Finished Canon/Conventional Couple Fics. These stories pick up from events in the show. All complete stories from the main Canon/CC board will eventually be moved here.
Author's Note: Again, one of my favorite fics I hope you'll enjoy as well.
JO
__________________
banner by Blanca
Category: EotW AU, post-Control
Rating: YTEEN/MATURE
Disclaimer: The characters of Roswell are the property of Twentieth Century Fox Television and Regency Productions. All original characters and concepts are the property of the author. No profit has been made from the distribution of this work of fiction. No infringement intended. Similar situations are chances of fate.
Summary: Following Future Max's starry exit, Liz receives another visitor from the future with a different story to tell.
Just because it's there don't mean you see it anywhere
Maybe it's a trick of the light, maybe...
Part 1 October 2004
Max stumbled forward, frantically grasping behind him for Maria’s hand. Her foot had gotten caught in the rocks only moments earlier causing Max to have to use his powers to disintegrate the rock. He had cursed them orally and now didn’t know if his words or the pain in her foot had caused Maria’s tears. He pulled her more harshly now as his ears boomed with the echoes of their pursuers’ weapons. They were running for their lives and Max knew he was leading their enemies straight for the thing they desired most - the granolith.
He shoved Maria through the pod chamber entrance then quickly caused a miniature rock slide on the outside of the entrance. He knew the diversion would only hinder their pursuers for seconds but he hoped it would give him enough time to complete their crazy plan. He rolled his eyes, wondering once again how Maria had managed to convince him that the granolith could be modified for time travel. They had finally agreed to attempt it only after Michael’s death, which had left Max and Maria struggling to outrun their enemies before they too were killed. He focused his attention at the entrance and could hear their pursuers just on the other side. Maria glanced at him and deep in her eyes, Max could see the fear she was trying so hard to hide from him. At that moment he wanted nothing more than to tell her how wonderful it had been to have her friendship through everything. He didn’t want to be the king leading her to her potential death. He wanted to be the friend holding her hand as the end came. Their eyes locked for mere seconds before Max forcefully shoved Maria through the pods into the granolith chamber.
“You’re sure about this,” he asked one final time as he removed a long crystal from his front pocket. He grasp it tightly in his hand, feeling an enormous sense of power pulsate through his veins. Glancing at Maria, he recognized she noticed it too.
“You have to do it, Max. You have to try.” Her eyes met his and Max saw determination etched in her features. Had this been years past, he could almost imagine Maria thrusting her hands on her hips in frustration, her high-pitched voice dripping with sarcasm, but that Maria was gone, having died the moment Michael did. Max violently shook his head, wanting to remove the mental images of Michael’s death. It was horrible enough to be haunted by it during the night. He needed a clear mind if this plan was going to succeed.
“What if it doesn’t work?” He fell to his knees at the base of the granolith, his right hand holding the crystal like a weapon. He felt Maria’s hand brush his thigh as she fell with him. “What if -”
“There’s no time for ‘what ifs,’ Max,” she screeched, jerking the crystal from his hand. Max watched as she inserted it into the base of the granolith and a light purple hue filled the chamber. “We’re all going to die if you don’t.”
“They’re out there, Maria,” Max screamed over the hum of the granolith, grabbing her shoulders in his hands. “You’ll be left behind. I...Michael would never forgive me for letting them take you.”
“If you’re successful, Max, we won’t have to worry about that. And I’d rather die trying this than to let them take me. You know they’ll never take me alive.” She moved away from his grasp and unsteadily stood, her eyes drawn to the granolith and its transformation. Max stood slowly and
took her hand into his.
“This is crazy, you know,” he said, pulling her into a tight hug against him. He smiled against her cheek as Maria threw her arms around his waist.
“We’d be crazy not to try it,” Maria whispered in his ear as the granolith chamber began to shake. With one final look at Maria for reassurance, Max pressed his hand against the floating cone-like shape and Maria watched as Max was magically transported inside. She smiled bravely, her eyes never leaving Max until a flash of white light knocked her to the ground. She hurriedly stood on her feet, the granolith chamber once again calm with Max nowhere to be seen.
October 2001
Liz Parker sat with her knees against her chest in her favorite chair on her balcony intently watching the night sky. Dry tear tracks marred her face and her stomach rumbled loudly but she did not notice. It had been a little over an hour since he disappeared. One minute he was holding her in his arms and the next he was gone, a shooting star streaking across the sky. She had numbly sat down in the chair and began watching the sky, desperately hoping to see another shooting star. She had hoped that by seeing one, it would give her some sense of confirmation that he was okay, that she would be okay too. But there was nothing unusual about the sky and she could almost swear the stars were a little dimmer than they had been the night before.
She inhaled slowly and closed her eyes, surprised when she felt him all around her. She had never liked Max with long hair, never wanted Max with long hair. During their childhood, and especially when he first began living with the Evans, his hair was long. His hair now was almost too long for her taste but there had been something about Future Max’s long hair that mesmerized her. She wanted to run her fingers through it, to have it brush against her face, to have it fall against her neck as they kissed. For one fraction of a second during their dance, she felt him open himself up to her. She felt his hair tickle her cheek. She felt his hands roam her body. She felt his love, his passion, his soul. As quickly as Max has allowed her entrance into the deepest recesses of himself and their love, she had destroyed him, destroyed them both, simply because he asked.
Exhaling, she felt anger boil just beneath the surface of her skin. She quickly hurried through the window and into her room, intent on destroying something, anything that would help alleviate some of the rage she felt. She had ruined a future, her future with Max for the sake of Tess. Nothing could ever make her feel as wretched as she did in that moment. She blindly stumbled toward her bathroom, unaware of the bright light that flashed outside on her balcony.
Last edited by JO on Fri Dec 17, 2004 10:13 am, edited 22 times in total.
Max teetered from side to side, his mind a whirlwind as the realization hit him that Maria’s crazy plan had worked. He was standing on Liz’s balcony, a place he hadn’t set foot on in almost three years. His hands quivered as he ran them through his hair and he tried to calm his rapidly beating heart. He stooped slowly to Liz’s window, placing his hands on the glass for leverage from his shaking body. The room was dark and against his better judgment, he carefully stepped inside.
As his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of Liz’s room, he saw just how different her room looked. In his old life, Liz had become a quiet shadow of her former self. She had remained in Roswell as he searched the southwest for his son. Looking at her room now compared to what it became, he realized just how badly he had hurt her, ignored her and her feelings. He had once sworn to her that she was the only person that would ever matter to him and yet he had unintentionally thrown his sexual escapade with Tess and his son in her face time after time. But this Liz didn’t know all that. This Liz was innocent of all the world’s horrors and, in that moment, he swore he would never tell her what would become of her life.
He jumped at the sound of Liz’s bathroom door creaking open and the echo from the clicking of the light switch. Then, as if in slow motion, she appeared. At first, it was just her shadow, the outline of her body which he knew so well. Next, her scent filled the air, enveloping his nostrils with her wonderful strawberry smell. She stepped out of the shadows toward him, slowly crossing the length of the room as if it were a thousand mile journey. Max’s jaw twitched in response with each step she took, knowing that Liz Parker should not still have this effect on him but willing, for this one moment, to let his heart lead his path.
“Max,” she asked in an excited whisper as she continued to inch toward him. He looked so...unusual. His hair was cropped short and he was wearing a black leather jacket, something Liz would have never pictured being in Max’s closet. His dark blue jeans and black t-shirt looked equally as strange but his clothes or his appearance didn’t matter to her. The mere fact that Max was standing in her room after the spectacle he had seen earlier that night was a miracle. “You...you’re really here,” she choked, closing the several step distance between them and crashing into his arms.
“Liz, I’m not who -”
“I don’t care. I..I’m sorry, Max. I’m so sorry. I...I didn’t sleep with Kyle. It was all part of a plan. I love you, Max. I...I want to be with you.” She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck and plastered her lips to his. Max stiffened at first touch but once Liz’s mouth began to feverishly plead with his, he placed his hands on the small of her back and pulled her petite frame toward him. Instantly, when Max fully opened to her, images flashed through Liz’s mind. Distorted images that she did not understand. Pushing out of his embrace, Liz stumbled backwards toward her bathroom, covering her mouth with her hand.
Max sprang forward as the horror from Liz’s face reached her eyes and he reached out for her. “Liz.”
“You...you’re not Max,” she said, her voice shaky. Max lunged for her but she quickly twisted out of his reach, tumbling onto her bed. “Who are you,” she asked as she straightened herself on the other side of her bed opposite where Max stood. “What do you want?”
“I am Max, Liz, just not your Max.” Liz’s brows furrowed in confusion as Max took off his leather jacket and threw it across her bed. He paced in a small circle, running his fingers through his hair while muttering to himself. Liz strained forward, hoping to catch a fragment of what he was saying when he abruptly stopped pacing and faced her again. Liz jumped backward in response and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “What I’m about to say is going to sound crazy.” He paused again, raising his face toward her ceiling. Liz followed his gaze, her eyes rapidly darting back and forth between her ceiling and the man who claimed he was Max. “I..I’m here because I need your help.”
“I saw things,” she replied, her fingers gently grazing her lips. “Are you and Tess -”
“I can’t tell you that. I can only tell you what you need to know.” He slowly stepped toward her, extending his arms as a sign of peace. “The next few days are critical to the history -”
“Oh, that’s bull,” Liz spat, side-stepping him quickly. Max lunged for her again and almost stumbled as he narrowly missed grabbing her arm. He straightened quickly while Liz watched him from what she considered a safe distance. “Why do you need my help?”
“I can only tell you what you need to know,” he repeated, this time slower as if he were placing emphasis on each word.
“You’re going to tell me what I want to know,” Liz began, stepping closer to Max, “or....or I’m not helping you.” She pursed her lips tightly and defiantly crossed her arms over her chest, her chin rising slightly. Max watched for several seconds as Liz continued to stand her ground. His shoulders slumped forward and he carefully sat on the edge of her bed.
“What do you want to know?” He bowed his head forward, suddenly mad at himself because he had let her win. He was a king, a leader and his heart had once again defeated him. He had agreed to this crazy plan to save the lives of those he loved yet here he was, back in Liz’s room, acting like the love-sick school boy he had once been. He followed her shadow with his down-cast eyes, watching as she circled in front of him and sat beside him on her bed. Her scent caused his nostrils to flare and he cleared his throat, mentally reminding himself that she was a traitor, that she had destroyed his entire life. “What do you want to know,” he repeated, more gruffly this time.
“Everything.”
Last edited by JO on Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:39 am, edited 2 times in total.
“So,” Liz began, her voice trembling as the realization of the images she had seen when she kissed Max were actually true. Max slept with Tess. Alex died. Tess pregnant with Max’s child. “You and Tess.” She turned away from him when the tears began to fall, knowing in her heart that she had caused this to happen.
“I made a mistake, Liz. I made a lot of mistakes.”
Liz turned her head to the side, her eyes widening in anger. “You made a mistake,” she asked, unable to control the tone and inflection of her voice. She stood slowly from her bed, fearing her knees would buckle underneath her as she walked toward her window. “You slept with Tess and got her pregnant, Max. That’s the mistake...to surpass all other mistakes.” She turned her back to him but not before she noticed he too was rising off her bed. “I believed you, Max,” she quietly said as she felt him step closer to her. “All those times you said she meant nothing to you. I trusted you and now....to know you slept with her and she has your child -”
“You don’t understand,” he said, interrupting her. Liz whirled around quickly to face him, her hair fanning out from the sheer force of her turn. She watched as Max lowered his head and backed away from her. “You just don’t understand.”
“Explain it to me,” she spat. “How does one accidentally sleep with someone else?”
“This is so typical of you,” Max shouted, stepping closer to her. “You blamed me for everything. You blamed me for Tess. You blamed me for Alex’s death. You blamed me for all of it.”
“Alex died,” Liz screamed, closing the distance between she and Max so they were mere inches apart. “You could have...should have saved him. And as for your son, well, that’s your own fault for being so careless. You had a condom in your pocket when you came to see me night of the Gomez concert.” Liz realized immediately that she had said too much. She covered her mouth with her hand and stepped away from Max. This time, however, Max’s reflexes were much quicker and he managed to grab her wrist before she spun away.
“What did you say?”
“N...nothing. I didn’t say anything.”
“No one knew about that, Liz.” Max tightened his grip on her wrist, pulling her closer to him. “No one knew how far I was willing to go to convince you that I still loved you. How did you find out?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, wildly avoiding Max’s eyes.
“You were always a terrible liar,” he replied, slinging her violently toward her bed. Liz’s body hit the bed once and bounced, causing her to land on the floor with a thud. She cried out in pain as she felt her wrist bend backwards and snap. Tears welled in her eyes as she gingerly held her broken wrist against her stomach. “Look, Liz,” Max began as he briskly crossed the room to her side. Liz tried to shrink away from him, but Max’s movements were too swift and he overpowered her within seconds. He gently took her wrist into his hands and Liz felt the warm tingling sensation of Max’s healing power. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” he continued once her wrist was healed. Liz lowered her eyes to her wrist, still firmly contained in Max’s hands. “I’m just trying to change...something so the world doesn’t end in three years.”
“Three years,” Liz asked, gently removing her wrist from Max’s hands. Max caught her hands in his and began to help Liz off the floor. “Not fourteen?”
“What are you talking about,” Max asked, jerking his hands away from Liz’s causing her to crash back onto the floor.
“This,” she screamed, flailing her arms as tears began to run down her cheeks. “Why you saw me in bed with Kyle. Why you’re even here at all.”
“You pretended to sleep with Kyle so I would back off pressuring you for a relationship,” Max responded as Liz slowly stood from the floor and slumped onto her bed.
“I pretended to sleep with Kyle, Max, because you from fourteen years in the future told me Tess left Roswell and our enemies invaded Earth. You told me Tess left because of how you treated her after we made love the night of the Gomez concert.”
“That’s crazy,” Max said after several seconds, dismissing Liz’s announcement with the flip of his hand. He sheepishly looked at Liz out of the corner of his eye while she straightened her clothes and rubbed her wrist.
“That’s what I thought too,” she softly replied, “but he knew things, told me things that were going to happen if Tess didn’t stay in Roswell, so I came up with the plan.”
“To pretend to sleep with Kyle,” he stated and Liz nodded like he had asked it as a question. He rubbed his hands across his face, suddenly so confused by what he needed to do. When Maria had convinced him using the granolith to change the future was possible, he had been determined to return to Roswell so his loved ones might live. But now, knowing that a future version of himself had already visited Liz, making her change the course of future, clouded his once-clear purpose. “What happened? In his life, I mean?”
“Does it matter,” Liz responded with a shrug. “Everything is so screwed up now, especially if I’m supposed to believe what you say.”
“It happened, Liz. I can assure you. Everything I told you was the truth.” He sat down beside her on her bed, remembering how many nights he dreamed of being in this bed with her. He had spent the majority of that fall on her balcony, doing anything to convince her they were meant to
be together. He had even went as far as to sing with a mariachi band for her. Oh, how he had once loved her.
He drug his fingers down his cheeks and for the first time, Liz noticed a scar from his hairline to his cheekbone. She cautiously reached out for it, mesmerized by the depth and jaggedness of it and wondered why, with all his abilities, Max had not healed it. Her fingers lightly dusted the scar, causing Max to flinch away from her, his own fingers reflexively tracing it, like he was making sure it was still there. “Who did that to you, Max,” she asked, inching toward him on the bed. “What happened?”
Max traced the length of the scar again and slowly allowed his hand to drop to his lap. He glanced momentarily at Liz, her full lips parted and her chocolate eyes dripping with concern for his malady. “I was betrayed by someone I...loved. After that, one by one, everyone I ever cared about was destroyed.”
“Who could betray you like that, Max, and hurt you so badly?” She was mere inches from his face, her delicate fingers once again tracing the length of the scar. He felt her hot, sweet breath seer his skin. He swore silently and thought for a moment he could almost feel the texture of her lips against his, the smooth curves of her body folding against his sculpted edges. He jerked his head slightly, leaving Liz’s hand hanging in the hair beside his head.
Max made certain he had her full attention and that she caught the look of anger flashing through his amber eyes. Grasping the wrist of her floating hand, he stared deep into her eyes. “You did, Liz. It was you.”
Last edited by JO on Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:42 am, edited 2 times in total.
“No,” she said, her voice cracking as her eyes frantically searched his face for the truth. “I...I wouldn’t do that. I love you.” Max squeezed her wrist tighter and Liz winced slightly as pain shot up her arm. Max closed the distance between their faces, his hand still fully enveloping Liz’s tiny wrist. She was surprised that she was actually afraid of him. She had never been afraid of Max before, even in the aftermath of the shooting. He was so gentle and loving toward her that to see him react so violently was quite disturbing. “I love him,” she whispered, amending her earlier statement. Max released her wrist as soon as the words exited her mouth.
“Love is a...funny thing,” he smugly responded as he stood up from her bed and walked toward the window. “Did you know I used to come to your room every night while you were in Florida that summer? I...I never told anyone about that. Coming here, sitting on your balcony made me miss you so much. I thought about you all the time, did you know that?” He turned toward her, somewhat surprised to see her cowering on her bed with her knees pulled up to her chin. “And I did love you, Liz. I would have damned my destiny a thousand times over just to be with you, but you were so stubborn, so righteous, so moral.” He sat down at the edge of her bed and faced away from her.
“What do you want,” she seethed, surprised by how much she hated this man in her room. She was also saddened because whatever had happened to him in his life, he was still Max and he was alone. She cleared her throat loudly when he did not immediately answer. “Why are you here?”
“I want to change my life, Liz Parker, and I’m starting with you. You’ve been holding me back for too long.”
“If everything you say is true, I can see how she betrayed you,” she sputtered, unable to contain her thoughts silent any longer. “You were a selfish bastard.” Max whipped his head toward her and Liz watched as his amber eyes turned golden brown. It was the same look of anger that had flashed in them when he told her about the scar. “Look at it from her point of view. She loved you, sacrificed everything for you and you basically treated her like dirt after you were contacted by your son. Did you ever find him, by the way?”
“I don’t want to talk about him,” he replied and pushed himself off the bed once again. Liz stood on her knees, watching his face for some sign of what was brewing inside his brain.
“Why not,” she pressed, feeling brave. “Junior not good enough for you once the search was over?”
“Ouch,” he responded with a sly grin crossing his lips. “You’re very good, Ms. Parker. When did you become so cynical?”
“Yesterday,” she said as she stood up from her bed. She felt oddly like Maria when she planted her hands on her hips, tilting her head to the side. Max’s eyebrow raised in response to her stance and he slowly and methodically folded his arms across his chest. He took one step toward her and she responded in kind. They continued their duel until they met in the middle of her room, almost in front of the foot of her bed. “Do we kill each other now,” she asked, tilting her eyes up at Max.
He glanced at her through hooded eyes and Liz felt a cold chill skim across her skin. He stepped forward, closing the gap between their bodies to mere millimeters. Just as his forward progression stopped, Liz felt warmth radiate off of Max’s body followed by the same strange chill shooting down her spine. She sought out Max’s face, her confusion mounting as her senses became more acute the longer Max stood so close to her. She shook her head several times and her eyelids fluttered quickly. Dropping her head, she felt Max’s hand brush lightly up and down her arm, just as he had done when she returned to Roswell after the summer in Florida. Her tear-filled eyes darted once again to his face. “Do we kill each other,” she repeated, her voice suddenly deep and throaty, each syllable sheathed in a sensuality she did not know she possessed.
“Yes,” he responded as he pulled her to him, his lips instinctively seeking hers. Max threaded his hands through the chocolate mass of hair while Liz wrapped her arms around his waist and back. Distorted images again flashed through her mind and Liz tried her hardest to push Max away, determined to get to the bottom of exactly what had happened in his life. When she tried to push him away, Max wrapped his arms tighter around her body, his mouth trailing fire down either side of her throat. As Liz tried to push back from him, Max snaked his arm down the small of her back and planted it firmly on her backside.
Liz’s eyelids fluttered rapidly and for a moment, she was lost in the sensations she felt coursing through her body. Falling quickly from Max’s intoxicating kisses and stumbling back into the awkward moment of being kissed so passionately by the wrong Max, she used her elbows to try and push him away, but Max was too caught in the moment for her struggles to have much effect. “We were good together, Liz,” he whispered in her ear and Liz felt her knees go weak in response to the huskiness of his voice. Her vision became blurry and she felt all the air rush out of her lungs. She had only felt this type of intensity with Max when they found the first orb. He captured her mouth again and Liz felt a rush of images, the setting eerily similar to the place in the desert near the old watch tower. “But like all good things, it had to end.” He released her and Liz gasp as the breath surged back into her body.
“Did you want it to end,” she finally asked when she could form coherent thoughts again. She ran her fingers across her lips, still tingly from Max’s kisses. Max was sitting on her bed, his forehead resting in his hands and Liz thought she saw his body quaking.
“What?”
“You and...she? Did you want it to end?” She sat beside him on the bed, suddenly aware of a new feeling simmering inside her heart: jealousy. She was jealous of what she had seen take place between Max and his Liz in the desert underneath the blanket of stars. Jealous because no matter how horrible Max had said his life was, he and his Liz had shared that one intimate moment, something she feared she had tarnished with her Max forever.
“That’s not why I’m here, Liz.”
“Take me there,” she pleaded, placing her hand on his knee. “Take me to the desert.”
He turned his head to the side to look at her. Liz expected some violent tirade to erupt from his mouth at any moment for her insistence. She had, after all, learned much more from this version of Max than the first Max that had visited her. She felt it was only natural to learn as much as he was willing to share so she could make sure certain mistakes would not be repeated. She was pleasantly surprised when, after staring at her for several seconds, Max agreed to take her to the desert.
Last edited by JO on Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:42 am, edited 2 times in total.
“This is the place,” he said, thrusting his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. Liz stepped slowly from behind him, her shoulders slumping forward as she turned in a small circle, admiring the silence and beauty of the desert. She was standing in almost the exact spot where she and Max had spent the night together, the place where she proved to Max she would do anything to help him. “Let’s go,” Max growled and Liz heard his boots scuff against the rocks as he turned to leave.
“No.”
“I said let’s go, Liz. There’s nothing out here.”
“I want to know what happened here,” she replied and Max could see traces of tears reflecting on her face in the moonlight. “I deserve to know.”
Max heavily rolled his eyes, an audible sigh escaping from his throat. Once again, Liz’s hold over him reared its ugly head. “It was late fall,” he quietly began as he climbed back onto the desert floor. He waved his hand across two jagged rocks, smoothing them instantly into a stone bench. He glanced at Liz before he sat down and his eyes never left hers as she slowly walked toward him and sat beside him on the bench. Dropping his head toward the ground, he continued.”We’d been drifting apart for months. Of course, I would have never admitted it then, but,” he paused, unable to finish his sentence. Liz raised her eyes from the desert floor to look at him. She was surprised by his display of emotion; his display of any emotion that didn’t have anger or hatred as a backdrop. He faced front and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees while his hand drew circles in the sand as Liz shifted closer to him.
“What happened next,” she quietly asked and Max turned his head quickly, having felt her breath on his neck. He quickly straightened and stood away from her. Liz lowered her head while she watched him pace for several seconds, the tension between them at an awkward peak. She folded her hands in her lap, continuing to watch him out of the corner of her eye.
“I just had to see you,” he began again after clearing his throat. Liz watched as a calm seemed to drape across his body, loosening his inhibitions, and he placed his hands into his jacket pockets, his head tilted upward toward the stars. “I...I’d failed everyone I ever loved. I broke down in front of you. I was so full of pity for myself because I’d failed, but you...you just placed your arms around me. We went to the car and just drove around in silence. I don’t know how long I drove or where we went.” He laughed slightly and kicked at the ground with his toes. “I wanted to run away that night, just like when I got drunk in high school. Do you remember that?”
Max spun around abruptly to face her and for the faintest twinkling of a moment, Liz thought she saw tears reflect on his face in the moonlight. Liz blinked hard and glanced away from his gaze for a moment only to find the tears gone when she returned her eyes to him. Max’s gaze, however, had remained on her and for a moment, Liz thought she saw her Max staring back at her. “Of course you do,” he muttered, glancing downward quickly, breaking the spell. “But you...God, what did I ever do to deserve you. You said we had to go back, that people depended on me. So,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “I turned the car around. It started to rain and I pulled off the road to put the top up. That’s when you jumped out and ran down here.”
“And then?”
“I shouldn’t tell you any more, Liz. It isn’t right. I’ve told you too much as it is.” He kicked the desert sand with the toe of his boot and he swore to himself when he felt her touch his shoulder.
“I promise what happened in your life won’t happen again. I’ll do anything I can to make sure that you’re not hurt, that we’re not hurt.” She stepped in front of him, placing her hands on his upper arms. Max looked down at her without moving his head and he watched as Liz’s sweet smile flashed across her face. He could feel himself softening, his tough resolve melting the longer she stood so close to him, the longer her chocolate brown eyes continued to pierce his
soul.
“It’s not safe,” he hoarsely replied, spinning away from her. “It’s not safe for you and me to -”
“I don’t care,” she whispered, once again stepping in front of him. “You’re still Max, just a different one.” She lovingly traced the scar on his face and Max closed his eyes as her touch went straight to his heart. “I’m still the Liz you once loved, just a little different.”
“But you betrayed me,” he sputtered, swatting her hand away from his face as he stumbled backwards. “We came here and danced in the rain and made love but I woke up and things were different.”
“What do you mean,” Liz questioned, following him as he tried to walk away from her.
“I can’t tell you any more, Liz,” Max said as he strode past her. “I was stupid to think that this would change anything and definitely stupid for listening to Maria about the granolith. I shouldn’t have -”
“Maria? What about Serina?”
Max stopped dead in his tracks. Slowly, he turned around to face her, his mind a jumbled mess of feelings, emotions and memories. He had to get away from this place, away from Liz Parker, away from how she made him feel. She may have known very little about the first Max to visit her, but she certainly knew all the right things to say to hit him where it hurt. “What about Serina?”
“You said Maria told you about the granolith but the other Max told me it was Serina that knew about the granolith’s power. Who is she? What happened to her?”
“She was a skin,” Max replied, his voice snappish and harsh. “And I killed her.” He looked away when he heard her gasp, somehow knowing she would be upset by his announcement yet trying not to care. He had once thought Liz was his saving grace, his balance, but now, he couldn’t really be sure of what Liz truly meant to him.
He briefly thought back to the moment he had held her quaking body against his own, the solitary moment together making every trial they had faced pale in comparison to the emotions coursing between them. He cursed himself for remembering the way her face had reflected in the moonlight and for a split second, he could have sworn he heard her whisper his name. Turning quickly to look behind him, he saw only the present Liz standing with her face in her hands, her body shaking uncontrollably. He watched her for a moment, his heart saddened by her tears. “Let’s go,” he called, as he continued his path to the road. “It’ll be morning soon.”
Last edited by JO on Thu Dec 02, 2004 11:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
She was scheduled to work in the cafe beginning at noon, but managed to convince her mother she was sick. Nancy had examined her bloodshot eyes, the black circles surrounding them, her pale skin and weak appearance and agreed that Liz could sleep until she felt like working. Hugging her mother tightly, Liz sulked back into her bedroom, greeted by Max leaning against her desk. “You’re still here,” she asked with mild disgust as she threw back the covers and climbed into her bed. “I thought you’d went poof.”
“No such luck,” he replied as he picked up the framed photo of she, Alex and Maria. How different Maria looked. He had never noticed how alive and vibrant she seemed before Michael’s death, but, like everything he’d seen in this time, he now noticed how different they all were. “You’ve got to change something for me to disappear.” He carefully placed the frame back in its exact spot and turned to Liz’s antique mirror atop her chest of drawers. Glancing at his face from side to side, he too saw just how different he looked and quickly turned away from his reflection.
“I’m sorry....about yesterday,” she whispered. “I...I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She adjusted the pillows and comforter so that she could see him as she lay on her side. He nodded and removed his jacket, tossing it idly across her desk.
“Yes, well, you do things to me, Liz,” he responded. “Things that shouldn’t bother me now, but they still do.”
“Future Max said we got married,” she blurted as she squirmed underneath the sheets almost as if she didn’t hear his semi-apology. “In Las Vegas when we were nineteen. Isn’t that crazy,” she asked, a fake laugh erupting from her throat.
Max shrugged and placed his hands in the back pockets of his jeans as he crossed her room and stood at the corner of her bed. “It doesn’t sound that crazy.”
“Really?”
Max sat on the edge of her bed, watching with slight amusement as her feet twitched underneath the covers. “You’re special, Liz. That other Max didn’t tell you much, and I’m sure he had every intention of keeping his life with you private, just like I did, but some things just slip out.” He sheepishly glanced at her, surprised to feel his stomach rumble. “You are Liz, you know, just different.”
Liz sat up in bed, a soft smile dancing across her face. “Max,” she began, but paused as soon as she said his name, desperately wanting to tell him so many things. Their eyes met momentarily and they leaned toward each other, their mouths opening in preparation of a kiss when Max quickly shifted his weight, destroying the moment. “What happened to you,” she whispered as she caught sight of his scar. Max shifted his weight again, this time to stand up and Liz caught his arm. “And don’t say you can’t tell me. You’ve told me lots of things about that life. I want to know, Max. I need to know how you got this,” she pleaded, her fingertips lightly tracing the length of the scar. She watched Max close his eyes and lean into her touch, her whole hand growing warmer the longer their skin touched.
“I don’t think I could tell you,” he replied, pulling away from Liz’s touch. He turned slightly away from her, facing her balcony and rested his hands on his knees.
“Max, please,” she said as she pushed the covers off her body, leaning toward him.
“I mean, I...I couldn’t put it into words.” He glanced at her over his shoulder, not exactly meeting her face. “I’ve lived a hard life, Liz.”
“You could show me...connect with me.”
“You’ve never imagined the things I’ve seen, Liz. I...the things I went through....it wasn’t an easy life.”
“If you’re not sure, Max, I don’t want to force you.” Mesmerized once again by his scar and a little sad that she might never know the truth about its origins, Liz tentatively reached for it. Her delicate fingers hovered just above Max’s face and Max felt her shift closer to him. She stood on her knees, resting one hand on his shoulder while the fingers of her other hand dripped feathery strokes beginning at his hairline, darting around the corner of his eye finally completing their journey near the apple of his cheek. She traced this same path several times, each time causing another part of Max’s body to twitch. She had no idea the emotions she was stirring within him. His stomach rumbled again, his eyes immediately glancing toward Liz thinking she might stop her perusal of his scar and was pleasantly surprised when she did not.
He closed his eyes as her fingers continued to dance down his face, her hair brushing lightly against him as she moved to and fro. He felt the fire within him beginning to build and closed his eyes tighter, silently reminding himself of what she had done, that the person who was touching him now had in fact given him that same scar. His jaw twitched as the love he felt in his heart partially contorted to hatred. He raised his right hand, intent on pushing her away when he felt her breast accidentally graze his shoulder. In that fraction of a second, the axis shifted and his building hatred surged into desire. He ferociously grabbed Liz’s face with his hands, also raising on his knees to push his body flush with hers, and ensnared her mouth with his.
They collapsed backwards against the headboard of her bed, their bodies oscillating and writhing against each other in a dance of forgotten love and neglect. Images sped past Liz’s inquiring mind’s eye; thoughts and feelings from another time that left her reeling in the aftermath with more questions than answers. She saw Max’s life as he lived it: making love to her in the desert; the deaths of their friends; her disappearance; killing Serina; her appearance in his enemy’s camp; hugging Maria good-bye. So many horrible things to see and for Max to relive them, sharing his pain with her, pain that she was partially responsible for, caused Liz to remove her lips from his.
Liz’s eyes remained closed for several seconds after she broke their kiss. She rested her head against Max’s forehead as she had done so many times and pulled her bottom lip into her mouth, chewing on it delicately. “I,” she began, only to have her voice crack and tears stream down her cheeks. She tightened her lips and closed her eyes as she felt Max’s hands frame her face. “I won’t let that happen to us,” she whispered, clasping her trembling hands on Max’s face. “I’ll never let anything happen to us.”
“You said that before,” Max replied, the warmth in his voice now replaced by cold and menacing inflections. “It was a lie then, just like now. You betrayed me, Liz, the moment you allowed yourself to be willingly taken by him. I saw you that night, the night Michael died. You knew what was coming. You knew,” he screamed, angrily shoving Liz’s head backwards. “And you did nothing.” She thought for a moment that her neck had snapped at the sheer force with which he’d thrown her. Her upper body slammed into the headboard and wall and Liz winced as pain shot through her shoulder.
“That wasn’t me,” she pleaded, the need to defend herself and her love for Max growing in infinite amounts as the seconds ticked away. She slowly climbed out of bed, pulling her shoulder back into its socket. She gasp at the audible pop and wiggled her fingers, crossing the room to Max’s side. “I’m right here and I won’t hurt you, Max.”
“You already have,” he yelled, his face turning crimson and the veins in his neck and forehead bulging and pulsating wildly. “You destroyed me that night, Liz. My life ended the moment I saw you in Khivar’s camp, the moment I saw him touch you the way lovers touch. And you knew what you’d done.” Max was past any point of anger Liz had ever witnessed. Harshly, he grabbed her shoulders and felt her struggle against his grip. She would never win against him. She could get her thrashes in the exchange; it was how he had gotten the scar in the first place, but she would never win. She would never break down the walls around his heart again. He had been hurt by her too many times in the past to allow that to happen again.
“I loved you,” he seethed as he gripped her tighter and began to violently shake her. “I loved you and you destroyed me.” Liz’s hair sprang wildly around her head and shoulders as Max continued his violent outburst. She felt bruises forming on her upper arms followed by the tingling sensation of Max’s healing touch. All the while he continued to bruise her. Bruise then heal. Bruise then heal.
Mustering all the energy she could, she managed to shove out of his arms for a split second. Confusion flashed in Max’s golden eyes and before he could even think about hurting her again, Liz pressed her mouth to his. Their connection, having never fully broken from the earlier kiss, sputtered triumphantly to life and Liz sent love from the very deepest recesses of her heart to him. He stumbled backwards in the onslaught of her emotions but Liz was undeterred, matching his stumbles step for step, keeping her mouth firmly planted on his. With one final push of love, and feeling the air leave her lungs, Liz simply closed her mouth and collapsed at Max’s feet.
Last edited by JO on Thu Dec 23, 2004 11:13 am, edited 3 times in total.
“Liz! Liz,” Maria screamed, crouching over Liz’s body, straddling her waist. “Liz,” she screamed again, this time forcefully shaking Liz until Liz moaned. “Oh, thank God,” Maria squealed, collapsing herself on top of Liz as she wrapped her arms around her friend. “God, you’re burning up.”
“Maria,” Liz mumbled as Maria began to help her off the floor. “What are you doing here? Where’s Max?”
“Whoa, Liz. Max? I...I haven’t seen Max all weekend. Why would you think Max was here?”
Liz rapidly blinked her eyes several times, adjusting them to the sunlight streaming through her window. Her whole body was on fire and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that Max had been in her room. Her head jerked from side to side, causing Maria to grab her shoulders to steady her. “What is wrong with you, chica?”
Liz opened her mouth to respond when she noticed part of a black jacket peeking out from underneath her bed. It hadn’t been a dream. Max had been in her room, just not the Max she wanted. Shakily running a hand through her hair, she smiled sweetly at Maria. “I’m fine, Maria, I swear.”
“When I came in here, Liz, you were passed out cold. I heard you fall as I was coming up the stairs to check on you. Your mom said you were sick and now I believe her.” Maria spun away from Liz quickly. “I’m going to tell her to take you to the doctor.”
“No, Maria,” Liz said with much more excitement than she meant. Willing herself to be calm as Maria slowly turned around and planted her hands on her hips, Liz began formulating a lie. “I...I just haven’t eaten, you know. These mid-terms are killing me. I...and Max....it’s just -”
“You want a burger?”
“God, Maria,” Liz sighed. “That would be wonderful. And some green lime pie. Could you put in the order?”
“Of course, chica, and I’ll bring it up to you too. You sure you’re okay,” Maria again questioned, subjecting Liz to a very scrutinizing gaze.
“I...I’m fine.”
“I’ll be back with the order in a few, okay?”
“Thank you, Maria,” Liz replied as Maria disappeared down the hall of the apartment back to the cafe. Liz closed the door behind her, her head falling backwards against it.
“Your heart stopped,” Max said, causing Liz to jump. Her hands covered her mouth as her heart hammered through her chest. “Sorry,” he replied sheepishly as he threw the jacket on her bed.
“What?” She stepped away from the door once it had been securely locked, her eyes never leaving Max’s. “My heart stopped?”
“I...had to...heal you,” he said and pointed to her chest. Liz darted to her grandmother’s antique mirror that stood on top of her chest of drawers and pulled open the top two buttons of her pyjamas. Just as Max had said, a silver handprint glowed across her heart. She traced it with her fingers, tears pooling in her eyes and she saw Max sitting on the edge of her bed, watching her reflection in the mirror. “I didn’t know what else to do,” he began as she turned around to face him, her hand dropping to her side. “I’m sorry.”
“For what,” she asked, standing opposite Max.
“For that,” he responded, his fingers pushing open the pyjama top to reveal the handprint, his handprint. Liz lowered her head, watching as he reverently brushed his fingers against the swell of her breasts, seemingly mesmerized by the mark he had left. She felt her nipples harden and instantly remembered she was not wearing a bra. Jerking away from him, she crossed her arms over her chest, the warmth from his touch still radiating through her.
“Oh,” she whispered, pulling her lower lip into her mouth. “How did you know about Maria? I mean, that she was coming up here.”
“I felt her.” Liz’s eyes widened as the thought of her connection to Max not being sacred to just the two of them. “Maria and I are connected,” he said, sensing her confusion. He stood slowly and crossed the small space to her side. “We just aren’t connected like you and I are.” He brushed a stray hair out of Liz’s face and behind her ear.
“Hair thing,” she questioned, a slight smile appearing on her face as she wildly avoided Max’s gaze. “Right.” Max placed his hands gently on either side of her face and closed the distance between them.
“I know I shouldn’t kiss you,” he whispered, his breath warm against Liz’s face. Liz pulled her bottom lip into her mouth again, chewing on it wildly. “I just can’t stop...someone’s coming.” Liz inhaled as he pushed away from her and grabbed his jacket, prepared to hide underneath her bed again.
“The bathroom,” she whispered, pointing excitedly.
“Lizzie,” her dad called from outside the door. “I’ve got your food.”
Max rushed into her bathroom and hid behind the shower curtain and Liz slowly made her way to the door. She could feel blood pumping viciously through her veins and knew that she would not look like a woman who had just passed out to her father. Buttoning her pyjama top, she slouched her shoulders and allowed her mouth to drop open, willing her heart to stop beating so loudly. “Hey, Dad,” she said as she opened her bedroom door.
“Hey, sweetie. Maria got caught with a customer so I thought I’d bring your food. Feelin’ better,” he asked after sitting the tray of food down on her desk. “I worry about you, Lizzie.”
“I know, Dad,” she replied as her father swept her into a hug and kissed her forehead. “School’s been hectic, you know. Midterms, papers, projects...it’s just been crazy.” A nervous laugh slipped out before she could control it but she was glad she had not let it slip to her father that making out with her alien ex-boyfriend’s future self was the real root of her problems.
“Okay, well, Maria said she might come back to see you.” Liz winced, not wanting to deal with Maria at this moment, especially when Max was hiding out in her bathroom. “I take it from that look you’d rather be alone.”
“I’m just really tired, Dad. I’d like to eat my food then go back to sleep.”
“I’ll break the news to Maria,” her father said, hovering inside the door frame. “You’d better lock your door though. We know how Maria gets when she’s determined.” They both laughed and Jeff kissed his daughter’s forehead once again before leaving the room. Liz closed the door behind him and locked it, hoping Max could work some alien magic on it so they could continue without interruption.
“He’s gone,” she said, pulling back the shower curtain, surprised to find Max asleep in her bathtub. She pulled the jacket out of his firm grasp, startled when he murmured her name in his sleep as the jacket left his hands, and covered his chest with it. She closed the bathroom door slowly and quietly, not wanting to disturb him while she ate her food.
---------------
Part 8
In the safety of Liz’s bathtub, despite the fact that his heart was in his throat for fear of discovery, he was unable to keep his eyes open any longer, his brain lulling him to sleep. He had not felt safe for almost two years and was surprised the last conscious thought that floated through his brain was that he felt safe because of Liz.
He found himself standing in the desert, a blanket of twinkling stars overhead. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants and raised his head to the heavens, a child-like fascination of the stars fueling him. It had been so long since he simply looked at the stars without hope or fear clouding his mind. Closing his eyes and inhaling slowly, a meek smile spread across his face. His soul felt finally at peace, his mind miraculously blank, and as he opened his eyes and stared out into the darkened desert, he felt like he was finally home.
“I knew I’d find you here.”
The words startled him from his reverent moment, a feeling of deja vu trickling through his brain. His jaw twitched and he continued to stare out into the desert, silently hoping that the voice he had heard would melt back into his subconscious.
“Max?”
He spun quickly, his heart in his throat and his eyes wide in horror and confusion. He blinked rapidly, trying to convince himself that this was all a dream, that she was all a dream. Rubbing his hands across his face, he was even more confused to see that she was in fact not a dream but a
vision from his past, and that she was walking across the desert toward him. “Liz? Wh..what are you doing here?”
“I’m here to help you, Max,” she replied innocently, a faint smile forming in the corners of her mouth. Max shook his head and stumbled away from her. She had spoken those few words as if helping him were the most natural thing in the world.
A million thoughts raced through his mind: why was she there; what did she want; how could she help. He thrust his hands out in front of him, defending himself from her advances. “No, no. I...I don’t need your help.”
“You’ve always needed my help, Max. Sometimes you’re just too stubborn to admit it. Why do you think two future versions of you ended up on my balcony? Why is it you always came to me for advice? Michael was your counselor, remember.”
“Don’t bring Michael into this,” he spat, familiar anger filling his heart. “Th...this is crazy. You’re not really here because you’re working for Khivar. I know that. I saw you with him. You’re with Khivar.”
“You’ve seen a lot of things, Max.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He was beyond confusion now. In the moment when he had reawakened Liz’s stopped heart, he had concentrated on the love he had once felt for her in order to connect with her. She was Liz, after all, and she was nowhere close to being the Liz that had betrayed him. He had been sure of Liz’s love for his younger self, had felt it radiate off her body the second he touched her. But the Liz before him now, this Liz was the real monster, the Liz that had built him up only to tear him down brick by emotional brick.
“I’m so lost for you.”
“What,” he screamed. “How can you even stand there and pretend you love me? You betrayed me. You destroyed whatever love I felt for you the moment you allowed yourself to be taken by him.”
“You feel it for her.” Max opened his mouth to respond but paused and quickly looked away from her. Liz, in whichever connotation, knew him completely. This Liz, his Liz, somehow knew that her younger self was worming her way into his heart. A heart that had been dead for almost three years, dead to every mention of Liz’s name that passed from Maria’s, Michael’s or Isabel’s lips. He had closed his heart off in the months following her disappearance, pushing himself farther than he’d imagined possible, all to find her and bring her back to Roswell. “I’m still Liz, you know, just different.”
“Don’t,” he seethed, his fists clinched at his side. “Don’t you dare repeat what she says. You’re not fit -”
“Don’t you see what’s happening here, Max? We are doomed to live this moment over and over again. That’s why I’m here to help you. If we don’t change one moment in time, we’ll be playing out this scenario for the rest of our lives, all of our lifetimes.”
“What are you talking about?”
“This,” she replied, sweeping her arms outward from her body. “All of this started because you wanted to save the world. And you came to me, Max, and asked me to help you fall out of love with me so Tess would stay in Roswell.”
“It worked,” he spat, crossing his arms defiantly over his chest. “You and Kyle made it pretty convincing.”
“And that’s the moment our lives went to hell. Don’t you see that, Max? If we want to save the world, we have to be together. All of us have to be together, including Tess. That’s what you’ve got to do. That’s what you have to change.”
“We don’t have to be together,” he stammered, pointing quickly between he and Liz. “I don’t care anything about you. I just want to protect -”
“Michael and Isabel,” she said quietly, finishing his statement. “But I know you, Max, and deep down, underneath those layers of hate and anger, you want to be with me. You would damn your destiny a million times if you thought it would change anything about our lives. Things between us may be irreconcilable but they aren’t between the other Max and Liz. That’s why you need me. You aren’t seeing things clearly. You’re not seeing the whole picture.”
“I see things just fine.” He turned away from her and began to stalk into the desert. Who did she think she is, he wondered, muttering to himself as he continued walking away from her. He didn’t need her. He hadn’t needed her in a very long time. “And I don’t need you.”
“You do need me, Max. That’s why you came to see her. You didn’t want to because you knew she’d change you and you’d become the boy you once were. But I loved that boy. I still love that boy.”
“If you love me,” he began, almost running back to the spot where she stood. “If you love me, why stay with him? Why not escape? Why not contact me? I’d have done everything in my power to save you.”
“Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I wanted to escape? Do you think I willingly stayed with our enemy? That I.....that I wanted to be with him?” Liz stepped closer to Max, her eyes brimming with tears. She examined his face for signs that her questions had hit their mark, and indeed they had. “You do, don’t you. You think I chose him. What if I said I...I didn’t have a choice? That I had to stay to keep you alive.”
“If Khivar wanted me dead, Liz, he’d have killed me. He killed everyone else. You think you have that much control over a monster? You think he let me live because you stayed?”
Liz lowered her head and wiped her face with her hands. “You said it, Max, not me.”
“This is bullshit. My life was not spared because you aligned yourself with Khivar. My life was spared because....because....” He looked at her and was surprised to see a love he thought had died reflecting in her deep brown eyes. More than anything he didn’t want to admit that she was right, that she had always been right. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t think of a more plausible excuse. Maybe Liz had saved him once again.
“I relive that night in the desert every day, Max. I close my eyes and feel your hands on my body, your kisses on my face, your soul touching mine. That was the most wonderful night of my life.” She paused and cleared her throat, pleasantly surprised to see that Max was almost as emotional as she was. “When you healed me, you changed me, Max. And now, I’m different.”
“I never meant for that to happen,” he whispered honestly.
“I know and I don’t regret a single moment of the life we shared. But we can share so much more. You have the power to give us happily ever after. That’s what you have to change. You can make our life anything you want it to be. But you have to change something, Max, otherwise we’re doomed to repeat these mistakes.”
“You don’t have any regrets?”
Liz stepped cautiously toward him. His guard had dropped and for the moment, she felt like he was the Max she had fallen in love with. “I’d jump off any bridge and lie for you for the rest of my life. I’d do anything to protect you, Max. I’d hoped you would know that by now.”
Max clasp his hands together and rested them on the back of his neck. So many questions filtered through his mind, so many emotions coursed through his veins. “Why did we make love that night, Liz? I...when I told...her about it, it didn’t seem real.”
“You were...different when you came back from L. A.,” she said, pausing slightly to carefully choose her next words.
“But I failed you,” he interrupted. “How could you want me when I’d treated you so horribly?”
“Because I loved you.” She ran her hands through her hair, pulling it around her face while she sheepishly sought out his eyes.
“I never did anything for you, Liz. I spent half the year chasing my son and it was only after Cal basically called me a selfish bastard that I realized what I’d become. She called me that too,” he said softly, a slight chuckle erupting from his mouth.
“When was the last time you actually felt like yourself, Max? Do you remember?”
“No.”
“Well, I do,” she said. “You acted like the Max I fell in love with that night. You broke down in front of me, letting that control that dictates your life fall and I saw you, for the first time in a long time. But I also saw other things, too.”
“What are you talking about,” he said as he brushed her hair off her shoulders. Liz inhaled sharply at his touch and pulled her lower lip into her mouth. He rested his hands on her shoulders, his eyes searching for hers in the darkness. “What things? Like flashes?”
“This is all a dream, Max, and you can choose what happens. All you have to do is wake up.” She spun away from him and began walking back toward the spot where she had first appeared to him.
“What are you talking about, Liz? Are you saying you’re not really here,” he questioned, walking briskly to catch up to her. “You feel real to me,” he said with a smile while grabbing her hand.
“Wake up, Max. Try to remember the last time you really felt like yourself, when you felt like you were in control of you.” She placed her hand gently on his scarred cheek, her thumb lovingly tracing the length of the scar.
“You’re not answering my questions, Liz. What did you see? What are you talking about?”
“All you have to do is wake up.”
“How,” he cried, pulling her close to him. He felt her slipping away from him and struggled to keep her body close to him. He had never realized how much he ached for her, his Liz. In all the years following her disappearance and as the war began, he had hardened his heart with thoughts of her, portraying her as the monster in his fairy tale. Looking at her now, struggling with all his might to keep her with him, he knew that had been a lie. She was the same Liz. She was his Liz, the same Liz that had healed all those years ago in the corner of the Crash Down. “How do I wake up,” he repeated, desperation pouring out of his mouth.
“That’s up to you,” she quietly said, her sweet smile splayed delicately across her face as her image faded into oblivion.
He shook himself awake and stumbled out of Liz’s bathtub into her bedroom. Liz slowly stood from her bed and he was glad to see that some of the color had returned to her face. She cradled his jacket lovingly in her arms, her face wearing the same confusion he supposed was running through her brain. “Max? Are you okay?”
All you have to do is wake up.
“I..I need to go out,” he stuttered. He ran his hands through his hair, not caring about its condition. His mind and his heart was cluttered, lacking a clear focus and he blinked his eyes rapidly. “Would you come with me?”
“Of course,” she replied, carefully laying his jacket across her bed as she walked to her closet and began pulling together an outfit. “Where are we going?”
Try to remember the last time you really felt like yourself, when you felt like you were in control of you.
“The observatory.”
Last edited by JO on Thu Dec 23, 2004 11:13 am, edited 2 times in total.
Max jumped from the cab and ran clumsily toward the observatory. Liz’s words echoed through his brain and he wondered if in fact this was the last place he had felt like himself. Liz followed him for several steps, staring in confused awe at his change in demeanor when the cab’s blaring horn broke through the silence. She jumped, her eyes returning to Max’s faint form for a second as the horn once again clamored. She stomped angrily back to the cab and pulled a ten-dollar bill from her pocket. Making sure she had brought her cell phone, she dismissed the cabbie with a wave of her hand after she had flung the money into the passenger side window and ran to find Max.
She found him huddled against the corner of the outside retaining wall on the top floor of the observatory. His eyes were wide with wonder and as Liz approached, she noticed he was staring into the corner opposite where he sat. She slowly bent down by his side, surprised to find his lips quivering and his eyes filled with tears. “Max? Max, what’s wrong?”
He jumped at the sound of her voice, quickly wiping his face with the back of his hand. He raised his head and focused on her eyes, concern and worry manifested throughout their chocolate depths. A shadow danced just on the fringes of his vision and he quickly turned his head, startled to see a reflection of he and Tess writhing on the floor. Tears blurred his vision while an audible moan erupted from his throat. “I...,” he stuttered, his tongue suddenly like a lead weight in his mouth.
“Max?” He felt Liz collapse almost on top of him, her hair delicately tickling the sides of his face and neck. “Max,” she repeated, gently caressing his face, forcing him to look at her. He felt tears stream down his cheeks as he slowly shifted in order to face her. He had seen the same look flash through Liz’s eyes the night he was rescued from the white room, the night he had told her he wanted to be with her, his destiny be damned.
You would damn your destiny a million times if you thought it would change anything about our lives.
Whether I die tomorrow or fifty years from now, my destiny is the same: it's you.
He closed his eyes tightly and grabbed onto Liz’s shoulders as a slight tremor ran through his heart. “You’re scaring me,” she whispered, lowering her face to his neck. “Please Max. Tell me what’s wrong.”
He released her shoulders and, using both his hands, he brushed her hair away from her shoulders and face. Liz gasp at the touch, the same noise Liz had made in his dream, and Max felt her body tense when he lightly brushed his lips against her neck. Inching his way upward from her neck, he hungrily ate at her lips, pulling them selfishly into his mouth. Wrapping his arms around her body, he pulled her into his lap while Liz adjusted her legs around his waist. He wound his fingers underneath her sweater, snaking his fingers roughly up and down her sides. He pulled his mouth down her throat once again, prepared to push this encounter to fruition when a picture of Tess’ face entered his mind. He stopped cold, his hands bound in the straps of Liz’s bra. “This is it,” he huskily replied, carefully disentangling himself from Liz.
“What are you talking about, Max,” she asked, hastily readjusting her clothes as she glanced around to make sure no one had seen them. She couldn’t believe they had been so careless. It was not quite five o’clock and while the observation deck had been closed, Liz had not questioned Max’s motives when they left her house. What if someone had seen them?
“This is the last moment when I felt like myself.” He stood and leaned against the wall, once again staring absently toward the opposite corner.
“I’m sorry,” she replied, also standing. “I don’t understand.”
“This is where Tess and I...” He broke off, sheepishly looking at her just before hanging his head.
“This is the place,” Liz questioned, taking several small steps away from Max. “This is where your son was conceived? Wh...why would you bring me here?”
“Liz -”
“Wh...why would I want to come here? It’s bad enough I know she killed Alex, but to bring me here...to the place...Max, how could you?” She spun away from him, cradling her face in her hands.
“Liz, no,” Max quickly said, stepping after her. He grabbed her elbow and spun her back around to face him. Gently pushing her hands away from her face, he framed her face with his hands, coaxing her to look at him. “I..I’m sorry, Liz. I never wanted to hurt you. What happened here, I...I don’t think it was real.”
“What do you mean,” she questioned, her eyes meeting his in an intense gaze. “But you said -”
“I know what I said,” he whispered, pulling her into her arms. He rested his mouth on her forehead, pressing small kisses onto her skin. His body relaxed considerably when he felt her arms wrap around his waist and return the hug. “I’m not sure what’s real anymore, Liz. I’m not sure what I can believe.”
---------------
Part 10
“So your son was a mindwarp? Everything was a mindwarp?” Liz and Max sat next to each other on her balcony, watching while the daylight faded into darkness. After he had told her he wasn’t sure of reality, they had rode back to Liz’s in silence. Despite the silence that lingered between them during the cab ride, Max had tenderly held her hand in his, refusing to release it even as they exited the cab in the alley outside the cafe. Now, the questions rattled through her brain and she longed to talk the problem out in hopes of finding a solution.
“I don’t know,” he sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. Liz winced as she felt his familiar tinge of anger enveloping his words and leaned away from him, preparing for another outburst. Instead, Max gently wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her underneath his chin. He sighed, his breath dancing lightly across her scalp and she leaned into his embrace. “I’m sorry, Liz, but I just don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.”
“Why did you want to go to the observatory,” she asked as she settled against his shoulder, her head tilting slightly toward him.
“I had this...dream earlier. You..well, the other you, came to me and asked when was the last time I’d felt like myself.”
“And it as at the observatory?” Max glanced at her momentarily and nodded slightly. “It’s okay, Max. If we can get to the bottom of this, we can change the future for the better. Right?”
Max glanced into her eyes again, bringing his hand up from his lap to cradle her face. She was so young and so hopeful. He tightened his lips and smiled slightly, unable to tell her that he had no way of knowing what would happen to them now.
“That means Tess was lying to you, manipulating you. That there was no baby.”
“I think the baby was real.”
“There was a baby,” Liz asked, startled by Max’s answer. If she hadn’t changed the future in the first place, she and Max would be together now. But this Max, the second one from the future, now claimed that there was a baby. “You and Tess still had a baby?”
“I...I don’t know. I just feel like the baby was real.” He picked up her hands and cradled them tightly in his. “I know this sounds crazy but I feel like there was a baby... somewhere.”
“Maybe the baby was a memory,” Liz offered. “You know, from the other future or from your original life.”
Max furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “Did he tell you there was a baby?” Liz quickly shook her head no and Max struggled to make sense of the confusing thoughts in his brain. He slowly released Liz’s hands, willing his mind to blank out so he could concentrate. He focused on his entire past, everything that had happened to him.
He remembered the feeling of Tess’ mind games when she first came to Roswell, how he felt like she was inside his brain, how she had scared him. He remembered the night Brody short-circuited himself, unable to distinguish between his life as Brody and the life of Larek. He remembered the night Tess had found him at the observatory, the night he told Liz their friendship was over if she went to Sweden. He had never felt as alone in all his life as he did just before Tess found him. He
remembered how horribly he had treated Liz in the days following Alex’s death. How she had been hell-bent on discovering the truth and how he had been so crazed by her actions. He had even went so far as to forcefully restrain her in the hallway. Somehow, Tess had managed to integrate herself into his life at its lowest point.
He opened his eyes and looked at Liz who was watching him intently when he felt a ripple through his brain. It wasn’t necessarily a painful experience; just one that he had never experienced before. Liz leaned toward him, her mouth opening slightly to speak when a new visual image assaulted his mind. Tess in his room. He was slouched against his bed and she sat at his desk chair. He shook his head to clear the picture but it would not go away. He watched as she talked with her hands, oblivious to the fact that he was not listening to a word she was saying. He felt so tired, so numb and he couldn’t seem to push past the thought of Liz and Kyle in bed together.
“Max?” Liz’s voice startled him from his semi-dream and he realized that it was a new memory. That Tess was in his childhood room right now, talking to his younger self. His eyes widened in horror as the image of three moons flew past his mind’s eye. Tess was doing something to him, to his younger self. “You look frightened. What’s wrong?”
“Tess is at my house,” he said, barely above a whisper. “You...you have to do something, Liz. She’ll ruin...everything.”
“What can I do,” she asked.
“Tell him the truth.”
* * *
Max sat motionless on his bed, his legs crossed at his ankles as he pretended to listen to Tess drone on about her shopping trip with Isabel. He had sat in his room for the majority of two days, only leaving long enough to go to the bathroom and to eat, for his mother’s sake. Right now, he didn’t care whether he lived or died. The image of Liz and Kyle in bed haunted him constantly, in his dreams and while he was awake. Over and over in his head like a movie, he repeated his actions of Friday. Climbing up Liz’s fire escape, checking himself to make sure he had the tickets, bending to step into her room, seeing the look of shame on Liz’s face and the blank look on Kyle’s, the way Liz’s bare leg contrasted to the red of her comforter, how Liz held the comforter against her body when he appeared. Rewind and press play. Sometimes, it played in slow motion and he wondered what he would have done had he arrived just a few seconds earlier. What would they have been doing? Shaking his head, he focused on Tess once again.
“Max?”
“Huh,” he said, wiping at his eyes. He glanced to the clock on his night stand and wondered exactly how long Tess had been in his room. “I’m sorry, Tess. What did you say?”
“I asked about your English paper. It’s due on Friday and I just wondered what you were writing about.”
“I..I’m not sure yet.”
“Max,” she began but quickly hesitated. Despite the hesitation in her words, Max watched as she moved from his desk chair to the foot of his bed. She sat down gently, like he was a piece of breakable china and too much motion would cause him to shatter. “Is something...did something happen between you and Liz?”
“Why would you ask that,” he snapped, surprised by just how quickly his temper had flared. Liz? Why was Tess bringing Liz into the conversation? As long as he had known Tess, the last thing she had ever wanted to talk about was Liz Parker and Max’s feelings for her.
“You both just seem -”
“What do you mean ‘both of us’? When did you talk to Liz?”
Tess stood quickly and walked to Max’s desk to retrieve her purse. “I..I didn’t mean anything by it, Max. You knew that Liz set up that whole book thing at the Crash Down. I just mean you both seem...sad.” Tess strapped her purse across her shoulder and watched as Max remained motionless on the bed. His eyes were moving quickly from side to side and Tess could almost hear the gears turning inside his brain. She closed her eyes, surprised by just how easy it was to get into Max’s brain. The moment she was inside, she saw exactly what had made Max react so strongly. Liz and Kyle in bed together. The V constellation flashed from her mind to Max’s and she promptly removed any presence of her infiltration from Max’s memory. Liz and Kyle in bed together. The reason for Max’s depression was perfectly clear now and she knew this knowledge could come in handy in the future.
Last edited by JO on Thu Dec 23, 2004 11:14 am, edited 3 times in total.
“Wh-what? I...I can’t tell him. I promised I wouldn’t tell him.” Liz stumbled away from Max but she was still trapped on her own balcony. She instantly sought out his face, her mouth open in anticipation of forming another rebuttal to his insane plan. “It’s...it’s crazy. I can’t tell him.”
“You have to, Liz. You have to tell him the truth.”
“He won’t believe me,” she pleaded.
“I believed you.”
“That’s different. You’re not him,” she said, gasping as soon as the words left her mouth. She covered her mouth with her hand in horror that she could say such a thing. Of course he was Max, just not her Max, but he could be hers. She had seen the signs. Through all his anger, hurt and confusion, he was still her Max. Her heart beat just as loudly in his presence as it did whenever the other Max Evans were present. “I...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean -”
“I know,” he replied softly, bowing his head momentarily. He tentatively stepped toward her and after taking her hand, he lowered them both onto her lounge chair. “You have to do this, Liz. You have to find a way. We are all depending on you.” Tears sprung to her eyes, causing Max to lovingly hold her face in his hands. “Things will be different on Monday.”
“What happens on Monday?”
“Congresswoman Whitaker dies.”
“Wait,” she said, slowly pulling his hands off her face. “I thought she was already dead.”
“Whitaker was a skin, Liz.”
“A what?”
Max grimaced, remembering exactly how simple his life had been before he knew about his enemies. They had all been so innocent but, one by one, their innocence had been lost: Liz to Nasedo, he to the white room, Isabel to Whitaker. Glancing back at Liz, he saw traces of this same innocence imbedded in her eyes. “Skins are our enemies. They’re called skins because they can’t survive in this atmosphere so they use skins or husks. Whitaker was a skin and killed Nasedo she said, because he was standing in Isabel’s way.”
“Isabel’s way? What did she mean by that, Max?”
“It seems that Isabel was quite popular in our other life.” He laughed nervously, running his hand through his hair.
“I’m not sure I’m following you,” Liz said after releasing her own nervous laugh. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I...this is just difficult to explain, I guess, and I’m not doing a very good job. Isabel, or Vilandra as she used to be called, was betrothed to Michael, which you know.” He arched his eyebrows at Liz and she nodded. “What none of us knew then was that Isabel was playing both sides. She had an affair with Khivar, who was responsible for killing all of us, and, I think, with Nicholas, Khivar’s general. Understand?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Good. Nicholas, in the form of a husk, was sent to Earth to track us down. You, me, Isabel and Tess went to Copper Summit, Arizona once we got word of Whitaker’s funeral.”
“What’s in Copper Summit?”
“The harvest,” Max replied. Liz shook her head slightly, her brows furrowing in confusion. “The husks have a life span of about fifty years,” Max continued. “Copper Summit is a town completely inhabited by skins. The four of us went there because three of us knew exactly what Whitaker was. You were the only real connection we had to her.”
“Because I work at her office.”
Max nodded, refusing to meet Liz’s eyes. “After that trip, the skins knew exactly who we were, what we looked like, where to find us. They came to Roswell and used some sort of time sorter so they could find us easily.”
“What did this time sorter...thing do?”
“It suspended the humans in one time dimension and left the rest of us wide open -”
“For an attack,” Liz replied, finishing his thought.
“Yeah,” he said, a faint smile crossing his lips. “I’m sorry, Liz. I really didn’t want to explain all of this to you.”
“I’m glad you did, Max. Now, I just have to stop us from going to Copper Summit.” Her voice quivered slightly and Liz brought her hand to her face to wipe the tear stains away. After several seconds of trying to compose herself, she realized Max was being unusually quiet. “Right, Max?”
Max shrugged, hesitantly raising his head to meet her perplexed gaze. She looked so hopeful, hanging onto the notion that this plan would indeed work. That after this sacrifice, she and her Max would have their lifetime together. He wanted so badly to lie to her. “I’m not sure exactly what to do. Things in my life were certainly different from the life of your other future Max.”
“None of that matters now,” she said with an edge of sorrow in her voice. Max watched in concern as several fresh tears dripped down her face before she hastily wiped them away. “Our future is what we make of it. To be determined.”
“I’m sorry for causing you all this pain,” Max placed his hand on her knee and squeezed it gently.
“Max,” she began but her voice caught in her throat. She cleared her throat and shook her head slightly. “I’m helping to save the world...again. If I can convince Max of the truth behind what he saw, I hope we’ll all be better off this time around.” Max nodded slightly, releasing her knee, and pulled his hands back into his lap. “What about Tess?”
“What about Tess?”
“You said she was in his room. Is she still there?”
Max shook his head. “She’s gone.” He watched as Liz sighed slowly and stood up from the lounge chair. She balled her hands into fists and sighed again, her first step toward the fire escape a tentative one. “Liz,” Max said, louder than he had intended. “About Tess -”
“I know what you’re going to say,” Liz replied, raising her hand to silence him as she spun away from the ladder. “I...I don’t want to trust her. I...I don’t even want to like her and part of me could care less if she left and never came back, but she’s a liability. She’s a liability just like I’m a liability. If Max’s enemies ever knew how important I was to him -” She lowered her head and wrapped her arms around herself.
Max stood and crossed the small distance between them, taking her shoulders gently into his hands. “Don’t think about that right now. You’ve just got to focus enough to try and tell Max the truth. Think about Tess later.”
“Right,” Liz agreed, raising her head to meet Max’s eyes. “I’ll just talk to him,” she whispered. “I...I’ll try to talk to him.” Turning quickly out of Max’s semi-embrace, she lowered herself down the ladder and onto the street.
Last edited by JO on Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Max threw himself on top of Liz’s bed after she disappeared down the fire escape. He was really unsure how he felt about watching her leave. It wasn’t a great plan, but clearly it was better than pretending to sleep with Kyle. Would the truth really set them free? Could his younger self forgive Liz for being noble when, in fact, she was just doing as he’d asked? Whatever the case, he knew he did not want to feel his emotions when Liz finally confessed the truth. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift to sleep.
He was standing in the desert again, in the spot that had been so special to he and Liz. He patiently sat down and waited for her to appear because he knew, sooner or later, she would. “I’ll wait forever, Liz. I’ve got nothing but time.”
“I'm right here, Max.”
“I knew you’d come,” he said, glancing over his shoulder toward the desert. “I knew it.”
“You know me too well,” she mused, a slight smile teasing her lips. “I’ll have to change my ways.”
He stood slowly, unsure of exactly what he was going to say to the love of his life. “I’m so glad to see you again.”
“Into your heart, I’ll beat again.”
“I never wanted to lose you, Liz. You have to know that. I never asked for this life.”
“You can’t lose me, Max. Our bond proves it. We’ve just been...out of touch and you haven’t seen me. You see me now, don’t you?”
“I’m whole again, Liz. You did that. You helped me.” He walked toward her, lightly touching his arm when he was within reaching distance. Their connection sparked to life, skittering through their blood. “God,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I’ve missed you.” He pulled Liz tightly against his chest, surprised by just how natural it felt to hold Liz, his Liz, in his arms. He planted searing kisses against her forehead, kisses that traveled from the depths of his soul, transfixing all space and time. “How...how have I lived without you for so long?”
“I left you with questions, Max, the last time we met like this.”
“I don’t care about them right now. All I care about is being with you.”
“You have to care about them,” she said, pushing him away. Max stepped toward her quickly, but she held up her hand to stop his forward progression. “You have to make sense of the confusion in your head. You have to work it out, Max. You can’t just ignore this.”
“I’m not ignoring anything,” he snapped but instantly regretted his tone. Liz, however, did not seem to notice.
“Yes, you are. Tess hurt all of us, in one way or another. She killed Alex, Max, and made you believe you had slept with her and fathered her child. Those are pretty serious offenses.”
“How am I supposed to find her, Liz? She blasted off in the damn granolith -”
“The same granolith you used to travel back in time,” Liz asked, her face etched with pointed detail.
Max stumbled backwards as the weight of her words hit him. “What are you saying,” he asked after several seconds of his internal mental debate.
“I’m saying that not everything is as it appears to be. That this...all this...is just a trick of the light. You have to find out what’s real and what’s not. You have to determine who you trust and who you don’t. And you have to fall in love with me again.”
“But I am in love with you!”
“In your eyes, love it grows, Max, but not for me. You’re thinking of a different me, a younger me.”
“You’re jealous of her?”
Liz shook her head. “We’re the same, Max. She and I. We both love you with our whole heart. We’d both do anything to prove that love. She’s just within walking distance to her Max and you’re in another place.” Liz stepped forward, her eyes never leaving Max’s face. “He has to trust her again and right now, he can’t do that. You have to help her help him.”
“She said the other Max disappeared...after they changed the future.”
“Then you can’t change it,” Liz offered simply.
Max’s nostrils flared as he felt the familiar anger bubble within his heart. Did Liz know what she was asking? Did she even understand all the confusion that had grown in his heart and mind in the days following that horrible night? “I came back to change it. Everyone we loved died, Liz. Michael, Isabel, everyone. I have to change it so it doesn’t happen again.”
“I know what happened, Max. I lived it and I lost those dearest to me, too. I’m still living the nightmare. I’m still struggling to survive, waiting for you to put the pieces together and come find me.”
“You’re out there, Liz, and I’m here, in another time. How could I possibly find you?”
“I’m closer than you think.”
“You’re talking in circles again,” he snapped, his temper almost to its boiling point. He turned away from her, wanting desperately to get his emotions in check. “You have no idea how much you infuriate me, Liz,” he seethed as he clenched his fists. “I had to find out the truth from her. At least one Liz is honest with me.” He saw her stoop to the ground on the periphery of his vision and turned his attention back to her fully. In front of Liz stood a small dark-haired boy. He was the almost the same height as Liz was in her hunched position and his tiny hands were clasp together in an awkward position near his mouth. Max stepped closer to them, mesmerized by Liz’s behavior with the boy. “Liz? Who is that?”
She never heard him. Clearly, her focus was on the little boy and Max watched as Liz tenderly pulled the child’s hands away from his face. “I told you not to come,” Liz said firmly yet softly to the boy. “Remember? I told you to stay there.”
“Liz,” Max screamed, startling both Liz and the little boy. Liz stood slowly, placing herself between Max and the boy. Max watched the boy with particular interest and was surprised to see some of Liz’s features already apparent in such a small child. The boy clung to Liz’s left leg. He held on tightly, hiding his face behind her thigh so Max could only see his left eye and part of his body. “Who is that,” Max asked, pointing toward the little boy.
“He’s my son, Max,” she calmly said, her left hand reaching lovingly for the boy. Max’s eyes widened as he glanced at Liz and the boy several times. Liz had a son. Liz was a mother. He stumbled away from her for the second time during this meeting, his eyes flooded with tears.
“Khivar’s son,” he said, turning slowly as the realization hit him. This child was why Khivar had taken Liz. Liz had slept with the enemy, to get back at him for sleeping with Tess and had given birth to his son. Khivar’s heir. “He’s Khivar’s son.”
“You’re putting words into my mouth,” she said angrily. Max’s face bore the shock of Liz’s uncharacteristic anger. She had only showed such forceful emotion with him in the days after Alex’s death, particularly the day of Alex’s funeral when she confronted the group with her theories. He had been surprised by her reactions then, just as he was now. “Think about it, Max, really think. Why would Khivar hold me prisoner? What is it about me that would be valuable enough for him to keep me alive? He obviously could have killed me at any time. You said as much yourself.”
“If you have a son -”
“Not just any son, Max,” she corrected, her tone once again her own. “Think. Why do we always meet here? What is so special about this place?”
Max looked around the desert area. This was the place they had journeyed to in the middle of the night to see exactly what her visions were about. It was the place where she had placed herself into his hands, unafraid of their next step, willing to take it if he were holding her hand. It was the place they had consummated their relationship after his horrible experience in Los Angeles. Again, she had placed herself and her heart in his lap that night, just as she had the night they had found the orb. Now, he returned to this sacred ground in his dreams and Liz had told him she was a mother. He stared back at Liz, who was now holding the tiny boy lovingly in her arms, rocking him back and forth.
Max stepped forward slowly, finally understanding as the distance between he and Liz diminished that Liz had not given birth to Khivar’s son; she had given birth to his. His eyes burned with unshed tears, remembering how he many nights he had ached for Liz, when he had allowed the sorrow he felt to burst through. He had cried many times for what could never be, especially after Liz had disappeared from Roswell. “He...he’s mine,” he questioned, his hand gently stroking the boy’s head. His eyes met Liz’s in the darkness and was glad to discover they too were tear-filled. “It was one night, Liz. I...I can’t believe -”
“He’s your son, Max. I swear it on my life. He’s yours.”
“I...I believe you,” Max said, stepping forward and taking his son from Liz’s arms. He held the boy tightly against his chest and was not surprised when he began to cry. “He’s perfect,” he whispered before he kissed the top of his head.
“He’s the one thing we both did perfectly,” Liz responded, one hand maintaining contact with her son and the other wiping Max’s tears away.
“But Serina said she killed my son.”
“Serina’s a skin, Max. She lied.” Max felt Liz’s body jolt and watched as she looked over her shoulder. “We don’t have much longer with you,” she whispered and Max hesitantly relented as Liz took their son back into her arms. She stepped away from him, only to have Max blindly grab for her hand.
“I want to be with you, Liz. Both of you.”
“Then turn the world around, Max. Come and find us.” She smiled and shielded her son’s face with her hand as their image faded and Max was left alone in the darkness of the desert.
Last edited by JO on Wed Jan 05, 2005 2:27 pm, edited 2 times in total.
