Meanwhile Max got off the elevator and was walking down the hall to the hallway and missed Betty’s question, but he heard Liz ask the little girl if she still had the letter. Curious he popped his head in to the room and Liz saw him and went ghost pale.
“What’s wrong?” Max asked as he saw the tension in the room. “Hey little Bette…” Max’s fond name for the little girl who looked at him with giggles which vanished when she saw how tense her mother and god-mother were… “Mommy, are you mad at me?”
“Of course not,” Maria sighed as she stared down at her pint-size mini me. “We just have a lot to talk about,” she told her daughter as she spotted the glances between Max and Liz. “Why don’t we start that discussion on the way home” she asked as she knew that they had to leave now that Max was visiting, and her daughter was liable to surprise them with what she might say, so she had to manage the situation by leaving. “So, Liz call me later,” she smiled.
Liz nodded as she watched the two go as the room felt empty with only her and Max in it, and it had a lot of unspoken tension in their midst. “So, you came back.”
“I did,” Max winced as he sensed some tension in Liz’s words and didn’t relish what he would have to tell his ex. “What did I miss?”
“Nothing,” Liz lied not wanting to admit to the knowledge that was rocking her world that her daughter knew who her biological father was and there was written threats from her ex-husband that came to her home days before her daughter went missing. She knew Maria would tell Michael and they would search her house for that letter. If she still had it and hadn’t thrown it out unwittingly in the previous year. “It’s always emotional when I get to see Betty because she reminds me so much of my own daughter.”
Max sighed as he nodded. “I am sorry because the memories got to be hard for you” Max sighed as he hated the heartbreak that Liz was feeling as she tried to live life without her daughter.
“It’s okay,” Liz nodded. “I didn’t expect to see you again today, so what brings you back?”
“Um… Liz,” Max said quietly as he didn’t want to be one to tell him that he was leaving again.
“What…” Liz asked wearily.
“I have to leave…” Max tried saying…
“You’re going back to Los Angeles,” Liz asked as shock went through her. She didn’t want to lose him yet when she just got him back in her life. “You promised you would stay.”
“I did,” Max admitted as he cursed under his breath. “But work beckons.”
“Does it?” Liz asked as her tone turned icy.
“Yes, it does,” Max said. “I wish I didn’t have to go home but a case that had been developing back home has had a sudden breakthrough and it needs my attention. I wish it didn’t, but it has…”
“When…” Liz briskly asked.
“I still have to book a flight, but I am thinking tomorrow morning,” Max admitted as she saw the immediate ice come to Liz’s face as if a wall went up between them. “Liz, I hate this…
“Go then…” Liz snapped as her heart felt broken in more ways than just the piece that was missing because her daughter was gone. “That is where you want to be, then go.”
Max hated to see so little trust from either his sister or Liz. They were quick to grow icy towards him although he knew he shouldn’t take it personally since he did warrant it. But he hated witnessing it and experiencing it firsthand. “I am sorry.”
“Go, leave…” Liz sighed as the door within the wall slammed shut.
“I’ll come back...” Max insisted and knew he would do anything to come back.
“You said that ten years ago and you didn’t so don’t promise me Max,” Liz snapped. “Any promise now can’t hold weight with me when you broke it before…”
“As I told my sister,” Max carried on. “I can go back and deal with this breakthrough and then be back by Thursday.”
“Do what you want because you will regardless of what I might think,” Liz sighed as ice came over her face. “So, go, leave”
“Liz…” Max tried.
“No, go.” Liz cried as she hated feeling the pain in her heart all over again at the thought of her going and knowing she was facing it all over again, the disappointment and the pain. “Get out and leave me alone.”
“I’ll be back…” Max said as he could tell he was being pushed away and it killed him as much as it did Liz. It was agony to see the pain and the emotion on her face again with the flashes coming back to him of their parting back in 2001. To revisit it was hell. But he knew he couldn’t stay if he could get answers regarding Molly. He just prayed he could prove them all wrong by coming back. “I’ll be back… I promise…”
Liz refused to look at him as he walked out the door, and when he was out of her eyeshot, she fell back against her bed crying.
*
“How come we didn’t see it coming?” Michael as they sat in the living room as their pint-size version of themselves sat on the couch with a defiant look on her face that both her parents knew well. Betty didn’t appreciate being lectured at for keeping the news of the letter from her parents.
“I didn’t know it was evidence,” Betty muttered in her eight-year old mindset. “I only saw it as she knew who her real father was,” Betty said softly of her fallen friend. “She was telling me a secret and I promised to tell no one.”
“We all value secrets honey,” Maria said softly. “You knew that we were looking at what happened to Bella. Why didn’t you tell us that you knew of a letter?”
“I didn’t see the letter. I only had Bella’s word about its contents,” Betty said softly as she cried for her lost friend. “How did I know to know it meant something?” she asked. “The bad man is in jail, right?”
“Right?” Michael nodded at his daughter.
“Then how can he have something to do with Bella going missing if he was in jail, and still in jail?” the pint-size dusty blond hair girl cried.
“I don’t know honey,” Maria smiled as she took her daughter in her arms to hug her as she could tell how upset she was. “We will find out, but do you know if letter was still with Bella?” as she asked quietly as at the hospital Betty hadn’t answered their questioning.”
“I don’t know,’ Betty shrugged. “We didn’t talk about it again before she went missing.”
“Okay sweetheart, thank you for telling us.”
“Mommy, that bad man didn’t hurt Bella did he to get at Aunt Liz?”
“We don’t know honey,” Maria sighed as she looked directly as her husband who only gritted his teeth. “But we will find out” she promised. “You go up to your room okay?”
Betty nodded as she rushed up to her room as she was relieved to get away from her parents as they heard her door slam shut a moment later. “Michael” Maria whispered.
“I know,” Michael said. “I didn’t see any letter in Bella’s room when Max and I went there yesterday, but I wasn’t looking for a letter Deluca wrote Liz, but I’ll go back and look” he said softly as the phone rang and Maria answered it and could hear crying on the other end and knew they were Liz’s tears.
“Slow down,” Maria said as she tried to get her friend to settle down and tell her what wrong. “Fuck,” she swore under her breathe and Michael knew it wasn’t pretty. “I’ll be right there…”
“What happened?” Michael was quick to ask when Maria hung up. “That was Liz, right?”
“Right…” Maria cursed. “She’s breaking down because Max is leaving!” Maria swore.
“WHAT!” Michael asked.
“Max apparently needs to head back home because of a case. He says he’s coming back once he concludes something at home, but Liz doesn’t believe him. I have to go over and calm her down.”
Michael nodded as he took out his own phone as his wife headed for the door. “Max, what is going on?” he was saying as Maria slammed the door shut on her way out as she heard Michael’s question.
*
“I hate him,” Liz swore when Maria arrived at the hospital as she herself hated how Max had come and stirred her friend up again only to leave again. “I wish he didn’t come back.”
“No, you don’t,” Maria said softly. “You love him.”
“No, I don’t,” Liz swore at the stirred-up feeling within her. “He’s my past and it’s better for him to be in my past.”
“You don’t get this irrational if you don’t love someone,” Maria encouraged. “He said he was coming back right?”
“He said he needs to go home and deal with a breakthrough, but he will be back to finish off his vacation,” Liz muttered bitterly.
“Then he will be back,” Maria asked as she tried to keep the confidence of that statement because she didn’t know if they could believe it given it took a decade for Max to come back in the first place.
“He made that promise to me before, but he didn’t so how am I supposed to believe him now” Liz said broken hearted as she repeated her conflict. “How can I believe him?”
“I think the circumstances are different today than they were when we were teenagers. He has more to lose today than he did at the time, and he wants to help you. So, I think he’ll be back.”
“Well I don’t,” Liz said defiantly.
“You knew he had a life back in California,” Maria reasoned even though she personally wanted to strangle Max for hurting her friend but also knew the Max she had seen over the weekend was different and he was deeply affected by Liz’s plight and wouldn’t stay away for long if he could help. It was different when he didn’t know but now he did know.
“He promised me that he would help find Bella,” Liz said quietly.
“He will, he just needed to go home and deal with his job for a few days,” Maria said confidently. “I suspect he will be back.”
“I thought he would be back ten years ago, and he didn’t come back…” Liz murmured.
“We all did,” Maria sighed as she thought of how Michael and Isabel reacted to realization that Max wasn’t returning. Neither were happy in those days and months after Max did vanish as she had to deal with the fallout as they also had Liz’s downward spiral to cope with at the same time as graduation approached for the three of them and the changes that would be falling on them as they approached adulthood with every life changing day.
“I can’t hope, not again…” Liz murmured.
“He will be back,” Maria promised.
“I hope so…” Liz sighed as she thought of why his leaving really dug on her. “Maria, I was
thisclose to telling him about Bella.”
“Oh Liz…” Maria sighed as they hugged because she knew they had struck gold at why Liz truly was breaking down over Max’s newest departure as they sat and talked while at the same Michael met Max for drinks at
Cow Patties.
*
“How long was Jim here with his band?” Max was asking as they reminisced about those days before Max left town as he was about to be out of the door once again. After getting back to Isabel’s and encountering a suspicious Kyle to add to the collection among his friends he was able to make a flight reservation the following morning with an open-ended ticket with the thought of coming back as soon as possible.
“Several months,” Michael nodded as this time Max kept it to one beer. Michael had an iced tea. “Maria sang with them for a little while and then almost got signed to a deal out of New York.”
“Really?” Max asked surprised as he stared at his friend. “How did you take it.”
“We were going through some difficulties at the time coupled with you leaving and then a friend of hers came back to town at the same time Liz was going through her dark path, so we had some hiccups that weren’t pretty, and she almost went. She in fact did go, but she didn’t like having to compromise her values, so she came back, and one thing led to another and we tried again.”
“Wow,” Max sighed at all he had missed.
“It was a time to remember,” Michael admitted. “What about you?”
“I told you I was in a dark period,” Max sighed. “When I was discovered in early December I spent the next months in the hospital as the doctors tried to figure out all my ailments. I didn’t have much of a life,” he sighed.
“Didn’t you want to come back?” Michael asked.
“Yes, I did.” Max admitted. “Every dream I had when I was conscious of them was about Roswell… and about Liz.”
“Then why not come back?” Michael asked as he hated the quandary that his friend was in, both in the past and now in their present lives.
“Because I was scared to…” Max murmured.
“Then why are you going back to L.A.?” Michael asked point blanked at his friend. “You came back after so long, so why go back so soon.”
“Molly’s case,” Max admitted. “The brothers have shown up and I need to know what they know, and I can only do it in person Michael” he murmured as he thought back how battered and bruised Molly was when he found her, and he needed to know what the boys knew. “Once I do that then I will come back.”
“I am not sure I believe you,” Michael asked.
“Believe me,” Max sighed as he hated how no one believed him or took him at his word. “I know I haven’t given you people much room to think otherwise but I promise you will back. Liz needs me, and I need to help Liz, so I will be back.”
“Sean wrote Liz a letter before Bella disappeared?” Michael revealed.
“WHAT!” Max said taking a double take.
“We actually haven’t seen it and we’re taking the word of a eight year old who was only seven when she and Bella had a conversation in which Bella admitted that she incepted a letter to Liz from Deluca,” Michael sighed as he knew he had to get over to Liz’s house and check for that letter as he told Max while eliminated the letter also revealed Bella’s true paternity. “Apparently it was a nasty letter Bella told Betty.”
“Oh god,” Max muttered. “What did it say?”
“We don’t know,” Michael sighed. “We never found it in the aftermath but then we didn’t know to look for it.”
“If Sean threatened Liz before Bella disappeared…”
“Then he might have followed through by orchestrating Bella’s disappearance which would be the ultimate pain for Liz,” Michael sighed as he didn’t want to think what they both were thinking.
“I hate this,” Max sighed as he cursed the break-through in Los Angeles as he wanted to stay, but flashes of
Molly told him that he had to go back…
“You’re leaving…” Michael shook his head.
“I will be back…”
“I hope so,” Michael said as they finished their drinks and Max went back to Isabel and Kyle’s to spend the evening as their parents were coming for dinner and they weren’t too pleased to learn either that their son was leaving after forty- eight hours back in Roswell and they weren’t too sure he would be back despite his assertions he would be.
Therefore, Max knew the next morning as he was getting on his flight for Los Angeles that he had to prove a lot of people wrong…