icequeen
begonia9508
FSUMSW94
Earth2Mama
behrlyliz
Evelynn
Alien614
Maxsgurl
RASaero611
janesdilemma
martine
SAFIRESKYE26
Emz80m
Ellie
Ace Roswell
cherie
g7silvers
extingman
Brook- welcome aboard!
frenchkiss70
Chapter 19
When Liz and Max walked through the door Liz couldn’t help but smile. She was finally home! While she knew she was safe now, she still had this fear eating away at her. The hospital had almost been too much for her to handle, and every day it seemed like things were getting worse rather than better. Finally, feeling like she was ready, she’d insisted on going home.
As she walked further into the house, she could smell the familiar scent of baby shampoo, which made her smile knowing it belonged to AJ…she would know that scent anywhere. Unfortunately, the house was quiet, too quiet considering the normal sounds of an active toddler. She turned around to look at Max standing behind her.
“Is he gone?” The tone in her voice was pure sadness. While she knew AJ not being here right now was for the best, she still couldn’t help but feel terrible. She and AJ had never been apart for this long from the moment he was born, and all she wanted was to see his smiling face, and wrap her arms around him for dear life. She’d almost been taken away from him, so not being able to see him frustrated her a great deal.
Max nodded and ushered her into the living room. “Yeah, Isabel and Jesse came for him at about eleven this morning.” He helped her get settled on the couch, trying his very best to make her comfortable. When he saw her wince as she tried to get comfortable, he couldn’t help but feel responsible. Carefully, he moved closer and helped her put her feet up. “Do you need anything? Water, pain medicine, a magazine, the remote?” Liz just shook her head, obviously upset, so Max sat down beside her.
“So…they took him to LA?” Liz asked after a minute of silence.
Max could hear the hint of sadness in her voice, but this choice had been for the best. “Yeah…I think they were gonna do the tourist thing while Jesse was working at the firm.” Max was happy to have Liz home, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the night before and how upset she’d been with him.
“Liz…I think until you get a little better we should send AJ away.”
“Max, he’s my son! He needs to see me and know that I’m all right. We need to be together…it doesn’t matter how I look.”
Her eyes were shooting fire at him. “Liz, he’s already too smart for his own good. I don’t think he should see you like this…he already knows you’re here. Do you really want him to see you like this?” It wasn’t that he didn’t want AJ to see Liz or vice versa, he just didn’t want AJ to see Liz in the condition she was in.
“Max, I want to see my son. I want to hold him, and smell his hair. I haven’t seen him in three days!” She understood where Max was coming from, and even knew he was right, but she still wanted to see her precious little boy.
“Liz, it would only confuse him more. He knows what Aaron did to you in the past…I don’t want him to know what happened this time. Look…we can just send him with Isabel for the week, and then he’ll think it’s a vacation.”
“Max, you should know as well as I do that as long as he’s in town, he isn’t going to want to stay away from the house. Isabel doesn’t need that.”
Max blew out his breath and ran his hand through his hair. “What do you want me to do with him, Liz?” Max didn’t want to keep AJ here where he could see what Aaron had done to his mother, but as Liz sat in the bed crying, he almost gave up.
“No…I don’t want him to see me this way. It’s bad enough that he already knows as much as he does. Talk to my parents and see if they’ll take him to El Paso with them.” She said through her tears.
Max didn’t know what to say in that moment. He hadn’t told her that her parents weren’t coming home for a while. They had elected to stay in the jungle, and that was something he hadn’t wanted to tell her. She’d been through enough; she didn’t need to know that too. “Um, why don’t we just ask Isabel?”
Liz looked at Max and shook her head no. “She already does too much…just tell my parents to take him.” Why is he being so difficult?
At that point, he no longer had a choice…he had to tell her. “Liz, your parents can’t take him.” He saw the confusion flash across her face and instantly felt guilty that he had to be the one to tell her. “They aren’t back from South America yet.” With his eyes still locked on hers, he watched as she mentally tore herself apart. “They got stuck in the jungle…but they’ll be home sometime next week.”
Knowing that her parents didn’t care enough to come home, she didn’t want to discuss it any further. “Fine…let Isabel take him.”
After their conversation, she’d closed her eyes and hadn’t talked to Max for the rest of the night. Max hoped that she wasn’t upset with him, but right now he didn’t have a clue how Liz was feeling. She’d been through a lot over the past few days, so her mood seemed to change by the minute. He desperately wanted to help her, but he couldn’t do that if she pushed him away, which was exactly what she’d been doing.
When he’d finally gotten home, Isabel was there talking to their parents. She was extremely excited about taking him to LA with her and Jesse, and Diane and Philip were helping her pack some of AJ’s things. Max felt relieved for the help since he had no idea how to pack for a child, and no clue what he might need.
Unfortunately, the relief had been short lived. AJ stayed up most of the night crying that he ‘wanted mommy’ so Max had stayed up all night rocking him and telling him that LA would be fun and that Mickey Mouse was waiting for him. By the time the sun had come up, Max felt like he’d aged years. He was exhausted, and while he felt like he could sleep for a few months, he knew Liz would need him. He’d finally had to bribe AJ to go with Isabel and Jesse, convincing him that Mickey Mouse really was waiting for him, and that mommy and daddy would be there in a few days.
Now here they were again, in total silence, neither of them knowing what to say. He asked her again if she needed or wanted anything, but “no” was all she said to him. He was doing his best, but Liz was completely shutting him out and that was starting to get frustrating. Every time he asked her for anything, she simply looked at him and said those same words.
Max was thankful when Maria came over and spent most of the afternoon with Liz talking about shopping and watching QVC shopping for anything they felt they might want. Of course, he’d given his credit card up pretty easily and knew they were taking advantage of that and spending away. For some reason he felt like that should bother him since he wasn’t used to throwing his money around, but if it kept them busy…he was all for it. Later in the afternoon, Kyle came over and the two of them had a beer out on the porch.
“So, what are you going to do?” Kyle asked Max after waiting awhile for the subject to come up. He already knew what he had to do, and now it was Max’s turn to decide what he was going to do.
“I don’t know.” Max answered. “You know, Kyle…all of those years I trusted her. I was her friend and I thought she was the same to me. I’d given up on Liz, and everything I knew to be true. I even gave up knowing my son because of her lies and look where it’s gotten us.” Max brought the longneck to his mouth, and took a sip, while they both just stared into the back yard.
“Well after all the information we gave my dad, he and Hanson went to go talk to her. He still wasn’t back when I left to come over here.”
Max couldn’t begin to think about what would happen to her, he didn’t want to. “Do you want her to go to jail?” Max had to ask. He wanted to know what Kyle was thinking and where his head was.
Kyle looked at Max as he took another swig of his beer. That question had been haunting him since yesterday. He’d thought heavily about it, but just when he thought he was sure, his mind wavered again. “Do you?” Kyle asked him in return.
“Honestly…I don’t know, Kyle…I just don’t know. I want her to pay for everything she’s done, but at the same time I don’t want to stoop to her level. She robbed me of my son…I couldn’t bear to think that I was the one that robbed Ally of her mother, no matter how sick the woman is.”
Kyle shook his head. He knew exactly how Max felt. Although they both disliked Tess at the moment, their minds were on Ally and how all of this would someday affect her.
They’d been out on the porch for over an hour when Maria quietly joined them on the deck with Jim in tow.
“Liz went to sleep, but Jim’s here.” Maria said as she took a seat next to Kyle.
Max turned around to see Jim standing there in his uniform. Immediately, he and Kyle went to stand up, but Jim held his hand up.
“Please stay seated.” Jim didn’t know how to say this to both of these men…they’d already been hurt by Tess too much. “We went to the Tumbleweed to see Tess, but she’s no longer staying there. She packed up all of her things and took off. It looks like she took Aaron’s car and no one has seen her since.”
Each of them sat there, mouths hanging open, as Jim continued to tell the story.
“I’m sorry, but right now we don’t know where she is. We are still looking and will continue to look. I’d suggest you all be careful, look out for one another, and keep your eyes and ears open.” Jim stated regretfully.
They all shook their heads knowing that Jim was not only talking about them, but much more for Liz and Ally.
~*~*~*~*~
Tess pulled into a little café in Flagstaff, Arizona. She reached over, grabbed her purse, and tossed the keys inside before heading inside. She sat in a small booth over in the corner, ordered a small cup of coffee, and bought a paper. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do yet; she just knew that she had to disappear. She knew they were probably looking for her, so she had to do something. She’d called all her family members, but her dad was out of the country and her mom and step-dad were in Roswell, so they were of no help to her. Besides, she wasn’t sure just how much her mother knew at this point in time.
As she sat there, she thought of Ally. She missed her so much, and despite what everyone thought of her, she’d been a good mother to Ally. She had loved her, fed her, given her more than enough, and here they were trying to take Ally from her. One way or another, she was going to have to find a way to stop them from doing it, she just didn’t know how.
She was still waiting for a call from Max. They all thought they knew him, but she knew him better. She knew he would call any time now, she just had to hold out hope. She would’ve stayed in Roswell to wait for him, but after everything Kyle had said to her she knew she had to get out of there. They were going to come after her, and she couldn’t face what they were going to do to her.
She continued to sip her coffee, but left the moment she was finished. She couldn’t stay in one place for too long just in case. She needed to get back to LA quickly before someone found her, but something deep inside of her told her to hold out. Finally, she decided to find a place to stay around there, even if it was only tonight.
~*~*~*~*~
After a few days, the routine had set in. Max woke Liz up at seven each morning, at her own request, and then she got herself showered and dressed, refusing all help from Max. So, he’d leave her to herself, make breakfast, and then make sure she didn’t try to overdo anything. Just as Jim had suggested, he made it a point to make sure she felt safe. He would lock all of the windows and doors, and check them twice before he went to bed. Tonight was different though. Something in the way Liz was acting scared him. Liz had yet to get out of the house since she’d been home…she just preferred to stay in. She was quiet and distant, and obviously missing AJ. She passed the time either watching TV or staring into space. Max often wondered what she was thinking about, but she never told him. He knew she was going to be fine…he just had to convince her of that.
“Liz, you know getting out of the house would do you some good. You can’t stay locked up in here forever. Maybe tomorrow we could go to lunch or go shopping…what do you think?” She didn’t even bother to look at him when he talked to her anymore, but instead managed to focus on everything but him. “Liz…he can’t hurt you now. It’s over. He can’t ever touch you again.”
“What would you know?” She asked, finally turning around to glare at him as if trying to intimidate him.
Max decided to just ignore the comment and went to draw her bath water. He could hear her mumbling and he knew this had really taken its toll on her. He was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, but he was starting to worry that she might not ever get over this. He returned to the room and smiled at her, hoping for some sign of the old Liz. “Come on…I drew you a nice warm bath.” He went to grab her hand, but she pulled it away. “Liz, what’s wrong?” He tired to sound caring, but he knew she could hear the annoyance in his voice.
“You’re hovering. I can do this by myself, Max. I’m not five.” She hadn’t had a moment to herself since she’d come home, and while she was grateful for Max’s help, she felt claustrophobic.
“Liz…I’m sorry…I’m just trying to help.”
Liz saw the hurt in his eyes and felt bad. She didn’t know why she was so angry with him, but she was. She seemed to be angry at the whole world, and Max constantly being around her didn’t help. “Max, I know you’re trying to help, but you have to give me some room…I feel claustrophobic.”
Max sat down on the bed next to her and sighed. “He did this because of me, Liz…its all my fault and I’m so sorry.”
"Stop making this about you! This has nothing to do with you! He did it to me! He didn’t want to share me, and he didn’t want anything in his way. He did it to ME! Do you hear me? TO ME!" She stood there screaming and sobbing uncontrollably. She was getting so tired of him always saying he was sorry and blaming himself. He had nothing to do with it! She’d been the one to go to that motel. She’d been the one to date him. She’d brought this upon herself!
“I’m sorry.” Max whispered again, not knowing what else to say.
"Sorry? Max, sorry isn’t going to make me better! It isn’t going make me forget! I killed him and all you can say to me is oh Liz you’re fine! I'M NOT FINE! I don’t know how to be fine! I don’t know how to fix this, to fix me!”
She almost sounded like she was pleading with him to help her, yet neither one said anything as she cried. He didn’t know what to say and she didn’t need or want him to say anything.
“I need some time to myself, Max. Just a few minutes…so I can breathe.” She looked up at him through her tears. She didn’t want him to back away. She wanted to hold him and for him to hold her, but she didn’t know how to do that…not now.
“Ok.” It was killing him to do this, but he had no other choice. He turned and walked out of the room as she asked. He had things to accomplish anyway.
~*~*~*~*~
Kyle, Maria, and Michael were sitting down with Philip drawing up the divorce papers. Kyle was eager to get this over with, but Phillip still needed more information from him.
“Kyle, here’s the problem…in California you have to wait six months to get a divorce.”
Kyle was already well aware of that unfortunate fact, but he did know he was going to relocate back to Roswell. He would have to establish residency and start all over, but he knew it was for the best. “I can handle that, Phillip…I just don’t want to be married to her anymore.”
Phillip nodded his head and went back to writing down all the information he would need to draw up the papers. “Are you going to ask for full custody?” He knew the answer, but as a lawyer he had to ask.
“She isn’t getting near my daughter, Phillip. I’m going to fight her on this.” Kyle stated firmly.
Philip shook his head. “Ok, I can do that. Are we changing your will also? If you get full custody and something happens to you, where do you want Ally to go?”
Kyle looked across the table at Maria and Michael. While he’d always wanted Liz to take her, now staring at his two best friends before him…he couldn’t think of anyone better. “Would you be willing to take her if something happened to me?” He directed the question at both of them. Then he heard it…Maria and her shriek!
Maria looked at Michael and he smiled. They both turned to Kyle and at the same time told him. “YES!”
Kyle smiled and went back to working on the papers with Phillip while Maria made them coffee…singing to herself.
~*~*~*~*~
Max quickly packed his bag. He grabbed his gym shorts, a few shirts, and jeans. Then he went into the bathroom and packed up his necessities. He needed to get out of here before he suffocated. He was tired of all of this on his shoulders and now was his time to do something about it. He quickly grabbed the bag and threw it outside in the hallway.
Making his way to Liz’s door, he slowly knocked and she called out for him to come in. “If you need anything call me on the cell…I’m going out for a while.” She just nodded and he huffed as he shut the door. He picked up his duffle and headed out.
He threw the bag in the car, started the engine, and pulled out of the driveway. He needed to call her…he needed to know everything. Quickly, he found her name programmed into his phone and hit the send button. It only rang once. “Hey.”
“You called!”
He could hear the endearment in her voice and he smiled. “Meet me in Albuquerque tonight.”
“I’ll be there! Where?”
He smiled again and looked at the sheet of paper in front of him. “Meet me at the Best Western off the 40.” He could hear the excitement in her voice as she told him she would be there. When he hung up the phone, he just smiled. This was exactly how he’d pictured everything happening.
TBC
dont throw anything...I beg of you!!!
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