PART TWELVE

Maria and Alex sat in the Jetta outside the Main Street Motel, waiting for any sign of the man that looked like Jeffrey.

"Alex, this is getting a little too weird for me," Maria said, troubled.

"What *is* that guy?" she asked.

"I don't know," Alex admitted.

She paused, biting her lip.

"What if he knows we're watching him?" she asked.

"He doesn't," Alex said.

"What if he's just like, waiting to catch us off guard?" she said.

"He isn't," Alex said patiently.

"What if-"

"Maria!" he said, exasperated.

"What?" she answered indiantly.

"Why are you wigging out?" he asked.

"Oh, I don't know, so far we've buried a man that our best friend killed, we've seen her shot and brought back to life, and then she winds up kidnapped, and then there's the dead man walking. Oh wait, that isn't Jeffrey, it's something that like, *stole his face*," she said, half-hysterically.

Alex stared at her for a moment. No matter how many times Maria freaked out over the years, it always made him take pause.

"Maria, why didn't you freak out when Max did what he did to Liz?" he asked.

Maria stared out of the windshield and then turned pointedly to him.

"Because he saved her life. He didn't turn into a dead guy and....wait a minute, you think Max is one of them?" she asked, tossing her head toward the motel.

He shrugged, but Maria knew better.

"You think he is! Oh....my....GOD!!!" she said, starting to hyper-ventilate.

"You had to point that out to me didn't you?" she said, her hands flying in the air. "I was perfectly happy in my iorance!"

She slapped her hands down on her thighs.

"That's great. Just great!" she said. "My best friend was molested by some monster!" she said.

"Maria!" Alex yelled. "Molested? He saved her life. You're going way overboard. He didn't do anything to hurt her. He wouldn't have hurt any of us."

"Oh now you say that," she said. "So wait a minute....are you telling me that the guy in the hotel is one of the good guys?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Alex said dryly.

"Alex," she said impatiently.

"He's the only lead we have right now," Alex said. "I just think keeping an eye on him is worth a shot."

"So do we talk to him?" Maria asked.

"No!" Alex said a little too forcefully. "We just tail him. Maybe he'll lead us to Max, and then to Liz."

*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%

He blinked.

And the first thing he saw was Liz's tearful smile.

"Liz?" he said hoarsely.

"Max," she whispered, wrapping her arms around him.

For a moment he was stunned. For a moment he was frozen, and then he tentatively slid his arms slowly around her.

"What are you doing in here? How did you get here?" he asked.

"There was a fire. I have so much to tell you," she said.

"Fire?" he asked.

"Yeah, one of the others started a fire on all of the cells," she said.

"What?" he said alarmed.

"My cell, it went up. So did yours," she said.

"Oh no, they must have thought," he broke off.

They must have thought he was dead. He couldn't sense them when he had been trapped in the dream plane. He was too weak.

He still didn't know exactly what happened.

One moment Liz was in front of him, and then she faded away, and so did the sun, smothered by the black clouds rolling in, bringing the cold.

He tried to bring himself out of that realm, to wake up, but every time he opened his eyes, he was still on that ledge. His limbs became heavy, numb as he struggled to find the energy to return. Soon, he couldn't move. He dropped to the ground, using all of his effort to drag himself to the rocks.

Forever it seemed he lay prone, shivering, moving in and out of awareness. He'd felt completely alone without the presence of the others, not knowing if Liz was alive or dead. Yet he didn't die. He felt progressive weakness steal upon him, the construct of the dream plane draining his energy with infinite slowness.

The valley below was now barren of any life. It was as if time had moved on and he was left stuck in the precise moment Liz had disappeared, a frozen snapshot of his own sub-conscious. The air was stale, icy cold, the very atmosphere dead and numbing.

A sense of despair had started to steal over him. Maybe this is what "dead" was. Maybe this is where beings like him were forever trapped when their corporeal forms expired. And he had been more and more sure that this is what had happened. Because never, not once, had he ever felt disconnection from the others, and it was frightening to be without them. Even in their fear, their very presence in his mind had been a comfort. Because he knew he wasn't alone.

He began to wish for a cease of consciousness, the thought of oblivion a welcome alternative to the barren isolation he was now stuck in.

But when he felt it beckon, thoughts of the human girl he had healed anchored him to that precipice, holding him there.

After what seemed like an eternity, suddenly he felt the cold wind spring up, and her heard her voice, as if from a great distance, asking him what to do, and she took his icy hands into her warm ones, and held them to the very spot he had healed her, releasing the residual energy there, releasing him with her compassion from that dark icy world in his mind.

"They must have thought what Max?" Liz asked, bringing him back to the present.

"They must have thought I was dead," he said.

"One of them has so much anger," he said sadly.

"It's a he, Max," she said. "I heard them talking. One of them, the male, started the fire. There is a girl too," she said.

Max felt tears rise in his eyes, a sad smile crossing his face.

"I never knew," he said. "I never even knew."

She sat up and took his hand.

"He's powerful Max. Maybe even more powerful than you, or maybe just angrier," she said. "He destroyed the whole cell block."

"How?" he asked.

"Fire just sprung up out of thin air. The techs said something about defective chips," she said.

"They don't know anything," Max said. "Pierce doesn't tell them about any of the technology, or our physiology. They don't know why it happened."

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it Ms. Parker," a voice spoke suddenly over the loudspeaker.

Liz moved closer to Max, startled by Pierce's voice, menacing in its disconnection.

"That will be taken care of soon enough," he said flatly. "I see Prince Charming is awake. Pity for him."

Liz's eyes widened in fear, her hand tightening in Max's.

"You're right, it seems that the chips aren't working correctly. We're going to have to do some exploring in the morning to find the cause of that. You'd best sleep well 88647. Tomorrow will be a big day for you. Keep your strength up. We wouldn't want you to die on us now, would we?" he said with a menacing laugh. "Sweet dreams."

Max's breathing became erratic and Liz looked at him, terrified for him.

"What does he mean Max? What are they going to do to you tomorrow?" she whispered.

He felt the fear rise in his throat as he knew what lay in store for him in the morning, but he couldn't, he wouldn't tell her.

"It's going to be ok Liz," he said in a shaky voice, trying to reassure her.

"It's happened before. As we've gotten older, they've had to modify the chips to increase the power. We start to....outgrow them."

What he didn't tell her was that he had overheard the surgeon's talking the last time they "explored" and they had said that the power needed from the chip to keep the inhibitor running correctly was becoming immense. When turned on in full force, it caused cellular damage. Max knew better than to try to use his power for anything physical, because doing that boosted the chip's power, causing damage.

He had hoped that the angry one realized that sooner or later, if he continued to try to use his abilities, the chips would be upgraded, until the power used to keep them in check would literally fry their brains when they tried to access them. He couldn't tell her of the horror of the exploration to determine the chip's power level.

He prayed that healing her had not changed her. He'd never healed anyone before her. He didn't know what it had done to her body. If they found any evidence of alteration, what she went through on the steel table was nothing compared to what they would do to her if she had evolved in some way. He felt bile rise in his throat at the very thought of it.

"Max, I'm scared," she said.

"I'll be fine Liz," he said, trying to put reassurance in his voice.

She put her head on his shoulder, and he felt a strange sense of calm envelop him.

Liz didn't deserve to spend the rest of her days in this hell. Somehow, he had to find a way to get them out of here, even if he died trying to do it.

*%*%*%*%*%*%*%*%

Liz knew that there was something Max wasn't telling her. Whatever they were going to do to him in the morning was going to be bad, she could sense it. And she was afraid for him.

She knew that they were never going to let her go. She knew too much now. But what if something happened to Max tomorrow? She couldn't imagine being in here without him. His very presence in the cell next to hers this past week gave her hope that somehow they would find their way out of this.

Now that he was awake and she was near him, able to touch him, she was terrified that he would be taken away again, and that she would be alone.


Max was quiet after he had tried to reassure her, and his silence scared her even more than the fear she detected in his voice.

Under normal circumstances, she would have shied away from brazen physical closeness, but she needed to be near him, to know that he was here with her. When the lights switched off wordlessly, she lay down next to him, putting her hand on his chest, feeling the rise and fall of it as he breathed evenly, his heartbeat a steady rhythm against her palm. Her stomach pressed against the warmth of his hip, and her leg rested against his.

She knew that there was nothing she could do to stop what was going to happen to him in the morning, so she did the only thing she could. She comforted him. She stroked his hair gently, her cheek pressed against his neck.

For most of the night, the two lie awake, words unspoken, fears unvoiced, existing in the moment, taking strength in their nearness.

Liz struggled to stay awake for him in those last hours before dawn, immersing herself in the absent stroke of his fingers on her back. It was a soothing sensation, calming her as she was calming him.

*%*%*%*%*%*%*

Max felt Liz drop off to sleep, and he turned his head to look at her quietly. His throat tightened as his eyes roamed over her features. To him, she was perfect. He thought of that stolen kiss they'd had in her room.

She'd caused him to feel things. Things besides fear and hopelessness.
Her small demeanor belied her tremendous bravery and compassion. How many people would have stuck their necks out for someone they didn't know? He doubted many.

There was something she'd said to him more than once, something that had stuck in his head, kept him thinking, hoping.

She'd said that she knew he was special. And when she said it, for those few moments he believed it, because she did. That he was special in a good way, not a monster, not someone to be feared. He wondered if she suspected there was more to him than he had told her.

What would she say? What would she think if the words came out of his mouth and made fantastic suspicions real? How would she feel if she knew that he was from somewhere else? And if he told her, what else could he say?

He didn't know where he came from. He didn't know anything about what he was except for impulsive angry slips of the tongue from Pierce during the many torture sessions he'd endured. Pierce had called him an abomination, a freak mix of human and otherworldly evil. That their ship had wrought an evil virus upon his world, one that the government hope to use to its advantage.

Not once had any of them looked upon him as anything more than a test subject. Even the Professor with his kind eyes had gotten involved out of scientific interest, to see how much it was possible for him to develop as a being, not out of any compassion.

He was not a mean man. He couldn't say that, because he was the only one who had treated him decently. He had given him a name, where Pierce called him by a number. But the Professor was not attached to him. He was an objective observer who felt that any living creature deserved a modicum of quality of life.

His first brush with human kindness and compassion had been with Liz, and it was unnerving, and it was addictive. To know that someone actually cared about what happened to him was he'd never experienced before, and it was something he himself had only felt for the others. He'd no idea that humans were capable of it. But he'd seem a whole other side to human nature, in the friendship between Alex, Maria and Liz, and in Liz's concern for him. Perhaps he wasn't so alien after all. Perhaps the differences between them and humans were not so vast.

Somehow he'd return her to her life, her friends, Kyle. He owed her that. He could be content with the memories of who she was, what she'd shown him, what she'd taught him in the short time they'd known each other. She deserved everything her life had to offer her.

This connection, this tie he felt to her was something he couldn't explain. And it wasn't just that she'd helped him. It wasn't just the guilt of knowing that he'd gotten her into this mess by accepting her help.

In her eyes was something ageless, something that spoke to his soul. He'd seen it the first time he'd really looked into them in the shed that night. It was what told him to trust her, that she wouldn't harm him. And with everything in his power, he would try to make sure nothing harmed her.

He heard the sounds of the beginnings of the workday outside of the cell and he knew it was time.

Quietly, so as not to wake her, he gently pulled his arm from under her neck, extracting himself carefully from her embrace. For a moment he paused, hovered over her, her face softened in sleep, and he tenderly lowered his head, pressing his lips to her forehead.

He slid off of the gurney, his bare feet hitting the cold floor, and walked to the door in silence. He waited to the side of it.

A moment later, it opened, the techs preparing for the usual struggle. But Max stood stoically, his demeanor telling them that this time he would not fight him. He didn't want Liz to witness it. He didn't want her to be any more frightened than she already was.

The tech held his arm out, motioning him into the hall. He paused for a moment, looking at Liz wistfully again, and followed them out, the door shutting again with a barely audible click.

%*%*%*%*%*%*%

Pierce watched this scene from a small observation window unobserved. He was glad he'd decided to come in early, not only to witness the "exploration", something he got great satisfaction out of, but also because of this added little bonus. The hybrid *felt* something for this human girl, and that in itself was ammunition.

Something to file away for future use. Who knew what the higher ups would request next? They were only just beginning to understand the capabilities of the hybrids. If they were half of what they suspected, soon they would be looking for an army of them, slaves to their whim. Of course these would be disposed of once that objective had been accomplished. They were too belligerent, too willful. But with the right genetic manipulation, and a few years, the next crop of hybrids would be ready to act on the government's whim. It would be interesting to see the results of a human-hybrid mating. Not to mention the addition of another subject to study.

As loathe as he was to leave them together, or to give the hybrid any sense of security, this might work out well for him. If somehow they were to procreate, the higher ups would be thrilled. And if not, there were other ways to make it happen. Pierce planned to move up as far as he could in the Bureau, until he had total control over the Hybrid Project. Once that happened, he would be free to do as he wished, and he would finally have his revenge, turning the hybrids into puppets, at the mercy of his whim. With technology progressing as it was, he saw his plan coming to fruition within his lifetime. And he would extract his final revenge, turning these beings against their own kind, destroying every trace of what had ruined his life.