Broken Wings (AU,M/L,ADULT) (Complete)

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max and liz believer
Obsessed Roswellian
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Joined: Sat Sep 28, 2002 10:45 am
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Post by max and liz believer »

It was in 2002 that Stef and I decided to write a story together. After browsing the Challenge-forum, a plot caught our attention. It was posted by Ripley and based on the song “Concrete Angel” by Martina McBride. We quickly discovered that we worked very well together and our ideas on where to take the story were moving in more or less the same direction. We got a couple of chapters up and that’s when reality decided to make itself known.

Unfortunately, the writing suffered the most and our updates became more infrequent; until the updates completely stopped in 2004. Stef was busy with school and so was (am) I; barely surviving veterinary school. But I have a strong aversion towards leaving stories unfinished, so after consulting with Stef we decided that I should finish this story on my own. So it was digged up two years later and here…almost exactly 5 years later, I’m finally posting the final chapter of this tale.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading, because I have really enjoyed writing.

Every reader that has ever left feedback on “Broken Wings” is mentioned below (I hope I haven’t missed anyone). An enormous hug to all of you who has shared this journey with us. Everyone who has read, commented and left bumps. All of you who have patiently waited and still returned two years later when I started reposting. You are amazing and I wouldn’t have found the inspiration to finish this on my own without you.

Stef sends her love and apologises for not being able to write to the end.

Thank you!

Ariel70
Chipsflickan
frenchkiss70
narly21
jbehr2002
RebeccaBehr
starlady
LizzieEvans
Zans Angel
Jeni
Pixie
ILYMEFOREVER
Ripley Rip Tide
Saymi007
Angelic
Cassandra
Lissa
angelbehr
Blessed4Ever
roswellluver
LPorter
Ms_BuffyAnneSummers
qt4167013
LIzZiEsTaR
HBGO
DreamerKitten
PSW2001
sweetygurl
Elc
Kristin80
LTL
moonlight
LeighAnn
pandas2001
nusacme
It Was You
Destinee
AlienDreamer101
Dreaming of Roswell Forever
Lilac Stardust
JBehrsGurl
chinablueeyes
*DreAms and CandY*
Starlight
Araxie HRH
tebibehr
angeleyes
Alien614
FloridaGirl
tabasco sauce
kittens
rossieaddicted
blndie2272
begonia9508
Liz Evans
Phi
scoobydoo4000
Ner
Kimmie
Michelle17
~Stargazing~Dreamer~
MoonLily
Eccentric One
Mellody540
talena
NorafanofMaxandLiz
Evans3
Ooga Booga
Britany
anonymousarfan
sweetbrowneyes
Crashdown2006
Kaela
...B...
Liz Parker Evans
FallenMagic
Venus_star2.com
Lolita Behrbuns
Maia
Kimberline
Strawberry88
mezzi
mlover25
beeeyaaatch
slrulez
Nan
neck
Ms Yu
care bears
Behrsgirl77
Jasons Angel
kitkat405
PhoenixFlamez
I love Orli
nayney
Crimps321
ness
woodwinds
rar1942
jason's lover
babylisou
Lindsey
lizard_queen
sprayadhesive
LegalAlien
clueless
dreamerbabylioness
aussietrueblue
ken_r
Erina
confusedfool
alizaleven
behr_able
flyawayraven
Ellie
Dreamer<3
roswell4life
Addicted2AmberEyes
Natz
cassie
Rowedog
Tessa1982
Natalie36
bigears
behrluv32
Zylx Lily
LairaBehr4
imnotlc
Emz80m
Thursday's Child
Nz_Roswell
Little One
Cocogurl


and of course

Elizabeth – Can’t thank you enough for editing! You’re the best!


Chapter 31

Seven weeks later

Maybe it was spending four weeks alone with her mother in Europe that had her thinking that she needed to see him. Or maybe it had been the nightmares still lingering, waiting for some kind of relief.

Maybe she just needed to see him. Needed to ascertain that he was really there. Behind bars. Incapable of touching her.

Max hadn’t thought it was a good idea to go visit him on this particular day. She had only been home for a week since her trip through Europe, but she had thought the day fitting.

She was as mentally prepared as she could ever be. She had imagined every possible conversation in her head, deciding exactly how to get out of every conversation with the upper hand.

That didn’t mean that she wasn’t nervous. That didn’t mean that she had been able to eat or sleep for the last couple of days; the fatigue visible on Max’s face testament of Liz’s internal battle.

A loud buzz reverberated above her head as the door was unlocked in front of her and slid to the side to let her and the guard through. She tried to take deep breaths to stop the nausea from rising in her throat. Her knuckles were white from the way she was tightly fisting her hands.

Then another door opened and Liz Parker was faced with Devin Parker for the first time since the day he had been sentenced to eleven years, about six months ago.

He looked up at her with a look of wonder on his face. Liz almost believed that he was surprised to see her. She knew that her father had been informed of her visit. Could he really have thought that she wouldn’t actually come?

“Lizzie…” he breathed softly.

Her hands tightened even more as she struggled to answer him. “Hi.”

Her voice was stronger and more confident than anything she felt on the inside, making the nervousness inside of her simmer down a bit.

Her father trailed his eyes over her face, a hesitant smile making the corner of his mouth flutter insecurely. “How are you?”

She swallowed down the anger his question inflicted. She hadn’t expected to get angry with him. She had always been afraid of him. But living without him for so many months, growing as a person, had changed her feelings towards him.

“Better with you not around,” she said tightly.

His eyes dropped, but not before Liz could see the flicker in his eyes. Was that hurt? She frowned in confusion, before she forced herself to remain strong. She wasn’t going to let him win. He was only playing her, like he always had. He never loved her. No one could do all the things he had done to someone they loved.

“I heard you moved out,” Devin said.

She nodded, even though the eyes that were trained on the table surface couldn’t see the gesture. “I needed my own place.” She involuntarily shivered. “Too many bad memories.”

His eyes flickered up to meet hers and she had to hold back a gasp of surprise when she saw the tears. Something her mother had told her sifted through her mind at that moment.

He wasn’t always bad, Liz. He used to be a very caring man. He used to love us so much. But his demons got the best of him. His father beat him and I think that the memories just got too strong.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered brokenly. “I’m so sorry.”

She fought her own tears. Tears similar to his, but yet so different. Tears of disappointment, of betrayal and of anger at all the scars he had left behind.

“You hurt me, daddy,” she said softly. “You really hurt me.”

He shook his head with mourning regret and she found herself thinking that it was the first time he looked really sober since…for as long as she could remember.

“I wish I could take it back,” he sobbed, tears tumbling over each other in their magnitude.

Liz had prepared many scenarios in her head, but none of them had been of her father breaking down and crying. She wasn’t sure what to do, finding herself completely mentally unprepared for this. She had never seen her father cry before. He had beaten into her that tears were for the weak.

She cleared her throat. She was here to let him know how much he had hurt her and she wasn’t going to let his tears stop her. Squaring her shoulders, she straightened some and asked with more confidence than she felt, “How could you do that? Why did you hate me so much?”

Her voice cracked at the last question, because the truth was still too close to the wound. It still hurt too much to voice.

He looked at her through his sheen of tears and shook his head slowly. “I never hated you. I just…I wanted to protect you.”

She frowned before snorting in disbelief. The sound was cold and harsh in the midst of the sorrowful sobs from her father. His sobbing stopped and he looked up at her as she rose from the chair, staring at him incredulously.

“You wanted to protect me?!”

“Lizzie, I-“

Tears were now flowing freely down her cheeks, even though she angrily tried to brush them away with the back of her hand.

Her voice rose as she repeated what sounded like a clear lie in her ears. “You wanted to protect me?!

You didn’t know what could happen, okay?!!

His bellowing voice had her legs give out beneath her and she fell down on the chair, silenced by fear.

His hot gleaming eyes stared at her for about five seconds before the fire in his gaze was put out and he wearily sank down in his own chair. “You didn’t know what was best for you. All those boys… I could see how they looked at you right from the start-“

“I was five, dad!” Liz interrupted hotly, having gotten over the shock of seeing her dad as the person she had known.

But once she was over the shock, she knew what to do. She knew how to handle Abusive Dad. Abusive Dad was what she had mentally prepared herself for. “I was five when mom left! No boys were looking at me then.”

“Really? What about that Max Evans boy?” Devin said darkly. “He was following you around everywhere.”

“He was my friend,” Liz bit out. “Something I tried to tell you several times, only to have you beat the crap out of me.”

He flinched at this and Liz narrowed her eyes in confusion. He was acting very strangely. She couldn’t put finger on it. It was actually almost like he was regretting what he had done.

“And what about when you beat up mom? Why did you force her to leave? It was your fault that she left.”

“You don’t know anything about that,” Devin said almost inaudibly.

“Tell me, dad,” Liz said gravely. “At least you owe me that much.”

That seemed to do the trick, because Devin looked up her again and answered, “She was unfaithful.”

Liz shook her head. “I don’t believe that.”

“You’ve met him yourself. The man she turned her back on us with. Charles Whitman.”

Liz continued to shake her head. She didn’t want to believe what he was saying. She didn’t want to believe that her mother was a liar too. But then she looked straight into his eyes and saw them gleam of something familiar. Victory. He thought he was winning her over and he was enjoying it.

“Stop lying,” Liz ground out. “It won’t do you any good anymore. I’m through believing what you say. I’m through believing your lies about me being unattractive, stupid and unwanted.”

“You’re not unattractive-“ Devin interjected, that sad look back on his face.

Liz didn’t know what to make of it. Her father was changing moods faster than he ever had.

“Then why did you say that?” she asked brokenly. “That’s what you told me everyday since the day I turned 11.”

“I wanted to keep you safe, damnit!” his voice low but forceful.

Liz blinked back the tears. “Do you even know how that made me feel? Worthless. It made me feel worthless. You treated a stray dog on the street better than me. Your own daughter. Your own flesh and blood. I’m still having nightmares because of you.”

She brushed some tears of her cheeks looking at him almost calmly. “Did you know that if it weren’t for my friends I would have killed myself? That’s how you made me feel, daddy.” She bit his nickname out like a curse, making his tears start to flow freely again.

She shook her head in disappointment. Almost more disappointed at the slobbering person in front of her than any other version of her dad that she had met over the years.

“You’re pathetic,” she whispered out. “You can’t even tell me the truth. Mom told me everything. She told me about your dad hitting you when you were growing up.”

She felt the anger take a hold of her again. “Why did you have to take it out on me, huh? Why couldn’t you leave me alone? Why couldn’t you leave mom alone? You’ve taken my life, daddy! How could you do that when you knew how it felt to be treated like that by your father?”

He had been silent throughout her monologue, stubbornly keeping his eyes on the table surface while occasionally wiping tears of his cheeks, but now he looked up and she stilled as she thought she saw the first real emotions in his otherwise so dark eyes.

“I never knew, Lizzie. I didn’t mean to- I can’t explain it. I couldn’t stop myself. He was in my head, screaming at me. Calling me a loser. He was in my head every time I hit you. I needed to prove something to him. Wanted to make him see that I wasn’t weak. And then maybe he would go away. But he didn’t-“

Liz nodded sadly. “So you would have just killed me in attempt to get rid of his voice?”

He shook his head fervently. “No, Lizzie. I could never do that.”

She laughed bitterly. “But you did. You did.”

He stared at her in horror, maybe first now realizing the ramifications of his actions. Realizing that he had turned into the monster that had haunted him his whole life. His own father.

“Someday, I might be able to forgive you,” she said softly. “But I will never forget. I will never forget how you betrayed me.”

She stared at him for a few minutes, while he seemed to retreat into himself, tears sliding silently down his cheeks as he stared emptily into the air. Then she removed a photo from the inner pocket of her jacket and slid it across the table towards him.

He slowly lowered his eyes to it.

“Something to remember me by,” she said tonelessly. “That’s what you missed out on. That’s how you can never make me feel.”

As she called the guard, her father was sobbing loudly, clutching the photo between his fingers as he looked at it through the tears.

A photo of Max and Liz, looking at each other and laughing. The photo transmitted love, warmth, belonging, but most strongly; happiness. Something Devin Parker had never given his daughter.

She ran out of there, straight into Max’s waiting comforting arms. As she let him sooth her tears, she reflected on the meeting with her father and realized that she was no longer afraid of him. He had fallen from his towering terrorizing position into a puddle of quivering sobbing human being. He was just as broken as she was, if not even more so. It was almost enough to feel some kind of kinship with him, if she hadn’t pitied him so much.

As she walked towards Max’s parked car, holding his hand firmly in hers, she was confident that she wouldn’t have to fear her father once he got out in ten and a half years. He was not a threat to her any longer. Maybe she could finally have a dreamless night.

<center>-------------------------------------------------------</center>

Everyone had been at the CrashDown as Max had parked the car outside and not so discreetly insisted on going inside. Maybe choosing to visit her father on her birthday wasn’t the best choice, but it had only seemed fitting to end her old life on her birthday, starting her new life on her nineteenth year. It was something she had wanted to do and she was glad that she had done it. It felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She had cried all the excess emotions into Max’s shirt and then calmness had settled over her. She was finally at peace.

Everyone was there to yell ‘Surprise’ as she stepped through the doors, holding Max’s hand tightly in hers. Maria, Michael, Isabel, Mr. and Mrs. Evans, Brendan, Liz’s mom, Alex, Charles Whitman, and a couple of people from school that she hung out with during classes. There were candy, chips, appetizers, Coke enough to fill a small pool, alcohol, cake, music, presents, dancing, laughter, love. The emotions that emotionally starving Liz absorbed like a sponge.

It was late when she and Max finally stumbled through the door to her apartment, both slightly intoxicated. Michael and Brendan had both been highly skilled at distributing alcohol without parents noticing.

As soon as Max and Liz got into the darkness of the hallway, Max sobered up, closing the door behind him quietly.

Liz spun around and slowly draped her arms around his neck, kissing him softly.

“Mmm…wasn’t that great?” she said dreamily.

Max smiled, catching her lips into another caress before mumbling into her mouth, “Did you like it?”

She smiled brightly. “Best night… although, I’m sure there are things you could help me out with that could make the night even better.”

He raised his eyebrows in mock confusion. “What’s that?”

He had to hold back a chuckle as she slowly drew her finger down his throat, as far as the opening in his buttoned down shirt would allow her before reaching fabric. She was so cute when she was a bit tipsy.

“Liz Parker. Are you trying to seduce me?” he asked simply.

She bit her lower lip, making him groan, as she looked up at him with large innocent brown eyes. “Uh-huh.”

“Hold that thought,” he said softly, sealing the containment of that thought with a kiss before he reached into the inner pocket of his jacket.

As he pulled away from her, retrieving whatever he was keeping in his jacket, she had a chance to admire his outfit, as she had been doing all evening. He was wearing dark, tight-fitting jeans, a white shirt where he had left several buttons at the top unbuttoned, showing off his oh-so-delicious bronze skin, and a black leather jacket over.

He looked causal enough to go to a party, dressed up enough to go to the prison earlier that day, and unkempt enough to make him look sexy as hell.

His soft voice brought her out of her adoration of the Adonis in front of her. “Happy Birthday.”

She looked up to see him holding out a small present. She frowned with a confused smile. “But you already gave me a present, Max.”

He shrugged. “I wanted to give you another one. In private.”

“Oh…Okay,” she whispered, taking his gift from his hands, her fingers brushing ever so slowly across his in the process.

Like a little girl on Christmas Day, she took one look at the present, before she impatiently, and rather violently to Max’s amusement, started to rip through the paper. The paper revealed a small black box and she bit her lower lip in anticipation before opening the lid.

Staring back at her was a pendant in the shape of a butterfly. The pendant was in white gold with some simple stones highlighting the contours and shapes of the butterfly.

“Max…” she whispered in awe. “It’s beautiful.”

He smiled, taking the box from her hands. “Here. Let me help you.”

She let him take the chain with the pendant out of the box and walked around her to place it around her neck. Brushing her dark hair out of the way, he clasped the necklace in place, planting a kiss on the side of her throat before pulling back.

She fingered the butterfly, looking down at it with a smile.

“It just felt right,” Max murmured, pulling her back against the front of his chest as his arms snaked around her middle. “It’s kinda like you’ve got your wings again. You’re free…to fly.”

She choked back a sob and turned in his arms to face him. “I love it. I love you.” She kissed him deeply, her salty tears mixing with the kiss. “Thank you.”

It was Max Evans who had saved her that prom night when she had been bleeding and crying outside his bedroom window. It was Max Evans who had helped to put her father where he belonged and who had saved her from herself. He had not given up to her, showing her what life was all about.

But most importantly, he gave her the strength and will to save herself. And before she knew it, she was enjoying herself. She was having fun without looking over her shoulder.

He looked at here tenderly, placing a strand of hair behind her ear. “Welcome to life, Liz Parker.”

She smiled at him before lovingly kissing him.

She was ready to fly.

<center>THE END</center>

------------------------------------

That is the last hooray for me (as a writer). I’m still intending to finish “Lethal Whispers”, but it won’t be anytime in the close future. University is just taking too much of my attention right now and I’m starting rounds in the animal hospital next year (so no way that I’ll be able to find the time to write)… I’ll still be around as a reader (colour me Roswell obsessed), but it will probably be a year or two before I’ll post anything I’ve written again.

I just want to say this; to those of you that have followed most of my stories (you know who you are), thank you so much for all of your kind words, all the support and the escape from reality you’ve provided me with.

And to the rest – thank you so much for letting me entertain your imagination for a while.

And to Elizabeth (Gigo): I’ll never be able to thank you enough for all your support and for all your fantastic editing. You’ve been with me for most of the way and I’m eternally grateful.

*sigh* This is kinda sad.

But I’ll see you all around, okay?

Thank you

Love,

Jo
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