Family Matters (CC, Mature) - Chapter 88 - Completed - 01/10/2024

[totallizfan]

Got to love Kyle. Trying to make sense of every ones circumstances.

I always thought he and Ava would have made a good match. Both kind of quirky.

But then he does have a child with Isabel...so there's that.

I hope Liz will gives Max some space and pay more attention to her children.

[Parker1947]

There is absolutely no way Kyle could be the father of Tess’s ill-fated baby Liz was telling herself as she stood in shock a short time later, even though it was only minutes later she thought because she stood in shock. Should she be in shock given how close Kyle and Tess had been at one time before shockingly, he suddenly had sisterly feelings for Tess right before prom. That was not something being asked at the moment as Liz could only stare at Kyle in shock.

And Kyle felt it, because had been that way once upon a time. Because it was all over before he came to remember what had happened before that mind warp, Tess had a habit of mindwarping me it seems he would think as this turn in the conversation was a turn in the story, and a needed diversion for Liz even if she could not put her mind around it.

But it was only known now to her and Kyle because no one was aware of it, as across the city. At the Guerin residence. A new home barely put together. If drama had not been filling their days, then Maria and Michael might be concentrating on putting their home together, but of course that is not to be now that they were back in Roswell. Of course, other matters were taking precedent as Maria got out of the car. Michael’s car was moments behind her, a symmetry that was uncanny she would think as she yes, got out of her car and saw the other car that they owned because they had a growing daughter who could drive, and with their lives, well, we need two cars at least Maria thought. They had used both cars because they had gone their separate ways at the start of the night, still pissed at each other.

But now they were coming together at the end of the night. They did not want to talk about the drama at the club. They just wanted to turn in for the night, Liz would want that too if she could ever leave the drama of her life but for Maria, it was a return to her new home. A home they had only been for a few days.

Such a difference from when they were last in this town. We have greatly improved our accommodations she would think as she thought of the small house, she and her mother had spent her childhood in, but her mother sold when she got together and then moved in with Jim. And of course, Michael was out on his own very young, and he had to learn to deal with life one day at a time.

Now they were in a palatial home that now populated the neighborhood. They were in one of the more well-respected neighborhoods in town that popped up in the years since they left town. Maria and even Michael would not have expected it when they last were here, “Michael” she murmured as she nodded at her husband.

“Maria,” Michael acknowledged as he got out of the house. As they looked at the darkness of the night, and with a seventeen-year daughter at home. That rang some bells, even if we trust Lucy, but you never know Maria would think. “Any sounds coming from the house?” he would only say because the last thing they wanted to do was talk about the you know, the disaster that had been the last twenty-four hours.

“Nope,” Maria acknowledged. “Silence, and I am not sure how to take it.”

Silence is always preferable to the alternative they would both think “Let’s check it out,” Michael said as Maria nodded and walked first, and opened the door of the locked front door, promising…

And that is when she heard the television blaring, and she crept in while making no sounds, smiling when she saw the pixie head of her daughter, the blonde hair is so short she thought. But that was me once upon a time.

A time before life became very real as she saw two heads watching a movie or something on the hanging television screen. Michael had to have the biggest television possible of course, she thought, a reminder of a time when he could not afford all he wanted. She saw some sketching people on the screen and shook her head as she knew her daughter was watching a scary movie, something she did not get.

“Boo,” she called and both girls jumped, and squealed before Lucy looked back and rolled her eyes when she saw her mother looking at her, “No fair,” the pixie blonde said to her mother. “We did not hear you two come home,” she said as she saw her dad who was behind her mother, looking slightly amused.

“Obviously,” Maria said with a laugh. “Girls,” she said as she soon recognized Mikyla Anderson or Kyla as she was more likely was known. “I heard you were back in town,” she said to Kyla. Yes, that news had come through the pipeline that was our family. “Welcome back,” she murmured.

“Thanks Mrs. Guerin,” Kyla smiled. “Lucy invited me over, if you don’t mind?”

Mrs. Guerin sounds so formal the former Deluca muttered to herself, “Enough of that Mrs. thing, call me Maria. After all, we are all family here in this room,” she said with a smirk and the girls laughed, and more their small fraternity that they were a part of, they would think. After all, there is Kyle Maria would think but it was not spoken out loud.

Worst kept secret, but it was something that was not spoken about that much out loud.

“I thought sleep over,” Lucy said as she piped into her mother’s other world, and Maria came back to the current one quickly. “We have been catching up.”

“And scaring yourself with that…” crap she thought as she saw the movie on screen, and Lucy only rolled her eyes as she knew well what her mother thought of the choice of her movies, which is why I usually keep to my bedroom and my own television system she thought. “We thought we would try out Dad’s new television.”

“I see that it works,” Michael murmured approvingly, and Maria rolled her eyes, but it spoke to the fact their daughter was getting comfortable in their new home.

“I can go home, if I am a bother?” Kyla asked.

“Of course not,” Maria murmured. “You are welcome. Right, Michael?”

“Of course,” Michael smiled. “We are all family,” as they both could see the brunette was looking more and more like a combination of Isabel and Kyle, with Kyla’s brown hair and Isabel’s height. But it was also a reminder that the girls were growing up, as he knew he would have to deal with his own daughter who was only a year away from graduation, if she managed to stay in school.

That is no guarantee, Michael thought. Lucy is very much a free spirit like her mother, but with her hatred of structure school, which is very me.

“We will let you go back to your movie,” Maria said. “You girls have a good time, and honey, you might want to check in on Claudia tomorrow.”

“Why?” Lucy asked, even though she knew she had not talked much to her friend because of everything going on these last few days. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” Maria said quickly. “I just have a hunch she could use a friend,” she said softly because she did not know everything that was going on, and especially she nor Claudia’s mother knew of Archie ’s visit, but Maria had a sense that the eighteen-year-old would need a friend to deal with all she’s learned only in a few days. “We all could use all our friends,” she said with a smile as she took her husband’s hand, and they walked upstairs.

What was that? Lucy thought. But at least Mom and Dad are speaking to each other she thought because all day it had been hell to be at home and have parents who were not speaking to each other, but at least they are looking happy.

As she went back to the movie with Kyla.

*

Not everyone has family that parents who were happy and together, and Claudia definitely did not, and it was the middle of the night now, and she could not sleep. She was tossing and turning to such an extent that she was at the point that she might be waking up Archie with her tossing and turning, I am not used to sleeping with someone else in bed she thought, until finally she decided to get up, and reached for her house coat, and crept to the window, and looked out, and felt the need to get some fresh air.

And crawled out onto the balcony, and she sat down in a lounge chair that she had put out there and thought about what she wanted or was expecting from her life.

She did not know.

And it was annoying for her…

I want things to calm down so I can make some decisions.

As she looked down and saw that her mother’s journal had fallen under the bench, because she had been reading it earlier, and she had forgotten that she had not taken it inside. And so, she picked it up, and found herself reading it, until she fell asleep in the chair.

*

While Liz was wishing she was sleeping because she had to be in some dream, right? Because there is no way it could be true, she thought as she and JJ were still at Kyle’s house, and she was trying to come to terms with what her friend had said not long before. Kyle could only shake his head because he knew what Liz was thinking, and why she dared not say anything in the last little while, and now they were looking at each other. Kyle could not help but sigh, “I know what you want to say.”

“No, you don’t” Liz murmured. I want to say that it is ludicrous, right? she thought as forced her memory to go back to that time, a hard ship given how much angst she was going through at the time, and it felt like Max, and I were in a bubble from it all, only focus on so little she thought. “You cannot possible. Because all I can ask, you and Tess?”

“It’s not that impossible,” Kyle muttered. I know how it seems, because it could possibly have happened. Not in any timeline, right? he thought. But…

“Kyle,” Liz murmured. “You and Tess?” she muttered even though she knew she was sounding like a broken record because she remembered that time, and while Kyle and Tess did become close, but things morphed into Max and Tess very quickly after Vegas when it should have been him and me, she thought.

Me and Max she clarified. Vegas was such a moment, where we thought maybe there was a chance there…

But then it all fell apart.

When things should have been different, they weren’t because prom turned into a disaster and in quick succession Alex died, and Max and Tess really turned a corner when for so long it did not seem like it was going to happen, she thought. It should not have happened she would mutter as now Kyle was putting different images in her mind. “I know you and Tess were close. I mean you were living in the same house.”

“Yeah, we were.” Kyle muttered. After Nascedo died, and I came back from Buddha camp. I mean, camp he muttered of the transformation that had happened for a time he thought during the summer away after I almost died, and Max Evans saved me.

And brought me fully into a very small chaos prone fraternity.

“I gave my bedroom up for like a year until she vanished,” Kyle thought. “So, yeah, I know what you want to say. That it is ludicrous, and it could not possibly happen because things changed between us, and we were basically siblings,” he thought. “I want to say that is all true, and it was true because that was the prevailing idea on prom night,” he thought. “And it took me a long time to realize what happened, and therefore, when she turned up pregnant. It was easy to believe it was Max, because you know, they were together.”

Don’t remind me, Liz muttered out loud.

“Sorry,” Kyle thought. I hate to remind her of that time… “Eventually, I realized Alex’s death was not the only time she mindwarped me,” he would sigh, and Liz looked shaken, I know, I hate to think of that time too. “I wish I could not be reminded of that time, and what I did.”

“Tess could force you to see what she wanted you to see,” Liz muttered as she thought of the discovery she and Maria had made, and how close she had been to losing Max forever because he had almost gone off with Tess, and left the planet, but we were to learn that Tess mindwarped Alex to his death, and used Kyle to clean it up, and be an unwilling accomplice.

So many of us have dirty hands she thought of that time in their lives.

We are very fortunate.

Which is why I ended up doing what I did, and why I chose to leave my marriage. To protect everyone’s rap sheets she thought. Not that the government knew of Kyle, but you never know what might get dredged up over time. And therefore, I was protecting so much time.

Leaving Max and causing my daughter to be fatherless seemed like a better choice than the alternative.

“Liz,” Kyle muttered. Knowing that Liz was back in space again, thinking of her unbelievably complicated life.

“Sorry,” Liz murmured. “I still don’t believe it, sorry,” she would sigh. “Even if Alex was not the first time,” she said. “Although you were not showing any signs until you know, it all happened?” she would sigh. “I hate to think about us losing Alex, and how it happened.”

“I know,” Kyle thought of their friend who had been lost in such a callous and unforgivable way, and it was something I will never get over. “We weren’t close, but were beginning to become friends, and I will always regret allowing Tess to use me like that.”

She mind-warped you so you did not have any ability to fight back, and say no Liz sighed and she nodded. “Still, that doesn’t bring us to how you could be the father of that baby,” she would ask. “I know you were close. But were you that close?”

“Yes,” Kyle said, and he was not happy to be having to make this admission given all that went down. “It was short, and once Max became an option. She threw me out like I was old laundry,” he muttered. “Even then, I really thought prom would be our start, but that ended before it began when she got Max to notice her…” as he noticed that Liz would grimace of that time when Liz herself thought so much could have been restarted, only to watch in disbelief as Max actually started to drift towards to Tess after so many months of failing to succeed in her plan, and when she finally decided to move on, and try again with Max, it was a disaster she thought. “Sorry, I know that was a hard time.”

“I really thought prom might be our turn around,” Liz muttered. “Vegas was our moment. And even though I was keeping a big secret,” she sighed of that Future Max encounter she would mutter, and my inability to tell Max.

I came close, but the music ended before I could tell Max the truth, but to be in his arms again meant everything she thought.

Same with tonight she thought of their encounter at the end of the night, and even though Max would ultimately walk away from her, still, she treasured the intimacy it would bring. And Vegas was like that, it should have been our moment.

We should have begun again, she thought. Prom could have been our beginning she would mutter, and Kyle nodded as if he was not thinking the same way, because he and Tess had become close during that year when she had been living with Kyle and his father. Tess seemed tolerable Liz would even think. We did not always see eye to eye, and I wish she would have left us alone but then I tried to set her up with Max.

Epic disaster she muttered now. She would always regret that time, and how she had pushed Max into Tess’s arms and now she was being told that maybe the baby had not been Max’s. How can we know?

We couldn’t, and that was the point, wasn’t it? There is nothing to say one way or another, right?

“Anyways, we had a moment before she mind-warped me for the first time,” Kyle thought. “The fact I did not have a sign of, well, maybe it was because it was so simple. It was not covering up a crime, like it was later,” he sighed. “And the fact she did it to Amy Deluca, well, who knows, Tess always did things and we had to deal with the consequences later.”

“That we did,” Liz acknowledged. “So, you are saying?”

“Maybe, although she might have ended up losing the baby, right, so there is no way to know for sure,” Kyle thought. “That is our assumption at the time. And for most of the time, I figured that was the story. So, I never put the dots together. And when the baby showed during our senior year, it was easy to believe it was Max’s, but then when he came back into Max’s life, and we found out he was not the father, that it was definitive, well, I thought of testing myself to know for sure, even though it was said to be her second baby, which would have put me out of the running. But given Tess never told us the truth. I was never completely sure. Because Tess was conning us, but I allowed myself to believe I could not to be the father, because the child was happy in the life his adoptive parents were providing him. And whatever illness he was suffering from solved itself without any needed help from me or my father.,” he would murmur. “There was no use trying.”

“Neither was Max,” Liz sighed. “The father.”

Kyle nodded. It is a completely fucked up situation and he knew it.

Forced to contemplate that maybe Kyle and Tess might have tried something behind closed doors and Tess mind warped it out of existence, and her former boyfriend could have actually been the biological father that the love of her life claimed himself to be. A complete fucked up situation is right she knew. So, Liz did not know if it was true, it is plausible, but still… “Did you tell Isabel or Max any of this?” Liz asked.

I have been gone for so long; how would I know?

Kyle shook her head. “You are the first person I told, and really does it really matter. The baby doesn’t exist anymore,” he was telling himself. “Therefore, we will never know who the father is. Was it me, or was it Max? Because we know she said it was a one-month pregnancy, but really?” she said as he was telling himself that the baby was not meant to be.

“I know,” Liz said as she felt shaken because so much could have been different, if only, she thought. “But then I married him, and still left him. And it had nothing to do with the baby.”

Mostly.

As Liz did not know what to think as she and Kyle finished talking and she walked into the living room and found her son asleep on the couch, and she knew she had delayed their departure long enough, enough of this she thought, “We have to get going?”

“Thanks for the talk,” Kyle murmured.

“Yeah, thanks also from me,” Liz would mutter. “You have given me a lot to think of,” and factors I do not want to deal with… she thought as she touched her baby’s arm, who was a big boy now and too heavy for me to carry, “Come on sweetheart, let us go back to the motel.”

Sleepy JJ nodded and got up and said a sleepy good night to Kyle who walked mother and son to the door and watched them leave.

And wondered what would come next.

[totallizfan]

I'm with Kyle...what will come next?

[Parker1947]

Later,

No one seemed to know, and as Liz and her son were out like logs in their individual motel rooms, with the little boy’s solid alien powered locked, so that he did not make unwanted departures Liz had gone to her own bed and quickly fell asleep. Even though there had been too much on her mind, and now it was not that long after, and it had become sunny way too early, and Claudia was still asleep in her lounger on she was still like a light, and a pixie blonde was climbing up the ladder of the balcony, because she had checked the doors of the defunct restaurant and they were locked. And she did not have a spare, I could use my powers, but what is the use…

So, she went out back and decided to climb the walls and jump onto the balcony, which was a balcony she longed to have. So much potential freedom she thought. So much could happen, and Mom and Dad are not wise to any of it.

But then she had an alien for a father, and an all too human mother and they often become wise to anything she thought. So, it might not work out that well she thought as she jumped over the edge, and she stopped and looked surprised to see her friend asleep on her chair, out like a light.

I wish I could sleep like that Lucy murmured. But she was an early riser, and Kyla had to get home because she had plans with her mother that morning, to go shopping. She had invited Lucy, but the pixie blonde shook her head, and said she wanted to check in on her friend. She also had jobs to look for.

Unlike Kyla, Lucy was seventeen and therefore, she should be working and trying to make some money and maybe I will figure what direction I am destined for she thought.

Nashville had been too busy. And the last year had not allowed her to do anything, but now she was in a smaller fishbowl, and there were more possibilities, and she had to reach for them. Maybe I will find something that allows me to bag university she thought. Because further education doesn’t appeal to me, yet.

She had a year to go, and she knew why they were here, was because her parents wanted to further her education. To settle down and concentrate on her future, she did not have to go to the school of hard knocks like they did. They want an easier ride for me, Lucy thought. But I have my own thoughts.

It is not like we cannot afford it.

We can, Lucy thought. I have a hefty college fund to show for it. It is just asking me to dip into it and apply it to any school that accepts me.

But she had too much of her father’s energy in her, despite her resemblance to her mother. She was still striving for the unknown. She did not want to get drawn into the boredom. She wanted to check out the whole world, and not to be stuck. Especially knowing the past year was so isolating, and she grew up with a mother who was a major success story. Who was out there, traveling? And she did not have to go to university.

Of course, Maria would remind her daughter, and did, that she did not go into the real world because she wanted to, okay I did want too she had thought, but my life did not lead to a university education. Because Mom could not afford it. And there is that pesky thing about falling for a genuine alien and fleeing for our lives by the end of graduation night.

Still, Maria had a lot of passion but parts of her missed the ability to further her education. I am not saying I was not successful Maria would tell her daughter as Lucy could imagine her mother saying the words.

Lucy wanted to create her own path, but we are back here because Mom and Dad want structure for me.

We will see how that works out as she jumped over the edge and saw her friend pass out on the lounger, not exactly in the most comfortable position she muttered as she saw the window open, and the sun was shining down. How can she sleep when it’s so sunny?

And so early.

“Hey, Claude. “You need to wake up sleeping beauty,” Lucy said as she stopped in place and stood in front of her front.

“Archie,” Claudia mumbled as she was still in the midst of her sleeping but coming closer to the surface. “Let me sleep,” she said as if she was in a dream. A dream that she wanted to cultivate longer instead of waking from him.

“Do you think I am your hunky boyfriend?” Lucy asked with a burst of laughter that got Claudia’s attention and it awoke her from that fantastic dream she was experiencing. And she grumbled as her eyes opened to the blaring early morning sun, God, she muttered. “What hell is this” as she oriented her eyes and saw Lucy staring at her.

Lucy Guerin, not Archie Holmes, her boyfriend.

But her best friend.

“Lucy?” Claudia asked as she woke up fully and saw that she was on the balcony and now in her bed, next to Archie. “Shit,” she said. “Archie is not going to like this,” she muttered out loud as she realized she had not gone back into the apartment, and back to bed.

I let myself fall asleep out here she would think. This is not good.

“Why won’t Archie like it?” Lucy asked, as she had no idea that Archie was in Claudia’s bed right now, while his girlfriend was out on the balcony, having fallen asleep in the dead of night. “What have I missed?”

What is this she Claudia muttered as she was comprehending what was going on. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she squinted at her friend, while at the same time shielding herself from the blaring sun, “What time is it?”

“Early,” Lucy said. “I came to check to see if you needed a friend because my mother was of the impression you needed one,” she said one of her classic smiles. “I guess I did not think you would be sleeping out here in you lounger and not in your comfortable bed?” she wondered. “I told you this balcony is beyond magic.”

Beyond magic, that is certainly debatable Claudia muttered to herself. But it is homey, and private. I can be in my own world out here, and up here. Because no one cannot see up here.

Unless they come look, which is exactly what Lucy apparently had done.

And before she could form a response to her best friend. A new voice came into the situation. “Claudia, what is going on out here?” they would hear muttered from the window.

And both girls could see Archie, shirtless of course, looking out at them from the bedroom. A place Claudia should be but was not, and she knew it. And she could see the disappointment in Archie ’s face, I am putting that there more and more she thought. Maybe he should not have come here because we might have had a healthier relationship if he had stayed in Colorado.

Whoa Lucy said as she noticed. Archie Holmes, she thought. “Archie,” she said of her best friend’s boyfriend. She did not know the guy well because I lived elsewhere of course.

And Claudia and Archie had met in Boston, but he had gone elsewhere on the onset of the pandemic when school shut down and he was trying to pay rent. And therefore, Lucy knew the twosome had been separated, and had not spent much time together.

Until now, apparently.

“Lucy, is it not?” Archie muttered as he wanted to rub his eyes as he looked at the pixie blonde, but more at his girlfriend who had not come back to bed. I had to wake up in a half-occupied bed, he thought, not knowing where Claudia was.

But then he had heard voices coming more into his doozy sleep, and he realized he really was sleeping alone, and Claudia was out on her balcony.

“Lucy Guerin, yes” came as a response. “We have not met really,” he said. “Claudia’s mother and mine are lifelong besties, and I have lived in Nashville until recent days.”

“Just as Claudia came back to this town,” Archie asked, “Which is some coincidence?” he said and he was not so sure being back in Roswell was all that good for his girlfriend’s mental state, because it did seem like she was doing so much better elsewhere, and once she hit this town. She has not been the same.

And even being with her grandparents and those limitations set on her is better than what he encountered here.

“Is it not the best,” Lucy said with a huge smile.

“I am not so sure,” Archie murmured as he saw the confusion on his girlfriend’s face. Who could only shake her head at the doubt on her boyfriend’s face, come on she thought? This is my life, she would think.

“I don’t have any doubts, that it’s the best” Lucy said, batting back the doubts. Because she was happy that her friend was here because she needed more reinforcements in this town, and she hated that she and Claudia had not been able to see each other more often, even before the pandemic put a severe restriction on their time together. But obviously her father felt one way about her mother’s best friend and therefore Liz felt unwelcomed in Nashville.

Lucy was telling her that was the reason Liz had stayed way.

Mostly it was the truth. But there were other caveats.

So, Lucy shook off Archie ’s disapproval of their town. “So, what, you came to visit Claudia?” she asked.

“That was the intention,” Archie muttered. “If she did not keep on running away from me.”

Mother like daughter, right?

To Lucy, who had a much more stable home life. I would not run away from you Lucy would say, as she was smitten by Archie. And Claudia could see the swoon in her friend and was not bothered by it because she knew she and Archie were solid despite the hundreds of miles of distance between them.

Or so, she knew right now.

But maybe they were.

Lucy was smitten. She was single, too single, she muttered. There had been someone in Nashville, but it had not been too serious. Which was good news according to both her parents because they felt their only child was too young to get serious about anyone.

Which is a mix of both of a hypocritic meet kettle because of course Michael and Maria had been younger when they had met and fell head over heels with each other, although it would several years before they settled down, but they had a bond solidified by a lot of hard knocks. We lived several lifetimes in those couple of years Maria would think and tell her daughter when Lucy brought up that they disapprove of her dating, when they were younger.

We were younger, and we might be together to this day. But it does not mean it was easy and we want you to be settled in your life before you go in that direction.

Lucy was doubtful of that, but truthfully there had not been anyone serious. Even that someone in Nashville was a temporary diversion in the past year when they could go nowhere, except underground. We did not even make it to the point of even contemplating what moving to Roswell would mean to our relationship.

It was fun, but we were not serious.

But I know Claudia and Archie are, and I would not disrupt it, she thought. But he does look good without his shirt. “You are looking good Archie.”

Claudia smirked, and Archie shook his head before disappearing from the window and coming back a few minutes later with a shirt on.

“No fair,” Lucy smiled.

“Let us go in,” Claudia muttered as she knew she could not stay out on her balcony in her house coat, because she needed to get dressed herself, and the morning was moving along now, and she was fully awake as she picked up the journal and took it in.

Lucy knew what the book was and smiled, “You were doing some light reading, weren’t you?” she asked as she climbed back inside, into Claudia’s bedroom.

“I would not call it very light,” Claudia muttered as she walked off to the bathroom, to get dressed herself after pulling some jeans and a top out of her drawer and disappearing on Lucy and Archie.

Leaving Archie perplexed by the cloudy mess over his girlfriend.

“You know Claudia well, right?” Archie asked as he turned to the pixie blonde.

“You can call us close, yes” Lucy smiled. “We might have lived away from each other, but we know each other well.”

“Then what is going on Claudia. Why does it seem like she’s an angsty mess?”

You have described it well Lucy murmured as she contemplated Archie ’s words. And knew you have to be one of us to know us she thought. Literally, she thought. Okay, maybe you don’t because plenty of normal people know us, but they don’t get us.

But Claudia was unique in ways that Lucy was plain ordinary, which made the pixie blonde very happy to be the way she was, I don’t want Claudia’s life. I may not always get Mom and Dad, but I get them.

“You picked a bad time to come for a visit,” was all Lucy said because she knew it was Claudia’s life to be telling Archie, I would not want her to be the shrink to my significant other, whenever that comes around, she thought. “This town has a way of imposing itself on us, because of its history.”

“It’s a small town. How can it be so angsty?” Archie asked.

“You have no idea,” Lucy said with a smile as she saw the book on the bed that her friend had thrown on it.

“What is that book?” Archie asked. “Why was she clutching it?”

“It has a lot of what she does not know, and even the book does not have the whole story” Lucy said with a smile. “This town has a back story that is complicated. It’s hard for someone like you to understand.”

“Why do you say someone like me” Archie asked. “That is the point though I was trying to get through to her, and she seems to be resisting it. She has been for a long time now, but it has gotten worse since I have been here. I want to know her, because I love her, and I want to understand her, and know what is going through her mind but she’s not letting me get her,” he asked.

“And I am sorry about that,” Lucy murmured. Archie is really a good one Claudia, and you are risking it.

“Does this have to do with her mysterious dead-beat father?”

Lucy sighed because she knew everything had to be do with Max Evans. “He’s not a dead beat,” came a voice as Claudia, now freshly dressed and had showed up back in her room and therefore it was not hard to hear the assessment from Archie about her father.

One she might have described when she was younger, and certainly she knew Archie ’s backstory. Divorced parents. And he was living with his mother when he left for college but did not want to go back when the pandemic started to rob us of our daily life, she thought. Deadbeat would describe his father, who walked out on the family when Archie was a toddler, so she knew Archie had his parental issues.

And therefore, we co-exist in that fashion, and mesh, but Archie had a better understanding of it. And does not let it get him down she thought. He’s not defined by his parents.

While I know even less than Archie knows about why his father left.

I don’t know why my parents split, when they loved each other so damn much she thought. “My Dad is not a dead beat.”

“He was not in your life, so…” Archie muttered.

“There were so many reasons why he was not in my life, and yeah, I did not know him and that was because of my mother, but I know he would have been there for me, if he could have. A dead-beat will walk away from all responsibilities. Washes us off like we are nothing. My Dad did not walk away from us,” she murmured. “He was left. Big difference.”

Was it?

Yes. Big difference, but it was one that did not make it much better.

Even though she did not like that part of the story, in that he chose to let us walk off and leave him.

“So, see what I told you” Lucy said as she glanced at both Archie and Claudia with a frown, and smirked at Claudia’s boyfriend. “It’s complicated.”

*

Definitely, it was complicated. And neither of Claudia’s parents liked that their legacy was proving hard for their daughter to follow in, because they had not made it easy, and left their child with a lot issues, whether they were abandonment or a way too carefree and independent life when their daughter was left directionless. And Liz knew she was the one who was primarily responsible for it, although Max was no slouch in that department but still Liz was the one who left and took her child and made a life away from Roswell.

And Liz found coming back to her hometown was waking up more memories than she thought possible. I knew it would be tricky but come on, this is too much she thought as she was now out of bed and fully dressed and had collected her son. And they were making plans to go for breakfast.

Find themselves food, before they deal with what the day brought them. She knew she had to get started on planning for her new life.

She had a restaurant she had to make some plans; this is why I came to this town she thought. It was not to see my ex-husband and question every life choice I have made in the last eighteen years, she thought.

Although she knew that it was likely she would do that, but still…

“Let us go and get us some food,” Liz murmured. Wishing almost that they were back at the Crashdown, and that it was open, because during her father’s reign. The Crashdown had awesome food, and being on top of it, it meant that she often would eat downstairs before a shift, or before school. Some life I had she thought.

“What are we doing today?” JJ asked as he did not know what was going on with their new life. So much seems uncertain.

Hell, if I know Liz wanted to say, but put in a more PC way for her impressionable son. “Let’s find out.”

JJ knew his mother did not know.

“Will we see Claudia?” JJ asked.

“Maybe we will,” Liz murmured. Although she was not sure if Claudia wanted to see her but being left alone in the apartment was something Liz was having second thoughts about and now, she knew she would have to go over and deal with it, one of these days.

But first up, was their wish for food.

*

“What do you think Grandpa?” came a happy Mikyla as she was over at her grandfather’s place as she and her mother stopped off for a visit before they headed off on their shopping expedition. Kyla had wanted to see her grandfather, and it was not something she had done since returning surprisingly early from her semester overseas.

Phillip Evans was happy to see his granddaughter. One of the granddaughters he had been lucky to see grown up over her left town. Although if her mother knew what I had done, maybe I would not know my grandchildren.

But luckily, I know at least three of them. With chances of the outstanding one growing each day he thought. Although if her parents have anything to say.

Maybe I won’t.

“Grandpa,” Kyla asked because she sensed the tension between her mother and grandfather immediately after showing up. And finding her uncle’s car was not in the drive. Phillip did not seem to know where his son was, because he had barely seen each other since their last encounters.

So, it was only Philip when Isabel and Kyla showed up unexpectantly, but it had certainly raised his spirits to see his granddaughter. “I picked them out especially for you,” she said of the present she had gotten for her grandfather. Something she had picked up when she knew she was coming home, I just did not expect it to be this soon, she thought. As sat in the living room of her mother’s childhood home.

A home that was the same as she was told it was like when her mother was growing up after being adopted by her grandfather, little has changed she thought. Except a lot in terms of the family, she thought. But she loved her grandfather even though she had heard some sketchy things since her return, but she knew her grandfather loved the family.

Even if he sometimes has a hard time showing it Kyla thought. Of the disheveled state her grandfather had been known to be since the death of her grandmother.

“I love it honey,” Phillip said. “They look delicious,” he said of the handpicked chocolates his granddaughter picked out for them. I am very glad you had a wonderful time and had a lot of adventures these last months.”

“I had a lot of adventures until things got a little too serious, and so they sent us home” Kyla murmured.

Some would say things got serious back here too Isabel muttered to herself as she looked at her father, who could only look away from his only daughter because he knew he had disappointed her with his conduct, and it was hard to look at him, given what he had done, and what he had withheld from his own son. So, yeah, he knew things were serious back here too, but just by a different level of intensity, and a lot more manageable and better for our health.

Hopefully.

“We are glad you are home safe,” Phillip murmured as he looked at his daughter who for once decided to look at her father, and nod, as they were finally in sync on something, at last he thought. I love all my grandchildren. Thank God, I was able to know Kyla, Poppy and Katy. But it still doesn’t make up for what I once did… “We all should be concerned about our safety,” he muttered.

Isabel snicked because the last thing her father had been doing since her mother’s death was taking care of himself, and definitely now that had a few underlying secrets to keep from her and Max, Keep them from me, but to do it to Max?

That was hard to overlook. But she knew her daughters loved their only grandparent they could see in their hometown. And she was not about to keep them away from her father because she did believe Phillip loved his grandchildren and wanted to do better because of them. Maybe he will finally get there.

But there was going to be a lot of good will to rebuild with my brother, she thought.

“I am glad to be home,” Kyla said softly because she could see the undercurrent between her mother and grandfather. She had heard of some of what had transpired over the last number of days. She knew her mother tried to keep the warts of the family drama from her and her sisters, but I am fifteen now, and I should know.

And I do know what she thought. Yes, because Kyla did know that her grandfather had kept something very personal from her uncle, and even her mother.

But Mom does not matter in this the teenager thought. It is about Uncle Max.

And this mysterious cousin of mine thought of a fellow teenager in their family, but older and someone I do not know at all she thought.

She had grown up with the knowledge of Claudia Diane Evans hanging over my head, and in my shadow. Kyla knew that her cousin had left town when she was a baby, and her uncle did not know his daughter, and a large percentage of why her uncle was rootless and aimless was because of the hurt he had experienced.

My birth was in secret, with undercurrents of deals she thought. But at least it was understandable, and I do know.

Even if Mom and Kyle like to keep it a secret from me.

But to know there was someone else in their family out there, like a ghost she thought. It took some time to deal with it. Especially given her uncle had already gone through so much lost and lost that other almost child she thought of the other cousin that is not my cousin she thought.

There is a lot of darkness in the family.

And in my uncle’s life.

And she knew her grandfather had added to it. And she hated it for her mother and uncle. But I love my grandfather. As her mother’s cellphone rang, Isabel muttered something as she looked at it, “I am going to take this” she said as she got up from the chair and walked out, leaving Kyla with her grandfather.

“Your mother is a little disappointed in me,” Phillip sighed. As he did not know exactly how much his granddaughter knew of the current situation. Thankfully Poppy and Katy are in the bliss of their trip and will not be back until next week.

Maybe things will start to repair before then he thought.

“Mom loves Uncle Max,” Kyla murmured.

“I know she does,” Phillip muttered.

“Why did you do it?” Kyla asked because even though she did not know everything that had happened between her uncle and grandfather, and why her mother was so mad. Well, she knew some.

“I thought it was best for your uncle,” Phillip muttered even though he knew he did not have a great excuse. I was doing what Liz thought was best. There was never going to be talking her out of it, and if I could help my son stay out of the glare of the government that had been hunting them and was on the cusp of it again if Max or Liz tried to say no, and renege on Liz’s deal. “I was trying to do what was best, in saving a lot of pain for your uncle, and even your mother and you guys.”

Kyla did not know everything, but she knew it was probably a reasonable assertion I was not born yet, so I did not live through what my mother’s generation did, she thought. But unlike Poppy and Katy, I am one of the special ones she thought.

“I guess,” Kyla murmured.

“I promise you Kyla that I might not do everything perfectly and yes, I have made a lot of mistakes and I regret a fair number of them, but I believed I was doing the right thing for your uncle, and even your mother because I know how that time was hard for them, and I did not want that to come for your mother, and you” Phillip sighed, at having to acknowledge that the government would not have cared for Poppy and Katy, and would have only had a vested interest in his granddaughters, Claudia and Kyla, because of who they are.

Kyla nodded. “I love you Grandpa.”

“Thank you,” Phillip smiled as his smile turned when he saw the frown on his daughter’s face and it was clear it was not about him this time he thought, it is something more. “What is it honey?”

“Double disaster,” Isabel muttered.

“What do you mean?” Kyla asked alarmed, because it was not in her experience to see her mother so alarmed.

“I heard from Julia,” Isabel murmured as she glanced at her fathers’ clueless expression. “Julia took the girls to see their grandparents in Maine, and she headed to New York for her own holiday, and she and the girls were supposed to start their way back tomorrow.”

“But?” Phillip murmured.

“She was going to call me originally because the train trip got cancelled, and it not being rescheduled because of low traffic” Isabel muttered. “And there are no easy low-cost flights from where the girls are in Portland,” she said. “And then if that is not bad, it is worse because Julia who was visiting family, just had her father become sick, and so she has to stay.”

“Was it…” Kyla asked but did not want to use the name of the current dreaded worldwide illness plaguing us.

“No, not that…” Isabel sighed. “Just an ordinary illness,” if there is any illness that is ordinary or normal these days she thought. “But it means Julia is sticking for another week or so until her father is out of the hospital, because they really don’t know what to expect,” she said. “So, it all is leading up to me having to out of town, to collect the girls.”

“How are you going to do that?” Phillip asked. “You indicated there are no trips that are easy to put together?” he asked.

“That is for me to figure out,” Isabel muttered. “But it means…”

“You have to leave me here?” Kyla asked.

“You don’t want to deal with the trip with me,” Isabel smiled. “After you just got home yourself, and you need to settle in…”

“And get a job?” Kyla asked.

“That is the one of the things you will have to do this summer,” Isabel smiled. “I am not going to let you uproot your plans, but it means…”

“My granddaughter will need a place to stay?” Phillip asked as he piped into the conversation his daughter was having with his granddaughter.

“Yes, she will” Isabel murmured. “She cannot stay home, because I do not know how long I will be, and I guess, I suppose I could ask Michael and Maria because they have the space in their new place, but they have only been in town a few days, but it is a lot to deal with, and I don’t want them to have to deal with it.”

It is a lot even if Kyla is a dream he thought as he knew his granddaughter was no trouble, but still it was asking a lot, but it meant that he had an idea. “She can stay here,” Phillip proposed, and Isabel had a feeling her father was going to say something like that… “I am sure your brother would not mind, and if anything, she can be a good buffer between your brother and me,” he said with a smile. “Assuming he even wants to spend any time around me…”

That is true Isabel muttered of the thought of her daughter being a buffer, not that I want that role for my daughter she thought, but she knew Max was off somewhere, and they had no idea where he was…

“How about it?” Phillip asked. “Do you want to stay here?”

“Sure,” Kyla said.

“Then it’s settled?” Phillip asked.

“Before we settle it one way or another,” Isabel muttered as she inserted herself into the conversation. “If I can locate him, I am going to have to ask my brother. Because after all, this is his house, now…”

[totallizfan]

Teenage angst

[Parker1947]

No one knew where Max was, and he had not gone out of his way to let anyone in on his whereabouts, since his sister last saw him at the club. And therefore, Isabel knew her brother had to be hiding because this was my brother after all she thought. Still, ever the concerned sister that she was, and before she and her daughter, Kyla were due to head home. After they both decided to cut their planned excursions for the day short.

After all, Isabel now had plans that she needed to make once they were back at home. And Kyla now had to get home too and pack once more. After only just unpacking from her last trip. At least I am staying back here in Roswell, she thought. She had not really wanted to go on that road trip with her mother to pick up her sisters because she had been gone long enough as it was. “Thank you, Grandpa, for letting me stay here,” she said a smile to her grandfather. She was glad her grandfather had suggested it to her mother, because she had not really wanted to put Lucy’s parents through it because they had just moved back here to town, and she would rather stay with her grandfather, and maybe figure out what was going on with him and her uncle.

Phillip could not help but smile. Someone loves me he would mutter to himself even though he did know his children loved him, although Max has a reason to doubt that he thought. But the kids are just disappointed, he thought as he thought of his daughter. As he took in Kyla’s smile. Kyle did not look like her mother except for her height, but she did have Isabel compassion. She wants it to work out, he thought. Isabel and Neil have done a wonderful job with my granddaughter, he thought.

Of course, he knew the quirks of his granddaughter’s paternity.

As was said, it is a very badly kept family secret.

Because everyone knows it.

And Phillip wondered sometimes why the deal was holding, the girls need a father figure he thought. He knew the Valenti family to be a warm one, and he wanted his daughter to be happy, but Isabel did not see it or if she was, she would not say anything to her father about her potential love life.

Kyla could see that her grandfather was staring out into space and wondered what he was thinking of, so she decided to draw him back to reality. “I hope Uncle Max won’t be put out by having me here?”

Phillip could understand his granddaughter’s reluctance, but still he knew it was not warranted. “Don’t worry about your uncle because your mother can handle her brother,” he murmured as he smiled as his granddaughter with an acknowledgment of the special bond between brother and sister.

Kyla knew this well because it was true that her mother and uncle shared a unique bond. She knew her uncle would also do anything for his sister. Even when they were angry at each other. Which was rare for a pair of siblings. But Max and Isabel were unlike any other pair of siblings on this planet. They will always be unique in any circumstance. Yes, they were. Upstairs, Isabel wanted to get a sense of what her brother was up to because she needed to get the official approval. Because Max would hit the roof if she had had taken their father’s request without at least asking him even when she knew what his answer would be but still, I have to ask, right?

Right.

So, Isabel was willing to enter the forbidden zone that a sister should not dare to seek out, which was her brother’s bedroom. Which had not changed all that much since their childhoods spent in this house. But now Max called the shots, and paid the bills, and that was why Isabel had to ask and check within the danger zone. Usually, she would get amusement in snooping into her brother’s life. But today, she could not even get the amusement in catching her brother doing something he should not be doing, as if that was ever an idea, because Max is too much of a choir boy for that Isabel murmured in amusement to herself. But on this day, she would get a big fat zippo in her brother’s room because it was obvious that her brother was really not hiding out in the house. As if that was a possibility, but I had to check, did I not? And more concerning to his sister was that the bed was made. Because the bed is never made, she thought My brother is a bachelor in too many senses she thought. It only gets made if he is in some mood or something is happening, and if he were in such a mood to clean.

Which is rare, but… she thought. I like to putter around and do meaningless chores to keep my mind busy but my brother resorts to other methods to get through his many moods she would tell herself but still he is known sometimes to make his bed, she thought as Isabel grew concerned and walked downstairs and asked their father a simple question. “Where is Max?”

Phillip was surprised by the tone of his daughter’s voice because of course he knew his son was hiding out. And because he did not know it could be his son’s former wife causing his son to hide out, therefore, he assumed it was what I did to my son he thought. “Do you know?” Isabel would ask about her father.

“I have no idea,” Phillip murmured. “He has his own life, and right now he does not want to spend much time with me.”

“So, he could be anywhere?” Isabel wondered.

“Your brother is unlikely to have gone that far,” Phillip murmured because of the unspoken laws of the life his son and daughter led meant that they did not want to be that far from each other, even when Michael was in Tennessee. He would sometimes show up for no good reason, he thought, although he did not think Michael had truly been back in town since those days many years before.

Not since I lost Diane.

Which was a loss that was still sore, he told himself. I will always miss my wife, he thought. My better half.

And so, he could understand why Max was so upset with him and because his son was very much like him, he misses his own wife Phillip would have to concede now. Even if Liz had not left this world in death, still, she left my son.

And there was only one woman for my son Phillip muttered because he remembered how solitary his son’s life was because he was able to be part of Liz’s life. There was no one else.

Tess Harding does not count Phillip muttered as he thought of the deception that the blonde had played in his son’s life, to the very end and even beyond.

“Dad?” Isabel asked, as she tried to pull her father back to reality.

Phillip could only sigh, “Honey, I am serious” he would mutter. “Your brother is safe and is probably perfectly fine.”

Isabel could buy that theory that her brother was safe, because he is who he is, she conceded. He is the last I would worry about in that way, but she doubted that her brother was perfectly fine she thought. Nope, not by any measurement of the word and because of the events of the night before.

Last night showed that he is on his own edge she would murmur. All because of that woman she would muse. There is no way he is fine, she thought. Otherwise, he would not be hiding from me Isabel would mutter but at the moment she did not have time to launch a mission into his brother’s whereabouts because she had to go home and begin to make plans to try and get to her babies. Even though they were safe, because their grandparents loved the ability to have them for extra days until Isabel was able to pick up Poppy and Katy, and they were already making plans Isabel sighed.

Isabel knew her daughters were safe, but she wanted to get to them.

And therefore, Isabel could only shake her head because she knew her father could be too confident and optimistic when he is not trying to destroy his life, she murmured. But this time, she did not have time to get into it. “If he shows up, tell him to call me,” she muttered as she and Kyla walked to the door once more but also turning to face her father. “I want to be the one to tell, so please don’t tell him.”

Phillip could only nod as he watched as his daughter and granddaughter walk off. He knew how difficult these days were for his family, but he wanted to reassure his daughter. “It will be fine honey, go and get my granddaughters.”

Isabel could only sigh as she and Kyla walked to the car.

*

It had not been Max’s intention to hide out. No matter what my family might think he would think to himself. Why would it be he would ask those who want to question his vanishing act. It had started out as a simple drive. Leaving the club, the night before, and unable to process all that had happened nor the idea that he once more had done the impossible in walking away from his true love. Walking away from Liz seemed impossible at one time he would acknowledge to himself, of their teenage years. I always wanted to be near her, he would think. It was always like that, ever since third grade he sighed.

Even when she did not notice him, and he was simply another student in their subsequent grades as they grew older, she remained his dream girl. And she would remain his dream girl, and simply look at him as if he was a cute guy, little did he know she had always been noticing him in some fashion or another but still to the boy from another planet, literally who should not even exist on this one except for some DNA voodoo and a dash of experimenting. She was always unattainable, and for so long it was not possible to have anything come of it.

Then it did happen, and he was able to love her, she allowed me too, he thought. Though I was a great silent stalker he thought to himself. Always watching but doing nothing about it because it was not wise, he would think. I might get shot down, and I could not have that he murmured. So, I sat and watched.

And then it all changed. And I had a chance.

More than a chance as it would turn out.

And he would never have wanted it to end, and for her to walk away from him even when I knew it was going to be a mistake, and end terribly, he would remind himself. Like Michael worried Maria would become wise to him, well, I thought the same thing, and even more so with Liz.

But having a chance with her had made him think of the impossible. Dream the unimaginable, even when each chance had gotten beaten back and stripped of happiness, and we were dealt nothing but heartache and pain he would remind himself. Why did we think we could win in the end? he would ask himself.

Because it was Liz.

His dream girl.

And he watched that dream walk off continuously, breaking his heart every damn time. Some of the time, sure, but that last time, he asked. Which is why I could not stay and let her break my heart one more time he thought of the previous night, and the mixed signals coming from his dream girl.

A dream girl who had been upped to being his wife.

A wife who would walk out after a year and had taken their child with her. All for the greater cause she would claim, and maybe it was true, yeah maybe he would concede because Liz is not a liar, he told himself.

Okay, maybe a few times but those lies were about something more.

And now she was saying that she lied to me to save me, he thought I may love her, but it hurts to be near her, touch her, and in those dances and know that she would eventually walk away again, he thought. And after all, I lost so much time with Claudia.

Which was the sad part in all this. Liz and I are adults.

But Claudia was at one time a baby, and I missed so much he would tell himself. I will never get that time back Max muttered to himself as he thought of his daughter who was now eighteen, I have been left out on so much, he told himself of the girl he had seen, who is old enough and strong enough to throw me out of a room and be alone with her boyfriend he would muse. I will never get back any of the time I lost he thought, and it was not even clear if she wants me to be a part of her life now, or her future.

So, he walked away from his former wife for all he had lost out on, and he knew that he could not put himself through it once more even though to hear the music, and to have her in my arms, it was everything I ever wanted before the age of fifteen, and I swore to myself that I would never give up the chance once I had it, he swore.

Except only for a good reason.

I had to walk away for my own sanity Max told himself I already had to deal with my father and the silence that cost me everything he thought. Yeah, love is awful he cursed. As it is never logical, and it does not make sense most of the time, he would think.

So, he left the club and gone for a simple drive. That was all it was supposed to be. Not ready to go home and deal with his father, and he did not want to put his sister out for another night, and now that her daughter was home, it was a little more crowded, although not really and to go to Michael and Maria’s, well, they still had their issues, and he did not want to add to them and there was nowhere else he could hide out.

Until he went for that drive and ended up back where it all began.

With his arrival on this planet. Where he was born in a fundamental way, hatched if you want to be specific. But to him, Michael, and Isabel, that word really was too much and too bizarre to comprehend with regards to how they had come to this planet.

It was a lot.

Why I came back here he did not know as he looked at the landscape.

Yeah, he did not know, I went for a simple drive and came here he had thought and found himself using his handprint and walking into the cavern, and chamber, and seeing how it all started, and where it almost ended.

But I stayed on this planet and got a chance to love Liz, so he found himself falling asleep knowing that this was a perfect place to hide out. No one would know it and only a very select few could even enter this place, he would tell himself. Even if I was not trying to hide out, I could not head back to town.

So, he did not know what anyone would think, or that his sister had changed her schedule. But he would know soon enough as he walked out of the cave and got back into the car and drove back to town.

Coming back into cellphone range, one of the good things about the caves where you were in a land of silence he thought. But now he was in range, and he found his phone ringing and it made him sigh and turn on the function to talk within his car, “What?” he would ask.

“Where are you?” came the concerned voice of his sister.

Of course, it has to be Isabel Max would mutter to himself. “Doing my own thing,” Max murmured. I do not report my movements to my sister of all people he would tell himself even if he knew that his disappearance, would rise some concern if it was noticed despite it only being a few hours, he sighed, because it was unusual for me, he told himself, I have not left this town he would think with a sigh. Not since that disaster that befell my marriage as he returned to his call. “What does it matter?” he would ask as he tried to think of a plausible reason for his sister to be trying to reach out to him, and the only reason that did come to mind made him frown. “If this has to do with Dad, then I do not want to hear it because I cannot deal with him,” he would mutt. Not on top of everything else he would think.

“No, it does not” Isabel muttered. Although partially she would concede silently.

“Then what it is?” Max would ask as he continued to drive. Getting closer to town and his home, assuming that I do even want to go home, he would tell himself.

I do not. But Isabel was on the call, and it gave him a diversion. “Then what is it?” he would ask as he drove.

“Can we meet?” Isabel asked. “I does not have to be long, but I have a problem,” she would say from her side of the phone, and Max could only sigh because the last thing he needed was there to be more problems within the family.

I cannot handle another disaster in the making he would tell himself. But because it was Isabel asking, he knew he could only say one thing. “Sure,” Max would say. “But why don’t you tell me a little about whatever you want to talk about, before we meet” he would ask and waited for his sister to respond. As Isabel laid out the bare facts of the situation, Max groaned. Why cannot something go right for our family, he would think. Why? he muttered silently. But like Phillip had already guessed and spelled out to his granddaughter. Max would do anything for his sister, okay, almost anything he would think. But it was still his sister, and she needed his help, and so of course his answer would be, “Of course, I will help you out” he would sigh, at the thought of having his niece in his home.

Which would make her be in the middle of the complicated dynamic that was he and his father, and if all else, it meant he would have to be at home again, and therefore I cannot hide out.

Not that I was hiding out, he thought. Not at all.

Right.

*

Of course, Liz knew a little about hiding out. After all, she had spent the last eighteen years hiding out and she left her marriage and destroyed the only man she loved and denied him his daughter, or my daughter her father even when he knew he would love his her and would have been a fantastic father. His ability to be a father was never the reason we ended she would tell himself. Even if it had been the reason she had to walk away from her marriage and her husband.

And I will always regret saying those words.

Even if I don’t regret that I took the chance to save him and his dumbass friend, and sister Liz would mutter, why I wanted to save them she did not know. Okay, I knew, but given their attitudes towards me she thought. I wonder if I should have bothered as she finally got out of bed and went to collect her son. And they went and got some breakfast, before dropping her son off at the local library because they were having a kid group, and a movie. A social event to try to get the kids back to becoming more sociable to those around them.

Because after such a hard year, and because it was still one in some quarters of the society she thought as children of this time were especially having a hard time because they did not know better and we not equipped to be independent, and so much was now different for them in comparison to if they had older siblings and parents, and in the case of Liz and her children. We are new to town, she thought. Not that new for me, she thought. But for JJ it was she conceded, and it was a new town for him, and she wanted for JJ to get used to it, and make friends and settle in.

Especially since their home life was unsettled, and still difficult to pin down.

But it meant she now had some time on her hands before she had to go back and collect her son.

This might be her hometown, and now her new home, but still so much continued to be influx and she did not know what to do with her town, I am so not used to it.

Just like when I was younger. When I have time on my hands. That is trouble. she would remind herself.

She thought of going to the Crashdown and having that talk with her daughter. A talk that was very much over do. Very much so, she told herself. But she was a coward and wanted to delay that talk some more.

So, after dropping JJ off at the library, she decided to go for a walk. Walk around her hometown. A hometown that had not been hers for eighteen years, or more, and she wondered if she could call it home.

Because it was a very different town in so many ways from the one, she knew. Restaurants were closed, with new ones brewing and the times had changed at their very foundation. Making it different from the sleepy little town that had been her way of life while she was growing up.

Until of course, she had left at the age of eighteen.

In disgrace, that is a little stretch she thought but we did leave with questions asked.

Very few of them had gotten answered.

“Liz,” came an almost unrecognizable voice and it was not one she expected to hear even though she was close to his son. As she turned and saw someone, she knew all too well, because of three stressful years in which both of their lives changed dramatically, and especially the man’s son and therefore, Liz would know him anywhere, even if it had been more than eighteen years now.

The hat was a dead giveaway. As he tipped it at Liz, which of course, was his custom. One that Liz often seen deployed. “Liz,” he said softly.

“Sheriff,” Liz said softly, formally, as she acknowledged…

The town sheriff.

And Kyle’s father.

“You know me too well to use that Sheriff stuff,” Jim said with a smile. Even though it was a surprise that greeted him to see the former Liz Parker he thought, maybe she has gone back to the name? he thought. But he did not know one way or another. Although it does not really matter, he thought. Despite it being a welcome surprise for him to see Liz for the first time since her arrival back in town. “I think you can call me Jim by now, after all, you are no longer a teenager anymore, and at one time you did date my son.”

Yes, I did date Kyle Liz thought. Back when life was a small town. And all that seemed to matter was work and school, and one day getting out of this town for the bright lights of the science world she reminisced of that time. Life would take me down a vastly different road. And those dreams were smalltime.

As she thought of that time when everything was so simple. And I did not have to deal with matters like life and death, aliens…

Alien human hybrids to be exact she thought. Or the fact I would marry one and have his baby. And become a spectacular that would make a trashy tabloid proud.

A tabloid would not believe it was real.

But it was real, she thought. Too real, and it is my life.

“It is good to see you Liz,” Jim murmured. And for Liz, it was nice to see someone who was welcoming to her, because very few are she thought. Only Maria and Kyle were and even then, Maria has her own issues with my conduct, and actions.

“Yes, it is” Liz said softly. “I would have thought you would be at the station. You know work?” she asked with a smile. Because it was not often, she saw him walking through Roswell during work hours. Given the only real memory of that time was his official position protecting their town. Even that time when he was off the job, he was not the most usual of people on hiatus.

Too much of our lives were holed up in an escalating drama that would take over our lives, she would concede.

“I am taking a little time here and there,” Jim smiled. “Work/life balance and all that, and retirement is approaching” he said with a sigh. With each passing day.

Retirement and Jim Valenti were not words I would associate together Liz would think. Because the job was such a passion for him, she thought. His calling, which is why being off the job was such a mind-blowing cruel shot for him she thought. “Wow, I would not have thought that…”

“It happens to even to the best of us,” Jim said with a smile, and it was good for Liz to see someone who was smiling and engaging in the world. Because too much of the world was about closing yourself off, especially over the last year.

And things were only just opening up, ever so slowly.

“I am finding that I like being able to spend time with my grandchildren,” Jim smiled. “And of course, my wife,” he said with a laugh and Liz smiled. Because she had heard of course that Jim had married Maria’s mother, Amy Deluca. And that the two formed quite the family unit, making one-time social enemies Maria and Kyle into stepsiblings she thought of the something good in bringing a blended family together and making it work she thought. Of course, I could not get my normal variety marriage to work.

Because I walked away from it “I did hear about you and Maria’s mother,” Liz smiled. Thinking it was too weird to be calling their authority figure in her life by their first name. And she did not know Maria’s mother that well in these last nearly two decades. I was a kid once…

So much was different when I was a kid.

“I am glad you are able to enjoy life a little more,” Liz said softly. “I am trying to get to know this town again, because so much has changed.”

“Yes, it has” Jim agreed.

“At least it looks like it is starting to open up again,” Liz asked as she thought of the town, which was now her home, even if does not feel like it is home she would think as she looked around and saw the activity the park was getting, because people wanted to get out into the fresh air.

“It has indeed been a rough year,” Jim acknowledged, knowing full well that he would probably have retired by now if not for the events of the past year. Since he had to manage the town’s handling of it, and the department went through a sea of challenges and rough waters, which were starting to recede a little bit. Although one of the more welcome side benefits was that he had the ability to smell the fresh air and spend time with his wife and see the wisdom of retiring and spending time with family because he was aware of the fact that it can change in an instant. And he had a lot of good fortune, and some lucky days he thought of his career but still the last year had showed how life was a little too real.

Liz knew this as well and how the past year had gotten a little too real, and she truly hoped that it was receding a little, but she knew there was a way to go she would tell herself.

But the chance was there to move on and figure out this new world that existed for them all. Because it could not be how it was before the last year or so.

Or it can never be how it was eighteen years ago, she thought. When happiness was almost there for the taking.

“Liz?” Jim asked.

“Yes,” Liz asked. Unsure of what the town Sheriff would have to say to her, because they were bonded by so many bizarre circumstances that could have only happened in this town, and then for most of this town, they would not think any of it was true. That it could not be real, or true. That it was all a myth.

And impossible.

She was that way once as she knew she once was peddling false information and making up stories to entertain our customers she thought. Because how could any of it be true?

But she would learn the hard way, that it was very true.

Jim knew this because of how he came to know it because he had been the son of someone who had believed when everyone in town did not, and that would include his son. But unlike what would later take place with his son and grandson. Jim’s father believed they were dangerous, and they could not be good. And sure, there were some bad apples, but…

Jim would learn that his own father was very wrong, and the assumptions were faulty. So, he knew that the time back in the late 90’s and the early changing millennium brought back memories. “I was talking to your father-in-law?”

Liz grimaced. Because she knew whom Jim was talking about, I have had no other father-in-law, she muttered to herself as she bristled because she was trying to move on from that time in her life. Like you were ever that successful Liz she thought to herself as she sighed and focused on Jim. “We both know he is not my father-in-law any longer,” she murmured. “And what does it matter if you were talking to Phillip Evans or not?

“Because I know a little about what you had to go through back then,” Jim sighed.

Liz flinched at the memories invoked by Jim’s words. Because she wanted to deny them, you cannot possibly know she thought…

No one can know…

[Parker1947]

Because no one could possibly know what Liz had gone through during those days I hate this she thought as the flashes of those days came to mind, because yes, no one could know what it would mean to make the decision that she had made. But she had made them, and she had to live through the resulting consequences today.

Nearly two decades later. And all the while Liz was forced down into memory lane. Max drove to a meeting where he planned to talk to his sister. Because he had not wanted to go back to his home yet, and Isabel had already left for her own home. With Kyla already starting to re-pack.

Isabel met up with her brother at a corner coffee spot, and they talked. Max could understand the dilemma that his sister faced, and while he grimaced to himself at the offer his father made. Way to go Dad, make an offer that is not yours to make he muttered to himself as Isabel could only sigh because she could tell what her brother must be thinking, and his face said as much. I know how my brother thinks she sighed. Which is why I needed to reach out to him. “I know what you must be thinking?”

“No, you do not” Max muttered as he looked down at his coffee and immediately wished for something stiffer. “I do understand the offer, and I agree with it. After all, it is a perfectly reasonable one to make. Kyla is more than welcome to stay at the house while you are gone.” Why would I go back on my acceptance of the offer, simply because of my father.

“Are you sure?” Isabel asked, weary that it was too easy for her brother to agree with something that their father had offered. These days, getting them both to agree is hard work she thought. Not that I am happy with Dad these days either.

“Kyla is family,” Max muttered. “We stand up for family,” he sighed. “We will always help out one of our own,” he sighed. Of course, that motto is something I will align with “Although Dad might have something else to say.”

“Max,” Isabel murmured because she did not want to hear it. She would have gone to someone else to help out, but there was no one else to help out, and she needed to think of her children and taking her father’s offer was the least she could do.

“Sorry,” Max sighed. It had just come out. “It is just hard you know.”

“I know it is,” Isabel sighed. “I hate what he did, but this is about my daughter. Because I have to go and get my babies, and if to make that happen then I have to accept any help given to me, and if I have to go along with what Dad is offering at this point, then I have to do it, because I have Kyla to think about.”

“I understand that” Max sighed. And I do understand that, so yes, my brain does, and I know I am being selfish, but still I can have a hard time with what my father did, can’t I, he thought, “Of course Kyla can stay at the house. And Isabel, I would have offered the same thing if you have come to me first.”

Isabel nodded. “I appreciate it,” she sighed. “You know that it only was Dad because I happened to be visiting Dad with Kyla when the call came?”

“Anytime,” Max sighed and muttered as he took comfort in the ability to help his sister but did have to acknowledge that in helping her would mean that it finally dawned on him a more concerning question. “You do have to go and get the girls, and I understand why Kyla might not want to go with you,” he said with a smile. What teenager would want a long road trip with their mother. “So, the question I have once we get passed your daughter’s accommodations is even more paramount, and that is, who is going to go with you?”

“No one,” Isabel muttered. “I can handle this on my own.”

Are you kidding me? Max muttered as he looked at his sister, who did not care what her brother might think. “There is no way you are going alone,” Max muttered.

“I can handle it on my own Max,” Isabel sighed as she could almost understand her brother being protective. I can more than handle myself she thought and both of them knew this, and she knew one of her brother’s most annoying traits was his overprotectiveness, and one it came out in more annoying way, but he has tamed down over the years, since he abdicated the role of the king, she murmured to herself, but it does come out occasionally, to this day. “Why can I not go by myself?”

“We are talking about a country wide trek,” Max muttered as by now Isabel had come to realize that there were no appropriate flights that would work, and therefore, she would have to drive across the country to collect her daughters. It was a daunting task, and there was no way Max wanted his sister to be alone, and deal with all that driving.

“Who would go with me?” Isabel wondered as she wanted to deny the request, but I will entertain it for a minute.

Yeah, who?

*

Meanwhile,

Back at the Guerin household. News of Isabel’s unexpected adventure had reached them, and Maria could not help but have an idea of who should go with Isabel to collect her daughters, and it was a surprise. To her at least because her first idea was going to be a no go, although it would have been fun for some amusement within the family, she cracked to herself at the possibility, but it will not work, not at the moment she thought as she walked into the kitchen of her home and saw Michael sitting at the table and doing something on his phone and made her blunt announcement, “I think you should go with Isabel to get Poppy and Katy in Maine,” she muttered as she stood staring at her husband.

And waited for the inevitable response, 1-2-3 she would mutter.

Like clockwork.

Although she did not know what kind of response she would be getting into with her idea. And it definitely did take a minute for the idea to register to Michael because he was in another world altogether and did not register that his wife had walked into the kitchen, and so he only heard the outline of the question. “Excuse me, what did you say?”

“You heard what I said,” Maria murmured. You are not that much of a dunce. “I think you should do it.”

“Did I hear you say that I should go with Isabel on her little trip,” Michael asked even though he knew it was more than a little trouble and he felt for his friend, and knew the girls were stuck. Which is not very good, he would think. To be in another state than your children and know they cannot come home, he sighed. And because the world was still trying to recover, there were only so many options for his friend. We got lucky, but not everyone was that lucky, he thought. So, yeah, I feel for Isabel.

But he never would have imagined that it was his wife who would suggest that he go with Isabel.

“You heard me,” Maria said with a smile. “How about it?”

“You know what I think of it,” Michael could only mutter. It is an insane idea he thought why I would ever want to think about doing it is something he could not help but think and speak.

“It is not that bizarre,” Maria asked with a smile. Even though she knew it was. But she had a wild idea to promote to her husband. “You have not spent that much time with Isabel lately.”

“We have spent plenty of time together,” Michael muttered as he was looking at his wife as if she was slightly crazy. What was she thinking he was asking himself as he contemplated his wife’s idea. “We don’t need a country wide road trip to re-establish our bond,” he murmured. We will always be bonded, he thought, in ways that go beyond just friendship.

“I know you are close,” Maria said with a smile. Anyone who knows my husband and Isabel, would know that they were bonded, and would always be “But I think she needs someone to go with her because the trip is too long for her to do it alone, and therefore, it should be you because there is no way Max will want to do it,” she thought. Although truthfully, Max and his father could use some time apart, to deescalate such a heated scene, she would concede. But there is no way Max would leave this town with Liz in it she knew.

For fear that she will not be here when he comes back.

Which was a distinct possibility, Maria knew. I love the girl, but I am not convinced she is sticking…

Of course, Maria was not willing to say it otherwise her husband might be liable to deny her wise, and actively lobby that his best friend go so to keep Max and Liz apart, “I don’t think Max and Isabel would want to spend that much time together.”

“Says who?” Michael muttered, “Isabel can pick her children up herself.”

“Drive across the country to pick up two thirteen years old and then drive back here towards Roswell, yeah, no” Maria would mutter. “We know she is quite capable of course, but that is asking too much.”

Yeah, it was asking a lot Michael knew, and he was forced to concede the point to his wife, but it did not mean it has to be me he thought. “It does not have to me,” he would murmur.

“No, it does not but I would have thrown the idea at Kyle and we both know he would have done it,” Maria said with a smile at the thought of playing match maker because of how smitten she knew her stepbrother was with Isabel. “But we both know he cannot leave the company for as long as the trip will take,” she allowed of her stepbrother. The pandemic took a giant piece of the business and Kyle has to build it up once more, she murmured to herself. “Because we both know he only really has Tripp working for him, until he gets more work, and a seventeen-year-old cannot be the one left in charge of a company.”

“But I can take the time to leave?” Michael asked, “that is what you are saying?” he muttered with a grunt. Because he did not like the insinuation that Kyle was too important to leave his company, but I can drop everything and head across the country for God knows how long he thought. Even though he knew in any ordinary situation, Kyle would likely have jumped at it, but it was a hell of a climate right now…

So, yeah, as much as my wife wants to matchmake, it is not wise in this case Michael was forced to concede in this situation.

“We both know that you are at loose ends right now,” Maria murmured at the lack of jobs that her husband had taken because he needs to build his base back up now that we are here, she thought, “Thanks to our recent relocation. You naturally have time on your hands,” she murmured. “We are almost finished setting things up, and whatever there is remaining, me and Lucy can finish it up,” she smiled. “Seriously, Space boy do this, because it will help out Isabel and you could use the time away.”

“We only just got to town. I don’t need a vacation,” Michael murmured. “If this is a way to get me out of the way so that you can spent time with youknowwho,” he asked, and his wife bristled.

“I can spend any time I want with Liz. I do not need you to be thousands of miles away to do it,” Maria muttered. Granted, it will be easier she murmured. But the thought I would get rid of my husband to see my best friend is fucking annoying she thought. There is no lifetime I will let him tell me who I can see…

Michael knew he stepped into it. They had been easier with each other since the night before, but peacetime can always erupt into new battles. And he saw his wife bristling, you cannot tell me to accept what Liz did to Max.

Max was not asking her husband to accept her best friend’s conduct. After all, he has never really approved of the role Liz had in his best friend’s life, but it would be nice if he could accept that she had to do what she thought was the right thing.

But it would be a big concession, and Michael did not like giving them.

Not at all.

Especially not to those he did not trust, and Liz had lost a lot of that trust.

Assuming he had any for her in the first place. And that was not certain.

“Michael,” Maria muttered.

“Don’t okay, I am sorry” Michael murmured as he knew he was going to have to be forced to consider the request. “I will make no promises but will talk to Isabel and put the offer out there. She probably will not take it.”

Maria nodded because she knew Michael would be easier to convince than Isabel, so it would be anyone’s guess if it was actually going to happen. “You will get to see more of the country?”

“I have seen enough of this country,” Michael muttered it has never been a goal of mine to travel he thought except when I was younger, but it was to get off this planet he thought as he knew he wanted to prevent his wife was tabling any more surprises, so he got up from the table, and walked out of the kitchen, just as Lucy walked in, and smiled at her mother. “What is going on with Dad?”

“What do you mean?” Maria asked.

“He was groaning and bitching about surprises,” Lucy asked because she knew her father was famous in their circles for hating the unexpected. “So, what is going on?”

“Nothing,” Maria murmured. “I only suggested that your father take a trip to help out a friend.”

“I assume it went over well?” Lucy asked.

“Well, you know, your father.”

*

Lucy knew exactly the person her father was, but she did not care, because she knew her mother was not about to enlighten her about whatever was going on, because she had her own mission “I came home and changed because I am headed out to meet up with Claudia,” as she barreled through whatever was going with her parents, because she did know that something was distracting her parents I am not totally oblivious she thought. You cannot be in this clan, she thought. She knew her parents had not been on the best of terms the night before, but that had been cleared up for now, she thought. Because she was not confident that it would stay that was because she knew both of her parents well, and they were truly passionate people. She had returned a few minutes before after surprising her best friend. “Claudia wanted a diversion, so I am going to give her one” she said with a smirk. “We are going to a movie.”

“What does that mean?” Maria asked as she had not even noticed that her daughter had even been gone honestly. Because she herself had slept late and had done some errands before coming home and talking her idea with her husband and now she was seeing that her daughter was showing her face. Lucy is very independent, she thought. She was known to come and go when they were living in Nashville, and because of my previous career, well, my daughter was quite able to handle her own life she thought. I was a free spirit but that was because my mother was not the most conventional of parents, she thought. I wanted to be different, and I am, but I also wanted the fame that came with being a successful musician, she thought. You have to have tradeoffs, and an independent daughter who often wanted her own thing was one of them.

And trying to get her to settle down and concentrate on her future and furthering her education has been tricky to enforce and maneuver around she thought. Because Michael and I did things the harder way, she told herself. Although she could not help but remark, thankfully she is only seventeen and we are not losing her, but she knows what she wants, and we don’t always get our way anymore. “I did not know you were gone.”

“Obviously, because you were gone yourself” Lucy said with a smile at her mother because she had not really known if her mother had been gone or not, because she had been out of the house early once Kyla had gone home, so Lucy was throwing it out there at her mother because her mother tended to come and go. “All I did was what you wanted me to do, I went and visited a friend, and Claudia definitely could have used it,” she said of the situation her friend was in. “Although I will take her position any day of the week.”

“What do you mean?” Maria asked with a weary mutter because she could not help but think of her goddaughter. Even though I did not know her for much of her childhood she thought. Thanks to what Liz would do.

She knew mother and daughter were dealing with the past in their own ways.

I would not want that life she thought. So, I will take having a daughter who does her own thing.

Because it was always easier to handle.

Right?

Maria hoped it did as she came back to reality and her daughter was glaring at her like she had a third eye. “What?”

“You zoned out,” Lucy murmured.

“You don’t have to worry if I did or not” Maria muttered. “Because I am fine,” because I am not at all like my husband or you, my daughter she thought. “So, you might as continue with whatever you were going to be saying,” she murmured as she faced her daughter. “What is this about Claudia?” she was asking. As she did not know what her friend was doing, allowing her daughter to stay in the apartment alone, even if Claudia is 18, she thought. But then my mom vanished and allowed me to entertain Billy Darden in our family house before I turned eighteen, even if nothing happened, she sighed. Although it did end Michael and me.

She thought of the angst that she had gone through with him, because it all seemed too much, too overwhelming she thought. Not in the way it was for Liz, but it was not what I wanted, and we had lost too much by then, she thought. So, I needed time.

And it would lead me back to Michael, she told herself with a smile.

As she tried to shake her head and come back to reality. Because of my own past, I cannot say anything to my friend.

Except to thank God that it is not my daughter she thought. Even if Lucy is too independent at times but she is still my little girl, and Michael and I would not have allowed it to happen, because Maria herself had got away with too much because her mother was a hippie.

And I am decidedly not, she thought. Even if I married an alien.

And having a half alien daughter she thought as she also knew Michael had gone through too much hardship to want that for their daughter, not in this lifetime.

“Claudia’s hunky boyfriend is in town,” Lucy admitted, and that admission forced Maria back to reality really quick, and she shook her head to check if she had heard right. “What, excuse me?” she asked as if she had heard Claudia’s boyfriend was in town. Damn she muttered as it sunk in because Maria knew Claudia did have a boyfriend because she had heard her best friend bitching about it whenever they were able to speak over the last couple of years.

It was something I do not have to deal with because Lucy is solo right now, she thought. Which is something Michael is happy about she knew.

I do not care one way or another.

But Lucy is Daddy’s girl, most of the time Maria smiled, even though looking at her daughter made her return to the conversation. “Excuse me?”

“Archie Holmes is in town and staying with Claudia at her apartment.”

“Her mother’s apartment?” Maria muttered.

“Well, her mother went and left her there, and went to the motel did she not?” Lucy asked and Maria could only shake her head in dismay at the thought of everything Claudia was getting away with it, all because of her friend’s decision. “So, she has all the freedom she wants.”

“Her mother cannot be happy?” Maria asked.

“I do not think Aunt Liz knows about it, to be honest with you” Lucy admitted. “Claudia and her mother are currently having their issues.”

Oh I know they are Maria muttered as she could not help but groan at how old their girls were, and yea, this is not good she thought not at all because she knew by now that sometimes the mother and daughter operated with the motto, what you don’t know will not hurt you and Maria had known this well, because she had herself a great deal of freedom when she was Claudia’s age because Mom was off and doing her own thing she thought As I became a senior in high school.

So much happened during that year, she thought.

And of course, Claudia was already eighteen, but it is not good to be spending time in a small apartment with your hot boyfriend, she thought. Liz is not going to be happy about this…

Even if she had aided this circumstance Maria conceded. As she sighed because of the pact she and her best friend had made, to not criticize each other’s parenting style she thought. And we have been keeping to that pledge.

Even if it means biting our lip at times Maria sighed.

“Mom?” Lucy asked.

“It is alright,” Maria murmured, once again and this time, I mean it. “I hope you will not repeat your friend’s actions?”

“Who me?” Lucy asked all innocently, “I would love it,” she said with a smirk at her mother, who only shook her head as she knew any teenage girl would love it, she thought. I did, even when it was not even my boyfriend, she murmured as Lucy continued. “It is not like you and Dad are going to be leaving me alone with my imaginary boyfriend,” she said with a laugh. One day, cupid will strike she thought. “Don’t worry Mom, you do not have to worry about me.”

Famous last words? Maria hoped not. “I hope not,” she said out loud and Lucy only shook her head, as her mother picked up her cellphone and dialed her best friend’s cellphone, but got nothing, muttering to herself, being a parent sucks she thought and Lucy could only smile and go off and yes, get changed so that she could head off with Claudia.

And Archie and be a third wheel.

This time, by design.

*

Liz did not hear her phone ring because she was still in the park, speaking with the town Sheriff as Jim had bumped into Liz, and they got gotten to talk, if you could call what we are doing as talking Liz thought, when I am trying to dance around the topic at hand and it was too much she thought because a call came from the station and it tied Jim up, and therefore they had not gotten into the muck of the conversation because it was something he did not have to act on, my deputy can handle it he said as he came back to the conversation. “Sorry about that.”

“No, problem” Liz murmured as she checked her watch. “I guess I better get going, because I only have so much time before I have to pick up my son from the library,” she murmured. “If we are going to be making this town our home once more, then he needs to get used to it” she thought, and Jim nodded. “I understand that even here in Roswell, that it has been hard for the younger generation?” she asked, looking for any topic to talk about instead of having to talk about what they both needed to talk about, the past.

“Yes,” Jim nodded. “Thankfully the kids in my family are old enough, but yes, even for them, it had been a hard time, as it was for all of us, no matter the age” he sighed because it was obvious that Liz did not want to dwell on their previous conversation, but it was something that of course needed to be talked about, right?”

Liz did not really want to speak of it.

And Jim knew it, so he began with a safer topic because he could see how tough it was for her to deal with. “I heard that you now have a son?”

Liz nodded. “You might want to know, how that came to be” she asked because anyone would know her status with her former marriage, and the fact if anyone would check I am single, which means I have not entered any relationships since that marriage she thought. I have a funny way of showing it, but I did love Max.

We did not end because I loved someone else.

There was no one else, only Max.

And I guess JJ she murmured. “He is only guy in my life,” she said of her son.” His name is JJ, you know named after my father.”

“I would gather,” Jim acknowledged, without acknowledgment that he had in fact done a background check on his former resident when he had heard she had come back to town, I had to be aware of any trouble brewing.

Why would I think it would come from her corner, he would think. When it usually comes from my own corner. “What you did in that time away from this town is none of my business,” he said with a smile, and Liz did want to thank Jim.

“JJ needed me, and Claudia and I are lucky to have him join our family, was all Liz could say. “I adopted him when he was a baby.”

Jim nodded.

And it made Liz wonder if he had done a check on her, but I guess if he had, I should not hold it against him she murmured. He has a town to look out for, even if he is approaching retirement.

“Liz,” Jim asked.

“It’s fine,” Liz murmured and neither knew what they were really talking about. When it was all a face of life. “You know…”

“Yes, I know” Jim said. “I know what you sacrificed back then,” he would say. “Even if I did not know everything until my son let me in on some of it when he came back to town,” he sighed of the talk he and his son had once he had come back to town, married to Sue Ann. In a different place than when he had left this town, and because he was back, he would have to live with those rumors that had existed in those early days. Fortunately, Kyle had it easier he would allow to himself. By the time Isabel and then Max came back, things had largely blown away, but there was still talk.

“Then you are the only one,” Liz muttered. “Because no one else does, and that even goes for my daughter. They all think I did this horrible thing and there is no excuse for what I did to Max, even though it was to save him,” she sighed. “If I could have made a different decision than I would have, but I had to do what I did…” I wish I could have given my daughter a different life than I did.

Jim nodded. “I understand it,” he murmured. “You had to look out for yourself, and your daughter” he allowed. “Although to them, taking that deal was making deal with the devil, and it is hard to know because know what it means for them because the government was not exactly thinking they were in good standing.”

“Yes, I did” Liz acknowledged. “Which is why I did it. Believe me, if I could have ignored the threats that they had issued than I would have but I had to look out for my daughter, and even in a backward way, I had to look out for Max, and the others” she muttered. “I wish I could have been selfish and only looked out for me, because if I had, then I would have stayed but if I had stayed than that would be only bad for my family.”

“I know what you gave up back then,” Jim acknowledged. Even though he had been on the outskirts of the story, he could see how much loving Max had changed Liz and affected her in ways we will never understand he also thought.

“I will never regret what I gave up,” Liz allowed. “Even if a different road might have been safer, and I might have achieved some of those dreams I had, but still I loved, and I wanted Max. But a time came where I had to look out for my family.”

A family that included Max, she told herself.

“I don’t blame you,” Jim murmured.

“Then you are the only one,” Liz muttered again. “Given the methods employed against me, I hate to think what they have done to the others, and I could not have that on my conscious,” she allowed and the town Sheriff. “I know what you want to say.”

“No, you do not” Jim sighed. “You do not need to tell me what happened to you, because I could see when they came to me what methods they wanted to employ,” he sighed. “Fortunately, I had my job to protect me, but unfortunately for you guys…” you would not have been so lucky.

Liz bristled at the understanding nature because it was not that easy for her, “I had a baby at home to protect, and a husband who was equally as vulnerable,” Liz muttered. “I hated what I had to do, but I will always know that I did the right thing, even if it hurt them because at least they were alive, and Max was safe.”

“He might have been safe, but something tells me he would have bet it all to have you and his daughter at home with him.”

“We would not have been at home with him,” Liz sighed. Because there was no way the government would have left us unpunished, she thought. They knew too much.

“You know, you had grounds to take them down given what they would have done to you,” Jim murmured softly. “Because of course, he did not know exactly what was done to Liz, but he knew it had to be a doozy, to get Liz to go along with their demands. Because he knew the girl, excuse me, woman he thought because she was definitely not the eighteen-year-old he knew, and had encountered, who would only own up to any secrets she carried when forced, and there was no other choice.

Otherwise, I probably would not have known about Max, Michael and Isabel, he thought. If not for the actions that would spin out of control.

But I did find out, and it would forever change the life of myself and my son, he sighed and because of that, he thought I would forever be in debt to Max, he thought. Because it could have ended all so differently.

But he was still around, and he still had his son.

And now a grandson, and even an unofficial granddaughter…

Life is good, Jim would think. As he saw that Liz was still reliving whatever nightmare she had gone through, which is why she would have taken the actions she did, he thought. And I doubt the others really can know what they have put her through, he thought, and from the outside Liz did seem to be the same as she had been eighteen years before when she left this town, but he knew something deeper was in her eyes.

Torment he would think.

Because he had seen it once before in the eyes of his own father over actions he take under the belief and seduction of someone else, telling him falsehoods, and witnessing the unbelievable and it would lose him any sanity he would have left and would change our relationship he would think as it would take him many years to get to the truth of what happened with his father, as he thought of how he lost his father in so many ways, and almost lost his son fortunately, I would find out and believe in the truth before it was too late he thought but he saw the same look in a different context within Liz because there was something beneath the confident but confusion in the look she was giving to him, she does not want to relive it but coming back has made her have too he would think to himself.

“I do not want to think about that,” Liz bristled.

“I know you do not,” Jim sighed. “And I am sorry for bringing any memories to you,” he asked, as he made it seemed like he knew a whole lot more than anyone else in their lives, and he did in some ways “You could have gone to the media?”

“And exposed everything,” Liz asked. “That was not an option because by then I had my daughter, and therefore they knew they had me, because I stood to lose so much more if the media came after us even if half of the stuff never got out,” she sighed. There are so many skeletons in our closets she would think. “Therefore, I had to grin and bear it,” she muttered. “And at the end of the day, as long as Max, and Claudia were safe, then I could handle it.”

“But they don’t know what you went through, do they?” Jim asked.

Liz shook her head.

“Maybe you should tell them?” Jim asked. “Maybe it will be an easier weight for you to live with, if they knew, what it meant for you to take the deal?”

“I still took the deal,” Liz muttered.

Jim sighed and nodded. “If you need anything, you can call me anytime, you know” he murmured with encouragement.

Liz nodded and simply walked away, because it was all too much…

Way too much.

Leaving Jim to watch her walk away, before he took out his old fashion cellphone, as he still had a flip phone because I am not one to be big into today’s technology he thought and dialed. “I need a favor,” he said simply. “I need you to look up some information for me,” he would say as he started to walk to his car. “You are not going to like it, but you have to think of the larger cause, namely your best friend” was all Jim would say as he opened the truck’s door and got in “Oh I did not know that” he sighed. “But if you go, let me know, but you might be able to find something out before you do take off. I know you just moved to town, but you still have your old contacts, right?” he would ask. “Because I might need some of the sensitive information that you might not be able to get out of your usual methods” he would say. “I have to keep it out of the office,” he muttered.

“Yes, it is one of those,” was all he would say. “Thank you, Michael.”

Liz did not want to talk about it, but I still wanted to know what it was Jim could not help but think. If it benefits the group, then that is a bonus.

Maybe mend some broken hearts in the process.

Not that I am a matchmaker or anything, he thought.

Nah…

*

Max did not know any of this of course. He was taking the long route home. After leaving his sister Max chose to make a stop after stop on his trek home. He knew he should be better than this, it is my home after all. I pay the bills he thought. But he could not go home yet, I am not mentally up for that yet and plus he had too many emotions in dealing with his father, so he headed for calmer waters, I hope he thought as he headed for the Guerin household with hopes of a good conversation and maybe a beer or two to buck him up before he did head home and deal with what was going on there…

Unfortunately, he would find that his friend’s car was not home, but he was not completely sure, because in case it was Maria or even Lucy because she is now driving, I would think he thought because it was one more reminder that we are not eighteen anymore he thought but needing to check if they had been the ones to take the car, well, he knocked on the door hoping for a beer and a simple conversation that did not have any angst to it, only to find that it was his friend’s wife who answered the door. “Oh,” he murmured.

“Max,” Maria muttered as she saw her husband’s best friend at the door. Why me? she thought. Because this is going probably be a trend she thought now that we have moved back to Roswell she thought. Being in Nashville was many miles away.

We had a cushion.

“I was hoping Michael was home,” Max asked. “Any chance he will be home soon?”

“Sorry, you have to deal with only me” Maria murmured. “Michael got a phone call and he needed to go and meet with Jim, so I do not know how long he will be gone.”

“Valenti?” Max asked.

“Is there another one in our lives?” Maria asked. “Come on in because it is obvious that you are looking for some kind of diversion,” she said as Max nodded and walked further into the house. Because she did not need special abilities to know that Max was looking for anywhere to go except home, where he would be dealing with his father. “As I said, I don’t know how long my husband will be gone” she said with some honesty. Because she did not truly know, because she remembered the grumbling that she had heard come from her husband as he left the house after getting Jim’s call. Jim is up to something she knew. I am sure of it. And it was clear Michael was not happy to be dealing with it, but he knows that it was hard to say no to something Jim asked for…

Unless there was a damn good reason to do so.

Max nodded. “I did not think he was doing any work?” he asked, aware that Michael had some free lancing in Nashville as a private investigator but spent most of the time at home raising Lucy when Maria had her music to record, or some other project… “This is kind of fast, is it not?”

“It is,” Maria conceded. “But Jim needed to see him about something, and it gives my husband something to do, before I get him to go off with Isabel.”

“I heard about that,” Max sighed. “It does not seem like something Michael would willingly want to do unless he was the one to suggest it,” he murmured because it was not like he did not know Michael, because he did.

“Totally my idea,” Maria murmured. “Michael has a chip on his shoulder at the moment. And maybe helping Isabel with the drive will allow him to get away from it all and deal with something else,” she said with a sigh.

“What is wrong?” Max asked.

“As if you do not already know?” Maria muttered. “He is your second in command and takes his family personally.”

“I abdicated that role back in high school” Max murmured of the notion that he had a second in command. “I never wanted to be King and have that on my conscious” he murmured sure sometimes I acted a little high and mighty but who does not have those moments he thought to himself. “That is the kind of role I never wanted for my life,” he said. “I wanted something else, and for a minute there I thought I got it,” he said as his voice trailed off, as too many memories were coming back to him. I believed I achieved everything I had ever wanted in my life.

“I know,” this sucks Maria thought. As she did feel bad for her friends and Max used to be a friend even though it might have looked, I picked sides in the divorce she thought. But I did not. “But Michael takes personally when you and Isabel are hurt, and he believes that Liz hurt you, and therefore he is taking it personally that she is back and now to find out you know…”

The deal?” Max murmured at the thought of such a deal bringing ice to his blood, as he hated knowing his former wife had taken such a deal. I hate to think they left us alone because they tormented my wife into leaving me.

“Yes, the deal” Maria agreed. “That has raced through the group,” she sighed. “Look, Max…”

“Are you going to defend my wife,” Max asked, wearily, a little too wearily because it still hurt to know his dreams had not come true, I only had one dream and that was to be with Liz, and for a brief moment there, I had it all, and then it all ended.

I see that he is forgetting to put ex beside wife Maria murmured to herself but did not comment on it because it would aggravate the situation because she knew she was Michael were in a touchy situation I love Liz like a sister, and I will always want to believe in what she does even if don’t always accept it, and Michael loves Max like a brother, and takes it personally when his brother or sister is hurt.

Max knew that Maria was in a bind, just like Michael is sometimes with me he reasoned so he did not blame Maria for wanting to believe in Liz, I wanted to believe in Liz and for a long time I did, he thought. But still he had lost so much “I lost my wife and daughter.”

“Yes, you did” Maria sighed. “I am sorry about that, and I do believe if Liz had any other choice. She would have chosen differently and think you know that too,” she said softly. “I know how happy she was that year,” she said softly. “I know we were not there in the end, but I remember the conversations and she was blissfully happy, and so it has to be something big for her to walk away from it all” she said as Max could not help but look at her wearily. “I never knew the why,” she said, “Liz would never tell me anything, but knowing what she did, some of it does make sense.”

I know Max muttered. It does not make it any better, he thought. “I still missed out on eighteen years with my daughter.”

“But you know where she is now, and you know where Liz is” Maria muttered.

“Like that makes it any better, to know I missed out on my daughter’s first words, first steps, school and so much more” Max said ruing all the missed time and all the experiences he had missed out on, and ones I will never get back.

“Nothing will bring that time back,” Maria agreed. “But speaking as a child whose father walked out on her once he and my mother did not work out. I can honestly say from experience that that if he had come back into my life when I was a teenager, then I would have found a way to accept whatever role we would have found to make for, but he did not come and has stayed away,” she thought with a wince. “If he were to come back now, I would baulk at the attempt because he could have done it when I was younger, and when it would have meant more. He obviously did not want to be a part of my life,” she said. Because she knew so much of her childhood was based on how much she had missed in having a father, and she knew her mother and hers was definitely defined by the fact her mother had been a single mother, and how she had been someone who had to work hard to keep a roof over their heads, and why I wanted a different life and I have gotten that she thought of the current life she had with her husband and daughter. “Yes, you missed out on a lot, but you want to be there, and you can show Claudia that you want to be here now, and you can be part of the rest of her life,” she said with an encouraging smile. “You can be there when she graduates college, gets married or whatever she chooses do with the rest of her life.”

Max nodded at the thought of being there for Claudia now. “What if she does not want me in her life, because she has gotten so used to not having me in her life?”

“As I said, most of the time, a girl wants to have their father be part of their lives unless there is a clear-cut reason why he cannot be” Maria smiled. “Show her that you are trying to be there for her now, and that is half the battle,” or maybe some of it.

Max nodded. As he tried to think of what the possibility of futures could be.

“I do appreciate you talking me down,” Max smiled.

“We were once friends weren’t we,” Maria asked of that summer she thought. And because of life’s circumstances. They had not really done anything with their friendship built that summer when Michael was hiding because of the aftershocks of Agent Pierce and Liz had vanished on Max, the start of her ability to run she thought although that was much more explainable, she thought. If I had gone through what Liz did, then I might have wanted to run too, of course I did it in my own way having fallen in love with my own gruff groaning alien she thought, of her foray in New York, and her first try at achieving her music dream. I would eventually find out that I could have both my dream and still have Michael in it too, although both of us would have to do a little compromising…

Although Michael had not really had a true dream except to love Maria. Once we found each other, and we were convinced it could work.

We were lucky, she thought as she looked at all Max wanted and lost.

“One of these days, it will work out” Maria murmured helpfully.

“Thank you, Maria,” Max said. “I guess I better get going,” he muttered. “We were always friends,” he said softly, and Maria nodded because deep down, there was still a bond. “I am curious, do you know what Jim wanted to ask Michael?”

“Nope,” Maria smiled. But it cannot be good she thought but she did not say it, but of course Max knew, and he simply sighed. “But something tells me that we will be finding out, eventually, right?”

“I would think so,” Max muttered as he turned to go as Maria watched as her old friend walked out of her new home. A home she had strived long and hard to achieve and she knew she now had it all, because she was happy, but it was also meant, who knows what else was going to happen because I am happy.

[Parker1947]

Michael wanted to be anywhere, yeah, absolutely anywhere other than where he currently was. In fact, he would rather be in a car driving across the country with his best friend than standing in a house across town. A house that the town Sheriff shared with of people, his mother-in-law, yeah, small world he would tell himself once more because it truly was. You would not think an alien of all people, from another planet. Alien human hybrid to be exact would be calling the town Sheriff their father-in-law but he did, and because said father-in-law had put himself out on the ledge constantly in his youth, Michael knew he had very little ground to be saying no, I cannot do this, and I definitely cannot meet with you to do something I rather be caught dead than do he thought.

But he owned Jim Valenti.

We all do Michael grimly told himself as he did the one thing he rather not be doing as he came to this house to discuss a matter that he would rather be left alone, because it did no one any good to deal with it he thought. As he knew the assignment Jim had for him, and it was not something he wanted to address.

Because the last thing he wanted to do was anything that favored his best friend’s former wife. A woman who had broken his friend’s heart and trampled on everything Max had dreamt that he could have. But given how much Jim Valenti had done for them, and how much he has covered up of our numerous crimes he thought, that government would love to catch us on he muttered, which is after all, why Liz had done what she done. But Michael was not about to give the woman any credit, after what she had done to his best friend. And because Maria had not enlightened her husband on what she now knew of the situation. “What do you want me to do this?” he was asking of Jim as he stood in the house, and away from the office, where the terrain would be dicer. “What is it our business, what might have happened back then?”

“It might explain everything,” Jim muttered, and it might get that chip off your shoulder he would think although he did know why Michael felt the way he did, and if it were me, I might be the same, but it is not me he thought. “I would think you would want to know what made Liz do what she did?”

“What does it matter to me?” Michael muttered, still with a hard coating over his heart. “It does not even involve me.”

“In a way it does,” Jim muttered. “And you know it does,” he would say with an additional sign. “Liz obviously does not want to talk about it, for good reason, and I am not going to push her so I figure you might want to do a little research and see what you can find?” he allowed. “You have more contacts than I do, and I have to keep it out of the office for fear of anything coming from it,” he sighed. I am thisclose to retirement.

I cannot afford anymore detours.

Yeah, Michael acknowledged. Because we are already out there on the ledge knowing we have an ally in the town Sheriff, he sighed. Given what we had already cost him, he thought of his time off the job, as he knew Jim’s assistance had gotten them out of numerous jams over the years. “Still, I do not see what this has to do with us.”

“She left Max,” Jim said simply. “I would think you would want to know what happened back then,” he asked. “Given your career choice. I am surprised you let Liz get away with staying away all these years. Why did you not look them up and see if you could give Max back contact with his daughter,” he asked. “Because yes, I am aware that at a certain point, Maria had some level of contact with Max’s former wife, over these years,” he murmured, and Michael bristled at the words coming from the town Sheriff. “So, why keep where they were a secret?”

Yeah, Michael, he thought. Drats Michael muttered. You knew. Sure, you were in Nashville and away from daily contact with Liz, but your wife knew where her best friend and Claudia were, so, why keep it such a secret from Max?

Good question, and it forced Michael off his high horse, and wonder if he was truly complicit all these years, Liz left Max he muttered. But still I knew where she was.

Michael was not ready to address those questions.

Even though at a certain point, he knew, and he failed to tell his best friend. Michael thought. Am I being as bad as Phillip in all this he thought.

But still he wanted to keep that chip on his shoulder, and he did not want to acknowledge the unpleasantness of it all, that I could have known if I only looked, he thought. So, he knew Jim had a point. “Fine, tell me what you want to know?”

Jim nodded as he went onto outline what he wanted.

Michael groaned all the way…

But he stayed.

*

And it was a little while later after Michael left the house and Jim was relaxing by watching a basketball game that his wife decided to ask what was going on. Amy most of the time left her husband alone when he was watching sports, and most of the time, he would have his son to watch the games but tonight Kyle was busy, and therefore, Jim was home alone. And she had done her own thing, and seen her son-in-law come and go, and it now made her curious. “Can I ask, what is going on?”

“What do you mean?” Jim asked, even if he did not know.

He knew.

Amy was curious, he thought. He knew Amy loved Liz like a second daughter and knew losing both her daughter and Liz had dug her deep once the kids had vanished in the wake of the kid’s graduation. For a long time, Amy had not known the truth, but she now knew, and had accepted it better than he would have thought. And therefore, they had been able to create a happy blended extended family, with their mutual kids, and grandchildren.

Amy was thrilled to have her daughter and granddaughter back in Roswell.

And he was happy too, because it meant something to be able to have a big family gathering again, we have missed those over the years he thought. And so much of my life before that was bachelorhood with Kyle.

“Jim?” Amy asked.

“All I wanted was ask Michael to do something for me,” Jim murmured.

“What?” Amy could not help but ask because yes, she was curious because she knew her husband was up to something and because things had been a little tame by the early millennium’s standards even though she had not been part of it. I have been only told and she could see the traces of confusion and unusual activity, but I just saw it as my head strong daughter fell for a bad boy she thought of Michael Guerin, who had taken her by surprise with the different sides to him, and she was pleasantly surprised by the fact that her daughter’s marriage was still going strong and was close to hitting two decades, now that is shocking she thought. Given how tumultuous their courtship was and because of how my own marriage went, she thought of her first one, to Maria’s father.

A man who had not been seen in decades.

And because of that, Amy knew how much her daughter missed having a father, and that is why she has turned out to be so different from me she thought, because she had to live by a different life and ultimately, she fell into a different crowd, that was truly unique.

She knew she was still coming to terms with it, all these years later, with the secret that surrounded her son-in-law…

And granddaughter.

So, she knew her husband was up to something, and it involved Michael and the inner sanctum of her daughter’s life, “Jim?”

“I only want him to do a little checking, that is all. It is nothing earthshattering,” Jim said with a smile that he was using to reassure his wife, and really it is not really that big he thought, as he tried to focus on the game, and his was wife was not letting him. “You do not have to be concerned. If it leads to something that you need to know, I will let you know. I am using Michael’s talents to find out some information, that is all.”

Amy nodded. But she did not know if that was all it was. But she knew her husband would tell her, if it was really something I need to know “If you are sure,” she asked.

“I am,” Jim said with a reassuring smile.

“Then I guess I shall believe you,” Amy muttered as she turned and walked because the basketball game did not interest her, and she went back to what she had been doing while Jim went back to focusing on the game.

*

Meanwhile,

Liz did not know any of this or what was going on, what else was new she thought because after spending some time with herself, and collected herself enough, she had gone to pick up her son and after she did, they had gone for a snack. Once more, realizing that she could not rely on what she had done so often in her own youth, going to the Crashdown she thought. Because for so long she had relied on her family’s restaurant to feed her when she was not working. Sure, I went to the Pizza Pan with Maria but still Crashdown was always there she thought, so not having it around anymore made her think once more that she needed to get on with dealing with it.

If I can get out of my head and not have to deal with all this additional crap, she thought. But it was a reminder that she had to find other restaurants to feed herself because it was not like she could cook at the moment, and even her cooking skills were rusty because it was something she had never been good at, I worked in a restaurant most of my life she thought, and then the last year had been hell she thought, even with two kids at home.

Even though she had tried in the early months of her marriage, and she knew she had been better at it than Isabel had been during her first marriage to Jesse, which is something she would get better at with time, but still it was something she, Liz never really was good at because she worked and her mother helped out, and therefore, she tended to get meals downstairs when she was on shift, or before and after. And because she was a single mother, she had to work so much of the time, so, she had let her skills become rusty. Because she did not have the time to be a cook.

So, yeah, on this night, it was not something she could readily do, so she was grateful that the a Chinese restaurant was still open, and even though it was currently only doing take out, because it was still trying to revel back up after the recent downturn within their town, and the world she thought, as she and her son took the meal and went into the park, and sat down on one of the benches, and started to eat.

“How are the noodles?” Liz asked of her son. It had been so long since she had been at the Chinese restaurant, one that I was able to go to when I was a child growing up in this town and they had kept it refreshing like it had been back in the day, but it made some changes to keep it up with the changing years and changing decades. It was something her parents’ restaurant had not done so successfully.

Although I will always cherish the memories of how the restaurant was back in those days, Liz thought for a good reason. “So, she knew she had to weigh how to change it all up while keeping the tradition intact of the restaurant that had drawn in the tourists. I have to get to it, don’t I? she thought. I cannot think about it.

Because it will be the way to keep the bills paid, and a roof over my children’s heads.

So, I have something to do about it.

Once more, knowing she had to meet with Kyle.

“Mom?” came a small voice, and it made Liz remember that she was not that eighteen-year-old anymore. She was a mother, and she had to pay attention to her life today, and that included her son.

“Yes?” Liz asked as she came back to reality and smiled at her son. “Did you say something?

“I asked you a question, yes, the food is great” JJ murmured. It is a nice change of pace from all that pizza “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, what is it?” Liz asked, unsure of what her son had to say.

“Why did you move away from Roswell?” JJ asked.

“Oh, JJ” Liz murmured. “You know it is complicated,” she muttered. Very complicated, she thought with the knowledge that at ten years old JJ was oblivious to the larger questions about his mother and older sister. Thankfully, Liz thought now. Because they did not need JJ asking any of those questions, meaning life type ones. He deserves to have a few more years of childhood wonder, she thought.

Because eventually he is going to have to know, she thought. He could not live totally oblivious to our house, she thought.

It would help if Claudia did go off to university, Liz muttered. Because she prayed that her daughter had a chance for four years to find her place in the world. Because she knew how complicated it was going to be in this world given her abilities, and therefore Liz wanted her daughter to be able to experience what she had not been able to have, because her life was too full of angst.

I want it to be different for Claudia, she thought. But I know that my daughter and I are not the same people, she sighed.

We are different people.

I respect the fact that she wanted to be her own person, Liz thought. But I know this world, and I know it is different for her she thought as she looked at her son and knew that even he was adopted, and therefore, and Claudia were from different genetics. She knew JJ would have an easier life because he would not be burdened by being different in this world.

A world that was not accepting of many differences, or a population who were not like their neighbors, all because of what their genetics were, she thought. “Not everyone can be in their hometowns all their lives,” she muttered.

“But why did you leave?” JJ asked. “I mean, Claudia was born elsewhere?”

“Yes, she was” Liz allowed. “Her father and I wanted a different life,” she sighed. “It was not one that we could have found here,” she murmured because she did know it was a stretch, you would have stayed here if you could have, she told herself.

But then if we had not fled, we probably would have ended up in Chicago, she thought of her acceptance to Northwestern, but there was a concern that Max would not have been able to come with her to Chicago.

Could he have been separated from Michael and Isabel? Liz would wonder but, in the end, we knew the answer she thought?” But it would have been a different landscape if we had stayed here.

And because we left, my marriage would pay the price.

“Mom?” JJ asked, once again, aware that his mother had zoned out. Something that was not a stretch because he had seen it before, and he had seen it in Claudia. Mother like daughter.

“All you have to know is I had to leave this town,” Liz muttered as she thought of why she had to leave, and why she had not come back with Max.

I went elsewhere.

“Why did you and Claudia’s father break up anyways?” JJ asked and unfortunately for Liz, she was transported back to a time as flashes came of the eruption in her marriage, all because of me.

If only I had been able to withstand the threats that came at me from the reconstituted Special Unit, she thought. She knew she had to be strong to withstand it but given what she had known what Max had gone during his own hours of captivity, thankfully we got him out before anything more was done to him, but already it was too late.

No one was there to stop them from dealing with me, Liz thought as she tried to shake it all off, as she needed to focus on her son.

“Mom?” JJ asked softly. Because he knew once more that his mother was in another reality or time. “Sorry, if I hurt you?”

“You did not hurt me honey,” Liz said softly. I will never be hurt by the life I have now except I don’t have the one person I wanted in my life she thought. “Sometimes, love is not enough to keep two people together.”

“So, you loved Claudia’s father, even though you guys stopped being together?” JJ asked. Do you still love him? but that was something he would not dare ask his mother. At least not yet, he thought.

Maybe I could ask Claudia if she knew what JJ thought. But there is so much Claudia does not know the ten-year-old thought as he was seeing how complex his family situation really was…

Oh, JJ Liz thought as she saw the curiosity in her son’s face, and for once I hate that my son is ten because he was becoming too inquisitive and curious for his own good, she thought. That would make me pay one day she knew, but she wanted her son to stay the innocent boy he was. Because his early months had been full of turmoil, and she and wanted to be happy, and well-adjusted and not full of all this angst.

Because she knew Claudia by virtue of being who she was, could not help it.

“I thought so,” JJ muttered when his mother did not answer his pointed question. Obviously the ten-year-old thought, given that she did not marry again nor has there ever been so man I was designed to resent in her life or from JJ could tell.

JJ was pretty perceptive.

Because he was ten, and I know adults like to keep to themselves he told himself. But I am observant, and I can tell from my old friends.

“It does not matter what I felt for Claudia’s father,” Liz murmured. Or what I feel about him right now she mused to herself. Even though she knew that it did, because it does mean everything.

Absolutely everything she thought. I only wish I could have moved on in that area of my life, but I could not…

So, she did not answer her son’s question, and instead moved on “Let us finish our food and move to other activities?”

“What else are we going to do?” JJ asked.

Who the hell knows Liz thought, everything is changing by the minute she thought of any plans I might have had … as they finished up their takeout and got up from the bench and headed off.

*

During this time,

By now, Phillip knew his son was avoiding coming home as he had yet to see him. He had hoped that everything was alright, but he was puttering around his former house, my son’s house now he thought, but he was getting the spare bedroom ready, because it was once been Isabel’s bedroom and now it would Kyla’s while she stayed with them. My granddaughter he thought, someone who wanted to be here with me he thought of his growing family.

Children, and grandchildren. He loved them all, even the one I did not see grow up but knew he had made some suspect decisions in regard to his children. Some actions were long past them, but others were still having their ramifications felt, as he moved around the bedroom. Knowing full well that his son should be the one doing this because he loves to remind me that he is paying the bills now he thought, but his son was still nowhere to be seen.

He was willing to get it ready for Kyla’s arrival. Whenever that would take place, he did not know because Isabel had not finalized the arrangements for her own travels yet, but it was something for him to do than sit in his office or in front of the television with a gallon of whiskey. And really, he did not have to do much except to make sure the room was not dusty, because it had been long cleared out of his daughter’s childhood belongings because Isabel had not been back since those early days after the demise of her first marriage.

Because once that marriage ended, a divorce settlement would be worked out between his daughter and Jesse. Because of the advancement of his former son-in-law’s career, Isabel was able to afford her own place once the ink was on the divorce papers. It was an abrupt entrance into the life of empty nesters for him and Diane, but then it was not like they had not already gotten used to it before, with his son moving out during senior year to room with Michael, to avoid certain secrets coming to light and his daughter suddenly marrying a man my legal partner no less he thought of how Jesse once was his partner in the office, and he had no idea was even interested in his daughter until weeks before the wedding.

It was all a confusing time, for our relationship with our children he thought as only months later, their children would vanish into thin air.

Because they were fleeing goons who did not believe our children were normal, who were only looking to live their lives he thought. He remembered that time, and the role he and Diane had in hurting their children back then, some of what transpired was on us, he thought, but not all.

But it would lead to a year without their children, fortunately Isabel would come back…

And then Max…

Only after his life fell apart, and I was keeping something from him he thought.

But Liz needed me to do it.

If only I could have told him, but Phillip knew that it was worth it, because it saved my son he thought. So, he could live with the fact his son could not look at him. As he continued to putter around the house that had been a shelter for his family, and prayed one day his son could look at him with pride instead of disappointment that he knew was on his face these days…

I can hope Phillip thought as he walked downstairs and was just about settle down in front of that television, for something to do, he thought, not to have a drink.

When the doorbell rang.

Curious who it could be given, his son did have a key, and even Isabel did too. All the members of the family known to us have one. Because he and Diane had an open-door policy before her death and he aware too much of his life these past six years had gone far too inside himself, so only a limited number of people were known to come to the house. Even after his son purchased the house from him.

So, muttering to himself, wondering where his son was, and knowing it would be not his granddaughter Kyla, not yet he thought. That would come another time.

Opening the door, he did not know what to expect.

But when he saw the person at the door, it was someone he did not expect.

Not at any time because it was the last person he was expecting, by far.

“Liz?” Phillip asked. Even though it had been eighteen years. He like his son would know the woman at the door anywhere, as his former daughter-in-law was distinctive, which is why his son had fallen in love with her, in the first place.

“What are you doing here?”

[Parker1947]

Why? That was a good question. And it was not one that Liz herself knew the answer to except to know she was standing in the doorway of the house that her former in-laws lived in, for some reason unknown to even her. I do not know why I am here Liz knew, all the way knowing that she should not be here, why am I here? she asked, I have no idea she would tell herself. I am only asking for trouble, she thought, as she did not know why she had come here, and even more so, why she had brought JJ with her.

As JJ stood next to her. It is the last place we should be she knew; we should have gone back to the motel or somewhere else, anywhere else, but unfortunately, I did not choose to go elsewhere, and here I am. Because in the park, she had suddenly come to an epiphany that she could not keep this indecision going. She needed to act and figure out where this was all going.

Namely, she needed to face the past.

Otherwise, it will still always be a problem for me, she thought. So, she knew she could not keep from running, even when she knew running had been a common solution for her, because so many times before, she had gotten up and ran when it had gotten tough, but the last time, I was under threat she thought and had just been captured by the Special Unit. A unit who wanted to terminate my husband and daughter and even me if given the chance she told herself. I had to run that last time she reminded herself. You had no other choice.

Right.

Max might and did have a different opinion of the subject but I wanted to save Max and Claudia she thought, I needed to save my husband and daughter.

One day they will thank me, she told herself. While she knew why in theory, Max could handle himself, but adding a baby if she had gotten lost and left Claudia with Max. But a baby needed added protection.

And by some crazy chance, I was given bodyguards, so we were safer than Claudia would have been back here, out in the open.

And not knowing she would be watched wherever she goes and could be grabbed at any time.

Max would not know, she thought. Of course, he might have if I had told him.

She knew she had changed her daughter’s life by taking her away from Max, and she had never recovered from that. Because she might have her own opinion of her actions, but she had left Max without telling him the truth, and then I forced his father to lie to his son even after I persuaded Phillip to insist on his’s return… So, that he could be near family.

Liz had committed a doozy; how can I look at myself in the mirror.

But I know I can because I prevented the worst from happening, Liz thought. So, coming to that epiphany, it made her need to face the music, and start with the person the least affected by her actions, and therefore, she had come to see her one-time father-in-law, and atone for the past. “Phillip,” was all she could say because she did not know exactly what she could say, or why she was here, and why she was wanting to do this, “I thought we could talk.”

“You did?” Phillip asked from the other side of the door, as he looked at Liz, and then realized that there was a boy next to his former daughter-law.

Someone who did not have any resemblance to his son. But he knew there would not be any…

“I am sorry, we should not have come” Liz said softly. “I honestly do not know why I am here,” she said with a sigh because this had been building for about eighteen years, when she first had come back to this town and kept away from this house despite all she had asked of her former father-in-law at one time.

Phillip nodded, as if he did not know that it had taken a lot for Liz to have come here even after his prior call to her, the other day, wanting to talk. A call she had not returned, and he had not expected it because it had been almost a tradition through the years, although it would have been nice to be prepared in advance of my talk with my son, he thought. But then he also knew, nothing could have prepared me for that moment he thought, when it came, because I had to wait until it happened, he sighed as he looked at the woman his son had married, a woman who had for a brief time had been his daughter-in-law. Even knowing she was not the teenager she had been, and despite not knowing all that had happened to his son during those intensive three years when everything changed for his family, because it was a relationship she had with his son, and we were oblivious to it all.

And then they ran off and got married, he thought. A wedding he and wife had not been at and had been sad at missing when they received word of the development.

Diane had been heartbroken to miss it Phillip thought now. And he knew it had been a minor annoyance to their daughter when she had realized this because of their reluctance to accept her first marriage, and how they had almost not gone to the wedding ceremony. Thankfully we did in the end because we might not have been able to mend our relationship if we had stayed away, he thought, but in fairness, we had only just learned of the relationship. And that was after their daughter became engaged, only months into the relationship. And we only became aware of any of it, right before the ceremony itself. Therefore, it was a lot to accept he would mutter. All at once he thought.

Only later that there was something else, even more life shattering that would need us to accept, even more than misguided early marriage.

Thankfully we came around both times he would think, and we were able to fully attend our daughter’s second marriage.

One that worked, until Neil’s tragic passing.

And now there was a wedding that he and his wife had been able to attend, our son’s he thought, and so he knew Diane was heartbroken. At least we knew our son was happy, because we knew how much he loved Liz.

And then I did what I did, he thought.

“Liz?”

“Phillip?” Liz asked.

Time has gone on, and neither knew what to say or how to discuss what needed to be discussed. Too much time had passed, she knew.

“I am glad you did come,” Phillip murmured. “I did hear that you had come back to town,” he said as he looked down at the boy next to his former daughter-in-law. “Who do we have here?”

“My son,” Liz said. “Jeffry James Parker” she said, “JJ, he’s named after my father.”

“I would gather,” Phillip nodded.

“JJ, this is Phillip Evans” Liz said as she introduced her son to her former father-in-law.

“Evans?” JJ asked, curious. Because he knew very well how he and Claudia had different last names. Mostly because their other had gone back to her maiden name once she was all free and clear and not having to deal with alias, and had adopted JJ under the name of Parker, and therefore JJ had always known how he and his mother had different last names from his older sister, Claudia.

“Yes,” Liz acknowledged. “Phillip is Claudia’s grandfather.”

Yes, a grandchild I have not been able to see over her lifetime Phillip would tell himself even though he knew he had at least gotten a chance once to see her briefly, before she showed up in this town a few days before this one… Which is something my son had not been able to do, so, yes, he did know that he had no grounds to bitch about not knowing his eldest granddaughter.

Liz knew Phillip wanted to say many things, but probably was controlling himself because of the situation, because neither of us knew how to deal with this “I probably should not have come here,” she said with a sigh. Why did I come, and bring JJ?

Because he is a third party and it might prevent us from getting into the mud, and the muck…

“That is up to you,” Phillip murmured. “You did not have to come because we have seen each other since that day,” he sighed. And you have been staying away.

This is hard, she thought. “I know,” Liz murmured as she looked around, and saw the house so much the same as it had been back in those days, except she had not spent a huge amount of time here, because Max was coming to me, she thought. At the Crashdown.

I did not really spend that much time here, and if I did, it was a pit stop at Max’s bedroom she would think where we did not take advantage of what we could have at the time, because we were too levelheaded and, in the middle, so much we did not understand.

“I know you wanted to talk to me,” Liz sighed, and she thought of the phone call that she had been ignoring.

Yes, I did, he thought. “It would have helped,” Phillip murmured, before I had to deal with my son he thought, and they both knew that was what he was thinking. Liz knew this, and she was sorry that she had to leave it all to Phillip and she had pitted father against son. She never imagined doing that back in the day. All I wanted was for Phillip to convince Max to come back to Roswell so that I knew that he would be safe, she thought. So that I did not have to think about him.

Except she could not stop thinking of him.

But I had to stay away.

I had too Liz thought. It was mandatory for those first eight years. And I assume it would get better with time, because would not be together and I could concentrate on our daughter, and work on finding a career for myself, and on some level, it did work until those days, which were often, when it did not work.

“Liz?” Phillip asked. Knowing full well that his former daughter in law was zoning out once more.

“Mom does that all the time,” JJ muttered. “Claudia too.”

“She does, does she?” Phillip asked. “Does it bother you?”

“No, because I am pretty used to it by now,” JJ said with a smile. “Although it can be annoying at times, but I have learned to go with the flow.”

You almost have too when you have faced what Liz has faced, and it could not be easy Phillip thought as Liz came back to her senses and looked at Phillip. “If this too much for you? We could come back at another time?”

“No, you can stay” Phillip murmured. “Although it would have been nice if we had talked before my son became aware of certain parts of the story.”

“I know, I am sorry” Liz sighed. “Max should have not found out that way, and Phillip I know that I put you in the uncomfortable position to be keeping something so important from your son, and you can also say that I really was not thinking it all the way through back then. Even though I know that I did not ask you to do it, I know I was putting you in an impossible position when all I wanted was for your son to be safe. And therefore, I ended up bringing you into something you did not really deserve to be in without knowing everything. Which is why Max and Isabel never wanted you and your wife to be part of it, because they did not want to put you in that position?”

“It is a position we wanted to be in because they were our children, and we love them?” Phillip sighed, of all the years that he and Diane had been in the dark, and having things happen, and we were so oblivious to it all he would think. We let the kids talk themselves out of any situation we became aware of and spin things differently than what they actually were. “We wanted to know, so that we could help them.”

Liz nodded. “I did hear about your wife,” Liz said, even though she was eighteen years away from being that girl, still, she did not bring herself to use Max’s mother’s name. Because I have no right because while I might have been family, still I walked away. “I am truly sorry.”

Phillip could not help but winced at the invocation of his pain, and the loss of the wife. A loss I am still living with, he thought. “Thank you.”

“I know how much Max loved you and his mother,” Liz whispered. “I am very sorry for all of you had to go through.”

“At least my son was back here,” Phillip sighed. In hindsight, that was a godsent even though I kept certain knowledge from him.

Liz sighed.

Before hearing a voice that changed everything about the day.

“Hello, Liz”

As Liz twisted around and looked directly into those eyes, eyes that she had walked away, but was looking at her in a way that she had never seen look at her before.

Okay, maybe once before she thought.

And it was hell, that time.

*

Minutes before,

Max was finally heading home. Because he knew he needed to deal with what he was ignoring, and probably have it out with Dad once and for all he thought, if we do, it might clear up the muggy air between us he thought before Kyla arrives as he finally felt prepared to head home, as he drove across town.

And he got to his street and reached the house. He was surprised to see a strange car out front of it, and he did see his father’s car and therefore, he knew that his father was home. Not that dad tends to leave the house much these days he thought. So, Max would have been in many ways shocked if his father was not home.

Because he knew his father did not want to go anywhere, he wanted to stay home and drink Max thought, most days he sighed, and mourned his wife and now he knew there was so much more under the skin.

Max wanted to be bigger than this pettiness that he felt for his father.

What I really want is for everything to be back to normal, he thought. I want it to be how it was before I knew what I know now.

Max knew his youth, and how secrets ruled the house because of what he and his sister withheld from his parents, but he never imagined his own parents keeping something so big from him he thought. We did not tell them the truth, because we feared what they would think of us, because we were not the kids that they thought they had adopted.

So, why did Dad keep from what he did from me?

Because Liz asked him too Max muttered, because he knew that was at the heart of it. Once more, feeling all kinds of conflicting feelings about his former wife.

A woman who still held his heart.

Love is not logical, Max muttered once more. As he parked his car, and looked once more at the strange car, and looked further and paused when he saw the license plate, Massachusetts, which meant that it could be only one person.

One person only.

Liz Max whispered.

Once he got his feet going, he continued to walk towards the house, my house, he thought. Why is Liz here? he would ask.

He knew she was here; she had to be here, he thought. No one else could be here because his body could almost sense her, and no one else he knew would be coming from across the country and he knew his former brother-in-law was not even in Boston anymore. Because he had moved to Washington and got into politics, and gotten remarried, and now had a new family.

Just like my sister does Max thought. Isabel has moved on, but Max could not think of that now, when memories of his former wife was flooding his brain and upped his determination to find out why she was now in his home, especially after finding out why she had last seen his father.

And because he hated the resulting consequences, because he was still living with them.

Therefore, he picked up his stride and walked into his house wordlessly and unbelievably silently because it would seem the two people in the house did not know he had arrived and come home.

To his home.

As he walked into the house, and into the living room, and could hear his father talking to his former wife.

As he heard, “At least my son was back here.”

Yes, I was but without the love of my life or my daughter Max muttered of all he had lost out on, and was still dealing…

“But I was without my wife…” came a voice in the room, and it caused Liz to twist around and see that Max had entered the room. “Or daughter,” he muttered before uttering, “Hello, Liz.”

*

Max.

Which was course the problem with coming here, it has been all along, right? Liz knew because it meant she could be running into her former husband. Especially, once she learned that it was Max who was living with his father. And to her surprise, when she would learn that Max now owned his childhood home. A house that she knew he treasured because of the life his parents were able to give to him, and his sister. Which is why it troubled him to not be able to tell his parents the truth.

For so long.

Out of fear, and now he was solidifying his life here in Roswell, while I moved on.

Yet I am here, returning to town.

And having to deal with the past that I left behind, and the collateral damage Liz thought. Even though the end, came elsewhere and now she was looking at the man who held her heart, no matter how much I say it is not true, it cannot be true.

When she knew it was the truth.

“Hello, Max” was all she could say in return to the words coming from her former husband as she stood in the room, with Phillip and JJ. Because she had been caught coming to talk to Max’s father, because the intention had never been to talk to Max.

Even though we should talk, because it is not like we are not interconnected she thought. We have a daughter; she knew even though I treated our link pretty loosely over these years.

“What are you doing here?” Max asked.

*

JJ was watching all of this with amusement because it was almost like he was watching a soap opera. Back in their old home, he was used to watching sports, and the odd soap because he had an older sister, who loved the soapiness of the stories, and since he was pretty young, he was able to identify the different shades of angst, and most of it was fun to watch, until you find it in your own life, and your home the ten-year-old thought. Because he was well aware, it had now infested his life.

And new life, here in Roswell.

We were supposed to be coming here to regain some normalcy, he thought of the promise of his mother that she would be more devoted to him, and not as busy as she had been in the last year, because it had taken so much out of his mother. And it had only gotten more noticeable when his sister had upped and moved in with their grandparents, across the country.

So, it had just been his mother and himself.

And he could see how burnt out she was and coming back to her hometown was about new beginnings, or that was how she had advertised the return. Because it was supposed to be different, he thought. And of course, Grandpa and Grandma are not even here anymore, so it has to be a different town than when Mom used to be here…

Of course, he did not know the town how his mother once saw it.

And he knew Claudia did not know it either, because Mom lived elsewhere when she had Claudia he thought. Then things happened, and it ended her and Claudia’s father, and it would send them away from this part of the country, and then I came into their life.

And became one of the family.

But he was different from his sister, and even his mother, and it was not even because I was adopted. Which is something he had known since he could understand the concept JJ thought. I never had a problem with it.

He could see that his sister was different, and more angsty because of that, so he did not want to be anyone other than who he was, even if it meant he and his sister would have different lives one day. Everyone has a different life.

And now he was looking at the situation as his mother was looking at Claudia’s father, like she was stung yet there was more to it. I know they tell me I am too perceptive he thought. Living my life with Mom and Claudia has made me have to be he thought, otherwise they will have gotten way too much past me he thought, and I know there is so much I cannot possibly know as he saw how the man who was Claudia’s birth father was looking at his mother.

Like he was upset yet taken by her.

I have seen enough soap operas and been around enough friends’ families JJ thought. When you are younger than your sister, by a lot, you experience a lot more than the average kid, he told himself.

And maybe that was true.

JJ had a very different life than most of his friends, even though he had come into his mother and big sister’s life once they had settled down basically in one place, although they would move to their final destination before arriving here in Roswell.

Phillip from his side of the room, as he was now almost an afterthought because his son was staring at his former wife, and both were speechless, and silent, but he could JJ was observing it all, and it is no place for a young boy he thought. And knew once his son and Liz did start talking, there was no doubt to him that it could get very angst ridden and explosive. “It’s JJ, right?”

“Right?” JJ muttered.

“Why don’t I show you the television in my office, because I am sure whatever is on television is much better than being in here,” Phillip murmured as they room knew it was code for too adult as it woke up both Max and Liz as they realized that they were not the only ones in the room, and that they would have to understand that…

“Phillip,” Liz murmured.

“It’s fine,” Phillip said. “You two have something to talk about, and we will let you do it” he said. “You and I don’t have anything to talk about because that is the past, and it’s not necessary anymore.”

Yeah, it’s the past Max thought as he did not say anything more because it was better that he and his father were silent for now, whatever is to come, will come.

As Phillip escorted JJ out of the room.

And it left Max and Liz to talk it out.

“So, why did you come?” Max asked as he faced the woman that at one time was his wife. A woman he once did love with his whole heart, and with the knowledge that he still loved her today, but it did not mean he wanted to be a push over about this, because she left me, he thought. She walked out on me.

Even if she had a reason Max thought. If only she had to be the reason she was leaving.

But she did not, and what’s more, she lied to my face he would think once more but like his pain in regard to my father’s conduct. Why did Liz hurt me like that?

If only he would have told me the truth?

Would I have been able to let her go? Max asked as he sighed, unsure of that to be honest. Because back then, I would never have been able to let Liz leave me and take Claudia. I would have wanted to run away to Timbuctoo to be with my wife and daughter, he thought.

I would not want to have let Liz and Claudia go, he told himself as he faced his wife once more, ex-wife he reminded himself.

“Max?” Liz asked.

“What?” Max asked, as he came back to the situation at hand. Having his wife or people in his house. Ex, come on Max, we are divorced he thought.

“I am sorry,” Liz murmured as she said something that she should have said in the beginning, I might not regret what I did but I am sorry she thought. “I mean it when I say that I am sorry, I know I hurt you, and I wish we could go back and do everything differently, but I know what I did was for the best, even though for myself, I wish I could have been selfish, or have given our daughter the life she would have wanted than just been with me.”

Max nodded, unsure of what to say. “We could have run?”

“Would that have been any life for us?” Liz asked. “We saw how that year was for us?” she murmured. “Neither of us would have wanted that for our daughter,” she murmured even though for so many years, out of necessity, she had thought of Claudia as my daughter, and there was no, our in the scenario she thought, now I have to think of what this means for Max.

And our daughter.

She knew that was a little rich given how she had treated the situation, but today is different than it was last week.

“We would have been together,” Max muttered. “I would have been able to have you in my life, and I would have been able to be a father to our daughter,” he sighed so much was missed out on, and if only we could have done something different. I could have dealt with anything that our life was, if we were together. We had a lot of good times, before it all went bad, didn’t we?”

“Yes, we did” Liz agreed. A lot of good times she agreed, however brief they often were she sighed, because she knew too well how unlucky we were she thought. Too much angst, and very little happiness.

“If we had been together, we could have done anything, and I did not need anything other than you and Claudia in my life.”

“You could have left your parents; would you have been able to leave your sister and Michael?” Liz asked.

“Michael made a life elsewhere, and if she and Jesse could have made it work. I doubt that Isabel would have made a life here in Roswell” Max said, pointing out, because they both knew that Jesse could not handle this life he thought, which is why they did not work out, but they would have tried, elsewhere, and she did, but Isabel eventually came back here.

“Still, that would have been no life” Liz sighed as she had serious doubts whether Max could have been so far away from Michael and Isabel as it would been necessary to get away from the threat of the Special Unit.

And what would we have been costing the others Liz thought, I left to save them as well, even though they are ungrateful at the moment.

Max knew it would not have been, but he would have had his wife and daughter with him, and that would have been worth anything we would have done to be together. “We would have been together.”

Liz nodded.

That certainly would have been a lure, but it would have been too fanciful to think we could possibly have stayed together if they got to me, she thought, and she hated to think if they had gotten Max…

Or worse, their daughter Claudia.

*

Claudia, who was no longer the three-month-old baby who had been too young to know her parents when they were happy, and in the end had to live her life in a very different fashion. And now, eighteen years after those days, she was an adult in the eyes of many in this world, except maybe in my mother’s eyes, and maybe my father’s.

A man I do not know Claudia thought as Lucy had told her mother, she and Claudia had gone out on the town, to show Archie the town that was their mother’s hometown, and now theirs even though they were both, and raised elsewhere and just arrived in town. So, Lucy in that vein was able to play tour guide because she had spent summers here, and other holidays when she came to visit her grandparents.

Unlike Claudia who had never stepped foot in town before the other day, even though she could confidently take herself around town if she wanted too, but she had been full of angst these days, and truthfully, she might still be stuck in her apartment, and in bed with her hunky boyfriend if not for the fact Archie was asking questions.

Questions that Claudia had not wanted to answer because Archie was looking for more insight into his girlfriend. Because despite living away from each other, he cared very much about his girlfriend and could tell she was complicated, and required patients, and so he was prepared to be patient, although it is not easy, he would concede because he wanted to know more about his mysterious girlfriend.

On the surface, she is quite normal but there is something about her Archie would have to concede to himself as he watched Claudia and Lucy talk like there were no issues in the world. And it was nice to see, and he knew he should not like that Lucy had been the third wheel in their gathering, but because he wanted his girlfriend to feel normal with him, and not so uncertain. Because he wondered if the last year being away from each other had done more harm than one would think, because we were able to talk but it is still different, he would think, and being back here in Roswell is opening old wounds that she was not even a party to, because it all happened before she was born.

I know something about parental issues Archie thought, but mine are more mundane, he thought, I know my dad is a dead beat. Even though he is still unfortunately in my life.

Claudia does not have the same view of her own.

But then he sensed something more was up with Claudia’s family than existed in his, but it makes me want to know more about her. “So, this is some town?” he was saying to the girls as they stopped for some ice cream. And he was seeing it, in its full glory, or almost full glory since it was still recovering, he thought.

Just like Aspen.

“Yes, it is” Claudia agreed. She was still not used to it, but she was getting a little more with every day.

“Don’t you love it?” Lucy asked, “I used to come in the summers from where we used to live” she said with an uplifting smile, that allowed for the whole circumstances of the day to be uplifted. “It is so imaginative.”

“You can say that” Archie murmured. “I mean, I heard the hype and all that, but I did not see how a town could be so into you know those little green men” he asked. “Because how can any of it be real, and the town believes it.”

Archie’s words got the girls to stop and look at each other, and Archie noticed the change in temperatures almost, what am I missing?

You would not believe it the girls were thinking together, because they knew there was so much in Archie’s words. Of course, Claudia had lived her life on the outskirts of it all, and therefore she did not know the history, or what it truly meant to be who she was because I am different, and I have my abilities and Mom explained some of it, and now I have read a whole lot more in Mom’s journal, but still, I was not here…

But Lucy… Claudia murmured.

Yeah, Lucy knew all the warts, and all the warning signs, even though like Claudia, she did not consider herself a true resident, until now that is she thought, although I am still getting used to it not being a summer destination she thought. I will still be here in September.

“What did I say?” Archie asked, unsure of what he had said, or why the girls had looked at each other like they did.

“Nothing,” Claudia murmured. Last thing I need is for Archie to ask those type of questions because he is already asking too many other, she thought, but then I don’t even know what it means to be who I am she thought, but Lucy did, but she was not wanting to get into it, because Archie does not live here…

Neither did she, until now.

“Nothing,” Lucy agreed and tried to liven up the sight-seeing mission, so that they did not get into any dicey conversations. And she was helped in that goal but seeing someone familiar across the street. “Perfect, just the person I wanted to see.”

“Whom?” Claudia asked, because she was still the newbie in town. She knew some people, but she did not know everyone Lucy did.

“Your cousin,” Lucy muttered.

“Excuse me, who?” Claudia asked.

“Kyla, you have got to meet her” Lucy said. “Hey, Kyla over here,” she called out across the street, and the striking brunette, walking solo for the moment looked over and stopped when she saw Lucy, and two people she did not know.

“Um, Lucy” Claudia asked.

“Come on, you have got to meet your family one of these days” Lucy smiled. “You will love Mikyla.”

“I thought you said her name was Kyla?” Claudia asked as she did not know what to think of the tall brunette who was looking at them, with a weird look on her face, like she knows me, but she does not, and she does not know what to make of it she thought, as Archie looked at the beauty across the street, not as beautiful as Claudia despite them both having brown hair.

Claudia is different Archie thought, but the other brunette was different. As Lucy called, “Kyla, come over. Her name is Mikyla Evans Anderson,” she said as she watched the brunette come across the street. “She is the daughter of your father’s sister.”

“My father has a sister?” Claudia asked, very unaware of her family history.

And Archie noticed.

“You don’t know whether you have an aunt or cousins, I take it?” Archie asked.

Don’t start getting into the little I know of my history Claudia wanted to mutter. “I know I have a father; Mom was not as upfront about the rest of it.”

“It does not surprise me because I am told that she and your aunt did not always get along” Lucy murmured at the surprise on Claudia and even Archie’s faces. “I hear the family stories, and the old secrets, and stuff that obviously was not passed down to you of yet, but if you plan to stick around this time long enough, you will learn it.”

Are you sure? Claudia wondered; Do I even want to know any of this.

It is our family history, Lucy thought.

But Claudia would not have much of a choice for the moment because the other teenager who she did not know was coming their way, over to her, Lucy and Archie.

Oh, great Claudia sighed.

“It will be fine,” Lucy promised.

“We shall see about that,” Claudia muttered once more before the stranger within her family came towards them, and of course to her, I am the stranger she was forced to concede as she allowed Lucy to take over the conversation, that suits me quite fine.

“Hey Kyla,” Lucy said with a smile.

Kyla did not know why she was walking towards Lucy and some strange girl she had no idea of, why would I know this person she thought although the girl had an aura of familiarity to Mikyla Evans Anderson even though she had spent so much time out of this country in recent months, so there was so much she did not know. Even if truthfully most of it had only come to pass in in the last few days.

Still, Kyla did not know much, and she found herself walking towards Lucy to get some of those answers. As her mother was somewhere near as they were doing some last-minute errands to get her mother ready for her travels. Isabel had taken up Michael on the offer because she knew her brothers would come up with some other solution for her and she knew she was unlikely to appreciate it. And because she wanted to get to Poppy and Katy as soon as possible, she did not have any alternatives except to take up on the offer.

Which was kind and because it was her brothers they were talking about, and Isabel knew the offer had to be coming from someone else. Likely, Maria she murmured I know Michael, and he is generous, but he would not be open to leaving his family without be pestered too so Isabel was not one to question it, okay, she might be, but not in this case, because I have to get to my babies. So, she and Kyla had elected to pick up some last-minute supplies, and therefore, she was in a store, but got stopped by a friend.

And it took her more than a minute to realize that Kyla had not stuck around, and she had left the store and saw Lucy, and now she was walking across the street.

“Lucy?” Kyla asked.

“Hey Kyla,” Lucy said with a smile. “What are you doing around here?” she murmured. “Weren’t you and your mother supposed to be going to some mall and shop until you dropped?” Because Lucy knew that Isabel and her daughter’s ability to shop was legendary, as was their added ability to spend loads of money. Not that Lucy did not have the same ability as she was a latch key kid with a musician for a mother, who before the last year or so tended to travel with regularly and a father who could be a wanderer when the time called for it, so, yes, she had a lot of independence in her plus a loaded credit to use on command, albeit with the wish for it to be used for emergencies, but Lucy did not know what was not an emergency.

It is so much fun, but she also knew the last year had seen a lot of on-line shopping and very little in-store experience. Kyla could only smile. “That was the plan, but my sisters upset our plans.”

“What do you mean?” Lucy asked as Claudia stuck to the sidelines and Archie next to her. It was obvious to them that the two knew each other and of course there was much that Claudia did not know about her own history, and even her family, even if they did not feel like family to her.

But in many ways, they were, but it was obvious Lucy and Kyla had a connection that Claudia had no connection to. “What happened?” Lucy was saying once more.

“Poppy and Katy are stuck at our grandparents in Maine and so Mom is having to go and get them. And I believe your father is going with them.”

“Ah,” Lucy smiled. “That must be what Mom and Dad were talking about earlier, when I was back at home,” she said with a frown. “That is quite a change of plan,” she murmured. “What does that mean for you?” she asked. “Are you going with her?”

“No,” Kyla said with a shake of her head. “I just got back from a long trip, but it means I have to be staying with someone because Mom does not know how long she will be.”

“I would not think so,” Lucy murmured, now that Claudia was on the sidelines of this conversation. By virtue of spending summers here in Roswell, Lucy was very familiar with the landscape. Which favorite her and put her friend at a disadvantage. “So, where are you going to be staying?”

“With Grandpa Evans and Uncle Max,” Kyla announced without and prep, and without what it meant to be saying these particular words, and it shook Claudia even though she did not really know why. Why does it matter to me? Claudia asked herself. Because it should not.

But it did. But Claudia could not tell you, and because she was aware of so much. Lucy felt for her friend.

Because Lucy did not know what it was like to have so many questions about her parents, and to not know which end was up to on any given day. Because of course she was lucy to have two parents who loved each other.

Of course, if Claudia knew more about the situation between her mother and father, then she would know that they indeed loved each other and the fact that they had been cruelly separated from each other because of forces greater themselves. But of course, she did not know any of this, although she knew some, which meant she had more questions than answers.

And I hate that Claudia thought.

Enough to file a novel. So, Claudia did not know how to respond to any of this. And Archie could see that his girlfriend was the definition of overwhelmed.

And he wished he could relieve some of this feeling from her and take it off her shoulders. Because, while he had many issues with his own father. At least I know the man, he thought. I might not like who he is, as a man. But I know hm, and he knows me.

So, while Claudia remained speechless, Archie took the opportunity to wander right into it, “And you?” he would ask. “We have not been introduced formally.”

Claudia could only laugh because it was just like Archie, someone who did not have a role in this escalating drama, except maybe as a spectator to be asking the questions I should be asking, she thought. But I am not.

I am being silent, she thought. Because she was seeing that coming to town was getting more complicated by the minute.

Kyla could only smile, “No, we don’t” Mikyla Evans Anderson smiled at the hunky blonde glancing at her with a degree of curiosity, and she saw the confused and silent brunette next to him. “I don’t know either of you. Because the only person I know is Lucy here,” she said with a smile but equally a frown. “What is going on here, Lucy?” she asked her friend.

Lucy was forced into having to do something. She and Claudia both knew formal introductions would need to be made, but it was a funny situation, and both knew it and it was not an easy one.

“Lucy?” Kyla asked.

“Fine,” Lucy murmured. “This is Archie Holmes,” she sighed as referred to the rather hunky blonde, as she stopped before going further, because she knew how tricky this was, because it should not be her, but it was, and before she did…

“And you are?” Kyla asked of her boy in their midst.

“Not that important,” Archie muttered as he looked at his girlfriend who was in some sort of trance it seemed. Of course, she is he mused. And he did feel for her.

He really did.

I know my family, warts and all Archie thought.

Claudia does not.

Once more, Lucy was put in the corner by Claudia’s silence. Not that she did not understand because she did. Despite it really should be coming from Claudia, Lucy knew it might land better coming from her, better be me, she murmured, so she started. “Kyla, this is Claudia Diane Evans,” she said softly and out loud and the smile on her friend’s face evaporated to one of confusion as the name sunk in.

“What?” Kyla squeaked almost out loud. This cannot be happening, right? But it was and Kyla could see that it was true, whoa, she whispered as she looked at the girl before her, “You are Uncle Max’s daughter, I mean the infamous Claudia. The mystery daughter and all that?”

Infamous, that made Claudia laugh at the thought, and the description, because she did not feel mysterious or infamous for that matter but yes, I am Max Evans’ daughter, and she knew it.

“Yes, you can say I am his daughter, although he has not been my father to the truest meaning of the words,” Claudia muttered. “But we share the same, blood, or DNA.”

“Well, I did not expect,” she murmured, because this was not what I was expecting Kyla thought to herself even though she knew she could relate almost because she knew everything about murky paternities and biological fathers. After all, she was only an Anderson in name only, because Neil Anderson had been an exceptional father. A man every girl wished was their own. And she never would wish anyone other than him for her father, except that she was raised to know the deep dark secret about her parentage even though it was not talked about openly within the family, except on the outskirts of it. But especially not between herself, her mother and Kyle Valenti.

Her biological father.

Her natural father.

She was raised by one man with the knowledge that her DNA partly came from different sources all together, if you want to ignore that I have fingerprints from another whole planet she thought. Yeah, some bizarre life I have here she thought. So, she was an oddity, so she could relate in many ways as she tried to comprehend that her uncle’s daughter was finally in town.

I grew up knowing about the existence of Claudia Diane Evans, she muttered. No doubt the advance hype of drama was finally showing its face and coming to fruition. So, she was unaware of how to respond. Because she had not been prepared for this. It was all so simple before she thought.

Coming back from Europe, was to come back to a escalating soap opera Kyla murmured. While Claudia saw the confusion. And she knew she could beat it, because it is about me after all. “And that means anything to me?”

“It makes you both cousins” Lucy murmured.

Cousins, both would think mutually, and Archie could only whistle silently at the newest piece to the drama. As he once again he was seeing how much his girlfriend did not know and he did feel for her. Lucy had no skin in the game. Only friendship with both, although deeper with Claudia despite not being able to see each other much. “I know, right?” she would say.

“It really is something, alright” Claudia muttered as felt faint, and looked both at Archie and Lucy, and then the situation, and wanted to walk away. Archie acted. “Maybe, this is too much” he murmured in support of his girlfriend. “Maybe we should be going back to your place?” he would whisper as he looked at both other girls.

“Wait,” Kyla murmured as she did not want her cousin are we cousins she muttered to herself, genetically, maybe she thought, but she did not want her cousin to go or to think she was this kind of person she was presenting as herself, not welcoming or compassionate because I am she thought. I know how this is complicated, she thought, for Claudia, it must be unbelievable she thought. My paternity drama is lower scales, because all cards were on the table.

But not turned over, she thought. That is for another day, she thought.

Kyla wanted to be welcoming, it is one more to the family she thought as she accessed her newfound cousin who looked so eerily like her uncle. Which makes it even worse for all involved she knew. She knew she was probably like Claudia in missing a lot whole of her history because she was not embracing her Valenti identity yet, but Kyle has been part of my life she thought. I know who he is, and who my grandfather is, it’s a little bizarre she knew, but it fits our life at this point she knew. We are not trying to change things.

Claudia does not know herself. That was evident to Kyla. “You do not have to go, because I know how hard it must be,” she murmured.

Do you? Claudia muttered out loud. “Do you have a father who you don’t know because your mother took you away when you were three months of age?” she muttered.

“No,” Kyla stammered as Lucy only sighed at the standoff between two girls with uniquely complex paternities she knew, makes Mom and Dad simply loving each other so simple she thought as she looked at Archie who nodded, because he was seeing so much of the same thing. “But…” she would murmur.

Claudia finally had enough. “This is all too much,” she said getting fed up with the situation. Because this was not a situation, she was remotely prepared for Mom did not warn me or prepare me she thought, of course, how could she, when we were living apart, but Mom was so close lipped about this life of mine here in Roswell. How can I possibility be able to comprehend any of this she thought. “Archie is right, we should go” because she wanted to remove herself from the situation. “This place is too much,” she muttered but before she was able to leave. They would hear a female voice…

Familiar to Lucy, and of course Kyla.

“Mom?” Kyla muttered as she twisted to see her mother, Isabel, looking at the group of teenagers. As no one saw her approach it would seem.

“Girls?” Isabel murmured even though she saw the male with them, but then that was not even an interesting factor to her at the moment because she saw the other girl in the conversation, and even though we have not been introduced yet, she would know her anywhere.

My god she would whisper.

“You must be Claudia Diane?” Isabel murmured softly.

“How would you know who I am?” Claudia bristled at the strange woman looking at her sudden interest. She now realized she was Kyla’s mother, still, though, it was a stranger, and she was not looking at the woman as her aunt.

Obviously.

Isabel felt for her niece. “You were named after my mother, and you look so much like my brother, your father” Isabel murmured, and she hated this situation. My brother should have gotten the chance to raise his daughter she muttered too only herself. “Max Evans,” she added as if she needed to because of how weird this situation was. And she could see the confusion on her niece’s face. “Although I do have to admit that you look a lot like both of your parents, not just my brother” she would murmur. “Even though I don’t always have a tendency to want to admit it.”

She did not know how to deal with the situation or how to respond to it. She also did not know what to say. But she felt her defenses on the rise at the same time. “You don’t like my mother?” Claudia asked, with her defenses up. I might be angry with my mother right now, but still she is my mother she thought. As she glanced at this tall blonde this is my aunt she thought as she knew the woman was so different than what she imagined, and definitely was so unlike her daughter.

Sighing because she did not want to bash Claudia’s mother. That will get me nowhere she knew, but there was a reality to the situation. “We never really got each other,” Isabel allowed, and that was the truth. We are two very different people and therefore we never got each other she sighed, “but then we never had too,” she thought. “We were different people,” and like Liz knew and probably thought before, we both loved the same guy, “But at the end of the day, we never had to get each other. Because all that was important or mattered was that she was the one who my brother wanted.”

“And she would end up hurting him in the end, right?” Claudia murmured.

Isabel muttered a curse under her breath but did not directly answer and therefore Claudia knew the answer. “I thought so.”

“Your parents had a very difficult time. It was never easy for them and eventually they would be forced into actions that would have consequences,” Isabel murmured because she knew she should be keeping her true feelings from her brother’s child. The situation was already too exposed. “Whether I agreed with them or not, and whether they did too.”

Claudia nodded. This is my life, she thought. Right?

Right.

[Parker1947]

Isabel had not really known what she was walking into when she had realized that her daughter had disappeared from the store they were in, once she had been stopped by a friend who had wanted to talk for a few minutes. And once she got free from the conversation, she saw that Kyla had not been in her sight, not that I was worried she thought because she knew her daughter had just been in Europe for four months, but still I should see where she was and so she exited the store they were in and immediately had seen her daughter across the street talking to three people, and it would not take long to realize one was Lucy Guerin, the pixie haircut is a dead giveaway if you know the girl, and that she had the hair cut that was so like her mother once upon a time she would mutter, not that I was friends with Maria during that time.

But Michael would fall for her pixie haircut, Isabel reminisced, how different we all were once upon a time when things were so normal, and then a gunshot ran out in a restaurant and it changed my brother’s life forever and brought both Michael and I along for the ride, as Michael would fall for his own waitress she thought.

Love would elude me for a while, yet she thought.

But I would find it, eventually she thought even more, and she did not regret any of her life choices. Jesse allowed me to leave home, and to learn more than I would have if I had stayed at home for that year she thought, but who knows what would have happened if we had not ended up on a road, and Jesse had not moved to Boston she thought, because it showed how their life could not go back to before Jesse knew, even if being away from the perceived danger in Roswell, okay, some of it was real she would tell herself as being way had indeed helped, but eventually it all had fizzled, and she was back in Roswell, single and coping with all that the previous years had brought.

And it was a different life she would find.

But she was soon able to find the life that she wanted with the birth of Kyla, and the eventual meeting of Neil, and beginning a new life that would bring her too today.

With Kyla and her sisters, Poppy and Katy.

And she knew how much her brother had lost while she gained so much, even if she had been single for some of the time. But Max lost a great deal with the loss of his wife and daughter from his life, and now to see her brother in the eyes of the newcomer to their town, Claudia Diane, she thought, very much like her parents she thought, even though she did not know her niece.

Niece, that is a trip she thought.

Claudia Diane had always hung over the family, and now she was no longer the baby she had been, although I never met her because I was away from Max at the time she thought as she once more cursed Tess Harding for forcing their hand, we were being hunted because of her and to now know that the government agents knew so much, if you can believe Liz.

And on most things Isabel was not sure if she could trust her former sister-in-law but on this, maybe I have too she thought.

It was truly weird, as she was now looking at the girl who was her brother’s child as a young woman, and not a baby. She was older than her own daughter and seeing the two of them next to each other showed the family connection, and you would think they would be related due to the brown hair but nope, that came from her father.

But then I don’t know all that is our genetics Isabel conceded as she looked at the girls together and trying to ignore there was some strange guy next to them. Someone she did not know. So, all she could say, one more time. “Girls,” she said. Ignoring Archie all together.

And Archie could feel it, but he did not really care, for the moment.

And certainly, Claudia could feel it too because she did not know how to take this twist in the drama, “I don’t know what to think,” she said honestly.

“I am sure you don’t,” Isabel conceded. “But it was a very complicated time,” she would mutter. “I am glad you are in town, and I know my brother is too.”

“Neither of you know me,” Claudia sighed.

“No, we don’t” Isabel sighed, thanks to your mother but she did not say that, but Claudia could see the spinning of her aunt’s mind. Aunt, wow she thought. But she did not snap back at her, as Lucy sighed as she and Kyla were now spectators to all.

And once more, she was feeling for her friend.

Claudia, meanwhile, could not take it anymore. She knew she was signing up for a lot in coming to this town, a town I did not know, and that seemed at one time to be an advantage.

Now it was a clear disadvantage, because of what I do not know, and she was finding that it was becoming a lot and she knew they were being kind, Lucy had always been a friend, but she did not know either of the other two, and she could tell it was just as confusing for them as it was for her, but again, it is about me she thought. And this is too much, she thought, I need time.

“I need to go,” Claudia said finally, as she turned to Archie. “Let us go back?” she muttered as the statement hung out, but she was not doing anything to remove themselves from this encounter.

“If you want to,” Archie said in support.

Isabel did not know who Archie was, obviously, and it made her turn her attention from Claudia and the other girls, with the knowledge that there was someone else in this little conversation, and Isabel did not know him. “And you are?”

We just did this introduction bit Archie muttered. So, he was quick and to the point, “Archie Holmes, Ms…”

“Evans,” technically Isabel thought as she had taken back her maiden name after Neil had died. Because she had been trying to move on from the grief over the loss, even though her daughters had the name, which makes it murky, and complicated at the time. But it is still the early days she thought, “And you are, Mr. Holmes?”

“Claudia is my girlfriend,” Archie murmured.

Isabel’s eyes shot up, because it was a reminder that we are not talking about a baby anymore, she thought, as she was thinking of her brother’s only child. What did my brother do to have both girls that were interested in him hurt him like this.

At least Max knew Claudia existed Isabel acknowledged as she muttered to herself, Liz did not try to deceive him like Tess did she sighed.

But Liz still took Claudia and ran, she muttered to herself.

Albeit for a good reason Isabel conceded even though she did not want to concede the point to her former sister-in-law, but there are always different degrees of pain.

But now, as she saw Claudia for who she was today, and not in the past, because I did not know her in the past, she thought, not even as a baby, she told herself. I only knew of her.

And how it delighted her brother until he had to go on without his wife and daughter. And now she was a woman, a beautiful young woman who looked so much like both of her parents she thought, as she quickly accessed Archie. And Archie could feel the assessment, and Claudia groaned, and grunted but did not say anything. Kyla and Lucy looked on with a level of amusement because it was not us, because we might be single, but they knew their own dating life would get assessment like this one.

But it is not us, they both would think.

“I see,” was all Isabel could say. Because it was not her place.

“Right, it is not” Claudia sighed. “I am eighteen now.”

Isabel knew, I bet your father would like this… because Isabel did not know Max already knew but even, he could not do anything about it, because Claudia had her own life.

“I am sad we missed it,” Isabel said. “I mean, your life.”

“If this is a slam against what Mom did?” Claudia asked with a demand of a situation she had control of, and did not really have any knowledge of, I might have issues with Mom, but I do not want to hear it she thought and said as much. “I do not want to hear it.”

I know you don’t Isabel sighed, because I would not want to either she realized. “I am sorry, it’s almost an old habit by now” she sighed. “It has been eighteen years.”

“But it’s not my fault,” Claudia muttered.

“I know it is not, and no one is saying it is your fault. Because you were only a baby at the time, and you had no control of any of it,” she sighed. “None of you kids are at fault for the actions of the adults around you,” she said and felt as if the words could go towards her own daughter because of her own unique circumstances.

A fact Kyle and I have not talked about it in any substance with her Isabel realized. It only existed in silence because she knew, everyone knew, and Kyla knows she thought, but I never wanted to deal with it.

We did not need too because Neil was an outstanding father, Isabel sighed. But it was something was out there unexplored, and eventually they would have to deal with it, the status quo has been so good, so why kick up the dirt?

But Kyla was getting older, and the original deal Kyle had made once upon now seemed outdated in many ways.

But that was for another day, and Kyla knew all this, but she was not ready to rock the boat, yet she thought. She did not know if that day would come, but who knows what will come tomorrow.

No one did.

Isabel came back to reality, and so did everyone else did too. Claudia knew Isabel’s heart was in the right place, but she did not know how to handle this, it was so much easier to not to know, and removed from all this she thought. Once more, this was too much, and she was bristling and wanting to get out of this. “Archie is right, we should go back” she murmured. “Lucy…”

“Go, if you want to” Lucy smiled, knowing her friend needed to get going. “I am okay, because I can head home on my own. Call me when you have time.”

Claudia nodded, “Nice to meet you guys, but I cannot deal with this anymore” she sighed.

“It was my pleasure, and maybe in the future we will get to know each other better” Isabel murmured.

“We will see about that,” Claudia muttered, obviously not ready to deal with that part, just yet she thought. “I just need to get home.”

Isabel nodded as she and the girls watched as Claudia and Archie walked off, as Isabel could understand a little bit about why her brother was so upset with everything that was going on because this is life changing, she thought as it took a minute for her to focus back on her own daughter, and goddaughter Lucy. “Girls?”

“Mom,” Mikyla acknowledged. “No wonder Uncle Max is a mess?”

“It is definitely not what he was expecting to be facing, that is for sure” Isabel sighed, as she felt for her brother. She did not wish this kind of situation on anyone, and she was feeling sorry for her brother, because she knew there was so much on the line, and her brother did risk so much, and no one knew where any of this was going. Still though she was stuck on her newfound niece. And the boy that had her heard. He seems familiar but I have never met him before today she sighed. “So, Claudia and Archie?”

“Yup,” Lucy said because she was the one in the know. Even if she had never really seen them together. But she had the scoop. “They have been together forever it seems although they have spent most of the time apart, because of you know everything this last year,” this damn pandemic changed all of our lives she thought some of ours, more than others she would acknowledge. “So, Archie got a job in Aspen, and the mountains, and Claudia was staying in Boston with her mother and brother until she went to stay with her grandparents in Arizona” she said softly. “When her mother decided to come back here and reopen her parent’s restaurant. Claudia came back too.”

“I see,” Isabel sighed. “And where is this Archie staying?”

“With Claudia,” she said with a smile. “Is that not fun?”

Oh, that is fun alright Isabel murmured, and she could not help but mutter to herself about her former sister-in-law. So, Liz left her daughter alone in an apartment, but she was not as over the top angry about it as Michael had been, but it was something she was taking note of, and muttering to herself some curses to herself. “Does her mother know?”

“That is the question,” Lucy smiled. “I honestly don’t know,” she said softly because she knew there was a pretty high probability that her Aunt Liz did not know but she really had no idea if she did or not, and she was not going to say anything different.

Isabel nodded as she did not know what to say next, because it was not her life. Claudia is my family, but we don’t know her. Because her mother kept her away, she muttered, because it was for a good reason she knew, but still it was not easy to see a member of her family and know she did not know her…

“Man, this so juicy,” Lucy smiled.

Yes, it is, she knew, but she had to be more adult than her daughter and Lucy. “It’s people’s lives Lucy,” Isabel sighed. “It may be juicy and yes, soapy, but there are also human feelings in all this, because we are all humans at the end of the day, and this is not some soap opera,” she sighed. “We are trying to live our lives. It is all very real. And not some television show.”

I know that Lucy thought, but it still does not directly impact me, so it’s fun to be on the sidelines of it, and watch it but she wished her friend could come to some closure of what she was missing from her life, so at least with that, she did not envy her friend, and she definitely did not want to celebrate how soapy that was…

Isabel sighed, the girls are still teenagers and so they are not going to see the real ramifications in all this she thought as she checked her watch and sighed at the time. “Kyla, let us get going, because we still have to finish up those errands.”

Kyla nodded. “Lucy, do you want to come with us?”

“No, because I need to head home,” Lucy sighed. “You have your stuff you have to go. I will make my way home.”

“Are you sure?” Isabel asked.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Lucy smiled.

I do Isabel sighed. I worry about all of you she thought, but she knew Lucy was older than her daughter and therefore she was able to handle herself, to some point she sighed. “I’ll be talking to your father later, so if you are not home.”

Lucy only laughed and walked off, leaving Kyla and her mother together. Kyla sighed as she turned and saw her mother with a million things on her mind. “Do you think Uncle Max will be alright?”

“Hopefully,” Isabel murmured.

“I guess, I can keep an eye on him for you when I stay with him and Grandpa,” Kyla asked.

Maybe you can, Isabel sighed because it was a reminder that life for them was very different than a week ago, and she wished she did not have to leave but she did, because she had to get her daughter, as she simply sighed and walked to the final store.

*

Everything was changing, and Claudia almost wished she was back in her old life. Maybe I should have stayed with Grandpa and Grandma, she muttered as she was feeling overwhelmed as she and Archie walked back to the apartment over the old Crashdown Café. She did not know what to feel anymore, and she did not know how to react to any of it. Archie could see that his girlfriend was overwhelmed, and he was not in the position to want to push her, because he knew he could be opening a can of worms that would be pretty bad, all around and pretty hard to push under the surface once more, so he simply sighed as he and Claudia walked up the stairs.

Even though neither had talked at all since leaving their previous conversation, and once back in the apartment, Claudia immediately locked herself in the bathroom, and set out to have some alone time, and a bath. A long and soapy one. And Archie allowed her to take the time to steam in her solo time, as they both prayed for everything to make sense again, for different reasons.

While this whole time, her parents, Max and Liz were over at Max’s house, and they were in a bubble of their own making. Like their daughter and Archie, both were speechless. But unlike the teenagers, they were speechless for a whole other reason because they were unable to speak of the current situation, they were forced to be in.

At the same time, Liz knew she should break this embargo and the silence between her and her former husband and go and collect her son from whatever Phillip was doing to amuse her son and head back to the motel. She should be bigger than this, because she should not be reduced to her teenage self. Unable to communicate with my daughter’s father.

Someone she had been married to. For an all too brief single year.

Her adult self, she knew this was no place for a growing boy. She knew she could be a bigger person and go back to the Crashdown and deal with what was there waiting for some semblance of a conclusion, and dealing with her daughter, who is only crying out for her life to make sense, but the motel seemed more inviting for the moment, because it was a buffer for all her problems. Because dealing with JJ was easier than dealing with the child she had taken away from this town, and away from the man who was staring at her with a look of love, but also of disappointment and distrust.

A look she had put on his face.

Which was one of the many things she had brought to this situation and ones she had invited herself by choosing to come back to this town. Why could I not go somewhere else she mused to herself as she could see the formation of the clear irritation on her former husband’s face, “Max, maybe I should go?” she asked. Whatever they were saying to each other was not making a difference to either of them. Yes, I should go. Why would I put myself through this emotional wringer.

She did not know.

From the look on her former husband’s face, she knew whatever pedestal she had been on once upon a time. Well, it was clear, she was no longer on it. And therefore, she had been booted off it.

She always appreciated in a weird way that there was someone who accepted her who she was, we might have been different, but we were the same she thought of how he had accepted her actions, even when there was clearly no way she should been held so high on such a pedestal. But it had been a nice feeling. As she saw the growing weariness on Max’s face, she felt for him.

She wanted it to be so different. She hated this coldness between them. It was always so easy with us, even when it was not, she mused because she knew nothing about their courtship had been easy or made sense. “Max, I am so sorry.”

You like to say you are sorry, but are you, really? “Are you?” Max muttered as the pain and disappointment was evident on his face as it was all flooding back to him as a whole, and he felt he was too tired. I am plain tired by all this, he thought. All the battles I am facing he thought of the one with his father, and now with his former wife. And he thought of all the wasted time.

All the missed time. “I missed so much time with my daughter, and it is time I can never get back.”

I know, and I wish it could have been so different, she thought, so ashamed, and how willingly she had taken those years away from both her former husband and their daughter. But it had to be the way it had to be. “I wish I could take back what I did, but…” Liz whispered. I do…

Yeah, right Max muttered in almost a laugh. Really, he thought it was because he felt drained by this. And was telling him to snap at his former wife. “I doubt you would even if you could snap your finger and make the last eighteen years disappear,” he sighed as he could not help but think of all that happened. And looking into his dream girl’s face, and knowing all that had happened, and yet he still loved her. I don’t want to be angry, but come on, all of this could have been so different he thought as he also felt the dual emotion of love for his former wife. Still, the disappointment and anger were stirring itself to a boil at the moment. “You made me believe your lies,” he said softly and defiantly, and it felt like a slap to the face of Liz as she heard the words come from the man she loved, even when she knew there was so much truth to those words. Still, she did not want to hear them.

Coming from the man she loved.

I still love him.

Even when they were true. In so many ways than she would care to admit.

“That is not fair Max,” she said in a weak defense because they knew that he was telling the truth.

It may not be, but it’s the truth Max stubbornly thought. “But is it not true?” Max asked. “You sold me a pack of goods about how my life was too dangerous and I that I was too dangerous to be a father to our daughter. You tell me you are sorry, now, eighteen years later, and maybe you are but you lost me when you told me that you could not be with me, because you did not want Claudia to be raised in our world,” he asked. “You made me believe you.”

“Max,” Liz murmured. “That is not true,” she said in defense of what she knew she did tell him during those days, when everything was good until it was, and she blew up their life together. I did not say those words she murmured, even though that had been basically the message of the words, if not for the precise words. She knew that had been fully well the impression she had given.

“You would not have let me leave,” Liz murmured softly. “I was looking out for you, and even though they do not see, still, I was protecting Michael and even your sister as well.”

“You got that right; I would not have let you leave” Max murmured ever so softly at the thought of his former wife’s sacrifice. And he knew full how this was odd by now because they had gone over this before, and she believed she was in her right, and he conceded on some level that she probably deserved to think what she did, but still, I lost out on so much because she walked out on me and took our daughter and told me lies.

Lies I did not know about for years. “I don’t have to like it.”

“No, you don’t” Liz agreed as she sighed at the overwhelming nature of the situation. Because there were no winners in this. No good guys either, only victims, I am certain not a good guy because of what I did she thought, and Max is a victim, but I did it for a reason. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I should have told you guys, but I had to protect our daughter” she sighed. “Yes, you were old enough to handle it, and I took away your free will and your ability to choose, but I had this need to protect you guys, but it really comes down to Claudia and the fact that she was an innocent,” she said of her tiny baby.

Once upon a time she thought of the only child she had given birth too. And how it had brought fear bubbling up, and the need to protect her, because she was so special, she thought as she tried to focus back on Max. “I got them to believe that she was like me and that she was normal…”

Normal Max muttered as he felt the slam of those words, and said as much “Normal,” he weakly admitted.

“I don’t mean it like that,” Liz said softly and wanted to berate herself. God, this is so difficult “I love how different you are. You are amazing Max. You saved my life. You allowed me to be alive today, to have the ability to have given birth to Claudia, and to even though it was away from us, to be a mother to my son JJ,” she sighed. “You are unique and special. But the fact remains that our daughter was in danger, and I needed to protect her. I know it does not make sense to you. You and your sister as well as Michael were adults. But Claudia was a baby, and she was someone we had to think about. Just like you were thinking of the boy that we believed to your son,” she murmured, and Max winced because the wounds were so fresh. “Sorry, to have to remind you of that time. But you were looking out for the baby, but you knew you could not provide the life he needed. Which is why you would take the actions you did. To give the boy a better life. Well, the same could be said about our daughter. Someone who was very real. And needing protection. She was defenseless, and it would not have done any of us well to fly off to Timbuktu, because it would have put everyone else in danger and it would have sent them after us, and after a year of being on the run, I would not have wanted to raise Claudia with looking over our shoulder when we were out of the house, or wherever we were living at the time. That would have been no life for Claudia,” she said. Even though it would have been nice, it was no life she thought even though she knew at the same time she was saying all there. There was another reason for needing to take her daughter with her. But one that she could say, not right now.

“Was it any life for her to have lived these last eighteen years?” Max slung back as he did not want to remember the boy who had been his son for a short time, but it was really all a lie. A hoax.

“No, but it was more normal. She was able to have friends. She could have a normal life, I mean, friends, school, academic dreams. She would not have to keep secrets…”

“But she did, did she not?” Max muttered. Because it was obvious by how she had been hiding from everyone, and what he now knew of his daughter.

And how special she was.

“Okay, I know how fucked up the situation is” Liz said.

Fucked up it was, Max though with amusement at the swear word coming out of his former wife’s mouth because it was not Liz’s nature to curse, but it was something he had to agree, “Yes, it was.”

“I tried my best Max,” Liz said in defense of her action. No matter how fraught they were, and maybe she should have made different ones. But she could only go by what she had decided, and I cannot go back and change anything, even though I wish I could. “We can be sad that we did not work out, but we needed to be a bigger than us, and worry about our daughter.”

“You destroyed me,” Max said with a whisper. “You did not allow me the choice,” he said softly. “You gave me a false narrative of the situation. You forced me to give up on my daughter, because you made it seem like the only thing, I could do for her.”

“I am sorry,” Liz said softly.

“I believe you, this time,” Max said softly. “But it does not make it any better to know how much I missed out on with our daughter. When I could have been with you, and I could have seen our daughter grow up. Yes, it would not have been an easy situation but still we could have tried. Just as we did before, and it was not that easy to be on the run during that year, but we could have been better than we were during that time. And I had my abilities…”

“That would have only gotten us so far,” Liz said softly, as she checked her watch. “As we proved during that time,” she muttered. “They eventually would get to us and find us” she sighed as she knew they had not gotten to Max, but to her, and she was still living through with the scars of that time.

“Maybe not,” Max said, and despite a life full of paranoia because of secrets being held below the surface from the general public, well, still, he wanted to believe in the rose-colored glasses view of his love for Liz, and the belief they could have made it work. Despite all evidence to the contrary from their short but winding courtship. I know I should be jaded and think the worse, but I had a miracle in Liz loving me, and I did not want to give that up.

I wanted to believe that we could have made it work.

Even though she left me, and I should be thinking the worse Max muttered to himself, and he was unable to say anything more.

Liz wanted to believe that they would have been able to get far enough away to be able to raise Claudia, and any other children she thought as she mourned the idea of more children, but I got that in JJ but still… she sighed, and maybe we could have gotten far enough way, but when we are caught, no other nation would want to protect us she said slightly jaded, because the world has changed, and human nature is just not like that she thought.

“I want to believe it, but I just can’t” Liz sighed. “Not after they caught up to me, and because I had to deal with them” she sighed with a soft change to her voice. One of pain and a lot of bitterness. “I thought those three years had taught me a lot, about how to handle your enemies, but nope, I was not prepared, so I know what it means to have made the decisions I made,” she muttered. “Because I had to deal with them and they were not a heroic set of guys that we see on television who were only looking for the truth, because they were not seeing that you, Michael and Isabel as people…”

Max flinched, because he knew full well, they were their enemies, but it was not something he wanted to hear, especially not from his ex-wife, and to know that they had gotten to her, and he had not been there to protect her.

“You should have told me,” Max said softly as his anger may be simmering but still there was a huge part of his heart devoted to this woman, okay, a pretty large part of it he would have to acknowledge, I cannot deny, but it does not mean I can just get over what happened.

In the past.

Even though, yes, it was the past Max would mutter but he saw the anguish on his former wife’s face, and he wanted to strangle anyone who could have put that look on her face. Because he had enough memories of his own time in the White Room, and he did not want to think that could have happened to the woman he loved. Love he sighed.

Because that was the truth.

“That would not have helped anyone, much less me” Liz said softly as the flashes were coming to her, and she felt faint, and a wave a nausea coming to her as she faced what was done to her, in the quest for information and to make her cave to their demands and how she had held out for so long…

“Liz,” Max asked.

“Don’t okay,” Liz said softly. “I don’t want to talk about it,” she said because she still was living with the memories, and they haunt she thought, I wish they did not she told herself, as she could hear the screams….

Screams, she was not so sure were hers, because everything was mixed up. In a tightly wound nightmare, that tended to untangle itself every once in a whole.

It’s been a while since I had a nightmare she would concede, but now the memories are coming back she sighed, please no…

“Talk to me,” Max asked. “You are not the only one who had to deal with them,” he thought.

But I had no one come play hero Liz thought of her own time. It might have been short-lived, but it definitely still resided in the recesses of her brain, and she could feel the weight of it, and the screams.

“I have to go,” Liz said softly as the memories were too much, and she knew she had to go. “I have to find JJ and go home.”

Home, where is that Liz told herself.

“Let me help you?” Max asked. “I can help you,” he asked as she grabbed her hand, and even though that had never been the vehicle in the past for them to experiences flashes, the good kind of flashes they both thought…

Not always, but mostly still flashes were starting to jump out at him, but she knew what could come out, and she did not want that out in the world, and she jumped back and took away her hand. “It’s none of your business,” she muttered. “All you need to know is at the end of the day, they got me to take the deal.”

“Yes, they did” Max muttered as it was still a sore spot for me, not as much as it was for Michael but still it was not good because he was reacting to the other ramifications that came from that deal he thought. “But you can talk to me.”

“You hate me,” Liz said. “For taking that deal.”

“That is Michael,” Max muttered. I could never hate you, he told himself even though he could not quite say it out loud when he knew he should.

“At least you acknowledge that,” Liz said. “But you still hate what I did to you.”

“Yes, I do, only because of all the wasted time,” he sighed of all he could have witnessed in both his daughter’s growing up, and with the woman he loved. “But obviously you had a reason for doing what you did.”

He is trying to understand it Liz thought, and she did not know if that was because of whatever she had gone through in the hands of the authorities, before I made the deal she muttered. He wants to understand, she sighed. And she knew if she told him what happened, all the disappointment would probably be dropped, she thought. She did not want him to look at her like a victim. “At the end of the day, all that matters is I signed on the dotted line” Liz muttered. “I have to go,” she said softly, “I have to find my son.”

Max nodded. Knowing that whatever she had gone through during that time had to be a nightmare to such a degree as what he had gone through himself, or maybe more he thought, because I got out, he thought. Still, there were scars he would acknowledge.

But he was still standing.

As Liz turned, and walked to the living room, and spotted her son by the door. She did not know what he had overheard, but he almost flinched. “Thank you, Phillip,” she murmured as she spotted her former father-in-law coming from out of the room, obviously hearing the commotion. Because he had let JJ to watch some television and he had gone into his study to mourn how in Liz’s words, how fucked up this situation was he thought as he came out and saw the emotion on his former daughter-in-law’s face, and could see his son in the back, looking as if he was run over by a van he thought, and he nodded, “I didn’t do anything,” he said softly as Liz did not say anything more as she collected her son’s jacket, and walk quickly from the house. With both Phillip and Max watching them leave. But Max noticed the more visible limp in his former wife, and it flung a memory into his mind of JJ telling him about it earlier, that it was already there when he came to know his mother, and how Claudia said it happened when she was a baby.

God, he whispered, as his head filled with imagery of what could have happened.

And none of them were pleasant.

And some of them were close to the actual events…

“Son,” Phillip said softly as he brought his son back out of his trance. As he stood and watched his son. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Max muttered. And it was not the irritation he was feeling towards his father, because it is still there, but he had the suspicion that Liz was worse off.

Then I could ever be.

Because Liz had to live the nightmare for years after leaving him and taking Claudia. What in hell happened to Liz he would whisper.

And Phillip could hear the desperation in his son’s voice.

“What are you going to do about it?”