A Lesson in Sacrifice
Disclaimer: Some dialogue taken from the Roswell episode #2-5 "The End of the World", written by Jason Katims. A few lines are from a scene that was cut from the original episode.
Part 3
Isabel banged on Max's bedroom door. When he didn't answer, she came in.
"God, Max!" she said, shaking him. "Michael and Tess are expecting us at the pod chamber in, like, 10 minutes. Get up already!!"
Sam looked at the clock on Max's nightstand and saw that it was 6 o'clock in the morning. He groaned. "But Isabel, it's so early..." he complained.
"Hey, it was your idea." And with that, Isabel stormed out of the room.
Sam got up and dressed quickly, putting on a pair of jeans and a T- shirt. He stepped outside. Isabel was waiting impatiently for him in the Jeep. Sam got in the driver's seat and soon they were on the road. When they came to the highway, he hesitated.
Isabel turned to look at him. "Well?" she said.
"Well?" Sam echoed.
"Are we going to wait at the intersection all day? You know Michael will be all over you any chance he gets." She moved her hand while she talked, pointing vaguely in a southern direction. Sam prayed that it was indeed where Michael was waiting for them and took a right on the highway. "I'm so sick to have to be the mediator all the time," Isabel went on.
Sam's interest was piqued. Maybe this situation with Michael, whatever it was, was the reason why he was there. Every time Isabel had mentioned Michael, she had implied some sort of conflict. He turned his head towards her to ask about Michael. She had been playing with the radio, trying to find a good song. He had expected her to be fiddling with the radio knob. She was not. She was sitting back in her seat, waving her hand in the direction of the radio. With each wave came a new song.
Sam didn't notice he had drifted in the other lane until a ten- wheeler blared its honk at the Jeep.
"Max!!" Isabel screamed. Sam swerved the Jeep back into his lane and stopped it by the side of the highway. His hands were shaking.
"What the hell is wrong with you!" Isabel yelled at him. One look at her confirmed that she was more scared than mad.
"I... I got distracted..." Sam stuttered. "What... what the hell were you doing?!"
"What was I doing? What?" She clearly had no idea what he was talking about.
"The radio," he said through clenched teeth.
"What about the radio? There wasn't any good music on. Max, what's wrong?"
Sam couldn't make any sense of what she was saying. His mind was reeling while he tried to come up with some kind of rational explanation. Several cars sped by before he spoke again.
"Maybe you should drive. No point in making Michael wait any longer."
Isabel just nodded and they traded places. The rest of the drive to the cave was silent. Isabel had shut the radio down with one last wave. Sam was trying to come up with something, anything, that could explain what he had seen.
His mind insisted on connecting the occurrence with what had happened at the leap-in. The flowers he had thrown up to Liz had been red when they were in the air, he was sure of that. They were white once they reached her. At first, he had blamed his troubled vision on the actual leap, all that electric energy floating around. Or maybe it had been a trick of the light. Or just maybe the roses had been pink the whole time. Flowers just didn't change colour in mid-air. Flowers just didn't change colour at all.
His train of thought was interrupted when Isabel took a right in the desert. There was no road that Sam could see. Still, Isabel kept on driving, sending up sand behind the Jeep as they sped along on the hard desert ground. She didn't stop until they reached a rock formation. She stopped the Jeep and got out. She started walking towards the cave without a look at her brother, expecting him to follow.
They climbed on the rock formation and stopped in front of a larger rock that jutted out. Isabel turned to him. When he didn't move, she rolled her eyes and waved her hand over a smooth spot on the rock. A silver handprint appeared and the rock rolled to the side. Isabel stepped through the opening.
Sam was stunned. How...?
Voices came from inside.
"So nice of you to join us," he heard a male voice say sarcastically. Michael, it had to be.
"We had a little accident on the way here."
"Are you okay?" This time, it was a girl.
"Yeah. It was nothing."
"What about Max?" the same girl questioned.
"Yeah. Where is our fearless leader?" Michael asked, the sarcasm still obvious.
"I don't know what's up with him today. Max?" Isabel called from inside.
Sam stepped in the cave. He didn't see any of the others. His call to them died on his lips when he caught a glance of what was on the wall. Four egg-shaped objects took a whole wall of the cave. There were two at the top and two at the bottom. Some kind of rocky steps led from the two at the top all the way to the cave's floor, so that whatever hatched from it could come down.
The pods.
Hence the name, pod chamber. Okay. That made sense.
Pods?!
What could have possibly hatched from those pods?
Isabel's head popped out of the lower left pod. "Are you coming?" she asked, more than a little impatient.
Sam was too dumbfounded to say anything, so he just crouched down and crawled in the space behind the pods. When he stood fully up again he was met by the disapproving stare of a teenage boy. The young man was the same age as Max, and just a little taller. His mousy brown hair was flat on his head. His arms were crossed over his chest.
Standing next to him was a short blond girl. Her curls framed a face that seemed to be all-eyes; big round pools of blue that lit up briefly at the sight of him before a dark cloud came over them. Tess, isn't that what Isabel had said?
Turning his eyes from them, he directed his attention to the large object that occupied the center of the room they were in. He involuntarily took a step back.
The Granilith.
So that's what it was.
But just what was it?
It looked like a large, translucent cone that went from the floor of the cave all the way to the top. It was huge. The base was black and there were some holes and markings on it that Sam couldn't make out. The whole room seemed bathed in a soft pulsating light that came from it. As he debated whether he should say something or just walk back outside long enough to regain some kind of composure, Michael spoke.
"So, what are we doing now, Fearless Leader?"
Sam didn't like Michael's tone. There was obvious resentment in it, almost like Michael blamed Max for being leader in his place. But leader of what? Was this a gang?
"I... I don't know," Sam said.
Michael snorted. "What else is new?"
"Michael!" Isabel warned.
"Maybe we should pool our energy," Tess said, trying to be helpful.
"Pool our energy?" Sam asked.
"If we join hands and concentrate, maybe we can make some kind of connection that we can't make on our own."
"A connection?" Sam replied.
"A connection?" Michael mocked. "Look if you didn't want to be here, you shouldn't have called the stupid meeting."
Sam was very inclined to agree. He couldn't wait for Al to show up again. His gut feeling told him that Michael had to be the reason why he was here. For some reason, Michael was not pleased with the idea that Max was his leader. Who had appointed Max leader? Why didn't Michael do something about it?
Or maybe he did. Maybe that's what Sam had to stop.
"Okay. Let's go back. We have to go to school anyway."
Michael gave him a mock military salute. "Yes, Fearless Leader."
"Would you quit calling him that?" Tess yelled. Such a forceful statement sounded oddly out of place in the girl's mouth.
Michael just shrugged and walked past Sam without looking at him. Moments later, they heard the revving of the engine of his dirt bike. The sound quickly faded away as Michael sped toward the highway.
"Thank you... for standing up for me," Sam told Tess.
"When have I ever done anything else?" was Tess's caustic reply.
Isabel winced.
"Uh..." was all Sam could manage.
"Is that how you reward loyalty? I'm not the one who walked out on you. I'm not the one who stepped all over your heart." Tess knew she was bending the facts, but she needed a reaction from Max. ANY kind of reaction from Max.
She didn't get one.
"I... What..." Sam struggled to come up with a whole sentence. "Is this about Liz?" he finally got out.
Isabel put her head in her hands and slowly stepped out of the Granilith chamber. What had happened overnight to make Max so clueless?
"What did you think it was about!!" Tess exploded. "You have this twisted view of things, that somehow she'll come back to you, that somehow that is what MATTERS! News flash for you, Max. Liz is irrelevant. She means nothing in terms of our survival. She means nothing at all." Now, THAT should get some kind of reaction from Mr. Impassive.
Sam felt like he should say something, defend Liz somehow. Between the pictures, the serenade and what Al had said, it was obvious Liz meant a great deal to Max. But Sam got the impression that all Tess was looking for was to make Max angry.
"My relationship with Liz is none of your business," he said simply.
Tess glared at him for a moment. "I am so out of here." And with that, she walked out.
Isabel gave Sam a small smile when he met her outside by the Jeep.
"It's tough to be King," she offered.
"Tell me about it," Sam mumbled back.
As he drove back to town, he couldn't help but wonder:
Did she mean that literally?
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