Pygmalion

By DocPaul

Chapter Forty-four: The Dance of the devil…

Day Sixty-five: Wednesday, 2:17 am

Strickland was asleep. Hanson walked around the room again. He was exhausted. It was late, and he was almost too tired to sleep. Taking his field unit, he called to the outside stakeout team.

“Anyone awake out there?”

Waters smiled. Poor Hanson. Stuck inside with Strickland. It was a nice night. Warm. Being inside with that rotten pig had to stink. “We’re here, Sam. What’s up?”

“Too tired to drink any more stinking coffee. Anyone interested in pizza or takeout?”

Philips laughed. “Love some, but it’s not procedure.”

“I know.” Sam sighed. “I can dream, can’t I? Bertoli’s on 5th makes an awesome pizza with exotic cheeses. They even do a feta cheese pizza with real Greek olives.”

Waters laughed. “You’re a sick man, Sam. We’re going to do a quick walkaround. Stay awake.”

“Gotcha.” Hanson sat back. Damn. He really needed to get a new partner soon. He was pulling shit detail again. If he had a partner, he could be outside walking or talking to someone. Courtney. She might have been a Fed plant, but at times, he missed her. Even when she used to call him Carl.

“Where’s Valenti?”

Hanson looked over at Strickland. “He and the Chief had a late meeting. I haven’t heard back from them, so I’m assuming they’re still caught up in it.”

Strickland sat up abruptly. Looking around, he noticed the quietness of the house. “We’re alone? Just you and me?”

Hanson shook his head. “No. There’re two outside teams, and a team upstairs watching the yard.” He looked at his watch. “Cap has been gone over six hours. He should be returning any time now.”

Strickland began to sweat. “How did you get here?”

“From the PD. I was brought here by Kyle. Only a few select of us know. There’re operations going on all over town, and…”

Strickland became agitated. “Idiot! You came here from the PD! Oh, God! I’ve trusted my life in the hands of imbeciles!” Strickland grabbed Hanson. “You. Get. Valenti. Now! If he doesn’t get me to the Feds, I’m a dead man! Dead! Do you understand?”

“I understand ‘dead.’” Hanson said coldly. “You were dead a long time ago, Strickland.”

~~~

“Zeke!” Michael reached out and pulled Zeke back behind him. The place was a mess. There were cops everywhere. People were charging out the side doors. The entire room was under a washed red light, and the raid was moving fast.

Over sixteen drug dealers were pulled from the general crowd. Michael frowned. There should’ve been more. Taking his phone, he manhandled Zeke into the back room away from the chaos.

“Sean, talk to me!”

Michael winced when Sean screamed into the phone. He was three blocks over in a biker’s leather bar. The screaming of heavy metal was so loud, Michael could feel it jarring his teeth.

“What?”

“Want me to run over?” asked Zeke.

“I want you to settle down and shut up!” Michael glared at the younger man. Grabbing a bar towel, he applied it to Zeke’s head. Minor laceration. “Sean!” Giving up he put the receiver on his neck. Michael frowned and shook his head at Max entering the room. “Maxwell? More than sixteen?”

Max shook his head. “Is that Sean?”

“Yeah, if you can hear him. Shit! We’re down by twenty!” Michael gave up and disconnected the phone tossing it down.

Michael swore a holy streak as he checked out Zeke’s head. They had targeted thirty-six drug runners and pushers that worked the high school and college areas. They were Pierce’s main distributors in the Roswell area. Strickland had given them a comprehensive list. They planned three parties in different clubs in town with the intent to pull them in off the street fast and convenient.

“Try Kyle at Calypso.” Michael said.

“Calypso already called in seven. That leaves us still shy by thirteen.” Max grimaced at Michael’s colorful language.

“Club Hell should’ve drawn the most! It’s a safe zone all year long. A meth party, with bangers should’ve opened the door to a lot of them trying to push in an area normally off limits.”

“I think…” said Zeke.

Both Michael and Max ignored him. Michael frowning at the wound. “Shut up, Zeke. Didn’t I tell you to stay out of the fray? This is what you consider staying out of the fray?”

“It was a pretty good dive, if you ask me,” said Max. Zeke gave Max a look of gratitude.

“I thought I was part of this operation,” said Zeke.

Michael stopped working on his wound. “You were. You are. But, like it or not, you’re a minor in a bar, and when I tell you to stay put, I expect you to obey.” Michael shared a look with Max who nodded.

“Let me look at that.” Max took Michael’s place. He looked at the cut on Zeke’s forehead where he had met an interesting impact with a chair. “It’s not that bad.”

“Good,” said Zeke. He suspected as much as soon as the ringing had stopped in his ears, and now he was only seeing double and not four times that.

Max ran his hand over the wound, and Michael watched the doorway. “It bled, but the wound immediately closed. The cut was really fine. Scalp wounds always bleed like a bitch. It looks closed now. You should be fine.” Max held up fingers. “How many?”

Zeke made a face. There. His vision straightened. “Three.” That was great. Before it would’ve been six.

“You’re good to go. Go ahead and watch the action, but stay out of the way.” Zeke gave a charming smile was out of the room.

Michael watched him, redialing Sean who was still out of contact. “Thanks, Max. Maria couldn’t take anything happening to Zeke.”

“He’s a good kid. Shocking how many strange people he knows though.”

Michael shrugged. That description technically included them. “He lived on the streets so long. People remember him as that kid. It came in useful.” Sean wasn’t answering. Michael swore and disconnected. “You want to take a walk?”

Max smiled. “Sure!”

Michael looked around for Zeke. “We better take Zeke. No telling what kind of trouble he’d get into if we left him alone.”

Alex and Eddie wandered into the back room followed by Zeke. “What? You heading to another place to destroy?”

“It got a little out of hand,” said Michael.

“You think?” Alex said wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “My damn place is totally trashed! I don’t have a single table or chair unbroken, and…”

“That isn’t my fault!” Michael said. “I didn’t throw the first chair.”

“No. You didn’t.” Alex looked pointedly at Max.

“What?” Max shrugged. It seemed like a good thing to do at the time, when the first person headed for a back door when the cops entered the front. Of course, once the first piece of furniture went flying, it was a free-for-all.

Alex shook his head. “Why do I let you people into my life?” But he already knew the answer to that one. Isabel. He did it for Isabel. If he was smart, he’d marry her and head for Canada . Or Europe . Anywhere away from the chaos. “Where’re you going now?”

“Fade to Black. Sean’s team isn’t responding.” Chaz’s place.” Alex looked at his cousin, his eyebrow going up. “We better go along, just in case.”

Eddie was barely recovered from his last injuries from the car accident, but since Zeke with his cast was raring to go, it seemed like a reasonable idea. “As long as I don’t end up in the ER again. I’m working hard on getting Jackie to date me. If I show up with too many injuries, she’ll think I’m a troublemaker or something. I’m trying to make a good impression.”

Michael frowned. “Jackie? Not Jackie, the Resident from Hell!” Michael had a look of disgust cross his face. “She hates me!”

“Good!” said Eddie. “I knew I really liked her! Now I know why!” The rest snickered at the irritated Michael as they locked up the trashed Club Hell. Alex had a hard time shutting a broken door.

“Fuck it! There isn’t a damn thing left in there worth stealing. Thanks to Roswell PD.”

“It’s called resisting arrest, buddy!” retorted Michael heatedly. Sure. Sure. Just another thing they were going to pin on him. Max had been the first one to start tossing furniture. Not him.

Fade to Black. A heavy metal, leather, hardcore club was only a few blocks from Club Hell. They ran similar customers, but Fade to Black catered to a more biker enthusiastic crowd. They barely entered the front door when a beer bottle went flying at their heads.

Through the smoke and noise, Michael spotted Sean in the thick of it. Sean and Kyle. Kyle must have joined Sean after Calypso was tossed. Michael turned around to tell Zeke to wait outside, but the young man was already gone, lost in the crowd of large angry bodies, and chicks with lethal attitudes. Dammit, if the kid found himself molested in an orgy of biker babes, Maria was going to have a holy conniption. Michael swerved trying to avoid an extremely bovine group of fat lesbian chicks calling themselves the Brats. The were a particularly unpleasant mentally challenged group of dykes on bikes with dicks, waving dildos about. Scary. Good thing they moved in a group. Easy to avoid. Easy to ignore. Easy to roundup. Arrest one, the other followed like mindless zombies.

“Max!” Michael yelled over the chaos and noise. “Get Zeke!”

Max couldn’t hear. He was trying to avoid flying glass and furniture….and a few bodies. His eyes remained fixed on Sean DeLuca. As always, Sean appeared to be in the middle of things. Kyle was…well he was in one part of the room, but suddenly he was tossed to another. Max lost track as the other side of the room seemed to collapse on itself.

Michael waded through bodies like butter. He cut through the melee like a knife, taking his time to do maximum damage along the way. Max lost track of Eddie and Alex, but he suspected they were in the thick of it too. Somehow, Alex appeared to have a lot of pent up aggression to work out. Max winced when he saw Michael take a fist to the jaw. The entire crowd in front of him seemed to breathe, moving outward, and then suddenly collapsing inward to move out again. One minute Michael was on top, the next the was gone, and then suddenly there were bodies everywhere, with Michael walking over them, not bothering to avoid stepping on people.

Sean was moving around, and Max swore he saw him flying through the air a few times. Zeke was practically swinging from a ceiling fixture, or he was until it suddenly pulled away from the support beam and dropped into a crowd.

Shit. Maria wasn’t going to like that.

~~~

They were laughing. Eddie was having a cut on his eyebrow patched as he took a swig from a bottle of whiskey. The paramedics had given up on trying to treat the group. Michael refused all treatment. He had a bruise on his jaw, and he was holding his left side. Maybe a bruised rib or two, maybe they were broken. Max had a black eye. Michael was checking Zeke over, frowning at the state of Zeke’s cast, he stared at Sean in anger. This was completely his fault.

Sean grabbed the bottle from Eddie and dowsed his battered hand in the liquid, then he turned and poured it on his partner. Kyle had a cut on his forehead where he accidentally tried to stop a flying bottle. Alex was smoking a cigarette, and surprisingly looked totally unscathed by the fight.

“What the fuck happened in there, Sean?” Max asked.

“Nothing much. Usual bar fight.”

Michael snorted under his breath. Yeah, he was sure that Sean was used to bars exploding into violence around him. “How many dealers did you lose because of it?”

Sean shrugged. “None. We picked up eight before the fight broke out. They’re already gone. Had them transported to the PD holding cells.”

Alex was the one to bum a cigarette from Sean for once. Lighting it, his eyes narrowed against the exhaled smoke. “So what was with the fight, if it wasn’t marks resisting?”

Sean looked at Kyle, and they both broke into laughter. Kyle shook his head and tried to stretch out the soreness in his arms and legs.

“Sean,” said Max.

Sean shrugged. “It was the normal customers. Seems they took offense that we didn’t feel the need to arrest them!” Sean chuckled with Kyle. They waved as another Roswell PD wagon carted off more of the unruly crowd. “Good news is that I got three phone numbers from these hot biker babes, and one that might have been a man in drag. She or he was a member of those Brat squad. Hard to say with all that facial hair.”

Zeke held up a handful of them. “I got six. One woman shoved it down my pants and tweaked my….um, ….” Zeke went quiet suddenly as his face turned red. “Well...you know.”

Sean laughed. “No shit! She grabbed your….”

“Sean!” Michael frowned. Encouraging Zeke at an early age wasn’t going to sit well with Maria. The kid was quite able to find trouble without their bad examples. Hell, the kid ran a business on the Internet. God only knew what he got into on the computer.

Michael pulled Zeke to his feet.

“I’m going home! I need a shower, and some sleep.”

The rest of the group agreed, and followed Michael out the door.

~~~

Maria was sleeping, but she woke before they made the Loft. She could feel Michael, or maybe it was the twins. She stood at the top of the stairs staring down at her living room. Jonathan was still standing at the glass door staring into the garden.

“They’re on their way,” he said quietly.

“I know.” Maria continued down the stairs. Isabel had taken Julia to her apartment. Tess was asleep with Zan in the guest bedroom, and Amy was actually sleeping in one of the twins’ new rooms upstairs. Maria frowned. “Did they call? I didn’t hear the phone.”

“No.” Jonathan stretched. His muscled hurt from standing for so many hours. “I can feel Max.”

Maria smiled. She could feel Michael too, but sometimes she was uncertain whether it was because of what she was, the connection they had, or whether it was the twins. Since Jonathan could feel Max, Maria was almost certain that it was her connection to Michael she was feeling.

“How long have you felt him?”

Jonathan shrugged. “Pretty much since we focused, but I could sense him before. Not strongly. Just a sense. Now I really can feel his presence.”

Maria smiled. She had caught Max staring at a door before Jonathan walked through it. So it ran both ways.

“You didn’t have time to talk, did you?”

Jonathan avoided her eyes. “We will. Maybe when this is over.”

“I’m sorry.” Maria came to stand next to him. “I know it’s hard.”

“You have no idea.” Jonathan laughed at himself. “I spent so many years alone, convincing myself that I wouldn’t go back. That part of my life was over, and then I met him again.” Jonathan looked at Maria. “He’s many things, but mostly he is a better man. So much better than he ever was.” Jonathan looked out into the darkness. “Now…now he is a King. A man worth believing in.”

Maria squeezed Jonathan’s arm, hugging it to her. “He is.”

They both turned as the door opened, and the wrecked warriors of the day entered. Maria moved away from Jonathan, her mouth opening in wonder.

“What’s going on?” Maria hurried to Michael. “Michael? Honey?” Then she spotted Zeke. Or more specifically, Zeke’s cast. “You promised!”

“Maria, he’s fine!” Michael swore as Maria picked up Zeke’s arm and looked at the cast. “I’ll take him to the doctor tomorrow to get it repaired.”

Maria nodded. She looked at the others and quickly went into the kitchen to get supplies bypassing Michael and even Jonathan’s hands trying to calm her down. Michael waved the rest of them away, into his den before they woke up Amy, Tess and the baby.

Michael came up behind Maria, hugging her hard against him. “He’s fine. I swear.”

“He’s not even eighteen! He has no business being out there on the streets on a school night playing cops. It’s not his job! It’s not his time!”

Michael sighed. “Are we going to fight about this now? Right now?”

“Yes!”

Michael did a quick head bob. “Okay, bring it on, Professor! I’ve heard your argument. Hit me with the rest.”

Maria was tired. She was sick. She didn’t want to fight. Not really. “He’s a kid, Michael. But he doesn’t think so. Society didn’t give him much but pain. We reclaimed him. Reclaimed his childhood. No matter how hard we fight to give him back a few moments of his lost childhood, we lose. Mulhoney. Margo. This. All of this. It is making him into an adult before he needs to be. He’s just a kid. A kid with a broken arm, and he’s running around in bars battling drug dealers.”

Michael backed away as a wave of exhaustion hit him. She was tired of fighting so hard to just survive. He had done that. He brought that into her life. Good or bad, it was her life now. Endless worry and endless exhaustion, caught up in a destiny she never asked for or wanted.

“You’re right. I know you are. You’re right. I know he has a foothold into the life. Alex had it, but recently he’s been associated with the Cop Shop. Zeke walks his old neighborhoods still. He knows the people. He’s comfortable. I used that.” Michael closed his eyes for a moment. “It was an avenue open to me, and I used it.”

Maria stared at him. Just as she had used her family connections. Whatever it took. There were lines. Both of them had crossed them. And they were both wrong.

“He’s just a little boy.”

Michael cleared his throat and forced her to look at him. “He’s your little boy. That makes a difference. What’s upsetting you, Maria? Zeke? Or the babies?”

Maria rested her head on his chest. “Both. I don’t know. Maybe both. They…they all seem destined to walk a special predetermined journey. Will they be strong enough? Will it rob them of their youth…make them old before their time? I think of Rath. Our Rath. He’s not even conceived, but we both know he will one day exist and even what he’s going to do. We both feel him. How can we know that?”

“He’s strong. He’s something special coming, a special child for us.”

“That’s it, Detective. All of our children are special to us. But, Rath. He is you. Completely you. The twins have my innovation, willingness to learn, to teach, and to reach further. They’ll be scientists. I know that. You know that. How much do we push them to this destiny and how much do we withhold? I’m staggered by the immenseness of this. All of this. You. Us. Me. What we are. What we’ll be. Our children. All of it.”

Michael rested his forehead against hers. “Tell me to quit fucking up your life and I will.”

“You’d leave? If I asked you to let me go? Take the babies. Would you?” Maria held her breath and waited. Could he?”

Michael didn’t hesitate. “No. Never. I could survive losing the babies, but I never once thought I could survive losing you.” Michael closed his eyes. “Don’t ask me to leave, Maria. I’d give you anything….anything, but that.”

Maria held his head and kissed him softly. “Good answer, Detective. Excellent. It’s not that I don’t think you love me of your own free will, but I am confused to how we got trapped in this circle of circumstance.”

Michael laughed. “I’m not. I’ve never been confused. You, Maria DeLuca were born for me. Born to be the bane of my existence, and the very air I breathe. We started this loop. You and me. My love for you transcended time and space. Whatever it took to get me here at this time to you was what created the very loop we’re trapped in today. And as much as I rage against it, I can’t say I’m sorry. I can’t. I won’t. It gave me you. That means everything.”

“And Zeke? Our children?”

Michael shrugged. “Their lives will be lived by them. They are what they are. We will love them. Support them. Allow them to do what they must. That includes Zeke. I know he’s young, but he too has a role to play in his own life, and raging against the machine doesn’t make it not so.”

Maria nodded. She knew that. She maybe needed to hear it.

“Can you accept that?”

Maria nodded again. She cleared her throat. “Is it over?”

“No. We did a lot of damage, but no. Strickland won’t give us Pierce. Everything else, but not Pierce.”

Maria turned and looked him over. His jaw was turning a nice shade of blue. Handing him a bag of frozen peas, she opened his shirt to look at his ribs.

“How did you know?” Michael asked.

“I felt them.”

Michael started to shrug it off, but he stopped. Pulling her up close to him. “What do you mean you felt them?”

Maria gingerly lifted her top exposing a bruised side.

“Oh shit!” Michael moved his hand over her skin. It was sore. Angling her head, he looked at her jaw in the light. The light tint of a bruise was evident.

“It’s okay. It’s fading. It hurt most when it happened.”

“God!” Michael pulled her in close, tightly to his body. He never worried too much about the hits he took, but this was the first time he really understood that the connection ran both ways. He had to learn…needed to learn to be more careful.

~~~

“Thanks for staying.”

“Don’t.” Jonathan glanced at Max. “Don’t thank me. It’s my job.” The night. It breathed. There was an electricity to the air. A feeling of holding breath in the hush of a coming storm. It worried.

“I thought taking care of me was your job.”

“It is.” Jonathan laughed. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Without them and their children you won’t exist. My job was to protect you and the destiny that needed to unfold. I’m doing that. Against my will, I did it. After I met Maria, it was my choice.”

“I’m not a man that you can trust…”

“You weren’t.” Jonathan looked at Max, a smile pulling at his mouth. The rest of him remained closed off, unemotional, and unyielding. “Don’t confuse Max Evans with Zan of Antar. You have his essence, but you are your own man. Your humanity was a gift.” Jonathan looked at Max. “You think I hold what and who you once were against you?”

“How can you not?”

“Same way you don’t hold Vilandra against Isabel, or Michael doesn’t hold Zan against you either. Michael is not Rath.” Jonathan shrugged. “In all honesty? I never wanted to meet you again. Never. I definitely never wanted to love you. But, Max….there’s a fine line between wanting and having. I met you, and despite never being together or having a future, I found myself believing in you. Believing in the man you are, the man you can be. Can you even understand how easy it would’ve been to shift into a woman?”

“You could do that?”

Jonathan shrugged. “I don’t know. Possibly. I haven’t shifted in so many years, it is hard to say. But I was a man, or male in my last life since Shapeshifters have only one sex, and I was male in this life. Shifting to make my form appealing or even perhaps ‘easier’ for you to accept and love….well, I didn’t want that.”

Max laughed. “No. I suppose not. You made me struggle every step of the way. Never once did you back down, and at times, you were almost cruel.”

“Nothing esteemed lightly is ever given any value. If it was our destiny to be lovers. To find love….I didn’t want it to come cheap. I wanted you to work as hard at loving me as I did you. I wanted us to be equals. In this life, we could finally meet on an equal basis, and not a King to a subject.”

Max shook his head. “How could we be, Jonathan? When you held a lie between us? Equals? You held all the information, and I was in the dark.”

“Perhaps.” Jonathan laughed bitterly. “Perhaps I wanted you to value me, more than you did in the past. I don’t know. But, if you look at all our time together, you’ll notice how many times you left me reeling. How many times I was more interested in you meeting your potential, and not some idea.”

He was right. Jonathan spent a lot of time shaping him. Instructing him on his own nature. There was this sense that Jonathan understood him better than he understood himself. Doubt and uncertainty ruled him, and Jonathan made him put it away, as unimportant and meet the day.

Max frowned. He knew. He knew that somewhere in his past was a sense that he made mistakes, big ones. Costly ones. His ego. His arrogance. In this life, he had a cautious nature. There were no more chances. This was it. The last one. This time he had to do it right, get his priorities straight, and not fail.

“I failed last time.”

Jonathan shook his head. Even now, Max couldn’t understand. How could he? He was human.

“You mistake, Max. You think that Zan was a bad King. He was in some ways, in that he ruled by his will, by his desire, and not always by what was good for his Kingdom. Those are human concepts of what makes a King….a good King. As an Antarian King? Zan was strong. Perhaps stronger than he needed to be. By Antarian standards? Zan was one of the strongest Kings ever seen. Stop judging yourself by your past life, and by human standards. They do not match. They do not translate.” Jonathan turned to look at Max. “I served you all my life, and in the last perhaps it was not a choice I was given. My loyalty was a bond.”

Max looked at Jonathan with disturbed dark eyes. “And now?”

“Now? I see you for who you  are. I see a man made and born to lead, a man who is by nature, a King. In all things, Max, you will rise to a position of authority, not because you are born to it, not because of your parentage. You will rise there because it is your nature. You are King. That is your destiny. Who you are.”

Max snorted. No. No he was not. Not on this world. On this world, there was no need for a King. The times for Kings had passed. Now there were CEOs  like Bill Gates, techno-Kings of enterprise ruling a different type of world. “Not here. Not now.” It bothered him. They all had a destiny. One built around him. Isabel. Tess. Michael. They were joined to the humans and part of this great Destiny, but his own genetics were not part of it. He wasn’t part of it. Being re-engineered had no need for him, Zan the King. He had been unnecessary. “They are all part of this greater thing. I’m not. I’m superfluous, redundant.” Max went to move away. His ego. His will. This was all an exercise in futility.

Jonathan caught him before he could leave. He kissed him. Hard and long. With great feeling. “How can I love someone as blind as you? Have you always been this shortsighted?”

Max cleared his throat. His voice still husky. His hands resting on Jonathan’s arms. “What?”

Jonathan laughed. “No part in this Destiny? My God! Max! You created the very harmonics! Your ability to heal Kyle and Alex created two of the missing parts to this destiny, and you think you have no part? You pulled Michael from the streets, Isabel from despair, and orchestrated their movements here.”

“No! You did that! You and the Foundation. Maria.”

Jonathan actually shook him. “We were the means, you were the power! The directive! Can’t you see? You are the catalyst to destiny! Without you…..this reaction has no power, no means to reach a yield. My God! Open your eyes, baby. You are today, more than ever, the King.”

Max stood riveted to the spot. Jonathan always seemed to see it so much clearer than he could. Understand some unknown purpose.

“I am alone in this, Jonathan. Isabel. Tess. Michael. They’re the true Royals. The true parts of the Granilith. Not me.”

Jonathan framed his face. “You think because you have no tangible part, there is no future for you in this? Max, Max, you are their King. They follow you. For the first time in your existence, you are a born leader with followers…..loyal followers who follow you not because of who you are, but what you are….to them! A man they trust with their very lives. No one tells Michael Guerin that he must follow and trust in your abilities. No one tells Sean. Kyle. Jim Valenti... Any and all of them. They follow your lead because you are the one that holds the power to see a bigger picture. To make the hard decisions. You, Max, are emerging as a King. A real King. You make hard decisions, make the right rules, because it’s your nature, and they instinctually see it. Feel it. Follow it. Trust it. Believe it. They believe in you, more than you believe in yourself.”

“I am not Zan of Antar, Jonathan. I can no longer be that man. I have no desire to rule a distant planet, or have my son do so.”

Jonathan laughed softly. “Good. Because that world has slipped away for you. You are not Zan of Antar. You are Max Evans of Earth. No one ever said that you have no purpose here. Look to them, my liege. There they stand. Your guards. Your army. Your strength. They naturally look to you for a quiet understanding, and for a path to march. Would you leave them unused in all their strength, because you can no longer see a preplanned path for yourself? They who are frozen by the horror of having their lives preplanned, and you whining because yours is not?”

Max laughed softly. Jonathan was calling him spoiled. Spoiled because he wasn’t upset that he wasn’t part of this great destiny, and the others appeared so much more important. Once again, Jonathan was telling him he was wrong. Looking, but not seeing.

“But, Destiny….”

“Is an end, not a means. The journey is built on free will and the choices made. Michael loves Maria because she has always lived in his heart, long before he even had a glimpse of her. She was the idea that fueled a destiny. A beginning. Isabel walked in shadows because her spirit senses the blood of ruling and conquering, and it was incongruous to her gentler nature given by her human ancestry. In her, the dogs of war still rage, but she finds another way to use them. Tess is a powerhouse of nature. A balance among you three. She is the substructure….the framework. Her nature is subtler, but she has a completeness that is undeniable, a firmness of existence. In her, there is always a path, a way. She was born to breed a King, and hold his power in her hands until her son could take it back and use it wisely. They all have a destiny, true. But so do you. So do you. You think because you cannot see all the invisible threads tying you to them, that there aren’t any? You’re wrong. You are alone. That is the nature of being a King. He is surrounded by those who love and are loyal to him, and him alone. His friends, his people, and his family surround and support him, but always, as a King, his destiny, his rule, and his life is one that constitutes being alone. It has to be. His first responsibility is to his people, always them. He must be able to put away his own selfish needs, his own desires, his own biases and rule with absolute objectivity.”

Max looked outside. He was tired, but there was no time for that. He continued because it was what he must do. “Alone. Even without you?”

Jonathan came to stand close to Max’s back staring at the same darkness that stretched the night, far beyond sight, moving into the future. Their future. All of their futures. “I have, and always will be at your side. Lover? I can’t say. But, trust that my loyalty to you and you alone will never waver. I belong to you all, even the humans. We are tied, as are most things in nature. The difference is that we see and feel the connections. Most people walk a destiny of living every day, never noticing how much they’re interconnected to the world around them. The gift we have is that we do. Perhaps it is more a curse? Who’s to say? We are what we are. What we must be.”

Max leaned into Jonathan. It was nice not to feel alone. “You think I can make the right decisions this time? Do what must be done?”

“Yes,” Jonathan said quietly and not without a touch of sadness. “I believe in you. Trust you. You will do that which must be done for the better good, for your people, even at the cost of your own heart. That is why, Max... That is why you are King.”

~~~

Michael listened to them talking softly. Max. His friend. His partner. His brother. Jonathan was right. Max had a destiny he couldn’t even imagine. The destiny belonging to the rest of them was physical, staring them in the face, but Max’s destiny, was more the unknown. Perhaps it was best that way. It wasn’t for a leader to second-guess his own instinct.

Maria.

Michael looked up at the dark loft. She was asleep. Resting. He could feel the unease of her sleep. She was dreaming again.

Maria. He needed her. Listening to Jonathan, he needed to touch her. Make sure she was real. Maybe Jonathan was right. In his soul, all his existence, she was a touch of what he needed, wanted. From the first moment he saw her, it was more than her clarifying his thoughts. So much more. They were more than soulmates. That was such a childish thought. Simplistic. Unyielding. They weren’t two halves of a whole. They were more. Two strong spirits, diversified and opposite complementing the other. They were the balance of nature. A yin to a yang. Light to dark. One couldn’t live without the other. They defined the other, gave purpose and meaning.

“You were listening.” Max said in the dark as Jonathan went to look around the loft. He was on guard. He couldn’t rest.

“Some. Most was private.”

“Do you trust me too, Michael?”

Michael gave a laughing sound. It was soft and amused. “Jonathan has you pegged, doesn’t he, Maxwell? This self doubt. Maybe it’s the burden you carry from being Zan. I don’t know. What I do know is you. I knew you from the moment we met. The moment I saw Isabel, and even Tess. I met you, and I felt a kinship. We were the same. Brothers. On Antar, maybe that doesn’t mean what it means here on Earth, but dammit, Max, I’m an Earthling. Everything good inside me was given to me by my humanity. I’m not the sum of my parts, but rather despite them. I am not what my human donor gave me. I am what Mikey Guerin gave me. A home. A sense of honor. A belief in the law, and protecting those who are vulnerable. He made me what I am. Not Rath of Antar, and not some unknown human donor. Mikey Guerin. My father. He taught me the possibility of love, and Maria gave it to me. That’s all I know. All I want.”

Max nodded, smiling. He had to agree. Diane and Philip Evans had given him everything. His sense of family. His ambition. His belief in what was good, and what was evil. Perhaps there was more to nurture, than just nature. No wonder the Shapeshifter tried to keep the Dupes apart, isolated from human societies and culture. Alone. Nurture could have made the difference to them.

“I loved my parents. There hasn’t been a day since they died that I haven’t missed them. Mourned them. I want to make them proud.”

“You will, Max. You do.” Michael went up the stairs. He stopped for a second. “Your son is lucky to have you as a father. He’ll have a good example to follow. Trust in yourself. I don’t agree with Jonathan often, but he is right about this. You’re a good man.”

“What should I do about Jonathan?”

Michael seemed to mull it over. His natural reaction was to cut Jonathan out. His discomfort for Jonathan was abating. He might not know how far Jonathan would go, but he felt comfortable enough to trust Maria and his children with him.

“No one can tell you that, Max. I suggest you follow your heart. That’s the best anyone can do.”

Max blew out his breath. “I know it makes you uncomfortable, but I feel him inside me. A part of me. I know it might be a remnant of what we once were, but there’s more. He feels like a partner, a person I can trust to listen, to give me an honest opinion.” Max frowned. “How did you know what to do with Maria? I never knew you to react so emotionally and quickly to anyone. How did you know to take that chance?”

Michael rubbed his face. What to say? It was hard. How did a bird know to fly? How did the wind blow? Some things were beyond explanation. “When I met Maria……actually, no, that’s not right... Before. Before I met Maria, I felt….not much at all. It was like my entire body was hollow, empty of any real cohesion. I lost Mikey. I lost my father, and my will to go on alone. It was so fucking hard just to breathe another day alone. I really, honestly didn’t care about anything but the job. Honoring my father, his memory, and what he gave to me. Only that. The first moment I kissed her, touched her, it felt as if my body was filled. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel so alone. Hard to describe. But once I felt that, there was no going back. Never. I’d rather die than feel that alone again.”

Michael had almost died. He proved it many times. When he felt Maria dying in his arms, he was willing to end his life rather than go on without her. Max truly felt that Jonathan was his soulmate, through time and space, but he could go on without Jonathan. It didn’t detract from his feelings, but there wasn’t this overwhelming interconnection that Michael and Maria seemed to have achieved.

“I think I understand.”

Max watched Michael continue upstairs. He couldn’t sleep. Not yet. There was too much to do. Jonathan. What to do about Jonathan? Max sighed and stared into the night as the first movement of light hit the horizon.

~~~

Michael climbed into bed, and moaned when Maria immediately moved into his skin, her warmth surrounding him, welcoming him. She lay facing him with the babies safe between them. Michael closed his eyes and sighed as he let his body settle into rest. Except for Jonathan and Max, all others were asleep. Alex and Sean had gone over to Isabel and Liz’s to join Julia. Eddie and Zeke went to his place to get some sleep. The loft was quiet as Amy slept in one of the babies’ rooms and Kyle, Tess and Zan slept in the guest bedroom downstairs. Jim was out there doing his job. When he needed them, he would call for their return, but until then, they rested.

Quiet. Michael could feel Maria’s breath on his skin. He could feel the movement of the children under her skin. Spanning his hand over her stomach, he reached to touch his children, feel them grow. They were the best of them. Everything.

Maria’s hand came up to cover his, and Michael looked into her eyes. She was awake. Her hand moved upward to stroke his face. As her fingers moved over his cheek, he put his over hers to hold her palm to his mouth.

“I need you,” he said quietly.

“I know.”

~~~

Hanson walked the lower rooms again. His back was strained and tired. Captain Valenti had called. He was on his way back to the safe house. After a full evening and night of discussions, the Mayor and Governor with the State’s Attorney General Offices arrived at the offer they could give Strickland. It wasn’t what Strickland would want, but it was all he could get. It was more than Jim or Daniel Travalis would’ve offered. More than Strickland deserved.

It was quiet.

Sam stared at Waters and Philips’ car. They were checking the area again. Sam felt Strickland stir in his sleep where he lay on a sofa. It was the movement behind him that alerted him someone had entered the room. Probably Fletcher who had been watching from upstairs.

“It’s almost morning. Cap is on his way back. Our relief will be here soon.”

“Your relief is here now.”

Hanson turned at the voice. Frowning he stared, and shook his head. “What are you doing here?”

Before Hanson could get his answer, Strickland woke and sat up. He slowly focused on the new individual in the room. Sam saw his reaction, and he quickly reached for his gun. It was already too late. He never felt the cut of glass when his body went through the window, as a force of power hit him hard mid-chest, sending his body flying outward.

He never heard Strickland’s screams.