Pygmalion

By DocPaul

Chapter Forty-two: Fallin’ down the rabbit hole…

Day Fifty-six: Monday, 12:13 am

Maria was playing with Zan while Tess polished off another fattening piece of pizza. Julia was on the sofa groaning from too much food. Sean needed to take her home soon. She had court in the morning.

“The guys have been in Michael’s den a long time. Do you think we should check on them?” Tess asked.

“They’ll come out when they’re ready, or when someone passes out from all the drinking,” Maria made gurgling noises at the baby. The angel was wide awake. He had just been breastfed and he was happily making faces at Maria.

Max had shown up devastated, so the ‘boys’ took him off into Michael’s new den of debauchery to  commiserate with him, and to find out what was going on away from Julia. Maria and Tess both wanted to know too, but they waited patiently. They needed to finally clue Julia in on the happenings around Roswell , but it was agreed that all of that should come from Sean.

They had called Kyle and Tess, and so Kyle was off in the dark room drinking himself sick with the others. Of course for Max, who had already been past his legal limit of half a beer, and Michael’s limited tolerance, the real drinking was happening with Alex, Kyle, Eddie, and Sean.

“Pathetic!” Sean plopped down next to Julia, kissing her loudly and with enthusiasm.

“Get off! Ewww! You stink.” Julia’s delicate nose twitched at the horrible smell of Sean. “What was he feeding you?”

“Whiskey. Bad whiskey. Rot gut crap. Mmm, Counselor, you smell good.”

“How can you tell?” Julia slid out from under him. “I better take Captain Blotto home to his bed, and dump him in.” They all looked at the glass door when a tap came. Maria went over to the door to open it for Isabel.

“Hey, Maria. I got a message on my machine from my ex-boyfriend Alex.” He deserved little consideration seeing how she hardly seen him over the past few days.

“Izzy!” Isabel’s eyebrow went up at the staggering Alex. Drunk as a skunk. She rarely saw him like that. Kyle was worse. Tess was trying to get him to stand up. “Don’t be that way, baby! I was working on a case!”

Isabel, unimpressed, said, “Case of what?”

“Beer!” Alex said before he fell over on his cousin. Eddie frowned and pushed him up again.

“Jesus, Al!” Eddie looked at Maria, concerned. “He only had a few, I swear. Same for Kyle.” Eddie pointed at Sean. “Sean was the only one drinking whiskey, toasting his fallen friend, Andy. The rest of us had beer. No more than three apiece. Less for Michael and Max.”

Isabel went over and helped Eddie. “He’s trashed! Alex can drink a keg and walk a straight line. What’s wrong with him?”

Maria looked at Julia quickly before answering. “Iz, know how certain members of yours and Tess’s family can’t hold more than a thimble full of liquor?” Maria gestured to both Alex and Kyle. “Maybe you now have two new members of the….” Maria paused. ‘Czechoslovakian’ crowd.”

“Czechoslovakian?” Isabel was confused.

Maria moved her eyebrows upward, “Yeah, you know…..foreigners? Czechoslovakians? From up there?” Maria pointed upward.

Oh! Isabel finally caught on. Maria’s new code word for alien. Frowning at her boyfriend who had neglected her lately to sleep on the reservation, her face cleared as she came to understand what Maria was suggesting. “I better go pour him into a bed. First a bath, but then definitely bed.”

Eddie helped Isabel with Alex. “I’ll give you a hand. Did you and Liz get everything done?”

Isabel snorted. “No clue. Liz bailed on me at the last minute. She took off with three guys. Her dating habits are becoming very worrisome.”

Julia decided it was time to move the whiskey hound. Her eyes lit on the stones that Michael had poured out on the table hours ago. They had forgotten them. “Alex might want to take his stones...” Julia stared at them for a moment, and almost against her will, she walked over and picked one up. “Wow! What’s this?”

The room was suddenly still. The stone that Julia selected was emitting a bright light, almost humming. Julia set it down and tried another one. It shone too, but not as bright. Shaking her head she picked up the one she had selected originally. That one felt right. Better. Balanced.

Alex stared at Julia in shock, and Eddie looked at his cousin in amazement. Sean quickly recovered enough to take the stone from Julia. As soon as he touched it, both he and Julia gasped and dropped it immediately. The intensity of light had illuminated the entire loft for the short second they both had held it in their hands.

“Sean! What was that?” Julia asked, a frown gracing her beautiful face. Sean looked at Michael helplessly. He didn’t know. Michael shook his head.

“Just a stone, honey. Let’s go home.”

“But…” With some effort, Sean and Julia left, leaving the still missing Ms. Fluffy behind.

Alex crossed over to the stones, picked up the one that Sean and Julia seemed attached to, and set it aside. He gazed at the stone that had reacted to him earlier, the one that seemed to hold his attention. “Isabel. Come here.” He waited for her. “Pick a stone. One that seems right.”

Isabel looked at them for a moment, and smiling slightly she quickly took the same stone Alex had selected. It shone as bright as the stone that Julia had held. Alex looked over at Max and Michael. Not taking his eyes off them, he reached out and added his hand to Isabel’s. The moment he touched the stone, its brilliance increased to a bright white light, almost beyond the visible spectrum and even more brilliant than the one from Julia and Sean. Both Alex and Isabel responded much like Julia and Sean had as a wave of sensation flooded through them. They both released it at the same time.

“Alex, what is it?” Michael came closer, making sure Maria stood behind him, uncertain he wanted her or his unborn children near.

“They’re the stones that Nasedo left behind for those who would come. Healing stones. Something about ‘realigning the Balance.’ Freddie said they belonged to the Royals, to those who are part of the Granilith. I touched them all my life, and they would radiate. But since I was healed…” Alex took the stone he and Isabel seemed to share. “This is the stone that feels like me. Feels like me and Isabel.” Alex looked at Michael and Max. “Freddie said I was a harmonic. That in the Granilith were three harmonics, the One, and the creators. Five stones.”

Max came over and picked up each stone but the one Alex was holding. They all emitted a light from his presence, but not to the extent that they did for Julia, Alex and Isabel. Tess left Zan for a moment. She stood looking at the stones and then reaching out, she took one. It lit the room and hummed like it had for both Julia and Isabel. She gestured to Max to touch the stone with her. It remained constant to Tess’s touch, but didn’t increase with Max’s. Tess then crossed over to Kyle and offered it to him. Once they touched it together it did the same to them as it did for the others. Off the chart light flooded the room. Tess looked at the others, and she placed the stone next to Zan. It only emanated the same intensity as it did for Max.

Michael turned to Maria. He indicated the remaining two stones, gesturing her with his facial expression asking her if she wanted to try.

Maria smiled. “You pick the first one, Detective.”

Michael stared at the two remaining stones. He couldn’t decide, as they both seemed to call to him equally. Finally picking up the one on the left, he smiled. Handing it to Maria, the room’s light increased in intensity. Maria laughed.

“Oh my God! It’s Mikey and Amanda! I can feel them! Michael, can you?”

“Yeah.” Michael answered in wonderment. He passed the stone over Maria’s stomach and the intensity increased. The Creators. Michael then reached for the other stone. The moment they both touched it, the room was bathed in a light too brilliant to see or withstand. Edged in almost a range of ultraviolet, no one noticed that the light seemed to flood the entire loft, and that it was shining through the edge of the cement of the brick in the back wall of the new addition as the Granilith resonated from within, tuned to the One. Rath. They were holding Rath’s stone.

Everyone dropped their stones. Zan, the King who Max had once been, had been wrong. The Granilith wasn’t his to command and use. He had no part of it. They had now found the three harmonics who would power the Granilith, Isabel and Alex, Julia and Sean, and Tess and Kyle. Their children along with Michael and Maria’s twins and son, Rath would one day complete a cycle, one that their parents couldn’t even imagine. It was true then. They were all connected in a way beyond simple understanding.

~~~

“Are the two of you going to tell me or what?” Maria asked after the others had left. It was late. Much later than before. It was after two AM and her body was tired. The babies needed to rest, and her back was hurting again. Michael seemed to sense it. He came to sit behind her. He nodded to Max.

“It’s Jonathan, Maria.” Max said quietly.

Maria looked over her shoulder at Michael. “Jonathan? What about Jonathan?”

“He’s…” Max looked away. He couldn’t say it. Almost twenty-four hours later, and he still couldn’t talk about it. He went from being angry to being….he didn’t know what. Hurt. Confused. Alone.

“Max?”

Michael was twirling a lock of Maria’s hair, concentrating on it. Looking at his partner, he frowned. Putting his arms around Maria, he pulled her back into his body. “Jonathan is the other Shapeshifter. He’s Sa’rel.”

Maria sat still for a moment. Closing her eyes, she shook her head. “That’s impossible! Sa’rel was murdered by the other shifter. Everyone said so!”

“He told me,” Max said. He looked away. “He knew what we were all along; where we were. He created the Foundation with your money to bring Michael, Isabel and me to Roswell .”

Maria looked at Max. Moving away from Michael, she backed up looking at both Michael and Max. “You’re saying my money brought Michael to me? That I literally bought myself a husband?”

“Maria,” said Michael shaking his head. “It’s not like that. It’s not.”

Maria shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t understand. I feel nothing bad about Jonathan! Nothing. He’s not some evil alien like this Pierce creature. I know he’s not. I just know that I can trust him.” Maria looked away, but not before Michael saw a tear on her cheek.

“Maria, he lied to us.”

“Stop it! Stop it, Michael! You never liked him. You never trusted him.”

Michael’s jaw clenched. She was right. He had hated Jonathan from the start, or maybe hate wasn’t the word. He just never trusted him. Something about Jonathan disturbed him inexplicably.

“I know him…..I knew him. He’s more than just a friend. You can’t understand! You can’t!”

Michael swore. Maria was taking it harder than Max. Somehow that didn’t seem possible, but it was. “Dammit! What is it between the two of you?”

Maria looked at Michael. Her hand came out to stroke his cheek. She watched as he reacted. His eyes closed slightly. She leaned down and kissed him. Kissed his mouth softly. “Trust me. Trust him. We are the same.”

We are the same.

Her dream. Sa’rel. Looking at Max, Maria frowned. “Tess told me about you when you were Zan. She told me about how Sa’rel was your one true love. That your bonding was forbidden, but you….you as Zan defied the law, and illegally joined to Sa’rel secretly. Then you defiled that bond by openly marrying Tess, and selling Sa’rel off to this evil Torq’el, who Alex’s people called Nacedo. And who you have always called Pierce.”

Maria went to the stairs. She was tired. Strangely, she felt heartbroken…devoid of something. Worried. Worried for Jonathan. “Maybe Jonathan has more reason to hate you, Max, then he ever had to love you. Maybe the fact that he remains in love with you through time and space is something you should think about. What did you ever do to deserve it? He asks for your understanding and trust, and this is the best you can do?”

“Maria,” Max gulped. “I am not without feelings. This is….” Max had spent the day drinking. The day doing many things. “How can I trust him? He’s an alien to me.”

“I’m sorry then.” Maria looked at her husband. “I found it easy to love an alien. I’ve lived through a lot since I’ve done so. I almost died more than once, and in spite of that, all I know is that I would give my life a hundred times over rather than have spent a moment devoid of his touch.”

Michael breathed hard. Maria was openly crying. She turned and left them to do whatever it was that they felt they needed to do.

By the time Michael and Max cleaned up in his den, tossing out the beer bottles, Michael finally got Max to bed. The upstairs was quiet. Dark. Maria must have gone to bed without him. It was after four, and he needed to go to work in another four hours. Usually she left a light on for him when she went to bed before him. It used to be the bathroom light, but since they finished the nursery, she left a low light on in there.

It only took a moment for Michael to realize that the bed was empty. He checked the bathroom and her dressing room and closet. Going downstairs, he stood in the garage staring at the empty space where her GTO usually resided. Maria was gone.

~~~

Jonathan opened the door. He looked bad. His face was unshaven. His long black hair was unrestrained and flowing untamed. He stood there in nothing but a pair of silk pajama bottoms and an open bath robe.

“Does he know you’re here?”

“He’ll figure it out when he finds me missing.”

Jonathan stared at Maria. His eyes dark and fathomless. Their dark centers seemed endless. Opening his arms, she quietly walked into them as he hugged her tight. Maria and Jonathan went to the floor together in front of the door. Maria held him as he cried against her, his tears silent with just the shaking of his body.

~~~

Maria got the door. Standing there, she stared at Michael and Max.

“Hi, Detective. You took longer than I thought you would. I was just making breakfast.”

Michael strode into Jonathan’s house forcing Maria to step back. Sweeping her up in his arms, he hugged her tight. “Remind me to beat you later.”

Maria put her arms around Michael’s neck. Kissing him deeply, she rested her forehead against his. “Always offering me foreplay, Detective. That’s why I love you.” Michael kissed her again, and swatted her on her bottom before setting her down.

“We’re going to make a new rule about this.”

“Bitch. Bitch. Bitch. C’mon. I was making breakfast. My eggs will burn.”

Max looked around the house. He hadn’t been there since he searched it a day ago. “Where is Jonathan?” Max asked quietly.

“Showering. He was a mess. I made him go clean up.”

“Fuck, Jonathan,” said Michael. Grimacing he looked at his partner. “I don’t mean that literally.”

“Bite me, Commander.”

“Oh King, my King.” Michael looked at Maria. “I’m more concerned about why you’re running off to be with an unknown alien in your condition, and without telling me.”

“She came because she knew I needed her.” Jonathan said quietly from the door. His eyes avoiding Max.

Max felt like he’d been cut. Jonathan looked bad. Tired. He was clean, but he hadn’t bothered to pull his hair back in its normal restraint, and he was still unshaven. It was strange, but some reason he felt that it was he who had wronged Jonathan, and not the other way around.

“What do you mean she knew you needed her?” Michael asked nastily. He was sick of Jonathan Stiller, or whoever the hell he was. He was sick of this freakish connection he had with Maria.

“She knew because…” Jonathan looked at Maria and shook his head.

Maria cleared her throat. “I knew because we are the same.”

Max and Michael looked confused, but Michael’s voice stuck a little in his throat. “Maria, you’re a shifter too? Are you telling me that you’re an alien?”

Maria laughed. “No! Sweetie! I mean that Jonathan is me.” The mirror. She looked into him and she saw herself. People were always commenting how Jonathan reminded them of Maria. It started to make sense once she knew what he was. “How, I don’t know. But I knew he was me since he focused for Max. I thought all focuses were the same.”

“No,” said Jonathan softly. “We aren’t all the same. I’m only a pale imitation of what Maria is. I didn’t even understand what she was until the moment she touched me, and made me focus for Max. I didn’t know how much she was imprinted on me. I didn’t know what it took or that I could do it. How could I know?”

That caught Max’s attention. Maria. Imprinted. Jonathan hinted that there was something about Maria. Something about their relationship that was special. “Explain, Jonathan! Explain how you became imprinted. You told me that it was how a Shifter took another form.”

“It is.” Jonathan put his hand up and Maria put her hand to his. Michael grabbed her back.

“Don’t touch her.”

Maria patted Michael’s stomach and went to rescue her breakfast. The kids were starving. “Jonathan, come eat. I know you’re hungry.”

“Explain.” Max demanded as he watched Jonathan devouring the breakfast Maria gave him. She was making a plate for Michael and herself. Max waved off food. It would make him puke.

Jonathan talked while he ate. “I knew that the Commander would find his mate. It was destined. So I found her first. It took some work. I entered all the aspects that I knew about the destined mate into a computer. All the characteristics that were known to us. It generated hundreds of possibilities. I checked all of them out, one by one. There was one that caught my attention. Roswell . This is were all of you were lost, it seemed fitting that somehow the lost children would find their way home to their origin. A professor with an excellent teaching record. Socially involved. I came to find Maria. It was just after Sean and Amy had her loft built.”

Michael noticed that Maria wasn’t talking. She was strangely still and quiet. He knew what that time was for her. It was after Frankie, Jr. almost murdered her. Her own brother. She didn’t speak for a year, and then suddenly one day she did. Amy said she never knew why.

“When I found her, she was….broken.” Jonathan met Maria’s eyes. They both shared a long look that was more than an understanding. It was a communication of something shared. “She didn’t speak. I met Amy first, and after some time I convinced her to let me meet Maria.” Jonathan paused. Getting up from his seat, he walked around the table ignoring Michael and Max. Kneeling next to Maria’s seat he took her hand, and Maria smiled slightly.

“I was in darkness. I had lost my way.” Maria said quietly. “I didn’t want to come back. Living with it even for a day was too much. I wanted to die.” A slight sob left her throat, and Michael was shocked that the same sound came from Jonathan.

“I know,” said Jonathan.

“You once told me,” said Max, “that she was sorrow.”

Jonathan nodded. “The mate. She was the mate. From the first moment I saw her….it was as if I could think clearer, hear better, and see so much that wasn’t there. She clarified without trying. And I stared at her, broken and destroyed by life and its circumstances. Her pain. The sorrow. So deep. So cutting. In a wave. It was unbearable. I reached out and I took her hands.” Jonathan shut his eyes and did it again. “The mate. Here was the mate to the Commander, and she was broken. It was an abomination against everything I knew of. I reached out, and I took her pain.”

Michael looked at Maria and then at Jonathan. “What do you mean, you took her pain?”

“I took it. All the bad emotions weighing her down, making her too fatigued to speak. I pulled it inside myself. My intention was to give her relief, a moment out of the darkness to rest. I didn’t know if I could do it. No one ever tried it before. And I was damaged. Since I almost died, I imprint Jonathan Stiller, and except for shifting his form in minor details, I still didn’t have enough power to shift completely. I think of it now, and I should have known. Maria is a focus. She focuses power into usable streams, even power as low in reserves as mine was at that time. I shifted, not in physical body on the outside, but on the inside. Her pattern healed what was broken in me, seeking the missing parts, replacing them with what she was, allowing me to take in her sorrow and pain, store it, and relieve it from her small body.”

Maria took her hand, and stroked Jonathan’s cheek. “That was when I began to speak again. Began to live. He made me survive by taking my burden.” Maria laughed. “I symbolically thought it was the weight of all the blood money from my father and brother. Jonathan created the Foundation for me. A foundation designed for second chances.”

Jonathan laughed. “It was perfect. The Granilith was my alien world’s second chance. It was the Royals’ second chance at life. It was Maria’s second chance to regain her life, and a life waiting for her….one full of love. The Foundation had a real purpose. I built it. I built the Roswell PD, and I gave you...” Jonathan paused, looking at Michael and Max, “...a second chance at life here in Roswell . Isabel too. You can’t imagine how much you needed it. I made sure the job offer found its way into Max’s mailbox at work. That was the extent of my involvement. I was going to bow out, go away, and let you and destiny do what it must without me. I had fulfilled by vow to Zan, my King. I was done. Freed.”

“What happened?” Maria asked. “I remember that you were going to relocate to Chicago .”

“I was.” Jonathan didn’t want to say that he met Max. It was true, but it wasn’t perhaps what Max wanted to hear. “My plans were changed.”

“And Maria?” Max asked.

Jonathan knew what he wanted to know. “I must have imprinted her in me. Inside my Stiller form at that moment I took her pain. I never felt emotions before….not like you do. In that moment, I felt…..everything. It hurt. She hurt. My future. My past. Everything I was or once had been, it all rushed inside like a knife. I’ve felt emotions ever since. My Shifter body took in Maria’s humanity. I haven’t shifted forms since. I’ll never shift again. Not ever. I would not risk losing what humanity I’ve gained. You can’t imagine the gift that it is.”

“You could focus me because you’re Maria.”

Jonathan saw the look Maria gave him at Max’s question. “Yes. I imprinted more than her humanity. I imprinted that which makes her a focus. I didn’t even know those abilities existed until in the mental plane, she reached out and touched me, and then I knew. I knew I could focus you, Max, since we were already bonded. In our last life, and again in this one.” Jonathan looked at Max. He searched to see if Max understood the implication of what was happening. What it all meant.

“I had a crush on Maria. Is that why I felt attracted to you?”

“I don’t know. I felt that you were searching for the same ability to control your power that the Commander sought. He found Maria. She was beyond your reach. Then you seemed drawn to me. I asked myself if were you attracted to me, or to that part in me that was Maria. That part that could focus and give you control. It was hard to say.” Jonathan shrugged at Max. “It would be the same for you. Was I attracted to Max, or to what of Zan survived in you.”

“You don’t know?” Max asked.

“No. I decided long ago that all that really matters is how a person feels. For the first time in my existence, I actually know what that means. I feel. I love you, Max. Only you. That is my truth.” Jonathan looked at Michael discreetly, and he couldn’t resist. “I figured that it was the part of me that was Maria that made Michael hate me so much.” That caught Michael’s attention. “There is nothing worse for a man like the Commander to find himself attracted and aroused by another man.”

“The hell I was!” bellowed Michael.

Maria gave a whooping laugh, and quickly stopped Michael from attacking Jonathan. “What are you to me now, Jonathan? A brother? A clone?”

“A twin.” Jonathan suggested touching her stomach. Maria smiled and placed her hand over his. No wonder she never felt anything bad about Jonathan. It was like looking in a mirror and seeing herself. She felt no need to fear. Jonathan would always be there to protect them. He was family.

“I better take the Detective home. I need to take a nap.”

“Max, you coming?” Michael asked.

“No, I want to talk to Jonathan. I’ll meet you at work. Make it around ten. I’ve got to take a nap, too.” Michael nodded and let Maria lead him away, complaining loudly about how full of shit Jonathan was, since he definitely never felt anything resembling attraction for the boob.

Jonathan smiled slightly. It was getting close to his morning hour. He would need to get ready for work. He still had that. He still had a job. Running the Foundation and all the holdings he gained from Jonathan Stiller was his life.

“You don’t know who this Pierce is?” Max asked.

“No. I can feel him near, but I am unable to pinpoint him. It might be due to how much Pierce shifts. Each shift cost a lot of energy, and every form incorporated clouds the Shifter’s form in more ways than one. He broke our bond. I can feel the nearness, but nothing else.” Jonathan paused. “Max, I’ve given it a lot of thought. If I can’t identify him, he can’t identify me either, and perhaps that’s why I continue to live. He doesn’t know I still exist. But that day at Club Hell, you pissed me off, and I was determined to get drunk. You thought I was the sociopath killing people, remember?”

“I remember. I had questions.”

“I remember feeling eyes upon me. Feeling that I was being stalked. A predator can always feel a prey, and for once, I was the prey. I knew that. I didn’t care. Being in a meat market like Club Hell, being more than a little pissed at you….” Jonathan paused. In their last life together he had been disappointed in Zan, his lover, but he never spoke out of turn, beyond his station. Being on Earth, and in a strange way, becoming more human, it freed him in other ways as well. He spoke out. He felt. He demanded what he needed. He held off Max and forced Max to walk with him as an equal. Till that moment, Jonathan never realized just how evolved he had become.

“I deserved it. Maria was angry at me too for not trusting you.”

“I went to the bathroom, stood in a huge line hoping not to piss myself. I remember thinking about picking up someone, or letting myself be picked up.” Jonathan looked at Max. “I think your nemesis Pierce, my ex-mate, was there as well. Saw that his prey, Ken Price was sizing me up for the next kill, and Pierce shifted into my form, attracting Price. Killing him. I would’ve known for certain if you had told me about the silver handprint. As it was, I didn’t find out until later.” Jonathan licked his lips. This was hard. It was like exposing a fault in his own mainframe. “Thing is, Max. If Pierce….Torq’el... is shifting between many forms chances are he is quite insane. All those forms will be demanding dominance, and their voices in his head would be screaming. He would effectively have a multiple personality disorder. A strong Shifter should never carry more than two forms at once, and never for a long time without returning to native form, not unless they didn’t want the shape they took to dominate forever. I worried about being Jonathan Stiller, pedophile, but it pretty clear that what I imprinted of Maria DeLuca is a much more stable and dominant personality.”

Max closed his eyes. “I forced you to marry him? Pierce?” He shuddered at the thought, so big a monster was Pierce in his mind.

“Yes. Bond. It’s not quiet the same, Max. Shifters don’t propagate like humans. We are basically  created in test tubes and incubated. We have progenitors. Those that donate genetics to us, namely our parents, but it doesn’t translate to human standards.”

“So you can’t have children?”

Jonathan smiled. “Maybe.” That was something he never thought about, or tried. Hard to say.

“Maria said that Tess told her that I was a real shit to you when I was Zan.” Max cleared his throat. “Is that why you wouldn’t trust me with your secret?”

Jonathan looked at the ground. “It is strange. I remember feeling pain. Betrayed by you, but the depth of it made no sense until I got human feelings. If what you want to know is did I make you love me so I could spurn you, pay you back….no. I loved you in your last life, and I love you now. I’ll love you for all eternity. It really doesn’t matter. Not anymore. I kept my promise to you. You asked me to make sure that Torq’el did not get the real Royal pods. To protect the Royals above all else. I did that, almost at the cost of my life. You asked me to find the Dupes. I did that too. You made me promise to protect the Destiny, and again, I’ve done that. I am at your side as I have always been, my liege.”

“I created the Dupes. Why?”

Jonathan laughed. “Isn’t it obvious? You, Max can never return to Antar. Too human. Your human form would never survive. My Zan, the man you once were, was so spoiled and vain, all you cared about was ruling for eternity. If you could return to Antar, like a Phoenix from the ashes, you would be proclaimed the revered Royals. Nothing and no one would challenge your right to rule. The Dupes were created to return to Antar and reclaim your throne. They are more alien, and on Antar, that pesky humanity can be extracted. Once they’re regenerated on Antar, they can reproduce. Take their place on the throne.”

“Why didn’t they already go back if no one knew we existed?”

“Well, until recently….only Torq’el and I knew that there were two sets. They couldn’t understand why Zan….the Dupe, didn’t have the crest. They turned their backs on him until recently.”

“When the name of Zan…..my son, appeared on the Book of Ascension.”

“Correct. The crest is yours, Max. Yours to give. It will pass to your son. It will pass to Zan.”

Max shook his head. He really had been arrogant and conceited on Antar. “So I planned to rule in my lifetime, again in this one, and what? Here on Earth as well?”

“You have the heart of an Imperialist.”

“Great. Max the Khan.” Max rolled his eyes. “How disappointed my other self would be in me to realize all I want is to get married, have a home and watch my son grow up. Noble ambitions for a human.”

“I have to agree. It was all I wanted. What I almost had, but that damn promise I once made you kept interfering.”

Max smiled. “Is it too late to apologize for all the times I hurt you?”

Jonathan’s eyes were dark. Too deep for Max to read. “I’ve waited a lifetime for you, the man you were and the man you are. I can say that honestly I like Max the best. I love him. Zan was perhaps a specter of what he could have become if only his cruelty could have been tempered by a touch of compassion and humanity. I saw you, and it was looking at a dream. A dream I never knew I had. You can’t imagine how horrified I was after coming so far to be free of you, to find myself still tied to you by attraction, lust and love.”

Max stroked Jonathan’s unshaven cheek. “Don’t give up on me, now. I need to think about it a little, get my head straight, but I do miss you.”

“I miss you too, Max.” As always, Jonathan’s eyes were too deep to breach, but Max could feel along the connection they forged when they connected in the focus. How could he forget to trust that connection? Jonathan had been laid bare, and there was nothing in that connection tainted by deceit.

Max actually blushed at that. “I better go. I’ll call you.”

He’ll call him? Jonathan laughed. “Why do I have to keep being the female in this relationship?”

Max looked back on his way out the door. “Next time imprint Michael, not Maria!”

~~~

“I turned off the answering machine. I locked the door. I swear, if anyone…..and I mean anyone comes around tonight, I am going to shoot them!” Michael stretched. He had a slight headache. No sleep the previous night followed by a long day at work trying to locate Strickland, and a wigged out Liz Parker trapping him in the breakroom trying to explain the results she got back this weekend from both Alex and Kyle’s blood test. He was irritable and in need of down time with his favorite person. Maria.

Maria kissed his head as she finished clearing the dinner table. “Good idea. Shooting people is really your specialty.”

Michael quickly followed her, taking the dishes from her. “I thought you were supposed to stay off your feet? You said your back was hurting more, and excuse me from mentioning it, Professor, but you are getting delightfully round.”

“Hit a woman when she down! Nordstrom’s was having a sale! I look like a moose.”

Michael hugged her from behind. “C’mon, Moosie! I’ll let you play in my new den! I bought new DVDs when I was out today!”

“Really?” Maria was suspicious. “I don’t know. Every time I see a movie with you, I end up giving you a blow job or screaming my head off. I rarely get to see the damn movie! I think you’re a sexual predator.”

“I know! That’s why I got three!” Michael looked at Maria with a twinkle. “I am in need of us time.”

Maria laughed, resisting his pull to the other side of the loft. “You going to feed me?”

“That’s exactly what I was talking about!”

Maria slapped his stomach. “Popcorn, Detective! I’ve tasted your….um,” Maria paused for a less explicit word. Dammit, she was going to be a mother. Wasn’t she supposed to use euphemisms for everything? Like ‘Little Winky’ instead of penis?

“Semen? Sperm? Cum?” Michael suggested with a glint in his eye daring her to pick one.

“Jiz, spunk, load, cream, spirit, juice….”

“Okay!” Michael held up his hands in defeat. What was he thinking challenging an anthropologist? Knowing Maria, she probably did a paper on all the possible names for male sexual secretions. “What are you thinking about? What do you want to eat?”

“Hot buttered popcorn, extra butter with a large box of milk duds tossed in. You might have to take me to the movies, Detective, and not try to trap me in your den of debauchery.”

“The movies?” Michael frowned. This couldn’t be good. “What do you want to see?”

“ Chicago .”

Michael moaned. Dragging Maria with him to his den, he fell back on the sofa, and moaned, drawing her down in his lap. “A musical? How much do you think I love you exactly? I’m not a fan. I hear a rumor that people actually sing in this movie.”

“Hmm, worse, Detective. They take to bouts of dancing as well. At times, the singing seems spontaneous.”

“Could it be a disease?” Michael suggests helpfully.

“Interesting. Local, national or pandemic?”

“Hmm, wimpy cough cough or something with teeth?” Michael’s teeth found her neck, he nibbled as she squirmed under him taking off his shirt.

“Global killer?”

“Now you’re talking.” Michael murmured as his mouth went up her naked torso. “You might be infected. I might have to put you under quarantine and close observation.”

“It might require an exploratory?” Maria volunteered hopefully.

“It might. That’s why you should stay right here with me and watch my new Spiderman DVD!

Maria pushed him off her and sat up a little ignoring her state of undress. “Spiderman? Again?” Maria appeared thoughtful. “That Spidey is such a bad boy. Can I be Mary Jane?”

“Absolutely! If you’re good, I’ll even wear my Spiderman suit.”

“Oh! What can Mary Jane wear?”

“Catholic school girl uniform, no undies, or maybe a thong.” Michael suggested. He sat up and moved his hands up along her silky skin, concentrating on the increased amount of cleavage that her pregnancy was affording her. “Spiderman might have to be under the deadly effects of a fever…”

“Hemorrhagic or something more like meningitis?”

“Hot! He’s hot! While it cooks his noodle, he loses control of…..”

“Not his bladder?”

“His web spinners in his hands,” Michael said ignoring her comments. “Causing him to enslave Mary Jane, tie her up.”

“I know what you mean by enslave, buddy.”

“….he calls her Maria in his weakened state.”

“Poor boy! That fever must be raging.”

“Hmm.”

“How will Mary Jane, aka, Maria survive?”

Michael’s mouth was making neat work on Maria’s sensitive breasts. His teeth scraping her beaded nipples as his hand wandered down her front to rub the taunt skin of her stomach. Maria, breathing hard, moved under his ministrations.

“Don’t worry, Spidey will take very good care of her!”

“Aw, lucky girl!” Maria said breathlessly as he bit at her neck. Bite. Bite harder. It was like a cadence in her mind. Michael seemed to hear it, and he pulled back for a moment.

They stared at each other for a few moments. Then Michael lowered his head and kissed her. It was tender and sweet, the gentlest of kisses. Michael Guerin never failed to surprise her. She felt cherished. Maria pulled back slightly to smile at her husband. He was such a big softy, all rough and gruff on the outside, but marshmellowy gooey on the inside. Michael smiled back, and kissed her again. Their secret. He could do gentle.

This time, it wasn't gentle.

It was intense. It was ardent. It was a kiss of claiming, and commitment. Michael was stripping his soul naked, laying bare everything he thought or felt or was, and giving it to Maria in that kiss.

Okay so he wasn’t always so marshmellowy good and gooey, sometimes he had a bitter harsh bite of dark chocolate, but it was equally devastating. Michael Guerin devastated her often with how easy he could make her feel.

Her response was rushing at first, needing to feel him and too impatient to wait, but Michael was setting the pace, so Maria gave up trying to push him and  gained enthusiasm as the kiss wore on. And on. And on. She'd never been kissed quite so thoroughly in her life. She finally had to tear her head away before she asphyxiated. Gasping, Maria blinked up at him in wonder. Where the hell had he been hiding that?

Michael, breathing hard himself, smirked at the dazed expression on Maria's face. His especially lethal Spidey kiss! Then he dropped his head to the juncture between Maria's neck and shoulder and began to suck. Maria shivered in delight. Finally! Spiderman under the thralls of a fever was hard to control.

"You like that?" Michael asked smugly. Bastard. How the hell did he get them undressed so quickly?

"Ohhh, yes." Pig. P. I. G. Pig, but he was good. Real good, so she gave him that. Maria tilted her head back, exposing her neck in mute surrender.

Michael bit down on the soft skin, marking her, preparing it for more intense treatment. Then he licked the red patch, soothing it, and blew on it, causing her to gasp and squirm. Michael’s teeth found an edge, and he bit harder feeling the flood of her life’s blood in his mouth. Too long. So long since he drank from her. His hands moved down to gather Maria's breasts, talented fingers teasing her nipples.

"God, Michael!" Maria suddenly wrapped her legs around his waist as he pushed her down on the sofa sucking at the wound on her neck. She was already on the verge of an orgasm just from the feeding, but she couldn’t let him off the hook that easy, not after he promised to feed her. So she lifted herself, bringing their straining lower bodies into abrupt contact.

This time, Maria wasn't the only one gasping aloud.

Taking advantage of his momentary stupor, Maria rolled them over so she was on top. Slowly, deliberately, she ground herself into Michael and grinned when his eyes darkened and unfocused slightly. Then she slid her sweat-slick body down the leanly-muscled length of her husband. She took her time about it, enjoying the delicious friction, stopping the downward motion only when her mouth hovered a few inches above Michael's rock-hard and weeping erection.

Maddeningly, she paused there.

Michael moaned, unable to find any words except, "Please...please...." He had to marry a witch of a woman who was a terrible tease. Excruciating. His hips arched upward as far as they could go, aching for Maria's touch, until Maria could no longer ignore the mute plea. Hesitantly, she extended her tongue and explored the tip of Michael's beautiful, magnificent penis with it. She swirled her tongue around the head once, then closed her mouth around it firmly and began to suck. Michael added another word to his vocabulary: "Yes, yes, yes, yes...." He was definitely feeling so much better! He looked down at Maria, his eyes never leaving the sight of her mouth on him. She was good. More than good. She knew him so well, in her mouth, he was an easy slut to come.

He came so hard his head spun. His breath sputtered. Unable to talk, his heart was beating out of his chest as her mouth sucked on the sensitive skin of his inner thigh. Michael cleared his throat.

“Told you, I’d feed you.”

Maria sat up and reached down and pinched hard the sensitive skin she just kissed, smiling at his yelp of pain. “There better be popcorn too, buddy!”

Michael pulled her down on him, and kissed her neck. “Extra butter?” It only seemed fair. He got head and at the very least Maria should have her popcorn the way she liked it.

“Mmm, you know I love it greasy.” She liked a lot of things greasy. Fat made everything taste better.

Michael untangled himself from her and headed for the kitchen to toss a few bags of microwavable popcorn in when an insistent knock came at their door. He hadn’t even made it through the den’s door. “Oh! You have fucking got to be kiddin’ me! What the hell does it take to get a damn day off alone?” He was hardly through feeding Maria, and working her over. This was cutting into his evening plans of movies and lots of play.

Maria laid back on his large leather sofa and gave him a commiserating look of sympathy. She tossed him his jeans as the knocking increased in intensity.

Michael struggled to get his jeans on and stuff himself back into them. Hopping on one leg, he almost fell over. The knocking was desperate.

“Fucking hold your damn horses! I’m coming.” Or he was, and was planning to again if he hadn’t been rudely interrupted. Pulling the door open with exaggerated irritation, he stood in shock.

Strickland.