Author: Borders InSaNiTy
E-mail: BordersInSaNiTy@yahoo.com
Rating: R (Language)
Category: AU - Alternating POV's - Dreamer based as always. Is there really anything other than that?
Disclaimer: I own NOTHING that pertains to Roswell. Just wish I did...
Author's Note: I'm sorry that it has taken me so long to finish this fic. It seems like it happens to me every time. It's like my muse doesn't like to finish things. She loves to get them started and that's one reason I refuse to let her post all the stories that we have on the back burner while there is one that is still posted that is unfinished. We're almost there. Yeah, yeah, yeah... I know you've heard that before but I promise I'm going to finish this one. Thanks for all the wonderful feedback and encouragement. It means a lot to me.
A BIG thanks to Jeannine for not letting me forget about this one and to the girls that I chatted with last night. This is for you.
This is dark at the beginning but just know that there is no ending like a dreamer ending. The epilogue will follow within the next few weeks… depending on how much writing time I can get out of the ever elusive muse.
<center>~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~</center>
PART 33B ~ MAX
I don't remember the drive home and I don't remember going to bed either but here I am lying in my bed and I'm all alone. Was it a dream? Or was it real? Did Liz finally make it back? Or is it my wild imagination running away from me?
"Liz?" I call out. Deciding to go with what I really wanted. What I really needed. I so needed her to be here; something inside me said that if she wasn't real and she wasn't here now, that I wouldn't last much longer. "What are you doing? Where are you?"
I push the covers off of me and notice that my hands have been bandaged. I quickly heal them and remove the ugly bandages. I wanted to be able to feel her silky hair running through my fingers. I wanted to feel the steady rhythm of her heart with the palm of my hand.
I didn't get the chance to stand up before the door was shoved open. "You're awake!" Isabel pushes in and embraces me and then yells again. "Guys, he's awake."
"Where's Liz?" I ask before the rest of the gang barrel into my room. Isabel slowly pulls away. The smile that had been plastered on her face falls into a blank expression.
"What do you mean? Where's Liz?" Her voice starts to tremble. Her hands start to twist nervously. What wasn't she telling me?
I ignore all signs of impending doom and hedge on. "Liz. I found her last night. She was waiting for me. We left together." I tried to explain to the room full of blank stares.
"Max, Liz isn't here. She hasn't come back yet." Michael pushed his way to the front of the group. "Are you sure you're feeling alright?"
He went to reach for me but I backed away. "I'm fine." I stated short and to the point. They were all hovering over me like I had lost my mind. Maybe I did? Who knows?
Tess stood in front of my forward progress. "Max, you collapsed and you've been..." She looked around to see if the others agreed with what she was about to tell me. "You've been in a coma for the last five days. We've been worried about you."
"That's ridiculous. I know she was real, last night was real. I felt her." The wind in my lungs suddenly disappeared as I slump down. My head falls into my waiting hands. "She's here. Somewhere." She has to be. Could what Tess said be true. Had I been lost to the real world for the last five days? Was my mind that far gone that it would create a fantasy world where Liz and I were reunited? I take a few deep calming breaths and come to the conclusion that it could have been very possible for my mind to react like that.
I stood up and made my way to the bathroom. I pushed back my friends and family and didn't even bother to explain where I was going. They would find out soon enough. I couldn't reach the small secluded room fast enough. There were too many probing eyes on me. Too many unasked questions hanging in the air. I needed time to hash out my befuddled mind. I quickly closed the door and looked at myself in the mirror. The first thing I saw was that what they had told me was right. I had been gone for the last five days. The hair on my face says it all.
I slowly replay everything that I remember. Liz coming to me, wrapping her arms around my sobbing body. She was real. She healed my hands... and then I remember this morning. Taking off the awful bandages that would prohibit me from having the closest contact to the one thing that I wanted most. Liz. It was all a dream. The party... chasing her... finding her waiting on my jeep amongst the fog. I stare into my reflection. My eyes don't give anything away. I don't look like an insane person. Hell, I don't feel like one either.
"Max? Are you okay?"
"Go away. I'm fine. Everything's fine." I hear my sister sigh and I can tell she's pushing everyone back into the living room. "What are you going to do Maxwell?" I ask my reflection.
"We should give up." My reflection answers back.
My brows furrow and I begin to shake my head no. "She's not dead. I would know. The dream is the key. Maybe if we drive out to where the party was she'll show up like she did in my dream. Maybe that's what this is all about." I start to shake my head in agreement but I notice that my reflection doesn't agree.
"You're only going to prove to them that you are so wasted. That you have lost your mind. Don't you think that everyone in that room out there doesn't feel already that it is only a matter of time before you off yourself? Give them what they need. Let go so they can continue on with their lives." My reflection has a point. I'm only keeping my friends and family on a thin line. I can see now that I'm slowly taking them down one by one. Isabel being the closest to the edge without going off the deep end with me. If I keep this up too much longer she'll go before me.
"Maybe you're right. I'm only dragging them down with me and if I'm not careful they may go before I do from all the stress."
"There you go. You're getting the idea now. Get rid of them. We can do it tonight and they'll never know. They'll be home having dinner and they won't even know until it's too late." I quit looking at my reflection in the mirror and started busying myself in the small room.
I'd take a shower. Shave my face and comb my hair and show the room out there that I was fine with Liz not being here. I could keep of the façade long enough to get them all to leave and then once they were gone I could get busy with finally putting everyone out of their misery. I'd be able to wait for Liz until she found me in our next life. A small smile started to cross my features as I began to like the idea of what my reflection had suggested. "This is it. Tonight. Everything is going to be different."
"That's the spirit." I hear my reflection say as I step into the steaming, hot shower.
<center>~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~</center>
I couldn't get out of the bathroom fast enough. I plastered on a smile to let everyone know that I was okay with reality. Liz wasn't here. Hasn't been here and will probably never be here in this lifetime.
Isabel immediately stood up when I rounded the corner to enter the living room. "Max." She smiled deeply. "How're you feeling now?" She took hold of my arm and led me deeper into the living room and together we sat down on the long sofa.
"Good. A shower is just what I needed after everything." I tightened my lips into a fake smile as I nodded my head up and down slowly.
"God, Evans. They aren't going to believe a single word you say if you keep acting like this." The damned voice again.
"I know what you mean." Maria started out saying. Leave it to her to keep everyone's attention away from the obvious. Go, Maria! "Nothing like a hot shower to start your day off right." She died down about mid-sentence once she realized how fake she sounded.
"Don't worry about it, Maria. I'll be fine." I looked at the clock on the wall. No time like the present to get things going. "Don't you guys have something to do? I'm fine. I really don't need to be sat with."
Michael stood up. "I do have to go to work." Maria narrowed her eyes at him and he stared back. "What? I do."
"Fine. I thought maybe you being his best friend and brother might want to stay with him this first night." She hissed at him as she stood up beside him. "But I guess that's a little too much to think of. Isn't it?"
"Maria, it's fine. Let him go to work. Really, guys. Go do what you normally do. I'm fine." I stood up and walked toward Michael and Maria. I wrapped my arms around the both of them and started ushering them out. "I'm not going to take no for an answer and before you even think of it, girlfriend status cannot be used."
Maria turned her head her mouth open to protest and I guess my facial expression was determined enough she quickly shut it again. "Fine, but I'll be calling you tomorrow so we can go out like we used to do. It feels like it's been an eternity."
If she only knew that was exactly how I felt. My life without Liz felt empty, incomplete, not real. I could probably go on forever with the synonyms but we had reached the door. I let go of them and opened it for them. "That sounds great. I'll swing by and pick you up at around ten tomorrow morning." I told her. There was no way I was going to have Maria come by here and find me dead on the floor. The image spurred me to think that I had just better disappear; go some place that I wouldn't be found until my body was nothing left but bones. I'd become another statistic. Another missing person.
God! I better get all these people out of here. There was so much that I needed to think about. If I were a missing person it wouldn't release any of them from their grief... no, they had to know that I was dead without having to witness the remains. But I couldn't think about that now, not until I was all alone.
With Michael and Maria standing outside I turned and looked around at the others. Kyle, Tess, Alex and Isabel. "You guys too. Kyle and Tess, surely there is something that the two of you would rather be doing than babysitting me." I raise my eyebrows up and down. After all they were newlyweds.
Kyle started to open his mouth but Tess immediately elbowed him and said. "No, nope. We're free." Kyle's head whipped around to look at her and I heard some murmurs. Nothing tangible but I had an idea what was said between the two.
"Seriously, Tess. I'm fine and to be truthful I just want to be alone. All of you just need to go home. I'm fine, seriously. And just so you know, if you don't leave, I will. I'm not going to be eyed all night. Do any of you know how that feels to have every waking moment watched?" I made eye contact with the remaining four people in my living room. "No, so everyone get up." I lifted my hands as if I were willing them to stand up. To my surprise they did. Even Isabel. Which amazed me because I just knew she would be the one that I would have to leave at the apartment while I ran away to be alone.
"I don't like it, Max." Isabel stated.
"You don't have to like it. I'm asking you anyway."
"Don't worry, Max. I'll make sure that she's not calling you every hour on the hour." Alex slapped a reassuring hand on my shoulder as he and Isabel passed me. Kyle was right behind him and Tess was hanging back.
"Tess?" I focused on her. Eyeing her up and down and knowing exactly what was running through her mind.
She stepped up and took hold of both my arms and pulled me away from the gaggle of people waiting outside my apartment. She looked deep into my eyes. "What are you planning, Max?"
"Nothing. I don't have anything planned. I don't know what you're talking about, Tess."
"I don't believe you. The others, they want to have you whole again so much that they'll believe this farce but I know you. I can see through this." She waved her hands up in the air. "Whatever this is. No matter how much you argue with me I'm not going to leave you. Not now, not like this."
"Tess," I took hold of her shoulders and looked her straight in the eye and continued. "You're probably right. You have always seen what the others have chosen to ignore. But you're wrong this time. I'm not planning anything. Just because Liz isn't here and she's never going to come back doesn't mean that I'm going to give up on life.
"You can talk all you want but I'm staying. There are things I need to talk to you about anyway." This had my interest. What kind of things would Tess have to talk to me about? Did she know something that I didn't?
Hope welled up inside me again and the small voice in my head had been pushed way back into silence. "Fine. Besides, I think you still have some stuff in the spare room that you need to pack up and take with you. I'm tired of having it in my house." Not only that, she could help me go through Liz's stuff as well. It was still piled in that same room too from being moved from the dorm. I hadn't had the strength to go in there and do it before. I don't see any point in having all that around for someone else to go through. I need to make sure to tie up all the loose ends.
She looked over my shoulder. "Go ahead, guys. I'm just going to stay and pack up the rest of my stuff." I had to bite back a chuckle. This had all been for my benefit. I don't know when they had decided this tactic; maybe while I was in the shower, I really have no idea but this whole leaving bit was staged. I'm so gullible.
I shook my head as I walked passed her toward the spare bedroom. My hand hesitated when it reached for the door knob. 'It's just a door.' That small annoying voice had founds its way back.
"Shut up." I pushed forward and opened the door. I was shocked at what I saw or better yet I was shocked at what I didn't see. Liz's stuff was gone. None of it was there. Not the desk, not the mini refrigerator, not the boxes with all her clothes in it. The room was just an ordinary room. "Tess!" I screamed.
I heard her footsteps echo down the hallway. "What?" She yelled back. I turned around just as she entered the room. "Max? What's wrong?"
"Where is it?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. You're scaring me."
"Liz's stuff. It was all here. I've been meaning to go through it for the last few months. Who took it? What did they do to it?"
I sunk down to my knees. "This isn't happening. She's erasing herself."
"Max? What's going on? Talk to me."
"Liz, I don't know how she's doing it but she's erasing her existence here. Jim already has forgotten her. The school. Her parents no longer live in Connecticut but in Roswell. What's next? I'm scared Tess. I'm scared that one day I'm going to go to sleep and I'll wake up and I won't remember her at all. I'll go on with my life like she never existed. I don't ever want to have that feeling. I'll be lost." She pulled me into her and held me tight while I bawled my eyes out.
"We'll find out where her stuff went Max. Don't worry, I don't think you're ever going to forget the love of your life. It won't happen. We'll think of something."
I pulled away. "Why is she doing this?" I asked as I brushed the tears away.
"I don't know. Are you sure she's doing it?"
"It has to be her. What other explanation could it be?"
"Could it be the elders?"
"Maybe? But why would they be erasing her? You don't think..." I couldn't bring myself to say it.
"No! She's not dead. She's not." Tess stood up and began pacing back and forth. "You would know if she was. Right?" I shrugged and it seemed to piss her off even more. "Damn it Max! She's your soul mate!" She couldn't contain her frustration any longer and kicked at the closet door. It swung open and we both stared. "This is just freaky."
"Tell me about it." We both stared at the closet full of Liz's clothes. All nicely hung on wooden hangers as if she were to walk in the room at any moment to get dressed.
"When did this happen?"
"I don't know." I shook my head and the voice returned. 'You're too late. The looney bin has come and gone. You're certifiable now. Where's the straight jacket buddy.' "I wished you just leave me alone!"
"Sorry, I'll be out in the living room." She took a tentative step back away.
"No, Tess wait! I didn't mean you."
"Max, this is freaky. I mean really, really freaky." She stood behind me as I started rifling through Liz's belongings. At the top of the closet on a shelf were boxes that had been labeled. One read high school. I reached for it and ripped it open. I went and sat down on the twin bed that was sitting in the corner.
Tess moved with me and sat on the other side of the box. Dried white roses were placed delicately on top. She reached in and gently removed them. I looked at her, she shrugged. She had no more of a clue than I did. "Let's keep on looking. Maybe she left a clue as to what she's doing inside." She offered. She grabbed a yearbook. "Look, West Roswell High yearbook. I haven't seen one of these in years. It must be yours."
"No, I don't think it is." Some odd reason I knew it was Liz's. It was all starting to make sense. Liz's parents now lived in Roswell. They owned and operated the Crashdown Café. Liz's belongings now had a West Roswell High yearbook. "Open it up. Look at our class. Find Liz's picture."
"Max... Liz didn’t…”
"I know she didn't but I know that book is going to have her picture in there. Don't you get it... she's not erasing herself she's changing history..."
"But that's impossible." She flipped through the book and her face paled. "Max..." She held the book out for me to take it.
"I knew it." I stood up. Liz's picture was right there in the book. She had gone to West Roswell High.
"Why don't we remember her being there?"
"I don't know. Maybe it has something to do with traveling through the granolith. Maybe she didn't want us to know. I don't know. I just wish she was here so I would know that everything would be alright." Just as I went back to the closet to see what else I could find of Liz's past the lights went out.
"It's really starting to storm outside." Tess went to the window and looked out.
"You better go home before it gets too bad and you're stuck here. I'm sure Kyle wouldn't appreciate his wife sleeping with another man."
"I can't."
"Tess, I'm alright."
"For tonight maybe, Max, but what happens when you run into another dead end and you decide to give up? You have to take care of yourself because there is no way I'm going to be able to hold the group together. You're our glue. You make us whole."
"How is that possible when I'm not whole? I'm not even half a man without Liz. Don't you see it?"
"I don't think you see it. You didn't always have Liz, Max. You didn't meet her until you came here. You're who you're supposed to be, it's just that Liz gives you the little bit more that's just for you. She completes you for you and no one else." She turns and walks over to me. "I believe in you and I know you're going to pull through this just fine. Everything has a way of working out. You'll see." She leaned up and kissed me on the cheek. "And you're right; my husband wouldn't appreciate me sleeping with another man, even if it is you." She winked and walked out of the room.
"Don't stay up too long. Maria is expecting you at ten o'clock sharp." I heard the door close and didn't bother to see if she made it to her car okay or not. I don't know when it happened. How Tess became the logical one in the group but I'm glad that she's here.
I walked out to the living room with the box of stuff. I wanted to know what happened in Liz's life... and maybe if I was lucky I would remember what happened with mine. It was only logical that if she went to West Roswell that I would love her just as much as I love her now. Wouldn't it? I mean, anything that happened to her would have happened to me.
The lights were still off, so I went to the kitchen to grab the candles that were kept under the sink but they weren't there. "Where the hell?" I stood up and cupped my hands to generate my own artificial light. The décor of the room had changed. The furniture was different and the layout all together was completely different. I stood there dumbfounded. Could it be that time was catching up with me. That the reality that Liz was creating was finally starting to affect me? God I hoped so... I dropped my hand and went to the living room.
Pictures were everywhere. Michael and Maria, Kyle and Tess and Alex and Isabel but the one that blew my mind was the one of Liz and me. We were there looking into each other's eyes the sun setting in the background streaking the sky in shades of pink, orange and purple. The picture was breath taking in and of itself but the most amazing thing was that Liz was dressed in a long white dress and I was in a black tux.
Our wedding picture.
I looked down to my left hand and there shining in all its glory was my wedding ring. The hairs at the back of my neck rose on end. I quickly turned and ran for the door. When I opened it lightning streaked the sky and the silhouette of my love flashed before my eyes.
"I'm sorry it took me so long. I got caught in the rain."
I dropped to my knees and pulled her close to me. Memories of what had been flashed before my mind's eye. Everything that she had been so busy creating was coming to the forefront. "You're really here. I can't believe you're here. I've missed you so much."
She dropped down and took my face into her small warm hands. "There was so much to do before I could leave. I just knew I couldn't live my life without you for as long as we did the first time. Not knowing what I know now. I had to make sure that we would be safe that there would be no chance of things going wrong like they did before. I love you Max Evans and I want to share the rest of my life with you.” She looked up at me as if I were going to object.
"This is the way it was meant to be Liz. This is everything I've ever wanted and more." I took hold of her face and ran my hands through her hair. Her short hair. "You cut your hair."
She ran an absent-minded hand through her wet hair and pulled on it just a bit. "Yeah, I did... but you'll understand why in the morning. I just want to have this time with you if you don't mind. I've missed my husband."
<center>~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~</center>
TBC
