A Blow to the Heart (Max POV, Teen, Complete)

[Realistic Dreamer]

Title: A Blow to the Heart
Author: Realistic Dreamer
Catagory: CC, Max POV
Rating: Teen
Disclaimer: You know the drill, I know the drill, we all know the drill, but I'll repeat it anyway. I don't own them. If I did, I would have treated them much better. They're owned by JK, KKB, JF, UPN, SciFi (or, if you prefer, SyFy) and anyone else who has their finger in the Roswell pie, but it certainly isn't me.

Summary: One shot look at Max's POV after Off the Menu

It had felt like a sucker punch, a blow that was all the more devastating because he never saw it coming.

He wonders how she could think it of him. Could she really, honestly believe that he wanted Sean to get hurt?

When he'd seen Sean go after Brody with the knife, the warning had burst from his lips almost without thought. Brody was a good man, what was happening to him wasn't his fault. It was a combination of Larek using Brody as a vessel, and the malfunction of the alien device. Brody was an innocent.

And he'd had no idea what Sean intended to do, how far he intended to go. He knew he'd never forgive himself if Brody died at Sean's hands.

But he hadn't wanted Sean to get hurt either. He laughs mirthlessly. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, Max, he tells himself.

He sits on his bed in his dimly lit room, his elbows resting on his knees, his hands loosely clasped on front of him. He stares at the floor.

He can still see Liz coming to him, asking that he heal Sean. That had given him a moment's pause. She might like Sean, might trust him, but he certainly has no reason to. Even so, he wonders if he would have done it. After all, he'd healed Kyle at the agonized plea from Valenti for any sort of help.

But Liz hadn't pleaded with him, she'd demanded it of him. When he'd told her that he couldn't heal Sean, her response was a kick in the gut. "Why not?" she'd snapped. "It's your fault he got hurt. HEAL him."

"It's your fault ... it's your fault ... it's your fault."

"So it's okay for Sean to get stabbed ... so it's okay ... so it's okay?"

Watching her stride away from him, anger in every line of her body, made him want to cry out in anguish. "How can you think that? How can you believe that of me? How?"

He closes his eyes at the memory, takes a deep breath, shaken even now.

He is faltering badly, and he knows it.

He's been clinging for so long to the love that he and Liz had shared. He's hung on to it through her leaving him in the podchamber, through the summer of her silence, through her autumn of building a life without him. He's tightened his grip through her devastating visit to his room and then seeing her with Kyle, through her warning him in New York, through his hope at Christmas. He's retrenched after tracking her down at Amy's house and seeing her straddling Sean on the couch.

Sean, the normal boy.

She wanted to go out with boys, normal boys, remember, he reminds himself. And she can't get that with you.

His chest gets tight, and his throat feels thick. His eyes burn. He suddenly realizes how tired he is, how wearing the struggle just to hang on for so long has been.

This, however, is different. This was a blow to who he is as a person. If she can think this of him ...

Wearily, he gets to his feet, grabs his keys and leaves the house. Taking the jeep for a ride into the desert, he sits under the cold, uncaring stars and for the first time, contemplates the idea that he and Liz aren't meant to be at all.