Author: RoswellChic4Ever AKA Holli
Summary: The Royal Four are on Antar, the humans are on Earth, and life has moved on for everyone, until circumstances bring them all back together for one last fight.
Rating: Mature at most… Anything is game for this fic. For all I know, there will be character death. Just a forewarning. I haven’t completely decided yet.
Disclaimer: Roswell and any affiliations with characters, places, names, any lines from episodes used, etc belong to some higher power… I am just a lowly fan-fiction writer. Also most of my chapter titles are titles of songs or something of the sort. Please don’t sue.
Author’s Notes: It’s been awhile…
Prologue
I ran, fists clenched, arms pumping, lungs bursting. I ran as fast as I could, as fast as my legs would carry me. The adrenaline coursing through my body was the only thing that kept me going, as my legs should have given out a long time ago. I ignored the pain, the screaming from my muscles to stop, and kept running. My life depended on it. All of our lives depended on it.I’d never been in the middle of anything important. Always on the outside. I was never the hero, always the sidekick, and at times it had been something that bothered me. Today however, I was wishing that it had been me on the outside, me waiting for the outcome instead of being the only hope.
I could remember only one other time in my life when I had run this fast, when lives depended on me. I was too late that day. I couldn’t be too late this time. If I failed here today, we were all going to die, and it would be no one’s fault but my own.
Chapter One: I Forgot to Remember to Forget
Walking through the streets of New York was still an amazing experience to me, even though I’d been doing it multiple times a day for the past six years. Walking the streets of Roswell, you were sure to run into at least three or four people that you knew, people who wanted to know how you were, what you’d been doing with your life and then drone on about their lives, as if anyone cared. There was also the horrible chance that someone would mention the four juniors that had disappeared years ago, and remember that I had been friends with them, and then ask if I’d heard anything, and how I was holding up.
Yes, escaping Roswell was perhaps the best choice I’d ever made in my short twenty-three years of life. Walking the streets of New York was a completely different experience. It was a rarity to run into anyone you knew, especially when you were like me and kept to yourself and didn’t know that many people to begin with. Everyone in New York was also way too caught up in their own life to worry about anyone else. Walking with the hundreds and thousands of people on the streets of New York was similar to disappearing, something I, myself, ached to do since that fateful day six years ago.
I sighed and pushed the memories of that day out of my mind as it was not something I allowed myself to think about. In fact, I’d done a pretty good job of blocking out the two years before that day as well, imagining my life only as it had been “Before the Aliens”, or BA as I referred to it among my close friends who understood why it was a time that was never spoken of.
I let myself into my studio apartment, determined to stop thinking of the past. I was greeted by Cat, my companion, purring eagerly as I scooped her into my arms. I’d been wandering back alleys around my apartment building when I first moved to the city when I saw a small grey kitten rummaging through the alley for food. A stray kitten and my heart immediately broke. I had to take her in, it was fitting in a way, as taking in strays seemed to be what I did. Stray kittens without a family, stray people with a family. I couldn’t pick a name, so she stayed Cat. It was very, “Holly Golightly” of me.
“Hi Cat.” I said, nuzzling my face into her fur. I grabbed her food and poured some in her bowl, then set her down so that she could eat. She ran her body against my leg and then began eating.
While cat was eating I jumped in the shower, eager to get the stench of New York city sewers off of me. The water beating against my back and running down my face felt good, and I let my mind go blank.
After my shower I sat down and listened to my messages. One from Mom, just checking in. I called her back and we chatted for a while. She told me what she and Jim had planned for their fifth wedding anniversary and asked me if I’d be willing to come home for the party that Kyle and his girlfriend were throwing for them. I told her I’d try. Going home to Roswell, even to visit, wasn’t something I ever looked forward too. Too many memories that I had spent too long burying.
After our phone call I pulled out my guitar and tried writing a song, like I did every night, but as usual, I got distracted and failed miserably. Writing songs was something that I could no longer do.
After my failed attempt at being a musician, Cat and I watched some television before falling asleep, which was pretty much what happened every night. I never said life in New York was exciting, and it definitely wasn’t home, it was merely my escape.
* * *
The next day began like most of my days in New York. I went to work, serving coffee at a local Starbucks. I never intended it to be my career, when I’d first come to New York I had aspirations to make music and become famous, but it hadn’t quite worked out that way, and I loved my job and the people that I worked with. I had made a few friends that I spent some time with, but none of them close enough that I had to divulge any information I didn’t feel comfortable divulging.
When I got home I fed Cat like normal and then sat down to watch television, completely ignoring my answering machine. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, so I let the little red light flash indicating that I had messages.
I flipped through a magazine as I vaguely listened to the evening news, waiting for the new episode of Grey’s Anatomy to be on. I never watched the news, it was so depressing, always talk of wars over in the Middle East and how everyone was needing a financial bailout and it bored me to tears, I never was one up on current events, pop culture was more my thing.
A news story caught my attention however and I turned the TV up and leaned forward on my bed, making sure I caught every word.
“Locals claim to have seen an unidentified flying object above Roswell, New Mexico early this morning, before then seeing a large explosion in the desert.” The news anchor said. I shook my head in disbelief. There was no way. There had to be another explanation.
“Roswell is of course infamously known for the alleged 1947 crash that many people still believe was alien.” I laughed to myself, how right those people are, but the government will never tell them that.
“Federal and local officials claim that the object was a military stealth fighter that they had been testing, but local citizens seem to be weary to trust the government. Let’s go to our local anchor Pam Troy who’s in Roswell right now. Pam…”
The scene shifted to Roswell’s very own Pam Troy, the bane of Liz and I’s existence in middle school and early high school, before the FBI and enemy aliens seemed to be more threatening than a stuck up blonde cheerleader.
“Thanks Katie. I’m standing at the edge the Roswell city limits where early this morning an alleged military stealth fighter crashed. As you can see, police officials have this area completely blocked off. No one is able to get near the crash site, but we’ve been assured that no one has been harmed from what they can tell.”
I bit my bottom lip as I continued to listen to the report. Something was not adding up in my mind, but I was trying to ignore it. It was possible that it was just a military jet, nothing to be suspicious of, but my intuition was telling me another story.
“With me I have Sherriff Jim Valenti. Sherriff, tell us what happened this morning here in the small town of Roswell?”
I smiled as my step dad came into focus and I felt my heart break a little. I did miss my family.
“As we’ve been told and we’ve told you, it was a military stealth fighter that crashed, there is absolutely no reason to believe that it’s anything other than that. The possibility that aliens crashed here is absurd.”
I laughed again. He knows all too well how absurd it’s not.
“Thank you Sherriff.” The camera focused back in on Pam. “As you know, in 1947, there was a military crash in this area as well, and then just six years ago, some citizens claim to have seen something spin up to the sky from out in the desert. Whether or not it was a UFO, we may never know, but there’s something strange about Roswell, New Mexico. Back to you Katie…”
“In other news…” I turned the TV back down and collapsed on my bed, staring at the ceiling. It had to be a coincidence… right?
The phone rang, startling me and I jumped up, grabbing it quickly. “Hello.” I said.
“Why didn’t you call me back?” An angry Liz shouted into the phone. “I’ve left you five messages!” She exclaimed.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t check my messages.” I explained.
“Did you watch the news?” She asked.
“Yeah, what is that all about?”
“Maria…” Liz said slowly. I heard her exhale.
“Liz, what’s going on?”
“Maria…” She said again. Then the two words I’d been waiting to hear for six years fell out of her mouth and I felt the blood rush to my head. “They’re back.”
You guys are great!