A New Beginning

'Max,' she sputtered as her hands cupped his face and she studied him with a wide-eyed stare.

As someone opened the side door of the van, Max pulled Liz toward him. 'It's okay, Liz,' he said, fighting to keep the worry out of his voice.

'No,' Liz said forcefully, pulling back from him. 'It's not okay. Oh my God, Max, you died.”

She's terrified, Max thought. Completely terrified.

'No, I didn't, Liz. I'm right here,' he said gently.

Max could see that Liz was fighting for control. She pulled him toward her and started to cry. When her sobs began to die down, he whispered reassuringly into her ear, 'Liz, it was just a dream.”

Pulling away again, Liz looked at him with a new expression on her face. It wasn't fear this time. It was grief. 'No, Max, it wasn't,' she said clearly.

3

Liz crumbled into Max's arms as Michael appeared at Max's side.

'There's a pretty big hole in the ground a few hundred yards ahead, but I don't think-anyone saw anything. Isabel is filling the hole now.”

Old habits die hard, Max thought. He's making a report.

Max simply nodded and held Liz. The others kept a respectful distance, though Max could feel Maria's tension. She was pacing a few yards away. Max was aware of move- ment in front of the van, and Isabel appeared, joining Kyle, Michael, and Maria.

As Liz's breathing returned to normal, he noticed for the thousandth time how small she felt to him. She was the smallest of the three girls, both in height and stature. As she nestled under his chin, Max gently stroked her straight, dark hair and felt a reflexive desire to protect her.

Protect her? Max thought. He had not done a very good job of that in the last three years. She had suffered too much because of him.

When her breathing slowed, he leaned back and said, 'Did you have a premonition?”

Liz nodded. 'I watched you die, Max,' she said.

Michael stepped forward and said, 'Where was it? What happened? And what do we have to do to stop it?”

Liz shook her head and said, 'It's not that simple…”

'Tell us what you can from the beginning,' Max said.

Starting from the beginning of the dream, Liz told about being in school and meeting Max in the band room like they had the day after he had healed her in the Crashdown. 'I think you touched my cheek while I was sleeping,' Liz said.

Max nodded.

'That's when the dream changed into one of my premoni- tions,' Liz said, and told about seeing Michael and Isabel dead. And then seeing Max face the unseen force on his own. 'You fought, Max, but…,' she said as her voice broke.

Max nodded and kept his expression neutral.

'Maybe it was a dream, at least partly,' Isabel said.

Liz thought for a moment and then said, 'Partly, yes, but I'm sure I saw Max die, as well as you and Michael.”

'Do you have any idea how far in the future this was?' Max asked.

'Fifteen years,' Liz replied immediately.

Max started at that. There was something unnerving about her certainty. 'That is pretty exact. Are you sure?”

Liz nodded and said, 'I recognized you…' Then she shot a glance at Maria, and something passed between the two girls.

'Future Max!' Maria exclaimed.

'What?' Michael said. 'Who is that?”

Maria immediately looked sheepish, as if she had said too much.

Max looked down at Liz and said, 'Future Max?”

'Who the hell is Future Max?' Michael said to Maria. 'What are you two talking about?”

'Sorry, Liz,' Maria said.

'It's okay,' Liz replied. Then she turned to Max and said, 'There's something I have to tell you.”

'We'll just give you guys a minute,' Maria said.

'No,' Max said, raising his hand. 'This involves all of us. No secrets.”

'This involves Tess and Kyle and…' Liz collected her- self for a moment, and then spoke quickly and clearly. 'It goes back to just before you found Kyle and me together.”

The memory of that night came back suddenly, like a blow. He remembered seeing Kyle and Liz in bed together. He remembered the shock and the feeling like someone had reached into his stomach and twisted his insides.

'Max, it wasn't an accident that you saw us. I set that up for a reason,' Liz said.

Max felt the beginnings of understanding and said, 'You wanted to be free of all this. You wanted a normal life.”

Shaking her head, Liz said, 'No. I did it for you, because you asked me to.”

Max could remember few times in his life when he was as surprised as he was now. 'I asked you to?”

'The night before you came to visit me, but not you, exactly. It was you from the future, fifteen years in the future,' Liz said.

'How?' Max asked, finding things making less and less sense.

'You had used the Granilith. You explained that it had powers we had not discovered yet. You brought a warning and asked me to do something,' Liz said.

'Go to bed with Kyle?' Max said, feeling even more confused. He looked over at Kyle, who was keeping his eyes to the ground. The boy looked as embarrassed as Max was confused.

'No,' Liz replied. 'You described a scene similar to the one in my premonition, where there was a battle and both Isabel and Michael died. And it was all because Tess had left and the four of you were not together for the battle. Max, Tess had left because… ”

'Of you and me,' Max said, finally beginning to understand.

'You told me that 1 had to give you up to keep peace between Tess and the group,' Liz said.

'Why didn't you just tell me?' Max said.

'You told me not to. You from the future told me that you would try to find another way,' Liz said. 'You said the only way to be sure was if you believed that it was over between us.”

Then the totality of it hit Max. Liz had given up so much… all because he had asked her to. Not who he was now, but some version of him from the future.

'It was all for nothing,' Max said finally. 'Tess…'He didn't have to say any more. Everyone there knew what Tess had done. She had killed Alex and betrayed them all. She had given birth to Max's son and tried to turn him over to Max's enemy Kevar on their home world. Then, when Kevar rejected Max's son as heir, she had come back looking for shelter.

'You didn't think to mention any of this before?' Michael asked. Then he turned to Maria and said, 'And you knew?”

'What good would have it have done?' Liz said.

That stopped Michael in his tracks.

'How would you prepare for some mysterious danger fifteen years in the future?' Liz continued.

Then Max understood the final piece. Liz had taken all of that on herself. She had once accused him of taking too much on his shoulders, and now she was doing the same.

She turned to him and said, 'I hoped that so many things had changed that there was a chance that that had