I saw it through Max's eyes, through his memories. I felt it through his body as if it was a part of me. The kicks, the beatings, the coldness, the electric shocks, the fire. They had done everything possible to break him. While I had been subjected to Sean and his father - two taunting aliens with a short temper - Max had usually been subjected to Command.
Apparently, Command didn't mind getting his hands dirty.
Or maybe it was just that no other alien could handle Max.
Because even when it was excruciating - even when blood blurred his vision, attacks with energy almost stopped his heart (over and over again), and his skin was ripped open with an order from Command's ruthless mind - Max kept on fighting. His inclination to be sarcastic mocking towards his assailer did diminish as his body desperately wanted to surrender, but his mind never gave in.
Just like with me, they assigned the bulk of the blows to his psyche. After analyzing his responses to various mental stressors, they had reached the conclusion that anything concerning me would deeply upset him.
Hence, his love for me became their greatest weapon.
But it also became their biggest miscalculation.
Because the more insinuations they made about my condition at their hands - the more scenarios they painted of me being injured and tormented - the stronger Max's determination to get to me grew. The more focused he was to get through the torture. The more tenacious he was to not give up or give in. If he gave up, I was lost. Maybe forever. Without him, without the connection, I wouldn't be able to protect myself.
As I shared the memories of his experiences I wondered how he had managed to not go insane. As Command calmly stood in front of him and I felt my lip throb with Max's pain, the unhealed open wound on the back of my thigh burn, and my inability to breathe deeply due to a number of broken ribs. I felt Max's fear of what was to come while simultaneously feeling strong. Almost as if I - he - wanted Command to 'bring it on'. To prove that not even the leader of their society, the strongest member of their civilization on Earth, could break him.
By then Command had changed tactics. He had incorporated visions into his torture of Max. Command had constructed them with cold precision, making them frighteningly realistic, practically impossible to set apart from real experiences and perceived memories.
Through Max's nightmare I got the full HD-experience of Command's cruel imagination.
Me - writhing and screaming in pain after an argument with Sean, where I had refused to obey.
Me - being slowly burnt by short energy bursts, screaming, in direct response to Max refusing to break the bond.
Me - in a near catatonic state, lying lifelessly on a bed, while Sean continuously pulled energy from me.
The messages of the visions were clear: submit or Liz gets hurt.
And if Max and I were somehow communicating through the connection: make Liz understand that she has to give in, or she'll be far worse off in their 'care'.
Me - falling to my knees, my head clenched between my hands, before completely collapsing on the ground, my eyes staring lifelessly in front of me as death claimed me.
Max and I had started to learn how to take control of our nightmares, to make them ours, to overcome them. But this one - his nightmare of seeing me dead - left me paralyzed. Max's fear and panic, his guilt and remorse (over having ever laid a hand on me and thus having contributed to putting me in this position) was deafening. His helplessness over the situation, his loss of control and lack of power had made him scream. Had made him attempt to pull his mangled body towards Command with the intention of killing him. Even with the odds stacked against him.
He had been crying in the harrowing replay of his memory and was still crying as his terror ripped both of us out of the shared nightmare.
My heart was beating violently against the inside of my ribcage and my body was covered in sweat as my eyes flew open.
With my breathing harsh in my ears, mingling with his strained intakes of air, I shifted frightened eyes towards his hunched over back, the connection vibrating with an overload of emotions.
With a shaking hand, I touched the glistening skin of his back, touching the tips of my fingers to the muscles covering his shoulder blades.
He jolted at my touch, but didn't look back at me to verify that it was me. He knew where he was. He knew that he was back in bed. With me.
It didn't make the nightmare any less real though.
The adrenaline coursing through me was making my body feel like jelly and I struggled to pull myself up into seated position. His poorly restrained sobs, hitching at the top of his sharp inhalations, echoed eerily off the walls of our small room.
Heat was coming off his body in waves and I immersed myself in it as I pressed my breasts against his back, hugging the insides of my thighs to the outsides of his hips while wrapping my arms around his upper body and resting my cheek on the trembling area just between his shoulder blades.
I could feel his heart beat strongly, with panicky agitation, against my left hand as I gently molded my palms to his chest. Pushing up slightly, tears running down my feverish cheeks, I said gently into his ear, "Breathe."
A shudder moved through him, making his breathing halt, as he lifted his hands to wrap them around mine.
"Breathe," I repeated, my voice suffused with love, fear and tears.
His next breath was a heart-wrenching sob and my tears slid down his sweaty back as I pressed a kiss to his shoulder blade, my arms loosening around him. To give him space. Space to breathe.
Images of me - of me laughing, of me crying, of me dancing with Maria and goofing around with Alex, of me being upset, of me hugging my father - were drenching the connection. Every emotion I might have ever experienced seemed to be stored in Max's memories. Documented from him watching me. For a much longer time than I had ever realized. The image of my face was so loud across our bond that it obliterated anything else and made my chest want to explode with undefinable feelings, so strong that I lost my own breath and started to float backwards away from him with the sudden weakness to my body.
But he stopped me, his fingers tightening around my damp hands, and his voice was breaking as he croaked, "Stay with me."
I bit my bottom lip as the sadness enveloped me and I started crying in earnest, large tears cascading down my cheeks as I pressed myself back up against him and whispered, "Always."
It was as if my heart couldn't handle the love he was sending me, instead spilling over out into my fingertips, making them tingle almost painfully.
I loved him so much. The clichéd phrase 'love you so much it hurts' took on a whole new meaning as I was faced with not knowing how to handle what I felt for him and the bottomless love he felt for me. On top of that, the knowledge of those 'people' having used that beautiful and pure love against us was forcing to break me apart at the seams.
While floating in the sea of our feelings, I had unconsciously been kissing his back, placing soft salty kisses along the curves of his shoulder blades, down the straight line of his spine, up over his tense shoulders and brushing the pointed ends of his collarbones.
It was not until he turned in the circle of my arms that I realized I had been doing it. That I had been trying to get the love out of me (to prevent myself from disintegrating from the inside out) through the adoration of his skin.
I glimpsed the pain in his expressive eyes before he melted our lips together, my body sighing in soft surrender against his. I threaded my fingers through his hair, feeling the dampness of his distress against his scalp, while the moisture of his tears brushed my nose as I changed the angle of his kisses.
He was gentle, tender, and slow. Feeling every detail of my lips, drowning in the sensations as he memorized the softness of my lips. His hands were everywhere; brushing up my arms, over my shoulders, down over my breasts, up along my spine. The touch was fleeting, with barely any pressure, but the heat from his fingertips was enough to set my body on fire.
I gasped with the realization, pulled back, and looked down at his hands. My eyes verified what I had already suspected. The glow. It was back. Following Max's fingers like a beautiful sensual flame.
With my head bent and my mouth open in reverence, he started kissing my neck instead, and we made the mutual silent decision to move to a horizontal position. The mattress was soft against my bare back as Max lowered me down, his mouth moving back to mine, his kissing ignited with the passion from the glow shining in random trails across my body.
I moaned and dragged my fingers down the back of his upper body, my fingers pressing into his taut muscles, seeking the closeness only his body could bring me.
It was I who pulled his boxers down, causing his body to freeze and his eyes to search my face.
It was I who removed my own panties, leaving our bodies completely naked and intimately close.
It was only I who could make that decision and take that step.
Max had left it up to me, considering the scars Sean had made in my mind. Considering the invisible scars he had made on my body.
But there was no longer any question about me being 'ready', or that this was something called for by the desperation of the situation. It was not even necessarily a response to the overload of our emotions or the need for comfort to drown our traumatizing memories.
It was just meant to be. Max and I were not meant to be separated. We were meant to be connected in every way possible. Both mentally and physically. I had a feeling that the glow itself was pointing to us being open again, to us being accessible to our love and the expression of it.
He slowly rolled onto his back, bringing me with him, changing our positions. I let myself sink into my feelings for him and allowed myself to fully let him in. Something that had been difficult for me to do since what had happened during the days in captivity.
His gratitude about me submitting to the power of the connection was indescribable. It exploded out through my body, lit up my mind, and heated my soul. I felt his every emotion as I moved my hands over his body, slid my lips across his skin, and threaded my fingers through his hair.
I could feel him resigning control of his body to me, handing it over without needing to ask. Which was in sharp contrast to his resistance to letting me take charge when we had made love at the house in Hondo (which felt like forever ago).
This time I didn't even have to ask.
Images of me were still playing in his mind and naturally overriding the fake visions Command's sick 'imagination' had come up with as Max let my touches calm his breaths and slow down his heart.
I was drawing on his abdomen, amazed by the glow that followed my finger like a warm tail, adoring every hill and dip of the lines of his muscles. They were even more defined now, with the absence of almost any fatty tissue combined with the relentlessness he put into exercise.
Beneath the weight of my soft body was the warm and breathing body of a warrior. The body of a protector. But surrounding all that hardness, the tough and well-chiseled exterior, was only heat. Heat from love. Heat from passion.
The heat was building. The passion was overwhelming. The love was exploding. Just as his body had been calmed down into my acceptance of our connection, it was slowly building us back up into wild heartbeats and breathy gasps as the natural physical desire between us began to dominate.
I had already giving him the green light by removing our underwear. Still, his hesitancy over my decision was clear. It would destroy him if us having sex would awaken memories of Sean and his treatment of me. The calmness in my mind, the willingness of my body, convinced him to go with his heart. To tune into our bodies and let them connect.
I didn't think it was possible for Max to be any gentler or softer than the first time we had made love. But he was. It was a different type of softness this time. While last time had been about making me feel comfortable with my own nudity in front of him, about him touching me, about him loving me, this time his gentleness stemmed from him erasing unwanted touches and terrifying memories. He would never use any alien methods of erasing on me (not after that one time), rather he simply relied on the love through the connection, on making me feel desirable and cherished.
Still, there was nothing careful about our bodies coming together. We sank into each other on instinct, driven by not only a primal lust, but mostly a need to bind us together.
He was interlacing our fingers, flushing our sweaty palms together, as he moved inside of me. His breath was hot against my face, against my mouth, as he placed occasionally kisses on my mouth, on my cheeks, brushing against the droplets of perspiration on my forehead, while I was acutely aware of the hairs on his legs as they brushed against my inner thighs.
My whimpers arched my chest up against his, pushing our bodies together, over and over again. My hands were tugging at the hair at the base of his neck, my toes restlessly caressing the sides of his shins as I sought out his mouth, felt his tongue dance against mine and the power coil and swirl inside my being.
The ultimate feeling of pleasure curled up inside the center of my body, my feet pressed into the outsides of his hips and our lips separated as my head fell backwards with the hoarse cry of his name tumbling from my lips.
I almost expected us to be levitating by then. I probably wouldn't have been very surprised if we had been. I felt light as a feather, enveloped in warmth with soft tingles making my soul prickle with unconditional love.
It took me a while to return to reality. To feel the solidity of the bed against my back. To feel the perspiration on my skin, to feel his weight on top of me and to realize that he was motionless, watching me as I opened my eyes.
"You're amazing," he whispered, his eyes spilling everything that was throbbing through the connection.
A smile lit my face and I asked breathlessly, "What? No jab at my stamina?"
His eyes twinkled with his own smile and he moved every so slightly against me - inside of me - causing my breathing to pause with a gasp.
"I have no complaints," he said and leaned down to kiss me deeply.
I melted into his kiss, my body igniting with restored energy and my body signaled for him to start moving again. But as he did, something from the deepest corners of my rationality hit me and I tensed.
He immediately mimicked my tension, my screaming thoughts impossible to miss.
Protection.
He cautiously lowered himself from his elbows and down to flush my body against his with a restrained breath.
He knew that I was not panicking about the need for physical protection, which had - to be honest - been at the front of our minds lately. But rather I was starting to panic about the absence of protection against a pregnancy. A pregnancy at 16. In the middle of a rebellion. With our lives at stake.
Our eyes locked and he placed a slow kiss on my lips. "It's okay. I haven't-"
But it still didn't comfort me much. I had heard a thing or two about pre-ejaculation and its possibilities (albeit slim) at creating a child. Even with the unsuccessful attempts the Sergeant had made at making my mother pregnant, something was telling me that it would not be impossible for me to have a child with Max. Almost as if the connection would make it happen, if it 'wanted to'.
My heart was pounding in my chest, cold sweat mingling with the drying sweat of our love on my skin. "But what if-"
There was a concerned twitch to his right eye, his eyes roaming my mind and face, before he pulled back and away from me. I knew from my insight into his thoughts that he had just been worried that I never wanted to have children with him, but that my mind had (unconsciously) quickly abolished that idea. Now he was trying to regain rational thinking instead of being pulled into the emotional one.
"We can't get pregnant," I whispered, sitting up and looking at him as he moved his legs over the edge of the bed and dragged his fingers through his hair.
"I know, Lizzie," he answered softly.
My breathing was slowly returning to normal as I read the guilt in his mind. For not thinking. For not taking control of the situation. For being ruled by his emotions, by his fear of losing me, by his need to make sure that I was there; alive and whole.
I was grasping for my common sense, ignoring the nagging addition of a supernatural bond that could affect what I knew about nature (and might increase the likelihood of a pregnancy), and crawled up to him to wrap my arms around his shoulders and place a kiss against his neck.
"It's not your fault." My voice was muffled against his neck. "I'm sorry. I just got a bit freaked out. Of course nothing has happened. I just-"
"-don't like to lose control," Max filled in, echoing both of our thoughts. How alike we were in many aspects. How much safer we felt when we had a plan; a plan that enabled us to exert control over our lives and our surroundings. How it gave us a sense of security.
"Yeah," I mumbled and tightened my grip on him. "Max..."
"Mmm." He was subdued, deep in his analysis of his own body, trying to figure out if he had let it go too far, if he had jeopardized our future in some way, if he had added another life to our connection.
"That was amazing."
His thoughts stopped, his body stilled for a second before he turned his head and looked over his shoulder at me. "Liz, I-"
"I've missed you so much," I cut him off. He needed to know how much it had meant to me. How much it had meant to me to take that step with him again. To let him back in.
I swallowed, feeling a twinge of nervousness to bring it up. "It was something different this time... You know, when I..."
"I could see it," he said in contemplation and turned around to move back up on the bed. I shifted to make room for him.
He moved up on his knees and looked at me intently. So intently that I found myself flushing.
"I could see it on your face. And I could feel it move through you. As if something was released. As if you let go."
I nodded quietly. "Exactly."
He leaned in, our noses touching, as he added with a soft smile. "And it had nothing to do with some creation of a baby."
I swallowed. "You sure?"
There was nothing but honesty on his face, not a single trace of hesitation. "Yes."
My exhalation was loud and filled with relief. "Okay."
He gently caught my chin between his thumb and index finger, asking, "Are you okay? With everything? With the whole-"
"Sex thing?" I filled in with a shy smile.
His mouth twitched in a smile. "Yeah."
His hand slid away from my chin, spreading goosebumps as it slid down my throat, as I leaned in to kiss him. My lips were still attached to his as I answered, "I'm more than okay."
"Good," he replied. "Because I'm not done with you yet."
"Oh?" I smiled, pulling back slightly to be able to look into his eyes. "You're not 'done' with me?"
He laughed softly. "You didn't really think that I would leave you alone after what you just experienced, after what we just experienced?"
The blush heated my cheeks and I slowly shook my head in negative. "I guess not."
He searched my eyes, his face turning introspective and filled with veiled expressions at his hushed confession. "I can't get enough of you. I fear I'm addicted to you, Ms. Parker."
I crawled up on his lap, feeling the effects of what the proximity of that new position did to his body as I replied slowly, "I'm all yours, Evans. All night long." I slowly licked my lips, guiding his gaze towards my mouth. "And every night there after. Forever."
He didn't reply in words. His emotional reply was enough.