Always With You 3:7B
Always With You Part Three by Watcher Tara
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Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Roswell.
Summary: Max and Kyle have to team up to save Liz from an unexpected threat. Meanwhile, the rest of the gang returns to Marathon, Texas looking for answers and finds more than they anticipated.
Category: Max/Liz
Rating: PG
“Every single test that we’ve done on her so far has come back normal. There is nothing about her that is alien.” Professor Harrison was on the phone talking to his brother in the FBI. Things were looking grim for his career. So much for being a world renowned scientist. The only headlines he would make would be the ones announcing his life imprisonment.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Tom. The alien that we had tested a few months ago surprised us all by how human he was. His blood tests were the only thing that gave him away.”
“Well, her blood cells are normal.”
“You know what I was thinking? I mean how come they have human parts at all. The aliens that we caught in the crash in ’47 were completely non-human. Their appearance, their skeletons, their organs and blood. Everything was what you’d expect from a creature from another planet. But now, 50 years later, they’re so close to being human that they are undetectable.”
“They’re adapting? Is that what you’re saying? Their species is so evolved that within a few generations they can transform themselves into different species in order to adapt to their environment? That’s highly unlikely.”
“You have a better explanation?”
“Not at the moment.” Tom was worried about what the Dean would say when he saw the rest of the results of the preliminary tests. There still was no evidence to support his theories that the subject was an alien. Whittier was already on the brink of a breakdown. If nothing turned up soon, and this failure got out, it would mean the end of both of their careers. The end of their lives as they knew it.
There was a knock on the door of his office. “Hold on a second, Doug,” he said into the phone. “Come in.”
One of the students who was working on the project with him rushed in. “Professor, you have to see this.” She eagerly held out the results of the last test they’d performed. “Look at that brain activity.”
He nearly dropped the phone while reaching for the long white print out. “Oh my god.”
“See, the whole episode lasted for about two minutes, then everything returned to normal.” She explained what he could clearly see.
“Is she still on the machine?”
“Yes. I thought you’d want to see this.”
“Good job, Laurie. Thanks.”
She left his office. He stared at the results of the test a minute longer before remembering that his brother was waiting on the line. “We’ve hit the jackpot, Doug.”
“Really? What happened.”
“This girl’s brain activity is off the charts. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“So, she is an alien.” Doug clarified.
“Yes, she is. Douglas, I could kiss you.”
“I would rather you didn’t.”
They talked for a minute longer, the whole time Tom’s mind was kicking around several hypotheses as to why and how she had evolved to the point of being so human. Suddenly a line from the movie BraveHeart flashed through his mind: “The trouble with Scotland is that it’s full of Scots… If we can’t get them out, we’ll breed them out.”
Breed them out… “Doug, you’ve seen the medical reports of the alien found in the forties, right?”
“Yeah. They were required reading for this assignment.”
“What did it say about the reproductive organs of the alien?”
“What do you mean specifically?”
“Were they compatible with human reproductive organs?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Why?”
“Because, they didn’t evolve into humans on their own. All of this time, we were thinking that they would have stayed monogamous to others of their kind, but what if they’ve been procreating with humans, making little alien-human crossbreeds? There could be millions of them running around!” Harrison stood, eager to share his ideas with the Dean. “I’ve got to go.”
In his cubicle in Virginia, Douglas Harrison replaced the receiver, and thought about what his brother had told him. It could explain why their team had pulled out of Roswell so quickly a few months ago. At the time, he and some of the other agents on the project had wondered why they just hadn’t been sent in to recover the alien. They had plenty of proof against him. If his superiors had figured out what his brother, Tom, just did, that would explain why they just let him go.
Getting hundreds of thousands of aliens angry with the federal government by making a martyr of one of their sons would have been bad. For the first time he began to worry about the repercussions of their having taken the girl. Two aliens missing from the same town in as many months would not go unnoticed. He could feel his blood pressure rising.
A door opened behind him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Agent Harrison, I need to speak with you for a moment.”
“Yes, sir. What can I do for you?”
“I just need a few answers, starting with who you were just talking to, and what happened to the tape that you removed from the evidence room.”
Agent Harrison swallowed his anxiety as he watched the door close behind his supervisor, Agent Pierce. He’d been caught! ‘This is not going to be pleasant,’ he thought. He had no idea how right he was.
Twenty minutes later, Nasedo left the office in a hurry. Behind him, Harrison was gasping his last, having suffered a severe stroke that would leave him dead. The alien had become more covert in removing the FBI threat in the past few months. There would be nothing in the autopsy to point to foul play, he’d seen to that. Nasedo’s mind was already tackling the next problem. He had to get to New Mexico and find out what was going on out there. If Harrison’s brother had Liz… The alien didn’t want to think of the repercussions. Aside from her having powers-which was bad enough, he knew that Max would possibly do something foolish in trying to get her back. He was hoping that together they would be able to get her back and destroy the missing tape.
Thank God, Agent Pierce had access to the military’s fastest jets. He could make Roswell in a few hours.
In Pecos, Alex turned the van off the highway, and stopped at the gas station. The sheriff pulled in to the pump next to him. As they refueled, Valenti said, “While we’re stopped, I want the three of you to check in with your parents.” He looked at Maria and added, “You mom is worried sick about you.”
“Why?”
“Other than the fact you were out all night?” his tone was biting. “Someone broke into your house last night. Nothing was taken, but it gave your mom quite a scare. She thought you’d been kidnapped.”
“Oh my god! I’ll call her right now.” She reached for her phone.
“Wait a second. I have to tell you something before you call.” He stepped over to the teens so they wouldn’t be overheard. “Liz Parker is missing.”
“What?”
“What do you mean, missing?”
“What’s going on, Sheriff?”
All of the kids were shocked. “What happened?” asked Michael.
“We don’t know. Someone broke into the CrashDown and took her right from her bed. Nothing else was taken. It looks like it was deliberate. They left no prints. It was all very professionally done. We’ve been waiting for some word from the kidnapers ever since, but there haven’t been any calls.” He looked at the four young people standing in front of him. “The fact that they’re not calling probably means that they aren’t just regular kidnappers looking for a ransom.”
“What are you saying, Sheriff?” Maria asked.
“I think she was taken because of her relationship with Max. The fact that they went after Maria, too only makes me more certain of it.”
Michael pulled Maria into his arms. That Liz had been taken had shaken the whole group, but when he thought of Maria being stolen away into the night simply because of her relationship with him… It was unbearable.
“What are they doing to her?” Maria wondered aloud, terrified for her friend. They had all seen the condition that Max was in when he’d escaped after having been taken by the FBI back in May. To think of Liz suffering even a portion of what he’d been through was heartbreaking.
Alex was the first to state the obvious, “At least they’ll figure out their mistake soon enough. I mean, if they think she’s a… you know what… any tests they do will come back normal.” He had forgotten temporarily about Liz’s powers that she’d developed this summer. When it occurred to Maria, she gasped and grabbed his arm. They shared a quick look that was full of unspoken words. Liz could be in worse trouble than they thought.
“Ok, you guys,” Isabel said, catching their anxiety, “we don’t know that they’re doing any testing on her. Maybe they took her for some other reason, like to get to Max.”
Something jarred in Alex’s memory. “Remember when Topolsky was here? Before she left the first time?” He shot a guilty look at Valenti but continued anyway, “When she was trying to get me to confess to switching blood samples at the hospital, I asked her what would happen to Liz if I did what she wanted.” He had everyone’s full attention including Valenti who hadn’t heard about Max’s close call at the hospital or how Alex had been asked to give some of his blood so that they could replace Max’s with it in the hospital’s lab. “Topolsky told me that they’d do some medical tests on her. To make sure she hadn’t been harmed in some way, she’d said. Of course, at the time I thought it was all about drugs, and she was talking about just a regular physical exam. But now…”
“Oh, my God.” Maria said in horror. She couldn’t begin to imagine what her friend had been going through for the past few hours. “You guys, we’ve got to find her.”
“We will,” said Michael, confidence ringing in his tone.
“Poor Max,” said Isabel. “He must be going out of his mind. I’d better call him first.”
Valenti told her that her parents and Max were with the Parkers at the CrashDown, and gave Maria the cover story he’d come up with about them having car trouble.
While the others were on their cell phones talking to their parents, Valenti stepped closer to Michael and asked, “What’s this about the hospital?”
In as few words as possible, Michael told Valenti about the day Alex had become involved with their group. He told him about switching the blood samples and the FBI guys they’d caught going over Max’s chart when they were leaving. “It was the first time we realized that they were actually here, watching us.”
“So to get Alex to give you his blood, you guys had to tell him about Max being an alien?”
“No, to get his blood, Liz simply had to ask for it. He agreed, no questions asked. He and Liz and Maria have this amazing friendship. I’ve never seen anything like it. They’d do anything, say anything to anyone in order to protect her.” Michael just shook his head.
“So what did you tell him?”
“Liz told him that we were into drugs.”
“He believed that?”
“For a while, but with everything that was going on with you, Topolsky and the FBI, he didn’t buy it for long. You throwing him in jail that night of the party at the old soap factory was the last straw. He was fed up with her and the rest of us, and was just about to tell you everything he knew. That was the night Liz let him in on the secret.”
Valenti was silent as he remembered the night that he’d arrested Liz and Alex for trespassing and being in possession of alcohol. He’d gotten permission from their parents to keep them in jail overnight in the hopes that it would shake them up and make them rethink their priorities. He remembered hearing Liz say to Alex as he walked away after locking them in for the night, “No, Alex, this is not as bad as it seems, I promise.” At the time he’d felt smug, certain that by the time he released them in the morning Alex would be so grateful for going home, he’d tell him everything. He could see that his mistake that night was putting them in adjoining cells. By the time he’d returned a few hours later, Alex was firmly back on Liz’s side. Now he knew why.
He remembered how Alex had looked him in the eye that night and had demanded to be released, and he couldn’t help but be impressed with the kid’s strength of will. It was a good thing, he thought. All of these kids will need to be strong as long as they remained friends with the aliens.
Michael interrupted his musings with, “I have a question that I’ve been wanting to ask you, and since we’re being so honest with each other now might be a good time.”
Valenti looked at him. “Go ahead.”
“How did you get the waitress uniform, the one with the Liz was wearing when she was shot? I know Liz didn’t just leave it lying around.”
“I confiscated it from her locker at school.”
Michael nodded. “That’s what I thought. Search warrant?”
“Of course.”
The teen simply looked at him for a minute before turning away.
Valenti suppressed the urge to apologize. He knew that it was largely due to his pursuit of the truth about Max Evans that the FBI had come to Roswell last September and put into motion the chain of events that resulted to where they were right now, with the FBI chasing them all over the place, and Liz Parker missing without a trace. At the time, though, he’d been doing what he thought was right, and would make no excuses for the past.