Chapter Text
The explosion seemed to tear through the sky. Dust blew in the oncoming storm, the winds kicked up spreading the noxious cloud of fumes, concrete and smoke across the road with tumbling pieces of rubble. The world went a dirty grey for a few seconds, but time spent on combat, in situations that were not that different to this horrible moment, kept the Humvee on the road, Lex's reflexes still honed despite the kinder civilian life he had returned to.
The cargo held within the too-thin walls of the vehicle was far, far too precious to lose.
Lex kept his nerve and barrelled through the cloud, almost hearing Michael's snort of amusement as he tore down the road as if the hounds of hell were behind them. In his mind, Lex could only think of two things. The forces behind them might not notice the escaping vehicle in the fallout of the explosion, forks of flame reaching now into the skies in the rear-view mirror, but if they did, he had one handgun, a former tortured victim, a civilian doctor and his entire world in the back of this truck. There was no shade, no helpful landmarks that could disguise a vehicle on this open desert road. All he could do was plow ahead and get far enough away that they might just miss them.
So he floored it. His heart was pounding in his throat, eyes flicking from the front to the view of the back, afraid that a convoy of cars was going to appear behind them.
He prayed that Guerin's three siblings from another universe had made it back before detonation and would never know if they had. They had, he decided. They were too determined to save their own Michael.
The memory of Michael lying on Isobel's lap, blood draining into the scorched earth, streaks of black soot on his cheek, amber eyes growing unfocused....punched Lex in the chest.
Every time he closed his eyes he was going to see that. Top billing in his worst nightmares, his fears confirmed and amplified.
The turning came up and Lex swung the truck cutting east, mind mapping out the options. He needed to head to the next intersection and take the back lane. He could cut around then and get back to Roswell, making at least a ten mile half circle around the forces come to investigate Caulfield. It would buy them time.
"Damn Lex!" Kyle complained, "Word of warning?"
"Kyle? How is he?" Lex shouts, panic beating against his ribs.
"Not good." Kyle told him honestly. "The wound seal is holding just barely. His abdomen is filling with blood and there was no exit wound."
Lex looked back through the rear-view mirror and saw Michael's recently discovered mother cradling her son's head in her lap as Kyle kept pressure on the wound. He was so injured. It was hard to look at. His mangled hands, broken arms, broken leg, chemical burns, track marks. Lex wanted to weep and wanted badly to hold him, to get revenge and burn the fucking world down. All he could do though, was drive.
It was not the first time Lex had been in a speeding vehicle, desperate to get to safety, to some form of medical help, with an injured fellow soldier sometimes even one under his command, right beside him. But none of those experiences could touch this.
Michael was so still, so silent laid over the back seat of the Humvee, his body limp, eyes closed. Kyle was trying to keep the wound contained with what limited supplies he had, blood drenching the scrap of cloth - the jacket thing Michael's mother had been wearing when they escaped - and Kyle was on the phone calling Max.
With every ragged breath that Lex took, he knew Michael was getting one step closer and closer to the brink of no return and fear had his heart in vise.
In time that could still be measured in minutes, Michael Guerin had died in his arms.
In that moment of suspended agony, nothing else had mattered. For him, the entire universe had just stopped. The breath had been seared from his lungs as soon as he realized that Michael's chest was no longer rising, his own heart tripped and stumbled when he couldn't find a pulse in Michael's wrist or at his neck. Too many deaths, too much experience taught by the brutal hands of war, meant that Lex had known. Had known and had rejected it, denied it, wanted to scream that it couldn't be true. Yet no sound had been able to pass his lips.
It was as if every cell and fiber of his being was paused, suspended in a fragile bubble of time, waiting for a miracle or for the axe to fall. His heart poised on the cliff, the knife edge of ceasing to beat and continuing to pump blood through his body. The stretch of seconds an eternity, the future cracked and broken.
Stunning amber gold eyes, the most beautiful sight in all the world had been staring, blankly. His body still, heavy and devoid of the life that should have flowed through his veins.
There could be no life without Michael. If he was truly gone...there was no walking out of here. There was nothing to live for. Michael was everything. His entire world.
He felt cold, everything disconnected. All he could look at was the perfect features of Michael's face, bruised and bloodied but so beautiful still. His hand came up without thought to brush his curls, Michael's head safely tucked into his arm, neck supported. His neck, where his pulse no longer beat.
Lex rocked slowly, unraveling.
Blood spread across the ground, a sticky pool of red that should be flowing through Michael's veins.
If he didn't...if this was it...Lex wanted his blood to join that pool on the floor.
If Michael was not alive, Lex would not be. A simple fact. The only possibility. It was together or not at all.
And there his father had stood. As cold and unforgivably cruel as ever, the master of this place, the one who had led the sickening acts and had no doubt enjoyed listening to Michael scream. Oh Lex knew those fists. Knew the rage that was held in that razor sharp posture , in the viciousness of his father's abuse. And he had been his own son, helpless at his feet, cowering away from his kicks and fists.
It had taken years to get away, to be free of him and hadn't he just proven that Lex never would be?
And yet his father had died so smoothly, so nicely. Even when pushed to such an act, and by an artificial intelligence holding Michael's consciousness from yet another universe at that...he had been kind. It was a far better death than he deserved. His father had died quietly, suddenly and without a mark on him. No bruises, no fractures, no time to fear what was coming. Just a blink and he was gone. It was terrifying and yet to Lex driving as fast as he could down a dusty back road, unsatisfying.
What did that make him? Lex wondered. That he had wanted his father to pay in blood and terror for all that he had done to the aliens imprisoned, to Michael?
Lex didn't know how to cope with it. How to adjust passed the very simple fact that Michael had breathed his last, face tucked into Lex's chest, blood pouring onto the filthy concrete floor like a cracked jug.
Then it all happened so fast. A dizzying whirl of the impossible. A holographic display who was actually the vessel for another Michael's consciousness. His memories, skills and knowledge squirreled away, copied and downloaded into an artificial intelligence system that mimicked its creator. One moment he had been breathtakingly beautiful, with tattoos and those perfect amber eyes and the next he had been flaunting fatal wounds to prove a point. Opening portals across the universe and saving lives, saving Michael. Saving the three stranded Evans siblings. Even now he was - Lex could only think of him as 'he'. He had Michael's face goddamn it - on the seat beside as a shimmering rock with glowing gold symbols.
They were halfway to Roswell when Michael's mother made a desperate pained sound and Lex nearly crashed the Humvee in panic. "What is it? Kyle!"
"He's fading fast Lex. We need Max." Kyle tells him grimly.
Tears rose and nearly blinded Lex, despair spiraling through him. Then he spotted the oncoming vehicle, recognizing it as Isobel's. He swerved to the side of the road and barely parked before throwing himself out of the door. Isobel slammed on the brakes and then Max was running towards them.
"Lex? What the hell is happening?" Isobel demands frantic, "Where's Michael? Did you find him?"
"We've found him!" Lex says urgently, "He's hurt badly. Please Max...he's..he's..." Lex couldn't get the words out, could not even bring himself to think them. The worst had already happened, the blood on his shirt, on his skin was Michael's. But it was about to happen again.
"Lex? Are you okay?" Isobel demands, "You're covered in blood."
"Michael's." He looks up at Isobel as Max hurries to the back passenger door closest to him. "Its Michael's."
Horror flashes into her green eyes, her face blanching with fear before twin spots of high color appear on her cheeks. Her rage is more comforting than it really should be, but Michael has so few people willing to kill for him, that seeing that same fierce love in this Isobel, is a relief. This is the woman who took losing her brother so badly she convinced her remaining brothers to try messing with a universe transporter in an attempt to rewrite their timeline. An Isobel who took a chance and tried to save a version of her brother and nearly died herself. Isobel who apologized to Lex and killed everyone who was about to do them all in, wielding the weapon. Isobel who have him the photo burning in his pocket.
"Who?"
"They're dead. There is so much to tell you but..."
"Iz!"
They hurry to Max who was trying to lift Michael out of the Humvee. Kyle couldn't help as he was restraining Michael's mother, her eyes wide with anger and fear, Kyle's hand gentle but unyielding. Lex took one side and Isobel the other, his heart clenches at Isobel's wordless cry of horror as she took in just how badly hurt her brother was. "Max."
"Get him on the ground." Max instructs and throws off his jacket. He pulls off the makeshift bandage and presses his hands into the bloodied mess of Michael's upper abs, swollen and weeping blood liberally now through the hole pierced through him. Isobel cradles Michael's head on her lap and Lex...he can't move away as the settle him down, clinging to Michael's limp hand.
There was a hoarse cry as Max funneled power into Michael, energy rippling through his body. Electricity sparks and burns and the strange sensation in his head, sharpens into something else. He can feel...there is a warm feeling like Michael's arms folding around him, like holding his hand feeling the heat of his palm, but its entirely...its in his head he realizes. The anchoring link.
Michael. He's feeling Michael.
"Iz. There's a bullet in him. You need to pull it out."
"Me? Max I don't have any finesse with telekinesis." Isobel argues afraid.
"He's going to die Iz." Max bites out and that's enough to have her hand hovering over his wound.
"Oh God." She moans as she summons her own power and concentrates. The wound tears slightly and the bullet is pulled out with sucking noise, blood pouring over Michael's skin and onto the ground. Alex's stomach lurched but Max was there, glowing hands right over the hole, healing him.
The bullet wound was soon gone and Lex breathed a sigh of relief. Max didn't stop. He healed both of Michael's hands, his ribs and the worst of the chemical burns, until he was retching into the dirt, Isobel proffering a bottle of acetone.
The Humvee door slammed as Michael's mother got free from Kyle and launched at her son. Isobel and Max stared at her shocked, both of them frowning as they no doubt felt - as Michael must have - that this was no human. Her hands traced Michael's face and pressed to his chest, her amber eyes looking up at them both, her expression somewhere between surprise and distrust.
"You're..." Isobel began.
"This is Michael's mother." Lex told them.
"His mother?" Max breathed shocked.
As if right on some terrible cue, Michael begins to fit on the floor, his body spasming.
Three voices chorus, "Michael!'
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It was poison.
As if everything his father had done to Michael - breaking his bones, torturing him - wasn't enough, they had injected a complex cocktail of drugs into his body, a countdown to a bitter, bloody end.
He's dying! Lex had shouted to Kyle huddled on the floor holding Michael's fading body.
I should think so. His father had said as if it was inevitable. Lex had thought he meant the bullet wound, but in fact he had been referring to how Michael was going to die in agony anyway.
Lex honestly hadn't known that was possible to hate the man more than he does now.
Because Michael was - according to Liz and Kyle - dying. Again. His life was held in suspension, Max keeps trying to heal him until he retching into a bin and nearly at the point of collapse. Lex can't breathe and he's on his knees holding onto to Michael like his alien alone can stop the hurricane from tearing him apart.
When Michael had started having seizures, Max had manged the first three times to quell them. Panic was all they were focused on, bundling into the Humvee or in Isobel's case - driving behind them in her car- to try and get Michael somewhere safe.
Kyle had driven as Lex was too far gone this time to be safe, even carrying Michael. His mother had cradled his head protectively and Lex knows Michael would be horrified that his rail thin mother, who had endured seventy years of abuse at the hands of the Manes family, was bearing Michael's weight. His alien was stocky, hard muscle from years of manual labor under the desert sun with broad shoulders - Lex could attest to the fact his boyfriend was not light.
There was no where to go but Max's place and this time Kyle drove, as Alex was too distracted by his dying love to be safe behind a wheel. He sat in the back cradling Michael's legs as Max drove Isobel's car back behind them.
To his utter shock, Michael's mother reached out over her son's prone form to grip his arm. His head whipped around to look at her and met those amber eyes.
Lex Manes had stared into the eyes of people who thought themselves powerful and many who enjoyed cruelty, including his own father. In comparison, Michael's mother was not even close to intimidating, with her small frame, seemingly frail and definitely starved but when he looked into her deep-set honey brown eyes so much like her son's...Lex felt as if she was staring at his very soul and couldn't work out if she found it wanting or not. He was a Manes. Surely she would loathe him?
Michael had a fierceness to him and a fragility seen in glimpses that lured you in. His mother might look fragile but in her gaze was the look of someone who had one infinitely precious thing left lose and they would do anything, cross any line to keep it safe. That fierceness had the promise of feral hate if anyone harmed Michael. The love in her gentle touches and her silent tears as she caressed his curls, was heartbreaking but a potent relief to Lex.
If his newly found parent hadn't wanted him, had rejected him...it would have broken Michael utterly.
But Lex now knew with certainty, that Michel's mother would take on anything for the man in her arms. She smiled. Tremulously and faintly, but somehow in this mess of chaos and frightening change, in the terror over Michael and the freedom that must have seemed impossible only hours ago, Michael's mother reached out to the man her son loves. Alex's hand closed over her hers as gently as possible and a warm presence brushed his mind.
Thank you for saving my son. For saving us Alex.
The words resolved themselves into his mind, using Michael's preferred name for him and he looked at her shocked.
"I'd do anything for him." Lex breathes into the space. "Anything."
I know. They called me Nora. Nora Truman here on Earth.
