down Babylon of the original Roswell. It's a ode to the episode, given in my canon for the story, it didn't exactly happened due to Max was off... So I had to bring it to Max and Liz... in my own way... So enjoy.
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“Where is he?” Liz asked in a fearful tone as the party atmosphere had changed drastically as the gathering shut down as they all faced Serena looking drastically different from the women some of them had known in Los Angeles. Kyle and Amy had left to drive the other kids home. Isabel stayed and fretted while Jim was seeking answers while Bella could only stare at Serena, and she knew…
“Dad…” Bella asked fearful for her biological father as she looked at her mother who stood frozen. “He’s hurt, isn’t he…”
“Yes,” Serena softly. “You have to come” she murmured to both Liz and Michael. “I don’t know what is happening, but Max says he needs you both…
He wouldn’t stop calling for you Liz. And Michael, all he said was to find you… before the end comes…”
Moans of “No…” came through out the room as Phillip and Diane looked on in horror as Michael sprang into action because every sense in his core knew this was bad… Max wouldn’t come to him otherwise.
“Where is our son?” Phillip demanded of the stranger as he held his wife’s hand as she fought for composure. “Who are you?”
Realizing Serena was a stranger for her parents, she knew she had to make some introductions. “Dad, this is Serena Franklin… She is Max’s partner back in Los Angeles.” Isabel said lightly introducing her parents to Serena. “Serena, this are Max and I’s parents; Phillip and Diane Evans.”
“I wish this was in better circumstances” Serena sighed as he looked at a frozen Liz and irritated Michael and knew she was scaring everyone to death as she tried to do this without the necessary questions. Time was blood she knew. “We have to go. I don’t know how much more time we have… or if we will be too late.”
“I am coming…” Isabel asked or demanded.
“No,” Michael said as he sensed this was a dangerous move because of the unknown and maybe even the known. “You need to think of the baby. Stay back. Tell Kyle when he gets back here. You go to your parent’s home and when I know something, I will call you there…”
“Call…” Isabel pleaded.
“I promise. Come on Liz.”
Yet Liz was frozen. She didn’t know what to do. It was Isabella’s pleas to her mother that made her come back to reality. “Mommy, please. Help Dad.”
“I am coming…” Liz nodded as her trance broke and the reality of the situation hit her. “Serena, what happened?”
“Max is dying…” Serena blurted to the horror of the room and knew she shouldn’t have said it, but she didn’t have any choice. It was the truth. “I can’t explain. I don’t know if you can help, but he needs to see you…”
“Go,” Maria demanded of her friend and husband. “I will take the kids back to our house unless I hear something differently, go” she insisted of her husband and Liz who was now almost a ghost.
Bella has tears coming down her face. “Mommy save Dad” she pleaded. “Save Max” she pleaded as she watched her mother leave the restaurant with her Uncle Michael. Serena tore out of there at the same time.
“What do you see?” Maria asked her goddaughter because she knew that the girl had been on edge about Max for weeks.
“All I know is my Dad needs Mommy. I don’t know if he’s going to come back to us. But he did it to protect me, and now the bad people are making him suffer” Bella said of the dreams she had been having for weeks but were crystalizing tonight with the truth.
“Daddy did this because of me and now we might lose him.”
“You won’t lose him,” Maria said as she hugged her god-daughter. “Whatever happens, nothing can really take separate your parents…”
*
Liz prayed Maria was telling the truth as she rode in Michael’s car in terror. Serena had ridden a motorcycle to the restaurant and now they drove together in a car so not make her presence known. She didn’t know if anyone was still alive. But she wasn’t taking any chances.
“What in the hell happened?” Michael asked to a terrified Serena. “We were told he was undercover. How on earth were you in the area, and we didn’t know.”
“We were undercover,” Serena insisted. “It was part of the plan, and it was going fine until tonight” she murmured as they drove. “Then it went all haywire and even still I would have kept you guys out of it which is the way Max wanted it done, but circumstances prevented it and you were my only hope.”
“Why?” Liz said as her voice cracked. “Why are we your only choice. Why couldn’t you take him to the hospital?” she asked even though she knew deep down the reason why, but still she felt like she had to give into the normal even if Max was nowhere near normal.
“Why Serena?” Michael demanded.
“Because for some reason he is radiating green energy, and he told me no doctors. No one official. Only you. Only Liz.”
“Sh@t” Michael groaned as Liz grew weak.
“Why me…” Liz asked. “I can’t do anything to help him…” she said weakly. “I can’t save him.”
“He loves you. He needed to see you one last time or, so I gather from his moaning and whispering your name. I don’t know what the hell is happening with him, but it’s very weird.”
“How did he get hurt?” Michael asked again. “Serena, this time tell me the truth…”
“He was shot three time…”
“Oh god,” Liz cried as she sat in the backseat of the car. “Why… I don’t understand.”
“We were trying to take down the ring that was behind Isabella’s and dozens of other kids’ disappearance…” she announced to a shocked Michael who could only look through the driver’s mirror at a pale Liz. “We discovered that Isabella was swept up in a human trafficking ring that targeted both women and children after being kidnapped under the direction of your ex Liz,” Serena said softly to the frightened ghost paleness of Liz’s face.
“She was taken to Los Angeles where she was traded off to Davidson. Many other children were taken in the same manner and suffered even more horrible circumstances or fates and of course once Max got wind of the ring, we had to stay in until the end… which was very bloody.”
“Oh god,” Liz whispered as she thought of how badly it had gone for her daughter, and to think it was all orchestrated by original ex-husband. “How bad was it?”
“Luckily Max saved the day and therefore a lot of kids and their older counterparts got saved but as a result he got shot in the shootout that commenced after a chase. The ring’s leadership is all dead as I got Max’s shooter but still, we don’t know if there is more…”
“Where was this?” Michael asked as he exchanged looks with a frozen Liz.
“Out in the desert… By some cliffs or something…” Serena said as she didn’t realize the significance of the area to both Michael and Liz. “I don’t know why, but the chase ended out there in the desert. Max told me it was fate,” Serena muttered. “I don’t know why he felt that…” But I tell you it’s close to town but nowhere near any help…”
“Because he knew it was where it was destined to end if it went bad…” Michael muttered as he again glanced Liz who could only nod in agreement.
She prayed they made it to Max in time. Serena could feel the tension in the car heightened and she didn’t know what was unspoken between Michael and Liz as Michael picked up the speed of his car as they sped towards to Max…
*
“Where is he?” Liz whispered as they got out of the car and walked to the last spot Serena had seen him. She glanced into the darkness of the night as the cliffs surrounded them. Hidden chambers they knew but Serena didn’t see them as chambers. Michael looked around the sandy atmosphere where they stood. “Where is he?” he demanded.
“I don’t know where he could have gone?” Serena said frozen in place. “I swear I left him here… I don’t know where he could have gone, as he was losing blood.”
“Max…” Liz gasped as she saw a trail of blood… “Michael look” she pointed at the trail away from them. Faint spots of blood but as it went and more and more blood was seeping into the sand. “Oh god…”
“Where did he go?” Serena wondered.
“I know…” Michael said as he followed the trail that Liz pointed him in and he knew where his friend had to be… “Knowing him, I know the place where he would like to die… out of eye sight of people and away from those who might hurt him.”
“The chamber…” Liz asked.
“Yeah,” Michael acknowledged.
“What chamber?” Serena asked confused by the tone in both voices as if this was all completely normal for them as both Michael and Liz took off in a run up the incline. She didn’t know where they were going, but she followed with a flashlight to show her the way.
“How do you know where you’re going?” Serena asked.
“Because I do…” Michael muttered.
“How do you know?” Serena asked of Liz when she realized she wasn’t the desired information out of Michael who was very close lipped. She was startled by the sense that Liz didn’t find this at all strange and almost expected it.
“Because I have been coming here since I was fifteen years old…” Liz muttered as they climbed and then stopped, and she gasped when she saw bloody handprint on the rock. “Michael, look…” she cried as Michael only groaned and grunted his displeasure.
“I don’t understand” asked a confused Serena.
“I hope to hell we can trust you…” Michael warned but knew they didn’t have a choice as he put his hand up and a silver handprint came through the rock, and sudden the rock opened, and a doorway was created. Serena gasped at the suddenness of it.
“You get used to it” Liz admitted, as she sensed Serena’s shock and saw her jaw drop.
“Max is in there…” Serena asked quietly as she comprehended what she was seeing with Michael.
“Yeah, the one place where he might want to die if he couldn’t be with Liz” Michael admitted.
“Why?” Serena asked.
“He was born here…” Liz sighed as she and Michael stepped into the chamber, and Serena followed but Liz could only turn and face her to give a warning. “Beware it’s going to be freaky in here…”
“How freaky…”
“It will be a world you would never have known existed,” Liz murmured as she thought of her discovery of the unknown. “It’s not going to be easy to understand if you even are even able to comprehend it” she thought as they walked a pathway marked with blood… “I have been trying since that day when I was fifteen, and some days it’s still foreign to me… so be careful…”
“Oh god,” Serena breathed as she felt the smallness of the chamber and yet it was bigger than it appeared.
“Max…” Liz gasped as she saw a figure on the floor of the chamber, still and passed out as she froze. “Please be alive, please be alive” she frantically whispered or chanted out loud as she rushed to the love of her life. As she knelt, she found him to be eerily cold. “Michael, he’s cold.”
Michael rushed over as he quickly assessed the surroundings and found them alone. Which was what they should have known, but he was relieved to know he wasn’t forced to bring someone else into the chamber. He saw the stiff and unconscious figure of his childhood best friend, with blood seeping on the chamber floor.
“Is he alive?” Michael asked sensing the fear in both Liz and Serena.
“Barely…” Liz whispered. “Come on Max, please… stay with us…” she pleaded with an unconscious.
“Let me see…” Michael said despite knowing there was very little he could do to save Max if he was really dying.
“God,” Liz muttered as she saw the bloody bandages. She moved her fingers down his body as flashes of better times, and their tender touches just a month ago. “Max…” she whispered. “What have they done to you…”
Michael took stock of Max’s condition and knew it was dire. He looked up at Serena who had tears coming down her face, as they both knew the truth. Touching the bandages while Liz took his hand, gripping his fingers. “Max, please…”
*
Max felt like he didn’t exist anymore. His body was no longer his as he felt like he was gliding. He looked down and saw Liz.
Oh god Liz he thought to himself. He also saw Michael and Serena. Serena had gotten to them, so he was pleased but knew it was too late. Liz was pleading with him to wake up and to hang on and he wished her could as he glided there and observed. Looking in front of his him, he saw a faint glimpse of someone familiar.
God no, if I am seeing you… that means…
“You are dead, sucker…” came taunting sounds that sounded like the voice of Tess.
Liz cried and pleaded for Max to open his eyes, but he couldn’t, as he felt like it was too late as he saw a vision of someone eying him.
Alex!
Unable to connect with him, he stayed and observed.
“Max…” Liz pleaded as she grabbed his hand and squeaked tight. “You’re not leaving me this easy, okay. We finally have a chance after ten years and you’re not dying on me.”
Max felt weaker…
“Max… think of Isabella.
Bella Max, she idolizes you and she was just getting to know you so don’t think you can die and let her lose you all over again when she has a chance to know you.”
Bella Max thought.
“I can’t lose you. Please don’t die, as you can’t lose me because I finally have a chance with you and you’re not losing that…”
“
I love you” Max thought.
“I love you Max…” Liz pleaded as Serena had tears coming down her face as she watched.
“You are coming back to me, aren’t you” Liz pleaded as he knelt beside him. “You are not dead” she asked as felt the pulse start to die. “No….” she screamed as she gave him a giant and passionate kiss. “I love you” she whispered.
Thinking she lost him, she almost gave up as she kissed him one more time… with an intense passion, as she wished for a miracle.
Mere seconds later…or the eons that it felt, eyes opened as they slowly focused on a stunned Liz.
His heart beat quickened under Michael’s check. “Slow but picking up” he whispered as Max was murmuring something faint.
Liz leaned down next to his mouth. “What did you say?” she whispered to Max.
Max whispered faintly… “Marry me”
“Yes” Liz said without any reservations as she now knew this was their destiny and she was planning on grabbing it before she lost what might be her final shot at a life with Max. “But you have to live for me to actually marry you…” she whispered as she leaned into give him a passionate inducing kiss that continued to inject crucial healing properties to bring him back.
To be Continued
Tune in next to see Max’s and Liz’s if they get their wedding in an exciting conclusion which gives them a chance at that miracle… and to catch what is in store for everyone else…
