Max made a few alterations to one of his emergency drawings, and entered his vehicle data into the SFDMV. He then locked up the building, reset the alarms, and after checking for onlookers, virtualized a jet black luxury car which was a little wider than normal. Driving it out of the school parking lot, he pulled around the front with the engine sounding more like an electrical turbine than an ICE.
The gull wing door lifted up and they saw him on the far left of the bench seat.
"You fine young ladies want a ride?" he asked, trying to cheer them.
Susan sniffled. "I...I'm sorry...I should be happy, I wanted to remember but...but I didn't think...it would *hurt* so much..."
The GPS system inside the car guided them unerringly to Susan's choice in restaurants. The parking lot wasn't as empty as he'd have liked, but it was still thin enough to not be a problem.
It looked exactly as the name implied...the place had clearly been designed as a 'shrine' of sorts to that program. The decor was patterned after that of the show's "Double R Diner" and on the walls were pictures of the various actors and other significant locations (the Great Northern, the Book House, the Packard sawmill, etc etc)
The waitress (whose uniform was a copy of that worn by the characters "Norma" and "Shelly" on the show) guided the threesome to a table and handed out menus.
Susan kept her face down, hoping the waitress wouldn't notice she had been crying.
"Interesting decor," said Max. "But I think maybe it would be best to make our order to go. Holding back isn't going to make you feel any better. We can take in a restaurant tomorrow."
Max placed a massive order to go. He was more than slightly hungry himself, and included two whole cherry pies with his order, making a mental note to pick up ice cream and whipped cream on their way back to wherever they had arranged to stay.
Once they'd gotten their order, it was back into the car, Barbara looked at Max. "I hope you don't mind, we booked you into the..." she looked slightly embarrassed. "the St Francis Drake. If that's going to take too much we can change it..."
Maxwell would have felt like laughing if it weren't for Susan's sorrow. "When are you two going to realize that money isn't a problem? We made a -fortune- in Atlantic City."
Susan was biting her lip and gulping desperately, she didn't want to upset them again by crying any more but things had begun to come back into focus more and more as the minutes passed...she pressed her hands to her eyes trying to hold back the tears..."I...I'm sorry.."
"Go ahead and cry, Susan. I'd be more concerned for you if you -didn't-. When my parents died, I don't know -how- long I cried for them. It might have been a couple of weeks straight."
Maxwell drove them to the hotel they'd chosen and then got their keys while Barbara helped Susan to the elevators.
"Any messages?" he asked.
The desk clerk checked, then shook his head in the negative.
Finding none, Max heads over towards the elevators.
They reached the suite and almost as soon as they were inside Susan practically flew straight to the couch and flung herself on it sobbing even harder than she had been at the school..
Barbara quickly put down the things she was carrying and went to sit beside her, easing Susan's head onto her lap. Susan barely seemed to notice she was crying so hard. Scattered words come through from time to time..."the road...lights...oh God, they're--MOM! DAD!!..."
Listening to her sobs, Max went to the balcony and thought very hard about making two stops in the past, rather than one. Time passed as he weighed options. He picked up the telephone, and called his laptop to leave a voicemail message for Arias, asking him to bring the laptop and his sketchpads. Then he remembered that the computer literate types were with him except for Wendy.
(She's bright,) he thought. (She'll hear the beeper for the voicemail and check into it.)
Max made the call to the laptop's voice number and left the message, then debated on returning to Barbara and Susan. He hated feeling helpless, but that was how he felt at that particular moment.
That would all change. Every sob strengthened his resolve. He didn't know what kind of present he would return to, but theirs would be better. He'd seen the pilot for the TV show Quantum Leap, and he wondered if he too could put right what once went wrong. Things had gone very wrong for both of the women now on the couch, and they meant more to him than anything else he knew.
He just couldn't take the sadness anymore. Tomorrow he'd make the test run in the car. Listening to her made him remember his own parents and his last sight of them before the government had taken them away. Max thought he had no more tears for them, but he was wrong.
After a while Susan's crying seemed to finally ease, as Barbara held her and continued to talk softly to her.
Then Barbara got up and went to Susan's bag, and started going through it.
She took out the sketchpad that Max had given Susan the other day and brought it to Susan along with a pencil.
Susan nodded and brushed the tears away from her eyes, took a deep breath, and began drawing...almost desperately, as if she were afraid she'd forget if she didn't get the details onto paper as fast as she could.
While she worked, Barbara came over to Max and put a hand on his. "She asked me to get it," she said in a low voice. "I'm...I'm almost afraid to look at what's going to come out. Seeing it in her memories was hard enough..but she, she wants you to see, too..."
"It's helped me in the past. I just hope she doesn't ask me to ... make someone."
Barbara nodded. "I know. Considering what she's remembering, now..." she bit her lip. "I thought Brian must've gone through hell in their hands--but they didn't do anything to our parents. Which is...odd. I mean I'm glad they didn't but it--it doesn't fit, if they'd go to this much trouble for her, why not the others?"
"Maybe they knew something. Maybe they thought her parents would raise too much of a fuss if they lived. Maybe it didn't go down the way they'd planned. They might not have set out to kill them, and then had to cover it up fast, so they came up with the drunk driving story. I don't know enough to say for certain, yet."
After a little while longer, Susan puts down the pencil and looks at Max, holding the drawings out to him, a look of silent pleading in her eyes.
Max sits down next to her and starts looking through the book. "Makes me wish I were telepathic sometimes." He puts one arm around her and props the pad up on his leg.
The first sketch showed a car on a road, stopped, a short distance in front of it was a truck, apparently jacknifed. two rather ordinary looking men standing beside it.
The second showed three people inside the car looking at the truck...the man was holding something in his hand that might be a radio, or more likely a celphone...the two women (the younger of whom is Susan herself) were looking with concerned expressions at the truck.
The third one was the car being surrounded by dark figures, they're pulling the occupants out.
Number four showed the car with only two people (the man and the older woman) inside, while one of the dark figures pointed something at the car...Susan was standing a few feet away being held by two more of the dark figures..
and the last was the car crumpled against a tree. Susan in this picture was on her knees, still being held by the two figures...
Max drew Dark Eyes and showed her the sketch. "This is the guy who came for me -twice-! He can make just about anyone do just about anything."
She picked up the pictures she'd drawn and looked through them again. She came to the one where the dark figure was pointing something at the car and stared at it for a long moment. "It's...it's this. Something... isn't right...I thought this was how it happened but..."
She kept staring at the picture, her hand tensing as she held it.
Suddenly her face drained of all color.
"No...not that...it *can't* be...." she dropped the picture and buried her face in her hands.
"Susan, you're not helping me to understand by hiding behind your hands. Look into my eyes and tell me what you remember? You never did tell me about the device he was holding. Is that what's wrong?"
Susan's head came up, slowly, there was an expression of pure horror on her face, her eyes wider than ever, her lips trembling though no sound came out. Her hands, her whole body, was shaking, and then there was sound but only weak 'uh...' 'uh...' as though she were trying to speak but whatever she was trying to get out was too horrible to force into words.
Her right hand came up, still shaking...she grabbed it with her other hand trying to steady it then her still working lips formed silent words which became barely audible after several attempts..."t-the box...the *box*...." her right hand pulled free of the other hand and thrust out in front of her as if holding something invisible. She choked once, twice, three times then in a rush it came out..."*He* wasn't holding it...!"
Almost simultaneously Barbara appeared, wrapped in a towel and trailing water behind her. Her face was almost as white as Susan's. "What's going on--this is worse than I've ever felt from her..."
"I have to go out," said Max. (I can't let this happen.) "Stay here with Susan. I have to -know- if it's what really happened."
"What...Max, you're *not* going anywhere. My God she's--" she raced to the couch and ignoring the water she was tracking everywhere she grabbed Susan's hands..."She's as cold as ice and it's not just because I'm dripping wet either." Her face showed the pain of the emotions she was picking up from Susan. "Are you going to tell me or do I have to go in to her?"
"She thinks they made her ... finish off her parents."
Picking up his pad, Max heads for the door. He knows where the 'accident' took place, as well as when.
Barbara looked up as Max reached the door, her green eyes narrowed in concentration.
A moment later Max found himself being pushed back from it, or pulled back, rather--by the same sort of invisible pull that he'd felt back at the campground, when she'd stopped him from going after Susan, who'd been carrying his sketchpad.
Max turned towards her and said, "Barbara ... I can't explain, but... do you want her to have to live with that? If it's true, what can we do to help her?"
Barbara drew in a breath. "my god..." she pulled the shaking Susan tightly against her, ignoring the fact that she was soaking them both, and just hugged, not knowing what else to do. "I...I don't know..." she whispered to Max. "Maybe--maybe Arias--do you think he'd be able to help?"
"How? It's not physical. That's all just shock from what she's going through."
He goes with the force she's exerting, and moves over to stand with her and Susan. His pad falls to the floor, his plan delayed. One arm slides around Barbara's waist, and the other goes around Susan's.
"They -forced- you, Susan," he began. His voice was already stressed, as he reconstructed the events of that night in his mind. "It might even be a lie they put into your mind. If it isn't ...." He fights to hold back the sniffles and tears. The simulations rolling through his mind are tearing him apart as he imagines her agony.
"I'm not leaving you alone, Susan. We're going to stick with you. Susan ... you need to look at me. I need you ... we need you ... to be here with us."
His own tears started to break free in sympathy for Susan. He hugs them both all the more powerfully, sharing his presence and his warmth.
Susan's eyes still brimming with tears but they lose their trancelike/faraway look and focused on Max. "He looked at me, and put it in my hand." she whispered. "I wanted to--throw it away but I couldn't let go of it. Then he said..." she swallowed. "Then he said...I had to choose...what life I wanted, my old one or his and the next thing I know...I pressed that button and the car...!" she clung to Max and Barbara all the harder. "How could he make me ...I didn't *choose* anything, certainly not...that..."
She took a deep breath. "He made me a puppet...and I -won't- be that...never again..." The sorrow/grief was still there but now the anger was back, as Susan tried to pull herself together for Max and Barbara's sake.
Max couldn't talk. He was trying to break the cycle of thought his mind had taken off onto. The box. The car. The crash. The bodies and the helplessness as his finger pressed down on the button which took two lives he did not wish to take. The price of a vivid imagination and creativity were wild nightmares and occasionally, moments like this.
Through it all, he saw those dark eyes staring, trying to take hold of his mind.
With a wrenching of mental gears, he tore himself out of that cycle. The scent of freshly spilled blood was still in his mind, but the images were fading. When he could speak, his voice was very faint, almost a whisper.
"This ... wasn't quite the evening I had in mind."
Barbara could only hold on to both of them, the emotions she was getting from Susan were so strong she couldn't block them at this close range, she didn't know what else to do by way of comforting her. She wouldn't want to block them even if she could've, though, her mind touched Susan's silently urging her to hold on, to not let the darkness overwhelm her.
"It wasn't mine, either." Barbara whispered, never letting go of Susan for a moment.
"Please..." Susan whispered as she hung on to both their hands. "it hurts so much I want to hurt them so much and that isn't me that isn't...it's pulling me away and I -won't- go..."
"Susan ... I ..."
Max's spirit was being shredded by what was happening to Susan. She needed something to hold her, and distance her from her anger. Barbara wasn't being all that helpful, so he decided to take charge, both to show strength and to get them moving in a different direction.
"I think we should put you to bed," he said. "We've all been through a lot today, and we're tired. Let's have a little something to eat, even if only to keep up our strength. Susan, you'll take your shower and then we'll all go to bed. I -swear- I'll be a perfect gentleman, but I think we could all use the closeness. This is not the kind of night for sleeping alone."
Susan nodded, slowly, after a few minutes she was able to bring herself to let go of both of their hands. "thank...thank you. both of you..." she whispered, looking from Max to Barbara...
"OK." Barbara replied. "Just give me a minute to dry off first, then we can eat." She held Susan's gaze. "Hang on, Susan. I won't let you go, you know that."
Susan nodded in acknowledgement.
With a look at Max she left, coming back after a few minutes in a dry robe her hair stuffed under a towel.
Susan in those few minutes had moved to sit at the table, but had not let go of Max's hand. "I...I'm just glad....you're both here " she whispered.
When Barbara returned she joined them at the table and the next little while passed mostly in silence. Susan didn't feel like saying much and Barbara was doing what she could to help her silently.
When everyone had finished their pie, Barbara stood up. "Susan," she said gently. "you go ahead and take your shower. I'll clean this up and then we'll all go to bed." she gave Susan's hand a squeeze.
Susan nodded, and from somewhere within the million pieces her mind threatened to split into came enough of herself to manage a wan smile. She squeezed Barbara's hand back, then turned to Max and hugged him, a moment later pulling Barbara into the hug.
She held on for a long moment, then slowly released them and walked even more slowly to the bathroom.
As the bathroom door closed behind her, Barbara turned to Max. "thank you--for suggesting that. Or I'd have done that. I...you're right she shouldn't be alone." she continued, her green eyes echoing Susan's pain. "And she's not going to be." she took Max's hand. "I, I have to believe that we can get her through this...-both- of us. I'm with her, too, even right now, you know that."
"I ... wasn't sure how you'd take the idea," he said. He let go of her hand and put his arms around her. "But I know she needs more than just talk. Maybe she'll feel some of this, and know how much we care about her."
Max kissed her for a long minute. It wasn't a lustful 'I want your body' kiss. Well, mostly not. Mostly it was a soft, gentle kiss, just to let her know how much he loved her. If Susan caught a little of the bleed off, so much the better.
She kissed him back, letting her own feelings for him show through.
"I figure that no one sleeps in anger. That will pull her back a bit."
She nodded. "I know. She doesn't realize it yet but it is helping--I can tell. " She shook her head. "I didn't mean to soak half the room, but I just -couldn't- stay in the tub when I felt all that...I knew she needed both of us."
"Cleaning up is what the hotel staff gets paid to do."
He kissed her again, savoring the scent of her skin and freshly-washed hair. For him, it was going to be a long and difficult night. When the kiss ended, he drew a deep breath as his scenario-driven anxiety ebbed.
"Then with us close by, she'll be that much more secure. I'm ... glad you kept me from going out." He looked towards the table. "I think we should put the rest of that away. The pie was pretty good, and I'd hate to let the rest of it go to waste."
"Good idea." she smiled, touching him on the arm. "I'll help you with that."
Once that was done, Max wired the suite with motion detectors on the doors and windows, making them large and obvious so that Susan would see them. He brushed his teeth in the kitchenette, offering his spare brush to Barbara, then he walked into the bedroom, turned down the bed covers, and went to wait with Barbara for Susan, stealing another kiss if he could.
She smiled and kissed him back. "How's this: I'll take one side, and you can take the other." she said after it ended. "Then she can be between us. I--I think she might feel safer that way." She squeezed his hand.
"Between us...." he said. Sighing, he added, "Yes, I guess that would be the best way."
"I--I'd like it another way," she whispered, "but," she took a deep breath, "that's not what she needs right now." She was torn between the need to help Susan and what she wanted most right then...
"All this anticipation is going to make for -quite- an evening when our turn finally comes," you know." Standing behind her, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her neck, then whispered, "I could see us growing old together. I've dreamed about it. It's a good dream. I'll share it with you some night."
It wasn't long before Susan emerged, looking somewhat better, at least physically, though there was still the pain in her eyes. She looked from one to the other and walked over to them. She managed a slight smile, and then hugged both of them again, Barbara hugged back.
"Smiling is good," said Max. He embraced Susan and lifted her from the floor. "And it makes your spirits rise, if just a tad. So! Shall I carry you both off to bed, then? And ... who gets the middle?" He asks this looking at Susan, as he sets her back down on her feet. "Or shall I sleep at your feet, like a trusty guard dog? Remember, it's still Ladies' Choice."
Susan looked at the other two, then spoke, hesitantly. "C-can we do this--so I'm next to both of you...?"
"As you command," he replied, bowing slightly. "So do I obey."
With that, he picked Susan up with one arm and moved towards Barbara with the other, making a pair of temporary seats out of his forearms. He'd trained for this kind of balancing at the acrobatics school where he'd met Wendy, and for a moment he thought about her, wondering what she was doing.
Carrying the two of them into the bedroom, he put Barbara on the far side, facing the windows, then put Susan down. He hung another motion sensor on the bedroom doors and then joined them, after turning out the lights and hanging up his robe. He snuggled up against Susan, resting one hand on her hip.
"Everything will look better in the morning," he suggested.
She only sighed, she didn't see how--as much as she wanted to believe him, she'd trusted him, both of them, with so much already...but she didn't have the energy to argue. She laid back and curled up against him. Barbara slipped her hand into Susan's and squeezed, reassuringly.
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