Persistence of Memory (CC ALL,TEEN) (Complete)

[cardinalgirl]

Winner - Round 12





Winner - Round 6












Title: Persistence of Memory

Author: cardinalgirl

Rating: TEEN

Disclaimer: I don’t own the show, but I do own a nice replication of a Crashdown apron! hehe.... Anyhow……. I also don’t own Salvador Dali’s the Persistence of Memory, though I’m sure that shocks you all. BTW... I've never been to New York, and my fic will probably show that, so anybody who's actually familiar with NYC, please forgive me....

Summary: Future Fic, post Graduation. The gang’s set a three-year limit on living in any one place, and this next move manages to quiet down some of the worries and answer some of the questions that they just haven’t been able to get out of their heads, even since leaving Roswell. Couples are all CC, but you'll have to see exactly what I mean by that! lol No worries, though!

Author's Note: The narrative will jump from place to place with different parts, at first, but they tie in very quickly. A couple of things: 1, the group is NOT in imminent danger from the FBI in this story. More about what they’ve lost and left behind, but never forgotten. And 2, I might add a few things in from the books, just little things like what the aliens can/can't do, etc. Uh… I guess I should also mention this is my first fic.

And thanks to Anniepoo98 for the amazing banner!


Part 1

2012

Ava Spencer stepped out of the New York City taxicab and shuddered. She’d sworn she’d never return here, but she had been offered a job as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art. It had been the opportunity of a lifetime, likely to never arrive again, and she hadn’t been able to resist. It was her dream, after all. All she had worked for for the past ten years.

She realized that that almost sounded like nothing. Most people worked their entire lifetimes for an opportunity like this. Then again, most people didn’t have the… abilities that Ava Spencer did. Or the genes, rather.

Her inborn talent to absorb information was the only one of her otherworldly talents she used on a regular basis anymore.

She headed up to the new apartment the museum had arranged for her. That’s how badly they had wanted her, they’d arranged an apartment for her. She checked in at the desk, showed her ID and was presented with a key. It was that simple. To think that there had been times in her life when she wouldn’t have even been let into the doors of a place like this…

At the elevator the bellhop asked for her floor. A bellhop. She felt like she could die.

Not bad for a self-educated former street urchin.

The apartment was newly furnished, and nicely too, so even though all she had were a couple of small suitcases—she meant to go shopping the first chance she got—the place was quite homey. After spending the first eleven years of her life on the streets—she’d been around six when she and the others had gotten out of the pods—anything with a roof was incredibly homey.

She was all but wide-eyed as she walked through the main room of the apartment, the living room. There was a nicely-sized television along with an L-shaped couch, a desk for a computer, and a dining table, and despite all the furniture, the room was large enough to not feel at all crowded. On the table there was a note from one of the directors at the museum.

Ms. Spencer~
Welcome to New York City! A bit more impressive than your Albuquerque, I’ll bet!

She skimmed the rest of the welcome letter, which said that she’d be provided with a laptop through the museum along with other things, and she was welcomed to the museum, of course, etc, etc.

After finishing with the letter she went on into the bedroom. There was a king-sized bed with satin sheets, and a print of Salvador Dali’s famous melting clocks painting, Persistence of Memory, which of course, was displayed at the Museum of Modern Art. It had been the first piece to interest her in the arts.

She quirked a half-painful smile. It had interested her because of the title, mostly. Persistence of Memory. Memory was the only thing that had persisted in her life.

The world called her sort of memory “photographic.” Whether she wanted to or not, she remembered everything she had ever read, heard, or seen. It was part of the reason she had worked so hard these past ten years, always looking forward, never back. Always concentrating on the future, because the past was always too close for comfort.

Turning away from the painting, she went to look at the bathroom, which was equally impressive. On seeing herself in the mirror, though, she was almost shocked. From the moment she’d stepped out of the cab she had felt as if the last ten years hadn’t really happened, and that she was back to that seventeen-year-old girl with her outrageous appearance. She was back in New York after all, and she couldn’t help but feel, just for an instant, as if nothing had changed.

She had almost been looking for them as she’d crossed the sidewalk into the foyer of the apartment building. Surely they had been there somewhere… watching. But then this was the nice part of New York. She’d never seen this side of it before, not in real life.

She began to examine herself in the mirror. She looked so different now than she used to. When she’d first gotten to her “native” Albuquerque so many years ago, she’d gotten a picture of herself at one of those little photo booths. She could barely look at it anymore without blushing. She’d had purple and black streaks in her hair and more than one piercing… now if anyone saw the picture by accident she explained easily that it had been a high school Halloween costume. Her entire life history erased and replaced with a Halloween costume.

She had picked the last name Spencer because it sounded simple, clean-cut, and oh, so human. Generic. That was the image she had been aiming for. She would have changed her first name, too, but that would have been too much for her, and besides, she was around the age for the statement names anyhow, and Ava was perfectly acceptable. Not that Ava was her whole name, but it had always been a nickname of hers, even before…

Using her powers, she had taken the multiple streaks of color out of her hair, leaving it its natural golden blonde. The piercings were gone, too, and no holes left to speak of. She had taken the money Liz Parker had given her when she’d left Roswell—how long ago that seemed!—and changed it into larger bills, enough to get to the capital, and to pay for motels when she got there.

After failing over and over again to get a real job, she had gotten the idea of the public library, and she started checking out books for free, while saving the little bits of money she got from working at various fast-food restaurants. Every moment she was not working she spent reading, either at the library or whatever motel she was currently calling home. She only technically needed two or so hours of sleep per night, and so she was studying almost around the clock. She had her GED before she was twenty-one, and then worked her way through a junior college, after which she had applied for the big guns—Yale—and somehow been accepted. It was the first time she had felt completely secure since… since…

Soon after she’d graduated from there she’d been contacted by the Museum of Modern Arts. She didn’t want to return to New York. It was the one place she had nightmares of, other than… She still remembered terrible things. One night in particular. Zan being pushed right in front of her. Trying to scream with a hand clamped over her mouth—

That was the worst memory of all. The sight of the proud, impetuous man she loved being murdered by his own sister and best friend. She’d seen his face before he’d died, the primal fear and terrible hopelessness…

But it was a memory she would have to face if she ever wanted any semblance of a normal life. And so here she was.

Of course, her heart still hurt when she thought of Zan. She couldn’t help it. She’d finally gotten over blaming herself for his death, at least. And sometimes when she thought of it, she even wanted to find Rath and Lannie… her blood boiled at the idea that they had done that to him, and gotten away. Which was exactly the reason she had tried so hard to forget them all. Losing them had been tough on her, too, though. She had often smiled sadly at what Zan and the others would have thought of her going straight…

She shook her head as older memories tried to come to her. She didn’t want them. She didn’t need to remember that it hadn’t been the first time she’d seen her love die. She didn’t need that life. The only real thing missing in her life now was family, but as far as she knew, that was out of the question. Every instinct in her body told her that she couldn’t trust anyone that much, even now. She had gotten used to the fact that wanting something just didn’t justify having it all the time.

And now a life more than half a century old tried to taunt her with its glory.

Right now she couldn’t look at her life as an alien queen—oh yes, she still had those memories, too. Not all of them, of course, but she had always had a clearer picture of the past life than any of the other three. When she was younger, she would tell them stories of the life they’d had, and they’d listen to her, astonished at their past and future, while she had shyly smiled at Zan.

Then later, nothing had happened to make it look like that future was ever going to come true, and they had come to resent the stories. And the storyteller.

She had been the only one to continue to cling to the memories, until the whole summit disaster, which had ultimately set her free.

She hadn’t let herself be taken away by those memories since then, not while she was awake, at least. Sometimes when she was asleep, though, they would come back to her, and she remembered an idealized life.

She had been nobility, waited on hand an foot. She had attended extravagant dinners and socials… she even remembered the night she’d been introduced to Zan’s other self by Larek, a mutual friend.

She thought back to something she’d told Liz Parker years before, that Zan had always seemed to be waiting for something, someone. In the aftermath, she had allowed herself to realize that Zan had never really loved her—or Zanathan hadn’t, at least. He had been infatuated with her at first, but infatuation had died quickly after their marriage. He had at least cared for her, in his way. He had stayed with her, too, even after he had lost interest in her like that. Deep under his rough exterior, he was very gentle and noble. That was the man she had always loved, and that was the man she had never been able to reach in this life.

She wondered, not for the first time, if all that gentleness had gone to Max Evans, the third form of Zanathan she had ever known. She wouldn’t have been surprised…

She started as she realized she was still staring into the mirror. She had long stopped seeing her reflection, or anything at all, really. She shivered a little, and wondered why she felt cold all of a sudden. This was the beginning of a new life. So why did she feel as if she was about to be thrown into her old self? Why did she feel as some part of her other self—Avillia—was floating just beneath her surface, and trying to get out?

[cardinalgirl]

Part 2

Los Angeles, California

Liz Evans stared at her husband, trying to process what he’d been saying.

“But we don’t know anything about New York,” she said, slowly, as if that would change the fact that that was where his job was moving him. “Why New York of all places? We’re in LA now. Surely structural architects are needed just as much on the West Coast as they are on the East Coast. And there’s nowhere to build there anyhow. There’s nothing but buildings over there. I thought that you wanted to build buildings and houses and—”

“Liz, would you listen to yourself?” Max was gently smiling at her. But his smile was fading. “The three years are up. We need to keep moving.”

Liz nodded. “I understand that Max, I do, but New York City? And what about Alex? I don’t want him spending three of the most influential years of his life in a city full of—”

“Full of some of the most spectacular art and culture to be found in the world?”

Liz looked away from him. “What do the others say about this?”

He grinned. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Michael and Maria are already on the way there.”

“And Kyle? He loves it too, doesn’t he?”

“Come on Liz, the Yankees. Of course he loves it.” She nodded, but wouldn’t look at him. He waited a moment, then took her chin in his hand, pulling her gaze to meet his own. “Liz, are you so sure you won’t like it? You’ve never even been there.”

She surprised him by pulling away from him forcibly. “I remember being there,” she said, her voice coming out hard. “Just Once. You were there, too, remember, Max?”

“Liz, what are you—” but then he stopped, and his hand dropped. In his mind’s eye he could see the slippery night, could see a frantic Liz trying to warn him, his curiosity pulling him to her, just in time to miss being crushed by an alien-induced accident. “That was a long time ago, Liz.”

“They almost killed you, Max.”

“They didn’t. You stopped them.” He smiled at her, that smile that had ever been just for her. “You’re an amazing creature, Liz Parker. You always have been.”

She shook her head. “I have a bad feeling, Max. I mean, I’ve got a bad feeling about that city. Zan died there, Max, and you nearly did too. Maybe it’s just not a good place for you to be.”

Max shook his head. “That was due to Rath and Lannie, and you know that. Tess took care of them a long time ago.”

“Did she?” Liz demanded. “You know as well as I do that even Tess didn’t know what happened to them.” Liz shook her head. “I mean, Tess took care of the Skins and Nicholas, too, but we ran into him again. For all we know they could have just backed off when she went berserk on them. What if we show up and they’re there? Max, what if they want you to come there? What if—”

“Shhh,” he said warmly, placing two fingers over her lips and pulling an arm around her shoulders. “There will always be what-ifs, Liz. You’ve known that from the start.”

But she was shaking her head adamantly. “No. Not for you. Not anymore. Not for my son. He’s five years old, Max! What about when someone comes up to him that looks exactly like his Uncle Michael or his Aunt Isabel? They could take him from the school in the middle of the day and nobody would think twice about it because they’d be on the release forms. And even you couldn’t tell it was Rath and Lannie that one time, remember?”

Max couldn’t quite look at her. The guilt from those days still came to him fresh as ever sometimes. There were nights when he’d sold his sleep to grief over past wrongs. One wrong in particular. When he did raise his sad eyes to hers, he said softly, pleadingly, “Liz, I need to do this.”

And then she understood. She took a deep breath as she tried once again to block out the hurt that still remained in part over Max’s one betrayal. She shivered, suddenly cold. But of course, she did understand. She took a deep breath. “How will you even be able to find him?”

Max shrugged, sighing, almost hopelessly. “I don’t know. I just know that I have to. I have to make sure he’s all right. Lately I’ve been getting this feeling…”

“But, do you even know where he is or what his name is? Even if you managed to find information about the adoption that would be almost ten years old, anything could have happened since then and—”

He turned to her with the helpless, determined look that she loved so much, although it pained her to see sometimes. “He’s my son, Liz.” Again, he sighed. “Every night I watch Alex sleeping, and I wonder if his brother has a warm bed, parents to watch him sleep. Liz, I can’t do this forever, this wondering.”

Liz swallowed. She knew that it was killing him to say these things to her. He hadn’t spoken about his other son since the day the baby had left with Max’s parents for New York and hopefully a new, safe life. It was too much pain for both of them, his guilt doubled on account of the offence he had dealt her then, when he’d been young and stupid and rash, and had almost forgotten what an amazing woman she was.

But then she had to remember. This was Max. Her husband. And wherever that little boy was, he was part of Max, too. Max’s son. When she spoke her voice was a weak, wavering thing. “What if you find him and he does have all those things? The warm bed, the family, everything?”

“What if he doesn’t?” Max countered, as gently as he could.

“But what if he did Max?” She was looking out for him now. “Do you really think you could walk away from him then?”

Max gave her his sad smile, the same one he’d used when he’d first told her about his extraterrestriality. It was her favorite smile, the one that held within it all of their bittersweet memories, along with the secrets to getting through them all. “I’m not going to take his life away from him. Nothing could make me do that. I just need to make sure that he’s okay. Please Liz, let me do this.”

Liz turned towards him and wrapped him in her arms. “What do you need me to do?”

Max smiled, knowing then more than ever that she would always support him, no matter what he did. “Thank you.”

[cardinalgirl]

Part 3

New York City

It wasn’t even her second month at the Museum when it happened, when all her foresights came into being, though she didn’t understand exactly how or why at first, or even that it was happening at all.

A young boy had come in with his class, just like many other classes that she had seen, but this boy… he had Zan’s eyes. More than that. She had to pinch herself to make sure that she wasn’t dreaming up a young Zan herself.

She shook her head to clear it. It was just a little boy. There were probably hundreds of little boys that looked like Zan in New York alone.

She checked the scheduling for the day and was surprised to see that only two schools had visited that day. There had been Saint Catherine’s Correctional School for Girls. Definitely not the party the young boy had been with. The other school—had been the Saint Charles Orphanage.

The thought brought tears to her eyes. The idea that there was another little boy like Zan that was alone in the world—but at least he was in the orphanage… Then again, she’d heard stories that that was even worse than being out on the streets sometimes.

She tried to push the idea of the little boy out of her memory, and busying herself with various tasks she performed, she was able to keep her most personal thoughts at bay. She sometimes wondered if she even had a personality anymore, she pushed it away so often.

She had managed to get to the end of the week without drowning herself in questions and memories, but then she couldn’t ignore her past anymore. It walked right up to her.

She saw the little boy walking towards her as she answered one of the receptionists’ questions. She moved away once she was done with the receptionist, but the boy followed her. Zan. The likeness was uncanny. Except for one thing. He had lighter hair.

Once he caught up with her he turned Zan’s chocolate brown eyes up to meet her own.

“Is it time?”

Ava habitually checked the watch on her right wrist, but she hadn’t even registered the numbers when she realized what the boy had asked. He hadn’t wanted to know the time, he had wanted to know if it was time.

She leaned down so that she was almost on the same level as the boy. “Is what time? Time for what?”

The little boy blinked. “You know.”

She frowned. “I’m sorry, but I don’t.”

The boy blinked again. “I don’t understand. Don’t you remember?”

Ava racked her brain for what the boy could possibly mean.

“The tour? Is it time for the tour?” she asked, sorry that she didn’t understand him.

The boy’s eyes widened just a little, and suddenly he looked very, very lost. “You don’t remember.”

His voice was so soft that she almost didn’t hear him, but the disheartened tone they were spoken in wrenched her soul. Tears almost came to her eyes to see this little boy with Zan’s expressive eyes, miserable windows to a dejected soul.

The boy reached up to touch her arm, but before he did he spoke one word.

“Mother—”

[cardinalgirl]

The boy reached up to touch her arm, but before he did he spoke one word.

“Mother—”


Part 4

Ava gasped, but not before the images started. First the little boy being told that his adoptive parents had been killed in a car accident. Crying himself to sleep in the orphanage. Happy Christmases. A little dog he’d had to give up.

The images were fast, but then she could feel the little boy concentrating. She saw a fuzzy image of—Zan! But, no. That wasn’t her Zanathan. He was too clean-cut… It was Max Evans. Before she had fully processed that idea, the boy had zoned in on an image of herself. Or what looked like herself…

*****“Zan, baby, I have to go away now. I don’t know when I’ll see you again, but I’ll come for you. I will. For now I’m gonna have to leave you with your father…”*****

There were tears in Tess’s eyes, and Ava could see that she didn’t ever expect to see her little boy again.

When the connection was broken, the little boy took a step back, blinked. “You’re not my mother—but… but you are. You’re Avillia. I don’t understand.”

Avillia. She hadn’t heard that name spoken out loud in a very long time. A lifetime. She kneeled down next to the young boy—from the connection she knew he was called Zachary. Zachary Nathan. Well, that was almost it. She glanced around at the empty hall, took a deep breath before trying to explain.

“Zachary, you can’t call me Avillia, okay? It’s not safe. Just like it’s not safe for me to call you Zanathan, okay?”

The boy frowned at that, but she could see that he understood somehow. “You’re her, though, aren’t you? Just like my mother was her. Tess.”

Ava nodded. “Yes, I’m her, just like your mother was, but I’m also Ava, just like your mother was Tess.”

Zachary nodded, frown still evident on his face, as he raised his eyes to meet hers again. “She won’t ever come for me, will she?”

The breath left Ava’s body. How could she answer that? She didn’t know the answer, couldn’t possibly know, and yet she felt as if she did. Tess would never come back. “Maybe she was trying to protect you, honey.”

Zachary sighed. “So what do I do now?”

Ava didn’t answer him. They both knew that for the moment there wasn’t an answer.

[cardinalgirl]

Part 5

Los Angeles

“Max, you can’t do this to me. I can’t do this. I mean, fifty states, fifty, and you had to pick New York City to go to next?”

Max stared at his sister, confused. “Iz, what is this? I thought you’d love the idea. It’s the fashion capital of America. Saks Fifth Avenue, Broadway. What’s wrong with it?”

“Gee, I wonder,” she challenged, and pulled on the chain around her neck. The one that had her wedding ring on it.

Max was at a loss for a moment, looked away. Finally he raised his gaze to meet his sister’s. “I guess I always thought that you wanted to go after him sometime.”

She took a deep breath, steadying herself to admit to him what she could barely accept herself. “He gave up on me a long time ago, Max.

Max frowned at her. “What do you mean?” When she didn’t answer Max thought of something else. “Izzy, Jesse went to work for a firm in Boston. Why are you afraid of running into him in New York?”

She couldn’t just out and say it. Not like this. “What’s my strongest power?” she asked instead.

The question confused him, but he answered automatically. “Dreamwalking. You’ve been doing that since we were—” Suddenly he stopped, understanding. “You’ve been dreamwalking Jesse. Isabel, you know that’s not safe. If you’d told him, even once, where we were—”

She shook her head. “I haven’t. I haven’t participated in a single one of his dreams, I’ve just watched. He stopped dreaming about me a long time ago.”

“Isabel, are you sure—”

“He filed for divorce on abandonment orders. He remarried two years ago. Her name is Hillary. They have a ten-month-old son named Jeremy, and he was transferred to New York City almost three months ago.” Her voice was wooden, her face sad.

Max pulled his sister into his embrace. “I’m so sorry Isabel. How long have you known this?”

She sighed and pulled away from him. “Since it‘s happened, I guess. He still dreams about me every once and a while, but it’s dreams where I come back to him, and he has to try to explain to me why he moved on. How much he loves his wife. That he still loves me too, but he can’t go back to that life now… He’s dreading that conversation, Max.”

“Isabel, we need you to come with us. We need you. We’re family. Please, Isabel, come with us.”

Isabel met her brother’s eyes with her own, saw his pleading, but he couldn’t possibly understand what he was asking her to do. She shook her head, unable to speak.

“Izzy, please. At least think about it. Please try, Iz.”

Isabel stared at Max, unsure of what to say, unable to tell him how lonely she’d been ever since they’d left Roswell. Unable to tell him that if she saw Jesse with his new family, trying to apologize to her for needing to live his life… she would probably shrivel up and die.

She couldn’t answer him, even if she tried, so instead she walked past Max, and out of the apartment.

*************

Isabel had to get out after that. One thing she had grown to love about LA was that you could always get lost in a crowd. At least that wouldn’t change in New York. She walked around for a little bit, not really paying attention to where she was going or what the time was, but she knew that she didn’t want to be walking the streets of LA after dark, so she headed back towards her apartment far before there was any danger of that.

As she’d been walking she’d kept up a good front, the Ice Queen fully-armed like some disdainful goddess... but as soon as she got back to her lonely apartment she fell crying onto her bed. Her body shook as she sobbed out all the feelings that she kept so well under control most of the time. The loneliness, the frustration, the latent jealousy that she couldn’t help feeling when she saw her brothers both happily in love.

After a few minutes she’d sufficiently drained herself of tears, and after taking a few deep breaths to steady herself, a soft voice beside her said, “Wanna talk about it?”

Isabel jumped, then almost smiled to see her favorite figment of imagination sitting on the end of her bed. She should have known he would come. He always did when she needed it.

“Alex, what are you doing here?”

He shrugged, a hint of a smile on his lips as well. “You tell me.”

She took a slightly ragged breath, and sighed. “The three years are up. We’re headed to New York.”

“Sounds exciting,” he said, but it was in a mild voice, as if he knew there was more that she needed to say, and if he was a figment of her imagination, he did.

“Jesse’s in New York,” she explained.

Alex flinched a little, and she wondered if it was for her or for himself. She honestly didn’t know. “Ah, Jesse… Jesse with the new family, Jesse. I thought we’d decided we were over Jesse.”

“We did,” Isabel said, again pulling at the chain around her neck.

“So why do you still wear that?” Alex asked, and Isabel’s hands froze.

“Alex… it’s not that I’m not over Jesse, I think I am…” As she paused she glanced around the room, as if looking for an explanation that made sense. “It’s more… it’s more like I still need the idea that there’s somebody out there who cares about me. I don’t want to be alone, Alex.” Her voice sounded thin and childlike, even to her, but she didn’t care. Alex always understood.

His arm slid around her shoulders, and she swore she could feel him… it almost brought a sob to her throat. “You’re not alone, Iz. You’ve got you’re family with you…”

“And that should be enough… but it’s not. I’m just tired of not having somebody. Everything gets easier once you’re not alone. You told me that, remember?”

He smiled at the reference to a long-ago Crashdown conversation. “Why do you remember that?”

She shrugged and looked away from him. “You were right then. I wouldn’t let you in then because I didn’t want to be too vulnerable. But I’ve learned since then. People are so much more vulnerable alone. I don’t even know if I’m worth loving anymore, Alex, I‘ve been alone so long.”

“Hey,” he said, firmly. “Don’t ever talk like that, Isabel. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known. Don’t tell Liz or Maria that, but it’s true. And you’ll never stop being worth it. You won’t be alone forever, Isabel.”

“How can you even say that?” she asked, not angrily, just tired.

“Trust me.” They sat for a moment in silence before Alex spoke again. “You should get some sleep.”

She sighed. “Why do you always come to me just to go away again?”

“Isabel, you know that if I had a choice I would never leave you.”

“Can you at least stay until I fall asleep?”

Alex touched her face gently. “As you wish.”

[cardinalgirl]

Part 6

Kyle Valenti wanted to die. And by the look she was giving him, he knew that a good part of Sara Wilkins wanted him to die, too. They were in the apartment he shared with Maria DeLuca and Michael Guerin, and he’d finally told her that he was leaving at the end of the week.

“So that’s that, then. Four months together and all of a sudden you’re just dropping off the face of the planet.”

Four months together, and two years of working with each other before that. He’d miss her.

“Sara, please. Try to understand—”

“What is there to understand, Kyle?” she asked, her voice rising with every word she spoke. “What possible reason could you have for just picking up and leaving like this?”

Because the fearless leader ordered it, that’s why. It was moments like these when, despite all they’d been through the past ten years, despite the fact that the man was almost a brother to him, he still hated Max Evans.

“There’s just… some family stuff I’ve got to take care of.” It sounded even lamer than he’d thought it might.

“So then go and take care of it and come back. What could possibly be big enough of a problem that you’ve got to uproot your entire life?”

He sighed. “This isn’t my entire life, though. I’ve only been here three years, Sara, and it just isn’t working for me.”

She swallowed, and he watched as her eyes filled with tears. This was his least favorite part. “So I guess I just wasn’t working for you either, huh?”

“Sara… this has nothing to do with you.”

She laughed a little, wiping a tear off her face. “But that’s the problem, Kyle. It should have something to do with me.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. She was right, it should have something to do with her. He should be more sorry than he was to leave her. But he’d always known that he would have to leave, and so he’d never even really thought about letting himself take relationships seriously.

That was half the point for the three-year maximum anyhow, so that they’d never feel inclined to drag the Sara Wilkinses in their lives into the alien abyss permanently. Which basically meant that Kyle Valenti was screwed for life. It wasn’t exactly something new to him, though. He had been cursed in love since high school.

“Sara, I can’t even tell you how sorry I am.”

She shook her head, turning away from him. “Can you give me an address, a phone number, something so I can at least know you’re okay?”

He swallowed. “I don’t really know where I’m going to be staying yet.”

“So I’m never going to see you again.”

“Sara, I’m—”

“Sorry. Yeah, I know.” She took a deep breath, and stared him in the eye. “You’ve known about this, too, haven’t you?”

“What do you mean? I said I got a call—”

She shook her head. “That’s bull. I know you, Kyle. If you’d just been told out of the blue that you had to move, had to change your entire life, you’d be a little more phased by it all. You were expecting this.”

Kyle’s mind was racing though ways that he actually could die at this exact moment. He could trip and hit his head… he could get electrocuted if he tried…

She took his lack of response as a confirmation. “Were you even going to tell me?”

“I wanted to, I just didn’t know how. That’s why I’m telling you now.”

She sighed. “So I’m never going to see you again.”

Kyle ran a hand through his hair. “Sara, I didn’t mean to run out on you like this. I didn’t ever want to hurt you.”

But she held a hand up. “Too little too late, okay, Kyle?” He called after her as she made her way towards the door, but she kept moving. “It’s getting late. I’ve got to get home. Goodbye Kyle.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said, but the door shut behind her before he’d even finished speaking.

*************

Kyle had finally found the bottle-opener when he heard keys in the door. He swore under his breath. That meant Michael and Maria were home from their date.

Maria was barely in the door when she saw what he was attempting. “What do you think you’re doing?!”

“Jeez, Maria, can’t a guy have a drink in peace?”

“Absolutely not,” she said, grabbing the unopened beer bottle from him, and taking it directly to the kitchen to pour down the sink. “If I find you with another one of these, Valenti, you’ll spend you’re last nights in LA out on the streets.” They’d learned long ago that the “changed” humans were even more sensitive to alcohol than the actual aliens—Liz had gotten tipsy once after cleaning a small cut with rubbing alcohol.

“Yeah, because leaving an intoxicated guy with alien powers completely unsupervised in public, that would be the smart thing, to do, Maria.”

Maria glared at her boyfriend. “And just when I thought we’d been having a nice night.”

Michael held his hands up. “Hey, he was the one trying to get drunk!”

Maria ignored him and sat down on the coffee table directly in front of Kyle. “So I’m assuming you talked to Sara.” Kyle nodded mutely. “And she didn’t take it so well.” Kyle shook his head, and Maria sighed. “Tell Auntie Maria everything.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “Maria, when are you going to realize that Kyle is a grown man who can take care of himself?”

“When are you going to realize that some people actually like talking about their emotions?”

Michael opened his mouth to respond, but apparently thought better of it. “I’m going over to Maxwell’s. He wanted me to come over tonight and help him with ‘repainting’ the apartment.”

Maria made a shooing motion, barely noticing when he left. Her entire attention was focused on Kyle.

For a moment Kyle was silent, but then he sighed. “Michael’s right, you know, I’m a big boy.”

“Aliens in search of alcohol is never a good sign, Kyle. So give.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m not an alien, Maria, I was born in the exact same hospital as you were.”

She slapped his knee. “Not the point, and you know it. Tell me about Sara.”

Again he rolled his eyes at her, but sighed, and starting talking anyway. “Just once, just once I want to be the good guy, Maria.”

She looked at him for a moment, confused. “The good guy.”

“Yeah, you know, the guy who does things right. Not the heartless guy who dumps his girlfriend because he’s leaving town. Not the jealous guy who loses his girl because of some irresistible alien king. Just the good guy who finds a good girl and gets to be with her. Is that too much to ask?”

Maria quirked a grin at him. “Didn’t wanna talk, huh?” She smiled, then moved so she was sitting next to him on the couch and wrapped an arm around him. “Aw, Kyle, you are the good guy. I mean think about it. You’re the first person anybody in the group turns for if they need cheering up. Plus you’re Alexander’s favorite uncle. Don’t tell Michael I told you, but he gets really jealous about that.”

Kyle shook his head. “So I’m the comic-relief and I’m baby-sitter of the year. That doesn’t say much, Maria.”

Maria gave him an evaluative look. “Actually, it says a lot… Now we just need to find someone who’ll appreciate you!”

Kyle shook his head. “See and that’s another thing. Even if I did find somebody, it’s not as if I could bring somebody new into the group. Max’d kill me.”

Maria smiled. “I have a feeling that when you find somebody the whole alien factor isn’t really going to be a problem.”

Kyle gave her a quizzical look, but she just shrugged, smiling. She yawned. “Okay, now time for bed, mister. We’ve got a big week ahead of us.” She reached up to ruffle his hair and then traipsed off to the bedroom she shared with Michael. Kyle watched her as she walked off, not sure exactly what to think about what she’d said. Finally he gave up and headed to bed himself.

[cardinalgirl]

Part 7

New York City

Ava was checking the tour scheduling when she saw a now-familiar image approaching her. Zachary had continued to visit her whenever he could. She told him that she didn’t like him sneaking out of the orphanage and walking the block and a half to the museum, but he refused to listen to her.

In a way, she was glad. She’d visited him more than once at the orphanage, too. Now that they’d found each other, they couldn’t seem to give each other up. She wanted to adopt him even, but one flash she’d gotten from him made her hesitate.

Max Evans had intended for his son to be free of the chaos that came from his alien heritage. But then again, Ava also got the idea that Max had thought that his son was entirely human. Well he’d been right, he’d just forgotten the little fact that technically all of the clones were human… they were just advanced humans. While little Zac had missed out on having alien DNA from a predecessor, he still had advanced human DNA. Ava still wasn’t sure what his especial gift was—if he was going to become a healer like his father or something else—but she knew he was no ordinary boy.

Still, she couldn’t just go against her king’s wishes… because as far as she knew, Max Evans was the only king she had left. Sure Khivar was up there running the show and planning on keeping the throne even when Zanathan returned, but Ava believed that Khivar’s ambition was clouding his memory… There was no way he remembered how loyal the people had always been to Zanathan, and if the people were following Khivar, it was only because they must truly believe that Zanathan—even through Zan and Max—was dead and gone.

She couldn’t blame them, really. Even she didn’t know how much time had passed on Antar. And then maybe Zanathan was gone. If Max Evans had denied his Antarian legacy for his human one, there was no one to stop him.

Still, she felt as if time were pressing her. If she didn’t act on this chance with Zachary, she may lose him, and then where would he turn for answers? And who could help him develop his powers and be there to protect him when he needed it?

She couldn’t explain it, but somehow every fiber of her being felt responsible for the boy. While she knew she had never personally borne the child, something within her couldn’t help but recognize that he was her own flesh and blood. He was her son, and she could never abandon him.

So really, there was only one course of action that she could follow. Only one course her heart would allow. She would adopt Zachary, and then she would find Max Evans. She would beg her king’s forgiveness for going against his wishes, but he would understand when he met his son again. He was a reasonable man, after all. A caring man. And he wouldn’t want his son left defenseless either.

*************

After asking Zachary if he would accept her as a mother and receiving a gleeful and exuberant affirmative, the adoption went off without a hitch.

She bent the truth only slightly in telling the adoption agency that Zachary was the child of her twin sister who had since been killed in a car accident. She told a story of a small-town teenager from New Mexico who’d gotten into trouble and turned to a good-hearted lawyer couple for help, as she had no parents of her own. The agency, overwhelmed with the number of orphans that needed good homes, accepted her story when she showed a few perfectly-fabricated items of proof in the shape of pictures. Besides, how else would she know about the little boy who the Evanses—friends of Frank Mitchell who was one of their best men—had brought to them from Roswell years ago?

Also, she had a good job and an impressive background. Nothing on the files to say that Ava Spencer was anything less than a first-rate citizen on her way up in the world. She could easily provide for one child.

And when she brought him home that night, apologizing that she didn’t have a bed for him yet, the boy had asked timidly if he could sleep in bed with her rather than on the couch. Her heart had caught in her throat as she’d pulled him into a hug. “Anytime, Zachary. Anytime you want.”

All of a sudden she had the one thing that had been missing in her life. Family. Still, her family didn’t end with just the two of them, and for the first time since she’d left Roswell, Ava was ready to accept that Max Evans and his friends were her family as well, and nothing could ever be right until all of them were together again. Unfortunately she had no idea how to make that happen.

[cardinalgirl]

Author's Note: Mood music for the first section here is Badly Drawn Boy's What is it Now? And for the second section, thanks to willowbv for letting me use this song, too, even though she's had dibs on it forever.


Part 8

“So I heard that you almost didn’t come.”

Isabel shrugged delicately. “Sometimes my dear brother forgets that he’s not the only one with a past.”

She wasn‘t sure if she was really looking forward to spending the entire plane ride with Kyle. There was six hours, and then a lay-over in St. Louis, and then three more hours to New York. That was a lot of Kyle, and she didn’t even have the scenery to distract her, as she was sitting in the middle column of seats in the plane. Because they’d gotten tickets a bit late, they’d only gotten one set of seats near a window, and it had been unanimously decided that the window seat should be for Alexander, as this was the first time the five-year-old would actually remember being on a plane. With his parents sitting next to him, and Michael and Maria sitting next to each other, she was left to Valenti. She didn’t mind it so much, though, as she’d gotten used to being paired up with him over the years.

“You know, Buddha says ‘Do not dwell in the past, concentrate the mind on the present moment.”

Isabel raised an eyebrow at him. “I thought you gave up Buddha once you developed your Jedi mind tricks.”

Kyle grinned, and in a moment his voice was in her mind. Actually, I’ve decided the ways of the Jedi and the path to Enlightenment aren’t all that different.

She rolled her eyes and thought back to when Kyle had first started developing otherworldly powers. He’d walked around for a week or two planting thoughts in different people’s heads without even knowing it, and it had taken some very deliberate investigations on Liz’s part for the group to figure out what was going on. He’d actually been very disappointed that his strength seemed to be telepathy. “Figures Evans would give me some power that was totally cliché. I don‘t get to heal people. I don‘t get to see the future or walk around in people’s dreams, oh no, I get to talk to people in my head. Thanks Max, thanks.”

He’d since reconciled himself to his “Jedi mind tricks,” as he liked to call them, especially since he’d started expanding into telekinesis recently, too. He’d had a lot of fun letting people know about that one… He’d spent a week on Isabel’s couch once after making Maria chase a pen around the room for ten minutes while she was trying to write out a grocery list for Michael.

The flight attendant came by offering drinks. Kyle got a Sprite. Usually Isabel would have opted for Evian, but at the last moment she chose orange soda instead. She was about to tell him that what he did with his powers wasn’t very Jedi or Buddhist, but before she could, a miniature version of her brother was coming at them from a few rows ahead.

“Hi Aunt Izzy. Hi Uncle Kyle.”

“Hi Alexander. How are you liking your plane ride?”

The little boy beamed at her. “Look. The flight attendant Susan gave me this pin and she said the pilot has one just like it!”

Time for Kyle to turn on the charm. “Hey, buddy, come here, lemme see that.” Alexander squinched past Isabel and wiggled onto Kyle’s lap. Kyle’s eyes widened when Alex showed off his winged pin. “You know, it’s very hard to get one of those. They only give those to very special people.”

Alex’s eyes widened, now. “Really?”

Isabel smiled at the sight of Kyle with her nephew. Kyle was simply magic when it came to little Alex. That wasn’t always a good thing, as it meant that Kyle could get Alex to do almost anything… but unless Kyle was in a particularly foul—or particularly playful—mood he usually used his influence for good.

Even Kyle couldn’t keep Alex’s attention for long today, though, as they were currently flying over the clouds, and no five-year-old can be kept from a view like that for long.

“You’re really great with him, you know?”

Kyle glanced at her. “Yeah, I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”

Isabel frowned. “You sound like that’s a bad thing.”

Kyle shook his head, “Nah, it’s just... It reminded me of a conversation I was having with Maria the other day… Anyhow, I think she’s turned my love life into her next project.”

Isabel smiled. “And you’re not looking forward to it.”

“Should I be?” Kyle asked. He sighed, then turned to face her better. “They’ve all gotten so used to it, you know? Having somebody to be with. They forget what it’s like. They forget that it’s kind of hard to let somebody in sometimes. And all this alien crap just complicates things even more.”

Isabel was surprised at the sudden turn of conversation. It was shallow, but she forgot sometimes that Kyle even really had emotions. It struck her for the first time how he’d probably been through a lot of the same stuff she had. She’d never thought about it much before. He was always stringing some new girl along, but it had never gotten serious.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

He gave her an evaluative look. “Would you do it, do you think?”

Isabel frowned, confused. “Do what?”

“If you had the chance to bring somebody else in, somebody new. Would you do it?”

Isabel leaned back into her chair, sipping her soda. Her mind couldn’t help going over what had happened to the men that she’d known that had been involved in the alien abyss… Grant Sorenson had been possessed and later killed by an alien virus. Alex… Alex had been used as a pawn in Tess’ evil game, and then eliminated after he’s served his purpose… the thought still made Isabel feel physically sick. Out of all of them, Jesse had gotten off easy with a broken heart and a few lonely years. After a long moment, she said, “No. I don’t think I would.”

Kyle nodded, as if he’d known what she was going to say already, and agreed. “The risks, the possible exposure, it’s just too much.” That was the word. Exposure. In more ways than one.

This conversation was headed to dangerous territory, though. The obvious alternative to the two of them being lonely together was for the two of them to be… together. She could tell the moment the thought hit Kyle, too, when without a word he pulled out a CD player and jammed his headphones over his ears, closing his eyes.

Isabel watched him for a few moments, knew that he knew she was watching him… She had to admit that she’d thought of it before. They were the odd ones out, it was only natural to wonder if it could happen, but nothing ever had. She supposed he’d either never really thought about it, or simply didn’t want it to happen. What else could his line of purposely meaningless relationships mean?

But he’d never had good luck with love either. Liz had been the first girl he’d ever cared about and then she’d ripped his heart out, falling head-over heels for Max. And then there had been Tess, and while the two of them had had sparks, she’d done nothing but go after Max, too. One case of rejection like that can ruin a man for life, but two? And over the same man, a man who Kyle was now pretty much bound to for life?

Isabel was amazed that she’d never even considered any of this before. Kyle had to have as many trust and abandonment issues as she did herself, if not even more. Liz and Tess hadn’t even been the first to walk out on him. Kyle hadn’t seen his mother since he was six years old.

Isabel shook her head, trying to shake herself out of the daze she seemed to have fallen into. This was still Kyle. Kyle the sports extraordinaire. Kyle the prankster, who still prayed to Buddha about getting laid on Friday nights. Isabel rolled her eyes. She was getting a little pathetic.

*************

By the time they got to New York it was almost ten PM. They checked into a hotel for the night, even though Max and Michael had already taken care of leasing two adjoining flats that the six of them would be sharing.

Isabel was sharing a room with Kyle, and despite the late hour, she couldn’t help the nervous energy that was coursing through her veins. He was here. Somewhere he was here and it was only a matter of time before they ran into him. She knew it wouldn’t do much good, but she decided to dreamwalk Jesse one last time. Just in case there was some particular part of town that she should avoid. She didn’t have much hope, as people’s dreams tended to distort places a lot, but she tried it anyway.

She found him pretty easily. She was just starting to understand the scene before her—Jesse with his wife and son on a ferryboat, probably to see the Statue of Liberty or something—when she was forcibly pulled out of the dreamwalk.

At first Isabel thought someone on the outside was trying to wake her up, but as the image of Jesse was getting farther away, she realized that someone was pulling at her consciousness, instead.

She felt her mind racing through blackness and she didn’t know what to do. She tried waking herself up, but she couldn’t. Where was she? And where was she going?

She’d felt something like this before, that time they’d rescued Laurie Dupree so many years ago, but even that had been different from this. That had seemed like an assault of images on her brain, and now she couldn’t see anything. Strangely, though, she wasn’t frightened. She felt as if she should be, but there was no mistaking the way she felt—safe.

Almost as suddenly as the movement had started, it stopped. She found herself sitting down on something metal, but she still couldn’t see anything.

When light did appear, she could not have been more shocked at what she did see.

She was sitting on a table—a teacher’s desk, to be more precise—in the West Roswell High gym. Decked with a combination of classroom desks and candle-lit dining tables, it was looking how it had only looked once before.

She looked down at herself, and she was clad in the red silk pajamas she’d had in high school. She couldn’t breathe, was she doing this to herself? Impossible. She’d never accidentally dreamwalked anyone, and this was definitely a dreamwalk. But who could possibly have known?

There was only one other person who’d ever seen the West Roswell gym like this before, as that time had also been on the dreamplane, but it was impossible to dreamwalk him. But then all of a sudden there he was, and it was the same as last time.

“Hello, Alex,” she saw another version of herself say. She was dressed in red still, but it was a different dress than last time. Her prom dress, she realized. He was wearing his prom tux, too.

He turned towards her and smiled. “Hello.”

He took her hand and kissed it, and that’s when she realized that other things were different, too. There was no CD player, no Save Ferris.

“It’s been a long time… Thank you for inviting me,” the other version of herself said.

He grinned. “My pleasure.”

Isabel was confused, but she was no longer even concerned about being scared. She was hoping that she’d get to see their dance again, their conversation about letting people in, and she was hoping that her other self would have more encouraging answers this time.

She was disappointed when Alex pulled out a chair for her and had her sit at the highly-decorated table, but she forgot her disappointment quickly as Alex surprised her once again.

“Do you mind if I play something for you?” Alex asked, taking off his jacket.

The dream Isabel smiled at him. “I was hoping you would.”

She watched as he picked up his guitar from under the table. “I wanted to write something for you, but I didn’t get the chance. This is something I just picked up…”

The intro was soft. She took the opportunity of glancing around the room, just in case there was someone else there who she could attribute the dream to, but there wasn’t, and then he was singing, and she had to watch him.

If you wait for me
Then I’ll come for you
Although I’ve traveled far
I always hold
A place for you in my heart.

She recognized it as an old Tracy Chapman song, “The Promise” or “The Vow” or something like that, but she’d never really listened to it before, so she concentrated on the words.

If you think of me
If you miss me once in awhile
Then I'll return to you
I'll return and fill that space in your heart
Remembering
Your touch
Your kiss
Your warm embrace
I'll find my way back to you
If you'll be waiting

The meaning of the words was too obvious, too strong. She started to wonder if this was just her own dream, if maybe drinking that orange soda earlier had brought it on.

If you dream of me
Like I dream of you
In a place that's warm and dark
In a place where I can feel the beating of your heart
Remembering
Your touch
Your kiss
Your warm embrace
I'll find my way
Back to you
If you'll be waiting

By now she was sobbing. What could this possibly mean? This had to be her own subconscious, there was no other explanation for it. Despite her meetings and conversations with him, Alex Whitman was dead. Why all of a sudden was she being faced with this vision of him? And why did it still feel like a dreamwalk? At that moment, Alex stopped looking at the dream version of Isabel, and looked directly at her.

Oh I've longed for you
And I have desired
To see your face, your smile
To be with you wherever you are

Remembering
Your touch
Your kiss
Your warm embrace
I'll find my way
Back to you
Please say you'll be waiting

Together again
It would feel so good to be
In your arms
Where all my journeys end
If you can make a promise
If it's one that you can keep
I vow to come for you
If you wait for me
And say you'll hold
A place for me
In your heart.

She looked away from the scene before her, shut her eyes to try and stop the tears, and then he was next to her wiping her tears away.

“Can you promise me, Isabel?”

She swallowed hard. “Why are you doing this to me? Why now? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Please, Isabel. You have to answer me.”

“Promise you… Promise you what?”

“You have to promise to wait for me, Isabel. Can you do that?”

“Alex, I don’t understand…”

He gave a bit of a smile. “This is my dream, Isabel. You’ve had time enough for dreaming.”

She shook her head. “This isn’t possible, Alex.”

“And if it is? If I could come back to you, would you wait for me?”

She nodded. “Of course I would, but you can’t come back to me, Alex. You‘re dead.”

He grinned. “Haven’t you ever seen The Princess Bride? ‘Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it a while.’”

Isabel was suddenly thrown from the dream, but Alex’s last words were echoing in her ears. “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it a while.”

Isabel took a shaky breath and frowned. The echo sounded like it had an accent. A decidedly Cary Elwes English accent. Isabel sat up in bed—to find that Kyle was watching television on the bed next to hers. “Hey, can you believe this? They’ve got an all-night marathon of The Princess Bride!” He immediately switched into a rapid, over-exaggerated Spanish accent. “‘Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya, you kill my father, prepare to die!’” Isabel gave a shaky laugh despite herself. Kyle really was a character.

She sighed. That was proof, then. She had just been dreaming, and since she’d subconsciously been listening to the movie, that line had just sort of drifted into her dream. Not that she’d really thought—no, she refused to even let herself think it. It had been eleven years since Alex had died. If he’d wanted to really contact her from beyond the veil, he would have done it by now. This was just another one of her self-induced Alex moments. A dream. That’s all it was. She was giving up orange soda from now on.

“Isn’t there anything other than this?” she asked, watching Westley and Buttercup fighting their way through the Fireswamp. “I’ve seen this about a thousand times.”

“Yeah, but it’s a classic. Besides, this TV only gets like two channels. This is the last time Max gets to choose the hotel, I swear…”

Isabel smiled. “So what’s on the other channel?”

He shrugged. “Just some black chick singing depressing music.”

Isabel frowned. Apparently none of the dream had been real. “Who was it?”

“Tracy… something or other. I tried watching it through one of the commercial breaks, but I only lasted through one song. That woman could depress a hyena. Anyhow, who cares? He’s fighting the R.O.U.S.es!”

Isabel sat back on her bed, allowing Kyle to get back into his movie. She’d just had one of the most emotionally-wracking dreams of her life, and she’d woken up to find out that it was all thanks to bad reception in a hotel room.

She tried to get interested in the movie, but that dream kept distracting her. It really had felt like a dreamwalk. And something else was tickling the back of her mind, something that just didn’t fit…

She ran over the events of the dream again in her head. They’d met in the gym, just like the time before, only their clothes had been different…

Isabel gasped softly, suddenly feeling faint. Clothes. Alex had been wearing a tux. She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, but now her mouth was absolutely dry at the thought.

Every time she’d “seen” Alex since he died, every time she‘d talked to him or dreamed about him, he’d been wearing the exact same thing. The long-sleeved blue shirt and black jeans he’d been wearing when he died. It never changed.

And yet in her dream he’d been absolutely dressed to the nines.

Isabel slammed down the wisp of hope, of desire that was forming within her. Alex Whitman was dead. This dream had simply been a fluke. Hadn’t she had evident proof that she hadn’t even invented any of it herself? She thought back to when he’d first died, and every dream had been about how it hadn’t really happened, and he was still okay. After eleven years she should have more sense than to believe anything her subconscious told her.

Isabel glanced at the lamp between the two single beds and turned it off with a small burst of energy, then determinedly turned away from the television and shut her eyes, willing herself to sleep.

[cardinalgirl]

Part 9

Liz collapsed on the newly-placed sofa. She would be completely happy if she never saw another cardboard box in her life.

They’d been very fortunate to find the two apartments right next door to each other. It was almost like a house for the seven of them. Each apartment had three bedrooms, so Max and Liz had their bedroom, and Alex got his own room, and in the other apartment Michael and Maria shared a room and Isabel and Kyle each got their own room. Kitchens and living rooms were basically up for grabs to whoever.

Liz was still skeptical about the city, but now that the most part of the moving was over and almost all of the heavy lifting done, she had to admit that she liked the result. The whole apartment was furnished pretty simplistically, but it wasn’t sparse by any means. The colors were neutral for the most part, which Liz always favored. They’d been dining on take-out for the most part so far, but now that they were more settled they were ready to start expanding their horizons. The landlord had given her some fliers on the farmer’s market down the street, and she’d look for a grocery store, too.

She was amazed when she thought about how she’d gone from “the smallest of small-town girls” to living in the biggest city in the country. They’d had stops along the way, of course. They spent about a year driving around in that old VW van, doing odd-jobs in the random towns they stopped in, until they finally settled in Seattle, and after that had been San Francisco and LA. They’d held their breaths for a while, but after a couple years it seemed like the FBI had simply given up on them. The theory was that they’d waited for some new story to come out, about a miraculous healing or unexplainable disaster or something, but they’d been keeping out of public business. But there were no silver handprints to be found, so the trail had gone cold.

Max had set the three-year limit on staying in any one place about a year and a half after moving to Seattle. His reasoning had been that that way they wouldn’t get too close to anybody, so that nobody would pay enough attention to them to ever get suspicious. Liz had thought it a good idea at the time, but lately, watching Kyle and Isabel and how all this moving was affecting them, she was starting to wonder.

She’d always hoped that maybe the two would end up together eventually, and there had been moments—especially on Kyle’s part in the beginning—when it seemed like maybe they’d wanted it, too, but nothing had ever come of it. In a way they’d both reverted to their old ways. Kyle was dating a string of girls without caring for any of them much, and Isabel just wasn’t letting anyone get close. It couldn’t be good for either of them in the long run, and if Isabel’s initial reaction to New York was any indication, it was beginning to wear on them.

Suddenly a small hand pulling at her pant leg pulled her from her train of thought.

She smiled at her son. “I thought you were in bed.”

The little boy frowned. “I couldn’t sleep. My room’s all different…”

“Aw, honey, I know. Here, you wanna come sit with me for a little bit?” Alex nodded before crawling up and curling under her arm, nestling his head in her side.

“Where is everybody?” Alex asked.

“They’re in the other apartment, trying to finish things up in there.”

Alex nodded, and then seemed to be content to just sit in silence. He was a quiet boy in general, unless of course his uncle Kyle got him really riled up. He was so much like his father, had his eyes and his ears, and of course his slow smile.

While she hated to admit it, there were moments when she regretted naming him Alex. Sometimes it made her miss her old friend so much she had to leave the room so her son wouldn’t see her cry. But it had been the least she could do in Alex Whitman’s memory.

The day after her wedding she had started crying uncontrollably for what had seemed like no reason. Poor Max had been falling all over himself trying to make her feel better and apologize for everything he’d done or hadn’t done, and it had taken more than an hour for her to calm down enough to explain what was wrong. For the first time, she fully explained to Max about him coming to her from the future, and all that that had caused to happen.

It was also the first time she’d realized that Alex’s death was her fault. In another universe, Alex had been able to dance with them on their wedding night when they were nineteen. Which meant Liz had traded her best friend’s life for the rest of the world. Alex had been a martyr for a cause he hadn’t even known about. It was something Liz still blamed herself for.

By the time Max returned from the other apartment, his son was asleep, and his wife looked tired too. “Do you want me to take him?” he asked quietly, kissing her softly.

She smiled. “Yeah, but not quite yet. Want to join us?”

Max set himself on her other side. “It would be my pleasure.”

Liz smiled, when, like his son, he contented himself with sitting in silence, just enjoying her company. “What are you thinking about?”

He shrugged slightly. “Just new beginnings, I guess…” But Liz could tell there was something else, and she just watched him until he continued. “Liz, when I was a kid, I thought about what it would be like. Having to start over, I mean. Michael was always worried about when we’d have to leave and just not look back, and sometimes you just got the bug from him and pictured it all out in your mind…”

Liz simply nodded, intent on understanding what he was trying to say. Max wasn’t usually one to talk about his childhood, even with her, and she liked when he wanted to share with her. It was proof that they still had things to open up to each other about, proof that they could still grow.

“But you know, back then it was always just the three of us. I imagined just hitting the road, with no one but Michael and Isabel and then just living that way, day to day until something happened. Until somebody found us out, or something…”

“Max, where is this going?” Liz asked, a little confused.

Max shrugged again. “I just want to thank you. Because I always thought that when it did happen, I’d be alone. I thought my whole life would be alone. Back then I didn’t even think it was possible to have a wife, a son. And you’ve shown me… so many times… that you’d follow me to the ends of the earth and back. Just… thank you for that.”

Liz kissed Max full on the lips. “Thank you for giving me the chance.”

*************

A few buildings down…

“But… if Max and Liz loved each other so much, than how did I happen?”

Ava looked at the little boy she was tucking into bed, a little surprised by his question. She’d been telling him stories about who he was, at least everything that she knew to tell him. She’d told him about the two sets of royals, and how she’d split up with her set, and she’d told him how she’d met his father briefly, about her stay in Roswell and the people she‘d met there.

But now that he’d asked the question, Ava was surprised that she’d never thought of it before. Zac definitely was proof that Max had been with Tess. What had that done to Liz?

“You know, I really don’t know, about that, Zac,” she said, honestly. “You want to know something, though?”

Zachary nodded. “Yeah, what?”

Ava smiled at him. “I’m glad that you did happen.”

Zac smiled, but the smile faded quickly. “Ava?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you gonna leave me?”

Ava frowned. “No, honey. I could never want to leave you. Why would you ask that?”

Zac shrugged, but looked a little upset. “Sometimes people don’t plan to leave. They just do.”

Ava took a deep breath, realizing for the first time how much Zachary’s life had prepared him for disappointment already. He’d been given up or left behind by every person who was ever important to him. First Tess and then Max Evans had given him away, and later the Millers—his original adoptive parents—had died, and left him too.

Ava looked at Zac for a long moment, then kissed his forehead. “You know, Zac, sometimes life takes people away from us. And we can’t stop it or explain it. But you know what’s good about life?”

“What?”

“Well, it brings new people to us, too. New people to love. And we can always remember the old people and love the new people, too.”

Zachary still looked uncertain. “But what if the new people go away?”

Ava sighed. “Zac, I can’t tell you that we’ll always be together. Actually, when we find your father… when we find Max he’ll probably want you back.”

“But… what if he wants you, too?”

Ava shrugged. “I don’t know if he will.”

Zac frowned, and then he looked at her, determined, almost defiant. “Well… I don’t care. I don’t care if he wants you. I want you. I love you Ava. I mean… I love you… Mom?… do you want me to call you Mom?”

By the end of his little speech the uncertainty was back in his voice, but Ava didn’t even notice. She was too busy being flabbergasted and overjoyed.

“Only… only if you want to, Zachary,” she finally managed to say.

Zac sat up, sending his bedcovers flying, and grabbed Ava in a tight hug. “I want to.”

Ava didn’t think she’d ever get used to this, this feeling of overwhelming love, and all she could do was hug Zachary close.

She had no idea, of course, that her new, wonderful life would end up turned over and inside out in only a matter of days.

[cardinalgirl]

Part 10

“So… you think it was just a dream.” Isabel hadn’t been expecting anything else, but she couldn’t help the liquid disappointment that was now spreading through her, replacing the blood in her veins.

“Iz… I don’t know what to tell you, but like you said, if somehow Alex was actually alive and he wanted to contact you… if there was some way it was even possible that he could contact you… it wouldn’t have taken ten years. Plus… the movie quote, the singer… that’s a little too much to just be coincidence.”

Isabel ran her hands over the quilting of her comforter as she sat on her bed listening to Kyle’s words. While he wasn’t saying anything she hadn’t thought herself, somehow hearing someone else say it out loud made it seem more real, and suddenly she felt stupid for even telling him about it. It had been festering in her mind, though, and she’d had to tell someone, and the person who seemed the most likely to care—or rather, the least likely to ridicule her for it—had been Kyle.

She was finding herself in that situation a lot lately.

Isabel swallowed convulsively. “Sorry, Kyle. Sorry I even… I mean, I can’t believe I even—”

“Hey,” he cut in, sitting down next to her and pulling an arm around her shoulder. “Don’t. You needed someone to talk to. You should never have to apologize for that, Isabel. I’m just… glad you trust me enough to be that person.”

Isabel whisked the danger of a tear away and smiled at him. “Kyle, of course I trust you. You’ve been around too long to be surprised about that. And thank you. For listening to me. For not thinking I’m crazy or anything.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it.”

“And Kyle… thanks for just telling me flat out what you thought. I mean… you’re right. It was a dream. There’s no other way. I think I just needed to hear somebody say it.”

Kyle sighed. “Well, Isabel, I just call it like I see it. You’re definitely the expert on dreams between the two of us.”

Isabel shook her head, annoyed. “See, that’s just the thing… It really felt like a dream walk, Kyle. I still can’t explain that.”

Kyle sat in thought for a moment before glancing at her hesitantly. “You don’t think… I mean… Is it possible you were dreamwalking yourself?”

Isabel scoffed. “Please, Kyle. You have to be asleep to be dreaming, remember?”

“But you are asleep when you’re dreamwalking. The only difference is that you’re aware of the fact that you’re in a dream. But maybe while your consciousness is dreamwalking, your subconscious is actually dreaming. Isabel, what if you just wandered into your own subconscious?”

Isabel stared at him, momentarily shocked at the brain leap he’d just taken. She wondered when exactly he’d gotten so insightful. Or maybe he always had been, and she’d just overlooked it. She had to admit that there was a lot about Kyle that was overlooked too easily.

“Why would I do that, though?” she asked, once she found her voice.

Kyle shrugged. “Maybe you didn’t really want to see Jesse’s dream. Maybe you don’t want to avoid him as much as you thought.”

Isabel shook her head. “That’s ridiculous, Kyle. He’s married. It’s not like I’m going to go out of my way to try to get back together with him. Even my subconscious isn’t that stupid.”

Kyle shook his head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, you went into the dream so you could figure out how to avoid him, but maybe you actually want to run into him. Because somewhere inside you, you need to confront him. You need to talk to him face to face and finally end things so that you can move on.”

Isabel digested his words for a moment, catching herself again pulling on the chain around her neck with her wedding ring on it. Putting her hands carefully to her sides she looked up at him. “Kyle… that actually makes a lot of sense.”

Kyle grinned. “I’m telling you, I could’ve been a shrink.”

She rolled her eyes and pushed him kind of playfully. “That’s going a little far.”

Kyle stood up. “Speaking of going, I’ve got to run. I’ve got a job interview in about an hour and a half and I still have to find the place.” He headed out of the room, but at the door he turned. “One more thing, Iz. I’ve got to say, now that we’ve decided it was a dream, and you were just listening to the movie and the concert on TV… Well, I think the song should‘ve tipped you off.”

Isabel was confused. “Why’s that?”

Kyle gave her an odd look. “Well, she was singing about fast cars and drunk dads and stuff… if Alex was going to send you some cosmic message, I think he would have chosen a different song.”

With that he was gone, and Isabel just stared after him, speechless. Of course she knew the song he was talking about. “Fast Car” was one of Tracy Chapman’s most famous songs. But Alex had played “The Promise” for her. She had just assumed that the one song Kyle had let run was the one she’d heard.

Did that mean there was something to the “dream” after all?

*************

“Have you ever tried this Mom? This is the best.”

Zachary held up two fries dipped in Tobasco-spiked chocolate shake. Ava obediently opened her mouth and let Zac push the fries in her mouth. She didn’t think she’d ever enjoyed McDonald’s so much in her life. She didn’t even remember the last time she’d been inside a Mickey D’s, but Zac had wanted a Happy Meal, so here they were.

“I’m glad I can have hot sauce whenever now. They never had hot sauce in the orphanage, so I’d always take whole handfuls of the little packets they’ve got at like Taco Bell or whatever but they never lasted long…”

What the hell are you doing here?

The words went racing through her mind with such fury, such absolute disbelief, that Ava’s whole body tensed. She felt as if she’d been thrown into a tub of ice.

Those were not her thoughts. The words had been too forceful for her to ignore as her imagination. Someone was watching her. And talking to her in her mind. Someone with powers.

She glanced around the room casually, but she didn’t recognize anyone, and no one was meeting her gaze.

“Mom? Are you okay?”

Ava forced herself to smile at Zachary. “Yeah, honey, I’m okay.” She tried to remember what he’d been saying. Hot sauce. That was it. “You know what I like is the salt and vinegar potato chips dipped in yogurt.”

Zachary’s eyes widened. “That sounds so good!”

Ava started to smile, but then the voice was back in her mind.

We thought you were dead. Or was that just a mindwarp too?

Someone who had powers and apparently knew a lot about her. Her immediate thought was that they should leave immediately—but then they would be followed home. They couldn’t stay here the whole day, though. Luckily it was her day off, so if they had to spend the entire day trying to throw this guy off, they would.

But how do you avoid someone when you don’t know who you’re avoiding? Ava did another check around the room, but there was no change. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to them.

We fell for your act last time, but don’t even think about trying to pull something. We won‘t underestimate you again.

Confusion mixed with her fear. There was no one who had ever known about her, except of course for Zan, Rath and Lannie. But Zan was dead, and she was almost sure that Rath and Lannie were, too. She hadn’t felt them at all in years, even through the four-square. None of them had had telepathic powers, anyhow.

Besides… she’d be able to tell if it was them. The words coming to her… it wasn’t a voice exactly, but they had a specific flavor to them. They carried the essence of their speaker with them. That was how she knew it was a man. She felt sure somehow that if she saw her harasser, she’d know it was him.

And then, finally, she saw him. Hard blue eyes glinted at her through the front window of the fast-food restaurant. When their eyes met, one side of his mouth went up in a cold, satisfied smile. Surprise, Tess.