When she awoke a few hours later she felt considerably less groggy. Maria was sitting above her, stroking her hair. Her long blond hair framed her face in a cloud of gold. For a moment Liz thought she resembled an angel. Liz smiled up at her curiously. “Maria?” Her question came out in a thready whisper.

Maria jumped at the sound, jarring Liz slightly. “You’re awake.”

“Hmm,” Liz grunted, nodding. She was slowly becoming aware of her surroundings. The incessant beeping of the monitor beside her bed. The tubes that ran down from her arms. The sterile whiteness of the room. She was in the hospital, Liz realized, but her brain couldn’t instantly grasp the reason why.

Maria could see that Liz was struggling to remember what happened and, oh god, she didn’t want to be the one to tell her. Wouldn’t it just be her luck that when Isabel finally convinced Max to take a break in his bedside vigil for sustenance Liz would wake up? Maria mentally kicked herself for such a selfish thought, but she was having a really hard time dealing with all that had happened. And she couldn’t tell Liz, she couldn’t. Maria couldn’t bear to see her friend hurt in that way, she couldn’t witness Liz’s grief firsthand.

“I’m…in the hospital?” Liz assessed fuzzily, “Why? Did I have the baby?” She gazed at Maria in confusion, who was looking utterly stricken.

Maria eased from the bed, uneasy and on the verge of tears. “Let me go get Max, ok.”

“Maria….just tell…tell me.” Liz was so very tired. It was taking tremendous effort to keep her eyes open. She wanted nothing more than to fall back asleep, but something kept nagging her. She knew from the closed expression on Maria’s face that her best friend was keeping something from her. And she looked, Liz realized with dawning clarity, as if she’d been crying.

Liz felt her heart do a funny little jump and she lifted her hand, running it gingerly down the expanse of her abdomen. It was disturbingly unrounded. In that instant, the memories came flooding back to Liz like a tidal wave. No heartbeat. The ultrasound. Dr. Kadesh telling her that her baby…her son was dead. Going so crazy. She would kill him, kill the doctor. Kill everybody. Because she hurt, she hurt so bad. Suddenly, Liz was totally, devastatingly awake. Liz looked again at Maria. Her pale, pretty face was streaked with tears. “Liz,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

A terrible keening sound filled the hospital room but Liz was too grief stricken to realize the sound was coming from her.

Maria rushed forward to put her arms around Liz’s shoulders at the exact moment that Max and Isabel entered the hospital room. Max immediately rushed to his wife’s side and they wrapped their arms around each other, clinging to one another desperately. No words had to be exchanged between them. They spoke to each other through their mutual agony.

“She just woke up,” Maria sobbed desperately, “I didn’t know what to tell her.”

“It’s fine, Maria,” Isabel comforted, pulling her crying friend into her arms.

Liz reared back in Max’s arms, her tear brightened eyes wide and desperate. “Tell me it’s not true, Max. Tell…me.”

Max looked at her sadly, wanting so desperately to lie to her. He could remember distinctly, even days later, the mind-numbing, absorbing grief he had felt when he’d received the call. He had just finished up his meeting with his clients when his cell phone rang. He had expected it to be Liz. He was grinning widely when he answered the phone saying, “So what’s the lowdown on our kid, Mrs. Evans?”

“Max, it’s me…Isabel.”

“Isabel?” He was immediately alarmed. His first thought was that Isabel sounded weird, hoarse. His second thought was more coherent. Why was Isabel calling him and not Liz? He could only think of one reason. Something must have happened to Liz. “Is it Liz? Did something happen?”

“Max, you need to come to the hospital.”

“What happened, Isabel?” His question broke into a terrorized sob. He tried to take several, deep calming breaths but they only succeeded in making him dizzy. “Just tell me what happened, Is.”

“Liz needs you, Max. She lost the baby.”

More specifically the baby, his son, became tangled in his own umbilical cord and strangled. It was a freak accident, that’s what Dr. Kadesh had said, and usually only happened to 1 in 10,000 women. Max supposed that his wife had been the one. There had been nothing they could do for the baby. He had been dead since the day before.

Max looked at Liz now, knowing she was desperate for reassurance. He was desperate for it as well, but he faced the harsh reality. Their baby was dead. “Liz,” he began tremulously, cupping her cheek in his palm.

Liz placed her index finger to his lips to silence him. “Shh. Shh,” she said with a wobbly smile, “If you don’t say it…it doesn’t have to be true.”

“Liz, please…”

“Let’s just pretend…you know.” She looked at him hopefully, desperately. Within moments her expression crumbled, “Please, Max…”

“Our baby died three days ago, Liz,” he told her softly.

“No. No.” She mewled the words like a little child who refused to accept punishment. “I don’t believe you. I want to see him. I want to see him NOW!”

“Liz,” Max said as little wildly, “he’s dead.”

He was saying the words but they were not computing. Her baby was dead? Her baby was dead? It was like her heart knew the truth, but her brain was refusing to accept it. There was just this wide, gaping pain that grew larger and larger as the seconds passed. And as she looked at Max she could feel a deep-rooted anger begin to bubble forth inside of her.

She balled her hands into fists and beat furiously against Max’s chest. “Why didn’t you stop it, huh? Why didn’t you stop it?”

“Liz, don’t!” Max grabbed hold of her flailing arms, pinning them between their bodies. With relieved gratitude he noted that his sister and Maria had left quietly.

“What good are your alien gifts if they can’t even save our baby!” Liz shouted in anger.

“Liz, I told you….I’m not God,” Max said pitiably. Although he knew that Liz was saying the words in anger they still managed to stab at him like daggers.

“Fuck you!” Liz spat out, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”

“Liz, I know you need someone to blame right now-“

“Don’t you dare try to psycho-analyze me!” Liz raged, ripping away from him. “Just get out! Get out!” she sobbed, burying her face in her hands.

Max reached out his hand to touch her but, realizing that having him touch her was the last thing Liz wanted, let his hand drop. He didn’t find it surprising that she would blame him. After all, she had to find some way to make sense of it all. It was unnatural for a baby to die, even more so for one who had yet to even glimpse the world. And Liz blamed him, because he hadn’t saved their son as he had saved her that day in the Crashdown. Max blamed himself, too. Even though he knew, rationally speaking, he couldn’t have done anything for their baby. And that was what hurt more than anything. That he couldn’t give Liz the thing she wanted most at that moment. Her son.

“I know you’re probably tired,” Max whispered sadly, “Dr. Kadesh gave you some really powerful drugs. I’ll just go walk around outside for a little while.” When he started to lift himself from the bed however, Liz grabbed hold of his wrist.

“Don’t go, Max,” she cried frantically, “Please. I didn’t mean those things I said.”

Max sank back down on the bed. “I know.” He pulled her against his chest, kissing the top of her rumpled head. The sweet, clean smell of her shampoo filled his nostrils and he reveled in the scent. There were a million comforting things that he could tell her, tell himself, after all it was his profession, but Max remained silent. There were no words for the agony that filled them now. There were no words period.