Always Tomorrow (CC, Mature) - A Reunion's Endgame - Chapter 45 - Completed - 09/30/2020

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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Parker1947
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Always Tomorrow - Chapter 23 - 07/14/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

Thirty minutes earlier…

Jake pulled up into the driveway of his childhood home. He had dropped his wife off at her hair appointment and his daughter was being spoiled by her great grandparents, Phillip and Diane Evans and driving by the station to have a talk with his grandfather to see whether he was able to come back to his job now that his sister’s case was over. Jim wanted to talk it over. Jake did not know what that meant but he had to drop something off at his parents’ home, and he wanted to check on his sister.

Driving into the driveway, he had gotten out of his car and then saw the black car across the street, and knew that his parent’s home had been under protection for the last month over threats over his sister’s case but the threats were largely disappeared when it went out into the media, how Nicholas had tortured Elizabeth and she’s wasn’t some stone cold killer getting her freedom. The media did not know everything, but enough to tide them over despite a sizable percentage still outraged that Elizabeth had been given a lenient deal. His experience told him that this black car was different.

So, he needed help, and therefore he called Max. Fifteen minutes later, Max pulled up. “What was so important?”

“That car is suspicious,” Jake muttered as he pointed the car out to his father-in-law. “It doesn’t have New Mexico license plate. I called them in, and they came up blank” Jake asked. “I didn’t want to get Dad into this because he’s working hard at getting his business established again” he sighed as he knew how much of brunt his father took in the wake of his sister’s disappearance as being a private investigator stopped being something Michael had any interest in doing but as time went on, he started to want to get back into the game and was establishing his business again, and therefore and Jake didn’t want to get his father going again. Especially if this led to something. Unless he needed to alert his father, so he felt on safer ground with Max.

“Okay,” Max nodded as they walked to the car. And he maneuvered the car opened using his powers, and he went through the car, and started wondering what he was going to find when in the glove compartment. Only to find a spare gun, and ID. Taking out the ID, he swore when he saw it.

“What is it?” Jake asked.

“The FBI” Max murmured as he glanced down at the car and thought back to his talk with the prosecutor the night before and the nagging feeling he had gotten over the last hours only became more of a nagging one now.

“What does the FBI want with my family house?” Jake asked.

“One word. Your sister,” Max murmured as the situation was started to become clearer for Max and he didn’t like what he was thinking.

“What does Elizabeth have to do with this?” Jake wondered as Max stalked to the fence.

“We’re going in the backway to find out exactly that…” Max murmured as they went into the backyard, and now they were facing with Ava and Elizabeth. “We don’t want them the chance to leave before giving us the answers that we need.”

“So, wait, the suicidal torture victim was all an award-winning act?” Max asked off his client as Elizabeth defiantly shook her head. “It’s no wonder the prosecutor wasn’t convinced but her hands were tied, weren’t they?” Max asked as he turned his attention back to Ava. “So, I take it that you pressured Lisa into a deal?”

“Yes,” Ava confirmed. “We knew it wouldn’t be served for Elizabeth to be in prison when she could help us elsewhere” she muttered to the utter disgust in Elizabeth’s eyes as she could see her brother and Uncle’s reactions and the way looked at her change, and she hated seeing the disappointment on their face.

“You had us convinced?” Jake asked of his sister.

“She’s lying” Elizabeth muttered. “What she isn’t saying is that she forced me to stay with Nicholas. I wanted out eight months ago. Everything is true Uncle Max, Jake, I promise you. Up to eight months ago, I was this shell of the person I was. I was weak, and drugged to the gills most of the time, but I was close to getting out. I was almost there. When I had that abortion, I was going to leave. Hell, with the consequences. Nicholas was away or so I thought, and I thought I had the time to get away. So, yeah, I was thisclose to getting out, but Ava found me, and she told me it was all part of a larger scheme to get at Nicholas and Khivar and if I stayed with Nicholas and this time convince him that I was pregnant, and that they would work to get him in the meantime.” Elizabeth sighed as she looked at her handler. “Only for me to find out that he had made you, agent” she sighed. “You were working with him, weren’t you?”

“No,” Ava muttered. “He didn’t make me.”

“Yes, he did,” Elizabeth muttered. “I saw evidence that he knew you were on to him and he was diverting whatever case you were trying to make on him” she sighed. “So, it was all for nothing, but it kept me with him for another six months, with a lie that had a ticking time bomb attached to it, and you knew it. You knew if there was no baby, and that Nicholas could have found out at any time, and what the result would most likely be, and you kept me in…”

“You knew my sister was there with a mad man.” Jake asked with rage in his eyes. “You sent her back to her torturer, and you could have gotten her out, but you kept her there?” he asked with disgust on his face and Max winced at the knowledge that someone did know where Elizabeth was, and yet they used to her to get what they wanted and didn’t care about the abuse she was suffering or the despair she was being sent into. “You knew what he was doing to her and had done to her since her abduction?”

“We wanted his boss” Ava murmured and knew how it sounded and got anger from all corners of the room.

“And to be able to get to his boss, what, you forced my sister to submit to her abuser to get at Khivar?” Jake asked as he felt sick to his stomach at the thought of someone knowing where Elizabeth and yet kept her there because it suited their purpose at the end of the day. “That is sick”

“Jake is right, it is sick. And highly unethical” Max muttered. “I get that you wanted her to help your case, but how about human decency?” he asked. “And how were you supposed to get him anyways. He’s on Antar?”

“No,” Ava muttered as she knew was being forced to reveal something, she would rather not tell them. “He’s not.”

“What are you talking about” Max stammered as he could not believe what he was hearing. “Are you telling me he’s on his planet. If he is, and you knew this, then why didn’t you tell us?” he asked. “Why didn’t you warn us because if he’s knows where to find us then we are all in danger. Is Elizabeth right, you kept us in the dark all to serve your case?”

“What is new Uncle Max?” Elizabeth muttered. “That has been her specialty all this time,” she murmured with disgust. “Keeping us in the dark, and leaving especially me at the hands of the devil”

“He was in Los Angeles,” Ava admitted as she sighed and knew she had spill what she knew against her better judgment. “Years ago, Khivar was forced off Antar in a coup. Similar to the one who took us off the planet, So like us, to save himself, he found his way to Earth and looked at every angle in trying to get back to his home planet, and none of them worked, but while he was trying to find a way back, he did the only thing he had any talent for, and he took over the soul and body of a Los Angeles drug dealer, named Kevin Salazar and in his time on Earth, he eventually made the enterprise one of the most deadly in the United States. As you would assume Nicholas was one of his men. Someone who had climbed the ranks though out his years on Earth, and when Khivar showed up in California and they found each other. Khivar and Nicholas formed a partnership with Nicholas, and they struck a deal. Nicholas knew of the existence of us, and you guys. He came up with the brilliant idea that if they had access to a baby born from the original royal blood line then that baby might be a ticket back to Antar. Khivar had this feeling that he could get the country to see his side if he had a heir of the original royal family, but it couldn’t be any baby, but one that had alien pedigree so it couldn’t be any baby born of a union between one of us…”

“My royal line?” Max asked sickened by the idea. “Which is what he wanted back seven years ago, when he wanted to use Grace, but she and Jake got together, but because the seal goes to Michael if something goes to me and not to my sister. Jake is a Guerin via adoption and not Michael’s blood. So, they used Elizabeth endlessly to try to get the royal heir to go back”

“Yeah.” Ava admitted. “Something to that affect. But in his present form, Kevin Salazar was making good use of the drug trade here in the States and was becoming power hungry and he was using his powers for evil. He was causing destruction, and taking lives in many forms, and we were hoping that Nicholas would bring Elizabeth closer to Salazar. So, we could get at both but we didn’t bargain on Nicholas keeping Elizabeth in the same apartment and using her” she muttered as she didn’t want to finish what she was saying, as anyone could figure out what Ava was suggesting. “For his own purposes.”

“Then you were goddamn stupid,” Jake said with real anger in his voice. “Anyone seeing what he did to my sister back when she was fifteen could see that he was using her as a revenge against my family” Jake muttered. “If it led to helping Khivar, then perfect but he was finding great pleasure in getting revenge on my father, and it went beyond helping Khivar to how it was benefiting his own quest for revenge at the end of the day. He would never have given her up to someone else when he could have used her for his pleasure.” He gritted. “If it led to a baby, fine, then he would have used it, but would have kept Elizabeth as his personal toy, because he wanted to destroy my father…”

“Jake is right,” Max sighed. “As long as Elizabeth was his slave then he knew we would never have or find peace. Sure, he probably hoped one day she might one day give up what Khivar desired and he might have been getting to that point, that he would sacrifice her to because he was tiring of her. Given that he blackmailed Elizabeth into coming into his web using our secrets, it was about destroying us and using her for his own sick personal enjoyment” he muttered with great hatred.

“And of course, she was having other men’s babies” Ava muttered. “If only…”

“If I had given him what he wanted” Elizabeth muttered. “He would have set me free?” she asked. “Then you are as crazy as your duplicate was,” she sighed which led to Max’s wincing and Ava going pale at the mention of Tess. “If seven years I had given him a baby. Then I would be dead today. And while I might have hated the circumstances, they were born under still then I my sons would not have a chance to be here today. “I gave him enough. I was not giving him that. I stayed because it protected my family. If I stayed then he would not come after my parents, and my siblings. Especially Belle and Emily…”

“Nicholas wasn’t getting at Belle and Emily…” Ava muttered. “I told you that…”

“You knew he had me,” Elizabeth reminded Ava. “You knew and you kept me there until I served your purpose. And that happened eight months ago when I tried to get my freedom. When I went for my final abortion,” she muttered to her brother and Uncle. “I thought I had the time to get away from Nicholas because he was off on a sizable trip that time. I was in the hospital and Ava found me.”

“You weren’t getting your freedom,” Ava reminded Elizabeth. “Nicholas knew. He was biding his time. He might not have known yet, but we offered you a deal…”

“What kind of a deal?” Max asked.

“We would help her clean and she help us…” Ava muttered.

“So that is how you got clean?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” Elizabeth admitted and yet she knew had found her rock bottom as that point. She was tired of the drugs and being strung out all the time. “But I wanted to be clean. I was tired. And I thought if I could get clean, then that might allow me a chance to figure where to go next”

“She was to stay clean and give us intel on Nicholas and we were hoping Khivar. To do this, we were hoping by thinking she was giving him a baby that it might soften him and bring him closer to Khivar.”

“But it didn’t…” Jake asked.

“No, but we had hope” Ava muttered

“You always have hope, but it never did pan out, right?” Max asked.

“Nope. And then she goes and kills the bastard,” Ava sighed. “Ending any chance at getting Salazar…”

“Otherwise I was going to be dead once he knew I was not pregnant, and you knew that I wasn’t going to survive this latest deception. Especially since he knew about my other attempts to go around him.”

“We would have saved you.” Ava sighed.

“You didn’t get her out when you knew he had her in his web,” Jake muttered. “How was she supposed to think she would have gotten out of there alive. If you knew she was there, and you kept it going because you wanted the big fish. Nicholas was too small, right. He was smalltime. A despicable bastard but a bastard who did not give you what your career would have needed, the big fish. “You didn’t care what he was doing to her…”

“That is unfair. We did.” Ava sighed as she hated having to defend herself.

“Why spring her from prison?” Max asked as he could not help but be curious about what gaining Elizabet’s release from prison helped Ava’s case. What does a mental hospital bring? “Tell us the truth. What does it get you?” he wondered. “How does her be in a mental hospital help the operation?”

“When Nicholas was killed. We though Elizabeth lost us our chance, but the situation has changed, and we have new life because Kevin Salazar, well, he got himself caught up in another sting, which we were not a part of. It took us awhile before we became aware that around the time that Elizabeth killed Nicholas. Because he’s so damn powerful, well, instead of jail, he claimed insanity and he therefore used his connections to get himself placed in a mental health facility, and that facility ended up being here in New Mexico while he awaits trial.”

“What is he doing here?” Jake asked. “Why not one in California?”

“Space issues,” Ava muttered.

“Or you used your connections to get him transferred closer to Elizabeth. You went to Lisa didn’t you and got her to make a deal with me so that Elizabeth who needs rehabilitation gets sent to the same institution,” Max muttered as horror came to his face as it struck him of what Ava was angling to be able to use his goddaughter for, and it made him sick. “You wanted to use her as bait. Attractive bait. Someone from our line. Michael’s eldest. His eldest daughter. Someone who is troubled, and a drug addict and who is a two-time killer and who was sentenced to a mental hospital? Because she’s Nicholas’ killer, you think that will attract this Salazar enough to bring her into his orbit and during time for Elizabeth to attract him so that you can ultimately take him down…” Max asked sickened by the idea. “You actually want her to team up with him?”

The room became eerily silent as the weight of what Max deduced sunk into the gathering and when Ava did not dispute it, he knew he struck at the truth. Horror came to Jake as it sunk into him of what Ava was asking of his sister, or her greatest desire would be in using his sister. “If that is what you want then HELL NO!” Jake said adamantly. “Absolutely no way, are you using my sister in that manner” as Elizabeth grew quiet as it started to sink in what Ava wanted her to do.

“We want access to Salazar,” Ava admitted. “How she gets that access is up to her?”

“Jesus. Then you’re as sick as your duplicate,” Jake stammered as he thought of what his sister might be forced to do to bring the case to a close as Elizabeth had stepped back as she went white at the mere thought of what the grand plan might be…

“You didn’t know Tess,” Ava sighed as she thought of Tess and glanced at Max who went white. “I don’t like what I often called upon to do, but if it leads us to taking down the kingpin that is killing hundreds of kids and adults all over this country. You got lucky Jake that drugs did not take your sister from you. She survived. Not everyone has the same opportunity. Lives have been lost, and so yeah, I will take it and furthermore, I will do what it takes to get Salazar off the streets, and his organization shut down. Tess often had no conscious in what she did. I do.”

“Do you?” Jake asked as he doubted it.

“You’re a cop, Deputy Guerin. I know what you have done in the name of the job. So, do not get so rigorous or moral when you know there is a line, and sometimes that line has be crossed to get the case to the finish line. We want Salazar and if I can get him by using Elizabeth in an undercover mission then I will do it. It will end him and rid of us of any threat from Khivar. So, yes, I will do it. Guerin, you didn’t know him,” Ava murmured as she faced Max and pointed to him. “We did. We might not remember all he did, but he was brutal dictator, and he has continued with his reign of terror on our planet. He is ruining lives all over the place. Shouldn’t Elizabeth want to help us?”

“You are asking her to sacrifice herself?” Jake demanded. “Her dignity?”

“I lost my dignity seven years ago” Elizabeth said softly to her brother. “Agent Stevens is right. I am a killer and I am a drug addict who will never live down what I did, and because of that I have been forced to endure more than most people in a lifetime have the misfortune to so maybe if it gets Khivar today, maybe I need to do it?”

“Hell no…” Jake demanded.

“There has to be another way?” Max asked as he wished he could cut down the temperature in the room and knew that Jake had a right not to like what Ava was asking of his sister. Max certainly didn’t like it, or what Elizabeth would be called to do to temp Salazar into bringing her into his organization.”

“Max, I want to think there is another way. But simply there isn’t” Ava murmured. “We have tried everything we can think of it. Do not think we have not but he has won every time, and while he might be behind cement walls now, still we know it is not going to end of him. He is going to find a way out, and he is going to return to his business if he is not already conducting it from the hospital. He is going to ruin lives. Elizabeth is our best chance to get to him. I don’t like what we’re asking her to do, but if it saves lives, shouldn’t we at least try?”

“She’s not a cop,” Jake muttered. “She’s not trained.”

“She’s been basically undercover all this time,” Ava asked. “She knows Nicholas’s world. She is stronger than she thinks. She stayed alive all this time for a reason…”

“I stayed alive not because of who I am,” Elizabeth asked softly. “But because I got lucky. Otherwise I would be long dead,” she muttered as she gritted her teeth and glared at Ava. “Isn’t he going to find it fishy if I am suddenly arriving into his orbit?”

“No,” Ava shook her head. “Killing Nicholas plays into perfectly…”

“So, now you’re happy she killed him?” Jake snidely remarked.

“I am not going to say this will be easy, because it won’t be…” Ava sighed. “As I said before, I wish there were another way but if she does this. And if it works. Then she takes him down. And when she walks free, she walks free. You will not have to worry that he is out there. Max, he took your wife from you and he would have used your daughter in the same manner that was done to Elizabeth. So, you got lucky. But should you not want him gone?”

“Watch it Ava. I would advise you to try again because if you think you can use my wife or my daughter as justification for this master plan of yours” Max bristled as if he was stabbed at the invocation of his wife and daughter into their conversation. “My daughter may not have been taken but she was not unaffected because she had her name and her reputation torn into tatters and it was the same for Jake. Which is something you would know if you are at all up on the havoc that Nicholas and Khivar pulled in destroying our lives. We might still be standing but we came too close to destruction. So, don’t use my wife or my daughter in you quest to hand Elizabeth to a shark.”

“You got lucky Jake” Ava said ignoring Max’s directive.

“How do you think I got lucky. My sister was kidnapped and tortured. While I might not have had my wife kidnapped but her reputation is mud. Agent Stevens, he shattered my family and it almost ended my parent’s marriage. Nicholas is the devil who succeeded in ruining my reputation and made it impossible for me to graduate, and while at the end of the day, not graduating is on me but my sister practically died because of the abuse Nicholas’s goons committed on her, and if she wasn’t who she was, or had good fortune of knowing Max here than she would have died that day. My wife was run out of town because of the rumors, and because of what Nicholas engineered. Our relationship was put under a microscope. I was accused of raping my girlfriend in the media and on social media. Sure, yes, we did end up together, but it was not because of Nicholas and Khivar. It was to the spite of them and to people out there in the world. Just because we did end up married, does not mean they do not still look at me suspiciously. I will never truly be able to go somewhere else without having to answer questions and so, no, I am not going to let you use my sister as bait to seduce the big fish into your net, so you can make your career.”

“That is for her to decide” Ava murmured as she glanced at Elizabeth and rejected his tirade. “She knows what happens if she were to say no, don’t you…” she asked as Elizabeth went white at the weight of the decision upon her shoulders, as both Jake and Max instantly recoiled at the threat issued towards the young woman

“Jesus Christ. Elizabeth, please… Jake pleaded in desperation as he was staring at the possible loss of his sister for a second time, and this time might be final if it were to go wrong. “If they want you so badly then they can find another way to get at Salazar. You shouldn’t let them use you…”

“Don’t do what,” came Maria’s voice as she came into the house and saw the gathering and the angry voice of his son and the paleness of her daughter. Max was not much better as he winced as he saw Maria walk into the living room and he forgot that they were not alone, and now there would be a lot more to decide. “What is going on here, what did I miss?”


*


“No Max, please no” Maria wailed a few hours later as she stood along with her husband in Max’s office. “You can’t let them do this. You can’t let them take our daughter from us…” she murmured as she stood looking like a ghost. Michael was not any better when Max finished filling them in with what he had learned since the encounter at the house. None of it was good, or easy to here. “We just got her back…” she moaned as she recalled how she had slapped Ava and kicked her out of the house when Ava tried to explain.

Darkness existed in the office as they were all forced to ponder the unfathomable choice Ava was giving Elizabeth, and the choice really wasn’t one at the end of the day because she didn’t really have a choice and Elizabeth knew this. “Mom, I have to do this,” Elizabeth murmured as she stood at the back of the room. She had permission to leave the house to go meet with her lawyer, and she didn’t like that they had to meet about her giving herself up as bait to lure dangerous drug kingpin who liked to pray on the innocent. “If this gets him out of the way?”

“No, let Tess’s duplicate find someone else to use as bait” Maria demanded as she felt hatred for Ava, and was heart sick at the thought of her daughter in such a situation. “If they want him so badly, then they can find someone else and that you don’t have to risk your recovery or your sobriety to try to get them someone who they should have found a way to get, way before now…”

“At the end of the day, it’s Elizabeth’s choice whether to do this,” Max murmured as Elizabeth nodded because they both saw that this was not something the young woman could deny. Max knew it as much as his goddaughter did. “Believe me, I don’t like it Maria and I truly wish there is another way but if Elizabeth doesn’t agree to do it then we all know that Ava will strike back at her, and us, as she will rescind the deal and go the judge and then Elizabeth will be looking at significant jail time. Lisa all but admitted to me that she thinks Elizabeth is a liar. If it gets out that she had a chance to get away from Nicholas months ago, and she stayed…”

“Only because the FBI forced her” Maria moaned at the despair she felt at the knowledge that people had known where her daughter was and yet they hadn’t come to her or Michael to try to rescue their daughter from her hellhole. The stunning realization that Ava had known her daughter and grandsons were in danger and yet it worked to their advantage to keep them there, and when Elizabeth was this close to getting out, they roped her back in until she went out firing and now she was asked to give something even worse, to try to bring down Salazar.

“Ava will rescind our deal Maria. She will play ignorance on all things that the FBI knew. We don’t have any proof she knew, and she’ll play dumb and they will rescind the deal and say that Elizabeth did have a way getting out from under Nicholas control and she didn’t, and she stayed of her own free will, and that she lied about the baby. And then she killed him when months earlier, well, she had a way of getting free. That she stayed because she planned to kill him. Maria, Michael, that goes to premeditation and the charges will get upgraded, and she’s looking at the rest of her life in jail.”

“You can’t let her do this,” Maria pleaded as tears fell down her face.

“Mom I did this to myself” Elizabeth muttered. “I stayed. I could have gotten free. Long time ago. I could have left. Before the FBI came and found me. Eight months ago, wasn’t the only time, but there were many times in the last five years, but I didn’t because I was worried not only that Nicholas would come after you guys or the kids once I got them out of the apartment. But maybe it was because I was scared to come home. I hurt you guys, and I screwed up my life. If I do this, and we can bring him down. Then maybe I can look at myself in the mirror at the end of the day or my sons and even Emily and know that I did to protect them. That I did something to help them, after having taken so much from. Nicholas and Khivar has taken too much from us. And I forced the boys to live with a monster. So, this is my chance to end this… maybe this is my time?”

“There has to be another way…” Michael asked as he took his daughter in this arms and hugged her as he looked at his best friend and both knew what they were doing in sending Elizabeth off to honor the deal with the FBI, and what will be asked of Elizabeth in order take down Khivar.

“Dad, there isn’t” Elizabeth admitted. “Max is right. I am risking too much if we bring the wrath of the FBI against us. I got a good deal out of this, because let us face it, I am looking at the rest of my life in jail if I do not do it. I screwed up, and it is on me. So, let me have a chance to move on from this. If I can take him down, then it is bringing it all to an end, and that helps us all, and future generations…” she sighed. “Then we won’t have to worry that someone is out there that will come and get us. I need to do this because it brings protection for our families. So, yeah… So, Max, take the deal…” she asked of Max who nodded as Maria could only look away and then rush of the office.

“I’ll see what terms I can get out of Ava” Max allowed because he knew that Ava and her bosses are going to have to pay big time to be able to use Elizabeth as bait… as Elizabeth nodded and turned to Maria as she came back into the room again slightly calmer. “Mom, can you drive me home. I want to see the kids?”

Maria who had not had the energy to say much of anything and Max felt for her as she nodded and followed her daughter out of the office.

“I am sorry Michael…” Max said solemnly. “If there was any other way…”

“God Max, you know what she’s going to be forced to do…” Michael asked tortured. “To get at someone as despicable as Khivar. If he is the big shot that Ava tells us, then to get at him, she’s going to have to sacrifice herself to get at him.”

“I know,” Max sighed as she admitted that Ava was speaking the truth about what kind of monster, they knew Kevin Salazar to be as he was a lousy human being if you could even call him a human being at all. As he had checked up on Salazar and found a track record that was almost as bad and demeaning as Nicholas's reign of terror had been and yet he knew that he could only know a fraction of what truly was going on. So, to send Elizabeth into the lion’s mouth was going to be hell of a decision. “But we don’t have a choice. Ava has us, and she knows it. So, all we can do is manage this into something we can live with…”

“I know,” Michael acknowledge. “But Max, you’re going to have to make them pay…” Michael murmured as he hated the FBI with every fiber of his being.

“I will…” Max promised as he watched Michael walk away.
Last edited by Parker1947 on Fri Jul 17, 2020 6:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.
keepsmiling7
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Re: Always Tomorrow (CC, Mature) - A Reunion's Endgame - Chapter 23 - 07/14/2020

Post by keepsmiling7 »

Will they be able to free Elizabeth's from the FBI's hold?
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Parker1947
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Always Tomorrow - Chapter 24 - 07/18/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

“You know Mom, I am sorry about this?” Elizabeth muttered as she looked out the window as her she watched the road race along as her mother drove, and she remembered once more why she needed this to be over with and why going along with the deal whether she came out of this in one piece or not, would allow her to move on. She was 23 and yet she still felt like a 16-year-old. She might not have disappeared until she was 18 but those two years were a graveyard of missing time, and because those two years before she did disappear was full of drugs, and then rehab, and then relapses, she hadn’t gone for her driver’s license, and so she felt stuck. She felt like she needed to move on, and which is why she hated the idea of sacrificing herself, but if it allowed her to move on one way or another, then it was something she would do.

“I wish there was another way,” Maria muttered as she still knew she had tears to cry as she tried to make peace with it, and yet she still couldn’t do it as she wished they could find another way. “You know you don’t have to agree…”

“They have me, Mom” Elizabeth sighed. “If I can end this, then why shouldn’t I try” she asked. “I would love to fight them but when they have the leverage, there is only so much fight I can muster these days. Too much of my life these last seven years has been about being attacked and losing something of myself. I cannot do it anymore. I need to end this. I also need to pick my battles which is something I should have done more when I was younger,” she asked. “I want this to be over…”

“I know the feeling,” Maria sighed as she wished it were over too. “You can still get hurt in this. And I think they are being too cavaliere about the danger they are putting you through “All they want is Salazar, and they aren’t thinking of what it could cost you.” Maria murmured. “Someone needs to look out for you?”

“I am looking out for me Mom,” Elizabeth sighed. “I might have not done much of that when I was younger when I let the weakness I felt define and take me down a road that I should never been on, but I am not going to let them take me down, and if they do, they will have to do a good job at getting at me.”

“You don’t know what you will have to face…” Maria murmured.

“Mom, you don’t know what I have had to face all these years. So, yeah, I have a fairly good idea of what I am facing, and what I could potentially be losing in this, but I need to try…” Elizabeth murmured. “I feel like there is something there for me at the end of the rainbow, and at the end of this long dark and twisted adventure that I have been on, and if I can stop this, and get rid of whoever Khivar is twisting himself into being here on Earth. I need to do it.”

“Just be careful okay, which is all I am asking because we want you back and Drew and Mick will want you back in one piece” Maria asked. “You have a lot of people counting on you to come back to them.”

“I know I do,” Elizabeth murmured. “I will never forget that I do, not again. I won’t let myself,” Elizabeth murmured as she thought of all she had lost, and yet she still had a chance, and she wanted to go for that chance as they arrived in the driveway of the family home, and she got out of the car and walked through the doors and Drew came running and she pulled him into her arms, and hugged him tight.

“Mommy,” Drew said as he dug into the hug with a relish that made Elizabeth feel confident even as she tried to smile at her brother Jake who was looking forlorn as he had stayed with the kids and could feel the darkness in the air as he had seen his mother and sister return to the house. The reality quickly settled in on the family.

“Hi handsome,” Elizabeth said instantly lifted, as she knew she had to make this work out. Not only for herself, because it was not only her at the end of the day. She was no longer alone. She had people depending on her, and she needed to come back to them as she spent the rest of the day with her sons, and her family and tried to forget that her days of freedom were ticking down, and the clock would one day soon run out.


*


“You do look like Tess you know,” Max asked as she stood in Ava’s office the next day as he had been forced to deal with the knowledge he now had as he went home and told Beth what he found out. Beth was appalled at what they were sending Elizabeth back into, and Max embraced Carrie when she came home from work at the Crashdown and knew how lucky they were as he spent time nailing down the specifics of the agreement with Ava. “And you will do just about anything to get your guy?” he asked. “Just like Tess?”

“I am not Tess.” Ava bristled.

“Aren’t you, Ava. You are sending a defenseless young woman who was trying to come up and out of the abuse that Nicholas put her under into a lion’s pit, and you don’t care” Max asked as he would never forget how Elizabeth pain could have lessened if only they had been told where she was, and given the chance of saving the day and getting both Elizabeth and the boys before they had spent years in that hellhole.

“I care Max, come off it, I do care” Ava murmured. “I know what she will likely have to do to get the access I need” she acknowledged. “But she is not all that defenseless as you well know. She is Michael’s daughter, and therefore she is capable of great feats at the end of the day. Which is why I know that sending her in will be better than sending in a stranger.”

“But you don’t hesitate…” Max asked as pain coursed through him at what they were asking his goddaughter to do, in bringing this to an end. “You know as well as I do that, she is not experienced to take on Salazar in the way you or I might if we were to run into him. Since she was sixteen years old, she has spent much of the time drugged, and therefore she’s untrained.”

Ava could see the pain in Max, and knew she had a hard time looking at Michael and Maria the day before when they were coming to the realization of what their daughter was facing, and she didn’t like it but she had a case she needed to get to the bottom of, and at the end of the day, she might not like the tactics needed, but still they needed to be employed if they had a chance at someone as despicable as Khivar. So, it was time to be honest with herself, and with the situation. “Look Max, I know that she got a raw deal. Yes, I know it. I wish I could have prevented it, but I want this guy. I need him. And unfortunately, Elizabeth is the one to give me that chance to get at him, and to help me.”

“Why is this personal for you?” Max asked as he did not want to remind her that she could have prevented this, and yet she had not. All because she had a goal to meet.

“Because it is,” Ava murmured as she did not want to discuss it.

“You might as well tell me” Max asked. “Otherwise I will find a way to prevent Elizabeth from conducting this suicide mission.”

“Fine,” Ava spat. “Salazar killed my partner. Sylvia Davis. We were partners for five years. We started on this case together. I am not like you Max. I am not like you Isabel or even Michael. You had a support system. The three of you against the world. You and Isabel even got parents to love you. Michael had you for support even if he did not have a place to reliably call home until he was out on his own. I had Zan, Lonnie and Rath. And they were last thing I should have had as a support system. Zan and I did things together, but he died. And you know Lonnie and Rath, they were no support system as they were maniacs. And before I knew it, I was out on my own. Truly on my own. Coming to terms with being on this planet. I was alone. I did not make friends. I am not a friendly person they say. But Sylvia was the first person I could call a friend. In a lot of ways, she was like Liz,” Ava murmured to the flinch of Max. “Your wife is very genuine. She still is Max. But back then, I appreciated Liz’s support, and it took me a long time to find someone who was remotely as kind as Liz is… This world has a lot of cruel people. But Liz was different. She did not care that I was the duplicate of the girl who wanted you at her expense. Then I found Sylvia. We connected deeply. She was like a sister to me. And Salazar got to her, and she died Max. In my arms, and I couldn’t do anything to prevent it.”

“I am sorry,” Max murmured as he could see the pain that still existed in Ava’s eyes, and knew that the agent was telling the truth, at least up to this point.

“I need Salazar Max,” Ava asked. “I need to avenge Sylvia’s death,” she sighed. “I need justice,” she said softly as her eyes looked down and then back at Max as flashes came to her. “Look, yes, I knew Elizabeth was with Nicholas and that she was in danger, and especially that she had brought the kids into a home that were not fit for them or for Elizabeth, for that matter but I was trying to get as far up on the ladder as I could. I was trying to make something of myself. I felt I owed it to myself. So, yeah, I looked away when I should have spoken up and spoken truth to power and said enough was enough. Or gone to Michael or Maria and even to you to let you know that Elizabeth needed your help, and that Nicholas had her under his spell. But I did not, and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life,” she said softly to groans from Max. “I know, okay. It is hard to look at myself sometimes and know what I did to get as far up the ladder as I did. Because back in the beginning, I laughed at the idea of joining the FBI. Given who we were. Yet I got drawn in by the opportunity and maybe the idea of giving a slap in the face to those who want to take us down. Little by little, I made something of myself. I was a low-level grunt when I met my husband, Gavin just out of the academy. Gavin’s father was an FBI agent cut down when Gavin was young. So, in many ways, he was a legacy kid, who wanted to live up to the memory of his father, for better and for worse…”

“Stevens. Don’t tell me,” Max muttered as his memory was drawn back to high school. “The one Valenti went toe to toe with,” he asked as he remembered back to their years in high school and to the time where it all started to unravel in those initial weeks after Liz’s shooting in the Crashdown. “You married his son?”

“I didn’t know in the beginning. But then I did. I was upfront. And Gavin loved me regardless, and he was different than his father. Anyways, as I got higher up. I found Sylvia, and we clicked and then she was gone, and I truly saw the horrors that Salazar was committing. I need to get him Max. I need justice. I know what Elizabeth is risking. But if we can get him, really get him. Then some good will come from being who we are…”

“You are asking a lot of Elizabeth…”

“I know,” Ava murmured.

“So, what will give her to make this sacrifice?” Max asked.

“What do you mean?” Ava asked.

“I think you know…” Max murmured. “FBI is going to have to pay big time to use Elizabeth as a sacrificial bait to draw out your big fish.”

“What do you want?” Ava asked.

“Money” Max murmured. “For starters I will want assurances in writing that she will have her freedom at the end of this once she gets to end of her court approved sentence, and that nothing will be held against regardless of what happens in the commission of getting you Salazar, am I clear?” he murmured and Ava groaned but knew it was warranted given what she would be asking Elizabeth to accomplish to get her Salazar.

“Fine,” Ava muttered. “But she has to get me Salazar. No half ways Max. They were be no almosts. I will need assurances that she will get me him at the end of this or this deal will be null and void” she ordered and Max nodded as they both worked to negotiate a deal that would get them both what they wanted out of the federal government. In the end, they struck a deal, which would need a final signature from client. Once they finished drawing up the deal. Max stepped back and did not see Tess anymore. Instead, he was seeing Ava as her own person. “I’ll have to talk to my client, and I’ll have her decision for you tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Max…”

“You better pray Ava” Max muttered. “That there aren’t any more victims by the end of this,” he glared. “If there is, then you will have made some powerful enemies. We might have been too passive in this, and we should have gotten in the fight before now, but we do know how to get payback” Max threatened. “So, I hope for your sake that this works out, because there have been too many victims and this needs to end”

“Truly Max, I am sorry about Liz…” Ava murmured. “I wish I could have prevented what happened to you back then, because you didn’t deserve to lose her for those fourteen years. But you got lucky in getting her back. Maybe Michael and Maria will have the same luck at the end of the day.”

“You better pray they do” Max murmured as he left the office and drove over to the Guerin house and presented the deal. And despite a chorus of No, and even more strenuous curses with desperate pleading from her parents, brother and even from her grandfather who despite being Sheriff was against the deal because he knew how much danger there would be in this kind of mission and what Elizabeth would be called to do if she agreed. He did not want his granddaughter to be a sacrifice in getting Salazar. While he saw that Salazar was evil and needed to be taken down. Still, he did not see why they needed his granddaughter to be the bait. But despite all the pleading, nothing would dissuade Elizabeth who was determined something was going to come from all this pain and misery. She needed Khivar to be brought down. “You know what this deal is telling you that you will have to do?” Max asked of his client. “Are you prepared to give that part of yourself?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth nodded.

“You will need to prepare yourself that this may not go the way you want…” Max murmured as he turned to Michael and Maria. “To make this work. You guys will not be able to see her when she is in the hospital for the duration of the mission. It needs to look like she is spiraling again and needs the help of the hospital for more than what required for the court. So Khivar thinks he can get a in with her?”

Neither Michael nor Maria liked it “Please Elizabeth, think about this. Think about what you’re giving up?”

“This needs to be done,” was all Elizabeth murmured as she turned to face her parents who had tears in their eyes. “I know what I could be giving up. I am prepared for it because I need to do this. Mom, and Dad I know you want to see me there, but I need to do this. But I need you to think of the boys. I need to do this. Not only for me. But for them. The payoff I am getting will help you and the boys, and I cannot use the money, so be it. Because it will be something, I can leave for the kids. Maybe even Emily one day if they need it. This is my way of giving back. Taking all the abuse they made me endure. If this saves someone else in the end. I will know I am doing the right thing. Khivar and Nicholas have taken too much from me. I need this to end. I need to know we’re going to win this in the end.”

Max nodded. “So, that you know. The agreement has written assurances that if you are able to do this Elizabeth. All prior crimes will be reduced to time served. And if there are any crimes in the commission of this mission” he murmured to Maria’s winced as she grabbed her husband’s hand. “Then you will be immune from prosecution on any charges that come from anything to do with trying to bring down Salazar. You will have to finish your sentence as given to you from the court for killing of Nicholas. But there will be no addition of time, and they will not stand in the way when you try to get custody of the kids down the line. Assuming that is something you will want. So, it’s a very generous deal.”

“Yeah,” Elizabeth muttered as she tried to smile as she faced a petrified Maria. “See Mom. I am getting more out of this than what I am giving up,” she sighed as she took the pen from Max and signed the deal and instructed Max to take it back to Ava.

And yet her parents and Max did not share the same view as Max tucked the sign agreement into his briefcase, and said his good-byes and they had watched as Elizabeth sacrifice herself in her effort to slay the dragon…

Would the dragon’s fire be too hot, before it was extinguished, and would they regret this choice?

Max hoped they did not find out.
keepsmiling7
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Re: Always Tomorrow (CC, Mature) - A Reunion's Endgame - Chapter 24 - 07/18/2020

Post by keepsmiling7 »

I wonder too, will they regret this choice?
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Parker1947
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Always Tomorrow - Chapter 25 - 07/20/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

Jake tried explaining it to his wife as Grace spent the next week trying to figure out why Elizabeth would want to sacrifice herself in such a manner. Finn had the same worries as they both feared for Elizabeth if she were to do it. But Elizabeth was determined as she spent time with her kids and got used to having freedom because she knew it would be all too rare in the coming days once she reported for her sentence. She knew what she was signing up for… It could not be any worse than what I have dealt with so far, she muttered to herself. “They have me,” was all she was saying to Grace as they met at the Guerin home for drinks on the night before Belle’s birthday party. One of the two court approved departures from the home arrest. She wanted her sister to have a good party. She knew Belle was looking forward to it. She wanted it for her sister because she knew how much it cost her to live in the home defined by what happened to her over the past seven years. “Something good needs to come from this.”

“They are asking you to sacrifice yourself?” Grace murmured as she had a night off from the hospital and Jake was finally back at the station, working the night shift to make up for the missed momentum in his career. Eva was with her Grandparents Evans, as she was being spoiled so Grace was choosing to spend some time with Elizabeth to figure out what was going on with her friend. “Why let them do this. They knew you were there. They did not do anything about it. They should have been paying you for the abuse you suffered at their hands?

“This is my chance to show that we can win. Yeah, they knew. They could have gotten me out… But I stayed. I could have left years before they found me. Whether or not they come after me, I stayed. I could have come home. Nicholas did not have me under lock and key all the time. I had enough freedom over the years. But I stayed because of the blackmail and the fear of what he might do but he knew me well enough that even if I had taken my freedom. I was not coming back here because I was afraid. I was too weak. I did not know the reception would be because I had hurt my family so much with my actions. And even if I had gotten a warm one, which was no guarantees. The worry that Nicholas would come after me and go after everyone I was trying to prevent him from attacking by staying. Especially once Emily came into the world. I stayed away. I stayed. He knew he had me. Especially once Drew came, and he got some semblance of victory on me. I felt I deserved the pain because when I tried to fight back. I lost and then I allowed him to blackmail me without so much of a fight.”

“You were fifteen. You couldn’t have been expected to deal with it like an adult?”

“Still he screwed up my life. And he did a number on you and Jake. This is my chance to know that there some finality to this. Take down Khivar. Let us have some peace.”

“It doesn’t have to, be you?” Grace asked. “Why does it have to be you?”

“Yeah it does,” Elizabeth muttered. “This has been my world. I have lived in it. I know what a mad man like Khivar needs to prove himself. I have seen it in Nicholas. I fed his ego, and I know Khivar will be similar. Sure, I do not know exactly how bad it will be, but I have a fairly good idea and I am conditioned for it. More so than anyone else in our family. I do not want anyone to risk their lives when it could have been me. I do not want the cycle to continue. I want this to be over, so we can move on without the worry” she muttered. “Because if it continues, another minion of Khivar’s will eventually be called into action. I don’t want that on my conscious.”

“You know what you’ll have to do?” Grace asked fearful for her friend and sister.

“It’s nothing more than what I have already done in my life. What is once more…” Elizabeth muttered.

“If only Jake and I…” Grace murmured as she thought back to her guilty conscious of so long ago. “If only we had some idea…”

“Don’t Grace, don’t blame yourself. You know as well as I do. There was no way we were getting out of that hotel that night. If you were available. They would have taken you and they probably would have taken me too. Because how could they leave alone when they could also have taken me. Finn and Jake might have been dead because they would have fought for us. Finn got lucky that night. It would not have worked. You were safe. I wanted that for you. I wouldn’t have wanted you to be with me, facing what I had to face.”

“But I would have helped you get free…” Grace murmured. “The power of two is better than the power of one.”

“Nicholas was too powerful, and he had equipped his men with too much to think we could have gotten free. I was stupid that when I did try to escape that I did not wait and abided my time and plan better because my actions only escalated matters. It forced them to take other measures…” she sighed. “If I hadn’t done what I did, I might have escaped with less done to me, but I escalated the situation by trying to get free, and Nicholas made me pay, big time

“I am sorry you had to live through that…” Grace shuttered at the measures the goons had taken after Elizabeth tried to get free.

“They should have left it at me. I am sorry they still came after you” Elizabeth muttered. “You and Jake. Grandpa, everyone…”

“We managed. It was still better than what you faced?”

“Yet it did ruin Jake’s life?” Elizabeth murmured.

“Between you and me. The only thing he regrets is not going to his exams. He hates that for your parents to know that he got close to the finish line, but he did not officially graduate. He makes a better cop. Working in the Sheriff’s department is what he is meant to do. He is happy with his choice of careers,” Grace smiled. “He’s proud of what’s been able to accomplish”

“But still it didn’t allow him to join the force in Boston?” Elizabeth asked. “It sticks to him…”

“It does,” Grace allowed as she hated that for her husband. “But we were meant to be here Elizabeth. We do not regret coming back. Eva is much happier having daily access to family than she would be in Boston if I was in school and working on top of that to be able to pay for our life there or if Jake was able to join the force. It worked out how it was meant to…”

“Which is why I am doing this. So, that everyone has a chance at a life they want?”

“But how about you?” Grace asked. “You are worried about everyone but yourself. Which is why you were going along with Nicholas to begin with. Because he blackmailed you with our secrets”

“It was the right choice” Elizabeth murmured as she thought back those days. “I would do it again today if it meant you guys were safe. I didn’t care about me, and I still don’t”

“Obviously,” Grace muttered. “Isn’t it past time that you care about your own future?” Grace asked. “Instead of putting it at risk?”

“My future is defined by the past Grace. I will never overcome what I did in the past if I do not do this. I know what it means to do this. What I am potentially sacrificing it. At the end of the day, I am thinking of everyone”

“Yes, you are,” Grace muttered in agreement. “But you are thinking of everyone but yourself”

“If I didn’t do this Grace then the FBI will rescind the deal. Your dad thinks the prosecutor knows I was coloring outside the lines with my story and that means bad news me in the long run because it means prison for the rest of my life. So, in a way I am looking for myself because I can be released in a few years, and be there for my children, and experience them growing up.”

“So, how are your kids supposed to think of what you’re doing?” Grace asked.

“They will think I am protecting them. And the money your father got out of the FBI will allow them a lot more when they grow up. A portion of it will go to help Mom and Dad with their care while I am gone, and then the rest can allow them to go to university one day or do other things with that money Grace. I want to be here, and I hope I am. But this is their chance…”

“You’re taking the chance that you won’t be there for them?” Grace asked because she had fears that this will end badly for her friend and prevent her from have a chance to start over.

“I know Mom and Dad, you and Grace and everyone else will be there for them” Elizabeth murmured.

“And Finn?” Grace asked.

“Finn doesn’t matter,” Elizabeth murmured. “We are in the past. We’re simply friends now, and that is all that it ever will be” she sighed as she if she knew she was lying herself. “I can’t think of it as more, not now…”

“I don’t think you are. You know Elizabeth that he cares a great deal about you, and you are risking a lot with this deal with the FBI. If they want Salazar so much, then they can find another way to get at him. He is in a hospital. Why can’t they find another way?” Grace muttered as she fell back to old resentment of the federal agency “Those people knew you were there, and they didn’t do anything about it because they wanted Nicholas. They could have come us, but they did not because wanted to use you. So, you have more leverage than they do…”

“I want to do this. Finn understands.”

“I don’t think he does” Grace muttered as she thought of how upset Finn was to hear the news, and the knowledge of what Elizabeth was sacrificing to do it in her association with a federal agency that left them all in the dark when they could have saved Elizabeth and the kids although they didn’t have any illusions that Elizabeth would have wanted the help when she was still fighting the addiction that had already taken so much from her life. “But I want you to be happy Elizabeth”

“I will be happy if the kids are safe. If you, Jake, and Eva are safe… Thinking of only myself is stupid when it hurts everyone else…

“Sometimes you have to think of yourself when they want you to compromise yourself,” Grace muttered as she let it go as she hated to see her friend continue to be defined by actions of others. She should be allowed to embrace the future, and not to be made to pay for the past when horrors were committed to her…

“I did the crime Grace,” Elizabeth allowed. “So, all I need to do is comprise myself a little longer but if it brings down Khivar and rids us of the monster so the we can sleep at night, or the next generation doesn’t have to face the same nightmares as we do. I’ll take it.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Grace muttered because as much as she wanted the monster to be put to bed. Still she did not like what they were forcing Elizabeth to do in the name of the family and riding them of such a nightmare.

“So, do I,” Elizabeth allowed but she thought of the future, and she was going to embrace whatever the future would bring. “That is next week’s problem. Tomorrow is Belle’s birthday and I am not going to anything to interrupt it” Elizabeth murmured of the special day. “I have already missed too many of them, and she deserves a great day” she sighed as she thought of her sister and how much she missed.

And the next day she was wishing the birthday girl a special day. “Happy Birthday Belle…

“Thanks Elizabeth,” Belle murmured as she took the present from her sister. While Belle did not know everything that was going down, she did know something was brewing. But she liked having her sister back and knew this would make today memorable because it was not something she remembered experiencing since she was so young, and it meant something to have her big sister back home. Even if she could not stay.

“I know I didn’t have the money for something big and beautiful,” Elizabeth murmured. “So, I figured to go another way, so I hoped you would like something like this…” she asked as Belle unwrapped the drawing book, and she looked inside. “I had time in the hospital, because they wanted us to something with our time, so I drew.”

“You drew these?” Belle asked as she looked through the pictures of her family, everyone, as she saw pictures of herself, and Jake, and her parents, and even Emily.

“I figured you wouldn’t mind some memories,” Elizabeth smiled and yet frowned. “To remember me when I am gone?”

“Thank you,” Belle said again as she looked through the pictures once again as she hugged her sister. “I love them,” as Finn came through the doors of the Crashdown where the party was being held. It was closed for the party, and so it was full of family and Belle’s friends. The birthday girl was having a blast as she was clearly in her element and despite her closed off, jaded demeanor at home. She was clearly a happy, and immensely popular among her friends and she was clearly having a good time being the Belle of the party. Isabel was giving the girls makeup lessons, and Belle was wearing a specifically designed dress for the birthday girl. She was beautiful, and so grown up in the light pink dress she was wearing. To Elizabeth, it was a reminder that killing Nicholas had saved them from more heartache because she had the gut feeling that because of his revenge against her father, one of these days, he would have gone after Belle as well because he had won once against Michael when he took his eldest daughter from him, and would have come after his youngest if given the opportunity. So, Nicholas needed to be dead, and despite the headaches it brought her, she did not regret it.

Meanwhile Drew, Christopher and Emily were running around the restaurant and having a grand time. Mick was being spoiled by Maria in the corner. Coming into the restaurant. Finn approached Elizabeth. “Can we talk?”

“Sure,” Elizabeth nodded as she watched as her sister rushed off to talk to her friends.



*



In one of the corners, Alexandra and Carrie were talking about their upcoming semesters. Plans they had in store. Alexandra was full of stories of her summer in Washington. She had made a lot of connections and she could not wait to see if they panned out once they graduated the following Spring and now, they were talking about other matters. “So, I saw you and Matthew were being friendly at Aunt Serena’s party the other night. I have to ask, when did that start to brew?”

“It’s nothing,” Carrie muttered as she thought of the party and Matthew Rogers who popped into her mind. “I am still the same single girl I was yesterday, and I am happy that way thank you. I’ll leave love to you and Grace.”

“I don’t know about that,” Alexandra asked as she could see that her sister and Matthew had been flirting up a storm during the party, and even danced a few dances together. It had surprised her because she did not know they were that friendly and she asked her twin that same question. “I didn’t think you were that friendly?”

“We ran into each other recently when I was working at Cow Patties and he was in with friends, and we touched base for a few minutes and that was it until the night of the party, and since then he’s gone back to the west coast to school. And I have been working here, and at the bar. It was nothing” Carrie muttered as she dismissed the possibilities to her sister.

Signing, Alexandra knew her sister was hurting, and she hated to see it. “You shouldn’t shut yourself down to the possibilities. I know you and Justin were serious, but it ended, and you shouldn’t be closing off your heart.”

“I haven’t closed my heart to anything sis, but I am still young. I do not need to find the one today and settle down tomorrow. I am not you, and I am not Grace or even Mom and Dad. It’s fine for you guys, but for me, I am perfectly happy” Carrie muttered as she looked down and ignored a call that came in.

“What is it?” Alex asked as she saw her sister’s expression turn.

“Nothing,” Carrie sighed as she did not want to discuss it, now or any day for that matter. The bastard she muttered.

“What is it?” Alexandra asked, interest piqued. “Is it Matthew?” she asked because she could not think of who would be calling her sister. Not that Carrie discussed much with her in relation to her love life since she had broken up with Justin, but she could not figure out why Carrie would want to ignore a call. “Or is it something I should be worried about?”

Knowing it served no one for her twin sister to get on the case of the phone calls, she caved and admitted “Fine, it’s Justin… Are you happy, because he’s been calling and I’m trying to ignore his calls, but he’s being persistent?”

“What, when did that happen!” Alexandra asked clearly shocked. “Since when has he been calling, and you didn’t tell me. What does he want?”

“I don’t know,” Carrie sighed. “I’ve been ignoring his calls. He was supposed to be in Africa on Peace Corp thing this summer or something,” she admitted of her ex-boyfriend. “Given that he broke up with me, because of the parts of myself that I didn’t allow him access to, then why should I give a damn about him or take any of his calls. When he could not be supportive, when I needed him to be?”

“Oh Carrie,” Alexandra sighed as she thought back to her love life. While Graham may still in the dark in relation to her secret nature, and didn’t know the truth, yet he always took what she couldn’t say about her past and let it flow off his back and that it was one of the quirks that he loved about her, or that is what he always told her, and whether that was the truth? They had not broken up yet, and I have had been downright strange at times over the years, she mused to herself as she pondered her sister’s worries. “I am sorry sis…”

Alexandra knew everyone was different. And not everyone could be Grace who had the love of her life right under her nose, and someone who knew her quirks and did not look down at them and loved her for them.

As she did not want to discuss it, Carrie decided to focus on something else. “I finished thinking about it. I am not taking his calls,” she muttered as she checked her watch. “I better get going, I am going to be late for work…” Carrie muttered as she was covering for a friend at Cow Patties that night, and she needed to get going. “Are you home tonight?”

“Yeah,” Alexandra nodded. “Graham is away for the weekend with friends” she nodded, “So I’m spending time at home.”

“Cool. Then see you in the morning, or whenever I get in…” Carrie smiled.

“If you do get in, you mean?” Alexandra laughed as she watched as her sister head off. She heard a “Don’t start” drift back to her as Carrie walked off, and she laughed once again as she long knew that she and her twin sister were totally different people, despite their identical looks. So, it was always hysterical to her how Carrie treated her life and was such a contrast to how she conducted her own life.

While they may have had spent large percentage of the last years at different universities and in different states, Alexandra was always getting texts and emails from her sister about the parties she went to, very little about her studies even though she knew her sister was getting top marks in most of her classes and should be graduating with no issues come springtime, and yet she knew her emails and texts were about her classes, or Graham and her…

Yeah, she is so different from me, she laughed as she spotted as she saw her father come her way. Something she would always be grateful would be that she and Carrie had a chance to have a father in their lives. They had spent thirteen years without one, and for the last seven years, something had gone right in all the gloom that hung around the family in her and Carrie meeting and having a chance to know their father. Max had been amazing with her and Carrie. And she thanked god every day they got the chance to have him in his life. “Carrie had to work?”

“I know,” Max smiled.

“She likes the atmosphere at Cow Patties, what can I say.” Alexandra laughed.

“Probably more than a thirteen years old’s birthday party,” Max asked to her daughter’s nod. “Can’t say I blame her. Carrie is why I wanted to speak to you. Do you know why she’s getting these strange calls?”

“What are you talking about?” Alexandra asked surprised her father would know about them, even if she should not be given the aura of protection her generation had been under since Nicholas’s attack seven years ago.

“She’s been getting these calls she’s ignoring for days. She refuses to take them, as she always declines them when they come in” Max asked as it was evident that he was concerned about his daughter. “I’ve asked Michael to look into it, but he’s not finding anything “So, I have to ask Alexandra, is your sister okay?”

Oh, Dad. The overprotectiveness of their father was legendary, and while most days he let it roll of his back in regards to his older kids and their love lives still when they were younger, he was known to butt in and it always good for a laugh between Alexandra and Carrie when they saw it happening. They knew Grace had faced too much when she and Jake were starting out, and she knew the family held scars and they didn’t want to start to bleed again so the twins largely allowed it without much resistance, so it should not surprise her to know her father would put two and two together, and figure it out. “Dad, I promise, she’s fine” Alexandra laughed at the overprotective nature of her father. “It’s nothing earth shattering. All it is, is Justin,” she laughed.

“Justin?” Max asked clearly surprised and shocked. “The ex-boyfriend?”

“Yeah, apparently, he is back in the picture or something tells me he wants to be, and she so far resisting his advances. If those are the calls, she is getting then she’s fine Dad, I promise. Otherwise she would have told me, and I would have told her to tell you…” Alexandra assured her father. “I would have told you otherwise if it was something you or Mom needed to know. Twin sister privilege only goes so far. Carrie would do the same with me…”

“Should we be concerned if Justin isn’t backing off?” Max asked as a concern look came to his face.

Again, Alexandra chuckled at the fatherly concern. “Dad, I promise that Justin is true blue. He doesn’t have an aggressive bone in his body,” she promised. “Sometimes he should have stood up to her at times, but he does not, and they ended because of you know, everything about who we are, and she’s still pissed he wasn’t more supportive. Like Graham is with me…”

“Oh right,” Max sighed. Once again reminded about the burden on the generations.

“Look, Dad, I am fine, I promise. Graham and I are completely solid” Alexandra sighed as she sensed what was on her father’s mind as the door opened, and in walked Graham, which was a surprise her and it was as if he had been summoned. She mused and she started to laugh at the sighting of her boyfriend. Speaking of who shouldn’t be here?” she cracked as Max looked over and saw her daughter’s long-time boyfriend, and even he was surprised. Because of his summer job, Graham had not been around since Alexandra had come home.

“Mr. Evans,” Graham Hunter smiled as he approached with a wide smile for his girlfriend, and Alexandra gladly went into his arms as once more Max was reminded that his daughter was an adult, and no longer the teenager he only had nearly four years with before she had gone off to Harvard to start on her future. Sighing, he thanked once more that he had Christopher at home, and who was not approaching that stage for another decade or more, and a new one come the new year.

“I think by now, you can call me Max” Max smiled. “My daughter gave me the impression you were away this weekend?”

“I got bored,” Graham smiled as he took Alexandra’s hand. “I wanted to see Alexandra because we didn’t get to see much of each other over the summer.”

“Smooth,” Max could not help but laugh as he knew to leave his daughter and Graham alone, as he walked away to go find Michael. As Alexandra found herself in her boyfriend’s arms. “You really got bored. I thought you guys were going camping. You never get bored when you are in the outdoors, which is why it’s more your speed than mine and why I didn’t go with you…”

“I did today?” Graham smiled as they kissed.


*


Across the room Beth saw Graham surprising her daughter. She could only laugh as Max walked over and found Michael. “Those two,” she cracked as Maria smiled as she noticed Alexandra and Graham together. “Young love…”

“It doesn’t get old,” Maria murmured.

“No, it doesn’t,” Beth agreed.

“And you’re having another one,” Maria cracked.

“That we are,” Beth could not help but laugh. “Every day we think we’re crazy, but at the end of the day, for me, it’s proof that life does go on, and that it can reward us at times, when we don’t expect it.”

“I guess,” Maria sighed as she still did not know exactly what the future will hold thanks to the newest developments regarding her daughter. But she didn’t want to dwell on that today, on her daughter’s birthday, even if it meant Belle was now officially classified as a teenager, and that was nightmare inducing given the headaches the girl had already given her and Michael. “Do you guys know what you’re having?” she murmured as she tried to ignore the fears.

“No, we want to be surprised” Beth murmured. “We did know we were expecting a boy when we had Christopher, because given everything that went on with my pregnancy with the twins, and how early they were born, so, we were a little paranoid with that pregnancy despite it being completely normal and healthy. So, this time we want to be surprised. Although I suspect Max knows, because you know he has his ways” she laughed, and Maria could not help but nod. “But he knows I don’t want to know…”

“You guys are so lucky…” Maria murmured.

Beth sighed because she knew what was on her friend’s mind. “Elizabeth will make it through this upcoming mission of hers,” Beth assured her friend. “I know that it might not look like it right now, but I feel the forces are finally with us, righting the wrongs, and giving us something to look forward to…

“Why does she have to be the one that does this?” Maria asked.

“I guess someone up there thinks she can handle this,” Beth asked. “She’s made it through when the tides were truly over her head, and she could have sunk under at any time and she didn’t, so that at least tells us something I would think…”

“I hope so,” Maria murmured. “We just got her back. I can’t lose her again.”

“I know,” Beth sighed. “Let’s have a drink.”

“I know you can’t, but I need something stronger…” Maria murmured.

“Then let’s go to Cow Patties” Beth suggested as they looked at the birthday girl who was a sea of friends and presents. “Belle doesn’t want us here anyway tonight. She is going to be with her friends. The guys can chaperone,” she asked. “We need to unwind?”

“Yeah, we do” Maria murmured as they walked over and told the guys of the change of plans and dragged Grace along for drinks at Cow Patties. Elizabeth could not go, but she wanted to stay and help her father and spend time at the Crashdown because she knew she would be missing too much of this in the coming months


*


Of course, Elizabeth was in the middle of having the dreaded talk with Finn when she saw her mother and Aunt walk past with Grace. She had told Grace that Finn understood but she knew now that he did not, and of course it was to be expected. She wanted it to work out as they stood outside the windows of the Crashdown, in the view sight of everyone at the party. She knew she could not go anywhere else unless she had permission.

It was a reminder that again she was still tied to her actions, and she couldn’t get past them even if as she had the time to be with her family and friends and feel normal for the first time in seven years. Sober, and completely aware of her surroundings, and happy to be with her family and friends and not weighed down by her past, which had so much negativity surrounding it. “I wish you could understand it?”

“I know why you have to do it,” Finn muttered because he knew the FBI wouldn’t let it go, and would make Elizabeth’s life a nightmare if she tried to reneg on the deal, but still he knew what she was giving up, and risking. “I know the FBI’s reputation, so it’s not worth it, to go against them. But why?”

“Because this is how we win?” Elizabeth muttered. “I need to cut the head of this monster. Finn, I am the one who fell because of him, and it’s not fair for anyone else to do something that needs to be done by me, and I know what’s he’s capable of and I have seen it more these last years than I would have liked. Because of that. I am not risking anyone else in my family or in someone’s else’s family when it’s me who needs to take on this monster.”

“And if you don’t make it this time. Sometimes the odds run out Elizabeth. Eventually the luck runs out, and what happens if this is the time it does end?” Finn murmured.

“Then you guys know I tried and that I went down fighting” Elizabeth murmured. “For the first time in seven years Finn, finally I feel like this is what I meant to do. Do I like what I potentially being asked to do, or give up, no, but if the families are free at the end of them, from the burden and the worry. And that they will not come after the kids, or anyone else in my family. I need to do this…”

“I don’t want to lose you” Finn asked. “Elizabeth, I lost you once before, and this time, it might be for good, and to know the kids might lose out on a chance to have you back in their lives. I can handle it being me, but they deserve the chance.”

“You won’t…” Elizabeth murmured. “And they will know one day that this is was about them. It is about saving them from the nightmare. I do not plan to surrender to the pain, which is how Nicholas got me in the beginning Finn. I plan to put up a fight, and therefore I want to do this, I need do this so that I have a chance at that future. For me, and for our kids.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing…” Finn murmured.

“I hope so too,” Elizabeth murmured. “But in the meantime, try to look out for Drew, can you? I know he does not know you, and you do not know him, and you might not want to be a part of all that Finn but for me, look out of him. He is going to need the support. As much as he will have my family, Jake and Grace, and everyone in my crazy clan, still he is going to need to know someone is looking out for him. Because I don’t know how long it will take the slay the dragon.”

“I promise,” Finn murmured as he took her hand, and they both leaned in for a kiss, which was noticed in the restaurant.


*


“Finn’s risking a lot, isn’t he?” Max could not help but ask his friend who had noticed that Finn and Elizabeth were having an intense talk, and then kissing. “Because this could go bad…” as he did not relish the difficulties that would be coming in the days, and even weeks to come because who knows how long before they could rid the nightmare from their lives. “By getting mixed up in this again?”

“Something tells me he knows that it’s too late,” Michael murmured. “As we found when we were younger. Once you tangle once, it is hard to unwind yourself from the emotions that start to infest the grounds. And with the kids, and knowing Finn like we do, I cannot see that he is just going to be able to walk away. As much as I wish sometimes, he would because I know how complicated this will be for my daughter, and even if she comes through this suicide mission, they have her on with her sanity in tack, and is able to overcome it. Still, she will have a lot of work to do to reclaim her life, and does Finn want be in for that ride?”

“Yeah,” Max murmured as he did know from their younger years. When a mess is made, well, it is hell to come out the other side in one piece, and to reclaim what was lost. And with kids involved, then that will be even worse… he nodded as he looked over at Alexandra and Graham deep in conversation the corner, as they held hands. “Love sticks.”

“It does… and when you do find one that does stick, it’s hard to unstick…” Michael murmured. “It’s possible, but it gets very messy…”
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Parker1947
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Always Tomorrow - Chapter 26 - 07/22/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

Love is messy was a fitting musing for Carrie as she arrived at Cow Patties to get to work. She did not want to give Justin the time of day. She had invested her heart in him, and he broke it. She had for years gone from boy to boy, not investing much in the relationships because she saw with her sisters that it gets complicated, and you lose something of yourself if you are with someone completely. So, she was fine to be single, and free and then she met Justin in first year university, and they were not exclusive, friends for the first year, and then they escalated to something deeper only for them to end because he couldn’t accept that she had a part of herself that she couldn’t share with him. Which is understandable at the end of the day and she knew it but still gave him a part of her heart, and in the end she was alone. And now he wanted something from her again, and she was not going to find out what that was…

Or try again for the risk that it could go wrong as she noticed a trio of familiar family members come her way as she started her shift. She had been hoping to use the hours of work to keep the past from her mind, and so seeing her family helped…

“Mom, what are you doing here?” Carrie murmured as she saw that her mother, Maria, and Grace were approaching her.

“Unwinding,” Beth murmured as she spotted her daughter as they walked into the bar. “I actually forgot you were working tonight,” she smiled as Maria and she approached her daughter. “Your father is chaperoning the party, so Maria and I thought we would unwind a little…”

“I am covering for a friend, so I am on until closing, so go ahead,” Carrie nodded. “I’ll go get your favorites.”

“Sure thanks,” Beth acknowledged as she stopped her daughter was leaving. “Are you okay honey, I saw you looking forlorn there before we approached” she asked as she knew when her daughters were upset, and it was clear that Carrie was battling something.

“Mom, I am fine,” Carrie assured her mother as she did not want her mother to worry about her when she had other pressing concerns. Carrie wanted to handle her life herself, and did not need advice on this front, and especially not from her parents who would of course be on her side, and she did not that, so she was trying to beg off “I was only thinking, and it wasn’t that serious so you shouldn’t worry, I promise.”

“If you say so,” Beth sighed. “Although your father indicated that you’ve been ignoring certain calls?”

“Oh great,” Carrie groaned as she didn’t relish the idea that her father was now on the case of the “skipped calls”. That is not what I need “If Dad is on the case, then I’ll never live it down” she sighed to Maria and Grace’s laughter, but it died. “It’s honestly nothing that you or Dad have to worry about. The calls are very innocent, I promise. Mom, it truly isn’t something that you and Dad have to burden yourselves with because it is my business, and I’ll deal with it.”

“Okay” Beth sighed as she nodded and knew when her daughter was stubborn about something, and she wasn’t going to be able to pry it out of her, so she knew when to cut her losses and knew that her daughter would come to her, if it was something truly important. “But if situation changes, come to me, okay?”

“Thank you,” Carrie smiled and hugged her mother. “I promise Mom that everything is peachy with my life,” Carrie nodded as she relished sinking into the night atmosphere, and not her love life, and she wasn’t about to explain it to her mother or her father, for that matter. “All you have to do is ignore my life and go have a good time, and don’t think about me okay, when you should be thinking about my future little brother or sister…”

Beth sighed as she allowed as to Carrie walk off, and she was left with Maria. “I guess challenges come at all ages…”

“Don’t they,” Maria murmured “You think she’s okay?”

“Yeah” Beth nodded. “She’s right that she would come to us if it were something we had to deal with. Max is just being paranoid these days and I think because of the baby, it is transferring onto me there for a moment. Whatever is bugging my daughter will get sorted out… if it does not, she knows she can come to us” she sighed. “Why don’t we go get a seat?”

“I’ll get the drinks,” Grace murmured as she knew that sister was preoccupied about something, so she decided to go get some answers.


*


Carrie was coming from behind the bar with the drinks when she spotted her oldest sister coming her way and she was not about to take it. “If this is your way of quizzing me about the calls, don’t. I am not having it tonight,” said the young woman to the laughter of her older, married sister. “You should be home reveling in your perfect husband, and perfect daughter”

“I could, sure,” Grace allowed as she knew she had a good life. “But tonight, I am spending time here. Jake is busy, and Eva is being adored by our grandparents who are relishing having the restaurant closed for the party, and spending time with their great granddaughter. It is allowing me to be here, and spending time with Mom and Maria and I cannot help but have the same impression as Mom does, that something is bugging you. So, who are you ignoring?” she murmured because she could see her sister was preoccupied.

“No one,” Carrie sighed as she pushed past her sister and walked towards her mother and aunt. “All is great in my world. I am making good money, and I will be back at school in a few weeks and working towards graduation and my future. I do not need any my family pestering about my personal life. Or for that matter, ex-boyfriends coming back into the picture.”

Grace perked up at the mention “Whoa, that was a nice slip there, sis, so, ex-boyfriends, who is it?” Grace murmured and she thought of what she knew of her sister’s love life and then she came up with a name, and she could not help but smile. “It is Justin, isn’t it?”

It’s not an issue,” Carrie sighed as she passed the drinks to her mother and Maria and quickly left the area, but Grace didn’t stay behind, and followed as her sister walked as she tried to end the conversation. “Grace, please leave it alone. I just want to concentrate on my shift, and make some money for school…”

“Humor me, okay?” Grace laughed. “You know I don’t get much of this in my life these days, or okay, I didn’t have much of it at all given how for Jake and I, we went from zero to hundred miles per hour in a split of a second” Grace laughed because unlike herself and even Alexandra who had settled early on in the dating game, Carrie has been the single sister who had dated multiple guys over the years, and didn’t grow attached to anyone, or so she thought. Carrie had given the impression that she and Justin were not that serious despite the length of their relationship. “Carrie, I can see that you are obviously upset…” Grace murmured. “What does he want?”

“I don’t know, I won’t take his calls.” Carrie muttered. “He hurt me when we broke up, and I do not want the repeat.”

“If you will not take his calls, then how do you know he wants another chance?” Grace murmured. “Maybe it is for some other reason?”

“We’re not in the same class Grace, and we have no reason to be in each other’s lives” Carrie murmured. “It is not like you and Jake would always see each other if you had broken up because of how close our families are, and how interconnected we are. Or Alexandra and Graham who are nauseating perfect together, and yet they would probably stay friends if it did not work out. Justin and I have no reason to stay in each other’s lives.”

“But you don’t know?” Grace asked. “Until you ask?”

“Yeah, fine, no, I don’t, and I do not intend to find out Grace, I am back at school in a few weeks, and if he wants something from me then he can wait” Carrie sighed.

“You loved him, didn’t you?” Grace murmured as she could see when someone was at odds with her heart. She had done enough of it in those early days before she and Jake took things further, and now she could see it in her sister. Which was at odds with how Carrie had presented her life over the years.

“I don’t love anyone,” Carrie muttered as she did not want to reflect on the past, and yet her brain would not turn it off. “And I certainly don’t love him. Grace, he did not trust me. It is not like we were dating for two weeks or two months. We were together, officially, for a year and a lot longer than that by the end. So, he knew me, and he should have trusted me that I would not keep anything that meant something from him. I could not share pieces of my history, and he should have been fine with it. Like Graham is with Alex?”

“Well it’s a big ask. Sure, I got lucky with Jake. But I don’t know if we could have made it if he hadn’t known who I am, and what I am capable of because Carrie, what we can do is pretty unbelievable and can take a lot out of a person, and with Jake and I, because he grew up in this life so he knows, and I am sure Graham is curious about Alex, but he decides to pick his battles and they found a way to make it work” Grace murmured because while she might be lucky to have someone who loved her for her complete person, at the end of the day, she did know the burden of the secret and being forced to keep parts of yourself closed off from the general public. “It’s never easy…”

“Then why couldn’t have Justin just understood that maybe one day I could have told him, but just not yet…” Carrie asked.

“Maybe you can ask him?” Grace asked. “And find out why he’s calling?”

“I will never be able to tell him the truth,” Carrie muttered. “Or at least not yet… so we would still be the same position as we were four months ago.”

“No, but you can make it clear that you do care for him. Assuming you still do, and you want to give him a chance again. Not everyone is going to be able to handle the way we deal with life. So, maybe it will not work for you and Justin, and at the end of the day, you will shake hands and move on. Or he might be the one, who is to know except to try, and to be as honest as you can be. Look at Aunt Isabel. She was married before, and she went into that relationship without telling him the truth. It did not work out., not only because of the secrets she could not tell him but when he did find out the real her, he still was not able to understand her. Carrie, he did not get her. While Uncle Kyle does and therefore, she has someone who truly does understand her, and they are incredibly happy today.”

“Which is not a good comparison Grace because it’s just evidence that I am lying to Justin about something pretty major” Carrie asked. “You are lucky. Jake knows the real you, and there weren’t any secrets, from day one, and here I am lying to Justin about something pretty fundamental.”

“You’re not lying. You’re just picking and choosing what you are sharing” Grace advocated. “Who’s to say if you and Justin the real thing he won’t find out one of these days?” she asked. “Especially if Dad’s big epiphany leads to something…”

“I guess,” Carrie nodded as she thought back to the breakfast and their father’s little discussion. “Do you think Dad wants to tell all?”

“Who knows. But if it lifts the veil then I am all for it, even if it adds to complications and the questions but then I have dealt with enough questions over the years so it will be nice to be able to talk about who we are, and not to keep it all a secret.”

“But then you don’t have to lie” Carrie murmured. “Jake knows who you are…”

“Yeah, my personal life is secure under the knowledge unlike you, or Alex, but still I still have to keep a part of myself from the rest of my world. From my friends at school and at work. They are in the dark. You are right, I am lucky that Jake might know, and Eva will grow up in this life. But honesty will be able to open doors…”

“Or make things more complicated” Carrie asked. “Doors could get slammed. People don’t always like people who are different…”

“We won’t know until that door is open,” Grace sighed as she could see they had cornered themselves off in a little segment of the bar. “I know you have to get back to work, but I want you to remember Carrie that sometimes we don’t know what is out there, until we take the step. You should not hold it against Justin that he wants to know you, because it means he does want to know you. Of course, it doesn’t mean, it will work out at the end of the day, whether he knows you or not, but you at least have to try” she sighed as she knew she had taken too much of her sister’s time. “I need to go make a call anyways to Jake before I got back and join Mom and Maria. Can you drop a beer off at the table for me?”

“Sure,” Carrie nodded as she watched her walk off, and she went back to the bar to get her sister a beer as Beth and Maria could see her daughter make an appearance, and Grace going off, outside with her phone.

“Hopefully, Grace was able to talk to her…” Beth murmured as she took a sip of her drink.

Once outside, Grace was about to dial when she saw someone familiar out of the corner of her eye and looked up at the gods and swore. You had to make this happen, didn’t you? she chuckled. “Just great. Carrie will not be happy… she will think I somehow planned this”

“Wait, you are…” asked the man who had seen the brunette using her phone as he got out of his parked car and approached. “Don’t I know you?”

“You do,” Grace conceded because they had met Justin a few times over the time he and her sister had dated. “But not very well,” Grace admitted. “Yeah though you know me as Grace Guerin. I’m Carrie’s sister.”

“Oh right,” came the man as she glanced at the striking brunette. “The one she didn’t know for most of her life…”

“Right, we didn’t meet until we were teenagers,” Grace sighed. “What do you want Justin. I am told you and my sister are over?”

“I want to see Caroline?” Justin murmured.

“If you know her at all, then you know she doesn’t like to be called Caroline. She only likes to be called Carrie. So, what do you want?” Grace murmured as the man nodded. “She tells me you’ve been calling, persistently?”

“She won’t answer” Justin asked.

“Then maybe take it as an answer that she doesn’t want to talk to you…” Grace murmured as she saw a picture her husband had messaged from the party, of Elizabeth and Belle together, as the thirteen-year-old was cutting the cake. It was clear Elizabeth was having the time of her life, and Belle was thrilled to be with her big sister. Grace knew how much the little girl had missed her big sister over the year and therefore both were happy on this night. Grace could only smile. She looked up at Justin. “You broke up with her. Why are you here now?”

“I miss her…” Justin murmured. “She is someone special. I just didn’t see it until she was gone…”

“Yes, my sister is incredibly special Justin. She is also sensitive despite her gruff exterior. She does not like to be hurt. She gave a piece of herself to you, and you weren’t happy when it wasn’t what you wanted” Grace murmured. “So, why should she give you the opportunity to hurt her again?”

“I wanted to know her,” Justin sighed. “The real her. But it was obvious she was keeping a part of herself.”

“Sometimes that happens, and you have to accept it or leave, and you left…” Grace sighed. “There is always a part of ourselves we are reluctant to give out. And maybe because of the fact Carrie didn’t know our father until she was a teenager, and we have had other tragedies in our lives over the last few years that means we have to be more protective of who we are, and how we give ourselves to people.”

“Look, I know what happened to who was it, your sister-in-law” Justin murmured as he had seen the reports on Elizabeth’s case as he flew back to the States via Europe “And you went through your own hell, right?”

“Yeah, and so we are more guarded because our families have been attacked, and therefore we are more protective. To really get Carrie, you need to see that there is still someone special underneath, and she will go to the bat for you, but she has to trust that you are there at the end of the day, just as you have got to accept that she might not be like other girls you know…” Grace murmured. “We don’t always have to give you everything…”

“Look, I know she’s not like other girls. That is why I liked her in the first place” Justin murmured because he remembered when he first caught a glance at her back on campus a few years before, and knew immediately she was unique, and special.

“I am glad, but you also hurt her.” Grace murmured as she knew Justin had a reason to be upset at not being told the complete 911 on their family.

“I just want to talk to her…” Justin murmured.

“Then don’t let me keep you but if you hurt her again then you will be dealing with a lot of angry people back here in Roswell, and we’re capable of doing a lot of damage when one of us is attacked” Grace murmured dead serious to Justin. “We all love Carrie, and we will go hell to protect her” she threatened Because we were not able to for Elizabeth. So, we will not make that mistake twice.

“I get you,” Justin murmured. “Can I go in?”

“It’s a public place, but I am serious Justin.” Grace muttered.

“I know you are,” Justin said as Grace walked away and made a phone call while as Justin looked around and assessed his ex-girlfriend’s sister. Something tells me she can make me feel a lot of pain so I should not mess with her, I guess. Shaking at the thought, he walked into the bar in search of his ex.


*


“Maybe you need an outlet” Beth was asking of Maria as she could see her friend was very overwhelmed and overtaxed. It was supposed to be happy time with her daughter’s birthday, and her son was getting married in a week’s time, and she knew that despite their misgivings Maria and Michael really did like Sue, and was happy that she was going to be coming into the family, and a new grandchild was coming come early in the New Year. So, it should be a happy time, but she knew that the knowledge of what her daughter was planning to undertake once the wedding was over, was weighing on her friend.

“For what?” Maria asked.

“The unleashing of your stress,” Beth murmured. “You need something to do that will let you unwind and unburden yourself.”

“I already have a gym membership and I go most days and even worn out some of their punching bags,” Maria sighed. “I know I am stressed out. Even before Elizabeth came back. Belle is barely into her teen years, and she has been giving me headaches almost every day and now her sister is also back, and just the simple knowledge of what is going to happen once the wedding is finished. I can’t bear it Beth.”

“I know,” Beth murmured as she knew they did not need to go over it again. “What did you do when Jake and Elizabeth and the other kids were younger. I am sure Belle is not the only time you have gone through the troubling teenage years”

“Of course, I know” Maria murmured. “I guess I had my writing. It would be something I could barricade myself off in, and let Michael deal with the kids because his life as a private investigator allowed him the free time to come and go”

Beth nodded. “You haven’t written much lately, have you?”

“No,” Maria muttered. “Elizabeth asked me the same thing?”

“You were so successful, and then you stopped…” Beth murmured.

“Because I couldn’t write about our world anymore. The darkness would get to me, and I could not deal with it. So, I just stopped once I finished that last book. My agent was wonderful with me, and she was so patient. I did not want her to keep her hanging for product that I would never be able to finish. Writer’s block, you know.”

“You left quite the cliff-hanger?” Beth commented. “Of course, you know that you don’t have to write about this world. You can just write, and let the stress come out into your writing. Whether that leads to anything. You can use it as a diary of sorts…”

“Diaries,” Maria laughed. “Writing music was more my thing, diaries were not something I gravitated towards, but you were famous for that”

“I was?” Beth murmured.

“Yeah, as a teenager, and even younger. You were always writing down every single thought that came into your mind, and even when we started to get to know Max, Michael, and Isabel. The adventures were something for you to write about…”

“That must have been risky?” Beth asked as it never occurred to her that she might have written about those times. She wondered if she had known this and just had forgotten it.

“Oh, it was. Your journal which is what you called went missing for about a minute when we were in high school, and boy did we did get obsessed with finding it. We were accusing people who were innocent” Maria sighed as she thought of Alex, and then Kyle “Because you had started to write about your feelings, and what you knew of Max’s status, and so the thought of it being gone sent us into a tizzy. You and Max even teamed up to find it.”

“Did I?”

“Eventually it turned up,” Maria laughed. “I don’t know if you remember or not but years ago, Michael confessed to me that back when he didn’t trust us, and especially you, because he saw how much Max trusted you, and loved you even in the beginning, well, he saw that you were writing in your journal at work, when we both worked at the Crashdown. And so, he liberated it from you, and only when he saw that you had drafted Max into your search that he decided to bring it back. Eventually, he returned it, and after that, the ice was a little more thawed between the two of you…”

“Michael stole my journal?”

“I reamed him out for it” Maria could not help but laugh. “But yeah in the aftermath you were a little more cautious about what you would write about, but sometimes, your true feelings would come out in them. When we thought you were gone, I eventually gave Grace your diaries when she turned sixteen. Little did I know you were on your way back to us…”

“Yeah,” Beth smiled.

“This world has taken a piece of us, and it’s hard to write about even in a series of young romance books.

“And yet we love our guys, and it’s hard to walk away…” Beth murmured.

“I don’t know if I could walk away from Michael. I had my chances, and still as much as I hate what Nicholas has taken from us. Still, I have my children, and I have my Space boy, and I cannot stop myself.

“And I had fourteen years without Max, and I can’t imagine how I got through that time not knowing him and loving him. We lost so much, and yet we have this chance. You and Michael are making something despite the pain that has been brought into your family. At the end of the day, it is been a special life and you should still express in your own way. It does not have to be how it was before, but it can be something to tell you tell your experiences. Do not make it dark or depressing. You can let it spill out, and then you will know where you want to go from there. Which is why I am sure I was into journals in the first place. It lets you stew, and to observe, and to comment”

“True,” Maria murmured as she thought of her prior life as a writer. “And it’s not like my writing was a direct play by play telling of our lives, which I couldn’t do that because it would have allowed too many questions?”

Beth laughed as she squeezed her friend’s hand for encouragement. “It’s only my opinion, but you can only punch so many bags. So, you should find a way to express yourself in a less strenuous way.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind” Maria sighed as Grace came back to the table and sat down with a flourish. “What took you so long, as Carrie dropped your beer before she went on a break?”

“Is she on break?” Grace asked as she looked around the country establishment and noticed that her sister was not at the bar, nor did she see Justin, which made her worry. “I was checking in with Jake.”

“How is the party?”

“Moving back to the house for the slumber party portion,” Grace laughed as Belle had invited five of her dearest friends for a sleepover once the party was over. Drew, Mick would be staying with Amy and Jim. Emily would be staying with Jake and Grace as Jake was taking her and Eva back to the house shortly. Grace promised not to be much longer. “But I wanted to stay for the fireworks.”

“What fireworks?” Beth asked her eldest daughter.

“The ones that are about to start, three, two, one…now” Grace commented as she pointed over to a returning Carrie from the back of the bar, as she had her head down focused on her phone, with a slight smile coming as she was reading and then she looked up and she stopped and froze when she saw her ex-boyfriend, Justin approach.

“Wait, that is Justin?” Beth asked.

“Yup.” Grace laughed. “The calls she’s been ignoring.”

“Whoa!” Maria murmured as this was the drama she liked watching. Enough with the alien hybrid breeding crap.

“I know the feeling…” Grace crackled, as she whistled. “Whoa there, girl,” she smiled as she saw her sister slap Justin, hard. “That will leave a mark…” she commented as she saw Justin coming back for more, as Carrie eventually ran out of the bar “Looks like he’s a glutton for punishment.”
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Parker1947
Obsessed Roswellian
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Always Tomorrow - Chapter 27 - 07/25/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

Across the room. Cow Patties was getting fuller by the minute. It was half price night on beer, and a country show would be starting in a few minutes and Carrie was needed back on duty as she had taken a few minutes in the back as she checked her messages, and she was coming into the front as she was looking down on her phone, and reading a text from Matthew Rogers. A private joke between the two when aliens fly came the response. Whitty Matthew whitty. Which was his answer of No to a question she asked him. She had lied to her sister that she and Matthew had not talked since the party. They were talking more frequently than they ever had before.

It was common knowledge in the Rogers family of the truth.

Once Max and Beth got together and moved to Las Cruces. Serena and Keith would visit with the kids and eventually the truth got revealed as they moved back to Roswell, and the hellmouth. Matthew and Jonathan thought it was cool although they did not really understand it. And Serena and Keith promised to keep it a secret as it had made a lot of sense to Serena, about why Beth and the twins were so different.

So, while they did not talk about it, and had not seen much of each other when they got older, and started their own lives, in university. Still, Carrie laughed because someone did know her, and it was not only her crazy clan. It showed her that maybe one day, she could be honest with people and they would not look down at her abilities and think she was a freak.

Then out of the corner of her eye she spotted the past, and she froze when she saw her ex-boyfriend approach. Everything stopped in its place.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Carrie muttered as Justin approached.

“Can we talk?” Justin asked as she glanced at his ex-girlfriend in her short dress. “You look beautiful. Simply gorgeous.”

“Don’t sweet talk me Justin. You were supposed to be in where, is it, Africa this summer?” Carrie muttered as she did not care for return of her past. “Why are you here?”

“I was,” Justin murmured as he took a glanced around the establishment and the bustling of the crowds, as the band was starting to set up for its show. “This is some place you’re working at” he sighed. You been here long?” he asked of his ex-girlfriend.

“It has its moments,” Carrie muttered. “But I don’t want to talk about where I am working as it is none of your business, so you might as continue Justin”

“Oh right,” Justin nodded as he drifted back to the subject on hand. “I was passing through on my way home to spend time with my parents before returning to school, and I thought I would visit you, and see if we could spend some time together” Justin murmured. “I wanted to see how you were doing, because I miss you…”

“That is a laugh,” Carrie muttered. “You come from Maryland Justin. So, to seek me out in Roswell, New Mexico is a pretty big detour on the way back from Africa.” Carrie asked. “You would have a much easier route if you headed straight home.”

“You make the time for the people who matter most,” Justin sighed as he had forgotten how beautiful Carrie was as he had been dreaming of her for most of the summer and regretting letting her go, and he couldn’t help but stop in on the way back home. “I know I could have waited until we were back at school.”

“What a load of bullshit. When I know that I did not matter to you when you broke up with me. So, you were celibate a little too long this summer, and you decided to swing on by figuring I was free…” Carrie muttered. “If that is what you are after, then you thought wrong. We are through and I do not see that changing. No matter how many secret visits you make to me I my hometown. We’re finished.”

“I have been calling…” Justin sighed. “It isn’t like I haven’t tried to seek you out. But you haven’t been answering my calls.”

“Which should have meant that you had my answer,” Carrie muttered as she was trying to bypass the guy. “Listen to me, Justin, while it’s sweet you would think to want to come and see me when you could have waited until we’re both back at school. Still, we are through and I do not see how that will change, today, tomorrow or next month.”

“Can’t you stop, and talk?” Justin murmured as he tried to take her arm to stop her.

“What makes you think I am free. Hasn’t it occurred to you that you are not the only guy who might be interested in me,” Carrie muttered as she thought of the texts from Matthew or the many other guys she had flirted with over the summer, and skipped out the morning after, “No, you automatically assumed that I would be crying over some beer over you or something. Well, I am not. So, do not take it as license for you to touch me, buddy. Because I am off limits to you” Carrie glared “You chose that door, and that means that door is still closed today… So, if hearing No does not stop you, then maybe this will…” she said before slapping him, fiercely, and he was forced back. “We’re over…” she said storming out of the bar as he saw the sister, he had been talking to outside go running, along with two older women. “We’re finished”


.*


“Whoa sis, that was some slap” Grace said approving of the gutsy move from her sister as she ran after, and got Carrie to stop as they stood outside of Cow Patties and Carrie wanted to swear and curse as she turned on her sister. “So, I gather you have something you want to let out?”

“What makes him think I would be free to take him up on his out of nowhere gesture,” Carrie sputtered. “You know, I was doing fine all summer. Playing, flirting, and having fun, and he now gets to roll into town as if nothing ever happened, like he was away on a planned summer vacation and nothing has changed between us? Well things did change. Everything changed, and why couldn’t he have left me alone?” Carrie mused to her sister. “What gives him the right” she moaned. “I didn’t ask him to come here…”

“No, you didn’t,” Grace agreed with slight amusement in her tone, and genuine concern in her voice. “Maybe he genuinely missed you?” Grace asked. “Maybe time and distance allowed him to see how special you are to him. And he was never a jerk when you were dating, right? she asked.

“He shouldn’t be allowed to use time and distance as an excuse,” Carrie muttered. “He doesn’t get to come as if nothing happened…”

“Obviously, he thought you mattered,” Grace asked. “And it does seem like he might have mattered to you too” she asked. Out of the all the guys you dated, he had to have meant something to you, to get through your “no attachments” veneer you had going. “So, maybe there is something special about this one.”

“Still it doesn’t give him license to show up here after vanishing on me and expecting that I would take him back…” Carrie muttered. “And no, you were right. He was genuinely a good guy. I dated plenty of losers back at school, and Justin was someone who would try anything. Didn’t expect anything, which is why it’s so frustrating when he wanted more than I was prepared to give him.”

“I don’t think he was expecting anything” Grace asked. “After all, you weren’t taking your calls. Maybe he was taking a chance, because coming here when you wouldn’t talk to him is taking a leap into the unknown.”

“Since when are you on Justin’s side?” Carrie muttered. “Shouldn’t you be on my side?”

“I am on your side,” Grace mused. “Of course, I am, but maybe he’s telling you the truth. Maybe he did miss you over the summer. Sometimes you don’t know what you miss until you let it fly away…”

“Which is annoying when you think about it. I wanted him, and he let me go” Carrie murmured. “He didn’t want to try to make it work. He just left. He didn’t think it over, or want space, no, he just left…”

“Maybe the summer allowed him to have second thoughts, and he wants you to give the two of you a new shot…” Grace sighed. “Maybe he wanted to give it a chance now. And not wait until you’re back at school and have the stresses of classes and all the pressures that come with Senior Year, with graduation approaching and everything because then it will be easy to say No, and to shut that door. Let us remember that you didn’t take his calls, so maybe this is his grand gesture…”

“You are married. So, why are you pushing me at him?” Carrie asked.

“Because you’re right. I am married, and blissfully happy and therefore I can live vicariously through you” Grace laughed. “Both Alexandra and I are, and boy did he make a gesture. Not every guy will get on a plane, and come here, when they could have waited until you were both on campus. This is your chance to see if you might be able to repair things. You did love him, right? You weren’t unhappy, were you?” she asked.

“No…” Carrie conceded. “I wasn’t looking for us to end…”

“Then take your shot,” Grace encouraged. “But of course, if there is someone else?”

“No,” Carrie muttered as she tried to forget Matthew because she did not need him complicating her present, or her future. And really, all they had done was see each other once or twice, and nothing has had happened. So, she was single. “Of course not, there isn’t anyone else…”

“Then who knows, let him have a chance to talk to you. All I am say is talk to guy Carrie. You do not have to take him back. But at least talk to him, before you close that door, because it would be unfair to the both of you to not at least hear his side…”

“You’re annoying when you’re being diplomatic” Carrie sighed. “And when you’re being the big sister,” she grunted at the annoyance she felt but knew her sister was correct that it would be unfair to Justin not to listen to him, and to hear his side of the story still the hurt doesn’t go away so she didn’t know how she would react to it ultimately.

“You love me, and I love you. At the end of the day, I want you to be happy” Grace assured her sister. “Who knows what the future is, and we shouldn’t be taking anything for granted because we have seen that not everyone is this lucky,” she sighed as she thought of Elizabeth and Carrie nodded as he also couldn’t help but think about their friend. “So, do whatever you want, and I’ll support you the whole way.”

“I guess, so I guess I should thank you for talking me down” Carrie muttered as she saw that they weren’t the only ones in their cocoon of sorts with her mother and Maria watching from the doors, as if they were protecting them from the intruders. “I guess the guts of that talk down is that I better talk to him, huh?” she laughed, and Grace could only slyly smile.

“That is purely up to you,” Grace murmured. “It’s always been up to you. So, do not let me push you into anything you do not want to do, but hearing his side of the story is not going to kill you, is it?”

Carrie nodded, “I guess not,” as she walked back towards the doors and saw her mother and Maria. “You don’t have to worry because I am fine Mom” she assured her mother. “Grace was able to talk me down.”

“Good,” Beth murmured as she was happy that her daughter had someone to talk to if she didn’t want to come to her or Max as she watched her daughter walk back into the bar as Grace also approached, but stayed outside with them. “So, what’s the verdict? She is going to talk to him, isn’t she?”

“Who knows because she marches to her own drummer. But something tells me she will give him a chance to talk to her, if only because she loves to battle. And she still has some things to say about how he treated her.”

“That is so like Michael and I” Maria laughed. “He made me crazy, and yet he is the only one I wanted to battle” she sighed. “And we’re the same way, today, years later…”

“Do we want to watch?” Grace asked as the three bursts out laughing and re-entered back at the establishment to watch the show, in many ways.


*


Back at the house. The slumber party was taking place in the suite downstairs because Liam and Colin were staying elsewhere for the night. Max and Michael were the official chaperones, while Jake was also along for the ride because Grace was still at Cow Patties. Max and Michael were sharing beers in the kitchen, while Jake and Elizabeth were talking in the living room. It was a chance for normalcy. Elizabeth appreciated it. She knew she was different from the person she was, but she enjoyed being home. She did not realize how much she missed it until she was gone. “I know you must think I am crazy to do this” she asked as she and Jake had not been able to spend much time over the last week together with Jake back on duty at the station. Grace was busy with her duties at the hospital.

“I don’t want you to be hurt” Jake muttered as he had long existed in the reality that remembered too much of those days when the family changed. As much as it led him to Grace, still, he had many regrets and most of them involved his sister. “You are risking that this will go bad.”

“I am not expecting this to be easy. I know it can’t be, given who were talking about” Elizabeth muttered. “I wish I could push it on Mom and Dad, or Uncle Max to take on the battle, and slay the monster. But I cannot. This started with me…”

“It started with our parent’s generation,” Jake pointed out. “It not on us to take on their battles” he asked. “They don’t want that for us, sis…”

“Maybe it is though,” Elizabeth asked. “Jake, it’s not like we weren’t affected by the firefight. It affected all of us. It affected me. On his time on earth, Nicholas won his battle with us. I can’t and I won’t let Khivar take anything more from us…”

“He hasn’t shown up, has he?” Jake muttered as he thought of the fact that they had not battled Khivar himself and it made him wonder why the bastard had not shown his face. Especially if she had come to earth and wanted to make their families pay for sins, he believed they had committed or the simple fact that they were happy, while Khivar was drummed from power, and his authorities taken from him. “Does he even care about us?” he asked. “Maybe it was all Nicholas’s vendetta?”

“Oh, I am sure a large part of it was that it was Nicholas letting out his aggression on us,” Elizabeth sighed as she shuddered at the memories as Jake sighed how a paleness came over his sister. “It’s alright Jake, I am passed it…”

“I am sorry for making you remember what Nicholas did to you,” Jake asked. “It wasn’t my intention. If only so much had been different…”

“But it wasn’t,” Elizabeth murmured. “Back to Nicholas. Maybe it was on him, but maybe it was not, also… Because I do not believe it can be all on that monster. I am sure until he went out on his own. He had to have done Khivar’s bidding for a lot of the time. He took Aunt Liz from Uncle Max. Changed their family. Khivar likely hated Uncle Max back up on Antar because Max was the King the country wanted. But Khivar wanted the throne and took it after trying to seduce Isabel from the royal family. So, he would want Max destroyed. And therefore, he engineered taking Aunt Liz from Max and Grace. So, I assume it was Khivar who started this, and all Nicholas was taking was some side vacations on the quest that started with Khivar. And therefore, it might be time to finish it because Nicholas hated Dad, and took it out on me, and I went along with it.”

“Why does it have to be you?” Jake asked. “You were fifteen, and you were in no condition and he preyed on it. So, don’t take any of the burden okay?”

“Because it does, and you know it as well as I do. I need to do this. I feel I owe it to myself, and to my boys and especially Drew who didn’t deserve to spend his first years with such a madman and I did that to him, and thankfully Mick is too young to remember but Drew does remember. He might one day forget. But he remembers now, and I hate that for him. So, I need to do this for this family, and for the kids” she asked. “But enough of me. I am doing this. It is a done deal. So, you’re a cop now?”

“I was a cop before you left town,” Jake muttered.

“But it’s a career for you now?” Elizabeth asked. “Something you have settled into and making your life.”

“Yeah,” Jake nodded. “I happened on the job because of everything. I got lucky. Not everyone would have given me one because I did not graduate. So, Grandpa gave me a shot, but I found I like it. I am sure Mom wishes I found a job at the nearest food joint or something or was helping at the Crashdown because of the danger level but then in our lives, we find danger in the strangest and weirdness of places so at least I am mandated to carry a gun with my job which I think actually meets her approval. And it ended up working out. I like being able to help people. I like solving problems. So, yeah, it ended up being something for me.”

“I am glad,” Elizabeth smiled and for a tiny minute Jake felt like life was its old self. “And you and Grace have managed to create something special.”

“Yeah we did, and we want that for you,” Jake asked. “I know you feel like you have to do this, but please be careful. We only just got you back, and we don’t want to lose you again”

“I will try,” Elizabeth allowed.

“Thank you,” Jake nodded as the door opened and in walked Maria and Grace. At the sight of his wife, Jake bounced up from the couch with happiness, and his sister could tell her brother’s marriage was strong despite the havoc was done to their relationship early, and she knew she had to keep it that way, so she knew she was doing the right thing in protecting her family.

“So, were you able to unwind?” Jake asked his mother, and wife.

“And we got quite the show too…” Grace laughed at the fun they had witnessed at Cow Patties. “Of all things we didn’t expect to take place tonight, Carrie’s ex ended up showing up and the battle was quite a scene.”

“Whoa he did” Jake laughed at the thought of Carrie taking on her ex-boyfriend. The little they knew of Justin was that he and Carrie made an interesting combination. “I almost wished I could have been there to watch. But given I wasn’t called into service meant the damage was kept to a minimum?”

“Yeah, we were lucky” Grace laughed. “It was fun to watch”

“Who is the ex?” Elizabeth asked.

“Justin Palmer. Both of them go to Duke University, and they were together for over a year before they broke up in the spring because there were things about us, you know that we couldn’t tell others, and in this case, Carrie wasn’t able to talk about it to Justin. So, Justin rebelled, and they broke up and I guess the summer has made him miss her, and now he’s back in the picture.”

“That sucks” Elizabeth murmured.

“It does,” Grace nodded. “So, we’ll see if he lasts” she murmured. “At least tonight he seems want her back. Let us see how it goes if she still cannot tell him everything little thing about her background. We will see if he can last then… Because not everyone is as fortunate as I am to have someone who knows me like Jake does. Graham doesn’t seem to care or says he doesn’t care about what Alex can’t tell him.”

“Graham?” Elizabeth asked.

“Alexandra’s steady boyfriend. They have been dating since high school. They met like the first day she started at West Roswell after our year in Las Cruces, and they have been together, it seems ever since and they are very close to marriage, if I read the signals right,” Grace murmured. “I am told he wants to make it memorable, or at least that is according to the 911 that Carrie has been able to gain of the coming plans.”

“I’ve missed out on so much” Elizabeth mused as it did not seem real even today to know everything was so different. Jake and Grace were married and Grace’s sisters that she was beginning to know were in their twenties. Today, everything was different, and yet it felt right, and she could only hope the future is as rewarding.

“We grow up and move on,” Jake murmured as he got a nod from his mother. “Speaking of someone growing up. The party is in full swing downstairs. We haven’t heard a peep, so I think all is good down there because I think they are watching one of the Frozen movies or something” he laughed.

“If you don’t know then I guess I should go down and check up on what’s going on” Maria laughed as she left the room “Since from the sounds of it, Michael and Max aren’t doing much to chaperone.”

“Speaking of Dad, where is he?” Grace asked as she had seen her father’s car out front, but did not see her father or her father-in-law, and that meant they were doing something they probably should not be doing.

“Out back, I think they have been talking,” Jake murmured.

“Which is what I don’t like,” Grace laughed as she knew she probably needed to make sure everything was on the up and up. “We can get going but first, I am going to make sure they aren’t hatching some kind of plan or something…”

“Why would they do that?” Elizabeth murmured.

“Because they can’t help it,” Grace sighed as she walked off, leaving the brother and sister team to look at each other. “It’s how they are wired. Even if it is not like they can do anything?” she murmured as she disappeared from the room and Elizabeth couldn’t help but look at her brother and wonder what was going on. “What’s going on?”

“Some plan hatching, I am sure” Jake offered. “As I said, Khivar started their mess…”

“What are they going to do?” Elizabeth asked.

“Who knows…” Jake murmured honestly.


*


“We should have someone in there,” Michael muttered as they were playing darts in the garage. A current picture of Kevin Salazar hung on the board, and they were drinking, and pitching ideas of making sure his daughter stayed save on this suicide mission. And that they could control the ground and make it hard for Salazar to take hold of his daughter. “Can you think of any names?”

“It is not wise,” Max continued as he picked up his beer as they surveyed the dart board. “As much as I would love for someone to be in there but by now Salazar will be wise of our whole inner circle, and the Deputy department down to tee and might still have a mole in there dug deep” he muttered as he knew that is what Jim feared because too much of Elizabeth’s situation had hit the media and was spun into damaging stories that fed the world’s narrative against her. And there had not been anything the judge could do because while a gag order had been on the case which told them that they could not talk to the press. But there were ways of getting tidbits out there on social media and it had killed Elizabeth’s image in the press and it would years before she would be able to get a control of how people perceived her, and maybe never if Salazar got his hands on her, and won the day.

“I am not going to let him get a hold of my daughter without a fight,” Michael said as he threw a dart that landed in his eye How I wish I could do this in real life. It was a good way of relieving the stress level as he had for years did it with a picture of Nicholas. Only for that picture to be retired now that he was officially dust.

“I am with you on that but we’re going to have to be careful,” Max sighed as he thought of their predicament and could feel for Michael because if it had been him and Grace and it almost was back in the beginning, or any of his daughters, than he would probably be worse and he knew that Michael has been dealing with it on the front lines for seven long years. “Knowing that he is an all-knowing bastard, he probably has a complete dossier of all the staff, and patients so he knows who to bribe and who to bring into his orbit as he awaits his trial”

“I can’t lose her. Not again” Michael asked as he conceded that Max was probably right that if Salazar was the even half the most cunning drug lord out there, then he would probably have moles all over the place and working the situation from the inside, which made it all the more dangerous for his daughter to be walking into such a situation and be expected by FBI to lead them to him.”

“I’m there with you that I wish we could think of something,” Max allowed. “But when he probably has the place loaded with his own plants. The idea we’re going to be successful with one of us, when he likely has all the intel available on us.”

“She’s going to be a sitting duck,” Michael cursed. “She’s been out of the game for seven years” he mused as for the two years before she disappeared they both knew that Elizabeth could hardly be considered dependable and therefore she was a loose cannon and her powers as such started to get seriously out of whack, and they had posed a danger. While most of the time, she did not do anything with them because she was too stoned or taking her aggression and her quest to dull the pain in other pursuits, that her father did not want to think about. Still it meant she was untrained and for Ava to think that being who they were was going to be an asset, was simply wrong. “She’s hardly going to be able to be a helping participant?”

“Yeah,” Max conceded because they all remembered the Elizabeth from after the attack. “Of course, we don’t know her life these last seven years Michael. For all she we, she might be up for the task…”

“If she didn’t get clean until seven, eight months ago” Michael asked. “There is no way she will be able to take on someone like Salazar”

“We just have to pray that she can handle it” Max sighed.

“Or get a plant in the inside,” Michael swore… and Max knew while he wished he could advocate and help with his best friend’s inner angst, he also knew they would be asking for trouble if they were to even attempt to do something as drastic but then he didn’t know they had someone listening their conversation unseen as moments later Max headed home to his wife, and to the kids who actually were resided there for the night, and found himself the next morning pondering his conversation with Michael, and deciding to seek out Elizabeth.

“We need to talk,” Max asked as they stood outside in the backyard watching as Drew was kicking a soccer ball around with Emily and Christopher who was visiting. Drew and Christopher were showing real talent at the sport and a fun game was being had. Beth was inside talking to Maria, as Michael was off working, or that is what Max was hoping he was doing as opposed to planning something that could blow up in their faces. But Max had more pressing matters. And they did not seem to involve his daughters love lives although Justin was still in town, and it seemed like Carrie was giving him another chance which Max was not completely sold on. But Beth told him to trust his daughter. So, Max was, although he knew his other daughters did not know whether to approve or watch for the blow up because the reunion to them seemed very tenuous and ready to be broken up at any time. It was settled on unexploded firecrackers, and they could be set off at any time.

“Great kick Drew” Elizabeth murmured as Drew scored a goal at the makeshift goal net they had designed in the back yard and she concentrated back to Max. “You wanted something?”

“How prepared are you to take on you know who?” Max asked as they wanted the name unsaid so the little of the families would not hear more than they should.

“As much as I can be, I suppose” Elizabeth murmured. “I haven’t really given it a thought” she murmured as the past week had allowed her to settle in at home, and to concentrate on other pursuits and stop worrying. “I have wanted to focus on everything but the knowledge of what is going happen once this wedding is over” she sighed as she focused on her godfather and could see the concern on her Uncle and lawyer’s face. “Max, you don’t have to remind me because I know it won’t be easy, and it can’t be, given who we are talking about, and even then, I am not completely sure what I will be facing…”

“No, you don’t” Max murmured just as Christopher scored two goals in quick succession and there was much yelling in the backyard, much to his amusement How much this is the life I wish for the kids Max mused as he watched his son celebrate. And not the one our kids were forced into as teenagers. Carefree was a pipe dream, once Nicholas attacked. I hope Christopher and his new baby brother or sister will have a much easier life.

“I know what could be asked of me,” Elizabeth murmured as Emily drifted from the game and went to find Belle. Christopher and Drew continued the game, and it became a contest to see who could kick the most balls and score...

“Are you prepared. You even said you don’t have the defenses that you did when you were younger…”

“And not afraid to act out?” Elizabeth asked. “I admit I was a little foolish in the way I conducted my day to day life, even before Nicholas struck”

“You were so young, and you didn’t know. No one knew what was coming,” Max murmured. “All you wanted to do was forget. And we weren’t able to give you the support you needed.”

“That is for sure,” Elizabeth sighed. “You guys wanted to be there for me, but I couldn’t accept the help and I am sorry that I see it now, and not them. I do realize that I am probably a little outgunned going into this situation. I was telling the truth that once the drugs started, as any of you could probably remember about those times, well, my powers became a little too unreliable and therefore it was just better to stop acting out in that way and I found other ways, and the drugs took hold, and I didn’t really use my powers because they were dimmed by the chemical numbing of my brain. We both know if I had the ability than I wouldn’t have lasted with Nicholas, and given I was so unpredictable than I might have created a worse spectacular than I ultimately did.”

“Then how can you go there and do what they want you to do…” Max asked.

“Let us face it Max, they don’t want me because of who I am, or the abilities that I might possess when we both know they want me to use my charm, and other abilities to trap him. Using a little of what I was best at…” she sighed because she hadn’t wanted to be good at that. She had plans, and none of them was getting men into bed. She always wanted to top the world in some fashion and not be tied down. Sure, she wanted to be in love, and Finn was the first taste of that, but she had not planned to stick around Roswell for long once she graduated. Well I guess I did not stay around, only it was topping the charts or finding my dreams. It was giving that pervert what he wanted revenge against my father.

“You’re more than what you’re past was Elizabeth,” Max sighed as he was unnerved that Elizabeth was quite prepared to use any method to get to Salazar, which is what he knew Ava wanted. While they probably would not quibble if she did to subdue him, still, they did not want Elizabeth to raise her hands, and engage in a firefight. All they wanted was for her to seduce him into a trap.

“It’s still who I am,” Elizabeth murmured. “So, no, I don’t know what I will do”

“Then you probably should plan on meeting me tomorrow by the train tracks, and I’ll help prepare you” Max asked. “Get you into fighting shape?”

“What are you thinking?” Elizabeth asked wearily of her godfather. “I don’t need training Uncle Max.”

“I think you should be prepared. Because this will be the biggest fight you’ve ever experience. If you thought sinking into the abyss these last years was over than you are not prepared to sink to Salazar’s level.”

“I have had five years with Nicholas. So, I know a bit about the abyss,” Elizabeth murmured. “I know the disturbed mind as I have lived it and with it.”

“Then think of it as self-defense. Being gone, then you’ve missed out on the training all the others have received, and you only have a week” Max murmured as since those days they got caught looking elsewhere, and as they saw that Elizabeth was sinking. Max, Beth, Michael, Maria, Isabel, and Kyle responded by putting all their kids. Belle exempted until she passed her tenth birthday through self-defense classes, so they knew how to deal with intruders, but also more complex alien hybrid training. So, he knew Elizabeth needed a crash course. “Humor me, okay?”

“If you’re sure?” Elizabeth asked wearily.

“I am,” Max swore because if the one thing to lessen the calamity this was bound to be, it was to make sure Elizabeth did have the capability to defend herself if the need called for it and prayed she didn’t have to fight, but he needed this to at least give Michael possibility of some sanity. “Let’s hope you won’t need it, but you’re not going to have Ava as backup,” he sighed because he knew the FBI would not be there as a backup unless Elizabeth was close to getting at Salazar. “So, you’re going to be on your own, and you should be prepared for anything…”

“I guess,” Elizabeth murmured as she nodded because she knew there was valid concern in her godfather’s concern as the game broke up and Drew came rushing over to his mother. “Mommy, I won”

“I knew you would, great job, Drew” Elizabeth smiled as she hugged her son. “Let’s get you some ice cream” she said picking up her son and walking back in the house because she knew she only had a countdown on her head regarding her time with her family as Max sighed because as much it did them a world of good to see Elizabeth finally on a good track. It also meant that they too soon were going to watch her fall off the wagon.

He could only pray it would not be as bad as he feared as his son came over to his father. “Tomorrow is another day. You will win next time…”

“I know,” Christopher nodded as he looked up at his father. “We were having fun, so it’s nothing, Although I was winning before Emily left,” he quipped. “But I was thinking of something when Drew passed me, as it’s no hardship. I will beat him next time.” he murmured in a very clever five-year-old way as if he were planning the next game “Dad, is something up with Grace?”

“Where did that come from?” Max asked as his only son as he knew Grace had given him no worries of late. It had been Elizabeth and especially Carrie that had given cause for concern. When his eldest had long passed by the land of the drama and since her marriage to Jake, things were noticeably quiet on that front, which is the way he wanted it.

“When Grace and Jake were here before, I heard Grace on the phone, and she was being serious like she’s planning something…” the five-year-old of his much older sister as Max was reminded again how incredible it was to have such a age difference among his kids, and to add the newest baby to, it was going to create some interesting dynamics.

“I am sure it’s nothing,” Max tried muttering.

“It’s just lately I have been getting a strange vibe from Grace,” Christopher Maxwell Evans murmured, and it startled his father because the last thing they needed their son was to be exhibiting any special gifts and then he remembered how Belle had started to exhibit around the age of six, but his son was even younger but horror struck him in that his son had even stronger genes from both him and Beth. Which made it a whole other ballgame.

“What kind of vibe?” Max murmured.

“Like she’s up to something,” Christopher asked. “It’s just this feeling… “

“Let’s hope it’s nothing,” Max muttered as Beth came out of the house. “Are we ready to go?”

“Sure,” Beth smiled as they kissed as Christopher rushed back into the Guerin home to get his stuff, and it left his parents out. “What’s wrong?” he murmured. “I heard all about the game. Drew won, huh. Was Christopher upset?”

“No, he handed it like a pro” Max laughed. “He’s already itching for the rematch. But he said something that did worry me.”

“Worried you, how?” Beth as they sat down on the picnic table.

“He’s gotten a vibe,” Max murmured. “It was off Grace. Like she’s planning something…”

“Vibe Max,” Beth asked as her eyes narrowed and went slightly wide because she had spent the last seven years getting up to date with all the ins and out of their clan’s abilities, and she knew what it meant from her own experience of being able to access thoughts and worries although that was rare most days, as it was really in an emergency that she seemed to tap into her abilities. She mainly left it to the kids, and to Max, and now to think of her five-year-old coming into whatever ability he is bound to have.

“I want to say it’s like Belle when she was six, where it went dormant and it didn’t show up again after that initial burst” Max murmured. “She’s was much older when it came back…”

“Yeah but it did come out when her world got turned upside down. Max…” Beth murmured her concern. “He’s our son, which makes him much more genetically sensitive in gaining abilities. The likelihood that he’s not to have abilities one day is remote given all of his other siblings do have them?”

“I know. Let us just hope it’s just a vibe, and nothing more” Max murmured they walked back into the house. “The last thing we need more is drama,” as he now had to put his eldest daughter on his watch and be concerned list


*


Grace was planning something, and her husband got a good glimpse of it as he walked into the house after his shift. Glancing around the house, he did not see his daughter, so he figured one of her adoring relatives had taken the little girl for the evening as he heard his wife on the phone. “I can’t do it Friday or Saturday, but I can fly out on Sunday morning and join you and the others for the day or so, and spend a few days with you after Martha, Debra and Rose have to get back to their lives” she smiled. “It can’t be helped. A good friend of mine is marrying my brother-in-law, Colin on Saturday and so I need to be here for the wedding. Rehearsal dinner is the night before” she smiled as her eyes landed on her husband. “What can I say, I lead a very unique and unbelievable life” she laughed at the thought of Sue marrying Colin. “Yeah, it’s a ridiculously small circle. Which is why you can see why I am much happier here.” she smiled. “Let me check on cheap flights and get in touch with you tomorrow. Jake’s home, so I have some explaining to do on what he’s walked into” she murmured. “Yeah, I know, talk to you later…” she smiled as she hung up and watched her husband surveyed her face. “Out with it. What did you want to say?”

“What is that about?” Jake asked.

“Tina, you know from school when I was in Boston?” Grace murmured as she thought of her good friends she had made in her short time at Harvard. She did not regret her and Jake’s decision to relocate back to Roswell, to come home, because it was home to her. But still, she missed her friends. “She’s organizing a girl’s weekend next weekend. But because of Sue and Colin’s wedding, I can’t make it until Sunday if I were to go?”

“Do you want to go?” Jake asked.

“Yeah,” Grace nodded. “It’s been awhile since I saw the girls. While Martha, Debra will have to get back to their lives but because Tina and Rose both live in New York. It will be good to see them; I can stay for a few extra days. If you don’t mind taking up the slack?”

“Eva and I will be fine,” Jake murmured as she took his wife into his arms as they kissed each other softly. “I know you need this. You don’t see them very often, and Eva and I will likely camp out at Mom and Dad’s as they try to handle you know what will be happening to Elizabeth after the wedding.”

“Right,” Grace murmured softly as she remembered what was destined to happen once the wedding was over. “I could tell them, I can’t come. You know that I want to be here for you, and your family” as she thought of Maria and Michael, and the rest of her second family.

“No, you’re right. New York will be fun experience for you girls. You can unwind, and the come back to the fallout of whatever is destined to happen. If you want to go, don’t let me tell you to pass it up.”

“I’ll miss you…” Grace murmured. “We don’t spend many night’s apart?”

“No, we don’t,” Jake murmured as they kissed. “So, where is our little princess?”

“She is at Isabel and Kyle’s for the night. I thought we would have a night to ourselves, and that was before you know the call” Grace said. “Aunt Isabel plans on spoiling her.”

“I bet,” Jake murmured. “So, we have the house to ourselves. No kids to be had, of any age?” he asked of his daughter, or his nephews and little sisters Belle and Emily.

“Nope, it’s just us…” Grace laughed as they kissed. “How about we spend some quality time that we’re going to skip out on next weekend,” she murmured as she picked her husband’s hand with her own and led him upstairs to their bedroom where they spent the rest of the night in each other’s arms as neither thought of the days to come or the unknown as they wanted to spend the night together.

The drama would be here, soon enough…

And it would.
keepsmiling7
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Re: Always Tomorrow (CC, Mature) - A Reunion's Endgame - Chapter 27 - 07/25/2020

Post by keepsmiling7 »

yes, so much drama......and so many small children....
I will be worried about Elizabeth until she is safe again.
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Parker1947
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Joined: Sat Jan 08, 2005 10:34 pm

Always Tomorrow - Chapter 28 - 07/28/2020

Post by Parker1947 »

Over the next week, the days counted down to the wedding as Elizabeth spent the time with her family and also had daily meetings with Max, who had gotten the approval from the prosecutor for her to leave the house if she was in the company of Max. Therefore, she spent the time adjusting to her powers, and trying to finesse. She found she was out of shape, in more ways than just the lack of fitness over the years, when she was widely off target in those early sessions. But she persisted, and she eventually got better with her aiming of her targets. Which is funny to her because she had found the target perfectly when she got rid of Nicholas but then Max told her she didn’t stop at just one or two shots; she went for the empty the gun approach. She did not regret it, but it meant she did not have practice in keeping it compact and on target. Making her actions effective.

Now the wedding was the next day. And it was hours before the rehearsal dinner. They were at the practice site and she had wasted the bottles and she had been largely successful in all the abilities she had tried as she was getting stronger and she knew it, and she knew it was a good idea these sessions. “I do appreciate this…”

“You’ve always been strong, but this allows you to get your aggression out, and to time it properly.”

“I guess I never realized how much being stoned all the time limited my abilities,” Elizabeth murmured as she thought of the endless days when she thought the drugs would help her, and they had in the beginning, as they numbed the pain and kept her too unconscious to bring the flashbacks and the memories. And yet they had robbed her of so much, and she did have many regrets about what she had lost because she could not instantly heal. “If only I had your powers.”

“They don’t always help,” Max murmured as she knew how he had tried to help Elizabeth and then couldn’t help but remember his own experience in the “White Room”. “As you well remember, I was able to help with the outside, the physical, but I couldn’t help you with the mental,” Max murmured as he thought of how easy when Elizabeth was out of the sight of the medical professionals to help with what ailed her, but he couldn’t touch the mental, those memories that always stay with you, no matter how strong willed you are. “I know something about what it is like to have the memories beat me up, and to know what could have been but fortunately for me, my experience was way shorter than what you had to endure. And I am sorry I couldn’t help you with it.”

“I wouldn’t let you,” Elizabeth sighed. “I wanted to sink into the abyss. And plus, Nicholas would not have let you help me, because he wanted me vulnerable and accessible and I walked right into his web” she asked. “Any process I was making in recovering was always weakened and my resolved always failed in the end. You wouldn’t have been able to help me because I didn’t want the help.”

“But you do now?” Max asked.

“Yeah,” Elizabeth murmured. “So, I do appreciate this because I do feel like fighting back. I am not going to let Salazar or his inner Khivar try to drown me again…”

“I hope you get the win this time” Max murmured as they walked back to the car and drove back into town to get ready for the festivities for the big wedding. Elizabeth too as she got out of the car and gave Max her thanks and walked back into the house just as the door opened again and Michael came out of the house. “You would be proud?”

“How is she?” Michael asked as while he had been in the dark in the beginning of Max’s lessons because it usually was him giving the newest generations tips of how to bring about their inner alien abilities but this time it was family man Max, which was different but both knew Michael had skin in the game, and it needed to happen.

“She’s strong,” Max promised. “She reminds me of back when she was a teenager. Before it all went haywire. She’s pretty formidable.”

“Yeah,” Michael asked as he took in the assessment as his mind was also flooded back to memories of his daughter when they worried about what level of havoc she would unleash with her abilities, and now he prayed they would be able to see them otherwise he stood to lose her. Do you think Salazar will get drawn in?”

“Chances are fairly good. If only because he might see an advantage of it” Max sighed. “Going by the thinking of getting her on his team will bring revenge against us…”

“Time is ticking down.” Michael sighed.

“I know,” Max muttered as a car drove up, and it was Jake and Eva. As Grace was with Sue getting ready for the rehearsal dinner. As he saw his son-in-law, he was reminded of his son’s weeklong paranoia about something being up with his big sister. It had escalated to constant questions for both him and Beth, and he did not know how to answer the questions. So, he decided to go to the source. “I assume Grace is with the bride?”

“Yup,” Jake murmured as he got Eva out of the car seat. “Is my sister okay?”

“All is good on that front, for today at least” Max assured Jake. “So, what is going on with my daughter, your wife. Christopher has been getting this vibe for the last week that his big sister is up to something, but I cannot get any answers out of her. So, what’s up?”

“Nothing as far as I know. She is busy with work. School is back in session in a few weeks. All she’s planning is a trip to see friends on the East Coast after the wedding.”

“Really?” Max asked. “She’s leaving Roswell, now of all times?”

“Some friends from Harvard want to get together his weekend, but because of the wedding, Grace is delaying going until Sunday” Jake said as he held their daughter. “She’ll be back Thursday but I figured she could use the chance to unwind with some friends she met when we had a chance to get out of this town, before it seduced us back.”

“I understand that, and I want that for her, but given everything going on right now, do you think it’s wise that she leaves Roswell?” Michael murmured as he was surprised too of Grace’s plans.

“I want this for her Dad,” Jake murmured. “Nicholas is dead. Elizabeth is going into the lion’s mouth and dealing with Salazar aka Khivar so we’re not the focus, and I am allowing my wife the chance to get away and having a girl’s weekend when I know when she comes back, she’ll be facing the doom and gloom that will descent on our family once this wedding is over, and Elizabeth does what she has to do, to get her freedom.”

“I guess,” Max allowed. “But I really should talk to her?”

“She’s determined,” Jake murmured. “So, Christopher is getting vibes…”

“I know,” Max murmured as he thought of his growing five-year-old son. “I don’t want to think about it.”


*


“Are you ready for this?” Grace was asking Sue in the backyard of her childhood home. The only home she ever knew. The Adams family homestead was in wedding disorder as the big day was approaching and she remembered how disorganized her own wedding was as it brought fun memories for her to remember when everything became right. The only thing that had been missing had been Elizabeth, but she was back now, she Grace was determined that her friend would come out of the upcoming crisis in one piece.

“More than ready,” Sue smiled. “Finally, tomorrow is the day. I know I was nervous back in the beginning, but now, I am know this is the right decision for us” she sighed as she knew that it was helping that Maria had been more welcoming of Sue into the family, and she had been a help in planning the wedding as it brought some happiness to the family that desperately needed it.

“I am so happy for you,” Grace smiled. “So, where’s the honeymoon?”

“My grandparents are sending us to Italy for two weeks,” Sue murmured. “We wanted the ability to travel before the baby comes, and the Caribbean is always problematic at this time of year. Who wants to go during hurricane season,” she laughed?

“Impressive,” Grace laughed. “We only did New York…”

“And you’re going back?” Sue frowned. “Did I hear that you’re headed back?”

“I am,” Grace allowed. “I didn’t want to miss your wedding, and it will be there when I get there” she sighed. “Jake will be supporting his parents, and so I figured the time is better than once this upcoming event is in full swing.”

“You’re up to something, aren’t you?” Sue asked her friend.

“What makes you think I am,” Grace asked.

“You’ve been pretty fine with being here, since coming back from Boston. And now you are headed back East on the very day that Elizabeth is surrendering to whatever she is facing by going into that hospital,” Sue wondered. “So, yeah, I can’t help but think that it is weird?”

“Well you’re going to be in Italy, and I am simply taking a few days to be with friends,” Grace muttered as she defended her known plan. “Jake doesn’t mind…”

“He loves you,” Sue asked. “He might not see it, but I sense something is up with you because I saw enough of it back in high school. When you and Elizabeth were both up to some degree of mischief or something along those lines. You’re planning something, aren’t you?”

“No, I am not,” Grace promised holding one hand behind her back. “Let us get you married so you can join this crazy, bizarre family. Because, you know you can walk away and just raise the baby with Colin, and not marry into our set of families,” she laughed as Sue shook her head. “It’s a lot to deal with…on a good day.”

“I know,” Sue laughed. “I can’t walk away now. If I could not handle it, then I would have seven years ago when I learned the truth” she sighed as she found out the true, at the start of a double set of tragedies that shook the family. “And plus, the sex is too good for me to walk away from Colin, now…” she laughed, and it caused to Grace burst out laughing as well.

“What can I say, we’re good for something” Grace laughed as the girls finished getting ready before driving over to the Guerin’s house. “Given the chaos we bring into your mere mortals lives,” she giggled.


*


“We’re proud of you Colin,” Maria was saying to her son that night. The rehearsal of the church wedding had gone well. Both had wanted it to be in the church, and Sue’s family was more religious than the Guerin’s and while Sue did not care to go to church. She wanted it for her parents, and so she was excited. It had gone well. And now they were at the Adams family for the intimate rehearsal dinner. It was not going to be a big wedding.

Simple, and small, which is how Colin and Sue wanted it because of the publicity the Guerin family had found themselves in, and that they knew it wouldn’t be all position since Elizabeth would be seen to be at the wedding, and the press was still negative about her cutting a deal. Little did the media know the extent of her deal. If they did, they might even consider the wisdom of the federal agency wanting to use a former kidnap victim as sacrificial bait to get at a drug lord who was really a rogue alien.

But that for another day as tonight was still tonight. “We hope you and Sue are very happy.”

“Thank you, Mom,” Colin smiled. “We promise to make sure we both live a life would want.”

“Just have a happy future together, and stay safe” Maria murmured as she knew her sons and even Belle hadn’t brought the danger level but the knowledge that Nicholas might have come after Belle one day brought her pause and the knowledge that the monster was thankfully rotting in the ground.

“We will,” Colin murmured.


*


“Welcome to the family,” Elizabeth said to her friend. “I might not have been around too much lately, so I am coming into this late. It does look like you and Colin are happy together, and will have a great life together”

“We’re glad you’re going to be there for our big day. You have been missed…” Sue smiled as she took the iced tea from an approaching Grace. “To the future,” they toasted, and all three wished the future would be bright.


*


“So, you and Justin?” Alexandra asked across the room as she stood with her twin sister. She was dateless because Graham had his own family commitment to attend tonight and because this was a rehearsal, Alexandra needed to attend so they were free agents for tonight. Carrie and Justin were at the festivities together as Justin was still around, and staying at a motel but so far, he wasn’t going anywhere, and he hadn’t returned to the East Coast, as of yet and Carrie didn’t want to talk about it.

“It’s still new,” Carrie murmured as she looked at Justin who was talking to her parents and so far, he had been a model boyfriend she mused How long will this last. “I don’t know where it’s going Alex. So, no questions, okay” she pleaded with her sister.

“Of course, I am going to ask you questions, because I can’t help it.” Alexandra laughed. “You know very well why I can’t help it…”

“Then it would be best if you restrain yourself,” Carrie could not help but bat back. “I don’t ask about your love life, or your endless relationship with Graham?”

“Yes, you do, because you know you would be the same way with me if I was the one who was in your shoes” Alexandra laughed as she thought of the endless advice she would get from her twin about her long relationship with her own boyfriend. “Look, all I want is for you to be happy,” she sighed because she didn’t know if her sister was happy or not and that unnerved her… we’re twins, and usually I know how she ticks, and yet this time she’s a mystery to me, and I don’t like that…

“What can I say except that it’s early,” Carrie admitted. “I don’t know where it will go” she sighed. “It’s been good. But then it was good for us before, and then it went all haywire,” she sighed. “Neither of us are back at school. We’re in a different world, and there is still too much I can’t tell him, and I can’t see him accepting it in the long-term.”

“Trust yourself, okay.” Alexandra advised. “You know what will be best for you…”

“Thanks,” Carrie said as she was surprised by the door opening and by the person walking into the house. It was Matthew she mused to herself Shit. “Whoa, what is he doing here?” she muttered as she said outwardly a less obscene expression.

“Who?” Alexandra asked as she looked, and she was little surprised to see their old friend in Matthew Rogers. “Hmm... yeah, I didn’t know where that came from either…” she sighed because from when they talked the previous weekend, Matthew had not mentioned he would be coming their way.

“I guess then I better ask,” Carrie muttered as Matthew smiled as he saw her approach. “I thought you were back at school?” she asked of her friend as she approached. “This doesn’t seem to be your cup of tea, since you don’t know any of the parties except my family?”

“I was,” Matthew smiled. “But of course, Dad is out of town at his conference therefore Mom needed a date. Jonathan is busy. So, it’s me who has been drafted to accompany her here to Roswell,” he sighed as he knew he could have used an excuse very easily to get out of this weekend and they all knew their mother was perfectly safe but he hadn’t minded being his mother’s date if it meant seeing Carrie again. So, you’re still around?”

“For another 10 days or so,” Carrie confirmed. “Even if I wasn’t. This is a command appearance,” she laughed. “I would be expected to drop everything and attend, but I want to be here, because of course I will be back to school soon enough and the countdown towards graduation will begin.”

“I have been trying to text, but you haven’t really returned anything…” Matthew asked as he could not believe Carrie still could look sexy in a more conservative dress that she was wearing. “I was wondering why?”

“I have been busy,” Carrie murmured as she knew she was lying because Justin had been monopolizing her non-working hours. Which led to little outside life, and she felt conflicted in returning Matthew’s texts with Justin around. “You know two jobs,” she muttered. “If it was important…”

“It’s alright,” Matthew smiled, “They were just friendly texts. I know you’re busy, and you have your life…” he tried, and Carrie felt confused by her response. I love Justin, don’t I? I was down in the dumps all summer because of him, and now that we are possible again, someone else comes back into my life…

Matthew didn’t know of Carrie’ inner debate with herself as he looked around and spotted his mother. “Since, I am her date this weekend. I better check in with Mom. See you some other time…”

“Sure, go ahead,” Carrie murmured as she wondered away but quickly found that Justin was approaching and kissing her, very much in the eyesight of Matthew who frowned.

“Who was that?” Justin asked.

“An old friend,” Carrie smiled as she pulled her boyfriend away from the being close to Matthew. “We go back to being kids together. His mother is close to my mother. Come on, let us get something to drink” she asked of her boyfriend as she pulled him along with her as they walked towards the bar.

“Sure,” Justin muttered as he glanced as Matthew did not seem to like Carrie and Justin going off together. Alexandra and Grace could not help but notice and they both were very amused together and could not help but laugh at the classic display of jealousy. Boy Carrie does have the life both mused together as being noisy Alexandra who decided to approach her old friend. “Hey, stranger?”

“Who was that with Carrie?” Matthew asked as he felt stung by the knowledge that Carrie was with someone. Although given how she looked these days, it should not surprise her that she was not single. It has not like he had been celibate, but Carrie had left an impression so that is why he had taken his mother’s offer to come and keep her company in place of his father.

“Carrie’s sorta boyfriend,” Alexandra laughed as they glanced as Carrie and Justin were discussing something. “They dated once upon a time, but they broke up, and they seem to be trying again…”

“Really,” Matthew asked as he glanced across the room where Carrie and Justin were talking and taking a drink from a passing waitress. “Why did they break up?”

“It was a little bit of everything,” Alexandra said vaguely as she did not think it was right to go into her sister’s business. “So, what are you doing here?”

“Mom needs a date,” Matthew said simply as he saw his mother talking to Beth and Max. “I better go check in,” he murmured as Alexandra couldn’t help but remark how jealous her old friend looked as Grace took the opportunity to approach her sister and jump on the fact Matthew had been clearly jealous.

“You saw it too, huh?” Grace asked as she saw Matthew hug his mother, and was saying his hello’s to Beth and Max. “That’s one of Serena’s sons, huh?” she asked because she did not know the sons as much as she did Serena and Keith. She had been so much into her own life and knew her parents were remarkably close to the Rogers family. Still, she knew how to pick the sons out of the lineup.

“Carrie says they were only friends?” Alexandra murmured as she saw that Matthew was staring across the room at their sister, who was trying to preoccupy herself with Justin and trying to not look across the room. “And I can’t help but wonder what kind of friends?” she sighed as he had been surprised by how attractive Matthew had grown since last she had seen him, but of course she was head over heels and taken, but her sister was someone different. “I don’t think they had spent much time in years…”

“Maybe he is, and they are” Grace asked. “But maybe he’s into her, and for her, maybe not…” she wondered as they glanced over and saw Carrie smiling at Justin who was telling her a joke or something. “Or our sister is trying too hard…”

“She has some kind of life,” Alexandra snarked. “Maybe there is something to be said to playing the field,” she sighed as she looked at her sister, and they both laughed. “Nah,” she muttered. “That’s too much work. I know what I am getting with Graham.”

“Me too,” Grace smiled as they both glanced at their sister, and over at Matthew. “Life is so much simpler with one man…” she smiled. “You know who you are going home to at the end of the day, and you know what to expect?”

“Yes, it is,” Alexandra acknowledged as she knew to concentrate on her other sister “So, about this trip of yours to New York?”

“Oh god, not you too” Grace moaned as she felt the inquisitive nature of her sister as she knew it was so much easier when they were banding together on their sister’s love life than feeling the hunt on herself. “There is nothing to say”

“Yes, there is” Alexandra said disagreeing with that notion. “Something tells me there is more to this sudden girl’s trip?”


*


“What’s going on there?” Beth commented to her friend Serena across the room. It was not hard for the mothers to sense a disturbance with their children. Added to the fact Carrie was there tonight with Justin was different for Beth because she and Max hadn’t been able to see their daughter dealing with a relationship since Carrie and Justin had mainly kept their relationship to when they were back in school.

Justin did seem like a good guy, and he did seem to care and maybe even love her daughter and yet she knew her daughter felt burned by their breakup, and because of the reasons for it. So, it was hard to trust when you did not know if he was going to stay at the end of the day. Yet her daughter did seem happy.

Which is something she had wanted for her daughter. She and Max both did. She knew Max trusted their daughter to figure it out for herself. And knew he had gotten Michael to thoroughly check out Justin out when he had come back into the picture, and the boy passed the check with flying colors and yet he had hurt their daughter when they broke up.

“Carrie and Justin?” Serena asked as she handed Beth some lemonade.

“No, Carrie and Matthew?” Beth wondered because she had seen how her daughter had looked at Serena’s son and seen what jealousy looked like when she had noticed Matthew’s reaction to Carrie and Justin being together at the party. “What made him come anyways. I didn’t think he was into this scene?”

“All I had to do was ask,” Serena laughed as she remarked how little she knew of her son’s love life since he is been at school. In high school he had was with one girl or another unlike Jonathan who had the steady girlfriend before the broke up prior to graduation, and now he was with someone else. Matthew had been her playboy son who did not seem to want to settle down. Now the way she was seeing him interact with Carrie was surprising, and unnerving at the same time. “With Jonathan busy with a school related function, and with Keith gone, I didn’t feel like coming alone so all I asked if he had any interest in coming home, and he came running” she acknowledged and now wondered if it was because he had known that Carrie would be at the wedding festivities “Jonathan mentioned that he was told that his brother and Carrie had met up a few weeks ago here in town when my son was on some bachelor weekend with one of his buddies from back home?”

“Interesting,” Beth wondered as she bristled as flashes that did not seem to make sense of a much younger Max, and even Kyle, and then ones of the mystery blonde she now knew had to be Tess...

“Yeah,” Serena muttered because she had seen the interaction between her son and Carrie, and it had surprised her. “Children, they tend to mystify us.”

“They definitely do that,” Beth nodded as she didn’t know what her flashes were trying to tell her because it wasn’t like they were of the future which she was told were her powers, but of the past, and she barely had any memories of that time, and had been relieved that she could concentrate on the now, and not remember back then, and now the memories were coming back, but not ones she wanted, but ones that confused her. “Should we worry?”

“What could go wrong?” Serena laughed. “After all, in a few weeks, they will be at school, across the country from each other, and they have no reason to be curious.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Beth said knowing full well that her children and hormones could be a far reaching chemical collision but she did trust her daughter to know what was right for her, as she wasn’t in high school anymore.

But she was not in high school anymore which her own flashes were telling her of, but now her daughter was facing adult emotions, and they could be tricky for all involved.


*


While Alexandra danced a dance with Liam. Jake and Grace were talking to her grandparents, both sets who had been invited to the festivities. Carrie needed some fresh air. She was a mess of confusions. Since Justin’s arrival, she had let her guard down and she could not help but get seduced back into the old ways, minus the drama that had gone down in the end. Justin promised her could handle what she could not say, and she promised that one day she would tell him, but now Matthew had walked into her life.

She cursed the fact that both of her sisters were so happy in their lives. One sister’s significant other knew everything about her, and Carrie did not realize how much she envied and then Alexandra’s boyfriend did not seem to care. Graham seemed turned on by the quirks of his girlfriend’s other life, the one she could not talk about and even though he knew something was up because she was not like most girls he had known. She was totally different. And yet he had found her in high school, and still loved her to this day. Carrie wished she had that confidence that someone could love her despite her being unable to be totally honest.

Then there was Matthew who knew her. But did not know her today. He knew her as a kid pulling mischievous stunts back in Madison. Her old life the one that she led before her father came into her life, and her mother had found her soulmate, and part of her memory,

Now, Carrie did not wish for that life back. Nothing would make her want a life without her father, Grace and her mother being happy. Because she and Alexandra had lived too much of their early lives with a mother who seemed to be missing her missing half.

Now their mother had found it.

“What was going on in there,” came a voice and she turned and groaned that she saw that it was Justin who had followed her outside. “You didn’t exactly make a quiet exit?”

“Fresh air, I needed some” Carrie muttered as she knew she had not exactly sneaked out, but she was feeling overwhelmed, and needed some space, and now space was being invaded. “A lot of people in there, and I needed some space. You didn’t need to follow me out here because I was planning on heading back in.”

“You seem distracted?” Justin asked as he wondered what was going on with his former girlfriend as she had her head in the clouds all night. “Which is something you have been since I have been back in your life…”

“Nor everyone can be all consuming in a relationship all the time. I have a life to lead Justin,” Carrie muttered. “That life includes working, so I can pay my tuition you know when I get back to school…”

“Your parents take care of most of that,” Justin asked. “Along with your scholarship?”

Still, I am not, so I have got to work for every cent I can make so I can help my parents,” Carrie said defending her parents. “It’s worked this long, and I am not about to accept more when I am almost finished…” she sighed. “And especially not when they have a new baby on the way, and my brother at home, so another mouth to feed before too much longer.”

“Yeah,” Justin nodded. “So, what was going on with that guy in there?”

“Who?” Carrie asked, as if she did not already know…

“The dusty blonde hair guy who had just arrived?” Justin asked. “Matthew or something?”

“Matthew Rogers. I told you, we go way back. Back to when we were kids back in Connecticut where we lived before Alexandra, Mom and I came out here once Mom and Dad got together. I haven’t seen him years, until recently.”

“Didn’t seem like that to me,” Justin asked. “Should I worry?”

“We go to different universities Justin. He is in California these days, and we are where we are. All it is, is that his parents are close with mine, but we kids’ have rarely seen each other since Alex, and I started university,” Carrie allowed with some dancing over the truth. “All we have Justin is a friendship that started as kids.”

“Was there anything between the two of you when you were indeed kids?” Justin asked, jealous and Carrie knew it.

Carrie laughed As, if” she mused. “We were really thinking like that. All Alex and I cared about was forcing our parents to spend time together. I was thirteen when we left Madison Justin. We were kids, really, and I forget how old he in this these or our age different” she sighed. “Romance was the last thing we were looking at back then,” she sighed. “So, you don’t have to be jealous Justin. But even if something had happened. It is none of your business. We had broken up until a week ago…”

“Look I know,” Justin sighed because he had not liked how Carrie had looked at that other guy. For their whole relationship he never had to worry about her having eyes for someone else, now he wondered. It was true though that he had broken up with her, and she had a right to see whoever she wanted, and they were really only tentatively trying again because who knows what it meant once they got back to school in a few weeks.

“So, stop looking like you want to punch him. Matthew and I are nothing except friends. It would be foolish for me to try something with someone I have barely seen in years,” Carrie allowed. “Can you tell me that you trust me?”

“I have always trusted you…” Justin muttered.

“Not enough to stay with me,” Carrie muttered. “I don’t know what we are Justin because at the end of day there is a part of me that I can’t give you…”

“Does this other guy know you?”

“In some ways,” Carrie allowed. “But in other ways you know a lot more” she sighed. “So, stop making it a contest because I don’t know what the future holds for me except graduation is approaching. I have seen my sisters settle down early. I don’t know if I am at that stage yet, or if I want that so stop making it out to be more than it is, okay?”

“Fine,” Justin muttered. “Can you just promise me that you’ll be upfront with me as much as you can. I know there is a part of you that you can’t give me, and maybe one day that will change, and I hope it will, but I don’t want secrets, especially about us…”

Carrie sighed but nodded as they walked back into the party together, and she tried to ignore the simmering looks that Matthew sent her way whenever they glanced at each other.


*


And it was hours later, in the early dawn of the morning when Carrie lifted herself out of the bed in the motel room that Justin was renting and pulled on her dress. She wanted to kiss him goodbye, but she did not as she knew she had to get home, because she had to get ready for the wedding. And unfortunately, Justin was heading to the airport because he had gotten a message that his grandmother was in the hospital, and had been so upset that she had stayed with him, and that led to other activities because she knew how much he loved his grandmother, and in the end, he had quickly arranged for a flight out in a few hours.

So, she was going to be alone for the wedding. Which was fine for her because she did not want any more conflicting feelings to mess with her reality. She would rather be solo at the wedding. So, she did leave a note for Justin and promise to call him, and they would see each other back at school when they both got back on campus.

Sighing as she looked at the mirror and did not like how she looked because she had one guy in her mind and had just gone to be bed with another.

And one who had dropped everything and come to her, and wanted to be with her, and not someone who was mixed up with her past, and who would be complicated because of her parent’s friendship with Serena and Keith. She had seen enough of that with Grace and Jake and their relationship.

While her sister and Jake were making it work. Those early days, months and years was full of angst, not only relegated to what was happening with Elizabeth, but because of all the press and the media hay that had been made regarding her sister’s relationship.

She knew Matthew was different, but she only had to look at Justin naked in bad, and know that she had something good, except that he did not know her…

He did not know the real her. What was in her core, and what made her different from any other female out there.

She picked up her purse and dug out her car keys, and slipped through the door, and drove back to her family house, and hoped they all would be still be asleep. She did not know if Alex would be home or not, or would she be with Graham.

Still didn’t definitely didn’t want to see her parents, and that is who she saw when she crept into the dark house, and saw her mother come out of the kitchen with a glass of warm milk that had a reddish hint and that meant Carrie knew her mother had her tabasco milk cravings again. Because she had known them well from her mother’s pregnancy with her little brother. “Well hello…” Beth smiled.

“Don’t start Mom,” Carrie muttered as she wasn’t comforted by the amused look on her mother’s face, and it’s not like she hadn’t done this before whenever she was home from school, and out at night, but it was unnerving to be caught by mother. “I thought you would be asleep?”

“I bet you did,” Beth laughed. “But the baby wasn’t allowing me to sleep,” she smiled. “But your father is fast asleep, which you should be happy about…”

“He knows I have a love life,” Carrie said in defense.

“As he has said, he has had way too much information and was faced with too much imagery with your older sister and he doesn’t want to be reminded that you or your sisters have that kind of a lifestyle” she laughed. Max likes to be blissfully ignorant on it even if he does know it is happening “Even with Grace is out of the house, and married…”

“I get it,” Carrie muttered as he knew how much her father had paid in those days as he tried make everything make sense and rarely did it, and those days had happened with too much frequency even when her parents had officially gotten together. Carrie didn’t want to add to that pain which is why she knew Alex tended to spend most nights when the need arose with Graham at his place because to even try to be in their house, was a no go, and Graham did have his own apartment. “It’s not like I want to remind him that I have an active sex life…”

“Honey, are you okay?” Beth murmured as she sensed upheaval in her daughter’s life.

“Mom,” Carrie muttered.

“Honey, look, I know you’re almost 21 years old and you’re not 13 anymore. So, what you do is for you to decide on, and I am not going to push you into anything, but I can see you are not alright. It’s obvious that you have a lot on your mind.” Beth murmured. “Is it Justin, is he pressuring you into anything?”

“Mom, the last thing Justin is doing is pressuring me,” Carrie muttered. “I wouldn’t be coming from where I was coming from if he was…”

“Right,” Beth murmured as she did know her daughter. “Yet I have to ask, how are things?”

“Things are fine” Carrie muttered.

“Then why don’t you tell me like you mean it,” Beth laughed. “I know when one of my children is stirred up,” she mused. “You’re not the first, but you’re here now, and it’s obvious something is the matter…”

Carrie should feel comforted by her mother’s concern but on the other hand she felt conflicted, and she rather just deal with it herself. So, she tried to dismiss the obvious concern “Honestly Mom, you don’t have to worry about me,” Carrie muttered. “Justin and I are fine. Whatever we are is not something for you to worry…” she mused. “It’s too early”

“Except I don’t think it’s Justin who has you stirred up?” Beth murmured as she again flinched at memories of those inner doubts that flared within her and made her question everything except that she loved Max, and that there was no one else but him for her. Still, to have those flashes and then see her daughter, she now wondered, if it meant something. “So, can I ask, is it someone else. Is it Matthew by chance?”
keepsmiling7
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Re: Always Tomorrow (CC, Mature) - A Reunion's Endgame - Chapter 28 - 07/28/2020

Post by keepsmiling7 »

Carrie and Matthew????
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