Always With You 3:8B
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
The four teenagers and Sheriff Valenti were on the outskirts of Roswell. They would all be pulling up at the CrashDown in less than five minutes. It was difficult for him, but Max was able to form a connection with Maria and he let her know the good news. Alex flashed his lights at the sheriff to get his attention and pulled off the side of the road. Alex ran to tell him the news. And so, it was a relieved group of travelers that returned home that night.
Kyle watched the alien out of the corner of his eye as he put away the photo. “So,” Kyle said, causing Max to look at him. “How are we going to explain this?”
“I’m sure your dad will come up with something. We’re going to alert the FBI and let then deal with Harrison and his team. The University will be so busy covering their butts that they won’t say anything to us about what we did tonight.”
“So, what’s to prevent them from trying it again.”
“They’ve lost all of their evidence, and they know that if any of us turn up missing in the future that we’ll destroy them. Trust me, this will be the last we hear of that particular group of people.”
“I hope so.”
Max reclined his seat back a little, and Liz snuggled a little more comfortably into his chest. He was enjoying the feel of her soft weight pressing against his when he mused aloud, “It’s strange.”
“What’s strange?”
“When we were all making plans to go back down into Texas, I was thinking that we would need Alex’s van because all six of us would be squished in any of the cars we normally drove. For some reason I didn’t think I wanted to have Liz on my lap for five long hours. Just now, I can’t think of anything better.”
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, if you get tired, if she gets too heavy for you, we could switch places.”
Max smiled at Kyle and said, “Not on your life.”
“You could drive the Mustang. Come on Evans, you know you want to.”
“Forget it, Kyle.”
“Ok, it’s your loss, though.”
“You forget, I’ve driven your car.”
Kyle thought for a minute. “That’s right. What was I thinking to let you drive my car? I must have been really drunk.”
“You were,” Max agreed.
Feeling the need to defend himself, Kyle asserted, “Hey, so were you.”
“Yeah and whose fault was that?”
“Are you saying it was my fault? I’m not the wussie who gets drunk after one sip.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t the one who announced to two hundred people and whoever was listening to the radio that he was going to puke.”
As the miles rolled by under the tires of the Mustang, the boys bantered good-naturedly back and forth. Neither one noticed Liz smiling broadly against Max’s chest as she listened.
In the CrashDown, the Parkers and Evans’ continued to hold their vigil. The sheriff had phoned ahead to let them know that Liz was on her way home and would be there in several hours. In the meantime, there was an air of celebration when the four teenagers walked into the restaurant. Maria and Alex went immediately to Liz’s parents and hugged them both. The grown-ups seemed to absorb some of the energy that the teens carried so easily. Isabel went to her parents and shared an embrace with both of them.
Michael stood off to the side until Phillip reached over and gave him a firm handshake. After that, he went to the Parkers and shook hands with Liz’s father. He was shocked when Nancy pulled him into a hug. His former employers plied him with questions about where he’d been working and how he’d been doing like they were old friends. Having others care about him was a unique experience, but he decided that he liked it.
The teenagers made up a story about going to a ghost town in Texas, but then being stuck out there when their van had broken down.
Maria called her mom, and Amy came over to the CrashDown to join the others. They shared a long hug, then the story was repeated all over again. Amy said, “Well, thank goodness the sheriff was there to help you out.”
Maria looked from her mom to the sheriff and back again before saying, “Yeah. Thank goodness.” Barely suppressing a warning glare at her mom’s would-be boyfriend, she walked away to sit with her friends.
“Jim, thank you for helping Maria and her friends out today. I know how busy you are.”
“Amy, looking after the kids of this town is part of my job. You don’t have to thank me.”
“But what if I want to? You know what? I know just the thing.” She jumped up and walked over to Jeff. She whispered a question to him. He looked at the sheriff and grinned before answering. Amy smiled at Valenti before getting her daughter and the three of them disappeared into the kitchen. A few minutes later, they all returned with slices of coconut cream pie, and served a slice to everyone in the restaurant. “You finally get to stick around for a slice of pie,” Amy teased as she set a plate down in front of him.
Maria could barely keep from rolling her eyes as she returned to her seat next to Michael. She handed him a bottle of Tabasco sauce.
Several hours later, the mood was still festive. Jeff had turned on the radio to his favorite station and oldies were playing. All of the adults were reminiscing about where they were and what they’d been doing the first time they’d heard any song that was played. Amy was the youngest of the group, but she still managed to get a few stories in. The four teenagers were making plans to go see Riverdog on the reservation in the morning. It was into this scene that door opened and Agent Pierce entered the CrashDown.
Thinking it was another ghost, Maria squealed and ducked under the table. Michael and Isabel stood to meet him, and Sheriff Valenti also approached him. “Where’s Liz?” asked Nasedo. When he’d questioned Agent Harrison, the man had admitted everything he and his brother had done before he’d died. He’d stopped here instead of going straight to Arizona In an effort to help Max mount a rescue attempt.
“Max is bringing her home right now.” Valenti quickly filled him in on what they knew so far. Then he in order to explain his presence to the others, he introduced him to the Parkers as the agent in charge of Liz’s case.
Playing his role to the hilt, Nasedo said, “I can assure you that the people responsible for taking your daughter away will not go unpunished. We will make sure that they are never in the position to do anything like this again. Because of the people involved, her case will never go to trial, so you don’t have to worry about your daughter appearing in the tabloids or on Jerry Springer. They’ll be quick to agree to total silence in the matter, but rest assured that they will be severely penalized.”
“We’ll just be happy to have our daughter back home again, safe and sound.”
“Well, she’s on her way right now. I’ll need to ask her just a few questions when she gets here, but I’m sure that Max can give me most of the information I’ll need so I won’t need to keep her for long.” Her parents nodded.
“Sheriff,” Nasedo called out, “do we have an ETA on them?”
“Knowing how my son drives when he thinks I’m not looking, not long now. I’d say two hours at most.”
“There, you see,” Nasedo said to Liz’s parents, at his most charming, “she’s practically here already.”
“Agent Pierce, could you tell us, I mean do you know, why they took our daughter?” Nancy asked.
Nasedo put his hand on her shoulder and heard at least four people gasp, “I’m afraid, that’s classified. All I can tell you was that it was a case of mistaken identity.”
Making themselves content with that answer, they talked quietly. Nasedo introduced himself to Mr. and Mrs. Evans, or rather Agent Pierce did. He was glad that at least two of his young charges had a decent upbringing even though it had been devoid of any of the lessons he was supposed to teach them about themselves and their powers.
Michael walked over after a minute and said, “Can I speak with you for a second? Outside.” He looked at the Evans and said, “We’ll be right back.”
“Excuse us.” Nasedo added.
The three teenagers followed them outside. “We found something that belongs to you.”
“Really? That reminds me, what were you guys doing at Atherton’s? Didn’t it occur to you that it was booby trapped?”
Maria almost spoke up and said that she had said the same thing, but decided that she wasn’t up for an I-told-you-so, whether she deserved one or not.
Michael opened the door to the van and produced the bag with the hand carved chess pieces and Sword.
“What’s this?”
“Open it.”
Nasedo dumped the contents out onto the back seat. “Well, I’ll be damned. He still had them. Where did you find these? I looked all over Atherton’s house, and never found anything. And I wasn’t the only one.”
“Yeah, we know. He had a secret room under the floor of the house. We found the secret room last time we were there. This time we found the hidden panel in the secret room that he’d hidden these items.”
Nasedo was transported back in time as he looked at the small wooden pieces that he’d carved in an effort to make the time pass more quickly. He traced the faces that he remembered as well as his own. Each one of the court pieces represented either a friend or colleague from his home planet. Many of them were dead at the time he’d left years ago. The rest had surely died in the interim.
He sorted through the pieces again and found the black king and queen. He handed them to Michael and Isabel. “These are your predecessors.” To Isabel he said, “Her name translates roughly to Aurora. ‘Bright light’ would be closer. She was her mother’s ‘bright light’ or ‘golden light’. Her mother doted on her. We all did. You may call her Aurora. I think she’d like that.” He turned to Michael. “His name has no direct translation. On our planet, the men are most often named for their fathers. His father was a respected warrior, and thus his son was named for both courage and strength.”
“His father…” Michael said, unaware that he’d spoken aloud. His unending quest to find a father figure to fill his life always dominate in his mind.
“As I said, no direct translation, but the name Erik is close in pronunciation. He probably wouldn’t mind being called by the name of the fiercest of Viking warriors.”
Nasedo returned to the pile of chess pieces and shifted through them. Then again. “They aren’t here,” he said more to himself than the others.
“If you’re looking for the other king and queen, Riverdog has them, remember?” Maria said. She took a step back when he turned to look at her. “You were carrying them with you the day that Atherton stole into your cave of the reservation. You were showing them and the pawn you’d made of Riverdog to him when he told you about Atherton leaving. Afterward, you put them with the Healing Stones and forgot about them.”
“How do you know that?”
She took another step backward and Michael stepped between them. “Leave her alone.”
“I just want to know how she could know something like that.”
“She got a flash from one of the Healing Stones, all right? Somehow she connected with Riverdog and got a few of his memories.”
Nasedo looked at Maria with renewed interest. “Really?”
“Yes, really.”
“Come here, girl.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Maria, go back inside. Now.” She didn’t have to be told twice.
She sprinted into the restaurant and as non-chalantly as possible sat down next to her mom. “So, what are you guys talking about?”
Michael told Nasedo in no uncertain terms that he was to say away from Maria in the future. Nasedo didn’t argue, but decided to keep a closer eye on the three humans his charges had paired up with. He was beginning to think that there was more going on here than what met the eye, first with Liz developing powers, and now Maria having visions.
He picked up the large silver bracelet and said, “So you guys found the Sword, huh? Figure out how to use it?”
“We think so, I mean, we have used it, but we’d like to know more about it. And the Shield, too.”
“Tell you what. Next week, I’ll make time to spend a couple of days out here and instruct you all. What did you think of the Sword so far?”
“It was incredible.”
“You should see what it can do when you put it and the Shield together.”
They returned everything to the bag, but before they went inside, Alex asked, “I was wondering something about Atherton. Why did you give him that pendant? I mean Atherton bought your story about you owing him a favor, but I don’t. Maybe I know you a little better than he did, but I don’t see you as the in-your-debt-forever over nothing type. Maria said that when you gave the other part of the pendant to Riverdog you told him it had powers that he didn’t know about. And you told them both to keep it with them at all times, which was strange.”
Nasedo stepped closer to Alex and answered, “You know what they say about friends and enemies?”
“What?”
“ ‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’ That pendant gives off a signal that I can pick up within twenty miles of it. Our Aurora used to wear it for her protection in case she was ever kidnapped. As High Protector, it was my personal responsibility to watch over the Royal family as you might call our rulers. So, I could hone in on the pendant’s signal should she ever go missing. It saved her life a couple of times. Unfortunately, on the day she died, I was too late. She and Erik were dead before I could get to them. I gave Atherton the pendant so that I could track his movements on the reservation. He couldn’t go anywhere without me knowing about it.”
Nasedo chuckled, remembering. “He used to try to follow Riverdog and me, but it never worked. I always knew exactly where he was. Until that last day.”
“He’d taken it off before he went to your cave,” Alex said.
“Must have.”
“So, wait, why couldn’t you find it at Atherton’s?”
“I can’t pinpoint its location, only feel its vicinity. I knew it was there in the house, but had no way of finding out where. I was getting ready to tear the place apart when our friends from last week showed up. After that, it was too dangerous to return. That was the last time I ever went into Texas.”
They returned to the CrashDown. The adults were curious at what the FBI agent could have found to talk about with he kids for so long, but they didn’t give it too much thought. They just figured that he was the type of guy who liked children.