A Lesson in Sacrifice
Disclaimer: The movie "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves" belongs to Morgan Creek Productions and Warner Bros. and was written by Pen Densham and John Watson. No infringement intended.
Part 8
Max and Liz retired to the far corner of the office while they waited for Al to come back with the new information. They were sitting side by side. Max was looking out the window. He still hadn’t let go of Liz’s hand.
“What were you going to say? You know, before?” Liz asked him.
Max turned his attention to her. “’We’re not doing this for the King’,” he told her, a wistful expression on his face.
“You’re right,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense.” Max turned his attention back to the world outside the window. Dawn was near. They had spent most of the night talking to Sam.
“What does it mean to you?” she whispered after a few moments.
He looked at her, that same expression still on his face. “Liz, do you remember the last day of school when we were in 3rd grade?”
She let out a little laugh. She hadn’t expected that question.
“Hmm, not off the top of my head, no. What happened?”
“Mr. Weisman took us all to the movies.”
“Oh yeah, I remember now… What did we go see? Christian Slater was in that movie… Maria had this huge crush on him at the time.”
“It was ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’, “ Max said. “It was the day I finally got the nerve to talk to you for the first time.”
“I don’t remember that… What did you say?” Liz asked, moving a little closer to Max.
“’Hello’, I think. Might have been ‘Hi’. I was so nervous, it’s all a blur.” He chuckled softly. “Before the movie, you went to get popcorn. Michael pushed me and I bumped into you. He was laughing like a maniac. I was as red as a tomato. We just stood there, face to face, for the longest time. Then I said “Hello”, and you said “Hello”. You asked if I was ok and I nodded. Then Maria came and you two left. You were sitting in front of me. I didn’t watch the movie at all. I stared at the back of your head the whole time.”
“You never told me that,” Liz said.
“I did when we went to the video store that one time, and we rented that movie. Here, let me show you.”
He got up from his seat on the windowsill and let go of Liz’s hand. He put his hands on either side of her face and their eyes locked.
The connection was instantaneous.
The flash was different from those Liz usually got from Max. It was as if he was transferring his memories into her mind, so they now became her memories as well. She remembered that day from her future as if she had actually been there.
// They were sitting on the blue couch of their one-bedroom apartment. A large wedding portrait, courtesy of the Elvis Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, stood proudly on top of the television set. There was nowhere else to put it.
They had had a fight earlier that week, about a meeting they were supposed to go to. Khivar had finally deigned to show himself on this planet, and he had called a meeting to discuss the terms of the Royal Four’s surrender. Max had decided to go. Liz, fearing it was a trap, wouldn’t hear of it. Max wanted her to come. He was the King. She was his wife. She had to be there. End of story.
She hated it when he went all Royal on her.
The movie “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” was playing. They had picked it up at the video store earlier that afternoon. Max had told her about that last day of school in 3rd grade. She didn’t remember it at all. Max’s reminiscing had helped melt the ice that was between them ever since the mention of that summit.
They had come to the part in the movie where Robin asks Marian if she’ll deliver a message to the King, warning him of the Sheriff of Nottingham’s evil deeds. Marian was telling Robin that she could lose everything if the Sheriff found out.
“I know,” Robin said. “But will you do it for your King?”
Liz gently put her fingers on Max’s cheek and turned his face towards her.
Lady Marian shook her head. “No.”
Liz whispered, as Marian said the words on the screen, “I’ll do it for you.”
Max found the remote control and paused the movie.
“You will?”
“Yes, I will. But not because you’re the King. Because you’re Max. You’re my lover, my soul mate, my husband. Not my King. I will do it, but I will do it for YOU. Because you ask me to, as your lover, your soul mate, your wife. Not your Queen.”
“I never meant to order you around. I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. But I need you there. You’re my strength. I won’t be able to get through it if you’re not there.”
“Then I’ll be there.”
“Thank you. And from now on, we’re not doing any of this for the King. We’ll do it for us, for Max and Liz.”
He leaned in and kissed her. Softly at first, and then hungrily as she responded with soft kisses of her own. After a while, the VCR shut down. The couple forgot all about the movie, as they made up for all the kisses they had missed that week.//
Liz blinked as the connection broke.
“Al’s back,” Max said, breaking the spell for good.
“Al’s back,” Sam called from where he was sitting across the office. Max and Liz made their way back to where they had been sitting earlier that evening.
“So, what’s this new information?” Max asked as he sat down next to Liz.
Liz raised her hand to stop any reply Sam might have had. “I have a comment, before you fill us in,” she said.
Sam and Max looked at her expectantly.
“You say that the end of the world will happen anyway if Tess stays, because I won’t be with Max. It doesn’t really make sense. I mean, we are together, where he comes from,“ she pointed to Max. “And the world is still destroyed. Me being with Max is not the key to saving the world.”
“She’s right,” Al said. “But Ziggy is insisting. Max will become a very different person if Liz turns away from him. According to her latest projection, the end of the world will come in about 10 years from now if they are successful in what they’re trying to do. Not 14.”
Sam looked at Al. “Was it something I did?”
Al chuckled. “No, for once, we’re not responsible for things ending up worse than they were.”
Sam was relieved to hear that. One of the dangers of what he was doing was that the smallest mistake could lead to more trouble for the people he was trying to help. That was a part of his job he didn’t like and had absolutely no control over. He turned his attention to the couple in front of him.
“Liz, Ziggy believes that you are the key in the sense that you make Max who he is. I don’t know why the end of the world still happened where you came from, Max, but Ziggy is adamant that not having Liz in your life will create more problems than it will actually solve.”
“I can believe that…” Max said softly. “But what do we do about Tess?”
“We’re not sure,” Sam said. He then noticed the expression on Al’s face. “Something you’re not telling me?”
Al tried to look innocent.
“Al…” Sam warned.
“What?” He knew there was no point in trying to lie to Sam. “Ziggy has more theories,” he finally admitted.
“Well, let’s hear them.”
“You’re not going to like it,” Al replied. “They are REALLY not going to like it,” he added, pointing his unlit cigar in the direction of Max and Liz, who were watching Sam seemingly talk to himself with an amused expression on their faces.
“Okay’” Al said resigned. “Good news first.”
Sam repeated every one of Al’s words to Max and Liz. “The best way to prevent the end of the world right now is to patch things up with Michael. There’s a lot of bad blood between you two. You need each other these days more than ever.”
“But Michael and I did patch things up, eventually. We took a road trip, just the two of us, and had a good talk about everything.”
“When?” Sam asked.
“After Christmas. This coming Christmas.”
“It would seem that it was too late.”
“But… I don’t understand… Michael and I were fine, we were closer than we had ever been from then on, up until—“ Max stopped himself before revealing Michael’s fate. One look at Liz told him she had guessed anyway. “Our friendship had never been stronger.”
“That’s not the problem,” Al said. Sam relayed the information once more.
“The problem is not the time you and Michael spent angry at each other. It’s whom you trusted when you couldn’t turn to him.”
“I turned to Liz…” Max started. Suddenly understanding, he kept talking. “But now, if we succeed, I won’t turn to Liz, will I? I won’t be able to… Isabel. I trust Isabel. How can that be bad?”
“Does the name Vilandra ring a bell?”
“Vilandra?” Liz asked, curious. She looked at Max. It obviously meant something to him.
“Isabel’s name on Antar, “ Max answered her. “She did something in our past lives that Isabel kept from me. We fought about it. I blamed myself. I spent so much time with you, I neglected her. We made up before Christmas. We were fine when she died, we had been for years” he assured Liz. “So if I can’t trust Isabel… I’ll turn to Tess, I guess.”
“Isn’t that what we’re trying to do?” Liz questioned.
“Yes, it is,” Sam answered, looking at Al. “Why is that bad?”
Al stubbornly stared at the handlink to avoid looking at Sam. “All I can say right now is that 10 years from now, these two… will be dead,” he finished in a rush.
“What?!”
“What? What did he say?” Max asked urgently.
Sam just looked at him before turning his attention back to Al. “How? When?”
“Car accidents. Liz in 4 years. Max in 8.”
Sam turned to Max and Liz. “You… die.”
Liz gasped. Max shook his head. “I’m here. I didn’t die.”
“No, but you will. If you make Max fall out of love with Liz, like you intend to, you both won’t live to see your 30th birthdays.” After listening to Al he added softly “Or your friend Alex his 18th.”
Max was still shaking his head, more vehemently now. “No, no, no. What you’re saying can’t be true. Alex was at our wedding. We were 19. He was 19…”
“How does Alex die?” Liz whispered softly. Her own death wasn’t a happy prospect, but the thought of one of her closest friends dying because of what she chose to do over the next few days was downright unbearable.
“Alex died in a car accident. The official cause is suicide.”
Both Max’s and Liz’s heads snapped up. “That’s impossible,” Liz said. “There’s no way…”
“You always suspected murder,” Sam went on. “Alien-related murder. It drove you and Max further apart. But it was never proven.”
Liz turned to look at Max. He was silent. He didn’t know what to do. He had failed to protect the world from an alien invasion. And now that he was trying to make up for it by sacrificing himself, two of the people he cared most about in the world would still die. And a lot sooner than they originally did. What was an alien leader to do?! Everything was his fault. He felt a wave of despair come crashing over him.
He felt Liz’s hand on his shoulder. She shook her head. “Don’t.”
He smiled at her. She knew him so well.
“Who would want to murder Alex?” he asked Sam.
Sam looked at Al. Al looked back. “Ziggy has a theory. But she won’t say.”
“What if we insist?” Max asked when Sam told him. Sam shook his head.
“What if I demand it?” Max said, trying to look as regal as possible.
“She’ll say you’re not the King here,” was Sam’s answer.
Max sighed, frustrated. “She’s not easy to live with,” Sam apologized.
“I’ll say!” Al said. Ziggy shrieked in protest. “If you care so much what he thinks, why don’t you tell him what he wants to know?” Ziggy remained silent.
“Well, this is not getting us anywhere, and morning is here,” Max said after a moment. He turned to Liz. “You should get home before your parents wake up.”
Liz nodded but she stayed where she was.
“Go,” Max prompted her gently. “I’ll stay here and talk to Sam and Al some more. I won’t let it happen, don’t worry.” Without thinking, he leaned in and kissed her forehead.
// He leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. We don’t need Tess, we have each other, and we have Michael and Isabel.” He hugged her closer to him and she nodded against his chest.//
Looking at her, he saw that she had seen the flash too. “This time, it’s true. I promise.” She smiled sadly at him and ran her fingers across his cheek. “I don’t doubt you.” With that, she left and went home without looking back.
Max turned to Sam. “Come to think of it, you should get home too. I don’t want to get in trouble.”
Sam laughed. “But before I do, you should tell me what you and Michael talked about on that road trip. The more I know, the best I can fix your friendship.” ‘And the sooner I’ll leap,’ he added silently.
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