Author: candysteffi
Rating: Adult
Pairing (CC): M&M, with the mention of the others as well.
Summary (Canon): One year after the aliens left to return to Antar, two girls are still suffering from the loss...
Disclaimer: I don´t own the characters or the idea of Roswell, which is used in this fic.
A/N: This takes place one year after “Depature”, just with the difference that Tess didn´t kill Alex (he really died because of a car accident) and the four aliens really left earth.
A/N 2: Yay, I finally managed to get my second Engish fic done. It´s not as long as Streets of New York, actually only two parts, but I hope you like it anyway!
“Let’s go upstairs,” Liz said after a long and busy shift in the Crashdown. Her voice was quiet, sad.
Maria nodded dumbly. She knew that her best friend´s mood had nothing to do with the stressful day that was now behind them. No, it was due solely the date. Exactly one year ago, THEY had left earth to save their own planet, to save the life of an unborn baby, to become the royal four.
A shiver ran down over Maria’s spine. No, she didn´t want to think about it, about HIM. Their last night, the last kiss or the last I love you. It was still too painful to remember, so pushing those thoughts away was the only way she had managed to survive the last 365 days. But now that she had looked into Liz’ eyes, she knew what was coming up. They would talk about old times until one of them would start to cry.
Liz sighed heavily when she entered her room, glancing around as if she had to make sure that everything was still in place. She tried to act normal – even if the reason for their sad mood was way too obvious to ignore. Her eyes focused on a picture of her and Maria, wearing those ridiculous alien antennas. The photo had been taken shortly before she got shot in the Crashdown and their lives had been turned upside down.
Maria laughed ironically, tired of remaining silent about the obvious all day. “How can they still determine our lives after one year?”
Liz looked at her, surprised because Maria was the one who always avoided talking about them.
“I´m so sick of this, girl. I don´t want to think about them anymore. I want to draw a line under that part of my life and start something new. “Maria’s tone was serious. She walked over to the nightstand and took the photo that had been taken on prom night and showed all of them. “You should put this away, sweetie.”
“As long as there’s any hope...” Liz swallowed hard and sat down on her bed.
Maria placed the photo down again and turned to look at her friend. She shook her head. “I don´t have any hope left, Liz! It was his dream to find his home, I know he won´t give that up. He is not coming back. And Max...” Maria shock her head, “I always thought you two had the soulmate thing. But then... this might sound hard, sweetie, but you need to face the truth. He got Tess pregnant and he left to save his child. He´s not coming back either. He chose Tess.”
Liz wiped her hand over her cheek to brush away the tears. “He kissed me before he left.”
Maria stared at her friend with eyes open wide. “What?”
“I never told anyone, but Max came to say goodbye the night before they left and... and...” Liz gasped for air when her throat felt like it was being held in a tight-fisted grip, “... he knew that I never slept with Kyle. And I couldn´t let him still believe it either. He kissed me one last time and told me that he could never love Tess the way he loves me.”
“Oh, my God, I didn´t know...” Maria whispered and rushed to her friend’s side to take her in her arms.
“He just chose Tess because he believed I slept with someone else, M’ria. I could feel it when he kissed me... He had been hurt and he thought that I really didn´t want him anymore.”
“Why have you never told me that?” Maria asked puzzled. She always believed that Max had followed his destiny because of his own will, that something really had changed him when Tess had arrived. And she had always been scared that something like this would happen to Michael – that one day, he would suddenly realize that Isabel was the one for him, not her.
Liz straightened up to look at her friend. “Maybe because it was easier to pretend it never happened,” she shook her head, “it would be so much easier if I could just believe that he went with Tess because he really loved her, you know?”
“I guess I wasn´t so wrong about that soulmate thing then, huh?” Maria chuckled quietly. “I was soooo jealous of what you two had sometimes.”
“Michael loved you too, Maria,” Liz insisted.
“Yeah, I know that. But that´s not important anymore – ‘cause he’s gone. Maybe they don´t even remember us, who knows.” Maria snorted. “That would be so typical of Michael. “Leaving me here with a broken heart while he can´t even say anymore that I had existed in his life.”
“I´m sure they remember us,” Liz stated and nodded wildly. It had to be true! She started to smile. “You and Michael, you never could stand each other. And then suddenly we found you in that cheap motel off the South 285 highway.”
Maria laughed. “God, that was so embarrassing, but hey, it wasn´t what it looked like that night.”
Liz’ head dropped again. “We did so much for them. We broke the law almost every damn day. Why did they just leave us, Maria? Didn´t we mean anything to them? I risked my life several times for him and so did you. We put ourselves in danger countless times and what do we get? A broken heart and loneliness.” Her shaking voice sounded angry.
“But we always knew that the day when they have to leave would come eventually, Liz. Michael always told me that – as if he knew that it would happen. I think he always wanted to prepare us for this.”
She nodded when a sob escaped her lips. “But did you really expect it to happen?” Liz shook her head, “because I didn’t.”
Maria sighed and leaned back to rest her upper body on the headboard of the bed. She didn´t know what to say or what to do. Nothing would make the situation any better.
“If somebody granted you one wish,” Liz spoke up again, “what would you ask for?“
Maria looked at her best friend and wondered where she had come up with that. She thought about it a while. “I think I would ask for Max to come back to you.”
Liz looked at Maria, shocked. “Why?”
“Because you’ve been so sad since he’s been gone. You were always the happier one of us. You had so many dreams in your life.”
“But you´re hurting as well,” she protested.
“I do,” Maria didn’t deny it, “but I knew it was Michael´s dream to go home. I´m sure he´s satisfied...“ she turned her head to look out the window, “wherever he is right now... but Max, pfff, he´s probably staring at the stars right now, wishing that he had already found a way back to you.”
“Don´t you want Michael to come back?“ Liz asked, confused as she brushed her hands over her wet eyes.
Maria continued to stare out of the window. “More than anything,” she whispered, “but I let him go one year ago. I knew it would be forever and I was afraid to let any hope of his return raise inside me. What I didn´t know was that it would still hurt so much after one year.”
***
It was shortly after midnight when Maria finally began to make her way home. Liz had asked her to stay, but she couldn´t. She needed to be alone right now and she didn´t want her best friend to know that she was more hurt then she always pretended to be. Maria had tried the whole year to be strong for both of them. They had lost so much in the last year. First Alex because of a stupid car accident. And just when they started to heal from that, the four aliens had left them. They only had each other to talk with about it.
Like every other day, she had to walk past his former appartnemt. She remembered how she had stayed there after Michael had left very early in the morning, all alone and crying for hours in the bed they had shared before. It was probably the hardest thing she ever had to do – putting all his clothes, cd´s and photos of them in a few cartons. She had thought she would choke on her sobs when she had done it.
Maria stopped in front of the building, where the mailboxes were and glanced over them. Her fingers brushed over the fading GUERIN that was still written there in large letters. The new renter of the appartment hadn´t removed it totally. She closed her eyes for a moment and she could see him wandering around his apartment, looking at her with his defiant gaze.
“Can I help you Miss?” Someone spoke up from behind.
Maria jumped in surprise and whirled around while she wiped some tears away. “Um, no, I... I just gotta go,” she told the man who was probably one of the residents of the building and then left in a hurry.
The memory of Michael hurt like countless stabs to her heart. She wanted to scream, she wanted to scream very loudly... scream him out of her until nothing was left that could hurt her. There had to be and end of all the hurt she had gone through during the last year.
She reached the park a few minutes later and felt so weak that she decided to sit down on a bench. She rested her upper body against the backrest and put her head back to look up to the stars again. Maria didn´t stop the tears, which were runing down her cheeks as she pulled her legs up to the bench to hug them with her arms when a wave of sobs suddenly shook her body.
“Oh please, let me forget about him. I don´t wanna hurt anymore. I’m sick of not being able to be together with him when I want to be. I want to go on,” she didn’t know why she had said it out loud, there was no one who could help her anyway, but it felt good to actually say what she was feeling.
She sat in the park until she gotten some control over her feeling back. The flood of terrible feelings faded slowly and she felt a little better after a while. The sky had clouded and she couldn´t see the stars anymore. It would probably start to rain soon. Maybe this is a sign that I should finally move on? Maria wondered.
Still lost in her thoughts, Maria started to walk home. Poor Liz, she is probably lying on her bed and crying all night. I don´t know how bad it is for her. What had been between Max and her... it was so much more then what Michael and I had.... Or am I wrong? At least Max had sex with Tess, Michael never followed his destiny with Isabel. Her heartbeat increased when that thought crossed her mind. What if Isabel and Michael finally DID follow their destiny on their home planet? She shook her head. “It doesn´t matter anymore.” She wanted him to be happy, and if Isabel was the one who made him happy now, then that was the way it had to be.
She didn´t make it home until it started to rain. It was pouring it down and she was soaked within seconds. Normaly, she would have been totally pissed about it, but right now she was thankful for the water. It felt like it was washing some of the pain in her heart away and besides that, her mother wouldn´t recognize that she had been crying again.
Amy couldn´t understand why her daughter was still suffering from her break up with Michael. How could she? She thought that Michael had been a normal human, who had moved out of town. She had no clue what Maria had seen in him at all.
She had always wondered why no one had ever been curious about where the four of them had gone. At least Max and Isabel’s disappearance had brought up some question because they had had a real family. But she had never really heared anyone talk about it. Maybe the sheriff had come up with some good reason? She didn´t know. And honestly, she didn´t care as long she was left alone with any questions.
****
Maria arrived in her room dripping wet and started to get out of her clothes. She grabbed a pair of fresh panties and a tanktop out of her closet and walked down the hallway to the bathroom to get a hot shower. She hoped that this would get her warm and also sleepy. The worst thing was to lay in bed awake all night. When everything was quiet and she had nothing to do.... then the memories came back, which she tried to displace so hard every day. It always felt like a slap across the face.
She was tired after the shower and walked back to her room to crash on her bed and hug the pillow. Tomorrow it will be one year and one day. Will I still be counting in three years?
Maria dreamed a lot about him – almost every night. In the beginning she had thought he tried to contact her in her dreams, but after a few weeks, she hadn´t believed that anymore. True, they had experienced a lot of crazy things the past years, but she knew now that she had just wanted it to be that way. The truth was they were just dreams!
So it was only natural that she also started to dream about him this night. It was the dream she’d had so often that she couldn’t even count it anymore.
He climbs through a window, her window. He stands in the middle of her room, silent, and stares down at her in the bed. Then he starts to move again, he walks over to her bed and lays down next to her.
Then she mostly woke up, just like every other night. She didn’t open her eyes because she wanted for the dream to continue. She could still smell the scent of his skin. Minutes passed and she had to accept that it wasn´t possible to go back to sleep – again. The feeling of Michael´s closeness was still there, fading away slower then usual. She took a deep breath before she opened her eyes to look what time it was.
He was sitting next to her bed. Guess I had managed to go back to sleep unnoticed, she thought. A smile flashed over her lips. Please, don’t let this dream end now.
TBC
