In Your Eyes Trilogy

[mass_hipgnosis]

In Your Eyes: The Light

Chapter Seven

Summary: Maria left for New York, Isabel’s caught up in her marriage, and Max is questing for his son. Michael and Liz have their own problems, but they are discovering that a friendship born out of mutual necessity can become the best thing in both their lives.

 

Disclaimer: I own the DVD box sets, and, er…that’s it.

A/N: I love you all. You stuck with me through a severe lack of internet connection and my thanks is many, many chapters at once-this is the second-to-last chapter of The Light, but this is a trilogy, ‘member? And I have also posted the first five chapters of The Heat.

Chapter Seven

The crackling green of the force field was enough to keep the swarm of agents at bay, but Max knew he couldn’t keep it up for long, never mind keep the shield up and heal Michael at the same time. And they were blocking the only exit from the place.

He was sitting in a spreading pool of blood and there wasn’t enough time to consider the morality or the risks of what he was about to do. He used one hand to shift the force field over their heads and with the other, brought the whole building down around them.

When Max pulled them both out of the rubble, Michael was trying to breathe his own blood, but there were sirens approaching and not enough time to stop. Max started the car and prayed it was up to a little off-roading.

It was either a steep hill or a small cliff, depending on how you looked at it. There was a road at the bottom, so Max looked at it as an escape route. There was an alarming screech from the undercarriage when they went over a small boulder set into the incline, but it didn’t puncture the gas tank and he was grateful for small miracles. The patrol car following them wasn’t as lucky, and rolled until it hit the gully between the hill and the road. He turned left and followed it to I-85, where he stopped at a rest area and parked out of sight behind the sign advertising the lovely panoramic view of absolutely nothing at all. Three white crown vics screamed by while Max shook Michael desperately. “You have to look at me!”

Michael’s eyes fluttered, then closed.

“Damn it, Michael! For once would you just do what I tell you!”

That earned him a feeble glare, and his hand flexed over the bullet wound. The whole world became the stuttering beat of Michael’s heart, and Max was hit with a rush of images.

Liz.

Liz eating pizza.

Liz drunk and giggling.

Liz in sweatpants and bunny slippers, beating Michael over the head with a pillow while he tried to stop laughing long enough to fend her off.

Liz sleeping through a hockey game.

Liz studying and chewing on a pen cap.

Liz crying on Isabel’s patio.

Just when Max thought he wouldn’t be able to take any more, Michael dragged in air and choked on it, and his heart took on a more natural rhythm. Max sagged back in the front seat. “Thank God.”

It took Michael a few minutes, but he managed to sit up and drawl a sarcastic, “Can we go home yet?”

“Yeah. There’s nothing here for me.” And Max had to accept that he wasn’t just talking about the ship.

oOo

Even after a molecular patch job, the Chevelle limped back into Roswell late Saturday. They’d had to stop in Dallas for a few hours’ sleep, and then they’d been stranded on their way out of Arlington by the leak they’d missed in the radiator. Michael hadn’t been able to get through on Liz’s cell phone or the Parker’s home line on the way back, so their first stop was the Crashdown.

“She probably just got busy, Michael. Post-Christmas rush.”

“She was worried,” Michael replied succinctly. “She should have called.” He hopped out before Max had a chance to park and headed for the glass front doors. “Hey, Shelly,” he called to the blond manning the cash register. “Liz around?”

“Oh, Michael, Jeff and Nancy have been trying to get ahold of you. Liz is in the hospital.”

Michael’s legs almost gave out. “What? What’s wrong?”

“They don’t know,” Shelly replied, frowning. “That’s why they kept her so long. She just…collapsed. She went into shock, and her blood pressure dropped. She wasn’t bleeding anywhere, but they had to give her a blood transfusion. She almost died.”

“When was this?”

“Thursday morning.”

Right about the time he’d been bleeding to death in the passenger seat of the Chevelle. Jesus.

Michael broke every speed limit on his way to the hospital, even knowing he wouldn’t do Liz any good if he ended up an 80-mile-an-hour smear on the pavement. But he still wasn’t fast enough, because the idiot nurses wouldn’t let him in.

“Visiting hours are over, young man. It’s eight o’clock. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“Fuck that!” Michael raged, and one of the women paged Security. “She almost died! I have to see her!”

Nancy Parker came out of the waiting room, looking ten years older than she had the week before. “Michael? It’s okay,” she said to the nurse. “He’s family.”

Nurse Ratchet scowled, but she stepped aside. “He gets ten minutes.”

“What happened?” Michael demanded, then felt stupid, because he already knew.

Nancy was shaking her head. “We don’t know. God, we don’t know, but we almost lost her. A specialist is coming in tomorrow to do some tests. Liz has been asking for you.”

“Can I see her?”

“I think she’s still awake. Jeff’s with her.” Nancy took his arm and led him to a room down the hall, then knocked on the open door. “Liz? Honey? There’s someone here to see you.”

She turned toward the door, and her eyes smiled. “Michael, hey. How was Texas?”

“A waste of time. You look like hell, Parker,” he said before he thought, then winced at his blunt words. He was too relieved to see that she was in one piece and able to talk to censor his mouth.

“Thanks a lot,” she retorted with a wry smile. “You want to help me bust out of here?”

“Not gonna happen. We need to find out what’s wrong.”

“I think I already know.” She shifted in bed, sitting up a little more, then said to her father, “Give us a minute, okay?”

“Okay.” Jeff Parker kissed her cheek. “But then you need to get some rest.”

“That’s all I’ve been doing since I got here,” she complained fretfully. “Much more of this, and I’ll need a rest from having to rest.”

Michael sat on the edge of the bed and took both her hands. “I’m the one who got shot. How come you ended up in the hospital?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.” Her smile faded. “It was a trap?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have to run?”

“No. I don’t think so. Even if we do, I’m not going anywhere,” he confessed.

“I am.” Liz sat up, one hand going to the heart monitor on her index finger. “Can you help me get this thing off?”

“Liz-”

“I’m not hurt, Michael. I was fine by the time I got here, even.”

“Then why do you look like you were run over by a truck?”

“Because.” Her eyes filled, and she said a little reproachfully, “I thought you’d died. No one could get ahold of you.”

“Max’s cell got a little beat up during our escape. We finally figured out that it wasn’t ringing for incoming calls. I called from Dallas and again from Lubbock, but you weren’t answering your cell, and your parents’ answering machine was refusing more messages. I’m sorry I scared you.”

“I’m sorry I scared you, too,” she replied softly, turning one of her hands under his and linking their fingers together. “You probably freaked out when I didn’t call to nag you like I said I would.”

His heart had taken up residence in his throat. “Just a little.”

“Promise me something.”

“Sure.”

“No more quests. No more ships. No matter what Max finds. Promise you won’t go with him again.”

“Liz, I have to,” he reminded her.

“Protecting him isn’t your job anymore, Michael. Tess left. It’s over. The Skins are dead, the Granolith’s gone, and the only welcome you’ll get if you find a way back is a public execution. I don’t want to lose you.”

Michael opened his mouth to explain about genetic design and destiny, then closed it. That little voice he called a conscience could yell and scream if it wanted to. She’d almost died, and all she wanted from him was a promise that he wouldn’t leave. If the psychiatrists were to be believed, you weren’t supposed to obey the voices in your head, anyway. “I promise.”

“Thank you.” She closed her eyes briefly, her hand squeezing his. “One more thing.”

“Anything.”

“I want to go home. Please.”

“Liz-”

“The only thing all those tests might find is something that will put us all in danger. I’ve had enough danger. Please take me home.”

He wiped his thumb gently over the circles under her eyes, erasing them. “I’ll go talk to the doctor.”

“Wait.”

“What is it?”

She took a deep breath. “I love you.”

He blinked. “Uh, Liz?” he said after a moment.

“What?”

“Did you have auditory hallucinations after you got shot?”

She started to laugh. “I love you, Michael,” she said again. “I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out.”

“You mean…”

“I mean.” She smiled, her eyes glowing like someone had set a candle behind them.

Michael tried to find the right words, but there weren’t any. Not for this. He leaned forward a little, and Liz tilted her face up, and suddenly they were kissing, and his hands were shaking again, and he discovered that he didn’t need words after all.

The water in the pitcher next to Liz’s bed started to boil. But their world had narrowed down to two pairs of lips and the perfect circle of each other’s arms, and neither one of them noticed.