Helen (roswelllostcause)
But Michael needs to get it through his thick head that he can't just do whatever the hell he wants and not have to pay for it!
Yep, I'm with you on that one
Thank you so much for the feedback!
Eve (begonia9508) - Yeah, Michael really needs to learn how to control his temper
Thank you so much for the feedback!
keepsmiling7 (Carolyn)
Been gone but now caught up.
So glad to have you back
That was one sexy bathroom scene.......
Thank you so much for the feedback!
From ONE ZERO FIVE:
I looked back at Michael and how he slowly walked across the room. I saw Maria’s hesitant stance out of the corner of my eye. She was as perplexed by Michael’s behavior as I was.
Stopping just inside the door, Michael turned around, one hand on the door knob. His eyes went straight to Maria and his voice was the most honest and clear I had ever heard it. ”I’m really sorry for what I did to you, Maria. I never meant to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you.”
While my mouth fell open in astonishment, Michael turned to me and without blinking or looking away held my surprised eyes and said, ”And I’m sorry if I frightened you, Liz. I didn’t aim for you. Your boyfriend just has a way of pissing me off.”
The silence that followed his sincere apologies were deafening. Even Max was stunned by Michael’s actions. Our eyes were equally wide as Michael turned around, opened the door, and disappeared through it.
I turned my head to look at Max and Alex spoke behind me, ”What the hell just happened?”
____________________________________
ONE ZERO SIX
After that whole fiasco with Maria and Michael, Dresden had ordered us all to rest. He had been less than impressed with us, but at the same time likened the incident with a carpenter hammering a nail through his hand, rather than the wood, when too tired to concentrate.
I’m not sure if getting a nail through your hand could - or should - be paralleled to what had happened to Maria’s abdomen, but I could see his point. Accidents were prone to happen when you were tired. Couple this with emotions running high and you have an explosive combination.
Dresden had also, like the good leader he was, told us to talk with each other about what had happened, because it was too dangerous to not be unified at this point in time. It was vital for our survival that we trusted each other. We couldn’t have us turning on each other at a time like this.
But it didn’t matter how many times Maria was told this in the hours following the accident, she was not that keen on being around Michael. Especially not talking to him.
Michael had pulled away from the rest of the group after the group meeting with Dresden. During the scolding and admonishments he had been pale and silent. No angry retorts or huffs. Not even a single annoyed glare. He had taken it all in silence, merely mumbling a silent, ”I’m sorry,” when Dresden after a while had sharply asked him, ”Michael, are you listening to me?”.
His reactions made me uneasy. That feeling was shared by the majority of the group. While Dresden was talking, informing us of the importance of staying together and trusting each other, my eyes were not the only ones that more often than not drifted towards Michael. But his eyes had been stuck to some point in the middle of the floor in front of him, his back slumped forward in a sad curve, and his semi-long brown hair obscuring large parts of his facial profile.
Either Michael felt really bad about what had happened or he was just ignoring us. But I had a strong feeling in the pit of my stomach that he felt awful about what had happened.
Dresden had rounded off the meeting by informing us - again - about the underground compound where Command and his men were, and giving us some updates on what had happened there in the last couple of hours. Dresden barely had time to say, ”Okay, that’s it,” before Michael was on his feet and practically out the door.
No one tried to stop him. He obviously needed to be alone.
Dresden had given Michael’s hasty departure a long look before he silently had approached me and told me, with deep concern in his eyes, that I -
”Especially you, Liz” - had to get some rest. Apparently, I didn’t look well.
I didn’t protest. I didn’t feel well.
It was only the camp fire and the good mood missing when Maria, Alex, Max and I sat down in the far off corner of our sleeping area. Max borrowed blankets from others and made a soft bed for me. The act was so sweet that I wanted to roll my eyes at him because it felt a bit exaggerated. But I was too grateful and too exhausted. Instead I just smiled and gave him a light kiss.
Gingerly taking a seat on the makeshift bed, I felt every ache in my body now that the adrenaline of the most recent events had left me. Maria sat down next to me and with a weary smile in her direction, I laid down on my side, my head in her lap.
Max took a seat at my feet, lifting them and positioning them across his lap. Carefully, he removed my shoes and gently started rubbing my feet. Maria’s fingers were in my hair and she seemed content at having me so close.
Surrounding by the people I love, my eyelids were feeling increasingly heavy. I was semi-aware of Alex sitting down in front of me, facing Max and Maria. The conversation lightly started up around me, but I was only partly conscious of it.
I knew that it concerned Michael. Max and Alex were informing the rather reluctant Maria of who Michael really was. About his parents, about his upbringing, about what social events might have contributed to the man he was now. They were trying to smooth over what had happened. Because right now - like Dresden had pointed out - was not the time to be angry with each other. Maria needed to trust Michael. Or at least not to hate him.
I was trying to concentrate on what they were saying. I was trying to listen to the comforting sound of Max’s voice and the soft laughter from Alex. I was doing my best to try and make out if Maria was happy or angry. But after drifting in and out of consciousness for a couple of minutes, sleep won me over and pulled me down into a deep and dreamless slumber.
When I finally made my way back to the world of the living, I found myself lying on my stomach with blankets covering my body and Max filling my vision. He was asleep, facing me, with his arm and leg draped over my body, pinning me to him. The room was silent and dimmed, telling me that it must be in the middle of the night.
I laid there for a couple of minutes, tracing the lines of his face in the semi-darkness. He looked so relaxed and peaceful when he slept. My heart grew with love and protectiveness. He was so beautiful. Inside and out. And I loved him so much.
Eventually, I couldn’t stop myself from leaning forward and brushing my lips with his. The soft sound of contentment moved between his lips and he used his hand to pull me closer.
His eyes blinked open when our noses touched and a tired smile grazed his lips. His voice broke with sleep, being darker than usual, as he whispered, ”Hi.”
I smiled, curling further up against his body, loving the peace and natural feeling being this close to him brought me, and whispered, ”Hi.”
”Did you sleep well?” he asked quietly.
I did a quick search of the state of my body, realizing that I felt pretty good. ”I think so.”
He smiled and kissed my lips softly. ”Good.”
His eyes tiredly blinked closed again, but I kept watching him. Kept thinking of how lucky I was to have him love me. Of how grateful I was to have him in my life. How much he meant to me. What a beautiful soul he was. What an amazing person he was.
Without opening his eyes, with only an amused smile spreading across his lips, he whispered, ”It’s in the middle of the night, beautiful. Get some more sleep.”
I knew that he had heard my thoughts, but it was not like they were secret. I had no trouble letting him know exactly how I felt about him.
”How long was I asleep?” I questioned, starting a mental calculation. It had been afternoon when Maria had been hurt and the meeting had happened shortly after that. So I must have fallen asleep early in the evening. Missing supper and all.
He inched his left eye open. ”More than 24 hours.”
My breath stopped. Huh? Did I hear that correctly?
I cleared my throat and my voice was just above a whisper as I croaked, ”What?”
He opened his other eye, let out another satisfied sigh and hugged me closer again, brushing his lips over my forehead. With my nose pressed up against the warm side of his throat, he said reassuringly, ”Don’t worry. I kept track on you the whole time. The rest were a bit worried when you didn’t wake up, but I guess you really needed sleep.”
I frowned. I hadn’t misheard him then. ”I missed a day?”
”You needed the sleep,” he continued naturally. As if it was a very simple fact.
I pulled back slightly so that I could see his face. He blinked up at me, looking at me calmly.
”But what about the training? We only have two days left!” My voice rose slightly at the end of my observation, having Max lift his hand from the curve of my waist and drift it gently across my flushed cheek.
”Hey,” he called lightly to calm me. ”You obviously needed the sleep. Your brain can’t learn anything new anyway when you’re that exhausted.”
I was getting frustrated and becoming stressed. I had missed a whole day of practice. That was too dangerous. There was still so much left for me to learn.
”Don’t do that,” he interrupted my frantic train of thought. ”We all had a quiet day. We were trying not to disturb you too much so we cut back on the training a bit and spent the day telling stories, playing word games and being entertained by Michael and Maria.”
I had listened on the verge of protesting, but at his last three words my protest flew out the window and my words stammered, ”Uh, wh-what?”
He brushed his fingers slowly through my hair, tucking it behind my ear before pulling it out again and repeating the process. ”We talked to Maria. Alex and I. A lot.”
I felt confused. ”But… After what happened… What are they doing now? Are they arguing? Playing nice? What?”
Max’s voice lowered below a whisper, signaling to me that my voice was getting a bit too loud for the quiet dark room. ”Michael approached Maria shortly after you fell asleep. She didn’t want to talk to him at first, but after some coercion from Alex and I to just hear him out, she agreed. He didn’t want to talk to her in front of us, but Maria wouldn’t agree to be alone with him. He bitched about it, naturally, but must have realized that it was the only way he would be able to speak to her.”
When Max grew silent, I searched his eyes, frustratedly awaiting the continuation. ”And then?”
”I’ve never seen him like that,” Max continued, dropping his eyes from mine momentarily. ”He was basically begging her to trust him. He was very humble and extremely contrite about what had happened.”
”What did Maria do?”
”She must have understood that he was being sincere, so she decided to offer him a second chance.”
I swallowed. ”So… Do
you think he was being sincere? Did he actually fire at us or was he just being stupid?”
”I saw what you saw,” Max whispered back. His voice was calm, even though I could hear the soft tremble in it and feel the flash of anger run through his body. He might have accepted the way things had transpired, but he was still not okay with how Michael had reacted.
It had been thoughtless and dangerous. Not something you would expect from a man trained for battle.
”He wasn’t aiming for us,” Max continued. ”He was doing something similar to someone slamming their fist in the wall instead of ramming it into someone’s face.”
”Still, it was dangerous,” I pointed out.
Max nodded, trailed his hand down my arm and interlaced our fingers. ”Yes. But for once,” he snorted and shook his head in disbelief, ”it seems as if he has finally understood what he did was wrong. That’s big for Michael.”
I bit my bottom lip, my thoughts milling around my head. ”Is it because of Maria?”
His eyes were on my lips and he slowly licked his own in contemplation, before looking into my eyes. His cursory look at my lips had heat course through me.
”I never thought I would actually see the day,” he mused slowly and lowered his voice further, moving closer as he did so, to basically whisper it directly into my ear. I shivered with pleasure at the feel of his breath against my skin. ”But I think Michael has a crush on a human being.”
I think so too, I responded mentally.
He pulled back, letting out a slow breath and searched my face with his dark eyes. My face heated at the look in his eyes: the concern and the love.
”How are you feeling?” he asked.
I attempted a smile for him. ”Better.”
His expression turned worried. ”How about what we are going up against soon?”
I couldn’t really lie. He could see into my mind anyway. ”I’m not feeling too psyched about that.”
I was loving that we were having an actual conversation. With verbal words instead of thoughts. It made me feel normal and gave my mind a chance to rest.
He looked sad, but it wasn’t really like he hadn’t expected my answer. ”Of course not. But are you feeling ready? Or is there something we really need to practice?”
I frowned. Was there anything I
didn’t need to practice? I felt like I was bad at everything alien I had attempted.
Max never liked when I thought badly about myself, which was flaunted on his face as he followed my self-criticism.
”You are a natural, Liz,” he whispered, barely restraining his irritation at my inability to appreciate my good qualities.
Squeezing my hand, he leaned in to brush another kiss on my lips. ”You are amazing, actually. You work harder than anyone I’ve ever met. Your only problem -,” he paused and semi-rolled his eyes, which had me narrow my eyes at him, ”well, except for your tendency to beat yourself up about
everything - is that you try to perfect everything you do.”
I felt a bit insulted, but I also knew that he was right. All my life I had been self-critical and always aiming to do my best - and everyone else’s best.
I was about to defend myself by informing him that I had always been like that and would always be like that, so take it or leave it, but he beat me to it by adding, ”When it comes to being an alien, you have to lower your standards. I’m not saying this to be mean, but you can never be an alien, Liz. You were not born an alien. You do not have alien DNA. You were not born with alien abilities.”
I opened my mouth to protest, because I obviously knew that I wasn’t an alien, but he wasn’t done.
”Seriously, Liz.
Stop trying to be an alien and be
you instead.” His fingers fluttered across my cheek and his voice softened, ”Be Elizabeth Parker. Strong, intelligent, caring, loving, stubborn Elizabeth Parker. And everything else will work itself out.”
His words had my chest fill with air, my heart grow with love. I was moved by his words, sudden tears creeping into my eyes.
”You know the basics now. You have practiced every ability I have. We have learnt new ones together. You have even learnt key Antarian words. There’s nothing else you can do.”
I still wanted to protest. The same way that I had always wanted to protest when my father told me during the last evening before an important exam - when I had a tendency to stress out in my need to excel - to stop studying and relax for the remaining time. According to him, I already knew everything I needed to know and now I needed to relax, or else I would not be able to access the information later on anyway. But the need to protest was always there, since I felt the obligation to study up until that school bell rang.
Hearing my thoughts, Max said, ”And now you need to be just you. Because it’s
you that’s going to get through this and win it.”
”You too,” I whispered weakly, feeling overwhelmed.
He smiled sadly and I knew that he was hoping that he could tell me so for sure, ”Yes, me too. We’ll win this together.”
I snuggled close in his arms, whispering ”I love you” into his ear and smiled when he returned my declaration of love. Soon after that I drifted off to sleep.
*****
I was awakened by someone singing. The voice sounded far away - a female voice - and the slightly off-key strange song seemingly bounced around me.
Slowly opening my eyes, I realized with a start that I was not in the same room that I had fallen asleep.
I was in my bedroom.
My bedroom. The one that had burnt in the fire that killed my mom.
My heart was already galloping in my chest and I blinked rapidly while scanning the interior of my room. It was just as neat and organized as I remembered. But something about it didn’t feel like home. It didn’t
feel like my room at all.
Seated in my queen-sized bed, I felt threatened. The room was only lit by the small lamp on my nightstand, obscuring most of the interior in shadows.
”It’s a dream,” I mumbled to myself, pulling on the duvet to cover my upper body. ”It’s a dream it’s a dream it’s a dream.”
Hide and seek, says the wind
In the shade of the woods
The singing was coming from outside my room, echoing as if it was being sung in a large bare warehouse rather than the cozy living room.
I looked over at the door, noticing the door was slightly ajar. The crack between the door and the frame shone with black darkness.
”It’s a dream,” I repeated again, digging my fingers into the center of my palm, willing me to wake up.
Hide and seek, says the moon
To the hazel buds
The voice was getting closer. I debated with myself to get up from the bed and run across the room to close the door. But like a child afraid of the monsters under her bed, I was afraid to leave the comfort of the bed.
Hide and seek, says the cloud,
Star on to star
The voice was eerie: airy as the wind, heavy as the chills you got when walking alone at night in a dark forest. Even more frighteningly, I was slowly realizing that I recognized the voice.
Hide and seek, says the wave
At the harbor bar
I had only heard it at one point before, but it had been enough.
Laughter. Loud and scattered laughter erupted between the singing, and there was gleeful joy in the voice as it called out, ”Want to play hide ’n seek, Lizzie?”
I stared at the door, my heart throbbing painfully in my chest, my knuckles turning white from clutching the duvet. I tried to will myself to take deep breaths and shake off that feeling of suddenly being five years old and once again afraid of the dark.
I needed to barricade the door. Close it, at least.
Hide and seek, say I
To myself, and step
Taking a deep breath, I quickly pushed the duvet off me and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. The floor was freezing cold underneath my bare feet, but I only hesitated for a second - fear making me dizzy - before running up to the door.
Out of the dream of wake
Into the dream of sleep
The door shrunk away, moving further from me the further I ran.
”No…” I cried out in panic, close to tears.
”Lizzie,” the girl singsonged, her voice high-pitched and crawling sinisterly over my bare arms.
I pushed forward and finally reached the door. Taking a hold of the doorknob, I was just about to close it when a face appeared in the crack.
I jumped and screamed, the blonde curls brushing against my hand, the too blue eyes staring at me, and the painted lips curled in a smile.
I unsuccessfully pushed harder on the door to get it to close her out, while her smile threatened to split her face open and her eyes widened with unblinking insanity. She laughed loudly, which had tears of terror escape my eyes, but she then calmed the hysterical sound long enough to squeeze her head through the small crack and whisper shortly and with emphasis, ”Boo!”
With a scream from the deepest parts of my being, I pushed at the door with everything I had, which forced her head back from the crack.
Before the door completely closed, she announced loudly, the smile clearly audible in her voice, ”Found you!”
With the thump of the door closing, I heard her scream.
With trembling fingers, I turned the small key in the lock and took a step back, staring at the closed door. Only a second passed before I realized that it couldn’t be her scream. It was too terrified, too raw.
And with a jolt, it brought me out of sleep.
Straight into a real-life nightmare.
Before I saw anything else, before I registered anything else, I saw Diane. I saw the stranger behind her, the thick arm wrapped around her middle, and then the desperate look in Diane’s eyes.
Next I saw her husband getting to his feet and Dresden cautiously approaching from the other side.
The stranger hissed like a snake, his human face removed, exposing his alien face: the lower part of his face lacking mouth, the upper part containing two black eyes, and his massive stature towering behind Diane’s body.
The fear in her face was accentuated by how small she looked in comparison, restrained by the large monster, his body completely covering the door he was standing in front of.
”She’s human, don’t-” Mr. Evans started, his voice sounding nothing like I was used to.
Terrified.
The alien quickly wrapped his long bony fingers around Diane’s thin throat and before anyone could do anything about it, her skin beneath and around his fingers turned red and she started screaming. A scream that broke everything in me. A scream I will never forget.
It only lasted a second. I sat frozen while melted skin and thickened fresh blood started trickling over the alien’s hands, and with a large snap that silenced everything, Diane’s head was severed from the rest of her body.
TBC...
prenant and having such thoughts!
