Roswell Fanatics

Quite an emotional part. The guards who suffered so much to land their position, who sacrificed so much, finally see their sacrifices being rewarded. I kind of miss the fact that we will go back to Earth and miss much of what is happening on Antar.

Van is so much in awe of his older brother. His words being "law"... I wouldn't be surprised if he kept in regular contact with Max, Michael and Isabel, to keep them as councilors while he is reparing Antar. And let's face it, it's a daunting task, he deserves to have family to help him, even from afar.

xmag, you're right, we only get a glimpse of Antar and what happens next, but that's a story our Roswellians never wanted to be a part of, so... I did want to show what would happen to our dear Guards, since we've been hearing from them throughout the story. It's only fair we see that their efforts are paying off



Part 44: The Middle of Nowhere
November 3rd, 2011 - Canada

1 : Maria


For all she wanted to see if there would be a bigger reaction across Antar, Maria was more than happy to step out of the wormhole into the orange and red colors of autumn against a full moon and a starry sky. It was cold, too, and she had no idea where her coat had been lost, somewhere between escaping the hotel in New York and the taxi ride to the false warehouse.

Michael came to her rescue by placing his hands on her yellow blouse and transforming it into a wool yellow sweater.

“Thanks,” she said, her boots crunching over the already fallen leaves surrounding the luxury cabin in the distance. “I can’t believe it’s over,” she absently said.

“The Antar thing?” Michael asked, genuinely confused.

“This day,” she corrected him. “I can’t believe this day is over. See? It’s 1:12 a.m. so it’s been over for a whole hour now.”

He laughed, a short, heartfelt laugh that made them all chuckle around her. It felt good. That everyone had made it alive and unhurt was nothing short of a miracle. She knew the ‘Antar thing’ wouldn’t be over until Van came to have the Seal removed and destroyed, and that the Rebellion could still go awry, but for the foreseeable future, it was over.

She had not been in this particular safe house, but boy did she have expectations. I bet it has a big living room with big, fluffy couches in it, she imagined, the weirdness and tiredness of the day starting to drain her usually bubbly energy. Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t had a proper meal in ages, the few bites of instant ramen already forgotten.

She had no clothes, no toiletries, not even an idea of where they actually were. Knowing Dave, this place probably had a couple of cars and a cabinet full of cans of food. And wouldn’t it be peachy if the beds were big and soft and warm?

“What are you thinking about?” Michael quietly asked.

“Food, clothing, sleeping arrangements.”

“Good. That’s good,” he said, holding her sideways by her shoulder so he could warm her up with his powers.

“Why? What do you think I was thinking?”

“That you missed the opportunity of a lifetime to live in a palace, married to the General of the Royal Army, while being called the mastermind behind the coup that brought Khivar down.”

“When you put it that way…” she said with a smirk. “You do owe me a vacation, though. Somewhere in the Caribbean,” she reminded him, hugging herself.

“You sure you’re okay?” Michael asked, this time his fear coming through their connection that something in the last twelve hours had been terrible enough to crack her.

“Space Boy,” she said, stopping. “There’s a guy in another world leading a Rebellion who called me brilliant. You know what that did to my self-esteem? Hmm?” she kissed him then, holding onto his own newly waved sweater. “This day could have ended with me a widow or worse: with you stuck on Antar for who knows how long. I’m not forgetting this day ever, but only for the good things that happened, okay? So stop worrying.”

“I’ll try,” he said, kissing her back. And then he turned to look at the house. “I really hope they have food in there, cause I’m starving.”


2 : Jesse

Dawn found Jesse in front of the fancy coffee machine, bleary-eyed and exhausted. Isabel had been tossing around all night long, to the point he’d just stayed awake, holding her in his arms, telling her soothing words of love and assurance.

As the sun started illuminating their room, he had come down to get some absurdly delicious coffee so he could sit down with his wife and try to untangle the mess they had just survived. For the millionth time, he hoped Vilandra was finally gone.

She was sitting on the blue carpeted floor with her back against the bed, watching the mountains as the sun started to melt the icy air outside. It was going to snow, Jesse knew, but not just yet.

“Here,” he said, handing the mug with care, while placing his on the floor. He reached for one of the throwaways at the foot of the bed and silently spread it around her shoulders and his.

“Thanks,” she said, blinking fast for a moment, clearly lost in thought until now. “Oh, this coffee is good.”

“You gotta give it to Dave. He knows how to set a safe house.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of his plan all along,” she said, snuggling to him as they both watched the woods surrounding the property begin to receive the early rays of the sun.

Silence set between them, first the companionable one, and then the oppressive one. She knew he wanted to ask questions, and he knew she didn’t want to answer them.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he finally asked, unsure of what to do if the answer was no.

“I will be,” she said instead, sounding distant for a moment. “I mean, I think I’m not exactly okay right now, but I’m not—I’m not going to let this ghost keep haunting me. Not anymore. I just—I just feel kind of lost right now. Like I know where I’m supposed to go, I’m just not sure how to get there.”

“We all feel a little bit lost right now, I think,” Jesse said, his hand slowly moving up and down her arm as he side-hugged her.

“Are you okay?” Isabel asked then, turning to look at him.

“I’ve just realized that maybe I’m not as okay as I thought I was,” he quietly said, punctuating that with a smile so she knew he wasn’t mad. She already blamed herself for so much that wasn’t in her control.

“Why? What’s bothering you?” she asked, turning to look out of the window as she sipped her coffee.

“Walking on Antar—it made your alien heritage real, you know? It brought back all those fears I had when I first found out. Fear of what you might be, fear of losing the woman I loved and had married. As if Isabel Evans was going to disappear right in front of my eyes. Seeing you so angry, when you were watching that city, it really clicked on me that part of you truly belongs to that world.”

“I really, really want this whole thing to be over,” Isabel said, holding his hand in her lap beneath the throwaway. “It surprised me, too, you know? Feeling so protective of the palace. Wanting to rip apart those banners. But then you said I had already helped by keeping Max alive. And that made it click for me, you know? I’m on the right side of history now. I helped my brother because I believe in him, on what Zan represents for Antar. Not because it’s convenient, but because it’s right. Does that make any sense?”

“Isabel, would I have married you if you made sense?” he playfully asked. She laughed, a little bit bubbly, a lit bit sheepish, but all around real.

“You don’t feel indebted to Antar or your brother anymore?” He asked once they settled down again, sipping their coffees.

“I think that’s it. I’ve helped to right the wrongs of the past. I can’t do anything about Vilandra, nor do I need to be punished for what she did then. I just—I just feel like I still should be punished because I’ve felt that for so long that not feeling guilty is… weird.”

“You know what else is weird?” Jesse asked. “Our deal with Dave is essentially done. I mean, we could still keep working for him if we so desired, but… yeah.”

“He also has a lot to answer for. We need to know that side of the story. What did he hide from us?”

“That man loves his secrets,” Jesse said, placing his head over hers, “you think he’ll want to share any of that?”

“We can certainly make him,” she said, skidding dangerously close to the dark side of her powers.

“Yeah, before we do that…. We have to be smart about how we disentangle our lives from his. This was supposed to be a vacation, you know? I left plenty of things on hold that I would like to see through. You know, do a gracious exit so we don’t have a pissed off Dave following our tracks.”

She sighed, sipping her coffee for a few moments. “I hate it when you make so much sense that I can’t argue with you.”


3 : Max

It was a new day, and Max welcomed it as a new man. Yesterday, he had lived through Zan’s life and had died before sunrise reached his window. Today, he woke up as Max Evans, with the Seal no longer stenciled at the back of his head, and the weight of the crown no longer his to bear.

“Do you feel different?” Liz quietly asked as she rested her head on his chest. They had slept like the dead and yet had found each other on the bed, waking up together like this.

“Not physically,” he whispered back. “I never really felt the Seal inside of me. Even when Michael got it, it didn’t make a difference. But… I do feel different in other ways. I have no doubt that Van is the right choice. I didn’t give him the Seal just to get rid of it. So, it feels like I’ve passed on this responsibility, and the absence of its weight—I feel kind of empty inside. Not the wrong kind of empty, but…”

“The weight of the crown is off your shoulders, Your Majesty,” Liz said, smiling. He laughed, too, a low rumble in his chest.

“That I can certainly live without. Hearing them calling me ‘Your Majesty’ was the most surreal aspect of meeting Van and our Guards.”

“It made it real,” Liz whispered. “I mean, that you really are a king.”

“Yeah. I thought I was meeting Dave at the Empire State Building at 4:00 p.m. sharp and then suddenly, I’m surrounded by these people who meant business, and I had no way to escape them. To escape the crown, to escape my past life; certainly not to escape that my every word was their command.”

“It must have been weird… to have all that power at once.”

Max shook his head, even if she couldn’t see it. “Zan was used to that kind of power, that wasn’t really what threw me off balance. I honestly thought Van was going to kill me. I was surrounded by four shifters and a man posing as a brother I never knew I had, I knew my chances were almost none.”

“You must have been so scared,” Liz said, hugging him tightly. Their connection had been severed by that point, so she hadn’t felt him.

“I didn’t have much time to be scared, actually. I was looking for ways out, just like Ray taught us for so long…. You know what scares me the most? If Van had turned out to be a jerk. A Khivar-wannabe who only wanted the throne for his own selfish reasons.”

Liz froze at that, feeling through their connection the fear that an imaginary what-if was inducing even now.

“Rath once told Zan that power attracts all kinds of people, but seldom the right ones. That he’d joined the Palace guard because he wanted to be the right kind of people to protect the power bestowed onto the king. Van could have been all sorts of things, and all I had was but a few hours to think it through and offer it to him.”

“So what made you decide in his favor?”

“My Guards. They told me why they had come to watch over me. I knew they had to know who I was, what kind of person I am. That I didn’t act as a king or made plans to go back. They all had these idealistic reasons… And Zan… Zan was an idealistic king, so much he made some terrible choices some days. Which I can say only because I’m here and not there. Yet they all cared so much about Van. And Van cared so much about Zan, about following in his steps, building a world with Zan’s vision as its foundation.”

“If you had to go back,” Liz said, untangling herself from him and looking him in the eye, “would you have followed Zan’s vision?”

“Most of it, I think so. And by the sound of it, they’re ready to accept it this time. They’re ready for a future that doesn’t include Khivar twisting ideas and playing with everyone’s future. But to be honest, I’m just glad I’m here and not waking up in Antar.”

“Really?” Liz said, now looking at him with a smile in her eyes.

“Yes. A thousand times yes,” Max said, meeting her to steal a kiss.

“I do want to hear about Zan. About Antar. About that life—”

Max kissed her again. She wasn’t scared, or mad, or remotely doubting if she was kissing her husband or an alien king—he could feel it through their connection, stronger than ever before. All the fears he’d had, all the secrecy regarding this side of him, all of it was now gone.

That’s the real weight that is off my shoulders, he realized, deepening the kiss. He opened their connection and let her see Antar as Zan had seen it. The silver and blue banners, his coronation, the day he’d met Rath. Bits and pieces of what being Antar’s king felt like.

They came for air, and she grinned maniacally at him. “Oh, you better tell me everything, mister!”

“With my pleasure,” he said, before kissing her again.

Another chapter of their lives is beginning. For now, they are just resting, that's normal. But yeah, there is Dave.

I get that they want to be as far away from Dave as possible. But didn't he save Earth, after all? This long game, Earth's fate was in the balance, right?

Also, Max, Michael, Isabel, Liz, Maria, Jesse might want to dump Dave and move on. But what about Kyle? He is in love with Dave's adoptive daughter. If he marries her, Dave will be his father-in-law. Part of his family.

I hope it won't create problems with our other roswellians.

xmag, I swear you fly all the way from Europe to snoop at my computer while I'm not watching We have only a handful of chapters left, but many of your questions will be addressed before The End

Also, the boards have been crashing lately, and I'm so afraid I won't manage to post The End here. I'm also posting on fanfiction.net if anyone wants to check out the story over there when the boards are down. You can find me as RoswellianMisha. I will probably repost the whole thing on AO3 at some point, too



Part 45: Toast
November 3rd, 2011 – Europe


1 : Kyle

Sunrise had come some two hours ago over the Atlantic, yet Kyle had been too wired to even doze off during the six-hour flight. Jake had played First Officer to Dave’s Captain in the cockpit, where Ray had also taken residence to discuss strategy, and Langley had slept all the time, leaving him mostly alone with his ever-growing worries.

For what he’d gotten out of their stray thoughts, they were going to land on some fancy, private strip somewhere in England, avoiding a myriad of questions the NYPD guys were probably going to make after finding the mess they had left behind.

He was hungry, sleep-deprived and probably stank. He’d raided the mini-kitchen not an hour into their flight, roughly about the time Dave had told him that Sybelle was safe and in good company. What that meant in Dave’s world could be anything from a six-men SWAT squad to a lovely looking girl from next door.

It didn’t matter. She was okay and most definitely unaware of what had transpired. It was the first time in Kyle’s life that he was grateful for his mind-reading power, something he would let know Max once he found the Pod Squad again.

He wondered about Antar and if his friends—family, really—were doing okay. He’d always known that pursuing a life with Sybelle could potentially mean never seeing them again. Why, with their main plan being to disappear from Dave’s radar and all.

He didn’t know what was coming now. Where did they all stand with Dave—or rather, where did Dave stand with them. The man had been manipulating and playing some sort of intergalactic chess with their lives. Granted, Kyle was mostly here for the ride. No one, nowhere, wanted him. Even the Special Unit men had thought he was nothing but a traitor that didn’t warrant a second look.

He wasn’t complaining, though. The less attention he attracted, the more chances of a happy life he had. Sybelle was always going to be a target, no matter what Dave did, and at least this way, Kyle could be on the lookout for any trouble. Maybe it would be a good idea to start sharpening his telepathy.

And there was the little thing of coming clean to Sybelle. She deserved to know the kind of danger that lurked in the shadows. Maybe Kyle couldn’t really tell her about Dave—that was Dave’s story to tell—but she certainly needed to know what Kyle could do. That her thoughts would never be hers alone if she chose him.

The thought of telling her was terrifying and somehow illuminating. This is what the Pod Squad must have felt all those years ago, not knowing if anyone would ever want to be around them.

Regardless, he didn´t need to tell her now. He just needed her to be okay, and then, somehow, somewhere, tell her the truth.

The cockpit door opened, and in came Ray, stretching his hands in front of him and moving his neck. He looked haggard and resigned, but seeing Kyle there—remembering Kyle was flying with them, too—seemed to brighten him up.

“That was a great shot,” he complimented, taking Kyle for a spin.

“What?”

“McKay. I didn’t properly check for them to be dead. I don’t think Dave has process the man is dead, actually…” he trailed off, looking at the closed door. “Those are some deep issues rotting down there.”

“I bet.”

Ray turned to look at him, narrowing his eyes. “You should’ve told me you can read minds. Would have been wonderful to be able to plan knowing all the tools at my disposal.”

“Well… it’s an on and off thing. Kind of unreliable most of the time. I just hear static and bits and pieces here and there.”

“Right. You should take a shower after I’m done with mine. Sybelle is meeting us at the airstrip in about two hours. We’ll refuel and fly to Turkey. We’re all going on a sudden sparkly vacation.” Ray looked at Langley’s sleeping form and reconsidered. “Well, maybe not all of us will feel sparkly, but yeah.”

“Don’t tell Maria. She’ll kill us if we do go on vacation after all of this.”

“My lips are sealed,” Ray said, mimicking with his fingers how tight he was not going to let her know. Besides, they weren’t really going on vacation… were they?


2 : Dave

Sitting on a beach overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, with a cocktail in one hand and a phone in the other, was not exactly what Dave had pictured when he’d broken down his precious Network forty-eight hours ago.

In the distance, Sybelle’s happy laughter reached him as Kyle chased her with an equally carefree laughter.

She was marrying the guy, Dave just knew it. He didn’t like it—but he would. For the man who had shot down his worst nightmare, he definitely would.

“You feel different? Knowing McKay is gone?” Jake asked beside him, weirdly attuned to Dave’s own thoughts.

“Yeah… Lighter, somehow.”

“Good.”

“What about you? You shot him, too.”

“It’s odd, really. I must have practiced that shot ten thousand times. Every time Ray gave me a gun and ordered me to the shooting range, I pictured McKay at the end of the line. I didn’t even hesitate when the real target presented itself. I didn’t think it would be that easy, I guess. That—”

“Guilt-free?”

“Yes. It felt right in the way taking a life never should be.”

“You aimed to kill a monster, Jake. Our monster, sure, but we were not his only victims,” Dave said quietly. “I just wish I hadn’t frozen like that. It’s not like I hadn’t seen the man hours before.”

“The way that man played with our children-selves is not a small matter.”

“And now all that’s left is to dismantle his legacy,” Dave said in a rather dark tone. McKay was gone, but the Special Unit would rise again. Unless I find a way to get rid of them once and for all.

“I’m sure you’ll find a way,” Jake said with a nod of his head, almost as if he was as capable of reading thoughts as Kyle was. Which brought to the surface a few other points Dave wanted to talk about.

“You should’ve told me Kyle could read minds,” Dave said, more as an afterthought than an accusation as both men looked at the beach, where the next generation played in the waves.

“She’s happy,” Jake said, looking with approval before answering Dave. “I didn’t know Kyle could read minds,” he added, shrugging. “When he yelled the secret passcode, I took a gamble by shouting at him to duck so I could take a shot. I thought he had either heard me or had made a split decision to duck. Either way, it worked.”

Dave looked at him, half-surprised, half-suspicious. “They kept secrets from you?”

“We all kept secrets from everyone, it seems. I don’t think they’ll ever tell us the whole truth of what they can do or what they were thinking—and we can’t blame them. Still… I can’t help but wonder why both Liz and Kyle developed psychic abilities…”

Dave cocked his head, thinking. “It can’t be a coincidence that they did. Maybe Maria and Jesse also have powers and we just never noticed. That being around Antarians changes you.”

“Hmm… It might as well explain Max’s refusal to heal, but maybe I’m just reading too much into it.”

“That would be a welcome answer to an odd question,” Dave said, frowning. He had no way of getting that answer now, after all. He had no more control over them than Van did. Leverage, maybe, but not control.

“Have you heard from them by now?” Jake asked.

Dave nodded. “They made it to a safe house near Niagara Falls. Max wants us to meet next week.”

“I bet they all have a ton of questions,” Jake said.

“It sounded more like he wants me out of their lives… he was just being very polite about it.”

“Yeah, that too. I bet that has everything to do with Zan’s diplomatic prowess.”

Silence descended between them, the one that waits for the other shoe to drop.

“I wonder if Max would have said yes if you had told him your intentions from day one,” Jake finally said after thirteen long seconds had passed by.

“Not a chance in hell,” Dave said. “He would have heard the word Antar and he would have run the other way—into the waiting arms of the Special Unit.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Jake said, nodding.

“I would have adjusted everyone’s expectations if I had known Max remembered Zan,” Dave added. Neither of them wanted a rehash of their fight nine days ago, which had ended with Jake not speaking to him.

“You would have told him, then?” Jake asked, not apologizing for keeping the secret. Max had wanted it that way, and Jake had respected his wishes.

“Yeah. I would have appealed to Zan’s sense of duty—and probably lost the gamble, too. Max is not Zan.”

“And shouldn’t we all be thankful for that,” Jake said, sipping from his own cocktail. “I like Max the way he is. Would have been a shame to lose him to his alien self. Besides, Zan would have felt lost in this alien world, constantly trying to go back to a kingdom that was no longer his.”

“Max does embody Zan’s kingly aura well when he’s giving orders, though. I saw it at the compound. Now that he had nothing to hide and was expected to act this way, I clearly saw what the Antarians had achieved. Close enough even if not quite right.”

“That’s a scary thought,” Jake said, looking at Kyle and Sybelle laughing some more. “Imagine if it had been Khivar who had been cloned and sent back, over and over and over again. Or just have five past kings all waking up and claiming their throne at the same time. Next time you see Van, you better tell him to find all their cloning technology and burn it.”

Dave almost choked on the thought. Next time… He had absolutely no idea when that would be, but he had absolutely no doubt that it would happen.

“You should come with me next week,” he said instead. “Max wants answers and so do you. It will clear up everything I did and—if you’re still talking to me after that—we can go back and be friends.”

“I’d like that,” Jake said, raising his cocktail and clinking it with Dave’s. “Here’s to answers.”

“Here’s to the world being saved.”

And let us hope that’s the last time I have to do this.

If you post on AO3, please provide a link, I'll go there. I like to save stories from there.

Not surprised by Kyle's musing. I expected it. As I said in a previous review (nope, I didn't fly to your country or hack your computer ), when I read the previous part about our roswellians to be free from Dave, my first thought was : "but what about Kyle? And Sybelle?" It will be interesting to read the conversation between Kyle and the other roswellians, once this is over.

And talking about over... what is this "next time"? I hope peace is next. But Dave seems convinced that his path will cross with Van again. Does he know something the roswellians (and the readers) don't?

Thanks for coming back, we're almost there! Tying a few loose ends before The End




Part 46: For the Future
November 6th, 2011 – Canada


1 : Maria

It turned out that the cabin in the middle of nowhere was exactly what they needed, especially when the cabin did have three separate rooms, a spacious living room and kitchen, and a nice chimney. She’d always wanted to get lost in the middle of nowhere, and she couldn’t have asked for a better nowhere.

“So, where should we go from here?” Liz asked. They were the only ones in the cabin, since Max, Michael, Isabel, and Jesse had decided to drive a couple of hours to the nearest town to get supplies. At the very least, they were staying here a week.

“Well, this place is not bad, you know…” she said, mockingly inspecting it up and down.

“Maria… you know what I mean. You had narrowed it down to six locations last time we talked.”

“That was before Antar crashed on us. Michael is going to be paranoid until Van comes back for Max to destroy that magic alien Seal, so…”

“Yeah, Max has that in mind, too. That he won’t be able to disappear in case his brother comes back. But it might take years for that to happen. We don’t even know if he’s really going to win or not. I mean, what if Van dies and the Seal comes back to Max? What then?”

Liz looked hopelessly lost in that train of thought. For people who loved to control things like Max and Liz did, the world was probably a harsh place to live, what with all its uncertainties and change always being the constant.

“Well, I’m sure Dave will always be a call away on his phone—or however it was that they communicated before. Van calls Dave, Dave calls Kyle, Kyle calls us… or something like that.”

Liz sipped from her hot chocolate, staring at the fire. “It’s so strange that we don’t have to hide our plans of leaving from Dave anymore.”

“Oh, that man is the one who should be running to hide, for sure. I mean, one order from Max or Michael and the entire shifter army would be more than happy to execute him—”

“Maria!”

“Just saying… not that I wish him dead, but still.”

“He did give us a future, you know. I can continue working with Allan and get to discover the secret of Max’s cells. You became such a savvy business analyst that it was second nature to see how Van’s PR nightmare was a golden opportunity—”

“—and may he never forget that,” Maria said, raising her mug.

“And Isabel got her international law degree. He did everything to get us out there, and now the problem is not that we have no options but that we have too many.”

“A happy problem if you ask me. But the real question here is: do we want to be around Dave? He’s a dangerous man who attracts dangerous people.”

“I guess it depends on what answers he gives us next time we see him,” Liz said, turning to look at the window as snow started falling.

Winter was here, a new season for a new life, Maria thought. And she, for once, was ready for a change of scenery.


2 : Isabel

After everything that had happened a lifetime ago, from the moment she’d opened the door to Khivar till the moment she’d set foot on Antar three days ago, it was the strangest feeling to be at peace.

Something inside of her was dying—Vilandra, the guilt, the constant fear of everybody’s rejection once they truly understood what she’d done—that for the first time in a long time, Isabel didn’t know where she was going anymore. She had new wings, she just had to pick a destination.

“You’ve gotten quiet,” Max said as he sat beside her. It was past midnight and everyone was sleeping already.

“Have I?” she asked, looking at the flames consume a large log Michael had hauled inside hours ago.

“Your connection is quiet, too,” he added, reaching for a comforter and extending it to cover them both.

“When you were… dreaming about Zan, I got a glimpse of it,” she said. “It was like looking at you except he was Zan and I was Vilandra, and they were siblings in a way we aren’t. It was the first time I saw how truly different I am from her—and how different our relationship is from theirs.”

“Zan loved Vilandra,” Max quietly said. “They just didn’t—”

“—understand each other?”

“They expected so much from each other. And although they were together, they didn’t really spend any meaningful time together. They had such different lives apart that when they didn’t follow the script of how they were supposed to behave—”

“It created friction. Maybe we became the same here…”

“No…” Max whispered. “You and I, from the moment we emerged from the pods and held hands… our story on Earth was forged by holding secrets together. You wanted to shine so bright so no one could look beneath that, while I wanted to be so invisible that no one would think twice about what I was hiding.”

“And yet here we are. Still hiding secrets but not from the people we love.”

Max smiled at that. “Are you… Vilandra?” he asked, looking at the fire as she did.

“No. Not anymore,” she whispered back. “It’s like Jesse said, by saving you I redeemed her mistakes. Guilt is a terrible thing, Max, and it was such a constant thing in my life that now that I can no longer hold to it, I’m feeling adrift. Who am I if I’m not her anymore, you know?”

“You’re my big sister,” he said with a smile. “The one who scolds me, the one who keeps me honest. The one I turn to when our alien nature sneaks up on us.”

“I know you never felt like you were Zan, but I still wanted to thank you for giving me the opportunity to apologize to him. To close that door so Khivar couldn’t win. Not in this lifetime at least.”

“If you ever feel the need to talk about her—"

She hugged him then. She hugged him as hard as she could because Max had almost died three days ago. Because she’d kept his heart going; because she’d seen the beginnings of Khivar’s downfall; because Jesse still loved her, and Michael still loved her, and she finally believed them when they said Vilandra didn’t matter at all.

And Max hugged her back, because there had never been a doubt in his heart about who she was and what she’d done. Because he knew what it was like to remember Zan, to remember being Vilandra’s brother, and all the little secrets those siblings had shared the same way they shared their own.

Because they had both been found on a side road, with no past and no future one cold night in Roswell, New Mexico.

They hugged each other because they had finally found each other again.


3 : Michael

“So she’s okay now?” Michael asked as he aligned a few glass bottles over a fallen trunk.

“I think so. Or at least, she’s getting there,” Max answered, absently picking a small tree branch from the frozen ground. It had snowed for the better part of the day, and everything looked pristine and serene.

“Okay, blow them off,” Michael said, clearly missing the beauty this place was presenting them.

“This is thoroughly unnecessary,” Max said, looking at Michael and then at the bottles. If using their powers had been learned at school, this would be first graders stuff.

“You said yourself your powers were still iffy. Just trying to see where you are. So… blow them off,” Michael said, mustering all the patience he could. He was never good at talking when people were being difficult.

Max rolled his eyes and then looked at the five bottles Michael had set up. It had been more than ten years since Michael himself had needed these little exercises to find the bare minimum control he needed to use his powers.

Nowadays, Michael could slice those bottles into four pieces, perfectly clean as if a katana had gone through them. He could melt them, blow them, change their colors at will. Max could probably do just as much if not more, and yet…

“Still no powers?” Michael asked.

“I—I do, it’s just…”

“What?”

“It feels like if I try to blow one, I might end up blowing them all.”

“Well, go ahead and let’s—”

The whole trunk exploded, sending the bottles through the air. Max’s shield was automatically there, protecting them from the rain of splinters, glass, and dirt Max’s outburst had blown up. The shield was twice the size it needed to be, too.

Max closed his fist and off the shield went. “I guess I do have to start from the beginning…”

“Well, I can always give you pointers. We should probably train farther from the cabin, though.”

Michael picked up a few more bottles and they started to walk.

“Do you feel different?” he asked Max at length, the sound of their steps crunching twigs beneath the snow barely breaking the silence around them.

“Because of my powers?”

“No, because of the Seal. Because of seeing Antar. I don’t know, do you feel different?”

He hated when Max made him drag the questions out.

“It felt like… closure,” Max said in that quiet way of his. “Seeing the palace, the cities. Even if they were not the right banners, even if they did change after seventy years… they were real. It was some sort of validation that everything I had seen in my memories did happen.”

“That Rath was real,” Michael said, nodding. “But that I was real, too. He became an echo of the past when I saw the palace. Something to remember—but not drag into the present.”

“Yeah… It is odd, don’t you think? That they were friends and that we’re friends, too?”

Michael spotted another fallen trunk and placed one bottle there. If Max was going to keep blowing stuff up, they would run out of targets way too soon.

“Rath wanted to serve the crown. It didn’t matter who was going to rule. Hell, when he applied, Zan was barely a kid. It’s not the same between you and me. Not what we lived through, not the dangers we faced. Those two? They had to rule and worry about geopolitical messes. We? We had to hide what we are from an entire planet full of enemies. Now, shoot.”

“I guess we’re brothers in the way they could only be friends.”

This time, the snow between Max and the bottle melted in a straight line as Max was concentrating on blowing only the bottle. He was intentionally burning energy by heating the path there.

“You’re cheating,” Michael warned.

“I’m just being creative. It’s been so long since I hadn’t mastered my powers that this is—”

The bottle shattered then, ricocheting harmlessly against Max’s shield. It wasn’t as big as before, but still too large. Too much wasted energy.

Michael placed another bottle in the same spot.

“You’re going to talk to Dave next week,” Michael said, changing the subject of past lives and palaces better left in memories.

“We should all hear what he has to say,” Max said, looking at the bottle as if it personally offended him.

“He will say a variation that you’re still a potential vessel for the Royal Seal of Antar and will need to be protected. I mean, let’s be honest here. Van can die any moment, and part of the Rebellion knows you’re alive. We need to decide if we want to seat around waiting for them to drag us out of Earth again or hide where no one can find us.”

The bottle exploded once more, this time in a more controlled manner. “You’re getting better,” Michael added, as Max retracted his shield for the third time. It was also smaller now.

“This will not truly end until that seal is broken,” Max said, looking at Michael.

“It won’t be over until Van has a descendant of his own. You know how monarchies work. No matter what we want, they won’t leave us alone.”

“And we’re not even factoring in the Special Unit,” Max quietly said, then sighed. “We’ve untangled ourselves from Dave as much as we can,” Max said, taking the last bottle out of Michael’s hand and walking to place it on the trunk. This time, when he exploded the bottle, he contained the flying pieces one inch from each other. Then Max closed his fist, and all the shards collapsed together, leaving the bottle intact. “We can’t disappear… but it doesn’t mean things are not going to change.”


4 : Dave

Once upon a time, there had been six scared teenagers by the side of the road. Now, in front of him stood six adults, serious and expectant, but without one ounce of fear.

Say what you want, but I did that.

“…and by the time Van announced he was coming, I knew you were all heading to New York,” Dave finished recapping the last eight years of his plans and the deal he’d done with the rebel leader of another planet—and his grand plans of saving the Earth from an all-consuming revenge.

Silence descended for a moment. They had inferred half of what he’d done, they just needed the details to put it all nicely together.

“We always feared you,” Max quietly said, “and all along you were setting us up. I can’t honestly say we wouldn’t have run if we had known about Van and his wishes of seeing me back on the throne, but you must know how wrong this was.”

“I sincerely apologize for keeping you in the dark, I really do. Not that first night when we met, but later. Certainly, I should’ve told you what was coming before Van was standing in front of you. But I won’t apologize for making a deal to save this planet. I was gambling with enough variables as it was.”

“But that’s the point, isn’t it?” Max said, “you didn’t have to gamble this world’s safety on me passing some nebulose test in the future. You alone decided that we weren’t worth the trust to make the right choice.”

“You honestly think that, if the Special Unit had killed you, Van would have spared the Earth?”

There was a pragmatic silence at that. They all knew the painful answer to that.

“I honestly think we would have worked better as allies than as your virtual prisoners,” Max answered, and the thought caught Dave unguarded. It never crossed his mind to treat Max and the others as equals. They were too young and Van too clever—

“It doesn’t mean we can’t work together from now on,” Max added with the air of someone who was used to dealing with difficult people. “New terms need to be defined and boundaries to be set. We no longer live to fulfill your deal with Van—but we’re not blinded to the perils of this world. Seeing how close the Unit can get to us after so many years… it did remind us that being out there will always be dangerous.”

“You want my protection.” It wasn’t a question, yet Michael smirked.

“How much would we have to pay you to get rid of the Special Unit for good?” he asked.

“Funny that you’re bringing that to the table,” Dave said. Now that they had a common enemy, the energy in the room went from stense to electrifying. “They are about to have a little audit problem.”

“You’re joking,” Jesse said, “you can bring the most elite FBI unit down with the power of the IRS?”

“The Special Unit has a large budget. One that McKay was liberally using for his personal needs. I can amplify that. By the time I’m done planting evidence they’ll be seen as an absolute corrupt entity. I have enough favors to ask to make it look like our encounter at JFK was related to a shadow deal that went wrong. They might scream aliens all they want, but all they’ll find is dirty money.”

“They might always come back,” Max said.

“All the Agents that were alive when you were captured ten years ago are dead thanks to Van. All the paper trail is gone. I’ll make sure to scorch the ground so deep and thoroughly that it would take them decades to rebuild. And—” Dave said as he turned to look at Michael, “I’ll do it for free. Take it as retribution for acting behind your backs.”


5 : Jake

“You didn’t know, did you? What Dave was doing all this time?” Max asked quietly as Jake took his pulse. While everyone in the living room had an ongoing project that needed to be settled down with Dave, Jake had dragged Max into a room to check him after Michael off handedly commented on Max’s powers acting up.

“Not a word,” Jake said, glancing at the closed door. “It almost costs us our friendship, too. Now, follow the pen. Any lingering headaches?”

“He didn’t trust anyone, then,” Max said, more to himself than to Jake. It was easy to read the relief in Max’s eyes that Jake had not been part of the conspiracy.

“Van wouldn’t let him, and it suited his plans well,” Jake said. “Any headaches?” he pressed.

“The ringing went away a couple of days after we returned,” Max said, following the pen in Jake’s hand without a problem.

Jake raised an eyebrow at the admission.

“It was a very slight ringing,” Max said, almost apologetically. “And…” he trailed off.

“And—?”

“I’m not fully in control of my powers yet, at least not all the time. I overcharge or something.”

Jake stopped with the pen. “I would love to do a full check-up on you, but I’m not an idiot. You want to run as far away from this life as you can.”

“That’s not—that’s got nothing to do with you,” Max said. “I will take it slow…” he said, with that coy smile of his that made him look so much younger.

“You have your whole life ahead of you—if you take care of yourself. If you’re not improving in the next few days, do come to see me, okay?”

“Yes, doctor,” Max said, smiling.

Once, ages ago, the sole idea of seeing Jake in a lab coat would raise Max’s blood pressure through the roof. Now he could joke about it. How things have changed.

“I also wanted to thank you,” Max said, suddenly looking quite serious, “About our time with you. You never used us. Never saw us as subjects. Never—took advantage of us. We were able to develop our powers safely and far beyond our expectations.”

“Rumor has it your power levels are way higher than I ever saw. And I’m happy for that if it’s true. They will keep you safe.”

Max nodded, thoughtful. “And… well, it meant the world to me that I could trust you when I had no idea if I would still be Max Evans the next day. I would have—I would have understood if you had told Dave, but I’m so relieved you didn’t.”

“It was always my honor to be part of your journey. Honestly, the fact that Michael didn’t fry me still shocks me some days.”

Max laughed at that. An honest, unguarded laugh. He looked so carefree at that moment.

“I take it you finally told Liz?”

“Yeah… or I’m starting to. She has so many questions. And seeing Antar, being there—it gave me closure I didn’t even know I needed.”

“That’s good. That secret was eating you alive.”

“We were all keeping secrets from each other,” Max said, wincing a little, “even from each other.”

“That’s exactly what I told Dave, which I don’t know if it’s fitting or not.”

“Do you—do you think getting away from Dave is the right call? I mean, we’ll always have Kyle to keep us connected, but…”

Jake thought about it for a long moment. “You do need to end this deal. Put distance between his world and your world, so to speak. Dave will find uses to your skills if you don’t, and you shouldn’t be tied to his schemes any longer. Once everything is settled and the Unit buried, leave. That said, I’ll always be just a phone call away, Max. Wherever you are in the world, I’ll drop everything and come to your aid, without Dave if that’s what you want.”

Max nodded, relieved. Everyone who had ever reached the end of a deal with Dave always looked relieved. What does that say about you, my friend, Jake thought, glancing at the door once more.

“So, what now? What is Antar’s mighty past king going to do with his life?”

“Well, for one, Antar is probably not entirely done with us. Besides, we still have to figure out our present life, as you’ve just pointed out. We’ll choose where we’ll go, start a new life.”

“And if there is a time when Van calls…?”

“And the Seal needs to be destroyed?” Max asked as Jake nodded, “I guess Dave will let us know and we’ll come back.”

“He did give us a future, you know. I can continue working with Allan and get to discover the secret of Max’s cells. You became such a savvy business analyst that it was second nature to see how Van’s PR nightmare was a golden opportunity—”

“—and may he never forget that,” Maria said, raising her mug.

“And Isabel got her international law degree. He did everything to get us out there,

Liz is right. Dave saved them from the Special Unit (they could very well have been taken and then Van's reaction if Max had died...), provided them with security, an education, a future. On top of that, he probably saved Earth from Van or even Khivar, and Antar will be free from that dictator.

Everyone who had ever reached the end of a deal with Dave always looked relieved. What does that say about you, my friend, Jake thought, glancing at the door once more.

I think great men don't have friends. They are way too important on a global scale to afford friends or to nurse teenagers on the run in the roswellian case. Because they were 18/20 years old on the run, with barely an education. Yeah, you bet that Dave wasn't going to treat them as equals.

There was too much at stake, two planets, billions of people, liberating a planet (and maybe more, 5 planets which might have been controlled by fear by Khivar) for Dave to trust kids he didn't know.

And hey, Max and Isabel didn't even TRUST their own parents with the truth, while they had saved them, raised, them and loved them. So...

Still, that line by Jake... he maybe right, but Earth and Antar needed a man like Dave. Not a Jake. A Dave.

Epilogue

Three Years Later – Bali


Kyle kissed the bride and everybody erupted to applause. The last bachelor of the group was finally tying the knot in a private ceremony by the beach, and Sybelle couldn’t look more radiant. With the sun setting and a fleeting breeze refreshing the day, this was a reminder that happiness was a part of their lives. That there really were happily-ever-afters. Not every day and not all the time, but as their mind-reader friend would say, happiness did not depend on what you had or who you were. It solely relied on what you thought.

Or some other Buddhist saying like that.

My gosh, he’s making sense to me, too, Michael thought as the fancy resort photographer started moving people around. It was the first time everyone was together in years: all the Pod Squad from Kyle’s side, and Dave, Jake, and Ray from Sybelle’s side.

“I’m so happy we could make this work with such short notice,” Maria said as Kyle walked with Sybelle to a more scenic place down the beach twenty minutes later. They weren’t here for the impromptu wedding, after all. “How long before Van gets here?”

Michael looked at his watch, “He’s probably already here,” he said, frowning. Dave had reserved the entire resort for themselves. Something about impressing Van, most likely.

Maybe I should start addressing him as His Majesty from now on.

There was no protocol written for the occasion, but titles always mattered, especially since they were here to destroy the Seal.


* * *


“How come we never came to Bali?” Jade asked as he looked at the paradisiac beach, with its turquoise water and white sand. Liz’s ex-bodyguard had traveled the least out of all the Guards, something he’d never minded until now.

“Well, the Caribbean Sea looks something like this,” Violet said, shrugging. At Jade’s incredulous eyes, she laughed. “One of the original FBI agents thought he would be safe there after realizing most of his teammates were dying like flies, so I followed him there and finished the job.”

“The things we do for work,” Jade said. “This could be a nice place to settle in,” he added a moment later. Violet wrinkled her nose.

“Too touristy.”

“But at least close to the beach?”

“No one’s saying we have to settle anywhere. Earth is big enough,” Ash said behind them, also admiring the view. “But this is a nice place to start. A nice welcome back.”

“Or a nice farewell,” Jet said as he joined them. Out of the five original Guards, only three were leaving Antar. Both Jet and Shade had wanted to remain by Van’s side, and were here on duty. Shade, of course, remained invisibly guarding Van.

“Antar will sorely miss you all,” Van said, his long hair neatly tied behind his back moving with the breeze. There was an echo in every word His Majesty ever voiced, the echo of compulsive obedience. This was every shifter’s nightmare. The Seal had been gone for seventy years and then had come back for the past three, a harsh reminder of what it could do to all of them. If Van and Max could pull this off and destroy it, then Van would get the shifter’s undying loyalty till his last breath.

“And don’t forget,” Luke warned, “Once we leave today, the doors will remain closed. Unless His Majesty needs direct contact with Zan, we will never open them again.”

In the distance, Jade heard Liz’s familiar laughter somewhere behind them. Neither she nor Max had seen them yet, so Jade could watch them together as they talked on the improvised dance floor, a slow melody playing just for the two of them.

I knew Antar’s heart was safe in your hands, my Queen, he thought with a watery smile. I knew it even when he doubted it himself. I knew it all along.


* * *


Van had changed, Max noticed, as both men watched the first stars appear on an otherwise empty beach. The weight of the figurative crown made him walk straighter, and his eyes had taken on a more thoughtful edge. The rebel inside him still looked out for threats in the shadows, of course, but the idealism of rebellion was being replaced by the pragmatism of ruling.

“Did Zan ever have doubts?” Van quietly asked, “That his vision was not the right path?”

Max shook his head. “He had many doubts about many things, but he always knew that this was the right path. Shifters are valuable allies, but they do deserve to choose their own destinies.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Antar is ready for change now, even if Luke and the others fear I’m doing things too fast. But if you ask me, they’re afraid of suddenly having their lives in their own hands. Part of your Invisible Guard, on the other hand, is more than ready to settle here… and I can certainly see why.”

There were no beaches like Bali on Antar. Nothing so wildly beautiful.

“You’re always welcome to stay a week or two,” Max said, smiling. Van chuckled.

“I’ll take your word for that sometime in the next twenty years. Antar might be ready for change now, but it won’t happen overnight. Dismantling Khivar’s regime has taken the better part of these years. I wanted to come and destroy the Seal sooner—so much sooner, but I couldn’t risk guiding anyone back to you.”

“We appreciate your thoughtfulness. And I’m not asking this lightly, but are you sure you want to destroy it now?”

Van nodded, looking at the sea though probably looking farther, at some distant memory. “Luke kept telling me we had to make sure every shifter understood what I was giving up. That I needed to order them to speak their loyalties out loud; to root out those who’d willingly followed Khivar from those forced to do his binding. And I—I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t interrogate each and every one of them so everyone was satisfied. It felt—like robbing them of their own souls.”

“You’ve made incredibly tough decisions in your short reign, Your Majesty,” Max said, both proud and mournful for what Van had to do. On the other hand, if Van had been successful on his original mission, this would be Max’s life now: rebuilding an entire society from the ground up, where so much suspicious and anger lingered still. “It’s a heavy burden, to be able to order them to do your every wish.”

Van chuckled darkly at that.

“It’s too easy to misuse,” he said, his mind back to the here and now. “And too hard to control. My advisors tell me that among my soldiers, I’m called the Quiet King. The truth is that I’m terrified of speaking the wrong words. I only open my mouth when I’m absolutely sure of what the repercussions will be. Believe me when I say I wanted to come as soon as I could.”

Unlike Zan and those kings before him, Van had not grown witnessing the power of the Seal. Zan had known from his father how to wield it, how to effectively speak to command or to ask. But it was a skill that needed practice. Van had been entrusted with it out of nowhere, and Max could only wonder what kinds of mistakes had led Van to a silent existence.

“It’s a burden far greater than the crown will ever be,” Van confessed, now looking at Max. “I would give you half the riches of Antar to get rid of it, if you were to ask.”

“Van, of course I won’t—” Max started, feeling guilty for placing Van in this position. But Van lightly smiled at Max’s face.

“So I brought you the next best thing,” he continued, lifting his hand between them with a small silver device on his palm. A moment later, it displayed a holographic image. Hundreds of Antarian characters appeared. “This is the proclamation that Zan, with his dying wish, transferred the Seal to me, witnessed by his Royal Guard. It also contains Vilandra’s sentence for her crimes against the crown: permanent exile. Without her, General Rath has no claim to the crown. Although Rath himself is neither dead nor exiled, he’s been discharged with honors after two lifetimes of service.”

“It’s—it’s an official ending to the Royal Four?” Max asked.

“It’s my way of giving you your life back, Max. Zan was the rightful king of our world. You and I—we’re but plan A and plan B,” he said, signaling first Max and then himself. That made Max laugh.

“We were both entrusted with his destiny,” Max said with a nod as he received the silver object.

“But now it’s time for us both to forge our own paths,” Van said, “for me to let go of the shadow of the brother I never knew. I don’t want the Seal any more than you want to go back to Antar. If I have it my way, after tonight, we will never cross paths again.”

Max slowly lifted his hand towards Van’s forehead, making sure Van had every opportunity to back out of their deal. He didn’t even flinch.

“This might feel a bit odd,” Max whispered, unsure himself how to break it. Van barely nodded once.

The Seal appeared in Van’s forehead the moment Max searched for it. The five bright dots daring him to take them back. In his mind, Max saw them like five blue fireballs suspended in the sky, and with considerable effort, he extinguished them one by one with extreme precision.

Van staggered back as the last dot faded. There had been no connection, not a single flash. Sweat ran down Max’s temples. He’d had no idea how much energy this had cost him.

“Is it… really gone?” Van whispered. Max nodded, taking a deep breath to calm his racing heart.

“There’s nothing left,” he finally said. “May you live long and prosper, Your Majesty.”

Van smirked at the mock formality, and turned back to the resort, eager to test his newfound voice. No more Quiet King, Max fleetingly thought with amusement.

He started to follow and then stopped. I’m free, he realized with absolutely clarity. Memories or no memories, without the Seal to certify him, he had no claim to Antar. Like Van had just said, he was free to forge his own destiny.

And as he stepped forward, he closed his life as Antar’s once and future king, and started walking as just plain old Max Evans, husband, brother, and friend. Whatever was in store for him, he gladly walked into his new life, never to look back again.










AN: Well, if you’ve read this far, it means you’ve made it through over 500k words and more than 20 years of my life spent plotting, writing, and editing. What a long journey it has been T.T Thank you for coming back to read, and especially to those who left reviews. Every time I stopped writing for a few years, a single message from one of you completely made my day. In many ways, you’re the reason I finally finished this story. So, from the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU!

And finally, special thanks to xmag, who always kept me on my toes! Your constant reviews meant the world to me, girl!

Ouah, it's over. 20 years of writing this epic story, I can't understand what you are going through. 20 years!

And to think that I've been reading for 20 years, too. I still remember when you started posting it. That's crazy to think about it.

And now it's over. It's such a strange sensation. To say goodbye to those characters, to this universe. I will miss them. As soon as real life calms down, I will reread it from the start.

In my headcanon, Van and Max and all the gang will still see each other. Van could come on holidays to "decompress" from being the King. And hey, our gang could visit Antar or the other 5 planets. I mean, who would refuse traveling to other planets? I wouldn't !

So that's my headcanon. They live on Earth, happy and can travel the stars, too. Best of both worlds.