< He gets such pleasure out of hearing her call his name, over and over and over again…

He feels her hot, open-mouth kisses streaming down his body.

He can feel it coming, and he can’t stop himself.

He has to have her.

He grabs her shoulders, pulling her towards him and assaults her with the kisses he knows she likes.

He pushes her into the bed and she moans with delight.

Their lower bodies begin moving in unison and he wastes no time plunging into her.

“Oh, Max! Don’t stop!” He hears her scream.

He’s not listening.

He’s caught up in his own wave of desire.

“Yes! Yes!” She screams, the sound of her voice ripping into him like a knife into his heart, and tearing up his insides.>>

“No!” Max screamed, sitting up in his bed. “No! Oh, God, no!” He rubs his hands furiously across his face and over his naked body, hoping to wash the disgusting, dirty feeling still hanging on him from his nightmare. His chest rose and fell in furious fits of breath, stinging his lungs and making his heart race like a bullet.

Then he felt it.

Liz’s gentle hand touching his face. “Sweetheart…” She said, her soothing words falling down like a cleansing rain over his soul.

“Liz, Liz, oh God, I’m so sorry…” He said, burying his face into her neck and sobbing.

“Shh…don’t apologize…just rest.” She said quietly. She knew he had dreamed of Tess again, and it was tearing him apart inside.

It had been a week since the night she had almost died, and her pregnancy was already becoming noticeable. This worried Max and Liz because it seemed her pregnancy was moving along at an extremely rapid rate. And since this was the first human/alien baby in which a human was carrying the fetus, they weren’t sure how long the gestation period would last. Isabel’s pregnancy had gone to full term- the normal human forty weeks.

Liz ran one hand through Max’s hair, which was pasted to his head with sweat. She ran her left hand down her body and let it rest on her growing belly. Since she was studying to become an obstetrician, she had some idea about how she much she should be showing, according to how long she had been pregnant. Their child had been conceived about ten weeks before, but she was already looking like she was sixteen weeks along. At this rate, she would be having the baby in another four months. Because of their situation, she couldn’t go to the OB/GYN to get checkups, and it worried her to no end. She knew she should be getting pre-natal care for the good of both she and her baby. To ease her worries, Max had bought her seven different pregnancy books and three different essential pre-natal vitamins. She had been in the middle of reading one of these books when he woke up screaming.

“Liz, this one…it was different…”

“Why, Max? What was different about it?” She placed the book on the nightstand and snuggled into his chest, their bare stomachs touching. They loved lying together this way, it made them feel safe with their baby between them.

“It just felt, so real…like she’s getting close. Very close. Are you having anymore visions of her?” He asked Liz.

“No, I haven’t had one since last week when I got so sick… do you think that means maybe she’s giving up?”

Max looked into his fiancé’s hopeful eyes. He couldn’t believe they weren’t even married yet and they were facing all these problems. Their wedding was only two and a half months away and they still had so much planning to do. “I don’t think she’ll give up…until she gets what she wants.” He said quietly, brushing a piece of her auburn hair back behind her ear.

“And all she wants is you.”

Max nodded solemnly.

“Well she’s not going to win, Max. I’m not going to let her. We’re not going to let her.” Liz said, placing his hand on her stomach. “Do you feel that?”

He smiled. “Yeah…” His eyes got wide with wonder.

“That’s our baby in there. Jordana- she’s yours and mine. We have to beat Tess for her. If not for ourselves, we have to help our baby. She’s this innocent little thing growing inside of me, and I would rather die myself than see any harm come to her.” Liz said, choking back tears as she remembered her terrifying vision of Tess kidnapping Jordana.

“Liz…” He said, giving her one sweet, sensual kiss on her waiting lips. “I love you, so much. I never thought I could love anyone as much as I love you.”

Her answer made his pulse quicken, his blood racing furiously through his veins with so much velocity it almost ached.

“Please make love to me, Max.” She whispered, taking his hand and moving it from her neck, down the length of her body, finally resting between her legs.

He didn’t answer her. He let his desire and his longing take over and he ravished her.

* * * * * *

Two Days Later…

Liz and Max had taken Michael and Maria to the airport early that morning for their flight back to California. Their separation would be brief, though. Michael and Maria loved Boston so much and because of the Tess situation, felt the need to be close to Max and Liz, so they decided they would be moving there by the end of the month. They had already found a small apartment in Allston, not too far from Liz and Max’s place, and only footsteps away from Boston University. They had gone back to Santa Monica to get their things together and try to sell their apartment.

Liz walked into her Bioethics class fifteen minutes late, carrying a cup of orange juice and a bagel. She looked radiant- the pregnancy was making her glow all over and she was wearing a lavender sundress that showed the slightest hint of her growing belly. She quickly and quietly found her usual seat next to Morgan and sat down next to her. Morgan looked over at her and smiled.

“Liz, are you ok? You’re late.” Morgan said, gesturing to her belly.

“What?” Liz cried. Morgan couldn’t know she was pregnant. How could she have known…

“Class starts at 8, honey.” Morgan said, smiling. She looked at her watch. “It’s almost 8:20. Why, what did you think I was talking about?”

“Oh, nothing.” Liz shook her head furiously, pulling her notebook from her messenger bag and putting it on her desk. She placed her cup of orange juice on her desk as well, and sat her bagel on her lap, taking bites every few moments. “So what did I miss?”

“Oh, nothing…Prof’s babbling on like he always does…” Morgan said, rolling her eyes. “Are you ok? You don’t look so hot. Like you’ve been up all night or something…”

Liz’s eyes opened wide. Morgan was never this inquisitive, not at 8 in the morning. They had lived together for two years and both knew the other wasn’t coherent until about 1 in the afternoon.

“Oh, I’ve just been a little sick… still getting over that weird flu thing from last week, ya know?” She said, trying to smile. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Morgan was acting very strange. Morgan grinned, nodding. They exchanged a quick glance before both returned their attention to the professor.

“So, I’d like one of you all to come up here and write out Blackburn’s theorem… of the probability that a patient who claims to want to die is really telling the truth…” The professor’s eyes searched slowly around the classroom, stopping at Liz. He smiled. “Ahh, Ms. Parker. Since you seem to have gotten a little extra sleep, you should be well refreshed and able to come up and write out this problem for everyone.”

Liz grinned sheepishly as everyone in the lecture hall turned around to stare at her.

“Um, okay.” She said, slowly placing her bagel and juice back on the desk and rising from her chair. As she walked down the steps to the front of the auditorium, she felt dozens of pairs of eyes staring into her. She could hear a few whispering about her.

“Is she pregnant?” She heard one girl whisper with a shocked look on her face. Liz shrugged it off. She didn’t know the girl, so who cared? She finally made it to the overhead projector and the professor handed her a pen.

“Okay, so the problem is…umm…” She began carefully writing out the formulas for the Blackburn theorem on the overhead. She looked over at her professor several times to see him nodding with approval. When she was finished, everyone clapped, and she looked back to Morgan in terror.

Morgan was putting something into her juice!

“Calm, Liz, calm, don’t panic…” She said under her breath, steadying herself.

“Thank you, Ms. Parker. Excellent work. You can return to your seat now.” The professor said, smiling. Liz began slowly walking up the stairs, trying to avoid Morgan’s gaze. When she got back up to her chair, Morgan looked up from her notebook and smiled.

“Great job, Lizzie! You’re going to have to help me with that one, I don’t understand it.” Morgan said sweetly.

Liz glared down at her, still standing above her. She picked up her juice cup, and began to raise it to her lips. She saw Morgan staring at her through the corner of her eye.

“On second thought…” Liz said, moving the cup away from her mouth. “I think you need the juice more than me.” She said, pouring the cup over Morgan’s head.

“LIZ!” Morgan screamed, jumping up from her seat. “What the HELL is the matter with you?” Everyone had turned to look back at Liz and her juice-drenched companion. Morgan raised a hand to slap her, but Liz was quicker. She grabbed Morgan’s hand and twisted her arm around.

“I know what you’re trying to do.” Liz said, smiling sweetly. “It isn’t going to work. You’re never going to get to my baby.” She leaned over to whisper into Morgan’s ear, while still holding her in a tight grip. “And do me a favor…tell Tess that she needs to give it up. She’ll never take Max away from me...”

Morgan/Nasedo’s eyes widened in fear. She quickly realized who she was dealing with- a mere human, and smiled.

“Liz, darling, enjoy your time with Max. It won’t be much longer. Not even with this mutt child of yours.” She placed her hand on Liz’s stomach and Liz crouched over in pain. She smiled, grabbed her bag, and walked out of the classroom, leaving a pile of juice behind her.

“Oh, God…someone help me…please!” Liz screamed out. Two guys and a girl rushed over to her and helped her stand back up.

“Are you ok?” A blonde guy asked her.

“What did she do to you?” The brunette guy asked her.

Liz looked around, the room was spinning. She grabbed the girl, who had her hand stretched out. “Get, my fiancé…Max Evans…he’s in this building…upstairs…room 306…hurry…”

The girl looked at her, and then up to the guys in terror. She ran out of the room, quickly doing what Liz had asked her.

Her eyes fluttered shut as she struggled to keep them open. The waves of pain throughout her body were becoming unbearable.

“No, no…” She sobbed. “This can’t be happening…” The two guys put their arms around her, trying to stop her from crying. The professor ran up to Liz, holding her hand and giving her some tissue.

“Liz, what’s wrong, dear?” He asked, frantic.

She shook her head in a daze. The two guys looked up at their teacher.

“We don’t know, sir… that girl put her hand on Liz’s stomach, then she crouched over…” The brunette guy chimed in.

“She’s in a lot of pain, sir.” The blonde guy piped in. “Stacy went to go get her boyfriend.”

“Oh dear.” The professor said, putting his hand on Liz’s forehead. “She’s burning up.”

“Maybe we should get a doctor or something…” The blonde guy said.

“No! No!” Liz screamed, her eyes shut tightly in pain and her fists clenched over the brunette guy’s outstretched arms. “Only Max…he’s the only one that can help…”

“Liz, are you pregnant?” The professor said.

“Yes, yes, I think my baby’s…” Liz said, sobs choking her speech. The realization that something was really wrong was bringing on waves of fresh tears.

The blonde guy looked up at the brunette guy and they looked over at the professor in terror. They were so sad to be holding a seemingly sweet girl who was going through such incredible pain.

The door opened and Stacy and Max ran in. “I got him Liz!” She screamed.

“Liz! Oh God!” Max said, running over to her and grabbing her from the two guys. “What happened?”

“It was her, Max…Morgan…she did something to me…” Liz said, through waves of pain. “Jordana… she’s dying…”

Max’s eyes lit up in terror. He scooped her up quickly and ran her out of the room. “Thanks for helping her, but I’ll take it from here.”

When Max and Liz were gone, the professor put his head in his hands.

“I hope she’s going to be ok.” The professor said, walking back to the front of the auditorium. He grabbed his microphone from the nearby table and sighed. “Class is dismissed.”

Stacy’s eyes watered. “She looked so scared.” The blonde guy hugged her.

“I know, Stace.” He said, kissing the top of her head.

The brunette guy looked off into the direction of the door.