Max struggled to stay conscious even as his eyelids drooped lower. He was sitting on Liz’s bed, propped up against her headboard, willing his body to cease whatever was wrong with it. He could almost feel it breaking down around him, but he couldn’t figure out what it meant.
After Tess and Kyle had shown up, Liz and Tess had run a new battery of tests while Kyle tried to keep him cool. The whole situation had been odd, and he’d pretended to sleep through it. Kyle Valenti, the one person he had every reason in the world to hate, had gently wiped his forehead with a cool towel. If he’d let them know he was awake, it would have been even more awkward. So, he’d remained where he was, pretending to sleep through it all. And as if Kyle’s gentle help hadn’t been confusing enough, it had been bizarre to see Tess and Liz work together at Liz’s desk, their heads bent forward as they softly discussed whatever they saw in the microscope. And that had been how Max had known that whatever was wrong with him was serious.
After a few hours, Tess and Kyle had slipped back out the window and he’d been left alone with Liz. He hadn’t pretended to sleep any longer, and he had the impression she knew he’d been pretending anyway. And for one minute, Liz had turned wide, fearful eyes on him and he’d seen more of her than she’d let him view in months. She was terrified for him, and it meant that she still had some sort of feelings for him. It was a hollow victory, but he decided to take it.
Her parents had called to her through her door and she’d scrambled to answer them without giving away that he was in her room. By now, he’d discovered that he didn’t need to understand words to size up a situation. All he had to do was look at Liz. And when her mother had spoken with her through the door, Max knew that if he was hoping to stay with her for another night, Liz was going to have to spend some time with her parents or they’d become suspicious.
So, he’d given her every reassuring gesture he could think of, and eventually she’d left him alone in her room. He was feeling a bit better, or at least not quite as close to death as he had been earlier. The pain came and went much like the breathing trouble that was beginning to last longer and longer when it did affect him. And at the moment, he was feeling bad, but not so bad he couldn’t get out of bed and see for himself what they had been looking at in the microscope all evening.
Max slowly crawled out of bed and shuffled to her desk. Sinking into the chair gratefully, he loaded up the first of the slides and adjusted the lenses. He knew that he was looking at a blood cell, but what he saw shocked him beyond words. The cells were distorted and looked nothing like what normal blood cells looked like. With shaking hands, he removed the slide and replaced it with the next one. He recognized them as skin cells and when he found them deformed as well, his breathing quickened.
Pushing back from the desk, Max decided that he didn’t want to see anymore. It suddenly all made sense. The long, agonizing looks Liz kept giving him, the way Kyle had taken care of him, how Tess had pitched in to help without question or complaint. He was dying and they all knew it. His eyes glazed over as he sat frozen at her desk.
This was how he was going to die? Unable to understand anyone around him? At odds with Liz? He would never be able to tell her how much he loved her, or exactly what knowing her meant to him. It was worse than having a terminal illness. He knew his days were numbered, but he couldn’t say goodbye. He couldn’t even write a letter expressing everything he couldn’t say to her face. He would die and she would never know everything that was in his heart.
Tears blurred his vision and they made him angry. He wanted to cry, to yell and to break something. But he knew it wouldn’t accomplish anything but to get him caught in her room. He didn’t know how long he had to live, but if it was only a matter of a day or of hours, he wanted them to be with Liz.
Forcing his breathing to even out, Max raked his gaze across the surface of the desk. There had to be some way he could let her know how he felt. Her notebooks were arranged neatly against the wall, and he snatched a pad of paper from the stack and flipped it open. Gripping a pen in his hand, he steeled every bit of strength he had left inside of him. He wanted to write Liz’s name. It should be simple enough. It was short. Could he remember how to write the simple letters he’d known for so long? He concentrated harder than he ever had before, wanting to create a single letter.
Pen poised over paper, he tried to let his subconscious take over. Every millimeter the pen moved was fought for internally. Something inside of him was trying to take over, to stop him, but he pressed forward. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he knew Liz would be alarmed if she walked in and saw him in that moment, but he didn’t care. He only cared about writing the few letters in the alphabet that meant something to him.
Finally, he sat back to admire his writings. And when he saw the paper, he wanted to cry anew. He had succeeded in making marks of some kind on the paper, but if it was English, he couldn’t read it. With a frustrated growl, he ripped the page out of the notebook and crumpled it up. He let it drop to the floor as a fresh bout of tears welled up from deep inside him.
He wanted Liz.
Even though she was only down the hall, he wanted to see her. Everything would be all right if she was there. The despair that had been creeping around the edges of his spirit invaded now, threatening to crush what small bit of hope he had left. Until his eyes lighted on the small tape recorder on her desk.
Max grabbed at it, cradling it in the palm of his hand. He wiped at his eyes, willing the tears to subside. He pressed the play button and listened as her soft voice played out of the small speaker. It was muffled, but it was Liz.
He could feel his temperature spiking again, but he paid it no attention, choosing instead to focus on Liz’s calm voice. He had no idea what she had been dictating, and it hardly mattered. Slowly, he rose from the desk and shuffled back to Liz’s bed. The room was beginning to swim dangerously in front of his eyes and his eyelids were too heavy to keep open.
Pushing himself the last few feet, he collapsed face down in her bed and let the darkness swallow him.
*~*~
Liz struggled with her door; careful to balance the bag of ice in one hand and the drink she’d prepared in the other. She hadn’t thought Max would actually eat anything, so she’d done her best and had made him a health food shake. Maria generally left enough herbs and such around, and it had been a simple matter of raiding her locker to find what she’d needed. She couldn’t guarantee the taste, but Max needed something in his system if he was going to get any better.
She cast a quick glance down the hall to the room her parents had already retired into. She hadn’t wanted to leave Max alone earlier, but she hadn’t had much of a choice. After Kyle and Tess had left, her parents had wanted to spend time with her. And spending an hour with them meant that they wouldn’t come into her room to check on her later. And that meant more time to be with Max.
On some level, she knew she’d taken a very dangerous step towards Max in the last twenty-four hours. It would make it even harder to push him away again after everything was back to normal and he didn’t need her anymore. But she would do it somehow. She would have to.
Twisting the doorknob, she pushed the door open. And when she saw Max sprawled out on her bed, she knew something was wrong. She set down her load quickly and closed the door behind her.
Max lay on his stomach, and he looked as though he’d simply collapsed. Only the upper portion of his body was draped across the bed, and his legs dangled off the side to the floor.
“Max,” Liz called softly as she placed a hand to his forehead. She jerked it back immediately when she came into contact with the incredible warmth of his forehead. And all her hopes spiraled downward. He had seemed to be doing better when she’d left him a little bit ago and now he was worse. Why had she left him alone? Who knew how long he’d been like this.
“Max, wake up.” She lightly patted his cheeks and when she received no response, she decided to worry about his fever for the time being. She rolled him over as best she could and held him up to prevent him from falling to the floor. Cursing her small stature, it took too long to finally push him the rest of the way into the bed.
He moaned, but she wasn’t sure if it was from the pain that she was causing him or from the already existing pain. She pressed her hand to his forehead and down the sides of his face to his neck. His skin was burning and she was afraid of what would happen if she couldn’t get his temperature down.
“Max, I know you don’t understand me, and I’m not even sure if you can hear me, but you need to cool down.” Liz was sure to keep her tone calm and soothing, belaying none of the fear coursing through her body. “I brought ice with me and I was thinking earlier that I might dump you in the bathtub. But now I’m afraid that’ll be too much for your system to handle. So, I think we should try to cool you down slowly first.”
Watching Max’s face for any sign that he’d heard her, Liz reached for the buttons on his shirt. Her hand trembled as she undid the topmost button. Even though she knew it was wrong, that it wasn’t the time or the place, Liz couldn’t help the sparks that were igniting in her body. She hadn’t been this close to Max in longer than she could remember.
Another button undone. It wasn’t as if there was anything sexual behind her actions. So, why didn’t her body understand that? The third button slid through the hole and she was treated to more of his skin than she’d seen since she’d come to his room to tell him her first lie. He’d been working out that night, and the sight of his bare chest had stolen the breath from her body, robbed her of all rational thought. Much like it was doing now.
The fourth and fifth buttons came undone quickly and then Liz was done. She quickly scrambled off the bed, forcing herself not to take advantage of the situation. She poured some of the ice into a bowl and carried it to her bathroom to mix it with water and find a fresh towel. And then she was out of excuses not to go back to her bed where Max was lying half-naked.
Liz sat on the bed beside Max and took a breath. She parted the fabric of his shirt and exposed his chest. She could see the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he tried to breathe. And Liz knew she was going to have to get over whatever hormone induced daze she was in. Okay, so Max was half-naked. In her bed. He was sick and needed her help. He trusted her to take care of him and not to ogle him at the first available opportunity.
She dipped the towel into the bowl, wincing at the cold water that met her fingertips. Max was going to wake up for sure when she did this. But she had no other choice. Wringing out the excess water, she gently laid the towel on Max’s forehead. Max gasped for air and his eyes snapped open immediately.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered even as she moved the towel down the side of his face. She could tell he was torn between cringing away from the towel and embracing it. He was at war with himself. His alien side wanting to cringe from the cold while the human side needed it.
His eyes stayed on her as she tried to cool his skin. Max closed his eyes after a minute, trusting her to help him. She paused periodically to dampen the towel and each time it was laid against his bare skin, it took his breath away. Slowly, she worked her way down his face and neck. Liz ran the towel along his shoulders, then decided to work on his arms.
It seemed to Max that she was avoiding his chest and he couldn’t help but wonder if this was affecting her as much as it was affecting him. She was lying on her side, her legs tucked under her body. He could smell her perfume from here, the intoxicating scent of flowers. Roses. And every time she leaned over him to run the towel down his arm, her hair fell forward, gliding across his chest. It was the sweetest torture he’d ever known, and he concentrated on it rather than the pain in his body.
Liz had turned on a fan and though it wasn’t moving fast, the breeze hit his skin where she was cooling it and he felt goose bumps rising along his skin. She would often go back and check the temperature of his skin after trying to cool it off. And he could only imagine that she was frowning. He chose to keep his eyes closed, relishing every brush of skin.
The cool cloth was pressed lightly to his chest and he hissed out a breath. Liz paused only a second before patting his skin. Max was acutely aware of the slightest friction, so when Liz paused to part his shirt further and her fingertips grazed his skin, he had to fight not to grab hold of her and fuse his mouth to hers. He wanted to keep his feelings from her, but he knew his own body was betraying him. He had been having trouble breathing earlier, though for an entirely different reason than he was having now.
Liz reapplied the towel to his chest, this time dipping lower to his stomach. Max felt his muscles tighten in response and this time, nothing could prevent his eyes from snapping open. He surprised her, saw it in the way she jumped back a fraction of an inch. Her eyes widened to see him watching her, and he wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or if she was as affected by her actions as he was.
Liz’s hand rested atop the towel on his stomach, frozen by his eyes. He saw the indecision flicker there for a second and he knew she was going to pull back again. In that moment, Max didn’t know if he could bear it again. His heart was full, bursting with love for her. But as always, the love was tinged with the pain of their past.
She pulled her hand away and Max captured it. His eyes pleaded with her not to pull away. Even though he knew she couldn’t understand him, even though he had vowed not to speak the alien language, nothing could have stopped him from trying to tell her everything that was in his heart in that moment.
He threaded their fingers together, then clasped his other hand over hers, trapping her. “I’m sorry you have to see me like this, Liz. I tried to be strong but I can’t do it anymore.” Emotion clogged his throat, and he felt tears prick his eyes. “I don’t know what went wrong between us, why you won’t let me love you. But I always will.” Max released his grip on her hand, raising one hand to cup her cheek. With the other, he pressed her hand to his heart. “I’ll always love you, Liz, no matter how much it hurts.” His thumb stroked her cheek and his heart softened when she leaned into the caress. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, if I’m going to die. But it was all worth it for just one minute to hold you in my arms and see how much you loved me.”
Liz couldn’t breathe. Max had captured her, mesmerized her with his words, even though she didn’t know what they were. He was speaking so softly, almost as if he didn’t want to frighten her away, and she could feel her own heart beating within her chest.
Max’s thumb was tracing her cheekbone, and his feather touches set her nerves screaming. Beneath her hand and beyond the heat that threatened his left, she could feel his heart beating erratically. It didn’t surprise her to discover that their hearts were beating in sync. Her own heart answered every beat of his. And she supposed some things never changed, regardless of how much you wanted them to.
With the stillness of the room creeping up on them, Liz realized what Max was telling her. She didn’t need the exact words, she understood the emotions. Max was still in love with her. Kyle had been right. Everything she had done had been for nothing. All the pain she had caused him, all the pain she had suffered through had been wasted. Because when she should have abandoned him, left him to Tess to take care of, she hadn't been able to do it. Her heart had betrayed her.
The tears came unbidden, welling up from some unknown place deep inside where she had pushed the pain every time it had slashed through her. The first choking sob escaped her lips and Max didn’t hesitate to pull her down beside him in the bed. He wrapped his arms around her and trapped her against the length of his body. Her head fit perfectly in the crook of his neck the way it always had. And he held her as the sobs wracked her body.
“I’m sorry, Max. You have no idea how sorry I am. I didn’t want to hurt you. And it killed me every time I had to lie. You saved my life and showed me how amazing the universe is, and I destroyed everything we had in one night. I should have fought for you that day in the desert when I ran. Maybe things wouldn’t be the way they are now, and I’ll always wonder.” She couldn’t face him, couldn’t meet those perceptive eyes. She had to confess everything; it was burning a hole inside of her soul. And she wasn’t sure if she was sorry or relieved that he didn’t have a chance of understanding her.
“I never slept with Kyle. How could I when you’ve always been the only person I’ve ever dreamed of making love to? That shower fantasy you saw? It wasn’t a new one, Max. I’ve always wanted you.” She frowned as a fresh course of tears fell. “But we just weren’t meant to be. I wish I could explain it all to you, that I could make you understand that I would never hurt you unless I had to. But if I told you about Future Max, about why I did everything, you wouldn’t let me go and nothing would change. You’ll always be the one great love of my life, and no matter what I do, my heart is yours. It’s easy to tell you that now when you can’t understand me because I can’t ever tell you again. Not if I want to keep everyone alive.”
Liz let her hand rest a minute against Max’s heart. It had once belonged to her, but it never would again. Not after tonight. She could give them both this last night, but when the sun rose in the morning, she was going to have to take a firm step back. Max would have to stay with Kyle and Tess until he was better. Her heart simply couldn’t take it anymore. She had thought she’d taken a step back before, but it hadn’t been enough. Max still loved her, and as long as there was any spark in him, the future would be tainted with the blood of their friends and family. And she wouldn’t allow that to happen.
With her heart raw and bleeding, Liz forced herself to sit up. Max looked at her with concern etched on his face. As much as she wanted to stay in his arms all night, she could still feel the heat coming off his body in waves. She sniffled as she dipped the towel in the bowl of ice water and resumed trying to cool off his body. But she left her free hand over his heart, taking comfort in the steady beat beneath her palm.
Max would live through this. She would do whatever it took to ensure it. And when things were normal again and he had his life in front of him, she would say goodbye. And this time, there would be no looking back.
