Roswell Fanatics

-Whoa, it's been a minute but I'm back and I hope you enjoy this chapter. Everything in italics is the past. Enjoy and reply.


Part 11


“Saving the world Max. All you’ve signed up for is saving for the world.”

He laid on his back on another threadbare couch in another hotel room in another county and thought about what she’d said to him that night 2 weeks ago. How he’d smiled, just a little, and jumped back into the car, almost excited about the adventure they were about to embark on, imagined them to be a new day Bonnie and Clyde only on the right side of the law once the truth came out anyway. He squeezed the stress ball in his hand until it hurt.

He knew better now.

-

“We need a another car.”

Max glanced at her from the corner of his eye, “what?”

They'd gotten back on the road and had been driving for about 2 hours before she made her announcement. He could barely see the sun peeking over the horizon in the distance. She shook her head gently and sat up straighter; looking around them with a keen eye, “pull into that parking lot.”

“Which one?”

“The EZ Stop. Pull in there.”

He did so without question and they sat quietly for a moment, “what are we…”

She put her finger to her mouth and he followed her line of sight to an elderly man and woman walking arm and arm towards them and the look on her face as she watched them troubled him in a way he couldn’t understand.

“Liz?”

“Get out of the car,” she said quietly and leaned over the console between their seats to reach into one of the garbage she’s dragged out her house.

“Liz?”

She turned on him quickly, jaw set and eyes grim, “I said, get out of the car Max. I need you to go over there and chat those two guys up for a second.”

“I…”

“Do it,” she said firmly and he nodded.

Max opened the door and slipped from his seat, walked up to them with a strained smile and asked for directions to the nearest car rental place. They stopped and were in the middle of their answer when, suddenly, Liz was in front of them, gun in hand.

All three put their hands up and Max asked, surprised, “what are you…”

“Shut up,” she countered quickly, raising the weapon and pointing it at the elderly couple, “where are you parked?”

The woman began to speak but one look at Liz made her quiet down, carefully weigh what she was about to say, “we’re over in row C.” She reached for the key slowly so as not to alarm their attacker and let it hang off her finger, “take it, you don’t need us.”

“No,” she said quietly, “I’m the one making the rules and you’ll bring me to it.”

“Lo…”

“Shut up,” she screamed, “this isn’t up for debate. Bring me there now or I shoot you and wait for the next person to come out.”

She waited a beat and let them look at her, let them realize she was serious before continuing, “make your choice now.”
They nodded and started moving towards row C. Max looked at her with confused eyes but her face stayed completely impassive, “you too,” she pointed her gun in his direction, “start walking.”

He kept his hands up and followed them to their vehicle, an older style mini van with the kind of backdoor that was slid back inside of pulled open. Max watched the older man fumble with the keys until his wife took them, gently caressing his hand, and he looked away then, shamed by his naiveté and the part he was playing in this. She unlocked it finally and they stood still awaiting further instruction.

“Throw them on the ground there,” Liz said, pointing at the patch of asphalt near the toe of her tennis and bent forward slowly, never taking her eyes away, as she reached for them.

“I’m gonna need you three to get in.”

The older woman clutched her husband then, showing fear for the first time, “That’s not necessary. You have the keys now just take our car and go.”

Liz’s mouth set into a flat line, “I’m only gonna tell you this one more time and then I’m gonna get angry. Get in the car.”

The older man grabbed his wife’s hand and helped her into the seat.

“You too,” she said and Max climbed in, barely able to breathe. He sat next to the older couple, heart beating out of his chest at the knowledge that he’d set a truly insane person free. There was no Larek, no saving the world, he wasn’t an alien and she’d been lying to him the whole time. She’d just wanted to get free and had recognized a sucker when she saw one. He sat back on the seat and closed his eyes, only coming back to reality when a hand with skin as thin and soft as paper grabbed hold of his own.

He met the older woman’s eyes and when she smiled her reassurance at him, he tried to smile his back. He moved to shut the door behind him when Liz stopped the motion with a tsk, and pulled it back open, clicked the child lock into the ON position and he heard the woman next to him let out a pained sob. He hadn’t even thought of that avenue of escape and now it was lost to them all.

He wanted to apologize to the two of them but couldn’t. Just closed his eyes and silently told Sean, his family and the couple beside him how sorry he was for getting them into this mess when Liz climbed into the front seat and started to drive.

All three watched the back of her head and he knew they were all thinking of jumping her, that it was three against one and they might have a real chance of coming out on top but no one moved. No one was willing to take the chance of coming out on the wrong side of a bullet. She pulled into an empty parking lot after about fifteen minutes of driving and turned toward them, “empty your pockets.”

They did so without a word and she collected their meager cash and cell phones before ordering them all out of the car and face down onto the concrete.

“You’re going to lay there and count to 100 and if you look up or say anything before then, I’ll shoot you. Understand?”

They nodded and she pulled Max back up, “you’re coming with me.”

The older woman turned over quickly but one look into Liz’s eyes quieted whatever heroics’ she was about to display.

“Start counting,” she said and dragged him to the car, threw him into the back seat and burned rubber out of the parking lot.

They didn’t speak for a long time after until he broke the silence, “so none of it was real then?”

She looked at him quizzically, “what do you mean?’

“You just used me to get out of there.”

“No,” she replied quietly, having caught on, “I just don’t want the police to think that you’re a completely willing accomplice.”

“What?”

“If something happens,” she went on, frustrated by his lack of understanding, “if we get caught. I need you to be able to get out and finish this Max. You’re the key, I’m just here to teach you how to turn the lock.”

“So all that was fake then," he screamed, adrenalin and fear pumping through him, "you scared the hell out of me and those poor people and why do you have a gun?!”

“You think that was fun for me,” she yelled back, “I hated doing that but we needed a new car and we needed cash Max. You think the couple of hundred we already have is going to sustain us long enough to take care of everything? It won’t!”

He watched the side of her face angrily,“Have you ever done that before because you looked awful calm back there?”

She stuttered before answering, “Larek has told me everything I might need to know.”

“But we don’t need to do it this way.”

“There is no other way,” she said, defeat palpable in her voice and he could tell they weren’t only talking about what had just occurred anymore.

“Things are the way they are and we just have to live with them.”

“That’s not true,” he said, “you remember when we first met and I told you I didn’t believe in destiny?”
She nodded.

“I still don’t. We all have a choice in everything we do Liz and you can choose a different path.”

She shook her head, “no. You have a destiny Max and there’s no out running it for either of us.”

He put his hand on her shoulder, “promise me you won’t do anything like that again Liz.”

She didn’t answer.

“Promise me!”

“I promise,” she finally said, “that I will do whatever it takes to make sure you get through this year alive. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it because you’re the only hope this world has.”

He shook his head, scared for her as much as himself, “Liz…”

“Sit back and put your seat belt on.”

“Listen to me,” but no matter how many times he tried to engage her after that, she wouldn’t answer. The conversation was over.

-

Liz burst through the door and tossed a bag of Ramen noodles over to him, “I bought you something.”

He didn’t move to retrieve them from the floor after they bounced off the back of the couch so Liz came over and picked them, “did you hear me?”

He squeezed the stress ball again and she sat next to him, “what’s wrong now?”

“Where’d you get the money for this,” he asked, gesturing to the bag filled with groceries, “I thought we ran out.”

She looked away, “don’t do this Max.”

“I told you I wouldn’t have anything to do with ill gotten gains Liz and I was serious. I won’t eat that or anything you bring here unless I know where that money came from.”

“You have to eat,” she said with an edge to her voice but when he didn’t react she decided to let it go, for now anyway, and threw them into the small fridge between their beds.

“It’ll be there when you need them.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon in an uncomfortable silence while Liz watched game shows and Max napped intermediately. He watched the back of her head for a moment before speaking “has Larek spoken to you yet?”

Her shoulders tensed, “no. I could try and call hi…”

“No,” Max cut in, “I know how you call him and I don’t want you to do that.’

“How do you know that,” she asked, turning to face him, “and how did you know Lareks name before I ever told you what it was.”

He looked away and considered telling her something other than the truth before deciding against it, being untruthful was
what he was angry with her about and he couldn’t do the same thing and live with himself, “I read your files.”

Her eyes narrowed, “what?”

“That’s what I was doing there that night. Sean has been selling patients files and I paid to see yours.”

There was a deep quiet that followed his admission but he didn’t dare look up and meet her gaze.

“I can’t believe you,” she hissed, “you act like you’re so above it all Max but you’re just like the rest of us, rolling around in the dirt.”

He finally met her eyes then, willing her to understand, “I just needed to know more about you after all that stuff that you were telling me. I didn’t get them until after you told me I was an alien and I just,” he put his head back down and searched for the right words, “I had to know more about you Liz.”

“You could have asked.”

“When?”

“I don’t know,” she shouted, standing up and beginning to pace the length of the room, “but I would never read someone’s personal information like that then look down on them."

"I don't look down on you Liz," he said, meeting her eyes again with sincerity, "I don't care about that stuff you did before..."

She put her hand up and he stopped talking, " I did things I didn't necessarily want to do and none of that was any of your business!"

He looked away and she continued, "I'm still doing those things because I have to Max. I have to keep you fed and safe until Larek can tell me what to do next.”

“But I don’t want you to protect me Liz. I just need you be straight with me.’

She rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips, “fine, I stole the food but I didn’t take anyone’s money I just…we need to eat and we need to keep our strength up.”

She went to the fridge and pulled the food out before moving to sit beside him, “please eat,” she asked, desperation pouring off of her, “You need to stay well and I would get a job if I could but you know I can’t Max. This is all there is.”

He looked at it with a skeptical eye before pulling some noodles out, “only if you promise to start letting me pull more of my weight around here.”

She began to protest when he stopped her, “we’re in this together and I won’t have you sacrificing everything Liz. We need to start taking care of one another,” he grabbed her hands, “you have to start letting me help you too.”

She took a breath, “it’s hard for me to do that. I know what you’re worth to all of us and I don’t want you getting nabbed on something stupid. If Larek found out that I was letting you…”

“Larek won’t do anything to you Liz,” he cut in, “I won’t let him.”

She looked at him like he had no idea what he was talking about or who he was dealing with but smiled in appreciation anyway, pulled him into a hug, their first.

“Thank you.”

He squeezed her tight and turned his face into her neck, "Would you have hurt them? If they hadn't cooperated would you have killed them?"

She didn't need to ask what he was talking about. Just pulled him closer and he could feel a wetness against his shoulder that hadn't been there a minute ago but she never answered, and he didn't ask again.

-I've been working on GONER but it's not coming out in a way that I like so I'm not posting it until it does. Don't worry though, I know everything that I want to happen, it's just a matter of getting the words right. Anyways, here's the new part and I hope everyone enjoys. I read the replies and I wanted to make sure that people weren't blind sighted by the last part. You guys had to know that that gun was going to show up at some point (look at the title of this thing) and I know you all were aware of the horrible position Liz is truly in but I wanted to try and show you. Also, Carrie, I only realized that they hadn't touched one another for 11 chapters when you said it. That's got to be the longest I've ever gone without even a handhold!


Part 12


“I have to call him.”

Max sat on the edge of his bed and looked at Liz from the corner of his eye, still pretending to be absorbed in whatever was on TV at the moment.

“Max?”

He wanted to tell her no, just as he had ever since she brought the plan up the first time 2 days ago, but time kept passing and Larek still had not contacted them.

“Max!”

He wanted to scream out his knee jerk negative response but the reasons why she shouldn’t do it were beginning to be outweighed by the reasons that she should. Liz moved to stand in front of him and snapped her fingers in front of his face, “are you listening? We were on the news again Max! We can’t afford to wait around when I can call him!”

He rolled his eyes before he met her gaze, let her see the fear he’d been trying to keep at bay, both for her and their situation, “I don’t want you to hurt yourself Liz.”

She took a deep breath, and smiled as softly and as reassuringly as possible, “it won’t hurt too much Max and you’ll be here to watch me. To make sure nothing bad happens while I’m out. That’s better than I’ve ever had it before.”

“Liz…”

“We have to Max,” she said, cutting him off, “we can’t keep ducking in and out of different hotels and running from our shadows when we could at least be trying to make some progress. You're the one who amde me promise to include you in my decision making. I would have done this a while ago if I hadn't made that promise.”

He sighed and rubbed his temple, a nervous tick that he hadn’t been aware of until recently, “how would you…?”

“The hotplate…”

“No,” he deadpanned with determination and disbelief, “that’s too much!”

She crossed her arms over her chest, “Well I could slam my hand in the door about 5 or 6 times or I could touch the hotplate once.”

“There’s got to be some other way.”

“Like what?”

He started and stopped twice before looking away.

“He answers when I’m in pain Max,” she said, trying act relaxed while she went to the closet and pulled out their cook top before she set it on the dresser between them and plugged it in.

“Besides, you can ask him some things while I’m out.”

“Like what,” he asked, miserable about everything. Mad that he wasn’t able to be more of a help to her.

“Like what you are exactly, how you got here. You can ask what the hell is going to happen when we get where he’s been leading us,” she looked over her shoulder at him, “you know, things like that.”

“Why haven’t you ever asked him that stuff,” he replied, a little miffed at her tone.

“You think I haven’t? He just doesn’t answer.”

“Why not?”

She sat down on the edge of the bed parallel to his, their knees almost touching and he noticed that he could smell the heat from the stove top.

“Because he’s not here for me,” she said slowly, taking deep breathes and he watched her clench her hand before she brought it above the hot plate, “he only speaks to me so he can make sure I do what he needs me to.”

His breath caught, this was really happening, he was rally about to let her do this to herself and he moved to say something, to stop her, when she brought her hand down onto the plate with a hard slap. He froze mid motion and wasn’t really sure what he had been expecting but it definitely wasn’t the quiet surrounding them. The almost muted response, the sickening sizzle. The only sound she’d made was a small intake of breath then a quiet encircled them that scared him.

“Stop Liz.”

She ignored him and he watched her eyelids flutter for a moment before they rolled back. He felt stuck in place, unable to move forward or backward until the smell got to him. The knowledge that she was actually cooking herself penetrated his mind and he moved faster then than he’d ever remembered doing. Pushed her away and flat onto her back.

He leaned over her prone body after catching his breath, pushed the hair away from her face, “Liz? Wake up,” he commanded gently.

He could feel her breathing but she wasn’t responsive, “Liz!”

Her eyes popped open and their dull silver gleam made him pull away even though everything in his heart was telling him to pull her closer.

“Zan?”

A bolt of fear ran through him. He was there, in the room with them. Larek was using her voice to speak but there was something wrong with it. Like everything that was special and uniquely her had been pulled out, like it had been de-Lized, like it had been sterilized.

“My name is Max,” he was finally able to choke out, moving as far as he could away from her without falling off the edge of the bed. He couldn’t quite bring himself to get up yet. He didn’t want to leave her while that thing had her under his control.

Though Larek wasn’t using any of her facial muscles, he could feel his amusement when he replied, “Zan and Max are one in the same but I will humor you.”

His hand was shaking and so he shoved it under his thigh, tried to sound sure and confident, “we’ve been waiting to hear from you.”

“I was unable to get through because of the medication they were giving her. I had to wait until it was cleared through her system.”

“You’re here now.”

“She called me. I am only able to take over a host’s body under certain conditions.”

“A host?”

“This is not the first human body I have occupied.”

He was sweating even though the room was only 73 degrees, “how do you do that? How do you occupy her?”

“We are able to extract our essential selves from a body and move around in other forms. Some host’s are susceptible while asleep and some are only open to me when they are in pain.”

He watched him (her? it?) for a second, curious even though he didn’t want to be, “what am I?”

Larek thought before answering, “you are the crowned prince of a planet named Antar.”

Max felt his heart drop. He’d known, the healing ability and the magically unlocked doors were hard things to ignore, but the sadness he felt at the answer made him aware that a small part of him had hoped for something else, “so I’m an alien?”

“It is not that simple. The procedure was supposed to leave you fully alien but it had never been performed before and we were unable to contact you afterward. Something went wrong.”

“What procedure,” he could hear a distinct shriek like quality to his tone but he couldn’t control it, wasn’t even really trying to.

“You’re…” Larek stopped for a moment, “reincarnation is the word most humans would probably think of it as.”

Max took a deep breath and tried to fight back the tears he felt pinching behind his eyes, “why would I need to be reincarnated?”

“There was an uprising on our home planet. A man named Khivar turned a man inside the palace named Nasedo against the crown and they started a revolution. A battle raged from then on that decimated the population and turned a once vibrant planet into a shell.”

Max sat and listened, rapt, “what happened?”

“The planet was destroyed.”

“Destroyed?!”

"Khivar would rather the planet end then to let someone besides himself rule it. He, Nasedo and a few others were able to leave just before they detonated the bomb.”

He struggled to find his footing, to understand the loss he felt for a life he couldn’t even remember living, “I was one of the ones who escaped?”

“No, before he set his plan into motion, he was able to get into the palace. While inside he killed your parents, you, your sister and your first lieutenant but not before sympathizers were able to retrieve some of your DNA. We first created clones and sent them to Earth but the ship crashed and all on board were killed. The humans were also able to confiscate the bodies and the ship. We were not willing to risk such an event happening again and we didn’t have enough specimens to try and remake you three but there was just enough of you and Vilandra left for us to try another approach.”

Max nodded slowly, feeling numb, “Vilandra is inside of my sister?”

Larek shook his head, “let me explain. We decided that we needed to implant you inside someone already on the planet, that way, you would have a ready made human shell and would have built in protection for your formative years. We did not have the time to scout a host properly so we choose Dianne Evans as the surrogate because she was in the right place and already pregnant. We then implanted you and your sister inside of her. Vilandra’s essence didn’t take but yours did”

“Hold on,” he said, thinking back over the story, “my mom was already pregnant.”

“Yes.”

Max felt bile rising in the back of his throat and covered his mouth, “oh my God!”

“What is it?”

“You killed…me,” he said after a moment, “you killed whoever I was going to be!”

“Would you prefer that we left you dead Zan? Contrary to what you would like, the prior occupant of your body was not you. Would you rather to have never known the ones who raised you, to have never met my host?”

His head was spinning, “what?!”

“You questioned me on what you are and the truth is that I am not quite sure. You were supposed to be our king but it seems that you are more human than what we originally planned.”

“Excuse me,” he asked, disbelief and want warring inside of him.

“We lost you after your implantation because something went wrong and I believe more than our ability to track our kind was damaged by our inability to take our time with the procedure. Our society has something like a hive mind. We are able to live separate lives but we are also able to tap into one another. We have never been able to accomplish that with you but now that you are so near I am able to read some of your emotions and thoughts.”

He recoiled and moved from the bed, stood with his back against the wall,” I don’t like the idea that you’re able to get inside of my mind.”

“This is the way it is,” Larek responded, “I know what you know and I see this body the way you see it, I feel about it the way you do and it disturbs me. I’ve seen what you think about, what you want to do and I find it repulsive. On Antar, we were above such…rutting,” Larek says with Liz’s mouth, “we had no need for such intimacy and seeing my crown prince desire such a thing is repugnant.”

Max’s mouth fell open in an O of understanding, “that’s why sex makes you leave,” he said more to himself than the being lying across the bed but it answered anyway.

“I cannot stand the act, the loss of control is disgusting. The fact that you desire such a thing is proof that the procedure was not stable.”

“I wasn’t supposed to be human at all,” he asked.

“You were supposed to be a pure reproduction in a human body but it seems as though your essence was undermined during the transfer. I am not quite sure what you are now.”

Max was about to ask something else when he thought of Liz. Of all the pain and hurt she’d been through because of this whole mess and decided to find out something for her, “why did you pick her?”

“This particular host?”

“Yeah,” he said lowly, “why destroy her life the way you have?”

“Because she doesn’t matter,” he answered flatly, “because she was the first to answer my call.”

He breathed in and held it, tried to focus before he asked, “what do you…,” but the silver gleam disappeared before he could finish his question and Liz began gasping for breath.

He moved back across the room, took her into his arms and moved her head so that it rested against his shoulder, “are you okay?”

“Huh,” she responded and he picked her charred hand up and moved it a safe distance away so she wouldn’t accidentally hit it. The wound looked better than it had before Larek entered her body but it was far from healed.

She opened her eyes, looked up at him and he smiled. Happy to see her becoming more lucid, “do you want me to get you anything?”

She frowned, swallowed and, “some water would be nice,” came out in a scratchy tone.

He nodded and laid her head across the pillow, once again making sure her damaged hand was safe, before he went to the bathroom and filled a paper cup from the tap. He looked at himself in the mirror, took in the bloodshot eyes, and splashed some water across his face. The last thing in the world she needed to be worried about was his welfare. He waited a bit before bringing the cup back and sitting beside her as she drank fitfully.

“How did it go?”

He licked his lips and put his hand on her shoulder, “well, he told me some things about my home planet.”

“He did?”

“He told me it was called Antar and," he hesitated, "that I was its crown prince.”

She looked shocked, “I knew it had to be something important for them to look for you all this time but I never even considered that.”

She took another drink before smiling slightly, “I’m in the presence of royalty then?”

He laughed, when she was around it seemed like the things that scared him most lost some of their power, “it would seem so. Does it hurt?”

She looked at him questioningly and he nodded to her hand. She shook her head and said, “not too much,” but he could see her clenching her jaw against it and got up to go get some ice from the dispenser in the hall.

“Did you ask anything else,” she said casually when he came back in,

He pulled a towel from the top of the closet and sat the bucket on top of it next to her before settling her hand inside, “like what?”

She shook her head, “like anything.”

He stopped what he was doing and looked at her face when she said that, watched her try to pretend that she was just curious, and he knew what she really wanted to know: Why Me?


“Because she doesn’t matter.”


He sat beside her and lowered his gaze, watched his thumb as he ran it along her collarbone, unable to meet her eyes as he lied, “I didn’t really get to ask much but next time I’ll try.”

He couldn’t tell her truth, that her life was in tatters simply because she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was solace to be found in the belief that your horrible life was unavoidable. That no matter what happened you’d always end up exactly where you were anyway and he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that if she'd only taken another turn, been a minute late, that if only she had never answered the voice she heard in her brain that she might be sitting in a high school right now instead of running from the law.

He could never be that cruel to anyone.

Especially to her.

Max looked up with a small smile, “just go to sleep so this thing can heal.”

Her eyes had been fluttering with exhaustion since Larek left. He couldn’t imagine how draining it must be to have someone else controlling your body, “okay, but you lie down too.”

He squeezed her hip with his other hand and went to lie down on his twin bed even though he wasn’t in the least bit tired. He knew that if he didn’t, she would worry over him leaving without her supervision and he wanted her to sleep well,

“good night Liz.”

“Good night,” she responded groggily and when he looked over she was already out.

-

Liz

She’d known he was there before he ever spoke but the sound of his voice after such a long absence still shook her.

Larek?

Yes. I have your next orders…

-

He woke up slowly and looked at the ceiling. Max hadn’t felt tired when he laid down but he must have been because he’d been out for hours, it was now dark outside. Max rubbed the sleep from his eyes and tried to remember what had disturbed him when he heard her groan and roll over.

“…No…”

He looked at the dark hump of her frame beneath the covers from across the room as she started to breath hard, “no…Larek…I, I can’t.”

“Liz,” he said but she didn’t wake up.

“No! Please don’t!”

He got up and moved to kneel beside her bed, grabbed her shoulders to shake her awake, “Liz!”

She came out of the dream with a start and a gasp before recognizing him and pulling him closer.

“Are you alright?”

She didn’t say anything, just dragged her hands across his back like she was making sure he was really there. He could feel the curve of her mouth in the bend of his shoulder and relaxed into it, “whatever it is, it’s okay.”

“No,” she said on a broken tone, “it’ll never be okay.”

He pulled back and tried to catch her eye, “what do you mean?”

“I spoke…,” she stopped but her face was covered in darkness so he didn’t see it coming until her mouth touched his own. He pulled back, shocked, but she didn’t let him go. Just took his face in her hands and moved him closer, kissed him again and this time he relaxed even though alarm bells were going off in the back of his mind.

He ignored them.

Max had only kissed a girl twice before so when she told him to slow down he did, when she slipped her tongue between his lips he followed suit. Mimicked her actions and only stopped when she tried to climb into his lap.

“Liz I…”

“Don’t,” she said quickly, “don’t talk I just need you to help me.”

“With what Liz,” he whispered even though it wasn’t necessary, even though he already had a good feeling what she’d ask of him. She was shaking and so he ran his hands down her arms, “what do you need?”

She laid her head back against his shoulder, murmured, “touch me,” into his ear and, in this moment, he was thankful for the cover of darkness because those were the two words he’d always been to afraid to want to hear from her and his heart ratcheted up. He wanted to, God knew he’d been dreaming of it since the day he met her. How soft her skin would be.
How her moans might sound, damp and low in his ear but something was wrong and the last thing he wanted was to take advantage of her when she was in a weak moment.

“I can’t do that. Just tell me and I’ll help any other way.”

“Max,” she said, pulling the lobe of his ear between her teeth, seducing him, “there isn’t any other way. I need you to help me.”

He sat there for a second before he felt her hand moving down and under his shirt and that’s when he pushed her to the side and stood up. One more second of her hands on him and he’d be compromising not only their relationship but his beliefs.

He began to pace, “we can’t do this Liz. I know It’s probably Larek right?”

“Yes.”

“Then…” he looked away, feeling heat flood his face, “I’ll go into the bathroom and let you deal with it.”

She scoffed and he could feel her shaking with tension, “My hand…”

He looked at her with sympathy, “That's why God gave us two right," he said, trying to lighten the mood and when she didn'd laugh along he cleared his throat.

"I want to help you but I can’t do that. I would never want…for it to happen like that between us.”

She said nothing so he continued, “how about I just leave you alone?”

Max could barely make out her nod in the affirmative before he scampered into the bathroom and shut the door tightly behind himself. He sat on the edge of the tub and covered his eyes when he realized he was staring at the door. It wasn’t right, thinking of her just on the other side of it, doing what she was doing when it was a private matter. When it was the only way she could regain control of her mind.

He clenched his jaw and rubbed his clammy palms against his jeans, it was wrong and he wouldn’t give into temptation but then 5 minutes turned into 10, then 15 and he found himself standing and slowly moving to the door. This was wrong, he knew it with everything inside of him that this was wrong, but he put his ear to it anyway. Struggling to hear anything, a caught breath, a squeaky spring and when there was nothing he became concerned. Max had been in here for at least 20 minutes now. She should be done or making some noise at least.

“Liz?”

There was no answer.

He turned the knob slowly, so she’d be sure to see the door opening, and walked back into the room only to see her bed empty and the door beyond it open.