Roswell Fanatics

Author: Dee

Rating: MATURE

Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell and I think everyone here knows it.

Couples: M/L, Z/C and whoever else I decide to throw together.

Summary: Sequel to The Chosen Path. Something happens to change Max and Liz and the lives of their children forever. Will it bring them together or tear them apart?

Feedback: Sure. Why not?

Author's Note: I know I always say I'll update every week and then I'll end up in a posting frenzy so this time I'll just say I'll update when I have a new part. Deal? Great.





Prologue

Zan

“Cee! Get a move on, lady!” I toot the horn once. “Claudia, let’s go!” I follow my bellowing with another round of honking, leaning my head out the open window for effect.

She doesn’t appear, which I don’t find all that surprising. Punctuality is not her strong suit. I know this, have always known it and yet her tardiness never fails to irk me. We can go over the plan again and again and Claudia will still be late. And she knows I’m churning over this latest visit home so I’d think she would at least put forth some effort. Unbelievable!

With an eye roll and a huff I cut the engine to the truck and fling myself from the driver’s seat to stomp up the front porch. I start to ring the doorbell, but at the last moment decide to check the knob. It’s unlocked and so I walk right on in. I pretty much know the layout of the house blindfolded though Mr. McKee would be dumbfounded to discover that particular tidbit. Dumbfounded and furious to know I spent most of my nights in his daughter’s bed.

I find her rather quickly and not in the process of frenzied packing as I expected. She’s sitting on the sofa with a look of stunned disbelief on her face. Now I’m feeling downright surly, but I’ve got two days of monotonous driving ahead of me so I feel entitled to be cranky.

“Why are you just sitting there?” I rant querulously, “We’re supposed to be on the road by now, Cee. Dad and Liz are expecting us by Wednesday.” She looks up at me then, her gray eyes swimming with some emotion I can’t fathom. There are no fast excuses tripping off her tongue but in that second it doesn’t matter. My annoyance fades almost the instant our eyes connect because I know immediately that something is wrong.

“God, what happened?” I utter as I collapse down beside her, “Did you fail your English 101 exam? Did you and Shannon have another fight? What?” I fire the questions at her, hardly giving her the opportunity to answer, I know, but the vacant expression in her eyes is really wigging me out. “What?” I cry again, this time with mounting dread, “Is it your dad? Did you have another fight with him about me?”

She shook her head slowly and swallowed. “He left on a business trip this morning,” she whispers, “I didn’t even speak to him before he left.”

“Okay,” I say patiently, “Then what is it?” I gather her petite frame into my arms and thread my fingers into her silky skein of hair, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Tell me, baby,” I urge her. God, only she can create these mercurial rebounds in me. I’ve gone from irritated to concerned and protective in five seconds flat.

For a long time she just lies there against me and I listen to her breath becoming more and more rapid as we sit together. Whatever is wrong my presence is agitating her rather than providing comfort. Finally, when her chest is rising and falling like a frightened bird, Claudia pushes away from me and reaches behind her back, pulling something free that she’s obviously been hiding there. She passes it to me. A little white stick.

At first I give it nothing more than a fleeting glance, but then it hits me a second later just exactly what the “little white stick” is. A flurry of panic unfurls in my belly. Now it’s my turn to gulp. I stare down at the two dark pink lines on the test, my heart fluttering. “Is this what I think it means?” I whisper carefully.

“Yeah,” she says, confirming my worst fears, “A plus means positive, Zan.”

“No. No way,” I reply quickly, shaking my head in denial, “We’re always careful, Claudia. Always.”

That’s not an overstatement. There has never been a single condomless time between us. Not ever. We share a baby brother who is barely more than a year old, a part alien, part human child. Both Claudia and I know what a responsibility raising such a child would be. In fact we decided together that we would never subject a child to the secretive existence we lived ourselves. And, even if somewhere down the line, we did decide to have children it certainly wasn’t supposed to be like this. After being so utterly cautious, so unbelievably responsible here we are, seemingly another teenage statistic.

“God, I can’t believe this is happening,” I groan just as it dawns on me that Claudia hasn’t really said anything at all. Her very calmness is alarming in itself. I stare apprehensively into her pale features. “What are you thinking?” I ask cautiously.

She continues to look at me with that vacant stare and I know that she’s just churning with terror behind that composed veneer. “Zan, how am I gonna tell my mom,” she asks gruffly, “This is going to kill her.” Tears spill heedlessly down her cheeks, dripping from her chin and soaking into her skirt. “What the hell are we gonna do?”

TBC[quote][/quote]

I just wanted to thank you guys for all the feedback. I really didn't expect it.


Chapter 1

Liz

“I promise you, Liz, if you straighten that tablecloth one more time I’m going to stab you with this salad fork.” I stop peeling sweet potatoes long enough to level Maria with a withering glare. She’s unruffled, as usual, and merely lifts her shoulders in an unrepentant shrug. “Why do you persist in taking so much upon yourself at once, Lizzie?” she demands as she leans herself forward on the tabletop to regard me with an anxious look, “I’m surprised Max hasn’t said to you about it already. You’re going to make yourself sick with this pace.”

Max has said something. Time and time again, but I don’t tell Maria that. No need to add further fuel to her fire. With an exasperated sigh, I return to my frantic task. “Maria, really,” I reply dismissively, “I have it all under control, okay. If you’re really concerned about me, grab the potato peeler and help me with these yams. I’ve got two pies and a casserole to bake before Thursday.”

She does as I ask, but not without a great deal of muttering complaints. But I’m not naïve enough to believe she’s given up on hounding me. That is so NOT Maria. “Lizzie, let’s examine the facts, shall we?” she opens.

“Let’s not,” I counter brusquely, but I well know no one can shut Maria DeLuca up once she’s worked herself up this way.

“You just started a new job at the hospital not six months ago,” Maria states, stabbing the peeler in my general direction, “You’re technically still a newlywed and you’re also a new mother to an adorable, but quite precocious fifteen month old. Your eldest is away at college, which I know is depressing you more than you’ve let on because you were hoping she’d come back to Roswell and attend the University of New Mexico. And, finally, this whole situation with David is steadily getting out of hand.” She thwacks the peeler onto the countertop. “There. Have I covered everything?”

It makes no difference that I know, on some subconscious level, that she’s right because I’m too irritated over the fact I’ve been lectured to. I get that enough from Max. He’s always worrying about whether I’m eating enough or resting enough or if I’m spreading myself too thin. I know his hovering is born out of concern and love but, honestly, he’s beginning to make me feel a little suffocated. I can’t seem to make him understand that keeping busy is the only way I’m managing to keep myself together.

Seventeen months ago when Max and I were first married all I had seen ahead of me was blue skies and rainbows. I was so happy, for the first time in a long while that I don’t think I considered anything realistically at that point. Max and I had been on this blissful, newlywed high, so lost in each other that nothing else had even mattered beyond our tiny world. It hadn’t been until after Max and I returned from our honeymoon in Barbados two weeks later that the real test began. I hadn’t been back an entire day before the custody issue with David resurfaced.

The entire idea was ridiculous and, of course, I told him that. At the time Claudia was seventeen and in her senior year of high school. Legally, she’d be an adult in only a few months time. It hadn’t made any sense to me that David would want to rehash the entire custody battle when Claudia was living with him at the time. But his reasoning became abundantly clear very soon after. Apparently, David had wanted Claudia to have nothing to do with the alien abyss and since I had married into it he had thought it best that my daughter stay away from me as well. And that’s when the real fighting began….not just with David, but with Max as well.

Those first few months after Claudia had gone to stay with him it had taken everything short of an act of Congress to get David to agree to let her visit Roswell even for a few days. It didn’t matter when her school break fell or how easy I made the transition David always had an excuse for why he thought she shouldn’t come. Eventually, I had grown tired of fighting him and opted just to visit her in Sacramento instead. Unfortunately, we learned rather quickly that Max wasn’t welcome in David’s home. Our first visit there had been utterly explosive and, in the end, we were compelled to meet Claudia elsewhere when we visited just to avoid a scene.

The situation made Claudia uncomfortable, I could tell, and I worried constantly over how the stress might affect her therapy. She had made such progress in the last year, but she still had her vulnerable spots. And even though she’s been off the anti-depressants for nearly five months now I continue to be sensitive about her mental state. That is the very reason I didn’t fight David about his highhandedness or even attempt to yank Claudia out of school and take her back to Roswell with me. I was so frightened that she might have a relapse I felt paralyzed against making any sort of stand. I also had to contend with an infant around the time all the drama began unfolding as well and felt as if I were being pulled in one hundred different directions.

On the one hand, I can understand David’s viewpoint and his desire that Claudia keep as far from the alien madness as possible. I had wanted that very same thing once myself. In David’s mind, Zan is completely responsible for the breakdown Claudia had a year earlier. He hasn’t let himself accept the fact that, if anyone was responsible for screwing Claudia up emotionally, it is the two of us. Zan has never done anything but love our daughter even when she didn’t deserve it, but David is hearing none of that. Which is why I know all hell would break loose if he were to learn that, not only is Zan attending school there in Sacramento with Claudia, but the two of them are actually seeing each other as well and have been for over a year. And though I’m happy my daughter has finally found someone to love her the way Max loves me I’d be lying if I said that part of me isn’t disheartened to know it’s Zan.

Really I have nothing against my stepson anymore. We crossed that bridge a long time ago and, under ideal circumstances, I would have gift wrapped Zan and given him to Claudia. But the situation isn’t ideal. Zan is an alien and my stepson, but worse still, my ex-husband happens to hate him thoroughly. Factor in also that David knows his most coveted secret and the potential for disaster is endless. And though David has never once threatened me with going public the possibility is always there, hanging over my head. That fact has actually been the source of my recent problems with Max.

It’s not that Max and I are on the brink of divorce or anything. The two of us waited far too long and loved way too hard to give up on our marriage that easily. But we are definitely being tested. We do fight. And a lot lately, too. From little things about the color scheme in the living room to monumental things about how we should raise our son Justin, who is coincidently the perfect combination of his older brother and sister, Max and I are continually at odds.

At the crux of our fights is always the issue with David. Max is breaking under the strain and I don’t blame him. David has been quite volatile lately and he carries a secret that could potentially destroy us all. Max has never been too comfortable with that knowledge and, with recent developments, has been made all the more antsy because of it. I know that the situation must truly have Max agitated because lately he’s even been considering warping David for our safety.

But I can’t let him do that. I won’t manipulate David that way. And not because we were once married or even because we share a child but because I don’t want to be like her. I can’t forget how Tess Harding used her mindwarping abilities to bend Max to her will and the havoc that was wreaked because of it. I can’t forget that Alex died because of it. And I can’t find justification in inflicting that same thing on David simply because he’s scared.

Though my sense of morality is probably misplaced in this instance, I can’t knowingly condone such a thing after witnessing firsthand the type of damage that can be done. Max and I fight about this constantly and we’re getting nowhere. I know he believes the end justifies the means in this case, but I simply can’t reconcile my conscience with doing such a thing. When I returned to work I didn’t do so out of some desire to reenter the workforce. I would have much rather stayed at home with Justin and watched him grow up. Instead, my decision was prompted out of the desire to escape the house and the incessant bickering with Max.

“Maria,” I say now and in my most woeful tone, “Please, if you care about me at all…just drop it. I really not up for yet another serious conversation. It’s barely noon.”

“Another?” Maria queries, her brows snapping together. I actually groan aloud, but this time I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. I walked right into that one. “What do you mean another?” She lowers her voice to a bare whisper. “Have you and Max been fighting again, Liz?”

I shrug, presenting a veneer of indifference I don’t feel. Really, I’m actually quite close to tears at this point. “What else is new?” I say, only to have to set aside my potato peeler when a tear actually slips down my cheek. Almost mutinously, I swipe it away. “We keep going around and around in circles about this David thing and I…” My voice chokes off at this point and I have to swallow several times before I can continue. “It’s starting to bleed over into other things as well and now we fight about practically everything. I can’t even remember the last time we just sat down and talked to each other without yelling.”

“Maybe you should consider Max’s suggestion,” Maria advises tentatively, “You know…about the mindwarping.”

I snap my wounded gaze to her face in disbelief. “Maria, you’re not serious.”

“Lizzie, normally I’d say no,” she says gruffly, “You know how I feel about all that alien mambo jumbo. I’d rather leave it. But David is really a loose cannon right now. I know he says he’ll never tell the secret for Claudia’s sake, but it’s clear he’s not thinking straight. You can’t leave something like this to chance.”

“If he was going to tell he would have done so by now,” I reason dully, “We can’t go tinkering around in his head based on what he might do. Besides I don’t like the idea of warping him.”

“It doesn’t make you like Tess,” Maria says, easily discerning what I left unspoken, “She manipulated for her own selfish purposes.”

“Aren’t I considering the same thing?” I ask sadly.

“You’d be protecting your family,” Maria clarifies, “As you’re entitled, no obligated to do.”

“There has to be another way.”

“Liz, maybe you don’t have a choice anymore,” Maria points out sagely.

“There’s always a choice,” I counter stubbornly, grabbing back up my peeler and returning to my potatoes. “That’s why this dinner has to go as smoothly as possible. I can’t afford for anything to go wrong, Maria.”

My agitation at this point must be glaringly evident because Maria finally takes up her own peeler and puts forth some serious effort to help me. “I still don’t see what inviting David to Thanksgiving dinner is supposed to accomplish,” she mutters when she gets up from the counter to scrape the yam shavings into the trash. When she faces me again her green eyes are clouded over with worry. “I think you’re setting yourself up for a big fall, Lizzie.”

“Now you sound just like Max,” I sigh in weary disgust.

“I happen to agree with him this time,” Maria says, “David has been a complete asshole to you and Max for the better part of a year now. Max can’t even set foot on his doorstep without David shitting a brick, for crying out loud! And now you’re asking Max to stomach having the man at his dinner table during a time that should be reserved for family only?” She emits a disbelieving snort. “God, Liz! Even I think that’s crossing the line.”

“Maria,” I begin calmly, “This is David’s opportunity to see firsthand that we’re just a normal family and that…that Claudia’s world isn’t going to be blown apart because her stepfather and boyfriend are aliens.”

“Does that mean he knows about Zan and Claude then?” Maria demands skeptically.

My gaze skitters away guiltily. “Not exactly,” I confess meekly.

Maria zeroes in on those two, insignificant words. “Not exactly?” she parrots, “And what are you going to say when he sees Zan and Claudia all kissy face at the dinner table? Chalk it all up to sibling affection?”

“I would think they both would have more discretion than that, Maria,” I reply dryly.

“So then you expect them to hide it?” she charges. I say nothing, but I don’t need to. Maria’s already arrived at her own conclusion. She snorts for a second time. “Yeah, I can see that going over really well with Zan and Claude,” she remarks sardonically.

“Claudia’s keeping her relationship with Zan a secret from David anyway,” I reason blandly, “I wouldn’t be asking her to do anything she isn’t already doing.”

Maria resumes her perch across from me, her expression caught somewhere between sympathy and skepticism. “Liz, I get what you’re trying to do here, but…” she sighs, “Claude’s visits home are the only times when she can be completely real about her feelings for Zan and feel like she’s part of a happy family. It’s not fair that she should be on guard her entire holiday.”

“It’s not like I had much choice,” I reply raggedly, “I doubt David would have been as accommodating about allowing her to visit if I hadn’t invited him, too. He would have put up a stink about it otherwise. As it was, just convincing him to agree to dinner was a small feat in itself. I’m just so tired of fighting with him about this, Maria.” I wearily drop my head down into my hands. “I’m working with the best I’ve got right now.”

I hear her circle around the table and a moment later she’s pressing my shoulders in a tender hug. “I know you are, sweetie,” she croons gently, “I don’t want you to feel like I’m jumping all over you. Lord knows I’m not in a position to give you advice on life decisions right now.”

I bite back an ironic smile over her comment. By now it’s widely known among our family and friends that Maria and Michael are off again and for the same reason as before. Evidently, Maria’s career pursuits had continued to create a wedge between them despite their obvious love for one another. Everything had come to a head about two months earlier when Michael worked up the courage to ask Maria to marry him. He’d gone the full distance with the ring, romantic setting and bended knee. In the end, Maria had turned him down. The two have barely been on speaking terms since. That fact saddens me, especially when I see how lost and miserable Maria is without him.

“You know Michael will be at dinner, too,” I tell her, patting her hand, which is draped loosely around my shoulder, “Are you sure you can handle that?”

Maria pulls away and shrugs, much the way I did earlier when she asked about Max and me. But like me I know Maria isn’t as unaffected as she wants to seem. “What do I care what Michael does?” she says, “He’s got his own life now and I have mine.”

“He really loves you, Maria,” I insist gently, “You broke his heart when you turned down his proposal. Surely, you know that.”

Maria whirls on me then, eyes flashing. “Well, I guess he shouldn’t have given me an ultimatum then,” she spits irately, “It should have never come down to a choice between my career and him, Liz.”

“But you chose your career, Maria,” I point out stridently, “How do you think that made him feel, that showbiz meant more to you than he did?”

Pink glossed lips twist into a bitter smirk as she regards me. “Since when did you become a champion for Michael Guerin, Liz?” she demands in irritation.

“Since I’ve had to watch him mope around for the last two months while you’ve been away on tour,” I say in reply. She’s evidently unmoved by my argument for all she does is stare me down. “At least talk to him, Maria,” I cajole, “It’s the holidays…”

“No,” she replies tightly, “Michael and I said all we had to say to each other the last time we spoke and he called me a self-centered bitch for wanting something more than Roswell fucking New Mexico. No, Liz…this time Michael and I are truly done. I don’t care what he does anymore.” By this point I know I must look stricken by her vehemence because when she looks at me her expression abruptly loses its hard edge and becomes sheepish. She even laughs a little. “Look at us,” she mutters self-deprecatingly, “Tell me what is it about these Czechoslovakians that turn our lives upside down, Liz?”

“I wish I knew, Maria,” I reply with a solemn little chuckle, “I really wish I knew.”

I'm back. I feel like I've been away from this fic for months but it's really only been a couple of weeks. Please bear with me as we ride the twists and turns of this fic. I know where I want to go...I just haven't decided how I'm going to get there. But it will work out in the end...trust me.


Chapter 2

Max

She’s in the kitchen talking with Maria but it might as well be Zambia for all the emotional distance that stretches between us. Under normal circumstances I might have joined her by now, might have tiptoed up behind her and planted a tender kiss against her neck. Under normal circumstances she might have welcomed the touched, perhaps even returned it. But the circumstances are quite far from normal right now. Liz and I aren’t touching each other at all these days…we’re hardly speaking, in fact. Weeks ago the silence between us would have filled me with indignance and frustration, however now I’m only filled with an inordinate sadness. Because I now view the silence between us as a blessing, a welcome break in the constant snarking that has become our daily fare.

I can’t exactly remember how we came to this point. It seems the silence crept up on us, surreptitious and insidious, eating away at our marriage from the inside out. A year ago when David first began his campaign of misery and control Liz and I had stood united. She had wanted to protect Claudia and I had wanted to protect her.

Back then I don’t think either of us had really viewed David as any real threat. He’d been understandably upset following Claudia’s breakdown and looking for someone to blame. Zan had been a convenient scapegoat. His small part in Claudia’s collapse as well as the nature of his relationship with her made McKee understandably uncomfortable. Lately, however, my understanding has been stretched then. As McKee’s behavior has grown increasingly erratic in the passing months my confidence in his common sense has begun to wan. Liz thinks he needs time. I think he needs to be silenced.

By this point I’m on automatic, poised to protect my loved ones no matter the cost. McKee is no longer quietly hostile, but is now launching a vindictive campaign aimed towards my family. What had begun as a nuisance has become a full-fledged campaign to keep my wife separated from her daughter. I can’t allow him to continue to call the shots in Liz’s life or in mine.

This isn’t my sense of self-preservation kicking into gear either, but the sole and visceral impulse to protect my wife and children. McKee has proven himself increasingly unpredictable with each passing month. I believe nothing will satisfy him until he sees me broken and lonely and miserable because he is broken and miserable and lonely. He’s on a vengeful rampage right now.

That’s the honest truth of it. I know, despite Liz’s clinging insistence, that David’s hostility really has nothing to do with Claudia and her institutionalization last year but the fact that I have his family. His wife is now my wife and his daughter now my daughter. That had to smart, especially because I suspect McKee still blames me for the demise of his and Liz’s marriage.

Though the issues with McKee might have started with Claudia’s breakdown I certainly don’t believe that excuses his actions of the last six months, even beyond that. I’m actually surprised that Liz has been so willing to forgive. It’s as if she refuses to see him for the vindictive, calculating bastard he is. McKee’s efforts to keep Liz and Claudia apart, to control every aspect of his daughter’s life have little to do with his desire to keep Claudia safe. He wants to punish Liz for leaving him. He wants to punish her for loving me.

Of course I’ve tried to explain this to Liz time and time again to no avail. She wants to believe the best of him, which is why she’s continually trying to approach McKee’s unreasonableness from a logical standpoint. She thinks if she can present a family that’s happy enough, perfect enough somehow McKee will be satisfied and back off. Liz doesn’t realize that logic has nothing to do with it. There is absolutely nothing she can do to appease the man. He’s determined to find fault no matter what. That’s exactly the reason I find her determination to have him over for Thanksgiving dinner so utterly ridiculous. David McKee doesn’t want to be reassured. He’s just lying in wait right now, looking for a reason to blow our family apart.

I’ve told Liz this as well, but she seems to be in denial about that fact. She can’t believe or won’t believe that McKee would do anything that would potentially harm his own daughter. I’ve reminded her of the foolish things I did and said to her after Alex’s death. I never stopped loving her or needing her during that time at all. And yet I still managed to destroy everything special between us…so thoroughly in fact that I didn’t see her again for more than a decade. If I was capable of such stupidity then undoubtedly McKee isn’t beyond such asinine behavior either.

My analogy, however, failed to have the desired results. If anything my observation seemed to make Liz even angrier than before. I suspect that I hit a nerve, that maybe on some level she knew I was right, not that it mattered anyway. What has that small victory gained me? After a week of fruitless yelling each of us has fallen into mutual avoidance. And now even the silence is eating away at me. I’d almost prefer the fighting just because at least then she acknowledged I was alive. The way things stand presently I might as well be invisible and, honestly, I’ve grown weary of it. I miss her.

It matters little if I’m right and she’s wrong or vice versa. What am I proving by waging this battle of wills with her? I’m definitely not gaining any sort of satisfaction. I absolutely detest fighting with Liz. My feelings spring, not from my inability to ever win a disagreement with her though that’s aggravating enough, but the hard exterior she takes on whenever we disagree. She erects a high, emotional wall between us, an old defense mechanism she’d acquired all those years ago. It’s a decidedly effective way of shutting me out, too. In those times she seems so cold, so unapproachable…so like the guarded Liz she was when she first returned to Roswell. In those times I hardly know her.

That’s part of the reason I’m so afraid to go into the kitchen after her now. There’s an air of futility that hangs about. Something niggles at the back of my mind that approaching her will only succeed in making matters worse. Even if we manage to begin calmly there’s every chance we will degenerate into an argument before we’re through. In the end she will walk away unscathed while I’ll be left feeling utterly shattered.

I can never understand how she can shrug it off so easily, like she never cared at all. Sometimes it makes me wonder if I truly have her heart. I wonder if somewhere deep inside Liz still doesn’t keep a small piece of herself hidden away from me. I wonder if she actually loves me as much as I love her.

God, now I’m thinking too much.

I almost wish now that Justin was still awake. He had provided a welcome distraction with his childish giggles and boundless energy. At least then I didn’t need to constantly remind myself of all the reasons I should steer clear of the kitchen. At least then I didn’t worry constantly about whether or not I was losing my wife. At least then I was twisting myself inside out. Now with Justin asleep and Michael unwilling to come within a ten-mile radius of the house as long as Maria is here I am quickly running out of reasons to avoid my wife.

“It might go better if you actually went inside.”

I jerk upright to find Maria smirking at me from the threshold of the kitchen entrance. She doesn’t look like she’s just spent the last two hours in the kitchen sweating over a hot oven. Her tan suede skirt and form-fitting tan sweater are still as crisp and clean as they were when she first arrived early this morning. She’s impeccable. Not even a faint dusting of flour covers her gleaming brown boots and nary a blond curl is out of place. I have to wonder what she’s been doing with Liz in the kitchen all this time because by the looks of her she definitely hasn’t been cooking.

“How long have you been standing there?” I ask warily as I push myself away from the wall. I can feel my cheeks warm with the sting of humiliation because I’m sure she’s assumed I was eavesdropping on her conversation with Liz. However, I refuse to explain myself. This is my damned house, after all.

“You know, Max…I could ask you the same thing,” she says, “I never took you for the skulking type.”

I grunt out a humorless chuckle. “Actually I was just trying to decide the wisdom of going into the kitchen.”

Maria shrugs in her typical, unaffected manner. “I don’t know if it would be wise or not,” she replies candidly, “But if you’re asking my opinion…I think you should probably go and talk to your wife.”

“Ahh…but, she doesn’t want to talk to me,” I point out.

“Well, I just spent the last two hours with her and I beg to differ,” she says.

“I don’t buy it.”

“You sure about that?” Maria challenges.

“How about you deal with your own love life,” I tell her in mild irritation, “And leave me to work out my own.”

“Alrighty then. Be a smart ass,” she says with yet another shrug, “I’m going to go across town and visit with my mom.” As she passes me though she splays a comforting hand across the top of my shoulder. Her green eyes are devoid of their usual sarcastic glint when she looks at me. I instantly feel like a horse’s behind for being so snarky. “She really needs to talk to someone, Max,” she whispers sincerely, “Please. Fix whatever’s wrong between you two, okay? Somebody needs to have the happily ever after, you know.”

I lean forward with a disgruntled sigh and brush a light kiss across her forehead. I’m not going to give her any more trouble because I know her meddling has much to do with her love for Liz as well as her desire not to see us end up as she and Michael have. “What would we do without you, DeLuca?”

“Most likely be alone and embittered,” she quips with a laugh, “I’ll be back by dinnertime and I expect things between you and Liz to be significantly less frosty when I return. Comprende?”

I offer her a snappy salute. “Comprende.” I deliberately watch her walk away and disappear out of sight just so I can linger outside the kitchen a moment longer and delay the inevitable. However, once I hear the front door slam I know I’m out of excuses. There’s no one left in the house now but Liz, Justin and me and I doubt Justin will be rousing from his nap to come to my rescue. With one last steadying breath I duck into the kitchen.

Upon entering I nearly gag. The heat inside the kitchen is stifling, rolling off the various pots and pans sizzling on the stove in thick puffs of steam. Every single eye is accounted for as well as the oven. Just standing there for those few seconds I can feel beads of sweat form on my forehead and upper lip. Yet, in contrast with the oppressive warmth, the kitchen is filled with all sorts of delicious, inviting aromas. Apparently, all Liz’s time in the kitchen this morning wasn’t due solely to idle avoidance.

But she’s not so hard at work right now. She’s seated at the small island in the middle of the room, looking forlorn and exhausted and staring off into space. However, the moment she notices my presence her expression hardens and she snatches up her small paring knife, going through the motions of slicing an onion. “Max, I’m really not in the mood--,”

“Whoa…Whoa,” I say, cutting off her terse dismissal in mid-tirade, “I come in peace.” She pierces me with frosty brown eyes full of skepticism. I throw up my hands in surrender. “I’m serious,” I insist.

“I hope so,” she murmurs deliberately, “Otherwise you’ll be leaving here in pieces.” I don’t take offense at her dire threat. I can see the reluctant smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I was kinda hoping to see you anyway.”

“Were you?” I ask softly.

She fixes me with melting brown eyes. “Can we just call a cease fire for now?”

I nod eagerly. That’s the best suggestion I’ve heard all day. “Do you need any help?” I ask, ready to get our newly established truce underway, “What can I do?”

“Nothing really,” she sighs, “I’m just waiting for everything to finish cooking right now.” She pushes her perspiration soaked bangs back from her forehead. “Really I was just thinking….”

“Yeah,” I query carefully, taking the seat across from her, “About what?”

I watch as she traces the dotted pattern on the countertop with the edge of her fingernail. “Max? If…If I told you that maybe I thought you were right about inviting David here for Thanksgiving would you gloat about it?”

I bite back my near smile. “Are you saying that I’m right?”

“Are you saying that you’d gloat?” she counters.

“Liz, you know I won’t do that.”

“I don’t know,” she hedges dully, “Lately I’m not so sure of anything you do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ve been going out of your way to avoid me, Max.”

“Maybe because every time I try to talk to you I get my head bitten off,” I reply defensively, “It’s not an enjoyable experience.”

Hearing the censure in my tone, she glowers at me. “Did you ever consider that maybe you bring that on yourself? Max, you know this whole mindwarping idea is completely wrong.”

“No, I don’t know it’s ‘completely wrong,’ Liz,” I reply brusquely. I can feel my ire rising. It’s not so much that I expect her to arbitrarily agree with my methods but the least she can do is back me up…especially because I’m only thinking of her and our family. “What exactly do you want to do, Liz?” I charge shortly, “Do you want to wait until he turns us all over to the Feds? Then will you want to do damage control?”

“It won’t come to that,” she protests.

“Oh-ho,” I snort out sardonically, “Can you see into the future now?”

“Max, you don’t know David like I do, okay! I was married to the man for over fourteen years,” she tells me with quiet emphasis, “He can be petulant and an ass sometimes but he would never do anything to deliberately jeopardize his child.”

“And what if he thinks exposing us would help Claudia and not harm her,” I ask stonily, “What then?”

“Max, please,” she says, her tone softening to one of cajolery, “David is still reeling from what happened with Claude last year. He needs someone to blame. Once he comes to terms with his part in Claudia’s breakdown then I’m sure he’ll ease up.”

“Liz, it’s been over a year,” I remind her succinctly, “If he hasn’t come to terms with it by now I doubt he ever will. My God!” I utter, growing steadily angrier at her continued denials and excuses. “What will it take for you, huh? The man is keeping you from your daughter…he’s trying to come between us…he’s--,”

“He’s never once threatened to go to the FBI about your secret, Max!” she interrupts sharply, “Never once. But because you feel threatened you think that gives you license to go walking around in his brain so you can pick it apart!”

“Dammit! I’m trying to protect us!” I retort hotly, “I won’t sit around and wait for what he might do!”

She winces, her expression caught somewhere between disappointment and disgust. “You said you wouldn’t start,” she says in soft accusation. And then I watch in remorseful dread as she gradually shuts down, retreating behind her stony façade once more. “There’s no point in having this discussion anymore,” she says tonelessly, “Maybe I made a mistake inviting David here…it doesn’t matter now. He’s coming on Thursday and you need to deal with that.” She pushes herself up from her stool and walks over to the stove, thereby dismissing the conversation and me. It takes all the willpower I have not to leap off my stool and stalk after her.

However, I do swivel around to face her, my entire body vibrating with frustrated anger. “This is still my house, Liz,” I intone calmly, “I definitely have some say in who does and does not come to dinner.”

She chokes out a scathing little laugh and tosses me a narrowed glare over her shoulder. “Your house,” she scoffs, “And here I thought it was our house, Max.”

God! How can I love this woman so much and want to strangle her all at once. Like usual she’s managed to turn the whole thing around on me and I’m the bad guy. Everything went down just as I knew it would. The chasm between us is wider now than it was before I came in. It’s so fucking ironic when my goal had actually been to make peace with her. I could probably laugh if the whole thing weren’t so thoroughly depressing. So much for the proverbial olive branch.

Now I can’t remember why I even bothered.

TBC

Chapter 3

Claudia

He hasn’t said much in the last three hours, not since I so bluntly informed him that he’s going to be a father. I’m not completely surprised by his reaction but that doesn’t mean I’m not hurt by it either. He doesn’t need to go into a complete outpouring of feeling right now either. Even I can’t muster up that much, but at this point I’d be satisfied with a string of monosyllabic grunts, anything that gave me a little insight into what he’s feeling right now. The not knowing is making me crazy. However, I don’t have the wherewithal to be angry with him. I’m too numb.

I’ve spent three days preparing myself for the likelihood of pregnancy. Three hellish, agonizing days. Only when I was mentally prepared, or so I thought, for the results did I finally work up the courage to go out and buy a test. How the hell did I ever think I was ready to know? My world literally fell apart when I saw that reading on the little stick. I knew then that the life I’d known had just…ended.

This isn’t an exaggeration by any stretch of the imagination. I am eighteen years old and I live at home with my father, a father who has grown increasingly controlling over this last year. News of my pregnancy will just send him over the edge and of course he’ll blame Zan completely…just like he blames him for everything else. I haven’t even tackled the realization that I’ve only just started my freshman year of college. Good God, I haven’t even declared my major yet!

To say that I’m frightened right now doesn’t begin to put my feelings into perspective. However, it isn’t the prospect of becoming a mother that is freaking me out presently. It’s the prospect of facing my own. She’ll be furious, heartbroken, but above all…disappointed.

She will most likely see my pregnancy as a repeat of her own. Every fear she’s ever had for me has come to fruition with this pregnancy. After all, I am only eight months older than she was when she became pregnant with me. Now I understand exactly how my mother felt back then. Lonely…scared and as if every dream she’d ever had was crumbling right in front of her. Like her future was suddenly nothing and she was going nowhere. All the dreams I had for Zan and me have come to a grinding halt. No wonder she resented me so much. No wonder she blamed me for ruining her life. Maybe I had…

But I have to remind myself that this isn’t my baby’s fault. He or she didn’t ask to be conceived. Zan and I made the decision to have sex. We took the chances and now we have to live with the consequences. I remember thinking the first time we made love that I could never regret something so beautiful, so mind blowing, so unbelievably perfect, but right now…at this second, I regret it more than anything in the world. Because that moment started us down this road.

I’m not surprised that Zan is taking the reality of my pregnancy so hard. He has to find it damned near improbable. I know I did, which is exactly the reason it took me so long to even consider buying a pregnancy test. We had always been careful. We had always been protected so pregnancy couldn’t be a likelihood at all, right? But I guess it’s true what they say about pre-ejaculation…because, apparently, that can get you pregnant, too.

The thing was that Zan and I discovered that the connection between us was sharper, more intense without the latex. I didn’t just see the pictures in his mind. I became him. We became each other. His emotions were my emotions, his sensations my sensations. The result was powerful because my nerve endings were set afire not only with the pleasure he was giving me, but the pleasure I was giving him in return.

Sometimes we would start off that way, just skin-to-skin because it felt too good not to, but Zan would never finish without a condom. Eventually we stopped our game of roulette altogether because breaking the connection became harder and harder each time. I guess we didn’t stop soon enough.

I slant a glance over in his direction. He’s still staring out into the road, his jaw mutinously tight, brooding. That’s what I’ve brought him to. Brooding? I snort inwardly. God, my Zan is not a brooder or at least he didn’t used to be. I think some of my moodiness has managed to rub off on him, but then much of his goodness and wisdom has managed to rub off on me. I know we’re good together, despite the circumstances right now. I know it will work out fine. We’ll figure it out just like always.

And suddenly I don’t feel like I’m in a tailspin anymore because I’m filled with the certainty that this will work out somehow. Zan and I are smart and resourceful and we’ve been through so much worse. I don’t think a baby is going to drive us apart.

I reach forward and touch his hand where it lays on the gearshift, curling my hand around his fingers. He swivels a look at me, clearly startled by the advance. “It’s going to be okay, baby,” I whisper softly.

He swallows hard and looks away. That’s when I recognize how very close to tears he is. A few crystalline drops fall on his cheeks despite his rapid attempts to blink them back. “You…uh…you don’t blame me then?” he queries gruffly.

Where does he come up with this stuff? “Why would I blame you?” I ask him blankly.

“You just got yourself together again, Cee,” he says, his voice almost inaudible, “With school and all this drama going on with your dad…this is the last thing you need. I should have been more careful.”

“Zan, it’s not your fault.” He flashes be a woebegone look. “Well, not entirely your fault,” I amend sheepishly, “I wanted to and we were careful…”

“Not careful enough,” he interjects gruffly, “I’m so mad at myself. I guess I couldn’t believe you weren’t mad at me, too.”

“We both did this, Zan,” I tell him, “We did this together, okay. Don’t shoulder all the blame. You always do that and it’s not right.”

We fall into another round of silence. He concentrates on the highway ahead of us. I pick at the imaginary lent specks on my skirt. He readjusts his ball cap. I push my sunglasses higher onto my nose. “So when do you think it happened?” he asks suddenly, making me jump.

“What?”

He nods in the general vicinity of my belly. “You know…”

“Had to be a month ago sometime,” I answer, “My period is a week overdue so I’ve got to be about five or six weeks along.” He groans but I don’t need to ask why. We’re talking about an alien pregnancy here, completely rapid growth. My mother’s pregnancy lasted a bare six months. In every likelihood my own pregnancy will progress just as quickly.

“Why didn’t you say something to me?” he demands softly.

“I didn’t think that was the reason I was late,” I reply honestly. And I hadn’t. My menstruation had been plenty flaky once I started taking my antidepressants. It would come every month, but when it did was always a surprise. Even after I stopped taking them my period remained unpredictable. I’d even been toying around with the idea of birth control pills just to regulate it. I suppose that’s a moot point now.

“So then you were avoiding me all this week,” he concludes after a thoughtful moment, “I thought I was being paranoid. I guess you weren’t really studying with Shannon and Lisa after all.”

“No, I was studying with them,” I tell him wryly, “But it was a convenient excuse.” He flashes me a disgruntled frown. “I couldn’t see you okay!” I burst out defensively, “I didn’t want to freak you out if it turned out to be nothing.”

“But it’s not nothing,” he says quietly, “God, you’re pregnant, Cee.”

“Yeah, I kinda know that,” I mutter sardonically.

“God,” he mutters again, “What are we going to do about school? About money? How are we supposed to support this kid? Neither one of us has jobs.” He groans again, working himself up into a general panic with each subsequent question. “And oh, God, our parents! What the hell are we supposed to tell them? They’re gonna freak! And your dad…he already hates me thoroughly. He’s gonna pop a vein when he finds out you’re pregnant!”

“Zan, calm down.” I almost laugh aloud to hear that statement come out of my mouth. Usually it’s the other way around. Usually Zan is the one always trying to soothe me out of a righteous frenzy. I can’t miss the irony at our reversed roles. “We just need to think this through,” I tell him evenly.

My composed reasoning seems to snap him back to his senses because he quickly composes himself. Or maybe he just needed to vent aloud all his rampaging emotions. “You’re right,” he agrees with a deep sigh, “We need to take this one step at a time. First things first…do you want this baby, Cee?” I jerk around to face him, startled and quite dumbfounded by the question. “Wh-What I mean is…if you don’t…if you don’t want it…I can…”

“I want it,” I reply firmly, cutting off his stammered offer. Really I don’t know whether I should smack him or hug him right now. Obviously just the mere thought of doing such a thing galled him completely and yet he would have…if I wanted him to. But his question causes me to consider other things as well. Did Zan make the suggestion for me or for himself? I regard him speculatively, my stomach knotting with uncertainty. “Do…do you want it?” I ask him haltingly.

“Honestly?” he whispers.

“Yeah,” I tell him, but I’m mentally preparing myself for the worst.

“I think I do,” he says deliberately. His response stuns me into silence. The emotional tirade ready at my lips dies as suddenly as it had been formed. “At first when you told me…I didn’t. It seemed like the end of our lives, you know. We both just started the Fall semester and things were starting to calm down a little with your dad… This pregnancy just happened at the worst possible time.

“But then I’ve been driving and thinking and…we like made this little person, Cee.” He looks at me, his blue eyes penetrating and electric. I shiver under the intensity of his gaze. “We actually made a baby. I can’t get over that.”

“Why didn’t you say anything before now?” I wonder, “You were just so silent I thought…I thought maybe you were mad at me.”

He glances back out at the road, stifling a mirthless chuckle. “You were freaking…was I supposed to tell you I was happy I’d ruined your life?” He shrugs. “Besides I was still sorting it out for myself. I still don’t know how we’re going to make this work.”

“You haven’t ruined my life, Zan,” I whisper, but he only grunts in response. “I guess this means we have some decisions to make, huh?”

Zan nods gravely. “I think I’m gonna have to drop out of school.”

“What?” I cry, “Zan, no!”

“Just for a little while.”

“No way!”

“I can’t go to school full-time and support you and a baby, Cee,” he reasons, “It’s not feasible.”

“You can’t just drop out of school either,” I argue, “There has to be another way. Maybe our parents--,”

“Claudia,” he says in a tone I know means that he’s already made up his mind so any arguments on my part will be futile, “We can’t go to our parents for help, okay. We’re both adults so we need to be the ones to deal with this. I don’t want to drag them into this.”

“And I don’t want you to drop out.”

“I don’t have much choice,” he says, “Dad and Liz have a baby to support themselves. They don’t need to worry about Justin, us and our kid, too.” My devastation over his decision must be plain on my face because he tries to reassure me with a soft smile. “It’s not the end of the world,” he says, “I can always go back later.”

I fold my arms across my chest in a purely petulant gesture. “Well, then I’ll drop out, too,” I return. On some level I realize my reaction is utterly childish, but emotional blackmail seems to be my only recourse.

Zan makes a little scoffing sound under his breath. “Cee, this isn’t a contest,” he tells me, “You can still go to school, okay, but one of us needs to have a full time job. You obviously can’t be the one to do that so the responsibility falls to me.”

I hate it when he breaks everything down so logically. I can’t argue with him when he’s being reasonable. “So you drop out of school…then what?” I demand sullenly.

“I guess we need to find our own place.”

“My dad will mad cow if I move in with you,” I declare succinctly.

“He’s probably gonna do that anyway,” Zan says, “Hopefully, he won’t give us too hard of a time. I’m pretty sure he’ll try to stop you from seeing me though, especially because we’ve been sneaking around behind his back all this time.”

“He can’t do that,” I brazen, “I’m eighteen now and legally adult.”

“You also live with him,” Zan points out dryly, “He can do whatever the hell he wants as long as that’s so.”

“Well, what if we wait then?”

“Wait?”

“We’re already mid-semester in school,” I say, “Another four weeks and we’ll be out for the winter. We don’t have to tell our folks that I’m pregnant until Christmas. By that time we should be all set with an apartment and you should have a job…then my dad’s reaction won’t matter cause we’ll be home free.”

“That makes sense,” he agrees.

I make a face. “Hey, I can have a decent idea sometimes,” I grouch, “You’re not the only voice of wisdom in this relationship.”

Zan responds with a long-suffering eye roll. “Okay, so it’s settled. We won’t tell our parents about the baby until Christmas. Which brings me to our next order of business.”

“What now?” I demand good-naturedly.

He scratches behind his ear thoughtfully before tossing me an uncertain glance. “I was wondering if you might consider marrying me.”

I’m surprised my jaw hasn’t permanently settled into my lap by now. He’s just dead on with the surprises today, but I suppose it’s only fair considering the surprise I gave him earlier this morning. “You’re perfectly serious, aren’t you?” I breathe in disbelief when he doesn’t so much as crack a smile, “You’re asking me to marry you?”

“I would have eventually, you know,” he says with a shy grin, “I love you, Claudia. I want to be with you for the rest of my life.”

“But, Zan,” I protest weakly, “Don’t you feel this is all too sudden? I mean you only just found out I was pregnant like three hours ago. Are you sure this is what you want?”

Again he pierces me with those blue eyes that seem to transmit his every thought and emotion with stunning precision. I gulp audibly. “Absolutely,” he says without the slightest quaver, “I’ve never been surer of anything in my entire life. Nothing has ever made more sense to me, Claudia. You’re everything to me…I need you.”

I’m melting at his words, just a puddle of sappy goo. “I need you, too,” I whisper with a besotted smile.

“So marry me,” he urges with a crooked grin, “Don’t think about it…just say yes.”

I grin back at him, knowing that what we are proposing is impulsive, reckless and probably completely irresponsible. In other words, this plan is right up my alley. “Yes,” I tell him happily, “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

Was there ever any doubt I would?

TBC

This chapter was incredibly difficult to write. I tweaked it and tweaked it and I'm still not sure I managed to convey what I meant to. But I knew if I didn't post it soon I was going to go on revising it until the end of creation. In my defense I'd like to say I'm still plotting out the road map for this one so the beginning might be a little bumpy.

Chapter 4

Liz

I linger in the hallway, staring at my sleeping husband and son curled up together on our bed. Their dark heads are pressed close together, so closely that I can’t tell where Justin’s glossy tendrils begin and Max’s end. One plump, little arm is thrown about Max’s neck and tiny little fingers are tangled in Max’s hair to hold him close. Max holds Justin cradled in his arms, gathered against his heart. Seeing them lie there together I have the sudden urge to cry, but I don’t know if it’s because the picture they make is so beautiful to me or if my tears spring from my inability to go to them.

I’m filled with a sense of incredible sadness seeing them this way. These two remarkable beings belong to me and in the most profound way possible and yet I’ve never felt further apart from them. I’ve never felt like more of an outsider. It’s exactly the way I used to feel when I watched David and Claudia together. There were some times when the desire to go to them, to touch them was so strong that I ached with it…but I never could. I could never close the distance.

Before I had believed that my inability to let them into my heart was due to the fact that they weren’t the family I had imagined for myself. I used to believe that the only reason I held myself off from David was because of one pertinent fact. He wasn’t Max Evans.

Now that is a moot point. David and I are divorced and I have what I most coveted for the near fifteen years of our marriage. I have Max Evans. I have his son. And yet I feel just as apart from him as I felt from David, distanced irrevocably even when we’re standing together in the same room. I’m still unable to commit my heart fully…even to the man who is my life. My soulmate.

What a magnificent irony! I’m in love with Max, perhaps more in love with him than I’ve ever been. The uncertain boy I once knew has grown into a self-assured man, a competent parent and loving husband. He’s been patient, loving and supportive during our near two-year marriage and even before then. Max has given me every reason in the world to trust and believe in him and still I can’t, at least not completely. There is a part of myself that refuses to make myself vulnerable to him or to anyone ever again. I suppose I’ve had my protective wall up for so long that I don’t know how to let it down anymore. I feel naked without it.

My inability to lower that wall isn’t about holding grudges either. I truly believe I’m over what happened between Max and Tess Harding all those years before. That dalliance doesn’t even factor in for me anymore, at least not in the way some might think. While I no longer hold Max accountable for those horrid few months after Alex’s death I can’t forget the raw anguish of that time either. I can’t banish the small warning sounding in the back of my mind that says if it happened once it might well happen again. And I can’t stop protecting myself against the possibility.

I’m not necessarily sitting back and waiting for Max to screw up here. What I’m feeling has nothing to do with anger or betrayal or even mistrust. I’m just so frightened, so terrified of letting myself come to depend on Max and what we’ve come to share. I’m so afraid of believing in forever when, once I did that, and my world was torn apart. The circumstances are still the same. Max is still an alien. There are still people out there who want to harm him. My happily ever after continues to be threatened. And what’s worse…I can’t help but wonder if all the fights we’ve had lately is just a precursor for what’s to come.

Never, never have I stood to lose so much before. Despite my outward display of indifference the tension between Max and me is slowly chipping away at my heart. I hate that he’s angry and that we can never seem to talk, to meet on common ground. I’m always sensing that he’s looking for something more from me, something I’m not willing to give just yet. Perhaps he senses that I’m holding myself away from him and he resents me for it. The reaction would be completely understandable considering the fact Max has never done anything, since we married, to make me mistrust him or doubt his love for me.

Logically, I know I’m being ridiculous. I know that Max would rather cut off his own arm than cause me pain. Gone are the remnants of the shy, sometimes vacillating boy he’d once been. He’s been replaced with a self-assured man, one who cherishes me beyond all belief. In the last seventeen months, I’ve witnessed his strength, his determination to protect us…his fierce love. In the reasonable portion of my brain I recognize that I’m safe, emotionally and physically, that I can have a happy life if I’m only strong enough, brave enough to reach out and take it. I believe this totally and yet…I can’t. My fear holds me back…always holds me back.

So it matters little that I finally have everything I ever wanted. I can’t let myself enjoy it, not when the prospect of losing it all is so very tangible. And I know it can happen because I’ve lost it before. That time I wasn’t prepared. That time it almost killed me. I can’t let myself be taken off guard like that ever again. And so I do what I’ve always done. I hide myself. I fortify my emotional wall; dig the metaphorical moat around my heart thereby keeping my husband at arm’s length.

Now again I realize this manner of self-preservation has actually proven quite futile. It didn’t work with Claudia and David and I ultimately did them and myself a great deal of harm because I tried. That experience alone should tell me that it’s not going to work with Max either but I can’t seem to stop myself. The more Max and I fight, the more real my fear becomes and the more I withdraw. During those times, I can feel him pulling away from me and I can’t scramble fast enough to pull away from him first. I suppose he’s right when he accuses me of playing a game of emotional one upmanship with him. I’m so determined not to be the one left devastated when it’s all over. And I’m not, but in my preoccupation to save myself I suspect I’m destroying my marriage. I regret that more than anything because, despite my emotional wreckage, all I really want is to make Max happy. I want to be happy, too.

“Liz?” The heavy rumbling of my name jerks me from my brooding thoughts. I refocus and discover that Max is now awake, his gold-green eyes half-lidded and speculative as he regards me. “What are you doing just standing out in the hall?” he asks carefully, his tone gruff with sleep.

“Zan just called a few minutes ago,” I reply faintly, “He and Claudia should be here later this evening. They’re about fifteen hours outside of Roswell. He said they got a late start yesterday.”

“Good to hear. It will be nice to have the two of them home again.” Max carefully extricates himself from our sleeping son and rolls upright. “Is that all you wanted to tell me?” he prods and there’s a hopeful edge to his tone I can’t ignore. I stand there, caught between my instinct to run and the overwhelming desire to stay. Finally, he sighs, hanging his head forward a little. “Liz, how long are we going to do this?” he laments, “I really can’t take this tension anymore. Honestly…when I came into the kitchen yesterday afternoon it wasn’t to pick a fight with you.”

“I know that,” I murmur in return, staring down at my hands, “I don’t know why I get on the defensive with everything you say.”

He doesn’t hesitate to accept my verbal truce. “Come sit beside me,” he invites, patting the empty space on the bed beside him. “This isn’t all your fault, you know,” he remarks softly as I warily accept his invitation, “I haven’t been coming to you in the right way at all. And I can admit that my methods have been somewhat highhanded.”

“A little,” I admit quietly, “Max, I’m not sixteen anymore. I don’t need you guarding me like some bull terrier or arbitrarily making my decisions for me. And I wish…I wish you could trust my judgment a little more.”

“It’s not your judgment I’m worried about, Liz. It’s McKee’s,” Max replies, “He’s a loose cannon.”

“Do you honestly think I’d sit back on my hands if I really believed he’d harm us?” I demand a little querulously.

Max immediately back downs. “Look, let’s not start that again, please. I don’t want to get into another fight,” he says wearily, “Why don’t we just agree to disagree?”

“Maybe that’s best,” I concur softly.

“But I’m not up for his bullshit, Liz,” Max warns me, “The first time he steps out of line I’m throwing him out on his ass.”

I cut him a chagrined, sideways glance and nearly smile. “That’s fair,” I say reasonably, “I…I just thought if David could be here, if he could see first hand how happy Claudia is here maybe he would finally back off. You need to know I’m not trying to force him down your throat, Max.”

“That’s what it feels like sometimes,” he mumbles in reply.

“Okay, maybe it would help if I try explaining myself a little here,” I begin pragmatically, “It’s not that I’m burying my head in the sand about David. I know that he’s…he’s on the edge right now, but I still think mindwarping him is an extreme action that’s unnecessary.” I lower my head, my words thinning down to an emotional whisper. “I remember what it did to Alex and I…I can’t do that to someone else.”

“This isn’t the same thing, Liz,” Max returns gruffly.

I glance up at him sharply. “It’s exactly the same thing.”

“David is a threat to us, Liz,” he says, “I don’t want to kill him, but I also don’t want him destroying my family. I feel like I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place here. I’m afraid if I wait something terrible will happen and I’m afraid if I don’t wait you’ll never forgive me for it.” He scoots around to face me, even daring to reach up and brush away the hair that’s fallen against my cheek. “We’ve tried it your way, sweetheart…over and over, but he’s not interested in a truce. He’s too busy hating me because I married you.”

His blunt honesty leaves me stammering. “I think you’re oversimplifying,” I reply in lame response.

“It’s kind of ironic when I think about it,” Max laughs almost as if I’d said nothing at all.

Something in his tone makes the hair at the back of my neck prickle, a bitterness I hadn’t detected before. “What’s ironic?” I wonder guardedly.

“McKee thinks I have something he doesn’t when in reality…I can’t touch you anymore than he could.”

My reflex reaction is to put up my shield and withdraw as quickly as possible. It would be exceedingly easy to tell Max he’s being ridiculous and then just leave him there. But that’s the coward’s response and I know it. Instead I force myself to remain there beside Max and face his accusation. “How did this suddenly become about us, Max?”

“It’s always been about us,” he clarifies sadly, “You talk about me not trusting you, but I think the truth is that you don’t trust me.”

His supposition is so close to the truth; of course, I have to take the defensive. “That’s the most insane thing I’ve ever heard.”

Max shrugs. “Maybe it is insane,” he concedes, “but what other explanation is there? I feel like you’re holding yourself apart from me. I thought things were getting better between us but it seems like the longer we stay married the more closed off you become.”

I don’t comment. Quite frankly, I don’t know what to say to him. How can I explain to him that I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop, therefore protecting and preparing myself for the inevitable? How can I explain that I’m doing just the same thing to him that he’s doing to David, faulting him for the things he might do. So I stare down at my hands, completely without explanations.

Max swallows audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing spasmodically before he finally asks, “Do…Do you regret marrying me, Liz? Is that it?”

Do I regret marrying him? No, I’m certain I don’t, but I’m also fairly certain I wasn’t ready to be his wife either. Truly, I wasn’t ready to be anyone’s wife and I’ve only just now gained the strength to admit that to myself. I’m not ready to trust Max fully and, before we married, I never let myself consider that fact. I just rode out the waves of my emotions, hoping that the hole in my heart would be repaired when I reached the shore…but it wasn’t. I’m still not ready to commit myself to Max, not if it means giving over my heart completely.

“I don’t regret marrying you, Max,” I tell him softly, adamantly, “I never could.”

“Then what is it,” he prods, “Did I do something?”

“It’s not you, Max…I promise it’s not you.”

“Then what?” he demands again, “Is it about what happened with Tess and Alex? Has this whole thing with McKee brought that up again because I thought we left all that behind us, Liz.”

“This isn’t about Tess and it isn’t about us, Max,” I tell him firmly, “I just need a little space, that’s all.”

“You need space?” Max echoes blankly, “What the hell does that mean? Am I crowding you or something?”

I can feel a headache coming on and close my eyes in an attempt to waylay the throbbing and calm my frayed nerves. When I open my eyes again I tell him evenly, “You’re putting words in my mouth right now.”

“Of course I am,” he returns in a low, controlled hiss, “You don’t give me much choice in the matter! I don’t know what the hell is going on with you. I can only guess.”

“Maybe it’s not your place to know!” I retort just a tad belligerently. I hardly have a moment to register the impact my words have made because Justin begins to stir from his nap. He rubs his head back and forth across his pillow, stretching and whimpering all at once. Filled with dread, I glance from my waking toddler back to my husband. He looks devastated…slightly betrayed.

“It’s not my place to know what’s going on with my wife,” he utters in a scornful breath, “Is that what you’re telling me, Liz?”

“You’re twisting everything I say around,” I accuse him in frustration.

“Or maybe you’re just saying what you really mean…for once,” Max counters.

“Please, let’s not do this in front of Justin, okay,” I implore wearily, “He doesn’t need to see us fight.”

“Fine.”

“He’s probably hungry. I’m going to go and fix him some lunch.”

Max catches hold of my wrist as I attempt to make my exit. “We’re not done here, Liz.”

“Yes, we are,” I contradict softly, gently but insistently removing my wrist from his grasp, “What’s going on inside me, Max…that’s just something I have to work out for myself.”

TBC

Chapter 5

Zan

“Wha—oh?” she mumbles sleepily, “Are we stopping already?”

As Claudia stretches languidly and grinds the sleep from her eyes I can’t keep the satisfied grin from my face. She’s been asleep since we checked out of the motel this morning. I’m surprised she slept so soundly because the sunlight had been blaring down onto her face through the open window most of the trip. I had to flip down the sun visor to shield her. Her extreme exhaustion both concerns me and fills me with a supreme sense of satisfaction.

“Gotta get some gas, babe,” I tell her as I pull in front of the nearest pump, “I guess you were pretty tired after last night, huh?” I favor her with a wolfish grin but she reciprocates with a sour grunt. I laugh at her expression.

Honestly, I’m not bragging though I feel like I’m on top of the friggin world! Last night was perhaps the most intimate experience we’ve ever shared together. It didn’t matter that our lives had become complete chaos or that we were about to spend our holiday lying to our parents. It didn’t matter that in a matter of months our very lives would be changed forever. When I’d held her the night before, when I’d connected with our baby…our beautiful girl…everything had been marvelously right and that’s why I can’t stop grinning now.

I shift around in my seat so that I can press my hand to the base of her belly. “So…are…are you okay with it?” I whisper carefully, staring up at her through my lashes. I know that she is…I know that she’s as dazed with wonder as I am over our daughter, but I have this insatiable need to hear her say so aloud.

“I can’t believe she’s real,” Claudia breathes, “She’s really in there.” Her rhapsodic expression falls serious. “Zan, we’re barely twenty. We can’t be parents. My life is an emotional wasteland. I can’t be a mother!”

“Your life is not an emotional wasteland,” I tell her mildly.

“Let’s examine this, shall we?” she counters, meticulously ticking off each of her issues with the count of her fingers, “My mother and I have just recently gained a working relationship where we can actually talk to one another. I have no communication whatsoever with my dad that doesn’t involve blatant lies and I’m in therapy three times a week. Would you want me as your mother?”

I’m smiling at her by the time she finishes. God, how I love this woman! Why can’t she see how truly precious she is? Why can’t she know, like I do, that she’ll make a phenomenal mother, better than either of us ever had. “I think this is just nerves,” I consider as I smooth over her rumpled hair, “We’re still kinda spinning right now, Cee.”

“We weren’t spinning all that much last night,” she mutters with a pensive, little frown, “Do you think it was wrong that we…you know…considering that’s what got us into this situation to begin with?”

“Well it’s not like we can do any more damage,” I reason baldly, “Besides we needed to be close before everything hits the fan…we needed moment for ourselves. And, for the record, I plan on having those moments many, many, many times in the future.”

“You’re not getting full of yourself, are you?” she asks me, her gray eyes narrowed speculatively but I can see the laughter gleaming in their murky depths, “Please don’t tell me you’re on some macho trip now because of what happened between us last night.”

“I’m just happy the multiple orgasm I gave you made you feel good,” I tease arrogantly but when I lean over to give her a quick peck on the lips she bats me away playfully. We laugh over our silliness and I pull her against me, as much as I can with the gearshift jutting between us. “Seriously, baby,” I whisper into her mouth, “thank you. You made me feel good, too.”

She blushes and tries to bite back her beginning smile. “It was intense,” she marvels, “I don’t know how we’ll ever go back to using condoms again.” Before a ribald reply can fly from my lips, however, her cell phone rings. Claudia reluctantly shrugs out of my arms and groans when she glances at the glowing call i.d. screen. “It’s my dad,” she whispers.

“Are you gonna answer?” I ask anxiously. I know it’s ridiculous, but I suddenly feel conspicuous, like David McKee is lurking somewhere nearby and watching our every move. I know it’s ridiculous because he’s in New York now and he thinks that Claudia is on her way to Roswell on a bus. There’s no sixth sense involved here. There’s no way he can know that I’m sitting in the seat beside his daughter at this very moment and yet I’m still paranoid about the fact.

“Maybe you should answer,” I advise her as her phone continues to play out a tuneful little ditty, “You don’t want to make him suspicious.”

Claudia responds with a deliberate nod and sigh and then flips open her cell phone. “Dad!” she chirps with false brightness, “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you today!” As she speaks to him I eavesdrop on her conversation shamelessly in an effort to discern whether or not her father is aware of her deception. “Oh…I’m about ten hours outside of Roswell now,” she tells him, “…No, Dad, it’s not too smoky for me…no, it’s fine really. Yeah…yeah, the people are perfectly normal.” She flashes me an impish smile. “I’ve got plenty of good company.” She darts her eyes away a moment later when she says, “No, I didn’t use your credit card…Mom sent me that money, remember?”

That’s not a complete lie, I suppose. Her mother did send her money only, of course, Claudia didn’t use it to buy a bus ticket. Instead we pooled our money together and stopped at a jewelry store in San Francisco to purchase matching wedding bands. We had even seriously considered a stop over in Vegas but decided in the end that eloping would not be the responsible course of action. Besides that, it would be another month before we were financially stable enough for Claudia to move out of her father’s house. Neither of us wants to be married, keep that marriage of secret and then be forced to live apart. Both Claudia and I knew the time wasn’t right but God had it been tempting.

I listen to her now as she spins an elaborate tale of reassurance for her father. “So…I don’t know if he’ll be there,” she tells her father now, “He’s away at school, Dad…it’s not like we keep in touch.” She glances over at me and makes a face. I was touching all over her last night but I suppose her father doesn’t need to know that. Hastily, I redirect my thoughts so I can catch the tale end of her conversation.

“I’m totally prepared to see him at Thanksgiving…no, I don’t want to bow out. Dad,” she groans out in long-suffering, “Zan did not cause my breakdown, alright! Can you please stop beating that dead horse? Okay…you don’t like him, but you don’t know him either. That’s your choice but you can’t dictate my feelings to me! Fine! We’re not going to agree on this so let’s just not talk about it…whatever! I’m hanging up now.” And then she does exactly that. She doesn’t just break the connection, however, but shuts her phone off completely.

Claudia leans her head back against the seat and closes her eyes wearily. “Now he’s pissed off,” she sighs, “God, I’m dreading this Thanksgiving. What was my mother thinking,” she mutters in exasperation as she bends to zip her cell phone back into her purse. “This is just going to be a nightmare.”

“Why don’t we just tell him about us?” I suggest quietly.

It’s something we’ve considered off and on for months now. The first time Claudia was the one who suggested we come clean and I hadn’t wanted to. By then we had become sexually active and I was in it so deep that the thought of being kept apart from her actually terrified me. But then after a few weeks of sneaking around and listening to her lie to her father over and over I relented. However, by then Claudia seemed to think that confession was a bad idea. Around that time her father’s disputes with Liz and Dad had escalated and she hadn’t wanted to further aggravate him with the news that, not only were we still seeing each other but we were actually attending the same school as well.

We’ve ping-ponged back and forth so many times I’m not even surprised when Claudia says, “I think that would be a big, big mistake.”

“He’s going to find out about us eventually,” I reason, “Why not just lay everything out on the table tomorrow. He’s got to know about us sometime soon anyway, otherwise the blowout when you leave is going to be fierce.”

“Zan, you just lied to your dad last night about us sleeping in separate hotel rooms,” she points out in an ironic whisper, “Both sets of parents are pretty much in the dark and if we tell my dad about us we’re probably going to have to own up to the rest of it and that includes the baby. Do you really want to tell them about the baby now?” she inquires tremulously. One look at her face says that the prospect induces nothing but terror.

I reach across the expanse and squeeze her hand. “I’m not suggesting we tell him or anyone else about the baby, Cee,” I reply gently, “But we’ve got to stand up and tell them we’re together. We’re both of legal age, okay. What we do in our private lives is our business and we shouldn’t have to lie about it. How can we expect to be treated as adults if we can’t even stand up and admit we’re in a serious relationship?”

“But they’re not forcing us to lie, Zan,” she emphasizes weakly, “Neither of us want to disappoint them and we both know they will be upset when they find out I’m pregnant. They’ll think we’re repeating their mistakes all over again.”

“Couple that with the fact that all this has happened so soon after your recovery and I’m pretty certain they’ll be pissed,” I say.

We candidly talk about her break all the time. I’m, perhaps, the only person, besides her therapist, that Claudia will discuss her feelings with freely. Probably because I don’t treat her like some delicate porcelain doll or try to make all her decisions for her. I know that Claudia is sound and healthy now. Her ability to deal with her breakdown, accept it and move on without blaming others is proof of that. Unfortunately, that fact escapes her mother and father and they continue to smother her both emotionally and physically. Even my dad has jumped on the bandwagon, warning me time and time again to cool off my relationship with Claudia. None of them realized that only Claudia could truly decide when she was ready for more. So I won’t expect an ally in my dad. He won’t be any more pleased about Cee’s pregnancy than her mother and father.

“Maybe they’re right to be pissed, Zan,” she whispers, “We’re so not ready for this.”

“I’m not anymore eager to let them down than you are,” I confess, “This is the first time in my life I’ve ever done something worthy of disappointing my dad. I’m really dreading that, Claudia. I’m probably more scared of that than your mother and father’s reactions.”

“I’m sure your dad thinks I’m a totally bad influence,” she predicts glumly, “He’ll hate me as much as your Uncle Michael does.”

I have to laugh at the petulant inflection in her tone. “Baby, my uncle Mike does not hate you,” I tell her, “And my father won’t hate you either.”

Claudia arches one brow in challenge. “Your uncle doesn’t hate me, huh? Well he sure as hell does a brilliant impression with all the glares and grunts he gives me. And as for your father,” she continues on with a self-deprecating glower, “how can he not hate me as well? In little over a year I have exposed your secret, put you through emotional hell, turned you into a lying sneak, and made you into a teen father. Gee, Zan, what’s not to hate?” she finishes with bitter sarcasm.

I patiently go down the list, exonerating her for each of her perceived sins. “First of all, I’ve forgiven you for telling your father about me and my family, Cee. I’m not holding that against you so stop holding it against yourself. Secondly, you have NOT turned my life into an emotional hell. If anything you’ve made it better, richer and happier. I’ll tell you that for the rest of your life, as many times as it takes until you finally believe it. Finally, it’s been my choice to lie to my dad. Mine and I have to deal with the fallout. You didn’t make me into a teen father, Claudia,” I conclude with a laugh, “My reluctance to use a condom properly did that.”

She looks up at me with shining eyes, unfathomable emotion swimming in their depths. “How do you do that?” she murmurs.

“Do what?”

“Make me love you ten times more than I did at first?”

Her words make my heart ache, but I hide my emotion behind an arch smile. “I guess I’m just God’s gift.” I finally succeed in what I’m been trying to accomplish this entire time. I make her giggle. But the lighthearted moment is short-lived.

“I’m so scared, Zan,” she mumbles faintly, “You don’t know how it is for me trying to juggle my Dad and my Mom. I feel like whenever I side with her or I want to see her Dad acts like it’s the whole elaborate betrayal or something. He makes me feel like if I love Mom that I can’t love him. I don’t want him to think that, Zan, or that he’ll lose me like he lost Mom.”

“Cee, your dad didn’t lose your mom.” She levels me with a puzzled frown. “He never had her in the first place,” I clarify softly, “Your mom has been in love with my dad for longer than either of us have been alive. Your dad never stood a chance.”

“I guess not,” she mutters in agreement.

I cradle her chin so that she has no choice but to meet my gaze. “Baby,” I whisper, “This isn’t some contest between me and your dad where you are the prize. I’m not trying to take you away from him. That’s something he’s got to realize on his own.”

“I still don’t know,” Claudia whispers hesitantly, “I’ve screwed up so much already…this will just be another in a long line. I don’t want to hurt him or Mom any more.”

“Claudia, we don’t have to tell them about the baby,” I reply, “Maybe that’s best for now. No one has the right to make us feel ashamed about her. I want us to enjoy this time while she’s growing and changing inside you and not have to worry about our family and their unsolicited advice. What they do need to know is that we’re together and we won’t tolerate their interference in our lives any more.”

“Those are some strong words, Alexander Evans.”

“True, but they need to be said,” I tell her, “We need to say them.”

“They are going to flip out,” she groans and drops her head against my shoulder, “God…God, I just want to run and hide.”

“You don’t make a decision right now,” I urge her, “We have ten hours to decide whether or not we want to do this because you’re right. If we tell our parents off…all hell is going to break loose.”

There’s an extended, tension filled pause before she finally says, “No. You’re right.” She sighs in agreement. “Okay.”

I’m filled with pride over her courage even as I sag with relief because she agreed. I half expected to half to cajole her into it. “Good,” I reply, “We’ll tell them about us then. Don’t worry…it won’t be that bad,” I assure her when I glimpse her dread laden expression, “Maybe Mike and Maria can serve as a buffer.” She flashes me a dubious frown and eye roll. “Maybe not,” I amend wryly, “Who cares? We’re together and we’re getting married. God, Cee, we’re having a baby girl! No one is bringing me down from this.”

I trace my fingers over her quivering lips as she whispers, “Me either,” in reply. We kiss, briefly, lightly and yet profoundly.

“We’re in this together, baby,” I reassure her finally as I climb from the truck to pump gas, “We’ll get through this.” A long line of impatient motorists has formed behind me. But I firmly ignore them as I lean in to give Claudia another kiss, this time fiercely passionate. We’re both breathing hard by the time we break apart. “I love you, Claudia.”

She smiles at me and there’s no doubt in my mind that this will work out for us. It’s there in her eyes, trembling in her voice when she says, “I love you, too.”

TBC

AN: Hello readers. This story ain't called Misdirection for nothing. Hold on because here we go.


Chapter 6

Max

Something tells me that now is definitely the moment to approach her. She looks forlorn and lost and, whether she admits it or not, she’s waiting for me to come for her. I understand that I’ve got to be the one. Liz has swallowed her pride many times for my sake in the past and now I have to return the favor.

I creep up behind her where she sits on the living room floor playing blocks with our son and wrap my arms around her shoulders, ignoring her near imperceptible stiffening when I do. It doesn’t matter. She relaxes completely the moment my arms close around her waist. No matter what, she’s made to be in my arms and she knows it. “If I ask you to talk will you bolt in the other direction,” I whisper gently into her hair.

I don’t think she was prepared for such a sweet approach because she suddenly turns in my arms and buries her face into my throat. Right again. She was waiting for me. She was waiting for this. “God, Max, I’m so sorry,” she mumbles, “I’m so, so sorry for everything.” I can feel the warmth of her tears soaking into my skin and I shift into a sitting position so that I can pull her completely into my lap and hold her close.

“Da-da! Bock!” Justin holds up one green, plastic block proudly, realizing immediately that the attention in the room has shifted from him. As most toddlers are prone to do he demands to be at the center at all times. Both Liz and I offer him a smile and make a production of mock applause over his accomplishment. Mollified, Justin returns to his meticulous tasks of sorting the blocks by colors.

“He’s developing really fast,” Liz says, noting his activity with a somber smile, “Sometimes I can’t believe it. If we blink we’ll miss it.” She leans back in my arms, a wistful little sigh leaking from her chest. Her tears are running freely, so serenely that she’s probably not even fully aware of them. I suppose they’re mostly cathartic though. I feel as if we’ve crossed a bridge together although I’m not entirely certain how it came about. What I also don’t know is if it’s for the better or the worse.

“You have no idea just what the two of you mean to me,” she reveals quietly.

“I can’t tell,” I remark wryly, but without accusation I hope, “You always seem to be pushing us, well me in particular, in the other direction.”

“I…I know…and…” she admits shakily, “I guess we have to talk about that.”

“I guess we do,” I whisper.

“Can I be brutally honest?” she requests meekly.

“Do we need to be apart for this?” I ask, wondering if she will shift from my lap now. I imagine I can hear anything as long as I’m holding her. Whatever she has to say can’t be entirely bad if she decides to remain in my arms. I almost whimper with joy when she shakes her head against my shoulder. “Then be as brutal as you need to be,” I tell her.

“I think that we might have rushed things when we were married,” she declares, burying her face deeper into my neck when she does, “We got so caught up in the emotion at the time that we never sat down and settled the old issues between us. Those issues are still there, Max.”

My heart retracts painfully at her words, partly because I’m afraid of where she’s going with this and partly because I can’t deny the truth of her assessment. “You’re right,” I reply, tipping up her chin so that I can see her face, “We did rush into marriage. Everything happened so fast after the kids ran away…and then your father…and Justin… It all happened so fast. I had so many questions in the beginning, so many uncertainties but then we got married and they all seemed irrelevant.” I favor her with a sad, lopsided smile. “I guess they weren’t.”

“So…so does that mean you want a divorce?” she asks in a quivering whisper and I’m satisfied to see that she looks as devastated by the prospect as I feel. Evidently, that’s not the direction she’s going in, but before I sag with relief I’ve first got to be sure.

“Is that what you want?” I counter carefully.

“No. No!” she replies forcefully, “I don’t want that at all, Max. I love you. I want to be with you. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“Then why have you been holding me at arm’s length all this time?” I wonder.

Her dark gaze is wide and vulnerable as she stares at me. I can see her waging the internal battle to speak. She wants to but she’s afraid of where the conversation will take her. This is it. This is the moment when she finally tells me what’s in her heart, her soul. This is the moment when she finally lets me see her again. And suddenly, I don’t want to push her for something she’s not ready for. Maybe I’m not ready for it either.

I cradle her head down against my shoulder, stroking down the length of her hair as I do. “Claude and Zan will be here soon,” I remark casually, “I suppose we can kiss the relative quiet good-bye. I’m sure Jules and Katie will be scampering over soon after.”

I half expect her to jump on the out I’ve given her. We can talk about mundane things and all will be well, but she doesn’t. Instead she asks me in a low, trembling voice. “Max, do you remember how it was between us after Alex was killed?”

At the mention of that time, I freeze completely. I try not to think about it ever because of the guilt that swamps me when I do. I become sick with it, not only for the hurt I caused to Liz but also for my inability to protect Alex. His blood still stains my hands. That’s something I will never be able to wash away.

“Liz.” I say her name like a mewling plea; not wanting to staunch the flow of her words now that they had begun but reluctant to continue on a track I know will be painful.

“We were fighting so much back then,” she sighs in remembrance, “Do you remember? We were so at odds…not even friends…”

“Because you thought Alex’s death was alien related and I didn’t want to believe you,” I recall painfully, “I know I screwed up our lives because of that, Liz. I swear I’ve…I’ve regretted that every single day since.”

She lifts her cheek from my shoulder so that she can stare me down, but her gaze isn’t critical as I expect but empathetic, pitying almost. “I know you have, Max.”

“Then why?” I don’t have to clarify my question further because she knows exactly what I’m asking. Why is she bringing this up now? Why is she rehashing the past? Why can’t we leave that painful period behind us?

“Don’t you see, Max?” she demands somewhat hysterically, “We couldn’t agree. More than that we were at each other’s throats. You thought I was your enemy and…and at times I felt like you were mine. You pulled further and further from me until…until eventually you turned to Tess and we know what happened after that.” Yes, we do know. Zan happened and we…ended.

And now I finally get it. I finally understand why my wife has retreated back into her protective shell. She sees the same thing happening all over again. We’re at odds over McKee, fighting about him more and more every day just like we had over Alex’s death. She’s wanted to go one direction while I’ve wanted to go in another, even though in my secret heart I had acknowledged the validity of her argument. I had known she was right then, just like I know she’s right about mindwarping McKee now. No wonder she can’t talk to me. She’s afraid the past is going to repeat itself, only this time…she’s preparing herself for it. She’s preparing herself for the moment I leave her.

I crush her face between my hands, matching the emphatic fervor of my touch with my words. “Liz, I’m not going to turn from you,” I promise fervently. I press a desperate kiss to her lips. “God, baby, I love you! I would never do that to you…I could never…”

“You said that before, remember?” she reminds me tearfully, “Remember you said, ‘I could never be with anyone else,’ but you were, Max. You were.”

I do remember saying those words to her. It had been right before I crossed the street and kissed Tess Harding for the first time. I had meant those words then. I had continued to mean them after I slept with Tess and I mean them now. But I can see, really see how that promise might seem worthless to Liz. “God,” I grunt gruffly, “We’re never going to get past that, are we? I’m never going to regain your trust completely…even after all this time?”

“I just want to understand,” Liz replies almost pleadingly, “Why did you turn to her at all, Max? I thought things were better between us in Vegas…I thought…I thought you were finally over Kyle and we were getting closer so why did you turn to her then?”

“Liz, I thought I’d lost you,” I whisper, “After Alex died it seemed like everyone I loved was scattering in all different directions and…the harder I tried to hold on the further you all ran.

“But you…that nearly killed me. I felt like I didn’t have anything and I just didn’t care anymore. Tess was just there, Liz. I was feeling sorry for myself and she was just there. It sounds cruel and irresponsible to admit, but it could have been any girl. That night I felt so low…it could have been anyone.”

“But it was her, Max,” Liz whispers softly.

I pin her with anguished eyes. “I wanted it to be you,” I murmur quietly, “That night with Tess never meant anything to me. The…The next morning when I woke up I just felt sick…dirty. I wished to hell I could take it all back” I gather her closely to me again, imbued with the wild desire to make her understand, to make her see. “I am not that boy anymore. He was foolish and stupid and incredibly self-centered. He let his wounded pride and his ego override his reason. That’s not even who I am now, Liz.”

She nibbles at the corner of her mouth, simultaneously licking away her tears as she does. “I believe you, Max,” she tells me, “But sometimes I get so scared… It just paralyzes me. I don’t talk to you because that’s the only way I can think to protect myself.”

I whisk away the tears clinging on her lashes. “You don’t have to protect yourself from me,” I tell her, “I could never do that to you again, I swear it.”

She skates her fingers over my chin and lower lip and leans forward to kiss me. I melt into her even as I’m surprised by the gesture. When she pulls back from me, she’s smiling. “I think we should go away together…just the two of us.”

“What?” I’ve been half expecting for this conversation to lead up to her asking for a separation or, at the very least, space so her sudden suggestion leaves me near speechless.

“I think we need to go away together,” Liz says again, “Somewhere we can talk with no one else to bother us or interfere. Somewhere we can finally lay our past to rest…together, Max.”

“Together?”

“We never did that before. I ran away after Tess left for Antar.”

“Why did you do that, Liz?” I query in remembered anguish, “You never gave me the opportunity to explain.”

“I suppose I was afraid that you could explain it all away,” she confesses hoarsely, “I thought that you would manage to convince me and justify everything and then I’d forgive you. I couldn’t let that happen, Max, not after everything… You made love with Tess…made a child with her. I thought I deserved more than having to take the back seat while you searched for your illegitimate son. So I left.”

“You did deserve more,” I say, though I’m cowering inwardly from her succinct reply, “But I want to correct you about something. Tess and I never made love, okay. That’s something I’ve only ever done with you.”

“You mean recently?” she wonders and I know she’s thinking of Justin’s conception.

“I mean always,” I correct her softly, “Not one time between us has ever been a mistake…at least, not for me.”

“See? This is what I mean,” Liz replies in a rush of breath, “These are things we should have settled between us years ago and, if not then, definitely before we got married. Now all our uncertainties are coming back to haunt us.” The smile she gives me is bittersweet. “Even when I thought I hated you…my desire to be with you was just so strong that…I got caught up in you all over again… I didn’t think about anything else.”

“And now you want to go away?” I conclude somewhat dubiously, but I can’t help but feel like I’ve stepped off into some sort of alternate universe, “You don’t want to untangle yourself?”

“Not at all.”

I release a shuddering sigh, still dazed and bewildered. “O-Okay.”

“I was actually doing some research before you came in,” Liz explains. She rolls gracefully to her feet and helps assist me to mine. Then she surprises me further by taking my hand and leading me over to the computer desk. Once there she gathers up some scattered papers in front of the printer. “I printed these out while you were in the shower,” she says.

I briefly peruse what she’s given me, my frown of bewilderment growing. “The Biltmore Estate? This is where you want to go?”

“It’s in Asheville, North Carolina,” Liz rushes to explain, “I hear it’s absolutely breathtaking there and isolated, too. It’s completely surrounded by mountains. A co-worker of mine spent a week there with her husband for their anniversary and she absolutely raves about it. They have an inn that’s located right there on the grounds and a winery and a--,”

“When were you thinking about going there?” I interrupt blankly.

“This coming Saturday,” she replies, tentatively plucking the papers from my grasp so that she can show me the itinerary, “I’ve already asked for the time off at work and…” She trails off and glances down at her shoes. “I booked us for a week, seven days and six nights. We’ll tour the estate the last day.” She peeks up at me through her lashes. “I already bought the airline tickets online.”

“And you did all this while I was in the shower?” I bleat incredulously. She answers with a sheepish nod. “I don’t get it. Before I left you weren’t even talking to me.”

“Which was getting us nowhere.”

“Right,” I agree.

“Well, I decided I want to be progressive not regressive, Max. You and I have been constantly on edge lately,” she tells me, “We need to get away so we can relax and focus on our marriage.”

“What about McKee?”

“That’s another thing,” Liz says pensively, “David is not my problem. He’s not your problem. He’s Claudia’s problem.” I actually stumble against the back of the desk chair at this. It’s too much. I have to sit down. As I drop down into the chair she continues. “I’ve been so busy shielding Claudia from…from life that I’ve turned myself into a nervous wreck. I felt like I had to make it up to her for all those years I was so terrible.

“But when I spoke to Zan today on the phone I could hear her giggling in the background. I think she must have been poking him or something…anyway… She sounded…I don’t know…content, happy. All this time I’ve been worried that maybe she wasn’t strong enough to deal with the pressures her father was putting on us, that it would be too much for her.”

“And now you don’t?” I inquire softly.

“I don’t know,” she says with a shrug, “But I do know I can’t protect Claudia forever. She’s the one who made the decision to tell her father the truth and she’s the one who’s going to have to make him okay with it. I can’t do anything further.”

“God, several epiphanies in one day,” I mutter in an underbreath, “Hell, how long was I in the shower?”

“I’ve been thinking about this all for a couple of days now, I guess,” Liz says, “But I only just now worked up the courage to tell you.”

“So you’re not angry with me?” She shakes her head no. “You don’t hate me and want a divorce?” Another negative.

In fact, she goes one better and kneels down before me so that she fits into the open space between my legs. “I want to go away with you, Max,” she whispers, “I want us to be the way we used to be.”

I swallow past the aching lump of emotion in my throat. “I want that, too,” I return roughly, “But do you really think going away is going to solve anything?”

“It will give us an opportunity to talk,” she says quietly, “That’s a start, right?”

I lean forward to splay my fingertips across the smooth skin of her cheekbone, loving and aching for her all at once. “Yeah, it’s a start,” I acknowledge, “What will we do about Justin?” I flick a glance over to our son. He’s built a tower of blocks as tall as himself and now has taken to the task of demolishing it. “Are we taking him along?” I can’t imagine we’ll have much opportunity for talking with a yammering one year old.

“Maria’s agreed to watch him for us.”

“Maria!” I balk, “I love her but…she doesn’t strike me as the most reliable babysitter in the world. Didn’t her cat die last year?”

“She’ll be fine,” Liz assures me with an indulgent smile, “Trust me. Maria was excellent with Claudia…Justin will be no different.”

“What about your mother?” I question, “Couldn’t we ask her?” There are also my parents, but it’s fairly obvious Liz has other plans.

“The baby’s powers are still so unpredictable, Max,” she explains, “We’ve got enough on our plate with David. There’s no need to add my mother to the mix as well. Besides if Maria needs help I’ve already asked Michael to be on stand by. You know how he loves Justin and vice versa.”

“Michael, huh?” I question with dawned understanding, “Ahh…now I get your plan. This is your way of throwing Michael and Maria together.”

“Yes, my desire to go away does have a two-fold purpose,” she admits, her smile turning mischievous, “But mostly I want an opportunity alone with you. What do you say?”

The answer is a given. I don’t even have to think about it, but merely say, “I guess I’d better get packed.”

TBC

Chapter 7

Claudia

The house smells like sweet potatoes and turkey. Normally, that would make my stomach gurgle with hungry anticipation but today it gurgles with rolling queasiness. I might have even collapsed if Zan weren’t there standing alongside me. I grip his arm tightly as he guides me through the front door into the foyer.

“Get ready,” he whispers out the corner of his mouth only seconds before my mother descends and begins smothering my face with kisses.

“Oh my God, look at you,” Mom gushes warmly. She sandwiches my cheeks between her hands, turning it left, then right. “You look so good, but maybe just a little pale,” she decides randomly, “You’re not sick are you?”

I shove away her hand before she can begin palming all over my forehead. “No, Mom. I’m fine.”

She fingers the ends of my hair, making an tsking sound under her breath. “I don’t know why you insist on keeping it so short,” she bemoans, “You’ve always had beautiful hair, Claude.” Zan essentially tells me the same thing all the time but somehow it doesn’t sound as endearing coming from my mother. But then he complains for an entirely different reason. He likes the way my hair spills over him when we make love. I let him play around with his Samantha hocus-pocus sometimes just because I know how much he likes it. My mother’s nagging is completely different, however, because I always feel like she’s ferreting out my flaws.

“Mom,” I groan out, “Please stop clucking. I’ve only been here ten minutes and you’ve already started.”

“I’m not clucking,” she denies, but there’s no belying those misty eyes of hers. She looks like she’s going to start blubbering any moment now. “I’m just so glad you’re home,” she says and promptly pulls me back into another rib crushing hug. I endure her embrace with a laughing grunt, barely returning it mainly because my guilt is kicking into high gear. Do aliens have a sixth sense about pregnancy? What about alien mothers? The whole time I’m in her arms I deathly afraid she’ll sense my secret. I almost heave a sigh of relief when she finally releases me.

She turns toward Zan to pull him close for an equally tight embrace. “Zan. Zan,” she says with a broad smile, “It’s good to have you home, too. Your dad will be glad to see you. And your grandparents…they’ve been beside themselves missing you.”

“I’ve missed them, too,” he replies gruffly when he shrugs out of her arms. And then he tosses a frowning glance over her shoulder. “Where is Dad anyway?”

“Well, I decided to make another cake for dinner tomorrow night,” Mom explains, “Unfortunately, we were out of eggs so Max had to run out to the store for some more. Come on in, you two,” she invites, stepping aside, “We weren’t really expecting you for another hour or so.”

Zan and I walk into the living room hand in hand, a fact I’m sure doesn’t escape Mom’s notice. I can’t tell how she feels about it, however, because her facial features are inscrutable right now. I know she doesn’t have a problem with Zan and I being together, it’s just “how” together we are that gives her pause.

I try to lighten the mood by joking. “Zan did like ninety the entire way here,” I tell her along the way, “Riding with him is like traveling at light speed.” My mother laughs and Zan gives my butt a playful swat when she’s not looking. But his only reaction to my warning look is a broad, toothy grin. I can’t help but grin back.

The moment we reach the living room, however, I drop my bag into the floor and sprawl into the nearest chair. “I’m so exhausted I could die,” I groan out.

“She’s exhausted but I did all the driving,” I hear Zan joke above my head, “Go figure.” He leans down to kiss my forehead. “You’re such a drama queen.”

“Am not,” I whine and purse my lips for a kiss.

“Are too,” he counters with a sweet kiss to my lips, “But I love you anyway.” He starts to kiss me again but Mom clears her throat abruptly and we jump apart. I imagine our cutesy display has disconcerted her a little. I suppose I’d be weirded out as well if my daughter and stepson were kissing in the middle of my living room.

Zan drops down behind me so that he can loosely drape his arms about my shoulders. “So where’s Justin?” he asks, “He’s not down for a nap is he?”

“No, he’s awake,” Mom answers, giving us both a strange, penetrating look as if she’s puzzled about something but can’t quite put her finger on it. After a long moment, she shrugs. “I’ll go get him. I’ve forgotten it’s been a few months since you last saw him.”

Zan rounds on me the moment she steps from the room, the affable façade dropping from his face only to be replaced with worry. “Are you really alright?” he queries, solicitously running his hands over my face and hair, “You got so sick in the car earlier. Didn’t those crackers help at all?”

I shake my head. “Are you sure I wasn’t just being a drama queen?” I tease him with a tired smile.

“That was just for your mother’s benefit,” he whispers, “I know you’re sick, baby. Why do they call it morning sickness if it doesn’t happen in the morning?”

“I bet you thank God for those alien powers,” I joke weakly, “Otherwise your upholstery would be ruined.”

“I don’t care about that. I care about you,” he says, “Your mother’s right. You do look really pale. Maybe I should…” He’s already sliding his hand down against my belly but I grab hold of his fingers before he can establish a connection.

“Don’t,” I warn him in a strident whisper, “She could walk right in and then how would we explain, huh?”

“I need to make sure,” he insists.

“I’m just exhausted, Zan,” I reply with a deep sigh, “That’s all.” Even as I speak I can feel my eyes start to drift closed. “I could sleep for a week.”

“Why don’t you go and lie down in my room…catch a few winks,” he suggests, “I can keep your mother company.”

My eyes fly open at the offer. “No, I don’t want to leave you,” I protest. We both agreed to tell our parents the truth about us and there’s no way I’m leaving him to do that alone. “Besides if I take a nap now she’ll think I’m sick and start asking me all kinds of questions I can’t answer.”

“Here’s our guy!” Mom announces in a singsong tone as she reenters the room with Justin propped on her hip, “Wave hello to your big brother and sister.” Justin is having none of it, however. The second he sees us he buries his face deep into Mom’s neck with a childish cry of protest. He peers out sideways from underneath his lashes just to check and see if we’re still standing there.

The pictures Mom has been sending us these past few months does nothing to prepare Zan or me for how big Justin’s gotten in such a short period of time. His downy tufts of brown hair have grown thick and lustrous and now curl at the ends just like my stepfather’s. Just like Zan’s. He has to be at least a good four inches longer, too, and his cheeks have lost much of their baby fat. When I rise out of my chair to hold out my arms to him he only clutches Mom tighter.

“Whoa, lil’ man, you don’t know us anymore?” Zan admonishes him. He strokes his hand up and down Justin’s back gently, “That hurts, you know. That really hurts.” Justin slants him a wide-eyed look and Zan adapts his best pout. When Zan holds out his arms to Justin our brother only hesitates for a second before going to him. “That’s my guy,” Zan croons into Justin’s silky, dark hair, “I knew you still loved me.”

Looking at them together I suddenly have a flash of the future. I can see Zan with our daughter, holding her much the way he’s holding Justin now and she is the perfect replica of us both. There’s not a doubt in my mind that he will make an exceptional father.

“Cee, come here,” Zan whispers, beckoning me over, “I think Justin wants to say hello.”

“Hey, guy,” I greet warmly, easily slipping Justin from Zan’s arms, “Oomph, you’ve gotten so heavy.” I smooth my hand along his silky hair and slant a proud glance over towards my mother. “Mom, he’s like a ton. How do you carry him around everyday?”

“La-La, home!” Justin sings enthusiastically. I laugh.

“I knew you remembered me,” I say, kissing his temple. I’m overcome with giddiness each time he calls me La-La, but it’s not as cute as when he calls Zan “Sand.” I cuddle Justin close, inhaling his sweet baby smell while daydreaming about my own baby. The maternal instincts are definitely kicking into high gear right about now. However, it’s not long before he’s wiggling against me, wanting to get down. “I see you’re still as fickle as ever,” I chuckle as he scampers off for a nearby pile of blocks. “So how have things been with you?” I ask my mother when Justin is preoccupied.

“Pretty good,” she says with a smile, “And getting better. Max and I are planning to go away this weekend.”

“Really?” I ask in surprise, “Where?”

“Asheville, North Carolina,” Mom says, “It will be like a second honeymoon.” Zan and I exchange a secret glance filled with envy and longing. We’re just looking forward to having our first honeymoon.

“Why don’t I go unload the car?” Zan offers when Mom and I fall into awkward silence, “Give you both some time alone.”

After he’s gone Mom takes a seat on the sofa and then pats the empty space beside her. I silently accept her invitation, a little bit wary of her speculative attitude. I make a production of watching Justin chuck blocks across the room while she makes a production of watching me. “So you and Zan seem closer than when I saw you last,” she comments when I’m settled.

“We’re getting along,” I confess vaguely, “You know I love him, Mom.”

“Yeah, I know,” she replies, “I just don’t want you to take things too fast.”

“Mother,” I chide her softly.

“I’m not telling you how to live your life.” She always says that and it’s always untrue. “But you only recently got off your medication for good. You’re still healing, Claudia, remember that.”

“Still healing,” I echo in my most patronizing tone.

“And besides,” she presses on, blatantly ignoring my sarcasm, “it might not be a good idea to get so seriously involved especially if you plan on keeping your father in the dark about your relationship.”

I swivel around with an incredulous look to face her fully. If she’d bitten me on the ass I don’t think I could have been more surprised. Her statement doesn’t necessarily appall me. Zan and I have already decided we’re going to spill the beans, nix the baby, to both sets of parents entirely. What’s left me in dubious shock is the fact my mother seems to be pushing for my confession. All this time she’s been the one quietly urging me not to flaunt my relationship in Dad’s face. Now she’s advising the complete opposite.

“Wait. Where did that come from?” I ask cautiously.

“Aren’t you tired of lying,” she counters, answering my question with a question, “If you keep on delaying in telling your father the truth it will only makes everything much worse.”

“Mom?” I prod in rising apprehension, “What’s going on?”

“It’s your dad, Claude,” she replies with an expansive sigh, “He’s been something of a problem lately.”

“I thought you said he was getting better about you and Max.”

“I lied,” she tells me concisely, “I didn’t want to worry you, but lately the situation has gotten completely out of hand. He’s having a very difficult time accepting this whole alien aspect to our lives. But I was thinking that if he could adjust to the idea of you and Zan being together maybe he could…maybe he could…”

“…Accept the rest of it, too,” I conclude astutely, “You want me to talk to him?”

“Yes,” she says and the answer sounds as if it’s being wrenched from her chest. I guess she didn’t expect for the suggestion to go over well with me.

“I’d be happy to talk to him, Mom,” I reply with a shrug, “In fact, I want to. I was the one to send him off into a tailspin in the first place but then I left you to deal with the fallout. It’s okay, Mom. I can handle, Dad.”

“Are you sure?” she prods, “I feel like hell for dumping all this in your lap.”

“I can handle him,” I assure her once more, this time with emphasis.

“My God, I love you!” she cries, dragging me close for yet another hug. She peppers kisses all over my forehead and cheeks. “When did you suddenly grow up into a woman, Claude?”

“Mom,” I groan, “Please stop gushing.” My cheeks blaze with embarrassed mortification as I shrug out of her arms. “You’re freaking me out.”

She looks at me hard, her gaze dissecting, piercing. “There is something so different about you,” she murmurs.

“Nothing’s different,” I mumble, lowering my eyes, “I’m the same old Claudia I’ve always been.”

But she’s not to be deterred. Tapping her chin, she says stubbornly, “Yes, something is definitely different. I can’t put my finger on it.”

Suddenly, a bright blue block is thrust between our faces. “La-La, bock!” Justin shouts proudly. God, I could kiss him right now! Does this kid have perfect timing or what? “Come here, you!” I laugh, bending to lift him into my lap so I can tickle his sides. I can’t help but rejoice in his gales of high-pitched giggles. Even Mom smiles and forgets her mission of picking me apart.

“Guess who I found!” Zan declares suddenly, startling both my mother and me into present awareness, “He was just pulling up as I finished with the suitcases.” He has his arm looped around his father’s neck and is grinning ear to ear. I’m smacked, at that second, by the striking similarities between the two of them. Seen this way, with identical grins, they seem more like brothers than father and son. It’s a weird moment to be sure, but then…we’re a weird family.

“Aren’t you going to come and say hello?” Max queries with a lift of his eyebrows. I don’t hesitate to jump from the sofa and hurl myself into his arms. He gives me a gargantuan bear hug. “Have you any idea how quiet things have been around here without you?” he teases unmercifully.

“Hardee-har-har,” I chuckle when he sets me down again, “Such a funny guy. You know you missed me!” But when I glance up into his eyes it’s to see that he’s staring at me with the same curious expression my mother had earlier. “What? Was I too heavy?” I joke shakily, “Did I hurt your back?”

He chokes out a cough and gives his head a terse shake. “N…No,” he stammers gruffly, “You weren’t too heavy.”

Zan, thankfully, breaks the burgeoning tension by announcing, “Well, we’re beat, guys. Claudia and I are going to catch a nap then we’ll see you at dinner.”

“That’s okay,” Mom says, rising, “You’re understandably tired after such a long trip. I fixed the guest room up for you, Claude. Let’s just get your bags and--,”

“Um, Mom?” I interrupt tentatively, “I…I won’t be sleeping in the guest room.”

“You don’t plan to stay the night?” she demands, obviously slow to catch my meaning, “You’re not thinking about staying in a hotel, are you? Did your father put you up to this, Claudia?”

“No, Liz, we’re going to stay here,” Zan explains quietly, “But Cee isn't going to sleep in the guest room.” He pauses for a moment, allowing for his statement to sink in before following up with, “She’s going to sleep in my room...with me.”

“Oh,” is all Mom can say, however, Max is predictably more vocal.

“So you’re announcing it?” he demands brusquely, “Just like that. No discussion or anything?”

“It’s not an announcement, Dad,” Zan counters mildly, “And there’s no need for a discussion. You both knew that Claudia and I were together…at some point you had to realize that things between us would…escalate.”

“Is that what has happened,” Max asks softly, “Your relationship has ‘escalated’?”

“Look, Dad…Claudia and I are together, we’re adults and what we do together is private. I don’t plan on sleeping apart from her.” His tone softens almost imperceptibly as his words switch from antagonistic to cajoling. “Please…let’s not argue about it, okay?”

“You’re right,” Max concedes with a shrug, “Both you and Claudia are of legal age. We can’t tell you how to live your lives anymore so… I guess Liz and I will see you at dinner.”

When Zan and I exit Mom’s jaw is practically hanging on her shoes, but the ironic part is…so is mine.

TBC

Chapter 8

Liz

“What in God’s name are you thinking?” I demand when we’re alone. I begin pacing the length of the living room in righteous indignation, throwing irate glances towards Max all the while. “They just essentially told us that they’re having sex and we can like it or lump it and you just let them walk right out of here without another word!”

“What was I supposed to say to them?” Max counters with a shrug.

“A ‘no’ might have been the logical next step,” I provide in terse incredulity.

“And what exactly would have been the point, Liz?” Max sighs wearily, “The damage is done, I think. Claudia is already pregnant.”

I freeze in mid-stride. “She’s what?” I shake my head several times to clear away the cobwebs. “What did you just say?”

“She’s pregnant,” he says again and he must sense that I’m about to badger him with a hundred million questions because he promptly follows with, “Or, at least, I think she is. Don’t ask me how I know. It’s just a sense I got when I hugged her. It was so fleeting that…that I might be totally off base anyway.”

“Oh no you don’t, Max,” I scold him in trembling mockery, “You can’t just suddenly announce Claudia is pregnant and then say it might be a mistake.”

“Shh. Keep your voice down,” he admonishes calmly, casting an anxious glance towards the hallway, “Like I was telling you before…I didn’t get a flash or anything, just a vague impression. When I was hugging her I could just sense someone else there.”

“Well, we were all there, Max,” I reason in a whisper, “We were standing together in the living room. Maybe that’s what you sensed.”

“The presence wasn’t external, Liz,” he explains carefully, “It was as if it were radiating from within her…I don’t know. I can’t really describe it.”

“What are you saying to me?” I exhort him carefully.

“Do you want blind reassurances or my personal opinion?”

“Give it to me straight,” I tell him.

“I think she’s pregnant.”

“Oh God,” I utter right before my legs buckle beneath me and I’m falling back into the sofa cushions. My heart suddenly feels painfully big in my chest. I’m inundated with so many conflicting emotions that I can hardly breathe. Claudia is pregnant. My baby is pregnant? No. No. She’s barely eighteen…hardly a woman. This is impossible. It’s ridiculous. My girl is in college. She’s becoming stronger, better…her entire future ahead of her. Claudia isn’t like me at all. Her life will be different. She is not repeating my mistakes. She’s not living my life. I refuse to believe it.

I lift vacant eyes to Max’s concerned face. “No, it has to be something else,” I whisper hoarsely, “Claude knows better…she knows… She wouldn’t do this.”

“Liz.”

“And Zan,” I continue on dully, “He’s the most responsible young man I have ever known, Max. He would never let that happen. They might be having sex but I can’t believe it would be unprotected. Zan is too conscientious to do anything otherwise.”

Max comes to sit beside me and threads his fingers through mine. “But what if he isn’t, Liz,” he counters gently, “What if Claudia really is pregnant?”

“Oh God,” I say again, but this time crumpling against him with grief. Max wraps me in his protective embrace, comforting me and keeping me strong all at once. “She just started school, Max. Everything was finally starting to go right for a change. She’s making so much progress in her therapy sessions…we’re making progress…” I bury my face in my hands. “This can’t be happening right now.”

“They are absolutely not ready for a child right now. Neither of them has a job or a place to live or anything,” Max murmurs, “The only money the do have is in their savings accounts and I’m sure they’ll wipe all that out in a few months. And how is either of them supposed to finish school with a newborn? This is a nightmare.”

“Of course we’ll help them,” I whisper without hesitation.

“I’m thinking that…maybe we shouldn’t.”

I stare up at him in open-mouthed shock at his chilly suggestion. “Max, you can’t mean that,” I breathe, “They’re going to need us now…more than ever.”

“I’m fully aware of that, Liz,” he counters firmly, “But Zan just made this grand production of waltzing in here and informing me of his adult status knowing Claudia might be pregnant. Let’s see how adult he is when he’s shelling out 20 to 30 dollars a week on diapers.”

“Maybe he doesn’t know,” I suggest quietly, “Maybe she hasn’t told him yet.”

“Come on, Liz. This is Zan and Claudia,” Max replies drolly, “You know that they don’t keep secrets from one another. If Claudia’s pregnant then Zan most definitely knows about it.” I watch as his jaw becomes hard and bunched with anger. “All that time we were outside together and he didn’t even hint at it.”

It dawns on my right then that Max is angry, not just shocked and disappointed as I am, but coldly furious. I lay a trembling hand against his forearm, surprised to find that his body is quivering, too. “He made a mistake, Max,” I whisper, “It’s nothing we haven’t done ourselves.”

“I expected him to be better, to know better,” Max replies tautly, “God, Liz, I wanted so much more for him than this.” His eyes are gleaming with sorrowful tears when he looks at me. “Do you have any idea how hard it was for me going through school and trying to raise him, too? There were some days when I barely even saw him. He spent the majority of his time with my parents. Med-school was even worse because he had to stay with my parents while I was away taking classes. It was the hardest time of my life.” He snorts a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m not entirely sure he knew I was his father until he was about ten.”

“Oh, Max…”

“I missed so much,” he mutters glumly, “I never wanted that for him, Liz.”

“Okay, let’s back up here a second,” I reason belatedly, realizing we’re jumping to all sorts of conclusions based on a ‘feeling.’ “We don’t know anything for sure yet,” I tell him, “Maybe this isn’t even what we’re thinking.”

“What about you?” Max asks, “Did you sense anything different about either one of them? Maybe I’m just reading too much into this.”

“I sensed something, but…” I expel a heavy sigh before continuing, “That doesn’t necessarily mean she’s pregnant. We might be jumping to all the wrong conclusions.”

“I don’t know, Liz,” Max argues, “The feeling I got today is the same one I get whenever I’m near you or the boys or Michael and Isabel. Like a part of me recognizes the kindred part inside of all of you. But I shouldn’t feel that with Claudia because she and I have no direct connection and I never have felt that before…until just now.”

His reasoning makes so much sense that I shudder with the pure logic of it all. “You think you recognized the baby then?”

He nods slowly. “Do you want to ask them about it?”

“Umm…no,” I reply without a moment’s hesitation, “If what we’re thinking is the truth I’d much rather they come to us first rather than to go confronting them. Neither of us needs to be on the defensive when we talk this through.”

We’re spared from further agonizing about it when we suddenly hear Michael call out for Max from the foyer. A few moments later he’s trekking into the living room, shedding his jacket as he does. “Hey…guys,” he grunts in greeting, trailing off some when he notes our somber expressions, “Whoa. Did somebody die?”

“No, nobody died,” Max returns dryly as he rises to his feet, “Where have you been all this time? You said you’d be here an hour ago.”

Michael tosses his coat onto a nearby chair. He’s still in his work coveralls and is streaked with grease. “I got hung up at the shop,” he explains grouchily. And then he’s throwing himself down into the chair where he tossed his coat, impervious to his filthy person. I don’t bother to chide him. Michael and I have had this argument a million times before and I never win so I’ve just conditioned myself to ignore his penchant for being obnoxious.

“What is it about people bringing in their dying vehicles thirty minutes before closing?” he complains on, “And if that’s not bad enough…they expect not to have to leave it overnight! Like I’ve got some sort of magic power and can restore their vehicle in nine seconds flat. Okay, well I do, but they don’t know that! Geez, I hate people!” He pauses momentarily in his tirade to beckon Justin forth and hoist the baby into his lap.

“God, he gets bigger every time I see him,” Michael remarks as he kisses Justin’s temple. “Here, I brought you something,” he tells Justin, pulling a lollipop free from his breast pocket. We’ve had the talk about sweets, too, but as usual Michael doesn’t listen. I just turn a blind eye.

I think it’s my lack of reprimand over that fact that finally alerts Michael that something is amiss with Max and me. Of course, we’re both justifiably preoccupied with other concerns at the moment. None of this escapes Michael’s attention.

“You guys aren’t fighting over McKee again, are you?” he asks carefully, “How many times have I said to just off the guy and be done with it?”

“Much as we prize that golden advice, Michael,” I reply sarcastically, “That’s not what’s going on. Max and I aren’t fighting at all.”

“Then what the hell’s going on? What’s with the faces and everything?”

“The kids are home,” Max provides simply.

At his tone, Michael’s questioning gaze bounces between Max and me for several minutes. “Am I missing something?” he wonders, “I thought that was a good thing.”

“I’ll let you bring him up to speed,” I say to Max, “I’m going to go and take some extra towels in to the kids. There’s only enough in Zan’s bathroom for one person.” As I exit the living room Michael’s strident, “What the fuck did I miss?” follows me from the room.

Only when I’ve gained semi-privacy in the hallway do I let the complete weight of my worry settle down onto me. Though I’ve told Max not be needlessly anxious over something not even confirmed yet I can’t seem to take my own advice. Could Claudia really be pregnant? And, if she is, what are we going to do about it? How ironic that yet another crisis should arise just as Max and I are about to begin making just a little progress. I glance skyward, disgruntled frown in place. “I’m beginning to feel like you’re conspiring against me,” I whisper to God.

As I trudge off to the linen closet I try not to obsess over all the details that will need to be attended to if Claudia is pregnant. I don’t dwell on the fact that, at nearly thirty-seven years of age, I may be a potential grandmother. I try not to be saddened by the knowledge that my daughter seems to be walking down the same painful road that I did…and I ache for her.

Towels in hand and tears smarting a little I start down the hallways towards Zan’s bedroom. I’m probably a good two feet away from his door when their voices drift over to me, low and hushed. Carefully, I creep closer, craning my neck around so that I can peer through the crack in the door. They are both lying on the bed together, atop the covers. From the angle I’m positioned I can see them clearly. I can see Zan lying on his back, one arm propped beneath his head while the other gathers Claudia close. She’s pressed against his side, her cheek resting against his chest.

“You know when I think it happened?” Zan asks her as he twirls the strands of her hair around his index finger, “I think it was the night of that storm…you know, when all the power went out in your house?”

“I think so, too,” Claudia says, “That’s the only time that makes sense.” She lifts her head so she can see his face but, unfortunately, I can’t see hers. “I thought we stopped in time that night.”

“I guess not,” Zan concludes, “Maybe…Maybe something leaked, you know while we were…” What in the hell are they talking about?

“Ugh,” Claudia replies with a shudder, “It’s kinda gross when you think about it like that.”

“Are you implying, madam, that I’m gross?” Zan asks in his most affronted tone, “You didn’t seem to think I was so gross the other night.”

“Shut up,” Claudia admonishes him playfully, “So when do you want to tell them?” Her tone sounds serious now, devoid of all laughter. “Tonight…at dinner?”

I can see Zan’s eyes flare at her question but I sense that he’s not all that surprised by it. “What happened to waiting?”

“I…I don’t know,” Claudia stammers, “It’s just today…when you left Mom and me alone…I got the impression she already knew or something. And if she does, if they do and we hesitate in telling them they won’t just be disappointed, but hurt, too.”

“When did you become the reasonable one in this relationship?”

Claudia tweaks his nipple, startling a yelp of surprise from Zan. “I’m serious, you idiot! We’ve already come clean about…about this…so why not the rest of it?”

“I suppose that’s the responsible thing to do,” Zan sighs, “But I’m really not looking forward to it.”

“You’re scared, aren’t you?”

“Aren’t you?” is his response to her.

“What did you and your dad talk about while you were outside?”

“He just told me how proud he was of me and how he admired me for holding my life together and helping you,” Zan whispers and even with the distance I can sense the emotion throbbing in his tone, “He thinks I’m so together, Cee, and…I just don’t want to let him down.”

“I know…I don’t want to let my mom down either.”

“So what do you think about him and Liz going away for the weekend?” Zan asks, “Our news might put sort of a damper on things. I wouldn’t want them to cancel their trip or anything.” News? News? The probability that they’re NOT talking about pregnancy here is getting more and more grim.

“Me neither. They probably need it after the stress they’ve been under.”

“What stress?”

“My dad’s being an ass,” Claudia says, “Mom wants me to set him straight about you and me. I told her I would.”

“She wants you to tell him?” I cringe inwardly at Zan’s incredulous tone. Apparently, he’s fully aware of my encouragement to Claudia to keep quiet about their relationship.

“Yeah, I was surprised, too, but since I was going to do that anyway it’s really not that big of a deal,” Claudia says, “Besides it’s the least I can do. Mom and Max can’t keep dealing with my messes and anyway… I don’t like hiding my feelings about you like you’re some dirty, little secret. I love you, Zan. If my father can’t accept that then he can just…just…”

“Just what, Cee?” Zan prods with a laugh.

“Go fuck himself,” Claudia returns fiercely. I’m choking on her reply even as I hear the rumble of Zan’s approving laughter.

“Now there’s the Claudia McKee I know and remember!” he teases, “God, I love you so much!” I rear back as he pulls her close for what I expect will be a kiss. There’s quiet that follows, just the rustling of clothes and bed sheets and the occasional sigh. “Do you still feel sick?” I hear Zan ask moments later. She must not, though I didn’t realize she’d been feeling sick in the first place, because she giggles soon after.

“Zan…don’t.” But the protest is weak at best. “They’re in the living room, remember? They’ll hear us!”

“Not a chance,” Zan replies, “I’ll be so quiet…you’ll see.” His promise is followed by another round of giggles right before the bedroom door snaps closed definitively, muffling all sound. Torn between feeling like a voyeur for eavesdropping on their conversation so long and the motherly instinct to break up whatever’s going on in his bedroom, I hug the towels closer to my chest and turn away on wooden legs to head back down the hall.

TBC


Okay, I've got a busy week ahead so the next update probably won't be until Friday morning. I'm trying to write ahead though so we'll see how that all works out.

And thanks everyone for all the wonderful feedback. I'd say more but I always feel like anything I'd try to say would be inadequate. So here's another big THANK YOU for reading!!!

Chapter 9

Zan

Dad is sitting alone at the kitchen table the next morning when I stumble in for milk, Oreos and Tabasco. I’m rather startled to find him there since it’s basically four in the morning and the entire house is asleep. With a broad yawn I ask him, “What are you doing up?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he says laconically, “What are you doing awake?”

I shrug sheepishly, suddenly feeling self-conscious to be caught out on a food run for my pregnant girlfriend. “I thought I’d have a little snack,” I tell him vaguely.

“Really?” he queries, “What did you have in mind?”

“Tabasco sauce and Oreos. A little sweet and spicy.”

“Good choice,” he commends, “Why don’t you grab them both from the cupboard and we’ll have some together.”

I think of Claudia waiting for me to return with the cookies as she commanded, but then I look at my dad, looking so eager and excited at the prospect of my staying and I…stay. I grab the cookies and Tabasco sauce from the cupboard just like he asked and then bring them to the table. I will just have to deal with Claudia’s wrath later.

“You know,” Dad comments, as he twists the top off one cookie to saturate the cream filling with hot sauce, “You might not be snacking in the middle of the night had you stayed for dinner like you said you would.”

“Yeah…about that,” I say, ducking my head at his mild scolding, “Sorry we skipped out on you guys but when Jules and Katie came over we couldn’t say no.”

That wasn’t the complete truth. When Liz had knocked on our door later that evening to inform us that Jules and Katie were there Claudia and I had reacted to their visit like a gift from God. Mercifully, we had been granted a reprieve. If we were out with our friends then there was no way we could tell our parents about the pregnancy. A convenient excuse to prolong the inevitable and we had gladly taken it. By the time we returned home, at nearly twelve o’clock in the morning, Liz and Dad were asleep…just as Cee and I had hoped. However, seeing my dad’s disappointment over missing us now makes me feel like scum for manipulating the situation so blatantly.

“How are Katie and Julian, by the way?” Dad asks me casually.

“As crazy as ever,” I say, “I’ll admit that I’m a little surprised they’re still together. They fight like cats and dogs most of the time.”

“Kyle says they’ve been on again off again a lot in the last year.” Dad chuckles to himself. “Sounds a lot like your uncle Michael and Maria DeLuca.”

“They still haven’t reconciled?” I ask in laughing surprise.

Dad shakes his head. “They’re both too stubborn…too proud.” He levels me with a stare that is full of chagrined wisdom. “Let me tell you something, Zan…never let your pride get mastery over you. I guarantee that if you make an effort to humble yourself nine times out of ten everything will work out in your favor.”

“Is that what works for you and Liz?” I wonder softly.

“We’re still working out the kinks,” he says with a secret smile, “But yeah…it’s working like a charm, I think.” Dad licks the Tabasco flavored cream free of his Oreo, but his movements are much too casual. I know he’s leading up to something. “So can I assume things with you and Claudia have been going well?”

Just like that the good-natured feel to our conversation is compromised and I’m on guard against parental probe. “Dad!” I groan out self-consciously.

“I’m just curious,” he replies with an unrepentant shrug.

I shake my head, nibble at my cookie…anything to avoid looking at his eyes. “I’m uncomfortable discussing my personal life with you,” I tell him.

“Well, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of you having a personal life,” he counters.

“Why!” I cry out in exasperation, “I’ll be twenty years old in another seven months! I’m not a little kid anymore so why do you still treat me like one?”

“Zan, this is the first serious relationship of your life,” he begins patiently, “I worry about you.”

“Please don’t! And whose fault is it that this is my first serious relationship anyway,” I demand almost bitterly, “You were the one who forbade me to date. ‘Never get involved’ you always said, remember?”

“All the more reason you should take your time with Claudia,” he continues reasonably, “This is the first time that either of you have ever been in love. I’d just hate to see you commit yourself so fully before you’ve had a chance to experience other things.”

“I don’t need to experience ‘other things,’ Dad,” I reply quietly, “Claudia is all I need. She’s all I want.”

“Is that your heart talking or your hormones?” he challenges.

I don’t take offense at the question. I know my dad well enough to realize he’s not trying to insult me, but his goal is to get me to consider my future rationally. “Am I thinking with my heart or my hormones?” I consider aloud, “I think it’s a little of both. But I don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing.”

“You’re both still very young,” he argues.

“So were you and Liz,” I point out, “Younger than us, in fact.”

“Not by much. And look what happened to us.”

“Yeah, because you cheated on her,” I declare boldly, “I’d never do that to Claudia. I couldn’t ever be with anyone but her.”

Dad bites back a knowing smile and for some reason his know-it-all demeanor irritates the hell out of me. Perhaps because somewhere in the back of my mind I’m wondering if he’s right. Not about being with Claudia…that’s the rightest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but I wonder if we’re ready for a life commitment. I wonder if we’re ready for a baby.

“I used to say the same thing about Liz,” Dad tells me.

“Well, I mean it,” I snap back, growing defensive now, “Claudia and I are together for keeps, Dad, no matter what comes along.”

“You sound so definitive.”

“I am.”

“Does that mean Liz and I can expect wedding bells sometime soon.”

“I don’t know if it will be soon,” I say, ducking my head low, “But…yeah…I do want to marry her someday.”

Dad’s gaze becomes downright piercing at my reply. I get the impression he was expecting a different answer from me and is, despite all his talk about me taking things slow with Claudia, disappointed with my answer. “Alexander,” he opens deliberately and I know something is wrong because he uses my full name, “if something were going on with you and Claudia, something major…would you tell me?”

“I don’t get what you’re asking,” I reply tentatively.

“For example, Liz and I just found out today that you and Claudia are in a sexual relationship,” he clarifies tersely. I don’t get how he can be so nonchalant about this conversation when my cheeks are visibly flaming by this point. “Obviously, this has been going on between the two of you for some time now.” He drops off then, his tone a lead in for me to reveal just how much “some time” is.

Slightly mortified, I reluctantly provide the details he’s after. “We didn’t start until she was taken off her medication,” I confess in a mumble.

Dad’s brows snap together in a disapproving frown. “Zan, that was nearly six months ago.”

“What?” I snap out in irritation, “Was I supposed to send you an announcement or something? Something along the lines of, ‘Hi Dad, Cee and I are having sex now. Just thought I’d drop you a line.’ Dad, it was none of your business. It still isn’t.” The cookies and Tabasco are all but forgotten now. We’re squaring off.

“And if you get into trouble?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Liz said that we should wait for you to come to us,” he says wearily, “But after tonight it’s clear that you’re avoiding me, Zan.” He stabs me with his liquid gaze. “I thought that we were past keeping secrets from each other.”

I have to laugh outright at his blatant attempt to guilt trip me. “I wasn’t the one keeping the secrets, Dad,” I remind him coldly, “That was always you.”

“Until Claudia came into your life and then you did your fair share of keeping secrets, too,” he says softly.

“Is that a dig at her,” I ask him in a low, controlled tone, “Because I swear if you say one bad thing about her--,”

“Rein it in, son,” he laughs gruffly, evidently not the least bit intimidated by my growing indignance, “I’m not trying to disparage Claudia at all. I love her, too, okay. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say you’ve become a completely different person since the two of you got involved.”

“I’ve grown up, Dad,” I say, leaning back in my chair and folding my arms across my chest in a defensive motion. “I was hoping that you could respect that.”

“I do respect that, Zan,” he insists, “But you’re not looking at this from my standpoint. You claim to be an adult and yet you live off your parents. I pay for your schooling, your clothes, your food…everything. The same goes for Claudia. Neither of you are independent. You’ve never even lived on your own before. There’s more to being an adult than just the legal aspect.”

“Are you saying that the only way Claudia and I can be considered adults in your eyes is if we’re paying our own way?” Right now it’s sounds as if he’s threatening to withdraw his support if I don’t back off with Claudia and I’m just a hairsbreadth from losing my temper completely.

“What I’m saying is I can’t imagine how you and Claudia propose to support a child together when you can’t even support yourselves.” All my indignance and affront scatters like dust in a desert storm and is replaced with the fluttery sensation of panic. I’m caught off guard, unable to respond or defend myself. And Dad…well, he pretty much knows he’s just knocked me on my ass. “So is it true, Zan?” he prods, “Is Claudia pregnant?”

I swallow hard and stare down blindly at the tabletop. “How…How did you know?” I whisper hoarsely. There’s no way in hell Claudia told him and no one else knows with the exception of Katie and Jules.

“It was just an impression, a feeling I got when I hugged Claudia earlier,” he replies, “How quickly is the pregnancy progressing?”

“Pretty quickly, I guess,” is my mumbled reply, but I’m entitled. I’m still reeling here. “We’ve connected already…we know the baby’s a girl.” I flick him with an electric stare. “We want to keep her, Dad.”

“A girl,” he murmurs with a half smile. But all too soon he’s all business again and is folding his hands atop the table. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“I figured I’d have to drop out of school and get a job,” I tell him.

I suppose the solution seems too easy to him because he rolls his eyes. “Zan, have you any idea how much babies cost these days?”

“No sir.”

“Well, a part-time job at the local McDonald’s isn’t going to cut it…not even a full-time one,” he responds, “And you haven’t even factored in things like rent and utilities because I seriously doubt McKee is going to put you up once all this comes to light.” The panicky feeling in my stomach starts to spread outward, making my limbs tremble. He’s scaring me and he knows it. But I’m not going to give in. I’m not going to ask him for help. That’s exactly what he expects. “Liz and I have talked it over,” he says after an extended pause of silence, “We think that you and Claudia should defer college for now…at least until after the baby’s born so you can regroup and decide what your next move should be. You both can live here in the meantime.”

“Claudia and I already have a plan, Dad,” I inform him proudly.

“And it is, unfortunately, full of holes,” he retorts wearily, dragging both hands down the length of his face, “Let us help you with this, Alexander.”

“I gotta talk to Cee about this,” I mutter, not accepting his help but not refusing it either.

“Talking is a good idea,” Dad says, “I think we all should talk about it, the four of us, this morning over breakfast. Don’t look like that,” he scolds when he notes my tight-lipped expression, “I’m not trying to control you, Zan. I only want to help.”

“You always try to control me,” I argue stiffly, “This time is no different.”

“This isn’t about control,” he explodes sharply, “I don’t want to see you and Claudia struggle the way I did. God, Zan!” He drops his head forward into his hands. “I thought after everything you would have learned from my mistakes…at the very least you would have had the sense to use protection!”

His accusation strikes so close to home that I can feel tears of guilt and remorse well in my eyes. “I did. I did use it,” I toss back hotly, “But condoms aren’t always 100%, okay!” Especially when you don’t use them the way you’re supposed to. I refrain from saying this, of course. I’m trying to establish credibility here.

“Don’t get on the defensive,” he soothes, “I don’t want this to get into an argument about blame. We all need to think about what’s best for the baby. Look,” he sighs finally, “go back to bed. I’ll talk to Liz and things will look much clearer for us all in the morning.”

After nodding my agreement I can’t escape the kitchen fast enough. It’s only after I reenter my bedroom that I remember why I’d gone out in the first place. Cursing under my breath, I start to turn back when Claudia’s voice sounds behind me. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her as I crawl into bed beside her, “I completely forgot. My dad was there.”

She gathers me close, twining her limbs with mine. “I know,” she whispers, “I went to the kitchen to bitch you out for taking so long when I heard you both talking.”

“How much did you hear?”

“Pretty much all of it,” she confesses meekly, “I guess our secret’s out now, huh?”

I turn my face into her throat, shaking anew with the fears Dad has put in me. I suppose he didn’t say anything I wasn’t already thinking but, until that moment in the kitchen, I hadn’t allowed myself to acknowledge it. “I guess so.”

“How do you feel about it?”

“I’m glad we don’t have to lie about how we feel anymore,” I reply vaguely but she sees right through me.

“And?” she prods with knowing gentleness.

“I’m scared, Claudia,” I whisper in a breaking sob, “I’m so damned scared.” I think she murmurs “Me too,” but I can’t be sure. I’m crying by then and she’s crying and we’re clinging to each other like two people on the sea in the middle of a hurricane. Her hands creep under my t-shirt, skating over my back and the connection opens between us, hot and brilliant. I fall into it gladly…fall into her.

“I’ll always protect you,” I promise, blindly kissing whatever exposed flesh I can find, “You and our baby. I swear it…I swear…”

TBC