Quarantine

11

Liz was crying. She'd been crying ever since Max left. Kyle wished he could comfort her, but his own body was starting to exhibit the symptoms Liz had told him about earlier. Every breath he took, every tiny move he made, seemed to reverberate through his whole body. It's like feeling my body work on a cellular level, he thought.

"Alien," Liz whispered. "It was alien and so am I, so healing doesn't work." She gave a small sob.

Kyle didn't know what she was talking about. She seemed delirious. Normally he would've shushed her when she said the A-word, but if anybody heard her now they would assume it was some fever-dream she was having.

"Kyle," Liz whispered. "You're like me, and we're aliens."

Kyle glanced around. Most people were still sleeping, and the nurses were all down at the nurses' station. With a huge effort, he slid off the side of his cot and onto the floor. Then he crawled across to Liz's bed and leaned

against it. He was exhausted from that small amount of exertion.

"Aliens," Liz whispered again.

"No, Liz, we're not aliens," he said, trying to keep his tone light. "Our friends, maybe. Us, no."

"We are." Suddenly she sounded so lucid. Kyle turned his eyes up to her face. She was looking back at him intently. "We are, you and me. We're different, he changed us. We have alien DNA. That's why we have the same symptoms, and why they're different from everyone else's."

Kyle's heart gave a sickening bounce. "We're aliens because Max healed us?" he repeated.

"When he heals, it changes the person. It changes their DNA," Liz whispered. "We have alien DNA mixed with our own. Not like them, not like the real aliens. But we have a little. And this thing, the virus or whatever, it's affecting our alien DNA."

"It activated our alien genes just like it activated Ms. DeLucas gene for asthma," Kyle said.

"Yes," Liz whispered. "It went to our alien genes because it's alien too."

"What?" Kyle could tell Liz thought this was important, but he didn't really understand everything she was saying.

"In the lab, when I cleaned up the chemical spill," Liz said. "Whatever that chemical was must have changed me."

"Wait, are you saying this virus is alien?" Kyle asked.

"I think so. And it's my fault." She started to cry again. "I did it."

Kyle didn't know what to think. For a second there, Liz had sounded like her old science-nerd self. Now she was

delirious again. "You didn't do anything," he said helplessly.

"The spill. I cleaned it up, and it got on me somehow. It made my alien DNA mutate into this virus. Then I gave it to you. I gave it to everyone. And they'll never find a cure for it because they don't know it's alien."

At that moment a door at the far end of the room swung open. Four doctors with a gurney rushed in. They checked with the nurses' station, and then all four turned… -and looked right at Liz.

"Uh-oh," Kyle said.

"What?"

"Um, a bunch of doctors are coming toward you with a stretcher," Kyle told her.

"They know it's my fault," she whispered. "They have to study me to try to solve the problem."

"What?" Kyle cried. "No! They'll find the alien DNA."

"They won't know what it is," Liz said. "They'll just think it's a mutation."

The doctors had reached Liz's bed. One of them took Kyle by the arm. He gasped in pain; her hand felt like a vise. "You need to be back in bed," she said, helping him to his cot.

The others were lifting Liz onto the gurney. Kyle could see her wincing as they jostled her sensitive body.

"Where are you taking her?" he asked.

"We need to run some tests on Miss Parker to figure out what's wrong with her," the doctor told him, sitting him down on his cot.

"Kyle, you have to tell Max," Liz whispered. "He's the only one who can figure out how to help these other people. Tell him what I told you."

They were pushing Liz away as she said this, and Kyle knew none of the doctors standing right next to her could even hear what she said. But he could, with his alien-enhanced hearing. "Liz, hang in there," he whispered back.

Then they pushed the gurney through the doors and out of the quarantine room. Liz was gone.

Isabel was the last to get back to Valenti's house. Michael and Max had been there only about five minutes when she showed up, looking worried. Michael felt his shoulders slump. He'd been hoping Isabel had some good news, since he and Max certainly didn't. "What did you find out?" Max asked. "Hello to you, too," Isabel retorted. "Where's Valenti?" "On the phone," Michael told her. "Did you find the CDC headquarters?"

"Yeah. And they were talking about Liz." "What?" Max cried. "What did they say?" Isabel dropped onto Valentis couch. "That she's Patient Zero, and that the virus started spreading from the Crash-down. Apparently they found something funky in your soup," she said to Michael.

"That's crazy!" Max said. "How could Liz possibly be the cause of all this?"

But Michael already knew the answer. "The water," he said. "Liz had just come from Meta-chem. She said the soup was too thick, so I took her water bottle and poured the water into it. And then I served it to Kyle, and Maria’s mom, and half the other people at the Crashdown. I served it all day." He sank down next to Isabel. "This whole thing is my fault."

"But why would Liz's water be infected?" Max asked.

"The CDC doctor said something about a chemical spill," Isabel put in.

"Yeah, that's why she got sent home early," Michael replied. "She said her boss knocked over some gunk but that it was no big deal."

"Did you heal Liz?" Isabel asked. "Maybe she can figure out what happened."

Max slammed his fist down on the coffee table. "No," he growled. "I couldn't heal her."

Isabel blinked in surprise. "Why not?"

"I don't know, it didn't work," Max said. "I made her worse."

Michael watched as Isabel took this news in. "So you can't heal any of the sick people?" she asked Max.

"I'm afraid it will make them all worse."

Isabel looked down at her hands, frowning. Michael knew how she felt. They seemed to be out of options. "Kyle is still sick too," he said. "And Maria's mom."

Isabel just nodded without meeting his eye. She was taking it pretty hard, he thought.

"I have some news," Valenti said, coming into the room. "Though it's not especially good."

"What is it?" Michael asked.

"That was the CDC outreach person on the phone. They're setting up hours for family members to visit the people in quarantine."

Max frowned. "Is that safe?"

"They've determined the virus is waterborne," Valenti said. "So they'll put the patients in plastic tents and you can talk to them from outside."

"If we get in and talk to Liz, she can tell us where that water bottle came from. Maybe that will help us figure it out." Michael knew he was grasping at straws, but he couldn't think of anything else to do.

"It'll be a while," Valenti said. "They're doing it alphabetically by last name. I won't be able to see Kyle until tomorrow, probably. And in the meantime they won't even tell me how he is." Valenti's voice broke, and Isabel reached over to take his hand.

"Maria," Michael said.

"What about her?" Max asked.

"Her name starts with D. She'll get in to see her mom today. Maybe they'll let her talk to Liz too."

"It's worth a try," Max said.

And it will give me an excuse to find out how Maria's coping with her dad, Michael thought as he dialed Maria's number into his cell phone.

Maria's phone was ringing. Sadie turned away from her examination of Maria's jewelry box and flung herself on the bed. She grabbed up the phone from the bedside table. "Maria's phone!" she said into the receiver.

"Hey, kid, it's Michael."

Sadie grinned. "Hi, Michael! How are you?"

"I'm fine. Listen, is Maria there?" Michael said.

"No, she's in the shower," Sadie told him. She rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling, where Maria had put tiny glow-in-the-dark stars. "Maria let me sleep in her room last night. She's the coolest sister ever."

There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

"Are you and Maria gonna get married?" Sadie asked.

"Because if you do, then you'll be my brother-in-law. Wouldn't that be weird?"

Michael started coughing. While Sadie waited for him to finish, she sat up so she could bounce on the bed. That's when she noticed her father standing in the doorway. He didn't look very happy.

"Uh, Sadie, can you ask Maria to call me?" Michael said. "Tell her it's important."

"Okay," Sadie said. "Bye." She hung up the phone and turned back to her dad.

"Was that Michael?" he asked.

"Yeah," Sadie said. "He's been Maria's boyfriend for two years."

Her father frowned and went back out into the kitchen. He was distracted, she could tell. Sadie sighed. She'd been trying to pretend that everything was fine, but her father was miserable, and Maria was even more miserable. All last night she'd lain in Maria's bed trying to imagine how it must feel to grow up without a father. She couldn't imagine it.

Maria came in with her hair wrapped in a towel. "Hey, squirt," she said with a wan smile "Did you sleep okay?"

Sadie nodded. "Maria? Do you think you'll ever forgive Dad?" she asked suddenly.

Her sister looked surprised. "Well, I don't know," she said.

"I think it would be hard," Sadie told her. "If he did that to me, I mean."

Maria sighed and sat down on the bed next to her. "He's not ever going to do that to you, Sadie. He made a mistake with me, and he learned from it. I really believe that."

"So you forgive him?"

Maria shook her head. "It's not that easy, honey And this is a really bad time, with my mom sick… " Her voice broke.

Sadie felt a lump form in her throat. She'd been really selfish coming to Roswell. She'd made her parents worry and she'd turned Maria's whole life upside down. "I shouldn't have come here. I didn't mean to make you feel bad," she said quietly. "I just wanted to see what you were like. I didn't realize you would get hurt."

Maria reached out and pulled Sadie into her arms. "It's not your fault," she said. "You and me will always be friends. Okay?"

"Okay."

"I see you're borrowing my eyeliner," Maria added.

Sadie smiled. "Is it okay?"

"Yup. That's what sisters are for." Maria got up and started looking through her closet.

"Michael called," Sadie said. "He says it's important."

Maria turned around so fast that Sadie jumped back a little. "Um… excuse me," she said. And then she was gone.

"Thanks for letting me drive you, Maria," Richard said.

Maria just stared out the window, wishing they would get to Meta-chem already. When her father had heard she was heading over to visit Amy, he'd insisted on driving her there. He'd said she might be too emotional to drive. If only it had occurred to him to think about my feelings when I was a little kid, she thought.

"Are you… um, are you going to tell your mother I'm here?" he asked nervously.

Maria snorted. "Do you really think I want to kick her while she's down?" she asked. "'Hey, Mom, sorry you've got some bizarre outbreak of asthma. Did you know the guy who abandoned you has been happily married with kids for years now?'"

"I didn't abandon your mother. We got a divorce."

"Oh, that's right," Maria snapped. "You only abandoned me."

Well, that shut him up, she thought as the silence stretched out. Then she heard a sniffle. Maria turned away from the window to look at her father. His cheeks were wet, and he was silently crying as he drove. She stared at him, hardly even noticing the tears that had formed in her own eyes.

Maria tried to remember anything about her father. She couldn't think of one thing, one actual memory with any content. She remembered his horse sound, which was closer to sounding like a hyena. But she had no idea why she remembered it; she couldn't remember a time when he'd made a horse sound for her. She remembered the smell of the cologne he used to wear, but she couldn't remember what it was called, and she couldn't remember ever seeing him put it on. All her life, she'd been trying to forget him. Now here he was, driving her car. And crying.

Is it even possible to see a man cry and not want to hug him and comfort him? Maria wondered. Right now her father was just a guy. Not the monster who'd left her with no money and no father to love. Not the selfish jerk who was willing to have a whole second family without even telling them about the first family. Just a guy who was crying so hard he could barely drive. "Dad," she said. "Pull over."

He did. He put the car in park, and then he just sat there crying. Maria stayed in her seat, crying too.

"There's no excuse," he finally said through his sobs. "I love you. I always loved you. There's no excuse for what I did. I don't blame you if you hate me forever."

"I don't hate you," Maria said, surprised to find that it was true.

"Really?" He looked at her hopefully.

"Yeah," she said. "But I don't love you either. I don't know what to feel. I don't know anything about you except that you left me."

"I know," he said, fresh tears falling. "But I know a lot about you. I know how sweet your skin smelled when you were a baby. And I know that your favorite book was Martha the Movie Mouse… you would never go to sleep until I'd read it to you at least twice. Sweet pea, I had seven years with you. I've been holding on to those years ever since. In my mind, you're always my baby girl."

Maria wiped her eyes. "I don't remember those years," she whispered.

"Can you take my word for it?" he asked.

"I guess," she replied. She took a shaky breath. "But it doesn't make up for the ten years in between."

Richard sighed. "I understand that."

They sat in silence for a minute, both of them sniffling. "I have to get to Meta-chem," Maria said finally.

"Okay," he answered, putting the car in gear. He pulled back out onto the road.

"Thanks for driving me," Maria said.