Unbreakable - A Beautiful Lie · (Roswell Fanfiction) · √

NINETY-SIX

"Will you be okay?" I asked, squeezing the back of her hand as she rested it on the table surface.

She looked up at me, green eyes still clouded with worry and fear. But my father was seated on her other side and he answered in her place, "She'll be fine."

"I just need to go to the bathroom," I hurried to add, feeling the pressing need to apologize. Even when nature was calling.

It felt as if I had been part of putting her in this situation, which made her my responsibility. Plus, I was her best friend. The only one she had decided to trust in this new crazy situation.

Well, she was warming up to my father as well. She always had a soft spot for him, and after hearing about his involuntary involvement in this whole mess, I think she viewed him as an ally. Because he too didn't have anything directly to do with this world. They had both been thrown into this mess because of who they knew. Because of who they loved.

"We'll be fine, honey," my father assured me.

Maria was looking at him now, hesitation on her face, her frame stiff. But after a second or two she turned to me and nodded, her eyes too wide to appear relaxed. "Of course. Go pee."

I managed to muster up a small smile. Her attempt to do the same was failing miserably and I felt myself wishing that she would stop trying because that grimace only screamed fear at me.

"Okay," I said, standing up, the movement simultaneously pushing the chair back.

We had moved to another - smaller - room, with some simple untreated wooden chairs and a wooden table. Maria had objected against remaining in the room where she had woken up. The room where I had given her a mind-spinning amount of details about what had happened since that Halloween Party months ago.

Instead she had reunited with my father in this much smaller room, giving Isabel a suspicious look and narrowed her eyes in a unmistakably angry warning at Michael.

Alex, Max, Dresden and Mr. Evans had been absent from the room, but my connection to Max assured me that their absence didn't translate into danger.

I felt Maria's eyes burn into my neck as I walked towards the door, hoping that this meager housing underground had some acceptable facilities. Like running water. I hadn't actually received a tour of the area upon arrival. Maria was not the only uninformed one here.

After Max had been healed, and after Max and I had healed Alex, we had run the remaining distance to arrive at a well-hidden tunnel which had led us up to a ironclad door.

Walking through that door was like stepping from one world and into another. From the moist soil tunnels with almost no lightning, to concrete flooring, walls and ceiling lined with bright light armatures. There might not be any decorative details that made it feel homey (on the contrary, it felt as cold, hard and impersonal as a bunker), but the roughness of the place actually made it feel safe.

Honestly, it felt like a bunker (and maybe it actually was) in that it wouldn't surprise me if the place actually could survive a nuclear bomb.

Dresden had guided us down a long corridor. Max's fingers held tightly onto my hand as we had walked side by side in Dresden's footsteps. Alex was walking closely behind us, his mere presence having comforted me. Maybe he had been using his powers at that point, to calm us all down, but I honestly hadn't taken offense if he had. Ever since seeing into his mind, I was viewing him differently. I was no longer inclined to see his powers as an invasion of my privacy and free will.

Bringing up the tail had been Michael, stubbornly carrying the unconscious Maria. It had seemed as if the general consensus in the group was to let Michael be the only one to carry Maria, especially after he so clearly had demonstrated that Maria was under his protection earlier.