The Fate of Destiny Part 127
Max shook his head into the phone. “She went to sleep as soon as we got in. I didn’t give her anything. I figured any more drugs would just make her feel worse.”
“Do you know what it was?” Liz fell back on the bed, her eye on the time. “When I talked to her, she kind of blew it off. I thought she was just feeling nauseous or something.”
“She’s having bone pain but from what she said… it sounds like growing pains but I can’t see how that could be… She’s sweating all the time. She started carrying deodorant in her purse. She’s hiding some of the discomfort. She was squirming around like she had ants in her pants, yesterday.”
“How long has she been asleep?”
“Going on 18 hours now.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. She never sleeps this much. We’ll think of something, Liz. We’re going to talk to this guy today… He should know something.”
“I hope so.” Liz rolled over to look at the door when she heard David getting up and around. “Call later today. Talk to David. He won’t tell me what’s wrong. He just says that it’s guy stuff.”
“Right.” Max sighed and blew out a breath. “He’s… got girl trouble. He gets so nervous, he puts himself to sleep.”
“Oh.”
“I told him we’d work on it when I got back and I could still get back in time if today goes well… but… I just… my gut tells me it’s not going to be simple.”
“How are you handling her?”
“You know…” He lay back on the bed. “Since we’ve been away from home, I’ve been less conflicted on how to handle her. I got really irritated the other day… which was really weird because she wasn’t even in the room. I had sent her out with my phone for an hour. To get her out of the room, to… to give her a break. She wasn’t gone ten minutes and I had the sudden urge to strangle her. It was just for a moment.” He furrowed his brow. “For a moment and it was as if it wasn’t really coming from me. Does that make sense?”
“I don’t know. That’s very strange, Max.” Liz sat up when David knocked on her door. “Call later. We’re about to go for our walk. Take a nap before you go out. I know you’re not sleeping well.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Max, it’s four in the morning in California. Take a nap before you go running around the city…”
--
Jesse pointed at her and Isabel just rolled her eyes and waited for him to pull a wheelchair out of the back of the car and set it up next to her door. “I’m fine.”
“You know, Isabel… It’s difficult, sometimes, dating an independent woman. She appreciates it when you open doors for her. She smiles politely when you buy her nonsense gifts but she really doesn’t ever seem to get that being a gentlemen is hard to overcome. Now. You’ve just had surgery and you really shouldn’t be moving around much. Humor me. Let me do this. I can’t help it.” Jesse held out his hand for her to take.
Before they were halfway up the walk, a sheepish young man came barreling out of the house and Isabel, frustrated with her boyfriend, greeted the boy. “Sebastien Jesus Ramirez, if I was your mother, I’d beat you with my shoes… the expensive ones.”
The teen stopped mid-stride and barreled back into the house. Jesse held back a snicker. “That was good. Keep it up.”
“I’m not playing a game.”
“Isabel… just help me make him sweat. He’s spoiled.”
“Yes, he is.”
--
Max glanced at his watch as he waited in the common room of his suite. When Beth emerged he was definitely not happy. Her blouse seemed to be missing something… like fabric. "What are you wearing?"
"Clothes."
"But you're…" How could he see those on his daughter? "coming out on top."
"Oh please, I'm covered. If you have a problem with my boobs, take me off the estrogen and risk me going into shock or whatever." The really issue had been to find a shirt that would not constrict too tightly anywhere. He was lucky she wasn’t wearing a bathrobe. "I'm telling you, that stuff isn't really helping my PMS at all."
He pressed his fingers against his eyes, an ache forming behind his eyes. This time he knew all the irritation was his own. "Fine but you are covered, just barely. Go put another shirt on."
"You're impossible." She groaned but went back to her room to find another shirt.
"I'll be in the lobby. Hurry up or we'll be late." He made his way down to the elevator and just as he was about to shut the elevator doors, Beth rushed inside, hitting the button as she readied for the ride down. "What are you wearing?"
"I'm covered now."
"No you're not." That headache was inviting friends.
"I so am."
"You just put a Band-Aid on a bleeder."
"You wanted me to cover up and I did."
"But I can still see your belly button."
"We're gonna be late." She tried to change the subject.
"I am all for your varying shades of black. I can deal with the… corset thingies and I realize you can't wear them just now but we are in a foreign city and I don't want strangers ogling my daughter."
She turned to the mirror to examine her outfit. The skirt was a decent length, it was damn near conservative. Mom had bought it a boring color so that's all Beth had changed about it. Her tube top was within legal parameters and the translucent shirt obscured everything else somewhat. She didn't think she looked overly sexy or exposed. "Dad, we're in California. Girls are wearing bikinis. The hooker we saw on the ride over wasn’t nearly decent. No one's going to look at me. And besides my belly itches. When are you gonna take the stitches out?"
"When we're sure it's safe. Don't change the subject." Max spotted Will the second they got off the elevator. "Will? Your jacket, if you don't mind."
"What are you wearing?" Will blurted out as he very quickly averted his eyes and shucked his jacket. There was too much of this little girl showing, enough to make anyone realize she was not a little girl. Parts he wasn't supposed to know she had were threatening to expose themselves if she took too deep a breath. "I can't believe you."
"Oh please, like neither of you has seen breasts before."
Max took his daughter by the shoulders. "You do not have breasts. You are still ten and have pigtails and dress up in Kat's clothes. Are we clear?"
"You're delusional."
"I'm well aware of that."
"It's too hot for this jacket."
"You should have thought of that before you left the room."
The car ride was quiet for the most part. Beth cleared her throat. "You won't tell me where I'm going, how am I supposed to know how to dress?"
"I wasn't expecting you to come out of your room half-naked." Max set his jaw and willed himself to calm down. "How are you feeling today? Still hurt?"
"Not so much. It's a two. I think breakfast helped. Sugar and protein." She shrugged. "I had this craving for milk…"
"So, you drank it all?" He held back a smile.
"I hate milk." She muttered. “I had to brush my teeth like three times to get the taste out of my mouth.”
--
Alex scoured four jewelry stores and his siblings were about to kill him. Berty smacked him upside the head. “You did the same thing with the house. Did you even decide on that?”
“Hey, you don’t get to weigh in until you get engaged but you’d have to go on a date first, now wouldn’t you.” Alex hissed at her and walked into one more jewelry store. This time he pulled Gina along with him. “Do you… get a feeling about what ring I should buy?”
“I don’t know.” Gina sank onto the floor with a huff. “I’m tired. I wanna talk to my daddy.”
“I can’t believe you’re cheating.” Berty griped and plunked down in a seat. “The last store was fine. I can’t believe you got mad at the salesguy for showing me a necklace.”
“He wasn’t showing you a necklace, he was staring down your shirt.”
“There is another way to do this, you know.” Kyle cleared his throat. “You could, I don’t know, take the woman you love into a jewelry store and see what she likes.”
“You can go take a long walk off something short.” Alex muttered to himself.
--
Max glanced at the doors again. Kal Langley, they said. Will had disappeared twenty minutes ago and nothing. Beth was wandering around looking at all the awards and photos on the walls. She glanced at him only once to spot his bouncing leg. “You had three cups of coffee and two glasses of juice. Bathroom’s that way.”
“What?”
“Bathroom, through those doors and around the corner.” Beth repeated.
“Don’t go anywhere.”
“I’m just raring to go wandering around in this cesspool.” She muttered as he rolled his eyes and disappeared down the way she had instructed. Shedding Will’s jacket she moved more freely around the lobby. Beth bopped to her headphones and about missed the presence of someone who wasn't her father coming up on her from behind.
"Look at that. Like early Madonna meets just discovered Amy Lee with a little Craft Fairuza."
"Please." Beth turned when the images flashed in her mind, because she had no clue who those girls really were. "I am so much prettier than any of those hags."
"And smart too." Kal nodded to his fellows. "Tell me sweetheart, do you have representation?"
"What? Like an agent or something?" She tried to focus but his thoughts were hard to latch onto. Like he was thinking in a different language but not just English or Spanish or French but like another process all together. Another frequency of thought or something.
"Exactly right, sweet stuff."
"I'm not here for stardom… exactly."
"Sweetie, everyone's here for stardom."
"Whatever." She scoffed at him and started to turn back to her bopping.
"She does have a nice look, Kal. She's perfect for that music video… not to mention that replacement for Micsha."
"Tell Kal, sweetie, why you are here if it's not for an audition. This is an exclusive waiting room."
"I can answer that." Max answered as he returned to the lobby from the men's room. "Mr. Langley, I'm Dr. Evans. We spoke on the phone."
"Scrap it boys. She's not for sale."
"And put your jacket on." Max hissed at Beth, who rolled her eyes but did as told. "We'll just take a moment of your time."
"Your girlfriend?" Kal said for his associates' benefit.
"My daughter. She's only 16." Max shot the men evil glares.
"Boys, excuse me. I have to take this meeting." Holding open the large double doors, Kal rushed them through a corridor, snatched up the book Will had in his hands and through another set of doors. A large man standing outside the last set of doors kept Will from entering after the trio.
The door slammed shut and Kal whirled on the Roswellians. He tried to throw an energy blast at Max. Beth deflected it before it was a threat. Max didn't have time to ponder that. "Hey, what was that for?"
"I'm not getting sucked back into that world, Max. I got your wife the info. That's it. I'm done." Kal glared at them. "You can forget it. No way home. No one's coming. It's over."
"We don’t want to go back." Max shook his head. "I've got a career. My wife loves her job. My kids are deeply rooted on Earth. We were extremely grateful for the information you got us. We wouldn't have come if not for…"
"Me." Beth turned to the alien. "There's something wrong with me."
"She… gets thoughts form other people. Mental images of what they're thinking. She can't block it out."
"Not possible. Only way would be if you mated to offspring."
"What?"
"The gifts you're talking about were supposed to be the end result for mating to offspring."
"Elaborate. Please."
"You're paired. That was the way it worked. Zan and Ava. Vilandra and Rath. Combining abilities when you create offspring. Your kid and Vilandra's kid mate and you get a perfect Antarian Human hybrid. A being strong enough to knock Kivar on his ass but we know you're not stupid enough to mate with Ava, right?"
Max looked at Beth who seemed to be absorbing absolutely everything in stride. "I do have a child by Tess." He admitted at last. "But Isabel and Michael never… well, they do not have a child on this earth. I don't have grandchildren yet. My son and Michael's daughter are married."
"A son by Tess?"
"No. By my wife. I had a daughter by Tess. Michael's daughter is by a human. This daughter here, is by my wife."
"Then she can't have the powers you're talking about."
"But she does."
"I do. I know that you're really scared that someone will find out about me if I'm as real as we're saying. I know that you didn't do your job to protect your charges.” Beth paused, as she couldn’t control how fast she was reading him, and gripped a chair for balance. “Any of them… there were eight, Dad?”
“Do you see?” Max gestured to his daughter and approached the alien. “I love my daughter and this is killing me. It’s going to drive her crazy. You have to help us.” The alien was unmoved. “She’s 16 years old. She’s not going to fight in an alien war, Kal. All I want for her is to graduate high school and go to college, get married and have kids. The whole American Dream bit… but I don’t want her in a loony bin because I was too afraid to look for the answers.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do. If you wanted her in movies, I could do it today, you’d see it next year. I could have her face in a magazine next week but I can’t fix her.” Kal looked torn for a moment and Max clung to that. “I’m not a scientist. The scientist was one of the others and he’s lost his head since he was in his prime. There’s nothing really in it for me to even try.”
Beth looked up at him from the chair she had sunken into. “My aura’s wrong. I can’t control the hard stuff. I could blow up a building if I tried. I could levitate everything in this room and hit nine different targets at the same time. I could read your secretary and tell you she’s sleeping with half the men on this floor. Your bodyguard is on coke…” She slipped in the chair. “But it’s hard to keep it surface level. If… I… Dad…”
“What?” Max rushed to her side.
“If you don’t give me something, I’ll read everyone in the building.”
“Okay.” Max fumbled with his pocket and pulled out a long box with a ready dose. It took him only a moment to inject the sedative and Beth was out cold before the stopper hit the base.
“What was she saying about her aura?”
“It’s the wrong color. She reads auras and… hers doesn’t match mine.”
“Huh.”
“Mine is blue. Hers is green, like Michael’s, only I am definitely her father.”
“You think that is green?” Kal knelt beside the girl, studying her aura.
“I’ve never seen it. She said it’s green.”
“Get her eyes checked, I’d say it’s more of a turquoise or an aquamarine. Maybe there’s a nuance of color that her human eyes can’t discern.” He tilted his head at her. “She is beautiful.”
“I need you to help in anyway you can.”
“I can only tell you what I know.”
“We’ve already done a slew of medical tests, we are almost certain we know what’s wrong… we just don’t know how to fix her.” Max held out the dossier.
“She really is beautiful.”
TBC
The Fate of Destiny Part 181E CC/UC ADULT 09/02/10 COMPLETE
Moderators: Anniepoo98, Itzstacie, truelovepooh, Erina, Forum Moderators
Part 128
The Fate of Destiny Part 128
Will carried Beth into her room and lay her down in the middle of the bed. He carefully removed her boots and set them on top of her suitcase. Looking her over, he knew she wasn’t going to be comfortable in those clothes but there was nothing to be done about it now.
“Don’t worry about it.” Max whispered as he passed. “When she gets uncomfortable, she’ll get changed and won’t even remember doing it. She’s always done that.”
Will nodded and kissed her forehead before joining Max in the sitting room. “What did Mr. Langley say?”
“He’d look into it. I left him the files. He said he’d get back to me.” Max shook his head as he sat down with a cherry coke in hand. “He tried to kill me. I was totally unprepared for it… and Beth just… waved it off, like he had thrown a tissue at me.”
“What happened?”
“She… took over, pleading her case to him and she was making her point when she turns to me and says she’d read the whole building if I didn’t knock her out.” He took a deep breath. “She’s getting stronger and it’s not just that she would have read the whole building, she knew what was about to happen. She’s… gaining… a clarity of some kind.”
“She’s been kind of stressed out, too.”
“Yeah, everyone has.”
Will took a deep breath and blew it out slowly as he took a seat in an armchair. “I need to talk to you. I know we’re not on the best of terms right now but I need you to hear this. Kat and I did not enter into this lightly. It wasn’t just lust and hormones… there are deep feelings between us. Feelings we held back for a long time. They crept up on me and suddenly I realized I’d been dating her for years before I ever kissed her… Said kiss at Danny’s wedding in front of her whole family…”
Max just nodded to himself for a minute. “I hope you have daughters someday, Will. Just to know what this feels like. First, I lost Beth to you and now I’ve lost Kat.”
That piece of knowledge floored Will for a minute, stealing his breath. Forcing his mouth to make a little saliva to ease out the words, he raised his gaze to Max. “Those girls love you, Max. Heart and soul. You’re their hero. Maybe you don’t see it because you’re in the eye of a storm but the rest of us, caught up in it, we see it. Kat and Beth both, the worst thing that either could ever do is to disappoint you. If they did that, it would kill them.”
--
Michael rolled up his sleeves and let the nurse go about her business. The rubberband pinched his bicep when she wrapped it around. The rubber ball was old and falling apart. “Geez, you guys short on money?”
“This is a clinic. We don’t spend money on rubber balls unless we have to.” The nurse grumbled. “Just squeeze.”
“Sorry, I’m late.” Agent Seyton walked in with a briefcase. “Where’s the doctor? She’s supposed to have the key.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, the sample has yet to be taken.” Michael grumbled. “Nurse, can we hurry this up? Some of us have to work for a living.”
“If you weren’t one of Dr. Davis’s special patients, I’d take you over my knee for talking to me that way.”
“Yeah, yeah. The blood’s not getting any fresher.” The two stared off for a minute. “Lady, if I’m late to work, I gotta go in early tomorrow and I’ll miss breakfast with my kids. I already miss lunch and dinner and sometimes they’re already asleep when I get home. You got kids?”
“I’m waiting for the doctor. She’ll be in shortly.” The nurse set down the chart and exited with a huff.
“Wife and kids, huh.” Agent Seyton set the case down on the table next to him.
“You the new gopher?” Michael stopped squeezing the ball because his arm felt like it was going to explode. “Syd will be in soon with the key, don’t worry about it.” He took a minute to look her over. “What are you? 12?”
“27.” She managed a small smile.
“Married?” She didn’t answer but he knew what she would say. “You should have been before you took the job. You’ll just end up an old maid like your SA… or the hottie in Lubbock.”
“Your wife know you talk about women this way?”
“As long as she’s on the hottie list, she don’t mind.”
The door opened and Sydney Davis walked in with a set of tubes. “Hey, Michael, how’s it going?”
“Your nurse is rude.”
“She’s been working a long time and she’s the best who will work for the crap I pay.” She waved him off. “According to the stipulations, we’ll need a triad of tests. Blood, hair and a swab.”
“Her mother-in-law is a bitch.” Michael muttered and winced when the needle sank into his forearm.
“You know you’ll pass the test with flying colors. She won’t get the kids.” She pulled two vials of blood and set them on a tray with their labels facing up. “Now, say ‘ah.’”
“You can’t talk to me like this. I’m not fi-ahve.” Michael gagged the second the swab entered his mouth.
“You’re worse than the kiddies who come in on physical day. How does your wife put up with you?” Syd tsked as she made some comments on the chart. “Hair. You can pull that yourself, if you’d like.” She held open the envelope for the strand of hair he plucked from his head. “All right. Just give me a sec to get everything labeled and then you can go.” She worked a bit from her little rolling stool. “Hey Michael?”
“Yeah?”
“How’s Will doing?”
Michael barely glanced at the agent in the room before clearing his throat. “Okay, I guess. He… was really shook up with what happened to Beth. That was the last I saw of him before he headed upstate.”
“Oh.” She nodded and glanced up at him. “I saw him before the wedding and he wasn’t doing so hot.”
“He told you about the ex?”
“He told you?”
“I heard it through the grapevine. Liz told the wife. You know how that thing works.” He shrugged. “He got schnockered at the wedding, if that tells you anything.”
“He doesn’t drink that much. I guess he’s still taking it hard. Is he in Santa Fe now?” She motioned for Michael to open the case, which he did careful and made it look like he was using a key. “I was thinking about giving him a call or something.”
“You’d better try his cell. He’s in L.A. right now.”
“With Beth, yeah, Isabel was telling me. I was studying her results. I need to give Max a call anyway.” She set each vial and tube and packet in its spot and Michael closed the case again for Agent Seyton to take. “There you go.”
Agent Seyton took the case and exited the room swiftly without a word. Michael jerked his thumb at the closing door. “I think he wasn’t looking at resumes when he hired her.”
--
Max answered the phone and took a seat to have the conversation as quietly as possible. Kal kept asking question after question. Max answered each to the best of his ability. He got the feeling Kal had been doing homework since they last spoke. They both agreed that something wasn’t quite adding up. Max got frustrated. “Look, I’m not an expert. My daughter is…”
“Fine. I’ll give her a call. Watch the kid carefully, don’t let her go reading half of the city, it’ll corrupt her mind.” Click.
Tossing the phone against the couch, Max shoved himself to his feet. He nudged open her door and found her in the same position Will had put her in only, she was wearing her pajamas. He had never known just when she had learned to do that but it seemed like she’d been changing in her sleep forever. He moved to sit on the edge of her bed. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was up to him to figure out what being Antarian meant to them all before she could know what it meant to be herself. If only he could see what she could.
--
Liz set the containers on the table and shrugged at her mother-in-law. “I just… start cooking and when it’s almost done I realize that I’ve made enough for everyone and everyone’s not here.”
“I’ll eat it. Set it right there.” Jim tapped his plate.
“Ooh, food.” Danny sauntered in, fresh from a shower.
“Davey, take the dog outside.” Liz motioned as she crossed the room to hug her oldest baby. “You just get off work?”
“Yeah. Thanks for dinner, Mom.” He kissed her cheek and took a seat.
“Dinner?” She looked to Diane.
“He’s been working since 2 a.m. He stopped in at six this morning for his ‘lunch’. They’ve been running him ragged since Max has been gone.”
“But they won’t beat me.” Danny smiled broadly and helped himself from one of the many tupperware containers. “Dr. Nichols was asking after Beth. I just told him that Dad took her to a specialist. How is she doing, by the way? Have you talked to Dad today?”
“He, um, went to see that… man in L.A. and he wasn’t happy to see them.” Liz hugged herself and took a seat at the table. “Beth did most of the negotiating herself from what he says. Proving that she’s every bit as dangerous as Dad claimed. He, um, came around after Beth passed out because she used her powers and couldn’t control them anymore. Or Dad put her to sleep. I forget. That was this morning. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Is that man going to help?” Jim set down his fork.
“I think so. I hope so. If anyone is a master persuader, it’s Beth.” Liz took the plate from Diane with a half-smile. “We just pray he knows what to do.”
--
Kathy cleared her throat and ran through every factor she had come across and answered every question from the man on the phone. “The tampering must have gone on for years. Every human exposed to the same drug has become infertile.”
“What do you suppose made your mother different?”
“Any number of factors. The fact that she had been healed. Beth said there was a marked different in her aura as a result. The fact that she had a sustained connection to Michael for the entirety of her pregnancy. I don’t know how long prior to, though.”
“Which do you think occurred first? The tampering or the sustained connection?”
“Given the date that the drug was first administered… it’s more probably that the connection existed first.” Kathy tapped her pen against the desk.
“If you go in and excise the block, the build-up, you anticipate a flood-gate reaction?”
“Damn straight. She’s already been pushing her limits. If it weren’t for what she tried to do, she might have really gone crazy doing this on her own. The episode allowed her to kick-start her regenerative ability and I think that’s been working on the issue but it’s still too fast and it’s too dangerous to just let it.”
“So, when she gets knocked out by the drugs, you think that hinders her healing process?”
“It knocks out her cerebral cortex momentarily, suspending her powers and when they kick in again, she’s already asleep.”
“Arresting her abilities would do more harm than good?”
“I believe so.”
“Containing them?”
“I wouldn’t know how to do that. I don’t know the limitations.”
“But you’re pretty strong.”
“Dad says I am. I don’t normally think when I do something that way… I just do it. I was never inclined to test myself.”
“You think she’s more powerful than you’re capable of becoming.”
“That’s exactly right. However powerful I’m supposed to be… she passed me by when she was 10.”
--
Max helped her to sit up and drink the too-sweet, too-strong, very spicy coffee. “Too hot?”
“No.” She shook her head. Her head pounded but the coffee helped. With her eyes closed, she just listened to the silence. “You kill Will or he went to his room?”
“He’s in his room. Don’t worry, he and I have come to an understanding.”
“And what’s that?”
“We both love Kat. That’s enough for me.” He made her take some more before letting her lie down again. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to stop me like that again.”
“Good. You’re pretty strong and I actually had to work to get you off him. Will’s a nice guy, Dad. He’s just mixed up in the heart region. If she had left it up to him, they’d be 80 by the time anyone realized he had feelings for her.”
“Is that right?”
“He can’t hide from me though. I read him like a book… without using my mind to read him. You know what I mean?”
“I think I do. Sleepy still?”
“No but my eyes are all weird. They hurt when I have my glasses on.”
“Like on the plane?”
“I knew you were eavesdropping.”
“Only because I love you.” Max reached over and snapped off the light. “Open the peepers.” She did and followed his glowing finger with her eyes. “When did you first notice it?”
“On the plane. I didn’t wear my glasses hardly at all in the hospital. I haven’t worn my contacts either. They hurt worse when I wear my glasses all day.”
“Well, you know, most opthamologists would agree on what’s happening. Your eyesight is changing. Maybe it’s repairing itself. Part of that healing thing we do.”
“Your eyes are perfect, right?”
“20/20 all my life.”
“Huh… and Danny wears glasses because Mason wore glasses. Davey doesn’t cause Mom doesn’t. He has her eyes.”
“That about sums it up.” He doused his finger and turned on the lamp by the door with barely a wave. “So, you read Kal?”
“Yeah. It’s weird. Antarians don’t think the way humans do.”
“Oh. How do they think? Are humans just insects waiting to be crushed?”
“No. It’s… humans have these thought processes. Subconscious, conscious, instinct… all woven together. Antarians… or Kal, at least, the process is different.” She put her hands up, interlocking her first three fingers from each hand to form a basket. “That’s you and me. He’s got… like a cord.” She took three fingers on one hand and twisted them together and then pushed her thumb through the middle. “His instincts run through everything. Subconscious, conscious, bodily function are all working but together with the central instinct working to keep him moving… like a computer.”
“What are you saying? Kal is a robot? Like artificial intelligence.”
“No.” She shook her head at her father. “The instinct cord,” she wiggled her thumb, “is like a base set of operations inserted into all the normal functions of a sentient being.” She pointed to the tangle of fingers, painting each nail a different color. “You and I have all three of these but the thumb is something that only he has. It’s natural but… it’s like Pavlov and his pooches.”
“The thumb makes him salivate when he hears a bell?”
“Yes. When you get hurt, he responds. You get hurt, that’s the bell. He responds, that’s the salivation. King Zan gets a boo-boo and puppy-dog Kal rushes over to fix him… only since Kal is not a robot and has free will… he’s a bad puppy. When King Zan gets a boo-boo. He looks over and he thinks very slowly… ‘I wonder how long until it’s fatal and I have to jump in and save him.’” Beth suddenly blanched. “He’s a slave, Dad. He’s your slave.”
--
Jesse paced back and forth behind Isabel, who sat drinking a glass of chocolate milk at the table across from an abashed Sebastien. “So you were in Mexico, drinking up and having a good time and decided since you fooled the border agents that you could just drive back to the hotel without incident.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Sebastien… They could care less if you drink and drive, the border agents. But the U.S. cops care. They see you weaving in line at the border and when you cross, they pull you over. Why?” He demanded.
“Because it’s dangerous.” Sebastien answered, his eyes on the table.
“And illegal. You are lucky that Texas doesn’t have the same laws that New Mexico does. You didn’t get a DUI and you spent enough time in a cell that the deputy thinks you’ve learned your lesson but you and I know that you haven’t. At home, your alcohol level would have lost you driving rights for six months. Here, if it had been just a little higher… Class B misdemeanor.” Jesse stood still for a moment while he gathered his thoughts. He did the same thing in court. “You’re going away to school and I’m proud of you for that but this… makes me think you’re not ready. I let you come with your cousins so you could say your goodbyes. Was everyone drinking?”
“Yeah. I had less.” Sebastien studied his fingernails, listening to his father’s footfalls and Isabel’s glass clicking against the coaster. “I’ve gotten 16 hours of community service in already. I have to do more.”
“How much more?”
“Fifty. I mean… thirty-four. Fifty was the total. Marcos told the bailiff that I was going to law school and he went light on me when he talked to the weekend judge. She sat me down for a talk in her chambers. We outlined what I have to do to rectify the situation and my life.” Sebastien finally looked up at his father. “I have the schedule in my suitcase. I have to follow it to the letter.”
Isabel tilted her head at the boy. “What?”
“She thinks I’m an alcoholic. I have to go to AA meetings in Cambridge. If I don’t attend the first one the day I check into my dorm, she’ll call the whole thing back. She’ll slap the maximum fine on my driver’s license and flag me for suspension.” Sebastien took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Was Mom an alcoholic?”
--
Beth lounged in a chair next to Will on the balcony, enjoying the breeze that cooled her feverish skin. The only thing she was truly grateful for was she didn’t have super hearing. Dad was on the phone with Kal and it wasn’t good but she couldn’t hear what Kal was saying. She had to distract herself from it or go crazy. “The desk clerk at Kat’s building thinks you’re hot. At the lab.”
“Did you tell her I’m taken?” He adjusted his sunglasses and sipped his iced tea, minus the extra sugar and tabasco that laced hers.
“She was very disappointed but she was too young for you anyway.” She whipped her head around to look at him with an evil smirk. “Anyway, would you really want Dr. West for an in-law. She’s scarier than Dad, I think.”
“Really?” He turned to her. “She told Kat she never had children.”
“You two okay out there?” Max rushed around grabbed his jacket and the car keys.
“Yeah, Daddy.”
“Okay. I’ll be back. I’m taking the cell.” He waved at them and rushed out the door.
“What do you think that was about?” Will stared at the door through the suite and wondered what in the world would cause Max to jump up and leave like that.
“Kal’s going to tell him the truth.”
TBC
Will carried Beth into her room and lay her down in the middle of the bed. He carefully removed her boots and set them on top of her suitcase. Looking her over, he knew she wasn’t going to be comfortable in those clothes but there was nothing to be done about it now.
“Don’t worry about it.” Max whispered as he passed. “When she gets uncomfortable, she’ll get changed and won’t even remember doing it. She’s always done that.”
Will nodded and kissed her forehead before joining Max in the sitting room. “What did Mr. Langley say?”
“He’d look into it. I left him the files. He said he’d get back to me.” Max shook his head as he sat down with a cherry coke in hand. “He tried to kill me. I was totally unprepared for it… and Beth just… waved it off, like he had thrown a tissue at me.”
“What happened?”
“She… took over, pleading her case to him and she was making her point when she turns to me and says she’d read the whole building if I didn’t knock her out.” He took a deep breath. “She’s getting stronger and it’s not just that she would have read the whole building, she knew what was about to happen. She’s… gaining… a clarity of some kind.”
“She’s been kind of stressed out, too.”
“Yeah, everyone has.”
Will took a deep breath and blew it out slowly as he took a seat in an armchair. “I need to talk to you. I know we’re not on the best of terms right now but I need you to hear this. Kat and I did not enter into this lightly. It wasn’t just lust and hormones… there are deep feelings between us. Feelings we held back for a long time. They crept up on me and suddenly I realized I’d been dating her for years before I ever kissed her… Said kiss at Danny’s wedding in front of her whole family…”
Max just nodded to himself for a minute. “I hope you have daughters someday, Will. Just to know what this feels like. First, I lost Beth to you and now I’ve lost Kat.”
That piece of knowledge floored Will for a minute, stealing his breath. Forcing his mouth to make a little saliva to ease out the words, he raised his gaze to Max. “Those girls love you, Max. Heart and soul. You’re their hero. Maybe you don’t see it because you’re in the eye of a storm but the rest of us, caught up in it, we see it. Kat and Beth both, the worst thing that either could ever do is to disappoint you. If they did that, it would kill them.”
--
Michael rolled up his sleeves and let the nurse go about her business. The rubberband pinched his bicep when she wrapped it around. The rubber ball was old and falling apart. “Geez, you guys short on money?”
“This is a clinic. We don’t spend money on rubber balls unless we have to.” The nurse grumbled. “Just squeeze.”
“Sorry, I’m late.” Agent Seyton walked in with a briefcase. “Where’s the doctor? She’s supposed to have the key.”
“Don’t get your panties in a twist, the sample has yet to be taken.” Michael grumbled. “Nurse, can we hurry this up? Some of us have to work for a living.”
“If you weren’t one of Dr. Davis’s special patients, I’d take you over my knee for talking to me that way.”
“Yeah, yeah. The blood’s not getting any fresher.” The two stared off for a minute. “Lady, if I’m late to work, I gotta go in early tomorrow and I’ll miss breakfast with my kids. I already miss lunch and dinner and sometimes they’re already asleep when I get home. You got kids?”
“I’m waiting for the doctor. She’ll be in shortly.” The nurse set down the chart and exited with a huff.
“Wife and kids, huh.” Agent Seyton set the case down on the table next to him.
“You the new gopher?” Michael stopped squeezing the ball because his arm felt like it was going to explode. “Syd will be in soon with the key, don’t worry about it.” He took a minute to look her over. “What are you? 12?”
“27.” She managed a small smile.
“Married?” She didn’t answer but he knew what she would say. “You should have been before you took the job. You’ll just end up an old maid like your SA… or the hottie in Lubbock.”
“Your wife know you talk about women this way?”
“As long as she’s on the hottie list, she don’t mind.”
The door opened and Sydney Davis walked in with a set of tubes. “Hey, Michael, how’s it going?”
“Your nurse is rude.”
“She’s been working a long time and she’s the best who will work for the crap I pay.” She waved him off. “According to the stipulations, we’ll need a triad of tests. Blood, hair and a swab.”
“Her mother-in-law is a bitch.” Michael muttered and winced when the needle sank into his forearm.
“You know you’ll pass the test with flying colors. She won’t get the kids.” She pulled two vials of blood and set them on a tray with their labels facing up. “Now, say ‘ah.’”
“You can’t talk to me like this. I’m not fi-ahve.” Michael gagged the second the swab entered his mouth.
“You’re worse than the kiddies who come in on physical day. How does your wife put up with you?” Syd tsked as she made some comments on the chart. “Hair. You can pull that yourself, if you’d like.” She held open the envelope for the strand of hair he plucked from his head. “All right. Just give me a sec to get everything labeled and then you can go.” She worked a bit from her little rolling stool. “Hey Michael?”
“Yeah?”
“How’s Will doing?”
Michael barely glanced at the agent in the room before clearing his throat. “Okay, I guess. He… was really shook up with what happened to Beth. That was the last I saw of him before he headed upstate.”
“Oh.” She nodded and glanced up at him. “I saw him before the wedding and he wasn’t doing so hot.”
“He told you about the ex?”
“He told you?”
“I heard it through the grapevine. Liz told the wife. You know how that thing works.” He shrugged. “He got schnockered at the wedding, if that tells you anything.”
“He doesn’t drink that much. I guess he’s still taking it hard. Is he in Santa Fe now?” She motioned for Michael to open the case, which he did careful and made it look like he was using a key. “I was thinking about giving him a call or something.”
“You’d better try his cell. He’s in L.A. right now.”
“With Beth, yeah, Isabel was telling me. I was studying her results. I need to give Max a call anyway.” She set each vial and tube and packet in its spot and Michael closed the case again for Agent Seyton to take. “There you go.”
Agent Seyton took the case and exited the room swiftly without a word. Michael jerked his thumb at the closing door. “I think he wasn’t looking at resumes when he hired her.”
--
Max answered the phone and took a seat to have the conversation as quietly as possible. Kal kept asking question after question. Max answered each to the best of his ability. He got the feeling Kal had been doing homework since they last spoke. They both agreed that something wasn’t quite adding up. Max got frustrated. “Look, I’m not an expert. My daughter is…”
“Fine. I’ll give her a call. Watch the kid carefully, don’t let her go reading half of the city, it’ll corrupt her mind.” Click.
Tossing the phone against the couch, Max shoved himself to his feet. He nudged open her door and found her in the same position Will had put her in only, she was wearing her pajamas. He had never known just when she had learned to do that but it seemed like she’d been changing in her sleep forever. He moved to sit on the edge of her bed. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was up to him to figure out what being Antarian meant to them all before she could know what it meant to be herself. If only he could see what she could.
--
Liz set the containers on the table and shrugged at her mother-in-law. “I just… start cooking and when it’s almost done I realize that I’ve made enough for everyone and everyone’s not here.”
“I’ll eat it. Set it right there.” Jim tapped his plate.
“Ooh, food.” Danny sauntered in, fresh from a shower.
“Davey, take the dog outside.” Liz motioned as she crossed the room to hug her oldest baby. “You just get off work?”
“Yeah. Thanks for dinner, Mom.” He kissed her cheek and took a seat.
“Dinner?” She looked to Diane.
“He’s been working since 2 a.m. He stopped in at six this morning for his ‘lunch’. They’ve been running him ragged since Max has been gone.”
“But they won’t beat me.” Danny smiled broadly and helped himself from one of the many tupperware containers. “Dr. Nichols was asking after Beth. I just told him that Dad took her to a specialist. How is she doing, by the way? Have you talked to Dad today?”
“He, um, went to see that… man in L.A. and he wasn’t happy to see them.” Liz hugged herself and took a seat at the table. “Beth did most of the negotiating herself from what he says. Proving that she’s every bit as dangerous as Dad claimed. He, um, came around after Beth passed out because she used her powers and couldn’t control them anymore. Or Dad put her to sleep. I forget. That was this morning. I haven’t heard from him since.”
“Is that man going to help?” Jim set down his fork.
“I think so. I hope so. If anyone is a master persuader, it’s Beth.” Liz took the plate from Diane with a half-smile. “We just pray he knows what to do.”
--
Kathy cleared her throat and ran through every factor she had come across and answered every question from the man on the phone. “The tampering must have gone on for years. Every human exposed to the same drug has become infertile.”
“What do you suppose made your mother different?”
“Any number of factors. The fact that she had been healed. Beth said there was a marked different in her aura as a result. The fact that she had a sustained connection to Michael for the entirety of her pregnancy. I don’t know how long prior to, though.”
“Which do you think occurred first? The tampering or the sustained connection?”
“Given the date that the drug was first administered… it’s more probably that the connection existed first.” Kathy tapped her pen against the desk.
“If you go in and excise the block, the build-up, you anticipate a flood-gate reaction?”
“Damn straight. She’s already been pushing her limits. If it weren’t for what she tried to do, she might have really gone crazy doing this on her own. The episode allowed her to kick-start her regenerative ability and I think that’s been working on the issue but it’s still too fast and it’s too dangerous to just let it.”
“So, when she gets knocked out by the drugs, you think that hinders her healing process?”
“It knocks out her cerebral cortex momentarily, suspending her powers and when they kick in again, she’s already asleep.”
“Arresting her abilities would do more harm than good?”
“I believe so.”
“Containing them?”
“I wouldn’t know how to do that. I don’t know the limitations.”
“But you’re pretty strong.”
“Dad says I am. I don’t normally think when I do something that way… I just do it. I was never inclined to test myself.”
“You think she’s more powerful than you’re capable of becoming.”
“That’s exactly right. However powerful I’m supposed to be… she passed me by when she was 10.”
--
Max helped her to sit up and drink the too-sweet, too-strong, very spicy coffee. “Too hot?”
“No.” She shook her head. Her head pounded but the coffee helped. With her eyes closed, she just listened to the silence. “You kill Will or he went to his room?”
“He’s in his room. Don’t worry, he and I have come to an understanding.”
“And what’s that?”
“We both love Kat. That’s enough for me.” He made her take some more before letting her lie down again. “Don’t worry. You won’t have to stop me like that again.”
“Good. You’re pretty strong and I actually had to work to get you off him. Will’s a nice guy, Dad. He’s just mixed up in the heart region. If she had left it up to him, they’d be 80 by the time anyone realized he had feelings for her.”
“Is that right?”
“He can’t hide from me though. I read him like a book… without using my mind to read him. You know what I mean?”
“I think I do. Sleepy still?”
“No but my eyes are all weird. They hurt when I have my glasses on.”
“Like on the plane?”
“I knew you were eavesdropping.”
“Only because I love you.” Max reached over and snapped off the light. “Open the peepers.” She did and followed his glowing finger with her eyes. “When did you first notice it?”
“On the plane. I didn’t wear my glasses hardly at all in the hospital. I haven’t worn my contacts either. They hurt worse when I wear my glasses all day.”
“Well, you know, most opthamologists would agree on what’s happening. Your eyesight is changing. Maybe it’s repairing itself. Part of that healing thing we do.”
“Your eyes are perfect, right?”
“20/20 all my life.”
“Huh… and Danny wears glasses because Mason wore glasses. Davey doesn’t cause Mom doesn’t. He has her eyes.”
“That about sums it up.” He doused his finger and turned on the lamp by the door with barely a wave. “So, you read Kal?”
“Yeah. It’s weird. Antarians don’t think the way humans do.”
“Oh. How do they think? Are humans just insects waiting to be crushed?”
“No. It’s… humans have these thought processes. Subconscious, conscious, instinct… all woven together. Antarians… or Kal, at least, the process is different.” She put her hands up, interlocking her first three fingers from each hand to form a basket. “That’s you and me. He’s got… like a cord.” She took three fingers on one hand and twisted them together and then pushed her thumb through the middle. “His instincts run through everything. Subconscious, conscious, bodily function are all working but together with the central instinct working to keep him moving… like a computer.”
“What are you saying? Kal is a robot? Like artificial intelligence.”
“No.” She shook her head at her father. “The instinct cord,” she wiggled her thumb, “is like a base set of operations inserted into all the normal functions of a sentient being.” She pointed to the tangle of fingers, painting each nail a different color. “You and I have all three of these but the thumb is something that only he has. It’s natural but… it’s like Pavlov and his pooches.”
“The thumb makes him salivate when he hears a bell?”
“Yes. When you get hurt, he responds. You get hurt, that’s the bell. He responds, that’s the salivation. King Zan gets a boo-boo and puppy-dog Kal rushes over to fix him… only since Kal is not a robot and has free will… he’s a bad puppy. When King Zan gets a boo-boo. He looks over and he thinks very slowly… ‘I wonder how long until it’s fatal and I have to jump in and save him.’” Beth suddenly blanched. “He’s a slave, Dad. He’s your slave.”
--
Jesse paced back and forth behind Isabel, who sat drinking a glass of chocolate milk at the table across from an abashed Sebastien. “So you were in Mexico, drinking up and having a good time and decided since you fooled the border agents that you could just drive back to the hotel without incident.”
“Well, yeah.”
“Sebastien… They could care less if you drink and drive, the border agents. But the U.S. cops care. They see you weaving in line at the border and when you cross, they pull you over. Why?” He demanded.
“Because it’s dangerous.” Sebastien answered, his eyes on the table.
“And illegal. You are lucky that Texas doesn’t have the same laws that New Mexico does. You didn’t get a DUI and you spent enough time in a cell that the deputy thinks you’ve learned your lesson but you and I know that you haven’t. At home, your alcohol level would have lost you driving rights for six months. Here, if it had been just a little higher… Class B misdemeanor.” Jesse stood still for a moment while he gathered his thoughts. He did the same thing in court. “You’re going away to school and I’m proud of you for that but this… makes me think you’re not ready. I let you come with your cousins so you could say your goodbyes. Was everyone drinking?”
“Yeah. I had less.” Sebastien studied his fingernails, listening to his father’s footfalls and Isabel’s glass clicking against the coaster. “I’ve gotten 16 hours of community service in already. I have to do more.”
“How much more?”
“Fifty. I mean… thirty-four. Fifty was the total. Marcos told the bailiff that I was going to law school and he went light on me when he talked to the weekend judge. She sat me down for a talk in her chambers. We outlined what I have to do to rectify the situation and my life.” Sebastien finally looked up at his father. “I have the schedule in my suitcase. I have to follow it to the letter.”
Isabel tilted her head at the boy. “What?”
“She thinks I’m an alcoholic. I have to go to AA meetings in Cambridge. If I don’t attend the first one the day I check into my dorm, she’ll call the whole thing back. She’ll slap the maximum fine on my driver’s license and flag me for suspension.” Sebastien took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Was Mom an alcoholic?”
--
Beth lounged in a chair next to Will on the balcony, enjoying the breeze that cooled her feverish skin. The only thing she was truly grateful for was she didn’t have super hearing. Dad was on the phone with Kal and it wasn’t good but she couldn’t hear what Kal was saying. She had to distract herself from it or go crazy. “The desk clerk at Kat’s building thinks you’re hot. At the lab.”
“Did you tell her I’m taken?” He adjusted his sunglasses and sipped his iced tea, minus the extra sugar and tabasco that laced hers.
“She was very disappointed but she was too young for you anyway.” She whipped her head around to look at him with an evil smirk. “Anyway, would you really want Dr. West for an in-law. She’s scarier than Dad, I think.”
“Really?” He turned to her. “She told Kat she never had children.”
“You two okay out there?” Max rushed around grabbed his jacket and the car keys.
“Yeah, Daddy.”
“Okay. I’ll be back. I’m taking the cell.” He waved at them and rushed out the door.
“What do you think that was about?” Will stared at the door through the suite and wondered what in the world would cause Max to jump up and leave like that.
“Kal’s going to tell him the truth.”
TBC
Part 129
The Fate of Destiny Part 129
Liz listened carefully and watched the night sky through her bedroom window. "Run that by me one more time."
"You were poisoned. The fact that you and Michael accidentally formed a sustained connection before you started on those pills kept it from killing your ability to get pregnant at all." Max explained softly. He had seen Will to the door and Beth to bed an hour before calling his wife. He needed time to order his thoughts and wrap his mind around what all Kal had told him. "When Tess first showed me the book… you know which…"
"The destiny book." She steeled herself for unpleasant news. That book had never brought anything but grief.
"Right. It had those pictures of us… paired up and then… pregnant the way we were supposed to be. Tess and I, Michael and Isabel. The destiny book didn't stop there. The end result was for a child conceived by Tess and I… and a child conceived by Michael and Isabel to… mate and create a third generation hybrid with the combined abilities of all four."
"But that didn't happen and Kat can't… I mean… even if… Michael's boys would be way too young… and it would still be missing Isabel's abilities…"
"You're jumping ahead of me, Liz." Max took a deep breath. "This child, a grandchild of mine, has been the subject of much myth and fantasy on Antar. They called it the Sleeper of Antar. They have novels and debates about it and yet they've never actually had such a thing."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Let me finish. Naturally or engineered, the child was supposed to be able to hide from detection but upon maturation, be the very thing to save Antar from its enemies. The powers this child was to have were supposed to be phenomenal and unchartable and indestructible and even speculations were to fall short of all its powers."
"Jesus, Max… pun intended." She gasped as her mind wrapped around it. "That's what the Sleeper is, right? A messiah for Antar. Someone who could single-handedly bring down the armies opposing the throne."
"Right."
"So what does all this have to do with… Beth?"
[Kal poured himself a brandy and took a seat with his cigar. "I got the research from your daughter. I've seen the scans. I read over everything I could find. You're a very lucky man to even have this daughter, Max. Your wife was systematically poisoned the entire time she was on that brand of birth control. It was a Skin-designed solution to the quandary of the Sleeper coming into being."
"If I can't procreate, I can't create the children who will beget the Sleeper. There were Skins deeply rooted in my life that… they told us they wanted to deal." He sagged in his seat. He had always known somewhere in his mind that it hadn't all ended when Michael had killed that man on his back porch.
"Deal?"
"Swinging with Liz and I. We learned that after the fact, not that it was ever a viable option." Max sighed heavily. "The remaining faction informed us of our mistake in killing their leaders just before they exacted revenge in the form of two people, innocents, close to us."
"Sneaky." Kal nodded and drew long on his cigar. "If you had gotten it on with Queenie… it was good as marriage and would have legally united both species though no offspring would have been possible with a Skin in human form."
"Then why do it?"
"There's a relative peace just now on Antar. Everyone hates your guts because they think you're only out for numero uno and have become a ruthless killer. Shoot first, ask questions later type of guy. Not what the die-hard Zan-fanatics thought you would become. Roswell was declared off-limits and your personal safe-zone because of the way you and your goon murdered his and her majesty the Skin royalty. Word on the street was they wanted peace but this is evidence they lied to everyone up there. It can't get out or all hell will break loose."
"Why?"
"Everyone thinks you could care less and will kill for your anonymity. If your fan club up there found out about the foul plots thwarted, it might occur to them that you're justified in your means and that you do care, which brings back the myths and the debates and the HOPE. It takes Antar back into civil war and the search for you and for me."
"But why, if we didn't do things the way we were supposed to and it's not really going to happen?" Max didn't like the look Kal gave his cigar before he answered.]
"So, the conflict comes back. What does it really have to do with us?"
"When I healed you, I changed you. Beth confirmed it for me even though we've never had any proof of you being changed… aside from the flashes." He could feel Liz tensing up for his news. "It opened doorways in your mind that aren't open to the rest of the human race just yet. With instruction and training, you could develop powers of your own."
"And?"
"And then you formed a sustained connection to a hybrid with very specific open doorways, wedging open your own further. You felt what Michael felt when he felt intensely enough. Your words."
"I know. Max get on with it."
"It was all open. The entire time you were on that stuff, which left behind some traces, you were changing and evolving and then you got pregnant with Beth. Whether you knew it or not, Michael's energy was intertwined with yours and all of it left its trace in Beth. The block in her head, the physical blockage that I was telling you about the other day… it's residue from the poison. It has to pass naturally… we can't risk going in to get it." He cleared his throat and tried to remember what his point was. "The Skins may have unwittingly helped us create the Sleeper a generation ahead of schedule. My healing and my shield with Michael's visions and his fire power and… your intuition have created something much more powerful than has ever lived before."
"Wait… you're not saying… Beth can't be… she's not… THE Sleeper. She can't be. I mean… what about Isabel's powers? And Tess's?" Her mind reeled with all the implications that Max had made in their conversation. He was never going to come out and say what he was thinking because he knew it would upset her… but he knew she was going to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. When she was 16 and in love with an alien boy, his destined-wife-prophecy had seemed like the end of the world but this new prophecy blew that one far and away.
"She's never tried to dreamwalk but what she does do is stronger than that. She can read minds, Liz. She's gotten so much more powerful since we left home. She read an alien. A full-blooded alien and she could tell that he was different enough to not use his brain the way humans do. That he was a different kind of alien."
"A different kind?"
"Kal isn't… like me, like I was before. He's another class of Antarian. He's not a Skin. He's a shapeshifter, genetically encoded to serve the ruling class of Antarian, which at the time of his encoding were my people. He's been bred to serve me. He doesn't know that I know that and I want to keep it that way."
"What does that mean exactly? What does it mean that he was bred to serve you?"
"It means if I word a sentence as a command as opposed to a request, then he has to comply, even if his basic instincts tell him not to do it. She could tell all that, Liz. She knew things I'm sure he hadn't thought about in years. She was only conscious in the room with him for five minutes, tops."
"Do you think she could mindwarp?"
"She's never tried but I'm not so certain that she doesn't have some form of it. There was something she was telling me months ago but… I can't remember just now. When she wakes up, I'll try to ask her. Her powers aren't the same as the ones the royal four were designed to have but there's no denying how powerful she's becoming."
["So, your sister's specialty is invading the subconscious while the subject is unconscious. It's a little limited, don't you think?"
"Once she did something…" Max struggled to find his words. That had been a very difficult time for him "She was dreamwalked by a woman with the genetic template of Michael's DNA donor."
"The donor's offspring dreamwalked your sister." That tone was derisive but it looked like the alien was taking it all in, absorbing it into the cache of knowledge he was using to, hopefully, get them out of this predicament.
"In a manner of speaking. Gandarium were running rampant. We almost lost the world."
"Aw… the Gandarium. Haven't dealt with those invasive buggers since childhood. Between you and me, the only reason I escaped with my life during the crash was they had special chambers for me and no access to the labs with all the creepy crawlers. I miss flying though. Real high. Not to be duplicated on Earth." He laughed to himself. "Those are some nasty little buggers. Hungry."
"Yeah. They are."
"And the bride with her mind manipulations… warping the present and cutting out the past. Right?"
"Something like that." Max sat up. "Beth can't do that."
"She can't." That tone again. It made Max question himself and he supposed that's what it was supposed to do. Kal was leading him to find details that he had thought were unimportant and really had some real weight to them.
"Maybe she hasn't tried." The middle-aged doctor conceded finally.
"What I thought. Her little episodes… you said they were preceded by what?"
"Retro-cognitive digs. The first one by accident and the second she forced on herself."
"And that's not a manipulation of the mind? If she can manipulate her own mind and the history of objects… while she's reading, she could leave presents or take the bank, couldn't she?"]
"Max. Do you have any idea what you're saying?"
"Unfortunately, I think I do."
The line was quiet for a very long time. "Do you think they told Mary? I don't think they did."
"What are you talking about?"
"Beth! Max. How am I going to live knowing this? Every time she walks out the door, I'm going to wonder if it's her last day on Earth. What if she doesn't come home one day? What if she gets taken back to Antar to fight the battle? She is just sixteen years old and she's a freaking Messiah! If they had told Mary what was going to happen, she would have never let Jesus out of the house."
"Liz, calm down. Beth is hardly Jesus."
"This isn't funny, Max. You just said that Beth could be this Sleeper child."
"I don't think it's funny but you need to calm down. There's nothing to be done about all that just now. Keeping it to ourselves and making sure Beth survives the present is our priority."
"And how are we going to do that?"
["Sensory deprivation in a tank made out of depleted uranium."
"What?" Max paled when those seven syllables slipped out of Kal's mouth. Only one person had ever uttered those words to Max before and that wasn't even near the realm of his pleasant memories. "She'll be defenseless."
"And she'll be able to let her body heal itself without using her powers on defenseless humans and alerting other aliens to your presence outside of your sanctuary."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Roswell being the only safe haven you've got. No one is allowed in New Mexico. So the nephew in Florida is exposed. The son in Lubbock? Exposed when he gets back with the wife. Those FBI goons are hardly going to save them but… it'll be a heads up when they turn up dead seconds before they attack your precious offspring."]
"All this time? They were just what? Waiting at the border for one of us to cross state lines? What about all those classes you went to? The lectures in Chicago? Guest surgeon-ing in Arizona?" She paced her bedroom with the cordless, sick to her stomach with worry. "Why haven't they gotten to you before?"
"Because they weren't looking for me before. I'm non-important so long as the Sleeper is just a myth. If anyone in one of the other camps find out about Beth, all bets are off and we have to call everyone back into the state and probably back to Roswell. None of our precautions will have meant squat. When they come, it will be everyone from every camp on Antar." Max took a breath and got ready to say it out loud. Kal hadn't said it and he hadn't voiced it at their meeting. "If our treatment of Beth goes wrong, she won't learn what not to do and she will send out a… beacon of some sort. A pulse of power… Some signature of great power and it will show anyone who is bothering to look that we've got resources here on Earth. If anyone comes to investigate, word will get out. The bad guys, the neutral guys, the good guys will all beat it to Earth and take Beth as soon as possible to get the upper hand on Antar. They won't bother with us. They may leave Danny and Davey alone but it's possible they would take Kat as well… to breed warpers because that's a rare gift. Beth will be their priority and if she doesn't die in the battles… they'll marry her to someone with a power she doesn't have… with or without her consent."
"Bring her home, Max."
"I can't." Tears slipped down his face. "I don't have the resources at home to take care of her. Kal can get us into a facility and get us the time to make Beth better."
"What will happen is she doesn't do the sensory deprivation?"
"She'll go crazy or she'll kill herself… or she'll send out that beacon…"
"But if she does it, she gets all this power and the beacon will be held inside that tank."
"In theory."
Liz sank onto the bed in defeat. "How did it all get so complicated, Max?"
"I think it's always been complicated, Liz… we just… never bothered to really look at what we were doing." Max started to really cry. "When we flew up to Santa Fe… Beth got onto me about not knowing what I was for… what I was really for because I never tried to really remember Zan… She said she couldn't know what she was for until she knew where she came from… She said…" He swallowed down a sob. "That if no one in the universe knew what they were supposed to do that she would be the first."
Warm tears slid down her face as she lay down. She didn't have the strength to even sit up anymore. "She doesn't know any of this, does she."
"No. I haven't told her."
"Okay. Don't tell her yet. How long until Kal gets the treatments set up?"
"A couple of days."
"Okay. You keep on top of her. Make sure she has fun in L.A. Let her call Gabriel and Donna Jo and Joey. Let her call Berty and Kyle… God, I don't even know the rest of her friends names."
"She made a new friend in Santa Fe."
"Okay. Let her be her until she has to start and then tell her."
"If she doesn't read it, she'll be mad at me for keeping it from her."
"I know but if you tell her tomorrow morning, she's going to run away."
"Okay, then I'll do that." He listened to her sniffle for a few moments. "I'll take care of her."
"I know… I just wish I could be there… but she'd read it off me without even trying." She turned her head into his pillow and wished he were there with her. "Tell her I love her."
"Anything I need to know about?"
"No. Everyone's good."
"Could you… Davey?"
"Yeah, I'll make sure he gets some manly advice."
"I love you."
"Come back to me… both of you."
TBC
Liz listened carefully and watched the night sky through her bedroom window. "Run that by me one more time."
"You were poisoned. The fact that you and Michael accidentally formed a sustained connection before you started on those pills kept it from killing your ability to get pregnant at all." Max explained softly. He had seen Will to the door and Beth to bed an hour before calling his wife. He needed time to order his thoughts and wrap his mind around what all Kal had told him. "When Tess first showed me the book… you know which…"
"The destiny book." She steeled herself for unpleasant news. That book had never brought anything but grief.
"Right. It had those pictures of us… paired up and then… pregnant the way we were supposed to be. Tess and I, Michael and Isabel. The destiny book didn't stop there. The end result was for a child conceived by Tess and I… and a child conceived by Michael and Isabel to… mate and create a third generation hybrid with the combined abilities of all four."
"But that didn't happen and Kat can't… I mean… even if… Michael's boys would be way too young… and it would still be missing Isabel's abilities…"
"You're jumping ahead of me, Liz." Max took a deep breath. "This child, a grandchild of mine, has been the subject of much myth and fantasy on Antar. They called it the Sleeper of Antar. They have novels and debates about it and yet they've never actually had such a thing."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Let me finish. Naturally or engineered, the child was supposed to be able to hide from detection but upon maturation, be the very thing to save Antar from its enemies. The powers this child was to have were supposed to be phenomenal and unchartable and indestructible and even speculations were to fall short of all its powers."
"Jesus, Max… pun intended." She gasped as her mind wrapped around it. "That's what the Sleeper is, right? A messiah for Antar. Someone who could single-handedly bring down the armies opposing the throne."
"Right."
"So what does all this have to do with… Beth?"
[Kal poured himself a brandy and took a seat with his cigar. "I got the research from your daughter. I've seen the scans. I read over everything I could find. You're a very lucky man to even have this daughter, Max. Your wife was systematically poisoned the entire time she was on that brand of birth control. It was a Skin-designed solution to the quandary of the Sleeper coming into being."
"If I can't procreate, I can't create the children who will beget the Sleeper. There were Skins deeply rooted in my life that… they told us they wanted to deal." He sagged in his seat. He had always known somewhere in his mind that it hadn't all ended when Michael had killed that man on his back porch.
"Deal?"
"Swinging with Liz and I. We learned that after the fact, not that it was ever a viable option." Max sighed heavily. "The remaining faction informed us of our mistake in killing their leaders just before they exacted revenge in the form of two people, innocents, close to us."
"Sneaky." Kal nodded and drew long on his cigar. "If you had gotten it on with Queenie… it was good as marriage and would have legally united both species though no offspring would have been possible with a Skin in human form."
"Then why do it?"
"There's a relative peace just now on Antar. Everyone hates your guts because they think you're only out for numero uno and have become a ruthless killer. Shoot first, ask questions later type of guy. Not what the die-hard Zan-fanatics thought you would become. Roswell was declared off-limits and your personal safe-zone because of the way you and your goon murdered his and her majesty the Skin royalty. Word on the street was they wanted peace but this is evidence they lied to everyone up there. It can't get out or all hell will break loose."
"Why?"
"Everyone thinks you could care less and will kill for your anonymity. If your fan club up there found out about the foul plots thwarted, it might occur to them that you're justified in your means and that you do care, which brings back the myths and the debates and the HOPE. It takes Antar back into civil war and the search for you and for me."
"But why, if we didn't do things the way we were supposed to and it's not really going to happen?" Max didn't like the look Kal gave his cigar before he answered.]
"So, the conflict comes back. What does it really have to do with us?"
"When I healed you, I changed you. Beth confirmed it for me even though we've never had any proof of you being changed… aside from the flashes." He could feel Liz tensing up for his news. "It opened doorways in your mind that aren't open to the rest of the human race just yet. With instruction and training, you could develop powers of your own."
"And?"
"And then you formed a sustained connection to a hybrid with very specific open doorways, wedging open your own further. You felt what Michael felt when he felt intensely enough. Your words."
"I know. Max get on with it."
"It was all open. The entire time you were on that stuff, which left behind some traces, you were changing and evolving and then you got pregnant with Beth. Whether you knew it or not, Michael's energy was intertwined with yours and all of it left its trace in Beth. The block in her head, the physical blockage that I was telling you about the other day… it's residue from the poison. It has to pass naturally… we can't risk going in to get it." He cleared his throat and tried to remember what his point was. "The Skins may have unwittingly helped us create the Sleeper a generation ahead of schedule. My healing and my shield with Michael's visions and his fire power and… your intuition have created something much more powerful than has ever lived before."
"Wait… you're not saying… Beth can't be… she's not… THE Sleeper. She can't be. I mean… what about Isabel's powers? And Tess's?" Her mind reeled with all the implications that Max had made in their conversation. He was never going to come out and say what he was thinking because he knew it would upset her… but he knew she was going to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. When she was 16 and in love with an alien boy, his destined-wife-prophecy had seemed like the end of the world but this new prophecy blew that one far and away.
"She's never tried to dreamwalk but what she does do is stronger than that. She can read minds, Liz. She's gotten so much more powerful since we left home. She read an alien. A full-blooded alien and she could tell that he was different enough to not use his brain the way humans do. That he was a different kind of alien."
"A different kind?"
"Kal isn't… like me, like I was before. He's another class of Antarian. He's not a Skin. He's a shapeshifter, genetically encoded to serve the ruling class of Antarian, which at the time of his encoding were my people. He's been bred to serve me. He doesn't know that I know that and I want to keep it that way."
"What does that mean exactly? What does it mean that he was bred to serve you?"
"It means if I word a sentence as a command as opposed to a request, then he has to comply, even if his basic instincts tell him not to do it. She could tell all that, Liz. She knew things I'm sure he hadn't thought about in years. She was only conscious in the room with him for five minutes, tops."
"Do you think she could mindwarp?"
"She's never tried but I'm not so certain that she doesn't have some form of it. There was something she was telling me months ago but… I can't remember just now. When she wakes up, I'll try to ask her. Her powers aren't the same as the ones the royal four were designed to have but there's no denying how powerful she's becoming."
["So, your sister's specialty is invading the subconscious while the subject is unconscious. It's a little limited, don't you think?"
"Once she did something…" Max struggled to find his words. That had been a very difficult time for him "She was dreamwalked by a woman with the genetic template of Michael's DNA donor."
"The donor's offspring dreamwalked your sister." That tone was derisive but it looked like the alien was taking it all in, absorbing it into the cache of knowledge he was using to, hopefully, get them out of this predicament.
"In a manner of speaking. Gandarium were running rampant. We almost lost the world."
"Aw… the Gandarium. Haven't dealt with those invasive buggers since childhood. Between you and me, the only reason I escaped with my life during the crash was they had special chambers for me and no access to the labs with all the creepy crawlers. I miss flying though. Real high. Not to be duplicated on Earth." He laughed to himself. "Those are some nasty little buggers. Hungry."
"Yeah. They are."
"And the bride with her mind manipulations… warping the present and cutting out the past. Right?"
"Something like that." Max sat up. "Beth can't do that."
"She can't." That tone again. It made Max question himself and he supposed that's what it was supposed to do. Kal was leading him to find details that he had thought were unimportant and really had some real weight to them.
"Maybe she hasn't tried." The middle-aged doctor conceded finally.
"What I thought. Her little episodes… you said they were preceded by what?"
"Retro-cognitive digs. The first one by accident and the second she forced on herself."
"And that's not a manipulation of the mind? If she can manipulate her own mind and the history of objects… while she's reading, she could leave presents or take the bank, couldn't she?"]
"Max. Do you have any idea what you're saying?"
"Unfortunately, I think I do."
The line was quiet for a very long time. "Do you think they told Mary? I don't think they did."
"What are you talking about?"
"Beth! Max. How am I going to live knowing this? Every time she walks out the door, I'm going to wonder if it's her last day on Earth. What if she doesn't come home one day? What if she gets taken back to Antar to fight the battle? She is just sixteen years old and she's a freaking Messiah! If they had told Mary what was going to happen, she would have never let Jesus out of the house."
"Liz, calm down. Beth is hardly Jesus."
"This isn't funny, Max. You just said that Beth could be this Sleeper child."
"I don't think it's funny but you need to calm down. There's nothing to be done about all that just now. Keeping it to ourselves and making sure Beth survives the present is our priority."
"And how are we going to do that?"
["Sensory deprivation in a tank made out of depleted uranium."
"What?" Max paled when those seven syllables slipped out of Kal's mouth. Only one person had ever uttered those words to Max before and that wasn't even near the realm of his pleasant memories. "She'll be defenseless."
"And she'll be able to let her body heal itself without using her powers on defenseless humans and alerting other aliens to your presence outside of your sanctuary."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Roswell being the only safe haven you've got. No one is allowed in New Mexico. So the nephew in Florida is exposed. The son in Lubbock? Exposed when he gets back with the wife. Those FBI goons are hardly going to save them but… it'll be a heads up when they turn up dead seconds before they attack your precious offspring."]
"All this time? They were just what? Waiting at the border for one of us to cross state lines? What about all those classes you went to? The lectures in Chicago? Guest surgeon-ing in Arizona?" She paced her bedroom with the cordless, sick to her stomach with worry. "Why haven't they gotten to you before?"
"Because they weren't looking for me before. I'm non-important so long as the Sleeper is just a myth. If anyone in one of the other camps find out about Beth, all bets are off and we have to call everyone back into the state and probably back to Roswell. None of our precautions will have meant squat. When they come, it will be everyone from every camp on Antar." Max took a breath and got ready to say it out loud. Kal hadn't said it and he hadn't voiced it at their meeting. "If our treatment of Beth goes wrong, she won't learn what not to do and she will send out a… beacon of some sort. A pulse of power… Some signature of great power and it will show anyone who is bothering to look that we've got resources here on Earth. If anyone comes to investigate, word will get out. The bad guys, the neutral guys, the good guys will all beat it to Earth and take Beth as soon as possible to get the upper hand on Antar. They won't bother with us. They may leave Danny and Davey alone but it's possible they would take Kat as well… to breed warpers because that's a rare gift. Beth will be their priority and if she doesn't die in the battles… they'll marry her to someone with a power she doesn't have… with or without her consent."
"Bring her home, Max."
"I can't." Tears slipped down his face. "I don't have the resources at home to take care of her. Kal can get us into a facility and get us the time to make Beth better."
"What will happen is she doesn't do the sensory deprivation?"
"She'll go crazy or she'll kill herself… or she'll send out that beacon…"
"But if she does it, she gets all this power and the beacon will be held inside that tank."
"In theory."
Liz sank onto the bed in defeat. "How did it all get so complicated, Max?"
"I think it's always been complicated, Liz… we just… never bothered to really look at what we were doing." Max started to really cry. "When we flew up to Santa Fe… Beth got onto me about not knowing what I was for… what I was really for because I never tried to really remember Zan… She said she couldn't know what she was for until she knew where she came from… She said…" He swallowed down a sob. "That if no one in the universe knew what they were supposed to do that she would be the first."
Warm tears slid down her face as she lay down. She didn't have the strength to even sit up anymore. "She doesn't know any of this, does she."
"No. I haven't told her."
"Okay. Don't tell her yet. How long until Kal gets the treatments set up?"
"A couple of days."
"Okay. You keep on top of her. Make sure she has fun in L.A. Let her call Gabriel and Donna Jo and Joey. Let her call Berty and Kyle… God, I don't even know the rest of her friends names."
"She made a new friend in Santa Fe."
"Okay. Let her be her until she has to start and then tell her."
"If she doesn't read it, she'll be mad at me for keeping it from her."
"I know but if you tell her tomorrow morning, she's going to run away."
"Okay, then I'll do that." He listened to her sniffle for a few moments. "I'll take care of her."
"I know… I just wish I could be there… but she'd read it off me without even trying." She turned her head into his pillow and wished he were there with her. "Tell her I love her."
"Anything I need to know about?"
"No. Everyone's good."
"Could you… Davey?"
"Yeah, I'll make sure he gets some manly advice."
"I love you."
"Come back to me… both of you."
TBC
Part 130
The Fate of Destiny Part 130
High ceilings and huge glass cases lined the walls, each with more and more beautiful works like time captured and suspended but Max stopped their walk to check Beth over because she looked a little flushed. "You feeling better today?"
"For the millionth time, yes." She was still sweating more than usual but she felt better having slept off most of the drugs since yesterday. "This place is so awesome. I mean, absolutely razor… examples of every major art style and period…"
"You really like art? It was just first to-do on the um… Points of Interest list they left in the hotel room." He pressed a hand against her forehead but he thought maybe he'd gotten used to the fever she'd been running lately because he couldn't tell if she was still running one. Sighing, he let go of her and she moved to the next case.
"I think it's neat." She said while she examined a piece. "I mean… paintings are okay and photographs are pretty. What I like are the everyday use pieces. The bowls and columns… architecture. I like finding the parallels in different cultures that support the one race theory."
"You like the one race theory?" Max's eyes flicked over the pieces behind the glass. They just reminded him of his college history texts. He probably knew most of the pieces by sight from that art class he had taken to relax in while he was interning but he had mostly used that class to nap in.
"Well, human beings are a single race which can be subdivided by culture and peoples. They're all the same but they're not exact. Every major civilization has a history that goes back thousands of years at least. The parallels are all over. Did you know that almost every ancient culture on the planet claimed that they originated from a continent across the waters in one direction or another that sank beneath the waves?"
"Are you talking about Atlantis?"
"Sure. Atlantis, Gondwanaland, Lemuria. Ancient civilizations claimed they came from one of those places. The leaders of their peoples came from across the waters from a great city of gold and advanced technology but destruction and immorality had taken over. When the leaders left to return home, they promised they'd be back but they never returned. If the continent was destroyed or sank into the ocean, they could have died of starvation or dehydration. When Plato wrote about Atlantis, it had been destroyed 9,000 years prior and he wrote that almost 2,400 years ago… they had to evolve to that point. The earliest known civilization was 4,400 years ago and only because there's written evidence of their culture. There's so little left that it would be hard to prove that this great place existed 11,000 years ago at such an advanced state. All the stuff we regard as fantasy actually took place on Earth with so much technology and grace."
"Read much?" Max teased, nudging her shoulder as he moved passed to see another exhibit.
"I do. I may not always get my homework in on time but it doesn't mean I'm bumming around." She protested. "Look at the Central America pyramids and then the Egyptian pyramids. Very close in design and basic structure. Then there are the mounds in North America. Every people have their own sort of Babylon to point to and say ‘that's what happens when you progress too fast and don't question why or what for or how right or wrong.'"
The silence that followed that statement made Max turn back to his daughter. She wasn't looking at the urn in front of her, she was staring at her own reflection. "Maybe I'm moving too fast, Dad. Maybe we're not supposed to move this fast."
"How do you mean?"
"We're like displaced Atlanteans, Dad." She whispered so softly, he wasn't sure she was talking out loud. "We were sent so we could go back but that place is falling apart, isn't it? Would it even be worth the trip and losing everything we built here if when we get there, there's nothing left? What if we do everything we can? We set up shop here on Earth, get our people going, improving the world and the like and send the important people back only to find Antar has sunk beneath the waves…"
--
Kathy leaned against the wall, so tired but grateful for the call. "So, things are okay?"
"Yeah. We sort of talked it out. We've made a truce." Will breathed into the phone as he oversaw the construction and testing of the newly made sen-dep tank.
"I, um, talked to my mom and apparently the… real crux of the situation was that he'd been outside the door awhile… listening to the soundtrack of our love…" She sighed. "But I guess it's karma swinging around. I catch them going at it, they catch me."
"Well, that explains a lot." When he closed his eyes he could feel Max's hands round his throat. That had definitely been one of the scarier moments in his life. "Did everything work out okay with Michael's blood test?"
"Yeah, Agent Seyton is very efficient. I hear Dr. Davis has been asking after you."
"Yeah, she called up yesterday to tell your dad to adjust Beth's supplemental hormones."
"Mom told me what Kal said."
"Well, I only hear bits. Max doesn't want her to accidentally read the whole truth off me."
"I miss you." She blurted out since he avoided her dig about Sydney.
"I have to try not to think about you or else… that's all I do." Will conceded and that felt good. "I just wish I could be there." Shutting his eyes for just a second, he had to make up his mind to do it but he couldn't just come out and tell her, not when he wasn't sure if the line could be breached without him there to test it every day. "There's something you should know about Dr. West's study."
"Which one?"
"The big one. She excluded some pertinent data."
"How do you know?"
"Ask the young lady working the front desk in the afternoons."
"In the lab?"
"Yes, in the lab. Beth's new friend."
--
Max flipped through the mini-disc notebook and skimmed through the artists she had on their covers while she washed up for lunch. "Do you listen to anything that was produced after your birth?"
"What would be the fun in that?" She flashed her teeth at the mirror before drying her face and hands on a towel. "If they're really any good, I'll still know about the new people when I'm old. The old people's music is a testament to taste and quality. The good stuff never dies."
"That's what your grandma always says. Do you listen to Three Dog Night?"
"What?" She slid back into her seat at the table, which was nicely situated close to the floor. The room was pretty sweet. Kal had arranged for them to eat in a restaurant with separate compartments for diners. For an at home feel, though the tables at home were normally a couple of feet higher. It was ridiculous but Kal said he was footing the bill.
"She used to play them when Dad was out of town and she was cooking the good stuff that he couldn't eat." Max smiled a little at his plate. "But I'm sure he never stuck to his diet when he was out of town. He was probably eating worse stuff than we were."
"Did he die before I was born?"
"After. He got to meet you. It was just before spring break. It was a week after my birthday. Busy month I had that year." Then he raised his eyebrows and blew out a breath. "Busy summer, too." Then he winked at her. "Not all my grey hair is your fault."
"Did you forbid Will from joining us on our day of exploration and fun?" She played with the salt and pepper shakers as soon as she figured out what they were.
"No, he had things to do. He doesn't get paid to do nothing, you know."
"I'm sorry I had to cut off your air."
"I'm sorry you had to do that."
"Did you apologize to Will?"
"We came to a truce. We're okay." He sat back when their food arrived. They hadn't ordered, so he assumed Kal had taken care of that as well. Then he watched Beth's face as she examined the spread between them. As soon as the waiter left, he leaned forward. "Something wrong?"
"Um… half of this food is severely undercooked… as in… raw." She eyed the sushi warily as she reached for something that was cooked.
"You'd be surprised how good it is." He set about mixing some soy with wasabi in a dish.
"Man invented fire for a reason."
"Man also invented guns and tazers and adult contemporary soft hits… and I have yet to see the reasoning in any of that." He picked up a piece, dipped it and plopped it into his mouth. "You don't know what you're missing." She ate quickly, eyeing the other side of the table. "Not all of it is fish. Some of it is raw veggies."
"Which is which?"
He just smiled and reached for another piece. "Anything you want to talk about today? Maybe something you read off Kal?"
"Do you know why he's helping us?" She asked, not expecting an answer. She picked a pepper out of a dish and chewed it carefully. That's when she realized what she liked the most about her father. When he wasn't angry, he didn't talk down to her because she was 16. He let her talk and he listened as if what she had to say was every bit as important as one of the doctors he worked with. "He likes me."
"I got that. He's said more than once that he thought you were beautiful. I tend to agree there." He grinned at the roll of her eyes. Since she was little, she always loved to hear how adorable she was from other people but when he or Liz said it, it was embarrassing and uncool.
"Not my human face. That's not what he's talking about."
"He reads auras too and he implied that there are things that maybe you can't register when you read them." He phrased it carefully. He didn't want to make her too curious and to read him before he was sure he could block out pertinent details.
"He could be right. All I see is a color. I see the mood. I see them react against other auras… I don't… know why we have them at all though." She looked up into her father's face, studying his aura. "I don't know why all humans are varying shades of orange and all Antarians seem to have completely different colors."
"So, Kal likes you?"
"He's not a dirty old man, per se, but he has some sort of interest that I can't define. It's still creepy." Eyeing her father eating with great enjoyment. She picked a disturbingly pink piece off a platter, reached over to dip it on his plate and then set it in her mouth, preparing for an unpleasant experience. Her mouth watered before it touched her tongue. Her eyes closed as she savored the spicy wasabi, the sweet rice and the non-squishy fish. "I thought it would be squishy and gross… but it's not either. What's that stuff on your plate? That's the goods."
"Here." He laughed and switched dishes with her. "Take mine. We should probably ask the waiter to bring more wasabi anyway. He set the table for humans, not Antarians."
"So, humans don't like the green mud?"
"They do only, they dilute it a whole hell of a lot more than I do."
"I like it… I feel better than I've felt all day." She eagerly tucked into their spread.
"I thought you were fine."
She snorted. "I lied."
"Bigger appetite than usual?"
"I'm burning a lot of calories just trying to keep myself in check. I feel like I haven't eaten in days."
"You had a big breakfast."
"But I'm sure I burnt it all on walking and talking and restraining myself." She watched him mix a new dish and filed away the data for future reference. "How come you never had us sushi before? Back home?"
"I don't know if you noticed but, um… Roswell is a little landlocked." He lifted his eyes to hers. "I don't trust Roswell Sushi. Mom was actually the one who turned me on to it. She'd been to L.A. and Florida several times before we ever started talking. She made me try it that time I took her with me to a lecture… not far from here actually. I think it was our twentieth anniversary… it was before…"
She nodded, dipping and chewing, experimenting with her own mixture of soy and wasabi. "So, Kal's an interesting guy. He's obsessed with money and human materialism."
"You should see his house." Max shook his head. "Huge mansion, best of everything. Olympic size pool, five lemon trees in his backyard, imported sugarcane in his fridge… He gets regular massages on his patio but I saw him stick his finger in a flame when he lit his cigar the other day. I don't even think he can feel pain or anything else physical the way we do."
"Rumor mill in his office says he's a big ho. A bigger ho than his secretary." She chewed carefully but quickly, starving, as she turned her thoughts over in her head. What was the point in ho-ing around for a guy who couldn't feel it? "Does sex really matter?"
"Um… gender or intercourse?"
"Don't play dumb."
"Well, in order to propagate the species, it must done… so I suppose it does matter." Max cleared his throat and reached for his water glass. He did not like the sudden subject shift. "Isn't this something you'd rather discuss with your mother?"
"No, Mom won't hear of it." She shook her head, her eyes fixed on the bottle of soy sauce as she chewed. "I get that it's supposed to be special and intimate but… if it is… why are there so many hos in the world?"
"I don't know. You'll have to ask a ho."
"Is it normal to wait?"
"I don't think normal is a factor in deciding to have sex. Either you're having it or you're not… I was 19 years old and not ready for the consequences. I got my 18-year-old girlfriend pregnant. Sometimes I feel like I stole her future." He set down his chopsticks and stared at his daughter until she met his eyes. "If Mom comes down hard on you about it, that's why. If you feel my jokes, about cloistering you, are laced with a grain of intent, that's why."
"I'm not having sex, nor am I planning to any time soon. There are always a hundred thousand reasons not to have sex. The one reason that I always hear is that it should be special and be with someone I love. What is love? According to good old Merriam-Webster's love is a deep and tender feeling of affection or attachment or devotion to a person. A strong, usually passionate, affection of one person for another based, in part, on sexual attraction.
"That book has never, in my honest opinion, ever accurately defined love." Max didn't back down from the discussion. "The decision to make love, as I prefer to refer to it outside of the office, is always personal, always takes a toll and always has a significant consequence. The effects of each on a person are unique and hard to quantify and should not be taken as negative in every case. I do not regret having sex or making love. It should never be something that you regret."
"There are thousands of things that it should not be." A huge sigh erupted from her body as her frustration with the subject built.
"I can't tell you what it should be. You already know. Somewhere in your mind, you know how it will happen. I'm not talking about precognitive abilities. I'm just saying. When the time comes, you'll feel it. Indefinable rightness. The right person in the right moment at the right place feeling every emotion you could possibly feel. Because of the intensity of what you feeling and despite the fear that creeps up on you, it all feels right."
"Fear is part of feeling right?"
"There is always fear. Somewhere inside that you can't reason away. Insecurity is probably a better word. Movies lie. It's never graceful. It's never easy. The first time will not flow… and most probably hurt." His mind reeled, he could not believe he was having this conversation with his youngest daughter. "That is why when you decide to make love it should be with someone who knows you, who respects you and will take care of you. Later when you look back, you won't remember very clearly that it was awkward but you will remember that it was special…"
"Are you saying that as a man, a doctor or my father?"
"As a man, I'm telling you that sex is a fact of life that many do and should enjoy. As a doctor, I advise you to be careful as there are diseases and conditions that you want to avoid at any stage of life. As your father, I'm suggesting that you think long and hard before you leap into anything at such a tender age." It pained him to say it but he had to be fair. He had given looser talks to Danny and been too strict with Kathy.
"Talk to me like an Antarian."
"Ok. The chances of you getting pregnant are extremely high, even given your current biological situation. That scares me even if the probably of your partner being human is high, you still run the risk of being fertile enough to compensate for his incompatibility."
"Is that why you omitted a pill from the stack I took this morning?" She took a breath to clear her cluttered mind and focused on eating.
"Yeah." Satisfied that the sex subject was closed, Max was happy to move forward with other avenues of discussion. "Dr. Davis called yesterday. Said you're probably making enough estrogen on your own by now. Aunt Isabel volunteered for some tests."
"No she didn't. She did something behind your back."
"Not true."
"So, whatever Aunt Isabel did called for some monitoring and even with her slower healing rate, she's been okay for hormone reduction in her supplements which means I'm probably fully healed."
"Something like that." He nodded to the table. "More soda?"
"Can I have sake?"
"No. Eat. I thought you were starving." He sipped his water slowly.
"You're full?"
"I'm resting. Eat all you want, I'll ask about the dessert menu."
"Make sure the waiter brings wasabi with the dessert, too."
--
High ceilings and huge glass cases lined the walls, each with more and more beautiful works like time captured and suspended but Max stopped their walk to check Beth over because she looked a little flushed. "You feeling better today?"
"For the millionth time, yes." She was still sweating more than usual but she felt better having slept off most of the drugs since yesterday. "This place is so awesome. I mean, absolutely razor… examples of every major art style and period…"
"You really like art? It was just first to-do on the um… Points of Interest list they left in the hotel room." He pressed a hand against her forehead but he thought maybe he'd gotten used to the fever she'd been running lately because he couldn't tell if she was still running one. Sighing, he let go of her and she moved to the next case.
"I think it's neat." She said while she examined a piece. "I mean… paintings are okay and photographs are pretty. What I like are the everyday use pieces. The bowls and columns… architecture. I like finding the parallels in different cultures that support the one race theory."
"You like the one race theory?" Max's eyes flicked over the pieces behind the glass. They just reminded him of his college history texts. He probably knew most of the pieces by sight from that art class he had taken to relax in while he was interning but he had mostly used that class to nap in.
"Well, human beings are a single race which can be subdivided by culture and peoples. They're all the same but they're not exact. Every major civilization has a history that goes back thousands of years at least. The parallels are all over. Did you know that almost every ancient culture on the planet claimed that they originated from a continent across the waters in one direction or another that sank beneath the waves?"
"Are you talking about Atlantis?"
"Sure. Atlantis, Gondwanaland, Lemuria. Ancient civilizations claimed they came from one of those places. The leaders of their peoples came from across the waters from a great city of gold and advanced technology but destruction and immorality had taken over. When the leaders left to return home, they promised they'd be back but they never returned. If the continent was destroyed or sank into the ocean, they could have died of starvation or dehydration. When Plato wrote about Atlantis, it had been destroyed 9,000 years prior and he wrote that almost 2,400 years ago… they had to evolve to that point. The earliest known civilization was 4,400 years ago and only because there's written evidence of their culture. There's so little left that it would be hard to prove that this great place existed 11,000 years ago at such an advanced state. All the stuff we regard as fantasy actually took place on Earth with so much technology and grace."
"Read much?" Max teased, nudging her shoulder as he moved passed to see another exhibit.
"I do. I may not always get my homework in on time but it doesn't mean I'm bumming around." She protested. "Look at the Central America pyramids and then the Egyptian pyramids. Very close in design and basic structure. Then there are the mounds in North America. Every people have their own sort of Babylon to point to and say ‘that's what happens when you progress too fast and don't question why or what for or how right or wrong.'"
The silence that followed that statement made Max turn back to his daughter. She wasn't looking at the urn in front of her, she was staring at her own reflection. "Maybe I'm moving too fast, Dad. Maybe we're not supposed to move this fast."
"How do you mean?"
"We're like displaced Atlanteans, Dad." She whispered so softly, he wasn't sure she was talking out loud. "We were sent so we could go back but that place is falling apart, isn't it? Would it even be worth the trip and losing everything we built here if when we get there, there's nothing left? What if we do everything we can? We set up shop here on Earth, get our people going, improving the world and the like and send the important people back only to find Antar has sunk beneath the waves…"
--
Kathy leaned against the wall, so tired but grateful for the call. "So, things are okay?"
"Yeah. We sort of talked it out. We've made a truce." Will breathed into the phone as he oversaw the construction and testing of the newly made sen-dep tank.
"I, um, talked to my mom and apparently the… real crux of the situation was that he'd been outside the door awhile… listening to the soundtrack of our love…" She sighed. "But I guess it's karma swinging around. I catch them going at it, they catch me."
"Well, that explains a lot." When he closed his eyes he could feel Max's hands round his throat. That had definitely been one of the scarier moments in his life. "Did everything work out okay with Michael's blood test?"
"Yeah, Agent Seyton is very efficient. I hear Dr. Davis has been asking after you."
"Yeah, she called up yesterday to tell your dad to adjust Beth's supplemental hormones."
"Mom told me what Kal said."
"Well, I only hear bits. Max doesn't want her to accidentally read the whole truth off me."
"I miss you." She blurted out since he avoided her dig about Sydney.
"I have to try not to think about you or else… that's all I do." Will conceded and that felt good. "I just wish I could be there." Shutting his eyes for just a second, he had to make up his mind to do it but he couldn't just come out and tell her, not when he wasn't sure if the line could be breached without him there to test it every day. "There's something you should know about Dr. West's study."
"Which one?"
"The big one. She excluded some pertinent data."
"How do you know?"
"Ask the young lady working the front desk in the afternoons."
"In the lab?"
"Yes, in the lab. Beth's new friend."
--
Max flipped through the mini-disc notebook and skimmed through the artists she had on their covers while she washed up for lunch. "Do you listen to anything that was produced after your birth?"
"What would be the fun in that?" She flashed her teeth at the mirror before drying her face and hands on a towel. "If they're really any good, I'll still know about the new people when I'm old. The old people's music is a testament to taste and quality. The good stuff never dies."
"That's what your grandma always says. Do you listen to Three Dog Night?"
"What?" She slid back into her seat at the table, which was nicely situated close to the floor. The room was pretty sweet. Kal had arranged for them to eat in a restaurant with separate compartments for diners. For an at home feel, though the tables at home were normally a couple of feet higher. It was ridiculous but Kal said he was footing the bill.
"She used to play them when Dad was out of town and she was cooking the good stuff that he couldn't eat." Max smiled a little at his plate. "But I'm sure he never stuck to his diet when he was out of town. He was probably eating worse stuff than we were."
"Did he die before I was born?"
"After. He got to meet you. It was just before spring break. It was a week after my birthday. Busy month I had that year." Then he raised his eyebrows and blew out a breath. "Busy summer, too." Then he winked at her. "Not all my grey hair is your fault."
"Did you forbid Will from joining us on our day of exploration and fun?" She played with the salt and pepper shakers as soon as she figured out what they were.
"No, he had things to do. He doesn't get paid to do nothing, you know."
"I'm sorry I had to cut off your air."
"I'm sorry you had to do that."
"Did you apologize to Will?"
"We came to a truce. We're okay." He sat back when their food arrived. They hadn't ordered, so he assumed Kal had taken care of that as well. Then he watched Beth's face as she examined the spread between them. As soon as the waiter left, he leaned forward. "Something wrong?"
"Um… half of this food is severely undercooked… as in… raw." She eyed the sushi warily as she reached for something that was cooked.
"You'd be surprised how good it is." He set about mixing some soy with wasabi in a dish.
"Man invented fire for a reason."
"Man also invented guns and tazers and adult contemporary soft hits… and I have yet to see the reasoning in any of that." He picked up a piece, dipped it and plopped it into his mouth. "You don't know what you're missing." She ate quickly, eyeing the other side of the table. "Not all of it is fish. Some of it is raw veggies."
"Which is which?"
He just smiled and reached for another piece. "Anything you want to talk about today? Maybe something you read off Kal?"
"Do you know why he's helping us?" She asked, not expecting an answer. She picked a pepper out of a dish and chewed it carefully. That's when she realized what she liked the most about her father. When he wasn't angry, he didn't talk down to her because she was 16. He let her talk and he listened as if what she had to say was every bit as important as one of the doctors he worked with. "He likes me."
"I got that. He's said more than once that he thought you were beautiful. I tend to agree there." He grinned at the roll of her eyes. Since she was little, she always loved to hear how adorable she was from other people but when he or Liz said it, it was embarrassing and uncool.
"Not my human face. That's not what he's talking about."
"He reads auras too and he implied that there are things that maybe you can't register when you read them." He phrased it carefully. He didn't want to make her too curious and to read him before he was sure he could block out pertinent details.
"He could be right. All I see is a color. I see the mood. I see them react against other auras… I don't… know why we have them at all though." She looked up into her father's face, studying his aura. "I don't know why all humans are varying shades of orange and all Antarians seem to have completely different colors."
"So, Kal likes you?"
"He's not a dirty old man, per se, but he has some sort of interest that I can't define. It's still creepy." Eyeing her father eating with great enjoyment. She picked a disturbingly pink piece off a platter, reached over to dip it on his plate and then set it in her mouth, preparing for an unpleasant experience. Her mouth watered before it touched her tongue. Her eyes closed as she savored the spicy wasabi, the sweet rice and the non-squishy fish. "I thought it would be squishy and gross… but it's not either. What's that stuff on your plate? That's the goods."
"Here." He laughed and switched dishes with her. "Take mine. We should probably ask the waiter to bring more wasabi anyway. He set the table for humans, not Antarians."
"So, humans don't like the green mud?"
"They do only, they dilute it a whole hell of a lot more than I do."
"I like it… I feel better than I've felt all day." She eagerly tucked into their spread.
"I thought you were fine."
She snorted. "I lied."
"Bigger appetite than usual?"
"I'm burning a lot of calories just trying to keep myself in check. I feel like I haven't eaten in days."
"You had a big breakfast."
"But I'm sure I burnt it all on walking and talking and restraining myself." She watched him mix a new dish and filed away the data for future reference. "How come you never had us sushi before? Back home?"
"I don't know if you noticed but, um… Roswell is a little landlocked." He lifted his eyes to hers. "I don't trust Roswell Sushi. Mom was actually the one who turned me on to it. She'd been to L.A. and Florida several times before we ever started talking. She made me try it that time I took her with me to a lecture… not far from here actually. I think it was our twentieth anniversary… it was before…"
She nodded, dipping and chewing, experimenting with her own mixture of soy and wasabi. "So, Kal's an interesting guy. He's obsessed with money and human materialism."
"You should see his house." Max shook his head. "Huge mansion, best of everything. Olympic size pool, five lemon trees in his backyard, imported sugarcane in his fridge… He gets regular massages on his patio but I saw him stick his finger in a flame when he lit his cigar the other day. I don't even think he can feel pain or anything else physical the way we do."
"Rumor mill in his office says he's a big ho. A bigger ho than his secretary." She chewed carefully but quickly, starving, as she turned her thoughts over in her head. What was the point in ho-ing around for a guy who couldn't feel it? "Does sex really matter?"
"Um… gender or intercourse?"
"Don't play dumb."
"Well, in order to propagate the species, it must done… so I suppose it does matter." Max cleared his throat and reached for his water glass. He did not like the sudden subject shift. "Isn't this something you'd rather discuss with your mother?"
"No, Mom won't hear of it." She shook her head, her eyes fixed on the bottle of soy sauce as she chewed. "I get that it's supposed to be special and intimate but… if it is… why are there so many hos in the world?"
"I don't know. You'll have to ask a ho."
"Is it normal to wait?"
"I don't think normal is a factor in deciding to have sex. Either you're having it or you're not… I was 19 years old and not ready for the consequences. I got my 18-year-old girlfriend pregnant. Sometimes I feel like I stole her future." He set down his chopsticks and stared at his daughter until she met his eyes. "If Mom comes down hard on you about it, that's why. If you feel my jokes, about cloistering you, are laced with a grain of intent, that's why."
"I'm not having sex, nor am I planning to any time soon. There are always a hundred thousand reasons not to have sex. The one reason that I always hear is that it should be special and be with someone I love. What is love? According to good old Merriam-Webster's love is a deep and tender feeling of affection or attachment or devotion to a person. A strong, usually passionate, affection of one person for another based, in part, on sexual attraction.
"That book has never, in my honest opinion, ever accurately defined love." Max didn't back down from the discussion. "The decision to make love, as I prefer to refer to it outside of the office, is always personal, always takes a toll and always has a significant consequence. The effects of each on a person are unique and hard to quantify and should not be taken as negative in every case. I do not regret having sex or making love. It should never be something that you regret."
"There are thousands of things that it should not be." A huge sigh erupted from her body as her frustration with the subject built.
"I can't tell you what it should be. You already know. Somewhere in your mind, you know how it will happen. I'm not talking about precognitive abilities. I'm just saying. When the time comes, you'll feel it. Indefinable rightness. The right person in the right moment at the right place feeling every emotion you could possibly feel. Because of the intensity of what you feeling and despite the fear that creeps up on you, it all feels right."
"Fear is part of feeling right?"
"There is always fear. Somewhere inside that you can't reason away. Insecurity is probably a better word. Movies lie. It's never graceful. It's never easy. The first time will not flow… and most probably hurt." His mind reeled, he could not believe he was having this conversation with his youngest daughter. "That is why when you decide to make love it should be with someone who knows you, who respects you and will take care of you. Later when you look back, you won't remember very clearly that it was awkward but you will remember that it was special…"
"Are you saying that as a man, a doctor or my father?"
"As a man, I'm telling you that sex is a fact of life that many do and should enjoy. As a doctor, I advise you to be careful as there are diseases and conditions that you want to avoid at any stage of life. As your father, I'm suggesting that you think long and hard before you leap into anything at such a tender age." It pained him to say it but he had to be fair. He had given looser talks to Danny and been too strict with Kathy.
"Talk to me like an Antarian."
"Ok. The chances of you getting pregnant are extremely high, even given your current biological situation. That scares me even if the probably of your partner being human is high, you still run the risk of being fertile enough to compensate for his incompatibility."
"Is that why you omitted a pill from the stack I took this morning?" She took a breath to clear her cluttered mind and focused on eating.
"Yeah." Satisfied that the sex subject was closed, Max was happy to move forward with other avenues of discussion. "Dr. Davis called yesterday. Said you're probably making enough estrogen on your own by now. Aunt Isabel volunteered for some tests."
"No she didn't. She did something behind your back."
"Not true."
"So, whatever Aunt Isabel did called for some monitoring and even with her slower healing rate, she's been okay for hormone reduction in her supplements which means I'm probably fully healed."
"Something like that." He nodded to the table. "More soda?"
"Can I have sake?"
"No. Eat. I thought you were starving." He sipped his water slowly.
"You're full?"
"I'm resting. Eat all you want, I'll ask about the dessert menu."
"Make sure the waiter brings wasabi with the dessert, too."
--
--
Liz wiped at her eyes for the zillionth time in one summer and shook her head at her mother. "I'm fine. I'm worried about Beth, like always." She picked at her milkshake but it didn't help. "I feel so useless."
"Is she… going to be okay?"
"In theory, if everything works, she'll be more than fine." She lifted her eyes to the ceiling and sighed, trying not to let another tear spill. "They've got some therapy worked out for her and I think that I should be there to make sure she's not scared but if it were me… I'd be scared even if you and Dad were there with me."
"If Max says it's okay then it's okay, right?"
"Yeah." Liz had to get up off the stool to keep from crying all over again. She busied herself by cleaning the work station behind the bar and taking a few orders, all the while knowing she was scaring the crap out of her mother. "Davey's having girl-crises and he needs a man to talk to but Max can't make it back and it's not the kind of thing they can talk about over the phone. Kathy and Will are dating and Max tried to kill him, literally. Danny and Emily are leaving town soon and I won't see him until Christmas, maybe. And Beth is…"
"Honey…"
"They're going to stick her in a tank of water, her own body temperature, and hypnotize her into making herself better." She stopped and leaned on the counter. "I'm afraid that it's the only way to make sure she's okay but what if we find out she's claustrophobic or that they can't predict her reactions to the hypnosis." She couldn't stop the tears from welling up. "What if she panics when they put her in there? She's going to use her powers and that stuff might make her hurt herself… what if she has another episode?"
"Is Beth okay?" The masculine voice interrupted.
Liz panicked and slapped her hand over her mouth. The boy looked terrified. What had he heard? His eyes were wide with fear but what was he afraid of? That Beth was on the verge of a break down or that she was an alien?
Gabriel knew his mouth was hanging open but he needed to know that what he had heard wasn't true. That Beth wasn't going to have another episode. That she would be home when they said she would be. "I thought she went to L.A. to see a specialist. I thought they were going to take care of it."
That was such a relief and so Liz calmed down. She tried to smile when she pulled her hand away from her mouth. "It's… experimental therapy."
"Do you know what it is? Can you explain it to me?"
Liz eased herself around the counter to sit once more and face the young man who obviously doted on her daughter even through the rough patches. "Maybe you should call her and ask her dad. He hasn't explained it all to her yet."
"Is it dangerous?"
"It could be potentially terrifying but it's necessary and hopefully not a recurring type of thing." She tried to reassure him. "She's been sleeping a lot, lately but I'm sure she'll stay up to talk to you."
"Is it bad?"
"Inoperable but not unfixable."
"Is she going to be sick? Like on chemo or something?"
"No, I don't think so. Not quite like that."
--
"We don't need a car." Danny protested while they cleaned the kitchen. "I've gotten around just fine without one. The Jeep is good. We keep it in the garage unless we need it for trips, like this one, from home to Roswell. I take it to the mechanic when I'm supposed to and it keeps running."
"Okay. So the Jeep is good for now and I've got my bike but eventually we're going to have children and as cool as my dad was for strapping me on a hog when I was two, I don't think I should do that to our kids." Emily turned on the dishwasher and hopped up on the newly cleaned counter. "So, okay. You've got the town mapped out so you never have to drive to get to work or the grocery store or to school. I can ride my bike to that stuff if I have to go it alone. What if we want to be spontaneous and go on a trip? Do you really want to rely on that hunk of junk to get us out of town?"
"What exactly would you propose I do about it?"
"We save up. We sell the Jeep, we get a car, relatively new and very reliable, preferably with a backseat. We keep my bike just in case we have to get away faster."
"Now you're being ridiculous. When we get home, we can reassess our finances and our vehicular needs." Danny leaned in to kiss her lips. "Having kids right now is frightening. With all the stuff that's going on with Beth and what Dad told Mom about the alien agenda… do we want to risk it?"
"We're having children, Danny. Someday. No ifs about it. We're a little diluted and our kids will still be more or less human and more or less alien. If our parents could do it, so can we."
--
"I'm sorry I got so mad at you." Gabriel listened carefully on his end and motioned to his siblings to quiet down so he could hear her.
"You know, just cause I'm sick doesn't mean I don't do things wrong still." She ran her fingers over the glass in her room. "I was wrong. I'm sorry I flipped out on you."
"Listen, I talked to your mom today and she said things weren't going so well."
"Sweetie, things are going fine. Listen to me, don't I sound fine?" She hoped she sounded fine. "I'm living it up. We had lunch at a great sushi place. I walked all over the museum. It's like a vacation."
"So, the tests are done?"
"No more tests. Just treatment until they're sure they've got it and I can go home."
"It's not gonna make you sick is it?"
"No. No drugs." She hoped and prayed there would be no more drugs. "I miss you and I was sick everyday thinking you were pissed at me. I'm sorry I got so jealous. Mom says I have to learn to trust people."
"You can trust me. If I wanted a blonde cheerleader, I wouldn't have asked you out. Though… seems I got a cheerleader anyway."
"Are you still on that? It was junior high." She shook her head into the phone. "I get a little self-conscious is all. Donna Jo is blonde and perky and she's got a perfect body and I feel like I don't compare."
"Darling, I don't do blondes and didn't I already tell you that I love your ass? As far as I'm concerned, you're the only girl on the planet worth having."
"And if Hayden Panettiere threw herself at you?"
"Well, I'd have to tell her that I'm spoken for, that her hair is too blonde and her ears are way too small." He smiled into the phone and turned away from his siblings who were making faces at him. "Besides, she's way too old for me." Staring out the window at the people walking passed, he breathed out. "When I'm with you, I just know that I'd be miserable without you. You know what I'm talking about?"
Beth sucked in a breath. "You the only one I've never been sure about. Every other person in the world is an open book to me but I never know about you."
"Is that a good or a bad thing?" His brow wrinkled.
"Would you want me to be able to read your mind?"
"I guess not." He shrugged. "They say that type of thing is hereditary and I know your parents would kill me for some of the thoughts I have about you."
"Like that day in your room? Or that night before I got stupid?"
"Precisely. I like to keep my head attached to my body. If your dad had a clue the way I think about you, he might rip it from my body and then it'd be harder to kiss you."
"I miss kissing you… why do I have all these pictures me and no pictures of you?"
"I don't like taking pictures of myself."
"Well, Daddy showed the pictures to a guy out here, he likes 'em. He wanted to put me in a video or something."
"Just some guy?"
"Some producer guy. He's a real big shot."
"Your dad gonna let you?"
"Yeah, right. I'll be in music videos between treatments." She snorted but wished it could happen. Not seriously but she had entertained the idea.
"So, things are going okay? How are things with your Dad?"
"Better." She shut her eyes and leaned her head against the glass. "We had several honest, trying and lengthy talks today and we haven't killed each other yet." She listened to him breathe and felt lonely all of a sudden. "Visit me in my dreams."
"You got it."
She almost laughed aloud. He was just humoring her but he didn't know it could be done. "I met this girl in Santa Fe. She's hilarious. You'd like her."
"I would, huh. Is that a set up for something kind of kinky?"
"You're disgusting and I will have you know… she is way too old for you but she is pretty and if I find out you were hanging out with her, I will castrate you."
"Okay." Gabriel laughed. "I'll dream about you. I promise."
"I hate to get off the phone but I'm tired and Daddy said he wanted to talk to you or something."
"Get some rest and don't worry. I'm sure it will all work out fine."
--
"Hello?"
"Hey."
"Hey." Alex sat up and wiped his eyes. The kids were sprawled out all over the living room, junk food wrappers and empty Tabasco bottles littered all over. Of course, they were all asleep. "Something wrong?"
"No. Nothing's wrong." Lynnette curled up on her aunt's couch and fingered the design. "I wanted to talk to you. To catch up. How have you been?"
TBC
Liz wiped at her eyes for the zillionth time in one summer and shook her head at her mother. "I'm fine. I'm worried about Beth, like always." She picked at her milkshake but it didn't help. "I feel so useless."
"Is she… going to be okay?"
"In theory, if everything works, she'll be more than fine." She lifted her eyes to the ceiling and sighed, trying not to let another tear spill. "They've got some therapy worked out for her and I think that I should be there to make sure she's not scared but if it were me… I'd be scared even if you and Dad were there with me."
"If Max says it's okay then it's okay, right?"
"Yeah." Liz had to get up off the stool to keep from crying all over again. She busied herself by cleaning the work station behind the bar and taking a few orders, all the while knowing she was scaring the crap out of her mother. "Davey's having girl-crises and he needs a man to talk to but Max can't make it back and it's not the kind of thing they can talk about over the phone. Kathy and Will are dating and Max tried to kill him, literally. Danny and Emily are leaving town soon and I won't see him until Christmas, maybe. And Beth is…"
"Honey…"
"They're going to stick her in a tank of water, her own body temperature, and hypnotize her into making herself better." She stopped and leaned on the counter. "I'm afraid that it's the only way to make sure she's okay but what if we find out she's claustrophobic or that they can't predict her reactions to the hypnosis." She couldn't stop the tears from welling up. "What if she panics when they put her in there? She's going to use her powers and that stuff might make her hurt herself… what if she has another episode?"
"Is Beth okay?" The masculine voice interrupted.
Liz panicked and slapped her hand over her mouth. The boy looked terrified. What had he heard? His eyes were wide with fear but what was he afraid of? That Beth was on the verge of a break down or that she was an alien?
Gabriel knew his mouth was hanging open but he needed to know that what he had heard wasn't true. That Beth wasn't going to have another episode. That she would be home when they said she would be. "I thought she went to L.A. to see a specialist. I thought they were going to take care of it."
That was such a relief and so Liz calmed down. She tried to smile when she pulled her hand away from her mouth. "It's… experimental therapy."
"Do you know what it is? Can you explain it to me?"
Liz eased herself around the counter to sit once more and face the young man who obviously doted on her daughter even through the rough patches. "Maybe you should call her and ask her dad. He hasn't explained it all to her yet."
"Is it dangerous?"
"It could be potentially terrifying but it's necessary and hopefully not a recurring type of thing." She tried to reassure him. "She's been sleeping a lot, lately but I'm sure she'll stay up to talk to you."
"Is it bad?"
"Inoperable but not unfixable."
"Is she going to be sick? Like on chemo or something?"
"No, I don't think so. Not quite like that."
--
"We don't need a car." Danny protested while they cleaned the kitchen. "I've gotten around just fine without one. The Jeep is good. We keep it in the garage unless we need it for trips, like this one, from home to Roswell. I take it to the mechanic when I'm supposed to and it keeps running."
"Okay. So the Jeep is good for now and I've got my bike but eventually we're going to have children and as cool as my dad was for strapping me on a hog when I was two, I don't think I should do that to our kids." Emily turned on the dishwasher and hopped up on the newly cleaned counter. "So, okay. You've got the town mapped out so you never have to drive to get to work or the grocery store or to school. I can ride my bike to that stuff if I have to go it alone. What if we want to be spontaneous and go on a trip? Do you really want to rely on that hunk of junk to get us out of town?"
"What exactly would you propose I do about it?"
"We save up. We sell the Jeep, we get a car, relatively new and very reliable, preferably with a backseat. We keep my bike just in case we have to get away faster."
"Now you're being ridiculous. When we get home, we can reassess our finances and our vehicular needs." Danny leaned in to kiss her lips. "Having kids right now is frightening. With all the stuff that's going on with Beth and what Dad told Mom about the alien agenda… do we want to risk it?"
"We're having children, Danny. Someday. No ifs about it. We're a little diluted and our kids will still be more or less human and more or less alien. If our parents could do it, so can we."
--
"I'm sorry I got so mad at you." Gabriel listened carefully on his end and motioned to his siblings to quiet down so he could hear her.
"You know, just cause I'm sick doesn't mean I don't do things wrong still." She ran her fingers over the glass in her room. "I was wrong. I'm sorry I flipped out on you."
"Listen, I talked to your mom today and she said things weren't going so well."
"Sweetie, things are going fine. Listen to me, don't I sound fine?" She hoped she sounded fine. "I'm living it up. We had lunch at a great sushi place. I walked all over the museum. It's like a vacation."
"So, the tests are done?"
"No more tests. Just treatment until they're sure they've got it and I can go home."
"It's not gonna make you sick is it?"
"No. No drugs." She hoped and prayed there would be no more drugs. "I miss you and I was sick everyday thinking you were pissed at me. I'm sorry I got so jealous. Mom says I have to learn to trust people."
"You can trust me. If I wanted a blonde cheerleader, I wouldn't have asked you out. Though… seems I got a cheerleader anyway."
"Are you still on that? It was junior high." She shook her head into the phone. "I get a little self-conscious is all. Donna Jo is blonde and perky and she's got a perfect body and I feel like I don't compare."
"Darling, I don't do blondes and didn't I already tell you that I love your ass? As far as I'm concerned, you're the only girl on the planet worth having."
"And if Hayden Panettiere threw herself at you?"
"Well, I'd have to tell her that I'm spoken for, that her hair is too blonde and her ears are way too small." He smiled into the phone and turned away from his siblings who were making faces at him. "Besides, she's way too old for me." Staring out the window at the people walking passed, he breathed out. "When I'm with you, I just know that I'd be miserable without you. You know what I'm talking about?"
Beth sucked in a breath. "You the only one I've never been sure about. Every other person in the world is an open book to me but I never know about you."
"Is that a good or a bad thing?" His brow wrinkled.
"Would you want me to be able to read your mind?"
"I guess not." He shrugged. "They say that type of thing is hereditary and I know your parents would kill me for some of the thoughts I have about you."
"Like that day in your room? Or that night before I got stupid?"
"Precisely. I like to keep my head attached to my body. If your dad had a clue the way I think about you, he might rip it from my body and then it'd be harder to kiss you."
"I miss kissing you… why do I have all these pictures me and no pictures of you?"
"I don't like taking pictures of myself."
"Well, Daddy showed the pictures to a guy out here, he likes 'em. He wanted to put me in a video or something."
"Just some guy?"
"Some producer guy. He's a real big shot."
"Your dad gonna let you?"
"Yeah, right. I'll be in music videos between treatments." She snorted but wished it could happen. Not seriously but she had entertained the idea.
"So, things are going okay? How are things with your Dad?"
"Better." She shut her eyes and leaned her head against the glass. "We had several honest, trying and lengthy talks today and we haven't killed each other yet." She listened to him breathe and felt lonely all of a sudden. "Visit me in my dreams."
"You got it."
She almost laughed aloud. He was just humoring her but he didn't know it could be done. "I met this girl in Santa Fe. She's hilarious. You'd like her."
"I would, huh. Is that a set up for something kind of kinky?"
"You're disgusting and I will have you know… she is way too old for you but she is pretty and if I find out you were hanging out with her, I will castrate you."
"Okay." Gabriel laughed. "I'll dream about you. I promise."
"I hate to get off the phone but I'm tired and Daddy said he wanted to talk to you or something."
"Get some rest and don't worry. I'm sure it will all work out fine."
--
"Hello?"
"Hey."
"Hey." Alex sat up and wiped his eyes. The kids were sprawled out all over the living room, junk food wrappers and empty Tabasco bottles littered all over. Of course, they were all asleep. "Something wrong?"
"No. Nothing's wrong." Lynnette curled up on her aunt's couch and fingered the design. "I wanted to talk to you. To catch up. How have you been?"
TBC
Part 131
The Fate of Destiny Part 131
"Something's definitely up." Beth griped into the phone as she examined her wardrobe for the day's outfit. "He's being nice and taking me places I want to go. This goes way beyond bonding. He let me talk on the phone to Gabriel forever last night."
"He's just nervous." Kat shook her head as she rolled her eyes at her tail. "You almost died, he's making up for everything he thinks he might have done wrong your whole life."
"It's something else, I'm telling you."
"Did he apologize to Will?"
"Is that all you can talk about? Yourself?"
"Look who's talking." Kat scoffed into the phone.
"Anyway. I don't know. He says truce so I don't know. We're supposed to check out some funky shops today."
"Adding to your funky closet?"
"He's sucking up. I'll take advantage."
"Alright but go easy on the man." Kat cleared her throat as she passed the reception desk at her lab. "So, you're friends with Ms. Allison, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Will told me I should talk to her about one of my research projects."
"Don't know why? She's not a bio-major." Beth examined her face in the mirror for any random acne pop-ups. "Her mom's all sciencey like you but… there's nothing that Lauren would know. I don't know why Will would tell you that."
"Her mom? Who's her mom? Very few of the biologists have kids…"
"Oh, you don't know. That's right. Hold on, the short story is kind of long and I may need some water."
--
Isabel sat in the living room with Irene while Jesse and Sebastien had it out. They sipped coffee in silence and pretended they couldn't hear the commotion down the hall.
"What did you want me to do? Tell my six-year-old, 'I'm sorry but Mommy drank herself to death?'"
"What about when we moved here? When I started going out with the guys? 'Don't drink too much'? You don't tell that to someone who's got a 50 percent chance of being an alcoholic. I'm 18, when were you going to tell me the truth? You were just gonna hope that I wasn't gonna turn out like her?"
"I'm sorry. Okay. I should have told you the truth but leaving now doesn't solve anything."
"I'm not stupid. I was six but I knew something was going on? I figured it out later that you guys were gonna get a divorce if she hadn't… what was it? What was it, exactly?"
"I'm not sure."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It was cancer. She did have cancer. It was treatable but she would have been in a lot of pain and discomfort. We were having a lot of problems before we found out. She was… unhappy for a lot of reasons. She drank excessively and it just… picked up after she found out."
"Why didn't you stop her?"
"It happened fast and I'm sorry to say I wasn't home enough to notice until it was really bad for her."
"You don't die from drinking too much… even with cancer. It takes years. How did it happen?"
"We were talking about separating when she came home from the doctor's with the news. I told her we'd put off any big decisions regarding… us until we knew how bad it was. I was away a lot and talking to friends from college. I was trying to get her help. For the cancer, for the alcoholism. I took her to de-tox because… she needed it. Someone she knew through her parents saw us leaving when she had been released. She couldn't handle being gossiped about on top of our troubles and being sick. I… was too busy getting things in order. Looking into getting her help. You were with your grandparents for the weekend. I was out of town on a case. She… decided to drink a bottle of vodka with a handful of painkillers."
"She committed suicide?"
Isabel's hand shot to her mouth, almost upsetting her coffee cup. Irene's eyes went wide. A few moments later, Lynnette came spilling out of the hallway, pointing behind her. The three women sat and waited through the silence for something, anything from that back bedroom.
"Don't touch me."
"Seb, come on."
"You're supposed… Did you think I was never going to find out? I sat there in that room with the judge while she asked me all these questions and some of them I… I realized I didn't have the answers, not really, not to all of them. Maybe she was right. Maybe I am an alcoholic in the making. I mean, you drink but not a lot but I didn't know why. All of the cousins drink. I hardly ever see grandma and grandpa. Do they drink?" The sounds of a crash filtered out of the room. "Why'd she do it? Was it you? Was it me? Was it really just about gossip at the country club or whatever? Did she care that I was only six?"
"I don't know. She didn't leave a note. She didn't talk to anyone the day she did it. Your grandma found her. I don't think they told anyone either."
"Just leave me alone."
--
Will stared at the tank. It was big but he knew that being inside it, it wouldn't seem so large. Agent Seyton entered the room and waited for acknowledgement. Will just leaned on the tank to peer inside. A doctor looked up and then back at his notes. "We fill it with enough water that the patient will float. We pump nitrous oxide to put the patient into a state of relaxation. There are speakers in the lid through which we monitor progress. There will also be some waterproof measures for heart rate and brain waves."
"Do you discover claustrophobia in patients and have to cease therapy?"
"Only rarely. The ones who need it, overcome." The doctor cleared his throat. "Usually the tanks have a window, plexiglass, that we can see in but the patient can't see out but the design on this one was very specific. Depleted uranium. I guess the patient has an allergy to the regular stuff."
"Depleted uranium?" Seyton looked to Will. "Is it radioactive?"
"No, depleted, meaning it's not. It's condensed and compressed and non-active. It won't warp or weaken." Will answered for her. "Anything to report?"
"Samples were transported safely. I brought some files from Santa Fe for the doctors in charge."
"I'll take them." Will got his hands on them before the doctor could reach for them. "Doctor, I appreciate everything you've done. Is there anything else I should know?"
"I don't have female staff cleared for this patient, given the increased security…" The doctor's eyes flicked to the younger agent. "You've covered your bases?"
"Right." Will turned and motioned Seyton aside. "Bethany will need to be examined tomorrow by the doctor in charge. I need you to be in the room with her. Dr. Evans will run you through the tests so you can be sure nothing is being done improperly."
"Of course." Seyton nodded with a furrowed brow.
--
Max examined the racks with a raised eyebrow. "So, you like this stuff?"
"Yeah, and it's not like I'm imitating someone. I never wear something I see on someone else. All of my outfits are 100% me." Beth examined clothes and passed on them to examine another rack. "Half the time, I end up making them myself. The colors are wrong, the fabrics are wrong, the cuts and sizes are wrong."
"So, I'm spending my money for nothing?"
"You offered, Daddy." She smiled broadly and moved on to another rack.
"I did… but that was before I knew all the facts. I think we need to re-establish the terms of this shopping expedition."
"Now you sound like Granpa Jeff."
"Take that back."
--
Alex nodded into the phone. "So, it's a little hectic?"
"No, not hectic… explosive. Jesse is afraid that Seb is going to run off any moment." Lynnette sniffed into the phone. "Maybe you should come back…"
"This wouldn't be a veiled attempt to get me back in Roswell so you can rip my clothes off my body would it?"
"Yes. I'm making stuff up so I can get some. Oh… wait… I can get some without hauling you across five states." She rolled her eyes at his picture on her dresser
"Now you're just being hurtful." He teased as he looked at a row of rings. "Quick question. Which do you think is prettier? Marquise or solitaire or baguette or emerald-cut?"
"Why does it matter?"
"It's a question. I'm settling a bet with Berty. If you had to have a ring, what cut would you like?"
"I don't know…. Marquise?"
"I'll let you know what she thinks."
"Are you coming home?" She almost shouted, exasperated with his flippant phone manners.
"I'll talk to my mom and see if she's ready for the brats and I'll be home soon."
"Good." She let out a deep sigh of relief.
--
Seb entered the kitchen to find Isabel reaching for boxes in the cabinet. "Hey! Sit your ass down. I'll get it."
"I'm making lunch." Isabel shook her head.
"I'll cook. Sit." He pointed to a chair and got busy with the things she had scattered on the counter. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine. I heal very quickly." She took a seat at the table to chop some vegetables. "How are you?"
He barely faltered as he put together the tuna-salad sandwiches. "Did you know?"
"No."
"Really?"
"He never told me." She leaned over to get a glimpse of his expression but he didn't want to be seen. "I know how it feels to believe one thing for years and then to have someone or something shatter that belief." He didn't say anything so she kept talking. "When Alex's father died, we all thought he had committed suicide because there was nothing to tell us otherwise. We all spoke about how maybe it was an accident because there wasn't a note but I know I felt he was trying to escape me… It wasn't until after I married Kyle that I learned the truth and that he had been murdered instead. It took me a while to reconcile that in my mind."
"But you had to have some relief knowing he hadn't tried to escape you…" Seb turned only slightly as he placed the sandwiches onto plates.
"You'd think but it was his involvement with me that killed him. I only felt even worse. He never deserved to die like that."
"Mom chose to go. Instead of facing up to her life. She just…" Seb stopped himself. He could barely remember the woman. She had been tall and she had blonde hair and she wore sweet perfume but everything else had faded to a blur. "It's like he told me she was dead all over again."
"I'm sorry. I know that doesn't mean anything but…"
"I have to go back there and see the stuff I haven't seen in years and I'm going to have this knowledge now. It's going to be tainted." He sniffed loudly and set a sandwich in front of her and left the others for whoever else was eating to collect. "I could handle a disease taking her because no one can stop that. I could handle them separating because they were miserable. I can't stand the thought of her hating him or me or all of us. I thought our life back then was pretty okay. How bad was it really?"
"I don’t know. You'll have to ask your dad." Her heart went out to him but she couldn't help him, not really. "Don't leave mad at him. Please." He wouldn't look at her. "Hey… Dana called while you were out."
"We broke up."
"I didn't know."
"Yeah, well." Seb shook his head. "Sometimes things just have to happen."
--
Lauren picked up the phone. "Biology department."
"You answer your cell phone like that?" Beth laughed.
"Ugh. You're right it is my cell. I hate this place. All bells sound the same after the rockin' concert last night."
"Who'd you see?"
"Don't know. Don't care. I'm almost deaf and that's all that counts."
"Razor, baby."
"How is Cali?"
"Great but Dad is being too nice. I'm almost afraid of how bad this treatment is going to be if he's being so nice."
"He hasn't told you yet?"
"No. He says he'll explain it all in the morning but that it's more important that I'm relaxed. Whatever. How's it going with your Dr. Mom?"
"Mama Serena is being such a bitch. I think her girlfriend is cheating on her." Lauren sat back in her chair and ignored her text books. "I'm too busy wondering if the guy I scored with last night is going to call me back."
"Ooh. Are you over my good friend Will already?"
"I never had a chance. Le sigh." Lauren giggled. "So this guy… I may have caught him under the influence of the beer goggles but I think we really clicked."
"Oh yeah? What's his name?"
"When I figure it out, I'll tell you."
"Hey listen…" Beth took a deep breath. "I, um… told my sister… about what you told me. I kind of had to. She's working on a project that deals with a project of Dr. West's and she needed all the information. I… she won't say anything. I promise."
"What project? What are you talking about?"
--
Max inspected the tank and then climbed in. He wouldn't make Beth get inside until he understood himself what it would be like to be inside it. Agent Seyton closed the lid. The tank was pitch black on the inside. Max had to control his breathing. Then a crackle came from over his head. "Dr. Evans. Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Good. Once we're sure she's gone under, we'll turn off the speaker so it will be complete silence for her." The doctor spoke too closely to the mike, making it boom with his breaths.
"How long will she have to be in here?"
"We'll try a few hours at first. We'll be monitoring her heart rate and brainwaves." There was some silence. "How did she react in the MRI?"
"Very well. Maybe this won't be so bad for her." The lid opened and Max had to blink to adjust his eyes enough to see the hand Agent Seyton offered him. "Thank you."
--
Will walked with Beth down a boardwalk. "What's on your mind?"
"Lots of stuff." She shrugged and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. "Your newbie is weird."
"You don't like her?"
"What's to like? She's almost as pretty as me. I don't like that."
"She's got nothing on you."
"Except maybe breasts." The teen conceded and self-consciously adjusted the neckline of her blouse. "It's not fair. Mine are currently hormone based. I'll bet they go away."
"Can we not talk about your breasts?" He wiped a hand over his face.
"Will?" Beth slowed their walk. "Is tomorrow going to be hard?"
"I don't know."
"But… it's a big deal, right? Or else he would have said something to me already?" She peered up at him, her light brown eyes full of worry.
"Come on. It's about time to pick him up from his meeting."
TBC
"Something's definitely up." Beth griped into the phone as she examined her wardrobe for the day's outfit. "He's being nice and taking me places I want to go. This goes way beyond bonding. He let me talk on the phone to Gabriel forever last night."
"He's just nervous." Kat shook her head as she rolled her eyes at her tail. "You almost died, he's making up for everything he thinks he might have done wrong your whole life."
"It's something else, I'm telling you."
"Did he apologize to Will?"
"Is that all you can talk about? Yourself?"
"Look who's talking." Kat scoffed into the phone.
"Anyway. I don't know. He says truce so I don't know. We're supposed to check out some funky shops today."
"Adding to your funky closet?"
"He's sucking up. I'll take advantage."
"Alright but go easy on the man." Kat cleared her throat as she passed the reception desk at her lab. "So, you're friends with Ms. Allison, right?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Will told me I should talk to her about one of my research projects."
"Don't know why? She's not a bio-major." Beth examined her face in the mirror for any random acne pop-ups. "Her mom's all sciencey like you but… there's nothing that Lauren would know. I don't know why Will would tell you that."
"Her mom? Who's her mom? Very few of the biologists have kids…"
"Oh, you don't know. That's right. Hold on, the short story is kind of long and I may need some water."
--
Isabel sat in the living room with Irene while Jesse and Sebastien had it out. They sipped coffee in silence and pretended they couldn't hear the commotion down the hall.
"What did you want me to do? Tell my six-year-old, 'I'm sorry but Mommy drank herself to death?'"
"What about when we moved here? When I started going out with the guys? 'Don't drink too much'? You don't tell that to someone who's got a 50 percent chance of being an alcoholic. I'm 18, when were you going to tell me the truth? You were just gonna hope that I wasn't gonna turn out like her?"
"I'm sorry. Okay. I should have told you the truth but leaving now doesn't solve anything."
"I'm not stupid. I was six but I knew something was going on? I figured it out later that you guys were gonna get a divorce if she hadn't… what was it? What was it, exactly?"
"I'm not sure."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It was cancer. She did have cancer. It was treatable but she would have been in a lot of pain and discomfort. We were having a lot of problems before we found out. She was… unhappy for a lot of reasons. She drank excessively and it just… picked up after she found out."
"Why didn't you stop her?"
"It happened fast and I'm sorry to say I wasn't home enough to notice until it was really bad for her."
"You don't die from drinking too much… even with cancer. It takes years. How did it happen?"
"We were talking about separating when she came home from the doctor's with the news. I told her we'd put off any big decisions regarding… us until we knew how bad it was. I was away a lot and talking to friends from college. I was trying to get her help. For the cancer, for the alcoholism. I took her to de-tox because… she needed it. Someone she knew through her parents saw us leaving when she had been released. She couldn't handle being gossiped about on top of our troubles and being sick. I… was too busy getting things in order. Looking into getting her help. You were with your grandparents for the weekend. I was out of town on a case. She… decided to drink a bottle of vodka with a handful of painkillers."
"She committed suicide?"
Isabel's hand shot to her mouth, almost upsetting her coffee cup. Irene's eyes went wide. A few moments later, Lynnette came spilling out of the hallway, pointing behind her. The three women sat and waited through the silence for something, anything from that back bedroom.
"Don't touch me."
"Seb, come on."
"You're supposed… Did you think I was never going to find out? I sat there in that room with the judge while she asked me all these questions and some of them I… I realized I didn't have the answers, not really, not to all of them. Maybe she was right. Maybe I am an alcoholic in the making. I mean, you drink but not a lot but I didn't know why. All of the cousins drink. I hardly ever see grandma and grandpa. Do they drink?" The sounds of a crash filtered out of the room. "Why'd she do it? Was it you? Was it me? Was it really just about gossip at the country club or whatever? Did she care that I was only six?"
"I don't know. She didn't leave a note. She didn't talk to anyone the day she did it. Your grandma found her. I don't think they told anyone either."
"Just leave me alone."
--
Will stared at the tank. It was big but he knew that being inside it, it wouldn't seem so large. Agent Seyton entered the room and waited for acknowledgement. Will just leaned on the tank to peer inside. A doctor looked up and then back at his notes. "We fill it with enough water that the patient will float. We pump nitrous oxide to put the patient into a state of relaxation. There are speakers in the lid through which we monitor progress. There will also be some waterproof measures for heart rate and brain waves."
"Do you discover claustrophobia in patients and have to cease therapy?"
"Only rarely. The ones who need it, overcome." The doctor cleared his throat. "Usually the tanks have a window, plexiglass, that we can see in but the patient can't see out but the design on this one was very specific. Depleted uranium. I guess the patient has an allergy to the regular stuff."
"Depleted uranium?" Seyton looked to Will. "Is it radioactive?"
"No, depleted, meaning it's not. It's condensed and compressed and non-active. It won't warp or weaken." Will answered for her. "Anything to report?"
"Samples were transported safely. I brought some files from Santa Fe for the doctors in charge."
"I'll take them." Will got his hands on them before the doctor could reach for them. "Doctor, I appreciate everything you've done. Is there anything else I should know?"
"I don't have female staff cleared for this patient, given the increased security…" The doctor's eyes flicked to the younger agent. "You've covered your bases?"
"Right." Will turned and motioned Seyton aside. "Bethany will need to be examined tomorrow by the doctor in charge. I need you to be in the room with her. Dr. Evans will run you through the tests so you can be sure nothing is being done improperly."
"Of course." Seyton nodded with a furrowed brow.
--
Max examined the racks with a raised eyebrow. "So, you like this stuff?"
"Yeah, and it's not like I'm imitating someone. I never wear something I see on someone else. All of my outfits are 100% me." Beth examined clothes and passed on them to examine another rack. "Half the time, I end up making them myself. The colors are wrong, the fabrics are wrong, the cuts and sizes are wrong."
"So, I'm spending my money for nothing?"
"You offered, Daddy." She smiled broadly and moved on to another rack.
"I did… but that was before I knew all the facts. I think we need to re-establish the terms of this shopping expedition."
"Now you sound like Granpa Jeff."
"Take that back."
--
Alex nodded into the phone. "So, it's a little hectic?"
"No, not hectic… explosive. Jesse is afraid that Seb is going to run off any moment." Lynnette sniffed into the phone. "Maybe you should come back…"
"This wouldn't be a veiled attempt to get me back in Roswell so you can rip my clothes off my body would it?"
"Yes. I'm making stuff up so I can get some. Oh… wait… I can get some without hauling you across five states." She rolled her eyes at his picture on her dresser
"Now you're just being hurtful." He teased as he looked at a row of rings. "Quick question. Which do you think is prettier? Marquise or solitaire or baguette or emerald-cut?"
"Why does it matter?"
"It's a question. I'm settling a bet with Berty. If you had to have a ring, what cut would you like?"
"I don't know…. Marquise?"
"I'll let you know what she thinks."
"Are you coming home?" She almost shouted, exasperated with his flippant phone manners.
"I'll talk to my mom and see if she's ready for the brats and I'll be home soon."
"Good." She let out a deep sigh of relief.
--
Seb entered the kitchen to find Isabel reaching for boxes in the cabinet. "Hey! Sit your ass down. I'll get it."
"I'm making lunch." Isabel shook her head.
"I'll cook. Sit." He pointed to a chair and got busy with the things she had scattered on the counter. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine. I heal very quickly." She took a seat at the table to chop some vegetables. "How are you?"
He barely faltered as he put together the tuna-salad sandwiches. "Did you know?"
"No."
"Really?"
"He never told me." She leaned over to get a glimpse of his expression but he didn't want to be seen. "I know how it feels to believe one thing for years and then to have someone or something shatter that belief." He didn't say anything so she kept talking. "When Alex's father died, we all thought he had committed suicide because there was nothing to tell us otherwise. We all spoke about how maybe it was an accident because there wasn't a note but I know I felt he was trying to escape me… It wasn't until after I married Kyle that I learned the truth and that he had been murdered instead. It took me a while to reconcile that in my mind."
"But you had to have some relief knowing he hadn't tried to escape you…" Seb turned only slightly as he placed the sandwiches onto plates.
"You'd think but it was his involvement with me that killed him. I only felt even worse. He never deserved to die like that."
"Mom chose to go. Instead of facing up to her life. She just…" Seb stopped himself. He could barely remember the woman. She had been tall and she had blonde hair and she wore sweet perfume but everything else had faded to a blur. "It's like he told me she was dead all over again."
"I'm sorry. I know that doesn't mean anything but…"
"I have to go back there and see the stuff I haven't seen in years and I'm going to have this knowledge now. It's going to be tainted." He sniffed loudly and set a sandwich in front of her and left the others for whoever else was eating to collect. "I could handle a disease taking her because no one can stop that. I could handle them separating because they were miserable. I can't stand the thought of her hating him or me or all of us. I thought our life back then was pretty okay. How bad was it really?"
"I don’t know. You'll have to ask your dad." Her heart went out to him but she couldn't help him, not really. "Don't leave mad at him. Please." He wouldn't look at her. "Hey… Dana called while you were out."
"We broke up."
"I didn't know."
"Yeah, well." Seb shook his head. "Sometimes things just have to happen."
--
Lauren picked up the phone. "Biology department."
"You answer your cell phone like that?" Beth laughed.
"Ugh. You're right it is my cell. I hate this place. All bells sound the same after the rockin' concert last night."
"Who'd you see?"
"Don't know. Don't care. I'm almost deaf and that's all that counts."
"Razor, baby."
"How is Cali?"
"Great but Dad is being too nice. I'm almost afraid of how bad this treatment is going to be if he's being so nice."
"He hasn't told you yet?"
"No. He says he'll explain it all in the morning but that it's more important that I'm relaxed. Whatever. How's it going with your Dr. Mom?"
"Mama Serena is being such a bitch. I think her girlfriend is cheating on her." Lauren sat back in her chair and ignored her text books. "I'm too busy wondering if the guy I scored with last night is going to call me back."
"Ooh. Are you over my good friend Will already?"
"I never had a chance. Le sigh." Lauren giggled. "So this guy… I may have caught him under the influence of the beer goggles but I think we really clicked."
"Oh yeah? What's his name?"
"When I figure it out, I'll tell you."
"Hey listen…" Beth took a deep breath. "I, um… told my sister… about what you told me. I kind of had to. She's working on a project that deals with a project of Dr. West's and she needed all the information. I… she won't say anything. I promise."
"What project? What are you talking about?"
--
Max inspected the tank and then climbed in. He wouldn't make Beth get inside until he understood himself what it would be like to be inside it. Agent Seyton closed the lid. The tank was pitch black on the inside. Max had to control his breathing. Then a crackle came from over his head. "Dr. Evans. Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Good. Once we're sure she's gone under, we'll turn off the speaker so it will be complete silence for her." The doctor spoke too closely to the mike, making it boom with his breaths.
"How long will she have to be in here?"
"We'll try a few hours at first. We'll be monitoring her heart rate and brainwaves." There was some silence. "How did she react in the MRI?"
"Very well. Maybe this won't be so bad for her." The lid opened and Max had to blink to adjust his eyes enough to see the hand Agent Seyton offered him. "Thank you."
--
Will walked with Beth down a boardwalk. "What's on your mind?"
"Lots of stuff." She shrugged and focused on putting one foot in front of the other. "Your newbie is weird."
"You don't like her?"
"What's to like? She's almost as pretty as me. I don't like that."
"She's got nothing on you."
"Except maybe breasts." The teen conceded and self-consciously adjusted the neckline of her blouse. "It's not fair. Mine are currently hormone based. I'll bet they go away."
"Can we not talk about your breasts?" He wiped a hand over his face.
"Will?" Beth slowed their walk. "Is tomorrow going to be hard?"
"I don't know."
"But… it's a big deal, right? Or else he would have said something to me already?" She peered up at him, her light brown eyes full of worry.
"Come on. It's about time to pick him up from his meeting."
TBC
Part 132
The Fate of Destiny Part 132
Max explained everything as simply as he could as he readied the IV for the treatment. Beth stared straight ahead and barely looked up when he asked her if she had any questions. "Will I be able to talk to you?"
"Yes." He nodded to himself. “There are speakers and a mic in there so we can communicate.”
"How will you know if it's working?"
"We will measure your brainwaves and heart-rate. We're going to hypnotize you and make suggestions to your subconscious. We'll know in a couple of sessions if your body is responding." Max sat in her line of sight. "Do you think you can do this?"
"Do I have a choice?" Tears shone in her eyes.
"Yes. We don't have to do this but it could be the only way to do this before you go crazy. I do need you to do something for me when you're in there. I want you to remember this." He took her hands in his and looked her straight in the eye. "It's possible that if this works, you'll release a large amount of energy. The tank itself will not respond to the energy but if you feel it… try to say something. I don't want you to get hurt in there."
"What's in the IV?"
"Caffeine. Saline. When you get flushed, the toxins will be released into the water. Then, your body should go to work to cleanse out the residue."
"I'll be unconscious?"
"Semi-conscious."
"Daddy, I'm scared." She shut her eyes. "I've never been alone like that."
"I know but I'm going to try to be the one talking to you the whole time. Okay? Focus on my voice."
"There's always been noise around me. Buzz. To let me know there are people around me."
"I know. It'll be hard but do you think you can do it?" She nodded after a moment and he took that as a good sign. "Ok. There's a gown right there. A doctor will be in to give you a look over. Agent Seyton will be in here with you. Then they'll give you a suit to wear in the tank."
"Okay." Beth took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Can I keep my cross on?"
"I'll ask." He kissed her forehead firmly. "Remember. I love you and I'll be here the whole time."
--
Lauren held the cotton swab over the needle hole while Dr. Evans labeled the tube. "What are you looking for?"
"What do you know about the study she does?" Kathy set the tube down with a few others to be analyzed.
"She doesn't tell me the specifics… and if she does, I don't understand what she says." The girl answered honestly. "All I know is that she submitted her ova for a test and they got lost and mixed in with a donor bank's. The eggs went to a lady who was trying to a conceive a child with her husband. The mistake was found out by Conception-Lady during pregnancy and she didn't want me. By the time I found out any of this, I was mostly grown and no one wanted me. I just found out about Dr. West being my biological mom. We don't get along so well."
"It's a high probability that the woman who carried you did share biology with you. From what I understand of her reports, you have three parents. Two mothers and a father, aside from your adoptive and foster parents. From what I have seen, the children have shared more DNA with the host egg than either the implanted mother's DNA or the father." She looked up at the confused young woman in front of her. "Do you know her name? The other woman?"
Lauren shook her head. "She didn't want me to find her."
"I thought she wanted children?" Kathy sat down next to the girl.
"I think she's like Serena. She didn't really want kids… and if she was going to have one, it had to be hers." She shrugged. "When I met with the CPS agent, she wouldn’t look me in the eye. It was a big clue." She sniffed a little and dabbed her nose, as not to upset the ring sticking out of one nostril. "Someone paid money to keep this quiet. I've never heard of the study or anything." Her large eyes turned to the sky. "You think things happen for a reason?"
"Sometimes."
"I loved my parents. The Allisons were all I could have asked for and they were taken away from me. The Shitheads were just… I couldn't wait to get out of there. That lady rejecting me set me back… I had to go to an instate college so I ended up here… where my biological mother was some kind of scientific bad-ass. What are the chances of that?" Lauren got to her feet to gather her things. "God, you know… she's unreasonable. I had to guilt her into feeling something for me and she's… I thought we were getting along okay and she's… lying to me, still." She took a deep breath. "There are other kids like me?"
"None living… I think."
“Why are you so interested in her study?” Lauren paused at the door. “Is it because of Beth or something else?”
“There are a lot of things that don’t make sense and I’m just trying to understand a little.”
--
Liz tossed away the rubber ball and within moments, it was back in her hand. Reaching forward, she scratched his head. “So, Prince Sterling, how do you like our home?”
“He likes it here.” David answered for the pup while he followed the instructions for the large doghouse in the corner of the yard. “But he sneaks out of my room at night.”
“He’s not sleeping on your bed, is he?”
“No but I think he’s sleeping on yours.” David accused lightly as he glanced away from his work for a moment.
"He is not. He keeps me company while I do my lesson plans." She tossed the ball again. "Have you been cleaning up his accidents?"
"Just one or two. He's learning."
"Granpa and Mr. Valenti are going camping for sure tomorrow. Do you still want to go?" She peered up at the sky. The clouds were fluffy, the weather more than warm. If they were going to go. This weekend would be perfect for it. "You can take Dad's tent so you can have one to yourself."
"Yeah, I'll go. What time are they leaving?"
"Early. Earlier than we've been getting up." She led the eager pup over to the shade where she could fill his water bowl. "You think this is going to work out? You and Sterling?"
"I can do it."
"If you get in over your head…"
"I'll ask for help, I promise." He nodded while he used his powers to hold up the sides while he searched for the right screws.
"How's your man-problem?"
"I'll have two men to solve it with this weekend." He answered without missing a beat.
"I swear. You're becoming more and more like your father with everyday."
"Is that bad?"
"Not all bad." She tried to keep a smile but her thoughts shot to her daughter.
--
Beth sat in the water but didn't lay down. She just let herself get used to the feel. It wasn't cool or warm. The exact temperature of her skin. Max pulled a chair next to the tank and sat down, trying to think of someway to calm her down. He could hear her heart-rate beeping out on the machine nearby and it was running faster than he'd like and he was sure it was too fast for the doctors in the observation room. "You know, you were born to be a Comet."
"What?" Beth blinked at him. "That was pretty random."
"But it's true. When you were a baby, the only way to keep you calm was to sing you the school song." He took her hands in his. "Maybe it was because Mom worked until the week before you were born. Homecoming week was her last week at school. You probably heard that song in utero all that week."
"I hate that song." She scoffed but it felt good to take her mind off the fact that lid was going to close her off from him.
"Do you know how I met Oriel?"
"She showed up at Mom's birthday party, right?"
"I met her before that. I was shopping with you and you wouldn't stop crying and in the middle of the store, I sang you the school song and you calmed down. There she was, asking questions about you and Mom and it left my mind the second she left because I was taking care of my baby." He kissed her forehead and gently pushed her back to lay in the water. "Just listen to my voice. The doctor is going to put you to sleep but after that, it's going to be my voice."
"Ok. I'm ok." Beth nodded and let her body float in the tank, getting comfortable with the wires and tubes coming out of her body. "I'm ready. Close it."
"Okay. We'll all be right here." Max nodded and stood so the techs could do all they were supposed to.
The lid closed and Max found Will by his side. "She'll be okay. This will work."
"You're right… but… she'll be alone in there. With just herself. I don't know if she's ever been alone like that before." Max crossed his arms. "I couldn't make her do this unless I thought it would be worth it."
"She wouldn't agree unless she trusted that you believed that."
"I know."
"Sir…" Agent Seyton cleared her throat. "I…"
"Oh, um… just… wait outside. I'll be out once we know how this is going." Will spared her a glance. "I do need to talk to you."
--
Seb put his shirt back on and hunted for his shoes. Dana sat up, confused. "What are you doing?"
"Getting dressed."
"Sebastien…"
"What?" He whirled on her. "You told me that if I went with my cousins that we were over. Well, I went so I assumed we were over. You called me. Said you wanted to talk and instead we screwed. I'm going home, now."
"I didn't mean it. I was upset."
"How am I supposed to know what you mean when you don't say what you mean?" Sebastien sat on the end of the bed to tie his shoes. "I'm leaving in exactly one week and I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure out your games."
"Get out."
"I'm gone."
--
Agent Seyton watched from the observation room as Dr. Evans talked softly to his daughter via the microphone. The speaker had been shut off in the observation room but the doctors were monitoring the stats very closely. After about an hour of elevated temperatures and slightly increased heart-rate, the doctors calmed down and ceased to make notes. That's when Agent Goldblum stuck his head in to wave her out of the room.
"I just wanted to apologize. I kind of threw you into the middle of things and you have next to no idea what's going on." Will motioned her to a set of chairs nearby. "I seem to find myself giving a bunch of do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do lectures this year and I feel like an ass. The whole lot of you are strangers and you will be told next to nothing and expected to keep your mouths shut about what you do learn. I, on the other hand, am in the know and very involved and intertwined with all the goings-on."
"That much I figured, sir."
"The truth of the matter is, I envisioned us all becoming a sort of family around this family we're looking after. I know it feels like a lot of running around and standing around and looking for monsters in closets that you can't see but I assure you that it is all for a very good reason." He took a breath and rolled his eyes. "One which I'm not at liberty to divulge."
"A matter of national security."
"Yes." He cleared his throat and took a deeper breath, his eyes focused on the floor tiles. "In that room is a little girl that I love like a sister. She's sick. We've had to take very specific precautions to ensure that this goes smoothly. She acts tough but she's scared out of her mind and I don't act with a clear head around her. It's not professional but I need your respect when it comes to my orders despite whatever condition I'm in when she comes out of there."
"Pardon me for saying so but shouldn't you have been reassigned when you realized how close you were becoming to the family?"
"It's a valid question and probably any other agent in any other agency or program would have been but that's what I need you and all the others to understand. This is not… I didn't choose this job. It fell into my lap and I could have tossed it away but I know what I'm doing is important. That my silence is important. By accepting this job and staying with it despite everything, I've put myself in a position to be eliminated. Not fired, not replaced, simply eliminated." Will turned his face to watch hers. Her hazel eyes flashed dozens of emotions in a few seconds and she seemed to sink into her chair. "Do you understand what I've been trying to say for a week now?"
"I think so. If I choose this to be my line of work, it's the last I'll ever choose. I could become as absorbed as you are. If I choose this life, it's the only one I'll ever have again, effectively putting my name on a bullet to be named in the future."
"Precisely. Dr. Evans is just a small town doctor and his daughter is very ill. It seems like a waste of time and energy but I assure you, we are on the right side of it."
"May I ask who paid for the lab time and the construction of the tank?"
"Private outside party." Will sat up and ran his hands over his face. "I watched that little girl grow up… I had the privilege of seeing her before she was so plagued." Shaking his head, he shut his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm very tired and this is one of the more stressful events in my life."
Her hand landed on his knee for a small squeeze. "That's more than alright, sir. I'll get on the front desk. Make sure no one is admitted into our wing."
"Thank you."
--
Berty reveled in her last day in the sun. It was a fun couple of weeks but she didn't feel any differently. She turned her head to watch Alex play with Gina. They actually looked like they were having fun, though Berty couldn't really remember them playing together at all since Alex had gone to college. Then Berty was freezing cold. "Kyle! I'm going to kill you!"
She leapt off her now-soaking towel and chased after her little brother. After she caught him, it took only a few quick moves to pin him face-down in the sand. Applause caught her attention, a few guys who had been tossing a Frisbee had stopped to watch the violence. One of them flashed her a brilliant smile. "You go! Don't let him get you down!"
She bowed to her audience and shoved her brother once more before returning to her towel. Kyle sat up and spit out the sand that had gotten in his mouth. "I'm gonna get you, Berty!"
"You started it!" She called over her shoulder as she brushed sand from her damp skin, forgoing her suit for the moment. That was mud until she could rinse off. She heard running behind her and got ready for an attack but instead of her little brother, it was the guy who had shouted and smiled at her. "Hi."
"Hey… um… we were looking for a fourth for our Frisbee game. You interested?" He was cute. Very cute. Berty eyed the guys he was playing with. "We're just tossing it around. Taking a break from surfing while the tide is low."
"It has nothing to do with me almost losing my suit a minute ago, right?"
"Very little." He had the grace to blush and look away. "I'm Teddy, by the way."
"Berty." She shook his hand and then turned to wave at Alex to point to where she was going to be. He waved her off, that he could see where, and returned to his sand-fortress. "Let's go."
--
Max explained everything as simply as he could as he readied the IV for the treatment. Beth stared straight ahead and barely looked up when he asked her if she had any questions. "Will I be able to talk to you?"
"Yes." He nodded to himself. “There are speakers and a mic in there so we can communicate.”
"How will you know if it's working?"
"We will measure your brainwaves and heart-rate. We're going to hypnotize you and make suggestions to your subconscious. We'll know in a couple of sessions if your body is responding." Max sat in her line of sight. "Do you think you can do this?"
"Do I have a choice?" Tears shone in her eyes.
"Yes. We don't have to do this but it could be the only way to do this before you go crazy. I do need you to do something for me when you're in there. I want you to remember this." He took her hands in his and looked her straight in the eye. "It's possible that if this works, you'll release a large amount of energy. The tank itself will not respond to the energy but if you feel it… try to say something. I don't want you to get hurt in there."
"What's in the IV?"
"Caffeine. Saline. When you get flushed, the toxins will be released into the water. Then, your body should go to work to cleanse out the residue."
"I'll be unconscious?"
"Semi-conscious."
"Daddy, I'm scared." She shut her eyes. "I've never been alone like that."
"I know but I'm going to try to be the one talking to you the whole time. Okay? Focus on my voice."
"There's always been noise around me. Buzz. To let me know there are people around me."
"I know. It'll be hard but do you think you can do it?" She nodded after a moment and he took that as a good sign. "Ok. There's a gown right there. A doctor will be in to give you a look over. Agent Seyton will be in here with you. Then they'll give you a suit to wear in the tank."
"Okay." Beth took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Can I keep my cross on?"
"I'll ask." He kissed her forehead firmly. "Remember. I love you and I'll be here the whole time."
--
Lauren held the cotton swab over the needle hole while Dr. Evans labeled the tube. "What are you looking for?"
"What do you know about the study she does?" Kathy set the tube down with a few others to be analyzed.
"She doesn't tell me the specifics… and if she does, I don't understand what she says." The girl answered honestly. "All I know is that she submitted her ova for a test and they got lost and mixed in with a donor bank's. The eggs went to a lady who was trying to a conceive a child with her husband. The mistake was found out by Conception-Lady during pregnancy and she didn't want me. By the time I found out any of this, I was mostly grown and no one wanted me. I just found out about Dr. West being my biological mom. We don't get along so well."
"It's a high probability that the woman who carried you did share biology with you. From what I understand of her reports, you have three parents. Two mothers and a father, aside from your adoptive and foster parents. From what I have seen, the children have shared more DNA with the host egg than either the implanted mother's DNA or the father." She looked up at the confused young woman in front of her. "Do you know her name? The other woman?"
Lauren shook her head. "She didn't want me to find her."
"I thought she wanted children?" Kathy sat down next to the girl.
"I think she's like Serena. She didn't really want kids… and if she was going to have one, it had to be hers." She shrugged. "When I met with the CPS agent, she wouldn’t look me in the eye. It was a big clue." She sniffed a little and dabbed her nose, as not to upset the ring sticking out of one nostril. "Someone paid money to keep this quiet. I've never heard of the study or anything." Her large eyes turned to the sky. "You think things happen for a reason?"
"Sometimes."
"I loved my parents. The Allisons were all I could have asked for and they were taken away from me. The Shitheads were just… I couldn't wait to get out of there. That lady rejecting me set me back… I had to go to an instate college so I ended up here… where my biological mother was some kind of scientific bad-ass. What are the chances of that?" Lauren got to her feet to gather her things. "God, you know… she's unreasonable. I had to guilt her into feeling something for me and she's… I thought we were getting along okay and she's… lying to me, still." She took a deep breath. "There are other kids like me?"
"None living… I think."
“Why are you so interested in her study?” Lauren paused at the door. “Is it because of Beth or something else?”
“There are a lot of things that don’t make sense and I’m just trying to understand a little.”
--
Liz tossed away the rubber ball and within moments, it was back in her hand. Reaching forward, she scratched his head. “So, Prince Sterling, how do you like our home?”
“He likes it here.” David answered for the pup while he followed the instructions for the large doghouse in the corner of the yard. “But he sneaks out of my room at night.”
“He’s not sleeping on your bed, is he?”
“No but I think he’s sleeping on yours.” David accused lightly as he glanced away from his work for a moment.
"He is not. He keeps me company while I do my lesson plans." She tossed the ball again. "Have you been cleaning up his accidents?"
"Just one or two. He's learning."
"Granpa and Mr. Valenti are going camping for sure tomorrow. Do you still want to go?" She peered up at the sky. The clouds were fluffy, the weather more than warm. If they were going to go. This weekend would be perfect for it. "You can take Dad's tent so you can have one to yourself."
"Yeah, I'll go. What time are they leaving?"
"Early. Earlier than we've been getting up." She led the eager pup over to the shade where she could fill his water bowl. "You think this is going to work out? You and Sterling?"
"I can do it."
"If you get in over your head…"
"I'll ask for help, I promise." He nodded while he used his powers to hold up the sides while he searched for the right screws.
"How's your man-problem?"
"I'll have two men to solve it with this weekend." He answered without missing a beat.
"I swear. You're becoming more and more like your father with everyday."
"Is that bad?"
"Not all bad." She tried to keep a smile but her thoughts shot to her daughter.
--
Beth sat in the water but didn't lay down. She just let herself get used to the feel. It wasn't cool or warm. The exact temperature of her skin. Max pulled a chair next to the tank and sat down, trying to think of someway to calm her down. He could hear her heart-rate beeping out on the machine nearby and it was running faster than he'd like and he was sure it was too fast for the doctors in the observation room. "You know, you were born to be a Comet."
"What?" Beth blinked at him. "That was pretty random."
"But it's true. When you were a baby, the only way to keep you calm was to sing you the school song." He took her hands in his. "Maybe it was because Mom worked until the week before you were born. Homecoming week was her last week at school. You probably heard that song in utero all that week."
"I hate that song." She scoffed but it felt good to take her mind off the fact that lid was going to close her off from him.
"Do you know how I met Oriel?"
"She showed up at Mom's birthday party, right?"
"I met her before that. I was shopping with you and you wouldn't stop crying and in the middle of the store, I sang you the school song and you calmed down. There she was, asking questions about you and Mom and it left my mind the second she left because I was taking care of my baby." He kissed her forehead and gently pushed her back to lay in the water. "Just listen to my voice. The doctor is going to put you to sleep but after that, it's going to be my voice."
"Ok. I'm ok." Beth nodded and let her body float in the tank, getting comfortable with the wires and tubes coming out of her body. "I'm ready. Close it."
"Okay. We'll all be right here." Max nodded and stood so the techs could do all they were supposed to.
The lid closed and Max found Will by his side. "She'll be okay. This will work."
"You're right… but… she'll be alone in there. With just herself. I don't know if she's ever been alone like that before." Max crossed his arms. "I couldn't make her do this unless I thought it would be worth it."
"She wouldn't agree unless she trusted that you believed that."
"I know."
"Sir…" Agent Seyton cleared her throat. "I…"
"Oh, um… just… wait outside. I'll be out once we know how this is going." Will spared her a glance. "I do need to talk to you."
--
Seb put his shirt back on and hunted for his shoes. Dana sat up, confused. "What are you doing?"
"Getting dressed."
"Sebastien…"
"What?" He whirled on her. "You told me that if I went with my cousins that we were over. Well, I went so I assumed we were over. You called me. Said you wanted to talk and instead we screwed. I'm going home, now."
"I didn't mean it. I was upset."
"How am I supposed to know what you mean when you don't say what you mean?" Sebastien sat on the end of the bed to tie his shoes. "I'm leaving in exactly one week and I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure out your games."
"Get out."
"I'm gone."
--
Agent Seyton watched from the observation room as Dr. Evans talked softly to his daughter via the microphone. The speaker had been shut off in the observation room but the doctors were monitoring the stats very closely. After about an hour of elevated temperatures and slightly increased heart-rate, the doctors calmed down and ceased to make notes. That's when Agent Goldblum stuck his head in to wave her out of the room.
"I just wanted to apologize. I kind of threw you into the middle of things and you have next to no idea what's going on." Will motioned her to a set of chairs nearby. "I seem to find myself giving a bunch of do-as-I-say-and-not-as-I-do lectures this year and I feel like an ass. The whole lot of you are strangers and you will be told next to nothing and expected to keep your mouths shut about what you do learn. I, on the other hand, am in the know and very involved and intertwined with all the goings-on."
"That much I figured, sir."
"The truth of the matter is, I envisioned us all becoming a sort of family around this family we're looking after. I know it feels like a lot of running around and standing around and looking for monsters in closets that you can't see but I assure you that it is all for a very good reason." He took a breath and rolled his eyes. "One which I'm not at liberty to divulge."
"A matter of national security."
"Yes." He cleared his throat and took a deeper breath, his eyes focused on the floor tiles. "In that room is a little girl that I love like a sister. She's sick. We've had to take very specific precautions to ensure that this goes smoothly. She acts tough but she's scared out of her mind and I don't act with a clear head around her. It's not professional but I need your respect when it comes to my orders despite whatever condition I'm in when she comes out of there."
"Pardon me for saying so but shouldn't you have been reassigned when you realized how close you were becoming to the family?"
"It's a valid question and probably any other agent in any other agency or program would have been but that's what I need you and all the others to understand. This is not… I didn't choose this job. It fell into my lap and I could have tossed it away but I know what I'm doing is important. That my silence is important. By accepting this job and staying with it despite everything, I've put myself in a position to be eliminated. Not fired, not replaced, simply eliminated." Will turned his face to watch hers. Her hazel eyes flashed dozens of emotions in a few seconds and she seemed to sink into her chair. "Do you understand what I've been trying to say for a week now?"
"I think so. If I choose this to be my line of work, it's the last I'll ever choose. I could become as absorbed as you are. If I choose this life, it's the only one I'll ever have again, effectively putting my name on a bullet to be named in the future."
"Precisely. Dr. Evans is just a small town doctor and his daughter is very ill. It seems like a waste of time and energy but I assure you, we are on the right side of it."
"May I ask who paid for the lab time and the construction of the tank?"
"Private outside party." Will sat up and ran his hands over his face. "I watched that little girl grow up… I had the privilege of seeing her before she was so plagued." Shaking his head, he shut his eyes. "I'm sorry. I'm very tired and this is one of the more stressful events in my life."
Her hand landed on his knee for a small squeeze. "That's more than alright, sir. I'll get on the front desk. Make sure no one is admitted into our wing."
"Thank you."
--
Berty reveled in her last day in the sun. It was a fun couple of weeks but she didn't feel any differently. She turned her head to watch Alex play with Gina. They actually looked like they were having fun, though Berty couldn't really remember them playing together at all since Alex had gone to college. Then Berty was freezing cold. "Kyle! I'm going to kill you!"
She leapt off her now-soaking towel and chased after her little brother. After she caught him, it took only a few quick moves to pin him face-down in the sand. Applause caught her attention, a few guys who had been tossing a Frisbee had stopped to watch the violence. One of them flashed her a brilliant smile. "You go! Don't let him get you down!"
She bowed to her audience and shoved her brother once more before returning to her towel. Kyle sat up and spit out the sand that had gotten in his mouth. "I'm gonna get you, Berty!"
"You started it!" She called over her shoulder as she brushed sand from her damp skin, forgoing her suit for the moment. That was mud until she could rinse off. She heard running behind her and got ready for an attack but instead of her little brother, it was the guy who had shouted and smiled at her. "Hi."
"Hey… um… we were looking for a fourth for our Frisbee game. You interested?" He was cute. Very cute. Berty eyed the guys he was playing with. "We're just tossing it around. Taking a break from surfing while the tide is low."
"It has nothing to do with me almost losing my suit a minute ago, right?"
"Very little." He had the grace to blush and look away. "I'm Teddy, by the way."
"Berty." She shook his hand and then turned to wave at Alex to point to where she was going to be. He waved her off, that he could see where, and returned to his sand-fortress. "Let's go."
--
--
Seb took his seat in the circle around some distant cousin's front yard. A beer was handed to him and he just held it for a while, listening to them talk. Then someone poked his shoulder. Cousin Nicky. "Hey."
"Hey, man."
"Where you been? Your bitch's been lookin' for you."
"I saw her." Sebastien nodded but didn't open his beer. He just stared at it. "She's not mine."
"Tough shit man. Órale, pass it." Nicky gestured to Eddie sitting on the other side. "My cuz is in pain."
"I don't want it." Seb shook his head and passed the joint without toking.
"Come on. How much trouble did you get in?" Nicky groaned at what a downer Sebastien was being.
"A lot."
"You still alive, so not too much."
"I leave in a week. I can't mess up too much." Sebastien sighed and popped the top on his can. One beer. That's all he was going to have.
"Seb." Eddie coughed and sipped his beer. "Dude, the girls are coming over later, you gonna chill it or run home to Dana."
"I'm not going home or to Dana." Sebastien relaxed in his chair and the next time the joint came around, he partook "What girls are coming?"
"I was talking to Aimee, the cheerleaders are done for the night and they're looking to unwind. You seen the new captain? She's hot."
"Blondie, man. She's hot. I gotta tap her before I go." Bryan reached for another beer. "What do you think? She'll go for me?"
"Who?" Seb shook his head to clear it. He was lost. He had no clue who anyone was talking about anymore.
"La Blondie. You know, the one with the tits." Bryan rolled his eyes back in his head as he struggled to remember the girl's name. "D.J. or something. She's almost as hot as Girlie… where is Girlie?"
"Florida visiting her brother." Sebastien took another toke on the joint but vowed that was it. That was the last time he'd hit off it.
Vince passed out another round of beer. "That's the last til the ladies show up. My brother won't make another run. Tell Girlie to go out with me."
"She'd rather vomit then go out with you, Vince." Seb sat back and closed his eyes for a minute. "You're not her type."
"What type? She don't go out with no one. She ain't into girls, is she?"
"No, she's just not into pigs." All the guys got a good laugh at that.
"Hey boys!" A female voice called out. "Ya'll weren't having too much fun without us, were you?"
--
Max studied the read-outs. Her heart-rate had been rising rapidly in the last few minutes. "What's going on, guys?"
"She's been in a long time. She's starting to wake up on her own. Her internal clock must be trying to wake her up."
"Then wake her up and let's get her out." Max checked the IV stand and found it near-empty. He checked her other monitors while the doctor in charge snapped her out of her hypnosis. He could hear splashing sounds and rushed to get the lid open. Deftly unhooking her wires and tubes, he pulled her out and wrapped her in a towel. "Sweetie? How do you feel?"
"Like I ran a marathon." She rasped out, her eyes closed while she adjusted to the light outside the tank. "Daddy, my head hurts. It's throbbing."
"Will." Max called over his shoulder and the agent appeared with Max's uneaten lunch. With a wave of his hand, Max heated the soup and held the Styrofoam cup to his daughter's mouth. "Come on, eat something, you'll probably feel better."
"This is not uncommon." A doctor told them as he studied the read-outs and made notes. "She should get some rest and we'll do another physical before we consider putting her in for so long again."
"How many times will we have to do this?" Max was grateful that no one seemed to pay attention to anything but the data but he needed something to cling to.
"We'll see how she is tomorrow before we start to put a number on this. It could take months or just weeks. Her body doesn't metabolize the way it should and we're trying to rectify that. It could be just a jolt she needs or it could be therapy. I understand the blood work is being done by a private lab and that's fine but we could be missing some data by not doing it ourselves."
"I'll see you get a copy." Max promised. "Sweetie?"
"I want to get dry and into bed, Dad." She sipped hungrily at the soup. "I'm sorry I didn't last. I thought I could do it but… I started to panic."
"Beth, you were inside all day. It's dark out." Will knelt next to her. "You did really well."
"I did?"
"Come on. We'll get you dried off, into your own clothes and in bed in no time." Max helped her to stand and had to guide her back to the exam room. Agent Seyton had to help her get dressed in the end. Beth wanted to cry when she realized she wouldn't be able to walk in her shoes and had to borrow a pair of paper slippers if she didn't want to go barefoot and attract attention.
Will didn't let her strain herself on the way to the room. He picked her up and carried her, setting her in bed and covering her up while Max called room service. He kissed her forehead. "You gonna be okay?"
"I think so. I can't hear anyone and the drugs probably washed out hours ago. Good sign?"
"I think you're exhausted. You ran a fever the whole time you were in there. Your heart-rate measured the way mine does when I'm jogging."
"I guess it's a lot of work, whatever I'm doing in there." She laid her head back. "Get out of here. I'll bet you were stressing all day. Take a break. It's not like anyone's going to get us and it's not like you could stop anyone who could really hurt us. Go. Make a phone call."
"Only if you promise not to push yourself and to be brutally honest tomorrow before they try again."
"I promise."
--
Berty tilted her head back to keep the contact when her back came in contact with a rock. Teddy's hands felt so warm on her skin. His tongue slipped into her mouth. She gripped his upperarms to keep from sliding down that rock and into a puddle of Berty-goo. His knuckles ran up and down her ribs, his thumb brushed the underside of her breast but he kept his hands from inappropriate touching. Finally, he broke for air, leaning heavily against her. Berty breathed shallowly, not wanting to stop but knowing there would be much, much more to this unless she said something.
"Listen, I got my dad's keys. He doesn't live far from here… we could go… there for a while."
"I can't." She breathed out, lifting her eyes to his. "My brother's probably looking for me as it is and… I've got an early flight tomorrow."
"You could stay with me." He nipped her lips lightly.
"I can't. My mom would really wonder if I didn't come home with everyone else."
"I can't talk you into one more day, or a week?" His fingers brushed her cheek as he stole another kiss.
"I don't really have a choice in the matter."
"We're adults."
"Oh." Berty side-stepped out from between his arms and started backing away out of their little hidden spot. Teddy tilted his head but followed. "You're an adult? As in legally?"
"Yeah." He nodded, brow furrowed.
"I'm not really… no. I'm sorry." Berty blushed a deep red and skimmed the beach for her siblings.
"I'm 19, not too adult, right?"
"I'm 16."
"Oh… Shit. I'm sorry." Teddy's steps faltered for a minute but then he followed anyway. "So, we had a little misunderstanding. It's totally cool. I retract any statement that could be construed sexual in nature or seemed to be a um… statutory offense." He caught her hand and pulled her gently back to him. "I do, however… like you."
"I'm seriously leaving tomorrow and 16 seems to be an evil number and…" She stopped pulling away, seeing that he was trying to say something.
"I live here. I'm not a tourist or anything. I was seriously thinking that we had a spark. 16 is a rather… scary number for me but… I'm not asking you to come back to the love shack or anything. I…" He paused to phrase his words carefully. "I was wondering if you think it too old fashioned to become pen-pals. We could trade emails and get to know each other and in two years when you're 18… we could see if we still want to see where this could have gone…"
"A year and three months." Berty whispered, then cleared her throat to speak louder. "I turn 18 next year in October. I could try an e-pal."
--
Sebastien found himself out of it and isolated from the hook-ups going on around him. Some blonde girl was trying to ignore Vince but his buddy wasn't getting the hint, so, slowly, Seb got up to help. "Hey, what's going on?"
"Nothing." She piped up. "I was thinking of leaving but I came with Aimee and I don't think she's ready to go."
"No, Aimee's in the house with Nicky." Vince shook his head and motioned quickly for Sebastien to get lost.
"I'll walk you. What are you? You're not a senior right?" Sebastien reached for her hand after handing Vince his beer.
"Junior." She supplied and took his hand, stepping out of Vince's shadow. "I really appreciate it. I don't know this neighborhood so well."
Seb turned her toward the sidewalk and flipped off Vince as they made their way out of the yard. "I'd offer a ride but my get-out-of-jail-free card was revoked and drinking doesn't usually mix with driving anyway. I'm Sebastien."
"I know who you are." She blushed and tried to keep her gaze off of him. "We all know Dana… on the squad, so we know who you are. I'm Donna Jo, by the way. I'm sorry… I heard that you and Dana broke up. I should just shut up."
"No, it's cool. We said our goodbyes. It's just as well. I'm not gonna be around much longer."
"That's right. I heard you're going to Yale."
"Harvard."
"Right. Sorry." She shifted uneasily as they walked, letting go of his hand once they were out of sight of Nicky's place. "I don’t mean any offense but Vince makes me really uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to make you leave."
"No, it's okay. We're just drinking and getting high. I just end up hungry and horny, which is not good when you don't have a girlfriend anymore.” Had he really just said that? “I'm sorry I just said that. It's been a long day." He let her lead the way through town to Isabel's neighborhood. "You live over here?"
"I'm sorry. Am I out of your way? I could just… try to get someone to get me but… my parents are gone for the week and… I'm sorry."
"No, it's cool. I didn't feel like going home tonight and my dad's girlfriend lives over here." He nudged her gently. "She lets me crash when I'm out wreaking havoc."
"You know… I've sort of had a crush on you for a while." She blushed and looked away.
"Really. I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't… you don’t even know me."
"I don't know you but I've seen you."
"You have?"
"Sure. I just didn't know your name, Donna Jo." They walked in silence until they reached her house.
"Do… you want to come in? Maybe call for a ride?"
"Nah… She just lives a few blocks from here. I'm sure I'll make it okay." Sebastien backed away and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'll see you around."
TBC
Seb took his seat in the circle around some distant cousin's front yard. A beer was handed to him and he just held it for a while, listening to them talk. Then someone poked his shoulder. Cousin Nicky. "Hey."
"Hey, man."
"Where you been? Your bitch's been lookin' for you."
"I saw her." Sebastien nodded but didn't open his beer. He just stared at it. "She's not mine."
"Tough shit man. Órale, pass it." Nicky gestured to Eddie sitting on the other side. "My cuz is in pain."
"I don't want it." Seb shook his head and passed the joint without toking.
"Come on. How much trouble did you get in?" Nicky groaned at what a downer Sebastien was being.
"A lot."
"You still alive, so not too much."
"I leave in a week. I can't mess up too much." Sebastien sighed and popped the top on his can. One beer. That's all he was going to have.
"Seb." Eddie coughed and sipped his beer. "Dude, the girls are coming over later, you gonna chill it or run home to Dana."
"I'm not going home or to Dana." Sebastien relaxed in his chair and the next time the joint came around, he partook "What girls are coming?"
"I was talking to Aimee, the cheerleaders are done for the night and they're looking to unwind. You seen the new captain? She's hot."
"Blondie, man. She's hot. I gotta tap her before I go." Bryan reached for another beer. "What do you think? She'll go for me?"
"Who?" Seb shook his head to clear it. He was lost. He had no clue who anyone was talking about anymore.
"La Blondie. You know, the one with the tits." Bryan rolled his eyes back in his head as he struggled to remember the girl's name. "D.J. or something. She's almost as hot as Girlie… where is Girlie?"
"Florida visiting her brother." Sebastien took another toke on the joint but vowed that was it. That was the last time he'd hit off it.
Vince passed out another round of beer. "That's the last til the ladies show up. My brother won't make another run. Tell Girlie to go out with me."
"She'd rather vomit then go out with you, Vince." Seb sat back and closed his eyes for a minute. "You're not her type."
"What type? She don't go out with no one. She ain't into girls, is she?"
"No, she's just not into pigs." All the guys got a good laugh at that.
"Hey boys!" A female voice called out. "Ya'll weren't having too much fun without us, were you?"
--
Max studied the read-outs. Her heart-rate had been rising rapidly in the last few minutes. "What's going on, guys?"
"She's been in a long time. She's starting to wake up on her own. Her internal clock must be trying to wake her up."
"Then wake her up and let's get her out." Max checked the IV stand and found it near-empty. He checked her other monitors while the doctor in charge snapped her out of her hypnosis. He could hear splashing sounds and rushed to get the lid open. Deftly unhooking her wires and tubes, he pulled her out and wrapped her in a towel. "Sweetie? How do you feel?"
"Like I ran a marathon." She rasped out, her eyes closed while she adjusted to the light outside the tank. "Daddy, my head hurts. It's throbbing."
"Will." Max called over his shoulder and the agent appeared with Max's uneaten lunch. With a wave of his hand, Max heated the soup and held the Styrofoam cup to his daughter's mouth. "Come on, eat something, you'll probably feel better."
"This is not uncommon." A doctor told them as he studied the read-outs and made notes. "She should get some rest and we'll do another physical before we consider putting her in for so long again."
"How many times will we have to do this?" Max was grateful that no one seemed to pay attention to anything but the data but he needed something to cling to.
"We'll see how she is tomorrow before we start to put a number on this. It could take months or just weeks. Her body doesn't metabolize the way it should and we're trying to rectify that. It could be just a jolt she needs or it could be therapy. I understand the blood work is being done by a private lab and that's fine but we could be missing some data by not doing it ourselves."
"I'll see you get a copy." Max promised. "Sweetie?"
"I want to get dry and into bed, Dad." She sipped hungrily at the soup. "I'm sorry I didn't last. I thought I could do it but… I started to panic."
"Beth, you were inside all day. It's dark out." Will knelt next to her. "You did really well."
"I did?"
"Come on. We'll get you dried off, into your own clothes and in bed in no time." Max helped her to stand and had to guide her back to the exam room. Agent Seyton had to help her get dressed in the end. Beth wanted to cry when she realized she wouldn't be able to walk in her shoes and had to borrow a pair of paper slippers if she didn't want to go barefoot and attract attention.
Will didn't let her strain herself on the way to the room. He picked her up and carried her, setting her in bed and covering her up while Max called room service. He kissed her forehead. "You gonna be okay?"
"I think so. I can't hear anyone and the drugs probably washed out hours ago. Good sign?"
"I think you're exhausted. You ran a fever the whole time you were in there. Your heart-rate measured the way mine does when I'm jogging."
"I guess it's a lot of work, whatever I'm doing in there." She laid her head back. "Get out of here. I'll bet you were stressing all day. Take a break. It's not like anyone's going to get us and it's not like you could stop anyone who could really hurt us. Go. Make a phone call."
"Only if you promise not to push yourself and to be brutally honest tomorrow before they try again."
"I promise."
--
Berty tilted her head back to keep the contact when her back came in contact with a rock. Teddy's hands felt so warm on her skin. His tongue slipped into her mouth. She gripped his upperarms to keep from sliding down that rock and into a puddle of Berty-goo. His knuckles ran up and down her ribs, his thumb brushed the underside of her breast but he kept his hands from inappropriate touching. Finally, he broke for air, leaning heavily against her. Berty breathed shallowly, not wanting to stop but knowing there would be much, much more to this unless she said something.
"Listen, I got my dad's keys. He doesn't live far from here… we could go… there for a while."
"I can't." She breathed out, lifting her eyes to his. "My brother's probably looking for me as it is and… I've got an early flight tomorrow."
"You could stay with me." He nipped her lips lightly.
"I can't. My mom would really wonder if I didn't come home with everyone else."
"I can't talk you into one more day, or a week?" His fingers brushed her cheek as he stole another kiss.
"I don't really have a choice in the matter."
"We're adults."
"Oh." Berty side-stepped out from between his arms and started backing away out of their little hidden spot. Teddy tilted his head but followed. "You're an adult? As in legally?"
"Yeah." He nodded, brow furrowed.
"I'm not really… no. I'm sorry." Berty blushed a deep red and skimmed the beach for her siblings.
"I'm 19, not too adult, right?"
"I'm 16."
"Oh… Shit. I'm sorry." Teddy's steps faltered for a minute but then he followed anyway. "So, we had a little misunderstanding. It's totally cool. I retract any statement that could be construed sexual in nature or seemed to be a um… statutory offense." He caught her hand and pulled her gently back to him. "I do, however… like you."
"I'm seriously leaving tomorrow and 16 seems to be an evil number and…" She stopped pulling away, seeing that he was trying to say something.
"I live here. I'm not a tourist or anything. I was seriously thinking that we had a spark. 16 is a rather… scary number for me but… I'm not asking you to come back to the love shack or anything. I…" He paused to phrase his words carefully. "I was wondering if you think it too old fashioned to become pen-pals. We could trade emails and get to know each other and in two years when you're 18… we could see if we still want to see where this could have gone…"
"A year and three months." Berty whispered, then cleared her throat to speak louder. "I turn 18 next year in October. I could try an e-pal."
--
Sebastien found himself out of it and isolated from the hook-ups going on around him. Some blonde girl was trying to ignore Vince but his buddy wasn't getting the hint, so, slowly, Seb got up to help. "Hey, what's going on?"
"Nothing." She piped up. "I was thinking of leaving but I came with Aimee and I don't think she's ready to go."
"No, Aimee's in the house with Nicky." Vince shook his head and motioned quickly for Sebastien to get lost.
"I'll walk you. What are you? You're not a senior right?" Sebastien reached for her hand after handing Vince his beer.
"Junior." She supplied and took his hand, stepping out of Vince's shadow. "I really appreciate it. I don't know this neighborhood so well."
Seb turned her toward the sidewalk and flipped off Vince as they made their way out of the yard. "I'd offer a ride but my get-out-of-jail-free card was revoked and drinking doesn't usually mix with driving anyway. I'm Sebastien."
"I know who you are." She blushed and tried to keep her gaze off of him. "We all know Dana… on the squad, so we know who you are. I'm Donna Jo, by the way. I'm sorry… I heard that you and Dana broke up. I should just shut up."
"No, it's cool. We said our goodbyes. It's just as well. I'm not gonna be around much longer."
"That's right. I heard you're going to Yale."
"Harvard."
"Right. Sorry." She shifted uneasily as they walked, letting go of his hand once they were out of sight of Nicky's place. "I don’t mean any offense but Vince makes me really uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to make you leave."
"No, it's okay. We're just drinking and getting high. I just end up hungry and horny, which is not good when you don't have a girlfriend anymore.” Had he really just said that? “I'm sorry I just said that. It's been a long day." He let her lead the way through town to Isabel's neighborhood. "You live over here?"
"I'm sorry. Am I out of your way? I could just… try to get someone to get me but… my parents are gone for the week and… I'm sorry."
"No, it's cool. I didn't feel like going home tonight and my dad's girlfriend lives over here." He nudged her gently. "She lets me crash when I'm out wreaking havoc."
"You know… I've sort of had a crush on you for a while." She blushed and looked away.
"Really. I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't… you don’t even know me."
"I don't know you but I've seen you."
"You have?"
"Sure. I just didn't know your name, Donna Jo." They walked in silence until they reached her house.
"Do… you want to come in? Maybe call for a ride?"
"Nah… She just lives a few blocks from here. I'm sure I'll make it okay." Sebastien backed away and shoved his hands into his pockets. "I'll see you around."
TBC
part 133
The Fate of Destiny Part 133
Seb fell onto the Valenti couch at six in the morning and waited. At half past the hour, his father emerged from the back of the house, freshly showered and on his way to the kitchen. Jesse stopped mid-stride to face his son. “Don’t tell me you just got in. You reek.”
“Yeah, well. What are you gonna do?” Sebastien rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t out partying all night if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Dana called. Nine times. Very upset. I'm sure she called to your grandmother's as well.”
“Probably.”
“What’s going on?”
“With me and Dana? Not much. With me and Aimee. Something for a little while.” Sebastien winked and then got to his feet. “Shower’s free right?”
Jesse stood there for another five minutes before deciding to let it drop so he could tend to his girlfriend. The last thing Isabel needed was to wake up to their fighting.
--
Kal went over the results with Max. "See this? Her levels went up after her transfusion. Do you know what that is?"
"No." Max shook his head.
"Neither do I. My point is whatever she was missing, she's getting more of now. That residue isn't just mucking up the works in so far as how much is getting released, I think it's inhibiting the production of whatever that is. Another thing is this. She's got too much of whatever this is." Kal slapped the read-out.
"I don't understand. You're just pointing to things. I don’t know what these are." Max fought the urge to strangle Kal. He knew the alien was just trying to help but the whole situation was frustrating. They were just a bunch of amateurs muddling their way through.
"We'll talk to the princess later to get the names out but… my guess is that stuff she was missing, came from you and who ever else transfused her. The stuff she's got too much of, came the same way. Why didn't her mother transfuse her as well?"
"She's… not a good match. She got a bag from each of us. From me, Michael, Danny, David." Max sighed and tried to wrap his head around what the alien was telling him. "There's something that's not balancing."
"Right."
"Some human factor because she is mostly human." Max shut his eyes and shook his head. "I'll get Kathy on it."
"This thing is working. Put her in again. Maybe not so long today but she should go in again so we can see improvement."
"Kal…" The doctor took a moment and shook his head before he opened his eyes to see the alien. "I need to know how to do everything I was made to do. I need you to show me."
--
Beth stared at her reflection in the exam room mirror. She looked sick for the first time since she'd been feeling unwell. For some reason it was supposed to make sense that she'd get worse before she'd get better. She just thought it would remain internal. Peering into the mirror, she plucked a hair from her hairline. She squinted at it and then turned to the agent in the room with her. "Does that look white to you?"
The woman was hesitant to leave her post by the door but she did step closer to examine the strand. Then she took Beth's head in her hands and examined the tresses. "You've got a few more in there. I don't recommend pulling them all out. Old wives' tale says they'll grow back with friends."
"I can't feel my body. I mean. I can feel it but…” The teen tried to quickly backtrack. She felt so disconnected from herself. “It doesn't feel like me… more like I'm wearing me."
"Maybe it's just the medication. You should probably talk to the doctor."
"Just gotta get through today and then we'll see what's going on."
--
Kyle lazed in the window-seat. Berty dozed next to him. She had been up late on the internet and had overslept, almost making them late for the plane. Alex got himself situated and watched his baby sister watching the clouds. "Did you have fun?"
"Yuh-huh." Her pony-tail bobbed up and down.
"You miss Mom?"
"Yep."
"Hey, Gina?"
"Yeah?" She traced the outline of the clouds on the window.
"How come you were sick at home but you didn't get sick once at my house?"
"I don't know. I just got better." She never took her eyes off the clouds. "Alex, how come you never played with me before? Did you not like me?"
"What do you mean?"
"You never play with me." Finally she turned her big brown eyes on her brother. "You are always gone. Ever since I was borned you was gone all the time."
"Sorry, kiddo. I had to go to school."
"You finished school. Mom said. That's why we had to watch."
"Now I gotta work." He reached forward to pinch her cheek. "It doesn't mean I don't love you. I'm a grown up. I have to do grown up things."
"I ain't never never never ever gonna grow up." She crossed her arms and huffed, her eyes back on the clouds.
"Okay. You let me know how that works out for you."
--
Agent Seyton stood against the far wall to watch Agent Goldblum and Dr. Evans keep vigil beside that tank. There was less talking than there was the day before. The doctors all seemed bored but dutifully checked on stats every so often. It was evident how much that little girl meant to those two men.
Max watched the monitor rise and fall with Beth’s heart beat and wished he could at least see her but the tank was in place for a reason. A flurry of scribbling caught his attention and suddenly the observation room was alive with activity. Doctors murmuring amongst themselves and making notes. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a lot of brain activity. It could be a nightmare or it could be she’s waking up.” A doctor called down.
“Beth?” Max moved the mic closer to his mouth. “Can you hear me?”
“She’s not moving in there. She’s still.” Another doctor called down.
“Beth, honey. Are you awake?”
“No.” Came her voice over the intercom. “I’m sleeping.” She sighed heavily. “I’m just getting better.”
Then as quickly as things had come to life, they calmed down. Max watched the monitor return to normal. “Bethany, do you know what just happened?”
“No.” Then there was silence for five full minutes before her heart-rate sped up.
“Wake her up!” Max called up.
After a few moments, she was awake and thrashing around in the tank. Max threw open the lid and hauled her out. Beth crawled away from him and seemed to choke for a few tortuous seconds before she vomited and then she was fine. “Dad…”
“Sh, sh.” Max wrapped her in the towel and rocked her against him. “Are you okay?”
“I felt like I was drowning. How long was I in?”
“Four hours.”
“Did something go wrong?”
“I don’t know. How about we take you to get cleaned up and we just head back for the day. I don’t think we’ll do this again this week.” He promised. “We’ll let you rest for a day and then we’ll do some tests and we’ll go from there.”
“Okay.” Beth watched a doctor take a sample of her vomit and then Will request a second sample be taken. “That looks weird.”
“Where did it come from? Your belly or…”
She scrunched up her nose. “I think my lungs or no… my nose?”
--
David took the rifle when it was handed to him and did as instructed. He leveled the rifle so he could align the cross-hairs with the rabbit scampering several yards away. He kept the gun steady and fought the urge to go to sleep. His stomach rumbled and he felt very uneasy with what he was about to do. His eyelids threatened to slip shut on him but he focused. He tried to feel everything around him. The crack sounded before he was even aware he had pulled the trigger. The bunny lay there on the ground, very still.
Grampa Jeff broke their silence and crunched across fallen leaves to retrieve the rabbit. "You got it. He's pretty fat. He'll make a decent dinner all by himself."
"You okay, son?" Valenti gently pulled the rifle out of the boy's hand.
"I don't remember pulling the trigger." He blurted out.
"I know. It happens pretty fast." The old man stared out into the woods. "My dad took me hunting out in these woods when I was your age."
"My dad's never been hunting in the woods." David was fast to establish that.
"Well, not for game, anyway." Valenti slung the rifle over his shoulder and pulled out a shovel to dig a hole while Jeff got to work gutting the rabbit.
"What else would he hunt? Dad said he's never fired a gun." David looked to his elders. Grampa Jeff seemed just as interested in what his friend wasn't saying.
"David, your dad doesn't need a gun to hunt anything. Neither do you, probably. What he's hunted in the woods wasn't for food. It was for survival… way back before your brother was born… maybe one just before your sister was born." Valenti covered the hole over the entrails and other inedibles. "Of the three of us, you're the deadliest one. You're probably also the most harmless."
"That doesn’t make any sense." David protested. "How could I be the deadliest and the most harmless all at the same time?"
The former Sheriff half-smiled, half-grimaced into the sun when he looked at the boy. "That is a trick that only your father could answer."
--
Liz tossed the Frisbee and took it from Sterling when he brought it back. She tossed it farther and there he went after it, energetic puppy. She heard the phone rang and rushed to find the receiver, tripping over her own feet and the dog as well. “Hello?”
“Mommy?”
That one word put tears in Liz’s eyes. “Beth, honey, how are you?”
“I want to go home.”
It tore her up that she couldn’t be with her daughter. “I know but we have to see if this is working. Did you go in today?”
“I got sick, they had to take me out. Well, they took me out and then I got sick. It was really gross and there was some nerd who scooped some up. I’m about to get sick again just thinking about it.”
“Are you doing okay? Is Dad ordering out too much?”
“Yes but that Kal guy has been footing the bill for most of it. I think he hired a chef for the hotel because my meals require no doctoring. It's almost as good as what you make.”
“You’re sounding better already, sweetie.”
“I guess I feel better now that I’m dry and in bed. I just… don’t want to do this anymore.”
“I know… when do you go in again?”
“I don’t know. They want me to take a break because of what happened today. I wasn’t in nearly as long as yesterday.” Beth sighed and snuggled deeper into her blankets. “They got scared and pulled me out. Good thing. I could have contaminated the tank.”
“Is it really bad being in there?”
“It’s not bad going in or going to sleep in it… it’s waking up that scares me.”
"Why do you think that is?" Liz asked carefully.
"I can feel everyone when I'm awake and outside the tank. When I go in… I have… like impressions where I felt everyone still. I go to sleep feeling the impressions. But it's like… when I wake up, the impressions have… smoothed away and I panic because it feels like I'm the only person on Earth."
--
Kathy was fuming. "What the fuck did you do?"
"I ran the samples you put in." The lab tech felt suddenly like he was two feet tall instead of a foot taller than the angry scientist in front of him.
"I didn't label them for testing yet."
"They're almost done with standard chemical analysis."
Her blue eyes flashed. "Did you load any old test tube you could find?"
"No. I put in just yours in the order they were laying there. I didn't know I needed special instructions…" He trailed off when she waved a piece of paper at him that had the special and very specific instructions on it. "Oh… I… Dr. Evans… I'm so sorry." He took the paper and ran over the words quickly. "I didn't use the anti-coagulant we normally use. The last time you ordered a batch… I remembered."
"Good." Kathy let some of her anger die. He hadn't totally screwed everything up. "Next time there's something for me in that bin, just call me first. I don't care what time it is." The whirring stopped and a printout buzzed at the opposite side of the desk. "What's that?"
"Chemical analysis printout. I'm supposed to study them so I can identify before the computer tells me first…"
"That's not the analysis." Kathy ripped the paper from the printer and ran her eyes over it. "You did a DNA cross-match you moron." She stomped around to his computer and highlighted the data collected and very slowly walked him through the procedure so the printer spat out the right information. I want you to read it and then come to my office. As penance, you're going to tell me everything that printout says."
"Yes, doctor."
Kathy kept the erroneous print out and took her tubes from the machine, frowning as she recognized the sample she had taken that morning. Lifting the printout to her eye line, she scanned it and frowned. "You said you put them in the exact order I had laid them out?"
"Yes, doctor. With the special anti-coagulant you always use. Simple chemical analysis… and DNA cross-match but that was my fault. Is something wrong? Did I screw it up? I'm so sorry."
"What's your name?"
"Greg Yeager, doctor."
"Greg, come see me after your shift. Study the chemical analysis but don't show it to anyone."
--
Isabel smiled when Jesse bent to scoop their daughter into his arms. "Oh, you. I missed you."
"I missed you, too, Daddy." Gina immediately reached into her pocket. "Look what I bought you."
Jesse had schooled his face very well. "Look at that. That is a shark tooth."
"Put it on."
"Ok."
"Hey Mom." Kyle hugged his mother and kissed her cheek.
"Look at you, nice tan." She kissed his cheeks. "I hope you didn't go breaking too many hearts."
"Not too many. My big brother is a buzzkill." Kyle stooped to pick up his bag once more.
"Hi Mom." Berty hugged her mother.
"Oh sweetie… what's that look?" Isabel tilted her head at her daughter's face. "What happened?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Berty shook her head but sighed when Alex dropped an arm over her shoulders. "Alex…"
"She met five college boys and all of them fell head over heels in love but only one wanted to keep her forever. They're smitten and emailing like crazy." He pinched her cheeks. "Isn't it cute?"
"College boys?" Isabel cleared her throat.
"Don't worry. I kept her safe. The one she's in love with is 19, just turned." He reached forward to hug his mother. "How'd everything go?"
"Good. I'm good." She held onto her first born for a while. "Come on. Let's go home."
"Hey Jesse, I gotta tell you about this game some guys on the beach taught me." Kyle picked up Gina's bag so his little sister could piggyback on Jesse. "Where's Seb?"
"Don't know." Jesse set his jaw, cluing everyone in to drama that had occurred in their absence.
--
Max stroked Beth's hair back while she napped next to him. He blinked back the tears, not that Liz could see them. "I know it's hard, Liz."
"No, you don't know. You can see her and comfort her and be there for her. I'm going crazy thinking about it and the way she called me."
"She just had a bad day and you made her feel better, Liz."
"I know but she's my baby girl, Max."
"She's very brave and very strong. She's just tired. Today scared all of us. Something built up in her sinus cavity and overflowed it. She… thought she was drowning and she expelled it as soon as she got out of the tank. We're having it tested to see exactly what it was."
"Was it… a lot?"
"Yeah, it sure seemed like it… it was probably no more than half a cup but…"
"It wouldn't take much to drown her if you didn't catch it." Liz sighed heavily. "I should go. Davey can stay with your mom when he gets back."
"No. He's going to feel like he's been abandoned." Max shook his head and very gently eased out of Beth's grasp. "Where did he go?"
"Dad and Jim took him hunting." Liz shut her eyes against her conflicting emotions. Sterling lay on her belly, giving her sad looks. "I think they're going to help him with his girl problem or at least that's what he's hoping."
"Even so, I don't want to risk upsetting him more than he has been."
--
Will glanced at his watch and said a mental screw you to the time. "Scotch, straight."
The alcohol burned his throat. It was only mid-afternoon but he needed to soothe his frazzled nerves. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. The hotel bar was quiet and that's what he needed. Shucking his jacket, he pulled off his tie and shoved it in his pocket.
"Hey buddy, you can't have a fire-arm in here." The bartender pointed to the holster at Will's ribs.
"Don't worry, I didn't bring it. I just didn't have time to take this off." Will sat up and shrugged out of the holster. "You can hold onto it if it makes you feel better. I need it back though."
"I'll take it." A female voice floated over their heads. "Sir?"
"Thanks. The bellboy will take it to my room." He waved her off and downed his second drink. She disappeared with the holster and returned after he was a few more drinks into the bottle and was pouring the drinks himself. "Agent Seyton. Sit. Have a drink. You're off-duty."
"Just because you say so?"
"That's right. Because I say so." He poured himself another drink. "Scotch?"
"Vodka on the rocks." She motioned to the bartender.
--
Isabel tucked Gina into bed and turned on the humidifier, just in case. Jesse and Kyle were laughing up a storm in the kitchen as Kyle regaled them with stories about Gina in Florida. Alex and Lynnette had vanished an hour ago. Liberty had written to her 'pen pal' and checked every half hour for a response. They were all in the kitchen when Bryan and Vince showed up looking for Sebastien.
"He's not here." Jesse bit out. "I haven't seen him since this morning."
"He said to pick him up here about half hour ago." Vince shrugged, his eyes on Berty. Berty didn't allow herself to shrink under his gaze, nor did she give him a reason to think she'd be interested. "What do you say, Bert? Want to come?"
"Nope." She shook her head and scooted closer to Jesse at the table. "Staying home tonight. I just got in, today."
"Do you know what's going on with Dana?" Jesse cleared his throat, laying his arm over Berty's chair.
"She told him not to go to El Paso. If he went then it was over. He took her seriously and went anyway. She just wants him back and he's pissed at her." Bryan shook his head. "She wants him to stay here and blow off a full-ride to Harvard. She's seriously cracked, Mr. Ramirez."
"She might pull another fake pregnancy to get him to stay." Vince tossed in.
"What?" Jesse sat up, his eyes shooting to Isabel. Bryan turning to his friend in confusion.
"That's what she told Aimee." Vince explained. "Dana wasn't ever almost pregnant. She just said she might be to see what Seb would do. She's psychotic."
"Did Sebastien know?" Liberty asked softly.
"If he did, he didn't tell me but they've been fighting non-stop ever since."
Sebastien appeared a few minutes later, fresh from the shower. "Hey, sorry, I was running late. Isabel, I used your shower, hope you don't mind."
"It's fine." She kissed his cheek when he leaned in. "Are you going to be out late?"
"Not too late. I promised Grandma, I'd make her breakfast." Seb kept moving, greeting the Valenti children, and kissing Berty on the head before he reached the door. "Let's go, guys."
--
It was that dream again. Their faces were blurred but she knew they weren't human. They were something else and they wanted her. There were pinches on her arms and legs and on her belly. There was a scurry of activity off to her left but she couldn’t turn her head. The room spun and then she was awake behind the wheel, just driving as far as the truck could take her.
Sitting up, she panted heavily. She thought the dreams had stopped when she was a little girl but they were back. Would they ever just go away?
TBC
Seb fell onto the Valenti couch at six in the morning and waited. At half past the hour, his father emerged from the back of the house, freshly showered and on his way to the kitchen. Jesse stopped mid-stride to face his son. “Don’t tell me you just got in. You reek.”
“Yeah, well. What are you gonna do?” Sebastien rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t out partying all night if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Dana called. Nine times. Very upset. I'm sure she called to your grandmother's as well.”
“Probably.”
“What’s going on?”
“With me and Dana? Not much. With me and Aimee. Something for a little while.” Sebastien winked and then got to his feet. “Shower’s free right?”
Jesse stood there for another five minutes before deciding to let it drop so he could tend to his girlfriend. The last thing Isabel needed was to wake up to their fighting.
--
Kal went over the results with Max. "See this? Her levels went up after her transfusion. Do you know what that is?"
"No." Max shook his head.
"Neither do I. My point is whatever she was missing, she's getting more of now. That residue isn't just mucking up the works in so far as how much is getting released, I think it's inhibiting the production of whatever that is. Another thing is this. She's got too much of whatever this is." Kal slapped the read-out.
"I don't understand. You're just pointing to things. I don’t know what these are." Max fought the urge to strangle Kal. He knew the alien was just trying to help but the whole situation was frustrating. They were just a bunch of amateurs muddling their way through.
"We'll talk to the princess later to get the names out but… my guess is that stuff she was missing, came from you and who ever else transfused her. The stuff she's got too much of, came the same way. Why didn't her mother transfuse her as well?"
"She's… not a good match. She got a bag from each of us. From me, Michael, Danny, David." Max sighed and tried to wrap his head around what the alien was telling him. "There's something that's not balancing."
"Right."
"Some human factor because she is mostly human." Max shut his eyes and shook his head. "I'll get Kathy on it."
"This thing is working. Put her in again. Maybe not so long today but she should go in again so we can see improvement."
"Kal…" The doctor took a moment and shook his head before he opened his eyes to see the alien. "I need to know how to do everything I was made to do. I need you to show me."
--
Beth stared at her reflection in the exam room mirror. She looked sick for the first time since she'd been feeling unwell. For some reason it was supposed to make sense that she'd get worse before she'd get better. She just thought it would remain internal. Peering into the mirror, she plucked a hair from her hairline. She squinted at it and then turned to the agent in the room with her. "Does that look white to you?"
The woman was hesitant to leave her post by the door but she did step closer to examine the strand. Then she took Beth's head in her hands and examined the tresses. "You've got a few more in there. I don't recommend pulling them all out. Old wives' tale says they'll grow back with friends."
"I can't feel my body. I mean. I can feel it but…” The teen tried to quickly backtrack. She felt so disconnected from herself. “It doesn't feel like me… more like I'm wearing me."
"Maybe it's just the medication. You should probably talk to the doctor."
"Just gotta get through today and then we'll see what's going on."
--
Kyle lazed in the window-seat. Berty dozed next to him. She had been up late on the internet and had overslept, almost making them late for the plane. Alex got himself situated and watched his baby sister watching the clouds. "Did you have fun?"
"Yuh-huh." Her pony-tail bobbed up and down.
"You miss Mom?"
"Yep."
"Hey, Gina?"
"Yeah?" She traced the outline of the clouds on the window.
"How come you were sick at home but you didn't get sick once at my house?"
"I don't know. I just got better." She never took her eyes off the clouds. "Alex, how come you never played with me before? Did you not like me?"
"What do you mean?"
"You never play with me." Finally she turned her big brown eyes on her brother. "You are always gone. Ever since I was borned you was gone all the time."
"Sorry, kiddo. I had to go to school."
"You finished school. Mom said. That's why we had to watch."
"Now I gotta work." He reached forward to pinch her cheek. "It doesn't mean I don't love you. I'm a grown up. I have to do grown up things."
"I ain't never never never ever gonna grow up." She crossed her arms and huffed, her eyes back on the clouds.
"Okay. You let me know how that works out for you."
--
Agent Seyton stood against the far wall to watch Agent Goldblum and Dr. Evans keep vigil beside that tank. There was less talking than there was the day before. The doctors all seemed bored but dutifully checked on stats every so often. It was evident how much that little girl meant to those two men.
Max watched the monitor rise and fall with Beth’s heart beat and wished he could at least see her but the tank was in place for a reason. A flurry of scribbling caught his attention and suddenly the observation room was alive with activity. Doctors murmuring amongst themselves and making notes. “What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a lot of brain activity. It could be a nightmare or it could be she’s waking up.” A doctor called down.
“Beth?” Max moved the mic closer to his mouth. “Can you hear me?”
“She’s not moving in there. She’s still.” Another doctor called down.
“Beth, honey. Are you awake?”
“No.” Came her voice over the intercom. “I’m sleeping.” She sighed heavily. “I’m just getting better.”
Then as quickly as things had come to life, they calmed down. Max watched the monitor return to normal. “Bethany, do you know what just happened?”
“No.” Then there was silence for five full minutes before her heart-rate sped up.
“Wake her up!” Max called up.
After a few moments, she was awake and thrashing around in the tank. Max threw open the lid and hauled her out. Beth crawled away from him and seemed to choke for a few tortuous seconds before she vomited and then she was fine. “Dad…”
“Sh, sh.” Max wrapped her in the towel and rocked her against him. “Are you okay?”
“I felt like I was drowning. How long was I in?”
“Four hours.”
“Did something go wrong?”
“I don’t know. How about we take you to get cleaned up and we just head back for the day. I don’t think we’ll do this again this week.” He promised. “We’ll let you rest for a day and then we’ll do some tests and we’ll go from there.”
“Okay.” Beth watched a doctor take a sample of her vomit and then Will request a second sample be taken. “That looks weird.”
“Where did it come from? Your belly or…”
She scrunched up her nose. “I think my lungs or no… my nose?”
--
David took the rifle when it was handed to him and did as instructed. He leveled the rifle so he could align the cross-hairs with the rabbit scampering several yards away. He kept the gun steady and fought the urge to go to sleep. His stomach rumbled and he felt very uneasy with what he was about to do. His eyelids threatened to slip shut on him but he focused. He tried to feel everything around him. The crack sounded before he was even aware he had pulled the trigger. The bunny lay there on the ground, very still.
Grampa Jeff broke their silence and crunched across fallen leaves to retrieve the rabbit. "You got it. He's pretty fat. He'll make a decent dinner all by himself."
"You okay, son?" Valenti gently pulled the rifle out of the boy's hand.
"I don't remember pulling the trigger." He blurted out.
"I know. It happens pretty fast." The old man stared out into the woods. "My dad took me hunting out in these woods when I was your age."
"My dad's never been hunting in the woods." David was fast to establish that.
"Well, not for game, anyway." Valenti slung the rifle over his shoulder and pulled out a shovel to dig a hole while Jeff got to work gutting the rabbit.
"What else would he hunt? Dad said he's never fired a gun." David looked to his elders. Grampa Jeff seemed just as interested in what his friend wasn't saying.
"David, your dad doesn't need a gun to hunt anything. Neither do you, probably. What he's hunted in the woods wasn't for food. It was for survival… way back before your brother was born… maybe one just before your sister was born." Valenti covered the hole over the entrails and other inedibles. "Of the three of us, you're the deadliest one. You're probably also the most harmless."
"That doesn’t make any sense." David protested. "How could I be the deadliest and the most harmless all at the same time?"
The former Sheriff half-smiled, half-grimaced into the sun when he looked at the boy. "That is a trick that only your father could answer."
--
Liz tossed the Frisbee and took it from Sterling when he brought it back. She tossed it farther and there he went after it, energetic puppy. She heard the phone rang and rushed to find the receiver, tripping over her own feet and the dog as well. “Hello?”
“Mommy?”
That one word put tears in Liz’s eyes. “Beth, honey, how are you?”
“I want to go home.”
It tore her up that she couldn’t be with her daughter. “I know but we have to see if this is working. Did you go in today?”
“I got sick, they had to take me out. Well, they took me out and then I got sick. It was really gross and there was some nerd who scooped some up. I’m about to get sick again just thinking about it.”
“Are you doing okay? Is Dad ordering out too much?”
“Yes but that Kal guy has been footing the bill for most of it. I think he hired a chef for the hotel because my meals require no doctoring. It's almost as good as what you make.”
“You’re sounding better already, sweetie.”
“I guess I feel better now that I’m dry and in bed. I just… don’t want to do this anymore.”
“I know… when do you go in again?”
“I don’t know. They want me to take a break because of what happened today. I wasn’t in nearly as long as yesterday.” Beth sighed and snuggled deeper into her blankets. “They got scared and pulled me out. Good thing. I could have contaminated the tank.”
“Is it really bad being in there?”
“It’s not bad going in or going to sleep in it… it’s waking up that scares me.”
"Why do you think that is?" Liz asked carefully.
"I can feel everyone when I'm awake and outside the tank. When I go in… I have… like impressions where I felt everyone still. I go to sleep feeling the impressions. But it's like… when I wake up, the impressions have… smoothed away and I panic because it feels like I'm the only person on Earth."
--
Kathy was fuming. "What the fuck did you do?"
"I ran the samples you put in." The lab tech felt suddenly like he was two feet tall instead of a foot taller than the angry scientist in front of him.
"I didn't label them for testing yet."
"They're almost done with standard chemical analysis."
Her blue eyes flashed. "Did you load any old test tube you could find?"
"No. I put in just yours in the order they were laying there. I didn't know I needed special instructions…" He trailed off when she waved a piece of paper at him that had the special and very specific instructions on it. "Oh… I… Dr. Evans… I'm so sorry." He took the paper and ran over the words quickly. "I didn't use the anti-coagulant we normally use. The last time you ordered a batch… I remembered."
"Good." Kathy let some of her anger die. He hadn't totally screwed everything up. "Next time there's something for me in that bin, just call me first. I don't care what time it is." The whirring stopped and a printout buzzed at the opposite side of the desk. "What's that?"
"Chemical analysis printout. I'm supposed to study them so I can identify before the computer tells me first…"
"That's not the analysis." Kathy ripped the paper from the printer and ran her eyes over it. "You did a DNA cross-match you moron." She stomped around to his computer and highlighted the data collected and very slowly walked him through the procedure so the printer spat out the right information. I want you to read it and then come to my office. As penance, you're going to tell me everything that printout says."
"Yes, doctor."
Kathy kept the erroneous print out and took her tubes from the machine, frowning as she recognized the sample she had taken that morning. Lifting the printout to her eye line, she scanned it and frowned. "You said you put them in the exact order I had laid them out?"
"Yes, doctor. With the special anti-coagulant you always use. Simple chemical analysis… and DNA cross-match but that was my fault. Is something wrong? Did I screw it up? I'm so sorry."
"What's your name?"
"Greg Yeager, doctor."
"Greg, come see me after your shift. Study the chemical analysis but don't show it to anyone."
--
Isabel smiled when Jesse bent to scoop their daughter into his arms. "Oh, you. I missed you."
"I missed you, too, Daddy." Gina immediately reached into her pocket. "Look what I bought you."
Jesse had schooled his face very well. "Look at that. That is a shark tooth."
"Put it on."
"Ok."
"Hey Mom." Kyle hugged his mother and kissed her cheek.
"Look at you, nice tan." She kissed his cheeks. "I hope you didn't go breaking too many hearts."
"Not too many. My big brother is a buzzkill." Kyle stooped to pick up his bag once more.
"Hi Mom." Berty hugged her mother.
"Oh sweetie… what's that look?" Isabel tilted her head at her daughter's face. "What happened?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Berty shook her head but sighed when Alex dropped an arm over her shoulders. "Alex…"
"She met five college boys and all of them fell head over heels in love but only one wanted to keep her forever. They're smitten and emailing like crazy." He pinched her cheeks. "Isn't it cute?"
"College boys?" Isabel cleared her throat.
"Don't worry. I kept her safe. The one she's in love with is 19, just turned." He reached forward to hug his mother. "How'd everything go?"
"Good. I'm good." She held onto her first born for a while. "Come on. Let's go home."
"Hey Jesse, I gotta tell you about this game some guys on the beach taught me." Kyle picked up Gina's bag so his little sister could piggyback on Jesse. "Where's Seb?"
"Don't know." Jesse set his jaw, cluing everyone in to drama that had occurred in their absence.
--
Max stroked Beth's hair back while she napped next to him. He blinked back the tears, not that Liz could see them. "I know it's hard, Liz."
"No, you don't know. You can see her and comfort her and be there for her. I'm going crazy thinking about it and the way she called me."
"She just had a bad day and you made her feel better, Liz."
"I know but she's my baby girl, Max."
"She's very brave and very strong. She's just tired. Today scared all of us. Something built up in her sinus cavity and overflowed it. She… thought she was drowning and she expelled it as soon as she got out of the tank. We're having it tested to see exactly what it was."
"Was it… a lot?"
"Yeah, it sure seemed like it… it was probably no more than half a cup but…"
"It wouldn't take much to drown her if you didn't catch it." Liz sighed heavily. "I should go. Davey can stay with your mom when he gets back."
"No. He's going to feel like he's been abandoned." Max shook his head and very gently eased out of Beth's grasp. "Where did he go?"
"Dad and Jim took him hunting." Liz shut her eyes against her conflicting emotions. Sterling lay on her belly, giving her sad looks. "I think they're going to help him with his girl problem or at least that's what he's hoping."
"Even so, I don't want to risk upsetting him more than he has been."
--
Will glanced at his watch and said a mental screw you to the time. "Scotch, straight."
The alcohol burned his throat. It was only mid-afternoon but he needed to soothe his frazzled nerves. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. The hotel bar was quiet and that's what he needed. Shucking his jacket, he pulled off his tie and shoved it in his pocket.
"Hey buddy, you can't have a fire-arm in here." The bartender pointed to the holster at Will's ribs.
"Don't worry, I didn't bring it. I just didn't have time to take this off." Will sat up and shrugged out of the holster. "You can hold onto it if it makes you feel better. I need it back though."
"I'll take it." A female voice floated over their heads. "Sir?"
"Thanks. The bellboy will take it to my room." He waved her off and downed his second drink. She disappeared with the holster and returned after he was a few more drinks into the bottle and was pouring the drinks himself. "Agent Seyton. Sit. Have a drink. You're off-duty."
"Just because you say so?"
"That's right. Because I say so." He poured himself another drink. "Scotch?"
"Vodka on the rocks." She motioned to the bartender.
--
Isabel tucked Gina into bed and turned on the humidifier, just in case. Jesse and Kyle were laughing up a storm in the kitchen as Kyle regaled them with stories about Gina in Florida. Alex and Lynnette had vanished an hour ago. Liberty had written to her 'pen pal' and checked every half hour for a response. They were all in the kitchen when Bryan and Vince showed up looking for Sebastien.
"He's not here." Jesse bit out. "I haven't seen him since this morning."
"He said to pick him up here about half hour ago." Vince shrugged, his eyes on Berty. Berty didn't allow herself to shrink under his gaze, nor did she give him a reason to think she'd be interested. "What do you say, Bert? Want to come?"
"Nope." She shook her head and scooted closer to Jesse at the table. "Staying home tonight. I just got in, today."
"Do you know what's going on with Dana?" Jesse cleared his throat, laying his arm over Berty's chair.
"She told him not to go to El Paso. If he went then it was over. He took her seriously and went anyway. She just wants him back and he's pissed at her." Bryan shook his head. "She wants him to stay here and blow off a full-ride to Harvard. She's seriously cracked, Mr. Ramirez."
"She might pull another fake pregnancy to get him to stay." Vince tossed in.
"What?" Jesse sat up, his eyes shooting to Isabel. Bryan turning to his friend in confusion.
"That's what she told Aimee." Vince explained. "Dana wasn't ever almost pregnant. She just said she might be to see what Seb would do. She's psychotic."
"Did Sebastien know?" Liberty asked softly.
"If he did, he didn't tell me but they've been fighting non-stop ever since."
Sebastien appeared a few minutes later, fresh from the shower. "Hey, sorry, I was running late. Isabel, I used your shower, hope you don't mind."
"It's fine." She kissed his cheek when he leaned in. "Are you going to be out late?"
"Not too late. I promised Grandma, I'd make her breakfast." Seb kept moving, greeting the Valenti children, and kissing Berty on the head before he reached the door. "Let's go, guys."
--
It was that dream again. Their faces were blurred but she knew they weren't human. They were something else and they wanted her. There were pinches on her arms and legs and on her belly. There was a scurry of activity off to her left but she couldn’t turn her head. The room spun and then she was awake behind the wheel, just driving as far as the truck could take her.
Sitting up, she panted heavily. She thought the dreams had stopped when she was a little girl but they were back. Would they ever just go away?
TBC
Part 134
The Fate of Destiny Part 134
David helped his grandfather with some pancakes before they left camp for a day of scouring the woods for more small game. He had slept just fine and he didn't know why that was. He hadn't exactly enjoyed his rabbit stew but Mr. Valenti had assured him that the rabbit population could stand a little weeding here and there.
"I hear you've got girl troubles." Jeff cleared his throat and tapped his ring on the cast-iron pan. "I do, too, sometimes."
"But you and Grandma have been married forever."
"Not forever." The boy was corrected. "It's hard talking to girls at first."
"I get too nervous. I'll never get used to it."
"Do you know what the trick is?"
"Knowing what they want to hear?"
"That comes later." Jeff tapped his head with the spatula. He chuckled and flipped a pancake onto the waiting plate. "The trick is to know yourself. Know what you like and what you want. Even if she doesn't like or want the same things, she'll respect you for knowing yourself that well."
"I just want to dance with her without passing out."
"Then don't." Jeff cleared his throat as Jim made his way out of his tent. "You might zone out or tune her out accidentally but trust me when I say the other boys aren't having much better luck than you. Have you actually ever fallen asleep in front of a girl?"
"Not actually."
"Then it's just a matter of shifting your focus. Don't think about her. Think about what you're doing. Like yesterday. You were so focused on the rabbit, you didn't realized you'd pull the trigger. Next time. See the rabbit, know where the rabbit is and what it's doing but focus on your finger on the trigger."
"I think I understand."
--
Max leapt to his feet and rushed into the bathroom when he heard the wet coughs and deep sniffs. He found Beth standing over the sink, a wad of toilet paper in one hand, both hands on either side of the sink while more of that junk found its way out of her sinus cavities. He pulled her hair back, grimacing when he realized the vomiting must have started while she was still in bed. "Are you okay?"
"No." She gasped out, spitting into the sink.
"Are you going to be okay in here for a while? I'll call housekeeping to change your sheets."
"I guess." She heaved again but nothing came out.
"I'm going to run you a bath, okay?"
She only nodded and tried to wipe off her face. She had woken up feeling like she was drowning. Her feet hadn't even slipped out from under the sheets before it had started. Cleaning up as well as possible, she sank down on the toilet seat until her father wandered back to check on her. "I need help."
"Okay. Okay." Max nodded and grabbed the robe off the door to wrap around her as he held her up. Carefully Beth slipped off her pajamas while she leaned on him just to stay upright. Finally, she gripped the folds of the robe so her father could slip the shirt over her head. Gently, he guided her into the warm water to soak. Pulling the curtain closed, Max began gathering her dirty clothes. He heard the rustling of the curtain but couldn't turn. "I'll put the trachcan next to the tub and I'll see if they have any good soups on this morning. Call me if you need anything."
"Daddy." She pleaded at him to look at her. "What if I don't get better?"
Max turned and swallowed down the lump in his throat. "You're going to get better. This is just a rough patch. You will get better."
"I believe you." She whispered and let the curtain fall back into place.
Max carried her clothes to the pile she had already started and broke down sobbing. Only in those frightening hours after her accident had he ever seen her look worse. She still had her personality in the hospital. Now, she was… just lost in her pain and weakness.
--
Liz shut the door behind her and eyed the puppy still energetic after their two mile walk and resented the little fur ball. She walked slowly to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and hopefully slow her heart rate. The caller ID blinked at her and she frowned at the out of area screen when she hit the button. Yanking the phone off the wall, she called Max's cell, only to get a busy signal. Hanging up, she called their hotel and waited an eternity to be connected to the room. "Hello?"
"Will?" Liz furrowed her brow. "Did someone call home?"
"Hey Liz… um… yeah… It was Max, I think. He left to talk to the doctors some about the results from yesterday. Beth and I are just going to hang out in the hotel today."
"So, everything's okay?"
"Sure." Will lied. When he had arrived, Max was helping Beth out of the bath and into a fresh set of pajamas while the maids were cleaning up the mess in Beth's room. So Beth was dozing in Max's bed for the moment. "She's still wiped from yesterday's little…"
"Mishap?"
"Right."
"Don't talk feebee to me, Will Goldblum." She sighed and sank into a chair, absently petting Sterling's head when he jumped up on her legs. "What happened?"
"She woke up sick but she's fine now."
"Did he tell you to minimize the damage for me?"
"Nah. It's not a big deal."
"We'll talk about that when it's my grandchild you're worried about."
"What?"
"When I'm taking care of your child and I tell you it's nothing, you're going to be griping at me that it is something."
"I think you're jumping the gun a little."
"But I don't have the wrong idea, right?"
"It's… not wrong."
"Alright, then. Tell me the truth what happened this morning?"
--
Kathy took the briefcase when Agent Seyton held it out. "What do you know about how it's going?"
"It doesn't look good. She's gotten very sick." Agent Seyton clasped her hands behind her back.
"I see." Kathy tapped her fingers on the case for a moment. "Did they mention if they would cease treatment?"
"No plans to stop the treatments completely but there are murmurs of putting it off a few more days."
"Thank you. I'll call you when I have something for them." Kathy stared at her desk for a few minutes after the agent left. She opened the case and read over the report from Will and the assisting doctors. The blood and mucus samples were glaring at her. She had to get busy. She had her own caseload to deal with as well. It was going to be a long day.
--
Max sat and stared at the flame. He tried. He reached back. He reached in. He looked but he didn't find anything. Maybe there was nothing more he was capable of doing. He couldn't give up though. His daughter, his family… this planet was counting on him to keep the alien wars off of Earth.
--
Lauren picked at her dinner. She supposed it tasted good but she wouldn't know. Lately, everything tasted like sawdust. Serena seemed, as always, to be unaware of Lauren's mood and the chatter of her lover across the table.
"The Portobellos were so good at the market that I got a whole mess of them. I hope you all like mushrooms because we'll be eating them for a while." Gia cut a thick slick of mushroom and popped it into her mouth. "Oh! and I will not be here next Friday. I'm catering a party for the dean so I'll probably see you anyway but just in case." Gia paused her chattering to sip her wine and glanced over at Lauren. "Did you not like it? I thought it came out very well."
"It's fine. I'm not that hungry." Lauren offered the wide-eyed beauty a small smile.
"Maybe the wine is too sweet. I thought about doing a dry wine but the mushrooms needed a little something." Gia continued to fret over her dish while Serena ate without listening, her eyes reading problems that neither of her dinner partners could see. "But the rice is perfect. I've got it down to an art. In a few months, I'll be made an assistant. Jean-marc thinks I've made great strides."
Lauren's fork made rows of holes down a slice of mushroom, her steak in shreds though she had barely tasted it. Forcing herself to take a chunk of it, she chewed it maliciously though it was probably the tenderest steak she'd ever had. She wanted so much for Gia to shut her mouth and for Serena to open hers on a subject other than under-grad majors and recreational time management. Setting down her fork, she forced her voice remain level. She was a drama major after all. "It's very good, Gia but I think I've had my fill."
"Let me wrap it up for you. I'll give you some leftovers from last night, too." Gia took her plate and disappeared into the kitchen with it.
"I'm thinking about donating some plasma. I need some extra cash for a road trip before school starts."
"Traipsing around the country won't get you closer to accumulating credits." Serena didn't even shift her gaze from studying molecular structures. It was almost a knee-jerk reaction to Lauren's comment.
"I'm still doing it." Lauren polished off her wine, a meal time concession in Serena's eyes, and tossed her napkin on the table. "I need a break before the new semester."
"No. If you need gas money, I'll give it to you. Are you going with those girls with pierced labia?" Still, Serena's eyes weren't on her biological offspring.
"One girl. I think it's funny how that's the way you remember who they are." Lauren pursed her lips and pushed away from the table. "Keep your money. I'm donating plasma."
"No, you're not." Serena's eyes finally swung down to the young woman on the other side of the table.
"Whatever. I'm leaving tomorrow after my shift." Lauren took the Tupperware from Gia and stormed out of the house.
--
Beth lay curled up on the bed with a cup of spiced broth, her eyes staring, unseeing at the wall. Will sat next to her but he didn't know what to do to pull her out of her haze. "Beth?"
"Hmm?"
"So you are still alive. You weren't moving. You kind of scared me."
"I should have done it, Will."
"Done what?" He watched her face carefully but she kept facing the wall.
"The last night I spent with Gabriel, I had wanted to but he slowed me down and we didn't. I should have. It was probably my last chance."
"Hey, don't think like that. You're going to be fine."
"I don't feel fine. I feel like I'm dying." She set the cup down and turned to look at Will. "I feel like these are my last days, Will. I'm going to die a virgin and barely a junior and I'll never go to college or get married or have kids or… shit, Will! I don't even know what I want to do with my life and it's slipping away from me."
"Come here." He pulled her into his arms and kissed her head. "You won't die. I won't let you. Your dad won't let you… and your mom is going to beat down the gates of heaven to get you back…"
"I drive her crazy."
"You drive each other crazy. You're so much like her."
"That's what Dad says."
--
When Max got back, he found both Will and Beth asleep on his bed, the TV hissing away with snow. He snapped it off and sank into a chair. He didn't feel any different. He didn't see things different. Maybe after a few minutes rest, he could try something new.
TBC
David helped his grandfather with some pancakes before they left camp for a day of scouring the woods for more small game. He had slept just fine and he didn't know why that was. He hadn't exactly enjoyed his rabbit stew but Mr. Valenti had assured him that the rabbit population could stand a little weeding here and there.
"I hear you've got girl troubles." Jeff cleared his throat and tapped his ring on the cast-iron pan. "I do, too, sometimes."
"But you and Grandma have been married forever."
"Not forever." The boy was corrected. "It's hard talking to girls at first."
"I get too nervous. I'll never get used to it."
"Do you know what the trick is?"
"Knowing what they want to hear?"
"That comes later." Jeff tapped his head with the spatula. He chuckled and flipped a pancake onto the waiting plate. "The trick is to know yourself. Know what you like and what you want. Even if she doesn't like or want the same things, she'll respect you for knowing yourself that well."
"I just want to dance with her without passing out."
"Then don't." Jeff cleared his throat as Jim made his way out of his tent. "You might zone out or tune her out accidentally but trust me when I say the other boys aren't having much better luck than you. Have you actually ever fallen asleep in front of a girl?"
"Not actually."
"Then it's just a matter of shifting your focus. Don't think about her. Think about what you're doing. Like yesterday. You were so focused on the rabbit, you didn't realized you'd pull the trigger. Next time. See the rabbit, know where the rabbit is and what it's doing but focus on your finger on the trigger."
"I think I understand."
--
Max leapt to his feet and rushed into the bathroom when he heard the wet coughs and deep sniffs. He found Beth standing over the sink, a wad of toilet paper in one hand, both hands on either side of the sink while more of that junk found its way out of her sinus cavities. He pulled her hair back, grimacing when he realized the vomiting must have started while she was still in bed. "Are you okay?"
"No." She gasped out, spitting into the sink.
"Are you going to be okay in here for a while? I'll call housekeeping to change your sheets."
"I guess." She heaved again but nothing came out.
"I'm going to run you a bath, okay?"
She only nodded and tried to wipe off her face. She had woken up feeling like she was drowning. Her feet hadn't even slipped out from under the sheets before it had started. Cleaning up as well as possible, she sank down on the toilet seat until her father wandered back to check on her. "I need help."
"Okay. Okay." Max nodded and grabbed the robe off the door to wrap around her as he held her up. Carefully Beth slipped off her pajamas while she leaned on him just to stay upright. Finally, she gripped the folds of the robe so her father could slip the shirt over her head. Gently, he guided her into the warm water to soak. Pulling the curtain closed, Max began gathering her dirty clothes. He heard the rustling of the curtain but couldn't turn. "I'll put the trachcan next to the tub and I'll see if they have any good soups on this morning. Call me if you need anything."
"Daddy." She pleaded at him to look at her. "What if I don't get better?"
Max turned and swallowed down the lump in his throat. "You're going to get better. This is just a rough patch. You will get better."
"I believe you." She whispered and let the curtain fall back into place.
Max carried her clothes to the pile she had already started and broke down sobbing. Only in those frightening hours after her accident had he ever seen her look worse. She still had her personality in the hospital. Now, she was… just lost in her pain and weakness.
--
Liz shut the door behind her and eyed the puppy still energetic after their two mile walk and resented the little fur ball. She walked slowly to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and hopefully slow her heart rate. The caller ID blinked at her and she frowned at the out of area screen when she hit the button. Yanking the phone off the wall, she called Max's cell, only to get a busy signal. Hanging up, she called their hotel and waited an eternity to be connected to the room. "Hello?"
"Will?" Liz furrowed her brow. "Did someone call home?"
"Hey Liz… um… yeah… It was Max, I think. He left to talk to the doctors some about the results from yesterday. Beth and I are just going to hang out in the hotel today."
"So, everything's okay?"
"Sure." Will lied. When he had arrived, Max was helping Beth out of the bath and into a fresh set of pajamas while the maids were cleaning up the mess in Beth's room. So Beth was dozing in Max's bed for the moment. "She's still wiped from yesterday's little…"
"Mishap?"
"Right."
"Don't talk feebee to me, Will Goldblum." She sighed and sank into a chair, absently petting Sterling's head when he jumped up on her legs. "What happened?"
"She woke up sick but she's fine now."
"Did he tell you to minimize the damage for me?"
"Nah. It's not a big deal."
"We'll talk about that when it's my grandchild you're worried about."
"What?"
"When I'm taking care of your child and I tell you it's nothing, you're going to be griping at me that it is something."
"I think you're jumping the gun a little."
"But I don't have the wrong idea, right?"
"It's… not wrong."
"Alright, then. Tell me the truth what happened this morning?"
--
Kathy took the briefcase when Agent Seyton held it out. "What do you know about how it's going?"
"It doesn't look good. She's gotten very sick." Agent Seyton clasped her hands behind her back.
"I see." Kathy tapped her fingers on the case for a moment. "Did they mention if they would cease treatment?"
"No plans to stop the treatments completely but there are murmurs of putting it off a few more days."
"Thank you. I'll call you when I have something for them." Kathy stared at her desk for a few minutes after the agent left. She opened the case and read over the report from Will and the assisting doctors. The blood and mucus samples were glaring at her. She had to get busy. She had her own caseload to deal with as well. It was going to be a long day.
--
Max sat and stared at the flame. He tried. He reached back. He reached in. He looked but he didn't find anything. Maybe there was nothing more he was capable of doing. He couldn't give up though. His daughter, his family… this planet was counting on him to keep the alien wars off of Earth.
--
Lauren picked at her dinner. She supposed it tasted good but she wouldn't know. Lately, everything tasted like sawdust. Serena seemed, as always, to be unaware of Lauren's mood and the chatter of her lover across the table.
"The Portobellos were so good at the market that I got a whole mess of them. I hope you all like mushrooms because we'll be eating them for a while." Gia cut a thick slick of mushroom and popped it into her mouth. "Oh! and I will not be here next Friday. I'm catering a party for the dean so I'll probably see you anyway but just in case." Gia paused her chattering to sip her wine and glanced over at Lauren. "Did you not like it? I thought it came out very well."
"It's fine. I'm not that hungry." Lauren offered the wide-eyed beauty a small smile.
"Maybe the wine is too sweet. I thought about doing a dry wine but the mushrooms needed a little something." Gia continued to fret over her dish while Serena ate without listening, her eyes reading problems that neither of her dinner partners could see. "But the rice is perfect. I've got it down to an art. In a few months, I'll be made an assistant. Jean-marc thinks I've made great strides."
Lauren's fork made rows of holes down a slice of mushroom, her steak in shreds though she had barely tasted it. Forcing herself to take a chunk of it, she chewed it maliciously though it was probably the tenderest steak she'd ever had. She wanted so much for Gia to shut her mouth and for Serena to open hers on a subject other than under-grad majors and recreational time management. Setting down her fork, she forced her voice remain level. She was a drama major after all. "It's very good, Gia but I think I've had my fill."
"Let me wrap it up for you. I'll give you some leftovers from last night, too." Gia took her plate and disappeared into the kitchen with it.
"I'm thinking about donating some plasma. I need some extra cash for a road trip before school starts."
"Traipsing around the country won't get you closer to accumulating credits." Serena didn't even shift her gaze from studying molecular structures. It was almost a knee-jerk reaction to Lauren's comment.
"I'm still doing it." Lauren polished off her wine, a meal time concession in Serena's eyes, and tossed her napkin on the table. "I need a break before the new semester."
"No. If you need gas money, I'll give it to you. Are you going with those girls with pierced labia?" Still, Serena's eyes weren't on her biological offspring.
"One girl. I think it's funny how that's the way you remember who they are." Lauren pursed her lips and pushed away from the table. "Keep your money. I'm donating plasma."
"No, you're not." Serena's eyes finally swung down to the young woman on the other side of the table.
"Whatever. I'm leaving tomorrow after my shift." Lauren took the Tupperware from Gia and stormed out of the house.
--
Beth lay curled up on the bed with a cup of spiced broth, her eyes staring, unseeing at the wall. Will sat next to her but he didn't know what to do to pull her out of her haze. "Beth?"
"Hmm?"
"So you are still alive. You weren't moving. You kind of scared me."
"I should have done it, Will."
"Done what?" He watched her face carefully but she kept facing the wall.
"The last night I spent with Gabriel, I had wanted to but he slowed me down and we didn't. I should have. It was probably my last chance."
"Hey, don't think like that. You're going to be fine."
"I don't feel fine. I feel like I'm dying." She set the cup down and turned to look at Will. "I feel like these are my last days, Will. I'm going to die a virgin and barely a junior and I'll never go to college or get married or have kids or… shit, Will! I don't even know what I want to do with my life and it's slipping away from me."
"Come here." He pulled her into his arms and kissed her head. "You won't die. I won't let you. Your dad won't let you… and your mom is going to beat down the gates of heaven to get you back…"
"I drive her crazy."
"You drive each other crazy. You're so much like her."
"That's what Dad says."
--
When Max got back, he found both Will and Beth asleep on his bed, the TV hissing away with snow. He snapped it off and sank into a chair. He didn't feel any different. He didn't see things different. Maybe after a few minutes rest, he could try something new.
TBC