Also, happy 4th, my fellow Americaners.nibbles2, I apologize... I did get the joke, then I forgot I got the joke, then I got confused...
Part of this is super-trasitional, so I hope that it ended up working out... there's also a confrontation (no, not THE confrontation
) that we all, or at least I have been waiting for for quite some time... Part 19
“Alex, you have to talk to him for me. You have to. You have to explain things to him somehow.”
“Tess—” Alex started, in a tired voice, but she shook her head, cutting him off.
“No, he’s not taking any of my phone calls, and I know you don’t want to get involved and it’s none of your business or whatever but I just really need you to—”
“Tess,” he said, more insistent this time, but she turned to him, fiercely.
“Don’t you dare refuse to do this for me, Alex Charles Whitman, or so help me, I’ll—”
“Tess!”
Shouting her name at the top of his lungs finally got her to stop stalk still in her frantic pacing across her bedroom floor, where Alex had knocked on the door a few minutes before. He’d been regaled by her words ever since.
“What?” she snapped at him, as soon as the startled look fell away from her face.
He gave a half-mock impatient huff, and then sent her an amused, but encouraging smile. He jerked a thumb behind him. “Kyle’s downstairs, he wants to talk to you.”
Tess opened her mouth to yell at him once again when she finally processed what he’d said, and then she snapped it shut.
“What did you just say?”
Alex barely smothered a chuckle. “Uh, Kyle is downstairs?” he repeated, trying to keep a straight face. “He wants to talk to you?”
Most nights a childishly-giggling Alex would be just cause for a verbal lashing and possibly even a small bout of angry mind warping, but tonight she simply stared at him, opening and closing her mouth a few times before she managed to speak. “But what do I say to him? What do I—I mean what can I even—”
“Why don’t you tell him what you told me earlier?” Alex prodded, most of the humor gone from his expression now. “Explain to him that there’s something going on here that you don’t understand.”
“But I don’t even know what it is. I mean all of a sudden I can’t control my actions around Max, and I don’t even know that I’m doing it until someone else tells me what a moron I’m making of myself? Like he’s really going to listen to that.”
Alex shrugged. “He’s put up with a lot of weird stuff in his time. Besides, you’ll never know until you try,” he said, gesturing towards the stairs as if inviting her to go down. “Good luck,” he said, as she huffed a breath and went past him.
Tess tugged on the bottom of her shirt, making sure it was straight. This was so ridiculous. She hadn’t been shy in front of Kyle Valenti since she was eight years old and she’d started to notice the fact that he was a boy, and even that hadn’t lasted long. Come on, he was Kyle. She’d known him virtually as long as she’d known Alex, thanks to the three weeks he’d spent at their house when they were six, only a few months after Tess had been adopted. She’d cried the day the sheriff had taken him home—she’d thought at first that he was another brother.
But Alex had explained to her why it was good that he was going home, and it hadn’t separated them too much—Alex and Kyle had become virtually inseperable over those three weeks.
And those brotherly feelings she’d had towards Kyle? Well they’d disappeared a long time ago.
She’d been walking slowly, and as she finally rounded the corner to stand at the top of the stairs, she could see him sitting on her mother’s white leather sofa, her pride and joy. He was sitting on the edge, his broad shoulders hunched up in his favorite brown jacket and one knee bouncing quickly up and down in front of him as he stared at his feet.
Apparently she wasn’t the only one who was a little nervous about this talk.
As she watched his strong, familiar frame wound tight with apprehension, tears pricked at her eyes for a moment. She could not mess this up. She had a very bad feeling that if this conversation went badly, she could lose Kyle, maybe forever, and that just wasn’t an option.
As she blinked the moisture in her eyes away, he looked up at where she stood, about halfway down the stairs, and his leg-tapping came to a stop.
“Hey,” she said, glad that it was a short word and that it wouldn’t let her voice waver much.
“Hey,” he said back, a little brusquely, but not in a cold way, just in a Kyle-nervous way.
She continued her descent down the stairs and came to perch on her dad’s big, overstuffed chair. She placed her hands on her legs, almost holding onto her knees. “So,” she said, barely able to look at him, though her eyes kept flitting to and away from his face.
Kyle took a deep breath and blew it out. “So,” he repeated. “Look, Tess, I know I probably overreacted a bit earlier today,”
“I’ll say,” she said, a little huffily, but she snapped her mouth shut, looking repentant when Kyle looked at her sharply, his eyes narrowed.
“Anyhow,” he started again. “What I was going to say is that I’m sorry for snapping at you like that, I just…” He shook his head, a completely baffled look on his face. “Just tell me what exactly that was today.”
Tess bit her lip, her grip on her knees tightening. “See, Kyle, that’s the problem. I have no idea what happened at lunch today.” Kyle’s eyes shifted mutinously, and Tess rushed on to explain herself. “No, I’m serious.” She put her hand over his as they were seated near enough to each other to allow her to do so, and she didn’t think until the action was done that he might jump away from her touch like he had earlier, but thankfully, he didn’t. “Kyle, I don’t know what’s going on with me. These last couple of days, every time I’m around Max, it’s like, I feel like everything is normal, like I’m acting normally around him, and then as soon as he’s gone people start telling me how I really did act.”
Kyle snorted, not looking convinced. “So that’s your excuse? You just can’t control yourself around him?”
Tess flinched. That was exactly what she was saying, but when he put it like that… “I mean that I feel like I’m controlling myself, but then I find out I’m not,” she said, the explanation barely making sense, even to herself.
He eyed her, but shook his head, shortly. “You gotta give me something better than that, Tessa.”
Tess flopped back in the chair in frustration. “I don’t know what to tell you, Kyle,” she said, taking small consolation in the fact that he’d called her by her pet name. “All I can say is that I was not flirting with Max at lunch today. According to Alex it really looked like I was flirting with him, but I swear, I wasn’t.” She watched him for a reaction, but he didn’t even move. He was obviously listening to her intently, but his face still looked more than skeptical.
In desperation, she moved to sit next to him on the couch, pulling both of his hands into hers. “Kyle, have I ever given you any indication that I wanted to be with anybody other than you?”
He shifted a little in his seat, but didn’t pull his hands away from her. “No,” he said, finally. “It’s just… he’s like you,” Kyle mumbled.
Tess pulled back, surprised. “You really think that just because Max may be from my planet I’m just going to forget everything and fall head-over-heels for the guy? Kyle, you’re the one who accepted me before I even knew that there was a reason why you shouldn’t. You’ve always known I was adopted, you even knew me when I could barely speak and you didn’t mind it. I mean, most people would freak out a little bit if they found out their best friend’s sister had mind-control powers, you know? But you, you just went along with it.” She touched his face, willing him to look at her. “Kyle, it’s always been you for me.”
Kyle started to smile, and finally looked like he was really starting to believe her, but then he stiffened up again. “Do you think Evans is… doing this to you?” Kyle asked suddenly, sitting up a little straighter in his seat.
A frown creased her forehead. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you think he’s using some kind of alien mind voodoo on you?”
The frown got deeper. “I didn’t even think of that,” she admitted. “But why would he? Do you really think he’d try to use his powers to turn me into some kind of weird, lovesick dog? Are you forgetting this is Max ‘I-heart-Liz-Parker” Evans?”
“Oh, yeah, that.” Kyle’s shoulders sagged, as if he’d almost been hoping Max had been manipulating her. Probably because then it would be his fault, not Tess’. And then a definite frown formed on Kyle’s face. “This probably is something alien, though. What if—What if you’re only… compatible with somebody of your own…” Kyle clamped his mouth shut, and Tess closed her eyes. It was so weird to have to talk about stuff like this. “I mean, biologically,” he finished, in a croaking voice.
She forced herself to smile at him, though she couldn’t deny the fact that the thought had occurred to her before. “Kyle, I know we’ve never gone that far, but… I think we should both know by now that we’re… ‘compatible,’” she said, using her fingers for air-quotes.
Kyle rolled his eyes, but a smile was starting to tug at the corner of his mouth, and Tess giggled softly, pulling one of his hands up to her mouth and kissing it lightly. “Look, if you want, I’ll try to stay away from Max. As much as I can. Until we can figure out what this thing is, okay?”
Kyle sighed, his hand gripping hers now, as if he was holding on to something he didn’t want to lose. “I don’t know that I can ask you to do that, Tess. I mean, you just found Max and Isabel. You guys are all in this thing together now. I can’t just take you away from that. But at the same time if I see you like that in front of him again, I don’t know what I’ll do, Tess.”
Tess frowned, knowing he was right. This wasn’t going to be easy, any way they played it. “We’ll find a way,” she promised, leaning in to give him a soft, sultry kiss.
In the middle of the kiss, though, she got a distinct flash of Max Evans, sending a shiver down her spine.
She was starting to wonder how much of a choice she really had in the matter.
*************
“Why the hell would you tell some random stranger all of that?” Michael demanded. He’d been understandably edgy ever since she’d started telling him about the phone call.
Liz sighed. Lately it felt like she was living her life in repeats. Every new piece of information that came up, she had to go through the same conversation twice, once with Max and the others, and once with Michael. Sitting on the edge of the lawn chair on her balcony, she watched Michael pacing in front of her as he processed the news about the mysterious phone call.
“I didn’t tell him anything, Michael,” she reminded him. “Not really. I just gave him opinions on things… I’m sorry, it just didn’t seem like there was any harm in it until he actually said my name at the end. We don’t even know whether we even have to worry about it or not—”
“You don’t know? Lizzie, a random freak knows your name and calls your house to ask you about aliens? You don’t think that’s something to worry about?”
“Well if anything, if he even did come after somebody, he’d come after Max and the others. Don’t act like you’re the one in danger here, Michael.”
“Aren’t I? Anybody could do a little bit of digging and find out that all four of us were found and adopted in the same place the same summer.”
“Except no one ever has. I just—I wish you would open your eyes a little. I don’t think any of them can do what you do, Michael, and that must mean something. You must have all been sent together for a reason.”
“So then what was the ‘reason’ for us to all get split up? If we were so meant to have been together all this time, why weren’t we all together, Liz?”
She stood up, her hands raised, palms out. “I don’t know, okay? But it’s something you should figure out, together. The sooner the better, Michael.”
Something in her tired, nearly-impatient tone made him turn towards her, sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Liz tucked her hair behind her ears. “I’m not saying I’ll give you up to them. You know I would never do that, I just… Do you know what this is like for me? To have to look them in the face, and lie to them? And act like all of this is totally new to me, when it’s not? To have to stop myself from being able to say things because I’m not supposed to really understand what they’re talking about?”
Michael had a frown on his face, the frown he wore when he was thinking something over, but kept coming to the same conclusion, no matter what. It was a familiar look to Liz, and it did not bode well for their conversation, so far as her argument went.
“Liz, I know what I’m putting you through,” he said, finally. “And I know if you were anybody else, you would’ve given up on me by now.”
That made Liz sigh, heavily, as she leaned against the brick guarding wall, next to where he stood. “Michael, please don’t say things like that.” He didn’t look at her, and this was something she’d tried telling him over and over again, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Look, I know that saying your experiences with most people haven’t been the best is an understatement, but I swear, the world is not full of Hank Whitmores and stupid teachers that don’t understand the fact that you’re smarter than they are. You just… you just have to have a little faith in people.”
Michael didn’t answer her for a moment, and when he turned to her, there was a seriousness in his eyes that made their usual intensity go up a notch. “I have faith in what I know,” he said, clearly, “and what I know is you. It’s always been you, Liz.”
Liz swallowed, thickly, shifting a little under his gaze. She wasn’t sure exactly when the air had shifted, but it definitely had, and suddenly she was in uncharted territory.
She thought she’d known everything there was to know about Michael Guerin. She’d thought that after the week she’d just had, nothing could surprise her. But she was wrong.
“I’m sorry I found out about Tess and her rock,” he said, suddenly, and Liz jumped, looking at him, confused.
“What?” she asked, not sure what he was talking about.
“Tess and her freaky alien rock? You were going to hold it over my head so I’d have to talk to them, weren’t you?”
She shook her head, “No, Michael, it wasn’t like—”
“Liz, I know you better than that. That’s what I’m trying to say. I know you.”
Liz shook her head, trying to get a handle on the situation. What was it she’d been trying to tell him? “Mi-Michael you can’t just expect me to live my life like this,” she started, fumbling over her words. “Max and the others—”
“Screw Max and the others. This is about you and me, Liz.”
Liz swallowed dryly, and suddenly she could hear the blood rushing through her ears. “You and me?”
She blinked against the rush of blood to her head, and stumbled a little, trying to get a grasp on the situation. Before she fell Michael reached an able hand out to steady her, and she was struck with another little wave of dizziness.
“Liz look at me,” he said, his voice different than she’d ever heard it.
She tried to look away, to step away from him, but she was almost to the point of passing out. This couldn’t be happening to her. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying.
He held her steady, and then, to her agony, he leaned forward so that their foreheads touched. “I love you, Liz. You’re the only person I’ve ever belonged with, and you belong with me, too.”
In a moment everything snapped back into clarity, and the sudden transition was too much for Liz. This whole thing was too much. Her throat burned as she forced herself away from Michael, just a little. When she started speaking her voice was small, and shattered, and she was blinking away tears. “Michael… you are like my best friend in the world. And you know that I would never, ever want to hurt you. I mean, I would die first, Michael…” She trailed off, helpless. She couldn’t even think of a single word more to say.
Michael’s hands dropped from her sides, and she watched as he swallowed harshly, as her tears started to fall down her face and panic clawed at her from inside. Why this? Why now?
“Michael,” she started, but he held a hand up, his eyes somewhere on the ground beside her, and without looking at her he turned and walked away.
*************
The next few weeks everything seemed to move in slow motion for Liz. The transition was strange, and it was starting to feel like that week in September was just a weird, intense dream. After that conversation with Michael, the crazy, life-changing carousel-ride her life seemed to have become slowed back to its normal pace. No more aliens were coming out of the woodworks, no one else had exposed their feelings to her in an unexpected way, and thankfully nothing had come of the creepy telephone calls.
The Crashdown was busier than usual, what with there being an orthodontist convention in Roswell for the weekend, and that was fine with Liz. She would have thought the change of pace would be good for her, give her a chance to catch her breath, but she’d been doing all kinds of breathing, and the fact that nothing was happening was starting to drive her crazy.
Michael hadn’t mentioned anything about his feelings again, and she hadn’t wanted to intrude on his privacy by bringing them up. When she ran into him afterwards he acted like the conversation had never happened, and was the same as ever, but there was the slightest of strains in the air, and while her heart ached over the fact that she’d had to turn him away, what could she have done? She did love Michael, just not in the romantic way that he’d been hoping for, and honestly she knew that he didn’t really love her that way, either. Michael was wholly devoted to her, that much she knew, and she could return that affection readily, but saying that he loved her, that he was in love with her… She had a sneaking suspicion that that was part of his almost-subconscious decision to never let anyone else in, ever again. After all, if he loved her, and she loved him? He'd never have to.
It just seemed universally unfair that he’d been landed with more trust issues than the other three aliens combined. Sure, Max, Isabel, and Tess were careful with who they shared their secret with, and who they befriended at all, but none of them seemed to spend every moment of their lives looking over their shoulder and questioning the motives of everyone around them. The only other people she knew of that Michael may have had even a modicum of trust in were her parents, and that’s only because they’d always had a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy when it came to him crashing on the couch in the back room when he couldn’t handle Hank.
Liz shuddered involuntarily, as she often did when she thought of Michael’s foster father. She was fairly sure she’d never hate anyone as much as she hated that man. If there was one person to blame for how skeptical of people Michael had turned out, it was him.
In true form, Michael had not yet revealed himself to Max and the others. Liz had a pretty good idea now that it had less to do with his not being sure if he could trust them and more to do with just not wanting to have anything to do with Max Evans. Not like that was easy in a small town like Roswell. Despite a mostly consensual agreement to not be seen together too much until they were sure the phone-call thing had blown over—a suggestion Max had made in Biology a while back—Max had still been coming into the Crashdown almost daily, and they’d run into each other at least a dozen times outside of the diner. She was sure Max and Michael had purposely avoided each other in the halls at school at least as many times.
As good as she’d been trying to be about staying away from Max, it was kind of driving her crazy. She didn’t know when she had become this person who spent all day daydreaming about a guy… but then Max Evans wasn’t a normal guy.
And it wasn’t just the extraterrestrial thing. The small interactions they had allowed themselves were just proving everything she’d been discovering about Max to be true. He was opening himself up a bit, at least around her, smiling more readily when he saw her, and letting himself relax a little bit, and slowly but surely, the real Max Evans was starting to make himself known. And as mysterious and… kind of sexy as she’d thought him to be when he’d been little more than the strong, silent-type classmate, the real Max Evans was something infinitely more special.
The truth was, he was simply a wonderful, caring human being. Well. With some debate as to that last part.
But he was funny, and smart, and even though they hadn’t had much chance to interact over the last few weeks, every time she saw him and he gave her that slow smile of his, her day seemed that much brighter, and her life that much better.
Which made the fact that she hadn’t been able to be around him much that much more frustrating. She saw it as penance for the mistake she’d made, saying so much to a complete stranger over the telephone, but now that nothing had come of it and things were probably safe? She was having trouble finding an excuse to be near Max again.
Not that she was trying to be that near him. Well, not that she wasn’t. The point was—it was kind of an awkward situation.
That seemed to be a general consensus, she realized, as she thought of the people who had been “brought together” over the shooting. Strangely enough, it seemed like if they were there, every time Max walked into the Crashdown, lately, Kyle and Tess would leave. She hadn’t seen either Kyle or Alex interact much if at all with Max or Isabel, and while Tess and Isabel did seem to be spending more time together, it was definitely away from everyone else.
It wasn’t all weird, though. Working with Maria had let her get to know the other girl a little better, which had been nice. It was pretty obvious that Maria had come in to working at the Crashdown not trusting her, and almost as clear that she’d thought Liz was some kind of naïve, girl-in-a-plastic-bubble. The longer she worked at the Crashdown, though, and the more she and Michael seemed to snark back and forth at each other, Maria seemed to form some respect for Liz, if only for having “put up with” Michael for so long. She’d also seemed pleasantly surprised by the fact that Liz did in fact have a sense of humor, which definitely went a long way to amusing Liz, herself.
She was also finding Alex Whitman to be as dorky-charming and funny as she remembered him being from grade school, in the moments that she’d had to get to reacquainted with him. As weird as things were, Liz had to admit that they were also kind of nice. She’d never had much time to devoting to friends outside of Michael, and now all of a sudden she was a part of something, something real. All of a sudden she had this tie to six—seven, if and when Michael made his presence known—people, all who shared a secret, and who understood how important it was for that secret to be kept.
But somehow, it was more than that. It was trust. It was a shared smile of understanding, when they passed each other in the halls. And even though they weren’t exactly a unified entity just yet, Liz felt like, in a small way, it could be the beginnings of a family.
It was because of that new bond, that in spite of everything acting to the contrary, Liz Parker was finally starting to feel safe again.
*************
“Mr. Trilling.”
Larry had been sitting outside the Nacho Hut outside of town, reading for the millionth time the cover-up story the Roswell Daily had printed on the Crashdown shooting when someone called him by name.
He’d been on edge for weeks now, awaiting further instruction that hadn’t come while forcing himself to stay away from Liz Parker, but when he looked up, the man he saw was nothing like who he’d been expecting.
The man standing before him was a skinny, older man who’d spoken with a thick Texas accent. He was wearing a cream-colored jacketed suit with matching cowboy hat, a brown vest, and boots, like he’d just walked off the set of some foofy gun-slinging movie.
“Who’s asking?” Larry said, watching the stranger suspiciously.
The older man took off his hat and mopped at his brow with a handkerchief he’d pulled from his pocket. “I don’t recall asking you anything, boy. The name’s Hubble. Everett Hubble. You were supposed to be expecting me.”
Larry couldn’t help but guffaw. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re supposed to be the cavalry? You’re the best that he could find?”
“Son, I’m the best there is. I’ve been hunting these creatures longer’n you’ve known how to put your britches on straight, and there ain’t nobody who knows their ways better’n I do. As far as I’ve heard the only value you bring to this mission is your inexplicable tendency to be in the right place at the right time. From now on kid, you answer to me.”
It's not anything to do with the main gang, which is the only reason I might feel comfortable in doing that... it's a Larek/Serena storyline, who would have been introduced in that story.
Sorry about that. But they would have been gravitating closer, obviously. I don't even know that I ever even wrote a dreamer kiss. In a lot of ways in my head this was a Liz story, not a Max and Liz one. *shrugs*