All this awake-time gave her the space to think about a few things. What was going to happen to her body if she were pregnant? This was the first human-alien pregnancy she knew of and, even though they had seen those flashes of two beautiful and healthy kids during the bonding ceremonies, they didn’t really know what sort of things went on during the pregnancies. Maybe she should have talked more with Max about this before getting herself into this situation. No, she couldn’t have. She HAD planned to talk to him about it so that they could decide together on when they wanted to have a baby. But then that Thursday afternoon happened and she had gone completely off the rails worrying about what was going to happen to them, so it was Saturday by the time she realized that she had forgotten to take her birth control pills since Thursday morning.

What if Max is going to be really angry with her? What if he hated her for getting them pregnant and lying to him about it so he wouldn’t leave her behind? What if he sends her home after finding out? Her mind whirled with thoughts of things that could still go wrong. She fully intended telling Max the first moment they had alone on that ship, there was no way she would last much longer with the way things are between them. And she had to know what his reaction to the possible pregnancy would be.

She closed her eyes and pressed her hands over her womb, wondering if she really was carrying a little part of Max inside her. The thought made her completely giddy and she tried to sense if something felt different. It was silent inside her for a few moments before she became aware of a slight vibration underneath her fingers and a soft echo of something in her mind. Her eyes flew open and she saw a faint amber glow leaking through her fingers. She had to hold onto the sides of the cot when the certainty slammed through her. She was pregnant with Max Evans’s child!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

It was barely light out when she awoke again, this time with the most brilliant smile on her face… and a feeling of complete nausea. She risked a quick glance at Max and, seeing that he was still sleeping, she stumbled out of the tent with her hand over her mouth. She prayed that no one would be around to see her being sick.

Luck was on her side and she managed to make it away from the camp into the woods without an audience before retching her guts out. As she rested her forehead against a tree afterwards, she thought grimly that it would be just like Max’s child to wait until she was sure she was pregnant before starting to make her sick. She splayed her hands over her womb again and felt a wave of intense emotion wash over her. "Hello, baby, this is mommy. I love you so much already and… your daddy will love you too once I tell him about you." She rubbed her hand tenderly over her stomach that had started glowing slightly. "Your daddy is the most wonderful person in the world. You will see that once you’re here. He is gentle and kind and so protective. He will make sure that you have a wonderful life. He gives the best hugs when you’re sad and he always listens to everything you tell him. He will be so happy about you. You have always been one of his dreams. A dream I had prayed I could make real for him."

Starting to walk, she found a small stream nearby and cleaned herself up as best she could. Then she sat down on a soft patch of grass and talked to her baby some more. "Me and your daddy love each other very much." She grinned a little. "You will have to learn to leave us alone if our door is closed, but I’ll tell you about it when the time comes. For now, just know that we really want you." She leant back against a tree trunk. "He is a very special person, your daddy. A King. A very important man to our people. And he is a great researcher. I know it sounds like I’m gushing, but it’s all true. He gets a little annoying with the protective thing every now and again and I’m guessing you’re going to have the same problem with him, but you will just have to forgive him for it. It is all because he loves you so much and cannot stand terrible things to happen to you." Tears welled into her eyes. "That’s why I cannot tell him about you yet. He will make me stay behind and I cannot bear to be away from him for too long. Or he will stay behind with me, and he has all this responsibility on his shoulders. I would feel horrible if I kept him from them. He needs to go stop a war. I know it looks like I’m taking you into a very dangerous situation, but my heart tells me we have to be with your dad while you are still inside me. I don’t know why, but being his child, you will soon learn to trust that instinct that comes from being an Antarian. How do I know this, you ask? Because your dad healed me a very long time ago… and in the process, he changed me to be his. So him and I are linked. Have you felt that? My link to him? If you have, I’m sorry that you must experience how sad we both are at the moment. It’s because I can’t tell him about you yet and he misses me."

The tears were flowing down her cheeks now. "I miss him too. But I guess I don’t have to tell you that. Hopefully it won’t be much longer. We are going on a long trip later today. And then I will tell him everything. He will want to be introduced to you, so you must stay awake for that, okay?" She wiped the moisture from her face with a watery smile. "After that you should probably sleep, I need to be alone with your daddy for a while to make up for all this lost time."

She had no idea how long she sat there, just immersing herself in the feeling of the little life growing inside her and her reminiscing about Max. Suddenly, she felt a wave of panic through her connection with Max and jumped up, knowing he has found her missing. Concentrating on letting him know she was alright, she turned so she could go back to the camp, only to realize she had no idea how she got here. She had been feeling so horrible that she hadn’t paid attention to her route. Damn! Okay, she would just have to keep concentrating on Max and see if she could locate him. That worked, so she started walking back to camp. She had only gone a few steps when he crashed through the bushes in front of her.

"Liz!" He grabbed her against him. "You scared the crap out of me! Why are you here?"

He was looking at her searchingly and Liz bowed her head. "Sorry, I woke up early and decided to go for a walk. I guess I got a little lost."

Max lifted her chin and saw the faint remnants of her tears on her face. He cupped her face tenderly and rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks. "Oh God, Liz… I don’t think I can do this much longer. I need for you to tell me…" He watched as she bit her lip and her eyes flickered away from his. Gritting his teeth against the desire to force her to tell him, he pressed her face into his shoulder. "It’s okay… I’ll wait a little longer," he promised above her.

They walked back to the camp hand-in-hand and Liz found almost everyone there waiting to see if Max had found her. She felt like a real idiot and apologized profusely for causing such unnecessary worry.

Breakfast was organized at the tables again and Liz prayed that she wouldn’t get sick from the smell of the food.

Nick reported at breakfast that he had received a notice from their transport very early that morning. "The first ship will be here around 8h30 tonight."

Max looked at him sharply. "What do you mean ‘the first ship’?"

Nick looked nervous. "I had to order us two ships to get us to Dendar, because… because you can’t all go on one ship. It’s too dangerous. It’s the same reason the President and Vice-President of the USA never travel in the same plane. If the plane goes down, they’re both gone."

Liz groped for Max’s hand. Nick couldn’t be thinking of not putting her and Max on the same ship, could he?

"What exactly are your plans?" Max asked.

"I’m thinking that you go in one ship and Michael and Isabel in the other. That way, there will always be one of the members of the Royal Family around."

"What if they take out both ships at the same time? I don’t like this, I should be with Max," Michael said unhappily.

"We’ve thought of that. The ships are not taking the same route." Nick sounded surer of himself after no one had shouted at him yet.

"What about us?" Maria asked, looking death rays at Nick. Liz silently thanked her best friend for asking what she so desperately wanted to.

"You all go with your partners." He looked at Liz. "But maybe the Queen should—"

"No," Max said immediately. "She goes with me."

Nick just shrugged. He hadn’t really thought he would get that one past Max.

Liz felt herself relax. If they had put her on a different ship as Max, she would’ve gone over the edge right here at the breakfast table!

"Okay, so Max and Liz will go first. Does everyone agree?" Nick looked around the group and monitored all the nodding heads. Michael still looked like he wanted to object, but he let it go once Max agreed to the arrangements.

~*~*~*~*~*~

They spent the rest of the day with their respective parents, saying good-bye and promising to come back. They were all planning to come back, they just didn’t know when that would happen.

Max talked with Jim Valenti for a while too. Jim was just blown away by the fact that the group was going to another planet. He wished he could tell his father about all this, it would give the old man back his faith in himself. That he had been right about aliens being on earth all this time.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Liz was dying to tell her parents that they were going to have a grandchild, but the fact that Max doesn’t know yet held her back. It would be so wrong for her to talk about this with anyone else before him. So she kept her hands carefully away from her stomach and pretended that everything is as it always was.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The sun was setting slowly in the west and the group had gathered around the tables again to wait out their last hours on earth. The communication said that the second group would be picked up closer to dawn as it takes a few hours for the shuttle of the ships to make the return journey from the dark side of the moon.

Max had watched Liz closely the whole day. That faint new presence in their connection was now discernable even when they weren’t touching. He had wondered at first if someone had gotten to Liz and that that was why she acted so strangely the last few days. But in the end, he had discarded that theory in light of her inner glow and the fact that she seemed fine other than about the physical contact with him. The only other possibility was one he didn’t even want to think about right now. It was too scary and wonderful at the same time…

~*~*~*~*~*~

The arrival of the shuttle was anti-climactic. No really bright lights flashing and lazer beams coming from the hull. Just a sudden whisper of wind in the air and then it was there, right in front of them.

Nick was taking 10 men with him, Grace, Liz and Max on the first ship, and they all stood waiting as the door quietly slid open. Max and Liz stood slightly in front of the group so that there could be no mistake about the identity of the leader of the group. Liz had tried to step away from Max a little, but he had taken her hand firmly and gave her a look to say she shouldn’t be silly about not being at his side.

Maria had to clap her hand over her mouth to stop herself from giggling hysterically when she saw the two new aliens step out of the ship. Maybe they should’ve asked what these beings would look like, she though wildly. They were really… short! They didn’t have three eyes or pasty gray bodies, in fact, they looked more or less like humans, apart from being really short. She estimated that they were about 5 feet tall, about the length of her and Liz. Michael, Alex and Max looked like giants against them.

The two aliens moved until they stood in front of Max and bowed deeply.

Maria had another hysterical thought. How were they going to communicate? She had seen Mars Attacks! one too many times to be comfortable about this.

The one alien handed Max a small rectangular piece of steel that started glowing as soon as Max touched it.

"We are honored," the being said, making the group gasp when they could all understand him. "That is a translator, we had it programmed for your language too, that is why you can understand us. We have to go soon, we don’t want to be here too long."

There was a final flurry of good-byes that left Nancy and Diane in tears and then the group was led into the smallish shuttle. Everything inside was made of a metalish material that shone dully in the light inside the ship. They shown to seats and before long they experienced that falling feeling in their stomachs during take-off. Max and Liz watched through a window as the earth quickly became smaller below them. It was the weirdest experience of their lives.

Max held Liz against him and ignored the strange looks he got from the aliens on board. They would just have to get used to him having her at his side.

Liz leaned her head on his shoulder and wondered how long it would take to reach the other ship so she could talk to Max. In spite of the strangeness of the whole experience, her need to speak to Max was still uppermost in her mind. When had she gotten this blasé about being around aliens?

~*~*~*~*~*~

They arrived at the huge ship that hung silently behind the moon about three hours later to a huge welcoming party by another group of small aliens. They told Max that everyone in their galaxy had feared that Aaron and Kyla’s children would never return and how honored they were that he was gracing them with his presence.

He would have to get used to being called all sorts of exalted names, Max guessed, but for now it was still a new thing. He thanked them for their hospitality and introduced Liz to them as his wife. The group turned to her and bowed again, but Max and Liz could see they were baffled about her.

They were all taken to another floor on the ship where the sleeping quarters were and shown to some rooms, which were more like cells, very small and cold-looking. Liz could just imagine Alex’s reaction to all this: ‘I feel like I’m on Star Trek’.

And then they were finally left alone.

"Max?" Her voice sounded strained and shaky.

He turned so that he stood facing her. Everything he could read from their connection (and there was that new presence again) shouted that she was in a complete panic about whatever she wanted to say.

"I-I… need to… to tell you something now," her lips were trembling so much that she could hardly talk.

Max took her hand in an effort to calm her down. "Sweetie, it’s okay. I think—" He faltered when he saw that Liz had put her hand on her stomach… and it was glowing.

"Oh my God, Liz…" he whispered just before she flattened his hand over her stomach too. The glow appeared again, only in a different color and the new presence in their connection became stronger. His earlier suspicion had been right, his wife, his mate, was pregnant!

He kept staring at his glowing hand on her womb and her soft ‘I’m pregnant, Max’ barely penetrated his haze. My baby is in there!