Title: Rightful King
Pairing: Mi/L
Rating: Teen
Synopsis: When Michael gets back the memories from his predecessor, Rath, and Liz accesses memories from Future Liz, they realize that Max is not the real King of Antar. Now, Rath remembers his real goal in coming to Earth and he’s not going to leave until he gets it. Liz, determined not to face another end of the world, knows her only hope is to ally herself to Rath and aide him in reaching his goal. Will she be successful or will she pay an even greater cost this time than in the last timeline?
Note 1: Antarian language [words and grammatical structure] link here. [Link not working yet, but I can email a WORD doc to you if you’re desperate to see it.]
Note 2: Due to posting length restrictions on this site, chapters have been broken up into smaller parts.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
Prologue – Doju Islands, Antar (circa 1940 in Earth time)
Part 1: Chapter 1 to Chapter 17 – New Mexico, United States, Earth (Spring 2000)
---------- 1 A Little Dizzy
---------- 2 Remember
---------- 3 A Place to Start
---------- 4 A Decade Behind
---------- 5 Wings of Madness
---------- 6 Pretzeled
---------- 7 Conundrum
---------- 8 Family Not of This Earth
---------- 9 He Spoke the Truth
---------- 10 More Than a Title
---------- 11 Someone Like Her
---------- 12 Outed
---------- 13 Tola
---------- 14 No Pun Intended
---------- 15 Different
---------- 16 Straight Up Honest
---------- 17 What Else Could There Be?
Part 2: Chapter 18 to – United States, Earth (circa 1900)
---------- 18
Part 3: Chapter – Earth (circa 1990)
Part 4: Chapter – Earth (Spring 2000)
Part 5: Chapter – Doju Islands, Antar (circa 1940 in Earth time)
Epilogue



Jim Valenti looked down at the hardbound book laying on the table in front of him. Raised Antarian symbols were written across the front, and every once in a while a prism-like rainbow of colors appeared as if by magic and glistened across the front, then disappeared again.

“What is this?” he asked.

“It’s a book,” Nancy said.

“Yeah, I see that,” he said dryly.

“It’s Liz’s book.”

“Uh huh. Go on.”

“Do you, uh… do you know much about what happened in the last year?” she inquired of him.

“You know what, Mrs. Parker? It’s been a real long day for me and I’m darn near exhausted. I’d appreciate it if you could get to the point,” he evaded.

She worried her lip in a manner so reminiscent of Liz. “I know,” she said so soft he almost missed what she said. “I know everything.”

“You wanna be a little more specific?”

“Maybe you should read it for yourself. This,” she said pointing to the book laying on the table, “this book was written by my daughter. For me. It’s about the last year of her life here on Earth.”

He looked up from the book to which she pointed and met her eyes. And saw the truth.

“She saved our world. She saved all of us,” she said quietly.

“Yes, she did.”

She nodded. “Maybe you could bring this back to me when you finish.”

“I’ll do that.”



From the distant hills, the dragons were keening their haunting lament. They rose on their haunches, wings extended and their heads thrown back. There was no escape from their dirge. With their voices they sang of their despair. With their minds they, of one accord, broadcast the utter devastation they felt.

The children’s voices were gone. Their emotional signatures, which had once filled the area with innocence and joy and exuberance, were missing. The delighted laughter of small boys and girls that he was used to greeting him were not there.

The King stood seemingly impassive, his face a perfectly blank slate and the walls of his mind firmly in place so that those around him could feel not a trace of emotion. In view of such an event as this, they needed a strong leader.

We have not been able to enter the Chamber, O King, the High Commander said telepathically. The Granolith has prevented us. He gestured toward the green energy shield surrounding the entrance to the Chamber.

I will go, the King replied.

But, Sire, how can you cross the barrier? Already one man was injured while attempting to gain access.

The Granolith will not prevent me. It was all he planned to tell his officer, but then he changed his mind. What would it matter if they learned the truth now? The timeline was already ruined beyond anything his people could have imagined. Only the Granolith could save them now.

From beneath his embroidered tunic he grabbed hold of the thick chain and pulled it up, revealing the multi-faceted jewel, which hung from it. From all around him he heard gasps as he openly displayed what he had for years kept hidden.

It is a tikava! The King bears a tikava! he heard whispered from the minds of his men.

But it was his High Commander who voiced the surprise they all shared. My Lord, how is this possible? What does it mean?

I am not at liberty to tell you everything. The Granolith has not granted me that authority. But suffice it to say that the Granolith has been my friend since I was a small child and I have faithfully done its bidding, all the while being trained in secret by Rawuri.

But, Sire, this means you have acted as an Ambassador for years, the High Commander said.

That is so.

But it is not the way of the Granolith to befriend a monarch.

The King raised his brow at the Commander but said nothing.

I…Forgive me, Sire. “One cannot always understand the ways of the Granolith”, he quoted.

The King nodded.

He turned from his men and headed toward the Chamber. As he approached the green field, he held out his hands. The green energy fluctuated momentarily and then disappeared.



Her heart was beating so hard you could see it through her shirt and she was panting for breath. She clutched at Max for support, not even thinking about whom she was holding onto. God, Tess had killed Alex. She had almost been successful in bringing Max, Isabel and Michael back to Antar for their execution. And now she was leaving for that far away planet herself in the Granolith with Max’s unborn child…

Suddenly, the part of the Granolith that had shot Tess through Earth’s skies changed directions and angled sideways. And not even in a gentle curve as it should have. From the corner of her eye she had seen some hazy, object silently moving from the direction of the Granolith’s Chamber – moving so fast that it had overtaken Tess, knocking her out her ascending trajectory and pushing her in an entirely different direction.

Liz pushed away from Max and stepped away from the group. “That’s not right,” she said, not realizing she spoke aloud. What had she seen? What had the Granolith done? She squinted into the sky against the glare of the brilliant sun. “It pushed the trajectory off.” She shaded her eyes with her hand to better view its line of ascent. “What’s it doing?”

Michael moved next to her without her realizing it. He grabbed her elbow to get her attention. “What did you say?” he asked.

“Did you see it?” she asked. Liz was only dimly aware of Michael’s presence next to her, so focused was she on the overhead object. She felt strange, like something was happening – something outside of the total betrayal of Tess. “She’ll never make it off planet.” The hair all over her body seemed to stand on end and electricity sizzled in the air. Was she the only one who felt it? “I don’t think it will let her,” she murmured.

Her words startled Max. “What?” he asked as the Granolith disappeared from view. “But my son…”

At the disappearance of Tess, Max’s words broke through to Liz. She dropped her hand and turned to look at him. “I’m sure your son is just fine, Max. Tess lied about everything. I’m sure she lied about that too.” She turned back and stared up at the now empty sky. “Of course, what she does once he’s born…” she said under her breath.

The light grew brighter. Colors, unlike anything Liz had ever seen, swarmed around her. Eternity of time and space stretched out before her. It was too much; she wasn’t ready for this sort of perception…

Your love, loyalty and honor are rewarded… From deep within her mind were dredged memories of another lifetime, implanted unknowingly by Future Max. The love they shared, the life they lived, their experiences and knowledge… all of it, granted by this powerful mind. Ipaki, it spoke in Antarian. /Remember./

She was overwhelmed. Too much, she sent.

The gentle, powerful mind acknowledged this, sorrowing that she was not ready yet, and the colors and lights dimmed. As darkness descended there was a sense of another mind, familiar and comforting, tugging at her, pulling her back.

Liz. Liz, it called.

Michael. “It won’t let her leave,” she murmured aloud. No, not Michael.

She felt him affirm her mental acknowledgement even as he continued to tug at her, pulling and pulling, forcing her to return to the physical world around her.

“What won’t, Liz?” he asked aloud. He was holding her against him, bracing her so that she wouldn’t fall.

“The Granolith,” she said softly – so soft that only he could hear her. “It won’t let Tess leave our planet.”

“Come on, Liz, open your eyes,” he encouraged, “before my cousin sees you like this.” She felt him brush a strand of hair from her face and tuck it behind her ear.

“What is going on?” It was Max.

Too late.

But it was enough to shock Liz to alertness. She grasped Michael’s shirt with her hands and pulled herself up, fighting the remnants of dizziness left by her contact with the mind. She blinked her eyes open and tried to orientate herself… and was immediately confronted by Michael’s very dark eyes.

Rath?

But there was no response. He had already shut their brief connection.

“What happened?” Max demanded. He was at her side… but when she saw him she realized he was not her Max, not the Max from 2014 who had sacrificed everything to save their world.

“I’m fine, Max,” she said to her ex-boyfriend. “I just got a little dizzy. Michael… helped me.”

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked.

She nodded.

“Okay. Then let’s go. We need to get back before anyone suspects anything,” he ordered, instantly in a take-charge mode. He moved away to rejoin the rest of the group to hand out directions.

“Can you walk?” Michael asked after Max had stepped away.

“Yes, thank you,” she said, letting go of his shirt. His eyes were still very dark and she knew. Knew that, just as in the past timeline, he had regained the memories of his predecessor Rath. It could only be the work of the Granolith.

“You, uh… you better go to Maria.” She started shakily toward the group, with Michael’s comforting presence close behind.

“Come on, Michael,” Liz called out over the edge of her balcony. She had sensed him hovering in the shadows, wanting to join her but uncertain of the welcome. “I know you’re down there.”

Michael appeared from around the corner of the building and stared up at her.

She wasn’t surprised he was there. After what had happened that day, she knew he would come. Probably he had stayed with Maria and her mom for a while, making sure they were okay. He would have gone to Max and Isabel’s house to make certain they had been able to get their hands on the video before their parents did. Then he would have stopped by Kyle and Jim Valenti’s to answer questions and see how Kyle was holding up. Liz, of course, would be his last stop.

What would she say to him? Should she tell him the truth about what the Granolith had done? And if she did, how much should she tell him? How much did he already suspect? How would he react? More importantly, was she right in thinking he had access to Rath’s memories or had that just been her imagination, and, if she was right, how much of Rath’s memories had he been able to gain access to?

Michael pulled himself over the ledge and stood on his feet. Silent.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she said. “Come on in. My parents went out to dinner at a friend’s. We can speak privately.” She turned and led the way to her room, crawling in through the window.

They sat on her bed.

“How is everyone holding up?” she asked.

“Isabel and Max – they’re tough. They’ll be fine after a good night’s sleep. Jim and Kyle – I don’t know. They’re devastated. Jim will get through it, I think,” he told her. “Kyle would prefer not to have anything to do with any of us anymore.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What about Maria?”

“Hard to say,” he shrugged. “She’s Maria. One minute she’s angry and wants to kill Tess, the next she’s all over me because I stayed on Earth.”

“Sounds about right,” Liz agreed. “What about her mom?”

“She was starting to remember. Tess is… not as skilled at mind warping as she was on Antar,” he stated simply. “I had to repair the damage. She’ll be fine now. She won’t remember anything.”

Liz nodded. Michael was drained, bone tired. There was strain on his face and in the hunch of his shoulders. He felt so responsible for everyone, but then so did she. “Thank goodness,” she sighed. “Michael, when was the last time you ate?”

“I don’t remember. This morning, I think,” he said. “But don’t worry about it. Just talk to me.”

“Okay.” This was it – the time of reckoning. She wondered once again how much she should tell him. Would it be a risk to the timeline to tell him everything she knew? She did not want to undo whatever effects Max and she had had here. Then again, if he remembered being Rath… She blew out a nervous breath.

“You’re not risking the timeline.” He spoke soft to keep the tiredness out of his voice, but she felt it anyway.

“How can you be sure?”

“I just am,” he evaded. “What did the Granolith say when It contacted you?”

Ipaki – the Antarian word for ‘remember’.

Strange. She wondered again over the mind so gentle yet holding such great power. It had been a sensation she didn’t think she would ever forget.

“The Granolith said It was rewarding me,” she shrugged.

“For your part in altering this timeline,” he interpreted.

She blinked. “Yeah. How did you…? Oh,” she sighed. Of course. “Flashes. You know what we did because of flashes from Maria.” There was no real surprise. Her younger counterpart should have known better.

His nod was imperceptible. “What did It do?”

“The same thing It did for you apparently. It gave me my memories back.”

He neither confirmed nor denied her suspicion. “How many?”

“What do you mean? You want to know how much of the other timeline I remember?”

“How many timelines… period… do you remember?”

“There’s more than two?” she murmured in horror. “How many times have we lived to see the end of the world?”

“Only the Granolith knows.”

“So, what are you saying? That… that it’s just going to keep happening? Again and again and again?”

“No, Liz,” he said, taking hold of her hand. “No. This is the last time. You wouldn’t have been given your memories otherwise.”

She reached out with her mind and gently brushed against his, needing to know the truth. His mind was open and reacted to her by returning her touch.

“I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“Oh.” She could sense honesty coming from him. “All right. Then what do you want to know?”

“I need to know what you know… from the other timeline.”

“Oh, okay.” Of course he would need to know. Their lives depended on information and keeping one step ahead of their enemy. They couldn’t afford to allow what happened in 2014 to happen again. “Well, I guess what you most need know is that Tess…”

He shook his head. “Don’t tell me. I need to see it for myself.” He reached out slowly and cupped her cheek in his hand. Did she understand what he wanted? Would she allow him to do it?

“No, Michael,” Liz said, immediately putting up a mental block to prevent a telepathic connection. She reached up and gently grasped his hand in hers. “No. Maria would see. She’d see everything,” she said.

“She won’t know. I swear.” Michael leaned toward Liz until she could feel his warm breath on her skin. “I don’t let her get flashes.”

“But you…” She did not finish. In the other timeline he had always let Maria “see” him. Always. But this timeline was different… and not just because Max had come back and altered events. It was different in small ways long before Max had ever arrived, ways that she was still trying to sort out. Was this another one of those things?

His warm brown eyes were darkening and she could feel his alien side becoming more active. She had seen it before… in the other timeline… at the end, when, as General Rath, he had organized the final attack against their enemies.

“Please, Liz,” he whispered.

“But you’ll risk…” Everything. The kind of connection he would need to make was risky to them both.

Michael made a low guttural noise in his throat. “I’m not going to bond to you.”

Liz pulled back. “Are you laughing at me, Rath?”

“Never,” he denied, despite the obvious amusement in his exhausted features. “Never at you.”

“You better not,” she said quietly.

“Never,” he repeated.

He was knocking down her excuses one by one.

She stared at him, thinking. There were things she did not want him to see, even things she herself did not want to relive. Memories of another world best left locked away and forgotten. But then…this was Rath asking and what he wanted from her was important. This timeline had to be protected, the people kept safe…

So many people had given their lives to see this happen…including Rath.

He still had his hand pressed her cheek, and now he brought the other one up so that he held her. He leaned in until his forehead rested against hers. “Breathe,” he instructed. “Slow. In and out. Match your breaths to mine,” he instructed.

She knew. He had connected to her – to teach her – before… but then, he wouldn’t know about that and that sort of teaching connection wasn’t quite the same as what he had proposed now.

This sorting and deciphering of two different timelines was confusing. Two childhoods intertwined with very different end results. Two sets of peoples that, like twin siblings, might look the same and have similar personalities, but could not really be the same at all.

In this one she and Michael had shared mutual friends but had never themselves been close, certainly not close enough to have connected. In the other – the one from which she came – they had been close friends. More than close friends actually. They had been family. And Michael and Rath both (depending on which was dominant at the time) had taught her and protected her and fought alongside her.

Would this Michael be any different now that he had Rath’s memories? Could she trust and rely on him in the way she had the Rath/Michael of her timeline?

Did this Rath have the skill and control necessary to form such an intimate connection without hurting her?

But then maybe it didn’t matter. What he learned from her could only help.

“Breathe,” he said again. “Keep your eyes on mine.”

Liz forced herself to put her thoughts aside and relax – relax until their breathing had slowed and synchronized and his eyes had darkened until they were black. Her internal mental walls began to crumble.

She felt him send out the calming telepathic sensations to put her mind at ease, and she made no attempt to stop him. She let him come to her. Gently. Tentatively. His mind reaching out to hers with unexpected tenderness and warmth. Trust me, he spoke in her mind.

I do, she answered.

He moved in further, silently, she noticed. Where are the flashes? she asked. He was deep within her mind now – in the far reaches where the Granolith had breached the barriers of her hidden memories - but, unlike with Max, no images flashed through her mind. It was strangely quiet.

Never, he whispered to her telepathically. I would never put you at risk. And there they were, all the memories from another lifetime. Under his tender guidance, they came alive for him… for them both.

Liz had never experienced anything like it. Not ever. He was remembering with her, sharing in her thoughts and feelings and impressions. Reliving all of it from her perspective, even the intimate, tender moments and the horrifying, despairing events. It was…

Benguela, he spoke telepathically, breaking the silent remembering.

I do not know that word, she returned. She had encountered much of the Antarian language in the last timeline, but that particular word was still foreign to her.

A Sharing between friends, he explained.

This?

Yes.

Even between people who are bonded? she asked.

He paused his quiet perusal and she felt his regret slip through even before he answered. Yes, he told her, but you are not bonded and neither am I.

The bond is still with me; only Max is not.

It is the way, he said and then relapsed into her memories, ending their brief conversation.

When he was done – when he was finished seeing what he came to see – he removed himself from her mind just as slowly as he had entered her. Tenderly. Careful not to cause any injury.

Physical sensations returned gradually and Liz found herself still in Michael’s confines, his hands cupping her cheeks, his forehead pressed to hers, their breathing still in unison. The last vestiges of Rath’s alien side lay subdued.

“Michael?” she whispered. His eyes were closed, but his mind was at last unguarded and she could feel his exhaustion, physically and mentally. It had been too much – the long emotional roller coaster of a day, the repercussions to deal with at night, and now the controlled use of his power to access her mind without hurting her. The connection had taken the last of his energy. She took his hands in hers and slowly brought them down. “Come on, Michael. Sleep. I’ll lock my door. My parents won’t know.”

He didn’t fight her. He was tired enough to know he didn’t have enough left in him to make it back to his apartment safely.

Liz covered Michael and then went to her window and shut it. She pressed her hand against the glass and let her energy pool into her palm. The glass blackened and thickened, creating a soundproof, impenetrable barrier. Part of her knew that such a precaution in this timeline was unnecessary, but the other part of her – the part that had lived through the war and was always on guard – insisted.

Then she crawled into bed next to him and pulled the covers up around her. She waved her hand at the lamp and it turned off, plunging her bedroom into darkness. She snuggled into her pillow, aware of Michael’s warm, comforting presence beside her, but she couldn’t fall asleep as easily as he did; too much weighed on her mind.

What would happen now? Alex was dead, murdered by the woman Max had bonded himself to. Her friends were utterly devastated by the events that had occurred over the past few weeks. And now… now Michael and she had their memories back. What did that mean for this timeline? How did it change things? And, perhaps more importantly, why did she have powers earlier in this timeline than the last?

It was a long time before her troubling thoughts let her fall into an equally troubled sleep.

It was still dark when Michael awoke. He slipped the covers slowly off him and quietly sat up in bed, trying not to wake her.

“Michael?” she murmured sleepily, awakening despite his efforts. “You leaving?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“What time is it?”

“4:30.”

“Okay.” She rolled toward him and extended her hand, seeking his. She found the hem of his shirt instead and grabbed it. “You’ll have to fix the window to get out.”

He smiled, recalling that in the other timeline he had been the one to teach her that trick. “Thanks,” he told her.

“No problem.”

“Not the window, Liz. I meant thank you for everything else – for sacrificing your love when Max came back, for trying to protect the Granolith, for not giving up no matter how scared or unhappy you were… and for trusting me.”

She cradled his head on her lap and stared down on his prone form. There was no blood, but the damage from the blast was irreparable… even if they had the time.

“Thank you for trusting me,” he managed to get out between raspy breaths.

“Always,” she whispered.

“It was worth it, wasn’t it?”

She nodded. She had to fight the emotional walls she had erected in her mind, fight them so that they wouldn’t crumble, for it was no longer Rath standing so strong beside her but Michael Guerin. She had not seen him in a long time. Months. Maybe longer. “I want to believe it is.”

“It is. Trust me.”

“I do.”

“You have to finish this.”

“I know.”

“My men will hold off Khivar until you and Max get to the Granolith,” he said, “but you’ll have to hurry.”

She nodded. They would have to leave him. Let him die alone. She hoped death would come quickly for him.

“Liz,” her husband spoke from beside her.

“I love you, Michael. We both do,” she said. He hated displays of affection, but she wasn’t going to leave without saying it.

“Liz,” Max said again.

“Go,” Michael ordered.

Liz carefully lifted his head from her lap and set it on the ground. “Imabuli xoyan, ceiba tsuwen waun urangi,” she whispered. /May you find peace in the Granolith./

It was what his people said to those who had died or were about to die, and she half expected him to repeat those words back to her but he only said goodbye.

Just goodbye. As if he planned to see her again.

She forced the memory of yesterday – no, from the time period before – to take its place back in the far recesses of her mind and clapped her walls immediately into place. They had done what had to be done. That was all. And she did not regret the sacrifices they had to make for it.

“I’d do it again… all of it,” she whispered.

“I know you would.” He bent down and placed a tender kiss on her forehead. It was a thank you, not meant as anything more. “Try not to worry about anything, okay? This time line is not as bad as it seems right now.”

“Thanks, but I don’t need you to be strong for me, Michael,” she said. “I’ve already been through the end of my world. Nothing can be worse than that.”

“Sure it can,” he said softly, catching her hand in his. “You’re the sole survivor of a planet of 7½ billion people. And sometimes, Liz, living can be harder than dying.”

She had envied the dead sometimes, for the peace they had. But that was before. This timeline was different. She had no reason to envy them anymore, and every reason to want to be part of the living. “I’ll be okay, Michael.”

He squeezed her hand comfortingly. “Okay. I need to go,” he told her, “but I’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

Author’s note: Seriously, folks, click the link when you come to the “form” that Liz sees so you can get an idea of what she is looking at. Put the settings at [hyperpanes] 120-cell, [3-symmetry] tetrahedral, [stereo mode] color code and [color scheme] MMA. Then go up top and set the viewpoint to 0.175, the separation to –0.01 and the shell to between #38 and 44. And make it move at its max speed. That ought to make you feel seasick.




Liz stopped suddenly as she was about to exit the apartment and Michael nearly ran into her. She was staring at the wall that ran from the right side of the front door. “Where’s the…?” She pointed.

“Where’s the what, honey?” her mother asked. She set the clean plate on the counter and reached for another dirty dish. “Did you forget something?”

“Mom, where’s grandma’s piano?”

“Liz,” Michael warned under his breath, but Nancy still caught his tone.

Nancy paused and studied her daughter. She wasn’t sure she heard right. “What?”

“But wasn’t it there…?” Liz asked Michael. She pointed at the wall.

He shook his head no. Of course how he knew was beyond Nancy. She could not remember Michael having ever crossed their threshold.

Liz stood, looking completely confused. “But I used to play…”

Michael shook his head no again.

She bit at her lip. She seemed confused. “Never mind, Mom. I…uh, never mind.”

“Sweetheart, Grandma sold her piano, oh…probably ten years ago,” Nancy said, puzzled as to both Liz’s question and the odd exchange between Michael and her daughter. “Don’t you remember or were you too young?”

“She did?” Liz asked. She appeared to think over her words. “I wonder why she did that.”

“Well, she certainly wasn’t getting any use out of it,” Nancy said, but she had a puzzled expression on her face. “She was gone so much that when that woman showed up on her doorstep and made her an offer she felt that she couldn’t refuse.”

“What kind of an offer?”

“Oh, something like $35,000 cash,” she answered. “I think she still might have refused on grounds of sentimental value, but she said the young woman reminded her so much of her sister – you know, the one you take after – that she let her have it.”

Nancy saw Michael press his hand against the small of Liz’s back and give her a gentle push toward the door.

Liz smiled at her mother as if nothing were amiss, though Nancy was quick to notice the smile did not quite reach her eyes, and said, “School. Gotta go.” She gave a small wave as she exited. “Bye.”

But before the door closed all the way, Nancy heard Liz say: “I don’t understand. I’ve played the piano all my life. How could this time…”




Liz had taken her lunch and gone out to the football field to be alone, but she felt Michael looking for her and knew he would find her sooner or later. Probably sooner. Like a blind man tapping his cane, she could feel his mind brushing against hers.

She pulled small flowers out of the grass and tore them into small pieces, letting them fall back to the ground. The warm, spring breeze blew its desert scent around her – sand and wild flowers and sweet grass. Far in the distance she could hear the twitter of small birds. It felt good to be by herself. Despite the novelty of actually attending high school, the crowd of students had been overwhelming that morning. So much noise and confusion.

It seemed like years since she had been to school. She wasn’t used to so many people. Crowding. Pushing. Talking.

She had to close down her empathic senses completely in order to cope. Too many minds. Too many emotions. Too much sensory input.

Her head ached from it all.

But when Michael had come tapping, she had let him in. Just like that.

One voice. One mind. One sense of determination. Order to a chaotic world.

The pain in her mind ebbed to a tolerable level.

She lay back on the cool grass and let the warm sun soak into her skin. She closed her eyes and breathed in the earthy smells.

And felt.

Un-alone.

The ancient mind of the Granolith had awakened. It looked at her. Silently.

Her stomach churned.

What is it? What do you want?

What did It want? It had never spoken to her before… in the other timeline. Why now? Why this time? Why bring her here?

A single image flashed through her mind. Tess’s trajectory. Her trail across North America. Across the southern states.

I don’t want to know about her.

Another image flashed through her mind. The pod Tess had been shuttled in crash landing. A tremendous impact. Sand flying hundreds of feet into the air. It looked like an explosion.

Is she dead? She did want to know that.

Frothy water lapped again and again at the pod, like steady, sleepy breathing. A crack in the pod’s surface appear and a hatch opened. Tess’s curly head appeared. She looked beaten-up. She struggled to emerge, and finally landed in a heap on the wet sand.

Liz moaned and covered her eyes, as if she could block the image of the murderess from her mind. Her stomach lurched and the pain in her head intensified. No more. I’ve seen enough.

The Ancient Entity slipped away as silently as it came and Liz’s stomach immediately calmed itself.

She felt a cold shadow over her.

“Max was hoping to have a meeting with all of us at lunch to go over our cover stories,” Michael said dryly.

The idea was entirely ridiculous. Cover stories for what? Her parents hadn’t noticed a thing. Maria’s mom had been taken care of by Michael. Kyle and Jim Valenti only had to say that Tess had run away from home. And as for Bob, Max and Isabel’s jeep…well they were on their own with that one. It wasn’t her fault they had Michael blow it up and push it over a cliff. That was just…dumb, and she figured they deserved whatever they got for that one. She had no intention of getting involved in giving them a cover story.

Michael sat down on the grass next to her.

“God, he’s just so young, isn’t he?” Liz asked, looking up at her companion.

“So are we,” he said.

“No, we’re not.” She started to sit up and then lay back down. “Oh, still dizzy.”

“Granolith talk to you again?” Michael asked.

“No, just showed me where it drop-kicked Tess.” She glanced up at him. “Some beach in Florida, in case you’re wondering.”

Michael shrugged. “I was hoping for middle of the Sahara, but Florida’s good.”

“Any place as long as it’s not here, right?” She gave a small laugh. “You know, in my timeline we would have done anything to get our hands on her. We needed her. In this one? I’d like to protect this timeline from her. Protect the people from someone with her kind of power.”

He raised his brow. “You planning something?”

“Let’s just say she’s safe from me until Max’s son is born. Then all bets are off.”

“Maybe you should let me take care of her.”

“Nope. She’s my responsibility,” she said. “The events of this timeline are my doing and I’m going to fix them.”

“The Granolith created this timeline, not you,” Michael told her.

“And did it also create the murderess that’s running around right now?” She tried to sit up again and noticed that the dizziness had gone, although her headache remained. “Because as far as I’m concerned Max and I are responsible for creating a situation in which Tess could become so bad so fast.”

“She chose to become what she is.”

“That’s circular thinking, Michael. Totally logical but completely inaccurate,” she said. “No matter how you look at it, I played a part in the creation of a very dangerous and very powerful alien that no human is going to be able to stop.”

Michael scratched at his eyebrow. “And you think you can stop her on your own?”

“I could,” she said. “I don’t think I’m going to have to, but I could if it came down to it.”

“Wanna fill me in on the details?”

She shook her head. “Not right at this moment,” Liz said, knowing there was still months to go before Tess went into labor. (A one-month pregnancy. Pfft. Where had Tess come up with that one?) “But I will when the time comes.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m still working out the details.”

“That’s what I thought.”

She eyed him suspiciously, daring him to tell her why he was so amused, but he only quirked an eyebrow and remained silent; so, it surprised her when he reached out and threaded his fingers through her hair and over her ear. She felt the warm sensation of his alien energy flood quickly through her, and the pain in her head suddenly dissipated.

“No connection?”

“A connection isn’t needed to heal.”

“Oh.” She felt his amusement double.

“Besides, you wouldn’t have this problem if you had better control over your powers.”

“Better control?” she exclaimed. “You trained me.”

He smiled at her. “That was last time. Your powers weren’t as strong then. And there wasn’t much time to train you. This time you’re much stronger. You’re going to need a lot more training. And it’s going to take a lot longer to train you.”

Liz didn’t even need to think about his unanticipated gesture. She knew as well as he did that she was different and that she would need the training. “Okay.”

“No arguments?”

She shook her head.

“You okay?”

She shook her head again. “You were right. About living, that is. I feel like I’m waking up from a nightmare,” she said. “I’m shaky. Overwhelmed. Keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.” She took a deep steadying breath.

“I felt them, Michael. All these people.” She gestured absently toward the cluster of school buildings. “Especially with the, um… the upoko.”

Upoko. It was a miracle drug on Antar. It made powers stronger and let them accomplish things they could not have ordinarily done.

Khivar used it on Liz to increase her empathic powers, knowing what she would feel. Knowing that she would sense the pain and suffering and death of millions of people. Knowing that Max, too, would feel it through their bond.

He had meant to use it to send a message to Max: surrender unconditionally or we’ll hurt your wife. But Khivar had not counted on Liz’s resourcefulness. She took all the empathic pain. Absorbed it. Drew from it. Harnessed it. Then she turned it around and shoved it into the minds of every alien within her much increased mental range, forcing them to see the full, horrific scope of what Khivar had done.

It was an incredible blow for Khivar as many of his soldiers defected soon afterward.

“I remember, um… I remember feeling their pain, and some of them were tortured. And… I remember when they went silent, because, um…they were dead and there was nothing to feel anymore,” she said softly. She brushed at her wet eyes, but she wouldn’t let herself cry. “And every day there were less and less… voices… you know, um, mental voices to connect to. And then finally there was only…”

He reached out and pulled at the hem of her shirt, tugging her toward him. She buried her head in his chest and let him wrap a comforting arm around her.

“I felt all these people die. But now they’re here. Alive. Young. Happy,” she sighed. “It feels really strange.”

“I bet.”

Maybe she shouldn’t have opened her mind to them. Maybe she shouldn’t have ‘listened’, but she had. She wanted to feel human life around her again. Wanted to know the war was really over. Wanted some kind of confirmation that the choices Max and she had made at the end were worth it.

But there were more ‘voices’ than she was used to ‘listening’ to and the ‘noise’ they made was stronger. With a single push, her mind was able to empathically capture the sensations of millions of people…and she had not needed the upoko to do it. The strength of her ability frightened her.

She had collapsed her ability then, reining it in to those closer to her, to the students and staff on the school grounds. But their youth and innocence left her feeling empty and alone. Surviving the genocide of her people had aged her mentally. It had stripped her of her youthful enthusiasm. It made her feel different from her peers of this timeline. What did they know of war and death and suffering and fear?

She had closed down her empathic senses completely then.

She plucked at the fabric of his Pendleton with her index finger and thumb. “You, um…you ever feel lonely in a crowd?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “All the time.”

“Parker?”

“Parker?”

“Parker?”

Liz felt a jolt come in from behind her and instantly became alert. She spun in her seat and looked at Jeff Croft, but he pointed at their teacher, Mr. Faulks.

School. Class. She quickly orientated herself to her surroundings.

“Miss Parker?” the teacher said yet again.

She turned back around. “Oh, me.” Right. Parker, not Evans. Parker was her name. She kept forgetting. “I, um…I’m sorry, Sir. I wasn’t paying attention. Could you repeat the question?”

He stared at her with a frown for a few seconds before answering. “1774. What is significant about that year…Parker?”

“1774,” she repeated. She racked her brain to recall the information. “Uh, you know, as I recall there were two important things that happened that year. The first was that King George really started making known his true feelings toward our colonies. He wrote: ‘The New England governments are in a state of rebellion, blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent.’

“And the second more important event was what we call the Boston Massacre and the British call the Boston Skirmish, which was nothing more than some young, homesick British soldiers taking shots at a crowd of men who were taunting them. Five Americans died. Seven were wounded*. It was a far bigger deal to us than it was to them, for obvious reasons. The event became a catalyst, a reason for Americans to start thinking about wanting to be free from British rulership.”

Mr. Faulks nodded. “Very true. Now the question is why. Why did the Boston Massacre become a catalyst? Anyone?”

Liz glanced back at Jeff, who was wearing a shirt that read: ‘What happens if you get scared half to death twice?’ Now there was food for thought.

What happens if you never stop feeling scared? Now that was an even better question.

Pfft. Jeff and his shirts. She had forgotten about his obsession.

“Thanks a lot,” she mouthed with a frown. He gave her a big, toothy smile before she returned her attention to the teacher.

No one had raised their hand.

The teacher moved over to the overhead projector and flipped it on, then placed a transparency on it. The picture splashed onto the whiteboard. “Who wants to tell me about this?”

Again no one raised their hand.

Jeff Croft shoved her again on her back. Her movement caught Mr. Faulk’s eye and he called her name with some relief.

She turned and glared at Jeff before answering. “It’s called ’The Bloody Massacre Perpetrated in King Street’. It was a copper etching commissioned by Samuel Adams and created by Paul Revere, which was then painted and printed over and over again and sold throughout the colonies.

“It was war propaganda. It portrayed the British as the enemy shooting at innocent American citizens, when really the only people who were killed or injured were antagonists. But it had the desired effect. People saw the picture and got mad.

“There were a lot of Patriots at the time period, people who considered themselves loyal British citizens and wanted to continue being ruled by Britain. But once this began to be distributed, things began to change.” She shrugged. “It was a brilliant strategy.”

“Right you are,” her teacher replied.

Too bad they had not had any brilliant strategies during the war with Khivar, but the man was always one step ahead. Always. Until the end, when Max had gone back in time and changed the past. And even then, it had not been their past that he had managed to change. They had lost. Khivar had won. Totally.

But he would not win this time. Now she had to finish what Max and she had started and make sure that this time around she was the one that was one step ahead, that she was the one with the brilliant strategies. She didn’t imagine for one second that it was going to be easy, but she did feel she had a fighting chance this time around. This time she knew who her enemies were. And this time they had managed to wipe out most of the Skins already stationed here on Earth.

She knew it was going to come down to two things: removing the last of Khivar’s men from the planet and making sure that Khivar got a firm message that Earth was an unpalatable place to come to, that it had nothing to offer him.

She had some ideas, but they would need refinement. She would also need the help of her alien friends. And she did mean alien. At the very least she was counting on Rath to help her. But, if she could get it, she would also be grateful for the help of Ava and Vilandra.

Max, sadly, was probably going to be more of a liability than a help. If this Max was anything like her husband he would not be able to access his Antarian memories. Plus, he had bonded himself to one of their enemies and that bonding would have made him mentally vulnerable. Poor Max.

But he was the least of her worries right now. Protecting the people of Earth – that was number one. Blending in – that was number two. Adjusting mentally and emotionally to this time period – that was number three. Bolstering Max’s self-esteem – well, that could wait.

“Parker.”

She jolted to attention only to find herself alone in the classroom with her teacher. The bell had already rung and the students had vacated the room, and she had not even noticed. How had the time disappeared on her like that?

“I know you love my class, but you gotta go home.”

She gave him a half-hearted smile and then packed her notebook away in her backpack.

“You know, you’ve been kinda out of it today, Parker,” Mr. faulks said, interrupting her thoughts once more. “Everything okay?”

She shouldered her bag and stood up. “Um, I don’t know. I’m not sure yet.”

“Anything I can do?” he asked. “I’m a pretty good listener.”

She hesitated and then shook her head. The offer was tempting. If she made it sound like she was talking about Alex’s loss… but no. If she wanted someone to listen to her, she had Michael. She had no need for a human to comfort her. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”




She sat propped up in bed with a pillow behind her back, tapping the unread book that lay across her lap. With every tap the cover of the book seemed to ripple like water and then change colors.

Tap. Sky blue.

Tap. Crocodile green.

Tap. Gravestone gray.

Max, she called telepathically. Max. Please answer me. She felt along their bond. Searching. Hoping that he was there somewhere.

Tap. Ballerina pink.

Tap. Sulfur yellow.

Tap. Midnight blue.

Sweetheart.

She opened up her empathic senses and pushed it out as far as it would reach. Thousands, then millions of minds lit up, one after another, and a cacophony of voices burst forth. The sensation of so many did not scare her as it had earlier, but it did make her feel… sad. Not one out of all the voices sounded like her husband.

She sighed softly.

Tap. Granny Smith green.

Tap. Cherry red.

Tap. Pumpkin orange.

And then she felt the concerned presence of the Granolith. Hovering. Watching. Waiting.

Tap. The book rippled and buckled into angles and cuts and sharp edges, and glistened in a rainbow of colors.

She withdrew her hand quickly and looked at what she’d done. A mild wave of nausea followed at the sight of the unnatural figures.

Liz waved her hand over the book and flattened the cover and blended the colors back into a dreary taupe. The golden title reemerged. The nausea disappeared.

She hastily pushed it off her lap and sank backward against her pillow.

The Granolith nudged impatiently at her mind.

No, she said to It. She didn’t want It. She wanted her husband.

It nudged again.

She sighed. I don’t suppose you plan on giving me a choice?

It touched her mind for barely a second and whispered in her mind. Yes.

She heard someone tap softly at her door. “Liz? Honey?”

“Yeah, Mom.”

The door opened inward and Nancy poked her head in. “You want me to heat up any dinner for you yet?”

‘No’ hung on the edge of her tongue, but the Entity seemed upset by the idea. “Toast,” she conceded. “And some ginger tea, if we have any.”

“I think we do,” her mother said, “but it’s probably pretty old.”

“Doesn’t matter. Dried herbs stay potent for a long time.”

“Okay, honey.” She shut the door and went off to the kitchen.

Liz immediately turned her attention to the Entity. Don’t connect with me until I have something in me. Both times it had formed a connection with her, she had felt very sick and dizzy. Something about it just unsettled her. She wondered if, perhaps, it was because it was so alien. Perhaps her mind did not know how to cope with its non-human differences.

It responded with something she interpreted as an affirmation.

She plucked at the stitching on her comforter, thinking. The Granolith was persistent, that was for certain. But she had learned something important in the last timeline: non-humans did not come to Earth unless they had an agenda, but in neither timeline had she managed to learn the Granolith’s purpose in coming to her world. People lived, fought and died because of the extraordinary Being, but in all that time It had never spoken to her. Now, she couldn’t get It to go away. Why?

She wished her husband were there to comfort her and help her figure out the answers. Max? she called again through their bond, her heart half expecting him to answer and her mind knowing he would not. Again there was no sense of him anywhere. His ‘voice’ had gone silent.

Just like all the other voices.

That was what had happened in her world. At the end there had been no human voices left. They had all been silenced by either death or enslavement on the distant Antar. Only Max and she had been left.

And now even he was gone.

She was truly alone.

She glanced toward her window and remembered their last dance together. His way of saying goodbye.

He was a romantic to the end.

What was she going to do without him? Without his love? Without his voice in her mind and heart?

Her mother returned shortly with the toast and tea, but Liz only took the food and set it on her nightstand.

Her mother hesitated. Liz sensed that something was on her mind that was causing her anxiety. “You okay, Mom?”

Nancy smiled hesitantly. “I think maybe I should be the one asking you that.”

“Oh, you mean because of Alex?”

“Losing him seemed to knock the ground out from beneath you,” she commented.

Liz opened her mouth to speak but found she had nothing to say. Alex was… She let out a slow breath. Alex was a casualty of a war that occurred in a completely different timeline. Changing things here had caused his untimely death and made her partly responsible. But she couldn’t exactly tell her mother that.

“You know, honey, it’s normal to feel hurt and sad and angry when someone dies. It’s even normal to feel confused for a while or guilty or even scared. And you might go back and forth; you might feel fine and happy and then feel sad again,” her mother said, sitting on the edge of Liz’s bed.

“Honey, have you cried yet?”

Liz tucked her hair behind her ear and thought about the total loss of life she had experienced at the ending of her world. She could still sense the Granolith waiting for her, listening, its concern prominent. “Crying doesn’t do any good. It doesn’t make bad things stop happening. It doesn’t make people we love come back.”

“It’s a place to start,” Nancy said. “It helps wash the hurt away.”

“If I started crying now I’d never stop.”

“I know it feels that way now…”

“But things will get better? I’ll get past this?” she interrupted softly. “I’d be naïve if I fell for those time worn clichés. I’ve just been through hell and back. My whole world has been turned upside-down. Nothing is ever going to be the same for me.”

“Oh, baby,” Nancy sighed.

“I know you’re trying to be nice and that you love me and you’re worried for me. Trust me. I feel it,” she sighed. “But crying doesn’t solve problems, Mom. Action solves problems. Doing something. I just… I just haven’t figured out what to do yet… but I will.”

Her mother nodded, a sense of relief slipping over her. “Okay.”

She must have figured that if Liz could think things through rationally that everything was going to be okay. Steady, strong, predictable Liz. What would she do if she found out who and what her daughter really was? She would probably run out screaming into the street like Maria had when she had learned the truth.

Liz reached over and took the teacup. She cooled it slightly with but a simple thought and then took a sip.

“Well, a good night’s rest ought to do me wonders,” she said softly.

Her mother took the hint. “I’m sure you’re right, sweety.” She gave her a gentle pat and then stood.

Liz was relieved when her mother left, shutting the door behind her. Now she could turn her attention to the Powerful Entity that was quietly waiting for her.

She did not know what to think about this Granolith. A Being that bent time to Its will? That could capture someone’s consciousness within Itself and transfer it to another? Whose very being was so far advanced over that of a human’s that the simple touch of Its mind made one feel sick? An Entity that people would literally kill to possess?

A Being that, despite Its awesome power, was gentle and kind? One that Rath – her Rath – had trusted and believed in and that her Michael had willingly died for?

What did it all mean? What did It want? Why did It want it from her? What did the Royal Four have to do with It?

Liz pulled the tea bag from the cup and slit it open with a gentle touch of her powers and emptied the contents in her mouth. Then she chugged it down with the rest of her tea, grimacing at the unpalatable granules of ginger.

Ginger was an anti-nausea herb. She wasn’t quite sure if the contents of one tea bag would work, but it was worth a try. At the very least it might tone down the nauseating effects of a connection with the Entity.

She took a bite of the toast, but it tasted like cardboard. But, then, almost everything had tasted that way for months, ever since she had been captured by Khivar’s men. They had forced her to eat – eat like the queen they presumed her to be – even though everyone around her was starving. So, she ate but, because she could empathically sense the hunger of those around her, she never felt full nor was she able to find any pleasure in the food.

Even when she had escaped captivity, she had trouble eating. She just felt…wrong…whenever she took a bite. Tasteless, bland food that refused to satisfy her.

Max had made her keep eating.

She forced herself to finish the toast, then dusted the crumbs away with a wave of her hand.

She waited.

Waited for what she thought was a long enough time for the ginger to have been absorbed by her system.

Okay.

The Entity brushed lightly against her mind, and she sensed that It was trying to form the barest of a connection with her to buffer her against Itself. The connection strengthened and locked into place. It made her feel lightheaded, but she thought she could handle it.

Matawia, It whispered in her mind. Zwibaba. /Look closely and understand./

A simple image appeared in her mind. A line.

Length, she said telepathically.

Another line followed, crossing in the other direction.

Breadth.

Then a third. From up above it plunged down through the intersection of the other two lines.

Depth.

Liz thought she understood. She reached out and added more lines, tracing them out with her index finger. She connected them, forming them into a cube. Ulua ko. /The third dimension./

The Granolith was pleased. She had understood.

Within the cube a new line formed – thick and strong – and it stretched out through the cube and beyond, far into the distance.

Time, she said telepathically. The fourth dimension. My dimension.

Yes, it answered.

Then all the lines, including the time line, splintered and reconnected in unnatural and strange shapes. The new “shape” slowly spun and turned. It flowed and ebbed and pondered its movement. Its colors undulated like a cuttle fish. With every slight movement, the form seemed to shift into something completely different. Its shape was unsteady and impossible. Liz was unable to comprehend the new form. Her stomach churned.

So much for the ginger.

The fifth dimension. Ulua dur, she telepathed, trying her best to hang in despite the growing nausea. Incomprehensible to a fourth-dimensional being like myself.

Zwibaba.

I cannot.

Reluctantly the Entity breached the connection, severing Itself from her mind. The image was gone. Liz’s stomach began to settle itself.

What had the image been about? She wondered. Why was it important to the Granolith? Why show it to her?

She straightened out her pillows and settled down in bed. With a push of her mind, the lamp clicked itself off and her room plunged into darkness.

The Granolith was still present. Hovering. Watching over her.

They had learned the hard way not to turn down offers of friendship or answers to their questions. The lesson had been late in coming, too late to help their world, but maybe… maybe it could help this one. Even if it began with an incomprehensible shape.

I’ll try. Tu wana.

*Some sources state six were injured rather than seven.

True to her word she did try to understand what the Granolith had shown her. She gathered what resources she could find from the library at her school and the public library in town and did research on the Internet. When that failed to pan out, she even ditched school one day and drove over to the University of New Mexico and used their libraries. The books and articles she found at the University were finer scholarly works, but they still lacked what she was searching for.

“Need help?” one of the librarians had asked her.

“I don’t think what I need is here,” she told him.

“We have the most modern resources available,” he assured her. “I’m sure I could help you find what you’re looking for.”

“From my point of view,” she said, “you’re a decade behind.” Then she shouldered her bag and left.

She went out to the parking lot and sat in her car, contemplating contacting Serena, her friend from the other timeline. Ten-year-old Serena would be there, right on the UNM campus, working on her Masters. Even at her young age she might have answers for Liz, but Liz had to weigh out the repercussions. Would contacting Serena put her friend at risk? Did it risk the continuity of this timeline?

Her cell phone rang. She looked at the number that appeared on the screen and decided to answer.

“Yeah?”

“Where are you?”

“Albuquerque. What’s up?”

“What are you doing in Albuquerque?”

“Research. What do you need, Michael?”

“What research?”

She sighed. “Polytopes.”

“Why?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

“I didn’t realize I needed your permission, General.”

He paused. “Evans,” he said her name softly.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Look, I’ve got a homework assignment I’m having trouble with. Call it perspective.”

“What kind of homework?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”




She never did contact Serena, considering it too dangerous to the timeline and to the small vestiges left of her friend’s childhood. Instead she stoically plunged through her week, attending classes, doing homework, working at the Crashdown, and avoiding Max except for the science class they shared. She forced herself to ignore her broken bond, refused to think about the timeline from which she came any more than she could help it, and just…tried to act normal.

Still she had moments when dark emotions bubbled to the surface and she found herself unable to ignore them. During one of those moments, she packaged up half of her wardrobe and drove it over to Goodwill, unceremoniously dropping it off and returning home. During another, she pulled all vestiges of her teenage past from her walls – photos, posters, and trinkets – and boxed them and stuck them in the attic.

Michael watched over her, but tried not to interfere. (He seemed preoccupied with Max and Isabel and Maria anyway.) The Granolith hovered, occasionally showing her the undulating form again but she did not understand any better then than she had in the first instance, nor did she stomach it any better.

And Max? Well, Max was an avoidable problem for most of the week for the simple fact that he no longer had transportation and was dependent on catching rides or walking. Even at school, where they had closer contact, she was able to steer clear of him by keeping tabs on him empathically. Only science class was unavoidable, but she was conveniently late all week and left as soon as the bell rang and he was unable to talk to her.

But she couldn’t put him off forever, so when he called and asked for some time with her she agreed.

The park had been his idea. He wanted somewhere quiet and pretty (maybe even romantic) to take Liz so that they could talk.

He brought bread with him, so they sat on the grass, on the edge of the man-made lake and fed the ducks and geese, which crowded around them. The birds quacked and honked and made enough of a ruckus to bring in all of their friends to share in the feast, but Max and Liz sat silently next to one another, postponing words that needed to be spoken.

Jeff Croft walked by with his girlfriend and a shirt that read: ‘If a man with no arms has a gun, is he armed?’ Liz offered to let the couple join them, but Jeff declined and moved on. It was just as well.

After too short of a time, the last crumb was eaten and the birds fled to a safer part of the lake. “I need to explain about Tess,” he began. “I need to explain why…”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t, Max. I already understand.”

“Because of Kyle?” It was just a question. There was no malice in his voice, nor was that an accusation.

“No, Kyle is… he’s just a friend,” she said. “He has nothing to do with what I know you were going through or how you reacted. You needed someone. I wasn’t available for you. Tess was.”

“You’re not angry?” he asked hopefully.

“I’m not angry,” she agreed. “You were exploring your alien side, learning about who you are, with someone you thought was a friend. I, uh… I understand that better than you might think.”

She felt his relief and gratitude as tangibly as if it were her own. And his love.

She did not want his love. Not from this Max – this Max who looked so similar to her husband but whose personality was so different. No, this Max was like a much younger, wayward little brother and she did not want to sense such feelings coming from him.

“Liz…”

She still hated to crush him, but no matter what he felt for her, no matter how grateful he was she couldn’t let him continue to have any hope for a relationship. She couldn’t get back together with Max Evans. Not in this timeline. “Max, this doesn’t mean we can just pick up where we left off.”

“Why, Liz? Tell me why,” he pleaded. “You had Kyle. I had Tess. We’ve moved on. Why can’t we…”

God, he was so young.

“I know you love me, Max, and I love you too, but… but it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said, “because no matter how much your human side is in love with me, your alien side is bonded to Tess. Bonded. I know you can feel it – feel her.”

Max looked horrified. “How, Liz?” he asked. “How do you know these things – about the Granolith and that Tess didn’t leave Earth and about – what did you call it - bonding?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said as gently as possible. “The point is: I can’t be with you. Ever.”

“Why? Would it be so awful if you were?” He was so desperate.

Memories of both Max’s that she had known flashed through her mind. The way he used to stare at her. Their first kiss. Their wedding day. Quiet moments together. The way he touched her. Battling side by side against their enemies. The way her bond to him had kept her sane during her captivity. She ground her teeth together and forced her mind back to the present.

“I don’t want to do this,” she sighed.

“Do what, Liz? Talk to me? Tell me the truth for a change? What?” he demanded.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Hurt you, Max. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Then talk to me. Make me understand why we aren’t right for each other.”

“It’s not that easy,” she said. “Things have happened.”

“What things? Explain them to me.”

But she couldn’t. He wasn’t ready for the truth yet. His youth and his bond to their enemy prevented that.

She shook her head. “I can’t. Why can’t you just…” She paused, realization suddenly hitting her. “You can’t see because you don’t know what you’re looking for. You don’t understand what you’re seeing.”

“What are you talking about? Liz, you’re not making sense.”

“You have to kiss me,” she said dully, knowing she had to show him what he refused to admit.

“What?”

“Kiss me,” she repeated. “Please.”

Max didn’t need to be told twice. He leaned forward and entwined his fingers through her hair and gently kissed her lips.

“No,” Liz sighed, pulling away, “not like that. A real kiss, like before.”

Max bent forward and kissed her again. Deeper. More insistent. And Liz responded, opening to him. He pulled her toward him, pressing her body against his. And a connection opened, his love and affection and need pouring through, and the flashes began.

Suddenly, the connection slammed shut and Max pushed her away roughly. Liz watched him stand and quickly move away from the bench they were sitting on and begin retching in the grass.

She buried her face in her hands and closed her eyes and refused to witness the rest. She even shut down her empathic ability so that she wouldn’t have to sense his feelings of shame and remorse and regret.

When he was done he just stood there looking pale and shaken. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” was all he could say.

“Don’t be,” she said, glancing up long enough for him to see that she was visibly shaken by what she had been forced to do to him. “If anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I knew what would happen if you kissed me.”

He just stared at her, still not comprehending.

“Antarians bond for life. It’s not based on love or respect or mutual need. It’s a procreative cycle, a built-in drive. It’s something you have to do to propagate your species,” she explained as simply as she could. “In another time and place we might have fallen in love and married and you would have bonded yourself to me and it would have been perfect and we would have been… happy.” She spoke of her memories, recalling all too well the life of love and happiness she had shared with “Future Max”. Her eyes moistened at the recollections of the life she knew she would never have again. Max – her Max – was gone.

“But things don’t work out like we want them to. You’re bonded to Tess. No matter how awful she is, no matter what crimes she committed she is your wife. And that bond will prevent you from being with anyone else… even me,” she finished.

“No,” he whispered, finally understanding.

She saw the horror of the reality he had created for himself sinking in. “I’m so sorry, Max. I really, really am.”

Michael found Liz in the evening as the sun was dropping low and the sky was painted with red and orange and pink. She was sitting on the grass, resting her back against a park bench. Her knees were tucked up to her chest and her chin was resting on her crossed arms. “This seat taken?” he asked.

She shook her head no.

He sat down on the bench near her. “I heard what happened.”

“Max told you what I did to him, huh?”

Poor Max. When she and her husband had maneuvered and changed the timeline, the Max of this timeline (much like Alex) had become the unsuspecting victim of a war he did not even know about.

“Well, the way I figure it, you only did what had to be done,” he said. He looked down at her.

“That doesn’t make me feel any better,” she spoke softly.

“Wasn’t meant to.”

“Aslora ta cortol duara,” she whispered in Antarian. /My heart keeps breaking./

He exhaled slowly and scratched at his brow. “You know, when we made the plans to come to Earth, we never factored in the human capacity to love. We had no idea how intensely humans feel that emotion or that, because of our human half, it would have such a pull on us.”

“How could you know?” she asked. “How can you understand something you’ve never experienced?”

“That’s true.”

“And now that you do know?”

“I think…” he began, “I think love is a very dangerous emotion.”

His words made her heart hurt all the more. She knew he did not mean them to stab at her already guilty conscience, but they did all the same. Love was their downfall. It was the reason the last timeline – and her world – had been destroyed. She could never make that mistake again. Ever.

Strange, though, that the ancient Entity had a different view on matters. “The Granolith doesn’t believe it’s dangerous,” she said, recalling its words.

Michael sat silently, contemplating Liz’s words. “The Granolith seems to like you,” he mused aloud.

Liz looked at Michael for the first time since his arrival, accepting the distraction from her disquieting thoughts. “Tell me about the Granolith.”

“Come sit next to me.” He extended his hand to help her up. She grabbed hold and let him pull her next to him. Then he wrapped his arm around her shoulder.

“We honestly don’t know much about It,” he began of the entity. “It is commonly understood to be an Entity that dwells in the fifth dimension. It is able to manipulate time and space…”

The fifth dimension. That’s what It wanted her to understand. It was a fifth dimensional being. It was helping her to understand what It was so that she would trust It in the way Rath did.

“…and one can only communicate with It through the mind of an interpreter,” she heard him continue.

“I’m sorry? What does that mean?” she asked.

“Despite our being a telepathic race, the Granolith will not speak to the common man. But in every generation there is chosen a special individual, an ‘Ambassador’ as we refer to them, and It will communicate with that chosen man or woman. If one wishes to approach the Granolith, one must first speak to the Ambassador, then the Ambassador will speak to the Granolith on behalf of the individual.”

“But It speaks to me and I don’t…”

“Our Ambassador is dead,” Michael continued, ignoring her interruption. “That’s what started the war.”

Liz waited for Michael to continue.

“There are always children, trained from infancy in the ways of the Granolith. When the Ambassador is old and nears death, the Granolith chooses a new Ambassador from among the children. But this time,” he said, “Khivar killed the Ambassador and all the children and there was no one left for the Granolith to choose from.”

It was an oversimplified recitation, with no emotion involved. Perhaps rehearsed long ago.

“What happened?”

“It left.”

“And came to Earth?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I believe It wants to choose a new Ambassador from among the inhabitants of this planet.”

From her planet? From Earth?

“That’s why you followed It.”

“Yes.”

There had to be some mistake. There were no true telepaths among the human race and thus none that could communicate with the Granolith in the manner he was speaking of. Unless… unless telepathy was not a requirement? She tried to reason it out in her mind but felt herself unable. She was still missing too many pieces.

“But what makes the Granolith so important to you?” she asked. “I mean, why leave Antar? Why follow It? Why not just stay and… learn to live without It until It returned with the new Ambassador?”

“I couldn’t, especially not as a man in my position,” he insisted. “Every move I make depends on the directions coming from the Granolith. The Granolith sees and manipulates time. If a there is a flawed outcome in one timeline, the Granolith will make sure it is corrected and a new timeline will form.”

“Like when my husband came back and asked me to help him change the past.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “The Granolith communicates directions to us to help us have the best life possible. How could I possibly fight a war or care for my people without the guidance of the Granolith? It would have been like being blindfolded. How would I know what to do? I can’t see into the future.”

“So… what? The Granolith is… It’s like your god, isn’t it?”

“Or a very important ally, yes.”

“You put all your faith in the Granolith, don’t you?”

“I have to. Too many people depend on me to make the right decisions.”

“I guess Khivar must have known that,” she surmised. “He used that knowledge against you. Your faith in the Granolith is your Achilles heel, so he destroyed your link to It.”

“Yes.”

“So, you came to Earth to follow the Granolith and… to help It find a new Ambassador?”

“Yes.”

He had given up his throne for a potential human Ambassador that might not even exist? At least, such a man had not been found in her timeline, but then they had been too distracted, too busy living their perfect human lives to go looking for him.

“But that means you let Khivar have the throne on purpose,” she said.

“Liz, understand, there is nothing the Granolith cannot fix. Khivar may sit on the throne now, but if the Granolith wanted it, a new timeline can emerge in which Khivar never existed,” he explained.

Liz thought about that. “You said there would be no more time lines.”

“For your world,” he answered. “Mine may be another story.”

Michael brought his arm back down and took Liz’s hand in his. “Come on. Your parents…”

“Hm?” She stretched out her mind toward them. “Oh. They’re worried about me.”

“You’ve been here a while,” he said. “You wanna head back?”

“Yeah, I guess I better.”

“Can I walk with you?”

“Of course.”

As they walked along the paved path, hand in hand, she thought about what Michael had told her. She didn’t remember him speaking much about the Granolith in the other timeline, other than the basic facts – that It was alive, sentient and important to those in power on Antar, the world from which he came. She supposed it was because, by the time he had got Rath’s memories, it had been too late to pursue his reason for coming to Earth; they had shortly afterward become embroiled in a battle for their lives.

She didn’t remember Maria mentioning anything about It either. She didn’t know what that meant. Had Maria known and simply considered It as unimportant or private? Was it possible that Michael had managed not to share that part of himself with her? Could a bond be controlled in that manner? Max and she had never tried to control their bond in order to keep things from one another, but then they had never had a reason to.

She thought she could understand why he might do that though. Sometimes there were things that happened that were too personal to share with anyone else. Like living in another timeline. How did one share something like that? Who would understand, really understand? Or maybe it was just too painful to share, like facing the end of the world. What reason would she ever have to explain to her human friends what it was really like?

In Rath’s case, he had faced warfare, death, and the cruel enslavement of his people. His world had fallen apart despite his best efforts. And rather than stay and continue to fight, he had seemingly abandoned his people. Who would want to “see” what he had gone through? Who would be willing to understand why he had done what he’d done?

But now he finally had the chance to do what he had set out to accomplish. He could find that Ambassador and return to Antar and save his people. Maybe the Granolith could even send the new Ambassador and him backward in time to prevent Khivar’s terrorism from ever beginning. He would never have to face the extinction of his world the way she had had to.

Maybe, she thought, that was the reason why the Granolith had spoken to her and had given her memories of the other timeline. Maybe that was why It wanted her to “understand” so badly. Maybe it was so that she could help him succeed this time around… because if Michael succeeded and was able to prevent the war on his planet from occurring, then it would rewrite events on her world. She would never have to face another end of the world.

“Hey, Michael?” she spoke finally, breaking the long silence. “I’ll help you find your Ambassador.”

Great story. I like how Michael opened up to Liz in that last chapter. I can't wait to read more.

I'm not really a Micheal/Liz fan but i have to say that i like this story