Holding out for a Hero (CC, Mature) - Chapter 15 - Completed - 06/10/2020

This is the place to post all your General Roswell fanfiction. Any Canon fics, which pick up directly from any episode of the show and that focus on Max/Liz, Michael/Maria, Isabel/Alex or Isabel/Jesse, Kyle/Tess, or all the couples together! Rule of Thumb: If Max healed Liz in the Crashdown in September 1999, then your fic belongs here. If it picks up from the show in any way, it belongs here.

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LilLoucfer
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Re: Holding out for a Hero (CC, Mature) - Chapter 11 - 05/26/2020

Post by LilLoucfer »

Can't wait to read more! Sounds like Natasha may be Max's and not Carl's. Here's hoping!
keepsmiling7
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Re: Holding out for a Hero (CC, Mature) - Chapter 11 - 05/26/2020

Post by keepsmiling7 »

I hate Carl and his assorted women.....
Glad Michael came to Maria's rescue.
It appears that Natasha's trust fund is too tempting for Carl.
Natasha was her own hero as she managed to get out of the car trunk.
At some point, they will have to tell Liz.
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Superman86
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Re: Holding out for a Hero (CC, Mature) - Chapter 11 - 05/26/2020

Post by Superman86 »

Nice moment between Max and Liz, I'm glad there able to talk to each about the past. I'm happy to know that Natasha is definitely very, very likely Maxs daughter. I hope Natasha can be rescued quickly and safely, Liz doesn't need any more stress put on her while in recovery.... oh and here's hoping Sarah Rose is Max's too somehow, that being since Liz came and saw him at his parents funeral...I guess we will have to wait and see :D
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Parker1947
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Holding out for a Hero - Chapter 12 - 05/29/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

“Natasha?” Max called out into the wilderness an hour later as he and Michael looked around the forest to find the missing little girl. Where are you? he asked himself. He had been shocked the hour before at the hospital as he sat by Liz’s bedside and wonder to himself how he was going to keep the news of her daughter’s disappearance from his ex-wife. Then the call came in from a number he had not recognized. “Where are you?” he called out on into the woods as he remembered back at the shock when he had heard the little girl’s voice.

She didn’t know where she was, but Jim pinged her cellphone, and was able to target a location to where the phone seemed to be but the technology still was not as precise as it could be, so they could be looking in a very different location. Armed with the address, he found Michael standing guard outside his wife’s room They are hopeless he muttered to himself. I am not that bad, am I? he asked of himself, but knew he was probably worse.

Driving out to the spot where the phone was likely to be, both had things on their mind, as they prayed, they would not find a horror show. They saw the car as they pulled up. Worried, Max ran to the car, and found no one inside. Then Michael approached and pointed out the trunk was open, and it had severe dents.

And then Max spotted proof that Natasha had been inside the trunk the bastards. Putting a child in a trunk when he spotted the child’s sling and there and then he knew Natasha wasn’t far from them and he thanked god for forcing it on the girl, although in the back of his mind, he wondered why the girl would go without it?

“Natasha,” he called out into the world, and into the woods as he ran towards the wooded area. While Michael stayed back to look at the car because the shape of the trunk seriously weirded him out because no child, especially not a seven year old should have been able to get out of that trunk Michael thought as Isabel pulled up.

Kyle was with her, and both looked at each other, and saw the car and cursed. “Is she in there?” Isabel asked fearful.

“No, but she was in the trunk” Michael confirmed. “Her sling was in there…”

“Where is she then?” Isabel asked as if she didn’t want the answer because the woods were a unforgiving place in the middle of the night. “Where is my brother?”

“Searching the woods” Michael confirmed.

“Do we think she’s out there” Kyle asked as Isabel looked fearful.

“Chances are good,” Michael sighed as within the woods Max was searching for any place a child might hide. “Natasha”, he called out. But he was not getting an answer and it unnerved him because he did not know what it would mean if she was not out here. Please be here…

Meanwhile, Kyle was calling in the license plate of the car to his father. Isabel was pacing as she had the same thought that Michael had when she saw the trunk. “You think she got out of there, herself?”

“There is an oxygen tank and a mask in the trunk,” Michael muttered, “They were probably keeping her in there while they make the ransom demand?”

“What ransom demand?” Kyle asked.

“Liz’s government settlement,” Michael sighed. “The bastards…”

While back within the woods. Max was searching in vein so he did not want to go back to the hospital and admit to his ex-wife that he could not find her child. Max remembered the promise he had made to Liz once before, in how he would help her because of all she had done to help him when he searched for his son. Despite the pain it had done to her, to do so, or what it might have done to them as a couple. Something, they rarely had discussed. Max knew his son Zan was somewhere safe, away from this life. Max also knew he done the right thing when he gave him up for adoption because he did not know what kind of life he could have given him especially since they had been forced on the road so soon after the adoption took place. And he knew Liz especially would have had a tough time staying with him if he had chosen that other road. Max suppose he should feel guilty about picking the girl, rather than his son but then he knew deep down adoption was the best thing.

His son was human. Something that was not affronted to him or his family of Isabel and Michael. So, Max remembered all Liz had done for him, and wanted to return the favor and didn’t want to have to admit to his ex-wife that they had lost her child, and that they wasn’t able to find her.

So, he called out “Natasha”


*

Natasha was in range of Max, but she had fallen asleep. Taken in by the night, and the cold weather, and laying back on the branch against the tree. She had allowed her eyes to close, and to fall asleep. Dreaming of dreams of a Mommy and Daddy that were happy, and in love. Playing in a backyard with her little sister and watching her Mommy with a new baby in her arm. Smiling at the man, next to her, and she was so incredibly happy. It was the life she always wanted. A happy family. She even was happy with the man whose face was next to her mother as it was a dream come true.

Then she heard out the call of her name, and she thought she was still in her dreamland. Natasha, she heard.

Then she realized she was not in the dreamland anymore. It was real. She was hearing her name, but it was not her father who was her name, it was someone else, and someone she was looking up to. Max

Mommy’s Max

“Natasha,” she heard again and this time she knew she was being rescued. “MAX!” she yelled into the air.

*

Max heard his name in the faintness of the night, and in the softest of voices. He knew it was Natasha. Max knew she was nearby. So, he walked towards the voice he had been sure he had heard, and called out her name, and this time his name was called, and it was like feet away. “Where are you?” he was calling as he checked the bushes, and behind the rocks to see where the child was hiding.

“Up here,” Natasha called.

Max looked up and was shocked to see the faint line in the dark of a child up a tree. How on earth did she get up there, especially with her arm fractured and still tender. “What on earth,” he whispered. “What are you doing up there?”

“Got out of the way?” Natasha called down.

“Is that how you reach me?” Max asked.

“Yes,” Natasha said. “No reception but I saw on television somewhere that if you climb a tree then you might get reception, so I tried it, and it worked”

“It sure did,” Max muttered. “How did you get up there, with your arm?”

“I climbed,” Natasha called down.

“I know, but how did you do it?” Max asked because no child should be able to get up there with the state of her arm like it was…

“I told you my arm was okay…” Natasha smiled as she left out her ability to aid in such a recovery.

Max did not know whether to believe her. “Wait there, and I’ll go and get some help to you down” he sighed as he ran to get help and immediately he had it, and get to the point where the child was able to fall, and Max caught her in his arms, and hugged her with dear life as Natasha also return the hug as she had never experienced such trust from another male. “You know that was dangerous, right?”

“More than being in a car trunk by some mistress of my father’s,” Natasha muttered as she looked up at the adults who looked at with such shock.

“Are you sure you’re not 27, and just in a small body?” Kyle asked.

“I read a lot of stuff you know,” Natasha muttered. “I learn when I do, and it stays in my memory” she murmured as she saw the worry on Max’s face “I am fine, Max, truly. They did not hurt me. They may have wanted to hurt Mommy, but they didn’t touch me, except to leave me in a trunk, so I am fine…”

“Let me check you over,” Max muttered as he looked the child over, as she didn’t know whether think the child’s ability to ignore the implications was a way of masking true fear, or she really was this fearless little creation brought into the world, as he found no gashes or any other new injuries. “You’re very lucky?”

“How is Maria?” Natasha asked.

“Worried about you,” Max confirmed. “She will be very happy to be able to see you” he smiled. “You had us all worried” he sighed as he walked the girl back to the car just as Jim showed up, and his deputies. “We found her.”

“So, I see” Jim nodded. “We’re going to need to talk to you?” he asked. “We need a statement?”

“Right,” Max nodded. “Isabel can you and Kyle take Natasha to the hospital and get her checked out, and I’ll meet you there once I am finished here with Michael and Jim?” he asked. “It shouldn’t take long, right Jim?”

“Right,” Jim nodded.

Isabel nodded as she and Kyle took Natasha to the car and drove back into town. After they left, Jim had a look around the car, and ordered it toe into town. Once gone, Jim looked at Max and plainly said what was on all their minds, except Max, who was too oblivious to notice it or comment on it.

“No child should have been able to get out of that trunk on their own,” Jim said bluntly to Max, and it wasn’t as if Max didn’t have the same questions but to hear them from the town Sheriff wasn’t the easiest way to acknowledge the feelings.

“She’s crafty,” Max said softly.

“Max,” Jim sighed.

“What?” Max asked.

*

“You know what I am going to say?” Jim muttered as he looked at Max and Michael as they looked at the car as it was pulled away. “That truck looks like it was melted open and kicked with major force. She’s seven years old, and there is no way she could have been able to do it?”

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say?” Max sighed as he could how Michael was looking at him like he should be smarter than this, as if he saw what Jim was commenting on.

“I think you do, and you don’t want to acknowledge it,” Jim muttered. “That girl also shouldn’t have been able to climb that tree with her arm in need of a sling. She got diagnosed with a fracture twenty-four hours ago for heaven’s sake. She barely could touch anything yesterday, and today she can climb a huge tree, and stay there until you arrive?”

“You can do almost anything if you have enough will, and enough adrenaline” Michael commented as if to give Max cover even though he was having the same doubts that Jim had, and the same could be said about Isabel who was now having major doubts about the paternity of Natasha.

“What are you saying?” Max asked.

“I am well aware that you guys can do many amazing things and have abilities that continue to compound and amaze us, and you’re able to achieve power, get yourself out of a lot of scrappy places, and Natasha seems to be one of you?” Jim muttered because it was becoming pretty obvious that the girl might have a biologically different father than the one she has been raised thus far with, and it felt like Max didn’t want to recognize it and rather live in denial.

“Stop it Jim,” Max muttered because he did not even want to entertain the possibility. “Natasha isn’t one of us, because she’s Liz’s daughter” he said. “Born after our marriage broke up,” he sighed as much as it broke his heart. “And with another man, months after she split town?”

“Are you sure?” Jim asked. “Pregnancies are complicated conditions at times, and dates can be skewered with and none of the parties have to be malicious about it,” he could not help but ask. “How can you be sure that Liz didn’t give birth to your child?”

“If she has any abilities,” Max muttered. “It could have come from Liz, because she is special you know because of my saving her life?”

“Something tells me that it’s not that simple,” Michael shook his head. “I have a hard believing she would be special because of Liz. Liz was capable of some stuff sure, and has abilities, but she is very human, and we are much more powerful that she is, as we saw on the road, and what she was put through by the government” he muttered

“I don’t believe it,” Max muttered almost stubbornly.

“Believe it,” Jim sighed. “Ask Liz if you don’t want to believe it. Because there is no way that child is Carl Armstrong’s. Which is why the guy probably had as much resentment for the child as for his wife, and was willing to take it out on the child because she might look like his wife, but still, she’s a child, and if he thought she was his” he muttered as he left it at that assessment as he walked away and left Max and Michael among themselves.

“You know you have the same thoughts,” Michael said in assessment of his friend. It does not take a genius to make the connections Max “That girl should not have been able to do half of that stuff to free herself,” he asked. “We barely could do that when we were a decade older than she is today. So, to think that she could do it at seven, well, it does make you think. So, yeah, it can not help make you wonder, and you aren’t stupid Max, so you have to be thinking the same thing?”

“You don’t know what I am thinking?” Max muttered.

“No, I don’t” Michael agreed as he often knew his friend thrived in his ability in not showing how he was feeling, otherwise he would never have been able to put one foot in front of the others, and yet, still, it was clear on his face, the doubts his friend was clearly having because you could not see the car, and know that the little girl had climbed a tree, all by herself, and not have the same thought. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

*

Max was still thinking about that the next morning as he stood outside Liz’s hospital room as Maria filled in her friend. Max was not for some reason anxious to go in because he did not want to believe he had gotten so much wrong and had been deprived of so much in return. The million of thoughts flooding his mind had made it impossible to sleep, and as he stood watching, he did not know what to think. Thankfully, Maria had gotten a clean bill of health after a night’s observation, and now she had been officially released, and ordered to return if she showed any signs of a concussion or other head injury symptoms, but mostly, she was feeling rested.

She did not want to admit that sleeping in the hospital was the best night sleep she had in months as she immediately trekked to Liz’s hospital room for the difficult conversation they were currently having. Natasha was sitting next her mother as Liz. Because Amy was spending time at the hospital watching over her daughter and Jim was investigating the Carl Armstrong mess, Natasha ended up needing a new place to sleep, and so they had called on Jeff and Nancy who gladly took in their granddaughter.

And by morning she was bonding with her grandparents, and she was even helping in the kitchen of the Crashdown. She was determined to work there when she got older and was thrilled by what she was finding in Roswell. She loved the town atmosphere and hoped she did not have to leave it once her mother and baby sister were finished with the hospital. Still, a part of her was nervous about how her mother would react to the news of her kidnapping as Jeff had dropped her off at the hospital before returning to work “Mommy, I swear I am alright”

Liz was not hearing her daughter swearing up and down that she had managed to make it through her kidnapping harm free. After all, she had gotten a clean bill of health, as Faith who was working could not explain how a fracture so present twenty-four hours before was 75% healed, and the range of movement was almost perfect. She also did not know how to explain the rumors buzzing through the hospital about how the little girl got free. More and more she was beginning to think the test she had ordered would prove her hunch correct. But Natasha was not thinking this as she sat next to her mother. Liz on the other hand was livid when she heard. “What do you mean Carl took her, and none of you told me?” Liz asked as looked at the cavalcade of people around her. “I should have been informed?”

“We wanted to concentrate on finding her, and luckily for us, she was able to call Max and we were able to find her with no problems” Michael admitted at the look of hurt on Liz’s face. “We would have told you, but we didn’t want to burden you, especially if it ended up being short-lived, which fortunately it was…”

“That wasn’t your decision to make,” Liz muttered as she couldn’t believe she hadn’t been told that her seven year daughter had been through such an experience, and none of her so-called friends had informed her until hours after the girl was back. “She’s my daughter. I should have been told?”

“We didn’t want you have to set back in your own recovery,” Maria assured her friend. “Thankfully. your daughter was smart as a whip, and was able to get herself out of trouble, and be her own hero.”

“She shouldn’t have had to,” Liz asked as he looked at her daughter and saw the strong daughter, she had raised staring back at her. Still Natasha was only seven and it was her job to protect her little girl, “It’s my job to protect her, which I have failed to do until now, and that ends because I should be told whenever something is going on that involves me, okay?”

“In the future we’ll know,” Maria smiled. “Natasha was fine, in the end, and she got to spend the night with her grandparents, and that is a win win for everyone.”

“Yeah,” Liz muttered as she didn’t like the situation but it was the truth that her daughter was safe, but she couldn’t believe Carl would even think to take their daughter, and put her through such an experience. Or maybe it was not Carl. Maybe it was one of his girlfriends. Something that had shocked her to her core. Maybe it should not have because I knew he was checked out of our marriage. She did not have love for the man, but still it was not easy to hear that she was not enough for him, which she knew Max would never have strayed on her once Tess was out of their lives Tess was the only exception I could think of where Max looked at someone else, and now she is dead.

“How about this,” Maria smiled as she knew to get out of dodge “I am hungry. The food in this place is god awful so I’ll take Natasha down to the cafeteria so that she can keep me company while I have breakfast, and I’ll treat her to a muffin or something, and I’ll allow you to visit…”

“Mommy, I promise I am fine,” Natasha promised as she got up and turned to her mother. “You don’t have to worry about me, because I know how to defend myself?”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Liz muttered as she watched as her daughter prepared to go down to the cafeteria.

“But I do,” Natasha smiled. “See you Isabel and Kyle…”

“See you too,” Isabel smiled at the child as Maria and Natasha left the room and it only left her, Kyle and Michael because Max was being a scared cat in coming in because he didn’t want to ask the question he was going to be forced to ask, and it would transform his life.

“Carl is still out there?” Liz asked Kyle.

“Dad is working on it,” Kyle admitted. “We should have something soon” he promised. “He won’t get far” he admitted. “We have names…”

“I can’t believe my daughter knew her father cheated, and didn’t tell me” Liz muttered because it was a eye opener for Liz to know what her daughter had known and didn’t fill her in on, “What else don’t I know?”

“Yeah, what else…” Isabel muttered as deep seeded questions hung in her mind, and they were clearly chafe at her, as Kyle only shook his head. “I can’t help but wonder that as well?”

“What does that mean?” Liz asked as she turned to face Isabel as if her friend had something to ask. “Is there something else I don’t know?”

“I guess, I’ll be the one to ask it,” Isabel bluntly muttered because Kyle became silent, and the room was just asking for the question to be asked. “Is my brother Natasha’s biological father?” she full on asked, and Liz’s face when pale, and then white as the shock was evident. “Did you purposely fail to tell my brother he was a father?”
RoswellFan68
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Re: Holding out for a Hero (CC, Mature) - Chapter 12 - 05/29/2020

Post by RoswellFan68 »

Is Max so blind that he can't see that Natasha could be his daughter?
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Parker1947
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Holding out for a Hero - Chapter 13 - 05/31/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

The question hung out there unanswered as Isabel and Kyle surveyed Liz for the answer. But the answer was not coming. Max hung out in the hallway as he had clearly overheard his sister. Is my brother Natasha’s biological father? came the question. The shock was evident, and Max knew now that if Natasha was his daughter. Liz had not suspected. All these years she had believed her daughter to be the product of whatever she had developed with Carl Armstrong, and not him.

“That is crazy,” Liz asked sputtered at the mere notion. Of course, Carl is Natasha’s father because the pregnancy had been the only reason, I married the man. If I had not been pregnant, I might have seen the light, and stayed away but believing Carl to be the farther got her to the altar, and to settle into marriage with Carl.

And alienating her family; her parents, and everyone else except for Maria, and even then, she had not seen Maria that much. They only talked on the phone and had the odd visit with her best friend advocating divorce, but Liz resisted because of one thing.

Natasha. “That is crazy, of course, my husband is Natasha’s father,” Liz muttered as she came back to reality and earth. “To think anything else is stupid…”

“Is it?” Kyle asked and maybe your husband actually is Natasha’s father he mused to himself of the loophole of how his friend had responded to their queries as Max took the moment to enter the room and Liz could not keep her eyes from his, and she knew that he had overheard, and the others might have been talking about their suspicions to her ex-husband.

“I should know, right?” Liz asked.

“Yes, you should” Isabel muttered as she was willing to give her former sister-in-law that. “You would certainly know…”

“Right.” Liz muttered.

“But is it true,” Max said softly as he approached the love of his life. “Is Natasha mine?”

“No,” Liz shook her head defiantly. “It’s not I wouldn’t have been able to count months you know from when we split up, to when Natasha was born. She did not come early, and in fact she came later, so to think she is yours is fool hardy. I would love not to give Carl the honor of being Natasha’s father, given what he’s done to give away that honor, but I have to, because he is.” she sighed. “Anything else is plain wrong?”

“Is it?” Max said softly. “We made love before you left…”

“Yeah,” Liz said softly as she remembered the encounter, and how it had been hot, sensual and everything that them together had been, every other time, except this one was with the added knowledge that this was the last time, because she had asked for the separation and she was preparing to move to Cambridge, and hours after their last encounter, well, she was on the plane, away from Max. “We did, but still the dates don’t match up…”

“As I was reminded, dates can be funny things…” Max muttered. “I am a doctor, and I know that as well as anyone?”

“I don’t want to hurt you Max, but there is no way she could be yours. I remember the date of our last time…” Liz murmured as she knew her denial was hurting and cutting something in her ex-husband, and whatever was left of that union they shared. She knew how to count, and she knew Natasha had come to late for her to be Max’s a product of any of their encounters before their separation, and especially their final one How everything could have been different, but it did not happen, and had not happened…

“Me too,” Max muttered.

“Yeah,” Liz acknowledge as Isabel and Kyle could see the pain that clearly still resided within the two ex’s from that time in their lives as they chose to step out of the room. And really, neither were noticed as Max and Liz were in their own worlds. Where the only people that resided in the room were each other. “Isabel saw me around when I was at school,” she sighed as she remembered clearly that time and despite her reliance on alcohol to solve the numbness in her heart, and memories still it was clear to anyone that she was not pregnant, as she would have known, right? she told herself. “Your sister knew I wasn’t pregnant in those immediate days after our separation, and our decision to divorce?”

“We never know what is going on with someone else, or behind closed doors, and my sister is no different” Max muttered as he knew all to well the suffering his sister had done and to the outside the world, she seemed fine, but she wasn’t. “How is she supposed to be a witness?”

“Still,” Liz said softly as her mind was to process this ludicrous conversation. “Carl is Natasha’s father,” she sighed and saw the anguish on her ex-husband’s face. “Look, I know how hard that is to hear,” she murmured as she hated to hurt Max like this, I wish I could say my asshole of a husband isn’t my daughter’s father, but I can not. "I wish I could tell you differently, but there is no way you could be her father…”

“I want to believe that you are telling the truth,” Max said softly as he could see that it was not simply denial that Liz was believing, but a sincere belief that Carl was Natasha’s biological father. “You would know, not me, of course,” he muttered. “I hate knowing you were with him, but I know you were…”

“Imagine how it was for me to know you were with Tess, and that I wasn’t enough for you, and that you have a child with her” Liz muttered as she whipped out the long ago past without really thinking it through, and she knew her words hit the target, but was more severe than was intended as Max looked pained by the attack. “I am sorry Max,” Liz muttered as she knew it was killing Max to have to know she had been with some else. “You don’t know how much I wish I could tell you differently. But the dates don’t match up…” she sighed. “I know when I was with you, and when I was with Carl”

“You were enough for me Liz,” Max said focusing on her words and not on her upholding her marriage vows with Carl. “You were always enough for me?”

“I wasn’t once,” Liz muttered as the wounds still dug deep despite her going back to him and marrying him. “You even admitted to me that because of who Tess was, that was the attraction. Back in the beginning, you told me I was the one and you went there with Tess, and I had to deal with it, and forgive you…”

“Yes, you did,” Max muttered as he would always be grateful that she did give him a chance and yet their chance was not good enough in the long run. “We are never truly over the past, even when we think we are” he sighed. “It doesn’t chance the fact of who I am, and who we are, and while you might think I want everyone to be right, well, I almost don’t want it to be true because then I will have to admit what I gave up, and what I missed these years by now asking you to stay.”

“Max, Natasha is Carl’s” Liz sighed at the thought of Max asking her to stay, or to come back to him “You don’t know how much I wish I could tell you that she’s yours, and because I drank too much in those early days that I just didn’t know, but there is no way the dates match up from our last time, and when I was with Carl…”

Yet,” Max muttered. “I know sometimes these things are black and white. Dates can’t lie, and that it has to mean we’re all wrong…”

“You’re all wrong,” Liz muttered.

“Yet,” Max continued. “Natasha is exhibiting signs of not being an average child of seven years old,” she sighed. “I should know, because I have seen them in my days as a doctor, and I am sure, you have too in your studies even before you became a mother of one?”

“What do mean?” Liz asked as she did not know why she was hanging onto the notion that her abusive husband was her daughter’s father, but she was.

“I am me, “Max muttered. “I am who I am,” he sighed as more and more he was believing that Natasha could be his. Defying all the odds. Because logically it did not make sense, but nothing about him and Liz had ever made sense. That made their connection and their experiences together, good, and bad more special because they had defined reason, and logic, and had they done it again? Everything says it is not to be, but since when have we listened to those who say they know “Liz, she’s healing at a way faster rate than a normal child would…” he murmured as he thought of the little girl’s injuries, and the vanishing black eye, and the fracture that should still be painful for her, but it wasn’t…

“Some people are better at it than others,” Liz muttered. “In all matters of our lives, and maybe my daughter is simply one of those”

“Not normal humans,” Max muttered as everything told him that Natasha was not the average little girl. She was seven but capable of doing that not even those older would be able to do without a lot of force, unless she is mine. “I should know but Natasha had a fracture when you were admitted, and it’s basically all healed up, only two days later” he asked. “That doesn’t make sense, and then there were her adventures last night?”

“What do you mean?” Liz asked.

“She did things, not even adults, or people twice her size would be able to do. She should never have been able to get out of where they had her in, without assistance but she did it all her own, and then she climbed a tree, when her arms shouldn’t have been able to support such a climb?” Max murmured as his ex-wife’s eyes went wide. “It’s doesn’t compute if she’s the daughter of you and Carl”

“I have gifts, don’t I?” Liz asked as she remembered her own gifts that had come out in her fight with Carl. “It could have come from me?”

“Yes, you are, don’t doubt yourself Liz” Max said softly. “You are special and have always been special. That is why I love you so much he mused even if he was at danger of breaking his own heart by his pursuit of this crazy theory. “But as much as I want to convince myself it could have come from you, but the strength Natasha has shown these days, well, it tells me that there is no way it could be someone who is as human as you are, and a total human that Carl is…” he sighed. “Being who I am, as you know, we can heal with remarkable quickness, and even then, I have a special talent?”

“I know,” Liz admitted.

“The genes I could give a child…” Max sighed.

“Zan is human,” Liz singed back at Max. “Didn’t two alien human hybrids that you and Tess are, well, you somehow created a baby that is human?” she sighed as Max was taken back by his ex-wife’s come back. “We both know that biology is a funny thing, and genes or DNA flaws come often into play that you wouldn’t think would were possible and they can create a unique combination in a child. So, how can we say, whatever I gained when you healed me, and brought me back when I was fifteen didn’t transfer onto my daughter?”

Max did not have a comeback for that.

“I am sorry.” Liz said softly. “I wish I could say dates lie, or that I was too drunk to have gotten it straight, but I would have had to have a longer than normal pregnancy to allow for Natasha to be your daughter” she sighed. “I just don’t know how it could have happened?”

“Why are you so insistent that it can’t happen?” Max asked. “Don’t you want Natasha to be mine?”

More than anything Liz softly told only herself You don’t know how much I want to think this was all a dream, and I could go back and get the father for Natasha that she deserves but by no reasonable human standards is Natasha your child she told herself. “Max…”

When Liz did not answer the question, Max continued with more, “Look Liz, I know it doesn’t make sense. I trust you when you say that the dates don’t match” Max muttered. “So much about us did not make sense back in the beginning, but I just can’t escape this notion that Natasha is mine, and I am sorry about this…”

“You don’t know how much I want her to be yours,” Liz murmured You don’t know how much I want you to be here father, even though it means I screwed up royally, and I sentenced myself to nearly eight years of misery with Carl when I could have someone else who would have been a hell of a lot better father. “I know Tess had a unique pregnancy, or so we think…”

“We don’t know when Zan was born,” Max allowed as he remembered that he had to create some creative details for the application to register Zan’s booth, and especially the adoption “She said it moves fast, but we don’t know except he was already born when he came…”

“Yeah,” Liz admitted and knew how much it hurt Max to make the decision he did, but she did not know how they could have handled any other decision. But it had been a tough one for him to make. It doesn’t make any sense of anything other than Carl being Natasha’s father to be true?”

“Then can I quell the debate the two of you are having?” Faith Patterson asked as she walked into the hospital room and the discussion that had been getting loud, and she could hear them go at it from the hallway. “I might have some answers for you?” she muttered as she held a piece of paper. “I have some news?”

“What news would that be?” Liz muttered as she was annoyed and yet relieved at the interruption to her debate with her former husband.

“Faith, what do you have to say?” Max asked as he did not know how to respond to his friend who had come into the room.

“I can definitely answer that last question of who is Liz’s daughters’ biological father, and settle that debate you were clearly having,” she sighed with a smile “Once and for all, I know who Natasha’s father is, and who definitely is not…”


*


“Are you kidding me?” Maria asked as she sat in the cafeteria as she watched at Natasha was standing in line to get some pancakes for a late morning breakfast. She had been observing the people milling around when she saw her long absent husband walk into the cafeteria with Isabel and Kyle, and they spotted her, and approached.

And it did not take long before the story came of the confrontation going on up in Liz’s hospital room. “Are you seriously asking me to believe Natasha could be Max’s?”

“Yes,” Michael acknowledged. “I know it sounds crazy.”

“You think it sounds it’s crazy, well, Space boy, I can confirm to you that it indeed crazy” Maria muttered as she didn’t know what to think that she was clearly more comfortable around her husband to be able to go back to using old terms of endearment for Michael the shrinks would have a field day with us. “We all know when they split, and I know when Natasha was born because I actually was there, and I know it was not any time in those nine months after separating and divorcing Max” she muttered. “So, how can it, possibility be true?”

“Think Tess and her one-month pregnancy,” Michael muttered. “We have no idea what is average or human when we’re talking about a pregnancy involving one of us” he muttered. “That girl is Max through and through. She shouldn’t have been able to do any of that stuff last night without assistance…”

“Still to think Max is the father?” Maria muttered. “You don’t know how much I want that to be the truth and Max be Natasha’s biological father, but it stretches what is believable…” she sighed because she knew how much it could solve her best friend’s life if she could rely on Max, and didn’t have to think Carl as the little girl’s father, even if Carl was clearly Sarah Rose’s biological father…

“When has anything been believable in our tale so far,” Isabel muttered as she thought of her brother’s maybe not so legal divorce as she glanced over at her fiancé, who nodded at the same time. “Given what we have been forced to believe up to this point. Max being Natasha’s father is the easiest thing to believe in all this…”

“Max is my father?” came a soft voice and they whipped around and forced to confront a wide eyed and confused seven-year-old. “Mommy’s Max is my Dad?”

“Maria, you’re on” Michael muttered as they were forced to see the fact, they were facing a child who was only seven years ago, and despite her super human antics the previous night, still she was only a child.

Chicken Maria muttered to herself. “Um…”

“That man who hated me, he’s not my real father, is she?” Natasha asked as if everything about her life was crystalizing for the little girl, despite her age, she knew what hate looked like when directed at her, and she had seen it in Carl, and now a light was flickering on, and a new door was opening for her. “Is that why he hated Mommy so much and hurt the both of us and caused my sister to be born early, “she asked as fear came to her face. “Is Sarah Rose even my sister?”

“Shit,” came the murmurs.

“Yes, she is” Maria said. “Do not doubt that for a minute,” she sighed as she summoned the girl to her side. “We didn’t mean for you to overhear that, and it’s really only adults talking among ourselves. “But your Mommy is your Mommy?”

“And my Dad, who is he?” Natasha asked.

“We don’t know,” Maria admitted as life changing events were underway in many ways.


*


“I know,” said Faith as she stood and watched as Max and Liz eye each other, and then her, and she could not help but be amused if the reason she was here was not for such weighty reasons. “We have identified who is Natasha’s biological parents?”

“Who asked you to?” Liz asked a little snippier than she intended. “I don’t recall doing it, and I even didn’t know it was a possibility until today?”

“I didn’t,” Max confirmed at he looked straight at Liz who still go shivers when she looked at her ex-husband despite the issues on the table in front of them. This makes no sense, and yet it does at the same time. “I didn’t even know it was a possibility until last night when Jim confronted me with the idea, and it went from there, so I don’t know how Faith is this story, either?”

‘Call it a hunch,” Faith admitted as she could sense the disturbance between Max and the woman who had gotten away. “I admit that I didn’t have any good reason to want to run the rest except that Natasha has clear resemblance to the both of you, and everyone who is close to either of you can see it, except maybe the two of you…” she sighed as she glanced at both ex’s. “Except now Max is questioning it too,” she sighed as she looked at Liz who was looking doubtful. “Everyone does see it?”

“I don’t see how it’s true,” Liz muttered as she stubbornly stayed stuck on her position that she had not fooled herself all these years. “The dates don’t match?”

“That is a whole other kettle of fish,” Faith allowed. “That is something I can I leave to the two of you to figure out because I know from experience that Max is a pretty remarkable person who has some history, and I don’t even know a kernel of it, I would assume…” as Max couldn’t help but smile at those words coming from his friend.

“No, you don’t,” Max agreed.

“I had a feeling by looking at Natasha, and so I had the test ordered, and the results just came in, and I came to discuss with them with you Max, and I found you not so softly discussing the matter that I have the answer to” Faith murmured. “So, do I need to tell you the results?”

“Yes, tell us,” Max muttered. “Liz?”

“Of course,” Liz said convinced that she was not thinking crazy, and that this was all some elaborate claim to the contrary of what she had been thinking these last seven years.

“Then yes, Natasha can send greetings on Father’s Day to you Max,” Faith murmured as the eyes went wide of both Max and Liz. “Because, yes, Max, you are the father of Natasha. There was no doubt at all in the results. She is 100% the child of both of you…” she said softly as she looked at the shock and the pale faces of Max and even “Carl Armstrong has no part in the creation of that little girl.”

Max and Liz both looked like they were steamrolled by the concept that the past eight years had been so wrong, and so much had been taken from them, by their own actions and by fate.

“What have I done?” Liz asked out loud as she started to process the stunning development.
RoswellFan68
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Re: Holding out for a Hero (CC, Mature) - Chapter 13 - 05/31/2020

Post by RoswellFan68 »

So glad that Faith ran the test and ended all doubt about Natasha's father.

Liz needs to forgive herself. The government really messed with her mind.
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Parker1947
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Holding out for a Hero - Chapter 14 - 06/05/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

It did not make sense both Max and Liz were thinking to themselves as they could only look at each other as they did not know how to respond to the life changing events that had taken place. Faith had taken her que to leave the room, so that Max could talk to his ex-wife in private. She knew how much this was going to change Max’s life, regardless of whether anything came from his former wife coming back into his life, and both clearly being still in love with the other. Faith knew what love looked like, and she experienced it in her own life with her own husband. So, she knew when someone was pining for someone they had let get away, which was the case for both Max and Liz.

Of course, it was complicated. There are a lot of complicated factors in this one Faith thought as she walked down the hallway to her next patient. She didn’t know how her friend would deal with this one except to know Max’s life was now changed, forever, and there would be no going back to the way things were, because you couldn’t, when you knew something like this. But in Liz’s hospital room, nothing made sense.

“I didn’t know,” they said in unison. “Sorry,” they whispered again together in unison as Max could only see the eight years of absence, and not being present in his child’s life. What have I missed? A child he would have been there for if only had been given a chance. For Liz, it was seven years of being in a self declared misery because she had chosen wrong and tried to figure out how to make her life work for the sake of her daughter.

If only she had known, she could have made so many other decisions. Loving Carl had ended almost as soon as any feelings started to develop. She had stayed because of Natasha, and because she had known she had given up on a good thing, and she didn’t know how to right a decision she had made herself, when she knew Max hadn’t wanted her to leave. How do you go back when you were the one to leave, she mused? When you could not be happy with the love that he was willing to give me? she wondered.

Was it payback for what he had done earlier? She did not know, and she did not want to know. She blamed the government for their treatment of her when they had her in their custody, and a large part of it was, how could I not be changed. Just like Max was, during his time, but once home, she could not be happy I had a loving husband, and life I could get back to, especially as they were able to stop running but still it didn’t satisfy me. She could not go back, and she let it ruin her life. She let it ruin her marriage. “If only I had known?” she whispered.

“I don’t blame you,” Max murmured because he would never blame her, even if she had been at fault. But in this case, Neither, of them had known the truth, and it was obvious the love of his life had only been protecting herself, and that of their daughter with her choices. “You obviously didn’t know, and who wouldn’t have thought what you thought, if Natasha was really born too late to make me a believable father…” You are human, I am not…

“I at least should have known,” Liz asked. “To at least question it given who you are?”

“No one would have thought differently,” Max sighed. “Even now, I can’t believe it, and because of that I don’t blame you,” he murmured. “Because I still don’t know how it would have happened…” he sighed. “I know when it could have happened,” he smirked. and he got a rare smile out of the woman he loved as they remembered back to their good times.

“Yeah,” Liz whispered. “We had some good times together, didn’t we?”

“The one way we were very compatible, and didn’t have to think about what was going on in our lives,” Max smiled as he thought back to their last time, when they both knew it was the last time, and still they went there even know they knew his heart would be broken when she left him. She had not blindsided him because both know her departure was coming, and yet still they could not help but spend one more moment together, as if they were hoping it could change something. And it had not, but they had not realized it at the time, and it has taken nearly eight year to realize what they had created. “We don’t have very much experience you know,” Max murmured. “Only Tess, and then most of that you know happened elsewhere…”

“Yeah,” Liz nodded as she remembered that time when she had been so happy to have Tess elsewhere but then she came back and brought Max’s son with her, and changed everything, and while they were able to reunite, still things had changed with the knowledge the baby was there, and Max had to give him up.

“She was like me, not you” Max said softly because they both knew that had been the chief reason for his dalliance with Tess, and how he had betrayed her because for so long Liz had been the one, and still was the one, and only for him, but he had been with someone else. Betraying their love… he whispered “You are the only one I love Liz, don’t doubt that…”

Liz did not respond to that because it still was a wound that was clearly not healed “There was reason to not believe that, once upon a time” she sighed as she glanced at the angst on Max’s face. “But I do believe you loved me, and what we had was intense, and yet uniquely us” she asked. “Tess could never touch that…”

“I will never not love you,” Max murmured as he knew the truth No matter what happens to me, and whether we just become co-parents to Natasha, nothing will stop my loving Liz. “So, what are we going to do now?” he whispered because he didn’t know if Kyle’s belief of his marriage rang true now that they knew Natasha was his child, and a child had come from their marriage, which gave one more error to the papers. Not that any of them knew it at the time. Dad would not have known otherwise he would have told me… Max reflected, and that was the one thing he knew of his father. Dad would have told me…

“Max,” Liz murmured.

“Don’t,” Max murmured. Afraid of what she would say. “You need time, and we both need time before anything more is decided” he sighed because giving a smile. “We have our daughter to think about…”

“I am still married,” Liz murmured as she remembered that she was still married, and her husband may be fleeing from justice, but still it meant she had his ring on her finger, and she wasn’t free. “Carl is still a factor…”

“About that,” Max murmured as he knew that maybe it was time had come to fill in Liz on Kyle’s suspicions about the legality of their divorce.

But they were interruption by the burst through the door of a small little girl who had out run the adults behind her by a wide margin. “Mommy is it true Max is my Dad?” she burst out said before anyone could stop her.

Max and Liz could only stare at the proof that hey had come together and made something special with jaw dropping at the audacity of the girl to ask something that they had just learned themselves.


*


“Sorry,” came a trio of voices as Maria, Michael and Isabel came rushing behind the girl as it became clear where the child was going once it became clear of what she had overheard and because the adults on scene didn’t know how to answer, so, she came to the source of inquiry, with a sudden need to know. Because it had answered so many questions, she had about herself despite her age. Some still did not make sense but that was for another time she told herself.

“Mommy,” Natasha asked as she looked at Liz with a look of expectation that her mother would make it all seem to make sense.

Liz didn’t know how to answer it because she was beginning to let it sink in, and now she had to face the product of what she and Max had created together, and for so long she had been led to believe something that hadn’t been true, and she didn’t know how to respond to her daughter’s very clear interest in knowing the truth about her parentage. Natasha was always intelligent and had a quest to dig until she knew the answer “Mommy?”

“Let me,” Max said softly to Liz who nodded as he got down on his knee in front of the child, he had just been told was his. And it all became clear, and why since Natasha had arrived in their lives had people suspected, and yet he and Liz had been oblivious to it. None of the others in the room, which included Kyle as he walked in after the mob that had rushed after the child.

“Is anyone going to answer me?” Natasha asked as she showered her eyes on both her mother and Max.

“Yes,” Max said as the news whipped through the room because they got Max’s answer before the child did of course as Liz still looked dazed at the possibility.

“Yes, what?” Natasha asked dubiously at Max.

“Yes, I am you father?” Max murmured. “Your Mommy didn’t know so you shouldn’t be too upset with her, okay. Neither of us knew until minutes ago. But yes, you are my daughter”

“I am,” Natasha whispered as she glanced up at Max as Isabel glanced at her brother and then Liz, who nodded.

“Yes,” Max nodded.

“Oh my god,” Maria whispered in the background. It makes so much sense and yet it does not at the same time as Michael whistled to himself at the acknowledgement of the suspicions everyone in their world had about the little girl. It was still something to hear the words Well done Max, well done he mused as he knew his friend’s life was now forever changed, no matter how it went with Liz. Max is a father, wow he thought. It was starting to make Michael question a lot in his own life as he grabbed his wife, and forced her to leave the room with Isabel so that Max and Liz could have some time with Natasha to see how the little girl would react. Kyle kept close to the room because he sensed his presence would be needed sooner than later as he glanced at his fiancé who looked at Kyle with a degree of knowing that this changed things, and everything they knew was no longer the case.

Back inside the room, Natasha was silent as she looked back between her mother and Max. “I know this confuses you,” Liz said softly as she reached out her hand at her daughter, and Natasha approached her. She did not know how to respond. Neither did Max or Liz and it came to their attention that they now had to think about not was best for them, but what was in the best interest of their daughter

“I don’t get it, why didn’t you know?” Natasha asked pointedly at her mother. “Does my other Dad know?”

“No,” Liz muttered. “He didn’t know,” she whispered. “It’s complicated why I didn’t know or why Max didn’t know, and it’s pretty adult stuff right now, and you will know more when you’re older but until you are, well, I am truly sorry that this is affecting you now, because I never wanted you hurt by this?”

“Mom, this is best news of all time” Natasha whispered as she looked at awe at Max as her brain processed the incredible news, as a bright smile came to her face.

Neither Max nor Liz were expecting such a reaction from the little girl as Liz clearly looked surprised. “Really?” she asked as she glanced at Max who was now suspecting for the little girl, life with Carl had not been any easier for her than it had been for Liz, because at least Liz could react. His little girl was too small, and to be a target, it made him feel rage at what his daughter would have had to face in that home. Liz had tried to prevent it, but clearly, it only went so far…

“My other Dad hated me,” Natasha asked as she had long known the truth. “I know he did. He might not have known but he must have known, and Max has been nicer to me than my other Dad ever was, and I appreciate that, so this news is like the best gift I could get Mommy,” she whispered to her mother and Max, and Max took the little girl and eased her worries with a simple smile. “I hope this doesn’t mean we have to leave Roswell?” she whispered to her mother and Max. “I’ll be good, I promise…”

That promise broke Max’s heart as well as Liz because it was clear life with Carl had instilled a lot of fear in the little girl that Liz had not always been able to soften. “You always are a good girl, so don’t think you’re not, and you don’t need to make that promise because while I don’t know what the future holds, and neither does Max” Liz whispered as she glanced at Max who nodded. “But I will promise you that you and Sarah Rose will be on the top of my mind in whatever we decide okay, and I will certainly get your opinion before we make any decisions, okay?”

“Okay,” Natasha said accepting her mother’s word as she glanced at Max. “So, you’re my Dad?”

“Yes,” Max confirmed.

“Cool,” the seven-year-old whispered as she was still struck at how happy it made her. “I will have an awesome story for show and tell whenever I go back to school,” she smiled as she ran out of the room and left both Liz and Max looking amazed at the reaction of the girl.

“That is some girl you raised there Liz,” Max muttered as they watched Natasha approach Isabel outside the room. “You should be proud?”

“It wasn’t me,” Liz muttered. “It’s all on her,” she sighed. “I should have left, and raised her on my own, and then I could be the role model that she needs…” she asked. “Because it’s clear she has scars from a life with Carl, and scars that don’t always show up on the skin.”

“You survived,” Max murmured as he approached Liz, and sat down and took her had and she felt her heart start beating once again, after being dead for so long. “She’ll always see you as her hero for that alone,” he sighed. “And you have Sarah Rose…”

“Yeah, I do” Liz nodded as she didn’t know what their future would look like, as for so long she had looked at it in only one way, and now she’s finding out she has been looking at it all wrong, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight. “I wish I would have known…”

“Me too,” Max admitted. “But she’s still only seven, and has a lot of years to go, and we can make sure that she and her sister have lives that they can be proud of.”

“Thank you, Max,” Liz muttered as she was struck at how a remarkable man she once loved, and still might, as she would always regret her choices.

“For what?” Max asked.

“For not coming down on me for leaving you out of her first seven years,” Liz murmured as she glanced at the man who she had wished she had spent these last years with… It forced Max to miss on so much, so how can he forgive me?

“You didn’t know, and I believe you when you said you didn’t know” Max murmured. “I can only think of that for some reason the pregnancy was slowed down from a normal one because who we are,” he murmured. “You’re special and so is Natasha, and despite some inner scars, it’s pretty clear to me Liz that she is a happy little girl.”

“Yes, she is, isn’t she?” Liz asked. “I look at her now, and I see you…”

“I see you,” Max smiled. “I will always see you…”


*


They are hopeless Isabel muttered to herself as she and Kyle took Natasha for a walk around the hospital and to stop at the NICU to see if she could get a glimpse of her baby sister. Isabel could see how much her brother was growing attached to this changing drama, and she did not know what it would mean for the future. “How did they get it so wrong?”

“Sometimes that happens,” Kyle allowed. “And we haven’t even gotten to that other matter that needs to be discussed.”

“What does that mean for them?” Isabel asked.

“It’s not like Liz knew,” Kyle muttered because they were very apparent, they had a child listening to their conversation. “But still there is a very growing issue with that decree,” he muttered. “And something Max could use to say he didn’t have the right knowledge to agree to it, because if he had only known than we both know he would have said no, and wouldn’t have tried to sign those papers, or whatever he ended up doing.”

“I want my brother to be happy,” Isabel murmured.

“You’re Max’s sister,” Natasha pipped up into the conversation, and Isabel smiled.

“Yes,” Isabel confirmed.

“So, that makes you my aunt, right?” Natasha asked.

“So, it does” Isabel smiled because it meant there was one more family member. A family that had been shockingly cut down by the loss of her parents, and now they could add another one, and who knows what Max and Liz would end up doing, and Sarah Rose could end up joining the fun. “You’ve found a unique family to join?”

“Mommy doesn’t have to leave, does she?” Natasha asked. “And go back to my other Dad?”

“Not if she doesn’t want to,” Isabel murmured Max won’t let that happen without a fight she mused as she looked at Kyle who nodded .”Let’s get you something to drink, as you have had a long day.”


*


“Seriously,” Maria asked as she sat next to her husband as he drove her to her mother’s place. Her car was out of commission once more, and not only because of the crash but because it was needed until the deputies were finished with it, and therefore she was without wheels. She was supposed to be starting at work that night, and she did not know if she could, with her headache raging, but she knew she needed the money. So, she was headed back to her mother’s place, and get some sleep before she headed for work. “And you’re just telling me this, now?” she answered to Michael’s latest bombshell.

“A lot has happened in the last twenty-four hours,” Michael murmured as it seemed unbelievable for him to be next to Maria after so long, and not going out in a search of a risky bet to risk it all on, or some floozy of the moment Everyone pales next to Maria. “Obviously, Kyle didn’t tell you?”

“I tried to get it out of him, but because he paid my first mechanic’s bills, well, I couldn’t very well get down on him, and then everything happened with Natasha. Wow, Michael, wow…”

“I don’t know how it works, or if they could revoke it at this point” Michael conceded. “Although the Natasha development changes things?”

“Liz didn’t know,” Maria muttered. “Otherwise, she would have told Max whether it meant anything for their marriage or not. Since, she was determined to leave him at that time, but one can’t look back and second guess what we would have done if we weren’t given what we know today?”

“Right,” Michael acknowledged.

“If the divorce is funky?” Maria asked.

“Then Max and Liz are still married. Natasha would have been a product of the marriage regardless, and Carl might be deemed a simple affair, and Sarah Rose could still be declared legally Max’s child.”

“But they have legal papers that indicate a separation in the very least?” Maria asked. “Carl can do a paternity test?”

“Still, if their marriage was never officially and rightfully terminated than it has simply been a long drawn out separation, and Max is on the hook for legal claims over the children. Carl’s only recourse would have to go to court to prove paternity. That is now out for Natasha, and for Sarah Rose, well, her birth was escalated by the abuse shown to her mother…” he muttered as the anger threatened to take over once again. “That is on Carl”

“Oh god,” Maria whispered.

“Something tells me Max is going to protect those children and Liz from anything Carl tries,” Michael admitted as he turned onto the street that the Deluca/Valenti home resided as he reflected on all that had happened within these last twenty four minutes and how it could mean Maria might be out of here before long “So, how much longer do you think you’re sticking around?”

“I don’t know?” Maria conceded as she had yet to process anything that had happened these last hours, and days. “My life wasn’t going the way I wanted, and so I was headed south, for a job on a cruise ship, but I turned it down because of everything with Liz, so, my schedule is a lot lighter these days” she sighed. “I think I should stick around and be the responsible daughter for once, and prove to Mom that she can count on me?”

“What happened with that career you wanted?” Michael asked as he stopped the car, but Maria did not rush to get out as he knew Amy always missed her daughter, but never resented Maria for not coming back, nor resenting him for that matter in allowing Maria to stay away. Still he felt a lot of resentment he knew.

“It didn’t go the way I wanted,” Maria conceded. “I think I should have taken the lesson New York was trying to teach me, when you won’t compromise your values than you’re rarely going to go places until you do hit it big and you are able to give no as an answer. That was never going to be me…” she sighed. “So, I have to think about a lot in my life…”

“I am sorry,” Michael admitted. “I know I never showed it, but I did think you were talented…”

“Well, we’re the way we are,” Maria murmured as she and Michael glanced at each other one more time, and knew their history was one for the history books along with Max and Liz. “We had a funny way of showing it, but I did know I had your support.”

‘But not enough to stay in our marriage?” Michael wondered

“Since when did you want me to stay?” Maria asked as she turned and faced her husband with the truth “When you let me go?”

“I always wanted you Maria,” Michael sighed as he knew the chief reason, he had screwed up these last years without his wife was because she had left. “And plus, it was you, who left me…” he muttered. “You wanted Hollywood. You didn’t want me, and you didn’t want our marriage?”

“Space boy, I always wanted you,” Maria muttered as she opened the door to the car as all she could see was the boy she had met at fifteen years old when she fell in love He was something unique. A bad boy who made my heart race. “Yes, you made me crazy. I tried walking away, but I could never stay away, not really, but should I have not wanted to at least try to see if I stood a chance out there. Why would I want regrets if I never tried? So, yeah, I deserve that, but you stayed here when you could have come with me,” she sighed but knew that argument was faulty because Michael would never have taken to California life.” Yeah, I know you probably would not have meshed out there with the life that Californians lead, and we were probably on thin line, but you never tried,” she sighed. “You chose to stay, even after Max was on his feet. Although of course, truthfully, neither of us knew how to be married back then. It was drunken dare done in Vegas, and the next morning we woke up, and we were never the same…” she muttered. “We were never going to be Max and Liz?”

“No, we weren’t,” Michael agreed as he could not help but agree that neither of them knew how to be married, and they were always one disaster away from ending, Rarely, did it go well for long. “But you were still special”

“Thanks for that, at least” Maria sighed as she got up and leaned forward to say some parting words, “Long story short, I am here for the near future, because who knows what the future holds. These last twenty-four have changed a lot of lives”

“Yeah, they have, haven’t they?” Michael muttered as he wondered what the future held for all of them, as he drove home.


*


“Were you pregnant when you signed those divorce papers?” Kyle was asking Liz as he sat in her hospital room. The hospital was silent except for the drama going on in the hospital room as Isabel had taken Natasha to the Crashdown to spend some time with Jeff and Nancy and to have dinner. Later, she would be back to pick up Kyle because finally the discussion of the state of Max and Liz’s divorce had come up, and he elected to stay to have it as he could see the confusion on his ex-girlfriend’s face ¬¬the interrelated relationships in our little fraternity are quite something he mused to himself with a laugh at how small their group was, “I know this doesn’t make sense…”

“Are you’re saying Max’s father circumvented certain laws, and as a result Max and I might still be married?” Liz asked if this day had not been bizarre enough without this added layer and now, she was being confronted with a doozy to top them all. “Which would make me a bigamist if I married Carl, and was already married?”

“Only if you knew, and you didn’t, right?” Kyle asked.

“Of course not,” Liz muttered as she searched Max’s eyes. “You knew about this?” he asked as she could see that this discussion was not foreign to him. “You told him?” she asked her former boyfriend. Because, still, it was amazing to her to know Kyle had ended up a lawyer because that was not something, she had been expecting from him to be when they grew up. She figured despite his grumbling that he would end up at the Sheriff’s department as his father’s heir apparent to continue the family business, and to know he followed Phillip’s Evans example and became the town’s leading attorney. We grow up, don’t we?

“I may have said something about it,” Kyle conceded.

“I didn’t believe it,” Max muttered as much as I want it to be true and for it solve Liz’s problems, well, there is no way Dad would have done it and said as much “Still I don’t believe that Dad would have done that, even if it was for me or he was trying to save us from ourselves” he sighed as he knew his parents had witnessed how much being on the run, and having Liz captured had changed their son and daughter-in-law after they were able to return to Roswell. “Dad was always by the book. Phillip Evans rarely bended the rules.”

“Of course, he wouldn’t” Liz murmured as she remembered well what Phillip had done for her, and his son, and it still felt raw to know he was gone from this Earth. “The mere thought is too bizarre to even contemplate,” she muttered. “And even if for a minute we could say that he might have bended to a degree, the mere idea that Max and I could still married, Kyle, there is no way the court would see us anything other than divorced, and uphold my marriage to Carl?” she sighed. “We would have to make multiple cartwheels of the truth to make it the truth?”

“Don’t be too sure,” Kyle muttered as he knew courts, and sometimes they can set aside things on the smallest of technicality. “Which is why I asked whether you knew you were pregnant when you signed those divorce papers?”

“Yes,” Liz admitted. “It’s the reason I wanted to end things and make it official with Carl, you know, because of the baby. I wanted to be free,” she sighed as she saw the look in Max’s eyes. “I was naïve, and I was stupid. I was hurting a lot in those days, and I wasn’t thinking straight otherwise I might have listened to my parents or the very least to Maria who saw the red flags with Carl.”

“You didn’t tell Max you were pregnant?” Kyle asked as he saw a glimmer of light in this plan of his “That you had a child on the way?”

“No,” Max admitted as he gave a searing glance at his soulmate. “The first glimpse I had that Liz had a child was six months ago when she showed up at my parent’s service. Which is when I saw Natasha for the first time,” he said stopping hauntingly as he thought of the chance meeting that was not a chance meeting at all, as it was obviously planned. “Can I ask, why did you bring her?” If you did not think she was mine?

“Because I couldn’t leave her at home,” Liz admitted I did not trust Carl, and that before I knew what I know now. “And maybe I was forcing myself to take the step in coming back to my home town, and she was the reason and if I had the courage I might have done more with it, but I didn’t, and things went from bad to worse with Carl from that moment on” she sighed. “I told you not to tell my parents because I got scared because of what I knew my life was like, and still if only I hadn’t woken up that pandora box.”

“Something tells me Carl would still have struck out at you, whether you went to service or not” Kyle muttered. “Carl is that type of person, and I have seen enough of them in my career so far…”

“So, you didn’t give Max a chance to see whether the baby was his?” Kyle asked. “To a court of law, and to a judge at the very least, that might be grounds to give the divorce a second look?”

“The dates were off,” Liz murmured. “I didn’t knowingly deceive Max. Why would I have told my estranged husband that I was pregnant by another man?” she asked. “The dates made it seem like there was no way Max could have been the father. I believed Carl was the only likely possibility.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Kyle said. “We can work with this,” he smiled. “You have admitted to drinking too much before the discovery of your pregnancy and therefore we can say that you couldn’t be sure of when you conceived” he murmured as Liz looked at both of her ex’s with shot of wariness at the blatant coloring of the lines of the truth.

“And our date of separation doesn’t quite mesh with Natasha’s birthdate,” Liz murmured. “She was not premature”

“But we have a DNA test that verifies that Max is the little girl’s father,” Kyle determined. “To a court of law, we could imply that you might have tried again, before you ended things because whether the dates exactly add up, nothing changes that a test has determined Max to be Natasha’s father,” he sighed. “So, it would give us grounds even if there were errors in the original paperwork, and they rule your separation is valid”

“Do you think it would work?” Max asked as he knew he would take any shot at a dart table if it meant he could be with Liz or could at least save her the heartache of Carl.

“There is a chance,” Kyle agreed. “If you want me to look into it, and pursue it further…”

“So, how about it, Liz?” Max asked as he was willing to do anything to protect his wife that resided in his heart, and he would go to moon to have her declared his legal wife, and to get a chance at a miracle. A miracle had occurred when he had a chance at fatherhood against all odds, because of who he was, and it showed that they could never discount each other, and there was always a chance, even if it is so small that you don’t think you make it work.

So, he took the shot in the dark, and got down on his knee in front of a shock and strongly affected Liz by this action, as an very amused Kyle witnessed the moment Atta boy “Would you like to stay my wife?”

Did she?
RoswellFan68
Obsessed Roswellian
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Re: Holding out for a Hero (CC, Mature) - Chapter 14 - 06/05/2020

Post by RoswellFan68 »

Natasha took the news very well. I think she wanted Max to be her from the time she saw him again in the hospital.

I hope Liz accepts Max's proposal to stay married.
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Parker1947
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Holding out for a Hero - Chapter 15 - 06/10/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

Two months later…

Max unlocked the door and walked into the room and looked around a home that was vastly changed than the walls that inhabited his home away from the hospital. A home he had barely spent time in because he had spent so much time in the hospital. Being a workaholic Now though, everything was different as he looked around and smiled and knew he faced a very different life now, and he wouldn’t have it any other way because this was a dream he had dreamt about having for most of his life, since he came to this land and since he first set eyes on his beloved, and on the woman who would capture his dreams until he got a chance when they were both sixteen. Enemies, real and imagined had taken them away from each other, but now, he was embarking on a new adventure, and it made his life have meaning as he called through the house that had been set up for this special day. “Natasha,” he called for his daughter. “Where are you, because you’re on” he called as the bubbling eight-year-old little girl came rushing downstairs.

“Is it time yet?” Natasha whispered in all her excited glory as she still wore her private school uniform as she had only just gotten home from school. She was now a student at a private school here in Roswell. She loved every minute of it, as she was making friends all over the place. It was clear she was a very sociable little girl. Still though Max and Liz felt the private school was best until she reached high school, given the unique challenges of their life. A private school offered a more protected environment until the little girl could handle the community, and the added knowledge of how special she was, and the gifts she was getting accustomed to. Max glanced around as the decorations in the house were ones of celebration, but also of the upcoming holidays that were fast approaching. Thanksgiving was only days away, and it would be very festive, and the little girl couldn’t wait, but this was day she had been dreaming, all her life, and now it was on the cusp of occurring, and she couldn’t wait as she looked up in awe at her father, who was still a hero to her…

“Why don’t you come out and see,” was all Max said as they walked out of the house, and he walked down the steps the car out front. In the car, sat the love of his life holding a bundle of joy that was coming home from the hospital. Because Sarah Rose Evans was coming home from the hospital after being born to young but blossoming in the hospital.

“She’s so big,” Natasha said as she looked at her parents, and saw her baby sister and smiled because this was the dream she always wanted for her life as Liz handed Sarah Rose to Max who took the bundle and smiled down at the small face who was all Liz. Even more than Natasha at birth, Sarah Rose was a picture of Liz as a baby. Jeff and Nancy even saw it as they both grew into the roles of protective parents of their only child, as they had happily reconciled, and they were now closer than they ever were and especially as grandparents to their granddaughters.

Liz got out of the car and looked up at the house she had not seen because she had spent the first month in the hospital recovering from her attack, and the second month at her parent’s place over the Crashdown while she and Max sorted out their legal issues. As a result, Natasha would end up living with Max most of the time, but she did spend quality time at the Crashdown with her mother and grand parents, but Liz could not very well move in with Max because it would have send the wrong message as perception was important as they fought it out in court, as did all they could to make sure Carl did not win any of the battles he was launching in his fight against them.

But thankfully, earlier that day, the process had ended when the court had legally set aside Max and Liz’s divorce, and ruled that they were still married. It wasn’t Phillip’s errors in the creation divorce that was cited in the decision but they went with the grounds that Max hadn’t been told of Natasha’s pending birth which disregarded Max’s right to know a child was on the way, and to allow him a decision into whether he wanted to be involved or not and sign those divorce papers with proper degree of knowledge of all the facts related to his end of his marriage. Along with that action, Liz’s time with Carl was also officially dissolved, and because Carl was sitting in prison along with his mistress as they waited trial on his charges related to his attack on Liz, with counts including his abuse of Natasha, and the attempted murder of Sarah Rose. One of his mistresses, Billie, was also charged in Natasha’s short-lived abduction. The judge had overruled Carl’s allegations that Liz was an unfit parent and warned Carl if he continued to pursue such a charge against Liz than he should know that Sarah Rose still would be given over to Max’s custody due to the marriage being declared valid, as she would join Natasha whose custody claim by her biological father had been granted due to the DNA test being declared valid.

Natasha was in the process of being claimed as an Evans, and Max was currently petitioning the court to change Natasha’s birth certificate to add him as Natasha’s birth father and change her last name.

And to add her as claimant to the trust fund that Phillip and Diane Evans left to their future grandchildren, of yes, both Max and Isabel. While Max and Isabel got most of the financial assets from the estate. Each future grandchild would gain a sizable trust fund when they turned eighteen, and Max was making sure Natasha qualified.

And when the adoption of Sarah Rose was finalized, Sarah Rose would be added. Evans was only informality on Sarah Rose’s paperwork because the final adoption paperwork was not finalized yet, but the day was coming after the judge stripped Carl of rights to Sarah Rose, and allowed Max to adopt the child who had spent her first two months in the hospital, and now she was coming back home to spend her life with her parents and big sister who was bouncing up and down at the thought that she had everything a eight year old could want.

Because setting aside the divorce was not just a way for Max and Liz to get a run around Carl. It was a sincere determination that they wanted to try again. They wanted each other, and wanted to be married to each other, and if there weren’t doubts they weren’t married with any of those family or friend, well, they were planning to tie the knot again, that summer, to make it official, and have Natasha and Sarah Rose join in the fun of their family becoming official in a glorious family wedding. Something that had been denied to them the first time as Max and Liz had been forced to elope.

“It’s perfect,” Liz was saying as she looked up at Max as she took the baby again, and they walked up the stairs and followed their enthusiastic daughter as she raced into her home that she would be sharing with both her parents.

Max made sure the door was open as he carried the many bags, as they walked in. “Surprise,” came a loud shout of happy family as Liz walked into the house with her baby daughter. A banner over the fireplace said, “Welcome home Liz and Sarah Rose Evans”

“Max, you didn’t” Liz laughed as she glanced around and saw the many happy family members who had come to witness this day.

“They wanted to celebrate with us,” Max murmured as they saw their whole fraternity of family. Everyone crowded the living room as Maria and Isabel raced forward to see the baby. “My goodness, she’s precious” they said in unison.

“Just like her mother,” Max smiled. “Welcome home Liz”

“I am truly home, aren’t I?” Liz asked as she leaned into kiss Max, and their were claps of excitement as Natasha was living a dream come true as Michael looked over and smiled at Maria who couldn’t help giggle as she took her husband’s hand which now had her refitted superman inspired diamond engagement ring featured as they also leaned to kiss.

Happy endings were now to spread…

*

That June, Isabel and Kyle would marry in a beautiful ceremony with both Max and Michael giving the bride away, and a month later, Max and Liz would have their own wedding. Natasha had teamed up with her aunt Isabel to design the perfect wedding for her parents. Their daughter, Sarah Rose was blossoming and growing every day. Her early birth was not a deterrent at all to her well being in the coming months and having Max on hand and his abilities only was a happy coincidence. There would be no honeymoon because it was always honeymoon in their house because they were sickening in love, and in bed but also, because Liz started just days later as a resident at Roswell Memorial, joining Max and Faith in the resident’s program. She had spent the days since returning to Max, and coming home as a mother, and applying for the residency. She also had spent time with her parents, getting to know the people they were today. As Jeff and Nancy did the same.

Once she began the residency program. Faith and Liz would become fast friends, and Faith and her husband Paul would socialize with Max and Liz as the two couples would spend time together as Faith eventually become a surgeon at the hospital.

While Max stayed in the Emergency Room, until they were finished with their residencies and instead of staying in the hospital. Max and Liz would leave to start their own medical practice, to serve their community, and to be able to home for the kids, as they grew up.

A family that would be include the addition of Diane Faith Evans two years after their second wedding.

As Isabel and Kyle would have a son, Phillip James and Katia Ella Valenti as Kyle officially took over Phillip’s law firm and changed the name. Isabel would finish her degree and yet stayed home with the kids for a few years before she opened her own fashion boutique.

Natasha was growing up, and becoming wise, and very formidable with her powers that she was being taught by her father to be careful with and to only use when the moment called for it, but she could be very powerful when the need did arise. With their eyes trained for any specs of powers in their youngest but in a move that was surprising to Max and Liz it was discovered that it was not only Sarah Rose but also Diane who were both determined to be completely human. And while Diane was gifted academically still, she did not have any true powers unlike her biological older sister. Natasha was something special they all decided. Created to help bring her parents together and be her own little hero.

A good friend of hers would turn out to be, despite their age difference, Lucy Elizabeth Guerin, the daughter of Michael and Maria who was born the summer after Liz’s attack when her parents, Michael and Maria decided to finally make their marriage work. No divorce was ever formalized, and no second marriage was needed as Maria seeing how unique her friend’s chance was, wanted to give her own life a makeover as she moved into Michael’s half of the duplex within days of Max and Liz’s reconciliation, and the baby was soon to follow.

And they found their union was stronger than ever, and Maria found purpose when Roswell City Council asked Maria to start up a theatre program for the town youth. All ages, from five to eighteen would be allowed to join the productions they would run out of downtown move theatre that had closed, but was reopened, and refinished for the honor. Maria acted in a few of them, but mostly she served as Director of the Playhouse, which was called Second Chances.

Natasha would join at its formation as she also upheld her dream to work at her grandparents’ restaurant as she discovered a love for restaurant management and became the heir to take over the Crashdown in the years to come once the Parker’s retired, but she loved Maria’s Playhouse too, and became a fixture, and eventually Lucy would also join… While Michael did some useful with his need to get answers, and to knock some heads around and became a private investigator, and mostly did his work by the book, and Jim rarely had get involved, because Michael had finally found his happiness.

As they all had the ability to be their own hero, and to help others find their way.

THE END!

AUTHOR NOTE: Thank you to all those who took to this story. Either lurking in reading, or commenting. I decided to keep it a little story, and simple. At whether Natasha was Max's, and the status of their marriage. I appreciate the interest.
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