Pt3

Liz groaned as she woke up to her alarm beeping annoyingly across the room. Her head was pounding, and her throat was dry. She had fallen asleep crying the night before, and it really didn’t help her sleep all that well. She sighed as she turned off the alarm. 5 am. It was still dark outside. She sighed, and jumped into the shower.

David and Liz were supposed to be leaving for their honeymoon today, but since there was no wedding, nor party, she figured that was off too. Today was going to be a day just like any other. Liz was going to go to work, and pretend nothing had happened the day before, pretend that Max Evans hadn’t shattered her heart once again.

"Why did he do it?" Liz wondered aloud? "Why did he come back if all he was going to do was hurt me again? Why did he say he’d stop by last night, and then totally stand me up? At least he could have told me the truth over the phone. That would have been better than nothing."

David leapt up from his seat the moment Liz walked through the door into the lab.

"Liz! Thank God you’re finally here! What’s wrong? You look awful." Liz had huge bags under her eyes, and they looked a little red. He guessed that she didn’t sleep much the night before. He wondered if this had anything to do with that Max guy she told him about.

"Good morning, David. What’s going on?"

"We have a huge new project to start on, Liz. We’re lucky we didn’t leave today. They probably would have pulled us back in to start on this new project immediately."

"What kind of a project is it?"

"They brought us a new specimen to study. They don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, it’s not human. We’re supposed to study it and find out everything we can about this thing. Molecular structure. Special traits. Whatever. It’s all ready for us over in lab 1."

"Okay then, let’s get suited up. What do we know about it so far?" Liz felt a little stronger as she put on her airtight suit, which looked a lot like a space suit. They were a precaution they used when studying new species. It helped them avoid disease spread. Liz chuckled quietly to herself. When she was a kid, she used to watch the movie "Outbreak" and imagine herself wearing one of these suits as they went chasing after disease-ridden monkeys.

At least she had a project to throw herself into. It would help get her mind off Max.

"Well, it’s in pretty bad condition." David replied. "The guys who brought it in said that it struggled pretty badly. They had to beat it up in order to take it. It was strong, they said. Really strong. It’s brain activity appears to be a lot more advanced than ours, it can do things with it’s mind that we can’t, so we had to give it some of the serum in order to hold it here. It shouldn’t be too dangerous right now."

"Okay then."

"Just remember one thing when we go in there Liz. This thing looks human, but it’s not. It’s a very, very dangerous creature, capable of killing us all, if we underestimate it. We have to be careful here, Lizzie."

Liz nodded. A dangerous project. These kind of things came in on occasion from the Feds. "Well, what are we waiting for. Let’s get started."

Liz headed into the lab, and immediately stopped dead in her tracks as she stared in shock at the "creature". She was glad that the suit was hiding her face, for Liz knew that her face was pale.

"What is it?" David asked from behind her.

Liz couldn’t find a way to answer him, as she studied Max Evans, strapped to the examination table, from across the room. He was bruised and beaten all over, and his arm was bent at a weird angle. It looked broken to her. The sight made Liz want to cry.

Liz slowly walked over to the man she loved, and gently reached down, and stroked the hair on his forehead, brushing it slightly off to the side. She pulled her hand back as he awoke with a start.

Max lifted his head, and studied his surroundings. God, it had finally happened. There he was, stuck in some government lab. There were two people in the room, in those weird airtight suits. He couldn’t even see their faces. He groaned. God he was in so much pain. He had never felt such incredible physical pain. He had always been able to heal himself when things got too bad, but he tried to do so now, and it wouldn’t work. The pain remained. His powers were worthless.

The pain from his broken bones wasn’t what was killing him though. It was the pain in Max’s heart, which drove him crazy. He could deal with the physical pain, but he couldn’t deal with the fact that he never made it to Liz’s house. God, she was probably hurting so much right now. All because of him, again.

"Faceless enemies," Max thought, studying the scientists. One of them stood right over him, watching him, while the other was fussing with the equipment on the table across the room. He decided to concentrate on the one above him.

"Who are you? What do you want from me? What did you do to me?" Max croaked out. God he was in pain. It hurt too much to even struggle against the restraints holding him down.

A single tear dripped down Liz’s cheek at the sound of Max’s voice. He sounded so weak. Never, in the 23 years that she had known Max Evans, had he ever sounded so vulnerable to her. She couldn’t take it. She had to get him out of there.

She looked over at David, who was still organizing the lab equipment. Liz walked over to the table and quickly knocked the glass sorenge off the table, and watched as it shattered on the floor.

"Oh, jeez, I can’t believe I just did that! I wanted to start with a blood sample. Would you be willing to go get me another one from the storage room?"

"Sure. No problem. Are you sure you’re okay this morning? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you break equipment before."

"I’m fine. Don’t worry. Just get me that sorenge."

"You’ll be okay left alone with it." Liz cringed at the word. She had never considered David to be closed minded before, but it killed her to hear David talk about Max like that.

"I’ll be okay! Don’t worry."

"Okay, be right back." The moment David left the room, Liz rushed over to Max, and began to unfasten his restraints.

"Come on, I’m going to get you out of here."

Max looked up at the scientist in shock. "Why are you doing this? Who are you?"

Liz paused and looked at him. "You can’t see through this. I completely forgot." Liz pulled off her helmet.

Love and understanding flashed into Max’s eyes, as her face was revealed to him. She had never looked so radiant to him as she did in that moment.

"Liz." Max whispered. Liz flashed a tiny smile in response.

"I take it you can’t heal yourself, can you? Stupid serum. Can you walk?"

Max attempted to get up, but immediately fell back down in pain.

"No," he grunted, "I think there’s something wrong with my ankle too. They really got me bad, Liz."

Liz slipped his arm around her.

"You’ll have to lean on me. Put as much weight on me as you can." Max pushed himself up, and Liz stumbled before finally adjusting to his weight.

"Come on. Let’s go."

"Liz! What the hell are you doing?" David walked in screaming.

"I’m getting him out of here, David."

"It’s dangerous, Liz. We can’t have this thing roaming around free."

"Don’t talk about him like that, David. Regardless of what you think, he is a person too. I can assure you, he’s not a threat to anybody."

"It’s just a creature, Liz. It’s not even human. Just because it looks human, doesn’t mean it is. And what makes you so sure that it’s not a threat."

"Because I’ve known HIM most of my life. Please David. Trust me on this one. If the four years of our relationship meant anything to you, please let me do this. I can’t leave him here. Give us some time to get out of here before you alert security."

"Alert security? What am I supposed to tell them."

"Tell them that he escaped, kidnapped me, and took me with him."

"That could be believable, but Liz, I expect a more complete explanation later to why you’re throwing the biggest project we’ve been given all year."

"I promise I’ll explain later, but we need to get out of here. Thank you David. Thank you so much." Liz and Max stumbled to the window, where she helped him out, before crawling out herself. They jumped into Liz’s car and drove off, leaving the government property right as David alerted security of the escape.