A Sense of Determination (CC, Teen) 1/1 - 06/09/10

[PML]

Title- A Sense of Determination

Disclaimer- Roswell is not mine and no infringement is intended.

Category- CC

Rating- Mature

Summary- This is the sixteenth companion to A Kiss to Build a Dream On. This one takes place after the party. Aric has captured the hybrids. Alex is missing. Maria, Kyle and Liz are trapped in an old barn that is burning.

All seems lost.

But Aric has made one cataclysmic error. He has made Liz Parker mad.

Liz-

Liz stood there clutching at Maria and staring around at the fire as it spread along the roof.

Kyle was pushing at the door, trying to use all his strength to break the barred door. You could tell by the slump in his shoulders that he knew it would not be enough. Not in the limited time they had remaining.

They were all going to die. Burnt to a crisp.

And Aric had Max. Aric had Max, and probably Tess. Her friends would be forced to mate. What had been done to her and Kyle would be done to them.

Liz had no doubt that Aric could do it. And every reason to do it.

“Liz what is going on? I smell smoke,” Maria asked. And then coughed as a smoke began to fill the barn.

They had mere moments. Liz could already feel the heat.

No.

She would NOT accept this. Not when she had the power to prevent it.

“Kyle move away from the door.” Liz was surprised at how calm her voice was. How forceful.

Kyle just looked at her, “It’s our only chance Liz. I have to try.”

Liz just raised one hand and reached inside of her. To that place that Max had unwittingly made in her, the place where the changes had slowly worked their way through her body.

Changes that had spread faster from stress. That had changed who and what she was.

No longer was she Liz Parker, smallest of small town girls. She was Liz Parker, soon to be Liz Evans, Queen-consort of Antar. Mother to a new Antaran-hybrid line of dynasts.

Her hand glittered a bright gold. “Move, Kyle.”

Kyle looked at her, as if again seeing her in some new light. He nodded his head and parted for her.

“Liz, what is happening to you. I can feel something in you moving. It…. Calls to me.” Maria quietly stated, her blind eyes staring off into space.

Anger soared through her.

Aric would pay. And pay large. For this and everything else he had done. For what he had done to Maria. What he had done to Alex and Isabel.

For what he had done to Liz herself.

She pointed the glowing fist at the door. And it shattered under the blow.

Liz gave her friend a little kiss on her cheek, “Come on Maria. We need to go.”

“Sounds good to me. And then we find Michael and our friends.”

“Yes.”

Kyle rushed over to help them.

Maria batted him away, “Kyle, I am blind not an idiot.”

Liz and Kyle smiled at each other. It was good to see her spirit not broken.

They left the barn.

It was Maria who… sensed him first. “Alex!” She stumbled awkwardly towards a prone Alex. She fell down right next to him. “Alex, what is wrong with you!”

Kyle rushed over.

Liz followed slowly. It could be a trap. Why Aric would think they could escape the barn she had no clue. But he always seemed one step ahead of them.

That had to stop.

She saw a van pull away, a golden haired girl driving it. Tess. It was Tess.

And from the tug on her heart she knew Max was in there. She began to run after it.

It was Kyle who stopped her. “Come on Liz. You need to stop. We will get them back. We will. But we need to plan. Come on. Alex has a couple of ideas.” Kyle laughed. “Geez, and to think me and the guys always thought he was a wimp. If only we had known…..” He shook his head.

Liz just stood there and held him, trying to draw comfort from the boy, who for good and ill, was her first. She trembled in his arms and he just held her.

She knew that both of them could feel their respected hearts leave them, drive further and further away. And she knew that in a real way she was supporting him as much as he supported her. She gave him a tiny peck on the cheek. “We should get back.”

They walked back and watched a blind Maria try to baby a knocked about Alex.

The Sherriff was standing above both of them. Watching them protectively. He looked up, a glow of joy flashing across his face before his normal stoic look resurfaced. “Good to see you are both okay. I don’t have a lot of time. Others need my help. I take it you will all leave statements later at the Police Station? Or do we just pretend that you had all left already? Lots of kids left once they realized I was coming.”

Liz nodded, “That might be best.” She turned and faced the burning building. “Was anyone hurt?”

“The only people unaccounted for are you kids. Where is Max? Or Tess?”

Alex’s voice was calm. “Aric has them. But not for long.” He looked up at Liz. “I wounded him. Hit him at least twice. I might have been able to kill him if the house hadn’t exploded behind me.”

The Sherriff looked at Alex. “When this is over I think we need to talk, all of you. I don’t like this talk of killing,”

“He raped me Sherriff. He took Isabel’s form and I slept with him. That was bad, but then he did the same to Isabel. And that I can not forget. Or forgive. He deserves to die. And it will be at my hand.” Alex’s voice was cool as was his gaze, “Just to be clear on this. I know you all have a valid claim on him yourselves. And if the opportunity presents, by all means. But I claim him first.”

Maria rubbed his shoulders and nodded.

Liz could feel herself agree. Although if she had an open shot…..

The Sherriff just looked worried. “Maybe I should take you all to the Station and.”

Liz just touched him, just touched him and shared with him a taste of what she had felt from Isabel. One by one she felt as the other three of her friends grasped hands and she felt as one mind after another linked. And shared a portion of their torment at Aric’s hands.

The Sherriff’s knees buckled and Kyle caught his father. The Sherriff just looked at them, perhaps a little wild eyed. “What? How?”

Liz said quietly, “When Max healed me, he changed me. I am like they are now.”

Maria added, “It will happen to all of us in time. Already I see you. I see all of you. And I am blind. He blinded me and yet, and yet I can see you.”

“Stress. It is sped up by stress. The body trying to get an extra leg up on the competition. Straining at the limits of normal.” Alex said nodding.

Kyle was shaking his head, face white. “I am normal. I mean even after all the freaky stuff that’s been going on. I am normal. Normal.” He wrapped his hands around his body, “Buddha I need her. I need to hold her, talk to her. She makes it all okay. Makes all of this,” He waved his hands around dramatically, “Okay. I have to get her back.”

The Sherriff just stood there a moment. “How can I help?”

Liz looked over at the man they had feared all of last year. The man they had so worried would turn them in. A man who was undoubtedly worried about his son. But perhaps their best ally. “Stay here. Make sure everyone is okay. And let us take care of this. Tell my parents, if something happens tell them that I love them.”

Maria looked up, “If you see my mom, tell her we have a lot to talk about. That its not over, it will never be over. But I don’t…. I don’t hate her. I… I love her. But I still, still am not going to change my mind. Not now. Not ever. And if she won’t accept that…. Well she was the one to close the door on me.” To the others she said, “Come on guys. We need to follow them.” Maria awkwardly stood up.

“Maria, honey, maybe….”

“Liz if you finish that statement I will hit you. I mean I love you like a sister, hell I love you more than that. Right now you guys ARE my family. But I am going with you.”

Alex painfully got up, brushing off his slacks. “Um, you are blind, Maria.”

“I know where Michael is. I can feel him. I think I could find him anywhere. Besides, Aric said the blindness would fade.”

“And you believe him?”

Maria snorted, “The man is a total basket case. A couple sides short of a combo platter. Seriously. Part of him thinks I’m his dead wife! You should have heard him blabbing at me.” She shook her head in contempt. “I can already see a bit of a blur where the fires are.”

Alex cocked his head sideways, “Can you still sense Aric?”

Maria’s voice was quiet. “Yes. I don’t want to. I really don’t. It feels so creepy. Not human. Wrong. But God help me, yes. Yes I can.”

Alex turned to Kyle and Liz. “There it is settled. We will need her.”

The Sherriff cleared his throat one more time. “Are you sure that I can’t help you? I don’t like that you are going into this alone.”

Liz smiled at him, “We aren’t. We are together and together we can do anything.”

The others mumbled assent and determination.

Liz looked at the others. “You can help us most by simply not stopping us. We will tell you everything when we get back.” She shook her head, “We probably should have included you more earlier, we just….”

The Sherriff nodded, “I should get back.”

Kyle stepped up and said, “Vicky?”

The Sherriff’s gaze hardened, “Vicky is on the way to the hospital to be checked out. That bastard friend of yours is on his way to jail. Pam went with Vicky.”

Kyle nodded. “Good. I just….” He flew and gave his father a big hug. “Just be careful, okay Dad?”

“You too, son. And that goes for all of you. Come back safely.”

Liz said confidently, “We will.”

------

Liz sat in the Jeep and stared at a place she thought she would never look upon again. The place looked abandoned and almost surreal at night. “Are you sure Maria?”

Maria’s voice was confident, if a little scared. “They’re in there alright. All of them. And…. and they are paired up.” Her voice cracked a little, “You don’t think….”

“No. Not this soon. Although with Aric, you never know. Not with what he had done with us.”

Kyle and Alex were in the Mustang nearby.

Kyle just glared at the place. He was the only one who probably didn’t have nightmares of this place. “And Aric is inside.”

“Yes. Yes he is.”

Liz stared at the buildings under the light of the moon. At the rooms she knew were within. Did Aric have other allies? How had he gotten control of this?

Alex shook his head. “Eagle Rock.”

Kyle turned to Liz, “So chief, what is the plan?”

“Maria directs us to Aric. We kill him. Then we free our friends.”

Maria said, “Why not free them first?”

“If it is easier that way, if we run across them first, sure. But Aric knows how to fight them. I think that our plan would work best with out them. Particularly if that thing works like Kyle said it does.”

Kyle got out of his car, and looked over at Liz. “Yeah. We don’t really know what it might do to you Liz. But it would knock any of our friends on their ass just as much as it would Aric.”

Alex joined him. “You knock him down, and I finish him off.”

Liz smiled. “Okay, we just need to be careful in there.” Liz walked around to help Maria, but Alex was already there.

She looked once more on the old US Army medical base. On the buildings that housed the FBI secret base. She would have thought she would be more frightened than this.

But no. Anger more than fear was moving in her. Aric needed to die.

And he would.

Then they could all just get on with their lives. It would be difficult at first. Clearing up after all that had been done. Then there were the scars Aric’s actions had left.

Liz rubbed her belly, using her powers to feel the life within. That too would cause troubles. Her parents would never understand.

No. Finishing Aric wouldn’t end their problems. But it would let them move on. Move on to a better future.

She quietly turned to her friends, her friends that trusted her to lead them, much as Max lead the hybrids. “Let’s go.”

They walked quickly and confidently into the base.