If any of you remember that crazy schedule I was talking about a couple of weeks back, you'll understand why I've been sort of MIA from writing (and updating). My work schedule is still hectic and I'm fearing that it might be a bit too much. But one needs to pay the bills, I guess
In other words, my work(s) are the reason I'm so late with this update. I hope you can forgive me. I'm off work tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get something written then as well...
Helen (roswelllostcause)
Nice to see that Maria is nearly back to normal. But I just things are going to get even more dangerous now.
Thank you
And you might just be right about that.
Carolyn (keepsmiling7)
She wanted to be mad at Liz, but they had too much history together.
She is still going to demand answers, but at least this will make it easier for Liz to explain what has happened. Thank you for the feedback!
twilighteyes - Thank you so so so much!!
Eve (begonia9508)
That was such a moving part that I found myself crying!
... and like a baby even... but it was good, especially for Liz, that Maria finally understood all of what she learned and finally maybe accepted, even if not all because she was too frightened by the situation Liz was in and couldn't have stood back, at this!
Thank you so much for the feedback, Eve!
Natalie36
wow maria stepped up i always loved then
Thank you
Ashley (Morning Dreamgirl)
Anyhoo - I love this story regardless. And you haven't abandoned it so I'll not cry yet.
I certainly haven't
But CONGRATUALTIONS!!
Engaged!
I think you should have little green aliens for your favors in celebration of this story and all your obsessed fans. No? Well it was worth a suggestion.
Hihi, thanks!
I'm glad he's a good man though.
He is. He really is
The glitter force field/barrier seems to be an even stronger protection than what they had with the Sgt. and Sean. It verifies that their connection is obviously still growing/developing/strengthening.
Something happened when Liz brought Max back from the brink of death... And yes, it affected the connection.
Speaking of - I'm glad that Max has obviously grown to accept the connection. Fully. It makes me curious as to why.
Maybe it's just that he can finally see how it could work to keep both he and Liz safe and alive
Still - Michael was hilarious! I almost died laughing. In a way it reminded me of Maria. They're going to go very well together.
Still, it's curious to me that Dresden wasn't the one to stop them. Or Alex given his injury.
I'm just hypothesizing here
, but it might just be that both Dresden and Alex were perplexed by something. That they were either seeing or
feeling something powerful around Max and Liz. Michael was the only one that wasn't patient enough in that moment to be "in the zone" and might have missed or. Or maybe he just wasn't that impressed. But that's just a guesstimate on my part
And speaking of Alex's injury - it reminded me of the dream/non-dream Liz had where her mother's face was melting. Was this what the dream alluded to?
Liz herself - in the chapter - thought about that dream when she saw Alex. Now, if that dream actually was a premonition or something of what happened to Alex or if it even had any meaning except being a creepy dream about her mother burning to death in a house, is hard to tell at this point
I'm curious as to whether she woke up by herself or whether they started the wake up process and then let her finish naturally.
You'll get some answers in this chapter.
In some ways I'm a little annoyed at Maria. Of all the people to be mad at she's choosing to take most of it out on Liz - someone who's suffered more than almost anyone else (Max being her equal right now in that department). Yes, Liz kept things from her but she never wanted to.
Isn't that often the case though? That you take it out on someone that is close on you because that's "safer". If you have a bad day at work and get home, you might start screaming at your spouse or children even if they had nothing to do with the day you just had.
But Maria and Liz are going to have to sit down and have a proper conversation about everything (
everything) at some point.
And speaking of Max/Maria. Can I just say how incredibly proud I am of Max to sit back and let Liz handle this? It had to be one of the hardest things he's done (and the boy's been through a lot) to feel his beloved break down like that and not rush into the room to comfort her. After all that's what they've been doing the last few weeks. It would be his natural reaction even if he hadn't always wanted to make things better.
I think our Max is growing up. Growing into a man
Thank you so much for the feedback! And don't worry that it's a bit late, I'm even worse with my updates
Since it's been so long, I'm reposting the recap from the previous update:
Previously on "Unbreakable - A Beautiful Lie"...
Following the attempt to plead their right to be together, Max and Liz are held captive by the alien "government". Liz is tortured - both mentally and physically - with the intention of weakening her to a point where either Sean Carter or his father (the Sergeant) will be able to break the bond between Max and Liz. Thus binding Sean (or Steven Carter) to Liz and use her magnifying powers as a gaea.
They are not very successful at this. Consequently, Command decides to move Liz and unite her with Max. Shortly after their relieved reunion (within captivity), Sean decides to take his vengeance on both Liz and Max and shots Max. Liz, directed by or controlled by the connection, kills Sean and Steven. With Max bleeding to death on the floor, Liz finds a phone and contacts Philip Evans. He arrives just as Max's hold on life is fading.
Plagued by what has happened and the injuries they have sustained, Max and Liz are both held unconscious for a couple of days following the rescue. When they wake up, they are more dependent on each other than ever before, but both have been traumatized by their experiences in captivity.
Max gives the impression of being strong while Liz spends a lot of hours locked up in a bathroom.
They are now at an abandoned hostel, spending their days with Isabel, Alex, Mr. and Mrs. Evans, Jeff and occasionally Michael. During their stay, both Max and Liz are trying to heal. Isabel is sneaking in exercises (yoga) to sharpen Liz's concentration and give her tools to combat her anxiety. Max works on building both him and Liz up through their connection, even though they suffer some setbacks with the connection towards the end of their stay, with Max suspecting that the connection is raping them of their own free will.
They do learn that Liz is able to tap into Max's powers. They learn that Max might be a parim. That Liz might be too. A person of pure goodness. The reader get a peek at Max's grandfather.
Max has just been "betrayed" by the connection, having taken his frustrations out on the desert landscape outside, when Michael arrives with a screaming and resisting Maria. According to Michael, Maria was in danger. He was trying to protect her.
Maria first attempts to get Liz to run away with her, feeling that Liz must be a captive as well. At this point, Max lays it all out (in widely summarized terms) to Maria, something that Maria doesn't know how to react to. But instantly makes her pull away from everyone, Liz included. They are interrupted by an attack on the hostel. Maria is rendered unconscious. Liz, Max, Alex and Michael (carrying Maria) flee into underground tunnels.
Shortly after meeting up with Dresden - the head of the rebellion - they are attacked. Liz is safe inside another tunnel, protecting the unconscious Maria. But she is alone and terrified with the sounds of battle echoing off the dirt walls of the tunnels.
Then the connection goes dead.
And Max is being dragged into the tunnel by Michael, with a large hole in his abdomen. Somehow, under the guidance of Alex and Dresden, Liz manages to heal the wound and bring Max back to consciousness. Along with a stronger connection.
Together, Max and Liz heals Alex who has been seriously injured in the battle. The group next end up in another part of the underground tunnel system and Maria wakes up. At first she is really angry with Liz, but this all seem to take a turn for the better towards the end of the previous chapter.
From NINETY-FIVE:
She looked at me silently for a long moment, before she wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me into another hug. This time I was able to return her squeeze. This time I was able to hold her tight.
”I love you,” she whispered into my ear, making my heart fold in on itself, and my hold on her tighten. ”I’ll always love you.” A sob escaped her before she added, ”You’re like my sister, Lizzie. Nothing can ever come between us.”
I wanted to thank her. I wanted to shower her in gratitude for accepting me. But all I could manage was, ”I love you too.”
The hug was long and warm. But eventually she pulled back again, wiped her eyes with the pads of her fingers and licked her lips while the hardness of determination inched into the lines of her face. ”I need to know something.”
I nodded. ”Anything.”
There was a beat before she firmly asked, ”What happens now?”
I searched out Max in my head. Max, who had been ever-present but had managed to let me handle this on my own. Who had been itching to intervene, to protect me from any hurt - even from Maria - but who had managed to restrain himself and had trusted in my strength.
Nevertheless, even without the information in Max’s mind, I knew what the future held. I knew the answer to Maria’s question.
Darkly, I replied, ”We’re going to war.”
____________________________________
NINETY-SIX
”Will you be okay?” I asked, squeezing the back of her hand as she rested it on the table surface.
She looked up at me, green eyes still clouded with worry and fear. But my father was seated on her other side and he answered in her place, ”She’ll be fine.”
”I just need to go to the bathroom,” I hurried to add, feeling the pressing need to apologize. Even when nature was calling.
It felt as if I had been part of putting her in this situation, which made her my responsibility. Plus, I was her best friend. The only one she had decided to trust in this new crazy situation.
Well, she was warming up to my father as well. She always had a soft spot for him, and after hearing about his involuntary involvement in this whole mess, I think she viewed him as an ally. Because he too didn’t have anything directly to do with this world. They had both been thrown into this mess because of who they knew. Because of who they loved.
”We’ll be fine, honey,” my father assured me.
Maria was looking at him now, hesitation on her face, her frame stiff. But after a second or two she turned to me and nodded, her eyes too wide to appear relaxed. ”Of course. Go pee.”
I managed to muster up a small smile. Her attempt to do the same was failing miserably and I felt myself wishing that she would stop trying because that grimace only screamed fear at me.
”Okay,” I said, standing up, the movement simultaneously pushing the chair back.
We had moved to another - smaller - room, with some simple untreated wooden chairs and a wooden table. Maria had objected against remaining in the room where she had woken up. The room where I had given her a mind-spinning amount of details about what had happened since that Halloween Party months ago.
Instead she had reunited with my father in this much smaller room, giving Isabel a suspicious look and narrowed her eyes in a unmistakably angry warning at Michael.
Alex, Max, Dresden and Mr. Evans had been absent from the room, but my connection to Max assured me that their absence didn’t translate into danger.
I felt Maria’s eyes burn into my neck as I walked towards the door, hoping that this meager housing underground had some acceptable facilities. Like running water. I hadn’t actually received a tour of the area upon arrival. Maria was not the only uninformed one here.
After Max had been healed, and after Max and I had healed Alex, we had run the remaining distance to arrive at a well-hidden tunnel which had led us up to a ironclad door.
Walking through that door was like stepping from one world and into another. From the moist soil tunnels with almost no lightning, to concrete flooring, walls and ceiling lined with bright light armatures. There might not be any decorative details that made it feel homey (on the contrary, it felt as cold, hard and impersonal as a bunker), but the roughness of the place actually made it feel safe.
Honestly, it felt like a bunker (and maybe it actually was) in that it wouldn’t surprise me if the place actually could survive a nuclear bomb.
Dresden had guided us down a long corridor. Max’s fingers held tightly onto my hand as we had walked side by side in Dresden’s footsteps. Alex was walking closely behind us, his mere presence having comforted me. Maybe he had been using his powers at that point, to calm us all down, but I honestly hadn’t taken offense if he had. Ever since seeing into his mind, I was viewing him differently. I was no longer inclined to see his powers as an invasion of my privacy and free will.
Bringing up the tail had been Michael, stubbornly carrying the unconscious Maria. It had seemed as if the general consensus in the group was to let Michael be the only one to carry Maria, especially after he so clearly had demonstrated that Maria was under
his protection earlier.
Dresden had pointed us to a room and informed Michael to put Maria on the mattress in there. Naturally, I had followed Michael to not let Maria out of my sight, but Dresden had stopped Max and I before we crossed the threshold to that impersonal and sparsely decorated room.
Dresden had hatched an idea on how to wake Maria from her artificial slumber. Max (as well as the other aliens) had the ability to bring her out of the unconscious state Michael had placed her in, but Dresden thought it to be unwise for Max - or any alien - to be the first person Maria saw when she woke up. And it would be disastrous if
Michael were to be the first one. It needed to be someone Maria knew. Someone she
trusted.
Me.
It had to be me.
That’s how I had ended up in that room with only Maria and a thin mattress with washed out flowery pattern, looking into her face as her eyes had opened and widened into that eerie expression of fear.
Using the connection, my hand against Maria’s temple had been the physical link by which Max had woken Maria up. In the end, it had been Max who had done it, but I had felt the power flow through me, felt the click in my mind as a block was removed in Maria’s and felt alertness open her mind. Max had gently instructed me to remove my hand from Maria’s head and to sit back. It hadn’t been long until Maria’s eyes had started blinking.
I could tell by Dresden’s expression afterwards, as I had met his sweeping gaze from his position down the corridor when I exited the room with (the now conscious) Maria, that he had been surprised himself that Maria had been awake. Maybe he hadn’t quite believed it would work. Not fully.
Maybe it had been a suggested experiment on his part. A way to test the limits of the connection.
Either way, he hadn’t been able to hide the surprise sliding down his facial features as he had seen Maria walking around.
There was a hint of that expression on his face even now, as I entered the corridor again - on the hunt for a bathroom - right as Dresden, Alex, Mr. Evans and Max exited another room.
Dresden’s presence quickly blurred into nothing, though, when I laid eyes on Max. His shoulders were slumped forward. His head was tipped in a defeated manner with his eyes on the floor. I had felt the degradation of his general condition through the connection, but had managed to push it to the side while focusing on Maria.
But that was no longer a possibility. Not when faced with the harsh reality of the invisible weight someone had draped across my boyfriend’s back.
Bladder forgotten, my most primal instinct was no longer to pee, but to get to Max. The decision barely had time to register in my mind before Max looked up in my direction. Amber eyes meeting chocolate. Weary eyes meeting anxious. A primal thrill rushed through my body, making me momentarily lose my breath.
There was no flicker of surprise in his steady gaze. He always seemed to know where I was. Even before our connection had been firmly established in our bodies and minds he’d had a firm awareness of my whereabouts.
From the connection I also knew that the reason why they had entered the corridor at the same moment I had was because of Max. He had interrupted their meeting because he had felt me getting closer.
He needed me.
We hadn’t had a second alone since Michael had barged through the door at the hostel with an angry, uncooperative Maria. It seemed impossible to think that it had only been this morning. Barely twelve hours ago.
So much had happened since then.
We hadn’t even had a chance to absorb that Max had almost died. That I had brought him back. That something vital had happened to our bond.
My surroundings blurred into insignificance as he turned purposeful steps in my direction. I was vaguely aware of someone calling Max’s name, in that indignant resigned way that is typical when the caller knows he’s not gonna get a response, but either Max didn’t hear or he completely ignored it because his steps didn’t falter.
His warm front collided with mine, warm strong arms wrapped tightly around my upper body, his lips very hot and present against my skin as he buried his face in the trembling curve of my neck. The pressure of his arms, bringing me as close as physically possible, never loosened as his hands dove into my hair, his fingers rubbing against my scalp as he expanded the hug to my whole body.
My body was sighing in relief while tightening in anticipation and longing, with my flustered cheek flattened against his collarbone and my face instinctively angling upwards to press my lips against the underside of his jaw.
There was something vital about touching his skin. I hadn’t realized how much I had been starving for that contact, however meager, until I regained it.
Even within the tightness of his embrace, I had no trouble breathing. On the contrary, my lungs felt lighter than ever before and oxygen was easily inhaled to bring life to every cell.
He was fisting my hair in his hands, pressing his underarms against the blades of my shoulders, breathing warm breaths against my neck. His hold was as desperate and hungry as mine was with my slightly too long nails digging into his back with the firm pressure of the pads of my fingers and the pull on his body to get even closer.
Our clinging was mutual, our desperation hollow and insatiable, and our longing for that contact between us that was just ours threatened to override our sanity and rationality.
The pace of his breaths was increasing. Matching mine. And as the world around us was melting away, he moved us through a doorway almost right behind me. His lips formed kisses along my neckline, moving up my cheek and connecting with my lips as the darkness of the room enveloped us, the sounds of our frantic kissing echoing off the walls.
The meager source of light coming from the doorway was removed as Max kicked the door closed behind him, physically cutting us off from the outside world.
”I love you,” he whispered against my lips, slightly letting go of his hold and using his hands to move up around the upper curve of my shoulders, brushing up my neck and caressing up my warm cheeks.
”I love you,” I whimpered, my words being swallowed by his kisses, by the tip of his tongue against my lips, his tongue moving against mine.
My whole body was tingling, my mind felt awake in a way that shouldn’t be possible, and my heart felt like it was expanding too much to fit inside my ribcage.
His clothes were annoying me. They were getting in the way. I needed to feel his skin. I was desperate to feel his skin. I moved my hands up underneath his sweater, reveling in the warmth of his skin, in the solidity of his muscles and the softness of the rise of his chest.
His hands were doing the same. Bundling up the bottom hem of my sweater around his wrists as he heatedly caressed his hands up my back, around the sides of my abdomen, up my front and cupping my breasts.
A sharp gasp left my being and we both stilled. As if we both realized what we had been missing out on. What we had been forced to push aside in the midst of chaos and war.
But that moment of suspension was a short one. The short pause before Max pulled my shirt over my head and unclasped my bra. All in one movement, it seemed.
The action shot fire straight to my core and my legs trembled when my knees threatened to give out.
Before they did, Max had pulled his own sweater over his head and crushed our naked upper bodies together, preventing me from falling.
But then his lips were moving down my chin, over my collarbone and kissing down the swell of my breast, and as his lips closed around my nipple, my legs lost their strength and bent in a swirl of emotion.
His arm quickly wrapped around my back, holding me up, as his tongue continued to move lightly over my nipple.
I whimpered in pleasure and tried to stabilize myself by tightening my fingers around fistfuls of his soft thick hair.
”I love you so much,” he said softly, his dark voice vibrating against my sensitive skin, making me clench my thighs together.
The desperate need to kiss him threatened to drown me, and I repositioned my hands to press against the firm lines of his well-chiseled jaw and redirect him from my breast to my mouth.
For a second, his dark eyes met mine, making pure passion heat every millimeter of my body, before he lustfully captured my (already) swollen lips. The feeling of his warm chest against mine was doing inexplicable things to my body. My lust for him was making me tremble.
The fact that I could also feel
his thirst for me had the feelings bordering on painful.
Every stroke of his lips against mine, every tingled spreading through me as the tip of his tongue brushed mine, every rhythmic intermittent push of his pelvis against mine, threatened to undo me in climax. I had missed his intimate touch so much that not much was needed for me to tumble over that edge of pleasure.
”I need you,” he mumbled frustratedly against my lips. ”But I don’t want to do it here.”
He found it degrading. The room was not nice enough. He didn’t want me to feel like I wasn’t special. He didn’t want it to seem as if he only needed comfort and didn’t really care about me.
”I don’t care,” I whispered back heatedly, the words falling rapidly over my tender lips. I pressed my fingers down the inside of his jeans, feeling the hard bones of the front of his hips, as my body started to ache for him. With a pounding and very real need. ”I don’t care where we are. I just need you. Close.”
He pulled his head back, separating our mouths and looked at me in the darkness. Even in the poor light, his eyes looked clouded. Clouded with desire. The look was dangerously dark, sending a thrill to the center of my body.
Just as my body was tensing with inexplicable amounts of need, there was a knock at the door.
”Max? Elizabeth?”
Max’s eyes were still on my face as I whipped my head towards the door in response to the male voice, my body instantly tensing for a whole other reason.
I jumped when Max pressed a light kiss to the corner of my mouth, and looked back at him with my heart beating forcibly in my chest.
”Just ignore it,” Max whispered in the darkness.
I looked back at the door, the need to do as Max had requested threatening to pull me apart. How desperately I wanted to forget about the outside world and just drown in Max.
But before I could come up with a reply, there was a second knock, and my body started to cool off. Along with the knowledge that we could not grasp that loneliness we so desperately needed, the heavy weariness that had escaped me all day landed on top of me with a heavy drop. It had been a long day. A ridiculously long day. And I needed to immerse myself in positive energy more than ever. Alone. With Max.
Max’s eyes were burning into my face as he was following my train of thoughts. Following the disappointment, the fatigue, the resignation.
So when he pulled me into a tight hug I felt like crying with the heaviness of what we had gone through in the past 24 hours. I wanted to cry because I knew that it was not over yet.
”We can make them go away,” he whispered into my hair when the restrained sobs tightened my throat and his arms became even more solid around my naked upper body.
”We’re not done, Max,” Dresden continued through the door. ”This is important. We need to finish the discussion.”
”I need you,” I whispered brokenly into his bare shoulder, feeling like I would shatter if I didn’t get to be alone with him.
But I knew that he had to go. I was witnessing snippets of their meeting through his mind and I knew that it was important that he continued with that meeting. I could see maps of Dulce Base. I could see lists of names, hear accounts of betrayal and tidbits of information about rebellious acts.
What scared me the most - and made me reluctantly take a step back from his warm body - was the information about the inhabitants of Roswell. The
human inhabitants. About how they were being used. How their minds were being wiped. How they were manipulated and mindraped to suit the needs of the aliens. How they were becoming collateral damage in an alien conflict.
I avoided eye contact with Max while I bent down to search out our clothes strewn uncaringly on the floor, my mind now being filled with my own trepidations. I saw the faces of all the humans that were still left out there, without any protection. I saw the nice lady in the supermarket. My 3rd grade teacher. Classmates. Friends of my parents.
I saw Amy DeLuca, Maria’s mom. What was happening out there right now? Were some people in greater danger only because they had at some point interacted with me, however short the interaction? Would someone be in danger just because they had once been served a Man in Black Burger by me at my parents’ restaurant?
Max’s hands felt large and almost scalding in temperature against my upper arms when I straightened up again. Handing him his sweater in the darkness, I looked up into his eyes and translated silently what he needed to do,
They have to be punished for what they are doing. We can’t let them win. We can’t let them destroy us.
He searched my face and was already insisting that the plan to annihilate the opposition could wait ten minutes. We just needed ten minutes alone. Only
ten minutes.
I slowly shook my head while putting my arms through the shoulders straps of the light pink bra and said quietly, against the background of another rap of knuckles against the door, ”No. We need to get through this. We need to face the music. I can’t continue to live like this for much longer. It will destroy me.”
He nodded, his gaze softening. He lifted his hand and tenderly cradled my cheek. ”Of course. But we’re staying together tonight. I don’t care where. If it’s directly on the concrete floor or squeezed inside a closet space. We’re staying together.”
A small smile grazed my trembling lips and the shudder of a breath left me. ”Yeah. Yes, we are.”
Dresden called again, ”Max?”
Max gave me a long look that spoke of too many emotions to count, before he pulled the sweater over his head and yelled at the door, ”Coming!”
But before he reached for the door, he waited for me to get fully dressed then pulled me in for a soft and slow kiss. A kiss that told me everything I needed to know about the magnitude and details of his love for me.
His next words put a chill on the aftereffect of that kiss and signaled for anxiety to painfully squeeze its cold long fingers around my heart. ”Tomorrow, we’re going to practice using the connection. Because we’re gonna need it if we are going to survive this.”
His eyes flew over my face with scrutiny while I felt my heart rate pick up with impending adrenaline, but left with nothing to say to soothe my fear, he placed a gentle kiss on the tip of my nose and opened the door.
Dresden stood in the light, eyes quickly moving into the room and finding mine, before looking at Max towering up in front of him. Max’s voice was bitter and resolute as he bit out, ”Let’s do this.”
Dresden’s eyes narrowed slightly before he gave me another fleeting look and acknowledged with politeness, ”Elizabeth.”
I swallowed and stated, ”Dresden.”
With that, Dresden disappeared from the doorway. Max turned his head to look at me over his shoulder. The light from the hallway created a silhouette around his broad shoulders and I swallowed again. The hard expression on his face made him look dangerous. Intimidating.
One minute ago I had been looking at a warm lover. Now I was seeing a warrior. A soldier.
”I’ll find you later,” Max promised, his voice dark and flat.
Mutely, I nodded.
There were no words when the world as I knew it was about to drastically change.
TBC...
