Last Goodbye ~ 1/1 ~ Complete

Finished Canon/Conventional Couple Fics. These stories pick up from events in the show. All complete stories from the main Canon/CC board will eventually be moved here.

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Anais Nin
Enthusiastic Roswellian
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Joined: Sun Feb 09, 2003 12:15 am
Location: The Netherlands

Last Goodbye ~ 1/1 ~ Complete

Post by Anais Nin »

Author: Anaïs Nin
E-mail & MSNm: lynnweijers@hotmail.com
Summary: Well, it’s a one-parter, so I can’t really summarize that much… :roll: It’s about how Liz returns to Roswell, looking for Max. I cannot assure a happy Dreamer ending. No, Max is not married and did not sleep with Tess, but if you’re looking for a happy ending, then don’t read this.
Disclaimer: Roswell does not belong to me. It belongs to Melinda Metz, Jason Katims, the UPN, and everyone else that was lucky enough to get their hands on it.
Category: AU, M/L, one-parter. I’ve written it for an essay contest at my school. I was the only participant writing in English… :roll:
A/N: For those of you who are reading Where A King Stood Before, the last part may seem familiar. I've adapted it into this fic. I was too lazy to write it all over again... :oops:

Last Goodbye

A soft, melancholy song played on the radio as she entered the small town filled with familiar buildings. Not much had changed since her last visit. The old Bennett house was gone, a new, modern flat on its place. The town hall had been modernized and one of the church’s towers was under reconstruction. The rest of the village seemed to have remained untouched. She briefly wondered whether her old high school had changed. Did they still have those hideous yellow lockers? Was the little wall across from the bathroom still covered with black graffiti?

A honk from behind her rudely interrupted her thoughts and brought her back to the present. She still knew the way to her parents’ café by heart. It wasn’t all that hard to find, she just had to take the first exit off the main road, adjacent to the small museum. He had worked there, she remembered. Every lunch break, every spare minute he had, he would sneak out of the museum to visit her. A sad smile crept upon her lips. Did he still live here? Had he gotten married?

She didn’t know. For the thousandth time, she regretted cutting all the ties that had bound them together, for breaking off entirely from him. After a last, stoic glance at the café and the museum, she left the street and parked her car in front of old Noah’s motel. She doubted the old man was still alive, but the motel still carried his name.

Stepping out of her car, she put her pair of sunglasses on. Nobody would recognize her – she had changed, matured, a lot – but she still felt more comfortable, with them on.

“Can I help you, Miss?” a boy in his early teenage years asked, proudly wearing the museum’s uniform. It was still awful. The colors were too bright, but she saw beyond them. She remembered how he had looked wearing his uniform. She’d never forget making fun of it, teasing him mercilessly until he could make her stop.

“Miss?”

“What?” She shook her head, clearing it from memories of an abandoned past. “Oh, no, I’m okay. I know the way,” she said with a polite smile. The boy nodded, smiled back at her and was about to leave when she stopped him. “Wait! Maybe you can help after all. Do you know if Max Evans still lives here?”

The boy’s expression fell. Worry started to nag in the corner of her mind, as she watched the pained look in his eyes. “He recently passed away, Miss,” he informed her, “Cancer.”

Cancer? “Cancer?” she gave voice to her confused mind, leaning back onto her car for emotional and physical support. However, she was only able to get the latter. “Yes, cancer. Some say he died of a broken heart, though.”

Unconsciously, her hand drifted up to rest on her own heart. Her broken heart. “Wh-when?” she helplessly stammered, clinging to the boy’s every word. She still couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. Dead? Max was dead?

When she had decided to come back, she tried to think of everything. He could have left town. He could have been married. He could have had children. He could have turned into an arrogant freak. She hadn’t considered that he was dead.

Dead?

“Two months ago. The cancer had been eating away at him for years. The doctors hadn’t even expected him to live that long.” The boy was clearly uneasy. He kept his eyes low, refusing to meet her gaze, which was perfectly fine with her. She didn’t think she could stand the pity and sadness she knew would be displayed there. So instead, they both looked at his shoe as he shoved it through the mud. “My… my mom says he’d been living on hope alone.”

She knew she didn’t want to know what he was going to say. She knew it, and yet she couldn’t help asking. “H-hope?” A nod followed, and all of a sudden, the boy looked up, his gaze crossing hers. “Yes, hope. Hope that his fiancée would return one day. He was holding on for her,” he explained. His deep brown eyes bore down into hers, trying to tell her more than what he was saying. “He died with her name on his lips.”

A light dizziness was starting to come over her. She blinked a few times, grateful that she was wearing sunglasses so no one would see her tears. “Do… did, did you know him?” she asked, trying to ignore her heart’s cries and let her mind do all of the work. The scientific, rational part of her mind was in control, the part that had made her leave.

“He was my uncle,” the boy replied shortly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“You’re her, aren’t you?”

“Who?” she asked, knowing exactly what he was talking about, she was just trying to delay the inevitable.

“Elizabeth Parker. His fiancée.”

Swallowing laboriously, she shook her head and lied. When she noticed the disbelief etched onto his face, she changed her lie into a nod. “Yes. I… I never –” She swallowed again as a tear trickled down her cheek and escaped from behind her sunglasses.

“My mother told me not to talk to you,” he stated, but did not turn away.

“I understand. Isabel never really liked me,” she smirked. A strand of hair found its way out of her ponytail, and she nervously brushed it behind her ear.

“You’re nervous, aren’t you? He told me you do that when you’re nervous.”

She tilted her head, not understanding. “I do what?” she asked while she studied the boy’s face. He was like Isabel in so many ways, and yet there were subtle things that reminded her of his uncle.

“You tuck you hair behind your ear,” he said. “You always do that when you’re nervous.”

Blushing, she clasped her hands together, only to place them on her hips again. The boy stared up at her intently, studying her as she had studied him moments earlier. Hurt shone from his dark eyes and she felt like she owed him an explanation of some sort, a way to explain why she had left. “I never wanted to-”

“I know,” he cut her short. “He told me. He couldn’t believe you’d ever do that to him. He believed in you, you know.”

He believed in you.

She didn’t know what to say to that.

He believed in you.

“Could I…” she hesitated and took the dark sunglasses off, “Could I see his grave?” He weakly smiled and gave her a nod. “It’s in the graveyard just outside of town, next to his grandparents. Do you want me to drive you there?” She shook her head, resisting his invitation. “No, but thank you. I… I really loved him, I did,” she stressed. Letting this boy know just how much she’d cared for Max seemed important, even though she wasn’t sure why. He flashed her a smile, to which she returned a smile of her own. A grateful smile, she hoped.

Not another word was spoken, and she left the town feeling even worse than she had when she had entered it. The cemetery was deserted, no other living creature visible. She walked through the rows, stopped momentarily when she reached her grandfather’s grave, and walked on again. A new, neat row of graves loomed in the distance. It was hard for her to grasp the fact that he was somewhere below her, somewhere in the frozen ground, so close to her, and yet so incredibly far away.

Too far away.

When she had left all those years ago, she thought she would get over it someday. However, the sadness had not lessened and time hadn’t healed her wounds. Her grief was still as fresh and as painful as it had ever been.

The blood red rose swung in her hand, to and fro, up and down, the thorns dangerously close to her fingers. She didn’t notice them as she immersed herself in undecipherable thoughts. His grave appeared in front of her, barely visible through the upcoming fog of twilight. The ice-cold granite angel looked down at her, mocking her, its unmoving stone eyes following her movements.

She knelt down, uncaring of the dirt that soiled her skirt and the cold that penetrated its thin cotton and ran up along her calves. One tear fell, quickly followed by another, and another. They ran down her cheeks, leaving burning trails of coldness and loneliness in their wake, smudging her mascara. It wasn’t until they reached her chin that they really started to fall; they slid down onto the hard ground, moistening the dry sand, giving it life.

Her fingers traced the contours of the letters. The letters formed his name, a name that recalled his face in front of her, hovering in the air above the grave. Reverent and remembering, she touched his epitaph, fresh tears stinging her eyes. Was she the only one who missed him, the only one who came to visit him? No. His nephew would visit him, she told herself. Isabel would. His parents.

Somewhere, in one of the high trees that surrounded the cemetery, a raven cried, then two ravens, three.

And she?

She was alone.

Despite of all of her new, popular friends, she was truly, utterly and really alone.

She placed the rose on his grave, just below his name. Lovingly, she kissed the stone, her lips leaving a moist and warm spot on the cold granite. She stood up – gracefully, but with a sigh – and took a step back, ignoring her heart’s pleas to stay.

Her breath cut through the mist, forming little clouds of vapor in a sharp wind that accompanied her on her lonely journey back. She hesitated once, at the gate, the border between the land of the living and the land of the dead.

A simple step took her back and the sounds of oncoming traffic and screaming children welcomed her into a world that had lost its warmth, its love. She had finally said her goodbye. Her final goodbye. And as she looked up, stars fell from the sky.

Her last goodbye.

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Well, that was it... :roll: Sad, I know... :( Please tell me if it was any good? Pretty please? I'd really appreciate any form of feedback... :)

~X~ Lynn ~X~
<center>...endless so far in myself, follow me...
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